Part 39 (2/2)
The old men went out and stood by the gate late in the evening. The moon was rising over the harbor; it was a warm, still night. Sentries were pacing to and fro, for Boston was surrounded by sixteen thousand hostile men in arms.
The nine o'clock bell rang.
”I must go back to the camp,” said Franklin, for he had met Samuel within the American lines.
”Cousin Benjamin, these are perilous times,” said Samuel. ”Justice is what the world needs. Make those pamphlets live, and return them with father's name honored in yours to my family.”
”I will do so or perish. I am in dead earnest.”
He ascended the hill and looked down on the British camps in Boston town.
Franklin had been sent to Cambridge as a commissioner to Was.h.i.+ngton's army at this time. It was October, 1775.
He longed to see his sister Jane--”Jenny”--once more. His sister was now past sixty years of age. Foreseeing the siege of Boston, he had written to her to come to Philadelphia and to make her home with him. But she was unwilling to remove from her own city and old home, though she was forced to find shelter within the lines of the American army.
One night, after her removal from Boston, there came a gentle knock at the door of her room. She opened it guardedly, and looked earnestly into the face of the stranger.
”Jenny!”
”My own brother!--do I indeed see you alive? Let me put my hand into yours once more.”
He drew her to him.
”Jenny, I have longed for this hour.”
”But what brings you here at this time? You did not come wholly to see me? Sit down, and let us bring up all the past again.”
He sat down beside her, holding her hand.
”Jenny, you ask what brings me here. Do you remember Uncle Ben?”
”Whose name you bear? Never shall I forget him. The memory of a great man grows as years increase.”
”Jenny, I've heard the bells in Ecton ring, and I found in Nottinghams.h.i.+re letters from Uncle Benjamin, and they coupled your name when you was a girl with mine when I was a boy; do you remember what he said to us on that showery summer day when all the birds were singing?”
”Yes, Ben--I must call you 'Ben'--he said that 'more than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, was the power of the human heart, and that that power grows by seeking the good of others.'”
”What he said was true, but that was not all he said.”
”He told you to be true to your country--to live for the things that live.”
”Jenny, that is why I am here. He told you to be true to your home. You have been that, Jenny. You took care of father when he was sick for the last time, and you antic.i.p.ated all his wants. I love you for that, Jenny.”
”But it made me happy to do it, and the memory of it makes me happy now.”
”And mother, you were her life in her old age. They are gone, both gone, but your heart made them happy when their steps were retreating. O Jenny, Jenny, your hair is turning gray, and mine is gray already. You have fulfilled Uncle Benjamin's charge under the trees. You have been true to your home.”
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