16 "I just got back from the Healer," she
announced, "there's no doubt of it!"
17 Everyone in the laboratory began to clap and come over to
congratulate the happy couple. As Mountain Glory went to leave, she saw
two piles of sand on the table. "Still can't figure it out?" she asked.
Gray Boar shook his head.
18 "Look," he commented, "two piles of sand just alike. One from the
desert, one from the mountains. The mountain sand makes good
mortar, the desert sand crumbles. Why?"
19 Mountain Glory walked over, ran both piles of sand through her
fingers, wet her finger, tasted one pile of sand, then the other. "The
desert sand's got salt in it," she remarked. "I can taste it."
20 Gray Boar came over and he, too, tasted the sand. "Salt!" he cried,
"Salt! It's been right there in front of us all the time! It changes
the formula! It must destroy the mortar's ability to stick....makes it
crumble! Like I said, it was right there all the time and we couldn't
see it! We had to TASTE it!"
21 Everyone laughed. They took the desert sand and washed it several
times in water until the salt was gone, then made mortar with it. The
mortar was perfect! The builder's problem was solved!
22 A few weeks later Gray Boar decided he wanted to expand his
laboratory. To do so, they would have to move the great pile of rubbish
that had carelessly built up behind the building. He could see the
workmen throwing the rubble into trucks from his office window. As they
came to the pile of blocks from the mortar tests and started to throw
them into the trucks, each block shattered as it hit the truck's body.
But one didn't! It hit the truck with a hard BANG and bounced
off, intact!
23 "You, there!" Gray Boar called out the window, "Bring me that block,
the one that didn't break!" The man obeyed. Gray Boar sat
the block on his desk,