"Picket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distribution of wealth in the world. Some of the best-known people in the country were openly taking the ground that the poor man was not getting a "square deal." To sympathize with organized labor was no longer "bad form," some society women even doing picket duty for Jewish factory-girls out ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... name of the commune, to sequester the objects belonging to the church Sainte-Marguerite, in the little borough of St. Antoine. A picket of 10 national guards is in permanence in the church to ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... also employed in connexion with "obstacles" in field fortifications, especially in what are known as "high wire entanglements." Pointed stakes or "pickets," 4 ft. high, are planted in rows and secured by ordinary wire to holdfasts or pegs in the ground. Each picket is connected to all around it, top and bottom, by lengths ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... receiver of the telephone which communicated with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. "Who? Oh, she ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... small stature but very thickset, with their wide smooth faces, loose clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous tongue, are much like savages. They sing wild chants as they picket their sheep in long double lines at night, and with their savage mastiffs sleep unsheltered under the frosty skies under the lee of their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their caravans, and walked round their orderly ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... with short, sharp rushes down the winding road; the houses lost the toy-like aspect of distance; cowbells clashed faintly; a dog's bark quivered, suspended in hushed space. The stage passed the first, scattered houses, and was speedily in the village: each dwelling had, behind a white picket fence, a strip of sod and a tangle of simple, gay flowers—scarlet, white, purple and yellow, now coated with a fine, chalky, summer dust. The dwellings were, for the most part, frame, with a rare structure of brick under mansard slates green with moss. The back yards were fenced from ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed with dusk, save where ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... would walk into the hall and dining-room, when the door was open, and was once observed to step up, gracefully, and take bread from the table. It perambulated the garden walks. It would, when the back-gate was shut, jump over a six feet picket fence, with the ease ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Lord Gough was before the village of Bussool, and finding a very strong picket of the enemy on a mound close to that place, his lordship, after some fighting, dislodged it. Ascending the mound, the general and his staff beheld the Khalsa army ranged along the furrowed hills in all the majestic array of war. The British ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... horse, rolled up her picket rope, and stood waiting with disturbed face. As the rider drew near she ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... borders of Cape Colony in a state of military security. As one detail he had to ensure that, in the event of war, the frontier settlers should not be massacred. A line of men was drawn across country, so as to make a buttress against any advance by the crazy Kaffirs. Each picket had charge of a stretch of ground, and in the morning soldiers would ride sharply to right and left, covering it. They could tell, by footmarks on the dewy grass, whether any Kaffirs had been about ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Its spacious rooms in the first and second stories, together with the attics, are all filled with the families of negro refugees. From this point, looking across the water, we could see a cavalry-picket of the Rebels. The superintendent who had charge of the plantation, and accompanied me, was Charles Follen, an inherited name, linked with the struggles for freedom in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... way to the westward, and, as we fancied, clear of the enemy, when, on doubling a high rock, round which the path led, we came suddenly upon a picket. Owing to the precautions we had taken, however, they did not hear or see us until almost within a dozen paces. To leap on our horses and dig our spurs into their flanks, was the work of a moment; and before ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... offensive aspects, and of labour in its most insolent assumptions. The "rights" of property, the "right" to strike, the "right" to collective bargaining, the "right" to shut down an essential industry or to "walk out" and then picket the place so that it may not be reopened, the "right" to vote and hold office and do any fool thing you please so long as it is within the law, these are applications of what I mean when I speak of a gross fallacy that has come into being ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... when he entered the lines chanced to be on duty, and of him Will asked an unimportant question concerning the outer-flung lines. Yet as he rode along he could not forbear throwing an apprehensive glance behind. No pursuit was making, and the farthest picket-line was passed by a good fifty yards. Ahead was a stretch of timber. Suddenly a dull tattoo of horses' hoofs caught his ear, and he turned to see a small cavalcade bearing down upon him at a gallop. He sank the spurs into his horse's side and plunged into the timber. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... his fire and unpacked his horses. He confined his riding horse with a picket rope; the others he turned loose. Then he cooked a simple meal for himself and the gaunt ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... was kept in continual alarm. Officers and soldiers were constantly dressed and ready for action. One night, twenty young farmers residing near the camp, resolved to capture the enemy's advance picket-guard. Armed with fowling-pieces, they marched silently through the woods until they were within a few yards of the picket. They then rushed out from the bushes, the captain blowing an old horse-trumpet and the men yelling. There was ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... himself flat upon the ground, and crawled through the grass towards the animal selected, using his elbows as the propelling power. This was done so slowly as not to alarm the herd in the least. Upon reaching the picket-pin, he loosed it so that it could be easily withdrawn; all the time taking good care that his head should not appear above the top ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... serious outflanking movement on part of the Blues. Sorry, but that's the worst of being picket. The natural intuition which characterizes all BSS will enable you to discern our ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... had been riding on the surface near the Fleet Flagship's quarter, rose like a flying gull, circled in wide spirals over the Fleet and sped seawards. Across the lanes of water, armed picket-boats, with preternaturally grave-faced Midshipmen at their wheels, picked their way amongst the traffic of drifters, cutters under sail, hooting store carriers and puffers ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... distance, women fell back and men rolled their quids and looked eagerly up the track. It came on with screaming whistle and noisy brakes and roaring wheels. Children began to cry with fear and men to yell with excitement. Dogs were barking wildly, and two horses ran away, dragging with them part of a picket-fence. A brown shoat came bounding over the ties and broke through the wall of people, carrying many off their feet and creating panic and profanity. The train stopped, its engine hissing. A brakeman of flashy attire, with fine leather showing to the knees, strolled off and up the platform on high ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... escape. This man told me that he had rather whip a negro than sit down to the best dinner. This man had, near his house, a contrivance like that which is used in armies where soldiers are punished with the picket; by this the slave was drawn up from the earth, by a cord passing round his wrists, so that his feet could just touch the ground. It somewhat resembled a New England well sweep, and was used when the slaves ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to a stake pin. He's the best cow hoss I ever slung a leg over. The puncher who broke him an' reached him all he knows was my pard, long ago. An' he's daid. Kid, he'd roll over in his grave if he knowed ol' Cal was tied to a picket pin." ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... survey of the roads leading out of the village, placed sentry groups at various places of advantage, and established the picket in the centre of the village in a large barn. This done, he sent the cyclist orderly to try and get into touch with the village on the right, which, he had been told, was to be occupied by a platoon from another regiment. The cyclist ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... and Seaforth, who first washed the breakfast-cans, proceeded to make a circuit of the camp. He found the spot where the horses had been tethered with but little difficulty, and also the hole out of which one of them had drawn the picket-peg. The redwoods which towered above him were vast of girth, and it would have needed a long halter to encompass them, while there was no branch for sixty feet or so. Still, though he searched diligently, he did not find any print which might have been left by the paw of a panther, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... when one stands above the clouds. The landscape seems to lie before one like a great lake, from which islands stand forth.—In the summer, cascades everywhere in the mountains.—Chamois graze in flocks, the picket (Vorgeis) piping in case of danger.—Weather signs: Swallows fly low, aquatic birds dive, sheep graze eagerly, dogs paw up the earth, fish leap from the water. 'The gray governor of the valley (Thalvogt) is coming'; when this or ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... is just heard on the picket post, three-quarters of a mile away, and the shot is being repeated by our line of sentinels. * * * The whole camp has been in an uproar. Many men, half asleep, rushed from their tents and fired off their guns in their company grounds. Others, supposing ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... marching on In a wider field than ours; Those bright battalions still fulfil The scheme of the heavenly powers; And high brave thoughts float down to us, The echoes of that far fight, Like the flash of a distant picket's gun Through the shades ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Rockies the troops had to guard them constantly. The engineers reconnoitered, surveyed, located, and built inside the picket lines. The men marched to work to the tap of the drum, stacked arms on the dump, and were ready at a moment's notice to fall in and fight. Many of the graders were old soldiers, and a little fight only rested them. ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... one at any price and bought six, ate them one after the other without the pretense of a halt and moodily shied the last skin at a sparrow, realizing then with a shock that the negro had already untied the mule from the picket fence. The precipitancy of it all made him slightly uncomfortable. Either the negro was too lazy to bargain or the offer was out of all proportion to the mule's ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... a little copse at his right hand, when suddenly a dark figure stepped from behind a tree into the road before him. Thinking this was a soldier on picket duty, he recollected the word of the night, and reined in to give it upon demand. But the man, having viewed him as well as the darkness allowed, seemed to realise having made a mistake, and, as suddenly as he had appeared, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... plodders and the indifferent routinists Most pathetic image in the world to many women - own tears Not handicapped with any burdensome ideals Nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it