"No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such things begin in that way." CHAPTER VII. UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD. LITTLE Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called "the girls." But one November day, as he came home after the arrival of the stage from Salem, he was met at the door by his uncle with the question: "Who do you think has come?" "I don't know, uncle. Josiah?" "No." "Brother John from Rhode Island? Esther and Martha from school? Zachary from Annapolis?" "Not right yet." "Esther and Martha from school at Nantucket?" "Yes; and your Aunt Hannah and Aunt Prudence have come with them, with bandboxes, caps, snuffboxes, and all. They came on the sloop. It is a time for little boys to be quiet now, and to keep guinea pigs and such things well out of sight." "How long are _they_ going to stay, uncle?" By "they" he referred to his aunts. "A week or more, I guess. This will be your still week." "But I can not keep still, uncle; I am a boy." Little Benjamin went into the home room and there met his stately aunts, the school teachers. There was a great fire in the room, and the pewter platters shone there like silver. His aunts received him kindly, but in a very condescending way. They had not yet discovered any "personality" in the short, little boy of the numerous family. The aunts delighted in imparting moral instruction, and they saw in little Ben, as they thought, a useful opportunity for such culture. That night the family, with the aunts from Nantucket, sat down by the great fire under the shining platters to hear Uncle Benjamin relate a marvelous story. Every family has one wonder story, and this was the one wonder story of the Franklin side of the family. Uncle Benjamin wished the two "aunts" to hear this story "on his side of the house." "There was only one of our family in England who ever became great, and that was my Uncle Thomas," he began. "Only think of that, little Ben," said Aunt Hannah Folger, "only one." "Only one," said Aunt Prudence Folger, "and may you become like him." "He was born a smith, and so he was bred, for it was the custom of our family that the eldest son should be a smith--a Franklin." "Sit very still, my little boy," said the two aunts, "and you shall be told what happened. He was a smith." "There was a man in our town," continued Uncle Ben, "whose name was Palmer, and he became an esquire." "Maybe that _you_ will become an esquire," said Aunt Esther to Ben. "He became an esquire," said Aunt Prudence. "Sit very still, and you shall hear." "This man liked to encourage people; he used to say good things of them so as to help them grow. If one encourage the good things which one finds in people it helps them. It is a good thing to say good words." "If you do not say too many," said Josiah Franklin. "I sometimes think we do to little Ben."