Itwas 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 hadbrought 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 herold 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 cometo 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.
Thereis 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 followingresolution 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 assumedby 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 thenextalmanac 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 wasyf. 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 labeledLe 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. Hisfather 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 andprognosticatetogether. 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,fatherused 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,theywill 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."
Benjamin Franklinloved 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 popularityor 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 ahidden 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. Hewould 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?
Franklinwent 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 gentlemanlike 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."
A strange discovery.A strange discovery.
"And uncommonly interesting comments they are. Thatlibrary 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 tolook 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 arehere. 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. Hebegan 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; forhe 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."
Inhis 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 theywere 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. Heattended the conventicles, sir, and became a Brownite, sir, and——"
Was the American gentleman going daft again?
He stopped at the name ofAxel, 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 occurredallusions 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."
WhenDr. 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 Americawere 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. Æsop, 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. Thelord'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 thosethings 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 followedhim. 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, thegrandfathercharm; 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!
Franklin'spaper, 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 donot 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 haveof 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, butit 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 powerdivinely 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 thecommand 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,thebanquet is to be here. Have you not heard?"