"On the fence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shop so softly that only the cat was aware of it. He gazed at her in evident doubt whether to continue work on the rim of his saucer or take refuge on the fence. ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped. Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees; the men's coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of their own feats in shaking down the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... from this iniquitous business, he warned with sarcasm; don't lean on the fence and risk the wrath of the Almighty. Let the correction of Providence fall on his own shoulders, which had been carrying the sins of Ascalon a long time; don't get so close as to endanger their wise heads under the blow. At the same time ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... me to stay on the fence," I told him. He seemed to realize, as he sat there slowly moving his head up and down, that no further advance was to be made along that line. So he took a ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... not the slightest idea why. So, while her mistress was safely asleep upstairs, she had stolen out to watch for the wonderful sight,—the mysterious sight that every one was waiting to see. She was standing there on tiptoe on the fence, in her little ragged dress, with the black kitten in her arms, when a great crowd turned a corner, and tossed up a cloud of dust, and swept up the street. There were armed soldiers with glittering ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... an idle history of the old fence, when a chickadee twittered in the pine behind me. As I turned, he flew over me and lit on the fence in front. He had something in his beak; so I watched to find his nest; for I wanted very much to see him at work. Chickadee had never seemed afraid of me, and I thought he would trust me now. But he didn't. He would ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... but the male kept an eye on Mr. Wren; and, when he came to near, gave chase, driving him to cover under the fence, or under a rubbish heap or other object, where the wren would scold and rattle away, while his pursuer sat on the fence or the pea-brush waiting for ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... little flowers, two petals up, blue, two turning down, white. Perhaps you don't know about anything prettier than that. There were maiden-hair ferns among them too! and the biggest lichens you ever saw on the fence, while in the hollow of a rotten rail a little chippy bird always built a hair nest. She got the hairs at our barn, for most of them were gray from our carriage horses, Ned and Jo. All down that side of the orchard the fence corners were filled with long grass and wild flowers, a few alder bushes ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Maude, with whom he had a long and most delightful interview, for old Hannah, in unusually, good spirits, expressed her willingness to see to everything, saying to her young mistress, "You go along now and court a spell. I reckon I haint done forgot how I and Crockett sot on the fence in old Virginny and ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... wrong, I wunt deny but wut I be so,— An', fact, it don't smell very strong; My mind 's tu fair to lose its balance An' say wich party hez most sense; There may be folks o' greater talence Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... her seat as she spoke, and looked up with such a rosy, pleading face that Jack gave in at once, and down they went again, raising a cloud of glittering snow-dust as they reined up in fine style with their feet on the fence. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... this year, then. You shall have the quinces to-morrow." And she retired with a softened face. I was told that Abram Handy was a widower anxious to take Temperance for a second helpmeet, and that she could not decide whether to accept or refuse him. She had confessed to mother that she was on the fence, and didn't know which way to jump. He was a poor, witless thing, she knew; but he was as good a man as ever breathed, and stood as good a chance of being saved as the wisest church-member that ever lived! Mother thought her inclined to be mistress of an establishment over which she might ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... fellows," surmised Jed. "He likes excitement. I see that by the way he takes up with my knife play. He'd rather leave his hide on the fence than stay ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... of his little brothers and sisters irritated him, and their noisier quarrels exasperated him. He kept away from them as much as he could, and when he was not off in his boat, he sat on the fence under the maples as taciturn as Michael himself. The children wondered at him, and gradually began to draw away at his approach, instead of rushing toward him as of old. Maggie, who was fifteen now, and worked in the factory, suspected the cause ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... where the Red King had thrown him, and with bared teeth, and forefeet pawing the air, the Red King was coming toward him. Another moment and those terrible hoofs would be striking, cutting, trampling him into the trodden dirt of the corral. Why didn't someone haze him off? Would they sit there on the fence and see him killed? "Whoa, boy—Whoa!" In vain he struggled to raise an arm—it was held fast, and his legs were pinned to the ground by a weight! He struggled violently, his eyes flew open and—there was no Red King, no corral—only a grassed slope strewn ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... up some speed on the locomotive. The speedometer indicated fifty-five when I saw that fellow sprawling up there on the fence. I would not have dared go much faster in ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... brotherhood for all human and animate creatures. She spoke to him as if she had known him all her life. She talked to the grosbeak in exactly the same manner, as she laid strawberries and potato bugs on the fence for his family. She did not swerve an inch from her way when a snake slid past her, while