True to His Home: A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin

"They came to me from my wife's father, who kept the storeway until he was nigh upon ninety years old. He set great store by these books, which led me to read them.

"When Pepys's Diary was printed I was reminded of them, and read them over again, the comments and all. The person who made those notes had a very interesting mind. I think him to have been a philosopher."

The ink on the margin of the volume was fading, and Franklin strained his eyes to read the comments. Suddenly he turned and came into the store and sat down.

"Father Humphrey, bring me another volume."

Father Humphrey lighted the candle again and went into the same dark and tomblike recess, and brought out two more volumes, striking them against the corners of shelves to remove from them the dust and mold.

He noticed that his patron seemed overcome. Franklin was not an emotional man, but his lip quivered.

"You think that the book is interesting?"

He lifted his face and seemed lost in thought.

"Ecton – Ecton – Ecton," he said. "Uncle Tom lived there – Uncle Tom, who started the subscription for the chime of bells."

He had found the word "Ecton" in the pamphlets, and he again began to turn the leaves.

"Squire Isted," he said, "Squire Isted." He had found the name of Squire Isted on one of the leaves. He had heard the name in his youth.

"The World's End," he said. He stood up and turned round and round.

"How queer he acts!" thought Father Humphrey. "I thought him a very calm man. What is it about the World's End?" he asked.

"Oh, it is the name of an old tavern that I have found here. I had some great-uncles that used to have a farm and forge near an inn of that name. That was very long ago, before I was born. Old names seem to me like voices of the past."

He put his spectacles to his eyes and held the book again up to the light.

He presently said: "Luke Fuller – that is an old English name; there was such a one who was ousted for nonconformity in the days of the Conventicles."

He turned round and lifted his face and stood still, like a statue.

Was he going mad? Poor old Father Humphrey began to look toward the door to see if there were clear way of escape for him should the strange man become violent.

Presently he said:

"Earls – Barton," and lifted his brows.

Then he said:

"Mears – Ashby," and lifted his brows higher.

"What, sir, is it about Earls – Barton, and Mears – Ashby?" asked the timid Father Humphrey.

"Oh, you are here. I've heard of these places before – it was many years ago. Some folks came over to America from there."

He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he. "Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his brows again.

Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft, and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name suggested.

The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, passed him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor should be incited to do him harm.

Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face. What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of his senses in this unfortunate place?

He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of another, a long-gone voice:

"Reuben of the Mill – Reuben of the Mill!"

Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and said in a very calm and dignified manner:

"Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely. There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried my thoughts away back to the past."

The timid man came into the shop hopeful of a bargain.

"It is a useful book, I should think," said Franklin, as if holding himself in restraint.

He took the two other volumes that Father Humphrey had brought him and began to look them over.

"Father Humphrey, what do you want for the whole library of the pamphlets?"

"I do not exactly know what price to fix upon them. They might be valuable to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow – and I speak out of my heart, and use no trade language – somehow I want you to buy them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?"

"No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for the present you shall keep the others for me."

He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he had found – he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life; for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life.

He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in his childhood.

What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest, pure-minded old man!

He started up.

"I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was a finger of Providence in it. I must go back – I must go back."

CHAPTER XXXI.

OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY

In his usual serene manner – for he very rarely became excited, notwithstanding that his conduct and his absentmindedness had surprised old Humphrey – Mr. Franklin made his way again to the bookstore in the alley.

Old Humphrey welcomed him with —

"Well, I am glad to see you again, my American patron. Did you find the volume interesting?"

"Yes, Father Humphrey, that was an interesting book, and there were some very curious comments in it. The notes on the Conventicles and the Toleration Act greatly interested me. The man who was the compiler of that book of pamphlets seems to have been a poet, and to have had relatives who were advocates of justice. I was struck by many wise comments that I found in it written in a peculiar hand. Father Humphrey, who do you suppose made those notes? Where did you find those pamphlets? How did they come to you?"

"Well, that would be hard to say. Those volumes of pamphlets have been in the store many years, and I have often tried to find a purchaser for them. They must have come down from the times of the Restoration. I wouldn't wonder if they were as old as Cromwell's day. There is much about Banbury in them, and old Lord Halifax."

