Dart hates to spoil Dot’s first day back at school, but he has to tell her that the Craig has a tentative sailing date of January 7th for her voyage to the Panama Canal. He has lots of letters to write between now and then, and very little time. He’ll start with three letters that Dot wrote to him before she left school for Christmas break.
The first of those letters is dated December 16. He notes that she did something he tried a few times before final exams; go to the movies. He supposes it helps in some way with the psychological stress of all that studying.
As they discussed in Cleveland, he, too saw “You Came Along,” and liked it very much. He discusses it at length here, but I can’t really tell much from his comments about the story line. It was about someone making a great sacrifice for someone else whom they loved very much. He mentioned that most of the sailors he saw it with were moved to tears. This looks like a good film to try to locate one of these days, to see if it’s appeal has held up over the years. Dart’s reaction to the movie leaves him wondering if he is as “emotionally unstable” as Dot is (and he hopes she was kidding about being called that by the Kent psychologist).
He remarks that she gave him quite a surprise on the inside of one of her envelopes when she wrote “Dear Santa, please put Dart in my stocking.” Does she think he’d fit? Well, certainly not his feet! More importantly, how would he look in her stockings? If he didn’t know that she meant no harm, he’d be shocked by her suggestion.
He can agree to her deal about her losing a pound for every one he gains, but he strongly doubts that either of them will have much success. Still, he liked being 160 pounds during his brief visit to that territory.
After their great talk in Cleveland, he doesn’t worry too much about accidentally hurting her by saying something wrong. “I guess I told you of the ‘normal reactions’ I have in being curious, lustful at times, in enjoying an occasional ‘joke session,’ and so forth, and you appear to have understood, so if you understand about those things, there’s another chance for me to hurt you dispersed almost completely, and with it, the fear of hurting you that way.” It sounds to me as though he was a) beating himself up a little for being a normal young man who was curious about sex and enjoyed a good dirty joke once in a while, and b) was over-estimating her prudishness or purity. In truth, they are both truly decent kids who can still get a good laugh out of bawdy topics once in a while. It sounds like they took great advantage of their short time together to reveal their real selves to each other, and accept the truth about each other.
He was so eager to take Dot to church while they were in Cleveland, but there simply wasn’t enough time. He wants to get started back to regular church attendance soon, and he thinks they ought to go together as often as possible when he’s home from the Navy. When he prays, he asks for Divine guidance in seeing and correcting his faults, and to better understand God’s teachings. He knows, as Dot does, that they have so very much to be thankful for.
Returning to the content of Dot’s letters, he says he hopes everything worked out well for Joyce. Did she need surgery? Was she able to spend Christmas with her family? Did she see Bill? Did Dot ever find out what caused Erla to faint? He’s sure that with her warped viewpoint, Erla would be quite popular with the boys on the John R. Craig.
At the end of page 7, Dart writes, “…there’s nothing more to say; no other way to express my tender, passionate longing for you; except merely to say that I love you. For with those three famous little words, goes all the memory of our time together, all the thought of our plans and hopes, and all the brilliance the future holds for two people as much in love as you and I.”