Part 9

When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw with half an eye that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he wanted to know. Of course he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the wonderful things that he was constantly performing in various parts of the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he undertook. He, therefore, made no more attempts to escape, but told the hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides.

“You must go on thus and thus,” said the Old Man of the Sea, “till you come in sight of a very tall giant who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he happens to be in the humour, will tell you exactly where the garden of the Hesperides lies.”

Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He met with a great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.

Hercules continued his travels. He went to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been put to death if he had not slain the king of the country and made his escape. Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. And here, unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his journey must needs be at an end.

Nothing was before him save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean. But suddenly, as he looked toward the horizon, he saw something, a great way off, which he had not seen the moment before. It gleamed very brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the sun when it rises or sets over the edge of the world. It evidently drew nearer, for at every instant this wonderful object became larger and more lustrous. At length it had come so nigh that Hercules discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl made either of gold or burnished brass. How it had got afloat upon the sea is more than I can tell you. There it was at all events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim.

“I have seen many giants in my time,” thought Hercules, “but never one that would need to drink his wine, out of a cup like this.”

And, true enough, what a cup it must have been! It was as large--as large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was. To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel, and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook. The waves tumbled it onward until it grazed against the shore within a short distance of the spot where Hercules was standing.

As soon as this happened he knew what was to be done.

It was just as clear as daylight that this marvelous cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward in order to carry Hercules across the sea on his way to the garden of the Hesperides. Accordingly, he clambered over the brim, and slid down on the inside. The waves dashed with a pleasant and ringing sound against the circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the motion was so soothing that it speedily rocked Hercules into an agreeable slumber.

His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and reverberated through its golden or brazen substance a hundred times as loudly as ever you heard a church-bell. The noise awoke Hercules, who instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was. He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an island. And on that island what do you think he saw?

No, you will never guess it--not if you were to try fifty thousand times! It positively appears to me that this was the most marvelous spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules in the whole course of his wonderful travels and adventures. It was a greater marvel than the hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody before or since the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld by travelers in all time to come. It was a giant!

But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so vast a giant that the clouds rested about his midst like a girdle, and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does really seem almost too much to believe.

Meanwhile the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the giant’s visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features--eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth the same width.

Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient forest had been growing and decaying around his feet, and oak trees of six or seven centuries old had sprung from the acorns, and forced themselves between his toes. The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and, perceiving Hercules, roared out:

“Who are you, down at my feet, there? And whence do you come in that little cup?”

“I am Hercules!” thundered back the hero. “And I am seeking for the garden of the Hesperides!”

“Ho! ho! ho!” roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. “That is a wise adventure, truly!”

“And why not?” cried Hercules. “Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads?”

Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds gathered about the giant’s middle and burst into a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it impossible to distinguish a word. Only the giant’s immeasurable legs were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest, and now and then a momentary glimpse of his whole figure mantled in a volume of mist. He seemed to be speaking most of the time, but his big, deep, rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps and rolled away over the hills like them.

At last the storm swept over as suddenly as it had come. And there again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height and illuminating it against the background of the sullen thunder-clouds. So far above the shower had been his head that not a hair of it was moistened by the raindrops.

When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the seashore, he roared out to him anew:

“I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold the sky upon my head!”

“So I see,” answered Hercules. “But can you show me the way to the garden of the Hesperides?”

“What do you want there?” asked the giant.

“I want three of the golden apples,” shouted Hercules, “for my cousin, the king.”

“There is nobody but myself,” quoth the giant, “that can go to the garden of the Hesperides and gather the golden apples. If it were not for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a dozen steps across the sea and get them for you.”

“You are very kind,” replied Hercules. “And cannot you rest the sky upon a mountain?”

“None of them are quite high enough,” said Atlas, shaking his head. “But if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a fellow of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your shoulders while I do your errand for you?”

“Is the sky very heavy?” he inquired.

“Why, not particularly so at first,” answered the giant, shrugging his shoulders, “but it gets to be a little burdensome after a thousand years.”

“And how long a time,” asked the hero, “will it take you to get the golden apples?”

“Oh, that will be done in a few moments!” cried Atlas. “I shall take ten or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before your shoulders begin to ache.”

“Well, then,” answered Hercules, “I will climb the mountain behind you, and relieve you of your burden.”

The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that he should be doing the giant a favour by allowing him this opportunity for a ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for his own glory if he could boast of upholding the sky than merely to do so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads. Accordingly, the sky was shifted from the shoulders of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.

When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did was to stretch himself. Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest, that had grown up around it, then the other. Then all at once he began to caper and leap and dance for joy at his freedom, flinging himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again with a shock that made the earth tremble. Then he laughed--“ho! ho! ho!”--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains far and near. When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea--ten miles at the first stride, which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was the greatest depth of the sea.

Hercules watched the giant until the gigantic shape faded entirely out of view. And now Hercules began to consider what he should do in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. If any such misfortune were to happen, how could he ever get rid of the sky? And, by the by, its weight began already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.

“I really pity the poor giant,” thought Hercules. “If it wearies me so much in ten minutes, how it must have wearied him in a thousand years!”

I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea. At his nearer approach Atlas held up his hand in which Hercules could perceive three magnificent golden apples as big as pumpkins, and all hanging from one branch.

“I am glad to see you again,” shouted Hercules when the giant was within hearing. “So you have got the golden apples?”

“Certainly, certainly,” answered Atlas, “and very fair apples they are. I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah, it is a beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesperides! Yes, and the dragon with a hundred heads is a sight worth any man’s seeing. After all, you had better have gone for the apples yourself.”

“No matter,” replied Hercules. “You have had a pleasant ramble, and have done the business as well as I could. I heartily thank you for your trouble. And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in haste, and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden apples, will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders again?”

“Why, as to that,” said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the air twenty miles high or thereabouts, and catching them as they came down--“as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little unreasonable. Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin, much quicker than you could? As his majesty is in such a hurry to get them, I promise you to take my longest strides. And, besides, I have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky just now.”

Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders. It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out of their places. Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking that the sky might be going to fall next.

“Oh, that will never do!” cried Giant Atlas with a great roar of laughter. “I have not let fall so many stars within the last five centuries. By the time you have stood there as long as I did you will begin to learn patience.”

“What!” shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, “do you intend to make me bear this burden forever?”

“We will see about that one of these days,” answered the giant. “At all events, you ought not to complain if you have to bear it the next hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand. I bore it a good while longer, in spite of the backache. Well, then, after a thousand years, if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again. Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it.”

“Pish! a fig for its talk!” cried Hercules, with another hitch of his shoulders. “Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you? I want to make a cushion of my lion’s skin for the weight to rest upon. It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many centuries as I am to stand here.”

“That’s no more than fair, and I’ll do it,” quoth the giant. “For just five minutes, then, I’ll take back the sky. Only for five minutes, recollect. I have no idea of spending another thousand years as I spent the last. Variety is the spice of life, say I.”

Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! He threw down the golden apples, and received back the sky from the head and shoulders of Hercules upon his own, where it rightly belonged. And Hercules picked up the three golden apples that were as big or bigger than pumpkins, and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after him to come back. Another forest sprang up around his feet and grew ancient there, and again might be seen oak-trees of six or seven centuries old, that had waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes.

And there stands the giant to this day, or, at any rate, there stands a mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder rumbles about its summit we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant Atlas bellowing after Hercules.

--_Abridged._

_OCTOBER_--ORCHARD OF THE YEAR!

Bend thy boughs to the earth, redolent of glowing fruit! Ripened seeds shake in their pods. Apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to let go when no wind is out, and swing in long waverings to the earth, which they touch without sound, and lie looking up, till winds rake them, and heap them in fence corners. When the gales come through the trees, the yellow leaves trail, like sparks at night behind the flying engine. The woods are thinner so that we can see the leaves plainer, as we lie dreaming on the yet warm moss of the singing spring. The days are calm. The nights are tranquil. The year’s work is done. She walks in gorgeous apparel, looking upon her long labour, and her serene eye saith, “It is good.”

NOVEMBER

Trees bare and brown, Dry leaves everywhere Dancing up and down, Whirling through the air.

Red-cheeked apples roasted, Popcorn almost done, Toes and chestnuts toasted, That’s November fun.

WOODLAND ANIMALS

No sound was in the woodlands Save the squirrel’s dropping shell And the yellow leaves among the boughs, Low rustling as they fell.

At last after watching and waiting, Autumn, the beautiful came, Stepping with sandals silver, Decked with her mantle of flame.

THE PRETENDING WOODCHUCK

CARL S. PATTON

Among the wild animals I have not known was a family of woodchucks who lived in a hollow log on the edge of a farm in New York State. Not that they cared much whether it was New York State or some other state. I mentioned it only that the details of this story may be verified by anyone who is inclined to doubt them. It was New York State.

Now here was a thing that distinguished this family to start with, from all other families of the neighbourhood--they lived in a hollow log. All their relatives and friends lived in the ground. I don’t know how this family got started to living in the rotten log. But I do happen to know that though there were a great many warm discussions about the relative merits of a house in a log, and a house in the ground, and though many ground houses in the best locations and with all modern improvements were offered to this family, they stuck to the house in the log.

The house certainly did have one advantage; it had two doors. And not only that, the log was part of an old fence, and the fence ran between the garden and the cornfield. So in the summer when the garden stuff was fine, all you had to do was to walk down the hallway of the log, until you came to the left-hand door, and there you were right in the garden. But when fall came and the garden was dried up, but the corn was stacked in shocks or husked and put into the crib, all you had to do was to go down the hallway, to the door that turned to the right, and there you were in the cornfield. Quite aside from these advantages, who would live in a house with one door in it when he could just as well have one with two?

The log-house family consisted of father, mother, and four children. The youngest of these--the favourite of the family, was named Monax. His mother had heard that the scientific name for woodchuck was Arctomys Monax, and being of a scientific turn of mind, she was much taken with this name. But no woodchuck in her neighbourhood had two names. So she took the last of the two and called her son Monax.

Monax had never been out in the world. He had been down to the two doors, and had looked out, but that was all. But he had been well instructed at home. He knew about men, and how they would sometimes shoot at woodchucks; and about dogs, and about the corn-crib; and for a long time he had known all about garden vegetables and corn. He was certainly a promising boy, even his father and mother acknowledged it, but he had one weak point--he could not learn which was his right hand and which was his left.

In the fall Monax’ father was laid up with rheumatism. He was a terrible old fellow to groan and carry on when he was sick, and his wife had to stand by him every minute. The house had to be fixed for winter, and the other children were at work on this. Saturday came and someone had to go to market. Who was there to go except Monax? So it was decided that Monax should go.

Mrs. Woodchuck gave him his instructions. She always gave everybody their instructions. Mr. Woodchuck was, like many of us, quite an important man, away from home. “You go out at the right-hand door,” said Mrs. Woodchuck to Monax; “mind me, at the right-hand door. You go through the cornfield ’till you come to the big rock in the middle of it. Then you turn to the right again.” She paused a moment, and a look of hesitancy or misgiving came into her face. “Do you really know,” she said solemnly, “do you really know your right hand from your left?” “Yes,” said Monax. “Hold up your right one,” said his mother. Monax’ mind was in a whirl. He tried to imagine himself with his back to the cornfield door, where he stood when he had his last lesson on the subject. If he could only get that clearly in his mind, he could remember which hand he held up then. But he was too excited to think. So he held up one hand; he hadn’t the slightest idea which it was. “Certainly,” said his mother, “certainly. Your father said it was not safe to let you go, because you did not know your right hand from your left. But he under-rates you. He under-rates all the children.” She spoke almost petulantly. Then her mind seemed to be relieved, and she proceeded with her instructions. “Through the cornfield,” she said, “’till you come to the big rock; then you go to the right ’till you come to the edge of the field. You will see a couple of men in the cornfield. But do not be afraid of them; they are only scarecrows. Even if one of them has a gun, it is only a wooden one, and they can’t hurt you. Go right ahead. At the edge of the cornfield, by the maple tree, you turn to the right again--always to the right. Then you will see the barn. Go in and look around there. Keep away from the horses and don’t mind the odour. If you find a basket of corn on the barn floor, help yourself and come home. If you don’t you will have to go a little farther. Just to the right of the barn a few yards--always to the right--is the corn-crib. That is where your father and I get most of the supplies for the family. You climb up into the old wagon-box that stands on the scaffolding, and jump from that into the crib. Getting out is much easier and after that all you have to do is to come home. You needn’t hurry especially. I sha’n’t be worried about you, because there are no dogs there--the dog lives away over on the other side of the fence beyond the garage--and I know the scarecrows will not hurt you.”