A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S SPINNING-WHEEL.
BENJAMIN became a printer again. By the influence of friends he opened
in Philadelphia an office in part his own.
Benjamin Franklin had no Froebel education. The great apostle of the
education of the spiritual faculties had not yet appeared, and even
Pestalozzi, the founder of common schools for character education, could
not have been known to him. But when a boy he had grasped the idea that
was to be evolved by these two philosophers, that the end of education
is character, and that right habits become fixed or automatic, thus
virtue must be added to virtue, intelligence to intelligence,
benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith.
One day, when he was very poor, there came into his printing office a
bustling man.
"See here, my boy, I have a piece for you; there's ginger in it, and it
will make a stir. You will get well paid for giving it to the public;
all Philadelphia will read it."
"I am glad to get something to give the paper life," said Franklin. "I
will read the article as soon as I have time to spare."
"I will call to-morrow," said the man. "It is running water that makes
things grow. That article will prove very interesting reading to many
people, and it will do them good. It is a needed rebuke. You'll say so
when you read it."
Franklin at this time did a great part of the work in the office
himself, and he was very busy that day. At last he found time to take up
the article. He hoped to find it one that would add to the circulation
of the paper. He found that it was written in a revengeful spirit, that
it was full of detraction and ridicule, that it would answer no good
purpose, that it would awaken animosities and engender bitter feelings
and strife. But if used it would be read, laughed at, increase the sale
of the paper, and secure him the reputation of publishing a _smart_
paper.
Should he publish an article whose influence would be harmful to the
public for the sake of money and notoriety?
He here began in himself as an editor that process of moral education
which tends to make fixed habits of thought, judgment, and life. He
resolved _not_ to print the article.
But the author of it would laugh at him--might call him puritanic; would
probably say that he did not know when he was "well off"; that he stood
in his own light; that he had not the courage to rebuke private evils.
The young printer had the courage to rebuke wrong, but this article was
a sting--a revengeful attempt to make one a laughing stock. It had no
good motive. But it haunted him. He turned the question of his duty over
and over in his mind.
Night came, and he had not the money to purchase a supper or to secure a
bed. Should he not print the lively article, and make for himself better
fare on the morrow?
No. Manhood is more than money, worth more than wealth. He went to the
baker's and bought a twopenny roll; he ate it in his office, and then
lay down on the floor of his office and went to sleep.
The boy's sleep was sweet. He had decided the matter in his own heart,
and had given himself a first lesson in what we would to-day call the
new education. In this case it was an editorial education.
It was a lovely winter morning. There was joy in all Nature; the air was
clear and keen; the Schuylkill rippled bright in the glory of the sun.
He rose before the sun, and went to his work with a clear conscience,
but probably dreading the anger of the patron when he should give him
his decision.
When the baker's shop opened he may have bought another twopenny roll.
He certainly sat down and ate one, with a dipper of water.
In the later hours of the morning the door opened, and the patron came
in with a beaming face.
"Have you read it?"
"Yes, I have read the article, sir."
"Won't that be a good one? What did you think of it?"
"That I ought not to use it."
"Why?" asked the man, greatly astonished.
"I can not be sure that it would not do injustice to the person whom you
have attacked. There are always two sides to a case. I myself would not
like to be publicly ridiculed in that manner. Detraction leads to
detraction, and hatred begets hate."
"But you must have money, my Boston lad. Have you thought of that?" was
the suggestion.
Franklin drew himself up in the strength and resolution of young
manhood, and made the following answer, which we give, as we think,
almost in his very words:
"I am sorry to say, sir, that I think the article is scurrilous and
defamatory. But I have been at a loss, on account of my poverty, whether
to reject it or not. I therefore put it to this issue. At night, when my
work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and
then wrapping myself in my greatcoat slept very soundly on the floor
until morning, when another loaf and a mug of water afforded a pleasant
breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner,
why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for
a more luxurious living?"
This experience may be regarded as temporizing, but it was inward
education in the right direction, a step that led upward. It shows the
trend of the way, the end of which is the "path of the just, that leads
more and more unto the perfect day."
A young man who was willing to eat a twopenny roll and to sleep on the
floor of his pressroom for a principle, had in him the power that lifts
life, and that sustains it when lifted. He who puts self under himself
for the sake of justice has in him the gravitation of the skies. Uncle
Ben's counsels were beginning to live in him. Jenny's girl's faith was
budding in his heart, and it would one day bloom. He was turning to the
right now, and he would advance. There are periods in some people's
lives when they do not write often to their best friends; such a one had
just passed with Ben. During the Governor Keith misadventures he had not
written home often, as the reader may well imagine. But now that he had
come back to Philadelphia and was prosperous, the memory of loving
Jenny began to steal back into his heart.
He had heard that Jenny, now at sweet sixteen, was famous for her
beauty. He may have been jealous of her, we do not know; but he was
apprehensive that she might become vain, and he regarded modesty, even
at his early age of twenty-one or twenty-two, as a thing very becoming a
blooming girl.
One day he wrote to her, "Jenny, I am going to send you a present by the
next ship to Boston town."
The promise filled the girl's heart with delight. Her faith in him had
never failed, nor had her love for him changed.
What would the present be?
She went to her mother to help her solve this riddle.
"Perhaps it will be a ring," she said. "I would rather have that from
Ben than any other thing."
"But he would not send a ring by ship," said her mother, "but by the
post chaise."
"True, mother; it can not be that. It may be a spinet. I think it is a
spinet. He knows how we have delighted in father's violin. He might like
to send me a harp, but what is a spinet but a harp in a box?"
"I think it may be that, Jenny. He would send a spinet by ship, and he
knows how much we all love music."
"Yes, and he must see how many girls are adding the music of the spinet
to their accomplishments."
"Wouldn't a spinet be rather out of place in a candle shop?" asked the
mother.
"Not out of place in the parlor of a candle shop," said Jenny with
dignity.
"Do you think that you could learn to play the spinet, Jenny?"
"I would, if Ben were to send me one. I have been true to Ben all along.
I have never given him up. He may get out of place in life, but he is
sure to get back again. A true heart always does. I am sure that it is a
spinet that he will send. I dreamed," she added, "that I heard a humming
sound in the air something like a harp. I dreamed it in the morning, and
morning dreams come true."
"A humming sound," said Josiah Franklin, who had come within hearing;
"there are some things besides spinets that make humming sounds, and Ben
must know how poor we are. I am glad that his heart is turning home
again, after his _scattering_ adventures with the Governor. It is not
every one who goes to sea without a rudder that gets back to port
again."
Jenny dreamed daily of the coming ship and present. The ship came in,
and one evening at dark an old sailor knocked at the door. He presently
came in and announced that they had a "boxed-up" thing for one Jane
Franklin on board the ship. Should he send it by the cartman to the
house?
"Yes, yes!" cried Jenny. "Now I know it is a spinet I heard humming--I
told you about it, mother."
The girl awaited the arrival of the gift with a flushed cheek and a
beating heart. It came at last, and was brought in by candlelight.
It was indeed a "boxed-up" thing.
The family gathered around it--the father and mother, the boys and the
girls.
Josiah Franklin broke open the box with his great claw hammer, which
might have pleased an Ajax.
"O Jenny!" he exclaimed, "that will make a humming indeed. Ben has not
lost his wits yet--or he has found them again."
"What is it? What is it, father?"
"The most sensible thing in all the world. See there, it is a
spinning-wheel!"
Jane's heart sank within her. Her dreams vanished into the air--the
delights of the return of Sindbad the Sailor were not to be hers yet.
The boys giggled. She covered her face with her hands to hide her
confusion and to gain heart.
"I don't care," she said at last, choking. "I think Ben is real good,
and I will _forgive him_. I can spin. The wheel is a beauty."
The gift was accompanied by a letter. In it Benjamin told her that he
had heard that she had been much praised for her beauty, but that it was
industry and modesty that most merited commendation in a young girl. The
counsel was as homely as much of that that Uncle Benjamin used to give
little Benjamin, but she choked down her feelings.
"Benjamin was thinking of you as well as of me when he sent me that
present," she said to her mother. "I will make music with the wheel, and
the humming will make us all happy. I think that Ben is real good--and a
spinet would have been out of place here. I will write him a beautiful
letter in return, and will not tell him how I had hoped for a spinet. It
is all better as it is. That is best which will do the most good."
If Franklin sent a practical spinning-wheel to Jenny when she was a
girl, with much advice in which there was no poetry, such a sense of
homely duties soon passed away. He came to send her beautiful presents
of fabrics, "black and purple gowns," wearing apparel of elegant
texture, and ribbons. When he became rich it was his delight to make
happy the home of Jane Mecom--his poetic, true-hearted sister "Jenny,"
whose heart had beat to his in every step of his advancing life.
She became the mother of a large family of children, and when one of
them ran away and went to sea she took all the blame of it to herself,
and thought that if she had made his home pleasanter for him he would
not have left it. In her self-blame she wrote to her brother to confess
how she had failed in her duty toward the boy. Franklin read her heart,
and wrote to her that the boy was wholly to blame, which could hardly
have been comforting. Jenny would rather have been to blame herself.
There was but little wrong in this world in her eyes, except herself.
She saw the world through her own heart.