"Shearing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly have suggested to Cowley the best ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... mind to blow from this quarter or that, died away altogether. At the same time the horizon appeared to close in perceptibly; what little definition it had had in earlier hours was erased; and the Sybarite, shearing the oily and lifeless waters of a dead calm, seemed less to make progress than to struggle sullenly in a pool of quicksilver at the bottom of a slowly revolving sphere of clouded glass, mutinously aware that all her labouring ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... them, he rose in the service of his country. That such a one should become a Praetor and a Governor was natural. He went to Africa with proconsular authority, and of course fleeced the Africans. It was as natural as that a flock of sheep should lose their wool at shearing time. He came back intent, as was natural also, on being a Consul, and of carrying on the game of promotion and of plunder. But there came a spoke in his wheel—the not unusual spoke of an accusation from the province. While under accusation for provincial robbery he ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... black fluid from beneath his beaked mouth. The black jet spread instantly in a thick cloud, staining the clear, green water so deeply that Little Sword could not see through it at all. Instead of the soft flesh he had expected it to pierce, his sword met nothing but a mass of sticky anemones, shearing them ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... with a right good ring (Sing hey for lifting lay, sing hey!) Of any old, sunny old, silly old thing. (Sing ho for the ballad of a backblock day!) The sun shone brightly overhead, And the shearers stood by the shearing shed; But "The run wants rain," the stockman said (Sing di-dum, wattle-gum, Narrabori Ned. For a lifting ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... that it was needful to keep under shelter, while around the tents was a semicircle of sheep wagons. There was a substantial horse corral, and across the creek the sheep-pens had tripled in size, with a row of well-built shearing-pens beside them. Under a long shed with a corrugated-iron roofing there were sacks of wool piled to a height which gave Kate a feeling of deep satisfaction ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... journal, but he was more concerned in jotting down the names and characteristics of those with whom he forgathered than of letting himself out in snatches of song. He makes shrewd remarks by the way on farms and farming, on the washing and shearing of sheep, but the only verse he attempted was his Epistle to Creech. He who had longed to sit and muse on 'those once hard-contested fields' did not go out of his way to look on Ancrum Moor or Philiphaugh, nor do we read of him musing ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... hand without an anxious feeling. His thousand sheep had cost him L250, and his cattle as much more. The lambing season had come and gone, and the flock of sheep had doubled in number. The cattle, too, had greatly increased, and the sheep were nearly ready for shearing. Altogether the value of the stock was over L1000. The loss would not be absolute ruin, as he had still L600 of his original capital in the bank at Buenos Ayres; but it would be ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... ago seemed to enjoy a perennial vitality in front of the worn-out stocks, may, so far as I can say, be entirely unknown to the rising generation of schoolboys there. The practice of divination by Bible and key, the regarding of valentines as things of serious import, the shearing-supper, and the harvest-home, have, too, nearly disappeared in the wake of the old houses; and with them have gone, it is said, much of that love of fuddling to which the village at one time was notoriously prone. The change at the root of this has been the recent supplanting ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when, late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... to be formed, the latter close to the river, where the sheep, before shearing, could be washed, ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... men, counting the boundary riders and stockmen at different parts of the place; and double that number at shearing or drafting times, not to mention daily sundowners—it's like feeding an army, my dears," she said; "and then, you see, I had to make preparations for all ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... minute of the disappearance of the last of the second-class passengers, a loud hissing, shearing sound rent the air, heard distinctly above the now somewhat moderated roar of the escaping steam, and, leaning far out over the rail of the promenade deck, Dick was just in time to mark the heavenward flight of a rocket—the first visible signal of distress ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... termed—probably I would, when very young, follow the others to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought nothing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... room and the rudder put hard left as soon as the torpedo was sighted. It looked for the moment as though the torpedo would pass astern. When about fifteen or twenty feet away the torpedo porpoised, completely leaving the water and shearing to the left. Before again taking the water the torpedo hit the ship well aft on the port side about frame 163 and above the water line. Almost immediately after the explosion of the torpedo the depth charges, located on the stern ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... of discord came to Cass Grimshaw one night in the hang-out where the six sat smoking. Purdy casually mentioned that it was getting along towards shearing time and that the Wolf River bank ought to be heavily stocked with cash. The leader blew a double plume of smoke from his nostrils ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... the getting of money. He would say in his cynical, loud way that the end justifies the means, and with him the end is Angelique des Meloises. She is probably going to be the Delilah of New France, the woman who is shearing it of its upholding strength, but ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills filled up the space and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big and equally black. The sides of these big hills were laced with lines of little jumping hillocks, and over all the loud wind swept, shearing off tearing storm-showers of spray. An ugly ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... slight sketch or two of anything characteristic of the seasons, in mountainous scenery especially, I shall regard them as apples of gold. I am very anxious to learn whether any particular customs or festivities are kept up in the sheep-districts of Scotland at sheep-shearing time, as were wont of old all over England; and where is there a man who could solve such a problem like thyself? I am sensible of the great boldness of my request; but as my object is to promote the love of nature, I am willing to believe ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... afraid to touch it until Lloyd put a sofa pillow over its head and sat down on it. Then I began to shear off a little near the tail, where I thought it wouldn't show much; but the mattress didn't fill up very fast. So I kept on shearing, a little farther and a little farther, here a patch and there a patch, until I had taken a great streak out of the middle of the back, and ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of power and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the thing was done, he holds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the proletariat who does the shearing. Sociology has taught him that m-i-g-h-t spells "right." Every society has been ruled by classes, and the classes have ruled by sheer strength, and have been overthrown by sheer strength. The bourgeoisie, because it was the stronger, dragged down the nobility of the sword; and the proletariat, ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... miles away. The agreeable thing was, of course, to walk to Fecamp, over the grassy downs. I walked and walked, over the levels and the dells, having land and ocean quite to myself. Here and there I met a shepherd, lying flat on his stomach in the sun, while his sheep, in extreme dishabille (shearing time being recent), went huddling in front of me as I approached. Far below, on the blue ocean, like a fly on a table of lapis, crawled a little steamer, carrying people from Etretal to the races. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... considerations and definitions Tensile strength Compressive or crushing strength Shearing strength Transverse or bending strength: Beams ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... the men irritated me worse than the boss-over-the-board had done. It must have been on account of the heat, as Mitchell says. I was sick of the shed and the life. It was within a couple of days of cut-out, so I told Mitchell—who was shearing—that I'd camp up the Billabong and wait for him; got my cheque, rolled up my swag, got three days' tucker from the cook, said so-long to him, and tramped while the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... Neuf, where there are a number of little stalls erected, the owners of which advertise upon little boards, which are raised upon poles, that they possess extraordinary talents for shearing dogs and cats; I could not help stopping and laughing most heartily to observe the following address to the public from one of these canine and ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... finally fixed that a boat should put in to the Abbey steps to receive the fleeces of the sheep-shearing of the home grange, and that, rolled in one of these fleeces, the wounded knight should be brought on board the Vrow Gudule, where Groot and the women would await him, their freight being already embarked, and all ready ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those counties should buy any wool before he entered into a bond, with sureties, that all the wool he might buy should be sold by him to no persons within fifteen miles of the sea, and all growers of wool within ten miles of the sea in those counties were obliged within three days of shearing to account for the number of fleeces, and where they ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... W. to some of the big farms to see the sheep-shearing and the dairies, and cheese made. The farmer's wife in France is a very capable, hard-working woman—up early, seeing to everything herself, and ruling all her carters and ploughboys with a heavy ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... meeting with Abigail, a woman fair and discreet, married to a sordid churl named Nabal. David and his band had protected Nabal's fields from other rovers, and had been, so to speak, a wall of fire between the churl's estate and the hand of depredation. But at the time of the sheep-shearing the surly ingrate refuses food and drink to the band of David, though the favor is most courteously asked. When the rough answer is brought back, one sees the quick temper of the soldier, in the flashing repartee, and the hand flying to the sword. Little had been left to Nabal ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... so dreary, With eyes and forehead hot and bleary, Sat a mother sad and weary, With her darling on her knee; Their humble fare at best was sparing For the father he was shearing, With his three brave sons of Erin, All down in the ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... continuous, by reason of the eccentric wanderings of the rivulet; but after climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season's shearing of mohair. "Alia Franga!" is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the "Ah, I'Anglais." of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude carts, and a name which they seem to think is quite ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... decided were numerous and involved. How much carrying capacity was required? How much rolling stock? How many engines? What spare parts? How much oil? How many lathes? How many cutters? How many punching and shearing machines? What arrangements of signals would be necessary? How many lamps? How many points? How many trolleys? What amount of coal should be ordered? How much water would be wanted? How should it be carried? To what extent would its carriage affect the hauling ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... roaring Marget a Barwicke, The mummied Princes, and Caesar's wine yet i' Dover, Saint James his ginney-hens, the Cassawarway[2] moreover, The Beaver i' the Parke (strange Beast as e'er any man saw), Downe-shearing Willowes with teeth as sharpe as a hand-saw, The lance of John a Gaunt, and Brandon's still i' the Tower, The fall of Ninive, with Norwich built in an hower. King Henries slip-shoes, the sword of valiant Edward, The Coventry Boares-shield, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long; Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing.' ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... you for it, more or less, according to the amount of trouble you have taken with your sheep. This is the way the younger generation likes to treat its wool. If you are older, and are blessed with a wife able to card and spin, you deal differently with Mr. Quinn. For many evenings after the shearing your wife sits by the fireside with two carding-combs in her hands, and wipes off them wonderfully soft rolls of wool. Afterwards she fetches the great wheel from its nook, and you watch her pulling out an endless gray thread while she steps back and forwards across the floor. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... she persuades him to tell the truth. He says: "If you should take a razor or shears and cut off this long hair, I should be powerless and in the hands of my enemies." Samson sleeps, and that she may not wake him up during the process of shearing, help is called in. You know that the barbers of the East have such a skillful way of manipulating the head to this very day that, instead of waking up a sleeping man, they will put a man wide awake sound asleep. I hear the blades of ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... almost before the dust is laid, the arroyos turn to rivers and the rivers to broad floods, drifting with trees and wreckage. But the cattlemen and sheepmen who happened to be in Bender, either to take on hands for the spring round-up or to ship supplies to their shearing camps out on the desert, were not worrying about the railroad. Whether the bridges went out or held, the grass and browse would shoot up like beanstalks in to-morrow's magic sunshine; and even if the Rio Salagua blocked their passage, or the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... paid his rent to the day, owed no man anything, and went to church every other Sunday, eschewing the bad example set to him by his father in matters of religion. He was hard-fisted, ignorant, and self-confident, knowing much about corn and the grinding of it, knowing something of sheep and the shearing of them, knowing also how to get the worth of his ten or eleven shillings a week out of the bones of the rural labourers;—but knowing very little else. Of all this Fenwick was aware; and, in spite of that church-going twice a month, rated the son as inferior to the father; for ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... entreaties to extend their visit. Mr. Dawson informed them that those pleasing reunions, had become quite numerous in that part of the country; where the degree of familiar and friendly intercourse established among the neighbouring families was such, that, after