When the movies were young (1925)

178 When the Movies were Young and dark melancholia. Pete drove the big bus, rigged up for our use out of one of his old farm wagons. It was usually filled with "actresses" — wicked females from the city who wore gay clothes and put paint on their faces. What a good time old Pete did have once out on the highway! What a chatter, chatter, chatter he did maintain! Never had he dreamed of such intimacy with ladies out of a the-ayter! But a wife was ever a wife. So no matter how old and decrepit Pete was, to Mrs. Pete he still had charm, so why wouldn't he be alluring to these city girls? Every night Mrs. Pete was Johnny-on-the-spot, when the bus unloaded its quota of fair femininity at the Inn, waiting to lead her errant swain right straight home. Our friends the Goddefroys still held open house for us. Dear old Mr. Goddefroy told us of the disquieting notes that had crept into Cuddebackville's former tranquil life, due to our lavish expenditures the first summer — told Mr. Griffith he was "knocking the place to hell." But they still loved us. In a smart little trap they'd jog over to location bringing buckets of fresh milk and boxes of apples and pears. Toward late afternoon of a warm summer day, when working close to their elaborate "cottage," the "Boss" would appear with bottles of Bass's Ale, and bottles of C-and-C Ginger Ale, both of which he'd pour over great chunks of ice into a great shining milk bucket — shandygaff ! Was it good ? For the simple moving picture age in which we were living we seemed to get a good deal out of life. We enjoyed the other social diversions of the year before — canoeing, motoring, table-tipping. But one night, the night on which the Macpherson magicians broke up Mr.