True to His Home Part 4

"Who was Uncle Tom?" asked the boy.

"They used to say that he was a wizard. I will tell you all about him some day. Let us listen now to your father's violin."

The house was still, save that the sea winds stirred the crisp autumn leaves in the great trees near and the nine o'clock bell fell solemnly on the air. A watchman went by, saying, "All is well!"

Yes, all is well in hearts like these--hearts that can pity, love, forbear, and feel.

CHAPTER IV.

FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD.

AS barren as was the early Puritan town in things that please the fancy of the child, Josiah Franklin's home was a cheerful one. It kept holidays, when the violin was played, and some pennies were bestowed upon the many children.

Let us enter the house by the candle-room door. The opening of the door rings a bell. There is an odor of tallow everywhere. One side is hung with wickings, to be cut and trimmed.

When the tallow is boiling the room is very hot, close, and the atmosphere oily.

There is a soap kettle in the room. The odor of the lye is more agreeable than that of the melted tallow.

Little Ben is here, short, stout, rosy-faced, with a great head. Where he goes the other children go; what he does, they do. Already a little world has begun to follow him.

Look at him as he runs around among the candle molds, talking like a philosopher. Does he seem likely to stand in the French court amid the splendors of the palace of Versailles, the most popular and conspicuous person among all the jeweled mult.i.tude who fill the mirrored, the golden, the blazing halls except the king himself? Does he look as though he would one day ask the French king for an army to help establish the independence of his country, and that the throne would bow to him?

Homely as was that home, the fancy of Franklin after he became great always loved to return to it.

In his advanced years he wished to prepare a little story or parable that would show that people spend too much time and money on things that could be more cheaply purchased or that they could well do without. He wrote out an anecdote of his childhood that ill.u.s.trated in a clear way, like so many flashes, how the resources of life may be wasted. The story has been printed, we may safely say, a thousand times. Few stories have ever had a wider circulation or been more often quoted. It has in it a picture of his old home, and as such we must give it here. Here is the parable again, as in the original:

"When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_ that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth.

This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure.

"This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_, and so I saved my money.

"As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_.

"When I saw any one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gave too much for his whistle._

"When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by neglect, _He pays, indeed_, says I, _too much for this whistle._

"If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of acc.u.mulating wealth, _Poor man_, says I, _you do, indeed, pay too much for your whistle._

"When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, _Mistaken man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle._

"If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prison, _Alas!_ says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle._

"When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity it is_, says I, _that she had paid so much for a whistle!_

"In short, I conceived that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their _whistle_."

CHAPTER V.

THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE.

LITTLE Ben now began to lead the sports of the boys. As there came to Froebel an inspiration to found a system of education in which the playground should be made a means of forming character when life was in the clay, so to young Franklin came a desire to make sports and pastimes useful. This caused him to build the little wharf in the soft marsh whence the boys might catch minnows and sail their boats.

Boys of nearly all countries and ages have found delight in flying kites. A light frame of wood, covered with paper, held by a long string, and raised by propelling it against the air, has always peculiar attractions for the young. To see an object rise from the earth by a law of Nature which seems to overcome gravitation to the sky while the string is yet in the hand, gives a boy a sense of power which excites his imagination and thrills his blood.

In Franklin's time the boy who could fly his kite the highest, or who could make his kite appear to be the most picturesque in the far-away blue sky, was regarded as a leader among his fellows, and young Franklin, as we may infer, made his kite fly very high.

But he was not content with the alt.i.tude to which he could raise his kite or its beauty in the sky. His inquiry was, What can the kite be made to teach that is useful? What can it be made to _do_? What good can it accomplish?

Ben was an expert swimmer. After he had mastered the art of overcoming the water, he sought how to make swimming safe and easy; and when he had learned this himself, he taught other boys how to swim safely and easily.

One day he was flying his kite on the sh.o.r.e. His imagination had wings as well as the kite, and he followed it with the eye of fancy as it drifted along the sky pulling at his fingers.

It was a warm day, and the cool harbor rippled near, and he began to feel a desire to plunge into the water, but he did not like to pull down his kite.

He threw off his clothes and dropped into the cool water, still holding his kite string, which was probably fastened to a short stick in his hand.

He turned on his back in the water and floated, looking up to the kite in the blue, sunny sky.

But something, was happening. The kite, like a sail in a boat, was bearing him along. He was the boat, the kite high in the sky was the sail, between the two was a single string. He could sail himself on the water by a kite in the sky!

So he drifted along, near the Mystic River probably, on that warm pleasant day. The sense of the power that he gained by thus obeying a law of Nature filled him with delight. He could not have then dreamed that the simple discovery would lead up to another which would enable man to see how to control one of the greatest forces in the universe. He saw simply that he could make the air _work_ for him, and he probably dreamed that sometime and somewhere the same principle would enable an inventor to show the world how to navigate the air.

The kite now became to him something more than a plaything--a wonder. It caused his fancy to soar, and little Ben was always happy when his fancy was on the wing.

There was a man named Jamie who liked to loiter around the Blue Ball. He was a Scotchman, and full of humor.

"An' wot you been doin' now?" said Jamie the Scotchman, as the boy returned to the Blue Ball with his big kite and wet hair. "Kite-flying and swimming don't go together."

"Ah, sirrah, don't you think that any more! Kite-flying and floating on one's back in the water do go together. I've been making a boat of myself, and the sail was in the sky."

"Sho! How did that come about?"

"I floated on my back and held the kite string in my hand, and the kite drew me along."

"It did, hey? Well, it might do that with a little shaver like you. What made you think of that, I would like to know? You're always thinkin' out somethin' new. You'll get into difficulties some day, like the dog that saw the moon in the well and leaped down to fetch it up; he gave one howl, only one, once for all, and then they fetched _him_ up; he had nothing more to say. So it will be with you if you go kiting about after such things, flyin' kites for boat sails."

"But, Jamie, I think that I am the first boy that ever sailed on the water without a boat--now don't you?"