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More "Scratching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... calm, starry nights. Maloney's selfish prayer had been favourably received. Nothing came to disturb or perplex. There was not even the prowling of night animals to vex the rest of Mrs. Maloney; for in previous camps it had often been her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I think ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and on, while for the life of me I could not find a word to say. I managed a question or so every five minutes, to which they offered the briefest replies; and then I sat vacantly, twirling my pen, and scratching ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... see them feeding along quietly, with their noses on the ground, and sometimes they look up, and now one of them is scratching her ear with her hind foot. It is the prettiest thing I ever saw. Now they are going on again, slowly. You are not going to try and kill them, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... a nicety that he could propel himself against a bed of nails and broken glass at just the right velocity to be able to stop himself without so much as scratching his glove. And he could see that there was no ragged stuff on the spot he had selected. The slanting rays of the sun would have made them stand out ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... he slept or no, but suddenly sunlight was in the room, the bath-water was running, the canary was singing and Hamlet was scratching upon his door. He jumped out of bed and let the dog in. Then he heard Rose's voice from the ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... exactly with those of a primary lesion. There had also been some enlargement of the femoral glands. He had never thought of the sore in this connection, but remembered most distinctly that it followed a flea-bite in an omnibus, and had been caused, as he supposed, by his scratching the place, though he could not understand why it lasted so long. Mr. Hutchinson concludes that all the evidence tends to show that the disease had probably been communicated from the blood of an infected person through the bite of the insect. It thus appears that even the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... fortune? Whoy, huttlety-tut!" roared the burly smith, turning ponderously upon Nick, who was dodging around him like a boy at tag around a tree. "Whoy, lad," said he, scratching his puzzled head with his great, grimy fingers, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... to perceive," said the muleteer, scratching his head and looking very sorrowful, "that for your sins you were turned into a mule, and that for mine, I had the misfortune to purchase you. I always thought there was something strange about ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... porter, scratching his nose, "it's very odd they should have let him lodgings in the Rue de Rivoli, and never come here to ask about him. Very odd, that. At any rate, he can't carry off his furniture without paying. If only the new tenant don't come moving ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... had fallen asleep, was awakened suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... rays of the taper borne through the silent files of graves, sparkles and gleams with a light and glory not of this world. There are other graves in which martyrs have lain, where no such sign as this appears, but in its place the rude scratching of a palm-branch upon the rock or the plaster. It was the sign of victory, and he who lay within had conquered. The great rudeness in the drawing of the palm, often as if, while the mortar was still wet, the mason had made the lines upon it with his trowel, is a striking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... says he, scratching his shaven chin, "since you've got your breakfus' surely, if you're minded t' step along t' my cottage down t' lane, I can give ye a jug of good ale to wash it down." Now as he spoke thus, seeing the sturdy manliness of him I dropped my ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... place in his magnetic pole[658] (hear) and there might, for aught he knew, be a successful attempt to reach his pole of rotation, he thought he could not answer for the preservation of the precession in its present state. (Here the hon. luminary, scratching his side, exclaimed, as he sat down, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the blue-gray of the hills as they stretched on, farther and farther into the distance, gradually whitening until they resolved themselves into the snowy range, with the gaunt, high-peaked summit of Mount Evans scratching the sky ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... dream of fruit and cool dainties. When one thinks of the countless army of one's fellows who are daily selling their very souls for the barest necessaries of life, I suppose we—irresponsible beings—should be thankful to God for allowing us, by scratching and scraping all our lives, to keep a crust in our mouth and a rag on our back. I am not thankful, I have been guilty of what Pat would term a "digresshion"—I started about going for the mail at Dogtrap. Harold Beecham never once missed ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... draw her toward him. But her muscles had been tensed with the second fear that had taken possession of her, and she resisted—almost broke away from him. His fingers slipped from her wrist, the nails scratching the flesh deeply, and she sprang toward the door. But he was upon her instantly, his arms around her, pinning her own to her sides, and then he squeezed her to him, so tightly that the breath almost left her body, and kissed her three or four times ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Emperor!" ("Kaiser lebe! Hoch!"). A cow shut up in the barn and the men drinking at the inn were to be heard. Kites with long tails like comets dipped and swung in the air above the fields. The fowls were scratching frantically in the straw and the golden dung-heap; the wind blew out their feathers like the skirts of an old lady. A pink pig was sleeping voluptuously on his side in ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Assembly was in an uproar. The President's voice was unheeded and unheard; the whole House arose; patriots and antagonists mingled in the fray, and the ground was covered with the combatants, kicking, biting, striking, and scratching each other in ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... rose the smoke of the distant factory, and the river that turned the wheels was gliding through the meadows, where soon the blackbirds would be singing. Old Bess pawed the ground, eager to be off; the gray hens were scratching busily all about the yard; even the green things in the garden were pushing through the brown earth, softened by April rains, and there was a shimmer of sunshine over the wide landscape that made ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... they did, but were mighty sure they'd all be hoodooed if they uncovered it for anyone else, so I reckon that primitive dope does go pretty far back. I'll bet it was old when Tubal Cain first began scratching around the outcroppings ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head, he says—"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's." Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly English—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of thee," said Leh Shin, scratching his loose sleeves with his long, claw-like fingers. "But thy friend, the Burman, who spoke beforehand of thy coming, and who still recalls the mixture of his opium pipe, I cannot remember." He hunched ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... New England cut his food down to six bland meals daily. All of them had tried to cure the offending ulcers by dosings. Think whether bleeding ulcers on the body would get well with their tender surfaces subjected to the same grinding, scratching process from bowel rubbish! ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... silence, broken only by the scratching of the Coroner's pen, Alderman Crood rose heavily in his place ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... birds and at frequent intervals, while they are scratching among the leaves for their food they will stop and utter their familiar "tow-hee" or "che-wink" and then again will mount to the summit of a tree or bush and sing their sweet refrain ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... you doing here anyhow?" said he, "—up before breakfast and busy as a hen scratching for ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... camp, and in the course of my wanderings I made a discovery that filled me with horror and the anguish of blackest despair. My curiosity was first attracted by a human skull that lay near a large circular depression in the sand about two feet deep. I commenced scratching with my fingers at one side, and had only gone a few inches down, when I came upon a ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... awakened some time afterwards by a strange noise. He sprang up at once, threw some fresh wood on the embers, and, grasping his musket, stood listening. In a minute the noise was renewed; something was scratching at the door, and a moment later he heard a pattering of feet overhead. Then came a low whimper and a snarl, and the truth at once rushed upon him. He was surrounded ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... followed another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind was too strong for them all. By tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it was empty. No! As he withdrew ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... placed the paper of questions and sundry plants. I looked at my questions, but for some moments could hardly hold my pen, so extreme was my nervousness; but when I once fairly began, my ideas crowded upon me almost faster than I could write them. And so we all sat, nothing heard but the scratching of the pens and the occasional crackle of the examiner's "Times" as he quietly looked over ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... how sweet to waltz through life with the right partner And not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home Any man is in love with any woman Believed in her love, and judged it by the strength of his own Eating, like scratching, only wants a beginning Feel no shame that I do not feel! Feel they are not up to the people they are mixing with Found it difficult to forgive her his own folly Good and evil work together in this world Hated one thing alone—which was 'bother' ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... the key, and then, putting his field-glass to his eye, he saw that the dog was released, but the animal sat there scratching its ear with its paw. Then, realizing that it was loose, it sniffed for a moment at the chain. Finally, it threw up its head and barked, although the distance was too great for them to hear any sound. The dog started in the direction the two men had gone, but, before it had taken three ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... in my office. His method of composition was slow and laborious. It was evident that he thought out what he was going to say before he touched his pen to the paper. He would sit looking out of the window, his left elbow on the table, his hand scratching his temple, his lips moving, and frequently he spoke the sentence aloud ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... entered and gained possession of it without the loss of a man. After everything was quiet, Admiral Watson sent for Strachan to admonish him for his temerity, and addressing him, observed, "Strachan, what is this you have been doing?" The untutored hero, after having made his bow, scratching his head with one hand and twirling his hat with the other, replied, "Why, to be sure, sir, it was I who took the fort, but I hope there was no harm in it." The admiral then pointed out to him the dreadful consequences that might have resulted from so rash an act, and insinuated as he left ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... did, monsieur,... or I shouldn't be here at sunrise, scratching at your door for news of you. This," she said, petulantly, "is ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... other pains in store, to which what thou hast as yet suffered is but as the scratching of the lion's paw. It were better not to suffer them. They will leave no life in thee. Curse Christ—'tis ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Raphael and talk, since we must, of comic opera. It's a pity we're not talking of the Parcoe who have been in my mind all the morning,' and she began to recite some verses that she had written. But, interrupting herself suddenly, she cried: 'Dick, who has been scratching you? How did your face get torn like that—who's been ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... hours I heard every kind of a growl and howl imaginable, as bears prowled about the hut sniffing at the buried food, or scratching at ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... latch lifted, and the tall bulky form of a man filled the threshold. With him came the wind, playing havoc about my room, sending papers and ornaments flying around in wild confusion. He closed the door quickly with a little imprecation. I heard the scratching of a match, saw it carefully shielded in the hollow of the man's hand. Then it burned clearly, and I knew ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I know the port—that ain't the head wind!" said Jack Miles, pushing up the side of his hat, and scratching his head with a look of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... he closed the door, shutting himself in; and none too soon, for instantly a heavy animal leaped on the roof over his head and began fiercely scratching at the cover. At the same time a mewing at the door, and a snuffing at the side of the pen, showed him that he was a prisoner, with at least three panthers as his jailors. But unlike jailors generally, these were ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... sound sleep, from which he awoke only once in the night, and then it was a noise of something as of claws scratching at the door which stirred him. The scratch was repeated only once or twice, and with it came the sound of heavy, gasping puffs, like a big animal breathing. Then the creature went away, and Dick, half asleep, murmured: "I've ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... convenient branch. He put one ear against the trunk of the tree and listened. Then he put the other ear against the tree and listened. There certainly was a funny noise, and it seemed to come from right inside his hollow tree. Unc' Billy turned and looked up at his doorway, scratching his head thoughtfully ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... just says "Amen" when she gets to the end of—thirty, say—fancying that will be right; and it is generally. Only Uncle John stopped in the middle to say, "Damn that dog!" as Fido was whining and scratching outside, so that put her out and brought in the "Amen" ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... irresistible attractions for the gardener, and this drew his laggard steps from their idle excursion, back to the freshly spaded spot enriched by leaf mould, and carefully picketed against the incursions of scratching hens. Here he busied himself in planting lettuce seed, forgetful of Scipio, who lolled sleepily in the shadow of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... it over, and there is," returned Morris, crossing his legs, and scratching his head in his thoughtful way. "Three years ago, me and Kit Carson had to scoot up here to get out of the reach of something like two hundred Comanches, under that prime devil Valo-Velasquiz. They shot Kit's horse, and mine dropped dead just as we reached the bottom ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... heard light feet, as of some beast stirring and scratching in the trees overhead, and there with a light jingling noise. Was it a squirrel? Whatever it was, it raced about the tree, coming nearer and going further away, till it fell with a weight on my breast, and, shivering with cold, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... mercurial and fussy things there is nothing on the face of the earth to equal cocks and hens. They have such an utterly exaggerated sense, too, of their own importance; they make such a clacking and clucking over every egg, such a scratching and trumpeting over every morsel of treasure-trove, and such a striding and stamping over every bit of well-worn ground. On the whole, I think poultry have more humanity in them than any other race, footed or feathered; and cocks certainly must have been the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... something that appears like a white bird, A pigeon or a seagull or the like, But if you hit it with a stone or a stick It clangs as though it had been made of brass; And that if you dig down where it was scratching You'll ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... well that you are so easy, lording," said Warrenton, scratching his head. "Now tell us whom you saw; and how you contrived ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Brown Geraldine at Dublin," responded that worthy, scratching the gray beard which had begun to sprout. "They broke his bones with the back of an ax and swung him out in a cage until he died, and after. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... it was three miles," replied Michel scratching his head; "but never mind. I'll send for them anyway without telling them what they're wanted for. Once here, it's for your ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... there but a mouse!" she said contemptuously, when she had looked and listened for a moment, and heard only a little faint scratching ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... fable. Let them come and see in the corner of the stable one of these poor beasts, thin and wasted, restlessly lashing his lean flanks with his tail, violently breathing with mingled terror and disdain on the food offered him, his eyes always turned toward the door, scratching with his hoof the empty place at his side, sniffing the yokes and chains which his fellow used to wear, and incessantly calling him with melancholy lowings. The ox-herd will say: "There is a pair of oxen gone;' this one will work no more, for his brother is dead. We ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I seen him myself," said Mike, still scratching his head. "I'll just have a look inside ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got him! I've got ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... excitement and followed Jacky through the stiff bush, often scratching his hands and face. At last Jacky stopped and pointed ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... for he rose and stood opposite to her, scratching his lean chin and smiling in a sickly, indeterminate fashion that ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... East bread comes naturally, even to the poorest, by a little scratching or the gift of a friend not quite so poor. In less favored countries one is apt to forget. Then I went to bed. And that was on ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... a barb and serve also to pres it forward when onece entered a small distance. these barbed seed penetrate our mockersons and leather legings and give us great pain untill they are removed. my poor dog suffers with them excessively, he is constantly hinting and scratching himself as if in a rack of pain. the prickly pear also grow here as abundantly as usual. there is another species of the prickly pear of a globular form, composed of an assemblage of little conic leaves springing from a common root to which their small points are ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... way you feel. Well," scratching his chin, "I don't know as it makes much difference one way or the other, but I hope, Mr. Westerfelt, that you won't mention what I said. These fellers are the ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... a kind of madness, well known in every village, which comes by the biting of a mad dog, or scratching, saith [912]Aurelianus; touching, or smelling alone sometimes as [913]Sckenkius proves, and is incident to many other creatures as well as men: so called because the parties affected cannot endure the sight of water, or any liquor, supposing still they see a mad dog in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... muse,—and the quick, gentle rise and fall of her young breast. He could see her lift her head now and then to stare dreamily at the ceiling, searching there for inspiration. He could see the cramped, tense fingers that gripped the pen as she wrote these precious lines,—with David scratching away laboriously at the opposite end of the table. A strange tenderness entered his soul. Something akin to reverence took possession of him. He had ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... on with the disabled scissors, and only succeeded in scratching the smooth marble a little; he stopped to pant. "There's only way," he told himself desperately; "a little diamond cement would make it all right again; and you expect cracks ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... set," said Macnooder, scratching his head. "I've got two, plain and fancy, what we call a souvenir set—but you wouldn't understand that. I'll show you the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... had risen some distance in the heavens. By and by, however, the moon shot above the cloud, and that which before had been obscured by darkness became plain. There was the great rugged rock which bore a resemblance to the rude scratching on the paper. By the side of the rock ran a deep gulf filled with black water. Near by, perhaps twenty feet away, was another and larger mass of cliff. I looked at the water which lay between the two, and saw that it whirled and eddied, as though there were some ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... master's orders in confining her, has himself been lost in the labyrinth, and has not been able to discover what dungeon he put her in. For three days he has been looking for it, during which our heroine has been without food, and he is still searching and scratching his woolly head in despair, as he is to die by slow torture, if he does not reproduce her—for you observe, the chief who has thrown her into this dungeon is most ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... not answer his sister Sue right away. He was listening to the queer scratching sound. He wanted to try and think ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Q—-, after scratching his head, and considering for a few minutes, told me that he knew a farm which he could sell me for that price, particularly as he wished to get rid of a set of Yankee rascals who prevented emigrants ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of questions, which he could not refuse to answer, though he stood sweating with agony all the time, stretching his neck every instant towards the window through which the voices were conveyed, scratching his head, and exhibiting sundry other symptoms of impatience and agitation. At length the supposed conversation came to such a pitch of amorous complaisance, that the husband, quite frantic with his imaginary disgrace, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wasn't quite sane. My coolness in the Pink Chalet had given place to a crazy restlessness. I can see Peter yet, standing in the ring of lamplight, supporting himself by a chair back, wrinkling his brows and, as he always did in moments of excitement, scratching gently the tip of his left ear. His ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... hardly follow what you say. It's so complicated—a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are they in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew, and they open the door. You lie on the paper—the sacred paper He's scratching on—He moves away, marvelous condescension!—and leaves you his soiled page. You meander up and down his scratching table, obviously in quest of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... with her mild eyes and said, "It were a great sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at all times." And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping and scratching. ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... but as the boy hustled across the square Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight suddenly might ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... you're not far out," replied the captain, scratching his head and pondering over the matter, "for we'll only just shave past Cape Finisterre now keeping our course; and if we hadn't made so much westing when we got out of the Channel I don't know where we ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... witness it; for I have the high honour of being in this world superior to all other creatures." At these words the whole of the assembly [of animals] protested. "And I!" said the Eagle, with a loud voice, as he alighted on a rock. "Corcorico!" chanted the Cock. The Monkey was scratching himself and admiring his grinning phiz in the water, which served him for a looking-glass. Then the Buzzard was beside himself [with rage]. And the Cuckoo was wailing. The Ass rolled over and over, crying: "Heehaw! how ugly Man is!" The Elephant stamped about with ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... good hand at garden-work," answered the old man, with some embarrassment, scratching his gray head with a ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... last I asked myself where I might be. It did not seem to occur to me that I had but to call him to receive an answer to that question. Instead, I closed my eyes again, and essayed to think. But just then there came a gentle scratching at the door, and I could hear Michelot tiptoeing across the room; next he and the one he had admitted tiptoed back towards my bedside, and as they came I caught a whisper in a voice that seemed to ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... The ear-stinging, throat-scratching Yell screeched high over the pound of the artillery, the vicious spat of Minie balls. A whip length of dusty gray-brown lashed forward, flanking the stone barrier. Blue-coated men wavered, broke, ran for the bridge, heading into ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Phipps, scratching his had; "but I should think it might have been six years ago, or more. It was a long time before we ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and have ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... previously observed that the claws of some of the bear which we had killed here had much shorter tallons than the variagated or white bear usually have but supposed that they had woarn them out by scratching up roots, and these were those which the indians called Yak-kah. on enquiry I found also that a cub of an uniform redish brown colour, pup to a female black bear intermixed with entire white hairs had climbed a tree. I think this a distinct speceis from the common black bear, because ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... dragged up all the bush and dry wood, and had piled them in front of the door. Swartboy had taken out his flint and steel, and was about to strike, when a loud scratching was heard from the inside, unlike anything that had yet reached their ears. It was the rattling of the lion's claws against the wall, but it had an odd sound as if the animal was struggling violently; at the same time his voice seemed ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... are such reprehensible and unutterably detestable insects as mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and bull-dogs; and there is such a thing as being bitten, and stung, and worried, and sucked into a sort of partial madness; and I have seen such sights as men perpetually slapping their own faces, and scratching the skin off their own cheeks with their own nails, and getting no relief thereby, but rather making things worse; and I have, moreover, seen men's heads swelled until the eyes and noses were lost, and the mouths only visible when opened, and their ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... clipped and cut into decorated designs, was lying about, as also wads of cotton, colored wools, long strings of yarn, and bits of half-beaten bark fibre. Near the front edge of the cave was a hole with large stones; here, with a little scratching, we found feathers and bits of bone of turkeys and hens, that had been sacrificed, as well as splints of pine tied together with bark string. Wooden spoons, probably used in the banquets of the witches, were stowed away in crevices of the rock. Chains ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... goes through the hedge into the border of furze, and thence into the meadow-grass. Some way down the brook they are so numerous as to have destroyed the vegetation on the banks, excepting a few ferns, by their constant movements and scratching of the sand; so that there is a small warren on either side of the water. It is said that they occasionally swim across the broad brook, which is much too wide to jump; but I have never seen such a thing but once. A rabbit already ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... November election Colonel Saylor was elected; but by a very small majority. He ran more than five thousand votes behind the head of the ticket, and in a district where little scratching is done. The State ticket pulled ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... But the little man bent over the desk, and began to write in an account book. His pen went on scratching, inscribing large, flourishing numbers in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... her for his own, and did not care how much he showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety of uncouth bounces, and concluded, when poor Florence was at last asleep, by scratching open her bedroom door; rolling up his bed into a pillow; lying down on the boards at the full length of his tether with his head toward her; and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the tops of his eyes, until, from winking ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Hanson giving Mrs. Gallito an opportunity to recover her self-control, while he devoted his attention to Lolita, who had sidled up to him and was gazing at him evilly, ready to nip him malevolently should he attempt the familiarity of scratching her head. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering. Thus Coronado could say his say ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... stream, and from these we have fashioned a bench to hold six or eight people, and set it where the view is glorious. I have helped lay the stones, and have dabbled in mortar until I can hardly use my hands to write. This sort of work is so much more interesting than scratching with a pen. In the joy of even so poor a creation I forget the sad purpose of it, and am as happy as one hopes to be who has lived as ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... night: one could see the whole shore. He looked for Campana's grave. Two dogs scratching the sand showed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Germany. At a later period he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near by, to sleep) he had ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the public prints upon the characters of political demagogues, liquor interests, and the state treasury. And what she said was violently effective. Her victims might persist in the error of their ways, but not one of them ever recovered from the face-scratching fury ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled something for ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... sake, come aboard and listen!" I listened and sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps my nerves were a trifle unstrung from our recent ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... took up the church keys and a horn lantern, and led the young Prince through a narrow corridor up to the church door. Hardly, however, had she put the key in the lock, when the loud bark of a dog was heard inside, and they soon heard it scratching, and smelling, and growling at them ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... the Delhi mine in Nevada county" he announced, "but the Baby Mine makes that record look amateurish. It's the richest strike I have ever heard of, with the exception, possibly, of the big strike at Antelope Peak. They took out nearly three hundred thousand there in less than three days, just scratching it out of stringers and crevices with their jack-knives. Boston, my dear man, I have more than three hundred pounds of gold with, as I said before, some quartz, but not enough to bother. At twelve ounces to the pound, twenty dollars to the ounce, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... with you, Katie?' he used to say. 'Of course, I'll go anywhere to please you.' But then, while she was trying to get a blessing, he would be scratching little pictures on the back of the seat to make her laugh. Perhaps you can guess the struggle it was for Katie to decide what her answer should be. 'If you will only say "yes," and be engaged to him, I am sure you will be able ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... heard a scratching sound inside the hollow tree. Once more he beat the long roll and the scratching sound grew louder. Then he heard a voice just a little ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... to the crest of the hill. Men were moving along those paths: they swarmed like ants across the hillside, but I could not see whence they were coming nor whither they were going. All were pushing and jostling and scratching and howling and fighting. Every one's object seemed to be to raise himself to the path above his own and to prevent all others ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... shook his head and flirted up dirt by scratching on the ground with his feet. He had smelled blood. Mr. Billy-Goat saw how Mr. Dog acted, and he was afraid to go in. So he shook ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... indeed an almost immeasurable distance from the primitive mother scratching the soil with her sharpened stick, her baby bound to her bended back, in order to plant a few seeds for a tiny harvest to save the life of her child when the hunt should be poor, to the modern mother whose food ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... cat up, and went along the path towards the cottage, Miss Bassett following close behind me. The cat was an immense beast, awfully heavy, and just as I turned out of the yew path to go up to the cottage door he began struggling to get away, and scratching. I held on to him, but it wasn't easy, and I got my hand torn before I dropped him down inside the little hall. Away he ran, towards the kitchen, I suppose. Miss Bassett was very grateful, but I cut ...
— The Spinster - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... to him that Josiah was only scratching the surface and he wanted to come to the well-meaning king's help. Notwithstanding his call and his conviction that his life work as a prophet had been determined upon even before his birth, Jeremiah was yet too timid to take up his burden among the people until the word of God ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... deception on the surface: he was externally a person who inspired, at first sight, feelings of doubt and dislike. His manner failed to show even a pretence of being glad to see Hugh. What he had to say, he said walking up and down the room, and scratching his bristly iron-gray hair from time to time. Those signs of restlessness indicated, to those who knew him well, that he had a selfish use to make of a fellow-creature, and failed to see immediately how to ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... keep theirselves to theirselves, she to the house, and I to the garden.' 'So be it, says I, 'and by the same toaken, don't let me catch them "Ns" in my garden again, or I'll spoil their clucking and scratching,' says I, 'for I'll twist their dalled necks: ye've got a yard,' says I, 'and a roost, and likewise a turnpike, you and your poultry: so bide at home the lot, and don't come a scratching o' me,' and with that we had a ripput; and she took one of her pangs; and then I behoved to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... all very well," the elder Pendennis said, who found Pen scratching down one of these artless effusions at the Club as he was waiting for his dinner; "and letter-writing if mamma allows it, and between such old country friends of course there may be a correspondence, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Eric went up after her, often slipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees, but as resolute as his playmate. At last they gained the top. The Wind Creatures had flown up and were waiting for them there, sitting cross-legged with their purple ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... hard job, breaking up this place and making the first crops grow," he said, pushing back his hat and scratching his grizzled hair. "Sometimes I git awful sore on this place and want to quit, but my wife she always say we better stick it out. The babies come along pretty fast, so it look like it be hard to move, anyhow. I guess she was right, all right. We got this place ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Mariner's Passage. He said; and leaping from his Chariot, lest Ariadne should be afraid of the Tygers, the Sand sunk under the Weight of his Feet; and catching her instantly in his Arms, he carried her, who was incapable of scratching, directly off; (for every Thing, we know, is in the Power of a Deity:) And now, whilst Part of his Train sing the Hymenaeum, and other cry Evie Evoe, two very mysterious Words, and full of Masonry, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... him set Dan'l Webster down here on this flor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... take the diminishing drug. From across the room there came a very queer sound. A scuttling, scratching, and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... sing!' and 'Please keep that damn Tana away from me,' and 'Let me read you my opening sentence,' and 'I won't be through for a long time, Gloria, so don't stay up for me,' and a tremendous consumption of tea or coffee. And that's all. In just about an hour I hear the old pencil stop scratching and look over. You've got out a book and you're 'looking up' something. Then you're reading. Then yawns—then bed and a great tossing about because you're all full of caffeine and can't sleep. Two weeks later the whole performance ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... while a loud scratching pen indorsed the record of acquittal. Then Wood walked down to the jury-box and took ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am witing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... length, which brought it along with amazing bounds. Seeing this, I quickly found my own legs, and rushed down the hill towards Vitalis. But, strange to say, I made less haste going down than I had in climbing up. I threw myself into the thick of the thistles and brambles, scratching myself at every step. Scrambling out of a prickly bush I took a glance back. The animal was coming nearer! ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... whole body was sown over with spots, and my face covered; and for several days I lay blind and in great pain. They tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if I would keep quiet, and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. I controlled myself, while, according to the prevailing prejudice, they kept me as warm as possible, and thus only rendered my suffering more acute. At last, after a woeful time, there fell, as it were, a mask from my face. The blotches had left no visible mark upon the skin, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... publishers, making showy drawings from sketches taken by other people of places he had never seen, and touching up the bad engravings from his works submitted to him almost every day,—engravings utterly destitute of animation, and which had to be raised into a specious brilliancy by scratching them over with white, spotty lights, he gradually got inured to many conventionalities, and even falsities; and, having trusted for ten or twelve years almost entirely to his memory and invention, living I believe mostly in London, and receiving a new sensation ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... pheasant of England, and greatly resembling it in appearance and plumage; these birds are very cautious and shy, and run rapidly through the underwood, rarely flying unless when closely pursued. The shell of the egg is thin and fragile, and the young are hatched entirely by the heat of the sun, scratching their way out as soon as they are born, at which time they are able to shift for themselves. [Note 25: For a further account of the LEIPOA, vide CHAPTER III. of Notes ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, "that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not, and 'twould be a pity in such a case to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him. But ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... society of those whom it is not flattery to call your betters. When "The Pactolian" has paid you for a copy of verses,—(I can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe Zenith,)—when "The Rag-bag" has stolen your piece, after carefully scratching your name out,—when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you worth shelling, and strung the kernel of your cleverest poem,— then, and not till then, you may consider the presumption against you, from the fact of your rhyming tendency, as called in question, and let our friends hear from you, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... listened outside of the door. She was determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own room ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... dealing strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except the scratching of Wayne's pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking cat. At length Wayne broke ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... under them, one tucked up on the other, and you may be sure the person they belong to feels comfortable—physically. And Mrs. Starling in a corner, in her quiet state and black-silk gown, was as contented as an old hen that sees all her chickens prosperously scratching for themselves. And the June afternoon breathed in at the window and upon all those busy talkers; and nobody knew that it was June. So things went, until Diana left them to put the finishing touches of readiness to the tea-table. Her going was noticed by some of the assembly, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... you haue in manner aforeshewed, planted your garden with rootes, it shall not be amisse, if the place be apt to such annoyance, to pricke vpon the site of euery hill a few sharpe Thornes to defend them from the scratching of poultry, or such like, which euer are busie to doe mischeife: yet of all house-fowle Geese be the worst, but if your fence be as it ought, high, strong, and close, it will both preuent their harme ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... finds its young ones carries them off hastily, placing mirrors in the place whence he takes them, and at once escapes on a swift horse. The panther returning finds the mirrors fixed on the ground and looking into them believes it sees its young; then scratching with its paws it discovers the cheat. Forthwith, by means of the scent of its young, it follows the hunter, and when this hunter sees the tigress he drops one of the young ones and she takes it, and having carried it ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... said Dandie, scratching his head; 'it's lying high and exposed—it may feed a hog, or aiblins twa in a ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... little while he sprang from his icy prison once more free. But the young ones! Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered a few red hips to stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the prison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble 'peete, peete,' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned granular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out of the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tell where in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, and he was forced to leave them. When the snow ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... visited the Louvre it was closed, and none have been admitted since. I believe they are scratching out some N's or Eagles. I should conceive these to be the last of their species, for the activity and extent of this effacement of emblems related to Napoleon is past all belief. In a picture of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... abstinence; only such foods as mush and bread made from corn-meal may be eaten, nor may they contain any salt. To indulge in viands of a richer nature would be to invite laziness and an ugly form at a comparatively early age. The girl must also refrain from scratching her head or body, for marks made by her nails during this period would surely become ill-looking scars. All the women folk in the hogan begin grinding corn on the first day and continue at irregular intervals ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... said the ecstatic lover. Lady Amaldina thought that June would do very well. "But there will be the Town's Education Improvement Bill," said his lordship, again scratching ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... at this point. It came in. He resumed his eulogy.] Look at Cleopatra! look at Desdemona!—look at Florence Nightingale!—look at Joan of Arc!—look at Lucretia Borgia! [Disapprobation expressed.] Well [said Mr. Clemens, scratching his head, doubtfully], suppose we let Lucretia slide. Look at Joyce Heth!—look at Mother Eve! You need not look at her unless you want to, but [said Mr. Clemens, reflectively, after a pause] Eve was ornamental, sir —particularly before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Fred was scratching his jaw meditatively with the pencil, and staring at the order. "I can just about fill that order outa stock on hand," he told Irish. "When all this land rush started I laid in a big supply of posts and wire. First thing they'd want, after they ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. "I don't know," he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study, "I don't know." And with that expression he put all thought of Victor Stott away from him, and sat down to write an exhaustive article on the necessity ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... of the girls remained in the race. Ruth had given up in despair. Her turkey had wandered off to parts unknown. Another girl sat on an upturned stump feeding crumbs to a motherly hen that had found walking disagreeable and had taken to scratching around the roots ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... few city editors I have ever seen who used that tool which all of them are popularly supposed to handle so murderously—a blue pencil. And as he had a habit, when he was flustered or annoyed—and that was most of the time—of scratching his head with the point end of it, his forehead under the hair roots was usually streaked with purplish-blue tracings, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... motioned for me to dismount. I hadn't hardly struck the ground, before I found what they were going to do with me; for would you believe it, every old squaw and pappoose in that village, that had strength enough, flew at me and commenced biting, and kicking, and scratching me. You see I couldn't do much, for my hands were tied, but I made up my mind that Tom Pope would die like a man, even though he never had calculated to be bit and kicked to death, by a lot of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... person seated on a chair, John's throne in fact, was far back in the room, and could not be seen from below. A few minutes passed away, while Crayshaw began to breathe like, other people, and a certain scratching noise was heard below, upon which significant looks entreated her to be silent. She thought she would let things take their course, and sat still for a minute, when a casement was flung open below, and a shrill voice ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Matthew Arnold, Renan, Emerson, with scores of popular followers, taught the German faith. The literary world had revolted against the yoke of coming capitalism — its money-lenders, its bank directors, and its railway magnates. Thackeray and Dickens followed Balzac in scratching and biting the unfortunate middle class with savage ill-temper, much as the middle class had scratched and bitten the Church and Court for a hundred years before. The middle class had the power, and held its coal and iron well in hand, but the satirists and idealists seized the press, and as they ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the reverse to humor the little man, who darted forward and began scraping up the dust in the road with his hands as if he had been a dog scratching out a rabbit hole. He began chipping away eagerly with his hammer at some rock that cropped up out ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... looked so human when it chattered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on the side of the cot, and ask the parrot what it thought of Simmons. The parrot would answer: "Simmons, ye so-oor." "Good boy," Losson used to say, scratching the parrot's head; "ye 'ear that, Sim?" And Simmons used to turn over on his stomach and make answer: "I 'ear. Take 'eed you don't 'ear something one of ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... would amend itself. Many here would consider it a heinous sin, but those who think such things sins make them sins. I have seen, in the old days, most delightful little children sent away, branded with infamy, and scarce knowing why—you might as well expel a boy for scratching his head when it itched. I am sure the soundest way is to treat it as a doctor would, and explain to the boy the physical effects of over-indulgence of any sort. When it is combated from the monkish standpoint, the evil becomes an epidemic." I am, however, far from anxious to indorse the policy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Pentuer had not been in that place; hence he was struck by neglect in it, and poverty. The brick wall was falling, in the garden the trees were withering, in the yard a lean goat moved around and a few hens were scratching. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Brahmana, I cannot extract this thorn that has entered my body, or crush these insects and worms that are biting and afflicting me greatly! They that have bestowed upon them two hands with ten fingers, succeed in throwing away or crushing the worms (by scratching) that bite their limbs. They succeed in constructing shelters for themselves from rain, cold, and heat. They succeed also in enjoying excellent clothes for themselves, good food, comfortable beds, and excellent habitations. Lying on this Earth, they that have hands enjoy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head. But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... the social fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action. Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect, which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the foundation of islands and ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a pair of stockings belonging to Sally Henny-penny —look how she's worn the heels out with scratching in the yard! She'll very soon go barefoot!" ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter
... force my way in. There was space only for two, and that space was already occupied. Also, they had me at a disadvantage, and, what of the scratching and hair-pulling I received, I was glad to retreat. I slept that night, and for many nights, in the connecting passage of the double-cave. From my experience it seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk had dodged old Saber-Tooth, and as I had dodged Red-Eye, so it seemed to me that I could dodge ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... American soldiers and the "Y" man and the two British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces. Here the resourceful old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest one of the guards and approached ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... story, and he stood for a moment scratching his head, as if he were much puzzled to know what to do ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket that covered ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... general vehicle of sound, yet sound will go where no air can convey it; thus the scratching of a pin at the end of a long piece of timber may be heard by an ear applied at the other end, though it could not be heard at the same distance through the air. On this account it is that sentinels are accustomed to lay their ears to the ground, by which means they can often discover the approach ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... feeling of curiosity concerning that odd expanse of white overhead filtered into her consciousness, gradually increasing in strength until it became a definite irritation, like the prolonged light scratching of a finger-nail up a surface of silk. She opened her eyes again reluctantly. It was still there, immediately above her—a formless stretch of dull white. She wondered whether it extended indefinitely, and her eyes travelled slowly along until they were arrested by a narrow ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the door-ladder, he found descent difficult but possible. It was more difficult to make his way through the tangled bushes without scratching the baby, which, after all, might, alas, be beyond hurt! He held it close to his bosom, life coaxing life to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... his pipe and choice tobacco, and looked the picture of contentment as he squatted in his seat, scratching his ankle, where a burning sensation told him he had once again been visited by the tiny but venomous red-bug pest which he hated with ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... because the nugget couldn't be thrown out with two or three spadefuls of earth," continued Tom. "I followed along after him for two weeks, and in every camping-place there were two shovelfuls of dirt flung out. If a hen had been scratching for that nugget, she would ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She had worn a white muslin dress under her riding-habit, and the leaves of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, when he heard a knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and unlatched the little door that led into the street. He ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... to take the diminishing drug. From across the room there came a very queer sound. A scuttling, scratching, and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... a scratching sound and the living-room was dimly illumined by the flare of a match. The small and trembling watcher beneath the sofa shut his eyes in fright. When he opened them the lamp upon the center table was lighted and Santa Claus himself was standing by ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... not come far past his jealously guarded treasure. He shuffled about, keeping his head drawn down in a peculiar manner, but we could see that his eye was on us. After a few moments, he drew back behind the spruce again. Thereupon we threw more stones; and again the beast rushed out, growling and scratching up the grass in an odd manner; he did not appear inclined to pursue us, however, and we now noticed that there was something clumsy in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... into a chair and for some fifteen minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's pen and the deep sighs that from time ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... these yere foothills need thinnin' anyway. Halloa! What in thunder's this?" Through the door, which we had left ajar, very timidly, all blushes and dimples, and sucking one small thumb, came Sissy Leadham. She stood staring at us, standing on one leg and scratching herself nervously with ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... heard this, he gave a great start, and down toppled the whole seven in a heap, one a-top of the next, spitting and roaring and scratching. They were so much taken aback, that they imagined all sorts of powerful beasts to be fighting with them, when it was only their own selves, biting each other; and the end of all was, that as soon as the seven Tigers had ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... 'for being so stupid. But he was so horrid and patronizing to you, I couldn't help scratching. I believe I'm the worst ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and ploughing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... y^e body of Rachell Clenton, there was found an unnaturall teat on one side, something lower than just under her arme, which teat having a pin thrust throw it she was not senceable of, till by scratching her side, pricked her fingers with y^e pin y^t was then in y^e teat; neither ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... only thing!" said Thompson, scratching his honest ear, like a man perplexed and driven to a corner. "We haven't got no references to give. But I'll tell you what we've got though. We've got the papers of these freehold premises, and we've something like two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... eyes, he watched her hand travelling across the sheet of note-paper, and returning at regular intervals, with a sure swoop, to begin a fresh line. There was no sound except the gentle scratching ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... look for the expression in a dictionary, turtle-doves it remained. He wrote of the bird, that it comes out of the sea to the sand of the shore, lays its eggs in that sand, carefully and safely scratching them in, and smoothing the surface with its front paws. These front paws of a turtle-dove perplexed him, and he did what he ought to have done before: he looked in the dictionary and found that the sea-turtle ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... examined every single object in the appropriate manner, now only spitting appraisingly upon it, now kicking it or scratching it with his penknife. If he came across some strange wonder or other, that he could not get into his little brain in any other way, he ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a tragic ending. The Judge was an old man of eccentric dress, much given to talking to himself—particularly as he wandered about the streets of Richmond. The gallery of the House loved him from the first for his funny habit of scratching his arm when the itch of eloquence attacked him. And he always addressed the Speaker as "Mr. Cheerman." They loved him particularly for that. The eccentric Judge had a peculiarly fierce antipathy to Foote. Words ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... scratching a lot ... and wondering what was wrong ... my breast was all red ... but I had explained it to myself that I was wearing a coarse woolen undershirt next my skin ... that I had picked up from the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... glad to wipe her tears when outside the door. Poor Bustle had been watching for his master ever since his departure, and hearing the sounds of arrival, was wild to escape from his prison. He rushed out the moment the door was open, and was scratching to be let into the drawing-room before Charlotte could come up with him. He dashed in, laid his head on Amabel's knee, and wagged his tail for welcome; gave the same greeting to Mr. and Mrs. Edmonstone, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old view, Same old rats and just as tame, Same old dug-outs, nothing new, Same old smell, the very same, Same old bodies out in front, Same old strafe from 2 till 4, Same old scratching, same old ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... eyes and white, pain-drawn face. The priest, wishing to give him a moment to rest and recover his breath, walked to the window and looked out. In the field below more than a score of ragged men, women and children were scratching and digging among piles of ashes, eagerly searching for and gathering up the half-burned cinders; searching, too, in the forlorn hope of finding something of greater value that might have been thrown away by ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the house, all, with the exception of Sir Jasper, had retired to rest, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the old-fashioned time-piece, with its monotonous and never varying tick, tick, and the scratching noise made by the quill as it traced its inky characters on the yet incomplete codicil the Baronet was preparing. The candles had burned low in their sockets, and the fire on the hearth had died out unheeded by him who sat writing line after line. Suddenly a spasm ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... out the document which Trent had handed him upon a tree-stump, and explained. His Majesty nodded more affably. The document reminded him of the pleasant fact that there were three casks of rum to come to him every year. Besides, he rather liked scratching his royal mark upon the smooth, white paper. He was quite willing to repeat the performance, and took up the pen which Sam handed ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on. We could see them coming in troops through the open glades of the forest, as if aware that some human prey was in reserve. The hut was strongly built of great pine-logs, but it was fearful to hear them tearing at the door and scratching up the foundations. The bravest among us got terrified at these sounds. Metski loudly avowed his belief that the wolves were sent upon us as a punishment for hunting on Christmas-eve, and fell instantly to his prayers. Wenzel flung a blazing brand among them from ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... take lessons from Vassyvkov. For a whole week he had been moving the bow up and down, but its scratching set his teeth on edge. He caught two strings at once, and his hand trembled with weakness. It was clearly no use. When Vassyvkov played his hand seemed to play of itself. Tired of the torment, Raisky begged his guardian to allow him to take ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the fisher-cat that brought Kazan out; from under his cover of spruce again. In the moonlight there was a sharp quick fight, a snarling and scratching, a cat-like yowl of pain, and the fisher forgot his hunger in flight. Kazan returned to Gray Wolf with a lacerated and bleeding nose. Gray Wolf licked it sympathetically, while Kazan ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... a hard day's service when the mosquitoes would bite my face and the blood run out and dry up in hard drops. When I could not get water to wash off these places I would scratch them off. In some cases these bites were poisonous. I have seen soldiers with large sores, caused by scratching mosquito bites. I was cautious about poisoning during my service in ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... trees in the side-yard, almost within arm's length of the wall,—they were so close, in fact, that their limbs stretched out over the rough shingle roof, producing in the wind an everlasting sound of scratching and scraping. There was a huge four-poster feather bed of mountainous proportions, leaving the occupant scant space in which to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... right. But I think I am a foolish old man to give a watch to a young thing like you, for you'll only go and drop it down the first rabbit-hole you and Silky go scratching into; but I thought it might be useful in keeping you up to time with that governess of yours. No excuse for being late, eh? The date too—an important one, isn't it? Well, my child, I ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... head and flirted up dirt by scratching on the ground with his feet. He had smelled blood. Mr. Billy-Goat saw how Mr. Dog acted, and he was afraid to go in. So he ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... seething vision: a ring of boys, excited, eager, yelling, laughing, cheering, with only here and there a frightened face; and there in the midst himself and another—some one who was striking and kicking and scratching at him, but whose blows he did not seem to feel, so hard and fierce and fast he himself was striking, and so hotly ran his blood. And in his ears were ringing the cries which had gone up at the end, when that other boy—he of the curly hair—had suddenly, at last, turned from him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... a very easy punishment, and then began a vigorous scratching of pencils, with shy laughing glances between the culprits, while the teacher took a book and began to read, keeping, however, a sharp eye on the pupils to see that no one shirked her work. When one announced that her slate was full, she ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... the other hand, George was no longer a giant of energy, initiating out of ample experience a tremendous and superb enterprise. He was suddenly diminished to a boy, or at best a lad. He really felt that it was ridiculous for him to be sketching and scratching away there in the middle of the night in his dress-clothes. Even his overcoat, hat, and fancy muffler cast on a chair seemed ridiculous. He was a child, pretending to be an adult. He glanced like a child at Mr. Enwright; he roughened ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... might have as little detention as possible when he should come again. No sooner had he loosened it than Tiger sprang eagerly to the small opening produced, snuffed for a moment, and then uttered a long whine, scratching at the same time, as if anxious to remove the covering with his paws. There could be no doubt, from his behaviour, that he was aware of my being in the hold, and Augustus thought it possible that he would be able to get to me if he put him down. He now hit upon the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... supposed to report all such inter-class offences; but in effect he invariably happened to be conveniently absent at such times—the times of the freshman rebellion. He began lecturing now without a word of comment, and on the instant the peaceful scratching of fountain pens on notebooks replaced the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... kick, and sometimes was even afraid to go among the children, lest one of them might be angry, as the flute player had been, and felt sadder than ever about being a dog. The villagers said, "Why, what has come over our Frolic? It used to seem as merry as a dog could be, scratching at our doors, and stealing our bones; but now it goes moping about in solitary places, just like young Edgar, with his long hair. Poor thing! It is certainly a sad fate, for one who has once been a bright child, the best scholar in school, winning a medal every week, to be ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... was in the habit of scratching up Farmer Green's newly-planted corn, just as Bobby Bobolink uncovered the freshly-sown rice in the South, Mr. Crow never cared to have any of his neighbors even hint that he did such a thing. And now he glared at ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Writing such and such Passages, but how those Thoughts came into his Head, where he was when he wrote, or what he was doing of; whether he wrote in a Garden, a Garret, or a Coach; upon a Lady, or a Milkmaid; whether at that Time he was scratching his Elbow, drinking a Bottle, or playing at Questions and Commands. These are material and important Circumstances so well known to the True Commentator, that were Virgil and Horace to revisit the World at this time, they'd ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... that, the greatest change of all—the transformation in himself. The face on which we saw so little written when he had that meeting in the Hotel Marseillaise, the new sheet straight from the mills of the gods, had now a faint scratching upon it. The mouth was looser in repose, firmer in action; the roving and merry eye was more certain, more accurate as it were, in its glances. His youthful assurance had changed in him to something like mature self-certainty. In those external city manners which he had set about ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... morning we shall reach our destination with several hours of daylight in hand; and with the help of this chart, a hand aloft on the foremast, and two leadsmen in the forechains, I will guarantee to take this little hooker in and out of that berth without so much as scratching her paint. Oh, no, we shall not take a pilot, who might possibly go back to Havana and set people wondering what the mischief was our object in slipping in behind ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... horrible to see. But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and running under the petticoats of the people, and creating altogether the most abominable din and confusion which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a parcel of children frolicking together the live-long day, and no quarrelling, no contention, among them. The same number in our own land could not have played together for the space of an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each other's charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of gentility, nor yet moving in whalebone ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... must, of comic opera. It's a pity we're not talking of the Parcoe who have been in my mind all the morning,' and she began to recite some verses that she had written. But, interrupting herself suddenly, she cried: 'Dick, who has been scratching you? How did your face get torn like that—who's been scratching you?' ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... full of sounds: the hard clicking of the typewriters, and under it the eternal rustling of the white papers, the scratching of pens, the thud of ledgers on desks, the hiss of their turning leaves, and the sharp smacking and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... with their voluminous accounts. Your rent-collector, called a tehseeldar, has been busy in the villages with the tenants and putwarries, collecting rent for the great Pooneah day. There is a constant chink of money, a busy hum, a scratching of innumerable pens. Under every tree, 'neath the shade of every hut, busy groups are squatted round some acute accountant. Totals are being totted up on all hands. From greasy recesses in the waistband a dirty bundle is ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... wearing an old-fashion tippet around his neck, the loose ends flying behind. One end had gotten under the bob runners and was scratching along in the snow. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... time this morning from Mr. Hervey. I am sure I am much obliged to him for having the courage to speak the truth to me." Here she repeated what Mr. Hervey had said to her. Lady Delacour never raised her eyes whilst Belinda spoke, but went on scratching out some words in what she was writing. Through the mask of paint which she wore no change of colour could be visible; and as Belinda did not see the expression of her ladyship's eyes, she could not in the least judge of what ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... assent, as she watched the bird's claw; at sixty-five she compressed her lips tightly, at seventy the lines on her brow announced a coming storm, at eighty she struck the ground violently with her myrtle-staff, and, as the hen, scratching faster and faster, approached ninety, and a hundred, and she saw that all the spectators were laughing, and her master was fairly holding his sides, rushed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Now tell me fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... she had invented in derision for the little creature to get a stab with the needle. She was never allowed to change her underclothing, so the delicate skin of the child soon became chafed, and she could not help scratching herself. Whereupon Concha flew into a rage, accused her of having the itch, and pushed her from the room. It got worse and worse. The microscopic maid, at the instigation of her mistress, insisted on her wearing boots too small for ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... on a printed page; but Phyllis had not realized that ten satisfying lines is a fair morning's stint; nor that a little book of synonyms is first aid in emergency cases; nor that one may talk as much as one pleases at times, but must be quiet as a mouse when the pen is scratching away so busily; she had to learn that when John's eyes were full of anguish he was probably at ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... into strips, and then into small squares, which were passed along the delighted audience. There was a busy whispering and scratching of heads. Over in one corner, jammed against the wall until he gasped for breath, Jabez Rockwell said ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... morning, as Yan approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... by the futile longing to touch the cool green water, and every little ridge or shelf was marked out by a line of ancient moss. Old alders had plunged their roots deep into the banks of the river, and wherever the sunshine struck upon the upper leaves was a cicada scratching out its monotonous note ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... surface of the glass be roughened by scratching it with a diamond or with hard sand, a new event occurs; which is, that the vitreous ether attracted from the cushion by the resinous ether combined with the glass becomes adhesive to it; and stands upon the roughened glass, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... until it had risen some distance in the heavens. By and by, however, the moon shot above the cloud, and that which before had been obscured by darkness became plain. There was the great rugged rock which bore a resemblance to the rude scratching on the paper. By the side of the rock ran a deep gulf filled with black water. Near by, perhaps twenty feet away, was another and larger mass of cliff. I looked at the water which lay between the two, and saw that it whirled and eddied, as though there were some terrible forces underneath ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... way of trying the experiment, she shut her eyes, and stretching out her arms, walked just as Richard, succeeding so well that she was beginning to consider it rather agreeable than otherwise, when she unfortunately ran into a tall rose-bush, scratching her forehead, tangling her hair, and stubbing her toes against its gnarled roots. "'Taint so jolly to be blind after all," she said, "I do believe I've broken my toe," and extricating herself as best she could from the sharp thorns, she ran on as fast ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... sandhills at its feet. The stone is so friable that names can be cut in it to almost any depth with a pocket-knife: so loose, indeed, is it, that one almost feels alarmed lest it should fall while he is scratching at its base. In a small orifice or chamber of the pillar I discovered an opossum asleep, the first I had seen in this part of the country. We turned our backs upon this peculiar monument, and left it in its loneliness and its grandeur—"clothed in ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... arose from his squatting posture, hitching up one side of his trousers, then the other, for he was suspenderless, and following at a distance, scratching his head and hitching his trousers alternately, he at last managed to say, "Ah, well—why—if you can wait a few moments till I change my clothes, I'll—I'll go with you ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... at work, from six in the evening until nine o'clock, scratching through a small-type Bible for flavourless aphorisms. Ethel is set to find six texts, and finds four of them, when she perceives