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

"In a few days Keimer sent for me to print off his elegy. He had now procured another set of letter cases, and had a pamphlet to reprint, upon which he set me to work.

"The two Philadelphia printers appeared destitute of every qualification necessary in their profession. Bradford had not been brought up to it, and was very illiterate. Keimer, though he understood a little of the business, was merely a compositor, and wholly incapable of working at press. He had been one of the French prophets, and knew how to imitate their supernatural agitations. At the time of our first acquaintance he professed no particular religion, but a little of all upon occasion. He was totally ignorant of the world, and a great knave at heart, as I had afterward an opportunity of experiencing.

"Keimer could not endure that, working with him, I should lodge at Bradford's. He had indeed a house, but it was unfurnished, so that he could not take me in. He procured me a lodging at Mr. Read's, his landlord, whom I have already mentioned. My trunk and effects being now arrived, I thought of making, in the eyes of Miss Read, a more respectable appearance than when chance exhibited me to her view, eating my roll and wandering in the streets.

"From this period I began to contract acquaintance with such young people as were fond of reading, and spent my evenings with them agreeably, while at the same time I gained money by my industry, and, thanks to my frugality, lived contentedly. I thus forgot Boston as much as possible, and wished every one to be ignorant of the place of my residence, except my friend Collins, to whom I wrote, and who kept my secret.

"An accident, however, happened which sent me home much sooner than I proposed. I had a brother-in-law, of the name of Robert Holmes, master of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware. Being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, he heard of me, and wrote to inform me of the chagrin which my sudden departure from Boston had occasioned my parents, and of the affection which they still entertained for me, assuring me that, if I would return, everything should be adjusted to my satisfaction; and he was very pressing in his entreaties. I answered his letter, thanked him for his advice, and explained the reasons which had induced me to quit Boston with such force and clearness that he was convinced I had been less to blame than he had imagined.

"Sir William Keith, Governor of the province, was at Newcastle at the time. Captain Holmes, being by chance in his company when he received my letter, took occasion to speak of me and showed it to him. The Governor read it, and appeared surprised when he learned of my age. He thought me, he said, a young man of very promising talents, and that of consequence I ought to be encouraged; that there were at Philadelphia none but very ignorant printers, and that if I were to set up for myself he had no doubt of my success; that, for his own part, he would procure me all the public business, and would render me every other service in his power. My brother-in-law related all this to me afterward at Boston, but I knew nothing of it at the time. When, one day, Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the Governor and another gentleman, Colonel French, of Newcastle, handsomely dressed, cross the street and make directly for our house. We heard them at the door, and Keimer, believing it to be a visit to himself, went immediately down; but the Governor inquired for me, came upstairs, and, with a condescension and politeness to which I had not at all been accustomed, paid me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, obligingly reproached me for not having made myself known to him on my arrival in the town, and wished me to accompany him to a tavern, where he and Colonel French were going to have some excellent Madeira wine.

"I was, I confess, somewhat surprised, and Keimer appeared thunderstruck. I went, however, with the Governor and the colonel to a tavern at the corner of Third Street, where he proposed to me to establish a printing house. He set forth the probabilities of success, and himself and Colonel French assured me that I should have their protection and influence in obtaining the printing of the public papers of both governments; and as I appeared to doubt whether my father would assist me in this enterprise, Sir William said that he would give me a letter to him, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme in a light which he had no doubt would determine him. It was thus concluded that I should return to Boston by the first vessel with the letter of recommendation from the Governor to my father. Meanwhile the project was to be kept secret, and I continued to work for Keimer as before.

"The Governor sent every now and then to invite me to dine with him. I considered this a very great honor, and I was the more sensible of it as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable.

"Toward the end of April, 1724, a small vessel was ready to sail for Boston. I took leave of Keimer upon the pretext of going to see my parents. The Governor gave me a long letter, in which he said many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommended the project of my settling at Philadelphia as a thing which could not fail to make my fortune."

What is there prophetic of a great life in this homely narrative? Read over again the incident of the three rolls, one of which he ate, and two of which he gave to the poor woman and her child who needed them more than he. All his money on that day was one silver dollar. In that incident we see the heart and the persistent purpose to do good. He had made mistakes, but the resolution that he had made on reading Cotton Mather's meaty book was unshaken. He would correct his errors and yield to his better nature, and this purpose to help others would grow, and so he would overcome evil with good.

He who helps one helps two. The poor woman may never have been heard of in public, except in this story, but that act of sharing the rolls, with one for the little child, made Ben Franklin a larger man. "The purpose of life is to grow."

Benjamin Franklin is now a seed in the wind, but he is a good seed in the wind – good at heart, with a right purpose. The stream of life is turned aside, but it will flow true again toward the great ocean of that which is broadest and best.

For this little Jenny at home is hoping, and Abiah Franklin praying, and Josiah Franklin keeping silence in regard to his family affairs.

These were hard days for Uncle Benjamin and his philosophy, and for Jenny and her human faith.

CHAPTER XXI.

