But despite his hard work and hard study at Wilbraham, the spirit of fun cropped out as persistently as in his younger days at the country school.  A chance to play a good joke was not to be missed.  At one of the school entertainments, a student whom few liked was to take part.  Relatives of his had given a large sum of money to the Academy, and on this account he somewhat lorded it over the other boys.  He was, in addition, foppish in his dress, and on account of his money, position, and tailor, felt the country boys of the class a decided drawback to his social status.  So the country boys decided to “get even,” and they needed no other leader while Russell Conwell was about.  Finally it came the dandy’s turn to go on the platform to deliver a recitation.  Just as he stepped out of the little anteroom before the audience, Russell, with deft fingers, fastened a paper jumping-jack to the tail of his coat, where it dangled back of his legs in plain view of the audience but unobserved by himself.  With every gesture the figure jumped, climbed, contorted, and went through all manner of gymnastics.  The more enthusiastic became the young orator, the more active the tiny figure in his rear.  The audience went into convulsions.  Utterly unable to tell what was the matter, he finally retired, red and confused, and the audience wiped away the tears of laughter.

It was at one of these entertainments that Russell himself met with a bitter defeat.  A public debate was announced in which he was to take part.  His classmates had spread abroad the story of his eloquence and the hall was packed to hear him.  Knowing that it would be a great occasion and conscious of his poor clothes, he determined to make an impression by his speech.  He prepared it with the utmost care, and to “make assurance doubly sure,” committed it to memory, a thing he rarely did.  His turn came.  There was an expectant rustle through the audience, some almost audible comments on his clothes, his height, his thinness.  He cleared his voice.  He started to say the first word.  It was gone.  Frantically he searched his memory for that speech.  His mind was a blank.  Again he cleared his voice and wrestled fiercely with his inner consciousness.  Only one phrase could he remember, and shouting in his thunderous tones, “Give me liberty or give me death,” sat down, “not caring much which he got,” as Burdette says, “so it came quickly and plenty of it.”

It was while at Wilbraham that he laid down text books and stepped aside for a brief space to pay honor to a hero.  Sorrow hung like a pall over the little home at South Worthington.  In far-off Virginia, a brave, true-hearted man had raised a weak arm against the hosts of slavery, raised it and been stricken down.  John Brown had been tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged.  The day of his execution was a day of mourning in the Conwell home.  As the hour for the deed drew near, the father called the family into the little living room where Brown had so often sat among them.  And during the hour while the tragedy was enacted in Virginia, the family sat silent with bowed heads doing reverence to the memory of this man who with single-minded earnestness went forward so fearlessly when others held back, to strike the shackles from those in chains.