When the movies were young (1925)

n8 When the Movies were Young that our best blouse was back from the laundry and our dotted swiss in order for evening, our costumes right, and grease-paint complete, for any of us might be asked to double up for Indians before the week was over. It was a five-hour trip — a pretty one along the Hudson to West Point — then through the Orange Mountains. Our journey ended at a little station set in a valley sweet with tasseled corn and blossoming white buckwheat. In the distance^— mountains; near by — beckoning roads lined with maples. It was the longest stop that an Ontario and Western train had ever made at Cuddebackville. Such excitement and such a jam on the little platform ! No chance to slink in unnoticed as on the first unpretentious visit. "Were we sure it was the right place?" the conductor kept asking. "Oh, yes, quite so." Damned if he could make it out. For we didn't look like farmers come to settle in the country; nor like fishermen come to cast for trout in the Neversink — we had nothing with us that resembled expensive fishing rods and boots ; nor did we look like a strange religious sect come to worship in our own way. No, nor might we have been one of a lost tribe of Cuddebacks who after years of vain searching had at last discovered the remote little spot where the first Monsieur Caudebec had pitched his tent so far from his own dear France. As the train steamed on its way, from the rear platform the conductor was still gazing, and I thought he threw us a rather dirty look. An express wagon was waiting for our load of stuff — big wads of canvas for the teepees, cameras, and costume baskets. A man in a red automobile was also waiting — Mr. Predmore, who owned Caudebec Inn where we were