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22
Childhood Adventures in Hollywood
to play with her and her friends. Rosy and I beat Jean Schwartz and Raymond Hitchcock to a fare-you-well on one occasion.
Dorothy Gish and Constance Talmadge were frequent visitors at her place, but , I never happened to meet those young ladies, both of whom wore their hair down their backs at the time.
Waylaying the postman and intercepting a star's mail gave Dorothy a good excuse for paying a call.
For a long while, a "gang" of which I was a member thought that something ought to be done about Geraldine Farrar — that is, something about getting acquainted. We felt there was no reason why Jerry should be left out of our fun, as she seemed to be such an amiable lady, always smiling at us from her limousine on her way to and from "Joan of Arc" at Lasky's. Three of us had called on her one afternoon and had not got beyond the butler. We were sure if Jerry only knew we were calling, things would be different. But up until the time I conceived my brilliant plan, we got no farther than her orange grove.
Geraldine Farrar used to entertain a great deal at night. Sometimes she ivoul^ sing, playing her own accompaniments. That gorgeous, vibrant voice, so powerful, yet so sweet, would pervade the night as beautifully as the scent of her own orange blossoms. Neighbors used to slip coats over their night clothes and sneak to the borders of her property to listen, grateful for the
opportunity to hear her. Many a time, I have stood outside her window, on a spring night, listening to Geraldine Farrar sing her favorite ballad, "Mighty Lak a Rose." Those blue nights — the blossoms so heavy — the damp earth — Farrar's magnificent voice — all constitute a memory I can never forget. And I idolized her so, I was so crazy just to shake hands with her, that I hit on a very expensive plan to accomplish my ends.
I got the "gang" together and told them that if they would consent to pool their lunch money (small change provided by parents for the purpose of hot soup at lunch), we could buy Geraldine a lovely bouquet of flowers. Surely she couldn't refuse to meet the bearers of a gift.
"How'll we eat?" inquired a practical soul.
"We won't eat," said a little girl, who probably grew up to be a professional mourner.
But the best plan of all was advocated by a little boy who was my beau. "We can take the flowers up at lunch time," he stated, with brilliant logic. "If she's got any common decency, she'll invite us to lunch. If she's got any common decency at all, she'll ask us in to eat."
Here was genius in the raw. Here was the master mind.
Since Geraldine Farrar failed to invite tlie "gang" to luncheon, they felt justified in stealing some of her oranges.
So we scraped up the funds, amounting to one dollar and fifty cents in all, and purchased roses, violets, and geraniums, amounting to one dollar and fifty cents, from a floidst.
Came the moment. There we stood, eight cottonstockinged kids on Jerry's front