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CHAPTER III.
BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN

An old man sat by an open fire in a strange-looking room with a little boy on his knee. Beside him was a middle-aged man, the father of the boy.

"Brother Josiah," said the old man, "I have had a hard, disappointed life, but I have done the best that I could, and there has nothing happened since my own children died and my hair turned gray that has made me so happy as that letter that you sent to me in England in which you told me that you had named this boy for me."

"It makes me happy to see you here by my fire to-night, with the boy in your lap," said the father. "Benjamin and Benjamin! My heart has been true to you in all your troubles and losses, and I would have helped you had I been able. How did you get up the resolution to cross the sea in your old age?"

"Brother Josiah, it was because my own son is here, and he was all that I had left of my own family. But that was not all. In one sense my own life has failed; I have come down to old age with empty hands. When your letter came saying that you had named this boy for me, and had made me his godfather, I saw that you pitied me, and that you had a place for me in your heart. I thought of all the years that we had passed together when we were young; of the farm and forge in Ecton; of Banbury; of the chimes of Nottingham; of all that we were to each other then.

"I was all alone in London, and there my heart turned to you as it did when we were boys. That gave me resolution to cross the sea, Brother Josiah, although my hair is white and my veins are thin.

"But that was not all, brother; he is a poor man indeed who gives up hope. When a man loses hope for himself, he wishes to live in another. The ancients used to pray that their sons might be nobler than themselves. When I read your letter that said that you had named this boy for me and had made me his godfather, you can not tell how life revived in me – it was like seeing a rainbow after a storm. I said to myself that I had another hope in this world; that I would live in the boy. I have come over to America to live in this boy.

"O brother, I never thought that I would see an hour like this! I am poor, but I am happy. I am happy because you loved me after I became poor and friendless. That was your opportunity to show what your heart was. I am happy because you trusted me and gave my name to this boy.

"Brother Josiah, I have come over to America to return your love, in teaching this boy how to live and how to fulfill the best that is in him. A boy with your heart can succeed in life, even if he have but common gifts. The best thing that can be said of any man is that he is true-hearted. Brother, you have been true-hearted to me, and the boy inherits your nature, and I am going to be true-hearted to him and to do all I can to make his life a blessing to you and the world. We do no self-sacrificing thing without fruit."

The old man put his arm about the boy, and said:

"Ben, little Ben, I loved you before I saw you, and I love you more than ever now. I have come across the ocean in my old age to be with you. I want you to like me, Ben."

"I do, uncle," said little Ben. "I would rather be with you than with any one. I am glad that you have come."

"That makes me happy, that makes my old heart happy. I did everything a man could do for his wife and children and for everybody. I was left alone in London, poor; I seemed to be a forsaken man, but this makes up for all."

"Benjamin and Benjamin!" said the younger brother, touching the strings of the violin that he held on his lap – "Benjamin and Benjamin! Brother Benjamin, how did you get the money to cross the ocean?"

"I sold my goods and my pamphlets. They were my life; I had put my life into them. But I sold them, for what were they if I could have the chance to live another life in little Ben?"

"What were your pamphlets?" asked little Ben.

"They were my life, and I sold them for you, that I might make your life a blessing to your father, who has been a true brother to me. I will tell you the whole story of the pamphlets some day."

"Uncle, I love you more than ever before, because you sold the treasures for me. I wish that I might grow up and help folks, so that my name might honor yours.

"You can make it that, my boy. If you will let me teach you, you may make it that. There can nothing stand before a will that wills to do good. It is the heart that has power, my boy. My life will not have been lost if I can live in you."

"I have not much time for educating my children," said the younger brother. "I am going to give over the training of the boy to you. True education begins with the heart first, so as to make right ideas fixed in the mind and right habits, in the conduct. It may be little that I can send him to school, but it is what you can do for him that will give him a start in life. I want you to see that he starts right in life. I leave his training to you. I have a dozen mouths to feed, and small time for anything but toil."

He tuned his violin and played an old English air. There were candle molds in the room, long rows of candle wicks, great kettles, a gun, a Bible, some old books, and a fireplace with a great crane, hooks, and andirons.

Little Benjamin looked up into the old man's face and laid his hand on his shoulder.

"I am glad father did not forget you," said he.

The old man's lip quivered.

"He has been a true brother to me. Always remember that, boy, as long as you live. It is such memories as that that teach. His heart is true to me now as when we used to leave the forge and roam the woods of Banbury together in springtime, when the skylark rose out of the meadows and the hedgerows bloomed. It is good for families to be so true to each other. If one member of a family lacks anything, it is good for another to make up for it. Yes, boy, your father has a good heart, else you would not now be in my arms."

"Why do you cry, papa?" said the boy, for his father's eyes were filled with tears which coursed down his cheeks. Something that aged Benjamin had said about the forge, the nightingale, or the thorn had touched his heart.

"We can never be young again, brother," said Josiah Franklin. "I shall never see the thorn bloom or hear the nightingale sing as I once did. No, no, no; but I am glad that I have brought you and Ben together. That would have pleased our old mother's heart, long dead and gone to the violets and primroses. Do you suppose the dead know? I sometimes think they do, and that it makes them happy to see things like these. I will talk with the parson about these things some day."

