together. There were bright points if you looked for them. Coolidge’s work in mathematics was good enough for him to move up a level. Though he was not chosen to speak at the freshman dinner, his recitations in class didn’t go too badly. Politics somehow afforded distraction from loneliness. The local Republicans were beginning to catch his eye. He saw that they and other parties advertised; even college boys hung out signs reading “Womens’ Rights and Free Cider” or “Free Silver and Non Compulsory Church”—an appealing idea at a school where chapel was mandatory. His stepmother kindly sent him graham crackers and jelly, which he shared with his roommate, Alfred Turner; together he and Turner even decorated, putting up a curtain at the door to insulate their room. There was even the possibility, but just that, of a fraternity membership; a senior, Charles Stebbins, asked if he would join a new fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, which was establishing a chapter. Coolidge, timid, offered one of his ambivalent answers: “I don’t know but I would.” The possibility faded. Still, he determined that he would loyally follow Amherst sports and began to report scores and stories of games back to his father. Somehow the dread second half of freshman year finished. He had not succeeded, but he had not failed; five or six men left the college, but he was not one of them.
Though Coolidge was an ouden at school, he was somebody at home, and that summer Plymouth welcomed him back and did its part to cheer up its native son. Dell Ward, an old friend, was there waiting for him; the two plotted to steal the old cannon back from Plymouth Union, where it had been for the year, and succeeded, at 3:00 A.M. , in moving the weapon and its carriage up the hill to their own village. His fellow villagers invited him to speak, another boost, and Coolidge took the challenge of oratory seriously, preparing a rousing speech: “Roll on America! Roll on, bearing rich blessings with o’erflowering hand through the endless ages of all eternity.” The cannon he carefully dismantled and hid under his grandmother Moor’s bed.
Back in the autumn, he found Trott’s discombobulated, with twenty-six boarders, often strangers, eating at different times; he still sometimes had to eat alone. He decided to move to shift his meal place. It didn’t hurt matters that the price was cheaper: $3.50 a week instead of $3.75. The proprietors of the new place were black: “They are coons,” he wrote in the language of the day. He wrote also, in regard to football, that “our best man of last year” was now playing football for Harvard, advantaging Harvard. “He is a negro by the name of Lewis.” This was William Lewis, who was now studying law at Harvard. Calvin was endeavoring to talk more of “we” and “us” to try to find ways into the community.
But the community was not ready for him. Beyond Turner, his roommate, and a few others, it was still hard to make contact. He noticed a lack of resilience in himself. Other students, such as Dwight Morrow, seemed to be able to turn circumstances to their own favor in a way Calvin could not. When he compared his Amherst progress with theirs, he fell short. Coolidge wrote home asking for money: there was scarcely a letter to Plymouth, in fact, that did not contain some kind of request for cash: “I think I forgot to mention in my last letter the gymnasium uniform that I have to get, each man is measured the first of the term and they send off and get the uniforms made, they are eleven dollars.”
Morrow, by contrast, had taken on the task of finding cash himself, in part by borrowing from his soldier brother, in part through tutoring in math, and, eventually, by winning cash prizes. What money Morrow took from his father he considered not a gift but rather a loan, borrowed “off Papa.” Coolidge’s own arm had healed well enough from a boyhood break, and he stood, as Hitchcock had noted, slightly above
Though Coolidge was an ouden at school, he was somebody at home, and that summer Plymouth welcomed him back and did its part to cheer up its native son. Dell Ward, an old friend, was there waiting for him; the two plotted to steal the old cannon back from Plymouth Union, where it had been for the year, and succeeded, at 3:00 A.M. , in moving the weapon and its carriage up the hill to their own village. His fellow villagers invited him to speak, another boost, and Coolidge took the challenge of oratory seriously, preparing a rousing speech: “Roll on America! Roll on, bearing rich blessings with o’erflowering hand through the endless ages of all eternity.” The cannon he carefully dismantled and hid under his grandmother Moor’s bed.
Back in the autumn, he found Trott’s discombobulated, with twenty-six boarders, often strangers, eating at different times; he still sometimes had to eat alone. He decided to move to shift his meal place. It didn’t hurt matters that the price was cheaper: $3.50 a week instead of $3.75. The proprietors of the new place were black: “They are coons,” he wrote in the language of the day. He wrote also, in regard to football, that “our best man of last year” was now playing football for Harvard, advantaging Harvard. “He is a negro by the name of Lewis.” This was William Lewis, who was now studying law at Harvard. Calvin was endeavoring to talk more of “we” and “us” to try to find ways into the community.
But the community was not ready for him. Beyond Turner, his roommate, and a few others, it was still hard to make contact. He noticed a lack of resilience in himself. Other students, such as Dwight Morrow, seemed to be able to turn circumstances to their own favor in a way Calvin could not. When he compared his Amherst progress with theirs, he fell short. Coolidge wrote home asking for money: there was scarcely a letter to Plymouth, in fact, that did not contain some kind of request for cash: “I think I forgot to mention in my last letter the gymnasium uniform that I have to get, each man is measured the first of the term and they send off and get the uniforms made, they are eleven dollars.”
Morrow, by contrast, had taken on the task of finding cash himself, in part by borrowing from his soldier brother, in part through tutoring in math, and, eventually, by winning cash prizes. What money Morrow took from his father he considered not a gift but rather a loan, borrowed “off Papa.” Coolidge’s own arm had healed well enough from a boyhood break, and he stood, as Hitchcock had noted, slightly above
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