Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and spelling and punctuation remain unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.

All Chapter headings are within illustrations in the original. This has
been ignored.

In The vegetarian song, (page 93) each verse is accompanied with a
small relevant illustration. These have been ignored.

Standalone illustrations have either been accompanied by their caption
(if any) in _italics_, or a brief description by the transcriber (in
plain text).

                         THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

[Illustration: Mother sitting with children.]

                         THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

                                  OR

                        The Making of the Body

             _A Book for Home Reading, intended to Assist
                  Mothers in Teaching their Children
                     How to Care for their Bodies,
                         and the Evil Effects
                           of Narcotics and
                             Stimulants._

                         _VESTA J. FARNSWORTH_

     “For we know that if our _earthly house_ ... were dissolved,
       we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,
                  eternal in the heavens.” 2 Cor. 5:1

       “What? know ye not that your body is _the temple_ of the
       Holy Ghost which is in you, ... and ye are not your own?”
                              1 Cor. 6:19

                   Pacific Press Publishing Company

                          OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
             SAN FRANCISCO      KANSAS CITY      NEW YORK

       Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1900, by
                   PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY
       In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington

             Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England

                                  To

                     MY DEAR FRIENDS THE CHILDREN

                                  and

                      To All Who See the Creator
                         in His Creative Work

                               CONTENTS

                                                                    PAGE

  HOUSES AND TEMPLES                                                  11

  THE OUTSIDE OF THE BODY                                             17

  SUBSTANCES IN THE BODY                                              23

  OUR FRAME                                                           27

  PROPER CARE OF THE BONES                                            35

  THE WALLS OF OUR HOUSE                                              40

  WEATHERBOARDS AND ROOFING                                           49

  THE CUPOLA                                                          57

  OUR TELEPHONE SYSTEM                                                63

  THE HALL OR PASSAGE                                                 71

  OUR KITCHEN                                                         77

  THE EATING ROOM                                                     84

  FOOD AND FUEL                                                       89

  A PUMPING ENGINE                                                   109

  THE CARETAKER                                                      118

  THE BATH ROOM                                                      129

  HOW THE HOUSE IS HEATED                                            138

  THE MUSIC ROOM                                                     147

  THE HEARING PASSAGE                                                151

  SOME WONDERFUL WINDOWS                                             157

  A GOOD SERVANT                                                     165

  A FAITHFUL WATCHMAN                                                173

  A GENTLE NURSE                                                     178

  A WICKED THIEF                                                     183

  A CRUEL MURDERER                                                   195

  CHARACTER OF THE MASTER                                            207

                         THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

                          HOUSES AND TEMPLES

HELEN: See this picture, mother. How pretty the house looks, with its
wide windows and porches!

MOTHER: Yes, it is a fine picture, and such a house would make a lovely
home. Men build better dwellings now than they did many years ago.

PERCY: Do people build the same kind of houses in all countries?

MOTHER: Oh, no! If we should visit the Indians, we would find them
living in rude tents called wigwams, or _teepees_, made of mats and the
bark of trees. In some countries people live in tents. Where it is very
warm they build so they may keep cool. In cold climates they make their
houses warm. Can you tell me some things which are used in building
houses?

ELMER: Stone, brick, iron, wood, paper, earth, and straw. The Esquimau
lives in a house made of large blocks of snow and ice.

MOTHER: You would not think such a house very warm, but it is the best
he can make. Perhaps you have noticed that some houses are large and
some are small. Some have many rooms, others but few. They are made
in many shapes and colors, and in some countries there are hardly two
which look alike.

[Illustration: A temple]

AMY: Here is another picture. What kind of a house is this, mother?

MOTHER: That is called a temple. It is built for the purpose of worship.

HELEN: Is a meeting-house a temple?

MOTHER: It might be called by that name, for it is the house of God,
where His people worship Him. But as we were looking at these pictures
I have been thinking of another kind of house in which we all live,
which is more wonderful than any building ever made by men. There are a
great number of these houses. All are made of the same things, all have
the same kind of frame, all have the same number of rooms, and, though
there are thousands of them in every country, they are all lighted,
heated, finished, and furnished the same way.

PERCY: Oh, I know what you mean! You are thinking of our bodies.

MOTHER: Yes; and if you study this house God made for you to live in,
you will be ready to say, with King David, “I will praise Thee; for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works; and that
my soul knoweth right well.” The more men study this body of ours, the
more they find to make them wonder at the wisdom of its Maker. If a man
invents a useful machine, such as a watch or an engine, he is praised
and called a great man. But how few ever praise and thank the Lord for
the body He has given them, and try to learn the best way to care for
it!

HELEN: I should like to know how to care for mine, but I never thought
of my body as a house before.

MOTHER: We may call it a house, because the Bible calls it so; and,
more than that, it says it is a temple. Listen to this verse: “What?
know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

AMY: Then this house or temple of the body does not belong to us,
mother, for it says, “Ye are not your own.”

PERCY: I see how it is. You know people sometimes build houses to rent,
and the One who made the house we live in gives it to us for a home as
long as we live, and He wants us to take good care of it.

MOTHER: That is right. The house is loaned or “rented” to us, as Percy
says, for us to live in and care for. God cares for it too, and if it
wasn’t for that it would have been destroyed long ago. Before any of us
were old enough to know we had such a gift as our bodies, kind friends
cared for them for us, and every moment our heavenly Father watches
over us, for “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” When we go
to sleep He still keeps the heart engine pumping, and the parts which
become worn out during the day are nicely mended without our thought or
care.

ELMER: I want the house I live in to be like that pretty temple we saw
in the picture.

MOTHER: Then my boy must be very careful to keep it clean, not only
outside but inside as well. You know we sometimes see houses painted
nicely outside, and we think what good homes they would make; but when
once inside we find the rooms so dirty we want to get away. So boys and
girls may be nicely dressed and look well outside, but if they do not
eat good food and have good habits, their body-house is not fit to live
in.

PERCY: Adam and Eve must have had fine, large houses.

HELEN: And they lasted a long time, too. Adam lived in his for over
nine hundred years.

MOTHER: It is said that men keep building better houses all the time,
but the first body-house God made was the best ever seen in this world.

AMY: But why are they not made good and lasting now, mother?

MOTHER: One reason is because we do not use them well. Many persons
would do better in caring for themselves if they knew better how to do
it. If I gave you a costly watch, Percy, what is the first thing you
would want to know about it?

PERCY: How to take care of it.

MOTHER: Yes, you would find out how and when to wind it, and just how
to use it so it would keep good time. We should be even more careful to
learn all we can about our bodies. We should learn for what each part
was made, and how to keep it in good order. Men have taken bodies like
ours apart, just as a watchmaker takes out all the wheels of a watch,
and they have found out many things about them in this way. We should
learn all we can about how to keep well and strong. If we are ill we
make much trouble for others, and must suffer ourselves. If we are well
we shall be a help and blessing to all around us. Not long ago I read
this prayer of a little girl for her body:—

“Dear God, bless my two little eyes, and make them twinkle happy. Bless
my two ears, and help me to hear mother call me. Bless my two lips,
and make them speak kind and true. Bless my two hands, and make them
good and not touch what they mustn’t. Bless my two feet, and make them
go where they ought to. Bless my heart, and make it love God and my
father and mother and everybody. Please let ugly sin never get hold of
me--never, never!”

    “The Lord my body did prepare
      My dwelling-place to be,
    And still it is a temple where
      He daily meets with me.

    “My head, my hands, my heart are His;
      He knows my being well;
    And all its many mysteries
      My Lord alone can tell.

    “To walk in ways of wickedness
      My feet can not afford;
    For all the powers I possess
      Are holy to the Lord.

    “I’ll pray to Him from day to day
      To lead my steps aright,
    That I along His heavenly way
      May be a shining light.

    “And He will keep my temple free
      From every touch of sin;
    He truly saves and cleanses me,
      That He may dwell within.

    “My eyes must see the good and true;
      My ears must hear His voice;
    My hands be ever glad to do
      My heavenly Father’s choice.”

    —_C. M. Snow._

                        THE OUTSIDE OF THE BODY

MOTHER Let us look at the outside of our house before we try to see
how it is made and furnished inside. I think you know now that when I
am talking about a house or temple I mean the body. In some ways our
bodies are like trees as well as houses. Look at this picture and tell
me what you see.

PERCY: A tree with a straight stem or trunk. It also has branches,
called limbs, and is covered with bark.

AMY: And it has roots, which hold it fast in the ground.

MOTHER: Yes, trees are made to stand in one place while they live, and
so they have roots. We have limbs like the tree, but our lower limbs
are used to carry us from place to place, for we were not made to stand
still. Can you think of another way in which we are like the tree?

HELEN: Oh, I know! The middle part of the body is called the trunk.

MOTHER: Can you think of any other kind of trunk than the trunk of a
tree or the trunk of the body?

AMY: A trunk in which to put clothes.

[Illustration: A trunk]

MOTHER: Yes, such trunks are useful to carry clothes. The upper part
of the trunk of the body, or the part between the arms, is called “the
chest.” Sometime we will try to learn what is packed away so nicely in
the chest, or trunk, of the body, but we will only look outside now.
What is on top of the trunk?

HELEN: A strong, shell-shaped box made of bones, called the head.

MOTHER: This is what we might call the jewel-case, or the best part of
all, for without it all parts of the body would be useless. Here we
find the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; and the head is fastened to the
trunk of the body by the neck. How many limbs have we?

PERCY: We have two arms and two legs, and these are called our limbs.

MOTHER: Now I think you can name the main parts of the body. What are
they?

HELEN: The head, trunk, and limbs.

MOTHER: You said the tree was covered with bark. Look at your hand.
With what is it covered?

AMY: With skin.

MOTHER: Yes; we will talk more about this soft covering of the body
at another time. We found these body-houses of ours are made to walk,
work, run, jump, and do many other things. How are our limbs different
from those of a tree?

PERCY: They have joints so they can move many ways.

MOTHER: You may all put your arms out straight. Now raise them above
your head and then touch your head without bending them.

HELEN: We can’t do it, mother.

MOTHER: Let us see, then, how many joints, or bending-places, we have.
We will call them the hinges of our house, for they help us to use our
limbs, just as the hinges of a door help us to open or close the door.
Please bend your arm and tell me how many parts it has.

PERCY: My arm has two parts.

MOTHER: What do you think would be a good name for the part near your
shoulder?

AMY: The top arm, or upper arm.

MOTHER: I think upper arm is best. Now if that part is the _upper_ arm,
what would you call the other part?

ELMER: The lower arm.

MOTHER: It is also called the forearm. Now move your elbow joint
backward and forward, and tell me what kind of joint it is.

HELEN: It is like a door hinge, for I can move it only two ways.

MOTHER: Yes, the elbow joint unites the upper and lower arm, and it can
swing only one way. What shall we call the joint that joins the upper
arm to the shoulder?

[Illustration: The shoulder joint]

PERCY: The shoulder joint.

MOTHER: Is this joint like the one in your elbow?

HELEN: No, for I can swing my arm backward or forward or any way I like.

MOTHER: That is because it has a different joint than your elbow. It
is called a “ball-and-socket” joint; that is, one end of the bone is
shaped like a ball, and this fits into a hole shaped like a cup in
another bone, like the one you see in the picture. This shows the hip
joint, which is also a ball-and-socket joint, the same as we found in
the shoulder. Now what is the joint called at the lower end of the
forearm?

AMY: It is called the wrist.

MOTHER: The wrist is a joint that moves very easily in many different
ways. Now how many joints, or bending-places, have we found in the arm?

PERCY: The arm has three joints.

MOTHER: Elmer, you may take this ball. With what do you hold it?

ELMER: With my hand.

MOTHER: Tell me some ways in which we use our hands.

HELEN: We hold, push, pull, lift, catch, and feel with our hands.

MOTHER: The inside is called the palm of the hand. What do you find at
the ends of your hands?

AMY: Fingers.

MOTHER: Look at your fingers. Are they all alike?

PERCY: One is much shorter than the others; all are different in
length, and one is very small.

MOTHER: What do you call your short finger?

ELMER: My thumb.

[Illustration: Dog with basket]

MOTHER: You would find it hard to button your clothes and do many other
things if you had no thumbs. A dog has no fingers, and if he wishes to
hold or carry anything, he does it with his teeth. The first finger is
called the forefinger, or index finger, because it comes first, and we
use it to point with. The second is the middle finger; then we have the
third finger; and the fourth is called the little finger, because it is
the wee, tiny one of all. Open and shut your hands quickly. What do you
call the parts of your fingers where you bend them?

HELEN: Finger joints and knuckles.

MOTHER: You see there are many joints in the hands, so we can move them
easily and quickly. What do you find on the ends of your fingers?

AMY: Finger-nails.

MOTHER: These hard, horny nails protect the ends of the fingers, and
give them strength. Our hands were given us to help ourselves and
others, and we should keep them neat and clean. They were not made to
strike or steal.

