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 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 XXXXX the wooded hills .
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