Math

by Abramus5250

Math: Part Two

Part 2

Twilight followed Big Macintosh as swiftly and with as much stealth as a deaf panther. Tracking skills aside, it wasn’t exactly difficult to follow the great big red stallion through a small section of the apple orchard and onto the edges of the northern fields. Almost immediately she noticed he began to survey each row of pumpkins with an almost machine-like precision. The way he moved just... fascinated her; it was if he were an entirely different pony when he was working than when he was just doing what she would consider regular chores.

After about a half hour of watching him mutter to himself about the pumpkins, the size of which rivaled the wheels on the princess's carriage, she watched as he slowly made his way over to a small orchard; now was her chance to strike. With a speed that would have impressed the Turtle King, the purple unicorn made her way over to where Big Macintosh was and stepped out from some bushes.

“Hello, Big Macintosh,” she said, trying not to let her voice sound dreamy. She wound up sounding congested instead.

“Hello Twilight,” the big stallion said, not looking in her direction; her voice sounded a tad weird to him all of a sudden. Did she somehow get sick on the wat over here? “Did ya follow me from th’ barn?”

“Yes, I did, and I couldn’t help but notice the way you surveyed your pumpkin patch like a machine,” she said, walking up to his side. “Do you really use your gift with statistics and all things mathematical in all of your chores?”

“Mostly,” the red pony replied. “Ta tell you the truth, Twilight, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever done had. Mind tellin’ me why you’re so interested in me all of a sudden?” He'd always thought her a tad cute, but never thought of her as a strong pony; she was a bit too small for the kind of work he did. Then again, he was pretty much the biggest stallion in Ponyville, so maybe he was the only one cut out for most of the work he did.

“I... I am just... fascinated by your gift,” Twilight said. “Have you always had it?”

“Y’all could say that, if it makes it easier fer you ta understand when I talk about it,” the Apple stallion replied. “I’ve bin this way fer as long as I could remember, and there’s no shame in that.”

“Of course there isn’t any shame in it!” Twilight said, almost with a tone of indignity. “Why in the world would there be any shame in being so gifted? There are ponies who'd part with many a bit to have such an understanding of the world.”

“I know that, but the reason I feel the need ta hide it is because I ain’t exactly a normal pony, Twilight,” he replied. “I’m a farm-pony, as my family has been fer a very long time. We’re used to our way of life, but the world is constantly wantin’ us to change, to become “newer” and whatnot. Could you imagine if some fancy-pants college found out ‘bout my smarts?”

“Judging from your tone, I’m guessing that’d be a bad thing?” Twilight asked. Here she'd thought somepony would have found out by now about this stallion's gifts, but it seemed it took a mighty deep friendship with this stallion's sister to even get him to confess to such a thing.

“Sure tootin’ it’d be a bad thing; they’d want me in their schools, learnin’ and possibly even teachin’ all about this stuff,” the red stallion huffed. “Even on a scholarship, our family don’t make enough fer me to go someplace like that, even if I got a job there. Besides, my place is on this farm; it’s my family’s farm, and so it’s my responsibility to keep it runnin’ as best I can. That’s why I never told nopony about my smarts before; they might try and convince me ta go to college or summat.”

Twilight blinked in surprise; she had just been thinking along the lines of putting in a good word with Celestia about getting Big Macintosh a lofty teaching position in Canterlot. His explanation and evaluation of the situation, however, made her see things differently almost immediately. He wouldn’t fit in, even less so than she had, and he’d be homesick all the time. His gift was tied to the line of thought associated with running a farm, and not the other things one might use statistics for. Plus, he was the muscle for this farm; without him, there’d just be too many chores for Applejack and Applebloom to do.

Maybe he wasn’t just smart, but wise as well; he certainly knew enough about what he wanted in life. She only wished she could have that same intuition. Her earliest dream, before enrolling in school, had been to become a ballerina.

Then she found out she couldn't dance like they could worth a hoot. The dashing of her brother's dream of becoming a kite had been even harder for him to accept than the failure of her's had.

“So,” the purple pony said as the pair walked over to another apple tree. “Just... what are you doing now? Is this some chore as well?”

“Kinda, but it’s more like a work-related hobby,” the big stallion said, sounding much more relaxed after confessing his worries to his sister’s friend. “I’m just makin’ mental life tables of our trees.”

“Life tables?” Twilight asked. She didn't know tables were alive; technically they were at some point, but until the day hers told Spike to stop spilling his juice every other week, she'd assume they remained inanimate.

“Yes; I use this ta see just how many trees we can expect to survive from year to year in our orchards,” Big Macintosh said. “Ever learn what I life table is?”

“No, I never got around to that part of statistics,” the purple unicorn replied. Okay, this was actually bugging her; Big Macintosh, of all ponies, knew something she didn’t about something she actually knew about. It’d be like Spike knowing more about baking than Pinkie Pie, or Luna schooling Rarity in fashion design. It just... it just seemed ludicrous.

“Well, the thing is, ever since ya plant a tree, there’s always a certain percentage that don’t make it,” the big stallion said. “Weather, varmints, accidents and disease can take their toll on trees, especially young’uns. Plus there’s this whole bit on age classes, which fer our apples trees, I just determine by height and trunk width. Sure, there's a whole lot more too it than just that, but it's easier fer me to remember that way.”

“I see,” Twilight said, her heart fluttering as Big Macintosh’s voice once again became intellectual in nature as he explained trees. Ponyville wasn't exactly the intellectual hotspot, since ponies there didn't need to be on the high end of education. Most would spend their lives happily working family businesses or making their own, though a few, like Rarity, always had their eyes on something bigger and better than what they had then.

So when Big Mac talked about apple trees, Twilight doubted there was another pony in town who knew as much about them as he did. He even made talking about trees sound cool, something her assistant would find impossible.

“Dependin’ on a buncha different factors, with our biggest three bein' size, species and rainfall, every tree produces a different number of apples fer harvest,” Big Macintosh coninuted. “We here pride ourselves in knowin’ how ta treat our trees right, but some years we lose some of our most productiv’ branches to heavy snowfall and ice.”

“I see,” Twilight said. She did know quite a bit about trees, but from the way in which the large stallion beside her was talking, he wasn’t even getting started.

“Now, outside of these here “life tables” I gots in my head, there’s the whole issue of recruitment for these trees,” he said. “We gots ta trim these tree enough so that new growth ain’t hog-wild and erratic, but not so much that we hurt the tree too much. See this here limb right here?” he asked, pointing to a large and sturdy-looking piece of wood.

“Yes; what about it?” Twilight asked.

“Well, this here was once just a tiny little offshoot of another branch, but it grew just fine, seein’ as how we couldn’t reach it at the time with our pruners,” Big Macintosh said. He turned to look at her. “How many apples do ya think we grow every year, Miss Sparkle?”

“I... I don’t quite know,” the smaller unicorn said. “Lots?” She remembered when Applejack had worked herself to exhaustion trying to harvest all the apples one year, and thankfully for her friend, the rest of them had stepped in to help. Twilight didn't know why the Apple family didn't just ask for help more often; she'd picked a good dozen trees clean with her magic in mere moments.

The stallion grinned a bit, as if trying to hold back a laugh for her sake. “We’ve never been able to count ‘em all, ya see, so I learned to use a hoofty-doofty formula that can estimate ‘em to a good degree. It’s all about how many we harvest outta the total number we grow.”

“Okay, but couldn’t you just take the total number you harvest and subtract that from losses to estimate the proper total?” Twilight asked. It would be simple math, to be sure, but there was somehting about his tone that siggested it was anything but simple.

“Shucks Miss Twilight, we would if we could, but we ain’t got the time to do somethin’ as labor-intensive as that with all the other things we gotta do around our farm,” Big Macintosh said. “Instead, we count how many apples we actually manage to process, as in make into pies, jams and such. There’s always a certain number fer each, so with that, we can estimate just how many we harvested without havin’ to count every dern apple.”

