“‘Can’t have any Christmas at all. Not a speck of anything. No money to buy anything with!’
“A group of them were trudging through the snow from school. When they saw me one said: ‘What’s that?’
“Wasn’t I glad I was molasses. Most anything else would have been of no use at such a time. I could hardly keep still when I saw one after another poke a finger into the brown mass and taste.
“‘Molasses!’ they cried in one breath.
“With a whoop of delight they ran into a nearby home, and came back with a pail and cups. The snow had a glassy crust and I hadn’t sunken in at all. So all they had to do was to scoop, and there I was. They scooped and scraped till they had a good pail full.
“I saw a few ears of popcorn that had lodged down in a little hollow, so I let a small stream run after them. The children spied them, and such a shout went up as you never heard! Luckily the snow was fresh fallen and clean, so they really had made quite a find.
“We were hurried into the house, and when the mother and father came home from their work, looking sad enough because they could not give the children any Christmas, they were greeted with the cries of ‘Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!’
“It would have done your hearts good to have seen that candy pull, and the popcorn balls were the finest ever made. They had a perfectly good Christmas that didn’t cost a cent.
“So I think molasses is quite important in this world even if it is cheap.”