Abby's One and Only

About Abby's One and Only

Elsinore, Wyoming is ranching country, where people are scarce, cattle plentiful. World War II affects everyone, including a rancher's son dead in a B-17 over Germany. Pilot Fritz Harsch's younger brother Evan yearns to enlist and finish his brother's work, but he can't.

A badly thrown baseball took out his eye in a high school game years ago. Draft boards don't want even capable men wearing an eyepatch. Abby Nicholls waits tables in Elsinore's One & Only Café.

An orphan, she is quiet, observant, and loves rancher Evan Harsch. On a whim, she makes a wish on a gravy boat she is polishing that looks like a magic lantern. It's a simple wish: Abby wants something good to happen to her and Elsinore.

The town is far from war, but war came anyway, and people are hurting.