Patronized, which is not a pleasant feeling Picket-guard at the extreme outpost Saint may be a sinner that never got down to "hard pan" Talk without words is half their conversation Truth is only safe when diluted Turning bread and milk into the substance of little sinners ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... we cooked breakfast, a strong picket of wolves watched all around the camp, feasting their greedy eyes from a distance on my elk-meat. When we started from camp, a hundred or more of them followed us, often coming quite close to the back pony, and biting and quarrelling about the elk that was never to be their meat. When we halted, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... came upon a picket fence, And every picket went straight up and down, And all at even intervals were placed, All painted green, all pointed at the top, And every one inextricably nailed Unto two several cross-beams, which did go, Not as the pickets, but quite otherwise, And they two crossed, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... ordinary four wheeled platform wagon with ladder, and wire drum with tightening gear and clamps or grips for anchoring the trolley to the line. The wire is led over a sheave on top of the ladder and fixed to the picket post at the beginning of the line. When erecting the wire the trolley is pushed beyond the first carrier arch, clamped on to the rails, and the wire is then tightened by means of the tightening gear. It is then firmly fixed to the insulator on the carrier arch The tension in the copper wire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... in his yellow face, Mr. Wilkins nodded to the stranger over the picket fence of his collar, lighted his pipe, and clumped away to enjoy his afternoon promenade without compromising ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the rifle-pits that encircled the city of Louisville, for the Confederate army under General Bragg was near at hand menacing it. There was great excitement about this time, as we were unaccustomed to the work, and it went odd. While remaining at Louisville, the Eighty-sixth went on picket for the first time. Its acts and thoughts on this occasion were certainly novel, and furnished a fund of great amusement in its after career. The regiment was just beginning to experience many of the ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... or periphrasis was the capital means by which the Augustan poet avoided precision and attained nobility of style. It enabled him to speak of a woman as a "nymph," or a "fair"; of sheep as "the fleecy care"; of fishes as "the scaly tribe"; and of a picket fence as a "spiculated paling." Lowell says of Pope's followers: "As the master had made it an axiom to avoid what was mean or low, so the disciples endeavored to escape from what was common. This they contrived by the ready expedient of the periphrasis. They ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... who found themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded the height; the rest ascended safely by the pathway. A battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English had already gained one of the roads to Quebec; and, advancing in front of the forest, Wolfe stood at ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... dim and misty shade of the hazel thicket, Three soldiers, brave Harry, and Tom with the dauntless eyes, And light-hearted Charlie, are standing together on picket, Keeping a faithful watch ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the school yard, down to the end where an old- fashioned picket fence shut off the playground from a vacant lot that later would be divided off into the school gardens, a plot for ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... up two carriages and a large automobile, and out of the automobile climbed a well-dressed woman who took a bundle of the pamphlets from the girl picket and began passing them about among the people. Two policemen who stood in front of the crowd took off their helmets and accompanied her. The crowd cheered. Frank came hurrying across the street to where Sam stood in front of the barber shop and ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... the football was traveling impaled the hat on a picket at the side of the stand. Then, as if satisfied with fits work, the football struck and bounded back, landing ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... distance was a track and cradle similar to the one shown in the first picture. The machine in the cabinet buzzed, and clicked, and made a noise like that of a small boy rattling a stick along a picket fence. A draught from some open window blowing against the linen screen caused the flat, deserted plain to undulate like the waves of the sea. The horizon bobbed up and down, showing first a great expanse of sky, and then the foreground ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... struggle to be free, or by huge gifts to education, to philanthropy, to religion. In labor we see men rising in brute fury against both employer and society. They deny the basic necessities of life to their fellow citizens; they bring the bludgeon of the picket down upon the head of the scab; by means of the closed shop they refuse the right to work to their brother craftsmen; they level the incapable men up and the capable men down by insisting upon uniformity of production and wage. Thus they replace the artificial ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... resolute advance became a forced reconnaissance, greatly to the chagrin of the younger and more ardent spirits. We found out exactly where the enemy was, and declined to have anything further to do with him for the time being. But in finding him we had to clear the ground and drive in the pickets. One picket had been posted at the end of a loop in a chain of valleys. The road we followed skirted the base of one range of hills. The house which served as the headquarters of the picket was on the other side. A meadow as level as a board stretched between. I remember ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... wing, toward the back, had a back door that opened onto Water Street. The space between the house and Wisconsin Avenue had been made into a neat oblong flower garden, fenced off from the sidewalk by box shrubs and a white picket fence. Behind it, along the other side of the long wing, lay a meticulously arranged vegetable garden and ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... half-wild range horse he had roped and it sagged to one side, having no pack saddle to keep it from slipping, and he spoke in no gentle terms of an outfit that would pull out without troubling to throw his pack saddle from the wagon or taking pains to picket an extra horse. His fretfulness passed, however, as he smelled the hot coffee and he repaired to the wagon, ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... to bed early and I rehearsed mentally the stage business for the drama about to be enacted when Bunch crept through the picket lines. ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... began the construction of a house. He was a man of tremendous energy, but also of many activities. The days were not long enough for him. In him was the true ferment of constructive civilization. Instinctively he reached out to modify his surroundings. A house, then a picket fence, split from the living trees; an irrigation ditch; a garden spot; fruit trees; vines over the porch; better stables; more fences; the gradual shaping from the wilderness of a home—these absorbed his surplus. As a matter of business he worked with pick and shovel until he had proved the Honey-bug ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... would I were the ice man for a space, Then might I cool this red-hot cocoanut, Corral the jim-jam bugs that madly race Around the eaves that from my forehead jut— Or will a carpenter please come instead And build a picket fence around ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... a little painted frame house, back from the street, fronted by a precise bit of lawn, with a willow bush at one corner. A white picket fence effectually separated it from a broad, shaded, not unpleasing street. An osage hedge and a board fence respectively ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... guardsman, watch, watchman, sentinel, patrol, sentry, picket; convoy, escort, body-guard; defense, protection, shield, safeguard, bulwark, armor; attention, heed, watch, circumspection. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... refreshing was her aspect, as she spun, or scoured pans, in a linsey-woolsey petticoat and white short gown, wearing her pretty curls in a crop? George Tucker knew it all without telling; and so did half a dozen of the Westbury boys, who haunted the picket fence round 'Zekiel's garden every moonlight night in summer, or scraped their feet by the half hour together on his door-step in winter evenings. Sally was a belle; she knew it and liked it, as every honest girl does;—and she would have been a belle without the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... True a little over a quarter of an hour was lost, but the locking ring had rusted in its thread, as sometimes happens, and it was heavy work for a girl to shift it unaided. She had forbidden Barraclough to help and had made him picket a hundred yards down the road in case the pursuers should ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... picket of scouts had been out on the mountains watching for enemy spies. They had captured this one in the very act of spying upon them. He had been making signals, sending messages and answering messages by sounds made with his lips. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... examined the law, told me that it would probably answer, though it was not according to the agreement made by Mr. Brooks, and Esq. Clute and himself, for me. I then executed to Micah Brooks and Jellis Clute, a deed of all my land lying east of the picket line on the Gardow reservation, containing about ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... you tell me that in the first place? How was I to know unless you told me? But oh, Denny, I want to go home!" She laid her cheek against his hand. "I want a garden with a picket fence round it and all the simple flowers. I never want another ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... were others who would have had fun with the tombs of the Egyptian kings, and who could wring smiles from a graven image. Mr. Daly forfeited at last so recklessly, that either the brakes had to be put upon our fun or some one would have to do picket duty. The restless element had a wait of an entire long act in one play, and among those who waited was a tiny little bit of an old, old man. He wore rags in his "part," and on the seat of his trousers was an enormous red patch. ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... a detachment of 'em now!" exclaimed Rodney, the following morning. He and Zeb were doing picket duty. The latter gave the call, and several Rangers ran up. A half mile down the road the Hessians came marching on in close order till they arrived at some farm buildings when they were seen to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... a walnut; unless it be broken it cannot be eaten." Then he took a cup of water and conjuring over it, sprinkled Ali with somewhat thereof, saying, "Take thou shape of bear;" whereupon he instantly became a bear and the Jew put a collar about his neck, muzzled him and chained him to a picket of iron. Then he sat down and ate and drank, now and then throwing him a morsel of his orts and emptying the dregs of the cup over him, till the morning, when he rose and laid by the tray and the dress and conjured over the bear, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... boys crossin' the old ford," he said quietly. "Goin' to picket the other bank, I reckon. There's likely to be some more comin' down the opposite way from the bridge. That's Lacy's idea—to starve ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... problem on hand to be solved. The Anglo-Saxon race is divided into two hostile camps—labor and capital. These two forces are gradually drawing together for a tremendous conflict, a momentous battle. The riots at Homestead, at Chicago, at Lattimer are but skirmishes