t live in those days. The best of
all ages is now.

"And so you have begun life as a printer?" said Uncle Benjamin. "A
printer's trade is one after my own heart. It develops thought. If I
could have only kept my pamphlets until now, you would have printed the
notes that I made. One of them says that what people want is not favors
or patronage of any kind, but _justice_. Remember that, Ben. What the
world wants is justice. You may become a printer in your own right some
day."

"I want to become one, uncle. That is just what is in my heart. I can
see success in my mind."

"But you can do it if you will. Everything goes down before 'I will!'
The Alps fell before Hannibal. Have a deaf ear, Ben, toward all who say
'You _can't_!' Such men don't count with those in the march; they are
stragglers. Don't you be laughed down by anybody. Hold your head high;
there is just as much royal blood in your veins as there is in any king
on earth. There is no royal blood but that which springs from true
worth. I put that down in my documents years ago.

"Life is too short to stop to quarrel with any one by the way. If a man
calls you a fool, you need not come out under your own signature and
deny it. Your life should do that. I am quoting from my pamphlets again.

"If you meet old Mr. Calamity in your way, the kind of man who tells you
that you have no ground of expectation, and that everything in the world
is going to ruin, just whistle, and luck will come to you, my boy. I
only wish that I had my documents--my pamphlets, I mean. I would have
left them to you in my will. In the present state of society one must
save or be a slave--that also I wrote down in my documents. It is a pity
that it is so, but it is. Save what you can while you are young, and it
will give your mind leisure to work when you are older. _That_ was in my
pamphlets. I hope that I may live to see you the best printer in the
colonies."

The boy absorbed the spirit of these proverbial sayings. They were to
his liking and bent of mind. But there came into his young face a
shadow.

"Uncle Ben, I know what you say is true. I have listened to you; now I
would like you to hear me. You saw the boys going to the Latin School
this morning?"

"Yes, Ben."

"I can not go there."

"O Ben! that is hard," said Jenny, who was by his side.

"But you can go to school, Ben," said Uncle Benjamin.

"Where, uncle?"

"To life--and graduate there as well as any of them."

"I