Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-04-19
A WESTERN CLASSIC.
Biographical Sketch of the Goddess
Venus.
detroit Free Press. |

Detroit Free Press.
"a good many years ago, afore can remem
Der, Venus and lot of other Greek gals useG
to 60 a-fshing in the Hellespont River and
make mud pies on the banks and tell how
when they growed bigger they was going to
marry real prince Venus probably didn1
know that the neighbors talked about her
and grew up prouder than a peacock, and
pretty as gal in cigar store. Yer see, she
didn't look bit like old Genus, her dad, OF
old aunt Dione, and some folks said she
want nothin but foundlin' who washed
ashore one dark night, and was found in the
foam one mornin' by Dione when she went
down to the shore to get some driftwood to
get breakfast with.
Venus grew real flirt, and one evening
when her sweetheart got mad at her, and
took another girl with him on moonlight
excursion down the Egean Sea, I'll be hang
ed if she, the handsomest girl in Greece,
didn't 60 and marry an old hunchback black
smith named Vulcan. Of course she was
sorry for it next day, and within month all
the wimmin folks in Athens was talkin'
about her. First, she'd 60 out ridin' with
Hermes and stop at some country hotel and
eat oysters and frogs legs, and drink tin top
worth Sc bottle then she'd 60 to the oppry
next and then she'd 90 a-gallivantin' aroun'
the medder with Adonis. Finally, to crown
all her foolishness, she eloped with Anchises,
who was sort of king Arter Eneas was
born she stiddied down and made real good
mother, sendin' the boy to school reg'lar and
patchin' his pants with the same kind of
cloth they were made Of -Eneas grew up
fighter, and one day when old Latinus, who
had been drinkin' Waulkerville whisky, was
over in front of ther tavern talkin' big, he
came along and wolloped ther old man into
his grave inside two minutes Then, with
out waintin for the funeral, he took the old
mans oldest darter, Laviny, and went off
don' the character sketch business with
travelling show.
This broke Venus all up. She cussed her
son, smashed the crockery, and wouldn't
even pull the gray hairs out of Anchises'
head. so one day he opened the front door
and threw her down the steps into the street
She went round cousinin, for while, but
arter her cousins forgot to call her to break
fast two or three mornin's she took the hint
and, havin' nowhere else to 60, went back
and made up with Vulcan, pullin' the wool
over the old fellows eyes so that he went
right off and bought her fur lined cloak.
Then she commenced flirtin' with Hermes
again, and one day, when Vulcan was shoe
ing Hermes' three -year-old colt, Venus bein'
in the shop keepin' off the flies, he caught
her winkin' at Hermes.
This made old Vulcan awful mad, and he
and goes to the Athens sewing circle and
tells all about Venus goings on. Now old
Madam Juno was the president Of the society,
and she was an awful proper woman, and so
was Susie Anthony, the secretary. Well, first
one and then another of them wimmin told
what she'd heard about poor Venus, and
they raked up all her carryin's on when she
was young and got spoony on Adonis, and
they passed the sentence OF death upon her
but old Juno transformed her into a star,
and stuck her up into the sky millions of
miles from everybody and everything as a
warnin' to all the girls for all time to come"