CHAPTER XXXIII.
OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN.
Franklin's paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which appeared in the year 1729, at first published by Franklin and Meredith, and always very neatly printed, had grown, and its income became large. It did much of the thinking for the province. But Franklin made it what it was by his energy, perseverance, and faith. He returned to America, and the paper voiced his opinions.
In the period of his early struggle, he was wheeling some printing paper in a wheelbarrow along the streets toward his office when he heard the tap, tap, tap of an old man's cane.
He looked around. It was the cane of old Mr. Calamity. This man had advised him not to begin publishing.
"Young man——"
"Good morning, sir. I hope it finds you well."
"It must be hard times when an editor has to carry his printing paper in a wheelbarrow."
"The oracle said, 'Leave no stone unturned if you would find success.'"
"Well, my young friend, if there is anybody that obeys the oracle in Pennsylvania it is you. You dress plainly; you do not indulge in many luxuries; you attend the societies and clubs that seek information; you ought to succeed, but you won't."
The old man lifted his cane and brought it down on the flagging stones with a pump.
"You won't, now!"
He stood still for a moment to add to the impression of his words.
"What is this I hear? The province is about to issue paper money? What did I tell you long ago? This is an age of rags. Paper money is rags. Governor Keith's affairs have all gone to ruin; it is unfortunate that he went away. And you are going to print the paper money for the province, are you? Listen to me: in a few years it will not be worth the paper it is printed on, and you will be glad to follow the example of Governor Keith, and get out of Philadelphia. The times are hard, but they are going to be harder. What hope is there for such a man as you?"
Franklin set down his wheelbarrow.
"My good sir, I am doing honest work. It will tell—I have confidence that it will tell."
"Tell! Tell who?"
"The world."
"The world! The owls have not yet ceased to hoot in woods around Philadelphia, and he has a small world that is bounded by the hoot of an owl."
"My father used to say that he who is diligent in his business shall stand before kings," quoting the Scripture.
"Well, you may be as honest and as diligent in your business as you will, it is a small chance that you will ever have of standing before kings. What are you standing before now?—a wheelbarrow. That is as far as you have got. A promising young man it must be to stand before a wheelbarrow and talk about standing before kings!"
"But, sir, I ought not to be standing before a wheelbarrow. I ought to be going on and coining time."
"Well, go right along; you are on the way to Poverty Corner, and you will not need any guide post to find it; take up the handles of the wheelbarrow and go right on. Maybe the king will send a coach for you some day."
He did—more than one king did.
Franklin took the handles of the wheelbarrow, wondering which was the true prophet, his father's Scripture or cautious old Mr. Calamity. As he went on he heard the tap, tap, tap of the cane behind him, and a low laugh at times and the word "kings."
He came to the office, and taking a huge bundle of printing paper on his shoulder went in. The cane passed, tap, tap, tapping. It had an ominous sound. But after the tap, tap, tap of the cane had gone, Franklin could still hear his old father's words in his spiritual memory, and he believed that they were true.
We must continue the story of Mr. Calamity, so as to picture events from a Tory point of view. The incident of the wheelbarrow would long cause him to reproach the name of Franklin.
The Pennsylvania Gazette not only grew and became a source of large revenue, so that Franklin had no more need to wheel to his office printing paper with his own hands, but it crowned with honor the work of which he was never ashamed. The printing of the paper money of the province added to his name, the success that multiplies success began its rounds with the years, and middle life found him a rich man, and his late return from England a man with the lever of power that molds opinion.
Poor old Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight of years.
Benjamin Franklin was a magnanimous man. He never wasted time in seeking the injury of any who ridiculed and belittled him. He had the largest charity for the mistakes in judgment that men make, and the opportunities of life were too precious for him to waste any time in beating the air where nothing was to be gained. Help the man who some time sought to injure you, and the day may come when he will help you, and such Peter-like experiences are among life's richest harvests. The true friendship gained by forgiveness has a breadth and depth of life that bring one of the highest joys of heaven to the soul.
"I will study many things, for I must be proficient in something," said the poet Longfellow when young. Franklin studied everything—languages, literature, science, and art. His middle life was filled with studies; all life to him was a schoolroom. His studies in middle life bore fruit after he was threescore and ten years of age. They helped to make his paper powerful.
Franklin's success greatly troubled poor old Mr. Calamity. After the printer made the great discovery that electricity was lightning, the old man opposed the use of lightning-rods.
"What will that man Franklin do next?" he said. "He would oppose the Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning—he would defy Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a dangerous man, the most dangerous man in all the colony."
Old Mr. Calamity warned the people against the innovations of this dangerous man.
One day, as he was resting under the great trees on the Schuylkill, there was brought to him grievous news. A clerk in the Pennsylvania Assembly came up to him and asked:
"Do you know what has been done? The Assembly has appointed Franklin as agent to London; he is to go as the agent of all the colonies."
"Sho! What do the colonies want of an agent in London? Don't the king know how to govern his colonies? And if we need an agent abroad, why should we send a printer and a lightning-rod man? Clerk, sit down! That man Franklin is a dangerous leader. 'An agent of the colonies in London!' Why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow. A curious man that to send to the court of England's sovereign, whose arms are the lion and the unicorn."
"But there is a movement in England to tax the colonies."
"And why shouldn't there be? If the king thinks it is advisable to tax the colonies for their own support, why should not his ministers be instructed to do so? The king is a power divinely ordained; the king can do no wrong. We ought to be willing to be taxed by such a virtuous and gracious sovereign. Taxation is a blessing; it makes us realize our privileges. Oh, that Franklin! that Franklin! there is something peculiarsome about him; but the end of that man is to fall. First carrying about printing paper in a wheelbarrow, then trifling with the lightning in a thunderstorm, and now going to the court of England as a representative of the colonies. The world never saw such an amazing spectacle as that in all its history. Do you know what the king may yet be compelled to do? He may yet have to punish his American colonies. Clouds are gathering—I can see. Well, let Franklin go, and take his wheelbarrow with him! What times these are!"
Franklin was sent to England again greatly to the discomfort of Mr. Calamity.
The English Parliament passed an act called the Stamp Act, taxing the colonies by placing a stamp on all paper to be used in legal transactions. It was passed against the consent of the colonies, who were allowed to have no representatives in the foreign government, and the measure filled the colonies with indignation. There were not many in America like Mr. Calamity who believed the doctrine that the king could do no wrong. King George III approved of the Stamp Act, not only as a means of revenue, but as an assertion of royal authority.
The colonies were opposed to the use of the stamped paper. Were they to submit to be governed by the will of a foreign power without any voice in the measures of the government imposed upon them? Were their lives and property at the command of a despotism, without any source of appeal to justice?
The indignation grew. The spirit of resistance to the arbitrary act of tyranny was everywhere to be met and seen.
From the time of his arrival in London, in 1764, at the age of fifty-nine, Franklin gave all his energies for a long time to opposing the Stamp Act, and, after it had passed, to securing its repeal. He was, as it were, America in London.
The Stamp Act, largely through his influence, was at last repealed, and joy filled America. Processions were formed in honor of the king, and bonfires blazed on the hills. In Boston the debtors were set free from jail, that all might unite in the jubilee.
Franklin's name filled the air.
Old Mr. Calamity heard of it amid the ringing of bells.
"Franklin, Franklin," he said on the occasion, turning around in vexation and taking a pinch of snuff, "why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow!"
Philadelphia had a day of jubilee in honor of the repeal of the Stamp Act, and Mr. Calamity with cane and snuffbox wandered out to see the sights. The streets were in holiday attire, bells were ringing, and here and there a shout for Franklin went up from an exulting crowd. As often as the prudent old gentleman heard that name he turned around, pounding his cane and taking a pinch of snuff.
He went down to a favorite grove on the banks of the Schuylkill. He found it spread with tables and hung with banners.
"Sir," he said to a local officer, "is there to be a banquet here?"
"Yes, your Honor, the banquet is to be here. Have you not heard?"
"What is the banquet to be for?"
"In honor of Franklin, sir."
Mr. Calamity turned round on his cane and took out his snuffbox.
There was an outburst of music, a great shout, and a hurrying of people toward the green grove.
Something loomed in air.
The old gentleman, putting his hand over his eye as a shade, looked up in great surprise.
"What—what is that?"
What indeed!
"A boat sailing in the air?" He added, "Franklin must have invented that!"
"No," said the official, "that is the great barge."
"What is it for?"
"It will exhibit itself shortly," said the official.
It came on, covered with banners that waved in the river winds.
The old man read the inscription upon it—"Franklin."
