CHAPTER I JANET LEARNS HER NAME

“There’s a package for you, Janet.” A smiling face was thrust within the partly open door.

“April fool,” replied Janet, not looking up from her book for a moment. Then with a twinkle in her blue eyes, she raised her hand impressively and began to recite in sonorous tones the lines that she was learning.

“Exactly like Miss Sanders! Do it that way in class, Janet! I dare you!”

“I would, but it might hurt her feelings to do it in earnest as she does. No, I want to read poetry like Miss Hilliard,—but I can’t say that I like to commit it. I want to pick out my own kind, Allie May.”

Allie May came inside the door and leaned against it. “Well, Janet,” she said, “I think that you might believe me when I tell you that there is a package for you down in the office. Honest. No April fool. Miss Hilliard said for me to tell you to come down. I don’t know why she didn’t give it to me to bring up. Perhaps she wants to see you anyhow. This is what she said: ‘Janet has a box. Please tell her to come down to the office.’”

“H’m. Lina and I had our light on after hours last night. But it was not long, and we had a grand excuse. Lina lost a page of her short story that she had to hand in this morning. Honestly, Allie May, is there a package for me? I never had a box in my life except things sent from the store.” Janet had put her book down now and was on her feet starting toward the door and her schoolmate.

“You haven’t! Poor you! I hope that it’s a grand cake with lots of good things. Maybe the box was so big that Miss Hilliard knew I couldn’t bring it up!”

Allie May made big eyes as she linked her arm in Janet’s and walked with her to the top of the stairs.

“If it is, you shall have the first and the best out of it. But it isn’t. It’s probably something brought here by mistake. Thanks, Allie May.”

Janet was half way down the long, dark staircase that led to the lower hall when she finished her remarks. Allie May saw her friend’s fluffy, golden locks fly out in the wind created by the rapid descent. Smiling, she went to her room, next to Janet’s, somewhat struck with the fact that Janet had never received a “box,” that delight of a school-girl’s heart.

The lower hall was dark on this rainy first of April. None of the doors were open, and Janet Eldon, slight, active girl of fourteen years, stood poised on the lower step for a few moments, looking out through the mullioned panes of the tall, wide door at the entrance. Eaves were dripping and she heard the beat of the drops upon the tin roof of a porch outside.

Eyes the color of brighter skies considered thoughtfully the prospect till the sound of an opening door made them turn in another direction. Quickly Janet stepped to the floor, rounding the newel by catching hold of it and swinging herself around it. At the second door, down the hall to her right, she presented herself.

It was Miss Hilliard, principal of this small school for girls to whom Janet curtsied prettily. “Allie May said that you wanted to see me. Miss Hilliard,” she said.

“Yes, Janet. There is a package here in the office that must be meant for you, yet the address is peculiar, to say the least. It is about the size of the usual box that comes for the girls,—come in to see it for yourself.”

Miss Hilliard drew back from the door, admitting Janet, who went to the table by the big desk. There a box of medium size reposed, a square package, wrapped in heavy paper and well tied with cord.

“You will notice that the return address is with initials only, from some hotel in Albany, New York,” Miss Hilliard continued.

Janet stood close to the table, looking with interest at the package, saying first, as she had said to Allie May, that there was “probably some mistake”. But she caught her breath as she looked at the address. “Why—” she began. “Why, how queer!”

“Yes, isn’t it? Rather pretty, though. Could that be your name, Janet? There is no one else here,—there has never been any one here by the name of Eldon; and you will observe that the name of the school is given, the correct address.”

“I see.”

Janet looked again in the upper left hand corner. The initials were P.V.M. But it was the address which filled her with surprise. The package was addressed to Miss Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon!

The longer she looked at it, the stranger it seemed. “Why, Miss Hilliard, I don’t understand it at all. Could it be some joke? Oh, I just imagine that there is some mistake in addresses. Shall we open it?”

“Yes, Janet. But I shall be very busy for a while and have no time for this. I will have it taken to your room and you may do the investigating. I need not tell you to preserve the treasure intact if it should be full of diamonds.”

