A GENTLE NURSE
OTHER: You remember I told you that the body-house is all the time wearing out. Every time we think, move, play, or work, some part becomes worn, and must be mended. Blood, the care-taker, passes swiftly around every part, first up, then down; and every trip she makes, the bones take something to mend them; the flesh takes its part; the skin must have a share; the hair and finger-nails take something to make them grow; and so, while we study, work, or play, the mending goes on, and we hardly stop to think that it is done at all.
Helen: This seems to me one of the most wonderful things about the body.
Mother: But there is another wonderful thing of which we have not yet spoken. When we are tired with the work of the day, and the sun goes down in the west, a gentle nurse steps in and says to the master of the body-house: “Please give me the care of your house awhile. I will rest you, and while I have you in charge Blood can do her work better, and in a few hours you will feel as good as new.”
Amy: And does the master do as she says?
Gentle sleep.
Mother: Sometimes he is not willing at first, but at last he is glad to hand everything over to her. Then she quietly draws the curtains down over the windows, shuts the doors in the hearing passages, and the muscles of the arms and legs stop their work, the engine slows down, air goes into the bath room more slowly, all becomes quiet in the body-house, and the first thing the master knows he knows nothing at all.