jimmieboy had been watching for the postman all day and he was getting just a little tired of it. it was valentine's day, and he was very naturally expecting that some of his many friends would remember that fact and send him a valentine. still the postman, strange to say, didn't come.

"he'll be later than usual," said jimmieboy's mamma. "the postman always is late on valentine's day. he has so many valentines to leave at people's houses."

"well, i wish he'd hurry," said jimmieboy, "because i want to see what my valentimes look like."

jimmieboy always called valentines valentimes,[pg 276] so nobody paid any attention to that mistake—and then the front door bell rang.

"i guess, maybe, perhaps that's the postman—though i didn't hear his whistle," said jimmieboy, rushing to the head of the stairs and listening intently, but no one went to the door and jimmieboy became so impatient that he fairly tumbled down the stairs to open it himself.

"howdy do," he said, as he opened the door, and then he stopped short in amazement. there was no one there and yet his salutation was returned.

"howdy do!" something said. "i'm glad you came to the door, because i mightn't have got in if the maid had opened it. people who don't understand queer things don't understand me, and i rather think if the girl had opened that door and had been spoken to by something she[pg 277] couldn't see she'd have started to run and hide, shrieking lawk, meanwhile."

"i've half a mind to shriek lawk, myself," said jimmieboy, a little fearfully, for he wasn't quite easy about this invisible something he was talking to. "who are you, anyhow?"

"i'm not a who, i'm a what," said the queer thing. "i'm not a person, i'm a thing—just a plain, homely, queer thing. i couldn't hurt a fly, so there's no reason why you should cry lawk."

"well, what kind of a queer thing are you?" asked jimmieboy. "are you the kind of a queer thing i can invite into the house or would it be better for me to shut the door and make you stay outside."

"i don't like to say," said the queer thing, with a pathetic little sigh. "i think i'm very nice and that anybody ought to be glad to have me in the house, but that's only[pg 278] my opinion of myself. somebody else might think differently. in fact somebody else has thought differently. you know rhinoceroses and crocodiles think themselves very handsome, and that's why they sit and gaze at themselves in the water all the time. everybody else though knows that they are very ugly. now that's the way with me. as i have said, i'm sure in my own mind that i am perfectly splendid, and yet your uncle periwinkle, who thought of me, wouldn't write me and send me to you."

"you must be very wise if you know what you mean," said jimmieboy. "i don't."

"oh, no—i'm not so wise—i'm only splendid, that's all," said the other. "you see i'm a valentine, only i never was made. i was only thought of. your uncle periwinkle thought of me and was going to send me to you and then he changed his mind[pg 279] and thought you'd rather have a box of candy; so he didn't write me and sent you a box of chocolate creams instead. the postman's got 'em and if he doesn't find out what they are and eat 'm all up you'll receive them this afternoon. won't you let me come in and tell you about myself and see if you don't like me? i want to be liked—oh ever so much, and i was awfully disappointed when your uncle decided not to send me. i cried for eight minutes and then resolved to come here myself and see if after all he wasn't wrong. let me come in and if you don't like me i'll go right out again and never come back."

"i like you already, without knowing what kind of a valentime you are," said jimmieboy, kindly. "of course you can come in, and you can stay as long as you want to. i don't believe you'll be in anybody's way."

"thank you very much," said the valentine,[pg 280] gratefully, as it moved into the house, and, to judge from where its voice next came, settled down on the big sofa cushion. "i hoped you'd say that."

"what kind of a valentime are you?" asked jimmieboy in a moment. "are you a funny one or a solemn one, with paper frills all over it in a box and a little cupid peeping out from behind a tree?"

"i am almost afraid to tell you," said the valentine, timidly. "i am so afraid you won't like me."

"oh, yes i will," said jimmieboy, hastily. "i like all kinds of valentimes."

"well, that's a relief," said the other. "i'm comic."

"hooray!" cried jimmieboy, "i just love comic valentimes with red and blue pictures in 'em and funny verses."

"do you really?" returned the valentine, cheerfully. "then i can say hooray, too,[pg 281] because that's what i was to be. i was to be a picture of a boy with red trousers on, sitting crosswise on a great yellow broomstick, galloping through a blue sky, toward a pink moon. how do you like that?"

"it is splendid, just as you said," returned jimmieboy, with a broad smile. "those are my favorite colors."

"you like those colors better than you do chocolate cream color?" asked the valentine.

"oh, my yes," said jimmieboy. "probably you wouldn't be so good to eat as a chocolate cream, but for a valentime, you're much better. i don't want to eat valentimes, i want to keep 'em."

"you don't know how glad you make me," said the pathetic little valentine, its voice trembling with happiness. "now, if you like my verses as well as you do my picture, i will be perfectly content."

[pg 282]

"i guess i'll like 'em," said jimmieboy. "can you recite yourself to me?"

"i'm not written—didn't i tell you?" returned the valentine. "that's the good part of it. i can tell you what i might have been and you can take your choice."

"that's good," said jimmieboy. "then i'm sure to be satisfied."

"just so," said the valentine. "now let me think what i might have been! hum! well, what do you think of this:

"if i had a cat with a bright red tail,

and a parrot whose voice was soft and low

i'd put 'em away in a water pail,

and send 'em to where the glowworm's glow.

"and then i would sit on an old whisk broom

and sail through the great, soft starlit sky,

to where the bright moonbeams gaily froom

their songs to the parboiled gemini.

"and i'd say to the frooming moonbeams that,

i'd come from the home of the sweet woodbine,

deserting my parrot and red-tailed cat,

to ask if they'd be my valentine."

[pg 283]

"i guess that's good," said jimmieboy. "only i don't know what frooming is."

"neither do i," said the valentine, "but that needn't make any difference. you see, it's a nonsense rhyme any how, and i couldn't remember any word that rhymed with broom. froom isn't a bad word, and inasmuch as it's new to us we can make it mean anything we want to."

"that's true," said jimmieboy. "but why do you send the cat and the parrot off?"

"they aren't in the picture," said the valentine, "and so of course we have to get rid of them before we have the boy start off on the broomstick. it would be very awkward to go sailing off through the sky on a broomstick with a parrot and cat in tow. then to show the moonbeams how much the boy thinks of them you have to have him leave something behind that he thinks a[pg 284] great deal of, and that something might just as well be a parrot and a cat as anything else."

"and what does it all mean?" asked jimmieboy. "is the boy supposed to be me?"

"no," explained the valentine. "the boy is supposed to be uncle periwinkle, and you are the moonbeams. in putting the poem the way i've told you it's just another and nonsense way of saying that he'll be your valentine and will take a great deal of trouble and make sacrifices to do it if necessary."

"i see," said jimmieboy. "and i think it very nice indeed—though i might like some other verse better."

"of course you might," said the valentine. "that's the way with everything. no matter how fine a thing may be, there may be something else that might be better, and[pg 285] the thing to do always is to look about and try to find that better thing. how's this:

"'the broom went around to jimmieboy's,

and cried, 'oh, jimmieboy b.,

come forth in the night, desert your toys,

and take a fine ride with me.

"i'll take you off through the starlit sky,

we'll visit the moon so fine,

if you will come with alacrity,

and be my valentine.'"

"that isn't so bad, either," said jimmieboy. "i sort of wish a broomstick would come after me that way and take me sailing off to the moon. i'd be its valentime in a minute if it would do that. i'd like to take a trip through all the stars and see why they twinkle and——"

"why they twinkle?" interrupted the valentine. "why they twinkle? hoh! why, i can tell you that—for as a secret just between you and me, i know a broomstick that has been up to the stars and he[pg 286] told me all about them. the stars twinkle because from where they are, they are so high up, they can see all that is going on in the world, and they see so many amusing things that it keeps 'em laughing all the time and they have to twinkle just as your eyes do when they see anything funny."

"that's it, is it?" said jimmieboy.

"yes, sir!" said the valentine, "and it's fine, too, to watch 'em when you are feeling sad. you know how it is when you're feeling sort of unhappy and somebody comes along who feels just the other way, who laughs and sings, how you get to feel better yourself right off? well, remember the stars when you don't feel good. how they're always twinkling—watch 'em, and by and by you'll begin to twinkle yourself. you can't help it—and further, jimmieboy," added this altogether strange valentine, "when anybody tries to make you think[pg 287] that this world has got more bad things than good things in it, look at the stars again. they wouldn't twinkle if that was so and until the stars stop twinkling and begin to frown, don't you ever think badly of the world."

"i won't," said jimmieboy. "i always did like the world. as long as i've been in it i've thought it was a pretty fine place."

"it is," said the valentine. "nobody can spoil it either—unless you do it yourself—but, i say, if you'd like to have me i'll introduce you to my broomstick friend sometime and maybe some day he'll give you that ride."

"will you?" cried jimmieboy with delight. "that will be fine. you are the dearest old valentime that ever was."

saying which, forgetting in his happiness that the valentine was not to be seen and so could not be touched, jimmieboy leaned[pg 288] over to hug him affectionately as he sat on the sofa cushion.

which may account for the fact that when jimmieboy's papa came home he found jimmieboy clasping the sofa cushion in his arms, asleep and unconscious of the fact that the postman had come and gone, leaving behind him six comic valentines, four "solemn ones," and a package of chocolate creams from uncle periwinkle.

when he waked he was rejoiced to find them, but he has often told me since that the finest valentine he ever got was the one uncle periwinkle thought he wouldn't like as well as the candy; and i believe he still[pg 289] has hopes that the invisible valentine may turn up again some day, bringing with him his friend the broomstick who will take jimmieboy off for a visit to the twinkling stars.