"Scratching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... to take the diminishing drug. From across the room there came a very queer sound. A scuttling, scratching, and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... a scratching sound and the living-room was dimly illumined by the flare of a match. The small and trembling watcher beneath the sofa shut his eyes in fright. When he opened them the lamp upon the center table was lighted and Santa Claus himself was standing by ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... not come far past his jealously guarded treasure. He shuffled about, keeping his head drawn down in a peculiar manner, but we could see that his eye was on us. After a few moments, he drew back behind the spruce again. Thereupon we threw more stones; and again the beast rushed out, growling and scratching up the grass in an odd manner; he did not appear inclined to pursue us, however, and we now noticed that there was something clumsy in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... into a chair and for some fifteen minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's pen and the deep sighs that from time ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... these yere foothills need thinnin' anyway. Halloa! What in thunder's this?" Through the door, which we had left ajar, very timidly, all blushes and dimples, and sucking one small thumb, came Sissy Leadham. She stood staring at us, standing on one leg and scratching herself nervously with ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... heard this, he gave a great start, and down toppled the whole seven in a heap, one a-top of the next, spitting and roaring and scratching. They were so much taken aback, that they imagined all sorts of powerful beasts to be fighting with them, when it was only their own selves, biting each other; and the end of all was, that as soon as the seven Tigers had ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... 'for being so stupid. But he was so horrid and patronizing to you, I couldn't help scratching. I believe I'm the worst ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and ploughing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... y^e body of Rachell Clenton, there was found an unnaturall teat on one side, something lower than just under her arme, which teat having a pin thrust throw it she was not senceable of, till by scratching her side, pricked her fingers with y^e pin y^t was then in y^e teat; neither ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... only thing!" said Thompson, scratching his honest ear, like a man perplexed and driven to a corner. "We haven't got no references to give. But I'll tell you what we've got though. We've got the papers of these freehold premises, and we've something like two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... eyes, he watched her hand travelling across the sheet of note-paper, and returning at regular intervals, with a sure swoop, to begin a fresh line. There was no sound except the gentle scratching ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... look for the expression in a dictionary, turtle-doves it remained. He wrote of the bird, that it comes out of the sea to the sand of the shore, lays its eggs in that sand, carefully and safely scratching them in, and smoothing the surface with its front paws. These front paws of a turtle-dove perplexed him, and he did what he ought to have done before: he looked in the dictionary and found that the sea-turtle ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... examined every single object in the appropriate manner, now only spitting appraisingly upon it, now kicking it or scratching it with his penknife. If he came across some strange wonder or other, that he could not get into his little brain in any other way, he ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a tragic ending. The Judge was an old man of eccentric dress, much given to talking to himself—particularly as he wandered about the streets of Richmond. The gallery of the House loved him from the first for his funny habit of scratching his arm when the itch of eloquence attacked him. And he always addressed the Speaker as "Mr. Cheerman." They loved him particularly for that. The eccentric Judge had a peculiarly fierce antipathy to Foote. Words ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... scratching a lot ... and wondering what was wrong ... my breast was all red ... but I had explained it to myself that I was wearing a coarse woolen undershirt next my skin ... that I had picked up from the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... glad to wipe her tears when outside the door. Poor Bustle had been watching for his master ever since his departure, and hearing the sounds of arrival, was wild to escape from his prison. He rushed out the moment the door was open, and was scratching to be let into the drawing-room before Charlotte could come up with him. He dashed in, laid his head on Amabel's knee, and wagged his tail for welcome; gave the same greeting to Mr. and Mrs. Edmonstone, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old view, Same old rats and just as tame, Same old dug-outs, nothing new, Same old smell, the very same, Same old bodies out in front, Same old strafe from 2 till 4, Same old scratching, same old ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... eyes and white, pain-drawn face. The priest, wishing to give him a moment to rest and recover his breath, walked to the window and looked out. In the field below more than a score of ragged men, women and children were scratching and digging among piles of ashes, eagerly searching for and gathering up the half-burned cinders; searching, too, in the forlorn hope of finding something of greater value that might have been thrown away by ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the house, all, with the exception of Sir Jasper, had retired to rest, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the old-fashioned time-piece, with its monotonous and never varying tick, tick, and the scratching noise made by the quill as