Amazingly, Dart’s cold is still hanging on! He has lots of letters to write, and he’d planned to attend a get-together at church for returning service men tonight, but he felt so miserable after supper that he just crashed on the davenport. His father spent the time dozing in the big chair. Aren’t they a couple of firebrands while the lady of the house is away?

His mother will be in Ashtabula for at least the remainder of the week. It seems as though Flora has decided against coming into Cleveland where she could be under the care of numerous siblings. Dart seems most concerned about where his meals will be coming from in her absence, but he and his dad have some of their meals covered already. They’ll go to the Burke home for Sunday dinner, (That’s the three unmarried aunts and a bachelor uncle who live together on Cleveland’s east side. ) Dart, Sr. is a pretty fair cook of simple meals, and Helen left a big pot of stew for her boys to eat while she was away.  With a deli in the neighborhood and plenty of milk to drink, Dart is confident he won’t actually starve.

Homer stopped by today. The guys shot the breeze, discussing the Army and the Navy, model railroading and other trifles. Still, Dart didn’t answer any of his stack of letters.

He and his father have a “date” with The Harvey Girls tomorrow, and he hopes to see Road to Utopia with Homer or Al later in the week. Dart seems to be keeping busy for the sake of keeping busy. That’s a common tactic, I think, when folks are trying to ward off mild depression, or when they want to avoid unpleasant tasks like job-hunting or applying to colleges.

He enjoyed a cute little card that Dot sent this week. He appreciates that she does those unexpected things for him, and that she is so very appreciative of little things he does for her. Her reaction makes him want to do more nice things. He notes that people who don’t appreciate the niceties probably don’t get many little “extras” in life. Being around Dot just makes him want to be good and do good. He guesses she’s a positive influence on him.

Speaking of niceties, he fears he was a little curt with Dot’s landlord Holly the other night. Dart was miffed that Holly interrupted Dot and Dart’s “final clinch” of the evening with chatter about a long-ago road trip he’d taken.  Now he vows to ask Holly about the trip and the photos he has from back then the next time he’s in Kent. A summer-long western road trip such as the one Holly described, taken decades before, must surely have been an arduous adventure and Dart intends to show the proper respect for that when he sees Holly next.

“Gee,” he says sarcastically, “I wonder who the calling card is that brings the cackle session into you room, no matter where that room is.”

In her recent letter, Dot had told Dart a story of what happened when Mid came to wake her up for classes one morning. Dot had allegedly responded “Oh, Dart, can’t we just sleep a little longer?” Mid had teased her mercilessly. Dart suggests that, while he likes the idea of sleeping late with her, she might want to avoid using his name at times like that, lest it lead to harmful gossip and the wrong idea.

He rambles on for a bit about how people who can swim bother him. They bother him because he feels inferior. He feels inferior because 1) he can’t seem to learn to swim, and 2) he has a mortal fear of being in water that’s over his head. He’ll try to work on all of that, since he’s in love with a girl who’d rather swim than walk.

He too fears that the big trip these two had dreamed about this June is out of the question. There’s almost no chance that his folks will be able to drive her back to Greenwich and then continue on to Sunapee. He doesn’t say it, but I think the Peterson family is facing heavy financial difficulties, rendering a cross-country trip out of reach. Related to that is the uncertain employment of both Dart and his father. He’ll continue to work on his folks, but things look bad from here.

Offering another lament about his neglected correspondence, he decides it’s time to get to bed. But not, thank goodness, before reflecting a moment on his love for Dot. “I love you and miss you all the time. I dream that you’re here every minute of the day, and almost every act I perform reminds me of a fleeting moment with you. Goodnight, Darling. I wish we could be whispering those words into each other’s ear, then not even moving before going to sleep. I’m always thankful for such a lovely, affectionate, responsive, thoughtful girl as you for a fiance’. I’m thankful, too for the times and ways we’ve found to express our love for each other.”

#           #          #

It was a thrill to hear Dart’s voice tonight when he called, but she would love to also see the face the voice belongs to. She doesn’t know, if she misses him this much after not seeing him for two weeks, how she managed to survive his months overseas. She adds that she didn’t love him as much then as she does now, so maybe that’s it.

Janie had a date with a pre-war boyfriend tonight. Even though he brought a bag of burgers for the girls in the house and gave Janie a lovely birthday gift, she still says they’re “just friends.” It must be hard for her to be excited by anyone after having recently broken up with a fiance she seemed crazy about.

She tells a tale on herself – about how she made a fool of herself at the pool today. She saw Jester-a guy she and Dart met recently, standing by the edge of the pool, and challenged him to a race to the other end. He reach the far end three yards ahead of her, and only then revealed the he’d been the high school speed swimmer before the war! Now she’ll only challenge the poor swimmers to a race because her ego can’t take such a sound defeat.

She reiterates that it would be swell if Al, or Homer, or both could come out to Kent when Dart comes for the play next weekend. She’ll try to get six tickets in the hope that Phyl and Janie will have dates with Dart’s friends.

With a biology test tomorrow, she must now focus on studying. She thanks him again for giving her spirits a lift with that phone call, and she cautions him not to make his mother work too hard when she gets home from her nursing duties with Flora.

She signs her letter “All my love, forever and a day.”