A Gingerbread Story by Frances Bennett Callaway

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 18, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 51.

A Gingerbread Story.

By Frances Bennett Callaway

BOBBY BROWN fell ill—so very ill that his mother hurried him away to a doctor.

"What is the matter?" asked the doctor. It was just his lunch time, and he looked at Bobby as tho he could eat him up.

"He is so thin—he doesn't weigh more than a bushel of wheat, and he is so weak his legs bend under him like bow-legs, and he hasn't any appetite—he never eats anything save a bite now and then between meals—" and here Bobby's mother stopped to wipe away the tears that were springing into her eyes.

"Bite of what?" asked the doctor, rather severely.

"A ginger cookie," said Bobby's mother, sighing dreadfully. "That's all he ever eats—a ginger cookie."

"How many ginger cookies do you bake in a week?"

"Not more than a milk-pan full. It might be a hundred, or more or less."

"Do you eat ginger cookies?"

"No."

"Does your husband eat ginger cookies?"

"No."

"Then this boy eats a whole panful of ginger cookies a week!"

"He doesn't eat anything—anything else," gasped Bobby's mother, for the doctor's voice was frightful by this time, and his eyes blazing.

"Will you tell me, madam, what kind of

a body you expect this boy to build out of ginger cookies? What kind of a brain, what kind of a heart, what kind of bones, will he have made out of ginger cookies? Don't you know that too much sweet stuff softens the bones? No wonder his legs bow under him and his teeth are crumbling. They are made out of ginger cookies. Take your boy home, madam, and let him starve. When he is willing to eat regular meals of good bread and milk, oatmeal cakes, and bean porridge, he will grow strong and well, and you will be able to make a man out of him."

—Frances Bennett Callaway.