Searching on the web got me to a text version of the novel(Note sure about copy right issue but saves me a trouble of typing):
http://www.stargate.uk.net/Bradbury, Ray - Dandelion Wine.txt
1)"Price and that electrical contraption!"
But then, "Pride and that electrical contraption!"
With coordinating conjunction "and" between, now it sounds like two are different things?
Could you explain what the line means and for what effects it is written like this?
2)like an ancient, wheeled vision.
A sort of extrasensory perception?
3)tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze
Leaves twitching as morning breeze touches them and the leaves recognise it?
or
leaves are awaking and twitching in response to the breeze?
4)Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor
5)Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them
"sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers"
Um, embarrassing but I have to admit that I have not got a clue.
Who are them? bronze knows and knockers? Or the girls?
Who or what is doing pressing?
"pressed back into"? What does it mean?
6)in an ever circling inventory
"travel in inventory", does it mean travelling like following a list of things?
7)a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore.
"moving along", does this mean the sea rising or moving towards the land?
"self-refreshing shore.", growing larger so it will never be completely covered by the sea? Or just not eroded? Could you tell me what is the meaning and what sort of trope this is?
Thank you for reading.
Thanks to the help people in the forum gave me, learning got much easier
Your help really appreciated.
http://www.stargate.uk.net/Bradbury, Ray - Dandelion Wine.txt
1)"Price and that electrical contraption!"
"Our pride" seems to be a reference to "Green machine" and so is "that electrical contraption"."We must've killed him. And someone must've seen and followed us. Look..."
Miss Fern and Miss Roberta peered from the cobwebbed attic window. Below, as if no great tragedy had occurred, the oaks and elms continued to grow in fresh sunlight. A boy strolled by on the sidewalk, turned, strolled by again, looking up.
In the attic the old women peered at each other as if trying to see their faces in a running stream.
"The police!"
But no one hammered the downstairs door and cried, "In the name of the law!"
"Who's that boy down there?"
"Douglas, Douglas Spaulding! Lord, he's come to ask for a ride in our Green Machine. He doesn't know. Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption!"
"That terrible salesman from Gumport Falls. It's his fault, him and his talking."
Talking, talking, like soft rain on a summer roof.
But then, "Pride and that electrical contraption!"
With coordinating conjunction "and" between, now it sounds like two are different things?
Could you explain what the line means and for what effects it is written like this?
2)like an ancient, wheeled vision.
seems like A silly question but what is a "wheeled vision"?"Well," said Fern defensively, "my hip's bothered me for years, and you always get tired walking. It seemed so refined, so regal. Like in the old days when women wore hoop skirts. They sailed! The Green Machine sailed so quietly."
Like an excursion boat, wonderfully easy to steer, a baton handle you twitched with your hand, so.
Oh, that glorious and enchanted first week--the magical afternoons of golden light, humming through the shady town on a dreaming, timeless river, seated stiffly, smiling at passing acquaintances, sedately purring out their wrinkled claws at every turn, squeezing a hoarse cry from the black rubber horn at intersections, sometimes letting Douglas or Tom Spaulding or any of the other boys who trotted, chatting, alongside, hitch a little ride. Fifteen slow and pleasurable miles an hour top speed. They came and went through the summer sunlight and shadow, their faces freckled and stained by passing trees, going and coming like an ancient, wheeled vision.
"And then," whispered Fern, "this afternoon! Oh, this afternoon!"
"It was an accident."
A sort of extrasensory perception?
3)tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze
I cannot tell if:The first light on the roof outside; very early morning. The leaves on all the trees tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze the dawn may offer. And then, far off, around a curve of silver track, comes the trolley, balanced on four small steel-blue wheels, and it is painted the color of tangerines. Epaulets of shimmery brass cover it and pipings of gold; and its chrome bell bings if the ancient motorman taps it with a wrinkled shoe.
Leaves twitching as morning breeze touches them and the leaves recognise it?
or
leaves are awaking and twitching in response to the breeze?
4)Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor
What is the meaning of the... um saying?"I don't want any Halloween parties here tomorrow. Don't want anyone saying anything sweet about me; I said it all in my time and my pride. I've tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there's one last tart I haven't bit on, one tune I haven't whistled. But I'm not afraid. I'm truly curious. Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor. So don't you worry over me. Now, all of you go, and let me find my sleep...."
Somewhere a door closed quietly.
5)Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them
The three women moved along the street under the black trees, past suddenly locked houses. How soon the news had spread outward from the ravine, from house to house, porch to porch, telephone to telephone. Now, passing, the three women felt eyes looking out at them from curtained windows as locks rattled into place. How strange the popsicle, the vanilla night, the night of close-packed ice cream, of mosquito-lotioned wrists, the night of running children suddenly veered from their games and put away behind glass, behind wood, the popsicles in melting puddles of lime and strawberry where they fell when the children were scooped indoors Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers. Baseball bats and balls lay upon the unfootprinted lawns. A half-drawn, white-chalk game of hopscotch lay on the broiled, steamed sidewalk. It was as if someone had predicted freezing weather a moment ago.
"We're crazy being out on a night like this," said Helen.
"Lonely One won't kill three ladies," said Lavinia. "There's safety in numbers. And besides, it's too soon. The killings always come a month separated."
A shadow fell across their terrified faces. A figure loomed behind a tree. As if someone had struck an organ a terrible blow with his fist, the three women gave off a scream, in three different shrill notes.
"Got you!" roared a voice. The man plunged at them. He came into the light, laughing. He leaned against a tree, pointing at the ladies weakly, laughing again.
"Hey! I'm the Lonely One!" said Frank Dillon.
"sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers"
Um, embarrassing but I have to admit that I have not got a clue.
Who are them? bronze knows and knockers? Or the girls?
Who or what is doing pressing?
"pressed back into"? What does it mean?
6)in an ever circling inventory
"she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory""Let me see now," said Great-grandma. "Let me see..."
With no fuss or further ado, she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory, reached the stairs at last, and, making no special announcement, she took herself up three flights to her room where, silently, she laid herself out like a fossil imprint under the snowing cool sheets of her bed and began to die.
Again the voices: "Grandma! Great-grandma!"
"travel in inventory", does it mean travelling like following a list of things?
in‧ven‧tory [See pronunciation table in "How to use dictionary" pages] plural inventories
1 [countable] a list of all the things in a place
inventory of
[Look up a word starting with D or S for samples of headword or sentence pronunciations on the LDOCE CD-ROM] We made an inventory of everything in the apartment.
2 [uncountable and countable] American EnglishBBT all the goods in a shop [= stock]
7)a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore.
"a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore."Somewhere a door closed quietly.
"That's better." Alone she snuggled luxuriously down through the warm snowbank of linen and wool, sheet and cover, and the colors of the patchwork quilt were bright as the circus banners of old time. Lying there, she felt as small and secret as on those mornings eighty-some-odd years ago when, wakening, she comforted her tender bones in bed.
A long time back, she thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone wakened me, and that was the day when I was born. And now? Now, let me see... She cast her mind back. Where was I? she thought. Ninety years... how to take up the thread and the pattern of that lost dream again? She put out a small hand. There... Yes, that was it. She smiled. Deeper in the warm snow hill she turned her head upon her pillow. That was better. Now, yes, now she saw it shaping in her mind quietly, and with a serenity like a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore. Now she let the old dream touch and lift her from the snow and drift her above the scarce-remembered bed.
Downstairs, she thought, they are polishing the silver, and rummaging the cellar, and dusting in the halls. She could hear them living all through the house.
"moving along", does this mean the sea rising or moving towards the land?
"self-refreshing shore.", growing larger so it will never be completely covered by the sea? Or just not eroded? Could you tell me what is the meaning and what sort of trope this is?
Thank you for reading.
Thanks to the help people in the forum gave me, learning got much easier
Your help really appreciated.