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- 05/18/2016
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Scraps from a Diary - 1. Scraps from a Diary, 1 of 3
Scraps from a Diary, 1 of 3
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1913
Monday, June 30th
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Famous-on-the-Meramec, near Eureka, Mo.
Dear Diary,
Well, I made it. The train ride from Union Station on the Frisco Line was twenty-six miles as the crow flies. The urban stand of steel mills and automobile factories, with their forest of belching smokestacks, gradually gave way to ever smaller warehouses, then working-class abodes, and finally trees and fields. Soon a bend in the tracks took us deep into the woods and into the picture-perfect community of Webster Groves. My travel companions told me this town was the first 'suburb' in the nation, having been settled in the early 1850s as close enough to downtown to commute by train, but far enough from city noise and grime to make it 'healthy.'
After our stop here, the train moved rather slower. The terrain came right up to the track bed – cliff faces on one side and wide-open vistas of the Meramec River far below us on the other. We ambled along, taking broad curves and passing over fords and creek beds on any number of black-timbered trestles. It was so quiet; when the train rounded some bends, the river surface sparkled in natural sequins, and tranquility seemed to settle in my heart.
My fellow Famousites were in a holiday mood. More than one of them inquired if I had packed lightly. I had indeed, mainly due to the circumstances of living out of a hotel room already, but then again I had also brought a tube of drawings.
We turned inland and small towns rolled by, after we stopped at each. Eventually, the animation of my fellow recreation-seekers jumping up, fetching bags from the luggage racks and shutting away sweaters, books, and uneaten sandwiches still in their wax paper, told me we were near.
"Next one, Miss Barrett!" my coworker from the office informed me. I stood and collected my valise and cardboard container.
Slowly, the train stopped and a flow of cheery Famousites exited.
Once on the platform, the engine whistle blew a farewell, and I looked around. A fifty-foot-long wooden shelter, rather like a cross between an enormous feed shed and a tiny Swiss chalet, had FAMOUS in raised letters on its side. After the caboose cleared this station, the sunlit embankment on the far side appeared to my eyes swaying gently in summer color – tangerine-hued daylilies were in full bloom. They climbed the angled slope from the margin of the stony right-of-way to the living wall of forest high above. The color only parted to allow the path from the resort to come down to the tracks.
Here two teams of horses reared tack-laden heads as if to welcome us.
The crowd streamed across the rail line and deposited their baggage on a small farm cart headed by two bay-colored mares before going over the grass and climbing aboard a much larger pony wagon of sorts, one powered by four handsome Clydesdales.
Now my excitement was growing. The previous times I had simply walked the mile and a half to and from the station, but for this weeklong holiday we were bound to arrive in bucolic splendor.
The clippity-clop along the gravel road was again so peaceful. Several times my eyes drifted skywards and became pierced by delicate shards of sunlight through the moving leaves. All was well with me, except perhaps I could have done with a good lunch.
The wagons pulled around to the open area which formed the resort's informal square. From here paths led off to every grouping of outbuildings, the Dance Pavilion, shelter for the tennis courts, Billiards Hall, barns and stables, and of course, the various cabins and lodges.
We disembarked and I was lucky enough to be accommodated in The Clubhouse this time.
I hefted my valise, hiked my linen skirt to ankle-height, and made my way to this pivotal feature of The Farm, right at the heart of the square. From this side the structure resembled a three-hundred-foot long, two-story-high house. The entire ground floor was deeply sheltered by a wraparound porch. Rustic columns, along with 'X' bracing below the handrails, were all done in hand-hewed logs with the bark still in place. The second story windows, with flapping curtains and shades rolled up, looked inviting and cheery between the shingled walls. The same shake tiles carried up to the hipped roof at a shallow, summertime angle.
As I mounted the porch steps, I suddenly remembered the view. The wide double doors were standing fully open, and the central hallway carried my sight through the heart of the building and out the other side. On the river side, the building was three stories high and the veranda was twelve feet off the ground. Below it, terraced lawns were held back by fieldstone walls and offered about five hundred feet of grassy play area before trails narrowed and meandered to the river's edge, about a quarter-mile and thee hundred feet lower than The Clubhouse. The verandas on the Meramec side provided some of the best views any resort-goer could dare to dream of.
"Ah, Miss Barrett!"
Startled, as I could barely see in the nether-light caused by moving abruptly from sharp sun to indoor darkness, it took me a moment to recognize who was speaking: Mr. McIntire.
I barely prevented myself from blurting out a holiday-mood-moment of crushing upset. 'What are you doing here' would have indeed perturbed the man.
Instead of saying anything, I watched him guide the young woman at his side to step forward with him.
"Miss Barrett, this is my wife Constance. Dear, this is Miss Winifred Barrett, our Integration Consultant from Pittsburgh."
"Ah, Mrs. McIntire. How do you do?"
I shuffled my bag and extended a hand.
The tall, dark-haired woman glanced at it in a way that reminded me I had been traveling most of the morning; I suppose it was a bit dusty.
"Fine, thank you." She attempted an appallingly halfhearted grin, and gripped my hand with two fingers before wiggling it briefly. Despite this lackluster engagement of physical contact, or perhaps because of it, I could only keep my attention on the unpleasant scowl on her face.
'What a fine pair,' I thought to myself with a brief glance at her Mister.
"Bauer is with us too, Miss Barrett."
McIntire's bright statement knocked me out of my reverie, and my eyes followed his hand gesture.
Eight-year-old Arnold Bauer stood on the river-side veranda with his back to us. He was attired in a new linen suit with short pants, and had one foot propped up on an 'X' brace. He was leaning forward and apparently staring out at the Meramec and trees.
Mr. McIntire continued, "We were just stepping out, to stroll down to the water's edge for our first look, as neither my wife nor the boy have been here before. Isn't that right, Constance?"
The woman was anything but demure. "Yes, dear."
In any event, Mr. McIntire looked pleased with himself.
"Well then, I won't keep you." I hinted with a smile, "Perhaps we can dine together this evening."
Constance was already threading her arm through her man's and leading him away. "Perhaps," she said with oily ease.
Mr. McIntire raised the straw hat in his hand to tip it at me, then both turned backs and walked away.
I watched for a moment longer and felt my heart surge. McIntire patted the boy's back while saying something, and Bauer craned his neck to find me. He grinned and waved, which I returned, but when he motioned to come say hello properly, Constance McIntire turned the lad's shoulders roughly and started marching their little troupe towards the steps leading to the river path.
A short time later, I was standing in my room and had unpacked. I wandered to my window, which likewise peered down to the shimmering water, and sighed. All my appetite had gone.
I went to my bed, fell upon it, and cried myself into a fitful nap.
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