The Avonlea Hall Is Mistakenly Painted Blue

The Avonlea Hall Is Mistakenly Painted Blue is a public improvement project undone by a small, disputed error in a paint order. A.V.I.S. intended to give Avonlea Hall a pretty green exterior and a dark red roof; instead, it acquired a brilliant blue one. The mistake mortifies Anne Shirley and alarms the society, but its aftermath turns an embarrassing failure into a test of community support—and leaves the building’s color in local memory.

The Improvement Project

At a Friday-night meeting, A.V.I.S. found that enough money had been subscribed not only to paint Avonlea Hall but also to shingle its roof. Anne reported that most people had given generously. The society chose green for the building and dark red for the roof, and Mr. Roger Pye went to town to obtain the paint.

The work was given to Joshua Pye of Carmody, who had nearly finished the shingling. The decision was practical as well as political: the Pye families had said they would contribute nothing unless Joshua received the contract, and together they had subscribed twelve dollars. Some residents, including Rachel Lynde, thought the Pyes were trying to control local affairs. Anne’s account nevertheless made clear that the society had weighed that concern against the prospect of losing a substantial contribution. J. A. Harrison focused instead on whether Joshua would do the work well, whatever his name.

Joshua was known as a good workman, though a peculiar and unusually quiet one. After Roger brought home the paint, Joshua began painting the next day, working without interruption. The hall stood on the lower road, which was muddy and wet in late autumn; travelers bound for Carmody generally took the longer upper road. Fir woods enclosed the building so closely that it could not be seen until someone came near. The secluded setting suited Joshua’s unsociable habits—and meant that the wrong color was not discovered while he was at work.

The Mistake Comes to Light

Joshua finished on Friday afternoon and returned to Carmody. Soon afterward, Rachel Lynde braved the muddy lower road out of curiosity to see the newly painted hall. When she rounded the spruce curve and saw it, she dropped the reins, raised her hands, and exclaimed in astonishment before laughing almost hysterically. She suspected a mistake and blamed the Pyes. On her way home she told several people; the news spread quickly through Avonlea.

The blue was not a subtle variation on the society’s chosen green. Jane Andrews described it as a deep, brilliant shade used for carts and wheelbarrows, made all the more jarring by the red roof. When the report reached Green Gables, Anne, Diana Barry, and Jane were gathered at the yard gate, despondent. Anne regarded the result as mortifying and feared that the public would laugh A.V.I.S. out of existence. That evening, the dismay spread to other homes where society members lived; at Green Gables it was so heavy that even Davy was quiet, and Anne wept.

The order’s history explained how the wrong paint could have been bought without settling who had miscommunicated. A.V.I.S. had selected Morton-Harris paints by consulting a color card, with each shade identified by a number. The desired green was number 147. When Roger Pye offered to get the paint, the society told his son, John Andrew, to pass on the number. John Andrew maintained that he had relayed 147; Roger just as firmly insisted that he had been told 157. The account leaves the disagreement unresolved. The resulting blue therefore grew from an error whose precise point of origin remained contested, rather than from any confirmed intention to disregard the society’s choice.

Anger, Payment, and Public Sympathy

The Improvers expected ridicule, but Avonlea’s first response was anger. Residents felt that their money had been spent on a conspicuously wrong result, and public indignation centered on the Pyes. Joshua was criticized for failing to question the color when he opened the cans. He replied that choosing colors was not his business: he had been hired to paint the hall, not discuss it, and expected to be paid.

After consulting Peter Sloane, a magistrate, the society paid Joshua despite its bitterness. Sloane said that they could not hold the painter responsible when he claimed he had only been given the cans and told to proceed. He agreed that the situation was a burning shame and that the hall looked awful. The payment settled the immediate dispute without resolving the earlier disagreement between John Andrew and Roger, or undoing the paint job.

Instead of turning decisively against A.V.I.S., public feeling shifted toward the society. Residents saw an eager group that had worked hard for a public purpose and had been badly treated. Rachel encouraged its members to continue and prove that people could carry out useful projects without making a muddle of them. Major Spencer offered to remove the stumps along the road in front of his farm and seed the land with grass at his own expense. Mrs. Hiram Sloane promised that if the society made a geranium bed at the crossroads in spring, she would keep her cow from damaging it. The practical offers answered Anne’s fear that one conspicuous failure would extinguish the group: neighbors were already volunteering help for its next work.

An Embarrassment That Endures

J. A. Harrison, who had earlier asked about the painting project, showed Anne sympathy after the mistake. He suggested that most paint grew uglier as it faded, while the blue had nowhere to go but toward improvement; the roof, at least, had been shingled and painted properly, and the hall would no longer leak on its occupants. His consolation recognized what the project had actually achieved even as the wrong color remained impossible to ignore.

Anne was not persuaded that the embarrassment would disappear. She feared that Avonlea’s blue hall would become a byword in neighboring settlements, and the narrator confirms that it did. That lasting reputation gives the episode its final reversal: the error damaged the society’s confidence and produced an ugly building, yet did not end its public standing. The hall became a comic emblem of a project gone wrong, while the support that followed showed that the community could distinguish an imperfect result from the worth of those who had tried to improve it.