In the Days of Poor Richard Part 11

"And I learned at least one thing doing it--that school-teaching is not for me. It would have turned me into a shrub. Too much piddling! It is hard enough to teach men that they have rights which even a king must respect."

"Let me remind you, sir," said Mr. Pinhorn, who sat at the same table, "that the King can do no wrong."

"But his ministers can do as they please," Mr. Adams rejoined, whereat the whole company broke into laughter.

Mr. Pinhorn covered his mouth with astonishment, but presently allowed himself to say: "Sir, I hold to my convictions."

"You are wrong, sir. It is your convictions that hold to you. They are like the dead limbs on a tree," Mr. Adams answered. "The motto of Great Britain would seem to be, 'Do no right and suffer no wrong.'

They search our ships; they impress our seamen; they impose taxes through a Parliament in which we are not represented, and if we threaten resistance they would have us tried for treason. Nero used to say that he wished that the inhabitants of Rome had only one neck, so that he could dispose of them with a single blow. It was a rather merciful wish, after all. A neck had better be chopped off than held under the yoke of tyranny."

"Sir, England shielded, protected, us from French and Indians," Mr.

Pinhorn declared with high indignation.

"It protected its commerce. We were protecting British interests and ourselves. Connecticut had five thousand under arms; Ma.s.sachusetts, seven thousand; New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire, many more.

Ma.s.sachusetts taxed herself thirteen shillings and four pence to the pound of income. New Jersey expended a pound a head to help pay for the war. On that score England is our debtor."

The horn sounded. The travelers arose from the tables and hurried out to the coach.

"It was a good dinner," Mr. Adams said to Jack when they had climbed to their seat. "We should be eating potatoes and drinking water, instead of which we have two kinds of meat and wine and pudding and bread and tea and many jellies. Still, I am a better philosopher after dinner than before it. But if we lived simpler, we should pay fewer taxes."

As they rode along a lady pa.s.senger sang the ballad of John Barleycorn, in the chorus of which Mr. Adams joined with much spirit.

"My capacity for getting fun out of a song is like the gift of a weasel for sucking eggs," he said.

So they fared along, and when Jack was taking leave of the distinguished lawyer at The Black Horse Tavern in Philadelphia the latter invited the boy to visit him in Boston if his way should lead him there.

2

The frank, fearless, sledge-hammer talk of the lawyer made a deep impression on the boy, as a long letter written next day to his father and mother clearly shows. He went to the house of the printer, where he did not receive the warm welcome he had expected. Deborah Franklin was a fat, hard-working, illiterate, economical housewife. She had a great pride in her husband, but had fallen hopelessly behind him. She regarded with awe and slight understanding the accomplishments of his virile, restless, on-pushing intellect. She did not know how to enjoy the prosperity that had come to them. It was a neat and cleanly home, but, as of old, Deborah was doing most of the work herself. She would not have had it otherwise.

"Ben thinks we ortn't to be doin' nothin' but settin' eroun' in silk dresses an' readin' books an' gabbin' with comp'ny," she said. "Men don't know how hard tis to git help that cleans good an' cooks decent.

Everybody feels so kind o' big an' inderpendent they won't stan' it to be found fault with."

Her daughter, Mrs. Bache, and the latter's children were there.

Suddenly confronted by the problem of a strange lad coming into the house to live with them, they were a bit dismayed. But presently their motherly hearts were touched by the look of the big, gentle-faced, homesick boy. They made a room ready for him on the top floor and showed him the wonders of the big house--the library, the electrical apparatus, the rocking chair with its fan swayed by the movement of the chair, the new stove and grate which the Doctor had invented. That evening, after an excellent supper, they sat down for a visit in the library, when Jack suggested that he would like to have a part of the work to do.

"I can sweep and clean as well as any one," he said. "My mother taught me how to do that. You must call on me for any help you need."

"Now I wouldn't wonder but what we'll git erlong real happy," said Mrs.

Franklin. "If you'll git up 'arly an' dust the main floor an' do the broom work an' fill the wood boxes an' fetch water, I'll see ye don't go hungry."

"I suppose you will be going to England if the Doctor is detained there," said Jack.

"No, sir," Mrs. Franklin answered. "I wouldn't go out on that ol'

ocean--not if ye would give me a million pounds. It's too big an' deep an' awful! No, sir! Ben got a big bishop to write me a letter an'

tell me I'd better come over an' look a'ter him. But Ben knowed all the time that I wouldn't go a step."

There were those who said that her dread of the sea had been a blessing to Ben, for Mrs. Franklin had no graces and little gift for communication. But there was no more honest, hard-working, economical housewife in Philadelphia.

Jack went to the shop and was put to work next morning. He had to carry beer and suffer a lot of humiliating imposition from older boys in the big shop, but he bore it patiently and made friends and good progress. That winter he took dancing lessons from the famous John Trotter of New York and practised fencing with the well-known Master Brissac. He also took a course in geometry and trigonometry at the Academy and wrote an article describing his trip to Boston for _The Gazette_. The latter was warmly praised by the editor and reprinted in New York and Boston journals. He joined the company for home defense and excelled in the games, on training day, especially at the running, wrestling, boxing and target shooting. There were many shooting galleries in Philadelphia wherein Jack had shown a knack of shooting with the rifle and pistol, which had won for him the Franklin medal for marksmanship. In the back country the favorite amus.e.m.e.nt of himself and father had been shooting at a mark.

