 The Mutual Broadcasting System in cooperation with Family Theater Incorporated presents Christmas in July starring Shirley Temple and John Agar. James Craig is your host. More things are wrought by prayer. This world reams off. Ever watch the assembly line in an automobile factory and see a car being put together? You might call it the miracle of human ingenuity. Numbers of men stand along the line each with a part to add to the growing perfection of the product. It's teamwork that turns out the perfect product. Yes, and it's teamwork that makes for success and happiness in a home. All members of the family working together with one another and with God. That's the teamwork of family prayer. And when there's daily remembrance of God in a home, when there's daily family prayer, God is a member of the family. They understand one another. They love each other. And they can do wonderful things together. You'll never know how much help and unity, strength and happiness God can bring into your home until God is a member of your family. Until your family makes family prayer a daily practice. James Craig will speak again following tonight's Family Theater story, Christmas in July, starring Shirley Temple and John Agar. At last the day had arrived. I could hardly believe it as I sat motionless in the large audience that overflowed Johnson Memorial Hall. There before me on the stage, the graduation exercises were actually beginning. I saw Glenn in the first row of graduates. He sat up straight, tense, alert, his arms folded. I know he felt very proud. He watched Dr. Rhodes walk across the stage towards the rostrum. The doctor adjusted his glasses and began to speak. I heard the words echoing around me, but somehow they seemed distant and far away. To you men as the last group of accelerated students to be graduated from Ranora University, I say this. Into a world of uncertainty, doubt and fear, go with courage. Yours has been the privilege and opportunity to approach the future. Go with courage. Somehow the words made me smile in a reminiscent sort of way. I remembered the first day we had arrived at Ranora, Glenn and I. Looking back it seemed hard to believe that it was almost three years ago. We had just been married and I felt that being the wife of a college GI was going to be the most wonderful and exciting experience in the world. I remember that first afternoon at Ranora. We walked up the gravel path near the medical school hand in hand. I guess we must have looked very much in line. There it is, Sheila. Well, what do you think now? Glenn, it's going to be like... well, like we were kids again. Say, you sound like an old woman. Why, you're only... Now, don't you go saying I'm only a kid. You know I'm your wife, but... Yes, honey, I'm never going to forget it for a moment. While Hippocrates and Harvey and all the medical experts in the world will be no distraction to me with you around. Jim Dugan. Private, sir, 3-3-3-5-6-3-4-2, reporting for duty, sir. Dugan. So you're here, too, and still talking GI? Just a neckl of the past, unlike the beautiful lady, sir. My wife, Sheila, this is Jim Dugan, honey. We used to call him a mad sack. And no more sirs, Dugan. It's a pleasure, sir. A double pleasure, sir. How you do, Mr. Dugan. The name is Jim. You don't mind if I call you Sheila? I'd love it. You haven't changed a bit. Still up your old practical jokes? Why, Lieutenant, I was the most misunderstood guy in the army. Anyway, no more jokes. You see, now I'm a married man. Congratulations. Thank you. And why? And I'm trying to settle down. It's difficult. Impossible. Impossible for you, Dugan. For anyone. Well, wait till I show you the greatest piece of mass confusion that was ever brought together in one place at one time. It's our little trailer town, but are known as Confusionburg. Right this way, sir. Madam? Dugan? Yes, sir. No more, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, Jim Dugan kept all of us happy in those first days of confusion. And it was a lot of fun getting settled down in our trailer. Ours was number 134, the third on the right side of the street that the fellows had named Baby Avenue. There was a lot of fun about that. I remember the morning, oh, I guess it must have been a couple of months after our arrival. Glenn was nailing up a sign outside our house. Well, honey, that should do it. Sheila and Glenn Gregory. Wonderful. Now the mailman won't have any excuse for not bringing the mail to our front door. A great idea, except there isn't any mailman. Well, we should have one. That's a suggestion I'm going to give to Dr. Rhodes. Then