Chapter II: The Land of Nod

Now you are all ready for bed; and the white pillow and the nice, clean sheets and the warm blankets look very good to you, and you are ready to go to the "Land of Nod."

You need not be afraid of the cold at night. Open your bedroom windows. Have plenty of light-weight, warm covers; then the cold breezes won't hurt you, but will make you strong. Just think how many hours you are in bed,--nearly half of your life,--and you need fresh, moving air all the time. Be sure to open your windows from the top as well as from the bottom. You know why: your breath is warm so that it floats and rises like smoke; and if you open the window only at the bottom, this bad air, which rises to the top of the room, can't get out. It is best to have windows on two sides of a bedroom, so that the air can be kept moving through it all night long. If you don't breathe fresh air while you sleep, you will feel dull and stupid in the morning and perhaps have a headache.

So run your window shades right up to the top and throw your curtains, or shutters, back, as well as open the windows. If you don't, the fresh air cannot blow through the room properly. Even if this does let more light or noise into the room, this is of no importance whatever compared with abundance of fresh air. If you have played long enough out of doors in the daytime and have eaten a good supper and not stayed up too late, you will sleep soundly without being bothered at all by either lights or noises coming in through the windows. And no matter how cold or how light it is, don't put your head under the bedclothes. Why?

It is best for you to close your mouth while you are going to sleep, and breathe through your nose, so that the air will be properly purified and warmed before it reaches your lungs. If you can't do this, your mother can perhaps give you something to wash out your nose, so that you can breathe freely. If that does not help, you had better see a doctor, and he will find some way to clear your head so that you can use your nose comfortably.

Suppose you take a pencil and paper and write down all you did yesterday. Wasn't it enough to make you tired and sleepy and want a chance to rest? Even while you sleep, your heart keeps beating, and you don't stop breathing, of course. But your muscles are quiet, and your food tube rests. Your brain rests, too,--better in sleep than at any other time,--so that when morning comes you are as "lively as a cricket" and quite ready for the new day.

Yet even in sleep your brain does not stop working entirely, but goes on receiving messages from the stomach and the skin and the memory, and mixing them up together in the strangest fashion, so that you _dream_, as you say. You ought not to dream very much if you are perfectly well; but as long as your dreams are pleasant or amusing, you need not pay any attention to them. But if you have had bad dreams, or you dream so hard all night long that you don't feel rested in the morning, then you had better speak to your mother about it, and let her see what is the matter with your digestion or your nerves, or take you to a doctor. Bad dreams are always a sign of ill health and are a very disagreeable thing, from which there is no need that you should suffer any more than from headache or indigestion or colic. Dreams, of course, do not mean or foretell anything whatever, except simply how bad, or good, the state of your digestion and your nerves is.

Now, how much time should you spend in bed? Well, I think at your age nearly half the time. Ten or eleven hours of sleep make you ready for all the hours of work and play, and you don't become cross and tired half so easily if you have plenty of sleep. Though you are lying so quietly, you are not by any means wasting your time, for you probably are growing faster when you are asleep than when awake. Babies, who are growing very fast, you know, sleep nearly all the time.

So after you have opened all the windows wide, put out the light and jump into bed and lie down for a good night's rest without thinking about anything except how comfortable the bed feels when you are tired.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

GOOD MORNING

I. WAKING UP. 1. If you were choosing a bedroom, on which side of the house--facing which direction--would you choose it, and why? 2. How does the air "down cellar" feel? 3. Why do people often keep fresh fruit and vegetables there? 4. What are _bacteria_? 5. How can we prevent bacteria that cause disease from growing in our houses? 6. How would you know, without being told, that sunshine is good for you? 7. What does this book mean by saying that we are made of sunshine?

II. A GOOD START. 1. When you jump out of bed in the morning, what do you do with the bedclothes? Why? 2. Stand in front of the class and show them the exercises that are good to do every morning. 3. Tell the class why they are good. 4. Do them every morning for a week, and then tell the class how you feel about keeping them up.