"May I buy her," the Prince asked, "to give as a valentine to a little Princess?"
"Oh, I will give her to you," the bird seller said. "Very few people want to take care of a blind bird."
But the little Princess did. She liked the white dove better than any of her other valentines. She hung her cage in a pink rose tree in the sunniest part of the garden, and she often invited the Prince to sit with her under the tree and listen to the dove's sweet song.
WHY THE DOVE IS ON OUR VALENTINES
A long time ago when there were no white men in our country, but only Indians who lived in the forest, there was a timid little Indian boy.
All the other Indian lads loved the dark, so full of stars, and moonlight; but this boy was afraid of the dark and did not venture out of his father's wigwam after the sun had set. The other Indian lads hunted bears, and sailed the swift rapids in frail birch-bark canoes, and had no fear of anything that ran, or stalked, or flew. But the Indian boy about which this story is told was afraid of all the wild creatures of the forest. He never ventured far away from the safe circle of his home campfire. Most of all was the boy afraid of Hoots, the bear.
This was because Hoots was a part of the forest. He hid himself by day, for he was afraid of bows and swift flying arrows. But at night, the bear prowled near the Indian camp, and could be heard from one end of the forest to the other, his great feet crunching through the dried bushes and twigs.
In those days the Indians believed that a good spirit, called the manito, watched over them, and guided them, and kept them from harm. The story tells that the manito was walking one day through the trees of the forest when he saw this little Indian boy, hiding behind a pine tree and giving loud cries of terror.
"What is this that I hear?" asked the manito. "No Indian boy ever cries. Come forth that I may see who the coward is, and learn of what he is afraid."