between the picket lines, informing us that a general conflict is imminent. Let us thank God that we are not in the struggle. Let us thank Him that our labor problem is no worse than ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... escorting General Bedeau to Belgium was one of those who, on the 2d of December, had arrested General Cavaignac. He told General Bedeau that they had had a moment of uneasiness when arresting General Cavaignae: the picket of fifty men, which had been told off to assist the police having ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... near the Union lines just as the sun was going down. Captain Hatch, who had accompanied us, waved his flag as we halted near a grove of trees, and a young officer rode over to us from the nearest picket-station. We despatched him to General Foster for a pair of horses, and in half an hour entered the General's tent. He pressed us to remain to dinner, proposing to kill the fatted calf,—"for these my sons were dead and are alive again, were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of entering the old dwelling house, and seemingly were unaccompanied by any others. Sam happened fortunately to be standing in shadow, and they passed without seeing him. But what was he now to do? He was at the back of the house, and a high picket fence around the place made it impossible for him to escape by the front-way, towards which the savages had gone. Looking through the door-way, he saw that the pair had passed through the room nearest ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... picket rope. As his fingers closed on that he thought fast. Just as the Mattocks and the Forbeses were Union, the Barretts were, or had been, Southern in sympathy. Most of Kentucky was divided that way now. But what might have been true two years ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... island, and we are of the grooms of King Mihrjan[FN10] and under our hand are all his horses. Every month, about new-moon tide we bring hither our best mares which have never been covered, and picket them on the sea-shore and hide ourselves in this place under the ground, so that none may espy us. Presently, the stallions of the sea scent the mares and come up out of the water and seeing no one, leap the mares and do their will of them. When they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... City, hurried between the Staff and the Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky gave an order to open the bridges; three hours passed without any action, and then an officer and five men went out on their own initiative, and putting to flight a picket of Red Guards, opened the Nicolai Bridge. Immediately after they left, however, some ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... wings, each with its row of fluted columns supporting the classical roof of a piazza across its whole front, each vying with the others in the whiteness of those wooden walls enveloping its bright green blinds. One had to look over picket fences to see these houses, and in doing so caught the notion that they thus railed themselves off in pride at being able to remember before the railroad came to the village, or the wagon-works were ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... to the position of an officer at no distant date; but I had never been habituated to discipline. I was sent to a small fortress on the frontiers; Rolf was my lieutenant, and he did not spare me either hard work or picket duty. To cut it short, I had enlisted for five years, and I did not stay five months. One fine morning I walked off altogether. I was caught, and I wounded an under-officer in self-defence; the charge against ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... it?" said Stuart, in matter-of-fact tones, as he turned again to the house. "Good idea. Tell him to fire lower next time. And, I say," he went on, as he bowed curtly to the assembled company on the veranda, "since you have got a picket out, you had better double it. And, Clay, see that no one leaves here without permission—no one. That's more important, even, than ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... shout, and the firing of musketry on the skirts of the wood, awoke me to a sense of the real danger of my situation. I forced my way through the thickets, and saw a skirmish between a large mass of armed men, and a picket of troops in a village on the borders of the wood. There was now no time to be lost. I returned to the spot where the body lay, placed my hand on its forehead, to ascertain whether any remnant of life lingered there; found all cold; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Murray appeared before Blair Castle, and planted his men so as to prevent the garrison from sallying out, or from getting in provisions.[181] The castle was soon so completely invested by the advanced guard of the Jacobites, that they fired from behind the nearest walls and enclosures at the picket guard of the besieged. Some horses were hurriedly taken into the Castle with a small quantity of provender; and in such haste, that one of these animals was put into the lower part of Cumming's Tower without ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Just then the picket gave a low, earnest whistle, and they were aware of a policeman standing statue-like under the lamp on the opposite corner, and apparently unaware of their existence. He was looking, sphinx-like, past them towards ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the forces halted a picket had been sent out; and Terence, when the men finished their supper, established a cordon of advanced pickets, with strong supports, at a distance of a mile from his front and flanks; so as to ensure himself against ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... Here, a last look was taken of splits and seams in the birch keels. With invocations of St. Anne in one breath, and invocations of a personage not mentioned in the cure's "petee cat-ee-cheesm" in the next breath, and imprecations that their "souls might be smashed on the end of a picket fence,"—the voyageur's common oath even to this day,—the boatmen stored goods fore, aft, and athwart till each long canoe sank