On the Fourth of July, 1902, I went out to celebrate the day and started in with a six-inch cannon cracker. I held it in my right hand and lighted it with the left. While I was waiting for the fuse to burn before throwing the cracker, it exploded in my hand with a report that shook the house and terribly lacerated my hand. The thumb was laid back on the wrist with a ragged wound two inches long on each side, the first finger was laid open in two places and the nail of the second was blown completely off, while the others were severely injured and burned. I suffered untold agony while waiting for help, and my arm kept jumping with pain all the time. I immediately screamed the name of a Christian Science practitioner (my mother had been interested in Science for several years and had received help when other means had failed), but while my mother was telephoning for the Scientist, the neighbors called a doctor, who came, shook his head, dressed the wounds and as the pain was growing worse, gave drugs and hypodermic injections which afforded no relief. He left me, saying he would return later and sew up the wounds. In the mean time, my mother had notified the Christian Science practitioner. She could not come at once but gave me absent treatment, with the result that I stopped screaming so suddenly that a report was circulated in the neighborhood that I was dead. After the practitioner arrived and gave me treatment, my arm stopped jumping, and I rested in comparative ease. I then told her all the laws the doctor had made, that the arm would be paralyzed to the elbow, that the hand must be amputated, that it was a bad time of the year and blood poisoning and lock-jaw were likely to follow. As I voiced these statements, she met them scientifically. She took off the bandages, washed my hand in water to remove all the medicine, and wrapped it up in clean cloth without putting in any stitches to close up the wounds. She also instructed my mother to notify the doctor that his services were not needed any further, to pay his bill, and dismiss him as kindly as possible, which she did. I continued to take treatment for four weeks, and it was wonderful to see those ugly wounds close together without stitches and without any of the doctor's laws manifesting themselves. I was soon able to wear a white cotton glove and could move my forearm with perfect ease.
At that time I was a stenographer, and my friends said that my hand would be misshapen and that I could never use a typewriter again. I could have gone back to work in five weeks, but as my employers were not ready for me, I did not return to business until seven weeks after the accident. When I took up my typewriting I could work just as fast as ever. My hand is not misshapen, and the scars show but slightly.
I had worn glasses ever since I was five years old, having very imperfect sight in the left eye. I laid off my glasses after taking Christian Science treatment and have not had occasion to use them since. I am indeed thankful to my practitioner and to Mrs. Eddy for the benefits I have received from this truth, and also for the different ideas of life I have gained from its teachings, and am striving earnestly to grow into a fuller understanding thereof.
