The Childs Day | Page 5

across it toward the light. What do
you see? It looks fuzzy, doesn't it? Ever and ever so many tiny little
hairs are on it. The other day a little boy asked me what made his skin
look so rough? I looked, and saw that all the little hairs were standing
on end, so that his skin looked like "goose-flesh." It was because he
was cold. The muscles at the roots of the hairs had shortened, so 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