Elizabeth Kilcourse

Miriam's World Elizabeth Kilcourse

The Reverend Haygood Saxon leads his congregation with powerful sermons. He also takes care of all the widows and maiden ladies, when the devil gets into them, with his remarkable secret skill. His children, that were born quite regularly, consisted of five boys and three girls, now ranging in age from teenagers to the mid-twenties. Most of the siblings left their small Southern Village to find exciting and lucrative careers, but one Saxon, Miriam, refuses to go anywhere. At seventeen she became the day telephone operator for the Village and is pleased with her station in life. After World War I, Sam Wallace, an orphan of Scotch parents, arrives to oversee the installation and maintaining the telephone lines in the entire region. Miriam resents Sam for exercising his position as office manager and refuses to fully acknowledge him. Sam is smitten with Miriam and tries to woo her. His road is bumpy. The Saxons, that found careers away from the Village, could not understand why Miriam refuses to leave home. They ply her with invitations to visit them. Her life in the Village becomes quite unusual while she decides which road, if any, to take. Life during the first third of the twentieth century in a small Southern Village is faithful to the times. Proper language and correct social conduct for young people, although not necessarily followed, along with the entertainment and the everyday chores asks if people today have basically changed or just the years that have changed?