in Arch Street, wherein still assembles the largest congregation of Friends in the world, and which may be regarded as the headquarters of Quakerism in America-if a military term may be used in speaking of that un-militant sect. Into the "Great Meeting House," the young stranger followed the crowd, and sat down. He looked around upon the congregation for a while, expecting the exercises to begin. The silence remaining unbroken, drowsiness fell upon the tired traveler, and he was soon fast asleep. He slept soundly till the meeting broke up, and would still have slept if some one had not been obliging enough to wake him. As he walked down toward the river looking into the faces of the passers-by, he accosted a young Quaker, whose countenance pleased him, and asked him where a stranger could find a lodging. "Here," said the Quaker, pointing to the Three Mariners, "is a house where they receive strangers, but it is not a respectable one; if thee will walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He conducted him along the wharves to a tavern, called The Crooked Billet, at the end of the first alley above Chestnut Street. It was an old tavern then, and it continued to exist until it was, probably, the oldest house of entertainment in America. It was not discontinued till about 1825. While the stranger was eating his dinner at the Crooked Billet, he again observed, from the questions asked him, that he was suspected of being a runaway. After dinner he lay down and slept till he was called to supper, and soon after supper went to bed, and slept soundly until the morning. He had then been eleven days from home. CHAPTER IX. THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. EARLY in the morning, having dressed himself as neatly as he could in his old and travel-worn clothes, for his chest had not yet arrived, he went to the house of the printer, Andrew Bradford. At the printing office, he was surprised to find old William Bradford, the father of Andrew, whom he had seen in New York a few days before, and who, by traveling on horseback, had reached Philadel phia before him. Andrew Bradford coming in, the old man introduced young Franklin to him. The Philadelphian received the stranger with civility, and invited him in to breakfast, and told him he was already supplied with a hand; but added that one Samuel Keimer had recently set up in the town. If Keimer should have no work, Bradford kindly offered the youth a home and a little employment now and then, till he could do better. The old gentleman offering to go with him to Keimer's office, they both went thither without loss of time. In a small office, furnished with an old damaged press and an incomplete, worn-out font of types, they found the new printer, standing at the case at work; a slight, peculiar-looking man, with a long and untrimmed beard. His beard was itself a most marked peculiarity in an age which close shaved the countenance, and overwhelmed the head with purchased hair. "Neighbor," said Bradford, "I have brought to see you, a young man of your business; perhaps, you may want such a one." Keimer asked a few questions of the stranger, and put a composing-stick into his hands to see how he worked. The examination being satisfactory, he said he had no work for him then, but would employ him soon. Then, turning to old Bradford, whom he had never before seen, and whose relationship to the rival printer he was far from suspecting, he began to enlarge upon his plans and prospects, saying that he expected soon to get the greater part of the printing business of the province into his own hands. Old Bradford drew him on by artful questions to reveal the details of his scheme and the influences upon which he relied. Young Franklin, who stood silently by and heard the conversation, saw that Bradford was a "crafty old sophister," and Keimer a "true novice." The old gentleman left Franklin alone with Keimer, who was extremely astonished when he learned with whom he had been talking. Franklin soon had further insight into the character of this absurd and eccentric printer. He found that when interrupted by the entrance of the two visitors that morning, he had been engaged in composing an elegy upon the death of Aquila Rose, a young English journeyman of Andrew Bradford's, who had died a few months before, lamented by the whole town. Besides being an excellent printer, Aquila Rose was Secretary to the Assembly, and a tolerable poet. A little volume of his verses was published many years after his death, by his son, Joseph Rose, an apprentice of Franklin's. Keimer was setting the elegy in type as he composed it, not employing pen or paper. The whole of this production has been preserved, and even one copy of the very hand-bill," price, two-pence," upon which it was originally printed by Franklin's own hand.* As the new comer looked over the incomplete work of Keimer that morning, and read it, perhaps, as it lay in type, it was these words that he looked upon : "AN ELEGY On the much lamented death of the ingenious and well beloved AQUILA ROSE, Clerk to the Honorable Assembly at Philadelphia, who died the twenty-fourth of the fourth month, 1723. Aged 28. "What mournful accents thus accost mine ear, Our Rose is withered, and our Eagle's fled, The elegy proceeds, for a hundred lines or more, to descant upon the birth, education, emigration, courtship, accomplishments, death, funeral, funeral sermon, and happy destiny of the departed printer. Keimer resuming his task, in which no one could assist him, Franklin made himself useful by getting into order the damaged old printing press, of which Keimer knew nothing; that done, he returned to Bradford's hospitable house, promising Keimer to come and print off the elegy as soon as it should be completed. For several days he continued to live at Bradford's, doing a little work also, in his office. Sent for, at length, to print the labored effusion of Keimer's brain, he found that that eccentric person had both increased his stock of material and obtained a pamphlet to reprint. Franklin struck off the requisite number of copies of the elegy; then began upon the pamphlet, and thenceforth worked regularly in Keimer's * Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 489. Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Literature," i., 100. office. His employer objecting to his boarding at the house of a rival printer, yet having no establishment of his own, he procured for him a lodging at the house of Mr. Read, whose daughter had seen the uncouth apparition pass, on that memorable Sunday morning, devouring a roll. But his chest had arrived from New York. He was able then to present himself to the young lady in a costume more becoming Weeks passed. He earned good wages. He had a pleasant home. He found friends who were fond of reading, with whom he spent pleasant evenings. Boston he tried not to think of, and he wrote to no one but to John Collins, who kept his secret faithfully. Indeed, the arbitrary conduct of his brother had made upon his mind an indelible impression, which, for a time, rendered the thought of Boston unpleasing to him. His brother's tyranny was one of the causes, he afterward thought, that gave him his peculiar and unconquerable aversion to arbitrary power, and rendered him, as a parent and master, somewhat too indulgent. He was always a stickler for children's rights; their right to be gratified, as well as their right to be coerced. It was a lovely trait in Franklin's character that he was especially careful not to inflict the injuries from which he himself had suffered; one of the signs of a noble nature. At length, he heard from home. One of his sisters had married Robert Holmes, captain of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. Captain Holmes being at Newcastle, a town on the Delaware river, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard of the runaway and wrote to him. He told him of the grief of his parents and friends at his abrupt departure, and assured him that if he would return he should have no cause to complain in future. Benjamin wrote him a civil and elaborate reply, in which he narrated the circumstances that led to his leaving Boston. The narrative convinced his brother-in-law that he was not so much in the wrong as he had supposed. The runaway declared his intention to remain in Philadelphia. This letter had a decisive effect upon the fortunes of the writer of it. When Captain Holmes received it, he chanced to be in company with Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania. We may remark, in passing, that the captain of a sea-going sloop, in those piratical times, was far from being an insignificant person. Struck with the composition of the letter, he showed it to the Gov ernor, who read it with admiration, and admired it the more when told the age of the writer. The Philadelphia printers, he said, were wretched ones, which was true, for Bradford was both ignorant and unskillful, and Keimer was a compound of fool and rogue. But this young man, he added, was evidently one of promising parts, and ought to be encouraged; and if he would set up at Philadelphia he should have all the public printing. Captain Holmes, for some reason, did not reply to Benjamin's long epistle; so that the young man's astonishment at what followed was extreme; nor was he able to account for it, until he met Captain Holmes some months after. Franklin and his master were working together, one day, when they spied two finely dressed gentlemen crossing the street, with the evident intention of entering the printing-house. One of these Keimer recognized as Sir William Keith, and the other proved to be Colonel French, of Delaware. Keimer supposed of course that the visit was to him, and ran down-stairs to receive them. The Governor, however, inquired for Franklin, and learning that he was in the printing-office, went up to see him. He greeted the young printer with a degree of politeness and condescension to which he had not been accustomed; paid him many compliments; expressed a desire to become acquainted with him; blamed him for not having called upon him on his arrival at Philadelphia, and ended by inviting him to a tavern, where Colonel French and himself were then going to try some Madeira. Keimer stared with astonishment. Franklin himself was not less amazed. However, he went out with them to the tavern, and the three sat down to discuss, at once, their bottle and the future career of the young stranger. The Governor repeated what he had already said to Captain Holmes. He proposed that Franklin should immediately, by the aid of his father, establish himself in business as a printer in Philadelphia, and enlarged upon the probabilities of his success. Both the Governor and Colonel French engaged to use all their influence to procure for him the public printing of Pennsylvania and Delaware, which was then considerable. The young man replied, that he doubted whether his father would advance him the requisite sum. Sir William said, that he would himself write a letter to his father, setting forth the advantages of the scheme, and he felt sure he could induce him to comply. Before they rose from their wine it |