She took me through the dormitory, the laundry, the supply rooms, and the dining hall—now set and waiting for the food to be delivered from the central commissary.
She smiled as she talked, and her expression and the hair piled in a bun high on her head made her look like a Lautrec dancer but she never looked straight at me.
I wondered what it would be like living here with her to watch over me.
"They're pretty good here in this building," she said.
"But you know what it is. Three hundred boys—seventy-five on a floor—and only five of us to look after them.
It's not easy to keep them under control.
But it's a lot better than the untidy cottages.
The staff there doesn't last very long.
"With babies you don't mind so much, but when they get to be adults and still can't care for themselves, it can be a nasty mess."
"You seem to be a very nice person," I said.
"The boys are fortunate to have you as their house-supervisor."
She laughed heartily still looking straight ahead, and showed her white teeth.
"No better or worse than the rest.
I'm very fond of my boys.
It's not easy work, but it's rewarding when you think how much they need you." The smile left her for a moment.
"Normal kids grow up too soon, stop needing you…go off on their own…forget who loved them and took care of them.
But these children need all you can give—all of their lives."
She laughed again, embarrassed at her seriousness.
"It's hard work here, but worth it."
Back downstairs, where Winslow was waiting for us, the dinner bell sounded, and the boys filed into the dining room.
I noticed that the big boy who had held the smaller one in his lap was now leading him to the table by the hand.
"Quite a thing," I said, nodding in that direction.
Winslow nodded too.
"Jerry's the big one, and that's Dusty.
We see that sort of thing often here.
When there's no one else who has time for them, sometimes they know enough to seek human contact and affection from each other."
As we passed one of the other cottages on our way to the school, I heard a shriek followed by a wailing, picked up and echoed by two or three other voices.
There were bars on the windows.
Winslow looked uncomfortable for the first time that morning.
"Special security cottage," he explained. "Emotionally disturbed retardates. When there's a chance they'll harm themselves or others, we put them in Cottage K.
Locked up at all times."
"Emotionally disturbed patients here?
Don't they belong in psychiatric hospitals?"
"Oh, sure," he said, "but it's a difficult thing to control.
Some, the borderline emotionally disturbed, don't break down until after they've been here for a while. Others were committed by the courts, and we had no choice but to admit them even though there's really no room for them.
The real problem is that there's no room for anyone anywhere.
Do you know how long our own waiting list is?
Fourteen hundred.
And we may have room for twenty-five or thirty of them by the end of the year."
"Where are those fourteen hundred now?"
"Home.
On the outside, waiting for an opening here or in some other institution.
You see, our space problem is not like the usual hospital overcrowding.
Our patients usually come here to stay for the rest of their lives."
As we arrived at the new school building, a one-story glass-and-concrete structure with large picture windows, I tried to imagine what it would be like walking through these corridors as a patient. I visualized myself in the middle of a line of men and boys waiting to enter a classroom.
Perhaps I'd be one of those pushing another boy in a wheelchair, or guiding someone else by the hand, or cuddling a smaller boy in my arms.
In one of the woodworking classrooms, where a group of older boys were making benches under a teachers supervision, they clustered around us, eyeing me curiously.
The teacher put down the saw and came towards us.
"This is Mr. Gordon from Beekman University," said Winslow.
"Wants to look over some of our patients.