Life and Lillian Gish. Paine Albert Bigelow
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became a kind of game. Her aunt took a Castoria bottle and secretly half filled it with cod liver oil, which certainly was not playing the game fairly. There it stood, in plain view; even a low chair would reach it. A good swallow—saints above! What an explosion, what a spitting, what a grabbing at the poor punished tongue! Lillian was naturally very honest. Castoria had been the one temptation she could not resist. Her character was now perfect.
But she did love baked beans. She could almost never get enough of them. One day—this was in Dayton—her father took her for a walk. The drinking-saloons of Dayton, like those everywhere, had swinging doors, with free lunch inside, spread at the end of the high bar. Gish pushed open a pair of these swinging doors, perched the little girl on the high counter, close to a great platter of beans. A man wearing a white apron handed her a plate and a spoon: “Help yourself,” he said. Lillian did not know what became of her father, but by and by Grandfather McConnell appeared, rather frantic, and shocked, and took her away.
One other thing she loved—ice cream—her taste for it amounted to a passion. Her father did not sell it, but there was a place just down the street that did. When in funds, Lillian haunted the ice-cream counter. But one was so liable to be bankrupt. Reflecting on these things, she had a startling idea. One did not need money to buy things! More than once in her father’s shop she had seen a customer pick up a package, and with the magic words, “Charge it, please,” walk out. Why, of course—she could do that, too. Ten minutes later she was finishing her second dish of vanilla and chocolate mixed.
“Charge it, please.”
The young man regarded the slender little vision, who had just stowed away two saucers of his stock in trade.
“You’re Mr. Gish’s little girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Lillian, who was nothing if not polite.
“Oh, all right.”
Such a nice man, to know who she was.
On the way home, she noticed a little green cap in a window—just what she had wanted.... She stood on tiptoe, to look over the counter, at the grisly man who sold things.
“I want to buy that little green cap in the window—and charge it, please.”
“Oh—why, you’re Jim Gish’s little girl, ain’t you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He held her up to the glass, the tiny cap a green jewel on her crown of gold. And presently at home she was explaining all the wonder of her system to Mama, who also did some explaining, very gently, which put the system in a new light. Lillian was then about three.
III
ON NAT GOODWIN’S SHOULDER
In the case and circumstance of James Gish, there is an element of mystery. He had the gift of friendship, of popularity, even of prosperity … without material increase. It may be that the swinging doors were too handy to his confectionery … a spoiled child … and heredity is always to be reckoned with. It may be that he was not quite a reality … a good many of us are like that.... He closed his business in Dayton and removed his family to Baltimore, where he arranged some sort of partnership with a man named Meixner. Did he put up his experience against Meixner’s capital? Grandfather McConnell probably helped.
The firm of Gish and Meixner must have prospered, in the beginning. Mary Gish allied herself with the church of her faith, the Episcopal, in which both she and her children had been baptized. Gentle and lovely, she made friends. The children, neatly dressed, went to Sunday School. Mary Gish was one of God’s fine souls. She had a beautiful spirit, and she had exquisite taste. Whatever her circumstances—and the time was coming when they would be hard enough—she would manage, through some sacrifice, to get a scrap of dainty material, a bit of real lace, for her children’s clothing. Lillian and Dorothy were much noticed—she must not fail them. In her husband’s shop, by day and often in the evening, she nevertheless made every garment with her own hands—those tiny, marvelous hands that could draw and embroider, could put up bonbons, and gift packages, as no one else could do it—mended and laundered and ironed when the others were long abed.
The Gish children found their Sunday School an interesting place. Sometimes there were entertainments, “exhibitions” they called them, and there was an Empty Stocking Club that filled stockings for the less fortunate, at Christmas time. Lillian’s first public appearance, at one of the exhibitions, was not an entire success.
She had been chosen to speak a piece, some verses of welcome, which daily she faithfully rehearsed at home, going over them time and again, just as in later years she would prepare for her rôles. Little Dorothy, playing about the room, apparently gave slight attention, perhaps not realizing herself how the lines were being drilled into her brain.
The afternoon of the performance came, and Lillian, all white and gold, rose and spoke the lines faultlessly. There was applause, of course—and something more. Dorothy, shining like a jewel, jumped up and waved her hand to the superintendent:
“May I speak a piece, please—may I speak a piece, too?”
“Why, of course, my dear, you may; come right along.”
And Dorothy, fair and undismayed, marched to the platform, and repeated Lillian’s poem of welcome, word for word.
Poor Lillian! The audience, at first puzzled, broke into applause. Her heart was broken. She thought she had failed—recited badly. She struggled a little, and found relief in a welter of tears. Which meant grief for Dorothy, who adored Lillian—set her up as a kind of queen.
The Empty Stocking distribution was quite another matter—a real event. It was held at Ford’s Theatre, where Nat Goodwin and Maxine Elliot were playing that week, on an afternoon when there was no matinée. The big tree was set up in the center of the stage, and the stars were invited to take part. Maxine Elliot offered to fill stockings; Nat Goodwin agreed to be Santa Claus. When a particularly angelic child was needed, to perch on Nat Goodwin’s shoulder and distribute the stockings, Lillian Gish was chosen, and so made her first stage appearance—rode into the drama—on the shoulder of one of the best-known actors of the day.
Dorothy and Lillian were near enough together to be playmates. Lillian was not so good at play as Dorothy. Long afterwards she wrote:
“I envy this dear, darling Dorothy with all my heart, for she is the side of me that God left out....
“All my life I have wanted to play happily, as she does, only to find myself bad at playing. As a little girl, I was not much good at playing, and I find that, try as I will, I don’t play very convincingly today.”
They were good little girls—Lillian especially so. They had been taught to say their prayers, and would as soon have omitted their little nightgowns as their prayers. If Dorothy made a scramble of hers, while Lillian offered her petition to the last word and syllable, and overborne by some ancient melancholy prayed regularly that she might wake up in Heaven, it was only as Nature had intended them to be from the beginning.
Different as they were, then and always, they had one great interest in common: their mother. They thought her the best and most beautiful person in the world. Dorothy loved to think that she looked like her, and cried when told that Lillian “looked more like Mama” than she did.
From the beginning, almost, Lillian was inclined to be orderly, tidy. Dorothy—well, Dorothy was different. Even in that early day, when Lillian was no more than five, she carefully removed her clothes and laid them neatly together. Dorothy did not remove hers. She dropped, or flung, them off, and where they fell they remained. It was said—this was much later—that you could at any time find Dorothy by following her clothes.
By day, Lillian was inclined to sit in her little chair and reflect, while Dorothy tore about the house, escaping to the street if not watched, and perpetually had her knees bruised and scratched, from falls. She also liked to sample any food or liquids that were in handy reach, and once went on a genuine debauch. Lillian had come down with an attack of croup, her medicine being a tasty toddy, which, upon experiment, Dorothy found that she liked. Lillian was dozing, and she continued her experiment. Then she