"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silo had been filled, the apple-picking was started. They had been in a quandary to know just how to get this crop harvested, as the trees were exceptionally full of well-developed apples. Tony finally solved the problem by saying he could send to Pittsburgh and get three or four Italian boys who would be willing ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... Count Ville-Handry displayed his good-fortune. He assumed all the airs of the master of the house; as if he had been in his own house, gave orders to the servants, and then, with mock modesty, went from group to group, eagerly picking up all the compliments he could gather on Miss Brandon's beauty, and ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Don Quixote nearly as much as the words of the guard had done, and he answered the fellow in terms so abusive that the convict's patience, which was never very great, gave way altogether, and he and his comrades, picking up what stones lay about, flung them with such hearty goodwill at the knight and Rozinante, that at length they knocked him right out of the saddle. The man then dragged the basin from his head, and after dealing him some mighty blows with it dashed it to the ground, where ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... till one Sunday morning, when I made the land between Cape Bougainville and Cape St. George. It had been raining in torrents for two days, and I was feeling a bit done up; so, picking out a quiet little bay with thick forest growing right down to the water's edge, and not a sign of a native or native house, I ran in and let go in fifteen fathoms, but within a stone throw of the shore. And I'll be hanged, ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... also comes in for a share of censure. It is said "they will get right down by the hive, and pick up bees by the hundred." Yet, right in the face of this charge, I am disposed to acquit him. With the closest observation, I find him about the hive, picking up only young and immature bees, such as are removed from the combs and thrown out. They may be seen as soon as the first rays of light make objects visible about the apiary, looking for their morning supply, as well ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... sketch, the author dilates on the goodman Anselme. He says: "This good man possessed a moderate amount of knowledge, was a goodish grammarian, a musician, somewhat of a sophist, and rather given to picking holes in others." Some of Anselme's conversation is also given, and after beginning by describing in glowing terms the bygone days which he and his contemporaries had seen, and which he stated to be very different to the present, he goes on to say, "I must own, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... districts "the Devil's House." Every outward sign, even the face of Lemulquinier, confirmed the ridiculous beliefs that were current about Balthazar. When the old servant went to market to purchase the few provisions necessary for their subsistence, picking out the cheapest he could find, insults were flung in as make-weights,—just as butchers slip bones into their customers' meat,—and he was fortunate, poor creature, if some superstitious market-woman did not refuse to sell him his meagre ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... you will see how detestably false all the charges are," cried Phyllis, rising,—the servants had now left the room,—and picking up the Spiritual Aneroid from where Ella had laid it ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... girl. At last they said they would give her a lame leg for seven years, and that then they would cure her by striking her leg with a herb growing on Dartmoor. So next day Molly found herself lame, and kept so for seven years, when, as she was picking mushrooms on Dartmoor, a strange-looking boy started up, struck her leg with a plant he held in his hand, and sent her home sound again. There is another story of the Pixies which is very beautiful. An old woman near Tavistock had in ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... vapour ran now with light. A huge projector, the eye, as it seemed to me, of that enemy for whom I had all day been searching, slowly wheeled across the world, cutting a great path across the plain, picking houses and trees and fields out of space, then dropping them back again. The rockets were gold and green, sometimes as it seemed ringed with fire, sometimes cold like dead moons, sometimes sparkling and quivering like ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle had slept. She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search, she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel uncomfortable by her remarks. Evelyn knew it would be impossible for Merat to guess the cause of it all. But when she hesitated about ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... great advantages in emphasising individuals,—the main idea of this book,—in picking out particular men as forces, centres of energy in society, as the basis for one's programme for human nature, is the sense it gives that things really can begin again—begin anywhere—where a man is. One single human being, deeply believed in, glows ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... I'm thankful for dear mother, Who so gently smooths my brow, Tells me pleasant little stories Of her childhood days, and how She once wandered in the meadow, With the cattle and the sheep, Picking buttercups and daisies Till the stars ...
— Light On the Child's Path • William Allen Bixler
