Temperance tales

Introduction

Plato says, “We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.”

The ten stories gathered here, partly from history and partly from fiction, will be found to contain ten distinct lessons along temperance lines. The teacher will be able to bring out each lesson far better than can be done by the printed page, provided she has clearly in mind the one particular truth she wants to emphasize. All details should be made subservient to this. In every case the kernel thought is briefly suggested in a foot note.

It has been said that the child’s mind is “wax to receive and marble to retain.” If these ten truths are taught him from the beginning, in an attractive way, they will surely prove a safe¬ guard in the times of temptation that are sure to come later.

Christine I. Tinling s •

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Preface

That Miss Christine I. Tinling is an entertaining and profit¬ able story-teller to children is at once apparent to the reader of these charming Temperance Tales.

Miss Tinling is one of the lecturers of the World’s and National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Public Schools and Colleges. Loyal Temperance Legion leaders to whom these delightful lesson stories are given by Miss Tinling will welcome them as a most important addition to the literature of this vital Branch of the National W. C. T. U.

Anna A. Gordon.

Rest Cottage, Evanston, Illinois.

Contents

PAGE

1. Balder the Beautiful. 9

2. The Two B’s. 13

II The Two B’s*

Once upon a time, in a country far away from here, a priest was walking along a lonely road and leading a pretty white lamb. Close by, in the shadow of the trees, three robbers were hiding, and they saw the lamb and thought they would like to have it for dinner. But they were afraid to rob a priest; they feared something dreadful might happen to them if they did. So they made a plan. They decided they would not rob him, they would only cheat him. One said to the others, “I will slip out and tell him his lamb is a dog, and you two do the same thing, one at a time, farther down the road.”

J must tell you, children, that in that country the dogs are not like our dogs here in America. I love dogs, don’t you? Have you one at home? They will love us back if we are kind to them, and they have so much sense it seems almost a pity they can’t talk. But in that far-away country I am telling you about,

* This is a lesson on the nature of intoxicating drink, showing how g^d food may be changed into a poison. A knowledge of the nature of drink prepares for an understanding of its effects.

the dogs are different from ours; they are wild animals something like wolves. . People don’t like them at all, and a priest would not touch one if he could help it.

Well, the first robber jumped out from among the trees, and as he came up with the priest he said, “Good morning, father, why, what are you doing with a dog?” The priest was very much surprised and said, “Where are your eyes, man ? Can’t you see it is a lamb ?” And he walked on. Presently robber number two came along, and said, “Fine day, father. Well, I never, if that isn’t a dog you’ve got there!” The priest began to think he had lost his wits, and he rubbed his eyes and wondered if the man was right. But he walked on. Soon robber number three joined him, and said respectfully, “Your blessing, father. But dear me, I never did see a priest with a dog before.” When the poor priest heard this the third time, he was quite sure he had lost his senses, and he ran home in a dreadful fright, and left the lamb in the road. The robbers soon killed it and ate it up. You see he lost his lamb because he was so foolish as to believe everything he was told, without trying to find out whether it was true.

It isn’t safe to believe everything. I don’t believe nearly all the things I hear and read. We ought to try and find things out for ourselves, and when we cannot do that we should ask somebody who knows. Here is something I read in the paper not long ago: “Beer makes brain and brawn.” We all want brains, don’t we? People can’t get on in the world without brains, and if there is any food or drink that will make brains it must be a good thing to have, and we ought to get some. ' Lessons would come easier than they do to some of us if only we could find something that would make brains.

And then brawn—do you know what that is? It is muscle, good firm flesh. We need that both for work and play, don’t we?

Many people believe that beer helps to make those two things, and so they drink it every day. But we are too sensible to believe it right away, just because some folks say so. We will find out for ourselves. First of all, who can tell me what beer is made of? You don’t know? It is made from a grain that grows in the fields. Give me the names of some of the grains. Yes, wheat, and corn, and oats, and barley, and rye, and more besides. Now which of these do they make beer from ? They make it from the one that begins with the same letter as beer. What letter is that? B. Which grain begins with B? Barley; that’s it. Beer is made from barley.

