Dart begins “It’s really hard to believe that I’ve been aboard the Haggard for almost a month now. Slowly but surely, I seem to be getting adjusted to the conditions, and my curses are getting softer.”

His watches come in rapid succession, helping to make time go by faster. He stands watch with the same three guys. Their schedule is such that they get to observe both sunrise and sunset over the gray and silver sea. Every time, they think how much more beautiful that beautiful sunrise or sunset would be if only it were over Yuma, Arizona, the rolling farmlands of Nebraska, or the skyline of Boston or Cleveland. He swears that the coal smoke from Cleveland’s industries helps create the most impressive sunsets anywhere. Now there’s a homesick boy! He says that watching a lovely moon cross above the ship only serves to make one miss his loved ones more.

Last night, he had an interesting experience; he was standing watch, but thinking so intently about Dot and their future together, that he felt her physically standing beside him. “What a letdown when I reached out my hand and got it tangled in the cords of the battle telephone I was wearing.”

The guys have been hearing quite a lot about the curfew on entertainment places lately. (But he’s not yet received Dot’s letter on that topic.) He thinks the folks back home have had a rough time of things since December. He’s especially worried that the fuel shortage might have prevented Dot and her mother from traveling to Cleveland for Dot’s graduation. He truly hopes they were able to get there, and, if they did, that they had a chance to meet his parents. It seems strange that so much has happened in Dot’s life that he’s unaware of. Not only did she make it to Cleveland, but she stayed at his parents’ home for a whole week! How frustrating that mail takes so long to reach him, but I guess, in a way, it’s pretty incredible that it ever gets to him at all.

He writes that “the knotty finger of work beckons, and he must heed its call.” He misses her terribly, but way out where he is, it doesn’t do any good to mope about it. (I love that word “mope”. I think one could almost guess at it’s meaning just by the way it sounds.)

Dot writes that a mild snow fall quickly vanished under sunny skies, so one can hardly claim that March came in like a lion.

The folks at work predicted she’d get a letter from Dart today, but they were all disappointed. It certainly does her heart good to hear from him, although she can’t exactly say why. “What have you got that any other sailor doesn’t? You’ve got ‘IT!'”

She babysat for Chris and Eric Miller last night – the first time in quite a while. Eric has grown so much since she last saw him that she hardly recognized him. With long eyelashes and beautiful dark curls, he’s going to be a heart-breaker. He’s already a flirt at just eight months! His big brother Chris is also a cutie. She tells Dart that as cute as they are, they are both little devils. If you blink away for a moment, Chris has Eric’s hair in his firm grip and Eric has Chris’ kiddie-car wheel in his mouth. I think Dot secretly loves the challenge.

Tonight she’s babysitting for Carter Ford, but he doesn’t appeal to her at the moment. He’s been a little stinker all night,  but when he looks at her with his big, beautiful eyes, she’s powerless to discipline him. She confesses that her kids will be spoiled rotten, especially if they have beautiful eyes. (Well, either Dot found her backbone or none of us kids had beautiful eyes, because she never seemed to have trouble disciplining us!) She adds. “Beautiful eyes just about hypnotize me, but I guess you found that out already, didn’t you?”

She and El have gone into business. They even ran a  little ad in the newspaper: Is there a curfew in your night life? Let us help you out. We’ll take care of your children (35 cents/hr.) or assist at dinner parties (50 cents/hr.) Phone Gr 2630 after 6:30 pm.

She says they both babysit a lot, but they’d like to  be busy every night. El is saving for her wedding next year and Dot needs money for college. About the business she adds, “It ought to be loads of fun, if it works out. More variety, and I hope more cash.” This girl jokes about how lazy she is, but I’ve never known an 18-year-old willing to work as hard as she does.

Work at FS has been so slow that she’s begun taking books to read there. Now she’s enjoying “The Razor’s Edge” by W. Somerset Maugham.

There’s no more news, so she’ll close, with all her love.