Granting this—where was there any society? To which the older generation answered, indignantly, that nowhere in the United States of America HAD there existed such society, elegance and grandeur as at the summer colony on Birge’s Lake, and, if those days were contemporary with Abigail Clergy’s great sorrow, what mattered it? The aroma of past grandeur lingers long, and even yet the stately mansions with endless turrets and towers stood about the shores of the lake causing one to respect their closed shutters.
To this the younger generation, although protesting that the society was entirely a memory, had no reply. For the older generation had spoken the truth. About the perfect little lake, an emerald in its coloring and flanked by pungent pine woods and an amphitheater of tiny hills, some half a century before, had been built the summer homes of the oldest of America’s aristocracy. In those days when Birge’s Corners was but a post office and a few stray dogs, the lake had been an oasis for the tired rich; here families came to grow tanned and rosy, while love affairs ripened and wedding bells were listened for and the elders sat back in pleased approval. The rich owned the lake, so the saying went—but Daniel Birge owned the Corners and the rich! Daniel Birge was steward to the rich. If they desired an improvement in the way of carriage sheds or certain grades of merchandise which were daily necessities, Daniel Birge, founder of Birge’s Corners, saw to it that it was accomplished. The lake had been named for his great-great-grandfather, who discovered it, and, when the richest of the rich suggested that “Birge’s Lake” was a trifle commonplace name for such a bit of paradise—“Fairy Lake” would be more appropriate—they met their Waterloo. This was the only thing Daniel Birge refused the rich—the re-naming of the little lake.
“Great-great-grandpap found it, and it’ll keep his name,” was all he said.
And because Dan Birge “had a way with him”—even as his grandson, the present Dan Birge, had a “way with him”—the summer colony never questioned the matter again. Birge’s Lake and Birge’s Corners were christened for eternity.
Meanwhile, middle class inhabitants came to live at the Corners, houses multiplied from season to season, the Hotel Button came into existence, as did rival blacksmiths’ shops and Submit Curler’s store. Even a travelling dentist took rooms at Betsey Pilrig’s for every Thursday, and the Methodist and Baptist churches ran a race as to the height of their steeples.
Time soon enough changed the ways and the likings of the rich. The old homes came to be rented out or closed for two and three years at a time. Some were put on the market, but no one ever bought them. Well-built mansions they were, with twenty and thirty rooms and grounds extending back for half an acre, stables with rooms for the coachman’s family, private boat landings, romantic rustic arbors where tea used to be served, and summer houses with lacey latticework where débutantes gathered to read Tennyson and their own love letters.
Birge’s Corners built up so rapidly that the decline of Birge’s Lake was scarcely noticed. One by one the families stopped coming to the lake for the summer. There were newer, more luxurious or more isolated places—their younger generation complained of the lack of thrilling events. The “ghost village” it was truthfully called, house after house lying idle, save for stray sparrows or squirrels who burrowed snugly in the eaves.
“Ali Baba”—Joshua Maples in writing—was made general caretaker. One by one the families left him in charge of the ghost mansions. He knew just which room it was where the Confederate captain married the Boston belle, and how many roses had been used in the decorations. He could tell the exact spot in the Luddington house where young Luddington had shot himself—the night before his theft of bank funds should be made public.
A stranger could not point at any of the deserted mansions but what Ali Baba, taking off his tattered hat and scratching his white, curly head philosophically, would summon a word picture of the past, when the curly head had been black and the wrinkled face smooth and boyish.
“They say society has all gone to live at Newport in the summer,” Ali Baba would summarize. “Well, mebbe they has. All I know is this—that right here at Birge’s Lake from 1860 to 1890—for nigh thirty years, there wasn’t no place in the land that could boast of entertaining any finer. We’ve had three presidents come fishing—right there by that landing—and Patti sang ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ in that big house over there—the one with the gables. I passed the punch afterwards—yes, sir, right up to time I was, in a new dress suit Major McAndrews bought me. I never heard nobody sing as she did—and the wimmen said her pink satin train was six feet long. Well, I’ll take that back—I have heard it sung as good and mebbe better by a girl right in this village—a nightingale girl named Thurley Precore.