According to enlightenment era European writers, literatures role was to delight and to inform. The enlightenment was all about enjoying and understanding life and the arts and sciences.
Indian removal was a forced migration in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forced by the United States government to leave their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, specifically to a designated Indian Territory (roughly, modern Oklahoma).
Rule of thumb is a guide or refs principle of some sort. For example, "as a rule of thumb, I do not begin big projects until the weekend." I hope this helps.
B because the burros are carrying your parents down the montain