The Child's Day Part 11

So it is a good thing to take off your clothes, and let your skin be well aired and cooled. Don't leave your clothes all in a heap on the floor just where you happen to shed them, but hang them up over the back of a chair or on pegs, so that the air can blow through them all night long and sweeten and clean and dry them. Clothes that are worn continuously become sour with perspiration, and for this same reason your mother gives you regularly, once or twice a week, clean underwear and clean s.h.i.+rts or dresses.

After you have undressed for bed, wash your face and neck and hands; and if you have a nice warm room or bathroom, take a quick splash, or sponge bath, all over, before you put on your nightgown. This will wash away from your skin everything that the perspiration has been leaving on it all day long, as well as any dust, or dirt, that may have got on it during the day.

If the room is not warm enough for you to do this, it is a good thing for you to strip to your waist and then to swing your arms about, much as you did in the morning, only not quite so long, and to rub your arms and neck and shoulders all over with your hands. This gives them an _air bath_, and rubs off any of the little scales of skin that may be ready to be shed, and gives you a sort of dry wash, which is next best to a wet one.

Then, when you have put on your nightdress, give your hair a thorough brus.h.i.+ng. This is the best time of the day to do it. Dust, smoke, soot, and germs have been blowing into your hair all day long, and a thoroughly good brus.h.i.+ng will not only get these out of it before they have had time to work their way in and lodge on the scalp, but will keep the hair bright and healthy.

Before you get into bed, give your nails a quick scrub with a nail brush and hot water and soap, and go over them with a _blunt_-pointed nail cleaner, cleaning out any dirt that may be under their edges, and rounding off any ragged or broken points with the file. Once a week or so, when you take your hot bath, it is a good thing to go over your toe nails in the same way, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them and cleaning them. Remember, however, not to round off your toe nails at the corners, but to leave them square, as in this way you will prevent them from ingrowing under the pressure of your shoes.

There is one thing that you should be very sure of before you get into bed, and that is that your teeth are as clean as it is possible for you to make them. If you attended to this also directly after supper, so much the better; for just as it is important to clean the dishes and knives and forks that you have been using, so it is important to thoroughly clean the ivory knives and forks that grow in your mouth.

Talk about being "born with a silver spoon in your mouth"! You were born with something much prettier and far more valuable.

Even though your teeth make a firm and even line in front and on their cutting edges, yet there are many little gaps and s.p.a.ces between their roots, where bits of food can stick. If these sc.r.a.ps of food are not thoroughly and carefully removed after each meal, the warmth and moisture in the mouth makes them begin to decay. The acids from this decay will be likely not only to upset your stomach and digestion, but to act upon the gla.s.sy coating of your teeth. After a little while, spots will begin to form on the surface of your teeth; they will lose their bright, s.h.i.+ny, pearly look; the acids will eat further into the teeth, and very soon there will be holes, or _cavities_.

Though your teeth are very hard and gla.s.sy looking on the surface, they are much softer and chalkier inside; this gla.s.sy coating covers only the _crown_, or free part, of the tooth, which you can see. It leaves the softer inside part of the tooth bare just at the edge of the gums, and particularly between the roots of the teeth, where little sc.r.a.ps of food lodge and decay. When the acids that are formed by the decaying food have eaten away a good deal of the inside of the tooth, the hard, s.h.i.+ny surface is left just like a thin sh.e.l.l; and one day you happen to bite down upon a piece of bone in your food, or try to crack a nut with your teeth, and "crack" goes this brittle sh.e.l.l of your hollow tooth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEALTHY GUMS MEAN HEALTHY TEETH

If the gums are not kept clean and healthy, the second teeth that are getting ready to push out the first teeth will not come in strong and good, nor will the teeth remain good. This picture shows how the teeth grow. Notice the gaps between the teeth, where food may lodge.]

Right in the middle of each tooth is a tiny hollow, or cavity, filled with a soft, living pulp containing one or two very sensitive nerves; and when the decay has eaten into the tooth far enough to reach this nerve pulp, it makes it ache, and then you have _toothache_.

The one and only thing that is necessary in order to avoid all this decay and breaking away of your teeth, and throbbing toothache, is to keep the surface of your teeth, and particularly the sides where they are next one another, clean and smooth and unbroken. And all that is needed to keep your teeth perfectly clean and smooth is to use your toothbrush thoroughly after every meal and at bedtime; and then, if there are any little sc.r.a.ps of food between the teeth that have not been brushed away, to pick them out gently with a quill toothpick, or take a piece of silk or linen thread, push it up between the teeth, and gently saw backward and forward until you have cleaned out the s.p.a.ce between the roots. You should take at least three to five minutes after every meal and before you go to bed at night to brush your teeth; and you should brush not only your teeth, but the whole surface of your gums close up to where they join the lips.

It is almost as important to keep your gums pink and hard and healthy as it is to keep your teeth clean; and the same thorough brus.h.i.+ng will do both. If the gums are perfectly healthy, they will come well down over the roots of the teeth, and keep them safely covered right down to where the gla.s.sy outer coating begins, and so leave no gap where the acids of decay can attack the teeth. Be sure to brush your teeth, not merely straight backward and forward, but up and down and round and round as well, both to clean out thoroughly all the grooves and openings between them and to brush the gums well down over the teeth.

It may seem strange, but one of the best ways to keep your teeth from growing crooked and irregular is to keep your nose clear and healthy, so that you can breathe through it freely at all times, both day and night. Crooked jaws and irregular teeth are more often caused by mouth breathing than by any other one thing.

