The House We Live In; or, The Making of the Body

by Vesta J. Farnsworth

Mother: The name of the head cook is Di-ges´tion. There is a whole family of helpers, named Juice, whose work it is to assist Di-ges´tion. Of course they do not boil and bake, as we do, but they take the food and make it ready for the use of the body. Perhaps you would call it di-gest´ing it.

The chief helper is a very important person, called Gastric Juice. When the kitchen is empty, Gastric Juice stays in some tiny bags or bottles which cover the walls of the kitchen all over, but as soon as anything comes into the room from the stairway at the top, she comes out and goes to work. She pours a fluid which looks like water, over the food, which dissolves, or melts it. If you could look inside you might think the stomach was “sweating;” but it is only Gastric Juice coming out to care for the food you have sent down to build and mend the body. Several quarts come from the walls of the kitchen every day.

Were you ever in a ship at sea? If so, you know that everything in the boat was shaking and moving. As soon as Bread comes into the kitchen, it finds the room moving like that, and it is thrown from one side to the other, and churned up and down, over and over, till, if you could see it, you would never think it was bread at all. Gastric Juice melts and mixes it, and it becomes so changed it looks very much like paste. After Bread comes downstairs, some potatoes, fruit, and other things “come tumbling after,” but after all has been in the kitchen two hours, you could not tell which is bread, fruit, or potatoes; for they are all mixed together.

I expect you are wondering how the food would ever get out of the kitchen. After it was shaken and churned several hours, the walls gave it a push, and it came to the door where visitors pass out. Such a queer door it was, too, but it opens and shuts like the one at the entrance to the passage. This door has neither hinges nor rollers. It was kept tightly closed while the food was churned about and melted, and it looks quite like a boy’s lips when he is going to whistle. As Bread came near, the door opened, and part of the food paste passed through into another room. Strange as it may seem to you, this door seems to do a kind of thinking, and if food tries to get through before it is made as fine as it should be, the door seems to say, “No, sir; you can not go through here;” and it shuts so close together that not another thing can pass out. So when the food came the first time, the door seemed to think part of it was too big to go through, and it was sent back, to be churned and squeezed again before it could go into the next room with the rest of the food.

Elmer: I didn’t know it took so much work and such a long time to digest what we eat.

Mother: This should teach us to use care in what we send into the stomach. Let me tell you a few other things about the stomach, which we call the kitchen of the body. The helper, Gastric Juice, does her work perfectly if she is used well; but when the master of the house is unkind, she always makes him suffer for it. Sometimes he sends down a lot of cold water, ice-cream, or some other kind of ice, when she is just ready to begin her work. This makes her kitchen so cold that she is obliged to wait till it gets warm again. She doesn’t like much water when she has work on hand; for she thinks Saliva and herself can moisten the food as much as it needs.

Amy: Does Di-ges´tion like hot drinks, mother?

Mother: No; they burn the tender walls of the stomach and make them weak. Tea and coffee are hurtful to the stomach, as well as to the nerves and other parts of the body. Another thing Di-ges´tion likes is to have all the food she is going to work on at once. That means we should eat what we need and then stop. If the master of the house sends down a good-sized dinner, and, after waiting an hour or two, sends some more, the poor cook has a hard time, and it is no wonder that she gets sulky. It is as though you had been at work during the day, and then I should ask you to work all night, and give you no time to rest.

The cook in our kitchen is willing to work hard, and then she wants a rest, and this she ought to have. She hates to work at night after working all day, but some masters are so unkind as to even call her up after she has gone to bed, thinking her day’s work is done; and she works and works away while other parts of the body have rest.

Helen: I suppose that is when we eat between meals or late at night.