He was
born on February 15, 1843--born of poor parents,
in a low-roofed cottage in the eastern Berkshires,
in Massachusetts.
``I was born in this room,'' he said to me,
simply, as we sat together recently[3] in front of the
old fireplace in the principal room of the little
cottage; for he has bought back the rocky farm
of his father, and has retained and restored the
little old home. ``I was born in this room. It
was bedroom and kitchen. It was poverty.'' And
his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence.
[3] _This interview took place at the old Conwell farm in the
summer of 1915_.
Then he spoke a little of the struggles of those
long-past years; and we went out on the porch,
as the evening shadows fell, and looked out over
the valley and stream and hills of his youth, and
he told of his grandmother, and of a young
Marylander who had come to the region on a visit;
it was a tale of the impetuous love of those two,
of rash marriage, of the interference of parents,
of the fierce rivalry of another suitor, of an attack
on the Marylander's life, of passionate hastiness,
of unforgivable words, of separation, of lifelong
sorrow.
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