at thing ought to have been done in some other way. The boy belonged
to the former class.

But I doubt if any reader of this volume was ever born to so hard an
estate as this boy. Let us follow him into the story land of childhood.
In Germany every child passes through fairyland, but there was no such
land in Josiah Franklin's tallow shop, except when the busy man
sometimes played the violin in the inner room and sang psalms to the
music, usually in a very solemn tone.

There were not many homes in Boston at this period that had even so near
an approach to fairyland as a violin. Those were hard times for
children, and especially for those with lively imaginations, which gift
little Benjamin had in no common degree. There were Indians in those
times, and supposed ghosts and witches, but no passing clouds bore
angels' chariots; there were no brownies among the wild rose bushes and
the ferns. There was one good children's story in every home--that of
"Joseph" in the Bible, still, as always, the best family story in all
the world.

CHAPTER II.

UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET.

MRS. FRANKLIN has said that she could hardly remember the time in her
son's childhood when he could not read. He emerged almost from babyhood
a reader, and soon began to "devour"--to use the word then applied to
his habit--all the books that fell within his reach.

When about four years old he became much interested in stories told him
by his father of his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, who lived in England, and
for whom he had been named, and who, it was hoped, would come to the new
country and be his godfather.

The family at the Blue Ball was quick to notice the tendencies of their
children in early life. Little Benjamin Franklin developed a curious
liking for a trumpet and a gun. He liked to march about to noise, and
this noise he was pleased to make himself--to blow his own trumpet. The
family wrote to Uncle Benjamin, the poet, then in England, in regard to
this unpromising trait, and the good man returned the following letter
in reply:

_To my Namesake, on hearing of his Inclination to Martial
Affairs. July 7, 1710._

"Believe me, Ben, it is a dangerous trade;
The sword has many marred as well as made;
By it do many fall, not many rise--
Makes many poor, few rich, not many wise;
Fills towns with ruin, fields with blood beside;
'Tis sloth's ma