Vocabulary Sheet II
Instructions: Using the words and meanings listed on Vocabulary Sheet I, fill in the blanks in this story. Each word can be used only once.
Mary was tired as she closed the front door and walked slowly down the front hall past the __________ door. It was the end of a hot summer day and her cool,__________ summer was now wrinkled and clinging. Even the starched __________ which had stood up so nicely around her neck this morning was now limp.
She remembered days like this when she was a child in__________, Louisiana. She and her brother Tom would put on their bathing costumes and dive into the __________ which ran in back of the house. Life had seemed so simple then and full of promise.
It was different now. Tom was a rich ____________ man in____________ Tennessee. He probably went out to lunch in air-conditioned restaurants with pretty young ___________ from his office. And here was Mary, stuck _______________, Alabama, wasting her life taking care of old Aunt Lucy. Her job as a________________ in the downtown beauty shop seemed dull and hopeless. After all, rich ladies’ finger nails were no more interesting than her own, and she earned only a small ___________ of money each week.
She was called away from her thoughts by Aunt Lucy’s complaining voice coming from the back of the house: “Mary, Mary, is that you? Come into the kitchen now! I’ve been waiting for you. Wipe off the kitchen table with a rag soaked in ____________ to kill those germs. Then boil some water to _____________ the dishes before you dry them and set the table for supper!”
Mary sighed. Aunt Lucy was getting crazy in her old age. Nothing was clean enough to satisfy her and she was becoming more and more demanding. Mary felt trapped. Was this all she could expect of life? She laid down her purse on the chair in the hall and walked slowly toward the kitchen.
Questions on “We Are Looking at You, Agnes”
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1. Who is thinking aloud in this story?
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2. What did Agnes do with the money her father gave her to go to business school?
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3. How did Agnes get in trouble in her job as a manicurist in a barbershop?
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4. Where has Agnes lived since she left home?
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5. Why does Agnes come home once a year?
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6. Why is she so unhappy on her visits home?
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7. Why do her parents scald her dishes and wipe her chair with alcohol?
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8. If you were Agnes what would you do to make things better?
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9. If you were her parents what would you do?
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10. Why do you think no one in the family can talk about what is going on?
