The pink is pretty, and so are you.
My pen is poor, my ink is pale,
My love for you shall never fail.”
And then they made agin them solemn deep bows and walked out of the room still holdin’ hands. And Josiah and I kinder smiled a little after they went out, not before them, no, not for a silver dollar would I laughed before them, and I sez, “This is our valentine, Josiah.”
“Yes,” sez he, “and a prettier one never went through a post office.”
“That’s so,” sez I, “unless it wuz the one you sent me with the roses and forget-me-nots on it the year before we wuz married.” And all the time Josiah wuz buildin’ the fire, and while I wuz gittin’ breakfast I thought of how the blossoms of life are scattered down through all the seasons of the year and of life. The roses that come with that valentine of Josiah’s had faded, the frosts of thirty years had stole the pretty pink tinge offen ’em, and the years had gone by, long years, long years, and youth wuz past.
But, good land! could anything be so sweet and beautiful as the valentine that had come to us on this February morning, when the gray hairs lay thick on my own head, and my poor Josiah’s head wuz bare beneath the touch of Time’s hand, which had been strokin’ him down for so long a time. I told the children at the breakfast table, as they sot in their little high chairs opposite to Josiah and me, and my face wuz jest as earnest and good as I could make it:
“You couldn’t have pleased us so well with any other valentine in the world, there couldn’t be one bought anywhere that we should have liked half so well—could there, Josiah?”
“No,” sez he, “not one; there hain’t a valentine in the hull country that could compare with the one we got this mornin’.”
And then the children bust right out laughin’, they wuz so tickled to think we liked it, and they laughed partly, I think, because I had gin each on ’em a little glass dish of honey as a treat on account of the valentine. Bless their sweet hearts! could any other valentine be tinged with the light of love that gilt ourn? Could any picture match the lustrous tenderness of the soft gray eyes, and soft mornin’ glory blue ones? Could any gold-edged paper equal the glint of the golden hair, could any page equal the pink tinge of the rosy cheeks, and the white forwards and necks, and little pink toes stickin’ out under their nightgowns as our dear little valentines come to us in the fresh morning light, warmin’ up the coldness of a February morning?