Chapter III: Part 3

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?

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?

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

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 work more quickly. Sadness and grief cause it to work slowly. It beats faster when we are standing than when we sit still, and the motion is slower when we lie down than when we are sitting.

ELMER: Why did the doctor put his finger on my wrist when I was sick, mother?

MOTHER: He wanted to know how your heart was working, so he felt your pulse. Sometimes when people are ill it beats very, very fast, and sometimes it moves more slowly than it should.

AMY: What is the pulse?

MOTHER: If I use any words that you do not understand you must ask what they mean. The pulse is the beating or throbbing of the arteries caused by the blood flowing through them from the heart. Have you noticed how the water sometimes goes in jerks as it is pumped through the hose pipe in the garden? It is that way with the heart. Each beat sends the blood through the arteries in jerks, and when we place our fingers on them, we can tell how fast the heart is beating. That is called the pulse.

AMY: Sometimes I think that I can hear my heart beating.

MOTHER: Each time it beats it makes two sounds, and they can be heard if the ear is placed over the heart. The doctor can tell by these sounds whether the heart is working all right.

PERCY: But I should think it would get tired out if it keeps at work all the time.

MOTHER: So it would if it had no rest. Every part of the body must rest. Between the heart-beats there is just a little rest, and, though the time is very short, yet if it were all put together it would amount to six or eight hours a day.

HELEN: If the heart beats sixty or seventy times a minute, I wonder how many times it beats in a day.

MOTHER: You may do a little figuring to find out. Seventy beats a minute, sixty minutes an hour, and twenty-four hours a day.

ELMER: I have it. It would be more than one hundred thousand.

┌─────────┐
│ 70 │
│ 60 │
│ ———- │
│ 4,200 │
│ 24 │
│ ———- │
│ 16800 │
│ 8400 │
│ ———- │
│ 100,800 │
└─────────┘

MOTHER: And this means hard work, too; for if all it does in twenty-four hours were done at once, it would be equal to lifting one hundred and twenty tons of stone one foot from the ground.

PERCY: Whew! I should think this was a powerful little force-pump, sure.

MOTHER: But what would you think of a man who made his heart beat six thousand times more in twenty-four hours, which means that it must lift seven tons more than it should?

Amy: But I thought the heart kept working of itself. Then how _could_ any one make it do more?

MOTHER: By taking only two ounces of alcohol in a day the heart would be overworked as I have said. It would not only have its regular work to do, but it would do that amount extra to throw out the poison it finds in the blood; for it knows it is an enemy. See, I have taken the pendulum off the clock for a minute. Now what has happened?

ELMER: It ticks much faster, and will soon run down.

MOTHER: It is much the same way with the heart of a person who takes drink with alcohol in it. His heart beats faster; his face gets red, and he can think and talk fast. It is like an engineer putting on steam and sending his train at lightning speed down a steep grade. If nothing worse happens, he will find when he comes where the track is up-grade that his power is gone and he has wasted his steam. The clock runs fast with the pendulum off, but it soon “runs down,” we say, and it is the same with the boy or the man who drinks. There are nerves which act on the heart as brakes do on the train. They keep it steadily at work and do not let it beat too fast. There is another way that alcohol hurts the heart.

HELEN: Please tell us how.

MOTHER: It changes the strong muscle walls into fat. The heart grows larger than it should be, and becomes so weak that it can not send the blood over the body as it should. The man has hard work to breathe. He gets the dropsy and other ailments, and perhaps dies of “heart failure.”

PERCY: Does tobacco affect the heart, mother?

MOTHER: Yes; it makes its beat unsteady, and sometimes causes an illness which doctors call “tobacco heart.” It also makes it work harder than it ought.

AMY: What can we do to keep the heart well and strong?

