“It ought to be a boomerang arrangement,” said Donald, as he got up to go out.
“What’s a boomer-something?” asked Cricket, curiously.
“A boomerang, my dear,” returned Donald, “is a curved piece of wood about a yard long which is used by the Australians. They throw it straight along, and it turns a few somersaults, and presently comes back to the thrower. If a person who doesn’t understand it throws it, it’s more than likely to come back, whack, on his own head. See? Now that’s the style of thing to make you remember, Miss Scricket. A good, sharp rap on your own head, when you’re throwing your forgettings around, would be an excellent thing, wouldn’t it, little mother?” kissing his mother as he passed her chair.
Mamma smiled up at her tall son, and stroked Cricket’s curly hair.
“I’m beginning to be afraid,” she said, “that Donald is right, my little girl, and that only a ‘boomerang arrangement’ will do any lasting good.”
Cricket sighed. “It’s very hard to be such a torment to the family, when I love everybody so,” she said, plaintively. “I wish somebody would throw stones at me.”
Now, as it proved, the boomerang was not far away.
The very next week a note was brought to the school which Cricket attended, for her to give to her mother. She put it in her pocket, and of course it might as well have gone into a coal-mine, as far as her thinking of it again was concerned.
That was Wednesday. Cricket did not chance to wear that particular dress again till the next Wednesday, for she tore it in some way, and it was laid aside to be mended. On going home from school she chanced to put her hand in her pocket, and brought up the note.
“Where did this come from!” she thought, in bewilderment. She could not at all remember, but she concluded that some one had given it to her on her way to school, though she could not recall it.