Mr. Franklin was one of the greatest men that ever lived. He could carry a loaf of bread in each hand and eat another, all at the same time, and he could invent anything that anybody wanted, without hurting himself or cutting his fingers. His greatest invention was lightning, and he invented it with a kite. He made a kite with sticks made out of telegraph wire, and sent it up in a thunder-storm till it reached where the lightning is. The lightning ran down the string, and Franklin collected it in a bottle, and sold it for ever so much money. So he got very rich after a while, and could buy the most beautiful and expensive kites that any fellow ever had.

I read about Mr. Franklin in a book that father gave me. He said I was reading too many stories, and just you take this book and read it through carefully and I hope it will do you some good anyway it will keep you out of mischief.

I thought that it would please father if I should get some lightning just as Franklin did. I told Tom McGinnis about it, and he said he would help if I would give him half of all I made by selling the lightning. I wouldn't do this, of course, but finally Tom said he'd help me anyhow, and trust me to pay him a fair price; so we went to work.

We made a tremendously big kite, and the first time there came a thunder-storm we put it up; but the paper got wet, and it came down before it got up to the lightning. So we made another, and covered it with white cloth that used to be one of Mrs. McGinnis's sheets, only Tom said he knew she didn't want it any more.

We sent up this kite the next time there was a thunder-storm, and tied the string to the second-story window where the blinds hook on, and let the end of the string hang down into a bottle. It only thundered once or twice, but the lightning ran down the string pretty fast, and filled the bottle half full.

It looked like water, only it was a little green, and when it stopped running into the bottle we took the lightning down-stairs to try it. I gave a little of it to the cat to drink, but it didn't hurt her a bit, and she just purred. At last Tom said he didn't believe it would hurt anything; so he tasted some of it, but it didn't hurt him at all.

The trouble was that the lightning was too weak to do any harm. The thunder-shower had been such a little one that it didn't have any strong lightning in it; so we threw away what was in the bottle, and agreed to try to get some good strong lightning whenever we could get a chance.

It didn't rain for a long time after that, and I nearly forgot all about Franklin and lightning, until one day I heard Mr. Travers read in the newspaper about a man who was found lying dead on the road with a bottle of Jersey lightning, and that, of course, explains what was the matter with him my dear Susan. I understood more about it than Susan did, for she does not know anything about Franklin being a girl, though I will admit it isn't her fault. You see, the cork must have come out of the man's bottle, and the lightning had leaked out and burned him to death.

The very next day we had a tremendous thunder-shower, and I told Tom that now was the time to get some lightning that would be stronger than anything they could make in New Jersey. So we got the kite up, and got ourselves soaked through with water. We tied it to the window-ledge just as we did the first time, and put the end of the string in a tin pail, so that we could collect more lightning than one bottle would hold. It was so cold standing by the window in our wet clothes that we thought we'd go to my room and change them.

All at once there was the most awful flash of lightning and the most tremendous clap of thunder that was ever heard. Father and mother and Sue were down-stairs, and they rushed up-stairs crying the darling boy is killed. That meant me. But I wasn't killed, neither was Tom, and we hurried into the room where we were collecting lightning to see what was the matter. There we found the tin pail knocked into splinters and the lightning spilled all over the floor. It had set fire to the carpet, and burned a hole right through the floor into the kitchen, and pretty much broke up the whole kitchen stove.

Father cut the kite-string and let the kite go, and told me that it was as much as my life was worth to send up a kite in a thunder-storm. You see, so much lightning will come down the string that it will kill anybody that stands near it. I know this is true, because father says so, but I'd like to know how Franklin managed. I forgot to say that father wasn't a bit pleased.