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At about the same time grandfather became ill. At the first all he did was to prick his thumb on a thorn, it swelled up. He bound fresh warm cow-dung on it, then his whole hand swelled. He felt a terrible heat in it, went to the pump and washed the dung out again under the spout. But this brought only evil consequences. He soon had to take to his bed and contracted the dropsy. He had himself tapped and the water ran right down into the cellar. When he had lain thus for five months he died, to the sorrow of all the family, for all loved him, great and small. He was an amiable man who loved cheerfulness and contentment. For my father and myself he had done much more than was customary, and I have never heard anyone speak evil of him. For many years my father and mother would lay to his account much that was worthy of praise and admiration; and when I attained to a little understanding, I came to remember him as he was and to pay him all due respect in his dust and mould. He lies buried in the churchyard at Krinau.

10. Immediate consequences of Grandfather's death:

Another maidservant was now hired and she pleased my father well, for she was a hard worker. But mother and grandmother could not abide her, because they believed she was currying favour with father and telling him tales. Moreover, she was lousy, so that we all caught the itch from her. In short, the women would not be content, she had to go and another came in her place. This one was to their liking but not to father's, because she was skilled only in housework, not work in the fields. He believed also that she helped the women to keep all kinds of things dark from him. Now there was quarrelling almost every day. The womenfolk banded together, but the man thought he should be master, and altogether it seemed that old Jöggele of Näbis had taken a good part of the contentment of the household with him under the ground.

Meanwhile the women were still trying to get the upper hand, which he could not bear, and again there was all manner of bickering. Finally, when in the heat of temper he had thrown a porridge-bowl at grandmother, she took herself off and went back to her friends at Näbis. The matter came before the justices. Father had to give her six batzen and some butter every week. She was a small stooped-over woman, a dear grandmother to me, and she in her turn treated me as her true grandchild, but to tell truth she was a little strange in her ways, capricious, always following after the so-called Pietists, but finding no-one quite right in her opinion. Every year I was sent to take her a present of meat when we had killed, and I would stay with her for a few days. Life was good there. I made the most of it, but let her well-intentioned admonitions go in at one ear and out at the other. No credit to me, to be sure, but alas, boys are all the same, God bless us! At the last she was blind for a few years and died at Feuerschwand at a great age in the year 1750, or 1751, or 1752. She left to me especially a book, Arndt's "True Christianity"

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. She was certainly a godly woman, highly esteemed in Schamatten, and the folk of that place are still especially dear to me for her sake. And I also believe that some of my good fortune comes from her, for the blessing of a parent rests upon children and upon children's children.

9

Hans Bräker had an older but as yet unmarried brother Niklaus. [Chronik, p 516].

10

"Wahres Christentum", (1608-9) by Johann Arndt. It was very widely read by Pietists.

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