One evening, between the violin and the Bible, Josiah Franklin suddenly said:
"Ben, you look here!"
"What, father?" asked the boy, starting.
"It all comes to me what you ought to do. You should become a printer."
"That I would like, father."
"Then the way is clear—let me apprentice you to James."
"Would he have me, father? We do not always get on well together. I want to learn the printer's trade; that would help me on to an education."
Josiah Franklin was now a happier man. Ben would have no more desire to go to sea. If he could become anything out of the ordinary, the printer's trade would be the open way.
He went to his son James and presented the matter. As a result, they drew up an indenture.
This indenture, which may be found in Franklin's principal biographies, was a very queer document, but follows the usual form of the times of George I. It was severe—a form by which a lad was practically sold into slavery, and yet it contained the demands that develop right conduct in life. Ben was not constituted to be an apprentice boy under these sharp conditions even to his own brother. But all began well. His mother, who worried lest he should follow the example of his brother Josiah, now had heart content. His father secured an apprentice, and probably had drawn up for him a like form of indenture.