PACKAGE NO. 107.

BY JAMES B. MARSHALL.

The express agent in San Francisco smiled very pleasantly when the package was brought to him with a directed express tag properly tied on it. But it was not so strange for him to smile, since he knew all about that package, and had foretold the exact time required for a package to reach New York. But the clerk who pasted a green label on the tag, and marked on one end in blue ink "No. 107, Paid" so and so much, why should he be amused? And why should the two express-wagon drivers who were in the office at the time declare that that package would be something like a surprise?

Then an errand-boy came into the office to express a valise, having left seven other boys standing on the nearest street corner before a hand-organ that was playing the newest airs, which those seven boys were learning to whistle. But why should that errand-boy, who was usually a very quiet boy, immediately run to the office street door, and call, and beckon, and wave his hat furiously for those seven boys to come and look at package No. 107? Then those seven boys, in spite of the attraction of the hand-organ, came on a run, and stood eagerly around the express office door. And why wouldn't those boys go away until that package was taken with other packages to the railroad station in one of the express wagons? And what, also, greatly interested five other passing boys, a Chinese laundry-man, two apple-women, and a policeman?

Well, it was the same cause, which will soon appear, that made curious and smiling the express people of Omaha, Chicago, and other places where the package was seen on its way East to New York.

About a month previous to this, Mr. Benson had written to his wife from California that owing to the slow settlement of the business that had taken him there, he was beginning to fear he and Guy would not be able to reach home even by the holidays. "But Guy says," wrote Mr. Benson, "that if we only had mother here we would get along splendidly."

A week later the unwelcome news came to Mrs. Benson in New York explaining that Mr. Benson's business would further detain him in California until the middle of March—three months to come. You may be certain that Mrs. Benson was very sorry to think of passing Christmas and New-Year's with three thousand miles separating her from her husband and boy. But she was forced to smile as she read Guy's letter—mailed with his father's—explaining how they might dine together on Christmas-day, notwithstanding the three thousand miles.

"I have found out," wrote Guy in his best handwriting, "that the difference in time between New York and San Francisco is about three hours and a quarter. So if you sit down to your dinner at a quarter past four o'clock, your time, and we sit down to our dinner at one o'clock, our time, we can in that way be dining together. We are going to have for dinner exactly what we had at home on last Christmas. But you will have the best time, for grandfather and grandmother will be with you, and Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary, and Ben, Tom, Bertha, Sadie, Uncle Seth, and all the rest of them."

A few days after this letter was sent Mr. Benson mailed another one, in which he told his wife that Guy had made a discovery on the previous day, and they were going to send her a pleasant surprise—in fact, a Christmas present. "The package will be sent by express, directed to your address in New York," wrote Mr. Benson, "and we have so timed its journey East that it will reach you some time on the day before Christmas."

This was package No. 107.

But didn't Mrs. Benson wonder and wonder what was coming to her for a surprise present? And didn't she imagine that it might be a nest of Chinese tables, or a package of fine Russian tea, or an ivory castle, or a bunch of California grapes weighing fifteen or twenty pounds, or five-and-twenty other possible things? Then Guy's New York cousins, when they heard of that expected package, didn't they all fall to guessing? And they guessed and guessed until, as we say in "Hot Butter and Blue Beans, please come to Supper," they were "cold," "very cold," and "freezing."

Cousin Ben finally decided, after changing his mind a dozen times a day, that the package would prove to contain either the skin of the grizzly bear that Guy, before leaving home, had thought he might find, or a big piece of gold that Guy had been kindly allowed to dig out of some gold mine.

"Heigho! this is the day the package is to come," said Cousin Bertha, the moment she awoke on that morning. But at noon-time Bertha, Ben, Jim, Sadie, and even little Tom, knew that as yet the package had not arrived. It had not arrived as late as four o'clock in the afternoon, when the first three just mentioned, together with some of their elders, went to Guy's mother's to supper. There Bertha, Ben, and Jim took turns vainly watching at the windows for the express wagon, until they were called to supper.

Jingle! jingle! jingle! went the door-bell during the course of the supper. And so much had that package been talked about and guessed about that all paused in their eating and drinking, and listened in expectation.

"Please, ma'am," said Katie, coming from answering the ring, "the expressman is at the door. He says he's got a most valuable package for you, and would you please come and receipt for it?"

Mrs. Benson found the expressman standing by the little table in the hallway where Katie had left him, though in the mean time he had gone back to his wagon and brought the package into the house. "Please sign there," he said, pointing to his receipt-book.

"It must be a very small package," thought Mrs. Benson, not seeing any package, but imagining it might still be in the expressman's overcoat pocket.

"I was to say, Mrs. Benson," said the man, "that you must be prepared for a very great, pleasant surprise."

"Oh! I'm prepared to be surprised," answered Mrs. Benson.

"Then please turn and look at the package standing there by the parlor door."

"Mother!"

"Oh, Guy! my dear boy!" joyfully called Mrs. Benson, as Guy, with an express tag tied around his arm, rushed into her arms, and clasped her around the neck.

"It's Guy himself," said Bertha, gleefully.

"Hurrah! it's Guy!" called Ben and Jim; and they all instantly left the supper table and hurried to greet him.

But the adventures of package No. 107 could not be quickly told. Of how it was discovered that it might be sent, how it had been directed like a bundle of goods, how it had been receipted for over and over again, how it had travelled all the way in the Pullman cars, how it was given as much care and attention as if it had been a huge nugget of gold, and very, very many more hows and whys.