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 good clean bed and a welcome like home, Uncle Boley recommended the Woodbine Hotel, kept by Malvina Smith and her mother, Mrs. Goodloe.

"Ollie Noggle, our head-leadin' barber, and several more of our professional men boards there regular, and I take my meals there myself on Sundays," he explained. "It ain't so much of a hotel to look at on the outside, for I don't like the green Malvina had it painted after she got her divorce bill from Zebedee."

"Green's for hope, they say, sir," said Texas, with that queer half-smile of his.

"Yes," said Uncle Boley, wondering what it would take to make him laugh, "and I guess she's goin' to git her hopes fulfilled, all right. Ollie Noggle seems to be leadin' peaceful and quiet. I guess she'll land him before the summer's through. The old lady she'll kind of show off to you a day or two, proud as all git-out over that divorce paper Malvina's got. It's the first one anybody in Cottonwood ever got through a court, and that old lady she shows it off like it was a deed to a ranch."

"It's a queer kind of thing to have a family pride in."

"Yes, I never had much use for divorce bills myself, but it's a curiosity to some folks. The neighbors is as much to blame as the old lady, and more. They used to go there in droves at first to see it.