"We will build it of stone," he said. "There are plenty of stones near the wharf."
"But the workmen there would not let us have them," said a companion.
"We will take them after they have gone from their work. We can build the wharf in a single evening. The workmen may scold, but they will not scold the stone landing out of the water again."
One early twilight of a long day the boys assembled at the place chosen by young Franklin for his wharf, and began to work like beavers, and before the deep shadows of night they had removed the stones to the water and builded quite a little wharf or landing.
"We can catch minnows and sail our boats from here now," said young Franklin as he looked with pride on the triumphs of his plan. "All the boys will be free to use this landing," he thought. "Won't it make the people wonder!"
It did.
The next morning the weather door of the thrifty tallow chandler opened with a ring.
"Josiah Franklin, where is that boy of yours?" asked a magistrate.
The paper cap bobbed up, and the man at the molds bent his head forward with wondering eyes.
"Which boy?"
"Ben, the one that is always leading other boys round."
"I dunno. He's making a boat—or was.—Benjamin!" he called; "I say, Benjamin!"
The door of the living room opened, and little Ben appeared.
"Here's a man who has come to see you. What have you been doing now?"
"Boy," said the man—he spoke the word so loudly that the little boy felt that it raised him almost to the dignity of a man.
"What, sir?" gasped Ben, very intelligent as to what would follow.
"Did you put those stones into the water?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did you do that for?"
"To make a wharf, sir."
"'To make a wharf, sir!' Didn't you have the sense to know that those stones were building stones and belonged to the workmen?"
"No, sir; I didn't know that they belonged to any one. I thought that they belonged to everybody."
"You did, you little rascal! Then why did you wait to have the workmen go away before you put them into the water?"
"The workmen would have hindered us, sir. They don't think that improvements can be made by little shavers like us. I wanted to surprise them, sir—to show them what we could do, sir."
"Benjamin Franklin," said Josiah, "come here, and I will show you what I can do.—Stranger, the boy's godfather has come to live with us and to take charge of him, and he does need a godfather, if ever a stripling did."
Josiah Franklin laid his hand on the boy, and the workman went away. The father removed the boy's jacket, and showed him what he could do, the memory of which was not a short one.
"I did not mean any harm, father," young Benjamin said over and over. "It was a mistake."
"My boy," said the tallow chandler, softening, "never make a second mistake. There are some people who learn wisdom from their first mistakes by never making second mistakes. May you be one of them."
"I shall never do anything that I don't think is honest, father. I thought stones and rocks belonged to the people."
"But there are many things that belong to the people in this world that you have no right to use, my son. When you want to make any more public improvements, first come and talk with me about them, or go to your Uncle Ben, into whose charge I am going to put you—and no small job he will have of it, in my thinking!"
Benjamin Franklin said, when he was growing old and was writing his own life, that his father convinced him at the time of this event that "that which is not honest could not be useful."
We can see in fancy his father with a primitive switch thus convincing him. He never forgot the moral lesson.
Where was Jamie the Scotchman during this convincing episode? When he heard that the little wharf-builder, bursting with desire for public improvement, had fallen into disgrace, he came upon him slyly:
"So you've been building a wharf for the boys of the town. When one begins so soon in life to improve the town, there can be no telling what he will do when he grows up. Perhaps you will become one of the great benefactors of Boston yet. Who knows?"
"We can't tell," said the future projector of Franklin Park, philosophically.
"No, that is a fact, bubby. Take your finger out of your mouth and go to cutting candle wicks. It must make a family proud to have in it such a promising one as you! You'll be apt to set something ablaze some day if you keep on as you've begun."
He did.
Jamie the Scotchman went out, causing the bell on the door to ring. He whistled lustily as he went down the street.
Little Benjamin sat cutting wicks for the candle molds and wondering at the ways of the world. He had not intended to do wrong. He may have thought that the stones, although put aside by the workmen, were common property. He had made a mistake. But how are mistakes to be avoided in life? He would ask his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, when he should meet him. It was well, indeed, never to make a second mistake, but better not to make any mistake at all. Uncle Benjamin was wise, and could write poetry. He would ask him.
Besides Jamie the Scotchman, who spent much time at the Blue Ball, little Benjamin's brother James seems to have looked upon him as one whose activities of mind were too obvious, and needed to be suppressed.
The evening that followed the disgrace of little Ben was a serious one in the Franklin family. Uncle Ben had "gone to meeting" in the Old South Church.
The shop, with its molded candles, dipped candles, ingot bars of soap, pewter molds, and kettles, was not an unpleasant place in the evening, and old sea captains used to drop in to talk with Josiah, and sometimes the leading members of the Old South Church came to discuss church affairs, which were really town affairs, for the church governed the town.
On this particular night little Ben sat in the corner of the shop very quietly, holding little Jane as usual. The time had come for a perfect calm in his life, and he himself was well aware how becoming was silence in his case.
Among those who used to come to the shop evenings to talk with Josiah and Uncle Ben, the poet, was one Captain Holmes. He came to-night, stamping his feet at the door, causing the bell to ring very violently and the faces of some of the Franklin children to appear in the window framed over the shop door. How comical they looked!
"Where's Ben to-night?" asked Captain Holmes.
Little Ben's heart thumped. He thought the captain meant him.
"He's gone to meetin'," said Josiah. "Come, sit down. Ben will be at home early."
Little Ben's heart did not beat so fast now.
"Where's that boy o' yourn?" asked the captain.
Ben's heart began to beat again.
"There, in the corner," said Josiah, with a doubtful look in his face.
"He'll be given to making public improvements when he grows up," said the captain. "But I hope that he will not take other people's property to do it. If there is any type of man for whom I have no use it is he who does good with what belongs to others."
The door between the shop and the living room opened, and the grieved, patient face of Abiah appeared.
"Good evening, Captain Holmes," said Abiah. "I heard what you said—how could I help it?—and it hurt me. No descendant of Peter Folger will ever desire to use other