Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/309

Rh afterward became incurably insane; Joseph Morton, who was a maker of flavoring extracts in Boston, and who was interested in astrology; and Edward A. Orne.

Litigation had been a heavy drain upon Mrs. Eddy financially. She and Mr. Eddy let the lower floor of their house, occupying, themselves, only the upstairs rooms, and now they rented one of those. They did their own housework, and Mrs. Eddy was exceedingly cheerful and courageous about it. Mr. Buswell remembers finding her on her knees with soap and pail one afternoon, scrubbing her back stairs. When he reproved her for undertaking such heavy work, she laughed and replied that it was good for her to stir about after writing all morning, adding that she could not get good help, as the mesmerists immediately affected her servants. Mr. Buswell remembers that in her classroom she sometimes related how once when she was driving through Boston in an open carriage, a cripple had come up to the carriage, and she had put out her hand and healed him. She also told of returning home after several days' absence to find her window plants drooping and dying. She had discovered that when she was in the house the plants could live without sunlight or moisture, so, instead of watering them, she put them in the attic and treated them mentally, after which they were completely restored. Sometimes, on the same morning that she related one of these extravagant anecdotes, she would tell, with apparent