Free Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury Page B

faraway to our backyard where they don’t belong, where they just tell you, ‘No, you’ll never travel, Lena Auffmann, Paris you’ll never see! Rome you’ll never visit.’ But I always knew that, so why tell me? Better to forget and make do, Leo, make do, eh?”
    Leo Auffmann leaned against the machine for support. He snatched his burned hand away, surprised.
    â€œSo now what, Lena?” he said.
    â€œIt’s not for me to say. I know only so long as this thing is here I’ll want to come out, or Saul will want to come out like he did last night, and against our judgment sit in it and look at all those places so far away and every time we will cry and be no fit family for you.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” he said, “how I could be so wrong. Just let me check to see what you say is true.” He sat down inside the machine. “You won’t go away?”
    His wife nodded. “We’ll wait, Leo.”
    He shut the door. In the warm darkness he hesitated, pressed the button, and was just relaxing back in color and music, when he heard someone screaming.
    â€œFire, Papa! The machine’s on fire!”
    Someone hammered the door. He leaped up, bumped his head, and fell as the door gave way and the boys dragged him out. Behind him he heard a muffled explosion. The entire family was running now. Leo Auffmann turned and gasped, “Saul, call the fire department!”
    Lena Auffmann caught Saul as he ran. “Saul,” she said. “Wait.”
    There was a gush of flame, another muffled explosion. When the machine was burning very well indeed, Lena Auffmann nodded.
    â€œAll right, Saul,” she said. “Run call the fire department.”
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    E verybody who was anybody came to the fire. There was Grandpa Spaulding and Douglas and Tom and most of the boarders and some of the old men from across the ravine and all the children from six blocks around. And Leo Auffmann’s children stood out front, proud of how fine the flames looked jumping from the garage roof.
    Grandfather Spaulding studied the smoke ball in the sky and said, quietly, “Leo, was that it? Your Happiness Machine?”
    â€œSome year,” said Leo Auffmann, “I’ll figure it and tell you.”
    Lena Auffmann, standing in the dark now, watched as the firemen ran in and out of the yard; the garage, roaring, settled upon itself.
    â€œLeo,” she said, “it won’t take a year to figure. Look around. Think. Keep quiet a little bit. Then come tell me. I’ll be in the house, putting books back on shelves, and clothes back in closets, fixing supper, supper’s late, look how dark. Come, children, help Mama.”
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    W hen the firemen and the neighbors were gone, Leo Auffmann was left with grandfather spaulding and Douglas and Tom, brooding over the smoldering ruin. He stirred his foot in the wet ashes and slowly said what he had to say.
    â€œThe first thing you learn in life is you’re a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you’re the same fool. In one hour, I’ve done a lot of thinking. I thought, Leo Auffmann is blind! … You want to see the real Happiness Machine? The one they patented a couple thousand years ago, it still runs, not good all the time, no! but it runs. It’s been here all along.”
    â€œBut the fire—” said Douglas.
    â€œSure, the fire, the garage! But like Lena said, it don’t take a year to figure; what burned in the garage don’t count!”
    They followed him up the front-porch steps.
    â€œHere,” whispered Leo Auffmann, “the front window. Quiet, and you’ll see it.”
    Hesitantly, Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom peered through the large windowpane.
    And there, in small warm pools of lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann wanted you to see. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out the