LOVE IS NOT A COLOR MARIE H. NIELSON "It's going to be an interesting day," I thought groggily, fumbling for my robe at the foot of the bed. My groping hands encountered what I took to be the nubbly chenille I was seeking. Draping it around my shoulders, I started down the hall, trying to come out of the fog of sleep that surrounded me. "I'm coming, I'm coming," I called, trying for a level that would reach whoever was pounding on the kitchen door and not wake up the still-sleeping children in the two bedrooms I passed on my way to the door. I tripped, and looking down could just make out a fringed end of something in the dim light yes, it was the bedspread I'd grabbed instead of my robe. Oh well, anyone pounding on the door at this ungodly hour of the morning deserved to have an ambulatory bedspread greet them, I thought uncharitably. I knew it would be someone from the night staff of the dormitory. They couldn't be bringing good news, and I would convey to my husband whatever vital bit of information could not wait until the day officially began at eight o'clock. Had some of the students gone AWOL, a rare but not unheard of occurrence? Or maybe all the plumbing in the two buildings serving five hundred Navajo students had gone haywire. "Things look blackest just before the dawn," I told myself tritely, and hoped for an early sunrise. The ubiquitious sand was gritty under my bare feet; for perhaps the millionth time I though I was really going to buy a pair of slippers and wear them. I was prepared for almost anything but the sight which greeted me as I opened the door. There stood one very large, very black, very tired and worried looking Negro man, holding the pink-palmed hand of a small disheveled four-year-old Negro girl, equally as tired and almost as dark. "Herbert, what's the matter?" "Earline's gone, Marie. She left me. She took Butch and went back to Texas. I took her to Flagstaff and put her on the train last night, and just this minute got back." He paused, took a deep breath, opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and I saw the gold fillings in his front teeth catch a gleam of light from somewhere. "What am I going to do?" Opening the door wider, I motioned wordlessly for them to come in. With the outlandish 9