A lady in a faded 1)gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a 2)homespun 3)threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the president of Harvard's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods country folk had no business at Harvard, and probably didn' even deserve to be in Cambridge. She 4)frowned. "We want to see the president," the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. "We'll wait," the lady replied.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't. And the secretary grew 5)frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president. "Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him. He sighed in 6)exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with nobodies, but he detested gingham and homespun suits cluttering his office.
The president, 7)stern-faced with dignity, 8)strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard, and was very happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to 9)erect a 10)memorial to him somewhere on campus." The president wasn't touched, and she was shocked. "Madam," he said 11)gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."
"Oh, no"the lady explained quickly, "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would give a building to Harvard." The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard!"
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. The lady turn
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