My puddle experience⁶³

Last winter I ran fourteen miles with four members of my road crew. After four or five miles I said to two of them, “You go ahead and clear the snow.” After one hundred metres, one of the two could not keep up with the other, so like a gentleman he slowed down and ran with us.

After five miles, one of the boys running with me became tired and didn’t want to run any farther. While I was barking at him, I ran into a puddle. For five or six steps it was so cold! Such agony!

When we completed seven miles, that same disciple said, “Now can we go?” I said to him, “We will take a taxi,” but in the back of my mind I knew we would run another seven miles.

Now, one of the boys was wise. He saw a diner. So he said, “I wonder if they have hot chocolate.” Three of them stopped and had a hot chocolate, and then we started running again. The disciple who had said he was tired was running behind us. All of a sudden he became inspired and started going ahead. So I barked at him. “Either run fifty metres behind me or ahead.” Again, I ran into the same puddle going back the other way.

Two or three miles later I saw that disciple and another of the disciples. They had taken off their jackets and left them on the street. People didn’t care for their jackets, so they picked them up on the way back.