The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 8

of yours (although there is a
thumb to each), without suffering too much for want of food. With such
an army of hands at work, in every way, to furnish provision for that
little mouth, there would not be much danger.
But cut off your cat's fore paws--oh dear! what am I saying? Suppose,
rather, that she has not got any, and then count how many mice she will
catch in a day. The milk you give her is another matter, remember. Like
your cup of coffee, that is provided for her by others.
Believe me, if you were suddenly left all alone in a wood, like those
pretty squirrels who nibble hazel-nuts so daintily, you would soon
discover, from being thus thrown upon your own resources, that the
mouth is not the only thing required for eating, and that whether it be a
paw or a hand, there must always be a servant to go to market for Mr.
Mouth, and to provide him with food.
Happily, we are not driven to this extremity. We take hold of our
coffee-biscuit between the thumb and forefinger, and behold it is on its
road--Open the mouth, and it is soon done!
But before we begin to chew, let us stop to consider a little.
The mouth is the door at which everything enters. Now, to every
well-kept door there is a doorkeeper, or porter. And what is the office
of a well-instructed porter? Well, he asks the people that present
themselves, who they are, and what they have come for; and if he does
not like their appearance, he refuses them admittance. We too, then, to
be complete, need a porter of this sort in our mouths, and I am happy to
say we have one accordingly. I wonder whether you know him? You
look at me quite aghast! Oh, ungrateful child, not to know your dearest
friend! As a punishment, I shall not tell you who he is to-day. I will
give you till to-morrow to think about it.
Meanwhile, as I have a little time left, I will say one word more about

what we are going to look at together. It would hardly be worth while
to tell you this pretty story which we have begun, if from time to time
we were not to extract a moral from it. And what is the moral of our
history to-day?
It has more than one.
In the first place it teaches you, if you never knew it before, that you
are under great obligations to other people, indeed to almost everybody,
and most of all perhaps to people whom you may be tempted to look
down upon. This laborer, with his coarse smock-frock and heavy shoes,
whom you are so ready to ridicule, is the very person who, with his
rough hand, has been the means of procuring for you half the good
things you eat. That workman, with turned-up sleeves, whose dirty
black fingers you are afraid of touching, has very likely blackened and
dirtied them in your service. You owe great respect to all these people,
I assure you, for they all work for you. Do not, then, go and fancy
yourself of great consequence among them--you who are of no use in
any way at present, who want everybody's help yourself, but as yet can
help nobody.
Not that I mean to reproach you by saying this. Your turn has not come
yet, and everybody began like you originally. But I do wish to impress
upon you that you must prepare yourself to become some day useful to
others, so that you may pay back the debts which you are now
contracting.
Every time you look at your little hand, remember that you have its
education to accomplish, its debts of honor to repay, and that you must
make haste and teach it to be very clever, so that it may no longer be
said of you, that you are of no use to anybody.
And then, my dear child, remember that a day will come, when the
revered hands that now take care of your childhood--those hands which
to-day are yours, as it were--will become weak and incapacitated by
age. You will be strong, then, probably, and the assistance which you
receive now, you must then render to her, render it to her as you have
received it--that is to say, with your hands. It is the mother's hand
which comes and goes without ceasing about her little girl now. It is the
daughter's hand which should come and go around the old mother
hereafter--her hand and not another's.
Here again, my child, the mouth is nothing without the hand. The

mouth says, "I love," the hand proves it.

LETTER III.
THE TONGUE.
Now, about this