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across with ’em, they would catch ’emin bed and nobody would holler and nobody would tell on nobody … Some of the girls would cry … a lot of ’em would tell their parents about it and a lot of ’em wouldn’t tell nobody.’
    Pony Kane mentioned one inmate who had ‘been there so long’. She must have been thinking of Christine Scott, whom Linda Kuehl interviewed on 4 November 1971. Christine had been born in the 1890s and sent to the House when she was still very young. I have no idea why; maybe she simply lost all her family and there was nowhere else for her to go. Whatever the reason, she was still an inmate when Billie arrived in 1925 and she stayed on throughout the years that followed until she was eventually moved to an old people’s home outside Baltimore, which was also run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
    Linda Kuehl was impressed by Christine. She said she was ‘remarkably sharp and her memory was astounding’; she was shown to be correct in all the information that could later be proved. Christine was, however, convinced that Billie was about fourteen years old when she first arrived at the House, and she failed to mention that Billie was there a second time, from 24 December 1926 until 2 February 1927. *
    Christine Scott explained that she had never been an affectionate person. She didn’t like hugging or kissing; in fact she didn’t like to be touched at all. ‘Everybody knew it,’ she said, ‘because I could never let the children take hold of my hand. I was awfully touchy. That’s the truth. I am strange. Always was … I had nothing to do with nobody. I didn’t want to be bothered with people. You get into trouble when you have lots of friends flocking around.’
    When she was asked about her first meeting with Billie,she said she remembered how she was sitting on her own in the chapel one Monday morning, when the chaplain beckoned her over. He had a very shy young girl with him, whom he said was called Madge. † Christine had hardly noticed the girl before and had never said more than two words to her, but now she looked at her for the first time. ‘She was a very nice-looking brown-skinned girl. She wasn’t quite as light as I am, but she was light. And she had a nice suit of hair. And her features were even and light. She was as tall as any fourteen-year-old would be and she was right plump.’
    The chaplain explained that he wanted to have Madge baptised because he’d had an ‘awful time trying to find out where she came from and where her people came from’. He asked Christine if she would be the girl’s godmother. ‡
    Something changed in Billie when she learnt she was going to be baptised; while she was being prepared for the ceremony she was no longer so silent and fearful and she told everyone in the House how excited she was. And when the day came, she was dressed like a bride in a white frock with a white veil and she rushed to show all the sisters how pretty she looked. Christine said, ‘She was so happy, poor child, she was grinning from ear to ear – you could almost see her back teeth, and she was just as light as a feather.’
    As soon as the baptism and the First Communion that followed were over, the sisters gave Billie a string of rosary beads and her new godmother was told to present her with a prayer book. And Christine said that as long as she stayedin the House, Billie ‘had that prayer book in her hand all the time, so she must have appreciated it’.
    But once the brief immersion in the limelight had ended, the little girl withdrew back into her shell. She was clearly frightened of the other girls, but she felt safe with Christine and used to follow her everywhere like a lost puppy, padding after her from room to room and then sitting on the floor at her feet, silent and watchful.
    ‘She liked me and she didn’t want to be with the girls. She never told me her reason. I didn’t ask her a thing about herself or about her parents and she