"Of course he will, when he comes."
That expectation quite took root in the little brain, and when "Kiss-mus" morning came, his first words were "Has my daddy come? I want my daddy!"
The mother was quite startled, and wondered what had given the child this idea. Janie explained it afterwards, when a considerable amount of brain-searching had been done. It took a wooden horse on wheels, a box of chocolate and a box of bricks to get the little fellow to dry his tears.
The next Christmas, strange to say, there was the same expectation and the same disappointment, but with added sorrow. The child was older, and if it could appreciate good things more, also felt sorrow more. He had mingled with other children, whose fathers made much of them. "Perhaps daddy will come at Christmas," he would say to himself.
Christmas morning came, but again no daddy.
"Why doesn't daddy come?" he sobbed out on his mother's breast.
"I don't know, darling."
"Has he forgotten me?" he asked, turning up his tear-stained face to hers.
"I do not know." The words had to be uttered. There was no way in which she could truthfully cover up the silence of years. To the sensitive child the words were like a cruel blow; after building upon the father's return to be told that father might have forgotten him was more than he could bear, and in his grief, to his little mind, the doubt became a certainty—his father had forgotten him! It was the child-soul's first knowledge of Gethsemane.
The mother strained him passionately to her, showering both tears and kisses upon the little tear-stained face. "But mummy has not forgotten! Mummy never will forget!" she wailed over him.