"Crooning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now against her breast, and she, whose inmost nature was maternity, delighted in the pressure of the tiny body, crooning songs to him when they were left alone, and pausing now and then to pity and kiss the little shrunken foot that hung beside ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Juliet, walking listlessly up and down the garden, turned the corner of a yew hedge, and came suddenly upon a figure that might well have appeared one of the kobolds of German legend. He was digging slowly but steadily, crooning a strange song—so low that, until she saw him ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... distinctive movement, as, for instance, the striking squeal of a hen, accompanied by the crouching attitude, together indicate the appearance of a hawk as plainly as though it uttered the warning in words. It is obvious, therefore, that all the sounds made by animals, such as cackling, clucking, crooning, purring, crowing, growling, and roaring, as well as modifications of these sounds, impart some meaning which can be distinguished by their kind, and are ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... centre and around the edges tiny squares of many colors, atrocious reds, blues and yellows. These windows were opened a little at the top, and through the openings came soft sounds of Spring, the wind racing among the budding branches, the sudden call of a bird, and occasionally the crooning, sleepy cackle of hens from a distance. Now and then a cloud drifted by, across the sun, dimming the interior for a moment, so that the minister's voice seemed to come from farther off. The sunlight through the stained glass projected colored splotches here and there. I wondered if the people ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... on his grey mare, Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fire; Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet; Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares: Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and ...
— Tam O'Shanter • Robert Burns
... at once in the lighted room, of which we had a view. Gazing through the window we were surprised to find that the only person within save Andrew, was a young woman, who, crouching over a smouldering fire, was crooning a lullaby while she attended ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... ear a fiddle charms, A bagpipe's her delight, But for the crooning o' her wheel She disna care a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... song, was the crooning wailing tune that the wise woman sung. At the first note almost, you would have thought she wanted to frighten the princess; and so indeed she did. For when people WILL be naughty, they have to be frightened, and they are not expected to like it. The princess ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... had not a whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. Moreover, not a sound disturbed me. Soft darkness had hidden the whole world from my sight, and buried me in ideal rest. Only the lonely, crooning voice of silence strikes in monotones on my ear, and the dark monsters out there will draw me to them when night comes, and they will bear me far across the sea, through strange lands where no man dwells, and they will bear me to Princess Ylajali's palace, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... pillow with a sigh; she did not even question the old negress who sat crooning over the fire, as to where she was, or what had befallen her; but accepted this new place as only another misty delirium, and in her secret heart prayed, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... eager to go to her. She would fly up stairs and passages, knock at the bedroom door, run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roof nearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with her friend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge of the terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west window commanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square fields and hedges, and scattered wood. Marcella, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dyed black. It was a comfort and relief to pass from the funeral gloom to the little pink-ruffled chamber among the cherry-trees, where the birds were singing and the summer breezes blowing, and the pretty Kathleen was crooning her Irish songs, and invoking the holy virgin and all the saints to bless the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... poetry is nothing more than such modulated sounds; it is not in definite words, and hence, is not capable of translation; it is but the expression of feeling through the voice, as is the wail of the infant, the rippling laughter of youth, the crooning of senility, the groans ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... wandering over the grass towards her. His hands were full of dandelions and he looked not unlike an overgrown one himself with his towsled yellow curls. He leaned across her knee, his curly head hanging down, and swayed to and fro, crooning a little sleepy song. Miss Gordon's thin hand passed lovingly over his silky hair. Her face grew soft and beautiful. At such times the castles in Edinburgh grew dim and ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... office half an hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small figure in the dining-room—a tiny, plump figure in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... reply. She knew the fight was out of him and picked up the still screaming baby, which she hugged to her breast, crooning over it while Garron got lamely to his feet. Without another word she started back to the hut, Garron following his mate and ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... rush or the low crooning of water, and over every wall comes the scent of jasmine and rose. Far off, from the red purgatory between the walls, sounds the savage thrum-thrum of a negro orgy, here all is peace and perfume. A minaret springs up between the roofs like a palm, and from its balcony the little white ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... weave, crooning the mystic weaving-song meanwhile, so that the magic of its words might sink into every part of the Cloak, and make its power certain. He feared not to weave it under the eyes of him who should receive ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... box nursing a rag doll, in the sunlight that came in at the side door. She was crooning to herself a weird little song, and rocking back and forth upon the box. Mr. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... Night Falls On The Gods. Even Mimmy has his two or three themes: the weird one already described; the little one in triple measure imitating the tap of his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the savage laugh of Alberic at his death; and finally the crooning tune in which he details all his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling Siegfried. Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings and shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the orchestra at any moment instantly brings Mimmy to mind, whether he is on the stage ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... accord with a whim of the sea had floated and was now held aloft slantwise to the lips of the wind, firm in the branching tines of stag's-horn coral. A rustic pipe—giving forth a sonorous moan, now cooing and crooning, now bold and confident, and again irresolute and unschooled. Not too sure of instrumentalism, oft the note was hesitating, soliciting a compliant ear as became a modest wooer of the muses, polishing his unceremonious serenade to some, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... needles went rapidly in and out. I call it singing, but I dare say a musician would not use that word to the tuneless yet sweet humming of the low worn voice. I found out from the words, far more than from the attempt at the tune, that it was the Old Hundredth she was crooning to herself; but the quiet continuous sound told of content, and gave me a pleasant feeling, as I stood in the street just outside the door, quite in harmony with that soft May morning. I went in. At first she did not catch who it was, and stood up as if to serve me; but in ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cried contritely, and in an instant his strong arms closed about the huddled figure, and he held her fast, crooning softly in her ear as a mother might over her babe, until at length the convulsive gasps eased, grew less frequent, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... warmth of the fire, too, and huddled round it till Purun Bhagat had to push them aside to throw on more fuel; and in the morning, as often as not, he would find a furry ape sharing his blanket. All day long, one or other of the tribe would sit by his side, staring out at the snows, crooning and ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... came without bringing the children in, nurse became very cross indeed. Baby had been somewhat troublesome all the forenoon. Auntie Alice had lately got into the habit of taking him of a morning, walking him about in her arms, crooning sweet nothings over him in her soothing voice. He was old enough to miss her, and to-day was not satisfied at being put off with only nurse. He had, besides, a new tooth coming—a tiny pearly thing, peeping like a speck of ivory ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... to take advantage of his good fortune. He had a sense of being there on parole, of being on his honour not to touch. So he sat in his chair, and looked at Bill; while Bill, crooning to himself, ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... softly, and crooning it low, Rocking and nestling with—"By-baby-O!" Loving the melody known the world o'er, And adding sweet words that ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine
... trade wind, the shadowy grace of the giant coconut-palms swaying and whispering on the nearby beach in the moonlight, while the surf, lapping upon the coral reef on the outer side of the isle, lulled them with its crooning obligato. ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... came outside to the seat by the doorway. The moon was filling the sky with its radiance. A chorus of crickets sang joyously in the short brown grass about the sunflowers. The cottonwoods along the river course gleamed like alabaster in the white night-splendor, and the prairie breeze sang its low crooning song of evening as it flowed gently over the land. "How beautiful the world is," Virginia said, as she caught the full radiance of the light on ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... deserted, and lights gleamed only in upper windows of apartments, where sick sufferers tossed, or tender mothers sang soft lullabys to restless babies crooning in their cribs. Now and then a sudden gust of wind shook the yellow berries from the china trees, that bordered the pavements, and very soon the moonshine faded, then flashed fitfully, and finally vanished, as the blackening cloud swept over the face ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that dwelt in lonely unvisited places, and communed more with things of earth than the hearts of men. In the flutes and bassoons seemed to him to dwell the voices of airs that murmured in the thickets, the soft gliding of streams, the crooning of serene birds, the peace of noonday, the welling of clear springs, the beauty of little waves, the bright thoughts of stars. Sometimes in certain modes, they could be sad, but it was the sadness of lonely homeless things, old dreaming spirits of wind and wave, not ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... chariots drawn by horses ornamented with gayly-decorated harnesses, come rattling into town and get down before a weatherbeaten inn, the signboard above which testifies to respect and love for some emperor of long ago. Youths and maidens wander arm in arm by the foaming tide or sit in the little arbors crooning songs and clinking glasses. Officers strut about, calling each other loudly by their titles or responding to the sallies of those of their comrades who fill the after-deck of the steamer. The village mayor in a braided jacket, the wharfmaster ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... Vernon which he had always liked so much, while in the tiny kitchen—so near—Mrs. Judique sang "My Creole Queen." In an intolerable sweetness, a contentment so deep that he was wistfully discontented, he saw magnolias by moonlight and heard plantation darkies crooning to the banjo. He wanted to be near her, on pretense of helping her, yet he wanted to remain in this ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... supplying Thomson with songs, he wrote letters full of hints and suggestions anent songs and song-making, and now and then he gave a glimpse of himself at work. We see him sitting under the shade of an old thorn crooning to himself until he gets a verse to suit the measure he has in his mind; looking round for objects in nature that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of his fancy; humming every now and then the air with the verses; ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... with the novelty of driving our old enemy in harness. So, letting the Kid go to sleep forward under the sail, I cruised on into the night. The wind had fallen somewhat, but it kept the canvas filled. The crooning of the water, the rustling of the sail, the thin voices of bugs on shore, and the guttural song of the frogs, shocking the general quiet—these sounds only intensified the weird calm of the night. The sky was cloudless, and the moon shone so brightly that I ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... just what the owner of the voice, half laughing, half crooning, tenderly lilting, must be. It seemed that only since the dawn of today had she become a woman having been a child until the dusk of yesterday. The wide grey eyes, looking out upon a gentle aspect of life, were inclined ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... young gamekeeper, wasn't it?" asked another man— the husband of the