Read the excerpt from The People Could Fly So [the alligators] all be quiet. Until the fire flare real high and close. . . . The
gators swink close down but it don't do them no good. They got to move. The hot fire is real up now. It blister they tails and they snouts. And the gators are runnin away. Based on the clues in the excerpt, the word swink most likely means
The word "swink" probably means that a lot of effort has been made.
Explanation:
In the text shown above, we can see that the crocodiles worked hard to escape the fire, but all their efforts were in vain. The text presents contextual clues that this effort was violent and intensive even if it did not achieve results, that is, the crocodiles tried to get rid of the fire, but they did not succeed. This very significant effort is directly associated with the word "swink" presented in the text, which allows us to consider that this word means that something laborious and that requires great effort and concentration is being carried out.