the bustle and occupation of shearing time was over, such a party, as he then had in his house, was formed alternately at each of the surrounding stations; and their leisure existence became a prolonged life of reciprocal good-feeling and friendship; which, by the means of this happy unity, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... understanding these subjects, very puzzling. The two main exports are wool and whale-oil, and to both of these productions there is a limit. The country is totally unfit for canals, therefore there is a not very distant point, beyond which the land-carriage of wool will not repay the expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into the interior: moreover, the country further inland becomes extremely poor. Agriculture, on account of the droughts, can never succeed on an extended ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... charms did once adorn My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme, And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn? The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime; The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time; My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied; The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime; The swans, that, when I sought the water-side, From far to meet me came, spreading ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... "I don't like the way twigs and leaves are raining down on me. It shows that if they were to depress their fire they would be shearing limbs off of us instead of boughs off ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... were that fair for either? At shearing who'd prefer Horsehair to wool? or when the goat stood handy, suffer her To nurse her firstling, and himself go milk a ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... that the traders praised the wool of Clutch's flock more than all they found on the plain, and gave him the highest price for it. That was an unlucky thing for the sheep, for after that Clutch thought he could never get enough wool off them. At shearing time nobody clipped so close as Clutch, and, in spite of all Kind could do or say, he left the poor sheep as bare as if they had been shaven. Kind didn't like these doings, but Clutch always tried to persuade him that close clipping was good for the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... which are numerous, and are occasionally hunted and captured. Last night two were brought into the station. Of course every accommodation is provided for the care and treatment of sheep in the various stages of their existence, including the means of washing and shearing them. An orchard and fruit-garden close by yield tons of fruit every year for the merest scratching of the soil. To obtain labour is the difficulty. The birds, especially parrots, are terrible enemies to the fruit-crops. In the early morning one may see a tree laden with splendid fruit ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... forward against the crowd. Harrigan caught the idea in a flash. He put his shoulder to the hip of his friend. They became a flying wedge with the jabbing fists of the black-haired man for a point—and they sank into the mass of soldiers like a hot knife into butter, shearing them apart. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... of Tranquillity Magpie over the Hill Sheep-shearing Evolution Riding in the Mist The Procession A Christian Wind in the Rocks My Distant Relative The ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... orchards. Everything was new to them and delightful, from the pump in the yard, and the chickens, to the horses and wagons, the lofts with their smell of hay, the sweet-smelling wood-ricks, the cool dairy, the 'pound' where the cider was made. Then there were sheep-shearing, rat-hunting and countless other joys. But before very long the desire to wander further in search of adventure grew strong in Paul's breast. The children were left wonderfully free in those days, for, owing to their straitened means, Mrs. Anketell ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... dared yet to think of a love confessed and reciprocated. The prince in disguise is all very well in a fairy tale; in England of the twentieth century he is an anachronism; and Medenham would as soon think of shearing a limb as of profiting by the chance that threw Cynthia in his way. Of course, a less scrupulous wooer might have devised a hundred plausible methods of revealing his identity—was not Mrs. Devar, marriage-broker ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... has a golden hoof.' They save me the trouble of ploughing. I haven't ploughed my orchard for ten years, and don't expect to plough it for ten years more. Then your Aunt Hattie's hens are so obliging that they keep me from the worry of finding ticks at shearing time. All the year round, I let them run among the sheep, and they nab ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... very place! Nothing material. We meant to have sown a little barley to-day, but the ground is too dry; and the sheep-shearing is not to be ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... in which he grasped them, and then bore the child up the embankment in desperate bounds, a hail of bullets poured round him, ringing on his breastplate, shearing the plume from his hat, but scarcely even heard; and in another moment he had sprung down, on the inner side, grasping the child with all his might, but not daring even to look at her, in the wondrous flash of that first conviction. She spoke first. 'Put me down, and let me have my beads,' she ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the clock ticks, one after one. The clock nicks off the edges of her life. She is chipped like an old bit of china; she is frayed like a garment of last year's wearing. She is soft, crinkled, like a fading rose. And each minute flows by brushing against her, shearing off another and another petal. The Empress crushes her breasts with her hands and weeps. And the tall clouds sail over Malmaison like a procession of stately ships ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... servant, unlike a farmer, unlike a gentleman, unlike a sportsman, and yet has a touch of all four characters about him? He has a shocking bad hat on but what's the use of a good hat in the woods, as poor Jackson said, where there is no one to see it. He has not been shaved since last sheep-shearing, and has a short black pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smells like nigger-head or pig-tail. He wears a coarse check shirt without a collar, a black silk neck-cloth frayed at the edge, that looks like a rope of old ribbons. His coat appears as if it ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was a homestead of many houses and bowers, like unto that of a good yeoman in peaceful lands, save that the main building was longer, though it were low. But amidst the said greensward was a goodly flock of sheep that had been but of late washed for the shearing, and along with the sheep four folk, two carles and two queans, all of them in their first youth, not one by seeming of over a score and two of summers. These folk were clad but simply, man and woman, in short coats of white woollen (but the women's coats a little longer than the men's), ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... French ways, he'll think nothing good enow for him. And if he brought Will Trenton with him, I'd not sit at the board with the fellow.