True to His Home Part 12

"When flowers are beautiful before they're blown, What rarities will afterward be shown!

If trees good fruit un'noculated bear, You may be sure't will afterward be rare.

If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow, How luscious will they be when they are mellow!"

He also saw great promise in bright little Jenny, who had heart full of sympathy and affection. Jenny, Ben, and Uncle Benjamin became one in heart and companions.h.i.+p.

Beacon Hill was a lovely spot in summer in old Boston days. Below it was the Common, with great trees and winding ways. It commanded a view of the wide harbor and far blue sea. It looked over a curve of the river Charles, and the bright shallow inlet or pond, where the Boston and Maine depot now stands, that was filled up from the earth of the fine old hillside. The latter place may have been the scene of Ben's bridge, which he built in the night in a forbidden way. The place is not certainly known.

Uncle Benjamin, one Sunday after church, took Ben and little Jenny, who was a girl then, to the top of the hill. It was a showery afternoon in summer--now bright, now overcast--and all the birds were singing on the Common between the showers.

In one of the s.h.i.+ning hours between the showers they sat down under an ancient forest tree, and little Jenny rested her arms on one of the knees of Uncle Benjamin, and Ben leaned on the other. The old man looked down on the harbor, which was full of s.h.i.+ps, and said:

"I wish I had my sermons that I left behind. I would read one of them to you now."

"I would rather hear you talk," said Ben, with conscientious frankness.

"So would I," said Jenny, who thought that Ben was a philosopher even at this early age, and who echoed nearly everything that he said.

"Look over the harbor," said the old man. "There are more and more s.h.i.+ps coming in every year. This is going to be a great city, and America will become a great country. Ben, I hope there will never be any wars on this side of the water. War is sloth's maintainer, and the s.h.i.+eld of pride; it makes many poor and few rich, and fewer wise.[A] Ben, this is going to be a great country, and I want you to be true to the new country."

"I will always be true to my country," said Ben.

"And I will be true to my home," said little Jenny.

"So you will, so you will, my darling little pet; I can see that," said Uncle Benjamin.

Ben was so pleased at his echo that he put his arm around his sister's neck and kissed her many times.

The old man's heart was touched at the scene. He thought of his lost children, who were sleeping under the cover of the violets now.

"It is going to rain again," he said. "The robins are all singing, and we will have to go home. But, children, I want to leave a lesson in your minds. Listen to Uncle Ben, whose heart is glad to see you so loving toward each other and me.

"_More than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of the human heart, and that power is developed by seeking the good of others._ Live for influences that multiply, and for the things that live. Now what did I say, Ben?"

"You said that more than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, was the power of the human heart, and that that power was developed in seeking the good of others."

"That's right, my man.--Now, Jenny, what did I say?"

"I couldn't repeat all those big words, uncle."

"Well, you lovely little _creeter_, you; you do not need to repeat it; you know the lesson already; it was born in you; you have the Franklin heart!"

"Beloved Boston," Franklin used to say when he became old. What wonder, when it was a.s.sociated with memories like these!

FOOTNOTE:

[A] The old man's own words to Benjamin on war.

CHAPTER XII.

A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM.

SOME time after Uncle Benjamin, who became familiarly known as Uncle Ben, had revealed to little Ben his heart's secret, and how that he had for his sake sold his library of pamphlets, which was his other self, the two again went down to the wharves to see the s.h.i.+ps that had come in.

They again seated themselves in an anch.o.r.ed boat.

"Ben," said Uncle Benjamin, "I have something more on my mind. I did not tell you all when we talked here before. You will never forget what I told you--will you?"

"Never, uncle, if I live to be old. My heart will always be true to you."

"So it will, so it will, Ben. So it will. I want to tell you something more about your Great-uncle Thomas. You favor him. Did any one ever tell you that the people used to think him to be a wizard?"

"No, no, uncle. You yourself said that once. What is a wizard?"

"It is a man who can do strange things, no one can tell how. They come to him."

"But what made them think him a wizard?"

"Oh, people used to be ignorant and superst.i.tious, like Reuben of the Mill, your father's old friend and mine. There was an inn called the World's End, at Ecton, near an old farm and forge. The people used to gather there and tell stories about witches and wizards that would have made your flesh creep, and left you afraid to go to bed, even with a guinea pig in your room.

"Your Great-uncle Thomas was always inventing things to benefit the people. At last he invented a way by which it might rain and rain, and there might be freshets and freshets, and yet their meadows would not be overflown. The water would all run off from the meadows like rain from a duck's back. He made a kind of drain that ran sideways. Now the pious Brownites thought that this was flying in the face of Providence, and people began to talk mysteriously about him at the World's End.

"But it was not that which I have heavy on my mind or light on my mind, for it is a happy thought. There are not many romantic things in our family history. The Franklins were men of the farm, forge, and fire. But there was one thing in our history that was poetry. It was this--listen now.

"What was the name of that man to whom I sold the pamphlets?" he asked in an aside.

"Axel."

"That is right--always remember that name--Axel.

"Now listen to that other thing. Your uncle, or great-uncle Thomas, started a subscription for a chime of bells. The family all loved music--that is what makes your father play the violin. Your Great-uncle Thomas loved music in the air. You may be able to buy a spinet for Jenny some day.

"Now your Great-uncle Thomas's soul is, as it were, in those chimes of Nottingham. I pray that you may go to England some day before you die and hear the chimes of Nottingham. You will hear a part of your own family's soul, my boy. It is the things that men do that live. If you ever find the pamphlets, which are myself--myself that is gone--you will read in them my thoughts on the Toleration Act, and on Liberty, and on the soul, and the rights of man. What was the man's name?"

"Axel."

"Right."

Little Jenny, who loved to follow little Ben, had come down to the wharf to hear "Uncle Benjamin talk." She had joined them in the boat on the sunny water. She had become deeply interested in Uncle Tom and the chimes of Nottingham.

"Uncle Ben," she asked, "was Uncle Tom ever laughed at?"

"Yes, yes; the old neighbors who would hang about the smithy used to laugh at him. They thought him visionary. Why did you ask me that?"

"What makes people who come to the shop laugh at Ben? It hurts me. I think Ben is real good. He is good to me, and I am always going to be good to him. I like Ben better than _almost_ anybody."