“Linda,” he said, “do you know that the slimness and the sheerness and the audacious foothold and the beauty of that thing remind me of you? It is covered all over with the delicate frost-bloom you taught me to see upon fruit. I find it everywhere but you have never told me what it is.”
Linda laughingly reached up and broke a spray of greenish-yellow tubular flowers, curving out like clustered trumpets spilling melody from their fluted throats.
“You will see it everywhere. You will find these flowers every month of the year,” she said, “and I am particularly gladsome that this plant reminds you of me. I love the bluish-green ‘bloom’ of its sheer foliage. I love the music these flower trumpets make to me. I love the way it has traveled, God knows how, all the way from the Argentine and spread itself over our country wherever it is allowed footing. I am glad that there is soothing in these dried leaves for those who require it. I shall be delighted to set my seal on you with it. There are two little Spanish words that it suggests to the Mexican—Buena moza—but you shall find out for yourself what they mean.”
Encountering his father that night at his library door, Donald Whiting said to him: “May I come in, Dad? I have something I must look up before I sleep. Have you a Spanish lexicon, or no doubt you have this in your head.”
“Well, I’ve a halting vocabulary,” said the Judge. “What’s your phrase?”
“Linda put this flower on me to-day,” said Donald, “and she said she was pleased because I said the tall, slender bush it grew on reminded me of her. She gave me the Spanish name, but I don’t know the exact significance of the decoration I am wearing until I learn the meaning of the phrase.”
“Try me on it,” said the Judge.
“‘Buena moza,’” quoted Donald.
The Judge threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“Son,” he said, “you should know that from the Latin you’re learning. You should translate it instinctively. I couldn’t tell you exactly whether a Spaniard would translate ‘Buena’ ‘fine’ or ‘good.’ Knowing their high-falutin’ rendition of almost everything else I would take my chance on ‘fine.’ Son, your phrase means ‘a fine girl.’”