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 "I'm most certain she would, sir. But a man couldn't ask her to meet greater hardships than she'd leave at home, maybe. And I'd be as keen as a bee in the early mornin' to start up in something here, Uncle Boley, if I knew what to turn to and had the means."

"Can you run a drug store?"

"I don't even know what it is they keep in 'em that makes that purty smell, sir."

"H-m; that's too bad. I knowed a feller run a drug store down in Kansas City, and he cleared more than he took in. It's the finest business a man ever opened, if he knows how to run it. I don't reckon you was brought up to doctorin' or lawyerin', was you Texas?"

"No sir, I wasn't, it grieves me to say, Uncle Boley."

Uncle Boley sewed on until he had used up his thread, then he took the boot out of the strap and stood it on the floor with reflective preoccupation. He was silent a good while, Texas watching him with the candle of humor in his eyes, his face softened in its homely austerity by the affection that he held for this simple, garrulous old soul.

"Well, I'll think out something for you, son," Uncle Boley said at last. "You go on ahead and fix that part of it up with Sallie, and by the time you're ready I'll have some plan figgered out if you