Ben Franklin’s Fame

by Stacia Deutsch

  Babs was standing outside the office, entertaining people of the town and telling them about her grand plans for the paper. She was talking so loudly, we could hear every word. We tried to block out her voice while we talked.

  “I’m starting to think we might never find Ben Franklin,” Zack commented as he plopped down on a patch of grass and put his head in his hands. “How can I convince him to get back on track like Mr. C said if we can’t find him? We don’t even know what track it is that he needs to get back on.” Zack huffed a bunch of short sighs. “At this rate, when we finally do find him, he’ll be a baby.”

  I lay down on the grass next to Zack. I was feeling bad too. We weren’t getting any closer to finding Ben Franklin. “The problem is,” I said, “Ben Franklin did too many great things.”

  “Babs is taking over all of them,” Jacob added, coming to sit with us.

  Bo was still standing. He rubbed his chin. “I’ve led us all over Philadelphia, through forty-seven years of his inventions, discoveries, and political works.” His shoulders drooped as he grumbled, “I’m running out of ideas.”

  We were all feeling sad. It didn’t help that Babs was so nearby, going on and on about the new printing press she’d just bought from England. Something about the way she was moving her arms reminded me of the picture in our textbook.

  In the sketch, Babs was a printer. She was showing other people how the printing press worked.

  I reached into my pocket and rubbed my fingers over the smooth cover of my little notebook. A question immediately came to me.

  I pulled out the notebook and asked Bo, “Of all the things Ben Franklin did in his life, why would the makers of our social studies textbook choose a picture of him being a printer? Why isn’t the drawing of Ben Franklin signing the Declaration of Independence instead? Or flying a kite?”

  “Or starting a newspaper?” Zack put in, causing us all to glance across the street at Babs Magee.

  Bo rubbed his chin and said, “Being a printer led to everything else Ben Franklin did during his life.” And as he said it, Bo’s eyes grew wide. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “Because Ben Franklin was a printer, he was able to write all his political ideas in his own newspaper. He made cartoons expressing his opinions. Selling papers made him wealthy. He used his money to pay for his inventions.”

  I quickly jumped up. “Bo,” I asked, “when did Ben Franklin first become a printer?”

  Bo looked over at the print shop for the Pennsylvania Gazette. “I’d have guessed it was officially today,” he said as he squinted his eyes at Babs Magee. She was still bragging about the newspaper to anyone who’d listen.

  Jacob suggested we ask around to see if anyone in 1729 had heard of Ben Franklin.

  There was a store nearby. It had a big sign on the door: SMITH’S DRY GOODS. A tall, thin man was standing behind the counter, writing down a woman’s purchases in a small receipt book. He was wearing a beige apron.

  Even though I knew our time was running out, I didn’t want to interrupt. We waited patiently behind her. When it was our turn, the man asked what we wanted to buy.

  “Nothing,” I admitted. “We’re looking for Ben Franklin.”

  The man seemed disappointed that we weren’t buying anything. “Never met him,” he answered coolly.

  Jacob got all excited. “But you’ve heard of him?” he asked, the words coming out in a rush.

  “Sure,” the man said. “Everyone has heard of Ben Franklin. He is famous.”

  “Famous for printing the Pennsylvania Gazette?” I wondered.

  The man wrinkled his nose at me. “Where are you from? The people of Philadelphia all know that Miss Magee now owns the newspaper.” The man wiped his hands on his apron and came around the counter. He picked up a thick, round candle off a nearby shelf.

  “These are the best quality candles in all thirteen colonies.” He flipped the candle over so I could see the underside. “They come directly from the candle shop in Boston.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said as I took the candle from him and quickly passed it to Bo, who handed it to Jacob and then to Zack.

  There on the bottom of the candle was the candle maker’s label: B. FRANKLIN, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

  “Do you want to buy the candle or not?” the man asked me.

  “No thanks.” We didn’t have any money anyway. I was sweating when I set the candle back on the shelf. We all hurried outside the dry goods shop.

  Babs Magee was still standing outside her printing office. I caught her eye. She winked at me. I knew what that wink meant. We were too late again.

  Drat. Double drat.

  Boston

  With thirty-two minutes left on our cartridge, and the fear of failure looming over us, we knew we had to leave Philadelphia. Since we now knew that Ben Franklin was a candle maker in 1729, I thought we should stay in 1729 and look for him at his candle factory in Boston. Bo was pretty sure that if we wanted to catch him before Babs took over, we’d need to go back further. He agreed that we should go to Boston, but in 1718 instead. Bo hadn’t steered us wrong yet, so we decided to try.

  We landed in a main shopping area. The weather was nice and the street was busy. There were people walking around with packages, popping in and out of stores.

  Over the shops were little signs. One had a picture of a knife on it. Another had a pair of scissors. A brass pot hung over one door.

  “Cutler, haberdasher, and brazier,” Bo explained, following my eyes as they stopped on each sign. “A cutler makes, sharpens, and repairs knives. A haberdasher is like a tailor. A brazier makes and repairs brass objects.”

  “What’s that one?” I asked him, pointing to a shop across the street. There was a different sign over that door. There were no words, just a brightly painted blue ball.

  “That’s the one we’re looking for,” Bo said, studying the sign. “A blue ball hung outside the Franklin family candle shop.”

  Jacob gave Bo an encouraging slap on the back. “You’ve done great today. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you. Let’s hope Ben’s here, so we can start undoing the damage Babs Magee did to American history.”

  We all agreed to be very cautious and keep an eye out for Babs.

  We scanned the street. She wasn’t there, so we went into the candle shop.

  “Pe-ew,” I blurted the instant we stepped inside. The candle shop smelled disgusting, kind of like burned steak. I plugged my nose. Jacob and Bo were fanning themselves. Zack had pulled up the collar of his T-shirt and was breathing through the fabric.

  Bo quickly explained that candles in 1718 were made of animal fat called tallow. Tallow smelled bad. We each took a few small breaths to get used to the smell.

  Colored candles were hanging on ropes along the walls. There was a long worktable, kind of like Mr. C’s workbench, down the center of the room. A stove at one side had pots sitting nearby. And in the back of the room were a lot of big, round, wooden shipping barrels.

  Sitting in the corner of the shop was a boy. He looked like he was only a few years older than we were. He was reading a book.

  Because there was a bell tied to the shop door, the boy raised his head when we entered, but quickly lowered it again. He ignored us.

  The boy was wearing a clean suit with knee-length pants. His blondish-brown hair was long and hung in his eyes. His white socks were pulled way up. A work apron was tied over his outfit.

  I boldly went up to him first. “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “We’re searching for Ben Franklin. Have you seen him?”

  The boy didn’t glance up at me, but continued to read while he talked. “I am Polly Baker,” he said quickly. “Never heard of Ben Franklin.”

  Zack raised his eyebrows and said to the boy, “Are you serious? Your name can’t really be Polly. That’s a girl’s name.”

  Keeping his eyes pinned to the page in front of him, the boy laughed, his smile reaching ear to ear. “Did I say Polly? My name is actually Silence Dogood.”

  Za
ck leaned over and whispered to me, “That’s not any better. If silence was a name, I think it would be for a girl.”

  “Silence,” I said, trying not to giggle at the boy’s name. I reminded myself that there were a lot of weird names in the olden days. “Have you seen Ben Franklin? We have to find him. It’s an emergency.”

  “In truth, I am not Silence Dogood. My name is Richard Saunders.”

  At least that was a boy’s name.

  Bo suddenly started laughing. “Polly! Silence! Richard! Ben Franklin used all three of those names during his lifetime. He liked to write under different names to hide his identity. They call those ‘pseudonyms.’ ”

  “Are you saying this guy”—I pointed to the boy—“is really Ben Franklin?” I asked Bo.

  Bo nodded. He was grinning.

  It was so exciting! We’d finally found him. But Ben Franklin clearly didn’t want to be found. He went back to reading his book.

  I pulled out my notebook. “Why’s Ben working here?” I asked Bo after finding a clean page. “Shouldn’t he be at school?”

  Bo rubbed his chin and said, “I remember reading that Ben Franklin only went to school for two years. When he was ten, his dad couldn’t afford to send him anymore. So Ben came home and started working in the candle shop. That was two years ago.”

  “Makes me feel pretty lucky to be in school,” Jacob remarked. “I don’t want to be working yet.”

  “And I haven’t decided what to be when I grow up,” Zack added.

  “Neither has Ben Franklin,” Bo put in. “He was twelve when he first became a printer.”

  “How old is he now?” I asked.

  “Twelve,” Bo answered.

  “Then this must be the moment when Babs knocked Ben Franklin off his life’s course,” I said happily. “Now all we have to do is convince him to be a printer instead of a candle maker.”

  “It’s my turn at last,” Zack said, taking an eager step forward. He began to tell Ben Franklin that we’d come from the future. How he was missing from our textbooks. That Babs Magee had stolen his place in history.

  “Time travel?” Ben Franklin snorted, putting down his book. “Ha!” He began to laugh. “Next thing I know, you’ll tell me the colonies are no longer controlled by the British.” He held his belly as he laughed harder. “You”—he pointed to Zack—“are a jokester.”

  Zack gave me a sideways glance and muttered, “When I try to be funny, no one laughs. Now, when I’m serious, Ben Franklin is going to wet his pants.”

  Ben Franklin didn’t stop laughing until the bells on the shop door chimed. Then he quickly grabbed his book and ducked behind the row of round, wooden barrels near the back of the shop. Ben Franklin was the fastest ducker I’ve ever seen.

  A man had come into the store. He was wearing a suit and carrying a walking stick. “Have you seen Ben?” he asked politely.

  Zack was about to point to the barrels, when Jacob said suddenly, “He stepped out to run an errand.” Then Jacob mouthed to us, “Ben Franklin doesn’t have time to help customers. Zack needs more time to convince him.”

  Loudly to the man, Jacob added, “He’ll be back soon.”

  “Fine and well,” the man told Jacob. “I am pleased to hear that he is out on shop business. I shall return later.” The door chime rang as the man left.

  “My brother James,” I heard Ben say with a sigh from behind the barrels. “He recently opened his own print shop nearby. When he has a few minutes to spare, he humors himself by checking on me to see if I am working. Or not.”

  “How many siblings do you have?” I called out to Ben from behind the barrels.

  “Fifteen,” came his muffled reply.

  I have one older sister. Jacob and Zack have a younger brother. Bo’s an only child. Sixteen kids is a whole mess of kids. In our time, the Franklin family would need a school bus just to get around town.

  In the next few minutes, we chased away two more customers.

  “Why is this shop so busy?” Zack groaned. “I’m never going to get a chance to convince Ben.”

  Bo explained that before electricity, candles were super important. “You needed candles to see where you were going, to read at night, to have dinner—basically to see anything after dark.”

  I wrote down what Bo had said about candles. I also made a note that Ben had fifteen brothers and sisters and that we’d met one named James. I thought it might be important to remember that James was also a printer.

  I asked Ben Franklin if he liked being a candle maker.

  “No,” he replied. “It’s horrible. The shop smells terrible. The work is repetitive and boring. Plus, there’s no time to read.”

  “I’ve got it!” Zack said suddenly, slapping himself on the forehead. “Now I know how to convince him to become a printer. We’ve gotta get him out of here.”

  Jacob rolled his eyes. “There isn’t enough time, Zack. We only have half an hour left on the computer.”

  Zack pointed at Ben still hiding among the barrels. “Sometimes it’s easier to find what you want to do by figuring out what you don’t want to do. It’s the same thing I do with the school clubs.” Zack smiled. “We already know he hates making candles. Let’s go show him some more horrible jobs! By the time we’re done, he’ll be begging to be a printer.

  “Come on,” Zack told Ben, taking him by the arm. “We’re going for a quick spin around the block.” When Ben protested, Bo helped by telling Zack that Ben was a health nut. Zack suggested he needed some fresh air and time away from the stinky tallow.

  It worked. Ben agreed to come with us. We all went into the shop next door together. A man was leaning over a spinning stone sharpening knives.

  “You said you hate making candles,” Zack told Ben. “I think you should get out of there and try something else.”

  “I cannot,” Ben groaned. “I will always be a chandler.”

  “You can always change your mind,” Zack insisted as he pointed at the knife maker. “How about knives?” he encouraged Ben to try making one. The man in the shop agreed to give Ben a go at it. Ben leaned over the stone and promptly sliced his finger. There was just a tiny drop of blood, but it was enough for Ben to say, “I don’t want to make knives.”

  We left the shop.

  The next building on the street was under construction. A man was laying bricks for a wall. Zack encouraged Ben to pick up a few bricks. Though Ben was strong, he put the bricks back down a second after he picked them up. “Dull work,” he reported.

  We hurried through the shops of a shoemaker, a tailor, and a barrel maker. None of the jobs were good for Ben Franklin. He told us that he really wanted to be a sailor, but his dad had said no. His dad wanted him to be a minister, but Ben had said no.

  Zack was an expert at trying new things. In less than ten minutes, he’d helped Ben explore seven jobs. Ben didn’t like any of them. As we walked back to the candle shop, Zack was telling Ben about all the great things he could do as a printer.

  “You can read as much as you want, since you’ll be printing the books. You can write articles—even under three different pseudonyms if you want. Someday, you can even own a newspaper! Plus”—Zack winked at Bo—“with all the money you’ll make, you can experiment and invent things.”

  “I’ve only created a few things so far. Like paddles used for swimming. But I have a number of great ideas.” Ben stopped suddenly. “How do you know I want to invent things? I never told you that.”

  “Don’t laugh,” Zack said, “but we really did time-travel. I didn’t know about the swim paddles. But in the future, you’re going to invent a ton of useful stuff.”

  This time, Ben looked like he believed Zack. With a smile, Zack asked Ben, “What do you think, Polly? Wouldn’t you like to be a printer?”

  We’d returned to the Franklin family candle shop. Ben held the door open and we all went inside.

  “Yes,” Ben said thoughtfully as the door closed behind us. “I would like to be a printer.”


  “Hurray,” Zack cheered. “My work here is done.” He took a little bow. “History is back on track. Let’s go to school.”

  Jacob took the computer out of his pocket. With twenty minutes to spare, we’d done it. Ben Franklin wanted to be a printer. Then he’d live out the rest of his life just the way he was supposed to. And Babs Magee would disappear from our textbooks.

  Jacob had his hand on the cartridge, ready to pull it out and take us home, when Ben Franklin sighed.

  “One problem,” he said as he picked up a candle mold and a container of hot tallow. “I cannot become a printer. It is simply not possible.”

  Too Late

  The door chime rang again. “Benjamin Franklin,” a familiar voice interrupted me from asking Ben why he couldn’t be a printer. “I have come to see how you are doing in your new apprenticeship.” It was a woman’s voice, but whoever she was, she was standing in the shadows.

  “Awful,” Ben Franklin replied, setting the newly poured candle to cool near an open window. “I want to be a printer. Truly.” Ben looked over at Zack with a horribly disappointed look on his face.

  “Ah, too bad,” the woman said, not really meaning it. When she stepped out of the darkness, there was no mistaking her yellow coat and matching hat.

  “Babs Magee!” I exclaimed.

  Jacob squinted his eyes at Babs and said in a low voice, “We will stop you from taking over Ben Franklin’s life!”

  “No, you won’t. I’m unstoppable. As always, you’re too late!” Babs’s announcement echoed through the small shop. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out . . . not her time-travel computer, as I’d hoped. If it had been, I’d have quickly made a grab for it. Snagging her computer would have been a perfect way to stop her from causing any more damage to American history. But she didn’t take out her computer.

  Out of her pocket, Babs pulled a rolled piece of parchment paper.

  “This is a contract. It says that for the next nine years, Ben Franklin agrees to work here in the candle shop.” Her eyes bounced from me to Bo to Jacob to Zack. “I convinced Ben to sign it today. If he breaks the contract, he’ll go to jail.