"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There 'twas laid out on the table when I came down to poke up the fire and set the kettle on. There wasn't no name on it, so 'twan't till I'd read it clear through that I knew 'twas for Miss Martha. It said: 'Have gone to Boston to see—er—what's-his-name and Somebody-else and—' Never mind, Bancroft's all I remember, anyhow. But ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... here," interrupted Ben Griebler again. "I'll tie up with you people when you've shaken something out of your cuffs. I'm not the kind that buys a pig in a poke. We're going to spend money—real money—in this campaign of ours. But I'm not such a come-on as to hand you half a million or so and get a promise in return. I want your plans, and ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... said awkwardly: "I owe you an apology, and the privilege of a poke in the nose besides. But it was a situation—I ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... represented, with great vehemence, that he had won the spoils in fair battle, at the expense of his head and shoulders, which he immediately uncovered, to prove his allegation. But his remonstrance having no effect upon his master, "Wounds!" cried he, "an I mun gee thee back the pig, I'se gee thee back the poke also; I'm a drubbing still in ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... like to poke about here," she said. "I should feel at home as I never do in London. I believe ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... not insensible to the slyness of the poke at him. 'You see, I come to the borough unknown to it, and as quietly as possible, and I want to be taken as a politician,' he continued, for the sake of showing that he had sufficient to say to account for his hasty and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... variety of them. These added to Ray's feeling of restlessness and impermanence. Sometimes she wore a hat that came down over her head, covering her forehead and her eyes, almost. The hair he used to love to touch was concealed. Sometimes he dined with an ingenue in a poke bonnet; sometimes with a senorita in black turban and black lace veil, mysterious and provocative; sometimes with a demure miss in a wistful little turned-down brim. It was like living with a stranger who was always ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... knows what you don't poke your nose into. But now don't go chattering about this. Do be good—for father's sake. Do you ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... the coach window, this June day, is this of Mary Twining, in her big poke bonnet, white kerchief and short-waisted gown. And who is this, who, coming at the last moment, springs into a vacant place at her side, under the very eyes of the reverend old gentleman, her father's friend? The three-cornered ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... the blacksmith-tyrant. "Ready, exercise—one, two"—and so on. And then he would yell: "No, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms—swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there—what would some day be there; the exercise meant that these affable ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... slow-coach," observed Mr. Chandler, after another pause of a minute, "so wur his mare. I mind me I wur behind his mare about five years ago last Michaelmas, and I wur well-nigh perished. I wur a- goin' to give her a poke with my stick, and old Bartlett says, 'Doan't hit her, doan't hit ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this bake-oven. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... reveal little frocks stitched by hand, and a pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set down in the printed picture-books at the bottom of the trunk. These ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... said Roger, chuckling. "They come in and out. To-morrow I'll show you how my stock is arranged. It'll take you quite a while to get familiar with it. Until then I just want you to poke around and see what there is, until you know the shelves so well you could put your hand on any given book in the dark. That's a game my wife and I used to play. We would turn off all the lights at night, ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. First ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... came upon another group of young ladies, who were laughing and talking together. I think they grew merrier as I approached, and I am quite sure I was hotter than I had been all day. "Confound the fellow! can't he turn into an innyard—anywhere out of the main street?" thought I, giving my driver a poke. He knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... may fitly be described as the Paul Pry of canine society. His insatiate inquisitiveness induces him to poke his nose into everything; every strange object excites his curiosity, and he will, if possible, look behind it; the slightest noise arouses his attention, and he wants to investigate its cause. There is no end to his liveliness, but he moves about with almost catlike agility ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... it, and, without force on your part, he will bend to your hand in every articulation. Without these, however unintentionally on your part, you will be perpetually subjecting him to the severest torture, to defend himself against which he will resist your hand, poke his nose, and stiffen his neck, and every other part of his body. The horse can endure no greater torture than that resulting from an uneven hand. This is known to every hack-cabman. Every hack-cabman has hourly experience that a job in the mouth will ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... is such a fine chance!—all the girls are learning how to make their own hats. And I thought, maybe, after I'd learned how on my own, that maybe I could make you one. Do you remember that adorable violet straw you used to have when I was a little girl?—poke shape and with the pink rose? I remember father always said it was the most becoming hat you ever had. And I was thinking, maybe, I could make one something ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I greatly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... them this; it was she, too, who drew back the sheet from Avery's face in order that they might see it. She was a rosy, apple-cheeked woman, and her vivid colouring was thrown into relief by the long black cloak and the close-fitting, black poke-bonnet that she wore. Maurice, for whom the dead as such had no attraction, turned from his contemplation of the stark-stretched figure on the shelf, to watch the living woman. The exuberance of her vitality had something almost insultant in the presence of these two rigid ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... oppressive to Mannering as he fidgetted about waiting for the woman whom he had come to see. He was conscious of a restless longing to open wide the windows, take the flowers from their vases, throw them into the street, and poke out the fire. The little room, with all its associations, its almost pathetic attempts at refinement, its furniture which reeked of the Tottenham Court Road, was suddenly hateful to him. He detested his presence there, and its object. He was already in a ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at his ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... ask him," answered Uncle Tucker, still with the utmost unconcern. "Maybe Rose Mary knows. Women generally carry a reticule around with 'em jest to poke facts into that they gather together from nothing ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... for folks to learn things, an' that's by their own experience. If we could only use other folks' experience, this here world would be heaven in about three generations, but we're so constituted that we never believe fire 'll burn till we poke our own fingers into it to see. Other folks' scars don't go no ways at all ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... he suspected himself of having bought a poke which contained a pig of doubtful value. This, if true, made plain the difficulty of re-sale, and made him think decidedly unpleasant things of "Lewis and Company, Specialists in B.C. Timber." The second was that someone, within recent years, ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... junketing off to the interior of China on some mission of his own? Jane tells me he got a year's leave of absence from the Navy just to study up some outlandish disease that attacks the sailors in foreign ports. She says why should he take a whole year out of the best part of his life to poke around the huts of dirty heathen to find out the kind of microbe that's eating 'em? He'd ought to think of Barbara and what's eating her heart out. I've taken a great fancy to that girl, and I'd like to give Justin a piece of my mind. It probably wouldn't do a bit of ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... response which might have meant anything, but she proved that she was uninjured by getting on her feet. She stared at her disturber bewilderedly, then, perceiving her bonnet, stooped to pick it up, and stood for a moment trying sleepily to poke it into shape and readjust its tawdry plumage. But all of a sudden she gave a start and began looking around her with recovered energy. She missed something, evidently. Gorham followed the direction of her gaze as it shifted, and as his glance ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before he returned to his mate, the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... The moral is, don't poke about in your block-hole, but hit, and, when you bowl in an emergency, aim at getting wickets by any means, rather than ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... 'He said not a word—they only found it out—because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a fellow stood ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bloom at this season, climbing around the sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, digestive organs good, sleeps well, and is the early riser in the mornings. He says ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... "Guess I'll poke along and find out what all the racket is," he decided, as he resumed his lazy paddling, giving no further ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... German's turn to be astonished. Ranjoor Singh strode in, dressed as a Sikh farmer, and frowned down Yasmini's instant desire to poke fun at him. The German rose to salute him, and the Sikh acknowledged the salute with a nod such as royalty might ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock: Thus may we see," quoth he, "how the world wags: 'T is but an hour ago since it was nine; And after one hour more 't will ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... poke their noses into the middle of a fight. War is war. If Rivarez had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of letting himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there'd be one honest man the more and one ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... themselves most exalted when least understood; and down they sit, fully satisfied with their own performances, and call them MASCULINE. While a second sort, aiming at wit, that wicked misleader, forfeit all title to judgment. And a third, sinking into the classical pits, there poke and scramble about, never seeking to show genius of their own; all their lives spent in common-place quotation; fit only to write notes and comments upon other people's texts; all their pride, that they know those beauties of two thousand years old in another tongue, which ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... pouch, wallet, reticule, knapsack, pocket, cul-de-sac, haversack, portmanteau, poke, scrip, satchel, suitcase, quiver, valise, sporran, gunny sack; udder; cyst, vesicle, saccule, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to go down and have breakfast with dear Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven. Would you be inclined to come out with me then? We could ride over to that burnt land and have a poke round ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... here, Abe. Don't you know that Mr. Worth expects us to make the trip in the shortest possible time? We've got to get that money into Republic to-morrow evening, and before if we can. There is too much at stake to poke along like this." ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... notwithstanding these offerings, the two sombre eyes continued to regard him with an unchanged expression. One day, to arouse him from his condition of indifference or latent kindness, Rounders introduced a stick under the bars to poke him up in a friendly way, touching him on his extended paws. The beast struck quickly, and almost caught his hand. As it was, one of his fingers was bruised by the blow. Brinton, unperceived by Rounders, had been standing behind ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... know that," assented Jimmie, punctuating his statement with a poke at the paragraph he had just ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... be a 'possum," thought Nic; but he altered his mind the next moment, for he saw a spear come forward with a poke on one side of the tree, and then drive at the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... eye on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription over ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... dern, forsooth, his'n, an invite, entre nous, tote, hadn't oughter, yclept, a combine, ain't, dole, a try, nouveau riche, puny, grub, twain, a boom, alter ego, a poke, cuss, eld, enthused, mesalliance, tollable, disremember, locomote, a right smart ways, chink, afeard, orate, nary a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... conceded. "And Gussie does make such a splendid teacher! That's what she ought to be all right, 'stead of a cook, though she does know how to cook wonderful things. But I'm glad she has got 'most enough money saved up to take her through Normal College. She can poke more real education into a fellow's head in a minute than Miss Phelps ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... of a Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first startling act—he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly accepted David, at the same time ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... placed across the other end of the room all the chairs in the house, as it seemed and Mademoiselle started violently when she saw that fully half a dozen of these chairs were occupied. And by the queerest people, too an old woman with a poke bonnet tied under her chin with a red handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat wreathed in flowers and the oddest hands that stuck out over the chair in front of her, several men with strange, clumsy figures, and all with ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... Sara to have become at once both older and younger than in former days. He had all the hilarious good spirits evinced by nine out of ten of the boys who came home on leave—the cheery capacity to laugh at the hardships and dangers of the front, to poke good-natured fun at "old Fritz" and to make a jest of the German shells and the Flanders mud, treating the whole great adventure of war as though it were the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... minutes, and we will point out to him one or two groups who have met for the purpose of settling a marriage. Do you see that tall sthreel of a fellow, who slings awkwardly along, for which reason he is nicknamed by his acquaintances "a sling-poke"? Observe the lazy grotesque repose of his three-featured face, for more it does not present, viz.—mouth, eyes, and nose. His long legs are without calves, and he is in-kneed; yet the fellow has such taste, ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... hear what Farmer Green said. Her children were making a good deal of noise. And to tell the truth, Mrs. Pig herself wasn't exactly a silent eater. When Farmer Green jumped into the pen and began to poke at the sides of it she wondered what he was doing. Soon he found the loose board and pushed against it with his foot, exclaiming, "Here's where he got away! Who'd have thought that the runt was ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... in a small room," she sighed ecstatically in Sylvia's ear; "I'd certainly poke them up if they only turned around sulkily in the corners of the cage and evinced ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... how you do poke along!" Elsie remarked from the top of the stairs. "I declare, you are enough to try the patience of a Job. Come along, or I'll rush into the room first, manners or no manners; then mother ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... She had a hooked nose and pointed chin. Grey wisps of hair straggled out from beneath her poke bonnet. Her eyes were like two snakes, and when she opened her mouth to speak she showed her long pointed iron teeth. She was dressed in a black cloak, from which protruded her long skinny arms and claw-like hands. She carried a broom-stick, and behind her slunk ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... looked squarely at her as soon as she came, because, you know, he had to look at her sometime, but he had a mean, slinking, afraid feeling, such as people always have when they have done something wrong and have had time to think about it. Besides, he had changed his mind since the wooden poke had been put on him, and somehow his running away seemed very foolish now. He wondered how he could ever have thought it any fun, and he was so disgusted that he couldn't keep his ears still, but moved them restlessly when he ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... won't, dear. You couldn't if you wanted to—but you don't really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea. I hope you have something nice ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and the young ladies obtained the melons from a farmer," explained Tom Reade, giving Dan an unseen poke in ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... use of your going down there at all," Ebenezer went on, turning to poke the fire. "It doesn't look well after the things that happened ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Bazaar is much farther into the city, quite in the native quarter. It is a real adventure to make an expedition there, and the owners allow us to poke in back rooms from which we unearth wondrous treasures in the way of old brass vases; queer, slender-necked scent-bottles still faintly smelling of roses; old lacquer boxes, and bits of rich embroidery. ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... went up and made himself a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. 'Ah, if I could but shudder!' said he, 'but I shall not learn it here either.' Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner: 'Au, miau! how cold we are!' 'You fools!' cried he, 'what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.' And when he had said that, two great black cats came with one ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... holding hands, dance around him, saying: "Frog in the middle, jump in, jump out, take a stick and poke him out." As the last line is sung, the frog takes one child by the hands and pulls him to the center, exchanging places with him. The children continue dancing around and singing while the frogs jump thick and fast. The game continues ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... Eddie replied. 'All I do is poke my foot out at him, give it to him; he goes to grab it, and I ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... Miss, it was lek dis, dere warn't no fancy victuals lak us thinks us got to have now, but what dere was, dere was plenty of. Most times dere was poke sallet, turnip greens, old blue head collards, cabbages, peas, and 'taters by de wholesale for de slaves to eat and, onct a week, dey rationed us out wheat bread, syrup, brown sugar, and ginger cakes. What dey give chillun de most of was potlicker ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... moment, he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... her go in here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me on the stairs—she did. Here's the room, and no woman in it. Give us a Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her whole remaining ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... other dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows passed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... that there might not be room for a man to lie flat under some of the big slabs, and began to poke about among them. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... stranger could understand, but I dare say I shall pick it up presently. And after dinner, in the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia did introduce me to two girls—the Roose girls—you know. Well, Lady Jane is the best of the two; Lady Violet is a lump. They both poke their heads, and Jane turns in her toes. They have rather the look in their eyes of people with tight boots. Violet said, "Do you bicycle?" and I said, "Yes, sometimes;" and she said, with a big gasp: "Jane and I adore it. We have been ten miles since tea with Captain ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... morning-sun nearly broiled us, till we got into a sort of cave, excavated in the hill, it is said, with an idea of finding treasure. It seems there was once a Mexican calendar cut in the rock at this spot; and some white people who were interested in such matters, used to come to see it, and poke curiously about in search of other antiquities. Naturally enough, the Indians thought that they expected to find treasure; and with a view of getting the first chance themselves, they cut down the calendar, and made ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... in a harum-scarum way, is even more typical of Dickens in its spirit of fun and laughter. He had been engaged, as we have noted, to furnish a text for some comic drawings, thus reversing the usual order of illustration. The pictures were intended to poke fun at a club of sportsmen; and Dickens, who knew nothing of sport, bravely set out with Mr. Winkle on his rook-shooting. Then, while the story was appearing in monthly numbers, the illustrator committed suicide; Dickens was left with Mr. Pickwick on his hands, and that innocent old gentleman ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... was scarce a family in the neighborhood in which one or more was not ill with an intermittent or a bilious fever. At the inn where we stopped, the landlady, a stout Pennsylvania woman, was just so far recovered as to be able, as she informed us, "to poke about;" and her daughter, a strapping lass, went out to pass the night at the bedside of one of the numerous sick neighbors. The sickness was ascribed by the settlers to the extremely dry and hot weather following a rainy June. At almost ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... gave Ruby a facetious poke in the ribs, which was not quite in harmony with the ignorance of each other he was endeavouring ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... begun movin' before I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I climbs in and ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... screw, the latter could be raised or lowered at pleasure. The book was no sooner placed before the opening, at the distance of a few inches, than the bear, which was on the look-out to see what was going forward, began to snuff and poke, and shewed a most eager desire to reach it. In fact, all along the lines of large letters, which were widely divided by the musical staves, the tutor, well knowing the taste of his pupil, had stuck little figs, dates, raisins, almonds, morsels of cake, comfits, and dried fruits; in short, all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... cleared space in the woods beside Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... over to Mis' Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... papa, He snaps when I offer him his offspring, Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him, Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible tortoise Being touched with love, and devoid ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... "So you thought you were going into business on your own!" snarled Guffey, and his fist, which was under Peter's nose, gave an upward poke that almost ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... all, vull run, An' out cried Tom, "I think The grinden-stwone is up on tun, Vor I can zee the wink. This is some kindness that the vo'k At Woodley have a-done, min; I wish I had em here, I'd poke Their ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... shown some of Pete's gold, and so remarked; whereupon the latter thrust his hand into his trouser's pockets, well hidden by the fur parkie he wore, took out a poke and threw it upon the table. When Thomas had untied the string and held the moose-hide sack by its two lower corners bottom upwards there clattered out upon the boards enough of good-sized golden nuggets to cause the eyes of the doubter to ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a, "First, if you please, my ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... would take place when he should return. Perhaps he even imagined himself marching up to the door in sailor's blue cloth with a seaman's cloak and cocked hat, pistol and cutlass in his belt and a hundred gold guineas in his poke. Not for worlds would he have turned pirate, but the romance of the sea had touched him and he could not help a flight of ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... me said," drawled Pleasant. "If you poke yore nose over the line 'bout three of us will shoot you on sight. We'd do it fer Juno, an' if she ain't alive we'll do it fer ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... Miss Linton. What a jolly shame it is," he cried, throwing off all form. "You always laugh and poke fun at me." ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... in search of the tiger. One of these men, named Li-neng, had been leaning against the wall, half asleep. He had been drinking heavily and so had not heard what had been going on in the room. One of his friends gave him a poke in the ribs just as ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... ain't nawthin' much," Shack replied, with scorn; "I on'y knocked me fin against a tree when I was smackin' that setter a whack. He ducked too quick for me, yuh see, an' I lost him, worse luck; but second time I gives him a poke that ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... not burn; for the caloric (or heat) traverses the thread, without remaining in it, and attacks the stone. The same sort of trick may be performed with a poker, round which is evenly pasted a sheet of paper. You can poke the fire with ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... to begin the investigation at the outlet and then proceed up, section after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the cause of the constipated condition of the drain. But just this ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... indignantly exclaiming against it, "Call that thing a bonnet, indeed?" certainly tempts us to reply to their prejudiced and absurd reflections, "Physician, heal thyself;" for if there is one thing more ugly than another, it is the old-fashioned bonnet with crown, curtain, and poke, to which a few old maids rigidly adhere—just as Quakeresses do to their hideous and antiquated style. There is a kind of self-righteousness in the protests of these ladies, with which we confess that we have no sympathy. We do not ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... nor venture to recklessly take one step more than I ought to, you know very well which of the women servants, in charge of the menage in our household, is easy to manage! If ever I make the slightest mistake, they laugh at me and poke fun at me; and if I incline a little one way, they show their displeasure by innuendoes; they sit by and look on, they use every means to do harm, they stir up trouble, they stand by on safe ground and look on and don't give a helping hand to lift any one they have thrown over, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... you rascals!" he roared, and began to poke at the monkeys with a sharp stick. But two of them caught the stick and, watching their chance, jerked ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... lightly to poke the fire. "About that card," said he. "I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible for ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... family affair, isn't it? I think I'll ask first and see if anybody else is going to give in our names. Perhaps Iva or Nesta may. It would be much nicer than seeming to poke ourselves forward." ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... beginning to poke the fire, "he has let the fire down, of course! Is it out? No ... I ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... around surprised at the sudden fierceness of the other's tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he came back directly, smiling easily and ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... but light, and the feet and legs should be kept warm and dry. To put on their stockings, turn the toe in a little way, and poke the toes into the end, then pull over a little at a time, instead of putting the foot in at the knee of the stocking. Put the left stocking on the right foot next day, so as to change ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... undertake any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. The body, hung ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Massachusetts lettuce—I'm perfectly convinced that they used it for floor-rags before they went and lost it in the sandwiches—and this thick crumby bread—oh, it's unspeakable. I do wish you wouldn't poke around in these horrid places, mama, or else leave me in the car when you are moved to go slumming. I'm sure I don't feel any ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... DELMONICO'S you can buy an apple dumplin for $3.00, and 25 cents extra for a tooth-pick, while at some other places it costs a man 1/2 a dollar to poke his head into a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... go fast. She knew no fear of horses. She would have undertaken to drive the car of Phaeton, himself, had she been given the chance. She had little patience to poke along, and that was exactly what Dolly did ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... undeniable something'? {233b} Why, this is the sentiment of modern Germany, and perhaps of the Indian sages of a cultivated period! A troglodyte would look for a 'possum in the tree, he would tap the trunk for honey, he would poke about in the bark after grubs, or he would worship anything odd in the branches. Is Mr. Muller not unconsciously transporting a kind of modern malady of thought into the midst of people who wanted to find a dinner, and who ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... asked Mr. Merkel, "that nothing happened to me? I just came from there. I don't buy a pig in a poke. I went to Dot and Dash and sized the place up before I closed the deal with Jed Barter. How is it Death Valley didn't get ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to talk," she said to herself; "Jack means to do what's right. And it's even worse to scold or be cross to him, for that only makes him stay away more." And she gave the pillow she was stirring up a savage poke to ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... just a little too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in his hand. Before he had realized what had happened, he darted out, brandishing the ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... knight, who commanded the keeper to take a stick and poke the beast out of the cage; but here he met with unyielding obstinacy, for this the man refused to do under any circumstances, saying that the first one to be chewed to pieces, if he did that, would be himself. Then he began to praise ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, 'tis only on the less important parts, that you may not so much consider the beauty ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "Melvin's a poke. The invitation included him, too, but he sets himself up stiff as stiff and said he had no time to waste visiting. He'd got to learn the business soon as he could, for his mother—Oh! a lot of bosh about his mother, and her trusting ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... so far imitate a vulgar clown as to smack a friend on the back, poke him in the ribs, or by clapping his hand upon his shoulder. It is equally bad taste to use a familiar shout, or "Hullo, old boy!" or any other "Hail fellow, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... idea took hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It seemed that she had something ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... "Almost any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... then gave the one blow to the coals that had been required of her. "Thanks," said he, nodding at her as he still knelt at her feet and took the poker from her; "thanks. Now you are free of Hendon Hall for ever. I wouldn't have any one but a friend poke my fire." Upon that he got up and walked slowly out ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Two un um! W'en dat chile rize up, ef rize up he do, he'll des nat'ally be a shadder. Yer I is, gwine on eighty year, en I aint tuck none er dat ar docter truck yit, ceppin' it's dish yer flas' er poke-root w'at ole Miss Favers fix up fer de stiffness in my j'ints. Dey'll come en dey'll go, en dey'll po' in der jollup yer, en slap on der fly-plarster dar, en sprinkle der calomy yander, twel bimeby dat chile won't look like hisse'f. Dat 's w'at! En mo'n dat, hit 's mighty kuse unter ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... sighed the caliph, drooping his wings composedly; "who told you that she was young and beautiful? That is what I call buying a pig in a poke!" ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen |
