The Spaniards at times
call the plant Quiota. This word seems to be derived from
quiotl, which is the Aztec name for Agave, from which plant a
drink not unlike beer is produced, and suggests the possibility
that there might have been a time when the succulent flower stem
of the Yucca furnished drink as well as food for the Indians.
After carefully re-reading and making several minor corrections,
Linda picked up her pencil, and across the top of a sheet of
heavy paper sketched the peaks of a chain of mountains. Across
the base she drew a stretch of desert floor, bristling with the
thorns of many different cacti brilliant with their gold, pink,
and red bloom, intermingled with fine grasses and desert flower
faces.
At the left she painstakingly drew a huge plant of yucca with a
perfect circle of bayonets, from the center of which uprose the
gigantic flower stem the length of her page, and on the misty
bloom of the flaming tongue she worked quite as late as Marian
Thorne had ever seen a light burning in her window. When she had
finished her drawing she studied it carefully a long time, adding
a touch here and there, and then she said softly: "There, Daddy,
I feel that even you would think that a faithful reproduction
Tomorrow night I'll paint it."
John Gilman saw the light from Linda's window when he brought
Eileen home that night, and when he left he glanced that way
again, and was surprised to see the room still lighted, and the
young figure bending over a worktable.
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