Sometimes when rehearsing we’d suddenly find ourselves in need of a little two- or three-year-older, which need would be supplied by Mr. Griffith or Mr. Powell or Dell Henderson calling right out at rehearsal: “Who’s got a kid?” Margaret Loveridge on one such occasion had replied affirmatively. And so we came to use her small son occasionally; and when Margaret was working and we needed the child, and Margaret couldn’t bring it or take care of it, she’d press her little sister into service.
For Miss Loveridge had also a little sister. And it was some such situation that led little sister to the movies and to Redonda at this time.
Little sister was a mite: most pathetic and half-starved she looked in her wispy clothes, with stockings sort of falling down over her shoe-tops. No one paid a particle of attention to the child. But Mr. Griffith popped up from somewhere and spied her, and gave her a smile. The frail, appealing look of her struck him. So he said, “How’d you like to work in a picture?”
“Oh, you’re just fooling—you mean me to work in a picture?”
“Yes, and I’ll give you five dollars.”
No stage bashfulness in the hanging head, the limp arms, and the funny hop skip of the feet.
“Oh, you couldn’t give me five dollars.”
“Oh, yes I can.”
“You sure you’re not fooling?”
“No, you come around some time, and you’ll see, I’ll put you in a scene. What’s your name?”