“Yes. We’ll want you there a week from to-day.” The sheriff filled in a blank subpœna and extended it to the girl. “Look me up in the courthouse soon as you get to town.” Selina Jo’s breathless announcement that she was going to court created a flurry at home until Shug learned why she had been summoned. Then he breathed easily. It was decided that she could use the oxen and wagon for the trip, as Eastview was twenty-five miles distant. This method of travel, being slow, would necessitate an early start on the day before the trial. When that day dawned, though, one of the oxen was found to be indisposed. Selina Jo assembled a lunch of corn pone and side meat, filled a small bottle with molasses, and, dressed in her new finery, set out on foot. Within an hour the new shoes began to pinch. She took them off, tied them together by their strings and slung them over her shoulder. The stockings were rolled into balls and stuffed into her pockets. Late in the afternoon she bathed her feet and legs in a brook just outside Eastview and donned shoes and stockings again. It was dusk when she arrived at the sheriff’s office. An overflow crowd at the single hotel necessitated her staying with Sheriff Holmes’s family that night. With the inborn timidity of the woods-bred girl, she remained there until summoned to court in the late forenoon of the following day. By the time her evidence was concluded, though, she had partially overcome her shyness, and was ready for sightseeing. Wandering about the interior of the courthouse, she marvelled at the white plaster walls. Then she watched several people using the sanitary drinking fountain. Presently she found courage to try it herself. The technic she found to be rather difficult, but after she had mastered it she became a frequent patron. Later, she ventured outside the courthouse. Sheriff Holmes found her during the noon recess. She had commandeered a small goods box which she was using as a seat. Her enraptured gaze was fastened upon a scene across the street. Three large, two-story frame buildings, painted a dazzling white, stood upon a lot which occupied an entire block. Beneath the branches of huge water oaks, were scores of girls, dressed in white blouses and dark-blue skirts. 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?”