Out of the Dust

Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: ______________________

AUTUMN 1935

Section 14: Cut It Deep through November Dust

1. What does Doc Rice tell Billie Jo to do about her hands?

2. What does Billie Jo’s father do that is out of the ordinary when Louise comes to dinner?

3. What did Billie Jo do even though she didn’t intend to?

4. What is the only thing Billie Jo hopes Louise doesn’t do?

5. In Not Everywhere, where does Billie Jo not want Louise to go with her and her father?

6. What does Billie Jo like best about Louise?

7. What is “holding its own” in November Dust?

8. What are the poppies doing in Thanksgiving List?

9. Why does Billie Jo think she is what she is?

10. How did Louise and Billie Jo’s father meet?

11. How did Billie Jo’s father let her mother know he intended to marry Louise?

12. What was Louise’s betrothal gift to Billie Jo’s father?

Section 14 Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues

Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words appear in the text. Read the sentence. Use any
clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior knowledge, and write what you think the
 words in bold mean.

1. Doc looks carefully at the mottled skin,/the stretched and striped and crackled skin.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

2. Louise doesn’t flinch. She looks straight back.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

3. Prairie birds, the whistle of gophers, the wind/blowing,/the smell of grass/and spicy earth….

_____________________________________________________________________________________

4. We are both confident, and a little sassy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

5. I was so full/my lids/sighed shut and Daddy walked with Louise instead of/me/out to Ma and

    Franklin’s grave,/where he let Ma know his intentions.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

6. Her betrothal gift to him.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Part II: Determining the Meaning: Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.

___70. mottled                         A. engagement

___71. flinch                            B. burrowing rodents

___72. gophers                        C. impudent; brashly bold

___73. sassy                            D. plans; goals

___74 intentions                       E. recoil, as from something unpleasant

___75. betrothal                       F. marked by spots or blotches