Janet looked up at the tall, slender woman beside her and laughed at the suggestion. She was not afraid of Miss Hilliard, though many of the girls were. Had not Janet been in this school since her sixth year? The older woman’s arm now drew her close and her cheek was laid for a moment against Janet’s hair.

“Now run along, child. Get back to your lessons and I will have this sent upstairs by Oliver. There he is now, in the hall. Report to my own room after dinner, Janet, and I shall be able to see you in your room if necessary.”

Through the partly open door they could see the janitor passing. Summoned by Miss Hilliard, he came after the box immediately and started up the stairs with it. Janet, holding Miss Hilliard’s hand looked up into the kind eyes and asked soberly, “Do you suppose that really is my name, Miss Hilliard?”

“It is not impossible, Janet. You have always thought that the Janet came from your grandmother’s Scotch ancestry, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Hilliard. You know I have everything about her family and pictures of my father from the time he was a baby.”

“I hope that there will be something very interesting inside that box, Janet,—but there is the bell now. I must go to the parlors in a moment. I am expecting a call from one of our patrons this afternoon.” Miss Hilliard was now the gracious head of the school in her manner, which had the dignity that usually accompanies such management.

Janet, too, made her departure with the formal curtsey which was the custom of the school. Never in the presence of Miss Hilliard did the girls forget their “manners”. If so, they were instantly reminded of them.

Mechanically Janet ascended the stairs; her thoughts elsewhere. A caress from Miss Hilliard, rare, but expressing a real affection, was always something to be remembered. Janet “adored” Miss Hilliard as she occasionally said to Allie May Loring or Lina Marcy. Then, here was this box. In her heart Janet felt that it was for her.

“That quaint old Dutch name!” she thought. “Can it be that my mother—”, but Janet grew confused. There was no use in conjecture. She must open the box. How she hoped that it was for her. The suggestion of diamonds amused her. She had not lifted it and did not know its weight. Probably it was heavy, because Oliver had been asked to carry it up. No, Miss Hilliard usually had him do that.

On entering her room, Janet saw the box on the floor. No wonder. Her table was full of books and papers. Her desk looked worse. Lina’s coat and hat were on one of the straight chairs, the dictionary reposed on the other. If Miss Hilliard were coming up after dinner the room must be made perfect. One thing, there were no odds and ends of clothing or ornaments around. They were trained to keep such things in their places. But Lina had had an errand and rushed off to class, not hanging up her wraps as usual.

Janet gave a glance at her little alarm clock which occupied a prominent place on the desk. It was very disappointing. She had exactly two minutes before the next recitation. Did she know that poem, or didn’t she? Saying over and over again the new lines, Janet again ran downstairs, the back stairs this time, to the recitation room.

CHAPTER II HER MOTHER’S BOOKS

At the door of the recitation room, Janet met her room-mate Lina Marcy, but as neither had a moment to spare, Janet did not mention her latest source of thrills. The teacher already had her roll book open and was marking it. She looked impatiently at the girls as they entered and took their regular seats, not together, for the class was seated alphabetically. Lina and Janet exchanged a glance which meant “beware”. This particular teacher was temperamental.

Lina was opening her book to refresh herself on the lines which they were to commit. What a poky day it was, to be sure, she was thinking. Even the April fool jokes were stupid.

Janet could scarcely collect her thoughts, so busy was she in thinking about the address on the box. “‘Jannetje’!—how quaint!” By the “irony of fate”, as Lina told her later, she must, of course be called on first for the verses. Called back in her thoughts to the work at hand, Janet hesitated, started correctly on the first few lines, but soon stumbled and forgot the last half altogether.

The teacher looked surprised, an unintentional tribute to Janet’s usual form. But hands were waving and some one else gave the lines wanted. Lina gave Janet a sympathetic look, which Janet did not even see. Something even bigger than making a perfect recitation was looming in Janet’s foreground. When at last the recitation was over, she ran upstairs to the box. Of course the “je” was a sort of affectionate addition, a diminutive they called it, she believed. Was it really her name? Was she a Van Meter? Who was P.V.M.? P. Van Meter, of course. Suppose she had a grandfather,—or even a grandmother that she did not know!