I'll apply for the job. You're worried about money again, Glenn, huh? No, it's going to be all right. It's just that I'd like to have a little in reserve for the big event. I have a surprise for you, Glenn. You're full of surprises lately, honey. What is it now? Starting tomorrow, I go to work down at the bookstore for a few hours a day. Uh-uh, no, you don't. Oh, please, it's only for a few hours a day, and I don't have anything to do here at the trailer and... No, it can't be. Why, what will happen when future historians are penning the biography of Dr. Eldridge Gregory? You know they'll say that I rose to success on... No, they'll say Dr. Glenn Eldridge Gregory must have had a wonderful wife. Huh, we sound like we've started the self-appreciation society. But, uh, no go with the job, honey. Well, suppose we talk about it later. Uh, hey, look at the time. I'll be late for class. Hey, where are my books? They're right there under the sink where you left them last night, dear. I'll have to hurry. See you later, honey. Hiya, fellas. Dugan, keep away from my wife, you wolf. Well, now there's appreciation for you. Here I am, protecting the motherhood of America. And what does he say? Hello, Jim. Can I borrow a cup of sugar, Sheila? Helen forgot it at the store yesterday, so she spent the last half hour trying to explain the advantages of drinking my coffee black. Now, how do you like that for a wife? You always seem to have a problem, Jim. Don't you realize, uh, Shirley, what it means to drink your coffee without cream when you're used to it? Wait a minute. I'll get the sugar. Just a minute. I'll be right with you, honey. I gotta have some coffee if I'm going to be able to stay awake and think. Here you are, Jim. Everything else okay? Just fine, Sheila. Thanks. Uh, that is, uh, of course, well, everything except this study business. It's still kind of tough trying to get down to books again. Oh, you'll get it all right? Yeah, sure. Anyway, it's a simple formula here. Get it or get out. Well, I'll see you later, Shirley. Glenn and I are going to fix up a community shower this afternoon. So long for now, Jim. Yes, those were wonderful days. Helen and I became close friends. Did our shopping together and helped one another fixing up our little trailer homes. Glenn and Jim became buddies, and most of their enterprises. It was more than just living next door to someone. We were like one happy family. Yes, I remember that afternoon when Glenn and Jim decided to build the shower. They had picked the spot, built a little shack, arranged for the water pipes, and were all set to go to work. Of course, Helen and I thought they were geniuses. They acted as though they knew everything there was to know about plumbing. Helen and I watched and wondered. Hey, Jim, hold it a minute, will ya? What's the trouble? Where does this pipe go? Well, it's simple. Just stick it into the next one. Yeah, I know, but how do I get it through the wall? Didn't I bore the holes for those pipes to go through? Well, now let me see. Say, you're the guy who's supposed to know all about plumbing. Well, we're doing all right, aren't we? Yeah, except you bored the holes on the wrong side of the shack. Well, what do you know? We put the walls on the wrong side of the shack. Great. What an engineer you're turning out to be. Now we take the shack down and put the walls on the other side, or move the shack around, foundations and all. Or we wrap the pipes around the shack until we meet the holes. Well, there you have it, you see. We have a variety of choices. Let's make a fast decision. The girls will begin to think we don't know what we're doing. How's it going? Wonderful, wonderful. We just figured out a special arrangement so the pipes will be wrapped around the outside of the shack. Give added support and strength to the walls. Don't you think the pipes will freeze? I mean, stuck out in the cold like that. Hellen, honey. Too many suggestions only confuse our problems. I was wondering why you didn't put holes for the pipes on this side. You know, we were just debating that question before you came over. What did we decide, Glenn? Well, I don't think it's a bad idea to bore some new holes on this side. Yes. Viewing it from all sides, that would be my considered decision. As I sat in the auditorium and watched the graduation exercises that afternoon, it seemed strange then that in these early days I hadn't realized the problems we were going through. Yes, and Glenn's difficulties in getting adjusted. It was doubly difficult for him making a home and getting into the swing of study. But