Dart begins by warning Dot that there may be many days in the coming weeks when she doesn’t get a letter from him because his schedule is so tight. He has come down with another cold and feels bad enough that all he wants to do is read. At least that gave him a little jump on his psychology assignments.
Enclosed with this letter are the plans he found in the Shopping News for a sweet little house. He wants her to see them, but then return the clipping to him.
Her cute Valentine arrived today, along with two letters. One of those was dated yesterday, so he doesn’t expect to hear from her tomorrow. He thanks her for all her correspondence and love. How he wishes he could have answered her request to help her warm up her bedding.
Having dispensed with the niceties, he gets to the crux of his letter, once again donning the hat of a sage elder. Dot must have mentioned her disappointment with a recent visit from her friend Nancy. In Dot’s eyes, Nancy has changed for the worse since being away at school, taking up smoking, drinking, and maybe even rough language.
Dart understands her disillusionment because he’s experienced the same thing on a number of occasions. But he cites two friends of his – Jack and Homer – who smoke, drink and womanize, yet have never encouraged him to do the same. Because of their lack of pressure on him, he’s been able to continue to enjoy their friendship. He can also name some of his old pals from Shaw who have changed for the worse, and insist on dogging Dart when he declines to follow their example. Those friendships have gone by the wayside.
He goes on a bit more about how stymied he felt in social interactions as a child. He blames that on his upbringing (by his fussy aunts as well as his parents) and the fact that they “sissyfied” him. He was always told that he was too weak to “play with those rough Irish (or Italian) kids.” He feels he grew up to be somewhat antisocial, even among kids of similar upbringing. He claims that when he started to date, he was three years behind his peers in social graces. He doubts he’ll ever catch up, but now he doesn’t even think he wants to.
“No, Dottie, we can’t become too upset (even though we both do) when our friends change. It’s often a great blow to us and we feel left out.” In my opinion, when young people live by their own high standards, they often can’t understand why others don’t hold themselves to the same standards. It takes a lot of maturity to accept people for who they are and still be true to their own values. He encourages her to give Nancy another chance.
How pleased he is that she took the initiative to find the train book he recommended! She has apparently started reading “Slow Train to Yesterday,” and says she likes it. He claims he doesn’t know her well enough to know if she is an antiquarian who might appreciate “the shabby remnants of ornate past days,” but he hopes the book will give her a greater appreciation of the little trains of yesteryear. (Both the real ones and the tiny models that he loves.)
He got chills when he read her line “Roll over, Honey. It’s your turn for a back rub.” It reminded him of the night he rubbed her back in January. “I don’t like very much to remember what happened between the back rub and when we finally x’d and o’d and *’d and went to bed, but I think we understand each other better for it.”
“I wish you were here to help me study Spanish. See, I love you for lots of things.”