Page:Anne of Avonlea (1909).djvu/292

 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 wink 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 primly, “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 triumphantly, “you see I came through just as safe as you for all I didn’t say them.”

Anne got Marilla a glassful of her potent currant wine  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 havoc they had wrought was plainly seen, for every green growing thing in field or garden was cut off. Not only was every blossom stripped from the apple trees but great boughs and branches were wrenched away. And out of the two hundred trees set out by the Improvers by far the greater number were snapped off or torn to shreds.

“Can it possibly be the same world it was an hour Rh