The younger brother smiled through his tears and straightened himself up, as though he felt that he had yielded to weakness, for he was a plain, hard-working man. Suddenly he said:

"Brother, you remember Uncle Tom?"

"Yes, yes; he set the chimes of Nottingham ringing in the air. I can hear them ringing now in my memory. Brother, I think little Ben favors Uncle Tom."

"Who was Uncle Tom?" asked the boy.

"They used to say that he was a wizard. I will tell you all about him some day. Let us listen now to your father's violin."

The house was still, save that the sea winds stirred the crisp autumn leaves in the great trees near and the nine o'clock bell fell solemnly on the air. A watchman went by, saying, "All is well!"

Yes, all is well in hearts like these – hearts that can pity, love, forbear, and feel.

CHAPTER IV.
FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD

As barren as was the early Puritan town in things that please the fancy of the child, Josiah Franklin's home was a cheerful one. It kept holidays, when the violin was played, and some pennies were bestowed upon the many children.

Let us enter the house by the candle-room door. The opening of the door rings a bell. There is an odor of tallow everywhere. One side is hung with wickings, to be cut and trimmed.

When the tallow is boiling the room is very hot, close, and the atmosphere oily.

There is a soap kettle in the room. The odor of the lye is more agreeable than that of the melted tallow.

Little Ben is here, short, stout, rosy-faced, with a great head. Where he goes the other children go; what he does, they do. Already a little world has begun to follow him.

Look at him as he runs around among the candle molds, talking like a philosopher. Does he seem likely to stand in the French court amid the splendors of the palace of Versailles, the most popular and conspicuous person among all the jeweled multitude who fill the mirrored, the golden, the blazing halls except the king himself? Does he look as though he would one day ask the French king for an army to help establish the independence of his country, and that the throne would bow to him?

Homely as was that home, the fancy of Franklin after he became great always loved to return to it.

In his advanced years he wished to prepare a little story or parable that would show that people spend too much time and money on things that could be more cheaply purchased or that they could well do without. He wrote out an anecdote of his childhood that illustrated in a clear way, like so many flashes, how the resources of life may be wasted. The story has been printed, we may safely say, a thousand times. Few stories have ever had a wider circulation or been more often quoted. It has in it a picture of his old home, and as such we must give it here. Here is the parable again, as in the original:

"When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

"This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don't give too much for the whistle, and so I saved my money.

"As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.

"When I saw any one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gave too much for his whistle.

"When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by neglect, He pays, indeed, says I, too much for this whistle.

"If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, says I, you do, indeed, pay too much for your whistle.

"When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, Mistaken man, says I, you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle.

"If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prison, Alas! says I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.

"When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, What a pity it is, says I, that she had paid so much for a whistle!

"In short, I conceived that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistle."

CHAPTER V.
THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE

Little Ben now began to lead the sports of the boys. As there came to Froebel an inspiration to found a system of education in which the playground should be made a means of forming character when life was in the clay, so to young Franklin came a desire to make sports and pastimes useful. This caused him to build the little wharf in the soft marsh whence the boys might catch minnows and sail their boats.

Boys of nearly all countries and ages have found delight in flying kites. A light frame of wood, covered with paper, held by a long string, and raised by propelling it against the air, has always peculiar attractions for the young. To see an object rise from the earth by a law of Nature which seems to overcome gravitation to the sky while the string is yet in the hand, gives a boy a sense of power which excites his imagination and thrills his blood.

In Franklin's time the boy who could fly his kite the highest, or who could make his kite appear to be the most picturesque in the far-away blue sky, was regarded as a leader among his fellows, and young Franklin, as we may infer, made his kite fly very high.

But he was not content with the altitude to which he could raise his kite or its beauty in the sky. His inquiry was, What can the kite be made to teach that is useful? What can it be made to do? What good can it accomplish?

Ben was an expert swimmer. After he had mastered the art of overcoming the water, he sought how to make swimming safe and easy; and when he had learned this himself, he taught other boys how to swim safely and easily.

One day he was flying his kite on the shore. His imagination had wings as well as the kite, and he followed it with the eye of fancy as it drifted along the sky pulling at his fingers.

It was a warm day, and the cool harbor rippled near, and he began to feel a desire to plunge into the water, but he did not like to pull down his kite.

He threw off his clothes and dropped into the cool water, still holding his kite string, which was probably fastened to a short stick in his hand.

He turned on his back in the water and floated, looking up to the kite in the blue, sunny sky.

But something, was happening. The kite, like a sail in a boat, was bearing him along. He was the boat, the kite high in the sky was the sail, between the two was a single string. He could sail himself on the water by a kite in the sky!

So he drifted along, near the Mystic River probably, on that warm pleasant day. The sense of the power that he gained by thus obeying a law of Nature filled him with delight. He could not have then dreamed that the simple discovery would lead up to another which would enable man to see how to control one of the greatest forces in the universe. He saw simply that he could make the air work for him, and he probably dreamed that sometime and somewhere the same principle would enable an inventor to show the world how to navigate the air.

