May 23rd destructive hail storm

The May 23 hailstorm is a sudden natural disaster that overturns an ordinary school day and leaves Avonlea facing extensive damage. Its force is measured not only in shattered windows and ruined crops, but also in the fear it provokes, the death of J. A. Harrison’s parrot Ginger, and the loss of many trees planted by the A.V.I.S. The storm also gives Uncle Abe an unexpected public vindication: he had predicted its date, and the community comes to call it his storm.

Warning and Approach

The storm arrives on an unseasonably warm May 23 while Anne Shirley and her pupils are working on fractions and syntax at Avonlea school. The morning’s hot breeze fades after noon, and at half past three Anne hears thunder. She dismisses the children promptly so they can get home before the weather breaks. As they leave, the sun is still shining, but the world has taken on an ominous appearance. Annetta Bell draws Anne’s attention to a cloud approaching from the northwest.

Anne has never seen a cloud like it. The mass is black, with pale, livid-looking edges, and lightning flashes across it as thunder follows. Mr. Harmon Andrews arrives in his wagon and urges his team up the hill. He tells Anne that Uncle Abe’s predicted storm is coming early, then offers a lift to children headed his way and directs others to shelter at the post office. The warning makes the danger immediate: the children must get to safety before the cloud reaches them.

Anne takes Davy and Dora by the hands and hurries along Birch Path, past Violet Vale and Willowmere, toward Green Gables. They arrive just in time. Marilla Cuthbert has been moving her ducks and chickens under cover, and she joins them inside. The light disappears as the cloud covers the sun; hail begins with thunder and lightning, cutting off the view of the landscape.

The Storm at Green Gables

The storm lasts three quarters of an hour. Within three minutes, every pane in the west and north windows at Green Gables is broken, and hailstones pour onto the kitchen floor. Even the smallest are as large as hen’s eggs. Branches strike the house, while the hail and thunder continue outside. The scale and speed of the damage turn shelter into a trial for the household.

Marilla, ordinarily composed, kneels beside her rocking chair, frightened and sobbing. Anne moves the sofa away from the window and sits with one twin on either side. Davy, terrified by the first crash, buries his face in Anne’s lap and stays there trembling; Dora remains pale but calm, holding Anne’s hand. Their different reactions make the scene a measure of the storm’s force as well as a moment of care: Anne keeps the twins close while the adults and children wait for the danger to pass.

The hail stops almost as suddenly as it began. Thunder recedes, and the sun returns over a landscape transformed in less than an hour. Marilla rises weak and trembling and asks whether everyone has survived. After Anne brings her currant wine, they go to the door to see the damage. Hailstones lie in deep drifts, including heaps beneath the eaves and on the steps. The contrast between the renewed sunlight and the destruction left behind makes the storm’s short duration seem almost impossible to reconcile with its consequences.

Damage Across Avonlea

The full extent of the loss becomes clear as the hail melts over the next three or four days. Growing plants in fields and gardens have been cut down. Apple blossoms are stripped from the trees, and large branches have been torn away. Of the two hundred trees planted by the A.V.I.S. improvement effort, most are snapped or shredded. Marilla recalls that she has never known anything comparable on Prince Edward Island and expects news of widespread destruction.

The damage reaches beyond Green Gables. J. A. Harrison’s household reports that lightning knocked over the kitchen chimney, came down the flue, overturned Ginger’s cage, made a hole in the floor, and continued into the cellar. Ginger is killed. Anne later visits J. A. Harrison and finds him grieving beside the parrot’s body. He explains that Ginger had been his only company. Anne had not expected to cry over the bird, but his loss brings tears to her eyes; the storm has taken not merely a pet but a companion from a lonely household.

Across Avonlea, residents spend the following day visiting one another and comparing damage. Hailstones make roads impassable for wheeled traffic, so people walk or travel on horseback. The late mail brings reports from elsewhere in the province: buildings have been struck, people killed or injured, the telephone and telegraph systems disrupted, and young livestock left in the fields have perished. The event is therefore not confined to the village’s gardens and houses; it has interrupted communication and transport and caused losses across the island.

Prediction, Recovery, and Significance

Uncle Abe spends the day after the storm at the blacksmith’s forge, enjoying the fact that his forecast proved correct. The narration distinguishes his satisfaction at having predicted the event from any wish that it had happened. He had named the date accurately, although not the hour, and now forgets that he had previously denied setting a specific day. That small discrepancy does little to weaken his new reputation among the people of Avonlea.

The storm’s timing gives the prediction a public consequence. Gilbert Blythe observes that Uncle Abe’s storm will enter local history, and J. A. Harrison also credits the event with confirming the old forecast. Gilbert notes that very few of the A.V.I.S. trees have escaped. The association’s planting project, once a sign of collective improvement, is now one of the clearest measures of the storm’s destructive reach.

Recovery begins with practical repairs. Gilbert finds Anne and Marilla covering the broken windows with strips of oilcloth because glass is unavailable: people in Carmody have bought out the local supply. The damaged trees and ruined blossoms cannot be restored by such immediate measures, and the improvement plantings will have to be replaced. Anne accepts that consequence by looking toward planting again the following spring. Her response does not diminish the loss; it places rebuilding within a recurring seasonal cycle. The storm ends quickly, but the wreckage persists, and the prospect of another spring becomes a modest basis for continuing after damage that no one in Avonlea had seen before.