Cobb's Anatomy by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

Nearly every boy has a period in his life when he is filled with an envious admiration for the East India god with the extra set of arms -- Vishnu, I think this party's name is. To a small boy it seems a grand thing to have a really adequate assortment of hands. He considers the advantage of such an arrangement in school -- two hands in plain view above the desk holding McGuffy's Fourth Reader at the proper angle for study and the other two out of sight, down underneath the desk engaged in manufacturing paper wads or playing crack-a-loo or some other really worth while employment.

Or for robbing birds' nests. There would be two hands for use in skinning up the tree, and one hand for scaring off the mother bird and one hand for stealing the eggs. And for hanging on behind wagons the combination positively could not be beaten. Then there would be the gaudy conspicuousness of going around with four arms weaving in and out in a kind of spidery effect while less favored boys were forced to content themselves with just an ordinary and insufficient pair. Really, there was only one drawback to the contemplation of this scheme -- there'd be twice as many hands to wash when company was coming to dinner.