Brave Men and Women | Page 8

the
improvement of his mind.
When at the age of seventeen, he landed in Philadelphia, a runaway
apprentice, he had one silver dollar and one shilling in copper coin. It
was a fine Sunday morning, as probably the reader remembers, and he
knew not a soul in the place. He asked the boatmen upon whose boat he
had come down the Delaware how much he had to pay. They answered,
Nothing, because he had helped them row. Franklin, however, insisted
upon their taking his shilling's worth of coppers, and forced the money
upon them. An hour after, having bought three rolls for his breakfast,
he ate one and gave the other two to a poor woman and her child who
had been his fellow-passengers. These were small things, you may say;
but remember he was a poor, ragged, dirty runaway in a strange town,
four hundred miles from a friend, with three pence gone out of the only
dollar he had in the world.
Next year when he went home to see his parents, with his pocket full of
money, a new suit of clothes and a watch, one of his oldest Boston
friends was so much pleased with Franklin's account of Philadelphia
that he determined to go back with him. On the journey Franklin
discovered that his friend had become a slave to drink. He was sorely
plagued and disgraced by him, and at last the young drunkard had spent
all his money and had no way of getting on except by Franklin's aid.
This hard, calculating, mercenary youth, did he seize the chance of
shaking off a most troublesome and injurious traveling companion?
Strange to relate, he stuck to his old friend, shared his purse with him
till it was empty, and then began on some money which he had been
intrusted with for another, and so got him to Philadelphia, where he still
assisted him. It was seven years before Franklin was able to pay all the

debt incurred by him to aid this old friend, for abandoning whom few
would have blamed him.
A year after he was in still worse difficulty from a similar cause. He
went to London to buy types and a press with which to establish
himself in business at Philadelphia, the governor of Pennsylvania
having promised to furnish the money. One of the passengers on the
ship was a young friend of Franklin's named James Ralph, with whom
he had often studied, and of whom he was exceedingly fond. Ralph
gave out that he, too, was going to London to make arrangements for
going into business for himself at Philadelphia. The young friends
arrived. Franklin nineteen and Ralph a married man with two children.
On reaching London Franklin learned, to his amazement and dismay,
that the governor had deceived him, that no money was to be expected
from him, and that he must go to work and earn his living at his trade.
No sooner had he learned this than James Ralph gave him another piece
of stunning intelligence; namely, that he had run away from his family
and meant to settle in London as a poet and author.
Franklin had ten pounds in his pocket, and knew a trade. Ralph had no
money, and knew no trade. They were both strangers in a strange city.
Now, in such circumstances, what would a mean, calculating young
man have done? Reader, you know very well, without my telling you.
What Franklin did was this: he shared his purse with his friend till his
ten pounds were all gone; and having at once got to work at his trade,
he kept on dividing his wages with Ralph until he had advanced him
thirty-six pounds--half a year's income--not a penny of which was ever
repaid. And this he did--the cold-blooded wretch!--because he could
not help loving his brilliant, unprincipled comrade, though
disapproving his conduct and sadly needing his money.
Having returned to Philadelphia, he set up in business as a printer and
editor, and, after a very severe effort, he got his business well
established, and at last had the most profitable establishment of the
kind in all America. During the most active part of his business life he
always found some time for the promotion of public objects. He
founded a most useful and public-spirited club; a public library, which

still exists, and assisted in every worthy scheme. He was most generous
to his poor relations, hospitable to his fellow-citizens, and particularly
interested in his journeymen, many of whom he set up in business.
The most decisive proof, however, which he ever gave that he did not
overvalue money, was the retirement from a most profitable business
for the purpose of having leisure to pursue his philosophical studies. He
had been in business twenty years,