"I must go back to the camp," said Franklin, for he had met Samuel within the American lines.
"Cousin Benjamin, these are perilous times," said Samuel. "Justice is what the world needs. Make those pamphlets live, and return them with father's name honored in yours to my family."
"I will do so or perish. I am in dead earnest."
He ascended the hill and looked down on the British camps in Boston town.
Franklin had been sent to Cambridge as a commissioner to Washington's army at this time. It was October, 1775.
He longed to see his sister Jane—"Jenny"—once more. His sister was now past sixty years of age. Foreseeing the siege of Boston, he had written to her to come to Philadelphia and to make her home with him. But she was unwilling to remove from her own city and old home, though she was forced to find shelter within the lines of the American army.
One night, after her removal from Boston, there came a gentle knock at the door of her room. She opened it guardedly, and looked earnestly into the face of the stranger.
"Jenny!"
"My own brother!—do I indeed see you alive? Let me put my hand into yours once more."
He drew her to him.