`` Maybe if you did n'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 was n'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 was n't more of them . Dora 's garden was planted same time 's mine and her things are growing all right . It CA N'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 XXXXX thunder .
after as at by in into of on over than