"Blacksnake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little Sam, who had made his escape in the confusion, came running in, breathless. "Papa! papa!" said he, "Lee has come home with a snake seven feet long." Lee was at the door with the reptile in his hand—a black snake, with a deep salmon-coloured belly, deadly venomous, as I knew. All the party went out to look at it, except the Doctor and Miss Thornton, who ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... boyish, He the lively Lemminkainen, Grew both sorrowful and angry, And for long was wild with fury, And he spoke the words which follow: "O my mother, aged woman, 30 Wash my shirt, and wash it quickly In the black snake's deadly venom, Dry it then, and dry it quickly That I may go forth to battle, And contend with youths of Pohja, And o'erthrow the youths of Lapland. Kyllikki has sought the village, Entered there the doors of strangers, There ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... with the same result. So, growing impatient, he got out of his skiff, went splashing through the marl water himself, and disappeared in the coppice. Presently we heard his big laugh, and the next second, his gun. A moment or two after, he reappeared, shouldering a huge black snake. No wonder Sailor had been unable to find his bird, for, as Charlie had entered the coppice, the first thing he saw was this snake coiled up in the centre, with a curious protuberance bulging out his neck. Flying from Charlie's gun, the unfortunate duck had landed right into ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... up a paddle again and tried to paddle against the great black current sweeping us forward. I worked until the perspiration stood in beads on my forehead, and all the time I worked the river, like some black snake, hissed and twined, and that pretty lady rode cheerily along at my side. Overhead stars of unearthly brilliancy were coming out in the frosty sky, while on either hand the banks were high and the shadows under them ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... not unpleasant, and I ate it because it was her gift. We were walking peacefully along, through the waist-high grain, when Salome gave a little scream and jumped back, plump into my arms. Even in my excitement I saw the tail of a black snake vanishing across the path. I released her quickly, of course, but the touch of her figure was like wine ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... unexpected, and by no means agreeable to the persons we found there. A half-clothed, red-haired Irish servant was upon her knees, kindling up the fire; and a long, thin woman, with a sharp face, and an eye like a black snake, was just emerging from a bed in the corner. We soon discovered this apparition to be the mistress of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... bush cat has a nasty, unpleasant habit of dragging a long, wriggling, horrid, black snake—she seems to prefer black snakes—into a room where there are ladies, proudly laying it down in a conspicuous place (usually in front of the exit), and then looking up for approbation. She wonders, perhaps, why the visitors are in such a ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... aboriginal Indian races, Peruvians, and others, distinguish their families by the names of various plants and animals, from which each family boasts its descent. Thus you have a family called Kangaroos, descended, as they fancy, from the kangaroo; another from the cockatoo, another from the black snake, and so forth. Now, in many quarters of the globe, this custom and this superstition, combined with the imitative faculty in man, has produced a form of art representing the objects from which the families claim descent. This art is a sort of rude heraldry—probably the origin ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... quoth Uncle Bill; 'for a nobility ball this comes as near a dance-house affair as I ever want to approach. By the way, who is that pickpocket-looking genius with eyes like a black snake?' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the smell of blood," quickly answered the sensitive maid. "The Black Snake is a boy, and does not know his ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... Story of the Monkey and the Wedge The Story of the Washerman's Jackass The Story of the Cat who Served the Lion The Story of the Terrible Bell The Story of the Prince and the Procuress The Story of the Black Snake and the Golden Chain The Story of the Lion and the Old Hare The Story of the Wagtail ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the long whip, called a "black snake," which was lying on the seat and cracked it over the horses, a fine, sturdy pair, as he had noticed already. They stepped briskly along, as if anxious to warm themselves after their long wait in the cold, and Prescott, who was a good driver, felt the glorious ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... brushwood near the edge of the morass, and looked at the fugitives, and his heart sank within him. They were hardly in the likeness of his own kind, and they seemed practically lifeless now. Everything was dull, heavy, and dead. The note of the wind among the leaves was somber. A long black snake slipped from the marshy grass near his feet and disappeared soundlessly in the water. He was sick, sick to death at the sight of so much suffering, and the desire for vengeance, slow, cold, and far more lasting than any hot outburst, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was prospering. The mother bird would keep her place, her yellow eyes never blinking. One morning, as I looked into her tent, I found the nest empty. Some night-prowler, probably a skunk or a fox, or maybe a black snake or a red squirrel by day, had plundered it. It would seem as if it was too well screened; it was in such a spot as any depredator would be apt to explore. "Surely," he would say, "this is a likely ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... has a flat leaf, and is strong, tough, and disagreeable. There was also much of the wild flax, of which we now obtained some ripe seed, as well as some bullrush and cattail flag. Among the animals we met with a black snake about two feet long, with the belly as dark as any other part of the body, which was perfectly black, and which had one hundred and twenty-eight scuta on the belly and sixty-three on the tail: we also saw antelopes, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... for some time in my room, some years ago, a male black snake (Bascanion constrictor). Whenever this creature became hungry, he would follow me about the room like a dog or a cat. He would wind his way up my legs and body, until his head was on a level with my own; he would then bow repeatedly, darting out ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... different kinds of snakes. I wouldn't be afraid cause I would know that unless the snake is in a quirl, that is, in a pose to bite you, he wouldn't bite you. If you smell a water mellon scent in the woods you know right then that a black snake is around. If the scent is like a honey suckle a highland moccasin is around somewhere. A rattlesnake smells like a billy goat. Always remember a snake can't bite until it gets posed neither can a snake bite you in the water. Some snakes lay eggs and hatch their young. A mother snake ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... him down on the green grass. They next pulled a straw bed over his head, and inserted him in it completely, cutting holes for his legs. Then they tied a string of sleigh-bells to his tail, and hit him a smart, stinging blow with a black snake. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... sez, leaning his hand on my arm to detain me as I was going down below, 'this wasn't a h'English ghost as I sees just now. It was the most outlandish foreign reptile you ever see. A long, big, black snake like a crocodile, only twice the length of the old corvette; with a head like a bird, and eyes as big and fiery as our side-lights. It was a terrible creature, Jim, and its eyes flamed out like lightning, and ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... that black snake root is good for blood trouble for he has used it on many a person with safety and surety. Sasafras tea is good for colds; golden rod tea for fever; fig leaves for thrash; red oak bark for douche; slippery elm ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... they had been standing, and stopped its descent about three feet from the ground, parallel to which it was slowly carried by the wind. A few yards off, in the direction in which it was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... I'm to blame, teacher?" exclaimed Luther, earnestly, "There wasn't a stick of wood to be had in our house this morning! And I've had to be off, all day, chopping, with Scudder—you ought to have seen the black snake we killed this morning. It was six feet long. If you don't believe it, Scudder's got the carcass. It was lying all curled up in the bushes with its head up so—'you watch him, Lute,' says Scudder, 'and I'll ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... were going over an open space where the sun shone more warmly than elsewhere, a great yellow and black snake lazily dragged itself across the road directly in front ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... what was the matter, we saw a large black snake in the road just ahead of us. Being very reckless children, we slid off old Bob, found some heavy sticks, and attacked the snake. First Dick struck it, and, when it turned on him, I struck it; and so we ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... prisoners, who, after the peace of 1795, were released and returned to Kentucky. They related that fourteen Indians were killed, and seventeen wounded. They stated further, that there were in the camp about one hundred warriors, among them several chiefs of note, including Tecumseh, Battise, Black Snake, Wolf and Chinskau; and that the party had been formed for the purpose of annoying the settlements in Kentucky, and attacking boats descending the Ohio river. Kenton and his party were three days in reaching Limestone, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... lay coiled, and perfectly still, a spotted viper, an immense black snake, and one very light and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... into a short black torso nearly as wide as the skull itself. From this trunk there writhed a score of long black snake-like tentacles, each terminating in a flexible three-fingered "hand." The trunk was supported by two short thick legs, armored with gray scales, and ending in broad ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... interview with Dounia and her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed scout; "I heard the imp brushing over the dry leaves, like a black snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I pulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... allow, and the girl and the monkey commenced their fantastic dance. They had taken but a few steps when the door suddenly opened, and the tall figure of the Wondersmith appeared on the threshold. His face was convulsed with rage, and the black snake that quivered on his upper lip seemed to rear itself as if about to spring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... in his voice, for he did not share Colon's antipathy toward crawling reptiles, and could not understand how any fellow could be so foolish as to shiver at sight of a mere wriggling object. "Fred says it's too early for rattlers to show out of their dens. One was a fair-sized black snake, and the other might have been an adder; he was short and stumpy, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... north line came Freckles, fairly staggering. When he turned east and reached Sleepy Snake Creek, sliding through the swale as the long black snake for which it was named, he sat on the bridge and closed his burning eyes, but they would not remain shut. As if pulled by wires, the heavy lids flew open, while the outraged nerves and muscles of his body ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the young confessor refused, after the example of holy Eleazer, "to eat flesh, or go over to the life of the heathens," (2 Mac. vi. 24.) he