HYDE PARK, N.Y.—I came up to Hyde Park Wednesday afternoon to hear the final concert of the Dutchess County Philharmonic Society and to do my little share in the reading of "Peter and the Wolf." I had a real treat, however, for I heard for the first time Mrs. Mary Dawn Judd sing with the orchestra, and she has a lovely, well-trained voice. This summer she will sing with the Chautauqua Opera Co. and I hope that many people will have an opportunity to enjoy her really pleasing voice.

On Thursday I took off for Pittsburgh where I was to talk Friday morning for the American Association for the United Nations to one of its college clubs in Indiana, Pa., which is about an hour and a half drive from Pittsburgh. It was a very pleasant experience and I got back in the afternoon in time to take an evening train to Hyde Park.

The horrible income tax period is upon us and I filled my declaration the other day. I am happy to say that I was able to pay my taxes, even though I was severely reprimanded because I had given away more than was permitted for me. I never can gauge it quite right!

On Monday there will appear in Look Magazine a collection of pictures which Look's photographers spent a great many hours taking of me. Miss Laura Bergquist, a Look staff writer, has written a delightful running commentary that goes with the pictures.

I can't see that this was worth all the trouble by Look's writer and photographers, but they certainly make me appear to be a vigorous old lady. I only hope I can remain well enough not to be a burden to my family and friends and still have enough interest in life to make it worth living.

Certainly the world we live in is an exciting one. If you let your mind dwell on what might be done in different areas, and if you had enough imagination and courage to meet the world problems as they should be met, this would be a fascinating period of development.

I read with the greatest interest on Thursday morning of the contract which has just been signed by David Lilienthal and Gordon Clapp for the development and rehabilitation of land in Iran.

Mr. Lilienthal already had written me about this, because this is an area of the world which fascinated my husband. And the work that is about to be started there is exactly the work which my husband very much wanted to see undertaken.

He felt trees could grow again in that desert, that water could come back, and what once was a fertile land—perhaps the most fertile in the world—could again be fertile. Now, we may see this proved.