Burt's Turkey Coop and the Coolidge Mansion

Tine and Rubob took a short walk yesterday, up No Outlet Lane so Tine could see where old John Coolidge once lived.

"In the wintertime, you can just make out the house in the trees," Tine told Rubob. "It's right over there. How about that?"

Rubob looked over to where Tine was pointing, across Diamond Glen to where a Georgian brick mansion was just visible in the woods on the hilltop.



"That's where he lived, Rubob -- John Coolidge himself, son of Calvin," Tine said. "He started a business in the next town over, making business forms. What an enterprising soul he was, to be sure -- just like his dad. Then he moved back to his father's place in Vermont and ran the cheese factory there."

Rubob gazed upon the distant site with wonder, as Tine had hoped he would.

"I wouldn't mind making business forms myself, if I had a head for such things," Tine said. "We could build a grand mansion, and we'd be the folks who live on the hill."

As they made their way down No Outlet Lane, Tine sang to herself:

"Someday we'll build a home on a hilltop high
You and I, a shiny and new
Cottage that two can fill,
And we'll be pleased to be called
The folks who live on the hill.

"Someday we may be adding a wing or two
A thing or two;
We will make changes, as any family will,
But we will always be called
The folks who live on the hill."

"I think I'd prefer a cottage to a mansion, Rubob," Tine said as they passed a tiny house on Mad Hatter's Lane. "It'd be just the thing for us."



"Burt of Burt's Bees was content with just a turkey coop," Rubob said. "Maybe we could live in a turkey coop. "

Tine looked behind a house at what might make a nice turkey coop.



"Who's Burt when he's at home, Rubob?" Tine asked.

"Burt of Burt's Bees -- I told you that," Rubob said. "There was a story in Sunday's paper about him. In the early 80s, a woman was hitchhiking in Maine, and Burt was driving by and picked her up. She was down on her luck, and she moved in with him. He lived in a turkey coop and tended beehives. From those humble beginnings, he and she started a business that grew into Burt's Bees."

"Never heard of them, Rubob," Tine said.

"You know -- all-natural lip balm and stuff. It's twice as expensive as ChapStick because it's all natural," Rubob replied.

"Anyway," Rubob continued, "she bought out the business in the late 90s for some nominal amount, and the two parted ways. Then she sold it to Clorox for $300 million. She gave Burt $4 million, but he still lives in his turkey coop. He likes it there, Tine."


Burt

"He would -- it'd be ideal for us, too, I'll be bound," Tine said, borrowing an expression of Rubob's.

"Burt said, somewhat foolishly, 'The magic of living life for me is, and always has been, the magic of living on the land, not in the magic of money,'" Rubob said.

"That doesn't sound foolish to me," Tine replied. "That sounds like a good philosophy to live by."

She was backtracking now, heading up Diamond Glen toward the driveway leading to old man Coolidge's estate. Rubob wasn't pleased by this because he was eager to return home, where he had a pumpkin pie in the oven. Tine, however, knew exactly how many minutes were left until the pie was ready.

"We've never been up here, Rubob," she said.



"There it is," Tine said. "Just think of the sights on our walks. And yet John Coolidge's father, thirtieth president of the United States, said -- well you can guess what he said about walking, Rubob."

"I have no idea, Tine."

"Well he said, 'Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.'"

"We have to get going, Tine," Rubob said. "We have to get back home."

"That's exactly what Calvin Coolidge would have said," Tine replied. "'Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.' He said, that, too. You and Calvin Coolidge would have been fast friends."

"It's an apartment building," Rubob said, looking at the old Coolidge home.

"What makes you say that?" Tine asked. "It's a mansion."

"It has two front doors," Rubob said.



"The second door is for a mother-in-law flat, Rubob. Maybe Grace Coolidge, wife of Calvin, lives there. It's certainly not an apartment house."

"I think you're wrong about that," Rubob said.

"Then how come it has only one address out front? There's the house number: No. 31. What kind of apartment house has one address and one newspaper box, Rubob? It's a mansion with an extra flat above the garage, perhaps for the servants. Calvin and John Coolidge wouldn't approve of their home being turned into an apartment house. They were staunch Republicans who fought against the overreaching New Deal, you know."



"The house is another historic desecration, I'm afraid," Rubob said. "The Coolidge homestead has been divided into comfortable apartments.

"Like Dr. Zhivago's house after the Revolution -- divided up for 13 families. Poor old John Coolidge -- he'd rue the day," Tine said.

"The evidence was right before your eyes: two front doors," Rubob said. "Facts and evidence, Tine: That's what you must go by."

"No. 31," Rubob. "That's the plain fact of the matter. A pleasant family, the folks who live on the hill, live here, and they're quite happy. I have a hunch they run a small business, perhaps making business forms. 'The chief business of the American people is business.' Calvin Coolidge said that, and he knew what he was talking about."

"You can't rely on hunches, Tine, especially in business," said Rubob, a gentleman farmer.

"I'm relying on my powers of observation and deduction," Tine replied. "Take this sign, for instance," she said, pointing to a new bright yellow "15 MPH" road sign on Diamond Glen. "It wasn't here yesterday. They put it up after the accident last night."



"What accident last night?" Rubob asked.

"There was an accident last night, when you were out. There were fire engines, police-cops, the works -- even a helicopter overhead." (Tine always refers respectfully to the police as "police-cops.")

"A helicopter," Rubob asked, looking doubtfully at Tine. "A helicopter couldn't land here."

"It was circling overhead," Tine said. "It didn't land."

"There is glass here by the side of the road," Rubob observed -- "and it is windshield glass. And it's not covered up by the snow."

"You see -- exactly what I said!" Tine replied. "You can see that the road's been swept here. There was an accident here, and last night!"

"But that doesn't mean that the sign is new -- and it isn't new," Rubob stated.

"It wasn't here yesterday, and now it's here this afternoon," Tine said. "One must believe the evidence of one's senses. We can only deduce that they put it in after the accident, probably this morning. It'll slow down the scofflaws. Very sensible."

"Then why aren't there any footprints around it in the snow?" Rubob asked. "How was the sign put in?"

"A post hole digger," Tine offered. "Post hole diggers don't leave footprints."

"No, Tine, there'd be footprints -- lots of footprints. And look, there are none. The snow hasn't been touched. The power of deduction, you see. Science, based on observable fact, has triumphed over intuition once again."

"Well, I declare," Tine thought to herself. "Still, I don't think the Coolidges would have converted their home into an apartment house," she said with finality.

As they turned the corner at the bottom of Diamond Glen, Tine was regarded menacingly by a vicious dog much larger than herself.



"It's a dangerous neighborhood, this post-Coolidge neighborhood," Tine thought. "These apartment dwellers have brought in all manner of beasts."

But as she continued up her street, thinking of Rubob's pumpkin pie in the oven, she thought, "All in all, a very pleasant walk."