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Calvin Galusha became ill. The ailing man had his grandson read from the Gospel of John: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” When he died, Calvin Galusha left Calvin a mare colt and a heifer. He also deeded him “the use and yeald of a certain piece of land” on his farm, forty acres to be passed along as “absolute property” of his grandson’s children. That was the limekiln lot. The language the grandfather had chosen rendered the bequest even less valuable: one could hardly borrow against something that could not be given up. The purpose of such an inheritance, the whole family knew, was not merely to pass something on; it was to tie his grandson to the land. Coolidge’s grandmother read to him from the Bible, but also from The Green Mountain Boys , a book about Ethan Allen: “All that may be sir, but those who know Ethan Allen will laugh at the very idea of there being found a man in New England who can outdo him in feats of either strength or courage.” There were also law books lying around the house, along with other texts.
    George Washington, who had led his great-great-grandfather’s army, loomed large. One of the volumes in the Coolidge house was Washington and His Generals . In it the boy read not only of the wars but also of Washington’s time as president. Washington had “made his government steady and respected abroad.” But he had also served reluctantly; after two terms the first president had seen it unfit to stay on; he had after all, the book said, “pined for the rest of a quiet home.”
    The adults in Plymouth worked to pass on to the children the skills for the eternal combat with the landscape. Calvin’s father could build a cabinet; Calvin also made his own. His grandmother wove fabric, and the women made patchwork quilts; Calvin, at age ten, stitched a quilt top of Tumbling Blocks, a dauntingly sophisticated pattern. His father got the hay in; Calvin raked. His mother tended the lilac bed. The boy could whittle and knew every tree, the mountain ash, the plum, and the lilac bush around his house. The boy’s father noted with relief that Coolidge was diligent at sugaring and much later told a reporter proudly that Coolidge could get “more sap out of a maple tree than the other boys around here.”
    Around the time the children began school, Victoria weakened. Her family often found her abed with an unmentioned illness—consumption, probably. She stayed home from prayer sessions. Religious groups came to her; itinerant ministers stayed at the house. She kept busy with her hands and knit a counterpane for Calvin and his future bride, an emblem of her hope for her son. That left Coolidge and his sister with their father and grandparents, to follow them about and observe the town. Even when small, the boy saw politics firsthand: at town meetings, it was his father who worked or spoke; Calvin sold apples and popcorn at the meetings, as his father had before him. The villagers noticed early that Calvin was always quiet; when someone played the violin, he would not dance, but was always observant. Though by party Plymouth Notch was Republican, it was also intensely democratic; one of the town elders was a Democrat and served as moderator. Some of the documents said, “To act on the following documents, viz.,” the old Latin abbreviation for videlicet , which meant “that is to say.” But the elder always read, “to act on the following questions, vizley” and so was known, with great affection, as Old Vizley. The smallest unit of government was the school district, and much of what went on in Plymouth focused on that: the room and board for teachers were subject to bid, and the family with the lowest bid got the contract. The amount, Coolidge later remembered, tended to hang around $1.25 for two weeks in winter and 50 cents for the same period in summer. It was during his childhood that