—But ye'll ride over, Wilfred, and take care the minx Agnes knows what she's lost. Ay, and if you knew of a safe hand, Sir, when the shearing is over I'd send the lad a purse of nobles to keep up his knighthood in ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unusual weeds to each part of you Do give a life: no shepherdess; but Flora, Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... corn and sickle sculptured with singular care and precision, in bold relief, and the zodiacal sign, the Crab, above, also worked with great spirit. Spenser puts plough irons into his hand. Sometimes he is sheep-shearing; and, in English and northern French manuscripts, carrying a kind of fagot or barrel, of the meaning of which ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... He was gone, and through the light veil of the encroaching mists she could see him shearing his way ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... curd, not creamed. An old English favorite for fruited cheese cakes with perfumed plums, lemons, almonds and macaroons. In Ireland it was used in connection with the sheep-shearing ceremonies, although itself a common cow curd. Pennsylvania pot cheese ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... room. He complains his new shoes are too tight. I think it's nervousness. Perhaps he'll let you shave him; I'm sure he'll cut himself. And I wish the barber hadn't cut his hair so short, Ralph. I hate this new fashion of shearing men behind the ears. The back of his neck is the ugliest part of a man." She spoke with such resentment that ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... are disposed at an angle for the purpose of giving them a shearing cut, which is the case when the file moves across the work on a line ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... thought this he continued to keep eye on Shagpat, and the hunger that was in him passed, and became a ravenous vulture that flew from him and singled forth Shagpat as prey; and there was no help for it but in he must go and state his case to Shagpat, and essay shearing him. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not a few of the trusting folk from farms and small towns to whom this event was a carnival affair found themselves shorn like sheep at shearing time before they knew what was happening. One farm boy lost not only all his money but his fine team and wagon as well. A carnival it was, of course, in some respects. Amusement stands, in tents or shacks, lined the streets and never ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... mixture of terror and beauty these monstrous glaciers are," said Julian; "crawling down the valleys, and shearing away the solid rocks before them like ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... At shearing-times and yearly wakes, When Themilis his pastime makes, There thou shalt be; and be the wit, Nay more, the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger might be. Then, the flight grew lower and the circle ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady, who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... of Mashune's stalwart form advancing with his 'bangwan,' or broad stabbing assegai, raised above his head. In another quarter of a second I had fallen from the horn, and heard the blow of the spear, followed by the indescribable sound of steel shearing its way through flesh. I had fallen on my back, and, looking up, I saw that the gallant Mashune had driven the assegai a foot or more into the carcass of the buffalo, and ...
— Hunter Quatermain's Story • H. Rider Haggard
... certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tenderhearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don't know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn't find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... grubbing and fencing and digging and droving and shearing—all about the bush—and it all came back to me as we talked. "I can see it all now," he said once, in an abstracted tone, seeming to fix his helpless eyes on the wall opposite. But he didn't see the dirty blind wall, nor the dingy window, nor the skimpy ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... The sheep were driven to the bay shore and secured in a pen. One by one they were taken out, and the fleeces carefully washed. Within a day or two, shearing followed in the barn. The wool was sorted; some was reserved to be carded by hand; the remainder was sent to the mills to be turned into rolls. Then, day after day, for weeks, the noise of the spinning-wheel was heard, accompanied by the steady beat ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by a shearing hand's-breadth. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... shrill-voiced emigrant number, And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season and slumber; And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes. And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes. And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallow Give you notice to sell your great-coat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow. Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you. Dodona, nay, Phoebus ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in disguise, arrived at the old shepherd's dwelling while they were celebrating the feast of sheep-shearing; and though they were strangers, yet at the sheep-shearing every guest being made welcome, they were invited to walk in, and join in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Naharilla Alta," said Vejarruco, "and we were thirteen—ready for any little undertaking. But as we were afraid the mistress might be vexed, we did nothing. It is time now for the shearing." ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the letters of Hammurabi and his successors there are frequent references to the shearing, and orders for the inspection of flocks and herds.(785) The Code does not refer to sheep-shearing, though it mentions wool. The shearing was concluded by the New Year feast in Nisan. In the contemporary contracts there are several ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... of a gardener and nurseryman. "In laying out a flower-garden and in arranging beds," Mr. Shearing remarks, [170] "the Mali is exceedingly expert. His powers in this respect are hardly surpassed by gardeners in England. He lacks of course the excellent botanical knowledge of many English gardeners, and also the peculiar skill displayed by them in grafting and crossing, and in watching the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Geneva; Vice-Presidents, Thomas McD. Richards, Woodstock, and Daniel Kelley, Wheaton; Secretary and Treasurer, W. C. Vandercook, Cherry Valley. It was decided to hold the association's annual public sheep-shearing at Richmond, McHenry county, April 29 and 30, and C. R. Lawson, L. H. Smith, and A. S. Peck were designated a committee to represent the association at the annual sheep-shearing ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... course, would not work effectually without extra wages, and thus gave a deal of trouble; knowing that there was no fear of my sending them to the magistrate (fifty miles off) during such a busy time. However, all evils must come to an end some time or another, and so did shearing, though it was nearly Christmas before our wool was pressed ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... fairly," quoth Thomas, staring a wee astonished like, and not a little surprised to see my birse up in this manner; for, when he thought upon shearing a lamb, he found he had catched a tartar; so, calming down as fast as ye like, he said, "Hooly and fairly, Mansie," (or Maister Wauch, I believe, he did me the honour to call me,) "they'll maybe no be ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... omitted or not done thoroughly, resulting in broken and irregular lines. When more care is given, the hedge is nearly spoiled by being pruned too wide at the top, the heavy shade above causing meagre growth and openings below. It should be pruned in wedge shape, but shearing is objectionable as causing a thick and short growth of leaves at the exterior, excluding light from the inside and causing bare branches there. Cutting back more irregularly with a knife allows the growth of ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... as the painful ploughman plies his toil With shear and coulter shearing through the soil, That costs him dear and ditches it about, Or crops his hedge to make it undersprout, And never stays to ward it from the weed, But most respects to sow therein good seed; To th' end when summer decks the meadows plain, He may have recompense of costs and pain. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... country town like this could not hold the newcomers, therefore Wichita Falls became their headquarters. Here there were at least a few hotels and some sort of office quarters—sheds beneath which the shearing could take place—and there ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... wound and froze it, and froze his long hair to it also, in such fashion that when he went to the cave where all men slept, he could not loose his hair from the sore, but lay down with it frozen to him. On the morrow the hair was caked so fast about his neck that it could only be freed by shearing it. But this Eric would not suffer. None, he said, should shear his hair, except Gudruda. Thus he had sworn, and when he broke the oath misfortune had come of it. He would break that vow no more, if it cost him his life. For sorrow and his ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... of the bean straw grown on the farm was selected and scattered on the floor of the sitting-rooms as warm and dry to the feet, and that was all the carpet in the house. Just before sheep-shearing time, too, Jonathan used to have the nettles cut that flourished round the back of the sheds, and strewn on the floor of the barn. The nettles shrivelled up dry, and the wool did not stick to them, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen without interference of foreign capitalists. As to the mass of the people, the nation at large, it was, as Paul has just said, a matter of indifference whether they were fleeced by the capitalists ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular sheep washing and shearing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... every minute separating them so they will not smother. One of the men, owner of the sheep, I presume, met us and said he would show me where to go so I could see everything that was being done, which proved to be directly back of a man who was shearing sheep. They told me that he was the very fastest and most expert shearer in the whole territory. Anyone could see that he was an expert, for three men were kept busy waiting upon him. At one corner of the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... and some sheep, which supplied the family with all their milk and butter, nearly all their meat, and most of their clothes. He also rented two or three acres of land, upon which he raised various crops. In sheep-shearing time, he turned out and helped his neighbors shear their sheep, a kind of work in which he had eminent skill. As compensation, each farmer thus assisted gave him a fleece. In haying time, too, he and his boys were in the fields ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... in this garden that our acquaintance with our landlord deepened into something like friendship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the paths, or shearing ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... me to learn shearing. I had to shear, gather the wool, sort it and pack it up. Each man got five cents a sheep, but it was hard work, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... a bad boy," cried Tommy. "Stop a-shaking of me, Mell Davis. We was playing they was sheep. I was a-shearing of em." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... would wish to hear in a winter evening. It was told me by young Benjie Macharg, one summer night, sitting on Arbigland-bank: the lad intended a sort of love meeting; but all that he could talk of was about smearing sheep and shearing sheep, and of the wife which the Norway elves of the Haunted Ships made for his uncle Sandie Macharg. And I shall tell ye the tale as the honest lad told it ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... said Lestocq, with decision. "You see that man bound upon the wheel—that is myself! Now look at the second. This young woman who is wringing her hands, and whose head one of these nuns is shearing, while the other is endeavoring, in spite of her struggling resistance, to envelope her in that black veil;—that is you, princess. For you the cloister, for me the wheel! That will be our future, Princess Elizabeth, if you now hesitate in your forward march in the path upon ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... hear that you have betrayed the first symptom of age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of evenings and hear ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the present publication is to gather together all the old bush songs that are worth remembering. Apart from other considerations, there are many Australians who will be reminded by these songs of the life of the shearing sheds, the roar of the diggings townships, and the campfires of the overlanders. The diggings are all deep sinking now, the shearing is done by contract, and the cattle are sent by rail to market, while newspapers travel all over Australia; so there will be no more bush ballads composed ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... lively interest in all the rural and domestic affairs which stood out prominently in the lives of her humbler neighbours. The passages from her journal in this and in subsequent years are full of graphic, appreciative descriptions of the stirring incidents of "sheep-juicing," "sheep-shearing," the torchlight procession on "Hallowe'en," a "house-warming;" of the grave solemnity of a Scotch communion, and the kindliness and pathos of more than one cottage "kirstenin," death-bed, and funeral, with the simple piteous tragedy ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... we urged on our animals. We had as yet seen no one to tell us in what direction our friends had gone. There was a stream to the left, used in the shearing season for washing the sheep, and Bracewell hoped that they might have ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... usual promise of fine wool, its extraordinary tail, bushy with soft long fleece, carefully spread out on the tiny cart to which it was harnessed for its own protection. It came, meek-eyed and wondering, if a little weary, to this festa of San Triphilio, to whom its first shearing would be vowed, as a special tribute to the saint and a talisman to shield the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... another whether he meant to wash this year, and receive the answer "No." I soon discovered that a person's sheep are himself. If his sheep are clean, he is clean. He does not wash his sheep before shearing, but he washes; and, most marvellous of all, it is not his sheep which lamb, but he ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... dominion over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet to be told of the rights for which we went to war? Oh, excellent rights! Oh, valuable rights! Valuable you should be, for we have paid dear at parting with you. Oh, valuable rights! that have cost Britain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... them, fat or lean, Clip off the wool, both short and clean, And this is call'd, we understand, Shearing the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... the garden; a visit to the shearing shed; the news of colonial affairs in general; fat pullets cooked a la gastronome and some good wine; had each in its ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... in summer. Some branches and top shoots will push far beyond the others. They should be cut back evenly, and in accordance with the shape the hedge is to take. The pyramidal form appears to me to be the one most in harmony with Nature. In October, the hedge should receive its final shearing for the year; and if there is an apparent deficiency of vigor, the ground on both sides should receive another top-dressing, after removing the summer mulch. As the hedge grows older and stronger, the principal shearing will ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... the deputation, "wearied of our shepherd, who, shearing his flock somewhat too closely, hath brought the wolf to light. We therefore desire thee to receive him at our hands in exchange for our good Bishop Gaddo, promising one hundred casks of Lacrima Christi as yearly tribute ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... breasting what in this age of steamboats, and, for the matter of that, perhaps in any other age, might be termed a terrific sea. She was making good weather of it—that is to say, she kept her decks dry, but she was diving and rolling most hideously, with such swift headlong shearing of her spars through the gale that the noises up in the blackness aloft were as though the spirits of the inmates of a thousand lunatic asylums had been suddenly enlarged from their bodies and sent yelling into limbo. The wind blew with an unendurable edge in the sting and bite ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... in the house; when, in fact, the wolf was at the very door;—Dan came home with a pocket full of money and swag full of greasy clothes. How Dad shook him by the hand and welcomed him back! And how Dan talked of "tallies", "belly-wool", and "ringers" and implored Dad, over and over again, to go shearing, or rolling up, or branding—ANYTHING rather than work ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... and discomforts of bush life. On her arrival at the station the old two-roomed hut was plastered and whitewashed, additional rooms were built, and quite a neat little home was the result. Seasons were good, and the young squatter might have gone on shearing sheep and selling fat stock till the end of his life but for the advent of free ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... over and over again until he was tired, then sat still, smiling and stroking the fox skin. He had learned the song when he was a child from his mother, who had sung it all day long one spring while she was shearing the sheep. And he could not think of any other for the moment. It wasn't, in fact, a bad song. There were many good rhymesters in Iceland. He began singing again, rocking his body back and forth vehemently, and stroking the fox skin the while. And Samur, who sat in front ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... tilt, between them an arrowy sleet Hisses and darts; till the challenging thunders are heard, and they meet; Across fly javelins and serpents of flame: green earth and blue sky Blurr'd in the blind tornado:—so now the battle goes high. Shearing through helmet and limb Glaive-steel and battle-axe grim: As the flash of the reaper in summer's high wheat, King Harold mows horseman and horse at ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... which the production of ironwork of many kinds was greatly facilitated. This improvement originated in the contract which he held for some years for supplying the Royal Navy with iron plates for ships' tanks. The operations of shearing and punching had before been very imperfectly done by hand, with great expenditure of labour. To improve the style of the work and lessen the labour, Maudslay invented the machine now in general ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... breaking his neck, but he was always too anxious about his sheep when overtaken by a fog to think of his own danger. Then the wages were good, and the same all the year round, with the chance of making some extra money in the shearing season, and so much a head on each lamb that he reared; and to all intents and purposes he was his own master, for the farmer to whom the sheep belonged entrusted the management of ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... the noble marquis; "he's pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton, hey? ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... has to be fulfilled, apart from the fineness of the cotton-wool. The plant, to be worth shearing, must be dead and dry. I have never seen the harvesting done on fresh plants. In this way, the Bee avoids mildew, which would make its appearance in a mass of ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... were strained as taut as harp-strings; but Dick only smiled grimly as he heard the wind singing and piping through his rigging; he would scarcely have shortened sail for a hurricane just then. The queer-looking structure tore at racing speed across the smooth surface of the lagoon, shearing through it with a vicious hiss along her bends and a roaring wave under her lee bow, and so out to sea. Leslie was compelled to haul his wind for a short distance after shooting through the channel, in order to clear the northern extremity of the reef; but he tacked ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 12. There are also punches made spiral on their cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 13. This punch, instead of being flat, as in Fig. 12, is of a helical form, as shown in Fig. 13, so as to have a gradual shearing action commencing at the center and traveling round to the circumference. Its form may be explained by imagining the upper cutter of a shearing machine being rolled upon itself so as to form a cylinder of which its long ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... Living also, his shepherds, for whom he received only insignificant hints from Greene. In "Pandosto" we hear of "a meeting of all the farmers daughters in Sycilia," without anything more, and from this Shakespeare drew the idea of his sheep-shearing feast, where he delights in contrasting with the rough ways of his peasants the inborn elegance of Perdita: "O Proserpina," says she, in ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... She had been farm-servant to my mother's brother—James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor, friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra' Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... possessor was then allowed to go home instead of to the hospital. Further, a percentage of the farmers were allowed from time to time to go home and attend to pressing matters of their farms, such as harvesting, shearing sheep, etc. Men were chosen by the farmers to go and attend to matters not only for themselves but for other farmers in their districts as well. The net result of all this was that when everybody who could on some pretext or other obtain ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... swoop? Were the vile barbers of the gun-deck to reap our long, nodding harvests, and expose our innocent chins to the chill air of the Yankee coast! And our viny locks! were they also to be shorn? Was a grand sheep-shearing, such as they annually have at Nantucket, to take place; and our ignoble barbers to carry off ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... favorite phrase of his, which Egbert has preserved for us with its Saxon accent, was, Es kommt doch nischt dabey heraus, implying that one might do something better for a constancy than shearing twine. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... considerable number of labourers will find employment about the towns, at the stores, on the wharfs, &c. at about 24s. weekly. Country work on the sheep-stations—as shepherds, drivers of bullock-drays, sheep-washing and shearing, cooking for the men, &c.