from his uncle Benjamin, who, in 1715, came to
America, and died in Boston in 1728, at an ad-
vanced age.
"There was," says Franklin, "a
particular affection between him and my father."
He was very pious, a lover of good books, and
something of a poet. He was much pleased
that his brother Josiah had named one of his
sons after him, and ever took a deep interest in
the boy.

After he came to Boston, now bereft of his wife and all of his ten children but one, he lived four years in his brother's house, a beloved and honored guest, only leaving it when his son Samuel became a housekeeper.

At the time Franklin was born, his father lived in a plain, two-story wooden house, in Milk Street, near Washington, where it stood till 1810, when it was destroyed by fire. It was twenty feet on the front, the sides and a lean-to for a kitchen running back about thirty feet. It had a gable roof toward the street, and the second story and attic projected somewhat over the first story. The whole building contained four rooms, one on the ground floor, comprising parlor, sittingroom, and eating-room, one in the second story, one in the attic, and the kitchen. The building was covered with rude clap-boards on the front, and shingles on the sides and rear. It seems difficult to understand how two rooms, each twenty feet square, and an attic chamber, could accommodate a family of fifteen or sixteen; but, straitened as they must have been for room, a

place was found for one more, when good Uncle Benjamin, in his loneliness, sought his brother's hospitality. "It was, indeed, a lowly dwelling," wrote Franklin's youngest sister, "we were brought up in, but we were fed plentifully, made comfortable with fire and clothing, had seldom any contention among us, but all was harmony, especially between the heads, and they were universally respected, and the most of the family in good reputation." A pleasant picture truly it must have been, when, as Franklin tells "thirteen were sitting at one time at his father's table," while the fire roared in the great open fire-place, and cheerful and instructive conversation was carried on between the parents and their boys and girls. No wonder a sensible neighbor liked occasionally to share the "feast of reason at Josiah Franklin's, soapboiler and candle-maker. Here was, in fact, a rude college, presided over by a man of rare wisdom, and which sent out at least one famous graduate, "the largest mind that has shone this side the sea.'

us,

By this time the population of the two colonies had increased to between seventy and eighty thousand; that of Boston to ten or twelve thousand, which was nearly equal to the whole population of New York and Liverpool at that time. Three or four hundred sail were sent out to foreign ports. "The conversation in this town," says Neal, speaking of this period, "is as polite as in most of the cities and towns of Eng

land, so that a gentleman from London would almost think himself at home at Boston, when he observes the number of people, their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most considerable tradesman in London." It is still more to its credit, that, in such society, the hard-working tallow-chandler was a man of mark. Labor was honorable, especially when, as with Josiah Franklin, it was combined with solid sense and sound principle.

Franklin was born near what was then the extreme southern limit of the town. Beyond were fields and pastures and forests, where the boys roamed and picked berries, or set their traps for squirrels and rabbits, and where, not more than two miles out, the men hunted bears. The town extended back but a little way from the shore, and over a large territory now covered with a busy population, the sea still rolled its waves. Communication with other towns and other colonies was slow and difficult. There is extant a journal of Madame Knight, a great lady in her day, "of good wit and pleasant humor," who taught Franklin to write, in which she gives a lively account of a journey she made on business in 1704, from Boston to New York, two hundred and seventy-one miles. She went on horseback, and was a fortnight on her way, meeting here and there a settlement, but traveling for the most part through the ancient forests, by

a bridle-path, crossing rivers by fords or ferries, encountering swamps and Indians, entertained now by the Governor of Connecticut, and now by the humble pioneers of the wilderness.

When Benjamin was seven years old, an incident occurred, which seems to have made a deep impression upon his mind, as he thus referred to it sixty-six years after, in a letter to a French lady:

"When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturb ing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain that I had made, told me that I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

"This, however," he adds, "was of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, 'Don't give too much for the whistle;' so I saved my money."

"As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle."

The next year after this memorable event, when his elder brothers were put apprentices to