itself, should be kept clean. There are two things needed for this.

First, the hair should be brushed and combed night and morning. The
skin of your scalp is shedding tiny thin scales all day and all night,
just as the rest of your skin is doing. Fortunately, your hair is
growing from roots under the skin much in the same way as blades of
grass grow from their roots; and, as it grows, it pushes up these
scales from the surface of the scalp to where you can readily reach
them with a good bristle brush. If they are not well brushed out, the
dust and smoke from the air will mix with them, and the germs in the
dust and smoke will breed in the mixture, and you will soon have
"scurf" or _dandruff_ on your head. So give at least fifteen or twenty
strokes with the brush before you use the comb. It isn't necessary to
brush or scrape the scalp, and a comb should be used only to part the
hair or take out the tangles.

The second thing is to wash the hair and the scalp. Boys ought to wash
their hair every week; and girls, every two weeks; and girls,
especially, should be careful to dry their hair very thoroughly
afterwards. You will notice after washing your hair that it feels dry
and fluffy, and sometimes rather harsh. This is because the soap and
hot water together have washed out of the hair its natural oil, or
grease, which kept it bright and soft; and this is why it is better
not to wash the hair with soap and hot water oftener than once a week
or so. But it shouldn't be shirked when the time does come. Watch how
hard your kitten works to keep her fur coat glossy, though it must be
tiresome enough to lick, lick, lick.

Sometimes in cold weather your lips and knuckles crack and bleed. That
is because the skin on those parts is so thin and so often stretched