"Pesky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pesky savage," returned the white man, coolly, ejecting a flood of tobacco juice from his mouth, for though he was a brave man, he had some drawbacks. "You needn't think ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the pesky critter, too!" spoke Jim's voice, resentfully, as he showed his head over the edge of the cliff, where three puffs of smoke ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... "Pesky bad," replied the old lady. "When boys are runnin arter such things allers, there is no tellin whar they'll stop. And thar's the danger of too much edication. If Nat had stuck to his bobbin, and never knowd ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... man, whoever he was, might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It might have saved me a deal of bother, and ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... be'n thinkin' it over, on the way, an' a dollar's too pesky cheap fer this trip. Sometimes I gits twenty-five cents a hour fer haulin' things, an' this looks to me like ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... be," said the sheep driver. "I'm going ter git rid of ther pesky critter. He's cost me a lot ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... upon my line that electrified me and I jerked as hard as I dared. I realized that I had hooked some kind of fish, but, as it was wiggling and did not feel heavy, I concluded that I had hooked one of those pesky blowfish. But all of a sudden my line cut through the water and fairly whistled. I wound in the slack and then felt a heavy fish. He made a short plunge and then a longer one, straight out, making ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... yere, you pesky cats!" shouted Uncle Rufus as Bungle and Popocatepetl charged the door on the trail of ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... punk idea of humour," responded Perry. "Anyway, all we'd have to do is find the beach and keep along until we barked our skins on the boat. Bet you, though, this pesky fog will be ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... give a pesky lot o' trouble, although they bother sheep more'n cattle. But a few husky dogs will keep coyotes at a distance, though they'll watch a chance an' sneak off with a young lamb or any sheep what is hurt an' has fallen behind ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... youthful ambitions have been laid away. I have given up hope of ever being an Indian fighter out on the plains, because the pesky redskins have long since ceased to need my strong right arm to quell them. I also have yielded up my ambition to be a sailor, or rather, that branch of the profession in which I hoped to specialize—piracy—because, for some regretful reason, piracy has lost much of its charm ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... "But when they do, their long hair makes quite a different sound.... Sh! Make that fidgety pig keep still. Now all hold your breath a moment so I can listen well. This is very difficult, what I'm doing now—and the pesky door is so thick! Sh! Everybody quite still—shut your ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... "Don't know how the pesky critter got loose," said Isaac Klem. "First thing I see he was after them gals lickety-split. I was out hayin', and I didn't wait, but picked up a pitchfork and ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... sonny, I wa'n't askin' you ter do no preachin'. What I did ain't no more'n any man 'round here does—if he's smart enough ter catch one. Rigged-up broomsticks ain't in it with a live bird when it comes ter drivin' away them pesky, thievin' crows. There ain't a farmer 'round here that hain't been green with envy, ever since I caught the critter. An' now ter have you come along an' with one flip o'yer knife spile it all, I—Well, it jest makes me ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... "We're in a peck of trouble, Olive, because we took some papers from Grandpa's desk to make a kite with and now they turn out to be two Liberty Bonds. And the kite—like the pesky contrivance it is—got away and is hiding somewhere in the woods. But we're going out right after dinner and hunt for it, aren't ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... coast of Maine; and we're heading now for Charlesport; that's over yonder, beyond that next point," Doctor Thayer answered. After a moment he added: "I know nothing about your misfortunes, but I assume that you capsized in some pesky boat or other. When you get good and ready, you can tell me all about it. In the meantime, what is your name, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... faith in these pesky things," he said. "That there fifteen thousand dollars must be kept out of the hands of these derned rascals. I reckon thar's time enough. It would take about a week fur the lawyer chap to make terms with Raikes, an' get word across the ocean an' back. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... his head in assent. "It's a shelter from the rain, at least," he said, "and that's something on such a pesky night." While he was speaking the rush of the rain without confirmed the truth of his words, and suggested that any roof was better than none. Ere long the pine stick burned itself out; the intruders were left in absolute darkness. But they quickly disposed themselves on the floor, ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... them pails, then, and we'll try ef we kin git through these pesky bushes. I vow! I wouldn't like to take Bear Hill for a farm, not on ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... rabbit, "I must be more careful next time." And then something happened. A little hard ball hit him on the left hind foot, and a man's voice called out, "If it hadn't been for that pesky little rabbit I would ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... he plunged into the darkness, and Dan made his way slowly to the campfire, which twinkled from the old rail fence. As he groped toward it curses sprang up like mustard from the earth beneath. "Get off my leg, and be damned," growled a voice under his feet. "Oh, this here ain't no pesky jedgment day," exclaimed another just ahead. Without answering he stepped over the dark bodies, and, ten minutes later, came upon Big Abel waiting patiently beside the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... thinkin' of murderin' my wife," protested Lucius, holding back. "What I'm scared of is I'll murder one or two of these pesky women—that Banks woman, fer instance. It's gittin' so I can't stick my nose outside the door 'thout her droppin' everything an' runnin' out to gab with me. I don't get a minute's privacy. If it ain't one, it's another. You'd think I was Napoleon Boneparte, the way them women act. I don't ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... thing was to billet the warriors. The captain of the troop, by this, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the "Jolly Pilchards" in a huff. "Sergeant," says he, "here's an inn, though a damned bad 'un, an' here I means to stop. Somewheres about there's a farm called Constantine, where I'm told the men can be accommodated. ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mr. Middleton had a great horror of being up after that hour, so he hastily bade his brother and Ashton good night, saying to the former, "Now I've got kind of used to your being alive, Bill, I hope I shan't have such pesky ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... couldn't get enough plumes around here to pay for your bacon. Now, I knows of a tidy little island 'bout twelve miles south of here where there's stacks of the birds. If you start right now you'll hit it before them pesky varmints of redskins find it. I'm telling you in pay for that tobacco. Max Hilliard ain't the kind of man to take nothing without paying for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... been mighty obstreperous 'long 'bout that time, burnin' the Widder Brown's house and her an' her baby a-hidin' in a holler tree near by, an' carryin' off critters an' bosses, an' that day yer gran'ther was after 'em with a posse o' men, an' what did that pesky Injun do but git up on a rock a quarter o' a mile off an' jestickerlate in an outrigerous manner, like a sarcy boy, an' yer grand'ther, he took aim and fired, an' that impident Injun jest tumbel over with a yell; his last, mind ye, ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... The old man stumbled forward and began to arrange the knives and forks. "It's just a pesky pain—beggin' yer pardon—in my side. But I ain't ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... eying her mop-handle with great satisfaction. "That's what I call sensible. I expected you'd spend your money on some pesky gimcrack or other. I never thought 't would be a handy thing like this, and I am obliged to you for it, Eyebright. Now run up and see your ma. She was asking ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... Come vacation I'm goin' ter put the twins to scrapin' them pesky mossback shingles; then I may go with the tide and buy me a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... she exclaimed pathetically, "ef yer knew what a comfort 't was to me jest to set still in a chair once more. It seems like heaven, arter them pesky joltin' cars. I ain't in no hurry to see the house. It can't run away, I reckon; and we're sure of it, ain't we? There ain't any thing that's got to be done, is there?" she ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... made o' some kind o' hide. I recollec' one day I was over on the ridge two mile er more from the Stillwater goin' south. I seen 'im gittin' a drink at the spring there 'n the burnt timber. An' if I ain't mistaken there was a real live panther playin' 'round 'im. If 't wa'n't a panther 'twas pesky nigh it I can tell ye. The critter see me fast an' drew up 'is back. Then the man got up quickerin' a flash. Soon 'she see me—Jeemimey! didn't they move. Never see no human critter run as he did! A big tree hed fell 'cross a lot o' bush right 'n his path. I'll be gol dummed ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... a pesky hurry to get rid of me. See hyar, pard, you'd best be civil. Your dealin's ain't a ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... don't care to understand me, mister. 'No,' says you, 'it's no business of mine about his pesky ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... the Commodore and frettin' over what couldn't possibly happen, I was half dead of the fidgets. Stay and cheer me up, there's a good feller. I'd just about reached the stage where I had the girl and boy stove to flinders under that pesky auto. I'd even begun to figger on notifyin' the undertaker. Tell me I'm an old fool and then talk about somethin' else. They'll ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... year comes Christmas cheer, and one should then be merry, But as for me, as you can see, I'm disconcerted, very; For that pesky pie sticks grimly by my organs of digestion, And that 't will stay by me till May or June I make no question. So unto you, Good friends and true, I'll tip this solemn warning: At every price, Eschew the vice Of eating pie in ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... Possum, "if I ever catch those pesky squirrels I'll make them wince, yes, I will, as ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... said she. "You and he orter be tide together and caged. If I only had the keepin of you then, Ide nock the foolishness out of your nozzles, or break your pesky ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense, whatever they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein' crazy, too. I know, for Nurse Byloe told me all about it. And now Myrtle's gettin' run away with by that pesky Minister Stoker. Cynthy Badlam was here yesterday crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it. For my part, I did n't think Cynthy cared so much for the girl as all that, but I saw her takin' on dreadfully with my own eyes. That man's like a hen-hawk among ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... if nothing else. There ain't much use of plantin' anything, though, for every pesky bug and worm in town will start for my patch as soon as they ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Charlotte is remarking how far they can hear the dripping of the grove, when she gives a start and the captain an amused grunt; a soft, heart-broken, ear-searching quaver comes from just over yonder by the horses. "One of those pesky little screech-owls," he says. "Don't know