Both Uses of

ornery
in
The Adventures of Augie March

She didn't soften things in the poolroom, or put a limit, like a British barmaid or bistro proprietress; here things were too harsh and ornery to be influenced; the clamor and fights and the obscene yelling and banging weren't going to stop, and didn't stop.†
Chpt 7 *

ornery = easily annoyed and quick to complain and argue

But I wouldn't have read a light meter for gold, I didn't want to capture snakes, and I felt ornery about it all.†
Chpt 17

Definitions:

(1) (ornery as in: is ornery when she first wakes up)
quick to get annoyed, complain, argue, and be uncooperative
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Much more rarely (and seldom any more), ornery can describe someone as "low down", coarse, or unrefined. Mark Twain often used the word in that manner as in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he wrote: "The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery." and "The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling."