In paragraph 2 of the excerpt from An American Childhood, the author uses technical terms including scalpel, slides, and glides. He uses context clues to determine the meaning of these words. What words or phrases give you clues about its meaning? In a dark basement corner, on a white enamel table, I set up the microscope kit. I supplied a chair, a lamp, a batch of jars, a candle, and a pile of library books. The microscope kit supplied a blunt black three-speed microscope, a booklet, a scalpel, a dropper, an ingenious device for cutting thin segments of fragile tissue, a pile of clean slides and cover slips, and a dandy array of corked test tubes.