CHAPTER III.

His Brother John. — Dislikes his Father's Trade. Looking for a Trade. - Fond of Books. The Books he Read. - Cotton Mather. -Becomes a Printer's Apprentice to his Brother James. Borrowing Books. Writing Poetry and Prose.-Improving his Style. — How he Bought Books. - His Diet. - The Character of his Reading.-Fond of Discussions.

"I continued," writes Franklin, "in my father's business for the year, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself in Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on hand. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to con

struct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my Uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again."

This period of uncertainty and change was far from being lost time. We have seen the boy's habits of close observation, and his inventive turn of mind. Though not at school, he was always learning something new, which he afterward turned to account when he became a man. His very sports were scientific experiments, hist sad experience with the stone wharf was a lesson in engineering. He was also a great reader. From a very early age he had a book in his hand, and this fondness for reading was to prove the Iclue to lead him to a suitable trade. "All the little money that came into my hands," he tells us, was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes." These he afterwards sold to enable him to buy a work in forty or fifty small volumes, much praised by Dr. Johnson, Burton's Historical Collections. But such a mind as his, so eager for knowledge, was sure to wander into other pastures. What he could not buy he would borrow. Lighting upon Plutarch's Lives, he read them with great avidity and advantage, and

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no wonder; for as has been truly said, "The charm of Plutarch's writings has been felt and owned by old and young, soldier and statesman, the philosopher and the man of business."

Franklin tells us that a book of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's, called Essays to do Good, written in quaint style, like everything else from his prolific pen, gave him a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the future events of his life. A letter which he wrote in 1784, when he was seventy-eight years old, to Samuel Mather, shows the influence of a good book.

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"When I was a boy, I met with a book entitled Essays to do Good," which I think was written by your father (Cotton Mather). It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book."

One thing is to be noted; Franklin, boy that he was, knew how to read. He read good books, and read them carefully, so as to make them his own possession. They instructed him and stimulated him.

"This bookish inclination," he informs us, at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother returned from England with a press and letters to

set up hits business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out for some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journey man's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother."

He is careful to tell us that he now had access to better books. There were several bookstores in the town, and now and then he borrowed a small book from the apprentices of the booksellers, which he returned "soon and clean." Often he read far into the night, that the book thus slily drawn by a young friend's hand from the store shelves at evening, might be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. He also found a friend in "an ingenious tradesman," Mr. Matthew Adams, who, observing his literary enthusiasm, invited him to his library, "a pretty collection of books," and very kindly loaned him such as he wanted.

He now took a fancy to poetry, and began to compose ballads.

"One," he tells us, was called 'The Light-house Tragedy,' and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a 'Sailor's Song,' on the taking of Teach (or Blackhead) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed, he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event, being

recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity: but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one."

He now wisely turned his attention to prosewriting, his success in which, he tells us, was of great use to him in after life, and a principal means of his advancement. His style, even when a young man, was remarkable for its purity, simplicity and grace, as well as for its manly vigor.

His thirst for knowledge made it necessary that he should devise some means of raising money for buying books. He was now about sixteen years of age, an age when boys are apt to have ravenous appetites, and to be content with nothing short of an ample supply of good things. But Franklin had learned from his father the difficult lesson of being quite indifferent to the quality of his food. Give him plain fare and he asked no more. This helped him to a happy financial expedient. A book, recommending a vegetable diet, just then falling in his way, with which he was much pleased, he proposed to his brother, who, being unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family, that if he would give him weekly half the money paid for his board, he would board himself. He found that he could. save half that was paid him, and so he had a book-fund.

"But," he adds, "I had another advantage in it. My