three weeks old, who cut a web from the
loom and sat up all night to make a shirt for the soldier. August came,
the wheat was ripe for the sickle. Her husband was gone, the neighbors
also. Six miles away was a family where she thought it possible she
might obtain a harvest hand. Mounting the mare, taking the babe in her
arms, she rode through the forest only to find that all the able-bodied
young men had gone to the war. The only help to be had was a barefoot,
hatless, coatless boy of fourteen.

"He can go but he has no coat," said the mother of the boy.

"I can make him a coat," was the reply.

The boy leaped upon the pillion, rode home with the woman--went out with
his sickle to reap the bearded grain, while the house wife, taking a
meal bag for want of other material, cutting a hole in the bottom, two
holes in the sides, sewing a pair of her own stockings on for sleeves,
fulfilled her promise of providing a coat, then laid her babe beneath
the shade of a tree and bound the sheaves.

It is a picture of the trials, hardships and patriotism of the people in
the most trying hour of the revolutionary struggle.

The babe was Thomas Coffin--father of the subject of this sketch,
Charles Carleton Coffin, who was born on the old homestead in Boscawen,
July 26, 1823,--the youngest of nine children, three of whom died in
infancy.

The boyhood of the future journalist, correspondent and author was one
of toil rather than recreation. The maxims of Benjamin Franklin in
regard to idleness, thrift and prosperity were household words.

"He who would thrive must rise at five."

In most farm-houses the fire was kindled on the old stone hearth before
that hour. The cows were to be milked and driven to the pasture to crop
the green grass before the sun dispatched the beaded drops of dew. They
must be brought home at night.

In the planting season, corn and potatoes must be put in the hill. The
youngest boy must ride the horse in furrowing, spread the new-mown
grass, stow away the hay high up under the roof of the barn, gather
stones in heaps after the wheat was reaped, or pick the apples in the
orchard. Each member of the family must commit to memory the verses of
Dr. Watts:

"Then what my hands shall find to do
Let me with all my might pursue,
For no device nor work is found
Beneath the surface of the ground."

The great end of life was to do something. There was a gospel of work,
thrift and economy continually