... I ain't talking about Nebraska and his friends. Not me. I got a wife and family to support, and they's enough trouble running a hotel without picking up any more by letting yore tongue ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... turkey. Oh, but he must have been surprised! He did not know what to do. He just danced around and around, trying to shake the pail off his neck. If he had only lowered his head, as he did when picking up corn, the pail would have slid off. But the gobbler did ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... coals—one of them round with a revolving top, another square, sloping, with a little trough at the bottom to catch the juice of a broiling steak. Elizabeth agreed that we might use those sometimes and I set them over by the stair. We were not delving deeply, not by any means—just picking off the nuggets, as it were. It would be weeks before we would know the ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... cover. It was very hard work indeed, but after a half hour of it we gained a thin bush not over thirty yards from a half dozen dark and indeterminate bodies dozing in the very centre of a brush patch. Cautiously I wiped the sweat from my eyes and raised my glasses. It was slow work and patient work, picking out and examining each individual beast from the mass. Finally the job was done. I ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the kings of Saxony," I calmly remarked, picking up the volume. "Here is Her Majesty's ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... part of the country, her death is attributed to a fall whilst in the act of picking an apple from a tree in ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... you are picking up,' she said, after watching him pull for a few minutes. 'Do you know, Wilf, your tendency is to stoutness; in a few years you will be portly, if you live ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... downright sly of John Kynaston!" she exclaims, angrily; "picking out a nobody like that behind all our backs, and keeping it so quiet, too; he ought to be ashamed of himself ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dishes which were served up to us was a fine pilaff,[FN259] of which I, according to the custom in our city, began to eat with a spoon; but she, in lieu of it pulled out an ear pick from her pocket and therewith fell to picking up the rice and ate it grain by grain. Seeing this strange conduct I was sore amazed and fuming inwardly said in sweet tones, "O my Aminah,[FN260] what be this way of eating? hast thou learnt it of thy people or art thou counting grains of rice purposing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... with his still unsold papers—worn dirty and ragged as his clothes by this time—before he ventured in, picking his way between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the Italian cobbler's hovel, where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a picture of the "Mother of God," showed that even he knew it was Christmas ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... on the alert as he always was for anything approaching an outlet or river mouth, would scarcely have missed one here. As for any knowledge of the interior that was gained, of course there was none, even the conjectures of a worn out, starving man, picking his way painfully around the sea shore, would have scarcely been of much value. Eyre has, however secured for himself a name for courage and perseverance, under the most terrible circumstances that could well beset a man, and this qualification leads us to overlook his ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... said, rising quickly. "I was picking a special box for you, and now you can have a feast beside, just as you like it, fresh from the vines. Sit here, please, and I'll hull ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey and a few brace of pigeons, by which time breakfast was ready. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... longer wonder at the power of which this organ is capable, although, according to Mr. Sanderson, its capabilities are much exaggerated; and he explodes various popular delusions concerning it. He doubts the possibility of the animal picking up a needle, the common old story which I also disbelieve, having often seen the difficulty with which a coin is picked up, or rather scraped up; but he quite scouts the idea of an elephant being able to lift ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the saddle and turning, with a proud little inclination of her head, was picking a way down the steep hill before he realized what had happened. He gazed after her, hoping at least that feminine curiosity would induce her to turn and look back, but ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... just begun picking up the brooches, bracelets, diamond stars, coronets and bursting suns which illuminated the dressing-table firmament, when Bertie walked in again, through the door that he ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... him contemptuously for a while, until the blade, getting courage at every pass, ventured a modest prick. Then he leapt out like a cat on a mouse, and caught the silly fellow such a grip of the wrist as sent his sword spinning on the deck. Picking it up, he quietly broke it over his knee into three pieces, which he pitched one after ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... for the post-office, and were directed to a ranch building across the Paria River, a small stream which entered from the north, not unlike the Fremont River in size and appearance. Picking our way in the darkness, on boulders and planks which served as a crossing, we soon reached the building, set back from the river in the centre of the ranch. A man named Johnson, with his family, had charge of the ranch and post-office as well. Mail is brought ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... Trollope, nor even—making all allowance for the sanative influence of counter-irritation—in the weekly malignity of that ex-Moral Minstrel whom the London "Times" has sent to the aid of our insurgent slave-masters. For, instead of gloating over objections and picking out what petty enigmas may not be readily soluble, Mr. Dicey has a manly, English way of accepting the preponderant evidence concerning the crisis he came to study. He seldom gets entangled in trivial events, but knows how to use them as illustrations of great events. It is really refreshing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that the knowledge of Those Others was not for his race and in some way dangerous, gave him an uneasy feeling of guilt just to be standing there. Danger, danger which was far worse than physical, lurked there. And he could bring it