The Touching Story of Love, Letters, and an Unexpected Meeting

The Test

Charlie was a ¹⁾student at the University of Indiana. He studied hard, and often went to the ²⁾ library to read books. One day he found a book of poems. Its pages were ³⁾torn, and in the white spaces by the poems there were notes written in ⁴⁾pencil. Charlie ⁵⁾enjoyed reading the poems, but more than anything, he enjoyed reading the notes written in ⁶⁾pencil by the poems. The person who wrote them seemed very ⁷⁾smart, and the writing was perfect. Charlie ⁸⁾wished he knew the person; even just to see what the person looked like. He ⁹⁾imagined the person to be very ¹⁰⁾good-looking, just like the writing. Then one day, on one of the last pages of the book, Charlie found a note with a name under it. The name was "Stella Richardson." "Maybe this is the name of the person who has written all these ¹¹⁾wonderful things in pencil," Charlie thought. He ¹²⁾looked up the name "Stella Richardson" in the student directory.

It took Charlie a few weeks to find out information about Stella. He had to ask many people and go many places. Stella was ¹³⁾no longer a student at the university. He found out that she ¹⁴⁾had moved to New York, and when he got her address, he wrote her a long ¹⁵⁾letter. Stella wrote him back. Her writing was even more beautiful than her notes in the book of ¹⁶⁾poems. Soon, Charlie was writing Stella ¹⁷⁾once a week, and through letters they learned many things about ¹⁸⁾each other. Charlie felt like he had known Stella ¹⁹⁾forever. He couldn't wait to meet Stella and he decided that he would take a ²⁰⁾trip to New York to see her.

Wartime Separation

But Charlie's plans quickly ²¹⁾changed. World War II had started, and Charlie was ²²⁾sent away with the army. He was sent to France, where he lived and ²³⁾fought as a soldier for three years.

It was difficult and ²⁴⁾expensive to send letters from France, but for three years Charlie and Stella continued to write each other. Charlie told Stella everything he did through his letters, and Stella ²⁵⁾wrote back wonderful letters that helped Charlie ²⁶⁾make it through the war. When the war was over, Charlie wrote to Stella to tell her that he was ²⁷⁾coming home. The army was sending him through New York, and he hoped he could meet Stella at the ²⁸⁾train station. Stella wrote that she would be wearing a ²⁹⁾red rose in her hair so Charlie could ³⁰⁾recognize her.

The Train Station Meeting

Charlie dreamed of red roses on his ³¹⁾way back from France. He was so ³²⁾excited to meet the person who he felt was his best friend through all the letters they wrote. When Charlie ³³⁾got off the train in New York, he saw a young woman with big green eyes and thick, curly brown hair. He thought she was ³⁴⁾beautiful, and he wished she were Stella, but there was no red rose in her hair. Charlie looked and looked at all the people in the station. Finally he saw an ³⁵⁾elderly woman standing alone with a black ³⁶⁾purse. There were ³⁷⁾wrinkles across her face, and her hair was grey like the color of the train. She looked up at Charlie, and Charlie saw the red rose in her hair.

Poor Charlie felt very sad and ³⁸⁾ disappointed. This was not the woman he ³⁹⁾dreamed about. But this was the woman who never stopped writing him ⁴⁰⁾such wonderful letters for many years. Charlie knew that he loved the way she wrote. He loved the way she thought about things, and he decided that she could be a ⁴¹⁾good friend to him, ⁴²⁾even if she wasn't what he had imagined.

The Ultimate Test

Charlie walked up to the woman and ⁴³⁾introduced himself. “Hello,” he said. “I'm Charlie, and you must be Stella. May I take you out to dinner?”

The elderly woman ⁴⁴⁾smiled. “You seem like a very nice young man,” she said, “But I am not Stella, and I don't ⁴⁵⁾quite understand what this is all about. A young woman with brown ⁴⁶⁾curls just walked by and asked me to put this rose in my ⁴⁷⁾hair. She told me that if ⁴⁸⁾someone named Charlie asked me out to dinner, I should tell him that Stella is waiting for him in the corner ⁴⁹⁾drugstore. She said that it was an important test.”

And so Charlie had passed the ⁵⁰⁾test of a lifetime—the test of love!