what WORDS does the author use in "Life in a Sod House" to appeal to the reader's sense of sight?
what DETAILS does the author use in "Life in a Sod House" to appeal to the reader's sense of sight?
I doubt if anyone here has this book.
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I really need help!!
OK, Here it is! Please help me please! :(
As a young girl of ten, I had never imagined that my family would pick up and leave Sweden. This was our homeland. But one day my father came home excitedly waving a newspaper with a headline that screamed “Free Land in America!” My father explained to us that a law signed by President Abraham Lincoln, the Homestead Act of 1862, promised 160 acres of land to anyone who was willing to build a home on the land and farm it for five years.
“This is our destiny!” my father shouted. “We are going to be landowners!”
Although our destiny would be put on hold because of a long and bloody war in the United States and the need for my relatively poor father to save up some money, we finally arrived in this Land of promise in 1867. We were all a bit overwhelmed at first, having to learn a new language and new customs, but our Americanization went relatively smoothly. We were soon off to our new home in a place called Nebraska.
At first, the drabness of Nebraska overwhelmed me. The land my father had claimed was as flat as a Swedish pancake. There were few trees and no hills for as far as the eye could see. Oh, how I longed for the beautiful, deep-green valleys and snow-capped mountains of Sweden.
Eventually my homesickness subsided. It had to because there was so much work to do. We all had to pitch in to build our house. Because our land had so few trees and stones, we had to use what was available to construct our home--sod. Yes, sod, the ubiquitous brown grass, became the walls and even the roof of our new home.
Living in a sod house was an adventure, to say the least. Try as we did, the interior of the house was just impossible to keep tidy. Dirt and clumps of sod constantly fell through the little bit of wood we were able to use for the walls and the ceilings. But that was not the worst of it. After a rainfall, bugs, slugs, and all sorts of multilegged critters would descend from the ceilings and fall on the kitchen table, or worse, on our bunks. One night I was rudely awakened when something heavy plopped right next to my pillow. Then I touched something cold and slimy. It was a grass snake!
Life outside our sod house was adventurous, too. Most days it was my job to venture out on the prairie to gather wood that could be used for fires. Since there were not many trees and the wood had to be dry, I would have to walk for miles in order to find some. I’d gather fallen branches, logs, and sticks and put them in a large washtub. When it was chock-full, I’d drag my heavy treasure back to the house where my mother would stack the wood in a huge pile. When lit, some of the wood gave off a sweet smell that filled our house, but more importantly, the wood kept us toasty warm during the long Nebraska winters.
Here are a few words that appeal to sight:
drabness of Nebraska
flat as a Swedish pancake
beautiful, deep-green valleys
Details:
Yes, sod, the ubiquitous brown grass, became the walls and even the roof of our new home.
fallen branches, logs, and sticks and put them in a large washtub.
I'm sure you can find several more examples.