“Yes it was yesterday, mother: I saw her on the green by the church.”
“Don’t be positive, Ellen; it could not have been yesterday.”
“Yes it was yesterday—I’m certain it was yesterday; I met her on the green, and she asked me to come. Why, mother, how could I be mistaken? I know it was yesterday.”
“That cannot be, Ellen, for I have just been at Mrs. Hanson’s, and Jane went to Providence, in the seven o’clock train of cars, yesterday morning.”
“Oh!—well—it must have been day before yesterday—yes, now I recollect, it was day before yesterday!”
“Well, my child, I am sorry to see you so certain—so positive, when you are really not sure, and when, in point of fact, you are mistaken. Pray be more careful in future. You may go and see Jane, but as you go along, say it over in your mind, till you cannot forget it—Don’t be too positive!”
A boy was one day reading something to his mother about patriarchs; he stumbled at the hard word, and called it partridges. His mother set him right as to the pronunciation of the word, but did not at the same time tell him the meaning of it; he therefore associated the idea of a bird with the word patriarch. The next time he found the word patriarchal he again asked his mother’s assistance, exclaiming, “Here, mamma, here are those queer fowls again;” and to the latest day of his life, he said he could never get rid of the association.