When the supper things have been cleared away, you have two hours or
so before going to bed, and I dare say you look forward to these as
one of the pleasantest parts of the day.
It is always best for you to take things rather easily and quietly and
pleasantly for at least fifteen or twenty minutes after every meal;
and after the heaviest meal of the day, whether this comes at noon or
in the evening, it is better to stretch the time to half or three
quarters of an hour. If you try to work or play hard right after a
hearty meal, you will be drawing away to your brain or to your
muscles, the blood that the stomach is trying to get for the digesting
and melting of your food. I suppose that you have all found this out
for yourselves; for, if you run and play too hard right after dinner,
you are very soon out of breath, and if you keep up the exercise, you
are quite likely to have an attack of indigestion or stomach ache. If
you sit down to study directly after a meal, you soon feel heavy and
lazy, and what you read doesn't seem clear to you, and in a little
while you probably have a headache and an unpleasant taste in your
mouth. If you try to do two important things like digestion and hard
work with your brain or the muscles of your arms and legs at the same
time, you will be very likely to do both of them badly.
Even if you have studying to do at night, it will be much better for
you to spend half an hour or an hour in laughing and chatting, or in
reading some good story, or in playing some of the many pleasant
parlor games that rest you instead of tiring you, before you settle
down to your books. You will find that when you do start to work, you
get your lessons much more quickly and easily than if you had started
in after eating.
Perhaps your sister is just waiting to show you that girls can play
checkers better than boys can--"So there!" Or some of your friends
have come in for a game of dominoes or authors or snap or parcheesi or
stage coach or pussy-wants-a-corner, or to try that new song you
learned last week; and you will be surprised how quickly the time
flies away and bedtime or study hour comes.
Most evenings, however, you will probably get out your favorite
magazine, or that good story that you are reading, and you will all
sit around the big lamp on the center table and go off on adventures
to the uttermost parts of the earth, with the best and most lasting
friends that you will ever make--friends who will never grow tired of
you and will always come when you want them and are always willing to
talk or play--the people that live in books. Be sure to pick out the
best of them for your chums--the bravest and the kindest and the most
courteous, and the cleanest and the most honorable. You have the whole
world to choose from; and it is never worth your while to get
acquainted with cheap, badly behaved, second-rate people when you can
have your pick of the best. Your mother and your father and your
teacher will help you to choose, and you will soon find that what they
call "good literature" is good stories, and about the right sort of
men and women and boys and girls--the kind that you would like to
know, and that you would want to be like. Once try it, and you find
that you like that kind of reading better than you do the cheap,
slangy, trashy stuff, just as you like, and never get tired of, good
bread and butter and roast beef and apples and milk and cream and
pudding and pie. Good sound stories of home life and adventure and
travel are just as important in making your minds wholesome and happy
as these good foods are in keeping your bodies strong and healthy.
Be sure that the paper of the books and magazines you read is white
and _not_ glossy, and is fairly thick and firm; for this makes them
much easier to read and strains your eyes less. See, too, that the
type is large and clear; for small, close type and yellow or shiny
paper are very hard on the eyes.
Be sure, of course, when you sit down to read _not_ to sit with your
face to the lamp and your head bending forward; but settle yourself in
a comfortable chair with your back to the light, and hold your book so
that you can keep your chin up and your head erect while you read. You
can breathe better, and read better, and enjoy what you read better in
this position than in any other.
Even if you have sums or writing to do, it is better to sit with your
back, or at least your left side, toward the light; and often you will
find it a great help to sit down with your back to the light in a
large easy chair and do your writing on a big, thin book, or light
piece of board, on a cushion on your knee.
In winter, you will find that for the first half hour or so that you
are reading after supper, you will want to keep fairly near the fire,
because the blood is being drawn in from your skin to your stomach for
purposes of digestion; but be sure to see that at least one, and
better two, windows in the room are open six inches or so at the top,
so that there is plenty of fresh air pouring into the room.
[Illustration: A COZY NOOK WHEN EVENING COMES]
When study hour comes, take up your books and go briskly to work,
forgetting that there is anything else in the world, and you will be
astonished how quickly you will learn your lessons. Besides, you will
be learning one of the most valuable lessons in life--to do with your
might whatever your hands, or minds, find to do.