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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of True to His Home, by Hezekiah Butterworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: True to His Home
+       A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin
+
+Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
+
+Illustrator: H. Winthrop Pierce
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26442]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRUE TO HIS HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRUE TO HIS HOME
+
+A TALE OF THE BOYHOOD OF FRANKLIN
+
+
+
+
+Books by Hezekiah Butterworth.
+
+
+=Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.=
+
+
+=The Log School-House on the Columbia.=
+
+With 13 full-page Illustrations by J. CARTER BEARD, E. J. AUSTEN, and
+Others.
+
+"This book will charm all who turn its pages. There are few books of
+popular information concerning the pioneers of the great Northwest, and
+this one is worthy of sincere praise."--_Seattle Post-Intelligencer._
+
+
+=In the Boyhood of Lincoln.=
+
+_A Story of the Black Hawk War and the Tunker Schoolmaster._ With 12
+full-page Illustrations and colored Frontispiece.
+
+"The author presents facts in a most attractive framework of fiction,
+and imbues the whole with his peculiar humor. The illustrations are
+numerous and of more than usual excellence."--_New Haven Palladium._
+
+
+=The Boys of Greenway Court.=
+
+_A Story of the Early Years of Washington._ With 10 full-page
+Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE.
+
+"Skillfully combining fact and fiction, he has given us a story
+historically instructive and at the same time entertaining."--_Boston
+Transcript._
+
+
+=The Patriot Schoolmaster;=
+
+_Or, The Adventures of the Two Boston Cannon, the "Adams" and the
+"Hancock."_ A Tale of the Minute Men and the Sons of Liberty. With
+Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE.
+
+The true spirit of the leaders in our War for Independence is pictured
+in this dramatic story. It includes the Boston Tea Party and Bunker
+Hill; and Adams, Hancock, Revere, and the boys who bearded General Gage,
+are living characters in this romance of American patriotism.
+
+
+=The Knight of Liberty.=
+
+_A Tale of the Fortunes of Lafayette._ With 6 full-page Illustrations.
+
+"No better reading for the young man can be imagined than this
+fascinating narrative of a noble figure on the canvas of time."--_Boston
+Traveller._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET.
+
+(See page 113.)]
+
+
+
+
+TRUE TO HIS HOME
+
+A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin
+
+BY
+
+HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
+
+AUTHOR OF THE WAMPUM BELT, IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, ETC.
+
+    The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do in it?
+                                                         POOR RICHARD
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY H. WINTHROP PEIRCE_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          NEW YORK
+          D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+          1897
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1897,
+          BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+THIS volume is an historical fiction, but the plan of it was suggested
+by biography, and is made to include the most interesting and
+picturesque episodes in the home side of the life of Benjamin Franklin,
+so as to form a connected narrative or picture of his public life.
+
+I have written no book with a deeper sympathy with my subject, for,
+although fiction, the story very truthfully shows that the good
+intentions of a life which has seemed to fail do not die, but live in
+others whom they inspire. Uncle Benjamin Franklin, "the poet," who was
+something of a philosopher, and whose visions all seemed to end in
+disappointment, deeply influenced his nephew and godson, Benjamin
+Franklin, whom he morally educated to become what he himself had failed
+to be.
+
+The conduct of Josiah Franklin, the father of Benjamin Franklin, in
+comforting his poor old brother in England by naming his fifteenth child
+for him, and making him his godfather, is a touching instance of family
+affection, to the memory of which the statesman was always true.
+
+Uncle Benjamin Franklin had a library of pamphlets that was very dear to
+him, for in the margins of the leaves he had placed the choicest
+thoughts of his life amid great political events. He was very poor, and
+he sold his library in his old age; we may reasonably suppose that he
+parted with it among other effects to get money to come to America, that
+he might give his influence to "Little Ben," after his brother had
+remembered him in his desolation by giving his name to the boy. The
+finding of these pamphlets in London fifty years after the old man was
+compelled to sell them was regarded by Benjamin Franklin as one of the
+most singular events of his remarkable life.
+
+Mr. Parton, in his Life of Franklin, thus alludes to the circumstance:
+
+          A strange occurrence brought to the mind of
+          Franklin, in 1771, a vivid recollection of his
+          childhood. A dealer in old books, whose shop he
+          sometimes visited, called his attention one day to
+          a collection of pamphlets, bound in thirty
+          volumes, dating from the Restoration to 1715. The
+          dealer offered them to Franklin, as he said,
+          because many of the subjects of the pamphlets were
+          such as usually interested him. Upon examining the
+          collection, he found that one of the blank leaves
+          of each volume contained a catalogue of its
+          contents, and the price each pamphlet had cost;
+          there were notes and comments also in the margin
+          of several of the pieces. A closer scrutiny
+          revealed that the handwriting was that of his
+          Uncle Benjamin, the rhyming friend and counselor
+          of his childhood. Other circumstances combined
+          with this surprising fact to prove that the
+          collection had been made by his uncle, who had
+          probably sold it when he emigrated to America,
+          fifty-six years before. Franklin bought the
+          volumes, and gave an account of the circumstance
+          to his Uncle Benjamin's son, who still lived and
+          flourished in Boston. "The oddity is," he wrote,
+          "that the bookseller, who could suspect nothing of
+          any relation between me and the collector, should
+          happen to make me the offer of them."
+
+It may please the reader to know that "Mr. Calamity" was suggested by a
+real character, and that the incidents in the life of "Jenny,"
+Franklin's favorite sister, are true in spirit and largely in detail. It
+would have been more artistic to have had Franklin discover Uncle
+Benjamin's "pamphlets" later in life, but this would have been, while
+allowable, unhistoric fiction.
+
+Says one of the greatest critics ever born in America, in speaking of
+the humble birth of Franklin:
+
+          That little baby, humbly cradled, has turned out
+          to be the greatest man that America ever bore in
+          her bosom or set eyes upon. Beyond all question,
+          as I think, Benjamin Franklin had the largest mind
+          that has shone on this side of the sea, widest in
+          its comprehension, most deep-looking, thoughtful,
+          far-seeing, the most original and creative child
+          of the New World.
+
+          For the last four generations no man has shed such
+          copious good influence on America, nor added so
+          much new truth to popular knowledge; none has so
+          skillfully organized its ideals into institutions;
+          none has so powerfully and wisely directed the
+          nation's conduct and advanced its welfare in so
+          many respects. No man has so strong a hold on the
+          habits or the manners of the people.
+
+"The principal question in life is, What good can I do in the world?"
+says Franklin. He learned to ask this question in his home in "beloved
+Boston." It was his purpose to answer this all-important question after
+the lessons that he had received in his early home, to which his heart
+remained true through all his marvelous career.
+
+This is the seventh volume of the Creators of Liberty Series of books of
+historical fiction, based for the most part on real events, in the
+purpose of presenting biography in picture.
+
+The former volumes of this series of books have been very kindly
+received by the public, and none of them more generously than the last
+volume, The Wampum Belt. For this the writer is very grateful, for he is
+a thorough believer in story-telling education, on the Pestalozzi and
+Froebel principle that "life must be taught from life," or from the
+highest ideals of beneficent character.
+
+                                                           H. B.
+
+28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS., _June, 1897_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+
+        I.--THE FIRST DAY                                     1
+       II.--UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET                         10
+      III.--BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN                            18
+       IV.--FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD       24
+        V.--THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE                          28
+       VI.--LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG                          34
+      VII.--UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD                 39
+     VIII.--LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY   46
+       IX.--UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET                          50
+        X.--THE STONE WHARF, AND LADY WIGGLEWORTH, WHO FELL
+               ASLEEP IN CHURCH                              56
+       XI.--JENNY                                            70
+      XII.--A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM                   74
+     XIII.--THE ELDER FRANKLIN'S STORIES                     78
+      XIV.--THE TREASURE-FINDER                              83
+       XV.--"HAVE I A CHANCE?"                               92
+      XVI.--"A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED THE CHARACTER OF A MAN
+               WHO LED HIS AGE"                              99
+     XVII.--BENJAMIN LOOKS FOR A PLACE WHEREIN TO START IN
+               LIFE                                         102
+    XVIII.--LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET                111
+      XIX.--LEAVES BOSTON                                   132
+       XX.--LAUGHED AT AGAIN                                138
+      XXI.--LONDON AND A LONG SWIM                          148
+    XXII.--A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S
+               SPINNING-WHEEL                               160
+    XXIII.--MR. CALAMITY                                    168
+     XXIV.--FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN              174
+      XXV.--THE MAGICAL BOTTLE                              179
+     XXVI.--THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL AND THE QUESTIONS IT
+               RAISED                                       186
+    XXVII.--THE GREAT DISCOVERY                             192
+   XXVIII.--HOME-COMING IN DISGUISE                         200
+     XXIX.--"THOSE PAMPHLETS"                               209
+      XXX.--A STRANGE DISCOVERY                             213
+     XXXI.--OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY                    220
+    XXXII.--THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT.--DR. FRANKLIN'S
+               ENGLISH FABLE.--THE DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS       225
+   XXXIII.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN                          230
+    XXXIV.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE
+               KING'S ARMS                                  242
+     XXXV.--JENNY AGAIN                                     250
+    XXXVI.--THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY     257
+   XXXVII.--ANOTHER SIGNATURE.--THE STORY OF AUVERGNE SANS
+               TACHE                                        267
+  XXXVIII.--FRANKLIN SIGNS THE TREATY OF PEACE.--HOW GEORGE
+               III RECEIVES THE NEWS                        281
+    XXXIX.--THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT                  287
+       XL.--IN SERVICE AGAIN                                293
+      XLI.--JANE'S LAST VISIT                               299
+     XLII.--FOR THE LAST TIME                               307
+    XLIII.--A LESSON AFTER SCHOOL                           311
+  APPENDIX.--FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS PROVERB STORY OF THE OLD
+               AUCTIONEER                                   314
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                        FACING PAGE
+
+  Little Ben's adventure as a poet      _Frontispiece_
+
+  Uncle Benjamin's secret                   52
+
+  "Are you going to swim back to London?"  156
+
+  A strange discovery                      215
+
+  The destruction of the royal arms        247
+
+  Franklin's last days                     295
+
+
+
+
+TRUE TO HIS HOME.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST DAY.
+
+
+IT was the Sunday morning of the 6th of January, 1706 (January 17th, old
+style), when a baby first saw the light in a poor tallow chandler's
+house on Milk Street, nearly opposite the Old South Church, Boston. The
+little stranger came into a large and growing family, of whom at a later
+period he might sometimes have seen thirteen children sit down at the
+table to very hard and simple fare.
+
+"A baby is nothing new in this family," said Josiah Franklin, the
+father. "This is the fifteenth. Let me take it over to the church and
+have it christened this very day. There should be no time lost in
+christening. What say you, friends all? It is a likely boy, and it is
+best to start him right in life at once."
+
+"People do not often have their children christened in church on the day
+of birth," said a lusty neighbor, "though if a child seems likely to die
+it might be christened on the day of its birth at home."
+
+"This child does not seem likely to die," said the happy tallow
+chandler. "I will go and see the parson, and if he does not object I
+will give the child to the Lord on this January day, and if he should
+come to anything he will have occasion to remember that I thought of the
+highest duty that I owed him when he first opened his eyes to the
+light."
+
+The smiling and enthusiastic tallow chandler went to see the parson, and
+then returned to his home.
+
+"Abiah," he said to his wife, "I am going to have the child christened.
+What shall his name be?"
+
+Josiah Franklin, the chandler, who had emigrated to Boston town that he
+might enjoy religious freedom, had left a brother in England, who was an
+honest, kindly, large-hearted man, and "a poet."
+
+"How would Benjamin do?" he continued; "brother's name. Benjamin is a
+family name, and a good one. Benjamin of old, into whose sack Joseph put
+the silver cup, was a right kind of a man. What do you say, Abiah
+Folger?"
+
+"Benjamin is a good name, and a name lasts for life. But your brother
+Benjamin has not succeeded very well in his many undertakings."
+
+"No, but in all his losses he has never lost his good name. His honor
+has shown over all. 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great
+riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold.' A man may get
+riches and yet be poor. It is he that seeks the welfare of others more
+than wealth for himself that lives for the things that are best."
+
+"Josiah, this is no common boy--look at his head. We can not do for him
+as our neighbors do for their children. But we can give him a name to
+honor, and that will be an example to him. How would Folger do--Folger
+Franklin? Father Folger was a poet like your brother Benjamin, and he
+did well in life. That would unite the names of the two families."
+
+John Folger, of Norwich, England, with his son Peter, came to this
+country in the year 1635 on the same ship that bore the family of Rev.
+Hugh Peters. This clergyman, who is known as a "regicide," or king
+murderer, and who suffered a most terrible death in London on the
+accession of Charles II, succeeded Roger Williams in the church at
+Salem. He flourished during the times of Cromwell, but was sentenced to
+be hanged, cut down alive, and tortured, his body to be quartered, and
+his head exposed among the malefactors, on account of having consented
+to the execution of Charles I.
+
+Among Hugh Peters's household was one Mary Morrell, a white slave, or
+purchased serving maid. She was a very bright and beautiful girl.
+
+The passengers had small comforts on board the ship. The passage was a
+long one, and the time passed heavily.
+
+Now the passengers who were most interesting to each other became
+intimate, and young Peter Folger and beautiful Mary Morrell of the
+Peterses became very interesting to each other and very social. Peter
+Folger began to ask himself the question, "If the fair maid would marry
+me, could I not purchase her freedom?" He seems somehow to have found
+out that the latter could be done, and so Peter offered himself to the
+attractive servant of the Peterses. The two were betrothed amid the
+Atlantic winds and the rolling seas, and the roaring ocean could have
+little troubled them then, so happy were their anticipations of their
+life in the New World.
+
+Peter purchased Mary's freedom of the Peterses, and so he bought the
+grandmother of that Benjamin Franklin who was to "snatch the
+thunderbolts from heaven and the scepter from tyrants," to sign the
+Declaration of Independence which brought forth a new order of
+government for mankind, and to form a treaty of peace with England which
+was to make America free.
+
+Peter Folger and his bride first settled in Watertown, Mass., where the
+young immigrant became a very useful citizen. He studied the Indian
+tongue.
+
+About 1660 the family removed to Martha's Vineyard with Thomas Mayhew,
+of colonial fame, where Peter was employed as a school teacher and a
+land surveyor, and he assisted Mr. Mayhew in his work among the Indians.
+He went to Nantucket as a surveyor about 1662, and was induced to remove
+there as an interpreter and as land surveyor. He was assigned by the
+proprietors a place known as Roger's Field, and later as Jethro Folger's
+Lane, now a portion of the Maddequet Road. Their tenth child was Abiah,
+born August 15, 1667. She was the second wife of Josiah Franklin, tallow
+chandler, of the sign of the Blue Ball, Boston, and the mother of the
+boy whom she would like to have inherit so inspiring a name.
+
+Peter Folger, the Quaker poet of the island of Nantucket, was a most
+worthy man. He lived at the beginning of the dark times of persecution,
+when Baptists and Quakers were in danger of being publicly whipped,
+branded, and deported or banished into the wilderness. Stories of the
+cruelty that followed these people filled the colonies, and caused the
+Quaker's heart to bleed and burn. He wrote a poem entitled A
+Looking-glass for the Times, in which he called upon New England to
+pause in her sins of intoleration and persecution, and threatened the
+judgments foretold in the Bible upon those who do injustice to God's
+children.
+
+"Abiah," said the proud father, "I admire the character of your father.
+It stood for justice and human rights. But, wife, listen:
+
+"Brother Benjamin has lost all of his ten children but one. I pity him.
+Wife, listen: Brother Benjamin is poor through no fault of his, but
+because he gave himself and all that he was to his family.
+
+"Listen: It would touch his heart to learn that I had named this boy for
+him. It would show the old man that I had not forgotten him, but still
+thought of him.
+
+"I can not do much for the boy, but I can give Brother Benjamin a home
+with me, and, as he is a great reader, he can instruct the boy by wise
+precept and a good example. If the boy will only follow brother's
+principles, he may make the name of Benjamin live.
+
+"And once more: if we name the boy Benjamin, it will make Brother
+Benjamin feel that he has not lost all, but that he will have another
+chance in the world. How glad that would make the poor old man! I would
+like to name him as the boy's godfather. I do pity him, don't you? You
+have the heart of Peter Folger."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Abiah, what now shall the boy's name be?"
+
+"Benjamin."
+
+"You have chosen that name out of your heart. May that name bring you
+joy! It ought to do so, since you have given up your own wish and
+breathed it out of your heart and conscience. To give up is to gain."
+
+He took up the child.
+
+"Then we will give that name to him now, and I will take the child and
+go to the church, and I will name Brother Benjamin as his godfather."
+
+"It is a very cold day for the little one."
+
+"And a healthy one on which to start out in the world. There is nothing
+like starting right and with a good name, which may the Lord help this
+child to honor! And, Abiah, that He will."
+
+He wrapped the babe up warmly, and looked him full in the face.
+
+Josiah Franklin was a genial, provident, hard-sensed man. He probably
+had no prophetic visions; no thought that the little one given him on
+this frosty January morning in the breezy town of Boston by the sea
+would command senates, lead courts, and sign a declaration of peace that
+would make possible a new order of government in the world, could have
+entered his mind. If the boy should become a good man, with a little
+poetic imagination like his Uncle Benjamin, the home poet, he would be
+content.
+
+He opened the door of his one room on the lower floor of his house and
+went out into the cold with the child in his arms. In a short time he
+returned and laid little Benjamin in the arms of his mother.
+
+"I hope the child's life will hold out as it has begun," he added.
+"_Benjamin Franklin, day one; started right. May Heaven help him to get
+used to the world!_"
+
+As poor as the tallow chandler was, he was hospitable on that day. He
+did not hold the birth of the little one--which really was an event of
+greater importance to the world than the birth of a king--as anything
+more than the simple growth of an honest family, who had left the
+crowded towns and a smithy in old England to enjoy freedom of faith and
+conscience and the opportunities of the New World. He wished to live
+where he might be free to enjoy his own opinions and to promote a colony
+where all men should have these privileges.
+
+The house in which Franklin was born is described as follows:
+
+          Its front upon the street was rudely clapboarded,
+          and the sides and rear were protected from the
+          inclemencies of a New England climate by large,
+          rough shingles. In height the house was about
+          three stories; in front, the second story and
+          attic projected somewhat into the street, over the
+          principal story on the ground floor. On the lower
+          floor of the main house there was one room only.
+          This, which probably served the Franklins as a
+          parlor and sitting-room, and also for the family
+          eating-room, was about twenty feet square, and had
+          two windows on the street; and it had also one on
+          the passageway, so as to give the inmates a good
+          view of Washington Street. In the center of the
+          southerly side of the room was one of those noted
+          large fireplaces, situated in a most capacious
+          chimney; on the left of this was a spacious
+          closet. On the ground floor, connected with the
+          sitting-room through the entry, was the kitchen.
+          The second story originally contained but one
+          chamber, and in this the windows, door, fireplace,
+          and closet were similar in number and position to
+          those in the parlor beneath it. The attic was also
+          originally one unplastered room, and had a window
+          in front on the street, and two common attic
+          windows, one on each side of the roof, near the
+          back part of it.
+
+Soon after this unprophetic event Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife
+went to live at the sign of the Blue Ball, on what was then the
+southeast corner of Hanover and Union Streets. The site of the birth of
+Franklin was long made notable as the office of the Boston Post, a
+political paper whose humor was once proverbial. The site is still
+visited by strangers, and bears the record of the event which was to
+contribute so powerful an influence to the scientific and political
+history of the world.
+
+Wendell Phillips used to say that there were two kinds of people in the
+world--one who went ahead and did something, and another, who showed how
+that thing ought to have been done in some other way. The boy belonged
+to the former class.
+
+But I doubt if any reader of this volume was ever born to so hard an
+estate as this boy. Let us follow him into the story land of childhood.
+In Germany every child passes through fairyland, but there was no such
+land in Josiah Franklin's tallow shop, except when the busy man
+sometimes played the violin in the inner room and sang psalms to the
+music, usually in a very solemn tone.
+
+There were not many homes in Boston at this period that had even so near
+an approach to fairyland as a violin. Those were hard times for
+children, and especially for those with lively imaginations, which gift
+little Benjamin had in no common degree. There were Indians in those
+times, and supposed ghosts and witches, but no passing clouds bore
+angels' chariots; there were no brownies among the wild rose bushes and
+the ferns. There was one good children's story in every home--that of
+"Joseph" in the Bible, still, as always, the best family story in all
+the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET.
+
+
+MRS. FRANKLIN has said that she could hardly remember the time in her
+son's childhood when he could not read. He emerged almost from babyhood
+a reader, and soon began to "devour"--to use the word then applied to
+his habit--all the books that fell within his reach.
+
+When about four years old he became much interested in stories told him
+by his father of his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, who lived in England, and
+for whom he had been named, and who, it was hoped, would come to the new
+country and be his godfather.
+
+The family at the Blue Ball was quick to notice the tendencies of their
+children in early life. Little Benjamin Franklin developed a curious
+liking for a trumpet and a gun. He liked to march about to noise, and
+this noise he was pleased to make himself--to blow his own trumpet. The
+family wrote to Uncle Benjamin, the poet, then in England, in regard to
+this unpromising trait, and the good man returned the following letter
+in reply:
+
+          _To my Namesake, on hearing of his Inclination to Martial
+                         Affairs. July 7, 1710._
+
+          "Believe me, Ben, it is a dangerous trade;
+          The sword has many marred as well as made;
+          By it do many fall, not many rise--
+          Makes many poor, few rich, not many wise;
+          Fills towns with ruin, fields with blood beside;
+          'Tis sloth's maintainer, and the shield of pride;
+          Fair cities, rich to-day in plenty flow,
+          War fills with want to-morrow, and with woe;
+          Ruined estates, victims of vice, broken limbs, and scars
+          Are the effects of desolating wars."
+
+One evening, as the tallow chandler was hurrying hither and thither in
+his apron and paper cap, the door opened with a sharp ring of the bell
+fastened by a string upon it. The paper cap bobbed up.
+
+"Hoi, what now?" said the tallow chandler.
+
+"A letter from England, sirrah. The Lively Nancy has come in. There it
+is."
+
+The tallow chandler held the letter up to the fire, for it had been a
+_melting_ day, as certain days on which the melting of tallow for the
+molds were called. He read "Benjamin Franklin," and said: "That's
+curious--that's Brother Ben's writing. I would know that the world
+over." He put the letter in his pocket. He saw Dame Franklin looking
+through the transom over the door, and shook his head.
+
+He sat down with his large family to a meal of bread and milk, and then
+took the letter from his pocket and read it over to himself.
+
+"Ben," said he, "this is for you. I am going to read it. As I do so, you
+repeat after me the first letter of the first and of every line. Are you
+ready? Now.
+
+"'_Be to thy parents an obedient son._'"
+
+"B," said little Ben.
+
+"'_Each day let duty constantly be done._'"
+
+"E," the boy continued.
+
+"'_Never give way to sloth, or lust, or pride._'"
+
+"N, father."
+
+"'_Just free to be from thousand ills beside._'"
+
+"J, father."
+
+"'_Above all ills be sure avoid the shelf._'"
+
+"A, father."
+
+"'_Man's danger lies in Satan, sin, and self._'"
+
+"M, father."
+
+"'_In virtue, learning, wisdom, progress make._'"
+
+"I, father."
+
+"'_Ne'er shrink at suffering for thy Saviour's sake._'"
+
+"N, father. I know what that spells."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Benjamin."
+
+"'_Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee._'"
+
+"F," said the boy.
+
+"'_Religious always in thy station be._'"
+
+"R, father."
+
+"'_Adore the Maker of thy inward heart._'"
+
+"A, father."
+
+"'_Now's the accepted time, give him thy heart._'"
+
+"N, father; and now I can guess the rest."
+
+"'_Keep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend._'"
+
+"K, father."
+
+"'_Like judge and witness this thy acts attend._'"
+
+"L."
+
+"'_In heart with bended knee alone adore._'"
+
+"I."
+
+"'_None but the Three in One forever more._'"
+
+"N."
+
+"And to whom are all these things written?"
+
+"'To BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,' sir."
+
+"Well, my boy, if you will only follow the advice of your Uncle
+Benjamin, the poet, you never will need any more instruction.--Wife,
+hear this: Brother Ben writes that he is coming to America as soon as he
+can settle his affairs, and when he arrives I will give over the
+training of little Ben to him. He is his godfather, and he takes a great
+interest in a boy that he has never seen. Sometimes people are drawn
+toward each other before they meet--there's a kind of sympathy in this
+world that is felt in ways unseen and that is prophetic. Your father was
+a poet, and Uncle Ben, he is one, after a fashion. I wonder what little
+Ben will be!"
+
+He put on his paper cap and opened the door into the molding-room. The
+fire was dying out on the hearth, and the candles in the molds were
+cooling and hardening. He opened the weather door, causing the bell
+attached to it to ring. He stood looking out on the bowery street of
+Boston town.
+
+On the hill rose the North Church in the shadows near the sea. A horn
+rent the still air. A stage coach from Salem came rolling in and stopped
+at the Boston Stone, not far away. A little girl tripped down the
+street.
+
+"A pound of candles, sir."
+
+"Hoi, yes, yes," and he took some candles out of a mold and laid them in
+the scales. The girl courtesied, and the tallow chandler closed the door
+with a ting-a-ling.
+
+Then Josiah sat down with his family and played the violin. He loved his
+brother Benjamin, and the thought of his coming made him a happy man.
+
+One day the old man came. Soon after there happened a great event in the
+family.
+
+It was a windy night. The ocean was dashing and foaming along the sea
+wall on the beach where Long Wharf, Lewis Wharf, and Rowe's Wharf now
+are. The stars shone brightly, and clouds flew scudding over the moon.
+
+Abiah Franklin opened the weather door and looked out. She returned to
+her great chair slowly with a cloud in her face.
+
+"It is a bad night for those on the sea," she said. "It is now nine
+years since Josiah went away. Where he found an ocean grave we shall
+never know. It is hard," she added, "to have hope leave you in this way.
+It is one long torture to live in suspense. There hasn't been a day
+since the first year after Josiah left us that my ear has not waited to
+hear a knock on the door on a night like this.
+
+"Josiah, you may say that I have faith in the impossible, but I
+sometimes believe that I shall hear that knock yet. There is one
+Scripture that comforts me when I think that; it is, 'Commit thy way
+unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.'"
+
+Josiah Franklin sat silent. It was now indeed nine years since his son
+Josiah had left home against his will and gone to sea--"run away to
+sea," as his departure was called. It was a kind of mental distemper in
+old New England times for a boy "to run away and go to sea."
+
+There had been fearful storms on the coast. Abiah Franklin was a silent
+woman when the winds bended the trees and the waves broke loudly on the
+shore. She thought then; she inwardly prayed, but she said little of the
+storm that was in her heart.
+
+"I shall never see Josiah again," at last said Josiah Franklin. "It is a
+pity; it is hard on me that the son who bears my name should leave me,
+to become a wanderer. Boys will do such things. I may have made his home
+too strict for him; if so, may the Lord forgive me. I have meant to do
+my best for all my children.--Ben, let Josiah be a warning to you; you
+have been having the boy fever to go to sea. Hear the winds blow and the
+sea dash! Josiah must have longed to be back by the fire on nights like
+these."
+
+Josiah went to the window and tapped upon the pane. He did that often
+when his mind was troubled. To tap upon the pane eased his heartache. It
+was an old New England way.
+
+Josiah took his violin, tuned it, and began to play while the family
+listened by the fading coals.
+
+"I thought I heard something," said Abiah between one of the tunes.
+
+"What was it, Abiah?" asked her husband.
+
+"It sounded like a step."
+
+"That's nothing strange."
+
+"It sounded familiar," she said. "Steps are peculiar."
+
+"Oh, I know of whom you are thinking," said Josiah. "May the Lord
+comfort you, for the winds and waves do not to-night."
+
+He played again. His wife grew restless.
+
+"Josiah," said she when he ceased playing, "you may say that I have
+fancies, but I thought I saw a face pass the window."
+
+"That is likely, Abiah."
+
+"But this one had a short chin and a long nose."
+
+She choked, and her eyes were wet.
+
+There came a rap upon the door. It was a strong hand that made it; there
+was a heart in the sound.
+
+"I'll open the door, Josiah," said Abiah.
+
+She removed the wooden bar with a trembling hand, and lifted the latch.
+
+A tall, rugged form stood before her. She started back.
+
+"Mother, don't you know me?"
+
+"Yes, Josiah, I knew that you were coming to-night."
+
+She gazed into his eyes silently.
+
+"Who told you, mother?"
+
+"My soul."
+
+"Well, I've come back like the prodigal son. Let me give you a smack.
+You'll take me in--but how about father? I thought I heard him playing
+the violin."
+
+"Josiah, that is your voice!" exclaimed Josiah the elder. "Now my cup
+of joy is full and running over. Josiah, come in out of the storm."
+
+Josiah Franklin rushed to the door and locked his son in his arms, but
+there was probably but little sentiment in the response.
+
+"Now I _know_ the parable of the prodigal son," said he. "I had only
+read it before. Come in! come in! There are brothers and sisters here
+whom you have never seen. Now we are all here."
+
+Uncle Benjamin wrote a poem to celebrate young Josiah's return. It was
+read in the family, with disheartening results. Sailor Josiah said that
+he "never cared much for poetry." The poem may be found in the large
+biographies of Franklin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN.
+
+
+AN old man sat by an open fire in a strange-looking room with a little
+boy on his knee. Beside him was a middle-aged man, the father of the
+boy.
+
+"Brother Josiah," said the old man, "I have had a hard, disappointed
+life, but I have done the best that I could, and there has nothing
+happened since my own children died and my hair turned gray that has
+made me so happy as that letter that you sent to me in England in which
+you told me that you had named this boy for me."
+
+"It makes me happy to see you here by my fire to-night, with the boy in
+your lap," said the father. "Benjamin and Benjamin! My heart has been
+true to you in all your troubles and losses, and I would have helped you
+had I been able. How did you get up the resolution to cross the sea in
+your old age?"
+
+"Brother Josiah, it was because my own son is here, and he was all that
+I had left of my own family. But that was not all. In one sense my own
+life has failed; I have come down to old age with empty hands. When your
+letter came saying that you had named this boy for me, and had made me
+his godfather, I saw that you pitied me, and that you had a place for
+me in your heart. I thought of all the years that we had passed together
+when we were young; of the farm and forge in Ecton; of Banbury; of the
+chimes of Nottingham; of all that we were to each other then.
+
+"I was all alone in London, and there my heart turned to you as it did
+when we were boys. That gave me resolution to cross the sea, Brother
+Josiah, although my hair is white and my veins are thin.
+
+"But that was not all, brother; he is a poor man indeed who gives up
+hope. When a man loses hope for himself, he wishes to live in another.
+The ancients used to pray that their sons might be nobler than
+themselves. When I read your letter that said that you had named this
+boy for me and had made me his godfather, you can not tell how life
+revived in me--it was like seeing a rainbow after a storm. I said to
+myself that I had another hope in this world; that I would live in the
+boy. I have come over to America to live in this boy.
+
+"O brother, I never thought that I would see an hour like this! I am
+poor, but I am happy. I am happy because you loved me after I became
+poor and friendless. That was your opportunity to show what your heart
+was. I am happy because you trusted me and gave my name to this boy.
+
+"Brother Josiah, I have come over to America to return your love, in
+teaching this boy how to live and how to fulfill the best that is in
+him. A boy with your heart can succeed in life, even if he have but
+common gifts. The best thing that can be said of any man is that he is
+true-hearted. Brother, you have been true-hearted to me, and the boy
+inherits your nature, and I am going to be true-hearted to him and to
+do all I can to make his life a blessing to you and the world. We do no
+self-sacrificing thing without fruit."
+
+The old man put his arm about the boy, and said:
+
+"Ben, little Ben, I loved you before I saw you, and I love you more than
+ever now. I have come across the ocean in my old age to be with you. I
+want you to like me, Ben."
+
+"I do, uncle," said little Ben. "I would rather be with you than with
+any one. I am glad that you have come."
+
+"That makes me happy, that makes my old heart happy. I did everything a
+man could do for his wife and children and for everybody. I was left
+alone in London, poor; I seemed to be a forsaken man, but this makes up
+for all."
+
+"Benjamin and Benjamin!" said the younger brother, touching the strings
+of the violin that he held on his lap--"Benjamin and Benjamin! Brother
+Benjamin, how did you get the money to cross the ocean?"
+
+"I sold my goods and my pamphlets. _They_ were my life; I had put my
+life into them. But I sold them, for what were they if I could have the
+chance to live another life in little Ben?"
+
+"What were your pamphlets?" asked little Ben.
+
+"They were my life, and I sold them for you, that I might make your life
+a blessing to your father, who has been a true brother to me. I will
+tell you the whole story of the pamphlets some day."
+
+"Uncle, I love you more than ever before, because you sold the treasures
+for me. I wish that I might grow up and help folks, so that my name
+might honor yours.
+
+"You can make it that, my boy. If you will let me teach you, you may
+make it that. There can nothing stand before a will that wills to do
+good. It is the heart that has power, my boy. My life will not have been
+lost if I can live in you."
+
+"I have not much time for educating my children," said the younger
+brother. "I am going to give over the training of the boy to you. True
+education begins with the heart first, so as to make right ideas fixed
+in the mind and right habits, in the conduct. It may be little that I
+can send him to school, but it is what you can do for him that will give
+him a start in life. I want you to see that he starts right in life. I
+leave his training to you. I have a dozen mouths to feed, and small time
+for anything but toil."
+
+He tuned his violin and played an old English air. There were candle
+molds in the room, long rows of candle wicks, great kettles, a gun, a
+Bible, some old books, and a fireplace with a great crane, hooks, and
+andirons.
+
+Little Benjamin looked up into the old man's face and laid his hand on
+his shoulder.
+
+"I am glad father did not forget you," said he.
+
+The old man's lip quivered.
+
+"He has been a true brother to me. Always remember that, boy, as long as
+you live. It is such memories as that that teach. His heart is true to
+me now as when we used to leave the forge and roam the woods of Banbury
+together in springtime, when the skylark rose out of the meadows and the
+hedgerows bloomed. It is good for families to be so true to each other.
+If one member of a family lacks anything, it is good for another to
+make up for it. Yes, boy, your father has a good heart, else you would
+not now be in my arms."
+
+"Why do you cry, papa?" said the boy, for his father's eyes were filled
+with tears which coursed down his cheeks. Something that aged Benjamin
+had said about the forge, the nightingale, or the thorn had touched his
+heart.
+
+"We can never be young again, brother," said Josiah Franklin. "I shall
+never see the thorn bloom or hear the nightingale sing as I once did.
+No, no, no; but I am glad that I have brought you and Ben together. That
+would have pleased our old mother's heart, long dead and gone to the
+violets and primroses. Do you suppose the dead know? I sometimes think
+they do, and that it makes them happy to see things like these. I will
+talk with the parson about these things some day."
+
+The younger brother smiled through his tears and straightened himself
+up, as though he felt that he had yielded to weakness, for he was a
+plain, hard-working man. Suddenly he said:
+
+"Brother, you remember Uncle Tom?"
+
+"Yes, yes; he set the chimes of Nottingham ringing in the air. I can
+hear them ringing now in my memory. Brother, I think little Ben favors
+Uncle Tom."
+
+"Who was Uncle Tom?" asked the boy.
+
+"They used to say that he was a wizard. I will tell you all about him
+some day. Let us listen now to your father's violin."
+
+The house was still, save that the sea winds stirred the crisp autumn
+leaves in the great trees near and the nine o'clock bell fell solemnly
+on the air. A watchman went by, saying, "All is well!"
+
+Yes, all is well in hearts like these--hearts that can pity, love,
+forbear, and feel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD.
+
+
+AS barren as was the early Puritan town in things that please the fancy
+of the child, Josiah Franklin's home was a cheerful one. It kept
+holidays, when the violin was played, and some pennies were bestowed
+upon the many children.
+
+Let us enter the house by the candle-room door. The opening of the door
+rings a bell. There is an odor of tallow everywhere. One side is hung
+with wickings, to be cut and trimmed.
+
+When the tallow is boiling the room is very hot, close, and the
+atmosphere oily.
+
+There is a soap kettle in the room. The odor of the lye is more
+agreeable than that of the melted tallow.
+
+Little Ben is here, short, stout, rosy-faced, with a great head. Where
+he goes the other children go; what he does, they do. Already a little
+world has begun to follow him.
+
+Look at him as he runs around among the candle molds, talking like a
+philosopher. Does he seem likely to stand in the French court amid the
+splendors of the palace of Versailles, the most popular and conspicuous
+person among all the jeweled multitude who fill the mirrored, the
+golden, the blazing halls except the king himself? Does he look as
+though he would one day ask the French king for an army to help
+establish the independence of his country, and that the throne would bow
+to him?
+
+Homely as was that home, the fancy of Franklin after he became great
+always loved to return to it.
+
+In his advanced years he wished to prepare a little story or parable
+that would show that people spend too much time and money on things that
+could be more cheaply purchased or that they could well do without. He
+wrote out an anecdote of his childhood that illustrated in a clear way,
+like so many flashes, how the resources of life may be wasted. The story
+has been printed, we may safely say, a thousand times. Few stories have
+ever had a wider circulation or been more often quoted. It has in it a
+picture of his old home, and as such we must give it here. Here is the
+parable again, as in the original:
+
+"When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday,
+filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they
+sold toys for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_
+that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered
+him all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over
+the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the
+family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I
+had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth.
+This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest
+of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried
+with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the
+_whistle_ gave me pleasure.
+
+"This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on
+my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary
+thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_, and so I
+saved my money.
+
+"As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I
+thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_.
+
+"When I saw any one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time
+in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and
+perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gave
+too much for his whistle._
+
+"When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in
+political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by
+neglect, _He pays, indeed_, says I, _too much for this whistle._
+
+"If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the
+pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens,
+and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of accumulating
+wealth, _Poor man_, says I, _you do, indeed, pay too much for your
+whistle._
+
+"When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement
+of mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, _Mistaken
+man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure;
+you give too much for your whistle._
+
+"If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all
+above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in
+prison, _Alas!_ says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle._
+
+"When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured
+brute of a husband, _What a pity it is_, says I, _that she had paid so
+much for a whistle!_
+
+"In short, I conceived that great part of the miseries of mankind were
+brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of
+things, and by their giving too much for their _whistle_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE.
+
+
+LITTLE Ben now began to lead the sports of the boys. As there came to
+Froebel an inspiration to found a system of education in which the
+playground should be made a means of forming character when life was in
+the clay, so to young Franklin came a desire to make sports and pastimes
+useful. This caused him to build the little wharf in the soft marsh
+whence the boys might catch minnows and sail their boats.
+
+Boys of nearly all countries and ages have found delight in flying
+kites. A light frame of wood, covered with paper, held by a long string,
+and raised by propelling it against the air, has always peculiar
+attractions for the young. To see an object rise from the earth by a law
+of Nature which seems to overcome gravitation to the sky while the
+string is yet in the hand, gives a boy a sense of power which excites
+his imagination and thrills his blood.
+
+In Franklin's time the boy who could fly his kite the highest, or who
+could make his kite appear to be the most picturesque in the far-away
+blue sky, was regarded as a leader among his fellows, and young
+Franklin, as we may infer, made his kite fly very high.
+
+But he was not content with the altitude to which he could raise his
+kite or its beauty in the sky. His inquiry was, What can the kite be
+made to teach that is useful? What can it be made to _do_? What good can
+it accomplish?
+
+Ben was an expert swimmer. After he had mastered the art of overcoming
+the water, he sought how to make swimming safe and easy; and when he had
+learned this himself, he taught other boys how to swim safely and
+easily.
+
+One day he was flying his kite on the shore. His imagination had wings
+as well as the kite, and he followed it with the eye of fancy as it
+drifted along the sky pulling at his fingers.
+
+It was a warm day, and the cool harbor rippled near, and he began to
+feel a desire to plunge into the water, but he did not like to pull down
+his kite.
+
+He threw off his clothes and dropped into the cool water, still holding
+his kite string, which was probably fastened to a short stick in his
+hand.
+
+He turned on his back in the water and floated, looking up to the kite
+in the blue, sunny sky.
+
+But something, was happening. The kite, like a sail in a boat, was
+bearing him along. He was the boat, the kite high in the sky was the
+sail, between the two was a single string. He could sail himself on the
+water by a kite in the sky!
+
+So he drifted along, near the Mystic River probably, on that warm
+pleasant day. The sense of the power that he gained by thus obeying a
+law of Nature filled him with delight. He could not have then dreamed
+that the simple discovery would lead up to another which would enable
+man to see how to control one of the greatest forces in the universe. He
+saw simply that he could make the air _work_ for him, and he probably
+dreamed that sometime and somewhere the same principle would enable an
+inventor to show the world how to navigate the air.
+
+The kite now became to him something more than a plaything--a wonder. It
+caused his fancy to soar, and little Ben was always happy when his fancy
+was on the wing.
+
+There was a man named Jamie who liked to loiter around the Blue Ball. He
+was a Scotchman, and full of humor.
+
+"An' wot you been doin' now?" said Jamie the Scotchman, as the boy
+returned to the Blue Ball with his big kite and wet hair. "Kite-flying
+and swimming don't go together."
+
+"Ah, sirrah, don't you think that any more! Kite-flying and floating on
+one's back in the water do go together. I've been making a boat of
+myself, and the sail was in the sky."
+
+"Sho! How did that come about?"
+
+"I floated on my back and held the kite string in my hand, and the kite
+drew me along."
+
+"It did, hey? Well, it might do that with a little shaver like you. What
+made you think of that, I would like to know? You're always thinkin' out
+somethin' new. You'll get into difficulties some day, like the dog that
+saw the moon in the well and leaped down to fetch it up; he gave one
+howl, only one, once for all, and then they fetched _him_ up; he had
+nothing more to say. So it will be with you if you go kiting about after
+such things, flyin' kites for boat sails."
+
+"But, Jamie, I think that I am the first boy that ever sailed on the
+water without a boat--now don't you?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. There's nothin' new under the sun. People like you
+that are always inquirin' out the whys and wherefores of things
+commonly get into trouble. Ben, wot will ever become of you, I wonder?"
+
+"Archimedes made water run uphill."
+
+"He did, hey? So he did, as I remember to have read. But he lost his
+life broodin' over a lot of figers that he was drawin' on the
+sand--angles and triangles an' things. The Roman soldier cut him down
+when he was dreamin', and they let his tomb all grow up to briers. Do
+you think, Ben, that you will ever make the river run uphill? Perhaps
+you'll turn the water up to the sky on a kite string, and then we can
+have rain in plantin' time. Who knows?"
+
+He added thoughtfully:
+
+"I wouldn't wonder, Ben, if you invented somethin' if you live. But the
+prospect isn't very encouragin' of your ever doin' anything alarmin'."
+
+"Did you ever hear what Archimedes exclaimed when he discovered the law
+that a body plunged in water loses as much of its weight as is equal to
+the weight of an equal volume of the fluid, and applied it to the alloy
+in the king's crown?"
+
+"No. Wot did he exclaim?"
+
+"_Eureka! Eureka!_"
+
+"Wot did he do that for?"
+
+"It means, 'I have found it.'"
+
+"Maybe you'll find out something sometime, Ben. You all run to dreams
+about such things, and some boys turn their dreams into facts, as
+architects build their imaginations and make money. But the fifteenth
+child of a tallow chandler, who was the son of a blacksmith and of a
+woman whose mother was bought and sold, a boy whose wits are off
+kite-flyin' instead of wick-cuttin' and tallow-moldin', has no great
+chance in the future, so it looks to me. But one can't always tell. I
+don't think that you'll never get to be an Archimedes and cry out
+'Eureka!' But you've got imagination enough to hitch the world to a kite
+and send it off among the planets and shootin' stars, no one knows
+where. I never did see any little shaver that had so much kite-flyin' in
+his head as you."
+
+"Archimedes said that if he only had a lever long enough he would move
+the world."
+
+"He did, hey? Well, little Ben Franklin, you just put up your kite and
+attend to the candle molds, and let swimmin' in the air all go. Whatever
+may happen on this planet, _you'll_ never be likely to move the world
+with a kite, of all things, nor with anything else, for that matter. So
+it looks to me, and I'm generally pretty far-sighted. It takes practical
+people to do practical things. Still, the old Bible does say that 'where
+there is no vision the people perish.' Well, I don't know--as I said, we
+can not always tell--David slew a giant with a pebble stone, and you may
+come to somethin' by some accident or other. I'm sure I wish you well.
+It may be that your uncle Benjamin, the poet, will train you when he
+comes to understand you, but his thoughts run to kite-flyin' and such
+things, and he never has amounted to anything at all, I'm told. You was
+named after him, and rightly, I guess. He would like to have been a
+Socrates. But the tape measure wouldn't fit his head."
+
+He saw a shade in the boy's face, and added:
+
+"_He's_ going to live here, they say. Then there will be two of you, and
+you could fly kites and make up poetry together, if it were not for a
+dozen mouths to feed, which matters generally tend to bring one down
+from the sky."
+
+An older son of Josiah Franklin appeared.
+
+"James," said Jamie, "here's your brother Ben; he's been sailin' with
+the sail in the sky. He ought to be keerful of his talents. There's no
+knowin' what they may lead up to. When a person gets started in such
+ways as these there's no knowin' how far he may go."
+
+Brother James opened the weather door at the Blue Ball. The bell tinkled
+and Ben followed him in, and the two sat down to bowls of bread, sweet
+apples, and milk.
+
+"What have you been doing, Ben?" asked Brother James.
+
+Little Ben did not answer. He got up from the table and went away
+downhearted, with his face in his jacket sleeve. It hurt him to be
+laughed at, but his imagination was a comforting companion to him in
+hours like these.
+
+He could go kite-flying in his mind, and no one could see the flight.
+
+"One can not make an eagle run around a barnyard like a hen," said a
+sage observer of life. There was the blood of noble purposes in little
+Ben Franklin's vein, if his ancestors were blacksmiths and his
+grandmother had been a white slave whose services were bought and sold.
+He had begun kite-flying; he will fly a kite again one day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG.
+
+
+BEN loved little animals. He not only liked to have them about him, but
+it gave him great joy to protect them. One of his pets was a guinea pig.
+
+"There are few traits of character that speak better for the future of a
+boy than that which seeks to protect the helpless and overlooked in the
+brute creation," said Uncle Benjamin to Abiah Franklin one day. "There
+are not many animals that have so many enemies as a guinea pig. Cats,
+dogs, and even the hens run after the harmless little thing. I wonder
+that this one should be alive now. He would have been dead but for Ben."
+
+Abiah had been spinning. It was a windy day, and the winds, too, had
+been spinning as it were around the house. She had stopped to rest in
+her work. But the winds had not stopped, but kept up a sound like that
+of the wheel.
+
+"You are always saying good things about little Ben," said Abiah. "What
+is it that you see in him that is different from other boys?"
+
+"_Personality_," said Uncle Ben. "Look at him now, out in the yard. He
+has been protecting the pigeon boxes from the wind, and after them the
+rabbit warren. He is always seeking to make life more comfortable for
+everybody and everything. Now, Abiah, a heart that seeks the good of
+others will never want for a friend and a home. This _personality_ will
+make for him many friends and some enemies in the future. The power of
+life lies in the heart."
