Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

2G A Case of Real Friendship cither of us knowing that the other was out here. One of us would be loaned out or on location while the other was on the lot. In desperation, I finally arranged to have my contract abrogated, and on the day that I was all set to return East, I — ran into Norma. "When we had recovered from our mutual amazement and talked things over — well, I decided to stay. She buoyed me up wonderfully. And having a friend here made all the difference in the world. "Norma, her mother, sister, and kid brother lived in a two-by-four bungalow in a court. Though there was hardly room for them, they managed to squeeze a comfortable leather armchair into the living room for me, and to make a place at the dinner table several times a week. Edie, her mother, used to doctor my colds and scold me for this and that. "Her present big home has the same homy, comfortable quality of that first little house. All the trinkets and keepsakes that a girl collects are still around. I noticed, the other day, an old, nicked, blue vase that a girl friend had given her at a birthday celebration in the bungalow. "Norma is such a good sport. We often laugh over our first ball. We were invited to a masquerade and, as I had a court costume that I had worn on the stage in Doris Keane's 'The Czarina,' I told Norma she'd have to get something that would match mine. Just what a brother would say, you know. So she got a thing with an enormous hoop skirt. "Dressing madly, I found that my white wig hadn't been curled, and that I had neglected to buy silk hose. So I called Norma, a habit I bad when I was in any difficulty. 'You'll have to curl my wig and lend me a pair of hose,' I said. "Dressed, minus a few trimmings, I got to her house. We were late, and we fumed and fussed around like two kids going to their first party. Picture us, in Norma's bedroom — me kneeling while she curled my wig, and then trying to crowd my size-eleven clodhoppers into her silk hose. And Mother Edie tying my sash, and powdering the back of Norma's neck, and trying generally to get us both assembled respectably. "At last, we were ready. Then, bless you, Norma couldn't get her bouffant skirts into my tiny roadster, but we managed to squeeze into her flivver coupe. Duelists didn't ride in bandboxes, however. We couldn't shut the door. So downtown we grandly rode, with me holding the door open and my sword sticking out. And with everybody howling at us. "We arrived at ten of twelve. As it was Saturday, the dancing stopped at twelve ! We had time only for a grand entrance. Sore as the dickens, we trundled home and raided the ice box, me with my wig over one ear, and Norma eating pickles with her lovely face tearstreaked." "Do you think, in her position to-day, Norma would be game for such an escapade?" I asked curiously. "Absolutely," John replied. "1 can't imagine her acting up stage." A commotion on the stairway interrupted our talk, and into the living room stamped Doug Shearer, Norma's brother, a tousle-haired, beaming lad, his long arms draped about a wild duck. "Somebody brought Norma two," he gasped. "She thought you and your mother'd like one. What'll I do with it?" "Set it down on the grand piano, of course," John suggested witheringly. "That's what one usually does with a wild duck, isn't it ? Or let it scratch my amber, there, or that Florentine box. Now, some idiots would have left a wild cluck out back " "Well, if you had any back yard ! Didja ever see such a crazy-fool house?" Doug inquired of me. "It's a Katzen jammer castle." Which is perfectly true of the Roche domicile, as it is built on the reverse idea, but that, I claim, gives it its charm. Instead of going up, you go down. It is spilled down a hillside, with the road on the roof, practically. You enter at the back, through a rustic garden, and find yourself on the bedroom floor. Down a stairway, and you are in the spacious living room. On that level are also the dining room, kitchen, and one bedroom suite. The opening of a trapdoor, concealed under a rug, discloses stairs leading down to a big, long room which serves both as a den for John and as a recreation room. It has a fireplace and dancing space. "The junk room," John had explained, during my tour of the house. "Mother and Norma arranged things, and whenever they came across something they thought undecorative, they would say, with sweet generosity, 'Oh, we'll put this lovely piece in John's den.' " After the duck had been sequestered somewhere — I suspected, in the bathroom — -John and I talked again of Norma, as we partook of a delicious luncheon cooked by his mother, a most charming, little gray-haired lady. From her, one quickly sees, John gets his youthful ideals, his love of music and the arts, and his good manners. "Norma, to me, is a young Elsie Ferguson," he said. "A lady in her youth. Her charm embraces, among other things, sincerity, an' irradiation of that innate refinement which is perfectly natural and can't be cultivated, comradeship, candor, personality, and genuine sweetness. "Her bright and sparkling comments are shrewd conclusions." I'll wager Norma's ears burned, that day. "Thoroughly of to-day, she knows what is best for her career and is quietly determined to get it, without sacrificing the real values of life. Never raising a row, her very cool certainty eventually wins others over to her viewpoint. "At times, she speaks quite tartly, and her words are always clipped short, issuing instantly upon quick thought. She is vibrantly alive. Having health and an inquisitive mind, she is constantly alert. Yet, if life ever bored her, I can't imagine her attempting a pretense of interest. . "She believes in the shortest route, after once sighting her objective, and has no patience with indolents who lose time. It is a rar<=> gift in a young girl, that instinct for wise selection, and with it a definite calculation and strength of will. Her clever brain has steered her clear of obstacles. And, happily, she is conservative as well as acquisitive. "She is adaptable, or else is interested in contrasts. For she can be equally at home in opposite environments. Skilled in sports, she is very much of a little girl in her enjoyment of them, and looks like one in her sweater and short skirt, with her hair boyishly slicked back and usually with a smudge on her nose. But in a drawingroom, she is poised and lovely in her chiffons, with her patrician little head held high, accepting attentions with a gay raillery. "In her New York days, she used to ride in the subway and pose for commercial photographers and play in cheap little States' right pictures under frightfully dispiriting conditions, and she lived in an ugly, drab flat. " 'I'm boarding with bugs and the cutest cockroaches,' she confided to me one evening, when we met for a table d'hote dinner in a hole-in-the-wall Italian cafe. Her gayety struggled to lift the pathetic droop of her mouth, and soon we were both laughing. T would move out and let them have my room to themselves, but really, the park is no place for a young lady to sleep. She might get very chilly.' [Continued on page 103]