Another day I will tell you how they do it, but we haven’t time now. Barley makes one very nice drink. It is called barley-water, and it is often given to sick people. Have you ever seen pearl barley—little round grains white and shiny ? It is used in making soup.

In the old times they made barley-puddings. Did you ever hear about King Arthur and his barley-meal?

“When good King Arthur ruled the land He was a goodly king;

He stole three pecks of barley-meal • To make a bag pudding.

A bag pudding the queen did make,

And stuffed it well with plums,

And in it put great lumps of fat,

As big as my two thumbs.

The king and queen did eat thereof,

And noblemen beside,

And what they could not eat that night,

The queen next morning fried.”

I don’t think he can have been very good, if he stole that barley-meal, do you? But perhaps they did not know any bet¬ ter in those days. Anyway they enjoyed the barley-pudding, and ate it up every bit.

Barley is very good for people. There is something in it that we all need. You will never guess what it is, so I must tell you. It is called starch. Yes, I know you are surprised. You did not think we ate starch, did you? When you feel very hungry you never run into the kitchen and say, “Oh, mother, give me some starch.” You say, “Mother, may I have a piece of pie” —or an apple, or some bread and preserves. But all the same we do eat a great deal of starch. There is starch in our bread, and starch in our potatoes, and starch in rice, and in ever so many more things. And the starch in barley is what makes it a useful food.

I said just now that we ought to try and find things out for ourselves. We can’t always do that, but it is nice to'do it when we can. Here I have some things that you all know very well, but we are going to try and find out something more about them. What are they? Some bread, and a potato, and here in this little flask of water are some barley grains that I crushed to let the starch get out.

But what have I got here in this glass? It looks like red ink, doesn’t it? But it isn’t that. No, nor wine either. No, nor physic. It is something I got from the druggist’s, and I have a very queer thing to tell you about it. If I were to dip my handkerchief in red ink, what color would it be? Red, of course. And if I spilled some red fruit juice on the table cloth, what color would the cloth be? Why, red, too. But here is the funny thing about this stuff. If I put into it any of these things that have starch in them they will turn not red, but blue. Now isn’t that queer?

I want you to Enow exactly what I meant just now by find¬ ing out things for ourselves. If I dip something in this red fluid, and it turns blue, what shall I say? I shall say, “It contains starch.” I shall have found that out for myself. And if it does not turn blue, what shall I say? I shall say, “It does not contain starch.” That is what we call doing an experiment; it is finding something out for ourselves.

Now let us begin. Here is our slice of bread. We will dip it in the red stuff. One, two, three, and away! Why, dear me, in a second, before you could say Jack Robinson, it has turned such a dark, dark blue that it is nearly black. What shall we say about it? “It has a great deal of starch in it, good nourishing starch that our bodies need.” Let us say it all together—“Bread contains starch.”

Now for our potato. I will cut a thin slice of it. It won’t soak so quickly as the bread, for it is not so soft and spongy. We will leave it in the glass a minute or two. Now we can i 1

see it turning blue, slowly getting darker and darker. What shall we say about it? “The potato contains starch.”

Next we come to our barley-water. I will pour a little of my red stuff into it. Why, the very minute it touches it, the barley-water gets blue. Such a pretty blue, too! I will swing the lit¬ tle flask round in the light and you can all see how pretty it is. Now once more, what shall we say? “Barley contains starch.” That’s right; and we found it out for ourselves. Wasn’t that fine?

Well now, the brewer takes barley and makes beer with it. A great many people think that because the barley is good and nourishing, the beer made out of it is bound to be good and nourishing also. But that is where they make a mistake.

Let us test some beer just as we tested the bread and the potato and the barley. Here is some in this little glass. I will pour some of my red stuff into it. Llere goes one spoonful. Is it turning blue? No. Another spoonful. Still no blue? No. Now, beer, you are on your trial; if you are good and nourishing like the barley you are made of, you ought to be turning blue. Still it doesn’t turn, and, children, I might pour every drop of my stuff in, and it would never turn blue. Now what shall we say about it? “The beer does not contain’starch.”

The fact is, a great change happened to the barley when it was made into beer. The barley was good and wholesome for men and beasts, but the beer is not. Instead of the good starch there is a poison in beer, which I must tell you about another day. The brewer took the nourishment out of the barley and put poison there instead. Let us say that all together.

