"Bones is the framework of the body. If I had no bones in me I should not have so much shape as I have now. If I had no bones in me I should not have so much motion, and teacher would be pleased, but I like to have motion. Bones give me motion, because they are sometimes hard for motion to cling to. If I had no bones, my brains, lungs, heart, and larger blood-vessels would be lying around in me and might get hurt, but now my bones get hurt, but not much unless it is a hard hit.
"If my bones were burned, I should be brittle, because it would take the animal out of me. If I was soaked in acid, I should be limber. Teacher showed me a bone that had been soaked; I could bend it easily. I should rather be soaked than burned. Some of my bones don't grow close to my others snug, like the branches to the trunk of a tree, and I am glad they don't, for if they did, I could not play leap-frog and other good games that I know. The reason why they don't grow that way is because they have joints. Joints is good things to have in bones. They are two kinds. The ball and socket joint like my shoulders is the best. Teacher showed it to me only it was the thigh of a cow. One end was round and smooth and whitish. That is the ball end. The other end was hollowed in deep. That is the socket and it oils itself. It is the only machine that oils itself. It never creaks like the school door. There is another joint that doesn't seem much like a joint. That is the skull. It don't have no motion. All my bones put together make a skeleton. If I leave out any or put any in the wrong place it ain't no skeleton. Some animals have their skeletons on the outside. I am glad I ain't them animals for my skeleton like it is on the chart wouldn't look well on my outside."
INCONSISTENT.
"I saw a funny thing to-day,"
Said little Arabella;
"A man was walking in the rain
Beneath a sun-umbrella."
A DOG-DAY QUERY.
"Mamma," said little Jimmy the other day, "if a dog's bark is worse than his bite, why don't they choke him off with a collar instead of putting a muzzle on him?"