From Boyhood to Manhood: Life of Benjamin Franklin Part 2

For the reader, now familiar with the manners, customs, rush of business, inventions, wealth, and fashion of our day, it is difficult to understand the state of society at the time of Franklin's birth. Parton says of it: "1706, the year of Benjamin Franklin's birth, was the fourth of the reign of Queen Anne, and the year of Marlborough's victory at Ramillies.

Pope was then a sickly dwarf, four feet high and nineteen years of age, writing, at his father's cottage in Windsor Forest the 'Pastorals'

which, in 1709, gave him his first celebrity. Voltaire was a boy of ten, in his native village near Paris. Bolingbroke was a rising young member of the House of Commons, noted, like Fox at a later day, for his dissipation and his oratory. Addison, aged thirty-four, had written his Italian travels, but not the 'Spectator' and was a thriving politician.

Newton, at sixty-four, his great work all done, was master of the mint, had been knighted the year before, and elected president of the Royal Society in 1703 Louis XIV was king of France, and the first king of Prussia was reigning. The father of George Washington was a Virginia boy of ten; the father of John Adams was just entering Harvard College; and the father of Thomas Jefferson was not yet born."

III.

PAYING TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE.

When Benjamin was seven years old he had not been to school a day.

Yet he was a good reader and speller. In manhood he said: "I do not remember when I could not read, so it must have been very early." He was one of those irrepressible little fellows, whose intuition and observation are better than school. He learned more out of school than he could or would have done in it. His precocity put him in advance of most boys at seven, even without schooling. It was not necessary for him to have school-teachers to testify that he possessed ten talents,--his parents knew that, and every one else who was familiar with him.

The first money he ever had to spend as he wished was on a holiday when he was seven years old. It was not the Fourth of July, when torpedoes and firecrackers scare horses and annoy men and women, for Benjamin's holiday was more than sixty years before the Declaration of Independence was declared, and that is what we celebrate now on the Fourth of July. Indeed, his holiday was a hundred years before torpedoes and fire-crackers were invented. It was a gala-day, however, in which the whole community was interested, including the youngest boy in the Franklin family.

"See that you spend your money well," remarked his mother, who presented him with several coppers; "and keep out of mischief."

"And here is some more," added his father, giving him several coppers to add to his spending money; "make wise investments, Ben, for your reputation depends upon it"; and the latter facetious remark was made in a way that indicated his love for the boy.

"What are you going to buy, Ben?" inquired an older brother, who wanted to draw out some bright answer from the child; "sugar-plums, of course," he added.

Benjamin made no reply, though his head was crammed with thoughts about his first holiday.

"I shall want to know how well you spend your money, Ben," said his mother; "remember that 'all is not gold that glitters'; you've got all the money you can have to-day."

All the older members of the family were interested in the boy's pastime, and while they were indulging in various remarks, he bounded out of the house, with his head filled with bewitching fancies, evidently expecting such a day of joy as he never knew before. Perhaps the toy-shop was first in his mind, into which he had looked wistfully many times as he pa.s.sed, and perhaps it was not. We say toy-shop, though it was not such a toy-shop as Boston has to-day, where thousands of toys of every description and price are offered for sale. But it was a store in which, with other articles, toys were kept for sale, very few in number and variety compared with the toys offered for sale at the present day. Benjamin had seen these in the window often, and, no doubt, had wished to possess some of them. But there were no toys in the Franklin family; there were children instead of toys, so many of them that money to pay for playthings was out of the question.

Benjamin had not proceeded far on the street when he met a boy blowing a whistle that he had just purchased. The sound of the whistle, and the boy's evident delight in blowing it, captivated Benjamin at once. He stopped to listen and measure the possessor of that musical wonder. He said nothing, but just listened, not only with his ears, but with his whole self. He was delighted with the concert that one small boy could make, and, then and there, he resolved to go into that concert business himself. So he pushed on, without having said a word to the owner of the whistle, fully persuaded to invest his money in the same sort of a musical instrument. Supposing that the whistle was bought at the store where he had seen toys in the window, he took a bee line for it.

"Any whistles?" he inquired, almost out of breath.

"Plenty of them, my little man," the proprietor answered with a smile, at the same time proceeding to lay before the small customer quite a number.

"I will give you all the money I have for one," said Benjamin, without inquiring the price. He was so zealous to possess a whistle that the price was of no account, provided he had enough money to pay for it.

"Ah! all you have?" responded the merchant; "perhaps you have not as much as I ask for them. They are very nice whistles."

"Yes, I know they are, and I will give you all the money I have for one of them," was Benjamin's frank response. The fact was, he began to think that he had not sufficient money to purchase one, so valuable did a whistle appear to him at that juncture.

"How much money have you?" inquired the merchant.

Benjamin told him honestly how many coppers he had, which was more than the actual price of the whistles. The merchant replied:

"Yes, you may have a whistle for that. Take your pick."

Never was a child more delighted than he when the bargain was closed.

He tried every whistle, that he might select the loudest one of all, and when his choice was settled, he exchanged his entire wealth for the prize. He was as well satisfied as the merchant when he left the store.

"Ignorance is bliss," it is said, and it was to Benjamin for a brief s.p.a.ce.

He began his concert as soon as he left the store. He wanted nothing more. He had seen all he wanted to see. He had bought all he wanted to buy. The whole holiday was crowded into that whistle. To him, that was all there was of it. Sweetmeats and knick-knacks had no attractions for him. Military parade had no charm for him, for he could parade himself now. A band of music had lost its charm, now that he had turned himself into a band.

At once he started for home, instead of looking after other sights and scenes. He had been absent scarcely half an hour when he reappeared, blowing his whistle l.u.s.tily as he entered the house, as if he expected to astonish the whole race of Franklins by the shrillness, if not by the sweetness, of his music.

"Back so quick!" exclaimed his mother.

"Yes! seen all I want to see." That was a truth well spoken, for the whistle just commanded his whole being, and there was room for nothing more. A whistle was all the holiday he wanted.

"What have you there, Ben?" continued his mother; "Something to make us crazy?"

"A whistle, mother," stopping its noise just long enough for a decent reply, and then continuing the concert as before.

"How much did you give for the whistle?" asked his older brother, John.

"All the money I had." Benjamin was too much elated with his bargain to conceal any thing.

"What!" exclaimed John with surprise, "did you give all your money for that little concern?"

"Yes, every cent of it."

"You are not half so bright as I thought you were. It is four times as much as the whistle is worth."

"Did you ask the price of it?" inquired his mother.

"No, I told the man I would give him all the money I had for one, and he took it."

"Of course he did," interjected John, "and if you had had four times as much he would have taken it for the whistle. You are a poor trader, Ben."

"You should have asked the price of it in the first place," remarked his mother to him, "and then, if there was not enough, you could have offered all the money you had for the whistle. That would have been proper."

"If you had paid a reasonable price for it," continued John, "you might had enough money left to have bought a pocket full of good things."

"Yes, peppermints, candy, cakes, nuts, and perhaps more," added a cousin who was present, desiring most of all to hear what the bright boy would say for himself.

"I must say that you are a smart fellow, Ben, to be taken in like that," continued John, who really wanted to make his seven-year-old brother feel bad, and he spoke in a tone of derision. "All your money for that worthless thing, that is enough to make us crazy! You ought to have known better. If you had five dollars I suppose that you would have given it just as quick for the whistle."

Of course he would. The whistle was worth that to him, and he bought it for himself, not for any one else.

By this time Benjamin, who had said nothing in reply to their taunts and reproofs, was running over with feeling, and he could hold in no longer. Evidently he saw his mistake, and he burst into tears, and made more noise by crying than he did with his whistle. Their ridicule, and the thought of having paid more than he should for the whistle, overcame him, and he found relief in tears. His father came to his rescue.

"Never mind, Ben, you will understand how to trade the next time. We have to live and learn; I have paid too much for a whistle more than once in my life. You did as well as other boys do the first time."

"I think so too, Ben," joined in his mother, to comfort him. "John is only teasing you, and trying to get some sport out of his holiday.

Better wipe up, and go out in the street to see the sights."

Benjamin learned a good lesson from this episode of his early life. He only did what many grown-up boys have done, over and over again; pay too much for a whistle. Men of forty, fifty, and sixty years of age do this same thing, and suffer the consequences. It is one of the common mistakes of life, and becomes a benefit when the lesson it teaches is improved as Franklin improved it.

In the year 1779, November 10th, Franklin wrote from Pa.s.sy, France, to a friend, as follows: