"The years of my girlhood passed on, and with their passing faded away
all memory of the young minister. Later there came to me, as I suppose
there comes to every young girl, the impulse to write, and when some
early efforts of mine were judged worthy to be published, I was
confronted for the first time with the question of a signature.
Shrinking from seeing my own name in print, by some witchery of memory
the words 'Jenny June' suddenly occurred to me, and that, as you know,
has been my name ever since."
After a little pause Mrs. Croly said: "Now that I have answered your
question I must tell you something else. Thirty years after I had
assumed my _nom-de-plume_ a gray-haired stranger called at my house
one day and asked to see me. The name he gave recalled no one I had
ever known, and in meeting there was no recognition on either side.
But he proceeded in a straightforward way to explain the object of his
visit: 'For the last thirty years,' he said, 'since my removal from
this city, I have lived in the West; naturally, I have been a constant
reader of Eastern papers, and particularly have I read every article I
have ever seen bearing the signature of "Jenny June." I have made many
efforts, but always without success, to ascertain who she was, and
whether the name was real or fictitious. Somehow I have never
forgotten the little girl I knew before I went West, and to whom I
gave a little volume of poems with something written on a page that
contained a stanza that I greatly admired about "Jenny June." I have
wondered if she had become the famous writer, and upon my return to my
native city, after so long an absence, I have sought you simply to ask
if you are that little girl.'"