How to Win Friends and Influence People Read Online Free PDF Page B

am
    merely going to say, “Before you criticize them, read
    one of the classics of American journalism, ‘Father Forgets.’ ”
    It originally appeared as an editorial in the People's
    Home Journnl. We are reprinting it here with the
    author’s permission, as condensed in the Reader’s Digest :

    “Father Forgets” is one of those little pieces which-
    dashed of in a moment of sincere feeling - strikes an
    echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perenial
    reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, “Father
    Forgets" has been reproduced, writes the author,
    W, Livingston Larned, “in hundreds of magazines and
    house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has
    been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign
    languages. I have given personal permission to thousands
    who wished to read it from school, church, and
    lecture platforms. It has been ‘on the air’ on countless
    occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals
    have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes
    a little piece seems mysteriously to ‘click.’ This
    one certainly did.”

    FATHER FORGETS
    W. Livingston Larned
     
    Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little
    paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily
    wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room
    alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper
    in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.
    Guiltily I came to your bedside.

    There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross
    to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because
    you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took
    you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily
    when you threw some of your things on the floor.

    At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You
    gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table.
    You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you
    started off to play and I made for my train, you turned
    and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and
    I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders
    back!”

    Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I
    came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing
    marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated
    you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to
    the house. Stockings were expensive - and if you had to

    buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son,
    from a father!

    Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library,
    how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in
    your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at
    the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you
    want?” I snapped.

    You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous
    plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed
    me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that
    God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect
    could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the
    stairs.

    Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped
    from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.
    What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault,
    of reprimanding - this was my reward to you for being a
    boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected
    too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of
    my own years.

    And there was so much that was good and fine and true in
    your character. The little heart of you was as big as the
    dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your
    spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.
    Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bed-side
    in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

    It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand
    these things if I told them to you during your waking
    hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum
    with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you
    laugh.