HYDE PARK, Thursday—Even a little pond can give you all the joys of a large lake. Miss Cook has spent two years or more planting trout and bass in our brook, but when we came to dig up the swamp and deepen the channel, we probably let most of these little fish swim away! Either that, or they are so well fed that they are not much tempted by flies or worms.

In any case, one of our friends spent a very pleasant hour trying to fish and caught a few sunfish. I remember these as the first fruits of my first childhood fishing trips. I cooked and ate them. Our fisherman friend was too high and mighty and the sunfish went back into the pond and no trout or bass materialized!

Mrs. Morgenthau and I sat on the porch last night and enjoyed the reflection of a very beautiful sunset in the water and decided it could not be more beautiful if we were beside a big lake. I saw a bird sweep down this morning and apparently grab a fish under the surface of the water. I suddenly thought I was back in the Bay of Fundy watching the seagulls, but I am afraid it was only a common swallow catching a gnat.

It seems to me as though most of our friends are going abroad this summer. They go to rest, they tell me, and all I can think of is what a curious frame of mind people must be in who search for rest anywhere in Europe today. The trip across and back may be restful, but it seems to me that any European country could not fail to give one a sense of deep excitement. Under the surface so many emotions and uncertainties are stirring, that it is hard to imagine that even the people who live there become sufficiently hardened to the atmosphere to rest.

Mrs. Morgenthau and I breakfasted peacefully on my sleeping porch this morning, but from that time on I have not "hibernated" quite so much as usual. There is a poem which I think all of us who live in the country should read every summer. It was written by my aunt, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, about "Henderson House," an old family home on top of a mountain nine miles from Herkimer, New York. I was reminded of it this morning.

Our pump for the swimming pool has gone completely wrong and cleaning the pool seems to be impossible until we get another one. The plug into which all the electric fixtures fit when we eat out of doors, suddenly collapsed and caused a short circuit, so we had to find someone who knew about fuses. All the flowers in the house looked as though nobody ever picked fresh ones. No one can not be lazy all the time!

In the midst of so much domesticity, a man dropped in whose business needed a little help. Mrs. Charles Fayerweather and her son; her sister, Mrs. Hall, who teaches girls in Japan, and a Mr. Donald Stephens all came to lunch. After that a woman who is interested in consumer problems stopped off between trains to see me. Now we are going to swim and lie in the sun and I am going to do nothing the rest of the day.