Do you know what a Missionary Box is? Well, I will tell you. It is a box
or barrel sent from a missionary society in a city or town to a
missionary family or school on the frontier. The box contains clothing,
bedding, and sometimes toys, dolls and picture books if there are
children at the frontier end of the journey.

In a certain city one Christmas season the children of the Sunday School
brought gifts to fill a box. Some brought clothes they had outgrown.
Some who had two coats decided they could give one. Others brought
books. One little girl brought a beautiful doll. She had other dolls,
and this one she dearly loved, but she said, "I want some other little
girl to be happy, and I think I can get along without this doll, though
I shall miss her dreadfully."

One day the committee came together to sort the gifts and pack the box.
One woman picked up a boy's coat. She felt something, hard in one of the
pockets. Another woman said, "Better look all through those pockets;
you can never tell what a boy will use his pockets for." So she went all
through the pockets. In one of them she found a soiled handkerchief tied
in a knot. With much pulling, for it was a hard knot, she loosed the
little package, and there she found five marbles. With the marbles was a
note scrawled in a boy's hand--

"DEAR BOY WHO GETS THIS COAT,

I have eight marbles. First I put in four for you. Then I put in
another one. I hope you will like the coat, and the marbles.