“My wife has just told me where we are going to spend my summer vacation,” remarked the city editor. “It’s been said that nothing is absolutely certain in this world, but it’s as sure as anything can be that I’m going to spend my three weeks just where the missus tells me. We never have any discussion on the subject at our house—none of that mountains or seashore business George Ade wrote about, ending in a compromise on the wife’s favorite mountains. But it’s always a relief when the suspense is over and the annual announcement by friend wife is made.
“And that reminds me; how about an interview with one of the shades on the modern vacation, summer resorts and all that sort of thing? Got anybody in mind for it? Noah? No, that trip of his was no summer vacation picnic. Suppose you ask Solomon how he managed the annual vacation business with all those wives of his. They tell me he was the wisest man that ever lived, and I’ll say he needed to be?”
I was gratified to find the shade of the former monarch and much-married man not at all averse to talking for publication. “You see,” he observed with an apologetic smile, “I don’t often get the opportunity to talk without being interrupted. It’s quite refreshing to have an appreciative, interested listener. Fortunately you have come on the very day when the Wives and Daughters of Solomon Association is holding its annual convention, and the mothers-in-law also are attending in their capacity of honorary members. They haven’t the privilege of voting—only of speaking from the floor—but that’s quite satisfactory. They don’t care where they speak from so long as they speak.
“And so, as I have said, we can have a cozy little chat. What did you want me to talk about? Summer vacations? My boy, I could tell you things about the trips I have taken in my capacity as a multiple husband that would dissuade you from matrimony ever after. But I do not wish to relate all the harrowing details. I’ll just give you a hint.
“Well, to start at the beginning, during the first few years of my married life the summer vacation germ spared our happy home. But as I gradually added more wives to my collection, an agitation was begun to get me to take them away somewhere for the summer. The wives began to find fault with the Jerusalem climate.
“They started to criticise what they called the stuffy little rooms of the royal palace. They suggested that other families were closing their houses, or renting them furnished for the summer, and going to the shore of the Mediterranean, where resorts had sprung up that advertised paradoxically cool breezes and a hot old time. They made life so miserable for me that finally one day, after a committee of wives had presented the subject and threatened that they would all go away to Mediterranean City on their own hook if I didn’t consent, I yielded.
“And then ensued such a season of preparation as I hope I shall never have to go through again. Four hundred new trunks bought, four hundred new summer outfits ordered. The palace as if by magic became filled with seamstresses and fitters and millinery architects and all sorts of strange women I had never seen before. You couldn’t walk down the front stairs without stumbling over a seamstress or two.
“The parlor, the living room, the library, all seemed full of sewing societies. Perfect strangers thronged the halls, their mouths full of pins, and tape measures hung around their necks.
“And then, the night before we were to depart, a special committee of wives called on me to exhibit the standardized bathing suit they had decided upon and get my official O. K. At first I was inclined to criticise—and then I reflected what a very, an exceedingly small thing it was to quarrel about—and graciously gave my consent.
“The next day we left Jerusalem for Mediterranean City. And we created some sensation. I headed the procession, followed by the Mesdames Solomon mounted on the four hundred camels. Then came a detachment of mothers-in-law on army mules (they were invited to come in relays during the summer) and the first instalment of the baggage train brought up the rear.
“The second instalment was to come next day with the things the wives had forgotten and sent back for. And other baggage trains were to follow from time to time during the summer, as needed.
“We were several days upon the journey. Before leaving I had not felt that I needed a vacation, but before we finally arrived at Mediterranean City I was ready for the rest cure.
“You see, traveling in those days was not like what it is now. A camel with shock absorbers and air-cushion springs might be a comfortable vehicle, I should imagine, but in his primitive state a camel’s motion is quite different from that of a limousine or a parlor car. Rubber heels had not been invented or I would surely have had our camels equipped with them.
“We had to camp out along the roadside several nights, and none of the wives were used to that. And they did not hesitate to express their feelings. We had started out with a goat among our numerous menagerie, but at an early stage of the proceedings he escaped into the desert—doubtless in search of peace and quiet.
“However, he was not missed. I took his place. It was a rôle to which, in spite of my royal rank, I was accustomed. Everything that went wrong—and that meant practically everything that happened from start to finish—was blamed on me. I was even accused of having planned and perpetrated the excursion, when I had never had the slightest notion of leaving Jerusalem until they suggested it. Finally my patience was exhausted, and I up and told them if they didn’t like it they could go to Jericho. Then, as now, Jericho was far from being an ideal place of summer residence, and their complaints gradually ceased.
“Well, we finally arrived at Mediterranean City, and then our sorrows began in earnest. I don’t know whether you have ever had any practical experience with the Mediterranean mosquito. I have never been quite able to forgive Noah for bringing ’em into the ark. A reception committee of these pests met us at the city gate and escorted us to the Hotel Paymore—so we were stung twice—when we arrived and when we paid the bill on our departure.
“The first hitch came when the clerk started assigning the rooms. It seems there were only some two hundred with an ocean view—and four hundred wives demanding a room apiece. The clerk threw up his hands and appealed to me. He had heard of some puzzling problems I had solved in my capacity as the world’s champion wise man—I threw up my hands and appealed to the proprietor. And he joined in the pleasing indoor pastime, known as passing the buck, by sending in a riot call for the police. But they didn’t come. They were men of long experience, and they knew better than to come between man and wives.
“The upshot was that we drew lots for the first night, the arrangement after that being to take turns occupying rooms with the ocean view. As for myself, with my usual benign disposition, I took a six-by-nine chamber—a room commanding a splendid prospect of the great desert. But I had learned not to be too particular.
“I cannot say that I enjoyed my first and only family summer vacation. Think of four hundred wives wanting to be taken out rowing every day! Think of being required to affix wriggling angle-worms to four hundred separate and distinct fish-hooks! I need not enter into details. These samples are sufficient.
“It is enough to say that after the regular vacation period was over I was compelled, on the advice of my chief physician, to enter the Jerusalem Sanitarium and Rest Cure in order to recuperate. It was ‘never again’ for me.
“I hear there is some complaining today among married men over having to take their wives to the seashore or the mountains. But they should pause to consider that their experience, at worst, can be only one four-hundredth as strenuous and wearing as was mine. I remember the day we got back home to the palace in Jerusalem. Every last one of those wives was so glad to be back that she went up to her room and had what she called ‘a good cry.’”
“And what did you do, Your Majesty?”
“Oh, I went down cellar and took a smile.”
And, notwithstanding my citizenship in the dryest nation on earth, I felt that Solomon had richly earned that spirituous solace.