Joyce smoothed her hair with the tiny comb and mirror in her handbag and decided to hunt up the railroad station and wash her face. She did not care to appear at Mrs. Bryant’s until her arrangements were more complete. Neither did she wish her to know that she was so hard put to it for shelter that she had slept in a newspaper bed all night. It would not look well for her reputation to be poor as a tramp. She wanted to be respected if she was poor, and she wanted to hold up her head and feel independent, not to have people feel they must offer her charity. She must hunt up those two men right away and try to make them take that money back, or thank them at least if she found it would hurt their feelings to restore the money. She felt deeply touched at the thought of their act of kindness. Perhaps they had daughters of their own and had noticed her thin little purse. Men who would take the trouble to dig up a vine and make a shelf to keep it safely must have fine souls within them.
Joyce folded her bed into an innocent-looking pile of papers so that it would tell no tales of the night in case anyone looked in the window, pulled the casements shut and, moving the box against the wall, softly opened her door. As she did so, she noticed for the first time a key hanging on a nail high up on the door frame. She fit it into the lock and found to her joy that it worked perfectly. The coast seemed to be clear for the moment. The yellow Ford without a muffler had whizzed away after another load of freight, and the only person on the side street was walking away with his back toward her. She cast a furtive glance toward Mrs. Bryant’s kitchen door, but it seemed to be closed and no one around, so she locked her door and slipped quickly out the gate and around the corner without being seen.
She found on inquiry that the pretty little stone railroad station was only four blocks away. It contained a tiny washroom that was in tolerably clean condition so that she was able to make herself quite respectable, although her serge dress did look a bit rumpled from sleeping in it, and she realized that a hot iron for pressing must be among the first necessities if she was to keep neat and presentable for finding a job. An iron would mean some kind of a stove. What kind? There was no gas in her little house, and she hated oil. Aunt Mary had felt it was dangerous. Still, that was probably the only thing possible. Mrs. Bryant would perhaps let her press her dress once, but she did not want to be constantly beholden to her landlady for everyday necessities. Well, a way would come. She must trust and work each problem out as it appeared. She could not face them all at once.
She stepped into a drugstore and got a glass of good milk and three butter thin crackers at the soda counter, and then went out to hunt up the two men who had left the money.
But they were not where they had been the day before, and a careful search for several blocks finally discovered only the truckman who said the other two were on another job that day and would probably not return to that suburb at all as the work was about done there. When she told him that she wanted to thank them for their kindness, she could see by the way he said he would tell them that he knew nothing about their kindly act, and she had to turn away and be satisfied with only this. As she looked up to the waving leaves of the trees in the sunshine and to the blue, blue sky overhead, a great thankfulness came into her heart for all that had come to her, and she lifted a little prayer: “You tell them, Father. Make them know I thank them.” She wondered whimsically as she walked down the pleasant street whether she would meet them someday in heaven and make them understand then how truly she had appreciated what two strangers had done for a lonely girl.
She went back to the little line of stores that was already beginning to make this new suburb look like a commercial center, and found a small utility shop where she bought thread, needles, a thimble, a paper of pins, enough cheesecloth for window curtains, some blue and white chintz that the woman let her have for fifteen cents a yard because it was all that was left, half a yard of white organdy, and a big blue and white checked apron of coarse gingham that would cover her dress from neck to hem and was only fifty cents.
There was a hardware store next door, and here she found a partial solution to her fire problem in canned alcohol and a little outfit for cooking with it. She also invested in some paper plates and cups, a sharp knife, a pair of good scissors, a hammer, a can opener, some tacks, and a few long nails.
She stopped at the grocery store on her way back and bought a can of vegetable soup, a box of crackers, and some bananas and hurried back to her domicile, excited as a child with a new toy. She had spent just six dollars and twenty-three cents.
But first she must pay her ground rent, so after depositing her bundles, she ran to Mrs. Bryant’s door and knocked.
Mrs. Bryant welcomed her with a smile. “I’m real glad to see you,” she said. “I didn’t pay you yet for yesterday. Mr. Bryant said I ought to have asked you if you had a place to stay all night. He said we owed you a great deal, and he left this ten-dollar bill for you. He said it was worth a good many times that what you did, carrying that broiler out of the house. You see, it’s all wood ceiling up behind that range, and if it had caught fire, the house would like as not have gone. You know I had some dish towels hanging up on that little line to dry, and two of them were scorched. I found that out this morning. It wouldn’t have been but a minute more till the whole thing would have been in a flame, and then the wall would have caught. And Mr. Bryant hadn’t renewed the insurance. The time was up day before yesterday, and he had been busy and had just let it slip by without realizing till this stirred him up. So he appreciates what you did.”
