My friend Alice (of whom I shall have more to say through this part of my story) was in the living room with me when the front doorbell rang. Thinking, "Who can that be coming to the front?" I opened the door and was almost speechless when I beheld one of the most beautiful young ladies wearing the most gorgeous full mink coat and holding the hand of an elfin-like child. She told me her name and asked to be put at some cooking detail.

After standing somewhat dazed for a moment, I hung her coat in the entry closet and took her to the kitchen. Since I had a freezer full of fruit pies, I asked her to bake four chocolate pies.

After Alice left, I went in and found the little girl kind of fretful. So I said to the mother, "Come let me take you to a room and you and your little girl can take a nap."

In about an hour, Free came in and asked, "Whose Cadilac is that in the drive?" As I may have told you before, I don't know one car from the other. I said, "What color is it?" He answered, "Brown." I said, "Oh that belongs to the girl that you had the employment office send me."

By then we had gotten to the kitchen and, after a look around the room, Free asked, "Where is she?" I expect I hesitated a moment before I answered, "She is taking a nap."

We had been married long enough that he was used to some of my starts, but I believe this statement caused his mouth to drop open before he said rather harshly, " Who is she?" How I wish you could have seen his expression when I told him her name (she had the name of a giant land owner around Caruthersville). With an exasperated voice he said, "Freddie, she could buy and sell you a dozen times. What in the world made you hire her?" I answered meekly that she had a little girl, and I didn't know that she had money, and I don't want you to say an unkind word to her. You can't imagine how much teasing I got about this episode, even unto this day.

Within two days, my cook got a call from her husband. She was terrified and told me her story. She said her husband was an alcoholic. When he was sober, he was the best of husbands and fathers. But when he was intoxicated, he was brutal. She left him because she felt she had to get her daughter away from such madness.

He had told her that if she didn't come into town and go home with him, he would come out and drag her and the child away. I had heard about a Christian counseling program that was being heralded as saving many marriages and helping alcoholics on a recovery road. I suggested to her to tell her husband that if he would go to Harding College and take this course with her, she would go back to him. She begged me to talk to him...