It took only a few moments to open the box, for she cut the heavy cord to facilitate the matter. White tissue paper met her eye, and a little note lay on top, that is, something enclosed in a small white envelope. Janet opened it and read—

My dear Miss Jannetje:

I am asked to write a few lines to explain this box. Your uncle, Mr. Pieter Van Meter, is in communication with your attorney and you may have heard before this how he has discovered you and wants to see you.

As he asked me to prepare such a box as school girls like, I have prepared the contents accordingly and I hope that you will like it. I am wrapping, also, two books that were among your mother’s things, because I feel sure that you will be interested in seeing something of hers right away that was in the old home place. In one of them I have tucked a note evidently written by your father about you to your grandfather. Of course you know that you were named for your mother, but you will be glad to read about it in your father’s handwriting.

May it not be long before we see you in this odd but beautiful old place that was your grandfather’s.

Janet devoured this note rapidly. “Now, who can Diana Holt be?” she thought. She could scarcely wait to see the books, but they were not on top. Instead, Janet uncovered a smaller box which contained a cake carefully packed. Packages in oiled paper or light pasteboard containers obviously held a variety of good things, from fried chicken to pickles and fruit. Ordinarily Janet would have exclaimed over the array, which she carefully deposited together upon her table, after first removing certain books and papers and spreading the first thing that she could think of over it. This chanced to be a clean towel.

At last she came to the books, wrapped well in paper and pasteboard. Truly Miss or Mrs. Diana Holt was a good packer.

The prettier or newer book Janet opened first. It was a handsome copy of Tennyson’s poems, bound in green and gilt. At once she turned to the leaf on which the inscription was written, “To my Jannetje, from Douglas”.

There, too, was the note, addressed to “Dear Father.” It was brief. “You received my telegram. I am sure. Jannet sends her dear love. We have named the baby for her, because I begged for the name. I will have more time to write to-morrow. Jannet wants me to write every day, but you will be quite as pleased, I think, with less frequent reports. There will be the three of us to come home next summer.”

Janet noted her father’s more or less familiar signature. She had seen more than one of his letters to her grandmother. “And I suppose that I never got there at all. How did they lose me, I wonder? Why didn’t Grandmother Eldon leave me some word about my mother?”

Such were Janet’s thoughts. But there was nobody to tell her how it had happened. In some way her mother’s people had lost all track of her. The wonder was that her uncle had found trace of her after so long. Her uncle Pieter! How interesting to have kept the old Dutch spelling. She would sign all her papers and letters now with two n’s in Jannet!

The other book was more plain, also a book of poems, a copy of Whittier’s verse; and the inscription upon the fly-leaf interested Janet even more than the other. It was to “my dear Mother, Adelaide Van Meter, from her loving daughter, Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon.”

It was true, then. Here was the evidence. What a pretty, clear hand her mother had. A little pang went through Janet’s heart that she could not have known her parents, but she resisted any sad thought, saying to herself that she ought to be thankful to know at last who her mother was. The last doubt in Janet’s heart was satisfied. Knowing one or two sad stories in the lives of a few girls at the school, she had wondered if, possibly, there had been any separation, some unhappy ending to the marriage of her father and mother. This she had never expressed, but it had haunted her a little. At the date of her birth it had been all right, then, and she knew that she was only five or six months old when her father had brought her to his mother. She would find her mother’s grave, perhaps.

There was much to be explained yet, to be sure, if it could be, but Janet was very happy as she now gave her attention to the discarded feast packing its units back into the box with some satisfaction. Janet Eldon had had feasts before, but the materials had all been purchased at some shop. After dinner she would get permission from Miss Hilliard, when she showed her the books and notes.

Now there was laughter in the hall. She heard Lina’s voice and hastened to unlock her door. Could it be possible that she had spent all Lina’s lesson period in looking at the books, reading the letters and thinking?

“’Lo, Janet,” said Allie May Loring, walking in ahead of Lina Marcy. “Get your box?”

