There are two different scenes in the passage.
The first one is set on the outside of a wagon train before or during the year 1861, while the second scene is set on a house after the year 2005.
The first boy is trying to get some wood to warm his mother who is ill and he has to walk to get it. The second boy has her mother ill too, but he has to face with the problem of electricity, so he just makes a phone call to the power company to fix it.
The main difference between the historical era in which they live, when trying to solve the conflict, is that one has to solve the problem himself while the other boy makes a phone call and another person solves the problem for him.
Its basically being racist to women. Someone says that a women couldn't do a certain job just because she is female. Women since then have shown men that they able to do what men can do. Some men today still don't believe that women can do "a man's job".
“Quick, Policles, quick!” he cried. “My pony is tethered behind yonder grove. A grey he is, with red trappings. Get you gone as hard as hoof will bear you, for if you are taken you will have no easy death.”
“No easy death! What mean you, Metas? Who is the fellow?”
<span>“Great Jupiter! did you not know? Where have you lived? It is Nero the Emperor! Never would he pardon what you have said about his voice. Quick,
man, quick, or the guards will be at your heels!” - This was the
conversation of Policles and his friend, Metas of Corinth</span>
A couplet is the one with rhymes
