Although Dot’s letter was the only one he received today, Dart says he won’t write much. First, he must write to his folks because he didn’t yesterday. Second, there’s not much news to report.

The little news he does have is that he is free of his ice bag and allowed to get out of bed for a few minutes at a time. He claims that if the blonde witch nurse tries to make him do physical labor too soon, she’ll be in for a little resistance.

He relates a “tragic incident” in his ward last night. Around 2:00 a.m. he rolled over in bed and ruptured his ice bag. Frigid water and ice cubes all over his bed and himself! The corpsman who came to dry him off, flip the mattress and change the sheets turned on all the overheard lights to accomplish his task. Dart’s ward mates were none too happy and made several nasty comments about “wetting the bed at his age.”

He intends to keep trying to spoil Dot with long and frequent letters until he’s back on active duty and likely unable to write as much.

He assures her that he will never write anything in a letter to anyone that he wouldn’t want Dot to see. He also assures her that his folks have never, and will never read any of the letters he sends home. He ties them with string and his mother packs them away with the strings intact.

He trusts she’ll let him know her decision when she has chosen a college to attend. Again, he affirms that he loves her and will forever.

Poor Dot! It’s 11:00 p.m. when she finally sits down to write this letter, and she has had quite a day. She takes Dart through it step by step, starting with breakfast for Chuck at 6:30. She gets through hours at the store, painstakingly folding and re-folding stacks of rayon bathing suits while customers wantonly scatter them again, helter-skelter. Finally Mr. Pecsok picks her up and she goes off to cook dinner, clean house, bathe Chuck and send him off to bed while Mr. Pecsok visits his wife in the hospital. At last Dot can take a quiet moment to write to her beloved, but, alas! The phone rings. It is her sister Harriet. She and husband George would like to come visit with their good friend Mr. Pecsok and they would like her to watch their little Toni Gale. Off Dot traipses to babysit for her niece, with a promise from Harriet that they’ll be home “early.” Dot’s mother calls to say that several other couples have joined the “party” at the Pecsok’s, so it looks as though Harriet and George may be a little later than expected. Phew! Did I mention that she made the beds and did the dishes at the Pecsok home this morning before walking a mile to Chuck’s nursery school in time to catch a bus and get to work? No wonder this girl’s exhausted. Well, at least she’s making a whopping 25 cents per hour!

Regarding Dart’s query about his letters possibly going through the sterilizer, she responds that the blue lining of his airmail stationery does look like it ran a little. “However, having no place to go, it didn’t run far.”

She agrees that he is quite right to assume her family is a pack of kidders. She assures him, however, that she can give as good as she gets, and she just teases them right back.

She thought she heard Harriet coming home, but it was a false alarm. Asking Dart’s indulgence, she signs off to take a late-night nap on the sofa.

Dart  begins by warning Dot that this is another of the kind of letter he’s been writing more of lately. He’s not in a very good mood and he feels lousy. He predicts he’ll feel better after writing a few sour remarks.

There is some dubious good news, although the way Dart feels physically, it’s not so good. He has been returned to his former ward because his mumps quarantine is over. Dr. Pumphrey has declared his cyst healed and fit for duty. The other doctors at Ward 85 will decide his fate after they meet with him. Here’s the rub: the ward doctors have a reputation of sending everyone back to active duty as soon as possible. Dart is eager to get back to life, but his legs get rubbery, his heart pounds and he gets winded at the slightest exertion. He fears that if he’s discharged to boot camp now he’ll be back in the hospital soon, in far worse shape.

Dart says this could be a turning point for his luck and he has an inescapable inkling that his luck will get worse. He tells Dot not to give him any blarney about his positive spirit, because he doesn’t have that now!

Now on to her letter – He likes her sharp new stationery. He’s impressed by her 24-hour day and jokes about her getting time and a half for any hours over eight.  He assumes young Chuck will be disappointed that he can’t play with his baby sister right away.

Dart agrees with her that too many teens are getting engaged to be married – often with disastrous results. He’s sure that his friends John and Sally are in this for good and that they’ll make a success of it. Still, they have no money in the bank and no idea what comes next in their lives. Dart has ideas about things he’d like to have in place before he would ever make the leap to engagement and marriage. He says Dot figures into his plans, but that the time is inappropriate to air those plans right now . They’ll keep for a later date.

His final paragraph announces “That was just what I needed. Just write it down, embellish it a bit, add some amorous thoughts, whip it up and serve it on paper to my love. That’s you. You’re a tonic.”

Dot begins her letter by quoting a book or an article she is reading. “There is nothing that brings two people closer together than separation.”  How happy she is to hear that, because she wouldn’t want them to get tired of each other. “Fat chance of that happening,” she adds.

“Wait for you?,” she asks. There is absolutely no alternative. First, all the unattached males in her life are either toddlers or supported by a cane. Second, she has no interest in anyone else. She has strong ideas about the perfect man for her, and all such men currently reside at Great Lakes, Illinois.

She’s spending tonight at a different house caring for two young children. Having made $12.00 this week by babysitting, she claims to be considering a child care business called “Dot’s School for Tots.” Or “If You Don’t Care How Your Kids are Brung Up, Bring ’em to Dot’s.” She tells Dart that she loves kids so much that she’d consider adopting a slew of them just to hear their chatter.

She tells of a hot and humid day at the store. Even the wrapping paper was soggy. She’s decided that hot, cranky customers and sleepy, crank y Dot are not a good combination, so she’s trying to get more sleep this weekend.

Once more, she asks Dart to forgive her for always writing to him when she is so tired, but late night is the only time she can manage to squeeze in a little time. She wants to send him another care package, but she has no idea what to include. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, she suggests jaw-breakers. She asks him for ideas. “The more unusual the request, the better I like it.”

This letter from Dart is a variety pack: a pinch of pathos, a smattering of trivia, some “inside navy” chatter, a clever riff and a heavy dose of profound, intimate heart songs.

First, the pathos. Dart has been ordered back to duty. And he has been forbidden to appeal the decision to a higher authority. He has strong misgivings about his immediate fitness, but he’s putting the best face possible on it. He’s hoping this will be the change in luck he and Dot have been counting on, and he hopes that change is for the better.

The trivia is the news that his brother Burke has been inducted into the National Honor Society and his parents wrote that they miss seeing Dot.

The inside Navy chatter came in response to Dot’s question about the credentials of Navy doctors. I suspect Dot’s tone was tongue-in-cheek, but Dart chose to answer in compete and accurate detail. This “dissertation” reminded me of a line we borrowed from a Stan Freburg album when we were kids: Ask Dad a simple question, you get a pageant. I predict you’ll see that side of Dart a time or two in future letters. Maybe I’ll instigate a safe word to let readers know there’s a pageant coming on and they may choose to avert their eyes.

In this day’s letter, he saves the best parts for last. Treat yourself to a reading of his paragraph about figuring out Dot’s birthday. Such a fun and snappy writing style.

And finally, some endearing lines about how he came to be in this relationship with the perfect girl. Here’s an exerpt: It seems like all my hopes and dreams and faith are coming true. … I’ve dreamed of a sweet girl who would love me as I loved her. …And now you’re making my dreams come true. You’re the justification of my faith. …I’m probably old-fashioned in believing that a kiss is something sacred, not merely to be asked or given in exchange for a pleasant evening; that endearing words were meant mainly for those who felt the same about each other and who believed in each other and the words they were using. …And now that I have met you, I feel that all the taunts of being “slow,” the seeming incompleteness of my former acquaintanceships, the occasional loneliness… — all these are justified. I love you, my dearest Dot.

A scant page and a half is all Dot could muster today. She’s back at Pecsok’s – her favorite home-away-from home. Today when she arrived, ready to prepare the family dinner, Mr. P. had already cooked up a marvelous chicken feast. Dot explained that she had cooked a dehydrated baked bean dinner the night before and had managed to dry the beans out even more. She claims they looked exactly like fertilizer! Could she have stumbled upon the reason Mr. Pecsok did the cooking tonight?

The English sailors she’s mentioned before stopped by tonight. They are leaving town tomorrow and will be home in less than a week. “It makes England seem awfully close, doesn’t it?”

This hurried letter from Dart resembles recent ones from Dot. It’s a schedule of activities he completed during the day as he readies himself to return to duty. Haircut, collecting gear for boot camp, shipping his model interurban cars home, packing his limited belongings, etc. He also reports mailing a package to Dot.

Yet after all that, he feels miserable. He’s almost certain he’ll be staying in the “health factory” for awhile longer. The thought depresses him because he simply wants to get well.

Stealing a line from Reader’s Digest, he closes with “Keep smiling, my favorite chin-up girl!”

Dot begins her letter with the question on everyone’s mind; “Off the ice bag yet?” Of course, we know he is, but that letter hasn’t made its way to Greenwich yet.

She reports that today was the busiest day so far at Franklin Simon, but she loved running back and forth across the store, keeping customers happy. She was equally happy to return to the Pecsok house to find that, once again, dinner was waiting and Chuck had been fed.

After four weeks of waiting, the Chamberlain family has finally heard from Dot’s brother, Gordon, from ‘somewhere in the Pacific.’ Says Dot, “It sends chills up my spine, to think of him out there in that vast ocean. …God bless him and all the others like him. And may all of you be able to come home for good soon.”

In this deeply personal collections of letters, it seems the war is usually a minor character. When it makes an appearance, it still catches me a little by surprise. This is a conflict that truly involved millions of private individuals like Dot and Dart over a large part of the world. We’ve not seen a war so all-encompassing since – and I pray we never will again.

Dot thanks “the old man of experience” for his advice about getting through the early weeks of a new job. “I’ll try and do as you say, ‘tho I’d prefer it if you’d come and show me how.”

She tells him that simply reading the paragraph where he had the imaginary conversation with the telephone operator made her heart beat twice as fast. How cute she is! I hope she’ll soon have the real experience.

Because tomorrow is Memorial Day, this letter will probably not be mailed until Wednesday. She closes by saying that she may be busy, but she thinks of him constantly.

Can a writer be “loquacious?” If so, Dart is today. This 8-page letter to Dot followed a 10-pager he had just written to Fred Dixon. It’s apparent from the start that he’s feeling better, although exhausted from the effort.

All day, he has been stuck, poked, and drained in an effort to determine what’s going on with him. The ice pack is once again his steady companion. While most of the tests are coming back normal, the new doctor seems determined to “get to the bottom of this fouled-up series of ailments.”

He tells Dot that he just heard an announcement over the public address speakers that US bombers had hit an island “only 1,000 miles from Tokyo.” All the guys listening with Dart were struck by the fact that two short years ago, 1,000 miles would have seemed like a long distance. Airplanes have shortened distances since the early days of the war. “By that train of thought, we’re ‘only’ 1,100 miles apart. A mere routine bombing flight. Would that I could make it and bail out over Greenwich.”

He seems to have gotten a kick out of reading her daily exploits at work and babysitting. Cheerful images of ordinary domestic life must have served as “chicken soup for the soul” for thousands of servicemen during those long war years.

The weather at Great Lakes has been uncomfortably hot and humid. Dart’s sheets are sodden and his leather money belt has bled its color all over his pajamas. He’s grateful for the cool breezes that occasionally find their way across his bed from the lake, just 150 feet away.

Commenting on how they’ve become better acquainted through letters, Dart has obviously given the subject much thought. “Through your letters, I think I know very well, a sweet, home-loving good girl with a charming personality and true, faithful heart. …I know that you’re exceptionally pretty with a very harmonious set of features. In fact, Dot, I think I’m mighty lucky to know a real life dream like you.” Isn’t that a simple definition of love? To feel lucky to have the object of our love in our lives?

Dart mentions that his doctor calls him a “bastard case,” disowned by the surgical department and cured of mumps and its complications, but to weak and frail to return to duty. Dart’s lament is “Nobody wants me. I’m just a worthless bum.” I predict a firm contradiction by Dot is forthcoming.

He returns to the task of answering her recent letters, point by point.  He’s so glad she likes children – another thing they have in common. I’s fine with him if she writes to him late at night, as long as she keeps up her wonderful, morale-building contact. He has a special request for a package from her – he’d like for Dot to ship herself to him as quickly as possible. He can tell she enjoys her job at the Pecsok house. He cautions her not to malign her own cooking too much. Otherwise, he might see a bottle of iodine and think, “Oh my! Dottie has been burning water again!”

He ends the letter so that he can jot a short note to his mother.

Dot’s letter expresses awe and appreciation of Dart’s recent letters, especially the beautiful one he wrote on May 28. She’s happy they are in agreement on life’s important things, and that they’re equally “old-fashined” in certain matters.

She envisions him on his first day back at boot camp, unaware that he never made it. She infuses the paragraph with her typical pep talk about changing luck and positive thinking.

News of Burke’s election the the National Honor Society doesn’t surprise her. The possibility was discussed when she had dinner with his family in Cleveland, and she had the feeling then that he would make it. She congratulated Dart on being born into such a wonderful family and for”adding glory to the name.” I sometimes wonder if people really used that kind of language in 1944, or if these two writers are just having fun with dramatic affect.

Tonight, Mr. Pecsok asked Dot if she could tear a phone book in half. Picturing the diminutive Greenwich book, she assured him she could. Mr. Peksok, a recent transplant from Cleveland, slyly presented her with a directory from his home town.  The first thing she did was to look up the number for D. G. Peterson. Suddenly, she had an urge to call Dart’s mother, so she called her own mom for an opinion on the subject. Ruth Chamberlain responded that Dot could do as she pleased, but that Mrs. Peterson might think she was silly for calling her out of the blue. Dot resisted the temptation, but asked Dart if he thought his mom would have minded.

Because she has picked up a summer cold, she announces her plan to go to bed with her bottle of nose drops. Instead, she heard Chucky fall out of his bed, and rushed off to set things right with him.