AMY: I read this verse about our hands not long ago:—

    “Hands were made to be useful,
      If you teach them the way;
    Therefore for yourself or neighbor
      Make them useful every day.”

PERCY: You haven’t told us about the lower limbs yet, mother.

MOTHER: No; and any boy or girl who enjoys running and jumping would
think theirs a hard lot if they had no legs.

ELMER: I saw a boy with only one not long ago.

MOTHER: It is a great loss when a person loses an arm or a leg. Such
people are called cripples. How many parts has each leg?

AMY: Each one has two parts.

MOTHER: And how many joints has the leg?

HELEN: Three joints.

MOTHER: That is right. The one at the hip, as I have said, is a
ball-and-socket joint; the one at the knee is a hinge joint, and the
ankle is quite like the wrist. Then we have the foot, with a number of
small joints, like the hand.

PERCY: But we have toes on our feet instead of fingers; still there is
the same number.

MOTHER: Yes, and some people can use their toes to draw pictures,
write, and do many other things. Now we have found what our body-house
is like on the outside, and we see how well each part is made for the
work given it to do.

                        SUBSTANCES IN THE BODY

MOTHER: Percy, do you remember what men use in building houses?

PERCY: They use stone, wood, brick, iron, glass, lime, and paper.

HELEN: And some houses are made of earth and straw.

MOTHER: Yes, and some of these things are found in the body-house.

AMY: Why, mother, we are not made of wood, stone, glass, or lime!

MOTHER: That is true; yet some of these very things are in your body.
Those who have studied the blood tell us it is iron, partly, that
gives it its rich red color. You saw what a pretty red it is when you
cut your finger to-day, Helen. Some of the things of which glass is
made are in our hair and finger-nails, and our bones would soon become
useless if we did not give them plenty of lime.

PERCY: But how do the iron and lime get inside of us? That is what I
would like to know.

MOTHER: It does seem strange, but the houses we live in are made of
what we eat. I once knew a young lady who thought she needed more iron
in her blood, so she put some nails in water and let them stay till
it was full of iron rust, and then she drank it. Perhaps if she had
thought her bones needed lime, she would have taken lime water; but
this is not the proper way to get iron and lime “inside of us,” as
Percy says. We can not eat iron and lime, but grains and fruits can,
and we eat the grains and fruits. Iron is found in apples, tomatoes,
and strawberries. We get lime in wheat, peas, beans, and other foods.
Have you noticed how the men are building that brick house across the
street?

AMY: They put one brick on top of another, till thousands of them are
used in making one house.

[Illustration: Bricklayer at work]

MOTHER: Well, that is the way the house we live in is built, only
instead of bricks it is made up of what are called “cells.” These cells
are little bags filled with something that looks like jelly. They are
so very small we can not see them at all unless we look through a glass
which makes them seem much larger than they really are. Some of these
powerful glasses make a speck of dust look as big as a large rock.

ELMER: I wish we could see some cells.

MOTHER: Here is a picture of some kinds. You see they are not all
alike. Some are round, others are flat, or narrow, or long, or short;
so you see they are of all shapes and sizes. Some are so very tiny
it would take three or four thousand to make a row an inch in length.
Others are large enough so we can almost see them without a glass. Some
have no color at all; others are light colored, and some are quite
black. There are millions of cells in one drop of blood. Your skin
seems like one piece, yet it, too, is made of layers of cells. If we
should look through a strong glass at a tiny piece of potato, wheat,
and some oatmeal, we would find they are all made of cells.

PERCY: And do the cells last as long as we live, mother?

[Illustration: _CELLS_]

MOTHER: No, they keep changing all the time. When we walk, run, talk,
think, or do anything, some of these cells die, and others take their
places. The new ones are just like the old; for if they were not, our
appearance would so change that our best friends would not know us.
While boys and girls are growing, they are putting many new cells into
the house they live in. This is the reason auntie said the other day
that she hardly knew you when she had not seen you for a year.

AMY: What are the cells made of, mother?

MOTHER: They are made of the food we eat. This shows we should
be careful to put the very best things we can get into our
body-building--I mean such as the body can use, for what we _like_
best is not always what is needed to build up and strengthen us. When
you get hungry, that is the call of the body for food to make more
cells, just as the mason calls, “More mortar,” or, “More brick,” so he
can build his wall higher and stronger. If his mortar has but little
lime, or is badly mixed, or he has only broken, badly-shaped brick,
the wall will not be strong or beautiful. So if we give the body wrong
kinds of food, it can not build such a house as you and I wish to live
in.

HELEN: If moving about kills the cells, will they live longer if we
keep still?

MOTHER: No, they are made to live just so long, and will die anyway. If
we should not work or play, the dead cells would stay in the body, and
make no end of mischief; but when we move about, it helps to carry them
away, and new ones take their places. So you need not be afraid to run
and jump, play and work; for the cells will take care to keep the house
you live in all right, if you only give them the right kind of food,
and not too much of it.

                               OUR FRAME

MOTHER: Every building must have a foundation and a frame of some kind
to make it strong and give it shape. It is the same with the house we
call our body. The frames of houses which men build are made of wood
or iron; but the framework of the body is built of bones. Perhaps you
have noticed that in the frames of buildings some pieces of timber are
short, and some are long, and they are cut into many different shapes
and sizes. So it is with the bones of the body. How many do you think
it takes to make our frame?

[Illustration: Skeleton]

HELEN: About fifty.

PERCY: I guess one hundred.

MOTHER: Not quite right, for there are over two hundred. All the bones
together are called the skeleton. The frame of a house divides it into
rooms, and on it are fastened the boards, laths, and shingles. In the
house in which we live the flesh is fastened to the bones, and the
whole is covered with skin. This framework also protects the curious
rooms inside the trunk of the body. The largest bone in our frame is
the leg bone, which reaches from the hip to the knee. It is called the
_femur_, or thigh bone.

ELMER: Are the bones solid, mother?

MOTHER: No; I have brought some pictures to show you how they look,
for we can not see our own bones. One of them shows a bone that is
sawed through lengthwise. You see the larger part at the end is full of
little holes, like a sponge. This makes it light and strong. There is a
hollow place in long bones filled with marrow. It also fills the spongy
parts. Marrow is made of fat and cells.

[Illustration: _The thigh bone._]

You must not think that live bones look like one which has been lying
out-of-doors a long time. Live bones are full of blood and have a
pinkish color. They also have an outside skin, which can be peeled off,
as you see in this picture.

[Illustration: _A bone with the outside skin partly peeled off._]

AMY: What are the bones made of?

[Illustration: _End of a bone sawed open._]

MOTHER: Of animal and earthy matter. You can take the animal matter out
of a bone by burning it in the fire. It will then be white and brittle.
If you soak a bone in a kind of acid, the earthy matter will come out,
and it will then be so soft you can tie it in a knot like this. When
children are very young, their bones are soft and easily bent. This is
because there is more animal than earthy matter. Children sometimes
get hard falls, and their bones bend but do not break. Some, when very
young, have legs that are bent like a bow. This is caused by standing
and walking before the bones are strong enough to bear the weight of
the body, or by disease.

[Illustration: _A bone tied in a knot, after the earthy matter has been
removed by an acid._]

In very old people the bones contain more earthy matter, and they break
easily. Grand´fa-ther and grand´moth-er must be careful not to fall,
for if they break a bone it will take a long time to heal.

When we take a baby, we should not lift him by his arms, and we must
hold him so his bones will not grow out of shape. As he grows older,
enough earthy matter will go into his bones to make them hard and
strong.

PERCY: But you said there was lime in the bones, mother.

MOTHER: Yes, the earthy matter is partly lime. The blood goes into the
bones through tiny blood-vessels, and at all times of day and night the
bones keep eating their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers of lime, which
they find in the blood.

[Illustration: “_We should not lift him by his arms._”]

HELEN: What kind of food is best for the bones?

MOTHER: Good whole-wheat bread will furnish them all they need. Peas
and beans are also good.

We will now look at the largest bones of our body frame, and see if we
can learn something of their size and shape. We will not try to learn
their hard names now, but will leave that till we are older.

We will begin with the bones of the head. They form what is called the
skull. It is made of a number of bones, joined like two saws with the
teeth hooked together. The “chin bone,” or jaw bone, is one of the
bones of the head.

[Illustration: _Back-bone._]

[Illustration: _Skull._]

Let me show you a picture of one of the most wonderful bones of the
body. It is called the _spine_, or spinal column. Perhaps you can
feel some little knobs or ridges in your back. The back-bone is made
of twenty-four little bones piled one on top of another. Suppose you
had twenty-four spools or reels of cotton, and you should run a string
through them. When you hold them upright, you see you can bend them any
way you wish, or keep them straight. Now if each spool had three wings
like the one in the picture, they would be shaped very much like the
bones that form the spine. The string is like the marrow, or “spinal
cord,” which passes through the spinal column from top to bottom. The
bones which make up the lower part of the spine are much larger than
those at the top. Little soft cushions are placed between all these
bones, something like India-rubber. These cushions are to keep the
body and brain from being jarred, just as the springs in our carriage
help you to ride easily. They also help us to bend the body backward
or forward as we choose. You see if the spine was one long straight
bone we could not bend at all. If we keep bending over while walking or
working, after a time the cushions will get used to that position and
we shall have a bad figure.

[Illustration: _Reels of cotton._]

ELMER: The boy with his hands in his pockets does not have a good
figure.

[Illustration: Stooped boy]

[Illustration: Upright man]

MOTHER: No; and if he were to go into the army, the first thing he
would have to learn would be to “straighten up,” and give his spinal
column a chance to grow the right way.

Now we will look at the ribs. They are fastened to the spinal column
at the back, and all but four are fastened to the breast-bone in front.
There are twelve ribs on each side. There are two bones on the upper
part of the back, which seem to dance every time you move your arm.
These are the “shoulder blades.” They are thin, flat bones, which help
make the shoulder joint. You can feel two bones near your neck in
front, which are called “collar bones.” They are shaped much like the
letter _f_, and serve to preserve the shape of the shoulders.

[Illustration: _Ribs._]

AMY: How many bones do we have in our arms, mother?

[Illustration: _Bones of the arm._]

MOTHER: There are three in each arm,--one from the shoulder to the
elbow, and two from the elbow to the wrist. There are a large number of
bones in the wrist and hand.

[Illustration: _The pelvis._]

The middle part of the body below the spinal column is called the
pelvis. In this picture we see two curious bones. These are the hip
bones. They are like the sills of a house, which, you know, are large
and strong. There is a deep hole in each one as large as a toy teacup,
which holds the round head of the leg bone. There are three bones in
each leg, the same as in the arm, one from the hip to the knee, and two
from the knee to the ankle, besides a funny little bone or cap which
covers the knee. Then we come to the ankle bones and bones of the feet.

HELEN: How do the bones stay in their proper places, mother? I should
think they would fall apart.

MOTHER: They would if they were not tied together.

ELMER: But what are they tied with?

[Illustration: _Bones of the leg and foot._]

MOTHER: With strong white bands or cords called lig´a-ments. Perhaps
you have seen them on the leg of a chicken. When a joint is “sprained,”
that means the lig´a-ments are stretched or hurt in some way.

AMY: I should think the bones would get dry so they would squeak and
rub hard against one another.

[Illustration: _Wrist bones tied together._]

MOTHER: So they would if the Maker of the body-house had not put soft
cushions of gristle or car´ti-lage between them. A soft, thin skin
covers them, which pours “joint water” over the ends, and keeps them
oiled just right, so they bend easily, and never squeak at all. You
have seen the driver of an engine oiling it so it would run easily and
not wear out; but think of a machine which will mend and oil itself
for seventy years without wearing out! We have a most wonderful frame.
The Bible says, “Thou hast fenced me with bones and sinews,” and, “He
knoweth our frame.” Sometimes if we are ill a long time “the bones that
were not seen stick out;” but when we are well, flesh covers them over
so we hardly know we have any bones at all.

I once read a poem which I will repeat for you. It may help you to
remember how many bones we have and where they are:—

    “How many bones in the human head?
    Eight, my child, as I’ve often said.
    How many bones in the human spine?
    Twenty-six, like a climbing vine.
    How many bones in the human chest?
    Twenty-four ribs, and four of the rest.
    How many bones in the human arm?
    In each one, two in each forearm.
    How many bones in the human wrist?
    Eight in each if none are missed.
    How many bones in the fingers ten?
    Twenty-eight, and by joints they bend.
    How many bones in the human hip?
    One in each; like a dish they dip.
    How many bones in the human knees?
    One in each, the knee-pan, please.
    How many bones in the ankles strong?
    Seven in each, but none are long.
    How many bones in the toes, half a score?
    Twenty-eight, and there are no more.
    And now altogether these many bones fix,
    And they count in the body two hundred and six.
    And now and then a bone I should think
    That forms on a joint, or to fill up a chink,
    A ses´a-moid bone, or a wormian, we call,
    And now we may rest, for we’ve told them all.”

