Chapter VIII: Part ONE: I (3)

I didn’t want to come, dear, but I thought it was my duty. It’s
awfully hard to do your duty sometimes, and you know that I met
with opposition on all sides but I have done what I think was
right and I am glad that I did it....

With love love love
from LILLIAN.

201 N. Park St.
Shawnee, Okla.

How lightly she treats her arrival in Shawnee—not to distress Nell, or those who would inquire. It was really very different. Shawnee, twenty years ago, was rather unlike the thriving town it became later. It was two in the morning when Lillian got off on a desolate platform, and found nobody to welcome her. A light from across the street showed a lone cowboy, in chaps, and “ten-gallon hat,” curiously regarding her. It was exactly such a scene and situation as the pictures have used, time and again. She had never seen a cowboy before, and regretted that she saw this one. She does not remember whether she asked the way to the hotel, or whether it stood right there, facing the tracks. She does remember that it was an indifferent hotel, compared even with the hotels she had known on the road.

The room they showed her was probably as good as any they had, which is the best that could be said for it. She was disheartened—frightened. She wished she had listened to those persons who had told her not to come. Old trouper that she was, she had never seen so poor a room, and she had never slept, in any room, alone. She was distinctly scared. She put a chair against the door, and did not take off her clothes. Then she heard a scampering or scratching, or something—rats, no doubt. Or somebody breaking in.

A single light hung by a string from the ceiling. She did not turn it out, and she did not get into bed. She got _on_ it, on her knees, and said her prayers—several times—improving them, and inventing new ones. It was only when daylight came that she decided to risk a little sleep. It is easy to believe that she slept then till ten o’clock, as she wrote Nell.

* * * * *

Lillian thinks that her father was not in Shawnee itself (the town in that day could hardly have had a sanitarium), but that he was in Oklahoma City, some thirty-five miles distant. She did not go to see him; he came to see her—not more than once or twice. She has a mental picture of him in her uncle’s dooryard, talking to her as she sat on a horse. “Be careful, pet,” he said to her; “Don’t let that pony go too fast.” Pet had been his old name for her.

There must have been more than that, but that tricksy memory of hers let the rest go, and what it kept is perhaps sufficient. She had not seen him for years, but he looked as she had expected to find him. Apparently, his physical health was good enough; his trouble had become mental. He did not die until the following year, when she had returned to Ohio.

Lillian’s aunt and uncle persuaded her to stay in Shawnee and go to school. She could help her aunt with the housekeeping, for her board, and be company for her. Her uncle, a locomotive engineer, was away a good deal of the time.

Lillian thought well of the idea. She rather liked Shawnee, once she got used to it, especially the riding. Soon she got to know an Indian girl, who rode with her and had plenty of ponies. A wonderful girl—she rode as if she were a part of the horse. There were Indians, of course, everywhere—“civilized Indians,” whatever we may mean by that; also, cowboys and other romantic features. Then she found she could get a place in a doctor’s office—work after school and on holidays—answering the telephone and marking down appointments. For this she was to receive two dollars and a half a week—all clear.

The school part was the hardest. She had made a mistake in the beginning: When she was asked about her grade, some imp prompted her to promote herself. She was accepted at her own valuation, but keeping up to it nearly killed her. She could do it all but the mathematics. Advanced arithmetic was just a jungle of terrors, algebra an uncharted sea from which daily she must be rescued as she was going down for the third time. What with one thing and another, her punishment seemed almost more than she could bear....

Her face took on an added wistfulness; she became more than ever like a spirit. Gladys Fariss, her schoolmate, watching her come down the evening hillside, the sunset in her hair, could think only of Saint Cecilia....

Lillian, her memory blurred by her mental struggle, had no clear picture of Shawnee in later years. Fortunately, Gladys has preserved it for us.

Lillian Gish! How often have I dreamed of her—heard her musical
voice from out the purple distances. What a joy to recall her in
my classes of Shawnee High.

We were in the English class together. She especially enjoyed
literature.... I sat and watched the door each day for Lillian’s
coming from her previous class. Classmates, the teacher, the class
work, have long since passed into oblivion, but photographed in my
memory is the picture, framed by the doorway.

She had recently recovered from typhoid fever. Her hair was a
golden halo, alive with newness, about her oval face. It was worn
caught loosely back and with a black ribbon bow. At the
Junior-Senior dance we sophomores were invited guests ... Lillian
dressed in filmy white was dancing ... classically, romantically,
as with enchanted feet, an ivory statuette, in a world of chiffon
and moonlight.

She sang in the choir of the Episcopal Church. She was spiritual
and philosophic, a dreamer, quiet and far-seeing. She was a
listener, never outspoken. She was somewhat retiring, yet not
abashed. She talked very little of her life. I never remember her
mentioning the stage.

She loved the out-of-doors—the sunshine, which seemed to be a part
of her.... Upon returning a borrowed book, I shall never forget
her graciousness of manner and kindliness of words....

* * * * *

In the English class one day, we exchanged themes for a
remembrance. This theme of hers has always been my most prized
possession. It is a graphic and beautiful description of her
mother, and incidentally somewhat of herself.

“_The Face Most Familiar to Me._

During the thirty-five winters that have passed over her dear
head, she has learned to know life’s vicissitudes. Instead of
hardening her, they have made her a patient, sympathetic,
God-fearing woman, who seems to make the burdens of life easier
for those around her. She is settled and reserved in manner, and
she is to be distinguished by her low, soft voice which seems to
go with her dignity of motherhood. She is of medium height and
size. Her hair is of a golden brown, streaked with gray, and her
large, steel-gray eyes seem to see into the depths of everything.
Her nose and chin are slightly pointed and her lips are closed in
a way that suggests a smile. Her short, quick, decisive step shows
the magnanimity of her nature. It is my most sincere wish that I
may grow to be a counterpart of her.

Lillian Gish.”

March 27, 1911

* * * * *

I entered a picture-show one afternoon, some years later, and
while watching the film “The Mothering Heart,” Lillian appeared on
the screen. I instantly recognized her. Waiting for the return of
the first reel, with the listing of the cast, I was not
mistaken—her name was there.

Instilled into Lillian’s soul were some of the finest of human
qualities: loyalty, moral courage, patience. Hers was beauty of
spirit, beauty of thought, beauty of perfection, Christ-like
beauty of innocence, of sinlessness; she was unspoiled, unselfish,
meek.

She was never too busy to help, never too sad to smile, never too
weighed down with care to glimpse a higher vision. When I think of
her, it is like stepping through darkness into the light, for I
have never known a more patient, gentle and lovable character, nor
a more highly intellectual girl. Someone has said of her: “Hers is
the charm of a vanishing strain of music, the haunting lyric that
will neither satisfy, nor let you be—the fragrance of the flowers
that perfume dreams.”

In word portraiture, it would be hard to find a more exquisite picture than this school-girl memory of Lillian at fourteen.

One other bit of evidence remains out of that Shawnee school life: Lillian’s “Botany Notebook”—a thick little book, and probably one of the neatest school-girl documents in existence. Every other page of it is covered with her small, meticulous writing, descriptive of plant growth, and facing each, a page of very careful pen-drawings of the “parts”—leaves, petals, rootlets, many of them delicately, daintily tinted. She took pride in her botany book, a pride not altogether out-grown to this day. Botany had been an antidote for that poisonous arithmetic and algebra.

XVI

IT SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN

Lillian’s school-days were over. Just when she left Shawnee is not certain. She thinks she did not wait for the end of the term. She had finished the last page of her Botany Book, and believed she could struggle along without any more mathematics. Her mother in Springfield was working very hard—she could help.

And so the days of childhood had slipped by, and were gone. If we have taken a good many pages to tell of them, it is because most of the romance of life lies in its beginnings.

Mrs. Gish was truly working hard, but happily. Her employer, his health damaged by over-work, had turned over his comfortable home for her use and left Springfield for an indefinite period. Lillian remembers that her mother had taken up the rugs and laid down papers for them to walk on. To Nell:

... A porch with a large swing (big enough for four), also a barn,
and a touring car. They said we could use it if we could get
someone to drive it, but Mother said we would do fifty dollars
worth of damage to it the first time out.

If you were here I believe I could make you get fat, because
Mother sends out a quart of cream every day and all the ice-cream
we can eat!

Is she really writing about Springfield? It sounds like heaven. Nothing like that had ever happened to Lillian and Dorothy before. Ten cents’ worth of ice-cream, two kinds, chocolate and vanilla, to stir into “mashed potatoes” and spread on lady-fingers! Their entire luncheon! Had they really ever been as frugal as that?

The glory of having all the ice-cream one could eat dimmed a little. Lillian went into the store and the hours were long. To Nell she wrote:

I started this, this morning, but had to stop. You see dear I have
to be here from seven in the morning until nine at night, and
eleven on Saturday night....

Yes, I pray for you every night before I go to bed, and for Tom
also.

And then, at the end of autumn, Nell and Tom were married. In December, Lillian wrote:

Dear Brother and Sister: I am so glad you are so happy. How
beautiful to have your heart’s desire, and to know that you will
always have it.... My hours are shorter, now, from nine to six.
Then I take long walks and talk to myself. Sometimes I pretend
that you, Nell, are with me, and we have our heart talks once
more; then I wake up.... I am lonesome, or homesick.

She was not very well, not equal to the long hours. That terrible ravage of typhoid had told on her. By the first of the year she was in Massillon again, always a haven in any stress. She busied herself with the housekeeping—added to her knowledge of cookery. “I must get dressed now, and make my bread down.”

Saint Cecilia making bread! And neat! Even for a saint; to her aunt it seemed that she spent most of her spare time pressing her clothes.

Also, there were parties:

I had the club Wednesday eve—the girls seemed to enjoy themselves
and stayed until 10:30.

Which was verging on dissipation. There were dances, too. Especially the Masons’ Washington’s Birthday Ball, an incident of which is still remembered in Massillon. Aunt Emily writes:

Among the guests was a man, David Atwater by name. He must have
been seventy-five, at least. During the evening, somebody
suggested that he dance the minuet. He said he would be glad to do
it, if they could find a partner for him. No one seemed to be able
to dance it but Lillian.

We often speak of it. It was a lovely sight to see this old man,
courtly and handsome, with gray hair, and the slender, beautiful
young girl, with golden hair, perfect manner and bright, youthful
apparel, dancing the stately minuet. We called it “Winter and
Spring.”

Dorothy was at a girls’ boarding-school, in Alderson, West Virginia. Lillian to Nell, in May: “I expect to leave here the 20th for Springfield and then Mother and I will go to Alderson, then the three of us will proceed to Baltimore—thence to New York—then it depends upon the wind.”

“Upon the wind!” Again the Weaver who sits at the Loom of Circumstance may have been slightly amused—may have reflected that this being the year 1912, a tall, large-nosed man, in a moving-picture studio on Fourteenth Street, New York, would have something to say in the matter—apparently—would seem to direct, not only pictures, but numerous human destinies.

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