LittleBen 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 hecould 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 todo?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 airworkfor him, and he probablydreamed 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 fetchedhimup; 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 andwherefores 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' insteadof 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'llnever 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'sgoing to live here, they say. Then there will be two of you, and you could fly kites and make up poetrytogether, 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.
Benloved 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 seekingto 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. Thispersonalitywill 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."
LittleBen 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 aretheygoing 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 thatyouwill 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."
"Andyoumay 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. "Everythingthat 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 wasjustice. 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 hasnot 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 oftheirgood 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 aslave. 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 byautomatic, 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?"
Mr. George Brownellkept 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.
Handwritten: Philad Oct 9 1755 Your most hum Servt B Franklin
LittleBen 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 haveto 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 youpersonality. 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.
Uncle Benjamin's secret.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 yourgodfather. 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 £100, 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 doit. 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 thatboughtthem, 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 havepersonality, 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."
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, andshowed 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 fatherconvincedhim 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 thusconvincinghim. 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. Perhapsyou 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 asecondmistake, 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 meanthim.
"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 typeof 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 gavehim 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 Prayerbackwardat 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 JosiahFranklin 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 amongthe 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 sidepocket 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.