It was a problem with young Edwards, about this time, to secure enough blank paper for his scribbling needs. Two old ledgers, only partly filled with accounts fell into his hands, and he used them for his callow essays at authorship. He has those ledgers now, and derives considerable amusement in looking through them. They prove that he was far from being a prodigy, and reflect credit on him for whipping his slender talents into shape for at least a commercial success in later life. Consider this:
J. B.--We made a pretty good haul that time, Jim.
B. J.--Yes, I'd like to make a haul like that every night. We must have got about $50,000.
J. B.--Now we will go and get our boots blacked, then go and get us a suit of clothes, and then skip to the West Indies.
Here a $50,000 robbery had been committed and the thieves were calmly discussing getting their boots blacked and replenishing their wardrobe (one suit of clothes between them seems to have been enough) before taking to flight. Shades of Sherlock, how easily a boy of 12 makes business for the police department!
Or consider this gem from Act II. The aforesaid "J. B." and "B. J." have evidently been "pinched" while getting their boots blacked or while buying their suit of clothes:
J. B.--We're in the jug at last, Jim, and I'm afraid we'll be sentenced to be shot.
J. B.--You'll never get the money, just the same.
Sleek.--We'll shoot you if you don't tell where it is like a dog.
Then here's something else which seems to prove that young Edwards occasionally fell into rhyme:
Oh, why cut down those forests, Our forests old and grand? And oh, why cheat the Indians Out of all their land? Enclosed by civilization, Surrounded they by towns, Calmly when this life is done They seek their hunting-grounds!
John Milton Edwards has always had a place in his heart for the red man, and another for his country's vanishing timber. He is to be congratulated on his youthful sentiments if not on the way they were expressed.
In 1882 the Edwards family removed to Chicago. There were but three in the family--the father, the mother, and John Milton. The boy was taken from the Ottawa high school and, as soon as they were all comfortably settled in the "Windy City," John Milton made what he has since believed to be the mistake of his career. His father offered him his choice of either a university or a business education. He chose to spend two years in Bryant & Stratton's Business College. His literary career would have been vastly helped had he taken the other road and matriculated at either Harvard or Yale. He had the opportunity and turned his back on it.