something funny in one of them. She shows it to Johnnie, and they both giggle. Father looks up severely, and warns her. Then Johnnie, not to be outdone, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... dirty, apartment, lighted by high, narrow windows of ground glass; so that no time could be wasted by the junior clerks in looking out into the street. Several pale, melancholy men were seated at desks, hard at work. You heard nothing but the rapid scratching of their pens against the parchment and paper on which they were employed. When Mr. Moncton entered the office, a short, stout, middle-aged man swung himself round on his high stool and fronted us; but the moment he recognized ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... you are inane enough to hanker after perfected speech, and so misguided as to be the slave of the "right word." You sit alone in a bright, comfortable room; the clock ticks companionably; there is no other sound in the world except the constant scratching of your pen, and the occasional far-off puffing of a freight-train coming into Lichfield; there is snow outside, but before your eyes someone, that is not you exactly, arranges and redrills the scrawls which ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... maritime world in Kingston, I knew the faces and the names of most of the merchant captains who used to gather there to drink and swap yarns. I was not myself quite unknown to little Lumsden. I told him all my story, and all the time he kept on scratching his bald head, full of incredulous perplexity. Old Senor Ramon! Such a respectable man. And I had been kidnapped? From ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... them, and look what she's left me instead," and she held up a scrap of paper, "a receipt for five years' wages, and she's had them over and over again. Ah, if ever I get a chance at her," and she doubled her long hand and made a motion as of a person scratching. "She's bolted and left me here to starve. I haven't had a bit since yesterday, nor a drink either, and that's worse. What's to become of me? I'm starving. I shall have to go to the workhouse. Yes, me," she added in a scream, "me, who have spent ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... dragon came home, after he had supped and when she was scratching his head to make him drowsy for bed, the ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... had the luck,—and one day, clearing away a little snow to build a fire, I poked my toe into the dirt, and there was somethin' there, dearie, that looked suspicious. I called Jim,—that's one of the men,—and in less time than it takes to tell you there were three maniacs scratching away at old mother earth for all there was in it. We staked our claims in two weeks, and I came to Reno to raise enough money for me to come East. Now things are all fixed and it's just a matter of ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... rough drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I received it, a low growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits. When ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... come aboard and listen!" I listened and sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of any kind inside, not a ray of light visible; nothing but the echo of her own knocks through the passages, and the dry scratching of the withered leaves blown about her feet upon the floor of ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... forested billows, but the mountains stood off on the right and left, frowning in the distance. A plague of flies harassed them continually, Hazel's hands suffering most, even though she kept religiously to thick buckskin gloves. The poisonous bites led to scratching, which bred soreness. And as they gained a greater elevation and the timbered bottoms gave way to rocky hills over which she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the sweat of the exertion stung and burned intolerably, like salt water on an ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Uncle Remus, scratching his head gravely, "w'ich one er dem chilluns wuz ailin'. Hit mout er bin Kubs, en hit mout er bin Klibs; but no marter fer dat. W'en ole Miss Rabbit git dar, ole Miss B'ar wuz a-settin' up in de chimbly-cornder des a-dosin' en a-nussin' de young un; en all de wimmin er de neighborhoods wuz ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... the door with the weight of his body, holding the welding arc ready in his hand. Several times the hinges creaked, and he felt a heavy pressure against the panels. But at last the scratching sounds ceased. He relaxed. The monster had withdrawn, ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went down to look at the furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually scratching his ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... foibles: the strongest fort has its feeble point, as the chain snaps at its weakest link;—family pride was Mahomet's weak link. This was his tender point; and Mahomet, the great and the imperious, yielded to the gentle scratching of his ear if a stranger claimed connexion with his ancient lineage. Of course he had no family, with the exception of his wife and two children, whom he had left in Cairo. The lady whom he had honoured ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... run off, and a French comic; then came a rural drama situated somewhere in the Middle West. It began with a farm yard scene. The sun blazed down on a corner of a barn and on a rail fence where the ground lay in the mottled shade of large trees overhead. There were chickens, ducks, and turkeys, scratching, waddling, moving about. A big sow, followed by a roly-poly litter of seven little ones, marched majestically through the chickens, rooting them out of the way. The hens, in turn, took it out on the little porkers, pecking them when they ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... conditions have the explicitness of black and white. He knew them to be as mercenary as himself, with this only difference: Where he was frankly so, they pretended otherwise. They bothered him with their dinky deals, with their scrimping and scratching, and their sneaky attempts to hide their ugliness by the observance of one set day of sanctuary. Because they seemed to him so two-faced, so trifling, so cowardly, he liked to "stick" them every time he had a fair chance ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... altogether. He did not shave his head, as most of us had done, but allowed his hair to grow very long, and this, of course, was often a subject of irritation to him. He had also a habit of sitting on his bed in his nightclothes, yawning and scratching his body all over, very slowly, with his long (and I'm afraid dirty) finger-nails, for the space, perhaps, of a quarter of an hour. This I found difficult to endure. His long white face was always ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... know," returned the smith, scratching his head as if a little puzzled; "but I know that poor men won't be overtaxed. They say they are better off with you than with the Barons before, and therefore they love you. But men in business, Tribune, poor men with families, must ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dishevelled man, who stood by the Magdalen tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis' daughter was pleased to patronize, and his red hair was unpardonably tousled. Nor were his manners beyond reproach, for now, without saying anything, he, too, went to the window. He dragged one ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... rosebushes in the yard. "Saddle Mr. Chad's horse." Then, without looking again at Chad, he turned into his office, and Chad, standing where he was, with a breaking heart, could hear, through the open window, the rustling of papers and the scratching of a pen. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... every sort. They were to march against the cacique, and if he refused their alliance, they were to attack and overthrow him. Moreover, the Spaniards never weary of repeating, as a proof of the wealth they dream of, that by just scratching the earth almost anywhere, grains of gold are found. I only repeat here ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... of which one may distinguish the various gems from each other is hardness. By hardness is meant the ability to resist scratching. The term "hardness" should not be taken to include toughness, yet it is frequently so understood by the public. Most hard stones are more or less brittle and would shatter if struck a sharp blow. Other hard stones have a pronounced cleavage and split ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... cavalry horses over the sands of the Maricopa desert, swung in our hammocks under the ramadas; swam in the red waters of the Verde River, ate canned peaches, pink butter and commissary hams, listened for the scratching of the centipedes as they scampered around the edges of our canvas-covered floors, found scorpions in our slippers, ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... later when the early summer work was better under way, I took an implement or two over, and half scratching, half digging inside the little wall, I found layer after layer of dead leaves and sediment, dead leaves and sediment. Presently water became evident, and a little later it began to rise within the wall. In a short time there was nearly three feet of water. It was cloudy, no bottom could be seen. ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... flew, both trying to enter the narrow door of the tavern. Wedged in the doorway, each thought the other holding him. Fighting, cussing, scratching, they were pulled into the big tap room filled with guests. All imagined the two hostlers were fighting and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... point to which they answer as a barb and serve also to pres it forward when onece entered a small distance. these barbed seed penetrate our mockersons and leather legings and give us great pain untill they are removed. my poor dog suffers with them excessively, he is constantly hinting and scratching himself as if in a rack of pain. the prickly pear also grow here as abundantly as usual. there is another species of the prickly pear of a globular form, composed of an assemblage of little conic leaves springing from a common root to which their small points are attached as a common center ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... his failure to free himself from the dripping woods, he abruptly came upon a clearing, in the midst of which stood a small house, surrounded by a well-tilled garden and several smaller buildings. Chickens were scratching and picking at the earth, and a big dog, fortunately restrained by a chain, scrambled out of his kennel at sight of the stranger and barked and tugged ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... the man, for the Corean woman can have a temper at times. Jealousy en plus is one of her chief virtues. I have seen women in Seoul nearly tearing one another to pieces, and, O Lord! how masterly they are in the art of scratching. The men on such occasions stand round them, encouraging them to fight, the husbands enjoying the fun more than the other less interested spectators. The women of the lower classes seem to be in a constant state of excitement and anger. They are always insulting one another, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... said the Judge, mournfully scratching his head, "I should like to do so very much, but what if I have new perplexities! Brother Jacek has not abandoned the oversight of his son, and has just sent down upon me that Bernardine Robak, who has arrived ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... by a scratching sound and low growl. Turning his head, he saw an immense wolf standing at the entrance of the cavern, his whole figure revealed in the firelight. With his jaws parted and his form erect, he was a formidable creature, before which almost any ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... time he could not remember, staring at the new portrait and scratching his head. Then it came to him suddenly: "Why, sure, I ought to ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as every time I've swep' out the president's office. And Professor Grid always looked like ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... mental vacuity which comes at the end of an exhaustive discussion that has liberated some belief matured in the course of meditative years. He had indeed been making his confession of faith, had he only known it; and its effect was to make Jukes, on the other side of the door, stand scratching his head for ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... away, but they've been lying down and rolling and scratching themselves until they make the wallows you see all over the plains. It's not a big band, two or three hundred, perhaps. Well, they don't mean anything to us, except a possible supply of provisions later on. No wonder the Indians hate ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the track was broad, passing through thickets of thorn and low hawthorn-trees with immense masses of tangled underwood between, brambles and woodbine twisted and matted together, impervious above but hollow beneath; under these they could hear the bush-hens running to and fro and scratching at the dead leaves which strewed the ground. Sounds of clucking deeper in betrayed ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic assemblage of articles—mainly old framed prints and paintings—leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder's yard. All the books visible here were folios too big to be stolen—some lying on a heavy oak table ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... I'm trying to make her come up close to the rail, so she can get a good, firm hold; but she's afraid of scratching ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... some private house and she prepared to go. She had passably good clothing and was, as far as appearance was concerned, ready to go. Then came a dreadful discovery. The wolf was at the door. He had come up the stairs and was scratching and snarling at the threshold. What were they to do? There was not a thing to eat in the house. The very last franc had been spent. There was nothing left but that pearl cross the Countess had given ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... the Legion? Lying there, the only waking one among the sleepers, fear of unseen, mysterious things, the fear that sometimes attacks a brave man in the night, leaped at him out of the shadows. He could almost feel the sharp little claws of the dreaded beetle scratching in his brain. Yes, he'd been a fool to join the Legion, and to hand over Jack Doran's house and fortune to Grant Reeves! It was impossible that Grant had married Josephine for love. He had simply taken her with the money, and he meant to ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... to look about him, for a door opened at the further end of the room, and admitted the portly person of Miss Terry, arrayed in a gigantic sun hat and a pair of green spectacles. She seemed very hot, and held in her hand a piece of brown paper, inside of which something was violently scratching. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... merchant who favored the customer by selling to him. That is bad for business. Monopoly is bad for business. Profiteering is bad for business. The lack of necessity to hustle is bad for business. Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets. Things were coming too easily. There was a let-down of the principle that an honest relation ought to obtain between values and prices. The public no longer had to be "catered to." There was even a "public be damned" attitude in many places. It was intensely bad for ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... inspiring leader of men in our generation,—General Armstrong, was first undertaking his work for the negroes in Virginia, he wrote a letter to a friend in the North, {46} saying: "Dear Miss Ludlow: If you care to sail into a good hearty battle, where there is no scratching and pin-sticking, but great guns and heavy shot only used, come here. If you like to lend a hand when a good cause is short-handed, come here." Could any brave man or woman resist a call like that? It was a call to ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... speech the Cook looked up and down, scratching his head in doubt, for he loved good feasting. At last he drew a long breath and said to Little John, "Well, good friend, I like thy plan right well; so, pretty boy, say I, let us feast, with all my heart, for one of us may sup ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... tint between a hyacinth red and a chestnut brown, were continually passing over the body. Any part, being subjected to a slight shock of galvanism, became almost black: a similar effect, but in a less degree, was produced by scratching the skin with a needle. These clouds, or blushes as they may be called, are said to be produced by the alternate contraction and expansion of minute vescicles ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... rout of the shadows before the bright spears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head, he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in scratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... a slight scratching sound at the door. Tiptoeing to the door, Dalzell opened it far enough to admit Seaman Runkle, who, as soon as the door had been closed and locked, promptly saluted both ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... "I danced the soles off my shoes trying to get in here yesterday, and I hear you were moping all the time, and paid me no more attention than I had been a dog scratching at the door. What! and have you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... which she belonged, he got into bed with her, without entreating her permission or making any kind of ceremony. She felt him in her arms before she knew that he had entered the room; but being strong, she freed herself from his grasp, and fell to striking, biting, and scratching him, demanding the while to know who he was, so that for fear lest she should call out he sought to stop her mouth with the bedclothes. But this he found it impossible to do, for when she saw that he was using all his strength to work her shame she did as much to baffle him. She further ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... philosopher, it was evident to Paco, that if wind came through, there must be a vault on the other side of the wall, and not the solid earth, as he had hitherto believed; and it also became probable that the wall was deficient either in thickness or solidity. After some scratching at the plaster, he succeeded in uncovering the side of a small stone of irregular shape. A vigorous push entirely dislodged it, and it fell from him, leaving an opening through which he could pass his arm. This he did, and found that although ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... specific manifesto, and at midday, in the churchyard, in the vicinity of an old vault, before which there, was a grass plot, the affair was settled in the presence of the whole school, with natural weapons, by wrestling and pounding, in extreme cases also by biting and scratching. I never indeed rose to the rank of a genuine triarian, who made it a point of honor to go about the whole year with a black eye or a swollen nose, but I very soon lost the reputation for being a good child, which I owed to my mother and which up to that time had meant so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... old boy," said Ned, already busily scratching off the form of the contract he proposed to show the company's legal advisers ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... moved slowly through the jungle his mind absorbed by his gloomy thoughts, there presently came to his ears a strange scratching sound which he ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stranger, I saw his brow contract; he gave a slight stamp with his foot, and flung the newspaper to the ground, then stooping down he picked it up, first moving his forefinger along the floor, seemingly slightly scratching ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of that forenoon, that is the hour or so remaining, was spent by Mr. Winslow in sitting by the workbench and idly scratching upon a board with the point of the chisel. Sometimes his scratches were meaningless, sometimes they spelled a name, a name which he seemed to enjoy spelling. But at intervals during that day, and on other days which followed, he was conscious ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to turn away. A few times, when further urged, she swore at the examiner. There was also persistent marked resistance towards any interference, sometimes merely passive or quite often, especially at first, with wriggling or severe scratching of her own body. There was often with this evidence of irritation or she moaned. Again she was described as quite affectless. One of the most striking features throughout a large part of the course were ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... must first explain to you that for weeks and weeks I—I have imagined I heard sounds—" She looked carefully around her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated, swallowing a little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing and squeaking and sniffing and scratching of—of live things. I asked the janitor, and he said the house was not very well built and that the beams ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... master," says he, scratching his shaven chin, "since you've got your breakfus' surely, if you're minded t' step along t' my cottage down t' lane, I can give ye a jug of good ale to wash it down." Now as he spoke thus, seeing the sturdy manliness of him I dropped my staff and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... with a mere flourish of the pen. I have a scene in a watch-house, with half a score of heads, thoroughly Irish, drunk or sleepy, and as many more of these shovel hats, which the clever artist amused himself with scratching off,—as we sat talking together at a table,—on a little bit of waste paper, which fluttered away in the draft from a window, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... will run dry before a year's out, if you don't get the pump to help the cow? Let me tell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, and bought a checkbook, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sums to suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was as easy as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book seemed to be a dictionary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes of happiness, and realize any one of them on the spot. A check came back to me at last with these two words on it,—No funds. My checkbook ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... He actually forced the wire netting from the roof of the coop, although it was firmly nailed to the woodwork. But he could not quite get his head in, for when the keeper arrived on the scene at five o'clock a.m., there he was, clawing and scratching at the birds. His efforts met with no success, however, for not a single bird was badly injured, though some damage might have been done if Master Reynard had not been interrupted at this critical moment. Young cubs ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... wherever her duty called her. But still, she talked, and Miss Custer sat looking out into the clean-swept back yard with its boxed-up flower-beds blooming with the gayest annuals, and its cooped-up hens with their broods of puffy chickens scratching and picking and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... there, but Roger was afraid to risk going away till it had definitely ended, so they went for their walk, and I chatted with Miss Jencks by the fire. They had been gone about an hour when we heard a great scratching and whining at the door (I thought for a moment it was Kitch) and Rosy bounded in, snapping his teeth and glaring fearfully. We both jumped up and he flew at me and caught my sleeve in his teeth—for ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis' ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of the fight. To advance was impossible, to turn back equally so, and while meditating some means of escape she lost her footing and fell across a wheelbarrow which stood upon the platform, crumpling her bonnet, and scratching her face upon a nail which protruded from the vehicle. Nearer dead than alive, she made her way at last into the depot, and from thence into the cars, where, sinking into a seat, and drawing her shawl closely around her, the better to conceal the sad ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... anything else," said the farmer, scratching his head. Then he added with a grin, "unless it be ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... went, but at last we came to a peculiarly deserted looking house. Here Rusty turned in and began scratching at the door. We jumped ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... waistcoat with the hind part before, and this was a corroboration of good luck. He no longer doubted that a huge store of money lay buried somewhere in his cabbage-field, coyly waiting to be sought for, and he half repined at having so long been scratching about the surface of the soil, instead of digging ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
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