IX
A Question of Color
"That old nuisance of a Rachel Lynde was here again today,
pestering me for a subscription towards buying a carpet for the
vestry room," said Mr. Harrison wrathfully. "I detest that woman
more than anybody I know. She can put a whole sermon, text, comment,
and application, into six words, and throw it at you like a brick."
Anne, who was perched on the edge of the veranda, enjoying the charm
of a mild west wind blowing across a newly ploughed field on a gray
November twilight and piping a quaint little melody among the twisted
firs below the garden, turned her dreamy face over her shoulder.
"The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don't understand one another,"
she explained. "That is always what is wrong when people don't
like each other. I didn't like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as
soon as I came to understand her I learned to."
"Mrs. Lynde may be an acquired taste with some folks; but I didn't
keep on eating bananas because I was told I'd learn to like them if
I did," growled Mr. Harrison." And as for understanding her, I
understand that she is a confirmed busybody and I told her so."
"Oh, that must have hurt her feelings very much," said Anne
reproachfully. "How could you say such a thing? I said some
dreadful things to Mrs. Lynde long ago but it was when I had
lost my temper. I couldn't say them DELIBERATELY."
"It was the truth and I believe in telling the truth to everybody."
"But you don't tell the whole truth," objected Anne. "You only
tell the disagreeable part of the truth. Now, you've told me a
dozen times that my hair was red, but you've never once told me
that I had a nice nose."
"I daresay you know it without any telling," chuckled Mr. Harrison.
"I know I have red hair too. . .although it's MUCH darker than it
used to be. . .so there's no need of telling me that either."
"Well, well, I'll try and not mention it again since you're so
sensitive. You must excuse me, Anne. I've got a habit of being
outspoken and folks mustn't mind it."
"But they can't help minding it. And I don't think it's any help
that it's your habit. What would you think of a person who went
about sticking pins and needles into people and saying, `Excuse me,
you mustn't mind it. . .it's just a habit I've got.' You'd think
he was crazy, wouldn't you? And as for Mrs. Lynde being a busybody,
perhaps she is. But did you tell her she had a very kind heart and
always helped the poor, and never said a word when Timothy Cotton
stole a crock of butter out of her dairy and told his wife he'd
bought it from her? Mrs. Cotton cast it up to her the next time
they met that it tasted of turnips and Mrs. Lynde just said she
was sorry it had turned out so poorly."
"I suppose she has some good qualities," conceded Mr. Harrison grudgingly.
"Most folks have. I have some myself, though you might never suspect it.
But anyhow I ain't going to give anything to that carpet. Folks are
everlasting begging for money here, it seems to me. How's your project
of painting the hall coming on?"
"Splendidly. We had a meeting of the A.V.I.S. last Friday night and
found that we had plenty of money subscribed to paint the and shingle
the roof too. MOST people gave very liberally, Mr. Harrison."
Anne was a sweet-souled lass, but she could instill some venom into
innocent italics when occasion required.
"What color are you going to have it?"
"We have decided on a very pretty green. The roof will be dark red,
of course. Mr. Roger Pye is going to get the paint in town today."
"Who's got the job?"
"Mr. Joshua Pye of Carmody. He has nearly finished the shingling.
We had to give him the contract, for every one of the Pyes. . .
and there are four families, you know. . .said they wouldn't give
a cent unless Joshua got it. They had subscribed twelve dollars
between them and we thought that was too much to lose, although
some people think we shouldn't have given in to the Pyes.
Mrs. Lynde says they try to run everything."
"The main question is will this Joshua do his work well. If he does
I don't see that it matters whether his name is Pye or Pudding."
"He has the reputation of being a good workman, though they say
he's a very peculiar man. He hardly ever talks."
"He's peculiar enough all right then," said Mr. Harrison drily.
"Or at least, folks here will call him so. I never was much of a
talker till I came to Avonlea and then I had to begin in self-defense
or Mrs. Lynde would have said I was dumb and started a subscription
to have me taught sign language. You're not going yet, Anne?"
"I must. I have some sewing to do for Dora this evening. Besides,
Davy is probably breaking Marilla's heart with some new mischief by
this time. This morning the first thing he said was, `Where does
the dark go, Anne? I want to know.' I told him it went around to
the other side of the world but after breakfast he declared it
didn't. . .that it went down the well. Marilla says she caught
him hanging over the well-box four times today, trying to reach
down to the dark."
"He's a limb," declared Mr. Harrison. "He came over here
yesterday and pulled six feathers out of Ginger's tail before I
could get in from the barn. The poor bird has been moping ever
since. Those children must be a sight of trouble to you folks."
"Everything that's worth having is some trouble," said Anne,
secretly resolving to forgive Davy's next offence, whatever it
might be, since he had avenged her on Ginger.
Mr. Roger Pye brought the hall paint home that night and Mr. Joshua
Pye, a surly, taciturn man, began painting the next day. He was
not disturbed in his task. The hall was situated on what was called
"the lower road." In late autumn this road was always muddy and wet,
and people going to Carmody traveled by the longer "upper" road.
The hall was so closely surrounded by fir woods that it was invisible
unless you were near it. Mr. Joshua Pye painted away in the solitude
and independence that were so dear to his unsociable heart.
Friday afternoon he finished his job and went home to Carmody.
Soon after his departure Mrs. Rachel Lynde drove by, having braved
the mud of the lower road out of curiosity to see what the hall
looked like in its new coat of paint. When she rounded the spruce
curve she saw.
The sight affected Mrs. Lynde oddly. She dropped the reins, held
up her hands, and said "Gracious Providence!" She stared as if she
could not believe her eyes. Then she laughed almost hysterically.
"There must be some mistake. . .there must. I knew those Pyes would
make a mess of things."
Mrs. Lynde drove home, meeting several people on the road and
stopping to tell them about the hall. The news flew like wildfire.
Gilbert Blythe, poring over a text book at home, heard it from his
father's hired boy at sunset, and rushed breathlessly to Green
Gables, joined on the way by Fred Wright. They found Diana Barry,
Jane Andrews, and Anne Shirley, despair personified, at the yard
gate of Green Gables, under the big leafless willows.
"It isn't true surely, Anne?" exclaimed Gilbert.
"It is true," answered Anne, looking like the muse of tragedy.
"Mrs. Lynde called on her way from Carmody to tell me. Oh, it is
simply dreadful! What is the use of trying to improve anything?"
"What is dreadful?" asked Oliver Sloane, arriving at this moment
with a bandbox he had brought from town for Marilla.
"Haven't you heard?" said Jane wrathfully. "Well, its simply this.
. .Joshua Pye has gone and painted the hall blue instead of green.
. .a deep, brilliant blue, the shade they use for painting carts
and wheelbarrows. And Mrs. Lynde says it is the most hideous
color for a building, especially when combined with a red roof,
that she ever saw or imagined. You could simply have knocked me
down with a feather when I heard it. It's heartbreaking, after all
the trouble we've had."
"How on earth could such a mistake have happened?" wailed Diana.
The blame of this unmerciful disaster was eventually narrowed down
to the Pyes. The Improvers had decided to use Morton-Harris paints
and the Morton-Harris paint cans were numbered according to a color
card. A purchaser chose his shade on the card and ordered by the
accompanying number. Number 147 was the shade of green desired and
when Mr. Roger Pye sent word to the Improvers by his son, John
Andrew, that he was going to town and would get their paint for
them, the Improvers told John Andrew to tell his father to get 147.
John Andrew always averred that he did so, but Mr. Roger Pye as
stanchly declared that John Andrew told him 157; and there the
matter stands to this day.
That night there was blank dismay in every Avonlea house where an
Improver lived. The gloom at Green Gables was so intense that it
quenched even Davy. Anne wept and would not be comforted.
"I must cry, even if I am almost seventeen, Marilla," she sobbed.
"It is so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our society.
We'll simply be laughed out of existence."
In life, as in dreams, however, things often go by contraries. The
Avonlea people did not laugh; they were too angry. Their money had
gone to paint the hall and consequently they felt themselves bitterly
aggrieved by the mistake. Public indignation centered on the Pyes.
Roger Pye and John Andrew had bungled the matter between them;
and as for Joshua Pye, he must be a born fool not to suspect
there was something wrong when he opened the cans and saw the color
of the paint. Joshua Pye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted
that the Avonlea taste in colors was no business of his, whatever
his private opinion might be; he had been hired to paint the hall,
not to talk about it; and he meant to have his money for it.
The Improvers paid him his money in bitterness of spirit, after
consulting Mr. Peter Sloane, who was a magistrate.
"You'll have to pay it," Peter told him. "You can't hold him
responsible for the mistake, since he claims he was never told
what the color was supposed to be but just given the cans and
told to go ahead. But it's a burning shame and that hall
certainly does look awful."
The luckless Improvers expected that Avonlea would be more
prejudiced than ever against them; but instead, public sympathy
veered around in their favor. People thought the eager,
enthusiastic little band who had worked so hard for their object
had been badly used. Mrs. Lynde told them to keep on and show
the Pyes that there really were people in the world who could
do things without making a muddle of them. Mr. Major Spencer sent
them word that he would clean out all the stumps along the road
front of his farm and seed it down with grass at his own expense;
and Mrs. Hiram Sloane called at the school one day and beckoned
Anne mysteriously out into the porch to tell her that if the "Sassiety"
wanted to make a geranium bed at the crossroads in the spring they
needn't be afraid of her cow, for she would see that the marauding
animal was kept within safe bounds. Even Mr. Harrison chuckled,
if he chuckled at all, in private, and was all sympathy outwardly.
"Never mind, Anne. Most paints fade uglier every year but that
blue is as ugly as it can be to begin with, so it's bound to fade
prettier. And the roof is shingled and painted all right. Folks
will be able to sit in the hall after this without being leaked on.
You've accomplished so much anyhow."
"But Avonlea's blue hall will be a byword in all the neighboring
settlements from this time out," said Anne bitterly.
And it must be confessed that it was.
