Summary

Chapter 1

Dandelion Wine begins with twelve year old Douglas Spaulding lying in the roof bedroom of his grandparents' house in the pre-dawn hours of the first day of summer. One night each week Douglas gets to leave his family in their house next door so that in the morning he can make the town come alive. He pretends to be in control of the waking town, sending signals to the street lights to go out, telling people to turn on their lights and wake up, and finally beckoning the sun to rise. Douglas ushers in the summer of 1928.

Chapter 2

Douglas knows that, inexplicably, today is going to be different. As they drive out to the countryside, Douglas and his ten-year-old brother Tom listen to Father explain that some days are good for different senses and that today is a day of smells. Even as they walk through the woods, searching for fox grapes, Douglas is aware of something else, lurking just beyond his perception. But he thinks that his brother and father have driven it away, briefly, by talking. Distracted, Douglas listens to his brother Tom describing the mental lists he keeps of everything, and he soon realizes that whatever it is that is coming for him, Tom's words are bringing it closer. Entranced by the approaching unknown, Douglas seems so far away that Tom jumps him and wrestles with him. As they briefly scuffle Douglas feels everything more acutely, he tastes his own blood and when he looks out on the world he is aware that he is alive! He lies there, content and overwhelmed by the beauty of the world and his existence. Tom asks him if he is all right and in response Douglas grabs him and wrestles some more, finally asking his brother if everyone knows that they are alive. Douglas sees his father looking at him and concludes that the trip to the country was set up for him to come to this realization. They head back to town, Douglas woozy with his newfound joy.

Chapter 3

Later that same day Douglas and Tom are outside with Grandpa, who tells them it is time to pick the dandelions. The boys fill sacks with the flowers and then Grandfather presses them in the wine press. The boys go to get the bucket of rainwater—for only the purest, freshest waters can be used to make dandelion wine. And they would have a bottle for each day of the summer, for in those dark days in the middle of winter, when the August sun was but a fleeting memory, a sip of dandelion wine would bring back summer for a moment. For Douglas' family, even the words were "summer on the tongue."

Chapter 4

Running through the town with his friends John Huff and Charlie Woodman, Douglas is left behind and so he stops to ponder the ravine. Separating the two sides of the town, Douglas sees in the ravine the endless dance between town and wilderness. He knows that the town must continually struggle to hold what it can against the forces of nature, since the wild, untamed land beyond town is always advancing. The ravine represents the battleground, and it becomes clear that running through the town and the wilderness is the way that Douglas will interact with these forces, the way he has always interacted with them. But something is wrong, and he stands still while the other boys run.

Chapter 5

The solution to Douglas's problem becomes apparent while his family returns from the movie theater. He spies a pair of tennis shoes in the window of the shoe store. Not just any tennis shoes, the "Royal Crown Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes" are what Douglas needs to be able to run. They are infused with summer, and he needs shoes that have the magic to do everything magical that summer requires. His father suggests that Douglas use last year's pair, but Douglas knows that they have lost their magic. The next day, in Sanderson's Shoe Emporium, Mr. Sanderson surprises Douglas. Mr. Sanderson knows exactly what shoes Douglas wants because he has seen him

staring at them in the store window. Douglas convinces the old man to try on the sneakers, making him believe that he must truly know them to sell them. While Mr. Sanderson is standing in the brand new sneakers, Douglas makes him an offer. Either he can buy his pair and owe the man one dollar, or else, because of the speed that the shoes give him, Douglas will run through town and do all of the chores that Mr. Sanderson would rather not do himself. Douglas shows such passion in his belief in the power of the shoes, that his speech transports Mr. Sanderson back to his own childhood, when he dreamed of running like gazelles and antelopes. He gives Douglas the shoes in return for merely completing a list of things to do that day, because he was so pleased with the effect of the boy's speech.

Chapter 6

Douglas gets out a pad of paper and a pencil while he and Tom are in their bedroom and tells his brother of his plan to keep his own lists. He points out that they do many of the same things each summer, and that a list of those things will make up half of summer but that the second half is made up of the thoughts that you have about those things. As an example he tells Tom how the bottling of dandelion wine is on the first list but that his idea that each time you bottle dandelion wine it puts aside some of 1928 goes on the second list. Tom is confused, so Douglas gives him another example: the first argument and fight he had with his dad is recorded on the first list but on the second list is the thought that kids and adults fight because they are from two different races. Tom understands and tells Douglas that since there are five billion trees and each had a shadow then night must come from all of the shadows coming out.

Chapter 7

On the third day of summer Douglas and Grandpa set up the porch swing and the porch becomes the haven of activity that it is every summer. Besides the boys, Uncle Bert, Father, Grandma, Great-grandma, and Mother all make it outside eventually to talk away the evenings. Everyone else from the town comes by the porch at some time, and Douglas loves to just sit and let the talk and the sounds of summer wash over him.

Chapter 8

Men have gathered in front of the United Cigar Store in town and are discussing all of the bad things happening in the world. Leo Auffmann, the jeweler, wants them to stop being so glum, and Grandfather Spaulding, walking by with Douglas and Tom, points out to him that to stop such talk he should invent something to make the world better. Douglas adds that Leo should make a happiness machine, and although they were joking, he takes them seriously and sets off on his bicycle to go home and start working.

Chapter 9

As Leo Auffmann pedals home we learn that he is a man who thinks about everything, and he decides that his Happiness Machine must help people deal with the changes in life that are difficult—growing up, getting old, and dying. When he gets home he is greeted by his six children, Saul, Marshall, Joseph, Rebecca, Ruth, and Naomi, and learns that they have ice cream to eat with him. Savoring the ice cream with his family, Leo asks his wife Lena what she would think if he attempted to make a Happiness Machine. She answers with a question of her own: "Something's wrong?"

Chapter 10

As Grandfather walks Douglas and Tom home, Charlie Woodman, John Huff and a group of the boys run by, and Douglas dashes off with them. Later that night, after Tom and Mother eat the ice cream that Tom got at Mrs. Singer's store, his mother calls Douglas's name to get him to come back home. Tom realizes that his mother is nervous and that she is angry with Douglas for being out so late. Father is out at a lodge meeting and will not be back until late. Tom and his mother go for a walk, looking for Douglas, and she mentions that the Lonely One is around and that it is not safe to be out. When they get to the ravine, Tom senses that his mother is afraid, and he cannot understand that, because she is an adult. He realizes "that each person was to himself alone," and that there would be no help for him

there. The growing sense of danger and fear mounts until finally Tom is relieved to hear Doug's voice in the distance. His mother promises Douglas that he will get a spanking and shows no signs of the fear that had wracked her moments before, but Tom knows the fear is there and is glad that night that Douglas is in bed next to him.

Chapter 11

Late that night Leo Auffmann brainstorms ideas for the Happiness Machine on his front porch. Lena comes out and mentions to him that they do not need the machine. Leo agrees but tells her that sometimes you must build things for others. Lena's silence demonstrates where she stands, but Leo continues to dream of the features of the machine that could bring happiness to people. A moment later the porch is empty and the night is over.

Chapter 12

Grandfather awakens to the sound of the lawn mower, the sound that to him means the beginning of summer. He looks out the window and sees one of the boarders, Bill Forrester, a newspaperman, mowing the lawn. He goes downstairs to eat Grandma's breakfast, raving about the lawn mower, where he is informed by Grandma that Forrester intends to put in a new kind of grass that does not need cutting. Grandpa is alarmed and goes to talk to the newspaperman who shows him the new grass. Grandpa tells Bill that the problem with his generation is that they are always trying to save time. But in reality it is the little things in life that bring so much pleasure, especially since the big ones cannot be solved. Spending time with nature in such a little way as mowing the lawn or picking dandelions allows you to get away from everything—other people, the town—and just be yourself for a bit. It gives you time to think freely, to philosophize. Grandpa asks Bill how much the new grass cost and pays him the ten dollars that Bill had spent plus five more to take it all to the ravine and get it away from his lawn. Later that day Grandpa hears Bill cutting the lawn again.

