26. Does it really help a person who uses it?

27. Does tobacco help a boy to be a good scholar?

28. How does it affect his manners?

[Illustration: _Bones of the human body._]

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT IS ALCOHOL?

[Illustration: R]IPE grapes are full of juice.

This juice is mostly water, sweetened with a sugar of its own. It is
flavored with something which makes us know, the moment we taste it,
that it is grape-juice, and not cherry-juice or plum-juice.

Apples also contain water, sugar, and apple flavor; and cherries contain
water, sugar, and cherry flavor. The same is true of other fruits. They
all, when ripe, have the water and the sugar; and each has a flavor of
its own.

Ripe grapes are sometimes gathered and put into great tubs called vats.
In these the juice is squeezed out.

In some countries, this squeezing is done by bare-footed men who jump
into the vats and press the grapes with their feet.

The grape-juice is then drawn off from the skins and seeds and left
standing in a warm place.

Bubbles soon begin to rise and cover the top of it with froth. The juice
is all in motion.

[Illustration: _Picking grapes and making wine._]

If the cook had wished to use this grape-juice to make jelly, she would
say: "Now, I can not make my grape-jelly, for the grape-juice is
spoiled."

WHAT IS THIS CHANGE IN THE GRAPE-JUICE?

The sugar in the grape-juice is changing into something else. It is
turning into alcohol and a gas[A] that moves about in little bubbles in
the liquid, and rising to the top, goes off into the air. The alcohol is
a thin liquid which, mixed with the water, remains in the grape-juice.

The sugar is gone; alcohol and the bubbles of gas are left in its place.

This alcohol is a liquid poison. A little of it will harm any one who
drinks it; much of it would kill the drinker.

Ripe grapes are good food; but grape-juice, when its sugar has turned to
alcohol, is not a safe drink for any one. It is poisoned by the alcohol.

WINE.

This changed grape-juice is called wine. It is partly water, partly
alcohol, and it still has the grape flavor in it.

Wine is also made from currants, elderberries, and other fruits, in very
much the same way as from grapes.

People sometimes make it at home from the fruits that grow in their own
gardens, and think there is no alcohol in it, because they do not put
any in.

But you know that the alcohol is made in t