Just then Sydney peeped in at the door. Oh! what a little blackamoor he was, not fit for any one to see! His mother had to explain to the kind gentleman how it was that he looked so dirty, and, as nothing but a bath and a whole suit of clean clothes would make him fit to go, he had to be left behind. Poor Sydney began to feel very sad and sorry now, and when the carriage had driven away he ran up to his mother, hid his little black face in her dress, and burst into tears. "Oh, mother," he cried, "do make me a clean boy again; I will never be naughty any more when I am washed." Sydney never forgot the lesson he had learnt that
(Blackboard)
Nobody likes Children to be Dirty.
59. The Nails and the Teeth.
What a good thing it is that we have nice, hard nails to keep the tips of our fingers from being hurt! How sore they would get if it were not for those bright, horny nails, and how well they protect the finger-tips, which have to touch so many things!
Most of the nail is fast to the finger, but at the outer edge there is a little space between the nail and the finger, and if we are not careful this little space gets filled with dirt, and then the nail has a black band across the top, which looks very ugly. When the nails are long, the band is wider, and, although the dirt is under the nail, it shows on the outside, because the nail is transparent, that is, it can be seen through.
Do you like to have your hands clean? Then there must be no black bands to disfigure the pretty, shining nails; our hands cannot be called clean if there is a little arch of dirt at the tip of each finger. Ask mother to cut the nails when they get too long, then you can keep them clean more easily.
Men who do work that soils their hands very much like the chimney-sweep ([Story Lesson 62]) cannot possibly keep their nails clean, but children can.
There was once a little boy who had the funniest finger-tips I ever saw. The nails were so short that there was not the tiniest space between the outer edge and the fleshy part, and so the tip of each finger had grown out like a little round cushion, not at all pretty to look at. If the little boy saw any one noticing his hands, he would hide them away, lest he should be asked what it was that caused the finger-tips to look so funny. I wonder if you can guess the reason? It was because the boy bit his nails. What a horrid thing to do! Was it not? And how do you think his mother cured him? She dipped the tips of his fingers in tincture of bitter aloes, so that when he put them in his mouth he might get the bitter taste, and leave off biting them.
I once heard a gentleman say that he thought it was very rude to put a pencil or anything near the mouth, so what would he think of a child who put his fingers in his mouth, and bit his nails? Baby may suck her little thumb sometimes, perhaps, because she does not know better, but sensible children will remember that it is rude to put fingers in mouth.