Evening star., 1942-06-07


Here, at his island home on beauti-
full Lake Bomoseen amid the Green
Mountains, he travels around on a
'rickshaw.
In the play, he got a couple Of
penguins from Admiral Byrd to
cheer him through his GONZALES
cence. Here, on seven-acre Neshobe,
which he half OWLS and reputedly
wholly buffaloes," he has acquired
a flock of fussy pigeons-the gift OF
a friend.
Woollcott says that when he gets
around to it, he plans to have the
birds trained to carry messages TO
the mainland-a half mile away
because he learned the Importance
of quick communication with the
rest of the United States one night
last winter. That was when he
keeled over with a heart attack, and
an ambulance from Rutland was
rushed across the ice to take him
like Eliza on wheels"-to hospital
in Syracuse, N. Y.
As Thin as Clifton Webb.
For the benefit of George Bernard
Shaw, Gypsy Rose Lee, T. v. Soong
and other pen pals Of his volumi-
nous correspondence list who may
not have heard from him since his
recent illness, 1t should be quickly
reported that Woollcott is gradually
regaining his strength-but ne is
pot tho fat how of wore
Call Ethel Barrymore when YOU
get back to Boston," he told me.
"and tell her I'm as thin as Clifton
Webb!"
Miss Barrymore has an invitation
to visit Neshobe when she can make
1t. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne,
and Alice Duer Miller, the writer,
and Dorothy Parker stopped over
recently-and Katharine Cornell is
due from New York.
But Woollcott, who always has
been accustomed to social life
that might seem eXhausting to
Catherine of Russia" is looking for
ward to his real big-league season,
which always starts in June.
That's "the best Dutch treat In
Vermont" "a cooperative, pay
your own-freight vacation club with
a membership of 10, among them
Harpo Marx land he always brings
his harp, Beatrice kaufman, Neysa
-MeMein, the illustrator; Alice Duer
Miller, and Howard Dietz, movie
publicity man.
There are many associate men,
bers, like Charles Macarthur, the
writer, and his wife, Actress Helen
Hayes; Moss Hart, Thornton Wilder
the Lunts and Ruth Gordon. Once
Garbo planned visit, but the dates
got mixed or something.
Got an Audience.
Woollcott, who speaks in anec-
dotes most of the time, can reel of
legends about most Of his cronies
For instance:
"One night Macarthur came to
the island unannounced.
He had four cheeses under his
arms, a clarinet and a saxophone
and he went around to each window
yelling 'Boo!' only to discover that
everybody had gone to New York
He stayed on for some time and
when he was lying on the boat deck
and heard a girls voice from a
nearby canoe saying That's Irving
Berlin he began singing All Alone
a little out of key. He soon had
an audience of IS canoes drawn from
hotels on the mainland"
Another time, Harpo Marx solved
the Hoblem of keeping canoeing
picnickers away from the island by
stripping down to his birthday suit
and charging through the bushes
to the water front, the while he
waved his arms and yelled like q
lunatic.
There was a whole fleet of canoes
on the bank" says Woollcott, with
enough deviled egg sandwiches ano
other freight aboard to sink a canal
boat. When Harpo appeared, there
was great foundering about. Hall
the picnic lunches were lost over
board, and the deviled eggs were
floating in for weeks afterward."
Another time, Woollcott wa.
standing on the island wharf
draped in a flowing bath towel anc
wearing a straw hat half as big a.
wagon wheel. Look" came 6
voice from a canoe some distance
away, there's Marie Dressler!"
Inspirations Home.
"It was the only time" says Mr.
w, that I was mistaken for &
movie star"
But Neshobe has sheltered in.
spiration as well as highjinks
Moss Hart wrote most of "Tht
Great Waltz" while sitting in the
sun on Woollcott's wharf. Heller
Hayes went rowing in the Neshobt
Skiff, Passion Flower, one day, ane
memorized most of her part il
Twelfth Night" And Woollcot
says that one year there were fiv,
playes running simultaneously OF
Broadway that had either beer
written or rewritten the previou!
summer at his hangout.
The vacation club has a recrea.
ton house alongside Woollcott's owl
place-there are only two building.
on the little island-and there's 6
badminton court and a croque
court among the trees nearby.
But let's hop a motorboat at tn,
landing in Bomoseen and take 6
trip to the island. .. ..
Lake Bomoseen is nestled amons
the towering hills, and in the dis.
tance you can see Grandpa's Knob
topped by gigantic windmill de.
signed to furnish electric power
some day to fry eggs for the house.
wives of Central Vermont.
From the water, Neshobe is {
wilderness of pine and elm anc
maple trees, and you see no sign
of life. But when the boat put.
in at a little cove, you're almos
knocked into the water by two jet.
black dogs-a German shepherd
Duchess, and a French poodle which
Woollcott named Cocaud in homo
of the hostess of an eating place IL
France he frequented during tn
First World War.