There is a little sugar in beer, and sugar is a good food. But it is spoiled by being mixed with the poison. When anybody buys a barrel of beer he buys a great deal of water, a little bit of sugar and some poison. He pays about twenty-five dollars for that. Yet he could get water out of the faucet for nothing, and sugar is very cheap, and it is foolish to buy poison anyway. Just think what heaps and heaps of things we could buy with twenty-five dollars. Doesn’t it seem a pity to waste it like that?

[Note. The teacher will require a piece of bread , a potato, i8 some grains of barley crushed and boiled in a little water to dis¬ solve the starch in them, a small quantity of iodine solution, pre¬ pared by adding a few fragments of iodine to some water in , which potassium iodide has been dissolved. If she cannot procure beer, or prefers not to take it into the school room, she can explain in words that part of the experiment.]

HI

ALCOHOL’S DRESSES*

One evening I drove up to a farm house where I was going to spend the night. The lady of the house came out to the buggy to meet me. She had on a calico dress, and her kind face peeped out of a big sunbonnet. She said I must sit down and eat some supper at once and then start off to a meeting in the church. As she was not ready she would come later on.

Well, we had the meeting, and as I looked over the congrega¬ tion I saw a face that I thought I knew. It belonged to a lady who was dressed in black. I could not remember where I had seen her before, but I thought it was someone I had met long ago. I did not like to tell her that I had forgotten her name, so I just walked over to where she sat, and shook hands with her and said, “How do you do, I am glad to see you again.”

Then she burst out laughing! And well she might, for she was the lady of the sunbonnet, whom I had left only a little while before. She looked such a different person in her Sundaygo-to-meeting dress and hat that I did not know her again. I felt very foolish when I learned my mistake, but she thought it was great fun.

Clothes are very deceiving things anyway. Thieves and burglars dress up in all sorts of clothes when they are trying to keep away from the police. They look like different people at different times, and so it is often hard to catch them. Indeed,

* “Alcohol’s Drosses” is designed to put children on their guard concerning the various forms of intoxicating drink, and to show that though alcohol may appear in many guises it is always the same evil thing.

they don’t only change their clothes, but frequently their hair, too; they will have a curly wig one day, and straight hair the next, a moustache today, and a beard tomorrow. They do all this so that people may not know them.

Once a certain Japanese man wanted to find out all about the American army. He was rich and powerful, but he could not learn all he wished to know. So he dressed up like a poor man and pretended to he a peddler, and he carried around a tray of notions and sold them to the soldiers. For a good while no one found out what he really was, and he was able to do his bad work as a spy unhindered. People were deceived by his poor clothes, and thought he wasn’t a person of any consequence.

A great Englishman named Thomas Carlyle once wrote a book all about clothes, to teach people how foolish it is to look only at the outside of things. We must learn to think about what is inside. There may be very nice, good people inside of shabby clothes, and very ugly, bad people inside fine clothes.

We have learned a good many things lately about our enemy, Alcohol. One thing that you specially need to know and remem¬ ber is that it has a great many different dresses. It does not look the same every time you see it. Some people can recognize it easily in some of its dresses, and know it is their foe, but when the-v see it in another dress they do not know it again, and think it is a friend. Of course, this brings them into trouble.

“Good Queen Bess,” whom we read about in English history, had an immense number of fine gowns. When she died they found a thousand in her wardrobes. I can’t think how she ever had time to wear them.

They say that Alcohol has as many dresses as Queen Bess had, and even more, but I don’t know them nearly all. I know it has several red ones and yellow ones, and some brown ones, and at least one that is nearly black. Some are a common every-day kind and others are very expensive.

Whisky is Alcohol in a reddish-brown dress.

Sherry is Alcohol in a yellow dress.

Claret is Alcohol in a bright red dress.

Porter is Alcohol in a black dress.

Cider is Alcohol in a brown dress.

Champagne is Alcohol in an expensive party dress.

Beer is Alcohol in a cheap, every-day dress.

These things don’t look at all alike, but they are all Alcohol dressed up in different ways.