"Old Lord Halifax!" said Franklin in surprise, walking about with a far-away look in his face again and his hands behind him. "I did not find that name in the volume that I took home. I had an uncle who received favors from old Lord Halifax."

"You did, hey? Where did he live?"

"In Ecton, or in Nottingham."

"Now, that is curious. It may be that he made the library of pamphlets."

"No, no; if he had, he would never have sold them. He was a well-to-do man. But you have not answered my questions as to how the library of pamphlets came to you."

"I can't. I found them here when I took charge of the store. My wife's father, as I said, used to keep the store. He died suddenly in old age, and left the store to my wife. He had made a better living than I out of my business. So I took the store. I found the books here. I do not know where my father-in-law obtained them. It was his business to buy rare books, and then find a way to some antiquarian of means who might want them. The owner's name was not left in these books. I have looked for it many times. But there are names of Nottingham people there, and when old Lord Halifax used to visit London I tried to interest him in them, but he did not care to buy them."

"Father Humphrey, what was your wife's father's name?"

"His name was Axel, sir. He was a good man, sir. He attended the conventicles, sir, and became a Brownite, sir, and – "

Was the American gentleman going daft again?

He stopped at the name of Axel, and lifted his brows. He turned around, and bowed over with a look of intense interest.

"Did you say Axel, Father Humphrey?"

"Axel, your honor. Axel. I once heard him say that several of these pamphlets were suppressed after the Restoration, and that they were rare and valuable. I heard him say that they would be useful to a historian, sir."

"I will pay you for the books, and you may hold them in trust for me. They will be sent for some day, or it may be that I will call for them myself. My uncle owned those books. It would have been the dearest thing of his life could the old man have seen what has now happened. Father Humphrey, one's heart's desires bring about strange things. They shape events after a man is dead. It seems to me as though I had been directed here. Father Humphrey, what do you think of such things?"

"Well, I don't know. From the time that I first saw you my mind was turned to the pamphlets. I don't know why. Perhaps the owner's thought, or desires, or prayers led me. It is all very strange."

"Yes, it is very strange," said Franklin, again walking to and fro with his hands behind him. "I wish that all good men's works could be fulfilled in this way."

"How do you know that they are not?"

"Let us hope that they are."

"This is all very strange."

"Very strange, very strange. It is the greatest of blessings in life to have had good ancestors. Uncle Ben was a good old man. I owe much to him, and now I seem to have met with him again – Uncle Benjamin, my father's favorite brother, who used to carry me sailing and made the boat a schoolroom for me in the harbor of Boston town."

He added to himself in an absent way: "Samuel Franklin and I have promised to live so as to honor the character of this old man. I have a great task before me, and I can not tell what the issue will be, but I will hold these pamphlets and keep them until I can look into Samuel's face and say, 'England has done justice to America, and your father's influence has advanced the cause of human rights in the world.'"

Would that day ever come?

He went to Ecton, in Nottinghamshire, with his son, and there heard the chimes in the steeple that had been placed there by Thomas Franklin's influence. He visited the graves of his ancestors and the homes of many poor people who bore the Franklin name. He found three letters that his Uncle Benjamin had written home. He read in them the names of himself and Jenny. How his heart must have turned home on that visit! A biographer of Franklin tells his story in a beautiful simplicity that leaves no call for fictitious enlargement. He says: "Franklin discovered a cousin, a happy and venerable old maid; 'a good, clever woman,' he wrote, 'but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very cheerful' – a genuine Franklin, evidently. She gave him some of his Uncle Benjamin's old letters to read, with their pious rhymings and acrostics, in which occurred allusions to himself and his sister Jane when they were children. Continuing their journey, father and son reached Ecton, where so many successive Franklins had plied the blacksmith's hammer. They found that the farm of thirty acres had been sold to strangers. The old stone cottage of their ancestors was used for a school, but was still called the Franklin House. Many relations and connections they hunted up, most of them old and poor, but endowed with the inestimable Franklinian gift of making the best of their lot. They copied tombstones; they examined the parish register; they heard the chime of bells play which Uncle Thomas had caused to be purchased for the quaint old Ecton church seventy years before; and examined other evidences of his worth and public spirit."

