XXIV
A Prophet in His Own Country
One May day Avonlea folks were mildly 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
Blythe. Avonlea juvenile society persisted in regarding Gilbert Blythe
and Charlie Sloane as rivals in the good graces of a certain damsel with
gray eyes and an imagination.
Gossip, as usual, was wrong. Gilbert Blythe, 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:
"Rumor has it that there will be a wedding in our village ere the
daisies are in bloom. A new and highly respected citizen will lead
to the hymeneal 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 twenty-third
of May, beginning at seven o'clock sharp. The area of the storm
will extend over the greater part of the Province. People traveling
that evening will do well to take umbrellas and mackintoshes with them."
"Uncle Abe really has predicted a storm for sometime this spring,"
said Gilbert, "but do you suppose Mr. Harrison really does go to
see Isabella Andrews?"
"No," said Anne, laughing, "I'm sure he only goes to play checkers with
Mr. Harrison Andrews, but Mrs. Lynde 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 "planting" 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 orchards flung great blossoming arms about the farmhouses
and the Snow Queen adorned itself as a bride for her husband.
Anne liked to sleep with her window open and let the cherry
fragrance blow over her face 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 that grass in the hollow green or golden? It seems to me,
Marilla, that a pearl of a day like this, when the blossoms are
out and the winds don't know where to blow from next for sheer
crazy delight must be pretty near as good as heaven."
Marilla looked scandalized and glanced apprehensively around to
make sure the twins were not within earshot. They came around the
corner of the house just then.
"Ain't it 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 and annuals.
Davy, however, worked with more zeal than discretion; he dug
and hoed and raked and watered and transplanted so energetically
that his seeds had no chance for their lives.
"How is your garden coming on, Davy-boy?" asked Anne.
"Kind of slow," said Davy with a sigh. "I don't know why the
things don't grow better. Milty Boulter 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 'portant 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're getting on `at the other end,' they'd do better,"
said Marilla sarcastically.
"I only pulled six of them up," protested Davy. "I wanted to see
if there was grubs at the roots. Milty Boulter 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 SQUISH I tell you.
I was sorry there wasn't more of them. Dora's garden was planted same
time's 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 skirts daintily up and
provoke us to admiration."
"Those Yellow Duchess trees always bear well," said Marilla complacently.
"That tree'll be loaded this year. I'm real glad. . .they're great for pies."
But neither Marilla nor Anne nor anybody else was fated to make
pies out of Yellow Duchess apples that year.
The 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 Avonlea schoolroom.
A hot breeze blew all the forenoon; but after noon 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. Annetta 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, save where its curled
and fringed edges showed a ghastly, livid white. There was
something about it indescribably menacing as it gloomed up in the
clear blue sky; now and again a bolt of lightning 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 grays to their utmost speed. He pulled them to
a halt opposite the school.
"Guess Uncle Abe's hit it for once in his life, Anne," he shouted.
"His storm's coming a leetle ahead of time. Did ye ever see the
like of that cloud? Here, all you young ones, that are going my
way, pile in, and those that ain't scoot for the post office if
ye've more'n a quarter of a mile to go, and stay there till the
shower's over."
Anne caught Davy and Dora by the hands and flew down the hill,
along the Birch Path, and past Violet Vale and Willowmere, 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 a 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 white fury.
Through all the clamor of the storm came the thud of torn branches
striking the house and 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 deafening thunder peals. Anne, white
as paper, had dragged the sofa away from the window and sat on it with
a 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
hand clasped in Anne's, quiet and motionless. It is doubtful if an
earthquake would 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 effected 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 we 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 a wink that I wouldn't
fight Teddy Sloane Monday as I'd promised; but now maybe I will.
Say, Dora, was you scared?"
"Yes, I was a little scared," said Dora primly, "but I held tight
to Anne's hand and said my prayers over and over again."
"Well, I'd have said my prayers too if I'd have 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 hailstones; drifts
of them were heaped up under the eaves and on the steps. When,
three or four days later, those hailstones 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,
dazedly. "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, "never. I remember 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 hailstones with a rather scared grin.
"Oh, ain't this awful, Miss Cuthbert? Mr. Harrison sent me over to
see if yous had come out all right."
"We're none of us killed," said Marilla grimly, "and none of the
buildings was struck. I hope you got off equally well."
"Yas'm. Not quite so well, ma'am. We was struck. The lightning
knocked over the kitchen chimbly and come down the flue and knocked
over Ginger's cage and tore a hole in the floor and went into the
sullar. Yas'm."
"Was Ginger hurt?" queried Anne.
"Yas'm. 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'm an old fool to care so much. I'll let on I don't care.
I know you're 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. Beats all how he struck the very day though, don't it?
Look at the mess we have here. I must hustle round and get some
boards to patch up that hole in the floor."
Avonlea folks did nothing the next day but visit each other and
compare damages. The roads were impassable for wheels by reason of
the hailstones, 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 waded 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 trifling 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 glass for them," said Marilla.
"Mr. Barry went over to Carmody this afternoon but not a pane
could he get for love or money. Lawson and Blair were cleaned out
by the Carmody people by ten o'clock. Was the storm bad at White
Sands, Gilbert?"
"I should say so. I was caught in the school with all the children
and 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 squealed 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 Gilead.
Anne came running down from the west gable.
"Oh, Gilbert, have you heard the news? Mr. Levi Boulter's old
house was struck and burned to the ground. It seems to me that I'm
dreadfully wicked to feel glad over THAT, when so much damage has
been done. Mr. Boulter says he believes the A.V.I.S. 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's not much to rejoice over where our young trees are concerned.
Not ten of them have escaped."
"Ah, 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."
