Part 14

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.

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.

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.