Another very short note from Dart. He’s still glowing from the phone call – it was good to hear Dot so talkative and so happy.

He’s boned up for hours on psychology tonight, but he still feels far out to sea on most of it. He has is usual dire predictions about the test tomorrow.

It’s nearly 2 a.m. but he took a 3-hour nap today after mowing the lawn. Still, the test awaits and he must sleep.

#          #          #

Dot’s letter is also very short, and also written at 2 a.m. An old roommate of El’s is visiting, so the older girls, plus Dot and her father stayed up very late playing rummy. They did take a break around 1:00 for roast beef sandwiches and coffee. Since then they’ve been sitting around chatting.

El’s friend Vonnie has just lived through a terrible ordeal. Her husband was back from the war for two weeks before he got in touch with his wife. When he did, he told her that he didn’t love her, had never loved her, and he was leaving immediately. El says that before he left for the Army, she’d never seen two happier people than Vonnie and Craig. The story reminds Dot that the casualties of war extend far beyond those killed in action.

Just a note here on the fate of Vonnie: She went on to meet a wonderful man named Jim and had a long and happy marriage with him. She and Eleanor remained fast friends until the end of their lives when they were both in their mid 80’s. I wonder if part of the bond they shared was the experience of having once loved and lost.

At  Dart’s request, she’s sending the mailing address for Sunapee. It’s a post office box, and the post office closes on September 15. It’s a good thing they’ll be leaving there on the 16th, or there’d be no way for anyone to reach them until spring!

Her father has been looking so tired and run down lately that she’s thankful he’ll be leaving soon to spend a few days at his beloved lake. Both Gordon and George are pitching in to run the business while he’s away, and now he’s so eager that he’s talking about driving up Tuesday night after he gets off work. “You’d have to live with this family to understand how very much we all love Sunapee. Everything else is forgotten when Sunapee plans are in the making. There isn’t a closer family unit than ours when we’re all at the lake together. Forgive me for going on so much about it. Guess it’s in my blood. I sure hope it lives up to your expectations of it.”

There’s something that Dot has been turning over in her mind for quite some time. She’s concerned that his folks won’t make the trip out to their wedding next June. Having them miss the ceremony would be as sad for her as if her own parents did. She feels that somehow, she and Dart must make sure they do all that’s required to get them to come. Although they’ve made enough plans for that penny collection to spend it ten times over, she can think of no higher purpose for it than paying for his parents’ trip to Connecticut next summer.

She’d like to write all night, but it’s very late. Does he realize they will see each other in less than 226  hours?

Dart begins with the bad news that his psych test was a killer. He had studied too much of the wrong stuff and he knows he did badly. (Does that sound like a familiar refrain? The last time we heard it, he got an A.)

He has decided on train as his mode of transport to Greenwich. It costs only $3.00 more, but saves hours of time. He expects to be arriving on the Ohio State Limited at 8:50 a.m. on Saturday morning. Burke will be riding with him from Cleveland because he’s been invited to spend a few days with his best buddy who now lives in NYC.

Their pennies are safely stored now in a joint bank account with him and his mother. $35.59 and growing. He can’t wait for the day when the account can have both his and Dot’s first names and their last name. He also hopes this marks the beginning of an era when they will never be without some sort of savings. I know Dot shares that goal.

On Tuesday, Dart was making the rounds of streetcar stations downtown. He managed to talk one of the stations our of a complete set of original blue prints for one of the oldest cars they’re still running. It’s a swell print for model makers. They told him he could have any prints he wants, as long as he brings the finished cars he makes from them to the station to show the workers there. Now he feels he’ll feel some pressure to do a really good job on those little models.

Did Dot see the recent issue of Life? There was a feature about Frank Lloyd Wright, including photos of some homes he’s designed. Dart was intrigued by the simplicity and beauty of his designs, and he thinks that article would be a good one for them to include in their scrapbook.

He had a pretty light homework load last night, so he was able to join his family in a very long concert of records that Burke played on the record player. Dart says he keeps that thing busy most of the time.

Dot’s 8-page letter arrived today as a consolation for the psychology test. He’s sorry to hear she was so sick last Thursday and Friday. The only good thing he can figure came out of that is that she won’t be “troubled” while she’s at Sunapee.

Did he tell her about the new streetcars that Cleveland is adding? They’re clean and quiet. They’re the smoothest riding form of r=transit ever created. They’re ventilated by four concealed fans. They have safety glass and good lighting and roomy, comfy seats and marvelous safety devices. The look nice and take up less room on the street than their outmoded older sisters. They make almost no noise inside, and outside, you can “almost hear them at 100 feet.”

He’s still waiting to hear how her nursing home job went. I’ll be interested to see if she tells him the same story I heard about that job when I was a girl. If she doesn’t write it to Dart, I’ll tell it here in a day or so.

