Not Under the Law

by Grace Livingston Hill

She had bought a few necessities for her wardrobe also, a couple of remnants to make more thin dresses, a pair of fifty-cent slippers from the bargain counter to save her shoes while she was working. In fact, most of her purchases were from the bargain counters, a hair-brush and comb, a change of undergarments and night wear, two pairs of stockings, and some towels. What a lot of things one needed to live! And when she counted up there was just twenty-four dollars and eighty-seven cents left of her small capital. It made her gasp as she thought of the weeks ahead before her engagement in the Bible School would commence, and how was she to live? She must be very, very economical. But yet she need not be afraid. The barrel of meal had not wasted so far. God would take care of her, and her heart began to sing as she remembered how He had brought her safely so far out of her difficulties.

Then when she got home she was hailed by Mrs. Bryant. Mrs. Ritter, down the street, wanted to know if Joyce would be willing to come in and sit with her sister for the evening. She had made an engagement to go to the city with her husband, and now her sister was sick and she didn’t like to leave her alone in the house. There was really nothing to do but give her her medicine every hour and answer the telephone and the door bell. Mrs. Ritter would be glad to pay her for her time, fifty cents an hour was what she thought would be fair. She wouldn’t be home till the midnight train, but Mr. Ritter would walk down with her after they got back, so she needn’t be afraid to come home.

Joyce thanked Mrs. Bryant for speaking of her. She said of course she would go, and went about her little house with shining eyes, singing. The barrel of meal was filling up again. How wonderful! There would be three more dollars! She had taken a good dinner in the city at an automat restaurant which Mrs. Bryant had recommended, and she did not feel the need of an elaborate meal that night. So she drank some milk and finished her crackers and cheese, rolled up one of the remnants with her scissors and thimble and thread, and started out to Mrs. Ritter’s. If all went well she might be able to get another dress started during the evening.

The next day she invested in some boards and went to work sawing. It was rather rough work, and she got splinters in her hands and sawed some of the joints a bit crookedly, but she finally put some very creditable corners together, sawing off parts of each and dovetailing them into one another as she had seen carpenters do, until she had a good, strong framework a little over six feet long and thirty inches wide, which was the size of the space in which she could put her bed without running across the windows.

When she had satisfied herself that the framework was strong she began nailing webbing across the bottom, interlacing it rather closely, as she had seen old Mr. Carpenter do. When it was finished she lifted the structure upon two boxes and sewed the springs into place at regular distances.

It took two days to get those springs tied down satisfactorily on a perfect level, and Joyce had several pricked fingers before she was done, and was almost wishing she had bought a hard little army cot and learned to enjoy it. But the third morning she covered the springs with a layer of cheap cloth, then the cotton, and lastly the hair, covering the whole with ticking. Then, with her big needle, she tied this down at every three or four inches, until she had a soft, firm mattress, fine enough for a princess. The work really, though crude in some ways, was a great success, and one to be proud of, and when it was done she put it on the floor and threw herself down upon it with a great sigh of relief. Now, at last, she had a spot where the tired would be taken out of her when she had worked to the limit of her strength, something to look forward to when she came to her lonely little house at night after a hard day.

By this time Mrs. Bryant had managed to do a good deal of talking in the neighborhood about the bright young teacher who had come there to live and was having a little spare time this summer to help people out in an emergency, and several calls had come for her.

Once she had had to drop her hammer and saw and go to help Mrs. Smith to finish canning cherries, and succeeded in being so satisfactory that she was engaged to help with the strawberry preserves, gooseberry jam, and currant jelly.

Mrs. Jennings, on the next block, heard of her and engaged an afternoon a week at fifty cents an hour to take care of her children while she went out to the club meeting, and sometimes an extra evening. During these evenings she got quite a lot of sewing done, gradually acquiring a complete little wardrobe of plain, simple clothing made all by hand, but quite serviceable and pretty.

She met the gray-haired librarian of the Silverdale Memorial Library, and was asked to come in and help with the new cataloging. This took several afternoons and evenings, and meanwhile the furnishings of her little home grew slowly.