“And what of the other ones? The ones you don’t use?” the purple mare asked. She knew not all apples would be used, just like not all of Pinkie's baked goods would be sold.

The bad ones would be given to Spike, the living garbage disposal. She'd even caught him eating a book once, just because he was curious to what it tasted like. Luckily for her, it hadn't been a good book: "Economics in Practice" by some large walrus or something.

“Well, we do count the ones we throw out, but even then, we’ve still got quite a few we lost over the year to bugs and wing and stuff,” the big stallion replied. “What we do is...”

This continued on for another good thirty minutes, the pair of them having no idea that another pony was watching them. Applejack, having finished her chores on the south field, found the two of them sitting and talking away about exponential growth and conditional mortality of apples. She didn’t understand any of it, but in her honest heart, she knew there was something different between the two of them.

“They’re getting’ ta be good friends now, I reckon,” the orange mare said softly to herself as she watched the pair walk off towards the tomatoes. She could hear Big Mac talking about how he could teach Twilight all about the harvesting techniques that brought in the most tomatoes without sacrificing quality. “Maybe someday Twilight’ll get her head outta them books she loves and instead spend some more time on this farm.”

Before she walked off, she took one last look at the pair, both seeming to be having the time of their lives. “Maybe more than just some time, judgin’ from how she’s lookin’ at Big Mac,” she muttered, smiling as she left them to their own devices.

Author's Note:

Decided to extend this story just a little bit, if only to further educate myself in writing about math and others in, well, math.

Oh, Big Mac, you may try not to be, but all the mares think you're a hunk.

Comments

[Ebonysdagger]

Math, Twilight bait.

[Listie The Scribe Maid]

(Joke) Alt: Title:
upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/a/5/ca5cea5a0e4dc838b38dce0d4cbaa1ac.png

[NorthernSprint]

Statistically speaking, Twilight loves it.

[musicman722]

nice fic.

[ArthurHucksake]

Well, you got a like for the last chapter, now you've got a fave.

Still, a conclusion to the budding romance would be nice, but if you decide to leave it how it is, that's fine by me.

There were a couple of spelling mistakes that I noticed- "wat" should have been "way", and "mroe" should have been "more".

Apart from that, your story was very well written, and I have enjoyed it immensely.

Good luck for the future!

[HB_DS2013]

Big Mac as a closet genius? I've seen other things, but... y'know.

[monkeyXtypewriter]

More please. 10 plus chapters please. Please.

[Dragon Blaze-X]

3525101

[justanothername]

Continue! Please! God knows we need more Twimac!

[LazyFiz]

I don't know why but reading this fic is making me feel smarter.

[PetuTheViewer]

Honestly. This was great even as oneshot but now that you added the second chapter, you got me curious. And when you have me curious enough write a comment on my phone, you have done something right. That means that I would love to see this expanded into full fledged 10 000 - 100 000 word story at least. Please at least consider it.

[BlueNinja]

there's a whole lot mroe too it

*more *to

Overall, I think this fic suffers from a crippling lack of Tom Lehrer.

[Diamond Sparkle]

Very funny. Will there be more, will Twilight and Big Mac become a coupledom?

[Nineveh]

Yeah! *Asian power activated* *boop!*

Yes, I am Asian (Filipino )

[DUBMAR3000]

i love it great fic

[Fluid Apple]

[Mathing intensifies]

[Asheram]

Sweet little thing you've got going on here... Oh, and

lot mroe too

[lazyreader19]

I have a feeling she's going to go on a new reading spree after all this.

[SugarOnMyPancakes]

[Emil]

Nice Walras pun.

[MemeSurvivor]

Great story! I never considered secret genius Big Mac before, but it's well done in this story to the point I think I'll seek out other similar stories. After I read yours of course! If only this didn't give me flashbacks to all those gruelling hours of statistics lessons Bleh

[Bionickly]

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