Gossip, as usual, was wrong. Gilbert Blythe, aided and abetted4 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 tenor5 of its way. The “planting” was put in; the Improvers celebrated6 an Arbor7 Day. Each Improver set out, or caused to be set out, five ornamental8 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 orchards9 flung great blossoming arms about the farmhouses10 and the Snow Queen adorned11 itself as a bride for her husband. Anne liked to sleep with her window open and let the cherry fragrance12 blow over her face all night. She thought it very poetical13. 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 apprehensively14 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, sniffing15 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, systematically16, and dispassionately. As a result, her plot was already green with prim17, orderly little rows of vegetables and annuals. Davy, however, worked with more zeal18 than discretion19; 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 sarcastically20.
“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 admiration21.”
“Those Yellow Duchess trees always bear well,” said Marilla complacently22. “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 rumble23 of thunder. She promptly24 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 nervously25.
“Oh, teacher, look at that awful cloud!”
Anne looked and gave an exclamation26 of dismay. In the northwest a mass of cloud, such as she had never in all her life beheld27 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 savage28 growl29. It hung so low that it almost seemed to be touching30 the tops of the wooded hills.
Mr. Harmon Andrews came clattering31 up the hill in his truck wagon32, 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 hustling33 her ducks and chickens under shelter. As they dashed into the kitchen the light seemed to vanish, as if blown out by some mighty34 breath; the awful cloud rolled over the sun and a darkness as of late twilight35 fell across the world. At the same moment, with a crash of thunder and a blinding glare of lightning, the hail swooped36 down and blotted37 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 pane38 in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures39 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, gasping40 and sobbing41 between the deafening42 thunder peals43. 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 Judgment44 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 eastward45, and the sun burst out merry and radiant over a world so changed that it seemed an absurd thing to think that a scant46 three quarters of an hour could have effected such a transformation47.
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 wink48 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 primly49, “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 triumphantly50, “you see I came through just as safe as you for all I didn’t say them.”
Anne got Marilla a glassful of her potent51 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 havoc52 they had wrought53 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 boughs54 and branches were wrenched55 away. And out of the two hundred trees set out by the Improvers by far the greater number were snapped off or torn to shreds56.
“Can it possibly be the same world it was an hour ago?” asked Anne, dazedly57. “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.
“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 Ginger59’s cage and tore a hole in the floor and went into the sullar. Yas’m.”
“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 prophesying61 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 hustle62 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 waded63 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 injustice64 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 trifling65 discrepancy66 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 shriek67 at the top of his voice the whole time.”
“I only squealed68 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 philosophically69. “That is one good thing about this world . . . there are always sure to be more springs.”
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1
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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abetted
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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farmhouses
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| n.农舍，农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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swooped
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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apertures
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| n.孔( aperture的名词复数 )；隙缝；（照相机的）光圈；孔径 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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41
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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42
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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peals
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| n.（声音大而持续或重复的）洪亮的响声( peal的名词复数 )；隆隆声；洪亮的钟声；钟乐v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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44
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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45
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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46
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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47
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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48
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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49
primly
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| adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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50
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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51
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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52
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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53
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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55
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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dazedly
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| 头昏眼花地，眼花缭乱地，茫然地 | |
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wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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prophesying
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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65
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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66
discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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67
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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68
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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