TWO MILLS
Come, children, listen to the story Uncle Ned told to me. It was the story of a long time ago when Uncle Ned was a little boy. One day his mother took him on her knee and said, "Ned, do you know that your mouth is like a little mill?" It is. The mill grinds corn. Your teeth grind your food. Look in the mirror. Are your teeth all alike? Some of the teeth in your mouth are to bite the food into bits, and others are to grind it fine so that it will not hurt your stomach.
You have twenty now because you are a little boy and do not need any more. When you have grown to be a man you will have thirty-two teeth. You will have more grinders in your mouth when you are a man than you have now. The jaw teeth are called grinders, because they grind the food you put into your mouth, just as the big mill stones grind the corn into meal down at Grandpa's mill.
You wear clothes to keep your bodies warm, so the teeth need some covering to keep out the cold. The enamel, a hard outer covering on the teeth, keeps them from feeling the cold. Down in the middle of the tooth is a place for the nerves of the tooth. When you break the covering on the tooth the cold and hot things that you sometimes put into your mouth will make the nerves ache. Sometimes things that are very sweet or very sour hurt the covering on the teeth.
To use the teeth to crack nuts or ice will harm them, for it often breaks the outer covering, and it will not grow again.
Your teeth should last you all your life if you will take care of them. Grandpa's mill would not grind the corn well, nor would the mill last long, if he did not take care of it and keep the big stone grinders clean and free from grit and dirt. Your teeth must have just as good care as the stones in the mill if you wish them to last you a long time, and if you want them to grind your food fine.
This is why you must use your toothbrush, and wash your mouth out regularly every day. If you do not keep your mouth clean, germs will creep in and cause the little boy to have toothache. You are wondering what the germs have to do with toothache.
These little germs always get into places that are not kept clean, and when they get into the mouth they go to work, like so many little carpenters, with pick and drill, and pick away the outer covering of the tooth and then the tooth decays, and this causes toothache.
We all want to have pretty white teeth like Ned's, do we not? When we are little we must take care of the teeth, and if they begin to decay we must have them filled or treated by the dentist. Let us look at our teeth and see who has the prettiest and the best ones. Has every one a toothbrush? We must each have one. We must brush our teeth every day and rinse them with pure clean water. This will wash out all the germs that would soon injure our teeth if they were left in the mouth.
If we will care for our teeth when we are young we will not need to have false teeth when we are old.
QUESTIONS
1. What are our mouths like? Why like a mill?
2. What is there in the mouth that corresponds to the rocks in the mill?
3. Is there a little baby in your home? Has it any teeth? Can you tell me why? Yes, that is right. Teeth are given us to chew food with. The little baby does not eat any hard or solid food, and therefore he does not need any teeth yet. When he is a little older pretty white teeth will be given him. By the time he is four or five years old he will have twenty of these little baby teeth. But he cannot keep the first teeth long. They would be too little and weak to do him much good when he gets to be a big boy.
4. Did you ever notice the twig of a tree just after the leaves had fallen? What did you find on the stem where the old leaf had grown? That is right, a tiny new leaf was pushing its way out. And that is just what happens to the teeth. When a boy or girl gets to be about eight or ten years old, a set of new teeth begins to grow down in the gums under the baby teeth. As these new teeth grow longer they push up the baby teeth, and cause them to get loose and fall out. When the new teeth appear they are strong and hard, that they may last a long time, if taken care of as Uncle Ned did his.
5. How many things do we know that we may do to make our teeth last a long time?