"I set the table."

"I took care of the baby."

"I picked up apples."

"I made the fire," etc. etc.

* * * * *

"These are all very little things," said the president, as she detected
a smile upon the faces of some of the older girls and boys "But if they
are done really for the sake of 'doing good,' and pleasing God, they are
just as great to him as the 'cup of cold water,' which he says 'shall
not lose its reward.'"

"Here are some questions which were asked me last week after the
meeting," said Etta, as she finished reading the papers. "I wonder if
the girls to whom I gave them have found answers."

1. "Why is it wrong to drink beer?"

Several hands were raised and several answers given; such as:--

"Because it makes people drunk."

"Because it killed Harry."

Eric Robertson produced the following slip, which he had cut from a
paper, and read it aloud:--

"Beer is regarded by many in this country as a healthy beverage. Let me
give you a few of the ingredients frequently used in its manufacture.
The adulterations most commonly used to give bitterness are gentian,
wormwood, and quassia; to impart pungency, ginger, orange-peel, and
caraway. If these were all, there would be small need of warning the
young against the use of beer on account of its injurious ingredients,
but when there are added, to preserve the frothy head, alum and blue
vitriol; to intoxicate, cocculus indicus, nux vomica, and tobacco; and
to promote thirst, salt,--then indeed does it become necessary to
instruct and warn the innocent against the use of this poisonous
beverage."

2. "Are cigarettes good for boys?"

No one answered, and Etta said:--

"Boys think it manly to smoke, but it isn't. It's very dirty and very
unhealthy. I heard of a little boy only twelve years old, who died very
suddenly, and when the doctors examined him after his death they found
the coats of his stomach all eaten up with tobacco, and yet he had only
smoked cigarettes. Cigarettes are made of a little tobacco, a great deal
of cabbage-leaves, old leather, and dirty paper, with snuff and ginger
and _strychnine_, a deadly poison, to flavor them. The oil of
tobacco itself is rank poison. Two or three drops of it put on the
tongue of a dog or a cat will kill it in a few minutes. Besides, the
smell of tobacco lingering in a boy's clothes or breath is very foul and
disgusting. And worse than all, the effect of smoking is t