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Show His Valentine ABRAHAM LINCOLN, When a And meekest And weakest Then cometh good St. Valentine, ve is burning that nd life ts To show And yearning wintry earth his good St. that love wistful-eye breathes ender This man whose homely face you look upon, Was one of Nature’s masterful, great men¢ Born with strong arms, that unfought battics won, Direct of speech, and cunning with the pen. Chosen for large designs, he had the art Of winning with his humor, and he went Straight to his mark, which was the human heart¢ Wise, too, for what he could not break he bent. Upon his back a more than Atlas load, The burden of the commonwealth, was laid; He stooped, and rose up to it: though the road Shot suddenly downward, not a whit dismayed. Hold, warriors, councilors, kings! All now give place To this dead Benefactor of the race! or Va is nd ery torpid heart Rte All A melting breeze a st es I from fly You you r easures follow with ch ered ewelea limp wit your lights τ and you ever I fi Housekeeping I gether trees the over heights And —Richard Henry Stoddard, 1ess Good I am 4 sunbeam am enweee oN eee» yours t all so yet divine I pine for your lips, You cry as I leave meist and g wing nightat fall And both are undone at the Peat Cay Ah> η΄ y going er you But when all is still and in s! A-dream with our no I come in a moonbear I cover your red mouth La Med 7 not yours ses g by, kisses w So if you be far or if you be rt I always must hover above } Of all the world's guerdon t most dear he I I love you—I love 3 FRIEND OF THE -UTTLE ONES known as “sweeping the girls.” If a girl is not kissed by an admirer be fore nine o'clock on St. Valentine’s morning she is said to be “dusty.” Aceordingly all the young men of the neighborhood on learning that some young woman has remained unkissed past the fatal hour make an attack on her house with brooms, and after white envelopes. When WONDERFUL | dropped the four-| school was about to be dismissed the Beautiful Lady who took care of all teenth of Febru the children opened up the mysterious ary. It is so won affair and took out the envelopes one derful that it by one, calling the nameof the little spreads its charm iver the preceding week and the boy or girl You held your breath. When would veek that comes after For days and fays the Small Person sneaks into the | yours come? Ah! exquisite moment Your heart—such a house with unnatural, unhealthy and | of anticipation! suspicious quiet, holding queer shaped | tiny little silly, lovable heart, too bulging packages under her coat or | fairly ceased to beat, for every mosmuggled away in the innermost cav | ment you expected that your name The other children erns of her absurd little muff. The | would be spoken. were busy showing their white lace paste pot appears everywhere in the house. The paste brush disappears valentines, and never noticed the wistful little face in a far-back seat entirely and is finally found in a state It was all over. The box was empty of suicide and the ink-bottle. You see something on the floor that looks like The Beautiful Lady closed her desk. a cherry. You pick it up and it is a The children ran for their hats and You placed two soiled fat litred paper heart. While you are look- coats. ing at it the Small Person trots into tle hands to two very moisty-misty the room, gives you one mysterious eyes and felt your first great sorrow, You did, didn’t you? Well, if you glance, immediately separates you from your treasure and scampers didn't, I did, day, away to a hiding place under the dintngroom table, where she sits for three straight hours in a billowy pool of white paper lace, big white envelopes and numberless samples of scissors. Then, after these charming hours of mysterious preparation, the great day approaches. The mail manis the Kris Kringle, the Santa Claus, the good fairy. With bended shoulders he plods down thestreet, while the Small Person has her nose glued so to the window panethat there siderable question whether or will detach itself without the 8 paper knife tightly is connot it aid of sweeping her thoroughly, each of her HOUGH the little pagan god kisses her who nearly always ac- calle Tne French province of Lorraine has companies St. Valentine | on February 14 has the a custom somewhat similar, which is same Lincoln Struck by The heart of a child is so sensitive a flower. A thought will crush it—a tear will bruise it. Rebel Bullet HIS ONEDAY TO GET EVEN, Husband Sent Burlesque Valentines and Had His Wife Guessing. “Say, old fellow,” said Brown, as he laid his hand familiarly on Potter's shoulder, “didn't I see you in the stationer’s a day or two ago looking at valentines?” “You probably did, as I was in there,” was the answer “Buying for some sister or niece?” “No—for my wife.” “But you are over 50 years old and have been married a quarter of a cen- She emerges looking like a young Btationery establishment, nothing but envelopes, big, little and middle sized With a squeal and a scurry she blows back into the house and opens up her treasures. There are paper trees filled with brilliant paper roses, and beneath the forest trees sit little cupids “without no clo’s on at all,” just as if it were not February and chilly. Great big, beautiful white swan cars more beautiful even than a newautomobile—are saw President Lincoln walking fear-, ‘ bag. dragged out of their white casings, and lo! when you touch a little spring somewhere the swan ears are filled with flowers and all sorts of wonderful, exquisite, beautiful things, like birds and jewels and lov{ing hearts. Oh, it is very, very delightful, being a child on St Valen- | “| Get a Hundred of the Meanest Burtine’’s day lesque Valentines | Can Find,” While all this excitement is beating } tury You don't say that you are still the quiet home atmosphere into quiv | romantic?” ers you sit down in a far-away cor “I say this—that my wife can beat ner and think of the time when you me at argument or scolding or doing were a little girl. Perhaps you didn't as she pleases whether | like it or not. have as much attention as the Small She's obs and pigheaded and Person; perhaps things didn't some | touchy, ar only way I can get how come your way—and perhaps it's | even with her is on Valentine's day because you had so little that you Then I get 100 of the meanest burare ready to make any sacrifice so lesque valentines I can find and send that t Small Person shall have them to her, and for the next three much It is from deprivations that months she’s wondering who sent ‘em you learn what good things mean and and treats me fairly well. Try it how much they mean once. It ts a good deal better than Somehow your mind goes way back, threatening her with the family ax.” so far you wouldn't dare tell the years. You wouldn't even guess them. | Love's Lottery. It seems so long ago that it must have | One oft en wonders how St, Valenbeen another world, or anyway an- } tine’s day ever got a start. It is said other life. You see a dingy old school that in England and France the young room, where the benches were fright folk were given to playing a game in fully hard and where the clock was which the names of all the girls and so lazy it never moved its hands at boys were written on tiny slips of paall. The days were very long for a per, thrown into a genera] receptacle, little tiny child who should have been and then drawn out lottery fashion, romping and playing out of doors care being taken of course that each One day there came strange whisperson draws the name of one of the perings about St. Valentine You won other sex The person thus drawn dered if he were the man who came became one’s valentine, and the allotto trim the trees in the orchard. It ment decreed by fate was supposed to lessly among his soldiers, discussing the conditions and circumstances of the then impending attack upon the 7 ἃ city by Gen. Early and his confederate forces. while a battle raged outside the breastworks Watehiae- Sith tho- curtiatis BF ὁ é £ y ἼΟΒΙΙΥ OF ὁ soldier who had seen bis president eof was all very new to you, because everything was new %-d you had so much to get acqua‘nated with in a big strange world The other children talked knowingjy about a St. Valentine's box. Next impose ipon the couple a sort of loy- wherever | Abraham Lincoln ‘Johnny Reb” in battle. The histories do not record it, nor the biographies. Those who saw the occurrence thought little of it at the time, so pressing was the work they had in hand, and the president is not known ever to have mentioned the incident. Concerned only with the welfare of a sundered nation and its suffering millions, and least of all with self, it is probable that no thought of the axperience recurred to him at any time in the period of stress and anx iety and important occupation. that followed another bullet, less honest, that took awayhis life On the morning of July 12, 1864, a young lieutenant-colonel of the Sixty-fifth New York volunteers, standing just outside Fort Stevens, one of the series of forts that completely surrounded