“I might try that,” said Cricket, thoughtfully. “Couldn’t I take a day off, sometimes?” she added, quickly.
Mamma laughed
“There is no such thing as ‘taking a day off,’ when we are trying to do better, pet. Do you know, overcoming a bad habit is like rolling up a ball of string. If you drop it, you have just so much to do over. So if you take even one day off—”
“I see,” interrupted Cricket, with a sigh. “I’ve just got to keep winding. But, truly, I’ll try this time not to drop my ball. I really do suppose,” she added, thoughtfully, after a moment, “that I could remember better, if I didn’t tell stories to myself all the time I’m walking, but it’s such fun. I get so interested that I don’t know anything.”
“Then the stories should go, little daughter,” said mamma, “if they hinder you remembering. Now try it for one day at a time. ‘Take short views,’ as Sydney Smith says.”
“I’ll truly try,” repeated Cricket, with so serious a face that mamma felt greatly encouraged.
Really, for a week Cricket’s improvement was marvellous. She resolutely put her beloved stories and day-dreams out of her mind, if she was told to do anything, until she had done it, and she began to realize that it had been largely a lack of attention that made her forget messages so.
“I haven’t dropped my ball once this week,” Cricket confided in triumph to mamma, at the end of that time, as she kissed her good-night. Eunice had gone to bed early with a bad headache. “Really, do you know, remembering isn’t such hard work, if you only make up your mind that you will.”
Mamma smiled. “I am glad you find it so. Good-night, love. By-the-by, stop at the library door, as you go upstairs, and tell papa that Mr. Evans has just sent word that he will be in about nine, on some important business.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Cricket, stopping on her way out to play with Duster. Then she went out of the room and upstairs. At her room door she remembered her message.