Encoded for for the Veterans History Project, October 15, 2014.
All letters in the McNutt collection were digitized.
The following letters were transcribed from the handwritten originals by the donor. No alterations to this transcription has been made, although spelling errors are indicated with [sic]. Any special emphasis (i.e. underlining) is presented *between asterisks*.
I don't know how many letters you have written, but I have received two and a postal card between about Nov. 20th and above date. One letter I got a few days ago directed to the Washington and returned to you. The anther one I got Feb 1 and it was addressed to the receiving ship at N. Y. so I suppose I have received all that you have written. This transferring is certainly a nuisance and you don't
know where you are or what you are doing. You ask what a receiving ship is for. It is a ship where they hold you until they can place you. Some are sailors just coming from training camps, hospitals and so on. Now if a certain ship wants twenty men they send word to the receiving ship and the officers there just gram up who ever they can get a hold of and send them on. There is one in every navy yard. I think the letter I wrote you just after getting out of the hospital I told you all about my stay there. They sure did treat us royal, but there wasn't any overly pretty nurses. There was one little girl about eighteen and my! But she was a good looker and they were going to give her to us sailors but they changed their mind and give er to the darned old soldiers. I think (it) was a shame don't you? But I still I guess they needed her worse than we did for some of them was awful sick.
I expect to be pretty close home
in a few weeks but I don't guess it will do me any good. We are due to leave the yards here the 15th of Feb. and are going to Norfolk and get a motor sail and from there I don't know where we got but I think across. I hear (but you can't depend on that) that we are going to make one trip across and then go into dock and have another deck ut on her. Now if we do that I think everything will be Jake for it will take us two or three months to go over and back and then we
will be layed up for a couple months and if it is possible to get a furlough I can get it then and that will be be about the middle of the summer. If we don't do that then my chances are small and if I get one it wont be over five days at home. I am going to try my dearest to get one and about fifteen days too.
My dear girl I think you hit my faults pretty well but as to me being timid I am not that way very much around other girls
and I think I had a good right to be that way around you for every time I would make a move or get a little bold you would gut up and walk away or would answer me in a way that would shut me up. You also said I thought people didn't care an thing about me when they did. Now I can give an answer to both faults and it is this: I never like to push my self on people if my company is not desired I do not care to bore people with same. The only way you can tell is by the way people talk to you and treat you and your actions my little girl have said you didn't care for me. When you write it does seem you care a little for me, but when I am with you it is the other way and I seem foreign to you. Dpn't think I have the idea that if a girl likes you she should run up and throw her arms around your neck and tell you she loves you. Not so, but I do think she should show you in many little ways that she
likes you and your presence are enjoyed. Girls are very hard to understand and are curious critters. It is funny to me that a lot of girls even tho they are crazy about a boy they try to hide their affections for him and make him think they con't care a snap for him. I know it is hard for a girl to tell a boy she loves hmbut she should show him by her actions she loves him (and not that she don't care a hitty (sic) for him) for actions speak louder then words. A fellow has to have a little encouragement to be led on
very far. Now don't misunderstand the meaning of what I have just written and I will say (tho it was not asked for) I think I know your feeling toward me pretty well and it is this sometimes you think you like me pretty well and sometimes you think you don't or in other words when you write to me most of the time you off where there isn't much doing and you are just a little bit lonesome then you think you like me, but when you are with me you forget and don't care for me I think I must kindly bore you. Now wasn't that about right? That is about the only way I can figure out your action toward me, but maybe there is no body home. Now if
you will go back with me last time I was in Knoxville you will remember we were sitting in the porch swing or to begin with you sat down and I took a seat pretty close to you and you moved over and I wasn't so close that I touched you either and directly you were more over as far as the end of the swing would permit you seemed to be afraid of me now I am not poison either and if I should have touched you I don't think you would have fallen over dead. Now the cause for you doing that could have been two different feelings toward me. Of course I could have found out which it was but might have caused a very embarrassing moment for me and I didn't take the chance. But believe me kid if I ever get to be with you again I am going to teach you f rew things. I'll open you eyes to
a few things. I don't know what I'll get out of the deal but will take what ever comes even if it is a black eye. Now the last time I saw you if I had of known it was going to be the last I'll assure you I would have insisted on something before I left, but I thought I would surely see you again. Now as to some one else I didn't want what I did from you even tho I could have gotten it.
Now
as you know I am a very poor speller.
Well, I will close and hope to hear from you real soon. Say, now don't fail to go up home next summer. I hope to see you there but if I can't get off come anyway for sure. With a bushel of live,
P.S. Please write just as often as you can for the next two weeks for after that it will be a long, long time before you hear from me again.
With a bushel of love,