Sheriff Holmes smiled understandingly. “Like it?”
Selina Jo did not even turn her head. “Whose is them air li’l gals?” she asked breathlessly.
“The state’s—for the present,” was the answer.
“Who?”
“The state. That’s the reformatory for girls.”
It was plain that the remark conveyed no information to Selina Jo. “Do which?” she asked.
“When girls—young ones, like you—break the law,” the sheriff explained, “they bring them here to be reformed.”
“What’s re-formed?”
“Well ... it’s like this: before they let a girl go again, she has to prove that she’s been changed for the better.”
“Changed?” Selina Jo looked up with a quick indrawn breath. “They make ’em diffe’ent f’um what they was?”