Mud Season

"Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggs was so starved for color. There was't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made the absence shout. The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the wooden dresser the color of itself, curtains white, and the dominating feature, the quilt over an iron cot, was made up of scraps of blue serge, black, brown and gray wool--the full range of the dark and the muted that thrift and modesty allowed. In that sober field, two patches of orange looked wild--like life in the raw."

--Toni Morrison, Beloved