"Seven hundred, all alive at once?" "Yes." "Jimminy! That seems an awful lot for one man, doesn't it?" Ruth confessed that it did. "Nobody in Longfields has more than one, have they?" Ruth mentioned several citizens, but could recall none who had more than one wife. "If one," said Cyrus, "is enough for men around here, why should your Solomon need seven hundred?" "I don't know. Perhaps the Bible tells." "P'r'aps," said Cyrus, "he was homely or mean or something like that, and instead of one good one he had to take seven hundred bad ones." "No, I don't believe it was that." Cyrus reflected a moment. "P'r'aps they were all mighty good and there being so many of 'em was what made Solomon so wise." "I shouldn't wonder." There came a silence. Then Cyrus straightened up and spoke with emphasis. "I just don't believe he or anybody else had seven hundred wives. It's too many. It isn't likely, somehow. No feller would want that much." "Why, Cyrus Alton! Don't you believe what the Bible says?" "Yes--I--I--'course I believe it if you and the Bible both say so, but seven hundred does seem a mighty big lot." Then, as he looked away, over the common, his eyes rested on two persons who stood talking together across the way, and he asked: "Were Solomon's wives real live women like Mrs. Strong and Mrs. Clapp, over there?" "Of course they were!" Cyrus closed his eyes. But through his ears came the thin, far reaching, nasal voice of Mrs. Clapp. "Did seven hundred women like that sit around the breakfast table with Solomon every morning?" "I s'pose they did." For an instant Cyrus faltered. He lowered his eyes and studied his shoes with the copper toes. There might be a darker side to matrimony, a noisier, less peaceful side, than Ruth had pictured. But, as he turned and looked at his companion, it came upon him, like a ray of sunshine that a hundred Ruths would be, oh, so very different from a hundred Mrs. Clapps! "Did all those wives," he asked, "sit with Solomon in one pew on Sunday?" Ruth made no answer. "Doesn't the Bible say anything about that?" "I don't remember." "Well, if they did, I say he must have had a mighty long pew. Do you s'pose they all slept in the same bed?" "Perhaps." Cyrus laughed. "Seven hundred wives in one bed! Cracky! I guess old Solomon slept on the floor!"