Elizabeth F. Guptill

“ Mrs. W. No, not for a month, Bertram. Bobby must be taught a lesson.
Bobby. All right, Mamma. I deserve it. But thank you, Uncle Bert. You’re a brick!
Uncle B. And now, little girlie, what do you want? A pony, too, or a big dolly?
Louise. I want to be the little flower girl.
Uncle B. So you shall, bless your heart! And Helen and Evelyn shall be bridesmaids.
Louise. And maybe Eloise’ll let me be hers. I’ll be two flower girls.
Evelyn. Two weddings! And one twenty years delayed! Well, I guess there’s something doing in this family, and all because of Bobby and the changed valentines! ”

“ Amos. Valentine’s Day once more! Strange I can’t get it out of my head! Just forty years since Polly jilted me! Why, I wonder? I never did understand. I was so sure that she cared for me—but there! Womankind is fickle. She never married, though, nor I either, big fool that I was! I couldn’t seem to help comparing every girl I met with her, and they suffered by comparison, and so here I am, a bachelor of sixty, wanting nothing but the one thing I never shall have—a wife and home of my own. (Puts a card photograph, such as were taken forty years ago, back into desk.) ”

“ Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, and Polly’s got to answer that question. Wish me luck, little girl.
Pauline. Indeed I do! And Aunt Polly does care, I know. I’m glad I meddled.
Amos. So am I. Though I can’t understand about that letter. Going? Well, you look in the office this evening, and you’ll find the finest valentine this town affords, addressed to Cupid. Good-afternoon.
Pauline. Good-afternoon.
(Goes out. He takes out the little picture again, and gazes at it.)
Amos. Love is eternal. Love is always young. Maybe I’ll end my days in a home of my own, after all! Dear little Polly! ”

“ Louise. Well, he always walks to the corner with her, and to-night he didn’t. He came with Evvie.
Bobby. Came after her, you mean, trotting behind like a little poodle-dog whose missis goes too fast for him, and she and Helen have been fighting ever since.
Helen. Well, she knew he liked me, and she’s always pretended not to like him, and he’s always thought she was pretty, and so, when she sent him the valentine——
Evelyn. When she sent him nothing! If he tags me to-morrow I’ll tie a blue ribbon on his neck, and hitch it to a little chain, and lead him round like a nice little toy dog. ”

“ You were behind there when Helen and I came in?
(Bobby hesitates. Evelyn tickles him.)
Bobby. Stop, Evvie, do stop. Yes, I was there.
Evelyn. And you changed them when Katy fell, and we ran to the kitchen?
Bobby. Yes. I knew how you hated Pet, and I thought it would be funny to make you send him a valentine. So, of course, I had to send Helen’s to Jack.
[23]
Helen. Of all the mean kids!
Evelyn. You see, Helen, I wasn’t as mean or as silly as you thought, or as Phil thought, either. You may explain to him if you choose.
Helen. Well, I shan’t. Any one as fickle as that isn’t worth it. ”

“ Well, from that day on we were playmates, and I sent her a valentine that year. In fact, I have every year. I sent my fortieth this morning.
Bert. But I don’t see——
Uncle B. Hold on, Namesake. Wait a bit, and you will. Twenty years ago I sent one in which, in the best verses I knew how to make, I asked her a question—the question; and I asked her, if the answer was yes, to wear a white rose in her hair, and to sit in the bay window as I went home that night.
Bert. Why——
Uncle B. Yes, I know, my boy. We’re much alike, and history repeats itself. ”

“ Did you ever lose one?
Amos. Never. A valentine forty years old will be rather stale, I fear. Perhaps the lady—I believe you said it was a lady—may have been married for years to some other man. She may be a grandmother now, and may laugh at the effusion of the callow youth of the olden time.
Pauline. She won’t, I’m sure. And she isn’t a grandmother, for she never married. She has been faithful to a faithless lover all these years, and I believe that lost valentine is at the bottom of the whole trouble. ”

“ I’ll bet he’s the one! Mean old thing, to bring tears to the eyes of my little great-auntie after all these years! (Puts valentines hack in drawer, and shuts it rather vigorously, letting one drop, unnoticed, to the floor.) Men and boys are queer creatures, anyhow. I’m glad I’m a girl! And I’m glad I live now, instead of forty years ago. Why, I got more valentines, I do believe, to-day, than Aunt Polly has in all her life. Why, I dropped one! (Picks it up.) Amos was a little fellow when he sent this, I guess. ”