the squirrels came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers. She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in any touch of feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... of chrysanthemums and dahlias. October roses, the richest of the year, bloomed and dropped in the quaint old squares where the long vegetable rows began. At the end of the straight, overgrown walk the hop vines on the fence ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... John answered the meek shout cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her brown hair with gold. He waved his hat and turned away; but the music seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer landscape his eye saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Was it not then as a true lover that in the early morning I walked into the country, and down the banks of the stream where Sylvia and I had strayed and talked in the sunny days of youth? And nature seemed a part of the wedding procession, and the squirrels on the fence rails, and the robins, wrens, and wood-thrushes in the trees chirped and twittered: "John Stanhope is in love! John Stanhope is in love!" And the mocking crow, lazily flapping his wings at a safe distance, croaked enviously: "Ha, ha! old Stanhope is in love. Ha, ha!" Yet the whole ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... about four o'clock, and Lincoln was tired. His neck ached, his toes were swollen, and his tongue called for a drink of water. He got off the plow, after turning the horses' heads to the faint western breeze, and took a seat on the fence in the shade of a small popple tree on which a ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... their father's shillalahs. The young German girls curled their lips and whispered together. There was a significant herding of the contending races apart, while the visiting Anglo-Saxons wore an air of safe and dispassionate enjoyment, such as pertains of right to the boy on the fence waiting for ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to lean on the fence, and call excitedly,— ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... many horses tied at the General's fence, and there was laughter within, when I rode up, and I was reminded of the night when I had stood with my hot hand melting the frost on the fence. But I thought of what the men had said on the railway platform, of the woman whom I had seen on the train, and boldly I walked in. The General met me with a warm grasp, and was asking me if I had seen his son, when in walked the young fellow himself, with Guinea beside him. The parlor and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... carry him further. He caught threatening looks from the officers and slipped away in the darkness. Silence fell anew around the fire, and Jackson still stood, gazing into the coals. Soon, he turned abruptly, strode away into the darkness, but came back after a while, lay down on the fence rails and slept soundly. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on the log. What do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these worlds of life?—How many times we must say Rome and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... home by twilight, and daddy and I were the last. The Byrd had insisted on showing daddy nine little curly-tailed pigs taking their evening repast at the maternal fount, which they were shyly late in doing because the fledgling perched so near them on the fence to exhibit and direct ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he would sit in his buggy and roar until the farmer came out of the field or the house to talk with him. And then haggling and shouting he would make his deal or drive on his way while the farmer, leaning on the fence, laughed ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... and Hale had just come down from the woods behind the school-house at "little recess-time" in the afternoon. The children were playing games outside the gate, and Bob and Miss Anne and the little Professor were leaning on the fence watching them. The little man raised his hand to halt Hale on ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... to try now," suggested the other. "I will stay here a little while, and show you. It is very easy. You can just as well become a flying machine as not. Come, I will fly up on the fence. You come up here, too, and when I say 'Go!' why start off, and, who knows? perhaps you will do as well as I. Don't ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... But just as he was climbing the yard fence, his mother, who had left off her work at the loom for a few minutes, came to the door to throw an old hen and her brood of young ones some dough, and seeing her boy on the fence she ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... them who he was, and that were I in their place I would let him see all there was to see, and let him, as he wished, write to his people of the excellence of the French army and of the inevitable success of the Allies. With Italy balancing on the fence and needing very little urging to cause her to join her fortunes with France, to choose that moment to put Italian journalists in a cow yard struck me ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... All you old graybeards can do is sit on the fence and decry the efforts of the rising generation. You just croak and knock. Of course I admit that once on a time an opportunity couldn't fly by you so fast you wouldn't get some of the tail feathers; but that ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... cease his exertions until he had reached the place where his four chums sat on the fence. Then they saw that while his round face was red, and the perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead, there was a drawn, almost a scared look ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... He glanced at her again. She was showing no disposition to run away. She was about two yards from him, along the fence. Drazk wondered how long it would take him to bridge that distance. Even as he looked she leaned her elbows on the fence and rested one of her feet on the lower rail. Drazk fancied he saw the muscles about her