Chapter 13

Leo Auffmann is having trouble figuring out what should go into his Happiness Machine. He begins asking Lena questions about her happiness but only succeeds in getting them into an argument. She points out the stupidity of standing there questioning whether or not she is joyful while she scrubs the sink, and while they are arguing the bread burns in the oven. Leo retreats outside and begins working. For two weeks he works, barely seeing his family, and then one day announces to them that the Happiness Machine is ready. His wife points out that he has not spent time with his children and they are nervous and fighting, that he has lost weight and she has gained weight, and that the machine has certainly not helped make anything happier.

The next day Leo listens while Lena again attacks the machine, arguing that if it has no answers to death or babies then it is useless. Leo is still convinced that it will be useful but then that night he wakes up and hears his oldest son Saul crying. Saul was weeping after using the machine. The next morning Lena is furious and is sorting out their stuff, threatening to leave. Leo pleads with her at least to try the machine and she does so, seeming at first to be enthralled but then she begins to weep. His wife explains to him the problem with the machine: it shows people all of the things that they will never get a chance to do in their lives and the knowledge that they will not get to do those things becomes terrible. The machine is great until you realize that you must leave it and that outside are none of the things the machine shows—Paris, London, Rome, etc. And as long as it is out there they will want to visit it, just to see, even though they know it will cause only sorrow. Leo is still in disbelief and he wants to try it himself but when he does the machine sets on fire and burns, along with their garage. The whole town gathers to watch the fire and Leo sits outside and thinks. While Grandpa and Douglas and Tom listen he explains to them his mistake. He realizes now that the real Happiness Machine has always been there—his family.

Chapter 14

The whole family gathers together to beat the dust and dirt out of the rugs. While everyone jokes around, Tom studies the rugs and claims that he sees things in them. He claims that he sees the town, all its people, everyone who has stepped across the rugs and everyone who will step across them—it is all in the patterns. Everyone enjoys listening to Tom's tales of what he sees in the rugs.

Chapter 15In the middle of the summer, old Mrs. Bentley sees Alice, Jane, and Tom on her front lawn and offers to buy them ice creams. When they introduce themselves she says that people called her Helen, and the children seem amazed to hear that she has a first name. She tells them that she is seventy-two years old, but that she feels just as good as when she was their age. The children are dumbfounded. They do not believe that she was ever a young girl. Mrs. Bentley gets angry and tells them to leave. Later in the evening she sees the children running by and yells to them. She shows them a comb and a ring from her childhood as well as a picture of herself when she was seven years old. Alice and Jane still dispute her, claiming that she found these things or took them from other little girls. Finally Mrs. Bentley makes an appeal to them to listen to her because some day they will be her age and have to face the same doubting children, but still they refuse to believe her. The girls run off, taking her things with them. Tom tries to stop them and apologizes but is unable to get the items back.

That night, as Mrs. Bentley looks through all of the things that she thinks about what her late husband, Mr. Bentley would have said. She realizes that he would have insisted that none of the trinkets from her past really belong to her—they belonged to a woman who lived many years ago, not the woman alive today. In fact he always told her not to save things. She decides that her husband was right and the next morning she gives Alice and Jane more of her stuff. Mrs. Bentley, Tom, Alice, and Jane became good friends. For the rest of the summer they would spend time together and she would give the children trinkets and buy them ice cream and when they asked her about her age she maintained that she had always been seventy-two years old.

Chapter 16

Douglas and Tom are in their room and Tom asks his brother what he has written down in his records. Douglas tells him some of the things he has recorded and Tom mentions something else that he has discovered. Tom has realized that old people were never children, which strikes Douglas as both obvious and brilliant. Tom also points out that this is tragic because they cannot really do anything to help old people.

Chapter 17

As the boys run through the town, Charlie Woodman swears that he is taking them to a time machine. When they get to Colonel Freeleigh's house, Douglas is dubious, so Charlie tells him he does not have to come and walks in with John Huff. Inside the house is a very old man. The colonel recognizes Charlie, and with some prompting he tells the boys the story of Ching Ling Soo, the great magician who died onstage in Boston in 1910. Then he tells them of the time in 1875, when he and Pawnee Bill saw the buffalo charging across the prairie like a thunderstorm. Colonel Freeleigh describes what he remembers of the Civil War. He is no longer sure which side he fought on. He says that no one ever wins in war, and he still knows many of the songs that they sang. Charlie asks Douglas what he thinks and Douglas says that the colonel is a Time Machine. Colonel Freeleigh asks them what they said and they tell him. He seems amazed by this, and the boys leave. Outside he calls to them from the window and tells them that he thinks they are right: he is a Time Machine. Colonel Freeleigh tells them to come back anytime.

Chapter 18

Tom wakes up late at night and finds his brother writing. He asks Douglas what he is writing about and Douglas describes what he is learning from the colonel. He points out that old people may never have been children but the colonel was around a long time ago. He is enthralled by the stories that such a "far-traveler" has and tells Tom that Colonel Freeleigh helps him realize that he must remember everything so that when he is old he can do the same for other young kids.

Chapter 19

Miss Fern and Miss Roberta think that they have killed Mister Quartermain with their electric car, the Green Machine. The old ladies are very scared and worried and think back to William Tara, the salesman from Gumport Falls who sold them the car. They remember how enchanted they were with it and wish that they had never made the purchase. They loved the car, and often let Douglas or Tom or the other boys hitch a ride. Fifteen miles an hour was its top speed, and this afternoon they had hit Mister Quartermain. They remain hiding in the attic for several hours and then decide they must move on. They decide that they might not have been seen but, regardless, they should never again use the Green Machine. Their younger brother Frank, only fifty-six years old, comes home and says that Douglas told him to tell them that everything was all right. Fern refuses to tell Frank what that means, and Roberta honks the horn outside for the last time.

Chapter 20

Mr. Tridden, the town trolley conductor, lets all the kids ride on the trolley for free because it is the final ride. He explains that a bus is going to replace the trolley. Douglas is upset because he feels that a bus will not be the same as a trolley. No bus could have the sounds and sights of the trolley that he treasures. Mr. Tridden takes them for a picnic and then brings them back to town. Douglas and Charlie leave the trolley reluctantly and as Charlie bemoans the fact that the bus will make it impossible to be late to school, Douglas thinks that he will never forget the sound and sight of the tracks. They agree to play kick-the-can later that night.

Chapter 21

John Huff is a hero to Douglas. He is the fastest runner of all the boys, the best baseball player, and the best at everything athletic. Beyond all that, he is the most knowledgeable about nature and a nice kid. So when he tells Douglas that he is leaving that night for Milwaukee, it comes as quite a shock. Douglas is worried about losing his friend, and they sit down to talk. John is worried that he will not be able to remember anything. He points out to Douglas how even in town he cannot really remember what things look like even though he walks by them every day. Douglas tells him that he is wrong, that he will remember what he wants to remember, but then John asks him what color his eyes are, and Douglas does not know.

Douglas and John sit for much of the afternoon, just enjoying each other's company. Then they race home with the other boys and after supper they play one last game. Douglas tries to get John to stay, but he has to leave, and so he runs off to get on the train. Douglas is angry and as he gets to his house he yells to John, who is already too far away, that they are no longer friends.

Chapter 22

In their bedroom, Douglas makes Tom promise that he will not go away. Tom asks if that means he can go on hikes into the wilderness with Douglas and the other guys. That is fine with Douglas, but what he is really worried about is Tom leaving. Tom tells him that he will stay, and he is surprised that Douglas would doubt him. Douglas says that it is not really Tom that worries him as much as the way God runs things. Tom thinks for a minute and tells Douglas not to be angry with God, because he tries.

