irection, until they terminate in
millions of little veins smaller than the finest hairs, and these
running together make bigger veins, through which the blood is carried
to the lungs. In the veins it flows steadily, because the _capillary_
veins, the ones like hairs, are so small that the spurts can't be felt
beyond them. The blood in the veins is thick and dark, because it has
taken up all the impurities from the system; but when it gets to the
lungs your breath takes up all these and carries them off, leaving the
blood pure again for another round. Now the arteries are long elastic
tubes, that is to say, they will stretch a little, and fly back again,
if you pull them, and when one is cut nearly but not quite off, the
contraction keeps it wide open. If it is cut or torn entirely in two,
the end draws back, and nine times in ten, if the artery is a small one,
the drawing back shuts the end up entirely and the blood stops. But it
is better to tear it than to cut it, because when torn the edges are
jagged and it shrivels up more. I don't quite understand why, myself,
but that is what the surgical books say. When anybody is hurt and
bleeding badly, the first thing to do is to find out whether it is an
artery or a vein that's cut. If the blood is bright and comes out in
spurts, it's an artery. If it is dark, and flows steadily, it's a vein.
If it's an artery and isn't cut quite in two, tear it in two. If that
don't stop it, you must make a knot in a handkerchief and then press
your finger above the cut in different places till you find where the
artery is by the blood stopping. Then put the knot on that place and tie
the handkerchief around the limb. You can stop a vein in the same way
and more easily, but if it's a vein you must tie the handkerchief so
that the cut place will be between it and the heart. You see the blood
comes from the heart in the arteries, and goes back towards the heart in
the veins, and so to stop an artery you tie inside, and to stop a vein
outside of the cut place."

I think it altogether probable that Master Sam would have gone into
quite a lecture on anatomy and minor surgery, if little Judie had not
waked up just then complaining of hunger. What he told the boys,
however, is well worth remembering. He took little Judie on his lap and
sent the two boys out to find a field of potatoes or corn. When they
came back all four made a breakfast of raw sweet potatoes, drinking
water which Tom brought in