Recollect that it was Sunday morning, and people were already swarming in the streets, arrayed in their best clothes. Benjamin was clad in his poorest clothes, and they were very shabby. His best suit was in his chest, and that was sent from New York by water. He was a sight to behold as he trudged up Market Street with his three loaves of bread, and his large pockets stuffed with shirts and stockings. He preferred pockets to the usual "bandanna bundle"; they were more convenient for storing away his wardrobe, but contributed largely to his comical appearance. He was a walking comedy. People gazed at him inquiringly and smiled. No doubt, many of them wondered where he came from and where he was going. He was seedy enough, but no one saw the seed of a philosopher or statesman about him. There was no promise in that direction. He was an embryo "Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France"; but his appearance was that of a shack, or modern tramp, to whom Sunday is like all other days, and whose self-respect is at a large discount.
On he went, however, regardless of opinions concerning the figure he cut, stowing away in his stomach the baker's loaf in his hand. He passed by the residence of one Mr. Read, whose daughter, in her teens, Miss Deborah Read, was standing at the door. She gazed in wonder at the singular specimen of humanity passing before her; thought he was the most awkward and comical creature in the form of a man she had ever seen; and turned away with a laugh to tell her people in the house of the queer spectacle. She little thought that she was taking a bird's eye view of her future husband, as the young man with the rolls under his arms turned out to be. But just then he cared more for bread than he did for her; some years thereafter, the case was reversed, and he cared more for her than he did for bread.
He turned down Chestnut Street, and walked on until he came round to the wharf where he landed. Being thirsty, he went to the boat for water, where he found the woman and child, who came down the river with them on the previous night, waiting to go further.
"Are you hungry?" he said to the little one, who looked wistfully at the bread.
"We are both very hungry," replied the mother quickly for herself and child.
"Well, I have satisfied my hunger with one loaf, and you may have the other two if you want them"; and Benjamin passed the two rolls under his arms to her. "It appears that, in Philadelphia, three-penny worth of bread is three times as much as a man can eat. If other things can be had in the same proportion, the last dollar I have left will go a great way."
"I thank you a thousand times; you are very kind indeed," responded the woman, with a heart overflowing with gratitude, which was as good pay for the bread as Benjamin wanted. "May you never want for bread."
"No one would want for bread if they who have it will divide with those who have none, as they should."
In the last reply was incorporated a leading virtue of Benjamin's character—a trait that manifested itself, as we shall see, all through his life. His generosity was equal to his wisdom. An American statesman said of him, in a eulogy delivered in Boston:
"No form of personal suffering or social evil escaped his attention, or appealed in vain for such relief or remedy as his prudence could suggest, or his purse supply. From that day of his early youth, when, a wanderer from his home and friends in a strange place, he was seen sharing the rolls with a poor woman and child, to the last act of his public life, when he signed that well-known memorial to Congress, a spirit of earnest and practical benevolence runs like a golden thread along his whole career."