was compelled to go without food till the Sunday following. He was flogged with a "black snake," till the blood flowed in rills, every time he refused going to meeting. He was compelled to stand out under rain and storm, scorching sun and chilling frost, during the time the family spent in prayer. Yes, tied with a thong ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... particularly proud of an ugly knife-slash, with which the Black Snake had decorated his chest—nay, I suspected him of introducing sumac juice to make it larger and more showy—but said nothing, as these people knew well enough how to care ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... But when he approached the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold bloom upon it that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer he perceived that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and coiled in the center was a small black snake. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... know what she means, you little black snake in the grass," whispered one of the girls in her ear while pretending to put ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... speaker took them, and handed one to his comrade. And now the widow observed that out of the muzzle of each protruded the butt-end of a small cowhide. Each soldier held his gun at his side, and laying hold of the said butt-end, drew out the long taper belly and dangling lash of the whip, like a black snake by ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... clear of the horse's heels, but which frequently got him entangled, so that he had to be released by the footman (the clerk). When this occurred, the latter, with an Indian war-whoop, leaped off the sledge, flourished and cracked his big "black snake" whip in air to encourage the animal to run faster, and I, sitting with the driver on the front seat, gripped for dear life the board upon which I sat. No Jehu, I feel sure, ever drove as did our driver tonight, assisted by the whooping footman with his black snake. Through drifts and over the pond, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... cheering prospect to look along the dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe—like stream, with nothing to be seen but the heavy lowering sky above, the red swollen water beneath, and the gigantic trees high towering overhead, and growing close to the water's edge, laced together with black snake—like withes, while the jungle was thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water, for beach, or shore, or cleared bank, there was none,—all water and underwood, except where a heavy soft slimy steaming black bank of mud hove its shining back from out the dead waters near the shore, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Carolina. Allegators. Rattle-Snakes. Ground Rattle-Snakes. Horn-Snakes. Water-Snakes, four sorts. Swamp Snakes three sorts. Red-bellied Land-Snakes. Red-back'd Snake. Black Truncheon Snake. Scorpion-Lizard. Green Lizard. Frogs, many sorts. Long black Snake. King-Snake. Green Snake. Corn Snake. Vipers black and gray. Tortois. Terebin Land and Water. Brimstone-Snake. Egg, or Chicken-Snake. Eel-Snake, or great Loach. ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... herself, had also become tired, and while the boy was chewing a banana, she crouched down on the ground, closed her eyes a bit, and rested. But suddenly, she uttered a wailing scream, the boy looked at her in fear and saw her face having grown pale from horror; and from under her dress, a small, black snake fled, by which ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... reptiles was the black snake with venomous fangs, and so much in colour resembling a burnt stick, that a close inspection only could detect the difference. Mr. Bass once, with his eyes cautiously directed towards the ground, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the discovery rendered him speechless, yet he stood fascinated and unable to move. At this moment a small black snake darted from the mouth of the princess, who was seated at the table, and wriggled quickly towards him. But the Arab was watching for something of the sort to happen, and seizing the serpent with some pincers that he held ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... by the motions of the serpent tribe. They make our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the fish seems very superfluous, as if nature had only indulged her fancy in making them. The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... was sure was an "old har," as hares are often called in Virginia, rushed out of the bushes near him; and once he heard a quick rustling among the dead leaves that sounded as if it were made by a black snake, but it might as well have been a Chinese pagoda on wheels, for all he could see of it. At last he became very tired, and sat down to rest with his back against a big tree. There he soon began to nod, and, without the slightest intention ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... said Jack. He observed with sickening distinctness that the night had begun to fall, the river's silver ribbon had become a black snake, and that the mountain range beyond loomed chill and dark and cheerless. "I guess I ought to be getting into my things," he said, moving toward ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... the Cape Indian church, which seems to have thrived a century or two ago, was the hero of a wonderous snake story which, if it were not about a deacon, one might think apocryphal. I did not see a black snake on the whole journey, but they are common enough even now and were once perhaps much more so. At any rate Nauhaut was attacked by a whole ring of them—so the story runs—which approached him from all sides, the snakes with black heads raised ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Standing motionless on the bank, which from there sloped gradually down toward the river, more than a minute had elapsed when my attention was distracted by a slight noise behind me. Looking to the right and backward my surprise was great to perceive the tail-end of a black snake rapidly proceeding toward the left. Hastily turning my eyes in that direction I beheld the well-shaped, powerful, though somewhat slender, forward part of the serpent, which, holding its head high, almost to the height of my knee, made ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... further upper corner of the potato-field, and by the faint tints of violet light that flowed over the brown soil from a pallid and fading sunset. As the sky was scrawled by the gray-and-black rampikes, so the slope was scrawled by zigzag lines of gray-and-black snake fence, leading down to three log cabins, with their cluster of log barns and sheds, scattered irregularly along a terrace of the slope. A quarter of a mile further down, beyond the little gray dwellings, a sluggish ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... arms I laid her to sleep! And there she is lying, and no one knows, And the summer shines and the winter snows; For many a day the flowers have spread A pall of petals over her head; And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air, And the sly coyote trots here and there, And the black snake glides, and glitters, and slides Into the rift in a cotton-wood tree; And the buzzard sails on, And comes and is gone, Stately and still like a ship at sea; And I wonder why I do not care For the things that are like the things that were. Does half my heart ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... fool you, Mister Oberseer Man! Oh, I fool you, my ole Marster! Cotch de mockin'bird co'tin' in de locus', Cotch de bullfrog gruntin' in de ma'sh, Cotch de black snake trabellin' 'long his road, But you ain' gwine see dis niggah ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the way of bush-craft from the wily Jess. Once she snapped at his shoulder suddenly, and thrust him aside from a log he was just about to clamber upon. "'Ware! 'Ware!" said her short bark, with unmistakable vehemence. As Finn drew back, wonderingly, a short black snake rose between him and the log, hissed angrily at the hounds once, and then darted away round the log's butt end. Jess made some gruff remarks in her throat which could not well be translated into our tongue; but they sufficed to teach ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... I knew that these birds were excited by the presence of some enemy. Perhaps they were defending their nests against the black snake or the crotalus. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... there she is lying, and no one knows; And the summer shines and the winter snows; For many a day the flowers have spread A pall of petals over her head; And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air, And the sly coyote trots here and there, And the black snake glides and glitters and slides Into a rift in a cotton-wood tree; And the buzzard sails on, And comes and is gone, Stately and still like a ship at sea; And I wonder why I do not care For the things that are like the things that were. Does half my heart lie buried there In Texas, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... L.M.S. station at Delena (a Roro village on the coast) told me that in his village it is a common thing for a native to pick up a small white snake about 12 inches long, and pass it through the hole in his nose; and that the Pokau people sometimes pass the tip of the tail of a larger black snake into these holes, the intention of both practices being to keep the hole open. In neither of these cases is the practice a part of an original ceremony connected with nose-piercing, such as that of Mafulu; but it may well be that all ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... said, Mr. Stewart," he remarked, as he joined me. "Fully a hundred of the niggers stole off to the woods to-night so soon as it was dark. They went down toward the old Black Snake swamp." ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... A large black snake lay in graceful curves across their path several rods ahead. Its head was somewhat elevated and rigid. Before it fluttered a small chickadee in a sort of strange, though powerless fascination, its wings partly open in a trembling manner, its chirp noisy and incessant, its movement ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... not the gloom of the leaves of the forest, that is the sea swelling like a dark black snake. That is not the dance of the flowering jasmine, that is flashing foam. Ah, where is the sunny green shore, where is your nest? Bird, O my bird, listen to me, do not ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... killed the biggest black snake yistidy—I think it was yistidy. Let me see. I know in reason it was yistidy, for I was a splittin' some wood when he fotch the thing along, draggin' it by the tail. Though that mout have been day before yistidy. I believe it was day ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... to retrace her steps. A flash of lightning penetrated the gloom around her, and barring her path she saw a huge black snake,—harmless enough, in fact, but to her excited imagination frightful in appearance. With a wild shriek she turned again, staggered forward a few yards, stumbled over a projecting root, and fell heavily to ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... shaves what a sailor would term the fore and after part of his head. He reaps his hirsute crop dry, using no lather. His cue is pieced out by silken braid, so interwoven as gradually to taper into a slim tassel, something like a Missouri mule-driver's "black snake" whip-lash. To lose this cue is to lose caste and standing among his fellows. No misfortune ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the big black snake that lived in the ant-hill at the back of the house whose movements Jim and the piccanin had been discussing. The snake ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... laughing-stock of the family and neighborhood for years. My valuable 'Ivy Island' was an almost inaccessible, worthless bit of barren land, and while I stood deploring my sudden downfall, a huge black snake (one of my tenants) approached me with upraised head. I gave one shriek ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton |
