"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lonely," was the reply. "To hear the thrum of the pigeon, the whistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cry of the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines—all music; and for what the eye sees, God has been good; and to kill pumas is my joy. . ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pretty much all the time —most always about religion, because Dan'l's a Dunker Baptist and Jinny's a shouting Methodist, and Jinny believes in special Providences and Dan'l don't, because he thinks he's a kind of a free-thinker—and they play and sing plantation hymns together, and talk and chatter just eternally and forever, and are sincerely fond of each other and think the world of Mulberry, and he puts up patiently with all their spoiled ways and foolishness, and so—ah, well, they're happy enough if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... care for the chatter and casual encounters of the public rooms of an hotel. It was her practice to retire to her own salon after dinner, unless she were going to a theatre. After the first two or three days of their acquaintance ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... of real fineness and aspiration. Outside of that speech which is absolutely a man's duty to give out, one can tell almost to the ampere, the voltage of his inner being, or its vacantness and slavery, by the depth of his listening silences, or the aimlessness of his filling chatter. It is only those few who have come to know, through some annealing sorrow, sickness, or suffering, and draw away from the crowds and noises into the Silence, that become gifted ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... beds—'Oh, auntie, dear auntie, do get up; this is such a lovely place, and so odd. There are such rocks, and oh, auntie, such queer people. I saw a man in a turban, and there is a black man in the house, and——' 'Hush, little nieces, how are aunties to get up, if you chatter so? rather help us to dress, that we may see the wonderful things too.' We found our two mothers in the pretty drawing room. Three large windows looked out upon the busy town and blue sea below. The little ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... she seemed interested in Karl Biterolf, but even his vanity did not lead him to hope. They resumed their conversation, while about them the crush became greater, and the lights burned more brilliantly. In the whirl of chatter and conventional compliment stood Elizabeth Landgrave, the niece of the host, receiving her uncle's guests. Mrs. Minne regarded her, a sweet, unpleasant smile playing about ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... 'Well, sister, I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself—you won't talk to a growly old bear like me. Well, I'm glad of it. I want to sleep. I don't want to be bothered by you and your everlasting chatter. Get out!' I b'lieve he just says that 'cause he knows I wouldn't want to run off by myself if they didn't think ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... The chatter went on from polo to golf and gossip until the group broke up into flirtation couples. As Sommers was about to stroll off to the beach, Lindsay came out of the dining room and sat down by him with the amiable purpose of giving his young colleague ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... capable recruits as it does. And while the private lives under these conditions, the would-be capable officer stifles amidst equally impossible surroundings. He must associate with the uneducated products of the public schools, and listen to their chatter about the "sports" that delight them, suffer social indignities from the "army woman," worry and waste money on needless clothes, and expect to end by being shamed or killed under some unfairly promoted incapable. Nothing illustrates the intellectual blankness ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... he had been away from it all for a year and more. Nothing was changed. Across the room the same mirrors repeated the reflections he had observed so many times before. Nearby were the same booths and from within them came the same laughter and chatter and suppressed song. Opposite the tiny table the same man with the broad, good-natured face was making critical, smiling observation, as of yore. As ever, the look recalled ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... green at the sight of a nigger with a bunch of spears, or a club in his hand. He used to turn-in with a brace of pistols in his belt and a Winchester lying on the cabin table. At sea he would lose his funk, but whenever we dropped anchor and natives came aboard his teeth would begin to chatter, and he would just ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... her. No one could be miserable or despondent for long in the chair- girl's society, because she was always so bright and cheery herself. One forgot to pity her or even to deplore her misfortunes while listening to her merry chatter and frank laughter, for she seemed to find genuine joy and merriment in the simplest incidents of ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... Specklems, who was high up on a dead branch, making believe to sing to his good lady, who was two feet deep in a hole of the cedar, sitting upon four beautiful blue eggs. And beautifully Specklems, no doubt, thought he sang, only to a listener it sounded to be all sputter and wheezle—chatter and whistle; but he kept on. All the while puss crept gently up to the trunk of the tree, only just to rub herself up against it, backwards and forwards; nothing more. But, somehow, Mrs Puss was soon up the trunk, and close to the nest-hole before the starling saw her; but he did at ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... so fond of alluding to as effete? Surely not. It is a new departure in history; it is a new door opened to the development of the human race, or, as I should prefer to say, of humanity. We are misled by the chatter of politicians and the bombast of Congress. In the course of ages, the time has at last arrived when man, all over this planet, is entering upon a new career of moral, intellectual, and political ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... tired of his tricks, or whether he had eaten all his cake and thought the only way he could get more was by coming down as he was invited, no one stopped to figure out. At any rate the old sailor's pet gave a friendly little chatter and then advanced until he could perch on the boy's shoulder, which he did, clasping his paws ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call themselves. There are many of this sect in England, as we all know; and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in connection with them. But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims and tenets. I do not care to know any more than I do. If it be true that all of which man is conscious is just a portion ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... rise opposite to my window there are many sparrows which have also made their homes. In the morning, before the sun has arisen, and at the time when the dawn is making the city gray and leaden in color instead of somber and black, these sparrows begin to chatter and chirp and sing in discordant notes, and by this I know the day has come. Upon this morning it seemed to me the sparrows chattered with an unusual commotion; and as I listened I heard from another window near mine the ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... almost a sigh, fell from his lips as he thought of that last night, at the Brokaw ball. He heard again the laughter and chatter of men and women, the soft rustle of skirts—and then the break, the silence, as the low, sweet music of his favorite waltz began, while he stood screened behind a bank of palms looking down into the clear gray eyes of Eileen ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere. You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind (The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind). And every one will say, As you walk your mystic way, "If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for ME, Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ventured to ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... without being made to wonder at such a movement breaking some long period of stillness. It was a passionate and inexplicable gesture. He used to make it at all sorts of times; as likely as not after he had been listening to little Lena's chatter about the suffering doll, for instance. The Hermann children always besieged him about his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he shrank from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a great affection for the whole family. For Hermann himself especially. He sought his company. In this case, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... anew appeared on the roof, trooping toward that balustrade that faced the sea: upon which the throngs felt the impending of the event, and intently watched. But there seemed no hurry, Hogarth all gay chatter, anon lowering the lids a moment, as he looked over the water; till suddenly hundreds of glasses detected a champagne-bottle with ribbons in the christener's hand; and the consciousness of the moment come moved the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... twelve hours. Conseil came, according to custom, to know "how I passed the night," and to offer his services. He had left his friend the Canadian sleeping like a man who had never done anything else all his life. I let the worthy fellow chatter as he pleased, without caring to answer him. I was preoccupied by the absence of the Captain during our sitting of the day before, and hoping ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... full of life and strength. They chatter cheerily over stones, they toil bravely to shape out their bed. Some of them might tell horrible tales of the far-away past, of the worship of the false god when blood stained the clear waters; tales, too, of feud and ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... them stood there for a few minutes, awaiting the butler's announcement. Sara's arm was about Hetty's shoulders. He was so taken up with the picture they presented that he scarcely heard their light chatter. They were types of loveliness so full of contrast that he marvelled at the power of Nature to create women in the same mould and yet ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... chatter they came to the little chilly room, which was shelved all around, and to Matty's glad eyes presented rows of green and blue and blue and red boxes,—and folio and quarto books of every date, from 1829 to 1869, forty years in which the late Mr. Gilbert had been confirming ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... an irresponsible person is only too glad to evade responsibility. Mollie may live at Woodcote quite safely, and her visits to Brail will be taken as a matter of course. Of all people I know, the O'Briens are the least likely to chatter about their private concerns. Matthew O'Brien will be too thankful that his daughter should enjoy such privileges to wish to rob her ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thine ears with unharmonious clack, And haunt thy holy walls in white and black. What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear, Who crop the nurseries of learning here; Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate, Devour the church, and chatter to the state? As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race; Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls, And in the chambers of your viceroy ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... sight than some modern girls going home from school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting, frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... and the women were left alone. Then Edith began to chatter about nothing, in the most resolute fashion, in order that Lettice might have time to pull ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "Good morrow, Gossip Joan." "Polly. Why, how now, Madam Flirt? If you thus must chatter, And are for flinging dirt, Let's try who best can spatter, Madam Flirt! "Lucy. Why, how now, saucy jade? Sure the wench is tipsy! How can you see me made The scoff of such a gipsy? [To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... so the world goes with the old; you take the fair lady for company and I a she-ass. Well, of the two give me the ass which is more safe and does not chatter." ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... was shaken to its center. What would happen next? Old women paused in the midst of their chatter and, crossing themselves, said an extra ave as a protection against the Evil One; for no one knew ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... had gone when something happened. A horse stamped, a cock set up a sudden chatter, the cat leaped to a manger, and a cow scrambled to her feet. The darkness was full of movement,—wings fluttered, timbers shook under kicking hoofs and rubbing hides, tossed heads jarred the rings that held them fast. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... disturbance. It may indeed cry "Hush!" and "Put him out!" but not only would that cry be of doubtful effect, but experience proves that a concert audience will not raise it. If the audience were left to itself, it would permit late arrivals, and all the disturbance of chatter and movement. To twist the line of Goldsmith, those who came to pray would be at the mercy of those who came to scoff; and such mercy is merciless. The conductor stands in loco parentis. He is the advocatus angeli. He does for ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... it was "a fine healthy Commander-in-Chief." Therefore, a Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air; dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than ever, rides with the mockery ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... stealthily. Sensitive flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, the African mimosa, close their delicate petals, and a sense of hushed expectancy deepens with the darkness. An assembled crowd is awed into absolute silence almost invariably. Trivial chatter and senseless joking cease. Sometimes the shadow engulfs the observer smoothly, sometimes apparently with jerks; but all the world might well be dead and cold and turned to ashes. Often the very air seems to hold its breath for sympathy; at other times a lull suddenly awakens into ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... never consent never never never." "His teeth did chatter chatter chatter still." "Come come come—to bed to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that of the caplimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious creature: but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting on a bough; and I have for many an half hour watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... whole town is wild about it. My brother is at Elm Bluff, with the body, and I shall take the carriage and drive over there at once. Dear me; I am so nervous I can't stand still, and my teeth chatter like ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... say her feelings were hurt. This was so distressing that the children were always anxious to avoid it if possible. She stood looking on now with a pleased smile, grasping her camp-stool, and understanding very little of the chatter going on round her. Fraulein was very good-natured looking, with large soft blue eyes and a quantity of frizzy ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... own house and servants; they thought of everything, in fact, but the inevitable husband, the possession of whom certainly constituted no part of the advantages which they expected to secure by marriage. Evadne sat silent, and smiled at their chatter with the air of one who has solved the problem and knows. But she was glad to be rid of them, and when they had gone, she got her sacred "Commonplace Book," and glanced through it dreamily. Then, rousing herself a little, she went to her writing table, and sat down and wrote: "This is the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... more than the discretion and philosophy of fifteen. The chief of them were boys—boys on the plan of their worthy father; five boys with excellent lungs and indefatigable stout legs; and two little girls no whit behind their brothers for voluble chatter and restless agility. Nobody complained, however. They had their health—that was one mercy; there was enough in the domestic exchequer to feed, clothe, and keep them all warm—that was another mercy; and as for the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... gentle, kindly man who loved the forest and the loneliness of the wilderness. All the lore of the forest was his, he knew the haunts and habits of every living thing that moved within the woods. He could imitate the gobble of the turkey, or the chatter of a squirrel, and follow a trail better than any Indian. It was with no idea of helping to found a state, but rather from a wish to get far from the haunts of his fellowmen that he moved away into the beautiful ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and female work alternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty minutes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to an upper limb, utters a loud call or two, when its mate soon appears, and, alighting near it on the branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment, then the fresh one enters the cavity and the other ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... profound and beautiful sincerity. His splendidly self-poised nature—a solid rock of truth, which enabled him, through years of patient toil, to hold a steadfast course over all the obstacles that oppose and amid all the chatter that assails a man who is trying to accomplish anything grand and noble in art—bore him bravely up in those great characters, and made him, in each of them, a stately type of the nobility of the human soul. ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... moment to see my bones protruding through my skin. Passengers were rolling from one end of the car to the other. I held on firmly to the arms of the seat. Presently we settled down a bit quieter; at least I could keep my hat on and my teeth didn't chatter. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... A chatter of surprise, amusement, and remonstrance spread through the rooms; and the company crowded towards the table. Lucian rose, white with rage, and for a moment entirely lost his self-control. Fortunately, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... barber," he continued, "had finished his tale, we came to the conclusion that the young man had been right, when he had accused him of being a great chatter-box. However, we wished to keep him with us, and share our feast, and we remained at table till the hour of afternoon prayer. Then the company broke up, and I went back to work ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... attorney, but he was anything but a brave man, and even he himself knew that he was not a good one, and the thought of going alone with this uncanny guide, to some desolate spot where no one could see or hear him if he called for help, made his teeth chatter and his ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... silent by you; but I dare not lest my heart come out at my lips. That is why I prattle and chatter lightly and hide my heart behind words. I rudely handle my pain, for fear you ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... have a man-talk; Come with those who can talk; Light your pipe and listen, and the boys will see you through; Love is only chatter, Friends are all that matter; Come and talk the man-talk; that's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... lying on the bench, listening lazily to the chatter up to this point; but when they heard the story of the crystal cradle which their foster-mother had always been fond of telling them, they sat upright ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... end of this?" he demanded. "I suppose you know what a lot of chatter this nonsense of yours has stirred up? They're even saying that you're engaged to ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... chimney. She was in rags; her bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen stockings destined for the young Thenardiers. A very young kitten was playing about among the chairs. Laughter and chatter were audible in the adjoining room, from two fresh children's voices: it was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... away. He could hardly have named a person more indifferent to him than poor Donna Tullia, but he could not help feeling an odd regret at the thought that she was gone at last with all her noisy vanity, her restless meddlesomeness and her perpetual chatter. She had not been old either, though he called her so, and there had seemed to be still a superabundance of life in her. There had been yet many years of rattling, useless, social life before her. To-morrow she would have ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... came to hear him; Now he stirred their souls to passion, Now he melted them to pity. From the hollow reeds he fashioned Flutes so musical and mellow, That the brook, the Sebowisha, Ceased to murmur in the woodland, That the wood-birds ceased from singing, And the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Ceased his chatter in the oak-tree, And the rabbit, the Wabasso, Sat upright to look and listen. Yes, the brook, the Sebowisha, Pausing, said, "O Chibiabos, Teach my waves to flow in music, Softly as your words in singing!" Yes, the bluebird, the Owaissa, Envious, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... poetry, but not the particular humours of it. Nothing can be more expressive of a conceited, narrow-minded reviewer. 'Oh he!—he is absolutely everywhere,—What others dance, he must decide upon. If he can't chatter about every step, 'tis as good as not made at all. Nothing provokes him so much as when we go forward. If you'd turn round and round in a circle, as he does in his old mill, he'd approve of that perhaps; especially if you'd ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... opinion of his master's new guest, he entered into conversation with the old man, who, like Eve upon another occasion, was tempted, nothing loth, for the old man loved to talk; and in a house so busy as the syndic's there were few who had time to chatter, and those who had, preferred other conversation to what, it must be confessed, was ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... had been so jealous, and procured for him a French gouvernante, who had lived with families of the first quality in Paris; and who, of course, must set my Lady Lyndon jealous too. Under the care of this young woman my little rogue learned to chatter French most charmingly. It would have done your heart good to hear the dear rascal swear Mort de ma vie! and to see him stamp his little foot, and send the manants and canaille of the domestics to the trente mille diables. He was precocious in all things: at a very early age ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... take up several sheets of paper, a noisy chatter was heard outside the house and in another moment all of the Blue Birds, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Talmage, Mrs. Catlin, and Miss Selina, ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... my old Injin walk in on 'em, because every one knew he was guilty. Why couldn't he of stayed up here where the keen-eyed officers of the law could of pretended not to know he was? And the old fool was only making things worse with his everlasting chatter about his brother-in-law, every one knowing there wasn't such a person in existence—old Pete having had dozens of every kind of relation in the world but a brother-in-law. But they're going to have this bright young lawyer defend ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... The Neapolitan's chatter did not irritate Caesar in the slightest, and as he had no intention of being his rival, he ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... journey, comes in to the warmth of a fire, and feels a glow of comfort as the blood circulates briskly through his veins. Sometimes, when he had no other engagements, he went out with Nellie Dowsett, whose lively chatter was new and very amusing to him. Sometimes they went up into Cheapside, and into St. Paul's, but more often sallied out of the city at Aldgate, and walked into the fields. On these occasions he carried a stout cane that had been ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... not attending to his words, however. He was shivering and shaking as if he had the ague, and David could hear his teeth chatter together with the cold, although the wind had gone down somewhat, and the sea no longer ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... "leave that sort of chatter alone! Keep it for others. Lieutenant Reimers does not care for that kind of thing. And I know him well, I assure you, my child; he is ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... most conspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the tropics. I see them dash through the blossoming trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of the meadowlark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... as he sat in the sunlight, as if he approved of their merry chatter. Possibly he thought it fine that there were to be two little girls at Sherwood Hall to ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... and liberal education in the university of life. In "The Dictator" Mr. McCarthy is in his happiest vein. The life of London—political, social, artistic—eddies round us. We assist at its most brilliant pageants, we hear its superficial, witty, and often empty chatter, we catch whiffs of some of its finer emotions.... The brilliantly sketched personalities stand out delicately and incisively individualised. Mr. McCarthy's light handling of his theme, the alertness and freshness of his ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the current. The sun widened, clung briefly to the horizon, and dropped behind the low hills beyond the bottom lands; the stream grew purple, then took on a lustre of pearl as the stars came out, while rosy distances changed to misty blue; the chatter of the birds in the Main Street maples became quieter, and, through lessening little choruses of twittering, fell gradually to silence. And now the blue dusk crept on the town, and the corner drug-store window-lights threw mottled colors on the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... 'em see that I was on, and that I was in earnest, it sobered them. They quit then that line of chatter. They were battling now, and they pulled another one. Sure, just what you called it a minute ago. The old line of stuff. They pulled that. They tried to scare me. Me! But I wouldn't scare, not for a cent. I was already scared half crazy—scared of matrimony with a drummer ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the board, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening. To be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them grabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... could not have told her how much he liked it, but as he listened to her chatter he wondered how on earth Kate was going to make the tenants of the Washington think the child ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... curtailment of all the luxuries of life. Silk ribbons are a luxury; they go with soft living. So, then; voila tout! Before the end of the first year of the conflict the factory was transformed into a hospital. The clatter of looms and the chatter of girls gave place to the moanings of sick and wounded men, and the gentle voices of white and blue clad nurses. It was no longer bales of raw silk that were carted up to the big doors of the factory, and boxes of ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... went into the drawing-room with all her little following. She made the elder ones chatter, and when their bedtime came she kissed them for a long time, and then went ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... chatter and laughter a blast of frozen air and a spray of driven snow struck like ice through the room, and reached them even in the warmth of the old wolfskins and the great stove. It was the door which had opened and let in the cold; it was their father ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... however, was of a different nature. From a shy, somewhat unmanageable boy, he had developed into a quiet, dreamy youth, fond of books, music, and romantic surroundings. He avoided the company of his brothers whenever it was possible; their loud voices, boisterous spirits and perpetual chatter concerning the champions of this or that race or match, bored him infinitely, and he was at no pains to disguise his boredom. During the last year he seemed to have grown up suddenly into full manhood,—he had begun to assert his privileges as Heir- ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... cold that the pain was almost unbearable. I was strongly tempted to turn back, but having got so far, I resolved to go on. My teeth began to chatter. The man who had passed by me had already reached the ablution shed and I could see a faint gleam from his candle in the distance, so that I did not fear to lose ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... measures before the arrival of Henry Smith as a prisoner, and I was warned that I might meet his fate if I was not careful; but the sense of justice made me bold, and when I saw the poor wretch trembling with fear, and got so near him that I could hear his teeth chatter, I determined to stand by him ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... garrulous tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To the other it was pregnant ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... the trees about as fast as he could on the ground. Occasionally it would stop and chatter at him, throwing sticks in a most human way, as if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... to chatter of his promenades among the masterpieces it may be assumed that he has crossed the sill of middle-age. Remy de Gourmont, gentle ironist, calls such a period l'heure insidieuse. Yet, is it not something—a vain virtue, perhaps—to ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... words, this pretense of knowing a thing because we talk about it—these counterfeits of belief, thought, love, or earnestness, which all the while are mere babble. The worst of it is, that as self-love is behind the babble, these ignorances of society are in general ferociously affirmative; chatter mistakes itself for opinion, prejudice poses as principle. Parrots behave as though they were thinking beings; imitations give themselves out as originals; and politeness demands the acceptance of the convention. ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... much longer as they liked. When the cutter returned into the harbour to land her fish, Jack and Bill were sent below, so that the authorities might not see them and carry them off. Captain Turgot was much afraid of losing them. They were getting on famously with their French, and Bill could chatter away already at a great rate, though not in very good French, to be sure, for he made a number of blunders, which afforded constant amusement to his companions, but Pierre was always ready to ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... wardrobe was not reassuring. Our bacon and sugar were going fast. Fish had become an absolute necessity, and our catches had been alarmingly small. There was also a lamentable lack of game. Far below we had heard the chatter of the last red squirrel, and seen the last bear signs and the last tree barked by porcupines. There were caribou trails a-plenty, but seldom a fresh track. A solitary rabbit had crossed our trail since we entered the valley, and there were no more rabbit runs visible. We could only hope that as ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... was quite another thing from the dull and decorous outings when Patrick tooled him along through the town, in a solemnly respectful silence. With Teddy's hand on the bar of his chair and Teddy's chatter in his ears, in a week he learned more of the town than he had done in the past three months, and he came home, hungry and eager as a boy could be, full of blithe gossip and fun, to enliven his mother over ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... strengthened even at the cost Of York itself. The rest to the Detroit, Where, with Tecumseh's force, our regulars, And Kent and Essex loyal volunteers, We'll give this Hull a taste of steel so cold His teeth will chatter at it, and his scheme Of easy conquest vanish ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... chatter so loud, you'll awaken everybody," interrupted Martin. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and bent over and pulled on his shoes. "I'll go on deck with you, and of course Little Billy will ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... of the Deccan. As his feverish brain counts and re-counts the rivets on the ship-plates, ever and anon they part before his wistful eyes, and he sees again the little village with its grove of mangoes and its sacred banyan on the inviolable otla; he hears once again the animated chatter of the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... hollow stood the church, with its three steeples and its clock; and, a little higher, the village square, where a spring, fashioned into a fountain, gurgled from one basin into another, under a wide arched roof. I could hear from my window the chatter of the women washing their clothes, the strokes of their beaters, the rasping of the pots scoured with sand and vinegar. Sprinkled over the slopes are little houses with their garden patches in terraces banked up by tottering walls, which bulge under the thrust of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... to be carved. There was a great deal of pleasant talk, such as the girls could understand, though they did not join much in it, except that now and then Dr. May turned to Ethel as a reference for names and dates. To make up for silence at dinner, there was a most confidential chatter in the drawing-room. Flora and Meta on one side, hand in hand, calling each other by their Christian names, Mrs. Larpent and Ethel on the other. Flora dreaded only that Ethel was talking too much, and revealing too much in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and stood beside him from somewhere in the darkness. The tip of her little finger barely touched his hand as she stood there, leaning against the railing and firing back some "chaff" into the darkness. There came a lull in the chatter and Joe was feeling a bit mollified. Suddenly, before he realized it, the crowd was leaving, and one by one they filed past him, each bidding good-night. There was the thin girl in the chair, then two boys who were entirely nondescript, with noisy throats ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... bidding. They were up-stairs and back in the dining-room in a twinkling, and so eagerly did they chatter of their plans for the morrow that hungry though they were ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... all that she would tell, and as they motored up one busy street, and down another, she enjoyed watching their eager faces, and listening to their chatter. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... I go again promenade upon the board of the vessel, and I look at the compass, and little boy sailor come and sit him down, and begin to chatter like the little monkey. Then the man what turns a wheel about and about laugh, and say, "Very well, Jaques;" but I not understand one word the little fellow say. So I make inquire, and they tell me he was "Box the compass." I was surprise, but I tell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... morning Mrs. Burke met him without a trace in her voice, face, or manner of the resentful indignation she had shown on the previous night. She talked, as she had talked on many a morning at the breakfast-table, with an uninterrupted flow of chatter, inconsequential, airy, frivolous. She met his eyes openly, frankly, without a glimmer to show she noticed the lines which furrowed his face. Yet they were so marked that when Brennan drove out for him later, he glanced at ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... a fool she is! Hear her chatter! (Look out of window just here.—Two pages and a half of description, if it were all written out, in one tenth of a second.)—Go ahead, old lady! (Eye catches picture over fireplace.) There's that infernal family nose! Came over ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fools of themselves for my benefit," was her comfortable thought as she listened to the chatter of tongues. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... been turned inward and her ears had not been tuned only to catch her own natural complaints, this chatter of young things would have called her out to laugh and tingle and dance in the haunted wood and cry out little incoherent welcomes to the children of the earth. Something of the joy and emotion of that mother-month must have stirred her imagination ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... listening absently to Miss Deborah's chatter about the wedding, and vaguely glad when, at the gate of her aunt's house, she could leave her, with a pretty bow, which ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... it, but made no reply. There was a chatter of voices in the drawing-room, a chatter of a lightsomeness that Henson had never heard before. Well, he would soon settle all that. He passed quietly into the room, then stood in puzzled fear ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... incline to a quiet evening, I should have a party. When you and he would like to slip off to a movie, you would have to be polite and invite me. Nobody could be crazier about nieces and nephews than I am, but sometimes if I were tired from my work their chatter might make me peevish. And you would punish them when I thought you shouldn't, and wouldn't do it when I thought you should, and think of the arguments there would be. And so we all agree, don't we, that it would be more fun for me to move off by myself and then come to see you and be company,—rather ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... tall, stalwart man whose face was full of the serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips on my ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller |
