"Selfish!" said a few.
"Unselfish," said others, "'cos he wud be helpin' his mother."
"Then we'll vote on it," I said, and by a majority of two the act was declared to be unselfish.
We then had a run of knives, tops, candy, cycles, and no vote was necessary. Then came a puzzler.
"I would send every penny to the starving babies of Germany."
"Unselfish!" cried the class in one voice. I was just about to put the mark in the unselfish column when a boy said: "That's selfish, cos she'd feel proud of being so—so unselfish."
"How do you know it is a she?" I asked.
"'Cause I ken it's Jean Wilson," he answered promptly; "she has took a reid face."
There followed a breezy debate on Jean's act.
"It is selfish," said Mary, "because when you do a kind action you feel pleased with yourself, and it was selfish because if it hadna pleased her she wud never ha' done it."