You can see why it is best to be careful not to get grit or dirt or bits of bone in your food, and not to crack nuts or hard candy with your teeth. If you do, you may crack or scratch the delicate gla.s.sy coating of your teeth. But, on the other hand, it is a good thing to give the teeth plenty to do, and particularly to eat the crusts of bread, and some of the tougher parts of meat, and parched corn or other grains, and to eat celery, apples, and other foods that take a great deal of chewing. The teeth are like everything else in the body--they need plenty of vigorous work in order to keep them healthy.

Be very careful, though, to keep out of your mouth anything that might possibly crack or scratch the gla.s.sy coating, such as pins, pennies, pieces of wire, or slate pencils. It is best not even to try to bite off threads or pieces of string. There is, of course, another reason for not putting pencils and pennies and such things into your mouth: they may have dirt, or germs, on them and infect you with disease or at least upset your digestion.

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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 suns.h.i.+ne is good for you? 7.

What does this book mean by saying that we are made of suns.h.i.+ne?

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 cla.s.s and show them the exercises that are good to do every morning. 3. Tell the cla.s.s why they are good. 4. Do them every morning for a week, and then tell the cla.s.s how you feel about keeping them up.

III. BATHING AND BRUs.h.i.+NG. 1. If you grow very warm exercising, what change do you notice in your skin? What makes it turn pink? Where does the moisture come from? 2. What kind of bathing do you like best? 3.

What do we wash off besides perspiration and dust? 4. If a scab forms over a scratch or cut in your skin, what should you do to it? Why?

When will the scab come off of itself? 5. What makes the skin freckle or tan? 6. Could your face stand the same hard rubbing as your hands?

Why not? 7. How do you take care of your hair? 8. What other parts of the skin can you tell about? 9. Look at your nails; which of the "tools" on p. 17 do they need now? 10. How, and when, do you care for your teeth? Why is this brus.h.i.+ng very necessary? 11. Why must our clothes be washed every week? Name each of your _Five Senses_. 12.

What can your skin tell you that your eyes and ears cannot? 13. Do you know of any trade or occupation in which it is necessary to train one's sense of touch? Tell about it. 14. What are the blind children in the picture doing? (Their alphabet does not look like yours, for the letters are represented by groups of raised dots or dashes or curves, which are more easily and quickly felt.) 15. What must you do besides was.h.i.+ng and brus.h.i.+ng to keep your skin in good order and looking well?

BREAKFAST

1. Why do we need to eat? 2. Do you like the breakfast suggested here?

Why do you need so much? 3. Which of these foods come from animals?

Which from plants? Which of them are the best "to grow on"? 4. How much milk is there in the two bottles in the picture on p. 23? What is the difference between milk and cream? Why is it better to buy bottled milk than milk dipped out of a can? 5. Suppose that you are going to get the breakfast in this house; how will you use some of the milk in preparing it? How will you take care of what is left? 6. Why is milk much better for you than coffee or tea? Where does the food strength in the milk come from? 7. Suppose that you have just bitten off a mouthful of food; what is the story of this mouthful before it is taken into your blood? Where does most of it enter the blood? What becomes of the part that the blood cannot use? Why is it very necessary that this be disposed of regularly?

GOING TO SCHOOL

I. GETTING READY. 1. How is it best to dress in winter? Why? (If this is hard to understand, think which would cool faster--hot soup in a deep cup or the same soup poured out into a plate? In which dish would the soup have the larger surface from which to let off the heat? You may now weigh only half as much as you will when you are fully grown, but you already have much more than half as much size or surface.) 2.

What quality should all clothing material have, and why?

II. AN EARLY ROMP. 1. Which makes you more tired, to walk slowly, just "lagging along," for about twenty minutes, or to walk briskly for the same time? Why? 2. How do you make your muscles strong? What is your heart made of? How can you make your heart strong? 3. Why do you need a heart? 4. What is your _pulse_? Where can you easily feel a pulse?

Count the pulse of someone else for half a minute by a watch. Do this accurately. How many beats would there be in a minute? Try this with different cla.s.smates. 5. What do we call the tubes through which the blood flows away from the heart? The tubes through which it flows back to the heart? 6. What is happening to the blood on its "round trip"?

Where does it get the liquid food that it delivers to the muscles? Why must the blood be carried away from the muscles?

III. FRESH AIR--WHY WE NEED IT. 1. If you were asked how we can tell that air is everywhere, what could you say? 2. What do we call a thin light substance like air? 3. What proof have we that the body needs it? How does it get around to the different parts of the body? 4. What is the body--its muscle, bone, skin, and all--made up of? How do these cells use the air? Why do you need to breathe so often? 5. In the candle experiment, is all the air under the gla.s.s used up? What is used up? How can we compare a person in a closed room to the burning candle under the gla.s.s? 6. What is the gas that we breathe out? 7. In what three ways does the body "clean house"?

IV. FRESH AIR--HOW WE BREATHE IT. 1. Where are your lungs? 2. Draw a picture of the ribs. 3. In what position are they when the lungs are filled with air? In what position is the diaphragm then? 4. What are the lungs giving off in the breath besides carbon dioxid? How can you prove this? 5. How can you prove that the gas in your breath is not like the gas in the fresh air around you? 6. Why does a room with people in it grow very warm if the doors and windows are kept closed?

7. How does Nature keep the outdoor air clean? What makes the winds?

8. Are you careful to keep your breath as clean as possible? How? How do you help keep the air in your house clean?

IN SCHOOL

I. BRINGING THE FRESH AIR IN. 1. What do we mean by fresh air? Why must the air we breathe have oxygen in it? 2. Is the air in the room now the best you can have in it? How is the air moving? 3. Is there always the same amount of air in the room? Then, if there is more fresh air, there must be--bad air? If there is less fresh air, there must be--bad air? What is the quickest way to let the bad air out and the fresh air in? Why are you given recess? 4. What is a draft? Are drafts dangerous? 5. Will night air hurt you? What air can you have in the house at night except night air?