“I do declare, George,” said Ella, “you are the meanest boy I ever heard of.”

“Why, what is the matter with George?” inquired his grandmother.

“He ’s been popping some of the corn you gave us,” replied Ella; “and he won’t give us a kernel of it, nor tell us where the bag is, so that we can pop some for ourselves.”

“Why, George,” said Mrs. Lee, “that is too bad; I would tell them where the corn is, for I intended it as much for them as for you.”

“I don’t care,” said George; “they’ve called me mean and stingy, and now they may find it for themselves.”

“We did n’t call you mean and stingy till you refused to tell us where it was,” added Ella.

“If I could find it, I guess you would n’t get another kernel of it,” said Ralph, addressing George; “I’d burn it all up first.”

“No, no, Ralph, that is wrong,” replied his grandmother.  “The corn is n’t worth quarrelling about.  If George wants to be selfish, and keep it all to himself, I ’ll send down some more for the rest of you, when I go home.  But I guess Georgie does n’t mean to be selfish,” she added, coaxingly; “he only wants to plague you a little, that’s all.  He ’ll tell you where he found the corn, pretty soon.”

George, who was growing uneasy under this combined attack, now retreated to bed, leaving his grandmother more astonished than ever at his obstinacy.

“There,” said Alice, “it’s of no use to try to drive or coax him out of his selfishness.  Mother says he ’ll outgrow it by-and-bye, but I don’t see as there is any prospect of it.  You know what made him so selfish, don’t you, grandmother?”

“I am afraid he has been humored too much,” replied Mrs. Lee.

“Well, he has been,” added Alice; “but you know when he was little, he was very sick for a whole year, and the doctor said he must n’t be crossed any more than we could help, for crying and fretting were very bad for him.  So he had his own way in everything, and if we children had anything he wanted, we had to give it to him, and let him break it to pieces, for he would scream as loud as he could, if we refused him.  This was the way he got to be so selfish; and now he thinks we must humor him just as we did when he was sick.”

“There is some little excuse for him, if he fell into the habit when he was very young and sick,” observed Mrs. Lee; “but he is old enough and well enough now to know better, and ought to be broken of the fault.”

“Father and mother have tried to break him of it,” replied Alice, “but they have not succeeded very well yet.  They have talked to him a good deal about it, but it does no good.”

The next day, the children found the bag of corn, and their mother told George she should punish him for his selfishness by not letting him have any more of it.  The corn was accordingly divided among the other children, and thus George, in trying to get more than his share, actually got less than the others did.