Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/364

320 throng or she would have been borne down by it. As it was, men leaped to the stage and assisted women to follow. They wanted to take her hand, to tell her of wonderful healings, to touch her dress if nothing more. A babble of rejoicing broke forth above which came the cries of many who were crowded to the rear, beseeching attention to themselves. A mother who failed to get near held high her babe, an old woman held up palsied hands, crying, “Help me!” Some persons declared the address had healed them spontaneously. Men and women wept together.

So carried away by the tide of emotion as to neglect details, the newspaper correspondent who reported these events for a Boston paper declared simply that many were healed there and then. As a matter of fact the cases verified were actually eleven. The Boston Traveler reporter said: “As the people thronged about Mrs. Eddy with blessings and thanks, meekly and almost silently she received their homage until she was led away from the place, the throng blocking her way from the door to the carriage.”

While in Chicago Mrs. Eddy lived at the Palmer House, and access to her being easily gained, importunate callers besieged her doors. It was no part of her plan to hold a public reception in Chicago, or in fact to do anything of a public nature. Her amazement at the publicity thrust upon her left her without choice, and how to satisfy the sudden demand for personal greeting was a difficult question to decide. In the evening of the day on which she experienced