Dart’s mail delivery has finally caught up with him, bringing Dot’s postcard, greeting card, and letter, plus two letters from his mother and two more from friends. He’s thrilled with her news of landing a great job with good hours.
He asked her to check her records to see if she was at the World’s Fair the same day he was on July 18, 1939. What fun to think their stars might have aligned way back then so they might meet!
Dart echos Dot’s thought that he nearly did not accept that blind date to Andrews. “It scares me when I think of how much I almost didn’t meet you,” he writes. He goes on to say that Lois, his date for that fateful evening, gets his nomination for the person he’d most like to be on the opposite side of the world from. Dot, in contrast gets his nomination for the person he’d most like to spend the rest of his life with. (Whoa there, Dart! You don’t wanna spook the little lady.)
He launches into a mild scolding and compelling argument about getting her phone number in Greenwich. As seldom as he calls, it won’t cost that much money, he says. After all, she spends money on postage stamps whereas he gets to send mail for free. Also, it gives him great pleasure. Not having her phone number will not stop him if he decides to call, but it sure would make life easier if he had it. I suspect she’ll cave and send the number in her next letter.
He sends get well wishes to El, and says his mother has strep throat but is responding well to sulfa treatments. Do they still use sulpha to treat strep, I wonder? As an aside, I saw a story on TV last week about the millions of children in Africa who die of heart disease brought when an untreated strep infection settles in the heart. It made me think once again about the wonders of modern medicine (when and where it’s available) and how antibiotics must have contributed to increased longevity in the developed world.
He’s happy she’ll be earning extra money with child care jobs and remarks that she must be good at it to be in such high demand.
He cautions her not to take his misfortunes too hard. His burden has been made much easier, he says, with Dot and his parents doing some of his grieving for him.
Dart’s friend Fred Dixon wrote of his sister Dorothy’s enlistment in the Waves. Now the Dixon home can place two stars in their front window. How nice that women’s service was acknowledged the same way as men’s.
Dot begins her letter with an acknowledgement that indeed, the Duke and Duchess will be coming to Greenwich. “We’re considering allowing them to stay as guests at our estate this summer. Of course, it will put us out a liitle, but then, they’ve often done favors for us.” She continues in the same vein to tell him that Alec Templeton, Dot’s favorite pianist, lives in town and is a very good customer of Dot’s father.
In response to his question about riding, Dot says she loves horses, but it’s been ages since she’s enjoyed the sport. It costs $2.00 per hour in this place where most people have millions, but she doesn’t. Because she has discovered the need to eat, she’s been forced to choose between riding and dining. She adds that in New Hampshire where her family has a bungalow, she used to ride bare back every day, for free.
She comments that she seems to spend most of her time answering his letter, which was an answer to her letter in the first place. She finds it hard to come up with any news because her life is so simple and settled. That begs the question of how he can consistently come up with such interesting letters when he’s stuck in a hospital for weeks on end. She adds that she’s not even very good at writing all the ‘purdy’ thoughts like he does. She admits she feels those things but is not adept at writing them. She promises, however, that someday she will write a letter that will knock his eyes out. All it’ll take is a full moon, millions of stars, and soft, dreamy music. These ingredients are like TNT o her!
But for now, she adds, back to her dull life. A life with “no gloss but always a finish.” With that, she finishes the letter.
