In the Days of Poor Richard

by Irving Bacheller

CHAPTER III

THE JOURNEY TO PHILADELPHIA

The New York Mercury of November 4, 1770, contains this item:

"John Irons, Jr., and Solomon Binkus, the famous scout, arrived Wednesday morning on the schooner Ariel from Albany. Mr. Binkus is on his way to Alexandria, Virginia, where he is to meet Major Washington and accompany him to the Great Kanawha River in the Far West."

Solomon was soon to meet an officer with whom he was to find the amplest scope for his talents. Jack was on his way to Philadelphia. They had found the ship crowded and Jack and two other boys "pigged together"--in the expressive phrase of that time--on the cabin floor, through the two nights of their journey. Jack minded not the hardness of the floor, but there was much drinking and arguing and expounding of the common law in the forward end of the cabin, which often interrupted his slumbers.

He was overawed by the length and number of the crowded streets of New York and by "the great height" of many of its buildings. The grandeur of Broadway and the fashionable folk who frequented it was the subject of a long letter which he indited to his mother from The City Tavern.

He took the boat to Amboy as Benjamin Franklin had done, but without mishap, and thence traveled by stage to Burlington. There he met Mr. John Adams of Boston, who was on his way to Philadelphia. He was a full-faced, ruddy, strong-built man of about thirty-five years, with thick, wavy dark hair that fell in well trimmed tufts on either cheek and almost concealed his ears. It was beginning to show gray. He had a prominent forehead, large blue and expressive eyes and a voice clear and resonant. He was handsomely dressed.

Mr. Adams greeted the boy warmly and told him that the testimony which he and Solomon Binkus gave had saved the life of Captain Preston. The great lawyer took much interest in the boy and accompanied him to the top of the stage, the weather being clear and warm. Mr. Adams sat facing Jack, and beside the latter was a slim man with a small sad countenance which wore a permanent look of astonishment. Jack says in a letter that his beard "was not composed of hair, but hairs as straight and numerable as those in a cat's whiskers." They were also gray like his eyes. After the stage had started this man turned to Jack and asked:

"What is your name, boy?"

"John Irons."

The man opened his eyes wider and drew in his breath between parted lips as if he had heard a most astonishing fact.

"My name is Pinhorn, sir--Eliphalet Pinhorn," he reciprocated. "I have been visiting my wife in Newark."

Jack thought it a singular thing that a man should have been visiting his wife.

"May I ask where you are going?" the man inquired of the boy.

"To Philadelphia."

Mr. Pinhorn turned toward him with a look of increased astonishment and demanded:

"Been there before?"

"Never."

The man made a sound that was between a sigh and a groan. Then, almost sternly and in a confidential tone, as if suddenly impressed by the peril of an immortal soul, he said:

"Young man, beware! I say to you, beware!"

Each stiff gray hair on his chin seemed to erect itself into an animated exclamation point. Turning again, he whispered:

"You will soon shake its dust from your feet."

"Why?"

"A sinking place! Every one bankrupt or nearly so. Display! Nothing but display! Feasting, drinking! No thought of to-morrow! Ungodly city!"

In concluding his indictment, Mr. Pinhorn partly covered his mouth and whispered the one word:

"Babylon!"

A moment of silence followed, after which he added; "I would never build a house or risk a penny in business there."

"I am going to work in Doctor Benjamin Franklin's print shop," said Jack proudly.

Mr. Pinhorn turned with a look of consternation clearly indicating that this was the last straw. He warned in a half whisper:

"Again I say beware! That is the word--beware!"

He almost shuddered as he spoke, and leaning close to the boy's ear, added in a confidential tone:

"The King of Babylon! A sinking business! An evil man!" He looked sternly into the eyes of the boy and whispered: "Very! Oh, very!" He sat back in his seat again, while the expression of his whole figure seemed to say, "Thank God, my conscience is clear, whatever happens to you."

Jack was so taken down by all this that, for a moment, his head swam. Mr. Pinhorn added:

"Prospered, but how? That is the question. Took the money of a friend and spent it. Many could tell you. Wine! Women! Infidelity! House built on the sands!"

Mr. Adams had heard most of the gloomy talk of the slim man. Suddenly he said to the slanderer:

"My friend, did I hear you say that you have been visiting your wife?"

"You did, sir."

