The Childs Day | Page 5

that they pulled the hairs straight up and made the skin look rough.
What part of the body has a great deal of hair on it? The head, of course. Isn't it strange that you have such long hair on the top of your head and none at all on the soles of your feet or the palms of your hands? The hair on your head protects you from cold and rain and the hot sun; but hair on your palms, would only be in the way.
Now look at the ends of your fingers. There the skin has grown so hard that it forms nails. If you look at your toes, you will see that the same thing has happened there. These nails are little pink shells to protect the ends of your fingers and toes. You see what a wonderful coat it is that you are wearing.
Does the skin coat keep you warm? Yes, and not only that, but it keeps you cool, too. You have often seen little drops of water on your skin, when you were very hot. This sweat, or perspiration, as we call it, cools the body by making the skin moist. You know how cold it makes you to be wrapped in a wet sheet. Well, the skin cools you in just the same way, when it becomes wet with sweat. The sweat comes from the blood under the skin; so that, as we saw before, by letting this moisture pass through, the skin acts as a sieve to let out the waste from the blood.
Then, too, the skin covers and protects all the other parts. It is thin where it needs to be thin, so as not to interfere with quick movements, as on the eyelids and the lips; and thick where it needs to be thick, to stand wear and tear, as on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands. I remember once taking a sliver of shingle out of the back of a little boy who had been sliding down a roof. I had to sharpen my knife and press and push and at last get a pair of scissors to cut out the sliver. It was just like cutting tough leather. But even if we do sometimes get cuts and burns and bruises, yet our skin coat protects us far more than we really think. It keeps out all sorts of poisons and the germs of blood-poisoning and such diseases. These enemies can attack us only through a scratch or cut in the skin, for that is the only way they can get into the blood. The skin is better than any manufactured coat, too, because, if it is torn or scratched, it can mend itself.
[Illustration: READING BY TOUCH INSTEAD OF SIGHT
These boys are blind; their books are printed with raised letters, which they read by feeling of them.]
Does your skin ever talk to you? No, of course not; yet it tells you ever so many things. Shut your eyes and pick up a pencil. As you touch it, your skin tells you that it is round and smooth, and pointed at one end. You can feel the soft rubber on the other end, too. Is it wet? No. Is it hot? Of course not. Now place a book in the palm of your hand. Is it flat or round, light or heavy, rough or smooth? All these things your skin tells you through little nerve tips, which are scattered thickly all over it. Still another thing the skin does; if you touch anything sharp or hot, it says at once that it hurts. If your clothes are tight or uncomfortable, the skin soon lets you know. You see it is always on the lookout, always ready to tell you about the things around you and to warn you against the things that might hurt you. The fifth of your "Five Senses," the sense of touch, is in your skin.
There are some parts of your skin-coat that should have special care.
I hardly need tell you about washing your face carefully around your nose and in front of your ears. Sometimes I have seen a "high-water mark" right down the middle of the cheek or just under the jaws or chin.
Of course your mother has told you about washing your hands! You see, our hands touch so many dirty things, and handle so many things that other people's hands have touched, that we ought always to wash them before a meal for fear some of the dirt or germs on them may get into our mouths and cause disease.
And we really need to clean our nails as often as we wash our hands, for that little black rim under the nail is very dangerous. Dust and disease germs