Why does she call him the “perfect gentleman?” He’s doubted that about himself on more than one occasion, but if she really thinks of him that way, he’s happy.

“That’s all for now Dot. I’m awfully tired. Let’s go to bed.”

#          #           #

Dot surmises that her family got a very early start for the lake this morning because by the time she an El awoke at 9:00, the dried eggs on the breakfast plates looked like they’d been there for hours.

She and her sister will be busy beavers for the next week. They have many projects they’d like to complete before her family gets home. This morning, Dot did a load of laundry and ironed for two hours, but the basket seems just as full as it was before she started.

She does plan to take a rare evening off tomorrow when she and Nancy Clapp go to see “Cluny Brown.” She hates to spare the time, but she’s not seen much of Nancy this summer and doesn’t know when she’ll see her again. Besides, El is having a steak dinner for friends tomorrow night and Dot doesn’t want to “be in the way.”

Dart’s letter today was short, but very sweet. She doesn’t have time to answer it tonight because it’s late and she’s very tired.

Dart begins with an ominous question: “Did you ever gargle with aspirin?” He finds the activity highly distasteful, but he must fight this bug that has descended on him. Oh, dear! Will he be ill during his final exams? After all his waiting, planning, hoping, will he be too sick to go to New Hampshire?

He had big plans for his three-day weekend; he was going to read two books from the psychology book list and write the required reports. But, alas! “Every time I’d look at a page of print, my right temple would start for my left ear, and the back of my neck would shake hands with my eyeballs.” (The bug doesn’t seem to have affected his sense of humor!)

He tried to make a schedule of all he must accomplish this week, and it’s too much. He tried to call Mrs. Carle to say he couldn’t make it for dinner on Saturday, but she wasn’t home. He did, however, manage to fill out his application for “terminal leave pay,” so Uncle Sam should be sending him $40 soon.

Today he ran into John Rousch at the downtown library. If my memory is in tact, he was involved somehow in that big group blind date in 1943 when Dart met Dot at Andrews School for Girls. Anyway, Dart reports that John hasn’t changed, but now Dart is able to give the wise cracks right back to John’s rude insinuations. The boy seems always able to rub Dart’s fur the wrong way.

Cleveland has been taken over by fly-boys, here for the National Air Races. The sky is laced with all sorts of planes, and Dart hopes he gets to see one of those “jet-propelled” jobs before the whole thing is over.

He talks a little politics, mostly regarding the situation with Russia. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have real trouble with them, and within a year. I can only hope that the regular Army and Navy can take care of them; that we, and not they, have enough atomic bombs; and that they, not we, strike the first blow. I think that maybe the newspapers started something they’ll regret when they became a party to the whispering campaign against Russia. Also that Russia is barking up a pretty tall tree this time. Of course, their armies are not demobilized to the extent ours have been, and their equipment is almost as good as ours, because it is ours. But I think that we can handle the situation. If we should fight Russia and win, we’d be in for plenty of trouble, for all the little nations who are even slightly aligned with Russian principles would be picking at us, even as they are now. I must be on the wrong track tonight, for all I can see is gloom in the future of world affairs. I hope I’m on the wrong track.”

He dreams a bit about how much fun it would be to go to a high school football game. Maybe they could go double, which would make it almost like old times, “only better, ’cause this time, I’m in love with my date.”

Uncle Guy is finally back home, still with a fever of unknown origin.

In response to Dot’s recent letter, Dart quips, “Next time you’re down in the dumps, will you bring me a couple of tires?”

“I get a big lump in my throat every time I read your sentence about how you like to lie awake awhile and think about me. Gee, I wish this were next June and I were preparing to go there and bring you back here permanently.”

#          #          #

It’s very late because Dot and Nancy went for a walk in the rain after seeing “Cluny Brown.” The movie wasn’t as good as Dot was hoping, but it was light and humorous.

“Well, tomorrow is my last day at the playground. I’ll miss the kids, but I feel as if I’ve been running all summer and I’ll be glad to stop. I wish I knew what I were going to do when I come back from Ohio. I won’t go unless I have a definite job lined up. Everyone has discouraged me from becoming a telephone operator but no one seems to have any better suggestions. I’d like to get a job that wouldn’t be too unbearable, pays pretty well, and one I’d be able to use in getting a job in Cleveland next year. I think I missed my calling somewhere along the line, ‘cuz at present I seem to be good for little more than nothing.”

She writes that there’s not much sense in starting another page, except that she needs more room to tell Dart how much she loves him. Even with more space, she can’t do much of a job with that, but in 168 hours, she’ll be able to give him a preview of things to come down the road.

She wishes him good night, and good luck on his exams.