lady who was still crooning over her recovered diamonds. "You thought he had been led away by smart London thieves, but this seems as if he had taken a leading part. Looks, too, as if there may have been only himself and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... ahead hurried the others, driven to haste by low rumbles of thunder and the warning splashes of raindrops. The drizzle of the gray, lowering afternoon had ceased, but in its place came ominous skies and crooning winds. Back on the circus lot men were working frantically to complete the task of loading before the storm broke over them. Everywhere people were scurrying to shelter. David and Christine loitered on the way, with delicious ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... had—or so she thought—treated him as though he were another Charles. She could not measure the immensity of what had happened to her and her thoughts flew to practical details. What ages it seemed since she had walked blithely crooning: 'This is me in London!' And how odd, how menacing, it was that on the stairs she should have met ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... his glance deflected, alert and apprehensive—his ear had caught a low crooning of song. It came from a small boy who, a little wooden boat in his hand, was advancing up the slope. This was Tito Murano, Junior, Tito's first-born, nine years old, softly footing it home after a joyous hour along the edge of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... gently on the dusty pillow and opened another window. He stumbled over the cup and spoon, and a bottle fell from the table and broke sending out a pungent odor. But Billy crept close to his friend once more and began rubbing his hands and forehead and crooning to him as he had once done to his dog when he suffered from a broken leg. Nobody would have known Billy just then, as he ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... which he had grown since the first frost as a protection against cold. He picked up the mitten and laid it to dry on the slab mantel, and when he returned, Lovin Child was sitting in the pan, rocking back and forth and crooning "'Ock-a-by! 'Ock-a-by!" with the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... the same singing woman Sat crooning in her need At the time of the winter weather; Friendless, fireless, She sang this song: "Life, thou'rt too long!" And there was ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... silently, intently. The cook, serene and cool, was smoking in the doorway of his cabin. Above the dull roar of the river Paul could hear Min Tolley's cackle of laughter from the cottages a hundred yards away, and Mrs. Hopps crooning over her baby. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... room came a burst of seaman's song. Bill Henderson was loudly crooning some ditty. Although the listeners could not mike out the words, the song had a gruesome sound that made one's flesh want ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... He said crooning. "Never mind, my love. I'll stop with you half an hour, my pigeon; then perhaps it will ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... I first started the idea in my pamphlet—that the thing is to sleep on a pile of hemlock branches. I think I told them to listen to the wind sowing (you know the word I mean), sowing and crooning in the giant pines. So there they are upside-down, doubled up on a couch of green spikes that would have killed St. Sebastian. They stare up at the sky with blood-shot, restless eyes, waiting for the crooning to begin. And there isn't a ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... voice produced no stirring effect on the temperamental Simon Cameron. Beyond leaving the crotch and edging mincingly downward, a yard or so, the Persian refused to obey the crooning summons. Plastered flat against the tree trunk, some nine feet above the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... a field piece and the roar of the report brought the flag fluttering down. Then came strains of a regimental band, breaking out into the national air; after which the music slid into a hurrying medley, and presently closed in the sweet refrain of "Robin Adair," crooning in brass and reeds as though miles away. Twilight began to fall, and the lamps winked out here and there. The sound of wheels and hoofs upon the gravel came more often. Here and there a bird twittered gently in the trees along the walks; and after a time music came again ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Crooning in guttural tones, he started a swaying motion of his body. Gradually the unmelodious noise rose in volume. Brandishing his hands as though they contained weapons, he circled about the tree, gradually drawing ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... life. But it was some time before this became apparent. The solitary rides through the moors and dales that border Nithsdale gave him opportunities, if not for composing long poems, at any rate for crooning over those short songs in which mainly his genius now found vent. "The visits of the muses to me," he writes, "and I believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between; but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... creature who has sought refuge with me from her persecutors," said Beniah, turning to the prince, while the old woman fell to crooning a wild song in a low voice, accompanying the music—if such it may be called—by a swaying motion of her body to ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... for a short space of time. But all was silent save for the maid crooning the hymn, and the occasional inquiring bark of the dog on the next place, who probably got a strange scent coming down the wind. As there was nothing more to be hoped for there, he shifted his position to the other side. And as ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... honour, pain for joy; By what hot thought impelled, by that alone Win back; by violence violence atone. If by chicane thou fleddest, by chicane Win back thy blotted footprints. Out again With all thine arts of kisses slow and long, Of smiles and stroking hands, and crooning song Whenas full-fed with love thou lulledst asleep; Renew thine eyebright glances, whisper and creep And twine about his neck thy wreathing arms: As we with spears so do thou with thy charms, Arm thee ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... atmosphere of Switzerland it could never be too hot to please Ann—she was a veritable sun-worshipper—and she lay back on a wicker chaise-longue, basking contentedly in the golden warmth while she awaited Lady Susan's return from Evian. From below came the drowsy crooning of the lake, as the water lapped idly against the stones that edged it—a lake of a blue so deep as to ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... but she knew he was grateful, for she suited him better than anyone else. If she was late, he was impatient; when she had to go, he seemed forlorn; and when the tired head ached worst, she could always soothe him to sleep, crooning the old songs her ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the hate goes out o' me with the moonlight creeping in, And the water crooning cool-like in my veins. Who could smell the white azalea thinking then of sin, Or look on laurel buds a-caring for her pains? It's just my heart breaks open and the wild flood rains. O beauty of the moon-mist winding, winding slow, Till the tall lynns quiver vainly up to hold One leafy moment ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... lift one word— With some pang of laughter— Louder than the drowsy bird Crooning 'neath the rafter? Just one bitter word, to shriek Madly at me as ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... home again. It was long past midnight when she reached the cottage. Grannie was waiting up, crooning to herself over the fire. On the table lay the book and the tie bought ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... we, of course, were awake, though the church clock had long since struck the hour of midnight; and it was so still, only the voices of the night murmuring among the trees, though occasionally we could hear the soft crooning of the hen, as she hushed her little family to sleep beneath the rose-bush. Suddenly we heard the sound of stealthy footsteps creeping ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... distinctive character. It never rose to a high key, and from the beginning to the end, its variation in tone was no more than two notes of the musical scale. Had the volume been less, it would have called to mind the crooning of the housewife by her spinning wheel or over the cradle of the infant she was lulling ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... on the river-bank and gave myself up to the gracious influences that stole in upon, me from trees and air and grass and the flowing river. The Sabbath feeling began to grow upon me, as the pines behind and the river in front sang to each other soft, crooning songs. As I lay and listened to the solemn music of the great, swaying pines and the soft, full melody of the big river, my heart went back to my boyhood days when I used to see the people gather in the woods ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... no want him thrown. Chaska hold him." The bright-eyed boy from the mountain top—yes, the same—came forward and, holding the pony's head, began crooning a little song. The pony rubbed his nose against him, recovered his calm, and thanks to Hartigan's help—for he had volunteered eagerly to lend a hand—the operation progressed without mishap. There were, however, one ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... going to get no more information from him until she read that letter, and James was prepared to sit it out until she did. It placed Mrs. Bagley in the awkward position of having to decide what to do next. Then the muffled sound of little-girl crooning came from the distant room. That brought the realization that as odd as this household was, it was a home. Mrs. Bagley delayed no further. She opened the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... relations with appropriated waters; like very busy people they have no time to reveal themselves. One needs to have known an irrigating ditch when it was a brook, and to have lived by it, to mark the morning and evening tone of its crooning, rising and falling to the excess of snow water; to have watched far across the valley, south to the Eclipse and north to the Twisted Dyke, the shining wall of the village water gate; to see still blue herons stalking the little ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... was slain. Confucius wept sore for him, but his own death was not far off. It took place on the eleventh day of the fourth month in the same year, B.C. 479 [1]. Early one morning, we are told, he got up, and with his hands behind his back, dragging his staff, he moved about by his door, crooning over,— 'The great mountain must crumble; The strong beam must break; And the wise man wither away like a plant.' After a little, he entered the house and sat down opposite the door. Tsze-kung had heard his ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... gulches, along precipitous paths he led the way buoyantly and now and then he broke into low almost inaudible crooning of an ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... here all the night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my hands had streikit. The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him. My back was to the window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does nae guid, it does nae harm.' She recited ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Meanings of the tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains. Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric's torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed,— Hapless sire to hapless son,— Was the wailing song he breathed, And his ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a will, singing a wild Gaelic boat song in measured time with the strains of Dovenald's harp, and the galley, with ever-increasing speed, sailed out into the mid-bay. When there was a good way on her the work at the oars became easier and the song sank down into a subdued crooning sound that ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... table about ten boys were sitting, some conning the Talmud and others the Bible. One of the latter, seated at the right of the teacher, was reading aloud, in a sing-song voice, the section of the Pentateuch assigned for the following Sabbath in the synagogue, and his cantillation blended with the crooning of the teacher's wife as she sat by her baby's bed, ... but every now and then the master's voice rose and drowned the sounds of both, as the growl of the thunder stifles the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... I was eating my lunch near a fountain, there came up a moody, meditative hen, crooning plaintively after her wont. I threw her a crumb of bread while she was still a good way off, and then threw more, getting her to come a little closer and a little closer each time; at last she actually took a piece from my hand. She did not quite like it, but ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... cuckoos awakens the woods; and through the thickets a whole world's gladness sings itself forth from the throat of thrush and blackbird. Through the whole land between the four seas benediction is everywhere; blue-bells and the rosy fingers of heath deck the mountain-tops, where the grouse are crooning to each other among the whins; down the hillsides into every valley pour gladness and greenness and song; there are flowers everywhere, even to the very verge of the whispering sea. There, among the gray bent-spikes and brackens on the sandhills, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... seemed to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight from his eyes to the fireplace, and all the comfort that it was possible ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... early morning when we took our places in the big skin canoe with all our personal belongings under our eyes now; and the Indians having been well fed, pushed off rather sluggishly. But they kept time with their paddles, and soon set up a low, sad, crooning kind of chorus as they carefully avoided the powerful stream by keeping well inshore, where I gazed up in wonder at the magnificent trees which appeared in masses and clumps at ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... and motionless until a crooning lullaby and the unmistakable tapping of rockers on a bare floor brought her to her feet in dismay. With an angry frown she strode across the room, but she stopped short at the sight that ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... south yard there was a swift disappearance of a dark face from a window, and the door was flung open, and the grimly faithful servant-woman came forth and lifted Dorothy out of the sleigh, crooning the while in tender and angry gutturals. Poor Dorothy Fair shook like a white flower in a wind, for beside the rigor of the cold, which seemed to pierce her very soul, the chill of fever was still upon her. She chattered helplessly when she tried to speak, and there were ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a child is sleeping, covered with a tattered old mantle; MARY is bending over her, crooning a song. The woman is still quite young, and must have been very pretty; but her cheeks are hollow and there are great circles round her eyes; her face is very pale and bloodless. Her dress is painfully worn and shabby, but displays ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... Ma Moll was crooning over the kettle. She was a woman older than any one even dared guess. With a cackling laugh she always answered questions as to her age with the assertion that she was "nigh on to two hundred and a deal more than that," and no one could contradict her, for she was old ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... since the day on which he met the stranger, and which already seemed of long ago, Lewis had time to think. A sadness settled on him. What were they doing at Nadir on this starry night? Were the goats corraled? Who had brought them in? Was mammy crooning songs of low-swinging chariots and golden stairs? Was Mrs. Leighton still patiently sewing? The Reverend Orme, was he still sitting scowling and staring and staring? And Natalie? Was she there, or was she gone, married? He drew a ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... dead!" said Sandy, half to himself, as he sat crooning and smoking that night over the fire. "Gone at last, puir fallow!—an' he sae little appreciated, too! Every gowk laying his ain sins on Nickie's back, puir Nickie!—verra like that much misunderstood politeecian, Mr. John ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Russ," Dunbar said in a kind of dreadful crooning whisper. "You calm down now. You younger fellows—you don't look at things the way we used to. Thing is, we got to go straight. People trapped like this liable to start meandering. Liable to start ...
— To Each His Star • Bryce Walton
... through her garden. The moon was shining brightly on the tulip bed, and the flowers were swaying to and fro. The old woman looked closely and she saw, standing by each tulip, a little Fairy mother who was crooning and rocking the flower like a cradle, while in each tulip-cup lay a little ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... her son; then dropping upon her knees beside the bed, she slipped one arm underneath the pillows, and gently drew the wounded head upon her own breast, tenderly kissing the brow and cheeks; then taking his hand within her own, she stroked and caressed it, meanwhile crooning over him in low, murmuring tones, as though he ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the patio they heard the resonant plunk-plunk-plunk of a harp making ready for the dance, and the shrill laughter of slim senoritas hovering there. Down the slope before the three the shadows stretched longer and longer. A violin twanged in the tuning, the harp-strings crooning the key. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... took up a position in which he could watch the open door of the church without seeming to do so. Then, as soon as he beheld Nesibeh peeping out, he opened his paint-box, laid his sketch-book on his knee, and made believe to set to work in earnest, crooning a facetious song the while, to complete the deception. His object was to tempt or provoke the girl to come to him. For days past she had withstood all his allurements, taking to her heels at his approach. He desired an explanation of such ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... that great city! How much he must have wanted to be with Harry on his birthday! Sitting there in the fire-lit nursery, her heart sent out waves of love and sympathy to him across the distance and the twilight. On the rug at her feet Lucy rocked in her little chair, crooning to her doll with the beginnings of the mother instinct already softening her voice, and in the adjoining room Jenny lay asleep in her crib while the faithful Marthy watched by her side. Beyond the window a fine icy rain had begun to fall, and down the long street she ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... fawn splashed playfully round while its mother was drinking. It would dash a few paces into the stream and then look back to see if its mother approved. Evidently she did not, for she would stop her drinking and call the fawn back to her side with a soft, crooning noise. Suddenly she raised her head, the long ears shot up, and she seemed to sniff the air. She waded through the deeper water to get round a rocky bluff which ran out into the creek. Then she turned and called the little one. The fawn waded until the water reached its knees, then ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... The great ocean, crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The vast sky, like the outspread azure wings of the brooding mother-bird, nestled the island round with its downy plume. For ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... brightness; the dipper was wheeling around the polar star; the great white river, the milky way, was illumining the arch of heaven. She thought of Him who created the gleaming worlds. Beneath her window the fireflies were lighting their lamps, and living their little lives. She could hear the swallows crooning in their ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... often sat behind the drawn shades nursing the big doll and crooning softly to it as she swung back and forth in the spring rocking-chair. Tom had oiled the springs for her so ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... went on, crooning her complaints to herself and patting Cleopatra's arched neck by way of accompaniment to her thoughts—"Absolute dodging and spying round corners after the style of a police detective. I just hate a lover who makes his love, if it is love, into a kind of whip to flog your poor soul with! Roxmouth ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... performance of Andy Callaghan, who, when they turned the corner of the allotment, was discovered seated on the boxes as when they saw him last, and crooning the dismalest melody. But he had, in the meantime, recovered himself sufficiently to gather brushwood, and kindle a fire beside the road; likewise to cook a panful of rashers as the shadows grew longer and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... into one of the cell-like alcoves arranged for students in a college library at Oxford, and watching a fellow of the college (a type of scholars, grown old among books, rarely found in our busy land) crooning over a strange black-letter folio, and laughing to himself with a sort of invisible chuckle. The unseen in that volume was revealed to us through that laugh of the old bookworm, and quite unseen we partook of his amusement. Another alcove was vacant; a crabbed manuscript, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... they entered Junior Mansions. It was an old Negro melody, and the crooning notes were ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... out of doors, My windows shake and my chimney roars; My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me, As of old, in their moody, minor key, And out of the past the hoarse wind blows, As I sit in my arm-chair ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... said in a low, almost crooning voice, as one might wake a baby from its sleep, "Marcia, open your eyes, child, and tell me ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... ghastly and unchildlike in its cunning—came back as vividly as if but yesterday had intervened. The room in which they used to be; the spot in which his cradle stood; he, old and elfin-like in face, but ever dear to her, gazing at her with a wild and vacant eye, and crooning some uncouth song as she sat by and rocked him; every circumstance of his infancy came thronging back, and the most trivial, perhaps, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... took off their hats and waved them to and fro. But they also climbed on each other's shoulders, and did other strange things. After dancing for some time, they sang songs to us in a curious, low, weird kind of crooning. Altogether it was a ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... Dr. Sandford's meditations and mine came near together. I do not know how time went; but then, the one to break silence was the one I had thought might never speak again. Suddenly she began in a low sort of crooning voice, saying over and over the ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... went on and gave a spiritless performance. It fell dead, but she cared less. Her head throbbed with a dozen possibilities. She was still undiscovered. As she sat resting on her couch ere resuming her work-a-day gown, her nerves stretched to snapping point, and old Irish songs crooning themselves irrelevantly in her brain, a telegram was ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of relief, and seating herself in the middle of the road, lifted Norah's head with her strong young arms until it lay pillowed on her knee. She searched for her handkerchief, wiped the dust from the unconscious face, and stroked back the heavy hair, crooning over her the while in ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... its hub; and as we dreamed on, half conscious of the moonlight and shoutings, the deep inner beauty of the night stole upon us. A mystical, elusive beauty. difficult to define, that lay underneath and around, and within the moonlight—a beauty of deep nestling shadows, crooning ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... crooning behind him over the half-buried rocks. He stood again on the brink with his poor worn face turned to the sky. He had come to the end of his reasoning. The tired brain had ceased to grapple with the cruel problem that had so tortured it. He knew now what he would do to help ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... covered their heads had been gray since they were born; and they had among them only a single eye and a single tooth which they passed back and forth from one to another. Perseus heard them mumbling and crooning in their dreary home, and he stood ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... scent of Banksia roses, that clothed the rickety woodwork in a fairy garment of green and ivory-white. Each least sound was crystal clear in the rarefied air; the quarrelling of two sparrows, the high-pitched chatter from the compound behind the cottages, the crooning of ring-doves among the pines. Butterflies, like detached flowers, fluttered in and out. A faint breeze stirred the roses, so that an occasional creamy petal ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... spirit quite foreign to her hitherto. The little school-teacher had turned shy again and said never a word, but, as he opened the gate to let her pass through, she saw the old, old telltale look in his sombre eyes. Her mother was crooning ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... her small hands fair. Thou hast my Paradise. Lo, thine I bear Afar from thee. See, then! Its transient woe Thy babe e'en now forgets; and sweet and low It babbles on my knee. In sooth, not long Endure her griefs, and through my crooning song She kisses me, recalling not the place Whence she has come. Nay, nor her mother's face." Long time stayed Lilith in that land. More calm Each day she grew, for soft, like healing balm, The child's pure love fell on her sin-sick soul. Now oft among the crags, fleet-footed, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... of this cheerful soliloquy returned without delay to Sam Yen's, who welcomed him with a wan smile, and after explaining some minor details of the work, crept off to his cot. Ah Moy immediately began his self-imposed task, and worked with a will, crooning the while a quaint Celestial air. It was ironing day at Sam Yen's, and the new hand did not object particularly to that part of the process. By a quarter after four he had completed the job, and ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... it was as suddenly chased away by his hearing the voice of Jane crooning over the words of some doleful old West Country ballad, not of a cheering nature certainly, but sufficient to prove that someone was at ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... and bright Sits the mother crooning low; Ah! an arrow's silver gleam, Flashes of a golden bow! Soft she sways a dimpled child Winged with down, and innocent; "Hush thee, Eros,—sleep, my son," Sings her ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... day Cyclona sat in the low rocking chair, rocking the baby, singing to it, crooning a lullaby, a memory of her own baby days when some self-imposed mother, taking the place of her own, had ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... Mareno inquired indignantly, "But who is Kazmah, and where is Mrs. Monte Irvin?" Sin Sin Wa placidly pursued his arrangements for immediate departure to the paddyfields of Ho-Nan, and sometimes in the weird crooning voice with which he addressed the raven he would sing a monotonous chant dealing with the valley of the Yellow River where the opium-poppy grows. Hidden in the cunning vault, the search had passed above him; and watchful on a quay on the Surrey shore whereto his dinghy was fastened, George ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... woman was discovered cowering over the ruins of what was once her home, crooning to a ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... cloak which at times she wraps around a shawl, and cuddles it as if it were a baby, crooning some negro melody she heard South. There must have been a little child who died, but she is not clear on the subject. Sometimes it is a baby; sometimes a grown girl; sometimes it died in one place; sometimes in another; but always ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... beneath the window of her old room, caught the merry glint of young green on the trees below her hill, heard the piping of birds to their nesting mates, the eager breeze singing among the waving grasses and the low sweet crooning of baby voices—felt a tiny greedy hand upon her breast, was bewildered with a sudden overwhelming rush of mother-longing ... young, young? Oh, God, she was young, and in the springtime with its stirring sap, its call to life and action, its urge to create, to build, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Thankful that the darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and its mother crooning over it. No one was on the porch. A vast weight of misery and chagrin was on him. He sat down on the steps and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. But his nerveless fingers broke the only match he had, as he attempted to strike ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... asked. "It is the music of Humanity. All human notes are needful to its making: the faint wail of the new-born, the cry of the dying thief; the beating of the hammers, the merry trip of dancers; the clatter of the teacups, the roaring of the streets; the crooning of the mother to her babe, the scream of the tortured child; the meeting kiss of lovers, the sob of those that part. Listen! prayers and curses, sighs and laughter; the soft breathing of the sleeping, the fretful feet of pain; voices of pity, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... with the calmness which is the outgrowth of an excitement so tense that it is still. As the vision floated nearer, I heard soft music—a crooning, yearning, soul-satisfying lullaby; I saw a little child, a mother, and a father. The child was as beautiful as an angel, and there was that in its face which made my eyes flood with tears, and my heart ache with yearning; the faces of the parents were too vague for me to recognize at ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... tongues along the sides of the huge log resting upon the altar block, and later distinguished the black figure of a priest moving silently from point to point amid the shadows, engaged upon the grewsome functions of his office, his presence ever manifested by the dismal crooning with which he worked his magic spells. Beyond these vague suggestions of life—for they seemed scarcely more—it was like endeavoring to sound the depths of a cavern, so black, still, and void was all within and about. Yet, even as I stood thus, peering ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... "I guess 'twas all the talking I done last night that brung 'em into my head. I picked 'em up from that fellow I was telling you about. He'd start crooning 'em whenever he looked at the stars to find ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... day. Through the wall she could hear Mhor, who always woke early, busy at some game—possibly wigwams with the blankets and sheets—already the chamber-maid had complained of finding the sheets knotted round the bed-posts. He was singing a song to himself as he played. Jean could hear his voice crooning. The sound filled her with an immense tenderness. Little Mhor with his naughtiness and his endearing ways! And beloved Jock with his gruff voice and surprised blue eyes, so tender hearted, so easily affronted. And David—the dear companion of her childhood ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... never come—why I never dance up and down the garden walks and spend hours with them and the flowers as I did last year? And the sea, Edith—some nights, when the wind is sleeping and not a leaf stirring on the trees, I can hear the waves crooning a low, sweet song as they wash along the wide beach of sand. They also seem to be calling me out into their midst; and I—O Edith, I ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... herself, and when Emile returned he found her crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered her boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his tuition her passion for music ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... crooning incoherent things. He wiped her face and hands, combed her hair, and pushed the table against the bed. He broke toast in a glass and poured milk over it. Then he cooked the egg and gave her that, keeping only ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... floating countenance wasn't alarming enough, the ruby lips began to move. Monica's sweet-sultry voice, like the first drippings from a jar of honey, overcame the city sounds, and began crooning the syrupy strains of Love Me Alone. Which happened, by no coincidence, to be the title and theme song of ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis
... the end of the bed and the opposite wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... outrageous to the commonplace. Or quasi-existence proceeds from rape to the crooning of lullabies. It's been interesting to me to go over various long-established periodicals and note controversies between attempting positivists and then intermediatistic issues. Bold, bad intruders of theories; ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... a waxen glaze under the brilliant lights, and the dancers' feet were tingling to begin. Michael Walsh, who always played at the Wankelo dances, sat down at the piano and struck two loud arresting bars, then gently caressed from the keys the crooning melody of the Wisteria Waltz. Two by two, the dancers drew into the maze of music and movement, and became part of a ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... with a smile, but with a warning finger held out, while in a lower and more crooning voice she ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... awakened by Nancy's cry, was now whimpering fretfully. Pete went to the cradle and rocked it with one foot, crooning in ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on its way the Devil's Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... to throng its chambers and corridors. Physically fearless, she owned to a feminine dread of the unknown. It would be a relief to get away from this abode of grief and mystery. The fantastic dreaming of the unhappy creature crooning memories of a past life and a lost husband had unnerved her. She resolved to seek the fresh air, and wander through gardens and park until the fever in her mind ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... of the studio was slightly ajar, and the sound of a singularly sweet voice crooning out a lullaby was plainly audible. Malcolm, who was about to knock, changed his mind and peeped in through the aperture; then he beckoned to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... must joyfully sniff him and joyfully wag his tail. But Skipper did not awake and a fine spray of rain, almost as thin as mist, made Jerry curl up and press closely into the angle formed by Skipper's head and shoulder. This did awake him, for he uttered "Jerry" in a low, crooning voice, and Jerry responded with a touch of his cold damp nose to the other's cheek. And then Skipper went to sleep again. But not Jerry. He lifted the edge of the blanket with his nose and crawled across the shoulder until he was altogether inside. This roused Skipper, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... see the minister coming, for he was busy with a lamb that had lost its way and hurt itself. Carmichael marked with a growing tenderness at his heart how gently the old man washed and bound up the wounded leg, all the time crooning to the frightened creature in the sweet Gaelic speech, and also how he must needs give the lamb a drink of warm milk before he set ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... half-caste, was cantering away toward Clarke's, for the weekly mail. Priestley, at his wagon, was bullocking even more desperately than usual, with a view to getting out of sight of the station as soon as possible. Pawsome, repairing a side-saddle, on his extemporised bench, was softly crooning a familiar hymn, the sentiment of which seemed appropriate to himself, whilst the language breathed the very ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... contents of the money-pouch, running his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the coins into little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the wealth the while he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone. ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... beneath the grass, Cool and green and sweet, Where the gentle brook may pass Crooning at her feet. Nature's bards shall come and sing, And the fairest flowers ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Moanings of the Tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains, Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric's torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed— Hapless sire to hapless son— Was the wailing song he breathed, And his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; and now as I write its warm rich ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opening and shutting doors with an admirable quiet, and put his hand on the old briarwood. From Anne's room he heard a low crooning. She was awake then, but with mind at ease or she wouldn't sing like that. He could imagine how Lydia had dropped off to sleep, like a burden of sweet fragrances cast on the bosom of the night, an unfinished prayer babbled ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true; As her mother's cradle crooning The ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... recital of the exploits of "the Arethusa, Seventy-four," in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, "On b-oo-o-ard of the Arethusa." It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song,—it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the men would lie at ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... pillows exhausted by her emotion, while in a low, crooning voice the name she loved to utter broke from her longing lips again, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Yasmini's room, and sat beneath the punkah crooning Moody and Sankey hymns and darky lullabies, until Yasmini dropped into the land of dreams. Then, listening to the punkah's regular soft swing, she herself fell forward on her arms, half-resting on the bed, half on the chair, until Hasamurti crept in silently and, laughing, lifted her ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... that they were sailing in a regular sloop, and that, too, going "with lee rail awash"; for instead of the soft crooning sound the runners made usually, there was a slash and a swish of ripples cloven apart; and instead of the little fountains of ice-dust which rise from the heels of the sharp shoes when the boat is skimming the frozen surface, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... yelled Nellie Brocton. "Besides, this dance isn't going to be for soloists," and Nettie swung away with Janet, crooning and humming to the ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... his fiddle scattered flowers along the street; Into the dust of Brookfield Fair Carried a shining primrose air, Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet, Drew us close, and held us bound, Then—to the tune of Pedlar's Pound, Caught us up, and whirled us round, a ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... the shed, he gave a soft, crooning call. Low growls of dogs came in quick reply. He stepped inside, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mother's more practical service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their bedside—Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other—and crooning to them a little evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... song which only Kipling in our day could sing. The Scotch blood of the MacDonalds was needed for that gem; Kipling fortunately has it pure from his mother. McAndrew is homeward bound patting his mighty engine as she whirls, and crooning over his tale: ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... one, must know the girl. With the thought, Clayton sprang through the window, and a few minutes later was at the cabin. The old man sat whittling in the porch, joining in the song with which his wife was crooning a child to sleep within. Clayton easily identified Europa, as he had christened her; the simple mention of her means of transport ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... the last time he would hear that voice. There went Geehow's lodge! And Tusken's! Seven, eight, nine; only the shaman's could be still standing. There! They were at work upon it now. He could hear the shaman grunt as he piled it on the sled. A child whimpered, and a woman soothed it with soft, crooning gutturals. Little Koo-tee, the old man thought, a fretful child, and not overstrong. It would die soon, perhaps, and they would burn a hole through the frozen tundra and pile rocks above to keep the wolverines away. Well, what did it matter? A few years at best, and as many ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... fallen from above, where a clump of myrtles perfumed the soft evening air, he settled himself down, and soon sank into a comfortable drowsy state, in which he listened to the munch munch of the horses, and a low crooning song uttered by Hamed as he finished his task of bathing his swollen ankles, and then walked up and down more strongly, pausing every now and then to ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn |
