Harriet Quimby was now writing a weekly article for Leslie’s, and summering gratis at the old Oriental Hotel at Manhattan Beach as payment for publicizing the social activities of the place. Beach-bound one day, she called at our modest ménage, beautifully dressed, with wealthy guests in their expensive car. As the car drove off, Mr. Griffith gazing sadly below from our window five flights up, as sadly said “She’s a success.”
The play came along fine, owing much to our experiences in California. One act was located in the hop fields, and there were Mexican songs that Mr. Griffith had first heard rendered by native Mexicans who sang in “Ramona.” Another act was in a famous old café in San Francisco, The Poodle Dog. It was christened “A Fool and a Girl.” The fool was an innocent youth from Kentucky, but the girl, being from San Francisco, was more piquant.
We’d been signed for the fall, and we felt we’d done pretty well by the first summer. I’d learned to relish the funny little black raspberries and not to be afraid of thunderstorms—they were not so uncertain as earthquakes.
And now rehearsals are called for Mr. Dixon’s “The One Woman.” They lasted some weeks before we took to the road and opened in Norfolk, Virginia, where we drew our first salaries, seventy-five for him and thirty-five for her. Nice, it was, and we hoped it would be a long season.
CHAPTER IV
YOUNG AMBITIONS AND A FEW JOLTS
But it wasn’t.
After two months on the road we received our two weeks’ notice. For half Mr. Griffith’s salary, Mr. Dixon had engaged another leading man, who, he felt, would adequately serve the cause. So, sad at heart and not so wealthy, we returned to the merry little whirl of life in the theatrical metropolis of the U. S. A. We had one asset—the play. Good thing we had not frivoled away those precious summer weeks in seeking cooling breezes by Coney’s coral strand!
Late that fall my husband played a small part in a production of “Salome” at the Astor Theatre under Edward Ellsner’s direction. Mr. Ellsner was looking for a play for Pauline Frederick. Mr. Griffith suggested his play and Mr. Ellsner was sufficiently interested to arrange for a reading for Miss Frederick and her mother. They liked it; so did Mr. Ellsner; and so the play was sent on to Mr. James K. Hackett, Miss Frederick’s manager at that time.
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