                       PROPER CARE OF THE BONES

HELEN: What’s the matter with this house, mother? It seems to be all
out of shape.

MOTHER: Perhaps it is very old and the frame has decayed so it leans
far over to one side. It is unsafe to live in such houses, for they may
tumble down if a strong wind comes along. I have seen some body-houses
which look very much like this to me. Here is one of them. See how this
boy’s shoulders are bent forward, and his whole body is wrong. If some
disease, as consumption, should come along, like a strong wind, I fear
his house would go down. Some one should say to him, “Straighten up,
young man; throw your shoulders back, and you will look more manly and
will live much longer.”

[Illustration: “_See how this boy’s shoulders are bent forward._”]

PERCY: I have seen some boys at school bending over their desk when
studying and writing. Is that good for the bones?

MOTHER: No; boys and girls should sit straight, stand straight, and
walk straight. If they do not, after a time the cushions between the
bones in the spine will grow thicker on one side than on the other,
and the back-bone will become crooked. You know soldiers stand erect
and have fine forms. How much better this man looks than the one who
bends over! Do not form the habit of bending forward while sitting or
standing. The one who made the body “made man upright,” and in this he
is different from the birds, beasts, or fishes.

ELMER: Can the bones be broken, mother?

[Illustration: “_Boys should sit straight._”]

MOTHER: Yes, and it is a sad thing for one to get broken, for it is
very painful and takes a long time to heal. Children should be careful
when jumping, when climbing trees, or when they go in any place where
they may fall and break their bones.

Many persons give the bones of the feet a wrong shape by wearing tight
boots or shoes. This causes “corns” to grow, which become very sore and
painful. Perhaps you have heard how the Chinese women bind the feet of
their little girls, and pinch them up, till they look more like clubs
than like feet. The little one often cries and moans for days, but the
mother and father pay no attention to her sufferings, for they think it
would never do for _their_ girl to have big feet.

AMY: O, yes, mother; here is the picture of a woman with little feet!
See her tiny shoes! They are no longer than a baby’s. In the other
picture you see one of her feet with all the toes doubled under. I
don’t see how she can walk at all.

HELEN: She must be silly. I think God knew how big to make our feet, as
well as other parts of the body.

MOTHER: That is true, but the poor Chinese women do not know better,
and they think Christian women are more foolish than Chinese women, and
that they bind the bones in a way they themselves would never dream of
doing.

HELEN: How, mother?

[Illustration: “_See her tiny shoes!_”]

MOTHER: They say Christian women and girls squeeze the waist so
tight it gives no room for some of the most important parts of the
body-house. I think you said, Helen, that God knew how big to make our
feet. Do you think He knew how big to make the waist?

[Illustration: “_All the toes doubled under._”]

HELEN: I suppose so, but a small waist looks so much better than a
large one.

MOTHER: And the Chinese lady thinks her little feet are so much
prettier than large ones, and she would rather suffer the pain, and
hobble around all her life leaning on a servant, than be out of
fashion. The Christian woman thinks a small waist is pretty, so she
makes her clothes tight, and suffers all kinds of aches, rather than
let the body remain as God made it. What is the difference? Here is a
picture of the ribs as God made them, and here is one after the waist
has been bound around with tight dresses.

[Illustration: “_Here is a picture of the ribs as God made them, and
here is one after the waist has been bound around with tight dresses._”]

If we saw a man putting iron bands around his house we would think the
one who built it had made some mistake or it would not need anything to
hold it together. If people feel as though they would “fall to pieces,”
or if they have the backache, when their clothes are loose, it shows
they have abused the muscles of the body and made weak that which God
made strong.

AMY: Is it wrong to wear tight clothing, mother?

MOTHER: Yes; it is very hurtful for girls to wear their dresses even
a _little_ tight, for the bones are soft and easily pressed out of
place. We should wear warm, loose clothing on all parts of the body,
and never, _never_ squeeze the feet, waist, or any other part out of
shape. Your arm would be very painful with a tight band around it, but
that would not do as much harm as tight shoes or tight bands around
the waist. It is better to be healthy than to be in fashion.

You remember that the blood flows through the bones to feed and make
them grow. Good blood will make them strong and healthy. Children
sometimes have a disease called the “rickets.” This shows that their
bones are soft and need more lime. They should eat plenty of good brown
bread.

No boy who wishes to grow large and strong should touch beer or
tobacco. These poisons in the blood will make the bony framework of
the body small and weak. The size of the man depends on his frame.
Many boys are making their bodies and minds very small by smoking
cigarettes. By using strong drink or tobacco the house we live in is
defiled. The blood and all the body, inside and out, becomes soiled and
filthy. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy;
for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” If one should go
into a beautiful temple and break the windows, stain the white marble
walls, and cover the floor with filth, we would think they did wrong.
How much worse to destroy the wonderful, living temple which God
Himself has built!

                        THE WALLS OF OUR HOUSE

ELMER: I don’t like to look at pictures of bones and skeletons, mother.

MOTHER: No; like the framework of a house, they are not pretty, and yet
they give shape to what we _do_ like to see. When your father built
this house, do you remember how he made the walls?

PERCY: The spaces between the timbers were filled with bricks, so there
was a solid wall.

MOTHER: Well, it is that way in the body-house. The bones are all
covered over and filled in between with muscles. It is these which make
the cheeks so plump, and give the whole body its round, pleasing form.
It is the muscles which move the bones.

AMY: But what is a muscle?

MOTHER: You have seen lean meat, have you not? That is muscle. When
boiled it seems to be made up of little bundles of tiny threads of
fibers, each wrapped in its own thin blanket. Here is a picture of a
muscle. These small threads are not twisted together, but are laid
side by side. It takes one thousand seven hundred of them to make a
muscle an inch thick in children, but in grown people it takes only
five hundred.

HELEN: Are the muscles fastened to the bones, mother?

[Illustration: “_Muscles of the arm, with their tapering tendons at the
wrist._”]

MOTHER: Yes; many muscles are joined to the bones by strong cords,
called tendons. The picture shows the muscles of the arm, with their
tapering tendons at the wrist. You see our muscles end in these little
ropes, or cords, to save room. What a large wrist we would have if the
muscles were as large there as in the arm! Now grasp your right arm and
open and shut the fingers of your right hand. What do you feel?

PERCY: The flesh moves.

[Illustration: _Muscles of the hand._]

MOTHER: That is because the muscles of your arm pull back when you shut
your fingers, and stretch out when you open them. They are some like
this piece of India rubber. If you pull it out, it gets thinner, and if
you let go, it snaps back and becomes short and thick. Perhaps you have
seen the leg of a fowl cut off at the joint, and know if you take hold
of the strong cords you can move the toes up or down. So the muscles
and tendons move in our feet and hands in the same way. Every step we
take, one muscle lifts the toes in front, and another pulls up the heel
behind.

If a person sits still much of the time, he will have weak, small
muscles, because he does not use them. That is one reason why people
are so very weak after being ill. When we use our muscles, they grow
large and strong. You have seen the blacksmith’s arm and noticed how
large and strong it is. To use our muscles does not wear them out, but
does them good.

ELMER: I should think the muscles were our servants, to do whatever we
wish done.

MOTHER: Yes; and better servants no person ever had. If the brain says,
“I want a book,” the muscles of the legs carry the body where the book
is; those of the eye look for it; those in the arm and hand lift it;
and the master of the house gets what he wants. We can not move or do
anything without these servants to help us.

AMY: It must take a good many to serve one who wants as many things as
I do.

HELEN: I read not long ago there were about five hundred of them, big
and little, and that they have many shapes and sizes.

[Illustration: Blacksmith]

MOTHER: That is true; and one who has so many servants as that, ought
to be able to wait on himself, and help other people, too. Some of
these servants, those in the feet, legs, arms, and hands, wait to be
told what to do. Others go to work and keep at it without telling, and
they will work even though the one living in the house should tell them
to stop. When you wink, you do it without thinking, for the little
muscles over the eye know it is their duty to keep the eye clean and
bright, and they keep at their work even though you should tell them
to keep still. Your heart is a hollow muscle, and it works faithfully
night and day as long as you live. The stomach is made of muscles,
which take care of your breakfast and dinner without a word from you;
and there are many more of these faithful servants who work to keep our
house in order.

PERCY: But don’t the muscles get tired, mother?

MOTHER: Yes; and when they ask for rest, we should give it to them. We
do not need to sit still and do nothing in order to rest the muscles.
If we have been studying, it rests them to sweep the floor, hoe in the
garden, or work or play. If we have been playing or working hard, it
rests us to sit down and read or study. Change of work is better than
to be idle. Walking, running, or working makes the muscles grow large
and strong.

We must also have plenty of sleep. A boy or girl who works and plays
out in the fresh air and sunshine, will be strong and well, while those
who sit in the house will be weak and sickly. But it is not best to
work the muscles till they are “all tired out,” for using them too much
is nearly as bad as not using them at all.

HELEN: I read a story not long ago about the king of a tribe in Africa.
He did not move about or work, so he became ill. He sent for his
doctor, who saw that all he needed was to use his muscles, but he did
not dare tell him to go to work, so he made two large clubs, and told
the king the medicine which would make him well was in the handles,
and if he would swing the clubs each day till his body was moist, the
medicine would go from the clubs into his hands, and make him strong
and well. The king did as the doctor said. Each day he swung his clubs
in the open air, and he soon became strong. He thought he had a very
skilful doctor, and praised him for his great cure.

[Illustration: “_Giving his muscles exercise._”]

MOTHER: And yet it was only giving his muscles exercise which helped
him so much. This shows the importance of using them.

ELMER: Do we need anything else to make the muscles strong, mother?

MOTHER: Yes; one of the best things to make them strong is plenty of
good, plain food. As the muscles are used, they wear out, and must
have new timber to build themselves up. You would think it strange if
a carpenter brought brick, mortar, glass, and timber to mend a house,
and without his help each part should take just what it needed, putting
in half a dozen bricks in the chimney, a board in the floor, a new pane
of glass in the window, and some mortar in the right place. But this is
what the house we live in is doing day and night. When we sleep, the
mending goes on better than when we are awake, and it is done so well
we do not hear or think of the busy little workmen inside. All they ask
is the right kind of food, not too much or too little of it, and they
will take the right thing to the right place, and keep the house in
good order.

HELEN: I have read of some men “training” their muscles. What did they
do to train them?

MOTHER: They were very careful to take only that kind of food which is
good for the muscles. They can not use wine, beer, whisky, or tobacco,
for these make bad blood and weak muscles. Then they work all they can
bear, but not too much.

PERCY: But Mr. Blank says it makes him strong to have a glass of beer
or whisky.

AMY: And Mr. Blank is such a big man he must have strong muscles.

MOTHER: To be big is not to be strong. It is well to have some soft
cushions of fat between the muscles, but, as a rule, those who have
much fat are not as strong and well as those who have less fat and more
muscle. Whisky does not make the muscles grow, nor does it make any one
strong. Would you like to have me tell you why this is so?

ELMER: Please do, mother.

MOTHER: Do you remember when we were driving up that long hill
yesterday how tired the horse seemed till he was struck with a whip?
After that he went much faster, and did not seem tired at all for a
little while. The whip was a stim´u-lant to the horse. Whisky and beer
are stim´u-lants, too. Mr. Blank works till his muscles are tired, and
then, instead of giving them food and rest, he gives them beer, which
makes him think he is stronger when he is really weaker. The whip made
the horse forget he was tired, but don’t you think if he had rested an
hour and eaten some good oats and sweet hay, he would have had more
strength than he had after he was struck with the whip?

PERCY: I think so; for if we had given the horse no rest and had kept
whipping him, after a time he could not work at all.

[Illustration: “_LIFT, BROTHER, LIFT._”]

MOTHER: And that is just what happens to the man who drinks beer.
Perhaps you have seen a man stumbling along the sidewalk. He is first
on one side and then on the other, and we say he is drunk. This means
that the alcohol he has taken has poisoned his body so the muscles
will not do their work properly. The man can not make his servants do
as he tells them; for he has made them all sick, and _he_ is sick.
It is a sad sight to see any one drink this poison, and make himself
helpless.

AMY: I never knew before that strong drink hurt the muscles.

MOTHER: And there is another poison about as bad for them, and that
is tobacco. If a boy wishes to grow to be a large, noble man, with
an active mind, a clean mouth, sweet breath, clear eyes, and strong
muscles, he will not touch tobacco. In some countries there is a law
against boys using it, because it does them so much harm. Tobacco makes
the muscles weak and unsteady. Like alcohol, it makes a person _feel_
stronger when he is really weaker.

                      WEATHER-BOARDS AND ROOFING

MOTHER: After your father had filled the framework of his house with
bricks, can you tell me, Elmer, how the outside was covered?

