The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-02-13
cook beefsteak and boil soup lone.
has attracted no attention whatever.
The Message Of Valentine Day.

The Message Of Valentine Day.
Frank G. Moorhead in Iowa Home
stead: Valentine Day! What host
of memories crowd on one another as
the log in the fireplace crackles into
embers and the stove thumps warning
that soon it will be time to seek shell
ter under the blankets. WHAT host
of memories of fond messages on
cardboard, held in the hand until
wrinkled and soiled as the heart OF
the possessor, pumped tell-tale blood to
the cheeks, and eyes grew wistful as
the mind pictured little vine-bow-
cred cottage and just two people alone
in the big world, alone with their love.
What host of memories of amorous
verses, almost always with rhyme and
meter faulty but telling the old sweet
story that trembling lips and faltering
tongue could not speak, about roses
red and violets blue and no knife that
could "cut our love in two" Does it
sound silly now, as the embers crum-
BILE away and the cold draws on?
That's just the trouble with the
grown-up world nowadays. 1t should
not sound silly, it does not, it must not.
What the world needs Is not SO much
irrigation of land and conservation of
forests, as irrigation of life and conser-
walton of romance 1t is becoming too
practical 1t thinks too much of acquir-
ing the adjoining forty" or eighty,
of getting another hundred or thousand
in the bank at so much interest These
must be thought of, but there is some
thing else, which, unless the world
pulls itself around, will some of these
days be long lost to all but memory
aching sight" That's tle thought
which should come stealing over the
mind in Valentine season, as another
night creeps on apace.
YOU father, smoking there in the
waning light-what of the girl you
used to court so assiduously, at the
i touch of whose hand the blood bound
| ed like creek flooded in the spring
1 beyond its banks, at the sound oil
| whose voice when she whispered yes
/ you trembled like the proverbial as
pen leaf? 1t has been many long
years since you spoke a word of
! love; that hand is feeble now, thin
bony, calloused; that voice is high
pitched and quavering, even irritable
at times What made it so? WAC
forgot the dream of never-ending love
in the struggle for maintenance, the
rush for gold and still more gold
What would happen if on Valentine
day you spoke after the fashion o.
those halycon days of courtship; i
( you gave her, not the cardboard witt
the red heart imprinted thereon, bu
an easy rocker, a new disa, even, i
times have been hard and money is
scarce, kiss or kind word? Try
it and see.
4 And you. mother. rocking there II
the waning light-what of the youtf
4 who used to ride UP SO gayly, every
hair creased and brushed until 1t lay
in it's proper place, who, imprisoned
in stiff-bosomed shirt and creakins
shoes, with the lovelight in ais eyes
talked of weather and crops, OF church
meetings and sociables; can you re
member how you thrilled when at las
he found his tongue, falteringly, no
as heroes speak in novels, but man
fully nevertheless and you loved hin
all the better for his awkwardness
J Can you remember that first year 0
honeymoon of that day when the III
tie life came to gladden. yours, an
how you two clasped hands over IN
, cradle and felt nothing could eve
part you now,--that little life to b
snuffed out, even as is candle, Wne
1.-The boy that played truant fror
: heaven went back to the angels an
v God?" Has your life been bereft sine
> then? Valentine day is coming an
4 others have suffered, but courageous
g gone ahead, doing their share OF tn
a worlds work cheerfully. Make tina
/ grown-up lover happy; show him tn
a card with the red heart that you'v
1 treasured in the old box under the be
e all these years; kiss him as you di
Y in the old days, tell him you love hil
a even more than then; don't let tn
e cares of the household drive out a
d the romance the sweetness, the reall.
S worth-whileness of life.
), This is the message of Vaientin
), day.