and guarded Washington, At last! Hooray! The bell rings At imminent risk of catching every thing from a cold to a spanking the Smal! Person dashes out of the front door and fairly leaps into the mail purpose he goes, yet he does not everywhere employ the same methods for its ac- | complishment. ΗἱΒ tactics differ in different | places. He is as versatile| BORN 1809—DIED 1865. as he is capricious. In | reed NewYork city he still finds a way to of the North would be broken, despai: mylady’s heart by going to her in a would follow, discouragement, defeat dainty bit of pasteboard, tissue paper, So he bent his first efforts to de tinsel and paint, all tucked wayin a fending the seat of government from scented envelope. In Berlin he has rethose who would set up there a new cently found a new means of wound-pation not conceived in liberty. ing his victims in the “cooing postals,” His deep anxiety in those days be- | which are so constructed that when fore the troops arrived and when Squeezed they will imitate the plainBeauregard’s army was said to be aptive note of a dove. In more prosaic proaching, will be recalled by all who London cupid has abandoned the posthave read the story of the war. Af.man for the telephone, and the up-toter the arrival of the Seventh New date London lover no longer sends his O all but a few—certainly York regiment of “dandies,” who sweetheart an ardent message by letnot more than a score, dined at Delmonico’s before departing ter, but recites it over the wire into perhaps not more than a dozen—it is news that 22d the Massachusetts and Rhode her very ear. Whether or not he dis closes his identity depends on therepre Lincoln was hit Island regiments of farmers, mechanply he gets. by a bullet fired by α| 08 and tradespeople, the capital was in no danger until the attack of Gen Early, when the incident of Col Roome’s story occurred. But this did not entirely relieve the anxiety in the heart of the man who, fromthe window of his executive office, could see a traitor flag floating over the home across the river where Washington Yet the most picturesque St. Valentine day customs are not to be found | in the big cities, but in out-of-theway regions, where human nature retains much of its old-time simplicity. In some of the rural villages of Eng- land, for example, the season is ob- | served in much the same way as in | had lived and died the time of Queen Elizabeth and many| When thefortifications were thrown up around the capital Lincoln knew of every detail of the work, consulted with the men in charge, informed and advised them. It was, therefore, no occasion of comment when he left the White House on this July 12 and walked among the soldiers. They stood, ready for action, behind the walls while from the plain below came a quaint supersition still the sound of conflict. Gen, Early’s own story of his move Ww . i h i ee hs πμ the ment il Situation In the confederate ranks on that day. He had approached Wash Σ ington from the north Having heard . os xa 5 that 7“ κορν works ͵ te r a r ξ » t em > by y ant to take ™@nned, he e meean SUTPTise, but before his first divis ion could be brought up, he says, he saw a cloud of dust in the rear of the ν : works and soon A column of men survives ν᾽ {ΠΟΝ vg Tacts . δω + re τ r . Vhen the bom i ~ > nt Sumter as in i rogress alker, ῦ was progress alker, t e confed oe ines ki sca erate secretary of war, making a flery | range all around raked witk artillery.” Thus it would seem that President qay when he and intensified the fears for the 86- {ῃ curity of the capital already great because of the probable secession of Virginia and the doubt as to the po- Roome’s for troops, alty for the coming year All of which sounds very romantic and beautiful, but which in plain fact sition of Maryland must have mixed things up fearfully, President Lincoln realized how and it 18 a question whether or not nuch depended on his holding Wash-| day they filed in one after another | fate always selected the right maiden ington. The loss of the capital doubtand into a big wooden box they; or the right beau i less would result in European recognition of the confederacy; the spirit left on fortification sentation of substantial gifts. some danger “Hempseed I sow, hempseed I mow Hie that will my true be, Come, rake this hempseed after me.” | the But that he was is shown by Col story --------------Lincoln’s Sarcasm. Probably the most cutting thing Lincoln ever id was the remark he made about a very loquacious mar “This person can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any