“And I would buy more than one,” Angelina would smile. “There is one of a pussy-cat like ours. I would give it to Marguerite Santos and I would give her many others beside.”
“The idea!” Maria interrupted. “Marguerite Santos! The unmannerly child! She is a class behind you in school and you do not know her. The Santos think themselves better than the Parillos and they will not let her play with you—all because their father has a fruit store with candy and peanuts and a telephone!”
“It is because Angelina has the cross teacher this year that she wants to give valentines to Marguerite,” suggested Louisa. “Her teacher is not nice and Marguerite has a beautiful red plush cloak—”
“She smiles at me,” defended Angelina. “I like her. I would like to know her and play with her. I do not think she is at all unmannerly, Maria.”
But Maria was fitting the key into the home lock and she took her time to reply. As she hung over the kitchen stove to poke the slumbering fire, she gave it more than one dig. “The Santos child is unmannerly and I have seen it,” she insisted. “She did a most unmannerly thing only the other day as she passed by on the road here going homeward after school—”
Angelina’s eyes flashed. “Tell me,” she broke in, “tell me what it was, for I do not believe it!”
“She did! She said shoo, it was just like that: she said it to our good gray cat who was peacefully sleeping in the sun at the doorstone. It was very unmannerly to shoo our cat!”
Angelina sniffed. “That was nothing,” she defended, “I shoo cats, too. Marguerite likes cats even as I do, but I often say shoo, shoo! I do it to see the cat blink its eyes and look at me. Some cats will jump and run. One does not know what they will do—and I have seen Louisa—”
But here Maria put a hand over Angelina’s mouth. “I do not care what Louisa has done,” she admonished. “Go get me the soap that is by the basin in the bedroom so that I may wash the dress. There is no use to start a quarrel. There is no money to buy valentines at all, either for Louisa’s teacher or for Marguerite Santos.”
But if the subject of valentines subsided once in a while, it was sure to start again on the next day when Maria, Louisa and Angelina passed homeward by the wonderful windows of the ten cent store. There was never time to stop. Only a hasty glimpse did Louisa and Angelina snatch. Oh, the joy of going into the store to see the piles of candy on the candy counter! Oh, the happiness of gazing at bright colored ribbons and wonderful toys! And the valentines that lay on the counter in hundreds, what fun to see them, even though one could not spend money to buy any! Alas!