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.
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