RAY: This puzzler came from one of my favorite movies, "O, Brother, Where Art Thou," and it takes place in the South, during the Depression. And, in fact, it's kind of a retelling of Homer's Odyssey.

Our three protagonists have just escaped from a chain gang, and they're still chained together, so they're running to catch a slow moving freight train. Can you get the scene?

TOM: Yeah, three guys running. I saw the movie twice.

RAY: Everett, the leader of the gang, is the first one to jump into what he thinks is an empty boxcar, and his buddies are chugging along behind, also trying to get into the same boxcar. He stands up and he's confronted, not by an empty boxcar, but by three or four hobos, who are sitting in the car. Now figuring that their most urgent need is to get their shackles removed, Everett asks the hobos the following question:

"Any of you boys happen to be a smithie or otherwise versed in the metallurgical arts?"

But the hobos, as hobos often do, look at him blankly, because his question didn't make sense. Why didn't Everett's question make sense to the hobos, or anyone else for that matter?

TOM: Boy, it seems pretty straightforward to me.

RAY: Remember the first line or two of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, "Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithie stands, the smith, a mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands." The first few words are crucial. A smithie is the building, so when Everett asks, "Any of you boys happen to be a smithie," he's asking them, --

TOM: Are you a building where blacksmithing is done and, of course, they couldn't possibly be.

RAY: Anyway, who's our winner?

TOM: Well, the winner is art historian Janet Schlog, from Chesterfield, Missouri, who says she goes by the nickname Moochy.

RAY: I like it.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]