_The Valentines of the Happy Shop_
OF course after the first visit to the little lame girl’s home, Jimsi
made ever and ever so many others. They not only made paper dolls and
paper dolls’ furniture and paper dolls’ dresses and furnished paper
dolls’ houses and had paper doll motion pictures but they did other
things with their Magic Books, too.
Once, they tried kindergarten weaving with strips that they cut out
of colored papers. Another time, they twisted long strips of the wall
paper to make old-fashioned “lamp-lighters” for Joyce’s mother to use
in lighting the fire in the fireplace. It was when they were doing this
one day that, suddenly, Jimsi gave a big bounce out of her chair. She
jumped up and down and _up_ and down in the funniest excited manner,
and she kept squealing delightedly, “Oh, I’ve got an idea! I’ve got an
_i-dea_!”
“What!” exclaimed Joyce. “WHAT IS IT?”
“Um-m! Um-m!” came from the happy Jimsi. “Oh, you guess!”
“I can’t guess!”
“Oh—no, you can’t guess! You wouldn’t think of it! Oh, it’s
lovely—splendid—scrum-ti-fer-ous!”
“Well, what is it?” The little lame girl was almost impatient but she
was as glad as Jimsi to prolong the suspense. She knew that Jimsi was
making the most of her discovery.
“It couldn’t be better if the crow had written about it,” she asserted,
stopping to sit down beside the little lame girl’s table. “I’ll tell
you what it is: It’s VALENTINES! It’s _VALENTINES_! All the beautiful
fancy papers are just the thing to make valentines! Think how beautiful
valentines will be when they’re made out of the flowered papers! Let’s
try it! We can save the valentines till we need them—put them away
in a box or, I’ll tell you what!—Why couldn’t we send them up to The
Children’s Home for a valentine party? Once I went with Daddy to an
entertainment at The Children’s Home. I felt as if I’d love to do
something for the children there. It’s so—so very unhomelike!”
[Illustration: THE VALENTINES AND CARDS THAT WERE MADE OUT OF WALL
PAPER]
“It would be splendid to do that,” agreed Joyce. “Let’s begin right
away. You take your Magic Book and I’ll take mine. You can spread
newspapers on the floor so we won’t make a clutter and let’s see who
can make the prettiest. We’ll have a valentine exhibition afterwards
and invite Miss Phoebe and the crow.”
“All right!”
The leaves of the magic wall paper sample books turned and turned.
There were squeals of delight from Joyce and chuckles from Jimsi. “Oh,
I’ve found something that will be lovely!” one would cry. “Oh, look at
this!” the other exclaimed. And the little lame girl’s mother who was
called to admire couldn’t tell which was the prettiest paper—you see
_both_ were lovely!
First the little lame girl found some paper that had sprays of yellow
roses on it. She cut out a big heart that was figured all over with
them. It really was a beautiful, _beautiful_ valentine.
Jimsi suggested that if one were to color the edge all around with
green crayon, _that_ would give the valentine a good finish. One could
use the crayon to print on the valentine too.
Then, Jimsi improved on Joyce. She folded her paper double and cut
her heart out double, making the top of her valentine heart touch the
crease of the paper. Her heart opened with two sides. Inside, she wrote
a verse. At the top she tied ribbon bows, using some very narrow baby
ribbon that she had in the paper doll box.
Joyce made valentines like it only _she_ put pictures as well as verses
inside the double heart. Some of the verses she made up. Others, she
copied from old valentines that were in her scrapbook.
After they had tried all manner of heart valentines, made of plain
papers, flowered papers, papers with designs, papers with figures,
striped papers, cross-barred papers, they decided to try something
different. Jimsi cut out a diamond-shaped figure from her paper. It was
really lovely. It was a basket of daisies. The diamond was bordered
with blue and Jimsi cut diamond-shaped pieces of white paper and put
them at the back of the picture with a verse—the old, old verse that
everybody changes. It begins:
“The rose is red, the violet blue,
Sugar is sweet and so are you.”
