My Side of the Mountain: List 3

by Jean Craighead George
Crowded by his parents and eight siblings in a New York City apartment, twelve-year-old Sam Gribley runs away to live by himself on his great-grandfather's abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains.

This list covers "I Find a Real Live Man"–"I Learn About Birds and People."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4

Click here to explore our other lists in this mountainous trilogy.
15 words 1076 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. evidently
    in a manner that is obvious or unmistakable
    She evidently heard a sound that pained her.
  2. racketeer
    someone who commits crimes for profit
    “You are a murderer or a thief or a racketeer; and you are hiding out.”
  3. bellows
    a mechanical device that blows a strong current of air
    Bando got the fire hot by blowing on it with some homemade bellows that he fashioned from one of my skins that he tied together like a balloon. A reed is the nozzle.
  4. bulrush
    tall marsh plant with cylindrical seed heads
    I pushed the raft down the stream and gathered arrowleaf bulbs, cattail tubers, bulrush roots, and the nutlike tubers of the sedges.
  5. sedge
    a grassy plant that grows in wet areas around the world
    I pushed the raft down the stream and gathered arrow-leaf bulbs, cattail tubers, bulrush roots, and the nutlike tubers of the sedges.
  6. ventilate
    furnish with an opening to allow air to circulate or escape
    “Air,” I said. “The fireplace used up all the oxygen. I’ve got to ventilate this place.”
  7. cache
    a secret store of valuables or money
    They had found the cache of acorns and beechnuts and had tossed them all over my bed and floor.
  8. cavort
    play boisterously
    As I got used to the indignity and the smell, I saw the raccoons cavort around my fireplace and dodge past me.
  9. skimpy
    containing little excess
    I soaked some dried puffballs in water, and when they were big and moist, I fried them with wild onions and skimpy old wild carrots and stuffed myself until I felt kindly toward all men.
  10. plumage
    the covering of feathers on a bird
    In a sense she had also come into a new suit. Her plumage had changed during the autumn, and she was breathtaking.
  11. hearth
    a built-in space in a wall where a fire can be built
    I would go home and feed her, then crawl into my tree room, light a little fire on my hearth, and Frightful and I would begin the winter evening.
  12. portico
    porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered area
    Sometimes I would sit in my doorway, which became an entrance to behold—a portico of pure white snow, adorned with snowmen—and watch them with endless interest.
  13. ingenious
    showing inventiveness and skill
    “I see you have been busy. A blanket, new clothes, and an ingenious fireplace—with a real chimney—and say, you have silverware!”
  14. rendition
    a performance of a musical composition or a dramatic role
    Bando wanted to try some complicated jazz tunes, but the late hour, the small fire dancing and throwing heat, and the snow insulating us from the winds made us all so sleepy that we were not capable of more than a last slow rendition of taps before we put ourselves on and under skins and blew out the light.
  15. sanguine
    confidently optimistic and cheerful
    “What a sanguine smell. What a purposeful fire. Breakfast in a tree. Son, I toil from sunup to sundown, and never have I lived so well!”
Created on Wed Jul 29 19:58:55 EDT 2015 (updated Fri Aug 01 10:49:51 EDT 2025)

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