d the Paris
doctors were puzzling over the cause. "Were you in the war?" asked the
great man. "Were you shot?"

"Yes."

"Shot in the shoulder?"

Then came back to Colonel Conwell, the recollection of the duel with
the Confederate around a tree in the North Carolina woods and the shot
that had lodged in his shoulder near his neck and was never removed.

"That is the trouble," said the physician. "The bullet has worked down
into the lung and only the most skillful operation can save you,
and only one man can do it"--and that man was a surgeon in Bellevue
Hospital, New York.

Carefully was the sinking man taken on board a steamer. Only the most
rugged constitution could have stood that trip in the already weakened
condition of his system. But those early childhood days in the
Berkshire Hills had put iron into his blood, the tonic of sunshine and
fresh air into his very bone and muscle. Safely he made the journey,
though no one knew all he suffered in those terrible days of weakness
and pain on the lone, friendless trip across the Atlantic. Safely he
went through the operation. The bullet was removed, and with health
mending, he made his way to Boston where his loving young wife awaited
him.

But out of these experiences, suffering, alone, friendless, poor, in
a strange city, grew after all the Samaritan Hospital of Philadelphia
that opens wide its doors, first and always, to the suffering sick
poor.

CHAPTER XIII

WRITING HIS WAY AROUND THE WORLD

Days of Poverty in Boston. Sent to Southern Battlefields. Around the
World for New York and Boston Papers. In a Gambling Den In Hong Kong,
China. Cholera and Shipwreck.

Abject poverty awaited him on his return to Boston. The fire in St.
Paul had left them but little property, while their enforced hurried
departure compelled that little to be sold at a loss. This money
was now entirely gone, and once more he faced the world in absolute
poverty. He rented a single room in the East district of Boston and
furnished it with the barest necessities. Colonel Conwell secured a
position on "The Evening Traveller" at five dollars a week, and Mrs.
Conwell cheerily took in sewing. Thus they made their first brave
stand against the gaunt wolf at the door. Here their first child was
born, a daughter, Nima, now Mrs. E.G. Tuttle, of Philadelphia. These
were dark days for the little household. Night after night the father
came home to see the one he loved best in all the wo