Dart seems to be in fairly good spirits today. He is most complimentary of the letter Dot had written from Greenwich, saying it had all the elements that make a letter good.

He explains that he didn’t write yesterday because he was too tired. He’d wrangled a pass to visit the small stores across the huge campus. He took a long walk there to exchange some uniforms that were too small for him.

Dart tells an embarrassing story about going through the breakfast line yesterday. He loaded his tray with Rice Krispies cereal and milk, eggs, bacon, fruit, toast and coffee. As he headed to the table, his left foot got in the way of his right one, and he found that he and his breakfast were sprawling flat out on the floor!

He appreciates the way she surprised her folks when she got home. He tells her that he’d love to surprise her the same way, but he knows that if the day ever comes when he is actually on his way to see her, he’d be too excited to keep it a secret. He’d probably send her a telegram, followed by a phone call.

He’s been thinking about her comment on how small her family is getting. (Harriet married and out of the house, Gordon fighting the war, Eleanor away at school or at work…) He says that it’s given him an idea which he will tell her about sometime, if things go as well as he’s hoping. There he goes with that cryptic thing again. I suspect his thoughts run something like her family may someday start getting larger again, when he joins it as Dot’s husband!

Having never been much farther from home than other parts of the Midwest, except for a brief visit to the New York World’s Fair, he cannot comment on the regional personalities of people. He seems to like the Ohio people he knows, and he’s gratified that she does, too. He likes the idea of her living in Ohio after graduation so that if he ever gets a leave, he can spend time with both her and his family.

He ends the letter by saying he’s sorry a meager letter is the only way to bridge the 1100 miles between them. He also asks for her phone number in Connecticut.

Dot begins her letter in a rare low mood. She misses Dart and the kids from school terribly and is finding it hard to adjust to being at home. She thinks about packing up and going back to Ohio, but she’s strapped for cash and is stuck in Greenwich. She assumes things will get easier once she’s working and keeping her mind busy.

Feeling better after getting that off her chest in her little “chat” with Dart, she moves on to responding to his recent letter. She’d like a copy of the photo that was taken of Dart for a Navy publication. She’s glad he didn’t go over the wall when he was feeling so down. As much as she’d like to see him, she’d rather it not be behind bars. There was some brief discussion about whether Chicago and Greenwich are in the same time zone. And she was interested to see the map he’d drawn of the hospital campus. She’d noticed that his ward was very near the recreation center and she asks him if he goes there often.

While his walk with a friend all over the hospital grounds sounds charming, Dot says she prefers bicycling, and hopes to do quite a lot of it this summer. She’s impressed with the domestic skills he has brought out into the light and suggests he’d make a decent housewife for someone.

She tells Dart that she and her mother are going into NYC in the morning to try to find a job for her. She doesn’t hold out a lot of hope, but it’s worth a try.