Elmer: Why, the egg looks as though it were cooked! It is getting hard.
Mother: Yes, and if I should put a little piece of lean meat in alcohol, it also would become hard. Now the reason that the egg or a piece of meat becomes hard is because alcohol has such a liking for water that it draws the water out, leaving the egg or meat hard and dry. Alcohol does the very same thing in our bodies; that is, it takes up the moisture in the nerves, muscles, and other parts; and I think that must be why it creates such a terrible thirst, which can not be satisfied. The poor man who drinks, thinks that he wants more alcohol, when it is really for water, water, that every part of his body is calling. I think you already see that alcohol is so different from water, the drink that God made for man, that it was never intended that we should drink it.
Percy: But how is alcohol made?
Mother: Alcohol comes from death. Something must decay and die to produce it. We do not find it in wheat or any other grain. Peaches, plums, pears, apples, and grapes say, “It is not in me,” yet it can be made from all of them. Do you remember when I was canning fruit how I put it boiling hot into glass jars, and put the cover on as quickly as I could, to keep the air out?
Helen: But why did you do that?
“Ferments.”
Mother: Because there are little germs, or “ferments,” in the air, and if they should get into the fruit, it would decay, ferment. I once had a jar of fruit spoil, and before I noticed it, it had turned to wine. In wine and cider the ferments are not shut out, and they make it “work,” ferment, or turn to alcohol.
Amy: Is beer made in the same way?
Mother: Very much the same. When a brewer makes beer, he takes some corn, wheat, rye, or barley, puts it in a dark place, and wets it. Soon it begins to sprout, or grow. The grain is dead. He dries it in an oven to stop its growing, and the grain is then called malt. After this he mashes the malt, soaks it in water, and drains off the liquid, boils it, and puts in some yeast, which you know is made of millions of little ferments. They are like seed; and millions more grow from them. A dirty scum rises to the top, and alcohol has come to stay in the liquid. It is the alcohol that makes it taste good to those who like beer.