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she "becomes every day more and more unfit to be left alone." No cleverer body for the purpose, of course, could be found than her own daughter, who came with her husband to reside with and take care of her. In his letter to Franklin announcing her death, William Franklin used these feeling words: "She told me when I took leave of her on my removal to Amboy, that she never expected to see you unless you returned this winter, for that she was sure she should not live till next summer. I heartily wish you had happened to have come over in the fall, as I think her disappointment in that respect preyed a good deal on her spirits." Poor Richard's Almanac had sayings, it is hardly necessary to declare, suitable for such an occasion. "There are three faithful friends; an old wife, an old dog, and ready money." "A good wife lost is God's gift lost."

      In the light of what we have narrated, it is obvious that there were occasions in Franklin's nuptial life when it was well that he was a philosopher as well as a husband. "You can bear with your own Faults, and why not a fault in your Wife?," is a question that he is known to have asked at least once, and he did not have to leave his own doorstep to find an application for his injunction, "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards." But if there was defect of temper there was never any defect of devotion upon the part of the jealous, high-spirited, courageous wife. It is true that she had no place in the wider sphere of her husband's existence. She did not concern herself even about such a political controversy as that over the Stamp Tax except to say like the leal wife she was that she was sure that her husband had not done anything to hurt anybody.

      You are very prudent [he said to her on one occasion] not to engage in Party Disputes. Women never should meddle with them except in Endeavour to reconcile their Husbands, Brothers, and Friends, who happen to be of contrary Sides. If your Sex can keep cool, you may be a means of cooling ours the sooner, and restoring more speedily that social Harmony among Fellow-Citizens, that is so desirable after long and bitter Dissensions.

      Her interest in her husband's electrical studies probably ceased when he wrote to her as follows with reference to the two bells that he had placed in his house in such a position as to ring when an iron rod with which they were connected was electrified by a storm cloud: "If the ringing of the Bells frightens you, tie a Piece of Wire from one Bell to the other, and that will conduct the lightning without ringing or snapping, but silently." She never became equal even to such social standing as her husband acquired for himself by his talents and usefulness in Philadelphia; and she would have been a serious clog upon him in the social circles to which he was admitted in Great Britain and on the Continent, if her aversion to crossing the ocean had not been insurmountable. Her letters are marked by a degree of illiteracy that make the task of reading them almost like the task of reading an unfamiliar foreign tongue; but it should be recollected that in the eighteenth century in America it was entirely possible for a person to be at once illiterate and a lady. Even Franklin with his penchant for simplified spelling must have felt, after meditating some of Deborah's written words, that the orthographical line had to be drawn somewhere. The following letter from her to her husband, dated October ye 29, 1773, and transcribed exactly as written is neither better nor worse than the rest of her epistles to her husband:

      My Dear Child:—I have bin verey much distrest aboute you as I did not aney letter nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey that you wrote to so I muste submit and inde (?) to submit to what I am to bair I did write by Capt. Folkner to you but he is gon down and when I read it over I did not lik t and so if this donte send it I shante like it as I donte send you aney news now I dont go abrode.

      I shall tell you what Consernes my selef our youngest Grandson is the foreed child us a live he has had the Small Pox and had it very fine and got a brod a gen. Capt. All will tell you aboute him and Benj Franklin Beache, but as it is so difficall to writ I have deserd him to tell you, I have sent a squerel for your friend and wish her better luck it is a very fine one I have had very bad luck they one kild and another run a way all thow they are bred up tame I have not a Caige as I donte know where the man lives that makes them my love to Salley Franklin my love to all our Cusins as thow menshond remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Weste doe you ever hear anything of Ninely Evans as was.[16] I thanke you for the silke and hat it at the womons to make it up but have it put up as you wrote (torn) I thonke it it is very prittey; what was the prise? I desier to give my love to everybodey (torn) I shold love Billey was in town 5 or 6 day when the child was in the small pox Mr. Franklin (torn) not sene him yit I am to tell a verey pritey thing about Ben the players is cume to town and they am to ackte on Munday he wanted to see a play he unkill Beache had given him a doler his mama asked him wuther he wold give it for a ticket, or buy his Brother a neckles he sed his Brother a necklas he is a charmm child as ever was Borne my Grand cheldren are the Best in the world Sally will write I cante write aney mor I am your a feckshone wife,

      D. Franklin.

      But, in spite of the qualifications we have stated, there was a place after all, even aside from the joint care of the shop, in which the pair throve so swimmingly together, that Deborah could occupy in the thoughts of a man with such quick, strong affections, such liberality of mind and such a keen interest in the ordinary concerns of life as we find in Franklin. This place becomes manifest enough when we read the letters that passed between the two.

      A more considerate, loving wife than these letters show her to have been it would be hard to conceive. Napoleon said of his marshals that only one of them loved him, the others loved the Emperor. The devotion of Deborah to her husband is all the more noteworthy because it appears to have been but slightly, if at all, influenced by his public distinction. Her attachment was to Franklin himself, the early lover with whom she had "interchanged promises" when but a girl, and who, after deserting her for a time, had come back to her in her desolation like day returning to the dark and lonely night, the business comrade to whom her industry and prudence had proved in effect a fortune, the most admired and beloved man in the circle of her social relationships, the patient, dutiful, affectionate friend and husband, the father of her daughter and son. Inarticulate as were her struggles with syntax and orthography, she was to him the most faithful of correspondents. Long after she had reached an age when the fond diminutives of early married life are usually exchanged for soberer language, she addressed him in her letters as "My Dear Child," and sometimes as "My Dearest Dear Child." "I am set down to confab a little with my dear child," was the way in which she began one of her letters, "Adue my dear child, and take care of your selef for mamey's sake as well as your one," was the way in which she ended another. So frequently, too, did she write to him when they were separated from each other that he repeatedly acknowledged in his replies her extraordinary constancy as a correspondent; on one occasion writing to her: "I think nobody ever had more faithful Correspondents than I have in Mr. Hughes and you. … It is impossible for me to get or keep out of your Debts." When they had been married over twenty-seven years, he thanks her in one of his letters for writing to him so frequently and fully, and, when they had been married nearly forty years, he wrote to her that he thought that she was the most punctual of all his correspondents. And not only did she write often enough to him to elicit these acknowledgments, but her letters afford ample evidence that to lack a letter from him when she expected one was nothing less than a bitter disappointment to her. "I know," he said in a letter to her, "you love to have a Line from me by every Packet, so I write, tho' I have little to say." We have already seen how her failure to hear from, or of, him led her on one occasion to end her plaint with words strong enough to express resignation to the very worst trial to which human life is subject. On another occasion she wrote: "Aprill 7 this day is Cumpleet 5 munthes senes you lefte your one House I did reseve a letter from the Capes senes that not one line I due supose that you did write by the packit but that is not arived yit." The same hunger for everything that related to him, no matter how trivial, finds utterance in her petition in another letter that he wold tell her hough his poor armes was and hough he was on his voiag and hough he air and everey thing is with him wich she wanted verey much to know. Nor did her affection limit itself to letters. Whenever he was absent from her and stationary whether at Gnadenhutten, or London, his table was never wanting in something to remind him of home and of the attentive wife whose domestic virtues in spite of her deficiencies of education gave home so much of its meaning.

      We

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