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT. – DR. FRANKLIN'S ENGLISH FABLE. – THE DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS

When Dr. Franklin was abroad the first time after the misadventure with Governor Keith, and was an agent of the colonies, his fame as a scientist gave him a place in the highest intellectual circles of England, and among his friends were several clergymen of the English Church and certain noblemen of eminent force and character.

When in 1775, while he was again the colonial agent, the events in America became exciting, his position as the representative American in England compelled him to face the rising tide against his country. He was now sixty-nine years of age. He was personally popular, although the king came to regard him with disfavor, and once called him that "insidious man." But he never failed, at any cost of personal reputation, to defend the American cause.

His good humor never forsook him, and the droll, quaint wisdom that had appeared in Poor Richard was turned to good account in the advocacy of the rights of the American colonies.

One evening he dined at the house of a nobleman. It was in the year of the Concord fight, when political events in America were hurrying and were exciting all minds in both countries.

They talked of literature at the party, but the political situation was uppermost in the minds of all.

A gentleman was present whose literary mind made him very interesting to such circles.

"The art of the illustration of the principles of life in fable," he said, "is exhausted. 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. The lord's face must have changed when he listened to it, for it was a time when such things struck to the heart.

The fable not only showed Dr. Franklin's invention, but his courage. It was as follows: "Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him to the air. He soon found that he had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare, for which, notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat.

"The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very inconvenient, and, what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth.

"'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will release you.'

"'Very fine,' said the cat; 'I have no fancy to fall from this height and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.' The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly."

The eagle, of course, represented England, and the cat America.

Dr. Franklin was a lover of little children and animals – among pet animals, of the American squirrel.

When he returned to England the second time as an agent of the colonies, he wished to make some presents to his English friends who had families.

He liked not only to please children, but to give them those things which would delight them. So he took over to England for presents a cage full of pranky little squirrels.

Among the families of children whom he loved was Dr. Shipley's, the bishop, who had a delightful little daughter, and to her the great Dr. Franklin, who was believed to command the visible heavens, made a present of a cunning American squirrel.

The girl came to love the pet. It was a truly American squirrel; it sought liberty. Franklin called it Mungo.

The girl seems to have given the little creature his will, and let him sometimes go free among the oaks and hedgerows of the fair, green land. But one day it was caught by a dog or cat, or some other animal, and killed. His liberty proved his ruin. Poor Mungo!

There was sorrow in the bishop's home over the loss of the pet, and the poor little girl sought consolation from the philosopher.

But, philosopher that he was, he could not recall to life the little martyr to liberty. So he did about all that can be done in like cases: he wrote for her an epitaph for her pet, setting forth its misfortunes, and giving it a charitable history, which must have been very consoling. He did not indulge in any frivolous rhymes, but used the stately rhythms that befit a very solemn event.

There is a perfect picture of the mother heart of Franklin in this little story. The world has ever asked why this man was so liked. The answer may be read here: A sympathy, guided by principle, that often found expression in humor.

As in the case of good old Sam Adams, the children followed him. Blessed are those whom mothers and children love. It is the heart that has power. A touch of sympathy outlives tales of achievements of power, as in the story of Ulysses's dog. It is he who sympathizes the most with mankind that longest lives in human affections.

A man's character may be known by the poet that the man seeks as his interpreter. Franklin's favorite poet as he grew old was Cowper. In all his duties of life he never lost that heart charm, the grandfather charm; it was active now when children still made his old age happy.

How queerly he must have looked in England with his cage of little squirrels and the children following him in some good bishop's garden!

CHAPTER XXXIII.

OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN

Franklin's paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which appeared in the year 1729, at first published by Franklin and Meredith, and always very neatly printed, had grown, and its income became large. It did much of the thinking for the province. But Franklin made it what it was by his energy, perseverance, and faith. He returned to America, and the paper voiced his opinions.

In the period of his early struggle, he was wheeling some printing paper in a wheelbarrow along the streets toward his office when he heard the tap, tap, tap of an old man's cane.

He looked around. It was the cane of old Mr. Calamity. This man had advised him not to begin publishing.

"Young man – "

"Good morning, sir. I hope it finds you well."

"It must be hard times when an editor has to carry his printing paper in a wheelbarrow."

"The oracle said, 'Leave no stone unturned if you would find success.'"

"Well, my young friend, if there is anybody that obeys the oracle in Pennsylvania it is you. You dress plainly; you do not indulge in many luxuries; you attend the societies and clubs that seek information; you ought to succeed, but you won't."

The old man lifted his cane and brought it down on the flagging stones with a pump.

"You won't, now!"

He stood still for a moment to add to the impression of his words.

"What is this I hear? The province is about to issue paper money? What did I tell you long ago? This is an age of rags. Paper money is rags. Governor Keith's affairs have all gone to ruin; it is unfortunate that he went away. And you are going to print the paper money for the province, are you? Listen to me: in a few years it will not be worth the paper it is printed on, and you will be glad to follow the example of Governor Keith, and get out of Philadelphia. The times are hard, but they are going to be harder. What hope is there for such a man as you?"

Franklin set down his wheelbarrow.

"My good sir, I am doing honest work. It will tell – I have confidence that it will tell."

"Tell! Tell who?"

"The world."

"The world! The owls have not yet ceased to hoot in woods around Philadelphia, and he has a small world that is bounded by the hoot of an owl."

"My father used to say that he who is diligent in his business shall stand before kings," quoting the Scripture.

"Well, you may be as honest and as diligent in your business as you will, it is a small chance that you will ever have of standing before kings. What are you standing before now? – a wheelbarrow. That is as far as you have got. A promising young man it must be to stand before a wheelbarrow and talk about standing before kings!"

"But, sir, I ought not to be standing before a wheelbarrow. I ought to be going on and coining time."

"Well, go right along; you are on the way to Poverty Corner, and you will not need any guide post to find it; take up the handles of the wheelbarrow and go right on. Maybe the king will send a coach for you some day."

He did – more than one king did.

Franklin took the handles of the wheelbarrow, wondering which was the true prophet, his father's Scripture or cautious old Mr. Calamity. As he went on he heard the tap, tap, tap of the cane behind him, and a low laugh at times and the word "kings."

He came to the office, and taking a huge bundle of printing paper on his shoulder went in. The cane passed, tap, tap, tapping. It had an ominous sound. But after the tap, tap, tap of the cane had gone, Franklin could still hear his old father's words in his spiritual memory, and he believed that they were true.

We must continue the story of Mr. Calamity, so as to picture events from a Tory point of view. The incident of the wheelbarrow would long cause him to reproach the name of Franklin.

The Pennsylvania Gazette not only grew and became a source of large revenue, so that Franklin had no more need to wheel to his office printing paper with his own hands, but it crowned with honor the work of which he was never ashamed. The printing of the paper money of the province added to his name, the success that multiplies success began its rounds with the years, and middle life found him a rich man, and his late return from England a man with the lever of power that molds opinion.

Poor old Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight of years.

Benjamin Franklin was a magnanimous man. He never wasted time in seeking the injury of any who ridiculed and belittled him. He had the largest charity for the mistakes in judgment that men make, and the opportunities of life were too precious for him to waste any time in beating the air where nothing was to be gained. Help the man who some time sought to injure you, and the day may come when he will help you, and such Peter-like experiences are among life's richest harvests. The true friendship gained by forgiveness has a breadth and depth of life that bring one of the highest joys of heaven to the soul.

"I will study many things, for I must be proficient in something," said the poet Longfellow when young. Franklin studied everything – languages, literature, science, and art. His middle life was filled with studies; all life to him was a schoolroom. His studies in middle life bore fruit after he was threescore and ten years of age. They helped to make his paper powerful.

Franklin's success greatly troubled poor old Mr. Calamity. After the printer made the great discovery that electricity was lightning, the old man opposed the use of lightning-rods.

"What will that man Franklin do next?" he said. "He would oppose the Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning – he would defy Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a dangerous man, the most dangerous man in all the colony."