A few months ago a slim young fellow with a jaunty mustache rimming his boyish grin stood before the president of Yale University and received the degree of Master of Arts. The next day he repeated the process at Harvard University.
Newspapers, commenting on the extraordinary and significant occurrence, remarked that Walt Disney needed a haircut. His suit, they further stated, was the only one at the ceremonies that was out of press.
To these calumnies the creator of Snow White, Dopey and the immortal Dwarfs, Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Donald Duck, Pluto, Clarabelle Cow and hordes of international screen idols amiably replied that he was sorry about the haircut. He hadn't had time to get one. He said his suit had been pressed before the ceremony but he guessed it just must have wilted in the heat. He said he deeply appreciated the honors, though, and he'd try to live up to them.
Then he got on a train and went home to Hollywood because he had a lot of work to do.
At practically the same time, two dappled fawns, rescued by a Maine ranger after a forest fire, were speeding on another train to the same destination. They arrived at the Disney Studios almost the same day as Walt did.
Most of us, with such brand-new high degrees from such old and respected seats of learning, might have had small room left in our giddy brains for anything else. But Walt Disney promptly forgot all about the academic laurels still pressing his brow when he heard the two fawns had arrived.
He left the new honors, literally, at home in the closet. He rushed over to stand all day watching the new deer frisk and bound in the runway his studio had built.
The degrees, after all, belong to yesterday. But the two baby deer were living models for what was now nearest to the Disney heart — a new feature he is producing.
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