The Strongest Color

            Benjamin used colored chalk and drew a house and green grass around the house and a tree with green leaves.

            Jedediah asked him, “What’s your favorite color?”

            Benjamin said, “Green.”

            Catherine Lee asked, “What’s the strongest color?”

            “Green. Green is the strongest.” Benjamin colored in more green grass. “Green grows everywhere.”

            Jedediah said, “White’s stronger than green.” He picked up a piece of white chalk and drew snowflakes in the air and snowflakes beginning to cover the grass.

            Benjamin said, “White isn’t a color. It’s just white, no color.”

            Catherine said, “Yes, it is a color. White is all the colors together.” Jedediah completely covered the green grass with white snow. Catherine said, “Green leaves aren’t on the trees when there’s snow on the ground.”

            So Benjamin erased the leaves and drew in bare limbs, and Jedediah heaped snow on the limbs. Catherine came over and chalked snow on the roof of the house and drew icicles hanging from the eaves.

            Then they all stepped back and looked at the blackboard. After a while, Benjamin said, “I know what’s stronger than white.”

            “What?”

            “Gold.” He went to the blackboard and erased the falling snowflakes. He drew the sun in the sky with gold chalk.

            Jedediah said, “Sunshine is yellow.” He drew yellow rays from the sun.

            Catherine said, “You know what? Sunshine is all the colors. You can tell it is, because when there’s a rainbow, moisture in the air bends the sunlight and sorts out the colors.”

            They drew violet and blue rays, orange and ocher and green, red and lavender rays, all forming a rainbow. They erased the snow a little at a time, first from the branches, then from the roof, then on the south sloping ground, and finally from the shaded north side of the house.

            Benjamin colored green grass. Jedediah drew green leaves on the trees. Then they all drew flowers and vegetables of many kinds and colors in the garden around the house. They stepped back and looked at the picture.

            Sun shone in through the windows. “The sun is out.”

            They went out the door and down the steps into the garden, into warm sunshine.

            Heavy rain, moving away from them now, across the broad valley, washed grasses, flowers, vegetables, and trees clean. Their colors shine clear in bright sunshine as the storm clouds move east. Heavy rain washed every smell clean. Myriad vegetable smells, flower smells, and wet earth smells fill the clean, washed air.

            Moisture in the air bends sunlight and separates it into its component colors. Beyond the farthest field, a brilliant rainbow curves above the hill.

            Benjamin and Catherine Lee and Jedediah run through the garden. They stop and watch the rainbow fade in the bluing sky. Sunshine fills them with warmth.