“Oh, that was quite all right, Mrs. Bryant. I didn’t want to be paid for what I did yesterday. It was I who distracted your attention and made you forget your meat, and I wanted to make up for it. I couldn’t think of taking so much anyway. I just helped you out when you were in a hurry. Anybody would have done that. And I’m sure you helped me out. I came in to pay my first month’s rent,” and she laid a five-dollar bill down on the table.
“Well, I’ll take that,” said Mrs. Bryant, “but you’ve got to keep the ten. My husband put his foot down. Five is for getting the supper, and five is for saving the house. It really isn’t much, you know, when you stop to consider it. Why, we’d have lost everything. Now, is there anything I can do to help you? When do you move in? Want to borrow anything?”
“Why, perhaps I may need something by and by, but I’m all right so far,” said Joyce, ignoring the question about moving in. “I’m wondering if I can get some water now and then at that outside faucet.”
“Why, sure, get all the water you want. It’s right handy for you, and there’s a drain out by the back door you can use, too, or you can throw your dishwater into the garden. Here, I’ll show you.” And she whisked outside and made Joyce acquainted with all the ins and outs of the kitchen shed. “I don’t mind a bit if you come and wash out your clothes in these tubs,” she added thoughtfully. “You can’t do much washing out there in that little tucked-up place. Besides, you’d have to carry so much water. Better just bring anything you want to wash in here and rub it out. There’s the wire clothesline outside, and you can fix it to wash on the days when I don’t so we won’t interfere. How’d you ever come to buy that little shack, anyway? Some agent sell it to you?”
“Why, no,” said Joyce, smiling frankly, “I just saw it as I passed by, and it appealed to me. A man was knocking it to pieces. I got there just as he struck the first blow, and it shivered like a person, such a pretty little house! I needed a house myself, and I asked if I could buy it. They said it had to be taken away at once, and finally they agreed to sell it if I took it away in an hour.”
“H’m!” said Mrs. Bryant, eyeing her thoughtfully. “You were hunting a house, were you? Where’d you come from How’d you happen to come to our town?”
Joyce smiled. “I just walked till I came to it, I guess. You see, my aunt died with whom I have lived since my parents’ death, and I felt as if I could go on living better if I tried a new place—it wouldn’t seem so sad—so when I reached this regi
on, I just took a trolley and rode till things looked interesting, and then I got off and walked till I came on the little house.”
Mrs. Bryant looked interested. Joyce’s story was vague, but it intrigued her. Her life had never contained such romance as walking off into the world till you found a place you liked and then camping down there. Joyce was a new kind of girl, and she liked her. But she also wanted to satisfy her own curiosity and her sense of the conventions, so she proceeded with her inquisition. Also, it was necessary to have an explanation ready to give at the Ladies’ Aid that afternoon of the new little house that had come to park on her premises. She knew everyone would ask about it. She could hear them now: “Whoooo is she? Wheeere did she come from? Whoooo knows her? Whiiiiy is she here? Whoo? Tu-Whit, Tu-Whoooo?” for all the world like so many owls. Mrs. Bryant meant to be ready to silence all voices. Her husband was sponsoring this girl by allowing her on his premises, and she was not going to have anything questionable said about her.
“What you going to do now that you’re here?” she asked abruptly. “Have you got means of your own, or do you have to work?”
Joyce flushed but answered without hesitation. “Why, I’ve got enough to get along on, I think, until I get a job. Of course I could have found something easier at home, I suppose, but I thought it would be better to make a change. I guess I’ll find something pretty soon. I’ve got to get settled first.”
“H’m!” said Mrs. Bryant. “What’s your line? You a secretary or what?”
“What, I guess!” laughed Joyce. “I’ve been aiming to get ready to be a teacher, but I suddenly decided to come away just before the examinations, so I guess I’ll have to wait for that. And anyhow it’s almost vacation time. I’d have to do something else until fall, of course. I wonder if perhaps I could arrange to take examinations here. I don’t suppose you know when the state examinations come off in your public schools here, do you?”
“No, but I could find out this afternoon. I’m going to Ladies’ Aid, an’ Mrs. Powers is always there. Her husband’s on the board of trustees, and she mostly knows everything about education. I’ll ask her.”
“Thank you,” said Joyce gladly, “I should be so glad if there was some chance for me to get my tryout before next year, for I really want to teach. I’m hoping for a position. I can get along with almost anything else in the way of a job until then. I’d like to take my examinations while everything is fresh in my mind. I’ve been studying hard all the spring for them.”
“Well, I’ll see if that can’t be arranged somehow. There ought to be somebody ‘round that has got some pull with the school board. Meantime, if you find a job and want references, just send ’em to me. I’ll be glad to tell anybody you’re all right.”
“But you don’t know me, Mrs. Bryant. How could you give me a recommendation?” laughed Joyce in amazement.
“I know you all I need to know,” said the good woman decidedly. “You’re a good girl and a capable girl. Nine out of every ten girls I know would have screamed and run for the fire company instead of stalking in here and doing something. And I can’t be sure of one that would have come in here and helped me the way you did with that dinner when I was hard put to it, not even for pay. They’d have had too much to do in their own affairs. And if they had come after urging, they wouldn’t have known what to do without being told at every turn. You told me, and you made things go, and I say you’re a smart girl and a good girl.”
Such praise from a stranger was sweet to Joyce’s lonely soul, and she found the tears welling to her eyes, but she choked them back with a smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Bryant. I’ll try to live up to the recommendation you’re giving me. I only hope you won’t ever have reason to take it back.”
“Well, I don’t believe I shall. Now don’t hesitate to ask for anything you want to borrow, and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you. By the way, if you want to clean any before you get a stove, just come over and get hot water. I’m going out this afternoon, but I’ll leave the kitchen key under the doormat, and if you want to, just come in and put on the teakettle and get all the hot water you need.”
So Joyce went down the short path to her own door with gratitude in her heart and a ten-dollar bill in her hand, saying over to herself the words that had leaped to her lips of a sudden out of the stores of the past when she and Aunt Mary learned whole chapters of the Bible and repeated them to one another: “‘The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.’ Isn’t it almost funny,” she said to herself thoughtfully, “the money comes back just as fast as I spend it for the things I need—faster, in fact. It’s wonderful to be cared for this way!”
Chapter 14
Back in her house, Joyce set to work on her curtains, cutting the cheesecloth in lengths and hemming it with long, even stitches. It did not take long, and her fingers flew rapidly. She was always a fast worker on whatever she took up, and her thoughts kept pace with her work. Suppose Mrs. Bryant should find out that it was still possible for her to take her examinations! Suppose she got a school here! Could she live in the little house all winter? How would she get heat? And light? She would have to work and study in the evenings! How many problems there were to meet when one dropped away from a home and provided it for oneself!
There were strings enough around the packages to run in the hems and hang the curtains, but the windows had to be washed before the curtains could be put up, so Joyce ran over to the store for a few more purchases. A broom, a scrubbing brush, soap, a galvanized pail, and a sponge. She had no rags, but a sponge was wonderful for paint and windows. Then a bright thought came to her, and she asked if they had any boxes for sale. They took her down to the cellar where there were boxes and barrels of all sizes and shapes. She selected several boxes and two nice clean sugar barrels, besides two delightful boxes with lids swinging on tiny hinges. These would make wonderful closets for her china when she got some. She had to pay ten cents apiece for them.
It was noon when she got back, and all the whistles were blowing. She lighted her little alcohol can and heated the can of vegetable soup. This with crackers and a banana for dessert made a fine meal, and while she was clearing it away, the boy from the grocery brought over her boxes and barrels, and the place began to assume a look of furniture. Mrs. Bryant came to the door with a roll of old rags as the boy went away.
“I thought you might like some cloths for cleaning,” she said, stepping in at the door. “I have such quantities, so I brought some.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Joyce. “I was wondering if I could make my windows shine with newspapers. Now I won’t have to try. Won’t you come in and sit down. Here’s a nice clean box.”
“No, thank you,” declined the lady, stepping back with a glance of approval around the little room and at the window where Joyce had tacked up a finished curtain to try it. “I’m on the committee for serving luncheon at the Ladies’ Aid today, and I have to hurry. We serve at one, and it’s almost that now, but I saw your goods coming in and I thought you might need these, so I just ran in. I left the teakettle on, and you can just turn it out when you are done. How cozy you are going to be! This is a real cute little house. Well, I must run along.”
Joyce drew a long breath as she watched her go. “Goods.” She glanced at the barrels and boxes amusedly. So she had thought these were her goods. What would she say if she knew she had no goods in the world? And she had so hoped to get the little room looking habitable before there were any visitors. Well, the woman hadn’t noticed the lack of furniture, and perhaps she would be able to do something about it before she came again. She changed her serge dress for the new gingham apron, got the hot water, and went happily to work scrubbing with all her might. In a short time, the place was smelling sweetly of soapsuds and gleaming with the whiteness of the paint. Evidently there had not been much wear and tear on the inside of the place since it was painted, for when the dirt was washed
off, it came out nice and clean. There was an advantage, too, in having a small place: it did not take long to clean it. The five windows and the door were soon finished, and then she swept and scrubbed the floor and put up her curtains.