IX
A Question of Color
"That old nuisance of a Rachel Lynde was here again today, pestering mefor a subscription towards buying a carpet for the vestry room," saidMr. Harrison wrathfully. "I detest that woman more than anybody I know.She can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into sixwords, and throw it at you like a brick."
Anne, who was perched on the edge of the veranda, enjoying the charmof a mild west wind blowing across a newly ploughed field on a grayNovember twilight and piping a quaint little melody among the twistedfirs below the garden, turned her dreamy face over her shoulder.
"The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don't understand one another," sheexplained. "That is always what is wrong when people don't like eachother. I didn't like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as soon as I cameto understand her I learned to."
"Mrs. Lynde may be an acquired taste with some folks; but I didn't keepon 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 thatshe is a confirmed busybody and I told her so."
"Oh, that must have hurt her feelings very much," said Annereproachfully. "How could you say such a thing? I said some dreadfulthings to Mrs. Lynde long ago but it was when I had lost my temper. Icouldn'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 thedisagreeable part of the truth. Now, you've told me a dozen times thatmy 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 usedto be . . . so there's no need of telling me that either."
"Well, well, I'll try and not mention it again since you're sosensitive. You must excuse me, Anne. I've got a habit of being outspokenand folks mustn't mind it."
"But they can't help minding it. And I don't think it's any helpthat it's your habit. What would you think of a person who went aboutsticking pins and needles into people and saying, 'Excuse me, youmustn't mind it . . . it's just a habit I've got.' You'd think he wascrazy, wouldn't you? And as for Mrs. Lynde being a busybody, perhaps sheis. But did you tell her she had a very kind heart and always helped thepoor, and never said a word when Timothy Cotton stole a crock of butterout of her dairy and told his wife he'd bought it from her? Mrs. Cottoncast it up to her the next time they met that it tasted of turnips andMrs. Lynde just said she was sorry it had turned out so poorly."
"I suppose she has some good qualities," conceded Mr. Harrisongrudgingly. "Most folks have. I have some myself, though you might neversuspect 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 yourproject of painting the hall coming on?"
"Splendidly. We had a meeting of the A.V.I.S. last Friday night andfound that we had plenty of money subscribed to paint the hall andshingle the roof too. MOST people gave very liberally, Mr. Harrison."
Anne was a sweet-souled lass, but she could instill some venom intoinnocent 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, ofcourse. 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 hadto give him the contract, for every one of the Pyes . . . and there arefour families, you know . . . said they wouldn't give a cent unless Joshuagot it. They had subscribed twelve dollars between them and we thoughtthat was too much to lose, although some people think we shouldn't havegiven 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 Idon'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 avery peculiar man. He hardly ever talks."
"He's peculiar enough all right then," said Mr. Harrison drily. "Or atleast, folks here will call him so. I never was much of a talker tillI came to Avonlea and then I had to begin in self-defense or Mrs. Lyndewould have said I was dumb and started a subscription to have me taughtsign language. You're not going yet, Anne?"
"I must. I have some sewing to do for Dora this evening. Besides, Davyis probably breaking Marilla's heart with some new mischief by thistime. 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 ofthe world but after breakfast he declared it didn't . . . that it wentdown the well. Marilla says she caught him hanging over the well-boxfour times today, trying to reach down to the dark."
"He's a limb," declared Mr. Harrison. "He came over here yesterday andpulled six feathers out of Ginger's tail before I could get in from thebarn. The poor bird has been moping ever since. Those children must be asight of trouble to you folks."
"Everything that's worth having is some trouble," said Anne, secretlyresolving to forgive Davy's next offence, whatever it might be, since hehad 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 disturbedin 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 toCarmody traveled by the longer "upper" road. The hall was so closelysurrounded by fir woods that it was invisible unless you were near it.Mr. Joshua Pye painted away in the solitude and independence that wereso dear to his unsociable heart.
Friday afternoon he finished his job and went home to Carmody. Soonafter his departure Mrs. Rachel Lynde drove by, having braved the mud ofthe lower road out of curiosity to see what the hall looked like in itsnew coat of paint. When she rounded the spruce curve she saw.
