THE WENDY HUT

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1932, Page 16 (Supplement)

THE WENDY HUT

LONG AGO STORIES. DORIS AND THE MAGICIAN. Doris lived in the most splendid city of the ancient world, Agrigentum. So rich, and magnificent was Agrigentum that there were no poor people in the city, and one of its greatest men was Empedocles, the magician. Doris often thought of the magician as ehe sat in the .Temple of Zeus watching the hinges of the gold and ivory door. She was a King’s daughter, carried away from Syracuse when she was a baby, and the fortunes of war were such that she never saw her father or mother again. The general who captured her and her father’s jewels gave her to the Temple as an offering because she was noble, and there she had remained ever since. She was now thirteen, and it was her duty to watch the hinges of the doors. Evil spirits might attack the beautiful hinges, but the people believed that a certain little goddess looked after them, and Doris sat by the door as the servant of this little goddess. It was very hot in Agrigentum, and when Doris was tired of looking at the treasures in the temple she would sit in the warm draught that came, in through the hinges of the door and to the little goddess whom she never saw. am very glad to attend you,” she said, “but I wish yon would sometimes show yourself. I hear so much, but see nothing. Yesterday two nobles talked on the steps, and said that Empedocles the magician had drained away the water from the marshy districts, and called upon the winds to carry away all wicked diseases with the black and ugly water, and they had obeyed him. There have been no epidemics this year. This magician has but to walk through a field, and the earth Is refreshed and the corn grows. Oh! if I could walk in a field! Listen—he comes;” Doris had often seen Empedocles in the Temple. But since he had drained the marsh and taken away disease from the beautiful city, she longed to praise him as the people of Agrigentum did, so she ran out on the marble steps. There he came! Clad in white, his hair flowing, followed by a great company of men and women, magnificently dressed, sparkling with jewels, waving fans, and praising aloud the great poet magician. “0 subduer of the winds!" cried Doris. "0 protector of the sick—let me catch a lit'tle magic from your regard!” Then Empedocles stood still and looked at the little girl. When he saw her vivid, intelligent little face, he determined to make her his pupil and teach her all the wonderful things he knew. “Come,” he commanded. ‘T shall teach you to read the earth and the sky, and to drive away disease.” A-nd Doris walked down the steps-and followed him.