The man in the dark blue suit preached a "simple plan for salvation: love and understanding and forgiveness." Introduced as "that famous former financier of the world," famous former Fertilizer King Billie Sol Estes, 38, told a Negro congregation in Indianapolis: "If man had followed Christ's simple plan, there would be no trouble today." Later in Toledo he called Solomon a "great farmer" for having stored up tons of grain. Both appearances were to raise money to send Church of Christ missionaries to Nigeria, both were sponsored by Old Estes Friend the Rev. Floyd Rose of Toledo, who asked in his introduction: "Is Billie Sol Estes guilty? They said Christ, too, was guilty."

It was enough to unstring one's Stradivarius. When Violinist Jascha Heifetz, 61, returned to Beverly Hills from a business trip, he discovered that his wife Frances, 52, who had moved out of the house eight weeks earlier, was back home again. But did she want a reconciliation? Not at all; she barricaded herself in her old bedroom with a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob. Involved, somehow, was Mrs. Heifetz' suit for $3,750 monthly separate maintenance and child support, and Heifetz' counter-offer of $1,213. Heifetz fiddled while Mrs. Heifetz burned; then, after three days of residence, she departed, without so much as a "Happy New Year." Said the violinist: "It was a deliberate attempt to annoy me."

Looking like a chubby chipmunk in blue snow pants, the Prince of Wales manfully herringboned his way through his first ski lessons at the start of a ten-day snow holiday in Schuls, Switzerland. Prince Charles, 14, took his first lesson in private on a secluded slope, demonstrated enough prowess for lesson No. 2 to be a more public affair. Beamed Instructor Gisep Heinrich: "His Royal Highness has been doing very well today."

"There's a woman in the wings!" crowed an invitation from the directors of San Francisco's militantly male, amateurly theatrical Bohemian Club. Eyebrows rocketed, but there was a fine turnout to welcome the first woman ever to be invited inside the Bohemian's private dining room: Actress Helen Hayes. The first lady of the footlights had a grand time, was treated to a sort of geriatric Hasty Pudding Show by the club's stage-struck captains of industry. "It went off beautifully," observed one member cautiously, "but it's not the sort of thing we expect to do again soon."

All that was missing was a string ensemble whimpering Hearts and Flowers when onetime Trumpeter James Caesar Petrillo, 70, put down the baton as $26,000-a-year leader of the "100% organized" Chicago Local 10 of the American Federation of Musicians, a podium he had occupied for 40 stormy years. Near the end of his 45-minute farewell, the old union dragon who lost his job by a narrow 95 votes in a recent election glanced up at a portrait of himself on the wall, sniffed tentatively and dissolved into tears on the ever-ready shoulder of Toastmaster George Jessel. Jessel, whose tear threshold is lower still, joined sympathetically in the sobs: "I can stand to see a woman cry--that can be fixed by a new fur coat. But a man . . ."

On a blackboard was chalked: "Vive Miss France!" But as the French press put it, there were "perturbations" at the Bel-Air Lycee for Girls in Angouleme, near Limoges, and the perturbation was all because Math Teacher Muguette Fabris, 22, had gone to Bordeaux to practice a little solid (89-50-90*) geometry. The judges took one look at Muguette in a swimsuit and--zut! She was Miss France. Back at the Lycee, the principal had no head for figures, made Muguette promise to forgo makeup at school and to come to work by bus instead of her customary bicycle. Muguette was not overly concerned: "Movies? Well, if the right contract came along. You know, life in a provincial town is not always rosy."

The "for sale" ad ran in the Saturday Review: "Robert Frost house. Shaftsbury, Vermont. 150-year-old Cape Cod. Three fireplaces. 150 acres. Studio. Barn. Small pond. Spectacular view. $27,500." Poet Frost, 88, suffering from blood clots and now in a Boston hospital, has not lived in the house since 1939, after his wife died and he turned it over to his daughter-in-law and grandson, Naval Architect William Prescot Frost. Since moving to Oregon, they decided to sell the house where the venerable poet had lived for nearly 20 years. The buyer: a doctor --a "longtime Frost fan"--from the same hospital where Frost is a patient.

Retirement was still five years away, but her admirers were already making plans for the old girl's sunset years. Britain's Holiday Camper Billy Butlin offered $2,800,000 to take her to Penzance, Land's End, Torquay--somewhere on the south coast of England. Cunard Chairman Sir John Brocklebank seemed to have the Caribbean in mind. Wherever she winds up, in Penzance as a floating Holiday Camp, or in the Caribbean as a luxury boatel, the Queen Mary, 26-year-old doyenne of the Cunard fleet, would be in good hands. And besides, getting there would be half the fun.

*Centimeters.

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