"I like the spirit of what you say," said Uncle Benjamin. "You have the blood of Peter Folger and of your Great-uncle Tom in your veins. Peter gave his heart to the needs of the Indians, and to toleration; your Great-uncle Tom started the subscription for the bells of Nottingham, and became a magistrate, and a just one. You may not be able to answer the bell of the Latin School, but if you are only true to the best that is in you, little Ben, you may make bells ring for joy. I can hear them now in my mind's ear. Don't laugh at your old uncle; you can do it, little Ben--can't he Jenny?" "He just can--I can help him. Ben can do anything--he may make the Latin School bell ring for others yet--like Uncle Tom. He is the boy to do it, and I am the sister to help him to do it--ain't I, Uncle Benjamin?" CHAPTER XVIII. LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURES AS A POET. THAT was a charmed life that little Ben Franklin led in the early days of his apprenticeship. He always thought of provincial Boston as his "beloved city." When he grew old, the Boston of his boyhood was to him a delightful dream. He and his father were on excellent terms with each other. His father, though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on him. He was accustomed to say long graces at meals, at which the food was not overmuch, and the hungry children many. One day, after he had salted down a large quantity of meat in a barrel, he was surprised to hear Ben ask: "Father, why don't you say grace over it now?" "What do you mean, Ben?" "Wouldn't it be saving of time to say grace now over the whole barrel of provisions, and then you could omit it at meals?" But the strong member of the Old South Church had no such ideas of religious economy as revealed his son's mathematical mind. The Franklin family must have presented a lively appearance at church in old Dr. Joseph Sewell's day. They heard some sound preaching there, and Dr. Sewell lived as he preached. He was offered the presidency of Harvard College, but honors were as bubbles to him, and he refused it for a position of less money and fame, but of more direct spiritual influence, and better in accord with the modest views of his ability. He began to preach in the Old South Church when Ben was seven years of age; he preached a sermon there on his eightieth birthday. These were fine old times in Boston town. Some linen spinners came over from Londonderry, in Ireland, and they established a spinning school. They also brought with them the potato, which soon became a great luxury. Josiah Franklin probably pastured his cows on the Common, and little Ben may often have sat down under the old elm by the frog pond and looked over the Charles River marshes, which were then where the Public Garden now is.