“CHARLIE” TELLS DICK THE STORY OF THE WRECKED SHIP ON THE BEACH
(Photograph by Clare Sheridan)
This morning five motors full of children arrived, being the entire family, nephews and nieces of the landowner. The camp was disarrayed, we had planned our departure. Later two reporters appeared and undaunted by the fact that Charlie was not in camp they set out over the dunes in search of him.
I watched them walking back together, Charlie, head bowed the picture of dejection. His last morning had been spoiled, the beauty and peace, so hard to attain, seemed to have been a little tarnished. We left hurriedly, leaving the reporters in possession of the cherished spot that we had not time to look at lingeringly.
“It was time we left—” he said, and I visualised to myself, Charlie hunted, flying from pursuers, lost to view for perhaps 4 days, maybe 5, then discovered, and fleeing again “ad infinitem.” For him no peace. When at the end of a 70 mile drive we reached his house he ordered tea. We sat in chairs by an electric lamp, and tried to talk. We found ourselves making conversation to one another with difficulty. He looked at me as strangely as I looked at him, and then he said:
“You know what’s the matter—We don’t know each other.”
And it was true. I was talking not with the elemental wild-haired Charlie of the campfire, nor yet with Charlie Chaplin of the films, but with a neatly dressed, smooth-haired sophisticated young man I didn’t even know by sight. Civilization and its trappings have changed us both. The past seemed tinged with unreality.
The next day (Nov. 12, 1921) we said goodbye to the sunshine, the orange trees, the avenues of date palms and took the “sunset route” for New York. Charlie came to see us off, and was allowed past the barrier onto the departure platform, a privilege which made him conspicuous. Later, the conductor took Dick aside and asked him if he was Jackie Coogan’s brother! Four whole days and nights we travelled over this endless and tremendous country. Dick said he wished the train were a Mexican train, and I knew what he meant. In Mexico the monotony would have been relieved by an occasional good breakdown, which would have enabled us to bathe in wayside ponds and rivers, or explore woods. But the “Sunset Express” went on and on, day after day, hardly ever stopping. Little by little the dust of the desert and the sunshine of California gave way to greyness and cold, until suddenly one morning we found ourselves in Chicago.
There was no temptation to linger in Chicago. We went to a store and bought some warm clothes, and caught the very next train out.