r 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 Arbor Day. Each
Improver set out, or caused to be set out, five ornamental 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 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 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 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
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,
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 garde