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down he proceeded to put it upon his own shock
head. His face wore its broad and constant smile. One would have said
the little boy was enjoying the affair. As he put the hat on, the
sixty-nine laughed. The seventieth did not. It was her hat, and besides,
she did not understand.
Miss Clara still erect spoke again: "And now, since you are a little girl,
get your book, Billy, and move over with the girls."
Nor did Emmy Lou understand why, when Billy, having gathered his
belongings together, moved across the aisle and sat down with her, the
sixty-nine laughed again. Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for
Billy.
Nor did she understand when Billy treated her to a slow and
surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the
rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had
laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing
of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention
had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little
slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in
it--something wrapped in a beautiful, glazed, shining bronze paper. It
was a candy kiss. One paid five cents for six of them at the drug-store.
On the road home, Emmy Lou ate the candy. The beautiful, shiny paper
she put in her Primer. The slip of paper that she found within she
carried to Aunt Cordelia. It was sticky and it was smeared. But it had
reading on it.
"But this is printing," said Aunt Cordelia; "can't you read it?"
Emmy Lou shook her head.
"Try," said Aunt Katie.
"The easy words," said Aunt Louise.

But Emmy Lou, remembering c-a-t, Pussy, shook her head.
Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She certainly isn't catching up," said
Aunt Cordelia. Then she read from the slip of paper:
"Oh, woman, woman, thou wert made The peace of Adam to invade."
The aunties laughed, but Emmy Lou put it away with the glazed paper
in her Primer. It meant quite as much to her as did the reading in that
Primer: Cat, a cat, the cat. The bat, the mat, a rat. It was the jingle to
both that appealed to Emmy Lou.
About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it
was February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the
Fourteenth. At recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines.
The echoes reached Emmy Lou.
The valentine must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing.
And to get no valentine was a dreadful--dreadful thing. And even the
timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.
Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was
she to survive the contumely and shame?
You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your
valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to prove
faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things reached
Emmy Lou.
Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so
grateful did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.
And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the
Fourteenth Day of February. The drug-store window was full of
valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see
them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a
valentine. And she would have to say, No.

She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she
went to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps.
Nor did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the
crack of the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.
Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something
square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all
over flowers and scrolls.
Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.
She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.
Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door
opened. Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her
book, for since you must not--she would never show her
valentine--never.
The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy
Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to
say it.
Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but
no one else might see it.
It rested heavy