—is remunerated by about L.25 and food. These live far off in the solitary plains, almost apart from men, and come to town once, twice, or thrice a year, as their distance and employment ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... frozen spray, while a much smaller and lower one would rip and ride into the flat floe, flinging tons of ice on either side, and cutting a track half a mile long before it was stopped. Some fell like swords, shearing a raw-edged canal; and others splintered into a shower of blocks, weighing scores of tons apiece, that whirled and skirted among the hummocks. Others, again, rose up bodily out of the water when they shoaled, twisted as though in pain, and fell solidly on their sides, while the sea threshed ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of the same circumference as the planet on which we have the honour of living) was hard work, especially to those who had business to look after. But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up their spirits mightily with the thought that they would at least have the pig's wool ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... 1st, The combination of the side pieces, D D, constructed as described, containing the bearings for the cutting mechanism, the shearing bar, B, with square faces, and the spirally bladed knife, C, arranged ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... of the shearing season. Mitchell and his mate had been lucky enough to get two good sheds in succession, and were going to take the coach from Hungerford to Bourke on their way to Sydney. The morning stars were bright yet, and they sat down to a final billy of tea, two dusty Johnny-cakes, and ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... the age that millions of people throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on them twelve ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and weird enough to fill the heart of a novice with dismay, but to the ear of the seaman it sang a song of wild, hilarious sea music, fittingly accompanied by the deep, intermittent thunder of the bow wave as it leapt and roared, glassy smooth, in a curling snow-crowned breaker from the sharp, shearing stem at every wild plunge of it into the heart of an on-rushing wave. I ran up the poop ladder, and stood to windward, a fathom back from the break of the poop, where I could obtain the best possible view of the ship; and I thought I had never before beheld so magnificent ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... shepherds. As the pastures over which each flock is permitted to range, extend many miles in every direction, the shepherd never has a view of his whole flock at once, except when it is collected for the purpose of sale or shearing. His occupation is to make daily visits to the different extremities of his pastures in succession, and to turn back, by means of his dog, any stragglers that may be approaching ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... express shone in my face, and something seemed to say, "This is your trial, do something quick." I threw myself prone on the ground, my head near the rails, and held the broken pin between the end of the siding rail and the main line. The switch rails could not be forced over without shearing off the pin. The corner of the pilot of the flying demon caught my right sleeve and tore it off, and the cloth threw the cylinder cocks open with a hiss, the wind and dust blinded and shook me, and the rails hammered and bruised and pinched my hand, but I held on. Twenty seconds ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... had already familiarized himself with the methods of the exorcists. In the previous year he had attacked the Catholics of Lancashire for an exorcism which they claimed to have accomplished within his parish.[11] Pleased with his new role, he found in Thomas Jollie a sheep ready for the shearing.[12] He hastened to publish The Surey Impostor,[13] in which, with a very good will, he made an assault upon the reality of Dugdale's fits, charged that he had been pre-instructed by the Catholics, and that the Non-Conformist clergymen were seeking a rich harvest from the miracles ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... looking after the poultry, or the vegetables, or sewing at home; for the women have to work just as hard as the men on a country farm. In Charlemagne's time (for instance) they did nearly all the sheep shearing. Then at last Bodo comes back for his supper, and as soon as the sun goes down they go to bed; for their hand-made candle gives only a flicker of light, and they both have to be up early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed out, in his inimitable manner, how the ancients ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... blamed himself in the year 'Too Late' — in the heaviest hours of life — 'Twas little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife; There are times when wrongs from your kindred come, and treacherous tongues attack — When a man is better away from home, and dead to the world, ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... rather to help him in educating the rest. I went therefore to what was known as the Lamb Fair at Lockerbie, and for the first time in my life took a "fee" for the harvest. On arriving at the field when shearing and mowing began, the farmer asked me to bind a sheaf; when I had done so, he seized it by the band, and it fell to pieces! Instead of disheartening me, however, he gave me a careful lesson how to bind; and the second that I bound did not collapse when ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the quietude, to call it by no harsher name. The shearing is finished all over the country, and the "squatters" (as owners of sheep-stations are called) have returned to their stations to vegetate, or work, as their tastes and circumstances may dictate. Very few people live in the town except the tradespeople; the professional men prefer ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... will tell you from what we first began to rail at one another. After we had feasted, as you know, I first bade him take a lyre, and sing a song of Simonides, "The Shearing of the Ram." But he immediately said it was old-fashioned to play on the lyre and sing while drinking, like a woman ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... the sheep-shearing is being celebrated, and Noemi, Judah's wife, approaches Leah with garlands of flowers, asking for her benediction. But she is repulsed by her mother-in-law, who is too proud to recognize the low-born maid as her equal, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... to the sea-birds, curiosity seemed to have overcome fear, for they came circling and wheeling overhead in clouds so dense that they almost darkened the sky—many of them swooping close past the Eskimos and then shearing off and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... work with the flax, came the big hard-tack baking, the sheep shearing, and the servants' moving time. In November there were busy slaughter days, with salting of meats, sausage making, baking of blood pudding, and candle steeping. The seamstress who used to make ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... shoulder, two joints, and the stomach went to the priests. Of the vintage and oil and grain they received about one-fiftieth. In addition a tithe was turned over to the Levites. Part of the wool in every sheep-shearing, as well as a part of the bread which they baked, found its way to the temple. In addition a large income came through the vows made by the people or the conscience money which was paid either in currency or gifts. Although ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... really interpreted by him; the village shop with its inexhaustible stores probably means much more in the way of origins, and he may never go behind its contents in his speculations. It is true he sees milking, harvesting, sheep-shearing, and many other operations, but he often misses the stage between the actual beginning and the finished product—between the wool on the sheep's back and his Sunday clothes, between the wheat in the field and his loaf of bread. The town child has many links if he can use them: the goods train, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Egg, shearing the whisper. "Only Dammy ain't got any sense