For your first question, I read it the same as you.
For the second one, we had a bit of a discussion a bit further up, and so far I think this is the best we could come up with (but it’s not a full answer):
Other than that: Just hang in there! You‘ll be caught up in no time 
Your version sounds plausible as well 
But I still wonder why the verb is in the past tense…
Ooof, about half way through, will have to finish catching up tonight. Most of my questions have already been asked, but here are two things that are still lingering for me.
From the very beginning of the chapter:
「いつまでいてもいいのよ」
とパン屋のおソノさんがいってくれるのをいいことに、ききは粉屋上にずっとこもったきりです。
File this one under “I understand the gist of what is being said but not how they work together grammatically”
「いつまでいてもいいのよ」= However long is fine (i.e. Stay as long as you want - DeepL helped me on this one)
とパン屋のおソノさんが = the baker Osonosann
いってくれるのを = Said (as a favour to Kiki)
いいことに = good thing? Things that was said?
ききは粉屋上にずっとこもったきりです = As for Kiki, above the flour storage, still shutting herself in
So something along the lines of “having been told by the baker Osono san “Stay as you as you like” Kiki had had remained shut up above the flour storage”
I think part of what is confusing me, is I’m not clear what the fist parts are applying to i.e. what is the part marked by a を a direct object of? What is the part marked by に an indirect object of?
And quickly:
気楽に、ほら、おとなりのおねえさんにたのむようにたのんでくださってもいい
I get that 気らくに means something along the lines of “in a carefree manner” but not really what it is applying to in this sentence. Also, たのむようにたのんで feels redundant to me: entrust in order to entrust?
Your parser is saying that the を jumps over a は context reference, and that somehow felt fishy to me…
But I didn’t have a better answer, so I asked Google instead and got a very plausible result 
をいいことに means “to take advantage of”. I think that resolves all puzzles…
(if it’s not for anyone, please keep asking )
V1: Pages 84 - 98
V2: Pages 75 - 87
BookWalker: ?
We’re reading to the end of Chapter 4 this week.
Please briefly check whether questions have already been answered above before posting them, but otherwise don’t hesitate.
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Aha, that does resolve my confusion - apparently it’s an n1 Grammar point.
So essentially that sentence means "Kiki took advantage of the fact that Osonosan said to stay as long as liked and stayed in her room".
Hey, happy weekend. Finished up the last few pages and starting the ones today.
Just wanted to note how much I’m enjoying studying and reading like this. Feels like it’s radically changed my studying/sparked a lot of enthusiasm again.
Note about: と
So reading this much has made me pay much more intention to と usage. I mean there’s the obvious ones I knew from studying Genki and stuff, but here in such long passages it gets used in a lot of ways I had never known before. I’ve used my grammar dictionary and piece together most but I just wanted to confirm that something like :
むすめさんは一人でべらべらとしゃべると, せきたてるように鳥かごをキキに手渡して、自分もアパートを出ていきました。
Is linking the two actions in a way. I’ve been thinking of it as when you use と as “if” and like link together two actions. But really here its more saying that she’s talking to herself, then hands Kiki the cage and leave.
I’m just confirming since this has been showing up a lot and I feel pretty good my understanding of those sentences but also don’t want to have secret messed up with my assumption.
My notes are a mess… I’m circling almost all of the と’s and assigning them “when/if”, “and” or “quote particle”. How aggravating… sometimes it’s part of a word in hirigana! LOL! TBH, I only just guessed that 鳥かご is “birdcage” looking at your comment! I knew from Christopher’s pictures, but… I’m struggling to keep up!! FWIW, that looks correct to me!
As you suspected, this usage of と is a conjunction that links two actions together.
I’m not sure what Kiki means on V2 page 65:
なければないようにやっていくつもりですから It seems like she’s saying that if she doesn’t have (food), she’ll just go without, but that seems really extreme. Am I reading that wrong? the
Can you post the whole sentence? And can you check your post for typos? It looks like there might be some in there.
P74 in my book
She’s saying that she doesn’t need much - she just wears the same black clothes, and doesn’t eat very much, and doesn’t plan to acquire things she doesn’t already have. So it’s not that she’ll starve, but she’s not seeking to earn more than she needs to get by.
I did have one typo ( つinstead of っ), it is fixed.
The whole sentence:
洋服もこのとおりだし、食べものもすこしでいいし…なければないようにやっていくつもりですから
I guess what got me is that there’s no indication that なければ refers to additional items above and beyond the necessities she just mentioned, but I suppose that’s maybe just understood?
I understood it to refer to things both mentioned and unmentioned, but you are correct, there is nothing specifically referring to additional items. I don’t think she would want to go without food though, which was in your original post. It’s a kid’s book after all. But as long as she has a small amount of food and a simple outfit, she will be content.
Clearly her cat doesn’t eat as much as mine does. 
Witches’ cats seem to be weird anyway. They certainly have a long lifespan:
(from chapter 1)
魔女のおかあさんは、女の子が生まれると、同じ時期に生まれた黒猫をさがして、
(…)
やがて女の子も成長し、猫にかわるようなたいせつな人ができ、結婚ということになると、黒猫も自分のあいてを見つけて、わかれて暮らすようになるのでした。
I mean, it’s not unusual for a cat to live up to +/-20 years old, but to begin a new life at that age? Impressive.
Hey, good news! I did, in fact, manage to finish up section 1 of chapter 4 before Friday.
The bad news, as you may have guessed, is that I didn’t get any reading or questioning done yesterday. Ah well. It’s a success to me. And six days to read 13 pages isn’t bad at all. Well, before everyone completely moves on from the previous section…
むすめさんはことばとは反対に、ちょっとつまらなそうな顔をしました。- This is just saying that Despite talking about witches having fangs and horns, she seemed uninterested/bored, right?
この町には魔女がいなかったもんだから。- I was going to ask what the もん added to this sentence, but a quick search elucidated me. もの or もん are used to indicate a reason, excuse, or dissatisfaction. In this case, it would be an excuse.
それもきょうの四時までにとどけるって。ちょっとでもおくれたら九十四かいもさかだちさせられちゃうんだから。- I lost the subject a bit here. Is she saying She needs to deliver her own parcel to her customer by four o’clock today, and if she’s even a little late, she’ll be forced to stand on her head for 94 hours?
わんぱく坊主、それでわかるわ。- Is she saying The recipient is a rascally boy, and Kiki will know who it is when she gets there?
I think I vaguely remember Jiji being snarky to the stuffed animal in the movie, actually. It’s been probably two decades since I’ve seen it, but I did have it on VHS as a small child.
Just logging on to note I did some reading on this rainy day. Feeling depressed since covid is spreading out further in Japan and お盆 is just happening. Bored and lonely I guess.
Anyway,
Yeah that’s how I read it. And I think you’re right about the もん thing, I think it can be interchangeable with もの when presenting things as reasoning.
I read four pages today and really this was the only thing google/dictionaries couldn’t help with. I tried an online parser but it didn’t help.
キキがあわててとめようとしてもだめです
I have
キキ / が / あわててとめよう / として / も / だめ / です
But I don’t really know what’s going there in the middle I thought it was like あわてる but I don’t know where the とめよう comes into it.
Hope everyone is hanging in there.
It’s saying “in contrast to her [seemingly excited] words, she looked uninterested”
Seems to be saying that, but I feel there’s something about 九十四回も逆立ち that is not literal, I’m not sure.
Yes, that she’ll know him just from this.
That 九十四回 is 94 times, not hours 
And it could be handstands or headstands, we cannot really tell.
Ah, you’re already in the next section! Took me a sec to find that one
The middle part is
慌てて - in a panic / hurriedly
止めようとして - tried to stop [Jiji, I think] (this is V-volitional + とする, a frequent grammar point)
も - even though (well, actually ても means this, but I did not want to mess with the verb)
ダメです - it is in vain / does not help
