This is one of the most thoughtful, honest and mature letters that Dot has written to date. Today’s mail brought Dart’s second letter in response to her comment about wanting to join the WAVEs. This was the particularly emphatic one he wrote to her after stewing over the idea for a couple of days. She writes, “Had I thought for one moment that my wanting to join the WAVEs would disturb you so much, I would have banished the idea completely. Oh, how I wish you’d get a letter saying I can’t join so I would stop getting letters from you telling me what would happen to me, and to us, if I could and did join. Dart, that first letter from you was enough to dissuade me, or anyone else, for that matter.”
She tells him that she is not going to be joining the WAVWs, even when she’s old enough, but she poses a good question. “What then, my dear boy, do you suggest I do? You gave me the same spiel about the Cadet Nurse Corps, and said I’d meet ‘the wrong kind of people’ in a defense plant. Darling, I have to know how the other 99% live sometime. Must I sit here and wait for you to come home and formally introduce me to ‘life’? There’s nothing I’d like better, nor one I’d rather learn things from than you, but unfortunately, I have to keep on living while you’re away.”
You tell ‘im, Dot! But, she makes another point or two. “You, apparently, have withheld nothing of your feelings toward women in the service. But in spite of all you say, I’ll bet there are thousands of boys who have thanked God, and thousands more who have yet to thank God, for the Army and Navy nurses. ”
She goes on to say that she was not really hurt by anything he said, although she thought some of his statements were rather harsh. She was terribly disappointed to learn she couldn’t join, but this just proves her belief that things have a tendency to work out as they’re supposed to. “If there was anything in your letter that hurt me, it was your suggestion that I might be joining for reasons other than doing what I thought best to end this God-awful war.”
And now, she illustrates her wisdom of knowing when to hold back from writing some things to Dart, and when the time is right to drop a little bomb. She tells him that she has learned some of the unsavory aspects of life all on her own, even without being in the service. She has refrained from telling him about such instances because “I thought you’d make more of it than it was, like you have with this WAVE business.” She then tells him the story of Jamey, a friend of Harriet and George, whom Dot abhors. Jamey knows her feelings and does everything in his power to make her say otherwise. The other night, Dot was at H & G’s house to sit with Toni Gale while they hosted a dinner party. At some point in the evening, Dot was called into the dining room and everyone left except Jamey. He took off her coat and told her to sit in the chair. She turned to go into the kitchen where the other people were, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her onto the chair. He knelt in front of her, loudly proclaimed his love for her and said he would not allow her to leave until she kissed him. She refused…adamantly. “Maybe you think this all sounds funny, as did the guests who had gathered at the doorway and were looking on, but it was not a bit funny to me!” She tells Dart that it would have been a lot easier, albeit unpleasant, to just kiss him and get it over with, but she refused. “Because on the night of November 9th, 1944, I made you a promise that I would never kiss nor let anyone kiss me, but you. That’s a promise I intend to keep, if I never kiss another soul. I sat there for about 10 minutes being laughed at, and it was the longest 10 minutes I’ve ever spent. ”
She wraps up this letter on a very sensible note when she says she wishes they had been able to talk before, instead of being so much in love they were tongue-tied on their few days together. But she likes his request to kiss and make up. “We’ve discussed this fairly sensibly now, and no one is hurt…Guess I’ll turn out the light and have a good cry. I miss you so much it’s nearly unbearable. Please stay as understanding as you are, and let’s have these talks often.”
