Stoop, Young Man, Stoop!

At eighteen, a self-assured Benjamin Franklin returned to Boston, the city he had fled just seven months earlier. Dressed in a fine new suit, with a watch on his wrist and a pocket full of coins, he proudly displayed his newfound success to everyone he encountered—especially his older brother, whom he was eager to impress. Yet, for all his posturing, he was still just a young apprentice in a Philadelphia print shop.

During a visit with Cotton Mather, one of Boston’s most respected figures—and a former adversary—Franklin’s…