+
+The weather door opened, and little Ben came into the room and asked for
+a cooky out of the earthen jar.
+
+"Where's your guinea pig, my boy?" asked Uncle Benjamin. "I only see him
+now and then."
+
+"Why do you call him a guinea pig, uncle?" asked little Ben. "He did not
+come from Guinea, and he is not a pig. He came from South America, where
+it is warm, and he is a covey; he is not a bit of a rabbit, and not a
+pig."
+
+"Where do you keep him?" asked Uncle Benjamin.
+
+"I keep him where he is warm, uncle. It makes my heart all shrink up to
+see the little thing shiver when the wind strikes him. It is cruel to
+bring such animals into a climate like this."
+
+"There are tens of thousands of guinea pigs, or coveys, in the land
+where they are found. Yes, millions, I am told. One guinea pig don't
+count for much."
+
+"But, uncle, one feels the cold wind as much as another would--as much
+as each of all the millions would."
+
+"But, Ben, you have not answered my question. Where is the little covey
+now?"
+
+Little Ben colored red, and looked suspiciously toward the door of the
+room in which his father was at work. He presently saw his father's
+paper hat through the light over the door, and said:
+
+"Let me tell you some other time, uncle. They will laugh at me if I tell
+you now."
+
+"Benjamin," said his mother, "we are going to have a family gathering
+this year on the anniversary of the day when your father landed here in
+1685. The family are all coming home, and the two Folger girls--the
+schoolmarms--will be here from Nantucket. You will have to take the
+guinea-pig box out of your room under the eaves. The Folger girls are
+very particular. What would your aunts Hannah and Patience Folger, the
+schoolmarms, say if they were to find your room a sty for a guinea pig?"
+
+"My little covey, mother," said Ben. "I'll put the cage into the shop.
+No, he would be killed there. I'll put him where he will not offend my
+aunts, mother."
+
+Abiah Folger began to spin again, and the wheel and the wind united did
+indeed make a lonely atmosphere. Uncle Benjamin punched the fire, which
+roared at times lustily under the great shelf where were a row of pewter
+platters.
+
+Little Ben drew near the fire. Suddenly Uncle Ben started.
+
+"Oh, my eyes! what is that, Ben?"
+
+Ben looked about.
+
+"I don't see anything, uncle."
+
+"Your coat sleeve keeps jumping. I have seen it four or five times. What
+is the matter there?"
+
+Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said:
+
+"There is a bunch on your arm, Ben."
+
+"No, no, no, uncle."
+
+"There is, and it moves about."
+
+"I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle."
+
+"There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah,
+stop spinning a minute and come here."
+
+The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and
+leaned over it with one hand against the shelf.
+
+"What has he been doing now?" she asked in a troubled tone.
+
+"Look at his arm there! It bulges out."
+
+Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger
+on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then
+appeared a little head outside the sleeve.
+
+"I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all
+the time."
+
+There was--it was the little covey or guinea pig.
+
+"What did I tell you before Ben came in?" said Uncle Benjamin.
+
+Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he
+opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously:
+
+"It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm
+illustrates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than
+one in this cold world."
+
+Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again.
+
+Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work.
+
+The wheel stopped.
+
+"I do love that boy," said Abiah, "notwithstanding all the fault they
+find with him."
+
+"So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my godson. All people are
+common in this world except those who have personality. He had a
+great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of
+Lord Halifax."
+
+"I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig,
+will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell."
+
+"No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such
+things begin in that way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD.
+
+
+LITTLE Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts
+from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called "the girls."
+
+But one November day, as he came home after the arrival of the stage
+from Salem, he was met at the door by his uncle with the question:
+
+"Who do you think has come?"
+
+"I don't know, uncle. Josiah?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Brother John from Rhode Island? Esther and Martha from school? Zachary
+from Annapolis?"
+
+"Not right yet."
+
+"Esther and Martha from school at Nantucket?"
+
+"Yes; and your Aunt Hannah and Aunt Prudence have come with them, with
+bandboxes, caps, snuffboxes, and all. They came on the sloop. It is a
+time for little boys to be quiet now, and to keep guinea pigs and such
+things well out of sight."
+
+"How long are _they_ going to stay, uncle?"
+
+By "they" he referred to his aunts.
+
+"A week or more, I guess. This will be your still week."
+
+"But I can not keep still, uncle; I am a boy."
+
+Little Benjamin went into the home room and there met his stately aunts,
+the school teachers.
+
+There was a great fire in the room, and the pewter platters shone there
+like silver. His aunts received him kindly, but in a very condescending
+way. They had not yet discovered any "personality" in the short, little
+boy of the numerous family.
+
+The aunts delighted in imparting moral instruction, and they saw in
+little Ben, as they thought, a useful opportunity for such culture.
+
+That night the family, with the aunts from Nantucket, sat down by the
+great fire under the shining platters to hear Uncle Benjamin relate a
+marvelous story. Every family has one wonder story, and this was the one
+wonder story of the Franklin side of the family. Uncle Benjamin wished
+the two "aunts" to hear this story "on his side of the house."
+
+"There was only one of our family in England who ever became great, and
+that was my Uncle Thomas," he began.
+
+"Only think of that, little Ben," said Aunt Hannah Folger, "only one."
+
+"Only one," said Aunt Prudence Folger, "and may you become like him."
+
+"He was born a smith, and so he was bred, for it was the custom of our
+family that the eldest son should be a smith--a Franklin."
+
+"Sit very still, my little boy," said the two aunts, "and you shall be
+told what happened. He was a smith."
+
+"There was a man in our town," continued Uncle Ben, "whose name was
+Palmer, and he became an esquire."
+
+"Maybe that _you_ will become an esquire," said Aunt Esther to Ben.
+
+"He became an esquire," said Aunt Prudence. "Sit very still, and you
+shall hear."
+
+"This man liked to encourage people; he used to say good things of them
+so as to help them grow. If one encourage the good things which one
+finds in people it helps them. It is a good thing to say good words."
+
+"If you do not say too many," said Josiah Franklin. "I sometimes think
+we do to little Ben."
+
+"Well, this Esquire Palmer told Uncle Tom one day that he would make a
+good lawyer. Tom was very much surprised, and said, 'I am poor; if I had
+any one to help me I would study for the bar.' 'I will help you,' said
+Esquire Palmer. So Uncle Tom dropped the hammer and went to school."
+
+"And _you_ may one day leave the candle shop and go to school," said
+Aunt Esther, moralizing.
+
+"I hope so," said little Ben humbly.
+
+"Not but that the candle shop is a very useful place," said the other
+aunt.
+
+"Uncle Tom read law, and began to practice it in the town and county of
+Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the
+enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man.
+Everything that he touched improved."
+
+"Just think of that," said Aunt Esther to Ben. "Everything that he
+touched improved. That is the way to make success for yourself--help
+others."
+
+"May you profit by his example, Ben," said Aunt Prudence, bobbing her
+cap border.
+
+"He made everything better--the church, the town, the public ways, the
+societies, the homes. He was a just man, and he used to say that what
+the world wanted was _justice_. Everybody found him a friend, except he
+who was unjust. And at last Lord Halifax saw how useful he had become,
+and he honored him with his friendship. When he died, which was some
+fourteen years ago, all the people felt that they had lost a friend."
+
+The two aunts bowed over in reverence for such a character. Aunt Esther
+did more than this. She put her finger slowly and impressively on little
+Ben's arm, and said:
+
+"It may be that you will grow up and be like him."
+
+"Or like Father Folger," added Aunt Prudence, who wished to remind Uncle
+Benjamin that the Folgers too had a family history.
+
+Little Ben was really impressed by the homely story which he now heard a
+second time. It presented a looking-glass to him, and he saw himself in
+it. He looked up to his Uncle Ben with an earnest face, and said:
+
+"I would like to help folks, too; why can I not, if Uncle Tom did?"
+
+"A very proper remark," said Aunt Esther.
+
+"Very," said Aunt Prudence.
+
+"Good intentions are all right," said Josiah Franklin. "They do to sail
+away with, but where will one land if he has not got the steering gear?
+That is a good story, Brother Ben. Encourage little Ben here all you
+can; it may be that you might have become a man like Uncle Tom if you
+had had some esquire to encourage you."
+
+The aunts sat still and thought of this suggestion.
+
+Then Josiah played on his violin, and the two aunts told tales of the
+work of _their_ good father among the Indians of Martha's Vineyard and
+Nantucket.
+
+A baby lay in Abiah Franklin's arms sleeping while these family stories
+were related. It was a girl, and they had named her Jane, and called her
+"Jenny."
+
+Amid the story-telling Jenny awoke, and put out her arms to Ben.
+
+"The baby takes to Ben," said the mother. "The first person that she
+seemed to notice was Ben, and she can hardly keep her little eyes off of
+him."
+
+Ben took little Jenny into his arms.
+
+As Uncle Benjamin grew older the library of pamphlets that he had sold
+and on whose margins he had written the best thoughts of his life
+haunted him. He would sometimes be heard to exclaim:
+
+"Those pamphlets! those pamphlets!"
+
+"Why do you think so much of the lost pamphlets, uncle?" said little
+Ben.
+
+"Hoi, Ben, hoi! 'tis on your account, Ben. I want you to have them, Ben,
+and read them when you are old; and I want my son Samuel to have them,
+although his mind does not turn to philosophy as yours does. It tore my
+heart to part with them, but I did it for you. One must save or be a
+slave. You see what it is to be poor. But it is all right, Ben, as the
+book of Job tells us; all things that happen to a man with good
+intentions are for his best good."
+
+It was Uncle Benjamin's purpose to mold the character of his little
+godson. He had the Froebel ideas, although he lived before the time of
+the great apostle of soul education.
+
+"The first thing for a boy like you, Ben, is to have a definite purpose,
+and the next is to have fixed habits to carry forward that purpose, to
+make life automatic."
+
+"What do you mean by _automatic_, uncle?"
+
+"Your heart beats itself, does it not? You do not make it beat. Your
+muscles do their work without any thought on your part; so the stomach
+assimilates its food. The first thing in education, more than
+cultivation of memory or reason, is to teach one to do right, right all
+the time, because it is just as the heart beats and the muscles or the
+stomach do their work. I want so to mold you that justice shall be the
+law of your life--so that to do right all the time will be a part of
+your nature. This is the first principle of home education."
+
+Little Ben only in part comprehended this simple philosophy.
+
+"But, uncle," said he, "what should be my purpose in life?"
+
+"You have the nature of your great-uncle Tom--you love to be doing
+things to help others, just as he did. The purpose of your life should
+be to improve things. Genius creates things, but benevolence improves
+things. You will understand what I mean some day, when you shall grow up
+and go to England and hear the chimes of Northampton ring."
+
+Uncle Benjamin liked to take little Ben out to sea. They journeyed so
+far that they sometimes lost sight of the State House, the lions and
+unicorns, and the window from which new kings and royal governors had
+been proclaimed.
+
+These excursions were the times that Uncle Ben sought to mold the will
+of little Ben after the purpose that he saw in him. He told him the
+stories of life that educate the imagination, that help to make fixed
+habit.
+
+"If I only had those pamphlets," he said on these excursions, "what a
+help they would be to us! You will never forget those pamphlets, will
+you, Ben?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY.
+
+
+MR. GEORGE BROWNELL kept a writing school, and little Ben was sent to
+him to learn to write his name and to "do sums."
+
+Franklin did indeed learn to write his name--very neatly and with the
+customary flourish. In this respect he greatly pleased the genial old
+master.
+
+"That handwriting," he said, "is fit to put before a king. Maybe it will
+be some day, who knows? But, Ben," he added, "I am sorry to say it,
+although you write your name so well, you are a dunce at doing your
+sums. Now, if I were in your place I would make up for that."
+
+In picturing these encouraging schooldays in after years, Benjamin
+Franklin kindly says of the old pedagogue: "He was a skillful master,
+and successful in his profession, employing the mildest and most
+encouraging methods. Under him I learned to write a good hand pretty
+soon, but he could not teach me arithmetic."
+
+One afternoon, toward evening, after good Master Brownell had encouraged
+him by speaking well of his copy book, he came home with a light heart.
+He found his Uncle Benjamin, and his cousin, Samuel Franklin, Uncle
+Benjamin's son, at the candle shop.
+
+"Uncle Benjamin," he said, "I have something to show you; I have brought
+home my copy book. Master Brownell says it is done pretty well, but that
+I ought to do my sums better, and that I 'must make up for that.'"
+
+"He is right, little Ben. We have to try to make up for our defects all
+our lives. Let me look at the book. Now that is what I call right good
+writing."
+
+"Do you see anything peculiar about it?" asked Ben. "Master Brownell
+said that it was good enough to set before a king, and that it might be,
+some day."
+
+Little Ben's big brothers, who had come in, laughed, and slapped their
+hands on their knees.
+
+Josiah Franklin left his tallow boiling, and said:
+
+"Let me see it, Ben."
+
+He mounted his spectacles and held up the copy book, turning his eyes
+upon the boy's signature.
+
+"That flourish to your name does look curious. It is all tied up, and
+seems to come to a conclusion, as though your mind had carried out its
+original intention. There is character in the flourish. Ben, you have
+done well. But you must make up for your sums.--Brother Ben, that is a
+good hand, but I guess the sun will go around and around the world many
+times before kings ever set their eyes on it. But it will tell for sure.
+The good Book says, 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business----'
+Well, you all know the rest. I repeat that text often, so that my boys
+can hear."
+
+Samuel Franklin, Uncle Ben's son, examined the copy book.
+
+"Samuel," said Uncle Ben, "I used to write a hand something like that. I
+wish that I had my pamphlets; I would show you my hand at the time of
+the Restoration. I used to write political proverbs in my pamphlets in
+that way.
+
+"I want you," he continued, "to honor that handwriting, and do your
+master credit. The master has tried to do well by you. I hope that
+handwriting may be used for the benefit of others; live for influences,
+not for wealth or fame. My life will not fail if I can live in you and
+Samuel here. Remember that everything that you do for others will send
+you up the ladder of life, and I will go with you, even if the daisies
+do then blow over me.
+
+"Ben, you and Samuel should be friends, and, if you should do well in
+life, and he should do the same--which Heaven grant that he may!--I want
+you sometimes to meet by the gate post and think of me.
+
+"If you are ever tempted to step downward, think of me, Ben; think of
+me, Samuel. Meet sometimes at the gate post, and remember all these
+things. You will be older some day, and I will be gone."
+
+The old man held up the copy book again.
+
+"'Fit to set before kings,'" he repeated. "That was a great compliment."
+
+Little Jane, the baby, seeing the people all pleased, held out her hands
+to Ben.
+
+"Jenny shall see it," said Ben. He took the copy book and held it up
+before her eyes. She laughed with the rest.
+
+That signature was to remap the world. It was to be set to four
+documents that changed the history of mankind. Reader, would you like to
+see how a copy of it looked? We may fancy that the curious flourish
+first saw the light in Mr. Brownell's school.
+
+[Illustration: Handwritten:
+
+          Philad Oct 9 1755
+          Your most hum Serv^t
+          B Franklin]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET.
+
+
+LITTLE Ben was fond of making toy boats and ships and sailing them. He
+sometimes took them to the pond on the Common, and sometimes to wharves
+at low tide.
+
+One day, as he was going out of the door of the sign of the Blue Ball,
+boat in hand, Uncle Benjamin followed him.
+
+The old man with white hair watched the boy fondly day by day, and he
+found in him many new things that made him proud to have him bear his
+name.
+
+"Ben," he called after him, "may I go too?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Uncle Benjamin. I am going down beside Long Wharf. Let us
+take Baby Jane, and I will leave the boat behind. The baby likes to go
+out with us."
+
+The old man's heart was glad to feel the heart that was in the voice.
+
+Little Ben took Baby Jane from his mother's arms, and they went toward
+the sea, where were small crafts, and sat down on board of one of the
+safely anchored boats. It was a sunny day, with a light breeze, and the
+harbor lay before them bright, calm, and fair.
+
+"Ben, let us talk together a little. I am an old man; I do not know how
+many years or even days more I may have to spend with you. I hope
+many, for I have always loved to live, and, since I have come to know
+you and to give my heart to you, life is dearer to me than ever. I have
+a secret which I wish to tell you.
+
+"Ben, as I have said, I have found in you _personality_. You do not
+fully know what that means now. Think of it fifty years from now, then
+you will know. You just now gave up your boat-sailing for me and the
+baby. You like to help others to be more comfortable and happy, and that
+is the way to grow. That is the law of life, and the purpose of life is
+to grow. You may not understand what I mean now; think of what I say
+fifty years from now.
+
+"Ben, I have faith in you. I want that you should always remember me as
+one who saw what was in you and believed in you."
+
+"Is that the secret that you wanted to tell me, uncle?" asked little
+Ben.
+
+"No, no, no, Ben; I am a poor man after a hard life. You do pity me,
+don't you? Where are my ten children now, except one? Go ask the English
+graveyard. My wife is gone. I am almost alone in the world. All bright
+things seemed to be going out in my life when you came into it bearing
+my name. I like to tell you this again and again. Oh, little Ben, you do
+not know how I love you! To be with you is to be happy.
+
+[Illustration: UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET.]
+
+"One after one my ten children went away to their long rest where the
+English violets come and go. Two after one they went, three after two,
+and four after three. I lost my property, and Samuel went to America,
+and I was told that Brother Josiah had named you for me and made me
+your godfather. Then, as there was nothing but graves left for me in
+old England, I wished to come to America too.
+
+"Ben, Ben, you have heard all this before, but, listen, I must tell you
+more. I wanted to cross the ocean, but I had little money for such a
+removal, and I used to walk about London with empty hands and wish for
+L100, and my wishes brought me nothing but sorrow, and I would go to my
+poor lodgings and weep. Oh, you can not tell how I used to feel!
+
+"I had a few things left--they were as dear to me as my own heart. I am
+coming to the secret now, Ben. You are asking in your mind what those
+things were that I sold; they were the things most precious of all to
+me, and among them were--were my pamphlets."
+
+The old man bowed over, and his lip quivered.
+
+"What were your pamphlets, uncle? You said that you would explain to me
+what they were."
+
+"Ben, there are some things that we come to possess that are a part of
+ourselves. Our heart goes into them--our blood--our life--our hope. It
+was so with my pamphlets, Ben. This is the secret I have to tell.
+
+"I loved the cause of the Commonwealth--Cromwell's days. In the last
+days of the Commonwealth, when I had but little money to spare, I used
+to buy pamphlets on the times. When I had read a pamphlet, thoughts
+would come to me. I did not seem to think them; they came to me, and I
+used to note these thoughts down on the margins of the leaves in the
+pamphlets. Those thoughts were more to me than anything that I ever had
+in life."
+
+"I would have felt so too, uncle."
+
+"Years passed, and I had a little library of pamphlets, the margins
+filled with my own thoughts. Poetry is the soul's vision, and I wrote my
+poetry on those pamphlets. Ben, oh, my pamphlets! my pamphlets! They
+were my soul; all the best of me went into them.
+
+"Well, Ben, times changed. King Charles returned, and the Commonwealth
+vanished, but I still added to my pamphlets for years and years. Then I
+heard of you. I always loved Brother Josiah, and my son was on this side
+of the water, and the longing grew to sail for America, where my heart
+then was, as I have told you."
+
+"I see how you felt, uncle."
+
+"I dreamed how to get the money; I prayed for the money. One day a
+London bookseller said to me: 'You have been collecting pamphlets. Have
+you one entitled Human Freedom'? I answered that I had, but that it was
+covered with notes. He asked me to let him come to my lodgings and read
+it. He came and looked over all my pamphlets, and told me that a part of
+the collection had become rare and valuable; that they might have a
+value in legal cases that would arise owing to the change in the times.
+He offered to buy them. I refused to sell them, on account of what I had
+written on the margins of the leaves. What I wrote were my revelations.
+
+"He went away. Then my loneliness increased, and my longing to come to
+America. I could sell my valuables, and among them the pamphlets, and
+this would give me money wherewith to make the great change."
+
+"You sold them, uncle?"
+
+"When I thought of Brother Josiah, I was tempted to do it. But I at
+first said 'No.' When I heard that my son was making a home for himself
+here, I again was tempted to do it. But I said, 'No.' I could not sell
+myself.
+
+"Then there came a letter from Brother Josiah. It said: 'I have another
+son. We have named him Benjamin, after you. We have named you as his
+godfather.'
+
+"Then I sat down on the side of the bed in my room, and the tears fell.
+
+"'_We have named him Benjamin_'--how those words went to my heart!"
+
+"It was the first time that you ever heard of me, wasn't it, uncle?"
+
+"Yes, yes; it makes me happy to hear you say that. And you will never
+forget me, will you, Ben?"
+
+"Never, uncle, if I live to be eighty years old! But, uncle, you sold
+the pamphlets!"
+
+"Yes. When I read your name in Josiah's letter I felt a weight lifted
+from my mind. I said to myself that I would part with myself--that is,
+the pamphlets--for you."
+
+"Did you sell them for me, uncle?"
+
+"Yes, I sold them for you, Benjamin."
+
+"What was the man's name that bought them, uncle?"
+
+"I hoped that you would ask me that. His name was Axel. Repeat it, Ben."
+
+"Axel."
+
+"It is a hard name to forget."
+
+"I shall never forget it, uncle."
+
+"Ben, you may go to London sometime."
+
+"We are all poor now."
+
+"But you have _personality_, and people who look out for others are
+needed by others for many things. Maybe they will sometime send you
+there."
+
+"Who, uncle?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. But if ever you should go to London, go to all the
+old bookstores, and what name will you look for?"
+
+"Axel, uncle."
+
+"Ben, those are not books; they are myself. I sold myself when I sold
+them--I sold myself for you. Axel, Ben, Axel."
+
+Little Ben repeated "Axel," and wondered if he would ever see London or
+meet with his uncle in those pamphlets which the latter claimed to be
+his other self.
+
+"Axel," he repeated, pinching Baby Jane's cheek. Baby Jane laughed in
+the sunlight on the blue sea when she saw the excitement in Ben's face.
+
+The tide was coming in, the boat was rocking, and Ben said:
+
+"We must go home now, for Jenny's sake."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE STONE WHARF, AND LADY WIGGLEWORTH, WHO FELL ASLEEP IN CHURCH.
+
+
+Did little Ben's trumpet and gun indicate that he would become a
+statesman whose cause would employ armies? We do not know. The free will
+of a boy on the playground is likely to present a picture of his leading
+traits of character. In old New England days there was a custom of
+testing a child's character in a novel way. A bottle, a coin, and a
+Bible were laid on the floor at some distance apart to tempt the notice
+of the little one when he first began to creep. It was supposed that the
+one of the three objects that he crept toward and seized upon was
+prophetic of his future character--that the three objects represented
+worldly pleasure, the seeking for wealth, and the spiritual life.
+
+Franklin's love for public improvements was certainly indicated in his
+early years. He liked the water and boats, and he saw how convenient a
+little wharf near his house would be; so he planned to build one, and
+laid his plans before his companions.
+
+"We will build it of stone," he said. "There are plenty of stones near
+the wharf."
+
+"But the workmen there would not let us have them," said a companion.
+
+"We will take them after they have gone from their work. We can build
+the wharf in a single evening. The workmen may scold, but they will not
+scold the stone landing out of the water again."
+
+One early twilight of a long day the boys assembled at the place chosen
+by young Franklin for his wharf, and began to work like beavers, and
+before the deep shadows of night they had removed the stones to the
+water and builded quite a little wharf or landing.
+
+"We can catch minnows and sail our boats from here now," said young
+Franklin as he looked with pride on the triumphs of his plan. "All the
+boys will be free to use this landing," he thought. "Won't it make the
+people wonder!"
+
+It did.
+
+The next morning the weather door of the thrifty tallow chandler opened
+with a ring.
+
+"Josiah Franklin, where is that boy of yours?" asked a magistrate.
+
+The paper cap bobbed up, and the man at the molds bent his head forward
+with wondering eyes.
+
+"Which boy?"
+
+"Ben, the one that is always leading other boys round."
+
+"I dunno. He's making a boat--or was.--Benjamin!" he called; "I say,
+Benjamin!"
+
+The door of the living room opened, and little Ben appeared.
+
+"Here's a man who has come to see you. What have you been doing now?"
+
+"Boy," said the man--he spoke the word so loudly that the little boy
+felt that it raised him almost to the dignity of a man.
+
+"What, sir?" gasped Ben, very intelligent as to what would follow.
+
+"Did you put those stones into the water?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What did you do that for?"
+
+"To make a wharf, sir."
+
+"'To make a wharf, sir!' Didn't you have the sense to know that those
+stones were building stones and belonged to the workmen?"
+
+"No, sir; I didn't know that they belonged to any one. I thought that
+they belonged to everybody."
+
+"You did, you little rascal! Then why did you wait to have the workmen
+go away before you put them into the water?"
+
+"The workmen would have hindered us, sir. They don't think that
+improvements can be made by little shavers like us. I wanted to surprise
+them, sir--to show them what we could do, sir."
+
+"Benjamin Franklin," said Josiah, "come here, and I will show you what I
+can do.--Stranger, the boy's godfather has come to live with us and to
+take charge of him, and he does need a godfather, if ever a stripling
+did."
+
+Josiah Franklin laid his hand on the boy, and the workman went away. The
+father removed the boy's jacket, and showed him what he could do, the
+memory of which was not a short one.
+
+"I did not mean any harm, father," young Benjamin said over and over.
+"It was a mistake."
+
+"My boy," said the tallow chandler, softening, "never make a second
+mistake. There are some people who learn wisdom from their first
+mistakes by never making second mistakes. May you be one of them."
+
+"I shall never do anything that I don't think is honest, father. I
+thought stones and rocks belonged to the people."
+
+"But there are many things that belong to the people in this world that
+you have no right to use, my son. When you want to make any more public
+improvements, first come and talk with me about them, or go to your
+Uncle Ben, into whose charge I am going to put you--and no small job he
+will have of it, in my thinking!"
+
+Benjamin Franklin said, when he was growing old and was writing his own
+life, that his father _convinced_ him at the time of this event that
+"that which is not honest could not be useful."
+
+We can see in fancy his father with a primitive switch thus _convincing_
+him. He never forgot the moral lesson.
+
+Where was Jamie the Scotchman during this convincing episode? When he
+heard that the little wharf-builder, bursting with desire for public
+improvement, had fallen into disgrace, he came upon him slyly:
+
+"So you've been building a wharf for the boys of the town. When one
+begins so soon in life to improve the town, there can be no telling what
+he will do when he grows up. Perhaps you will become one of the great
+benefactors of Boston yet. Who knows?"
+
+"We can't tell," said the future projector of Franklin Park,
+philosophically.
+
+"No, that is a fact, bubby. Take your finger out of your mouth and go to
+cutting candle wicks. It must make a family proud to have in it such a
+promising one as you! You'll be apt to set something ablaze some day if
+you keep on as you've begun."
+
+He did.
+
+Jamie the Scotchman went out, causing the bell on the door to ring. He
+whistled lustily as he went down the street.
+
+Little Benjamin sat cutting wicks for the candle molds and wondering at
+the ways of the world. He had not intended to do wrong. He may have
+thought that the stones, although put aside by the workmen, were common
+property. He had made a mistake. But how are mistakes to be avoided in
+life? He would ask his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, when he should meet
+him. It was well, indeed, never to make a _second_ mistake, but better
+not to make any mistake at all. Uncle Benjamin was wise, and could write
+poetry. He would ask him.
+
+Besides Jamie the Scotchman, who spent much time at the Blue Ball,
+little Benjamin's brother James seems to have looked upon him as one
+whose activities of mind were too obvious, and needed to be suppressed.
+
+The evening that followed the disgrace of little Ben was a serious one
+in the Franklin family. Uncle Ben had "gone to meeting" in the Old South
+Church.
+
+The shop, with its molded candles, dipped candles, ingot bars of soap,
+pewter molds, and kettles, was not an unpleasant place in the evening,
+and old sea captains used to drop in to talk with Josiah, and sometimes
+the leading members of the Old South Church came to discuss church
+affairs, which were really town affairs, for the church governed the
+town.
+
+On this particular night little Ben sat in the corner of the shop very
+quietly, holding little Jane as usual. The time had come for a perfect
+calm in his life, and he himself was well aware how becoming was silence
+in his case.
+
+Among those who used to come to the shop evenings to talk with Josiah
+and Uncle Ben, the poet, was one Captain Holmes. He came to-night,
+stamping his feet at the door, causing the bell to ring very violently
+and the faces of some of the Franklin children to appear in the window
+framed over the shop door. How comical they looked!
+
+"Where's Ben to-night?" asked Captain Holmes.
+
+Little Ben's heart thumped. He thought the captain meant _him_.
+
+"He's gone to meetin'," said Josiah. "Come, sit down. Ben will be at
+home early."
+
+Little Ben's heart did not beat so fast now.
+
+"Where's that boy o' yourn?" asked the captain.
+
+Ben's heart began to beat again.
+
+"There, in the corner," said Josiah, with a doubtful look in his face.
+
+"He'll be given to making public improvements when he grows up," said
+the captain. "But I hope that he will not take other people's property
+to do it. If there is any type of man for whom I have no use it is he
+who does good with what belongs to others."
+
+The door between the shop and the living room opened, and the grieved,
+patient face of Abiah appeared.
+
+"Good evening, Captain Holmes," said Abiah. "I heard what you said--how
+could I help it?--and it hurt me. No descendant of Peter Folger will
+ever desire to use other people's property for his own advantage. Ben
+won't."
+
+"That's right, my good woman, stand up for your own. Every drop of an
+English exile's blood is better than its weight in gold."
+
+"Ben is a boy," said Abiah. "If he makes an error, it will be followed
+by a contrite heart."
+
+Little Ben could hear no more. He flew, as it were, up to the garret
+chamber and laid down on the trestle bed. A pet squirrel came to comfort
+him or to get some corn. He folded the squirrel in his bosom.
+
+Ting-a-ling! It was Uncle Ben, the poet, whose name he had disgraced. He
+could endure no more; he began to sob, and so went to sleep, his little
+squirrel pitying him, perhaps.
+
+There was another heart that pitied the boy. It was Uncle Ben's. Poor
+Uncle Ben! He sleeps now at the side of the Franklin monument in the
+Granary burying ground, and we like to cast a kindly glance that way as
+we pass the Park Street Church on Tremont Street, on the west side. It
+is a good thing to have good parents, and also to have a good uncle with
+a poetic mind and a loving heart.
+
+There was one trait in little Benjamin's character that Josiah Franklin
+saw with his keen eye to business, and it gave him hope. He was
+diligent. One of Josiah Franklin's favorite texts of Scripture was,
+"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings;
+he shall not stand before mean men." This text he used to often repeat,
+or a part of it, and little Ben must have thought that it applied to
+him. Hints of hope, not detraction, build a boy.
+
+Jamie the Scotchman had little expectation that puttering Ben would ever
+"stand before kings." Not he. He had not that kind of vision.
+
+"Ah, boy, I could tell you a whole history of diligent boys who not only
+came to stand before kings, but who overturned thrones; and he who
+discrowns a king is greater than a king," said he one day. "Think what
+you might become."
+
+"Maybe I will."
+
+"Will what?"
+
+"Be some one in the world."
+
+"Sorry a boy you would make to 'stand before kings,' and I don't think
+you'll ever be likely to take off the crown from anybody. So your poor
+old father might as well leave that text out of the Scriptures. There
+are no pebbles in your sling of life. If there were, wonders would never
+cease. You are just your Uncle Ben over again. I'm sorry for ye, and for
+all."
+
+Little Ben looked sorry too, and he wondered if there really were in the
+text something prophetic for him, or if Jamie the Scotchman were the
+true seer. But many poor boys had come to stand before kings, and some
+such boys had left tyrants without a crown.
+
+Jamie the Scotchman thought that he had the gift of "second sight," as
+a consciousness of future events was called, but he usually saw shadows.
+He liked to talk to himself, walking with his hands behind him.
+
+After his dire prophecy concerning the future of little Ben he walked
+down to Long Wharf with Uncle Benjamin, talking to himself for the
+latter to hear.
+
+"Ye can't always tell," said he; "I didn't speak out of the true inward
+spirit when I said those things. It hurt the little shaver to tell him
+there was no future in him; I could see it did. The boy has a curious
+way of saying wise things; such words fly out of his mouth like swallows
+from a cave. If I were to take up a dead brand in the blacksmith's shop
+and he was around, as he commonly is, he would say, 'The more you handle
+a burned stick the smuttier you become'; or if I were to pick up a
+horseshoe there, and say, 'For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,' he
+would answer, 'And for want of a shoe the horse was lost.' Then, after a
+time, he would add, 'For want of a horse the rider was lost,' and so on.
+His mind works in that way. Maybe he'll become a philosopher.
+Philosophers stand before kings. I now have the true inner sight and
+open vision. I can see a streak of light in that curious gift of his.
+But blood tells, and his folks on his father's side were blacksmiths
+over in England, and philosophers don't come from the forge more'n
+eagles do from the hen yard.
+
+"I said what I did to stimulate him. It cut the little shaver to the
+quick, didn't it? Now he wouldn't have been so cut if there had been
+nothing there. The Lord forgive me if I did wrong!"
+
+He walked down the wharf to the end. Beyond lay the blue harbor and the
+green islands. The town had only some ten thousand inhabitants then, but
+several great ships lay in the harbor under the three hills, two of
+which now are gone.
+
+The harbor was girded with oaks and pines. Here and there a giant elm,
+still the glory of New England, lifted its bowery top like a cathedral
+amid towns of trees. Sea birds screamed low over the waters, and ospreys
+wheeled high in the air.
+
+Jamie the Scotchman had not many things to occupy his thoughts, so he
+sat down to wonder as to what that curious Franklin boy might become.
+
+A new thought struck him.
+
+"He has French blood in him--the old family name used to be Franklein,"
+he said to himself. "Now what does that signify? French blood is gentle;
+it likes to be free. I don't see that it might not be a good thing to
+have; the French like to find out things and give away to others what
+they discover."
+
+A shell fell into the water before him from high in the air. The water
+spouted up, causing an osprey to swoop down, but to rise again.
+
+Jamie the Scotchman turned his head.
+
+"You, Ben? You follow me 'round everywhere. What makes ye, when I treat
+ye so?"
+
+"If a boy didn't hope for anything he would never have the heartache."
+
+"True, true, my boy; and what of that?"
+
+"I would rather expect something and have the heartache."
+
+"No one ever misses his expectations who looks for the heartache in this
+world. But what queer turns your mind does take, and what curious
+questions you do ask! Let us return to the Blue Ball."
+
+They did, through winding streets, one or more of which were said to
+follow the wanderings of William Blackstone's cow from the Common.
+Boston still follows the same interesting animal.
+
+There were windmills on the hills and tidemills near the water. There
+was a ferryboat between Boston and Charlestown, and on the now Chelsea
+side was the great Rumney Marsh. On the Common, which was a pasture, was
+a branching elm, a place of executions. Near it was a pond into which
+had been cast the Wishing Stone around which, it was reported, that if
+one went three times at night and repeated the Lord's Prayer _backward_
+at each circuit one might have whatever he wished for. Near the pond and
+the great tree were the Charles River marshes. Such was Boston in
+1715-'20.
+
+Little Ben went to the South Church on Sundays, and the tithingman was
+there. The latter sat in the gallery among the children with his long
+rod, called the tithing stick, with which he used to touch or correct
+any boy or girl who whispered in meeting, who fell asleep, or who
+misbehaved. Little Ben must have looked from the family pew in awe at
+the tithingman. The old-time ministers pictured the Lord himself as
+being a kind of a tithingman, sitting up in heaven and watching out for
+the unwary. Good Josiah Franklin governed the conduct of the children
+in his own pew. You may be sure that none of them whispered there or
+fell asleep or misbehaved.
+
+The tithingman, who was a church constable, was annually elected to keep
+peace and order in the church. In England he collected tithes, or a
+tenth part of the parish income, which the people were supposed, after
+the Mosaic command, to offer to the church. He sometimes wore a peculiar
+dress; he was usually a very solemn-looking man, the good man of whom
+all the children, and some of the old women, stood in terror.
+
+A crafty man was the tithingman in the pursuit of his duties. He was on
+the watch all the time, and, as suspicion breeds suspicion, so the
+children were on the watch for him. The sermons were long, the hourglass
+was sometimes twice turned during the service, and the children often
+kept themselves awake by looking out for the tithingman, who was
+watching out for them. This was hardly the modern idea of heart culture
+and spiritual development, but the old Puritan churches made strong men
+who faced their age with iron purposes.
+
+We said that the tithingman was sometimes a terror to old women. Why was
+he so? It was sweet for certain good old people to sleep in church, and
+his duties extended to all sleepers, young and old. But he did not smite
+the good old ladies with a stick. In some churches, possibly in this
+one, he carefully tickled their noses with a feather. This led to a
+gentle awakening, very charitable and kindly.
+
+It is a warm summer day. Josiah Franklin's pew is crowded, and little
+Ben has gone to the gallery to sit among the boys. Uncle Ben, the poet,
+is there, for he sees that the family pew is full.
+
+How can little Ben help whispering now, when the venerable poet is by
+his side and will not harshly reprove him, and when so many little
+things are happening that tempt him to share his thoughts with his
+amiable godfather?
+
+But he restrained himself long and well.
+
+In her high-backed pew, provided with the luxury of the cushion, sat
+fine old Lady Wiggleworth, all in silks, satins, and plumes. Little Ben,
+looking over the gallery rail, saw that my lady's plumes nodded, and he
+gently touched Uncle Ben and pointed down. Suddenly there came a tap of
+the tithing stick on his head, and he was in disgrace. He looked very
+solemn now; so did Uncle Ben. It was a solemn time after one had been
+touched by the tithing rod.
+
+But the tithingman had seen Lady Wiggleworth's nodding plumes. Could it
+be possible that this woman, who was received at the Province House, had
+lost her moral and physical control?
+
+If such a thing had happened, he must yet do his duty. He would have
+done that had the queen been there. The law of Heaven makes no
+exception, nor did he.
+
+He tiptoed down the stair and stood before the old lady's pew. All her
+plumes were nodding, something like the picture of a far ship in a
+rolling sea. My lady was asleep.
+
+The tithingman's heart beat high, but his resolution did not falter. If
+it had, it would soon have been restored, for my lady began to snore.
+
+Gently, very gently, the tithingman took from his side pocket a
+feather. He touched with it gently, very gently, a sensitive part of the
+oblivious old lady's nose. She partly awoke and brushed her nose with
+her hand. But her head turned to the other side of her shoulders, and
+she relapsed into slumber again.
+
+The sermon was still beating the sounding-board, and a more vigorous
+duty devolved upon the tithingman.
+
+He pushed the feather up my lady's nose, where the membrane was more
+sensitive and more quickly communicated with the brain. He did this
+vigorously and more vigorously. It was an obstinate case.
+
+"Scat!"
+
+The tithingman jumped. My lady opened her eyes. The sermon was still
+beating the sounding-board, but she was not then aware that she, too,
+had spoken in meeting.
+
+There were some queer church customs in the days of Boston town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JENNY.
+
+
+JENNY FRANKLIN, the "pet and beauty of the family," Benjamin's favorite
+sister, was born in 1712, and was six years younger than he.
+
+"My little Jenny," said Josiah, "has the Franklin heart." Little Ben
+found that heart in her baby days, and it was true to him to the end.
+
+Uncle Benjamin had entertained such large hopes of the future of little
+Ben since the boy first sent to him a piece of poetry to England, that
+he wrote of him:
+
+          "For if the bud bear grain, what will the top?"
+
+and again:
+
+          "When flowers are beautiful before they're blown,
+           What rarities will afterward be shown!
+           If trees good fruit un'noculated bear,
+           You may be sure't will afterward be rare.
+           If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow,
+           How luscious will they be when they are mellow!"
+
+He also saw great promise in bright little Jenny, who had heart full of
+sympathy and affection. Jenny, Ben, and Uncle Benjamin became one in
+heart and companionship.
+
+Beacon Hill was a lovely spot in summer in old Boston days. Below it was
+the Common, with great trees and winding ways. It commanded a view of
+the wide harbor and far blue sea. It looked over a curve of the river
+Charles, and the bright shallow inlet or pond, where the Boston and
+Maine depot now stands, that was filled up from the earth of the fine
+old hillside. The latter place may have been the scene of Ben's bridge,
+which he built in the night in a forbidden way. The place is not
+certainly known.
+
+Uncle Benjamin, one Sunday after church, took Ben and little Jenny, who
+was a girl then, to the top of the hill. It was a showery afternoon in
+summer--now bright, now overcast--and all the birds were singing on the
+Common between the showers.
+
+In one of the shining hours between the showers they sat down under an
+ancient forest tree, and little Jenny rested her arms on one of the
+knees of Uncle Benjamin, and Ben leaned on the other. The old man looked
+down on the harbor, which was full of ships, and said:
+
+"I wish I had my sermons that I left behind. I would read one of them to
+you now."
+
+"I would rather hear you talk," said Ben, with conscientious frankness.
+
+"So would I," said Jenny, who thought that Ben was a philosopher even at
+this early age, and who echoed nearly everything that he said.
+
+"Look over the harbor," said the old man. "There are more and more ships
+coming in every year. This is going to be a great city, and America will
+become a great country. Ben, I hope there will never be any wars on this
+side of the water. War is sloth's maintainer, and the shield of pride;
+it makes many poor and few rich, and fewer wise.[A] Ben, this is going
+to be a great country, and I want you to be true to the new country."
+
+"I will always be true to my country," said Ben.
+
+"And I will be true to my home," said little Jenny.
+
+"So you will, so you will, my darling little pet; I can see that," said
+Uncle Benjamin.
+
+Ben was so pleased at his echo that he put his arm around his sister's
+neck and kissed her many times.
+
+The old man's heart was touched at the scene. He thought of his lost
+children, who were sleeping under the cover of the violets now.
+
+"It is going to rain again," he said. "The robins are all singing, and
+we will have to go home. But, children, I want to leave a lesson in your
+minds. Listen to Uncle Ben, whose heart is glad to see you so loving
+toward each other and me.
+
+"_More than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of
+the human heart, and that power is developed by seeking the good of
+others._ Live for influences that multiply, and for the things that
+live. Now what did I say, Ben?"
+
+"You said that more than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, was
+the power of the human heart, and that that power was developed in
+seeking the good of others."
+
+"That's right, my man.--Now, Jenny, what did I say?"
+
+"I couldn't repeat all those big words, uncle."
+
+"Well, you lovely little _creeter_, you; you do not need to repeat it;
+you know the lesson already; it was born in you; you have the Franklin
+heart!"
+
+"Beloved Boston," Franklin used to say when he became old. What wonder,
+when it was associated with memories like these!
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[A] The old man's own words to Benjamin on war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM.
+
+
+SOME time after Uncle Benjamin, who became familiarly known as Uncle
+Ben, had revealed to little Ben his heart's secret, and how that he had
+for his sake sold his library of pamphlets, which was his other self,
+the two again went down to the wharves to see the ships that had come
+in.
+
+They again seated themselves in an anchored boat.
+
+"Ben," said Uncle Benjamin, "I have something more on my mind. I did not
+tell you all when we talked here before. You will never forget what I
+told you--will you?"
+
+"Never, uncle, if I live to be old. My heart will always be true to
+you."
+
+"So it will, so it will, Ben. So it will. I want to tell you something
+more about your Great-uncle Thomas. You favor him. Did any one ever tell
+you that the people used to think him to be a wizard?"
+
+"No, no, uncle. You yourself said that once. What is a wizard?"
+
+"It is a man who can do strange things, no one can tell how. They come
+to him."
+
+"But what made them think him a wizard?"
+
+"Oh, people used to be ignorant and superstitious, like Reuben of the
+Mill, your father's old friend and mine. There was an inn called the
+World's End, at Ecton, near an old farm and forge. The people used to
+gather there and tell stories about witches and wizards that would have
+made your flesh creep, and left you afraid to go to bed, even with a
+guinea pig in your room.
+
+"Your Great-uncle Thomas was always inventing things to benefit the
+people. At last he invented a way by which it might rain and rain, and
+there might be freshets and freshets, and yet their meadows would not be
+overflown. The water would all run off from the meadows like rain from a
+duck's back. He made a kind of drain that ran sideways. Now the pious
+Brownites thought that this was flying in the face of Providence, and
+people began to talk mysteriously about him at the World's End.
+
+"But it was not that which I have heavy on my mind or light on my mind,
+for it is a happy thought. There are not many romantic things in our
+family history. The Franklins were men of the farm, forge, and fire. But
+there was one thing in our history that was poetry. It was this--listen
+now.
+
+"What was the name of that man to whom I sold the pamphlets?" he asked
+in an aside.
+
+"Axel."
+
+"That is right--always remember that name--Axel.
+
+"Now listen to that other thing. Your uncle, or great-uncle Thomas,
+started a subscription for a chime of bells. The family all loved
+music--that is what makes your father play the violin. Your Great-uncle
+Thomas loved music in the air. You may be able to buy a spinet for Jenny
+some day.
+
+"Now your Great-uncle Thomas's soul is, as it were, in those chimes of
+Nottingham. I pray that you may go to England some day before you die
+and hear the chimes of Nottingham. You will hear a part of your own
+family's soul, my boy. It is the things that men do that live. If you
+ever find the pamphlets, which are myself--myself that is gone--you will
+read in them my thoughts on the Toleration Act, and on Liberty, and on
+the soul, and the rights of man. What was the man's name?"
+
+"Axel."
+
+"Right."
+
+Little Jenny, who loved to follow little Ben, had come down to the wharf
+to hear "Uncle Benjamin talk." She had joined them in the boat on the
+sunny water. She had become deeply interested in Uncle Tom and the
+chimes of Nottingham.
+
+"Uncle Ben," she asked, "was Uncle Tom ever laughed at?"
+
+"Yes, yes; the old neighbors who would hang about the smithy used to
+laugh at him. They thought him visionary. Why did you ask me that?"
+
+"What makes people who come to the shop laugh at Ben? It hurts me. I
+think Ben is real good. He is good to me, and I am always going to be
+good to him. I like Ben better than _almost_ anybody."
+
+"A beneficent purpose is at first ridiculed," said Uncle Benjamin.
+
+Little Ben seemed to comprehend the meaning of this principle, but the
+"big words" were lost on Jenny.
+
+"He whose good purpose is laughed at," said Uncle Benjamin, "will be
+likely to live to laugh at those who laughed at him if he so desired;
+but, hark! a generous man does not laugh at any one's right intentions.
+Ben, never stop to answer back when they laugh at you. Life is too
+short. It robs the future to seek revenge."
+
+Uncle Benjamin was right.
+
+Did little Ben heed the admonition of his uncle on this bright day in
+Boston, to follow beneficence with a ready step, and not to stop to
+"answer back"? Was little Jenny's heart comforted in after years in
+finding Ben, who was so good to her now, _commended_? We are to follow a
+family history, and we shall see.
+
+As the three went back to the Blue Ball, Ben, holding his uncle by the
+one hand and Jane by the other, said:
+
+"I do like to hear Jane speak well of me, and stand up for me. I care
+more for that than _almost_ any other thing."
+
+"Well, live that she may always speak well of you," said Uncle Benjamin;
+"so that she may speak well of you when you two shall meet for the last
+time."
+
+"Uncle," said Jenny, "why do you always have something solemn to say?
+Ben isn't solemn, is he?"
+
+"No, my girl, your brother Ben is a very lively boy. You will have to
+hold him back some day, I fear."
+
+"No, no, uncle, I shall always push him on. He likes to go ahead. I like
+to see him go--don't you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ELDER FRANKLIN'S STORIES.
+
+
+PETER FOLGER, Quaker, the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, was one of
+those noblemen of Nature whose heart beat for humanity. He had been
+associated in the work of Thomas Mayhew, the Indian Apostle, who was the
+son of Thomas Mayhew, Governor of Martha's Vineyard. The younger Mayhew
+gathered an Indian church of some hundred or more members, and the
+Indians so much loved him that they remained true to him and their
+church during Philip's war.
+
+What stories Abiah Franklin could have told, and doubtless did tell, of
+her old home at Nantucket!--stories of the true hearts of the pioneers,
+of people who loved others more than themselves, and not like the
+sea-rovers who at this time were making material for the Pirate's Own
+Book.
+
+Josiah, too, had his stories of Old England and the conventicles, heroic
+tales of the beginning of the long struggle for freedom of opinion. Hard
+and rough were the stories of the Commonwealth, of Cromwell, Pym, and
+Sir Henry Vane, the younger.
+
+There was one very pleasing old tale that haunted Boston at this time,
+of the Hebrew parable order, or after the manner of the German legend.
+Such stories were rare in those days of pirates, Indians, and ghosts,
+the latter of whom were supposed to make their homes in their graves and
+to come forth in their graveclothes, and to set the hearts of unquiet
+souls to beating, and like feet to flying with electrical swiftness
+before the days of electricity.
+
+Governor Winthrop--the same who got lost in the Mystic woods, and came
+at night to an Indian hut in a tree and climbed into it, and was ordered
+out of it at a later hour when the squaw came home--took a very
+charitable view of life. He liked to reform wrongdoers by changing their
+hearts. Out of his large love for every one came this story of old
+Boston days.
+
+We will listen to it by the Franklin fire in the candle shop. It was an
+early winter tale, and it will be a good warm place to hear it there.
+
+"It is a cold night," said Josiah, "and Heaven pity those without fuel
+on a night like this! There are not overmany like Governor Winthrop in
+the world."
+
+Abiah drew her chair up nearer to the great fire, for it made one chilly
+to hear the beginning of that story, but the end of it made the heart
+warm.
+
+"It was in the early days of the colony," said Josiah, "and the woods in
+the winter were bare, and the fields were cold. There was a lack of wood
+on the Mystic near the town.
+
+"A poor man lived there on the salt marsh with his family. He had had a
+hard time to raise enough for their support. A snowstorm came, and his
+fuel was spent, his hearth was cold, and there was nothing to burn.
+
+"The great house of the Governor rose over the ice-bordered marshes.
+Near it were long sheds, and under them high piles of wood brought from
+the hills.
+
+"The poor man had no wood, but after a little time smoke was seen coming
+out of his chimney.
+
+"There came one day a man to the Governor, and said:
+
+"'Pardon me, Governor, I am loath in my heart to accuse any one, but in
+the interest of justice I have something which I must tell you.'
+
+"'Speak on, neighbor.'
+
+"'Some one has been stealing your wood.'
+
+"'It is a hard winter for the poor. Who has done this?'
+
+"'The man who lives on the marsh.'
+
+"'His crop was not large this year.'
+
+"'No, it failed.'
+
+"'He has a wife and children.'
+
+"'True, Governor.'
+
+"'He has always borne a good reputation.'
+
+"'True, Governor, and that makes the case more difficult.'
+
+"'Neighbor, don't speak of this thing to others, but send that man to
+me.'
+
+"The man on the marsh came to the Governor's. His face was as white as
+snow. How he had suffered!
+
+"'Neighbor,' said the Governor, 'this is a cold winter.'
+
+"'It is, your Honor.'
+
+"'I hope that your family are comfortable.'
+
+"'No, your Honor; they have sometimes gone to bed supperless and cold.'
+
+"'It hurts my conscience to know that. Have you any fuel?'
+
+"'None, your Honor. My children have kept their bed for warmth.'
+
+"'But I have a good woodpile. See the shed: there is more wood there
+than I can burn. I ought not to sit down by a comfortable fire night
+after night, while my neighbor's family is cold.'
+
+"'I am glad that you are so well provided for, for you are a good man,
+and have a heart to feel for those in need.'
+
+"'Neighbor, there is my woodpile. It is yours as well as mine. I would
+not feel warm if I were to sit down by my fire and remember that you and
+your wife and your children were cold. When you need any fuel, come to
+my woodpile and take all the wood that you want.'
+
+"The man on the marsh went away, his head hanging down. I believe that
+there came into his heart the powerful resolution that he would never
+steal again, and we have no record that he ever did. The Governor's hope
+for him had made him another man.
+
+"He came for the wood in his necessity one day. The Governor looked at
+him pleasantly.
+
+"'Why did you not come to me before?'"
+
+Josiah Franklin looked around on the group at the fireside, and opened
+the family Bible.
+
+"Do you think that the Governor did right, Brother Ben?"
+
+"Well, it isn't altogether clear to me."
+
+"What do you think, Abiah?"
+
+"Father would have done as he did. He hindered no one, but helped every
+one. He saw life on that side."
+
+"Well, little Ben, what have you to say?"
+
+"The Governor looked upon the heart, didn't he? He felt for the man.
+Would it not be better for all to look that way? The worth of life
+depends upon those we help, lift, and make, not in those we destroy. I
+like the old Governor, I do, and I am sorry that there are not many more
+like him. That seems like a Luke story, father. Read a story from Luke."
+
+Josiah read a story from Luke.
+
+There followed a long prayer, as usual. Then the children kissed their
+mother and Jenny and crept up to their chamber. The nine-o'clock bell
+had rung, and the streets were still. The watchman with his lantern went
+by, saying, "Nine o'clock, and all is well!" None of the family heard
+him say, "Ten o'clock, and all is well!" They were in slumberland after
+their hard, homely toil, and some of them may have been dreaming of the
+good old Governor, who followed literally the words of the Master who
+taught on the Mount of Beatitudes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE TREASURE-FINDER.
+
+
+LITTLE Benjamin once had the boy fever to go to sea. This fever was a
+kind of nervous epidemic among the boys of the time, a disease of the
+imagination as it were. Many boys had it in Boston; they disappeared,
+and the town crier called out something like this:
+
+                    "Hear ye!
+                     Hear ye!
+               Boy lost--lost--lost!
+          Who returns him will be rewarded."
+
+He rang the bell as he cried. The crier's was the first bell that was
+rung in Boston.
+
+But why did boys have this peculiar fever in Boston and other New
+England towns at this time? It was largely owing to the stories that
+were told them. Few things affect the imagination of a boy like a story.
+De Foe's Robinson Crusoe was the live story of the times. Sindbad the
+sailor was not unknown.
+
+Old sailors used to meet by the Town Pump and spin wonderful "yarns," as
+story-telling of the sea was then described.
+
+But there was one house in Boston that in itself was a story. It was
+made of brick, and rose over the town, at the North End, in the "Faire
+Green Lane," now decaying Chatham Street. In it lived Sir William Phips,
+or Phipps, the first provincial Governor under the charter which he
+himself had brought from England.
+
+Sir William had been born poor, in Maine, and had made his great fortune
+by an adventure on the sea.
+
+The story of Sindbad the Sailor was hardly more than a match for his,
+with its realities.
+
+He was one of a family of twenty-six children; he had been taught to
+read and write when nearly grown up; had come to Boston as an
+adventurer, and had found a friend in a comely and sympathetic widow,
+who helped to educate him, and to whom he used to say:
+
+"All in good time we will come to live in the brick house in the Faire
+Green Lane."
+
+A Boston boy like young Franklin, among the pots and kettles of life,
+could not help recalling what this poor sailor lad had done for himself
+when he saw the brick house looming over the bowery lane.
+
+The candle shop at the Blue Ball, that general place for story-telling
+by winter fires, when it was warm there and the winds were cold outside,
+often heard this story, and such stories as the Winthrop Silver Cup,
+which may still be seen; of lively Anne Pollard, who was the first to
+leap on shore here from the first boat load of pioneers as it came near
+the shore at the North End, when the hills were covered with
+blueberries; of old "sea dogs" and wonderful ships, like Sir Francis
+Drake and the Golden Hynde, or "Sir Francis and his shipload of gold,"
+which ship returned to England one day with chests of gold, but not
+with Sir Francis, whose body had been left in many fathoms of sea! Ben
+listened to these tales with wonder, with Jenny by his side, leaning on
+him.
+
+What was the story of Sir William Phipps, that so haunted the minds of
+Boston boys and caused their pulses to beat and the sea fever to rise?
+
+It was known in England as well as in America; it was a wonder tale over
+the sea, for it was associated with titled names. Uncle Ben knew it
+well, and told it picturesquely, with much moralizing.
+
+Let us suppose it to be a cold winter's night, when the winds are abroad
+and the clouds fly over the moon. Josiah Franklin has played his violin,
+the family have sung "Martyrs"; the fire is falling down, and "people
+are going to meetin'," as a running of sparks among the soot was called,
+when such a thing happened in the back of the chimney.
+
+Little Ben's imagination is hungry, and he asks for the twice-told tale
+of Sir William. He would be another Sir William himself some day.
+
+By the dying coals Uncle Ben tells the story. What a story it was! No
+wonder that it made an inexperienced boy want to go to sea, and
+especially such boys as led an uneventful life in the ropewalk or in the
+candle shop!
+
+Uncle Ben first told the incident of Sir William's promise to the widow
+who took him to her home when he was poor, that she should live in the
+brick house; and then he pictured the young sailor's wonderful voyages
+to fulfill this promise. He called the sailor the "Treasure-finder."
+
+Let us snuggle down by the fire on this cold night in Boston town,
+beside little Ben and Jenny, and listen to the story.
+
+Uncle Ben, mayhap, shakes his snuffbox, and says:
+
+"That boy dreamed dreams in the daytime, but he was an honest man."
+Uncle Ben rang these words like a bell in his story.
+
+"He was an honest man; but a man in this world must save or be a slave,
+and young William's mind went sailing far away from the New England
+coast, and a-sailing went he. What did he find? Wonders! Listen, and I
+will tell you.
+
+"William Phips, or Phipps, went to the Spanish Main, and he began to
+hear a very marvelous story there. The sailors loitering in the ports
+loved to tell the legend of a certain Spanish treasure ship that had
+gone down in a storm, and they imagined themselves finding it and
+becoming rich. The legend seized upon the fancy of William the sailor
+and entered his dreams. It was only a vague fancy at first, but in the
+twilight of one burning day a cool island of palms appeared, and as it
+faded away a sailor who stood watching it said to him:
+
+"'There is a sunken reef off this coast somewhere; we are steering for
+it, and I have been told that it was on that reef that the Spanish
+treasure ship went down. They say that ship had millions of gold on
+board. I wonder if anybody will ever find her?'
+
+"William, the sailor, started. Why might not he find her?--William was
+an honest man.
+
+"It was early evening at sea. The shadows of night fell on the Bahama
+Islands. The sea and the heavens seemed to mingle. The stars were in
+the water; the heavens were there. A stranger on the planet could not
+have told which was the sea and which was the sky.
+
+"The sails were limp. There was a silence around. The ship seemed to
+move through some region of space. William Phipps sat by himself on the
+deck and dreamed. Many people dream, but it is of no use to dream unless
+you _do_.
+
+"He seemed to see her again who had been the good angel of his life; he
+saw the gabled house in the bowery lane, and two faces looking out of
+the same window over Boston town.--William was honest.
+
+"He dreamed that he himself was the captain of a ship. He saw himself in
+England, in the presence of the king. He is master of an expedition now,
+in his sea dream. He finds the sunken treasure ship. He is made rich by
+it, and he returns to Boston and buys the gabled house in the cool green
+lane by the sea. An honest man was Sir William. He was not _Sir_ William
+then.
+
+"He returned to Boston with his dream. William stayed in port for a
+time, and then prepared for a long voyage; but before he went away he
+obtained a promise from the widow that if she ever married any one it
+should be himself. There was nothing wrong in that.
+
+"The ship owners saw that he had honor, and that they could trust him.
+He was advanced in the service, and he learned how to command a ship.
+
+"He returned and married the widow, and went forth again to try to reap
+the harvest of the sea for her, carrying with him his dreams.--He was an
+honest man.
+
+"William Phipps, the sailor, heard more and more in regard to the sunken
+treasure ship, and he went to England and applied to the king for ships
+and men to go in search of this mine of gold in the sea.
+
+"Gold was then the royal want, and King James's heart was made right
+glad to hear the bold adventurer's story. The king put at his command
+ships and men, and young William Phipps--now Commander Phipps--went to
+the white reef in the blue Bahama Sea and searched the long sea wall for
+treasures faithfully, but in vain. He was compelled to return to England
+as empty-handed as when he went out.
+
+"He heard of the great admiral, the Duke of Albemarle, and was
+introduced to him by William Penn. The duke heard his story, and
+furnished him with the means to continue the search for the golden ship
+in the coral reef.
+
+"Ideals change into realities and will is way. Commander William
+bethought him of a new plan of gaining the needed intelligence. Might
+not some very old person know the place where the ship was wrecked? The
+thought was light. He found an old Indian on a near island who
+remembered the wreck, and who said he could pilot him to the very spot
+where the ship had gone down.
+
+"Captain William's heart was light again. With the Indian on board he
+drifted to the rippling waters over the reef.
+
+"Below was a coral world in a sea as clear as the sky. Out of it
+flying-fish leaped, and through it dolphins swam in pairs, and over it
+sargasso drifted like cloud shadows.
+
+"Captain William looked down. Was it over these placid waters that the
+storm had made wreckage many years ago? Was it here that the exultant
+Spanish sailors had felt the shock that turned joy into terror, and sent
+the ship reeling down, with the spoils of Indian caciques, or of
+Incarial temples, or of Andean treasures?
+
+"The old Indian pointed to a sunken, ribbed wall in the clear sea. The
+hearts of the sailors thrilled as they stood there under the fiery
+noonday sky.
+
+"Down went the divers--down!
+
+"Up came one presently with the news--'The wreck is there; we have found
+it!'
+
+"'Search!' cried Captain William, with a glad wife and a gable house in
+Boston town before his eyes. 'Down!'
+
+"Another diver came up bringing a bag. It looked like a salt bag.
+
+"An officer took an axe and severed the bag. The salt flew; the sailors
+threw up their hands with a cry--out of the bag poured a glittering
+stream of gold!
+
+"Captain William reeled. His visions were now taking solid forms; they
+had created for him a new world.
+
+"'Down! down!' he commanded.
+
+"They broke open a bag which was like a crystal sack. It was full of
+treasure, and in its folds was a goblet of gold.
+
+"They shouted over the treasure and held up the golden cup to the balmy
+air. It had doubtless belonged to a Spanish don.
+
+"More salt bags of gold! The deck was covered with gold! It is related
+that one of the officers of the ship went mad at the sight. But Captain
+William did not go mad as he surveyed the work of the men in the
+vanishing twilight. He had been there in spirit before; he had expected
+something, and he was on familiar ground when he had found it. He had
+been a prophetic soul.
+
+"He carried home the treasure to England, and, soul of honor that he
+was, he delivered every dollar's worth of it to the duke. His name
+filled England; and his honesty was a national surprise, though why it
+should have been we can not say. But didn't I tell you he was an honest
+man?
+
+"The duke was made happy, and began to cast about how to bestow upon him
+a fitting reward.
+
+"'What can I do for you?' asked his Highness.
+
+"I have a wife in Boston town, over the sea. She is a good woman. Her
+faith in me made me all I am. She is the world to me, for she believed
+in me when no one else did.'
+
+"'You are a fortunate man. We will send her the goblet of gold, and it
+shall be called the Albemarle Cup.'
+
+"The imagination of Captain William Phipps must have kindled and glowed
+as he received the 'dead don's cup,' which in itself was a fortune.
+
+"'And to you, for your honor and honesty, shall be given an ample
+fortune, and there shall be bestowed upon you the honor of knighthood.
+You shall be able to present to your good wife, whose faith has been so
+well bestowed, the Albemarle Cup, in the name of the Duke of Albemarle
+and of Sir William Phipps!'
+
+"Captain William Phipps returned to Boston a baronet, with the Albemarle
+Cup. The widow that he had won was Lady Phipps. New England never had a
+wonder tale like that.
+
+"The Albemarle Cup! The fame of it filled Boston town. There it stood in
+massive gold, in Lady Phipps's simple parlor, among humbler decorations.
+How strange it looked to her as she saw it! Then must have arisen before
+her the boy from the Maine woods, one of twenty-six school-denied
+children; the ungainly young sailor with his hot temper and scars; the
+dreamer of golden dreams; the captain, the fortune-finder, the knight.
+Another link was soon added to this marvelous chain of events. The house
+of gables in the green lane was offered for sale. Sir William purchased
+it, and the Albemarle Cup was taken into it, amid furnishings worthy of
+a knight and lady.
+
+"The two looked out of the upper window over Boston town.--He was an
+honest man.
+
+"After this many-time repeated declaration that Sir William was an
+honest man," he added: "A man must get a living somehow--he must get a
+living somehow; either he must save or be a slave."
+
+Little Ben thought that he would like to earn a living in some such way
+as that. The brick house in the "Faire Green Lane" meant much to him
+after stories like those. He surely was almost as poor as Sir William
+was at his age. Could he turn his own dreams into gold, or into that
+which is better than gold?
+
+"Jenny," he said, "I would like to be able to give a brick house in the
+Faire Green Lane to father and mother, and to you. Maybe I will some
+day. I will be true to my home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"HAVE I A CHANCE?"
+
+
+BLESSED is he who lends good books to young people. There was such a man
+in Boston town named Adams, one hundred and ninety years ago. His
+influence still lives, for he lent such books to young Benjamin
+Franklin.
+
+The boy was slowly learning what noble minds had done in the world; how
+they became immortal by leaving their thought and works behind them. His
+constant question was, What have I the chance or the opportunity to do?
+What can I do that will benefit others?
+
+It was a November evening. The days were short; the night came on at six
+o'clock. These were the dark days of the year.
+
+"There is to be a candle-light meeting in the South Church, and I must
+go," said Uncle Benjamin. "It will be pretty cold there to-night, Ben;
+you had better get the foot stove."
+
+The foot stove was a tin or brass box in a wooden frame with a handle.
+It was filled with live coals, and was carried to the church by a
+handle, as one would carry a dinner pail.
+
+Little Benjamin brought the stove out of a cupboard to the hearth, took
+out of it a pan, which he filled with hard coals and replaced it.
+
+"Ben," said Uncle Ben, "you had better go along with us and carry the
+stove."
+
+"I will go, too," said Josiah Franklin. "There is to be a lecture
+to-night on the book of Job. I always thought that that book is the
+greatest poem in all the world. Job arrived at a conclusion, and one
+that will stand. He tells us, since we can not know the first cause and
+the end, that we must be always ignorant of the deepest things of life,
+but that we must do just right in everything; and if we do that,
+everything which happens to us will be for our best good, and the very
+best thing that could happen whether we gain or lose, have or want. I
+may be a poor man, with my tallow dips, but I have always been
+determined to do just right. It may be that I will be blessed in my
+children--who knows? and then men may say of me, 'There was a man!'"
+
+"'And he dwelt in the land of Uz'" said Uncle Ben.
+
+"Wait for me a few minutes while I get ready," said Josiah Franklin. "I
+will have to shave."
+
+The prospect of a lecture in the old South Church on the philosophical
+patriarch who dwelt in the land of Uz, and led his flocks, and saw the
+planets come and go in their eternal march, on the open plains or
+through the branches of pastoral palms, was a very agreeable one to
+little Ben.
+
+He thought.
+
+"Uncle Benjamin," he said, "a man who writes a book like Job leaves his
+thoughts behind him. He does not die like other men; his life goes on."
+
+"Yes, that is what some people call an objective life. I call it a
+_projective_ life. A man who builds men, or things, for the use of men,
+lives in the things he builds. He has immortality in this world. A man
+who builds a house leaves his thought in the form of the house he
+builds. If he make a road, he lives in the road; if he invent a useful
+thing, he lives in the invention. A man may live in a ship that he has
+caused to be constructed, or his mind may see the form of a church, a
+hall, or a temple, and he may so build after what he sees that he makes
+his thoughts creative, and he lives on in the things that he creates
+after he dies. It was so with the builders of cities, of the Pyramids.
+So Romulus--if there were such a man--lives in Rome, and Columbus in the
+lands that he discovered. The Pilgrim Fathers will always live in New
+England. Those who do things and make things leave behind them a life
+outside of themselves. I call such works a man's projected life."
+
+Little Ben sat swinging the foot stove.
+
+"He lives the longest in this world who invents the most useful things
+for others," continued Uncle Benjamin. "The thoughts of Copernicus,
+Galileo, and Newton changed the world. Those men can never die."
+
+Little Ben swung the stove in his hand.
+
+Suddenly he looked up, and we fancy him to have said:
+
+"Uncle Benjamin, have _I_ a chance?"
+
+Jamie the Scotchman came into the house, jingling the door bell as he
+shut the door.
+
+"Philosophizing?" said he.
+
+"Little Ben here is inquiring in regard to his chance of doing something
+in the world--of living so as to leave his thoughts in creative forms
+behind. What do you think about it, Jamie?"
+
+"Well, I don't know; it is a pretty hard case. Drumsticks will make a
+noise, so any man may make himself heard if he will. Certain it is Ben
+has no gifts; at least, I have never discerned any. There are no Attic
+bees buzzing around him, none that I have seen, unless there be such
+things up in the attic, which would not be likely in a new house like
+this."
+
+Uncle Ben pitied the little boy, whose feelings he saw were hurt.
+
+"Jamie, I have read much, and have made some observation, and life tells
+me that character, industry, and a determined purpose will do much for a
+man that has no special gifts. The Scriptures do not say that a man of
+gifts shall stand before kings, but that the man 'diligent in his
+business' shall do so. Ben here can rise with the best of the world, and
+if he has thoughts, he can project them. It is thinking that makes men
+work. He thinks.--Ben, you can do anything that any one else of your
+opportunities has ever done. There--I hate to see the boy discouraged."
+
+"The fifteenth child among seventeen children would not seem likely to
+have a very broad outlook," said Jamie, "but it is good to encourage
+him; it is good to encourage anybody. He is one of the human family,
+like all the rest of us.--Are you going to the lecture? I will go along
+with you."
+
+Josiah Franklin was now ready to go, and the party started. Josiah
+carried a lantern, and little Benjamin the foot stove with the coals.
+As they walked along they met other people with lanterns and foot
+stoves.
+
+Uncle Benjamin felt hurt at what Jamie had said, so he proceeded to
+encourage the boy as they went along.
+
+"If you could invent a stove that would warm the whole church, you would
+have a _projected_ life, for example," said he.
+
+"Have I a chance?" asked again the future inventor of the Franklin
+stove.
+
+"Or if you could print something original that might live; or found a
+society to study science--something might come out of that; or could
+make some scheme for a better government of the people in these parts;
+but that would be too great for you. There I go!"
+
+Uncle Benjamin stumbled. Little Ben helped him up.
+
+They came to the South Church, where many lanterns, foot stoves, and
+tallow dips were gathered, and shadowy forms were moving to and fro.
+
+Little Ben set down the stove in the pew. The lecture began. He heard
+the minister read the sublime passage of the ancient poem beginning,
+"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said." He heard
+about the "morning stars singing together," the "sweet influences of
+Pleiades," and the question, "Canst thou bind the sea?"
+
+The boy asked, "Have I a chance? have I a chance?" The discouraging
+words of Jamie the Scotchman hung over his mind like a cloud.
+
+The influence of the coals led Josiah Franklin to slumberland after his
+hard day's work. Little Ben saw his father nod and nod. But Uncle
+Benjamin was in the Orient with the minister, having a hard experience
+for the good of life with the patriarch Job.
+
+"Have I a chance?" The boy shed tears. If he had not gifts, he knew that
+he had personality, but there was something stirring within him that led
+his thoughts to seek the good of others.
+
+The nine-o'clock bell rang. The lecture was over.
+
+"Good--wasn't it?" said Jamie the Scotchman as they went out of the
+church and looked down to the harbor glimmering under the moon and
+stars, and added:
+
+"Ben, you will be sure to have one thing to spur you on to lead that
+'projected life' your Uncle Benjamin tells about."
+
+"What is that, sir?"
+
+"A hard time, like Job--a mighty hard time."
+
+"The true way to knowledge," said Uncle Benjamin encouragingly.
+
+Uncle Benjamin felt a hand in his great mitten. It was little Ben's. The
+confidence touched his heart.
+
+"Ben, you are as likely to have a projected life as anybody. A man rises
+by overcoming his defects. Strength comes in that way."
+
+Little Ben went through the jingling door with a heart now heavy, now
+light. He set down the lantern, and climbed up to his bed under the
+roof.
+
+He was soon in bed, the question, "Have I a chance?" still haunting him.
+
+In summer there would be the sound of the wings of the swallows or
+purple swifts in the chimney at night as they became displaced from
+their nests. He would start up to listen to the whirring wings, then
+sink into slumber, to awake a blithe, light-hearted boy again.
+
+All was silent now. He could not sleep. His fancy was too wide awake.
+Was Uncle Benjamin right, or Jamie the Scotchman? Had he a chance?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+"A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED THE CHARACTER OF A MAN WHO LED HIS AGE."
+
+
+"YOU must read good books," said Benjamin Franklin's godfather. "How
+sorry I am that I had to sell my pamphlets!"
+
+Books have stamped their character on young men at the susceptible age
+and the turning points of life. But their influence for good or evil
+comes to receptive characters. "He is a genius," says Emerson, "who
+gives me back my own thoughts." The gospel says, "He that hath ears to
+hear, let him hear."
+
+Abraham Lincoln would walk twenty miles to borrow a law book, and would
+sit down on a log by the wayside to study it on his return from such a
+journey. Horace Greeley says that when he was a boy he would go reading
+to a woodpile. "I would take a pine knot," he said, "put it on the back
+log, pile my books around me, and lie down and read all through the long
+winter evenings." He read the kind of books for which his soul hungered.
+He read to find in books what he himself wished to be. A true artist
+sees and hears only what he wishes to see and hear. An active, earnest,
+resolute soul reads only that which helps him fulfill the haunting
+purpose of his life. Almost every great man's books that were his
+companions in early years were pictures of what he most wished to be
+and to do.
+
+How many men have had their spiritual life quickened by a hymn! How many
+by a single poem! Homer and Ossian filled the imagination of Napoleon.
+Plutarch's Lives has helped form the characters of a thousand heroes,
+and Emerson placed Plutarch next to the Bible in the rank of beneficent
+influences. We would say to every boy, Read Plutarch; read the best
+books first.
+
+A few books well read would be an education. Let a boy read the Bible,
+Josephus, Plutarch's Lives, Rawlinson's, Hallam's Macaulay's,
+Bancroft's, and Prescott's histories, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and
+Longfellow, and he would have a basis of knowledge of such substantial
+worth and moral and literary standard as to cause his intelligence to be
+respected everywhere and to become a power. Yet all these books could be
+purchased for twenty-five dollars, and the time that many waste in
+unprofitable reading for three years would be sufficient to master them.
+
+"I am a part of all that I have met," says Tennyson, and a man becomes a
+part of all the books that color his mind and character. Ask a company
+of people what books they most sought in childhood, and you may have a
+mental photograph of each.
+
+Benjamin Franklin says that his opinions and character were so greatly
+influenced by his reading Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good, that he
+owed to that book his rise in life. A boy, he says, should read that
+book with pen and note-book in hand.
+
+Benjamin Franklin declared that it was in this book that he found the
+statements of the purposes in life that met his own views. "To do good,"
+he said, was the true aim of existence, and the resolution became fixed
+in his soul to seek to make his life as beneficent as possible to all
+men. How to help somebody and to improve something became the dreams of
+his days and nights. "A high aim is curative," says Emerson. Franklin
+had some evil tendencies of nature and habit, but his purpose to live
+for the welfare of everybody and everything overcame them all in the
+end, and made him honestly confess his faults and try to make amends for
+his lapses. To do good was an impelling purpose that led him to the
+building of the little wharf, where boys might have firm footing whence
+to sail their boats, and it continued through many wiser experiences up
+to the magic bottle, in which was stored the revelation of that agent of
+the earth and skies that would prove the most beneficent of all new
+discoveries.
+
+The book confirmed all that Uncle Benjamin had said. In it he saw what
+he should struggle to be: he put his resolution into this vision, and so
+took the first step on the ladder of life which was to give him a large
+view of human affairs.
+
+He turned from the candle molds to Cotton Mather's strong pages, which
+few boys would care to read now, and from them, a little later, to
+Addison, and from both to talk with Jenny about what he would like to do
+and to become, and, like William Phips to the widow, he promised Jenny
+that they, too, should one day live in some "Faire Green Lane in Boston
+town." He would be true to his home--he and Jenny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+BENJAMIN LOOKS FOR A PLACE WHEREIN TO START IN LIFE.
+
+
+BESIDES his instruction from encouraging Mr. Brownell and his Uncle
+Benjamin, little Benjamin Franklin had spent one year at school and
+several years of self-instruction under helps. His father needed him in
+the candle shop, and he could not give him a larger education with so
+many mouths to feed.
+
+Young Ben did not like his occupation in the candle shop. He worked with
+his hands while his heart was absent, and his imagination was even
+farther away.
+
+He had a brother John who had helped his father when a boy, who married
+and moved to Rhode Island to follow there his father's trade as a candle
+and soap maker. John's removal doubled the usefulness of little Ben
+among the candle molds and soap kettles. He saw how this kind of work
+would increase as he grew older; he longed for a different occupation,
+something that would satisfy his mental faculties and give him
+intellectual opportunities, and his dreams went sailing to the seas and
+lands where his brother Josiah had been. There were palms in his fancy,
+gayly plumed birds, tropical waters, and a free life under vertical
+suns--India, the Spanish Main, the ports of the Mediterranean. He talked
+so much of going to sea that his father saw that his shop was not the
+place for this large-brained boy with an inventive faculty.
+
+"Ben," said Josiah Franklin one day, "this is no place for you--you are
+not balanced like other boys; your head is canted the _other_ way.
+You'll be running off to sea some day, just as Josiah did. Come, let us
+go out into the town, and I will try to find another place for you. You
+will have to become an apprentice boy."
+
+"Anything, father, but this dull work. I seem here to be giving all my
+time to nothing. Soap and candles are good and useful things, but people
+can make them who can do nothing else. I want a place that will give me
+a chance to work with my head. What is my head for?"
+
+"I don't know, Ben; it will take time to answer that. You do seem to
+have good faculties, if you _are_ my son. I would be glad to have you do
+the very best that you are capable of doing, and Heaven knows that I
+would give you an education if I were able. Come, let us go."
+
+They went out into the streets of Boston town. The place then contained
+something more than two thousand houses, most of them built of timber
+and covered with cedar shingles; a few of them were stately edifices of
+brick and tiles. It had seven churches, and they were near the sign of
+the Blue Ball: King's Chapel, Brattle Street, the Old Quaker, the New
+North, the New South, the New Brick, and Christ Church. There was a free
+writing school on Cornhill, a school at the South End, and another
+writing school on Love Lane. Ben Franklin could not enter these simple
+school doors for the want of means. To gain the Franklin Medal,
+provided by legacy of Benjamin Franklin, is now the high ambition of
+every Boston Latin schoolboy. There were fortifications on Fort Hill and
+a powder house on the Common. There were inns, taverns, and ordinaries
+everywhere. Boston was a town of inns with queer names; Long Wharf was
+the seaway to the ships. Chatham Street now was then a fair green lane;
+Salem Street was a place of property people or people of "quality."
+
+In King's Chapel was a state pew for the royal Governors. On the pulpit
+stood an hourglass in a frame of brass. The pillars were hung with
+escutcheons of the king.
+
+Ben may have passed the old Latin School which at first was established
+at a place just east of King's Chapel. If so, he must have wished to be
+entered there as a pupil again. The school has distributed his medals
+now for several generations. He may have passed the old inns like the
+Blue Anchor Tavern, or the Royal Exchange, or the fire of 1711 may have
+wiped out some of these old historic buildings, and new ones to take
+their places may have been rising or have been but recently completed.
+The old Corner Bookstore was there, for it was built directly after the
+fire of 1711. It is the oldest brick building now standing in the city,
+and one of the few on which little Ben's eyes could have rested. A new
+town arose after the fire.
+
+Josiah Franklin and little Ben visited the workshops of carpenters,
+turners, glaziers, and others, but, although they had a good time
+together in the study, the kind father could not find a place that
+suited his son. Ben did not like to be apprenticed to any of the
+tradesmen that he met.
+
+He had a brother James, of a bright mind but of no very amiable
+disposition, who was a printer. He had been to London to improve his
+trade, and on his return he became the one printer in the town.
+
+One evening, between the violin and the Bible, Josiah Franklin suddenly
+said:
+
+"Ben, you look here!"
+
+"What, father?" asked the boy, starting.
+
+"It all comes to me what you ought to do. You should become a printer."
+
+"That I would like, father."
+
+"Then the way is clear--let me apprentice you to James."
+
+"Would he have me, father? We do not always get on well together. I want
+to learn the printer's trade; that would help me on to an education."
+
+Josiah Franklin was now a happier man. Ben would have no more desire to
+go to sea. If he could become anything out of the ordinary, the
+printer's trade would be the open way.
+
+He went to his son James and presented the matter. As a result, they
+drew up an indenture.
+
+This indenture, which may be found in Franklin's principal biographies,
+was a very queer document, but follows the usual form of the times of
+George I. It was severe--a form by which a lad was practically sold into
+slavery, and yet it contained the demands that develop right conduct in
+life. Ben was not constituted to be an apprentice boy under these sharp
+conditions even to his own brother. But all began well. His mother, who
+worried lest he should follow the example of his brother Josiah, now had
+heart content. His father secured an apprentice, and probably had drawn
+up for him a like form of indenture.
+
+Benjamin, too, was happy now. He saw that his new way of life led to
+somewhere--where? He would do his best to make it lead to the best in
+life. He started with a high resolve, which we are sorry he did not
+always fulfill in the letter, though the spirit of it never was lost.
+
+His successor in the tallow shop does not seem to have been more happy
+than he. His name was Tinsley. There appeared in the New England Courant
+of 1722 the following queer advertisement, which we copy because it
+affords a picture of the times:
+
+          Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of
+          Boston, Tallow-Chandler, on the first of this
+          instant July, an Irish Man-servant, named William
+          Tinsley, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle
+          Stature, black Hair, lately cut off, somewhat
+          fresh-coloured Countenance, a large lower Lip, of
+          a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going.
+          He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white
+          knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt,
+          and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost
+          new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn
+          Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black,
+          and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the
+          said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his
+          above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union
+          street, Boston, shall have forty Shillings Reward,
+          and all necessary Charges paid.
+
+As this advertisement was continued for three successive weeks, we are
+at liberty to conclude that William Tinsley was not "apprehended."
+
+Let the reader be glad that he did not live in those days. The best of
+all ages is now.
+
+"And so you have begun life as a printer?" said Uncle Benjamin. "A
+printer's trade is one after my own heart. It develops thought. If I
+could have only kept my pamphlets until now, you would have printed the
+notes that I made. One of them says that what people want is not favors
+or patronage of any kind, but _justice_. Remember that, Ben. What the
+world wants is justice. You may become a printer in your own right some
+day."
+
+"I want to become one, uncle. That is just what is in my heart. I can
+see success in my mind."
+
+"But you can do it if you will. Everything goes down before 'I will!'
+The Alps fell before Hannibal. Have a deaf ear, Ben, toward all who say
+'You _can't_!' Such men don't count with those in the march; they are
+stragglers. Don't you be laughed down by anybody. Hold your head high;
+there is just as much royal blood in your veins as there is in any king
+on earth. There is no royal blood but that which springs from true
+worth. I put that down in my documents years ago.
+
+"Life is too short to stop to quarrel with any one by the way. If a man
+calls you a fool, you need not come out under your own signature and
+deny it. Your life should do that. I am quoting from my pamphlets again.
+
+"If you meet old Mr. Calamity in your way, the kind of man who tells you
+that you have no ground of expectation, and that everything in the world
+is going to ruin, just whistle, and luck will come to you, my boy. I
+only wish that I had my documents--my pamphlets, I mean. I would have
+left them to you in my will. In the present state of society one must
+save or be a slave--that also I wrote down in my documents. It is a pity
+that it is so, but it is. Save what you can while you are young, and it
+will give your mind leisure to work when you are older. _That_ was in my
+pamphlets. I hope that I may live to see you the best printer in the
+colonies."
+
+The boy absorbed the spirit of these proverbial sayings. They were to
+his liking and bent of mind. But there came into his young face a
+shadow.
+
+"Uncle Ben, I know what you say is true. I have listened to you; now I
+would like you to hear me. You saw the boys going to the Latin School
+this morning?"
+
+"Yes, Ben."
+
+"I can not go there."
+
+"O Ben! that is hard," said Jenny, who was by his side.
+
+"But you can go to school, Ben," said Uncle Benjamin.
+
+"Where, uncle?"
+
+"To life--and graduate there as well as any of them."
+
+"I would like to study Latin."
+
+"Well, what is to hinder you, Ben? One only needs to learn the alphabet
+to learn all that can be known through books. You know _that_ now."
+
+"I would like to learn French. Other boys can; I can not."
+
+"The time will come when you can. The gates open before a purpose. You
+can study French later in life, and, it may be, make as good use of
+French as any of them."
+
+"Why can not I do as other boys?"
+
+"You can, Ben. You can so live that the Boston Latin School to which you
+can not go now will honor you some day."
+
+"I would be sorry to see another boy feel as I have felt when I have
+seen the boys going to that school with happy faces to learn the things
+that I want to know. But father has done the best that he can for me."
+
+"Yes, Ben, he has, and you only need to do the best that you can for
+yourself to graduate at the head of all in the school of life. I know
+how to feel for you, Ben. I have stood in shoes like yours many times.
+When you have done as I have told you, then think of me. The world may
+soon forget me. I want you so to live that it will not as soon forget
+you."
+
+The cloud passed from the boy's face. Hope came to him, and he was merry
+again. He locked Jenny in his arms, whirled her around, and said:
+
+"I am glad to hear the bells ring for other boys, even if I must go to
+my trade."
+
+"I like the spirit of what you say," said Uncle Benjamin. "You have the
+blood of Peter Folger and of your Great-uncle Tom in your veins. Peter
+gave his heart to the needs of the Indians, and to toleration; your
+Great-uncle Tom started the subscription for the bells of Nottingham,
+and became a magistrate, and a just one. You may not be able to answer
+the bell of the Latin School, but if you are only true to the best that
+is in you, little Ben, you may make bells ring for joy. I can hear them
+now in my mind's ear. Don't laugh at your old uncle; you can do it,
+little Ben--can't he Jenny?"
+
+"He just can--I can help him. Ben can do anything--he may make the Latin
+School bell ring for others yet--like Uncle Tom. He is the boy to do it,
+and I am the sister to help him to do it--ain't I, Uncle Benjamin?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURES AS A POET.
+
+
+THAT was a charmed life that little Ben Franklin led in the early days
+of his apprenticeship. He always thought of provincial Boston as his
+"beloved city." When he grew old, the Boston of his boyhood was to him a
+delightful dream.
+
+He and his father were on excellent terms with each other. His father,
+though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South
+Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on
+him.
+
+He was accustomed to say long graces at meals, at which the food was not
+overmuch, and the hungry children many. One day, after he had salted
+down a large quantity of meat in a barrel, he was surprised to hear Ben
+ask:
+
+"Father, why don't you say grace over it now?"
+
+"What do you mean, Ben?"
+
+"Wouldn't it be saving of time to say grace now over the whole barrel of
+provisions, and then you could omit it at meals?"
+
+But the strong member of the Old South Church had no such ideas of
+religious economy as revealed his son's mathematical mind.
+
+The Franklin family must have presented a lively appearance at church
+in old Dr. Joseph Sewell's day. They heard some sound preaching there,
+and Dr. Sewell lived as he preached. He was offered the presidency of
+Harvard College, but honors were as bubbles to him, and he refused it
+for a position of less money and fame, but of more direct spiritual
+influence, and better in accord with the modest views of his ability. He
+began to preach in the Old South Church when Ben was seven years of age;
+he preached a sermon there on his eightieth birthday.
+
+These were fine old times in Boston town. Some linen spinners came over
+from Londonderry, in Ireland, and they established a spinning school.
+They also brought with them the potato, which soon became a great
+luxury.
+
+Josiah Franklin probably pastured his cows on the Common, and little Ben
+may often have sat down under the old elm by the frog pond and looked
+over the Charles River marshes, which were then where the Public Garden
+now is.
+
+But the delight of the boy's life was still Uncle Benjamin, the poet.
+The two read and roamed together. Now Ben had a poetic vein in him, a
+small one probably inherited from his grandfather Folger, and it began
+to be active at this time.
+
+There were terrible stories of pirates in the air. They kindled the
+boy's lively imagination; they represented the large subject of
+retributive justice, and he resolved to devote his poetic sense to one
+of these alarming characters.
+
+There was a dreadful pirate by the name of Edward Teach, but commonly
+called "Blackbeard." He was born in Bristol, England. He became the
+terror of the Atlantic coast, and had many adventures off the Carolinas.
+He was at length captured and executed.
+
+One day little Ben came to his brother James with a paper.
+
+"James, I have been writing something, and I have come to read it to
+you."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Poetry."
+
+"Like Uncle Ben's?"
+
+"No; it is on Blackbeard."
+
+James thought that a very interesting subject, and prepared to listen to
+his poet brother.
+
+Little Ben unfolded the paper and began to read his lines, which were
+indeed heroic.
+
+          "Come, all you jolly sailors,
+             You all so stout and brave!"
+
+"Good!" said James. "That starts off fine."
+
+Ben continued:
+
+          "Come, hearken and I'll tell you
+             What happened on the wave."
+
+"Better yet--I like that. Why, Uncle Ben could not excel that. What
+next?"
+
+          "Oh, 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard
+             I'm going now to tell,
+           And as how, by gallant Maynard,
+             He soon was sent to _hell_,
+           With a down, down, down, derry down!"
+
+James lifted his hands at this refrain after the old English ballad
+style.
+
+"Ben, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll print the verses for you, and
+you shall sell them on the street."
+
+The poet Arion at his coronation at Corinth could not have felt prouder
+than little Ben at that hour. He would be both a poet and bookseller,
+and his brother would be his publisher.
+
+He may have cried on Boston street:
+
+"Blackboard--broadside!" or something like that. It would have been
+honorable advertising.
+
+His success as a poet was instantaneous. His poem sold well. Compliments
+fell upon him like a sun shower. He wrote another poem of like value,
+and it sold "prodigiously." He thought indeed he was a great poet, and
+had started out on Shakespeare's primrose way to fame and glory. Alas!
+how many under like circumstances have been deceived. He lived to call
+his ballads "wretched stuff." How many who thought they were poets have
+lived to take the same view of their work!
+
+His second poem was called the Light-House Tragedy. It related to a
+recent event, and set the whole town to talking, and the admiration for
+the young poet was doubled.
+
+In the midst of the great sale of his poems by himself, and of all the
+flatteries of the town, he went for approval to his father. The result
+was unexpected; the rain of sunshine changed into a winter storm indeed.
+
+"Father, you have heard that I have become a poet?"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Josiah, in his paper cap and leather breeches.
+"Like your Uncle Ben, my boy, and he amounted to nothing at all as a
+poet. A poet--my stars!"
+
+"I thought that you looked upon Uncle Ben as the best man in all the
+world. The people love him. When he enters the Old South Church there is
+silence."
+
+"That is all very true, my boy, but he lives between the heavens and
+the earth, and can not get up to the one or down to the other. Poets are
+beggars, in some way or other. They live in garrets among the mice and
+bats. Their country is the imagination, and that is the next door to
+nowhere. You a poet! What puckers my face up--_so_?"
+
+"But my poetry sells, father," looking into his father's droll face, his
+heart sinking.
+
+"Your poetry! It sells, my boy, because you are a little shaver and
+appear to be smart, and also because your rhymes refer to events in
+which everybody is interested. But, my son, your poetry, as you call it,
+has no merit in itself. It is full of all kinds of errors. It is style
+that makes a poem live; yours has no style."
+
+"But, father, many people do not think so."
+
+"But they will. You will think so some day."
+
+"But isn't there something good in it?"
+
+"Nothing, Ben. You never was born to be a poet. You have the ability to
+earn a living, same as I have done. Poets don't have that kind of
+ability; they beg. There are not many men who can earn a living by
+selling their fancies, which is mostly moonshine."
+
+This was unsympathetic. Ben looked at the soap kettles and candle molds
+and wondered if these things had not blinded his father's poetic
+perceptions. There was no Vale of Tempe here.
+
+But Josiah Franklin had hard common sense. Little Ben's dreams of poetic
+fame came down from the skies at one arrow. That was a bitter hour.
+
+"If I can not be a poet," he thought, "I can still be useful," and he
+reverted from heroic ballads to stern old Cotton Mather's Essays to do
+Good. The fated poet is always left a like resource.
+
+Yet many people who have not become poets, but who have risen to be
+eminent men, have had poetic dreams in early life; they have had the
+poetic mind. A little poetry in one's composition is no common gift; it
+is a stamp of superiority in some direction. Josiah Franklin was a wise
+man, but his views of poetry as such were of a low standard. Poetry is
+the highest expression of life, the noblest exercise of the spiritual
+faculties.
+
+So poor little Ben had soared to be laughed at again. But there was
+something out of the common stirring in him, and he would fly again some
+day. The victories of the vanquished are the brightest of all.
+
+Franklin, after having been thus given over to the waste barrel by his
+father, now resolved to acquire a strong, correct, and impressive prose
+style of writing. He found Addison's Spectator one of the best of all
+examples of literary style, and he began to make it a study. In works of
+the imagination he read De Foe and Bunyan.
+
+This good resolution was his second step up on the ladder of life.
+
+Others were contributing to his brother James's paper, why should not
+he? But James, after the going out of the poetic meteor, might not be
+willing to consider his plain prose.
+
+Benjamin Franklin has now written an article in plain prose, which he
+wishes to appear in his brother's paper. If it were accepted, he would
+have to put it into type himself, and probably to deliver the paper to
+its patrons. He is sixteen years old. He has become a vegetarian, and
+lives by himself, and seeks pleasure chiefly in books.
+
+It is night. There are but few lamps in the Boston streets. With a
+manuscript hidden in his pocket Benjamin walks slyly toward the office
+of James Franklin, Printer, where all is dark and still. He looks
+around, tucks his manuscript suddenly under the office door, turns and
+runs. Oh, how he does glide away! Is he a genius or a fool? He wonders
+what his brother will say of the manuscript, when he reads it in the
+morning.
+
+In the morning he went to his work.
+
+Some friends of James came into the office.
+
+"I have found something here this morning," said James, "that I think is
+good. It was tucked under the door. It seems to me uncommonly good. You
+must read it."
+
+He handed it to one of his friends.
+
+"That is the best article I have read for a long time," said one of the
+callers. "There is force in it. It goes like a song that whistles. It
+carries you. I advise you to use it. Everybody would read that and like
+it. I wonder who wrote it? You should find out. A person who can write
+like that should never be idle. He was born to write."
+
+James handed it to another caller.
