. In a minute, one pail was this side of the fence, and
one was rolling along the path the other side, and I was in the wagon,
reading the big black letters!

"Oh, Polly, _'t is_!" I hollered. "True's you live and breathe, a box
from Boston! Oh, hurry up!"

Polly stopped short in "The Wearing of the Green," that she had
commenced to sing at the top of her voice, and whirled about, her mouth
and eyes as round as three pepper-box covers.

"Heh!" said she.

"An express-box for Polly, Jed?" called Ma, sticking her head from the
kitchen-window. "You don't say so! Fetch it right in here." And Ma
whisked the clothes-basket from before the door.

Jed threw the lines on Jerry's back, and shouldered me and the box, and
dumped us both on the kitchen-floor.

"There you be, marm!" he said. "Want I should open it? Them nails appear
to be driv' in pretty tight." For Jed was on tenter-hooks to know what
was in it.

"No, I guess not," said Ma. "I'm afraid Jerry wont stand. Polly and I
can open it."

"Oh, bless your soul and body, marm, he'll stand!" said Jed. "Best hoss
I ever see fer that."

But Ma wouldn't hear to his losing the time; so Jed had to make himself
scarce, looking mournfuller than when his grandmother died last spring.

"Come, here's the hatchet, Polly! Be a little spry!" Ma said. For Polly
stood with her arms akimbo, and didn't budge an inch.

"Shure, an' who sint it?" she asked. And that was the only word she had
spoken.

"Why, I don't know," said Ma. "But I can imagine. Can't you?"

Polly marched to her tub, her head high in the air.

"I wont tech the ould thing!" said she.

"Then I will for you," said Ma, and had it open in a jiffey.

Underneath the cover was a piece of paper, with this written on it:

Will Polly please accept these few articles in token that she
forgives me for having justly offended her by offering _pay_ for
a service which _can never be paid for_?

MRS. E. G. EDSON.

When she heard that, Polly wasn't quite so riled. She said Jessie's Ma
was a _rale_ lady, anyway, and she might as well see what she had sent.
So, wiping her hands on her apron, she planted herself in the door-way,
while Ma went to work to empty the box.

First, there were six calico dress-patterns,--one purple, sprinkled with
little black rings, and another pink, with a criggly vine running
through it, and a black-striped white one, and the rest mixed colors.

Then beneath were three more