Although Dart never mentions it in his letter, this is Thanksgiving Day, but he’s not feeling very thankful. “I’ve been so lonesome for you today that I’ve been hard to live with. All I’ve been doing is moaning, groaning, and eating. I’m in no mood for writing a letter tonight, so if this one’s off the beam, it’ll give you some good excuse for knowing about my unpredictable, ungrateful, utterly screwy moodiness.”
Claiming that there’s no connection between the previous paragraph and the next – just his random thoughts, he tells her that one of his high school gal friends was married recently in Kentucky. Her name used to be Charlotte Monck and she wrote to him sporadically when he was in Great Lakes Hospital. “I dated her, occasionally, because nobody else would go out with me.”
His most recent letter from Dot is dated the 24th. From it, he deduces that since her monthly issue was running a bit late, his long letters didn’t arrive at a time when they would do her much good. He suggests she “arrange things” so that she’ll be free of such concerns on June 14th, and “thereafter, for a while.”
He isn’t sure if Burke could be in Connecticut in time for a June 14th wedding because his exams in Chicago will wrap up on June 13. (I’ve noticed that nearly all references to their upcoming wedding place it on June 14. In fact, they were married on the 20th. I’m not sure when the final date was set, but they clearly aren’t there yet.)
Dart wishes that when she makes the break away from her parents, he could do the same from his. He acknowledges that their living on his folks’ third floor will allow them to marry a full year before he’d originally thought they would, but he’s eager for the two of them to strike out on their own now. Still, maybe just one of them making a clean break at a time will ease the transition, just as being in the V-12 unit and going to Case eased his transition from home to military life.
“I’ve always said you had a pleasant and cheerful voice. Now one of the phone company customers has thought enough of it to call them and compliment them on you! That’s swell! I’m glad you’re so successful and so happy at your job. Having a job you can feel that way about surely has its advantages. I’m proud of you, my Sweetheart. (Let’s always be sweethearts, even after next June.)”
He sends wishes for a great choral concert on Sunday. He hopes it’s all she hopes it will be. He thinks, however, that it’s a shame they didn’t put her angelic voice to work in a solo. How he wishes he could sing!
Wishing he could reach out and hug her until she was breathless, and run his fingers through her soft brown hair, he bids her good-night.