"Girls, are you going to make any Valentines this year?" asked Marie, as the group were walking home from the gymnasium after basket-ball practise.
"Oh yes, let's!" said Olive.
"It is a lot more fun than buying them," said Marion.
"Can't we do it together?" asked Edna.
"When?" said Olive.
"Oh, come to my house, Wednesday after school. Nothing is going on then. Be sure to bring your water-colors and paper. I say we rule out all printed pictures and verses and make it all original, said Marion.
"Oh dear, I can't!" objected Olive.
See here, Olive Warner," and Marion faced Olive sternly, "if you don't stop this minute, you'll spoil it all! I'd like to know why it is that we never try to do anything all together, that some one doesn't object!"
"Of course you can do it, Olive," said gentle Bliss. "And if you get stuck, you know we will all help. We always do have to help each other any way. One person alone never does very much."
"Here we are at my house," said Marion. "Good-bye Olive, and don't be foolish. Girls, do be sure to come just as early as you can." And Marion ran up the steps while the others sent a chorus of "Good-byes" after her.
Promptly on Wednesday came the laughing group of girls.
"How will we begin, girls?" said Edna.
"Well, of course, we must put a heart somewhere," said Marion.
"Of course." Olive added, in a tone of voice that made Marion exclaim, "For goodness sake, girls, don't get sentimental."
"Valentines without sentiment would be very funny things, I'm sure," said Olive in an aggrieved voice.
"Well, sentiment is one thing, and getting sentimental is another," began .Marie.
"Hear hear!" called out Edna.
"Well, it is," continued Marie. "Sentiment is the love of beautiful pictures, and music, and line ideas; the noble things you feel in people and in nature; and getting sentimental is, well- it is-"
"Just being dead foolish, that's all," supplemented Marion.
"I guess it's what you think people are thinking about you," said Bliss.
"Specially boys," laughed Edna,
"Humph!" said Marion, who was used to three brothers and their numerous chums, "I don't see anything to be afraid of in boys! They are just as sentimental as girls anyway. Wait till you see the valentines they send!"
"Well," said Marie, "mine is going to be perfectly peachy. I'll give you three guesses where it is going."
"Yale," said Olive and Edna in unison.
"Guess again, said Marie.
"It can't be you've forsaken 'Yale' for 'Princeton,' after all you've said!" exclaimed the girls.
"Guess again," and Marie held up her valentine in such a tantalizing way, that the girls clustered eagerly around her, Edna exclaiming, "What on earth are you doing to it, Marie!
"Well, in the first place, I'm putting in the sun, to make a kind of halo of glory over all. It is the kind of thing you always do see in the people you like Then the heart has a crown around it. I'm going to put stars over here, and a verse like this: "When starlight into sunshine turns. The flaming- heart of true love burns, Its radiance is for thee, Its crown is purity."
"I say girls, that is a peach," exclaimed Edna.
"There is a good deal of 'Harvard' color about it," speculated Olive.
"Well, Valentines are sent to some one you think a good deal of, and that means 'Yale,' or 'Princeton' for Marie," said Marion decidedly.
"Three times and out," quoted Marie, "Girls, you simply can't guess, for I'm going to send mine to some one I don't like at all."
"Oh Oh Oh!" came in a chorus of astonishment.
"Of all queer things!" said Edna, catching her breath.
"Girls, she is getting brain-fever," said Olive.
"No, 'Valentines on the brain,' a new disease," said the gentle Bliss.
"Dreaming!" exclaimed Marion. "Pinch her and wake her up! She is talking in her sleep!"
"I'm awake enough," said Marie, "but really and truly I did dream about it."
"Oh, what fun!" "Do tell us about it!" chorussed the group.
"I was in the loveliest sunshine," began Marie, "much lovelier than any I have ever seen when awake. And I felt so happy and seemed to love everybody in the whole wide world. It seemed just as though the sunshine was a part of everyone; only in a lot of people it was no larger than stars. The sunniest people seemed to wear something like crowns, very shining and white. And I wanted all of them to wear the same."
"Oh, it was perfectly lovely, girls!"
"Then it seemed to me that those who were the most different from each other, like boys and girls, could help each other better than just girls alone, or boys alone. Indeed it was the people the most different from each other who made all the sunshine by working together. The boys I meant to send Valentines to, had a lot of the white sunshine about them. The one I dislike most of all was sort of cloudy and I felt 1 must help in some way to make a pure radiance for him. When I awoke it all seemed to connect with Valentines and I decided to send one to the boy I didn't like."
"I don't believe I understand your valentine, Marie," said Edna, "but it certainly is different."
"I think it is perfectly lovely," said gentle Bliss. "If you can just feel that girls and boys are made to help each other, it is all so jolly and pleasant, and you don't get a bit sentimental."
"I guess that is why all the boys like Marion so much," said Olive, "she understands them all. I wonder why all girls don't have brothers!"
"Well, there's a difference in brothers, you know, " said Edna. "Some are so nice to their sisters and others are simply horrid."
"I think it is the mothers that make all the difference," said Marion, who adored hers.
"I've noticed that the sunshiniest families always have lovely mothers. Of course the fathers are lovely and help that is what they are for but it seems to be the mothers who keep it so."
"Why, Marion, you understand my valentine," said Marie. "It seemed in my dream that the girls had to keep the pure white radiance in order to help clear away the clouds. Wherever they see a cloud they are to send a bit of the radiance to make it clear and lovely."
"I don't see why girls and boys should feel they are so different," said Bliss.
"They are not," said Marion. "I know I'm a boy inside. Girls are important, of course, but I wish every day I teas a boy, sure enough."
"Ugh, Marion, how can you!" exclaimed Olive.
"Olive, it is an awful pity that you haven't brothers, or something," said Marion, "you wouldn't feel so afraid of boys then, and get so sentimental."
"I tell you, girls," she continued, "boys are the best thing going, if they only have the right kind of mothers to begin with. You see the right kind of mother is a regular chum. She understands things. She never scolds, and you know perfectly well that if you told lies or killed people, she'd be your mother and stand by you, just the same; only she has a way of making you feel that you wouldn't do such things, no matter how much you want to."
"Three cheers for Marion!" exclaimed Edna.
"Three cheers for our darling mothers!" added Bliss. "Mine is expecting me at home in ten minutes, girls, I must leave your fascinating company," said Olive.
"I must go also wait for me," said Edna.
"Girls, can't we meet again, to finish our valentines together?"
"Oh yes," said Bliss, "come to my house Friday."
"All right Good-bye Marion, I've had a lovely time-"
"So have I"
"And I-"
"Thank you so much for the lovely afternoon, Marion Good-bye"
"Good-bye, girls!"
"Good-bye" "Good-bye" And the merry group was gone.