CHAPTER XI.
WHY THE HEART BEATS.
~1.~ If you place your hand on the left side of your chest, you will feel something beating.

If you cannot feel the beats easily, you may run up and down stairs two or three times, and then you can feel them very distinctly.

How many of you know the name of this curious machine inside the chest, that beats so steadily?
You say at once that it is the heart.
[Illustration: THE HEART.] ~2.~ The Heart .-- The heart may be called a live pump, which keeps pumping away during our whole lives.

If it should stop, even for a minute or two, we would die.

If you will place your hand over your heart and count the beats for exactly one minute, you will find that it beats about seventy-five or eighty times.