* From " A Little Book of Western Verse." Copyright, 1889, by
Eugene Field. By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons,
publishers.



IF I WERE A BOY.

If I were a boy again, and knew what I know now, I would not be
quite so positive in my opinions as I used to be. Boys generally
think that they are very certain about many things. A boy of
fifteen is generally a great deal more sure of what he thinks
he knows than a man of fifty.

You ask the boy a question and he will probably answer you right
off, with great assurance; he knows all about it. Ask a man of
large experience and ripe wisdom the same question, and he will
say, "Well, there is much to be said about it. I am inclined on
the whole to think so and so, but other intelligent men think
otherwise."

When I was a small boy, I traveled from central Massachusetts to
western New York, crossing the river at Albany, and going the
rest of the way by canal. On the canal boat a kindly gentleman
was talking to me one day, and I mentioned the fact that I had
crossed the Connecticut River at Albany. How I got it in my head
that it was the Connecticut River, I do not know, for I knew my
geography very well then; but in some unaccountable way I had it
fixed in my mind that the river at Albany was the Connecticut,
and I called it so.