nd the more he read the more interesting he
found it. Great as he afterwards became, he was surprised to find that
Franklin was a poor boy, and had to work for a living. He started out in
life on his own account, and through industry, frugality, perseverance,
and a fixed determination to rise in life, he became a distinguished
an in the end, and a wise man also, though his early opportunities
were very limited. It seemed to Harry that there was a great similarity
between his own circumstances and position in life and those of the
great man about whom he was reading, and this made the biography the
more fascinating. The hope came to him that, by following Franklin's
example, he, too, might become a successful man.

His mother, looking up at intervals from the stockings which had been
so repeatedly darned that the original texture was almost wholly lost of
sight of, noticed how absorbed he was.

"Is your book interesting, Harry?" she asked.

"It's the most interesting book I ever read," said Harry, with a sigh of
intense enjoyment.

"It's about Benjamin Franklin, isn't it?"

"Yes. Do you know, mother, he was a poor boy, and he worked his way up?"

"Yes, I have heard so, but I never read his life."

"You'd better read this when I have finished it. I've been thinking that
there's a chance for me, mother."

"A chance to do what?"

"A chance to be somebody when I get bigger. I'm poor now, but so was
Franklin. He worked hard, and tried to learn all he could. That's the
way he succeeded. I'm going to do the same."

"We can't all be Franklins, my son," said Mrs. Walton, not wishing her
son to form high hopes which might be disappointed in the end.

"I know that, mother, and I don't expect to be a great man like him.
But if I try hard I think I can rise in the world, and be worth a little
money."

"I hope you wont' be as poor as your father, Harry," said Mrs. Walton,
sighing, as she thought of the years of pain privation and pinching
poverty reaching back to the time of their marriage. They had got
through it somehow, but she hoped that their children would have a
brighter lot.

"I hope not," said Harry. "If I ever get rich, you shan't have to work
any more."

Mrs. Walton smiled faintly. She was not hopeful, and thought it probable
that before Harry became rich, both she and her husband would be resting
from their labor in the village churchyard. But she would not dampen
Harry's youthful enthusiasm by the uttera