Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
The Publishers desire to acknowledge the kindness of the Century Company, Ginn & Co., the J. L. Hammett Company, Harper & Brothers, the Houghton, Mifflin Company, the J. B. Lippincott Company, the Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, the Outlook Company, the Perry Mason Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and others, who have granted permission to reproduce herein selections from works bearing their copyright.
(Note.—The stories marked with a star ( ) will be most enjoyed by younger children; those marked with a (†) are better suited to older children.)

This fairy tale of a gormandizing people contains no mention of Thanksgiving Day. Yet its connection with our American festival is obvious. Every one who likes fairy tales will enjoy reading it.
he country of the Greedy, well known in history, was ruled by a king who had much trouble. His subjects were well behaved, but they had one sad fault: they were too fond of pies and tarts. It was as disagreeable to them to swallow a spoonful of soup as if it were so much sea water, and it would take a policeman to make them open their mouths for a bit of meat, either boiled or roasted. This deplorable taste made the fortunes of the pastry cooks, but also of the apothecaries. Families ruined themselves in pills and powders; camomile, rhubarb, and peppermint trebled in price, as well as other disagreeable remedies, such as castor —— which I will not name.
The King of the Greedy sought long for the means of correcting this fatal passion for sweets, but even the faculty were puzzled.
Your Majesty, said the great court doctor, Olibriers, at his last audience, your people look like putty! They are incurable; their senseless love for good eating will bring them all to the grave.
This view of things did not suit the King. He was wise, and saw very plainly that a monarch without subjects would be but a sorry king.