St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1904-04-30
" Miss q
Tabitha Cranes
Valentine
BY CAROLINE FRANCES LITTLE
Copyright. 1904. By Daily Story Pub. Coy

She stood by the window watching
Q sleigh full of young people, that wa
Just leaving the gate. Her niece, witt
her fancee, were Of the party, and the.
were going to Amesbury for an oyste
supper.
eyes, 1t was Is years ago." said Mis-
Tabitha, for she had q way of talking
to herself, "a quarter of a century sine
Dan took me to Amesbury, and thel
sent me a valentine the next day.
thought he would speak then, but h,
never did"
Going to an old-fashioned desk, sh'
det down the outside cover and opened
"a little secret drawer. From it she tool
out q faded valentine with two flaming
hearts on 1t, pierced through with ar
arrow. Beneath it were these lines:
"The rose are red,
The violet's blue;
Sugar Is sweet,
And 80 are YOU"
On the inside, beneath a quaint pic
fure of a pair Of lovers. were these
words:
III you love me
AS l love you, u
No knife can cut
Our love in two"
With q sigh she laid away this relic
OF her unfinished romance, and turn
ing to tho open fire piled on more
wood. Her neighbors used air-tight
stoves, but she chung to the open fires,
such ID her mother and grandmother
had used before her. Musing before
the bright fame, she recalled what she
had heard her niece saying recently to
her lover:
mo, auntie never had an affair Of
the heart, so l think considering it she
- very indulgent to me-"
AS lonely Miss Tabitha sat there and
watched the burning hickory logs. an
idea came to her. y
II suppose" she said, "that Dorothy
thinks me an old maid. Well, l sup
pose / am, but I would like to make
them think l have q romance. Yes, /
viii do 1t. I'll send myself a valentine,
and when she brings up the mail to-
morrow she'll think that I have a lover
~ well as herself"
Here her training asserted itself, and
asked, would it be strictly truthful"
For there is no more rigorous accuser
than the conscience of a New England
woman.
"Only this once" she said to her in
visible monitor, Il don't like the young
folks to look upon me as q well pre-
served FOSSIL" She hastily put on her
beaver coat, and q bonnet much too
large for her, which she drew down
close over the soft, brown hair, which
a. yet showed no trace Of gray. Dor
othy often wished auntie would not
wear such old-time garments. Locking
the door behind her she went down to
the village.
The assortment OF valentines was
much larger than In the ,olden days.
and she could ind none with the
rhymes of her carefully preserved
treasure; but she chose q very pretty
one, and hurried home with 1t. Old
Mrs. Virgins. who sold the valentine
had looked very %curiously over her
glasses. until Miss Tabitha felt 80 gull
" that she fairly blushed. When once
home she fastened to direct it. her
hand trembling as she wrote; for her
thoughts were back in her younger
days when she had supposed her name
would be Mrs. Daniel Upton" She
heard a noise and hastily finishing her
work, she put away the pen and ink,
and started for the post Office. She
dropped the missive into the letter box
and returned home. As loon as she
was seated before the fire, the foolish
ness of the little farce which she had
intended to enact before her niece
seemed wildly apparent.
what shall l say II she asks who
sent 1t to me?" she queried, almost in
agony, She even thought Of going
back to the ONCE and asking for 1t, but
what excuse could she make to the
for having directed q let
ter to herself? There seemed no way
out of the dilemma
Valentines day passed slowly by.
Dorothy brought up the mail during
the morning. It consisted Of ''The Dex-
News Letter" and 1.-THE Christian
Herald" Miss Tabitha felt uneasy.
where could her letter be?. Could the
have seen through her silly
). sc. and refused to deliver it? The
more she thought Of 1t the more wor-
He'd she became.
Daniel Upton, OF the squire, as he
vas called, sat before his coy Frank
in stove In the library. He was
old bachelor of 50 years or