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,