Bertie was a very good boy. He was kind, obedient, truthful, and unselfish. He had, however, one great fault — he always forgot.
No matter how important the errand, his answer was always the same: “I forgot.” When his mother sent him with a note to the dressmaker, she’d find the note still in his coat pocket at bedtime. When she sent him to the store in a great hurry to fetch something for tea, he would drift home late, empty-handed, with his usual excuse ready.
His father and mother talked it over and agreed that something had to be done.
Christmas was near, and Bertie was busy writing out a list of everything he wanted Santa Claus to bring him.
“Santa Claus may forget some of those things,” his mother said.
“He can’t,” Bertie replied cheerfully. “I’m going to write down the sled, and the skates, and the drum, and the violin — everything. Then when Santa Claus finds my stocking, he’ll find the list too. He can read it and put the things in one by one.”
Christmas morning, Bertie was up at dawn. His mother stayed away from him as long as she could, because she already knew what Santa Claus had done.
At last she heard slow footsteps coming down the hall. The door opened, and Bertie came toward her. In his hand he held a list — much, much longer than the one he’d written. He pressed it into his mother’s hand while tears rolled down his face.
“See what Santa Claus left me,” he said. “I think he might have given me one thing besides.”
His mother unrolled the paper. It was a list of every errand Bertie had been asked to do for the past six months — every forgotten note, every missing item from the store. At the very end, written in large capital letters, were two words:
I FORGOT.
Bertie cried for a solid hour. Then his mother told him they were going to Grandpa’s house — and that for the first time in his life, he would see a real Christmas tree. Perhaps, she said, something might be growing there for him.
And sure enough, on Grandpa’s tree Bertie found everything he had written on his list.
Was he cured of his bad habit? Not all at once. But whenever his mother saw him growing forgetful and heedless, she needed only to say, quietly: “Remember — Santa Claus does not forget.”
