The Teacher's Funeral: Chapters 10–13

by Richard Peck
Teenager Russell Culver's dreams of no more school and leaving his tiny farming town seem to be within reach when the schoolhouse teacher dies right before the school year begins! To his surprise, however, his older sister, Tansy, becomes the new teacher…and gradually life begins to change.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–7, Chapters 8–9, Chapters 10–13, Chapters 14–17
15 words 10 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. balk
    show unwillingness towards
    Siren balked and showed unwilling.
  2. gaunt
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    Chickens wilder than hawks flew at us. Gaunt, hopeless cows stood unmilked in the field.
  3. heifer
    young cow
    The Tarboxes never knew the difference between Thine and Mine. Whatever went missing in Parke County, from a handsaw to a heifer, people said the Tarboxes got it.
  4. joist
    a beam used to support a floor or ceiling
    He sized up a plank and laid it against what was left of a joist. In a couple of mighty blows, he drove the first nail home.
  5. mellifluous
    pleasing to the ear
    The Singer makes his or her sentiments crystal clear in the following mellifluous lines:
    Raging down the byways,
    Way too fast to gauge,
    Streaks the awful auto,
    The terror of the age.
  6. agog
    highly excited
    The mailman had been and left three big parcels. We were agog. School never got mail.
  7. menagerie
    a collection of live animals for study or display
    “The Roosevelts have turned the White House into a regular menagerie.” Which was one of our M words.
  8. transfixed
    having your attention fixated as though witchcraft
    “Why, here it is.”
    Now even Pearl stood at her desk, staring transfixed.
  9. warble
    sing or play with trills
    From out of the schoolroom warbled Little Britches’s piping voice:
    ‘C is for the cattle, lowing in the sheds,
    D is for the daffodils, nodding in their beds.’
  10. swain
    a young male suitor
    “Well, why wouldn’t she have a whole bunch of swains and sweethearts lined up for her all the way back to the windpump?” Aunt Maud demanded. “Good-lookin’ girl like that!”
  11. orthography
    representing the sounds of a language by written symbols
    Seemed like Tansy was never satisfied. If it wasn’t orthography, it was looking up meanings. If it wasn’t looking up meanings, it was geography.
  12. engineering
    applying scientific knowledge to practical problems
    But getting Aunt Fanny Hamline out of the ditch became one of Tansy’s most famous days of teaching. It was a lesson in engineering too. It should have been studied at Purdue University.
  13. impart
    transmit, as knowledge or a skill
    “State your business,” Tansy said, pretty pert. “I have teaching to do and knowledge to impart.”
  14. lummox
    an awkward, foolish person
    “You’re neither one heroes to me,” Tansy said while we all listened. “Far from it, you lummoxes.”
  15. dustup
    an angry dispute
    “But, Dad, we had us a plan from way back, to – ”
    “Son, I think it was all your plan. Charlie had him a different one. I believe he’s pursuing it right now back at our house. He’s busier than a one-armed corn-shucker, trying to get back into Tansy’s good graces after that dustup in the school yard. And who do you think it was gave her the cowbell, the first day of school?”
Created on Wed Jan 14 18:41:37 EST 2026 (updated Tue Mar 03 12:35:00 EST 2026)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.