"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." "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 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 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----"