ELMER: The walls were covered on the outside with boards, and the roof
with shingles.

MOTHER: That would do very well for a wooden house, but for one that
can walk, run, jump, and skip about, such a stiff covering would be
sadly out of place. We sometimes smile because the snail carries his
house around on his back; but the house we live in must move itself and
carry the one who lives in it. How are boards and shingles fastened
onto common houses so they will stay?

PERCY: With nails.

MOTHER: Just think of driving nails into muscles! Yet you see our
body-houses must have some kind of a covering. It must be thin and
strong and one that will stretch. Look at your hands and see if they do
not have the very best covering that could be made. Pinch up the skin,
and see how thin it is, and yet how well it fits every part of the
body.

AMY: And the skin stretches, mother. See, I can bend my knee and elbow,
and move my fingers as I please.

MOTHER: Yes, it is like a close-fitting garment. What we call the skin
is really _two_ skins. You see I can put a pin through the outer skin
in the palm of my hand, and I feel no pain, and you see no blood.

HELEN: Isn’t that all the skin we have?

MOTHER: No; for under this thick, outer skin is what is called the true
skin. It has such fine blood-vessels that if you could see them, they
would look like fine network. If you should prick this _inner_ skin
it would hurt, and the blood would flow. This shows it has nerves as
well as blood. Under the true skin is a layer of fat. This is like a
warm woolen garment to keep the body warm. Between the outer skin and
the true skin there is some jelly-like coloring matter, which gives it
color.

HELEN: Is that why some persons are very dark and others are light,
mother?

MOTHER: Yes; your true skin is just the same color as that of the
negro and the Indian. The coloring matter under the outer skin is all
that makes the difference. This outer covering is made of little horny
scales laid one over another, much as a roof might be if it had ten
or twelve layers of shingles. The outer scales keep wearing away all
the time, and new ones take their places. You know a snake sheds its
skin and crawls away with a new one. We shed our skin, too, little by
little, but the scales are so small we can hardly see them. If you
should wear your under-clothing several days, and then shake it in the
sunlight, you would see little scales floating about in the air like
dust.

AMY: Isn’t the skin thicker in some parts of the body than others?

MOTHER: Yes; on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet it
is quite thick, while on the lips and some other parts of the body
it is very thin indeed. Have you noticed how the skin looks if it is
scratched and then heals up?

ELMER: Just the same as it did before.

MOTHER: But if there is a deep cut or a severe burn, how does it look
after it heals?

HELEN: There is a scar left.

MOTHER: This shows that the outer skin and the coloring matter will
come back as they were before if they are hurt; but when the true skin
is injured, the blood makes a kind of patch, which we call a scar.
Another curious thing about the true skin is that it has tiny muscles,
and when the body is cold, they draw up and make little hillocks, which
we call “goose-flesh.”

But the skin is very useful, besides being a covering for the body.
When we were getting dinner to-day, what did we do with the potato
parings and other things we did not wish to keep?

PERCY: We put them in the garbage box.

MOTHER: Why did we do that?

AMY: Because they were not fit for food.

MOTHER: And what do we call that which we do not wish to keep, and so
throw away?

HELEN: We call it _waste_.

MOTHER: What do we do with waste matter? Do we let it stay in the house?

ELMER: No; we throw it away.

MOTHER: Why would it not be best to let it remain in the house?

PERCY: Because it would decay and make us ill.

[Illustration: “_One inch square._”]

MOTHER: Well, it is the same way in the house we live in. All the food
we eat can not be used, and some parts of the body are wearing out all
the time. If the waste stayed inside, we should become ill. In the skin
there are thousands and millions of little tubes called _pores_, which
help carry away the waste. If you become very warm, you say you are
“sweating,” or per-spir´ing; that is, drops of water come out all over
your body. They come through the pores, or little holes in the skin.
But we sweat, or perspire, all the time, whether we can see it or not.
If the pores of the skin were stopped up, a person would soon die. If
the skin is very dirty, the sweat can not get out, and it stays inside.
To show you how many pores there are, you may look at this little piece
of paper, which is just one inch square. In such a space on the limbs
there are _five hundred_ pores. On the trunk of the body, forehead,
back of the hand, and on the foot, _one thousand_; and on the palm of
the hand and sole of the foot there are _twenty-seven hundred_. Each
of these little waste-pipes is one-fifth of an inch long. If they were
placed one after another, wise men tell us we would have two or three
miles, and perhaps even more, of waste-pipes for the body. What do you
suppose would happen if they were choked up, and all the waste should
remain inside?

AMY: We would become ill.

MOTHER: We surely would. Sometimes we call it “taking cold.” If we cool
off too quickly when warm, or get our clothes wet and do not put on dry
ones, or in a warm spring day put on thin clothes, all these things
stop the waste-pipes, and we “catch cold,” have a sore throat, and we
may have a fever, which shows that the waste is being burned up inside;
and the house becomes burning hot.

PERCY: Then the pores must be kept open all the time if we would be
well.

MOTHER: Yes; but there is another way than those I have told you by
which they get choked up. The waste-pipes leave the dirt they carry out
of the body on the skin, for that is as far as they can carry it. The
master of the house must see that the skin is kept clean, so the pipes
will not be choked.

ELMER: Then he ought to wash it often.

MOTHER: I think so, and not only some parts, but the whole house needs
a good scrubbing with soap and warm water as often as twice a week, and
if he will then take a bath of some kind each day, that will keep the
skin clean and healthy. Even rubbing the whole body once a day with a
damp towel and then with a dry one, will keep the waste-pipes open, so
they can do good work, if there is a thorough scrubbing twice a week,
as I have said. We should also be careful to wear clean clothing next
to the skin, for there is about a quart of waste matter carried through
the pores every day. Can you think of any other ways in which the skin
is useful besides being a covering and carrying away the waste?

HELEN: It helps us _feel_ different objects. Those who are blind learn
to do many useful things by the sense of touch.

[Illustration: “_A thorough scrubbing._”]

MOTHER: Yes, we learn many things by this sense. You know when you show
anything to a baby it stretches out its little hands to “feel” of the
object. How do you think such poisons as alcohol and tobacco affect
this covering of the body?

AMY: They must make more waste in the body, and so the skin has more to
do.

PERCY: I think it must fill it full of poison.

ELMER: Does alcohol make the skin look red, mother?

MOTHER: Yes; that is why a man who drinks beer or other drinks
containing alcohol, has such a red face. Sometimes his nose is called
a “rum blossom.” The alcohol makes the blood-vessels larger than they
should be, and so his nose and face become very red. Bad food is also
hurtful to the skin, for it can not be clear and healthy if the blood
is not clean. Pimples and sores are caused by bad blood, and they show
that better food is needed in the body.

AMY: But you haven’t told us what the roof of the body house is, mother.

MOTHER: Have you ever seen a house with a thatched roof--I mean one
covered with hay or straw instead of iron or shingles?

ELMER: Oh, yes, we saw some when we were out in the country!

MOTHER: Well, the roof of the house we live in is more like that than
like a shingled roof.

PERCY: Now I know what you mean: the body-house has a roof of hair.

MOTHER: And it is a most beautiful covering, too. Each hair grows in a
little pocket, which is furnished with a tiny bag of coloring matter
and a bottle of hair oil. These give color to the hair, and keep it
soft and smooth. If we put much oil on the hair, it causes the oil
bottles in the skin to dry up. There is no dressing so good as that
which is made in the skin. We should brush and comb the hair carefully,
to keep it shining and healthy.

People sometimes lose this beautiful thatch, and we say they are
“bald-headed.” In very old people it turns gray or white, and it is
like a beautiful, silvery crown. The Bible says that “a hoary head is
a crown of glory.” Very small, new houses sometimes have no thatch at
all, but as they get larger and older, one grows, and at first it is
fine as softest silk. The Bible says that even the hairs of our head
are all numbered or counted by our heavenly Father. From this we may
see how much He loves and cares for us.

                              THE CUPOLA

ELMER: Have you seen the cupola on the new house in the next street,
mother?

MOTHER: Yes; it is very pretty. It is quite common now to build cupolas
on large houses. But I was thinking, as you came in, of the cupola, or
tower, on the house we live in. Can you think what it is?

PERCY: It must be the head.

MOTHER: That is right, but, unlike the cupola of a common house, which
is used but little, the head is the best room of all, and the others
would be of little worth without it. It is here we find the master, the
one who gives orders to his servants, the muscles, and directs all they
do.

In large business houses you sometimes see a room having on the door
the word “Office,” and you know if you have business there, that is the
place for you to go to find the manager. We might call the head the
office room of the body, for it is here the manager is always found if
at home.

While you know there is a master to our house, yet you can not see him.
He may peep through the windows, you may hear him speak, and you can
talk to him. Perhaps you will love him very much, or you may dislike to
be near him. You may see his work, but still you can not see _him_.

AMY: You must mean that the mind is master of the body, is it not,
mother?

MOTHER: It surely _ought_ to be; but I am sorry to say that in some
houses the servants get the master to do as they like, and then the
body-house has a bad time, for “whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it.” The apostle Paul said, “I keep under my body,
and bring it into subjection,” and this is the work given to the master
of every body-house. The mind should know what is good for the body,
and, though the servants may ask many times to do as they like, he
should firmly say, “_No_,” whenever they wish to do wrong. Can you tell
what the mind is?

HELEN: It is the part of me that thinks and remembers.

MOTHER: And it also _wills_, that is, we “make up our mind,” as we say.
Why do you think our mind is in the head?

PERCY: Why, if our hands, arms, or feet were cut off, we could still
think.

MOTHER: Do you remember the name of the organ inside the head with
which we think?

AMY: The brain.

MOTHER: Yes; and since the brain is such an important part of the body,
it is put in the strongest room of all. It sometimes becomes ill if not
used right, so we should learn how to keep it well. The worst sickness
in the world is mind sickness, and it is hardest to cure.

The brain has six coverings in all. The outside coverings are the hair
and scalp, or skin. Then we find the strong bones, fitted closely
together with saw-teeth edges. Inside the bones the brain has three
coverings: first, a tough, strong skin; then a very thin covering,
hardly thicker than a spider’s web; and the third is made up of many
little blood-vessels, which feed the brain.

AMY: I wish we could see how the brain looks, mother.

PERCY: I have seen brains at the butcher shops. Do ours look like that?

MOTHER: Yes, quite the same. You have all seen the marrow in the bones.
The brain looks some like that, too. It is made of jelly-like matter,
and seems to be all crumpled up, so it is full of ridges and creases,
as you see in this picture. It is said a baby’s brain is quite smooth,
but the more a person thinks, the more ridges and furrows his brain
will have and the deeper they are. A frog’s brain is smooth, like this.

[Illustration: _The brain is full of ridges and creases._]

[Illustration: “_A frog’s brain is smooth._”]

ELMER: But I don’t see how the brain thinks.

MOTHER: That is one of the things we can never understand. God gave men
life, and when we are alive we think. “In Him we live, and move, and
have our being,” and to be able to think is one of the best gifts that
comes with life. It is the life God gives us which makes the body-house
worth more than the most costly palace in the world.

If we look carefully into the brain, we see that the outside is gray,
and the inside is white. Wise men tell us this matter is made of cells,
called nerve cells, or brain cells. The gray matter tells the muscles
what to do, and the white part sends the orders to all parts of the
body through the nerves.

ELMER: Have we more than one brain, mother?

MOTHER: I might say no, and yes. It is really one, and yet it is in
several parts. One is the big brain, which is found above the ears in
the top of the head. It is with this part we think and reason. Then
there is a little brain, in the back part of the head under the large
brain. It is about as big as a medium-sized orange. Each brain has two
parts, a right and left half, so we really have two brains. It might be
said we are “left brained” when we are “right handed,” for the right
hand is ruled by the left half of the brain.

AMY: How large is the brain, mother?

MOTHER: That of a man weighs about three pounds. An elephant’s weighs
eight or ten pounds, and that is the heaviest of any we know. The brain
must be used, the same as the muscles, if we would have it do its work
well. It makes it grow and does it good when we study and think. As it
was made to think about something, we should give it good things to
think about. If it is lazy, it will lose the power to work, just as the
muscles do, and if used, it will grow stronger and can do still harder
work.

HELEN: And does it ever need rest?

MOTHER: Certainly; it must rest, the same as the muscles. People
sometimes hurt the brain by working it very hard and letting the
muscles do nothing.

PERCY: But how can it rest? We can’t stop thinking.

MOTHER: No; we think of something all the time we are awake, so the
best way to rest the brain is to take plenty of sleep. Sometimes a part
of it keeps awake while the body is asleep, and then we say we had a
dream. Another way to rest the mind is to set the muscles at work after
we have been reading or studying. Boys and girls in school should spend
part of each day working, or in some way using their muscles in the
open air.

ELMER: I should think the master of the body-house would want to look
outside of his little room sometimes.

