Red Hot Peppers and Candy

Fresh fruits and vegetables in bush Alaska were hard to come by in the winter. One day I took our kids over to my friend, Linda's, house. Her husband was the trooper for our area. He had an amazingly large area that he was responsible for. So he wasn't home very often. Our kids liked going over to their house because they had a T.V. and movies to watch. Micah was 9, Julie 4 and Angela was 2 at the time. Angela was a curious little girl and many times it would get her into trouble. Linda had pepper plant with the brightest, prettiest, teeny red peppers on it. I noticed that Angela walked over to it and just looked at it several times. Without my knowledge, she took a couple of those peppers off and put them in her pocket. Linda had told me earlier in our visit that one pepper was hot enough to make several pots of chili. We visited with Linda and her family for a couple of hours and then we left to go home. Our house wasn't far from Linda's house. We had to go down "Slop Bucket Road", which was between Lake Iliamna and Slop Bucket Lake. At the start of Slop Bucket Road, Angela put one of those peppers in her mouth and started to cry and cry and cry. Then she wiped her hand over eyes, mouth and face. It made her face a fiery red color. I could not stop and get her any thing so had to continue going home. When I got home, I asked her what she had put in her mouth and she showed me her peppers. The only thing I could think of to do was to put evaporated milk on her skin and have her drink some. It seemed to help. What an opportunity to teach her that she had stolen those peppers from Linda and that it was wrong. She thought they were red pieces of candy. She learned that stealing was wrong and had consequences that were powerful to learn. She also learned that not everything is what it looks like it should be. Whenever we went over to the trooper's house and the trooper was home he would ask her if she wanted some candy and then he would laugh and laugh. She would say, "No!" in a rushed, quivery voice!! She didn't want to learn that lesson again!!! It became a fun game between the two of them!!!