Читать книгу A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After - Edward William Bok - Страница 10

Edward was now confronted by a three-cornered problem. Like all healthy boys of his age he was fond of play and eager to join the boys of his neighborhood in their pastimes after school hours. He also wanted to help his mother, which meant the washing of dishes, cleaning the rooms in which the family then lived, and running various errands for the needed household supplies. Then, too, he was not progressing as rapidly as he wished with his school studies, and he felt that he ought to do everything in his power to take advantage of his opportunity to get an education.

Methodically he worked out a plan which made it possible to accomplish all three objects. He planned that on one afternoon he should go directly home from school to help his mother, and as soon as he had finished the necessary chores that would make her life easier he would be free to go out and play for the rest of that afternoon. On the following day he would remain in school for an extra hour after the class had been dismissed and would get the teacher's help on any lessons that were not clear to him. When that task had been accomplished he would still have part of that afternoon left for play. He broached his plan for work at home and study at school on alternate afternoons to his mother and his teacher. Both approved of the idea and agreed that it had been well thought out.

Thus Edward Bok learned early in life the valuable lesson of a wise management of time. Instead of attempting to accomplish various results in some haphazard fashion, he planned to do only one thing at a time, yet his plan was so comprehensive that it provided for the necessary housework, study, and play--the three things that he wanted to do and felt he should do.

As his evenings were also devoted to various tasks and duties, this young American-to-be, by using each bit of spare time for some useful purpose, became early in life the busy person that he has remained to the present day. Of Edward Bok it may truly be said that he began to work, and to work hard, almost from the day he set foot on American soil. He has since realized that this is not the best thing for a young boy, who should have liberal time for play in his life. Of course, Edward made the most of the short period that remained each afternoon after his household duties or his extra studies at school, and when he played it was with the same vim and energy with which he worked. He had little choice in the matter, but he often regrets to-day that he did not have more time in his boyhood for play.

Like most boys, Edward wanted a little money now and then for spending, but his mother was not always able to spare the pennies that he desired. So he had to fall back on his own resources to earn small sums by running errands for neighbors and in other ways familiar to boys of his age. One day he came across an Italian who was earning money in a rather unusual way. This Italian would collect the bright-colored pictures that adorned the labels of fruit and vegetable cans. He would paste these pictures into a scrap-book and sell it to a mother as a picture-book for her children. Edward saw that the Italian's idea smacked of originality and he asked the man where he got his pictures.

"From the cans I find on lots and in ash-barrels," was the reply.

"If you had more pictures, you could make more books and so earn more money, couldn't you?" asked Edward, as an idea struck him.

"Yes," answered the Italian.

"How much will you give me if I bring you a hundred pictures?" asked Edward.

"A cent apiece," said the Italian.

"All right," agreed Edward.

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.