Jim nodded. "I'll get through college. See if I don't. But I won't let my mother support me. I've got a lot of things to finish up for him."
"What things?" asked Phil.
"Well," Jim hesitated for words, "he worried a lot because all the real Americans are dying off or going, somehow, and he always said it was us kids' business to find out why. That's the chief job."
"I don't see what you can do about it," said Phil. "That's a foolish thing to worry about. Why——"
A boy screamed on the opposite side of the pond. It was so different from the shouts and laughter of the moment before that Jim and Phil jumped to their feet. Across the swimming hole a naked boy was dancing up and down, screaming hysterically,
"Take 'em off! Take 'em off! Take 'em off!"
"It's the new minister's kid, Charlie," laughed Phil. "The fellows have got the bloodsuckers on him. Ain't he the booby? Told me he was fifteen and he's bigger'n you are. Screams like a girl."
Jim stood staring, his hand shielding his gray eyes from the sun. Across the pond, the boys were doubled up with laughter, watching the minister's son writhe and tear at his naked body. Suddenly, Jim shot round the edge of the pond, followed by Phil. A dozen naked boys hopped joyfully around the twisting Charlie. They were of all ages, from eight to sixteen.
When Jim ran up to the new boy, his mates shouted: "Don't butt in, now, Jim. Don't butt in. He's a darned sissy."
Jim did not reply. Charlie was considerably larger than he. He had a finely muscled pink and white body, liberally dotted now with wriggling brown suckers. This was a familiar form of hazing with the Exham boys. There was a horror in a first experience with the little brown pests that usually resulted in a mild form of hysteria very pleasing to the young spectators. But Charlie was in an agony of loathing, far ahead of anything the boys had seen.