Not Under the Law

by Grace Livingston Hill

Once she was called in for three days to take care of some children while their mother went to the hospital for an operation on her throat; and several times after that she went to help nurse some one in a slight illness, where training was not required. She began to be known as the “Emergency Girl,” and thought about putting out a sign and getting a telephone.

Meantime, she had met a kindly old man who was on the School Board, and had arranged to take examinations and put in her application for a position should any be vacant for the next winter. This necessitated the purchase of some books, and another trip to the second-hand book-store.

She had been living most economically, getting one meal a day usually, at a little restaurant among the stores where the tradespeople ate, and good wholesome food could be had at most reasonable rates. This gave her always something hot once a day. For the rest, she was living on ready-to-eat cereals, fruit, bread and butter, and milk, or if it rained too hard to go out she would cook an egg on her little alcohol can and eat her dinner at home. It really cost very little to live when one was careful. As for heat and light, she did not need either at this time of year. A candle did for emergencies. The twilight was long, and the electric light in the street was quite enough to go to bed by. Often she was out at somebody’s house for the evening, caring for a child or an old person while the family amused themselves in the city, and there was always plenty of time then to read or study or sew.

So her life had settled into a pleasant little groove with interesting prospects ahead, and still the “barrel of meal,” as she called her worn little pocketbook, always contained enough to live upon and get the real necessities, and sometimes a fragment or two of luxury. Winter was coming sometime, of course, with need for heat and light, and she must prepare for it too, but it wasn’t here yet. Still, she did not feel that she had arrived at the point where she cared to let the Meadow Brook people know where she was. Some of them might take it into their heads to hunt her up on a motor trip, and she wasn’t just prepared yet to show off her little house. Besides, she wanted to be anchored firmly with a regular school job before she told any one where she was. Well, she knew there were people in Meadow Brook who would gladly have offered her a home just for Aunt Mary’s sake, and she was a proud little girl and didn’t want to have anybody feel they must offer her help. Besides, it wasn’t exactly loyal to the family to explain her position at present, and she was one who would be loyal to her family even if her family were not loyal to her.

So she went her various helpful ways, and eked out her small necessities, with always something in the little brown pocketbook. Day by day the little house grew more homelike and cosy.

The home-made bed was a wonderful success. Mounted on four solid little square boxes six inches high, and nailed firmly to them, with a valance and cover of gray denim, and cotton pillows covered with the same, it seemed a luxurious couch. At night when the cover was removed it made a wonderful bed. When Joyce finally attained a fluffy pink comfortable made of cotton batting and a remnant of pink cheese cloth tied with pink yarn, she felt that she slept in luxury. Sheets and pillow-cases were not expensive when one bought remnants of coarse cloth and hemmed them; and washing was not hard to do with the outside faucet and drain so near. It might not be so easy in winter, but it was all right in summer. And presently Mrs. Bryant made it still easier for her by suggesting that she use the tubs and hot water in the laundry in return for helping her out by getting supper once in a while when she had company.

Gradually the little house in the side yard took on an atmosphere of home. The two barrels, sawed in the middle half around, fitted with four springs in the seats, and upholstered in gray denim with padded backs and valanced standards, became two easy chairs, really comfortable to sit in. Joyce was proud of them. She invited Mrs. Bryant to take a seat in one when it was finished, and that good lady was almost disposed to doubt the girl’s word when she told her it was made out of a barrel.

“My grandmother made one,” explained Joyce, “and we always kept it carefully. I often wanted to make one when I saw a nice clean barrel, and now I’ve done it.”

“Well, I think you’re a wonder,” said Mrs. Bryant, after she had lifted the valance and felt the sturdy barrel staves for herself. “Just a wonder! You get so much more out of life than those flapper girls do! I wonder they like to be such fools. I can’t see what the boys see in them. My Jimmie don’t like ’em. He says, ‘Mother, you don’t know what the girls are like nowadays,’ and I believe him. I’m sure I hope he stays sensible and finds a girl some day that will be the right kind. I was most afraid there weren’t any left, but now I’ve seen you I’m real encouraged.”

The said Jimmie appeared at home one week-end from technical school, where he was learning to be an electrical engineer, and kindly offered to wire her little house for her, probably at his mother’s suggestion. So, at last, she had light and a place to cook, and she saved enough from getting her own dinners to buy a tiny electric grill, which gave her great comfort.