If you place your hand on your head you will feel something hard just
beneath the hair. What is it? It is bone. Pass your hand all over your
head and you will still feel the bone. It is called the skull, and it
covers up a wonderful thing called the brain, with which we think, and
learn, and remember.
A little baby girl was toddling about the room one afternoon while her
mother sat sewing. The baby was a year and a half old. She had only just
learned to walk, and could not talk much, but she had begun to think.
Presently she noticed a little stool under the table, and after a great
deal of trouble she managed to get it out. Can you guess what she wanted
it for? (Let children try to answer.) She wanted it for mother's feet to
rest upon. Elsie could not =say= this, but she dragged the stool until
it was close to her mother, and then she patted it, and said "Mamma,"
which meant, "Put your feet on it".
Was not that a sweet, kind thing for a one-year-old baby to do? You see
she was learning to think--to think for others, and you will not be
surprised to hear that she grew up to be a kind, helpful girl, and was
so bright and happy that her mother called her "Sunshine".
If any one asked me what kind of child I liked best, I believe the
answer would be this: "A child who is thoughtful of others"; for a child
who thinks of others will not be rude, or rough, or unkind. Who was it
slammed the door when mother had a headache? It was a child who did not
think. Who left his bat lying across the garden path so that baby
tumbled over it and got a great bump on his little forehead? It was
thoughtless Jimmy. Do not be thoughtless, dear children, for you cannot
help hurting people, if you are thoughtless; and we are in the world to
make it happy, =not= to =hurt=. Thoughtfulness is a lovely jewel; let us
all try to build it into our "Temple".