Exactly the same details happen throughout all the animal kingdom. The larger the animal, the longer it takes for the little one to grow and develop in the mother’s womb. This is the only difference, except that in the larger animals we find one or two babies the general rule. You see these big babies require so much milk that the mother could not supply enough for many hungry mouths, so she gives birth to only that number she can well nourish and care for. CHAPTER IV CARE OF SELF DURING PUBERTY As the anxious mother bird watches day after day, while keeping her eggs warm, for the sound of the little tapping from the inside followed by the soft bill and wondering eyes of her little ones, so did your mother anxiously watch and pray for the coming of her helpless baby. In her warm nest, the womb, you lay from the meeting of the two cells until your tiny body was completely formed. This was a period of nine months. Then you were born. No boy or man can have a full appreciation of all he owes a mother until this wonderful work of nature is thoroughly implanted on his memory, never to be effaced. While the period of watching and waiting is only nine months, to the mother it is a whole lifetime. For to her it means ALL her life――sometimes she gives her life for yours. Think what wondrous love there must be for a woman to run the risk with pleasure and happiness. Every moment of these nine months the mother has her mind upon one thing: the tiny life growing in her womb, nourished by her blood, given oxygen through her breath, brought into the world smiling and laughing because the mother is laughing and smiling. And her one hope is that you will be able to go through your life smiling and laughing; that you will so live and grow that both of you can show to the world the most powerful searchlight known to man: the light which shines from a pure face and healthy mind. And such a light is far more penetrating than you have ever realized. It searches out truth, it reflects your mother’s face even after she has gone; it makes others happy and brings hope to many worried homes. And it is your mother who lights this bright ray of a pure mind; but it is your duty to keep the flame and reflector ever active and shining.