He sorted the colours. She kept an eye on the system.
A System of Colours
Grandpa Arthur opened the wooden box on his lap and looked at the tangle of embroidery thread inside.
“Would you like some help?” he asked.
Grandma Rose glanced up from the flower she was stitching. “Only if you can rescue the blue from the green without starting an argument.”
“I’ve handled difficult negotiations before.”
He lifted a blue skein. A green one came with it, followed by a short piece of yellow.
“The blue appears to have brought friends,” he said.
Grandma smiled and returned to her work. She was embroidering roses on a small piece of linen, with leaves curling around the edges. Several loose skeins lay beside her on the sofa.
Grandpa freed the blue and placed it in one compartment. Then he began arranging the others: greens together, yellows together, pinks in a neat row.
By the time Grandma reached for another length of thread, the box looked like a very orderly garden.
Two Very Similar Pinks
“Could you pass me the two pinks I had beside me?” she asked.
“Certainly. I’ve made them much easier to find.”
Grandpa studied his row. There were five pinks, from pale as the inside of a shell to a deeper shade close to red.
“Which two?” he asked.
“The pale one and the slightly darker one.”
He held up a pair.
“Those are lovely,” Grandma said, “but not quite the darker one.”
Grandpa replaced it and chose another. Then he held both against the light.
“These two are sisters who refuse to wear name tags.”
Grandma laid her embroidery across his knee. One rose had pale stitches along the edge of each petal and deeper pink nearer the folds.
“I use one for the light part,” she said, “and the other for the shadow.”
Grandpa looked from the flower to the threads. “I can see the difference there.”
“In the box?”
“In the box, they’re still being very private.”
The Working Department
Grandma found the second pink and showed him its place on the linen. Grandpa passed her both skeins, then looked at the greens.
“Will you need more than one of those too?”
“Two, for the leaves. And the yellow for the centre.”
He examined the neat rows he had made. “If I put everything away each time, you’ll have to ask the sisters to introduce themselves again.”
Grandma pointed to an empty compartment at the front of the box. “Could the colours I’m using stay there until the flower is finished?”
“They could.” Grandpa gathered the two pinks, two greens, and yellow. “But they may need a proper department.”
He folded a scrap of paper into a small label. Grandma chose a pencil and wrote Working Colours. Together they placed it beside the compartment, leaving the remaining threads arranged by colour.
Grandma took the pink she needed and made three stitches. Grandpa watched the new edge appear on the petal.
“Your system is doing excellent work,” she said.
“So is its supervisor.”
A Meeting of Management
Grandma reached into the working compartment for the darker green. Grandpa held the box steady while she selected it.
“What do we call this section?” she asked.
“Management,” he said. “The rest of the box reports to it.”
Grandma tucked the green back beside its partner when she had finished. The two pinks remained together under their label.
Grandpa looked at them once more. “I think I can tell the sisters apart now.”
“Which is which?”
He considered. “I’ll ask management.”
Livora Gracely ♥
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