"I was not born a cripple. Even as a child I did not always have to make hands of my feet. Indeed, till I was nine years old, I not only had arms and hands like other children, but I was also a strong, healthy, normal child like my two brothers, who were older than I, and my sister, who was two years younger. Our family was in poor and humble circumstances as far back as I can remember. My parents were both English, but my father became naturalized as a citizen of this country in 1882--the year in which I was born. "Since I grew up I have learned that my father and mother were in good circumstances at the time of their marriage, and for some ten or twelve years afterward; that my father was a steady, hard-working, kindly man; and that he and my mother were devoted to one another and were very happy together. But after the birth of my brothers my mother was taken ill and was in poor health for a long time. Then, just as she was at the worst of her illness, my father lost his position, and matters speedily began to go from bad to worse. A tendency to strong drink, which he had kept well curbed for my mother's sake, now began to get the better of him. Her failing health made it impossible for her to look out for him as she had hitherto done. The new work which he succeeded in obtaining was hard and distasteful, and the family grew poorer and poorer until at last there were times when we had not enough of food and clothing, and the charitable societies of Chicago, where we lived, began to look after us. "In the summer just before my ninth birthday, I was one of a number of children who were sent into the country for a two-weeks' outing by the managers of a fresh air fund. Those were the two pleasantest weeks of my life. The beautiful, green country, the grass, flowers, trees, and birds delighted me. I was well and robust, and I ran and picked flowers and played and enjoyed myself to the utmost. A few weeks after I came home from this wonderful outing my mother died, and I became the housekeeper of the family. I was then just nine years old. I did the work as well as I could, although there was not much to do nor much to do it with, in the bare place which we called 'home,' in the basement of a small city dwelling. Soon after I had lost my mother's companionship I lost my sister's also, for she was adopted by well-to-do people, whose identity I did not know and have never learned.