Dandelion Wine

‘How many years since you had dandelion greens for supper, sir?’

‘We won’t go into that!’

Bill kicked one of the grass flats slightly and nodded. ‘About this grass now. I didn’t finish telling. It grows so close it’s guaranteed to kill off clover and dandelions —’

‘Great God in heaven! That means no dandelion wine next year! That means no bees crossing our lot! You’re out of your mind, son! Look here, how much did all this cost you?’

‘A dollar a flat. I bought ten flats as a surprise.’

Grandpa reached into his pocket, took out the old deep-mouthed purse, unclasped the silver clasp, and removed from it three five-dollar bills. ‘Bill, you’ve just made a great profit of five dollars on this transaction. I want you to deliver this load of unromantic grass into the ravine, the garbage dump – anywhere – but I ask you in a civil and humble voice not to plant it in my yard. Your motives are above reproach, but my motives, I feel, because I’m approaching my tenderest years, must be considered first.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Bill pocketed the bills reluctantly.

‘Bill, you just plant this new grass some other year. The day after I die, Bill, you’re free to tear up the whole damn lawn. Think you can wait another five years or so for an old orator to kick off?’

‘I know darn well I can wait,’ Bill said.

‘There’s a thing about the lawn mower I can’t even tell you, but to me it’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the freshest sound of the season, the sound of summer, and I’d miss it fearfully if it wasn’t there, and I’d miss the smell of cut grass.’

Bill bent to pick up a flat. ‘Here I go to the ravine.’

‘You’re a good, understanding young man, and will make a brilliant and sensitive reporter,’ said Grandfather, helping him. ‘This I predict!’

The morning passed, noon came on, Grandpa retired after lunch, read a little Whittier, and slept well on through the day. When he awoke at three the sun was streaming through the windows, bright and fresh. He lay in bed and was startled to hear the old, the familiar, the memorable sound.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘someone’s using the lawn mower! But the lawn was just cut this morning!’

He listened again. And yes, there it was, the endless droning chatter up and down, up and down.

He leaned out the window and gaped. ‘Why, it’s Bill. Bill Forrester, you there! Has the sun got you? You’re cutting the lawn again!’

Bill looked up, smiled a white smile, and waved. ‘I know! I think I missed a few spots!’

And while Grandpa lay in bed for the next five minutes, smiling and at ease, Bill Forrester cut the lawn north, then west, then south, and finally, in a great green spraying fountain, toward the east.

On Sunday morning Leo Auffmann moved slowly through his garage, expecting some wood, a curl of wire, a hammer or wrench to leap up crying, ‘Start here!’ But nothing leaped, nothing cried for a beginning.

Should a Happiness Machine, he wondered, be something you can carry in your pocket?

Or, he went on, should it be something that carries you in its pocket?

‘One thing I absolutely know,’ he said aloud. ‘It should be bright!’

He set a can of orange paint in the center of the workbench, picked up a dictionary, and wandered into the house.

‘Lena?’ He glanced at the dictionary. ‘Are you “pleased, contented, joyful, delighted”? Do you feel “Lucky, fortunate”? Are things “clever and fitting,” “successful and suitable” for you?’

Lena stopped slicing vegetables and closed her eyes. ‘Read me the list again, please,’ she said.

He shut the book.

‘What have I done, you got to stop and think an hour before you can tell me. All I ask is a simple yes or no! You’re not contented, delighted, joyful?’

‘Cows are contented, babies and old people in second childhood are delighted, God help them,’ she said. ‘As for “joyful,” Leo? Look how I laugh scrubbing out the sink …’

He peered closely at her and his face relaxed. ‘Lena, it’s true. A man doesn’t appreciate. Next month, maybe, we’ll get away.’

‘I’m not complaining!’ she cried. ‘I’m not the one comes in with a list saying, “Stick out your tongue.” Leo, do you ask what makes your heart beat all night? No! Next will you ask, What’s marriage? Who knows, Leo? Don’t ask. A man who thinks like that, how it runs, how things work, falls off the trapeze in the circus, chokes wondering how the muscles work in the throat. Eat, sleep, breathe, Leo, and stop staring at me like I’m something new in the house!’

Lena Auffmann froze. She sniffed the air.

‘Oh, my God, look what you done!’

She yanked the oven door open. A great cloud of smoke poured through the kitchen.