Text
Sports were important at Groton, and to Franklin. He loved playing football. He was slight（瘦弱的 ）and not very fast. Still, he fought hard and had the scrapes（擦伤） and bumps（肿块，鼓包） to prove it.
His parents were more interested in his studies. It pleased them that he was fourth in his class of nineteen boys.
In the spring of 1900, Franklin graduated from Groton. That fall, he entered Harvard. For the past few years, his father’s health had been failing（过去完成进行时）. Soon after Thanksgiving, Franklin got word that Popsy was very ill. He died of heart failure（心脏衰竭） on December 8.
Now Sara was a widow. Rather than spend the winter in Hyde Park alone, she moved to Boston to be near Franklin. Already close, mother and son grew even closer.
At Harvard, Franklin became a great success on the Crimson（深红色，校报）, the college newspaper. He was a natural writer（非常有天赋） with a knack for good interviews. His senior year, he was president of the Crimson. But the most significant thing that happened during his Harvard years was his friendship with his distant cousin Eleanor Roosevelt.（还在友情阶段）
Vocabulary
slight adj. 瘦弱的
scrape n. 擦伤
bump n. 肿块，鼓包
please v. 使（某人）高兴
fail v. （健康）变差
crimson n. 深红色
knack n. 技能，本领
Notes
■ The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates.
