The Runaway Heart
by Ruth Hale, Nathan Hale

Elizabeth and Anne, two teachers tired of hectic years in a big city high school decide to take a year’s rest and pick a southwestern rural community and it isn’t as restful as anticipated.

They move in with the Hickmans: a lonesome widow, a football star, two lazy brats, and no running water.

There’s all sorts of unanticipated problems for Elizabeth and Anne, including being courted simultaneously by a handsome rancher who has a mysterious source of money and dreams of a Tahiti honeymoon.

And there’s the teachers’ efforts to keep their star pupil single long enough to enter college involving an altar-anxious girlfriend and domineering mother.