The sight affected Mrs. Lynde oddly. She dropped the reins, held up herhands, and said "Gracious Providence!" She stared as if she could notbelieve her eyes. Then she laughed almost hysterically.
"There must be some mistake . . . there must. I knew those Pyes would makea mess of things."
Mrs. Lynde drove home, meeting several people on the road and stoppingto tell them about the hall. The news flew like wildfire. GilbertBlythe, poring over a text book at home, heard it from his father'shired boy at sunset, and rushed breathlessly to Green Gables, joined onthe way by Fred Wright. They found Diana Barry, Jane Andrews, and AnneShirley, despair personified, at the yard gate of Green Gables, underthe 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 simplydreadful! What is the use of trying to improve anything?"
"What is dreadful?" asked Oliver Sloane, arriving at this moment with abandbox 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 andwheelbarrows. And Mrs. Lynde says it is the most hideous color for abuilding, especially when combined with a red roof, that she ever sawor imagined. You could simply have knocked me down with a feather when Iheard 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 tothe Pyes. The Improvers had decided to use Morton-Harris paints andthe Morton-Harris paint cans were numbered according to a color card.A purchaser chose his shade on the card and ordered by the accompanyingnumber. Number 147 was the shade of green desired and when Mr. Roger Pyesent word to the Improvers by his son, John Andrew, that he was going totown and would get their paint for them, the Improvers told John Andrewto tell his f
ather to get 147. John Andrew always averred that he didso, but Mr. Roger Pye as stanchly declared that John Andrew told him157; and there the matter stands to this day.
That night there was blank dismay in every Avonlea house where anImprover lived. The gloom at Green Gables was so intense that itquenched even Davy. Anne wept and would not be comforted.
"I must cry, even if I am almost seventeen, Marilla," she sobbed. "Itis so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our society. We'llsimply be laughed out of existence."
In life, as in dreams, however, things often go by contraries. TheAvonlea people did not laugh; they were too angry. Their money hadgone to paint the hall and consequently they felt themselves bitterlyaggrieved by the mistake. Public indignation centered on the Pyes. RogerPye and John Andrew had bungled the matter between them; and as forJoshua Pye, he must be a born fool not to suspect there was somethingwrong when he opened the cans and saw the color of the paint. JoshuaPye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted that the Avonlea taste incolors was no business of his, whatever his private opinion might be; hehad been hired to paint the hall, not to talk about it; and he meant tohave his money for it.
The Improvers paid him his money in bitterness of spirit, afterconsulting Mr. Peter Sloane, who was a magistrate.
"You'll have to pay it," Peter told him. "You can't hold him responsiblefor the mistake, since he claims he was never told what the color wassupposed to be but just given the cans and told to go ahead. But it's aburning shame and that hall certainly does look awful."
The luckless Improvers expected that Avonlea would be more prejudicedthan ever against them; but instead, public sympathy veered around intheir favor. People thought the eager, enthusiastic little band who hadworked so hard for their object had been badly used. Mrs. Lynde toldthem to keep on and show the Pyes that there really were people in theworld who could do things without making a muddle of them. Mr. MajorSpencer sent them word that he would clean out all the stumps along theroad 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 Annemysteriously out into the porch to tell her that if the "Sassiety"wanted to make a geranium bed at the crossroads in the spring theyneedn't be afraid of her cow, for she would see that the maraudinganimal was kept within safe bounds. Even Mr. Harrison chuckled, if hechuckled at all, in private, and was all sympathy outwardly.
"Never mind, Anne. Most paints fade uglier every year but that blue isas ugly as it can be to begin with, so it's bound to fade prettier. Andthe roof is shingled and painted all right. Folks will be able to sit inthe hall after this without being leaked on. You've accomplished so muchanyhow."
"But Avonlea's blue hall will be a byword in all the neighboringsettlements from this time out," said Anne bitterly.
And it must be confessed that it was.