Welcome to Homeschool Story Time: Week 20.
Forgetting things can sometimes have painful consequences.
The boy in today’s story, Donald, finds that out.
Fortunately, his wise mother comes up with a way to help Donald stop forgetting everything.
Read on to find out how.
Donald’s “Forgettery”
by Willametta Preston
“Oh, I forgot!” It was Donald excusing himself for leaving the gate of the chicken yard open, and now the pansy bed was all scratched up. Bessie was in tears, and Don was almost crying.
“What shall I do with a little boy who is always forgetting?” mamma asked very gently. She had tried so many different ways to have Donald learn to remember.
“Mamma, let’s have a forgetter, for Don, or any of us. Just a big closet—that one upstairs with the window will do. Let’s put all our forgets in there. Anything that’s spoiled because we forget it, goes in there, for us to mend or to think of some way to make good. If we forget, we have to go there for the very next hour—unless it’s schooltime—no matter how we want to do something else.”
“Shall we try that, Donald?” asked mamma. She knew that Uncle Rod was coming within that hour to take the children to ride.
Donald knew it, too, but his voice did not falter, “Yes, mamma, let’s begin now. I do want to stop forgetting.”
So up to the big closet they went, mamma, and Donald, each carrying some of the wilted pansy plants. There was a low stool to sit on, and there Donald spent the next hour thinking as he had never thought before. He heard Uncle Rod come and go away again.
It was a long time before Donald forgot again, then for days it seemed as if he almost could not remember. Every day for a week, he had to spend an hour in the “forgettery.” Not one of the other children had had to use it, so it began to be called “Donald’s forgettery.” He had invented a little play with the figures on the paper and the boards in the floor, so the time did not seem long at all. He was laughing when mamma came to let him out, and she asked what he was doing, and so Donald told her of his game.
Then mamma asked Donald if it was quite right to play, when he was put there to think. Of course it wasn’t. He had not thought of it that way. He had grown careless, because of this game, and today Uncle Rod had come again and this time Donald had missed going to the city and seeing the new steamer that was to be launched.
“I want to stay here another hour today, mamma, and it’ll be the very last time I’ll have to come. I’m going to think so hard I never can forget.” It was the hardest thing Donald could remember ever happening, losing this trip with Uncle Rob.
As he promised mamma, it was the last time he ever forgot anything he ought to remember.
Then the forgettery had a new use. All the children would open the door and put in things they wanted to forget. Bessie put in her hurt feelings, when Alice forgot to come for her on the way to Mabel’s party. Donald put in his anger, when Ben let go of the kite string and it sailed away never to come back. Robert put in his disappointment when papa wanted him to work in the garden instead of going fishing.
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Many blessings,
