HYDE PARK, Thursday—Since there are so many people who are interested in Fala, I must report that he gave his family a very bad 24 hours one day last week.

I took all the dogs walking before breakfast in the woods. Just as we reached the point where we always turn homeward, all three dogs made a dash after something they saw scurrying along the ground. Up and over the rocks and away through the hemlock trees they went. I called and called and called in vain. Anyone who has Scotties will understand the strange way they have of proceeding on their own business regardless of how much training they have received.

They must have been wrapped up in this chase, and there was spring in the air as well.

As I walked on in lonely contemplation toward home, Frannie, remembering her four puppies at home, came helter-skelter out of the woods behind me and accompanied me sedately the rest of the way. But there were no signs of Fala or Tamas.

When something like this happens I always think of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's story of the old grandfather who took his grandson to the county fair and nearly died as a result. Nevertheless, when they returned the grandfather still had a gleam in his eye which said the excursion was worth it!

At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Tamas came dashing home, tail in the air and a look of great triumph on his face. When I demanded to know where he had left Fala he looked around rather indifferently and showed no signs of wanting to lead me to his grandfather. Usually they come home together when they go off together, so I really worried and pictured poor old Fala falling down a hole, or drowning in a pond with no one at hand to pull him out.

All of us scoured the woods, calling him until dark. I sent around to my near neighbors asking if they had seen him. And we spent the night waking every little while to go to the door to call him.

In the morning Miss Thompson called the pound but no Scottie had been brought in. We put an ad in the Poughkeepsie New Yorker and I was about to appeal in desperation to our local radio station when the guard at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library called up to say that a small boy, living at least three miles away, had got his father to bring him over with Fala. The boy said Fala had spent the night with them.

I went for Fala at once and he didn't seem particularly pleased to see me. Miss Thompson remarked that he was probably bored with us and wanted a change of scene.

In the late afternoon a lady called me on the telephone from this same road and said that she brought Fala in and fed him. So, he didn't even suffer the pangs of hunger. Now he's paying for his mischief, though. I don't dare let him off the leash, so he has to walk beside me instead of being able to make excursions into the woods and chase various animals.