Abel's Island: Chapters 4–6

by William Steig
While picnicking with his wife, Abelard Hassam di Chirico Flint, a mouse of Mossville, is swept away by a stormy river onto an island, where he must figure out how to survive and return home.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 7–10, Chapters 11–14, Chapters 15–20
40 words 11 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. vicinity
    a surrounding or nearby region
    There were trees in his vicinity, all around him.
  2. cantata
    a musical composition for voices and orchestra
    He waited, and to keep himself amused, he hummed snatches of his favorite cantata and imagined how he would narrate his adventures.
  3. competent
    properly or sufficiently qualified, capable, or efficient
    No, it would be impossible to reach the far shore by swimming, even though he was a competent swimmer.
  4. filament
    a threadlike structure
    He stood over it muttering to himself, thoughtfully fingering a filament of his mustache.
  5. acute
    (of an angle) less than 90 degrees
    If he held the rudder at an acute angle, the boat would gradually work its way to the opposite shore.
  6. flotsam
    the floating wreckage of a ship
    It pitched left, then right, then the rudder was wrenched from his grasp; and now he was no longer a helmsman but a stunned passenger on a bit of flotsam at the mercy of the rampaging water.
  7. ordeal
    a severe or trying experience
    By good fortune, instead of being carried past the island and down the river, he was able to catch hold of a low-hanging streamer of weeping willow and pull himself ashore. The whole ordeal had lasted just a minute.
  8. amble
    walk leisurely
    He ambled back to his starting point near the cherry birch, his toes turned awkwardly in.
  9. ineptitude
    unskillfulness resulting from a lack of training
    The mess of wet clothes he wore added to his sense of ineptitude and shame; he was used to their being dry and pressed.
  10. err
    make a mistake
    Where had he erred, he wondered. He should have bound the rudder to the nail, of course.
  11. stern
    the rear part of a ship
    Perhaps it should be a sailboat; his jacket might serve as a sail. The rudder this time would be firmly secured through a hole in the stern.
  12. revulsion
    intense aversion
    It was slow work with the small penknife. Not thinking, he fell to using his teeth. What? He drew back for a moment, in revulsion. Then he continued to gnaw away. He had never before gnawed on anything but food.
  13. groove
    a long narrow furrow cut by a natural process or a tool
    He fitted the bark into the grooves and then went to work lashing everything together, going round and round with the rope, and over and under, until his boat could hardly be seen for what it really was under all the lashings.
  14. tamp
    press down tightly
    Now he gathered a heap of soft grass and, with stone and stick for hammer and chisel, tamped it into all the crevices to prevent leakage.
  15. ingenuity
    the property of showing inventiveness and skill
    He was pleased with his ingenuity. He had never built a boat before; in fact, though he was a married mouse, he had never built anything, or done a day’s work. However, he had watched others working, so ideas came to him readily.
  16. caulk
    seal with a waterproof filler
    When he finished his caulking, he made a mast with a crosspiece, or boom, out of branches.
  17. boom
    a horizontal spar or pole used to extend the foot of a sail
    When he finished his caulking, he made a mast with a crosspiece, or boom, out of branches.
  18. crude
    not refined or processed
    Considering the crude materials and the lack of tools, he had to admit it was a fine piece of work.
  19. raiment
    especially fine or decorative clothing
    Before dressing the mast with his jacket, where it hung like a scarecrow’s slack raiment, he removed from the inner pocket Amanda’s scarf, the bit of beloved gauze that accounted for his being where he was.
  20. fare
    proceed, get along, or succeed
    Boat number two fared worse than the first. The stream was too swift and the breeze too light for the sail to be effective. The boat swung around despite the rudder, hit a rock, and shattered.
  21. resent
    feel bitter or indignant about
    He resented the stream and meant to best it.
  22. wayward
    unpredictable; following no clear pattern
    Abel grimly decided that in his next effort he would not count on a rudder; rudders were too dependent on the behavior of wayward water.
  23. fickle
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    Nor would he count on a sail, because wind was fickle.
  24. catamaran
    a sailboat with two parallel hulls held together by a deck
    He would build a sort of water strider, a catamaran, and row it.
  25. notch
    a V-shaped indentation
    Next, using that remarkable, newly discovered tool, his rodent teeth, he made two long oars, or sweeps, which he placed in notches he had gnawed out for oarlocks.
  26. founder
    break down, literally or metaphorically
    Once more he foundered on a rock, and once more barely managed to scramble back up on the island.
  27. mundane
    found in the ordinary course of events
    What if the river flooded his tunnel, or if the tunnel simply collapsed on him? What a way that would be for the descendant of an ancient and noble family to die! Pressed out of existence in mundane mud, and no one even knowing what had happened to him, or where.
  28. temperate
    mild or free from extremes
    It was a typical piece of the temperate zone, with familiar kinds of rocks, trees, bushes, brambles, grass, and other plants.
  29. foist
    force onto another
    It was not an adventure of his choosing. It was being foisted on him, and that he resented.
  30. modish
    in the current fashion or style
    He wished to be in his own home, with his loving wife, surrounded by the books he liked to browse in, by his paintings and his elegant possessions, dressed in neat modish clothes, comfortable in a stuffed chair.
  31. fusty
    stale and unclean smelling
    But the stupid island was where he was going to spend this night, at least, in soiled clothes that were beginning to smell fusty.
  32. abound
    exist in large quantities
    The island abounded with edible plants, many of which he recognized from illustrations in his encyclopedia.
  33. redoubt
    a temporary or supplementary fortification or stronghold
    He could continue to sleep in the birch, where, if not completely protected, he had the advantage of a high redoubt, the upper hand in case of a conflict.
  34. wane
    decrease in phase
    Then, with his paws folded across his belly, where the nourishment was being extracted from the carrots, he sat under his birch in the opal glow of the waning day and took stock of his resources.
  35. burble
    flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise
    He rested against his tree and gazed at the river just being itself, burbling along.
  36. predicament
    an unpleasant or difficult situation
    He looked up at his old friend as if to say, “You see my predicament.”
  37. fop
    a man who is overly concerned with his dress and appearance
    Wasn’t he really a snob, and a fop, and frivolous on serious occasions, as she had once told him during a quarrel?
  38. frivolous
    not serious in content, attitude, or behavior
    Wasn’t he really a snob, and a fop, and frivolous on serious occasions, as she had once told him during a quarrel?
  39. grudge
    a resentment strong enough to justify retaliation
    It was foolish, he realized, to harbor a grudge toward this river. It had no grudge against him.
  40. diversion
    an activity that amuses or stimulates
    He drank at the river and then, for diversion, wandered toward the interior of the island, chewing on fragrant raspberries as he wandered.
Created on Tue Apr 16 13:05:51 EDT 2024 (updated Wed Apr 17 09:58:59 EDT 2024)

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