creole In New Orleans, many of the residents are Creole — that is, of mixed black, French and Spanish, and Portuguese ancestry; the Creole language contains a blend of multilingual phrases.
dolesome sorrowful; filled with grief.
a victorious swagger in the legs of white men Armistice Day is celebrated annually in November; in Medallion, even though two years have passed since the end of World War I, this military victory is still foremost in the minds of the town's veterans.
[Helene] joined the most conservative black church During slavery, blacks usually adopted the Baptist church of the slaveholders, infusing their church with Africanisms. After slavery, in an attempt to distance themselves from the spirited, animated black Baptist churches, upwardly mobile blacks sought spiritual refuge in the more refined and quieter Catholic church. Because there isn't a Catholic church in the Bottom, Helene joins the most conservative black church available.
gal a derogatory term for a black woman; it corresponds to the term "boy" for a black man.
Colored Only This chapter underscores the South's strict adherence to the laws of segregation. When Helene breaks one of these laws by walking through the Whites Only car of the train, she is sternly reprimanded and could have been arrested had she not apologized profusely and flashed a blindly subservient smile.
placket V-shaped, overlapping fabric on a blouse, dress, or skirt; the front of a typical rugby shirt has a placket design at the neck.
custard custard-colored; a mulatto color. It also means something soft and insubstantial, not firm.
direc'lin directly, or right away.
yonder over there.
head rag a length of cloth, often matching the fabric of a dress, that is bound and tied around the head.
wrecked Dorics Morrison likens the white men hanging about the fronts of train stations to the ruins of Doric columns on Greek temples. The men are silent and unmoving, unfunctional and passive watchers.
shotgun house a very narrow house that faces the street, each room opening behind it in a straight line into another room, so that if you fired a shotgun in the front door, the bullet would pass through all of the rooms and exit through the back door.
Vrai? Really?
Come, chere Come here, darling.
Comment t'appelle? What's your name?
oui Yes.
'Voir! Goodbye!
pulling your nose In an effort to make Nel's nose look narrower, sleeker, and more Anglo, Helene tells her to snap a clothespin on it.
folded leaves The reference is to the leaves that Helene has to use instead of toilet paper.
goobers peanuts.
read you a dream interpret a dream.
