Cloak: transitive verb: to cove or hide / noun: something that envelops or conceals
From “The Shawl”: First, I told him that keeping his sister’s shawl was wrong, because we never keep the clothing of the dead. Now’s the time to burn it, I said. Send it off to cloak her spirit. And he agreed.
Now I came to understand that the boy requested his father to burn the shawl so that the shawl will reach to the spirit of his father’s dead sister and cover her.
Stash: transitive verb : to store in a usually secret place for future use
From “The Shawl”: I got my growth earlier that some boys, and, one night when I was thirteen and Doris and Raymond and I were sitting around wishing for something besides the oatmeal and commodity canned milk I’d stashed so he couldn’t sell them, I heard him coming down the road.
Now I understand that the boy kept the oatmeal and commodity canned milk in secret place so that his father won’t sell them and they could eat later.
Scorch: verb: to burn a surface of so as to change its color and texture, to dry or shrivel with or as if with intense heat
From “The Shawl”: His chest was scorched with pain, and yet he pushed himself on. He’d never run so fast, so hard and furiously, but he was determined, and he refused to believe that the increasing distance between him and the wagon was real.
Now I came to understand that the boy was running very fast, so his chest was burning with pain but still he was not ready to give up the race with the wagon.
Dote: verb: to be lavish or excessive in one’s attention, fondness, or affection.
Who had not even escaped slavery—had, in fact, been bought out of it by a doting son . . . ” (137).
I understand now that a son who is extremely loved would buy their parents out of slavery.
Glower: verb: to look or stare with sullen annoyance or anger
From: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka: “Gregor!” shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist. That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his transformation.”
Now I understand that Gregor’s sister was enraged and gave him a stare out of anger.
Homesteaded: verb: to acquire or occupy as a homestead (Homestead: Noun: the home and adjoining land occupied by a family)
From the short story ” A Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. ” When we Homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died — after he was two years old – and me with no other then –”
I now understand that she meant that when she lived in Dakota for a certain time.
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