He grew to detest the trade of tallow chandler, and hankered more and more for the sea. His father, wishing him to give up thoughts of a roving life, took him to talk with joiners, bricklayers, turners, and other workmen, and to watch them at work. But none of their trades appealed to the boy.
His place was at home his father urged, adding:
“Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”
THE BOY OF THE PRINTING PRESS
But Benjamin Franklin did not run away to sea. He became a printer’s boy.
Because he liked books, he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had set up a printing press in Boston. To James’s house he went, taking with him his collection of precious volumes.
There he worked hard by day, and read and studied at night. Recollecting his father’s favourite proverb, “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings,” Franklin saved his money, and worked early and late.
When James began to issue a newspaper, Franklin helped him print it, and delivered copies to customers. He wrote articles and slipped them under the printing-house door, and James published them, without knowing who was their author. Later Franklin wrote clever, audacious, and humorous articles on the questions of the day, which were widely read and much talked about.
So things continued until he was seventeen years old, when he ran away—but not to sea. He and his brother quarrelled often. Benjamin the apprentice was saucy and provoking, and James the master was hot-tempered and beat his younger brother severely. After a particularly bad quarrel, Franklin sold some of his books, and took passage on a sloop bound for New York.
Arriving at New York, he found no employment there, and went on to Philadelphia.