t it is recess, and the children are playing. Soon young
Calvin is pointed out and we try to get acquainted with him, but he is
silent and bashful. From his teacher we learn that he has few friends
and no enemies. Unlike the average freckled, red-headed boy, he is
rarely teased and never gets into a fight. He is so modest and minds
his own business so well, that the other pupils are inclined to leave
him by himself. Rarely does he play any games--not even marbles or
baseball. Later in life he bought a pair of skates, but was never
known to wear them but once.

Young Calvin had no brothers and only one sister, Abigail, who died
when she was fifteen. His mother also died when he was a lad of
twelve, but his stepmother was always very kind to him. His own
mother, however, was his idol and even to this day, President Coolidge
carries in one of his pockets a gun metal case that holds a picture of
his mother. Calvin's father, in speaking of his son, says that he was
always a great hand to work. He continues, "When Calvin was a boy on
the farm, if I was going away and there was anything I wanted him to
do, I would tell him; but when I came back, I never thought of going
to see whether it had been done. I knew it was done."

The following incident shows that he could not bear to leave his work
undone. "One night an aunt who was sleeping in the house heard a
strange noise in the kitchen. Hurriedly she put on her kimona, and
went downstairs to see what the commotion might be. There she found
little Calvin filling the wood box, for he had forgotten to do so the
night before. She tried to persuade him to wait until morning, but he
would not return to bed until the job was finished, declaring that he
could sleep better if the wood box were filled."

No doubt, were we to ask President Coolidge to recall some of his
boyhood experiences on the farm, he would tell us how he slid off the
old, white mare and broke his arm so badly that the bone stuck out
through the flesh, and how long it took to bring the doctor eleven
miles over the rough road from Ludlow to set it. Or, he might tell us
about the wall-eyed cow that the hired man hit with a milking stool
and so frightened her that he could never milk her again. Alas, for
Calvin; this meant that he had to get up at five o'clock each morning
to help with the milking.

After completing his work in the country school, Calvin attended the
Black River Academy in Ludlow where he graduated a