Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans | Page 6

give up.

FRANKLIN HIS OWN TEACHER.
Few people ever knew so many things as Franklin. Men said, "How did he ever learn so many things?" For he had been a poor boy who had to work for a living. He could not go to school at all after he was ten years old.
His father made soap and candles. Little Ben Frank-lin had to cut wicks for the candles. He also filled the candle molds. And he sold soap and candles, and ran on errands. But when he was not at work he spent his time in reading good books. What little money he got he used to buy books with.
He read the old story of "Pil-grim's Prog-ress," and liked it so well that he bought all the other stories by the same man. But as he wanted more books, and had not money to buy them, he sold all of these books. The next he bought were some little his-to-ry books. These were made to sell very cheap, and they were sold by peddlers. He managed to buy forty or fifty of these little books of his-to-ry.
Another way that he had of learning was by seeing things with his own eyes. His father took him to see car-pen-ters at work with their saws and planes. He also saw masons laying bricks. And he went to see men making brass and copper kettles. And he saw a man with a turning lathe making the round legs of chairs. Other men were at work making knives. Some things people learn out of books, and some things they have to see for them-selves.
As he was fond of books, Ben's father thought that it would be a good plan to send him to learn to print them. So the boy went to work in his brother's printing office. Here he passed his spare time in reading. He borrowed some books out of the stores where books were sold. He would sit up a great part of the night sometimes to read one of these books. He wished to return it when the book-store opened in the morning. One man who had many books lent to Ben such of his books as he wanted.
It was part of the bargain that Ben's brother should pay his board. The boy offered to board himself if his brother would give him half what it cost to pay for his board.
[Illustration: Franklin at Study.]
His brother was glad to do this, and Ben saved part of the money and bought books with it. He was a healthy boy, and it did not hurt him to live mostly on bread and butter. Sometimes he bought a little pie or a handful of raisins.
Long before he was a man, people said, "How much the boy knows!" This was because--
He did not waste his time.
He read good books.
He saw things for himself.

HOW FRANKLIN FOUND OUT THINGS.
Frank-lin thought that ants know how to tell things to one another. He thought that they talk by some kind of signs. When an ant has found a dead fly too big for him to drag away, he will run off and get some other ant to help him. Frank-lin thought that ants have some way of telling other ants that there is work to do.
One day he found some ants eating mo-las-ses out of a little jar in a closet. He shook them out. Then he tied a string to the jar, and hung it on a nail in the ceiling. But he had not got all the ants out of the jar. One little ant liked sweet things so well that he staid in the jar, and kept on eating like a greedy boy.
[Illustration: Ants talking (magnified)]
At last when this greedy ant had eaten all that he could, he started to go home. Frank-lin saw him climb over the rim of the jar. Then the ant ran down the outside of the jar. But when he got to the bottom, he did not find any shelf there. He went all round the jar. There was no way to get down to the floor. The ant ran this way and that way, but he could not get down.
[Illustration: An Ants Feeler (magnified)]
At last the greedy ant thought he would see if he could go up. He climbed up the string to the ceiling. Then he went down the wall. He came to his own hole at last, no doubt.
After a while he got hungry again, perhaps. He thought about that jar of sweets at the end of a string. Then perhaps he told the other ants. Maybe he let them know that there was a string by which they could get down to the jar.
In about half an hour after the ant had gone up the string, Franklin saw