Mr. Avery asked after all the ________ had been said. Since the first trip in January, Mr. Morrison had made one other trip to Vicksburg, but Papa had not gone with him.

"I didn't say we should back it," Mama said, "but we're just about the only family with any _______ at all."

Visions of night men and fire mixed in a ______ of fear awakened me long before dawn.

Mama laughed lightly in _____ . "Sometimes, David Logan, I wonder why I didn't marry sweet, quiet Ronald Carter or nice, mild Harold Davis."

But even more important than all that, you're pointing a finger right at the Wallaces with this _____ business.

The dogs started barking and she turned, half running, across the room. Pushing up the lock in a mad ____ , she swing the door open and cried into the storm, "David! David!"

"She did it on purpose!" T.J. accused, a nasty _____ twisting his face.

Stacey did not speak for a while and I did not _____ him to go on. Finally, he cleared his throat and continued huskily.

I took Lillian Jean's books, and as we _______ down the road, I only half listened to her; I was sweeping the road, looking for the deep wooded trail I had selected earlier in the week.

"But who'd shoot Papa?" asked Little Man, _____. "Can't nobody just shoot Papa!"

Miss Crocker raised her hand, indicating that she did not want to hear another word, and ______ me

When we were alone, she ______ her secrets to me: the boy she had passionately loved for the past year and the things she had done to attract his attention (with no success, I might add).

T.J.? You sure? Little Willie nodded _______ and answered, "Heard it myself. Clarence, too. How Miz Logan failed him on purpose and then said she wasn't a good teacher and that she the one stopped everybody from comin' up to they store.

Christopher-John, Little Man, and I exchanged ______ glances. I don't know what they were thinking, but I for one was deciding right then and there not to do anything to rub Uncle Hammer the wrong way.