Dart begins with two confessions; the first is that he did not write to Dot last night. The second one is harder for him. They promised to be completely honest with each other, so he feels he must just blurt it out. So, here it is: There are some very pretty and friendly  girls at the USO. One of them smiled at him last night.

Okay, so he’s having a little fun at Dot’s expense. Yes, a pretty girl smiled at him, but there’s no girl on earth who holds any interest for him ever since he laid eyes on Dot. “There’s nothing else for which I live than to be a good and provident husband, for you, and for no one else. In order to live for you, or for me, or for anyone, I must eat, and it’s time for breakfast.”

His P.S. on this brief note begs for no retaliations for this little stunt. Then he adds another letter later in the day.

The dateline on the second letter notes contains the words “Four years after!,” referring, of course to the Pearl Harbor attack. I wonder if there have ever been four more eventful years in the span of humanity than these four.

He’s distressed to learn she’s in the hospital and points out he doesn’t like it when she gets sick any more than she likes it when he does. He trusts she’ll hurry and heal.

Yesterday brought him lots of “reading material;” a letter from Dot, one from her mother, and a long one from his mother. He also referred to Dot’s “self-styled dime novel,” which was probably the 14-pager she wrote on November 22. His mother advised him to forego the portraits and think of something else to send Dot’s parents. Unfortunately, that suggestion came a day after he’d had his portrait taken. Now he doesn’t know if he should cancel the order or move ahead.

Although he can’t recall what date she must be back at Kent in January, he’s acutely aware that she’ll be home two weeks from today. How he wishes he could have caught a break and been able to spend some time with her, either in Cleveland or in Greenwich. But he did catch a small break this morning. Most of the ship’s crew was placed on restriction today for staying in bed after reveille. Dart had just awakened to “answer nature’s call,” so he wasn’t in his bunk when the officers made their rounds to take down the names of the slackers. Consequently, he was able to go ashore.

Last night he finished his shopping for her and had it all wrapped up and mailed from the USO. After saying that he hopes she likes it, he chided himself, asking “Why did I say that? I’d surely not send you anything I didn’t think you’d like!”

During his liberty last night, he and another fire striker saw a movie called “Too Young to Know.” It sounds like a sloppy melodrama about kids who marry after a whirlwind romance, knowing nothing about each other or how to be married. They quarrel and separate, not knowing the wife is expecting a baby. Later, he finds out she gave the child up for adoption and they fight some more. They go before an elderly judge, come to an understanding, remember that they love each other, and are reunited with their three-year old son who whispers something shockingly funny to the judge at the end. Wow, what a cheesy plot that is!

He assures her that they have already passed through many of the obstacles that this young couple faced. First, he likes her friends and believes she’ll like his. They trust each other and are very fond of each other’s families. He feels sure that he and Dot will be as happy and well-suited as both sets of parents are. He gets a thrill thinking about how happy they’ll be when they’ve been married as long as their folks have been. Now there’s a guy taking the long view. “Thanks goodness that we’re both old-fashioned in so many ways and modern in so many others. We couldn’t be happy as individuals or together if things were greatly otherwise.”

He’s not surprised his Pop spilled the beans about Dart’s efforts to secure a 72-hour pass. In fact, he’s glad she knows because now she’ll have a better understanding about why he was so disgruntled with the state of his life in the Navy.

Now he’d like to start an argument with Dot. She states in her letter that she has no patience (and therefore, no virtue). He offers evidence to the contrary. “If patience is a virtue, it’s added to all your others, for it is surely a virtue to have had patience with me and my bad nature and my (Navy) hard luck for these two years. There are not a great many girls who can, could, or would do what you’ve done. Of course neither of us is happy at the prospect of waiting more years to be married. As we look back on it, time has flown, hasn’t it? …Why then, is it not reasonable to believe that it will continue to have wings, and that five years after we’re married, we can look back and say that our courtship wasn’t too long after all?”

That supper she fixed for the girls sounds dandy to him. Could she do up the same menu for him, perhaps without the clam chowder?

Yes, it would be great if she would renew “Life” magazine for his folks. The whole family would appreciate that.

Yes, he’ll try to learn a few dance steps if he’s in town long enough. He has at least 36 days left in Charleston because a leave party just departed and is due to return at that time.

