Mother: Yes, the limbs should be warmly clad; for the blood often gets chilled before it reaches the fingers and toes, and that is why they get cold sooner than do other parts of the body. Yet I have seen many little boys and girls with warm coats and furs around the chest, where there is the most heat, and a part of the tender limbs had no clothing. That is like trying to keep the furnace warm, and letting the rooms farther away have no heat at all.
Percy: I should think children dressed in that way would be ill.
Mother: Many of them are. They often have bad colds, and sometimes the lungs get so much blood, because it is chilled away from the parts to which it should go, that they can not do their work properly; the throat becomes sore, and the poor child may lose its life because the mother did not know how to dress it. Your father, though he is a strong man, would suffer if clothed in that way. Let us see if we can not make some good rules for clothing the body.
Elmer: I will make the first, which is, Wear loose, light clothing.
Amy: Then don’t be in a hurry in the spring to change warm clothes for those that are cooler.
Helen: We should keep all our clothing neat and clean.
Percy: That which is worn in the daytime should not be worn at night.
Amy: That makes me think of another: Nightclothes and bedclothes should be fresh and well aired.
Elmer: And we should change our wet clothes for dry ones.
Percy: The limbs should be as warmly dressed as any part of the body.