marriage took place on the first of September, 1730. It
subsequently appears that Rogers, the potter, was really dead. The
child was taken home and reared with all possible tenderness and care.
It is a little remarkable that nothing is known of what became of the
mother of that child. The boy grew up to manhood, espoused the Tory
cause, when the Tories were hunting his father to hang him, and by his
ungrateful, rebellious conduct, pierced his heart with a thousand
empoisoned daggers.

Mrs. Franklin proved in all respects an excellent woman, and an
admirable wife for her calm, philosophic and unimpassioned husband.
Franklin never had a journeyman in his office who performed his
functions more entirely to his satisfaction, than his wife discharged
her responsible duties. She was always amiable, industrious and
thrifty.

There was a little shop attached to the printing office which
Mrs. Franklin tended. She also aided her husband in folding and
distributing the papers, and with a mother's love trained, in the
rudiments of education, the child whose mother was lost.

Franklin, in his characteristic, kindly appreciation of the services
of all who were faithful in his employ, speaks in the following
commendatory terms of the industrial excellencies of his wife. When
far away dazzled by the splendors, and bewildered by the flattery of
European courts, he wrote to her,

"It was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been
clothed, from head to foot, in woolen and linen of my wife's
manufacture, and that I never was prouder of any dress in my
life."

In Franklin's Autobiography, as published by Sparks, we read, "We have
an English proverb that says, 'He that would thrive, must ask his
wife.' It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry
and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business,
folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen
rags, for the paper-makers, etc. We kept no idle servants; our table
was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my
breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk, (no tea) and I ate it
out of a two-penny earthern porringer, with a pewter-spoon.

"But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite
of principle. Being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a
china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me
without my knowledge, by my wife, and had c