Busy as his life now was, Ben still found time to keep company with his former schoolfellows.  He and the other boys were very fond of fishing, and spent any of their leisure hours on the margin of the mill-pond, catching flounders, perch, eels, and tom-cod, which came up thither with the tide.  The place where they fished is now, probably, covered with stone-pavements and brick buildings, and thronged with people, and with vehicles of all kinds.  But, at that period, it was a marshy spot on the outskirts of the town, where gulls flitted and screamed overhead, and salt meadow-grass grew under foot.  On the edge of the water there was a deep bed of clay, in which the boys were forced to stand, while they caught their fish.  Here they dabbled in mud and mire like a flock of ducks.

“This is very uncomfortable,” said Ben Franklin one day to his comrades, while they were standing mid-leg deep in the quagmire.

“So it is,” said the other boys.  “What a pity we have no better place to stand!”

If it had not been for Ben, nothing more would have been done or said about the matter.  But it was not in his nature to be sensible of an inconvenience, without using his best efforts to find a remedy.  So, as he and his comrades were returning from the water-side, Ben suddenly threw down his string of fish with a very determined air: 

“Boys,” cried he, “I have thought of a scheme, which will be greatly for our benefit, and for the public benefit!”

It was queer enough, to be sure, to hear this little chap—­this rosy-cheeked, ten-year-old boy—­talking about schemes for the public benefit!  Nevertheless, his companions were ready to listen, being assured that Ben’s scheme, whatever it was, would be well worth their attention.  They remembered how sagaciously he had conducted all their enterprises, ever since he had been old enough to wear small-clothes.

They remembered, too, his wonderful contrivance of sailing across the mill-pond by lying flat on his back, in the water, and allowing himself to be drawn along by a paper-kite.  If Ben could do that, he might certainly do any thing.

“What is your scheme, Ben?—­what is it?” cried they all.

It so happened that they had now come to a spot of ground where a new house was to be built.  Scattered round about lay a great many large stones, which were to be used for the cellar and foundation.  Ben mounted upon the highest of these stones, so that he might speak with the more authority.

“You know, lads,” said he, “what a plague it is, to be forced to stand in the quagmire yonder—­over shoes and stockings (if we wear any) in mud and water.  See!  I am bedaubed to the knees of my small-clothes, and you are all in the same pickle.  Unless we can find some remedy for this evil, our fishing-business must be entirely given up.  And, surely, this would be a terrible misfortune!”

“That it would!—­that it would!” said his comrades, sorrowfully.