Dart’s letter is brief and feisty. He spent the entire day working on an unloading party, lugging several tons of food (he thinks) from a supply ship up to the Haggard’s decks and into refrigeration. The work was hard, but that’s not what has him so riled.
While he was laboring, he heard a guy who is entrusted to keep their letters private, reading them to a bunch of other men! Dart describes them as “those ignorant men who become boatswain’s mates when they learn to read and count up to ten.” A stunt like that puts the man who read them in the same class as the “crude hoodlums who are his only friends.” Dart continues with his diatribe. “That man has a reputation as being the most two-faced and partial man aboard. If he reads this, his ears will probably burn, and the rest of him may burn for all I care. If I’d been writing for publication, I’d have sent those letters by registered mail to a magazine. If I’d intended them for the eyes and ears of a bunch of stupid low-lifes I’d have sent them to some magazine like Laff or Famous Comics or some other yellow sheet which caters to their juvenile minds.”
Dart doesn’t know if it was his letters that were read aloud, but the principle is the same, no matter whose letters they were.
Having vented, he calms down a bit. He tells Dot that in his two months aboard ship, he’s made some enemies and some friends. The friends were slow to come and hard to find. The enemies deserve no further mention.
He likes life on the Haggard and the duty he’s seen. He’s proud to serve with most of her crew.
That completes Dart’s letter for this day, but I’m happy to say I’ve found the missing pages from April 1. (Clumsily misfiled by yours truly.) If you recall, that letter ended with Dart cautioning Dot not to look too long into the eyes of her young charges. Let’s continue with that thought.
He thinks the kids will soon learn that she’s easily mesmerized by big, blue eyes. “I hope you don’t spoil your kids that way. They might be mine, too, the way things look now; and the way I hope they’ll turn out.”
He comments that the crew is complaining about the hard seats on their ship. They’ve all been sitting all day, and the only seats are the lockers under the bunks and “various hunks of ship.”
The map of Dot’s room gave him a chuckle. Now he’ll know just where to go when he comes to steal her away. Sadly, she neglected to tell him which window was hers, so he’ll have to lug that tall ladder to every one of the upstairs windows until he finds hers.
When he had the chance to see “30 Seconds over Tokyo,” he passed on it. Having not seen it, he still can’t imagine any girl’s eyes sparkling as bright as hers, even if that girl is an actress.
He willingly gives his blessing to her writing to the Marine who writes to her. He must be alright, if Dottie wants to write to him. Besides, Dart answers the monthly letters from his friend Jeanne Kirby, who knows all about how deeply in love Dot and Dart are.
As he closes, he tells her that his whole world revolves around her. He remembers her eyes, her smile, her hair, her “winsome blush,” which he wants to gently tease out of her again. Everything about her is dear to him.
This is the third letter Dot has written to Dart in the past 24 hours. All she wants to do is sit down and write to him. Could that be because in that same time, she’s received five letters from him? How much easier it is to write outgoing letters when she’s also getting some incoming ones!
Franklin Simon has given her the afternoon off in exchange for the overtime she worked recently. If it were a nice day, she’d take a long bike ride. However, it’s quite cold so she may go see a movie, instead. She remarks that she could clean the house, but that thought doesn’t seem like a good idea for filling her rare time off.
She reminds Dart that a year ago, their letters were filled with hopes and plans for him to attend her prom. When those hopes were dashed at the last moment, she was devastated. In retrospect, she’s grateful for the way things turned out. If he’d gotten leave then, he would not have been able to come to Greenwich in the summer and he wouldn’t have met her family. Now, every letter and every day leads them closer to his real homecoming – the one that ends in a one-way ticket, instead of a round-trip. She can’t wait for that day!
For now, she’s content to let everyday occurrences remind her of their times together. For instance, right now, she’s chewing clove gum. That reminds her of the time Johnny, Betty, she and Dart went to see the “Phantom of the Opera” and Dart offered her a piece of clove gum. She had a difficult time getting it from him because she didn’t want to turn her head and let Dart see her in her glasses!
Her memories even hold images of what Dart wore that night; a navy blue suit and a black tie. The suit was trimmed in white around the lapels and the jacket cuffs. She doubts he can describe what she wore, but I’m not sure that’s a bet I’d take.
Her final paragraph is so tender: “I love you, Dart, and the memories of the few days we had together and the plans for the future are more precious to me than any material thing in the world.”
