When the movies were young (1925)

To the West Coast 147 The company departed via the Black Diamond Express on the Lehigh Valley, which route meant ferry to Jersey City. A late arrival in Chicago allowed just comfortable time to make the California Limited leaving at 8 p.m. The company was luxurious for but three days. It was only Mr. R. H. Hammer, my husband, and myself who had been allotted four full days of elegance. We de luxe'd out of New York via the Twentieth Century Limited. I had come into my own. Mr. Powell was in charge of the company and so he checked them off on arrival at the ferry — Marion Leonard, Florence Barker, Mary Pickford, Dorothy West, Kate Bruce, the women; George Nichols, Henry Walthall, Billy Quirk, Frank Grandin, Charlie West, Mack Sennett, Dell Henderson, Arthur Johnson, Daddy Butler, Christie Miller, Tony O' Sullivan, and Alfred Paget, the men. There were three wives who were actresses also, Eleanor Hicks, Florence Lee (Mrs. Dell Henderson), and Mrs. George Nichols. And there were two camera men, Billy Bitzer and Arthur Marvin; a scenic artist, Eddie Shelter; a carpenter or two, and two property boys, Bobbie Harron and Johnny Mahr. No theatrical job had come along for Mary Pickford, and the few summer months she had intended spending in "the pictures,, would lengthen into a full year now that she had decided to go with us to California. Her salary was still small: it was about forty dollars a week at this time. Frank Powell had a busy hour at the Ferry Building although Mr. Griffith was there also to see that all the company got on board. He had not anticipated too smooth an exit. Nor did he get it, even though he had taken well