Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/459



ALENTINE DAY” was fast approaching, and “Pinkey” Perkins was daily growing more and more despondent. He was deeply in love, and how to secure a suitable offering to lay on the altar of his devotion was what puzzled him. His own finances aggregated exactly sixteen cents, and he shrank from enlisting his mother’s aid, because of his hesitation in admitting to any one the infatuation he had fostered for weeks.

Pinkey could net bear to think ef some other boy sending Hattie Warren a bigger and a costlier valentine than he did—or, in fact, sending her any valentine at all. If another suitor did send her one, she would very likely learn his name bby finding his initials discreetly concealed in some obvious place on the valentine, or by some broad hint spoken in her presence. Pinkey was very formal in his ideas of propriety, and heartily disapproved of such methods as being contrary to the rules of valentine etiquette.

Pinkey’s school-teacher, Miss Vance,—or “Red Feather,” as she was universally known among her pupils,—had consented, after days of persuasion by the girls, to allow a “valentine-box” in school on that important day. The pupils could deposit their anonymous love- tokens in the box at any time during recreation hours, and there would be a distribution of the same just before dismissal time, both at noon and at four o’clock.

It was on this occasion that Pinkey hoped to show the affection he cherished for his Affinity, by sending her a valentine which should be, beyond question, the most elegant of all.

The prettiest valentines in town were to be found at the “Post Office Book Store,” owned and conducted by Mrs. Betts, a widow to whom an economical postmaster rented a part of the large room used as post-office.

The valentine upon which Pinkey had set his heart was a large, fancy, lace-paper creation, over a foot square and nearly two inches thick. it was composed of several layers, held apart by narrow accordion-like paper strips. In the center were two large embossed hearts, one overlapping the other and both pierced by arrows fired from the bows of half a dozen cupids distributed around the border. At each corner and at the top and bottom were profusely decorated scrolls, on which were printed, “I adore thee,” “Wilt thou be mine?” and other touching phrases. The light upper part was hinged to the heavier back, on which, in fancy type, were these lines:

This valentine was easily the handsomest one in town, and, besides, it expressed Pinkey’s sen