“Gladys says, ‘Your education is never complete ‘til you’ve spent a season at the Shawmut Inn.’ Graduates of Shawmut Inn reciprocate Gladys’ enthusiasm and affection. Kirk Damborg who worked there fourteen years ago drops by Gladys’ house once in a while. Kirk worked three or four summers when Shawmut still had dorms for employees. Both of them can remember how Gladys used to wake up all the kids.
‘I’d g’ down the hall bangin’ on doors first one, second, then th’ other, ya know. Get ‘em all out a bed and you’d hear ‘em holler, ‘Here comes Glad,’ the first door I’d bang on.
‘Glad’s here,’ they’d say. ‘And it would go all over the dorm.’
‘Everybody’d be up, so the next door you’d hit, they’d say, ‘I’m awake.’
‘And I’d say, ‘You be sure ‘n stay that way.’
‘And so Mrs. Small (owner of the Shawmut) would say, ‘God, I never saw these kids. They all get outa bed on time lately, what struck ‘em?’
‘But nobody ever let on. They’d all be grinnin’ t’ themselves that I was the character that was runnin’ through the dorm every mornin’ on the way int’ work t’ wake ‘em all up.’”