Summary
Chapter 14
Twice a year the family brings all the large rugs outside to beat the dust and grime out of them. They think of all the memories associated with the rugs and the dirt and stains and pretend to bang them all out.
Chapter 15
Mrs. Bentley is an elderly lady relatively new to the town; she’d moved here after her husband died. She sees the children around and one afternoon invites Tom and two girls in to have ice cream.
While Tom and Jane and Alice eat their ice cream, they ask Helen Bentley questions. After a few, though, they grow upset and Mrs. Bentley is confused. Jane explains that she does not like that Mrs. Bentley lied about being a little girl once. Surprised, Mrs. Bentley says of course she was a little girl. They are unconvinced and laugh at her. This distresses the old woman and she orders them away.
Later she wonders why the children bothered her so much. She invites them over again and shows them some treasures that she had when she was younger, and a picture of her when she was younger. Jane says she cannot prove it is she. The flummoxed Mrs. Bentley insists she must take it on faith.
The girls take the comb and picture and run off gleefully, saying they belonged to some little girl and Mrs. Bentley had stolen them. Tom apologizes, but Mrs. Bentley is distressed.
That evening Mrs. Bentley thinks of her husband and what he would say. She realizes that he would counsel her that she saves too much stuff and she can only experience time now, not the past. She is who she is now – she is only the present her.
The next day Mrs. Bentley invites the children back, gives them more of her old things, and asks them to help her carry out a lot of trash. All summer she and the children spend time together, and their favorite thing to do is ask how old she is and her reply is 72, and that she was never young and always lived here.
Chapter 16
Douglas and Tom discuss Douglas’s notebook. So far he has all the ceremonies they’ve had thus far. Tom tells Douglas that he learned old people were never children, and Douglas is amazed.
Chapter 17
Douglas’s friends John Huff and Charlie Woodman tell him they’re going to take him to the Time Machine, but Douglas is surprised when they arrive at elderly Colonel Freeleigh’s house. They all sit at his feet and Charlie suddenly says “Ching Ling Soo.”
The Colonel begins to dreamily speak of a time in 1910 when the famous magician Ching Ling Soo was on stage doing the famous bullet trick but was accidentally killed when his assistant shot him. Charlie then suggests “Pawnee Bill” and Colonel Freeleigh describes a time in 1875 when he and Pawnee Bill watched the thunderous, dark, “grand army of the ancient prairie: the bison, the buffalo!” (83). Pawnee Bill told the Colonel to shoot but he did not, for he felt like it was like shooting at a funeral train.
After a time the Colonel slows down and the boys tell Douglas he’s simply recharging his batteries. John suggests the Civil War and the Colonel begins his memories. He says he does not remember even what side he was on or what the passage of tine felt like. He says he was at Shiloh, at Bull Run, at Fort Sumter. He saw Lincoln on the White House balcony.
When the old man’s voice fades Douglas, in awe, says that he really is a time machine. The Colonel is sleepy but pleased to hear this. As they leave the Colonel sticks his head out his window and laughs to them that he definitely is a time machine but never knew it before.
Chapter 18
Tom wakes up late at night to see Douglas scribbling things down. Douglas gleefully tells Tom he is writing everything – the Trolley, the Time Machine, what he learned about Mrs. Bentley, and more. He muses that Colonel Freeleigh is wonderful because his stories make you notice things more. It is truly a gift to go “far-traveling” with him.
Chapter 19
Miss Fern and Miss Roberta hurry into their home, run to the attic, collapse behind the door in a rush of horror and shock. They know they must have killed Mister Quartermain when they hit him with the Green Machine. A knock on the door startles them and they think it’s the police, but realize it is Douglas Spaulding. They mourn that their pride has ruined them.
Their memories flash back to the day a smiling salesman named William Tara came to them to tell them about this incredible Green Machine. He tells them all about how quiet it is and how it steers elegantly and they do not need a license. They remember buying it and feeling that it was so regal and refined. The first week was enchanted and full of evenings with golden light and children who took rides with them. Then, though, there was an accident – an accident they ran away from. It was hot and it was noon and they’d turned around a blind corner and hit the man. Mister Quartermain lay there silently and all they could think was to run away.
In the attic, the women wonder nervously how long they will have to stay there. They fear their brother Frank will take the machine if he hears about what happened and they agree to not drive it for a while. They know they are dangerous and it must be put away but they cannot bring themselves to sell it.
Frank enters and cheerfully says hello. He tells them he ran into Douglas who said to tell them he saw everything and everything is all right. He asks his sisters what that means and they pretend not to know. Roberta goes outside and Frank and Fern can hear tears and the horn. Frank is perplexed but Fern screams at him to leave Roberta alone.
Chapter 20
The bright and shiny orange trolley comes by, the motorman with his gloved hands grasping the wheel.
Mr. Tridden welcomes all the children on and tells them there is no charge because it is the trolley’s last ride. The bus is starting tomorrow and he is retiring with a nice pension. Douglas is stunned; he cannot believe the Green Machine is gone, his shoes are wearing out, and now the trolley. A bus does not make the same noise as a trolley or throw the same sparks.
The trolley reaches the end of the track. These silver miles went into the countryside though it was not used anymore, and Mr. Tridden surprises the children by barreling on ahead. The trolley pushes through sunlight and shadow, meadows and forests. At the end of the line, the group picnics and Mr. Tridden waxes poetic about the early days of the trolley.
A loon flies overhead and cries ominously. It is time to return and Mr. Tridden drives the cool and quiet machine back to town. The boys say goodbye and bemoan this change. Douglas stands silently and thinks about the men pouring hot tar over the tracks and how people would soon forget there was ever a track there.
Chapter 21
John Huff is a wonderful boy. He is kind and knows everything about nature and adventure; he seems to be “the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas Spaulding knew of “ (102).
Douglas and John are hiking out beyond town and it is a perfect day. Sadly, though, a cloud travels over and covers the sun and John tells Douglas that his dad got a new job and they have to move to another town. Douglas is struck and sinks down helplessly. He asks if John will visit and John says his dad said it would only be once or twice a year.
John says sadly that he has been noticing all these things recently and begins to wonder what else he has missed. He becomes a bit anxious and tells Douglas that he simply must remember his face and everything. Douglas sincerely promises, but when John tells Douglas to shut his eyes and tell John what color his eyes are Douglas realizes he cannot. John is upset.
Later that afternoon, they run away from their other friends and sit down tiredly, deciding the best way to slow down time is to do nothing at all. Time passes regardless, though, and they have to walk home. Charlie joins them and says when he is seventeen he will be a railroad fireman. Jim says he will go to New York and be a printer. Douglas is silent. It is seven at night and dinner is over and the boys stand in the street and suggest a game of hide and seek and statues. John can only play one game because the train leaves at nine. The boys scatter and Douglas, who is “it,” moves toward the silent and frozen John. This is John, the John with grass stains on his knees and gold-green eyes and a mouth that always ate apricot pie. Douglas commands John not to move for three hours but John whispers that he cannot do that.
They play another round and John is “it.” John lightly punches the frozen Douglas on the arm and says goodbye. Douglas does not move and eventually realizes there is no one behind him. He hears his heart beating and it bothers him a great deal. He begins to walk and his body feels like cold stone.
A moment later, Douglas shakes his fist in fury and screams that he hates John and John is no friend of his. He is angry and he hates John so much.
He returns home and goes up the stairs.
Chapter 22
Douglas asks Tom if he could promise he’d stick around and not let anything ever happen. Tom tells him he can depend on him. Douglas sighs that God is the one who runs the world. Tom simply replies that God only tries to.
Chapter 23
Sam Brown comes home and his wife, Elmira, jumps in fright because she is not used to him being the mailman. She sees his face looks strange and asks why, and he says he delivered some mail to Clara Goodwater and one piece was about Egyptian secrets. When he gave her that book and the others, she told him point-blank that she was going to be a first-class witch and get her diploma and hex people. She laughed to Sam, but Elmira is unnerved to hear her husband’s account.
Tom Spaulding is outside and sees Elmira come out to her porch and look strange. She calls him over and brings him along with her on a walk. She crushes flowers and trips over a dog and announces to Tom that Clara made her trip. At Clara’s house, Elmira tells her angrily that she is confronting her about being a witch.
Clara smiles and says Sam is nosy and it is just a joke. Elmira mentions the Sandwich Club event (which she was not invited to) and accuses Clara of using her witchcraft to influence the election of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge. Clara has been president for a long time and is running again tomorrow.
Clara is exasperated and says she buys these books for her boy cousin Raoul and only jokes about dark powers. The little herbs on her table that Elmira can see behind her are for Raoul only. Elmira is unconvinced. Clara tells her that if this is really being about president of the club then she needs to speak up; Elmira runs all the time and only ever gets one vote. Elmira retorts that all these bad things seem to happen to her and it is because of witchcraft, but Clara grimly says it is like Elmira’s life is always in decline.
Clara then waves Elmira off angrily and tells her she’s pushed her to witchcraft. Elmira takes out a mirror and sees a gray hair, which she attributes to Clara. Elmira threatens Clara that she has to withdraw her name from the election and that she hopes she can survive to the next day. As Elmira moves to leave, Tom shouts out a warning but a car runs over her toe.
Elmira thinks about her colds and the things broken in her house and her pains. She tells her husband that she is preparing for the meeting. She has a special milkshake that she prepared for her husband to protect him. She is assured that they will have white against black and good against bad, and that is why she is bringing Tom with her because he is all goodness and innocence.
The meeting begins. Elmira drags Tom in and drinks her secret potion and sits down. Mrs. Goodwater stands before the ladies, bangs her gavel and says Mrs. Brown has some things to say. Elmira stands and awkwardly walks through the crowd to the front, still holding Tom’s hand. She announces to the ladies that Mrs. Goodwater is manipulating them and they are all afraid of her because she is a witch and she, Elmira, has found a way to end her reign. She closes her eyes and the room seems to spin. Mrs. Goodwater reaches to ask her to sit down.
The voting commences. Mrs. Goodwater gets all the votes except for Elmira, who has her own. The room is silent. Elmira is sick. Mrs. Goodwater draws out a small wax doll with thumbtacks in it as Elmira looks on in woozy shock.
Elmira tells Tom weakly to take her to the restroom. He leads her as she stumbles about. Tom looks down the flight of stairs and tells her it is forty steps they have to go.
Later Elmira claims that she was unconscious because she was sick and her body was like rubber so when she fell down she did not break all her bones. She did have bruises, yes, but no sprains or breaks. Mrs. Goodwater had run down as fast as she could and cradled Elmira’s head and wept over her that if she didn’t die she would use her magic only for good – only white magic. Elmira can be president, she weeps. All the other ladies gathered weep as well.
Tom is flummoxed by the women’s behavior and decides it is time for him to leave.
Analysis
In this set of chapters, Douglas continues to delight in his summer but begins to experience a few of the losses that will only snowball as the summer proceeds. These losses are seemingly innocuous but, again, will be joined by more devastating ones. The first is the hiding away of the Green Machine due to Miss Fern and Miss Roberta’s negligence, and the second is the replacing of the trolley with the bus.
This latter event is particularly distressing to Douglas and his friends because it indicates the subtly insidious way modernity is encroaching on the town. Douglas ruminates on how the bus is virtually silent and lacking in the character and charm that characterized the trolley. The residents of Green Town, as critic Elizabeth Margaret Marberry notes, “react to their town’s ‘progress’ with skepticism.” The Happiness Machine was a bust, the bus is unwelcome, the Green Machine proved too dangerous.
Critic Marvin Mengeling suggests the same thing as Marberry, writing that Bradbury imbues Dandelion Wine with “his distrust of too much technology and mechanization, coupled closely with a distrust of planned, modern life styles which leave little room for individuality, and perhaps no room for greatness.” Machines and their ilk can make this easier or bring small pleasures, but “the great and lasting happiness can only come from love between people. The machines stop, break down, rust out; but in their codes and rituals and descendants, people do live on.”
Douglas “discovers that while one strictly mechanical machine may fail, other more human ‘machines’ may succeed.” This human machine is Colonel Freeleigh, who in his recollections and “far-traveling” takes Douglas and his friends on amazing journeys. Through Freeleigh Bradbury reinforces a theme already articulated in the first mention of dandelion wine as a way to bottle memories – that memories are important and contain within in them the values, tragedies, heroism, and beauty of both an individual and the society to which they belong.
Critic Robin Reid acknowledges this theme of time and memory, “expressed through the metaphor of dandelion wine… the events that became sections of [Dandelion Wine] were pressed out of [Bradbury’s] memory like wine is pressed from the dandelions. Three pressings, at the beginning, middle, and end of the novel, echo the three months of summer.” Ultimately, “dandelion wine becomes a symbol of time in the novel: a way of counting the days of summer, of storing memories to last through the years.”
Bradbury also touts the significance of the elderly as the conduits to such memories and the illumination and meaning they provide. It is disturbing that Tom and his friends wish to erase Mrs. Bentley’s connection to the past, but thankfully this is redeemed through the boys’ reverence of the Colonel, the conversations of Bill Forrester and Helen Loomis, and the Spaulding family’s respect for the traditions of the grandparents and great-grandparents. Bradbury asks readers to honor the elderly rather than marginalize them, recognizing that we will all age someday and that the elderly have much to offer the young.