to life by merely putting out his hand and picking up any one of those fascinating objects which lay only inches away. For the pull of curiosity was warring inside him against the stern warnings of ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Outside was one electric lamp which threw strong lights and darker shadows, making a veritable Rembrandt of the scene, lighting up the white clad forms of the assistants who were drawing out the stretchers, the big square end of the ambulance car, and picking out from the gloom of the garden a rose tree which bore ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Dick, beginning to bite his fingers, as he often did when studying some problem, "let's see. A good kicker might do two or three miles an hour, by picking out the water. Two good kickers might put her up to five, good conditions. Some days ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... flowers." Shortly after midnight they rested for a half hour, but the dawn found them trudging along steadily, though somewhat wearily, and having about completed the third side of their square. Accordingly, they soon made a right-angle turn to the left, and had been picking their way over the rough ground for nearly two hours, with the sun already high in the sky, when they noticed a diminution of light. Glancing up, they saw that one of the moons was passing across the sun, and that ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... parents told them about the days when slaves were bought and sold in the United States. Among these is one Mrs. Martha Neikirk, a daughter of an old Union soldier now deceased. Mrs. Rhuben Gilbert, Mrs. Neikirk's mother said that: "Once my mother and I were out in the woods picking huckle-berries and heard a noise as of someone moaning in pain. We kept going toward the sound and finally came to a little brook. Near the water was a negro woman with her head bent over to the ground and weeping as if her heart was broken. Upon asking her what had caused her agony she ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... have usually a very superior flavor. The raisin-making industry of California also depends on the same condition, because, in order to insure a good quality of the product, the bunches of grapes, after picking, must be dried on the ground. To a certain extent this is also true of other fruits, such as dates, figs, and ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... the bag were then emptied on the floor. They consisted of fibre-rope clipped into short lengths. These had to be picked abroad. The work was light, but very monotonous. It did help to kill time, and it was less troublesome than picking oakum. Mr. Truelove tells me that they made him pick oakum in prison till his fingers were raw, and laughed at him for complaining. He was then seventy years old! Think of it, reader, and reflect on the tender mercies of the religion ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... now aroused Lexington just as daylight was gray overhead, they were on the road to Ashland. If Red Springs might have proved poor picking, John Clay's stables did not. One sleek thoroughbred after another was led from the stalls while ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... at a time, to be sure, but are constantly picking. This habit is also observable in the way the calf nurses. The first specimen of milk was procured on the morning of April 5, the second on the 9th, and the third on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning. Tara ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... age, now around the lawn with its beds of bleeding-hearts and snowdrops, of wall-flowers and sweet-William, of hyacinths and tulips, with their borders of violets and cowslips, of candytuft and verbenas, and at the old sun-dial they stopped and read the hour. Picking an armful of lilacs and calicanthus and snowballs and blue flags, planted in the days when the great trees were tiny saplings, they sent them in by Gabriel, who was following at a distance, blowing softly on his trumpet, and for some minutes stood in front of the house ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... just wondering to-day," said Angus thoughtfully, "if, while we go on picking up the men on the Jericho Road, we couldn't be doing something to keep the thieves from doing their evil work. There's Peter now. If we can't keep him away from the drink, don't you think we ought to try to keep ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... book in his pocket. His latter effort had been to recover something of the sweetness of life, and not, as had been the poet's, to drain those dregs to the bottom. But when he got home he bade Mary tell him what Mr Lowlad had said in his sermon, and was quite cheery in his manner of picking Mr Lowlad's theology to pieces;—for Mr Whittlestaff did not altogether agree with Mr Lowlad as to the uses to be made of ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... she was generally in a state of excitement—her words tumbled out almost too quickly for coherence. Her cheeks would burn, and her eyes sparkle, over such trivial circumstances as a walk down a country lane, as blackberry-hunting, as strawberry-picking—a new story-book kept her awake half the night—she was, in short, a constant little volcano in this quiet home, and would have been an intolerable child but for the great sweetness of her temper, and also for the fact that every one more or less ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... snow dazzling. The coach, finally harnessed, was waiting at the door, while an army of white pigeons, ensconced in their white feathers, with their pink eyes spotted in the middle with small black dots, were walking leisurely between the legs of the six horses and picking their food from the steaming ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... and chattered like a flock of blackbirds picking grain in a wheat field. To each head of a family was given six pounds of meat for each person. A father, mother and two children received twenty-four pounds. Their bread was never rationed. The barrel in each cottage was filled ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... on