John Wesley, Jr. | Page 7

Fathers before the week is out. They think they
have done everything an alien could ask when they let him into the
country, and then they work him twelve hours a day, seven days a week,
or else let him hunt the country over for any sort of a job. They rob him
by making him pay higher prices than other people for all he has to buy.
They force him to live in places not fit for rats, and on top of
everything else they call him names, so that their kids stick up their
noses at his children in the school grounds. After all that they expect
he'll become a good citizen just by hearing 'The Star-Spangled Banner'
at the movies and watching the flag go by when there's a parade.

"Say, Mr. Drury, it makes me sick, and, if I feel that way just to be
pretending I'm a 'Wop' for a week, how do you suppose the real aliens
feel? Excuse me for talking like this, but honestly, something like that
is going on in all these classes; I wish we could take up such things in
the League at home." And he forced an embarrassed little laugh.
Pastor Drury laughed too, and said of course they could, as he linked
arms with J.W., and they passed on down the road. The preacher talked
but little, contriving merely to drop a question now and then; and J.W.
talked on, half-ashamed to be so "gabby," as he put it, and yet moved
by an impulse as pleasant as it was novel.
"And foreign missions, Mr. Drury. You won't be offended, I hope, but
somehow as far back as I can remember I have always connected
foreign missions with collections and 'Greenland's Icy Mountains' and
little naked Hottentots, and something--I don't know just what--about
the River Ganges. But here--why, that China class just makes me want
to see China for myself and find out how much of the advantages of
American life over Chinese has come on account of religion."
"Well, why not, J.W.? Maybe you will go to China some day, and have
a hand in it all," suggested the pastor, to try him out.
The boy shook his head.
"No, I don't think so. I am certainly getting a new line on foreign
missions, but I don't think there's missionary stuff in me. I'll have to go
at the proposition some other way."
Then Pastor Drury set him going on another subject.
"What do you think of the young folks who are here?" he asked.
"Well, at first I thought they were all away ahead of our bunch at home,
and some of them are; but you soon find out that the majority is pretty
much of the same sort as ours. I think I've spotted a few slackers, but
mighty few. Most of the crowd seems to be all right, and I've already
made some real friends. But do you know which one of them all is the

most interesting fellow I've met?"
The pastor thought he did, but he merely asked, "Who?"
"Why, that Greek boy, Phil Khamis. He is from Salonika, you know.
He knows the old country like a book, and he's going back some day,
maybe to be some kind of missionary to his people, in the very places
where the apostle Paul preached. Honest, I never knew until he told me
that his Salonika is the town of those Christians to whom Paul wrote
two of his letters; those to the Thessalonians--'Thessalonika,' you know.
Well, you ought to hear Phil talk. He came over here seven years ago,
and learned the English language from the preacher at Westvale."
"Yes, I have heard about him," said Mr. Drury. "They say he lived in
the parsonage and paid the preacher for his English lessons by giving
him a new understanding of the Greek New Testament. Not many of us
have found out yet how to get such pay for being decent to our friends
from the other side."
"Well, he is a thoroughbred, anyway; and do you notice how he is right
up in front when there is anything doing? The only way you can tell he
isn't American born is that he is so anxious to help out on all the
unpleasant work. When I look at Phil it makes me boil to think of
fellows like him being called 'Wop.'"
By this time the two had swung back into the campus, and J.W. found
himself drafted to hold down second base in the Faculty-Student ball
game. But that is a story for others to tell.
On the steps of the library Marcia Dayne and some other girls were
holding an informal reception. Joe Carbrook, with one or two of his
friends, was