by Amy Stewart
“That’s enough!” Constance said. “I think we all understand the situation.”
“I’m trying to say that sometimes she doesn’t know she’s done anything wrong. He buys her dinner and theater tickets, he gives her a bracelet. They’re just little gifts, but the girl gets used to it, and she gives something in return.”
She turned to Sheriff Heath, who had grown suddenly very interested in watching his feet as he walked. “Excuse me, Sheriff.”
“Yes, well . . .”
“It’s only that I see it all the time in New York. These girls don’t have their own money. Of course the men are going to pay for things, and if a girl wants to have any kind of a life at all, she’ll let him. Are you sure Minnie didn’t just slip into that sort of . . . arrangement?”
They both turned at once to look at Constance. A scandal along those lines would ruin this girl. Even being cast as the victim in a white slave case would cast a cloud over her life. Her parents would never take her back in either case. And who would marry her, or give her a job, if they knew?
“She insists it was only her and Tony,” Constance said. “But it wouldn’t do her any good to say otherwise, would it?”
“I’m afraid not,” the sheriff said.
They were met at the door to Sheriff Heath’s office by a bailiff of the court. He handed the sheriff an envelope.
“Transport orders,” he said. “Minnie Davis has been transferred to the state reformatory in Trenton.”
26
“THEY CAN’T PUT her in a reformatory. She hasn’t had a trial.” At the very idea of it, Constance thought her heart might come out of her chest. Had she done nothing for this girl?
Sheriff Heath dismissed the bailiff and read over the order. “It’s a transfer, not a final sentencing. She’s to be held at the State Home for Girls until trial.”
He looked up and seemed surprised to find Carrie still standing there. She was awfully good at slipping through doors and insinuating herself into circumstances to which she had not been invited. “Miss Hart, I’ll ask you to keep this to yourself as it was not made public.”
“It’s turning into quite a story,” she said, “but I’ll hold it for now. Has she no recourse?”
“Not really. It’s a temporary transfer of custody. It’s not too different from transferring a feeble-minded inmate to the Morris Plains asylum until trial, or sending an epileptic down to Skillman. The idea is to put an inmate where they might be best served. Only I’m usually the one to request it. I suspect Detective Courter wants to keep Miss Davis away from any interference.”
“Then this is because of me?” Constance said, alarmed.
“We knew Courter wouldn’t like a lady deputy involved in his cases. I can try to speak to him, but —”
“Can’t you put a stop to it? Once she’s there, they’ll never let her go.”
“Oh, she’ll have a hearing eventually,” Sheriff Heath said. “I imagine he wants to prosecute Tony first.”
“I don’t know why Tony doesn’t go to a reformatory,” Constance said. “He admits to a different girl every week.”
Carrie laughed. “They don’t have reformatories for grown men who go around with girls.”
“Well, this girl’s being deprived of her liberty when she hasn’t broken any law.”
Sheriff Heath said, “If she’s done nothing wrong, Deputy, I know you’ll be the one to prove it.”
She could feel the sweat under her collar. “When does she have to go?”
“Today.”
“Then let me take her. We’ll go on the train.”
He shrugged. “You’re the matron. It’s your job.”
“I’ll be back tonight.” After she returned, she would sleep at the jail again. She felt she deserved another night in a jail cell, having failed to do a thing for Minnie.
CONSTANCE WAS UNDER ORDERS to keep her inmate handcuffed on the train, but she hated to see the girl embarrassed in public. She loaned her muff to Minnie and unchained her long enough to allow her to slip her hands inside before locking her wrists together again. At least no one on the train would see.
It was a ride of some three hours from Hackensack. Minnie didn’t care to read a book or look at a magazine, but Constance put a newspaper across her lap regardless. She ignored it and stared out the window.
Once the train was going and the noise of the tracks muffled their conversation, Constance said, “I’m sorry. I hadn’t any idea this was coming.”
She sniffed at that and didn’t answer.
“Just because you’re going to Trenton doesn’t mean I’m going to forget about you. I will keep working on your case and I’ll try to get you released. I still have some hope that your parents will come around.”
“They won’t,” she said in a hard voice.
At least Minnie was speaking to her. “Well,” Constance said, “sometimes parents change their minds after they’ve had a little time.”
Minnie kept her face turned toward the window. They rode out of town and past open fields. The grass was all brown and stippled with snow. “I ought to have listened to you, Miss Kopp,” she said. “You tried to tell me what to say and I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t really think they’d send me to a state home.”
“I never meant to tell you what to say. You want to tell the truth, and that’s the right thing to do. This isn’t a punishment for refusing to testify against Tony.” Although as she said it, she wondered if it was. Was Detective Courter trying to scare Minnie into playing the victim?
Minnie sighed and slumped back in her seat. “What’s it like at the reformatory?”
“I’ve never seen it. You’re the first one I’ve—the first one who’s had to go there.”
