Dart shared the news that his father sold a lamp he had made. It was a small table lamp that Dart Sr. made out of a block of wood covered with ceramic tiles he’d hand painted. He sold it to Uncle Guy, although he probably didn’t get much for it. He’s had some nibbles from neighbors about more of the lamp’s he’s made, so maybe he’ll start a little business.

He reports that his Uncle Tom and his pal Mr. Shoemaker are planning a trip to Washington, DC. Apparently the old men of the Navy have received the rawest deal of the war. “When costs of living are so high and when pensions are being given to so many others, the pensions for the Fleet Reservists have been cut drastically. (Tom is a retired Naval officer.) The Fleet Reservists Association held its annual convention over Labor Day weekend at which Uncle Tom and a few others were chosen to go the the Navy Department to find out just what the score is. They’ve bought a mimeograph machine and plenty of office supplies. They mean business, I guess. Tomorrow I’m supposed to go out and help Uncle Tom clean up the mimeograph machine we brought out from Case.  The delegation of old salts leaves Monday. I doubt if they can do any good, but they’re trying.”

Helen likes her new job at the Federal Reserve Bank cafeteria. She gets a good breakfast before her shift begins, plus a free meal while there. She says the food is very good. Dart seems to whine just a little when he comments that he and his Dad will be improving their skills with a can-opener.

He received word from the VA that his subsistence allowance of $65 was reinstated as of September 30, so he’s on the payroll again.

I must say he sounds a little like an old biddy as he remarks about the fashion spread in the current issue of Life magazine. “Now will somebody tell me if people actually wear such things as that transparent job, or the neckline down to the waist job, or the slit-skirt jobs? If anyone actually does wear such things, who is it? Some of them look like high-priced excuses for going naked. I wonder if dresses like that are good, or bad, for the self-control of escorting males. Can’t see ’em myself. (Would probably see plenty, though, if I could.)”

He was tinkering with his trains again and ruined a good set of gears with a soldering iron. “Did likewise to a pair of wheels. (same tool), and did likewise to a pair of my fingers (same tool again.) These things are dangerous in the hands of an amateur!” He’s given up on his little black engine, which seems to have lost the will to run. He thinks he better hurry up and finish his new engine or he’ll have nothing to pull his trains.

He comments on Dot’s handwriting in a recent letter. It looks very good and legible. It has a more mature look than her handwriting that he’s seen before. For some reason, this sets him off on another of his psychology chats. It seems studies have shown that when a human being doesn’t learn something in the usual time frame for the development of that skill, they tend to learn the skill faster when they finally get around to it. For example, if a baby is very ill during the time that most babies are learning to crawl and walk, they will eventually catch up. They will progress from crawling to walking in very short order,  achieving the same level of proficiency as their peers, over a short period of time. Even though Dot delayed using cursive, once she started to try it, she caught up immediately. I’m clueless why Dart finds this worth writing about, but perhaps he can explain it himself. “Please excuse my occasional lapses into such stuff. It’s a good way to remember for me, and I figure maybe it’s a little help in our getting along with each other if each of us shares a little knowledge with each other. We learn something of the way the other half of our partnership thinks by that kind of exchange.”

In his next paragraph he confesses that he often feels silly after writing the way he did in the previous one. He thinks he could be accused of “talking just to hear the sound of his own voice.” He thinks he tends to long-windedness and sometimes picks the wrong illustration to make his point. It’s just that he’s very interested in a lot of things that most others have no interest in and he’s always hoping he might be able to spark their interest a little.

He thinks Dot should give his home address and phone to the Pecsok family. They seem to spend a lot of time in Cleveland, and he’d be delighted to have any one of them pay him a visit. They’re all such very nice people and he’d love to count them as friends.

Christmas is looming and he has few ideas and less money for gifts. He wishes he knew how to sew aprons.

#          #          #

Today there are two cheerful letters from Dot – one written to Dart, of course, and the other to his parents. We’ll begin with Dart’s.

She and Jane have just returned from Stamford where they saw a beautiful Technicolor musical called “I Will Always Love You.” Although Dot had never heard of it, she enjoyed it very much. As she writes this letter, she and Jane are in Jane’s living room eating peppermint ice cream and listening to Jane’s new album “Peter and the Wolf.”

