"Tails" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decorated on his bare body by broad bands of pearly grey edged with white down, which passed round his waist and over his shoulders, contrasting well with the chocolate colour of his skin. On his head each of them wore a kind of helmet made of twigs, and from their ears hung tips of the tails of rabbit-bandicoots. The two sat on the ground facing each other with a shield between them. One of them held in his hand some twigs representing the Hakea flower in bloom; these he pretended to steep in water so as to brew the favourite beverage ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... are much alike," answered the Doctor. "They are small brownish birds with cocked up tails, not at all shy about showing themselves off, when they choose, but they must have some hiding-place to duck into the moment anything frightens them, and some odd, out-of-the-way nook or cranny for their ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... boy—perhaps we may meet the love-sick youth, poor Sparkle; he has certainly received the wound of the blind urchin—I believe we must pity him—but come, let us prepare, we will lounge away an hour in walking down Bond Street—peep at the wags and the wag-tails, and take Soho Square in our way to Somerset House. I feel myself just in the humour for a bit of gig, and 1 promise you we will make a ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... we do with the fellow, Corny?" asked Guert, with a little interest. "Jaap says he is a proper devil, by daylight, and that he had a world of trouble in taking him, and in bringing him in. For five minutes, it was heads or tails which was to give in; and the nigger only got the best of it, by his own account of the battle, because the red-skin had the unaccountable folly to try to beat in Jaap's brains. He might as well have battered the Rock of Gibraltar, you know, as to attempt to break a nigger's ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... smoothly, with a swish of its long skirts, with a blush, a dreamy intellectual smile, or a steadfast impenetrable air, as it happened to be more or less conscious of the presence of the Head. Then the Second Division, light-hearted, irrepressible, making a noise with its feet, loose hair flapping, pig-tails flopping to the beat of its march. Then the straggling, diminishing lines of the Third, a froth of white pinafores, a confusion of legs, black or tan, staggering, shifting, shuffling in a frantic effort to ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... with spurs. She carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an impertinent American, presuming—perhaps not unnaturally—upon her reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat, and as a lesson received a cut across his face that must have marked him for some days. I did not wait to see the row that followed, and was glad when the wretched woman rode off on the following morning. A very different notoriety followed her at some ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... sea, it is like the blow of a falling tree. There is the weight of his head with the heavy horns, the arch of his neck, and the power in his shoulders where the muscles lie. The blows roused the fury in them. They looked sideways at each other, then their tails went up, and they came together. Wow!! The noise rang far. The hunting dogs ran swiftly to the pack, and as they ran there followed them the noise ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the part of the monkeys. They began leaping from rope to rope, swinging by their tails to facilitate their descent, until finally the whole troop leaped to the top of the cage and swung themselves down ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... old and rich and corpulent he also set up a great gingerbread-colored carriage, drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares with tails that swept the ground; and to commemorate the origin of his greatness he had for his crest a full-blown cabbage painted on the panels, with the pithy motto, ALLES KOPF, that is to say, ALL HEAD, meaning thereby that he had risen ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... have, you, or somebody else tell me," exclaimed the old lady, tartly. "I ain't got no more use for a farm than a cat has for two tails!" ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... disdainfully. 'They sleep all day. They get their tails pulled and their ears pinched by horrid monsters with only two legs to walk on, and nights—beautiful moonlight nights when we barn-cats are roaming the alleys and singing on the roofs and having a good time generally—they are locked in cellars and garrets ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... hear their tails whisking; there's their shiny hats a glistening, and every one on 'em with peelers' staves! Quick! quick! or they'll have me to ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... a madly pounding horse, and it carried a man. The latter turned in his saddle and raised a gun to his shoulder and the thunder that issued from it caused the creeping audience to throw up their tails in sudden panic and bury themselves out of sight in ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Mamma Littletail, Sammie Littletail, Susie Littletail and Uncle Wiggily Longears. The whole family had very long ears and short tails; their eyes were rather pink and their noses used to twinkle, just like the stars on a frosty night. Now you have guessed it. This was a family of bunny rabbits, and they lived in a nice hole, which was called a burrow, and which ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... creatures! I hear their neigh upon the wind; there were—goodliest sight of all—certain enormous quadrupeds only seen to perfection in our native isle, led about by dapper grooms, their manes ribanded and their tails curiously clubbed and balled. Ha! ha!—how distinctly ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... of bullocks which had been put in the newly-cut meadows by one of the butchers in the town, and the actions of the animals were enough to startle any woman, for, being teased by the flies, they were careering round the field with heads down and tails up, in a lumbering gallop, and approaching the spot ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... were the things which Columbus and the sailors now saw! Strange naked men and women of a copper, or bronze color, strange new birds with gorgeous tails that glittered like gems such as they had never seen before; beautiful and unknown fruits and flowers met ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... you hungrily out of the corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, miles away from the hamlet; now sitting on their tails in a solemn circle; now howling all together as if demented, and anon listening intently in the vast silence, as if they heard or smelled or perhaps just felt the presence of some unknown thing that was hidden from human senses. And when I paddled ashore to watch them ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... down came the Trolls. Some were great, and some were small; some had long tails, and some had no tails at all; some, too, had long, long noses; and they ate and drank, and tasted everything. Just then one of the little Trolls caught sight of the white bear, who lay under the stove; so he took a piece of sausage and stuck it on a fork, and went and poked it ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... the body of a zebra, the legs of a rhinoceros, the neck of a giraffe, the head of a bull dog, and three corrugated tails. This monster at once began to growl and run toward her, showing its terrible teeth and lashing its three tails. The Princess snatched the mirror from her basket and, as the creature came near her, she held the glittering surface before its eyes. It gave one look into the mirror ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... I've often thought so," replied Malachi; "and then to see how they carry all their tools about them; a carpenter's basket could not be better provided. Their strong teeth serve as axes to cut down the trees; then their tails serve as trowels for their mason's work; their fore-feet they use just as we do our hands, and their tails are also employed as ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... imperial seraglio; which he left for a post in the household of Khosroo, afterwards grand-vizir, who was then aga of janissaries. Passing through various gradations of rank, he held several governments in Syria, and was raised to the grade of pasha of three tails: till, at an advanced age, he obtained permission to exchange these honours for the post of sandjak of his native district, to which he accordingly withdrew. But his retirement was disturbed, in 1648, by the insurrection of Varvar-Ali, pasha of Siwas, who, rather than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... lost her sheep, And couldn't tell where to find 'em. Let 'em alone, and they'll come home, And bring their tails behind 'em. ...
— Chenodia - The Classic Mother Goose • Jacob Bigelow
... high separate ridges. It struck me that the deep hollows left between each ridge, might be intended to keep the water. The instruments of agriculture are quite the same as we have seen all along. Almost all of the peasants whom we saw to-day wore cocked hats, and had splendid military tails; we supposed, at first that they had all marched. There are great numbers of soldiers returning to their homes, pale, broken down and wearied. Some of them very polite, many of them rough and ruffian-looking enough. About Briare, there ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... paintings were so much damaged that the subjects were hardly recognizable. Here and there could be seen wings of angels, trumpets, arms which had lost their hands, busts from which the head had disappeared, crowns, stars, horses' manes, and dragons' tails. These gloomy relics sometimes formed combinations that were mysterious and ominous. It was a strange decoration for ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... pity we can't get photographed now," he said, "so's t' send our likenesses in this rig home t' our folks. You'd just jolt the Cap Cod folks, Rayburn, with that pair o' telegraph poles you call your legs stickin' out from under th' tails o' that thing that looks like a cross between a badly made frock-coat and an undersized night-shirt. And I guess your college boys 'd be jolted, too, Professor, if they could get a squint at you. And I s'pose that ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... to bless, In her magnificent comeliness, Is an English girl of eleven stone two, And five foot ten in her dancing shoe! She follows the hounds, and on she pounds - The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish - Over the hedges and brooks she bounds - Straight as a crow, from find to finish. At cricket, her kin will lose or win - She and her maids, on grass and clover, Eleven maids out - eleven maids in - (And perhaps ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Father and son, the Fevershams had been soldiers from the very birth of the family. Father and son, in lace collars and bucket boots, in Ramillies wigs and steel breastplates, in velvet coats, with powder on their hair, in shakos and swallow-tails, in high stocks and frogged coats, they looked down upon this last Feversham, summoning him to the like service. They were men of one stamp; no distinction of uniform could obscure their relationship—lean-faced men, hard as iron, rugged ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... having overcome his first surprise, was soon chasing the escaped beast, and, urged by the cheers of my other men, succeeded, after an exciting race, in catching the animal by its tail. This feat is easier to describe than to accomplish, for Tibetan sheep have very short, stumpy tails. Kachi fell to the ground exhausted, but he held fast with both hands to his capture, and finally the animal ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... 'em 'til way atter sundown, standin' right over 'em wid a gun all de time. If a Nigger lagged or tuk his eyes off his wuk, right den an' dar he would make him strip down his clo'es to his waist, an' he whup him wid a cat-o-nine tails. Evvy lick dey struck him meant he wuz hit nine times, an' it fotch da red ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... maddening to sit still and see the wind shaking down the last nuts, and the lively thieves flying about, pausing now and then to eat one in his face, and flirt their tails, as if they said, saucily, "We'll have them in spite of you, lazy Rob." The only thing that sustained the poor child in this trying moment was the sight of Teddy working away all alone. It was really splendid the pluck and perseverance of ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and called to the beasts. They came, snarling and slinking, their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the passage and drove them into it. Then he dragged a rude lattice into place before the opening after he, himself, had left the chamber. "This will keep them from you," he said. "If ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a swing of his coat tails that but feebly expressed his decision and his impatience. He paused before the closed doorway for ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... into another direction. Never had there been such slaughtering of capons, and fat geese, and barndoor fowls; never such boiling of "reested" hams; never such making of car-cakes and sweet scones, Selkirk bannocks, cookies, and petticoat-tails—delicacies little known to the present generation. Never had there been such a tapping of barrels, and such uncorking of greybeards, in the village of Wolf's Hope. All the inferior houses were thrown open for the reception of the Marquis's ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... man was lank, elderly, and of severe appearance. He was bald, he had slight side-whiskers, he wore spectacles, and his face was devoid of expression. He was dressed in plain dinner clothes of old-fashioned cut. The tails of his coat were much too short, his collar belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi's, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... And poring over your script) I gather from the writing, The coin that you had flipt, Turned tails; and so you compel me To meet you at Touchwood Hills: Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me The sum of a painter's ills: Is that Phimister Proctor Or something about a doctor? Well, nobody knows, but Eddie, Whatever it ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... let drift away much of his only source of gold) to keep a note-book handy for the sieving and skimming of this running stream. Samuel Butler has good advice on this topic. Of ideas, he says, you must throw salt on their tails or they fly away and you never see their bright plumage again. Poems, stories, epigrams, all the happiest freaks of the mind, flit by on wings and at haphazard instants. They must be caught in air. In this respect one thinks American writers ought to have an advantage over English, for American trousers ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... anyone; they were more scared than you were—the bunch had told him so. He wished he could get a sight of him, though. He liked to see their ears stick up and their noses stick out in a sharp point, and see them drop their tails and go sliding away out of sight. When he was ten and Daddy Chip gave him a gun, he would shoot coyotes and ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... of delicate workmanship to hold the salt. Below him were his four sea-horses, fashioned like our horses from the head to the front hoofs; all the rest of their body, from the middle backwards, resembled a fish, and the tails of these creatures were agreeably inter-woven. Above this group the Sea sat throned in an attitude of pride and dignity; around him were many kinds of fishes and other creatures of the ocean. The water was represented with its waves, and enamelled ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... presently changed and divided our interest. It was alleged by Clay, the assistant editor, that entering the restaurant one evening he saw the back and tails of a coat that seemed familiar to him half-filling a doorway leading to the restaurant kitchen. It was unmistakably the figure of one of our Club members,—the young lawyer,—Jack Manners. But what was he doing there? While the Editor was still gazing after ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lovely tropical parrot in faience, of Dresden ware, also a man ploughing, and two mice climbing up a stalk, also in faience. The mice were Copenhagen ware. They are the best, but mice don't shine so much, otherwise they are very good, their tails are slim and long. They all shine nearly like glass. Of course it is the glaze, but I don't like it. Gerald likes the man ploughing the best, his trousers are torn, he is ploughing with an ox, being I suppose a German peasant. It is all grey and white, white shirt and ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... horses bounded forward, manes in the wind, tails streaming, iron hoofs battering the shaking earth; the steel-clad riders, sabres pointed to the front, leaned ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Mary Louise, surprised and delighted at her unexpected discovery. "I saw your finny tail. Do you like tails better than feet?" ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... to in the West India islands, are resorted to, I believe, even more frequently, in the United States of America. Starvation, the bloody whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, cat-hauling, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the dungeon, the blood-hound, are all in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States. If any one has a doubt upon this point, I would ask him to read the chapter on slavery in Dickens's Notes on America. If any man has a doubt upon ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... that way," said Mr. Lion, who came into the cave just then. "Crocodiles have a very hard, thick skin on their backs and tails, much harder and thicker than our skin, and even that of an elephant. You can't hurt a crocodile by scratching his back. The only way to hurt them is to turn them over, and while you are trying to do that they'll knock you about ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds, but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushy ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... get up in the grove and deny it? [Laughter.] How would you like that? But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State, and all the "border ruffians" have barbecues about it, and free-State men come trailing back to the dishonored North, like whipped dogs with their tails between their legs, it is—ain't it?—evident that this is no more the "land of the free"; and if we let it go so, we won't dare to say "home of the brave" ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... ban's neth his tails, The waesome carl stude; To see him wagglin at thae tails 'Maist drave 's a' fairly wud. Ain wite! he cried; I tauld ye sae! Ye're a' wrang to the last: What gart ye burn thae deevilich weyds Whan the win' blew frae the wast! Ye're a' wrang, and a' wrang, And a'thegither ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... use of ox tails for soup helps to utilize a part of the beef that would ordinarily be wasted, and, as a rule, ox tails are comparatively cheap. Usually the little bits of meat that cook off the bones are allowed to remain in the soup. Variety may be obtained ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... two fins just behind the gill slits, typical fish tails and blunt, sloping heads. But now and then I saw a spined monster that was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... stood fast for many minutes, till at last in the dim light she saw eye-balls that blazed like fire, heads crested with rugged, uncouth horns and shaggy manes; and then snouts thrust down, flaring nostrils, and rearing tails. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... but silke that bindeth thee, Snap the thread, and thou art free: But 'tis otherwise with me. I am bound, and bound fast so That from thee I cannot go. (Hah! We'll have this altered, though. Man must be a wing-clipp'd goose If he bows to Hymen's noose,— Heads you winne, and tails I lose!) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... in astonishment, and withdrew his hands slowly from the tails of his coat. "Is it possible!" he exclaimed, in great agitation. "What an astonishing coincidence! I am myself a painter. You perhaps noticed this badge"—he indicated a button attached to his left lapel, and I bent and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the blackness came another hurricane squall with rain that lashed. The rushing air itself shook. We crouched, all humped up, in the lew of a drifter's bows, whilst the rain water washed around our boots and coat-tails. "This 'll tell 'ee what 'tis like for us chaps," said Tony. "I be only sorry," Uncle Jake added, "for them what's out to sea now ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... myself the sole help of two blind, naked infants—as near a real predicament as a man could well get. What did it matter that they had long tails and were squirrels? They were infants just the same; and any kind of an infant on the hands of any mere man ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... at each other. You've seen two peacocks spread their tails and strut as they pass each other? Well, the peacock coming up wasn't in it with the one going down. Her coat wasn't so fine, nor so heavy, nor so newly, smartly cut. Her toque wasn't so big nor so saucy, and the fur on it—not to mention that the descending peacock was a brunette ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... your umbrella. Not too high nor too low, not black nor blue, but the form and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You see the river water in them; they are heavy-laden, and move slow. Sometimes they develop what are called "mares' tails,"—small cloud-forms here and there against a heavy background, that look like the stroke of a brush, or the streaming tail of a charger. Sometimes a few under-clouds will be combed and groomed by the winds or other meteoric agencies at work, as if for a race. I have seen coming storms develop ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... anything about the cunning little tails of the nuts, Miss Harson," said Edith, in a disappointed tone. "I think they're the prettiest part, and they stick up in the burr ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... to a hungry sportsman. The man who despises beans and bacon is uniformly a puppy. I will, therefore, now venture on the vulgar word, and say the Wilderness was used for feeding swine, and all the long days the frisky quadrupeds went wiggling their curly tails, and snorting among the oak-trees, with enormous satisfaction. On reaching the centre of this umbrageous feeding-ground, I was surprised to see my usual place of meditation occupied by a stranger. It was a young girl, exhausted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... to meet the visitors. Sheep and goats were everywhere, and little lambs scarcely able to walk, with others frisky and frolicsome. There were pure-white lambs, and some that appeared to be painted, and some so beautiful with their fleecy white all except black faces or ears or tails or feet. They ran right under Nack-yal's legs and bumped against Shefford, and kept bleating their thin-piped welcome. Under the cedars surrounding the several hogans were mustangs that took Shefford's eye. He saw an iron-gray with white mane and tail sweeping to the ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... charmed with the beauty of the oxen, wished to purloin that booty, but because, if he had driven them forward into the cave, their footsteps would have guided the search of their owner thither, he therefore drew the most beautiful of them, one by one, by the tails, backwards into a cave. Hercules, awaking at day-break, when he had surveyed his herd, and observed that some of them were missing, goes directly to the nearest cave, to see if by chance their footsteps would lead him thither. But when he observed that they were all turned from it, and ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... animals, he appears to receive as indubitable. This would not, so far as I can see, make the slightest difference in the so-called dignity of mankind. If man had a prehensile tail, it would not detract from his worth. I myself have little doubt that there were men with tails in prehistoric or even in historic times. I go still farther and declare that if ever there should be an ape who can form ideas and words, he would ipso facto be a man. I have therefore no prejudices such as the advocates of the simian theory like to attribute to us. What I and ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... this so in England. Gipsy life may find favour in the East, but in the West the system cannot thrive. A real Englishman hates the man who will not work, scorns the man who would tell him a lie, and would give the thief who puts his hands into his pocket the cat-o'-nine-tails most unmercifully. The persecutions of the Gipsies in this country from time to time has been brought about, to a great extent, by themselves. John Bull dislikes keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the Red River; pesides Canada and Nova Scotia, and seen French, and pairs, and Indians, and wolves, and plue noses, and puffaloes, and Yankees, and prairie dogs, and Highland chiefs, and Indian chiefs, and other great shentlemen, pesides peavers with their tails on. She has seen the pest part of the world, Mr Slick." And he lighted his pipe in his enthusiasm, when enumerating what he had seen, and looked as if he ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... surprised with the far churr of startling wings under the stars. Ears intent to listen were surprised; but only for a moment;— there was that angry howling again from the northern hills and the southern forests: the two great Tigers of the world face to face, tails lashing;—and between them and in their path, Chow quite prone,—the helpless Black-haired People trembling or chattering frivolously. Not for such an age as that Chwangtse and Ch'u Yuan wrote, but indeed you may say for all time. What light from the Blue Pearl could ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fortunate for the country if these views of President Harrison, so clearly stated by Daniel Webster in this circular, could have been honestly carried out; but the horde of hungry politicians that had congregated at Washington, with racoon- tails in their hats and packages of recommendations in their pockets, clamored for the wholesale action of the political guillotine, that they might fill the vacancies thereby created. Whigs and Federalists, National Republicans and strict constructionists, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... with peculiar delight. A white shirt, a collar as immoderately long in front as it was high in the neck,—so that Dick's head resembled a block of coal in a sheet of white paper,—a blue coat with gilt buttons, and long tails that reached to his heels,—a present from his master,—a red silk cravat fringed at the ends, a green waistcoat ornamented with an orange patch at the spot where the watch-pocket formerly was, boots which had seen their ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... apron as she spoke, "Please, ma'am, I never had more than one at a time," Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had seen a man's coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand into the store-room at night; and another evening, when, our watches having stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance, singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the back of the open ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... evolution like all other animals. The vast majority of our fishes have bony frames (or are Teleosts); the fishes of the Devonian age nearly all have frames of cartilage, and we know from embryonic development that cartilage is the first stage in the formation of bone. In the teeth and tails, also, we find a gradual evolution toward the higher types. But the earlier record is, for reasons I have already given, obscure; and as my purpose is rather to discover the agencies of evolution than to strain slender evidence in drawing up pedigrees, I need only make brief ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... to cling to my coat-tails to keep yourself up. You look to my position for shelter, but let me make it clear to you that you can't hide behind my prestige and my position any longer. You human sponge! You parasite! Do you think I'm ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... dong and in the myre, on horse and eke on foot, as wel of man as of woman—that all thilke trailing," he verily believes, which wastes, consumes, wears threadbare, and is rotten with dung, are all to the damage of "the poor folk," who might be clothed only out of the flounces and draggle-tails of these children of vanity. But then his Parson is not less bitter against "the horrible disordinat scantnesse of clothing," and very copiously he describes, though perhaps in terms and with a humour too coarse for me to transcribe, the consequences of these very tight ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... she'd be about sixteen and have her hair braided in two tails down her back. I don't care about seeing her now,' said the honest child, walking off to the hall door, leaving her mother to apologize, and her sisters to declare that the bad portrait was 'perfectly lovely, so speaking and poetic, you know, 'specially ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... country should fully share advantages of House, he had his speech printed in advance. Copies sent to newspapers. Suppose they printed it all, whereas he had not found opportunity to deliver more than half of it! Awakened from reverie by violent tugging at coat-tails. This was PRINCE ARTHUR, signalling him to sit down, with perhaps unnecessary vigour. But PRINCE ARTHUR had a long score (fully an hour long) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... from one point of view," he insisted whimsically. "'Who loses his life,' you know. Most boys and girls start off into life like kites in a high wind without tails. There's a glorious dipping and plunging and sailing for a little while, and then down they come in a tangle of string and paper and broken wood. I had a tail to start with, some humiliating deficiency to keep me balanced. No football and tennis for me, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... are going to show her the boys, and how we dress them up just like dragons," cried Polly, "and while they are prancing around and slashing their tails at rehearsal, I'm going to keep saying, 'That's nothing but Jasper and Ben and Clare, you know, Phronsie,' till I get her accustomed to them. You won't be frightened, will you, pet, at those dear, sweet old dragons?" she ended, and getting on her knees, ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... about it in giddy enjoyment. The love birds sitting quietly and lovingly together on a corner of the same perch, the weavers with their endless tails, the miniature dove, the cordon bleu, with his turquoise breast, and the little cardinal, with his self-sufficient pomp, were all there, and seemed to bathe and to fly, to eat and to drink, to love and to quarrel, as freely as if they still ranged through the boundless ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the two teams were ready, and Eli mounted to his place, where he looked very slender beside his towering mate. The hired man stood leaning on the pump, chewing a bit of straw, and the cats rubbed against his legs, with tails like banners; they were all impressed by a sense of ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... astonished to receive a message from Mr. Dingwall, the deputy manager, that he wished to see him in his private office. He was still more astonished when Mr. Dingwall, after offering him a chair, stood up with his hands under his coat tails before the fireplace, and, with a hesitancy half reserved, half courteous, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... or antelopes. The sorcerers were an important element. These rascals, who are the curse of the country, were, as usual, in a curious masquerade with fictitious beards manufactured with a number of bushy cows' tails. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... initiation in silence. When I had eaten, she came again, and having laid a curiously wrought bronze box on the table, lighted the candles, and took away the plates and the remnants. So soon as I was alone, I turned to the box, and found that the peacocks of Hera spread out their tails over the sides and lid, against a background, on which were wrought great stars, as though to affirm that the heavens were a part of their glory. In the box was a book bound in vellum, and having ...
— Rosa Alchemica • W. B. Yeats
... by a gunshot, sharp, insistent, a tocsin of death in that sylvan solitude. A host of rooks arose from some tall elms near the house; a couple of cock pheasants flew with startled chuckling out of the wood on the right; the white tails of rabbits previously unseen revealed their owners' whereabouts as they scampered to cover. But Trenholme was sportsman enough to realize that the weapon fired was a rifle; no toy, but of high velocity, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... from her little refuge in the Kangaroo's pouch, and saw the glow of the twilight sky reflected on the top of the boulder. The rough surface of the stone shone with a beautiful polish like a looking-glass, for the rock had been rubbed for thousands of years by the soft feet and tails of millions of kangaroos; kangaroos that had hopped down that way to get water. When Dot saw that, she didn't know why it all seemed solemn, or why she felt such a very little girl. She was a little sad, and the Kangaroo, after a short sigh, ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... boy, have you?" The brethren waited in silence while he tripped lightly over the worn cocoanut matting to the rear—perturbed, a little frown of impatience and bewilderment gathering between his eyes. The tails of his shiny black coat brushed the varnished pine pews, whereto, every Sunday, the simple folk of our harbor repaired in faith. Presently he tripped back again. The frown of bewilderment was deeper now—the perturbation ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... scene before her was she thinking, or her face might have worn a more pleasing expression. Rather did she seem to gaze, and with displeasure, at two or three people who were walking in the distance: Lucy Carradyne side by side with the clergyman, and Miss Kate Dancox pulling at his coat-tails. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... care to characterise the 'heads I win, tails you lose' policy of a Governor-General who thus shuffled off his responsibility upon two soldiers who previously had been sedulously restricted within narrow if varying limits. Their relief from those trammels ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... evening he drove the cows and gave his commands at the corners of the streets. And the cows plodded on, swinging their tails to brush the flies away from their sides, stopping here and there where a mouthful of grass might be picked up, stirring the dust in dry weather with their dragging feet, and sinking hoof-deep in the mud when there had been ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... before the jeers of the provincial deputies. Nor did it soothe his rage to be laughed at by urchins all the way down the Rue Dauphine because of the mud and filth that dripped from his satin breeches and the tails of his ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... The spokes of the wheels—they were handled with admiring fingers! That Jupiter-like throne, the coach-box—who would not have risked his neck to have been seated on it? When all was "right," how eloquent the lip-music of coachee! how fine the introductory frisks of the horses' tails, and the arching plunge of the fore-foot—no rainbow-curve ever was so beauteous! "Oh, happy days! who would not be a boy again?" But away with my puerilities. I intend the reader to take a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... (Bos grunniens). Ladakh. The domesticated yak is invaluable as a beast of burden in the Trans-Himalayan tract. The royal fly whisk or chauri is made from pure white yak tails. ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... take his Sunday one into weekday wear? Could the charity bag do better than pay the tailor's widow for adapting this old coat to the new chorister's back, taking it in at the seams, turning it wrong-side out, and getting new sleeves out of the old tails? Could she herself spare the boots which the village cobbler had just re-soled for her—somewhat clumsily—and would the "allowance" bag bear this strain? Might she hope to coax an old pair of trowsers out of her cousin, ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... that I like to be my own master. A mistress at my coat-tails would be more troublesome than a wife; she would be an obstacle to the numerous pleasant adventures I encounter at every town. For example, if I had a mistress I should not be able to take the charming Irene ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... gardens, orchards, and open sunny places; they wander about far in search of food, and towards sunset return homeward in noisy flocks, or in constant pairs. Their forms and motions are often beautiful and attractive. The immensely long tails of the macaws and the more slender tails of the Indian parroquets, the fine crest of the cockatoos, the swift flight of many of the smaller species, and the graceful motions of the little love-birds and allied forms, together ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... quiet way. They both rose more and more in my esteem the more I observed their inner life and character. As years rolled on, my visits were enlivened by the sight of small drums, trumpets, horses with their tails pulled out, and dolls with their noses knocked off. Sometimes very pretty little cherubs peeped in at the door, or were invited for half an hour ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... pursued, turning his back to the mirror and craning his neck to see the set of his coat-tails, "you might do something for me when you are out. Wilberforce is worrying for his money. It's damned cheek. I sent him a large order for whisky the other day to keep him quiet, but it hasn't answered. I wish you would go and see him—go with a long face, like a good girl, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... comrade with remorseless ferocity. In a twinkling he was torn piecemeal by the cannibals, whose taste of blood set aflame their rapacity. Had they known enough they might have smashed the boat with their tails or rolled it over with their snouts; but, unaware of their own strength, they kept up their wild darting to and fro ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... feet in length, and sixty in breadth. The steeple is the most curious you can imagine. Three dragons, their throats resting on the roof, intertwine their bodies, and, tapering a hundred feet gradually upwards, point with their tails to the sky. At a little distance, their large heads and mouths opened to show some formidable teeth and tongues, have a ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... movement or expression showed that the objects about him bore different associations from those connected with his office furniture, and if she took her seat on the haircloth sofa with an idea that he would join her she was disappointed. He parted his coat-tails and perched upon a straight-backed structure of mahogany, ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... The Hollanders accepted the name as much in defiance as with indignation, and acted up to it. Instead of brooches in their hats, they wore little wooden platters, such as beggars used, and foxes' tails instead of feathers. On the targets of some of these Gueux they inscribed "Rather Turkish than Popish!" and had the print of a cock crowing, out of whose mouth was a label, Vive les Gueux par tout le monde! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... shouted the Captain, seizing them by their tails, "where are your manners? By jolly, I like to forgot ye! Come along now and take supper with the Pepperells. I invite ye! They 're short of clams and they 'll be pleased to see ye, or I miss my reckoning." There were pegs stuck in the scissor-like ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... this, she said, "Who knows, husband, but this may be a lizard with two tails, that will make our fortune? Who knows but this lizard may put an end to all our miseries? How often, when we should have an eagle's sight to discern the good luck that is running to meet us, we have a cloth before our eyes and the cramp ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter—life-everlasting, goldenrods, pinweeds, and graceful wild grasses, more obvious and interesting frequently than in summer even, as if their beauty was not ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cat-tails, mulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and other strong-stemmed plants, those unexhausted granaries which entertain the earliest birds—decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears. I am particularly attracted by the arching and sheaf-like top of the wool-grass; it brings back ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... black and shaggy, named Slam; the other, yellow and smooth, belonged to the "king-ductor" or driver, and was called Bang. Slam and Bang often darted off for a race and Eddo nearly gave them up for lost; but they always came back wagging their tails and capering about as ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... They pottered round tryin' to find some trace of Foy—blind fools!—till I met up with 'em. I'd done gathered in that mizzable red-headed Joe Cowan on a give-out horse, claim-in' he'd been chousin' after broom-tails. He'd planted Foy's horse, I reckon. But it can't be proved, so I let him go. He'll have to walk in; that's one ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... I can tell you the folk were scared. If it had been the Evil One himself who had come to our quiet little village, I doubt if he would have caused more stir.[28] The bairns screamed, and hid their faces in their mothers' gown-tails; while the lassies, idle huzzies that they were, threw down the pails of milk, which should have been in the milkhouse long ago, if they had not been so busy gossiping; and the very dogs crept in behind their masters, whining, and hiding their tails ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... residing in Canada. He "happened to have above a hundred at one period alive, and took much pleasure in the evening, watching their motions where they were confined. As it grew dusk, the birds formed themselves into coveys or parties of twelve or fifteen in a circle, the heads out and tails clustered in the centre. One bird always stood guard to each party, and remained perfectly stationary for half an hour, when, a particular cluck being given, another sentinel immediately took his place, ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... pleasure of a midnight ride, and to facilitate their nocturnal perambulations. If detected, and any complaint is made, or if the Faculty are informed of their movements, they seek revenge by shaving the tails and manes of the favorite horses belonging to the person informing, or by ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... ladder which I used to think I would have climbed by this time. But yes, I have been back there recently, and found everything changed. In fact, the West is a symbol of mutation. The marshlands have been filled in; streets extend across the places where I used to go for cat-tails; they have no more batrachian concerts there now. The only reminder of that earlier characteristic of the place is a huge green frog worked out in a marble mosaic on the floor of the new court house. That is the seal of my ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... several flights of stairs, even helped by the bannisters, was more, with his particular complaint, than he seemed to feel himself inclined to venture on. He sat down obstinately on the lowest step, with his head against the wall, and the tails of his big great-coat spreading out magnificently on the stairs behind him and above him, like a dirty imitation of a ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... if a battery of heavy field pieces boomed overhead. The entire herd was on its feet and stood close-huddled, their tails to the coming storm. Now the horses were loping steadily in their endless circling—a pace they could hold for hours if need be. For one blinding instant Thurston saw far down the valley; then the black curtain dropped as ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... exhibitions were not very common in the town. Very early next morning, a farmer, living about two miles from Aldington, was awakened by a shower of small stones on his bedroom window. Looking out he saw his shepherd in much excitement and alarm. "Oh master, master, there's a beast with two tails, one in front and one behind, a-pullin' up the mangolds, and a-eatin' of 'em!" The farmer hurried to the spot and saw an African elephant which had escaped during the night; he was wondering how to proceed when two keepers appeared and the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... birds, called cardinals, belonging to Mrs McElvina, in a cage near the window, and there was also a stuffed green parrot in a glass case. Seymour showed his usual presence of mind in his decision. The tails of the live birds would in all probability grow again; that of the stuffed parrot never could. He put his hand into the cage, and seizing the fluttering proprietors, pulled out both their long tails, and having secured the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... level with their late antagonists. But selection is difficult where many are candidates. Free settlers of all sorts were equally eligible by their wealth, and made equal pretensions. Thus when the list was issued, it was received with mockery and laughter; and, said the scorners, all the "coat tails,"—rarely worn, except by free men—contain a commission. They were certainly numerous—large, in proportion to the emigrant adult population; but who can extinguish the flames of envy without kindling contempt! To further his conciliating policy, Franklin nominated to his council Mr. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... the safe little daisies and wild hyacinths and wild crocuses; flowers of the sloping meadows that go down to the streams of Spring. And all along the streams the twigs are budding; the yellow "lambs' tails" swing in the breeze, as if answering to the white lambs' tails that are wagging in the fields. The thrush sings in the copse, and in his piercing sweet note is the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... two, a dream and a vision. There is a place below the bridge there, where the cattle come down from the waste pastures across the yellow sands to drink and stand in the low water of the Jumna, to stand and switch their tails while their herdsmen on the bank coax them back with 'Ari!' 'Ari!' 'Ari!' long and high, faint and musical; and the minarets of Akbar's fort rise beyond against the throbbing sky and the sun fills it all. This place I shall never see more distinctly than I saw it that night on the veranda ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... in the hill that were Wild for the fray upbound; They hie away to the yeoman's house, Their tails all curling round. ...
— Ellen of Villenskov - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cooking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser, Wherein ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... went to look. She discovered some sugar-tongs missing. Alfredo started like the wind in search of them, running down the avenue with short, scudding steps, his coat-tails ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... containing twenty-seven sous. The rest of the company had now arrived; among them the deputy-judge Desfondrilles, who for the last two months had abandoned the Tiphaine party and connected himself more or less with the Vinets. He was standing before the chimney-piece, with his back to the fire and the tails of his coat over his arms, looking round the fine salon of which Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf was the shining ornament; for it really seemed as if all the reds of its decoration had been made expressly to enhance her style of beauty. Silence reigned; Pierrette was watching ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... squirrels in a cage that went round and round; and Birdie thought she should never get tired of looking at them, with their bushy tails and bright black eyes. She saw them crack some nuts ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... brains of nightingales, With unctuous fat of snails, Between two cockles stewed, Is meat that's easily chewed; Tails of worms, and marrow of mice, Do make a ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... up your comets: if that fails, Then notch their ears and clip their tails, That you at need may swear to 'em; And watch your nebulous flocks at night, For, if your palings are not tight, He may, to gratify his spite, Let in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... even the motley assortment of dogs that claimed her for their own—had learned to go their ways softly. The morning after Mag's affair, three collies, a hound or so, and several curs waited in a respectful row, tentative tails astir, with eyes fixed patiently upon a certain great juniper-tree at the edge of Storm garden. On the other side of it sat a very weary woman, cradled between its hospitable roots, with her back turned on the workaday world and her face to the open country. This was her eyrie; and here, when another ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... rigorously whaleboned, with long straight seams, opened in front; she wore a dimity ruffle, a square blue bow to fasten it, and a brown gingham apron. Her sandy hair was parted rigorously in the middle, brought over her temples in two smooth streaky scallops, and braided behind in two tight tails, fastened by a green bow. Young Lucretia was a homely little girl, although her face was always radiantly good-humored. She was a good scholar, too, and could spell and add sums as fast as anybody ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... hers, instead of her travelling suit, a serge skirt and middy blouse. She put these on, and when she went out she found Dotty similarly arrayed. Mrs. Rose braided the two girls' hair in long pig-tails and tied ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Fettah Pasha, of three tails, was driven out of Tripoli by the inhabitants, about 1768, after having governed a few years. He was succeeded by Abd-er-rahman Pasha, but the rebels still maintained their ascendancy in the town. He had formerly been Kapydji for the Djerde or caravan, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... the free, wild, and untrammelled life of the forest. Their appearance was both grotesque and repulsive; they had flat broad noses, pointed ears, and little horns sprouting from their foreheads, a rough shaggy skin, and small goat's tails. They led a life of pleasure and self-indulgence, followed the chase, revelled in every description of wild music and dancing, were terrible wine-bibbers, and addicted to the deep slumbers which follow heavy potations. They were no less ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... with them myself, and that you shall do in time, too; for tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you who you are—up at the Hall they have two birds with green necks and a crest upon their heads; they can spread out their tails like a great wheel, and these are so bright with various colours that it makes one's eyes ache. These birds are called peacocks, and that is 'the beautiful.' If they were only plucked a little they would look no better than the rest ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and he knew that the lofty dame earned many a bright silver guilder in selling them. But did she set the cream to rise in golden pans? Did she use a golden skimmer? When her cows were in winter quarters, were their tails really tied up ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... was biting the tails of the Pretty Pink Pigeons again; and Brownie was chasing the rabbits; and the Geese were flapping their wings and crying, "hiss, hiss!"; and the Pigeons were flying back to their home on the roof; and Rover had his mouth full of White ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... headed for home; and then, to the sound of excited voices was added the rising thunder of scores of bounding hoofs, as, all in a dust-cloud of their own, the sixty chargers came galloping in, ears erect, eyes ablaze, nostrils wide, manes and tails streaming in the breeze, guided by their eager guards full tilt for camp. Out ran their riders, bridles in hand, to meet and check them, every horse when within a few yards of his master seeming to settle on his ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... day, when these poor dumb serfs have been scattered over the portionless earth, how often they look towards this fortress and lift up their voices with cries for night to come; the horses, ruffled and shivering, with their tails to the wind, as they snap their frosted fodder, or paw through the rime to the frozen grass underneath, causing their icy fetlocks to rattle about their hoofs; the cattle, crowded to leeward of some deep-buried haystack, the exposed side ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... turning these fellows out—will anybody tell me?—if that's all Ferrier can do for us? Think I prefer 'em to that kind of mush! As for Barton, I've had to hold him down by the coat-tails!" ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... advice, acting upon which he slit the cows' ears, cut their tails half off to bleed them, and poured pints of "pain killer" into them through their nostrils; but they wouldn't make an effort, except, perhaps, to rise and poke the selector when he tried to tempt their appetites ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... girls were sowing the last of the grain when Fred Dwyer appeared on the scene. Dad stopped and talked with him while we (Dan, Dave and myself) sat on our hoe-handles, like kangaroos on their tails, and killed flies. Terrible were the flies, particularly when you had sore legs ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... you—never. Women are said to partake of the nature of children—and my brothers call me 'absurdly childish' sometimes: and I am capable of being childishly 'in earnest' about novels, and straws, and such 'puppydogs' tails' as my Flush's! Also I write more letters than you do, ... I write in fact almost as you pay visits, ... and one has to 'make conversation' in turn, of course. But—give me something to vow by—whatever you meant in the 'Vivian Grey' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... possessed. They had prepared to run by tearing the fences down; and then it was trying to form line, and breaking as soon as our fellows howled a little, all the way for five long miles to Martinsburg; and the last our boys saw of the Rebs was their straight coat-tails at the south end of the town. And that was the whole battle of Falling Waters; and may be Ould Patterson wouldn't have got to Martinsburg if them Colonels had reported the Rebs in ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong |
