simple
school doors for the want of means. To gain the Franklin Medal,
provided by legacy of Benjamin Franklin, is now the high ambition of
every Boston Latin schoolboy. There were fortifications on Fort Hill and
a powder house on the Common. There were inns, taverns, and ordinaries
everywhere. Boston was a town of inns with queer names; Long Wharf was
the seaway to the ships. Chatham Street now was then a fair green lane;
Salem Street was a place of property people or people of "quality."

In King's Chapel was a state pew for the royal Governors. On the pulpit
stood an hourglass in a frame of brass. The pillars were hung with
escutcheons of the king.

Ben may have passed the old Latin School which at first was established
at a place just east of King's Chapel. If so, he must have wished to be
entered there as a pupil again. The school has distributed his medals
now for several generations. He may have passed the old inns like the
Blue Anchor Tavern, or the Royal Exchange, or the fire of 1711 may have
wiped out some of these old historic buildings, and new ones to take
their places may have been rising or have been but recently completed.
The old Corner Bookstore was there, for it was built directly after the
fire of 1711. It is the oldest brick building now standing in the city,
and one of the few on which little Ben's eyes could have rested. A new
town arose after the fire.

Josiah Franklin and little Ben visited the workshops of carpenters,
turners, glaziers, and others, but, although they had a good time
together in the study, the kind father could not find a place that
suited his son. Ben did not like to be apprenticed to any of the
tradesmen that he met.

He had a brother James, of a bright mind but of no very amiable
disposition, who was a printer. He had been to London to improve his
trade, and on his return he became the one printer in the town.

One evening, between the violin and the Bible, Josiah Franklin suddenly
said:

"Ben, you look here!"

"What, father?" asked the boy, starting.

"It all comes to me what you ought to do. You should become a printer."

"That I would like, father."

"Then the way is clear--let me apprentice you to James."

"Would he have me, father? We do not always get on well together. I want
to learn the printer's trade; that would help me on to an education."

Josiah Franklin was now a happier man. Ben would have no more desire to
go to sea. If he could become anything