at the house.
He gazed long, and his heart nearly failed him. He could see in
imagination every homely detail of the living room, his father's chair
to the right of the fireplace, his mother's on the left, the clock
between the front windows, which his father wound every night. On a
nail hung his old rimless hat, Charlie's coat, and the little sister's
sunbonnet. His mother would soon be up and getting breakfast. They
would all sit down without him--a lump began to rise in his throat and
he almost turned back. But something in his nature always prevented
him from giving up a thing he had once undertaken. He set his teeth,
picked up his bundle and went down the road between the mountains,
the woods stretching, dense, silent, on each side, the little brook
keeping close by him like the good, true friend it was.

It was a long, long tramp to the little village of Huntington, a walk
that went for miles beneath overarching green trees, the sunlight
sifting down like a shower of gold in the dim wood aisles. The wild
mountain stream merged into the quiet Westfield river that flowed
placidly through little sunny meadows and rippled in a sedate way here
and there over stones as became the dignity of a river. Small white
farmhouses, set about with golden lilies and deep crimson peonies,
here and there looked out on the road. But his mind was intent on the
wonderful experiences ahead of him; he walked as in a dream. Reaching
Huntington, he asked a conductor if he could get a job on the train to
pay his way to Boston. The conductor eyed the lanky country boy with
sympathetic amusement. He appreciated the situation and told Russell
he didn't think he had any job just then, but he might sit in the
baggage car and should a job turn up, it would be given him. Delighted
with this piece of good luck, Russell sat in the baggage car and
journeyed to Boston.

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, no