Benjamin Franklin | Page 9

difficulties in the way of a financial alliance,
Franklin appears to have bethought him of affection as a substitute for
dollars; so he blew into the ashes of an old flame, and aroused some
heat. Before going to England he had engaged himself to Miss Deborah
Read; but in London he had pretty well forgotten her, and had written
to her only a single letter. Many years afterward, writing to Catharine
Ray in 1755, he said: "The cords of love and friendship ... in times past
have drawn me ... back from England to Philadelphia." If the remark
referred to an affection for Miss Read, it was probably no more
trustworthy than are most such allegations made when lapsing years
have given a fictitious coloring to a remote past. If indeed Franklin's
profligacy and his readiness to marry any girl financially eligible were
symptoms attendant upon his being in love, it somewhat taxes the
imagination to fancy how he would have conducted himself had he not
been the victim of romantic passion. Miss Read, meanwhile, apparently
about as much in love as her lover, had wedded another man, "one
Rogers, a potter," a good workman but worthless fellow, who soon took
flight from his bride and his creditors. Her position had since become
somewhat questionable; for there was a story that her husband had an
earlier wife living, in which case of course her marriage with him was
null. There was also a story that he was dead. But there was little
evidence of the truth of either tale. Franklin, therefore, hardly knew
what he was wedding, a maid, a widow, or another man's wife.
Moreover the runaway husband "had left many debts, which his
successor might be call'd upon to pay." Few men, even if warmly
enamored, would have entered into the matrimonial contract under
circumstances so discouraging; and there are no indications save the
marriage itself that Franklin was deeply in love. Yet on September 1,
1730, the pair were wedded. Mrs. Franklin survived for forty years
thereafter, and neither seems ever to have regretted the step. "None of
the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended," wrote Franklin;
"she proved a good and faithful helpmate; assisted me much by

attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually
endeavored to make each other happy." A sensible, comfortable,
satisfactory union it was, showing how much better is sense than
sensibility as an ingredient in matrimony. Mrs. Franklin was a
handsome woman, of comely figure, yet nevertheless an industrious
and frugal one; later on in life Franklin boasted that he had "been
clothed from head to foot in linen of [his] wife's manufacture." An
early contribution of his own to the domestic ménage was his
illegitimate son, William, born soon after his wedding, of a mother of
whom no record or tradition remains. It was an unconventional
wedding gift to bring home to a bride; but Mrs. Franklin, with a breadth
and liberality of mind akin to her husband's, readily took the babe not
only to her home but really to her heart, and reared him as if he had
been her own offspring. Mr. Parton thinks that Franklin gave this
excellent wife no further cause for suspicion or jealousy.
CHAPTER II
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA: CONCERNMENT IN PUBLIC
AFFAIRS
So has ended the first stage, in the benign presence of Hymen. The
period of youth may be regarded as over; but the narrative thereof,
briefly as it has been given, is not satisfactory. One longs to help out
the outline with color, to get the expression as well as merely the
features of the young man who is going to become one of the greatest
men of the nation. Many a writer and speaker has done what he could
in this task, for Franklin has been for a century a chief idol of the
American people. The Boston boy, the boy printer, the runaway
apprentice, the young journeyman, friendless and penniless in distant
London, are pictures which have been made familiar to many
generations of schoolboys; and the trifling anecdote of the bread rolls
eaten in the streets of Philadelphia has for its only rival among
American historical traditions the more doubtful story about George
Washington, the cherry-tree, and the little hatchet.
Yet, if plain truth is to be told, there was nothing unusual about this

sunrise, no rare tints of divine augury; the luminary came up in
every-day fashion. Franklin had done much reading; he had taken pains
to cultivate a good style in writing English; he had practiced himself in
dispute; he had adopted some odd notions, for example vegetarianism
in diet; he had at times acquired some influence among his fellow
journeymen, and had used it for good; he had occasionally fallen into
the society of men