The white state man was a Mr. Maynard Allen. He was nicer to me than most of the state Welfarepeople had been. He even had consoling words for the Gohannases and Mrs. Adcock and Big Boy; allof them were crying. But I wasn't. With the few clothes I owned stuffed into a box, we rode in his carto Mason. He talked as he drove along, saying that my school marks showed that if I would juststraighten up, I could make something of myself. He said that reform school had the wrongreputation; he talked about what the word "reform" meant-to change and become better. He said theschool was really a place where boys like me could have time to see their mistakes and start a new lifeand become somebody everyone would be proud of. And he told me that the lady in charge of thedetention home, a Mrs. Swerlin, and her husband were very good people.

ith my deportment record, I wasn't really shocked when the decision came that I had been expelled.

　　　　The white state man was a Mr. Maynard Allen. He was nicer to me than most of the state Welfarepeople had been. He even had consoling words for the Gohannases and Mrs. Adcock and Big Boy; allof them were crying. But I wasn't. With the few clothes I owned stuffed into a box, we rode in his carto Mason. He talked as he drove along, saying that my school marks showed that if I would juststraighten up, I could make something of myself. He said that reform school had the wrongreputation; he talked about what the word "reform" meant-to change and become better. He said theschool was really a place where boys like me could have time to see their mistakes and start a new lifeand become somebody everyone would be proud of. And he told me that the lady in charge of thedetention home, a Mrs. Swerlin, and her husband were very good people.

x Mason, Michigan, about twelve miles fromLansing. The detention home was where all the "bad" boys and girls from Ingham County were held,on their way to reform school-waiting for their hearings.