True to His Home Part 37

"Sir?"

"What are _you_ shouting for?"

"For the Stamp Act, sir!"

"That is right, my boy."

"No, for Franklin!"

"For Franklin? Why, I have seen him carrying a lot of printing paper through the streets in a wheelbarrow! May time be gracious to me, so that I may see him hanged! Boy, see here----"

But the banners were moving into the green grove, and the boy had gone after them.

Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia the most popular man in the colonies, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.

"Only Heaven can save us now," said troubled Mr. Calamity. "There's treason in the air!"

The old gentleman was not a bad man; he saw life on the side of shadow, and had become blind to the sunny side of life. He was one of those natures that are never able to come out of the past.

The people amid the rising prosperity ceased to believe in old Mr.

Calamity as a prophet. He felt this loss of faith in him. He a.s.sumed the character of the silent wise man at times. He would pa.s.s people whom he had warned of the coming doom, shaking his head, and then turning around would strike his cane heavily on the pavement, which would cause the one he had left behind to look back. He would then lift his cane as though it were the rod of a magician.

"Old Mr. Calamity is coming," said a Philadelphia schoolboy to another, one new school day in autumn. "See, he is watching Franklin, and is trying to avoid meeting him."

Their teacher came along the street.

"Why, boys, are you watching the old gentleman?"

"He is trying to avoid meeting Mr. Franklin, sir."

"Calamity comes to avoid Industry," said the teacher, as he saw the two men. Franklin was the picture of thrift, and his very gait was full of purpose and energy. "I speak in parable," said the teacher, "but that old gentleman is always in a state of alarm, and he seems to find satisfaction in predicting evil, and especially of Mr. Franklin. The time was when the young printer avoided him--he was startled, I fancy, whenever he heard the cane on the pavement; he must have felt the force of the suggestion that Calamity was after him. Now he has become prosperous, and the condition is changed. Calamity flees from him. See, my boys, the two men."

They stopped on the street.

Mr. Calamity pa.s.sed them on the opposite side, and Mr. Franklin came after him, walking briskly. The latter stopped at the door of his office, but the old gentleman hurried on. When he reached the corner of the street he planted his cane down on the pavement and looked around.

He saw the popular printer standing before his office door on the street. The two looked at each other. The old man evidently felt uncomfortable. He turned the corner, out of sight, when an extraordinary movement appeared.

Mr. Calamity reached back his long, ruffled arm, and his cane, in view of the philosopher, the teacher, and the boys, and shook the cane mysteriously as though he were writing in the air. He may have had in mind some figure of the ancient prophets. Up and down went the cane, around and around, with curves of awful import. It looked to those on the street he had left as though the sharp angle of the house on the corner had suddenly struck out a living arm in silent warning.

The arm and cane disappeared. A head in a wide-rimmed hat looked around the angle as if to see the effect of the writing in the air. Then the arm and cane appeared again as before. It was like the last remnant of a cloud when the body has pa.s.sed.

The teacher saw the meaning of the movement.

"Boys," said he, "if you should ever be pursued by Mr. Calamity in any form, remember the arm and cane. See Franklin laugh! Industry in the end laughs at Calamity, and Diligence makes the men who 'stand before kings.' It is the law of life. Detraction is powerless before will and work, and as a rule whatever any one dreams that he may do, he will do."

The boys had received an object lesson, and would long carry in their minds the picture of the mysterious arm and cane.

In a right intention one is master of the ideal of life. If circ.u.mstances favor, he becomes conscious that life is no longer master of him, but that he is the master of life. This sense of power and freedom is n.o.ble; in vain does the shadow of Calamity intrude upon it; the visions of youth become a part of creations of the world; the dream of the architect is a mansion now; of the scientist, a road, a railway over rivers and mountains; of the orator and poet, thoughts that live.

Even the young gardner finds his dreams projected into his farm. So ideals become realities, and thoughts become seeds that multiply. Mr.

Calamity may shake his cane, but it will be behind a corner. Happy is he who makes facts of his thoughts that were true to life!

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE KING'S ARMS.

OUR gentlemanly friend Mr. Calamity was now very, very old, long past the milestone of eighty. As Philadelphia grew, the streets lengthening, the fine houses rising higher and higher, he began to doubt that he was a prophet, and he shunned Benjamin Franklin when the latter was in the country.

One day, long before the Stamp Act, he pa.s.sed the Gazette office, when the prosperous editor appeared.

"It's coming," said he, tap, tapping on. "What did I tell you?"

"What is coming?" asked our vigorous king of prosperity.

"War!" He became greatly excited. "Indians! they're coming with the tommyhawk and scalping knife, and we'll need to be thankful if they leave us our heads."

There were indeed Indian troubles and dire events at that time, but not near Philadelphia.

Time pa.s.sed. He was a Tory, and he heard of Concord and Lexington, and he ceased to read the paper that Franklin printed, and his cane flew scatteringly as it pa.s.sed the office door. To him that door was treason.

One evening he lifted his cane as he was pa.s.sing.

"The king will take the puny colonies in his mighty arms and dash them against the high rock of the sea. He will dash them in pieces 'like a potter's vessel.' What are we to the throne of England!"

He heard of Bunker Hill, and his old heart beat free again.

"What did I tell you?" he said. "King George took the rebels in his arms and beat them against Bunker Hill. He'll plant his mighty heel on Philadelphia some day, and may it fall on the head of Benjamin Franklin, for of all rebels he is the most dangerous. Oh, that Franklin! He is now advocating the independence of the colonies!"

The Provincial Congress began to a.s.semble, and cavalcades went out to meet the members as they approached the city on horseback. The Virginia delegation were so escorted into the city with triumph. The delegates were now a.s.sembling to declare the colony free. Independence was in the air.

Terrible days were these to Mr. Calamity. As often as he heard the word "independence" on the street his cane would fly up, and after this spasm his snuffbox would come out of his pocket for refreshment. His snuffbox was silver, and on it in gold were the king's arms.

He was a generous man despite his fears. He was particularly generous with his snuff. He liked to pa.s.s it around on the street, for he thereby displayed the king's arms on his snuffbox.

When the Ma.s.sachusetts delegates came, the city was filled with joy. But Samuel Adams was the soul of the movement for independence, and after his arrival independence was more and more discussed, which kept poor old Mr. Calamity's cane continually flying. But his feelings were terribly wounded daily by another event of common occurrence. As he pa.s.sed the snuffbox to the Continentals he met, and showed the royal arms upon it, they turned away from him; they would not take snuff from the royal snuffbox. These were ominous times indeed.

The province of Pennsylvania had decreed that no one should hold any office derived from the authority of the king. For a considerable period there was no government in Pennsylvania, no authority to punish a crime or collect a debt, but all things went on orderly, peacefully, and well.

Old Mr. Calamity used to sit under the great elm tree at Shakamaxon in the long summer days and extend his silver snuffbox to people as they pa.s.sed. The tree was full of singing birds; flowers bloomed by the way, and the river was bright; but to him the glory of the world had fled, for the people no longer would take snuff from the box with the royal arms.

One day a lady pa.s.sed who belonged to the days of the Penns and the Proprietors.

"Madam Bond," said he, "comfort me."

A patriot pa.s.sed. The old man held out the snuffbox. The man hesitated and started back.