“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. 76 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 real nice feller, Mr. Dickman. Well, we kind of co’ted along down, one place an anotheh, an’ he wanted to git married. I told how hit was, that I wasn’t ’vorced, an’ so on, but if he meant business, we’d drap into Mendova, which we done. He wanted to pay for the divorce, but I’m independent thataway. I think a lady ought to pay for her own ’vorces, so I done hit, an’ I was divorced at 3 o’clock, married right next door into the Justice’s, an’ we drapped out an’ down the riveh onto our honeymoon. Mr. Dickman was a real gentleman, but, somehow, he couldn’t stand the riveh. It sort of give him the malary, an’ he got to thinking about salmon fishin’ so he went to the Columbia. We parted real good friends, but the Mississippi’s good ’nough for me, yes, indeed. I kind of feel zif I knowed hit, an’ hit’s real homelike.”
“It is lovely down here,” Nelia remarked. “Everything is so kind of—kind of free and easy. But wasn’t it dreadful—I mean the first time—the first divorce, Mamie?”
“Course, yes, course,” Mrs. Caope admitted, slowly, with a frown, “I neveh will forget mine. I’d shifted my man, an’ I was right down to cornmeal an’ bacon. 77 Then a real nice feller come along, Mr. Darlet. I had to take my choice between a divorce an’ a new weddin’ dress, an’ I tell you hit were real solemocholy fer me decidin’ between an’ betwixt. You know how young gals are, settin’ a lot by dresses an’ how they look, an’ so on. Young gals ain’ got much but looks, anyhow. Time a lady gits experience, she don’t set so much store by looks, an’ she don’t have to, nohow. Well, theh I was, with a nice man, an’ if I didn’t divorce that first scoundrel where’d I be? So I let the dress go, an’ mebby you’ll b’lieve hit, an’ mebby yo’ won’t, but I had $18.97, an’ I paid my $17.50 real reg’lar, an’ I had jest what was left, $1.47, an’ me ready to bust out crying, feelin’ so mean about marryin’ into an old walking skirt.
“I was all alone, an’ I had a good notion to run down the back way, an’ trip off down the riveh without no man, I felt so ’shamed. An’ theh, right on the sidewalk, was a wad of bills, $99 to a penny. My lan’! I wropped my hand around hit, an’ yo’ should of seen Mr. Darlet when he seen me come walking down, new hat, new dress, new shoes, new silk stockings—the whole business new. I wa’n’t such a bad-lookin’ gal, afteh all. That taught me a lesson. I’ve always be’n real savin’ sinct then, an’ I ain’t be’n ketched sinct with the choice to make of a ’vorce er a weddin’ dress. No, indeed, not me!”