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. Abby laughs off her impulsive gesture, but things start to happen...