“ Then his mamma shouldn’t have named him Philip Etheridge, when she knew his last name must always be Tuttle. Then he is such a pet. I always want to see a big lawn bonnet on those golden curls of his, and see his dear little self in ruffled white dresses, with short socks and blue slippers. Of course the little darling wants a valentine! But I should think he’d make you tired!
Helen. He’s lots nicer than that homely Jack Hamilton. All he thinks of is baseball.
Evelyn. Well, he isn’t soft and sentimental, and—mushy like Pet. I don’t care to lead a nice little poodle-dog around by a blue ribbon. ”

“ But why your grandmother didn’t give it to you, I don’t see. She was always a woman to trust.
Aunt P. I understand that part of it. When she got home I had gone with Tim, and it was that night she had a shock, Amos. She never spoke again, and died a week later.
Amos. And if I hadn’t run away on the first train the next morning I would have known it, and might have mistrusted that you didn’t get it! Oh, the years that the locusts have eaten! That was one of her own expressions, you remember.
Aunt P. But why didn’t you bring the letter to me, Pauline, instead of to Amos? ”

“ A girl, then, was supposed to be a lady.
Pauline. Instead of a madcap tomboy? Well, I plead guilty, and throw myself on the mercy of the court. I just love to be a tomboy, and I’m going to be one a long time yet. No “one valentine” sentiment for me, or one boy, either, for years to come.
Aunt P. Well, perhaps you are right, yet many of my girlhood friends married at sixteen, and nearly all of them were married by the time they were twenty, that is, of course, those who married at all.
Pauline. And why didn’t you, Auntie dear? Didn’t you ever like any one well enough? ”

“ Amos. No, I didn’t. But the chance was too good to let slide. I’d never had an answer after all, and I came for it, as I said I would. I got it, too, just the answer I wanted. ’Tisn’t every man who has to wait forty years for his answer. And now, Pauline, what is the shortest time required to rig up a wedding gown? A week?
Aunt P. A week! The idea!
Amos. I’m talking to little Polly. Isn’t a week long enough?
Pauline. I think you’d better give her two.
Amos. Two it is, then, and not a minute longer. Order your rig out, little girl, the nicest and prettiest you can find, and I’ll pay for it. ”

“ Cupid and the Fairy should precede the procession; next should come one of the tiny Pages, with the ring on a velvet cushion. Bluebell and Rosebud follow, as flower girls, then the Queen, followed by her Maidens, two by two. No change is necessary in any of the costumes but to add a long veil of mosquito netting to the Queen’s costume. At the altar, St. Valentine meets her, and they arrange themselves as for the ceremony, the Bride and Groom kneeling before the Clergyman. The curtain may fall on this tableau, or they may rise, and march out, to the wedding march, if desired. ”

“ I don’t suppose any woman lives to be thirty without liking some one well enough to marry him, if circumstances came about right. But there! They don’t always do it. Would you like to see my old valentines, Pauline?
Pauline. Oh, I would, so much, Auntie dear!
Aunt P. (opening top drawer of stand) . Well, dearie, here they are. No post-cards among them. Most of them came from the same one, as you see. This is the last one he ever sent me. ”

“ Bobby (going to desk) . Gee! I’ve thought of the best joke! This ain’t sealed, either. I’m a-going to change ’em. Thirty-nine valentines are enough for one lady to get from the same man, anybody’d know! (Makes the change, and seals both letters.) There! I guess a “change’ll be a difference,” as Aunt Emily says, and Eloise oughtn’t to care. This one’s from Bert, too. Didn’t know Uncle Bertram ever signed his name Bert. Jumping frogs! He’s coming! ”

“ Uncle B. Romantic! Idiotic! That’s what it was! Well, you see, when I was a youngster only three years old, Dr. Colwell came to town to practice, and bought the home where Miss Ellen lives now. We lived on the same street then, and Mother took me with her when she went to call, and I fell in love with her on the spot.
Bobby. With your mother, or the doctor?
Uncle B. With the doctor’s baby, little Ellen. She was a bit of a thing, with a white dress and a blue sash, and blue shoes, and she had big blue eyes that just matched, and little soft, yellow curls, and she called me “Boy.” ”

