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. 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.