Always the teacher, he cannot resist launching into a long biography of his favorite composer, Tchaikovsky. Dart’s penchant for absorbing facts never left him, often to the consternation of his children, with whom he was always eager to share his collection of knowledge.

He asks her to thank Holly for his letter, which he enjoyed receiving. He mentions an obscene bull-session going on near his bunk. Without meaning to, he has learned some new dirty jokes (which he refrains from sharing with Dot.)

“Dot, Darling, you asked why you can’t write about love and then proceeded to do a beautiful job of it, and to pay me some compliments. Men are vain creatures and to be loved so deeply by a girl like you is a compliment to anyone. I hope I’ll never neglect those ways to show you how much I love you, whatever they are. Dot, I love you now, I’ve loved you since I’ve known you, my love grows deeper for you all the time, and I want to love you all my life. Nothing I can ever do or say will prove that love. It’s beyond comparison with any known medium. We’ll make a lovely couple, Darling.”

“You asked me how many other girls I loved, besides the prettiest one. Well, I love the tenderest one, the jolliest one, the one who writes me so often, the one who sits up all night with me, the one who loves me, and you. That makes seven. Of course, all of them are you and you alone. Every time I see you I think of how wonderful you are in so many ways, and how pretty you are in the bargain, and I wonder just how I rate so high. Don’t gimme the old comeback about being fat, either. …You’re getting no Charles Atlas for a husband. Now that I’ve tried, in my thoughtless was, to nip your protest in the bud, will you accept my views on your pulchritude?”

He’s sure his mother wasn’t too upset by them staying up so late – maybe just a bit surprised to see that from her little boy. And, by the way, he’s pretty sure he understands what Dot means about the thing she’d rather they were doing, and he shares her opinion. If only they could get past that two-year wait until they could be married!

They have a date to go bowling, roller skating and swimming. For the latter, she might want to dust off her Red Cross life-saving skills.

Again, he begs her to get well soon.

Dot writes this from the living room of Dart’s parents’ apartment. “As soon as they let me out yesterday afternoon I called your folks and broke it to them as gently as I could that I would pay them the honor of a visit this weekend if they thought they could bear it. Surprisingly enough, they accepted my offer, or rather my threat, and here I am.”

Now she and his folks are enjoying Pepsi and ice cream while they listen to a musical quiz show on the radio. “It’s hard to write this while trying to make your family think I know something about music by answering some questions.”

She was thrilled to get a letter from Dart that spent all the pages saying the beautiful things he usually reserves for the final paragraph. Her letter from Harriet, while nice, didn’t offer the same thrill.

She didn’t write when she left the hospital because she still felt a little shaky and went straight to bed. Now she has lots of homework to make up for, especially in English. She must write two themes, do 10 grammar exercises, memorize 50 spelling words and prepare an oral book report – all by Monday! There’s also science and biology to complete.

Her future father-in-law interrupted the letter-writing to bring her donuts and milk. “Dart, I wish I could impress upon them what a marvelous time I have when I come here and what a relief it is to know there is such a wonderful place to visit after a week or so of school. They seem to have the idea that I won’t be happy unless there are several young people around, but that’s not the case at all. It’s a relief to get away from so many of the same kind of people for a while. Besides, your parents are still a couple of kids themselves. They always gripe about being old. Why, if I can act half as young as they do when I’m 50, I’ll be thoroughly pleased with myself. Every weekend I leave liking them even more than on my previous visit. Wish I could write it to them the way I do to you, but they’d just think I was being polite.”

Just as Dot got home yesterday, her roommate Joyce was leaving for the hospital, despondent that she would miss out on a weekend with her future in-laws. The flu epidemic at Kent has gotten so bad that they’re thinking of closing the school!

She’s excited that college basketball season has begun. She’s sorry that Dart’s new executive officer doesn’t seem too nice, but she reminds Dart that he’ll only have to deal with him for a short time.

Looking up from her letter, Dot caught Helen Peterson making a ridiculous face at her husband. She was embarrassed that Dot saw it, but they all had a good laugh. “See what I mean when I say they act like a couple of kids?”

Sleepy and still a little weak, Dot decides to go to bed and dream of Dart. She feels his presence so much when she’s sleeping in his room.