280. Candy Making.—What can please a boy better than candy making. Offer your services free for a short time to a confectioner. When you have learned the trade, which you can do in a little while, commence the business on your own account in a small way. Beginning with those sweets which are easily made, you can extend your art as your business increases until you have a good trade.

281. Odd Jobs.—“I push baby carriages through the park at five cents apiece,” says a Chicago boy. “I clean and oil bicycles,” says a New York lad. “I stand on the Boulevard and pump up tires,” declares a third. “I buy a dozen lemons and a pound of sugar and sell lemonade on all holidays and at times of parade,” says an enterprising schoolboy. “I carry bundles and valises from the train, and make often fifty cents a day,” says a Boston youth. “I hang up a slate on the front gate and take store orders for neighbors,” says a bright village lad.

282. General Employment Agency.—Inform a hundred or more families in a particular district that at a certain hour of the day you will be there to carry messages, roll out barrels of ashes, go on errands, mail letters, black boots, and do whatever work they may require. If the work is sufficient to warrant it, a business partnership of boys may be formed, so that while one is engaged another can go on his usual rounds, and thus insure punctuality.

283. Collect Magazines.—Almost every one takes a literary magazine, and some take two or three. After a time they become refuse on their hands. Many persons would gladly give you a truck-load. But these are worth money, and second-hand dealers who sell them at five cents apiece will give you three cents for them.

284. Vacant Lot.—If you live in the city, get the owner of a vacant lot to give you the privilege of raising vegetables. With a little experience you can easily raise from $50 to $100 worth of vegetables on a lot 20 × 100 feet. This will go far to eke out the support of a large family.

285. Bicycle Teaching.—Here is a field for a stout lad of fifteen years. There are thousands of modest young ladies and men, especially elderly gentlemen, who would like to learn to ride a wheel, but do not like the publicity of a riding academy. Issue some neat cards and circulate them from house to house with the information that for the sum of $1 you will teach any one to ride. Most people have a back yard where such instruction could be given. Having no rent to pay, you could easily afford to take them for that price, as you have the advantage over the professional instructor, both of cheapness and privacy. There is a lot of money in this for the right kind of a boy.

286. First-Cost Sales.—When public attention is aroused upon any subject, consider how you can turn it to account. Here is what a boy thirteen years old says: “When ‘Coin’s Financial School’ came out and the people were talking about it, I wrote to Mr. Harvey, the author, and got a lot of the books and sold them all before they got into the book stores here. I have made in this and like enterprises $500.” Like opportunities were presented in our late war, with the Dewey buttons, battleship pictures, etc. Keep your eyes open. Opportunities to make money are all about you. The alert boy makes the successful man.

Boys, there is gold in all the mountains, pearls in all the seas, and money in every street. Elijah Morse at fifteen years of age bought a recipe for stove polish, paying $5 for the materials. He peddled it in a carpetbag, and from this small beginning grew the celebrated “Rising Sun Stove Polish,” whose huge factory covers four acres at West Canton, Mass., and whose proprietor is immensely rich. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a poor boy without a cent. When he died his estate was valued at $40,000,000.

Boys, there is a fortune for you. It is not to be found, but made by hard work. Write on your banner, “Luck is a fool. Pluck is a hero.”