Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 24

Chapter 24 A Prophet in His Own Country One May day,

Avonlea folks were mightily excited over some Avonlea notes,

Signed Observer,

Which appeared in the Charlottetown daily enterprise.

Gossip ascribed the authorship thereof to Charlie Sloane partly because the said Charlie had indulged in similar literary flights in times past,

And partly because one of the notes seemed to embody a sneer at Gilbert Blight.

Avonlea Juvenile Society persisted in regarding Gilbert Blight and Charlie Sloane as rivals in the good graces of a certain damsel with grey eyes and an imagination.

Gossip as usual was wrong.

Gilbert Blight,

Aided and abetted by Anne,

Had written the notes,

Putting in the one about himself as a blind.

Only two of the notes have any bearing on this history.

Quote,

Rumour has it that there will be a wedding in our village when the daisies are in bloom.

A new and highly respected citizen will lead the hymneal altar.

One of our most popular ladies,

Uncle Abe,

Our well-known weather prophet,

Predicts a violent storm of thunder and lightning for the evening of the 23rd of May,

Beginning at seven o'clock sharp.

The area of the storm will extend over the greater part of the province.

People travelling that evening will do well to take umbrellas and Macintoshes with them.

Uncle Abe really has predicted a storm for some time this spring,

Said Gilbert.

But do you suppose Mr.

Harrison really goes to see Isabella Andrews?

No,

Said Anne,

Laughing.

I'm sure he only goes to play checkers with Mr.

Harrison Andrews.

But Miss Lind says she knows Isabella Andrews must be going to get married.

She's in such good spirits this spring.

Poor old Uncle Abe felt rather indignant over the notes.

He suspected that Observer was making fun of him.

He angrily denied having assigned any particular date for his storm,

But nobody believed him.

Life in Avonlea continued on the smooth and even tenor of its way the planning was put in.

The Improvers celebrated an Arbor Day.

Each Improver set out,

Or caused to be set out,

Five ornamental trees.

As the Society now numbered forty members,

This meant a total of two hundred young trees.

Early oats greened over the red fields.

Apple orchard flung great blossoming arms about the farmhouses and the Snow Queen adored itself as a bride for her husband.

Anne liked to sleep with the window open and let the cherry fragrance blow over her all night.

She thought it very poetical.

Marilla thought she was risking her life.

Thanksgiving should be celebrated in the spring,

Said Anne one evening to Marilla,

As they sat on the front door steps and listened to the silver sweet chorus of the frogs.

I think it would be ever so much better than having it in November when everything is dead or asleep.

Then you have to remember to be thankful,

But in May one simply can't help being thankful that they are alive,

If for nothing else.

I feel exactly as Eve must have felt in the Garden of Eden before the trouble began.

Is the grass in the hollow green or golden?

It seems to me,

Marilla,

That the pearl of a day like this,

When the blossoms are out and the winds don't know where to blow from next,

For cheer-crazy delight must be very near as good as heaven.

Marilla looked scandalized and glanced apprehensively around to make sure that the twins were not within earshot.

They came around the corner of the house just then.

It did an awful nice smelling evening,

Asked Davy,

Sniffing delightedly as he swung a hoe in his grimy hands.

He had been working in his garden.

That spring,

Marilla,

By way of turning Davy's passion for reveling in mud and clay into useful channels,

Had given him and Dora a small plot of ground for a garden.

Both had eagerly gone to work.

In a characteristic fashion,

Dora planted,

Weeded,

And watered carefully,

Systematically and dispassionately.

As a result her plot was already green with prim,

Orderly little rows of vegetables.

Davy,

However,

Worked with more zeal than discretion.

He dug and hoed and raked and watered and transplanted with such energy that his seeds had no chance for their lives.

''How is your garden coming on,

Davy boy?

'' asked Anne.

''Kind of slow,

'' Davy said with a sigh.

''I don't know why the things don't grow better.

Meaty Poulter says I must have planted them in the dark of the moon,

And that's the whole trouble.

He says you must never sow seeds or kill pork or cut your hair or do any important thing in the wrong time of the moon.

Is that true,

Anne?

I want to know.

Maybe if you didn't pull your plants up by the roots every other day to see how they were getting on,

At the other end they'd do better,

'' said Marilla sarcastically.

''I only put six of them up,

'' protested Davy.

''I wanted to see if there was grubs in the roots.

Meaty Poulter said if it wasn't the moon's fault it must be grubs.

But I only found one grub.

He was a great big juicy curly grub.

I put him on a stone and got another stone and smashed him flat.

He made a jolly squash,

I tell you.

I was sorry there wasn't more of them.

The rest garden was planted the same time as mine,

And her things are growing all right.

It can't be the moon,

'' Davy concluded in a reflective tone.

Marilla.

''Look at that apple tree,

'' said Anne.

