At eleven that morning he [her husband Wallace] took me with him to the office of Don Ernesto Madero, the uncle of the man who was destined four years later to overthrow the Diaz government, and who was to become Minister of Finance in his nephew's cabinet. A charming man, speaking distinguished English, he welcomed me to Mexico; then he and Wallace had a short chat about everything but business, it seemed to me. Wallace suddenly arose and said, "Well, Don Ernesto, do we do business?"

Madero answered, "I will take one hundred cars of wheat at the price you have quoted me."

"Hecho," said Wallace. "It is done."

The don invited us to lunch with him and his family at two o'clock. We departed amidst many handshakings and adios.

"What! " said I, outside. "Do you mean you sold him all that wheat without a signed agreement?"

"Don Ernesto's word is worth more than any paper," said Wallace.

Two weeks later wheat had dropped and Don Ernesto's word did mean just twenty-five thousand dollars to us. He never as much as referred to it afterwards.

We went to the luncheon and were ushered into the midst of "a small family party," only thirty-seven Maderos in all. They were seated in a great circle, Grandfather and Grandmother holding places of honor on the sofa. All were in dead black, even to their underwear; at various times I saw a black chemise indiscreetly peeping out. Every time I looked at them the old nursery rhyme ran through my head--"Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie."

Mexican mourning is the blackest black in the world. It tinges their olive complexions a bilious green. When I offered condolences and said how kind it was of them to receive us in their sorrow, I was told that the deceased was an elderly cousin, nine times removed. In her memory the family would wear black for three months. By that time another of their large connection would surely be dead. A Mexican family is usually in mourning from one year's end to the other.

The Maderos were gay, notwithstanding, and quite open in their admiration of me, the bride. That, of course, I liked. They told many amusing stories about their annual shipment, by car-loads, of the children to schools in the United States. The grandfather had never, he said, felt the need of owning a private car, because it always required at least two Pullmans to take even a part of his family anywhere.

The luncheon was of twelve courses. I wrote it all out in letters home, and have the record still; lentil soup, followed by rice with eggs, fish with Hollandaise sauce, string-beans served entirely alone, roast chicken, ham with spinach, roast ribs of pork with potatoes, then huge dishes of fried beans with onions and cheese over them, served with baked tortillas (the native bread of Mexico). Two kinds of dessert, then fruit and coffee. I thought it was a special feast, but no, it was only the frugal midday meal of any well-to-do Mexican family. I was young and hungry, and ate a lot of everything--so much indeed, that Wallace worried about my digestion and made jokes about having taken on an expensive woman to feed. Everybody was so friendly and happy. I was more delighted than ever .with Mexico. We promised to meet the Madero family in the Plaza at seven o'clock to listen to the band.

There, to a new-come gringo, is a spectacle. Imagine carriage after carriage going around and around the Plaza in opposite directions, the occupants calling "Adios" to each other and screaming in high, shrill voices the gossip of the day. And in the center of the Plaza, around the bandstand, you see the young men slowly walking in one direction and the girls with their duennas slowly walking in the other: The young things mildly wiggle the three middle fingers of their right hands in the universal gesture of informal greeting, smiling coyly at their sweethearts the while.

This, at the time-except for very occasional balls, severely chaperoned :was the only mating maneuver that respectability allowed. The poor maidens were never left alone for one minute until after they were thoroughly married to suitable fiances

In all the Plaza I was the only girl on the arm of a young man of her own choosing. This identified me at once as a foreigner. People stared. Suddenly tired, I begged to be taken back to our bare hotel room. We were leaving early the next morning for Tampico.