mouth pulling her face into little, laughing curves, but she was gazing soberly ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... was standing in the middle of the road playing away with all his might, and at the end of a long rope was a lively little monkey in a bright red coat and a smart cocked hat. The little creature pulled off his hat, and with one long jump coming on the fence, he made Phronsie a most magnificent bow. Strange to say, the child wasn't in the least frightened, but put out her little fat hand, speaking in gentle tones, "Poor little monkey! come ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... tragical, that he could remember, really happened while he lived in the Smith house than something he saw one bright sunny morning, while all the boys were hanging on the fence of the next house, and watching the martins flying down to the ground from their box in the gable. The birds sent out sharp cries of terror or anger, and presently he saw a black cat crouching in the grass, with half-shut eyes and an air of dreamy indifference. The birds swept down in longer and ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the work upon it. Now one of the pair came with a bit of something, placed it, tried its effect this way and that, and then disappeared; while for hours every day both might be seen about the place, hunting insects and taking their ease on the fence as if no thought of nesting ever stirred their wise little heads. The last addition to the domicile was curious: a soft white feather from the poultry yard, which was fastened up on the edge, and stood there floating in the breeze; a white banner of peace flung out ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... hot August weather now, and I hope my tomatoes will mature, and thus save me two dollars per day. My potatoes have, so far, failed; but as they are still green, perhaps they may produce a crop later in the season. The lima beans, trailed on the fence, promise an abundant crop; and the cabbages and peppers look well. Every inch of the ground is in cultivation—even the ash-heap, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... one among your generals must be blundering very badly if Antwerp is to be so scandalously neglected. The lesson that it might teach if properly handled! The enormous value of its example to those parts of the civilised world that are still on the fence!—Holland, for instance, Italy, Bulgaria." ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... what means this stupid somnolence? Why do my pulses go So "melancholy slow"? Why can't I think? why always "on the fence"? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... with their women stepped out into the street, while, as is customary there,—the white men passed, taking us two tramps to jail. We came to a high, newly white-washed board fence. Within it stood a two-story building of red brick. On the fence was painted, in big black letters the facetious warning, "Keep out if you can." A passage in through the gate, and McAndrews first knocked at, then kicked against ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the man, I say," Trampas pursued. "And ain't he there? She leaves Baldy sit on the fence ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... was black, dressed all in black, and on a black horse. He galloped up to the Baba Yaga's gate and disappeared, just as if he had sunk through the ground—and night fell. But the darkness did not last long. The eyes of all the skulls on the fence began to shine and the whole clearing became as bright as if it had been midday. Vasilissa shuddered with fear, but stopped where she was, not ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Dickinson as "Mazeppa" A Black Bear at Onalaska A Dead Sure Thing A Fashion Item A Good Land Enough A Lecturer Should Know What He Talks About A Loan Exhibition A New Sparking Scheme An Odorous Bohemian Base Ingratitude Buttermilk Bibbers Cats on the Fence Christmas Trees Col. Ingersoll Praying Comforting Compensations Convenient Currency Crushing Nihilism Enterprising Chicago! Fish Hatching in Wisconsin Frozen Ears Gathered Waists! Geological Survey Give us War Good Templars on Ice Hard on Fond Du Lac He ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... emphasising his address by an easy and not ungraceful clatter of the adjective used so largely by poets in denunciation of war—"we ain't goin' to travel these carrion a mile to the gate, an' most likely fine it locked when we git there. Hold on till I git my internal machine to work on the fence. Dad! Where's that ole morepoke? O, you're there, are you? Fetch the jack off o' your wagon—come! fly roun'! you're (very) slow for a young fellow. Bum," (abbreviation of "bummer," and applied to the red-headed fellow) "you surround them carrion, or we'll be losin' ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was soon lost to sight in a cloud of dust. The others had also departed with their shod horses; but there were several new arrivals, and the company was augmented rather than diminished. They sat around on the fence, or on the logs dumped down ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the pose of Mignon aspirant au ciel, as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said Gallegher, having apparently vanquished his foe, "you come with me." His companion followed quickly as Gallegher climbed to one of the haymows, and crawling carefully out on the fence-rail, stretched himself at full length, face downward. In this position, by moving the straw a little, he could look down, without being himself seen, upon the heads of whomsoever stood below. "This is better'n a private box, ain't ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... what scratching, what bristling and what hustling, The cock stands on the fence, the wind his ruddy plumage rustling. Like a soldier grand he stands, and like a trumpet glorious, Sounds his shout both far and near, imperious ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... milked: when primitive man first knew them in their native forests he used to give them a wide berth, for his flint arrows fell harmless off their tough hides, and they were fierce exceedingly. A cock is crowing on the fence as if the whole farm belonged to himself: he ought to be skulking in an Indian jungle. The sheep have no business here; their place is on the rocky mountains of Asia. As for the dog, it is difficult ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... spirits rose once more. He told some very cunning things that put us in a gale of laughter; and when he was telling about the time that Samson tied the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the Philistines' corn, and Samson sitting on the fence slapping his thighs and laughing, with the tears running down his cheeks, and lost his balance and fell off the fence, the memory of that picture got him to laughing, too, and we did have a most lovely and jolly time. By ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... went up to Mr. Tinkler, who was still on the fence with his novel, and asked as humbly as he could ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, and he perched on the fence in front of Bully, put his head on one side—not on one side of the fence, you know, but on one side of his own little feathered neck—and Dickie looked out of his bright little eyes ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... me, I'll do anything for a friend—but that's as far as I go. They ain't no right and wrong, as far as I'm concerned. I'm like a danged Injun, I'll keep my word to a friend no matter how the cards fall; but if that friend turns against me I'll scalp him like that, and hang his hide on the fence! So now you know right where ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... been hearing footsteps behind him, creaking rapidly over the packed snow-path. He might have to ask for help to reach his home. Even as the steps came close, he felt himself swaying. He leaned over on the fence, but to his amazement that swayed, too, and threw him back. Then he felt himself falling toward the street; but the creaking steps ceased, now by his side, and he felt under him something soft but firm—something ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... a youth wearing the uniform and cap of The Western Union Telegraph Company and advancing across the campus at that terrific speed always exhibited by messenger-boys, appeared in the offing. Periscoping the four Seniors on the fence, he navigated his course accordingly and pulling a yellow envelope from his cap, he queried, in charmingly ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... across the street are employing themselves. They seem distressed, yet every now and then chatter with most perfect unconcern. There, they are both on their knees, with something like a picture hanging on the fence before them. They dart in and out of the house in a strange, excited manner. Perhaps ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... to the paddock behind the barn, and they laid their arms on the fence while they looked over at the horses, which were still there. The beasts, in their rough winter coats, some bedaubed with frozen clots of the mud in which they had been rolling earlier in the afternoon, stood motionless in the thin, keen breeze ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her. When I lifted the latch of the gate, she came toward me. There was a heavy drizzle then. I thought she had been leaning on the fence a few feet away. She whispered, sharp and quick, 'Who's that?' I knew who she was, right ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... couldn't seem to get on. She safe with averted face, her arm on the fence, her head in her hand. In the strong light of the moon, every feature was revealed. How beautiful she was in the moonlight! But what was her face saying? A ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... On the fence close by Where the sunbeams lie Doth the kingly Nightshade blow; But the Asters tall That grew by the wall ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cried as she leaned on the fence and watched the bird. "You're just the prettiest thing with them red and yellow spots on your wings. And you ain't afraid of me, not a bit. I guess mebbe you know you got wings and I ain't. Such pretty wings you ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... moth which she found napping on a fence. She ran at once to a crack or some convenient hole in the rough rail, thrust it in and hammered it down. When it was quiet she snipped off the wings, dragged it out, and beat it on the fence till it was fit for food, the family meanwhile gathered around her, clinging closely to the fence, and gently fluttering. These nuthatches were remarkably silent, but some that I once saw living near ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... "You needn't sit on the fence," I replied. "I've got two of the best seats in the Grand Stand. You can rest there in comfort ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... that he commenced to laugh, and, finding it inconvenient to do so on his legs, he sat down to indulge his humour freely. A laughing jackass perched on the fence at the side of the road heard Mr Villiers' hilarity, and, being of a convivial turn of mind itself, went off into fits of laughter also. On hearing this echo Mr Villiers tried to get up, in order to punish the man who mocked him, but, though his intentions ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... should bring Craig into the pastures. He could lean on the fence and pull at his pipe to his heart's content. The brood-mare did not fancy the smoke, but she liked to have him talk to her. There were a number of interests they had in common; the smell of the new grass, the tempting ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... Seated on the fence, a number of rooks were directing intelligent black eyes upon the heaps of mud which lay around the coping of the well. And from time to time they fluttered ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... excelled in all athletic things. He had such immense shoulders and such a deep chest, though his hands and feet were remarkably small. I can remember when he and I would go out to a vacant lot that he owned near Indianapolis and I would sit on the fence and watch him ride and perform circus tricks on