"Thimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I lost my silver thimble, a gift from my mother when I was a young girl. I prized it very highly. I looked everywhere, long and faithfully. The tears would come, at the best, it had been so long a constant companion. I gave up the search after a while, thinking some one had ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... obscured the sunny brightness of her childhood. From twelve to fourteen, I told her stories; astonished her with narratives of my own exploits at Eton, and caused her serene blue eyes to open in admiration at the marvels of London. At fourteen, I began to pick up her pocket-handkerchief, hunt for her thimble, accompany her in duets, and to read poetry to her, as she occupied herself with the little lady-like employments of the needle. About the age of seventeen I began to compare cousin Anna, as I was permitted to call her, with the other young girls of my acquaintance, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... must pay the forfeit, or your thimble remains in my possession! I won't be coaxed over, this time!" ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... structure is preserved in exact detail. The dull red walls, the beetling roof, the narrow pointed windows and low, arched door; the quaint Dutch weathercock, and odd-shaped tower—aye, even the bell within, no bigger than a doll's thimble—and upon all a sentimental traveler in the person of a china figure perhaps three inches in height, is gazing half pensively, half curiously, as we suppose, at this ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... come a lock and a key strong enough to hold Jack Sheppard; and from Horsham Gaol a complete set of fetters for ankles and wrists, once used to cramp the movements of female malefactors. Here, in a case, is a tiny bronze thimble that tipped the pretty finger of a Roman seamstress—one only among scores of tokens of the Roman occupation of the county. Flint arrow heads and celts in profusion take us back to remoter times. A Pyecombe ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... slept till dawn. Spanish diet and youth leaves the digestion undisordered, and the slumbers light. When the lark rose, up rose Catalina. No time to lose, for she was still in the dress of a nun, and liable to be arrested by any man in Spain. With her armed finger, [aye, by the way, I forgot the thimble; but Kate did not]—she set to work upon her amply-embroidered petticoat. She turned it wrong side out; and with the magic that only female hands possess, she had soon sketched and finished a dashing pair of Wellington ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... time to do it now," answered Eliza importantly, as she hitched Teether a notch higher up on her arm. "I've got to take him and the baby in to Mother Mayberry to see if his other top-tooth have come up enough for Maw to rub it through with her thimble." Though she did not designate Teether as the subject of the operation the audience understood that it was he and not Martin Luther ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... made, by dint of smirking and nodding on the part of the lady of the house, to sit next Miss Bradwardine at dinner, to be Miss Bradwardine's partner at cards. If he came into the room, she of the four Miss Rubricks who chanced to be next Rose was sure to recollect that her thimble or her scissors were at the other end of the room, in order to leave the seat nearest to Miss Bradwardine vacant for his occupation. And sometimes, if papa and mamma were not in the way to keep ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... beautiful, thoroughly furnished work-box from Mamma Vi, with "actually a gold thimble in it," to encourage her in learning to sew. One for Gracie also exactly like it, except that Lulu's was lined with red satin and Gracie's with blue. Each had beside a new doll with a neat little trunk packed full of clothes made to fit it, and a box ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... make it any size I please, from a thimble to a sentry-box," said the Goblin. "And, speaking of sentry-boxes"—here he stopped and looked more stupid ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... banes and beggary; Better it war for Whigs an' Whiggery Meeting the deevil than Donald McGillavry. Come like a tailor, Donald McGillavry, Come like a tailor, Donald McGillavry, Push about, in an' out, thimble them cleverly. Here's to King ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... my father. A man, he was— No fonder of his glass than a man should be. Few like him now: I've not his guts, and Jim's Just a lamb's head, gets half-cocked on a thimble, And mortal, swilling an eggcupful; a gill Would send him randy, reeling to the gallows. Dad was the boy! Got through three bottles a day, And never turned a hair, when his own master, Before we'd to quit Rawridge, because the dandy Had put himself outside of all his money— Teeming it down ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... tender years, I left the house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London. How my loss was resented I do not know, for till this instant I have not heard a syllable about them. My whole stock was two broad pieces of my godmother's, a few shillings, silver shoe-buckles and a silver thimble. Thus equipped, with no more clothes than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and frightened at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I hurried on; and I dare sweare, walked a dozen miles before I stopped, through mere weariness and fatigue. At length ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... went to the Opera nor did I think his Rawdon Crawley very convincing. His Peter Pan was splendid the afternoon we spent in Kensington Gardens, and he thought my Wendy was so perfect he tried to make me give him a "thimble" right there before all the ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... turnstile gate; The orange-sellers cried "Fat and fine Seville oranges, sweet, like wine: Twopence apiece, all juice, all juice." The pea and the thimble caught their goose. ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... replied the little culprit, not a whit dismayed. "Then 'twas Prudy. We was playing 'thimble-coop.' She broked it all ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... other of the two apertures of her gown through which she reached her pockets. The strangest jingling of keys and money then echoed among her garments. She always wore, dangling from one side, the bunch of keys of a good housekeeper, and from the other her silver snuff-box, thimble, knitting-needles, and other implements that were also resonant. Instead of Mademoiselle Zephirine's wadded hood, she wore a green bonnet, in which she may have visited her melons, for it had passed, like them, from green to yellowish; as for its shape, our present fashions ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... stay till Saturday afternoon. And intend to make dolly two or three dresses before we go, if her mother will let us," Carry added, laughingly, as she put away her thimble and ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... wish he didn't live here," said Carrie, gathering up her spools, thimble and scissors, while Mrs. Livingstone, feeling that his absence had taken a load from her shoulders, settled herself upon her silken lounge and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... Jack!' exclaimed his lordship, throwing himself off his horse, and wringing his hands in despair, as a select party of thimble-riggers, who had gone to Jack's assistance, raised him up, and turned his ghastly face, with his eyes squinting inside out, and the foam still on his mouth, full upon him. 'Oh, my poor dear Jack!' repeated his lordship, sinking on his knees beside him, and grasping his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... her back fence, which was the nearest point of communication between her and her neighbour. "Mis' Smith," she called, and her confederate came hurrying to the door, thimble on and a bit of sewing clutched precariously in her apron, just as she had caught it up when the significant call brought her ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... how the Siamese do leave their things round," she exclaimed, as she surveyed her room after making up the fire and polishing off Boo. "I'll put things in order, and then mend up my rags, if I can find my thimble. Now, let me see;" and she went to exploring her closet, bureau, and table, finding such disorder everywhere that ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... for a supper and dance, to the sugar-house, where there was a bride's cake, with all the usual accessories, such as the ring and thimble, to be cut for. And of course, before the end of the evening, there was the usual distribution of bits of cake to be "dreamed on." This last, indeed, was so important that nearly every girl on the plantation ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... at the village of Eton Constantine, in 1615. He received from officiating curates of the little church such literary instruction as could be given by men who had left the farmer's flail, the tailor's thimble, and the service of strolling stage-players, to perform church drudgery under the parish incumbent, who was old and well-nigh blind. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a school at Wroxeter, where he spent three years, to little purpose, so far as a scientific education was concerned. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "learning-child," by "pupil." The title of an old work, Ayen-bite of In-wit, "Again-bite of In-wit," was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." Grund-weall and word-hora were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The German language still retains this power and calls a glove a "hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... behind the inn, a path which to-day was beset by, and wound between, booths and stalls and carts of all sorts. And here was gathered a motley crowd; bespangled tumblers and acrobats, dark-browed gipsy fortune-tellers and horse-coupers, thimble-riggers, showmen, itinerant musicians,—all those nomads who are to be found on every race-course, fair, and village green, when the world goes a-holiday making. Through all this bustling throng went our two young gentlemen, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... this, madam." He drew from his pocket a small silver thimble. "This'd be a password to the lydy. The minute she'd see it she'd know ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... coming to her feet and adjusting her skirt, "you give me a needle! I've got my thimble right here in my pocket. It's three months sence I've seen a shoe. I should admire to do a pair or two. I wish I could promise ye more, but somehow I'm bewitched to git over ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Badger; aged forty, thick-set, dark, close-cropped; has been a prize-fighter; no apparent occupation." Badger's an old friend of mine. "George Smith, otherwise the Dook, otherwise Jingling Geordie; red-haired and curly, slight, flash; an old thimble-rig; has been a stroller; suspected of smuggling; an associate of loose women." G. S., Esquire, is another of my flock. "Andrew Ainslie, otherwise Slink Ainslie; aged thirty-five; thin, white-faced, lank-haired; no occupation; has been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "My thimble won't suit your finger, I've a notion, my little maid," he observed; "but I dare say you've got one of your own in your pocket. Feel for ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... all in Paris at the same time. I don't fancy her; she is too insufferably vain and affected. It is my opinion that she is flirting with Eugene, which must be quite agreeable to you. Oh, I tell you, Beulah, I could easily put her mind, heart, and soul in my thimble!" ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... not come back empty-handed," said Jack. "Look, mamma; here are a beautiful pair of scissors, a large paper of needles, another of pins, and a thimble! How rich you are now! And when you get well, you can make me a pretty waistcoat and a pair of trousers, for I am in great ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... out on her travels; so she kissed her mother, and bade good-by to her nurse, who gave her a little ball of spiders' threads to sew with, and a beautiful little box, made of the egg-shell of a wren, to keep her best thimble in, and took leave of her, wishing her safe ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... thimble in your dreams, you will have many others to please besides yourself. If a woman, you will have ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... her thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by her friend, he immediately sent her four others to take her ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... rummage in a voluminous pocket, and the production of several articles irrelevant to the occasion—a thimble, a bit of ginger, and part of a tract—Mrs Gray brought to light a piece of paper, on which was written the ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... with its big, light yellow, sprawling leaves, and its attractively red, thimble-shaped, but rather tasteless berries. The Indians, however, are very fond of them, and so are some of the birds and animals, likewise of the service berries, which look much like the blueberry, though their flavor is ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... course, will be as you please," she said coldly. "Since Thimble Cottage burned, I've tried to make you understand that you are to use my place as your own. If you don't want to ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... foreman, with a lordly gesture, and in due course are hammered into fragments. These fragments, which are put to various uses, are called scruts; and one of the uses they are put to is a sentimental one. The dainty and luxurious Southerner looks to find in his Christmas pudding a wedding-ring, a gold thimble, a threepenny-bit, or the like. To such fal-lals the Five Towns would say fie. A Christmas pudding in the Five Towns contains nothing but suet, flour, lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins—and two or three scruts. There is a world of poetry, beauty, romance, in ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... bones dropped, a shame and a blot on the clean face of the earth, blackened by the heat, drenched white by the rain, twirled and swung by every breath of wind, while the pies and the crows made thimble-pits of his face, a waste rag of humanity. Come now, which ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... that is not because it is unusual to find pinon trees in that country, but because there are so few of them in the canyon of the stream. There are all sorts higher up on the slopes,—long-leaved yellow pines, thimble cones, tamarack, silver fir, and Douglas spruce; but in the canyon there is only a group of the low-headed, gray nut pines which the earliest inhabitants of that country ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... going through the fine muslin, seemed to go through her heart. At nine the watching became unbearable. She said softly "I must go to bed. I am tired;" but she put away with her usual neatness her work, and her spools of thread, her thimble and her scissors. Her movement in the room roused the doctor thoroughly. He stood up, stretched his arms outward and upward, and said "he believed he had been sleeping, and must ask their pardon for his indifference." And then he walked ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... stopped when they liked. The Dodo said everybody had won, and Alice had to give the prizes. Luckily she had some sweets, which were not wet, and there was just one for each of them, but none for herself. The party were anxious she, too, should have a prize, and as she happened to have a thimble, the Dodo commanded her to hand it to him, and then, with great ceremony, the Dodo presented it to her, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to buy—a thimble; and that she bought for a penny. The thimble was of brass and so bright that it was quite as handsome ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... cry so much about the pain, madam,' said the poor woman, 'as because you see it is her thimble finger;' and she held the little ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the elephants and the giraffes, though they could look over. There was a bit of pasture-land shut in for the cows, who fell to nibbling as soon as they were put in it. A clover-leaf lasted one of the sheep two days. The tinman sent some little tin dippers no bigger than a thimble, and the children were delighted to see the animals drink. The boys handed one of the dippers into the ark for the tigers. The giraffes found a bush just high enough for them to eat from. The doves sat on the eaves of the ark, and Agamemnon brought some pickled olives, as ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... from the effects of the heat and resumed his quick pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a child's small knife. When he picked it up he discovered a thimble and also a needlecase ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... that she might relent and allow them a gleam of hope. She found it impossible to help trampling upon the prostrate Prince a little, in words at least, for he had hurt her feelings oftener than he knew; so she gave him a thimble-pie on the top of his head, and said, with an air ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... appreciate. There was a bookcase between the windows filled with choicely bound books. Beside it stood a little table with a very dainty work-basket on it. By the basket Mrs. Griggs saw a pair of tiny scissors and a silver thimble. A wicker rocker, comfortable with silk cushions, was near it. Above the bookcase a woman's picture hung—a water-colour, if Mrs. Griggs had but known it—representing a pale, very sweet face, with large, dark eyes and a wistful expression under loose masses of ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her, and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely anyone who needs a thimble so little. You see, though still a tiny child, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... pint. For all your colloguing,[3] I'd be glad for a knoggin:[4] But I doubt 'tis a sham; you won't give us a dram. 'Tis of shine a mouth moon-ful, you won't part with a spoonful, And I must be nimble, if I can fill my thimble, You see I won't stop, till I come to a drop; But I doubt the oraculum, is a poor supernaculum; Though perhaps you may tell it, for a grace if we smell ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... time to find her thimble and needles and spools, for Polly wasn't a very neat little girl; but she got settled at last, and stitched away as if bent on beating ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... thread—how old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions!—at the little house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything for ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the icing to distinguish the bridesmaids' side from that of the ushers. Articles, each wrapped in silver foil, have been pushed through the bottom of the cake at intervals; the bridesmaids find a ten-cent piece for riches, a little gold ring for "first to be married," a thimble or little parrot or cat for "old maid," a wish-bone for the "luckiest." On the ushers' side, a button or dog is for the bachelor, and a miniature pair of dice as a symbol of lucky chance in life. The ring and ten-cent piece ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... not find one copper thimbleBut Sir Arthur will do his pleasure. I have showed him how it is possiblevery possibleto have de great sum of money for his occasionsI have showed him de real experiment. If he likes not to believe, goot Mr. Oldenbuck, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... her thimble upon the quilting frame and every one became very busy. "I hope," she said, taking the conversation into her own hands for safe keeping, "that you found all well upon your return, Mrs. Coombe? I hardly ever seem to see Esther now. Did you know that we have been talking of changing ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... double Jessamine is twining up the papaw (whose fruit, if rubbed on a bull's hide, immediately converts it into a tender beef—steak) and absolutely stifling you with sweet perfume; and then the sangaree old Madeira, two parts of water, no more, and nutmeg and not a taste out of a thimble, but a rummerful of it, my boy, that would drown your first—born at his christening, if he slipped into it, and no stinting in the use of this ocean; on the contrary, the tidy old brown nurse, or mayhap a buxom young one, at your ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... candle to light me to bed, and, as I went up stairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe's thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of Cousin Tabitha Twitchit)—died of a thimble in a Christmas plum-pudding. I never put any article of metal in MY ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... really the least submissive of you all. She put on her thimble, threaded the needle of her robin-headed brain, and worked all your fuss and agitations and futile parades down to a formula by which you can actually obtain the ballot," ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... to," sniffed Mrs. Updyke, fitting on a huge steel thimble open at the top; "they ain't much arternoons to these short days, anyhow. I'll take this star, an' you, Sairay, may work on the next, so't I kin kinder watch ye. 'Twon't do to hev ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... "Rehearsal."