I was warming my bum at our heater and I found myself staring at our bookshelf’s row of artist books.  Nestled in between was one of the first books I’ve ever made: The Painter. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade.

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Here’s the story, spelling intact:

Once apon a time there was a little village inside a forest.  Inside the village everyone was always sad and dreary.

One day a painter came into the village to paint.  When he started to paint the people, he realized that they always had frowns on their faces.

The painter wanted to know why, so he would pick a dfferent spot each day, sit there, and watch the people.

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Pretty soon he saw that there were no families, romances or friends.  The painter wanted to end this, so he got to work.

He painted beautiful pictures about love and some about friendship.

Then the next week he picked a day and gave away all the paintings on one condition.  The condition was that all the villagers had to give their paintings to someone else on the day after next.

He ran out of paintings that day, but that night he made some paintings.  Before the day that every one had to give their paintings, the painter made sure everyone in the village had a painting.

On the day that everyone gave their paintings to someone else, everyone was happy.  From then on they did this every year, except only with cards, and this was the begining of Valentine’s Day.

The End.

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