"Picker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unwashed and very uncomfortable, to picnic with him, during the collection of the boats. The breakfast, eaten in the open court, consisted of sundry baskets of roast-beef and plantain-squash, folded in plantain-leaves. He sometimes ate with a copper knife and picker, not forked—but more usually like a dog, with both hands. The bits too tough for his mastication he would take from his mouth and give as a treat to the pages, who n'yanzigged, and swallowed them with much seeming relish. Whatever remained over was then divided by the boys, and the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... in which Paul Evert now worked as a slate-picker, was in general appearance very much like the old one, but its interior arrangement was different, and of such a nature as to make life much easier for those who worked in it. The greatest improvement was the introduction of a set of machines called "jigs." ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... one hour of purity, of dignity. The very rag- picker, groping with her filthy hands among the ashes, instead of an object of contempt, moves from door to door an accusing Figure, her thin soiled garments, her bent body, her scarred face, hideous with the wounds of poverty, an eloquent indictment of smug Injustice, ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... finishing, with Boo to help by picking up the windfalls for the cider-heap, after he had amused himself by putting about a bushel down the various holes old Bun had left behind him. Jack was risking his neck climbing in the most dangerous places, while Frank, with a long-handled apple-picker, nipped off the finest fruit with care, both enjoying the pleasant task and feeling proud of the handsome red and yellow piles all about the little orchard. Merry and Molly caught up baskets and fell to work with all their ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... such a boy, the great ambition of his life was to be released from the hoeing and spudding, and set to work at his father's colliery. Great was Geordie's joy, therefore, when at last he was taken on there in the capacity of a coal-picker, to clear the loads from stones and rubbish. It wasn't a very dignified position, to be sure, but it was the first step that led the way to the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Geordie was now ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... delineation of a character similar by contrast. Cleon is a type of the Western and sceptical, Karshish of the Eastern and believing, attitude of mind; the one repellent, the other absorbent, of new things offered for belief. Karshish, "the picker up of learning's crumbs," writes from Syria to his master at home, "Abib, all sagacious in our art," concerning a man whose singular case has fascinated him, one Lazarus of Bethany. There are few more lifelike and subtly natural narratives in Browning's poetry; few ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... these pasteboard knights and all the other trash that surrounds them, that actually, after his hegira, kept the old rag-picker and costumer, Harro Eberhard Hassenreuter, above water. But let's speak of cheerful things: I saw with pleasure in the paper that his Excellency ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... turned over to the anthropological service; they had never seen anything like him. However, they easily traced his past history. He was known at Courbevois, at Asnieres and at Levallois. He lived on alms and slept in one of those rag-picker's huts near the barrier de Ternes. He had disappeared from there a ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... 'hewer of wood and a drawer of water.' She had to keep her place in the gang from morn till eve, under the burden of a heavy task, or under the stimulus or the fear of a cruel lash. She was a picker of cotton. She labored at the sugar mill and in the tobacco factory. When, through weariness or sickness, she had fallen behind her allotted task, then came, as punishment, the fearful stripes upon ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... left the handsome negroes and continued our walk on Water Street an Italian passed us. He was indeed very dirty and dilapidated; his clothes were of the poorest, and he carried a rag-picker's bag over his shoulder; but his face, as he turned it towards us, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... him. Should he leave his post, what would become of the Queen? Des Huttes during the moment of this quick reflection, was brained from behind by a man in a red cap, and fell, pierced with countless pike-wounds. His eyes still moved when the rag-picker Gougeon ran in, and, placing his foot on the chest, chopped the head from the body with blows of an axe. In an instant it was stuck on the point of a pike ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... than I ever will, provided you don't starve to death too soon. You know, I had a hunch you would turn me down, and I'm glad you did. If you were going crooked some time I thought I'd like to have you with me. When it comes to men, I'm a pretty good picker. That's the reason I have kept out of jail so long. I either pick a square one or I ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... us, against all the police of the little kingdom; the place near the pales where I had fought my first battle; the old beech-stump on which I sat to read letters from home! With my knife, rich in six blades (besides a cork-screw, a pen-picker, and a button-hook), I carved my name in large capitals over my desk. Then night came, and the bell rang, and we went to our rooms. And I opened the window and looked out. I saw all the stars, and wondered which was mine,—which should light to fame and fortune the manhood about to commence. Hope ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The fruit-picker stretched out her hand—there was a large shining silver coin—and when it was given to her, when she held it in her hand she drew a deep breath; her brown fingers closed ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... laughter at the mere recollection of the funny story that he had promised to his friends, and throwing himself back in the great arm-chair, which he completely filled, that picker up of bits of pinchbeck, as they called him at ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... refuge; and the first thing that met his eyes was the figure of a man upon the step, alternately plucking at the bell-handle and pounding on the panels. The man had no hat, his clothes were hideous with filth, he had the air of a hop-picker. Yet Morris knew ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
