"You're mistaken.
That is the Connecticut River."
The gentleman smiled and said no more. I was not much in the
habit, I think, of contradicting my elders; but in this matter I
was perfectly sure that I was right, and so I thought it my duty
to correct the gentleman's geography. I felt rather sorry for him
that he should be so ignorant. One day, after I reached home, I
was looking over my route on the map, and lo! there was Albany
standing on the Hudson River, a hundred miles from the
Connecticut.
Then I did not feel half so sorry for the gentleman's ignorance
as I did for my own. I never told anybody that story until I
wrote it down on these pages the other day; but I have thought of
it a thousand times, and always with a blush for my boldness.
Nor was it the only time that I was perfectly sure of things that
really were not so. It is hard for a boy to learn that he may be
mistaken; but, unless he is a fool, he learns it after a while.
The sooner he finds it out, the better for him.
If I were a boy, I would not think that I and the boys of my time
were an exception to the general rule--a new kind of boys, unlike
all who have lived before, having different feelings and
different ways.
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