This boy got stuck on a question about a hare and a hound. It appeared
that the hare jumped a rod at a time, and made 33 jumps a minute. The
hound started 200 feet behind the hare. This hound made 18 ft. at a
jump, and made 321/2 jumps a minute. Now, would the hound catch the
hare before they got to a hickory tree half a mile away?

I am glad they introduced that hickory tree because the question was a
hard nut at best and needed brain food. I couldn't tell where the hare
would be, and I can't now; nor do I believe that some of you wise heads,
grown hairless with constant thinking, could really tell how the hare
came out. If I saw one of my children headed for me with such a problem
in hand, I confess that I should make a prompt engagement outside. The
old folks who brought me up, had sterner ways of enforcing education.
They decided that the boy should live on brown bread and water until he
did that example. In order to assist hunger in bringing the boy to it,
after the first day showed that the boy was still going, the old
gentleman hunted up all the axes and hatchets, scythes and knives on the
place, and made the boy turn grindstone while he held the implements on.
Greek met Greek. The boy wouldn't give in, and the old man couldn't and
preserve his dignity, but try as he might the old man could not tire out
the boy; the old hands gave out first, and the old man straightened his
back and gazed at that wonderful boy. Now it wasn't in brown bread and
water to sustain strength and will in that way. Not when there are baked
beans for supper and you can smell them! The old man had to acknowledge
a higher power which beat him. He wouldn't do it openly, that was not
the New England way, but he did it on the second night by helping the
boy to baked beans and fried potatoes without a word. The old man went
to his death thinking that he had a most wonderful boy, and the little
fellow did not give his secret away. Now we may have it as a slight
contribution to the importance of nut culture. The sustaining power
which carried the boy through his trial was the hickory nut. There was a
pile of them in the attic, and the boy on the quiet, cracked and ate a
quart of them every day. That boy could not spell protein to save his
life, and carbo-hydrates would have scared him off the floor, but the
nuts and the brown bread gave him a balanced ration which did everything
except find out about the hound and the hare. I think it would have