about cards. I tried to teach him pinochle, but he never could remember none of it, and the hired men always clean him out shakin' dice. He can't even beat ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... departed, and came to Samaria. And as he was at the shearing house in the way, Jehu met with the brethren ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... that, Mr. Medlicot, will burn for weeks sometimes. I'll tell you fairly what I'm afraid of. There's a man with you whom I turned out of the shed last shearing, and I think he might put a match ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... features characterized by a sort of low cunning, a shaved head with a pigtail, clad in a loose cloth blouse, half shirt and half jacket, continuations not exactly pants nor yet a petticoat, and shoes thick-soled and shearing upwards like a Madras surf-boat, and you have John Chinaman as he appears at home. The portrait is universal. One Chinaman is as like another as two peas,—a uniformity often leading to ludicrous ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... his own, changing the mores, he failed. He tried many times to put a stop to the usages of mourning which were violent and excessive,—loud outcries, destruction of clothes and furniture, blackening the walls of the house and one's face, and shearing the beard. He did not succeed. These were ancient and popular customs and they were maintained.[1575] It is improper for any Moslem, male or female, to uncover the head.[1576] They uncover the feet to show respect. This was Semitic and is Oriental.[1577] Robertson ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... from the furrows of a tiny field, Demeter lover of wheat, Sosicles the tiller dedicates to thee, having reaped now an abundant harvest; but again likewise may he carry back his sickle blunted from shearing of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... for the year, and the same proportion of the movable property; all privileges and immunities of clergy and churches as well as of laymen were suspended; the Cistercians even who had a standing immunity from all exactions gave up their whole year's shearing of wool, and so did the order of Sempringham; the plate and, jewels of the churches and monasteries, held to be properly used for the redemption of captives, were surrendered or redeemed in money under a pledge of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... is durable, harmonious in color and design, and is distinctly a home product. The wool of which it is made is sheared from the flocks of sheep in the vicinity. The shearing takes place annually in June; the wool is then carded, spun, and dyed. The threads of hand-spun wool are worked through a hand-woven webbing, and securely knotted or tied with a specially devised knot. The designs thus far are mainly adaptations from the native American ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... referring to gold, silver, and other metals, and all that wood-cutting and shearing of every sort provides for the art of carpentry and plaiting; and there is the process of barking and stripping the cuticle of plants, and the currier's art, which strips off the skins of animals, and other similar ...
— Statesman • Plato
... reached home at last so wearied out that I could scarcely dismount. One day I used up three horses and covered over ninety miles, more than fifty of it at a hard canter or gallop—and if that be not work I should like to know what is. This, too, goes on day after day during shearing, just when the days are growing hot and hotter still, the spare herbage browning, and the water becoming scanty and scantier. And for a recompense? There is none in working with sheep. They are quiet, peaceable, stupid, illogical, incapable of exciting affection, very capable of rousing wrath; far ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... 9090. It is mentioned in the chronicles of 1137. On the fall of Novgorod, to which it had belonged, it was incorporated (1479) with the grand-duchy of Moscow. The town is famous for its scythes and shearing hooks, but makes also axes, nails and other hardware, and trades in grain, linen, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the premature old age that had been crowding upon him of late fall away like the wool of a sheep at shearing. Here, at last, was hope—real hope. After almost two and a half centuries of non-communication, the men of the infant planet had returned to the aid of the aging planet. For, once they saw the condition of Earth, and understood it, there could be ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... undecided, before a fenced clearing that swept back to the abrupt wall of the range, against which a low house was scarcely distinguishable from the sere, rocky ascent. Finally he drove in, over a faintly marked track, past a corner of the fence railed about a trough for sheep shearing, to the house. A pine tree stood at either side of the large, uncut stone at the threshold; except for a massive exterior chimney the somberly painted frame structure ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... window. He had a geometry on his knees, and was supposed to be going on with his education, but in reality he was looking at the mountains. "I suppose people are pretty busy on ranches, though," he added. "Perhaps they're sheep-shearing." ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... island, drove the lagoon hither and thither, catching up the white pond-lilies by their long stems, twisting off the dense thickets of mangroves by the roots, burrowing holes in the sandy beds of the cactus, and shearing off their flat, thorny leaves and needle points by the acre together; then a rushing whirl around the cocoa-nuts, bowing their tufted tops at first till they nearly touched the earth, when, the stout trunks snapping like glass, they would go pitching and tossing ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... "You have made us a present of these wild gentlemen, and we particularly request that no measures may be adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You might as well give us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat." This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and the barons ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... barrier in their path. But with the crisis, democratic Belgium united in a rush to arms, which recalls similar action by the American colonists at the Revolution. Every form of weapon was grasped, from old muskets to pitchforks and shearing knives. It was remarked by a foreign witness that in default of properly equipped armories, the Belgians emptied the museums to confront the Germans with the strangest assortment ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... lambs as we did last spring, after shearing the sheep?" Addison asked the Old Squire, as ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... said that in 1713, there was but one clothier in the colony. The most that he could do was to full the cloth which was made in the homes. A great proportion of it was worn without shearing or pressing. He lived at Woodbury, and thither the early inhabitants of this town resorted to have their cloth fulled. People, to a very large extent, wore clothing made from the skins of animals. They also wore wooden shoes and moccasins, or went ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... others, and persuading them to follow their example. Whilst, therefore, the powder was drying, I began with a large pair of scissors to execute my new office upon the eldest of four or five chins presented to me; and as great nicety was not required, the shearing of a dozen of them did not occupy me long. Some of the more timid were alarmed at a formidable instrument coming so near to their noses, and would scarcely be persuaded by their shaven friends, to allow ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders |
