Mr. Franklin was one of the greatest men that ever lived. He could carry
a loaf of bread in each hand and eat another, all at the same time, and
he could invent anything that anybody wanted, without hurting himself or
cutting his fingers. His greatest invention was lightning, and he
invented it with a kite. He made a kite with sticks made out of
telegraph wire, and sent it up in a thunder-storm till it reached where
the lightning is. The lightning ran down the string, and Franklin
collected it in a bottle, and sold it for ever so much money. So he got
very rich after a while, and could buy the most beautiful and expensive
kites that any fellow ever had.
I read about Mr. Franklin in a book that father gave me. He said I was
reading too many stories, and just you take this book and read it
through carefully and I hope it will do you some good anyway it will
keep you out of mischief.
I thought that it would please father if I should get some lightning
just as Franklin did. I told Tom McGinnis about it, and he said he
would help if I would give him half of all I made by selling the
lightning. I wouldn't do this, of course, but finally Tom said he'd help
me anyhow, and trust me to pay him a fair price; so we went to work.
We made a tremendously big kite, and the first time there came a
thunder-storm we put it up; but the paper got wet, and it came down
before it got up to the lightning. So we made another, and covered it
with white cloth that used to be one of Mrs. McGinnis's sheets, only Tom
said he knew she didn't want it any more.
We sent up this kite the next time there was a thunder-storm, and tied
the string to the second-story window where the blinds hook on, and let
the end of the string hang down into a bottle. It only thundered once or
twice, but the lightning ran down the string pretty fast, and filled the
bottle half full.
It looked like water, only it was a little green, and when it stopped
running into the bottle we took the lightning down-stairs to try it. I
gave a little of it to the cat to drink, but it didn't hurt her a bit,
and she just purred. At last Tom said he didn't believe it would hurt
anything; so he tasted some of it, but it didn't hurt him at all.
The trouble was that the lightning was too weak to do any harm. The
thunder-shower had been such a little one that it didn't have any
strong lightning in it; so we threw away what was in the bottle, and
agreed to try to get some good strong lightning whenever we could get a
chance.
It didn't rain for a long time after that, and I nearly forgot all about
Franklin and lightning, until one day I heard Mr. Travers read in the
newspaper about a man who was found lying dead on the road with a bottle
of Jersey lightning, and that, of course, explains what was the matter
with him my dear Susan. I understood more about it than Susan did, for
she does not know anything about Franklin being a girl, though I will
admit it isn't her fault. You see, the cork must have come out of the
man's bottle, and the lightning had leaked out and burned him to death.
The very next day we had a tremendous thunder-shower, and I told Tom
that now was the time to get some lightning that would be stronger than
anything they could make in New Jersey. So we got the kite up, and got
ourselves soaked through with water. We tied it to the window-ledge just
as we did the first time, and put the end of the string in a tin pail,
so that we could collect more lightning than one bottle would hold. It
was so cold standing by the window in our wet clothes that we thought
we'd go to my room and change them.
[Illustration: WE HURRIED INTO THE ROOM.]
All at once there was the most awful flash of lightning and the most
tremendous clap of thunder that was ever heard. Father and mother and
Sue were down-stairs, and they rushed up-stairs crying the darling boy
is killed. That meant me. But I wasn't killed, neither was Tom, and we
hurried into the room where we were collecting lightning to see what was
the matter. There we found the tin pail knocked into splinters and the
lightning spilled all over the floor. It had set fire to the carpet, and
burned a hole right through the floor into the kitchen, and pretty much
broke up the whole kitchen stove.
Father cut the kite-string and let the kite go, and told me that it was
as much as my life was worth to send up a kite in a thunder-storm. You
see, so much lightning will come down the string that it will kill
anybody that stands near it. I know this is true, because father says
so, but I'd like to know how Franklin managed. I forgot to say that
father wasn't a bit pleased.