The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun
blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from
her eyes and left them a sober gray, they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also.
(from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum)
What does the use of the color gray show about Aunt Em?