+
+"There are brains in that ink. The piece flows out of life. Who do you
+think wrote it?"
+
+"I have no idea," said James.--"Here, Ben, set it up. Here's nuts for
+you. If I knew who wrote it I would ask the writer to send in other
+articles."
+
+Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Charles Dickens's novels have had
+a sale equaled by a few books in the world. The two authors began their
+literary life in a like manner, by tucking their manuscripts under the
+editor's door at night and running away. They both came to wonder at
+themselves at finding themselves suddenly people of interest. Still, we
+could hardly say to the literary candidate, "Fling your article into the
+editor's room at night and run," though modesty, silence, and prudence
+are commendable in a beginner, and qualities that win.
+
+What pen name did Ben Franklin sign to this interesting article? It was
+one that implies his purpose in life; you may read his biography in
+it--SILENCE DOGOOD.
+
+The day after the name of Silence Dogood had attracted the attention of
+Boston town, Benjamin said to Jane, his sympathetic little sister:
+
+"Jenny, let's go to walk this evening upon Beacon Hill. I have something
+to tell you."
+
+They went out in the early twilight together, up the brow of the hill
+which the early settlers seem to have found a blackberry pasture, to the
+tree where they had gone with Uncle Benjamin on the showery, shining
+midsummer Sunday.
+
+"Can you repeat what Uncle Benjamin said to us here, two years ago?"
+asked Ben.
+
+"No; it was too long. You repeat it to me again and I will learn it."
+
+"He said, 'More than wealth, or fame, or anything, is the power of the
+human heart, and that that power is developed in seeking the good of
+others.' Jenny, what did father say when he read the piece by Silence
+Dogood in the Courant?"
+
+"He clapped his hand on his leather breeches so that they rattled; he
+did, Ben, and he exclaimed, 'That is a good one!' and he read the piece
+to mother, and she asked him who he supposed wrote it, and she shook her
+head, and he said, 'I wish that I knew.'"
+
+"Would you like to know who wrote it, Jenny?"
+
+"Yes. Do you know?"
+
+"_I_ wrote it. Jenny, you must not tell. I am writing another piece.
+James does not know. I tucked the manuscript under the door. I am going
+to put another one under the door at night."
+
+"O Ben, Ben, you will be a great man yet, and I hope that I will live to
+see it. But why did you take the name of _Silence Dogood_?"
+
+"That carries out Uncle Ben's idea. It stands for seeking the good of
+others quietly. That name is what I would like to be."
+
+"It is what you will be, Ben. Uncle would say that the Franklin heart is
+in that name. If you should ever become a big man, Ben, and I should
+come to see you when we are old, I will say, 'Silence Dogood, more than
+wealth, more than fame, and more than anything else, is the power of the
+human heart.' There, I have quoted it correctly now. Maybe the day will
+come. Maybe we will live to be old, and you will write things that
+everybody will read, and I will take care of father and mother while you
+go out into the world."
+
+"Wherever I may go, and whatever I may become or fail to be, my heart
+will always be true to you, Jenny."
+
+"And I will do all I can for father and mother; I will be your heart to
+them, so that you may give your time to your pen. Every one in a family
+should seek to do for the family what others lack or are not able to do.
+You can write; I can not, but, Ben, I can love."
+
+She walked about the wild rose bushes, where the red-winged blackbirds
+were singing.
+
+"O Ben," she continued, "I am so glad that you wrote that piece, and
+that father liked it so well! I would not have been more glad had you
+received a present from a king. Maybe you will receive a present from a
+king some day, if you write as well as that."
+
+"You will keep the secret, Jenny?"
+
+"Yes, Ben, I will look for the paper to-morrow. How glad Uncle Ben would
+be if he knew it. Why, Ben, that name, Silence Dogood, is a piece in
+itself. It is a picture of your heart. You are just like Uncle Ben,
+Silence Dogood."
+
+The name of Silence Dogood became famous in Boston town. Jenny obtained
+Ben's permission to tell Uncle Benjamin the great secret, and Uncle
+Benjamin's heart was so delighted that he went to his room and told the
+secret "to the Lord."
+
+The three hearts were now very, very happy for a time. Jenny was growing
+up a beautiful girl, and her thoughts were much given to her
+hard-working parents and to laughed-at, laughing little Ben.
+
+When Uncle Benjamin had heard of Ben's failure as a poet and success as
+Silence Dogood, he took him down to Long Wharf again.
+
+"I am an old man," he said. "But here I have a lesson for you. If you
+are conscious that you have any gift, even in small degree, never let
+the world laugh it away. See 'that no man take thy crown,' the Scripture
+says. Every one who has contributed anything to the progress of the
+world has been laughed at. Stick a pin in thee, Ben.
+
+"Now, Ben, you may not have the poet's imagination or art, but if you
+have the poetical mind do not be laughed out of an attempt to express
+it. You may not become a poet; I do not think that you ever will.
+Perhaps you will write proverbs, and proverbs are a kind of poems. I am
+going to reprove Brother Josiah for what he has said. He has given over
+your education to me, and it is my duty to develop you after your own
+gifts.
+
+"Let us go back to the shop. I want to have a talk with Josiah; but,
+before we leave, I have a short word to say to you.
+
+"Hoi, Ben, hoi!--I don't know what makes me repeat these words; they are
+not swear words, Ben, but they come to me when my feelings are awakened.
+
+"It is hard, hard for one to see what he wants to be and to be kept
+back. I wanted to be a philosopher and a poet. Don't you laugh, Ben. I
+did; I wanted to be both, and I was so poor that I was obliged to write
+my thoughts on the margin of the leaves of my pamphlets, which I sold to
+come to teach you. Ben, Ben, listen: I can never be a philosopher or a
+poet, but you may. Don't laugh, Ben. Don't let any one laugh you out of
+your best ideas, Ben. You may. The world will never read what I wrote.
+They may read what you will write, and if you follow my ideas and they
+are read, you will be content. Hoi, Ben, hoi!"
+
+They went to the candle shop.
+
+"Josiah, you do wrong to try to suppress Ben's gift at rhyme. A man
+without poetry in his soul amounts to no more than a chopping block. The
+world just hammers itself on him, and that is all. You would not make
+Ben a dunce!"
+
+"No, brother, no; but a goose is not a nightingale, and the world will
+not stop to listen if she mounts a tree and attempts to sing."
+
+"No, Brother Josiah, but a goose that would like to sing like a
+nightingale would be no common goose; she would find better pasture than
+other geese. Small gifts are to be prized. 'A little diamond is worth a
+mountain of glass,' as the proverb says."
+
+"Well, if you must write poetry, don't publish it until it is called
+for."
+
+"Well, Brother Josiah, your advice will do for me, for I am an old man;
+but I must teach Ben never to be laughed out of any good idea that may
+come to him. Is not that right, brother?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Ben. But you can't make a hen soar to the skies like an
+eagle. If you are not a poet, you have a perfect character, and that is
+why I leave the training of Ben to you. If you can make a man of him,
+the world will be better for him; and if you can make something else of
+him besides a poet out of his poetical gift, I shall be very glad. Your
+poetry has not helped you in life, has it, Benjamin?"
+
+"I don't know. You think it is that that has made me a burden to you."
+
+Josiah looked his brother in the face.
+
+"A burden? No, brother. One of the greatest joys of my life was to have
+you come here, and it will be the greatest blessing to my life if you
+can make the life of little Ben a blessing to the world. I am not much
+of a musician, but I like to sound the fiddle, and if you have any
+poetic light, let it shine--but as a tallow dip, like my fiddling. You
+are right, brother, in teaching little Ben never to be laughed down. I
+don't blame any one for crying his goods if he has anything to sell. But
+if he has not, he had better be content to warm his hands by his own
+fire."
+
+"Brother Josiah, listen to me. Little Ben here has something to
+sell.--Hoi, Ben, hoi! you listen.--There have thoughts come to me that I
+know did not rise out of the dust. I have been too poor to publish them.
+You may laugh at me, and call me a poor philosopher and say that my
+philosophy has kept me poor. But Benjamin here is going to give my
+thoughts to the world, and the things that I put into my pamphlets are
+going to live. It was not you that gave Ben to me: it was Heaven. A veil
+hangs over us in this world, and if a man does good in his heart, the
+hand behind that veil moves all the events of his life for good.
+
+"Don't laugh at us, Josiah; we are weaving together thoughts that will
+feed the world. That we are.--Hoi, Ben, hoi!"
+
+"Well, Brother, your faith makes you a happy old man. I hope that you
+will be able to make something of Ben, and that he may do credit to your
+good name. It may be so. Faith sees.
+
+"I love to see you go into the South Church, Brother. As soon as your
+face appears all the people look very happy, and sit still. The
+children all sit still. The tithingman stands still; he has nothing to
+do for a time.
+
+"It is something, Brother Ben, to be able to cast such an influence as
+that--something that money can not buy. I am sorry if I have hurt your
+feelings. Heaven be praised for such men as you are, Brother Ben! I hope
+that I may live to see all that you see by faith. I think I may, Brother
+Ben. 'Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles,' but they
+do gather grapes of grapes and figs of figs. I hope that Ben will be the
+book of your life, and make up for the pamphlets. It would be a good
+book for men to read."
+
+"Hoi, Ben, hoi!" said the old man, "I can see that it will."
+
+One Sunday, after church, in summer, Uncle Ben the poet and Silence
+Dogood went down on Long Wharf to enjoy the breezes from the sea. Uncle
+Ben was glad to learn more of the literary successes of Silence Dogood.
+
+"To fail in poetry is to succeed in prose," said the fine old man. "But
+much that we call prose is poetry; rhymes are only childish jingles. The
+greatest poetry in the world is written without rhyme. It is the magic
+spirit and the magic words that make true poetry. The book of Job, in my
+opinion, is the greatest poetry ever written. Poetry is not made, it
+exists; and one who is prepared to receive it catches it as it flows.
+Ben, you are going to succeed in prose. You are going to become a ready
+writer. Study Addison more and more."
+
+"Uncle Ben, do you not think that it is the hardest thing in life for
+one to be told that he can not do what he most wants to do?"
+
+"Yes, Ben, that is the hardest thing in life. It is a cruel thing to
+crush any one in his highest hope and expectation."
+
+"Was Solomon a poet? Are the Proverbs poetry?"
+
+"Yes, yes. The book of Proverbs is a thousand poems."
+
+"Then, Uncle Ben, I may be a poet yet. That kind of little poems come to
+me."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+A voice rang out behind them.
+
+It was Jamie the Scotchman.
+
+"Well, Ben, it is good to fly high. I infer that you expect to become a
+proverb poet, after the manner of Solomon. The people here will all be
+quoting you some day. It may be that you will be quoted in England and
+France. Ha! ha! ha! What good times," he added, "you two have
+together--dreaming! Well, it costs nothing to dream. There is no toll
+demanded of him who travels in the clouds. Move along, young Solomon,
+and let me sit down on the sea wall beside you. When you write a book of
+proverb poetry I hope I'll be living to read it. One don't make a silk
+purse out of a sow's ear--there's a proverb for you!--nor gather wisdom
+except by experience--there's another; and some folks do not get wisdom
+even from experience." He looked suspiciously toward Uncle Ben.
+
+"Experience keeps a dear school," said Uncle Ben in a kindly way.
+
+"And some people can learn of no other," added Silence Dogood.
+
+"And some folks not even there," said Jamie the Scotchman.
+
+The loons came semicircling along the sea wall, their necks aslant, and
+uttering cries in a mocking tone.
+
+"Well, I declare, it makes the loons laugh--and no wonder!" said Jamie
+the Scotchman. He lighted his pipe, whose bowl was a piece of corncob,
+and whiffed away in silence for a time, holding up one knee in his
+clasped hands.
+
+Silence Dogood surveyed his surroundings, which were ship cargoes.
+
+"The empty bags do not stand up," he said.
+
+"Well, what do you infer from that?" asked Jamie.
+
+Silence Dogood did not answer, but the thought in his mind was evident.
+It was simply this: that, come what would in life, he would not fail. He
+put his hand on Uncle Benjamin's shoulder, for who does not long to
+reach out his hand toward the fire in the cold, and to touch the form
+that entemples the most sympathetic heart? He dreamed there on the sea
+wall, where the loons seemed to laugh, and his dreams came true. Every
+attainment in life is first a dream.
+
+Silence Dogood, dream on! Add intelligence to intelligence, virtue to
+virtue, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith, for so ascends the
+ladder of life.
+
+Uncle Benjamin was right. Let no man be laughed out of ideals that are
+true, because they do not reach their development at once.
+
+Many young people stand in the situation in which we find young Franklin
+now. Many older people do in their early work. England laughed at
+Boswell, but he came to be held as the prince of biographers, and his
+methods as the true manner of picturing life and making the past live in
+letters.
+
+People with a purpose who have been laughed at are many in the history
+of the world. From Romulus and the builders of the walls of Jerusalem to
+Columbus, ridicule makes a long record, and the world does not seem to
+grow wiser by its mistakes. Even Edison, in our own day, was ridiculed,
+when a youth, for his abstractions, and his efforts were ignored by
+scientists.
+
+Two generations ago a jeering company of people, uttering comical jests
+under the cover of their hands, went down to a place on the banks of the
+Hudson to see, as they said, "a crazy man attempt to move a boat by
+steam." They returned with large eyes and free lips. _That boat moved._
+
+In the early part of the century a young Scotchman named Carlyle laid
+before the greatest of English scholars and critics a manuscript
+entitled Sartor Resartus. The great critic read the manuscript and
+pronounced it "the stupidest stuff that he ever set eyes on." He laughed
+at a manuscript that became one of the literary masterpieces of the
+century. A like experience had Milton, when he once said that he would
+write a poem that should be the glory of his country.
+
+A young graduate named Longfellow wrote poems that came to him amid the
+woods and fields, and published them in newspapers and magazines, and
+gathered them into a book. The book fell into the hands of one then held
+to be supreme as a literary judge--Edgar Allen Poe. It was laughed at in
+ink that made the literary world laugh. The poet Longfellow's bust now
+holds an ideal place in Westminster Abbey, between the memorials of
+Dryden and Chaucer, and at the foot of the tombs of England's kings.
+
+Keats was laughed at; Wordsworth was deemed a fool.
+
+A number of disdainful doctors met on October 16, 1846, in the
+amphitheater of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see a
+young medical student try to demonstrate that a patient upon whom a
+surgical operation was to be performed could be rendered insensible to
+pain. The sufferer was brought into the clear light. The young student
+touched his face with an unknown liquid whose strange odor filled the
+room. He was in oblivion. The knives cut and the blood flowed, and he
+knew it not. Pain was thus banished from the room of surgery. That young
+medical student and dentist was Dr. W. T. G. Morton, whose monument may
+be seen in the Boston Public Garden, and in whose honor the
+semicentennial of the discovery of anaesthesia has but recently been
+celebrated.
+
+"So, with a few romantic boys and crazy girls you expect to see the
+world converted," said a wise New York journal less than a century ago,
+as the first missionaries began to sail away. But the song still arose
+over the sea--
+
+          "In the desert let me labor,
+           On the mountain let me till"--
+
+until there came a missionary jubilee, whose anthems were repeated from
+land to land until they encircled the earth.
+
+When Browning first published Sordello, the poem met with common
+ridicule. Even Alfred Tennyson is said to have remarked that "there were
+but two lines in it that he could understand, and they were both
+untrue." The first line of the poem was, "Who will, _may_ hear
+Sordello's story told"; and the last line of the poem was, "Who would,
+_has_ heard Sordello's story told." Yet the poem is ranked now among
+the intellectual achievements of the century in the analysis of one of
+the deeper problems of life.
+
+Samuel F. B. Morse was laughed at. McCormick, whose invention reaps the
+fields of the world, was ridiculed by the London Times, "the Thunderer."
+"If that crazy Wheelwright calls again, do not admit him," said a
+British consul to his servant, of one who wished to make new ports and a
+new commerce for South America, and whose plans are about to harness the
+Andes with railways. William Wheelwright's memory lives in grateful
+statues now.
+
+Columbus was not only laughed at by the Council of Salamanca, but was
+jeered at by the children in the streets, as he journeyed from town to
+town holding his orphan boy by the hand. He wandered in the visions of
+God and the stars, and he came to say, after the shouts of homage that
+greeted him as the viceroy of isles, "God made me the messenger of the
+new heavens and new earth, and told me where to find them!"
+
+Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, presents a picture of the
+unfortunate condition of many lives of whom the world expected nothing,
+and for whom it had only the smile of incredulity when in them the
+Godlike purpose appeared. He says:
+
+"Hannibal had but one eye; Appius Claudius and Timoleon were blind, as
+were John, King of Bohemia, and Tiresais the prophet. Homer was blind;
+yet who, saith Tully, made more accurate, lively, or better descriptions
+with both his eyes! Democritus was blind, yet, as Laertius writes of
+him, he saw more than all Greece besides. . . . AEsop was crooked,
+Socrates purblind, Democritus withered, Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to
+behold; yet show me so many flourishing wits, such divine spirits.
+Horace, a little, blear-eyed, contemptible fellow, yet who so
+sententious and wise? Marcilius Ficinus, Faber Stapulensis, a couple of
+dwarfs; Melanchthon, a short, hard-favored man, yet of incomparable
+parts of all three; Galba the emperor was crook-backed; Epictetus, lame;
+the great Alexander a little man of stature; Augustus Caesar, of the same
+pitch; Agesilaus, _despicabili forma_, one of the most deformed princes
+that Egypt ever had, was yet, in wisdom and knowledge, far beyond his
+predecessors."
+
+Why do I call your attention to these struggles in this place in
+association of an incident of a failure in life that was ridiculed?
+
+It has been my lot, in a somewhat active life in the city of Boston for
+twenty-five years, to meet every day an inspiring name that all the
+world knows, and that stands for what right resolution, the overcoming
+of besetting sins in youth, and persevering energy may accomplish
+against the ridicule of the world. There have been many books written
+having that name as a title--FRANKLIN.
+
+I have almost daily passed the solemn, pyramidal monument in the old
+Granary Burying Ground, between the Tremont Building and Park Street
+Church, that bears the names of the Franklin family, in which the
+parents have found eternal honor by the achievements of their son.
+
+As I pass the Boston City Hall there appears the Franklin statue.
+
+As I face the Old South Church and its ancient neighborhood I am in the
+place of the traditions of the birth of Benjamin Franklin and of his
+baptism. It may be that I will return by the way of Franklin Street, or
+visit the Franklin School, or go to the Mechanics' Building, where I may
+see the primitive printing press at which Franklin worked, and which was
+buried in the earth at Newport, Rhode Island, at the time of the
+Revolutionary War.
+
+If I go to the Public Library, I may find there two original portraits
+of Franklin and a Franklin gallery, and a picture of him once owned by
+Thomas Jefferson.
+
+If I go to the Memorial Hall at Harvard College, I will there see
+another portrait of the philosopher in the grand gallery of noble men.
+Or I may go to Boston's wide pleasure ground, the Franklin Park, by an
+electric car made possible by the discoveries of Franklin.
+
+Nearly all of Franklin's early efforts were laughed at, but he would not
+be laughed down. Time is the friend of every true purpose.
+
+Boys with a purpose, face the future, do good in silence, and trust. You
+will find some Uncle Benjamin and sister Jenny to hold you by the hand.
+Be in dead earnest, and face the future, and forward march! The captains
+of industry and the leaders of every achievement say, "Guide right! Turn
+to the right, and advance!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+LEAVES BOSTON.
+
+
+THESE were fine old times, but they were English times; English ideas
+ruled Boston town. There was little liberty of opinion or of the press
+in those days. The Franklins belonged to a few families who hoped to
+find in the province freedom of thought. James Franklin was a testy man,
+but he breathed free air, and one day in his paper, the Courant, he
+published the following simple sentences, the like of which any one
+might print anywhere in the civilized world to-day: "If Almighty God
+will have Canada subdued without the assistance of those miserable
+Savages, in whom we have too much confidence, we shall be glad that
+there will be no sacrifices offered up to the Devil upon the occasion;
+God alone will have all the glory."
+
+What had he done? He had protested against the use of Indians in the war
+then being waged against Canada.
+
+He was arrested on a charge that the article in which this paragraph
+appeared, and some like articles, "contained reflections of a very high
+nature." He was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and forbidden to
+publish the paper. So James went to jail, and he left the management of
+the paper to Benjamin.
+
+This incident gives us a remarkable view of the times. But Boston was
+only following the English law and custom.
+
+The printing office was now carried on in Benjamin's name. Little Ben
+grew and flourished, until his popularity excited the envy of his
+brother. One day they quarreled, and James, almost in the spirit of
+Cain, struck his bright, enterprising apprentice. Benjamin had a proud
+heart. He would not stand a blow from James without a protest. What was
+he to do?
+
+He resolved to leave the office of his brother James forever. He did so,
+and tried to secure work elsewhere. His brother's influence prevented
+him from doing this. His resentment against his brother grew more
+bitter, and blinded him to all besides. This was conduct unworthy of a
+young philosopher. In his resentment he does not seem to have regarded
+the feelings of his good father, or the heart of his mother that would
+ache and find relief in tears at night, nor even of Jenny, whom he
+loved. He took a sloop for New York, and bade good-by to no one. The
+sail dipped down the harbor, and the three hills of Boston faded from
+his view.
+
+He was now on the ocean, and out in the world alone. We are sorry to say
+that he faced life with such a deep resentment toward his brother in his
+heart. He afterward came to regard his going away in this manner as one
+of the mistakes of his life which he would wish to correct. His better
+heart came back again, true to his home.
+
+He was not popular in Boston in his last days there. New influences had
+come into his life. He had loved argument and disputation, and there is
+a subtile manner of discussion called the "Socratic method," which he
+had found in Xenophon, in which one confuses an opponent by asking
+questions and never making direct assertions himself, but using the
+subjunctive mood. It is an art of entanglement. The boy had delighted in
+"twisting people all up," and making them contradict themselves after a
+perversion of the manner described by Xenophon in his Life of Socrates.
+
+As religion and politics formed the principal subjects of these
+discussions, and he liked to take the unpopular view in order to throw
+his mental antagonist, he had fallen into disfavor, to which disesteem
+his brother's charges against him had added. These things made Jenny's
+heart ache, but she never ceased to believe in Ben.
+
+Few boys ever left the city in provincial times with less promise of any
+great future, so far as public opinion is concerned. But,
+notwithstanding these errors of judgment, he still carried with him a
+purpose of being a benefactor, and his dream was to help the world. The
+star of this purpose ever shone before him in the deserts of his
+wanderings.
+
+But how was he to succeed, after thus following his own personal feeling
+in matters like these? By correcting his own errors as soon as he saw
+them, and never repeating them again. This he did; he openly
+acknowledged his faults, and tried to make amends for them. He who
+confesses his errors, and seeks to retrieve them, has a heart and
+purpose that the public will love. But it is a higher and nobler life
+not to fall into such errors.
+
+This was about the year 1723. A curious incident happened on the voyage
+to New York. Young Franklin had become a vegetarian--that is, he had
+been convinced that it was wrong to kill animals for food, and wrong to
+eat flesh of any kind.
+
+The ship became becalmed, and the sailors betook themselves to fishing.
+Franklin loved to argue still, notwithstanding his unhappy experiences.
+
+"Fishing is murder," said he. "Why should these inhabitants of the sea
+be deprived of their lives and opportunities of enjoyment? They have
+never done any one harm, and they live the lives for which Nature made
+them. They have the same right to liberty that they have to life."
+
+This indicated a true heart. But when the steward began to cook the fish
+that the sailors had caught, the frying of them did have a savory smell.
+
+Young Franklin now began to be tempted from theory by appetite. How
+could he get over his principles and share the meal with the sailors?
+The cook seized a large fish to prepare it for the frying-pan. As he cut
+off its head and opened him he found in him a little fish.
+
+"So you eat fish," said Franklin, addressing the prize; "then why may I
+not eat _you_?" He did so, and from this time left off his vegetarian
+habits, which habits, like his aspiration to be a poet, did credit to
+his heart.
+
+His argument in this case had no force. The fish had not a moral nature,
+and because an animal or reptile without such a nature should eat other
+animals or reptiles would furnish no reason why a being governed by laws
+outside of himself should do the same.
+
+October found him in New York, a Dutch town of less than ten thousand
+inhabitants. He was about eighteen years of age. New York then had
+little in common with the city of to-day. Its streets were marked by
+gable ends and cobble stones. Franklin applied for work to a printer
+there, and the latter commended him to go to Philadelphia. He followed
+the advice, going by sea, friendless and forlorn, with only a few
+shillings in his pocket.
+
+He helped row the boat across the Delaware. He offered the boatman his
+fare.
+
+"No," said the boatman, "I ought to take nothing; you helped row."
+
+Franklin had just one silver dollar and a shilling in copper coin. He
+insisted that the ferryman should take the coin. He said of this liberal
+sense of honor afterward that one is "sometimes more generous when he
+has little money than when he has plenty."
+
+Philadelphia, the city of Penn, now rose before him, and he entered it a
+friendless lad, whom none knew and few could have noticed. Would any one
+then have dreamed that he would one day become the governor of the
+province?
+
+Benjamin Franklin had now found the world indeed, and his brother James
+had lost the greatest apprentice that the world ever had. Both were
+blind. Each had needed that early training that develops the spiritual
+powers, and makes it a delight to say "No" to all the lower passions of
+human nature.
+
+Josiah and Abiah Franklin had had great hopes of little Ben. The boy had
+a large brain and a tender heart. From their point of view they had
+trained him well. They had sent him to the Old South Church and had made
+him the subject of their daily prayers. In fact, these good people had
+done their best to make him a "steady boy," according to their light.
+The education of the inner life was like a sealed book to them. But they
+were yet people upon whom a larger light was breaking. The poor old soap
+and candle maker went on with his business at the Blue Ball with a heavy
+heart.
+
+"Gone, gone," said Jamie the Scotchman. "He'll find proverbs enough on
+his way of life. This is a hard world, but he has a heart to return to
+the right. I pity good Abiah Franklin, but we often have to trust where
+we can not see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+LAUGHED AT AGAIN.
+
+
+FRANKLIN'S first day in Philadelphia is well known to the world. He has
+related it in Addisonian English, and it has been read almost as widely
+as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
+
+We must give a part of the narrative here in his own language, for a
+merry girl is about to laugh at the Boston boy as she sees him pass, and
+he will cause this lovely girl to laugh with him many times in his
+rising career and in different spirit from that on the occasion when she
+first beheld him, the awkward and comical-looking boy wandering he knew
+not where on the street.
+
+Let us follow him through his own narrative until he meets the eyes of
+Deborah Read, a fair lass of eighteen.
+
+On his arrival at Philadelphia, he tells us, he was in his working
+dress; his best clothes were to come by sea. He was covered with dirt;
+his pockets were filled with shirts and stockings. He was unacquainted
+with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a
+lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night
+without sleep, he was extremely hungry, and all his money consisted of a
+Dutch dollar and about a shilling's worth of coppers, which latter he
+gave to the boatman for his passage.
+
+He walked toward the top of the street, looking eagerly on both sides,
+till he came to Market Street, where he met with a child with a loaf of
+bread. Often he had made his dinner on dry bread. He inquired of the
+child where he had bought the bread, and went straight to the baker's
+shop which the latter pointed out to him. He asked for some biscuits,
+expecting to find such as they had in Boston; but they made, it seems,
+none of that sort in Philadelphia. He then asked for a threepenny loaf.
+They made no loaves of that price. Finding himself ignorant of the
+prices as well as of the different kinds of bread, he desired the baker
+to let him have threepenny worth of bread of some kind or other. The
+baker gave him three large rolls. He was surprised at receiving so much;
+he took them, however, and having no room in his pockets, he walked on
+with a roll under each arm, eating the third. In this manner he went
+through Market Street to Fourth Street, and passed the house of Mr.
+Read, the father of his future wife. The girl was standing at the door,
+observed him, and thought with reason that he made a very singular and
+grotesque appearance, and laughed merrily. We repeat the many-times-told
+tale in nearly his own words.
+
+So here we find our young adventurer laughed at again. We can fancy the
+young girl standing on her father's doorsteps on that mellow autumn day.
+There comes up the street a lad with two rolls of bread under his arm,
+and eating a third roll, his pockets full of the simpler necessities of
+clothing, which must have made him look like a ragman; everything about
+him was queer and seemingly wrong. She may have seen that he was just
+from the boat, and a traveler, but when did ever a traveler look so
+entirely out of his senses as this one did?
+
+Never mind, Ben Franklin. You will one day stand in Versailles in the
+velvet robes of state, and the French king will give you his portrait
+framed in four hundred and eight diamonds.
+
+"I then turned the corner," he continues, "and went through Chestnut
+Street, eating my roll all the way; and having made this round, I found
+myself again on Market Street Wharf, near the boat in which I arrived. I
+stepped into it to take a draught of river water, and finding myself
+satisfied with my first roll, I gave the other two to a woman and her
+child who had come down the river with us in the boat and was waiting to
+continue her journey. Thus refreshed, I regained the street, which was
+now full of well-dressed people, all going the same way. I joined them,
+and was thus led to a large Quakers' meeting-house near the
+market-place. I sat down with the rest, and, after looking round me for
+some time, hearing nothing said, and being drowsy from my last night's
+labor and want of rest, I fell into a sound sleep. In this state I
+continued till the assembly dispersed, when one of the congregation had
+the goodness to wake me. This was consequently the first house I entered
+or in which I slept at Philadelphia.
+
+"I began again to walk along the streets by the riverside, and, looking
+attentively in the face of every one I met with, I at length perceived a
+young Quaker whose countenance pleased me. I accosted him, and begged
+him to inform me where a stranger might find a lodging. We were then
+near the sign of the Three Mariners. 'They receive travelers here,'
+said he, 'but it is not a house that bears a good character. If you will
+go with me I will show you a better one.' He conducted me to the Crooked
+Billet, in Water Street. There I ordered something for dinner, and
+during my meal a number of curious questions were put to me, my youth
+and appearance exciting the suspicion of my being a young runaway. After
+dinner my drowsiness returned, and I threw myself upon a bed without
+taking off my clothes, and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when I
+was called to supper. I afterward went to bed at a very early hour, and
+did not awake till the next morning.
+
+"As soon as I got up I put myself in as decent a trim as I could, and
+went to the house of Andrew Bradford, the printer. I found his father in
+the shop, whom I had seen at New York. Having traveled on horseback, he
+had arrived at Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who
+received me with civility and gave me some breakfast, but told me he had
+no occasion at present for a journeyman, having lately procured one. He
+added that there was another printer newly settled in the town, of the
+name of Keimer, who might perhaps employ me, and that in case of refusal
+I should be welcome to lodge at his house. He would give me a little
+work now and then till something better should be found.
+
+"The old man offered to introduce me to the new printer. When we were at
+his house, 'Neighbor,' said he, 'I bring you a young man in the printing
+business; perhaps you may have need of his services.'
+
+"Keimer asked me some questions, put a composing stick in my hand to
+see how I could work, and then said that at present he had nothing for
+me to do, but that he should soon be able to employ me. At the same time
+taking old Bradford for an inhabitant of the town well disposed toward
+him, he communicated his project to him and the prospect he had of
+success. Bradford was careful not to discover that he was the father of
+the other printer; and from what Keimer had said, that he hoped shortly
+to be in possession of the greater part of the business of the town, led
+him, by artful questions and by starting some difficulties, to disclose
+all his views, what his hopes were founded upon, and how he intended to
+proceed. I was present and heard it all. I instantly saw that one of the
+two was a cunning old fox and the other a perfect novice. Bradford left
+me with Keimer, who was strangely surprised when I informed him who the
+old man was.
+
+"I found Keimer's printing materials to consist of an old, damaged press
+and a small font of worn-out English letters, with which he himself was
+at work upon an elegy upon Aquilla Rose, an ingenious young man and of
+excellent character, highly esteemed in the town, Secretary to the
+Assembly and a very tolerable poet. Keimer also made verses, but they
+were indifferent ones. He could not be said to write in verse, for his
+method was to set the lines as they followed from his muse; and as he
+worked without copy, had but one set of letter cases, and as the elegy
+would occupy all his types, it was impossible for any one to assist him.
+I endeavored to put his press in order, which he had not yet used, and
+of which indeed he understood nothing; and, having promised to come and
+work off his elegy as soon as it should be ready, I returned to the
+house of Bradford, who gave me some trifles to do for the present, for
+which I had my board and lodging.
+
+"In a few days Keimer sent for me to print off his elegy. He had now
+procured another set of letter cases, and had a pamphlet to reprint,
+upon which he set me to work.
+
+"The two Philadelphia printers appeared destitute of every qualification
+necessary in their profession. Bradford had not been brought up to it,
+and was very illiterate. Keimer, though he understood a little of the
+business, was merely a compositor, and wholly incapable of working at
+press. He had been one of the French prophets, and knew how to imitate
+their supernatural agitations. At the time of our first acquaintance he
+professed no particular religion, but a little of all upon occasion. He
+was totally ignorant of the world, and a great knave at heart, as I had
+afterward an opportunity of experiencing.
+
+"Keimer could not endure that, working with him, I should lodge at
+Bradford's. He had indeed a house, but it was unfurnished, so that he
+could not take me in. He procured me a lodging at Mr. Read's, his
+landlord, whom I have already mentioned. My trunk and effects being now
+arrived, I thought of making, in the eyes of Miss Read, a more
+respectable appearance than when chance exhibited me to her view, eating
+my roll and wandering in the streets.
+
+"From this period I began to contract acquaintance with such young
+people as were fond of reading, and spent my evenings with them
+agreeably, while at the same time I gained money by my industry, and,
+thanks to my frugality, lived contentedly. I thus forgot Boston as much
+as possible, and wished every one to be ignorant of the place of my
+residence, except my friend Collins, to whom I wrote, and who kept my
+secret.
+
+"An accident, however, happened which sent me home much sooner than I
+proposed. I had a brother-in-law, of the name of Robert Holmes, master
+of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware. Being at Newcastle, forty
+miles below Philadelphia, he heard of me, and wrote to inform me of the
+chagrin which my sudden departure from Boston had occasioned my parents,
+and of the affection which they still entertained for me, assuring me
+that, if I would return, everything should be adjusted to my
+satisfaction; and he was very pressing in his entreaties. I answered his
+letter, thanked him for his advice, and explained the reasons which had
+induced me to quit Boston with such force and clearness that he was
+convinced I had been less to blame than he had imagined.
+
+"Sir William Keith, Governor of the province, was at Newcastle at the
+time. Captain Holmes, being by chance in his company when he received my
+letter, took occasion to speak of me and showed it to him. The Governor
+read it, and appeared surprised when he learned of my age. He thought
+me, he said, a young man of very promising talents, and that of
+consequence I ought to be encouraged; that there were at Philadelphia
+none but very ignorant printers, and that if I were to set up for myself
+he had no doubt of my success; that, for his own part, he would procure
+me all the public business, and would render me every other service in
+his power. My brother-in-law related all this to me afterward at Boston,
+but I knew nothing of it at the time. When, one day, Keimer and I being
+at work together near the window, we saw the Governor and another
+gentleman, Colonel French, of Newcastle, handsomely dressed, cross the
+street and make directly for our house. We heard them at the door, and
+Keimer, believing it to be a visit to himself, went immediately down;
+but the Governor inquired for me, came upstairs, and, with a
+condescension and politeness to which I had not at all been accustomed,
+paid me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, obligingly
+reproached me for not having made myself known to him on my arrival in
+the town, and wished me to accompany him to a tavern, where he and
+Colonel French were going to have some excellent Madeira wine.
+
+"I was, I confess, somewhat surprised, and Keimer appeared
+thunderstruck. I went, however, with the Governor and the colonel to a
+tavern at the corner of Third Street, where he proposed to me to
+establish a printing house. He set forth the probabilities of success,
+and himself and Colonel French assured me that I should have their
+protection and influence in obtaining the printing of the public papers
+of both governments; and as I appeared to doubt whether my father would
+assist me in this enterprise, Sir William said that he would give me a
+letter to him, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme
+in a light which he had no doubt would determine him. It was thus
+concluded that I should return to Boston by the first vessel with the
+letter of recommendation from the Governor to my father. Meanwhile the
+project was to be kept secret, and I continued to work for Keimer as
+before.
+
+"The Governor sent every now and then to invite me to dine with him. I
+considered this a very great honor, and I was the more sensible of it as
+he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner
+imaginable.
+
+"Toward the end of April, 1724, a small vessel was ready to sail for
+Boston. I took leave of Keimer upon the pretext of going to see my
+parents. The Governor gave me a long letter, in which he said many
+flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommended the
+project of my settling at Philadelphia as a thing which could not fail
+to make my fortune."
+
+What is there prophetic of a great life in this homely narrative? Read
+over again the incident of the three rolls, one of which he ate, and two
+of which he gave to the poor woman and her child who needed them more
+than he. All his money on that day was one silver dollar. In that
+incident we see the heart and the persistent purpose to do good. He had
+made mistakes, but the resolution that he had made on reading Cotton
+Mather's meaty book was unshaken. He would correct his errors and yield
+to his better nature, and this purpose to help others would grow, and so
+he would overcome evil with good.
+
+He who helps one helps two. The poor woman may never have been heard of
+in public, except in this story, but that act of sharing the rolls, with
+one for the little child, made Ben Franklin a larger man. "The purpose
+of life is to grow."
+
+Benjamin Franklin is now a seed in the wind, but he is a good seed in
+the wind--good at heart, with a right purpose. The stream of life is
+turned aside, but it will flow true again toward the great ocean of
+that which is broadest and best.
+
+For this little Jenny at home is hoping, and Abiah Franklin praying, and
+Josiah Franklin keeping silence in regard to his family affairs.
+
+These were hard days for Uncle Benjamin and his philosophy, and for
+Jenny and her human faith.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LONDON AND A LONG SWIM.
+
+
+WHAT kind of a man was Governor Sir William Keith? There are not many
+such, but one such may be found in almost every large community. He
+desired popularity, and he loved to please every one. He was constantly
+promising what he was not able to fulfill. He had a lively imagination,
+and he liked to think what he would do if he could for every bright
+person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised,
+and his promises often ended in disappointment. It delighted him to see
+faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart
+to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but
+he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts
+was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased
+with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been
+with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the
+hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained
+Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further
+acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed
+him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a
+young man as he would make a fortune; and he urged him to go back to
+his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave
+him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed
+to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin.
+
+With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket
+and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned
+to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again
+under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he
+had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity.
+
+He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then
+turned from him coldly.
+
+But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around
+him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began
+to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with
+envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But
+when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a
+silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come
+there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever
+before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother,
+notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the
+secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot.
+
+But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at
+once.
+
+He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from
+him since he went away some seven months before, and they, though
+grieved at his conduct, received him joyfully. There was always an open
+door in Abiah Folger's heart. The Quaker blood of good Peter Folger
+never ceased to course warm in her veins.
+
+Ben told his marvelous story. After the literary adventures of Silence
+Dogood in Boston, his parents could believe much, but when he came to
+tell of his intimacy with Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province of
+Pennsylvania, successor to the great William Penn, they knew not what to
+think. Either Sir William must be a singular man, or they must have
+underrated the ability of young Silence Dogood.
+
+"This is great news indeed. But what proof do you bring of your good
+fortune, my son?" asked the level-headed Josiah, lifting his spectacles
+upon his forehead and giving his son a searching look.
+
+Young Benjamin took from his pocket the letter of Sir William and laid
+it before his father. It indeed had the vice-royal seal of the province.
+
+His father put down his spectacles from his forehead, and his wife Abiah
+drew up her chair beside him, and he read the letter to himself and then
+reviewed it aloud.
+
+The letter told him what a wonderfully promising young man Benjamin was;
+how well he was adapted to become the printer of the province, and how
+he only needed a loan wherewith to begin business to make a fortune.
+
+Josiah Franklin could not doubt the genuineness of the letter. He sat
+thinking, drumming on a soap shelf.
+
+"But why, my boy, if you are so able and so much needed does not
+Governor Keith lend you the money himself?"
+
+Ben sat silent. Not all the arts of the Socratic method could suggest
+any answer to this question.
+
+"I am glad that you have an influential patron," said Josiah, "but to a
+man of hard sense it would seem very strange that he should not advance
+the money himself to help one so likely to become so useful to the
+province to begin business. People are seldom offered something for
+nothing in this world, and why this man has made himself your patron I
+can not see, even through my spectacles."
+
+"He wishes, father, to make me a printer for the advancement of the
+province."
+
+"Then why, my son, should not a governor of a rich province himself
+provide you with means to become a printer for the advancement of the
+province?"
+
+Socrates himself could not have answered this question.
+
+"Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap
+boiler and candle maker?"
+
+"No," said the young man.
+
+"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money
+that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should
+hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to
+start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me,
+Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes
+already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now
+return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me
+to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so
+agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more
+sense than that?"
+
+Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely
+dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink.
+He saw himself as he was.
+
+But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy--Abiah, whose heart was
+always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing
+to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."
+
+"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to
+Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is
+just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a
+part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."
+
+With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation.
+We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A
+good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."
+
+Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.
+
+"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too
+young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at
+eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but
+fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."
+
+Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a
+father"--the "best man in all the world," he thought.
+
+"Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business
+of a printer, and I will send to London for them."
+
+Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundred pounds. He
+brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion.
+
+"Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the
+machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit."
+
+Was it raining gold?
+
+"I would like to go to London," answered the young printer.
+
+"Then I will provide for your journey. You shall go with Captain Annis."
+This captain sailed yearly from Philadelphia to London.
+
+Waiting the sailing of the ship months passed away. Governor Keith
+entertained the young printer at his home. The sailing time came.
+Franklin went to the office of the Governor to receive the letter of
+credit and promised letters of introduction.
+
+"All in good time, my boy," said the Governor's clerk, "but the Governor
+is busy and can not see you now. If you will call on Wednesday you will
+receive the letters."
+
+Young Franklin called at the office on the day appointed.
+
+"All in good time, my boy," said the clerk. "The Governor has not had
+time to fix them up and get them ready. They will be sent to you on
+board the ship with the Governor's mail."
+
+So Franklin went on board the ship. As the Governor's mail came on board
+he asked the captain to let him see the letters, but the latter told him
+that he must wait until the ship got under way.
+
+Out at sea the Governor's letters were shown to him. There were several
+directed to people "in the care of Benjamin Franklin." He supposed these
+contained notes of introduction and the letter of credit, so he passed
+happily over the sea.
+
+He reached London December 24, 1724. He rushed into the grand old city
+bearing the letters directed in his care. He took the one deemed most
+important to the office of the gentleman to whom it was directed. "This
+letter is from Governor Keith, of the Province of Pennsylvania," said
+Franklin.
+
+"I know of no such person," said the man. The latter opened the letter.
+"Oh, I see," said he, "it is from one Riddleson. I have found him out to
+be a rascal, an exile, and refuse to entertain any communication from
+him."
+
+Franklin's face fell. His heart turned heavy. He went out wondering.
+"Was his father's advice sound, after all?"
+
+The rest of the letters that had been directed in his care were not
+written by Governor Keith, but by people in the province to their
+friends, of which he had been made a postboy. There were in the mail no
+letters of introduction from Governor Keith to any one, and no letter of
+credit.
+
+He found himself alone in London, that great wilderness of homes. Of
+Keith's conduct he thus speaks in his autobiography:
+
+"What shall we think of a Governor playing such pitiful tricks, and
+imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had
+acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he
+gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty
+good writer, and a good Governor for the people, though not for his
+constituents, the Proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes
+disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed
+during his administration."
+
+He found work as a journeyman printer in London, and we are sorry to say
+lived like most journeymen printers there. But Silence Dogood had to
+make himself useful even among these unsettled people. He instituted new
+ways of business and life of advantage to journeymen printers, and so
+kept the chain of his purpose lengthening.
+
+There was a series of curious incidents that happened during the last
+part of this year of residence in London that came near changing his
+career. It was in 1726; he was about twenty years old. He had always
+loved the water, to be on it and in it, and he became an expert swimmer
+when he was a lad in Boston town.
+
+He had led a temperate life among the London apprentices, and had kept
+his physical strength unimpaired. He drank water while they drank beer.
+They laughed at him, but he was able to carry up stairs a heavier case
+of type than any of them. They called him the "American water-drinker,"
+but there came a day when he performed a feat that became the admiration
+of the young London printers. He loved companionship, and had many
+intimate friends, and among them there was one Wygate, who went swimming
+with him, probably in the Thames, and whom he taught to swim in two
+lessons.
+
+One day Wygate invited him to go into the country with him and some of
+his friends. They had a merry time and returned by water. After they had
+embarked from Chelsea, a suburb which was then some four and a half
+miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, Wygate said to him:
+
+[Illustration: "ARE YOU GOING TO SWIM BACK TO LONDON?"]
+
+"Franklin, you are a water boy; let us see how well you can swim."
+
+Franklin knew his strength and skill. He took off his clothing and
+leaped into the river, and probably performed all the old feats that one
+can do in the water.
+
+His dexterity delighted the party, but it soon won their applause.
+
+He swam a mile.
+
+"Come on board!" shouted they. "Are you going to swim back to London?"
+
+"Yes," came a voice as if from a fish in the bright, sunny water.
+
+He swam two miles.
+
+The wonder of the party grew.
+
+Three miles.
+
+They cheered.
+
+Four miles to Blackfriars Bridge. Such a thing had never been known
+among the apprentice lads. The swim brought young Franklin immediate
+fame among these apprentices, and it spread and filled London.
+
+Sir William Wyndham, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, heard of this
+exploit, and desired to see him. He had two sons who were about to
+travel, to whom he wished Franklin to teach swimming. But the two boys
+were detained in another place, and Franklin never met them. It was
+proposed to Franklin that he open a swimming school.
+
+But while he was favorable to such agreeable employment, there occurred
+one of those incidents that seem providential.
+
+He met one day at this shifting period Mr. Denham, the upright
+merchant, whose integrity came to honor his profession and Philadelphia.
+This man had failed in business at Bristol, and had left England under a
+cloud. But he had an honest soul and purpose, and he resolved to pay
+every dollar that he owed. To this end he put all the energies of his
+life into his business. He went to America to make a fortune, and he
+made it. He then returned to Bristol, which he had left in sorrow and
+humiliation.
+
+He gave a banquet, and invited to it all the merchants and people whom
+he owed. They responded to the unexpected invitation, and wondered what
+would happen. When they had seated themselves at the table, and the time
+to serve the meal came, the dinner plates were lifted, and each one
+found before him the full amount of the money due to him. The banquet of
+honor made the name of the merchant famous.
+
+Mr. Denham was a friend to men in need of good influences. He saw
+Franklin's need of advice, and he said to him:
+
+"My young friend, you should return to Philadelphia. It is the place of
+opportunity."
+
+"But I have not the means."
+
+"I have the means for you. I am about to return to America with a cargo
+of merchandise. You must go back with me. Your place in life is there."
+
+Should he go?
+
+It was early summer. He went out on London Bridge one night. It grew
+dark late. But at last there gleamed in the dark water the lights of
+London like stars. Many voices filled the air as the boats passed by.
+The nine o'clock bells rang. It may be that he heard the Bow bells ring,
+the bells that said, "Come back! come back! come back!" to young Dick
+Whittington when he was running away from his place in life. If so, he
+must have been reminded of all that this man accomplished by heeding the
+voice of the bells, and of how King Henry had said, after all his
+benefactions, "Did ever a prince have such a subject?"