it traced its inky characters on the yet incomplete codicil the Baronet was preparing. The candles had burned low in their sockets, and the fire on the hearth had died out unheeded by him who sat writing line after line. Suddenly a spasm ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... out the document which Trent had handed him upon a tree-stump, and explained. His Majesty nodded more affably. The document reminded him of the pleasant fact that there were three casks of rum to come to him every year. Besides, he rather liked scratching his royal mark upon the smooth, white paper. He was quite willing to repeat the performance, and took up the pen which Sam handed ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scratching his head reflectively. Perkins took his revelation a trifle too calmly. "You say you don't know ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... on. We could see them coming in troops through the open glades of the forest, as if aware that some human prey was in reserve. The hut was strongly built of great pine-logs, but it was fearful to hear them tearing at the door and scratching up the foundations. The bravest among us got terrified at these sounds. Metski loudly avowed his belief that the wolves were sent upon us as a punishment for hunting on Christmas-eve, and fell instantly to his prayers. Wenzel flung a blazing brand among them from ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... take lessons from Vassyvkov. For a whole week he had been moving the bow up and down, but its scratching set his teeth on edge. He caught two strings at once, and his hand trembled with weakness. It was clearly no use. When Vassyvkov played his hand seemed to play of itself. Tired of the torment, Raisky begged his guardian to allow him to take ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the fisher-cat that brought Kazan out; from under his cover of spruce again. In the moonlight there was a sharp quick fight, a snarling and scratching, a cat-like yowl of pain, and the fisher forgot his hunger in flight. Kazan returned to Gray Wolf with a lacerated and bleeding nose. Gray Wolf licked it sympathetically, while Kazan ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... a hard day's service when the mosquitoes would bite my face and the blood run out and dry up in hard drops. When I could not get water to wash off these places I would scratch them off. In some cases these bites were poisonous. I have seen soldiers with large sores, caused by scratching mosquito bites. I was cautious about poisoning during my service in ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... trees in the side-yard, almost within arm's length of the wall,—they were so close, in fact, that their limbs stretched out over the rough shingle roof, producing in the wind an everlasting sound of scratching and scraping. There was a huge four-poster feather bed of mountainous proportions, leaving the occupant scant space in which to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... right. But I think I am a foolish old man to give a watch to a young thing like you, for you'll only go and drop it down the first rabbit-hole you and Silky go scratching into; but I thought it might be useful in keeping you up to time with that governess of yours. No excuse for being late, eh? The date too—an important one, isn't it? Well, my child, I ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... head and flirted up dirt by scratching on the ground with his feet. He had smelled blood. Mr. Billy-Goat saw how Mr. Dog acted, and he was afraid to go in. So he ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... seething vision: a ring of boys, excited, eager, yelling, laughing, cheering, with only here and there a frightened face; and there in the midst himself and another—some one who was striking and kicking and scratching at him, but whose blows he did not seem to feel, so hard and fierce and fast he himself was striking, and so hotly ran his blood. And in his ears were ringing the cries which had gone up at the end, when that other boy—he of the curly hair—had suddenly, at last, turned from him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... a very easy punishment, and then began a vigorous scratching of pencils, with shy laughing glances between the culprits, while the teacher took a book and began to read, keeping, however, a sharp eye on the pupils to see that no one shirked her work. When one announced that her slate was full, she ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... the other hand, George was no longer a giant of energy, initiating out of ample experience a tremendous and superb enterprise. He was suddenly diminished to a boy, or at best a lad. He really felt that it was ridiculous for him to be sketching and scratching away there in the middle of the night in his dress-clothes. Even his overcoat, hat, and fancy muffler cast on a chair seemed ridiculous. He was a child, pretending to be an adult. He glanced like a child at Mr. Enwright; he roughened ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... might have as little detention as possible when he should come again. No sooner had he loosened it than Tiger sprang eagerly to the small opening produced, snuffed for a moment, and then uttered a long whine, scratching at the same time, as if anxious to remove the covering with his paws. There could be no doubt, from his behaviour, that he was aware of my being in the hold, and Augustus thought it possible that he would be able to get to me if he put him down. He now hit upon the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... supposed to report all such inter-class offences; but in effect he invariably happened to be conveniently absent at such times—the times of the freshman rebellion. He began lecturing now without a word of comment, and on the instant the peaceful scratching of fountain pens on notebooks replaced the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... kick, and sometimes was even afraid to go among the children, lest one of them might be angry, as the flute player had been, and felt sadder than ever about being a dog. The villagers said, "Why, what has come over our Frolic? It used to seem as merry as a dog could be, scratching at our doors, and stealing our bones; but now it goes moping about in solitary places, just like young Edgar, with his long hair. Poor thing! It is certainly a sad fate, for one who has once been a bright child, the best scholar in school, winning a medal every week, to be ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... was in the habit of scratching up Farmer Green's newly-planted corn, just as Bobby Bobolink uncovered the freshly-sown rice in the South, Mr. Crow never cared to have any of his neighbors even hint that he did such a thing. And now he glared at ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Writing such and such Passages, but how those Thoughts came into his Head, where he was when he wrote, or what he was doing of; whether he wrote in a Garden, a Garret, or a Coach; upon a Lady, or a Milkmaid; whether at that Time he was scratching his Elbow, drinking a Bottle, or playing at Questions and Commands. These are material and important Circumstances so well known to the True Commentator, that were Virgil and Horace to revisit the World at this time, they'd ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... that, the greatest change of all—the transformation in himself. The face on which we saw so little written when he had that meeting in the Hotel Marseillaise, the new sheet straight from the mills of the gods, had now a faint scratching upon it. The mouth was looser in repose, firmer in action; the roving and merry eye was more certain, more accurate as it were, in its glances. His youthful assurance had changed in him to something like mature self-certainty. In those external city manners which he had set about ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... morning we shall reach our destination with several hours of daylight in hand; and with the help of this chart, a hand aloft on the foremast, and two leadsmen in the forechains, I will guarantee to take this little hooker in and out of that berth without so much as scratching her paint. Oh, no, we shall not take a pilot, who might possibly go back to Havana and set people wondering what the mischief was our object in slipping in behind ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... horrible to see. But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and running under the petticoats of the people, and creating altogether the most abominable din and confusion which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a parcel of children frolicking together the live-long day, and no quarrelling, no contention, among them. The same number in our own land could not have played together for the space of an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each other's charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of gentility, nor yet moving in whalebone ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... must, of comic opera. It's a pity we're not talking of the Parcoe who have been in my mind all the morning,' and she began to recite some verses that she had written. But, interrupting herself suddenly, she cried: 'Dick, who has been scratching you? How did your face get torn like that—who's been scratching you?' ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... full of sounds: the hard clicking of the typewriters, and under it the eternal rustling of the white papers, the scratching of pens, the thud of ledgers on desks, the hiss of their turning leaves, and the sharp smacking and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... with their voluminous accounts. Your rent-collector, called a tehseeldar, has been busy in the villages with the tenants and putwarries, collecting rent for the great Pooneah day. There is a constant chink of money, a busy hum, a scratching of innumerable pens. Under every tree, 'neath the shade of every hut, busy groups are squatted round some acute accountant. Totals are being totted up on all hands. From greasy recesses in the waistband a dirty bundle is ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... wearing an old-fashion tippet around his neck, the loose ends flying behind. One end had gotten under the bob runners and was scratching along in the snow. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... time this morning from Mr. Hervey. I am sure I am much obliged to him for having the courage to speak the truth to me." Here she repeated what Mr. Hervey had said to her. Lady Delacour never raised her eyes whilst Belinda spoke, but went on scratching out some words in what she was writing. Through the mask of paint which she wore no change of colour could be visible; and as Belinda did not see the expression of her ladyship's eyes, she could not in the least judge of what ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... assent, as she watched the bird's claw; at sixty-five she compressed her lips tightly, at seventy the lines on her brow announced a coming storm, at eighty she struck the ground violently with her myrtle-staff, and, as the hen, scratching faster and faster, approached ninety, and a hundred, and she saw that all the spectators were laughing, and her master was fairly holding his sides, rushed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Now tell me fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... she had invented in derision for the little creature to get a stab with the needle. She was never allowed to change her underclothing, so the delicate skin of the child soon became chafed, and she could not help scratching herself. Whereupon Concha flew into a rage, accused her of having the itch, and pushed her from the room. It got worse and worse. The microscopic maid, at the instigation of her mistress, insisted on her wearing boots too small for ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... on a printed page; but Phyllis had not realized that ten satisfying lines is a fair morning's stint; nor that a little book of synonyms is first aid in emergency cases; nor that one may talk as much as one pleases at times, but must be