“Yes, Allie May, a scrumptious box like anybody’s. My mother’s people have discovered my existence at last. Really, Lina. Somebody at the OLD HOME PLACE fixed up the box for me, and they sent me two books of my mother’s. Just think, girls, I was named for her and everything. I’d rather you would not speak about it to the other girls, though. It always embarrassed me a little, you know, that I did not know anything about my mother, but you see, Grandmother Eldon died before I was old enough to ask very much about it. I called her Mamma at first; then she was so very sick and for so long.” Janet paused a moment.

“Really, girls, this has been about the only home that I have known, this and your house, Lina.”

The other two girls had sat down to listen quietly. Allie May was the first to speak. “I never would have thought anything about your not knowing about your mother. You always seemed perfectly natural about everything, Janet.”

“Did I? I’m glad.”

“You are a little more—what does Miss Hilliard call it?—reserved, with all the girls, than some of us,” said Lina. “She tells us not to tell all we know, and you don’t!”

Allie May and Janet laughed at this. “Miss Hilliard’s brought me up, you know,” smiled Janet. “I can remember yet crying for ‘Gramma’ and having her comfort me. Then came your auntie to teach here, Lina,—and I was fixed!”

“I can remember how crazy I was to see you, Janet,” said Lina. “I wasn’t allowed to come here until I was twelve, Allie May; and Auntie told me all about the ‘darling child with the golden hair’ that took piano lessons of her and practiced away so hard with fat little fingers. She said she wanted to hug you every other minute, but had to teach you piano instead. Your fingers aren’t fat now, Janet.”

“When did you first see Janet?” asked Allie May, interested.

“The first time that Aunt Adeline brought her home with her. Miss Hilliard used to look after her the first two or three vacations. You weren’t with her all the time, though, were you, Janet?”

“Just part of the time. She had my old nurse that took care of me while Grandmother was sick, and we’d go to the seashore, or somewhere in the mountains. But Miss Hilliard kept an eye on me. I never can pay her back, or your Aunt Adeline either.”

“You’ll never need to. Just having you in the family is enough. But won’t it be wonderful to have some kin folks? Tell us about it, Janet.”

Janet then handed the girls the books and read them the letters, pledging them again to secrecy, for she did not want to have the fifty girls talking over her private affairs. Like Janet, her friends were more interested in the surprising facts which she had to tell than in the good things in the box, though when she showed them the cake with its white frosting and unwrapped the pieces of chicken from the oiled paper, offering them their choice, there were some exclamations of pleasure. “That is a family worth having!” said Allie May. “No, Janet, I’d rather eat a good dinner and then when I am starved as usual after studying come to your feast.”

“Whom are you going to invite, Janet?”

“I want to take something to your aunt, Lina, and to Miss Hilliard, and do you think it would be very piggy just to have this by ourselves? Some way, I don’t want anybody much right now, and I just had a party of our crowd last Saturday, you know.”

“Suits me,” laughed Allie May.

“It wouldn’t be ‘piggy’ at all, Janet,” asserted Lina. “I know how you must feel,—sort of dazed, aren’t you?”

Janet nodded assent. “I’ll let you know when, after I talk to Miss Hilliard. I am to see her after dinner.”

But when Janet asked Miss Hilliard she was asked in turn if she had ever attended a late feast in the school. To this question Janet gave an honest reply. “Why, yes, Miss Hilliard.”

“Then you were either invited without my knowledge by one of the older girls or attended a feast held without permission, though I should scarcely think that you knew it, Janet, and I shall not ask you now. No, to-morrow is Saturday, fortunately. It is cool and your box came right through. You may put the chicken in the refrigerator if you like. Have your party at any time on Saturday you like before evening.”

There was so much of greater importance waiting to be discussed that Janet did not feel much disappointment. She did have one thought, though, expressed to Lina later. “Won’t it be fine to go to a home where you do about as you please, the way it is at your house?”

But Lina reminded Janet that even there, late refreshments were not encouraged.

Miss Hilliard did not disappoint Janet in any other way. She was pleased that the note of explanation was so cordial. “I should say that a woman of some intelligence wrote that kind note,” she said. “It must be a satisfaction to you, too, Janet, that you are named for your mother. Perhaps there will be some pictures of her in the Van Meter home. I know how you have wished to see some.”

“Oh, there will be!” Janet exclaimed. “I had not thought of that!”