ly some
men needed protection from women could not help but amuse while it
exasperated them.

"Prebol said," Rasba continued, "hit were a pretty woman, young an'
alone. 'How'd I know?' he asked. 'How'd I know she were a spit-fire an'
mean, theh all alone into a lonesome bend? How'd I know?'"

"I 'low he shore found out," Mrs. Caope spoke up, tartly, and Nelia
looked at her gratefully. "Hit takes a bullet to learn fellers like Jest
Prebol--an' him thinkin' he's so smart an' such a lady killer. I bet he
knows theh's some ladies that's men killers, too, now. Next time he
meets a lady he'll wait to be invited 'fore he lands into the same eddy
with her, even if hit's a three-mile eddy."

"Theh's Mrs. Minah," Jim Caope suggested.

"Mrs. Minah!" Mrs. Caope exclaimed. "Talk about riveh ladies--theh's
one. She owns Mozart Bend. Seventeen mile of Mississippi River's her'n,
an' nobody but knows hit, if not to start with, then by the end. She
stands theh, at the breech of her rifle, and, ho law, cayn't she shoot!
She's real respectable, too, cyarful an' 'cordin' to law. She's had
seven husbands, four's daid an' two's divorced, an' one she's got yet,
'cordin' to the last I hearn say about it. I tell you, if a lady's got
any self-respect, she'll git a divorce, an' she'll git married ag'in.
That's what I say, with divorces reasonable, like they be, an' costin'
on'y $17.50 to Mendova, or Memphis, er mos' anywheres."

"How long--how long does it take?" Nelia asked, eagerly.

"Why, hardly no time at all. You jes' go theh, an' the lawyer he takes
all he wants to know, an' he says come ag'in, an' next day, er the next
trip, why, theh's yo' papers, an' all for $17.50. Seems like they's got
special reg'lations for us shanty-boaters."

"I'm glad to know about that," Nelia said. "I thought--I never knew much
about--about divorces. I thought there was a lot of--of rigmarole and
testimony and court business."

"Nope! I tell yo', some of them Mendova lawyers is slick an'
'commodatin'. Why, one time I was in an awful hurry, landin' in 'long of
the upper ferry, an' I went up town, an' seen the lawyer, an' told him
right how I was fixed. Les' see, that wa--um-m----Oh, I 'member now,
Jasper Hill. I'd married him up the line, I disremember--anyhow, 'fore
I'd drapped down to Cairo, I knowed he'd neveh do, nohow, so I left him
up the bank between Columbus an' Hickman--law me, how he squawked! Down
by Tiptonville, where I'd landed, they was a re