immediately she had gone into deep mourning as far as her dress was
concerned. The care of her family, however, she felt was too great a
responsibility to assume alone, and she had decided that the best thing for
her to do was to give her three small children away and that the sooner it
was done the better it would be. It was not hard to find homes for the girl
and the boy, but with baby Edwin it was different He was so young that
nobody cared to be bothered with him, and although she had tried hard, she
had not succeeded in finding him a home.

In her perplexity she rushed to the infirmary. So confident had she been
that it would be the duty of this institution to help her out that she had
not thought of asking the privilege of leaving her baby as a favor.

As steward and matron of the poorhouse, Mr. and Mrs. Engler did what they
could to keep things going smoothly and in order, but the work was too
large for them to handle it properly. At that early date no special place
except the poor farm had been provided for the simple and the insane; so it
was necessary to have several buildings, both large and small, to provide
for the needs of the people.

In the building that was known as the poorhouse proper was the main office.
It was here that Mrs. Fischer appeared. Several other rooms of importance
were also in this building, such as the dining-room and some
living-apartments, but the bakery and the kitchen were in a building just a
short distance away. And there was still another building, a large brick
structure close to the main building. This was used for the confinement of
such persons as the insane and the unmanageable, and the doors and windows,
as well as the transoms, on both the inside and the outside were secured by
iron bars. From these dark prison walls many strange and hideous sounds
could be heard at any hour of the night or day.