ELMER: Then we shall not always need to have a cook when we go out camping, but we can do our own cooking and care for ourselves. MOTHER: There is still one other thing that I wish you never to forget, and that is that many men become drunkards because they do not have the right kind of food. It may be it is made so hot with pepper, mustard, and spices that it creates thirst, or it may be but half cooked, so they feel poorly fed. Such men are much more apt to go to the bar-room than the man who sits at a neatly-spread table furnished with plain, healthful food. PERCY: But isn’t alcohol a kind of food, mother? I have seen drinking men who looked so fat and strong it seems as if it must build up the body. MOTHER: No, my son, it is a great mistake to think there is any food in alcohol or in any drink that contains it. A noted doctor in England says this about it: “There is more nourishment in the flour that can be put on the point of a table knife than in eight quarts of the best beer.” ELMER: But why do people who drink beer look so fat, then? MOTHER: It is true many who drink it increase in flesh, and so they think the beer makes them large and strong. Fat men are not always strong men. The alcohol in the beer changes the muscles of the body into fat. It pushes the skin out and makes the face look round and plump. AMY: And red, too. MOTHER: Yes; and all the time the man is growing weaker instead of stronger. His liver changes into a mass of fat, and it crowds other rooms of the body-house so they can not properly carry on their work. The fleshy body of the beer-drinker is a diseased body, and you will find that it does not have firm muscles, a strong heart, or a healthy liver. [Illustration: “_People who drink beer look fat._”] PERCY: But you have not told us what we _should_ drink, mother. Mother: Water, pure water, is the best drink for every one. Sometimes people become very ill from drinking bad water, so care should be taken to have it clean and pure. Bad water may be made harmless by boiling it, and this should always be done if it is not known that it is harmless. It may _look_ all right, and yet cause sickness and death. The well should never be near a pig-sty, barn-yard, or other filthy place. The seeds of sickness, which the doctors call “germs,” may travel through the ground a long distance and so get into the water in the well. This is more likely to be the case if the ground is sandy or slopes toward the well. ELMER: Wouldn’t it be better to drink tea or coffee than bad water?