Mother: No; he is much more obliging, and is willing to do anything that needs to be done. Together these helpers work over the food after it comes from the kitchen till it is very fine and creamy.
Amy: Does this room look like the kitchen?
Mother: The walls are very much the same, and they keep eating or sucking up the food that is wholly digested, much as a sponge sucks up water. A part is taken up this way and goes into the blood-vessels at once, but part is sent on to the eating room, where hundreds of little people are waiting for their breakfasts and dinners.
Helen: How does the eating room look?
Mother: This room is very narrow and about twenty feet long. You must not think it is a straight room twenty feet long, for it is not. At one side it is fastened to a thin band, and the band is gathered like a frill or ruffle, so the room, though it is folded over and over, never gets tangled. Perhaps I might say it is like a tube more than a room.
The little folks who eat here do not sit at tables as you do. They are fastened to the walls, so they are always in the same places. Another name for this room is the “small intestine.”
Elmer: I would like to see some of the little folks who eat there. How large are they?
Mother: They are so very, very small you could not see them unless you had a strong glass to help you. They stand up straight, like the soft, silky part of velvet or plush. They are called Villi.
As the food comes in from the serving room, another helper, called In-tes´ti-nal Juice, takes any part which the other servants have not finished as it passed through their rooms, and thus digestion is complete. The Villi soak the food up as it passes them, as a plant draws water and food from the ground.
Helen: But how does it all get into the blood?