Page:What Katy Did.djvu/178

166 of what was going on about her; to put questions.

"How long have I been sick?" she asked one morning.

"It is four weeks, yesterday," replied Papa.

"Four weeks!" said Katy. "Why, I didn't know it was so long as that. Was I very sick, Papa?"

"Very, dear. But you are a great deal better now."

"How did I hurt me when I tumbled out of the swing?" asked Katy, who was in an unusually wakeful mood.

"I don't believe I could make you understand, dear."

"But try, Papa!"

"Well—did you know that you had a long bone down your back, called a spine?"

"I thought that was a disease," said Katy; "Clover said that Cousin Helen had the spine!"

"No—the spine is a bone. It is made up of a row of smaller bones—or knobs—and in the middle of it is a sort of rope of nerves called the spinal cord. Nerves, you know, are the things we feel