Motion Picture Classic (May 1921 - Dec 1927)

CLASSIC in a little fountain in the courtyard ; Aunt Ollie always looked pointedly the other way when we passed in and out, and the nymph certainly wasn’t over-dressed ! Then by special messenger came a letter from Kosnia, all silver crests and Printemps perfume and embossed paper. It was very short — Oluf simply said that the future welfare of the country evidently depended on an alliance with Prebilof, and begged her dear Ruth Townlee to come to her immediately. “Remember the Pledge of a Friend!” Oluf ended, “and come to my summer castle. Kragcliffe, where I await you impatiently.” Aunt Ollie was inclined to be sarcastic about “running around at the beck and call of a mess of kings and queens,” but in the end she came along with a suitcase packed with hot water bottles, quinine, liniment, and a host of other remedies, being under the impression that we were going into some impenetrable wilderness far from civilization. And as things turned out, she wasn’t so far from right, tho she certainly couldn’t have foreseen that the dinky little narrow-gage railroad train was going to run off the track in the wildest mountain gorge you ever saw. I have a vague impression that the first thing she said when she pulled herself from under a seat with her bonnet over one ear and a nursing bottle which had belonged to an infant in the next section clutched firmly in one hand was. “What did I tell you, Ruth Townley? Now, maybe you’ll listen to me hereafter !” Luckily it wasn’t such a bad wreck. No one was killed, but the whole railroad system was put out of running order and we were told we would have to wait until somebody did something about it, which might take a day and might take a week. All we could get was shrugged shoulders, waved hands and deprecatory smiles. The other passengers, b'eing more or less used to it, settled down and created quite a domestic scene within an hour or two, but Aunt Ollie is not the kind to “only stand and wait.” “There’s a road over there,” 'she said firmly, “and it probably goes somewhere. Anything is better than staying to be stifled by garlic and onions here!” And she glared at a group of our fellow travelers peacefully cooking their provisions over a camp fire. So off we* started ; Aunt Ollie feeling to make sure that her purse was safe, which as it turned out was the worst thing she could possibly have done. But at the time we never dreamed that the benevolent looking, whiskered old gentleman who offered us a ride in his rickety cart had anything on his mind except a battered old felt hat. But we soon found out differently when, after half an hour’s driving, he pulled up his horse and became suddenly a brigand — a regular moving picture brigand ! Aunt Ollie gave me a look of sad triumph, as much as to say, “I told you so!” as she took out her bank roll and laid it into his dirty hand, but when I saw his greedy eye fixed on my locket I saw red ! Before I had time to be cool and sensible I had jumped out of the cart and was running down the crazy mountain path with the brigand in full pursuit. It didn’t take long for me to be gin to pant and gasp, and all the while I could hear the Whiskery One galloping at my heels like a troop of cavalry. When I had left him a moment around a curve of the road, I turned into the woods and ran stumbling over roots, scratched by brambles, for what seemed hours before I came out again, this time on a nicely paved roadway, over which an automobile was speeding toward me. I stood in the middle of the road waving my arms desperately — I must have looked a fright with my hair all down and my face purple, and when the car stopped with a scream of brakes and I saw Who got out and came toward me all I could think was, “I wish I had brought a powder pad !” Then everything seemed to grow dark. I saw the trees and the sky and the automobile waver and swell, and I suppose I fainted. It must have been delirium, because of course he couldn't have held me in his arms and kissed me ! The next thing I knew was a pleasant face bending over me, and a voice saying soothingly in French, “Madame La Princesse is better?” There I was lying on a white bearskin couch in the handsomest room I ever saw in my life, with gold cupids painted on the ceiling and gold furniture . . . down some flights of steps and thru winding passages that smelt damp and underground . . . and the door locked behind me . . .