Oh, how I’ve missed Dot’s cheerful, chatty letters. I’m so happy she’s back.
She tells Dart how tickled she was when she opened her lunch bag on the train and found a sweet note from him. Then, when she unpacked her suitcase at home that night, another note tumbled out. She says that’s proof that he is one of the most thoughtful men on Earth, and that’s just one of the many reasons she loves him so.
“I had a wonderful trip home, barring the fact that every moment I was moving farther away from you. I slept till we reached Buffalo and then went back to sleep almost until we reached Albany. I dreamed the most vivid dream I’ve ever had between Buffalo and Albany. I dreamed you had hopped on the train at Buffalo and were right beside me. It seemed so real I was terribly disappointed to awaken and find out it wasn’t.”
Upon arriving in Greenwich, she found Gordon working at the shop because her parents and her aunt and uncles had driven to Sunapee to sign the papers for their new property next door to Bonnie Neuk.
She writes a curious paragraph about having chicken for dinner, and hoping that news would make his mother feel better. Tomorrow they will have fish, which was a gift from a friend who caught it in Long Island Sound today. This paragraph sounded as though Helen Peterson must have apologized that she didn’t serve much meat while Dot was staying with them, due to budget constraints, perhaps. I suspect that Helen has an exaggerated idea of how the Chamberlains live. She thinks because they live in a big house in a wealthy town, they must dine on beef every night. Because they are relying on gifts of fish, Dot reckons the Chamberlains are” as bad off” as the Petersons. “Tell your mom to cheer up, though. Only 86 more meatless days until Christmas!”
As soon as she got home she called her two closest friends, Cynthia and Janie. Cynthia had gone to see Yale beat Kings College in football, 30-0, and Janie had watched Greenwich high school beat Danbury by a score of 20 to zip. Dot expressed hope that Shaw high school had either won their game in Cleveland, or learned how to be good losers.
She sent Dart a set of photos from El’s Sunapee roll, and asked that he send copies of all but #s 5 and 6 from his roll. Dot seemed pretty impressed by the great shots of Dart. She’ll need all the photos she can lay her hands on to make it through until next June without seeing the real thing!
Tomorrow, Dot and eight of her cousins and friends will pile into her Dad’s car and take their annual trek to the Danbury fair. She and Janie had decided not to go, but they’re both feeling so blue that they thought the trip might cheer them up.
Now, she claims to be stuck for some new way to express how wonderful she thinks Dart is. She thanks him for the long walks and wonderful talks, for the rides, the trips to the store, and for the silence while they were alone together in Cleveland. She’s grateful that he let her mess around with his trains. “The whole vacation, even down to our misunderstandings, was quite a success. Those misunderstandings were a help to us both and were much better coming now than later.”
She reports that most of the time she was at the Pecsok’s house today, she listened to them talk about what a fine young man Dart is. “See, even my friends have good taste!”
Eleanor has been named the superintendent of the primary Sunday school at First Congregational, so Dot will attend church tomorrow by herself. She’ll surely be thinking of Dart the whole time she’s there!
She has a job offer at some place called Roger’s, but she’d rather try the telephone company instead. She and Janie plan to take typing and shorthand classes at night school as soon as she has a job secured.
Apparently, daylight savings time ends tonight and Dot is looking forward to her extra hour of sleep. It’ll give her more time to dream about Dart.
It must have taken these two a couple of days to re-establishe their writing habits because we won’t hear from either of them until Dar returns on the 28th.