The street in front of the old State House is filled with people. The balcony window is thrown up, and out of the Council Chamber, now popularly known as the Sam Adams room, there appears the representative of Sam Adams and of five members of the Boston schools who had signed the Declaration. The officers of the State are there, and over the street shines the spire of the South Church and gleams the Province House Indian. The children are there; aged idlers who loitered about the town pump; the women patriots from Spring Lane. The New England flag, of blue ground with the cross of St. George on a white field, floats high over all.
A voice rends the clear air. It read:
"When in the course of human events," and it marches on in stately tones above the silence of the people. At the words "all men are created free and equal," the name of Franklin breaks upon the stillness. Jamie the Scotchman joins in the rising applause, and he proudly turns to Jane Mecom and says:
"Only to think what a friend I was to him, too!"
They return by the Granary burying ground. A tall, gray monument holds their attention. It is one that the people loved to visit then, and that touches the heart to-day. At the foot of the epitaph they read again, as they had done many times before:
"Their youngest son,
in filial regard to their memory,
places this stone."
"His heart was true to the old folks," said Jamie.
It was the monument that Benjamin Franklin had erected to his parents.