“I’m the first one you’ve lost. That’s what you were about to say.”
“I haven’t lost you.” But of course, she felt like she had.
She let Minnie eat a sandwich on the train, believing there to be little risk of her escaping on a passenger car moving fifty miles per hour. It took some fumbling behind a curtain of newspaper to unlock her handcuffs without the other passengers noticing. After she finished, Constance kept the chains in her handbag and let Minnie enjoy something that resembled freedom, at least superficially.
They rode directly through Trenton and out the other side, into what was once field and forest but was now giving way to homes and small factories. There was no missing the State Home for Girls: a sign on the iron gate proclaimed its purpose, and behind that was such a hodgepodge of buildings that it couldn’t have been anything other than a state-run institution.
The train stopped half a mile past the reformatory and they walked back. Minnie complained of the cold in spite of the fact that she was wrapped in Constance’s good coat, which dragged the ground and picked up mud and leaves. The jail had no sturdy outdoor clothing for the inmates as they had so little use for it.
At the entrance, a tall, thin woman in a white apron ran out to meet them. She had hair the color of butterscotch and an oblong face with a wide mouth and two square teeth that jutted out in front.
“I’m Miss Pittman,” she said. “The sheriff telephoned about you.”
Constance introduced Minnie, who could only nod and stare at her. There was not another person in sight, only a collection of forbidding buildings surrounded by an open expanse of lawn. She noticed that there was nothing in the way of trees or shrubs, the idea being, presumably, that they might be used to conceal contraband or runaways.
It became clear to Constance that she was expected to say her good-byes and board the next train. But it didn’t seem right to leave Minnie so abruptly.
“Would you mind showing me the place, as long as I’m here?” Constance asked. “I should have some idea about what my inmates can expect.”
“Of course.” Miss Pittman led them toward a rather large white home perched awkwardly between two low brick buildings. “The two on either side are the dormitories. They’ve been here the longest.
” She spoke in the manner of a tour guide. “In between them, this strange creature was placed, entirely without any consultation from us.”
The strange creature was a stately white home of three stories, with four columns in front and four chimneys in back. Miss Pittman 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.
“The girls do it,” she said. “One started it. She was a lunatic and never should’ve been sent here in the first place. We took her to the asylum after only one night, but it was too late. She’d taken such a hole out of this wall that we couldn’t patch it without tearing the whole thing apart. So we left it alone for the time being, and when the next girl saw it, she took up the idea. Now every one of them picks up where the last one left off. All the punishment rooms are like this now, and we’ve long since given up on re-plastering. The superintendent wants iron rooms built, but the money has to come from the state.”
“How do the girls misbehave?” Minnie tried to sound disinterested, but she was starting to waver.
Miss Pittman turned off the light and led them out. “Fighting, mostly. Setting fires. Running away.”
The girls’ dormitories were downright luxurious compared to what they’d seen so far. They were sparsely furnished with a single cot and chair for each girl, and a hook above each bed for clothes. At the end of each room was a tiny, high window with iron bars across it. “Twelve girls to a dormitory,” Miss Pittman sa
id, “and a night matron making the rounds every thirty minutes.”
They passed a set of classrooms, but Miss Pittman explained that they were hardly used owing to a lack of students from the teachers college willing to come offer lessons for free in the summer. “The state doesn’t like to spend money on literature,” she said. “It isn’t their aim to run a finishing school.”
There was a sewing room and a large kitchen. Miss Pittman said, “The girls are instructed in all manner of domestic work. Each girl cooks for a small group of eight, rather than work as part of a crew making dinner for the entire population. That way, they’ll learn what it is to cook for a family. When they leave here, they’ll be placed in service in respectable homes. Most of our girls were never taught their duties, or refused to do them. Our aim is to raise them ourselves, as their families failed to do.”
Minnie pretended not to have heard that, but Constance said, “Minnie’s family did just fine by her.”
Miss Pittman gave a high and superior sort of laugh. “I don’t believe they did, or she wouldn’t have been sent here. Now, most girls stay on probation after they leave, and we make sure they keep to the job they’ve been given. They’re allowed to marry only with our approval. You see, Miss Davis, we’ll help prepare you for a quiet and comfortable home life. We’ll see that you make a good marriage, and teach you how to be of use to a family.”
“She’s only here temporarily,” Constance said briskly. “She hasn’t been sentenced.” She bristled at the idea of Minnie being made to spend five years in a place like this over one poor decision. Some of these girls might have done wrong, but surely some were just independent and strong-willed. It was cruel to force all of them into domestic service, and wasteful to deprive them of an education and some brighter future.
Their next stop on this most demoralizing of tours was the infirmary, which was housed in one of the two brick buildings they’d passed earlier. When they stepped inside, Minnie took a sniff and said, “I know all about this.” The infirmary used the same naptha soap to rid the girls of lice that was used at the jail.
