Carol Kerney Books

“Ben! Now where did that boy get off to?” 

Ben heard his mother call from the door of his house at Hanover and Union Streets in Boston in Massachusetts Colony. It was 1716, and Ben was ten years old. Ben wanted to continue reading the book that Mr. Jones had loaned to him. But Ben’s family had a lot of children, and he had to do his part.

Ben carefully folded a leaf to mark his place in the book, tucked it under his arm, and jumped down from the wide branch of the maple tree. That branch made a perfect place for reading, shady with green leaves here at the end of summer. In a few weeks those leaves would blaze with autumn red.

“Here I am, Mother. I’m coming,” Ben shouted and started running. He nearly dropped the precious book, and he grabbed for it. That meant he wasn’t watching where he was going and—crash!—Ben ran into a big boy.

Oh no! He had collided with the neighborhood bully, Tom Carter!

“Look who it is, lads,” gloated Tom, holding Ben by the back of his linen shirt. “It’s Ben Franklin who thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.”

 Tom shoved Ben down into a shallow patch of rainwater from the morning’s shower. From his spot on the ground, as water seeped into his clothes, Ben watched Tom and his two mean friends laugh their heads off as they sauntered down the street.

“Never mind,” Ben muttered to himself, as he brushed off his breeches, the brown wool pants that buttoned at his knees. Below the knees, he wore white linen stockings and buckled shoes. His hat had three sides. “I have a plan to even the score with Tom Carter.”
Ben ran to the house where his family lived. He passed his father’s candle and soap shop with its sign hanging over the street. The sign was a large blue ball with the date “1698” painted on it. Ben had never asked, but he thought 1698 was the year his father had opened the shop. 

He thought about the small house on Milk Street where his family used to live. The second story overhung the bottom floor, giving the Milk Street house a slightly hunchbacked look that young Ben liked. 

Ben had been born in that house on Milk Street in 1706. In this Year of Our Lord 1716, when he walked by the house on Milk Street, the house looked a little tired. Maybe it was because there had been so many children living inside for so many years. The Franklin family had 17 children altogether. That was enough to make any house weary! 

Ben smiled to himself at the notion.

Several of the Franklin children had died or married or moved away by this time, but Ben could often count 13 Franklins sitting down at his mother’s table.

Ben dashed past his father’s shop, hoping he would not be called inside to help his father make soap or candles. That was a job that Ben helped with, but he did not like it. He couldn’t think his own thoughts when he had to do it. He had to pay attention to the work.
Ben jogged around the Franklin house and plunged in through the door.

Bang! Ben rammed into his older brother, James. Ben dodged back, before James could swat at him. James was nine years older and often impatient with a little brother’s antics. James looked at what had hit him and frowned.

“Honestly, Mother,” he said to the woman sitting at the table, snapping green beans for dinner. “Is there no way to keep this little hellion away from me?”“’Tis a small house and a large family, as you know well, James,” responded Mrs. Franklin crisply. “And I believe that Benjamin was running to help me.”

James left the house to go to his work, shooting one last disapproving look at Ben. Mrs. Franklin smiled at her youngest son, and Ben grinned back. Ben placed Mr. Jones’ book carefully on the sideboard and sat down to help with the green beans.

A shadow darkened the many-paned window. The big form of Tom Carter loomed outside. Ben had hoped the bully had gone away, but he was probably busy scaring the younger boys and girls of the neighborhood and many of the older children, as well. 

Tom looked in at Ben and made swimming motions to show where he was going. Then he made an ugly face at Ben because he was stuck working for his mother. Tom laughed with the two boys who were with him, and they all bounded away to go to the millpond.

Ben was ready for Tom the next time they met at the pond. He would show that bully. And he would not even have to fight him! Ben could hardly wait for the chance to best the bully—by using the invention he had created.