MOTHER: Yes; just as soon as strong drink is swallowed, every part of the body tries to get rid of it. The alcohol in such drinks makes the thin walls of the lungs hard, so they can not make the blood clean, and they try to throw out the poison. Sometimes it causes that dreadful disease, consumption, which can not be cured. HELEN: Don’t a great many people die of consumption? MOTHER: Yes; it kills more people than any other disease; so every one should take good care of their lungs, and give them plenty of room to grow. They should also breathe pure, fresh air at all times. ELMER: But you can’t squeeze the lungs. We must have room to breathe. MOTHER: But we can squeeze the stomach and liver so that the lungs do not have room, and by stooping over when sitting or walking, we get round shoulders and narrow chests, and this causes the lungs to become small and diseased. AMY: I once read how some people on a ship suffered for fresh air. MOTHER: Please tell us about it. AMY: One night when there was a storm the captain told the sailors to send the people down into a large room below deck so they would not be in the way. After they had gone, the doors were fastened, so they could not get out. When the storm was over, the sailors took a candle and opened the door, but when they went in, the candle went out. At last enough fresh air got in so the candle would burn. They found the poor people lying on the floor, and quite a number of them were dead. MOTHER: I suppose they had no air to breathe only that which had been used over and over again, and as that was not fresh, it poisoned them so they died. We should learn from this sad story to keep the lungs well filled with good air; for the blood can not be well cleansed if it is impure. HOW THE HOUSE IS HEATED MOTHER: If you touch a stone, Amy, how does it feel? AMY: It is cold. MOTHER: Yes, wood, iron, glass, and all the things around us which do not have life, are cold. If you touch your head, how does it feel? PERCY: It is warm. MOTHER: We sometimes see a little glass tube called a thermometer, with figures telling us how warm or how cold the air is. Here is a smaller one that you may hold in your mouth under your tongue, Elmer, and we will see if it will tell us how warm the house you live in is inside. That will do. The glass says it is about ninety-eight degrees. How many degrees will the larger glass record on a hot summer day? ELMER: It is very warm when it is over eighty or ninety in the shade. MOTHER: Yet you see that inside the body-house it is nearly one hundred degrees, yet you do not feel too warm. Are all animals warm? HELEN: If they are alive, they are. If their bodies are cold, we say they are dead.