maa I ever met” In this way not only lovers remembered their mistresses, but parents their children, husbands their wives, and in the merry days of Charles Il. husbands gave presents to other men’s wives Among the young women of Devon shire the belief still lingers that they are able to jearn who their future husbands will be if they go through a certain peculiar formula shortly after the midnight that ush in St. Valentine’s day. Each maiden should go alone to the porch of the village church and there wait until 12:30 a. m. Then as the bell strikes the half hour she should return home scattering hempseed in her path and repeating: went about within the walls. dates there still survives a custom which Lincoln invurred little danger on the issue of the newspaper that printed call and It recalls the times when St. Valentine’s day was observed throughout Great Britain and the continent by the pre timber had been felled within cannon of the old capitol at Washington before the first of May.” Lincoln's ladies.” . . whole being connected by curtains ground, maki 1g a formidable obstacle, and every possible approach was That boast appeared in the same| the : with @itches in front and strength; : . ened by palisades and abattis. The aaae speech at Montgomery, Ala., declared: “The flag which now flaunts the « 7 Oy ; over the dome breeze here will float President “beating back to the sixteenth century. On St. Valentine's morning every mar riageable daughter is expected toarise at daybreak and bake a heart-shaped cake for the first young man who may come for it. If she should oversleep, however, and her lover should call to find her all unmindful of him and the occasion which brought him to her door then his rivals are privileged to punish her in the following fashion: Armed with wisps of hay they mayinvade her room and, compelling her to get up, they may administer a not especially ungentle thrashing. In the county of Norfolk, England, And if she is going to be married in the next year she will indeed see her lover behind her clad in a winding sheet and raking up the hempseed In many parts of Germanythe chil dren find St. Valentine’s day a special occasion to obtain charity from young women, who cannot refuse them without being threatened with the fate of thing, however, the rby is not a | becoming old maids. In certain vilstranger. A Derbyshire girl usually lages of Saxony little boys and girls keeps the shutters closed until through go from house to house singing a song some crevice in them she espies the which has been translated as follows into English rhyme man she wants. God bless the baker, Of ail observances, however the If you'll be the giver, most popular in England is that best | I'll be the taker.” only twice before, the colonel πα | ἨΈ. “μὲν then oe the rigs ᾿ ‘ : ‘ and left. Then skirmishers were alarmed when he saw him hit by a ‘ ‘ thrown out in front, while an artil bullet, which had sped through theair ᾽ ; ᾿ lery fire was opened on the confeder from the camp of the enemy. That ; : 4 : we . “| ates from a numberof batteries. young officer was William P. Roome, ei aes ᾽ who was adjutant-general and chief Our skirmishers were all thrown to the front,” wrote Gen. Early, “drivof staff to Maj.-Gen Upton ing those of the enemy to the cover Sometimes Col Roome has thought of their works, and we proceeded to of writing to Lincoln’s biograph 8 examine the fortifications in order to and telling them of the incident, but ascertain if it was practicable to carprocrastinated, he not considering ry them by assault. They were found it a matter of sufficient importance to to be excee ly strong and consisted interest them. Lately, however, not of what appeared to be inclosed forts ing the renewed interest in the minut for heavyartillery, with a tier of lowst tails of the life of Lincoln, he ; se : ΓΙ ; : om, 2¢ er works in front of each, pierced for believes that Americans would like ͵ k the tan an immense number of guns, the ἶ | In remotevillages of De byshire tl customstill prevails of maidens iook ing out of their windows in the early morn of St. Valentine’s day to learn whotheir lovers may be Every girl who wants to get married is supposed to jump out of bed just at daybreak and dressing hastily open a wondow facing the street. There she must wait until some man pass by, who tips his hat and says to her ood morrow, ‘tis St. Valentine's day In } reply she says: “Goodmorrow, sir, | I'll be your valentine As a usual called oa ey {65}6ἑ deth BrokenWeart« SS) Yy vr |
