St. Johnsbury Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1920-1920, 1920-07-14
RURAL LIFE
IN GOVERNOR
COOLlDCE'S HOME
Bears Taken In Spring
Traps and Deer Mix
With Cattle

/
York Times is up in Gov. Coolidge's
old home in Windsor county and des-
cribes it's rustic simplicity as follows:
Governor Calvin Coolidge of Mass
achusetts, perhaps the most modest
man who ever held public office, is
back home in Plymouth Notch, in a
region where Bruin is taken in spring
traps every year and where deer feed
with cattle in the rock pastures. AS
Mr.. Coolidge has always stunned the
limelight of who's Who," he is
likely to meet neighbors who do not
know that he has been nominated for
Vice President, and who will never
know it from his lips. 1t is a large,
wild, unconventional township in the
heart of the Green Mountains, of
, rough farms and lonely farlnhouses.
The call of Bob White is heard in
season, but never the whistle of a
locomotive, except family at times on
the wings of south wind coming up
from Ludlow, six miles away from
Tyson, a Plymouth settlement and
out post. A Plymouth man is passing
! rich on a few hundred dollars year.
All men are equal in the local view
and addressed by a shortened first
name. The Governor of Massachu-
sets is Cal. to the fathers of the ham,
let, and they must wonder why such
q quiet, no-account chap happened to
be nominated for the job of Vice
President, as they learn by the Rut-
land paper, r. F. D. Those who do
not take a paper will be told by Sum-
| ....k
mouth.
Everybody in Peacham has heard of
Colonel Harvey, and everybody in
Grafton of John Barrett. But Cal
vim Coolidge will have to be elected
Vice President to be generally known
in secluded Plymouth, which is part
ly the fault of the Governor Of Mass
achusetts.
Plymouth is mainly forest and
mountains, with small lakes, mere
mountain mirrors, strung along the
Black river. 1t is one of the most
beautiful regions in all New England.
There is a view from every hillside,
and there are more hill sides than can
be counted. 1t is paradise for walk
ers and for trout fishermen. Any one
with a bent pin can catch trout in the
Ottaqueechie before the July heats.
Killington peak looms into the sky to
lure climbers.
From it's craggy summit the White
Mountains and Lake Champlain, with
the Adirondacks tumbled beyond, can
be seen. Under the rock peak is a
spring with temperature of 80 de-
grees on a sweltering day. Calvin
Coolidge must have gone up Killing
ton by the Juggernaut Trail in his
boyhood. By following the brook un-
til it is so small it trickles through
the moss and ferns no one need get
lost. There are the Pico peaks and
| Saltash mountain for variety.
If the Governor does not want to
follow the blazed trail, he can lie
in the shade of an abandoned orch
ard, with fair chance to see deer
feeding. 1t is a restful occupation.
1t is said that he will help his father
in the haying. But in those hill pas
lures the wagon is often tilted up by
the steepness of the slope, and pitch
ing hay becomes a muscular perfor-
nance perhaps little too hard for
; a man who has to write speech ac-
cepting a nomination for Vice Presi-
dent.
If Calvin Coolidge had stayed on
the old homestead at Plymouth Notch
he would be more interested in the
price of milk and of hay per ton than
in the Peace Treaty and the Covenant
and he might have taken his turn in
going to the Legislature at Montpel-
Ter, which would have been his ut
most dignity. But he migrated and
had "faith in Massachusetts," which
he now enjoys upon others.
Whatever he is, whatever he be-.
comes, Plymouth, the old-fashloned
townships in the back country of the
Vermont hills, will have share in his
fame. The composure of its silent
places, the strength of its mountain,
forms, entered into his character, and
the simplicity of its plain folk has
been impressed upon his commerce
with men as he toiled up the trail to
renown.' Calvin Coolidge will have
other vacations, but none to be re-
membered with more satisfaction than
the return to the haunts of his boy
hood and the threshold of the old
homestead, candidate of the Republl--
can Party for Vice President and
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