A PLEASANT SURPRISE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 69, 16 March 1877, Page 3

A PLEASANT SURPRISE.

There lived in Oakland, Cal., the pass few years, a modest gentleman by the name of Peter Miller. He has resided in California for the lasttwenty years, worked in the mines, and part of the time at his trade, carpentering. Years ago he commenced to send home to his widowed mother, living in Michigan, what he could afford to spare from his earnings. Being a bachelor, he could not brook the idea of having the idol of his heart toil in her declining years consequently he sent her money from time to time making no entry of it, but presumed that his worthy relative would use it as she deemed proper. After years of absence his mother kept writing for him to return, but like other old Californians he was proud and did not desire to go back until he had sufficient to " show" that he was from the Golden State. Time works changes and so it did with Peter, he found himself about a month ago without labor —" strapped"—to use the common term—and the surroundings neither pleasant nor satisfactory. He was unwell and thought of home and his friends in the Wolverine districts. He wrote to his mother that he could not conceal his pride any longer and stated his situation ; if he had money he would return, but he had to make it. Subsequently he received a cheque for 500 dollars, and in the letter was stated that the money he nad been sending home for years had been invested in real a estate, and asking him to take charge of his property which was worth fifty thousand dollars.— Ex change.