Read the following sentence from the story "The Balek Scales."

Question

There on the table stood the great Balek scales, an old-fashioned, ornate bronze-gilt contraption, which my grandfather's grandparents had already faced when they were children, their grubby hands holding their little baskets of mushrooms, their paper bags of hayflowers, breathlessly watching the number of weights Frau Balek had to throw on the scale before the swinging pointer came to rest exactly over the line, that thin line of justice which had to be redrawn every year.



The speaker uses the images in this sentence to most likely imply the scales

Answer 1

are significant and have been a part of the family's history for generations. The image of the "great Balek scales" being old-fashioned and ornate suggests that they hold some kind of historical value or importance. Additionally, the mention of the speaker's grandparents as children, holding their baskets of mushrooms and paper bags of hayflowers, implies that the scales were used in their daily lives for trade or measurement. The use of the word "breathlessly" suggests that the act of weighing on the scales was important and perhaps somewhat nerve-wracking. Finally, the mention of the "thin line of justice" being redrawn every year implies that the scales were used for fair and accurate measurement, and that this concept of justice was important to the family and the community.