My Side of the Mountain: List 4

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 Have a Good Look at Winter and Find Spring in the Snow"–"The City Comes to Me."

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 713 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. copse
    a dense growth of trees, shrubs, or bushes
    Caught out in the storms and weather, I had an urgent desire to return to my tree, even as The Baron Weasel returned to his den, and the deer to their copse.
  2. concoction
    any foodstuff made by combining different ingredients
    I made a fire, the tree room warmed, and I puttered around with a concoction I call possum sop.
  3. resilient
    rebounding readily
    Apparently the most rotted and oldest trees had collapsed first. The rest were more resilient, and unless a wind came up, I figured the damage was over.
  4. sprawling
    spreading out in different directions
    He still attacks me, more for the fun of being sent sprawling out into the snow than for food, for he hasn’t put his teeth in my trousers for months.
  5. forage
    wander and feed
    The deer could forage again. Spring was coming to the land!
  6. muffled
    being or made softer or less loud or clear
    I climbed down, and as I ran off toward my tree I saw her drift on those muffled wings of the owl through the limbs and branches as she went back to her work.
  7. momentum
    an impelling force or strength
    One or two birds returned, the ferns by the protected spring unrolled—very slowly, but they did. Then the activity gathered momentum, and before I was aware of the change, there were the skunk cabbages poking their funny blooms above the snow in the marsh.
  8. sociable
    inclined to or conducive to companionship with others
    Matt enjoyed every bite. I worked on a small portion to be sociable, for I was not especially hungry.
  9. matted
    tangled in a dense mass
    He wears a bearskin coat, has long hair—all matted and full of burrs—and according to him he fishes for a living.
  10. obtainable
    capable of being acquired
    I sat down, and listed some of the better wild plants and the more easily obtainable mammals and fish.
  11. forum
    a public meeting or assembly for open discussion
    It is very sociable inside my head, and I have perfected the art of getting a lot of people arguing together in silence or in a forum, as I prefer to call it.
  12. untoward
    contrary to your interests or welfare
    Bando said, no, it’s all right, he still doesn’t know where you live; and then Matt walked into the conversation and said that he wanted to spend his spring vacation with me, and that he promised not to do anything untoward.
  13. salamander
    terrestrial amphibian that resembles a lizard
    The Baron Weasel did not come by. There were salamanders and frogs to keep him busy.
  14. horde
    a vast multitude
    Hordes were coming.
  15. self-sufficient
    able to provide for your own needs without help from others
    I was self-sufficient, I could travel the world over, never needing a penny, never asking anything of anyone.
Created on Wed Jul 29 20:10:09 EDT 2015 (updated Fri Aug 01 10:54:02 EDT 2025)

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