The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 4

busy in this way. There
is your kitten, for instance, who a few months ago was only a tiny bit of
fur, but is now turning gradually into a grown-up cat. It is her daily
food which is daily becoming a cat inside her--her saucers of milk now,
and very soon her mice, all serve to the same end.
The large ox, too, of whom you are so much afraid, because you cannot
as yet be persuaded what a good-natured beast he really is, and how
unlikely to do any harm to children who do none to him--that large ox
began life as a small calf, and it is the grass which he has been eating
for some time past which has transformed him into the huge mass of
flesh you now see, and which by-and-by will be eaten by man, to
become man's flesh in the same manner.
But, further, still: Even the forest trees, which grow so high and spread
so wide, were at first no bigger than your little finger, and all the
grandeur and size you now look upon, they have taken in by the
process of eating. "What, _do trees eat?_" you ask.
Verily, do they; and they are, by no means, the least greedy of eaters,
for they eat day and night without ceasing. Not, as you may suppose,
that they crunch bonbons, or anything else as you do; nor is the process
with them precisely the same as with you. Yet you will be surprised
hereafter, I assure you, to find how many points of resemblance exist
between them and us in this matter. But we will speak further of this
presently.
Now, I think you must allow that there are few fairytales more
marvellous than this history of bread and meat turning into little boys
and girls, milk and mice turning into cats, and grass into oxen! And I
call it a _history_, observe, because it is a transformation that never
happens suddenly, but by degrees, as time goes on.
Now, then, for the explanation. You have heard, I dare say, of those
wonderful spinning-machines which take in at one end a mass of raw
cotton, very like what you see in wadding, and give out at the other a

roll of fine calico, all folded and packed up ready to be delivered to the
tradespeople. Well, you have within you, a machine even more
ingenious than that, which receives from you all the bread-and-butter
and other sorts of food you choose to put into it, and returns it to you
changed into the nails, hair, bones and flesh we have been talking about,
and many other things besides; for there are quantities of things in your
body, all different from each other, which you are manufacturing in this
manner all day long, without knowing anything about it. And a very
fortunate thing this is for you: for I do not know what would become of
you if you had to be thinking from morning to night of all that requires
to be done in your body, as your mother has to look after and remember
all that has to be done in the house. Just think what a relief it would be
to her to possess a machine which should sweep the rooms, cook the
dinners, wash the plates, mend torn clothes, and keep watch over
everything without giving her any trouble; and, moreover, make no
more noise or fuss than yours does, which has been working away ever
since you were born without your ever troubling your head about it, or
probably even knowing of its existence! Just think of this and be
thankful.
But do not fancy you are the only possessor of a magical machine of
this sort. Your kitten has one also, and the ox we were speaking of, and
all other living creatures. And theirs render the same service to them
that yours does to you, and much in the same way; for all these
machines are made after one model, though with certain variations
adapted to the differences in each animal. And, as you will see
by-and-by, these variations exactly correspond with the different sort of
work that has to be done in each particular case. For instance, where the
machine has grass to act upon, as in the ox, it is differently constructed
from that in the cat which has to deal with meat and mice. In the same
way in our manufactories, though all the spinning-machines are made
upon one model, there is one particular arrangement for those which
spin cotton, another for those which spin wool, another for flax, and so
on.
But, further:
You have possibly noticed already, without being told, that all animals
are not of equal value; or, at least,