Her Husband's Purse

by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

"No, if she has never signed away her rights."

"She hasn't done that."

"You say your husband's clerk was working on the case? Then it's the case of a client of his?"

"Yes, the case of a client of his."

"And a friend of yours, you said?"

"Yes. His clerk wasn't exactly working on it; she simply told me, when I asked her, that she knew the mining land to have been vested absolutely in the husband."

"And you wrote me that the step-mother has not had her share because she's too ignorant to claim it, and that she's in want. That right?"

"Yes."

"I should say, then, no mercy should be shown those who have defrauded her. They should be made to pay up, especially as it was this old woman's hard labour and self-sacrifice in the first place (so you wrote) that saved the home and land for the family."

"Tell me, Walter, dear, how shall the old woman set about getting her dues?"