horseback, riding around in a circle. Though his hands were so small and fair, with rosy palms and delicately pointed fingers, they were strong hands and capable, for they fashioned the cradle my mother rocked me in, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... went out again. He saw an old man walking along the road and carrying the head of a cow, so he followed him. The old man went into the house of a friend, leaving the cow's head hanging on the fence. Shell climbed up the fence and got into the cow's ear, keeping very quiet. When the old man came out of the house he took the head and continued his walk. As he reached a desert place called Cahana-an, the head began to say: "Ay! Ay!" The old man became so frightened ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... a trusty pilot leaving his ship he strolled over and vaulted up on the fence beside the boys who, having taken the village, were now making themselves comfortable in it. His first question showed ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Kate thought she must make some use of her new possessions, so, as she had no need of them in the kitchen, she spread them out on the ground, and then stuck them, one after another, for ornament, on the fence which ran round the house. When Fred came home and saw the new decorations, he said, "Kate, what have ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... the window, and then ran into the kitchen for some crumbs of bread. When she came back, pigeon was still on the fence. Then she called to him, holding out her her hand scattering a few crumbs on the window-sill. The bird was hungry and had sharp eyes, and when he saw Alice he no doubt remembered the nice meal she had given him in the morning, in a few ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... party. Of course, dear boy, we must both go. I would not disappoint or offend her for the world—nor must you. Buck up, old pal! This is a hard row to hoe, but I guess you'll have to hoe it alone. I can only sit on the fence and ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... the prison, and the nails on the fence, and the far-away flames at the bone-charring factory were all terrible. Behind him there was the sound of a sigh. Andrey Yefimitch looked round and saw a man with glittering stars and orders on his breast, who was smiling and slyly winking. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... supposed they would nominate Pendleton, or some other man of pronounced views, but instead of doing that they nominated Horatio Seymour, who stood on the fence, politically speaking. My friends, Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and women who have brains and education, women who are tax-payers, went there and petitioned for the practical application of the fundamental principles of our Government to one-half of the people. Those ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... hand tended. It was long green and divided into two grades. It was pressed by being placed in large hogsheads and weighted down. On one occasion they were told their tobacco was so eaten up that the worms were sitting on the fence waiting for the leaves to grow but nevertheless in some manner his master hid the defects and received the best ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... as it is no sign that yesterday's dinner did me no good because I have forgotten what it was. In the latter case, indeed, and perhaps in the former as well, it would seem more reasonable to draw an exactly opposite inference. But, quibbles apart, one thing I do remember: I sat for some time on the fence, in the shade of a tree, with an eye upon the cane-swamp and an ear open for bird-voices. Yes, and it comes to me at this moment that here I heard the first and only bull-frog that I heard anywhere in Florida. It was like a voice from home, and belonged with the fence. Other ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... But you're lying here," he looked up "underneath this pine-tree. Cayley comes out in the old boat and drops his parcel in. You take a line from here on to the boat, and mark it off on the fence there. Say it's the fifth post from the end. Well, then I take a line from my tree we'll find one for me directly and it comes on to the twentieth post, say. And where the two lines meet, there ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... various streets of the town to paste up the bills. They put the paste on while still walking. They always took a look round first to see that no one was in sight. Then they would pause and quickly stick the bill on the fence. They would go on farther.... The effort ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... the ordeal as long as possible. There could be no harm in that. Everything was quiet about the house, as his mother was away. He hurriedly divested himself of his best clothes and put on his overalls. He took the milk pail and hung it on the fence until he brought the cows from the pasture. After milking, he did his other chores. There were no signs of mother. The dusk turned to darkness, yet no light appeared in the house. Dorian went in and lighted the lamp ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... brought in aft. Her people clapped on this, and gave way to their craft, which, being comparatively light, was easily moved, and was very manageable. As this was done, the distant spectator who had been leaning on the fence moved toward the wharf with a step a little quicker than common. Almost at the same instant, a short, stout, sailor-like looking little person, waddled down the nearest street, seeming to be in somewhat of a hurry, and presently he joined the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... will tell you when I am going and you may go ahead and be sitting on the fence when I bring ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... health, I mean the health and strength of his love for you. You must vacillate, Edith. Souvent femme varie. You sit on the fence, n'est-ce-pas? Well, offer the fence to him. But, take it away before he sits ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... laugh followed and Edith Stanhope exclaimed, "I think that your friend must have been on the fence, Marguerite." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... given a little planet of his own to do as he liked with, he would call day, night, and summer, winter. He would make all his men and women walk on their heads and shake hands with their feet, his trees would grow with their roots in the air, and the old cock would lay all the eggs while the hens sat on the fence and crowed. Then he would step back and say, "See what an original world I have ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the doubtful folks," Brill stated. "Folks that was on the fence—like you. This death list makes them spooky and they turn into good little citizens in one round of the clock. It leaves the worst ones outside without a friend. Every one lined up solid behind ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... beginning of a new and better life. But I don't know if you are aware that his family are all Plungers, and that he is himself tainted with the wicked heresy of that sect. So it is. He is, as one might say in secular metaphor, 'on the fence' between their grievous error and the pure faith of your church. It would be most melancholy if he should get down on the wrong side. Although I confess with shame I have not myself embraced the truth, I hope I am not too blind to ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the gown from mud and rain. This was sometimes called a foot-mantle, also a weather-skirt. A traveller tells of seeing a row of horses tied to a fence outside a Quaker meeting. Some carried side saddles, some men's saddles and pillions. On the fence hung the muddy safeguards the Quaker dames had worn outside their drab petticoats. Men wore sherry-vallies or spatter-dashes to protect their ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... himself on the fence during the interview, and he still kept his seat. Of course he was now thinking of the man who had just left him, whom he declared to himself to be an ignorant, prejudiced, ill-constituted cur. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... particular cow inhabited a small paddock by the roadside, which was enclosed by a Virginia fence, and contained very little grass, and no provision for shade and shelter. So the cow stood in the sunshine, with her head resting on the fence, and her tongue lolling out of her mouth, and her large, intelligent eyes fixed on the far distance, where a herd of kine were feasting knee-deep in a field of clover, beside a running brook, overshadowed by ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... hare most decidedly must have it; and I, as an active and thoughtful member of the committee, took especial care that the prize should be one of advantage to him; so now he is provided for. The snail can now sit on the fence, and lick up moss and sunshine. He has also been appointed one of the first judges of swiftness in racing. It is worth much to know that one of the numbers is a man of talent in the thing men call a 'committee.' I must ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Saturday night, which was pay-night, we decided to see it through. We did not care to speak to Alf until we were sure. He stayed in camp, as he often did, on Saturday evening, while the others went up town. Mitchell and I returned earlier than usual, and leaned on the fence at the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... I at once turned my hogs into the artichoke patch. I then climbed up on the fence and took a seat to watch the hogs root and crush artichokes. I looked around and saw my clover had made a success, the little artichoke patch had turned out wonderfully. I said to myself: "Just think of millions and millions ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... last letter you will receive dated from this camp. We are leaving a few days earlier than we intended and I am pretty badly on the fence. I want to laugh, and really I can hardly keep back the tears. We are leaving sooner than we meant, for rather a good reason. We haven't one bite to eat except ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... bad. I don't hate him and I'm glad you can give him a good character. A man's own wife knows best. Now, I'm going to eat this breakfast as I ride on. You'll find the plate on the fence a ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crept round to the pantry window. It is at the side of the house, and there is a green gate labelled 'Tradesmen's Entrance', which is always kept bolted. But if you get one foot on the fence between you and next door, and one on the handle of the gate, you are over before you know where you are. This, at least, was the experience of Cyril and Robert, and even, if the truth must be told, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... said he, "I feel as if I was runnin' for President or hog-reeve or somethin', or goin' to speak in meetin'. But I ain't. I'm goin' to auction off Letty Lamson's things, an' I ain't been to an auction myself sence I was seventeen an' set on the fence an' chewed gum an' played 'twas tobacker while old Dan'el Cummings's farm was auctioned off down to the last stick o' timber. Well, I don't know 's I could say how 'twas done, nor how it's commonly done now, but I can take a try at ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... protection to any form of life that can survive them. I have seen insects and nesting birds find a safety in their shelter, unknown to their kind that home elsewhere. The test is not fair enough to be worth consideration. If these same pupae had been as conspicuously placed as on the fence, on any EDIBLE GROWTH, in the same location as the fence, and then left to the mercy of playing children, grazing stock, field mice, snakes, bats, birds, insects and parasites, the story of what happened to them would have been different. I doubt very ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... noted an old codger whose place backed up on hers, but had never held any converse with him. This morning, however, he seemed inclined to break the ice, as it were, for as she strutted about he leaned on the fence and said cheerily: ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington |
