Unit 1: Selection Vocabulary 2

He was about ten paces from me so I could see him clearly.

The head of the arrow was in his chest and the broken shaft was covered with blood.

I do not think that he knew I was picking him up, for his body was limp, as if he were dead.

The arrow had a small point, which was fortunate, and came out easily though it had gone deep.

I had not gathered food for many days and the baskets were empty, so I left water for the dog and, after mending the fence, went down to the sea.

My own grandfather had been lynched about thirty years before by a mob of white demons almost the moment he had set foot on their shores.

And for another thing, our own clans discouraged wives from leaving because it would mean an end to the money the husbands sent home to their families—money which was then spent in the Middle Kingdom.

We did not call ourselves Chinese, but the people of the Tang, after that famous dynasty that had helped settle our area some eleven hundred years ago.

Like many other people, Mother and Grandmother could neither read nor write; but for a small fee, the village schoolmaster would read one of Father’s weekly letters to us or write a letter at our dictation.

Everyone in the village said he was a master of his craft, and his kites were often treasured by their owners like family heirlooms.

She told me then how the string in my hand was like a leash and the kite was like a hound that I had sent hunting, to flush a sunbeam or a stray phoenix out of the clouds.