MOTHER: Yes, he does; and the cupola of which we have been talking has
two wonderful windows.

AMY: Oh, I know what they are! They are our eyes.

MOTHER: Yes, and through them the master looks out and sees all that is
passing around him.

HELEN: I should think there ought to be windows on all sides of his
room. He can look out only one way.

MOTHER: But you see this cupola is placed on top of a tower we call the
neck, which turns easily and quickly, and, besides, the whole house can
“face about” in an instant, so he can look other ways than straight
ahead, with no trouble.

PERCY: Why do you call the brain the master of the house, mother?

MOTHER: Because it tells the feet, hands, tongue, eyes, and all other
parts of the body what to do, and they obey it. Sometimes we find a bad
master in one of these beautiful houses. He tells the feet to go to a
saloon. He tells the tongue to ask for beer and other kinds of strong
drink. He tells the hand to lift the glass to his lips. It may be he
knows he is taking poison into the house, which will make his servants,
the muscles, unfit for work. Perhaps he knows, too, that the drink will
hurt himself more than any other part of the body-house, for it puts
him to sleep when he ought to be awake telling his servants what to
do, yet he does it, and often suffers all the rest of his life for his
folly.

ELMER: Does alcohol hurt the brain?

MOTHER: Surely it does. It makes the blood impure, so it can not
furnish good food for the brain. It causes more blood to go to the head
than ought to be there. It makes people mad, crazy, or insane.

Sometimes it brings that awful disease, delirium tremens, and then the
poor master thinks his best friends are his enemies, that serpents and
horrible creatures are crawling over his body, and he dies a terrible
death, and goes into a drunkard’s grave. He ruins the house God gave
him to live in, and finds it is true that “at the last it biteth like a
serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”

Children, never touch these poison drinks.

      “Never put them in your mouth, To steal away your brains.”

                         OUR TELEPHONE SYSTEM

PERCY: Ting-a-ling! There’s the telephone bell. How strange it seems to
talk to people, and hear them talk, when they are miles away!

MOTHER: But the most wonderful telephone in the world is found in the
house we live in.

HELEN: Why, mother, you don’t mean to say we have wires all through our
bodies, do you?

MOTHER: Not wires, but something that answers the same purpose, only it
is far more perfect. You know the brain is the master of the house, and
there are hundreds of muscles waiting to do what he bids them. But the
brain is upstairs, safe in his own strong little room. How can he tell
the fingers how to work, and the feet where to walk?

AMY: Please tell us, mother. I’m sure I don’t know.

MOTHER: Well, instead of wires we have thousands of little lines
called _nerves_, reaching from the brain to every part of the body.
They are made of matter like that in the brain, and they are so close
together that you can touch no place on your body, even with the point
of a pin, without touching a nerve. Messages are sent over them to the
brain, and back again to the muscles. With the nerves we _feel_. We
call it the sense of touch.

We might call the brain the “central office,” from which messages are
sent, and where they come back. In the city you have seen many wires
stretched on poles. Sometimes they are bound up together and covered
over, making a cable like a big rope. You remember I told you there
is a spinal cord or marrow running through your backbone. This is
made up of many nerves, as the cable is made of many wires. There are
sixty-two branch lines coiled up in it. By looking at the bottom part
of the picture of the brain you will see where this large cable enters
the central office. Really, the top part of the cord is a little brain
itself, with a long name, which we will not trouble now to learn.

[Illustration: _The nerves._]

ELMER: If all the nerves come from the backbone, how do any get to the
face?

MOTHER: There are some little holes in the skull, and through these
twenty-four branch lines pass, carrying the nerves all over the face
and head. One pair find their way to the nose, and they tell the master
of the house how things smell. Another pair reach to the eyes, and tell
him how things look. They are nerves of sight. There are three pairs to
tell the muscles of the eye how to move. One pair passes to the ears,
and are called nerves of hearing. The others are scattered all over the
face, passing to the teeth, tongue, and throat, and even to other parts
of the body. This picture shows the brain as the main office, the cord
or cable in the back-bone, and how the branches extend to all parts of
the body. Still there are thousands of smaller lines which can not be
seen at all.

HELEN: And what sends the messages to and from the brain over the
nerves, mother?

MOTHER: The power which sends them is called “nerve force,” though
what it is even the wisest men do not know. We can stop it by pressing
on the nerves, just as you can stop the current of the telegraph. We
sometimes say that our leg or arm is “asleep.” If we try to move, it
gives us pain, or it may be we can not move at all. One nerve runs
along the back side of the arm over the elbow. If we hit the elbow,
it makes the arm and hand feel numb. We say the “funny bone,” or the
“crazy bone,” is hurt, but it is not the bone at all, but the nerve.

AMY: I heard a lady who is ill say she wished she had no nerves. Why do
we have them?

MOTHER: I think we have already learned how useful they are to carry
messages for us. We would be quite helpless without them, for the
brain sends word over them every time we move any part of the body.
Another reason is they watch for our welfare. If we are cut or burned,
it gives us pain. We don’t like the pain, so we are more careful when
we use sharp tools or go near the fire.

If you touch the hot stove, you jerk away your hand. “I’m burnt,” the
finger sends word to the brain. The brain sends back the message, “Get
off the stove, quick.” And to the nerves of the eye it says, “See if
it is blistered.” To the face muscles, “Make up a wry face to show how
badly it hurts.” To the feet and hands, “Get some cold water to put
the burned finger in.” To the tongue, “Tell your mother about it.” All
these messages are sent at the rate of one hundred feet a second, and
the eye, face, hands, feet, and tongue all feel sorry for the burnt
finger, and do all they can to help it.

[Illustration: “_Tell your mother about it._”]

Every part of the body, the bones, muscles, stomach, heart, and lungs,
has these useful little nerves to let the master know when anything is
wrong with them.

ELMER: Do the nerves ever get sick, mother?

MOTHER: Oh, yes, very often! Sometimes they are so ill that no message
can pass over them to the brain. Then we say the person is paralyzed.
A lady had her limbs paralyzed. She could not walk, or move her feet
at all. One day she took a foot bath. She could not tell whether the
water was cold or hot, and soon the nurse found the skin on her feet
blistered, because the water was too warm. The nerves were dead, and
she felt no pain at all. Pain is hard to bear, but if there were no
pain, the house we live in would soon be ruined. It tells us when
danger is near, and because we do not like the pain, we take care
of the body. The nerves are more wonderful than any telephone or
telegraph, and when you get older, you must learn all you can about
them.

HELEN: The brain must have a lot of work looking after the nerves and
sending so many messages over them. I don’t see how it can think of
anything else.

MOTHER: Perhaps I can explain it to you. Suppose there is a family who
have much to do. The father does the hardest work of all. When his
wife sees how much he has to do, she tries to help him all she can,
so she does many things without saying anything to her husband about
it. They have one son, a strong, upright young man, and he takes part
of the work, because he wishes to help his parents. We will call the
large brain the father, because it does so much of our thinking. As you
say, Helen, if he looked after all parts of the body, there would be
but little time for study and helping other people. Besides, he falls
asleep sometimes, so the little brain, which we will call his wife,
takes the work that must be done _all_ the time, as good wives and
mothers do, such as keeping the heart beating, the lungs breathing, and
other parts of the body at work which can not stop to rest. Then there
is the spinal cord, which we will call the son, and he takes charge of
the feet and hands when they have common kinds of work to do. When you
went to school this morning, I saw you reading a book while you walked.
Your brain did not send word to each muscle what to do every time you
took a step, but you walked “without thinking,” as we say. The spinal
cord took charge of your feet, so we know it can do an easy kind of
thinking. When you were learning to skate, Percy, you kept thinking all
the time how to move your feet and what to do to keep from falling.
But after you had learned how, Father Brain gave his son, Spinal Cord,
charge of you, and he thinks of something else most of the time while
you skate. It is the same with anything we have learned to do well by
doing it over and over, such as playing the piano, riding a bicycle,
and many other things we keep doing again and again.

PERCY: Does alcohol harm the nerves, mother?

MOTHER: Yes, indeed. Alcohol seems to like the nerves better than any
other part of the body, and it does them more harm than any other,
except the brain. When alcohol touches a nerve, it dries it up and
makes it hard, as though it had been burned. It causes that dreadful
disease, paralysis, of which I have told you. The nerves get so stupid
and sleepy they do not know what the brain says to them. They can not
tell the muscles what to do, and this is why a drunken man staggers.
A drunkard has trembling hands, because the poison has made his nerves
sick. Sometimes those wonderful nerves of the eye and ear tell him
lies, and he believes what they say. Sometimes the poor nerves and
brain are so nearly dead that the man falls down, and people say he is
“dead drunk.”

ELMER: I have heard people say tobacco was good for the nerves, that it
made them feel rested, and they could think better.

[Illustration: “_The little boy is forming a bad habit._”]

MOTHER: Tobacco is a poison, and is as hurtful to the nerves as
alcohol. One who uses it thinks he is rested, but the reason he feels
so is because the poison has put his nerves to sleep. Tobacco also
creates an appetite for strong drinks. It is very bad for boys to use
tobacco in any way.

AMY: What should we do to keep the nerves well?

MOTHER: Give them good food, plenty of fresh air, and no poisons of
any kind. They must also have rest to keep them strong. It helps
the nerves to be happy and cheerful. The little boy in this picture
is forming a bad habit, which will not only make him unhappy but
unhealthy. Hateful, unpleasant thoughts make poisons in the body and
cause sickness in the brain and nerves. People sometimes drop dead by
becoming very angry. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Yes,
it is much better than any medicine men can make. Children should form
the habit of being happy and hopeful. The brain and nerves will form
good or bad habits, and the master of the body-house should use all his
power to have them good instead of bad. Every evil habit leaves a scar
on the brain.

                          THE HALL OR PASSAGE

MOTHER: I once read a book called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and in it a
story was told of how a lady was once talking with a little negro girl
named Topsy.

“Who made you?” she asked the child.

“Nobody, as I knows on. _I s’pect I grow’d_,” was the answer.

Now we know God made the body-houses we live in, for “it is He that
hath made us, and not we ourselves;” yet in one way Topsy was right,
for we all “grow’d.” God made us grow, and it is He only that can make
anything grow.

ELMER: But we must have food to make us grow.

MOTHER: Yes, everything that has life must have food of some kind. You
remember I told you we had iron, lime, and other things to build the
body-house, just as a man must have wood, brick, iron, and glass when
he wishes to build. We have looked at the outside of the house we live
in, and we have learned some things about its frame, its servants, the
telephone system, and the master who lives inside. Now we will look
through some of the wonderful rooms in the house, and I am sure you
will enjoy learning how they are made, and the work that is done in
them.

The door, or entrance, is so small we can not possibly go inside
ourselves, so here is a slice of good whole-wheat bread we will send,
and I will tell you what it finds within. As it has no tongue, I will
speak the words it would say if it could talk, and you may ask any
question you wish. Now listen:—

I was made from the wheat that grew in a farmer’s field. After the
miller had ground me into flour, your mother made me into a loaf, and I
was baked in a hot oven till I was brown all over outside. As she put
me away to cool, she said, “That will make the children grow.” She left
me alone a whole day, for she knew I was unfit to be eaten while so
warm. After that I was cut into slices and made ready to help mend and
build up the body-house.

I started on my way to the kitchen, where much of the work is done, and
to get there passed through a pair of front doors, which were a pretty
red color. These doors, I have been told, can do wonderful things
besides opening to let visitors pass in. They can sing, whistle, and
talk. They look best when the corners turn up; if they turn down, one
does not care to go near them.

HELEN: Oh, I see! You mean our lips.

MOTHER: Yes, I think that is what you call them. When I passed inside
the doors, I found a double row of thirty-two servants, all dressed in
clean white dresses, waiting for me. Children have only twenty-eight of
these servants, I am told. It was their work to make me ready for the
kitchen downstairs. If the house is very new, you will find only three
or four, or perhaps none at all.

[Illustration: “_WHEAT THAT GREW IN A FARMER’S FIELD._”]

PERCY: The servants must be the teeth. I didn’t know there were so
many.

AMY: And I think the bread we eat doesn’t always find them wearing
clean white dresses, either. There is Uncle John; his teeth are all
stained with nasty tobacco juice.

MOTHER: But they _should_ be dressed as I have said, and they need
careful brushing and washing every day. They should not be used to
crack nuts, for they may get broken. If they are not well cared for,
the dresses wear out, and great holes can be seen in them. Sometimes
they can be mended, and again they cause the master of the house much
trouble, and he is obliged to get some one to take them away, because
they give him so much pain.

I was quite surprised at the way these servants treated me, though I
suppose they knew best what to do. Some of them cut me in two. Others
tore me into pieces and ground me till I thought I was passing through
another mill. As I had a chance, I looked around, and then I saw the
room I was in had a beautiful arched ceiling of a pale pink color.

There was a large servant behind those dressed in white, and he wore
a pink uniform. You should have seen the way he rolled me over and
over in that room. The servants in white dresses never stirred from
where they were standing, but the one wearing the pink uniform jumped
from one side of the room to the other, and seemed to be a very lively
fellow. I don’t know what he would have done had he not been fastened
to the floor. Sometimes, I am told, he peeps out between the folding
doors to see what is going on outside, or to tell what kind of work
is being done inside. I have heard that sometimes his dress becomes a
dirty yellow or brown, and a man with a wise look comes and asks this
servant to step outside a moment, till he can see how his uniform looks.

HELEN: How funny to think of our teeth and tongue as our servants!

MOTHER: But that is what they are. There is another group of servants
in this passage, called _glands_. They have little rooms opening into
the passage near the floor, and also in the back part of the room. If
you ever visited a cave, you remember the walls were wet, and water was
dropping from them. You know the skin on the outside of your body feels
dry. Some parts of the body have skin inside, but it is _wet_ instead
of dry. It is that way in this hall. That which makes it so is called
_saliva_, and it is the duty of the servants called glands to pour
saliva over the food as soon as it comes through the front doors, while
the tongue rolls it about, and the teeth grind it.

ELMER: But what good does that do?

MOTHER: It moistens the food and makes it slippery, so it can pass
on to the kitchen. Perhaps you know bread is partly made of starch.
Another thing the saliva does is to turn starch into sugar, and this
makes less work in the kitchen downstairs, as the cook down there has
but little to do with starch.

AMY: How may we know when the starch in bread or biscuit is changed to
sugar?

MOTHER: If you let the teeth chew your food a long time, until it
becomes well mixed with saliva, you will find that it tastes sweet.
This is because the starch has become sugar, though you must not think
this kind of sugar is as sweet as the sugar which you buy.

HELEN: If the walls in this room moisten the food, why should we drink
while eating?

MOTHER: It is not best to drink much when you eat, and not at all
unless your food is very dry. The glands furnish from one to three
pints of saliva a day. If you drink much, the saliva is not well
mixed with the food, and it is hurried down to the kitchen before the
servants have finished their work. This makes extra work for the cook
downstairs.

                              OUR KITCHEN

MOTHER: We will now let Bread proceed with its story. Remember I am
telling you what it would say if it could talk. Now listen. While I
was in the passage and the servants were making me ready to go to the
kitchen, I saw a small pink curtain in the back end of the room, and
I wondered what was behind it. I soon found out. After the tongue had
pulled and pushed me around and rolled me over as long as he wished, he
pushed me back toward the curtain, and I found myself in a room with no
floor. I saw a passage which opens into the nose, but as soon as I came
in sight, a curtain fell back and closed it, so I knew I was not wanted
there. Then I saw another door, which I afterward learned led to the
bath-room in the lungs, but as I was about to go in, a little trap door
closed tightly, and so I found that was not the way to the kitchen.
There was still another passage, for this room seemed to be filled with
doors, even though it was so small, but that led to the ear. I began to
think I was not wanted at all, for every door I came to was shut in my
face, as it were.

HELEN: I don’t wonder Bread didn’t know which way to go, do you,
mother? and it was a stranger in the house, too.

MOTHER: I was just thinking about going back through the folding doors
through which I came, when a door opened in the back part of the
throat, and I began to slide downstairs. Such queer stairs you never
saw. They seemed to grow larger as I went down, and smaller at the top,
so they kept pushing me, and I could not go back if I would.

[Illustration: _The stomach._]

PERCY: I suppose it was the same way when I swallowed a button the
other day. I wanted it back badly enough, but it wouldn’t come.

HELEN: That shows you should never put such things as pins and buttons
in your mouth.

ELMER: And what did the kitchen look like?

MOTHER: Like no room you ever saw in your life. I looked around for the
corners, but there were none. It is shaped some like an egg. Here is a
picture, which will help you to understand the shape of the room.

You see it has two doors, or openings,--one at which to go in, and the
other to pass out. The walls are a pale pink color and are full of
wrinkles if the room is empty. When the master of the house sends down
so much bread or other food that it fills the kitchen full, the walls
become smooth and the room is larger, but when the food first begins
to go down, it finds the room quite small, and the walls full of folds,
or wrinkles.

This room is very strong, as there are really three walls, one inside
the other. The pink lining inside is made of wet skin, something like
that found in the room upstairs. The middle wall is made of muscles,
which cross one another in different ways; for the kitchen has many of
these useful servants. The outer coat, or “overcoat,” of the stomach
has for its work to pour out a kind of water to keep the walls moist so
they will not stick to other things which are packed so closely in the
trunk of the body. I am sure no person could ever pack so many things
in a trunk the same size without crowding some of them or getting them
out of order.

HELEN: But I would like to know who acts as cook in this curious
kitchen.

MOTHER: The name of the head cook is Di-ges´tion. There is a whole
family of helpers, named Juice, whose work it is to assist Di-ges´tion.
Of course they do not boil and bake, as we do, but they take the food
and make it ready for the use of the body. Perhaps you would call it
di-gest´ing it.

The chief helper is a very important person, called Gastric Juice. When
the kitchen is empty, Gastric Juice stays in some tiny bags or bottles
which cover the walls of the kitchen all over, but as soon as anything
comes into the room from the stairway at the top, she comes out and
goes to work. She pours a fluid which looks like water, over the food,
which dissolves, or melts it. If you could look inside you might think
the stomach was “sweating;” but it is only Gastric Juice coming out
to care for the food you have sent down to build and mend the body.
Several quarts come from the walls of the kitchen every day.

Were you ever in a ship at sea? If so, you know that everything in the
boat was shaking and moving. As soon as Bread comes into the kitchen,
it finds the room moving like that, and it is thrown from one side to
the other, and churned up and down, over and over, till, if you could
see it, you would never think it was bread at all. Gastric Juice melts
and mixes it, and it becomes so changed it looks very much like paste.
After Bread comes downstairs, some potatoes, fruit, and other things
“come tumbling after,” but after all has been in the kitchen two hours,
you could not tell which is bread, fruit, or potatoes; for they are all
mixed together.

I expect you are wondering how the food would ever get out of the
kitchen. After it was shaken and churned several hours, the walls
gave it a push, and it came to the door where visitors pass out. Such
a queer door it was, too, but it opens and shuts like the one at the
entrance to the passage. This door has neither hinges nor rollers. It
was kept tightly closed while the food was churned about and melted,
and it looks quite like a boy’s lips when he is going to whistle. As
Bread came near, the door opened, and part of the food paste passed
through into another room. Strange as it may seem to you, this door
seems to do a kind of thinking, and if food tries to get through
before it is made as fine as it should be, the door seems to say, “No,
_sir_; you can not go through here;” and it shuts so close together
that not another thing can pass out. So when the food came the first
time, the door seemed to think part of it was too big to go through,
and it was sent back, to be churned and squeezed again before it could
go into the next room with the rest of the food.

ELMER: I didn’t know it took so much work and such a long time to
digest what we eat.

MOTHER: This should teach us to use care in what we send into the
stomach. Let me tell you a few other things about the stomach, which
we call the kitchen of the body. The helper, Gastric Juice, does her
work perfectly if she is used well; but when the master of the house
is unkind, she always makes him suffer for it. Sometimes he sends down
a lot of cold water, ice-cream, or some other kind of ice, when she
is just ready to begin her work. This makes her kitchen so cold that
she is obliged to wait till it gets warm again. She doesn’t like much
water when she has work on hand; for she thinks Saliva and herself can
moisten the food as much as it needs.

AMY: Does Di-ges´tion like hot drinks, mother?

MOTHER: No; they burn the tender walls of the stomach and make them
weak. Tea and coffee are hurtful to the stomach, as well as to the
nerves and other parts of the body. Another thing Di-ges´tion likes is
to have all the food she is going to work on at once. That means we
should eat what we need and then stop. If the master of the house sends
down a good-sized dinner, and, after waiting an hour or two, sends
some more, the poor cook has a hard time, and it is no wonder that she
gets sulky. It is as though you had been at work during the day, and
then I should ask you to work all night, and give you no time to rest.

The cook in our kitchen is willing to work hard, and then she wants
a rest, and this she ought to have. She hates to work at night after
working all day, but some masters are so unkind as to even call her up
after she has gone to bed, thinking her day’s work is done; and she
works and works away while other parts of the body have rest.

HELEN: I suppose that is when we eat between meals or late at night.

MOTHER: Yes; and another thing the cook dislikes is to have her kitchen
filled so full that no more can get in. She must have room to work.

ELMER: That means we should not eat too much.

MOTHER: That is right. We should never eat till we feel so full we can
take no more. If a builder was beginning to build or mend a house and
you should pile bricks, timber, stones, and lime around him till he had
no room to work, he would say, “Please take part of this out of my way,
and then I can do something.” So the stomach wants just enough, but no
more, and we should not make the cook cross by abusing her in this way.
She also dislikes hot things, such as mustard, pepper, and spices. How
would your eye feel if you should get some pepper or mustard in it?

ELMER: It would smart.

PERCY: It would look red.

MOTHER: That is the effect they have on the stomach, too. Neither does
the cook like to have much fat or sugar. Sometimes she gets so provoked
when the master of the house sends down things she can not use, or
too much even of that which is good, that the doorway to the stairway
opens by which they came down, and she throws them back in his face.
He has a sorry time of it then, and it may be quite a while before she
is pleased again. But she only does this after she has suffered a long
time, and when she knows it is for the good of the body-house.

AMY: What a long time it takes to fix up the food we eat so it can be
used in the body! I would like to know where the food goes after the
cook in the kitchen has digested it.

MOTHER: We will finish this part of the story in the next chapter.

                            THE EATING ROOM

MOTHER: While waiting for the door to open to let the food pass from
the stomach kitchen, let me tell you that the walls of the kitchen are
covered with hundreds of little mouths; for you must remember this room
is like no other that was ever made. These tiny mouths keep drinking
the food which is digested, and it is taken into the blood through the
tiny blood-vessels which cover the stomach.

At last comes the food which could not pass the door again, and this
time it passes through into a long, narrow room, with walls quite like
those of the kitchen. Sometimes a plum pit gets into the kitchen; the
cook is unable to use it, and when it goes up to the door, it closes
quickly, so it must stay where it is. Sometime after the door will open
and let it through.

HELEN: That is the same as though you should tell me I should not do a
thing, and then, because I teased or coaxed, you should let me do what
you had before said I should not.

MOTHER: Yes, that is the way with this door-keeper. But sometimes the
door closes very tightly, and then there is trouble, for that which can
not get through the second door must find its way back through the
first. We should be very careful about swallowing large seeds of fruit,
buttons, or anything that is hard and can not be digested. People are
sometimes made very ill in this way. But now we will learn what is done
in the second room.

Perhaps it might be called the “serving room;” for it is here the food
is made ready for the eating room. Here we find two assistant cooks.
The name of one is Pan-cre-at´ic Juice, and the other is called Bile.
Each one has a room of his own. Pan-cre-at´ic Juice has his home in a
room back of the kitchen, which is called the pancreas. Bile lives in
the largest room in the body-house, which is called the liver.

The liver might be called a factory; for it has hundreds of little
rooms in which Bile is made. It has a waiting room, called the gall,
where Bile stays when he is not wanted. This tiny room is close to the
liver, and from that Bile goes to the serving room. On the way he meets
Pan-cre-at´ic Juice, and they go on to their work together.

Bile, like some other servants, is hard to please, and he will do only
one kind of work. It is the duty of these cooks to finish up the work
that Gastric Juice has begun. Bile will work with hardly anything but
fats, and it is his work to make them into such tiny drops that they
can be used in the body. He must also furnish part of the fuel to keep
the body warm. He sometimes gets lazy or angry if the master of the
house gives him too much work, or if he sends too much fat or sugar
into the serving room. The master of the house tells his friends he is
“bilious,” which means that Bile is out of temper and wants less hard
work and more rest.

PERCY: Is Pan-cre-at´ic Juice so particular as Bile?

MOTHER: No; he is much more obliging, and is willing to do anything
that needs to be done. Together these helpers work over the food after
it comes from the kitchen till it is very fine and creamy.

AMY: Does this room look like the kitchen?

MOTHER: The walls are very much the same, and they keep eating or
sucking up the food that is wholly digested, much as a sponge sucks up
water. A part is taken up this way and goes into the blood-vessels at
once, but part is sent on to the eating room, where hundreds of little
people are waiting for their breakfasts and dinners.

HELEN: How does the eating room look?

MOTHER: This room is very narrow and about twenty feet long. You must
not think it is a straight room twenty feet long, for it is not. At one
side it is fastened to a thin band, and the band is gathered like a
frill or ruffle, so the room, though it is folded over and over, never
gets tangled. Perhaps I might say it is like a tube more than a room.

