"Freckles" is losing his freckles!
Deprived of the California sunshine that nurtured them, the famous dark brown spots that have endeared Harry Spear, youthful actor of the "Our Gang" Comedies to thousands of children, have become pale ghosts of their former selves.
"Don't worry," he told a reporter for the Free Press today, "they'll come back again. I've still got them on the back of my neck."
The 8-year-old actor, accompanied by his mother, Mrs. Harry Spear, arrived here from Burlington Tuesday night (the 24th). Today and Friday (the 27th) he will make personal appearances at the A-Muse-U theater. Wednesday (the 25th) he spoke over radio station KTNT.
Likes River
As far as Freckles is concerned, the Mississippi is the most entertaining thing in the vicinity of Muscatine. He greatly enjoyed a rowboat trip Wednesday and is looking forward with great pleasure to a motor boat ride Friday.
"Wednesday mother bought me a kite and I went down by the river to fly it," he says, "but it wouldn't go up, and I had to roll up all the string. Then I saw a rowboat in the river so I took Billie, my dog, and got in it. Then the man came and rowed me and Billie around for about 20 minutes. I wanted mother to go, but she said she might sink the boat. She told me the dog might fall in the water, but I said I'd go in after her. It's the first time I have been on a river, except for the Chicago river.
"Friday the man that fixes the lights for the government boats is going to take me in his motor boat to see the lights, three miles up and three miles back. I like rowboating, I think it's lots of fun."
Ice Cream in Eggs
"Tell him about the eggs, Harry," Freckles' mother suggested.
"They take regular eggs and the man makes a hole about so big in it and gets all the mushy stuff out and then he fills it with ice cream or cake or something. Then when they throw them I get my wish.
"I like ice cream in the eggs they throw at me, but Farina likes whipped cream and Fatty likes cornstarch pudding. When the prop man is passing out the eggs he has to ask who is going to be hit with them.
"Then they use buckets of chocolate sauce for mud and whipped cream for soap, but I don't like whipped cream."
Never Sick
Freckles has never been sick, his mother says. He has escaped all the childhood illnesses that have afflicted other members of the "gang." He is in the third grade of the "gang" school, and in addition studies lessons sent by a correspondence school in New York. The automobile tour they are now making is helping the boy's knowledge of geography, his mother believes.
Traveling by automobile, they are able to come to many of the towns not on the regular booking routes, but where fan mail indicates the boy actor is very popular.
His dog, Billie, is not the dog that appears in the comedies. Billie is a combination Spaniel and Spitz, obtained last September from the dog orphan asylum of Irene Castle near Chicago.
In addition to appearing on the stage at the A-Muse-U, Freckles will take tickets at the door at the Friday matinee.