#2 Life Story : Chicken Traps and Investment Lessons

A boy meets an old man trying to catch wild turkeys. He has a turkey trap, a rudimentary device consisting of a large box with hinged door on the top. The door is held open by a strut of strings that extend more than 30 meters back to where the trap guard is. A few corn seeds are scattered along the path to entice turkeys into the trap. Once inside, the men will discover that there is more corn in them. When the chickens are trapped enough, the old man will pull the bar out to knock the door down. Once the door has collapsed, he will not be able to open it up without going to the box and this will of course cause the chickens to hide behind the fear trap and run away. The moment when the bar is pulled out when the most turkey to go into the trap as expected of the hunter.

One day, twelve chickens entered his trap. Then one child came out, the other 11 children. "Too much, you'll have to pull the rope when there are twelve in it," the old man thought, "I'll wait another minute, maybe the other will come back."

While the old man was waiting for the 12th turkey to return, two more came out of the trap. "I should have been satisfied with eleven," thought the trapper. "As soon as one of them comes back, I'll pull the wire."

Three more walked out, and the man waited. Having seen 12 turkeys in his trap, he does not want to go home with less than 8 chickens. He could not give up the thought that some of the original chickens would come back. When there was only one turkey in the trap, he thought, "I'll wait until it comes out or another one comes in, then I'll be back." The lone turkey I rushed to the school, and the old man returned empty handed.