quiet as a mouse when the pen is scratching away so busily; she had to learn that when John's eyes were full of anguish he was probably at ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... into strips, and then into small squares, which were passed along the delighted audience. There was a busy whispering and scratching of heads. Over in one corner, jammed against the wall until he gasped for breath, Jabez Rockwell said ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... morning, as Yan approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... by the futile longing to touch the cool green water, and every little ridge or shelf was marked out by a line of ancient moss. Old alders had plunged their roots deep into the banks of the river, and wherever the sunshine struck upon the upper leaves was a cicada scratching out its monotonous note ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... surface of the glass be roughened by scratching it with a diamond or with hard sand, a new event occurs; which is, that the vitreous ether attracted from the cushion by the resinous ether combined with the glass becomes adhesive to it; and stands upon the roughened glass, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... until it had risen some distance in the heavens. By and by, however, the moon shot above the cloud, and that which before had been obscured by darkness became plain. There was the great rugged rock which bore a resemblance to the rude scratching on the paper. By the side of the rock ran a deep gulf filled with black water. Near by, perhaps twenty feet away, was another and larger mass of cliff. I looked at the water which lay between the two, and saw that it whirled and eddied, as though there were some terrible forces underneath ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... fable. Let them come and see in the corner of the stable one of these poor beasts, thin and wasted, restlessly lashing his lean flanks with his tail, violently breathing with mingled terror and disdain on the food offered him, his eyes always turned toward the door, scratching with his hoof the empty place at his side, sniffing the yokes and chains which his fellow used to wear, and incessantly calling him with melancholy lowings. The ox-herd will say: "There is a pair of oxen gone;' this one will work no more, for his brother is dead. We ought to fatten him for the market, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... way of trying the experiment, she shut her eyes, and stretching out her arms, walked just as Richard, succeeding so well that she was beginning to consider it rather agreeable than otherwise, when she unfortunately ran into a tall rose-bush, scratching her forehead, tangling her hair, and stubbing her toes against its gnarled roots. "'Taint so jolly to be blind after all," she said, "I do believe I've broken my toe," and extricating herself as best she could from the sharp thorns, she ran on as fast ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... sandhills at its feet. The stone is so friable that names can be cut in it to almost any depth with a pocket-knife: so loose, indeed, is it, that one almost feels alarmed lest it should fall while he is scratching at its base. In a small orifice or chamber of the pillar I discovered an opossum asleep, the first I had seen in this part of the country. We turned our backs upon this peculiar monument, and left it in its loneliness and its grandeur—"clothed in ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... arose from his squatting posture, hitching up one side of his trousers, then the other, for he was suspenderless, and following at a distance, scratching his head and hitching his trousers alternately, he at last managed to say, "Ah, well—why—if you can wait a few moments till I change my clothes, I'll—I'll go with you ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... at work, from six in the evening until nine o'clock, scratching through a small-type Bible for flavourless aphorisms. Ethel is set to find six texts, and finds four of them, when she perceives something funny in one of them. She shows it to Johnnie, and they both giggle. Father looks up severely, and warns her. Then Johnnie, not to be outdone, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... dirty, apartment, lighted by high, narrow windows of ground glass; so that no time could be wasted by the junior clerks in looking out into the street. Several pale, melancholy men were seated at desks, hard at work. You heard nothing but the rapid scratching of their pens against the parchment and paper on which they were employed. When Mr. Moncton entered the office, a short, stout, middle-aged man swung himself round on his high stool and fronted us; but the moment he recognized ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... you are inane enough to hanker after perfected speech, and so misguided as to be the slave of the "right word." You sit alone in a bright, comfortable room; the clock ticks companionably; there is no other sound in the world except the constant scratching of your pen, and the occasional far-off puffing of a freight-train coming into Lichfield; there is snow outside, but before your eyes someone, that is not you exactly, arranges and redrills the scrawls which ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... maritime world in Kingston, I knew the faces and the names of most of the merchant captains who used to gather there to drink and swap yarns. I was not myself quite unknown to little Lumsden. I told him all my story, and all the time he kept on scratching his bald head, full of incredulous perplexity. Old Senor Ramon! Such a respectable man. And I had been kidnapped? From ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... them, and look what she's left me instead," and she held up a scrap of paper, "a receipt for five years' wages, and she's had them over and over again. Ah, if ever I get a chance at her," and she doubled her long hand and made a motion as of a person scratching. "She's bolted and left me here to starve. I haven't had a bit since yesterday, nor a drink either, and that's worse. What's to become of me? I'm starving. I shall have to go to the workhouse. Yes, me," she added in a scream, "me, who have spent ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... dragon came home, after he had supped and when she was scratching his head to make him drowsy for bed, the ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... had the luck,—and one day, clearing away a little snow to build a fire, I poked my toe into the dirt, and there was somethin' there, dearie, that looked suspicious. I called Jim,—that's one of the men,—and in less time than it takes to tell you there were three maniacs scratching away at old mother earth for all there was in it. We staked our claims in two weeks, and I came to Reno to raise enough money for me to come East. Now things are all fixed and it's just a matter of ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... rough drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I received it, a low growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits. When ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... come aboard and listen!" I listened and sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of any kind inside, not a ray of light visible; nothing but the echo of her own knocks through the passages, and the dry scratching of the withered leaves blown about her feet upon the floor of ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... forested billows, but the mountains stood off on the right and left, frowning in the distance. A plague of flies harassed them continually, Hazel's hands suffering most, even though she kept religiously to thick buckskin gloves. The poisonous bites led to scratching, which bred soreness. And as they gained a greater elevation and the timbered bottoms gave way to rocky hills over which she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the sweat of the exertion stung and burned intolerably, like salt water on an ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Uncle Remus, scratching his head gravely, "w'ich one er dem chilluns wuz ailin'. Hit mout er bin Kubs, en hit mout er bin Klibs; but no marter fer dat. W'en ole Miss Rabbit git dar, ole Miss B'ar wuz a-settin' up in de chimbly-cornder des a-dosin' en a-nussin' de young un; en all de wimmin er de neighborhoods wuz ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... the door with the weight of his body, holding the welding arc ready in his hand. Several times the hinges creaked, and he felt a heavy pressure against the panels. But at last the scratching sounds ceased. He relaxed. The monster had withdrawn, ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went down to look at the furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually scratching his ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... foibles: the strongest fort has its feeble point, as the chain snaps at its weakest link;—family pride was Mahomet's weak link. This was his tender point; and Mahomet, the great and the imperious, yielded to the gentle scratching of his ear if a stranger claimed connexion with his ancient lineage. Of course he had no family, with the exception of his wife and two children, whom he had left in Cairo. The lady whom he had honoured ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... run off, and a French comic; then came a rural drama situated somewhere in the Middle West. It began with a farm yard scene. The sun blazed down on a corner of a barn and on a rail fence where the ground lay in the mottled shade of large trees overhead. There were chickens, ducks, and turkeys, scratching, waddling, moving about. A big sow, followed by a roly-poly litter of seven little ones, marched majestically through the chickens, rooting them out of the way. The hens, in turn, took it out on the little porkers, pecking them when they ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... conditions have the explicitness of black and white. He knew them to be as mercenary as himself, with this only difference: Where he was frankly so, they pretended otherwise. They bothered him with their dinky deals, with their scrimping and scratching, and their sneaky attempts to hide their ugliness by the observance of one set day of sanctuary. Because they seemed to him so two-faced, so trifling, so cowardly, he liked to "stick" them every time he had a fair chance ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... altogether. He did not shave his head, as most of us had done, but allowed his hair to grow very long, and this, of course, was often a subject of irritation to him. He had also a habit of sitting on his bed in his nightclothes, yawning and scratching his body all over, very slowly, with his long (and I'm afraid dirty) finger-nails, for the space, perhaps, of a quarter of an hour. This I found difficult to endure. His long white face was always ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... know," returned the smith, scratching his head as if a little puzzled; "but I know that poor men won't be overtaxed. They say they are better off with you than with the Barons before, and therefore they love you. But men in business, Tribune, poor men with families, must ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dishevelled man, who stood by the Magdalen tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis' daughter was pleased to patronize, and his red hair was unpardonably tousled. Nor were his manners beyond reproach, for now, without saying anything, he, too, went to the window. He dragged one ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... rosebushes in the yard. "Saddle Mr. Chad's horse." Then, without looking again at Chad, he turned into his office, and Chad, standing where he was, with a breaking heart, could hear, through the open window, the rustling of papers and the scratching of a pen. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... every sort. They were to march against the cacique, and if he refused their alliance, they were to attack and overthrow him. Moreover, the Spaniards never weary of repeating, as a proof of the wealth they dream of, that by just scratching the earth almost anywhere, grains of gold are found. I only repeat here ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... of which one may distinguish the various gems from each other is hardness. By hardness is meant the ability to resist scratching. The term "hardness" should not be taken to include toughness, yet it is frequently so understood by the public. Most hard stones are more or less brittle and would shatter if struck a sharp blow. Other hard stones have a pronounced cleavage and split ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... cavalry horses over the sands of the Maricopa desert, swung in our hammocks under the ramadas; swam in the red waters of the Verde River, ate canned peaches, pink butter and commissary hams, listened for the scratching of the centipedes as they scampered around the edges of our canvas-covered floors, found scorpions in our slippers, ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... later when the early summer work was better under way, I took an implement or two over, and half scratching, half digging inside the little wall, I found layer after layer of dead leaves and sediment, dead leaves and sediment. Presently water became evident, and a little later it began to rise within the wall. In a short time there was nearly three feet of water. It was cloudy, no bottom could be seen. ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... flew, both trying to enter the narrow door of the tavern. Wedged in the doorway, each thought the other holding him. Fighting, cussing, scratching, they were pulled into the big tap room filled with guests. All imagined the two hostlers were fighting and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... point to which they answer as a barb and serve also to pres it forward when onece entered a small distance. these barbed seed penetrate our mockersons and leather legings and give us great pain untill they are removed. my poor dog suffers with them excessively, he is constantly hinting and scratching himself as if in a rack of pain. the prickly pear also grow here as abundantly as usual. there is another species of the prickly pear of a globular form, composed of an assemblage of little conic leaves springing from a common root to which their small points are attached as a common center ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... his failure to free himself from the dripping woods, he abruptly came upon a clearing, in the midst of which stood a small house, surrounded by a well-tilled garden and several smaller buildings. Chickens were scratching and picking at the earth, and a big dog, fortunately restrained by a chain, scrambled out of his kennel at sight of the stranger and barked and tugged ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... the man, for the Corean woman can have a temper at times. Jealousy en plus is one of her chief virtues. I have seen women in Seoul nearly tearing one another to pieces, and, O Lord! how masterly they are in the art of scratching. The men on such occasions stand round them, encouraging them to fight, the husbands enjoying the fun more than the other less interested spectators. The women of the lower classes seem to be in a constant state of excitement and anger. They are always insulting one another, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... said the Judge, mournfully scratching his head, "I should like to do so very much, but what if I have new perplexities! Brother Jacek has not abandoned the oversight of his son, and has just sent down upon me that Bernardine Robak, who has arrived ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... by a scratching sound and low growl. Turning his head, he saw an immense wolf standing at the entrance of the cavern, his whole figure revealed in the firelight. With his jaws parted and his form erect, he was a formidable creature, before which almost any ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... time he could not remember, staring at the new portrait and scratching his head. Then it came to him suddenly: "Why, sure, I ought to ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as every time I've swep' out the president's office. And Professor Grid always looked like ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... mental vacuity which comes at the end of an exhaustive discussion that has liberated some belief matured in the course of meditative years. He had indeed been making his confession of faith, had he only known it; and its effect was to make Jukes, on the other side of the door, stand scratching his head for ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... away, but they've been lying down and rolling and scratching themselves until they make the wallows you see all over the plains. It's not a big band, two or three hundred, perhaps. Well, they don't mean anything to us, except a possible supply of provisions later on. No wonder the Indians hate ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the track was broad, passing through thickets of thorn and low hawthorn-trees with immense masses of tangled underwood between, brambles and woodbine twisted and matted together, impervious above but hollow beneath; under these they could hear the bush-hens running to and fro and scratching at the dead leaves which strewed the ground. Sounds of clucking deeper in betrayed ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic assemblage of articles—mainly old framed prints and paintings—leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder's yard. All the books visible here were folios too big to be stolen—some lying on a heavy oak table ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... I'm trying to make her come up close to the rail, so she can get a good, firm hold; but she's afraid of scratching ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... some private house and she prepared to go. She had passably good clothing and was, as far as appearance was concerned, ready to go. Then came a dreadful discovery. The wolf was at the door. He had come up the stairs and was scratching and snarling at the