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CHAPTER VI.
LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG
Ben loved little animals. He not only liked to have them about him, but it gave him great joy to protect them. One of his pets was a guinea pig.
"There are few traits of character that speak better for the future of a boy than that which seeks to protect the helpless and overlooked in the brute creation," said Uncle Benjamin to Abiah Franklin one day. "There are not many animals that have so many enemies as a guinea pig. Cats, dogs, and even the hens run after the harmless little thing. I wonder that this one should be alive now. He would have been dead but for Ben."
Abiah had been spinning. It was a windy day, and the winds, too, had been spinning as it were around the house. She had stopped to rest in her work. But the winds had not stopped, but kept up a sound like that of the wheel.
"You are always saying good things about little Ben," said Abiah. "What is it that you see in him that is different from other boys?"
"Personality," said Uncle Ben. "Look at him now, out in the yard. He has been protecting the pigeon boxes from the wind, and after them the rabbit warren. He is always seeking to make life more comfortable for everybody and everything. Now, Abiah, a heart that seeks the good of others will never want for a friend and a home. This personality will make for him many friends and some enemies in the future. The power of life lies in the heart."
The weather door opened, and little Ben came into the room and asked for a cooky out of the earthen jar.
"Where's your guinea pig, my boy?" asked Uncle Benjamin. "I only see him now and then."
"Why do you call him a guinea pig, uncle?" asked little Ben. "He did not come from Guinea, and he is not a pig. He came from South America, where it is warm, and he is a covey; he is not a bit of a rabbit, and not a pig."
"Where do you keep him?" asked Uncle Benjamin.
"I keep him where he is warm, uncle. It makes my heart all shrink up to see the little thing shiver when the wind strikes him. It is cruel to bring such animals into a climate like this."
"There are tens of thousands of guinea pigs, or coveys, in the land where they are found. Yes, millions, I am told. One guinea pig don't count for much."
"But, uncle, one feels the cold wind as much as another would – as much as each of all the millions would."
"But, Ben, you have not answered my question. Where is the little covey now?"
Little Ben colored red, and looked suspiciously toward the door of the room in which his father was at work. He presently saw his father's paper hat through the light over the door, and said:
"Let me tell you some other time, uncle. They will laugh at me if I tell you now."
"Benjamin," said his mother, "we are going to have a family gathering this year on the anniversary of the day when your father landed here in 1685. The family are all coming home, and the two Folger girls – the schoolmarms – will be here from Nantucket. You will have to take the guinea-pig box out of your room under the eaves. The Folger girls are very particular. What would your aunts Hannah and Patience Folger, the schoolmarms, say if they were to find your room a sty for a guinea pig?"
"My little covey, mother," said Ben. "I'll put the cage into the shop. No, he would be killed there. I'll put him where he will not offend my aunts, mother."
Abiah Folger began to spin again, and the wheel and the wind united did indeed make a lonely atmosphere. Uncle Benjamin punched the fire, which roared at times lustily under the great shelf where were a row of pewter platters.
Little Ben drew near the fire. Suddenly Uncle Ben started.
"Oh, my eyes! what is that, Ben?"
Ben looked about.
"I don't see anything, uncle."
"Your coat sleeve keeps jumping. I have seen it four or five times. What is the matter there?"
Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said:
"There is a bunch on your arm, Ben."
"No, no, no, uncle."
"There is, and it moves about."
"I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle."
"There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah, stop spinning a minute and come here."
The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and leaned over it with one hand against the shelf.
"What has he been doing now?" she asked in a troubled tone.
"Look at his arm there! It bulges out."
Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then appeared a little head outside the sleeve.
"I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all the time."
There was – it was the little covey or guinea pig.
"What did I tell you before Ben came in?" said Uncle Benjamin.
Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously:
"It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm illustrates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than one in this cold world."
Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again.
Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work.
The wheel stopped.
"I do love that boy," said Abiah, "notwithstanding all the fault they find with him."
"So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my godson. All people are common in this world except those who have personality. He had a great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of Lord Halifax."
"I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig, will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell."
"No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such things begin in that way."
CHAPTER VII.
UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD
Little Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called "the girls."
But one November day, as he came home after the arrival of the stage from Salem, he was met at the door by his uncle with the question:
"Who do you think has come?"
"I don't know, uncle. Josiah?"
"No."
"Brother John from Rhode Island? Esther and Martha from school? Zachary from Annapolis?"
"Not right yet."
"Esther and Martha from school at Nantucket?"
"Yes; and your Aunt Hannah and Aunt Prudence have come with them, with bandboxes, caps, snuffboxes, and all. They came on the sloop. It is a time for little boys to be quiet now, and to keep guinea pigs and such things well out of sight."
"How long are they going to stay, uncle?"
By "they" he referred to his aunts.
"A week or more, I guess. This will be your still week."
"But I can not keep still, uncle; I am a boy."
Little Benjamin went into the home room and there met his stately aunts, the school teachers.
There was a great fire in the room, and the pewter platters shone there like silver. His aunts received him kindly, but in a very condescending way. They had not yet discovered any "personality" in the short, little boy of the numerous family.
The aunts delighted in imparting moral instruction, and they saw in little Ben, as they thought, a useful opportunity for such culture.
That night the family, with the aunts from Nantucket, sat down by the great fire under the shining platters to hear Uncle Benjamin relate a marvelous story. Every family has one wonder story, and this was the one wonder story of the Franklin side of the family. Uncle Benjamin wished the two "aunts" to hear this story "on his side of the house."
"There was only one of our family in England who ever became great, and that was my Uncle Thomas," he began.
"Only think of that, little Ben," said Aunt Hannah Folger, "only one."
"Only one," said Aunt Prudence Folger, "and may you become like him."
"He was born a smith, and so he was bred, for it was the custom of our family that the eldest son should be a smith – a Franklin."
"Sit very still, my little boy," said the two aunts, "and you shall be told what happened. He was a smith."
"There was a man in our town," continued Uncle Ben, "whose name was Palmer, and he became an esquire."
"Maybe that you will become an esquire," said Aunt Esther to Ben.
"He became an esquire," said Aunt Prudence. "Sit very still, and you shall hear."
"This man liked to encourage people; he used to say good things of them so as to help them grow. If one encourage the good things which one finds in people it helps them. It is a good thing to say good words."
"If you do not say too many," said Josiah Franklin. "I sometimes think we do to little Ben."
"Well, this Esquire Palmer told Uncle Tom one day that he would make a good lawyer. Tom was very much surprised, and said, 'I am poor; if I had any one to help me I would study for the bar.' 'I will help you,' said Esquire Palmer. So Uncle Tom dropped the hammer and went to school."
"And you may one day leave the candle shop and go to school," said Aunt Esther, moralizing.
"I hope so," said little Ben humbly.
"Not but that the candle shop is a very useful place," said the other aunt.
"Uncle Tom read law, and began to practice it in the town and county of Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man. Everything that he touched improved."
"Just think of that," said Aunt Esther to Ben. "Everything that he touched improved. That is the way to make success for yourself – help others."
"May you profit by his example, Ben," said Aunt Prudence, bobbing her cap border.
"He made everything better – the church, the town, the public ways, the societies, the homes. He was a just man, and he used to say that what the world wanted was justice. Everybody found him a friend, except he who was unjust. And at last Lord Halifax saw how useful he had become, and he honored him with his friendship. When he died, which was some fourteen years ago, all the people felt that they had lost a friend."
The two aunts bowed over in reverence for such a character. Aunt Esther did more than this. She put her finger slowly and impressively on little Ben's arm, and said:
"It may be that you will grow up and be like him."
"Or like Father Folger," added Aunt Prudence, who wished to remind Uncle Benjamin that the Folgers too had a family history.
Little Ben was really impressed by the homely story which he now heard a second time. It presented a looking-glass to him, and he saw himself in it. He looked up to his Uncle Ben with an earnest face, and said:
"I would like to help folks, too; why can I not, if Uncle Tom did?"
"A very proper remark," said Aunt Esther.
"Very," said Aunt Prudence.
"Good intentions are all right," said Josiah Franklin. "They do to sail away with, but where will one land if he has not got the steering gear? That is a good story, Brother Ben. Encourage little Ben here all you can; it may be that you might have become a man like Uncle Tom if you had had some esquire to encourage you."
The aunts sat still and thought of this suggestion.
Then Josiah played on his violin, and the two aunts told tales of the work of their good father among the Indians of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
A baby lay in Abiah Franklin's arms sleeping while these family stories were related. It was a girl, and they had named her Jane, and called her "Jenny."
Amid the story-telling Jenny awoke, and put out her arms to Ben.
"The baby takes to Ben," said the mother. "The first person that she seemed to notice was Ben, and she can hardly keep her little eyes off of him."
Ben took little Jenny into his arms.
As Uncle Benjamin grew older the library of pamphlets that he had sold and on whose margins he had written the best thoughts of his life haunted him. He would sometimes be heard to exclaim:
"Those pamphlets! those pamphlets!"
"Why do you think so much of the lost pamphlets, uncle?" said little Ben.
"Hoi, Ben, hoi! 'tis on your account, Ben. I want you to have them, Ben, and read them when you are old; and I want my son Samuel to have them, although his mind does not turn to philosophy as yours does. It tore my heart to part with them, but I did it for you. One must save or be a slave. You see what it is to be poor. But it is all right, Ben, as the book of Job tells us; all things that happen to a man with good intentions are for his best good."
It was Uncle Benjamin's purpose to mold the character of his little godson. He had the Froebel ideas, although he lived before the time of the great apostle of soul education.
"The first thing for a boy like you, Ben, is to have a definite purpose, and the next is to have fixed habits to carry forward that purpose, to make life automatic."
"What do you mean by automatic, uncle?"
"Your heart beats itself, does it not? You do not make it beat. Your muscles do their work without any thought on your part; so the stomach assimilates its food. The first thing in education, more than cultivation of memory or reason, is to teach one to do right, right all the time, because it is just as the heart beats and the muscles or the stomach do their work. I want so to mold you that justice shall be the law of your life – so that to do right all the time will be a part of your nature. This is the first principle of home education."
Little Ben only in part comprehended this simple philosophy.
"But, uncle," said he, "what should be my purpose in life?"
"You have the nature of your great-uncle Tom – you love to be doing things to help others, just as he did. The purpose of your life should be to improve things. Genius creates things, but benevolence improves things. You will understand what I mean some day, when you shall grow up and go to England and hear the chimes of Northampton ring."
Uncle Benjamin liked to take little Ben out to sea. They journeyed so far that they sometimes lost sight of the State House, the lions and unicorns, and the window from which new kings and royal governors had been proclaimed.
These excursions were the times that Uncle Ben sought to mold the will of little Ben after the purpose that he saw in him. He told him the stories of life that educate the imagination, that help to make fixed habit.
"If I only had those pamphlets," he said on these excursions, "what a help they would be to us! You will never forget those pamphlets, will you, Ben?"
CHAPTER VIII.
LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY
Mr. George Brownell kept a writing school, and little Ben was sent to him to learn to write his name and to "do sums."
Franklin did indeed learn to write his name – very neatly and with the customary flourish. In this respect he greatly pleased the genial old master.
"That handwriting," he said, "is fit to put before a king. Maybe it will be some day, who knows? But, Ben," he added, "I am sorry to say it, although you write your name so well, you are a dunce at doing your sums. Now, if I were in your place I would make up for that."
In picturing these encouraging schooldays in after years, Benjamin Franklin kindly says of the old pedagogue: "He was a skillful master, and successful in his profession, employing the mildest and most encouraging methods. Under him I learned to write a good hand pretty soon, but he could not teach me arithmetic."
One afternoon, toward evening, after good Master Brownell had encouraged him by speaking well of his copy book, he came home with a light heart. He found his Uncle Benjamin, and his cousin, Samuel Franklin, Uncle Benjamin's son, at the candle shop.
"Uncle Benjamin," he said, "I have something to show you; I have brought home my copy book. Master Brownell says it is done pretty well, but that I ought to do my sums better, and that I 'must make up for that.'"
"He is right, little Ben. We have to try to make up for our defects all our lives. Let me look at the book. Now that is what I call right good writing."
"Do you see anything peculiar about it?" asked Ben. "Master Brownell said that it was good enough to set before a king, and that it might be, some day."
Little Ben's big brothers, who had come in, laughed, and slapped their hands on their knees.
Josiah Franklin left his tallow boiling, and said:
"Let me see it, Ben."
