Our boys and girls who become familiar with the story of this
resourceful Dutch lad should note that he is not ashamed to tell us he
helped his mother by building the fire, preparing the breakfast, and
washing the dishes before he went to school, and when he returned from
school he did not play but swept, scrubbed, and washed more dishes
after the evening meal. He did not whine and mope because his parents
could no longer keep the retinue of servants to which they had been
accustomed in the Netherlands. He simply pitched in and helped. The
same spirit impelled him to clean the baker's windows for fifty cents a
week, to deliver a newspaper over a regular route, to sell ice water on
the Coney Island horse-cars--in short, to do any honorable work to
overcome the burden of poverty. Meanwhile he strove to acquire what
little education he could, but he probably learned more from his
association with the prominent persons whom he met as a result of his
early passion for autograph collecting. Such a boyhood brings home the
important truth that necessity is the mother of self-reliance.

Mr. Bok's story indicates the road to success and gives encouragement
to those who would tread that pleasant way, but it also sounds a frank
warning against the pitfalls that beset ambitious youth. When he was
sent by the city editor of the _Brooklyn Eagle_ to review a theatrical
performance and decided to write his review without going to the
theatre, he had, of course, no warning that the performance would not
take place. He took what many a more experienced reporter would
consider a reasonable chance and he suffered keen humiliation when the
lesson was forced home that it does not pay to attempt deception. He
tells us that the incident left a lasting impression and he felt
grateful because it happened so early in life that he could take the
experience to heart and profit by it. With equal candor he tells of
the stock-market "tips" that resulted from his intimacy with Jay Gould.