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Page 9
The boy went to work at once, and in three days he had collected the
first hundred pictures, gave them to the Italian, and received his
first dollar.
"Now," said Edward, as he had visions of larger returns from his
efforts, "your books have pictures of only four or five kinds, like
apples, pears, tomatoes, and green peas. How much will you give me for
pictures of special fruit which you haven't got, like apricots,
green-gages, and pineapples?"
"Two cents each," replied the Italian.
"No," bargained Edward. "They're much harder to find than the others.
I'll get you some for three cents each."
"All right," said the vender, realizing that the boy was stating the
case correctly.
Edward had calculated that if he would search the vacant lots in back
of the homes of the well-to-do, where the servants followed the tidy
habit of throwing cans and refuse over the back fences, he would find
an assortment of canned-fruit labels different from those used by
persons of moderate means. He made a visit to those places and found
the less familiar pictures just as he thought he would. Thus he was
not only able to sell his labels to the Italian for three cents instead
of a cent apiece, but to give greater variety to the vender's
scrap-books.
In this manner Edward Bok learned to make the most of his opportunities
even during his earliest years in America.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST JOB: FIFTY CENTS A WEEK
The elder Bok did not find his "lines cast in pleasant places" in the
United States. He found himself, professionally, unable to adjust the
methods of his own land and of a lifetime to those of a new country.
As a result the fortunes of the transplanted family did not flourish,
and Edward soon saw his mother physically failing under burdens to
which her nature was not accustomed nor her hands trained. Then he and
his brother decided to relieve their mother in the housework by rising
early in the morning, building the fire, preparing breakfast, and
washing the dishes before they went to school. After school they gave
up their play hours, and swept and scrubbed, and helped their mother to
prepare the evening meal and wash the dishes afterward. It was a
curious coincidence that it should fall upon Edward thus to get a
first-hand knowledge of woman's housework which was to stand him in
such practical stead in later years.
It was not easy for the parents to see their boys thus forced to do
work which only a short while before had been done by a retinue of
servants. And the capstone of humiliation seemed to be when Edward and
his brother, after having for several mornings found no kindling wood
or coal to build the fire, decided to go out of evenings with a basket
and pick up what wood they could find in neighboring lots, and the bits
of coal spilled from the coal-bin of the grocery-store, or left on the
curbs before houses where coal had been delivered. The mother
remonstrated with the boys, although in her heart she knew that the
necessity was upon them. But Edward had been started upon his
Americanization career, and answered; "This is America, where one can
do anything if it is honest. So long as we don't steal the wood or
coal, why shouldn't we get it?" And, turning away, the saddened mother
said nothing.
But while the doing of these homely chores was very effective in
relieving the untrained and tired mother, it added little to the family
income. Edward looked about and decided that the time had come for
him, young as he was, to begin some sort of wage-earning. But how and
where? The answer he found one afternoon when standing before the
shop-window of a baker in the neighborhood. The owner of the bakery,
who had just placed in the window a series of trays filled with buns,
tarts, and pies, came outside to look at the display. He found the
hungry boy wistfully regarding the tempting-looking wares.
"Look pretty good, don't they?" asked the baker.
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