Sam began talking of the saloon she intended buying.
“The children will be a bother, eh?” he said.
“I have an offer for the house,” she said. “I wish I didn’t have the kids. They are a nuisance.”
“I have been figuring that out,” Sam told her. “I know a woman in the East who would take them and raise them. She is wild about kids. I should like to do something to help you. I might take them to her.”
“In the name of Heaven, man, lead them away,” she laughed, and took another drink from the bottle.
Sam drew from his pocket a paper he had secured from a downtown attorney.
“Get a neighbour in here to witness this,” he said. “The woman will want things regular. It releases you from all responsibility for the kids and puts it on her.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the graft? Who gets stuck for the fares down east?”
Sam laughed and going to the back door shouted to a man who sat under a tree back of the next house smoking a pipe.
“Sign here,” he said, putting the paper before her. “Here is your neighbour to sign as witness. You do not get stuck for a cent.”