''Why,

The thing is human.

It is reaching out long arms to pick its own pink skirt stately up and provoke us to admiration.

Those Yellow Duchess trees always bear well,

'' said Marilla.

''That tree will be loaded this year.

I'm real glad.

They are great for pies.

But neither Marilla or Anne or anybody else was fated to make pies out of Yellow Duchess apples that year.

Twenty-third of May came an unseasonably warm day,

As none realized more keenly than Anne and her little beehive of pupils,

Sweltering over fractions and syntax in the Ammon-Lee schoolroom.

A hot breeze blew all the forenoon,

But afternoon hour it died away into a heavy stillness.

At half-past three,

Anne heard a low rumble of thunder.

She promptly dismissed school at once,

So that the children might get home before the storm came.

As they went out to the playground,

Anne perceived a certain shadow and gloom over the world in spite of the fact that the sun was still shining brightly,

And that the bell caught her hand nervously.

''Oh,

Teacher,

Look at that awful cloud!

'' Anne looked and gave an exclamation of dismay.

In the northwest a mass of cloud,

Such as she had never in all her life beheld before,

Was rapidly rolling up.

It was dead black,

Say,

Where it scurrled and fringed.

Edges showed a ghastly,

Livid white.

There was something about it indescribably menacing,

As it gloomed up in the clear sky.

Now and again a bolt of lighting shot across it,

Followed by a savage growl.

It hung so low that it almost seemed to be touching the tops of the wooded hills.

Mr.

Harmon Andrews came clattering up the hill in his truck-wagon,

Urging his team of greys to their utmost speed.

He pulled them to a halt opposite the school.

''Guess Uncle Abe's hid it for once in his life,

Anne,

'' he shouted.

''His storm is coming a little ahead of time.

Did you ever see the like of that cloud?

Here all you young ones that are going my way,

Pile in,

And those that ain't.

Good for the post-office if you have more than a quarter of a mile to go,

And stay there till the shower is over.

'' Anne caught Davy and Dora by the hands and flew down the hill,

Along the birch path and past Violet Vale and Willowsmere,

As fast as the twins' fat legs could go.

They reached Green Gables not a moment too soon,

And were joined at the door by Marilla,

Who had been hustling her ducks and chickens under shelter.

As they dashed into the kitchen the light seemed to vanish,

As if blown out by some mighty breath the awful cloud rolled over the sun,

And the darkness as of late twilight fell across the world.

At the same moment,

With a crash of thunder and a blinding glare of lightning,

The hail swooped down and blotted the landscape out in one wide fury,

Though all the glamour of the storm came the torn branches striking the house at the sharp crack of breaking glass.

In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones,

The smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg.

For three quarters of an hour the storm raged,

Unabated,

And no one who underwent it ever forgot it.

Marilla for once in her life,

Shaken out of her composure by sheer terror,

Knelt by her rocking chair in a corner of the kitchen,

Gasping and sobbing between the defeating thunder-peril.

Anne,

White as paper,

Had tracked the sofa away from the window and sat on it with the twin on either side,

Davy at the first crash had howled.

Anne!

Anne!

Is it the judgment day?

Anne!

Anne!

I never meant to be naughty!

And then had buried his face in Anne's lap and kept it there,

His little body quivering.

Dora,

Somewhat pale but quite composed,

Sat with her hands clasped in Anne's,

Quiet and motionless.

It is doubtful if an earthquake could have disturbed Dora.

Then almost as suddenly as it began the storm ceased,

The hail stopped,

The thunder rolled and muttered away to the eastward,

And the sun burst out merry and radiant over a world so changed that it seemed an absurd thing to think that a scant three quarters of an hour could have affected such a transformation.

Marilla rose from her knees,

Weak and trembling,

And dropped on her rocker.

Her face was haggard,

And she looked ten years older.

Have you all come out of that alive?

She asked solemnly.

You bet we have,

Piped Davy cheerfully,

Quite his own man again.

I wasn't a bit scared either,

Only just at the first.

It come on a fellow so sudden I made up my mind quick as wink that I wouldn't fight Daddy Sloane Monday as I promised but now maybe I will.

Say,

Dora,

Were you scared?

Yes,

I was a little scared,

Said Dora brimly,

But I held tight to Anne's hand and said my prayers over and over again.

Well,

I had said my prayers too if I'd had thought of it,

Said Davy.

But,

He added triumphantly,

You see I came through just as safe as you,

For all I didn't say them.

Anne got Marilla a glassful of her potent currant wine.

How potent it was,

Anne in her earlier days had had all too good reason to know.

And then they went to the door to look out on the strange scene.

Far and wide was a white carpet,

Knee-deep of hairstones.

Drifts of them were heaped up under the eaves on the steps.

When three or four days later those hairstones melted the havoc they had wrought was plainly seen.