The kite now became to him something more than a plaything – a wonder. It caused his fancy to soar, and little Ben was always happy when his fancy was on the wing.

There was a man named Jamie who liked to loiter around the Blue Ball. He was a Scotchman, and full of humor.

"An' wot you been doin' now?" said Jamie the Scotchman, as the boy returned to the Blue Ball with his big kite and wet hair. "Kite-flying and swimming don't go together."

"Ah, sirrah, don't you think that any more! Kite-flying and floating on one's back in the water do go together. I've been making a boat of myself, and the sail was in the sky."

"Sho! How did that come about?"

"I floated on my back and held the kite string in my hand, and the kite drew me along."

"It did, hey? Well, it might do that with a little shaver like you. What made you think of that, I would like to know? You're always thinkin' out somethin' new. You'll get into difficulties some day, like the dog that saw the moon in the well and leaped down to fetch it up; he gave one howl, only one, once for all, and then they fetched him up; he had nothing more to say. So it will be with you if you go kiting about after such things, flyin' kites for boat sails."

"But, Jamie, I think that I am the first boy that ever sailed on the water without a boat – now don't you?"

"Well, I don't know. There's nothin' new under the sun. People like you that are always inquirin' out the whys and wherefores of things commonly get into trouble. Ben, wot will ever become of you, I wonder?"

"Archimedes made water run uphill."

"He did, hey? So he did, as I remember to have read. But he lost his life broodin' over a lot of figers that he was drawin' on the sand – angles and triangles an' things. The Roman soldier cut him down when he was dreamin', and they let his tomb all grow up to briers. Do you think, Ben, that you will ever make the river run uphill? Perhaps you'll turn the water up to the sky on a kite string, and then we can have rain in plantin' time. Who knows?"

He added thoughtfully:

"I wouldn't wonder, Ben, if you invented somethin' if you live. But the prospect isn't very encouragin' of your ever doin' anything alarmin'."

"Did you ever hear what Archimedes exclaimed when he discovered the law that a body plunged in water loses as much of its weight as is equal to the weight of an equal volume of the fluid, and applied it to the alloy in the king's crown?"

"No. Wot did he exclaim?"

"Eureka! Eureka!"

"Wot did he do that for?"

"It means, 'I have found it.'"

"Maybe you'll find out something sometime, Ben. You all run to dreams about such things, and some boys turn their dreams into facts, as architects build their imaginations and make money. But the fifteenth child of a tallow chandler, who was the son of a blacksmith and of a woman whose mother was bought and sold, a boy whose wits are off kite-flyin' instead of wick-cuttin' and tallow-moldin', has no great chance in the future, so it looks to me. But one can't always tell. I don't think that you'll never get to be an Archimedes and cry out 'Eureka!' But you've got imagination enough to hitch the world to a kite and send it off among the planets and shootin' stars, no one knows where. I never did see any little shaver that had so much kite-flyin' in his head as you."

"Archimedes said that if he only had a lever long enough he would move the world."

"He did, hey? Well, little Ben Franklin, you just put up your kite and attend to the candle molds, and let swimmin' in the air all go. Whatever may happen on this planet, you'll never be likely to move the world with a kite, of all things, nor with anything else, for that matter. So it looks to me, and I'm generally pretty far-sighted. It takes practical people to do practical things. Still, the old Bible does say that 'where there is no vision the people perish.' Well, I don't know – as I said, we can not always tell – David slew a giant with a pebble stone, and you may come to somethin' by some accident or other. I'm sure I wish you well. It may be that your uncle Benjamin, the poet, will train you when he comes to understand you, but his thoughts run to kite-flyin' and such things, and he never has amounted to anything at all, I'm told. You was named after him, and rightly, I guess. He would like to have been a Socrates. But the tape measure wouldn't fit his head."

He saw a shade in the boy's face, and added:

"He's going to live here, they say. Then there will be two of you, and you could fly kites and make up poetry together, if it were not for a dozen mouths to feed, which matters generally tend to bring one down from the sky."

An older son of Josiah Franklin appeared.

"James," said Jamie, "here's your brother Ben; he's been sailin' with the sail in the sky. He ought to be keerful of his talents. There's no knowin' what they may lead up to. When a person gets started in such ways as these there's no knowin' how far he may go."

Brother James opened the weather door at the Blue Ball. The bell tinkled and Ben followed him in, and the two sat down to bowls of bread, sweet apples, and milk.

"What have you been doing, Ben?" asked Brother James.

Little Ben did not answer. He got up from the table and went away downhearted, with his face in his jacket sleeve. It hurt him to be laughed at, but his imagination was a comforting companion to him in hours like these.

He could go kite-flying in his mind, and no one could see the flight.

"One can not make an eagle run around a barnyard like a hen," said a sage observer of life. There was the blood of noble purposes in little Ben Franklin's vein, if his ancestors were blacksmiths and his grandmother had been a white slave whose services were bought and sold. He had begun kite-flying; he will fly a kite again one day.