Nell Wiggin began: "It is not interesting, my past, and I fear that it is too sad for a story, but briefly I will tell it: My twin brother, Dean, and I were born on a farm in New England which seemed able to produce but little on its rocky soil, and though our father managed to keep us alive, he could not pay off the mortgage, and each year he grew more troubled in spirit. At last he heard of rich lands in the West that might be homesteaded and so, leaving us one spring, he set out on foot, for he planned taking up a claim, and when he had constructed there a shelter of some kind, Mother was to sell the New England farm, pay off the mortgage and with whatever remained buy tickets that would take us west to my father.