to the gunwale as it was gently pushed out on the water. A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat to their place ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... A picket enclosure, mounted with cannon, protected the humble buildings erected for the use of the first settlers on what is now the Custom-house Square. The little stream—not much more than a rivulet except in spring—which for many years rippled between green, mossy banks, now struggles ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... says, suddenly pulling up his mule; "leastwise, not a-straddle o' these hyar conspikerous critters. Whether the sogers hev goed down inter the valley or no, they're sartin to hev left some o' the party ahind, by way o' keepin' century. Let's picket the animals out hyar, an' creep forrad afut. That'll gie us a chance o' seeing in, 'ithout ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... postponed. In no other way could the settlers have combined for defence, while yet retaining their individual ownership of the land. The Watauga forts or palisaded villages were of the usual kind, the cabins and blockhouses connected by a heavy loop-holed picket. They were admirably adapted for defence with the rifle. As there was no moat, there was a certain danger from an attack with fire unless water was stored within; and it was of course necessary to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... amused himself half an hour at a time in a pile of brush; starting from the ground, slipping easily through up to the top, standing there a moment, then flying back and repeating the performance. Should the goal of his journey be a fence picket, he alights on the beam which supports it, and hops gracefully ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... this was a cottage of the earliest New England type. It was low and rambling, covering a good deal of ground and yet without any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed about it and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been gradually sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield. By immemorial custom the cottage had always been painted white and green, but for a good many years it had not been troubled ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... venta having neglected all precautions, and possessing no effective means of defence, soon fell into the power of the Carlists; but at Urdaniz, which was held by infantry, and against which the expedition was more particularly directed, a hard-contested fight took place. The first picket which the Carlists encountered was cut to pieces to a man; the fire of a second outpost spread the alarm; but, nevertheless, the attacking party penetrated into the ground-floor of most of the houses, and a desperate contest ensued upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... clump of hedge, cold and dreary in the mist, that awoke pictures of a prison I used to dread the sight of when I was—I don't know how old. Once I partly thought I must be dreaming; so I put out my hand and touched the wet, sodden picket of an old fence. I looked suspiciously behind me. But there was only an old man behind, fully two hundred yards away. Then the idea came to me that it would be a relief to talk to somebody; I hadn't ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... watch-dog, Tray, who had gamboled with me in my boyhood, and held himself worthy of protecting me in his old age, followed us, wagging his tail in evident delight at the prospect of bearing me company. A soft breeze fanned over the beach, the dew-dripping rose bushes, that lined the green-topped picket fence, waved their tops to and fro, the sparrows whistled and sung, and wooed, as if Providence had made them for that alone; and all nature seemed putting on her gayest attire to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... only two that didn't volunteer for a listening picket one night, and I felt so ashamed of them that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... all of us who joined up with that regiment, became Adjutant. During that campaign he was always to the fore in every crisis and showed particular skill in rooting out men who were inciting the Indians to revolt. One morning of dense fog away beyond Fort Pitt our outside picket was fired on when I had charge of the guard. Calling out the guard and getting them under arms I went over to notify the officer commanding in the camp, but met Constantine with his forty-five ready for action. He had scented the alarm and did not wait for notice before getting out to see ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... two divisions is there. He has Cedar Creek in front of him, and on his own left the north fork of the Shenandoah. He's considerably in front of the main Union force, and they haven't posted much of a picket line." ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... went on the colonel, "we don't want the enemy swooping down on us again. Don't you think it would be a good plan to throw out a picket ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... they kept along pretty easily, seeming just in their glory, all this being new work to them. After some little firing from the cannon the enemy retreated into the town, which was well fortified. We placed an outlying picket of some three hundred men to watch the enemy's manoeuvres, while the body of our army encamped in the rear in a line stretching from sea to sea, so that the town standing upon a projecting piece of land, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... kindly housewife plucked a nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls "granny's mutches;" and indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns, ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence. Outside, looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high, perhaps. We did not recognize the head at once, and asked the little woman who ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... colonel must needs get himself into a scrape, by choosing that moment to take leave of a Polish lady who lived outside the town, a quarter of a mile away; the Cossack advanced guard just caught him nicely, him and his picket. There was scarcely time to spring into our saddles and draw up before the town so as to engage in a cavalry skirmish. We must check the Russian advance if we meant to draw off during the night. Again and again we charged, and for three hours did wonders. Under cover of the fighting the baggage ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... greatly in need of a new coat of white paint. The elms dwindled away and an occasional maple dotted the common with shade. The driver guided the patient gray to the left and, near the centre of the common, drew up in front of a little white house, which, like the picket fence in front of it, the flagstaff on the common, and so many other things in Eden Village, seemed to be patiently ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... perfect, according to any recognized standard, then all the trees would be alike, and would cease to be attractive and picturesque. We keep all perfect things out of pictures, because they are formal and tasteless. A bran new cottage, with a picket fence around it, and every thing cleaned up about it, is too perfect to be picturesque. An old, tumble-down mill, with rude and rotten timbers, and a wheel outside, is decidedly picturesque, because its imperfections make it informal. The most unattractive ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... There were the four girls on the same spot; but now four backs were turned to us, very upright and conscious. Corporal Modesty had given the word of command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone right-about-face like a single person. They maintained this formation all the while we were in sight; but we heard them tittering among themselves, and the girl whom we had not met laughed with open mouth, and even looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it takes to chew it. You got to be fast if you want any seconds. Some of these fellos must store up there food like squirrels cause there finished an back in the line before its moved ten places. Theres always some smart alex that washes up his mess kit an pretends hes just come up from the picket line. We got a mess sargent tho that makes Shylock Homes look like a night watchman. He could tell yesterdays greece from todays if you scoured ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... A picket is a group consisting of two or more squads, ordinarily not exceeding half a company, posted in the line of outposts to cover a given sector. It furnishes patrols and one or more sentinels, sentry squads, or cossack posts for observation. Pickets are placed at the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... breakfast, most of us with excellent appetites, although I am bound to admit that the ladies did not eat much. When the meal was over, without any news from our pickets, I went out through an opening that we had purposely left in the front door barricade, and took a good look round. Passing from picket to picket, I questioned each man closely as to whether he had seen any signs of the enemy; but they all replied in the negative. Indeed, although I carefully scanned every open space I could see, even examining it with the telescope, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... careful of Snoop and Downy," cautioned Freddie, as Dinah took up her picket duty. "Look out the boys don't get 'em," with a wise look at the youngsters, who were spoiling for more sport ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... who were ordered back from Johnstown, are very indignant at Adjutant General Hastings, who gave the order. They claim that General Hastings not only acted without a particle of judgment, but when they offered to act as picket, do police duty or anything else that might be required of them, they state that they were treated ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and hack out a place fer a bed-ground and you can hunt up some firewood and take a bucket out of the pack and go to the crick and locate some water while I'm finding a place to picket these horses." ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... the lower part. From where they lay they could see not only the places of interest, but something also of that motley population which made the town so different to all others save only its younger sister, Montreal. Passing and repassing along the steep path with the picket fence which connected the two quarters, they saw the whole panorama of Canadian life moving before their eyes, the soldiers with their slouched hats, their plumes, and their bandoleers, habitants from the river cotes in their rude peasant dresses, little ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment's silence, then Judson continued: "Funny thing happened afterward, though. Jacket had to do his turn at picket duty that night, and he got scared of the dark. We ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... man picket his horse with those of the staff," he said, "and see that it has forage at once. Take the man to the orderly's quarters, and see that ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... fell thrue in my life aftherward, an' I cud ha' stud ut all—stud ut all—excipt when my little Shadd was born. That was on the line av march three months afther the regiment was taken with cholera. We were betune Umballa an' Kalka thin, an' I was on picket. Whin I came off duty the women showed me the child, an' ut turned on uts side an' died as I looked. We buried him by the road, an' Father Victor was a day's march behind wid the heavy baggage, so the comp'ny captain read a prayer. An' since then ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the poor mother should go tied always thus. Could you not make a picket fence, Martin? And she should have some refuge against the storms," to the which I agreed. Thus as we went back we fell to making plans, one project begetting another, and we very blithe ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the site of a camp was marked out, roads were formed by clearing away the stones, and paths made up to the forts and picket stations. The outpost duty was very severe, two officers and sixty-five men being always on