CHAPTER XIII
Joycedid not get up as early as she had planned. She had been utterly worn out with the experiences of the last two days and human flesh will have its revenge. The sun stole into her little casement windows, and laid warm fingers on her brown hair, but she did not feel them. She was sleeping deeply. It was the grocery boy with the little yellow Ford from the store across the way that finally reached her consciousness. He was possessed of a clear, sharp whistle, and a jazzy tenor voice and when he was not using one he was using the other while he unloaded boxes from the freight station.
Joyce roused at last, rubbed her eyes and looked around, for a moment forgetting where she was. The little house was full of sweet air and brilliant sunshine, and in the maples overhead two robins were singing with all their might. The world sounded cheerful and busy and she felt rested and more ready for life than when she had crept between her newspapers the night before.
As her eyes wandered over her own painted walls suddenly she saw the two five dollar bills pinned there, waving a little in the morning breeze. Where could they have come from? Had some one, a former occupant, pinned them there for safe-keeping while at work? And must she waste her valuable time going out to hunt for the owner? Then she spied the ragged edge of one bill, and a crooked tear half way across, and noticed that the other was crisp and new. These must be the bills she hadpaid the men for their work! That tear was unmistakable. She had been afraid it would tear all the way across before she got rid of it. The other two bills she had used had been crisp and new. She remembered that the man who drove the truck got a crisp, new one. It was the two older men who had left this money for her. The kindly spirit of the rough workmen drew sudden tears to her eyes. To think that such a beautiful act should be done by rough workingmen who were utter strangers to her. Gentlemen at heart they were. Ah, more than that, God’s men. Surely her Heavenly Father, knowing her need, had let them be his ministers. She knelt suddenly beside the wooden box and prayed a blessing on the men, and a thanksgiving to the Father who had thus given His help, and arose feeling strengthened. Somehow the nearness of God her Father, Christ her Companion had become real to her in a new sense. Some might have said this little bit of money came from the kindness of humanity, and proved nothing about an overruling God. Joyce knew better. She had the inner witness in her soul that God was with her, the spiritual sense that comes to those, and those only, who believe, and who yield their lives to leading because of that belief, which becomes Faith, the Faith of our fathers. Because Faith is the gift of God in answer to our deliberate act of belief. Joyce had no question but that her Father’s hand was in every happening of her life and had one suggested that all these things would have happened anyway, whether she believed, or prayed or not, she would have merely smiled as at one who is talking about something he does not understand. So simply had she been taught in the Faith while she was yet a littlechild, and so deeply and truly had the Faith grown within her year by year.
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 kindliness. 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 any one 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 fitted 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 about, so she locked her door, 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 wash room 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 the every-day 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 drug store 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 truck man 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 thathe knew nothing about their kindly act, and she had to turn away and be satisfied with only this. Looking 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 some day 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 centre, and found a small utility shop where she bought thread, needles, a thimble, a paper of pins, enough cheese cloth 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 organdie, 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, excitedas 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 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 dish water 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 clothes line 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 parent’s 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 region 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 every one would ask about it. She could hear them now, “Whoooo—is she? Wheeer—did—she—come—from? Whoooo—knows—her? Whiiiiiy—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 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 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 stenographer 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 try-out 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 door mat 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 out of the Bible and repeated them to one another:
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord.”
“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!”