OUR KITCHEN
OUR KITCHEN
OTHER We will now let Bread proceed with its story. Remember I am telling you what it would say if it could talk. Now listen. While I was in the passage and the servants were making me ready to go to the kitchen, I saw a small pink curtain in the back end of the room, and I wondered what was behind it. I soon found out. After the tongue had pulled and pushed me around and rolled me over as long as he wished, he pushed me back toward the curtain, and I found myself in a room with no floor. I saw a passage which opens into the nose, but as soon as I came in sight, a curtain fell back and closed it, so I knew I was not wanted there. Then I saw another door, which I afterward learned led to the bath-room in the lungs, but as I was about to go in, a little trap door closed tightly, and so I found that was not the way to the kitchen. There was still another passage, for this room seemed to be filled with doors, even though it was so small, but that led to the ear. I began to think I was not wanted at all, for every door I came to was shut in my face, as it were.
Helen: I don’t wonder Bread didn’t know which way to go, do you, mother? and it was a stranger in the house, too.
The stomach.
Mother: I was just thinking about going back through the folding doors through which I came, when a door opened in the back part of the throat, and I began to slide downstairs. Such queer stairs you never saw. They seemed to grow larger as I went down, and smaller at the top, so they kept pushing me, and I could not go back if I would.
Percy: I suppose it was the same way when I swallowed a button the other day. I wanted it back badly enough, but it wouldn’t come.
Helen: That shows you should never put such things as pins and buttons in your mouth.
Elmer: And what did the kitchen look like?
Mother: Like no room you ever saw in your life. I looked around for the corners, but there were none. It is shaped some like an egg. Here is a picture, which will help you to understand the shape of the room.
You see it has two doors, or openings,—one at which to go in, and the other to pass out. The walls are a pale pink color and are full of wrinkles if the room is empty. When the master of the house sends down so much bread or other food that it fills the kitchen full, the walls become smooth and the room is larger, but when the food first begins to go down, it finds the room quite small, and the walls full of folds, or wrinkles.
This room is very strong, as there are really three walls, one inside the other. The pink lining inside is made of wet skin, something like that found in the room upstairs. The middle wall is made of muscles, which cross one another in different ways; for the kitchen has many of these useful servants. The outer coat, or “overcoat,” of the stomach has for its work to pour out a kind of water to keep the walls moist so they will not stick to other things which are packed so closely in the trunk of the body. I am sure no person could ever pack so many things in a trunk the same size without crowding some of them or getting them out of order.
Helen: But I would like to know who acts as cook in this curious kitchen.
Mother: The name of the head cook is Di-ges´tion. There is a whole family of helpers, named Juice, whose work it is to assist Di-ges´tion. Of course they do not boil and bake, as we do, but they take the food and make it ready for the use of the body. Perhaps you would call it di-gest´ing it.
The chief helper is a very important person, called Gastric Juice. When the kitchen is empty, Gastric Juice stays in some tiny bags or bottles which cover the walls of the kitchen all over, but as soon as anything comes into the room from the stairway at the top, she comes out and goes to work. She pours a fluid which looks like water, over the food, which dissolves, or melts it. If you could look inside you might think the stomach was “sweating;” but it is only Gastric Juice coming out to care for the food you have sent down to build and mend the body. Several quarts come from the walls of the kitchen every day.
Were you ever in a ship at sea? If so, you know that everything in the boat was shaking and moving. As soon as Bread comes into the kitchen, it finds the room moving like that, and it is thrown from one side to the other, and churned up and down, over and over, till, if you could see it, you would never think it was bread at all. Gastric Juice melts and mixes it, and it becomes so changed it looks very much like paste. After Bread comes downstairs, some potatoes, fruit, and other things “come tumbling after,” but after all has been in the kitchen two hours, you could not tell which is bread, fruit, or potatoes; for they are all mixed together.
I expect you are wondering how the food would ever get out of the kitchen. After it was shaken and churned several hours, the walls gave it a push, and it came to the door where visitors pass out. Such a queer door it was, too, but it opens and shuts like the one at the entrance to the passage. This door has neither hinges nor rollers. It was kept tightly closed while the food was churned about and melted, and it looks quite like a boy’s lips when he is going to whistle. As Bread came near, the door opened, and part of the food paste passed through into another room. Strange as it may seem to you, this door seems to do a kind of thinking, and if food tries to get through before it is made as fine as it should be, the door seems to say, “No, sir; you can not go through here;” and it shuts so close together that not another thing can pass out. So when the food came the first time, the door seemed to think part of it was too big to go through, and it was sent back, to be churned and squeezed again before it could go into the next room with the rest of the food.
Elmer: I didn’t know it took so much work and such a long time to digest what we eat.
Mother: This should teach us to use care in what we send into the stomach. Let me tell you a few other things about the stomach, which we call the kitchen of the body. The helper, Gastric Juice, does her work perfectly if she is used well; but when the master of the house is unkind, she always makes him suffer for it. Sometimes he sends down a lot of cold water, ice-cream, or some other kind of ice, when she is just ready to begin her work. This makes her kitchen so cold that she is obliged to wait till it gets warm again. She doesn’t like much water when she has work on hand; for she thinks Saliva and herself can moisten the food as much as it needs.
Amy: Does Di-ges´tion like hot drinks, mother?
Mother: No; they burn the tender walls of the stomach and make them weak. Tea and coffee are hurtful to the stomach, as well as to the nerves and other parts of the body. Another thing Di-ges´tion likes is to have all the food she is going to work on at once. That means we should eat what we need and then stop. If the master of the house sends down a good-sized dinner, and, after waiting an hour or two, sends some more, the poor cook has a hard time, and it is no wonder that she gets sulky. It is as though you had been at work during the day, and then I should ask you to work all night, and give you no time to rest.
The cook in our kitchen is willing to work hard, and then she wants a rest, and this she ought to have. She hates to work at night after working all day, but some masters are so unkind as to even call her up after she has gone to bed, thinking her day’s work is done; and she works and works away while other parts of the body have rest.
Helen: I suppose that is when we eat between meals or late at night.
Mother: Yes; and another thing the cook dislikes is to have her kitchen filled so full that no more can get in. She must have room to work.
Elmer: That means we should not eat too much.
Mother: That is right. We should never eat till we feel so full we can take no more. If a builder was beginning to build or mend a house and you should pile bricks, timber, stones, and lime around him till he had no room to work, he would say, “Please take part of this out of my way, and then I can do something.” So the stomach wants just enough, but no more, and we should not make the cook cross by abusing her in this way. She also dislikes hot things, such as mustard, pepper, and spices. How would your eye feel if you should get some pepper or mustard in it?
Elmer: It would smart.
Percy: It would look red.
Mother: That is the effect they have on the stomach, too. Neither does the cook like to have much fat or sugar. Sometimes she gets so provoked when the master of the house sends down things she can not use, or too much even of that which is good, that the doorway to the stairway opens by which they came down, and she throws them back in his face. He has a sorry time of it then, and it may be quite a while before she is pleased again. But she only does this after she has suffered a long time, and when she knows it is for the good of the body-house.
Amy: What a long time it takes to fix up the food we eat so it can be used in the body! I would like to know where the food goes after the cook in the kitchen has digested it.
Mother: We will finish this part of the story in the next chapter.