The strange creature was a stately white home of three stories, with four columns in front and four chimneys in back. Miss Pitt-man explained that it was built for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907 and meant to look like George Washington’s headquarters at Morristown. Having nothing better to do with the building once the exposition concluded, it was brought here and put down between the dormitories to serve as offices and lodging for the staff.
Miss Pittman explained that the superintendent was away for the day to attend the trial of a girl in their custody. “She’s to be sent to the state farm for the insane, or so we hope,” she said. “She set a fire under the eaves of one of the cottages. A few children were locked inside and nearly burned alive.” She gave a piercing look to Minnie, evidently believing it her duty to tell the most frightening stories she could in order to subdue the girl. “When you come around back, I’ll show you where it happened. You can still see the burn marks.”
Constance didn’t like the way this was going at all. Inside the great hall of the white house, she relieved Minnie of her handcuffs. The girl rubbed her wrists and asked if she could keep wearing the muff, which Constance permitted. Miss Pittman laughed when Minnie slipped her hands back inside. “You won’t see any mink around here.”
“It’s only rabbit,” Constance said sharply.
A dinner-bell rang outside and Miss Pittman said, “It’s lunchtime. I’ll show you where you’ll be eating.”
“We had sandwiches on the train,” Minnie said. Her voice was arrogant and defiant, but Constance knew what she meant by it. Taking a meal in this place would make it permanent. It would make her a part of everyday life at the reformatory.
Miss Pittman turned and looked at her coldly. “Come along and do as you’re told.”
Constance took Minnie’s arm but she shook it off. They followed Miss Pittman out back and across another expanse of lawn to a long, low-slung dining hall. There they saw three lines of girls on the march, each being led by a matron. The girls in the first group were all about Minnie’s age and dressed in ordinary cotton house dresses. Several of them looked over. Minnie straightened her shoulders and returned their curious glances directly.
Constance couldn’t help but admire the way Minnie was holding up. This was not a girl who showed fear. A little strength would serve her well in a place like this.
Next came a line of girls who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. “I didn’t think they’d be so young,” Constance said to Miss Pittman.
“We take them from the orphanages as young as eight, if they’re ready to work.”
“What happens when they grow up?”
“Oh, they’ll stay until they’re twenty-one. How old are you?” She turned around to Minnie, who tossed out her answer as if it didn’t matter. “Sixteen.”
Third in line for lunch was a group of colored girls of all ages, each carrying a wooden chair out in front of her. Constance started to ask, but Miss Pittman was all too ready to offer an explanation.
“We weren’t prepared to receive colored girls until they built a separate cottage for them three years ago. The state gave us one chair for each girl. It didn’t occur to them that the girls required chairs in their rooms and also in the dining hall. They’ll have to carry them back and forth until the legislature sees it our way.”
“But they haven’t, in three years,” Constance said.
“We make haste slowly.” Miss Pittman gave her a knowing look, perhaps hoping for sympathy, as every institution kept a long list of needful things that weren’t being supplied.
But Constance just held her breath and watched a little girl carrying a chair that was almost as big as she was. The girl would be carrying that chair for the rest of her life, in one way or another.
“Well, come along and see the dining hall,” Miss Pittman said, once all the girls had gone inside.
They marched along behind her. Minnie walked briskly, her chin up, with the air of an inspector who was only there to make a report and leave.
Inside was exactly what anyone would expect: long wooden tables, platters of potatoes and ham, baskets of rolls, and pitchers of milk. The girls were seated with their matrons in an arrangement that was obviously the same every day: the older girls at one end, the children in the middle, and the colored girls at the other end. They were all chattering loudly and paid no attention to their visitors.
Constance still couldn’t get over how young some of them were. “Won’t any of them go back to their families?” she asked, nodding at the youngest ones.
“A few of them,” Miss Pittman answered. “But most are here precisely because their families are so unsuitable. You must see those cases. Father keeps a still in the basement and mother hides a trunk of stolen goods under the bed. The children are taught shop-lifting instead of school-work.”
Constance nodded vaguely. An older girl turned around and caught Minnie’s eye.
“Did she take you up to the attic?” she called above the din of plates clattering and girls talking. She had dirty blond hair and sharp, glinty eyes.
“No, why don’t you tell me about it?” Minnie called back, daring the girl to try to scare her.
Another girl—this one nearly as tall as Constance, with broad shoulders and a booming voice—turned around and said, “It’s an iron cage, and they put you there if you’ve been especially awful.”
“That isn’t true, Dora.” Miss Pittman’s voice was low and controlled. “Don’t tell a lie.”
The first girl said, “It isn’t so terrible up in that cage except when the rats crowd around. Of course there’s rats in the rafters. That’s not a lie, is it, Miss Pittman?”
Minnie snorted and rolled her eyes.
Constance knew a troublesome girl when she saw one, and so did Miss Pittman. They turned away at once, and Constance led her inmate outside. The wind had picked up, but it came as a relief. She and Minnie each took in an enormous gulp of air.
Miss Pittman led them next into a long, low brick dormitory. They followed her down a hallway, past a series of small, dark rooms, all of them empty. “I’m bringing you in the back way, but you might as well see where we put the girls for misconduct. It isn’t a cage in the attic.”
She switched on a light in one of the rooms. They stared into a windowless space whose walls had been nearly destroyed. Some former inhabitant had picked away at the plaster until there were gaping holes in the center of every wall, exposing wood cross-beams everywhere except the corners where the plaster hadn’t yet been torn out. The bare lathe and horsehair made a dismal sight. It called to mind the work that enormous rats might do, if such creatures existed.
Minnie and Constance turned to Miss Pittman in shock, the question evident on their faces.