"Pitchfork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... loudly, "It's all right, old man," he continued, as he held out the rest of the piece of cake. "That's only his way of coming down. Whatcher frightened about? Oh, I see; it's that snake;" and catching up one of the spears which he had leaned up against the big door, he used it pitchfork fashion to the writhing reptile, and sent it flying upward on to the roof, for it to begin scuffling away ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... never twice the same red! And that old wooden shoe, spurting straw, what a sight, what a beautiful sight! And the wooden comb hanging among the farmer's smocks, with the green hair of the sward caught in its teeth! The pitchfork, stood in the corner, like a misbehaving child, dozing as he stands and dreaming of the hay-fields! And the bowl and skittles there,—the trim-waisted skittles, shapely maids, whose orderly quadrilles Patou in his gambols clumsily upsets! The great ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... Boyd said. "It haunts me. It gets into my dreams. Now, look, Ken, I can't even see a pitchfork any more without thinking of ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... no monopoly to court the seenoreetas; My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn be, by golly!" An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in'my. Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle (It 's Mister Secondary Bolles,[8] thet writ the ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... plain. I am going to fasten a small mirror on a light pitchfork, inclining it downwards. This pitchfork I shall fasten firmly to pole; then some one will climb, dear papa, without any danger, as far as the strong branches reach; from thence he can draw up the pole and its mirror, with a long string, and by ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... neckerchief, loose as an ox-bow, and tied with a jaunty sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black little tarpaulin hat roosting daintily far back on head, and flying two gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made him, in my boyish admiration, every inch a sailor, and worthy to be the honored great-grandfather of the Neptune he was so ingeniously representing. I shall never forget him. Mr. Cooper was dressed as a general of militia, and was dismally and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... jesting if their beloved acres are touched, and, at the first sign of any intention on his part to disturb their possessions, would quickly have set fire to his house and, moreover, tattooed on his body, with the tines of a pitchfork, a protest to which a counter-plea would scarcely have been possible. Only he could never carry self-control and composure so far that, after nearly twenty years' habitude, he did not become furiously excited at the sight of certain pieces of ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... has been found that a good quality of coarse brown paper will answer every purpose, and this, with care, may be made to last two or three seasons. The drying was last season principally done on the bare ground, but there is much loss by shelling, as those dried are required to be turned; a pitchfork is used for that purpose. Brown building paper can be procured of city paper dealers in large rolls at four and a half cents per pound; according to the thickness, it will cost from one and three-quarters to three and a half cents per square yard. A thin, tough, waterproof paper is also made ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... went a little farther there would be only sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass. While grandmother took the pitchfork we found standing in one of the rows and dug potatoes, while I picked them up out of the soft brown earth and put them into the bag, I kept looking up at the hawks that were doing what I might ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' so said nothing ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... be witches and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all go to ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... noon when the moistness is dried out. But when one first issues from the house at breakfast time it is at its highest savor. Irresistibly it suggests worms and a tin can with the lid jaggedly bent back and a pitchfork turning up the earth behind the cow stable. Fishing was first invented when Adam smelt that ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... him what he thinks of pledges and him and church doings, and it wasn't purty. And he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as what he now is in rain-water, and every fish that nibbles at his toes was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a-jabbing at him, they could jab till the hull hereafter turned into snow afore he'd ever sign nothing a man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any mule he ever nailed shoes onto, and proud of being ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... outrage on her whom, I now firmly believe he loved better than his own soul, made poor Dan completely forget himself—and made him forget too, in that fatal moment what he afterwards wished he had remembered. Dan seized a pitchfork and plunged it into young Tillotson's back; the prongs went in between his shoulders, and one of them had penetrated the left lung. Young Tillotson expired almost immediately, and Dan seeing what he had done, ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... another shot because of the crowd, waited for him to come again; and many others, seeing the hopeless circuit the mongrel followed, did likewise, armed with bricks and clubs. Among them was the pimply clerk, who had been inspired to commandeer a pitchfork from ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... ain't you?' says Micky. 