HYDE PARK— A blue sky this morning and snow piled up to the windows all around our little cottage. We have a great many evergreens nearby and they hold the snow, while the white birches gleam amongst them and their little branches make a lacy pattern against the sky. It is very beautiful but like everything else that we enjoy somebody has to work to give us pleasure.

We drove in at midnight, not over the regular road, that was ten feet deep in snow drifts! Two men had run the snow plow all day, so our car made its way between banks of snow over a high field. Of course if you live on a main road much of this is done for you nowdays, but perhaps it is good for us to have to dig out of all kinds of snow now and then if only to make us realize how much more is done for us today. What do we do to give us that sense of complete independence and self sufficiency which our forefathers enjoyed because of their inevitable struggles with nature? Some people still have the same difficulties to conquer but they grow fewer year by year and human beings are so made, I believe, that they must always be conquering something, even if it is only their own indolence. Perhaps that is why some of us do our "daily dozens" each morning, we must begin the day in a conquering mood!

The shadows on the snow are too alluring I must go out and shovel with the rest.