He arrived at night.  He found himself in a new world, a world of narrow streets, of hurrying people, of house after house, but in none of them a home for him.  They would not let him sit in the station all night, as he had planned to do in his boyish inexperience, and he had no money, for money was a scarce article in the Conwell home.  He wandered up one street and down another till finally he came to the water.  Footsore and hungry, he crawled into a big empty cask lying on Long Wharf, ate the last bit of bread and meat in his bundle, and went to sleep.

The next day was Sunday, not a day to find work, and he faced a very sure famine.  He began again his walk of the streets.  It was on toward noon when he noticed crowds of children hurrying into a large building.  He stood and watched them wistfully.  They made him think of his brother and sister at home.  Suddenly an overwhelming longing seized him to be back again in the sheltering farmhouse, to see his father, hear his mother’s loving voice, feel his sister’s hand in his.  Perhaps it was his forlorn expression that attracted the attention of a gentleman passing into the building.  He stopped, asked if he would not like to go in; and then taking him by the hand led him in with the others.  It was Deacon George W. Chipman, of Tremont Temple, and ever afterwards Russell Conwell’s friend.  Many, many years later, the boy, become a man, came back to this church, organized and conducted one of the largest and most popular Sunday School classes that famous church has ever known.

After Sunday School, Deacon Chipman and Russell “talked things over.”  The Deacon, amused and impressed by the original mind of the country boy, persuaded him to go home, and the next morning put him on the train that carried him back to the Berkshires.

CHAPTER V

TRYING HIS WINGS

Boyhood Days.  Russell’s First Case at Law.  A Cure for Stage Fever.  Studying Music.  A Runaway Trip to Europe.

So scanty was the income from the rocky farm that the father and mother looked about them to see how they could add to it.  Miranda Conwell turned to her needle and often sewed far into the night, making coats, neckties, any work she could obtain that would bring in a few dollars.  She was never idle.  The moment her housework was done, her needle was flying, and Russell had ever before him the picture of his patient mother, working, ever working, for the family good.  The only time her hands rested was when she read her children such stories and pointed such lessons as she knew were needed to develop childish minds and build character.  She never lost sight of this in the pressing work and the need for money.  She had that mental and spiritual breadth of view that could look beyond problems of the immediate present, no matter how serious they might seem, to the greater, more important needs coming in the future.