Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood "When Sister gets after them she brings them into the fold by hundreds. Only this afternoon she had the platform there just packed with sinners. . . . Yes, sir, I'm telling you. . . . "Why," she went on, " Sister's got over a hundred an* thirty to baptize this very evening. You kin see them all sittin' down there below. The women in white on the one side and the men on the other. . . ." We were seated rather deeply in the middle of the dress circle. Above our heads the concrete floor of the gallery sloped down, supported by large pillars of concrete ; in the distance our vision of the stage was framed in concrete, the band, the banks of flowers, the pantomime scene, and overhead a banked choir of lovely girls. On either side of us lines of faces curved round, all concentrated on the spectacle below, where the revivalist in the crinoline, gleaming in the concentrated beams of the spot-lights, was preaching. The faces lined out were in many features curiously of a mould. Nearly three-quarters were past middle age, and of these a very large number were marked by length of nose, shortness of upper lip, and prominence of chin, heavy eyebrow prominences with scanty eyebrows, and thin-lipped mouths turning decisively downward at the corners bound firmly to the nose-wings by deep gashes. The faces bore a general look as though the lip corners in their expression of unrelenting disapproval had drawn the whole face into a sagging harmony. There were faces baked by the summers or frozen by the winters on the great Middle Western plains, yet faces capable of flashing and unusual gaiety on occasion. A strange congregation in a strange place of worship with a strange preacher in a strange town. " Y'art to come here Sat'dy night," whispered the old woman at my side. "We're sure going to have the most wonderful wedding — you can see her down below if you [256]