duty, as it was possible that at any time, night or day, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... been seen of the Peruvian squadron, and as Bolivia had, as stated above, no navy worthy of the name, and the fleet was, moreover, still in Chilian waters, Admiral Williams did not consider it necessary to establish a patrol of picket-boats on watch round the ships, as he certainly would have done had he been lying before a hostile port. It was this oversight, coupled with the fact that Williams regarded the Bolivian sea strength as ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... committed suicide. You know animals will do that. I've read of horses and dogs drowning themselves. This horse had been clipped, and his tail was docked, and he was turned out to graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a picket fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making no effort to get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a clear ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... no stain Upon your wasted lea; I raise no banners, save the ones The forest wave to me: Upon the mountain side, where Spring Her farthest picket sets, My reveille awakes a ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... accused of treachery. Out of the fire light and back to the grazing ground he must get the horse at once—but what then? Noiselessly turning, he led Gregg, wondering, back to the glade in which the other horses were tethered, and quickly drove his picket pin and put him on the half lariat. But how was he to conceal the severed side line? Off it came, both nervous hands working rapidly, and then when he had about determined to cut off the lines of one of Jim's mules and ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... called, the Home ranch, of the great Los Muertos Rancho. The road was better here, the dust laid after the passage of Hooven's watering-cart, and, in a few minutes, he had come to the ranch house itself, with its white picket fence, its few flower beds, and grove of eucalyptus trees. On the lawn at the side of the house, he saw Harran in the act of setting out the automatic sprinkler. In the shade of the house, by the porch, were two or three of the greyhounds, part of the pack that were used to hunt down ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... is done of the courier who rode horseback with orders in his belt and was winged in mid-flight; and the day of the secret messenger who tried to creep through the hostile picket lines with cipher dispatches in his shoe, and was captured and ordered shot at sunrise, is gone, too, except in Civil War melodramas. Modern military science has wiped them out along with most of the other picturesque fol-de-rols of the old game of war. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... in her meditations Mrs. Black became aware of an insistent voice hailing her from the other side of the picket fence. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... like this change, that Mr. Hopewell had kinder inoculated me with other guess views on these matters, so he began to throw up bankments and to picket in the ground, all ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the theater, and when Montgomery sprang a joke or Stone did a fall Miss Dunlap showed her appreciation after the fashion of a laughing hyena. Between times she barked enthusiastically, giving vent to sounds like those caused when a boy runs past a picket fence with a stick in his hand. She gushed, but so does Old Faithful. Anyhow, the audience enjoyed ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the gate, and over the rest of the enclosure, which was covered with the usual clinker-like fragments of smashed coral, not only coco-palms and mikis but also fig-trees flourished, all of a delicious greenness. Of course there was no blade of grass. In front a picket fence divided us from the white road, the palm- fringed margin of the lagoon, and the lagoon itself, reflecting clouds by day and stars by night. At the back, a bulwark of uncemented coral enclosed us from the narrow belt of bush and the nigh ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fifth), Howard's corps (the Eleventh), and Slocum's corps (the Twelfth), the whole being under the command of General Slocum, left camp for Kelly's Ford, each accompanied by three batteries. A detachment was thrown over, in boats, on the evening of the 28th, which dispersed the picket guard; and by the next morning the entire force was across the river and on their way to the Rapidan, the Fifth Corps taking the direction of Elley's Ford and the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps that of Germania Ford. Stoneman's cavalry crossed at the same time ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... handful of tea was thrown into the kettle, which was already boiling, pipes were lighted, and a general feeling of comfort experienced. The horses had been picketed close at hand, each man having cut or pulled a heap of grass and placed it before his beast; beside which, the picket ropes allowed each horse to crop the grass growing in a small circle, of which he was ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... a little girl ten years old. I live in Arizona, where the great silver mines are, and where the cactus grows forty feet high. There were only three white families in this place when we came, three years ago. The place was called Picket Post then, because soldiers were stationed here. I have several pets. Nuisance is my pet deer. She is almost two years old, and is as tame as my cat. She wears a red collar, so hunters will not kill her. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the watch was told off, the lariats were shortened, the picket-pins driven home, and my comrades, rolling themselves up in their blankets, rested their heads in the hollow of their saddles, and ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... a claim on us! A claim of the highest order! They can't starve, it's sure! But would you have them have to hold mass meetin's and set up picket lines and the like, to get ...
— Attention Saint Patrick • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
