And then came dinner and in ones, twos, and threes, the company strolled in—a hungry lot. Frail little Mrs. Predmore wondered would she ever get the actors fed up. It took her the week usually, she afterwards confided. When the cook would let her, she’d go into the kitchen and make us lemon meringue pies. The actors were always hoping the cook would leave, or get sick, or die, so Mrs. Predmore could cook all the dinner.
Sometimes we were very merry at dinner. When Arthur Johnson would arrive bowing himself gallantly in, in a manner bred of youthful days as a Shakespearean actor with the Owen Dramatic Company, loud and hearty applause would greet him, which he’d accept with all the smiling, gracious salaams of the old-time ten, twenty, and thirty tragedian.
* * * * *
Evening at Cuddebackville!
The biggest thrill would be an automobile ride to Middletown, nine miles away. If Mr. Predmore weren’t busy after dinner, he’d take us. It was a joyful ride over the mountains to Middletown, quite the most priceless fun of an evening. Every one was eager for it except the little groups of twos, who, sentimentally inclined, were paddling a canoe out on the basin or down the canal. There would be Mary Pickford and Owen Moore, and James Kirkwood and Gertrude Robinson, and Stanner E. V. Taylor and Marion Leonard, experiencing tense moments in the silence broken only by the drip, drip of the paddle beneath the mellow moon. Romance got well under way at Cuddebackville.
The evening divertisements became more complex as we became better acquainted. “Wally” Walthall, Arthur Johnson, and Mack Sennett became our principal parlor entertainers. “Wally” rendered old southern ditties as only a true southern gentleman from Alabama could.
Arthur Johnson and Mack Sennett did good team-work; they were our Van and Schenck. Arthur, who presided at the piano, had a sentimental turn; he liked “The Little Grey Home in the West” kind of song, but the future producer of movie comedies was not so sentimentally disposed. As long as harmony reigned in the camp of Johnson and Sennett, there were tuneful evenings for the musically inclined. But every now and then Sennett would get miffed about something and never a do-re-mi would be got out of him, and when Arthur’s nerves could stand the strain no longer, he’d burst forth to the assemblage, “I wouldn’t mind if he’d fuss with me, but this silence thing gets my goat.”
Those who cared not for the Song Festival could join Jeanie Macpherson who, out in the dining-room, would be supervising stunts in the world of black magic. Here Tony O’Sullivan could always be found. He told hair-raising ghost stories and wound up the evening’s fun by personally conducting a tour through the cemetery. The cemetery lay just beyond the apple orchard, and along the canal bank to the back of the Inn.
Now were the moon bright, the touring party might get a glint of lovers paddling by. Arrived back at the Inn, they might greet the “Red Devil” returning with a small exclusive party from the Goddefroys—Mr. Griffith and Miss Arvidson, Mr. Powell and Miss Hicks.
There was just one little touch of sin. Secluded in an outbuilding some of the boys played craps, sometimes losing all their salary before they got it. One of the men finally brought this wicked state of affairs to Mr. Griffith’s attention, and there were no more crap games.