Franklin was twenty-four. Deborah Read's husband had proved worthless, had run away from his creditors, and was said to have died in the West Indies. She was lonely and desolate, and Franklin rightly felt that he could brighten her heart. They were married September 1, 1730, and for forty years they lived a happy life. He wrote, long afterward, "We are grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to them that I don't perceive them." Beautiful testimony! He used to say to young married people, in later years, "Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it." The young wife attended the little shop, folded newspapers, and made Franklin's home a resting-place from toil. He says: "Our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. My breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon: but mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle. 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 three and twenty 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." The years went by swiftly, with their hard work and slow but sure accumulation of property. At twenty-seven, having read much and written considerable, he determined to bring out an almanac, after the fashion of the day, "for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other book." "Poor Richard" appeared in December, 1732; price, ten cents. It was full of wit and wisdom, gathered from every source. Three editions were sold in a month. The average annual sale for twenty-five years was ten thousand copies. Who can ever forget the maxims which have become a part of our every-day speech?--"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."--"He that hath a trade, hath an estate."--"One to-day is worth two to-morrows."--"Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day."--"Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour."--"Three removes are as bad as a fire."--"What maintains one vice would bring up two children."--"Many a little makes a mickle."--"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship."--"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing."--"Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt."--"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."