The little folks who eat here do not sit at tables as you do. They are
fastened to the walls, so they are always in the same places. Another
name for this room is the “small intestine.”

ELMER: I would like to see some of the little folks who eat there. How
large are they?

MOTHER: They are so very, _very_ small you could not see them unless
you had a strong glass to help you. They stand up straight, like the
soft, silky part of velvet or plush. They are called Villi.

As the food comes in from the serving room, another helper, called
In-tes´ti-nal Juice, takes any part which the other servants have
not finished as it passed through their rooms, and thus digestion is
complete. The Villi soak the food up as it passes them, as a plant
draws water and food from the ground.

HELEN: But how does it all get into the blood?

MOTHER: I was just about to tell you that part of the story. You have
seen little creeks, and you know they flow into larger ones, which form
small rivers, and they, in turn, flow in some broad river toward the
sea. So this creamy fluid which is sucked up by the Villi goes into
tiny veins; these open into larger ones, till all flow in one stream
about as big as a slate-pencil up to a large vein near the neck, and
from there to the heart, where the stream is changed to blood, and is
ready for use in the body. Part of the food takes another way to get to
the heart. It goes first to the liver, which takes the part it needs,
and the rest goes on to the heart.

HELEN: Then all we eat finally gets into the blood.

MOTHER: No; there is always some part that can not be used. Passing
through the eating room the waste is carried into a garbage box, called
the colon, which should be emptied every day.

Now let us see if we can give the names of the different rooms a slice
of bread passes through before it reaches the heart and becomes blood.

ELMER: First, the passage, which is the mouth, down the steep stairs
or gullet, through the stomach kitchen, through the serving room, the
eating room, or small intestine, and from there straight to the heart,
or else by another road through the liver to the same place.

MOTHER: Very good. Now what juices make the bread ready to become blood.

PERCY: First, the saliva in the mouth.

AMY: And gastric juice in the stomach.

HELEN: Then bile from the liver, and pan-cre-at´ic juice from the
pancreas.

ELMER: The last was the in-tes´tin-al juice.

MOTHER: That is right, and let me tell you that in our bodies about
twenty pounds of juices are made every day. Now I think we can remember
that the food passes through five rooms, and it takes five juices to
make it into blood. Two of the juice family, which have the long names,
in-tes´tin-al and pan-cre-at´ic, are willing to work on all parts of
the food. The others work chiefly on one part only. Saliva digests
starch. Bile works on fats. Gastric juice takes the part which is
called al-bu´men.

    “Behind the bread, the snowy flour;
      Behind the flour, the mill;
    Behind the mill, the growing wheat
      Nods on the breezy hill;
    Over the wheat is the glowing sun,
      Ripening the heart of the grain;
    Above the sun is the gracious God,
      Sending the sunlight and the rain.”

                             FOOD AND FUEL

MOTHER: See that engine. Can you tell me what gives it the power or
strength to draw its heavy load?

HELEN: Steam gives it power.

MOTHER: And what makes the steam?

ELMER: The fire in the furnace makes the water boil, and steam comes
from the boiling water.

MOTHER: Then the engine can do nothing unless it has fuel to burn and
water to boil. It might be the best ever made, and yet do no work and
have no power even to move itself. Do you suppose the engineer is
careful to take plenty of the best fuel he can get, and to have a good
supply of water, when he has a long journey and a heavy train?

PERCY: I am sure he would be. I have read that it is counted one of the
worst things an engineer can do to let his boiler get dry.

MOTHER: Well, in some ways our bodies are like the engine. Can you
guess what the fuel is we must have?

AMY: Oh, I know! It is the food we eat.

ELMER: And we must have water to drink, too.

MOTHER: Yes; but what would you think of an engine driver who would
fill the furnace of his engine with stones or sand, and fill the boiler
with beer or whisky?

PERCY: I think he wouldn’t have much steam, and his engine would soon
be ruined.

MOTHER: Then what shall we say about food and drink for the body, which
is a hundred times more perfect in all its parts than the best engine
men ever built, and so is much more apt to be injured?

HELEN: We ought to give it the very best food and drink we can get.

MOTHER: I think so, too. You know an engine works several hours, and is
then sent to an engine house to be made ready for another trip, and,
while it is running, the driver steps out at every station, almost,
with his oil-can in one hand and something to clean with in the other,
and he keeps cleaning it, oiling it, feeding it, and letting it drink
till he comes to the end of his journey. Can you think how the body is
different from this?

[Illustration: “_The engine takes water without stopping._”]

ELMER: When the body-machine starts running in the journey of life, it
never stops to rest till it is worn out and can work no more.

MOTHER: Yes, and we must remember that some parts work night and day,
summer and winter, as long as we live. Yet they are wearing out all
the time, and must be fed and cleaned and cared for while they are
working. There are some railroads made with tanks or ditches between
the rails, and the engine takes water without stopping. So our bodies
must take food, drink, and all they need without stopping the living
machinery. It is true some parts must rest every day; but others never
stop working till we die. We should study, then, to know what we ought
to eat and drink to make up the waste and keep the body well. Some
kinds of birds and animals live on flesh. Others eat only grass and
grains. The squirrel and the monkey eat nuts and fruits. Can you tell
me some of the different things that men use as food?

[Illustration: A squirrel]

AMY: They eat flesh, grains, and fruits.

ELMER: And we eat other things, such as salt, sugar, and milk.

MOTHER: Yes, while people _can_ eat all these things, yet _all_ of them
are not the very best food, and, like the careful engineer, we should
learn just what is good for the human machine, and give it only the
best of what it can use. What do you think was given to men to eat at
first?

AMY: Where can we find out, mother?

MOTHER: In the first chapter of the Bible. Perhaps Helen will read it
for us.

HELEN: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing
seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the
which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for
meat.”

MOTHER: The word “meat” means food. This was spoken before God had
cursed the earth on account of sin, and so everything that grew was
“good,” as He had said. We see from this that all kinds of plants
bearing seed, and all kinds of fruit, were good for food. No doubt if
God had thought meat was good for man, He would have had a butcher shop
somewhere in the garden of Eden, and some beef or mutton hanging from
the limb of a tree.

PERCY: But what made the people begin to eat flesh, mother?

MOTHER: After a time the flood came and destroyed everything on the
earth except what Noah had in the ark with him, and when he came out of
the ark, God told him that people might eat the flesh of animals, and
they have kept on eating it ’til the present time.

ELMER: But is it the best food, mother?

MOTHER: No, we can not say it is the very best; for, as time has
passed, the animals have become sickly, and many wise doctors say it is
unsafe to eat their flesh. Cattle which have been killed to eat have
been found with diseased lungs, livers and kidneys. People sometimes
become very ill and many have died from eating their flesh.

HELEN: I should think if they choose such food it would be like the
engine driver filling his furnace with poor coal when he could get
plenty that was better.

MOTHER: Perhaps so. When we can get good vegetables, grains, and
fruits, it is much safer to use them for fuel in the body than to run
the risk of giving it anything which might put the delicate machine out
of order.

I saw a poem not long ago, written by Dr. J. H. Kellogg, which you
might like to have read to you. It is called

[Illustration: Various fruits]

                          A VEGETARIAN SONG.

        “You may talk of mutton-chop,
        You may say it is tip-top
    For a man who wants to live both well and long;
        But you’re much behind the time,
        As I’ll show you in this rhyme;
    For there’s better food than flesh to make one well and strong.

    ”CHORUS——

    “On the glorious trees! on the glorious trees!
    There the fruits and nuts, the fruits and nuts do ever grow.
        This is heaven’s own food,
        God pronounced it very good;
    Yes, upon the trees, kissed by the breeze, the best foods grow.

        “There are pippins rich and rare,
        There are plums and peaches fair,
    There are huckleberries, raspberries, and pears so sweet;
        There are grapes upon the vine,
        Never made for use as wine,
    All of which with one accord invite us, ‘Come and eat.’

        “There’s the orange and the lime,
        Lemons, too, for summer-time,
    Which so often do refresh us in the toil and heat;
        There are nectarines so bright,
        There are cherries, red and white,
    All of which with one accord invite us, ‘Come and eat.’

        “There are English walnuts rich,
        And delicious almonds, which
    All alone supply us cream and milk, how rich a treat!
        There are coconuts and pine,
        Pecans, hickory-nuts so fine,
    All of which with one accord invite us, ‘Come and eat.’

        “There’s the ox, an honest beast,
        See him served up at a feast,
    Notwithstanding he has been a faithful, true helpmeet
        To the farmer in his task;
        Yet he never once has asked
    More than humblest fare, and now his blood cries, ‘Do not eat.’

        “There’s that scavenger, the pig,
        Grown to be so fat and big
    That he scarce can stand or walk upon his clumsy feet;
        Though he lives a life of ease,
        He is full of dire disease,
    And he surely is of all things most unfit to eat.

       “There’s the sheep with fleece so warm,
        Never did a bit of harm,
    But for cruel man provides good clothing, warm and neat;
        Ere you raise the sharpened knife,
        Cut his throat, and take his life,
    Listen to his sad though mute appeal, ‘Don’t slay to eat.’

        “There’s the oyster in his bed,
        Eating everything that’s dead;
    He’s the scavenger that cleans the bottom of the sea;
        He lives in the mud and slime,
        Catching microbes all the time,
    And his occupation surely says, ‘Oh, don’t eat me!’

        “There are turkeys, daily fed
        On the best of household bread,
    So that they’ll be fat and toothsome for Thanksgiving day;
        What a sin it is and shame,
        Crime without a proper name,
    For a man these gentle creatures first to feed, then slay!

        “There are birds that sing a lay
        Full of joy at break of day,
    That will silent be forever at the set of sun.
        Some will slay the songsters sweet
        On pretense that they would eat,
    While a thousand more admit they kill them just for fun.

        “List and hear these creatures all,
        Mighty beasts as well as small,
    With a thousand, thousand voices, loud and long repeat,
        We beseech you, let us live;
        Take not life you can not give;
    Only kill ferocious creatures; never slay to eat.

        “It was God’s appointed plan,
        Given long ago to man,
    That no creature of another creature’s flesh should eat,
        But that all alike should dine
        On the fruit of tree and vine
    And the toothsome grains, which heaven has given man for meat.

        “Better far it is to be
        A vegetarian, don’t you see?
    As thus we take our daily food direct from heaven’s own hand.
        When we eat another’s flesh,
        We’re not taking food that’s fresh,
    But are living on a diet that is second hand.

        “Oh, then, let us all resolve
        That, while earth and years revolve,
    We will never more pollute our mouths with bloody meat,
        But will choose a diet pure,
        From disease and germs secure,
    And of fruits and nuts and grains so wholesome ever eat!”

HELEN: I’m glad you read it to us, mother. It _does_ seem, when the
cattle eat the grass and grain, and then we eat _them_, as though we
were eating second-hand food.

PERCY: I don’t propose to do that way any longer. I think I should have
what I eat first-hand, as well as the sheep and ox.

MOTHER: I am sure if you carry out your resolve you will have pure
blood and a more healthy body. I saw some pictures of children not
long ago who had never tasted meat in their lives, and they were as
happy and hearty as you could wish to see. I want you each to act for
yourselves in this matter, and do what you think will be the best for
your health.

ELMER: Is salt a food, mother?

MOTHER: No; salt is a mineral, yet it is found in all parts of the
body. It is also found in nearly all our foods. We add it to some
things when cooking to give them flavor, but it is hurtful to eat much
of it.

AMY: Are mustard, pepper, spices, ginger, and hot sauces good to eat?

MOTHER: No; some people think they _taste_ good, but they are bad for
the body. If you put some mustard on your skin, it makes it red, and
may cause a blister. You know a very little pepper in your eye makes it
smart. These hot things in the kitchen of our body-house make the walls
red, and the cooks get very cross. When people eat such things, they
become thirsty, and sometimes, instead of drinking water to cool the
heated walls and put out the fire these hot things have made, they pour
down beer, whisky, and other drinks, which makes the mischief worse.
When once the habit is formed of using such things, they keep wanting
them hotter and stronger, till nothing tastes good unless it is highly
seasoned. Many become ill, and this is one way drunkards are made.

HELEN: But how do they make drunkards, mother?

MOTHER: These hot things which people sometimes put in the stomach make
them thirsty, as I have said, and so they think they must have beer or
something stronger. Such drinks do not quench thirst, and so they keep
on drinking more and more. If you want the walls of your body-kitchen
to be a pretty pale pink color, you will keep the doors shut tight
against mustard, spices, pepper, and all hot sauces. You can teach your
taste to like the fine flavors which are in our foods already, and
which do no harm to the body.

AMY: But sugar is a good food, isn’t it, mother?

MOTHER: I thought my little girl who is so fond of sweet things would
ask this question. It is true sugar is a food, but to use much of the
kind we buy is hurtful to the body. Nearly all the foods we eat, such
as flour, oatmeal, pease, beets, and milk, have sugar in them. Some
fruits, such as figs and grapes, have a large amount. It is not well
to eat food made very sweet with sugar, such as rich cakes, jams, and
preserves. It is also harmful to eat candies and lollies, for many are
made from a poor kind of sugar, and the coloring matter used to make
them look pretty is hurtful. Besides, as the body-house has a sugar
factory of its own, you see it gets too much sugar when we eat many
sweet things.

HELEN: But where is the sugar factory, mother?

MOTHER: The liver, the largest worker in the house we live in, makes
a kind of sugar, as well as the bitter bile. How it is done I can not
tell, but it is true that in the hundreds of little rooms of which the
liver is made, all the sweet things we eat are changed to liver sugar
before they can be used in the body. The liver, also, makes starch into
sugar, I mean the starch found in bread, potatoes, and other foods. Now
if the fireman on an engine should shovel so much coal into his furnace
that it was filled full, what would happen?

ELMER: The furnace would be choked up so the fire would go out, or else
it would burn very slowly.

MOTHER: That is just what takes place in this wonderful sugar factory.
Since the liver makes sugar out of starch which is found in our foods,
if we swallow a big piece of cake, a lot of jam, some syrup, and some
candy, such treatment makes the liver cross. When all those little,
living kettles are full of sugar already, how can they hold any more?

PERCY: How does the liver show it is cross, mother?

[Illustration: “_He has a sorry time._”]

MOTHER: It goes to work to punish the master of the house. It gives
him a nasty taste in his mouth, and he feels so sick that he thinks he
wants nothing to eat. Perhaps the liver sends word to the stomach that
it has “struck work,” and it will have nothing to do with such messes
as are sent it to work over. Then the stomach, not knowing what else to
do, sends all there is in it back upstairs out through the passage, and
the master of the house tells his friends who come to visit him, that
he is “bilious,” or that he has a “bilious attack,” and you may be sure
he has a sorry time. There may be a dreadful aching up in the cupola;
perhaps there is pain all over the house, all because the right kind of
food and the right amount were not sent in to build up the body. The
same thing is likely to happen if the master of the house sends a lot
of pastry, fat meat, and fried or greasy foods into the kitchen. Bile
is the one to care for them all, and he will bear such treatment awhile
without complaining; but when once his temper is up, he will not be
kind to anything the master may send him. Like other good servants, he
makes a bad master. Perhaps he will try to do some work in a lazy sort
of way; but he keeps grumbling all the time, till he makes the other
servants as cross as himself.

PERCY: I think I will try to keep Bile good-natured, and send the right
things and the right amount down to the sugar factory.

MOTHER: You may be sure you will not be happy unless you do; for,
though strange, yet ’tis true that when things go wrong in the stomach
and liver, it makes the master of the house very cross and unhappy.

Not long ago I visited a lady who has a pleasant home and all she could
wish to make her comfortable. I found her face gloomy, and she was
crying. She said she was not well; that a skin disease was troubling
her; that her children did not do right; and that she was very
miserable.

“I think it is my liver,” she added; “for when my blood is right and my
liver works well I am not troubled this way.”

Poor woman! She thought she was not a Christian, and she made herself
and her friends unhappy by her fault-finding. Her liver was to blame,
or rather she was to blame for giving it so much work to do that it
made her life hard, when it ought to have been most pleasant.

HELEN: But, mother, you make us feel as though we hardly ought to eat
at all, for fear of making somebody sour down-stairs.

MOTHER: Oh, no; I don’t want you to feel that way, but I wish you
to use these servants in your body-house so well that it will be a
pleasure to them to serve you! We should eat plenty of good, plain food
at proper times. We are made so we will get hungry and _want_ to eat;
and it is well that we do, or we might forget that fuel is needed in
the body. Not only should we eat proper kinds of food, but we should be
careful not to eat too much. You remember that Di-ges´tion must have
plenty of room in which to do her work, or she gets peevish and does
her task poorly.

AMY: How much should we eat in order not to eat too much?

MOTHER: Some persons need more food than others, and no one can tell
another just how much he should eat; but it is safe to say that we
should not put into the stomach all it will hold, nor eat just for the
pleasure of eating. In very cold countries people can eat more without
harm to themselves than they can in warmer climates. I once read of a
traveler in the frozen north who saw an Esquimau eat thirty-five pounds
of meat and several tallow candles in one day; but such a story seems
almost too big to be true, and we would certainly hardly feel able to
take such an amount of food in the same time. Children should have
plenty of good, simple food while they are growing.

ELMER: I think I will take a little food at a time, and take it often.
That’s the way the fireman feeds his engine.

MOTHER: That may do for an engine, but not for a stomach. It must have
rest as well as food. We should eat what we need, give the stomach time
to digest it, let it rest after it has finished its work, and then give
it more to do. One great cause of illness among people now is that they
eat too often and too much. Three meals a day at regular times are
enough, and the last should be a light one and taken early, to allow
the cooks time to do their work before the master goes to bed. Then all
will be quiet in the body-house, and the servants can rest after their
toil. If treated in this way, the morning will find them fresh and
ready for their duties.

HELEN: Should our food be cooked or eaten raw?

[Illustration: “_Lay the table in a neat, pleasing way._”]

MOTHER: I am glad you asked that question. Most kinds of foods are
better cooked, but many things are made unfit for food at all by being
badly cooked. To be able to prepare healthful food in a neat, tasteful
way is the best and most useful knowledge a girl can obtain. Every one
should know how to make good, light bread, how to prepare vegetables,
cook grains and fruits, and lay the table in a neat, pleasing way.

[Illustration: Quart pots of ale]

AMY: Will you teach us how, mother?

MOTHER: Certainly; we will begin this very day. I think we will form a
class of four; for the boys will wish to learn too. I am sure you will
soon be able to prepare food very nicely.

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?

MOTHER: Tea and coffee are not foods, and both contain poisons which
are hurtful to the body. It does not make bad water better to put
poison into it. Besides, these drinks are often taken with food, and
we have found that the cook down-stairs can do nothing while a lot of
liquid is pouring down over her. It is also true that hot drinks weaken
the walls of the stomach. It is better to drink pure water, and to take
it before eating or some time after, and then we shall not be tempted
to swallow our food without properly chewing it. Alcohol, tea, and
coffee are stimulants.

[Illustration: “_Water, pure water, is the best drink for every one._”]

HELEN: And I think you said once, mother, that a stimulant is like a
whip to a tired horse.

MOTHER: Yes; to stimulate means to prick, or goad, to excite, or rouse
to action. When a horse is very tired from climbing a steep hill his
driver strikes him with a whip. That _stimulates_ but it does not
strengthen him. At first it takes but one blow to make him go faster,
then two or three, and he finally becomes so weak that he does not
respond to the whip at all.

That is just what happens when a person uses tea, coffee, tobacco,
beer, or whisky. At first only a little will make him feel rested and
as though he were stronger. But soon he wants more, and does not feel
as strong as before he took the stimulant the first time. These drinks
stimulate, but do not give strength. When a horse is tired he does not
need a whip, but food and rest. The same is true of a man or woman when
tired. Instead of putting poison in the stomach they need good food and
rest, and these will make them really stronger.

[Illustration: _Giving him a stimulant._]

PERCY: I am glad that I know why all those things are called stimulants.

MOTHER: And I must tell you one more thing about the liver which will
help you understand what a wonderful part of the body-house it is, and
why we should treat it kindly. As you already know, it is the largest
room in the body. We might call it the store-room; for after the fuel
is ready to use, it is stored up in the liver, where it is kept till
needed, just as the tender carries a supply of coal for the engine.

We can not always be eating, and the body needs fuel when we are asleep
as well as when we are awake, so the liver stores it away and sends it
out when needed. Now if the master of the house sends a lot of alcohol
to his liver, at first the little rooms fill up with fat, so they can
not do their work or store up food for the body. If he keeps sending
more and more whisky to his liver, it finally becomes small and hard,
and when he goes to the doctor to find out what disease he has, the
wise man tells him he has “the drunkard’s liver.”

HELEN: What a pity it is that men should abuse the liver so!

MOTHER: Yes, it is a pity, but some women are as bad, though not as
many of them as of the men take alcohol. Some of them who would never
think of doing _that_, think that their liver is too big, and that it
makes the waist too large, so they gird it up with tight clothing and
do not give it room to work. One doctor found a woman who had squeezed
her waist so long that the liver was cut in two; and she died for her
folly.

When Liver finds his room growing smaller, he gets cross, and says,
“We’ll see about this;” and he gives the young lady a pain in her side.
Her skin begins to look yellow and dirty, and the silly girl goes to
the doctor for some medicine to make her well, when all she needs is
to give Liver room to do his work, and give her body the right kind of
fuel. Perhaps she is so foolish that she would rather be ill than let
her waist grow as large as God made it; and, if so, she and her friends
have a sorry time.

AMY: My liver shall never scold because it can’t have room enough in
which to work.

MOTHER: That’s like my sensible girl, and I wish every other in the
land would say the same.

HELEN: But, mother, I have heard girls say that their dresses were not
a bit tight, when I am almost sure they were.

MOTHER: The only safe way is not to wear corsets or tight bands at all,
and the clothing should be so loose that it will not compress the body
when one draws a deep, full breath.

PERCY: I should think there was enough sickness in the world without
people eating, drinking, and dressing to make themselves ill.

MOTHER: Many people do not know that it is what they do that makes
them ill. They think people _must_ be sick sometimes, and they do not
study to know how to care for themselves in such a way that they may
keep well. For this reason I wish you to learn how to care for the holy
temple of your body while you are children, and we must also do all we
can to help others by living right ourselves.

                           A PUMPING ENGINE

MOTHER: When we visited the water-works what did you admire most of all
the things you saw, Elmer?

ELMER: The great engines that kept pumping all the time and never
stopped to rest. How strange it seemed to think that they pump enough
water for all the people in this great city! The houses on the
hillsides as well as those on low ground have all they need.

MOTHER: But you would hardly think the house we live in has the most
wondrous little pumping engine you ever saw, would you? Day and night
it pumps “the river of life,” as the blood has been called, to every
part of the body. If it should once stop, we would die, and the
body-house could never be used again.

HELEN: Do you mean the heart, mother?

MOTHER: Yes. Can you tell me where your heart is?

AMY: I can. It is on my left side.

MOTHER: Not quite right, little girl. The lower point is felt on the
left side, it is true; but most of the heart is higher up and nearer
the center of your body. Who can tell how large it is?

PERCY: About the size of the fist of the person in whom it is found.

AMY: Then the baby’s heart is about as big as his dear little hand.

MOTHER: Can you describe its shape?

HELEN: I think it is something like that of a pear or a strawberry,
with the small end down.

[Illustration: _The heart._]

MOTHER: Here is a picture that will help us in learning its shape. I
think I have not yet told you that the trunk of the body is divided
into two large rooms. There is a partition running crosswise, called
the di´a-phragm (di´a-fram). This gives us a large upper room, where
we find the engine and bath room. The kitchen, eating room, store
room, and waste rooms are in the lower part of the trunk, below the
di´a-phragm. But we want to talk about the heart now. We have found
about how large it is and what it is shaped like; let us next take a
peep inside and learn, if we can, how it does its work.

ELMER: Didn’t you tell us once that the heart was made of muscles?

MOTHER: Yes; the outside walls are made of little strong muscles, and
the inside is hollow. It is divided into four rooms. Each has its own
name, but we will not try to learn them now. There is a wall reaching
from top to bottom, and as it has no door, nothing can pass through
from one side to the other. Then there are cross walls, or partitions,
with folding doors in them, so there is an up-stairs and down-stairs
room on each side. There are big pipes, or tubes, leading in or out
from each room. They are called veins, or ar´ter-ies. The veins carry
the blood _to_ the heart, while the arteries carry it _away_.

HELEN: But, mother, what makes the heart beat?

MOTHER: I thought that would be about the first thing you would wish to
know, and I will explain the best I can. When the muscles which make up
the heart draw together, the rooms inside become small, and the blood
in them is squeezed out. When the muscles slacken, the rooms become
larger, and the blood rushes in and fills them again. So the blood
keeps coming in and going out of the heart all the time, and it causes
it to make the movement which we call beating.

AMY: How fast does it beat?

MOTHER: In very little children it beats from one hundred and twenty to
one hundred and forty times a minute. In grown people it beats sixty
or seventy times, and when the body-house has grown old and feeble, it
beats slower still. Percy, you may run up and down stairs and then tell
us if you see any difference in your heart-beats.

PERCY: I believe they are twice as many as they were when I was sitting
still.

MOTHER: Hardly as many as that, but the heart beats much more quickly.
Can you think of anything else that makes the action of the heart
faster?

HELEN: When I was frightened this morning I could hear my heart go
thump, thump, and I am sure it seemed to be in a hurry.

MOTHER: Yes; moving quickly, fright, anger, or joy makes this busy pump