232 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[June, 
I'lic Broken Arm an«l tlie Sym« 
patliixiug' Crows. 
lie hardly knew how it happened.—“ You see that Jim 
and I were both running for the ball, and somehow I 
went right down, fell upon the ball, and when I came to 
pick it tip, I could not. My 
fingers wouldn’t move, then I 
felt faint, and didn’t know any 
more about that game of ball.”— 
That is the way Fred described 
it after the doctor had been and 
put the arm in splints, and his 
mother had sufficiently recover¬ 
ed from her anxiety to talk with 
him about his broken arm. A 
broken arm ! and nothing to do 
but wait for it to get well; 
nothing can be done to hasten 
it, but Fred must lie there and 
be patient. It pained him often 
so that he could not read, be¬ 
sides it was tiresome to hold 
the book in one hand. It was 
haying time, and extra hands 
in tlie fields made extra work 
in the kitchen; father and 
brother must be in tlie hay, and 
mother and sister were so busy, 
that Fred was left alone a good 
part of the time, and had to de¬ 
pend upon himself. He conld 
hear the rattlety-ciick of the 
mower, and as a load of hay 
went by to the barn, lie could 
get a sniff of its odor. Oh how 
sweet it was ! but that was all 
that he had to do with the hay¬ 
ing from which he expected so 
much fun. Ills sister had 
brought her pet geranium and 
set upon the window-sill for 
him to look at; he thought he 
would watch and try i f he conld 
see it grow; so when he found 
that at the end of half an hour 
it was not a bit taller than 
before, he said to himself—“I 
know it does grow, but how 
very slow it is ; it seems to me 
that everything is slow ; here is this arm of mine—the 
doctor said that ‘ in youth a simple fracture unites with 
great facility ’—and grandmother, who came over when 
the doctor did, said—‘ law, yes ! young ’uns’ bones knit 
kindly’—which, I suppose, means tlie same thing, but 
doesn’t sound so learned. Weil, here I am—let’s see how 
long I In vc been here—only five days! It seems tome 
like three weeks.”—And then Fred began to get impa¬ 
tient—“ This arm of mine, will it never get well!— 
‘ Never ’—suppose that 
when our bones got 
broken—they could not 
be mended! fearful to 
think of. It is wonder¬ 
ful that bones so hard, 
and lifeless as they look, 
should grow together 
again. We can’t put on 
anything to stick ’em 
together just as you’d 
glue up the broken arm 
of a chair, but they just 
get the ends nicely to¬ 
gether and bind them 
so that they will stay 
there, and it gets well 
itself. 1 asked the doc¬ 
tor to tell me about it, 
and as there were no 
old folks around, he 
didn’t use any big 
words, and I thought I 
understood him. Let 
me see if I can remem¬ 
ber what he said—it was 
something like this.”— 
“ You see, Fred, that a 
bone isn’t just like a 
piece of iron or marble, 
it has structure—parts 
—while the bones of 
our bodies are a frame¬ 
work, to strengthen them, they are a live frame¬ 
work. and the bone in your arm is as much alive as 
the flesh over it, and, like other live things, has to be 
fed; a bone looks solid, hut minute channels run all 
through it, so that blood may be carried to all parts to 
feed or nourish the bone. Then there is the earthy part 
of the bone, and the animal part; if you take the bone 
of an animal and soak it in an acid called muriatic, that 
will dissolve out all the earthy part of the bone, which is 
a kind of lime compound called phosphate of lime, and 
leave the animal part of the bone, or cartilage, and this 
will be just as big as the bone was, but it can be bent, 
and if the bone was a long one, the cartilage may be tied 
into a knot; you see that this cartilage would never do 
for our frame-work, we need something that can not be 
bent and tied into knots: so all through this cartilage 
there is deposited in every part of it the lime phosphate, 
or earthy matter, to stiffen it, just as your mother puts 
starch into your collars to make them stiff. There is a 
great deal more about bone that you may learn some day, 
and some interesting things I can show you with the 
microscope when you come to my office, but I had to tell 
you so much in order to explain alf6ut the mending of 
the broken bone. It is a wonderful provision of nature— 
which is only another way of saying that God has made 
it so—that when living bodies are injured, there is gen¬ 
erally at once an attempt to repair damages. When you 
cut off a branch of a tree, the bare surface will, after a 
while, be covered with new wood and bark; if you cut 
your finger, there is an attempt at cure at once, though 
you don’t see it; so when a bone is broken, it, so to 
speak, begins to repair itself at once ; I can’t tell you the 
whole story about it; but this is, in short, what happens: 
a portion of cartilage is formed between the two ends, as 
the beginning of the repairs, and afterwards this is 
strengthened by the earthy 
matter the lime, which the 
blood deposits in it particle by 
particle; the first joining is not 
very strong, but holds the bone 
together, until after a while the 
new bone that joins the parts is 
as hard and strong as ever. So 
you see, my boy, why I keep 
your arm tied up so tightly. 
We must help nature all we 
can, and give her a chance to 
mend the break.”_“Yes,” 
said Fred, “that’s about the 
way the doctor told it, and how 
wonderful it all is, first the car¬ 
tilage and then the bone slowly 
made stifl’er and harder with 
the lime phosphate. It is slow 
work, this mending, but I’ll try 
to be patient. How much sooner 
I can go out than if it had been 
my leg, though 1 That’s one 
comfort—to know it is not as 
bad as it might have been. 
Then how kind everybody is 
when a fellow has an accident 1 
Father came in yesterday noon, 
he thought I was asleep, and I 
saw two big tears run down his 
brown cheeks; then sister 
brought me the plant she thinks 
so much of; Jim found a patch 
of wild strawberries at the edge 
of the meadow, and picked 
them for me ; it seemed to me 
as if no garden strawberries 
ever could be so good—else I 
somehow tasted Jim’s goodness 
in them. If they are too busy 
to stay much in my room, I 
see something many times a 
day that shows they are all 
thinking of me. But the fun¬ 
niest thing of all! There’s that Sam Rounds, who lives 
up just beyond the red bridge ; Sam’s a little red-headed, 
speckle-faced fellow, and at school last winter a big fel¬ 
low imposed upon Sam, and I just took Sam’s part. 
When Sam heard I had broken my arm, he wanted to do 
something to show me that he was sorry, and he sent 
me—of all things in the world 1—a pair of young crows 
that he had been bringing up by hand and taming. They 
have made themselves quite at home ; their wings are 
clipped, and they can’t 
fly, but Sam put a pole 
at the window, and 
showed them the way, 
and they come in every 
day; they are almost 
too tame, but they are 
so amusing, look so 
solemn, and act so 
comically, that I have 
to laugh. They seem 
to be in partnership, 
for the other day one 
pretended to be very 
sympathetic, and cawed 
and grimaced at me, 
while the other all the 
while was trying to 
steal the spoon out of 
my cup; they have a 
great liking for any¬ 
thing bright, and will 
carry off and hide such 
things. They are amus¬ 
ing now, but I am 
afraid they are too mis¬ 
chievous to keep. Mr. 
Fuller had a tame crow, 
who would follow him 
all about his garden, 
but when he was away, 
the crow would pull up 
every label he put out 
to mark where his seeds were sown 1 Mother and sister 
wouldn't like that, so I must try to get rid of them 
without offending Sam_Well, old arm, how are you 
getting on ?—is that phosphate of lime being deposited 
all right in the cartilage ?—the doctor called it ‘process 
of ossification ’—to mother and grandma—keep at it and 
ossify—that’s a good arm,—But, oh dear!” 
THE SUNFLOWER GIRL .—(See page 230.) 
THE BROKEN ARM AND THE TAME CROWS. 
