eported to have spoken of Dr.
Franklin as "hard, calculating, angular, unable to comprehend any higher
object than the accumulation of money." Not a few people who profess
much admiration for Franklin in other respects seem to think that in
money matters there was something about him akin to meanness. To correct
this false impression and show "how Franklin got his money, how much he
got, and what he did with it," one of his recent biographers is called
up in his defense, and to the question, "Was Dr. Franklin mean?" here is

JAMES PARTON'S ANSWER.

I will begin with the first pecuniary transaction in which he is known
to have been concerned, and this shall be given in his own words:

"When I was a child of seven years old my friends, on a holiday, filled
my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys
for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met
by the way in the hands of another boy, _I voluntarily offered and gave
all my money for one_."

That was certainly not the act of a stingy, calculating boy.

His next purchase, of which we have any knowledge was made when he was
about eleven years old; and this time, I confess, he made a much better
bargain. The first book he could ever call his own was a copy of
Pilgrim's Progress, which he read and re-read until he got from it all
so young a person could understand. But being exceedingly fond of
reading, he exchanged his Pilgrim's Progress for a set of little books,
then much sold by peddlers, called "Burton's Historical Collections," in
forty paper-covered volumes, containing history, travels, tales,
wonders, and curiosities, just the thing for a boy. As we do not know
the market value of his Pilgrim's Progress, we can not tell whether the
poor peddler did well by him or the contrary. But it strikes me that
that is not the kind of barter in which a mean, grasping boy usually
engages.

His father being a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or
more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he
was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But one day
he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a
vegetarian book this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think
that people could live better without meat than with it, and that
killing innocent animals for food was cruel and wicked. So he abstained
from meat altogether for about two years. A