The Coolidge Week

P:People bustled about, put valises in automobiles, despatched trunks. President and Mrs. Coolidge boarded a special train leaving the Adirondacks at 8 a. m., sat on the observation car drinking in the fresh air, scenery, plaudits. At Burlington, Vt., Mrs. Coolidge's girlhood home, the President graciously yielded the spotlight to his wife, who was surrounded by a merry group of girls from the University of Vermont, the First Lady's Alma Mater. "Hello, Sally," she said. "Why, Mary, is this your boy?" All then, including Mrs. Coolidge, joined in a hearty rendition of "Champlain," the U. of V. college song, after which rustic Attorney General Sargent joined the party.

P: The train stopped at Ludlow, where the President and his wife entered an automobile to drive out to Plymouth. On the way, their car alone turned aside. Mr and Mrs. Coolidge got out, climbed to the little cemetery on the hill, bowed silently over the graves of son Calvin Jr. and of the President's mother and father.

P: The President and his wife walked up to their old homestead, where they were warmly greeted by the housekeeper, Aunt Aurora Pierce. After a light supper at candlelight, they sat silently on the porch as the sun sank behind beloved Vermont hills. Now and again old-timers would stop in to pass the time of day, whereupon the President would rise, shake hands, sit again--rock-rock, rock-rock. . . .

P: "Wall, n-a-ow, Cal's a candidate sure enough--he's fixing up his fences," jested the village quipster as frantic cameramen from behind the deadline laid by secret service men watched the shirt-sleeved President uprooting rotten posts, nailing industriously. Later Head Secret Serviceman Dick Jervis was sent to market for victuals. As he was getting into his car Mrs. Coolidge called "Oh, Mr. Jervis, don't forget to get two pounds of string beans."

P: Dancers pirouetted in a Fisher's Hornpipe to the lilting strains of "Docey do two, docey do four" whanged out on a fiddle wielded by John Wilder, the President's 80-year-old uncle. Rustics from miles around assembled in the hall over Miss Florence Cilly's general store, looked the President over, obviously pleased that he had not become "dandified" since becoming an Olympus-dweller. Asked to dance, Mr. Coolidge refused. He has never danced.

P: That night many a white-clad nine-year-old girl from the nearby Lochearn Girls' Camp dressed in bloomers and middy blouses came over to the Coolidge house and piped in childish tenors. "Here's to Mrs. Coolidge, Mrs.Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge Here's to Mrs. Coolidge, she's with us today! God bless her, we love her! God bless her, we love her! Here's to Mrs. Coolidge, she's with its today!"

P: The next day it rained. The President, not displeased, spent hours thumbing reference books on rubber this-and-that, for Harvey S. Firestone Jr., son of the tire-man, was to present his Philippine report on the morrow.

P: Linn Cady, who works the Coolidge farm at Plymouth on shares with the President (it is assessed at $700), seemed more concerned with the chores than the first officer of the realm. Once or twice he puckered his nose when he noticed Mr. Coolidge stoop to pick up something, then walk to a large pile of junk, old iron, odds and ends, between the house and the barn. It developed that the President had salvaged some rusty wire nails.

P:The Supreme Council of the vigilant Knights of Columbus viewed with alarm Mexican officials who had "insulted, degraded and expelled" U. S. citizens; called upon President Coolidge to put an end to "this ignominious contempt.

Spokesman Coolidge told the press that he saw no cause for intervention at present, that he would keep hands off unless something serious happened.

P: The oldtime wooden covered bridge is a U. S. institution. New England in particular abounds with specimens. Narrow, dark, rickety, they stand indefinitely; they vex the speedy motorist, he is obliged to slow up and turn on his lights. The mechanistic 20th century has been unable to figure out exactly why these bridges have covers. Girls from Northampton have asked youths from New Haven and Cambridge: "Why?" and been told that it was to prevent horses from becoming frightened and jumping in the river.

But last week all illusions were shattered when President Coolidge informed the press that wooden bridges had covers merely to protect the lower timbers from the elements which would rot them. Such bridges will frequently outlast a succession of iron bridges. The President told of a wooden covered span near Springfield, Mass., which has been standing more than a century.

P: Six kerosene lamps shed garish glimmer on yellow pine walls, rows of stolid Vermonters, a white-surpliced young rector. The President and his wife came down the lane, down the aisle, sat down. Few looked at them. . . . The rector spoke, modernistically, then made an appeal for money for new hymnals, since the old ones had been stolen by souvenir-seekers. The President gazed vaguely at his 80-year-old uncle, John Wilder, singing lustily in the chorus in spite of the fact that he had fiddled for dancers far into the night before. P:While the President and Mrs. Coolidge tour hither, thither, architects and workmen swarm about the White House, make repairs. A new roadway is to be completed in the White House grounds, and an electric elevator installed in place of the old lift once allegedly used by Kermit and Archie to bring ponies to their bedrooms.

P: The President returned from rustic Vermont to sylvan White Pine Camp. Aboard his special train, he forcibly but with dignity gave the impression of being displeased with aged M. Clemenceau's French debt comments.