Western girl. If she
reached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she had
ridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father was
a cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. When she
was twelve she told her playmates exciting tales about rattlesnakes.
When she was fifteen she sat breathless in the movies and watched
picturesque horsemen careering up and down and around the thousand
hills, and believed in her heart that half the Western pictures were
taken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed to remember certain
landmarks, and would point them out to her companions and whisper a
desultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustrated by the picture.
She was much inclined to criticism of the costuming and the acting.

At eighteen she knew definitely that she hated the very name Casa
Grande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its "tree"
where no one ever hung a hat, and the seat beneath where no one ever sat
down. She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, with the bell
buttons above each apartment number. She hated the jangling of the hall
telephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding of whichever bell
button would summon the tenant asked for by the caller. She hated the
meek little Filipino boy who swept that ugly hall every morning. She
hated the scrubby palms in front. She hated the pillars where the paint
was peeling badly. She hated the conflicting odors that seeped into the
atmosphere at certain hours of the day. She hated the three old maids on
the third floor and the frowsy woman on the first, who sat on the front
steps in her soiled breakfast cap and bungalow apron. She hated the
nervous tenant who occupied the apartment just over her mother's
three-room-and-bath, and pounded with a broom handle on the floor when
Lorraine practised overtime on chromatic scales.

At eighteen Lorraine managed somehow to obtain work in a Western
picture, and being unusually pretty she so far distinguished herself
that she was given a small part in the next production. Her glorious
duty it was to ride madly through the little cow-town "set" to the
post-office where the sheriff's posse lounged conspicuously, and there
pull her horse to an abrupt stand and point excitedly to the distant
hills. Also she danced quite close to the camera in the "Typical Cowboy
Dance" which was a feature of this particular production.

Lorraine thereby earned enough m