Glenn always seemed so able to take things in stride. And then suddenly, things began to happen so fast, I guess I really didn't have time to think. Sheila! Oh, Sheila, honey. How are you? Wonderful, Glenn. Wonderful. Hellen was with me all the time. You see, there's an advantage in having been an Army nurse. Only he didn't have problems of this kind in the Army. Well, someday I'll be Dr. Glenn Gregory. And they won't keep me running around in circles in a waiting room. Oh, yes, they will, if I have anything to say about it. If Jim were here, he'd have an answer for that. You know a wife's confidence in her husband, Sheila. Well, Dr. to be Gregory, you can go to work, taking care of the baby. But don't try any new theories. I want our baby to have a good old-fashioned upbringing. He's got to have the best than any baby ever. He should, with about a hundred mothers to take care of him. That first year at Renora was a pleasant one. Yes, there were hardships, but there was also the wonderful kindness and help that everyone was so quick to give. It kind of balanced things up. But there were times, even with everyone's help, things didn't work out right. I remember that night Jim came to see us. For days, everything had been going along so pleasantly. That evening Glenn was doing double duty, studying and taking care of the baby while I caught up with the dishes. The vermaform appendix, like the thymus in man, perhaps useful in its embryological development, atrophies. This is... He's asleep. You know, honey, someday he's going to grow up to be a great student like his dad. Just read him a medical book and he'll fall sound asleep. Anyway, you'll have a story worth telling the next generation. Probably it'll start. I went to college when I was five days old. And I was rocked into cradle made out of orange crates. I spent my first few years in a trailer. My father read me medical books from the age of one. But I sometimes found it difficult to know what he was talking about. Well, you can never tell. You may be a child prodigy. And at the age of three, suddenly start to remember all he's forgotten from these evening lectures. Here, I'll help you with the dishes, honey. Now the juniors are asleep. No, Glenn, you get to your studying. You know, sometimes I wonder how you're doing with your man job and all the things you do around here. You can never get time for all your study. Hi, folks. Mind if I come in? Hey, take it easy, Jim. Don't let it slam. He's asleep. Okay, okay. Say, kids, Helen and I have decided to take a vacation. A what? Well, you see, it's a question of making up my mind to walk out before I flunk out or... Well, that's the story. So we decided that maybe I wasn't cut out for books anyway. I got a good job coming up now, so I thought I'd grab it before it was too late. You mean you're leaving just like that? Where's Helen? She went into town. She'll be back soon. I thought I'd just come over and tell you the news while she's away. You're not going to quit on everything as easy as that, Jim. No, I'm not quitting. You see, for me, it's been a doubtful deal. I'd like to give Helen a decent home and, well, a youngster coming along a right place to live. I don't need a college degree to do that. So I... Yeah, I see what you mean. Tell you what I'll do. I think I'll holler when Helen was back from town. By the way, why don't you take him over for a while? We're having some of the gang in. Yeah, we'll drop over for a minute later, Jim. I watched Glenn on the stage of the auditorium now. He had the same strong, determined look, a look of decision that I saw the night when Jim and Helen left. I knew he'd felt bad about Jim's leaving, but it wasn't until several weeks later that I realized how much it had affected him. I didn't dream things had come to such a climax until one afternoon. Well, we'd been up the night before with little Glenn cutting his first tooth. Glenn looked sort of haggard and tired when he came in from his late afternoon class that day. Yes, finally, about an hour ago, and I've been moving around like a mouse ever since. Well, all I can say is that he's got the best of it. Stay awake howling all night and sleep all day. A great system if you can do it. You look tired, Glenn. Why don't you lie down and rest for a while? There's a philosophy exam coming up tomorrow. I gotta sweat it out for a few hours tonight. Haven't done anything on it, on the stuff yet. Oh, relax for a half hour before you start studying. You've been going at it too hard lately. I'll fix up a snack. Thanks, honey. You know, I don't mind biology, physiology and anatomy and all the other stuff, but this philosophy junk throws me. I don't see why they gotta stick that into a course. Well, maybe a good doctor has to be part philosopher. Yeah. But what do I care if Aristotle and Aquinas can't prove that spiritual beings exist? What? Oh, forget it. You're tired, Glenn. Yeah, and I'm disgusted. I'm fed up. There's no plan or order. No purpose in the way this world is run. Well, there's the last piece of that apple pie. You know, Margie came over today for a while. She was saying they're having an apartment store sale down at the- Oh, so you don't approve of what I'm saying? I don't understand it. I only wish I could do something, say something to help you, but I can't. Well, that's it. There's no purpose in this whole business. It doesn't add up to anything. Make any sense. There's no end to it. We're just a lot of helpless people tossed around by chance, and there's nothing- Glenn. Well, there's nothing we can do about it. Glenn, I don't know anything about philosophy and psychology, and I don't know all the things you do, but I know there's a- well, a good and kind and merciful providence watching over us. Well, maybe it makes you happy to feel that way. Glenn, what you've been thinking can't be right, because all it does is make you miserable. It isn't the hardship or sufferings that make you miserable. It's, well, it's the way you think. It changes you, your belief in faith in yourself, in everybody, in everything. Well, that can't be right. If everybody thought that way, it would ruin whatever's worthwhile. Why, everything would come to a dead stand still. That can't be right. You know, you should go into that philosophy course and- Don't tease me, Glenn. I really mean it. I know you do. And see, even little Glenn agrees with you. The next few days were the toughest we spent together. For the first time there was tension between us, I watched almost every word I said, because I felt that if only we could get over these few days, Glenn would come to understand. But I was wrong. And then it happened, August 12, 1947. It was a Tuesday. Glenn had gone down to see the registrar and get his marks for the mid-semester course. When he returned, he came in quietly, went over and sprawled out on the bed, looking up at the ceiling in a vacant sort of way. I went on fixing supper hoping Glenn would speak first. I made an apple pie, Glenn. That's good. It's sort of hard to get anything right on this little range. Yeah. Did you get your marks, Glenn? Yeah. How were they? Okay, I guess. Sheila, I'm going to get out of here. Both of us are going to get out of here. You didn't flunk, Glenn. No, but I got conditioned. And that's enough warning for me. I can't take it anymore, and I'm not going to have you taking it either. We can't go on this way. I'm not complaining, Glenn. That's just the trouble. You don't say it out loud, but it's there in a lot of things, you say. You can't cook on this stove. There's no place for a plate, then. I've never meant it that way, anything I said, Glenn. Well, I've had enough of it. What do you think it's been for me to see you living like a drudge in the kid? Well, it's just not worth a medical degree. Glenn, I love you. That's why I'm ready to make any sacrifice for you. For our future. It's not as though I- I got a chance of a selling job with a pharmaceutical outfit. It's not like I've wasted the time studying. It'll be a- Glenn, if you don't become a doctor, all your life you'll regret what you're deciding now. Maybe. But we can't go on this way. I can't really study, and at the same time worry about coming home and- Glenn, suppose we talk about it later. Everything's practically ready for supper. No. I've decided. To quit? Yes. Well? There's nothing I can say, Glenn. All right. Then it's all decided. No, Glenn. There's another way. What? I'll go back to New York and live with my aunt. I'll take little Glenn with me. What good will that do? I can't support- It'll give you a chance to study. It won't work. It's worth trying for one semester anyway, Glenn. Then if it doesn't work out, we can all- Sheila, there's no use in fooling ourselves. Won't you try it for my sake? Because I ask you. Well, let's talk it over later. It seems strange as I sat in the auditorium and listened to Dr. Rhodes announcing the names of the graduates. My mind seemed to go back to little incidents I'd almost forgotten until that moment. Like the way the baby reached out his hand when Glenn said goodbye to us at the train. The memory of it came back now with a feeling of dull pain. The memory of those months