Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/126

 Rheinhold was sent to the workhouse for nine months.

XIX

It was regarded as a triumph for the Humane Society,—the newspapers had printed accounts of the trial,—but it was a victory of which I felt pretty much ashamed; it all seemed so useless, so absurd, so barbarous, when you came to think of it, and what good it had done Maria, or anyone, it was difficult to determine. And so, before very long, I went to the workhouse board and had Rheinhold paroled, and he disappeared, vanished toward the West, and was never heard of more.

Meanwhile Maria lived on in her little house as best she could, and with what assistance we could provide her. The Humane Society helped a little, and my wife made some clothes for the baby, and a good-natured doctor in the neighborhood attended them when they were sick, which was a good deal of the time; and Maria seemed happy enough and contented, relying with such entire confidence on her friends that one cold night she sent for me in great urgency, and when I arrived she pointed to the stove, which was smoking and not doing its work in a satisfactory manner at all. I mended it and got the fire going, and they managed to survive the winter; and when spring came Maria appeared at the office and wished to apply to the courts for a divorce. It seemed as good a thing to do as