Little sweetheart,
The weather isn’t in keeping with my mood just now, for although it’s cloudy and drizzly outside I’m all sunshiny inside as I just got your letter out of the mail-box. Still, maybe a little gloom is in order, since your letter makes me want to hold you in my arms and kiss you—and you are so far away.
Yes, I’ll be staying here this winter unless something happens. Mrs. Shalelee agreed this morning to let Carl and me have a bedroom and kitchen on the third floor, with the privilege of getting breakfast, for $20 a month. I’m to pay no rent until Carl moves in at the start of the school year. That will allow me to get by on about $30 a month for all expenses—unless you insist on me eating my head off, or, should I say? my purse empty? You can try to figure out the punctuation of that last sentence if you care for puzzles. And do you really mean you will breach the Saturday evening rule when you first get back? I’m almost astounded, but I believe you would have had a time keeping me away~ even if you had tried to enforce the aforementioned edict. I never saw anyone before who had such a power of causing one to be so filled with longing. Truly, this last not quite a month yet has seemed so very long that I half expect to see you return a quite old lady. Seriously darling, I have missed you as I never thought I could miss anyone. I’ve thought of you, dreamed of you, and wished for you so close to all of the time there has been little time, or, to tell the truth, desire, for anything else. See how beauty tames the beast? But I fear that all the beasts who are tamed are not so eagerly willing as in this case. To think how much difference a few months can make, yet it wasn’t the months, for I’d had quite a few pass me on the road without succumbing—it must have been the girl, for I’d never had any like this one to pass me before. And until I cease to be glad about anything I’ll be very happy that she didn’t pass me by entirely before I woke up. By far the most lovely happening of my life, my darling, was your whisper, “I love you, Harry.” Then To have you keep repeating it shall always be my goal, for today, tomorrow, and forever,
I love you, little sweetheart,
Harold.