Mr. Hutchins tells someone on a train that he is coming back from visiting his friend Orrie who is in a mental hospital for killing a man. He tells the story of how Orrie got there. In their small town, a young woman named Minnie moves in with a baby girl and no husband with her. Minnie needs to work and have someone watch her baby so Orrie, a strange local, offers to help her out and take care of the baby, Mary Beth. Orrie sings songs to Mary Beth and plays with her and Mr. Hutchins watches the two of them as they travel the town. Tourists think that Orrie has kidnapped Mary Beth, but he just has a crazy look in his eyes and walks around town with the little girl in his arms. As she gets older, Orrie makes her a stroller and takes her to Sunday school, constantly staying by her side. When she is a toddler, Mary Beth contracts some sort of disease and Mr. Hutchins, Orrie, and Minnie are all by her bedside while she dies. Mr. Hutchins sees that Minnie doesn’t have any money for the funeral so he goes around town and asks for help from the locals who all contribute to Mary Beth’s funeral. One of the men who contributes is a rich and generous man named Blake Hughes. Before the funeral, Orrie doesn’t leave Mary Beth’s side and after she is buried he keeps returning to her grave to talk to her. One day Orrie comes to Mr. Hutchins and asks who is watching over Mary Beth in Heaven and Mr. Hutchins tells him that God is, but Orrie is still worried that Mary Beth isn’t being taken care of because the flowers on her grave have wilted. After a cow comes and steps on Mary Beth’s grave, Orrie is more concerned, but Mr. Hutchins says that there is a guardian angel looking over Mary Beth. Orries says that she needs a better guardian angel. One day in the church, Orrie stabs Blake Hughes, thinking that he will go to Heaven and become guardian angel for Mary Beth. Orrie is pulled out of the church by the people present and they try him and declare him a religious fanatic and sentence him to the mental hospital. Mr. Hutchins talks to Minnine about the incident and she says that she would’ve killed Blake Hughes to be a guardian angel if Orrie hadn’t.