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. One corner which she called her diningroom blossomed out with shelves, on which little blue and white cups and plates, bought at the ten-cent store, made quite a display.