When I was a child, I had what was said to be inherited lung trouble, and each winter I went through one or more periods of illness, pronounced frequently pneumonia, often double pneumonia. One such illness which was especially serious occurred soon after my mother and I had begun to study Christian Science, and I was healed through our efforts to prove this religion's healing power. But before my complete recovery had been established, I became ill with the symptoms of what several in our small town had experienced—typhoid fever.
Not being in sympathy with our study of Science, my father talked a good deal to the neighbors about my condition and urged my mother to persuade me to have a physician. She told him she was willing, if I wanted to have one, and sent him to my room to see if he could persuade me to allow him to call a doctor. I assured him that I did not want a doctor, because God would heal me; but I said that he could go to a nearby town and bring a Christian Science practitioner to me. This proved to be a very good plan, because it took him away from the house and also helped him to feel that he was doing something for me.
The neighbors had gathered in the yard next door threatening to have my mother arrested if she allowed her child to die without medical attention. It was a very difficult time for my mother, and I shall never cease to be grateful to her for standing so firmly by my wishes for Science treatment. As soon as my father left, she sent a wire to the practitioner in the nearby town, asking her to help. When she came back to my room she found me much worse. In fact, she thought that I was passing on. I had become so ill that I did not care to make further effort. But my mother took me by the shoulders and shook me, commanding me to rouse myself and to help her prove the healing power of Christian Science.
