`` 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 , XXXXX , '' he shouted .
Andrews Anne Bell Marilla day forenoon hour lightning storm year