“It needed money to finish off our house; so it needs vitality to change from girl to woman, and Clara seems not to have the vitality. She is failing in health, hence she has not vital force 45 to spend in completing her physical development.”
“But, mother, tell me more about this wonderful change. Where are the new rooms and what is their purpose? I can’t really believe that I have some bodily organs that I never heard of. What are they and where are they; when will they be finished off? I am all curiosity. Didn’t we study about them in our school physiology?”
“You have given me a good many questions to answer, little girl, and I hardly know where to begin answering them.
“In your school physiology you studied all about the organs that keep you alive. What did you learn about your bodily house? How many stories is it?”
“Three stories high, and then there is a cupola on the top of all. I like to think of the head as a cupola or observatory, resting on the tower of the neck and turning from side to side as we want to look around us.”
“And what is the furniture in the different stories?”
“O, the upper story is called the thorax, and the one big room in it is the thoracic cavity. It contains the heart and lungs. The next story below is the abdominal cavity and it has a number of articles of furniture, the liver, the stomach, the spleen, the bowels, etc. Then the lower story is—O, I’ve forgotten what it is called.”
“The lower story is called the pelvis.”
“O, yes, and the pelvic cavity contains the reservoirs for waste material. I remember you told me that once.”