red as well as they could be before the arrival of Captain Johnson
and the lumber.

It was not until the windows and gutters were repaired that Mrs. Elmer
would allow any of the furniture, not absolutely needed, to be
unpacked, for fear it might be injured by the dampness. Among the
packages that thus remained boxed up, or wrapped in burlaps, was one
which none of them could remember having seen before. It was large and
square, and different in shape from anything that had stood in their
house in Norton. What could it be? Mark and Ruth asked each other this
question a dozen times a day, and, but for their mother's refusal to
allow them to do so, would have long since solved the riddle by opening
the package.

On Friday night the house was pronounced to be practically water-tight,
and at breakfast-time the following morning Mrs. Elmer said they would
unpack and arrange the furniture that day.

"And the mystery?" cried Mark. "May we open that first?" "Certainly,"
replied his mother; "you may, if you wish, open that the moment you
have finished breakfast."

"That's this very minute, ain't it, Ruth? Come along. We'll soon find
out what's inside those burlaps," exclaimed the boy, pushing back his
chair, and rising from the table as he spoke.

He brought a hammer with which to knock off the rough frame of boards
that almost formed a box around the package, and Ruth ran for the
shears to cut the stitches of the burlaps.

The frame quickly fell to pieces under Mark's vigorous blows, and then
his penknife assisted Ruth's shears. Beneath the burlaps was a thick
layer of straw; then came heavy wrapping-paper, and, under this, layers
and wads of news-paper, until the children began to think the whole
package was nothing but wrappings.

At last the papers were all pulled away, and there stood revealed, in
all its beauty of structure and finish, a little gem of a cabinet
organ. To one of its handles was tied a card, on which was printed in
big letters:

"A Christmas Present, with wishes for a very merry Christmas, from
Uncle 'Christmas' to his grandniece Ruth Elmer."

"Oh! oh! oh! ain't it lovely?" cried Ruth. "Dear old 'Uncle Christmas!'
And I thought he had forgotten me, and only remembered Mark, too."

The organ was placed in the parlor, and from that day forth was a
source of great pleasure, not only to Ruth and the Elmer family, but to
their neighbors across the river, who frequently came over in the
evening to hear