True to His Home: A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin. Butterworth Hezekiah
his will and gone to sea – "run away to sea," as his departure was called. It was a kind of mental distemper in old New England times for a boy "to run away and go to sea."
There had been fearful storms on the coast. Abiah Franklin was a silent woman when the winds bended the trees and the waves broke loudly on the shore. She thought then; she inwardly prayed, but she said little of the storm that was in her heart.
"I shall never see Josiah again," at last said Josiah Franklin. "It is a pity; it is hard on me that the son who bears my name should leave me, to become a wanderer. Boys will do such things. I may have made his home too strict for him; if so, may the Lord forgive me. I have meant to do my best for all my children. – Ben, let Josiah be a warning to you; you have been having the boy fever to go to sea. Hear the winds blow and the sea dash! Josiah must have longed to be back by the fire on nights like these."
Josiah went to the window and tapped upon the pane. He did that often when his mind was troubled. To tap upon the pane eased his heartache. It was an old New England way.
Josiah took his violin, tuned it, and began to play while the family listened by the fading coals.
"I thought I heard something," said Abiah between one of the tunes.
"What was it, Abiah?" asked her husband.
"It sounded like a step."
"That's nothing strange."
"It sounded familiar," she said. "Steps are peculiar."
"Oh, I know of whom you are thinking," said Josiah. "May the Lord comfort you, for the winds and waves do not to-night."
He played again. His wife grew restless.
"Josiah," said she when he ceased playing, "you may say that I have fancies, but I thought I saw a face pass the window."
"That is likely, Abiah."
"But this one had a short chin and a long nose."
She choked, and her eyes were wet.
There came a rap upon the door. It was a strong hand that made it; there was a heart in the sound.
"I'll open the door, Josiah," said Abiah.
She removed the wooden bar with a trembling hand, and lifted the latch.
A tall, rugged form stood before her. She started back.
"Mother, don't you know me?"
"Yes, Josiah, I knew that you were coming to-night."
She gazed into his eyes silently.
"Who told you, mother?"
"My soul."
"Well, I've come back like the prodigal son. Let me give you a smack. You'll take me in – but how about father? I thought I heard him playing the violin."
"Josiah, that is your voice!" exclaimed Josiah the elder. "Now my cup of joy is full and running over. Josiah, come in out of the storm."
Josiah Franklin rushed to the door and locked his son in his arms, but there was probably but little sentiment in the response.
"Now I know the parable of the prodigal son," said he. "I had only read it before. Come in! come in! There are brothers and sisters here whom you have never seen. Now we are all here."
Uncle Benjamin wrote a poem to celebrate young Josiah's return. It was read in the family, with disheartening results. Sailor Josiah said that he "never cared much for poetry." The poem may be found in the large biographies of Franklin.
CHAPTER III.
BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN
An old man sat by an open fire in a strange-looking room with a little boy on his knee. Beside him was a middle-aged man, the father of the boy.
"Brother Josiah," said the old man, "I have had a hard, disappointed life, but I have done the best that I could, and there has nothing happened since my own children died and my hair turned gray that has made me so happy as that letter that you sent to me in England in which you told me that you had named this boy for me."
"It makes me happy to see you here by my fire to-night, with the boy in your lap," said the father. "Benjamin and Benjamin! My heart has been true to you in all your troubles and losses, and I would have helped you had I been able. How did you get up the resolution to cross the sea in your old age?"
"Brother Josiah, it was because my own son is here, and he was all that I had left of my own family. But that was not all. In one sense my own life has failed; I have come down to old age with empty hands. When your letter came saying that you had named this boy for me, and had made me his godfather, I saw that you pitied me, and that you had a place for me in your heart. I thought of all the years that we had passed together when we were young; of the farm and forge in Ecton; of Banbury; of the chimes of Nottingham; of all that we were to each other then.
"I was all alone in London, and there my heart turned to you as it did when we were boys. That gave me resolution to cross the sea, Brother Josiah, although my hair is white and my veins are thin.
"But that was not all, brother; he is a poor man indeed who gives up hope. When a man loses hope for himself, he wishes to live in another. The ancients used to pray that their sons might be nobler than themselves. When I read your letter that said that you had named this boy for me and had made me his godfather, you can not tell how life revived in me – it was like seeing a rainbow after a storm. I said to myself that I had another hope in this world; that I would live in the boy. I have come over to America to live in this boy.
"O brother, I never thought that I would see an hour like this! I am poor, but I am happy. I am happy because you loved me after I became poor and friendless. That was your opportunity to show what your heart was. I am happy because you trusted me and gave my name to this boy.
"Brother Josiah, I have come over to America to return your love, in teaching this boy how to live and how to fulfill the best that is in him. A boy with your heart can succeed in life, even if he have but common gifts. The best thing that can be said of any man is that he is true-hearted. Brother, you have been true-hearted to me, and the boy inherits your nature, and I am going to be true-hearted to him and to do all I can to make his life a blessing to you and the world. We do no self-sacrificing thing without fruit."
The old man put his arm about the boy, and said:
"Ben, little Ben, I loved you before I saw you, and I love you more than ever now. I have come across the ocean in my old age to be with you. I want you to like me, Ben."
"I do, uncle," said little Ben. "I would rather be with you than with any one. I am glad that you have come."
"That makes me happy, that makes my old heart happy. I did everything a man could do for his wife and children and for everybody. I was left alone in London, poor; I seemed to be a forsaken man, but this makes up for all."
"Benjamin and Benjamin!" said the younger brother, touching the strings of the violin that he held on his lap – "Benjamin and Benjamin! Brother Benjamin, how did you get the money to cross the ocean?"
"I sold my goods and my pamphlets. They were my life; I had put my life into them. But I sold them, for what were they if I could have the chance to live another life in little Ben?"
"What were your pamphlets?" asked little Ben.
"They were my life, and I sold them for you, that I might make your life a blessing to your father, who has been a true brother to me. I will tell you the whole story of the pamphlets some day."
"Uncle, I love you more than ever before, because you sold the treasures for me. I wish that I might grow up and help folks, so that my name might honor yours.
"You can make it that, my boy. If you will let me teach you, you may make it that. There can nothing stand before a will that wills to do good. It is the heart that has power, my boy. My life will not have been lost if I can live in you."
"I have not much time for educating my children," said the younger brother. "I am going to give over the training of the boy to you. True education begins with the heart first, so as to make right ideas fixed in the mind and