Upon first arrival, he sat at the staff table. The others boys took note that a new fish would be arriving for the spring term. Poor fellow! Though seven and a half years old, he had never bathed by himself, never tied his own shoes, or eaten a piece of chicken that his grandmother had not first cut for him. So when he choked on the skin and gristle, the boys knew they had a good fresh mark.
What is a mark, you ask? Why it is some boy who is exemplified chiefly by his response to torment. If he stands up, ignores, or gives back in kind, he will no longer be a mark. But if he cries, shouts, or reports the discomforting incident to the house-parent, then he will be branded as a "good" mark forever, unless bullying dies out as a pastime, or he resolves to fight his way to freedom.
O, how he may wish for a "big brother" in such a fashion as she upon her admission gained a "big sister." For instead of being branded and forced to cry or fight, she was taken under wing, and shown the ropes. She was even introduced to new and exciting worldly enjoyments, the existence of which she had never dreamed.
So then, as he hid behind a pile of books in the library, she snuck off with her new comrades toward nocturnal adventures indulged in only by the elect. Did he perhaps see the faint glow of her golden hair as caught briefly in the moonlight as she passed into the cornfield? His deep sigh leads me to believe it was so.
