When I was a young girl, I heard a story about a woman and the actions she took, simple as they were, to hold her home together.  For some reason that story has remained with me.   The message of the story is still relevant today, I think, for it speaks to the importance of the image we present to those in positions of authority over us, and the powerful influence that image holds, good or bad.   There’s still value to be found in putting our best foot, or face, forward.  Of portraying ourselves in the best light possible, no matter our circumstances.   Time was, a man’s good name was the only collateral he needed at the bank. It was his bond, and his best asset was his wife.   Times have changed, but the ideal remains, regardless of gender. 
  
In the story, the man’s good name had been squandered for he had fallen upon hard times.   Being without work or income, his savings had quickly disappeared, and the family had gone through a long, difficult winter.  The wolf was practically at the door, so to speak, in the person of the banker coming any day to evict the man and his family from their home.  The mortgage was long overdue.  I will call that man’s wife, Anna, and fortunate he was to have her.

 
Anna sat beneath the big sycamore tree by the road, in front of the small house she and her husband had purchased ten years before. They had signed a twenty year mortgage, hoping to pay it off sooner.  They had not missed a payment either, not in all that time, until now.  Her husband had fallen ill, and after two weeks of being unable to work, his boss terminated his employment at the pipe foundry where he had worked since they had been married.  He could not find employment for the whole country was in a depression. Many were without jobs.  
 
They had no family to help them, nowhere to go.  Anna held her face in her hands, and her thin shoulders shook with the sobs wracking her body.   She had reached her wit’s end. Her dress was wrinkled and soiled, her hair unkempt, disheveled.  Her three small children were hungry and needed shoes and clothing. The house needed cleaning, and the pantry was practically bare.  The children stood on the porch watching their mother, the youngest one crying, the other two looking forlorn, destitute.   Their father, despondent, filled with despair and without hope, had left the house at dawn without a word about where he was going and when he would return.  Laying on Anna's lap, the last letter from the bank, an eviction notice.  They had three days to make payment.   She was terrified.  
 
To be continued tomorrow. . . .