Dot’s father gave her the use of his car this evening because she baked him an apple pie. “He raved about it, but I think that’s partly because it’s his duty as a father to rave about such things. He even went so far as to say he’d never tasted a better pie.” She promises to bake a pie for Dart the next time he visits, but he better visit soon, lest she forget how to bake. She confesses to him that she really does enjoy cooking but she has a lot to learn about it.

No letter from him today, tomorrow is a holiday, and the next day is Sunday. She thinks she can last a few days without a letter from him, but she won’t do it happily.

Before signing off she asks Dart if he’s been noticing the moon these last few nights. It makes her think of the one over Mt. Kersarge that they enjoyed together last month.

The salutation on the second letter is “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.” She dispenses immediately with making excuses for taking so long to write. “I surely will be glad when my extended vacation is at an end. I find that sitting around doing nothing doesn’t appeal to me very much.”

She tells them this is the first time she’s ever been idle in the fall. Fortunately, her cousin and friend Jane has also been “between engagements,” so they’ve been having lots of fun together. They both enjoy their shorthand class at night school and the choral club they joined. “I hope I can conquer shorthand before it conquers me.”

She’s eager but also a a little nervous about starting her job as a telephone operator on Monday. When she was helping out at Rogers store last week, the switchboard operator decided to give Dot a little preview of what she’ll be doing on her new job. “Mr. Rogers wanted to speak with the buyer, and after keeping him waiting for several minutes, I finally plugged him in with the stock boy. When I tried to correct the problem, I disconnected him entirely. I was thoroughly discouraged and I’m sure Mr. Rogers was completely disgusted.”

She asks if Ohio’s beautiful weather continued after she left. She must admit that the weather, hospitality and the company she enjoyed while in Cleveland were perfect.

She wonders if she’d left them with the impression that her mother was able to get her hands on lots of meat these days? “For some reason, the meat (?) we’ve been having for the past two weeks looks and smells an awful lot like fish and spaghetti with cheese.  I wonder who’s hiding all the steak! Oh well, to borrow a favorite expression of Dart’s ‘Come ze revolution, ve all vear dungarees.'”

Another typed letter from Dart shows he’s improving his keyboard skills. At church today, he volunteered to help host the teen rallies they have on Friday nights after Shaw High School has a home football game. For the first rally of the season they expected 15 kids and got 50. Now they’re up to 80. Dart’s help selling pop or doughnuts is greatly needed and appreciated.

Dart had a nice long chat with Al Forbush at church today. (If you recall, Al was dating Dot’s housemate from Kent last year.) Al seems to be doing pretty well at Fenn College. He’s had a couple of dates with Phyll and he’s also dating a couple of girls at Fenn. Al says Phyll has a job that keeps her from going out on Saturday nights.

As he was talking with Al, a couple of other classmates from Shaw passed by. There are a lot of guys from there who are going to Kent this year. Dart’s sort of glad that Dot didn’t go back to campus for a second year because all these guys are wild, and they’re taking Phys Ed, so he’s afraid she would have run into them (or been run over by them).

Then, along comes Fred! It’s apparently Dart’s day for seeing old pals. He and Fred stood on the sidewalk for quite a while. “We chatted for a long time and not a word of disagreement passed between us. He cusses like a man who has forgotten any decent words, though. Just as I did when I was in the Navy. (I’m happy to say that my language has undergone a pretty fair conversion, and I’m no longer afraid of cutting loose with  some particularly juicy bit of banter at the dinner table.) Back to Fred, though, he seemed in good spirits today. If the school bookstore doesn’t get any psych textbooks in tomorrow, he may stop by to borrow my first semester text.”

“We’ve been fortunate in having an occasional scrap of meat to eat recently; seven wieners, a few slices of pressed ham, some spare ribs, some neck bones. Pop sure needs meat. Just doesn’t have any strength at all. Two trips upstairs in one hour tire him immensely.”

He writes at length about the plethora of concerts coming to town in the near months to the many music venues around Cleveland. He hopes that next year both their time and their money budgets can include lots of concerts, especially jazz. “I know you don’t want to ‘go’ all the time, but I’d surely like to keep up with the world by attending those things.” He wants to expose her to all kinds of music because his tastes are so varied. He hopes she like the plays he suggests, and he hopes she’ll suggest plays as well. Most of all, he just wants her to like going places with him.

Then he stews for an entire page that she may think going to a play or a concert every week or two will be too much “chasing around” for her – something she has expressed an aversion to. But he wants them to broaden their horizons, talk about what they’ve experienced, laugh together, make memories together. Now, it seems to me that Dot is generally fine with trying new adventures. I’m not sure why he’s worried that she’ll balk at this idea. In the end, he writes “As I read this over, it looks like I’ve over-sold my idea again, without putting the basic thought across. I wish I could get back on the ball and say what I mean. And say it in fewer words, too.”

#          #          #

After babysitting with the Pecsok children, Dot sat for three little boys (a new customer) and didn’t get home last night until 2:00 AM. Today she and Jane and Uncle Ralph went to a football game between the Greenwich Majestics and the Stamford Maroons. Dot says the latter team name should be spelled “Morons,” because they played so badly.

Tomorrow is the big day – she starts her new job. She’s excited, but also a little scared, as is usual in such circumstances. “For further information, keep an eye peeled for the mailman the day after you get this letter.”

As she looks out the window at the moon, she can’t help but wish they were enjoying it together, as they did last month. She imagines it’s probably almost as cold on that dock at Lake Sunapee now as it is in her bedroom this very moment.

“That’s all for tonight, except, of course, I love you!”

Dart missed writing last night because of too much school work, and it’s very late now to be starting a letter, but he can’t go two days without writing to his sweetheart.

The Spanish test came as predicted yesterday. If he gets above a C he’ll be shocked. “I’m no Spaniard, senorita.” He feels great relief that he is caught up in three of his five subjects, but his glow of satisfaction may fade tomorrow. He expects to get slapped around in journalism class tomorrow. The teacher read his masterpiece to the class yesterday and picked it to pieces.

He’s eager to hear how her first two days of work have gone. There’s a good chance he won’t write tomorrow because he’ll be going to the new member supper at church in addition to reading the 30 pages of required text for American Lit. He wishes he could read and work faster, but “The only things I do fast are fall asleep and get hungry.”

Friday night is the model railroad club at Homer’s house and Dart plans to go early to help Homer with his hosting duties.

Lately, Dart’s been daydreaming a lot about the future when he and Dot are living on the third floor in their little made-over apartment. He wonders what the furniture arrangement will be and where they’ll buy their furniture. He likes to picture her in the cozy little place, holding a coffee pot and a plate of sandwiches. (“See, I’m always hungry.”) “I, too have a good feeling when I awake and think that I love you and that my love is returned in good measure. I’m glad about us, Dot.”

He wonders how she liked “Peter and the Wolf.” He thinks it’s a nice treatment of an old folk tale and he’s heard several versions of it.

What’s he supposed to think about her pie? Was it really good, or is her father a biased judge? He certainly gets mixed signs about her cooking skills and he reminds himself that nobody’s an expert at things right from the beginning.

I got a little chuckle out of his next paragraph. “The Finkelstein brothers are prospecting our house for an investment. The ownership of this joint sounds like the roster of the Notre Dame football team; Durata to Gervaras to Finkelstein. I hope we’re not the ones to go ‘out’ on that triple-play.” Need I point out that I learned my sports vocabulary from my mother? She would have known that “triple-plays” occur in baseball – not Notre Dame football!

In his final sentence, he writes, with tongue firmly planted in his cheek, that he won’t check this letter for errors because he never makes any.

#          #          #

Once again, Dot’s trying to work on her longhand technique and she’s not at all pleased with the results. Her hand is cramping and she thinks the writing looks more like scrawl. She declares that Dart has such nice handwriting for a boy and hers is “particularly atrocious” for a girl.

“Why are you always afraid I won’t like the examples you give about something you learned in psychology? You once told me, not so long ago, that you didn’t think I was very eager to learn new things. Do you really think that? I don’t mean to give that impression. Sometimes I guess I act completely dumb about a subject that I really know something about, but that’s only because listening to someone who knows more about it, I can learn more. I’m always interested in your work at school and am flattered when you share it with me.”

She’s happy Pop sold a lamp. She wishes she’d had some money while she was in Cleveland because that was her favorite of his lamps, and she would have loved to buy it.

Regarding those crazy fashions in “Life,” she assumes someone wears them, or they wouldn’t be in a magazine. It must be a small number, though, because they are so expensive and so impractical. She assures Dart that he’ll never see her “in any such rig.”

Did she tell him she was trying to make time go faster by keeping busy? Well, it seems to be working. She gets up every day at 8:00 to wash dishes, do laundry, mending, and ironing. Then she goes to work. From there, she rushes off to either shorthand or choral club, often getting home after 10:00. She stays up until 1:00 or after every night, trying to stay caught up.

She has come to the conclusion that J.S. Bach must have had it in for altos. “In the opening chorus of his ‘Requiem’ we have to sing 28 notes in one breath. Then, I find it hard to know whether to concentrate on hitting the right notes or pronouncing the Italian words correctly. Much as I love to sing, I must admit I wasn’t sorry to see 10:00 roll around tonight!”

She’s tired, but not too tired to tell him that she loves him very much. She misses him to the hurting point. She tells Dart she’s going to enter every contest she can find and if she wins any money, she’ll put it toward a trip east for Dart at Christmas time.

Dart must unburden himself with the news that he got 96% on his first Spanish test. That may sound good, but the instructor says everyone should have scored 100% because she made the first test so easy.

Miss Tallmadge read (anonymously) Dart’s essay on Saipan for the class today. She filled the backs of the pages with critical suggestions and told him the piece was very good and had value. She wants him to rework it, using her suggestions for improvement. He doubts he’ll get any good reviews on the item he turned in for journalism today, in part because he exceeded the 1000 word limit by 20 %. And that was after he cut everything that gave the piece sparkle. He knows he’s too wordy, but he says there are people who make a living being wordy. That’s a style of writing that is totally passe in modern times; everything is moving toward brevity now. The young Dart would have surely struggled with that!

On Thursdays his schedule is so packed that he only has time for a milkshake and a sandwich for lunch. If he eats a late breakfast, he can usually get through the day without being too hungry.

He had a wonderful time at the church dinner last night. Everyone was so nice and the dinner was delicious. New members wore red roses, and now he’s looking forward to seeing Dot with her red rose by this time next year.

The big news from Cleveland is the spate of fires they’ve had in recent days. Three commercial concerns have gone up in flames, including a lumber yard that, ironically supplied materials for structures that had been destroyed by fire. The biggest fire was at a super market. The irony on that one is that it was one of the few markets in town that always had meat, oleo and soap when other stores ran out. There were two beef carcasses lost in the blaze.

He hopes Dot will notice the piece of paper stapled to page 4 of this letter. It contains some of her own words, which he’s taken the liberty of writing very small to make them easier for her to eat and swallow. The words are “Now it’s up to the Boston Red Soxs to put the Cardinals in their place. And they’ll do it, too.” Dart is only too happy to point out that Cleveland’s neighbors to the west, the Saint Louis Cardinals, cleaned Boston’s clock in the World Series.

The news about her first day of work was welcome. He hopes she’ll take some time to describe what the switchboard system looks like and how it operates. He points out that only she would have the nerve to write “I’ll keep plugging at it.”

He’s inexplicably tired at 1:15 AM, so he’ll have to save the rest of her “luscious letter” for later. He misses her so much that he’d gladly pay her two cents just to hear her torment him.

#          #          #

Dart Darling.

This is only going to be a note because I don’t want to make myself any more lonesome than I have been all day. Will winter never come? During the winter months I can look forward to spring, but now there seems to be nothing but a long, lonely winter ahead. Why does love have such different effects on different people? Why must I love you so much that there is little room for any other kind of love for anything or anybody?

I hardly ever have the opportunity to see my family any more, yet when the opportunity arises, I always prefer to come up to my room and be alone. I went for a walk this evening and every time I saw a couple walking hand in hand, I was so envious I was ashamed of myself. I have so much more than any other person I know, and I still live for the time when I can have you completely – all the time. Oh, I don’t want you stamped ‘Private Property – Keep Off’, but I would like to know that when I wake up in the morning you’ll be there beside me.

The point of this whole letter is to say that you’re stuck with me now, Bud, for keeps. Hope you don’t mind too much, ‘cuz I love the idea.

Dart’s letter is a sweet mix of newsy and nice. He mentions that the model railroad meeting was held at Homer’s house last night, making just four weeks since he and Dot and Burke and Marnie went to a football game together.

The club meeting was a lots of fun. Homer had rented a movie projector and borrowed some great railroad films from the library.  For Dart, the best part of the meeting may have been the tasty meal Mrs. Singer had waiting for the gang. The program must have inspired the boys because they’re now planning a RR fan trip on an abandoned interurban track near Youngstown. He hopes he get his dad to come along on that trip because it could do the old boy some good. Dart remembers stories his father told him about riding in the cabs of railroad cars that traveled around Cincinnati when he was a boy. The trip may be too much for the senior Dart, but he’d probably enjoy it. Dart also asked Tom Riley if he’d like to go. Tom seemed delighted, but will have to check on family plans before he commits. How Dart wishes Dot could go along, too. These trips are always lots of fun and provide beautiful scenery and living conversation.

Dart hung around Homer’s house helping to clean up, and then just shooting the bull. Homer seemed highly honored that Dart asked him to be in the wedding next June and he eagerly accepted.

“Today I took a long walk up in the Park. Had a real pleasant afternoon of memories. Seemed like you were tramping right along with me, and I surely wish you were. There were some kids playing with a gas model airplane and I sat and talked with them for about an hour. Dottie, let’s see that our  kids treat their little brothers and sisters nicely. I liked the kids, but the oldest one (15) was awfully mean to his little sister.  She and a little boy sat with me and we had a good time. They were nice kids.”

In spite of being tired when she got home from work today, his mother was happy to use the tickets that Guy and Ann had given them to go hear a broadcast of the orchestra at Severance Center. They enjoyed it very much. George Szell, the new conductor, seems to be doing a great job, in Dart’s opinion.

He marvels at the coincidence of her calling out his name in a dream, and at the same time he awoke to the sound of her voice calling him. “Sometimes you frighten me.”

Tom Riley was over at the house tonight and they had a grand time swapping tales. Somehow along the way, Dart’s managed to catch another cold. “Good night, Darling. I wish you were here to put your head on my shoulder and sing to me.”

#          #          #

Dot’s note is bright and breezy, as always. She luxuriated in a late sleep-in today and then got up to wash her hair and do some chores. She was torn between listening to the Army vs Columbia football game and raking the bountiful leaves in the yard. She decided she could do both by placing her radio in the kitchen window, cranked up loud enough to hear. “I managed to rake three blisters into my hand. There’s not a manufactured scent anywhere that can come near the wholesome close-to-nature smell of fall and burning leaves. Next to spring and summer, I like fall best.”

There was a house full for dinner yesterday. Dot’s aunts Bess and Nummy came down from Pittsfield to visit Dot’s cousin Dot R. and her children. Bess’s son Pearce also joined the party. It looks like our Dot has been drafted into housekeeper mode again. Her cousin has been sick and is unable to manage her house in New Rochelle and all the kids. Dot will be taking the train down after shorthand classes and chorus so she can be available in the mornings to get the kids off to school and pack their lunches. Then she’ll take the train back to Greenwich for work. She’s a little miffed at the inconvenience, “but I won’t mind that much if I can be of some service to Dot.”

After finding some movie passes that someone gave her dad three years ago, she and Jane went to see a film called “Sister Kenny,” starring Rosalind Russell. She enjoyed it very much and thinks it would be a great one for Dart to take his folks to see.

She claims she can’t hold her eyes open another minute, and to prove it, she writes a scrawl at the bottom of the page with her eyes closed. “My eyes may be shut now, but I see what I found when I found you!”

Here’s one of those letters from Dart that cannot be improved through paraphrasing, so I’ll quote it in its entirety. Just one word of explanation – unnecessary for anyone who knew this young couple, but required in the context of modern sensibilities: In the letter Dart makes two references to trying to talk Dot into “going to bed.” By that he means “It’s late, I’m tired and we both need sleep, so we really should pull ourselves away from each other and go to our separate beds.”

My Darling, I’m so lonesome for you! Of gee, Dot. I haven’t been able to do a thing all day except wish you were here. I kept wishing you were beside me in church today. I awoke, wanting desperately to be able to reach out a few inches and have my arms around you. Ever since I got your letter about me putting my arms around you at the table; and of trying to get you to go to bed, I’ve been thinking of how much I miss you.

Yesterday, up in the park, I wanted you. I wanted to have you with me, enjoying the beautiful clearness of the autumn day, enjoying the beautiful wonders of being in love – as we have done before. I wished for you when I was sitting with the kids, watching the older ones trying to make their airplane fly.

When I got to the brow of the big coasting hill I saw a couple of freshly scrubbed and very happy teenagers, and I had a big lump in my throat. I remembered how happy we had been in our walks up there. They had parked their bikes and were sitting on top of the hill. (The world, too.)

I’ve been thinking of our rides to Kent, and just any-old place, as we would sing or talk, you with your head on my shoulder; or on the warm evenings when we’d drive with the windows and ventilator open to catch the breeze, and you’d get lost whenever I’d go to the West Side one way and return another.

Yes, I’ve been thinking of the times we should have retired, too. I thought how disgusted and exasperated I’d get ’cause you wouldn’t go to bed, and how you were so cute and lovely and desirable that I just couldn’t stay angry more than a couple of minutes.

Oh, Darling, I’ve thought of it all. All the rest. Of the night we came home from the Pops concert. Of the concert by Fred Waring. Of the last night you were here. Of the Sunday evening picnic up at the park, with Mom and Pop. Of the nights when we sat on the couch in the dining room.

Good night, Dot Dearest. If only I could murmur that to you after an evening of lovemaking, then have us go right to sleep, locked in each others arms. I miss you all the time.

On the otherwise blank back page of this steamy letter, Dart draws a goofy little cartoon of two silly-looking people kicking up their heels in a lively dance.

#          #          #

Well, I spoke too soon when I wrote yesterday that Dot’s letters are always bright and breezy. Today she’s doing a slow burn, and I can hardly blame her.

After church, the aunts and cousins, and a few others sat around the Chamberlain kitchen after dinner, chewing the fat. As the afternoon wore on, Dot simply asked her mother what time she should be ready for Ruth to drive her to New Rochelle to tend Dot R.’s children. Ruth snapped that Dot needn’t be ready at any time and added, “Aren’t you ever going to stop being so selfish and help out somebody else once in a while?”

I hadn’t meant that I didn’t want to go to the Rucquois home, but Mother was ranting so loudly that I couldn’t explain myself. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps I am a selfish individual. But I certainly don’t approve of her methods of trying to change me. No one seemed to mind when El said that helping Dot’s family would be an awful inconvenience, but when I said I’d help if they didn’t mind me getting there late on school nights, they immediately said i was selfish! I’m not blaming Eleanor because she does have a great deal to do and everyone knows she’s not selfish. But to me, the things I do are just as important. My job next year may depend on this course in shorthand and that’s mighty important to me. From now on I think I’ll try being seen and not heard.

Forgive me for unburdening my troubles on you. I feel better for it, but I dare say you don’t. I’ve been wishing all day, and on and off since I returned from Ohio, that we had decided to be married in December. Maybe I can sleep myself into high spirits again. I love you, Dart, and miss you so very, very much.

I’m troubled by how badly Dot’s family sometimes treated her. It’s as though they never bothered to look at the real person behind this fun-loving, sarcastic girl. They didn’t see the sacrifices she made for others, the chores she did without ever being asked, the extra mile she’d go for anyone who needed her help, and how terribly hard she worked. They always tended to favor Eleanor, Dot’s senior by three years. I don’t know if El had been a sickly child or was perceived as having a fragile nature, but they treated her with kindness and sympathy while expecting Dot to be everyone’s work horse. It seems terribly unfair.

Dart writes that it’s time for all good little boys to be in bed, but since that doesn’t include him, he’s still up. Just after dinner, while attempting to read his American Lit, he nodded off at his desk. At 10:00 when his mother came in to make up his bed with clean sheets, he woke up feeling much better. He enjoyed his 30 pages by and about Ben Franklin, whom he describes as “an amazingly wise, modern, and astute old buzzard.” Then he did Wednesday’s Spanish assignment and started on tomorrow’s Industry homework. He sees that he is going to struggle with that class. He knows he says that about a lot of subjects, being hypercritical of his abilities, but this time, he really means it!

He reports that a number of students in his American Lit class have been highly critical of those early writers; they tell their own views, they are exceedingly vain to talk about their views, their knowledge, their goodness. Dart responds that those students must never be allowed to see his own writing because it’s filled with his personal observations and views.

“After one such argument in class, Mr. Carter said some things which seem to have crystallized my opinions of a college education. Those critics seem to have missed the point of an education, which I believe to be the teaching of an ability, even a desire, to know, understand, and tolerate the ideas of others; and to be able to formulate opinions uncolored by modern trends of intolerance. One thing we Americans are missing in our college educations is the all-around classical education in the arts and sciences which earlier generations of Americans received, and which the English and other Europeans still receive.”

He continues – at length – with the premise that our modern education tends more toward specialization. He understands that specialization can provide a reference point to which all other subjects can be related -“a sort of skeleton from which to hang the meat.” He agrees that specialization is often required for gainful employment. “However, I have come to the conclusion that overspecialization in the learning of college subjects leads to extremely dangerous and one-sided viewpoints and narrow-mindedness. People – myself included – tend to take only the subjects they like and this leads to the extreme of people refusing to take things they don’t like. A way to help all this is one of Dr. Heckman’s pet ideas of stressing in each class the relationship that subject has to other subjects.”

Dart becomes increasingly enamored with his subject matter and goes on for several pages on the subject of specialization vs generalization in education. He finally comes to the conclusion that his study of English and Journalism allow – indeed, encourage – a knowledge and exploration of all other subjects.

But wait! There’s more! He sees that a narrow education prevents one from understanding context. “Time, age, personality, prevailing customs, and many other factors enter into our interpretation of subjects. This is especially evident in the study of Colonial Literature, where we tend to take the writers as we would a newspaper man, and without regard to the writer’s own environment. There is where the broad education can enter. There is where Mr. Carter is trying desperately hard to focus our attentions.”

In conclusion (phew!) he writes that this letter seems more like a personal essay than a letter to his fiance, but he hopes she won’t mind. He loves her very much, and now he must copy this letter to save for his Prose Writing Workshop.

#          #          #

In reference to a recent letter from Dart, Dot asks, “Did I say I don’t like to read? Perhaps that’s because I never tried reading many books that were worth reading.” She’s decided that she’s going to force herself to read at least 10 books this winter. Before leaving for the Rucquois home on Sunday she pulled from the family bookshelves a copy of “Rebecca,” by Daphne du Maurier. She started reading that night and liked it so much that she read for three straight hours. “In short – I have actually become engrossed in a book.”

Her “monthly complication” arrived today, right on schedule, for a change. When she came home from work for her dinner break she started to feel dizzy and sick, but she knew she had to make it through the final hours of work. They took real phone calls tonight, requiring her to focus all her energies on that, instead of how badly she felt. She managed to get a call to Jane to tell her she wouldn’t make it to shorthand class tonight. When she came home, she crawled into bed with a heating pad and picked up her book. Again, she read for three hours.

She warns Dart that very soon he’ll have her doubting his word about how he did on tests. She’s pleased he got a 96% in Spanish, and from now on she’ll read his letters with a supply of salt nearby.

“Do you mean to say that Miss Tallmdage gets paid to recognize good writing when she sees it? Why, I’ve recognized your talents for three years, and although I’ve been more than repaid in satisfaction, that doesn’t go far in raising the bank balance. Keep it up, Darling. Someday the whole world’s going to recognize your ability to put things down on paper.”

She’s very happy that he enjoyed the church supper so much. Next Sunday, the young adult group of her church will be going on a long hike. She’s planning to go and she hopes to convince El to come along. “It really shows on her when she hasn’t had enough exercise.”

She supposes it wouldn’t do any harm to eat her words about the Boston Red Sox. Perhaps those words will replace the meat she hasn’t been eating lately.

This weekend she’ll try to draw him a diagram of her switchboard set-up. They’ve started taking real calls and she finds that to be much more fun than the practice calls. She’s back to thinking she’s going to like this job again.

There’s no need for her to go back to the Rucquois house because they’ve hired a full-time housekeeper.

She loves Dart, and although she’s mentioned that before, it’s worth repeating.