threshold. What were they to do? There was not a thing to eat in the house. The very last franc had been spent. There was nothing left but that pearl cross the Countess had given ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... the Legion? Lying there, the only waking one among the sleepers, fear of unseen, mysterious things, the fear that sometimes attacks a brave man in the night, leaped at him out of the shadows. He could almost feel the sharp little claws of the dreaded beetle scratching in his brain. Yes, he'd been a fool to join the Legion, and to hand over Jack Doran's house and fortune to Grant Reeves! It was impossible that Grant had married Josephine for love. He had simply taken her with the money, and he meant to ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... to look about him, for a door opened at the further end of the room, and admitted the portly person of Miss Terry, arrayed in a gigantic sun hat and a pair of green spectacles. She seemed very hot, and held in her hand a piece of brown paper, inside of which something was violently scratching. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... merchant who favored the customer by selling to him. That is bad for business. Monopoly is bad for business. Profiteering is bad for business. The lack of necessity to hustle is bad for business. Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets. Things were coming too easily. There was a let-down of the principle that an honest relation ought to obtain between values and prices. The public no longer had to be "catered to." There was even a "public be damned" attitude in many places. It was intensely bad for ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... inspiring leader of men in our generation,—General Armstrong, was first undertaking his work for the negroes in Virginia, he wrote a letter to a friend in the North, {46} saying: "Dear Miss Ludlow: If you care to sail into a good hearty battle, where there is no scratching and pin-sticking, but great guns and heavy shot only used, come here. If you like to lend a hand when a good cause is short-handed, come here." Could any brave man or woman resist a call like that? It was a call to ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... speech the Cook looked up and down, scratching his head in doubt, for he loved good feasting. At last he drew a long breath and said to Little John, "Well, good friend, I like thy plan right well; so, pretty boy, say I, let us feast, with all my heart, for one of us may sup ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... tint between a hyacinth red and a chestnut brown, were continually passing over the body. Any part, being subjected to a slight shock of galvanism, became almost black: a similar effect, but in a less degree, was produced by scratching the skin with a needle. These clouds, or blushes as they may be called, are said to be produced by the alternate contraction and expansion of minute vescicles ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... rout of the shadows before the bright spears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head, he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in scratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... a slight scratching sound at the door. Tiptoeing to the door, Dalzell opened it far enough to admit Seaman Runkle, who, as soon as the door had been closed and locked, promptly saluted both ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... "I danced the soles off my shoes trying to get in here yesterday, and I hear you were moping all the time, and paid me no more attention than I had been a dog scratching at the door. What! and have you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... which she belonged, he got into bed with her, without entreating her permission or making any kind of ceremony. She felt him in her arms before she knew that he had entered the room; but being strong, she freed herself from his grasp, and fell to striking, biting, and scratching him, demanding the while to know who he was, so that for fear lest she should call out he sought to stop her mouth with the bedclothes. But this he found it impossible to do, for when she saw that he was using all his strength to work her shame she did as much to baffle him. She further ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... philosopher, it was evident to Paco, that if wind came through, there must be a vault on the other side of the wall, and not the solid earth, as he had hitherto believed; and it also became probable that the wall was deficient either in thickness or solidity. After some scratching at the plaster, he succeeded in uncovering the side of a small stone of irregular shape. A vigorous push entirely dislodged it, and it fell from him, leaving an opening through which he could pass his arm. This he did, and found that although ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... specific manifesto, and at midday, in the churchyard, in the vicinity of an old vault, before which there, was a grass plot, the affair was settled in the presence of the whole school, with natural weapons, by wrestling and pounding, in extreme cases also by biting and scratching. I never indeed rose to the rank of a genuine triarian, who made it a point of honor to go about the whole year with a black eye or a swollen nose, but I very soon lost the reputation for being a good child, which I owed to my mother and which up to that time had meant so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... old boy," said Ned, already busily scratching off the form of the contract he proposed to show the company's legal advisers ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... person seated on a chair, John's throne in fact, was far back in the room, and could not be seen from below. A few minutes passed away, while Crayshaw began to breathe like, other people, and a certain scratching noise was heard below, upon which significant looks entreated her to be silent. She thought she would let things take their course, and sat still for a minute, when a casement was flung open below, and