go out together on Sundays as we did today? As long as I had food to eat, could go to school, and was able to send a little money home to my mother?there were reasons why I had innocent thoughts like that. Tanaka had told me that selling subscriptions wasn't like delivering papers. Instead of having a fixed salary, your salary depended on how many subscriptions you sold. If you sold a lot of subscriptions, you could earn more money. Besides, selling subscriptions was daytime work. If I wanted to go to school, there were lots of night schools. I decided to subscriptions full time.

     I left the shop each day at eight o'clock in the morning. At lunchtime I would buy some bread and eat. In the evenings, around six o'clock, I would return to the shop. Before eight and after six were not the times to knock on people's doors to try to sell them subscriptions. The second day I sold eight, and third day I sold ten, and after that I would always sell between seven and ten per day. The boss started to look at me differently. Every time I gave him the subscriptions slips he would look at me angrily, and tell me that I hadn't sold enoguh. On the average you should sell at least fiftenn subscriptions per day. You're only selling seven or eight subscriptions per day - - is that enoguh to feed you?"

     As soon as he mentioned that, my courage shrank. Fifteen subscriptions per day would be double what I was selling now. This was going to be quite difficult. I never knew what to do do when people chased me away from their homes, as though I was a dog. When they insited that they didn't want to buy any subscriptions, no matter how low I bowed my head, I still couldn't convince anyone to buy anything. Although there were some softhearted people that would buy "sympathy subscriptions" when they saw that I was about to cry, there weren't very many of these, and I began to get worried.

     The next day I left the shop before dawn, but slling subscriptions isn't like delivering papers - - if you don't see people, you can't sell subscriptions, and getting up early was sueless.

     I wandered around on the street, waiting for people to wake up and open their doors. I went from house to house - - when epople opened their doors I would bow repectfully and tried to sell subscriptions. Sometimes I told the truth, sometimes I lied. I walked until it was dark. I still had to collect my nerve before I went up to each house. In the end I was miserable.