Part 10 (1/2)

”Did you put those stones into the water?”

”Yes, sir.”

”What did you do that for?”

”To make a wharf, sir.”

”'To make a wharf, sir!' Didn't you have the sense to know that those stones were building stones and belonged to the workmen?”

”No, sir; I didn't know that they belonged to any one. I thought that they belonged to everybody.”

”You did, you little rascal! Then why did you wait to have the workmen go away before you put them into the water?”

”The workmen would have hindered us, sir. They don't think that improvements can be made by little shavers like us. I wanted to surprise them, sir--to show them what we could do, sir.”

”Benjamin Franklin,” said Josiah, ”come here, and I will show you what I can do.--Stranger, the boy's G.o.dfather has come to live with us and to take charge of him, and he does need a G.o.dfather, if ever a stripling did.”

Josiah Franklin laid his hand on the boy, and the workman went away. The father removed the boy's jacket, and showed him what he could do, the memory of which was not a short one.

”I did not mean any harm, father,” young Benjamin said over and over.

”It was a mistake.”

”My boy,” said the tallow chandler, softening, ”never make a second mistake. There are some people who learn wisdom from their first mistakes by never making second mistakes. May you be one of them.”

”I shall never do anything that I don't think is honest, father. I thought stones and rocks belonged to the people.”

”But there are many things that belong to the people in this world that you have no right to use, my son. When you want to make any more public improvements, first come and talk with me about them, or go to your Uncle Ben, into whose charge I am going to put you--and no small job he will have of it, in my thinking!”

Benjamin Franklin said, when he was growing old and was writing his own life, that his father _convinced_ him at the time of this event that ”that which is not honest could not be useful.”

We can see in fancy his father with a primitive switch thus _convincing_ him. He never forgot the moral lesson.

Where was Jamie the Scotchman during this convincing episode? When he heard that the little wharf-builder, bursting with desire for public improvement, had fallen into disgrace, he came upon him slyly:

”So you've been building a wharf for the boys of the town. When one begins so soon in life to improve the town, there can be no telling what he will do when he grows up. Perhaps you will become one of the great benefactors of Boston yet. Who knows?”

”We can't tell,” said the future projector of Franklin Park, philosophically.

”No, that is a fact, bubby. Take your finger out of your mouth and go to cutting candle wicks. It must make a family proud to have in it such a promising one as you! You'll be apt to set something ablaze some day if you keep on as you've begun.”

He did.

Jamie the Scotchman went out, causing the bell on the door to ring. He whistled l.u.s.tily as he went down the street.

Little Benjamin sat cutting wicks for the candle molds and wondering at the ways of the world. He had not intended to do wrong. He may have thought that the stones, although put aside by the workmen, were common property. He had made a mistake. But how are mistakes to be avoided in life? He would ask his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, when he should meet him. It was well, indeed, never to make a _second_ mistake, but better not to make any mistake at all. Uncle Benjamin was wise, and could write poetry. He would ask him.

Besides Jamie the Scotchman, who spent much time at the Blue Ball, little Benjamin's brother James seems to have looked upon him as one whose activities of mind were too obvious, and needed to be suppressed.

The evening that followed the disgrace of little Ben was a serious one in the Franklin family. Uncle Ben had ”gone to meeting” in the Old South Church.