FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • More 'Picking' Quotes from Famous Books

... sketch, the author dilates on the goodman Anselme. He says: "This good man possessed a moderate amount of knowledge, was a goodish grammarian, a musician, somewhat of a sophist, and rather given to picking holes in others." Some of Anselme's conversation is also given, and after beginning by describing in glowing terms the bygone days which he and his contemporaries had seen, and which he stated to be very different to the present, he goes on to say, "I must own, ...

— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... districts "the Devil's House." Every outward sign, even the face of Lemulquinier, confirmed the ridiculous beliefs that were current about Balthazar. When the old servant went to market to purchase the few provisions necessary for their subsistence, picking out the cheapest he could find, insults were flung in as make-weights,—just as butchers slip bones into their customers' meat,—and he was fortunate, poor creature, if some superstitious market-woman did not refuse to sell him his meagre ...

— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... you will see how detestably false all the charges are," cried Phyllis, rising,—the servants had now left the room,—and picking up the Spiritual Aneroid from where Ella had laid it ...

— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... girl. At last they said they would give her a lame leg for seven years, and that then they would cure her by striking her leg with a herb growing on Dartmoor. So next day Molly found herself lame, and kept so for seven years, when, as she was picking mushrooms on Dartmoor, a strange-looking boy started up, struck her leg with a plant he held in his hand, and sent her home sound again. There is another story of the Pixies which is very beautiful. An old woman near Tavistock had in ...

— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce

... silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking ...

— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... vapour ran now with light. A huge projector, the eye, as it seemed to me, of that enemy for whom I had all day been searching, slowly wheeled across the world, cutting a great path across the plain, picking houses and trees and fields out of space, then dropping them back again. The rockets were gold and green, sometimes as it seemed ringed with fire, sometimes cold like dead moons, sometimes sparkling and quivering like ...

— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle had slept. She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search, she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel uncomfortable by her remarks. Evelyn knew it would be impossible for Merat to guess the cause of it all. But when she hesitated about ...

— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... great advantages in emphasising individuals,—the main idea of this book,—in picking out particular men as forces, centres of energy in society, as the basis for one's programme for human nature, is the sense it gives that things really can begin again—begin anywhere—where a man is. One single human being, deeply believed in, glows ...

— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... I'm thankful for dear mother, Who so gently smooths my brow, Tells me pleasant little stories Of her childhood days, and how She once wandered in the meadow, With the cattle and the sheep, Picking buttercups and daisies Till the stars ...

— Light On the Child's Path • William Allen Bixler

... I ain't talking about Nebraska and his friends. Not me. I got a wife and family to support, and they's enough trouble running a hotel without picking up any more by letting yore tongue ...

— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... turkey. Oh, but he must have been surprised! He did not know what to do. He just danced around and around, trying to shake the pail off his neck. If he had only lowered his head, as he did when picking up corn, the pail would have slid off. But the gobbler did ...

— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... coals—one of them round with a revolving top, another square, sloping, with a little trough at the bottom to catch the juice of a broiling steak. Elizabeth agreed that we might use those sometimes and I set them over by the stair. We were not delving deeply, not by any means—just picking off the nuggets, as it were. It would be weeks before we would know the ...

— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... cover. It was very hard work indeed, but after a half hour of it we gained a thin bush not over thirty yards from a half dozen dark and indeterminate bodies dozing in the very centre of a brush patch. Cautiously I wiped the sweat from my eyes and raised my glasses. It was slow work and patient work, picking out and examining each individual beast from the mass. Finally the job was done. I ...

— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... the kings of Saxony," I calmly remarked, picking up the volume. "Here is Her Majesty's ...

— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... part of the country, her death is attributed to a fall whilst in the act of picking an apple from a tree in ...

— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various

... you are picking up,' she said, after watching him pull for a few minutes. 'Do you know, Wilf, your tendency is to stoutness; in a few years you will be portly, if you live ...

— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... downright sly of John Kynaston!" she exclaims, angrily; "picking out a nobody like that behind all our backs, and keeping it so quiet, too; he ought to be ashamed of himself ...

— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close ...

— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... dishes which were served up to us was a fine pilaff,[FN259] of which I, according to the custom in our city, began to eat with a spoon; but she, in lieu of it pulled out an ear pick from her pocket and therewith fell to picking up the rice and ate it grain by grain. Seeing this strange conduct I was sore amazed and fuming inwardly said in sweet tones, "O my Aminah,[FN260] what be this way of eating? hast thou learnt it of thy people or art thou counting grains of rice purposing ...

— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... with his still unsold papers—worn dirty and ragged as his clothes by this time—before he ventured in, picking his way between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the Italian cobbler's hovel, where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a picture of the "Mother of God," showed that even he knew it was Christmas ...

— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... on the alert as he always was for anything approaching an outlet or river mouth, would scarcely have missed one here. As for any knowledge of the interior that was gained, of course there was none, even the conjectures of a worn out, starving man, picking his way painfully around the sea shore, would have scarcely been of much value. Eyre has, however secured for himself a name for courage and perseverance, under the most terrible circumstances that could well beset a man, and this qualification leads us to overlook his ...

— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... said, rising quickly. "I was picking a special box for you, and now you can have a feast beside, just as you like it, fresh from the vines. Sit here, please, and I'll hull ...

— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey and a few brace of pigeons, by which time breakfast was ready. ...

— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... longer wonder at the power of which this organ is capable, although, according to Mr. Sanderson, its capabilities are much exaggerated; and he explodes various popular delusions concerning it. He doubts the possibility of the animal picking up a needle, the common old story which I also disbelieve, having often seen the difficulty with which a coin is picked up, or rather scraped up; but he quite scouts the idea of an elephant being able to lift ...

— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... the saddle and turning, with a proud little inclination of her head, was picking a way down the steep hill before he realized what had happened. He gazed after her, hoping at least that feminine curiosity would induce her to turn and look back, but ...

— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... just begun picking up the brooches, bracelets, diamond stars, coronets and bursting suns which illuminated the dressing-table firmament, when Bertie walked in again, through the door that he ...

— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... him contemptuously for a while, until the blade, getting courage at every pass, ventured a modest prick. Then he leapt out like a cat on a mouse, and caught the silly fellow such a grip of the wrist as sent his sword spinning on the deck. Picking it up, he quietly broke it over his knee into three pieces, which he pitched one after ...

— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... for the post-office, and were directed to a ranch building across the Paria River, a small stream which entered from the north, not unlike the Fremont River in size and appearance. Picking our way in the darkness, on boulders and planks which served as a crossing, we soon reached the building, set back from the river in the centre of the ranch. A man named Johnson, with his family, had charge of the ranch and post-office as well. Mail is brought ...

— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... Trollope, nor even—making all allowance for the sanative influence of counter-irritation—in the weekly malignity of that ex-Moral Minstrel whom the London "Times" has sent to the aid of our insurgent slave-masters. For, instead of gloating over objections and picking out what petty enigmas may not be readily soluble, Mr. Dicey has a manly, English way of accepting the preponderant evidence concerning the crisis he came to study. He seldom gets entangled in trivial events, but knows how to use them as illustrations of great events. It is really refreshing ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that the knowledge of Those Others was not for his race and in some way dangerous, gave him an uneasy feeling of guilt just to be standing there. Danger, danger which was far worse than physical, lurked there. And he could bring it to life by merely putting out his hand and picking up any one of those fascinating objects which lay only inches away. For the pull of curiosity was warring inside him against the stern warnings of ...

— Star Born • Andre Norton

... Outside was one electric lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose tree which bore ...

— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... Dick, beginning to bite his fingers, as he often did when studying some problem, "let's see. A good kicker might do two or three miles an hour, by picking out the water. Two good kickers might put her up to five, good conditions. Some days ...

— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... flowers." Shortly after midnight they rested for a half hour, but the dawn found them trudging along steadily, though somewhat wearily, and having about completed the third side of their square. Accordingly, they soon made a right-angle turn to the left, and had been picking their way over the rough ground for nearly two hours, with the sun already high in the sky, when they noticed a diminution of light. Glancing up, they saw that one of the moons was passing across the sun, and that ...

— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... parents told them about the days when slaves were bought and sold in the United States. Among these is one Mrs. Martha Neikirk, a daughter of an old Union soldier now deceased. Mrs. Rhuben Gilbert, Mrs. Neikirk's mother said that: "Once my mother and I were out in the woods picking huckle-berries and heard a noise as of someone moaning in pain. We kept going toward the sound and finally came to a little brook. Near the water was a negro woman with her head bent over to the ground and weeping as if her heart was broken. Upon asking her what had caused her agony she ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... have usually a very superior flavor. The raisin-making industry of California also depends on the same condition, because, in order to insure a good quality of the product, the bunches of grapes, after picking, must be dried on the ground. To a certain extent this is also true of other fruits, such as dates, figs, and ...

— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... the bag were then emptied on the floor. They consisted of fibre-rope clipped into short lengths. These had to be picked abroad. The work was light, but very monotonous. It did help to kill time, and it was less troublesome than picking oakum. Mr. Truelove tells me that they made him pick oakum in prison till his fingers were raw, and laughed at him for complaining. He was then seventy years old! Think of it, reader, and reflect on the tender mercies of the religion ...

— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... now aroused Lexington just as daylight was gray overhead, they were on the road to Ashland. If Red Springs might have proved poor picking, John Clay's stables did not. One sleek thoroughbred after another was led from the stalls while ...

— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... at a time, to be sure, but are constantly picking. This habit is also observable in the way the calf nurses. The first specimen of milk was procured on the morning of April 5, the second on the 9th, and the third on ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning. Tara ...

— Ulysses • James Joyce

... age, now around the lawn with its beds of bleeding-hearts and snowdrops, of wall-flowers and sweet-William, of hyacinths and tulips, with their borders of violets and cowslips, of candytuft and verbenas, and at the old sun-dial they stopped and read the hour. Picking an armful of lilacs and calicanthus and snowballs and blue flags, planted in the days when the great trees were tiny saplings, they sent them in by Gabriel, who was following at a distance, blowing softly on his trumpet, and for some minutes stood in front of the house ...

— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... just wondering to-day," said Angus thoughtfully, "if, while we go on picking up the men on the Jericho Road, we couldn't be doing something to keep the thieves from doing their evil work. There's Peter now. If we can't keep him away from the drink, don't you think we ought to try to keep ...

— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... book in his pocket. His latter effort had been to recover something of the sweetness of life, and not, as had been the poet's, to drain those dregs to the bottom. But when he got home he bade Mary tell him what Mr Lowlad had said in his sermon, and was quite cheery in his manner of picking Mr Lowlad's theology to pieces;—for Mr Whittlestaff did not altogether agree with Mr Lowlad as to the uses to be made of ...

— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... she was generally in a state of excitement—her words tumbled out almost too quickly for coherence. Her cheeks would burn, and her eyes sparkle, over such trivial circumstances as a walk down a country lane, as blackberry-hunting, as strawberry-picking—a new story-book kept her awake half the night—she was, in short, a constant little volcano in this quiet home, and would have been an intolerable child but for the great sweetness of her temper, and also for the fact that every one more or less ...

— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... snow dazzling. The coach, finally harnessed, was waiting at the door, while an army of white pigeons, ensconced in their white feathers, with their pink eyes spotted in the middle with small black dots, were walking leisurely between the legs of the six horses and picking their food from the steaming ...

— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... and chattered like a flock of blackbirds picking grain in a wheat field. To each head of a family was given six pounds of meat for each person. A father, mother and two children received twenty-four pounds. Their bread was never rationed. The barrel in each cottage was filled ...

— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... on the minds of the Montpellier students; and still more influence—and that not altogether a good one—must Rabelais's lighter talk have had, as he lounged—so the story goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of ...

— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... sliding body dragged them. The top of the desk is of polished wood; it is perfectly smooth; there are no crevices or anything of the sort to catch hold of anything. When the body slipped from it, it must have swept everything with it, cleanly. And yet," bending forward over the desk and picking up a minute red particle, "here, directly in the center, we ...

— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... been picking out tunes on his Pan's-pipes, also, he had lately discovered that, although he could not articulate, he could produce tones, and had taught himself to imitate the pipes. Now, to his delight, he had found that ...

— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... well said, Gervais," returned Yeux-gris, rising, and picking up his sword, which he sheathed. "That is very well said. For if you did not feel like promising it, why, I should have to begin over again with my ...

— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... servant for passing any of the dishes or wines; that is his business; but for any personal service, such as picking up a fallen napkin, or replacing a dropped knife by another, it is proper to return a murmured "Thank ...

— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... very soon afterwards. It is quite certain that I did not break my sword, for I had none to break. But I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword the idea is that he broke it in desperation. I bent my musket by accident. If General Cass went ahead of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it is more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitos, and although I never fainted from loss ...

— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... and more or less his little mind continued wandering until near six, when he fell into a sound sleep, and seemed better for it; and it was such a blessing there certainly was neither scarlatina nor small-pox, both which enemies had appeared on the northern frontier of Gylingden, and were picking down their two or three cases ...

— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... go now. He's getting on too: picking up strength. Don't let him talk too much, and don't mention a word about that ...

— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... their hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. It was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes (and I hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a cabbage leaf and there a turnip top, and rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. In their sty, moreover, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put ...

— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... grow up from infancy to manhood, and had prepared him for the Sacraments. His downfall had been a calamity; his return to the Faith would mean a triumph over the powers of evil. Thus did the car rush through the night, its bright headlights picking out the road in front of it; blackness around; the horn now sounding its deep note as they dashed past a township, while Father Healy was praying for ...

— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... tones: "Doctor, is it all right, is it perfect, has it got any birthmarks?" On being told that the baby has a round, red patch on its left brow, the ever-ready statement of the mother comes forth: "Yes, I knew I'd mark it, I was picking berries one day about three months ago, and I ate and ate, until I suddenly remembered I might mark my baby, and before I knew what I was doing, I touched my brow and I just knew I had marked my baby." Do you know, reader, ...

— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... goes over to the cottage. Floyd is not at home to be consulted, and she does not wish to blunder or to annoy him. She wins Marcia's favor to a certain extent, but her favor is the most unreliable gift of the gods. She has no mind of her own, but is continually picking up ready-made characteristics of her neighbors and trying them on as one would a bonnet, and with about the same success. While the rest of her small world is painfully aware of her inconsistency, she prides herself upon a wide range of mental acquirements. ...

— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... (Thirty years later my own children had their pony Grant.) In the country we children ran barefoot much of the time, and the seasons went by in a round of uninterrupted and enthralling pleasures—supervising the haying and harvesting, picking apples, hunting frogs successfully and woodchucks unsuccessfully, gathering hickory-nuts and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ...

— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... daughter; and now listen to me. I know that you are not very strong, and I think that a walk of two miles or more in this hot June sun, to say nothing of stooping for hours afterwards picking berries, exposed to its rays, would be more than you could bear without injury; and if you want strawberries to eat, you may buy just as many as you please, and indeed you can get much finer ones in that way than ...

— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money to his mother. If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he became frightfully surly. He would glare at his wife and children for a whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet, ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations. On the next pay-day, however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as he had succeeded ...

— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... were certainly all right, but not a word was intelligible. As he kept picking at his dress and pointing ...

— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... idle, like cats watching a rat-hole. At last Capt. Worden, who was there with his redoubtable monitor "Montauk," determined to destroy the privateer, despite the torpedoes and the big guns of the fort. He accordingly began a movement up the river, picking his way slowly through the obstructions. The fort began a lively cannonade; but Worden soon found that he had nothing to fear from that quarter, as the guns were not heavy enough to injure the iron sides of the little ...

— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... night, and the swarms of small birds destroyed an incredible quantity by day. These innumerable and ruinous pests do not consume the entire grain, but they nibble the soft sweet portion from the joint of each seed, neatly picking out the heart; thus the ground beneath is strewed with their ...

— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... too," said the captain as Jacob paused to light his cigar again. "I forgit how many emigrants went down on that ship, but I remember picking up on the beach next day a clay pipe, with a stem nigh a yard long, not even chipped. It seemed curious that a useless thing like that should be washed safe ashore and hundreds of human lives be lost. And there was the New Era—went down near Deal: three hundred emigrants drowned. The ...

— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... I am as fond of this Child, as though my Mind misgave me he were my own. He hath as fine a Hand at picking a Pocket as a Woman, and is as nimble-finger'd as a Juggler. If an unlucky Session does not cut the Rope of thy Life, I pronounce, Boy, thou wilt be a great Man in History. Where was your Post last ...

— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... dropped crimson leaves that floated away like fairy boats on its bright surface; and broad-winged butterflies floated, like tiny ships of the air, above the happy stream. And away it ran, prattling and chattering, and picking its way through moss-covered stones that lifted above its surface, and tumbling hastily down in little cascades, as though it were in a desperate hurry to get on in the world, and altogether misbehaving itself just as any madcap ...

— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... for him that day, he decided, when he had washed the few dishes and put them neatly away; and he wondered how wet Hall was and whether he had succeeded in picking up a deer. ...

— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... was an old woman Went blackberry picking Along the hedges From Weep to Wicking. - Half a pottle- No more she had got, When out steps a Fairy From her green grot; And says, 'Well, Jill, Would 'ee pick ee mo?' And Jill, she curtseys, And looks just so. Be off,' says the Fairy, 'As quick as you can, Over the meadows ...

— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... doubt about the fact. Her laugh reached the cook in the kitchen, who denounced Craddock the parlourmaid for not telling her it was Miss Nightingale, when it might have been a visitor, seeing no noise come of it. Cook remarked she knew how it would be—there was the doctor picking up like—and hadn't she told Craddock so? ...

— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get ...

— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... the sheets and picking out the watchwords of the new liberty, or glowing with enthusiastic admiration at the phrases or sentiments, most of the crowd "bought a couple as a souvenir"—some with the cute business instinct "that they'd be worth a fiver each some day, ...

— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard

... noted the exact spot where he was at the time, and also on which side of the road he'd tossed the stub; so I didn't have much trouble about picking it up; after which I continued on my way. Hugh, here ...

— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... behind the fourth at the northern side. Four drummers with small drums and an indefinite number of drummers around a large one, at a signal from the medicine-man in charge, who sings, begin drumming. The personated gods dance all about the circle, making motions with their sticks as if picking up and throwing something away, followed by blowing with the breath for the purpose of expelling evil spirits from their midst. While this is going on the fifth masker, Gauneskide, performs antics designed to amuse the audience. When the songs are finished the dancers depart in an eastwardly direction, ...

— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... ten tons of guano per annum, if he will undertake to "pick up bones" enough to furnish him the same amount of phosphates contained in that quantity of guano. Then if all who are now using it, would drop guano and take to bones, it would soon be found to be hard picking. Save all the bones and apply them to the soil, is a standing text with us; upon the same soil use all the guano your can procure and you will not need to pick bones—you will grow bones to pick. ...

— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... later pulled down a spray of the jasmine vine that festooned a window, as we see it in England but never here, and carefully cut off a cluster of its white stars by aid of a pair of the long, slender flower-picking scissors that hung from her belt by a ribbon, twisted the stems together, and placed them in Martin's buttonhole almost ...

— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... to suggest that it was just the hour when some of the workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley public-house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his chance of picking up details of useful information as to localities and household. He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on his road to the town they had quitted; he should take out his cheap newspapers and tracts; he should talk ...

— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... forth a second time upon their errand of mercy and charity. It was an hour at which in ordinary times all the city should be alive, the streets filled with passersby, wagons lumbering along with heavy freights, fine folks in their coaches or on horseback picking their way from place to place, and shopmen or their apprentices crying their wares from ...

— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... learning to walk. The baby tries day after day, and does not feel any strain, or wake in the morning with a distressing sense of "Oh! I must practise walking to-day. When shall I have finished learning?" He works away, time after time falling down and picking himself up, and some one day finally walks, without thinking about it any more. So we, in the training of our wills, need to work patiently day by day; if we fall, we must pick ourselves up and go on, and just as the laws of balance guide ...

— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... Hayden drew a long sigh. He had been enjoying it with that keen, pleasant appreciation, that boyish glow of enthusiasm which still remained with him. Then he turned his attention to the house and amused himself by picking out an occasional familiar face, and admiring the carefully dressed heads and charming gowns of the women about him, and the whole brilliant flower-garden ...

— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing ...

— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... it is," growled Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. "And it's an awful hard ...

— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... wash them,' said that little personage, picking up fat Andrew in her arms, while he retained his beloved crab's claw. 'Jeanie, would you carry Johnnie, he's not sure-footed, over the stair? Annaple, take Lorn's hand over ...

— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to romance was the abolishment of elections, and the appointment of officers. Instead of the privilege and pleasure of picking out some good-hearted, brave comrade and making him captain, the lieutenant was promoted without the consent of the men, or, what was harder to bear, some officer hitherto unknown was sent to take command. This was no doubt better for the service, but it had a serious effect on ...

— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... having hard work of it. Time and again he launched himself at the swaying legs, bringing the canvas man to earth, but always picking himself up to find the coach observing him very, very coldly, and to hear that exasperating gentleman ask sarcastically if he (Joel) thinks he is playing "squat tag." And then the dummy would swing back into place, harboring no malice or resentment for the rough handling, and ...

— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... in front of the Vice-Chancellor and the two Proctors. Then are these young men duly quizzed by the strangers present, especially by the young ladies, who, besides noticing their own friends, amuse themselves by picking out such as they suppose to have been reading men, fast men, or slow men - taking the face as the index of the mind. We may be sure that there is a young married lady present who does not indulge in futile speculations ...

— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... despairingly steps out, picking gingerly for some firm foothold; down goes one foot an immeasurable depth,—he tries to pull it up, loses his balance, and tumbles over into the mud, and is fished out, in a ...

— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... news came the word that he was the laughing stock of the football squad. He was the crudest, awkwardest, greenest candidate that had ever put in appearance on the Trumbull gridiron. No danger of his ever picking up the laurels won for the Billings family by the older brother! Judd was a joke. But though the grown folks smiled at the reports they remarked that people would have to give Judd credit. Something must have come over the boy ...

— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... cold, without; March shows the revival of field labours; April, a love scene among lords and ladies; May, a courtly festival; June, haymaking outside a fascinating city; July, sheep-shearing and reaping; August, the departure for the chase; September, grape-picking for the vintage; October, sowing seeds in a field near another fascinating city—a busy scene of various activities; November, beating oak-trees to bring down acorns for the pigs; and December, a boar hunt—the ...

— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... take advantage of what luck throws in my way," said Rattling Bill, picking up a rifle which must have escaped the observation of the plunderers who had ...

— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... apartment which Sir Walter greatly admired, and in which he lays the scene in the "Pirate" between Cleveland and Jack Bunce, but the lintel, a curious example of what, in the exercise of a little Irish liberty, is sometimes termed a rectilinear arch, defied his utmost efforts; and, after half-picking out the keystone, he had to give it up in despair. The bishop's palace, of which a handsome old tower still remains tolerably entire, also served for a quarry in its day; and I was scarce sufficiently distressed ...

— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of ...

— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... and white stocking, was just making its egress. "Oh, heavens!" said she, burying her face again in the downy pillows. Woman's curiosity, however, soon prevailed over all other feelings, and again looking out she obtained a full view of her mother-in-law, who, having emerged from the coach, was picking out her boxes, trunks, and so forth. When they were all found, Mr. Livingstone ordered two negroes to carry them to the side piazza, where they were soon mounted by three or four little darkies, Thomas Jefferson among ...

— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with ...

— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... wasn't," Danny Jones said desperately as the laughter started again. Some profs were like that, he thought. Picking on one student and making the rest of the class laugh and think what a great guy the prof was and what a prize dodo the hapless student was. "I said," Danny went on doggedly, "Columbus might not have been—maybe wasn't—the bold skipper the history books claim he was. I can't prove ...

— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder

... swung into a lane, its lights picking out the skeleton outlines of trees: peculiar trees—tall, gaunt, leafless. They added to Ted ...

— Old Rambling House • Frank Patrick Herbert

... the man, tightening up his lips as he pulled out his jack knife, before picking out of the biggest giant reeds, one of a tuft which towered up some five-and-twenty feet. Through this he drove his blade, the thick, rich, succulent grass yielding easily, and after keeping the wound open by the help ...

— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... could be better for a lad. But it was not calculated to make his ear fine to the niceties of language, nor form his moralities on an entirely regular standard. Picking up his first scraps of vigorous English chiefly at Deptford and in the markets, and his first ideas of female tenderness and beauty among nymphs of the barge and the barrow,—another boy might, perhaps, have become what people usually term "vulgar." But the original ...

— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... see everybody in our town was running around, getting fat jobs and positions, and picking up a million dollars or so, So I felt it incumbent on me To shake myself up, and see if there wasn't a good butter firkin, well filled, loafing around idle, in which could conveniently locate my centre of gravity, and ...

— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various

... chosen him for this service for two reasons. In the first place, because I know he will do it well, and even those who consider that I am rash and headstrong, admit that I have the knack of picking out good men. In the next place, I want to reward him for the service he has done for us. I cannot, at his age, make a colonel of him, but I can give him a chance of distinguishing himself in a service in which age does not count for so ...

— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... you'll think them old-fashioned. And, hang it, why shouldn't I give you something new, I ran across Ellie and Bockheimer yesterday, in the rue de la Paix, picking out sapphires. Do you like sapphires, or emeralds? Or just a diamond? I've seen a thumping one.... I'd like you ...

— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... without taking a degree, and entered at the Temple, where he lived gayly for some years, observing the humors of the town, enjoying its pleasures, and picking up just as much law as was necessary to make the character of a pettifogging attorney or of a litigious client ...

— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... night, when most of the ship's company were abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring the enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart, over a low hill, intending to go clear around the Piraeus, out of the range of its police. Picking our way so stealthily over that rocky, nettle-grown eminence, made me feel a good deal as if I were on my way somewhere to steal something. My immediate comrade and I talked in an undertone about quarantine laws and their penalties, but we found nothing cheering ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... on the main street of Comanche were the tents of the gods of chance. They were a hungry-mouthed looking lot that presided within them, taken at their best, for the picking had been growing slimmer and slimmer in Wyoming year by year. They had gathered there from the Chugwater to the Big Horn Basin in the expectation of getting their skins filled out ...

— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... and consequently there were no precedents to guide them. Neither was it known what attitude faculty would take in regard to such an affair. But a few choice spirits in the upper forms made tentative arrangements to the extent of picking out a likely spot in a corner of the athletic field for the fire and locating such loose material as might come in handy ...

— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... picking up claims dirt cheap," began a new orator, an ex-ranchman, who was soon to make the discovery that there was as much money to be lost in mines as in cattle, if a fellow only had the knack; "I saw a tidy little deal when I was up at the camp last ...

— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... across the rough cobble-stones to the chapel. Its floor was still heaped with farm-tools and dried vegetables, and in the dimness a heavier veil of dust seemed to obscure the painted walls. Odo advanced, picking his way among broken ploughshares and stacks of maize, till he stood near the old marble altar, with its sea-gods and acanthus volutes. The place laid its tranquillising hush on him, and he knelt on the step beneath the altar. ...

— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... made their way to the settlement at Gau- strau-yea. When they arrived, they saw only the eldest people, from about upwards of sixty-five years of age, and the younger children, from about fourteen years of age and under. While they were traveling they saw two boys picking up sticks for firewood. One of them asked the smaller boy where his father was. The bright little fellow spoke promptly and said, "Gone to war." Before the older boy could divert his attention by touching him, the little fellow finished his answer. This they took to be ...

— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... hand raised to give it pause, even as in the evil old days before the conception and foundation of the League. The journalists were as busy as, and more profoundly happy than, they would have been had the Assembly been running its appointed course. They ran about picking up clues, Marconi-graphing messages to their papers about the latest disappearances, the latest theories, the newest rumours. Each became a private detective, pursuing a lone trail. Other journalists flocked to the scene; where they had come in their tens, they now came in their hundreds, ...

— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... doe and a fawn, came picking their way cautiously along the edge of the gully, sometimes flattening their ears, sometimes necks outstretched, ears forward, peering ahead at the ...

— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... dawn, having failed to come in the night, the girl (another nayika, 'one who has been deceived') upbraids Krishna for wandering about like a crow, picking up worthless grains of rice, wasting his hours in bad company and ruining houses by squatting in them like ...

— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... hard chuck, chuck, when the old ones flew over them. A sun-bird, with bright scarlet throat and breast, had its nest on another branch, it was formed like the weaver's nest, but without a tube. I observed the dam picking out insects from the bark and leaves of the baobab, keeping on the wing the while: it would thus appear to be insectivorous as well as a honey-bibber. Much spoor of elands, zebras, gnus, kamas, pallahs, buffaloes, ...

— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... went to the fire, picking up brands and pushing the red coals right and left, until the wood burst out into brilliant flame. And all the time she was saying to herself, 'He will not have me,he does not want me.' But she came back to her place again without a word. Dr. Maryland looked on, pitying, ...

— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... old man put them down. In the midst of this he suddenly realized that the cart had disappeared. He rushed out, and down in the other yard found two men engaged in unloading the cart. For the second time today Lars Peter lost his temper. "See and get those things on to the cart again," he shouted, picking up his whip. The two men hastily took his measure; then without a ...

— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... laugh at me, Jimmy Plummer!" he exclaimed, picking on Jimmy as being the least warlike of the radio boys. "I'll make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth in a minute," and he started to dash past Bob to ...

— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... did you have to go up against the other man game, too? I seem to have been standing by with a basket picking up chips of Phoebe's lovers for a long lifetime; Tom, Hob, Payt, widowers and flocks of new fledges. But I had an idea that you must have been a first-and-only ...

— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... times when Thomas—as well as the two others—seemed to possess the power of divination. And during the whole of the dinner his manner showed distinct apprehension. The meal concluded, even to the use of the finger-bowl, and all dishes disposed upon the tray, he hung about, puttering with the table, picking up crumbs and pins, dusting this article and that with a napkin,—all the while working his lips with silent speech, and drawing down and lifting his black ...

— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... the proprietary trade," said the Doctor, picking his words carefully. "Most diseases cure themselves. Medicine isn't much good. Doctors don't know a great deal. Now, if a patent medicine braces a patient up and gives him courage, it does all that can be done. Then, the advertising inspires confidence in the cure and that's half the battle. There's ...

— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... the beautiful shining, slippery, dark brown, or piebald, polished fruit within; and also, when there were wet leaves on the ground, they gathered walnuts from out of the long tangled grass, and stained their fingers picking off the covering, which was mealy-green when it burst, and smelt nice; but the nut itself, when they came to it, was always surprisingly small. There were horrid mahogany-coloured pieces of liver put about ...

— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... proper, forsooth! Well, I have done as I thought proper. I unchained Mme. de Montpensier's monkey and threw him into the nursery, where he's scared the baby nearly into spasms. Toto carried the cloth-of-gold coverlet up on top of the tester, where he's picking it to pieces, the darling! They won't be back—you're safe for a while, my children. I'll keep watch for you. Make good use of your time. ...

— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... took ten days in making the journey, the time thus consumed being due to a southeast gale which accompanied the boats for the first seven days of the journey. There were various incidents, but nothing of the dramatic save the picking up and escorting of the big British liner Adriatic, and later the meeting 300 miles off the Irish coast of the brave little British destroyer Mary Rose, which had been sent out to meet the Americans. The Mary Rose, ...

— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... to the word, picking the terrapin as I would a crab and smothering the dainty bits in the hot sauce, until only two empty shells and a heap of little bones were left to tell the tale of ...

— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... was picking up the pen which for the second time had escaped the play of his trembling fingers, started violently and struck his head against the table. The absurd action attracting annoyed attention, he broke into a ...

— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... tried bathing at sunrise, but the water was not deep enough to swim in. So we had paddled around picking up "conches"—those great ornamental shells which house with such fanciful magnificence an animal something like our winkle, the hard white flesh of which, cut up fine, makes an excellent salad; that is, as old Tom ...

— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... which led to his own habitation for a certain distance, he then turned to the left, and carefully picking his way through the sharp cactus and Spanish bayonets along the face of the crag, he stopped at a yawning fissure which gaped open in the rock. Here, too, the same wiry vegetation had crept, and it was with great difficulty, and ...

— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... Picking up his rifle and bidding Alf take his gun, Mackintosh at once made a move towards that part of the bush where Bob had last been seen. Haggis and the dog Bannock quickly followed, and the former moved with all the quiet swiftness of a native who was used ...

— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march with the ...

— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... appointed, but when they saw their enemy coming they thought that he was bringing a sabre with him, for they mistook the outstretched tail of the cat for one. And when the poor beast hopped on its three legs, they could only think every time that it was picking up a stone to throw at them. So they were both afraid; the wild boar crept into the under-wood and the wolf ...

— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... prestige, and every servant might insult him, and every cur snap at his heels. Even the Gerusalemme, became an object of derision. It transpired that the revisers, to whom he had confided it, were picking the poem to pieces; ignoramuses who could not scan a line, went about parroting their pedantries and strictures. At the beginning of 1576 Tasso had begged Alfonso to give him the post of historiographer ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... way of indemnity! We are such a restless, unhappy lot, that I doubt whether it would not prove a good thing for us too. The workmen would lose nothing but the contemplation of our elegant persons, exquisite manners, and refined tastes. They might provide against that loss by picking out a few of us to keep for ornament's sake. No nation with a sense of beauty would banish Lady Brandon, or Miss ...

— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... latter contingency as well as the utter futility of persevering in the assault, that made a retirement imperative, and on the third night of the battle the exhausted men began their march back to the Jordan, picking up on their way the garrisons left at Shunet Nimrin and Es Salt, together with some hundreds of prisoners. A large proportion of the Christian inhabitants of the latter place who feared, with good reason, ill-treatment by the Turks, also joined the column ...

— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... The driver had been drinking and in his drunkenness he had thrashed the poor beast. ... "But he'll never thrash another horse, the same lad," said the man who told them of the circumstances. "He was pitched out on his head, an' he wasn't worth picking up when they lifted him. Killed dead, an' him as drunk as a fiddler! Begod, I wouldn't like to die that way! It 'ud be a quare thing to go afore your Maker an' ...

— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... walk," and picking up the spear of one of the fallen Umkulu to serve as a staff, she took Noie by the hand and started forward ...

— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... a pistol to his ear, and marched him before me into the town. "If you are minded to bolt," I said, "remember you have a charge of gunpowder lobbing below your chin. I have but to flash my pistol into it, and they will be picking the bits of ...

— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... perchance a rival had been here," and, picking it up, Charlie amused himself with putting it on the head of a little Psyche which ornamented the mantelpiece, softly singing as he did so, another ...

— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... pair of Redstarts," she said, "and they are picking up ants. I saw a number of little anthills ...

— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... fancy she was the victim of the passions of our general, and that it was from him that Captain Lebyadkin had suffered 'in his family dignity,' as he expresses it himself. Only perhaps that is inconsistent with his refined taste, though, indeed, even that's no hindrance to him. Every berry is worth picking if only he's in the mood for it. You talk of slander, but I'm not crying this aloud though the whole town is ringing with it; I only listen and assent. That's ...

— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... answered Bakunjala humbly and departed swiftly with the hornet in his clenched fist. Zu Pfeiffer smiled, again stared reflectively at the violet shadows creeping lazily across the square, sipped some brandy and picking up his book, began ...

— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... considered his, found his things packed, but went about shaving and changing his shirt and collar, regardless. I also feel sure that Lydia followed him upstairs to explain and impress upon him that Nita had meant what she said. And it is quite likely that she was not through picking up after him when he descended by the back stairs and surprised Janet Raymond on the front porch. That accounts, of course, for Lydia's not hearing the kitchen bell the ...

— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... had taught an ape dressed in woman's clothes to dance most ingeniously, the people took it for a woman, till one threw some almonds on the stage; for then the beast could no longer contain, but tearing off its clothes, went about the stage picking up its dainty fruit, and showed itself to be an ape. Occasions of vain-glory, ambition, pleasure, &c., are the devil's baits and prove who are Christians, and who hypocrites and dissemblers under so great a name, ...

— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... muscles are affected by the ataxia, further exercises are ordered for them, bending and twisting movements, picking up objects from the floor, etc. For the hands and arms, which, except in those very rare cases where the ataxia first shows itself in the upper extremities, seldom exhibit much incooerdination in the primary and middle stages, the movements are ...

— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... factory they began to suspect something. The women of the people, even the poorest, are so quick at picking a costume to pieces! When Madame Risler went out, about three o'clock, fifty pairs of sharp, envious eyes, lying in ambush at the windows of the polishing-shop, watched her pass, penetrating to the lowest depths of her ...

— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... of every description, for his own and others' works, cut by Bewick, be considered, though perhaps he may not rival our beloved naturalist, he may be counted among the indefatigably industrious. And amid all this he found ample time for reading and conviviality. I have seen him picking, chipping, and finishing a block, talking, whistling, and sometimes singing, while his friends have been drinking wine at his profusely hospitable table. At nights, after a hard day's work, he generally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... national hymn followed, and not till it had been played again and again, was the ballet suffered to proceed. During the bustle occasioned by this, a captain in the army was arrested and hurried out of the pit; some say for picking pockets, others for using intemperate language on politics, when the national hymn was called for. Meantime one of the midshipmen of our party had his sword stolen, adroitly enough, from the corner of the box, yet we perceived nobody enter; so that we conclude a gentleman ...

— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... "The Asinaeum," and thereby saved himself from utter penury, she was perfectly convinced, from her knowledge of character, that the illustrious MacGrawler would not long continue that protection to the rebellious protege which in her opinion was his only preservative from picking pockets or famishing. To the former decent alternative she knew Paul's great and jejune aversion; and she consequently had little fear for his morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for a while to chance. Any anxiety, ...

— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a little shanty built against a half-demolished brick wall. A gilt cage hung in the doorway, with a canary, singing beautifully. An old woman was working in the garden patch, picking out bits of brick and plaster the rain had washed up, digging with her fingers around the pale carrot-tops and neat lettuce heads. Claude approached her, touched his helmet, and asked her how one could find the ...

— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... evening (she was then about sixteen years of age) she was walking with her old nurse in the forest, not far from the Castle, picking bilberries, and singing to herself songs of her own composing. The wood was very still; not a leaf stirred. The setting sun shone out behind a beech-tree, making a brilliant star of iridescent colours that ...

— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... my first thought was for my camera. I saw it a short distance away, half buried in the sand. Picking it up, I was greatly relieved to find it uninjured, but choked with sand round the lens, which I quickly cleared. The impression on my body, caused by the concussion of the exploding shell, seemed as if the whole of one side of me had ...

— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... early in the discussion that interest is selective among our activities, picking out those which appear to be of the most value to us. In the same manner there must be a selection among our ...

— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... young man, tall, well-made, with a shrewd, good-humored countenance, and a ready, confident air about him. I had no trouble in picking him out as the amused Dicky. The other was a black-bearded giant, who followed stolidly in the wake ...

— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... but he had brought a lantern with him, and I could see him moving about the room, picking things up and putting them in a bag which he had brought with him. Every now and then he would stop and listen, and then he would start moving round again. He was very quick about it, but very quiet. It was plain that he didn't ...

— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... boat a string of fish lay, fine speckled fellows, to delight the palate of an epicure. She stooped and picking up the fish, walked across the ...

— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... up here?" demanded Godfrey, and David's uneasiness increased when he saw that his father was running his eyes over the bushes nearest him. He was picking out a good ...

— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... generally be found one or two particularly favoured with the art of the raconteur, besides several tolerable narrators." It is the narrators of the ancient tales "who compose the more recent stories by picking up the occurrences and adventures of their latest ancestors, handed down occasionally by some old members of the family, and connecting and embellishing them by a large addition of the supernatural, for which purpose resort is always had to the same traditional and mystic ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... unlike privet and grows or is made to grow like box to a height which can be conveniently picked over. The rows of neat-looking plants are half a dozen feet apart. The first picking may take place when the bush is three or four years old. Bushes may last forty, fifty or even a hundred years, but the ordinary life of tea is between twenty and thirty. A bush is usually cut back every ten years or so. A good deal depends on the ...

— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... and while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey and a few brace of pigeons, ...

— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... walked to the other end of the room, rearranged some violets in a copper vase and came back to the sofa again. Madame Frabelle followed her with her eyes. Then Edith said, picking up ...

— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... to the pastimes mentioned above as originating in military times must be added others bequeathed from previous eras. Principal among these was "flower viewing" at all seasons; couplet composing; chess; draughts; football; mushroom picking, and maple-gathering parties, as well as other minor pursuits. Gambling, also, prevailed widely during the Muromachi epoch and was carried sometimes to great excesses, so that samurai actually staked their arms and armour on a cast of the dice. It is said that ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... It unfortunately appens that, where the land is the most worked, and the roots the more broken thereby, the more the crop of weeds increases on the land. Therefore, the only effectual mode of extirpating plants of this nature, is by picking out the roots after the plough, or by digging them up at every opportunity by some ...

— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... acquaintance, whose accent, as well as the timbre of his voice, gave ample evidence that he belonged to another order of society than her own and that of the boys. So, hard though it was not to accede to his request and, at the same time, break the monotony of her journey with a few minutes of berry-picking with him in the fields, she made no move to leave the stage but answered the questioning look of the obliging driver with a negative one. Whereupon, the latter, after declaring to the young Californian that the stage was late as it was, called to his horses ...

— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... however, the two war vessels to which the Avon had been signaling came up. One of them fired at the Wasp, and as the latter could not fight two new foes, she ran off easily before the wind. Neither of her new antagonists followed her, devoting themselves to picking up the crew of the ...

— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... called his men to the dinghy, and they rowed him away through the fog. It was a touchy job, picking his way through that murk. He stood up, leaning forward holding to his taut tiller-ropes, and more by ears than his eyes directed his course. A few of the anchored craft, knowing that they were in the harbor roadway, clanged their bells lazily once in a while. Yacht tenders were making their ...

— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... fourteen feet long, with a proportionate lash. The operator sometimes found it convenient to stand when he made a cast with his fishing-rod weapon. He was an adept with it; capable, it seemed to me, of picking a fly off one of the ...

— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... of other people's psychology, is to be studied, where are you to stop? Why not study the peculiarities of the novelist who studies the novelist, of the reflector of life who reflects the reflector of life—nay, of the critic who reflects upon the reflection of the reflector? This modern mania for picking ourselves to pieces is only the old childish desire 'to see the wheels go wound.' People were much better in the old days when they didn't bother so much how their wheels went round. I always sympathised with the indignant old lady who came to my schoolmaster when our class began ...

— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... fine literary instincts, recognized a talent full of possibilities. This was in the late summer of 1862. Clemens walked one hundred and thirty miles over very bad roads to take the job, and arrived way-worn and travel-stained. He began on a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, picking up news items here and there, and contributing occasional sketches, burlesques, hoaxes, and the like. When the Legislature convened at Carson City he was sent down to report it, and then, for the first time, began signing his articles "Mark Twain," a river term, used in making soundings, ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... even as fair as—at hand, quoth the chamberlain; for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st ...

— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... is ripe, some will drop from the tree, and birds will be picking at them: But if you cut one of the greenest, and finde it as was shew'd you before of the Peare: then you may gather them, and in the house they will come to their ripenesse and perfection. For your Winter fruit, you shall know ...

— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... kinds of land on it, and he raised cane and oats and wheat and lots of corn and cotton. His cotton fields was the biggest anywheres in that part, and when chopping and picking times come he would get negroes from other people to help out. I never was no good at picking, but I was ...

— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... disappointed. Davenant could so easily have said, "I would." Nevertheless, she answered quietly, picking up the paper-knife that lay on the table and turning it this way and that as though studying the tints of the ...

— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... to see Mr. Richard Shackford, who always had a pleasant word for a body, go by in that blind, excited fashion, striking one fist into the palm of the other hand, and talking to his own self! Mary Hennessey watched him until he wheeled out of Welch's Court, and then picking up her basket, which she had rested on ...

— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... the men scattered in groups; some went down to the river to fill their canteens, others strolled through the vineyards picking grapes, and in spite of the fact that in many places the dead lay thickly together, a careless laugh was sometimes heard. The regiments which had not been engaged were at work bringing in the wounded, and Doctor Alexander and his assistants ...

— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... Jenny, come home from service. She walked round the room picking up things to examine, things to eat, things that she claimed were hers, and things that she desired given her. She talked without, so far as I could see, any connection between the sentences. Mouthfuls of food reduced her ...

— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... scandalized, let us be scandalized by the times rather than by the man. Upon what reasonable grounds can we demand that he should be different from his fellows; and if we find him no different, what right or reason have we for picking him out and rendering him ...

— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... opened to them. Whether the picture be found in nature and is to be rescued, as is the bas-relief from its enveloping mould, cut out of its surroundings by the four sides of the canvas and brought indoors with the same glow of triumph as the geologist feels in picking a turquoise out of a rock at which others had stared and found nothing; or whether it be found, as one of many in a collection of prints or paintings; or whether the recognition be personal and asks the acceptance ...

— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... While picking their way through the valley, they lost sight of the wavering column of vapor, except once or twice when they were able to catch a glimpse of it through the tree-tops. Jack's exclamation was caused by another sight of the murky column, which, as he suspected, ...

— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... had ranged from contempt, through curiosity, to protectiveness and affection. She got his heart first by being helpless. He began by picking up the things she let fall from her carriage or threw overboard and immediately cried for again. She had been human enough to do a good deal of that. When things cumbered her crib or her perambulator she brushed them into space and ...

— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... is necessary for us to part here. The ship in sight is English, and will take you up. I intend to speak her, and will take care that she knows where you are. By standing due east you will easily cut her off, and there cannot be a doubt of her picking you up." ...

— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... number of other slaves (he does not know the exact number) who were divided into two groups, the plow group and the hoe group. His father happened to be the foreman of the hoe gang. His brothers and sisters also worked here in the fields being required to hoe as well as plow. When picking time came, everyone was required to pick. The usual amount of cotton each person was required to pick was 200 lbs. per day. However, when this amount was not picked by some they were not punished by the ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... newspaper across the breakfast cup was also denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal—nothing at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be—if it ever were—a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills, perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and in verse which was homely, if not ...

— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... the net those ever-restless, ever-moving eyes, picking the openings in my never too- well guarded court, and know that against me is pitted the greatest tennis, brain of the century, is to call upon me to produce my best. That is what my match with Brookes meant to me, and still does ...

— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... was so large when held high and wide open that the reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of his paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the crowd moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then dropping his eyes to ...

— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Red Riding Hood rambled through the wood with child-like glee, stopping every now and then to listen to the birds that were singing so sweetly on the green boughs, and picking strawberries, which she knew her grandam loved to eat with cream, till she had nearly filled her basket; nor had she neglected to gather all the pretty flowers, red, blue, white, or yellow, that hid their sweet little heads amidst the moss; and of these her apron was at last so full, that she ...

— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous

... feeling, of attitudes that mirror forth the soul, declared itself a main passion; and it grew and strengthened, to the detriment of the other Art still so dear to me. With the patience of a cat before a mouse-hole, I watched and listened, picking one characteristic phrase out of hours of vain chatter, interested and amused by an angry or loving glance. Like the midges that fret the surface of a shadowy stream, these men and women seemed to me; and though I laughed, ...

— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... something which the former eagerly construed into an insult, and to which he replied by knocking him down. Tims had then interfered, and led Barton into another room, leaving Ginsling to stagger to his feet as best he could. The latter, after picking himself up, went to the wash-room and staunched the blood flowing from his nose, which Barton's blow had made more bulbous than usual, washed all traces from his face, and then left; but before he did so, he vowed he would ...

— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... the fire in the outer office, talking to Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall in his way. This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary recognised ...

— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... diphthong," sang the old hen, picking up a small pebble, and swallowing it, "he is big, and he wears a pair of ...

— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... followed meekly. Four hat boys from the check-room made the conventional scramble for his greatcoat, hat and stick, nearly upsetting him in their eagerness. Then Shirley led the way into the half light of the tropical, indoor garden, picking a way through the tables to a distant wall seat, embowered with ...

— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... of the Penobscot, or down the valley of the Bouquet. But here there are no forests to conceal the course of the stream. It lies as free to the view as a child's thought. As I follow on from pool to pool, picking out a good trout here and there, now from a rocky corner edged with foam, now from a swift gravelly run, now from a snug hiding-place that the current has hollowed out beneath the bank, all the way I can see the fortress far above me ...

— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... student through a day's history. Morning chapel begins at seven; and the gyp calls him at half-past six. In chapel, he commences picking up some knowledge of the powers that be, or the dons, as they are styled in the slang of the university. In general terms, they are the master ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... the current, carried the cable down stream, so the whole length ran out before the opposite bank was reached. The steamer "Melik" was the telegraph ship, and paid the cable out from a wooden reel placed on her stern quarter. A few days after the failure she was employed picking up the wire, most of which was recovered by Captain Manifold, R.E., who was the director of military telegraphs in the last as in the three previous expeditions against the dervishes. The recovered ...

— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... be sure that when we hear rapping it will be the spirits, and not the heels, which rap," she said. "Yes, I am contented now." And she added, with a smile, "Celie may even have her scarf," and, picking up a white scarf of tulle which Celia had brought down with her, she placed it carelessly round ...

— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... writer for the most part deals with small subjects in an unelaborate manner. He leaves the highways of literature, and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and along ...

— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... honored the advent of many a more illustrious worker than myself. Brought up on a farm and familiar from my earliest years with the avocations of rural life, spending the early spring-times in the maple-sugar camp, the later weeks in gardening and gathering stove-wood, the summers in picking and spinning wool, and the autumns in drying apples, I found little opportunity, and that only in winter, for books or play. My father was a generous-hearted, impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, ...

— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... up the slope, over rubble and ruts, avoiding the largest rocks. At last they reached the top, and the groundcar arrowed out over the desert again, picking up speed. ...

— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... doctor was standing by her; and Eliza was picking up fragments of the broken bottle. The smell of the spilled brandy reminded her ...

— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... Cambridge have left on my mind. I can remember the exact appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good capture. The pretty Panagaeus crux-major was a treasure in those days, and here at Down I saw a beetle running across a walk, and on picking it up instantly perceived that it differed slightly from P. crux-major, and it turned out to be P. quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or closely allied species, differing from it very slightly in outline. I had never seen in those old days Licinus alive, ...

— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin

... commotion in the breasts of the cow-boys who were in the employment of Mary's father and herded his cattle. Their mutual jealousies were sunk in the supreme danger that threatened them all, and they were only restrained from picking a quarrel with Dick and shooting him by the calmly resolute look in his brown eyes, coupled with his great physical power and his irresistible good-nature. Urbanity seemed to have been the mould in which the spirit of this man-of-the-sea had been cast and gentleness was one of his chief characteristics. ...

— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... closely, dubiously. The available channel was barely wide enough to pass, even with good luck. The breeze blew straight into the river and across the current, causing a confused welter of water that made the picking out of a passage doubly difficult. If the wind had weight enough to overcome the stream, and remained fair, the passage might be accomplished, given shrewd pilotage; but a very slight swerve from the straight and narrow course would place ...

— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... by which the Romans had gained access to the Temple stood wide, the captain turned into the Court of Israel, where some soldiers who were engaged in dividing spoil looked up laughing and asked him whose baby he had captured. Paying no heed to them he walked across the court, picking his way through the heaps of dead to a range of the southern cloisters which were still standing, where officers might be seen coming and going. Under one of these cloisters, seated on a stool and employed in examining the vessels and ...

— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... incorporate the several articles required for the salad, and to serve up at table as fresh as possible. The herbs should be "morning gathered," and they will be much refreshed by laying an hour or two in spring water. Careful picking, and washing, and drying in a cloth, in the kitchen, are also very important, and the due proportion of ...

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... blood-sucker," said Hanneh Breineh, pointing to the wizened child, made prematurely solemn from starvation and neglect. "Could anybody keep that brat clean? I wash him one minute, and he is dirty the minute after." Little Sammy grew frightened and began to cry. "Shut up!" ordered the mother, picking up the child to nurse it again. "Can't you see me take ...

— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... cautiously upstairs, motioned to Mona to make no sound, picked up various impedimenta, including books, vases, a statuette, and such things as he could find on the hall tables, added a good-sized rug, and then, also picking Mona up in his arms, he stealthily made his way downstairs again, and the ...

— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... had no notion what sheep were. They wanted to sit cross-legged on the floor, but Lucy made each of them sit in a chair properly; but then they shocked her by picking up the mutton-chops and stuffing them into their mouths ...

— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the small island shores, and during the winter make a good harvest picking up dead otters which have washed ashore. This happens in winter, because it is during severest weather that the otter freezes his nose, which means death. The pelts from these frozen animals, however, ...

— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... speed almost equal to one's own. He had the awkwardness of feeling, that, whether he would or no, he was obliged to intrude upon them. He noticed they were not walking near together; but when one is tramping and picking steps as best one can in mud that is hidden in darkness, it is, perhaps, more natural that two people on a wide road should give one another a wide berth. At any rate, for a minute all three were making their way through puddles ...

— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... conduct," was the prompt answer, "it's away up in the neighborhood of G. I've managed to hold the confounded world up for a living, ever since I left Pleasant Valley Township. Some of the time the picking has been better than at others; but my periods of starvation have been brief. By practicing on the 'Veterinarians' Guide' and other similar fakes, I learned how to talk to people so as to make them believe what I said about things, with the result, usually, of wooing the shrinking and ...

— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... scabbards, and throwing one at Arthur's feet, exclaimed: 'I have no wish to assassinate you. Defend yourself, and save your life if you can!' And as Arthur hesitated, and seemed to be trying to gain time instead of picking up the weapon that was lying on the floor near him, my brother struck him in the face with the flat side of his sword, and cried: 'Now will you fight, you coward! In an instant it was all over. Arthur caught up the sword, and springing upon my brother, disarmed him, and wounded ...

— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... cups and platters. Coconut shell and calabash rind, horn of ox and skull of enemy, bamboo-joint and capacious rhomb-shell, all alike, no doubt, supplied him with congenial implements for drink or storage. Like Eve in the Miltonic Paradise, there lacked him not fit vessels pure; picking some luscious tropical fruit, the savoury pulp he chewed, and in the rind still as he thirsted scooped the brimming stream. This was satisfactory as far as it went, of course, but it was not pottery. ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... recovered from his surprise, Hervey was picking his way along the rocky ledge at the base of the mountain, apparently oblivious to all that had happened, and intent upon a rambling quest for tracks. It was quite characteristic of him that he based his search upon no hint or ...

— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... the house. She must fly somewhere—anywhere—to escape the thoughts that were picking with sharp beaks at her aching heart. Half-way up the walk she turned and fled to a refuge she would not have thought of half an hour before to her ...

— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... me, you impertinent little hussy?" cried the old gentleman, interrupting her in the middle of her sentence; and catching her by the arm, he shook her violently; then picking her up and setting her down hard upon a chair, he said, "Now, miss, sit you there until your father comes home, then we will see what he thinks of such impertinence; and if he doesn't give you the complete whipping you deserve, ...

— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... stuck close together, but they soon separated, each picking out for himself what seemed to be choice places in the little wood. Yielding to the incessant firing the birds began to desert their roosts in great flocks until at last but few lingered on the ...

— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... have taken no end of pains with it, and it has been a matter of seven or eight hours a day lately. I mean the last few days. Rather too much. It knocked me off my sleep, and reduced "my poor back" to the consistency of pith. But I am picking up, partly by such gross material aid as bottled stout affords! and any amount of fresh air blowing in full draughts over ...

— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... "Heighho!" yawned Carroll Hamilton, picking up his long legs from the grass, "this is not making hay while the sun shines," and he proceeded leisurely to place a camp stool in position, erect an easel, and spread ...

— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... with small drums and an indefinite number of drummers around a large one, at a signal from the medicine-man in charge, who sings, begin drumming. The personated gods dance all about the circle, making motions with their sticks as if picking up and throwing something away, followed by blowing with the breath for the purpose of expelling evil spirits from their midst. While this is going on the fifth masker, Gauneskide, performs antics designed to amuse the audience. When the songs are finished the dancers ...

— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... I said, picking him up, feeling a certain comfort in his soft, solid body. "Stay ...

— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The window was so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not to see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant, picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating ...

— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... beautiful white paint and robin's-egg blue for the ceiling, and Betty told him it almost made one think of going swimming in the ocean. Next he began to talk about a shower bath. Betty told him what one was like and he began to spend more days down at the plumber's asking questions and picking up odd bits of pipe, making measurements, and doing queer things to an old colander for experiment's sake. The day that Warren Reyburn came for the first time Bob had the shower part finished and ready to erect, and the next ...

— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill

... bitter and violent speech, full of party hate and malice, endeavoring to prejudice the jury against the work by picking out bits of medical detail and making profuse apologies for reading them, and shuddering and casting up his eyes with all the skill of a finished actor. For a man accustomed to Old Bailey practice he was really marvellously easily ...

— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... next depot formed was at the western extremity of the Macdonnell Range, at the foot of a hill named by Ernest Giles, Mount Liebig. From this depot the party moved to the spot named by the same explorer, Glen Edith, and on their way augmented their live stock by picking up three bullocks that had been lost from Alice Springs, and apparently had started on an exploring trip by themselves. From King's Creek, their next depot, the leader made a long excursion to the south-west, and at eighty-four miles, after passing over sandhills and ...

— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... of the rain attracted her attention; she peered out through the blurred casements into the blackness. Then, picking up his cap and indicating ...

— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... All right!" said the porter, picking up his stool and going back to his place. "Ain't nobody killed yet. Guess we goin' to have peace now ...

— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope

... listen to me. I know that you are not very strong, and I think that a walk of two miles or more in this hot June sun, to say nothing of stooping for hours afterwards picking berries, exposed to its rays, would be more than you could bear without injury; and if you want strawberries to eat, you may buy just as many as you please, and indeed you can get much finer ones in that way than you could find in any field. You need not tell ...

— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... any speedy trail ahead of us today," Eddie vouchsafed cheeringly. "There's half-a mile maybe where we can gallop, and the rest is a case of picking your footing." ...

— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... together, and are not allowed to go with bad children, it is a great deal better for the boys and girls on a farm to be picking blackberries at six cents a quart, than to be wearing out their clothes in useless play. They enjoy themselves just as well; and they are earning something to buy clothes, at the same ...

— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... fearful passes so frequently to be found in the Allegheny Mountains, and which I have described so often that I may be excused from describing this. They went in, cautiously picking their way through this deeper darkness, and trusting much to the instinct of their mountain-trained steeds to take them safely through. An hour's slow, careful, breathless riding brought them out upon the other side ...

— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... the men were laughing, others growling, but all had their eyes fixed on Peterson and Donnelly as they came across the tracks, slowly picking their way, and shifting the weight a little, at every few seconds, on their shoulders. Bannon was glancing swiftly about, taking in the situation. He would not imperil his discipline by reproving Peterson before the men, so he stood for a moment, thinking, until the task should ...

— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... was standing near her in the gallery round the court-yard of the palace, Kantaka, having some business or other, passed through below us. Picking up a flower which the princess had dropped, I let it fall on his head; and when he looked up to see from whose hand it came, I managed to make the princess laugh at something which I said; and the conceited fool, thinking ...

— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... distance one from another, as to form natural pillars for our dwelling; we carried all our tools here; but as the day was far advanced, we delayed commencing our work till next day. We returned to the tent, and found my wife and her boys picking cotton, with which they made some very comfortable beds, and we slept peacefully under ...

— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... makes a striking picture. Mr. W., spare, erect, gray-headed, patriarchal, sits in his big chair by the odorous fire of pine logs and knots roaring up the vast fireplace. His driver brings to him the report of the day's picking and a basket of snowy cotton for the spinning. The hunter brings in the game. I sit on the other side to read. The great spinning-wheels stand at the other end of the room, and Mrs. W. and her black satellites, the elderly ...

— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... apply only to those who adhered, from a sincere preference, to one or to the other side. In days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, an useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish politicians, who transferred their support to every government ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... think there is really anything the matter with Aunt Tree?" asked Vesta. She had followed the young doctor out into the prim little garden, and was picking some late roses as ...

— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... chairs and tables, standing about in the little groups left by their late occupiers, still seemed to have a confidential air, as though they were telling each other interesting bits of news. She moved about with a preoccupied frown on her brow, picking up morsels of silk from the floor, rolling up strips of serge, and pushing back chairs and tables, until the room had regained its ordinary look. Then she stretched her arms above her head, gave a sigh of relief, and strolled out of the open French windows into the garden. The ...

— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... level can actually be raised. He can easily draw his own conclusions as to what eugenics does not propose. No eugenist worthy of the name has ever proposed to breed genius as the stockman breeds trotting horses, despite jibes of the comic press to the contrary. But if young people, before picking out their life partners, are thoroughly imbued with the idea that such qualities as energy, longevity, a sound constitution, public and private worth, are primarily due to heredity, and if they are taught to realize the fact that one marries not an individual but a family, the eugenist believes ...

— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... has a note of originality that is most conspicuous. Everybody admits that it is most beautiful, and very few seem to know just how this was accomplished. Many of the "small fry" of the architectural profession enjoy themselves in picking out its faults, which are really, as suggested above, the reason for its supreme beauty. Save for Mullgardt's court, it is the only building that seems to be based on the realization of a dream of a true ...

— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... some tall, gaunt old maid of a companion, with such a name!" she cried, raising her eyebrows and picking up her book again. "I think you will find the daisy a ...

— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... feather trade has obtained from three Frenchmen—Leon Laglaize, Mayeul Grisol, and F. Geay—a beautiful and plausible story to the effect that in Venezuela the enormous output of egret plumes has been obtained by picking up, off the bushes and out of the water and mud, the shed feathers of those birds! According to the story, Venezuela is full of egret farms, called "garceros,"—where the birds breed and moult under strict supervision, and kindly drop their feathers in such places that ...

— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... a case like this, could be as complete as that which is constantly presented in the New Court, the gravity of which is frequently disturbed in no small degree, by the cunning and pertinacity of juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some subject of her Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country—asserts that ...

— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... authority under———; to submit myself to all my Governors, Teachers, Spiritual Pastors, and Masters; to order myself lowly and reverently to all my Betters; to hurt no Body by Word or Deed; to be true and just in all my Dealings; to bear no Malice nor Hatred in my Heart; to keep my Hands from Picking and Stealing, and my Tongue from Evil-Speaking, Lying, and Slandering; to keep my Body in Temperance, Soberness, and Chastity; not to Covet nor Desire other Men's Goods, but to learn and labour truly to get mine own Living; and to ...

— The A, B, C. With the Church of England Catechism • Unknown

... had gone and they two stood by the fire and looked into it trying to see again the jungle scene he had pointed out to them in the bed of coals. But the jungle was gone; the vision had faded with the seer. And Godmother and Mary Alice began picking up the teacups and the toast plate, almost as if there had been ...

— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin

... with his lordship's retainers from the Lewis sailed into Lochewe. They were at once signalled to return to Stornoway, Seaforth waving them back with the jawbone of a sheep, which he was in the act of picking for his dinner, and in this way, it is said, was fulfilled one of the prophecies of the Brahan Seer, by which it was predicted "That next time the men of Lewis should go forth to battle, they would be turned ...

— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... care of Mr. Allworthy and Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones—who, according to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged—had been already convicted of three robberies—viz., of robbing an orchard, of stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's ...

— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... nonplussed. "May I have this?" she asked at last, picking up a bit of rag from a pile of things untidily heaped on a chair. Mrs. Lang, though, was gone, and did not hear her. Jessie looked at the rag, and pondered. At last, however, the temptation to wipe off some of the dust became too much for her, and she used it. "I can wash out the rag again," ...

— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... lines will be most amusing. A smooth course is not necessary, you probably won't have it at camp, and to get over the uneven ground, with the detentions of first dropping, then picking up the articles dropped, will add to the excitement of the sport. An entertaining variation of this will be to have those taking part in the race appear in impromptu costumes (worn over the ordinary dress) which ...

— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... that myself," said Kent, taking out a handful of the shining fruit, and deliberately picking the stems and dead leaves from the sticky sides, preparatory to swallowing it. "He hasn't had an attack since we thought those negroes and teams on the hills beyond Cynthiana ...

— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... setting down a cup she had just wiped, and picking up another, "the older I get, and the older my children get, the more I realize how little right a person has even to her own children. By the time they get—well—into high school they ...

— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson

... feathers erect, run round the bower and become so excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his bead; he continues opening first one wing then the other, uttering a low, whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking up something from the ground, until at last the female goes gently towards him." Captain Stokes has described the habits and "play-houses" of another species, the Great Bower-bird, which was seen "amusing ...

— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... of most large ropes, there is a straight, central part, round which the exterior strands are twisted. When in picking oakum, upon various occasions, I have chanced, among the old junk used at such times, to light upon a fragment of this species of rope, I have ever taken, I know not what kind of strange, nutty delight in untwisting it slowly, and gradually coming ...

— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... Sam won't think so," I answered, with a glance at the strong, broad back swinging so easily down the slope. "Now, Peter, we must go right along picking the peas. Sam must get those five barrels," I said, as I hastily scrambled up and began to pull ...

— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... engage those two men you spoke of. Neither of them, you say, under sixty! Well, there's no picking and choosing now. If they were eighty I should have to take them! till the harvest's got in. There are two girls coming from the Land Army, and you've clinched that other girl from ...

— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... my tonic and nobody's kidnapped the kids," he said. She hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one more look ...

— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... the party to cross the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united band, twenty-six in all, were relieved at length by the sight of a moving sail. It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some of the fugitives. He saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but such was their exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their armpits among the rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... apprenticeship; it would have been useful to me, and I was always ashamed of what was useful. I have felt, as it were, a scruple against trying to surprise the secret of the masters of literature, against picking chef-d'oeuvres to pieces. When I think that I have always postponed the serious study of the art of writing, from a sort of awe of it, and a secret love of its beauty, I am furious with my own stupidity, and with my own respect. Practice and routine would have given me that ease, lightness, ...

— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... exclaimed. "My father never stole anything. They're just picking on him because he's a foreigner and can't talk as well as ...

— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart

... mass that is cut off when the aforesaid ice breaks away from the land, soon slips its bonds and bars, though it be made fast with ever so great joins and knots. The mind stands dazed in wonder, that a thing which is covered with bolts past picking, and shut in by manifold and intricate barriers, should so depart after that mass whereof it was a portion, as by its enforced and inevitable flight to baffle the wariest watching. There also, set among the ridges and ...

— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... same remark numberless times before, its effect was not startling. In silence she went on picking out ...

— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... uses; from China it sounds the "call for prayer," and lo, the Book of Dividends opens at the right text. Were Bull ever caught in the act, and put from the trade of international opium-dosing to that of picking oakum and the treadmill we should hear him exclaim, as he went out of sight, "Behold me weaving the threads of democratic destiny as I climb the ...

— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... of average Americans would have been in a city of that size and remoteness. The stevedores who were putting the freight aboard were men of leisure; they joked in a kindly way with the orange-women and the old women picking up chips on the pier; and our land of hurry seemed beyond the ocean rather than ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... night, or nearly always. You couldn't see that company, but I don't know whether the silver tabby could. Who can tell how much a cat sees, anyway? Nor do I think the company could see her, she being still, and wild eyes not being good at picking out the still form. Neither could they hear her, for she said nothing; neither did she purr. They must have smelt her, though. Anyway, she seemed to be a little island in the mist—the faint, faint, ethereal dew-mist—where ...

— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... 86. Picking up for support (1) ears of corn and (2) individual grains, left on the field by husbandmen after they have gathered and carried away the sheaves, are called the Sila and ...

— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... suh, co'se not." And Chad climbed out and the old negro followed him with his eyes. He did not wholly approve of his master's picking up an unknown boy on the road. It was all right to let him ride, but to be taking him ...

— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... case Don Pedro allowed it to drop. As he made no motion of picking it up, Hervey, although annoyed with himself for his politeness towards a yellow-stomach, as he called De Gayangos, was compelled to stretch for it. As he handed it back to Don Pedro, the Peruvian's eyes lighted ...

— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... ten men,' and with that he fires two rifles at the twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their heads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks them, and then he lifts them ...

— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... guide why we were quartered so far from the guardroom he replied that the custom of the older members of the guard of picking quarrels with aspirants to try their metal had resulted in so many deaths that it was found difficult to maintain the guard at its full strength while this custom prevailed. Salensus Oll had, therefore, set apart these quarters for aspirants, and here they were securely locked against the ...

— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... would be!" said Gloomy, picking himself up and speaking in an injured tone, as though he blamed everybody ...

— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... or any one man, would be like picking out one star in the Andromeda nebula. Not impossible. ...

— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... and turned around, picking up his range hat, an example followed by Nort. The latter had opened his pocket knife, which contained a large, keen blade, and, a moment later, a right-angled cut was made in the back wall of the ...

— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... 7 we reached a landmark for which Mikouline had been searching in some anxiety, the Bolshaya-Reka or Big River. All that day we had been at sea, picking our way through mountainous bergs and hummocks, some quite sixty feet in height, while the sleds continually broke through into crevasses concealed by layers of frozen snow. On the right bank of this river we found a deserted ...

— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... was this pleasant ritual. She would plod all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she looked around the ugly sitting-room and saw ...

— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... favour by embarking himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord's ears), and oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they ...

— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought under our immediate eye, ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... up tomorrow morning. But after they've been shown, I'll hand them over—and in the meantime you can rely on it that they'll be taken care of—rather! Well, now, here's the missing ring! Hyde, you know, admitted to picking up one—this is the other, without doubt. And—there's the fifty-thousand-pound diamond. Of course, Cortelyon robbed Ashton after he'd killed him as a piece of bluff—what he wanted was these papers. He evidently gave Cave, or Starr, his accomplice, certain of the ...

— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... of the hill and saw boulders there he could use to build the monument. They were large—he might crush Tip against his chest in picking them up—and he took off his jacket, to wrap it around Tip and leave him lying on ...

— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... to them by what methods innocent people are drawn in, plundered and robbed, and by consequence how to avoid them. Her robbing a little innocent child, dressed fine by the vanity of the mother, to go to the dancing-school, is a good memento to such people hereafter, as is likewise her picking the gold watch from the young lady's side in ...

— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... hand of Winter he attacked the masonry, striking here, picking there, until, having loosened a goodly portion of cement, he caught up a heavy crowbar, and inserting its point into the narrow opening, bore down upon the iron with all his strength and the block of stone, freed from its fastening, was detached and fell with a dull crash ...

— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... we start?" I asked him, as he lounged in the yard gazing at our turkey poults picking and running in the sun to the tune of their father's gobble. "Your horse was greatly foundered, sir, and is hardly fit for the road to-day; and Smiler was sledding yesterday all up the higher Cleve; and none of the rest ...

— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... short time we had come-to, and a boat's crew had succeeded in picking up and bringing all the poor people on board. Among them was a wizened old woman, upon whom all sorts of kind attentions were naturally lavished by the ship's company. She could not be persuaded to go into a cabin after she had recovered from the shock and ...

— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... was "weak" about the fair Persian is to take a very favorable view of his devotion to her; but dear mamma said it was "quite ridiculous to make such a fuss about a kitten"—and never herself lost a chance of picking it up and fondling it in her arms. The rest of the family were described by their cousin Charley, who lived over the way, as "sunk in the Persian superstition," and even as "addicted to nigger worship"—an ...

— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... choose. He would take them as they came. He had not stipulated with himself that she must be a "drab." It was only what he hoped. She must be the first woman he met who would marry him. Age, appearance, refinement, vulgarity were not to be considered. Picking and choosing on his part would only take his destiny out of the hands of Fate, where he preferred that it ...

— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... actually upon the fields. They permitted the natives to steal by night, and the swarms of small birds destroyed an incredible quantity by day. These innumerable and ruinous pests do not consume the entire grain, but they nibble the soft sweet portion from the joint of each seed, neatly picking out the heart; thus the ground beneath is strewed with their ...

— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... in the garden picking some currants to sell the following morning. He was hard at work, and his coat lay upon ...

— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... to the door and slid past, picking a hole between the burly door-tender and a rather uppish young substitute who C. R. D. ardently hoped ...

— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... "Randy, would you mind picking a few pods of okra for the soup? Susie is so busy and Bob and Jefferson are both ...

— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... leaping along, and whole flocks of wild-fowl flew over the cairn, where blackberry-bushes were hanging round the old stones. The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers. Nothing could ...

— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... And the song pours along, From the reapers in the dell, Joyous throng! The tiny gleaners come, Picking up their harvest home, As they o'er the stubble roam, Dancing here, sporting there, All the balmy sunny air Is full ...

— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... crash and a shock, and fell backwards to the ground. I was not hurt, and picking myself up saw that the ball had struck the parapet to the left, just where my guard was sitting, and he lay covered with its fragments. His turban lay some yards behind him. Whether he was dead or not I neither ...

— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... knew perfectly well what these shrieks and apostrophisings were worth. He was not put out, he smiled maliciously, and called with a rough voice to his brothers in arms. What confusion! What terror among those merry daughters of the wood as the sons of Mars approached in a closed line! Without picking up their mantillas, gloves or parasols, nothing, in short, that belonged to them, they fled through the plantation uttering cries of terror. But the satyrs in red trousers willingly followed them, ...

— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... her light and sat down by the window. The night was breathless; not a leaf of the elm trees quivered. She heard the Rothel picking its way down the rocky channel of The Gore. She gave herself up to thought, far-reaching both into the past and the future. Soon, mingled with the murmur of the brook, she heard her son's quiet measured breathing. She rose, walked noiselessly down the ...

— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... Filch. I am as fond of this Child, as though my Mind misgave me he were my own. He hath as fine a Hand at picking a Pocket as a Woman, and is as nimble-finger'd as a Juggler. If an unlucky Session does not cut the Rope of thy Life, I pronounce, Boy, thou wilt be a great Man in History. Where was your Post last Night, ...

— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... relished this catechism, and resolved to end it. Picking up her books, she said to Mr. Hammond, who now stood ...

— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... of bondage will never become the law of liberty, but each one of us may come away into this perfect law of creative thinking as soon as we teach ourselves the simple act of picking out thoughts that relate us with the higher things of life. The kinds of positions, friends, conditions and environment we attract to ourselves under the positive conscious relationship are entirely different from the ones we will ...

— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... to the minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing up ...

— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... from the highway, with pillars of stone each surmounted by a couchant leopard carved in the stone. Now these gates were of iron, very lofty and strong and fast shut, but besides these was a smaller gate or postern of wood hard by the gatehouse where stood a lusty fellow in fair livery, picking his teeth with a straw and staring at the square toes of his shoes. Hearing me approach he glanced up and, frowning, shook his head and waved ...

— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... Duke of Grafton was a German of the name of Imhoff. He called himself a Baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The Baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman, who, born under the Arctic circle, was destined to play the part of a Queen under ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nothing! it's a picture; the portrait of that scoundrel Cabrion! Look, see how I stamp upon him!" and Anastasia, in her indignation, threw the picture on the ground, and trampled it under her feet, crying, "That's the way I would like to treat his flesh and bones, the wretch!" then picking it up, "see!" said she, "now it ...

— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... extra horses; that you knew that I often made flying visits to the vineyards, and you thought I wanted to see some proprietor of Medoc, on business, and to return as quickly as possible; and were much surprised when you saw that madame went with me. Do not say anything about our picking up my ...

— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... sixteenth century. The ground was a delicate yellowish-gray, with an initial letter worked in various colors over it. Mr. ——, of Bond Street, knew that Brand had often amused his idle hours abroad in picking up things like this, chiefly as presents to lady friends, and no doubt thought they would be welcome enough, ...

— Sunrise • William Black

... is the one who did it," laughed the forest-keeper. "She was so angry at the birds for picking out her sweet corn that she made scare-crows to frighten them away, and she found nothing which served her purpose so well as did ...

— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... me but a piece. You know what is behind you, but you have no knowledge of what is before you.' And picking up the tobacco in his ...

— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... her hopes she found Anthony yet in the saloon. Sitting in his arm-chair at the head of the table he was picking up some business papers which he put hastily in his breast pocket and got up. He asked her if her day, travelling up to town and then doing some shopping, had tired her. She shook her head. Then he wanted to know in a half-jocular way how she felt about going away, and for a ...

— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... to know—which has passed into common knowledge through the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or polishing his lines; but it is also true that he read widely and studied diligently, in order to prepare himself for an outpouring of verse, and that so far from being a superficial observer or inaccurate recorder, his authority is worth quoting ...

— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... rode off slowly, picking his way through the throng much more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had done, though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used some singularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as though every ...

— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... not disturb another. And nones shall be said rather early, about the middle of the eighth hour; and again they shall work at what is necessary until vespers. But if the exigency or the poverty of the place demands that they shall be occupied by themselves in picking fruits, they shall not be cast down; for then they are truly monks if they live by the labor of their hands, as did also our Fathers and ...

— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... the ashes revealed nothing. He set to work more carefully then, picking them up by handfuls, examining and discarding. Within ten minutes he had in a pile beside him some burned and blackened metal buttons, the eyelets and a piece of leather from a shoe, and the almost unrecognizable nib of ...

— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... get out of the house. He hastily jerked on the most important part of his costume, unfortunately wrong side before, and jumped out of the window. His friend ran to the window and exclaimed, "Are ye kilt, Mike?" Picking himself up and looking himself over by the light of the street lamp, he replied, "No, not kilt, Pat, but I fear ...

— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... sorry to go myself, after I've seen these twins," replied the driver. "We don't very often see children out here. It's too lonesome for 'em. But I just have to go. As for another foreman, why, I guess you won't have any trouble picking one up. Any of the cowboys will act as foreman until ...

— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... all kinds to be very tenacious of life, especially the common large gull. One case of this occurs to me as I write. I fired at a gull and brought it down on the rocks; but it was only winged, and picking it up, I wrung its neck, and flung it down, thinking it was dead, but in a couple of minutes it gave such signs of returning animation that I put the butt of my gun on its neck, which was upon the hard ...

— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... 1878.—Glistening sun today, with slight haze, warm enough, and yet tart, as I sit here in the open air, down in my country retreat, under an old cedar. For two hours I have been idly wandering around the woods and pond, lugging my chair, picking out choice spots to sit awhile—then up and slowly on again. All is peace here. Of course, none of the summer noises or vitality; to-day hardly even the winter ones. I amuse myself by exercising my voice in recitations, and in ringing the changes on all the vocal and alphabetical ...

— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... one or two according to his pack, for this chief excellence, that they would eat potato parings and firewood. He had owned a horse in the foothill country, but when he came to the desert with no forage but mesquite, he found himself under the necessity of picking the beans from the briers, a labor that drove him to the use of pack animals to whom ...

— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... very pleasant to dally about the pond on a mild April morning. While the Urchiness mutters among the violets, picking blue fistfuls of stalkless heads, the Urchin, on a plank at the waterside, studies these weedy shallows which are lively with all manner of mysterious excitement, and probes a waterlogged stump in hope to recapture Brer Tarrypin, who once was ours for a short while. Gissing ...

— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... aloud in his excitement, as he stood hammering away at the door, which the old woman was not very prompt in opening. At last he opened it himself, and came stamping into the room. The widow was sitting on a bench by the stove, picking wool. She had not heard his knocks, and she stared at him with amazement. He explained how he came by the letter, but she was too deaf to understand him. Then he held the letter close under her eyes, and ...

— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri

... Torbert, dropping into his seat and picking up his oyster fork, "and I am somewhat at a loss to describe it. I don't think he was lame, or wooden-legged, or afflicted with any hip trouble. As I recall the step now, it seems to me that it was merely a habit. I think he took a long and then a short step, long ...

— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... on, "you certainly are thin. But about Bill. I am afraid you are going to be a little upset about Bill, Kirk. Aunt Lora has no tact, and she will make a speech on every possible occasion; but she was right just now. It really was rather dangerous, picking Bill up like ...

— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... little cunning. Every day and night the tide ebbed and flowed, and every tide left its contribution in windrows of dead herring and caplin, with scattered crabs and mussels for a relish, like plums in a pudding. A wolf had only to trot for a mile or two along the tide line of a lonely beach, picking up the good things which the sea had brought him, and then go back to sleep or play satisfied. And if Wayeeses wanted game to try his mettle and cunning, there were the big fat seals barking on the black rocks, and he had only to cut between them and the sea and throw himself upon ...

— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... open air, with blouses loose to the breeze, have become so weatherbeaten by the wind, the rain, the frost, the snow, the fog, and the great sun, that they end by looking very much like the old statues of cathedrals. They are all friends of mine, and I scarcely ever pass by their boxes without picking out of one of them some old book which I had always been in need of up to that very moment, without any suspicion of the ...

— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... booming on the bay, and when Susan joined the little stream of persons filing toward the dock of the great Nippon Maru, fog was already shutting out all the world, and the eaves of the pier dripped with mist. Between the slow-moving motor-cars and trucks on the dock, well-dressed men and women were picking ...

— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... nature had intended him to be." As his health failed he grew to depend upon her more and more, and there was between them an interchange of much friendliness and many little jests. A rather amusing thing happened once when the two were together in London picking out furnishings for the house he had bought for her at Bournemouth. One afternoon they dropped in at a hotel for tea. It had been ordered by the doctors that he should have bicarbonate of soda in his tea, which it seems he did not like if he saw it put in, but ...

— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench; and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's Christmas gift. With a great lump in his throat and his eyes wet he ...

— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple

... of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief, and Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Tibo. The fire also threw out a fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan lurked, picking out his light brown body from the surrounding darkness. Momaya saw him and knew him. With a cry, she leaped forward and Tarzan came to meet her. The other women, turning, saw him, too; but they did not come toward ...

— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... now," said he, "what's to pay?" The waiter, who looked very angry, but appeared too much afraid of the sailor to say anything, answered fourpence; and the sailor pulled out a handful of banknotes, mixed up with gold, silver, and coppers, and was picking out the money to pay for his beer, when the coachman, who was impatient, ...

— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Persons who practice the fraud of dropping a ring or other article, and picking it up before the person intended to be defrauded, they pretend that the thing is very valuable to induce their gull to lend them money, or to purchase the article. See FAWNY ...

— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... as quiet as possible, picking my teeth with the point of my knife, for the steaks were rather tough, you may guess. The little bears, playful like, were running about round me, while the old bear was grumbling away outside, thinking maybe that his ...

— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... which marked its suppression by that great master of discipline, Jervis, in the fleet off Spain. On his own ship and another, Duncan drew up the loyal marines under arms, spoke to the sailors, and won their allegiance, picking one troublesome spirit up bodily and shaking him over the side. But the rest of the squadron suddenly sailed off two days later to join the mutineers at the Nore, where all the ships were then in the hands of the crews. With ...

— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... hand, and picking up one of Emma's suit cases, Grace set off up the stone walk followed by Emma. As she advanced there rose from the steps and came to meet her ...

— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... arrested a man for picking pockets near the Elephant and Castle. One hand was bandaged, but the prisoner was unwilling to say what was the matter with it. Soon the reason of his reluctance ...

— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... a position opposite me at the table, he reached to take my writing out of my hand; seeing which I quickly bent down one corner of the paper and gave it to him. He directed one sharp glance at me as I did this, at the same time picking up an envelope from the table with his other hand. He held this envelope open flap side toward me, and slowly inserted my paper into it. As he did this, looking sharply at me, he remarked, "I am no sleight-of-hand performer. ...

— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... the tailor engaged in picking out the scraps and cutting them to fit the holes I had made. Zenobia looked on in a kind of stupor, and when she saw me begin to slash the dresses she turned pale and made an involuntary motion to stay my hand, for not knowing my intentions she thought I must be beside myself. ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I am able to dig wells as well as a man. I do this day-times and take in washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family in a precarious ...

— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... the end of it. He fought the savages after their own fashion, retiring to cover after the first onset, and fighting singly, rifle in hand, officers and men alike, from the commander down, becoming sharpshooters for the time, and picking off the Indians like born frontiersmen. And the battle was a victory, a brilliant success, in that it inflicted a terrible punishment on the Nez Perces, strewed the valley with dead Indians, and sent the crippled remnant of the band fleeing to the mountains. General Gibbon is a shrewd and ...

— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... that time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice—for my greatest skill has been to want but little—so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly ...

— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... did this poor woman live In unparticipated solitude. 25 Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude Picking the scattered remnants of its wood. If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve. The gleanings of precarious charity Her scantiness of food did scarce supply. 30 The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt Within her ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... my mouth shut!" She began moving about the room, picking up her belongings. "I'm going to saddle my horse and go to the post right now, and the facts of your bloody business will be in ...

— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... the generation to which it belonged, and with which it has passed away. Hogarth's idle apprentice is hanged; but the whole scene—with the unmistakable stout lady, drunk and pious, in the cast; the quarrelling, blasphemy, lewdness, and uproar; Tiddy Doll vending his gingerbread, and the boys picking his pocket—is a bitter satire on the great example; as efficient then, ...

— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... had touched Mr. Sleighter's favourite theme. Indeed, the absorbing passion of his life, next to the picking up of good salvage bargains, was his home in the Foothill country of ...

— The Major • Ralph Connor

... boat overside, and she was lowered into the sea as lightly as though she were a featherweight. Meanwhile Ensign MacMasters was assigned to her command and he had the privilege of picking his crew to ...

— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... he rejoined with a wan smile, "you've been picking up information ever since you fell acquainted with me here. I can count a dozen new experiences you've mentioned already. If you go on like this always, you'll know everything ...

— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... backbone was trade, bought in the cheapest market. Hence the Quota Man, consisting as he generally did of the offscourings of the merchant service, was seldom or never worth the money paid for him. An old man-o'-war's-man, picking up a miserable specimen of this class of recruit by the slack of his ragged breeches, remarked to his grinning messmates as he dangled the disreputable object before their eyes: "'Ere's a lubber as cost a guinea a pound!" He was not far out ...

— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... can understand why selection of the largest seed raises the average weight in the next generation. We are picking out more of C and less of A and B, and as this process is repeated the proportion of C gradually increases and we get the appearance of selection {163} acting on a continuously varying homogeneous material and producing a permanent ...

— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... been denounced against all who should hold intercourse with him. A youth, the cho-alt (foster brother) of Allan Cameron, had repeatedly, under the assumed character of a wandering hunter, entered within the precincts of Glen Feracht, where he was unknown; and, picking up all the information that could be obtained, without awakening suspicion, returned with it to ...

— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... parts of the Continent—as Lubra, Gin, Nungo, etc., are for woman. No doubt these natives carry water in wallaby or other animals' skins during their burning hunts, for they travel great distances in a day, walking and burning, and picking up everything alive or roasted as they go, and bring the game into the general camp at night. We passed through three different lines of conflagrations to-day. I only wish I could catch a native, or a dozen, or a thousand; it would be better to die or ...

— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... He did not even notice her. He contented himself with picking up her traveling-bag that had fallen to the floor and taking from it the jewels, purse, and gold and silver trinkets that it contained. The lady opened her eyes, trembled with fear, drew the rings from her fingers and handed them to the man as if she wished ...

— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... merry one. It may be amusing, it may be tragic," was the man's reply. "We're picking up May ...

— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... knobbed stick in the copse half a mile away or bathing in the lake? We had to jump down with a run; and then came the difficulty; for black dusty cobwebs, the growth of fifty years, clothed us from head to foot. There was no brushing or picking them off, with that loud whistle repeated every ...

— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... the Germans drew closer, the rapid firer became silent, for, without risking the lives of Germans as well as French, it was of no value now. At the same moment the heads of the defenders again appeared at the windows and renewed the work of picking off the Germans ...

— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... thing to see Mr. Richard Shackford, who always had a pleasant word for a body, go by in that blind, excited fashion, striking one fist into the palm of the other hand, and talking to his own self! Mary Hennessey watched him until he wheeled out of Welch's Court, and then picking up her basket, which she had rested on the fence, went ...

— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... Tish had lifted a small rifle into position and was standing, with her feet apart, pointing it at a white target hanging by a string from a rafter. As she gave the signal. Hannah sighed, and, picking up a broomhandle, started the target to swaying, pendulum fashion; Tish followed it ...

— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... shop there are many carefully dressed ladies, daintily holding little plates, and going about from one counter to another, picking up little cakes filled with cream and soaked in syrup. They eat scores of them, and they do it every day and any hour of the day, in the morning or afternoon or whenever they happen to pass. No ...

— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... banter. Raillery is a difficult thing to manage well, and very apt both to give pain to him who is the object of it, and to reflect discredit on him who attempts it. Sometimes you see one or two young men, of more liveliness than sense, picking out some quiet person in company as a butt, at which they may point their wit, and carrying on an attack of banter and ridicule. This is, probably, not only annoying to him, but tiresome and painful to all the right feeling men who ...

— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... he ain't no better than a brute, he ain't. I 've hunted two days for 'em; and I 'll hunt till I find 'em." And he disappeared into the woods, on my side of the road, upon a quest so utterly futile, apparently, and so entirely counter to the notion I had had of the man, that I stopped my picking and followed him up the ridge, just to see which way a man would go to find a den of suckling foxes in all the miles and miles of swamp and ledgy woodland that spread in every direction about him. I did not see which way he went, for by the time I reached the crest he had gone ...

— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... the royal grant be passed, That the club have right to dwell Each within his proper cell, With a passage left to creep in, And a hole above for peeping. Let them when they once get in, Sell the nation for a pin; While they sit a-picking straws, Let them rave at making laws; While they never hold their tongue, Let them dabble in their dung; Let them form a grand committee, How to plague and starve the city; Let them stare, and storm, and frown, When they see a clergy gown; Let ...

— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... advance was covered by three mountain guns. The men were deployed in an extended line at the foot of the hill, and began a careful ascent, taking advantage of every scrap of cover available, the Ghilzais picking them off with deadly certainty whenever they got the smallest chance. About two-thirds of the way up Alla Dad Khan was bowled over and lay out in the open dangerously wounded, under the full brunt ...

— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... soon melted, and then a brush was needed to apply it to the boat. This was procured by cutting off a little strip of canvas, about a yard long and six inches wide. By picking out some of the threads, and rolling it up, a very serviceable ...

— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... are such a mean lot," she complained. "Now that they have got over the novelty of being driven in a taxicab by a woman, they are positively stingy. Even Jimmy here only gave me a sovereign for picking him up at St. James' Street, waiting twenty minutes at his tailor's, and bringing him on here. What is it that you're going to advise your clients to leave alone, ...

— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally forget that toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot forgive him ...

— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... no pony in sight, Twinkleheels soon came strolling out from behind a clump of bushes. He took his own time in picking his way down the hillside, as though he might be glad to ...

— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey

... heard her. "Why are you always picking at me?" she demanded of Mr. Wells. "I'm only a little girl and you're a big man but never once since I came to Waloo have you looked as if you wanted to be friends with me. I don't mean to be impudent but you—you do make it very hard for ...

— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... at him piteously, the big tears standing in those strange blue eyes of hers, and on her tanned cheeks; but now a curious sullen expression came over her face. Stooping and picking up the handkerchief, she tore at it fiercely, first with her hands and subsequently with her teeth. A kind of angry curiosity caused John ...

— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... where two men were sitting—a tattered, gray, big old man, and, opposite him, his back to the bar, with his elbows spread out upon the table and his chin resting on the fists folded upon each other, some hunched up, stout, closely-propped gentleman in a gray suit. The old man was picking upon a dulcimer lying before him and quietly singing, in a hoarse but ...

— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it a minute examination. It was of very heavy silk, yellow, with a pale blue stripe—and there were nearly a dozen of them. He stared involuntarily at his own shirt-cuffs—they were ragged and linty at the edges and ...

— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... these modern directions to a serving man: "While waiting at dinner, never be picking your nose, or scratching your head, or any other part of your body; neither blow your nose in the room; if you have a cold, and cannot help doing it, do it on the outside of the door; but do not sound your nose like a trumpet, that all the house may hear when you blow ...

— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... the table, laughing noiselessly, his white teeth shining. Halby, with one foot on a bench, was picking at the fur on his sleeve thoughtfully. His face was a little drawn, his lips were tight- pressed, and his eyes had a light of excitement. Presently he straightened himself, and, after a half-malicious look at Pierre, ...

— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... scrap," was the ready reply. "You see I'm a bit handicapped with this old car, for unless the fellow happens to take the same road as myself, there's precious little chance of my picking him up. Still, if you do not soon succeed in catching him, I think I shall have a good ...

— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... letter into her lap, and drew back to the other side of the gable-wall. Anne jumped up from her seat, flung away the letter without looking at it, and went hastily on. John did not attempt to overtake her. Picking up the letter, he followed in her wake at a distance ...

— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods and picking up grubs; not to mention barn-door cocks of mallards, creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time. If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either ...

— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... exhibit of the Kimberley diamond mines, and they kindly permitted me to take diamonds from some of the blue earth which they were washing by machinery to exhibit the mine operations. I found several beautiful diamonds, but they seemed a little light weight to me when I was picking them out. They were diamonds for exhibition purposes ...

— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... I suppose. He seems to have been a poor sort of assassin anyway. Why, when that drunken fool tumbled overboard amongst the sharks, he didn't leave him to be eaten or drowned, is more than I can understand. He'd have got his money as easy as picking it up off the floor, if he'd only had the ...

— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... sermon, we wondered, that he was thinking over? I told her of the copious sheaf of them I had seen him pull from his wallet over at the foreman's. "Goodness!" said she. "Then are we to hear one every evening?" This I doubted; he had probably been picking one out suitable for the occasion. "Putting his best foot foremost," was her comment; "I suppose they have best feet, like the rest of us." Then she grew delightfully sharp. "Do you know, when I first heard him I thought his voice was hearty. But if you listen, you'll ...

— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... haunt of the robbers. Filing along singly, we peered into the underbush. Lo, and behold, I see it! It is a white thing hanging on a bush! Yes! And listen, I hear voices! It is the robbers! Why, no, these are only children's voices! They are picking berries, the dear things. Poor children! Don't you know that you may be robbed and murdered by some of these infernal rascals who beat innocent men, take their money and come out here into this wilderness and wash the blood off their garments and hang them on these berry ...

— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... distance, would perch upon the trees in a neighbouring isle. If the sportsmen were not over-fatigued by the slaughter they might then follow them, and set-to again; but they generally found they had made victims enough, and diversified their pleasure by picking up the slain from under the trees. The bat shooting over, our sportsmen would then proceed to a ...

— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... wondered what pleasure he could find in protecting her violets, instead of picking them for ...

— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called 'white-stoned' Moscow—in which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all—Musa walked silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, I called her 'your niece.' Punin was silent for a little, scratched his ...

— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Mrs Baines] I couldn't face her now; ma'am, with all the weight of my sins fresh on me. Tell her she'll find her son at ome, waitin for her in prayer. [He skulks off through the gate, incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by picking up his cap ...

— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... were deposited by the servant at night. This scullery was detached from the main building, and to reach it it was necessary to cross an angle of the yard. Terence cautiously undid the bolts and fastenings of the back door, and was stealthily picking his steps over the rough stones of the yard, when he was startled by a fierce roar behind him, and at the same moment the teeth of Towser, the great watch-dog, were fastened in his nether garments. Though very much alarmed, ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... might live in helpless misery, it was also evident that Dorcas must have something to do. At that time Newell, under the first cloud of disappointed love, had launched into market-gardening, and he gave Dorcas little tasks, here and there, picking fruit and vegetables, even weeding and hoeing, because that would leave her within call of home, where a little girl sat daily on guard. Newell lived alone, with old Kate to do his work, and soon it ...

— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... a criminal. When she was going down the stairs, she discovered that she held the Signal in her hand. She had no recollection of picking it up, and there was no object in taking it to the breakfast-room! She thought: "What a state I ...

— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... the day was spent in picking nuts and eating them. Then they sat down and waited for the arrival of their friend. He came two hours after nightfall with a wallet stored with provisions, and told them that he had regained the village unobserved. The attack had been repulsed, ...

— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... on the limb of a tree and began picking at the buds. Then he held his head up straight, swelled out his brownish red breast, and poured forth such a volume of melody that the effort fairly made him dance with joy. Spring had surely come! It ...

— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Monopoly and Muddle." The Genius making me no Answer, I turned about to address myself to him a Second time, but I found that he had left me. I then turned again to the Vision, but instead of the Roadway, the arched Bridge and the Attent Anatomy, I saw nothing but my own parlour, and my wife MARY picking up the Bradshaw's Guide which had fallen ...

— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various

... I knew of the Yankees was when I was out in my marster's yard picking up chips and they came along, took my little brother and put him on a horse's back and carried him up town. I ran and told my mother about it. They rode brother over the town a while, having fun out of him, then they brought him back. Brother said he had a good ride and was ...

— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... charge. The apple tree ship was a wreck on the rocks of discontent. The hay had all been cut and stored away in the barn. The excitement and fun of the grain harvesting was over and the big stacks were waiting the threshers. It was not time for fall apple picking and the cider mill, nor to gather the corn, nor to go nutting. There was ...

— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... while a pink snout appeared, and then whole mouse crept out. He struck it lightly with his stick and stood stunned at the sight of the little, lifeless body. A drop of blood stained the floor. He wiped it away hastily with his sleeve, and picking up the mouse, threw it away, without saying a ...

— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... Conservatori, containing the famous wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, in bronze, said to have been struck by lightning (of which it bears all the marks) the day Julius Caesar was killed; the boy picking the thorn from his foot; the statue of the first Brutus; the geese of the Capitol (which are more like ducks); and the Fasti Consulares. It just occurred to me in time, and I went there yesterday morning. After dinner to the Villa Ludovisi ...

— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... bad effects of the grub-worm, I tried ashes, lye of ashes, and urine, but to no purpose, so that the women were kept constantly employed in picking them off the ...

— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled and asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the birds were hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and the squirrels had peanuts ...

— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... day. In the afternoon went well out over the floe to the south, looking up Nelson at his icehole and picking up Bowers at his thermometer. The surface was polished and beautifully smooth for ski, the scene brightly illuminated with moonlight, the air still and crisp, and the thermometer at -10 deg.. Perfect ...

— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... venture to say a word," said Thorn, smiling. "Protestations would certainly fall flat at the gates where les douces paroles cannot enter. But do you know this is picking a man's pocket of all his silver pennies, and obliging ...

— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... act of picking you up was not altogether prompted by such a noble sentiment," smiled the other. ...

— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... the plain. As soon as we came into the plain, we had occasion enough to look about us: the first object we met with was a dead horse, that is to say, a poor horse which the wolves had killed, and at least a dozen of them at work, we could not say eating of him, but picking of his bones rather; for they had eaten up all the flesh before. We did not think fit to disturb them at their feast, neither did they take much notice of us. Friday would have let fly at them, but I would not suffer him by any means; for I found ...

— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... sir," he said. "And the boy wishes to know if there is an answer." Picking up Chilcote's handkerchief, he turned aside ...

— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... be said that forced-landing practice by flying pupils is the most beneficial which may be imagined. It teaches control over a machine as nothing else will. It may be carried out from any height, shutting off the motor, picking out a field, gliding for it, turning and twisting to get into proper position as regards the wind, and "giving her the gun" just at the fence ...

— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... course, and you gave evidence," he said. "I remember. Well, and what did you want to see me about, Mr. Moneylaws? Will you smoke a cigar?" he went on, picking up a box from the table and holding it out to ...

— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher