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342 July 22 - 9:30 P.M. Sunday- My Dearest Darling Tinker: Helen has just gone next door to wait for her call to Charles to be put thru. She put it thru over there to start with so as not to wake Wendy again. When you phone from here, you don't even need to give the operator a phone number - just husband's name, serial number and FPO address. The operator makes the appointment and then calls back to confirm it. There just won't be any holding me when you get back to Hawaii - perhaps we better start a telephone fund right now. If by any chance you get to stay there over a period [pg 2] of a couple months or so, I hope we will be able to talk every week. Its only $7.50 + tax for 3 minutes at night, and Wendy can jolly well be waked up once a week to say “Hi daddy” “dookie” or anything else that happens to appeal to her. Helen leaves early tomorrow morning. This past week has gone very fast, and its been pleasant having her here. She expects to travel west again round about October, and if I can find her a place to live come to Carmel to wait til Charles comes home - if he's out twenty-four months that means the end of March, but he might very probably get back before then. I was very pleased at the completely natural way Wendy [pg 3] took to having a stranger in the house. She wasn't in the least upset or shy, and was completely natural and loving the whole time. Helen, who likes, but isn't passionately fond of children, especially babies, was surprized to find herself completely charmed with little sweetie, and wanting a little girl of her own tho she had always preferred little boys. Its been warm, even for Carmel and too hot to take the sun at the beach so that we stayed home today, and ate lunch out on the patio. I sunbathed for about an hour - sweety it's amazing - I'm getting really black, almost to the extent of Bev, and my face has a pinky glow under the tan. This would be a [pg 4] perfect time for you to see me in that new white sharkskin dress and bolero I have. Haven't had any occasion to wear it, or the gray one either - anyhow I think I'll save them for next summer - wherever we are. This afternoon I thought I would go crazy. My lighter needed a new flint, and having lost the diagram, I ignored the easy, perfectly obvious way. Instead I took the whole lighter apart - every damn little piece, and nearly lost my mind putting it together again. It took me about two and a half hours - and I was already several times to send it to you for fixing. The one thing that held me back was that you would start to fix it some night [pg 5] and then I’d probably be out a letter. Finally I got it all put together, flint and all, and could hardly believe my eyes when I tried it and it worked perfectly. Little sweetie climbed up the stairs again this afternoon, in about half the time it took her last week. I was interested to note that both going up and down, she alternated feet on each step, instead of starting off with both feet planted on each step, and then favoring one foot. Apropos of that, I'll have to take back what I said about thinking she was going to be left-handed. It seems to be quite obvious now, that she is going to favor her right hand, tho she uses her left hand well too. Its fun to watch her when she has something in both hands, and [pg 6] I offer her a third. Before accepting it she very carefully puts whatever is in her right hand into her mouth. When children are tested at Wendy's age that is the proper reaction to one of the tests, but very often children drop both handsful, before accepting the third. Grammy volunteered the information this afternoon that Wendy's mental behavior was more like a child of two. I don't know whether that's true or not, but its nothing I’d worry about. And anyway, I'm more interested and pleased with the fact that she seems so emotionally well balanced. After all, she's had a pretty upset life so far, with her daddy away, and mummy's upset much of the time. 10:40 P.M. Helen just came back, and said the call was wonderful, and by all means for me to phone you instead [pg 7] of vice versa, because its ever so much better, and we can talk without any interruptions at all from the operator. Evidently things have been happening at Pearl, because Charles told Helen to be sure and be back here by October, because he would be coming home- Sweety - Boulder men here - lets forget them and what they might be going to do and concentrate on getting you home as quickly as possible, surely there must be some way - think hard, and then get to work. I'm sure that now is the time if it ever was, and everything takes so damned long even after you get orders. I feel sort of excited, upset, and all mixed up all at once, the one thing I do know for sure is that I love you terribly much, and am hoping with all that's in me that you will be able to come home soon - Darling you've just got to - I'm full to bursting- Bobby