away from Glenn. The innumerable letters I wrote and then the quickening pace of events when I had arranged to spend the Christmas holidays with him. He had to do research, work on the campus and couldn't get away. So, so I'd go to him. Meeting him again, it seemed like it had been years since we'd seen one another. And I didn't mind just sitting quietly beside him while he worked. He was cramming for some finals, so on Christmas day after we came home from church, Glenn settled down at his books. You happy, honey? Now, don't start letting yourself get distracted. I've given the medical experts enough competition. You know, I never realized what that guy meant when he said something about you can't live with him and you can't live without him. That's why it's so easy being a woman. We only take one side of a question. You can't live without him. Someday, honey, it's gonna be... Well, believe me, all the sacrifices will be worthwhile and... You mean now you're trying to convince me? No, it was just a simple remark. Oh. Someday soon we'll all be together again and have our own home and a... Someday, in the not too distant future, everyone will be calling you Dr. Glenn Eldridge Gregory. Eldridge Gregory! I've been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I really miss seeing Glenn get his diploma. I suddenly realized he was walking across the platform. There was a smile on his lips as he walked down from the stage. I could hardly wait for the exercises to finish until I could get to him. Over here, darling. Boy, will she be surprised when she sees both of you. Well, I wouldn't miss it for the... Here, let me hold the diploma, Glenn. You'll need both arms for the attack that's coming. Don't call it a diploma, Helen. It's a sheepskin, dear. I just can't say anything. Jim Dugan. Helen, you're here, too. Why, we wouldn't miss it for... Congratulations, Sheila. Yes, you're the one who deserves the congratulations, Sheila. Why, I haven't done anything, Dr. Gregory. You've had me kicking myself for the last six months. The last six months? How? Since last Christmas. Do you remember? No, I don't remember anything in particular, except that... Except that you sat beside me half-frozen while I spent the day studying. Yes, but only because... And I was promising myself that I'd make up for the way you had to spend that Christmas day. I'd get you a mink coat, and we'd have our own Christmas day later on. Glenn, you've more than made up for everything. For everything. Honey, both of us have a lot to be thankful for. And today's going to be our Christmas day. But I haven't got the mink coat yet. Oh, I don't need a mink coat, Glenn. Your sheepskin will do me for a long, long time. This is James Craig again. You know, listening to tonight's play reminded me of the adage, love makes all things possible. Well, maybe that covers a lot of ground, but there's the center of truth in it, because love is the art of giving. And love of God is the art of giving generously and unselfishly. You know, every home needs a lot of love if there's to be happiness. And a lot of generous and unselfish giving on the part of each member of the family to every one else in the family. That's why every home needs God if there is to be true and lasting happiness. And when a family has the daily remembrance of God by the practice of daily family prayer, a new spirit of love and understanding and peace comes into a home. God is love. Love is the foundation of a home. That's why the family that is close to God by daily family prayer will never break up by quarreling and misunderstanding. Yes, the family that prays together stays together. Before saying good night, I'd like to thank Shirley Temple and John Agar for their performance this evening. Our thanks also to Mark Carney for writing tonight's play and to Max Tear for his music. This production of the family theater incorporated was directed by David Young. Others who appeared in tonight's play were Joe Graham, Bill McAndrew, and Paul McVeigh. Next week, our family theater stars will be Jean Lockhart and Edmund O'Brien in Mr. Birthday. Your hostess will be Anne Blythe. This is James Craig saying good night and God bless you. This series of the family theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who felt the need for this kind of program and by the mutual broadcasting system which has responded to this need. Be with us next week at the same time when our family theater stars will be Jean Lockhart and Edmund O'Brien with Anne Blythe as hostess. Merrill Ross speaking. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.