"I told you so," he said.
"It will thunder soon," said the official. "Don't you see it is armed with guns?"
The barge stopped at the entrance of the grove. A discharge of cannon followed from the boat, which was forty feet long. A great shout followed the salute. The whole city seemed cheering. The name that filled the air was "Franklin."
Mr. Calamity turned around and around, planting his cane down in a manner that left a circle, and then taking out of his pocket his snuffbox.
He saw a boy cheering.
"Boy!"
"Sir?"
"What are you shouting for?"
"For the Stamp Act, sir!"
"That is right, my boy."
"No, for Franklin!"
"For Franklin? Why, I have seen him carrying a lot of printing paper through the streets in a wheelbarrow! May time be gracious to me, so that I may see him hanged! Boy, see here——"
But the banners were moving into the green grove, and the boy had gone after them.
Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia the most popular man in the colonies, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.
"Only Heaven can save us now," said troubled Mr. Calamity. "There's treason in the air!"
The old gentleman was not a bad man; he saw life on the side of shadow, and had become blind to the sunny side of life. He was one of those natures that are never able to come out of the past.
The people amid the rising prosperity ceased to believe in old Mr. Calamity as a prophet. He felt this loss of faith in him. He assumed the character of the silent wise man at times. He would pass people whom he had warned of the coming doom, shaking his head, and then turning around would strike his cane heavily on the pavement, which would cause the one he had left behind to look back. He would then lift his cane as though it were the rod of a magician.
"Old Mr. Calamity is coming," said a Philadelphia schoolboy to another, one new school day in autumn. "See, he is watching Franklin, and is trying to avoid meeting him."
Their teacher came along the street.
"Why, boys, are you watching the old gentleman?"
"He is trying to avoid meeting Mr. Franklin, sir."
"Calamity comes to avoid Industry," said the teacher, as he saw the two men. Franklin was the picture of thrift, and his very gait was full of purpose and energy. "I speak in parable," said the teacher, "but that old gentleman is always in a state of alarm, and he seems to find satisfaction in predicting evil, and especially of Mr. Franklin. The time was when the young printer avoided him—he was startled, I fancy, whenever he heard the cane on the pavement; he must have felt the force of the suggestion that Calamity was after him. Now he has become prosperous, and the condition is changed. Calamity flees from him. See, my boys, the two men."
They stopped on the street.
Mr. Calamity passed them on the opposite side, and Mr. Franklin came after him, walking briskly. The latter stopped at the door of his office, but the old gentleman hurried on. When he reached the corner of the street he planted his cane down on the pavement and looked around. He saw the popular printer standing before his office door on the street. The two looked at each other. The old man evidently felt uncomfortable. He turned the corner, out of sight, when an extraordinary movement appeared.
Mr. Calamity reached back his long, ruffled arm, and his cane, in view of the philosopher, the teacher, and the boys, and shook the cane mysteriously as though he were writing in the air. He may have had in mind some figure of the ancient prophets. Up and down went the cane, around and around, with curves of awful import. It looked to those on the street he had left as though the sharp angle of the house on the corner had suddenly struck out a living arm in silent warning.
The arm and cane disappeared. A head in a wide-rimmed hat looked around the angle as if to see the effect of the writing in the air. Then the arm and cane appeared again as before. It was like the last remnant of a cloud when the body has passed.
The teacher saw the meaning of the movement.
"Boys," said he, "if you should ever be pursued by Mr. Calamity in any form, remember the arm and cane. See Franklin laugh! Industry in the end laughs at Calamity, and Diligence makes the men who 'stand before kings.' It is the law of life. Detraction is powerless before will and work, and as a rule whatever any one dreams that he may do, he will do."
The boys had received an object lesson, and would long carry in their minds the picture of the mysterious arm and cane.
In a right intention one is master of the ideal of life. If circumstances favor, he becomes conscious that life is no longer master of him, but that he is the master of life. This sense of power and freedom is noble; in vain does the shadow of Calamity intrude upon it; the visions of youth become a part of creations of the world; the dream of the architect is a mansion now; of the scientist, a road, a railway over rivers and mountains; of the orator and poet, thoughts that live. Even the young gardner finds his dreams projected into his farm. So ideals become realities, and thoughts become seeds that multiply. Mr. Calamity may shake his cane, but it will be behind a corner. Happy is he who makes facts of his thoughts that were true to life!