Besides the answering of these questions, there were regular debates, declamations, and the reading of essays; while the wise Franklin took care always that no undue heat should enter into the proceedings. Singing and drinking and other amusements also claimed a fair share of the time. It is curious to observe that in his Autobiography Franklin half apologizes for mentioning the Junto, and declares that his reason for so doing was to show how the various members of the club aided him in his business. Were the Autobiography our only source of information, we might sum up the lessons of Franklin's life in the one word Thrift. The truth is that many of Franklin's schemes for public improvement first found a hearing in the secrecy of these friendly meetings.
Before returning to Franklin's active life, let us insert here an amusing epitaph which he composed about this time, and which has become justly famous:—
THE BODY
OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
PRINTER
(LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK
ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT
AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING)
LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS.
BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST
FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED)
APPEAR ONCE MORE
IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION
REVISED AND CORRECTED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
IV
THE SCIENTIST AND PUBLIC CITIZEN IN PHILADELPHIA
Franklin was twenty-two years old when he began business with Meredith. They had no capital, and in fact were in debt for part of their appurtenances. Meredith proved not only incompetent, but a hard drinker as well; so that Franklin, accepting the kindness of two friends who lent him the money, soon bought his partner out and conducted the shop alone. He prospered steadily, and in twenty years was able to retire from active business. From the beginning friends came to his aid: through a member of the Junto he got printing from the Quakers; by his careful work he drew away from old Bradford the public printing for the Assembly; he engaged assistants, and before many years was far the most important printer in the colonies. Besides his regular trade he was bookbinder, sold books and stationery, and dealt in soap and any other commodity that came handy. The description of his thrift we must give in his own words: "In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid the appearance to the contrary. I dressed plain, and was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a-fishing or shooting; a book indeed sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no scandal; and to show that I was not above my business I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow."
When Franklin became independent of Keimer he turned to his favorite project of establishing a newspaper. But in this case his usual habit of secrecy failed him, and knowledge of his plans reached Keimer's ears. Immediately his old master anticipated him by issuing proposals for a paper which he grandiloquently styled "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette,"—an utterly absurd sheet, whose contents were taken chiefly from an encyclopædia recently published in London. To counteract this Franklin published in Bradford's paper, "The Mercury," a series of essays after the manner of Addison, to which he subscribed the name "Busy-Body." Other members of the Junto contributed to the series; and Keimer, being stung by their satire, replied with coarse abuse, and also with attempted imitation. But Keimer was quite unequal to the conflict, and after publishing thirty-nine numbers of the paper sold it for a small sum to Franklin and Meredith, and himself moved to the Barbadoes. Number 40, October 2, 1729, under the simple title of "The Pennsylvania Gazette," came from Franklin's press. The encyclopædic extracts were cut short, and in their stead appeared what news could be gathered, with occasional clever essays such as only Franklin could write. It was for the times a good paper, and the printing was admirably done.
With prosperity Franklin began to think of matrimony. A family of Godfreys lived in the same house with him, and now Mrs. Godfrey undertook to make a match between him and the daughter of a relative of hers. Franklin's account of this affair for its coolness and placidity may almost be compared with Gibbon's "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." On learning that the girl's parents could not or would not give with her enough money to pay off his debts, the gallant suitor at once and irrevocably withdrew.
He then looked about him for another match, but found to his chagrin that an adventurous printer could not command an agreeable wife and a dowry at the same time. Being determined to marry, that he might bring order into his life, he at last turned to Miss Read, with whom he had maintained a friendly correspondence, and notwithstanding the difficulties in the way married her on the 1st of September, 1730. If he rejected Miss Godfrey because she brought no dowry with her, he praised his wife chiefly because she aided him in his economies. "He that would thrive must ask his wife," he quotes, and congratulates himself that he has a wife as much disposed to frugality as himself. She helped in the business; they kept no idle servants; their table was plain and simple, their furniture of the cheapest. His breakfast for a long time was bread and milk, and he ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer with a pewter spoon. "But mark," he adds, "how luxuries will enter families and make a progress despite of principles: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of twenty-three shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in a course of years as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value."