"Well, I do not wonder that she lives in another part of the country," said Mr. Adams. "I should think that Philadelphia would feel like moving away from you. I have heard you say that it was a sinking city. It is nothing of the kind. It is floating in spite of the fact that there are human sinkers in it like yourself. I hate the heart of lead. This is the land of hope and faith and confidence. If you do not like it here, go back to England. We do not put our money into holes in the wall. We lend it to our neighbors because they are worthy of being trusted. We believe in our neighbors. We put our cash into business and borrow more to increase our profits. It is true that many men in Philadelphia are in debt, but they are mostly good for what they owe. It is a thriving place. I could not help hearing you speak evil of Doctor Franklin. He is my friend. I am proud to say it and I should be no friend of his if I allowed your words to go unrebuked. Yours, sir, is a leaden soul. It is without hope or trust in the things of this life. You seem not to know that a new world is born. It is a world of three tenses. We who really live in it are chiefly interested in what a man is and is likely to be, not in what he was. Doctor Franklin would not hesitate to tell you that his youth was not all it should have been. He does not conceal his errors. There is no more honest gentleman in the wide world than Doctor Franklin."

Mr. Adams had spoken with feeling and a look of indignation in his eyes. He was a frank, fearless character. All who sat on the top of the coach had heard him and when he had finished they clapped their hands.

Jack was much relieved. He had been put in mind of what Doctor Franklin had said long ago, one evening in Albany, of his struggle against the faults and follies of his youth. For a moment Mr. Pinhorn was dumb with astonishment.

"Nevertheless, sir, I hold to my convictions," he said.

"Of course you do," Mr. Adams answered. "No man like you ever recovered from his convictions, for the reason that his convictions are stronger than he is."

Mr. Pinhorn partly covered his mouth and turned to the boy and whispered:

"It is a time of violent men. Let us hold our peace."

At the next stop where they halted for dinner Mr. Adams asked the boy to sit down with him at the table. When they were seated the great man said:

"I have to be on guard against catching fire these days. Sometimes I feel the need of a companion with a fire bucket. My headlight is hope and I have little patience with these whispering, croaking Tories and with the barons of the south and the upper Hudson. I used to hold the plow on my father's farm and I am still plowing as your father is."

Jack turned with a look of inquiry.

"We are breaking new land," Mr. Adams went on. "We are treading the ordeal path among the red-hot plowshares of politics."

"It is what I should like to do," said the boy.

"You will be needed, but we must be without fear, remembering that almost every man who has gained real distinction in politics has met a violent death. There are the shining examples of Brutus, Cassius, Hampden and Sidney, but it is worth while."

"I believe you taught school at Worcester," said Jack.

"And I learned at least one thing doing it--that school-teaching is not for me. It would have turned me into a shrub. Too much piddling! It is hard enough to teach men that they have rights which even a king must respect."

"Let me remind you, sir," said Mr. Pinhorn, who sat at the same table, "that the King can do no wrong."

"But his ministers can do as they please," Mr. Adams rejoined, whereat the whole company broke into laughter.

Mr. Pinhorn covered his mouth with astonishment, but presently allowed himself to say: "Sir, I hold to my convictions."

"You are wrong, sir. It is your convictions that hold to you. They are like the dead limbs on a tree," Mr. Adams answered. "The motto of Great Britain would seem to be, 'Do no right and suffer no wrong.' They search our ships; they impress our seamen; they impose taxes through a Parliament in which we are not represented, and if we threaten resistance they would have us tried for treason. Nero used to say that he wished that the inhabitants of Rome had only one neck, so that he could dispose of them with a single blow. It was a rather merciful wish, after all. A neck had better be chopped off than held under the yoke of tyranny."

"Sir, England shielded, protected, us from French and Indians," Mr. Pinhorn declared with high indignation.

"It protected its commerce. We were protecting British interests and ourselves. Connecticut had five thousand under arms; Massachusetts, seven thousand; New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire, many more. Massachusetts taxed herself thirteen shillings and four pence to the pound of income. New Jersey expended a pound a head to help pay for the war. On that score England is our debtor."

The horn sounded. The travelers arose from the tables and hurried out to the coach.

"It was a good dinner," Mr. Adams said to Jack when they had climbed to their seat. "We should be eating potatoes and drinking water, instead of which we have two kinds of meat and wine and pudding and bread and tea and many jellies. Still, I am a better philosopher after dinner than before it. But if we lived simpler, we should pay fewer taxes."

