SEATTLE, Wednesday—When I arrived here last evening, I was practically asleep; even though I seemed to be walking and, I hope, was still talking coherently. Yesterday I filed my column some thirty miles from San Francisco, because the fog closed in on San Francisco and Oakland, and made our plane land behind the Coast Range of mountains and wait there for passengers going up the coast.

We spent about an hour and a half walking in the warm sunshine and sitting on the steps of the airport building. I enjoyed talking to two fellow passengers. One woman had a husband in Hawaii on a submarine. She was bringing up the boys at home, but her journey was a sudden and anxious one, because of her father's illness in a hospital near Portland, Oregon.

The other woman, Mrs. Davis, the wife of a rancher in Yakima Valley, told me an interesting story. She and her husband are alone at home since their children have grown up. They have taken on the responsibility of raising two youngsters whose family they came to know through an older brother who picked fruit on their farm. The younger brother appeared at the age of twelve as a passenger in the car in which the older brother and his family travelled, somewhat after the fashion of the people in "Grapes Of Wrath." The boy stayed at the ranch.

Two years later, a younger sister appeared. Now these two youngsters have a home and are going to school. The ranch, in spite of the difficulties of the past few years, is providing a living for all concerned. I liked this motherly, capable, understanding woman, and I think these two youngsters are very fortunate. They will make a real contribution as citizens to this country in return for the thought and care which is being lavished upon them.

Mrs. Davis has an attitude toward children that I particularly admire. In answer to a remark of mine that the youngsters must want to do something for her, she said: "I wouldn't expect them to do anything for us, any more than I would expect it from our own children. We work and they work for our home, but when they go out on their own, their lives are their own, without any demands on our part upon them." A fine attitude and one many of us might emulate.

I was an hour an half late getting into Portland, and Mrs. Honeyman was awaiting me. Before we left the airport, I went over to speak to a man who has spent long months in the hospital. He had hired an ambulance to bring him down to the airport because he wished to have a chance to talk with me.

Then we went to Democratic headquarters for a reception at which several thousand people must have passed in line. After a quiet dinner, I spoke at a membership meeting of the League of Women Voters. At 10:50 I took a plane for Seattle and, at 11:49, arrived there. Because my day started at 5:30 a.m., it wasn't very odd that I was a bit sleepy.

I begin to feel really at home in Seattle. Of course, it is always a joy to be back with the family here. How the children have grown! Even the older ones have changed in six months. The baby is hardly to be recognized, for his head is a mass of curls and he is a really sturdy young man, dressed like a real boy.