e outside paper, and folded back the wrapper.
A wooden box was exposed to view, a solid, oblong, wooden box, and on
the top, in bold, red letters Mary, her father and her mother read:

DYNAMITE! HANDLE WITH CARE!

"Oh! Oh!" murmured Mrs. Nestor.

"Dynamite! Handle with care!" repeated Mr. Nestor, in a sort of dazed
voice. "Quick! Get a pail of water! Dump it in the bathtub! Soak it
good, and then telephone for the police. Dynamite! What does this mean?"

He rushed toward the kitchen, evidently with the intention of getting a
pail of water, but Mary clasped him by the arm.

"Father!" she exclaimed. "Don't get so excited!"

"Excited!" he cried. "Who's excited? Dynamite! We'll all be blown up!
This is some plot! I don't believe Tom sent this at all! Look out! Call
the police! Excited! Who's getting excited?"

"You are, Daddy dear!" said Mary calmly. "This is some mistake. Tom did
send this--I know his writing. And wasn't it Eradicate who brought this
package, Mother?"

"Yes, my dear. But your father is right. Let him put it in water, then
it will be safe. Oh, we'll all be blown up. Get the water!"

"No!" cried Mary. "There is some mistake. Tom wouldn't send me
dynamite. There must be a present for me in there. Tom must have put
it in the wrong box by mistake. I'm going to open it."

Mary's calmness had its effect on her parents. Mr. Nestor cooled down,
as did his wife, and a closer examination of the outer box did not seem
to show that it was an infernal machine of any kind.

"It's all a mistake, Daddy," Mary said. "I'll show you. Get me a screw
driver."

After some delay one was found, and Mr. Nestor himself opened the box.
When the tissue paper wrappings of the mahogany gift were revealed he
gave a sigh of relief, and when Mary undid the wrappings, and saw what
Tom had sent her, she cried:

"Oh, how perfectly dear! Just what I wanted! I wonder how he knew? Oh,
I just love it!" and she hugged the beautiful box in her arms.

"Humph!" exclaimed Mr. Nestor, a slowly gathering light of anger
showing in his eyes. "It is a nice present, but that is a very poor
sort of joke to play, in my estimation."

"Joke! What joke?" asked Mary.

"Putting a present in a box labeled Dynamite, and giving us such a
scare," went on her father.

"Oh, Father, I'm sure he didn't mean to do it!" Mary said, earnestly.

"Well, maybe he didn't! He may have thought it a joke, and he may not
have! But, at any rate, it was a pie