attorney: lawyer

bank: slope of land adjoining a body of water

carpetbagger: derogatory term for northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War to make a profit from Reconstruction

chignon: a roll of hair worn at the back of the neck

churn: stir, as in making butter

clapboard: a structure made of slats of varying thicknesses

emaciated: extremely thin

ember: the coal or ash of a dying fire

glade: open space in a forest

gravelly: low and scratchy

gully: a deep ditch or channel

indignant: righteously angered

lynching: a hanging executed by a mob, usually racially motivated

mercantile: country store

molding dish: apparatus that shapes the finished butter

ransack: plunder, pillage

share-cropping: a tenant farmer who gives his landlord a share of his crops rather than rent; a common system in the South post-slavery

snaggle-toothed: full of teeth that are broken or misaligned

switch: whip

welts: marks left over from a beating

Yankee: Civil War term for a person from the North

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