spell of fever.

The woman who brought the diphtheria to us sought our house as a place of
refuge, because the house being "low and in a low place" the cannon balls
would pass over it. After the Lord saved me, this incident came to my mind
as a lesson in humility. "Low and in a low place." If we as God's servants
keep humble and in a low place, the enemy may hurl his darts and shoot his
cannon balls: they will go over us and will not harm us. If we don't want
to be disturbed or crippled by the enemy of our souls, we should keep low
at the feet of Jesus where he can continually shelter us. "He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the most high, shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty."

Some time after these events the Southern soldiers, commonly known as
"bushwhackers," came into our neighborhood and camped in the woods. One
evening as it was growing dusk, my oldest sister and the one next older
than I went after water to a well half way between our house and the house
of our nearest neighbor on the west. From this well both families used
water. The girls had to go down a steep hill to get to the well; and as
they came back to the brow of the hill, they found our dog lying dead.
While the girls were at the well, the soldiers had no doubt killed the dog
with a club, as no one heard a gun fired. My sisters went home with the
water and then went back to investigate; they wanted to be sure that it was
our dog that had been killed. They heard men in the brush near the place
where the dog was lying, and being very young and not realizing their
danger, they talked rather loudly and boisterously, saying that if they
could see the men in the brush, they would shoot them with their fingers.
The crackling in the brush indicated that the men were very near.

That night a large number of these bushwhackers entered our neighbor's