"I WAS GOING TO."
CHILDREN are very fond of saying, "I was going to." The boy lets the rats catch his chickens. He was going to fill up the hole with glass, and set traps for the rats; but he did not do it in time, and the chickens were eaten. He consoles himself for the loss and excuses his carelessness by saying
"I was going to attend to that."
A horse falls' through a broken plank in the stable and breaks his leg, and is killed to put him out of his suffering. The owner was going to fix that weak plank, and so excuses himself.
A boy wets his feet and sits for hours without changing his shoes, catches a severe cold, and is obliged to have the doctor for a week. His mother told him to change his wet shoes when he came in, and he was going to do it, but he did not.
A girl tears her new dress so badly that all her mending cannot make it look well again. There was a little rent before, and she was going to mend it, but she forgot.
And so we might go on giving instance after instance, such as happens in every home with almost every man and woman, boy and girl. "Procrastination is "not only" the thief of time," but it is the worker of vast mischiefs. If a Mister "I was-goin'-to" lives in your house, just give him warning to leave. He is a lounger and a nuisance.
He never did any good. He has wrought unnumbered mischiefs. The girl or boy who begins to live with him will have a very unhappy time of it, and life will not be successful. Put Mister "I was going to" out of your house, and keep him out. Always do things, which you were going to do.
Youth's World.