[Footnote 7:  Thrive:  to get on in business, to prosper.]

[Footnote 8:  See Prov. xxii. 29.]

111.  Franklin’s boyhood; making tallow candles; he is apprenticed[9] to his brother; how he managed to save money to buy books.—­Franklin’s father was a poor man with a large family.  He lived in Boston, and made soap and candles.  Benjamin went to school two years; then, when he was ten years old, his father set him to work in his factory, and he never went to school again.  He was now kept busy filling the candle-molds with melted grease, cutting off the ends of the wicks, and running errands.  But the boy did not like this kind of work; and, as he was very fond of books, his father put him in a printing-office.  This office was carried on by James Franklin, one of Benjamin’s brothers.  James Franklin paid a small sum of money each week for Benjamin’s board; but the boy told him that if he would let him have half the money to use as he liked, he would board himself.  James was glad to do this.  Benjamin then gave up eating meat, and, while the others went out to dinner, he would stay in the printing-office and eat a boiled potato, or perhaps a handful of raisins.  In this way, he saved up a number of coppers every week; and when he got enough laid by, he would buy a book.

But James Franklin was not only a mean man, but a hot-tempered one; and when he got angry with his young apprentice,[10] he would beat and knock him about.  At length the lad, who was now seventeen, made up his mind that he would run away, and go to New York.

[Footnote 9:  Apprenticed:  bound by a written agreement to learn a trade of a master, who is bound by the same agreement to teach the trade.]

[Footnote 10:  Apprentice:  one who is apprenticed to a master to learn a trade.  See footnote 9.]

112.  Young Franklin runs away; he goes to New York, and then to Philadelphia.—­Young Franklin sold some of his books, and with the money paid his passage to New York by a sailing-vessel—­for in those days there were no steamboats or railroads in America.  When he got to New York, he could not find work, so he decided to go on to Philadelphia.

He started to walk across New Jersey to Burlington, on the Delaware River, a distance of about fifty miles; there he hoped to get a sail-boat going down the river to Philadelphia.  Shortly after he set out, it began to rain hard, and the lad was soon wet to the skin and splashed all over with red mud; but he kept on until noon, then took a rest, and on the third day he reached Burlington and got passage down the river.

[Illustration:  FRANKLIN WALKING IN THE RAIN.]