well that his
father wanted to make a great scholar of him, but there was not money
enough to do this, so when he was ten he had to go into his father's
soap and candle shop to work. The more he worked over the candles, the
worse he hated to, and by and by he said to his father: "Oh, let me go
to sea!"

"No," said Mr. Franklin, "your brother ran away to sea. I can't lose
another boy that way. We will look up something else."

So the father and son went round the city, day after day, visiting all
kinds of work-shops to see what Benjamin fancied best. But when it
proved that the trade of making knives and tools, which was what pleased
Benjamin most, could not be learned until Mr. Franklin had paid one
hundred dollars, that had to be given up, like the school. There was
never any spare cash in the Franklin purse.

As James Franklin, an older brother, had learned the printing business
in England and had set up an office in Boston, Ben was put with him to
learn the printer's trade. Poor Ben found him a hard man to work for. If
it had not been for the books he found there to read and the friends who
loaned him still more books, he could not have stayed six months. But
Ben knew that since he had to leave school when he was only ten, the
thing for him to do was to study by himself every minute he could get.
He sat up half the nights studying. When he needed time to finish some
book, he would eat fruit and drink a glass of water at noon, just to
save a few extra minutes for studying. James never gave him a chance for
anything but work; it seemed as if he could not pile enough on him. When
he found Ben could write poetry pretty well, he made him write ballads
and sell them on the streets, putting the money they brought into his
own pocket. He was very mean to the younger brother, and when he began
to strike Ben whenever he got into a rage, the boy left him.

Benjamin went to New York but found no work there. He worked his way to
Philadelphia. By this time his clothes were ragged. He had no suitcase
or traveling bag and carried his extra stockings and shirts in his
pockets. You can imagine how bulgy and slack he looked walking through
the streets! He was hungry and stepped into a baker's for bread. He had
only one silver dollar in the world. But he must eat, whether he found
work or not. When he asked for ten cents' worth of bread, the baker gave
him three large loaves. He began munching one of these as he went
back into the