Jimsi changed it to:
“The basket’s blue—the daisies white,
I love you, dear, with all my might.”
It wasn’t a _very_ wonderful verse but it was a real valentine verse
and it fitted the picture of the valentine perfectly.
After Jimsi made her diamond-shaped valentine, Joyce tried to make
one. She found a cross-pattern of little rosebuds in her Magic Book.
She cut the valentine out like a diamond-shaped book and put leaves in
it. The leaves were tied in with ribbon. From the centre of the front
of her valentine, she cut out a wee diamond in the paper and it made a
most fascinating opening into which one could peep and see a picture
that was pasted _inside_. Of course, she used the crayons to finish the
edge in color. Jimsi and she discovered that the crayoning of all rims
gave finish to the cards.
And so the play went on and on. They made valentines that opened square
like books. They cut bunches of flowers from the wall papers that had
large floral patterns and then, too, they cut out bits of wall paper
shaped like baskets. These they filled with wall paper flowers and
tied at the top of the basket sometimes bits of narrow baby ribbon
that they had treasured for doll-play. Oh, they made a fine lot of
valentines—almost fifty! It didn’t take long to make a valentine, once
one had chosen a paper to use for it.
“Oh, we can make Easter cards too,” suggested Joyce, when the valentine
pile was grown quite large. She started out to see what _she_ could
do. Oh, yes! One could easily cut out pretty colored Easter eggs and
paste them on heavy white paper to make clusters of dyed eggs. One
could cut Easter eggs that had flowers on them as one had made hearts
with flowers in pattern. One could cut colored bunnies out of the paper
too. To do this, Joyce used the brown and yellow and the white wall
papers in her Magic Book. It was fun!
“We could make birthday cards too,” said Jimsi. “Only I won’t try it
because they’d be the same as the Easter cards that just have flower
patterns and open like a book.”
“We could make Hallowe’en favor cards,” Joyce cried, suddenly. And
then, they began to cut out witches and cats and jack-o’lanterns. Why,
one never knew what would come next! The two little girls worked away.
“Just for fun, let’s see what we can do,” they agreed. So they cut
hatchets for Washington’s Birthday greetings; they cut New Year’s cards
and flowered Christmas cards. They cut holly leaves from green wall
paper and made red berries for wreathes from the red wall paper; they
cut Thanksgiving favors too!
It really isn’t possible to tell all that the two _very_ busy little
girls did do that morning. At noon when the clock struck twelve, the
jolliest thing happened. The door-bell rang and when Joyce’s mother
went to answer it, there on the door-step was a big market basket with
a cover on it! When Joyce saw it she declared, “Well, I know _that’s_
from Miss Phoebe’s crow!” Anybody would have known it for on top of the
basket was a wee letter. The letter was addressed to Jimsi and Joyce.
It read:
“DEAR FRIENDS OF THE MAGIC BOOK AND THE HAPPY SHOP:
Picnics don’t come in winter usually but I am sending
you an in-door picnic to-day. If you open the big
basket you’ll find that there are some nice picnic-y
things inside. This is so that Jimsi can stay with
Joyce a little longer, and also so Joyce can have Jimsi
a little longer.
Good-bye,
_Crow._
P. S.
In the little bottle is Jimsi’s bad medicine. She
doesn’t like to take it but Joyce will please see her
swallow it after the picnic is over. Please ask Jimsi
to bring the picnic basket home to The Happy Shop with
her when it is nap-time.
_C. C._”
The two little girls cleared the table of the valentines and cards.
Jimsi ran about picking up stray bits of paper that had flown to remote
places beyond the newspapers. Joyce arranged the things on the table.
It was moved close to her chair.
My, my! Such tempting sandwiches! And such dainty paper table-cloth and
napkins, and paper plates! “There’s only one thing lacking,” declared
Joyce, as she laid an extra plate at one end of the table for her
mother. “Miss Phoebe ought to be here too!”
“Yes, she ought,” assented Jimsi. “Aunt Phoebe _and_ the Good Crow!”