l just leave it behind me when I go. I shall have done with it
then, and it will not concern me afterwards. But," he would add, with a
characteristic semi-exultant snap of the fingers, "the money is nothing.
It was the little game that was the fun."

Being asked, "What was the little game?" he replied with an energy of
concentration peculiar to him: "_Fighting the desert_. That has been my
work. I have been fighting the desert all my life, and I have won. I
have put water where was no water, and beef where was no beef. I have
put fences where there were no fences, and roads where there were no
roads. Nothing can undo what I have done, and millions will be happier
for it after I am long dead and forgotten."

Has not self-help accomplished about all the great things of the world?
How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose because
they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck
to give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery and
perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price, and it is
yours. A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from
inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

CONQUERORS OF FORTUNE.

Benjamin Franklin had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree.
When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carried his
material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one room for his
office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidable rival in the
city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece of bread from
which he had just eaten his dinner, he said:

"Unless you can live cheaper than I can, you cannot starve me out."

It was so that he proved the wisdom of Edmund Burke's saying, that "He
that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill:
our antagonist is our helper."

The poor and friendless lad, George Peabody, weary, footsore, and
hungry, called at a tavern in Concord, N.H., and asked to be allowed to
saw wood for lodging and breakfast. Yet he put in work for everything he
ever received, and out-matched the poverty of early days.

Gideon Lee could not even get shoes to wear in winter, when a boy, but
he went to work barefoot in the snow. He made a bargain with himself to
work sixteen hours a day. He fulfilled it to the letter, and when from
interruption he lost time, he robbed himself of sleep to make it up. He
became a wealthy merchant