“You provoking child! She writes that she has a severe cold and can’t go out to-day, but wants me to call for Sallie Evarts, and go with her, and Sallie would wait for me till three. Sallie was going with us. Now, it’s too late to go way up there, and you’ve lost us the flower-show—both of us, for I’m sure Sallie wouldn’t go off alone—and it’s the last day.”
“Oh, Marjorie dear, I am so sorry,” Cricket said, looking crushed, as she always did, when her forgetfulness was in question. “I’m awfully sorry.”
“You always are awfully sorry,” returned Marjorie, impatiently, “but that does not excuse your abominable forgetfulness.” Marjorie used strong language, but really Cricket’s constant slips of memory were maddening.
Both her mother and father felt very badly over this fault of Cricket’s, knowing it might any day bring serious consequences. They had tried every possible means to help her overcome it, but thus far nothing had ever done any special good. She would remember better for a time, and then forget more than ever. One reason for her forgetfulness was an odd one. With all her high spirits and her love of active, out-door sports, Cricket was also greatly given to day-dreams. She had a strong imagination, and was devoted to her books, for she liked to read quite as much as she loved to run and play. When she was by herself, she was always dreaming out strange fancies, making jingles which she called poetry, or telling stories to herself about all sorts of things. When she was given an errand to do she would always set off willingly enough, and in a moment would be entirely absorbed in her own fancies as she walked along the street. She would perhaps go past the house to which she had been sent, for an entire block, then, suddenly recollecting herself, would turn quickly and go as far in the other direction. Marjorie said that one day, when she was calling at a certain house, she saw Cricket pass a house opposite four times before she remembered to go in when she came to the door.
She had frequently been known to pass her own home, if she chanced to come alone from school, and walk on for a couple of blocks. A letter intrusted to her might reach its destination any time within six months, if it went into her pocket. She never by any chance remembered a message. She even forgot, oftentimes, whether she had eaten her lunch or not. Indeed, the only thing she never mislaid were her school-books, and the sole things she never forgot were her lessons. Her memory for history, even for long strings of dates, was really unusual. She could commit pages of poetry, and Latin declensions, and conjugations rolled easily off her glib little tongue.
Since this was the case, I am sadly afraid that Cricket’s slips of memory were simply from lack of attention to what people told her to do. Her mind was always too full of plans and fancies of her own to notice carefully what they said. Consequently, things of that sort being laid on the top of her mind, constantly rolled off and were lost.
So long as Cricket was only a little girl, her fault was annoying but not serious. Now, as she grew older, and might have important messages and errands intrusted to her by people who did not know her failing, you may be sure mamma was in constant terror.
After Cricket’s forgetfulness in delivering the note had lost Marjorie and her friend the flower-show, mamma had a long and very serious talk with her little daughter. She reminded her how often she had talked to her on the same subject before, and how each time Cricket had promised to do better; how useless it was for her to say how sorry she was, and then forget the next day just the same.
“Well, you see,” Cricket said, candidly, “I say ‘I’ll never forget again,’ and then prob’ly the next day I go and do it. And then, naturally, I get discouraged. Ever is such a long time.”
“Well, little daughter,” suggested mamma, “suppose you try this way. Don’t say that you’ll never forget again, but only ‘I will try not to forget a thing I’m told to do to-day,’ and the next day say the same thing. You don’t know how quickly the habit of remembering would be formed, for I really think that your constant forgetfulness is largely a habit.”