+
+He must have thought of Uncle Tom and the bells of Nottingham on this
+clear night of lovely airs and out-of-door merriments. Over the great
+city towered St. Paul's under the rising moon. Afar was the Abbey, with
+the dust of kings.
+
+Then he thought of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one
+to look for books in this great city of London.
+
+Franklin never saw ghosts, except such as arise out of conscience into
+the eye of the mind. But the old man's form and his counsels now came
+into the view of the imagination. His old Boston home came back to his
+dreams; Jenny came back to him, and the face of the young woman whom he
+had learned to love in Philadelphia.
+
+He resolved to return. America was his land, and he must build with her
+builders. He sailed for America with his good adviser, the honest
+merchant, July 21, 1726, and left noblemen's sons to learn to swim in
+the manner that he himself had mastered the water.
+
+Did he ever see Governor Keith again? Yes. After his return to
+Philadelphia he met there upon the street one who was becoming a
+discredited man. The latter recognized him, but his face turned into
+confusion. He did not bow; nor did Franklin. It was Governor Keith. This
+Governor Please-Everybody died in London after years of poverty, at the
+age of eighty.
+
+Silence Dogood may have thought of his father's raised spectacles when
+he met Sir William that day on the street, and when they did not wish to
+recognize each other, or of Jenny's words, "Ben, don't go back."
+
+He had learned some hard lessons from the book of life, and he would
+henceforth be true to the most unselfish counsels on earth--the heart
+and voice of home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S SPINNING-WHEEL.
+
+
+BENJAMIN became a printer again. By the influence of friends he opened
+in Philadelphia an office in part his own.
+
+Benjamin Franklin had no Froebel education. The great apostle of the
+education of the spiritual faculties had not yet appeared, and even
+Pestalozzi, the founder of common schools for character education, could
+not have been known to him. But when a boy he had grasped the idea that
+was to be evolved by these two philosophers, that the end of education
+is character, and that right habits become fixed or automatic, thus
+virtue must be added to virtue, intelligence to intelligence,
+benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith.
+
+One day, when he was very poor, there came into his printing office a
+bustling man.
+
+"See here, my boy, I have a piece for you; there's ginger in it, and it
+will make a stir. You will get well paid for giving it to the public;
+all Philadelphia will read it."
+
+"I am glad to get something to give the paper life," said Franklin. "I
+will read the article as soon as I have time to spare."
+
+"I will call to-morrow," said the man. "It is running water that makes
+things grow. That article will prove very interesting reading to many
+people, and it will do them good. It is a needed rebuke. You'll say so
+when you read it."
+
+Franklin at this time did a great part of the work in the office
+himself, and he was very busy that day. At last he found time to take up
+the article. He hoped to find it one that would add to the circulation
+of the paper. He found that it was written in a revengeful spirit, that
+it was full of detraction and ridicule, that it would answer no good
+purpose, that it would awaken animosities and engender bitter feelings
+and strife. But if used it would be read, laughed at, increase the sale
+of the paper, and secure him the reputation of publishing a _smart_
+paper.
+
+Should he publish an article whose influence would be harmful to the
+public for the sake of money and notoriety?
+
+He here began in himself as an editor that process of moral education
+which tends to make fixed habits of thought, judgment, and life. He
+resolved _not_ to print the article.
+
+But the author of it would laugh at him--might call him puritanic; would
+probably say that he did not know when he was "well off"; that he stood
+in his own light; that he had not the courage to rebuke private evils.
+
+The young printer had the courage to rebuke wrong, but this article was
+a sting--a revengeful attempt to make one a laughing stock. It had no
+good motive. But it haunted him. He turned the question of his duty over
+and over in his mind.
+
+Night came, and he had not the money to purchase a supper or to secure a
+bed. Should he not print the lively article, and make for himself better
+fare on the morrow?
+
+No. Manhood is more than money, worth more than wealth. He went to the
+baker's and bought a twopenny roll; he ate it in his office, and then
+lay down on the floor of his office and went to sleep.
+
+The boy's sleep was sweet. He had decided the matter in his own heart,
+and had given himself a first lesson in what we would to-day call the
+new education. In this case it was an editorial education.
+
+It was a lovely winter morning. There was joy in all Nature; the air was
+clear and keen; the Schuylkill rippled bright in the glory of the sun.
+He rose before the sun, and went to his work with a clear conscience,
+but probably dreading the anger of the patron when he should give him
+his decision.
+
+When the baker's shop opened he may have bought another twopenny roll.
+He certainly sat down and ate one, with a dipper of water.
+
+In the later hours of the morning the door opened, and the patron came
+in with a beaming face.
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes, I have read the article, sir."
+
+"Won't that be a good one? What did you think of it?"
+
+"That I ought not to use it."
+
+"Why?" asked the man, greatly astonished.
+
+"I can not be sure that it would not do injustice to the person whom you
+have attacked. There are always two sides to a case. I myself would not
+like to be publicly ridiculed in that manner. Detraction leads to
+detraction, and hatred begets hate."
+
+"But you must have money, my Boston lad. Have you thought of that?" was
+the suggestion.
+
+Franklin drew himself up in the strength and resolution of young
+manhood, and made the following answer, which we give, as we think,
+almost in his very words:
+
+"I am sorry to say, sir, that I think the article is scurrilous and
+defamatory. But I have been at a loss, on account of my poverty, whether
+to reject it or not. I therefore put it to this issue. At night, when my
+work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and
+then wrapping myself in my greatcoat slept very soundly on the floor
+until morning, when another loaf and a mug of water afforded a pleasant
+breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner,
+why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for
+a more luxurious living?"
+
+This experience may be regarded as temporizing, but it was inward
+education in the right direction, a step that led upward. It shows the
+trend of the way, the end of which is the "path of the just, that leads
+more and more unto the perfect day."
+
+A young man who was willing to eat a twopenny roll and to sleep on the
+floor of his pressroom for a principle, had in him the power that lifts
+life, and that sustains it when lifted. He who puts self under himself
+for the sake of justice has in him the gravitation of the skies. Uncle
+Ben's counsels were beginning to live in him. Jenny's girl's faith was
+budding in his heart, and it would one day bloom. He was turning to the
+right now, and he would advance. There are periods in some people's
+lives when they do not write often to their best friends; such a one had
+just passed with Ben. During the Governor Keith misadventures he had not
+written home often, as the reader may well imagine. But now that he had
+come back to Philadelphia and was prosperous, the memory of loving
+Jenny began to steal back into his heart.
+
+He had heard that Jenny, now at sweet sixteen, was famous for her
+beauty. He may have been jealous of her, we do not know; but he was
+apprehensive that she might become vain, and he regarded modesty, even
+at his early age of twenty-one or twenty-two, as a thing very becoming a
+blooming girl.
+
+One day he wrote to her, "Jenny, I am going to send you a present by the
+next ship to Boston town."
+
+The promise filled the girl's heart with delight. Her faith in him had
+never failed, nor had her love for him changed.
+
+What would the present be?
+
+She went to her mother to help her solve this riddle.
+
+"Perhaps it will be a ring," she said. "I would rather have that from
+Ben than any other thing."
+
+"But he would not send a ring by ship," said her mother, "but by the
+post chaise."
+
+"True, mother; it can not be that. It may be a spinet. I think it is a
+spinet. He knows how we have delighted in father's violin. He might like
+to send me a harp, but what is a spinet but a harp in a box?"
+
+"I think it may be that, Jenny. He would send a spinet by ship, and he
+knows how much we all love music."
+
+"Yes, and he must see how many girls are adding the music of the spinet
+to their accomplishments."
+
+"Wouldn't a spinet be rather out of place in a candle shop?" asked the
+mother.
+
+"Not out of place in the parlor of a candle shop," said Jenny with
+dignity.
+
+"Do you think that you could learn to play the spinet, Jenny?"
+
+"I would, if Ben were to send me one. I have been true to Ben all along.
+I have never given him up. He may get out of place in life, but he is
+sure to get back again. A true heart always does. I am sure that it is a
+spinet that he will send. I dreamed," she added, "that I heard a humming
+sound in the air something like a harp. I dreamed it in the morning, and
+morning dreams come true."
+
+"A humming sound," said Josiah Franklin, who had come within hearing;
+"there are some things besides spinets that make humming sounds, and Ben
+must know how poor we are. I am glad that his heart is turning home
+again, after his _scattering_ adventures with the Governor. It is not
+every one who goes to sea without a rudder that gets back to port
+again."
+
+Jenny dreamed daily of the coming ship and present. The ship came in,
+and one evening at dark an old sailor knocked at the door. He presently
+came in and announced that they had a "boxed-up" thing for one Jane
+Franklin on board the ship. Should he send it by the cartman to the
+house?
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Jenny. "Now I know it is a spinet I heard humming--I
+told you about it, mother."
+
+The girl awaited the arrival of the gift with a flushed cheek and a
+beating heart. It came at last, and was brought in by candlelight.
+
+It was indeed a "boxed-up" thing.
+
+The family gathered around it--the father and mother, the boys and the
+girls.
+
+Josiah Franklin broke open the box with his great claw hammer, which
+might have pleased an Ajax.
+
+"O Jenny!" he exclaimed, "that will make a humming indeed. Ben has not
+lost his wits yet--or he has found them again."
+
+"What is it? What is it, father?"
+
+"The most sensible thing in all the world. See there, it is a
+spinning-wheel!"
+
+Jane's heart sank within her. Her dreams vanished into the air--the
+delights of the return of Sindbad the Sailor were not to be hers yet.
+The boys giggled. She covered her face with her hands to hide her
+confusion and to gain heart.
+
+"I don't care," she said at last, choking. "I think Ben is real good,
+and I will _forgive him_. I can spin. The wheel is a beauty."
+
+The gift was accompanied by a letter. In it Benjamin told her that he
+had heard that she had been much praised for her beauty, but that it was
+industry and modesty that most merited commendation in a young girl. The
+counsel was as homely as much of that that Uncle Benjamin used to give
+little Benjamin, but she choked down her feelings.
+
+"Benjamin was thinking of you as well as of me when he sent me that
+present," she said to her mother. "I will make music with the wheel, and
+the humming will make us all happy. I think that Ben is real good--and a
+spinet would have been out of place here. I will write him a beautiful
+letter in return, and will not tell him how I had hoped for a spinet. It
+is all better as it is. That is best which will do the most good."
+
+If Franklin sent a practical spinning-wheel to Jenny when she was a
+girl, with much advice in which there was no poetry, such a sense of
+homely duties soon passed away. He came to send her beautiful presents
+of fabrics, "black and purple gowns," wearing apparel of elegant
+texture, and ribbons. When he became rich it was his delight to make
+happy the home of Jane Mecom--his poetic, true-hearted sister "Jenny,"
+whose heart had beat to his in every step of his advancing life.
+
+She became the mother of a large family of children, and when one of
+them ran away and went to sea she took all the blame of it to herself,
+and thought that if she had made his home pleasanter for him he would
+not have left it. In her self-blame she wrote to her brother to confess
+how she had failed in her duty toward the boy. Franklin read her heart,
+and wrote to her that the boy was wholly to blame, which could hardly
+have been comforting. Jenny would rather have been to blame herself.
+There was but little wrong in this world in her eyes, except herself.
+
+She saw the world through her own heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+MR. CALAMITY.
+
+
+THERE was a fine, busy old gentleman that young Franklin met about the
+time that he opened his printing office, whose course it will be
+interesting to follow. Almost every young man sometimes meets a man of
+this type and character. He is certain to be found, as are any of the
+deterrent people in the Pilgrim's Progress. He is the man in whose eyes
+there is ruin lurking in every form of prosperity, who sees only the
+dark side of things--to whom, as we now say, everything "is going to the
+dogs."
+
+We will call him Mr. Calamity, for that name represents what he had come
+to be as a prophet.[B]
+
+One day young Franklin heard behind him the tap, tap, tap of a cane. It
+was a time when Philadelphia was beginning to rise, and promised
+unparalleled prosperity. The cane stopped with a heavy sound.
+
+"What--what is this I hear?" said Mr. Calamity. "You are starting a
+printing office, they say. I am sorry, sorry."
+
+"Why are you sorry, sir?" asked the young printer.
+
+"Oh, you are a smart, capable young man, one who in the right place
+would succeed in life. I hate to see you throw yourself away."
+
+"But is not this the right place?"
+
+"What, Philadelphia?"
+
+"Yes, it is growing."
+
+"That shows how people are deceived. Haven't you any eyes?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"But what were they made for? Can't you see what is coming?"
+
+"A great prosperity, sir."
+
+"Oh, my young man, how you are deceived, and how feather-headed people
+have deceived you! Don't you know that this show of prosperity is all
+delusion; that people of level heads are calling in their bills, and
+that this is a hard time for creditors? The age of finery has gone, and
+the age of rags has come. Rags, sir, rags!"
+
+"No, sir, no. I thought the people were getting out of debt. See how
+many people are building."
+
+"They are building to be ready for the crash--they do not know what else
+to do with their money; calamity is coming."
+
+"But how do you know, sir?"
+
+"Know? It requires but little wit to know. I can feel it in my head. The
+times are not what they used to be. William Penn is dead, and none of
+his descendants are equal to him. Look at the Quakers, see how worldly
+they are becoming! Most people are living beyond their means! Property,"
+he added, "is all on the decline. In a few years you will see people
+moving away from here. You will hear that the Proprietors have failed.
+Young man, don't go into business here. Let me tell you a secret, though
+I hate to do it, as your heart is bent upon setting up the printing
+business here; listen to me now--the whole province is going to fail.
+Before us is bankruptcy. Do you hear it--that awful, awful word
+_bankruptcy_? The Governor himself, in my opinion, is on the way to
+bankruptcy now. The town will have to all go out of business, and then
+there will be bats and owls in the garrets, and the wharves will rot. I
+sometimes think that I will have to quit my country."
+
+"Do other folks think as you do?"
+
+"Ay, ay, don't they? All that have any heads with eyes. Some folks have
+eyes for the present, some for the past, and some for the future. I am
+one of those that have eyes for the future. I expect to see grass
+growing in the streets before I die, and I shall not have to live long
+to pluck buttercups under the King's Arms. I pity young chickens like
+you that will have no place to run to."
+
+"But, sir," said young Franklin, "suppose things do take another turn.
+The young settlers are all building; the old people are enlarging their
+estates. It is easy to borrow money, and it looks to me that we will
+have here twice as many people in another generation as we have now. If
+the city should grow, what an opening there is for a printer! I shall
+take the risk."
+
+"Risk--risk? Jump off a ship on the high sea with an iron ball on your
+feet! Go down, and stick there. Business, I tell you, is going to die
+here, and who would want to read what a stripling like you would write
+outside of business? You would print that this one had failed, that
+that one had failed, and one don't collect bills handy from people who
+have failed. I tell you that the whole province is about to fail, and
+Philadelphia is going to ruin, and I advise you to turn right about and
+pack up, and go to some other place. There will never be any chance for
+you here."
+
+Tap, tap, tap, went his cane, and he moved away.
+
+Young Franklin started to go to his work with a heavy heart. The cane
+stopped. Old Mr. Calamity looked around.
+
+"I've warned you," said he with a flourish of the cane. "I tell you, I
+tell you everything is going back to the wilderness, and I pity you, but
+not half so much as you will pity yourself if you embark in the printing
+business, and print failures for nothing, to fail yourself some day.
+This is the age of rags, rags!"
+
+Tap, tap, tap, went on the cane, and the old gentleman chuckled.
+
+Young Franklin went on in his business. What was he to do? He saw
+everything with hopeful eyes. But he was young. His heart told him to go
+on in his undertaking, and he went on.
+
+He had been laughed at in Boston, and old Mr. Calamity had risen up here
+to laugh at him again.
+
+He knew not how it was, but it was in him to become a printer. As the
+young waterfowl knows the water as soon as it toddles from his nest, so
+young Franklin from his boyhood saw his life in this new element; the
+press was to be the source of America's rise, power, and glory, the
+throne of the republic; it was to make and mold and fulfill by its
+influence public opinion; the same public opinion was to rule America,
+and the young printer of Philadelphia was to lead the way now, and to
+reap the fruits of his spiritual resolution after he was seventy years
+of age. He saw it, he felt it, he knew his own mind. So he left behind
+old Mr. Calamity for the present, but he was soon to meet him again.
+
+He had now taken a third step on the ladder of life. His business should
+be built upon honor.
+
+The next time that he met Mr. Calamity, the old gentleman gave him a
+view of the prospects of a printer.
+
+"If you think that you are going to get your foot on the ladder of life
+by becoming a printer, you will find that you have mistaken your
+calling. None of the great men of old were printers, were they? Homer
+was no printer, was he?"
+
+"I have never heard that he was."
+
+"Nor did you hear of any one who ever printed the Iliad or the Odyssey.
+No printer was ever heard of among the immortals. A printer just
+prints--that is all. Solomon never printed anything, did he?"
+
+"I never read that he did, sir."
+
+"Nor Shakespeare?"
+
+"I never heard that he did, sir."
+
+"A printer has no chance to rise; he just builds the ark for Noah to
+sail in, and is left behind himself."
+
+"I hope to print some of my own thoughts, sir."
+
+"You do? Ha! ha! ha! Who do you think is going to read them? Your own
+thoughts--that does give me a stitch in the side, and makes me laugh so
+loud and swing my cane so high that it sets the cats and dogs to
+running. See them go over the garden fence! I shall watch your course,
+and when you begin to scatter your ideas about in the world, I hope I
+will be living to gather some of them up. I hope they will never lead a
+revolution!"
+
+Franklin's "Ca Ira" were the words that led the French Revolution.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[B] The old gentleman who suggests this character was named Mickle or
+Mikle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN.
+
+
+AT the age of fifteen Franklin had avowed himself a deist, or theist,
+which must have grieved his parents, who were people of positive
+Christian faith. He loved to argue, and when he had learned the Socratic
+art of asking questions so as to lead one to confuse himself, and of
+answering questions in the subjunctive mood, he sought nothing more than
+disputations in the stanch Puritan town. His intimate friends were
+deists, but they came to early failure through want of faith or any
+positive moral conviction. Governor Keith was a deist.
+
+The reader may ask what we mean by a deist here. A deist or theist in
+Franklin's time was one who believed in a God, but questioned the
+Christian faith and system. He was not an atheist. He held that a
+personal governing power directed all things after his own will and
+purpose. Under the providence of this Being things came and went, and
+man could not know how or why, but could simply believe that all that
+was was for the good of all.
+
+At the age of twenty-two young Franklin began to see that life without
+faith had no meaning, but was failure. In the omnipotence of spiritual
+life and power the soul must share or die. Negations or denials did not
+satisfy him. This was a positive world, governed by spiritual law. To
+disobey these laws was loss and death.
+
+He had been doing wrong. He had done wrong in yielding to his personal
+feelings in leaving home in the manner which he did. He had committed
+acts of social wrong. He had followed at times the law of the lower
+nature instead of the higher. He had become intimate with two friends
+who had led him into unworthy conduct, and over whom his own influence
+had not been good. He saw that the true value of life lies in its
+influence. There were things in his life that tended to ruin influence.
+There were no harvests to be expected from the barren rocks of negation
+and denials of faith in the highest good. Sin gives one nothing that one
+can keep. He must change his life, he must obey perfectly the spiritual
+laws of his being. He saw it, and resolved to begin.
+
+Now began a struggle between Benjamin Franklin the natural man and
+Benjamin Franklin the spiritual man that lasted for life. It became his
+purpose to gain the spiritual mastery, and to obey the laws of
+regeneration and eternal life.
+
+Here are his first resolutions:
+
+"Those who write of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write
+what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin to form a
+regular plan and design of our piece; otherwise we shall be in danger of
+incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never
+fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused
+variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new life; let me,
+therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that
+henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature.
+
+"1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I
+have paid what I owe.
+
+"2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance, to give nobody
+expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in
+every word and action; the most amiable excellence in a rational being.
+
+"3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand,
+and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of
+growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of
+plenty.
+
+"4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of
+truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon
+others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of
+everybody."
+
+But there must be a personal God, since he himself had personality, and
+he must seek a union of soul with his will beyond these mere moral
+resolutions.
+
+At the age of twenty-two he composed a litany after the manner of the
+Episcopal Church, but adapted to his own conditions. In this he prays
+for help in the points where he had found himself to be morally and
+spiritually weak.
+
+These petitions and resolutions show his inward struggles. They reveal
+his ideals, and to fulfill these ideals became the end of his life. For
+the acts of wrong which he had done in his period of adventures, and the
+unworthy life that he had then led, he tried to make reparation. The
+spiritual purpose of Benjamin Franklin had obtained the mastery over the
+natural man. Honor was his star, and more spiritual light was his
+desire and quest.
+
+He married Miss Read, the young woman who had laughed at him when he had
+entered Philadelphia eating his penny roll, with two rolls of bread
+under his arm, and his superfluous clothing sticking out of his pocket.
+He had neglected her during his adventures abroad, but she forgave him,
+and he had become in high moral resolution another man now.
+
+As a printer in Philadelphia his paper voiced the public mind and heart
+on all which were then most worthy. To publish a paper that advocates
+the best sentiments of a virtuous people is the shortest way to
+influence in the world. Franklin found it so. The people sought in him
+the representative, and from the printing office he was passed by
+natural and easy stages to the halls of legislation.
+
+So these resolutions to master himself may be regarded as another step
+on the ladder of life. To benefit the world by inventions is a good
+thing, but to lift it by an example of self-control and an unselfish
+life is a nobler thing, and on this plane we find young Franklin
+standing now. Franklin is the master of Franklin, and the influence of
+Silence Dogood through the press is filling the province of
+Pennsylvania. The paper which he established in Philadelphia was called
+the Pennsylvania Gazette. In connection with this he began to publish a
+very popular annual called Poor Richard's Almanac, about which we will
+tell you in another chapter.
+
+Right doing is the way to advancement--Franklin had this resolution; a
+newspaper that voices the people is a way to advancement--such a one
+Franklin had founded; and good humor is a way to advancement, and of
+this Franklin found an expression in Poor Richard's Almanac which has
+not yet ceased to be quoted in the world. It was the means of conveying
+Silence Dogood's special messages to every one. It made the whole world
+happier. Franklin, on account of the wise sayings in the almanac,
+himself came to be called "Poor Richard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE MAGICAL BOTTLE.
+
+
+FRANKLIN is now a man of character, benevolence, wisdom, and humor. He
+is a printer, a publisher, a man whose thoughts are influencing public
+opinion. He is a very prosperous man; he is making money and reputation,
+but it is not the gaining of either of these that is true success, but
+of right influence. It is not the answer to the question, What are you
+worth? or What is your popularity? but What is your influence? that
+determines the value of a man.
+
+He had founded life on right principles, and he had well learned the
+trade in his youth that leads a poor young man of right principles and
+nobility to success. He took the right guideboard, and the
+"Please-everybody" Governor did him a good service when he showed him
+that to become a printer in Philadelphia would bring him influence,
+fame, and fortune. People who are well meaning, beyond the ability to
+fulfill their intentions, sometimes reveal to others what may be of most
+use to them. It was not altogether an unfortunate day when the wandering
+printer boy met Governor Keith.
+
+In the midst of his prosperity Silence Dogood was constantly seeking out
+inventions to help people. When he was about thirty-four years of age,
+in the Poor Richard days, he saw that the forests were disappearing,
+and that there would be a need for the people to practice economy in the
+use of fuel. The fireplaces in the chimneys were great consumers of
+wood, and in many of them, to use the housewife's phrase, "the heat all
+went up the chimney." But that was not all; many of the chimneys of the
+good people smoked, and in making a fire rooms would be filled with
+smoke, or, to use again the housewife's term, "the smoke would all come
+out into the room."
+
+When this was so the people would all flee to cold rooms with smarting
+eyes. New houses in which chimneys smoked were sometimes taken down or
+altered to make room for new chimneys that would draw. Franklin sought
+to bring relief to this sorry condition of affairs.
+
+He invented the Franklin stove, from which the heat would go out into
+the room, and not "up the chimbly," to use a provincial word. This
+cheerful stove became a great comfort to the province, and to foreign
+countries as well. It saved fuel, and brought the heat of the fire into
+the room.
+
+He long afterward began to study chimneys, and after much experiment
+found that those that smoked need not be taken down, but that only a
+draught was needed to cause the smoke to rise in rarefied air. The name
+of the Franklin stove added very greatly to Poor Richard's wisdom, in
+making for Franklin an American reputation, which also extended to
+Europe. His fame arose along original ways. Surely no one ever walked in
+such ways before.
+
+He formed a club called the Junto, which became very prosperous, and
+gave strength to his local reputation. He also began a society for the
+study of universal knowledge, which was called the Philosophical
+Society.
+
+A man can do the most when he is doing the most. One thing leads to
+another; one thing feeds another, and one does not suffer in health or
+nerves from the many things that one loves to do. It is disinclination
+or friction that wears one down. People who have been very busy in what
+they most loved to do have usually lived to be old, and come down to old
+age in the full exercise of their powers.
+
+While Franklin was thus seeking how he could make himself useful to
+every one in many ways--for a purpose of usefulness finds many
+paths--his attention was called to a very curious discovery that had
+been made in the Dutch city of Leyden, in November, 1745. It was an
+electrical bottle called the Leyden jar.
+
+Nature herself had been discharging on a stupendous scale her own Leyden
+jars through all generations, but no one seems to have understood these
+phenomena until this memorable year brought forth the magical little
+bottle which was a flashlight in the long darkness of time.
+
+The Greeks had found that amber when rubbed would attract certain light
+substances, and the ancient philosophers and doctors had discovered the
+value of an electric shock from a torpedo in rheumatic complaints; that
+sparks would follow the rubbing of the fur of animals in cold air had
+also been noticed, but of magnetism, and of electricity, which is a
+current of magnetism, the world was ignorant, except as to some of its
+more common and obvious effects.
+
+In 1600 Dr. Gilbert, of England, discovered that many other substances
+besides amber could be made to develop an attractive power. He also
+discovered that there are many substances that can not be electrically
+excited.
+
+In 1650 Otto von Guericke, the inventor of the air-pump, made a machine
+which looked like a little grindstone--a wheel of sulphur mounted on a
+turning axle, which being used with friction produced powerful
+electrical sparks and lights. He found by experiments with this machine
+that bodies thus exerted by friction may impart electricity to other
+bodies, and that bodies so electrified may repel as well as attract.
+
+Sir Isaac Newton made an electrical machine of glass, and Stephen Gray,
+in 1720, said that if a large amount of electricity could be _stored_,
+great results might be expected from it.
+
+Charles Francois Dufay detected that there were two kinds of
+electricity, which he called "vitreous" and "resinous."
+
+A great discovery was coming. The first beams of a new planet were
+rising. How did there come into existence the "magical bottle" known as
+the Leyden jar?
+
+At Leyden three philosophers were experimenting in electricity. "We can
+produce electrical effects," said one. "If we could accumulate and
+retain electricity we would have power."
+
+They electrified a cannon suspended by silk cords. A few minutes after
+ceasing to turn the handle of the electrical machine which supplied the
+cannon with fluid, the charge was gone.
+
+"If we could surround an electrified body with a nonconducting
+substance," said Professor Musschenbroek, "we could imprison it; we
+could accumulate and store it." He added: "Glass is a nonconductor of
+electricity, and water is a good conductor. If I could charge with
+electricity water in a bottle, I could possess it and control it like
+other natural powers."
+
+He attempted to do this. He suspended a wire from a charged cannon to
+the water in a bottle, but for a time no result followed.
+
+One day, however, Mr. Cuneus, one of the scientists, while engaged in
+this experiment, chanced to touch the conductor with one hand and the
+electrified bottle with the other. It was a mere accident. He leaped in
+terror. What had happened? He had received an electric shock. What did
+it mean? A revolution in the use of one of the greatest of the occult
+forces of Nature.
+
+Terror was followed by amazement. Mr. Cuneus told Professor
+Musschenbroek what had happened.
+
+The professor repeated the experiment, with the same result.
+
+If electricity could be secured, accumulated, and discharged, what might
+not follow as the results of further experiments?
+
+It was several days before the professor recovered from the shock. "I
+would not take a second shock," he said, "for the kingdom of France!"
+
+Thus the Leyden jar came into use. The news of the experiment flew over
+Germany and Europe. Scientific people everywhere went to making Leyden
+jars and imprisoning electricity.
+
+Society took up the invention as a wonder toy. Gunpowder was discharged
+from the point of the finger by persons charged on an insulating stool.
+Electrical kisses passed from bold lips to lips in social circles. Even
+timid people mounted up on cakes of resin that their friends might see
+their hair stand on end. Sir William Watson, of London, completed the
+electrical fountain by coating the bottle in and out with tinfoil.
+
+The great news reached America. Franklin heard of it; no ears were more
+alert than his to profit by suggestions like this.
+
+Mr. Peter Collinson, of London, sent to him an account of Professor
+Musschenbroek's magical bottle.
+
+He told his friends of the Junto Club of the invention, and set them all
+to rubbing electric substances for sparks.
+
+He had invented many useful things. A new force had fallen under the
+control of man. He must investigate it; he must experiment with it; he
+too must have a magical bottle.
+
+"I never," he wrote in 1747, "was before engaged in any study that so
+totally engrossed my attention and time as this has lately done; for
+what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to
+my friends and acquaintances who from the novelty of the thing come
+continually in crowds to see them, I have during some months past had
+little leisure for anything else."
+
+What was magnetism? What was electricity? What secrets of Nature might
+the magical bottle reveal? To what use might the new power which might
+be stored and imprisoned be put? Silence Dogood, ponder night and day
+over the curious toy. The world waits for you to speak, for Nature is
+about to reveal one of her greatest secrets to you--you who gave two
+penny rolls to the poor woman and child on the street, after Deborah
+Read, your wife now, had had her good laugh. Your good wife will laugh
+again some day, when you have further poked around among electrical
+tubes and bottles, and have brought your benevolent mind to bear upon
+some of the secrets contained in the magical bottle. You have added
+virtue to virtue; you are adding intelligence to intelligence; such
+things grow. Discoveries come to those who are prepared to receive
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL AND THE QUESTIONS IT RAISED.
+
+
+THERE came from Europe to America at this time some electrical tubes,
+which being rubbed produced surprising results. To the curious they were
+toys, but to Franklin they were prophecies. There were three
+Philadelphians who joined with Franklin in the study of the effects that
+could be produced by these tubes and the Leyden vial.
+
+Franklin's son William was verging on manhood. He was beyond the years
+that we find him experimenting with his father in the old pictures. He
+became the last royal Governor of New Jersey some years afterward, and a
+Tory, and his politics at that period was a sore grief to his father's
+heart. But he was a bright, free-hearted boy now, nearly twenty, and his
+father loved him, and the two were harmonious and were companions for
+each other.
+
+Franklin, we may suppose, interested the boy in the bristling tubes and
+the magical bottle. The stored electricity in the latter was like the
+imprisoned genii of the Arabian Nights. Let the fairy loose, he suddenly
+mingled with native elements, and one could not gather him again. But
+another could be gathered.
+
+The Philadelphia philosophers wondered greatly at the new effects that
+Franklin was able to produce from the tubes and the bottle. Did not the
+genii in the vial hold the secret of the earth, and might not the earth
+itself be a magnet, and might not magnetism fill interstellar space?
+
+The wonder grew, and its suggestions. One of the Philadelphia
+philosophers, Philip Sing, invented an electrical machine. A like
+machine had been made in Europe, but of this Mr. Sing did not know.
+
+The Philadelphia philosophers discovered the power of metallic points to
+draw off electricity.
+
+"Electricity is not created by friction," observed one of these men. "It
+is only collected by it."
+
+"And all our experiments show," argued Franklin, "that electricity is
+positive and negative."
+
+During the winter of 1746-'47 these men devoted as much of their time as
+they could spare to electrical experiments.
+
+"William," said one of the philosophers to the son of Franklin one day,
+"you have brought your friends here to see the vial genii; he is a
+lively imp. Let me show you some new things which I found he can do."
+
+He brought out a bottle of spirits and poured the liquid into a plate.
+"Stand up on the insulating stool, my boy, and let me electrify you, and
+see if the imp loves liquor."
+
+The lively lad obeyed. He pointed his finger down to the liquor in the
+plate. It burst into flame, startling the audience.
+
+"Now," said another of the philosophers, "let me ask you to give me a
+magic torch."
+
+He presented to his finger a candle with an alcoholic wick. The candle
+was at once lighted, emitting sparks as it began to burn.
+
+"Hoi, hoi!" said the philosopher to the young visitors, "what do you
+think of a young man whose touch is fire? We have a Faust among us,
+sure!"
+
+"Now, girls, which of you would like to try an experiment?" we may
+suppose Father Franklin to say, in the spirit of Poor Richard.
+
+William stepped down, and an adventurous girl took his place on the
+experimental stool.
+
+"You have all heard of the electric kiss," said Poor Richard. "Let this
+young lady give you one. I will prepare her for it."
+
+He did.
+
+Another girl stepped up to receive it. She expected to receive a spark
+from her friend's lips; but instead of a spark she received a shock that
+caused her to leap and to bend double, and to utter a piercing cry.
+
+"I don't think that the kissing of young men and young women in public
+is altogether in good taste," said the philosophers, "but if any of you
+young men want to salute this lively young lady in that way, there will
+be in this case no objections."
+
+But none of the young men cared to be thrown into convulsions by the
+innocent-looking lass, who seemed to feel no discomfort.
+
+Experiments like these filled the city and province with amazement. The
+philosopher made a spider of burned cork that would _run_, and cause
+other people to run who had not learned the wherefore of the curious
+experiment.
+
+The wonderful Leyden vial became Franklin's companion. He liked ever to
+be experimenting in what the new force would do. What next? what next?
+How like lightning was this electricity! How could he increase
+electrical force?
+
+He says at the end of a long narrative:
+
+"We made what we called an _electrical battery_, consisting of eleven
+panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates pasted on each
+side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk
+cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing
+upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire
+and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the
+other, that so the whole might be charged together."
+
+Franklin at this time was a stanch royalist. He made a figure of George
+II, with a crown, and so arranged it that the powerful electrical force
+might be stored in the _crown_.
+
+"God bless him!" said the philosopher.
+
+A young man seeing that the crown was very attractive, attempted to
+remove it. It was a thing that the philosopher had expected.
+
+The youth touched the crown. He reeled, and started back with a stroke
+that filled him with amazement.
+
+"So be it with all of King George's enemies!" said the philosophers.
+"Never attempt to discrown the king."
+
+"God bless him!" said Franklin. His son always continued to say this,
+but Franklin himself came to see that he who discrowns kings may be
+greater than kings, and that it became the duty of a people to discrown
+tyrannical kings, and to make a king of the popular will.
+
+Franklin now resolved to give up his business affairs to others, to
+refuse political office, and to devote himself to science. The latter
+resolution he did not keep. He went to live on a retired spot on the
+Delaware, where he had a large garden, and could be left to his
+experiments and thoughts upon them. With him went the magical bottle and
+his interesting son William.
+
+The power of metallic points to draw off lightning now filled his mind.
+"Could the lightning be controlled?" he began to ask. "Could the power
+of the thunderbolt be disarmed?"
+
+Every element can be made to obey its own laws. Water will bear up iron
+if the iron be hollow. But deeply and more deeply must the thoughts
+engage the mind of the philosopher. "Is lightning electricity? Does
+electricity fill all space?" He wrote two philosophical papers at this
+critical period of his life, when he sought to give up money-making and
+political life for the study of that science which would be most useful
+to man. He who gives up gains. He who is willing to deny himself the
+most shall have the most. He that loseth his life shall save it. He who
+seeketh the good of others shall find it in himself.
+
+One of these papers was entitled "Opinions and Conjectures concerning
+the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the Means of
+preserving Ships and Buildings from Lightning, arising from Experiments
+and Observations at Philadelphia in 1749."
+
+In this treatise, which at last made his fame, he shows the similarity
+of electricity to lightning, and gives a description of an experiment in
+which a little lightning-rod had drawn away electricity from an
+artificial storm cloud. He says:
+
+"If these things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of points
+be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from
+the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest part of
+those edifices upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to
+prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside
+of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a
+ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these
+pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud
+before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that
+most sudden and terrible mischief?"
+
+A great discovery was at hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE GREAT DISCOVERY.
+
+
+IT was a June day, 1752--one of the longest days of the year. Benjamin
+Franklin was then forty-six years of age.
+
+The house garden was full of bloom; the trees were in leafage, and there
+was the music of blooms in the hives of the bees.
+
+Beyond the orchards and great trees the majestic Delaware rolled in
+purple splendor, dotted with slanting sails.
+
+Nature was at the full tide of the year. The river winds swept over the
+meadows in green waves, where the bobolinks toppled in the joy of their
+songs.
+
+It had been a hot morning, and billowy clouds began to rise in the still
+heat on the verge of the sky.
+
+Benjamin Franklin sat amid the vines and roses of his door.
+
+"William," he said to his son, "I am expecting a shower to-day. I have
+long been looking for one. I want you to remain with me and witness an
+experiment that I am about to make."
+
+Silence Dogood, or Father Franklin, then brought a kite out to the green
+lawn. The kite had a very long hempen string, and to the end of it,
+which he held in his hand, he began to attach some silk and a key.
+
+"When I was a boy," said Franklin, "and lived in the town of Boston by
+the marshes, I made a curious experiment with a kite. I let it tow me
+along the water where I went swimming. I have always liked flying kites.
+I hope that this one will bring me good luck should a shower come."
+
+"What do you expect to do with it, father?"
+
+"If the cloud comes up with thunder, and lightning be electricity, I am
+going to try to secure a spark from the sky."
+
+The air was still. The cloud was growing into mountain-like peaks. The
+robins and thrushes were singing lustily in the trees, as before a
+shower. The men in the cornfields and gardens paused in their work.
+
+Presently a low sound of thunder rolled along the sky. The cloud now
+loomed high and darkened in the still, hot air.
+
+"It is coming," said Franklin, "and the cloud will be a thunder gust. It
+is early in the season for such a cloud as that. See how black it
+grows!"
+
+The kite was made of a large silk handkerchief fastened to a
+perpendicular stick, on the top of which was a piece of sharpened iron
+wire. The philosopher examined it carefully.
+
+"What if you should receive a spark from the cloud, father?" asked the
+young man.
+
+"I would then say lightning was electricity, and that it could be
+controlled, and that human life might be protected from the
+thunderbolt."
+
+"But would not that thwart the providence of God?"
+
+"No, it would merely cause a force of Nature to obey its own laws so as
+to protect life instead of destroying it."
+
+The sky darkened. The sun went out. The sea birds flew inland and
+screamed. The field birds stood panting on the shrubs with drooping
+wings.
+
+A rattling thunder peal crossed the sky. The wind began to rise, and to
+cause the early blasted young fruit to fall in the orchards. The waves
+on the Delaware curled white.
+
+"Let us go to the cattle-shed," said Father Franklin. "I have been
+laughed at all my life, and do not care to have my neighbors tell the
+story of my experiment to others if I should fail."
+
+The two went together to the cattle-shed on the green meadow.
+
+The wind was roaring in the distance. The poultry were running home, and
+the cattle were seeking the shelter of the trees.
+
+The cloud was now overhead. Dark sheets of rain in the horizon looked
+like walls of carbon reared against the sky. The lightning was sharp and
+frequent. There came a vivid flash followed by a peal of thunder that
+shook the hills.
+
+"The cloud is overhead now," said Franklin.
+
+He ran out into the green meadow and threw the kite against the wind.
+
+It rose rapidly and was soon in the sky, drifting in the clouds that
+seemed full of the vengeful fluid.
+
+At the termination of the hempen cord dangled the key, and the silk end
+was wound around the philosopher's hand.
+
+The young man took charge of a Leyden jar which he had brought to the
+shed, in which to collect electricity from the clouds, should the
+experiment prove successful.
+
+The cloud came on in its fury. The rain began to fall. Franklin and his
+son stood under the shed.
+
+The air seemed electrified, but no electricity appeared in the hempen
+string. Franklin presented his knuckle to the key, but received no
+spark.
+
+What was that?
+
+The hempen string began to bristle like the hair of one electrified. Was
+it the wind? Was it electricity?
+
+Benjamin Franklin now touched the key with thrilling emotion, while his
+son looked on with an excited face. It was a moment of destiny not only
+to the two experimenters in the dashing rain, but to the world. If
+Franklin should receive a spark from the key, it would change the
+currents of the world's events.
+
+Flash!
+
+It came clear and sharp. The heavens had responded to law--to the
+command of the human will guided by law.
+
+Again, another spark.
+
+The boy touches the key. He, too, is given the evidence that has been
+given to his father.
+
+The two looked at each other.
+
+"Lightning is electricity," said Silence Dogood. "It can be drawn away
+from points of danger; no one need be struck by lightning if he will
+protect himself."
+
+"God himself," once said a writer, "could not strike one by lightning if
+one were insulated, without violating his own laws."
+
+And now came the consummation of one of the grandest experiments of
+time. He charged the Leyden jar from the clouds.
+
+"Stand back!"
+
+He touched his hand boldly to the magical bottle. A shock thrilled him.
+His dreams had come true. He had conquered one of the most potent
+elements on earth.
+
+The storm passed, the clouds broke, the wind swept by, and the birds
+sang again over the bending clover. Night serene with stars came on.
+That was probably the happiest day in all Franklin's eventful life. Like
+the patriarch of old, "his children were about him." He shared his
+triumph with the son whom he loved.
+
+But--he sent a paper on the results of his observation in electricity to
+the Royal Society at London, in which he announced his discovery that
+lightning was electricity. The society did not deem it worth publishing;
+it was a neglected manuscript, and as for his theory in regard to the
+electric fluid and universality, that, we are told by Franklin's
+biographers, "was laughed at."
+
+But his views had set all Europe to experimenting. Scientists everywhere
+were proving that his theories were true. France had become very much
+excited over the discovery, and was already hailing the philosopher's
+name with shouts of admiration. Franklin's fame filled Europe, and the
+greatest of British societies began to honor him. It was Doctor Franklin
+now!--The honorary degree came to him from many institutions.--Doctor
+from England, Doctor from France, Doctor from American colleges.
+
+The boy who had shared his penny rolls with the poor woman and her child
+sat down to hear the world praising him.
+
+The facts that lightning was electricity or electricity was lightning,
+that it was positive and negative, that it could be controlled, that
+life could be made safe in the thunder gust, were but the beginning of a
+series of triumphs that have come to make messengers of the lightning,
+and brought the nations of the world in daily communication with each
+other. But the wizardlike Edison has shown that the influences direct
+and indirect of that June day of 1752 may have yet only begun. What
+magnetism and its currents are to reveal in another century we can not
+tell; it fills us with silence and awe to read the prophecies of the
+scientists of to-day. The electrical mystery is not only moving us and
+all things; we are burning it, we are making it medicine, health, life.
+What may it not some day reveal in regard to a spiritual body or the
+human soul?
+
+The centuries to come can only reveal what will be the end of Franklin's
+discovery that lightning might be controlled to become the protector and
+the servant of man. Even his imagination could hardly have forecast the
+achievements which the imp of the magical bottle would one day
+accomplish in this blind world. It is not that lightning is electricity,
+but that electricity is subject to laws, that has made the fiery
+substance the wonder-worker of the age.
+
+If Uncle Ben, the poet, could have seen this day, how would his heart
+have rejoiced!
+
+Jane Mecom--Jenny--heard of the fame of her brother by every paper
+brought by the post. She delighted to tell her old mother the weekly
+news about Benjamin. One day, when he had received honors from one of
+the great scientific societies, Abiah said to her daughter:
+
+"You helped Ben in his early days--I can see now that you did."
+
+"How, mother?"
+
+"By believing in him when hardly any one else did. We build up people by
+believing in them. My dim eyes see it all now. I love to think of the
+past," she continued, "when you and Ben were so happy together--the days
+of Uncle Benjamin. I love to think of the old family Thanksgivings. What
+wonderful days were those when the old clock-cleaner came! How he took
+the dumb, dusty clock to pieces, and laid it out on the table! How Ben
+would say, 'you can never make that clock tick again!' and you, Jenny,
+whose faith never failed, would answer, 'Yes, Ben, he can!' How the old
+man would break open a walnut and extract the oil from the meat, and
+apply it with a feather to the little axles of the wheels, and then put
+the works together, and the clock would go better than before! Do you
+remember it, Jane? How, then, your wondering eyes would look upon the
+clock miracle and delight in your faith, and say, 'I told you so, Ben.'
+How he would kiss you in your happiness that your prophecy had come
+true. He had said 'No' that you might say 'Yes.'"
+
+"Do you think that his thoughts turn home, mother?"
+
+There was a whir of wings in the chimney.
+
+"More to a true nature than a noisy applause of the crowd is the simple
+faith of one honest heart," said Abiah Folger in return. "In the silence
+and desolation of life, which may come to all, such sympathy is the
+only fountain to which one can turn. Our best thoughts fly homeward like
+swallows to old chimneys, where they last year brooded over their young,
+and center in the true hearts left at the fireside. Every true heart is
+true to his home, and to the graves of those with whom it shared the
+years when life lay fair before it. Yes, Jane, he thinks of you."
+
+She was right. Jenny had helped her brother by believing in him when he
+most needed such faith.
+
+There is some good angel, some Jenny, who comes into every one's life.
+Happy is he who feels the heart touch of such an one, and yields to such
+unselfish spiritual visions. To do this is to be led by a gentle hand
+into the best that there is in life.
+
+In sacred hours the voices of these home angels come back to the silent
+chambers of the heart. We then see that our best hopes were in them, and
+wish that we could retune the broken chords of the past. The home voice
+is always true, and we find it so at last.
+
+Franklin had little of his sister's sentiment, but when he thought of
+the old days, and of the simple hearts that were true to him there, he
+would say, "Beloved Boston." His heart was in the words. Boston was the
+town of Jenny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+HOME-COMING IN DISGUISE.
+
+
+THERE is a very delightful fiction, which may have blossomed from fact,
+which used to be found in schoolbooks, under the title of "The Story of
+Franklin's Return to his Mother after a Long Absence."
+
+It would have been quite like him to have returned to Boston in the
+guise of a stranger. Some one has said that he had a joke for
+everything, and that he would have put one into the Declaration of
+Independence had he been able.
+
+The tendency to make proverbs that Franklin showed in his early years
+grew, and if he were not indeed as wise as King Solomon, no one since
+the days of that Oriental monarch has made and "sought out" so many
+proverbs and given them to the world.
+
+The maxims of Poor Richard, which were at first given to the world
+through an almanac, spread everywhere. They were current in most Boston
+homes; they came back to the ears of Jamie the Scotchman--back, we say,
+for some of them were the echoes of Silence Dogood's life in the Puritan
+province.
+
+Poor Richard's Almanac was a lively and curious miscellany, and its
+coming was an event in America. Franklin put the wisdom that he gained
+by experience into it. In the following resolution was the purpose of
+his life at this time: "I wished to live," he says, "without committing
+any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural
+inclination, custom, or company might lead me into."
+
+"But--but," he says, "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of
+faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them
+diminish." In the spirit of this effort to correct life and to learn
+wisdom from experience, he gave Poor Richard's Almanac annually to the
+world. Like some of the proverbs of Solomon, it taught the people life
+as he himself learned it. For years Franklin lived in Poor Richard, and
+it was his pulse beat, his open heart, that gave the annual its power.
+All the sayings of Poor Richard were not original with Franklin. When a
+critical proverb, or a line from one of the poets, would express his
+idea or conviction better than he could himself, he used it. For
+example, he borrowed some beautiful lines from Pope, who in turn had
+received the leading thought from a satire of Horace.
+
+While Franklin was learning wisdom from life, and expressing it through
+Poor Richard, he was studying French, Italian, and Spanish, and making
+himself the master of philosophy. "He who would thrive must rise at
+five," he makes Poor Richard say. He himself rose at five in the
+morning, and began the day with a bath and a prayer. Intelligence to
+intelligence!
+
+Such was his life when Poor Richard was evolved.
+
+Who was Poor Richard, whose influence came to lead the thought of the
+time?
+
+Poor Richard was a comic almanac, or a character assumed by Benjamin
+Franklin, for the purpose of expressing his views of life. Having
+established a paper, Franklin saw the need of an annual and of an
+almanac, and he chose to combine the two, and to make the pamphlet a
+medium of hard sense in a rough, keen, droll way.
+
+He introduces himself in this curious annual as "Richard Saunders,"
+"Poor Richard." He has an industrious wife named Bridget. He publishes
+his almanac to earn a little money to meet his pressing wants. "The
+plain truth of the matter is," says this pretended almanac maker, "I am
+excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive
+proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her gown of tow,
+while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened more than
+once to burn all my books and rattling-traps (as she calls my
+instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good
+of my family. The printer has offer'd me some considerable share of the
+profits, and I have thus began to comply with my dame's desire."
+
+This Titian Leeds was a pen name for his rival publisher, who also
+issued an almanac. The two had begun life in Philadelphia together as
+printers.
+
+The way in which he refers to his rival in his new almanac, as a man
+about to die to fulfill the predictions of astrology, was so comical as
+to excite a lively interest. Would he die? If not, what would the _next_
+almanac say of him? Mr. Leeds (Keimer) had a reputation of a knowledge
+of astronomy and astrology. In what way could Franklin have introduced a
+character to the public in the spirit of good-natured rivalry that would
+have awakened a more genuine curiosity?
+
+The next year Poor Richard announced that his almanac had proved a
+success, and told the public the news that they were waiting for and
+much desired to hear: his wife Bridget had profited by it. She was now
+able to have a dinner-pot of her own, and something to put into it.
+
+But how about Titian Leeds, who was to die after the astrological
+prediction? The people awaited the news of the fate of this poor man, as
+we await the tidings of the end of a piece of statesmanship. He thus
+answers, "I can not say positively whether he is dead or alive," but as
+the author of the rival almanac had spoken very disrespectfully of him,
+and as Mr. Leeds when living was a gentleman, he concludes that Mr.
+Leeds must be dead.
+
+In these comic annuals there is not only the almanacs and the play upon
+Titian Leeds, but a large amount of rude wisdom in the form of proverbs,
+aphorisms, and verses, most of which is original, but a part of which,
+as we have said, is apt quotation. The proverbs were everywhere quoted,
+and became a part of the national education. They became popular in
+France, and filled nearly all Europe. They are still quoted. Let us give
+you some of them:
+
+"Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?"
+
+"Fly pleasures, and they will follow thee."
+
+"Let thy child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what
+thou wilt."
+
+"Industry need not wish."
+
+          "In things of moment, on thyself depend,
+           Nor trust too far thy servant or thy friend;
+           With private views, thy friend may promise fair,
+           And servants very seldom prove sincere."
+
+Besides these quaint sayings, which became a part of the proverbial
+wisdom of the world, Franklin had a comical remark for every occasion,
+as, when a boy, he advised his father to say grace over the whole pork
+barrel, and so save time at the table. He once admonished Jenny in
+regard to her spelling, and that after she was advanced in life, by
+telling her that the true way to spell wife was _yf_. After the treaty
+of peace with England, he thought it only a courtesy that America should
+return deported people to their native shores. Once in Paris, on
+receiving a cake labeled _Le digne Franklin_, which excited the jealousy
+of Lee and Dean, he said that the present was meant for
+Lee-Dean-Franklin, that being the pronunciation of the French label.
+Every event had a comical side for him.
+
+Let us bring prosperous Benjamin Franklin back to Boston to see his
+widowed mother again, after the old story-book manner. She is nearly
+blind now, and we may suppose Jamie the Scotchman to be halting and old.
+
+He comes into the town in the stagecoach at night. Boston has grown. The
+grand old Province House rises above it, the Indian vane turning hither
+and thither in the wind. The old town pump gleams under a lantern, as
+does the spring in Spring Lane, which fountain may have led to the
+settlement of the town. On a hill a beacon gleams over the sea. He
+passes the stocks and the whipping-post in the shadows.
+
+There is a light in the window of the Blue Ball. He sees it. It is very
+bright. Is his mother at work now that she is nearly blind?
+
+He dismounts. He passes close to the old window. His father is not in
+the room; he never will be there again. But an aged man is there. Who is
+he?
+
+The man is reading--what? The most popular pamphlet or little book that
+ever appeared in the colonies; a droll story.
+
+He knocks at the door. The old man rises and opens the door; the bell is
+gone.
+
+"Abiah, there's a stranger here."
+
+"Ask him who he is."
+
+"Say that he used to work here many years ago, and that he knew Josiah
+Franklin well, and was acquainted with Ben."
+
+"Tell him to come in," said the bent old woman with white hair.
+
+The stranger entered, and avoided questions by asking them.
+
+"What are you reading to-night, my good friend?" he asked.
+
+"The Old Auctioneer," answered the aged man. "Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes; it is on the taxes."
+
+"So it is--I've read it twice over. I'm now reading it to Abiah. Let me
+tell you a secret--her son wrote it. My opinion is that it is the
+smartest piece of work that ever saw the light on this side of the
+water. What's yourn?"
+
+"There's sense in it."
+
+"What did he say his name was?" asked Abiah.
+
+"Have you ever read any of Poor Richard's maxims?" asked the stranger
+quickly.
+
+"Yes, yes; we have taken the Almanac for years. Ben publishes it."
+
+"What did he say?" asked Abiah. "I can not hear as well as I once
+could.--Stranger, I heard you when you spoke loud at the door."
+
+"Repeat some of 'Poor Richard's' sayings," said the stranger.
+
+"You may well say 'repeat,'" said the old man. "I used to hear Ben
+Franklin say things like that when he was a 'prentice lad."
+
+"Like what, my friend?"
+
+"Like 'The noblest question in the world is what good may I do in it?'
+There! Like 'None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.'
+There!"
+
+"I see, I see, my good friend, you seem to have confidence in Poor
+Richard?"
+
+"Sir, I taught him much of his wisdom--he and I used to be great
+friends. I always knew that he had a star in his soul that would
+shine--I foresaw it all. I have the gift of second sight. I am a
+Scotchman."
+
+"And you prophesied good things to him when he was a boy?"
+
+"Yes, yes, or, if I did not, I only spoke in a discouraging way to
+encourage him. He and I were chums; we used to sit on Long Wharf
+together and _prognosticate_ together. That was a kind of Harvard
+College to us. Uncle Ben was living then."
+
+"Maybe the stranger would like you to read The Old Auctioneer," said
+Abiah to the Scotchman. "My boy wrote that--he told you. My boy has good
+sense--Jamie here will tell you so. I'm older now than I was."
+
+"Yes, yes, read, and let me rest. When the bell rings for nine I will go
+to the inn."
+
+"Maybe we can keep you here. We'll talk it over later. I want to hear
+Ben's piece. I'm his mother, and they tell me it is interesting to
+people who are no relation to him.--Jamie, you read the piece, and then
+we will talk over the past. It seems like meeting Ben again to hear his
+pieces read."
+
+Jamie the Scotchman read, and while he did so Abiah, wrinkled and old,
+looked often toward the stranger out of her dim eyes, while she listened
+to her son's always popular story of The Old Auctioneer.
+
+"That is a very good piece," said Abiah Franklin; "and now, stranger,
+let me say that your voice sounds familiar, and I want you to tell me in
+a good strong tone who you be. I didn't hear you give any name."
+
+"Is it almost nine?" asked the stranger.
+
+Jamie opened the door.
+
+A bell smote the still air, a silverlike bell. It spoke nine times.
+
+"I never heard that bell before," said the stranger.
+
+Suddenly music flooded the air; it seemed descending; there were many
+bells--and they were singing.
+
+"The Old North chimes," said the Scotchman; "they have just been put up.
+I wish Ben could hear them; I sort of carry him in my heart."
+
+"Don't speak! It is beautiful," said the stranger. "Hear what they are
+saying."
+
+"O Jamie, Jamie, _father_ used to play that tune on his violin."
+
+"_Father!_" The old woman started.
+
+"Ben, Ben, how could you! Come here; my eyes are failing me, Ben, but my
+heart will never fail me.--Jamie, prepare for him his old room, and
+leave us to talk together!"
+
+"I will go out to Mrs. Mecom's, and tell her that Benjamin has come
+home."
+
+"Yes, yes, go and call Jenny."
+
+They talked together long: of Josiah, now gone; of Uncle Benjamin, long
+dead; and of Parson Sewell, and the deacons of the South Church, who had
+passed away.
+
+The door opened. Jenny again stood before him. She led on a boy by the
+hand, and said to her portly brother:
+
+"This, Benjamin, is Benjamin."
+
+They talked together until the tears came.
+
+He heard the whir of the swallows' wings in the chimney.
+
+"The swallows come back," he said, "but they will never come again. It
+fills my heart with tenderness to hear these old home sounds."
+
+"No, _they_ will never come back from the mosses and ferns under the
+elms," said his mother. "The orioles come, the orchards bloom, and
+summer lights up the hills, and the leaves fall, but they will know no
+more changes or seasons. And I am going after their feet into the
+silence, Ben; I have almost got through. You have been a true son in the
+main, and Jenny has never stepped aside from the way. Always be good to
+Jenny."
+
+"Jenny, always be true to mother, and I will be as true to you."
+
+"Brother, I shall always be true to my home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+"THOSE PAMPHLETS."
+
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN loved to meet Samuel Franklin, Uncle Benjamin's son,
+who also had caught the gentle philosopher's spirit, and was making good
+his father's intention. Samuel was a thrifty man in a growing town.
+
+"It is the joy of my life to find you so prosperous," said Franklin,
+"for it would have made your father's heart happy could he have known
+that one day I would find you so. Samuel, your father was a good man. I
+shall never cease to be grateful for his influence over me when I was a
+boy. He was my schoolmaster."
+
+"Yes, my father was a good man, and I never saw it as I do now. I was
+not all to him that I ought to have been. He was a poor man; he lived as
+it were on ideas, and people were accustomed to look upon him as a man
+who had failed in life."
+
+"He will never fail while you are a man of right influence," said
+Franklin. "He lives in you."
+
+"I feel his influence more and more every day," said Samuel.
+
+"Samuel Franklin, I do. Success does not consist in popularity or
+money-making. Right influence is success in life. I have been an
+unworthy godson of your father, but I am more than ever determined to
+carry out the principles that he taught me; they are the only things
+that will stand in life; as for the rest, the grave swallows all. Your
+father's life shall never be a failure if my life can bring to it honor.
+
+"Samuel, I have not always done my best, but I resolve more and more to
+be worthy of the love of all men when I think of what a character your
+father developed. He thought of himself last. He did not die poor. His
+hands were empty, but not his heart, and there sleeps no richer man in
+the Granary burying ground than he.
+
+"Samuel, he parted with his library containing the notes of his best
+thoughts in life in his efforts to come to America to give me the true
+lessons in life because I bore his name. It was a brotherly thought
+indeed that led my father who loved him to name me for him."
+
+"You speak of his library--his collection of religious books and
+pamphlets, which he wrote over with his own ideas; you have touched a
+tender spot in my heart. He wanted that I should have those pamphlets,
+and that I should try to recover them through some London agent. You are
+going to London. Do you think that they could be recovered after so many
+years?"
+
+"Samuel, there is a strange thing that I have observed. It is this: When
+a man looks earnestly for a thing that some one has desired him to have,
+his mind is curiously influenced and has strange directions. It is like
+blindfolded children playing hot and cold. There is some strange
+instinct in one who seeks a hidden object for his own or others' good
+that leads his feet into mysterious ways. I have much faith in that
+hidden law. Samuel, I may be able to find those pamphlets; I thought of
+them when I was in London. If I do, I will buy them at whatever cost,
+and will bring them to you, and may both of us try to honor the name of
+that loving, forgiving, noble man until we see each other again. It may
+be that when I shall come here another time, if I do, I will bring with
+me the pamphlets."
+
+"If you were to find them, I would indeed believe in a special
+Providence."
+
+The two parted. Poor Uncle Benjamin had sold his books for money, but
+was his life a failure, or was he never living more nobly than now?
+
+Franklin went to the Granary burying ground, where the old man slept.
+Great elms stood before the place. He thought of what his parents had
+been, how they had struggled and toiled, and how glad they were that
+Uncle Benjamin had come to them for his sake. He resolved to erect a
+monument there.
+
+He recalled Uncle Benjamin's teaching, that a man rises by overcoming
+his defects, and so gains strength.
+
+He had tried to profit by the old man's lesson in answer to his own
+question, "Have I a chance?"
+
+He had not only struggled to make strong his conscious weaknesses of
+character, but those of his mental power as well.
+
+His old pedagogue, Mr. Brownell, had been unable to teach him
+mathematics. In this branch of elementary studies he had proved a
+failure and a dunce. But he had struggled against this defect of Nature,
+as against all others, with success.
+
+He was going to London as the agent of the colonies. He would carry
+back to England those principles that the old man had taught him, and
+would live them there. His Uncle Benjamin had written those principles
+in his "pamphlets," and again in his own life. Would he ever see these
+documents which had in fact been his schoolbooks, but which had come to
+him without the letter, because the old man had been too poor to keep
+the books?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+A STRANGE DISCOVERY.
+
+
+FRANKLIN went to London.
+
+Franklin loved old bookstores. There were many in London, moldy and
+musty, in obscure corners, some of them in cellars and in narrow
+passageways, just off thronging streets.
+
+One day, when he was sixty years of age, just fifty years after his
+association with Uncle Benjamin, he wandered out into the byways of the
+old London bookstores.
+
+It was early spring; the winter fogs of London had disappeared, the
+squares were turning green, the hedgerows blooming, the birds were
+singing on the thorns. Such a sunny, blue morning might have called him
+into the country, but he turned instead into the flowerless ways of the
+book stalls. He wandered about for a time and found nothing. Then he
+thought of old Humphrey, of whom he had bought books perhaps out of
+pity. There was something about this man that held him; he seemed
+somehow like a link of the unknown past. He compelled him to buy books
+that he did not want or need.
+
+"This is a fine spring morning," said old Humphrey, as he saw the portly
+form of Franklin enter the door. "I have been thinking of you much of
+late. I do not seem to be able to have put you out of my mind; and why
+should I, a fine gentleman like you, and uncommonly civil. I have
+something that I have been allotting on showing you. It is very curious;
+it is a library of thirty-six volumes of pamphlets, and it minds me that
+a more interesting collection of pamphlets was never made. I read them
+myself in lonesome days when there is no trade. Let me show you one of
+the volumes."
+
+"No, never mind, my friend. I could not buy the whole library, however
+interesting it might be. I will look for something smaller. This is a
+very old bookstore."
+
+"Ay, it is that. It has been kept here ever since the times of the
+Restoration, and before. My wife's father used to keep it when he was an
+old man and I was a boy. And now I am an old man. I must show you one of
+those books or pamphlets. They are all written over."
+
+Benjamin Franklin sat down on a stool in the light, and took up an odd
+volume of the Canterbury Tales.
+
+Old Humphrey lighted a candle and went into a dark recess. He presently
+returned, bringing one of the thirty-six volumes of pamphlets.
+
+"My American friend, if one liked old things, and the comments of one
+dead and gone, this library of pamphlets would be food for thought. Just
+look at this volume!"
+
+He struck the book against a shelf to remove the dust, and handed it to
+Franklin.
+
+The latter adjusted his spectacles to the light, and turned over the
+volume.
+
+"As you say," he said to old Humphrey, "it is all written over."
+
+[Illustration: A STRANGE DISCOVERY.]
+
+"And uncommonly interesting comments they are. That library of
+pamphlets and comments, in my opinion, is as valuable as Pepys's Diary.
+
+Old Humphrey had struck the right chord. In Pepys's Diary, which was
+kept for nine years during the gay and exciting period of the reign of
+Charles II, one lives, as it were, amid the old court scenes.
+
+Franklin turned over the leaves of the volume. "It is a curious book,"
+said he.
+
+The light was poor, and he took the book to the door. Above the tall
+houses of the narrow street was a rift of sunny blue sky.
+
+"There is something in the handwriting that looks familiar," said he.
+"It seems as though I had seen that writing somewhere before. Where did
+you find these books?"
+
+"They came to me from my wife's father, who kept the storeway until he
+was nigh upon ninety years old. He set great store by these books, which
+led me to read them.
+
+"When Pepys's Diary was printed I was reminded of them, and read them
+over again, the comments and all. The person who made those notes had a
+very interesting mind. I think him to have been a philosopher."
+
+The ink on the margin of the volume was fading, and Franklin strained
+his eyes to read the comments. Suddenly he turned and came into the
+store and sat down.
+
+"Father Humphrey, bring me another volume."
+
+Father Humphrey lighted the candle again and went into the same dark and
+tomblike recess, and brought out two more volumes, striking them against
+the corners of shelves to remove from them the dust and mold.
+
+He noticed that his patron seemed overcome. Franklin was not an
+emotional man, but his lip quivered.
+
+"You think that the book is interesting?"
+
+He lifted his face and seemed lost in thought.
+
+"Ecton--Ecton--Ecton," he said. "Uncle Tom lived there--Uncle Tom, who
+started the subscription for the chime of bells."
+
+He had found the word "Ecton" in the pamphlets, and he again began to
+turn the leaves.
+
+"Squire Isted," he said, "Squire Isted." He had found the name of Squire
+Isted on one of the leaves. He had heard the name in his youth.
+
+"The World's End," he said. He stood up and turned round and round.
+
+"How queer he acts!" thought Father Humphrey. "I thought him a very calm
+man. What is it about the World's End?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, it is the name of an old tavern that I have found here. I had some
+great-uncles that used to have a farm and forge near an inn of that
+name. That was very long ago, before I was born. Old names seem to me
+like voices of the past."
+
+He put his spectacles to his eyes and held the book again up to the
+light.
+
+He presently said: "Luke Fuller--that is an old English name; there was
+such a one who was ousted for nonconformity in the days of the
+Conventicles."
+
+He turned round and lifted his face and stood still, like a statue.
+
+Was he going mad? Poor old Father Humphrey began to look toward the
+door to see if there were clear way of escape for him should the strange
+man become violent.
+
+Presently he said:
+
+"Earls--Barton," and lifted his brows.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"Mears--Ashby," and lifted his brows higher.
+
+"What, sir, is it about Earls--Barton, and Mears--Ashby?" asked the
+timid Father Humphrey.
+
+"Oh, you are _here_. I've heard of these places before--it was many
+years ago. Some folks came over to America from there."
+
+He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he.
+"Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his
+brows again.
+
+Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft,
+and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name
+suggested.
+
+The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, passed
+him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor
+should be incited to do him harm.
+
+Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face.
+What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of
+his senses in this unfortunate place?
+
+He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of
+another, a long-gone voice:
+
+"Reuben of the Mill--Reuben of the Mill!"
+
+Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange
+being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the
+supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and
+said in a very calm and dignified manner:
+
+"Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely.
+There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried
+my thoughts away back to the past."
+
+The timid man came into the shop hopeful of a bargain.
+
+"It is a useful book, I should think," said Franklin, as if holding
+himself in restraint.
+
+He took the two other volumes that Father Humphrey had brought him and
+began to look them over.
+
+"Father Humphrey, what do you want for the whole library of the
+pamphlets?"
+
+"I do not exactly know what price to fix upon them. They might be
+valuable to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a
+library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow--and I speak
+out of my heart, and use no trade language--somehow I want you to buy
+them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?"
+
+"No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I
+will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for
+the present you shall keep the others for me."
+
+He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he
+saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the
+Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he
+had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life;
+for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather
+Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on
+the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same
+kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life.
+
+He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the
+pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the
+same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in
+his childhood.
+
+What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest,
+pure-minded old man!
+
+He started up.
+
+"I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he
+obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is
+the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was
+a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY.
+
+
+IN his usual serene manner--for he very rarely became excited,
+notwithstanding that his conduct and his absentmindedness had surprised
+old Humphrey--Mr. Franklin made his way again to the bookstore in the
+alley.
+
+Old Humphrey welcomed him with--
+
+"Well, I am glad to see you again, my American patron. Did you find the
+volume interesting?"
+
+"Yes, Father Humphrey, that was an interesting book, and there were some
+very curious comments in it. The notes on the Conventicles and the
+Toleration Act greatly interested me. The man who was the compiler of
+that book of pamphlets seems to have been a poet, and to have had
+relatives who were advocates of justice. I was struck by many wise
+comments that I found in it written in a peculiar hand. Father Humphrey,
+who do you suppose made those notes? Where did you find those pamphlets?
+How did they come to you?"
+
+"Well, that would be hard to say. Those volumes of pamphlets have been
+in the store many years, and I have often tried to find a purchaser for
+them. They must have come down from the times of the Restoration. I
+wouldn't wonder if they were as old as Cromwell's day. There is much
+about Banbury in them, and old Lord Halifax."
+
+"Old Lord Halifax!" said Franklin in surprise, walking about with a
+far-away look in his face again and his hands behind him. "I did not
+find that name in the volume that I took home. I had an uncle who
+received favors from old Lord Halifax."
+
+"You did, hey? Where did he live?"
+
+"In Ecton, or in Nottingham."
+
+"Now, that is curious. It may be that he made the library of pamphlets."
+
+"No, no; if he had, he would never have sold them. He was a well-to-do
+man. But you have not answered my questions as to how the library of
+pamphlets came to you."
+
+"I can't. I found them here when I took charge of the store. My wife's
+father, as I said, used to keep the store. He died suddenly in old age,
+and left the store to my wife. He had made a better living than I out of
+my business. So I took the store. I found the books here. I do not know
+where my father-in-law obtained them. It was his business to buy rare
+books, and then find a way to some antiquarian of means who might want
+them. The owner's name was not left in these books. I have looked for it
+many times. But there are names of Nottingham people there, and when old
+Lord Halifax used to visit London I tried to interest him in them, but
+he did not care to buy them."
+
+"Father Humphrey, what was your wife's father's name?"
+
+"His name was Axel, sir. He was a good man, sir. He attended the
+conventicles, sir, and became a Brownite, sir, and----"
+
+Was the American gentleman going daft again?
+
+He stopped at the name of _Axel_, and lifted his brows. He turned
+around, and bowed over with a look of intense interest.
+
+"Did you say Axel, Father Humphrey?"
+
+"Axel, your honor. Axel. I once heard him say that several of these
+pamphlets were suppressed after the Restoration, and that they were rare
+and valuable. I heard him say that they would be useful to a historian,
+sir."
+
+"I will pay you for the books, and you may hold them in trust for me.
+They will be sent for some day, or it may be that I will call for them
+myself. My uncle owned those books. It would have been the dearest thing
+of his life could the old man have seen what has now happened. Father
+Humphrey, one's heart's desires bring about strange things. They shape
+events after a man is dead. It seems to me as though I had been directed
+here. Father Humphrey, what do you think of such things?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. From the time that I first saw you my mind was
+turned to the pamphlets. I don't know why. Perhaps the owner's thought,
+or desires, or prayers led me. It is all very strange."
+
+"Yes, it is very strange," said Franklin, again walking to and fro with
+his hands behind him. "I wish that all good men's works could be
+fulfilled in this way."
+
+"How do you know that they are not?"
+
+"Let us hope that they are."
+
+"This is all very strange."
+
+"Very strange, very strange. It is the greatest of blessings in life to
+have had good ancestors. Uncle Ben was a good old man. I owe much to
+him, and now I seem to have met with him again--Uncle Benjamin, my
+father's favorite brother, who used to carry me sailing and made the
+boat a schoolroom for me in the harbor of Boston town."
+
+He added to himself in an absent way: "Samuel Franklin and I have
+promised to live so as to honor the character of this old man. I have a
+great task before me, and I can not tell what the issue will be, but I
+will hold these pamphlets and keep them until I can look into Samuel's
+face and say, 'England has done justice to America, and your father's
+influence has advanced the cause of human rights in the world.'"
+
+Would that day ever come?
+
+He went to Ecton, in Nottinghamshire, with his son, and there heard the
+chimes in the steeple that had been placed there by Thomas Franklin's
+influence. He visited the graves of his ancestors and the homes of many
+poor people who bore the Franklin name. He found three letters that his
+Uncle Benjamin had written home. He read in them the names of himself
+and Jenny. How his heart must have turned home on that visit! A
+biographer of Franklin tells his story in a beautiful simplicity that
+leaves no call for fictitious enlargement. He says: "Franklin discovered
+a cousin, a happy and venerable old maid; 'a good, clever woman,' he
+wrote, 'but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very
+cheerful'--a genuine Franklin, evidently. She gave him some of his Uncle
+Benjamin's old letters to read, with their pious rhymings and acrostics,
+in which occurred allusions to himself and his sister Jane when they
+were children. Continuing their journey, father and son reached Ecton,
+where so many successive Franklins had plied the blacksmith's hammer.
+They found that the farm of thirty acres had been sold to strangers. The
+old stone cottage of their ancestors was used for a school, but was
+still called the Franklin House. Many relations and connections they
+hunted up, most of them old and poor, but endowed with the inestimable
+Franklinian gift of making the best of their lot. They copied
+tombstones; they examined the parish register; they heard the chime of
+bells play which Uncle Thomas had caused to be purchased for the quaint
+old Ecton church seventy years before; and examined other evidences of
+his worth and public spirit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT.--DR. FRANKLIN'S ENGLISH FABLE.--THE
+DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS.
+
+
+WHEN Dr. Franklin was abroad the first time after the misadventure with
+Governor Keith, and was an agent of the colonies, his fame as a
+scientist gave him a place in the highest intellectual circles of
+England, and among his friends were several clergymen of the English
+Church and certain noblemen of eminent force and character.
+
+When in 1775, while he was again the colonial agent, the events in
+America became exciting, his position as the representative American in
+England compelled him to face the rising tide against his country. He
+was now sixty-nine years of age. He was personally popular, although the
+king came to regard him with disfavor, and once called him that
+"insidious man." But he never failed, at any cost of personal
+reputation, to defend the American cause.
+
+His good humor never forsook him, and the droll, quaint wisdom that had
+appeared in Poor Richard was turned to good account in the advocacy of
+the rights of the American colonies.
+
+One evening he dined at the house of a nobleman. It was in the year of
+the Concord fight, when political events in America were hurrying and
+were exciting all minds in both countries.
+
+They talked of literature at the party, but the political situation was
+uppermost in the minds of all.
+
+A gentleman was present whose literary mind made him very interesting to
+such circles.
+
+"The art of the illustration of the principles of life in fable," he
+said, "is exhausted. AEsop, La Fontaine, Gay, and others have left
+nothing further to be produced in parable teaching."
+
+The view was entertaining. He added:
+
+"There is not left a bird, animal, or fish that could be made the
+subject of any original fable."
+
+Dr. Franklin seemed to be very thoughtful for a time.
+
+"What is your opinion, doctor?" asked the literary gentleman.
+
+"You are wrong, sir. The opportunity to produce fables is limitless.
+Almost every event offers the fabric of a fable."
+
+"Could you write a fable on any of the events of the present time?"
+asked the lord curiously.
+
+"If you will order pen and ink and paper, I will give you a picture of
+the times in fable. A fable comes to me now."
+
+The lord ordered the writing material.
+
+What new animals or birds had taken possession of Franklin's fancy? No
+new animals or birds, but old ones in new relations.
+
+Franklin wrote out his fable and proceeded to read it. It was a short
+one, but the effect was direct and surprising. The lord's face must
+have changed when he listened to it, for it was a time when such things
+struck to the heart.
+
+The fable not only showed Dr. Franklin's invention, but his courage. It
+was as follows: "Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's
+barn and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him
+in his claws, and remounted with him to the air. He soon found that he
+had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare, for which,
+notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat.
+
+"The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very inconvenient, and,
+what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his
+body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold
+of his throat with her teeth.
+
+"'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will release you.'
+
+"'Very fine,' said the cat; 'I have no fancy to fall from this height
+and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop and
+let me down.' The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly."
+
+The eagle, of course, represented England, and the cat America.
+
+Dr. Franklin was a lover of little children and animals--among pet
+animals, of the American squirrel.
+
+When he returned to England the second time as an agent of the colonies,
+he wished to make some presents to his English friends who had families.
+
+He liked not only to please children, but to give them those things
+which would delight them. So he took over to England for presents a cage
+full of pranky little squirrels.
+
+Among the families of children whom he loved was Dr. Shipley's, the
+bishop, who had a delightful little daughter, and to her the great Dr.
+Franklin, who was believed to command the visible heavens, made a
+present of a cunning American squirrel.
+
+The girl came to love the pet. It was a truly American squirrel; it
+sought liberty. Franklin called it Mungo.
+
+The girl seems to have given the little creature his will, and let him
+sometimes go free among the oaks and hedgerows of the fair, green land.
+But one day it was caught by a dog or cat, or some other animal, and
+killed. His liberty proved his ruin. Poor Mungo!
+
+There was sorrow in the bishop's home over the loss of the pet, and the
+poor little girl sought consolation from the philosopher.
+
+But, philosopher that he was, he could not recall to life the little
+martyr to liberty. So he did about all that can be done in like cases:
+he wrote for her an epitaph for her pet, setting forth its misfortunes,
+and giving it a charitable history, which must have been very consoling.
+He did not indulge in any frivolous rhymes, but used the stately rhythms
+that befit a very solemn event.
+
+There is a perfect picture of the mother heart of Franklin in this
+little story. The world has ever asked why this man was so liked. The
+answer may be read here: A sympathy, guided by principle, that often
+found expression in humor.
+
+As in the case of good old Sam Adams, the children followed him.
+Blessed are those whom mothers and children love. It is the heart that
+has power. A touch of sympathy outlives tales of achievements of power,
+as in the story of Ulysses's dog. It is he who sympathizes the most with
+mankind that longest lives in human affections.
+
+A man's character may be known by the poet that the man seeks as his
+interpreter. Franklin's favorite poet as he grew old was Cowper. In all
+his duties of life he never lost that heart charm, the _grandfather_
+charm; it was active now when children still made his old age happy.
+
+How queerly he must have looked in England with his cage of little
+squirrels and the children following him in some good bishop's garden!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN.
+
+
+FRANKLIN'S paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which appeared in the year
+1729, at first published by Franklin and Meredith, and always very
+neatly printed, had grown, and its income became large. It did much of
+the thinking for the province. But Franklin made it what it was by his
+energy, perseverance, and faith. He returned to America, and the paper
+voiced his opinions.
+
+In the period of his early struggle, he was wheeling some printing paper
+in a wheelbarrow along the streets toward his office when he heard the
+tap, tap, tap of an old man's cane.
+
+He looked around. It was the cane of old Mr. Calamity. This man had
+advised him not to begin publishing.
+
+"Young man----"
+
+"Good morning, sir. I hope it finds you well."
+
+"It must be hard times when an editor has to carry his printing paper in
+a wheelbarrow."
+
+"The oracle said, 'Leave no stone unturned if you would find success.'"
+
+"Well, my young friend, if there is anybody that obeys the oracle in
+Pennsylvania it is you. You dress plainly; you do not indulge in many
+luxuries; you attend the societies and clubs that seek information; you
+ought to succeed, but you won't."
+
+The old man lifted his cane and brought it down on the flagging stones
+with a pump.
+
+"You won't, _now_!"
+
+He stood still for a moment to add to the impression of his words.
+
+"What is this I hear? The province is about to issue paper money? What
+did I tell you long ago? This is an age of rags. Paper money is rags.
+Governor Keith's affairs have all gone to ruin; it is unfortunate that
+he went away. And you are going to print the paper money for the
+province, are you? Listen to me: in a few years it will not be worth the
+paper it is printed on, and you will be glad to follow the example of
+Governor Keith, and get out of Philadelphia. The times are hard, but
+they are going to be harder. What hope is there for such a man as you?"
+
+Franklin set down his wheelbarrow.
+
+"My good sir, I am doing honest work. It will tell--I have confidence
+that it will tell."
+
+"Tell! Tell who?"
+
+"The world."
+
+"The world! The owls have not yet ceased to hoot in woods around
+Philadelphia, and he has a small world that is bounded by the hoot of an
+owl."
+
+"My father used to say that he who is diligent in his business shall
+stand before kings," quoting the Scripture.
+
+"Well, you may be as honest and as diligent in your business as you
+will, it is a small chance that you will ever have of standing before
+kings. What are you standing before now?--a wheelbarrow. That is as far
+as you have got. A promising young man it must be to stand before a
+wheelbarrow and talk about standing before kings!"
+
+"But, sir, I ought not to be standing before a wheelbarrow. I ought to
+be going on and coining time."
+
+"Well, go right along; you are on the way to Poverty Corner, and you
+will not need any guide post to find it; take up the handles of the
+wheelbarrow and go right on. Maybe the king will send a coach for you
+some day."
+
+He did--more than one king did.
+
+Franklin took the handles of the wheelbarrow, wondering which was the
+true prophet, his father's Scripture or cautious old Mr. Calamity. As he
+went on he heard the tap, tap, tap of the cane behind him, and a low
+laugh at times and the word "kings."
+
+He came to the office, and taking a huge bundle of printing paper on his
+shoulder went in. The cane passed, tap, tap, tapping. It had an ominous
+sound. But after the tap, tap, tap of the cane had gone, Franklin could
+still hear his old father's words in his spiritual memory, and he
+believed that they were true.
+
+We must continue the story of Mr. Calamity, so as to picture events from
+a Tory point of view. The incident of the wheelbarrow would long cause
+him to reproach the name of Franklin.
+
+The Pennsylvania Gazette not only grew and became a source of large
+revenue, so that Franklin had no more need to wheel to his office
+printing paper with his own hands, but it crowned with honor the work
+of which he was never ashamed. The printing of the paper money of the
+province added to his name, the success that multiplies success began
+its rounds with the years, and middle life found him a rich man, and his
+late return from England a man with the lever of power that molds
+opinion.
+
+Poor old Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with
+eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great
+newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight
+of years.
+
+Benjamin Franklin was a magnanimous man. He never wasted time in seeking
+the injury of any who ridiculed and belittled him. He had the largest
+charity for the mistakes in judgment that men make, and the
+opportunities of life were too precious for him to waste any time in
+beating the air where nothing was to be gained. Help the man who some
+time sought to injure you, and the day may come when he will help you,
+and such Peter-like experiences are among life's richest harvests. The
+true friendship gained by forgiveness has a breadth and depth of life
+that bring one of the highest joys of heaven to the soul.
+
+"I will study many things, for I must be proficient in something," said
+the poet Longfellow when young. Franklin studied everything--languages,
+literature, science, and art. His middle life was filled with studies;
+all life to him was a schoolroom. His studies in middle life bore fruit
+after he was threescore and ten years of age. They helped to make his
+paper powerful.
+
+Franklin's success greatly troubled poor old Mr. Calamity. After the
+printer made the great discovery that electricity was lightning, the old
+man opposed the use of lightning-rods.
+
+"What will that man Franklin do next?" he said. "He would oppose the
+Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning--he would defy
+Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the
+authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a
+dangerous man, the most dangerous man in all the colony."
+
+Old Mr. Calamity warned the people against the innovations of this
+dangerous man.
+
+One day, as he was resting under the great trees on the Schuylkill,
+there was brought to him grievous news. A clerk in the Pennsylvania
+Assembly came up to him and asked:
+
+"Do you know what has been done? The Assembly has appointed Franklin as
+agent to London; he is to go as the agent of all the colonies."
+
+"Sho! What do the colonies want of an agent in London? Don't the king
+know how to govern his colonies? And if we need an agent abroad, why
+should we send a printer and a lightning-rod man? Clerk, sit down! That
+man Franklin is a dangerous leader. 'An agent of the colonies in
+London!' Why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow.
+A curious man that to send to the court of England's sovereign, whose
+arms are the lion and the unicorn."
+
+"But there is a movement in England to tax the colonies."
+
+"And why shouldn't there be? If the king thinks it is advisable to tax
+the colonies for their own support, why should not his ministers be
+instructed to do so? The king is a power divinely ordained; the king
+can do no wrong. We ought to be willing to be taxed by such a virtuous
+and gracious sovereign. Taxation is a blessing; it makes us realize our
+privileges. Oh, that Franklin! that Franklin! there is something
+peculiarsome about him; but the end of that man is to fall. First
+carrying about printing paper in a wheelbarrow, then trifling with the
+lightning in a thunderstorm, and now going to the court of England as a
+representative of the colonies. The world never saw such an amazing
+spectacle as that in all its history. Do you know what the king may yet
+be compelled to do? He may yet have to punish his American colonies.
+Clouds are gathering--I can see. Well, let Franklin go, and take his
+wheelbarrow with him! What times these are!"
+
+Franklin was sent to England again greatly to the discomfort of Mr.
+Calamity.
+
+The English Parliament passed an act called the Stamp Act, taxing the
+colonies by placing a stamp on all paper to be used in legal
+transactions. It was passed against the consent of the colonies, who
+were allowed to have no representatives in the foreign government, and
+the measure filled the colonies with indignation. There were not many in
+America like Mr. Calamity who believed the doctrine that the king could
+do no wrong. King George III approved of the Stamp Act, not only as a
+means of revenue, but as an assertion of royal authority.
+
+The colonies were opposed to the use of the stamped paper. Were they to
+submit to be governed by the will of a foreign power without any voice
+in the measures of the government imposed upon them? Were their lives
+and property at the command of a despotism, without any source of
+appeal to justice?
+
+The indignation grew. The spirit of resistance to the arbitrary act of
+tyranny was everywhere to be met and seen.
+
+From the time of his arrival in London, in 1764, at the age of
+fifty-nine, Franklin gave all his energies for a long time to opposing
+the Stamp Act, and, after it had passed, to securing its repeal. He was,
+as it were, America in London.
+
+The Stamp Act, largely through his influence, was at last repealed, and
+joy filled America. Processions were formed in honor of the king, and
+bonfires blazed on the hills. In Boston the debtors were set free from
+jail, that all might unite in the jubilee.
+
+Franklin's name filled the air.
+
+Old Mr. Calamity heard of it amid the ringing of bells.
+
+"Franklin, Franklin," he said on the occasion, turning around in
+vexation and taking a pinch of snuff, "why, I have seen him carrying
+printing paper in a wheelbarrow!"
+
+Philadelphia had a day of jubilee in honor of the repeal of the Stamp
+Act, and Mr. Calamity with cane and snuffbox wandered out to see the
+sights. The streets were in holiday attire, bells were ringing, and here
+and there a shout for Franklin went up from an exulting crowd. As often
+as the prudent old gentleman heard that name he turned around, pounding
+his cane and taking a pinch of snuff.
+
+He went down to a favorite grove on the banks of the Schuylkill. He
+found it spread with tables and hung with banners.
+
+"Sir," he said to a local officer, "is there to be a banquet here?"
+
+"Yes, your Honor, _the_ banquet is to be here. Have you not heard?"
+
+"What is the banquet to be for?"
+
+"In honor of Franklin, sir."
+
+Mr. Calamity turned round on his cane and took out his snuffbox.
+
+There was an outburst of music, a great shout, and a hurrying of people
+toward the green grove.
+
+Something loomed in air.
+
+The old gentleman, putting his hand over his eye as a shade, looked up
+in great surprise.
+
+"What--what is that?"
+
+What indeed!
+
+"A boat sailing in the air?" He added, "Franklin must have invented
+that!"
+
+"No," said the official, "that is the great barge."
+
+"What is it for?"
+
+"It will exhibit itself shortly," said the official.
+
+It came on, covered with banners that waved in the river winds.
+
+The old man read the inscription upon it--"_Franklin_."
+
+"I told you so," he said.
+
+"It will thunder soon," said the official. "Don't you see it is armed
+with guns?"
+
+The barge stopped at the entrance of the grove. A discharge of cannon
+followed from the boat, which was forty feet long. A great shout
+followed the salute. The whole city seemed cheering. The name that
+filled the air was "_Franklin_."
+
+Mr. Calamity turned around and around, planting his cane down in a
+manner that left a circle, and then taking out of his pocket his
+snuffbox.
+
+He saw a boy cheering.
+
+"Boy!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"What are _you_ shouting for?"
+
+"For the Stamp Act, sir!"
+
+"That is right, my boy."
+
+"No, for Franklin!"
+
+"For Franklin? Why, I have seen him carrying a lot of printing paper
+through the streets in a wheelbarrow! May time be gracious to me, so
+that I may see him hanged! Boy, see here----"
+
+But the banners were moving into the green grove, and the boy had gone
+after them.
+
+Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia the most popular man in the
+colonies, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.
+
+"Only Heaven can save us now," said troubled Mr. Calamity. "There's
+treason in the air!"
+
+The old gentleman was not a bad man; he saw life on the side of shadow,
+and had become blind to the sunny side of life. He was one of those
+natures that are never able to come out of the past.
+
+The people amid the rising prosperity ceased to believe in old Mr.
+Calamity as a prophet. He felt this loss of faith in him. He assumed
+the character of the silent wise man at times. He would pass people whom
+he had warned of the coming doom, shaking his head, and then turning
+around would strike his cane heavily on the pavement, which would cause
+the one he had left behind to look back. He would then lift his cane as
+though it were the rod of a magician.
+
+"Old Mr. Calamity is coming," said a Philadelphia schoolboy to another,
+one new school day in autumn. "See, he is watching Franklin, and is
+trying to avoid meeting him."
+
+Their teacher came along the street.
+
+"Why, boys, are you watching the old gentleman?"
+
+"He is trying to avoid meeting Mr. Franklin, sir."
+
+"Calamity comes to avoid Industry," said the teacher, as he saw the two
+men. Franklin was the picture of thrift, and his very gait was full of
+purpose and energy. "I speak in parable," said the teacher, "but that
+old gentleman is always in a state of alarm, and he seems to find
+satisfaction in predicting evil, and especially of Mr. Franklin. The
+time was when the young printer avoided him--he was startled, I fancy,
+whenever he heard the cane on the pavement; he must have felt the force
+of the suggestion that Calamity was after him. Now he has become
+prosperous, and the condition is changed. Calamity flees from him. See,
+my boys, the two men."
+
+They stopped on the street.
+
+Mr. Calamity passed them on the opposite side, and Mr. Franklin came
+after him, walking briskly. The latter stopped at the door of his
+office, but the old gentleman hurried on. When he reached the corner of
+the street he planted his cane down on the pavement and looked around.
+He saw the popular printer standing before his office door on the
+street. The two looked at each other. The old man evidently felt
+uncomfortable. He turned the corner, out of sight, when an extraordinary
+movement appeared.
+
+Mr. Calamity reached back his long, ruffled arm, and his cane, in view
+of the philosopher, the teacher, and the boys, and shook the cane
+mysteriously as though he were writing in the air. He may have had in
+mind some figure of the ancient prophets. Up and down went the cane,
+around and around, with curves of awful import. It looked to those on
+the street he had left as though the sharp angle of the house on the
+corner had suddenly struck out a living arm in silent warning.
+
+The arm and cane disappeared. A head in a wide-rimmed hat looked around
+the angle as if to see the effect of the writing in the air. Then the
+arm and cane appeared again as before. It was like the last remnant of a
+cloud when the body has passed.
+
+The teacher saw the meaning of the movement.
+
+"Boys," said he, "if you should ever be pursued by Mr. Calamity in any
+form, remember the arm and cane. See Franklin laugh! Industry in the end
+laughs at Calamity, and Diligence makes the men who 'stand before
+kings.' It is the law of life. Detraction is powerless before will and
+work, and as a rule whatever any one dreams that he may do, he will do."
+
+The boys had received an object lesson, and would long carry in their
+minds the picture of the mysterious arm and cane.
+
+In a right intention one is master of the ideal of life. If
+circumstances favor, he becomes conscious that life is no longer master
+of him, but that he is the master of life. This sense of power and
+freedom is noble; in vain does the shadow of Calamity intrude upon it;
+the visions of youth become a part of creations of the world; the dream
+of the architect is a mansion now; of the scientist, a road, a railway
+over rivers and mountains; of the orator and poet, thoughts that live.
+Even the young gardner finds his dreams projected into his farm. So
+ideals become realities, and thoughts become seeds that multiply. Mr.
+Calamity may shake his cane, but it will be behind a corner. Happy is he
+who makes facts of his thoughts that were true to life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE KING'S ARMS.
+
+
+OUR gentlemanly friend Mr. Calamity was now very, very old, long past
+the milestone of eighty. As Philadelphia grew, the streets lengthening,
+the fine houses rising higher and higher, he began to doubt that he was
+a prophet, and he shunned Benjamin Franklin when the latter was in the
+country.
+
+One day, long before the Stamp Act, he passed the Gazette office, when
+the prosperous editor appeared.
+
+"It's coming," said he, tap, tapping on. "What did I tell you?"
+
+"What is coming?" asked our vigorous king of prosperity.
+
+"War!" He became greatly excited. "Indians! they're coming with the
+tommyhawk and scalping knife, and we'll need to be thankful if they
+leave us our heads."
+
+There were indeed Indian troubles and dire events at that time, but not
+near Philadelphia.
+
+Time passed. He was a Tory, and he heard of Concord and Lexington, and
+he ceased to read the paper that Franklin printed, and his cane flew
+scatteringly as it passed the office door. To him that door was
+treason.
+
+One evening he lifted his cane as he was passing.
+
+"The king will take the puny colonies in his mighty arms and dash them
+against the high rock of the sea. He will dash them in pieces 'like a
+potter's vessel.' What are we to the throne of England!"
+
+He heard of Bunker Hill, and his old heart beat free again.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he said. "King George took the rebels in his arms
+and beat them against Bunker Hill. He'll plant his mighty heel on
+Philadelphia some day, and may it fall on the head of Benjamin Franklin,
+for of all rebels he is the most dangerous. Oh, that Franklin! He is now
+advocating the independence of the colonies!"
+
+The Provincial Congress began to assemble, and cavalcades went out to
+meet the members as they approached the city on horseback. The Virginia
+delegation were so escorted into the city with triumph. The delegates
+were now assembling to declare the colony free. Independence was in the
+air.
+
+Terrible days were these to Mr. Calamity. As often as he heard the word
+"independence" on the street his cane would fly up, and after this spasm
+his snuffbox would come out of his pocket for refreshment. His snuffbox
+was silver, and on it in gold were the king's arms.
+
+He was a generous man despite his fears. He was particularly generous
+with his snuff. He liked to pass it around on the street, for he thereby
+displayed the king's arms on his snuffbox.
+
+When the Massachusetts delegates came, the city was filled with joy. But
+Samuel Adams was the soul of the movement for independence, and after
+his arrival independence was more and more discussed, which kept poor
+old Mr. Calamity's cane continually flying. But his feelings were
+terribly wounded daily by another event of common occurrence. As he
+passed the snuffbox to the Continentals he met, and showed the royal
+arms upon it, they turned away from him; they would not take snuff from
+the royal snuffbox. These were ominous times indeed.
