The story begins with the narrator describing a walk she takes with her father down to the banks of Lake Huron. They walk through town, passing the neighbor children, whom she does not know. They pass a deserted factory, a lumberyard, and junkyards. They enter a vacant lot that serves as a park where they sit and look at the water. Farther down, the narrator sees the part of the lake they used to visit before the family moved to Tuppertown from Dungannon. By the docks, instead of the farmers and their wives dressed in their Sunday best, they meet tramps, for whom her father rolls a cigarette. Her father tells her how the Great Lakes were formed, after the ice from the Ice Age retreated. The girl finds it impossible to imagine when this time existed—when dinosaurs roamed the earth. She can't even...