As they rode along a lady passenger sang the ballad of John Barleycorn, in the chorus of which Mr. Adams joined with much spirit.

"My capacity for getting fun out of a song is like the gift of a weasel for sucking eggs," he said.

So they fared along, and when Jack was taking leave of the distinguished lawyer at The Black Horse Tavern in Philadelphia the latter invited the boy to visit him in Boston if his way should lead him there.

2

The frank, fearless, sledge-hammer talk of the lawyer made a deep impression on the boy, as a long letter written next day to his father and mother clearly shows. He went to the house of the printer, where he did not receive the warm welcome he had expected. Deborah Franklin was a fat, hard-working, illiterate, economical housewife. She had a great pride in her husband, but had fallen hopelessly behind him. She regarded with awe and slight understanding the accomplishments of his virile, restless, on-pushing intellect. She did not know how to enjoy the prosperity that had come to them. It was a neat and cleanly home, but, as of old, Deborah was doing most of the work herself. She would not have had it otherwise.

"Ben thinks we ortn't to be doin' nothin' but settin' eroun' in silk dresses an' readin' books an' gabbin' with comp'ny," she said. "Men don't know how hard tis to git help that cleans good an' cooks decent. Everybody feels so kind o' big an' inderpendent they won't stan' it to be found fault with."

Her daughter, Mrs. Bache, and the latter's children were there. Suddenly confronted by the problem of a strange lad coming into the house to live with them, they were a bit dismayed. But presently their motherly hearts were touched by the look of the big, gentle-faced, homesick boy. They made a room ready for him on the top floor and showed him the wonders of the big house--the library, the electrical apparatus, the rocking chair with its fan swayed by the movement of the chair, the new stove and grate which the Doctor had invented. That evening, after an excellent supper, they sat down for a visit in the library, when Jack suggested that he would like to have a part of the work to do.

"I can sweep and clean as well as any one," he said. "My mother taught me how to do that. You must call on me for any help you need."

"Now I wouldn't wonder but what we'll git erlong real happy," said Mrs. Franklin. "If you'll git up 'arly an' dust the main floor an' do the broom work an' fill the wood boxes an' fetch water, I'll see ye don't go hungry."

"I suppose you will be going to England if the Doctor is detained there," said Jack.

"No, sir," Mrs. Franklin answered. "I wouldn't go out on that ol' ocean--not if ye would give me a million pounds. It's too big an' deep an' awful! No, sir! Ben got a big bishop to write me a letter an' tell me I'd better come over an' look a'ter him. But Ben knowed all the time that I wouldn't go a step."

There were those who said that her dread of the sea had been a blessing to Ben, for Mrs. Franklin had no graces and little gift for communication. But there was no more honest, hard-working, economical housewife in Philadelphia.

Jack went to the shop and was put to work next morning. He had to carry beer and suffer a lot of humiliating imposition from older boys in the big shop, but he bore it patiently and made friends and good progress. That winter he took dancing lessons from the famous John Trotter of New York and practised fencing with the well-known Master Brissac. He also took a course in geometry and trigonometry at the Academy and wrote an article describing his trip to Boston for The Gazette. The latter was warmly praised by the editor and reprinted in New York and Boston journals. He joined the company for home defense and excelled in the games, on training day, especially at the running, wrestling, boxing and target shooting. There were many shooting galleries in Philadelphia wherein Jack had shown a knack of shooting with the rifle and pistol, which had won for him the Franklin medal for marksmanship. In the back country the favorite amusement of himself and father had been shooting at a mark.

Somehow the boy managed to do a great deal of work and to find time for tramping in the woods along the Schuylkill and for skating and swimming with the other boys. Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Bache grew fond of Jack and before the new year came had begun to treat him with a kind of motherly affection.

William, the Doctor's son, who was the governor of the province of New Jersey, came to the house at Christmas time. He was a silent, morose, dignified, self-seeking man, who astonished Jack with his rabid Toryism. He nettled the boy by treating the opinions of the latter with smiling toleration and by calling his own father--the great Doctor--"a misguided man."

Jack forged ahead, not only in the printer's art, but on toward the fulness of his strength. Under the stimulation of city life and continuous study, his talents grew like wheat in black soil. In the summer of seventy-three he began to contribute to the columns of The Gazette. Certain of his articles brought him compliments from the best people for their wit, penetration and good humor. He had entered upon a career of great promise when the current of his life quickened like that of a river come to a steeper grade. It began with a letter from Margaret Hare, dated July 14, 1773. In it she writes:

"When you get this please sit down and count up the years that have passed since we parted. Then think how our plans have gone awry. You must also think of me waiting here for you in the midst of a marrying world. All my friends have taken their mates and passed on. I went to Doctor Franklin to-day and told him that I was an old lady well past nineteen and accused him of having a heart of stone. He said that he had not sent for you because you were making such handsome progress in your work. I said: 'You do not think of the rapid progress I am making toward old age. You forget, too, that I need a husband as badly as The Gazette needs a philosopher. I rebel. You have made me an American--you and Jack, I will no longer consent to taxation without representation. Year by year I am giving up some of my youth and I am not being consulted about it.'

"Said he: 'I would demand justice of the king. I suppose he thinks that his country can not yet afford a queen, I shall tell him that he is imitating George the Third and that he had better listen to the voice of the people.'

"Now, my beloved hero, the English girl who is not married at nineteen is thought to be hopeless. There are fine lads who have asked my father for the right to court me and still I am waiting for my brave deliverer and he comes not. I can not forget the thrush's song and the enchanted woods. They hold me. If they have not held you--if for any reason your heart has changed--you will not fail to tell me, will you? Is it necessary that you should be great and wise and rich and learned before you come to me? Little by little, after many talks with the venerable Franklin, I have got the American notion that I would like to go away with you and help you to accomplish these things and enjoy the happiness which was ours, for a little time, and of which you speak in your letters. Surely there was something very great in those moments. It does not fade and has it not kept us true to their promise? But, Jack, how long am I to wait? You must tell me."

This letter went to the heart of the young man. She had deftly set before him the gross unfairness of delay. He felt it. Ever since the parting he had been eager to go, but his father was not a rich man and the family was large. His own salary had been little more than was needed for clothing and books. That autumn it had been doubled and the editor had assured him that higher pay would be forthcoming. He hesitated to tell the girl how little he earned and how small, when measured in money, his progress had seemed to be. He was in despair when his friend Solomon Binkus arrived from Virginia. For two years the latter had been looking after the interests of Major Washington out in the Ohio River country. They dined together that evening at The Crooked Billet and Solomon told him of his adventures in the West, and frontier stories of the notorious, one-legged robber, Micah Harpe, and his den on the shore of the Ohio and of the cunning of the outlaw in evading capture.

"I got his partner, Mike Fink, and Major Washington give me fifty pounds for the job," said Solomon. "They say Harpe's son disappeared long time ago an' I wouldn't wonder if you an' me had seen him do it."

"The white man that hung back in the bushes so long? I'll never forget him," said Jack.

"Them wimmen couldn't 'a' been in wuss hands."

"It was a lucky day for them and for me," Jack answered. "I have here a letter from Margaret. I wish you would read it."

Solomon read the girl's letter and said:

"If I was you I'd swim the big pond if nec'sary. This 'ere is a real simon pure, four-masted womern an' she wants you fer Captain. As the feller said when he seen a black fox, 'Come on, boys, it's time fer to wear out yer boots.'"

"I'm tied to my job."

"Then break yer halter," said Solomon.

"I haven't money enough to get married and keep a wife."

"What an ignorant cuss you be!" Solomon exclaimed. "You don't 'pear to know when ye're well off."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that ye're wuth at least a thousan' pounds cash money."

"I would not ask my father for help and I have only forty pounds in the bank," Jack answered.

Solomon took out his wallet and removed from it a worn and soiled piece of paper and studied the memoranda it contained. Then he did some ciphering with a piece of lead. In a moment he said:

You have got a thousan' an' fifteen pounds an' six shillin' fer to do with as ye please an' no questions asked--nary one."

"You mean you've got it."

"Which means that Jack Irons owns it hide, horns an' taller."

Tears came to the boy's eyes. He looked down for a moment without speaking. "Thank you, Solomon," he said presently. "I can't use your money. It wouldn't be right."