+
+The province of Pennsylvania had decreed that no one should hold any
+office derived from the authority of the king. For a considerable period
+there was no government in Pennsylvania, no authority to punish a crime
+or collect a debt, but all things went on orderly, peacefully, and well.
+
+Old Mr. Calamity used to sit under the great elm tree at Shakamaxon in
+the long summer days and extend his silver snuffbox to people as they
+passed. The tree was full of singing birds; flowers bloomed by the way,
+and the river was bright; but to him the glory of the world had fled,
+for the people no longer would take snuff from the box with the royal
+arms.
+
+One day a lady passed who belonged to the days of the Penns and the
+Proprietors.
+
+"Madam Bond," said he, "comfort me."
+
+A patriot passed. The old man held out the snuffbox. The man hesitated
+and started back.
+
+"The royal arms will have to go," said the patriot.
+
+"Where from?" said the old man excited.
+
+"From everywhere. We are about to decree a new world."
+
+"They will never take these golden arms from that snuffbox. Sir, do you
+know that box was given to the Proprietor by Queen Charlotte herself?"
+
+"Well, the golden arms will have to come off it; they will have to come
+down everywhere. No--I thank you," he continued. "I can not ever take
+snuff again out of a snuffbox like that."
+
+Poor old Mr. Calamity turned to the lady.
+
+"What am I to do? Where am I to go? You do pity me, don't you?"
+
+A little girl passed near. He held out the box. The girl ran. The poor
+old man began to tremble.
+
+"I have trembling fits sometimes," said he. "Take a pinch of snuff with
+me; it will steady me. Take a pinch of snuff for Queen Charlotte's
+sake."
+
+He shook like the leaves of the elm tree in the summer wind.
+
+Dame Bond hesitated.
+
+He trembled more violently. "Do you hesitate to honor the name of Queen
+Charlotte?" he said.
+
+The woman took a pinch of snuff in memory of the days gone. He grew
+calmer.
+
+"That strengthens me," he said. "What am I to do? The things that I see
+daily tear me all to pieces. It broke my heart to see that child run
+away. I can not cross the sea, and if they were to tear down the king's
+arms from the State House I would die. I would tremble until I grew cold
+and my breath left me. You do pity me, don't you? I sometimes grow cold
+now when I tremble."
+
+It was June. A bugle rang out in the street.
+
+"What is that?" he asked of a volunteer who passed by.
+
+"It is the summons."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"For the assembling of the people."
+
+"In God's name, for what? Is a royal messenger coming?"
+
+"No. They are going to tear down the king's arms from all the buildings
+at six, and are going to pile them up on tar barrels and make a bonfire
+of them when the sun goes down. The flame will ascend to heaven. That
+will be the end of the reign of King George III in this province
+forever!"
+
+The old man trembled again.
+
+"I am cold," he said.--"Dame Bond, take another pinch of snuff out of
+the silver box with the golden arms--it helps me."
+
+Dame Bond once more paid her respects to Queen Charlotte.
+
+"Before God, you do not tell me, sir, that they are going to take down
+the king's arms from the State House?"
+
+"The king's arms are to be torn down from all the buildings, my aged
+friend; from the inns, the shops, the houses, the State House, and all."
+
+"Dame Bond, my limbs fail. I shall never go home again. Tell the family
+as you pass that I shall not return to tea with them. Let me pass the
+evening here, where Penn made his treaty with the Indians. To-night is
+the last of Pennsylvania. I never wish to see another morning."
+
+[Illustration: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL ARMS.]
+
+At seven o'clock in the long, fiery day the great bell rang. The bugle
+sounded again. People ran hither and thither. A rocket flared across
+the sky, and a great cry went up:
+
+"Down with the arms!"
+
+A procession headed with soldiers passed through the streets of the city
+bearing with them a glittering sign. Military music filled the air.
+
+The old man's daughter Mercy came to see him under the tree and to
+persuade him to go home with her.
+
+"Mercy--daughter--what are they carrying away?"
+
+"The king's arms from the State House; that is all, father."
+
+"All! all! Say you rather that it is the world!"
+
+The roseate light faded from the high hills and the waters. The sea
+birds screamed, and cool breezes made the multitudinous leaves of the
+tree to quiver.
+
+"Mercy--daughter--and what was that?"
+
+"They are lighting a bonfire, father."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To burn the king's arms."
+
+"What will we do without a king?"
+
+"They will have a Congress."
+
+A great shout went up on a near hill.
+
+"But, Mercy--daughter--a Congress is men. A Congress is not a power
+ordained. Oh, that I should ever live to see a day like this! 'Twas
+Franklin did it. I can see it all--it was he; it was the printer boy
+from Boston."
+
+Darkness fell. It was nine o'clock now. There was a discharge of
+firearms, and a great flame mounted up from the pile on the hill, and
+put out the stars and filled the heavens.
+
+"Father, let us go home."
+
+"No, let me stay here under the tree."
+
+"Why, father?"
+
+"The palsy is coming upon me--I can feel it coming, and here I would
+die."
+
+"Oh, father, return with me, for my sake!"
+
+"Well, help me, then."
+
+She lifted him, and they went back slowly to the street.
+
+The city was deserted. The people were out to the hill. There was a
+crackling of dry boards in the bonfire, and the flame grew redder and
+redder, higher and higher.
+
+They came to the State House. The old man looked up. The face of the
+house was bare; the king's arms were gone.
+
+He sank down on the step of an empty house and began to tremble. He took
+out his silver snuffbox and held it shaking.
+
+"For Queen Charlotte's sake, daughter," he said.
+
+She touched the box, to please him.
+
+"Gone," he said; "the king's arms are gone, and I have no wish to
+survive them. I feel the chill coming on--'tis the last time. Take the
+silver box, daughter; for my sake hide it, and always be true to the
+king's arms upon it. As for me, I shall never see the morning!"
+
+He lay there in the moonlight, his eyes fixed on the State House where
+the king's arms had been.
+
+The people came shouting back, bearing torches that were going out.
+Houses were being illuminated.
+
+He ceased to tremble. They sent for a medical man and for his near kin.
+These people were among the multitude. They came late and found him
+lying in the moonlight white and cold.
+
+The bells are ringing. Independence is declared. The king's rule in the
+province is gone forever. Benjamin Franklin's name commands the respect
+of lovers of liberty throughout the world. He is fulfilling the vision
+of Uncle Benjamin, the poet. He has added virtue to virtue, intelligence
+to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith. So the
+ladder of success ascends. Like his great-uncle Tom, his influence has
+caused the bells to ring; it will do so again.
+
+Franklin heard of his great popularity in America while in England.
+
+"Now I will call for the pamphlets," he said. He again walked alone in
+his room. He faced the future. "Not yet, not yet," he added, referring
+to the pamphlets. "The struggle for liberty has only begun. I will order
+the pamphlets when the colonies are free. The hopes in them will then be
+fulfilled, and not until then."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+JENNY AGAIN.
+
+
+FRANKLIN was suddenly recalled to America.
+
+He stood at Samuel Franklin's door.
+
+Samuel Franklin was an old man now.
+
+"I have come to Boston once more," said Benjamin Franklin. "I would go
+to my parents' graves and the grave of Uncle Ben. But they are in the
+enemy's camp now. Samuel, I found your father's pamphlets in London."
+
+"Is it possible? Where are they now?"
+
+"I will return them to you when the colonies shall be free. The reading
+of them shall be a holiday in our old lives."
+
+"I may never live to see that day. Benjamin, I am an old man. I want
+that you should will those pamphlets to my family."
+
+The old men went out and stood by the gate late in the evening. The moon
+was rising over the harbor; it was a warm, still night. Sentries were
+pacing to and fro, for Boston was surrounded by sixteen thousand hostile
+men in arms.
+
+The nine o'clock bell rang.
+
+"I must go back to the camp," said Franklin, for he had met Samuel
+within the American lines.
+
+"Cousin Benjamin, these are perilous times," said Samuel. "Justice is
+what the world needs. Make those pamphlets live, and return them with
+father's name honored in yours to my family."
+
+"I will do so or perish. I am in dead earnest."
+
+He ascended the hill and looked down on the British camps in Boston
+town.
+
+Franklin had been sent to Cambridge as a commissioner to Washington's
+army at this time. It was October, 1775.
+
+He longed to see his sister Jane--"Jenny"--once more. His sister was now
+past sixty years of age. Foreseeing the siege of Boston, he had written
+to her to come to Philadelphia and to make her home with him. But she
+was unwilling to remove from her own city and old home, though she was
+forced to find shelter within the lines of the American army.
+
+One night, after her removal from Boston, there came a gentle knock at
+the door of her room. She opened it guardedly, and looked earnestly into
+the face of the stranger.
+
+"Jenny!"
+
+"My own brother!--do I indeed see you alive? Let me put my hand into
+yours once more."
+
+He drew her to him.
+
+"Jenny, I have longed for this hour."
+
+"But what brings you here at this time? You did not come wholly to see
+me? Sit down, and let us bring up all the past again."
+
+He sat down beside her, holding her hand.
+
+"Jenny, you ask what brings me here. Do you remember Uncle Ben?"
+
+"Whose name you bear? Never shall I forget him. The memory of a great
+man grows as years increase."
+
+"Jenny, I've heard the bells in Ecton ring, and I found in
+Nottinghamshire letters from Uncle Benjamin, and they coupled your name
+when you was a girl with mine when I was a boy; do you remember what he
+said to us on that showery summer day when all the birds were singing?"
+
+"Yes, Ben--I must call you 'Ben'--he said that 'more than wealth, more
+than fame, more than anything, was the power of the human heart, and
+that that power grows by seeking the good of others.'"
+
+"What he said was true, but that was not all he said."
+
+"He told you to be true to your country--to live for the things that
+live."
+
+"Jenny, that is why I am here. He told you to be true to your home. You
+have been that, Jenny. You took care of father when he was sick for the
+last time, and you anticipated all his wants. I love you for that,
+Jenny."
+
+"But it made me happy to do it, and the memory of it makes me happy
+now."
+
+"And mother, you were her life in her old age. They are gone, both gone,
+but your heart made them happy when their steps were retreating. O
+Jenny, Jenny, your hair is turning gray, and mine is gray already. You
+have fulfilled Uncle Benjamin's charge under the trees. You have been
+true to your home."
+
+"I only wish that I could have done more for our folks; and you, Ben--I
+can see you now as you were on that summer day--you have been true to
+your country."
+
+"Jenny, do you remember the old writing-school master, George Brownell?
+You do? Well, I have a great secret for you. I used to tell my affairs
+to you many years ago. I am in favor of the _independence_ of the
+colonies; and when Congress shall so declare, I shall put my name, that
+the old schoolmaster taught me to write, to the Declaration."
+
+"Ben, it may cost you your life!"
+
+"Then I will leave Uncle Ben's name in mine to the martyrs' list. I must
+be true to my country as you have been to your family--I must live for
+the things that live. I am Uncle Ben's pamphlet, Jenny. I know not what
+may befall me. This may be the last time that I shall ever visit Boston
+town--my beloved Boston--but I have found power with men by seeking
+their good, and my prayer is that I may one day meet you again, and have
+you say to me that I have honored Uncle Ben's name. I would rather have
+that praise from you than from any other person in the world: 'More than
+wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of the human
+heart.'"
+
+It was night. The camp of Washington was glimmering far away. Boston
+Neck was barricaded. There was a ship in the mouth of the Charles. A
+cannon boomed on Charlestown's hills.
+
+"Jenny, I must go. When shall we meet again? Not until I have put Uncle
+Ben's name to the declaration of American liberty and independence is
+won. I must prepare the minds of the people to resolve to become an
+independent nation. My sister, my own true sister, what events may pass
+before we shall see each other again! When you were younger I made you a
+present of a spinning-wheel; later I sent you finery. I wish to leave
+you now this watch. The hours of the struggle for human liberty are at
+hand. Count the hours!"
+
+They parted at the gate. The leaves were falling. It was the evening of
+the year. He looked back when he had taken a few steps. He was nearly
+seventy years of age. Yet his great work of life was before him--it was
+yet to do, while white-haired Jenny should count the hours on the clock
+of time.
+
+Sam Adams had grasped the idea that the appeal to arms must end in the
+independence of the colonies. Franklin saw the rising star of the
+destiny of the union of the colonies to secure justice from the crown.
+He left Boston to give his whole soul to this great end.
+
+The next day they went out to Tuft's Hill and looked down on the
+encamped town, the war ships, and the sea. It was an Indian summer. The
+trees were scarlet, the orchards were laden with fruit, and the fields
+were yellow with corn.
+
+Over the blue sea rose the Castle, now gone. The smoke from many British
+camps curled up in the still, sunny air.
+
+The Providence House Indian (now at the farm of the late Major Ben
+Perley Poore) gleamed over the roofs of the State House and its
+viceregal signs, which are now as then. Boston was three hills then, and
+the whole of the town did not appear as clearly from the hills on the
+west--the Sunset Hills--as now.
+
+"Jenny, liberty is the right of mankind, and the cause of liberty is the
+cause of mankind," said Franklin. "Why should England hold provinces in
+America to whom she will allow no voice in her councils, whose people
+she may tax and condemn to prisons and death at the will of the king? I
+have told you my heart. America has the right of freedom, and the
+colonies must be free!"
+
+They walked along the cool hill ways, and he looked longingly back at
+the glimmering town.
+
+"Beloved Boston!" he said. "So thou wilt ever be to me!" He turned to
+his sister: "I used to tell my day dreams to you--they have come true,
+in part. I have been thinking again. If the colonies could be made free,
+and I were to be left a rich man, I would like to make a gift to the
+schools of Boston, whose influence would live as long as they shall
+last. Sister, I was too poor in my boyhood to answer the call of the
+school bells. I would like to endow the schools there with a fund for
+gifts or medals that would make every boy happy who prepares himself
+well for the work of life, be he rich or poor. I would like also to
+establish there a fund to help young apprentices, and to open public
+places of education and enjoyment which would be free to all people."
+
+"You are Silence Dogood still," said Mrs. Mecom. "Day dreams in your
+life change into realities. I believe that all you now have in your
+heart to do will be done. Benjamin, these are great dreams."
+
+"It may be that I will be sent abroad again."
+
+"Benjamin, we may be very old when we meet again. But the colonies will
+be made free, and you will live to give a medal to the schools of Boston
+town. I must prophesy for you now, for Uncle Benjamin is gone. I began
+life with you--you carried me in your arms and led me by the hand. We
+used to sit by the east windows together; may we some day sit down
+together by the windows of the west and review the book of life, and
+close the covers. We may then read in spirit the pamphlets of Uncle
+Ben."
+
+There was a thunder of guns at the Castle. War ships were coming into
+the harbor from the bay. Franklin beheld them with indignation.
+
+"The people must not only have justice," he said, "they must have
+liberty."
+
+They returned by the Cambridge road under the bowery elms. It would be a
+long time before they would see each other again.
+
+In such beneficent thoughts of Boston the Franklin medal had its origin.
+It was coined out of his heart, that echoed wherever it went or was
+destined to go, "Beloved Boston!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY.
+
+
+THE fame of Benjamin Franklin now filled America. On the continent of
+Europe he was held to be the first citizen of America. In France he was
+ranked among the sages and philosophers of antiquity, and his name
+associated with the greatest benefactors of the human race. It was his
+electrical discovery that gave him this solid and universal fame, but
+his Poor Richard's proverbs, which had several times been translated
+into French, were greatly quoted on the continent of Europe, and made
+his popularity as unique as it was general.
+
+The old Boston schoolmaster who probably taught little Ben to flourish
+with his pen could have little dreamed of the documents of state to
+which this curious characteristic of the pen would be attached. Four of
+these documents were papers that led the age, and became the charters of
+human freedom and progress and began a new order of government in the
+world. They were the Declaration of Independence, the Alliance with
+France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the draft of the
+Constitution of the United States.
+
+In his service as agent of the colonies and as a member of the
+Continental Congress his mind clearly saw how valuable to the American
+cause an alliance with France and other Continental powers would be.
+While in Europe as an agent of the colonies he gave his energy and
+experience to assisting a secret committee to negotiate foreign aid in
+the war. It was a time of invisible ink, and Franklin instructed this
+committee how to use it. He saw that Europe must be engaged in the
+struggle to make the triumph of liberty in America complete and
+permanent.
+
+It was 1776. Franklin was now seventy years old and was in America. The
+colonies had resolved to be free. A committee had been chosen by the
+Continental Congress in Philadelphia to prepare a draft for a formal
+Declaration of Independence, a paper whose principles were destined to
+emancipate not only the united colonies but the world. The committee
+consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert R.
+Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Mr. Jefferson was appointed by this
+committee to write the Declaration, and he made it a voice of humanity
+in the language of the sages. He put his own glorious thoughts of
+liberty into it, and he made these thoughts trumpet tones, and they,
+like the old Liberty Bell, have never ceased to ring in the events of
+the world.
+
+When Jefferson had written the inspired document he showed it to
+Franklin and Adams, and asked them if they had any suggestions to offer
+or changes to make.
+
+Franklin saw how grandly and adequately Jefferson had done the work. He
+had no suggestion of moment to offer. But the composition was criticised
+in Congress, which brought out Franklin's wit, as the following story
+told by an eye-witness will show:
+
+"When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of
+Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave
+offense to some members. The words 'Scotch and other foreign
+auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country.
+Severe strictures on the conduct of the British king in negativing our
+repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves
+were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not
+yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the
+offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen
+continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was
+sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to
+('_that I was writhing under_,' he says elsewhere) these mutilations.
+
+"'I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid
+becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I
+took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a
+journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, having
+served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first
+concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He
+composed it in these words, _John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats
+for ready Money_, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he
+would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed
+it to thought the word _hatter_ tautologous, because followed by the
+words _makes hats_, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The
+next observed that the word _makes_ might as well be omitted, because
+his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their
+mind they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said
+he thought the words _for ready money_ were useless, as it was not the
+custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected
+to pay. They were parted with; and the inscription now stood, 'John
+Thompson sells hats.' '_Sells_ hats?' says his next friend; 'why, nobody
+will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?'
+It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one
+painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to _John
+Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'"
+
+"We must all hang together," said Mr. Hancock, when the draft had been
+accepted and was ready to be signed.
+
+"Or else we shall hang separately," Franklin is reported to have
+answered.
+
+John Hancock, President of the Congress, put his name to the document in
+such a bold hand that "the King of England might have read it without
+spectacles." Franklin set his signature with its looped flourish among
+the immortals. In the same memorable month of July Congress appointed
+Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams to prepare a national seal.
+
+The plan submitted by Franklin for the great seal of the United States
+was poetic and noble. It is thus described:
+
+"Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in
+his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit
+of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud, expressive
+of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who stands on the
+shore, and, extending his hand over the sea, causes it to overflow
+Pharaoh. Motto: 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.'"
+
+This device was rejected by Congress, which decided upon a more simple
+allegory, and the motto _E Pluribus Unum_.
+
+It was a time of rejoicing in Philadelphia now, and of the great events
+Jefferson was the voice and Franklin was the soul.
+
+The citizens, as we have shown, tore down all the king's arms and royal
+devices from the government houses, courtrooms, shops, and taverns. They
+made a huge pile of tar barrels and placed these royal signs upon them.
+On a fiery July night they put the torch to the pile, and the flames
+curled up, and the black smoke rose in a high column under the moon and
+stars, and the last vestige of royalty disappeared in the bonfire.
+
+Franklin heard the Liberty Bell ring out on the adoption of the
+Declaration of Independence by Congress. He saw the bonfire rise in the
+night of these eventful days, and heard the shouts of the people. He had
+set his hand to the Declaration. He desired next to set it to a treaty
+of alliance with France. Would this follow?
+
+A very strange thing had happened in the colonies some seven months or
+more before--in November, 1775. A paper was presented to Congress,
+coming from a mysterious source, that stated that a stranger had arrived
+in Philadelphia who brought an important message from a foreign power,
+and who wished to meet a committee of Congress in secret and to make a
+confidential communication.
+
+Congress was curious, but it at first took no official notice of the
+communication. But, like the Cumaean sibyl to Tarquin, the message came
+again. It was not received, but it made an unofficial impression. It was
+repeated. Who was this mysterious stranger? Whence came he, and what had
+he to offer?
+
+The curiosity grew, and Congress appointed a committee consisting of
+John Jay, Dr. Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to meet the foreigner and
+to receive his proposition.
+
+The committee appointed an hour to meet the secret messenger, and a
+place, which was one of the rooms of Carpenters' Hall.
+
+At the time appointed they went to the place and waited the coming of
+the unknown ambassador.
+
+There entered the room an elderly man of dignified appearance and
+military bearing. He was lame; he may have been at some time wounded. He
+spoke with a French accent. It was plainly to be seen that he was a
+French military officer.
+
+Why had he come here? Where had he been hiding?
+
+The committee received him cautiously and inquired in regard to the
+nature of his mission.
+
+"His Most Christian Majesty the King of France," said he, "has heard of
+your struggle for a defense of your rights and for liberty. He has
+desired me to meet you as his representative, and to express to you his
+respect and sympathy, and to say to you in secrecy that should the time
+come when you needed aid, his assistance would not be withheld."
+
+This was news of moment. The committee expressed their gratitude and
+satisfaction, and said:
+
+"Will you give us the evidence of your authority that we may present it
+to Congress?"
+
+His answer was strange.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, drawing his hand across his throat, "I shall take
+care of my head."
+
+"But," said one of the committee, "in an event of such importance we
+desire to secure the friendly opinion of Congress."
+
+"Gentlemen," making the same gesture, "I shall take care of my head." He
+then said impressively: "If you want arms, you may have them; if you
+want ammunition, you may have it; if you want money, you may have it.
+Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head."
+
+He went out and disappeared from public view. He is such a mysterious
+character in our history as to recall the man with the Iron Mask. Did he
+come from the King of France? None knew, or could ever tell.
+
+Diplomacy employed secret messengers at this time. It was full of
+suggestions, intrigues, and mysteries.
+
+But there was one thing that this lame but courtly French officer did:
+he made an impression on the minds of the committee that the colonies
+had a friend in his "Most Christian Majesty the King of France," and
+from him they might hope for aid and for an alliance in their struggle
+for independence. Here was topic indeed for the secret committee.
+
+On the 26th of September, 1776, Congress elected three ambassadors to
+represent the American cause in the court of France; they were Silas
+Deane, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin. Before leaving the country
+Franklin collected all the money that he could command, some four
+thousand pounds, and lent it to Congress. Taking with him his two
+grandsons, he arrived at Nantes on the 7th of December of that year,
+and he received in that city the first of the many ovations that his
+long presence in France was destined to inspire. He went to Paris, and
+took up his residence at Passy, a village some two miles from the city,
+on a high hill overlooking the city and the Seine. It was a lovely place
+even in Franklin's day. Here have lived men of royal endowments--Rossini,
+Bellini, Lamartine, Grisi. The arrival of Franklin there, where he lived
+many years, made the place famous. For Franklin, as a wonder-worker of
+science and as an apostle of human liberty, was looked upon more as a
+god than a man in France--a Plato, a Cato, a Socrates, with the demeanor
+of a Procion.
+
+His one hope now was that he would be able to set the signature which he
+had left on the Declaration of Independence on a Treaty of Alliance
+between the States of America and his Most Christian Majesty the King of
+France. Will he, O shade of the old schoolmaster of Boston town?
+
+Jamie the Scotchman, the type of the man who ridicules and belittles
+one, but claims the credit of his success when that one is successful,
+was very old now. Fine old Mr. Calamity, who could only see things in
+the light of the past, would prophesy no more. A young man with a
+purpose is almost certain to meet men like these in his struggles. Not
+all are able to pass such people in the Franklin spirit. He heard what
+such men had to say, tried to profit by their criticism, but wasted no
+time or energy in dispute or retaliation. The seedtime of life is too
+short, and its hours are too few, to spend in baffling detraction. Time
+makes changes pleasantly, and tells the truth concerning all men. A high
+purpose seeking fulfillment under humble circumstances is sure to be
+laughed at. It is that which stands alone that looks queer.
+
+After Samuel Adams, Franklin was among the first of those leaders whose
+heart sought the independence of the colonies. The resolution for
+independence, passed on July 4, 1776, set ringing the Liberty Bell on
+the State House of Philadelphia. Couriers rode with the great news of
+the century and of the ages to Boston, which filled the old town with
+joy.
+
+They brought a copy of the Declaration with them, and a day was
+appointed for the reading of it from the front window of the State
+House, under the shadow of the king's arms, the classic inscription, and
+the lion and the unicorn.
+
+Old, tottering Jamie the Scotchman was among those who heard the great
+news with an enkindled heart. He, who had so laughed at little Ben's
+attempts for the public welfare, now claimed more and more to have been
+the greatest friend of the statesman's youth. It was the delight of his
+ninety or more years to make this claim wherever he went, and when the
+courier brought the news of the Declaration, we may see him going to
+Jane Mecom's house.
+
+"You all know what a friend I was to that boy, and how I encouraged him,
+a little roughly it may be, but I always meant well. Jane, on the day
+the Declaration is read in public I want you to let me go with you to
+hear it."
+
+They go together; she a lusty woman in full years, and he who had long
+outlived his generation.
+
+The street in front of the old State House is filled with people. The
+balcony window is thrown up, and out of the Council Chamber, now
+popularly known as the Sam Adams room, there appears the representative
+of Sam Adams and of five members of the Boston schools who had signed
+the Declaration. The officers of the State are there, and over the
+street shines the spire of the South Church and gleams the Province
+House Indian. The children are there; aged idlers who loitered about the
+town pump; the women patriots from Spring Lane. The New England flag, of
+blue ground with the cross of St. George on a white field, floats high
+over all.
+
+A voice rends the clear air. It read:
+
+"When in the course of human events," and it marches on in stately tones
+above the silence of the people. At the words "all men are created free
+and equal," the name of Franklin breaks upon the stillness. Jamie the
+Scotchman joins in the rising applause, and he proudly turns to Jane
+Mecom and says:
+
+"Only to think what a friend I was to him, too!"
+
+They return by the Granary burying ground. A tall, gray monument holds
+their attention. It is one that the people loved to visit then, and that
+touches the heart to-day. At the foot of the epitaph they read again, as
+they had done many times before:
+
+                  _"Their youngest son,_
+          _in filial regard to their memory,_
+                  _places this stone."_
+
+"His heart was true to the old folks," said Jamie.
+
+It was the monument that Benjamin Franklin had erected to his parents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+ANOTHER SIGNATURE.--THE STORY OF AUVERGNE SANS TACHE.
+
+
+SOME years ago I stood on the battlements of Metz, once a French but now
+a German town. Below the town, with its grand esplanade, on which is a
+heroic statue of Marshal Ney, rolls the narrow Moselle, and around it
+are the remains of fortifications that are old in legend, song, and
+story.
+
+It was here, near one of these old halls, that a young Frenchman saw, as
+it were, a vision, and the impression of that hour was never lost, but
+became a turning point in American history.
+
+There had come a report to the English court that Washington had been
+driven across the Jerseys, and that the American cause was lost.
+
+There was given at this time a military banquet at Metz. The Duke of
+Gloucester, brother of George III, was present, and among the French
+officers there was a marquis, lately married, who was a favorite of the
+French court. He had been brought up in one of the heroic provinces of
+Auvergne, and he had been associated with the heroes of Gatinais, whose
+motto was _Auvergne sans tache_. The Auvergnese were a pastoral people,
+distinguished for their courage and honor. In this mountainous district
+was the native place of many eminent men, among them Polignac.
+
+The young French marquis who was conspicuous at the banquet on this
+occasion was named Lafayette.
+
+The Duke of Gloucester was in high spirits over his cups on this festal
+night.
+
+"Our arms are triumphant in America!" he exclaimed. "Washington is
+retreating across the Jerseys."
+
+A shout went up with glittering wine-cups: "So ever flee the enemies of
+George III!"
+
+"Washington!" The name rang in the young French officer's ears. He had
+in his veins the blood of the mountaineers, and he loved liberty and the
+spirit of the motto _Auvergne sans tache_.
+
+He may never have heard the name of Washington before, or, if he had,
+only as of an officer who had given Braddock unwelcome advice. But he
+knew the American cause to be that of liberty, and Washington to be the
+leader of that cause.
+
+And Washington "was retreating across the Jerseys." Where were the
+Jerseys? He may never have heard of the country before.
+
+He went out into the air under the moon and stars. There came to him a
+vision of liberty and a sense of his duty to the cause. The face of
+America, as it were, appeared to him. "When first I saw the face of
+America, I loved her," he said many years afterward to the American
+Congress.
+
+Washington was driven back in the cause of liberty. Lafayette resolved
+to cross the seas and to offer Washington his sword. He felt that
+liberty called him--liberty for America, which might mean liberty for
+France and for all mankind.
+
+About this time Benjamin Franklin began to receive letters from this
+young officer, filled with the fiery spirit of the mountaineers. The
+officer desired a commission to go to America and enter the army. But it
+was a time of disaster, and faith in the American cause was very low.
+The marquis resolved to go to America at his own expense.
+
+He sailed for that country in May, 1777. He landed off the coast of the
+Carolinas in June, and made his memorable ride across the country to
+Philadelphia in that month. Baron de Kalb accompanied him.
+
+On landing on the shores of the Carolinas, he and Baron de Kalb knelt
+down on the sand, at night under the stars, and in the name of God
+dedicated their swords to liberty.
+
+The departure of these two officers for America filled all France with
+delight. Lafayette had seen that it would be so; that his going would
+awaken an enthusiasm in the circles of the court and among the people
+favorable to America; that it would aid the American envoys in their
+mission. It was the mountain grenadiers that made the final charges at
+the siege of Yorktown under the inspiring motto of _Auvergne sans tache_
+(Auvergne without a stain).
+
+Franklin now dwelt at beautiful Passy on the hill, and his residence
+there was more like a princely court than the house of an ambassador. He
+gave his heart and life and influence to seeking an alliance between
+France and the States. The court was favorable to the alliance, but the
+times and the constitution of the kingdom made the king slow, cautious,
+and diplomatic.
+
+The American cause wavered. The triumphs of Lord Howe filled England
+with rejoicing and Passy with alarm.
+
+In the midst of the depression at Passy there came a messenger from
+Massachusetts who brought to Franklin the news of Burgoyne's surrender.
+When Dr. Franklin was told that this messenger was in the courtyard of
+Passy, he rushed out to meet him.
+
+"Sir, is Philadelphia taken?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Franklin clasped his hands.
+
+"But, sir, I have other news. Burgoyne and his army are prisoners of
+war!"
+
+Great was the rejoicing at Passy and in Paris. The way to an alliance
+appeared now to open to the envoys.
+
+"O Mr. Austin," Dr. Franklin used to say to the young messenger from
+Massachusetts, "you brought us glorious news!"
+
+The tidings was followed by other news in Passy. December 17, 1777, was
+a great and joyful day there. A minister came to the envoys there to
+announce that the French Government was ready to conclude an agreement
+with the United States, and to make a formal treaty of alliance to help
+them in the cause of independence.
+
+The cause was won, but the treaty was yet delayed. There were articles
+in it that led to long debates.
+
+But in these promising days Franklin was a happy man. He dressed simply,
+and he lived humbly for an envoy, though his living cost him some
+thirteen thousand dollars a year. He did not conform to French fashions,
+nor did the French expect them from a philosopher. He did not even wear
+a wig, which most men wore upon state occasions. Instead of a wig he
+wore a fur cap, and one of his portraits so represents him.
+
+While the negotiations were going on, a large cake was sent one day to
+the apartment where the envoys were assembled. It bore the inscription
+_Le digne Franklin_ (the worthy Franklin). On reading the inscription,
+Mr. Silas Deane, one of the ambassadors, said, "As usual, Franklin, we
+have to thank you for our share in gifts like these."
+
+"Not at all," said Franklin. "This cake is designed for all three of us.
+Don't you see?--Le (Lee) Digne (Deane) Franklin."
+
+He could afford to be generous and in good humor.
+
+February 6, 1778, was one of the most glorious of all in Franklin's
+life. That day the treaties were completed and put upon the tables to
+sign. The boy of the old Boston writing school did honor to his
+schoolmaster again. He put his name now after the conditions of the
+alliance between France and the United States of America.
+
+The treaty was celebrated in great pomp at the court.
+
+The event was to be publicly announced on March 20, 1778. On that day
+the envoys were to be presented to the king amid feasts and rejoicings.
+
+Would Franklin wear a wig on that great occasion? His locks were gray
+and thin, for he was seventy-two years old, and his fur cap would not be
+becoming amid the splendors of Versailles.
+
+He ordered one. The hairdresser came with it. He could not fit it upon
+the philosopher's great head.
+
+"It is too small," said Franklin. "Monsieur, it is impossible."
+
+"No, monsieur," said the perruquier, "it is not that the wig is too
+small; it is that your head is too large!"
+
+What did Franklin need of a wig? He dressed for the occasion in a plain
+suit of black velvet, with snowy ruffles and silver buckles. When the
+chamberlain saw him coming, he hesitated to admit him. Admit a man to
+the royal presence in his own head alone? But he allowed the philosopher
+to go on in his velvet, ruffles, and silver buckles, and his independent
+appearance filled the court with delight.
+
+There was another paper that he must now have begun to see in his clear
+visions. The treaty of alliance would lead to the triumph of the
+American cause. That end must be followed by a treaty of peace between
+Great Britain and the United States. Would he sign that treaty some day
+and again honor the old Boston schoolmaster? We shall see.
+
+But how did young Lafayette meet his duties in the dark days of
+America--he whose motto was "Auvergne without a stain?"
+
+The day of his test came again at a banquet. It was at York. Let us
+picture this pivotal scene of his life and of American history.
+
+After the triumphs of Gates at Saratoga, Washington became unpopular,
+and Congress appointed a Board of War, whose object it became to place
+Lafayette at the head of the Northern army, and thus give him a chance
+to supersede his chief.
+
+The young Frenchman was loyal to Washington, and the motto _Auvergne
+sans tache_ governed his life.
+
+Let us suppose him to meet his trusty old friend Baron de Kalb, the
+German temperance general, at this critical hour.
+
+"Baron de Kalb, we stood together side by side at Metz, and we knelt
+down together that midsummer night when we first landed on Carolina's
+sands, and then we rode together across the provinces. These are events
+that I shall ever love to recall. To-night we stand together again in
+brotherhood of soul. Baron, the times are dark and grow more perilous,
+and it may be I now confide in thee for the last time."
+
+"Yes, Lafayette," answered De Kalb, "I myself feel 'tis so. You may live
+and rise, but I may fall. But wherever I may go I shall draw this sword
+that I consecrated with thine to liberty. It may be ours to meet by
+chance again, but, Lafayette, we shall never be as we are now. Thou well
+hast said the hour is dark. Open thy soul, then, Lafayette, to me."
+
+"Baron, it burns my brain and shrinks my heart to say that the hour is
+dark not only for the cause but for our chief, for Washington. In halls
+of state, in popular applause, the rising star is Gates. Factions arise,
+cabals combine, and this new Board of War has sent for me. In some
+provincial room that flattery decorates they are to make for me a feast.
+What means the feast? 'Tis this: to offer me the Northern field. And
+why? To separate my sword from Washington. 'If thy right hand offend
+thee, cut it off!' I'm loyal to the cause, and must obey this new-made
+Board of War; but on that night, if so it be that I have the
+opportunity, I shall arise, and, against all flatteries, take my stand.
+I then and there will proclaim in clear-cut words my loyalty to
+Washington. He is the cause; in him it stands or falls; to gain a world
+for self, my heart could never be untrue to him. Day after day, month
+after month, year after year, he leads the imperiled way, yet holds his
+faith in God and man. The hireling Hessians roll their drums through
+ports and towns; the wily Indian joins the invader; his army is
+famine-smitten and thinned with fever, and drill in rags, while Congress
+meets in secret halls but to impede his plans and criticise; and while
+he holds the scales and looks toward the end, and makes retreat best
+serve the cause, what rivals rise! See brilliant Gates appear! Does he
+not know this rivalry and hear the plaudits that surround the name of
+Saratoga? I've shared my thoughts with Washington, young as I am, and he
+has honored me with his esteem. I have heard him say: 'O Lafayette, I
+stand alone in all the world! I dream no dreams of high ambition. I love
+the farm more than the field--my country home more than the halls of
+state I serve. In a cause like this I hold that it is not unsubstantial
+victories but generalship that wins.'
+
+"One day he spoke like this: 'Marquis, I stood one winter night upon a
+rocking boat and crossed the Delaware. It was a bitter night; no stars
+were in the sky; the lanterns' rays scarce fell upon the waters; the
+oars rose and fell, though they were frozen, for they were plied by
+strong and grizzly fishermen; the snow fell pitiless, with hail and
+sleet and rain. The night was wind, and darkness was the air. The army
+followed me, where I could not see. Our lips were silent. These stout
+and giant men, from Cape Ann and from wintry wharfages of Marblehead,
+knew their duty well, and safe we crossed the tide.' In that lone boat,
+amid the freezing sleet and darkness deep, the new flag of the nation's
+hope marched in darkness.
+
+"Baron de Kalb, there is a spirit whose pinions float upon the wings of
+time. She comes to me in dreams and visions in such hours as these. I
+saw her on the fortress walls of Metz; I knew her meaning and her
+mission saw. Where liberty is, there is my country, and all I am I again
+offer to her cause. Hear me this hour; the presence of that spirit falls
+on me now as at Metz. I go to the feast that is waiting for me; there my
+soul must be true and speak the truth, and for the truth there is no
+judgment day. At Metz I left myself for liberty; at York I shall be as
+true to honor. I hold unsullied fame to be more than titles--_Auvergne
+sans tache_. My resolution makes my vision clear. Baron de Kalb, mark
+you my words in this prophetic hour: the character of Washington will
+free one day the world, and lead the Aryan race and liberty and peace.
+It is not his genius--minds as great have been; it is not his
+heart--there have been hearts as large; it is not his sword, for swords
+have been as brave, but it is himself that makes sure the cause. He
+shall win liberty, and give to men their birthright and to toil a field
+of hope; to industry the wealth that it creates, and to the toiler his
+dues. So liberty to brotherhood shall lead, and brotherhood to peace,
+and brotherhood and peace shall bring to unity all human families, and
+men shall live no more in petty strife for gain, but for the souls of
+men. The destinies then, as in Virgil's eye, shall spin life's web, and
+to their spindles say, 'Thus go forever and forever on!' He is the
+leader appointed by Heaven for sublime events. I am sent to him as a
+knight of God. I go to York. I was true at Metz to liberty, and in the
+council hall I shall be true, whatever is offered me, to Washington, our
+Washington beloved! to the world's great commoner! Farewell."
+
+The feast for Lafayette was spread at York in a blazing hall; red wine
+filled the crystal cups. Silken banners waved and disclosed the magic
+name of "Lafayette." The Board of War was there, proud Gates, and the
+men of state. The _Fleur de lis_ was there and blew across the national
+banners. Lafayette came. A shout arose as he appeared. The Board of War
+was merry, and the wine was spilled and toasts were drunk to all the
+heroes of the war except Washington. The name of Lafayette was hailed
+with adulation; then all was still. The grand commissioner had waved his
+hand. He bowed, and gave to Lafayette a sealed paper; he raised his cup,
+and rose and bowed, and said, "Now drink ye all to him, our honored
+guest, commander of the Army of the North." The oak room rang with
+cheers; the glasses clinked and gleamed.
+
+The board and guests sat down. There, tall and grand above the council,
+towered the form of Lafayette. He stood there silent, then raised a
+crystal cup, and said: "I thank you, friends, and I would that I were
+worthier of your applause. You have honored many worthy names, but there
+is one name that you have omitted in your many toasts, and that one name
+to me stands above all the other heroes of the world! _I_ drink to him!"
+He lifted high the cup, and said, "I pledge my honor, my sword, and all
+I am to Washington!"
+
+He stood in silence; no other cup with his was raised. He left the
+hall, and walked that night the square of York beneath the moon and
+stars as he had done at Metz.
+
+He poured forth his soul, thinking again the thoughts of Metz, and
+making again the high resolves that he had made on Carolina's sands with
+Baron de Kalb:
+
+"O Liberty! the star of hope that lights each noble cause, uniting in
+one will the hearts of men, and massing in one force the wills of men.
+The stars obey the sun; the earth, the stars; the nations, those who
+rise o'er vain ambitions and become the cause. Thou gavest Rome the
+earth and Greece the sea; thou sweepest down the Alps, and made the
+marbles bloom like roses, for thy heroes' monuments! I hear thy voice,
+and I obey, as all the true have bowed who more than self have loved
+mankind!"
+
+The coming of Franklin to Passy and the going of Lafayette from Metz
+were among the great influences of the age of liberty. Count Rochambeau
+followed Lafayette after the alliance, and brought over with him among
+his regiments the grenadiers of Auvergne--_Auvergne sans tache_, which
+motto they honored at Yorktown.
+
+Jenny's heart beat with joy as she heard of the coming of Lafayette. In
+these years of the great struggle for human liberty she looked at the
+watch and counted the hours.
+
+Franklin had long been the hope of the country. America looked to him to
+secure the help of France in the long struggle for liberty. Into this
+hope humble Jane Mecom entered with a sister's confidence and pride.
+
+She awaited the news from Philadelphia, which was the seat of
+government, with the deepest concern. The nation's affairs were her
+family affairs. She heard it said daily that if Franklin secured the aid
+of the French arms, the cause of liberty in America would be won. It was
+the kindly hand that led her when a girl that was now moving behind
+these great events.
+
+One July day, at the full tide of the year, she was standing in the
+bowery yard of her simple home, thinking of her brother and the hope of
+the people in him. She moved, as under a spell of thought, out of the
+gate and toward Beacon Hill. She met Jamie the Scotchman on her way.
+
+"An' do you think that he will be able to do it?" said Jamie. By "it" he
+meant the alliance of France with the colonies. "Surely it is a big job
+to undertake, but if he should succeed, Jane, I want you always to
+remember what a friend I was to him. Where are you going, Jane?"
+
+"To the old tree on Beacon Hill, where Uncle Ben used to talk to me in
+childhood."
+
+"May I go with you, Jane? They say that a fleet has been sighted off
+Narragansett Bay. We shall know when the post comes in."
+
+"Yes, Jamie, come with me. I love to talk of old times with you."
+
+"And what a friend I was to _him_."
+
+It was a fiery day. Cumulus clouds were piling up in the fervid heats.
+The Hancock House gardens, where now the State House is, were fragrant
+with flowers, and the Common below was a sea of shining leaves.
+
+A boom shook the air.
+
+"What was that, Jane?"
+
+"It came from the Castle."
+
+"Perhaps there is news."
+
+Another boom echoed from the Dorchester Hills, and a puff of smoke rose
+from the Castle.
+
+"There is news, Jamie; the Castle is firing a salute."
+
+"I think the French fleet has arrived; if so, _his_ work is behind it,
+and I always was such a friend to him, too!"
+
+The Castle thundered. There was news.
+
+A magistrate came riding over the hills on horseback, going to the house
+of John Hancock.
+
+"Hey!" cried Jamie, "an' what is the news?"
+
+"The French fleet has arrived at Newport. Count Rochambeau is landing
+there. Hurrah! this country is free!"
+
+Jane sat down under the old tree, as she had done when a girl in Uncle
+Benjamin's day. She saw the flag of the Stripes and Stars leap, as it
+were, into the air over the Hancock gardens. She had always revered John
+Hancock since he had heroically written to Washington at the time of the
+siege, "Burn Boston, if there is need, and leave John Hancock a beggar!"
+
+Who was that hurrying up from the broad path of the Common toward the
+Hancock mansion? Jane rose up and looked. It was Samuel Adams, the
+so-called "last of the Puritans," a man who had almost forgotten his own
+existence in his efforts to unite the colonies for the struggle for
+liberty, and who had said to an agent of General Gage who offered him
+bribes if he would make his peace with the king, "I have long ago made
+my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth can make me
+recreant to my duties to my country."
+
+The Castle thundered on from the green isle in the harbor. People were
+hurrying to and fro and gathering about the grounds of the first
+President of the Provincial Congress. Business stopped. The hearts of
+the people were thrilled. The independence of the American colonies now
+seemed secure.
+
+There went up a great shout in front of the Hancock house. It was--
+
+"Franklin! Rochambeau! Franklin!"
+
+Jamie the Scotchman echoed the cheer from his lusty lungs.
+
+"Franklin!" he cried, waving his hat, "Franklin now and forever!"
+
+His face beamed. "Only think, Jane, what a friend I used to be to him!
+What do you suppose gave his hand such power in these affairs of the
+nation?"
+
+"It was his heart, Jamie."
+
+"Yes, yes, Jane, that was it--it was the heart of Franklin--of Ben, and
+don't you never forget what a friend I used to be to him."
+
+The coming of Rochambeau, under the influence of the poor tallow
+chandler's son, was a re-enforcement that helped to gain the victory of
+liberty. When Cornwallis was taken, Jane Mecom heard the Castle thunder
+again over the sea; and when Rochambeau came to Boston to prepare for
+the re-embarkation of the French army, she saw her brother's hand behind
+all these events, and felt like one who in her girlhood had been taken
+into the counsels of the gods. Her simple family affairs had become
+those of the nation.
+
+She knew the springs of the nation's history, and she loved to recall
+the days when her brother was Silence Dogood, which he had never ceased
+to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+FRANKLIN SIGNS THE TREATY OF PEACE.--HOW GEORGE III RECEIVES THE NEWS.
+
+
+THE surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown brought the war to an end.
+The courier from the army came flying into Philadelphia at night. The
+watchman called out, "Past twelve o'clock, and all is well!" "Past one
+o'clock, and all is well!" and "Past two o'clock, and Cornwallis is
+taken!" The people of the city were in the streets early that morning.
+Bells pealed; men saluted each other in the name of "Peace."
+
+Poor George III! He had stubbornly sought to subdue the colonies, and
+had honestly believed that he had been divinely appointed to rule them
+after his own will. No idea that he had ever been pigheaded and wrong
+had ever been driven into his dull brain. His view of his prerogative
+was that whatever he thought to be best was best, and they were
+ungrateful and stiff-necked people who took a different view, and that
+it was his bounden duty to punish such in his colonies for their
+obstinacy.
+
+It was November 25th in London--Sunday. A messenger came flying from the
+coast to Pall Mall. He was bearing exciting news. On he went through
+London until he reached the house of George Germain, Minister of
+American Affairs. The messenger handed to Lord George a dispatch. The
+minister glanced at it and read the fate of the New World, and must have
+stood as one dazed:
+
+"Cornwallis has surrendered!"
+
+Lord Walsingham, an under-Secretary of State, was at the house. To him
+he read the stunning dispatch. The two took a hackney coach and rode in
+haste to Lord Stormont's.
+
+"Mount the coach and go with us to Lord North's. Cornwallis is taken!"
+
+Lord Stormont mounted the coach, and the three rode to the office of the
+Secretary of State.
+
+The prime minister received the news, we are told, "as he would have
+taken a ball into his heart."
+
+"O God, it is all over!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down the room, and
+again and again, "O God, it is over!"
+
+The news was conveyed to the king that half of his empire was lost--that
+his hope of the New World was gone. How was the king affected? Says a
+writer of the times, who gives us a glance at this episode:
+
+"He dined on that day," he tells us, "at Lord George Germain's; and Lord
+Walsingham, who likewise dined there, was the only guest that had become
+acquainted with the fact. The party, nine in number, sat down to the
+table. Lord George appeared serious, though he manifested no
+discomposure. Before the dinner was finished one of his servants
+delivered him a letter, brought back by the messenger who had been
+dispatched to the king. Lord George opened and perused it; then looking
+at Lord Walsingham, to whom he exclusively directed his observation,
+'The king writes,' said he, 'just as he always does, except that I
+observe he has omitted to note the hour and the minute of his writing
+with his usual precision.' This remark, though calculated to awaken some
+interest, excited no comment; and while the ladies, Lord George's three
+daughters, remained in the room, they repressed their curiosity. But
+they had no sooner withdrawn than Lord George, having acquainted them
+that from Paris information had just arrived of the old Count de
+Maurepas, first minister, lying at the point of death, 'It would grieve
+me,' said he, 'to finish my career, however far advanced in years, were
+I first minister of France, before I had witnessed the termination of
+this great contest between England and America.' 'He has survived to see
+that event,' replied Lord George, with some agitation. Utterly
+unsuspicious of the fact which had happened beyond the Atlantic, he
+conceived him to allude to the indecisive naval action fought at the
+mouth of the Chesapeake early in the preceding month of September
+between Admiral Graves and Count de Grasse, an engagement which in its
+results might prove most injurious to Lord Cornwallis. Under this
+impression, 'My meaning,' said he, 'is, that if I were the Count de
+Maurepas I should wish to live long enough to behold the final issue of
+the war in Virginia.' 'He has survived to witness it completely,'
+answered Lord George. 'The army has surrendered, and you may peruse the
+particulars of the capitulation in that paper,' taking at the same time
+one from his pocket, which he delivered into his hand, not without
+visible emotion. By his permission he read it aloud, while the company
+listened in profound silence. They then discussed its contents as
+affecting the ministry, the country, and the war. It must be confessed
+that they were calculated to diffuse a gloom over the most convivial
+society, and that they opened a wide field for political speculation.
+
+"After perusing the account of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown,
+it was impossible for all present not to feel a lively curiosity to know
+how the king had received the intelligence, as well as how he had
+expressed himself in his note to Lord George Germain, on the first
+communication of so painful an event. He gratified their wish by reading
+it to them, observing at the same time that it did the highest honor to
+his Majesty's fortitude, firmness, and consistency of character. The
+words made an impression on his memory, which the lapse of more than
+thirty years has not erased; and he here commemorates its tenor as
+serving to show how that prince felt and wrote under one of the most
+afflicting as well as humiliating occurrences of his reign. The billet
+ran nearly to this effect:
+
+"'I have received with sentiments of the deepest concern the
+communication which Lord George Germain has made me of the unfortunate
+result of the operations in Virginia. I particularly lament it on
+account of the consequences connected with it, and the difficulties
+which it may produce in carrying on the public business, or in repairing
+such a misfortune. But I trust that neither Lord George Germain, nor any
+member of the cabinet, will suppose that it makes the smallest
+alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in
+past time, and which will always continue to animate me under every
+event in the prosecution of the present contest.' Not a sentiment of
+despondency or of despair was to be found in the letter, the very
+handwriting of which indicated composure of mind."
+
+Franklin was still envoy plenipotentiary at beautiful Passy. He received
+the thrilling news, and wondered what terms the English Government would
+now seek to make in the interests of peace.
+
+The king was shaken in mind and becoming blind. He was opposed to any
+negotiations for peace, and threatened to abdicate. He sank into a
+pitiable state of insanity some years after, was confined in a padded
+room, and even knew not when the battle of Waterloo was fought, and when
+his own son died he was not called to the funeral ceremonies.
+
+But negotiations were begun, or attempted, with Dr. Franklin at Paris.
+Passy was again the scene of great events.
+
+Mr. Adams, as a representative of the United States, arrived in Paris.
+Mr. Gay, another representative, was there; conference after conference
+was held with the English ambassador, and the final conference was held
+with the English ministers on November 29, 1782.
+
+On the 18th of January, 1782, at Versailles, the representatives of
+England, France, and Spain signed the preliminaries of peace, declaring
+hostilities suspended, in the presence of Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin.
+These preliminaries were finally received as a definitive treaty of
+peace, and on Wednesday, September 3, 1783, this Treaty of Peace was
+signed in Paris.
+
+When the preliminary treaty was signed, Franklin rushed into the arms of
+the Duc de la Rochefoucault, exclaiming:
+
+"My friend, could I have hoped at my age to enjoy such happiness?" He
+was then seventy-six years old.
+
+So again the handwriting of the old Boston school appeared in the great
+events of nations. It was now set to peace.
+
+It would not seem likely that it would ever again adorn any like
+document. Franklin was old and gray. He had signed the Declaration, the
+Treaty of Alliance, and now the Treaty of Peace. He had done his work in
+writing well. It had ended well. Seventy-six years old; surely he would
+rest now at Passy, or return to some Philadelphia seclusion and await
+the change that must soon fall upon him.
+
+But this glorious old man has not yet finished the work begun by Silence
+Dogood. Those are always able to do the most who are doing many things.
+It is a period of young men now; it was a time of old men then. People
+sought wisdom from experience, not experiment.
+
+The peace is signed. The bells are ringing, and oppressed peoples
+everywhere rejoice. There is an iris on the cloud of humanity. The name
+of Franklin fills the world, and in most places is pronounced like a
+benediction.
+
+From a tallow-chandler's shop to palaces; from the companionship of
+Uncle Ben, the poet, to that of royal blood, people of highest rank, and
+the most noble and cultured of mankind; from being laughed at, to being
+looked upon with universal reverence, love, and awe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT.
+
+
+WHEN Franklin appeared to sign the Treaty of Peace between England and
+the United States, he surprised the ministers, envoys, and his own
+friends by wearing an old velvet coat. What did his appearance in this
+strange garment mean?
+
+We must tell you the story, for it is an illustration of his honorable
+pride and the sensitiveness of his character. There was a time when all
+England, except a few of his own friends, were laughing at Franklin.
+Why?
+
+Men who reach honorable success in life always pass through dark
+days--every sun and star is eclipsed some day--and Franklin had one day
+of eclipse that burned into his very soul, the memory of which haunted
+him as long as he lived.
+
+It was that day when he, after a summons, appeared before the Council of
+the Crown as the agent of the colonies, and was openly charged with
+dishonor. It is the day of the charge of dishonor that is the darkest of
+all life. To an honorable man it is the day of a false charge of
+dishonor that leaves the deepest sting in memory.
+
+          "My life and honor both together run;
+           Take honor from me, and my life is done."
+
+But how came Franklin, the agent of the colonies in London, to be called
+before the Privy Council and to be charged with dishonor?
+
+While he was in London and the colonies were filled with discontent and
+indignation at the severe measures of the crown, there came to him a
+member of Parliament who told him that these measures of which the
+colonies complained had been brought about by certain men in the
+colonies themselves; that the ministry had acted upon the advice of
+these men, and had thought that they were acting justly and wisely. Two
+of the men cited were Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver,
+both belonging to most respected and powerful families in the colonies.
+
+Franklin could not believe these statements against his countrymen, and
+asked for the proof. The member of Parliament brought to him a package
+of letters addressed to public men on public affairs, written by
+Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver, which proved to him that
+the severe action of the ministry against Boston and the province had
+been brought about by Bostonians themselves. Franklin asked permission
+to send these letters to Boston in the interests of justice to the
+ministry. The request was granted. The letters were sent to Boston, and
+were read in private to the General Assembly of the province. As an
+agent of the colonies, Franklin could not have done less in the
+interests of justice, truth, and honorable dealing.
+
+But the use of these letters angered the ministry, and Franklin was
+called before the Privy Council to answer the charge of surreptitiously
+obtaining private correspondence and using it for purposes detrimental
+to the royal government.
+
+To persons whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as
+these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager
+to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open
+sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight
+and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case
+as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but
+when a man has proved untrue to any man for the sake of his own
+advantage, it may be written of him, "He went out, and it was night." A
+short chapter of a part of a biography or history may be an injustice,
+and seem to show that there is no God in the government of the world,
+but a long chapter of full history reveals God on the high throne of his
+power, and justice as his strength and glory. The Roman emperors built
+grand monuments to atone for their injustice, cruelty, and vice-seeking
+lives, but these only blackened their names by recalling what they were,
+and defeated their builders' ends. In this world all long chapters of
+history read one way: that character is everything, and that time tells
+the truth about all things. Justice is the highest expectation of life;
+it is only wise so to live that one's "expectation may not be
+disappointed." The young man can not be too soon led to see that "he
+that is spiritual judgeth all things, and that no man judgeth him."
+
+It was the year 1773, when Franklin was sixty-eight years of age, that
+this dark and evil day came. A barrister named Wedderburn, young in
+years and new to the bar, a favorite of Lord North, and one who was
+regarded as "a wonderfully smart young man," was to present the case of
+the government against him.
+
+The case filled all England with intense interest. The most notable men
+of the kingdom arranged to be present at the hearing. Thirty-five
+members of the Privy Council were present, an unusual number at such an
+assembly. Lord North was there; the Archbishop of Canterbury; even Dr.
+Priestley was there.
+
+Dr. Franklin appeared on this memorable day in a velvet coat. He took a
+place in the room in a recess formed by a chimney, a retired place,
+where he stood motionless and silent. The coat was of Manchester velvet,
+and spotted.
+
+Wedderburn addressed the Council. He was witty, brilliant, careless of
+facts. His address on that occasion was the talk of all England in a few
+days, and it led him to a career of fame that would have been success
+had it had the right foundation. But nothing lasts that is not sincere.
+Everything in this world has to be readjusted that is not right.
+
+"How these letters," said he, "came into the possession of any one but
+the right owners is a mystery for Dr. Franklin to explain."
+
+He then spoke of Mr. Whatley, to whom the letters were first consigned,
+and proceeded thus:
+
+"He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what
+companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest
+intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will
+hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will
+henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a _man of letters_; this man
+of _three_ letters. (_Fur_--a thief.)"
+
+The manner of the orator thrilled the august company. It is thus
+described by Jeremy Bentham:
+
+"I was not more astonished at the brilliancy of his lightning than
+astounded by the thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion
+lay on the council table before him; his station was between the seats
+of two of the members, on the side of the right hand of the lord
+president. I would not, for double the greatest fee the orator could on
+that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion; the ear
+was stunned at every blow; he had been reading perhaps in that book in
+which the prince of Roman orators and rhetoric professors instructs his
+pupils about how to make impression. The table groaned under the
+assault. Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, stood
+Benjamin Franklin, in such position as not to be visible from the
+situation of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the
+same posture, his head resting on his left hand; and in that attitude
+abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm."
+
+Franklin, the agent of the colonies, stood in his humble place, calm and
+undisturbed to all outward appearance, but he was cut to the quick as he
+heard this assembly of representative Englishmen laughing at his
+supposed dishonor.
+
+Says one of that day, "At the sallies of the orator's sarcastic wit all
+the members of the Council, the president himself not excepted,
+frequently laughed outright."
+
+Benjamin Franklin went home, and put away his spotted velvet coat. He
+might want it again. It would be a reminder to him--a lesson of life.
+He might wear it again some day.
+
+The next day, being Sunday, the eminent Dr. Priestley came to take
+breakfast with him.
+
+Dr. Franklin said: "Let me read the arraignment twice over. I have never
+before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience. If I had not
+considered the thing for which I have been so much insulted the best
+action of my life, and which I certainly should do again under like
+circumstances, I could not have supported myself."
+
+Franklin held an office under the crown. On Monday morning a letter was
+brought to him from the postmaster-general. It read:
+
+"The king finds it necessary to dismiss you from the office of deputy
+postmaster-general in America."
+
+Dismissed in disgrace at the age of sixty-eight! And England laughing.
+He had nothing left to comfort him now but his conscience--that was the
+everything.
+
+The old spotted velvet coat; he brought it out on the day of the treaty.
+It was some nine or more years old now. He stood like a culprit in it
+one day; it should adorn him now in the hour of his honor.
+
+He was facing eighty years.
+
+He prepared to leave France, where his career had been one of such honor
+and glory that his fame filled the world.
+
+The court made him a parting present. It was a portrait of the king set
+in a frame of _four hundred diamonds_!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+IN SERVICE AGAIN.
+
+
+IT has been said that Franklin forgot to be old. Verging upon eighty, he
+had asked to be recalled from France, and he dreamed of quiet old age
+among his grandchildren on the banks of the Schuylkill, where so many
+happy years of his middle life had been spent. He was recalled from
+France, but, as we have before stated, this was an age in America when
+men sought the councils of wisdom and experience.
+
+Pennsylvania needed a President or Governor who could lay the
+foundations of early legislation with prudence, and she turned to the
+venerable Franklin to fill the chair of state. He was nominated for the
+office of President of Pennsylvania, and elected, and twice re-elected;
+and we find him now, over eighty years of age, in activities of young
+manhood, and bringing to the office the largest experience of any
+American.
+
+He was among the first of most eminent Americans to crown his life after
+the period of threescore and ten years with the results of the
+scholarship of usefulness.
+
+We have recently seen Gladstone, Tennyson, King William, Bismarck, Von
+Moltke, Whittier, Holmes, and many other men of the enlightened world,
+doing some of their strongest and most impressive work after seventy
+years of age, and some of these setting jewels in the crown of life
+when past eighty. We have seen Du Maurier producing his first great work
+of fiction at sixty, and many authors fulfilling the hopes of years at a
+like age.
+
+We have a beautiful pen picture of Franklin in these several years, in
+his youth's return when eighty years were past. It shows what is
+possible to a life of temperance and beneficence, and it is only such a
+life that can have an Indian summer, a youth in age.
+
+"Dr. Franklin's house," wrote a clergyman who visited him in his old
+age, "stands up a court, at some distance from the street. We found him
+in his garden, sitting upon a grass-plot, under a very large mulberry
+tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr.
+Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand,
+expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me
+to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance
+open, frank, and pleasing. I delivered to him my letters. After he read
+them he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compliments,
+introduced me to the other gentlemen.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S LAST DAYS.]
+
+"Here we entered into a free conversation, and spent our time most
+agreeably until it was quite dark. The tea table was spread under the
+tree, and Mrs. Bache, who is the only daughter of the doctor and lives
+with him, served it out to the company. She had three of her children
+about her. They seemed to be excessively fond of their grandpa. The
+doctor showed me a curiosity he had just received, and with which he was
+much pleased. It was a snake with two heads, preserved in a large
+vial. It was taken near the confluence of the Schuylkill with the
+Delaware, about four miles from this city. It was about ten inches long,
+well proportioned, the heads perfect, and united to the body about one
+fourth of an inch below the extremities of the jaws. The snake was of a
+dark brown, approaching to black, and the back beautifully speckled with
+white. The belly was rather checkered with a reddish color and white.
+The doctor supposed it to be full grown, which I think is probable; and
+he thinks it must be a _sui generis_ of that class of animals. He
+grounds his opinion of its not being an extraordinary production, but a
+distinct genus, on the perfect form of the snake, the probability of its
+being of some age, and there having been found a snake entirely similar
+(of which the doctor has a drawing, which he showed us) near Lake
+Champlain in the time of the late war. He mentioned the situation of
+this snake if it was traveling among bushes, and one head should choose
+to go on one side of the stem of a bush and the other head should prefer
+the other side, and neither of the heads would consent to come back or
+give way to the other. He was then going to mention a humorous matter
+that had that day occurred in the convention in consequence of his
+comparing the snake to America, for he seemed to forget that everything
+in the convention was to be kept a profound secret. But this secrecy of
+convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him and deprived
+me of the story he was going to tell.
+
+"After it was dark we went into his house, and he invited me into his
+library, which is likewise his study. It is a very large chamber and
+high studded. The walls are covered with bookshelves filled with books;
+besides, there are four large alcoves extending two thirds of the length
+of the chamber, filled in the same manner. I presume this is the largest
+and by far the best private library in America.
+
+"He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling
+on philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natural history,
+while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. This was a
+favorable circumstance for me, for almost the whole of his conversation
+was addressed to me; and I was highly delighted with the extensive
+knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his
+memory, and the clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties,
+notwithstanding his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything
+about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has
+an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which
+seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call
+on him again, but my short stay would not admit. We took our leave at
+ten, and I retired to my lodgings."
+
+The convention to frame a Constitution for the United States assembled
+at this time in Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin was elected to bring his ripe
+statesmanship into this great work.
+
+He was a poet in old age. When past eighty he fulfilled one of the hopes
+of Uncle Ben. When the Constitution had been adopted by a majority of
+the States, the event was celebrated by a grand festival in
+Philadelphia. There were a long procession of the trades, an oration,
+the booming of cannon, and the ringing of bells. Some twenty thousand
+people joined in the festivities. They wanted a poet for the joyful
+occasion. Poets were not many in those days. Who should appear? It was
+Silence Dogood, the Poor Richard of a generation gone.
+
+To the draft of the Constitution of the United States Benjamin Franklin
+placed his signature, and thus again honored his Boston writing-master
+of seventy years ago.
+
+But he gave to this august assembly an influence as noble as his
+signature to the document that it produced. Franklin had been skeptical
+in his youth, and a questioner of religious teachings in other periods
+of his life. Mature thought had convinced him of the glory of the
+Christian faith, of the doctrine of immortality and the power of prayer.
+The deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly were long, and they
+were sometimes bitter. In the midst of the debates, the divisions of
+opinion and delays, Dr. Franklin arose one day--it was the 28th of June,
+1787--and moved
+
+"That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its
+blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning
+before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of
+this city be requested to officiate in that service."
+
+In an address supporting this resolution he said: "I have lived, sir, a
+long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of
+this truth: _That_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men!_ And if a sparrow
+can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an
+empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the
+Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in
+vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that
+without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building
+no better than the building of Babel; we shall be divided by our
+partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we
+ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And,
+what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance
+despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to
+chance, war, and conquest."
+
+To consummate the American Government now only one thing was lacking--a
+power to interpret the meaning of the Constitution, and so to decide any
+disputes that should arise among the States.
+
+In Mr. Vernon's garden, after the controversy between the fishermen of
+Maryland and Virginia, a plan to settle such disputes was produced. It
+was a high court of final appeal.
+
+So rose the Supreme Court. And this court to decide questions of
+controversy arising among the States, we may hope, was the beginning of
+a like body, a Supreme Court of the nations of the world that shall
+settle the questions in dispute among nations, without an appeal to war
+or the shedding of human blood.
+
+These were glorious times, and although Dr. Franklin was not actively
+engaged in this last grand movement for the government of the people, he
+lived to give his influence to make George Washington President, and see
+the new order of a popular government inaugurated. He entered the doors
+of that golden age of liberty, equality, and progress, when the
+destinies might say to their spindles, "Thus go on forever!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+JANE'S LAST VISIT.
+
+
+IT was midsummer. Benjamin Franklin, of fourscore years, President of
+Pennsylvania, had finished a long, three-story ell to his house on
+Market Street, and in this ell he had caused to be made a library which
+filled his heart with pride. He had invented a long arm with which to
+take down books from the high shelves of this library--an invention
+which came into use in other libraries in such a way as to make many
+librarians grateful to him.
+
+He was overburdened with care, and suffered from chronic disease.
+
+In his days of pain he had been comforted by letters from Jenny, now
+long past seventy years of age. She had written to him in regard to his
+sufferings such messages as these:
+
+"Oh, that after you have spent your whole life in the service of the
+public, and have attained so glorious a conclusion, as I thought, as
+would now permit you to come home and spend (as you say) the evening
+with your friends in ease and quiet, that now such a dreadful malady
+should attack you! My heart is ready to burst with grief at the thought.
+How many hours have I lain awake on nights thinking what excruciating
+pains you might then be encountering, while I, poor, useless, and
+worthless worm, was permitted to be at ease! Oh, that it was in my power
+to mitigate or alleviate the anguish I know you must endure!"
+
+When she heard of his arrival in Philadelphia she wrote:
+
+"I long so much to see you that I should immediately seek for some one
+that would accompany me, but my daughter is in a poor state of health
+and gone into the country to try to get a little better, and I am in a
+strait between two; but the comfortable reflection that you are at home
+among all your dear children, and no more seas to cross, will be
+constantly pleasing to me till I am permitted to enjoy the happiness of
+seeing and conversing with you."
+
+The tenderness and charity of Franklin for the many members of his own
+family still revealed his heart. "I tenderly love you," he wrote to
+Jane--Jenny--"for the care of our father in his sickness."
+
+One of his sisters, Mrs. Dowse, whose family had died, insisted upon
+living alone, on account of her love for the place that had been her
+home. Many other men would have compelled her removal, but there is
+nothing more beautiful in all Franklin's letters than the way that he
+advised Jenny how to treat this matter. He had been told that this
+venerable woman would have her own way.
+
+"As _having their own way_ is one of the greatest comforts of life to
+old people, I think their friends should endeavor to accommodate them in
+that as well as anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it
+becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it as
+the tortoise with his shell; they die if you tear them out. Old folks
+and old trees, if you remove them, 'tis ten to one that you kill them,
+so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head; we are
+growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of
+indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in
+our turn."
+
+Jane Mecom--the "Jenny" of Franklin's young life--had one great desire
+as the years went on: it was, to meet her brother once more and to
+review the past with him.
+
+"I will one day go to Philadelphia and give him a great surprise," the
+woman used to say.
+
+Let us picture such a day.
+
+Benjamin Franklin sat down in his new library. His books had been placed
+and his pictures hung.
+
+Among the pictures were two that were so choice that we may suppose them
+to be hung under coverings. One of them was the portrait of the King of
+France in its frame of four hundred brilliants, and the other was his
+own portrait with, perhaps, Turgot's famous inscription.
+
+It was near evening when he sat down and asked to be left alone.
+
+He opened his secretary, and took from it a letter from Washington. It
+read:
+
+"Amid the public gratulations on your safe return to America after a
+long absence, and many eminent services you have rendered it, for which
+as a benefited person I feel the obligation, permit an individual to
+join the public voice in expressing a sense of them, and to assure you
+that, as no one entertains more respect for your character, so no one
+can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do
+on the occasion."
+
+He took from his papers the resolution of the Assembly of Pennsylvania
+and began to read:
+
+"We are confident, sir, that we speak the sentiments of the whole
+country when we say that your services in the public councils and
+negotiations have not only merited the thanks of the present generation,
+but will be recorded in the pages of history to your immortal honor."
+
+He dropped the paper on the table beside the letter of Washington and
+sank into his armchair, for his pains were coming upon him again.
+
+He thought of the past--of old Boston, of Passy, of all his
+struggles--and he wished that he might feel again the sympathetic touch
+of the hand of his sister who had been so true to him, and who had loved
+him so long and well.
+
+It was near sunset of one of the longest days of the year when he heard
+a carriage stop before the door.
+
+"I can not see any one," he said. "I must have rest--I must have rest."
+
+There came a mechanical knock on his door. He did not respond.
+
+A servant's voice said outside, "There is a woman, master, that asks to
+see you."
+
+"I can not see any one," answered the tortured old man.
+
+"She is an old woman."
+
+"I could not see the queen."
+
+He heard an echo of the servant's voice in the hall.
+
+"He says that he could not see the queen."
+
+"Well, tell him that I am something more than that to him. He will see
+me, or else I will die at his door."
+
+There came a tap on the door, very gentle.
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"It is Jane."
+
+"What Jane--who?"
+
+"She who folded the hands of your father for the last time. Open the
+door. There can be no No to me."
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Jenny!"
+
+"Ben--let all titles pass now--I have come to give you a surprise."
+
+The old woman sank into a chair.
+
+"I have come to visit you for the last time," she said, "and to number
+with you our mercies of life. Let me rest before I talk. You are in
+pain."
+
+"Jenny, my pains have gone. I had sat down in agony in this new room; my
+head ached as well as my body. I am happy now that you have come."
+
+She moved her chair to his, and he took her hand again, saying:
+
+"My sister's hand--your hand, Jenny, as when we were children. They are
+gone, all gone."
+
+He looked in her face.
+
+"Jenny, your hair is gray now, and mine is white. I have been reading
+over again this letter from Washington."
+
+"Read it to me while I rest, then we will talk of old times."
+
+He read the letter.
+
+"Here are the resolutions of the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed on my
+return."
+
+"Read them to me, brother, for I must rest longer before we talk of old
+times."
+
+He read the resolutions.
+
+"Jenny, let me uncover this. It is not vanity that makes me wish to do
+it now, but on account of what I wish to say."
+
+He uncovered the portrait of the French king. The last light of the sun
+fell into the room and upon the frame, causing the four hundred diamonds
+to gleam.
+
+"That was presented to me by the court of France."
+
+"I never saw anything so splendid, brother. But what is the other
+picture under the cover?"
+
+He drew away the screen.
+
+"It is my portrait, Jenny."
+
+"But, brother, what are those words written under it?"
+
+Franklin read, "_Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis._"
+
+"Brother, what does that mean?"
+
+"'He snatched the thunderbolts from heaven, and the scepter from the
+tyrants.'"
+
+"Who, brother?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Jenny, let us talk of these things no longer. Do you remember Uncle
+Ben?"
+
+"He has never died. He lives in you. You have lived out his life. You
+have lived, Ben, and I have loved. Brother, you have done well. He who
+does his best does well."
+
+"Jenny, can you repeat what Uncle Ben said under the tree on the
+showery day when the birds sang, nearly seventy years ago?"
+
+"Let us repeat it together, brother. You have made that lesson your
+life."
+
+"'More than wealth, more than fame, or any other thing, is the power of
+the human heart, and it is developed by seeking the good of others. Live
+for the things that live.'"
+
+"Jenny, my own true sister, I have something else to show you--something
+that I value more than a present from a throne. I have here some
+'pamphlets,' into which Uncle Ben put his soul before he sought to
+impress the same thoughts upon me. I want you to have them now, to read
+them, and give them to his family."
+
+He went to his secretary and took from it the pamphlets.
+
+"Here are the thoughts of a man who told me when I was a poor boy in
+Boston town that I had a chance in the world.
+
+"He told me not to be laughed down.
+
+"He told me that diligence was power.
+
+"He told me that I would be helped in helping others.
+
+"He told me that justice was the need of mankind.
+
+"He told me that to have influence with men I must overcome my conscious
+defects.
+
+"He was poor, he was empty-handed, but Heaven gave to him the true
+vision of life. He committed that vision to me, and what he wished to be
+I have struggled to fulfill. These pamphlets are the picture of his
+mind, and that picture deserves to be hung in diamonds, and is more to
+me than the portrait of the king. Blessed be the memory of that old man,
+who taught my young life virtue, and gave it hope!
+
+"Jenny, I have tried to live well."
+
+"You have been 'Silence Dogood,' the idea that Uncle Benjamin printed on
+your mind."
+
+"Jenny, I have heard the church bells--Uncle Tom's bells--of Nottingham
+ring. I found Uncle Benjamin's letters there--those that he wrote to his
+old friends from America. He lovingly described you and me. What days
+those were! Father was true to his home when he invited Uncle Benjamin
+to America. You have been true to your home, and my heart has been,
+through your hands. Jenny, I have given my house in Boston to you."
+
+The old woman wept.
+
+"Jenny, you have loved, and your heart has been better than mine. Let me
+call the servants. These are hours when the soul is full--my soul is
+full. I ask for nothing more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+FOR THE LAST TIME.
+
+
+SILENCE Dogood is an old man now--a very old man. He looks back on the
+spring and summer and autumn of life--it is now the time of the snow.
+But there are sunny days in winter, and they came to him, though on the
+trees hang the snow, and the nights are long and painful.
+
+What has Silence Dogood done in his eighty years now ending in calm, in
+dreams and silence? Let us look back over the past with him now. What a
+review it is!
+
+He had founded literary and scientific clubs in his early life that had
+made not idlers, but men. He had founded the first subscription library
+in America. It had multiplied, and in its many branches had become a
+national influence.
+
+He made a stove that was a family luxury, and showed how it might be
+enjoyed without a smoky chimney.
+
+He had shown that lightning was electricity and could be controlled, and
+had disarmed the thunder cloud by a simple rod.
+
+He had founded the High School in Pennsylvania.
+
+He had encouraged the raising of silk.
+
+He had helped found the Philadelphia Hospital, and had founded the
+American Philosophical Society.
+
+He had promoted the scheme for uniting the colonies.
+
+He had signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of the
+Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace between England and the United
+States, and the draft of the Constitution of the United States.
+
+We may truly say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." But there
+remains yet one paper to sign. It is his will. The influence of that
+paper is felt in the world to-day, but nowhere more than in Boston. In
+this will he made provision for lending the interest of great bequests
+to poor citizens, he left the fund for the Franklin Silver Medal in
+Boston schools, and he sought to be a benefactor to the children of
+Boston after a hundred years. This will has the following words:
+
+"If this plan is executed, and succeeds as projected without
+interruption for one hundred years, the sum will then be one hundred and
+thirty-one thousand pounds, of which I would have the managers of the
+donation to the town of Boston then lay out, at their discretion, one
+hundred thousand pounds in public works, which may be judged of most
+general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges,
+aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make
+living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more
+agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health or a temporary
+residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand pounds I would have
+continued to be let out on interest, in the manner above directed, for
+another hundred years, as I hope it will have been found that the
+institution has had a good effect on the conduct of youth, and been of
+service to many worthy characters and useful citizens. At the end of
+this second term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the
+operation, the sum will be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds
+sterling; of which I leave one million sixty-one thousand pounds to the
+disposition of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and three millions
+to the disposition of the government of the State, not presuming to
+carry my views farther."
+
+He put his signature to this last paper, and for the last time did honor
+to his old writing-master, George Brownell.
+
+He died looking upon a picture of Christ, and he was buried amid almost
+unexampled honors, France joining with the United States in his
+eulogies.
+
+But in a high sense he lives. There is one boy who has never ceased to
+attend the Boston Latin School, and will not for generations to come. It
+is Silence Dogood.
+
+Virtue to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to
+benevolence, faith to faith! So ascend the feet of worth on the ladder
+of life; so reaches a high purpose a place beyond the derision of the
+world.
+
+The bells of the nation tolled when he died. "He was true to his
+country!" said all men; but aged Jenny, "He was true to his home!"
+
+The influence of Uncle Benjamin in his godson had lived, but it was not
+ended.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On September 17th, in the year 1856, the city of Boston stopped business
+to render homage to the memory of her greatest citizen. On that day was
+inaugurated the Franklin statue, by Horatio Greenough, that now stands
+in front of the City Hall. On that day the graves of Josiah and Abiah
+Franklin in the Granary burying ground were covered with evergreens and
+flowers, and we hope that the grave of Uncle Ben, the poet, which is
+near by, was not forgotten.
+
+The procession was one of the grandest that the city has ever seen, for
+it was not only great in numbers, but it blossomed with heart tributes.
+The trades were in it, the military, the schools. Orators, poets,
+artists, all contributed to the festival. Boston was covered with flags,
+and her halls were filled with joyous assemblages.
+
+There was one house that was ornamented by a motto from Franklin's
+private liturgy. It was:
+
+          "Help me to be faithful to my country,
+           Careful for its good,
+           Valiant for its defense,
+           And obedient to its laws."
+
+Conspicuous among the mottoes were:
+
+"Time is money," "Knowledge is power," "Worth makes the man," and,
+queerly enough, "_Don't give too much for the whistle_," the teaching of
+an experience one hundred and fifty years before.
+
+The bells rang, and the influence of the old man who slept beside the
+flower-crowned grave of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Franklin was in the
+joy; the chimes of Nottingham were ringing again. Good influences are
+seeds of immortal flowers, and no life fails that inspires another.
+
+Franklin Park, Boston, which will be one of the most beautiful in the
+world, will carry forward, in its forests, fountains, and flowers, these
+influences for generations to come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+A LESSON AFTER SCHOOL.
+
+
+IT was the day of the award of the Franklin medals in the old Boston
+Latin School, a day in June, and such a one as James Russell Lowell so
+picturesquely describes. We say "old" Boston Latin School, not meaning
+old Boston in England, but such an association would not be an untrue
+one; for the Boston Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts, which was
+founded under the influence of Governor John Winthrop and Rev. John
+Cotton, and that numbers five signers of the Declaration of Independence
+among its pupils, was really begun in Boston, England, in 1554, or in
+the days of Queen Mary. It has the most remarkable history of any school
+in America; it has been the Harrow of Harvard, and for five or more
+generations has sent into life many men whose character has shed luster
+upon their times.
+
+To gain the Franklin medal is the high aim of the Boston schoolboy. It
+is to associate one's name with a long line of illustrious men, among
+them John Collins Warren, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Phillips
+Brooks, S. F. Smith, and many others.
+
+But one of the boys who had won the Franklin medal to-day had done so
+amid the ridicule of his people at home and after very hard work. Boston
+Latin boys are too well bred to laugh at the humble gifts of any one,
+but those of this period could hardly have failed to notice the natural
+stupidity and the strong, silent purpose and will of this lad. His name
+we will call Elwell--Frank Elwell. He came from a humble home, where he
+was not uncommonly taunted as being the "fool of the family."
+
+He first attracted attention at this school of brilliant pupils by a
+bold question which he asked his teacher one day that commanded instant
+respect. After hard study he had made a very poor recitation. He was
+reproved by his teacher, who was a submaster, but a kindly, sensitive,
+and sympathetic man. He lifted his eyes and looked into the teacher's
+face, and said:
+
+"Why do you reprove me? I am doing the best I can, sir."
+
+The teacher knew the words to be true. The boys that heard the question
+turned with a kind of chivalrous feeling toward their dull companion,
+who was doing his best against poverty, limited gifts, and many
+disadvantages in life. The old school of Charles Sumner, Wendell
+Phillips, and Phillips Brooks is not wanting in true sympathy with any
+manly struggle in life.
+
+The teacher answered: "Master Elwell, I have done wrong in reproving
+you. He does well who does his best. You are doing well."
+
+Frank Elwell won the Franklin medal by doing his best. On the evening
+after his graduation he stood before his teacher and asked:
+
+"Master Lowell" (for so we will call the teacher, and use the old term
+in the vocative case), "Master Lowell, did you ever know any boy to
+struggle against defects like mine?"
+
+"Yes, my boy, I have."
+
+"Did he succeed in life?"
+
+"He did. He became the first citizen of Boston, and is so regarded
+still."
+
+"Who was it, sir?"
+
+"Look at your medal. It was Benjamin Franklin himself."
+
+Reader, Frank Elwell perhaps is _you_.
+
+"More than wealth, more than fame, more than any other thing, is the
+power of the human heart." Live for influences--live for the things that
+live, and let the best influences of the Peter Folgers and Benjamin
+Franklins of your family live on in you, and live after you. You will do
+well in life and will succeed in life if you do your best; and if your
+ideal seems to fail in you, it will not fail in the world, in whose
+harvest field no good intention perishes.
+
+Be true to those who have faith in you, and _to_ their faith in you, and
+help others by believing in the best that is in them. Those who have the
+most faith in you are your truest friends. An Uncle Benjamin and a Jenny
+are among the choicest characters that can enter the doors of life, and
+we will see it so at the end.
+
+Do good, and you can not fail.
+
+          "Do thou thy work; it shall succeed
+             In thine or in another's day,
+           And if denied the visitor's meed,
+             Thou shalt not miss the toiler's pay."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS PROVERB STORY OF THE OLD AUCTIONEER.
+
+
+"FRIENDS," said the old auctioneer, "the taxes are indeed very heavy. If
+those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we
+might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more
+grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,
+three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly;
+and from these taxes the commissioners can not ease or deliver us by
+allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and
+something may be done for us. God helps them that help themselves, as
+Poor Richard says.
+
+"I. It would be thought a hard government that would tax its people one
+tenth part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness
+taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely
+shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while
+the used key is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love
+life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,
+as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in
+sleep, forgetting that The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that
+There will be sleeping enough in the grave? as Poor Richard says.
+
+"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as
+Poor Richard says, the greatest prodigality, since, as he elsewhere
+tells us, Lost time is never found again, and what we call time enough
+always proves little enough. Let us, then, be up and doing, and doing to
+the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.
+Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all ease; and He that
+riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at
+night; while Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him.
+Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and, Early to bed and early
+to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, as Poor Richard says.
+
+"So, what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We make these
+times better if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not wish, and he that
+lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains;
+then help, hands, for I have no lands; or, if I have, they are smartly
+taxed. He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling
+hath an office of profit and honor, as Poor Richard says; but then the
+trade must be worked at, and the calling followed, or neither the estate
+nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious we
+shall never starve; for, At the workingman's house Hunger looks in but
+dares not enter; for, Industry pays debts, while despair increases them.
+What though you have no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a
+legacy; Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things
+to industry. Then plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have
+corn to sell and to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for you know
+not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth two
+to-morrows, as Poor Richard says; and further, Never leave that till
+to-morrow which you can do to-day. If you were a servant, would you not
+be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you, then, your
+own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to
+be done for yourself, your family, your country, your king. Handle your
+tools without mittens; remember that The cat in gloves catches no mice,
+as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps
+you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great
+effects; for, Constant dropping wears away stones, and By diligence and
+patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and Little strokes fell great
+oaks.
+
+"Methinks I hear some of you say, Must a man afford himself no leisure?
+I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says: Employ thy time
+well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a
+minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something
+useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man
+never; for A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.
+Many, without labor, would live by their wits only, but they break for
+want of stock; whereas, industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect.
+Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a
+large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every one bids me
+good-morrow.
+
+"II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady and careful, and
+oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to
+others; for, as Poor Richard says:
+
+          "I never saw an oft-removed tree,
+           Nor yet an oft-removed family,
+           That throve so well as those that settled be."
+
+And again, Three removes are as bad as a fire; and again, Keep thy shop,
+and thy shop will keep thee; and again, If you would have your business,
+go; if not, send. And again,
+
+          "He that by the plow would thrive,
+           Himself must either hold or drive."
+
+And again, The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands;
+and again, "Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge; and
+again, Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open. Trusting
+too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, In the affairs of
+this world men are saved not by faith but by the want of it; but a man's
+own care is profitable, for, If you would have a faithful servant, and
+one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great
+mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the
+horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost, being
+overtaken and slain by the enemy--all for want of a little care about a
+horseshoe nail.
+
+"III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own
+business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our
+industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to
+save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die
+not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will; and
+
+     "Many estates are spent in the getting,
+        Since women forsook spinning and knitting,
+        And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.
+      If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting."
+
+The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater
+than her incomes.
+
+"Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so
+much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable
+families; for
+
+          "Women and wine, game and deceit,
+           Make the wealth small and the want great."
+
+And, further, What maintains one vice would bring up two children. You
+may think, perhaps, that a little tea or a little punch now and then,
+diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little
+entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, Many a
+little makes a mickle. Beware of little expenses; A small leak will sink
+a great ship, as Poor Richard says; and again, Who dainties love shall
+beggars prove; and, moreover, Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.
+
+"Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks.
+You call them goods; but if you do not take care, they will prove evils
+to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may
+for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion for them, they must
+be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: Buy what thou hast no
+need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities. And again, At a
+great pennyworth pause awhile. He means that perhaps the cheapness is
+apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy
+business, may do thee more harm than good; for in another place he says,
+Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths. Again, It is foolish
+to lay out money in a purchase of repentance; and yet this folly is
+practiced every day at auctions for want of minding the almanac. Many,
+for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly and
+half starved their families. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put
+out the kitchen fire, as Poor Richard says.
+
+"These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the
+conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to
+have them! By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to
+poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but
+who through industry and frugality have maintained their standing; in
+which case it appears plainly that A plowman on his legs is higher than
+a gentleman on his knees, as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have a
+small estate left them which they knew not the getting of; they think,
+It is day, and it never will be night; that a little to be spent out of
+so much is not worth minding; but Always taking out of the meal-tub, and
+never putting in, soon comes to the bottom, as Poor Richard says; and
+then, When the well is dry, they know the worth of water. But this they
+might have known before, if they had taken his advice. If you would know
+the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for, He that goes
+a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, as Poor Richard says; and, indeed, so does
+he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it again. Poor Dick
+further advises, and says:
+
+          "Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse;
+           Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse."
+
+And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more
+saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that
+your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, It is easier
+to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it. And it
+is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell
+in order to equal the ox.
+
+          "Vessels large may venture more,
+           But little boats should keep near shore."
+
+It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, Pride
+that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty,
+dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy. And, after all, of what use
+is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is
+suffered? It can not promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase
+of merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens misfortune.
+
+"But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities! We
+are offered by the terms of this sale six months' credit; and that,
+perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we can not spare
+the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah! think what
+you do when you run in debt: you give to another power over your
+liberty. If you can not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your
+creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor,
+pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity,
+and sink into base, downright lying; for, The second vice is lying, the
+first is running in debt, as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same
+purpose, Lying rides upon Debt's back; whereas, a free-born Englishman
+ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living.
+But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard
+for an empty bag to stand upright.
+
+"What would you think of that prince, or of that government, who should
+issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman
+on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say that you were
+free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would
+be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And
+yet you are about to put yourself under such tyranny when you run in
+debt for such dress. Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to
+deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail till you shall be
+able to pay him. When you have got your bargain you may perhaps think
+little of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, Creditors have better
+memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great
+observers of set days and times. The day comes round before you are
+aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or,
+if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long,
+will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have
+added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. Those have a short
+Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter. At present, perhaps, you may
+think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a
+little extravagance without injury; but
+
+          "For age and want save while you may;
+           No morning sun lasts a whole day."
+
+Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, expense
+is constant and certain; and It is easier to build two chimneys than to
+keep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says; so, Rather go to bed supperless
+than rise in debt.
+
+          "Get what you can, and what you get, hold;
+           'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold."
+
+And when you have got the philosopher's stone, surely you will no longer
+complain of bad times or the difficulty of paying taxes.
+
+"IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do
+not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence,
+though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the
+blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not
+uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and
+help them. Remember, Job suffered, and was afterward prosperous.
+
+"And now, to conclude, Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will
+learn in no other, as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for, it is
+true, we may give advice, but we can not give conduct. However, remember
+this: They that will not be counseled can not be helped; and further,
+that, If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles, as
+Poor Richard says."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.
+
+
+_THE WINDFALL; or, After the Flood._ Illustrated by B. WEST CLINEDINST.
+12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          The young hero and heroine of Mr. Stoddard's
+          stirring tale of mining life and of adventures by
+          field and flood, teach lessons of pluck and
+          resourcefulness which will impart a special and
+          permanent value to one of the best stories that
+          this popular author has given us.
+
+
+_CHRIS, THE MODEL-MAKER._ A Story of New York. With 6 full-page
+Illustrations by B. WEST CLINEDINST. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "The girls as well as boys will be certain to
+          relish every line of it. It is full of lively and
+          likely adventure, is wholesome in tone, and
+          capitally illustrated."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+_ON THE OLD FRONTIER._ With 10 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth,
+$1.50.
+
+          "A capital story of life in the middle of the last
+          century. . . . The characters introduced really live
+          and talk, and the story recommends itself not only
+          to boys and girls but to their parents."--_New
+          York Times._
+
+
+_THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK._ With 11 full-page Illustrations and colored
+Frontispiece. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "Young people who are interested in the
+          ever-thrilling story of the great rebellion will
+          find in this romance a wonderfully graphic picture
+          of New York in war time."--_Boston Traveller._
+
+
+_LITTLE SMOKE._ A Story of the Sioux Indians. With 12 full-page
+Illustrations by F. S. DELLENBAUGH, portraits of Sitting Bull, Red
+Cloud, and other chiefs, and 72 head and tail pieces representing the
+various implements and surroundings of Indian life. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "It is not only a story of adventure, but the
+          volume abounds in information concerning this most
+          powerful of remaining Indian tribes. The work of
+          the author has been well supplemented by the
+          artist."--_Boston Traveller._
+
+
+_CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD._ The story of a country boy who fought his way
+to success in the great metropolis. With 23 Illustrations by C. T. HILL.
+12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "There are few writers who know how to meet the
+          tastes and needs of boys better than does William
+          O. Stoddard. This excellent story teaches boys to
+          be men, not prigs or Indian hunters. If our boys
+          would read more such books, and less of the
+          blood-and-thunder order, it would be rare good
+          fortune."--_Detroit Free Press._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+
+
+
+GOOD BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS.
+
+
+_CHRISTINE'S CAREER._ A Story for Girls. By PAULINE KING. Illustrated.
+12mo. Cloth, specially bound, $1.50.
+
+          The heroine of Miss King's charming story shares
+          artist life in rural France and in Paris before
+          she returns to her native country, where her time
+          is divided between New York and Boston and the
+          seashore. The story is fresh and modern, relieved
+          by incidents and constant humor, and the lessons
+          which are suggested are most beneficial.
+
+
+_JOHN BOYD'S ADVENTURES._ By THOMAS W. KNOX, author of "The Boy
+Travelers," etc. With 12 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "The hero is alternately merchant, sailor,
+          man-o'-war's-man, privateer's-man, pirate, and
+          Algerine slave. The bombardment of Tripoli is a
+          brilliant chapter of a narrative of heroic
+          deeds."--_Philadelphia Ledger._
+
+
+_ALONG THE FLORIDA REEF._ By CHARLES F. HOLDER, joint author of
+"Elements of Zoology." With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "The reader will be entertained with a series of
+          adventures, but when he is done he will find that
+          he has learned a good deal about dancing cranes,
+          corals, waterspouts, sharks, talking fish,
+          disappearing islands, hurricanes, turtles, and all
+          sorts of wonders of the earth and sea and
+          air."--_New York Sun._
+
+
+_ENGLISHMAN'S HAVEN._ By W. J. GORDON, author of "The Captain-General,"
+etc. With 8 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "The story of Louisbourg, which because of its
+          position and the consequences of its fall is
+          justly held one of the most notable of the world's
+          dead cities. The story is admirably
+          told."--_Detroit Free Press._
+
+
+_WE ALL._ A Story of Outdoor Life and Adventure in Arkansas. By OCTAVE
+THANET. With 12 full-page Illustrations by E. J. AUSTEN and others.
+12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "A story which every boy will read with unalloyed
+          pleasure. . . . The adventures of the two cousins are
+          full of exciting interest. The characters, both
+          white and black, are sketched directly from
+          Nature, for the author is thoroughly familiar with
+          the customs and habits of the different types of
+          Southerners that she has so effectively
+          reproduced."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
+
+
+_KING TOM AND THE RUNAWAYS._ By LOUIS PENDLETON. The experiences of two
+boys in the forests of Georgia. With 6 Illustrations by E. W. KEMBLE.
+12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+          "The doings of 'King' Tom, Albert, and the
+          happy-go-lucky boy Jim on the swamp island, are as
+          entertaining in their way as the old sagas
+          embodied in Scandinavian story."--_Philadelphia
+          Ledger._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page x, "ELECTRIFIELD" changed to "ELECTRIFIED" (THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL)
+
+Page 54, "brought" changed to "bought" (name that bought)
+
+Page 86, "waching" changed to "watching" (who stood watching)
+
+Page 142, "endeavered" chagned to "endeavored" (him. I endeavored)
+
+Page 148, "disapponitment" changed to "disappointment" (ended in
+disappointment)
+
+Page 253, "spinnnig" changed to "spinning" (of a spinning-wheel)
+
+Page 265, "longed" changed to "long" (had long outlived)
+
+Page 291, word "about" inserted into text (pupils about how to)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's True to His Home, by Hezekiah Butterworth
+
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