perance selections at these programmes, whereat Pearlie
Watson's hand waved appealingly, and Miss Barner gave her permission to
speak.

"Please ma'am," Pearl said, addressing Mrs. White, "Jimmy and me
thought anything about a rattlesnake would do for a temperance piece,
and if you had only let Jimmy go on you would have seen what happened
even a snake that et what he hadn't ought to, and please ma'am, Jimmy
and me thought it might be a good lesson for all of us."

Miss Barner thought that Pearlie's point was well taken, and took Jimmy
with her into the vestry from which he emerged a few minutes later,
flushed and triumphant, and recited the same selection, with a possible
change of text in one place:

As I was going to the lake
I met a little rattlesnake;
I fed him on some jelly-cake,
Which made his little stomach ache.

The musical committee then sang:

We're for home and mother,
God and native land,
Grown up friend and brother,
Give us now your hand.

and won loud applause. Little Sissy Moore knew only the first verse,
but it would never have been known that she was saying
dum--dum--dum--dum--dum--dum--dum--dum dum-dum-dum, if Mary Simpson
hadn't told.

Wilford Ducker, starched as stiff as boiled and raw starch could make
him, recited "Perish, King Alcohol, we will grow up," but was accorded
a very indifferent reception by the Band of Hopers. Wilford was allowed
to go to Band of Hope only when Miss Barner went for him and escorted
him home again. Mrs. Ducker had been very particular about Wilford from
the first.

Then the White girls recited a strictly suitable piece. It was entitled
"The World and the Conscience."

Lily represented a vain woman of the world bent upon pleasure with a
tendency toward liquid refreshment. Her innocent china-blue eyes and
flaxen braids were in strange contrast to the mad love of glittering
wealth which was supposed to fill her heart:

Give to me the flowing bowl,
And Pleasure's glittering crown;
The path of Pride shall be my goal,
And conscience's voice I'll drown!

Then Blanche sweetly admonished her:

Oh! lay aside your idle boasts,
No Pleasure thus you'll find;
The flowing bowl a serpent is
To poison Soul and Mind.

Oh, sign our pledge, while yet you can,
Nor look upon the Wine
When it is red within the Cup,
Let not its curse be thine!

Thereupon the frivolous creature repents of he