Dot begins her promised long letter using pencil and yellow tablet while at work. She has had to inventory sweaters today and is now sitting in a pool of sweat. “Yes, I said ‘sweat.’ The saying is that only horses sweat, but who am I to deny I am one and the same?”

She is hanging on until lunch time when she can go home and find two or three letters from Dart waiting on the hall table.

Her mother and brother are going up to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire for three weeks. Although her dad is driving up to bring them home over Labor Day, Dot is babysitting, so she’s unable to see her beloved place yet another season. She says she so green with envy that she looks moldy.

She reports there is not a customer in the store. No wonder! It is so hot that the clothes stick when trying them on. She tells the story of a recent customer who came in looking for a dress but decided it was too hot to shop for one that day. Instead, she asked Dot to show her the coolest thing they had in stock. When Dot presented her with a very scanty bathing suit, the lady beamed and said she’d take it. The shopper admitted she didn’t need the suit, but it was cool and cute. “That’s what I call throwing $10.95 away,” quips Dot. “Wouldn’t it be awful to have so much money and no idea about  spending it?” That leads me to wonder two things: What was the 1944 version of “very scanty?” and What did a reasonably priced bathing suit cost back then?

She returned from her lunch break in a far better mood, because of the arrival of some letters from San Francisco. She was delighted to read about his party at the home of the hospitable strangers, arranged through the USO club. “I’m glad you had a good time and I am also glad you missed me.”

She launches into a mock scolding about his fear of diving boards. She tells him that she just took a dive off a 20-foot platform and it makes her glad that she’s found one thing she can do better than him. “Surely, tho’, you can swim 150 feet! Otherwise, better you should have joined the Infantry. However, until I can get 98 on Electricity and 95 on Math tests, I shall hesitate to make further comments on your aquatic abilities. Leave us not louse up our beautiful friendship over such triffles.”

In response to Dart’s request that she send his parents a snapshot of herself, she replies that she thinks that would be a bit too forward until they request one. She suggests that maybe he could send the a photo of her, if he’s sure they’d like it.

She’s gratified that he liked her care package and apologizes that she could not include a bigger and better candy selection. “But, as I think I mentioned before, there’s a war going on and it’s mighty hard to obtain without a priority.”

She wraps the letter up after taking a two-hour break to iron clothes in the 95 degree kitchen. Now she hears on the radio that a heat wave is heading her way. So, what is this they’re experiencing now?

Commenting on the correction of her spelling that Dart inserted into his letter, she sasses him with “Ok, so I’m good for your morale, but you’re good for my morals.”

Another short note from Dot, beginning with the news that she and El have been talking together for over two hours.  At first, El was trying to convince Dot that Don was the better catch while Dot, not surprisingly argued the opposite. When they realized neither could sway the opinion of the other, they just settled in for a sisterly chat.

Dot is deeply regretting that she told Mrs. Miller she’d babysit over Labor Day if she couldn’t find anyone else. That will probably mean forfeiting a quick trip to New Hampshire, a fate Dot likens to cutting off her hand. She declares Lake Sunapee the closest thing to heaven on earth. As an 88-year old woman, Dot still holds the same opinion of that special place.

Tomorrow is Dot’s half day at Franklin Simons, but she expects she’ll work harder at home during the second half of the day. She’ll need to up her game when making dinner for her dad. He seems to think she’s not as domestic as an 18-year old girl should be.

Dot’s letter starts on a cheerful note. She raced home from work at two o’clock to find the mail had not yet been delivered. While she cleaned her way through the house, she kept an eye on the street, watching for the mailman. After an eternity of waiting, she saw him approaching the house and ran out the door to great him. When she saw him coming up the path, grinning from ear to ear, she knew it had been worth the wait. Two letters from Dart! Now there’s a postman who has his fingers on the pulse of the community!

Her next paragraph is about the weather. This time, she has high praise after days of griping. They had a high temperature of 82 with a cool breeze blowing all day. She hopes this pattern will stick around for a while.

In response to Dart’s tale of the crazy bird on Treasure Island, she has a brief retort – “A very interesting story about your feathered friend. No further comment.”

She also quips, “If you do decide to go to California on your honeymoon I hope you have as nice a time as I’m going to have in New Hampshire.”

She assures him she did not do her back dive off the high tower – just the diving board on the float in Long Island Sound.

She’s delighted by the news that he has sent some pictures (his official Navy portraits) and she promises she will place one in the front window so that all the passing girls will be jealous. She promises she’ll swoon when she sees them, but not from fear.

Regarding his unspecified dreams, she doesn’t know what to say, except she hopes they all come true. She also has a few dreams of her own. I suspect their dreams align rather closely.

She’s so glad he mentioned the sewing kit that he needed. She rushed right out and bought one she hopes will meet his needs. She assures him that it gives her great pleasure to do little things for him and she hopes he’ll keep the requests coming. I think I know exactly which sewing kit she sent him. I still have it today. It is about the size of a box of safety matches, covered in sturdy navy blue fabric. It holds about a half dozen tiny spools of thread in basic colors, a few needles, a thimble, a threader and some very small scissors. I had always assumed it was issued by the Navy as part of his equipment. Since the guys were expected to mend their own uniforms and stitch on their uniform insignia, I thought the Navy would provide the means to do so.

Dot confesses her ignorance of the word “muster,” which Dart used in a recent letter. “You don’t mean the stuff they put on hot-dogs, do you?”

She tells him that Doug called last night from Sunapee. He’s only been gone a couple of days, but he missed his dad and called to hear his voice. Dot can’t understand how anyone could be homesick for anyone or anything when they were sitting by such a perfect lake.

She comments that the news from France is encouraging. She hopes the war in Europe will be over by Christmas and the Japs will be defeated shortly thereafter. Reading this comment made me realize how seldom the war is mentioned in these letters. It seems like it would have been foremost on everyone’s mind. Had it gone on so long by this time that it faded to the back of folk’s consciousness, or was it left unmentioned out of courtesy?

She adds that another week has passed, meaning she’s one week closer to graduation. She knows he has no say in when or if he’ll get leave, but she prays he’ll be able to make it to her big day in February.

Suddenly, the weather in Greenwich has gotten very chilly. It’s only 50 degrees in Dot’s room at the McDonald’s house, where she is babysitting, but she’s not complaining. In fact, she’s sleeping outside on their sun porch.

She mentions a poem that the McDonalds place on their bathroom door. She’s included a copy for Dart, but it has not made the journey to present time with the letter. I wonder if Mom recalls what that poem was?

She gives Dart a play-by-play description of how she spent her day. Prior to leaving for work, she made her father’s breakfast, packed his lunch, changed the bed linens, took a bath and washed the dishes. At lunch time, she did her week’s worth of laundry and later did the week’s shopping before taking the bus to her babysitting gig. Phew! She feels pretty good about her accomplishments for the day.

Continuing with the recitation of her schedule, she tells Dart that tomorrow morning she babysits with the Miller boys and then she and El will go see Tender Comrade, starring Ginger Rogers.

She asks what he’s been doing for variety and then conjectures that variety is not a high priority in the Navy.

Here, she rambles rather aimlessly through a list of topics she says aren’t worth mentioning; the weather (already discussed), how she loves him (he already knows that), the war (she’s not supposed to upset the military men with such things), before finally admitting she’s just stalling in an attempt to get to page three.

Now that she’s made it, she ought to stop writing and finish letters to people who have been waiting for her response for a long time. She confesses to recently unearthing a letter from the Marine pen pal that he wrote on May 28! Still, she is unmotivated to write, and so the poor Marine must wait a little longer.

She repeats a joke she saw in “Readers’ Digest” about the high absentee rate occurring in Germany. More and more factories are failing to show up for work,

She finally gives up trying to extend the letter and encloses some stale gum for Dart’s chewing pleasure. For a bonus pun or two, check out her P. S. written on page 4.

No letter from Dart since August 16. I guess he meant it when he talked about how busy he was, but I can’t see how he could be much busier than Dot, who at least manages a couple of pages.

She is struggling to write the lines because her eyes are swollen from tears. She has just come home from seeing Tender Comrade and it obviously touched her deeply. She says that after seeing it, she is more sorry than ever that she was unable to tell Dart what was in her heart when she saw him last. “But since I didn’t, you’ll have to make a point to come home very soon so I will be able to tell you that I love you very, very much.”

While sleeping on the McDonald’s porch last night, she’s sure she saw the star Dart referred to in a recent letter. It was big and bright and more twinkly than the others.

She tells him to take of himself and know that she loves him always.

Here’s a delightful letter from Dot as Dart’s dry spell continues.

She begins with great exuberance at the arrival of Dart’s portrait. It’s absolutely “out of this world!” She continues with a funny story about her Dad’s reaction to the picture. When he came through the door at the end of the day, he could tell by the look on Dot’s face that either Dart was sitting in the living room or his photo was. She invited him to see for herself. A few minutes later, she checked back to find out what his reaction to the picture was, and she found the following message stuck to the frame:  #561341 WANTED for robbery. 6’1″, brown hair, etc.” When Dot asked her father for an explanation, he said, “Well, from that mischievous look in his eye, I took it for granted that he had just stolen cookies from his mother’s cookie jar and I thought people ought to be on the look out for him.” I see where Dot gets her sense of humor. (To see that “mischievous look” you can check out the portrait on the photo page of this blog.)

She is not pleased to hear about his cold. She thinks he has spent enough time in sick bay for all the sailors in the fleet, and she thinks that’s quite enough. To get healthy, she tells him to “blow hard, drink hot lemonade, get to bed by 7:00 PM and sleep until noon.” I’m sure the Navy would understand.

Referring to his recent success in his classes, she tells him that he better stop telling this “first class moron” how smart he is or she’s liable to throw a fit. On the bright side, when he is a world-celebrated genius, she’ll be able to say “I knew him when…”

It’s been decided that she will indeed accompany her father when he goes to Lake Sunapee over Labor Day to bring Ruth and Doug home. Dot is delighted to finally get to see the place after a three-year absence. She promises to take pictures to send to Dart. I know from experience that Lake Sunapee has inspired countless photographs over the years, but I can’t get too excited about the black and white snapshots that were the norm in the 1940s. People had to rely on their mind’s eye to see the deep blue water, the piercing blue sky and the cool green hemlocks. That’s easy if you’ve actually been there, but I’m not sure how impressed Dart would be seeing photos of a place he’s never visited, displayed in shades of gray.

Dot probes a little for details about a horrible dream Dart mentioned. She really wants to know what it was so she can be sure it doesn’t come true.

Gazing at the new portrait as she writes, Dot reports a warm feeling all over. In fact, she claims her glasses fogged up! I’d say the girl has it bad!

She says that by the time Dart gets this letter, they will have known each other for 11 months. It’s been the happiest 11 months of her life. “If this is a dream, I hope I never wake up,” she writes.