For every green,

Growing thing in the field or garden was cut off.

Not only was every blossom stripped from the apple trees,

But great boughs and branches were wrenched away.

And out of the two hundred trees set out by the improvers,

By far the greater number were snapped off or torn to shreds.

Can it possibly be the same world it was an hour ago?

Asked Anne dazily.

It must have taken longer than that to play such havoc.

The like of this has never been known in Prince Edward Island,

Said Marilla.

When I was a girl there was a bad storm,

But it was nothing to this.

We'll hear of terrible destruction,

You may be sure.

I do hope none of the children were caught out in it,

Murmured Anne anxiously.

As it was discovered later,

None of the children had been,

Since all those who had any distance to go had taken Mr.

Andrews' excellent advice and sought refuge at the post office.

There comes John Henry Carter,

Said Marilla.

John Henry came wading through the hairstones with a rather scared grin.

Oh,

Ain't this awful,

Miss Cuthbert.

Mr.

Harrison sent me over to see if you had come out all right.

We're none of us killed,

Said Marilla grimly.

And none of the buildings were struck.

I hope you got off equally well.

Yes,

Ma'am.

Not quite so well,

Ma'am.

The lightning knock-knocked over the kitchen chimney and came down the flue and knocked over Ginger's cage and tore a hole into the floor and went into the cellar.

Yes,

Ma'am.

Was Ginger hurt,

Cried Anne.

Yes,

Miss.

He was hurt pretty bad.

He was killed.

Later on Anne went over to comfort Mr.

Harrison.

She found him sitting by the table,

Stroking Ginger's gay dead body with a trembling hand.

Poor Ginger won't call you any more names,

Anne,

He said mournfully.

Anne could never have imagined herself crying on Ginger's account,

But the tears came into her eyes.

He was all the company I had,

Anne.

And now he's dead.

Well,

Well.

I am an old fool to care so much.

I let on I don't care.

I know you are going to say something sympathetic as soon as I stop talking,

But don't.

If you did,

I'd cry like a baby.

Hasn't this been a terrible storm?

I guess folks won't laugh at Uncle Abe's predictions again.

Seems as if all the storms that he's been prophesying all his life that never happened came all at once,

Be it all how he struck the very day,

Though.

Doesn't it?

Look at the mess we have here.

I must hustle around and get some boards to patch up that hole in the floor.

And only folks did nothing the next day but visit each other and compare damages.

The roads were impassable for wheels by reason of the hailstorms.

So they walked or rode on horseback.

The mail came late with ill tidings from all over the province.

Houses had been struck,

People killed and injured.

The whole telephone and telegraph system had been disorganized,

And any number of young stock exposed in the fields had perished.

Uncle Abe waited out to the blacksmith's forge early in the morning and spent the whole day there.

It was Uncle Abe's hour of triumph,

And he enjoyed it to the full.

It would be doing Uncle Abe an injustice to say that he was glad the storm had happened,

But since it had to be,

He was very glad he had predicted it.

To the very day,

Too,

Uncle Abe forgot that he had ever denied setting the day.

As for the drifting discrepancy in the hour,

That was nothing.

Gilbert arrived at Green Gables in the evening and found Marilla and Anne busily engaged in nailing strips of oilcloth over the broken windows.

Goodness only knows when we'll get the glass for them,

Said Marilla.

Mr.

Barry went over to comedy this afternoon,

But neither pain could he get for love or money.

Larson and Blair were cleaned out by the comedy people by ten o'clock.

Was the storm bad at the Whitesands,

Gilbert?

I should say so.

I was caught in the school with all the children.

I thought some of them would go mad with fright.

Three of them fainted,

And two girls took hysterics,

And Tommy Blewett did nothing but shriek at the top of his voice the whole time.

I only squirreled once,

Said Davy proudly.

My garden was all smashed flat,

He continued mournfully,

But so was Dora's,

He added in a tone which indicated that there was yet balm in Gleet.

Anne came running down from the West Gable.

Oh,

Gilbert,

Have you heard the news?

Mr.

Levi Balter's old house was struck and burned to the ground.

It seems to me that I'm dreadfully wicked to feel glad over that,

And so much damage has been done.

Mr.

Balter says he believes the AVIS magicked up that storm on purpose.

Well,

One thing is certain,

Said Gilbert laughing.

Observer has made Uncle Abe's reputation as a weather prophet.

Uncle Abe's storm will go down in local history.

It is a most extraordinary coincidence that it should have come on the very day we selected.

I actually have a half-guilty feeling as if I really had magicked it up.

We may as well rejoice over the old house being removed,

For there is not much to rejoice over where our young trees are concerned.

Not ten of them have escaped.

Oh well,

We'll just have to plant them over again next spring,

Said Anne philosophically.

That is one good thing about this world,

There are always sure to be more springs.