LINCOLN – Margaret Gary used to fall asleep to the sound of the Lincoln Pulp and Paper Co.

Like city-dwellers who become comfortable with the white noise of traffic around them, Gary was dependent on the crickety sounds of the paper machines to soothe her to slumber.

“I would lay back and listen to them,” she said, pointing out the short distance between her house and the mill’s front gate, both on Katahdin Street.

For nearly six months, it’s been what she calls too quiet – and lonesome – in her neighborhood.

Gary, who had been part of the security detail at the mill for more than nine years, was working on Jan. 16, the day the mill officially was turned off.

Every employee had to pass by security’s blue-painted shack after they walked through the gate.

She said she couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.

“We didn’t know anything about it until some of the workers came out and said they were shutting down,” Gary said last week, standing at her security post. “We thought it was just for maintenance, but they said, ‘No, they’re shutting down.’ It was devastating. The looks on their faces. It was like my family was leaving me. I’ve known these people for nine years and all of a sudden they up and leave.”

After the shutdown, Gary became a member of what was called “the skeleton crew” – about 20 to 40 people who either were instructed to protect the machinery from breakdowns that can occur when the machines are not operational or were ordered to provide security at the mill site.

Eventually, money ran out to pay the machine workers. All that was left was a security crew of eight people.

“It’s been awful lonesome, especially when you look in there at night and see two pickups,” she said. “It was just me and my Rover.”

On one of those eerily quiet days last January, about a week after the shutdown, Gary was struck with the fact that the mill would not be reopening soon.

From her security post at the mill’s Katahdin Street gate, Gary looked across the lot, about a football-field’s length away, to a window in the wood room. There sat a cat that she says is too independent to become housebound but too insecure to be left alone – especially with the foxes and bobcats that sometimes travel outside the mill’s fences.

“People in the wood room took care of him,” Gary said. “When they left he just was so lonesome. He sat in that window. We pooled our money together and bought him some food and kept him going. Now he’s venturing down and talking to us. We just call him the ‘wood room cat.'”

Over the last six months, Gary saw many prospective buyers walk in and out of the mill. She said she would ask herself, “Is this going to be the deal?”

“Then it would fall through,” she said. “The next time one would come around, they’d be hyped up. It’s been up and down, up and down.”

Jeff Gifford, a millworker who did everything from hauling gar-bage to checking the machines during the shutdown, also noticed the prospective buyers as they came through the mill.

Keith Van Scotter and John Wissmann, though, stood out, said Gifford, who also serves as chairman of the Town Council.

“Keith and John came in on a Friday afternoon and stayed until 10:30 p.m.,” Gifford said. “These guys knew what was going on.”

“He doesn’t want to be called ‘mister,'” added Gary. “He wants to be called ‘Keith.'”

Crews working on the boiler wave as they pass Gary in her security post. She said she cannot believe they’re back to work.

“They all got families,” she said. “They’ve all got a lot of years in here. This is their home. They spent as much time in here as they did at their home. I’m glad to get them back. To see the looks on them guys’ faces when they walk through [the gate] now, it’s 100 percent turnaround from when they walked out the last time. I think it’s just wonderful, wonderful that they’re back.”

Today, Gary’s sleep-aid starts up again. She’s going to have to get used to the noise.

She already is used to the telephone ringing at her security post.

“The phone hasn’t rang for a long time,” she said as she reached for it. “This is nice. Hello, this is Margaret at security …”