"Cracking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... insistent; rumbling, shrieking, rattling, roaring. Huge wagons, loaded with purple-stained cases of Algerian wine, bumping over the stones; strings of bells wound round the great horns of horses' collars jingling like sleigh-bells in winter; whips in the hands of fierce-eyed carters cracking round the heads of large, sad mules; hooters of automobiles and immense motor diligences blaring; men shouting at animals; animals barking or braying, snorting or clucking at men; unseen soldiers marching to music; a town clock ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... we were for this preparing Late last fall, Neither time nor trouble sparing To please you all, Zounds! these niggers raised the shindies, Cracking crowns and court-house windies, Sent us sharp to the West Indies, ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... the Constable, "are there left no ancient servants of the House, that could speak out as well as you?" "Humph!" answered the huntsman—"men are not willing to babble when Randal Lacy is cracking his thong above their heads. Many are slain, or starved to death—some disposed of—some spirited away. But there are the weaver Flammock and his daughter Rose, who know as much of the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the foot-brake, and all heard the wheels and the chains scrape over the stones and dirt. But the car could not be stopped, and two seconds later crashed into the tree limb, a branch of which came up, striking the wind-shield and cracking it. ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... though the room were peopled with faint images of WILLIAM'S dream, the phantom circus music is heard, with its elfin horns; and, through the music, voices call "Hai! Hai!" The sound of the cracking of a whip is heard, and the blare of a clown's ten-cent tin horn. The phantom voice of the CLOWN (very ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... Gloria. "Good-by!" And she kissed Will on the mouth in full view of all of us, he blushing furiously, and Kagig cracking ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... with a bustle right through a great town, Cracking the signs and scattering down Shutters; and whisking, with merciless squalls, Old women's bonnets and gingerbread stalls, There never was heard a much lustier shout, As the apples and oranges trundled about; And the urchins ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... remember," said Catharine, "the fine pink mussel-shell that Hec picked up in the little corn-field last year? It had a hole in one of the shells too, [Footnote: This ingenious mode of cracking the shells of mussels is common to many birds. The crow (Corvus corone) has been long known by American naturalists to break the thick shells of the river mussels, by letting them fall from a height on to rocks and stones.] and when my uncle saw it, he said it must have been dropped by some ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... that in tunneling, as well as in back-filling open cuts, the material backing up the haunches is more or less loosened and therefore is not at first compact enough to prevent the spreading of the haunches when the load comes on the arch. This causes cracking, but, as soon as the haunches have been pressed out against the solid material, the cracking usually ceases, unless the pressure has been sufficiently heavy to ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... what you will, Peggy!" he cried, his big voice cracking and sobbing and resonant with pain. "Ah, my dear, think what you will, but don't grieve for it, Peggy! Why, if I'm all you say I am, that's no reason you should suffer for it! Ah, don't, Peggy! In God's name, don't! I ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... who, looking long and steadily to windward, gives a sign with his gauntleted hand, whereon divers of the officers go off hot-foot, some to muster the long files of arquebusiers, others to overlook the setting of more sail and the like. And now was a prodigious cracking of whips followed by groans and cries and screaming curses, and straightway the long oars began to swing with a swifter beat. From where I stood in my bonds I could look down upon the poor, naked wretches as they rose and fell, each and all at the same moment, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... granted, however, that the inclosing cement is porous, and admits the finer parts of the surrounding fluid. In order to reach the muscles, this cement must be broke with large hammers; and it may be truly said, the kernal is not worth the trouble of cracking the shell. [These are found in great plenty at Ancona and other parts of the Adriatic, where they go by the name of Bollani, as we are informed by Keysler.] Among the fish of this country, there is a very ugly animal of the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... saw in the doubtful twilight a post- chaise and four come out of the gateway of the Red Horse inn, heard the whips cracking and the horses pawing the ground when the driver stopped on the highroad, close to the tree on the roots of which Friar Ange was sitting. It was not an ordinary post-chaise, but a very large, clumsy vehicle, having room to seat four, and a small coupe in front. I looked at it for a minute ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... being effected, and the gang-plank arranged, they came off, chained in pairs, and were marched, still singing, to a shed prepared for them, we could not keep back the tears. The overseer, a great strong man, cracking his "blacksnake" from time to time, to enforce authority, excited our strong indignation. All this is an impossibility now, thank God, but then it was a cruel, dreadful reality. Like cattle, they were penned for the night, and were to be kept there for a day or two, till another boat should take ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... no best game. Some like one, some another. Soccer is a cracking good game, and can be played any time that the ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... in a trick that recalled to French the beautiful Eton lad, cracking his brains in pupil-room over a bit of Latin prose, Roger glanced, frowning, from one to the other of these three men who felt for him, whose resentment of the wrong that had been done him, whose pity for his calamity showed plainly enough through ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have been used in the United States for the production of water gas, which, after or during manufacture, is mixed with the vapors and permanent gases obtained by cracking various grades of paraffin oil, and "fixing" them by subjecting them to a high temperature; and in considering the subject of enrichment of coal gas by carbureted water gas, I shall be forced, by the limited time at my disposal, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... "Then why make me say it again? This Fort was right. At least one intelligent man lived in your world, I'm pleased to know. The sky is a dome holding the sun, the stars and the wandering planets. The problem is that the dome is cracking like a great, ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the moon was shining brightly. We was all at a revival meeting out from Blythewood, then called Dako, S. C. First, we heard a low murmur or rolling sound like distant thunder, immediately followed by the swaying of the church and a cracking sound from the joists and rafters of the building. The women folks set up a screaming. The men folks set up a hollering: 'Oh Lordy! Jesus save me! We believe! Come Almighty King!' The preacher tried to quiet us, but we run out the church in the moonlight, men and women crying and praying. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... aroused by the sudden cracking of a knot in the torch. I saw that it would last but a few hours more. I determined to put it out, for I might be allowed no more light, and even a few minutes of this torch every day would be a great boon. So I took it from its place, and was about to quench it in the moist earth at the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... house gable could see that the innocent had climbed to the top of the peat-stack in some elvish freak, and sat there cracking his thumbs and singing with all ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... you, I know,' said Geoffrey, cracking one between his teeth; 'never let to eat any thing but what's wholesome, and always reading, or doing something stupid. I believe you are helping Rose to play with that doll now. Put it into the fire; that is the way to treat dolls. Stupid ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... was vainly attempting to set the cannon which were sinking into the soaked plough-land. One could hear the hoarse angry voices, the cracking of whips, and the heavy, strained snorting of horses. In front of them lone officers wandered in drenched cloaks in the rain; still farther behind the curtain of rain and the thick fog there rumbled cannons and it was impossible to tell whether they ...
— The Shield • Various
... believe that a caterpillar could be so magnificent; but indoors in the cardboard box he lost his sun-burnished colour and half his glory. Immediately afterwards he spun his cocoon, and there he stayed for seven long months, so that the moth thus suddenly appearing, without any cracking or opening of the cocoon, appeared to be created on the spot. At first, indeed, some thought it was a moth that had entered by the window, there being no rent or place of exit from the perfect case. Within, however, was the broken and blackened skin of the caterpillar and the detached ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... put Mark in a serious position. He found the thin ice cracking loudly under his feet. He glanced ahead. There was ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... his hands into the big mittens strung to his shoulders, and nodding grimly went through the door. Ten minutes later he was cracking the new dog-whip over the backs of his yelping team, and mounting the high bank heading ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... ovules, and partially divided by a replum into two cavities. In this case there was nothing to indicate the presence of floral envelopes (figs. 94, 95). A similar occurrence has been brought under my notice in some grapes which were observed to be cracking before they were perfectly ripe, and in which adventitious fruits were found within the parent grape, occupying the position of seeds (figs. ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... going off in his ears, and they hurt most awfully. And when it had done cracking his earache had gone away. And Dorothy had brought him a trumpet from Rosalind's party and Michael a tin train. And Michael had given him the train and he wouldn't take the trumpet instead. Oughtn't Michael to ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... fort, my little party carrying rifles and sidearms but no packs; and there waited across the ditch in the sunshine my Indians, cross-legged in a row on the grass, and gravely cracking and munching the sweet, green hazelnuts ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the wounded took a pride in cracking jokes, and they did so in words to which circumstances lent a poignant picturesqueness. These jests drew a laugh from us which was ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... cracking a long whip which he held in his hand, and looking occasionally at the tress of Mave Sullivan's beautiful hair, approached the hall door, at which he knocked, and on the appearance of a servant, requested to ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... of wriggling his long chin into his ample neckerchief. He could not ask you how do you do, or say in answer to that question, "I thank you, sare, very well," without stamping prettily with his foot, as if cracking a snail, and tossing his chin into the air as if he were going to balance a ladder upon it. Then, though his features were compressed into a small, monkeyfied compass, they were themselves, individually, upon a magnificent scale. It was as if there had been crowded half a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... food they had gathered, and that was not much. They eagerly inquired the distance to food, which I thought they might possibly reach that night. Meanwhile I had opened my sack of hard bread and had given each a cracker, at the eating of which the sound resembled pigs cracking dry, hard corn. ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... and the crowd filed out, "wise-cracking" about the picture and commenting favorably on the heroine's figure. There were shouts to this fellow or that fellow to come on over and play bridge, and suggestions here and there to go to a drug ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... the commandments cracking?" she laughed. "I've just been coveting one of those suits as hard ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... far from here," said the foreman, and hardly had he said this than Theodore Roosevelt heard a cracking of fallen twigs and a breaking of the brush and lower limbs of the trees as the buck rushed through the thicket. He ran with all speed in the direction and took station behind ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... she was down at last. Doors opened from it into the ground-floor ware-rooms; glancing in, she saw vast, dingy recesses of boxes piled up to the dark ceilings. There was a crowd of porters and draymen cracking their whips, and lounging on the trucks by the door, waiting for loads, talking politics, and smoking. The smell of tobacco, copperas, and burning logwood was heavy to clamminess here. She stopped, uncertain. One of the porters, a short, sickly man, who stood aloof ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... negroes came last. They were still astride of the bulwarks when Sakr-el-Bahr gave the word. Up the middle gangway ran a bo'sun and two of his mates cracking their long whips of bullock-hide. Down went the oars, there was a heave, and they shot out in the wake of the other ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... anticipations would have been absolutely required of him. He pictured the scene to himself; he lying fermenting in the barrel, like a curious vintage; the bear sniffing querulously round it, perhaps cracking it like a cocoa-nut, or extracting him like a periwinkle! Of these chances he had been deprived by the interference of the crew. Friends are often ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... and the prince made all haste to get on horseback; Kate jumped up behind, and home they rode. When the morning sun rose they came in and found Kate sitting down by the fire and cracking her nuts. Kate said the prince had a good night; but she would not sit up another night unless she was to get a peck of gold. The second night passed as the first had done. The prince got up at midnight and ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... as Chippy saw the waggon an idea popped into his mind, and he hurried forward to meet the great vehicle. He kept among the bushes so that the driver did not see him. The latter, indeed, from his high perch, was too busy cracking his whip over his team to urge them to the ascent to see that small, gliding figure slipping through the gorse. So Chippy dodged behind the waggon, swung himself up by the tail-board, and climbed in as nimbly as a cat. The forepart of ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... day before yesterday: a queer omnium gatherum party—Prince Louis Napoleon, General Montholon, Lord Lyndhurst, Brougham, Sir Robert Wilson, Leader, and Roebuck. Droll to see Lyndhurst, the most execrated of the Tories, hand-and-glove, and cracking his jokes, with the two Radicals. After dinner I had a talk with him. He said the Duke had been all against the motion on the 28th, but that unless they had agreed to it, the party would have been broken up; said he did not care about coming in. If they ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... cried the Princess, and at the same moment she heard a crick-cracking in all her bones. She grew tall and straight and pretty, with eyes like shining stars, and a skin as white ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... passengers shouted good-bye. At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike, and it was assisted up the mountains of Leveson Place and Sutherland Street (towards Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whose back was perched a tiny, whip-cracking boy; that boy lived like a shuttle on the road between Leveson Place and Sutherland Street, and even in wet weather he was the envy of all other boys. After half an hour's perilous transit the car drew up solemnly in a narrow ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... by the window, cracking dried sunflower seeds, and looking out at the steppes of Little Russia. The evening shadows were already lying in the hollows of the fields of ripening wheat, but the late sun still reddened the crests and the column ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... is she talking here? My heart is on the point of cracking. In one great choir I seem to hear ...
— Faust • Goethe
... caused by a sudden cracking off of some six or eight muskets, one after the other, closely followed by a heavy if slightly irregular volley, and the next instant the air seemed to become positively vibrant with a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, howls, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... proceeded Olaf. Twice Lugur moaned. At the end he screamed—horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... but a maid," the grandame said, "When my mother was dead; And many a time have I stood. In that beautiful wood, To dream that through every woodland noise, Through the cracking Of twigs and the bending of bracken, Through the rustling Of leaves in the breeze, And the bustling Of dark-eyed, tawny-tailed squirrels flitting about the trees, Through the purling and trickling cool ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... ahead of the fox again. At last Viggo had him cornered, but just as he would have caught the goose, Peter stretched out his left leg and meant to trip Viggo, but his skate caught in a frozen twig and—thump! there lay Peter Lightfoot, the ice cracking all ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... provocative of thirst. He was much disposed to believe Mutimer guilty, but understood that it was none of his business to openly take part with either side. He stood well on the limits of the throng; it was not impossible that the debate might end in the cracking of crowns, in which case Mr. Dabbs, as a respectable licensed victualler whose weekly profits had long since made him smile at the follies of his youth, would certainly incur no needless risk to his own ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... wound with a sharp knife so as to remove all frayed edges. Cover the exposed wood with oil and lead paint to prevent cracking, and the wound will soon be covered with new ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... as it dashed over the rocks. A dog suddenly began to bark in the black, black valley—then ceased. He was vaguely over-awed with the "big mountings" for company and the distant stars. He listened eagerly for the first cracking of brush which told him that the other boys were near at hand. Then all three crept along cautiously among the huge boles of the trees, feeling very mysterious and important. When they reached the rude ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Strand. When we got to Blackwall the music struck up and people began to dance. I never saw a man dance so much in my life. He did not miss a dance all the way to Clacton, nor all the way back again, and when not dancing he was flirting and cracking jokes. I could hardly believe my eyes when I reflected that this man had painted the famous "Last Judgment," and had ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... could bear it no longer. They were singing now—a terrible thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like the cracking of whips—a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in her dressing-gown, wondering ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... persistent maniacal gesture, distressed, troubled and uneasy; Osterman, with his comedy face, the face of a music-hall singer, his head bald and set off by his great red ears, leaning back in his place, softly cracking the knuckle of a forefinger, and, last of all and close to his elbow, his son, his support, his confidant and companion, Harran, so like himself, with his own erect, fine carriage, his thin, beak-like nose and his blond hair, with its tendency to curl ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... adaptation of means to an end. There was much danger, from the narrowness of the approach to the work from the side opening, of missing the mark and dropping the piece of wood with great difficulty of recovery, and, further, the chance of cracking the upper table by straining the opening for the admission of knife and wedge of wood. I heard of the violin but a few days since, and have no reason to suppose there has been occasion to have any further ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... face felt cold, and opening his eyes, he found that it had good reason to be so. It was covered with snow, and upon the robe itself the snow lay deep. The whole forest was white, and, as he stood up, he heard branches cracking beneath the weight that had gathered on them in the night. It had come down in thick and great flakes, but so softly that it ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... belief fairies often go hunting, and faint sounds of fairy horns, the baying of fairy hounds, and the cracking of fairy whips are supposed to be heard on these occasions, while the flight of the hunters is said to resemble in sound the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... equivalent to the positive counter-evidence of Hearne on the mouth of the Copper River and of Henderson in Iceland, it must be remembered that, although Hood heard a noise as of quickly-moved musket-balls and a slight cracking sound during an Aurora, he also noticed the same noise on the following day, when there was no northern light to be seen; and it must not be forgotten that Wrangel and Gieseke were fully convinced that the sound they had heard was to be ascribed to the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... arrangements, when even Brigade H.Q., with a whole staff captain to look after them, hadn't so much as a crust for breakfast. The Brigadier, however, was as cheery as ever, and almost as soon as it was light he was up in our lines cracking jokes with everyone he met, and asking "are we downhearted," to which he got the usual roar as answer. It really never stopped raining all day, and never again it is to be hoped will any of us spend another Christmas like it. By superhuman efforts ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... seemed to feel the cold, and made little cracking noises as if they were shivering. Jeanne lay shaking with cold; twice she got up to put more logs on the fire, and to pile her petticoats and dresses on the bed, but nothing seemed to make her any warmer. There were ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... up with a murrain!" cried the Tanner, for he, too, had talked himself into a fume. "Big words ne'er killed so much as a mouse. Who art thou that talkest so freely of cracking the head of Arthur a Bland? If I do not tan thy hide this day as ne'er I tanned a calf's hide in all my life before, split my staff into skewers for lamb's flesh and call me no more brave man! Now look to ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... reply. In that mood Joan would show no mercy. It was when she was suffering the most that Joan could harden and frighten Nancy. She was lashing herself to duty when she sent the whip cracking. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... attributes compromised by my position. Oh, Hercules! when I remember my native Africa—when I reflect on the sweet intoxication of my former liberty—the excitement of the chase—the mad triumph of my spring, cracking the back of a bison with one fillip of my paw—when I think of these things—of my tawny wife with her smile sweetly ferocious, her breath balmy with new blood—of my playful little ones, with eyes of topaz and claws of pearl—when I think of all this, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... attempted to read, but found that impossible just then. Biddy was watching over the pots and pans in the kitchen. The boys were at the front door, now and then running along the road to listen, when the cracking of whips, the tramp of horses, and the ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... for battle. At last (Lucretius says and Creech) They set their wits to work on SPEECH: And that their thoughts might all have marks To make them known, these learned clerks Left off the trade of cracking crowns, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... sphere of metal was gone—snapped off into space. Thad clung desperately to the wire, muscles cracking, tortured arms almost drawn from their sockets. Fear flashed over his mind; what if the wire broke, and left him ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... or install options. A good 1990s example is the use of Torx screws for cable-TV set-top boxes. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialized case-cracking tool to open ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... middle ages, to lonely sages, men of science, reformers; the revelations of the world's superficial judgment, shocking to the souls concentrated upon their own bitter labour in the cause of sanctity, or of knowledge, or of temperance, let us say, or of art, if only the art of cracking jokes or playing the flute. And thus this general's daughter came to me—or I should say one of the general's daughters did. There were three of these bachelor ladies, of nicely graduated ages, who held ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with avanti, Savoia! and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then suddenly—ah, it was worth living through!—word came to us that Vienna was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen in the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... been thrown about the broncho's neck, while his right hand was groping frantically for the animal's nose. But during all this time the pony was far from idle. He was plunging like a ship in a gale, cracking the whip with Phil Forrest until it seemed as if every bone in the lad's body would be broken. He could hear his own neck ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... her every afternoon in the sunshine, while the others were at work, and married her with great eclat. The moral of which is that, instead of cracking my head to make a sonnet to Claudine, I shall be wise to put on my hat ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... owing to constant pressure and friction in one place. The parts are hot, red, and tender, and emit a disagreeable odor when secretions are retained. The skin becomes sodden by retained sweat, and may crack and bleed. The same redness and tenderness are seen in chapping of the face and lips, and cracking of ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... the ice was thin. He had avoided it all the afternoon, but intent on cutting some fancy figure one of the boys had taught him, he did not notice how near he was to the dangerous spot until he heard a cracking noise all round him, and it was too late to save himself from a ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... would not be worth the cracking," said a cheerful voice behind us; and there stood Mistress Walgrave herself. "Come, husband," said she, soothingly, "be not too hard on Humphrey, he is but a lad. He serves us