True to His Home Part 5

"Well, I don't know. There's nothin' new under the sun. People like you that are always inquirin' out the whys and wherefores of things commonly get into trouble. Ben, wot will ever become of you, I wonder?"

"Archimedes made water run uphill."

"He did, hey? So he did, as I remember to have read. But he lost his life broodin' over a lot of figers that he was drawin' on the sand--angles and triangles an' things. The Roman soldier cut him down when he was dreamin', and they let his tomb all grow up to briers. Do you think, Ben, that you will ever make the river run uphill? Perhaps you'll turn the water up to the sky on a kite string, and then we can have rain in plantin' time. Who knows?"

He added thoughtfully:

"I wouldn't wonder, Ben, if you invented somethin' if you live. But the prospect isn't very encouragin' of your ever doin' anything alarmin'."

"Did you ever hear what Archimedes exclaimed when he discovered the law that a body plunged in water loses as much of its weight as is equal to the weight of an equal volume of the fluid, and applied it to the alloy in the king's crown?"

"No. Wot did he exclaim?"

"_Eureka! Eureka!_"

"Wot did he do that for?"

"It means, 'I have found it.'"

"Maybe you'll find out something sometime, Ben. You all run to dreams about such things, and some boys turn their dreams into facts, as architects build their imaginations and make money. But the fifteenth child of a tallow chandler, who was the son of a blacksmith and of a woman whose mother was bought and sold, a boy whose wits are off kite-flyin' instead of wick-cuttin' and tallow-moldin', has no great chance in the future, so it looks to me. But one can't always tell. I don't think that you'll never get to be an Archimedes and cry out 'Eureka!' But you've got imagination enough to hitch the world to a kite and send it off among the planets and shootin' stars, no one knows where. I never did see any little shaver that had so much kite-flyin' in his head as you."

"Archimedes said that if he only had a lever long enough he would move the world."

"He did, hey? Well, little Ben Franklin, you just put up your kite and attend to the candle molds, and let swimmin' in the air all go. Whatever may happen on this planet, _you'll_ never be likely to move the world with a kite, of all things, nor with anything else, for that matter. So it looks to me, and I'm generally pretty far-sighted. It takes practical people to do practical things. Still, the old Bible does say that 'where there is no vision the people perish.' Well, I don't know--as I said, we can not always tell--David slew a giant with a pebble stone, and you may come to somethin' by some accident or other. I'm sure I wish you well.

It may be that your uncle Benjamin, the poet, will train you when he comes to understand you, but his thoughts run to kite-flyin' and such things, and he never has amounted to anything at all, I'm told. You was named after him, and rightly, I guess. He would like to have been a Socrates. But the tape measure wouldn't fit his head."

He saw a shade in the boy's face, and added:

"_He's_ going to live here, they say. Then there will be two of you, and you could fly kites and make up poetry together, if it were not for a dozen mouths to feed, which matters generally tend to bring one down from the sky."

An older son of Josiah Franklin appeared.

"James," said Jamie, "here's your brother Ben; he's been sailin' with the sail in the sky. He ought to be keerful of his talents. There's no knowin' what they may lead up to. When a person gets started in such ways as these there's no knowin' how far he may go."

Brother James opened the weather door at the Blue Ball. The bell tinkled and Ben followed him in, and the two sat down to bowls of bread, sweet apples, and milk.

"What have you been doing, Ben?" asked Brother James.

Little Ben did not answer. He got up from the table and went away downhearted, with his face in his jacket sleeve. It hurt him to be laughed at, but his imagination was a comforting companion to him in hours like these.

He could go kite-flying in his mind, and no one could see the flight.

"One can not make an eagle run around a barnyard like a hen," said a sage observer of life. There was the blood of n.o.ble purposes in little Ben Franklin's vein, if his ancestors were blacksmiths and his grandmother had been a white slave whose services were bought and sold.

He had begun kite-flying; he will fly a kite again one day.

CHAPTER VI.

LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG.

BEN loved little animals. He not only liked to have them about him, but it gave him great joy to protect them. One of his pets was a guinea pig.

"There are few traits of character that speak better for the future of a boy than that which seeks to protect the helpless and overlooked in the brute creation," said Uncle Benjamin to Abiah Franklin one day. "There are not many animals that have so many enemies as a guinea pig. Cats, dogs, and even the hens run after the harmless little thing. I wonder that this one should be alive now. He would have been dead but for Ben."

Abiah had been spinning. It was a windy day, and the winds, too, had been spinning as it were around the house. She had stopped to rest in her work. But the winds had not stopped, but kept up a sound like that of the wheel.

"You are always saying good things about little Ben," said Abiah. "What is it that you see in him that is different from other boys?"

"_Personality_," said Uncle Ben. "Look at him now, out in the yard. He has been protecting the pigeon boxes from the wind, and after them the rabbit warren. He is always seeking to make life more comfortable for everybody and everything. Now, Abiah, a heart that seeks the good of others will never want for a friend and a home. This _personality_ will make for him many friends and some enemies in the future. The power of life lies in the heart."

The weather door opened, and little Ben came into the room and asked for a cooky out of the earthen jar.

"Where's your guinea pig, my boy?" asked Uncle Benjamin. "I only see him now and then."

"Why do you call him a guinea pig, uncle?" asked little Ben. "He did not come from Guinea, and he is not a pig. He came from South America, where it is warm, and he is a covey; he is not a bit of a rabbit, and not a pig."

"Where do you keep him?" asked Uncle Benjamin.

"I keep him where he is warm, uncle. It makes my heart all shrink up to see the little thing s.h.i.+ver when the wind strikes him. It is cruel to bring such animals into a climate like this."

"There are tens of thousands of guinea pigs, or coveys, in the land where they are found. Yes, millions, I am told. One guinea pig don't count for much."

"But, uncle, one feels the cold wind as much as another would--as much as each of all the millions would."

"But, Ben, you have not answered my question. Where is the little covey now?"

Little Ben colored red, and looked suspiciously toward the door of the room in which his father was at work. He presently saw his father's paper hat through the light over the door, and said:

"Let me tell you some other time, uncle. They will laugh at me if I tell you now."

"Benjamin," said his mother, "we are going to have a family gathering this year on the anniversary of the day when your father landed here in 1685. The family are all coming home, and the two Folger girls--the schoolmarms--will be here from Nantucket. You will have to take the guinea-pig box out of your room under the eaves. The Folger girls are very particular. What would your aunts Hannah and Patience Folger, the schoolmarms, say if they were to find your room a sty for a guinea pig?"

"My little covey, mother," said Ben. "I'll put the cage into the shop.

No, he would be killed there. I'll put him where he will not offend my aunts, mother."

Abiah Folger began to spin again, and the wheel and the wind united did indeed make a lonely atmosphere. Uncle Benjamin punched the fire, which roared at times l.u.s.tily under the great shelf where were a row of pewter platters.

Little Ben drew near the fire. Suddenly Uncle Ben started.

"Oh, my eyes! what is that, Ben?"

Ben looked about.

"I don't see anything, uncle."

"Your coat sleeve keeps jumping. I have seen it four or five times. What is the matter there?"