Outside of school hours his time was filled with the ordinary duties of the farm.  In the early spring, the maple sugar was to be made and there were long, difficult tramps through woods in those misty, brooding days when the miracle of new life is working in tree and vine and leaf.  Often the very earth seemed hushed as if waiting in awe for this marvelous change that transforms brown earth and bare tree to a vision of ethereal, tender green.  But his books went with him, and in the long night watches far in the woods alone, when the pans of sirrup were boiling, he studied.  So enrapt did he become that sometimes the sugar suffered, and the patience of his father was sorely taxed when told the tale of inattention.

It was during those long night watches that he learned by heart two books of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and so firmly were they fixed in the boyish memory that at this day, Dr. Conwell can repeat them without a break.  Many a time as the shadows lightened and the dim, misty dawn came stealing through the forest, would the small boy step outside the rude sugar-house and repeat in that musical, resonant voice that has since held audiences enthralled, Milton’s glorious “Invocation to the Light.”  Strange scene—­the great shadowy forest, the distant mist-enfolded hills, the faintly flushing morning sky, the faint splash of a little mountain stream breaking the brooding stillness, and the small boy with intent, inspired face pouring out his very heart in that wonderful invocation: 

  “Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven, Firstborn
  Or of the Eternal, co-eternal beam,
  May I express thee Unblamed? since God is light,
  And never but in unapproached light
  Dwelt from eternity—­dwelt then in thee,
  Bright effluence of bright essence increate! 
  Or hear’st thou, rather, pure Eternal Stream,
  Whose fountain who shall tell?  Before the sun,
  Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
  Of God as with a mantle didst invest
  The rising world of waters dark and deep,
  Won from the void and formless Infinite!”

Later in spring there was plowing, though the farm was so rocky and stony, there was little of that work to do.  But here and there, a sunny hilltop field made cultivation worth while, and as he followed the patient oxen along the shining brown furrow, he looked away to the encircling hills so full of mystery and fascination.  What was there?  What was beyond?  Then into the the morning and well into the afternoon they pried and labored.  They dug away earth and exerted to the utmost their childish strength.  Charles would soon have given up the gigantic task, but Russell was not of the stuff that quits, and so they toiled on.  The father and mother at home wondered and searched for the boys.  Then as they began truly to get alarmed, from the woods to the south came a crash and roar, the sound of trees snapping and then a shock that made the earth tremble.