He mounted his spectacles and held up the copy book, turning his eyes upon the boy's signature.
"That flourish to your name does look curious. It is all tied up, and seems to come to a conclusion, as though your mind had carried out its original intention. There is character in the flourish. Ben, you have done well. But you must make up for your sums. – Brother Ben, that is a good hand, but I guess the sun will go around and around the world many times before kings ever set their eyes on it. But it will tell for sure. The good Book says, 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business – ' Well, you all know the rest. I repeat that text often, so that my boys can hear."
Samuel Franklin, Uncle Ben's son, examined the copy book.
"Samuel," said Uncle Ben, "I used to write a hand something like that. I wish that I had my pamphlets; I would show you my hand at the time of the Restoration. I used to write political proverbs in my pamphlets in that way.
"I want you," he continued, "to honor that handwriting, and do your master credit. The master has tried to do well by you. I hope that handwriting may be used for the benefit of others; live for influences, not for wealth or fame. My life will not fail if I can live in you and Samuel here. Remember that everything that you do for others will send you up the ladder of life, and I will go with you, even if the daisies do then blow over me.
"Ben, you and Samuel should be friends, and, if you should do well in life, and he should do the same – which Heaven grant that he may! – I want you sometimes to meet by the gate post and think of me.
"If you are ever tempted to step downward, think of me, Ben; think of me, Samuel. Meet sometimes at the gate post, and remember all these things. You will be older some day, and I will be gone."
The old man held up the copy book again.
"'Fit to set before kings,'" he repeated. "That was a great compliment."
Little Jane, the baby, seeing the people all pleased, held out her hands to Ben.
"Jenny shall see it," said Ben. He took the copy book and held it up before her eyes. She laughed with the rest.
That signature was to remap the world. It was to be set to four documents that changed the history of mankind. Reader, would you like to see how a copy of it looked? We may fancy that the curious flourish first saw the light in Mr. Brownell's school.
CHAPTER IX.
UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET
Little Ben was fond of making toy boats and ships and sailing them. He sometimes took them to the pond on the Common, and sometimes to wharves at low tide.
One day, as he was going out of the door of the sign of the Blue Ball, boat in hand, Uncle Benjamin followed him.
The old man with white hair watched the boy fondly day by day, and he found in him many new things that made him proud to have him bear his name.
"Ben," he called after him, "may I go too?"
"Yes, yes, Uncle Benjamin. I am going down beside Long Wharf. Let us take Baby Jane, and I will leave the boat behind. The baby likes to go out with us."
The old man's heart was glad to feel the heart that was in the voice.
Little Ben took Baby Jane from his mother's arms, and they went toward the sea, where were small crafts, and sat down on board of one of the safely anchored boats. It was a sunny day, with a light breeze, and the harbor lay before them bright, calm, and fair.
"Ben, let us talk together a little. I am an old man; I do not know how many years or even days more I may have to spend with you. I hope many, for I have always loved to live, and, since I have come to know you and to give my heart to you, life is dearer to me than ever. I have a secret which I wish to tell you.
"Ben, as I have said, I have found in you personality. You do not fully know what that means now. Think of it fifty years from now, then you will know. You just now gave up your boat-sailing for me and the baby. You like to help others to be more comfortable and happy, and that is the way to grow. That is the law of life, and the purpose of life is to grow. You may not understand what I mean now; think of what I say fifty years from now.
"Ben, I have faith in you. I want that you should always remember me as one who saw what was in you and believed in you."
"Is that the secret that you wanted to tell me, uncle?" asked little Ben.
"No, no, no, Ben; I am a poor man after a hard life. You do pity me, don't you? Where are my ten children now, except one? Go ask the English graveyard. My wife is gone. I am almost alone in the world. All bright things seemed to be going out in my life when you came into it bearing my name. I like to tell you this again and again. Oh, little Ben, you do not know how I love you! To be with you is to be happy.
"One after one my ten children went away to their long rest where the English violets come and go. Two after one they went, three after two, and four after three. I lost my property, and Samuel went to America, and I was told that Brother Josiah had named you for me and made me your godfather. Then, as there was nothing but graves left for me in old England, I wished to come to America too.
"Ben, Ben, you have heard all this before, but, listen, I must tell you more. I wanted to cross the ocean, but I had little money for such a removal, and I used to walk about London with empty hands and wish for £100, and my wishes brought me nothing but sorrow, and I would go to my poor lodgings and weep. Oh, you can not tell how I used to feel!
"I had a few things left – they were as dear to me as my own heart. I am coming to the secret now, Ben. You are asking in your mind what those things were that I sold; they were the things most precious of all to me, and among them were – were my pamphlets."
The old man bowed over, and his lip quivered.
"What were your pamphlets, uncle? You said that you would explain to me what they were."
"Ben, there are some things that we come to possess that are a part of ourselves. Our heart goes into them – our blood – our life – our hope. It was so with my pamphlets, Ben. This is the secret I have to tell.
"I loved the cause of the Commonwealth – Cromwell's days. In the last days of the Commonwealth, when I had but little money to spare, I used to buy pamphlets on the times. When I had read a pamphlet, thoughts would come to me. I did not seem to think them; they came to me, and I used to note these thoughts down on the margins of the leaves in the pamphlets. Those thoughts were more to me than anything that I ever had in life."
"I would have felt so too, uncle."
"Years passed, and I had a little library of pamphlets, the margins filled with my own thoughts. Poetry is the soul's vision, and I wrote my poetry on those pamphlets. Ben, oh, my pamphlets! my pamphlets! They were my soul; all the best of me went into them.
"Well, Ben, times changed. King Charles returned, and the Commonwealth vanished, but I still added to my pamphlets for years and years. Then I heard of you. I always loved Brother Josiah, and my son was on this side of the water, and the longing grew to sail for America, where my heart then was, as I have told you."
"I see how you felt, uncle."
"I dreamed how to get the money; I prayed for the money. One day a London bookseller said to me: 'You have been collecting pamphlets. Have you one entitled Human Freedom'? I answered that I had, but that it was covered with notes. He asked me to let him come to my lodgings and read it. He came and looked over all my pamphlets, and told me that a part of the collection had become rare and valuable; that they might have a value in legal cases that would arise owing to the change in the times. He offered to buy them. I refused to sell them, on account of what I had written on the margins of the leaves. What I wrote were my revelations.
"He went away. Then my loneliness increased, and my longing to come to America. I could sell my valuables, and among them the pamphlets, and this would give me money wherewith to make the great change."
"You sold them, uncle?"
"When I thought of Brother Josiah, I was tempted to do it. But I at first said 'No.' When I heard that my son was making a home for himself here, I again was tempted to do it. But I said, 'No.' I could not sell myself.
"Then there came a letter from Brother Josiah. It said: 'I have another son. We have named him Benjamin, after you. We have named you as his godfather.'
"Then I sat down on the side of the bed in my room, and the tears fell.
"'We have named him Benjamin' – how those words went to my heart!"
"It was the first time that you ever heard of me, wasn't it, uncle?"
"Yes, yes; it makes me happy to hear you say that. And you will never forget me, will you, Ben?"
"Never, uncle, if I live to be eighty years old! But, uncle, you sold the pamphlets!"
"Yes. When I read your name in Josiah's letter I felt a weight lifted from my mind. I said to myself that I would part with myself – that is, the pamphlets – for you."
"Did you sell them for me, uncle?"
"Yes, I sold them for you, Benjamin."
"What was the man's name that bought them, uncle?"
"I hoped that you would ask me that. His name was Axel. Repeat it, Ben."
"Axel."
"It is a hard name to forget."
"I shall never forget it, uncle."
"Ben, you may go to London sometime."
"We are all poor now."
"But you have personality, and people who look out for others are needed by others for many things. Maybe they will sometime send you there."
"Who, uncle?"
"Oh, I don't know. But if ever you should go to London, go to all the old bookstores, and what name will you look for?"
"Axel, uncle."
"Ben, those are not books; they are myself. I sold myself when I sold them – I sold myself for you. Axel, Ben, Axel."
Little Ben repeated "Axel," and wondered if he would ever see London or meet with his uncle in those pamphlets which the latter claimed to be his other self.
"Axel," he repeated, pinching Baby Jane's cheek. Baby Jane laughed in the sunlight on the blue sea when she saw the excitement in Ben's face.
The tide was coming in, the boat was rocking, and Ben said:
"We must go home now, for Jenny's sake."
