hanging over the door, bearing the name "Josiah Franklin" and the date
"1698." The same ball hangs there still. Time has stolen its blue, but
not the name and date. Into this building, also, he removed his family
from Milk street, soon after the birth of Benjamin.

In his "Autobiography," Franklin says: "My elder brothers were all put
apprentices to different trades." Several of them were apprenticed
when Benjamin was born. John worked with his father, and learned the
"tallow-chandler's" trade well, setting up the business for himself
afterwards in Providence. This was the only method that could be
adopted successfully in so large a family, except where wealth was
considerable.

We must not omit the fact that the father of Benjamin was a good
singer and a good player of the violin. After the labors of the day
were over, and the frugal supper eaten, and the table cleared, and the
room put in order for the evening, he was wont to sing and play for
the entertainment of his family. He was sure of a good audience every
night, if his performance opened before the younger children retired.
There is no doubt that this custom exerted a molding influence upon
the household, although the music might have been like Uncle
Benjamin's poetry, as compared with the music of our day.

For the reader, now familiar with the manners, customs, rush of business,
inventions, wealth, and fashion of our day, it is difficult to understand
the state of society at the time of Franklin's birth. Parton says of it:
"1706, the year of Benjamin Franklin's birth, was the fourth of the
reign of Queen Anne, and the year of Marlborough's victory at Ramillies.
Pope was then a sickly dwarf, four feet high and nineteen years of age,
writing, at his father's cottage in Windsor Forest the 'Pastorals'