s 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.
[Illustration]
"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