MOTHER: Yes; it is very hurtful for girls to wear their dresses even a _little_ tight, for the bones are soft and easily pressed out of place. We should wear warm, loose clothing on all parts of the body, and never, _never_ squeeze the feet, waist, or any other part out of shape. Your arm would be very painful with a tight band around it, but that would not do as much harm as tight shoes or tight bands around the waist. It is better to be healthy than to be in fashion. You remember that the blood flows through the bones to feed and make them grow. Good blood will make them strong and healthy. Children sometimes have a disease called the “rickets.” This shows that their bones are soft and need more lime. They should eat plenty of good brown bread. No boy who wishes to grow large and strong should touch beer or tobacco. These poisons in the blood will make the bony framework of the body small and weak. The size of the man depends on his frame. Many boys are making their bodies and minds very small by smoking cigarettes. By using strong drink or tobacco the house we live in is defiled. The blood and all the body, inside and out, becomes soiled and filthy. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” If one should go into a beautiful temple and break the windows, stain the white marble walls, and cover the floor with filth, we would think they did wrong. How much worse to destroy the wonderful, living temple which God Himself has built! THE WALLS OF OUR HOUSE ELMER: I don’t like to look at pictures of bones and skeletons, mother. MOTHER: No; like the framework of a house, they are not pretty, and yet they give shape to what we _do_ like to see. When your father built this house, do you remember how he made the walls? PERCY: The spaces between the timbers were filled with bricks, so there was a solid wall. MOTHER: Well, it is that way in the body-house. The bones are all covered over and filled in between with muscles. It is these which make the cheeks so plump, and give the whole body its round, pleasing form. It is the muscles which move the bones. AMY: But what is a muscle? MOTHER: You have seen lean meat, have you not? That is muscle. When boiled it seems to be made up of little bundles of tiny threads of fibers, each wrapped in its own thin blanket. Here is a picture of a muscle. These small threads are not twisted together, but are laid side by side. It takes one thousand seven hundred of them to make a muscle an inch thick in children, but in grown people it takes only five hundred. HELEN: Are the muscles fastened to the bones, mother? [Illustration: “_Muscles of the arm, with their tapering tendons at the wrist._”]