There is a very good and wise man in New York called Dr. Josiah Strong. He told me once that when his mother wafs a little girl she dearly loved pretty clothes. I expect whenever she had a new dress she liked to look at herself in the mirror and see how fine she was. Generally she was a good little girl, but sometimes she was naughty as we all are now and then. Once when her mother had made her a nice new dress she said to her, “Don’t forget there is still the same naughty little girl in the pretty new clothes.”

Some of the dresses that Alcohol wears are quite pretty, espe¬ cially the red ones. People like to have it at parties because it looks so bright and sparkling when it is poured out in elegant wine-glasses. But there is always the same bad, poisonous Alco¬ hol there, however pretty the dress may be. The Bible says: “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his •color in the cup. At last it bitetli like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” So we must beware of it every time, and not only leave whisky alone, but be just as careful never to touch wine or beer or cider.

There is one other way in which Alcohol dresses up that we must not forget Sometimes it pretends to be very good and help¬ ful and calls itself Medicine. It says, “My name is Jamaica Ginger and I will cure your pain,” or perhaps, “My name is Peruna and I make people well of all kinds of diseases.” But it is really the same old rogue Alcohol again. When a person who is bad pretends to be extra good he is called a hypocrite. That is what Alcohol is, a great hypocrite. But it won’t be able to deceive us because we have studied about it, and we know it doesn’t matter what dress it may have on, it is always our deadly enemy.

IV The Golden Apples*

Long ago the children of the Greeks used to love to hear the tale that I am going to tell you now.

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful girl whose name was Atalanta. She was strong and agile as well as beautiful, and she could run faster than any of her girl friends and could even beat the boys. When she grew up she had many admirers among the young men and they all wanted to marry her. But Atalanta did not care to marry any of them; she thought she would much rather be a bachelor girl. Her suitors worried her so that she did not know what to do. At last she hit on a plan for getting rid of them.

She offered to run a race with each one, and promised to marry the first who should surpass her. She even gave the young men a start of several yards, for she was so sure that she could run faster than any of them.

Though she was beautiful and strong I must confess she was also rather cruel. She carried a dart in her hand and when she had won the race she killed the suitor every time. Yet still they came, for each one thought there was at least a chance of winning the lovely Atalanta. Many died by her dart, until at last appeared a young man named Hippomenes.

He realized the danger and went to the goddess Venus to ask for her help. She gave him three golden apples from the Garden of the Gods, and told him to drop them one by one as he ran.

The race began and Hippomenes was allowed a start like the rest. Soon, however, he heard Atalanta’s swift footstep close behind him. He dropped one of the golden apples and sped for¬ ward as fast as his feet would carry him. Atalanta felt so sure of winning that she stooped down and picked up the apple. She lost ground but it was not very long before she had made

* The idea of this lesson is that even those who never go to “excess” are injured by the use of alcohol and tobacco. The race is lost by a very little. So it often is with the race of life. We can hardly insist too much on the fact that the smallest quantity of alcohol unfits for whatever we have to do.

it up again and Hippomenes saw she was gaining fast upon him. He dropped the second apple and Atalanta picked that up, too, saying to herself that she would make a spurt and soon catch up again. They were not very far from the goal when Hippomenes let the last precious apple fall. Atalanta knew this time that it would be risky to stop for it, but she could not bear to leave it there on the ground, that wonderful apple that came from the Garden of the Gods. So she took the risk, stooped and seized it, and then ran on faster than she had ever run in her life before.

But she failed. Hippomenes got there first. Atalanta was defeated and she had to marry him, according to her promise.

You see it was all her own fault that she lost the race. No accident happened to her; there was no bad luck about it. She failed because she let herself be hindered, just a little bit, by something that looked nice and tempting. It seemed such a little thing to stoop and pick up those apples. It was only a few seconds that she lost every time, only a few yards that she fell behind. But it meant losing the whole race.

Do you know that every one of us is in for a race? I don’t mean a hundred yards race, or a mile race, but a much longer one than these. It lasts for years and years; in fact, all one’s life. Grown-up people sometimes have to run very hard to win. Your father is in for this race, and so is the doctor, and the man who keeps the dry goods store, and everybody that you see day by day. Some people call it “the race of life,” and some call it “competition.” You will all have to run this race sooner or later, so I know you will want to learn in time how to win.

