New-York tribune., 1922-10-01
Where Mr.. Craven
Found the Folk
OF "Spite Corner

If you come from small community
tucked away among the rock-ribbed
hills of New England land there are
a good many such in New York; it
won't take you long to realize that the
characters in Frank Craven's new
comedy, Spite Corner" at the Little
Theater, are as homely and real and
genuine as pumpkin pie. There is a
reason: Frank Craven.
Crayen's boyhood and youth were
lived in New England, not in city,
not even in a town OF any considerable
| size, but on a farm in the tight little
community of Silver Lake, on Cape
Cod. When he wrote Spite Corner
is was labor of love- He was writing
! what was in his heart. He was holding
the mirror un to life as he knew it.
1t was not on the farm, however,
that he was born, but in Boston. His
mother was an actress of the old
SCHOOL. of tie day of the travelling stool,
players. SO was his father. The lat
ter, John, used to be a gas boy in the
old Bowery, then became an actor and
met his wife when both were playing
in stock in louisville. 1t was to Bos-
ton, then, that Mrs. Craven went for
Franks birth
During the early years of his life
he was taken about with them by his
parents, and appeared on the stage at
times when only baby in arms. But
when he became eight years old his
parents decided the nomadic life of
their profession was not exactlv the
thing for. him, ard left him with some
good friends, the Chspmans, on farm
on the Cape.
There Frank lived-and worked.
worked to considerable extent. too.
for on New England farm there is
not much time for iders. When the
summer season, with it's cultivation and
reaping, ended, autumn arrived with
its berry picking. There were cram
berries to be picked in the bogs and
Strawberries on the sandy farms.
AS he talked OF those bygone days
faraway look came into Craven's eyes,
a tender twist of that mobile mouth
and then--he pulled lis familiar touch
looking cap over one eye, twisted the
familiar black briar to one corner of
his mouth and grinned.
Craven is like that. The imp of mis-
chief Is forever tying tin can to The
tail of romance.
~
more work. School was in a one-room
schoolhouse, two and ohe-half miles
from the Chapman farm. AT that.
Frank lived nearest of the thirteen
farm children attending, except for
Willie Whiting. Willie lived a little
nearer school, but not much. Why.
there were days in the winter when the
snow lay SO deep on all that country
side that they two were the only chill
dren who plowed their way 20 school.
AS for work, there was a tack fac
tory at Silver Lake, where Frank
worked now and then as feeder. And
there was a sawmill, too, where on
cold Sundays in the winter he would
earn half dollar by feeding chunks oe
wood to the fires and keeping up enough
heat to prevent the mill from freezing.
just little tad, in raggedy coat and
boots and long, knitted mufler tied
around his throat and head, he would
struggle through the snow several
miles to the mill, pull off his mittens
go in and sit there alone, feeding
chunks Of wood into the stove.
Old Eben Gooch, of "Spite Cornerv
played entrancingly by Percy Pollock.
lived IN Silver Lake neighborhood. So
did Anne Coolidge, with her tatting
and her dislike for improvers that cut
down beautiful maple trees to make
way for telegraph poles. Belle Bur-
gess, the village dressmaker, who can
tell the age Of every skirt in town by
the number Of rings on the hem, sjust
Ike horses teeth"--she lived there.
too. So did al those people, those
richly human characters Of "spite
Corner"
7 knew 'em all,' said Craven. "In-
dlyldualists grow In the country, where
the oddities of character aren't robbed
off by too frequent contact with
others, as in the city. All / have to
DO Is shut my eyes and there they
stand before me. And sometimes
don't even have to shut my eyes.
"Huh."
he got up and stretched and knocked
the ashes from a cold pipe.