“Oh, you people in there,” Bess called from another room, “wait until Rhoda and I come before you talk any more about Mexico. We want to hear too.”
“All right, slow-pokes,” Nan called back, “but you’ll have to hurry. We’re supposed to be downstairs for breakfast with Cousin Adair in exactly one-half hour.”
At this, Bess and Rhoda came into Amelia’s room and the girls, all dressed in sports clothes, settled themselves to learn something about the country they were going to visit.
“It says here,” Nan began, for she had long ago lifted the guidebook from Amelia’s lap, “that Mexico is a Latin-American country south of the United States of America. The Gulf of Mexico is to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.”
“Oh, we know that,” Bess interrupted impatiently, “tell us something that is different.”
“Well, how’s this?” Nan queried, “Mexico is a land of great contrasts. About sixty percent of its population are Indians who live in a backward civilization that weaves its own clothes, grinds its own corn, does everything for itself by hand. The other forty percent is advanced and modern. The first can neither read nor write. The latter attends modern schools and universities.
“Nothing in Mexico, in its history, its climate, its people, or its landscape is dull or monotonous.”
“That’s better,” Bess approved. She was not one to care much for facts or figures.
“Oh, there are more interesting things than that in the book,” Amelia reached for it. “Here let me read you something that I found this morning.”
“Just a second,” Nan held on to it, “How in the world do you pronounce these words with all their z’s and x’s. No wonder there are so many people that can’t read or write. I wouldn’t be able to write myself if I lived here. Imagine living in a place called I x m i q u i l p a n or X o c h i m i l c o.” She spelled them all out because she couldn’t possibly pronounce them. “They must all be Indian words dating from the time of the Aztecs,” Nan went on. “Look, they all have beautiful meanings.