Tell me whom you Love
John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened
his Army uniform,and studied the crowd of people making
their way through Grand Central Station.
He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose
face he didn't. His interest in her begun thirteen
months before in a Florida library. Taking a
book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with
the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in
the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a
thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of
the book, he discovered the previous owner's name,
Miss Hollis Maynell.
With time and effort he located her address. He lived
in New York City and he wrote her a letter introducing
himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day
he was shipped overseas for service in W.W.II.
During the next year and one-month the two grew to know each
other through the mail. Each letter was a seed
falling on a fertile heart. A romance was building.
Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused.
She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't
matter what she looked like.
When the day finally came for him to return
from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00
at the GrandCentral Station in New York. "You'll
recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose
l'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in
the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved,
but whose face he'd never seen.
I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long
and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her
delicate ears; her eyes as blue as flowers.
Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her
pale green suit she was like springtime come alive.
I started toward her, entirely forgetting to
notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a
small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my
way, sailor?" she murmured.
Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her,
and then I saw Hollis Maypole.
She was standing directly, almost directly behind the
girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair
tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump,
her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes.
The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away.
I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire
to follow her and yet so deep was my longing for the
woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own.
And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle
and sensible. Her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle.
I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the
small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to
identify me to her.
This would not be love, but it would be something
precious, something perhaps even better than love,
a friendship for which I had been and must ever been
grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held
out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I
felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.
"I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss
Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me.
May I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened
into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is
about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in
the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear
this rose on my coat.
And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I
should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in
the big restaurant across the street. She said it was
some kind of test!"
It's not difficult to understand
and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of
a heart is seen in its response to unattractiveness.
"Tell me whom you love," Houssaye wrote,
"and I will tell you who you are."
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