Joyce had a great many bundles when she had finished her purchases. She looked at them in amazement when she finally settled herself in the train once more for her return trip to Silverdale. She really had spent very little money for all those big packages. She began to count up. The Bible had cost fifty cents, and she knew it was very cheap. The saw was a dollar and a half, but it was the best of steel. There was a big bundle of gray denim for upholstery. She had got it at a reduced rate by taking all that was left of the piece. Two or three yards of flowered cretonne to cover her box dressing table. Perhaps she could have waited for that, but it wasn’t good policy for her to seem too poverty-stricken if she expected to get a position in school, and what she bought must be the right thing so that she would not have to renew it right away. She must make her little house look cosy if the minister and his wife dropped in to call, or any of those nice young people at the church should run in. That big, bulky package with the handle contained a lot of wire springs, some upholstery webbing, and twine, a long, double-pointed upholstery needle, and several pounds of curled hair and cheap cotton. This constituted Joyce’s venture. With it she meant to make a bed and perhaps two chairs. Maybe it was foolish, and she ought to have bought a cot for five dollars and let it go at that, but she would have had to buy a mattress or something to put over it, and when it was done it would not be so comfortable as one that she could make. For Joyce had often watched an old neighbor of theirs in Meadow Brook who was an upholsterer. She knew all the little tricks. She knew how the webbing should be nailed on taut, how the springs must be sewed to the webbing, and then tied down level, and the padding of cotton and hair put on the top of that. She was sure she could do it, though she had never tried it. Joyce was not beyond trying anything if necessity drove her to it. She had once made a lovely feather fan out of chicken feathers and an old ivory frame. She felt she could make a bedstead if she tried hard enough. There was yet the frame to be dealt with, but she had her saw, and anyhow, the springs and webbing and hair had cost but very little, and it would surely be much more comfortable than a hard cot, besides looking a great deal better in her room, and costing no more than, nor as much as, a cot.