“ Truly, Helen——
Helen. Don’t talk to me. I saw the address on the envelope, and so did Freda and Myrtle, and we all recognized your writing. No other girl in school makes a P like yours.
Evelyn. It was a very good imitation, I’ll admit. The work, no doubt, of some one who thought it a very good joke to play on me. Just wait till I see Mr. Jack Hamilton, that’s all. It was a neat little stroke of business to be out of town to-day. I could shake him with a will.
[15]
Mrs. W. But why should a valentine make such a disturbance? It’s just boy and girl fun at your age.
Bobby. Helen don’t think so. ”

“ Girls at A, E, C and G march to inner circle, then around it, then halt on J, N, Q and L, and toss ends of scarfs to each other. Raise them high. Remaining girls march down lines, pass between girls, and march in tiny circle inside. They then pass through, between J and L, and march in circle outside them, then pass in again, between J and L, and wind in and out. Repeat this winding, but first girl stop when she reaches R, next one on P, third on M and last on K. Toss scarfs, and raise. ”

“ As she passes down first line, second girl moves from H to A, next girl from G to H, and so on, all moving up one place. As first girl moves up second line, girl now at A moves up first line, all others moving on one place. As second girl passes up second line, third girl moves down first line, and so on. Each girl performs the whole figure, which is much easier than would appear from description, as each simply follows the one ahead of her, keeping the proper distance between them. ”

“ The Queen’s Pages are tiny girls in white, fluffy dresses. One has a big sash and hair ribbon of pink, also stockings to match. The other has them of blue. They have also bows at the shoulders, with short loops, and long ends. The blue ribbon has golden hearts attached to the ends; the pink one has silver hearts.
The Fairy is all in fluffy white. Her dress is made of mosquito netting, very short and full, with a full empire waist. White ribbons of varying lengths hang from the folded girdle, also from a band which encircles the low, round neck. ”

“ Bert. Well, that’s cool.
Bobby. I just wanted to see if it was as pretty as the one I had for Mamma, and Uncle Bert came in quick, and I didn’t want him to catch me looking at it, so I dodged behind the portière. And he talked out loud to himself, and said it was the fortieth one he’d sent her, and I just thought thirty-nine was enough to get from one man, and I wished I could get a chance to change ’em, just for fun, so when Uncle Bert was called to the ’phone——
Uncle B. So that’s when you did it! I thought I hadn’t sealed that envelope! ”

“ Girls at J and N raise scarfs, step to centre, back around each other and to place again. Girls at Q and L repeat this; then girls at R and M; and lastly, those at K and P. March backward to large circle.
Fig. 14. Run in to inner circle, waving scarfs, then around inner circle, still waving.
Fig. 15. Girl at J stands still. Girls at R and K run up to B and H, followed by those at Q and L, while one at J steps to centre, and those at P and M move up, and follow, J and N, stepping to P and M. As each reaches B or H, she runs to her place at side of throne, till all are in place. ”

“ Louise (showing them) . Bert sent this one, and Uncle Bertram sent this one, and Grandpa sent this one, and Harold sent this one, and Leon sent this one, and Edwin sent this one, and Reginald sent this one.
(She says this slowly, showing them, and Mrs. W. and Bobby make comments on how pretty they are, etc.)
Bobby. Gee! That’s a beaut of Reginald’s. Bet you’re glad you sent him one.
Louise. No, I’m not. He bought one for every girl in our class—every single girl! He likes to show off how much pocket money he has.
Mrs. W. It’s a very pretty valentine, Louise. ”

“ No, this is from the Timothy who seems to have been the villain in the little pastoral comedy. What a cute little verse!
(Reads.)
“Dear Polly, though you’re far away,
Think of me on Valentine’s Day.
I wish I could see you, so sweet and prim.
That’s all. Good-bye, from Cousin Tim.”
(Tries to open drawer.) Why, what makes this drawer stick so? (Pulls till drawer opens with a jerk.) Why, [31] of all things! How came that box in there? It wasn’t there a minute ago! It looks like a little drawer. I do believe it’s a secret drawer, that has somehow fallen down! ”