Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon) by Martin William

Author:Martin, William [Martin, William]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780446534215
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Peter was still trying to figure that out when his son arrived, ready for lunch and an argument. The remnants of Peter’s good mood had burned off like a fog.

Jimmy had already told his father that he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to Harvard, now that Harvard had turned him down once.

Peter had already imparted the best wisdom he knew: No matter what decision Harvard or Jimmy made, in a year, Jimmy would be happy with his school, as long as he was happy with himself. He knew that Jimmy didn’t believe it. But it was true.

Today, despite the distractions of a police visit, Peter wanted to give the kid another pep talk: “Just think of all the giants who began their growth at Harvard, of the rebels who began their rebellion there, of the great pioneers, the great novelists, the presidents, the scoundrels. But while Widener is the greatest library in the world, it’s not where they keep the books that counts, Jimmy. It’s what’s in them.”

Then he showed Jimmy all the books behind all the locked cases in his office. He said that few of those books were written by people who went to Harvard.

“Maybe they didn’t want to,” said Jimmy.

“Some did,” said Peter.

“Yeah? Who?”

Peter went to the case where he shelved his poetry and pulled down the 1842 edition of New England Reveries, by Lydia Wedge. “She wanted to go to Harvard, but they wouldn’t let her in. She wrote her poetry anyway.”

He flipped through the book. “Here’s ‘John Hicks and Other Heroes’: ‘Oh, noble is the man who dies to save his fellow man, / And noble are the men who stand on honor’s noble span, / So noble was the man named Hicks, who fought that desperate day, / And stood resolved, as bullets flew, to neither fall nor sway . . .’”

“No wonder they didn’t let her in,” said Jimmy. “That sucks.”

“It served its purpose back then.” Peter flipped through the book. “Or the one about the Harvard Bicentenary.”

“Don’t you mean bicentennial?”

“Bicentennial . . . bicentenary”—Peter shrugged—“either way, it was an amazing accomplishment for an institution to have survived for two hundred years.”

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