a shrill ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... moved slowly through the jungle his mind absorbed by his gloomy thoughts, there presently came to his ears a strange scratching sound which he ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stranger, I saw his brow contract; he gave a slight stamp with his foot, and flung the newspaper to the ground, then stooping down he picked it up, first moving his forefinger along the floor, seemingly slightly scratching ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of that forenoon, that is the hour or so remaining, was spent by Mr. Winslow in sitting by the workbench and idly scratching upon a board with the point of the chisel. Sometimes his scratches were meaningless, sometimes they spelled a name, a name which he seemed to enjoy spelling. But at intervals during that day, and on other days which followed, he was conscious ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to turn away. A few times, when further urged, she swore at the examiner. There was also persistent marked resistance towards any interference, sometimes merely passive or quite often, especially at first, with wriggling or severe scratching of her own body. There was often with this evidence of irritation or she moaned. Again she was described as quite affectless. One of the most striking features throughout a large part of the course were ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... must first explain to you that for weeks and weeks I—I have imagined I heard sounds—" She looked carefully around her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated, swallowing a little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing and squeaking and sniffing and scratching of—of live things. I asked the janitor, and he said the house was not very well built and that the beams ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... master," says he, scratching his shaven chin, "since you've got your breakfus' surely, if you're minded t' step along t' my cottage down t' lane, I can give ye a jug of good ale to wash it down." Now as he spoke thus, seeing the sturdy manliness of him I dropped my staff and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... with a mere flourish of the pen. I have a scene in a watch-house, with half a score of heads, thoroughly Irish, drunk or sleepy, and as many more of these shovel hats, which the clever artist amused himself with scratching off,—as we sat talking together at a table,—on a little bit of waste paper, which fluttered away in the draft from a window, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... will run dry before a year's out, if you don't get the pump to help the cow? Let me tell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, and bought a checkbook, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sums to suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was as easy as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book seemed to be a dictionary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes of happiness, and realize any one of them on the spot. A check came back to me at last with these two words on it,—No funds. My checkbook ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... He actually forced the wire netting from the roof of the coop, although it was firmly nailed to the woodwork. But he could not quite get his head in, for when the keeper arrived on the scene at five o'clock a.m., there he was, clawing and scratching at the birds. His efforts met with no success, however, for not a single bird was badly injured, though some damage might have been done if Master Reynard had not been interrupted at this critical moment. Young cubs ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... wherever her duty called her. But still, she talked, and Miss Custer sat looking out into the clean-swept back yard with its boxed-up flower-beds blooming with the gayest annuals, and its cooped-up hens with their broods of puffy chickens scratching and picking and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... there, but Roger was afraid to risk going away till it had definitely ended, so they went for their walk, and I chatted with Miss Jencks by the fire. They had been gone about an hour when we heard a great scratching and whining at the door (I thought for a moment it was Kitch) and Rosy bounded in, snapping his teeth and glaring fearfully. We both jumped up and he flew at me and caught my sleeve in his teeth—for ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis' ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of the fight. To advance was impossible, to turn back equally so, and while meditating some means of escape she lost her footing and fell across a wheelbarrow which stood upon the platform, crumpling her bonnet, and scratching her face upon a nail which protruded from the vehicle. Nearer dead than alive, she made her way at last into the depot, and from thence into the cars, where, sinking into a seat, and drawing her shawl closely around her, the better to conceal the sad ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... anything else," said the farmer, scratching his head. Then he added with a grin, "unless it be ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... went, but at last we came to a peculiarly deserted looking house. Here Rusty turned in and began scratching at the door. We jumped ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... waistcoat with the hind part before, and this was a corroboration of good luck. He no longer doubted that a huge store of money lay buried somewhere in his cabbage-field, coyly waiting to be sought for, and he half repined at having so long been scratching about the surface of the soil, instead of digging ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... scratching I did my best to explain in a German-French-Dutch dialect of my own invention that we wished to see Mons. le Commissaire at once; that we had only come to inspect the concentration camp of German and Belgian prisoners, and that we ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green |
