Not Under the Law

by Grace Livingston Hill

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 the 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 cosy 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 soap-suds 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.

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 passers-by. 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: “And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord.”

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 every-day 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 that God knew but didn’t tell right away, and ever after that the mysteries that she found in the Scriptures 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 some one 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.