Later, when I was called from my hiding-place, grandma saw that I had been very miserable, and she insisted upon knowing what I had been thinking about.  Then I told her, reluctantly, that I had talked to God and told Him I did not think that He was a very good Heavenly Father, or He would not let me get into so much trouble; that I was mad at Him, and didn’t believe He knew how to mend dishes.  She covered her face with her apron and told me, sobbingly, that she had expected me to be sorry for getting down her sugar bowl and for breaking its cover; that I was so bad that I would “surely put poor old grandma’s gray hair in her grave, who had got one foot there already and the other on the brink.”

This increased my wretchedness, and I begged her to live just a little longer so that I might show her that I would be good.  She agreed to give me another trial and ended by telling me about the “beautiful, wicked angel who had been driven out of paradise, and spends his time coaxing people to be bad, and then remembers them, and after they die, takes them on his fork and pitches them back and forth in his fire.”  Jakie had told me his name and also the name of his home.

Toward evening, my head ached, and I felt so ill that I crept close to grandma and asked sorrowfully if she thought the devil meant to have me die that night, and then take me to his hell.  At a glance, she saw that I suffered, and drew me to her, pillowed my head against her bosom and soothingly assured me that I would be forgiven if I would make friends with God and remember the lesson that I had learned that day.  She told me, later, I must never say “devil,” or “hell,” because it was not nice in little girls, but that, instead, I might use the words, “blackman,” and “blackman’s fires.”  At first, I did not like to say it that way, because I was afraid that the beautiful devil might think that I was calling him nicknames and get angry with me.

Notwithstanding my shortcomings, the Brunners were very willing to keep me, and strove to make a “Schweitzer child” of me, dressed me in clothes modelled after those which grandma wore when she was small, and by verse and legend filled my thoughts with pictures of their Alpine country.  I liked the German language, learned it rapidly and soon could help to translate orders.  Those which pleased grandma best were from the homes of Mr. Jacob Leese, Captain Fitch, Major Prudon, and General Vallejo; for their patronage influenced other distinguished Spanish families at a distance to send for her excellent cheese and fancy pats of butter.  Yet, with equal nicety, she filled the orders that came from the mess-room of the officers of our own brave boys in blue, and always tried to have a better kerchief and apron on the evenings that officers and orderly rode out to pay the bills.