The Smile Catcher

Long ago, but not so long ago that people have forgotten, in a land far from here, there was a forest. At the edge of the forest was a village, full of happy people who worked hard on their land, raised animals, and led good lives. They used the track that ran through the forest to reach the market in the nearby town, where they sold their vegetables and other goods.

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One day, a mysterious man came to live in the forest. He was a large man, and he built himself a cottage right in the middle of the forest, next to the track. He would sit on his porch, listening to the quiet and smelling the pines. He never, ever smiled.

As the villagers went past, he would stop them and ask, “Who are you to go past my house, all happy?” Then, he would snatch their smile and put it in a huge basket he kept on his porch. The unfortunate person would return to the village very sad because they could not smile anymore.

Soon, this man had taken the smiles away from the whole village. He became known as The Smile Catcher, and nobody would go past his cottage but took the road around the forest to get to the town. All around his cottage, the forest became dark and quiet. The animals stopped making noises, flowers stopped blooming, and trees stopped growing. Because nobody had a smile now, the village became known as Sadland.