Sunshine Factory

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.

"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.

"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.