Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/235

Rh have been puzzled to answer. For a Biddle was a Biddle, just as Spruce Street was Spruce Street, just as Philadelphia was Philadelphia. That had been enough in all conscience for the Philadelphian, but the Centennial would not let it be enough for me any longer.

My first hint that Philadelphia and Spruce Street and a Biddle needed a past to justify the esteem in which we held them, came from the spectacle of Mrs. Gillespie towering supreme above Philadelphians with far more familiar names than hers at every Centennial ball and in every Centennial Society, the central figure in the Centennial preparations and in the Centennial itself. I did not know her personally, but that made no difference. There was no blotting out her powerful presence, she pervaded the Centennial atmosphere. She remains in the foreground of my Centennial memories, a tall, gaunt woman, not especially gracious, apparently without a doubt of her right to her conspicuous position, ready to resent the effrontery of the sceptic who challenged it had there been a sceptic so daring, anything but popular, and yet her rule accepted unquestioningly for no better reason than because she was the descendant of Benjamin Franklin, and I could not help knowing that she was his descendant, for nobody could mention her without dragging in his name. It revolutionized my ideas of school and school books, no less than of Philadelphia. I had learned the story of Benjamin Franklin and the kite, just as I had learned the story of George Washington and the cherry