Solomon shut one eye an' squinted with the other as if he were taking aim along the top of a gun barrel. Then he shook his head and drawled:

"Cat's blood an' gunpowder! That 'ere slaps me in the face an' kicks me on the shin," Solomon answered. "I've walked an' paddled eighty mile in a day an' been stabbed an' shot at an' had to run fer my life, which it ain't no fun--you hear to me. Who do ye s'pose I done it fer but you an' my kentry? There ain't nobody o' my name an' blood on this side o' the ocean--not nobody at all. An' if I kin't work fer you, Jack, I'd just erbout as soon quit. This 'ere money ain't no good to me 'cept fer body cover an' powder an' balls. I'd as leave drop it in the river. It bothers me. I don't need it. When I git hum I go an' hide it in the bush somewhars--jest to git it out o' my way. I been thinkin' all up the road from Virginny o' this 'ere gol demnable money an' what I were a-goin' to do with it an' what it could do to me. An', sez I, I'm ergoin' to ask Jack to take it an' use it fer a wall 'twixt him an' trouble, an' the idee hurried me erlong--honest! Kind o' made me happy. Course, if I had a wife an' childern, 'twould be different, but I ain't got no one. An' now ye tell me ye don't want it, which it makes me feel lonesomer 'n a tarred Tory an' kind o' sorrowful--ayes, sir, it does."

Solomon's voice sank to a whisper. "Forgive me," said Jack. "I didn't know you felt that way. But I'm glad you do. I'll take it on the understanding that as long as I live what I have shall also be yours."

"I've two hundred poun' an' six shillin' in my pocket an' a lot more hid in the bush. It's all yourn to the last round penny. I reckon it'll purty nigh bridge the slough. I want ye to be married respectable like a gentleman--slick duds, plenty o' cakes an' pies an' no slightin' the minister er the rum bar'l.

"Major Washington give me a letter to take to Ben Franklin on t'other side o' the ocean. Ye see ev'ry letter that's sent ercrost is opened an' read afore it gits to him lessen it's guarded keerful. This 'ere one, I guess, has suthin' powerful secret in it. He pays all the bills. So I'll be goin' erlong with ye on the nex' ship an' when we git thar I want to shake hands with the gal and tell her how to make ye behave."

That evening Jack went to the manager of The Gazette and asked for a six months' leave of absence.

"And why would ye be leaving?" asked the manager, a braw Scot.

"I expect to be married."

"In England?"

"Yes."

"I'll agree if the winsome, wee thing will give ye time to send us news letters from London. Doctor Franklin could give ye help. He has been boiling over with praise o' you and has asked me to broach the matter. Ye'll be sailing on the next ship."

Before there was any sailing Jack and Solomon had time to go to Albany for a visit. They found the family well and prosperous, the town growing. John Irons said that land near the city was increasing rapidly in value. Solomon went away into the woods the morning of their arrival and returned in the afternoon with his money, which he gave to John Irons to be invested in land. Jack, having had a delightful stay at home, took a schooner for New York that evening with Solomon.

The night before they sailed for England his friends in the craft gave Jack a dinner at The Gray Goose Tavern. He describes the event in a long letter. To his astonishment the mayor and other well-known men were present and expressed their admiration for his talents.

The table was spread with broiled fish and roasted fowls and mutton and towering spiced hams and sweet potatoes and mince pies and cakes and jellies.

"The spirit of hospitality expresses itself here in ham--often, also, in fowls, fish and mutton, but always and chiefly in ham--cooked and decorated with the greatest care and surrounded by forms, flavors and colors calculated to please the eye and fill the human system with a deep, enduring and memorable satisfaction," he writes.

In the midst of the festivities it was announced that Jack was to be married and as was the custom of the time, every man at the table proposed a toast and drank to it. One addressed himself to the eyes of the fortunate young lady. Then her lips, her eyebrows, her neck, her hands, her feet, her disposition and her future husband were each in turn enthusiastically toasted by other guests in bumpers of French wine. He adds that these compliments were "so moist and numerous that they became more and more indistinct, noisy and irrational" and that before they ended "Nearly every one stood up singing his own favorite song. There is a stage of emotion which can only be expressed in noises. That stage had been reached. They put me in mind of David Culver's bird shop where many song birds--all of a different feather--engage in a kind of tournament, each pouring out his soul with a desperate determination to be heard. It was all very friendly and good natured but it was, also, very wild."