and, as he is a great reader, he can instruct the boy by wise
precept and a good example. If the boy will only follow brother's
principles, he may make the name of Benjamin live.

"And once more: if we name the boy Benjamin, it will make Brother
Benjamin feel that he has not lost all, but that he will have another
chance in the world. How glad that would make the poor old man! I would
like to name him as the boy's godfather. I do pity him, don't you? You
have the heart of Peter Folger."

There was a silence.

"Abiah, what now shall the boy's name be?"

"Benjamin."

"You have chosen that name out of your heart. May that name bring you
joy! It ought to do so, since you have given up your own wish and
breathed it out of your heart and conscience. To give up is to gain."

He took up the child.

"Then we will give that name to him now, and I will take the child and
go to the church, and I will name Brother Benjamin as his godfather."

"It is a very cold day for the little one."

"And a healthy one on which to start out in the world. There is nothing
like starting right and with a good name, which may the Lord help this
child to honor! And, Abiah, that He will."

He wrapped the babe up warmly, and looked him full in the face.

Josiah Franklin was a genial, provident, hard-sensed man. He probably
had no prophetic visions; no thought that the little one given him on
this frosty January morning in the breezy town of Boston by the sea
would command senates, lead courts, and sign a declaration of peace that
would make possible a new order of government in the world, could have
entered his mind. If the boy should become a good man, with a little
poetic imagination like his Uncle Benjamin, the home poet, he would be
content.

He opened the door of his one room on the lower floor of his house and
went out into the cold with the child in his arms. In a short time he
returned and laid little Benjamin in the arms of his mother.

"I hope the child's life will hold out as it has begun," he added.
"_Benjamin Franklin, day one; started right. May Heaven help him to get
used to the world!_"

As poor as the tallow chandler was, he was hospitable on that day. He
did not hold the birth of the little one--which really was an event of
greater importance to the world than the birth of a king--as anything
more than the simple growth of an honest family, who had left the
crowded towns and a smithy in old England to enjoy freedom of