When it comes to English Abolition and women rights, the sentence " Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter", contains an idiom ''out of kilter'' which means out of balance or not properly adjusted, in a state of chaos. The synonym would be ''out of whack''. In this situation we can consider this sentence to be informal.
She hesitated every so often, searching for an answer that would tell them her exact thoughts, so the pencil scribbled away, sufficing the paper with an answer.
