The Tortoise and the Hare V2
"Tell me again dad," said young Teddy the tortoise, "of the time that you beat the hare in the race."
"Lay your head down, and I will tell you."
"When I was a young boy, just like you, I was walking down to the lake one day. I passed a hare and a fox talking. As I walked passed them the hare said, 'Wow! Look at this guy, he's so slow that if he was going any slower he would be going backward.' They laughed, but I ignored them and kept on walking."
Teddy lifted his head. "Why didn't you just do it then?"
"Because I didn't need to. Now, lay your head back down and I'll tell you the rest of the story. When I was walking back from the lake the hare and the fox were still standing there talking. The fox saw me coming and pointed. The hare turned and laughed. He said, 'It took you that long to get to the lake and back? I probably could have rolled you there faster.' They both laughed. I stopped and looked at them and said, 'I can be faster than I look.' They looked at each other with grins on their faces. The hare turned to me and said, in a soft voice, 'You wanna bet?' I told him, 'I don't need to bet.', but he said, 'I bet I can get to the lake and back before you're even able to get to the lake.'"
"Now, I'm not usually a betting man, but that just seemed ridiculous, so I said, 'Okay.' Both the hare and the fox seemed surprised, but nodded their heads. The fox said, 'How 'bout this? We're already on this path to the lake. I'll run down to the lake. Give me some time to get down there. Then, both of you start at the same time from here. The first one to get to me at the lake wins.' I agreed, and so did the hare. We waited around not talking to each other. I laid down and the hare paced around. Finally, the hare said, 'I think that's enough time. You ready?' As soon as I said 'Yes.' the hare sprinted off, and I started going as fast as I could too."
"Halfway down the trail I thought I had probably made a mistake because the hare was probably already done by now and waiting at the lake with the fox, but I kept plodding along. I might as well finish what I started. When I got to the fox he was standing there by himself. I asked him, 'Where's the hare?' He said, 'I don't know, I haven't seen him yet.'"
"We stood around waiting for awhile. Finally, the hare came running fast down the trail. He stopped next to us panting and trying to catch his breath. The fox asked him, 'Where have you been?' The hare, still breathing hard, looked at him and said, 'I stopped to take a break and fell asleep.' 'Well,' said the fox, 'you lost.' The hare rolled his eyes and said, 'You know I'm way faster than him. I could've beat him easy.' 'Yeah,' said the fox, 'but you didn't.' They started arguing and I started walking home."
He looked at Teddy, now asleep, and thought about the long life he had ahead of him. All of the choices and chances and trials he would face, and said, "Life is like a race in the woods, you often don't know if you're winning or not, so you keep going."
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