On 26 March 1965 Canadian writer Mavis Gallant’s short story “Orphans’ Progress” was published in The New Yorker.

“Orphans’ Progress” in only 6 pages tells the story of the Collier sisters who, when they are six & ten and living in Montreal, are removed from their widowed mother and sent to live with their grandmother in Ontario.

One of the well-meaning social workers who removed the girls says “I won’t forget the screams of Mildred when she was dragged out that pigsty.” The girls don’t recall the dirt; they do remember their mother’s art and that their own drawings were on the wall too.

Cathie & Mildred learn that French is inferior – their mother is French-Canadian. Their grandmother speaks English.

Mildred is adopted and by the time the girls are grown up they hardly know each other.

“Orphans’ Progress” was published in “The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant” in January 2025. The book is reviewed by Tessa Hadley for the London Review of Books, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n06/tessa-hadley/packing-like-a-fury