'Wait till I go chase the Smoke!' The next thing I see is Snowball goin' down the line like a quarter hoss, 'n' Micky's proddin' at him with a pitchfork. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... entertaining the company with a performance on a Jew's harp. Then there was a lame old gentleman, who looked as if he would be all the better for his bath when the time came, who carried a big sledge-hammer in his hand; and another fishy sort of person, who flourished about with a three-pronged pitchfork. A very cross-looking lady sat next to the gentleman at the head of the table. By the way she kept her eye upon him, contradicting every word he said, and snubbing him at every opportunity, she was evidently his wife. Another good-looking lady was ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... dressed herself with a pitchfork; she had been growing more sensible than that for a long time, to say nothing of her quiet mourning; though for that matter, I have seen bombazine and crape so voluminously bundled and massed as to remind one of the slang phrase "piling on the agony." But Marion ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... I reared myself on my knees and peered about me this way and that. Immediately an irrepressible tremor ran through my system. Directly behind me, armed with a dangerous pitchfork and maintaining an attitude combining at once defence and attack, was a large, elderly, whiskered man, roughly dressed and of a ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... except Nelly, who, with Bill, comes forward; Bill, with a bundle on a pitchfork, over his shoulder. Throws down the bundle, and takes out ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... yard, and fell upon the little terrier, Viper. Old Neptune flew to the rescue, and to the great alarm of Lily, Reginald ran up with a stick; happily, however, a labourer at the same time came out with a pitchfork, and beat off the enemy. These two delays, together with Reginald's propensity for cutting sticks, and for breaking ice, made it quite late when they arrived at South End. When there, they found that a kind neighbour had brought the old people their broth ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and tried to kill it. The monster struck back like the cracking of a whip. She backed off and with her strong arm hit again and again, while Ida Mary ran with a pitchfork. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... whose business it was to cut and haul timbers for the mines in and around the town of Sulphide, which lay in the mountains seven miles southwestward from our ranch. We found it congenial work, and Joe and I, who were now seventeen years old, hardened to labor with ax, shovel or pitchfork, saw no reason why we should not put in these odd five or six weeks cutting timbers on our own account. No reason but one, that is to say. My father would readily lend us one of his wagons, but he could not spare a team, and so, until we could procure a team of our own, we ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... finished. "A great deal of what you tell me, child, is already known to me. I've had certain theories of my own about this Jane Finn. You've done extraordinarily well so far, but it's rather too bad of—what do you know him as?—Mr. Carter to pitchfork you two young things into an affair of this kind. By the way, where did Mr. Hersheimmer come in originally? You didn't make ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... cured cases of croup, saved mothers in childbirth, cured children of spasms and worms, and saved the life of many a man bitten by a copperhead or suffering from sunstroke. "Once I saw Brock Pennington stob Bill Tanner in the calf of the leg with a pitchfork. Bill he bled like a stuck hog and we grabbed up a jug of whiskey and poured it on his leg. Stopped the blood! No how," Jorde was off on another defense, "land up here and in lots of places in these mountains is not fitten to farm so we have allus made whiskey of it after exceptin' ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... be able to do that?" she asked again. "If you clean it out as other people do, ten pitchforksful will come in for every one you throw out. But I will teach you how to do it; you must turn your pitchfork upside down, and work with the handle, and then all will fly out of ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... an' makes fer th' dure, wid us follyin' um, afther providin' oursilves wid what utinsils wuz layin' handy—a scythe here an' an axe there, an' some wan ilse wid a pitchfork. Rad brung up lasht wid a sixteen-pound posht-maul, bein' in no hurry at ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the lantern light was inscrutable. "I'll obey to-night, Lydia," he said, "but the time's coming, when I won't," and he picked up the pitchfork he ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... sacrifices, for the sake of the country. Every day I disseminated stories and caricatures, which represented the French as dwarfs in rags, poorly armed, not heavier than a gerbe which one could lift with a pitchfork." ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... sight of what I made sure was it,—a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts,—yes, that must be it,—and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead of a club; but that might be my uncle's mistake; or perhaps Hercules sometimes varied his weapons. 'Cast off!' roared a voice from the quarter-deck. 'Hold on!' cried I, rushing frantically through the crowd. 'Hold ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the stair; the handle of a pitchfork doing, in my case, the duty of an alpenstock. At the bottom, the guide enquired whether we should go first to the Cave of the Winds, or to the Horseshoe, remarking that the latter would try us most. I decided ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... pistilo. Pistol pafileto. Piston pisxto. Pit (well, etc.) puto, fosajxo, kavo. Pit (theatre) partero. Pitch (to smear with) kalfatri. Pitch pecxo. Pitch (of ships) subakvigxi. Pitcher krucxo. Pitchfork forkego. Piteous kompatinda. Pitfall enfalujo. Pith suko. Pitiable kompatinda. Pitiful kompatinda. Pitiless senkompata. Pity kompati, bedauxri. Pity, it is a estas domagxo. Pivot akso. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... at the man, and then at the articles, with impatience. Then he got a pitchfork, on the prongs of which he collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr. Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots. Before, however, he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to complete his toilet ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... positive science they are magnificently laborious and accurate. But most of them have no notion of style, and seem to compose their books with a pitchfork. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... shot amid acclamations. To show that he did not consider the feat a tour de force, the artist turned the paper, and taking the same marks drew a devil in an entirely different attitude, the difficult point being reached by his pitchfork. This gave rise to a learned discussion as to whether the devil's emblematic pitchfork was not a descendant of Neptune's trident, which I did not stay to hear, as Afra whispered she wanted to present me to Monsieur C——, and I was taken to a gentleman ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... growing rich,—or thought it was, which is the same thing,—Brownwell seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with the score of life. The Banner of course ran as a daily, but it was a miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, and edited, as the printers used to say, with a pitchfork. It looked shiftless and dirty-faced long before Brownwell began to look seedy. Editor Brownwell was forever going on excursions—editorial excursions, land-buyers' excursions, corn trains, fruit ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the point of wasting visibly away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House. And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real old-fashioned country cooking. It's ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... Run to the left!" he cried. Then, leaping the low fence at a bound, he threw the pitchfork he carried at the dog with such skill that the handle crossed between the brute's legs and tripped it. Turning over and over in a series of somersaults, the dog's progress was sufficiently halted to enable the hired man to get to it. He took a firm grip in the collar of the dog and held on. Poor ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... blind mad drunk, and she's got a bottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringing out for ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... found any data inconsistent with my theory I should have modified it in accordance with them. I have also been very careful in regard to my authorities. The chief cause of the great confusion reigning in anthropological literature is that, as a rule, evidence is piled up with a pitchfork. Anyone who has been anywhere and expressed a globe-trotter's opinion is cited as a witness, with deplorable results. I have not only taken most of my multitudinous facts from the original sources, but I have critically examined the witnesses to see ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... all bloody, drove it off, thinking it had been digging up a lamb that he'd just buried. The poor homeless beast came sneaking back, so he told his men to get rid of it. Well, they got hold of it somehow—there was a hole in its neck that looked as if they'd used a pitchfork—and, mortally afraid of its biting them, but not liking, as they told me, to drown it, for fear the owner might come on them, they got a stake and a chain, and fastened it up, and left it in the water by the hay-stack where I found it. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' raoun' the Institoot for, after folks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... But when he thought of them they seemed remote, prattling youngsters whom Minnie was for ever worrying over and who seemed to have been always under the heels of his horse, or under the wheels of his wagon, or playing with the pitchfork, or wandering off into the sage while he and their distracted mother searched for them. For a long while—how many years Brit could not remember—they had been living in Los Angeles. Prospering, too, Brit understood. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... room for influential Dutchmen, and in certain cases useless posts, such as "Inspector of white labour", and inspector of goodness-knows-what (all of them carrying high emoluments), were created for political favourites, General Beyers's appointment caused no surprise, as the "pitchfork" had already become part of our Government machinery. But how such a man as Manie Maritz became a Colonel in the Colonial Defence Force is one of those things which, as Lord Dundreary would ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... had been in the field since sunrise, but not all of the long bright day had been given to labor. Early in the morning their father's pitchfork had uncovered a nest of field mice, and the Twins had made another nest, as much like the first as possible, to put the homeless field babies in, hoping that their mother would find them again and ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... shouting and cheering was heard from the direction of the Town Hall. Hyacinth's father clutched a pitchfork and prepared to dash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Rabelais were to the taste of his time; his severer censures of Church and State were disguised by his buffoonery; flinging out his good sense and wise counsels with a liberal hand, he also wields vigorously the dunghill pitchfork. If he is gross beyond what can be described, he is not, apart from the evil of such grossness, a corrupter of morals, unless morals be corrupted by a belief in the goodness of the natural man. The ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... large Reynard-the-Fox, later apparent as the PIPER. Close by is the medieval piece of stage-property known as 'Hell-Mouth,' i.e. a red painted cave with a jaw-like opening into which a mountebank dressed in scarlet (CHEAT-THE-DEVIL) is poking 'Lost Souls' with a pitchfork. ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... else but the fellow who was passing a private residence one day with a pitchfork on his shoulder, and a big dog came rushing out at him, and he jammed the dog through with his pitchfork, killing him. The owner came out ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... curtains; it was late, light, but foggy; a nasty winter's morning. Fred and the three ladies lay snoring, some covered, others partially so, the floor looking as if every article of bed-furniture had been thrown down with a pitchfork. I drank water, and fucked out as I was, my lubricity was unsatiated. I could not resist ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... is equal to the occasion. He goes to the stables and fetches a pitchfork and places it at the other side of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... has been drunk by some of England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the "Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the "Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his immortal action with the "Furibonde," Captain Choufleur, in the ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... morning they heard a terrible riot in the stables. Grimaud had tried to waken the stable boys, and the stable boys had beaten him. When they opened the window, they saw the poor lad lying senseless, with his head split by a blow with a pitchfork. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... measure responsible for their conduct; I had helped to excite them, and dare not, in honour, desert them; and trembling, I went on, prepared to see the worst; following, as a flag of distress, a mouldy crust, brandished on the point of a pitchfork. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... trees as he turned to go he saw the stark figure of a woman, poorly clad and gaunt and gray. She stood motionless watching him with a look of sullen bitterness. She was the last of "the Elkinses," a mountain family run to seed. As he rode away he saw in the field a boy with a pitchfork in his hands, a meager ragged little chap. He was staring into the valley at a wriggling, blue smoke serpent made by the night express to New York. And something leaped in Roger, for he had once felt just like that! But the woman's harsh voice cut ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... to work, have you?" said Jonas. "Well, take this pitchfork, and mount up upon the loft there, and ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... farmer was coming, pitchfork in hand, with his two sturdy sons and a couple of farm hands, who grinned as if they neither knew nor cared what would happen, but were glad of a ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... went out again into the storm they had left so eagerly. Billy Louise showed him where was the pitchfork and the hay, and then did the milking while he piled full the mangers. After that they went together and turned the shivering work horses into the stable from the corral where they huddled, rumps to the storm; and the man lifted great forkfuls of hay and carried it ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... new name for you—Pitchfork Mix." Mr. Mix spread a thin smile over his lips. "Supposed to ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... by way of condolence, "the man what's stabbed by a pitchfork hain't much better off 'n the man that walks bar'footed ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... in the intense strain of that waiting. It must be full ten minutes before Tom's master could get to the house after that first blast, and if he did not hear that, must be too late; but Tom kept his place and my husband rushed by me, carrying the pitchfork with which he had been at work, and I saw no more until Tom was in his cage. Watch had dragged himself to his master's feet to die, and I went into the house and finished getting dinner, more than ever afraid of Tom ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... I dug up a book on the Hawaiian Islands, written by some missionary. In it I found a story of how the natives speared fish off the edges of reefs. Straightway I procured a pitchfork. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... was as long and rank as the grass, hung down below his huge shoulders; and such clothes as clung about him were rags and tongues of red and yellow, so that he had the air of being dressed like an Indian in feathers or autumn leaves. The rake or pitchfork, or whatever it was, he used sometimes as an alpenstock, sometimes (I was told) as a weapon. I do not know why he should have used it as a weapon, for he had, and afterwards showed me, an excellent six-shooter in his pocket. 'But THAT,' he said, 'I use only for ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... other scouts, and they very quietly crept over to the side where they could get a grip on the joists to help themselves up. Each scout had armed himself in some way. One had an old pitchfork with but one prong. Another had a rake handle, one found the curved handle of a feed-grinder, ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in the elms; of young curates in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of housekeepers named Meadows or Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old Giles—fifty years, man and boy, on the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... morning to her work. She was tall and very powerfully built, her features were coarse and swollen, and there was something repelling and yet fascinating to Biddy in her cunning, shifty glance. The way in which she strode along the road, too, swinging a rake, or hoe, or pitchfork in her hand, gave an impression of reckless strength which made the little nurse-girl shudder, and yet she felt unable to remove her gaze as long as the woman was ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... ship's sure to sink, if he does. How do you suppose I'm going to run Lion's Head without you to throw down hay to the horses? It will be ruin to me, sure, Jombateeste. All the guests know how you play on the pitchfork out there, and they'll leave in a body if they hear you've quit. Do say you'll stay, and I'll reduce your wages one-half ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... leaning on a pitchfork in front of the barn door. He was a stout man of about fifty years of age, with an ox-like face. His countenance showed the sullen stolidity of a man who spoke little but listened always, of a man who indulged in suspicious thoughts. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... ever do a great deed?" said Wattie to Mattie, laughing. "Look at the size of us! I defy any man in the village, with an arm only the length of mine, to do more than I! Of course I can't measure myself with the neighbours. To handle Farmer Fairweather's pitchfork would break my back, and to hook a great perch, like Miller Mealy, in the mill-race, might be the capsizing of me. Still, what does that matter? I can catch little sprats for my little wife's dinner; I can dig in our patch of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... wife. They were loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... bridle, he drew out the chaise with his own hands, and would have harnessed the horses, but that the post-boy of the village—a soft-hearted, good-for-nothing, vagabond kind of fellow—was moved by his earnestness and passion, and, throwing down a pitchfork with which he was armed, swore that the rioters might cut him into mincemeat if they liked, but he would not stand by and see an honest gentleman who had done no wrong, reduced to such extremity, without doing what he could to help him. Mr Haredale shook him warmly ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... cotton on which she had been supposedly sewing during the past season. "What is the matter with this thing, anyhow? I believe I've gone and put a sleeve in the neck. Everybody knows I could never sew. Mr. Tate knew it when I married him, for I told him I'd rather handle a pitchfork than a needle. I might hold a pitchfork, but a needle I can't. What 'd I tell ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... cattle. I guess he hasn't got any at all now. But what he did have he always insisted on having branded with that pitchfork brand, as the cowpunchers ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... not open it again; there must have been some spring or catch which I could not set to work. Two steps more took me out of the horses' stalls into the space behind, where, on a mass of hay, lay a carter, fast asleep, with the door-key in his hand. By his side lay a pitchfork. He was keeping guard there, prepared to resist ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... higher, I began to meet people. A few labouring men came past me, one of them carrying a pitchfork. I noticed that they looked at me curiously. One of them spoke, and said, "You have been in the wars, master!" So I said, "Yes," and passed on, wondering what he meant. After I had passed, the man stopped to look ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... resigned to it?... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that one is under constraint, wounded in feeling and humiliated?... Prussia, and a large part of Germany, has been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man than to stir up a pile ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Seizing a pitchfork, Donald attacked the hay like a giant, getting more and more careful as he drew near the bottom of the mow, until at last, with a shout of "I've got him," he stooped down and dragged the senseless form of Bert from the very bottom of the pile. Taking him in his arms, he ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... his tub made it harder work for him to paddle up again. He did it, however, and brought his odd little boat into still water, between the dunghill and the cow. After looking about him for a while, he threw out the boiler and the pitcher upon the dunghill, seized a pitchfork which was stuck upright in it, and, his craft being thus lightened, made for the ruins of the cart ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner he understood it still less. He had some vague idea that he was being conveyed home. His amazement at finding himself bound, the sight of ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... I could easily jump over. He told me that one afternoon he was watering his horses, when he perceived a shoal of salmon swimming up the creek. He had no spear at home, having lent it to a neighbour. He, however, succeeded with a pitchfork in capturing fifty-six ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... be an impossible, sweat-drenching, back-wrenching chore, or it can be relatively quick and easy. It is very difficult to drive even a very sharp shovel into a compost pile. One needs a hay fork, something most people call a "pitchfork." The best type for this task has a very long, delicate handle and four, foot long, sharp, thin tines. Forks with more than four times grab too much material. If the heap has not rotted very thoroughly and still contains a lot of long, stringy material, a five or six tine fork will grab too much ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... was rushing down the road, with a pitchfork in one hand and a rope in the other. He ran up to the bull and slipped the rope over the animal's neck. Then he tied ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... long time which was excusable as she was somewhat confused. First she seized a cord, then a pitchfork, then a chair. For an instant she thought of lowering the cow to the bottom of the well so that poor Ourson might have a drink of fresh warm milk. At last she found the ladder before her eyes, almost in her hands, but she ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... besom, the stick can ride, Can stride the pitchfork, the goat can stride; Who neither will ride to-night, nor can, Must be ...
— Faust • Goethe
... good friend the sun was looking down at me from near his zenith, and my first happy thought was that I was just in time for dinner. Then I discovered that I had been prodded out of my rest by the pitchfork of a hostler. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Indeed they were never done telling tales of how Gavie had forbidden their going into the fields. They boasted of his high handed airs, for hadn't he even chased Janet out of the barnyard, with the pitchfork, mind you, when she was determined to help him in with the hay. Eh indeed he was a thrawn lad, and nobody could ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... religions and I reply that Moses and Jesus were new once, it is plain that a different stratum of mind is operative than when I dream that I am in an old fort and chased by three rats, or that a snake is on my bed and my father kills it with a pitchfork, or strangest of all, that I throw an egg at the plug of a sap bucket which it hits and then flies to the left; it is rotten. Again, a very vague dream, I, see two eggs and then am climbing inside a kind of tower. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... attention of the audience was drawn to the entrance, where there seemed to be some hitch. Tomaso snapped his whip sharply, and shouted savage orders, but nothing came forth. Then the big Swede, with an agitated air, snatched up the trainer's pitchfork, which stood close at hand in case of emergency, made swift passes at the empty doorway, and jumped back. The audience was lifted fairly to its feet with excitement. What monster could it be that was giving so much trouble? The next moment, while Tomaso's whip hissed in vicious circles ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... are engaged in munching and holding a crust of bread. At the feet of the woman are sundry articles, amongst which a bundle of rags, an iron pot, and a tin saucepan, are the most conspicuous. The man to whom she is talking is a tall, gaunt specimen of Irish poverty and famine. He holds a rake and pitchfork in his hand, and leans upon them for support. Gazing into his face is a rough, surly-looking youth, who seems cordially to agree with ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... man vaulted clean over the gate, tore a pitchfork out of a heap of dung that luckily stood in the corner, and boldly confronted the raging bull just in time; for at that moment Zoe lost heart, and crouched, screaming, in the side ditch, with her hands before ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Fly was to go with the message. Mick raked down a handful of soot from the chimney, and rubbed her face and hands till they were black, then dressed her in a pair of old bathing-drawers and a black fur cape. Patsy got the pitchfork from the stable for her to carry ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... doing the very best we can for your discomfort. But you damned have no consideration for us, and do not remember that we are on our feet day and night, waiting upon you," said the little devil, whimpering, as with his pitchfork he raked up the fire about Coth. "You do not even remember the upset condition of the country, on account of the war with Heaven, which makes it so hard for us to get you all the inconveniences of life. Instead, you lounge in your flames, and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of staying together on the ranch. I cannot say that they did it uncomplainingly—for the bunk-house was saturated to the ridge-pole with their maledictions while they compared blistered hands and pitchfork callouses, and mourned the days that were gone; the days when they rode far and free and scorned any work that could not be done from the saddle. But they stayed, and they did the ranch work as well as the range work, ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... divided, but the lower ones are pinnately compounded of three to five divisions, the segments lance-shaped or broader, and sharply toothed. As in all the bur-marigolds, we find each floret's calyx converted into a barbed implement - javelin, pitchfork, or halberd - for grappling the clothing of the first innocent victim unwittingly acting as a ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... he was aroused after about an hour by the pressure of something sharp and painful against his side, near the region of the heart, and on looking up, he discovered Bartle Flanagan standing over him with pitchfork in his hand, one end of which was pressed against his breast, as if he had been in the act of driving it forward into his body. His face was pale, his dark brows frightfully contracted, and his teeth apparently set together, as if working over some fearful determination. When ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the Cook County machine were at their wits' end for an "issue." At the very close of the campaign they bethought themselves of the fact that the strike had been broken by Negroes, and so they sent for a South Carolina fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, and damned and swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively, and the Socialists advertised it too—with the result ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... later I met him again. He was broken in health, his limbs trembled, his walk was an uncertain shuffle. Clearly he was suffering from overwork. As I paused by the wayside to speak to him a wagon loaded with hay was passing. He fixed his eyes upon it with a hungry, wolfish glare, clutched a pitchfork and leaned eagerly forward, watching the vanishing wagon with breathless attention and heedless of my salutation. That night he was arrested, streaming with perspiration, in the unlawful act of unloading that hay and putting it into its owner's barn. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... satisfied," he said to himself as he turned his pitchfork to get a hold on the pile into which he had thrust it, "but here she is pityin' this here girl that's goin' t' be married as if she goin' ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... back at this friendly piece of information. A prick from some two-pronged instrument, evidently a pitchfork, gently checked my retreat. I was then conducted to the brink of several other precipices, and ordered to step over many dangerous chasms, where the result would have been instant death if I had committed the least mistake. I have neglected to say that ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... killing a bull. The bull was a vicious brute that had attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him back to the house. And ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... burs and stones, and I am tired of weeping. Last night I sought a stack of hay, where slumber's fetters bound me, and at the cold, bleak break of day a husky farmer found me. I tried to pacify his nibs when he stood there and blessed me; alas, his pitchfork smote my ribs, his cowhide shoes caressed me. The dogs throughout this countryside all seem to think they need me; they've gathered samples of my hide, and many times they've treed me. And when I roamed the woodland path ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... assembled in front of an inclosed paddock containing Farmer Giles's brindled bull, a savage animal, whose implacable viciousness was the talk of the place; not even the ploughman, with whom he was more familiar than anyone else, daring to approach him without the protection of a long-handled pitchfork. ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... twisted and almost living branches of a huge seaweed which bore more resemblance to a polypus than to a plume. From the middle of the plume rose a buckled strap, which reached to the angle of a rough wooden pitchfork, the handle of which was stuck in the ground, and from there descended to a ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... and the wood looked very quiet and dark, but John Biggs, the blacksmith, and George Kettle walked in first and the others follered, keeping so close together that Sam Jones 'ad a few words over his shoulder with Bill Chambers about the way 'e was carrying 'is pitchfork. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... was fastened securely to the man's hips and shoulders by strong straps, so that he could sustain the weight of the pole by means of them. The pole was about thirty feet high, and the top was branched like a pitchfork. It was shaped, in fact, exactly like a pitchfork, except that there was a bar across from the top of one branch to the top of the other, and a rope hanging down from the middle of the bar half way down to the place of bifurcation—that is, to the place ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... girls get four pounds for doin' next to nothin'. An' to see the dhress an' the shtyle o' thim fine girls! Why, yez cudn't tell them from their own misthresses. What wud yez be doin' in New York, wid yer clothes thrun on yez be a pitchfork, an' lukkin' as if they were made in the ark? But if ye wor as smart as the lady that waits on the Queen, not wan fut will ye set in New York if Mrs. Dillon says no. Yez may go to Hartford or Newark, or some other little place, an' yez'll be mighty ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of his said brain, The stomach, like a belt. like an auger. The pylorus, like a pitchfork. The worm-like excrescence, like The windpipe, like an oyster- a Christmas-box. knife. The membranes, like a monk's The throat, like a pincushion cowl. stuffed with oakum. The funnel, like a mason's chisel. The lungs, like a prebend's The fornix, like a casket. fur-gown. The glandula ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... save England, and what could she do? Can she defend slavery? There'll be no kid-gloved justice meted out to Kingsley by the Khedive, if he starts a campaign against him. He will have to take it on the devil's pitchfork. You ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... love to catch up the bundles of oats as they are thrown down from the loft and send them whirling through the cutting-box so fast that they pour into the big baskets like streams of melted gold; or, grasping my pitchfork, I stuff the ricks over the mangers with the rich aromatic hay until I am as warm as when I loaded the wagons ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... twelve hundred houses, on building leases; the farmer was converted into a steward: his brown hempen frock, which guarded the outside of his waistcoat, became white holland, edged with ruffles, and took its station within: the pitchfork was metamorphosed into a pen, and his ancient practice of breeding up sheep, was changed into that of dressing ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... There was heard the sound of alarm-bells unceasingly ringing, And the approach of danger restrain'd not their violent fury. Soon into weapons were turn'd the implements peaceful of tillage, And with dripping blood the scythe and the pitchfork were cover'd. Every foeman without distinction was ruthlessly slaughter'd, Fury was ev'rywhere raging, and artful, cowardly weakness. May I never again see men in such wretched confusion! Even the raging wild beast is a better object to gaze on. Ne'er let them speak of freedom, as if themselves ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe |
