We went to Alum Rock [a beautiful resort adjacent to San Jose] three weeks ago Thursday, and I got so badly poisoned [poison-oak] that there was not an inch of my body that was not covered and my eyes were swollen shut for two days. I was sick in bed with it all day the Fourth and here alone; but not alone, for if ever I had a happy day, it was that. Lots of times I feel discouraged to think I can not remember the Scriptures that I read, but it was just marvelous the way they would roll over my mind on those two or three days that I could not see even to read. I believe God just wanted me to see when my eyes, hands, tongue and feet were quiet how active my mind was. My head and throat are still very bad, and I go to the doctor about three times a week, but still have those terrible ulcers gathering and breaking in my head. I am so thin that I can not wear the black dress you made me at all. Mother W---- says she is afraid something will give way in my head one of these days. She wants me to go home for a rest, but if I did, then Mama [her own mother] wouldn't come here for a rest, and I want her to have a rest, and then, too, I would have to ask them to send me money to go home on. [Lucy's services were gratuitous.] Just the other day I was reading how much Delia did for the Lord in her short Christian life [Before conversion known as the "Blue Bird" of Mulberry Bend of New York], and it has made me feel bad; for here I have been saved over a year, and what have I done? It is said that she had over six hundred souls in three months, and I can not claim one that I know of. I know that I have tried to be what God would have me be, if ever a girl did try. [Indeed, indeed you have, dear child, and God smiles on you for it.] There is one thing sure. I have prayed a great deal for you lately for ever since two weeks ago Tuesday night, which was our prayer-meeting night of course, I had a real hard fight with Satan, and he had tried to get the better of my better self, and Miss Sisson came and told of your being at a house to see the landlady and then of your going back in a few days to preach the funeral services over the dead body of one of the girls [suicide]. Oh, how it helped me to see what I had been spared from and how much I had to praise God for! and it also showed me how many prayers you needed to help you in your work, and so I have held you up more than ever before His throne, and maybe if I can not reap myself, I can pray for those that are in the field. God has been so good that all through my sickness I have missed but two days' work, that is, there were but two days that I was not able to get the meals (all of them). It is perfectly wonderful, the strength, willingness, and determination He will give us if we but want it.