FOUR WILD BEASTS AND A COW.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2119, 19 February 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

FOUR WILD BEASTS AND A COW.

11Q AY PAR A AYOKKKD OUT THE ROY'S Sl’.Al. “John!" “Yes, dear." “AA’onlil you iniml seeing if you Can work this example for AYi 11 ic* r* I've tried aml tried, but it won't come right." John laid down his paper and smoothed a place on the library table. Airs John brought in a well-thumbed arithmetic, a tablet of paper, in which were many leaves covered with figures, ami a pencil. AYillie followed, with Jilin conlidenco in his father's ability to make the hidden things clear. John noted the example indicated: •‘lf a lion can cat a cow in four hours and a bear can eat the same cow in six hours and a wolf can eat the cow in eight hours and a coycote can out the cow in eleven lioifrs, how long will it take the coycote to eat what is left of the cow after the lion has been eating two hours, the bear an hour and twenty minutes, and the wolf three-quarters of an hour?” “Well. I’ll do it for you,” said John, taking up the tablet and pencil, “but- it’s a ridiculous thing, anyway. In the first place, a lion couldn’t eat a cow in any four hours. A cow would make a week’s meal for a lion. Such nonsense to serve out to children in the way of examples! ltow would a coyote get a look-in hi a cow when a lion was eating? Don’t you see how ridiculous the whole

thing is ?” “It does seem so," Airs John agreed; ‘‘but it’s only an example. I suppose they didn't think of the logical part of it.” ‘‘Of course it's only an example,” Paid John, sharpening, the pencil and blowing the lead off his fingers; “hut why don’t they give children examples with, some sense to ’em? AA’hen I was a boy we had to find how many cords of wood were in a,'pile of a certain size, and how much a stone wall of a certain size would cost at so much a cord, and other things of some practical value. AA'e never had examples with a whole menagerie of cow-eating wild beasts to figure out.’’ •‘I tried to figure out the size of the cow, as a starter,” said Airs John, “in order to get some idea about how much of it a lion would eat in two hours, but 1 guess mathematics are a little out of my line.”

“The size of the eow wouldn’t have anything to do with it,” said John, with conscious knowledge. “That’s a constant.”

“Oh,” she said, -admiring the ease and flow of his language. “But then, all cows aren’t the same size, you know. Now a lion might eat a small cow iii four 'hours,, but it surely couldn’t eat a cow twice as big in the same time. At least, that’s the way it looks to me.” “But the size of the cow in this example has nothing at all to do with it,” persisted John, putting some figures on the paper. “It is plainly set forth here that a lion can eat the cow in four hours, and that’s settled, and it doesn’t make any difference about the size of the cow any more than it does about the color of it. Don’t you see it doesn’t?”

“’AA’ell, maybe that’s . the reason I didn’t get it right,” she said. “I thought, of course, you’d have to know something about the size of the cow or you wouldn’t know how much would be left for the bear and the wolf and the coyote.” -•-If you’ll just wait a minute-,” he said, “I’ll explain it to you. :Now, here is a cow,” and he laid a pencil down on the library table, while AYillie looked on with interest, expecting to see a real cow from the earnestness, of his father’s tones; “and here is a lion,” and he moved p paper cutler over by the pencil. “No-w, if the lion can cat the cow in four hours,” and he passed his finger from the pencil to the paper cutter, “he’d cat a cerain iiroportion of it in two hours, wouldn’t he? AA’ell that’s all there is to the matter about the size of the cow, don’t you see?” “I think I get the idea, she said, doubtfully. “AA'ell, then we’ll get to work,” lie bj id, getting warmed up 'to tlu oulties of the problem. “Now, first we’ll put down sixty and multiply it by four.”

"AA'liat do you want to multiply sixty by four for?” sho asked. “It doesn’t say anything about sixty in the example.” "I know it doesn’t,” he "but we’ve got to reduce the whole thing to minutes before we get at tho real basis of the question.” “How do you reduce the cow to minutes?” piped AA’illie, seeing a flaw in liis father’s plan of action. "AA’illiam,” admonished his father, sternly, “you’d better keen quiet anil pay attention to mo if you want this example worked. Otherwise you’ll go to bed and possibly get punished tomorrow for not knowing your lesson. Now,” he said, with dignity, “having reduced the four hours to minutes, four times sixty, we have 240, which we will set down as a basis to work from. Now, if a lion can eat the cow in 240 minutes, in two hours, which would be 120 minutes, he would eat half the cow, which we will set down here. And so we como to the bear.” "Our teacher worked it in his head,” observed AA'illie, "but lie didn’t uso any minutes. He just went to work and worked it, but >

forgot how.” 1 ■ 1 j doesn't make any difference what teacher did,” said Ids fath ■*, majestically, “the proper way co work this example is to get at the hottom of it, and that’s minutes. Teachers are very wise, but they don’t know everything. Now wo come to the bear, winch can eat lire coir in six hours, which is 300 minutes. The lion having.eaten half the cpiyj there is half a cow left for the bear. The bear eats an hour and twenty minutes, which, is eighty minutes. To cat his half of the cow would take I.SO minutes, so wo nut down the fraction eighty one-luimlred-oign-tietlis. Then we proceed to the wolf.” “What is the eighty one-hundrod-oightioths for?” inquired Mrs John. “I don't see how that helps.” “Don’t get ahead of the figures, John cautioned her. ‘‘You wait, till it all comes out. and if it does.n t come out right I’ll buy you a new dress. Let’s see— where were we. Oh ves—we had just come to the wolf.' Well, the wolf can cat tae cow in eight hours, winch is 4SU minutes. He begins where the bear left off and eats three-quarters ot jui

haven't voil ?" '-Mrs John asked.

"Vou'ro always in too much ol a hurry, except when you’re dressing to go out,” observed John, with some sarcasm. "I’vo worked these problems before and L know just lmw to go about it. Let s see —where were we? Oil, yes, at the coyote. Moll, the coyote cats the cow in eleven hours, which is GOO minutes, lie o.tts — ‘‘.ltut he hasn’t any particular time to cat,” she objected. “The question is, how long will it take him to finish it after the others have been eating. 1 knew those fi actions wouldn’t- help any. ■ Our teacher never used minutes at all,” observed Willie again. "Ho said it’s only mental arithmetic and you ought to do it in your head.” •‘lf I’m going to do this example,’ said John, with some warmth, "I’m going to do it my way, and if gmi don’t want it done my way, why do if vour way and 1 It go back to m\ paper. I’m not doing, these examples for amusement, for I’ve had a bird day’s work and I’m tired. But I'm willing to do it lor you ii 1 m -allowed to do' it the right way, and I'm not asking any teachers for advice. I’ve worked these examples before your teacher was born, and I 11 work ’em again after lie’s forgotten. The trouble is that you talked so much, both of you, that 1 forgot to figure out how much of the cow was left after the bear got through. Now. we’ll go back to the bear—” and lie went- back over the figures to find out where he had left off. ”1 had that all figured out, hut 1 don’t see it on here. Willie, did you see that sheet of paper with the bear s eating time ou it?” «I don’t think you figured that out, John,” interposed Mrs John, meekly. "Of course I figured it- out,- declared John, hotly. “I had it :di down hero in fractions—what t’o bear had to do after the lion got through eating.” "I didn’t see it,” Willie declared. "Anyway, it wasn’t like our teacher did it. Teacher —”

"Alice, if you’ll take that youngster to bed, maybe we will get some light oil this bear business,” he suggested. "I can’t work problems with a din like that buzzing in my ears. William, you go to bed, ail'd in the morning I’ll have this all worked out for you and explain it before school. It’s time for you to be in bed, anyway—it's nine o’clock.”

William was hustled off to bed, protesting that, "Teacher didn’t do it that way.” “I wouldn’t- work ou it any longer, John,” suggested Mrs John, when she came back. "You’re tired, audit isn’t important, anyway. You’d better read your paper.”

"I’ve got it practically all done, if I could find those bear figures,” he. said. "All you have to do is to find out how much is left- after each oneeats until you come to the coyote, and then divide what’s left by eleven.”

"But it doe'sn’t matter, John,” she protested, "I wouldn’t bother with it anv more.”

"Well, I’m going to finish it if it takes all night,” he declared firmly. "If you didn’t want me to finish this tiling you had no business to get me, started on ii.”

Down went more figures —fractions, equations, multiplications, and divisions.

"Did you find the bear figures?” she asked timidly, after a time. “It’s ten o’clock, John —let’s go to bed. "You can go if you want to,” ho said gruffly, “but I’m not going till I get this cow eaten up and the bones licked clean. I’m not going to let four wild beasts and a dead cow get the best of me —not by a long shot.”

Airs John went to bed, and at twelve thirty John sat down ou tho edge of the bed. “Did you work it, John?” she asked sleepily. "Certainly,” lie said, pulling off liis dressing jacket. "After all that noise stopped it was simple as clockwork. The coyote never got near the cow, at all. How could lie, with a lion and a bear anil a wolf standing around? It’s one of those joke questions to fool children with.”

"They do give them some pretty hard ones,” she admitted,, still sleepily.