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.
Sincerely yours,