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.
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