well most days, when the Queen is not to the front. I warrant thee, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... them well, Malise," said the Lord James; "'twas you who did the skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us if any of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have their deaths on my conscience ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... words were almost drowned by the fierce hissing, which was now mingled with a deep bass formed by a loud humming, throbbing sound such as might be made by a Brobdingnagian tea-kettle, just upon ready for use. Then came loud cracking and spitting sounds, and the dull roar ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... unprofitable, or pernicious Notions (for surely little better can be said of a great part of that Heathenish stuff they are tormented with; like the feeding them with hard Nuts, which when they have almost broke their teeth with cracking, they find either deaf or to contain but very rotten and unwholesome Kernels) whilst Things really perfected of the understanding, and useful in every state of Life, are left unregarded, to the ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... grains was no joke to anybody without teeth, and it was a serious affair to one of the blackbirds. He took it into his beak, dropped both head and tail, and gave his mind to the cracking of the sweet morsel. At this time he particularly disliked to be disturbed, and the only time I saw one rude to a youngster was when struggling with this difficulty. While feeding the nestlings, they broke the kernels into bits, picked up all the pieces, filling the beak the whole ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... of five, the youngest of the family, was sitting on the doorstep, hammering with the iron-shod heel of his heavy boot a hazel nut he had found on his way home. The nut, instead of cracking, was being driven deep into the moist earth. He did not desist from his employment, or lift ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... eyes, which would certainly have been put out by arrows had I not thought of my spectacles. These I fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and, thus protected, I went boldly on, while the arrows struck my glasses without even cracking them. ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... would depend upon such knowledge as he might be able to gather from the experienced people with whom he came in contact. He presently had ample proof that the driving of Macdougal of Boobyalla was nothing extraordinary here. Three horsemen passed him at a racing speed, and with much shouting and cracking of whips, and a wild, bewhiskered Bushman, driving two horses in a light, giglike vehicle, charged through the dust at a pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... eclipsed the bright face of Goro, the moon, and forewarned the ape-man of impending storm. In the depth of the jungle the cloud shadows produced a thick blackness that might almost be felt—a blackness that to you and me might have proven terrifying with its accompaniment of rustling leaves and cracking twigs, and its even more suggestive intervals of utter silence in which the crudest of imaginations might have conjured crouching beasts of prey tensed for the fatal charge; but through it Tarzan passed unconcerned, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... besides, a passion for cracking almonds. "A passion," Louise said, "as expensive as it was noisy, and which never was stronger than when she went about under the influence of the magic ring; and that perpetual crack! crack! which was heard wherever ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... couldn't understand about Stefan was why he was always laughing and joking. He did the work of two men but whether he was working or resting you could always hear him cracking his merry jokes and laughing ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... sun-parlor, extended along the wing, and toward this slight elevation the girl stealthily led him, without so much as the cracking of a dry twig underfoot, peering from left to right for indications that their ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... rise from his chair, but came to a sudden pause, while a sound of rending and cracking broke the silence that had followed his tragic words. All unconsciously, Wang Kum had given him the sticky chair; and the heat of the room and the doctor's feverish agitation, had combined to produce the catastrophe. The Reverend Gabriel Hornblower was trapped ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... fully five minutes passed and Snap had about made up his mind that the fox had gotten scared and turned tail, when he heard a cracking of brushwood directly in ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... his first really big part, and he had soaked himself in it. He had read up the literature of burglary. He had talked with men from Pinkerton's. He had expounded his views nightly to his brother Strollers, preaching the delicacy and difficulty of cracking a crib till his audience had rebelled. It charmed the Strollers to find Jimmy, obviously of his own initiative and not to be suspected of having been suborned to the task by themselves, treading with a firm foot on the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... engaged in argument George Key hurried through the room and, barely grunting at them, disappeared by way of the green baize door. A minute later they heard several corks pop, and then the sound of cracking ice and splashing liquid. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... which you could no longer buy in Paris, and the two ate them like spoiled children. I didn't want to talk, for it was pure happiness for me to look on. I loved to watch her, when the servants had gone, with her elbows on the table like a schoolboy, her crisp gold hair a little rumpled, cracking walnuts with gusto, like some child who has been allowed down from the nursery for dessert and means to ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... soul so richly gifted Every child of man can find, If to mighty Foutsa lifted He but keep his heart and mind. He who goods and cattle lacking Is to fell disease a prey, In whose household bones are cracking, Cuts occurring every day, Who though slumbering never resteth From excess of bitter pain, And what he in prayer requesteth Never, never can obtain,— To earth-favouring Foutsa's figure If but reverence he shall pay Dire misfortune's dreadful rigour Flits for ever ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... Bob went on saying; "but all the same I don't think you are. After you've shown me, it's just like that egg Columbus stood up on end, after cracking the shell a bit—as easy as jumping off a log, once you know how. But now we're in here, I hope we find out the ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. I frankly had not believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of the same type and I felt that his open face would surely have disclosed to us any real loss that he suffered or ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... to leaven must be burned, but he who eats it is free. When it begins to crack it must be burned, and he who eats it must be cut off. "What is leavening?" "Like the horns of locusts." "Cracking?" "When the cracks intermingle." The words of R. Judah. But the Sages say, "if either of them be eaten, the eater must be cut off." "And what is leavening?" "All which changed its appearance, as when a man's hairs stand on end ...
— Hebrew Literature
... positive GDP growth and curtailing inflation. However, the Georgian Government has suffered from limited resources due to a chronic failure to collect tax revenues. Georgia's new government is making progress in reforming the tax code, enforcing taxes, and cracking down on corruption. Georgia also suffers from energy shortages; it privatized the T'bilisi electricity distribution network in 1998, but payment collection rates remain low, both in T'bilisi and throughout the regions. The country is pinning its hopes for long-term ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... but when the creatures commenced to come closer, frequently hitting the windows with their sharp beaks, and cracking two of them, they began to get really alarmed. Once the propeller struck the tail of one bold and incautious condor, and feathers flew in all directions; but after a quick circle he was back again, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... each of them. Also you'll be interested to know I've got a report of your own doings. It was right, Kennedy, I don't blame you. I'd have done the same with Burke on the job. How are you making out? What? You're cracking ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... all. The instant after her shoulder had touched, startled by the contact, she flailed out with her tail. The blow smote the rail just for'ard of the fore-shrouds, splintering a gap through it as if it were no more than a cigar-box and cracking the covering board. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... through the walls. However, they cast around them a glance of satisfaction, while eating on the little table on which a candle was burning. Their faces were reddened by the strong air. They stretched out their stomachs; they leaned on the backs of their chairs, which made a cracking sound in consequence, and they kept repeating: "Here we are in the place, then! What happiness! It seems to me ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... they were—five huge, hairy, dirty, black creatures, as large as the palm of Dicky's hand, all locked in deadly combat. They writhed and struggled and embraced, their long, curling legs fastening on each other with a sound that was actually like the cracking of bones. It takes a little courage to stand and watch such a proceeding, for you feel as if the hideous fellows might turn and jump for you; but they were doubtless absorbed in their own battle, and ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... by-and-by it began to get on their nerves: and if you don't know what that means, ask Mother to tell you next time you are playing blind man's buff when she has a headache. Then the dragon got into the habit of cracking his tail, as people crack whips, and this also got on people's nerves. Then, too, little things began to be missed. And you know how unpleasant that is, even in a private school, and in a public kingdom it is, of course, much worse. The things that were missed were ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... sweet gamut is cracking and breaking For a look, for a touch,—for such slight things; But he's such a very great musician ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various |
