Part 3 (1/2)
She choked, and her eyes were wet.
There came a rap upon the door. It was a strong hand that made it; there was a heart in the sound.
”I'll open the door, Josiah,” said Abiah.
She removed the wooden bar with a trembling hand, and lifted the latch.
A tall, rugged form stood before her. She started back.
”Mother, don't you know me?”
”Yes, Josiah, I knew that you were coming to-night.”
She gazed into his eyes silently.
”Who told you, mother?”
”My soul.”
”Well, I've come back like the prodigal son. Let me give you a smack.
You'll take me in--but how about father? I thought I heard him playing the violin.”
”Josiah, that is your voice!” exclaimed Josiah the elder. ”Now my cup of joy is full and running over. Josiah, come in out of the storm.”
Josiah Franklin rushed to the door and locked his son in his arms, but there was probably but little sentiment in the response.
”Now I _know_ the parable of the prodigal son,” said he. ”I had only read it before. Come in! come in! There are brothers and sisters here whom you have never seen. Now we are all here.”
Uncle Benjamin wrote a poem to celebrate young Josiah's return. It was read in the family, with disheartening results. Sailor Josiah said that he ”never cared much for poetry.” The poem may be found in the large biographies of Franklin.
CHAPTER III.
BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN.
AN old man sat by an open fire in a strange-looking room with a little boy on his knee. Beside him was a middle-aged man, the father of the boy.
”Brother Josiah,” said the old man, ”I have had a hard, disappointed life, but I have done the best that I could, and there has nothing happened since my own children died and my hair turned gray that has made me so happy as that letter that you sent to me in England in which you told me that you had named this boy for me.”
”It makes me happy to see you here by my fire to-night, with the boy in your lap,” said the father. ”Benjamin and Benjamin! My heart has been true to you in all your troubles and losses, and I would have helped you had I been able. How did you get up the resolution to cross the sea in your old age?”
”Brother Josiah, it was because my own son is here, and he was all that I had left of my own family. But that was not all. In one sense my own life has failed; I have come down to old age with empty hands. When your letter came saying that you had named this boy for me, and had made me his G.o.dfather, I saw that you pitied me, and that you had a place for me in your heart. I thought of all the years that we had pa.s.sed together when we were young; of the farm and forge in Ecton; of Banbury; of the chimes of Nottingham; of all that we were to each other then.
”I was all alone in London, and there my heart turned to you as it did when we were boys. That gave me resolution to cross the sea, Brother Josiah, although my hair is white and my veins are thin.
”But that was not all, brother; he is a poor man indeed who gives up hope. When a man loses hope for himself, he wishes to live in another.
The ancients used to pray that their sons might be n.o.bler than themselves. When I read your letter that said that you had named this boy for me and had made me his G.o.dfather, you can not tell how life revived in me--it was like seeing a rainbow after a storm. I said to myself that I had another hope in this world; that I would live in the boy. I have come over to America to live in this boy.
”O brother, I never thought that I would see an hour like this! I am poor, but I am happy. I am happy because you loved me after I became poor and friendless. That was your opportunity to show what your heart was. I am happy because you trusted me and gave my name to this boy.