SHARKS' TEETH Langston Carter

The day we found the sharks' teeth was foggy and cool. Moisture hung in the air so thick you could almost see it sparkling in the dim sunlight. There were days, early in the summer like this one, where it seemed there was more water in the air than in the bay. We had beached the boat and stepped out on the recently cleared spit of land. The ground had a light dusting of white sand over an under layer of dried black mud. It looked like a recently frosted chocolate cake, though the frosting was spread a bit thin for my taste. The ground was solid, but we knew from experience that it was full of fiddler crab holes, and would be underwater at the first super-high tide. Mysteriously, to us anyway, someone wanted to build a house there.

We often came to these spots to look for artifacts. Our beach, our summer home, had been a fishing camp for as long as anyone living could remember. The oldest stories told of travelers coming down to the edge of the sea, lining up to fill their wagon beds with salted fish to take back home. Old decaying cabins still lined the beach. Rotting nets, hung out to dry in the last century, decorated their weathered walls. Their broken faces spun stories in our minds. The fishermen who, tanned and wrinkled from sun and salt, hauled their nets full of splashing mullet in to cheers from the waiting crowds. The bounty of the sea lightened everyone's hearts, and the smell of roasting fish filled the damp air. Women fanned themselves from wagon seats. Children splashed in the shallow edges of the bay. It was a scene we had acted out as youngsters, building an imaginary bridge to a life we would never fully know.

Read this sentence from the text:

Old decaying cabins still lined the beach.

What is the main effect of the word decaying in this sentence?

It suggests a dislike of the cabins.
It suggests a fearful community.
It suggests a lack of life.
It suggests something horrible happened.

When should readers refer to a dictionary instead of relying on context clues? select all that apply.when they have timeeach unfamiliar word they findwhen the surrounding words are unfamiliarwhen an unfamiliar word appears frequently

What to the slave is the fourth of july? by frederick douglass fellow-citizens—pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am i called upon to speak here to-day? what have i, or those i represent, to do with your national independence? are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that declaration of independence, extended to us? and am i, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? but, such is not the state of the case. i say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. i am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. the blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. the rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. this fourth of july is yours, not mine. you may rejoice, i must mourn. to drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, i hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. if i do forget, if i do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! " to forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before god and the world. my subject, then, fellow-citizens, is american slavery. i shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. standing there, identified with the american bondman, making his wrongs mine, i do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this fourth of july. whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. what is one of the lessons douglass impresses on his listeners? a) the nation should not rejoice until everyone has freedom. b) he must speak on the fourth of july in order to bring change. c) for him to join the celebration would be treason. d) he can see the perspective of slaves and citizens with equal clarity.

Synonyms and antonyms of the word mean is