The vein of perseverance in his character was already setting into firm, unyielding mould—­the one trait to which Russell H. Conwell, the preacher, the lecturer, writer, founder of college and hospital, may attribute the success he has gained.  This childish escapade was the first to strike fire from its flint.

CHAPTER III

DAYS OF STUDY, WORK AND PLAY

The Schoolhouse in the Woods.  Maple Sugar-making.  The Orator of the Dawn.  A Boyish Prank.  Capturing the Eagle’s Nest.

At three years of age, he trudged off to school with his brother Charles.  Though Charles was three years the senior, the little fellow struggled to keep pace with him in all their childish play and work.  Two miles the children walked daily to the schoolhouse, a long walk for a toddler of three.  But it laid the foundation of that strong, rugged constitution that has carried him so unflinchingly through the hard work of these later years.  The walk to school was the most important part of the performance, for lessons had no attraction for the boy as yet.  But the road through the woods to the schoolhouse was a journey of ever new and never-ending excitement.  The road lay along a silver-voiced brook that rippled softly by shadowy rock, or splashed joyous and exultant down its boulder-strewn path.  It was this same brook whose music drifted into his little attic bedroom at night, stilled to a faint, far-away murmur as the wind died down, rising to a high, clear crescendo of rushing, tumbling water as the breeze stirred in the tree tops and brought to him the forest sounds.  Hour after hour he lay awake listening to it, his childish imagination picturing fairies and elves holding their revels in the woods beyond.  An oratorical little brook it was, unconsciously leaving an impress of its musical speech on the ears of the embryo orator.  Moreover, in its quiet pools lurked watchful trout.  Few country boys could walk along such a stream unheeding its fascinations, especially when the doors of a school house opened at the farther end, and many an hour when studies should have claimed him, he was sitting by the brookside, care-free and contented, delightedly fishing.  Nor are any berries quite so luscious as those which grow along the country road to school.  It takes long, long hours to satisfy the keen appetite of a boy, and lessons suffered during the berry seasons.  Another keen excitement of the daily journey through a living world of mystery and enchantment was the search for frogs.  Woe to the unlucky frog that fell in the way of the active, curious boy.  Some one had told him that old, old countryside story, “If you kill a frog, the cows will give bloody milk.”  Eager to see such a phenomenon, he watched sharply.  Let an unlucky frog give one unfortunate croak, quick, sure-aimed, flew a stone, and he raced home at night to see the miracle performed.  He was just a boy as other boys—­mischievous, disobedient, fonder of play than work or study.  But underneath, uncalled upon as yet, lay that vein of perseverance as unyielding as the granite of his native hills.