"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 shiver 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 lustily 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?"
Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said:
"There is a bunch on your arm, Ben."
"No, no, no, uncle."
"There is, and it moves about."
"I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle."
"There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah, stop spinning a minute and come here."
The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and leaned over it with one hand against the shelf.
"What has he been doing now?" she asked in a troubled tone.
"Look at his arm there! It bulges out."
Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then appeared a little head outside the sleeve.
"I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all the time."
There was – it was the little covey or guinea pig.
"What did I tell you before Ben came in?" said Uncle Benjamin.
Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously:
"It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm illustrates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than one in this cold world."
Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again.
Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work.
The wheel stopped.
"I do love that boy," said Abiah, "notwithstanding all the fault they find with him."
"So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my godson. All people are common in this world except those who have personality. He had a great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of Lord Halifax."
"I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig, will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell."
"No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such things begin in that way."
CHAPTER VII.
UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD
Little Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called "the girls."
But one November day, as he came home after the arrival of the stage from Salem, he was met at the door by his uncle with the question:
"Who do you think has come?"
"I don't know, uncle. Josiah?"
"No."
"Brother John from Rhode Island? Esther and Martha from school? Zachary from Annapolis?"
"Not right yet."
"Esther and Martha from school at Nantucket?"
"Yes; and your Aunt Hannah and Aunt Prudence have come with them, with bandboxes, caps, snuffboxes, and all. They came on the sloop. It is a time for little boys to be quiet now, and to keep guinea pigs and such things well out of sight."
"How long are they going to stay, uncle?"
By "they" he referred to his aunts.
"A week or more, I guess. This will be your still week."
"But I can not keep still, uncle; I am a boy."
Little Benjamin went into the home room and there met his stately aunts, the school teachers.
There was a great fire in the room, and the pewter platters shone there like silver. His aunts received him kindly, but in a very condescending way. They had not yet discovered any "personality" in the short, little boy of the numerous family.
The aunts delighted in imparting moral instruction, and they saw in little Ben, as they thought, a useful opportunity for such culture.
That night the family, with the aunts from Nantucket, sat down by the great fire under the shining platters to hear Uncle Benjamin relate a marvelous story. Every family has one wonder story, and this was the one wonder story of the Franklin side of the family. Uncle Benjamin