Chapter 22

THE DO GOOD SOCIETY.

Meanwhile the girls at Miss Eunice's tea-party had been busily discussing the funeral and its sad cause.

"What an awful thing intemperance is!" said one of the elder girls. "Even women sometimes drink to excess; and how many others suffer from its effects in their husbands and fathers. I wish we girls could do something to put it down."

"You can," said Etta. "If every girl in the land were to set her foot down against having anything to do with young men who drink, there would soon be a change. I am resolved," she said, in her old impetuous way, "never to associate with any young man, no matter how good or elegant he may be, who even tastes wine occasionally."

"That is a rash resolve, Etta," said her sister, "and one that I fear you will find it hard to carry out. Yet, what you say is right, in the main. Girls do not enough realize the great responsibility of their influence over young men."

"No," said Agnes Burchard, with a sigh. And several remembered how much she had been seen with poor Harry and what jokes had been made about their intimacy. "I always knew that Harry Pemberton drank occasionally; but I thought it manly, and like--like Mr. James."

No one answered this rather unfortunate remark; but presently Katie Robertson said:--

"Don't you think, Miss Etta, people ought to begin with the boys--before they have learned to drink, I mean."

"A good suggestion, Katie, since an ounce of prevention is said to be better than a pound of cure. How would you set about doing it?"

But Katie, having thus drawn all eyes upon herself, blushed, and did not feel like speaking. So Miss Eunice came to her rescue:--

"We might organize some kind of a society, of which the boys and younger girls could be members. It would be some trouble to keep it up, but it would be directly in the line of that service to which you pledged yourselves, girls, that bright first Sunday in September."

"Delightful!" said Etta, to whom every new thing always seemed so. "A boys' and girls' temperance society, with a pledge that they shall never in their lives taste anything that can intoxicate. Then they will grow up temperance boys and girls from the start."

"There are two objections to pledging children--that is, very young ones," said Eunice. "The first is, from the unwillingness often felt by their parents; and the other, that many of them do not fully understand what they are about, and as they grow older often break their pledge, on the ground that they are not bound by a promise made when they were too young to understand it."

"Well, some of them keep it, and that's so much gained."

"Yes; for them. But to break solemnly made vows is always an injury to one's character. Besides, if we make a total-abstinence pledge the condition of joining our society, we shall not get the Irish boys, who most need our work. Their parents will not let them come. Why not word our pledge in such a way as to secure everybody's influence on the side of temperance, without making it a personal thing? It will be sure to react upon the individual."

"I think there are some things that boys do besides drinking that are just as bad--smoking and swearing, for instance," said one of the girls.

"And I think it's just as bad for girls to be hateful and unkind," said Bertie, to the surprise of some who knew her, but did not know what a brave fight she was making to overcome her long-indulged faults.

"Let's make it a pledge to be kind and thoughtful," said one of the girls.

"Not to be vain," said another.

"And let's all belong," said a third. "So the boys won't think we're just preaching to them."

So the result of all the talk was that a meeting for all the children in the place was held the first bright Saturday afternoon, Etta presiding, assisted by such of her girls as had finished their day's work at the