MOTHER: Be sure to give it good blood to send over the body. You need not keep still for fear that you will break this curious little pump; for, like the engines in ships, it is made to be tumbled about. Boys and girls can run, jump, and swing, yet the little engine keeps on with its steady hub tub against the walls of the house, and we would hardly know it was there. Good, honest labor makes the heart work better, and sends the blood running swiftly to every part of the body. We say when we are cold that a brisk walk will “start the blood;” that is, the heart beats more quickly, and soon the whole body becomes warm. We might say that the heart is like a clock, as well as an engine. If I do not wind the clock, what happens?

PERCY: It runs down.

MOTHER: Does some one need to wind up your heart each day to keep it beating?

HELEN: Oh, no; it just keeps going itself!

MOTHER: God keeps it beating, sometimes for a hundred years, without our help. I read a little poem not long ago about the heart, which I will repeat for you:—

THE CLOCK OF LIFE.

“Oh, did you ever think, my child,
That in your body dwells
A tiny clock, that verily
All other clocks excels?

“It needs no key to wind it up,
No oiling of the wheels,
No jeweler to make repairs;
With such it never deals.

“Near seventy ticks a minute is
Its normal race to go;
Just place your thumb against your wrist,
And you will find it so.

“This little clock was made to be
A faithful sentinel,
To give alarm of any change
Within its prison cell.

“If you are healthy, then its ticks
Are even, full, and strong;
By this you know that, in its cell,
Nothing is going wrong.

“When sickness comes, it works so hard,
And is so feeble, too,
It can not keep the perfect time
Its Maker meant it to.

“Now, would you help this little clock
The best of time to keep?
Then always mind the rules of health,
And thus their blessings reap.”

—_Mrs. Julia Loomis._

THE CARETAKER

AMY: Just see, mother! I have cut my finger. See how fast the blood runs out! Oh-h!

MOTHER: Suppose we let a drop fall on this glass and then try to find out what it is made of, what it does in the body, and about the different rooms it visits. You may ask questions and I will try to answer them; but first we will bind up the cut finger in this bit of soft cloth. We have already learned how blood is made, but we want to learn what it does for us.

Blood is made from the food you eat and the water you drink. If you eat good food it makes good blood. Bad food and drink make bad blood. It might be called the caretaker, or the housekeeper of the body. Without it your body-house would go to ruin; for the Bible says, “The life of all flesh is the blood.” After passing through the kitchen, serving room, and dining room, the blood enters a dark tunnel and comes to your heart.

HELEN: But what makes it such a bright red color?

MOTHER: Because it has millions of little red bodies called cor´pus-cles. Really it is a pale yellow, but there are so many of these tiny folk floating around that they make it look red, just as a river would if it were packed full of tiny red fishes, or as water would if you should fill a bottle with very small red beads and then cover them with water.

PERCY: But are all the cor´pus-cles red?

MOTHER: No; some are white, but there are many more red than white.

AMY: What do they look like?

MOTHER: You can not see them at all unless you should look through a mi´cro-scope. The red cor´pus-cles are shaped like a little biscuit with a dimple in the middle. The white ones keep changing their shape in a very wonderful way. First they are round, then square, then three-cornered, and they take on ever so many other shapes. There are several millions of these little red and white fellows in a single drop of blood.

ELMER: But you said it went through a dark tunnel to get to the heart. Please tell us about that.

MOTHER: The tunnel is round, like a tube, and I must tell you that these tubes are in every part of your body. Some are quite large, some are small, and some are so tiny that you could not see them if you should try. They are like a tree with its trunk dividing into large branches, and these into smaller ones, till at last they become little twigs. The largest tubes for carrying blood through the body are called arteries. The smaller ones are called veins. The arteries carry fresh, bright, clean blood to every part of your body-house. It bounds along with a hop, skip, and jump, as though it were in a hurry to get to work. The arteries have very strong walls, and, as I told you, the blood soon finds itself in the heart.

HELEN: Which room did it go into first?

MOTHER: When the blood is fresh and clean it goes into the top room on the left side. It keeps coming in until the room is filled full. Then the little folding doors open, and the blood is crowded into the lower left room, the doors fly back, and--

AMY: But please tell us about the doors.

MOTHER: They are made so that the blood could not get back into the top room if it wished; for they never swing but one way, and some small cords hold them in place. These doors are called valves. When the lower room is filled, the walls press together, and the blood is forced into the largest blood tube in the body, the walls of which are so very smooth, that the blood passes along with a merry bound. The tube keeps growing smaller the farther we go from the heart, and branches into many smaller tubes.

PERCY: And how far does the blood go?

MOTHER: Perhaps it first takes a trip through the trunk of your body, down through your right leg, and on to the end of your big toe. The tubes at last become very small, and there are so many of them that they are like a network of the finest lace. A hair would seem like a big rope beside them. They are so very tiny that you can not see them. Their walls are thinner than tissue paper, and they are so close together that you can not touch your skin with the point of a needle without touching some of them. When the blood comes to these tiny tubes, it does not travel so fast as at first, and as it passes along, the muscles pick it to pieces, take the part they want as food, and load the blood down with waste which they can not use. When they are so hungry, the blood is glad to feed them and give them the oxygen, which makes them warm.

AMY: Did it stay long in those little tubes?

MOTHER: No; it went through as quickly as it could, and on its way back found itself in bigger tubes, which keep growing larger; for it is now on its way back to the heart. This picture will help you to see the road it travels. It is now a dark red color, and unfit to work longer till it is washed. Back it goes to the heart, the tubes through which it travels growing larger all the way until it tumbles into the right top room of the heart, which, as you have learned, always has dirty, worn-out blood in it. But it is not allowed to stay there; for between this room and the lower right room there are three folding doors kept in place like the two on the left side, and through them it passes. The walls of the rooms on the right side of the heart are not as thick as those on the left side. I think that must be because the left side sends the blood farther than the right.

HELEN: Does the blood stop to rest in the lower right room?

MOTHER: Oh, no; it never rests as long as there is any life in it! The heart squeezes it out into another big tube, and it soon finds itself in the bath room, where it is washed through and through, and its color becomes as bright red as when new.

AMY: And where does the blood then go?

MOTHER: Straight back to the left side of the heart, where it is pumped out the same as before; and this time we will say it goes to the kitchen of the house you live in, and helps the cook get the dinner you have eaten ready to be made into more blood. The old blood eats some of the good things, and again it is sent to the right side of the heart and back through the bath room.

PERCY: And what then?

MOTHER: Its next trip may be taken to the brain, to help a little girl learn her lessons in school. The brain takes what it can use, and back the blood goes to the right heart, around through the bath room again, and the next time it may be sent to the liver, where it finds sugar and bile-making going on, as usual.

ELMER: But how can the blood be of any use there?

MOTHER: I think you would not ask such a question if you could go there to see. It “takes all the starch out of it,” as you sometimes say, and some other things besides, to make into sugar. It also uses part of it to make into bitter bile, so you may well believe that when it goes back to the heart there is not much left that is of value. But after a good wash in the bath room the blood goes back to the heart, and this time may be sent to the bones in your fingers, and they take what lime it has. This drop was just making its way back to the heart again when Amy cut her finger and let it out.

PERCY: But I should have thought the blood would have been worn out making so many trips.

MOTHER: So it would if it was not made new by the food you eat. It keeps taking as well as giving as it goes round and round through the body. You would not expect a housekeeper to keep everything tidy and clean in a house, and not give her what she needed to make her strong and able to work; and so the master of the house gives the blood plenty to eat; and it makes no complaint as long as it can do its work well. It is a very busy person, we might say, and, as there is no end of things to do in the house in which you live, the blood works night and day.

ELMER: But I don’t see how the blood can take with it all that is needed to mend the different parts of the house.

MOTHER: It is supposed to carry with it a supply of everything that is needed to keep the house in order as it goes, so that when a bone says, “I want some lime,” or a muscle says, “Please give me some al-bu´men,” each part gets what it calls for if it is in the blood. Whether it has what every part needs depends on what the master of the house sends into the kitchen to make blood. Have I told you about the filters in the body?

AMY: I’m sure you have not. Please tell us now.