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."