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Snythergen

9781465637512
200 pages
Library of Alexandria
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Overview
Snythergen’s mother was poor—so poor that she did not feel able to support her baby boy. So she put him in a basket—it had to be a large one—and left it on the doorstep of a little old couple who had long wished for a child. The pair were very much surprised, not only at finding Snythergen, but at his unusual appearance. He was thin as bones and very long—so long that he appeared to be wearing stilts. His body was very ungainly and the couple’s first feeling was one of disappointment—until they looked into his eyes. These were bright and roguish and something else not easy to name—something that made them know he was their child, and they loved him. The new papa and mamma were very proud. First of all they wanted their boy to fill out into a healthy well-fed child, so they stoked his neglected stomach with the richest of farm foods. The effect was prompt. It was amazing how Snythergen changed from day to day. His cheeks rounded, his shoulders broadened, and the layers of flesh spread over his lean trunk until he was as bulging as a rubber ball. He was getting enormous and his parents were beginning to sense a new danger. “He will burst if he keeps on getting fatter,” said his mother anxiously. “I must study the question,” said his father, who was a philosopher. One day the father came in much excited. “I know what it is that makes baby so fat! He eats the wrong kind of food. His diet is too round. It is all pumpkins, potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, oranges. Now to get thin he should eat thin foods, like celery, asparagus, pie-plant, and macaroni.” So they fed him long slender foods, and he began changing at once. He shot up almost as fast as Jack’s beanstalk, until they were alarmed for fear he would never stop shooting up. He had grown until he could look into the second story windows standing on the ground, and could place his hand on the top of the chimney without getting on tiptoes. Again it was time something was done, and they sat down to think the matter over.

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