iod 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 wou