the minds of the Montpellier students; and still more influence—and that not altogether a good one—must Rabelais's lighter talk have had, as he lounged—so the story goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... sliding body dragged them. The top of the desk is of polished wood; it is perfectly smooth; there are no crevices or anything of the sort to catch hold of anything. When the body slipped from it, it must have swept everything with it, cleanly. And yet," bending forward over the desk and picking up a minute red particle, "here, directly in the center, we ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... been picking out tunes on his Pan's-pipes, also, he had lately discovered that, although he could not articulate, he could produce tones, and had taught himself to imitate the pipes. Now, to his delight, he had found that ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... well said, Gervais," returned Yeux-gris, rising, and picking up his sword, which he sheathed. "That is very well said. For if you did not feel like promising it, why, I should have to begin over again with my ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... servant for passing any of the dishes or wines; that is his business; but for any personal service, such as picking up a fallen napkin, or replacing a dropped knife by another, it is proper to return a murmured "Thank ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... very soon afterwards. It is quite certain that I did not break my sword, for I had none to break. But I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword the idea is that he broke it in desperation. I bent my musket by accident. If General Cass went ahead of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it is more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitos, and although I never fainted from loss ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and more or less his little mind continued wandering until near six, when he fell into a sound sleep, and seemed better for it; and it was such a blessing there certainly was neither scarlatina nor small-pox, both which enemies had appeared on the northern frontier of Gylingden, and were picking down their two or three cases ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... go now. He's getting on too: picking up strength. Don't let him talk too much, and don't mention a word about that ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... their hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. It was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes (and I hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a cabbage leaf and there a turnip top, and rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. In their sty, moreover, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grow up from infancy to manhood, and had prepared him for the Sacraments. His downfall had been a calamity; his return to the Faith would mean a triumph over the powers of evil. Thus did the car rush through the night, its bright headlights picking out the road in front of it; blackness around; the horn now sounding its deep note as they dashed past a township, while Father Healy was praying for ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... tones: "Doctor, is it all right, is it perfect, has it got any birthmarks?" On being told that the baby has a round, red patch on its left brow, the ever-ready statement of the mother comes forth: "Yes, I knew I'd mark it, I was picking berries one day about three months ago, and I ate and ate, until I suddenly remembered I might mark my baby, and before I knew what I was doing, I touched my brow and I just knew I had marked my baby." Do you know, reader, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... goes over to the cottage. Floyd is not at home to be consulted, and she does not wish to blunder or to annoy him. She wins Marcia's favor to a certain extent, but her favor is the most unreliable gift of the gods. She has no mind of her own, but is continually picking up ready-made characteristics of her neighbors and trying them on as one would a bonnet, and with about the same success. While the rest of her small world is painfully aware of her inconsistency, she prides herself upon a wide range of mental acquirements. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... (Thirty years later my own children had their pony Grant.) In the country we children ran barefoot much of the time, and the seasons went by in a round of uninterrupted and enthralling pleasures—supervising the haying and harvesting, picking apples, hunting frogs successfully and woodchucks unsuccessfully, gathering hickory-nuts and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... daughter; and now listen to me. I know that you are not very strong, and I think that a walk of two miles or more in this hot June sun, to say nothing of stooping for hours afterwards picking berries, exposed to its rays, would be more than you could bear without injury; and if you want strawberries to eat, you may buy just as many as you please, and indeed you can get much finer ones in that way than ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money to his mother. If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he became frightfully surly. He would glare at his wife and children for a whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet, ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations. On the next pay-day, however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as he had succeeded ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... were certainly all right, but not a word was intelligible. As he kept picking at his dress and pointing ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... idle, like cats watching a rat-hole. At last Capt. Worden, who was there with his redoubtable monitor "Montauk," determined to destroy the privateer, despite the torpedoes and the big guns of the fort. He accordingly began a movement up the river, picking his way slowly through the obstructions. The fort began a lively cannonade; but Worden soon found that he had nothing to fear from that quarter, as the guns were not heavy enough to injure the iron sides of the little ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... night, and the swarms of small birds destroyed an incredible quantity by day. These innumerable and ruinous pests do not consume the entire grain, but they nibble the soft sweet portion from the joint of each seed, neatly picking out the heart; thus the ground beneath is strewed with their ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... too," said the captain as Jacob paused to light his cigar again. "I forgit how many emigrants went down on that ship, but I remember picking up on the beach next day a clay pipe, with a stem nigh a yard long, not even chipped. It seemed curious that a useless thing like that should be washed safe ashore and hundreds of human lives be lost. And there was the New Era—went down near Deal: three hundred emigrants drowned. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... I am as fond of this Child, as though my Mind misgave me he were my own. He hath as fine a Hand at picking a Pocket as a Woman, and is as nimble-finger'd as a Juggler. If an unlucky Session does not cut the Rope of thy Life, I pronounce, Boy, thou wilt be a great Man in History. Where was your Post last ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... dropped crimson leaves that floated away like fairy boats on its bright surface; and broad-winged butterflies floated, like tiny ships of the air, above the happy stream. And away it ran, prattling and chattering, and picking its way through moss-covered stones that lifted above its surface, and tumbling hastily down in little cascades, as though it were in a desperate hurry to get on in the world, and altogether misbehaving itself just as any madcap ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for him that day, he decided, when he had washed the few dishes and put them neatly away; and he wondered how wet Hall was and whether he had succeeded in picking up a deer. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... was an old woman Went blackberry picking Along the hedges From Weep to Wicking. - Half a pottle- No more she had got, When out steps a Fairy From her green grot; And says, 'Well, Jill, Would 'ee pick ee mo?' And Jill, she curtseys, And looks just so. Be off,' says the Fairy, 'As quick as you can, Over the meadows ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... doubt about the fact. Her laugh reached the cook in the kitchen, who denounced Craddock the parlourmaid for not telling her it was Miss Nightingale, when it might have been a visitor, seeing no noise come of it. Cook remarked she knew how it would be—there was the doctor picking up like—and hadn't she told Craddock so? ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... the sheets and picking out the watchwords of the new liberty, or glowing with enthusiastic admiration at the phrases or sentiments, most of the crowd "bought a couple as a souvenir"—some with the cute business instinct "that they'd be worth a fiver each some day, ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... noted the exact spot where he was at the time, and also on which side of the road he'd tossed the stub; so I didn't have much trouble about picking it up; after which I continued on my way. Hugh, here ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... behind the fourth at the northern side. Four drummers with small drums and an indefinite number of drummers around a large one, at a signal from the medicine-man in charge, who sings, begin drumming. The personated gods dance all about the circle, making motions with their sticks as if picking up and throwing something away, followed by blowing with the breath for the purpose of expelling evil spirits from their midst. While this is going on the fifth masker, Gauneskide, performs antics designed to amuse the audience. When the songs are finished the dancers depart in an eastwardly direction, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... ten tons of guano per annum, if he will undertake to "pick up bones" enough to furnish him the same amount of phosphates contained in that quantity of guano. Then if all who are now using it, would drop guano and take to bones, it would soon be found to be hard picking. Save all the bones and apply them to the soil, is a standing text with us; upon the same soil use all the guano your can procure and you will not need to pick bones—you will grow bones to pick. ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... later pulled down a spray of the jasmine vine that festooned a window, as we see it in England but never here, and carefully cut off a cluster of its white stars by aid of a pair of the long, slender flower-picking scissors that hung from her belt by a ribbon, twisted the stems together, and placed them in Martin's buttonhole almost ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... to suggest that it was just the hour when some of the workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley public-house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his chance of picking up details of useful information as to localities and household. He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on his road to the town they had quitted; he should take out his cheap newspapers and tracts; he should talk ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forth a second time upon their errand of mercy and charity. It was an hour at which in ordinary times all the city should be alive, the streets filled with passersby, wagons lumbering along with heavy freights, fine folks in their coaches or on horseback picking their way from place to place, and shopmen or their apprentices crying their wares from ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... learning to walk. The baby tries day after day, and does not feel any strain, or wake in the morning with a distressing sense of "Oh! I must practise walking to-day. When shall I have finished learning?" He works away, time after time falling down and picking himself up, and some one day finally walks, without thinking about it any more. So we, in the training of our wills, need to work patiently day by day; if we fall, we must pick ourselves up and go on, and just as the laws of balance guide ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... Hayden drew a long sigh. He had been enjoying it with that keen, pleasant appreciation, that boyish glow of enthusiasm which still remained with him. Then he turned his attention to the house and amused himself by picking out an occasional familiar face, and admiring the carefully dressed heads and charming gowns of the women about him, and the whole brilliant flower-garden ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it is," growled Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. "And it's an awful hard ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... wash them,' said that little personage, picking up fat Andrew in her arms, while he retained his beloved crab's claw. 