Somehow the boy managed to do a great deal of work and to find time for tramping in the woods along the Schuylkill and for skating and swimming with the other boys. Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Bache grew fond of Jack and before the new year came had begun to treat him with a kind of motherly affection.

William, the Doctor's son, who was the governor of the province of New Jersey, came to the house at Christmas time. He was a silent, morose, dignified, self-seeking man, who astonished Jack with his rabid Toryism. He nettled the boy by treating the opinions of the latter with smiling toleration and by calling his own father--the great Doctor--"a misguided man."

Jack forged ahead, not only in the printer's art, but on toward the fulness of his strength. Under the stimulation of city life and continuous study, his talents grew like wheat in black soil. In the summer of seventy-three he began to contribute to the columns of _The Gazette_. Certain of his articles brought him compliments from the best people for their wit, penetration and good humor. He had entered upon a career of great promise when the current of his life quickened like that of a river come to a steeper grade. It began with a letter from Margaret Hare, dated July 14, 1773. In it she writes:

"When you get this please sit down and count up the years that have pa.s.sed since we parted. Then think how our plans have gone awry. You must also think of me waiting here for you in the midst of a marrying world. All my friends have taken their mates and pa.s.sed on. I went to Doctor Franklin to-day and told him that I was an old lady well past nineteen and accused him of having a heart of stone. He said that he had not sent for you because you were making such handsome progress in your work. I said: 'You do not think of the rapid progress I am making toward old age. You forget, too, that I need a husband as badly as _The Gazette_ needs a philosopher. I rebel. You have made me an American--you and Jack, I will no longer consent to taxation without representation. Year by year I am giving up some of my youth and I am not being consulted about it.'

"Said he: 'I would demand justice of the king. I suppose he thinks that his country can not yet afford a queen, I shall tell him that he is imitating George the Third and that he had better listen to the voice of the people.'

"Now, my beloved hero, the English girl who is not married at nineteen is thought to be hopeless. There are fine lads who have asked my father for the right to court me and still I am waiting for my brave deliverer and he comes not. I can not forget the thrush's song and the enchanted woods. They hold me. If they have not held you--if for any reason your heart has changed--you will not fail to tell me, will you?

Is it necessary that you should be great and wise and rich and learned before you come to me? Little by little, after many talks with the venerable Franklin, I have got the American notion that I would like to go away with you and help you to accomplish these things and enjoy the happiness which was ours, for a little time, and of which you speak in your letters. Surely there was something very great in those moments.

It does not fade and has it not kept us true to their promise? But, Jack, how long am I to wait? You must tell me."

This letter went to the heart of the young man. She had deftly set before him the gross unfairness of delay. He felt it. Ever since the parting he had been eager to go, but his father was not a rich man and the family was large. His own salary had been little more than was needed for clothing and books. That autumn it had been doubled and the editor had a.s.sured him that higher pay would be forthcoming. He hesitated to tell the girl how little he earned and how small, when measured in money, his progress had seemed to be. He was in despair when his friend Solomon Binkus arrived from Virginia. For two years the latter had been looking after the interests of Major Washington out in the Ohio River country. They dined together that evening at The Crooked Billet and Solomon told him of his adventures in the West, and frontier stories of the notorious, one-legged robber, Micah Harpe, and his den on the sh.o.r.e of the Ohio and of the cunning of the outlaw in evading capture.

"I got his partner, Mike Fink, and Major Washington give me fifty pounds for the job," said Solomon. "They say Harpe's son disappeared long time ago an' I wouldn't wonder if you an' me had seen him do it."

"The white man that hung back in the bushes so long? I'll never forget him," said Jack.

"Them wimmen couldn't 'a' been in wuss hands."

"It was a lucky day for them and for me," Jack answered. "I have here a letter from Margaret. I wish you would read it."

Solomon read the girl's letter and said:

"If I was you I'd swim the big pond if nec'sary. This 'ere is a real simon pure, four-masted womern an' she wants you fer Captain. As the feller said when he seen a black fox, 'Come on, boys, it's time fer to wear out yer boots.'"

"I'm tied to my job."

"Then break yer halter," said Solomon.

"I haven't money enough to get married and keep a wife."

"What an ignorant cuss you be!" Solomon exclaimed. "You don't 'pear to know when ye're well off."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that ye're wuth at least a thousan' pounds cash money."

"I would not ask my father for help and I have only forty pounds in the bank," Jack answered.

Solomon took out his wallet and removed from it a worn and soiled piece of paper and studied the memoranda it contained. Then he did some ciphering with a piece of lead. In a moment he said:

You have got a thousan' an' fifteen pounds an' six shillin' fer to do with as ye please an' no questions asked--nary one."