Harrington stares at the boy, and the boy smiles
quizzically at Harrington, and the father grows suspicious. Are there
seeds in an apple? There are seedless oranges, of course, which
presupposes oranges not destitute of seeds; but an apple? Harrington
tries to call up the image of the last apple he has eaten and he thinks
of sweet and sour apples, apples of a waxen yellow and apples of a
purple red, but he cannot visualise the seeds.
As Harrington sits there dumb, Jack asks him which shoe does he put on
first when he dresses in the morning. Jack knows, the rascal. He can
trace every process through which the cotton fibre passes from the plant
to the finished cloth. He knows why factory chimneys are built high. He
knows how a boat tacks against the wind. And he knows that his father
knows nothing of these things.
But I would rather have Harrington's boy quiz me on things that I can
pretend are not worth knowing, like the seeds in an apple, than on
things that cannot be waved aside. I tried to explain one day how the
revolution of the earth about the sun produces the seasons, and I
succeeded only in proving that when it is winter in New York it is
daylight in Buenos Ayres.
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