"Thresh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... groan, and drags herself after them. And this will go on in July also, when the peasants, without obtaining sufficient sleep, reap the oats by night, lest it should fall, and the women rise gloomily to thresh out the straw for the bands to tie the sheaves; when this old woman, already utterly cramped by the labor of mowing, and the woman with child, and the young children, injure themselves overworking and over-drinking; and ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... that little Ike was in his eighth year, the threshers, as we called the men who journeyed from farm to farm to thresh the grain, came to the old Squire's as usual. While my cousin Halstead was helping to tend the machine, he got a bit of wheat beard in ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... in an hour, than a body can set right again in a month!' Will then took up hats full of the corn and chaff, and threw it in the two men's faces; afterwards taking up a flail, he gave Simon a blow across his back, saying, at the same time, 'I will show you the way to thresh, and separate the flesh from the bones.' 'O! will you so, young squire?' said John; 'I will show you the way to make naughty boys good.' He then left the barn, but presently returned accompanied by a gentleman, upon the sight of whom Will let ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... have killed the Corn-man, the Oats-man, or the Wheat-man, according to the crop. In the Canton of Tillot, in Lorraine, at threshing the last corn the men keep time with their flails, calling out as they thresh, "We are killing the Old Woman! We are killing the Old Woman!" If there is an old woman in the house she is warned to save herself, or she will be struck dead. Near Ragnit, in Lithuania, the last handful of corn is left standing by itself, with the words, "The Old Woman (Boba) ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... harvest-time, the poor man left his wife and went to reap and thresh out his little plot of wheat, but the Wind came and swept all his corn away down to the very last grain. The poor man was exceeding wrath thereat, and said, "Come what will, I'll go seek the Wind, and I'll tell him with what pains and trouble I had got my corn to grow and ripen, and ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... best in the Markets. But from whatever Place we have it, regard should be chiefly had to its being free from Mustiness, which happens from the gathering the Seed wet, or in the Dew, and laying it close together before it is thresh'd. When this Seed is dry and sweet, grind it in a Mill, such as a Coffee-Mill; but the Mill must be fresh, and free from any Flavour or Taint: it should not indeed be used with any other thing. When ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... Madam, my Preaching disgrace; Shall Laymen enjoy the just Rights of my Place? Then all may lament my Condition for hard, To thresh in the Pulpit without a Reward. Then pray condescend Such Disorders to end, And from their ripe Vineyards such Labourers send; Or build up the Seats, that the Beauties may see The Face of ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... it only remained now to get together and thresh out the details. A strong committee was appointed to conduct negotiations with the Government and there was prepared a memorandum of the plan which the farmers recommended the Government to follow. This was ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Easterns do not thresh with flails. The material is strewed over a round and smoothed floor of dried mud in the open air and threshed by different connivances. In Egypt the favourite is a chair-like machine called "Norag," running ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the truth! If you don't think you can stand it, go out into the hail while I thresh this matter out with Taylor!" But Evelyn did not leave ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... may labor in that which is separated from the ground in Syria, but not in that which is attached to the ground. They may thresh, and shovel, and tread out, and make sheaves, but they must not reap the grain nor glean the grapes, nor beat the olives. This is the rule; said Rabbi Akiba, "all things similar to that which is allowed in the land of Israel, men may do ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Church, and then run Home and make the Bed, and put every Thing in its Place; let the House be set to Rights from Top to Bottom, rub the Chamber-Pot, put these foul Things out of Sight, perhaps I may have some Gentry come to pay me a Visit; if I find any Thing out of Order I'll thresh you soundly. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Then they couldn't thresh by sixes any more, said Joggeli, if he took a man from the threshing, and when they all cut wood together they could do a lot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... canvass went. I was still aloft when the brig broached-to. As she came up to the wind, the fore-topmast went over to leeward, being carried away at the cap. All the hamper came down, and began to thresh against the larboard side of the lower rigging. Just at this instant, a sea seemed to strike the brig under her bilge, and fairly throw her ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... do my best, general; don't be alarmed." At this moment the landlord appeared upon the thresh-hold of the door. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... and active, when the disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural knowledge, might well have stifled it. And, finally, it should be remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so long as they continue to think. Consider, for example, the controversy ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... plotting of d'Orleans; were it Brigands, preternatural terror, and the clang of Phoebus Apollo's silver bow,—enough, the markets are scarce of grain, plentiful only in tumult. Farmers seem lazy to thresh;—being either 'bribed;' or needing no bribe, with prices ever rising, with perhaps rent itself no longer so pressing. Neither, what is singular, do municipal enactments, 'That along with so many measures ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... possible to sow wheat, to wait till it grows up, to reap it and thresh it, to grind it to flour, to make five pies of it, to eat those pies, and then to start in pursuit—and even then to be in time.' Koshchei galloped off and caught up ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... or a piece of silver could be wheedled. Marshalling each such source in his mind, he considered it with all the thoroughness and penetration that hunger and thirst lent him for the task. All his optimism failed to thresh a grain of hope from the chaff of his postulations. He had played out the game. That one night in the open had shaken his nerves. Until then there had been left to him at least a few grounds upon which he could base his unblushing demands upon his neighbours' stores. Now ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... think your use shall require, and cut the straw about a foot long besides the Ears, and from the Ear lime the straw six Inches; the warmer it is, the less discernible it will be. Then to the Field adjacent, carrying a bag of Chaff, and thresh'd Ears, scatter them twenty Yards wide, and stick the lim'd ears (declining downwards) here, and there; Then traverse the Fields, disturb their Haunts, and they will repair to your Snare, and pecking at the Ears, finding they stick to them, mount; ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... to let his neighbors know he was in the field. Councill, with a fork over his shoulder, was on his way down the lane to help a neighbor thresh. Ike jovially shook the reins above his colts and Bradley followed close behind, and the two wagons went crashing through the forest of corn. The race started the blood of the drivers as well as ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... They had been doing nothing else all night, but this steady thresh of rain above them seemed to be the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... drudging goblin swet, To earn the cream-bowl, duly set; When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn, That ten day-lab'rers could not end; Then lies him down the lubbar fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength; And, crop-full, out of doors he flings, E'er the ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of bringing salvation to Israel because he was a good son. His old father feared to thresh his grain on account of the Midianites, and Gideon once went out to him in the field and said: "Father, thou art too old to do this work; go thou home, and I shall finish thy task for thee. If the Midianites should ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... taking a reluctant leave, for he wished to thresh out the matter into absolute chaff, 'you know best, so I shall follow ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... voice, And lifteth up his hands on high; The sun and moon stand still in their habitation At the light of thine arrows as they go, At the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou dost march through the land in indignation, Thou dost thresh the nations in anger. ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... up a field that I've been trying to get into for some little time, Mac," the superintendent began, after the half-hour had elapsed and the trainmaster had returned to the private office. "Sit down and we'll thresh it out. Here are some figures showing loss and expense in the general maintenance account. Look them over and tell me ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors, thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... demerit of many statesmen has constantly lain in the power, or the lack of it, of guiding their colleagues and being guided in turn. If we tried to be exact in saying Lincoln, or Lincoln's Cabinet, or the North did this or that, it would be necessary to thresh out many bushels of tittle-tattle. The broad impression, however, remains that in the many things in which Lincoln did not directly rule he ruled through a group of capable men of whom he made the best use, and whom no other chief could have induced to serve so long in ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... chaff would be blown away. If all other means failed, two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move the sheet as a fan to clean the wheat. Now we see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day, and thresh it as well and sack it ready for the mill or warehouse. There is no shocking, no stacking or housing: all in one operation, the grain is made ready ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... obliging the farmer to carry on two trades instead of one, it forced him to divide his capital into two parts, of which one only could be employed in cultivation. But if he had been at liberty to sell his whole crop to a corn merchant as fast as he could thresh it out, his whole capital might have returned immediately to the land, and have been employed in buying more cattle, and hiring more servants, in order to improve and cultivate it better. But by being obliged to sell ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... got any ideas we'll thresh them out. Emperor will be willing. He'll say yes to anything ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... he was good-humouredly ready to "thresh out," for her sentimental satisfaction, a question which, for his own, Time had so conclusively dealt with; and the sense ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... either way," said he, squaring his shoulders doggedly. "Father will thresh me if I run away, and Master Brunswood will thresh me if I don't. I'll not be birched four times a week for merely tripping on a word, and have nothing to show for it but stripes. If I must take a threshing, I'll have my good day's ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... but walking trestles, poor animals! And the men,—well, they are fallen pale; but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which they have in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all the cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about; no hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they hope, utter hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made. [PRECIS DE LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... desperation! With turned-up nose each scamp may face me, With sneers and stinging taunts disgrace me, And, like a bankrupt debtor sitting, A chance-dropped word may set me sweating! Yet, though I thresh them all together, I ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the machine earlier, for all could not thresh at the same time, and a good part of every man's fall activities consisted in "changing works" with his neighbors, thus laying up a stock of unpaid labor against the home job. Day after day, therefore, father or the hired man shouldered ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the stage for the battle of the Somme, which was the corollary of that of Verdun, we must, at the risk of appearing to thresh old straw, consider the German plan of campaign in 1916 when the German staff had turned its eyes from the East to the West. During the summer of 1915 it had attempted no offensive on the Western front, but had been content to hold its solid trench ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... drama was visible to Cardington it would be impossible to say, but apparently he was lost to his surroundings, for he allowed the others to thresh out the Emmet incident without the assistance of his own able flail. Not until the conversation turned to Bermuda did he arouse himself from his reverie and take the lead. The topic suggested to his mind the influence of climate upon architecture and the arts, and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... rode through the stir and thresh of the night, the two women and the man. For guidance along the woods trail they must trust to the finer sense of their horses whose heads they could not see in the closed-in murk. A desultory spray fell upon them as the wind wrenched ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by; I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel. Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky. Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... willingly do the man a good turn if I could. If, now, he had some land, I could plough, and sow, and reap, and carry, and thresh by the week together for him. I should like to pay him attention in such a way that he might know there was at least one who cared for him. But his profession is one in which I can't be of any ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various |
