She stood back when the last tack was driven with a sigh of satisfaction and looked around. It certainly did look cheerful and pretty. She could imagine being quite happy in this pretty place. Now there must be some inner curtains to draw when night came on and screen her from the passersby. They could be of cretonne, and there would have to be five-cent rods for them so that she could draw them back and forth. How many things there were to buy! Perhaps she could find some cheap cretonne and get enough for a curtain across one end to screen her bed from view until she could manage to get one that was respectable. Beds cost a great deal, even just cot beds. She knew, for she had bought one once for a poor family at Aunt Mary’s request. Then there was a mattress and pillows. So many, many things to buy. But there would be a way. See how her money had increased as fast as she had spent it. Could she trust that such care would continue until she had an income? And the old chant from the beloved Bible story of childhood went over again in her head: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail.”
Joyce was not a modernist. She had been taught to believe the Bible literally and found no difficulty with miracles. She was not dumb nor ignorant. She knew that the academic world was largely inclined to put aside all that was miraculous and to doubt everything that they had not seen happen in everyday life, but she looked upon such as souls who had not chosen to accept God’s way of proof, the proof that comes to the soul of every true believer who takes God at His Word and cannot doubt because he knows. Miracles never had bothered her, because if God could make anything, why couldn’t He make or do anything else? She had once heard a wonderful man who came to Meadow Brook to preach say that mystery was something God knew but didn’t tell right away, and ever after that the mysteries that she found in scripture had been but more beautiful to her. They never troubled her nor made her doubt. She was a bright girl with a more than ordinary mind and a fair education, but she accepted the things of the kingdom as a little child, and when someone pointed out to her a spot that seemed a contradiction to facts as she knew them, she would smile and say, then she had made some mistake, not God, and not His Word. That was how Aunt Mary brought her up. More and more as Aunt Mary drew nearer to the end of this life and saw how miserably she had failed to teach her own son heavenly things did she yearn to give this dear girl something substantial to stand upon when all else failed. And if she had not left Joyce anything else, she had left her a great faith in the living God and in His Word.
But it was growing late in the afternoon, and Joyce was weary. The night was coming on again, and the question of light had not been settled. Perhaps she had better run over and get some candles and a few more things for supper. She was hungry as a bear, and the can of soup seemed a forgotten dream.
So she went to the store again, and when she came back and had eaten some sandwiches of dried beef and bread and butter and drunk some milk, she felt better and set to work to arrange her box furniture to advantage.
There were the two barrels. They were to make easy chairs, one for herself and one for any possible company who might come in. They would have to wait to materialize until she could buy material to upholster and cover them and until she had time to work over them. They would need sawing. Oh, they must wait, but when they were finished they would stand here and here—she wheeled them into place. And right here between them should stand a table—she placed the biggest square box there and imagined a lamp with a pretty shade and some magazines lying on it.
The two boxes with hinged lids she nailed to the wall in the corner she called her dining room and kitchen. These were her china closets. She carefully placed her paper cups and plates in one and arranged the cracker box, the milk bottle, and other supplies in the other. Somehow she must manage shelves for them. There were some loose bits of boards in one box. These would make shelves if she could manage to borrow an old saw.
In the corner beyond the window next to her bed, she placed another box for a dressing table. Someday she would drape it in chintz and get a mirror to have over it. Chintz or cretonne was really one of the next things she needed. There must be a curtain to shut off her bedroom. She did not want everybody to know she was sleeping on a paper bed, and a curtain would give a little privacy. Besides, she must curtain off a small corner for a closet.
She was suddenly interrupted in her meditations by a tap at her door.
“I wondered if you were here yet,” said Mrs. Bryant as she opened the door. “No, I can’t come in. I’ve got to run back and start supper. But I just stepped over to tell you Mrs. Powers, the lady that lives in the big brick colonial with tulips in the yard—perhaps you’ve noticed it—she was at the Ladies’ Aid today and was going on something terrible about how she was going to have company from Baltimore tomorrow, and her maid had gone away sick yesterday and isn’t coming back for a week. She had telephoned in town for a maid, but they couldn’t get her any she would have, and she didn’t know what to do. She said her friend hadn’t seen her in a long time, and she wanted to take her around in the car, and she just didn’t see how she was to cook dinner, too. Well, she seemed so distressed and all that, I finally up and told her how you helped me out last night. I don’t know’s you’ll like it, but she seemed so interested that I went on and told her all about you, and how you were a teacher, and you’d bought this little house and were going to teach school in the fall, and then she looked awfully disappointed and said: ‘Oh, she’s a teacher, is she? Then I don’t suppose she’d be willing to help me out, would she?’ And I said, well, no, I didn’t suppose you intended doing things like that, that you were a perfect lady, but you might do it once for accommodation. I finally said I’d tell you anyhow. She said if you would come, she’d gladly pay you five dollars for cooking dinner, and if you were willing to wait on the table, too, why, she’d pay ten. I really hated to tell you about it after I’d promised, but you can do as you like.”
“Why, I’d be glad to help her,” said Joyce pleasantly, “and I’d like to wait on the table, too. I really want to earn the money, of course, and while I don’t think I want to be a cook for life, still I don’t see that it’s going to hurt me to cook a few dinners for other people. I’ve had to do it in my own home a good many times.”
“Well, I didn’t know how you’d feel about it. I think it’s fine of you. Some folks are so kind of proud nowadays. But I somehow thought you were sensible.”
“Well, what should I be proud about?” laughed Joyce. “I haven’t any reputation here to lose anyway, and if people want to think less of me because I know how to cook, they can.”
“Well, I say you’re a real fine girl. So that’s settled, and I’m kind of glad, for her husband’s on the school board, and if she wants to, she can do a lot for you. You run right in the house and call her up. Her number is ninety-five, and her name is Powers. I told her you’d call.”
Joyce ran in to the telephone and came out smiling in a moment. “Thank you ever so much, Mrs. Bryant. This will help me out a lot. I’ve just been thinking of a good many things I want to get, and I wasn’t sure I ought to spare the money. Now I can get them right away. I’m to go to her at twelve o’clock and stay till after the dishes are washed. Which way did you say she lives?”
After most explicit directions had been given, Joyce went back to her house and flew at the bundle of chintz with swift fingers. There were about three hours of daylight left—the evenings were long this time of year—and she must use every minute of them, for she must have a thin dress to work in, and she did not want to burn a light and show that she was staying nights in the place until she had things looking a little more comfortable, both because she did not want anyone to offer her charity and because she did not care to have them all know how poverty-stricken she really was.
She folded her material crosswise in the middle and spread it upon the driest place on her cleanly scrubbed floor. Then she laid her blue serge smoothly down upon it with the shoulders to the fold and the sleeves stretche
d toward the selvages. The material reached below the serge far enough for a good hem, and guided by her serge dress, she took her sharp, new scissors and carefully cut out a straight, little, simple slip of a dress.
She had cut many a dress before on Aunt Mary’s big dining room table with a box of shining pins and a tried and true pattern to guide her. But she knew the lines of a simple dress well enough, and she could not see how she could go far astray in her cutting. It had to be long enough and wide enough, for it was as big as her blue serge. So she clipped away and soon had a dress cut out, making the neckline only a curved slit until she should try it on.
Then she sat down and ran up the two side seams on the right side and slipped it on to try it. Of course she had no mirror, but she managed to get a vague glimpse of herself in the closed lattice of her window. It needed a little taking in under the arm, but the rest seemed all right, and she slipped it off again and sat down to make the changes and trim the seams. Another trial and the fit was found to be better. She hunted out her pins and turned up the hem. This she found rather a hard proposition, but after several takings off and readjustings, it seemed to swing evenly.
She was growing tired, and her back began to ache with sitting on the hard box after her day of scrubbing and curtain making. She wondered if she could keep at it much longer. With a weary impulse, she flung her paper bed out in the corner and threw herself down upon it.
For almost ten minutes, she forced herself to lie and relax, trying to think of nothing and really rest. Then the clock on some distant building struck eight, and she roused up, suddenly aware that she had but a few more minutes of daylight and that if she lay here, she would soon be asleep. She simply did not dare leave all that sewing till morning. She must have a neat, washable dress ready by twelve o’clock in which to work. So she stood up and tried to cut out the neck of her frock as best she could, wishing all the time for a big mirror. She finally got out the two-inch bit of glass belonging to her handbag and inspected her work, deciding it would have to do. Then she caught up a newspaper and cut and experimented until she had a pattern for a simple collar to fit the neck of her dress. This she cut from the half yard of organdy, also cutting organdy cuffs to fit the short sleeves.
It was quite dusky now in her little room, and she had to take the pieces of chintz that came off the sides of the dress out on her front step to see what she was doing. Here she cut from the longest piece a string belt and several long strips of bias binding about an inch wide. Then rolling up these with the organdy collar and cuffs, her scissors, thimble, needle, and thread, she put on her serge dress and hat and hurried down the street. She had thought of a way to work a little longer that night without burning a light. She would just sit in the station waiting room a little while and sew.
The soft evening breeze of the out-of-doors revived her weary body, and she felt quite cheered and happy. To think she was going to earn a whole ten dollars in one afternoon and evening! Here was her Father providing her with more money again just when she had discovered so many things she had to buy that it overwhelmed her. The “barrel of meal and cruse of oil” again! How wonderful it was!
When she reached the station, however, her plans seemed balked, for the station itself was closed and dark. There was a bench, however, down along the platform under a shedlike roof, and a great arc light glowed above it. People were walking back and forth, too, as if waiting for a train, so Joyce sat down at one end of the bench and took out her bit of sewing. No one noticed her, and her swift fingers had soon run on the bias bands around the collar and cuffs, and turned down the binding smoothly. She just loved the hemming of them down. It was like a bit of fancy work, and they looked so pretty—the blue edging the sheer white. Of course the dress could have been bound around the neck and sleeves without the white collar and cuffs, but this touch of prettiness made it look more comely, and she must remember her appearance if she was to hope to get a school around here sometime. Mrs. Bryant had given her the reputation of a lady, and she must keep it up, even if it meant a little more work for her.
By the time the half past nine train had gone, she had the organdy bound and was sewing up the string casing. She lingered only until the seams were run up before she gathered up her things and hurried back to her little dark house. It was growing lonely on the station platform, and she did not like to stay any longer, but she could turn the casing inside out in the dark by the help of a safety pin, and then everything would be ready for morning. She would only have to hem the skirt and put on the collar and cuffs.
Sitting in the dark on her box, she found a safety pin in her handbag and, fastening it in the end of the casing, began pushing it through, and when it was turned all the way, creased it carefully and smoothed it between her fingers till it almost looked as if it were ironed flat. Then she took off her serge dress, put on her gingham apron, and lay down under her paper blankets for another night’s sleep, too weary to do more than thank her heavenly Father for keeping her so far. As she drifted away into sleep, she heard a soft, sweet voice, like a pleasant melody in her soul, Aunt Mary’s voice long ago, saying over the golden text from Sunday school, over and over again till she learned it, “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail.”
“I must have a Bible,” she said to herself dreamily. “I wish I had brought mine along.”
Chapter 15
Notwithstanding her weariness, Joyce did not sleep well that night. She heard the late travelers passing by and the milkman and grocery trucks on their way to a new day, and she tossed on her rattling, lumpy bed till almost dawn. Somehow all the happenings of the last few days seemed to have arrived in concrete form and to be standing around her bed for her to reckon with.
First, there was the matter of her leaving home. Ought she to have left at all? And if she should have left, was that the right way to have done it? The whole problem of her life took on a distorted form in the midnight and darkness that it had never presented before. She thought of her friends back in Meadow Brook who had loved her and Aunt Mary. What would they think of her going? Perhaps she should have waited to tell them all, and yet how could she make explanations? It would only bring discredit upon Eugene and Nannette, and that she did not want to do. No, she could not have asked her friends or even have told them good-bye without more explanation than she was ready to give. There was the minister, and Judge Peterson, the Browns and Ridgeways, and a host of others. They never would have let her go alone out into the world without even a destination, and no chance of a job. They would have worked it somehow for her to stay with one of them. She would never have been free, and Eugene and Nannette would have been furious at her making a display of their family quarrels in the town. No, she could have come away in no other manner. And she had to come. She could not have stayed much longer even if she had not started that night.
These questions somewhat conquered, her thoughts turned to the first night away from home, the awful experience in the cemetery, and the look on the face of her old friend when she had asked him what he was doing. And now she knew what had been the underlying thorn in her soul that had made the pain ever since.
Long ago, perhaps ten years before, when she had been a little girl, there had been a holiday when she and Aunt Mary had started off with a neatly packed luncheon and a handful of books to spend the day in the woods, a long-promised, eagerly anticipated excursion. There were chicken sandwiches neatly wrapped in wax paper. How well she remembered helping to make them! And little blackberry turnovers rich with gummy wetness. Hard-boiled eggs, tiny sweet pickles from the summer’s vintage, sponge cakes, big purple grapes, and a bottle of milk to drink. Plenty of everything. Aunt Mary never stinted a lunch, and she always put in enough for a guest if one should turn up.
And that day the guest really came.
It was a warm, sunny day in October, and the leaves were just beginning to turn. As they climbed the hill above Meadow Brook and came within sight of the valley, great s
plashes of crimson were flung out like banners across the valley, and yellow glinted across the purples and browns like patches of gold in the sunshine. There was a smell of burning leaves and sunshine in the air, and the earth was sweet with autumn. Blue and yellow and white asters bordered the road that wound along the hill and dipped again into the valley among the trees. Purple grackles were stalking the fields in battalions, their stiff, black silk armor glinting in the sun, cawing of the weather and their coming need of flight. She could hear their hoarse, throaty voices as she lay and stared at the ceiling in her little lonely house under the maples.
And the air! How sweet and winey it had been!
She and Aunt Mary had climbed a fence and crossed a field till they reached the deep, sweet woods with its solemn cathedral silences and its lofty vaulted ceiling. How far away the world had seemed as they entered and trod the pine-strewn aisles and penetrated deep into the cloistered vistas. She remembered thinking that this must be where God stayed a good deal, it was so sweet and perfect. Above in the branches, strange birds sent out wild, sweet notes, like snatches of celestial anthems. Favored birds to live in such safe and holy places. She remembered wondering if they ever flew down to Meadow Brook and fellowed with the common birds, picking up worms in the garden paths and dragging their feathers in the dust of the world like sparrows, or did they always stay here alone with God and praise?
They had found a mossy log to sit on and a carpet of pine needles fragrant and deep, and there they had established themselves, the little girl lying full length on the sweet bed of needles, the older woman sitting on the log and reading. It was a storybook they were reading, one of Louisa Alcott’s—was it Under the Lilacs or Little Women? Under the Lilacs, of course, because it was where the little white circus dog Sancho appeared that she remembered first noticing the boy’s back.
There had been crickets droning somewhere and a tinkling brook that murmured not far off, and no other sound except now and then a falling stick or bit of branch from some high treetop hurtling down, until, with the advent of that dog, there had been a tiny human stir, an almost imperceptible sound of giving attention, and her eyes had been fastened on the gray-brown back, the tousled bright head topped by the torn, old baseball cap just a few steps away in the dim shadowed aisle down which she was looking. At first she scarcely recognized it as not a part of the woods, so still it sat, that square, young back in its faded flannel shirt, held in a listening attitude. Then gradually she had become aware of the boy’s presence, of the fishing rod in his hand, of the bank that he must be sitting on that had seemed but a level stretch to her first vision. She had turned a quick glance to Aunt Mary, but Aunt Mary only looked up an instant, paused to recognize that there was someone there, smiled knowingly, and went on with the story.