"What do you think?" said Mrs. Jephson. "I just got word that Oliver would n't be home to-night, and he is probably gone for several days. And Captain Chase, too. The Captain had to go to San Antonio on business, and Oliver went along."
"The Captain, too! Not a man left in the neighborhood!" said Mrs. Harmon.
"Except Uncle Israel," added Mrs. Wright.
Uncle Israel was the Captain's aged darky.
A shortage of men was nothing new to the ladies of this community. Rather, being a cattle-raising country, it was a thing to be expected at any time in spring or fall; and when Claxton Road did enumerate its full quota of husbands, fathers, and brothers, many of them were liable to be absent from Chautauqua. Always with good excuse, however. One would be getting ready for a trip to the ranch; another would have to stay at home to instruct his foreman; another would have to sit up with a costly bull that was going through the rigors of acclimation; and on more than one occasion it was the very man who was being depended upon to tell them all about civil war or civil government who would have to be excused by his wife for some such reason, upon which there would be a chatter of regret and the meeting would fall into a conference upon matters in general. While the gentlemen would "expatiate and confer" with one another as to what breeding would produce the most wrinkles on a sheep's back (thus giving the greatest wool-bearing surface), the ladies would devise new wrinkles to make use of it. And usually the ones who produced the raw material would be entirely through with their plans while yet the consumers were settling fine points with regard to the finished product. In this matter of higher culture, the true bent of masculine nature was likely to betray itself in absence. But the present scarcity of man may be said to have been somewhat above the average.
For some distance the ladies went forward without saying a word. A spell of utter silence had fallen upon the party. Then Mrs. Wright spoke.
"Statia."
"Yes."
"Do you remember what we studied about gravity?"
"Why, certainly. Every certain number of feet a thing falls it goes twice as fast."