"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.
"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.