"Their Eyes Were Watching God," Vocabulary from Chapters 11-15

Tea Cake stood there mimicking the tuning of a guitar.

Three or four stood behind her and coached her moves and generally made merry with her in a restrained way.

The sounds lulled Janie to soft slumber and she woke up with Tea Cake combing her hair and scratching the dandruff from her scalp.

“Ah’m de Apostle Paul tuh de Gentiles.

But Ah reckon you don’t bet money, neither.”

This was a new sensation for her, but no less excruciating.

“Dat’s jealousy and malice.

Janie acted glad to see her and after a while Pheoby broached her with, “Janie, everybody’s talkin’ ’bout how dat Tea Cake is draggin’ you round tuh places you ain’t used tuh.

Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and tides.

Then when her ready cash was gone, had come Who Flung to denounce his predecessor as a scoundrel and took up around the house himself.

Then when her ready cash was gone, had come Who Flung to denounce his predecessor as a scoundrel and took up around the house himself.

Those slippers bent and griped just like her work-worn feet.

Who Flung had taken her to a shabby room in a shabby house in a shabby street and promised to marry her next day.

All she found out was that she was too old a vessel for new wine.

She dwindled down on the floor with her head in a rocking chair.

Daylight was creeping around the cracks of the world when Janie heard a feeble rap on the door.

Shining their phosphorescent eyes and shooting them in the dark.

She always had some kind of dessert too, as Tea Cake said it give a man something to taper off on.

There was a suppressed murmur when she picked up a basket and went to work.

They wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations; till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.