'Jeanie, would you carry Johnnie, he's not sure-footed, over the stair? Annaple, take Lorn's hand over ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to romance was the abolishment of elections, and the appointment of officers. Instead of the privilege and pleasure of picking out some good-hearted, brave comrade and making him captain, the lieutenant was promoted without the consent of the men, or, what was harder to bear, some officer hitherto unknown was sent to take command. This was no doubt better for the service, but it had a serious effect on ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... having hard work of it. Time and again he launched himself at the swaying legs, bringing the canvas man to earth, but always picking himself up to find the coach observing him very, very coldly, and to hear that exasperating gentleman ask sarcastically if he (Joel) thinks he is playing "squat tag." And then the dummy would swing back into place, harboring no malice or resentment for the rough handling, and ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in front of the Vice-Chancellor and the two Proctors. Then are these young men duly quizzed by the strangers present, especially by the young ladies, who, besides noticing their own friends, amuse themselves by picking out such as they suppose to have been reading men, fast men, or slow men - taking the face as the index of the mind. We may be sure that there is a young married lady present who does not indulge in futile speculations ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... despairingly steps out, picking gingerly for some firm foothold; down goes one foot an immeasurable depth,—he tries to pull it up, loses his balance, and tumbles over into the mud, and is fished out, in a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... news came the word that he was the laughing stock of the football squad. He was the crudest, awkwardest, greenest candidate that had ever put in appearance on the Trumbull gridiron. No danger of his ever picking up the laurels won for the Billings family by the older brother! Judd was a joke. But though the grown folks smiled at the reports they remarked that people would have to give Judd credit. Something must have come over the boy ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... cold, without; March shows the revival of field labours; April, a love scene among lords and ladies; May, a courtly festival; June, haymaking outside a fascinating city; July, sheep-shearing and reaping; August, the departure for the chase; September, grape-picking for the vintage; October, sowing seeds in a field near another fascinating city—a busy scene of various activities; November, beating oak-trees to bring down acorns for the pigs; and December, a boar hunt—the ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... take advantage of what luck throws in my way," said Rattling Bill, picking up a rifle which must have escaped the observation of the plunderers who had ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... apartment which Sir Walter greatly admired, and in which he lays the scene in the "Pirate" between Cleveland and Jack Bunce, but the lintel, a curious example of what, in the exercise of a little Irish liberty, is sometimes termed a rectilinear arch, defied his utmost efforts; and, after half-picking out the keystone, he had to give it up in despair. The bishop's palace, of which a handsome old tower still remains tolerably entire, also served for a quarry in its day; and I was scarce sufficiently distressed ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and white stocking, was just making its egress. "Oh, heavens!" said she, burying her face again in the downy pillows. Woman's curiosity, however, soon prevailed over all other feelings, and again looking out she obtained a full view of her mother-in-law, who, having emerged from the coach, was picking out her boxes, trunks, and so forth. When they were all found, Mr. Livingstone ordered two negroes to carry them to the side piazza, where they were soon mounted by three or four little darkies, Thomas Jefferson among ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... wasn't," Danny Jones said desperately as the laughter started again. Some profs were like that, he thought. Picking on one student and making the rest of the class laugh and think what a great guy the prof was and what a prize dodo the hapless student was. "I said," Danny went on doggedly, "Columbus might not have been—maybe wasn't—the bold skipper the history books claim he was. I can't prove ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... swung into a lane, its lights picking out the skeleton outlines of trees: peculiar trees—tall, gaunt, leafless. They added to Ted ...
— Old Rambling House • Frank Patrick Herbert
