Three Fast Men
I shall tell you about a place where all the men are fast. Then I shall ask you a question. One of the men in this village went to his farm to harvest some grain. He put his grain into a basket which he carried on top of his head. While he was walking down a steep and muddy hill, he slipped and fell. He slid all the way from the town of Bamako to the city of Kati. When he slipped, the basket of grain started to fall off his head. While the basket was falling and the grain was spilling out, he reached into a house as he slid by and took a knife. With the knife he cut many reeds as he slid by a field and wove them into a mat. He held the mat in front of him and caught all the falling grain before it hit the ground. Then he wrapped the mat around the grain, caught the basket falling from his head, and put the mat and grain back into the basket. Then he put the basket back onto his head and stood up when he had finished sliding. The second man was also going to his farm, to get grain for his chickens. He had forty chickens with him, in fifteen separate baskets. When he got to his farm, he let all the chickens out to eat whatever grain had fallen to the ground. But then he saw a hawk above him, speeding toward his chickens with its talons open. This man caught all the chickens as they ran about the field, put each one back into the proper basket, and covered the baskets. By this time the hawk was almost to the ground where the chickens had been. Then he caught the surprised hawk by its talons and tossed it aside. The third man went hunting with a friend. They saw an antelope. His friend had a strong bow, and shot an arrow at the antelope. This third man got tired of waiting for the arrow to hit the antelope, so he ran to the antelope himself and killed it with his knife. Then he skinned it, cut up the meat, and put it all in the knapsacks that he and his friend used. By the time he had put up the last of the meat, the arrow got to where the antelope had been. He reached out and caught it. Now which of these three men was the fastest?
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