composed about the neighbors. But that was not prohibitive. The very
next night, Russell would hold up to ridicule the peculiarity of some
one in the neighborhood, much to his victim's chagrin and to the
amusement of the listeners. He was forever inventing improvements for
the fishing apparatus, oars, boats, coasting sleds, household and farm
utensils, often forgetting the tasks his father had given him while
doing it. Naturally, this exasperated Martin Conwell, who had no help
on the farm but the boys, and the rod would again be brought into
active service. Once, after whipping him for such neglect of work--he
had left the cider apples out in the frost--Martin Conwell asked his
son's pardon because he had invented an improved ox-sled that was of
great practical value.

When he was fifteen he ran away again. No friendly Deacon Chipman
interfered this time, nor is it likely he would easily have been
turned from the project, for he planned to go to Europe. He went to
Chicopee to an uncle's, whom he frankly told of his intended trip. The
uncle kept Russell for a day or two by various expedients, while he
wrote to his father telling him Russell was there and what he intended
doing. The father wrote back saying to give him what money he needed
and let him go. So Russell started on his journey over the sea. He
worked his way on a cattle steamer from New York to Liverpool. But it
was a homesick boy that roamed around in foreign lands, and as he has
said most feelingly since, "I felt that if I could only get back home,
I would never, never leave it again." He did not stay abroad long and
when he returned to his home, his father greeted him as if he had been
absent a few hours, and never in any way, by word or action, referred
to the subject. In fact, so far as Martin Conwell appeared, Russell
might have been no farther than Huntington.