... the man, tightening up his lips as he pulled out his jack knife, before picking out of the biggest giant reeds, one of a tuft which towered up some five-and-twenty feet. Through this he drove his blade, the thick, rich, succulent grass yielding easily, and after keeping the wound open by the help ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... could be better for a lad. But it was not calculated to make his ear fine to the niceties of language, nor form his moralities on an entirely regular standard. Picking up his first scraps of vigorous English chiefly at Deptford and in the markets, and his first ideas of female tenderness and beauty among nymphs of the barge and the barrow,—another boy might, perhaps, have become what people usually term "vulgar." But the original ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... see everybody in our town was running around, getting fat jobs and positions, and picking up a million dollars or so, So I felt it incumbent on me To shake myself up, and see if there wasn't a good butter firkin, well filled, loafing around idle, in which could conveniently locate my centre of gravity, and ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... chosen him for this service for two reasons. In the first place, because I know he will do it well, and even those who consider that I am rash and headstrong, admit that I have the knack of picking out good men. In the next place, I want to reward him for the service he has done for us. I cannot, at his age, make a colonel of him, but I can give him a chance of distinguishing himself in a service in which age does not count for so ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... you'll think them old-fashioned. And, hang it, why shouldn't I give you something new, I ran across Ellie and Bockheimer yesterday, in the rue de la Paix, picking out sapphires. Do you like sapphires, or emeralds? Or just a diamond? I've seen a thumping one.... I'd like you ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... without taking a degree, and entered at the Temple, where he lived gayly for some years, observing the humors of the town, enjoying its pleasures, and picking up just as much law as was necessary to make the character of a pettifogging attorney or of a litigious client ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... night, when most of the ship's company were abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring the enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart, over a low hill, intending to go clear around the Piraeus, out of the range of its police. Picking our way so stealthily over that rocky, nettle-grown eminence, made me feel a good deal as if I were on my way somewhere to steal something. My immediate comrade and I talked in an undertone about quarantine laws and their penalties, but we found nothing cheering ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on the main street of Comanche were the tents of the gods of chance. They were a hungry-mouthed looking lot that presided within them, taken at their best, for the picking had been growing slimmer and slimmer in Wyoming year by year. They had gathered there from the Chugwater to the Big Horn Basin in the expectation of getting their skins filled out ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and consequently there were no precedents to guide them. Neither was it known what attitude faculty would take in regard to such an affair. But a few choice spirits in the upper forms made tentative arrangements to the extent of picking out a likely spot in a corner of the athletic field for the fire and locating such loose material as might come in handy ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... picking up claims dirt cheap," began a new orator, an ex-ranchman, who was soon to make the discovery that there was as much money to be lost in mines as in cattle, if a fellow only had the knack; "I saw a tidy little deal when I was up at the camp last ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... across the rough cobble-stones to the chapel. Its floor was still heaped with farm-tools and dried vegetables, and in the dimness a heavier veil of dust seemed to obscure the painted walls. Odo advanced, picking his way among broken ploughshares and stacks of maize, till he stood near the old marble altar, with its sea-gods and acanthus volutes. The place laid its tranquillising hush on him, and he knelt on the step beneath the altar. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... made their way to the settlement at Gau- strau-yea. When they arrived, they saw only the eldest people, from about upwards of sixty-five years of age, and the younger children, from about fourteen years of age and under. While they were traveling they saw two boys picking up sticks for firewood. One of them asked the smaller boy where his father was. The bright little fellow spoke promptly and said, "Gone to war." Before the older boy could divert his attention by touching him, the little fellow finished his answer. This they took to be ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... hand raised to give it pause, even as in the evil old days before the conception and foundation of the League. The journalists were as busy as, and more profoundly happy than, they would have been had the Assembly been running its appointed course. They ran about picking up clues, Marconi-graphing messages to their papers about the latest disappearances, the latest theories, the newest rumours. Each became a private detective, pursuing a lone trail. Other journalists flocked to the scene; where they had come in their tens, they now came in their hundreds, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... doe and a fawn, came picking their way cautiously along the edge of the gully, sometimes flattening their ears, sometimes necks outstretched, ears forward, peering ahead at the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... dawn, having failed to come in the night, the girl (another nayika, 'one who has been deceived') upbraids Krishna for wandering about like a crow, picking up worthless grains of rice, wasting his hours in bad company and ruining houses by squatting in them like ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... hard chuck, chuck, when the old ones flew over them. A sun-bird, with bright scarlet throat and breast, had its nest on another branch, it was formed like the weaver's nest, but without a tube. I observed the dam picking out insects from the bark and leaves of the baobab, keeping on the wing the while: it would thus appear to be insectivorous as well as a honey-bibber. Much spoor of elands, zebras, gnus, kamas, pallahs, buffaloes, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone |
