Summer of the Monkeys: Chapters 6–8

by Wilson Rawls
When 14-year-old Jay Berry Lee learned that there was a big reward for the return of the monkeys he and his hound Rowdy had discovered in the Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma, he was determined to catch them and win the reward for his family. He learned a lot about monkeys that summer, but it was the greater lessons about life and family that mattered the most.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–2, Chapters 3–5, Chapters 6–8, Chapters 9–13, Chapters 14–19
15 words 37 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. quail
    a small game bird
    Grandma came over and very tenderly pinched my muscle between two fingers. “Well,” she said, “it is hard all right, but there’s not much of it there. It’s not much bigger than a quail’s egg.”
  2. gander
    mature male goose
    I had no trouble finding something I could try to catch in the net. We had seven geese: six hen geese and one old gander.
  3. flounce
    walk in an emphatic or exaggerated way
    He beat at the net with his wings and flounced all over the place.
  4. desperation
    a state in which all hope is lost or absent
    “Mama,” I said in desperation, “you can’t make me go to my room now. I have to go down in the bottoms tonight and dig a hole.”
  5. maneuver
    move skillfully, as around obstacles or into a position
    Ordinarily Rowdy wasn’t scared of snakes; that is, if he was out where he could maneuver around a little.
  6. hogwash
    nonsensical or ridiculous speech or writing
    I didn’t know why I was holding my breath because I knew that the old saying of how you could hold your breath and nothing would sting you was pure hogwash.
  7. passel
    a large number or amount
    A whole passel of them dropped down from the branches and started grabbing apples.
  8. leverage
    the mechanical advantage gained by a machine on a fulcrum
    Using the rim of the hole for leverage, I jerked down on the handle and yanked the blue ring.
  9. goblin
    (folklore) a small, ugly creature that causes trouble
    Just then here he came again, scooting along on the game trail, screaming and making enough racket to scare a goblin to death.
  10. headway
    forward movement
    He usually enjoyed a good fight, but from the looks and sounds of things, I didn’t think he was enjoying this fight very much. He didn’t seem to be making any headway at all.
  11. hydrophobia
    viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals
    “I don’t care,” Daisy said, “I’m scared just the same. We don’t know anything about monkeys. For all we know, they may have hydrophobia.”
  12. vaccinate
    produce immunity in by inoculation
    They’ve probably been vaccinated for all kinds of diseases. A big circus like that wouldn’t have taken a chance on having a bunch of sick monkeys around.
  13. pallet
    a mattress filled with straw or a pad made of quilts
    With Rowdy about half in the wheelbarrow and half hanging out, they wheeled him into my room. Daisy made a pallet for him over in the corner.
  14. liniment
    a topical liquid that relieves muscle stiffness and pain
    To me, it looked like she had all the medicine we had in the house on it. There was liniment, Raleigh salve, iodine, peroxide, castor oil, all kinds of clean rags torn in strips, several boxes of pills, and a glass half full of alcohol with a thermometer in it.
  15. caboodle
    any collection in its entirety
    “That’s fine,” Grandpa said. “If you could make friends with Jimbo and get him to follow you, the little monkeys would probably follow him and you might be able to lead the whole caboodle right into the corn crib.”
Created on Fri Dec 05 18:16:08 EST 2025 (updated Fri Jan 09 17:48:15 EST 2026)

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