First, let me tell you what competition means. I expect there is some boy here who wants to be a doctor when he grows up. That is a very noble profession. Now it takes a great deal of hard work to prepare to be a doctor. Besides having your head full of learning, you need to have a very skillful hand and steady nerves. You need to be at your very best both in your body and your mind.

Even in a small town there are generally a good many phy¬ sicians, and people can take their pick of them. If you were ill, or if someone you loved was ill, you would want the very best doctor you could get, wouldn’t you? The best doctor gets the 0 most patients. They would all like to have a great many patients, but they don’t all get them. Some succeed and others fail. Don’t you see now that this is very much like a race, and if you want to win you must try hard?

It is just the same with the man who keeps a store. He wants to get all the customers he can, but then the man next door is trying to get customers, too. This is what we mean by competition.

Whatever you intend to be when you grow up, whether a “tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor” or a “butcher, baker or candlestick maker,” you will have to do your best or you will not get on in the world.

If you desire to win, remember this —“Every bad habit is a hindrance in the race of life.” There are two bad habits which cause thousands and thousands of people to fail, so if you wish to succeed you must be sure and keep clear of them. They are the habits of drinking and smoking.

Many boys fail in life from the very start because they smoke cigarets. Do you wonder how this can be, how such little things as cigarets can prevent a boy from getting on? It is true one cigaret won’t kill you, and ten won’t kill you, and you may even smoke many boxes of them and hardly'know the difference. But every one hurts you a little, because it contains the poison nico¬ tine, which attacks your nerves and your heart. When after a while you have made the habit of smoking it will seriously injure both your body and mind and will very likely cause you to lose the race. Remember Atalanta thought it was only a very little ground that she lost each time, but that little was enough to cause her defeat. The little cigaret causes many boys to fail every day.

There is a gentleman in St. Louis, Mo., who has charge of the street cars and he employs all the men and boys who work on them. He said a short time ago that he would never hire anyone who smoked cigarets because he was not fit to be a motorman. A motorman has to have all his wits about him; his brain must be alert and his nerves steady. If he is stupid or nervous some accident may happen, and the passengers may be hurt or even killed. So the superintendent would not hire cigaret

% smokers because he felt it was not safe. All the cigaret smokers who came to his office door looking for a job had to go away again. Now, do you see how smoking makes people lose in the race -of life?

The other habit that causes men to fail is the habit of using strong drink. The drinkers are not wanted because they can¬ not work so well as others, and they are more often sick and have to stay at home, and besides they cannot be trusted. There is a great big store in Chicago where five thousand people work, but no one can get a job there who drinks whisky or beer. They are shut out.

Did you ever count up to a million? I used to try after I was in bed at night, but I always, got sleepy and stopped, and I never met anybody who had counted as high as that. But what do you think? There are two million positions in our country which the drinker can not get. Even if he is very clever and knows all about the work, he can’t have one of those two million places. Why? Because the men who hire others and pay them wages want the best they can get, and they don’t care to have those whose brains are poisoned by alcohol.

By using strong drink a smart man or boy often lets a slow one get ahead of him. The Bible says, “The race is not to the swift.” .That means that the quickest runners don’t always win. I am sure you have heard of the hare and the tortoise, and how the slow tortoise won the race. Atalanta ought easily to have beaten Hippomenes, but she stopped for the apples while he kept on running. So a quick and clever boy who is handicapped by a bad habit often gets left behind by a slow and steady boy who leaves poisonous things alone.

Some people think there is no harm in one little glass of beer now and then. Just like Atalanta again, you see. But we have learned that little things matter a great deal, and we will not let ourselves be hindered by “just one glass.”

The golden apples looked so tempting. No doubt that was why Atalanta risked everything to pick them up. We have to learn to say “No” to tempting things when we know that they are bad for us. To some boys the box of cigarets looks so nice, and to others a glass of cider seems very good. But we must bravely say “No” every time if we wish to win the race of life. It nlay be hard at first but it will get easy after a while.