| OCR Text |
Show I How Olympus Was Built. I 1 I After Jove had finished his fight with the Titans and had chained the big Typhon under Etna, he determined to build him- I t1 1 I self a summer residence on Mount Olymp'iis. He being an absolute boss, all he had to do in case he wanted anything was to ask j jjfl I So he summoned all the artisans in his realms and set them to work. He first built a great house with airy apartments; all ; ffl H set in marble and gold; it had broad verandas, and Vulcan was summoned and ordered to make fans that might be run on hot days j 'il' ffl 1 to keep the porches cool. They were the first electric fans. Then he ordered a great structure for a business office for his secretaries, ' jj ffl and finally a temple a very splendor of heaven. j gfl I When all was finished and Jove with his wife Juno had moved in, the pair gave a grand ball. Jove would not dance, but kept 1 p jfl I his ci of ivory and gold at the head of the hall. But Juno chose Apollo for a partner to lead the first cotillion, and she queened it ' jj 4 jfl I in s i. a aghty a way that when the ball finally broke up and the gods and goddesses returned home, Venus had a half hour's cry ffl I through pure anger, and kept Vulcan awake the rest of the night declaring that if he did not build her a dance hall finer than Juno's J . jfl I she would get a divorce from him. H Next morning Vulcan called up his Cyclop helper and went to work on the hall. He framed it with beams of steel, roofed it 1, . H I with gold, illuminated the walls and ceiling with pictures of all things beautiful, all the time keeping such a smoke rising from his 9 forge that his work was concealed from all his neighbors. f,L. Jfl I When it was completed Venus put on her rarest robes and her girdle of diamonds, and then called Juno up by telephone. In 'jfl I the sweetest voice ever heard she asked her to come over and see a little present that Vulcan had presented her with. . ; ; W I Juno was over in a trice, but when she saw the stately hall, its shining roof, its sculptured walls, its stained windows and pol- id -ij' , jfl I ished but elastic floor, she could not conceal her anger, but with a few vicious words-on- the extravagance of some gods that had no !f ; j; jfl I bank account, she left for home. She has hated Venus ever since. But when she returned home the curtain-lecture she gave jove a' ffl for permitting an old, lame blacksmith to beat him in planning and building a house, made Jove sorry that he did not give Pluto - tfS heaven and earth and go himself to hell. mm Meantime Apollo was lost in love with one of the Muses, Erato, if we remember correctly. She sang so divinely and played 9 the lyre like Bill Glasmann. But when Apollo urged her to marry him, she said: "Apollo, I know how handsome you are, but you 9 arc just a musician, and a bigger talker than William Jennings Bryan. You will never have anything to keep a wife on ; but go and r j ,' 9 I build me a house something like Juno's or like the hall of Venus, and then I will listen to you. I can rent rooms enough to sup- j 9 I port us." (; fl I At this Apollo started on a concert tour, raised a great deal of money enough, he thought, to build the home got it about .! 9 I half finished when he found himself broke; borrowed enough money of Midas to finish it; then Midas foreclosed on it and, to add 8 . 9 I insult to injury, married Erato, she excusing herself on the score that the house was intended for her from the first. . . jj 9 I Mars had been away while all this was going on. When he returned and looked around he was filled with wrath, went to the 'ijj 9 I telephone, called up Minerva and proposed that she join him in building something that would look like the work of fighting gods; .jt fl I embattled walls and bastions and turrets and embrasures a fortress fit for gods. , ; fl I Pallas Athene consented the more readily because of the ai s that Here and Venus had been putting on. They had to go over '' fl I to Mount Pelion to get the needed rock, but they completed the wo k, and its shining walls remain to this day, so solid are they and !?( ' fl so cemented. l - H I The next builder was Pan. He came rattling along and when he saw what was going on he bought a lot and said : "We will '" ' fl I have a concert hall here, the very walls of which shall vibrate with jolly music." He never rested until he completed it. ,and Apollo fl H declared that the acoustics of the place were perfect. At its dedication all the goddesses danced and all the Muses sang and played. fl I Bacchus had been on a tremendous spree, but he awoke one day, and, seeing what was under way, went off on a back street, 9 8 jumped a lot and pat up a saloon of the highest class, laid in a great stock of Ambrosia and Nectar, secured Pan for toastmaster, ' 9 I and Apollo and a score of other musicians, then advertised a banquet and a masquerade ball, $1,000 a ticket, and cleared enough the ? 9 first night to get back the whole cost of the structure. .9 I Midas had been off on old Mount Ossa, and had struck it bigger than Goldfield. So he took a contract to pave the new city. ij 9 I For months his sign was up : "Closed by Order of M. Midas, Contractor," but when he finished, the city council gave him a vote of 9 I It was then that Aurora built her golden palace and appear d every morning on the front piazza clothed in her saffron-colored , 8 n robes, and so beautiful was she that the praise of her descended from gods to men and they still hail her lovingly, when in her chariot t jj 9 I of gold she fills the East with the splendors of the dawn. , j. 9 I Vesta was the loveliest of goddesses, but so many of the gods tried to woo and win her that she finally persuaded old Rhea, r -f ' 9 I her mother, to do her off a room in the rear of her house, which could ortly be entered by a door that was invisible from the street, , j H and in that way, with her cats, she never even wanted to get a husband. j fl The palace that Artemis built v is one of the most wonderful of all. It was lighted in every room by the moon; no other v H I light was ever seen there. Bj I, 2 was 'at this time that Hermes slew Argus and carried off Io, at which Jove was so delighted that he built the messenger !-;' jtigl god a palace in the form of a signal station. - lil thousand lesser gods came to build abodes there. The story of how it was done, how the materials were obtained from j'jjjfjjlj j' Pelion, from Ossa, from old Mount Parnassus, from under the earth, from farroff lands; how Pluto gave up material from his I'M-lll'IB $ realms; how Neptune trained winds and waves 'to carry the material; of the wonderful architecture that was created, the temples, ' ' Jl jjlHf the arches; the shining battlements, the sculptured walls and roofs; who can tell it; who can give any impression of its splendor? 1 181 3 When it was finished a drummer that passed through, found, down on a back street, a colony of semi-gods living in brush 'I I' fflt shanties. The commercial traveler stopped and asked why the squallor in a city so passing fair. One resident replied : "When the ' ' fH ll lanc was ree or anyne to tae an materials were cheap, the newspapers kept warning us that a boom was on the way ; that a M great city was to be built here; that if we did not catch on we would be too late; but we did not believe it, and now we have been , j B I fenced off here as vagrants." ' -! it 8 I Dear reader, as with gods and goddesses, so with men and women. The passions, the hopes, the impulses, the hates, the ' ll'-S fears, the ambitions of men md women come down to them through ruling spirits, and the work above is imitated here. ' :i 'Jr'f 111 I not nore tne warnings. A city beautiful is to be built here. Will you be up when the palaces of Jove and Venus and i 4 fH I Midas and Hermes and Aurora flash back the sunbeams, or will you be out with the vagrant crowd on the back street? |
