" said he to his
father, "I should have found it of much service now."

"How so?" inquired Mr. Franklin.

"If I had continued to write poetry, I should have been obliged to
select words that would rhyme, and this would have made me familiar
with a larger number of words, and the choicest ones too. I am greatly
troubled now to find words to express my thoughts."

"I should have had no objections to your writing poetry with such an
object in view; but to print and sell it about town was carrying the
thing a little too far," replied Mr. Franklin. "It is not too late to
begin now. I rather think you have discovered an important defect in
your writing. John evidently has a better command of language than you
have, hence his style is more polished. But you are at work, now, in
the right way to improve. Perseverance will accomplish the thing."

"I am going to do this," said Benjamin; "I shall take some of the
tales in the book and put them into verse, and then, after a while,
change them back again."

"That will be a good exercise," answered his father, much pleased with
his son's desire to improve. "If your patience holds out, you will be
amply rewarded, in the end, for all your labour."

This last purpose, Benjamin executed with much zeal, and thus divided
his time between putting tales into poetry, and then turning them into
prose. He also jumbled his collection of hints into confusion, and so
let them lie for some weeks, when he would again reduce them to order,
and write out the sentences to the end of the subject.

For a printer-boy to accomplish so much, when he must work through the
day in the office, seemed hardly possible. But, at this period,
Benjamin allowed no moments to run to waste. He always kept a book by
him in the office, and every spare moment was employed over its pages.
In the morning, before he went to work, he found some time for reading
and study. He was an early riser, not, perhaps, because he had no
inclination to lie in bed, but because he had more to improve his
mind. He gained time enough in the morning, by this early rising, to
acquire more knowledge than some youths and young men do by constantly
going to school. In the evening, he found still more time for mental
improvement, extending his studies often far into the night. It was
his opinion that people generally consume more time than is necessary
in sleep, and one of his maxims, penned in early manhood, was founded
on that opinion. Th