Struggle for Dream
追夢少年
A Boy with a Mission
佚名 / Anonymous
In 1945， a 12-year-old boy saw something in a shop window that set his heart racing. But the price—five dollars—was far beyond Reuben Earle's means. Five dollars would buy almost a week' s groceries for his family.
Reuben couldn' t ask his father for the money. Everything Mark Earle made was through fishing in Bay Roberts， Newfoundland， Canada. Reuben' s mother， Dora， stretched like elastic to feed and clothe their five children.
Nevertheless， he opened the shop' s weathered door and went inside. Standing proud and straight in his flour-sack shirt and washed-out trousers， he told the shopkeeper what he wanted， adding， "But I don' t have the money right now. Can you please hold it for me for some time？"
"I' ll try，" the shopkeeper smiled. "Folks around here don' t usually have that kind of money to spend on things. It should keep for a while."
Reuben respectfully touched his worn cap and walked out into the sunlight with the bay rippling in a freshening wind. There was a purpose in his loping stride. He would raise the five dollars and not tell anybody.
Hearing the sound of hammering from a side street， Reuben had an idea.
He ran towards the sound and stopped at a construction site. People built their own homes in Bay Roberts， using nails purchased in hessian sacks from a local factory. Sometimes the sacks were discarded in the flurry of building， and Reuben knew he could sell them back to the factory for five cents a piece.
That day he found two sacks， which he took to the rambling wooden factory and sold to the man in charge of packing nails.
The boy' s hand tightly clutched the five-cent pieces as he ran the two kilometers home.
Near his house stood the ancient barn that housed the family' s goats and chickens. Reuben found a rusty soda tin and dropped his coins inside. Then he climbed into the loft of the barn and hid the tin beneath a pile of sweet smelling hay.