A WONDER-BOOK
Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an exploit, he was the one. Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
‘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 minutes,’ 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 there, 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, without more words, 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; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle he was then. 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
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