LONDON AND A LONG SWIM

What kind of a man was Governor Sir William Keith? There are not many such, but one such may be found in almost every large community. He desired popularity, and he loved to please every one. He was constantly promising what he was not able to fulfill. He had a lively imagination, and he liked to think what he would do if he could for every bright person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised, and his promises often ended in disappointment. It delighted him to see faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a young man as he would make a fortune; and he urged him to go back to his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin.

With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity.

He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then turned from him coldly.

But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother, notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot.

But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at once.

He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from him since he went away some seven months before, and they, though grieved at his conduct, received him joyfully. There was always an open door in Abiah Folger's heart. The Quaker blood of good Peter Folger never ceased to course warm in her veins.

Ben told his marvelous story. After the literary adventures of Silence Dogood in Boston, his parents could believe much, but when he came to tell of his intimacy with Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, successor to the great William Penn, they knew not what to think. Either Sir William must be a singular man, or they must have underrated the ability of young Silence Dogood.

"This is great news indeed. But what proof do you bring of your good fortune, my son?" asked the level-headed Josiah, lifting his spectacles upon his forehead and giving his son a searching look.

Young Benjamin took from his pocket the letter of Sir William and laid it before his father. It indeed had the vice-royal seal of the province.

His father put down his spectacles from his forehead, and his wife Abiah drew up her chair beside him, and he read the letter to himself and then reviewed it aloud.

The letter told him what a wonderfully promising young man Benjamin was; how well he was adapted to become the printer of the province, and how he only needed a loan wherewith to begin business to make a fortune.

Josiah Franklin could not doubt the genuineness of the letter. He sat thinking, drumming on a soap shelf.

"But why, my boy, if you are so able and so much needed does not Governor Keith lend you the money himself?"

Ben sat silent. Not all the arts of the Socratic method could suggest any answer to this question.

"I am glad that you have an influential patron," said Josiah, "but to a man of hard sense it would seem very strange that he should not advance the money himself to help one so likely to become so useful to the province to begin business. People are seldom offered something for nothing in this world, and why this man has made himself your patron I can not see, even through my spectacles."

"He wishes, father, to make me a printer for the advancement of the province."

"Then why, my son, should not a governor of a rich province himself provide you with means to become a printer for the advancement of the province?"

Socrates himself could not have answered this question.

"Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap boiler and candle maker?"

"No," said the young man.

"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me, Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more sense than that?"

Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink. He saw himself as he was.

But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy – Abiah, whose heart was always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."

"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."

With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation. We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."

Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.

"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."

Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a father" – the "best man in all the world," he thought.

"Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business of a printer, and I will send to London for them."

Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundred pounds. He brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion.

"Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit."

Was it raining gold?

"I would like to go to London," answered the young printer.

"Then I will provide for your journey. You shall go with Captain Annis." This captain sailed yearly from Philadelphia to London.

Waiting the sailing of the ship months passed away. Governor Keith entertained the young printer at his home. The sailing time came. Franklin went to the office of the Governor to receive the letter of credit and promised letters of introduction.

"All in good time, my boy," said the Governor's clerk, "but the Governor is busy and can not see you now. If you will call on Wednesday you will receive the letters."

Young Franklin called at the office on the day appointed.

"All in good time, my boy," said the clerk. "The Governor has not had time to fix them up and get them ready. They will be sent to you on board the ship with the Governor's mail."

So Franklin went on board the ship. As the Governor's mail came on board he asked the captain to let him see the letters, but the latter told him that he must wait until the ship got under way.

Out at sea the Governor's letters were shown to him. There were several directed to people "in the care of Benjamin Franklin." He supposed these contained notes of introduction and the letter of credit, so he passed happily over the sea.

He reached London December 24, 1724. He rushed into the grand old city bearing the letters directed in his care. He took the one deemed most important to the office of the gentleman to whom it was directed. "This letter is from Governor Keith, of the Province of Pennsylvania," said Franklin.

"I know of no such person," said the man. The latter opened the letter. "Oh, I see," said he, "it is from one Riddleson. I have found him out to be a rascal, an exile, and refuse to entertain any communication from him."

Franklin's face fell. His heart turned heavy. He went out wondering. "Was his father's advice sound, after all?"

The rest of the letters that had been directed in his care were not written by Governor Keith, but by people in the province to their friends, of which he had been made a postboy. There were in the mail no letters of introduction from Governor Keith to any one, and no letter of credit.

He found himself alone in London, that great wilderness of homes. Of Keith's conduct he thus speaks in his autobiography:

"What shall we think of a Governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good Governor for the people, though not for his constituents, the Proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration."

He found work as a journeyman printer in London, and we are sorry to say lived like most journeymen printers there. But Silence Dogood had to make himself useful even among these unsettled people. He instituted new ways of business and life of advantage to journeymen printers, and so kept the chain of his purpose lengthening.

There was a series of curious incidents that happened during the last part of this year of residence in London that came near changing his career. It was in 1726; he was about twenty years old. He had always loved the water, to be on it and in it, and he became an expert swimmer when he was a lad in Boston town.

He had led a temperate life among the London apprentices, and had kept his physical strength unimpaired. He drank water while they drank beer. They laughed at him, but he was able to carry up stairs a heavier case of type than any of them. They called him the "American water-drinker," but there came a day when he performed a feat that became the admiration of the young London printers. He loved companionship, and had many intimate friends, and among them there was one Wygate, who went swimming with him, probably in the Thames, and whom he taught to swim in two lessons.

One day Wygate invited him to go into the country with him and some of his friends. They had a merry time and returned by water. After they had embarked from Chelsea, a suburb which was then some four and a half miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, Wygate said to him:

"Franklin, you are a water boy; let us see how well you can swim."

Franklin knew his strength and skill. He took off his clothing and leaped into the river, and probably performed all the old feats that one can do in the water.

His dexterity delighted the party, but it soon won their applause.

He swam a mile.

"Come on board!" shouted they. "Are you going to swim back to London?"

"Yes," came a voice as if from a fish in the bright, sunny water.

He swam two miles.

The wonder of the party grew.

Three miles.

They cheered.

Four miles to Blackfriars Bridge. Such a thing had never been known among the apprentice lads. The swim brought young Franklin immediate fame among these apprentices, and it spread and filled London.

Sir William Wyndham, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, heard of this exploit, and desired to see him. He had two sons who were about to travel, to whom he wished Franklin to teach swimming. But the two boys were detained in another place, and Franklin never met them. It was proposed to Franklin that he open a swimming school.

But while he was favorable to such agreeable employment, there occurred one of those incidents that seem providential.

He met one day at this shifting period Mr. Denham, the upright merchant, whose integrity came to honor his profession and Philadelphia. This man had failed in business at Bristol, and had left England under a cloud. But he had an honest soul and purpose, and he resolved to pay every dollar that he owed. To this end he put all the energies of his life into his business. He went to America to make a fortune, and he made it. He then returned to Bristol, which he had left in sorrow and humiliation.

He gave a banquet, and invited to it all the merchants and people whom he owed. They responded to the unexpected invitation, and wondered what would happen. When they had seated themselves at the table, and the time to serve the meal came, the dinner plates were lifted, and each one found before him the full amount of the money due to him. The banquet of honor made the name of the merchant famous.

Mr. Denham was a friend to men in need of good influences. He saw Franklin's need of advice, and he said to him:

"My young friend, you should return to Philadelphia. It is the place of opportunity."

"But I have not the means."

"I have the means for you. I am about to return to America with a cargo of merchandise. You must go back with me. Your place in life is there."

Should he go?

It was early summer. He went out on London Bridge one night. It grew dark late. But at last there gleamed in the dark water the lights of London like stars. Many voices filled the air as the boats passed by. The nine o'clock bells rang. It may be that he heard the Bow bells ring, the bells that said, "Come back! come back! come back!" to young Dick Whittington when he was running away from his place in life. If so, he must have been reminded of all that this man accomplished by heeding the voice of the bells, and of how King Henry had said, after all his benefactions, "Did ever a prince have such a subject?"

He must have thought of Uncle Tom and the bells of Nottingham on this clear night of lovely airs and out-of-door merriments. Over the great city towered St. Paul's under the rising moon. Afar was the Abbey, with the dust of kings.

Then he thought of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one to look for books in this great city of London.

Franklin never saw ghosts, except such as arise out of conscience into the eye of the mind. But the old man's form and his counsels now came into the view of the imagination. His old Boston home came back to his dreams; Jenny came back to him, and the face of the young woman whom he had learned to love in Philadelphia.

He resolved to return. America was his land, and he must build with her builders. He sailed for America with his good adviser, the honest merchant, July 21, 1726, and left noblemen's sons to learn to swim in the manner that he himself had mastered the water.

Did he ever see Governor Keith again? Yes. After his return to Philadelphia he met there upon the street one who was becoming a discredited man. The latter recognized him, but his face turned into confusion. He did not bow; nor did Franklin. It was Governor Keith. This Governor Please-Everybody died in London after years of poverty, at the age of eighty.

Silence Dogood may have thought of his father's raised spectacles when he met Sir William that day on the street, and when they did not wish to recognize each other, or of Jenny's words, "Ben, don't go back."

He had learned some hard lessons from the book of life, and he would henceforth be true to the most unselfish counsels on earth – the heart and voice of home.

CHAPTER XXII.

A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR. – JENNY'S SPINNING-WHEEL

Benjamin became a printer again. By the influence of friends he opened in Philadelphia an office in part his own.

Benjamin Franklin had no Froebel education. The great apostle of the education of the spiritual faculties had not yet appeared, and even Pestalozzi, the founder of common schools for character education, could not have been known to him. But when a boy he had grasped the idea that was to be evolved by these two philosophers, that the end of education is character, and that right habits become fixed or automatic, thus virtue must be added to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith.

One day, when he was very poor, there came into his printing office a bustling man.

"See here, my boy, I have a piece for you; there's ginger in it, and it will make a stir. You will get well paid for giving it to the public; all Philadelphia will read it."

"I am glad to get something to give the paper life," said Franklin. "I will read the article as soon as I have time to spare."