Chapter 23

Sam Brown, the mailman, tells his wife Elmira Brown that he just delivered a couple of books on magic to Clara Goodwater. Mrs. Brown becomes convinced that Mrs. Goodwater is using her dark powers to win the presidency of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge each year. Mrs. Brown also thinks that Mrs. Goodwater is using magic to cause her personal misfortunes, which seem to mysteriously occur right around election time each year. Mrs. Brown believes these are the only things stopping her from winning the presidency of the Lodge. She goes over to Clara Goodwater's house with Tom, an innocent boy, as protection. Mrs. Goodwater explains to her that the books are for her young

cousin and that Mrs. Brown has only her own clumsiness to blame for her injuries. Mrs. Brown threatens to win the election the next day at the Lodge, and tells Tom he must be there with her.

Mrs. Brown makes up a spell of her own, a drink with just about everything she could find thrown in, using the directions from a book in the library. She heads off to the lodge, bringing Tom with her, and once there, after drinking her potion, makes a speech accusing Mrs. Goodwater of being a witch. No one at the lodge seems to take her very seriously, and Mrs. Goodwater treats the whole thing like a joke. Mrs. Brown begins to get woozy due to the drink, loses the election in a landslide, and asks Tom to show her to the ladies room. She turns left instead of right at the end of the hall and falls down forty steps, hitting every one of them on the way.

All of the ladies start crying, and Mrs. Goodwater holds Elmira, begging her not to die, claiming she will use her magic only for good in the future. It turns out that Mrs. Brown is miraculously unharmed, with nothing but bruises as a result of her fall. Tom takes in the whole scene, assumes the crying means that she has died and heads down the stairs but then is shooed out of the way by all the women coming back upstairs, laughing, and crying at the same time. Tom decides he has seen enough and takes off before anything else can happen.

Chapter 24

Tom tells the whole story to Douglas, and the two of them get stuck on the issue of magic. Douglas asks Tom if he really believes that it was magic, and Tom seems to vacillate. Douglas is enchanted with the idea, claiming that the town has an awful lot of things going on.

Chapter 25

Colonel Freeleigh dreams that he is the last apple in a tree and that he is surely going to fall. Waking up, he reaches for the telephone and thinks back to when Charlie and the boys used to visit him. He is sad that they have been turned away by the locked door lately. The doctor said he could not have visitors because they excite him. He calls Mexico City, where a friend of his opens a window and lets the colonel listen to the sounds of life. Hearing the noise seems to reinvigorate him, until a knock at his door announces his nurse is coming. She comes in to check his pulse, sees the phone and scolds the colonel for exciting himself. She says he should not have had the kids in either. He tells her that it was great to speak to the children, to feel alive, and that it is worth it, even if it is bad for his health. The least he can do is have the phone. The nurse tells him she cannot let him use the phone, and when he points out that he pays her salary she says it is to keep him healthy. She takes his wheel chair out into the hall.

The colonel somehow manages to run across the room, and grab the phone before collapsing to the floor. He calls his friend in Mexico City again, and convinces him to open the window one last time. He listens to the sounds in rapture, slumped on the floor. Minutes later Douglas, Charlie, and Tom come in, and they see that the colonel, their friend, is dead. Douglas takes the phone out of his hands and hears the closing of a window.

Chapter 26

Tom and Douglas are playing with the Civil War cannon in front of the courthouse the day after the colonel's death. Douglas tells Tom that he realized that yesterday many people died, because along with Colonel Freeleigh all of the stories he told, all the people he described, they all disappeared too. He is concerned because he is not sure what they will do without all of those colorful characters and wonderful stories in their lives.

Chapter 27

Douglas and Grandpa Spaulding are pressing the dandelion wine for July. As the finish number thirty-one, Grandpa announces that only August remains. Douglas thinks about this and looks up at the bottles on the shelf, one for each day of the summer. He sees the day that he realized he was alive, the day the John Huff left, and the day that Colonel Freeleigh died. Douglas points out to Grandpa that the way things are going there will not be much left by August. Grandpa tells him that he needs a sip of dandelion wine to cheer up, and Douglas drinks a little bit and feels much happier. He runs away to burn off the energy surging through him from the drink.

Chapter 28

On the first day of August, Bill Forrester and Douglas head downtown in Bill's car to get some ice cream. Bill orders old-fashioned lime-vanilla, and Miss Helen Loomis, age ninety-five, overhears and commends him on his choice. She recognizes Douglas as a Spaulding, and knows Bill as a newspaper reporter. Bill mentions that he knows who she is and that he was in love with her once. They get into a conversation, and she asks him to come by for tea the next day.

The following day Bill goes to Helen Loomis's house and they talk over tea. She tells him how she was young and foolish and how at age thirty the only man she cared for stopped waiting for her and married someone else. So then she traveled all around the world. He likes her, and says that interesting women like her are rare. She says that is because most men do not want a woman with a brain. Many women get good at hiding their intelligence. She asks him what he wants out of life, and Bill says that he wants to see many places. Helen Loomis has been to most of those places and so she tells him all about them. He sees her every day for over two weeks, and they have a very good time together.

Then one day she asks him how he was once in love with her. When he first came to the town he saw a picture of her in the paper the day of the town ball and he did not know that the photo was from 1853 and that the town published it every year before the ball. She tells him that he reminds her of the man who courted her seventy years ago. Near the end of August she gives him a letter and tells him that when he receives it, in a few days, she will be dead. She says that love is in the mind and that they had that together, even if their bodies were years apart. She tells him that he must not live too long (he is thirty-one years old now) because if he does then one day he will meet a young girl who reminds him of Helen Loomis. If he dies at a moderate age perhaps everything will come into balance and sometime in the future a young man will order an unusual ice cream and a young girl will appreciate his choice and that will be their happy end.

A few days later, Bill gets the letter in the mail, and he takes Douglas back to the store, where he reads the letter and orders lime-vanilla ice.

Chapter 29

Tom, Douglas and Charlie are running and Douglas asks how come there are no happy endings. Tom says that what happened with Bill and Miss Loomis was the only happy ending there could have been. Charlie tells them to be quiet, because they are close to where they are going. They get to Summer's Ice House, the only cold place in the entire town, and Charlie tells them that only one man lives there, a man whose name alone scares everyone: the Lonely One.

Chapter 30

Francine meets Lavinia Nebbs at her house, and they head off to the movies. Miss Fern and Miss Roberta see them and say that they are not going out with the Lonely One prowling around. Lavinia does not believe about the Lonely One, but Francine points out that three women have either died or disappeared in the last two months, with Elizabeth Ramsell the most recent to disappear. They walk through the ravine and stumble upon the lifeless body of Elizabeth Ramsell. After they go get the police, the women walk on, and Lavinia decides they can still make the movie. Francine is shocked but Lavinia insists that they need to forget the horror that they have seen. Walking on, they see Douglas frozen, staring down at the body and the policemen. Francine yells at him to run home, but he turns and runs off into the hills.

They walk to Helen Greer's house, and Lavinia tells her that someone found Elizabeth Ramsell, without mentioning that they were the ones. They walk on together to the movie. At the drug store while picking up some candy the druggist tells Lavinia that a man asked after her in the store this afternoon and he told the man where she lived. They go on and see the show, and afterward they walk home. Lavinia and Helen walk Francine home first, and Francine begs them to stay at her house, because she is afraid something will happen to Lavinia. Lavinia tells her she will

phone when she gets home, and she walks Helen home next. It is after midnight when Lavinia walks home. She passes Officer Kennedy, who offers to walk her home, but she is not sure she can trust him and she says she will go back herself.

She begins to lose her nerve as she crosses the ravine, alone in the dark. Every sound that she hears seems like a footstep, and she begins to run, convinced that someone is following her. Lavinia runs through the ravine and gets to the street. Still panicking, she rushes to her house. She makes it inside the door, shuts it and locks it. Lavinia is happy to be safe, but then is not sure. She looks through the window and sees that there is no one there. All this time, panicking, and it turns out there is no one there after all. Lavinia reasons with herself, pointing out that if a man had followed her he would have caught her since she cannot run very fast, and also there is no reason to fear the ravine more than anywhere else. Her home, at least, is safe, and she goes to turn on the light but stops, and speaks out loud in frustration that she still feels scared. Then, behind her, a man clears his throat.

Chapter 31

The next day, Douglas, Tom, and Charlie discuss the events of the night before. Lavinia Nebbs stabbed and killed the Lonely One with a pair of sewing scissors. Douglas is shocked at how close he was to all of the death. Meanwhile, Charlie is angry because without the Lonely One there is nothing to fear. Tom points out that the man who Lavinia Nebbs killed did not look like the Lonely One. He looked like a man, whereas the Lonely One should be tall and pale with bulging eyes. Tom convinces Charlie that the Lonely One is still alive and that Lavinia killed someone else.

Chapter 32

The entire family has gathered around Great-grandma Spaulding, who at ninety years old has decided that her life is coming to an end. As she lies in bed, Tom goes up to speak to her. She tells him that there is a time in everyone's life when they know that it is time to go away. Her time has come. Next Douglas goes to speak to her and she tells him that she will never be gone—that she lives on in her family and that is what is important. After saying her goodbye to the family and insisting that she is not afraid but curious as to what will happen next, Great-grandma settles back to sleep. As she dies of old age, she recalls the beautiful dream that she was awakened from many years ago on the day that she was born.

Chapter 33

Douglas collects fireflies so that he and Tom can stay up late at night reading and writing. They used flashlights before but got caught, and Douglas thinks that no one will suspect the fireflies. He writes solemnly why one cannot depend on either machines or people. The machines will eventually fall apart or reach the end of their use. People can leave or be killed, and no one is immune from death. Therefore, he realizes, he himself someday must die, but Douglas decides he cannot write anymore. He lets the fireflies out the window, watching them escape into the darkness.

Chapter 34

Douglas struggles with the concept of death. He realizes that he must die someday but will not accept that fact. He brings his brother Tom to see the Tarot Witch, a fortune telling wax dummy in the penny arcade. Douglas spends a penny to get his fortune and then tells Tom to do the same. Tom's fortune card is blank, and this is too much for Douglas. The witch has run out of ink. The arcade was a world that Douglas could count on remaining the same, unlike the real world. He decides that the witch must have written them a secret message. He lights a flame under the card and thinks he sees the French word "secours," which he knows means help, and also "Mme. Tarot." Douglas decides that the wax dummy must be the real Mme. Tarot, a fortuneteller from hundreds of years before.

Douglas convinces Tom that they must rescue the Tarot Witch from Mr. Black, who runs the arcade. Tom goes and plays one game many times until Mr. Black takes the pennies and goes and buys some liquor. He gets drunk, and is

on the verge of crushing the witch when Douglas runs in. Mr. Black passes out, and Douglas and Tom take the witch. Tom asks Douglas why he wants to take the witch, and Douglas tells him that after he found out he was alive he found out he would die, and he cannot face dying. He believes that after he saves the Tarot Witch she can use her powers to help him live forever. At this point Mr. Black, who followed them, surprises the boys, grabs the witch, and throws her into the trash at the bottom of the ravine. Douglas tells Tom to go get their father to help them and he goes down into the ravine among the trash and searches for the witch. Their father seems to understand, and he helps the boys bring the wax figure back to their house.

Tom suggests that they cut the witch open, but Douglas says that must wait until after he frees the real witch trapped inside. He needs to learn the spells that will allow her to escape, and then after that the witch will be nothing but a wax dummy that they can cut into and examine. Douglas takes a card from the witch and tells Tom that he will put it in a box of chemicals overnight so that a message will appear in the morning. Tom asks his brother what the message will say, and Douglas tells him. The message will thank the two of them for rescuing the witch. It will predict that everything Tom and Douglas desire in life they will get, and they will live forever.

Chapter 35

Douglas hears his brother Tom counting out loud and asks him what is going on. Tom counts the number of times the cicadas buzz in fifteen seconds and calculates the temperature by adding thirty-nine to the number of buzzes. Douglas walks over to a thermometer in the hall and tells Tom that it is eighty- seven degrees Fahrenheit and that there is no need to count. Tom calculates ninety-two degrees and tells Douglas that he is calculating the outside temperature, and the thermometer gives the temperature inside. Douglas argues briefly and then begins counting the buzzes.

Chapter 36

Mr. Jonas, the junkman, comes into town with his horse Ned and his wagon. He sings as he rides, and people line the streets to look at his goods. No ordinary junkman, Mr. Jonas had lived as a businessman in Chicago but decided to spend the rest of his life making sure that one area of town got a chance to take what the other side considered junk. He traveled through the town and only asked that people took something that they truly wanted, something they would use. Then the adults of children would put something of their own that they no longer had any use for in the wagon, and Mr. Jonas would be on his way, singing.

Chapter 37

The morning is incredibly hot, and Tom goes to get his brother so they can go swimming. He sees that Douglas does not feel well and touches his forehead. Douglas is burning up, and Tom runs to tell his mother that his brother is sick. The doctor comes to see if he can help, but he is unsure what to do. Gripped by the fever, Douglas replays all of the events of the summer through in his mind. He sees all of the sadness, all of the unhappy changes that have darkened the magic of the hot months. Tom sees Mr. Jonas outside and tells him that Douglas is very sick. Mr. Jonas wants to help, but he does not have anything in his wagon that can help the boy. He comes back at seven thirty that night and wants to see Douglas but Douglas's mother sees him and tells him the boy is not awake and that the doctor said he should not be disturbed. Later that night Mr. Jonas decides he must help, and he goes to Douglas's side as he lies on a cot in the yard. He tells the unconscious boy that he has two bottles for him—they contain pure cool air to be drank through the nose on sweltering summer nights. Mr. Jonas wants Douglas to wake up and drink the air. A few minutes later Tom rushes in to tell the rest of the family that Douglas is better.

Chapter 38

The next morning the heat finally breaks. Heavy summer rain falls as Douglas lies in bed recuperating.

Chapter 39

While Douglas wonders what he can possibly due to in some way repay Mr. Jonas for his kindness, Grandma cooks in the kitchen. Aunt Rose is in town, and she wants to know what is for dinner. Grandma cooks brilliantly, but unconsciously. She throws in some of whatever she thinks will be good, her spices and herbs are all in unlabelled or mislabeled jars, but somehow she spontaneously senses what belongs and creates delicious foods. Aunt Rose wants to know what each dish is made of, and begins to question what is behind the magic. She convinces Grandma that since she cooks so well in such a chaotic kitchen, organizing everything will make her food even better. She cleans and orders the kitchen, buys Grandma a cookbook, and gets her a new set of glasses.

Dinner the next night is a disaster. The food is terrible, and everyone excuses himself or herself early. Grandma is shocked, and Grandpa Spaulding decides that things had gone too far. He meets with all of the boarders and comes up with a plan, telling Douglas what he must do. The next afternoon Douglas offers to take Aunt Rose for a walk. When they get back to the house, Aunt Rose's luggage is packed and there is a railroad ticket on top of it. Grandpa invites her to leave. When Grandma comes back from shopping she finds out that Aunt Rose had to leave, sadly, and that she said to say good-bye. Everyone laughs about the event sitting in the library while waiting for Grandma to cook dinner. The meal comes, and the food is still bad. None of the boarders or family members eat their food, and Grandma begins to cry, thinking that she has lost her ability to cook.

At midnight, Douglas moves quietly into the kitchen. He takes all of the spices out of their nicely labeled tins and returns them to their old, disorganized homes. He throws herbs all over the place as they once were. He takes the neatly stacked dishes and silverware and sets them all over the place. He hides his grandmother's new glasses. Using the cookbook that Aunt Rose purchased Douglas kindles a large fire in the stove. At one o'clock, when a huge roar comes out of the stove, Grandma comes down. While Douglas hides, she begins to cook. At one thirty the smells draw everyone downstairs, and by two the food is ready. The entire house eats their fill and the food is spectacular. Grandma has regained her ability to cook, and Douglas knows that he has done all he could due to repay Mr. Jonas—he has passed on the magic.

Chapter 40

Tom and Douglas walk past the general store and see school supplies in the windows. They realize that summer is coming to an end. Back at the house they help Grandpa with the last of the dandelion wine, marveling at the magnificent bits of stored summer. When Grandpa points out that as you get older things blur together, Tom insists that he will always remember this day. Grandpa agrees with him, and the three go back into the house to prepare for autumn. Just as his magic awoke the town that first day of summer, Douglas puts the town to sleep on this last day of summer, thinking about the summer that remains in the dandelion wine as he falls asleep.

Analysis

Chapter 1

The first three chapters of Dandelion Wine link two recurrent themes of the novel—magic and summer. Douglas Spaulding, from high atop his grandparents' house, beckons the town to awaken from its nighttime slumber and begin the activities of a new day. At twelve years of age, Douglas does not simply see himself as an observer in this process of awakening, but rather as a causal agent. He makes the town come to life. And his act of magic coincides with the first day of summer in 1928.

Chapter 2

Then, in the company of his father and brother, and poignantly removed from the town into the countryside, Douglas makes a startling realization. He understands, for the first time, that he is truly alive. The magic of life has become clear to him. Douglas believes that their trip into the woods was orchestrated by his father specifically to help him to understand that he is alive. Only after grasping the beauty of existence itself, feeling the magic in all natural life, can Douglas comprehend his own life. At first all he can focus on are the other forms of life that surround him out in the woods, but only when he interacts with Tom is Douglas able to embrace the magic of life. Summer is the perfect time

for Douglas to come to terms with the relationship between his own life and other forms of life all around him. Douglas's epiphany itself is an implicit foreshadowing of many other aspects of the book, for an understanding of life necessitates some understanding of death. The difficulties that Douglas will face are centered on an attempt to keep the magic of living alive in the face of the many sorrowful and trying features that life itself contains.

Chapter 3

That same day Douglas, Tom, and Grandfather make dandelion wine. The drink represents summer itself, which makes it bottled magic to Douglas and his family. The name of this drink gives rise to the title of the book, and after only three chapters it already has much import. The dandelion wine is a little piece of summer, to be savored in the depths of winter when the magic of life can be hard to find. Bringing back the feelings of beauty, the smells and sounds of nature in July or August, the dandelion wine is a memory. The bottles are labeled, and so each one is not just a memory of summer itself but represents a specific day. Memory carries with it the concepts of age, change, and time, and these will be important throughout the course of the book. The wine is the metaphor that links together all of the other themes in the book, for Dandelion Wine itself is a memory, constructed out of bits of Bradbury's past and his imagination, just as all memories are.

Chapter 4

Though only twelve years old, Douglas has a good understanding of the battle between civilization and nature. Douglas knows that this is a battle that civilization will never win, but he wants to participate in it by running through both town and country. The magic of summer allows him to dissolve this battleground and explore everything. Douglas needs a new pair of sneakers in order to run through the wilderness and the town simply because there is magic in the sneakers themselves, and this magic is used up by the end of summer. The sneakers therefore can be seen as a metaphor for the magic of summer: they give Douglas special powers to engage with nature but by the fall those powers are used up. The summer itself in Bradbury's novel is a time when people are in a sort of special communion with nature.

Chapter 5

Because of Douglas, Mr. Sanderson relives for a moment the magical feeling of running through nature as if a part of it. The power of the memories of his childhood that overcome him while Douglas speaks is so great that he basically gives away the sneakers. He gives the sneakers away because he has received something in turn—Douglas gave him back some of the magic of summer as it is for a young boy. Summer is a magical time in this book for everyone, but for children, who are so much more wrapped up in the moment than adults, the magic is summer. And because he communicated this to Mr. Sanderson, Douglas gave him a gift every bit as important as the gift of the sneakers.

Chapter 6

That same night Douglas explains to Tom the difference between what they do over the summer and what they think about those things. This analogy is clearly extended back to Douglas's understanding that he is alive, for to him it means being conscious of his existence rather than taking it for granted, and this is exactly what he starts to do with each part of the summer. Therefore, the events of the summer are at once Douglas living his life and understanding what it means to do so. In his meeting with Mr. Sanderson, because of the importance of the shoes to Douglas, the old man was able to better understand them, to feel them, and this experience gave Mr. Sanderson some of the magic that Douglas felt in the sneakers.

Chapter 7

Just as Douglas and Tom believe that they are able to communicate better with each other than with their parents because they are from different races, the summer allows everyone to communicate more easily. The porch is a place that allows the family to gather and talk, and while the discussion itself may have importance, the truly

important thing is being there. Each member of the family is free to take in the beauty of the summer evening and yet the family as a whole operates perfectly, with everyone talking and listening. The family becomes a microcosm for the entire town, as people visit each other and stop by ostensibly to talk but really just to be together in the warm night. This too is the magic of summer, the bringing together of people in order to do nothing more than delight in each other's company.

Chapter 8-9

Leo Auffmann takes seriously the challenge to invent a Happiness Machine, and this is an attempt that from the beginning can only end in failure. He is a brilliant inventor, but happiness is not in the realm of inventions. His wife's question shows that she understands that there is no need to build such a thing, but he insists that it would help others. The pure happiness of Leo's life is contrasted with his difficult search to create a machine to generate happiness. Metaphorically, the machine represents the attempt to control our emotions—to ensure that things are always good. However, this is impossible. It is impossible in a general sense because people simply are not always happy, and happiness would lose its meaning if there were no other alternative.

Chapter 10

The impossibility of the Happiness Machine is beautifully elucidated by the fear that Tom and his mother feel. The ravine, and the nature beyond it, represents the unknown. There will always be fear of the unknown, because it cannot be predicted and it cannot be controlled. Leo's Happiness Machine could never overcome that fear. It could never take into account the unknown fears that cloud people's hearts. Tom's sense of fear comes mostly from his mother's, because he believes at first that he is safe with her since she is an adult. When he understands that she is afraid he tries to understand why, and he realizes that out there at the ravine there is no way for anyone to help them. They are utterly alone, and, beyond that, he and his mother must deal with their demons on their own. What Tom comes to understand is that, ultimately, we have only ourselves to rely on—the institutions of society and civilization cease to hold any personal meaning at the ravine, where the natural world takes over.

Chapter 11

Moreover, our fears are not necessarily shared. The Lonely One worries his mother, but with his friends Douglas is carefree. Douglas was happy while his brother and mother were very scared, and this points to the fact that happiness, like other human emotions, is relative. It is not quantifiable and cannot be strictly defined, and so any attempt to build a Happiness Machine would fail by definition. It would be an attempt to construct something that has different meanings to different people. The example of Douglas happily running through the wilderness with his friends while his family worries about him is only one of millions of such examples. In fact, it makes sense that most of the time that people are worried about someone that person themselves does not share the worry—otherwise they probably would not partake in the action.

Chapter 12Bill Forrester learns the lesson that what we think of as progress is not always necessarily a good thing. It may be that certain chores, such as mowing the lawn, actually fulfill an important role in our lives. Grandpa explains to Bill the importance of the lawn mower, and it is a lesson that Bill takes to heart. Sometimes it is necessary to do something that lets you get away, if just for a moment, from everyone else and to simply be yourself. During that time it becomes possible to truly think for yourself, and Grandpa goes so far as to suggest that it is during these times that people truly philosophize. If there are no answers to many of the big things in life, then our best understandings come from the little things that we do, and Grandpa teaches Bill that if we do not hold on to some of those little things we could become lost among the big issues that are too big for us to handle. This is another way of saying that we should remain close to nature. Because in the end, although we are seemingly in constant battle with nature, we are also an integral part of the natural world. Therefore, if we wish to understand our lives we cannot divorce them entirely from simple things like mowing the lawn, or picking dandelions

. Chapter 13Leo Auffmann learns a similar lesson. He learns that in some ways we have to remain close to nature. Although much can be automated and made into a machine, our emotions cannot be divorced from ourselves. Happiness comes from interaction with people, and no machine can ever replace what people mean to us. Lena knew all along that they had happiness right where they were, and this is another important point. It is a part of the mechanical mindset to continually look to find ways to make things easier and improve upon what we have. However, to improve some things is to destroy them. In Leo's case, his family life, the love of his wife and children, is sacred, and the changes that his Happiness Machine made in the way his family lived threatened to pull it apart. The magic of summer is to bring families together out in the open air, and his machine threatened that solidarity. Once it is destroyed, he can return to living with his family the way they did before. The Happiness Machine itself was doomed to failure, but modern culture has many reincarnations of such a machine. Television, radio, computers, movies, all can be used for the sole purpose of providing happiness, and it seems that Bradbury is issuing a grave warning—these devices will serve only to divide the true happiness that arises from the unity of family life.

Chapter 14

The family together beating out the rugs is another one of those activities that Leo Auffmann finally realized represents true happiness. Because of the joking and laughing and Tom's fantastical interpretations of the patterns in the rugs, the Spaulding family turns a routine chore into a fun event. Manual labor is good, not just for personal philosophizing, as Grandpa suggested earlier, but also for bringing the family together into joint action.

Chapter 15Mrs. Bentley's interaction with Jane, Alice, and Tom is fascinating. At first she is insulted, and somewhat angry that the children do not believe she was ever young. Her anger is understandable, and yet their attitude helps her stop holding on to the past and start living more in the moment. Because even though they are wrong, the children are right in one simple sense: we are always living in the moment. And Mrs. Bentley became much happier once she admitted to herself that she was a different person at age seventy-two than at age seven. Coming to terms with the changes that occurred in her life did not mean that Mrs. Bentley had to eschew her past entirely. On the other hand, the changes simply taught her that it never was the trinkets and photographs that made her who she was. She can give away all of the formerly precious items that made up her past because Mrs. Bentley came to the conclusion that none of those things really contained any part of her. They were just memories, and so they had their function, but one cannot live in memories.

The actions of the children show that they are not only content to live in the moment but unable to contextualize their lives in any grand sense. The concept of growing older might occur in the form of a birthday, but the notion of any real change, as from child to adult, or adult to elder, is lacking. Change is not a part of these children's lives. Alice and Jane were cruel in their treatment of Mrs. Bentley not out of any intent to harm her feelings but merely because they could not be convinced that she had ever been a little girl just like them. Tom was more respectful but just as incredulous. As the summer goes on she plays along with them because it is, after all, of no consequence to her whether or not little children know that she was not always an old woman.

Chapter 16

Tom and Douglas are amazed about Tom's discovery that old people were never children. Because we live in the moment this is partially true; because the children cannot conceive of anything beyond the moment they see it as a fact. What is interesting about all of the discoveries that Douglas writes in his book is that they are all partially correct. Growing up seems not to depend on figuring things out completely as much as coming up with new ideas about things. In fact, there is no reason to believe that adults have figured many things out but rather simply reached a consensus. The magic of summer for the children is that they undergo growth without change—that is, although they change, things remain the same.

Chapter 17

Dandelion Wine so far, but Colonel Freeleigh's memories take on a whole new meaning. Because he remembers events so far back he really is a Time Machine. The colonel is the only person in the town who remembers some of the events that he describes, and so the very role of memory changes. It is not his version of a story that he describes but the very story itself, for there is no one else to tell the stories that he tells. Colonel Freeleigh blurs the lines between past and present. The memory of an old man is a vehicle of wonder for Charlie, John, and Douglas because they learn from the colonel about events that are a part of history that he lived through. The specific things that Colonel Freeleigh remembers are also important. His remembers that songs and the battles that he fought in during the Civil War, but he no longer knows which side he fought on. As far as he is concerned no one won the war—war is not about winning. The message that the old man conveys to the boys about war is not one of glorious fighting but of sadness.

Chapter 18

Colonel Freeleigh has a large impact on each of the boys, and Douglas is transformed by the stories. In his discussion with Tom he suggests that he wishes to remember everything so that when he is old he can tell stories of his youth to young children. This shows that Douglas knows that he will be old one day, and he seems no longer sure about Tom's conclusion that old people were never children. Douglas is able to learn from the colonel not just the specific events that he is told about but also that older people can give things that no one else can give—they have memories of events that no one else has. The relationship between the boys and the colonel is mutually beneficial, as their presence seems to brighten his day and his stories enrich their lives. Although Douglas had been interested in the possibility of a Happiness Machine, he learns that everything that he could want he can find through some sort of interaction with people.

Chapter 19

Miss Fern and Miss Roberta love the Green Machine, but the day that they hit Mister Quartermain they decide that they must never drive it again. It is a great sacrifice to them to give up the machine, but the women realize that it is nowhere near as important as the human life they already endangered with it. The relationship between people and nature is fraught with danger, yet there is also no guarantee that the machines that we build to help us deal with nature will be any less dangerous. Although it turns out that Mister Quartermain is all right, it is still clear that the machines we use can have bad effects. Beyond this, just because something happens through the use of a machine it does not change the fact that the responsibility for the action must fall eventually upon someone. In this case the women are ready to take the responsibility for their actions and make the wise judgment that they should not drive anymore.

Chapter 20

The end of Mr. Tridden and the trolley shows that even for a kid like Douglas, change is impossible to avoid. Things move on in life, and you are forced to move with them. Douglas is already nostalgic for the trolley and imagines that he will always remember it, even when the bus runs over the same ground. Often change is viewed as something easier for younger people and more difficult to older people, yet it may be that all that matters is how important the change is to each person. To Douglas, the trolley means something. It is as important to him as the lawn mower is to grandpa. Yet while grandpa is able to delay the new grass, Douglas can only to his best to keep the trolley in his mind forever. When he and Charlie agree to play kick-the-can later that night it is satisfying to both of them to know that they still have some things they can count on.

Chapter 21

When John tells Douglas that he is moving, he proves that it is not always so easy to remember everything. In that conversation the boys learn how contextual everything is in our lives and how much we take for granted every day. John points out that you can live in a town and walk through it your whole life and then one day notice something for the first time. Then he points out that even those things that are of personal importance become blurred in your mind

if you do not see them all the time. John is afraid that he will not be able to remember any of the things that matter to him, and Douglas gradually begins to share his fear.

Chapter 22

Douglas has to let John leave, but it is hard for him, and he ends up getting angry with his friend, even though he knows that John cannot be blamed for leaving. A bus coming to replace the trolley was a major blow to Douglas, but he was able to make do because he knew there were certain things he could rely upon, such as playing after supper with his friends. Now it turns out that even his friends will not always be there, and Douglas feels that he cannot count on things remaining the same. This is painful for him, because he has no control over any of the changes that occur. Douglas learns that sometimes we accept things that we do not like because we have no choice, but he is not happy about this fact. So he asks his brother to promise him that he will not leave him. Tom assures Douglas that he will always be around and wonders why it was necessary to ask. Douglas then points out that it is really God whom he is questioning. He understands that events will occur that he has no control over, but Douglas is troubled by the fact that those events seem to bring him only sorrow. Tom, with the wisdom of a ten year old, points out that God is doing his best, reminding Douglas that sometimes there is nowhere to fix the blame and one must simply move on.

Chapter 23

Mrs. Brown is the only one who really seems to believe in witchcraft, and Mrs. Goodwater makes fun of her beliefs. It is interesting that Mrs. Brown decides that she must fight witchcraft with spells of her own. This chapter makes fun of Mrs. Brown's ignorance, but also demonstrates how easy it is to find some sort of external rationalization to fit personal motives. Mrs. Brown really dislikes Mrs. Goodwater because she wins the election every year. Elmira Brown is jealous of the popularity and power that Mrs. Goodwater so easily holds but that she so desperately wants. Of course Clara Goodwater does not really care too much for Mrs. Brown's opinions because she realizes that the woman is simply blaming someone else for her own problems. Elmira refuses to look at the situation that way, however, and this brings up the point that one can always find justification for a certain perspective. The fact that Mrs. Brown can point to her injuries and how they seem to occur around election time as evidence that Clara Goodwater is a witch just shows that an argument can be made in support of anything.

However, when it becomes a question of life and death, Mrs. Goodwater immediately puts aside her previous thoughts about Mrs. Brown and rushes to her aid. Here we see that any of the petty squabbles that may occur in the town are really inconsequential, and that all of the ladies are really friendly and concerned for each other. Mrs. Goodwater tells Elmira that she will use her magic only for good in the future because she knows that Mrs. Brown really believes in magic and, although she thinks it is ridiculous, she wants to save the woman from dying. It turns out that Mrs. Brown is fine and the women all get a big laugh out of the event, but it became clear just how much the town values its solidarity.

Chapter 24

The irony is that after Tom describes the event to Douglas he is interested in only one thing: magic. For the children are unable to understand the other factors, such as Mrs. Brown's personal jealousy of Mrs. Goodwater and her clumsiness, that helped to motivate the entire affair. The kids are free to take from the event whatever they think is significant, and magic is certainly more important than the election of the president of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge. Although in some ways they probably did not really comprehend the whole episode, part of the magic for children is that they can draw conclusions that do not have to be logical and that will not be scrutinized by anyone else—they can conclude what they want to and move on from there. This means that for Douglas and Tom this event was only important because it brought forth the idea of magic in their town.

Chapter 25

Colonel Freeleigh loved spending time with Charlie and the boys, and he did not care if it was bad for his health to do so. He was an old man whose health was failing but who found it more rewarding to liven his life up for a few hours, even if it meant shortening his days. The colonel is a metaphor for a common question about life: whether it is quality

or quantity that matters in life. Colonel Freeleigh lived a very long time, but it was the content of his life that the boys found so interesting, and it was the content that mattered to the colonel in the end. He wanted to feel alive at the end of his life, and was happier with a fast death than a slow loss of feeling leading to oblivion.

Chapter 26

The colonel's conversation with his nurse and her instructions also bring up the issue of whether someone has the right to tell another person what to do with their life. He paid her salary, and yet she told him that he could not do what he wanted to do. This is because her job was to keep him alive, and yet it was not necessarily the colonel's goal to live as long as possible. In fact, the colonel just wanted to feel the blood rushing through his veins as he told the boys the magical stories that transported all of them to another time. The colonel was not happy being old and confined—he wanted to live life as he had while he was a younger man, free to enjoy the sounds and smells and sights of being alive. His call to Mexico City shows just how sad he was without the boys around to talk to. Compared to sitting in his room all day, simply the sounds of a city, the hustle and bustle of everyday life, provided contentment and excitement enough for the colonel.

Chapter 27

With Colonel Freeleigh's death Douglas comes closer to understanding what death means. He realizes that it is not simply the physical being that no longer exists but also that all that was contained within the person's mind is gone forever. The colonel's mind was possibly the greatest one that Douglas and his friends had ever come across, for he was truly a Time Machine. This loss makes Douglas quite sad, and he is gloomy while bottling the dandelion wine with his grandfather, but a sip of the wine is enough to lift his spirits once again and infuse him with energy. Even amongst all of the sadness that has been a part of Douglas' summer his grandfather helps him remember that there is still much fun to be had. The bottles of wine hold all of the summer within them, the sad events and the joyous ones, and it is a part of summer to move on and enjoy the rest. Douglas is learning that life often involves moving on, not forgetting sad events but not dwelling on them either, thus allowing happiness to return.

Chapter 28 Helen Loomis and Bill Forrester are a perfect match for each other. The only problem is that because of their ages it is impossible for them to be together any more than the afternoon tea that they spend with each other. Helen is intelligent, funny, and interesting, and Bill has never met another woman like her. Even though they are years apart, they are able to love each other through the mental bond that they share. Helen says that true love is of the mind, and the time that they spend together shows that she is right. True companionship is not that of the body but rather the ability to talk forever about things of interest with someone. But at the same time Helen knows that their romance is tragic, for two people who are so well matched should have met each other without the difference in their ages. She professes a belief in reincarnation. Not that she herself will meet Bill Forrester in some future time, but that that part of her that is so compatible with a certain part of him will be a part of some girl who will be drawn to a young man with Bill's characteristics. This is what she must hope for, because it is clear that there can be nothing more between them than what there is.

Bill fell in love with a picture of hers from over seventy years ago and he seems to be another version of the man she once cared, suggesting that Bradbury shares Helen's romantic vision of love. However, Tom's statement that what they had was a happy ending shows that what they had was already complete. For a ninety-five year old woman like Helen Loomis nothing could have been better than meeting Bill Forrester, and from her Bill learned many things, but most importantly that he must find a woman before it is too late. It is not necessarily bad if he does not marry, but if he does not he can be assured later in life of finding a younger Helen Loomis, and that might be tragic. Life is not always easy, and it may be that finding true love is difficult. Just because it did not last does not mean what Bill and Helen shared was not important.

Chapter 29

Charlie brings up the Lonely One, and it is interesting the way the kids quickly move on from something as abstract and difficult to pin down as true love and happy endings to something much more concrete. The evil force that scares everyone, the Lonely One is much more in the consciousness of these young children than true love.

Chapter 30

Even the summer is not free of evil, and Lavinia Nebbs and Francine stumble upon what appears to be another victim of the Lonely One. While Francine and Helen are on the verge of panic throughout the night, Lavinia appears almost absurdly calm. She is calm because, unlike the other women, she insists on thinking rationally, and using logic to deal with the situation that they are in. Everyone is caught up in the frenzy of the Lonely One's attacks, but Lavinia refuses to be drawn into hysterics. She is also stubborn, because she does not want the killings to interfere with her life. Lavinia makes the other women go to the movie and she is unwilling to change her daily routine. She refuses to back down to the threat of violence and she uses rational arguments to back up her ideas. Lavinia tells the other women first that it is too early at night for the Lonely One and then that it is too early after his last kill. Lavinia represents one side of an ongoing battle in human history—the struggle between rationality and irrationality. The Lonely One represents irrational evil: his actions are unpredictable and the women he kills have done nothing to him. Helen, Francine, Miss Fern, and Miss Roberts represent irrational panic. Miss Fern and Miss Roberts are unwilling to leave their house, and Helen and Francine are afraid all of the time.

The line between rationality and irrationality is not as clear as it appears. Francine and Helen could argue that going through the ravine at night after a murdered woman has been found there is not only irrational, but also insane. When rationality is no longer on her side, Lavinia simply will not back down. She refuses to live her life in fear, and with that attitude she convinces the other women to attend the movie. However, Francine and Helen rightly fear for Lavinia, especially after hearing about the stranger who asked for her. As she walks back home, Lavinia begins to face the fact that no logic or rational argument will be able to save her from the evil that may be hunting her. As she approaches the ravine, Lavinia begins to panic. She feels what Tom felt at the beginning of summer—that she is truly on her own, and that she may not be able to save herself. Lavinia runs nonstop through the ravine and into her house, where she feels safe. Once inside her house she begins to rationalize the whole evening, telling herself that no one could possibly have been chasing her because they would have caught her. Then, just as she goes to turn on the light, a man clears his throat behind her. The irrational fear of the other women may have been justified, for despite all of her clear thinking and brave actions, in the end Lavinia is alone in her house with a stranger. Events are unpredictable, life is not rational, and sometimes fear may be justified.

Chapter 31

For Douglas, Tom, and Charlie, the death of the Lonely One was not a happy event. They want to believe in the fantastical, and the Lonely One was the evil force that would always be out there. The possibility that the Lonely One could be gone would be admitting that he could be killed, that he was just a man. This is not something that the boys want to believe, because they want things to go on the way they have been. It is for this reason that Tom's reasoning that the Lonely One is still alive comes as such a relief to the boys. For Douglas, however, that is not enough. He saw Elizabeth Ramsell's dead body and was close to the murders that occurred the night before. Whether the Lonely One is still alive, Douglas is struggling to come to terms with the concept of death.

Chapter 32-33

Great-grandma's death brings Douglas's problem much closer. Difficult as it has been for him to understand death at all, he is now faced with the death of a family member. This seems to set him on the path to realizing his own mortality, and he is on the verge of doing so when he stops writing late at night. Douglas knows the discovery that he has made, but he is unwilling just yet to face it, for it is difficult. Some understanding of death may have been inevitable from the time he first thought that he was truly alive, but it also threatens to take away the magic of life. The fireflies can escape out into the night and continue their lives, but Douglas will not be able to do so. He has come to

the point of grasping his own mortality, and after that point he is not able to just forget what he has learned. He will have to figure out some way to deal with his new knowledge.

Great-grandma Spaulding offers Douglas an answer to this dilemma, and it is a good one, although she has ninety years with which to reflect upon her situation. She points out that if you have a family then when you die you are not gone. You live in, both in the actions of your children and in their thoughts. It is a pleasant view of death that she offers, and she dies very peacefully. However, Douglas is not old enough to be able to face death well. His great-grandma's answer to her own death cannot help Douglas when entertaining the possibility of his own. At his age death is a threat, and Douglas is on the verge of admitting to himself that the threat is out there, that it is real, and that it is inevitable.

Chapter 34

The escapade with the Tarot Witch is Douglas's response to his mortality. Faced with the inevitable conclusion that someday he must die, Douglas decides that he will find a way to avoid death. The arcade is a place full of machines that seem to always be the same, and when the Tarot Witch begins to malfunction, Douglas is crushed. Starting with the blank card given to Tom, Douglas concocts a fantastical story that he forces himself to believe because it is the only way he can avoid death. Douglas convinces Tom that the Tarot Witch really needs their help, and they attempt to save her. Douglas and Tom's wild adventure to save the witch is really Douglas's last-ditch effort to refuse the inevitability of his death. He resorts to stories and suggestions that even Tom finds ridiculous because Douglas is desperate. It is, after all, a matter of life and death.

The scene with Mr. Black shows how futile Douglas's efforts are. He steals the witch but is then caught, and can only watch hopelessly as the rightful owner of the wax figure throws her into the trash dump at the bottom of the ravine. Douglas is a twelve year old attempting to ensure his immortality, and he stands very little chance of succeeding. His father, however, seems to understand what his son is going through and so he helps the boys bring the witch home. Once they have the witch at their house, Tom is willing to face up to the fact that she is a machine with a wax body. That conclusion cannot work for Douglas, however, because he needs real magic—he needs the real Mme. Tarot to help him live forever.

By the end of the night it is clear that the Tarot Witch will not be able to solve Douglas's problems. He can pretend with his brother all that he wants, but Douglas is already mature enough to understand that death is out there. He will not be able to ignore the problem that he has uncovered. Although Douglas and Tom are able to enjoy one last moment of fantasy, Douglas must find some way to come to terms with his mortality. When he wakes up in the morning, the Tarot Witch will still be made of wax, and Douglas will have to admit that death cannot be cheated. He will have to try to find some way to keep life magical and accept what is inevitable. From early in the summer, when Douglas discovered that he was truly alive, to the day in late August when it dawned on him that he must eventually die, the entire summer can be viewed as Douglas coming to terms with life. In many ways, some subtle, some not, Douglas has been forced to begin viewing the world the way that adults do, and once is able to do so it is no longer possible to simply view things like a child. Death, just like life, cannot be ignored, and so Douglas must find a way to be comfortable with life without resorting to fantasies like the Tarot Witch.

Chapter 35

Tom's method of calculating the temperature gives Douglas a little bit of summer magic, but Douglas seems ambivalent and unsure about his brother's technique. Although he tries to follow Tom's method, Douglas's heart is not in the effort. The magic of summer has faded away, and Douglas no longer knows where to find it. The magic of life threatens to fade away while Douglas is in the grip of a terrible fever. The fever is a metaphor for the mental agony that Douglas has been forced to endure, a symbol of his difficulty in coming to terms with life and death.

Chapter 36

Mr. Jonas, the junkman, is a character who wants only to bring people what they want. He knows that what is important to one person is not important to someone else, and he does his best to keep items cycling through the town. There is always something that people want in Mr. Jonas's wagon, and he feels bad when he had nothing that will help Douglas. But Mr. Jonas is a compassionate man who knows Douglas well and thinks that he understands the sorrow that is burning through the boy. He realizes that the summer has become too much for Douglas. All of the summer's events have taken their toll on Douglas, and all of them seem to point to one thing: that he must die someday. But Douglas is a twelve- year-old boy, and he wants desperately to continue living in a world of fantasy and wonder, not a world where all life is fated to die. Mr. Jonas understands what Douglas is going through, and brings him a gift of cool air to drink. The air in the sweltering summer is like dandelion wine in the winter—it brings calm and relief and knowledge that the cycle of things will come around again. To Douglas, for whom the summer had become stifling, this little bit of cool air is a reminder of the winter that will follow the inevitable end of summer. Douglas was wrapped up in the discoveries of summer, and when they threatened to destroy him, he needed the perspective of Mr. Jonas to survive. The taste of winter was more than just the cycle of the seasons. It was also the cycle of life, and that is what Douglas needs to be able to handle.

Chapter 37

After he uses Mr. Jonas's air and begins to get better, it is clear that the worst is over for Douglas. He has come to terms, somehow, with life, and therefore, with death. Douglas did so not through rational means, but through emotions, and this is because life itself is not something that we can understand rationally. Everyone has to deal with his or her mortality, and while there is no equation or solution to the problem of death, the enjoyment of life seems to be a good start. For a while life itself had become difficult for Douglas, because death overshadowed it. Mr. Jonas' gift helped bring the features back into balance. Life is to be enjoyed, and death may be pondered, but to worry incessantly about one's morality is useless. Bradbury seems to suggest that since we cannot change the fact that we will die, we might as well take full advantage of life while we can.

Chapter 39

Douglas's love of life has returned after Mr. Jonas's gift. The world is again a magical place for him, and the thought of his own death, somewhere far in the future, can no longer change that. However, Aunt Rose threatens the magic by questioning Grandma's cooking. Aunt Rose represents the possibility that taking away their spontaneity may ruin some things in life. Knowing how Grandma made the food will not make it taste any better, and Douglas knows that the only way he can bring back Grandma's gift is to somehow give her back her spontaneous knowledge of cooking. He does this, and what he has really given her is a little of the magic of life, the same thing that Mr. Jonas gave to him. The novel suggests that to live happily in the world without worrying about things can be wonderful. Just as mowing the lawn can produce philosophers, cooking without exact ingredients can produce delicious meals. These are just smaller examples of what Douglas learned all summer—living itself is the magic. There is no need to question life or worry about death when the beauty of life is all around you.

Summer has ended, but what Douglas learned will never be forgotten. He learned what it is to be alive and know that you are alive. Tom is not as old as Douglas and has not learned all of the same lessons, but he is all right, and we know that someday these same things will come to him. The end of the book is infused with a single sentiment—love of life. To be a twelve year old boy in the summer is wonderful, but to be that boy's grandfather is also wonderful. Every day there is something spectacular to be seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted. For it is not simply summer that is magical but life itself. As Douglas falls asleep he knows this, for what he really learned from Mr. Jonas was that the magic of life never ends.

Chapter 40

All of the changes that seem to occur over the course of Douglas's summer belie the greater truth that life continues on much the same as always. As a kid, he wants things never to end, and so he is sad when John Huff leaves, or when Colonel Freeleigh dies, but what he learns is that even through all of the changes some things remain. Just as a sip of dandelion wine brings back a bit of summer, so in our memories do we bring back bits of people who are

gone. And as things leave other things come to take their places. Summer may be gone, but autumn brings many things, some old, some new. Life cycles much like the seasons, and Douglas is content with his life. Maybe some day in the distant future he will be, like Colonel Freeleigh, a sip of dandelion wine, bringing memories of a remote summer to those who were never there.