Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" Chapter 1

And the first boy, with hair as blond-white as milk thistle, shut up one eye, tilted his head, and looked at the salesman with a single eye as open, bright and clear as a drop of summer rain.

The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.

So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.

Around the rim of the main rod little curlicues and doohingies had been soldered on, later.

Fire and ash, roast pork and cinders!

Some snuff out.

Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex the St. Elmo's fires, the balls of blue light that prowl the earth like sizzling cats.

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex the St. Elmo's fires, the balls of blue light that prowl the earth like sizzling cats.

"Scarab beetle."

One of those attics is a dry river bottom, itching to let lightning pour through!

Around the rim of the main rod little curlicues and doohingies had been soldered on, later.

Some folks' polarities are negative, some positive.

So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.

I got the only lightning rods in the world that hear, feel, know, and sass back any storm, no matter what tongue, voice, or sign.

So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.

The man, grieved by his own conscientiousness, rummaged in his leathery bag and seized forth an iron contraption.

The man, grieved by his own conscientiousness, rummaged in his leathery bag and seized forth an iron contraption.

The man, grieved by his own conscientiousness, rummaged in his leathery bag and seized forth an iron contraption.

"Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw?

"Howdy, boys!" called the man all dressed in stormcolored clothes.

Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex the St. Elmo's fires, the balls of blue light that prowl the earth like sizzling cats.

The man, grieved by his own conscientiousness, rummaged in his leathery bag and seized forth an iron contraption.

"Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw?

Somewhere not so far back, vast lightnings stomped the earth.

So much the salesman, running before the storm, but poised here uncertainly, heard looking from face to face.

Of a like size and general shape, the boys sat carving twig whistles, talking of olden or future times, content with having left their fingerprints on every movable object in Green Town during summer past and their footprints on every open path bet

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

He turned slowly, sniffing the air.

Sunlight, breaking through a small rift in the clouds, minted a last few oak leaves all gold.

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

"And those there -- Phoenician hen tracks."

Of a like size and general shape, the boys sat carving twig whistles, talking of olden or future times, content with having left their fingerprints on every movable object in Green Town during summer past and their footprints on every open path bet

So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.

"Well --" The salesman walked about three feet, stopped and hunched his shoulders.

Fire and ash, roast pork and cinders!

So much the salesman, running before the storm, but poised here uncertainly, heard looking from face to face.

Jim squinted.

The salesman almost flinched.

Of a like size and general shape, the boys sat carving twig whistles, talking of olden or future times, content with having left their fingerprints on every movable object in Green Town during summer past and their footprints on every open path bet

Of a like size and general shape, the boys sat carving twig whistles, talking of olden or future times, content with having left their fingerprints on every movable object in Green Town during summer past and their footprints on every open path bet

So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.

Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex the St. Elmo's fires, the balls of blue light that prowl the earth like sizzling cats.

The entire surface of the rod was finely scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums, pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.

So much Will said, excitedly.

Sunlight, breaking through a small rift in the clouds, minted a last few oak leaves all gold.