Anne Of Avonlea - Chapter 24

"Anne of Avonlea" was written by L. M. Montgomery and published in 1909, following the enormous success of Anne of Green Gables the prior year.

In this second book, Anne Shirley is sixteen years old and working in Avonlea as the local schoolteacher, determined to be sensible, responsible and worthy of the life she’s been given...

Chapter 24 blends humour, community life and sudden catastrophe...

Light-hearted village gossip and springtime beauty lull Avonlea into a sense of ease, even as a much-mocked prediction hangs in the air...

Then, without warning, nature asserts its power. A violent storm tears through Avonlea, leaving fear, loss and devastation in its wake.

In the aftermath, pride is humbled, reputations are unexpectedly made and neighbours draw together to compare damages and comfort one another...

Find the full playlist for Anne of Avonlea here: https://insig.ht/4ZfBC3zXWZb

Transcript

Hello there,

Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of Anne of Avonlea,

The delightful follow-up sequel to Anne of Green Gables.

Those books were published in 1908 and 1909 by Canadian author Lucy Maude Montgomery.

We have been hearing about Anne Shirley's story as she moves onwards from being a young orphan in Avonlea to now being a teenager who's helping out with the local school and other projects beyond.

Perhaps you've already heard the preceding parts of this book.

If you haven't and you'd like to,

You can certainly look for the playlist for Anne of Avonlea and you'll find all the chapters there in order.

But for now,

Let's just take a moment here to have a nice deep exhale.

Letting go of the day,

Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.

For right now,

There's nowhere else we have to go,

Nothing else we have to be doing.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the ongoing sweet old tale of Anne of Avonlea.

Chapter 24.

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 grey 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.

Rumour 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 23rd of May,

Beginning at 7 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 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 Arbour Day.

Each Improver set out,

Or numbered,

40 members.

This meant a total of 200 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 doorsteps 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 scandalised 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 revelling 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.

Miltie Bolter says,

I must have planted them in the dark of the moon,

And that's the old 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'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 grabs at the roots.

Miltie Bolter said if it wasn't the moon's fault,

It must be grabs.

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.

Oh sorry,

There wasn't more of them.

Dora's garden was planted,

Same time as mine,

And now 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 will 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 23rd of May came.

An unseasonably warm day,

As none realised 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 greys 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 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,

Scoot for the post office if you've more than 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 clamour 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 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 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 fella 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 sayum.

Anne got Marilla a glassful of her potent current 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 was 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 place 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 Andrew's 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 youse 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,

Um,

Not quite so well,

Ma'am.

We was struck.

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

Yes,

Um.

Was Ginger hurt,

Queried Anne.

Yes,

Um,

He was 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 disorganised 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 pain 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 Bolter'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 Bolter 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'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.

'"

Reviews

Angela you bring such life to the reading’. As always’