When we take a baby, we should not lift him by his arms, and we must hold him so his bones will not grow out of shape. As he grows older, enough earthy matter will go into his bones to make them hard and strong. PERCY: But you said there was lime in the bones, mother. MOTHER: Yes, the earthy matter is partly lime. The blood goes into the bones through tiny blood-vessels, and at all times of day and night the bones keep eating their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers of lime, which they find in the blood. [Illustration: “_We should not lift him by his arms._”] HELEN: What kind of food is best for the bones? MOTHER: Good whole-wheat bread will furnish them all they need. Peas and beans are also good. We will now look at the largest bones of our body frame, and see if we can learn something of their size and shape. We will not try to learn their hard names now, but will leave that till we are older. We will begin with the bones of the head. They form what is called the skull. It is made of a number of bones, joined like two saws with the teeth hooked together. The “chin bone,” or jaw bone, is one of the bones of the head. [Illustration: _Back-bone._] [Illustration: _Skull._] Let me show you a picture of one of the most wonderful bones of the body. It is called the _spine_, or spinal column. Perhaps you can feel some little knobs or ridges in your back. The back-bone is made of twenty-four little bones piled one on top of another. Suppose you had twenty-four spools or reels of cotton, and you should run a string through them. When you hold them upright, you see you can bend them any way you wish, or keep them straight. Now if each spool had three wings like the one in the picture, they would be shaped very much like the bones that form the spine. The string is like the marrow, or “spinal cord,” which passes through the spinal column from top to bottom. The bones which make up the lower part of the spine are much larger than those at the top. Little soft cushions are placed between all these bones, something like India-rubber. These cushions are to keep the body and brain from being jarred, just as the springs in our carriage help you to ride easily. They also help us to bend the body backward or forward as we choose. You see if the spine was one long straight bone we could not bend at all. If we keep bending over while walking or working, after a time the cushions will get used to that position and we shall have a bad figure. [Illustration: _Reels of cotton._] ELMER: The boy with his hands in his pockets does not have a good figure. [Illustration: Stooped boy] [Illustration: Upright man] MOTHER: No; and if he were to go into the army, the first thing he would have to learn would be to “straighten up,” and give his spinal column a chance to grow the right way.