Unit 1: Vocabulary from Readings 1

At lunch he spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby sister’s milk, and remarked that his teacher said we were not to take the name of the Lord in vain.

“How was school today?” I asked, elaborately casual.

“Good heavens,” I said, mindful of the Lord’s name, “I suppose he got spanked again?”

At the meeting I sat restlessly, scanning each comfortable matronly face, trying to determine which one hid the secret of Charles.

None of them looked to me haggard enough.

The dark sky, filled with angry, swirling clouds, reflected Greg Ridley’s mood as he sat on the stoop of his building.

Some of the guys had held an impromptu checkers tournament there the week before, and Greg had noticed that the door, once boarded over, had been slightly ajar.

He vaulted over the outer stairs and pushed tentatively on the door.

Greg, except for an involuntary tremor in his knees, stood stock-still.

The old man looked out, then beckoned frantically for Greg to follow him.

I visualized mangled and inadequate branches for my fires.

My father had it—there is another of whom I am almost sure—but almost no man of my acquaintance possesses it with the clarity, the purity, the simplicity of a mountain stream. But the boy Jerry had it.

And he did for me the unnecessary thing, the gracious thing, that we find done only by the great of heart. Things no training can teach, for they are done on the instant, with no predicated experience.

I gave him the dog whistle and the key to the cabin, and left sufficient food.

He did not question the anomalous relation.