as I ever heard one before under just these condi'—humph! there's ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... every one pitied them two girls mightily. Always looked thin and peaked, they did, while as for Mrs. Phelps, why, folks said she just starved to death. Anyway, she died soon after Nathan was drowned. Just to show how pesky mean the old Colonel was, Mr. Herrick, they tell how one night the women folks was sewing in the sittin'-room. Seems they was workin' on some mighty particular duds and Mrs. Phelps had lighted an extra candle; the Colonel never would allow a lamp in his house. Well, there they was sittin' ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... pushed rapidly on, and after going a half mile or more, he came out of the woods, and beyond lay a fine plantation. "I wonder if those pesky Yankees will trouble me if I try to make that house," he thought. "I will risk it anyway, for if I can reach it, it means ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... she went on. "The paper had sent you off on some pesky assignment, and you were just a wee bit late. And we had a sort of a tiff about it until I happened to look up at the picture over the table, and 'The Girl with the Laughing Eyes' was looking straight down at us? And then, somehow, I had ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... company was at Angeles, in Luzon, and was entrenching on the outskirts, for the pesky little "niggers" were constantly threatening and frequently attacking ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... Captain, her eyes shining. "Come on, then. What chance has a pesky old wind against four Outdoor Girls, I'd like ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... this paintin' accident yet," said uncle Jerry jocosely, as he handed Rebecca the honey. "Bein' as how there's 'Fresh Paint' signs hung all over the breedge, so 't a blind asylum couldn't miss 'em, I can't hardly account for your gettin' int' the pesky stuff." ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hartman's turn to stare, and stare he did, first at the spoiled fruit and then at the flying girls, too stunned to understand. The hot blood mounted to his forehead, he shook his fist in unreasoning anger and yelled, "Drat your pesky hides! Come back here and I'll tan you good! What do you mean by spoiling all that high-priced fruit? Oh, if I just had my hands on ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... "Them pesky Injuns hes stole our hosses," added old Matt, as he fired his rifle the second time. "'Tain't no use; I might as well shoot at the ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... and whir! I heered a fearful snap! And there was that bedstead, with 'Bijah inside, shet up jest like a trap! I screamed, of course, but 'twan't no use, then I worked that hull long night A-trying to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright; I couldn't hear his voice inside, and I thought he might be dyin'; So I took a crow-bar and smashed it in.—There was 'Bijah peacefully lyin', Inventin' a way to git out agin. That was all very well to say, But I don't b'lieve he'd have ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... the second hunderd," said Abe for the tenth time. "I've counted it over an' over. One hunderd dollars an' tew pesky pennies. An' I never hear a man tell so many lies in my life as that air auctioneer. Yew'd 'a' thought he was sellin' out the Empery o' Rooshy. Hy-guy, it sounded splendid. Fust off I thought he'd raise us more 'n we expected. An' mebbe he would have tew, Angy," a bit ruefully, "ef ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... right down past there every day," said an old lobster fisherman, "and I swanny I ain't never seen northing of this here pesky critter. Ef Jeb warn't sech a dinged liar," with a jerk of his thumb toward the red-headed man, "I'd jest go down there myself and spend some time a-huntin' this critter with horns an' hoofs an' glarin' eyes. I'd find out what sort of a critter ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... Conniston girl. I forgot to tell you I've took time by the forelock. Two weeks ago I wrote an' told her I'd learned you was hittin' into the Great Slave country, an' that I was about to hike after you. So go to sleep an' don't worry about that pesky little rattlesnake." ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... "That's the pesky part on 't: there's such a lot to choose from; I don't know much about any of 'em," began Uncle Enos, looking like a perplexed raven with a treasure which it ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... not to bother bout any thanks," said Simpson, beaming virtuously. "But land! I'm glad twas me that happened to see that bundle in the road and take the trouble to pick it up." ("Jest to think of it's bein' a flag!" he thought; "if ever there was a pesky, wuthless thing to trade off, twould be a great, gormin' flag ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... please?" Dundee urged the long distance operator before hanging up the receiver and answering Penny's question. "That's just the trouble—nothing's happened, and nothing is very likely to happen here. I'm determined to go to New York and work on this pesky ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Just then the pesky rocket flared And wrecked that Yankee notion. "I feared as much!" his wife declared; Then ...
— The Rocket Book • Peter Newell
... replied promptly, "that 'we couldn't take no traout with the pesky sun a shinin' and a ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... I to myself, "I have a pesky good mind to go in and have a try with one of these chaps, and see if they can twist my eye-teeth out. If they can get the best end of a bargain out of me, they can do what there ain't a man in our place can do; and I should just like to know what sort of stuff these ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... thought love must surely be enough," he continued. "And I thought if I could make you love me, you could learn me to be less—less-more your kind. And I think I could give you a pretty good sort of love. But that don't help the little mean pesky things of day by day that make roughness or smoothness for folks tied together so awful close. Mrs. Taylor hyeh—she don't know anything better than Taylor does. She don't want anything he can't give her. Her ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... exclaimed, "if it ain't them three pesky scallawags back safe and sound! I've said all along that varmints would get ye sure, and we'd never see hide nor hair of ye again! ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... in trouble. I reckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and he just gained it!—Shields the best man they've had in the Valley. Kernstown!—Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? Mr. Commissary Banks. Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!" ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... down like a kite tail. everybody laffed and the girls screemed and ducked there heads down and the minister tride a long while to ketch the bumblelbea and finely he cought it by the thred and it clim up the thred and stang him and he sed drat the pesky thing and snaped his fingers and the bea flew out of the window. then the minister sed it was natural for the bea to be scart only he sed terrorfide whitch meens the saim, and it dident know who was befrending it. but it was crool to ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... groaned poor Jud. "That's my harness soap. I don't see how your town gets along with all four of you the year around. Well, you can just help me bail out this water—that's flat. Wring out that pesky wash and spread it on the grass to dry. Then each of you take one of those lard pails, and set ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... Prophets! And this day, therefore, will be spent with the Master of the mysterious fluoroscope, who reverses Edward Everett Hale and looks "in and not out," and with the dentist who must fill a pesky tooth, and then with the surgeon who tears out tonsils. Rather a full day, eh? And after two days in hospital, or three, over the hills to 8 Chester Place, Los Angeles,—by no means a poor-house,—but alas! carrying the malevolent bugs and their nesting place with me. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... fight out here. I was down the river a few years ago and joined a party to go out an' hunt up some redskins as had been reported. Wetzel was with us. We soon struck Injun sign, and then come on to a lot of the pesky varmints. We was all fer goin' home, because we had a small force. When we started to go we finds Wetzel sittin' calm-like on a log. We said: 'Ain't ye goin' home?' and he replied, 'I cum out to find redskins, an' now as we've found 'em, I'm ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... When you git it bilt and a-runnin', you've got to git a man to cum down here and take keer on it, cos it's a-cumin' along hayin' and harvestin' time, and I'll be too durned busy to run down here and open and shet them barn doors every time one of your pesky old trains wants to ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... you would never have got the appointment. Your consideration of your office and the company you are in remind me of Pompey's, who, when he was asked why he ran from a battle, gave as his reason 'that he knew the rebs too well to have anything to do with such a pesky lot, and den,' he added, 'back, of dis dare is a pusonal consideration.' I wouldn't wonder if back of your other considerations there is one of a personal nature. Why, man, if you were even to touch me with your finger, in anger, I would leave ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... I had made my pile, Maryland would be good enough for me. As it is, California is all right, barring those same pesky lizards." ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... some very fine running indeed. Culkins was brought to a sudden stop against a tall board fence, but he sprang back and cleared it like an English hunter, and tore like a lunatic for the city. Half an hour later the party might have been seen, if it hadn't been so pesky dark, groping blindly around the office in which Culkins had been a student ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... zounds again! A pest upon the fellow! (He strides up and down the room, keeping out of the way of his sword as much as possible.) Would that I might pink the pesky knave! ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... thinks is her gran'ma lying covered up on the skins on the ground. The fire is still burnin', and everything is jest as she left it. She feels good an' chirpy, and sits right down by her gran'ma's side. And then she sees what she thinks looks kind o' queer. Says she, 'Gee, gran'ma, what a pesky long nose you've got!' You see that wolf had come along an' eaten her gran'ma, and fixed himself up in her clothes an' things, and was lying right there ready to eat her, too, when she come along. So master timber ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... he smiled, "we're at your disposal. As I told you, my two associate wardens aren't here. Mr. Briggs is in town and Mr. Tate is home ill. Dr. McCall, our Protestant clergyman, is also home, recovering from a siege with one of those pesky viruses. But we here represent various phases of our administration and can certainly ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas
... and drew still farther into her shell of reticence, keeping closely to her studies and home duties, until the neighbors had some excuse for their plaints that "she didn't care for nothin' nor nobody but them pesky books!" ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... sometimes, when he's feeling right peart, I'd have to use both hands to do it. But I don't have any feeling against him when I do the job. It's just to improve his language and manners. These boys of thirty-two or three are so pesky full of life and friskiness that you have to treat 'em as you would young lions. Before we met you in the mountains, Steve, I generally gave him his thrashing in ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... or he'd kill me. I wasn't 'zactly 'fraid of him," added Enoch, thinking some explanation necessary, "but I saw if I fought him it would bring the man at the fire to help, and I couldn't fight two of 'em, anyway. The pesky Injin made me walk to the crick with him an' then he told me to go home and not come back. I wish 'Siah Bolderwood was here. ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... persuaded to allow himself to be groomed. He would start at the touch of the curry-comb, as though it gave him an electric shock, and Michael, who combined in himself the offices of groom and gardener, declared that "of all the pesky, fidgety critters that ever stood on four legs, he never did see the like of this 'ere Sable Islander." Michael's opinion was not improved when he came to break the little Sable Islander in, for he led him such a dance day after day that his stout ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... during our watch on deck; "snivelized chaps only learns the way to take on 'bout life, and snivel. You don't see any Methodist chaps feelin' dreadful about their souls; you don't see any darned beggars and pesky constables in Madagasky, I tell ye; and none o' them kings there gets their big toes pinched by the gout. Blast Ameriky, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... pesky brakeman don't remember to wake me, you give me a poke with your elbow. I wouldn't be carried beyond North Platte for ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... "It's ther pesky little cuss as come in with ye yesterday, sir," he returned with a grin. "He's confiscated a muel somewhar an' says he's a goin' back hum ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the artist, who wasn't going to tell his troubles on the house-tops, "there ain't nothin' much to speak of. It's the all-fired dullness of this pesky one-horse village, where there ain't nothin' stirrin', 'cept flies in fly-time, from ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... and her mouth, that when Orphy came back, they would all have "a prime supper." But Orphy didn't come back that night, or the next morning, either; but, late the next afternoon, he came crawling back, with the meal, and told them that "he should have been home with it long ago, if that pesky wheel hadn't come off his wagon, and it hadn't taken such a powerful long time to blacksmith it ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... "Don't let him take it into his hand. Read it aloud to him. But make that pesky young Sheming come ashore first. Before ye know it, he'll ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... ole hoss," began his wife, her eyes beginning to snap. "You've traded him off an' I'll bet you got soaked, Hillard Watts—I can tell it by that pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd trade horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... here in the kitchen, Copernicus Droop," she cried. "I wish to goodness you'd ben pressed in through the walls of the lock-up 'fore ever ye brought me'n Phoebe into this mess. Ef you're a man or half one, you'll go and stop this pesky old Panchronicle an' give us a chance ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... could signal to E McGinnis. Those pesky colonists! Why hadn't they signaled to E Gray? Why hadn't they come out of their bushes and signaled the danger? Surely they must know what it was. They were alive and healthy, three of them at least. Why hadn't ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in a way to convince, and there ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... again. Tom must be using his revolver. A hit! Somebody yelled," cried Lieutenant Wingate. "I hope it is that pesky mosquito that has been trying to sting us. Stay here while I go ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... pesky old ball," I shouted. "Why don't you throw straight when you're throwing? Come on, let's go to Little Valley and get some ice cream cones. We ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... manage my own affairs, Maria. You seem to have inherited your poor mother's pesky habit ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... get it in St. George," he said, "but there was a pesky French frigate that wouldn't allow the natives to sell us so much as a herring, though they had a-plenty and were keen to make a trade for the stuff I've ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... hollow under an overhanging bank until a star-gazer, or a herring, or a minnow, or some other baby-eater came in sight, and then to rush out and swallow him head first. He took ample revenge on all those pesky little fishes for all that they had done and tried to do to him and his brethren in the early days. The truth is that every brook trout is an Ishmaelite. The hand of every creature is against him, from that of the dragon-fly larva to that of the ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... an owl," said Jeff. "I want these pesky Poles and Syrians and all the rest of them to learn what they're up against when they come over here to run the government. I'm on the verge, Amabel, of hiring a hall and an interpreter, and teaching 'em something about American history, if there's anything ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... evidently an endeavor to see how many times and how high it could jump into the air from the same spot. The ancient Aztecs, seeing us advancing upon them, would never have made the mistake of fancying man and horse parts of the same animal. Moreover, the pesky beast had an incurable predilection for treading, like a small boy "showing off," the extreme edge of pathways at times not six inches from a sheer fall of from five hundred to a thousand feet ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... you say?" he called; "there's no time to lose, that's sure. Shall I try it? It would take an hour to flood this pesky old hole, even if I could ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the pesky thing on your head, making you look so like a scarecrow, do you?" he said gently, as with a jerk he broke the strings and then threw the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... nothin' so beautiful as love. "No, nor nothin' that makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don't act as ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... of course," smiled Farnum. "It's only the pesky little 'if' that's bothering me at all. I don't want any of you to ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... to let your lawyers 'tend to this, Dick, and for you not to poke your nose into this neck of the woods. But you had to come, and right hot off the reel you hand one to this Pesky fellow, or whatever you call him. Didn't I tell you that you can't bat these greasers over the head the way you can the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... unlike the scout of fiction, and of the Wild West Show, as it is possible for a man to be. He possesses no flowing locks, his talk is not of "greasers," "grizzly b'ars," or "pesky redskins." In fact, because he is more widely and more thoroughly informed, he is much better educated than many who have passed through one of the "Big Three" universities, and his English is as conventional as though he had been ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... am dead? "How my nose'll be?" Yes, how your nose'll be, And how your back'll be. If that ain't red I'll miss my guess. I don't expect you'll see— You nor your father neither—what I've done And suffered in this house. As true's I live Them pesky fowl ain't stuffed! The biggest one Will hold two loaves of bread. Say, wipe that sieve, And hand it here. You are the slowest poke In all Fairmount. Lor'! there's Deacon Gubben's wife! She'll be here to-morrow. That pan can soak A little while. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... "So that pesky Weasel has been after you again, and you came to me for help," said he gently, as he coaxed Happy Jack to come to him. "This is the place to come to every time. Poor little chap, you're all of a tremble. I guess I know how you feel when a Weasel ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... This is a nice garden. What pesky villains all these people must be, considerin' that they wear good clothes and don't break the furnitoor. There's that chap that deserted his wife. I'll fix him."—Hides ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... away them pesky natives," went on the miner. "Otherwise we might have had a fight, an' while I reckon we could have beat 'em, it's best not to fight if you kin git out ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... I s'pose it's all right if she says so, but I'm sure I don't relish them pesky Injuns, and I don't think that squaw wife of his looks any great shakes, either. They look to me like they needed a good scrub with Bristol brick. But then, if you're set on going, you'll go, 'course. I jest wish Bud hadn't 'a' gone home with that Jasper ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... the other, in a low voice; "you were so good to stand up for me when I told you about those pesky opals, that I just thought after all I'd let you know about ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... boy," said Old Rocks. "Ef them pesky varmints ain't gone away entirely, they're up ter mischief, an' ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... we set down wid bruised backs ter decide how ter git rid of dat ole rooster, not thinkin' 'bout how much he cost. We made our plans, an' atter gittin' a stick apiece ready we starts drappin' a line of corn to de ole well out in de barnyard. De pesky varmint follers de corn an' when he gits on de brink of de well we lets him have it wid de sticks an' pretty shortly he am drownded. Marse ain't ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... . . I suppose them pesky hens are in my pansy bed again," said Marilla, rising and ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... de women scream and to see 'em run over benches like scart sheep," said Monster Turner. "You'ns will have to be right smart to keep up with me on de camp ground, for I'm goin' to have my fightin' clothes on from hat to boots. Confound 'em, dose pesky preachers won't fight, and we'll be too many for de ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... He ain' see he granny yit en he darsn't come dar twel hit late. He larn ter toot lak a squinch-owl frum Marse Scoville en he tole me dat when he come agin he toot. I nigh on run my legs off follerin' up tootin's o' nights, fer dey wuz on'y pesky squinch-owls arter all. Dis eb'nin' I year a toot dat flutter my heart big en I knowed 'twuzn't no squinch-owl dis time, sho," and so Zany ran on in her canny shrewdness, for she perceived she was gaining Miss Lou's attention and giving time ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... if I kin ever git the pesky thing ter set straight over my hips. Do come here an' see what's the matter with it, Janice," Aunt 'Mira begged, in a great to-do over the frock. "What do ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... always what I said about hens. They are such pesky womanish things that it's beneath the dignity of a man to bother with 'em. I haven't had one on the place for twenty years. We'll just turn this rooster loose with them and we can go on home in peace," said Uncle Cradd as he peered around the side of the coach while father's ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... got those pesky bows and arrows we were having them show off with. I don't know but what I'd better get ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... "The pesky critters! I wish you had shot him! They're a terribul nuisance, tramps is. One day my wife give two on 'em a dinner an' they up afterwards an' stole my new sickle an' whetstone. Tramps ought all to be hung. ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... he has something like four hundred trees, and there were not three of them that were troubled with caterpillars. What better could we have along our road sides than nut trees when from the oak, the elm and other trees there are pesky worms dropping down when you go along with ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... left the pesky thing to hum," she thought, feeling greatly relieved when at last, as the crowd became greater, it was broken in several pieces and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... going to look first for those two pesky Navajos and then I'm going to have an eye on that ledge that Simon Moultrie ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... not go so well in the living-room. It was not because the old walls were more irregular there than elsewhere—I could negotiate that—it was those pesky bees. Reshingling the sides of the house had closed their outlets, and they had now found a crevice somewhere around the big chimney and were pouring in and out, whizzing and buzzing around the room by the hundred, clinging ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... have been hurt bad, arm or suthin', mebbe. Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked clay; split all to pieces prob'ly—but ye can't tell. I've heard ye can shoot a taller candle through an inch plank—and that's consid'able softer than a marble. And that pesky cat's jest ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... said Sam to Dan as he started away. "We 'll be back soon with your father if the pesky red-skins have n't ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... woke in the night," remarked Josh, "and as the wind slackened up a bit, I heard the awfullest noise ever. Sounded just like somebody was hollerin' for help. And when I remembered all they told us about this pesky place, I was a long time getting to sleep again, I ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... "I ain't been trailed this way by wolves before, but I've gone through a whole lot worse an' kept my health. Takes more'n a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours truly, Bill, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... Miss!" agreed Si Snubbins. "That's where them pesky gals have set out for, I ain't ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... those pesky boys come up!" wondered Andy. His gun was again empty. He hastened into the cabin to reload the magazine. As he did so he heard a tapping on the plate glass window set in the floor of ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... "The pesky old road is so narrow it's hard to keep going straight," complained the other, in disgust; for one wheel had, indeed, slipped over the edge, and their escape from a bad spill had been what Lil Artha himself would ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... "Yes, consarn that pesky critter with the finest horse I ever set eyes on,—and while he's alive ther'll be no peace ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... rest. I was waitin' for ye to come up seein' as I'd got ahead. Then one of 'em had to come blundering along and fall over me. Before I knowd what had hit me, the other—I don't know who she is in the dark—lighted on my whiskers like a pesky mosquito," complained ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... about broke Otis up in business. 'It ain't a girl sled,' sez he, 'and its name ain't "Snow Queen"! I'm a-goin' to call it "Dan'l Webster," or "Ol'ver Optic," or "Sheriff Robbins," or after some other big man!' An' the boys plagued him so much about that pesky girl sled that he scratched off the name, an', as I remember, it ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... that pesky bacon you ate this mornin', Caesar: you sha'n't never touch a bit again's long's you live; do you hear?" and with hot water and flannels, she would proceed to comfort and coddle him as if no anger had ever ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... no! 'Tain't out of order exactly. But the pesky propeller is kickin' up worse'n ordinary. It's awful taxin' on the patience. I'd give a man everything I possess if he'd think up some plan to rid me of that ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... to be seen! A few hosses that stampeded in my gettin' over the fence war all that was there! I was mighty shook up, you bet!—and to make the hull thing perfectly ridic'lous, when I got back to the road, after all I'd got through, darn my skin, ef thar warn't that pesky lot o' drunken men staggerin' along, jinglin' the scads they had won, and enjoyin' themselves, and nobody a-followin' 'em! I jined 'em jest for kempany's sake, till we got back to town, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... each other. In the variety, affinities develop themselves very prettily, and the rough points of rampant individualities wear off. We have seen a highly gifted child, who, at home, was—to use a vulgar, but expressive word—pesky and odious, with the exacting demands of a powerful, but untrained mind and heart, become "sweet as roses" spontaneously, amidst the rebound of a large, well-ordered, and carefully watched child-society. Anxious mothers have brought us children, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... likely to be more of those pesky submarines about here," he muttered, "and the sooner I reach port ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... ship. Even old Polynesia was taking the sea's temperature with the Doctor's bath-ther-mometer tied on the end of a string, to make sure there were no icebergs near us. As I listened to her swearing softly to herself because she couldn't read the pesky figures in the fading light, I realized that the voyage had begun in earnest and that very soon it would be night—my first ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... jest grin, and jabber, and grin, like a pesky set o' natural born monkeys, that's ten times better nor you is any day of your good for nothing, sneaking lives. Goodness, gracious, marsy on me alive!" continued the dame, whom the reader has doubtless recognized as Mrs. Younker; "I only ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... you return from A fortnit ago. You diddent, did ye? Hartford? A fortnight ago. It Ju see my Danel, whose sot up a is possible! Didyou see my son tarvern there? No. Hede gone afore Daniel, who has opened a public I got there. O, the pesky criter! house there? No. He had left Hele soon be up a stump. before I arrived there. O, the paltry fellow! He will soon come ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... It's mighty aggravating let me tell ye. Ye see it's this way. She 's got some durn down East-notion that she's got ter be rescued, an' borne away in the arms of her hero (thet's 'bout the way she puts it), like they do in them pesky novels the Kid 's allers reading and so I reckon I 've got ter ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... fellow about Jack's age, but not one-half so manly, and he was sniffling and scolding about "that pesky parrot." Mr. Morris made him come back into the house, and had a talk with him. He found out that he was a poor, ignorant lad, half starved by a drunken father. He and his brother stole clothes, and sent them to his sister in ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... diverted with his reasons for not dating it. 'In this here damned climate,' he observed, 'a feller can't keep the run of the months, no how; 'cause there's no seasons, no summer and winter to go by. One's etarnally thinking it's always July, it's so pesky hot.' A passport provided, we cast about for some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... sale at no price," Uncle Billy emphatically announced, nipping all negotiations right in the bud. "It's too pesky hard to sneak this here licker in past Marge't, but I reckon it's my treat, gents. Ye kin ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... remarked Sott, sagely, "is like pizen vine, pooty and clingin,' but pesky dangerous; I hadn't better teched Pluggie. A woming of your own is worse yet. She spiles on you, and you can't sell her as you do ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... of it, they are pesky devils!" Then, appreciating her uneasiness, he tried to reassure her. "Jack will be all right, he will be well protected. In fact, to show you how little I really fear from the adventure, I am thinking of going with him. My work is getting stale, and a week or two of change of scene would ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the distance she would tramp Ter get a good-fer-nothin', wuthless, cancelled postage-stamp; Another spell folks couldn't rest ontil, by hook or crook, She got 'em all ter write their names inside a leetle book; But though them fits was bad enough, the wust is nowadays, Fer now she's got that pesky freak, the ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... word. Somebody must, or there'd be no one to hook it to.... Have they stopped, I wonder, or are they going to begin again?" This referred to the Ethiopian banjos afar. "I do declare they're going to sing Pesky Jane, and it's nearly ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... bad), and fairly batter them to bits; all the world might think them dead; dozens of doctors might write death-certificates; you might have Rome coffined and nailed down, and be riding gaily to the funeral;—but you could not convince her she was dead; and at the very graveside, sure enough, the 'pesky critter' (as they say) would be bursting open the coffin lid; would finish the ceremony with you for the corpse, and then ride home smiling to enjoy her triumph, thank God for his mercies,—and get back to her hoe and her cabbages as quickly ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... down to Bostin, Zekle; there's no more gettin' out o' harbour with our old sloop; she's ben an' gone, an' got some 'tarnal lawyer's job spliced to her bows, an' she's laid up to dry; but that's a pesky small part o' judgment. Bostin's full o' them Britishers, sech as scomfishkated the Susan Jane, cos our skipper done suthin' he hedn't oughter, or didn't do suthin' he hed oughter; and I tell yew the end o' things is nigh about comin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... in case we lose the pesky trail that seems so faint, we can keep going in the right direction all the same; is that it, ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... this pesky thing to do." Steve sank into his chair, picked up a pencil and drummed irritably on the table. "Maybe, though," he went on after a moment, "I'll get up early and do it. I don't feel much like ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... an honest living? Yet, work or achievement which brought no joy was unblessed. At this point Samur darted up. Arni thought the dog had deserted him and rushed off home. Now, what in the world ailed the creature? Shame on you for a pesky cur! Can't you be still a minute, you brute? Must I beat you? asked Arni, making threatening gestures at Samur, a large, black-spotted dog with ugly, shaggy hair. But Samur darted away, ran off whimpering; he would pause now and then and look back at his master, until ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... declared Abner with a cornerwise nod of the head. "Thar be plenty o' pesky places long the road wen it gits up intew the mountings an is narrer and windin like. I wouldn' ass fer more'n a kumpny tew stop a regiment in them places. I wuz talkin tew the Duke baout that tidday. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... about whippoorwills," said the woman, stolidly. "The pesky bird kind o' started me at first. Don't like to hear 'em round. They bring bad luck. I can't do much for you, Miss Walton, in this poor place. But such as 'tis you're welcome to stay. My son has been off haulin' wood; guess he won't ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... conspirator muttered to Shade as the stretcher passed them, and the skilled, white-jacketed attendants laid Pros Passmore in the vehicle without so much as disturbing his breathing. "He'll jest about come to hisself thar, and them pesky doctors 'll have word about the silver mine. Well, in this world, them that has, gits, mostly. Ef Johnnie Consadine had been any manner o' kin to me, I vow I'd 'a' taken a hickory to her when she set up her word agin' mine and let him go out of the house. The ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... table, fer there's pies to make, and nuts to crack, and laws sakes alive! The turkey's got to be stuffed yet!' Then how we all fly around! Mother sends Helen up into the attic to get a squash while Mary's makin' the pie crust. Amos an' I crack the walnuts—they call 'em hickory nuts out in this pesky country of sagebrush and pasture land. The walnuts are hard, and it's all we can do to crack 'em. Ev'ry once'n a while one on 'em slips outer our fingers and goes dancin' over the floor or flies into the pan Helen is squeezin' pumpkin into through the col'nder. Helen says ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... has a remarkable power of storing things up in that big head of his. Remembers a lot of pesky little detail when he's once fixed his mind on it,—the prices of things, figures, and distances, and rates and differentials. Mr. Mason—that was the traffic manager of our road— happened to take ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... "Drat the pesky stuff," he said to himself; "ain't there no way through it?" Then as he looked about he spied a line no broader than his hand at the bottom, that opened clean through the bull-brier and the bushes across ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner |
