Life and Lillian Gish (1932)

"Her First False Step" 43 meant a livelihood, with the possibility of something better, something with a home in it, not too far ahead. We shall see the effort she made in this direction, by and by, and what came of it — how the web of circumstance had its will with her, as with us all. Whatever her plan, Mary Gish saw that she must educate her children. Herself reared in a town that rather specializes in education, she had known the advantage of excellent public schools. That her children should have less than herself was a distressing thought. From little books, at every spare moment, she taught them. In every town of importance, she made it her business to learn what she could of its history, its population, its industries, and of these she told them in as interesting a form as she could invent. In the South, she told them of the war; when it was possible, showed them landmarks, often taking them on little excursions. In one city she had a special interest: Chattanooga, where an uncle, a Captain McConnell, had been killed in the battle above the clouds. When she found they had time there, she took the children for a drive up Lookout Mountain, telling them the story as they went along. And then a remarkable thing happened: they came to a tablet by the roadside, and paused to read the inscription. It was a tablet to Captain McConnell, commemorating his bravery. She did not hold them to schoolbooks. She read them story books, or allowed an actor named Strickland — "Uncle High" in the play, because he was so tall — to read to them — from "Black Beauty," which was their favorite, and Grimm's and Andersen's Fairy Tales. In a seat on the train, when all were awake at once, or during a wait in a