fitted out with woodsheds, porches, carports, becoming immobile homes over time; but farther on than that, on the steps of Mount Merrow and Mount Whirligig, are the oldest settlements, clusters of bungalows and cabins, summer camps and boardinghouses dating from the Depression and before, beloved places cheerfully cheek-by-jowl around the shores of aging lakelets or strung along the river's banks wherever it widens momentarily; places that have names on boards over their doors, and whitewashed rocks bordering their brief front walks, flamingos and windmills and jungle gyms and seesaws arrayed around them.
Rosie called the general style of these encampments Tacky Tuckaway; their smallness had intrigued her as a child, their smallness and the neighborliness of their tiny lots, the noise their children and dogs and picnicking made. Her own child-life was lived on a larger scale, more widely spaced, less loud: these places had seemed child-sized to her. And her affection remained. She drove slowly through them on her way to The Woods or to Val's Faraway Lodge, never failing to notice something new and astonishing. Someone had bordered his pat of pine-needle-strewn ground with a cement wall, a turret at each corner, all stuck full of bits of colored glass, bottle bottoms, shiny scraps of this and that. The working-class people who came to vacation here, heavy-bellied men from Conurbana, couldn't rest, it seemed, they had to work; they built cement walls and stuck glass in them, they made carports and barbecue pits and trimmed their minute porches with fretwork. Or they had once anyway. More and more Rosie noticed empty cabins, camps for sale. Where did they go now instead, she wondered. Daze-Aweigh, what could that mean. Daze-Aweigh was 4 Sale. Oh: “days away.” She drove past the Here You Are grocery store and the bait store, spelled Bate—Don't you know how to spell “bait,” mister, Sure I do but I always get a lot of folks come in to the store just to tell me how; these two stores and a squat cement-block church were all there was to Shadowland, a failed township that had once been laid out around these glens, centering on this crossroads.
Rosie paused at the crossroads. On ahead and down to the river was Val's; Rosie had wanted to go see Val, she had brought her chart with her for Val to look at and give advice, and she might have liked a quick drink too. She glanced at her watch. No. She turned left, and in a short time passed through a gateway, huge wooden posts roughly hewn, and onto a private road that led up the side of Mount Whirligig. The road was bordered with heavy wooden fencing; now and again trails and small roads led away, marked with finger boards directing walkers to the Grotto, the Falls, the Serpentine. At the end of the road, amid tended plantings, was a large wooden sign, rough handiwork but varnished and authoritative, that said THE WOODS CENTER FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY. A circular drive swept around this sign leading to the Center itself.
The Woods is a long, many-angled, four-story frame place, painted white, with fieldstone chimneys and deep verandas. It was built after World War I as a resort, the sort of place middle-class families would come to for a summer holiday in the mountains, to breathe healthful piny air and eat huge communal meals at long tables, chicken every Sunday, and sit on wicker chairs along the verandas or play bridge in the wide lounges; fireworks on the Fourth, and a hayride at season's end. It was never fancy; there were lace curtains in the rooms, but iron bedsteads and no rugs, and the toilet was down the hall. In the twenties a three-hole golf course was made, and some tennis courts put in. Evening entertainment was an upright piano with rolls. Despite a loyal though aging clientele, The Woods started to seem not much fun by the next war, and declined; Rosie remembered the dining room in the fifties, shabby and prisonlike, the waitresses ancient. She thought it must have been
Rosie called the general style of these encampments Tacky Tuckaway; their smallness had intrigued her as a child, their smallness and the neighborliness of their tiny lots, the noise their children and dogs and picnicking made. Her own child-life was lived on a larger scale, more widely spaced, less loud: these places had seemed child-sized to her. And her affection remained. She drove slowly through them on her way to The Woods or to Val's Faraway Lodge, never failing to notice something new and astonishing. Someone had bordered his pat of pine-needle-strewn ground with a cement wall, a turret at each corner, all stuck full of bits of colored glass, bottle bottoms, shiny scraps of this and that. The working-class people who came to vacation here, heavy-bellied men from Conurbana, couldn't rest, it seemed, they had to work; they built cement walls and stuck glass in them, they made carports and barbecue pits and trimmed their minute porches with fretwork. Or they had once anyway. More and more Rosie noticed empty cabins, camps for sale. Where did they go now instead, she wondered. Daze-Aweigh, what could that mean. Daze-Aweigh was 4 Sale. Oh: “days away.” She drove past the Here You Are grocery store and the bait store, spelled Bate—Don't you know how to spell “bait,” mister, Sure I do but I always get a lot of folks come in to the store just to tell me how; these two stores and a squat cement-block church were all there was to Shadowland, a failed township that had once been laid out around these glens, centering on this crossroads.
Rosie paused at the crossroads. On ahead and down to the river was Val's; Rosie had wanted to go see Val, she had brought her chart with her for Val to look at and give advice, and she might have liked a quick drink too. She glanced at her watch. No. She turned left, and in a short time passed through a gateway, huge wooden posts roughly hewn, and onto a private road that led up the side of Mount Whirligig. The road was bordered with heavy wooden fencing; now and again trails and small roads led away, marked with finger boards directing walkers to the Grotto, the Falls, the Serpentine. At the end of the road, amid tended plantings, was a large wooden sign, rough handiwork but varnished and authoritative, that said THE WOODS CENTER FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY. A circular drive swept around this sign leading to the Center itself.
The Woods is a long, many-angled, four-story frame place, painted white, with fieldstone chimneys and deep verandas. It was built after World War I as a resort, the sort of place middle-class families would come to for a summer holiday in the mountains, to breathe healthful piny air and eat huge communal meals at long tables, chicken every Sunday, and sit on wicker chairs along the verandas or play bridge in the wide lounges; fireworks on the Fourth, and a hayride at season's end. It was never fancy; there were lace curtains in the rooms, but iron bedsteads and no rugs, and the toilet was down the hall. In the twenties a three-hole golf course was made, and some tennis courts put in. Evening entertainment was an upright piano with rolls. Despite a loyal though aging clientele, The Woods started to seem not much fun by the next war, and declined; Rosie remembered the dining room in the fifties, shabby and prisonlike, the waitresses ancient. She thought it must have been
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