"Spadeful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked as if they might be in search of the silver belonging to the Church, but after all they were unlikely to connect him with it, and it was wiser to go on with his regular work, and manifest no interest in the matter; besides that, every spadeful he heaved up, every chop he gave the stubble, seemed to be a comfort, while there was a prayer on his soul all the time that he might be true ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... am doing, Mrs. Faber?" he said, throwing up a spadeful and a glance together, like a man who could spare ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... to have him and to hold him. Long before, she had realized the hopelessness of it all. Knowing that he drank from the cup of dissipation, she had even sought to hold him in contempt; but to her he had never ceased to be a gentleman, tender, manly and kind. It is contempt that casts the first spadeful in the ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... curtly ordered his companion to take his choice of weapons. Sir George selected the pick, and Doyle vigorously plied the spade. In almost less time than it takes to tell it, a very respectable hole had been dug, and in it was placed the body of the popular private detective. Just as the last spadeful was shovelled in place the stern voice of a policeman awoke the silence, and caused Sir George to drop his pick from ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... observance of three simple rules sufficient in order to have it in fine bloom year after year: First, begin with good sound bulbs, not over large. Second, plant them 9in. deep in sandy soil, and a moist situation, surrounding each bulb with half-a-spadeful of fine charcoal, which protects them from rot, canker, and (what I believe to be the chief cause of failure) the wireworm. Third, grow them where they will be sheltered from high winds; otherwise their long and top-heavy stems become wrenched, and the upper roots, ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... said gruffly, and, turning up a spadeful of earth, he gave it a blow with the spade, as if he were boxing its ears, and levelled ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... their wills they were combatting the snow, forcing the work ahead, deepening the stretch of excavation that had been opened that afternoon; by iron determination they were wrenching out the last spadeful of earth possible and exacting the final ounce of man power before the snow ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... firmly set about the roots when the vine is planted. Neither is time saved in digging beforehand, for the sun-baked and rain-washed sides of holes long dug would surely have to be pared afresh. It is, however, quite worth while to throw the surface soil to one side and that lower to the other, that a spadeful of moist, virile, surface soil may be put next to ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... measure of the music, while what it really was, was the measure of the waste of the strings, when they were made the instrument of the music. If a spade is used in digging, the spade wastes in proportion to every spadeful of earth it is made to lift. The more it digs, the more it wastes. If we could arrange that a stream of fine steel particles flowed into the spade, to replace the waste caused by each act of digging, we might ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... the ruins of his machine after a fall of thousands of feet, lay as a memorial to the prowess of the defenders of the coast and the audacity of those who sought to invade it. But during the long weeks of this extended reconnaissance hardly a spadeful of dirt could be moved, a square yard of concrete placed in position, or a submarine or torpedo boat manoeuvred without its record being entered upon the detailed charts the British were so painstakingly preparing against the day of assault. When ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot |
