She was on the way to the grocery. She had a broken-nosed pitcher, and
was going for two cents' worth of molasses. Her face was bright, but
it grew sober as she passed grandfather. His white head was bowed over
his hand, and the blue old eyes were dim with tears. Mollie stopped
and laid a little hand lovingly on his white head.
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"It will be a nice dinner, grandpa;" she said, and her voice was sweet
and loving.
"We've got a little meal, and a little sour milk, and I can make a
lovely johnny-cake, and there are two cents for molasses to eat it
with, and there are two potatoes to roast, and maybe I can get an
apple to bake for sauce. Grandpa I think it will be a nice
Thanksgiving dinner."
"Poor darling!" said grandpa, wiping his eyes, "you are something to
be thankful for, if the dinner isn't. But I wasn't thinking of dinner,
Mollie. I know it will be good if you get it. Grandfather was thinking
of his little boy Dick. It was on a Thanksgiving day that he went
away, seventeen years ago to-day. It makes old grandfather think of
him whenever the day comes round; though there isn't often a day that
I don't think of him, for the matter of that."
"But he's a going to come back on Thanksgiving day, you know; and what
if this should be the very day. Grandfather, I'm going around by the
depot after my molasses, then if I meet him, I can show him the way
home."
But grandfather only shook his head. "It's a pretty thought, child,
and I'm glad you've got it to help you through the days; but your
Uncle Dick will never come home again. I feel it all through me that I
will never see him on earth."
"And I feel it all through me that you _will_. Why I _know_ he'll
come. This morning when I prayed for him to come to-day for sure, I
most heard the angel saying, 'Yes, Mollie, he shall.'"
Grandfather smiled and sighed. "You've almost heard him a many times
before," he said; "but keep on listening, dear, it keeps your heart
warm; and we'll eat our Thanksgiving dinner, and thank the Lord for
it, and be as happy as we can, for there's many a body has no dinner
to eat. I'm sure I don't know where ours is to come from to-morrow."
Mollie shook her brown head. "Now, grandpa, you are not to coax me to
keep these two cents and go without our molasses. I've set my heart
on a Thanksgiving dinner. I told Jesus I loved him very much for
sending these pennies; and we don't want our to-morrow's dinner till
to-morrow comes. I'm going now for the molasses, and I shall go around
by the depot;" and she kissed her grandfather on his white hair, on
his nose, on both sunken eyes, and kissing her hand to him as she ran
across the street, she was soon out of sight.
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"I wonder which street I would better go?" she said, stopping at the
corner, and looking each way with a wise air. "If one only knew which
street Uncle Dick _might_ take in coming from the depot, one would
know how to decide. I don't see why grandpa should think I am foolish
in talking so; of course if Uncle Dick is alive, he will come home
some day, and it _might_ be to-day. What if I have said so a good many
times, it is true every day, and will be till he comes. I most know he
is alive, for people always hear, some way or other, when their
friends die. I'm going down Allen Street; that's the shortest road
from the depot;" and she turned the corner so suddenly that she ran
right against this tall man who had a large valise strapped over his
shoulder, and a satchel by the hand.
"Softly, softly, my lassie," he said, as Mollie stopped out of breath.
"You nearly tipped me over, to say nothing of yourself. Perhaps while
you are finding your breath, you can tell me where to find Marham
Street."
"Yes, sir, I can; I just came from there. I live on that street. It
is a good long way from here, and you turn up and down about every
lane you come to. If you will wait till I go to the store for my
molasses, I can show you the way. The store is just down that block,
and across the road."
"All right; go ahead. I'll follow. So you are going after molasses,
for mother to make a Thanksgiving cake, I dare say."
"No, sir," said Mollie, and her voice took a sober tone, and she shook
her brown head with a sigh. "I haven't got any mother; she died when I
was a little bit of a girl. I live with grandpa, and we never have any
cake; we are too poor; but we are going to have a Thanksgiving dinner
for all that. I will have that little, when it only comes once a
year. We have two lovely big potatoes roasting at the fire, and I know
how to make perfectly splendid johnny-cake, and we are to have this
molasses to eat with it, because it is Thanksgiving. I did mean to
have a dessert, like grand folks. I was going to have two apples and
make some lovely apple-sauce, but I had to give that up. Perhaps by
next Thanksgiving, Uncle Dick will come home, if he doesn't come
to-day, and then maybe we can have dessert too."
"Are you expecting Uncle Dick to-day?"
"Oh, yes; we expect him every day, but mostly on Thanksgivings, for it
was then he went away."
"Where did he go to?"
"Out to Australia, sir; ever so many years ago; seventeen years ago
to-day. Grandfather thinks he is lost, but I don't."
Mollie was so busy picking her way across the muddy street that she
didn't see the start the man beside her gave, nor the red blood that
rolled over his dark face as he said: "What is your grandfather's
name?"
"Elias Miller, sir; and he is the best man on the street; oh I guess
he's the best in the city. I do wish Uncle Dick would come home and
take care of him. If he knew how much he was needed he couldn't help
it."
"He'll come," said the tall man, striding on very fast; "which is the
way? Oh, you want the molasses;" and while they waited in the store,
he picked out a dozen rosy apples and had them put up; Mollie watching
with eager eyes. What if he should be going to give her one of them to
pay her for showing the way. If he did, grandpa should have his
dessert.
The end of this story is one that is very hard to write.
How can I tell you in a few lines about the walk home, and about how
the tall gentleman carried the molasses, and said he would step in and
see grandpa a minute, and how grandpa's eyes, dim and old as they
were, yet knew in a minute that his own boy Dick stood before him, and
how they talked and laughed, and cried, and had a wonderful dinner;
every one of the twelve rosy apples bubbled into sauce; nor how they
moved the next day out of that street entirely into the nicest of
little houses, and how roasted potatoes and apple-sauce came to be
every day matters to Mollie, and how she made the dearest little
housekeeper in the world. You see it can't be done; it sounds like a
fairy story, but Mollie knows that it all happened.
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