[9] He alone contributed more to the farce than all the other poets together. His favourite style of comic dialogue, which he had declared to consist rather in a quick sharpness of dialogue than in delineations of humour,[10] is paraphrased in the scene between Tom Thimble and Prince Prettyman; the lyrics of his astral spirits are cruelly burlesqued in the song of the two lawful Kings of Brentford, as they descend to repossess their throne; above all, Almanzor, his favourite hero, is parodied in the magnanimous Drawcansir; and, to conclude, the whole scope ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... thin, if you do it will not stick to the apple; take a middling apple and pare it, cut out the core, and cut the rest in round slices about the thickness of a shilling; (you may take out the core after you have cut it with your thimble) have ready a little lard in a stew-pan, or any other deep pan; then take your apple every slice single, and dip it into your bladder, let your lard be very hot, so drop them in; you must keep them turning whilst enough, and mind that they be not over brown; as you take them ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... at all the angel in the house whom I needed. It was a well-appointed, handsome dwelling, but it was terribly gloomy. The heavy, substantial leather chairs always remained undisturbed in level rows against the wall, and the crimson cloth upon the table was as bare as a billiard-table. A thimble lying upon it, or fallen on the carpet and almost crushed by my careless tread, would have been as welcome a sight to me as a blade of grass or a spring of water in some sandy desert. The sound of a light foot and rustling ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... yield. What father or mother is there who dares set his or her will up in opposition to the baby. If baby wants papa's spectacles, it must have them, no matter if papa is reading. If it wants mamma's thimble, it has it. If baby wants to go to sleep, the whole family must move on tip-toe, and not speak above a whisper. If baby gets the croup at night, the whole family must be aroused, papa must run two miles to the doctor's, grandmother must be routed from her ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... thimble over the end of rods and you can easily run it through your curtains, or an old glove finger will answer the purpose ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... in bloom below; service-berries, salmon-berries; skunk-cabbage, beloved by bears, and the roots of which the Indians roast and eat; above four thousand feet, white rhododendrons, and, above four thousand five hundred feet, heather; hellebore also in the high places; thimble-berries and red elderberries, tag-alder, red honeysuckle, long stretches of willows in the creek-bottoms; vining maples, too, and yew trees, the wood of which the Indians use ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... petted. Sophia was liable to be playfully tapped by Aunt Harriet's thimble when Aunt Harriet was hemming dusters (for the elderly lady could lift a duster to her own dignity). Sophia was called on two separate occasions, 'My little butterfly.' And Sophia was entrusted with the trimming of Aunt Harriet's new summer bonnet. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... soon after, and a series of ill-fortune at length reduced him to the condition of a race-course thimble-rig, and small sharper ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... of the last page, which was left for the "superscription." Then it was folded, the first leaf turned down twice, lengthwise; then the two ends laid over, toward each other; then the last doubling, or rather trebling, across; and the open edge slipped over the folds. A wafer sealed it, and a thimble pressed it,—and there were twenty-five cents postage to pay. That was a letter in the old times, when Laura and Frank Shiere were little girls. And ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... contains the seeds of the young bees, you must cut away that part wherein the offspring of the royal brood is animated: for this is easy to be seen; because at the very end of the wax-works there appears, as it were, a thimble-like process (somewhat similar to an acorn,) rising higher, and having a wider cavity, than the rest of the holes, wherein the young bees of vulgar ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the card-sharper and thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to save the candidate of Mozart Hall. Even the sachems of Tammany, to avert disaster, nominated James T. Brady, whose great popularity it was believed would draw strength from both Opdyke and Wood; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... should be made with as little parade and ceremony as possible. If it is a small matter, a gold pencil-case, a thimble to a lady, or an affair of that sort, it should not be offered formally, but ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... girl, in a crumbling old house, with a foot of water in the cellar, and a sick mother in the next room. She had forgotten about Ephraim and his idols; she picked up Shep's trowsers from the rug, where she had dropped them, and looking intently at her thimble finger, told him she was very glad he ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the world men do: Or, like the Devil, did tempt and sway 'em To rogueries, and then betray 'em. They'll search a planet's house, to know Who broke and robb'd a house below: 590 Examine VENUS, and the MOON, Who stole a thimble or a spoon; And tho' they nothing will confess, Yet by their very looks can guess, And tell what guilty aspect bodes, 595 Who stole, and who receiv'd the goods. They'll question MARS, and, by his look, Detect who 'twas that nimm'd a cloke: Make MERCURY confess, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... sees pigs, or horses, or cows surprised, and they seem to get through life a great deal easier than we do, at all events they have less worry, and they never leave their children at their neighbour's doors and run away—what can have got it?—I'm quite sure I put it there last night with the thimble ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... here I have my little work-bag, and in it there is a pair of scissors, and a little thimble, and a needle and thread. Very soon you will see what I am going ...
— The Cock, The Mouse and the Little Red Hen - an old tale retold • Felicite Lefevre
... a Rosy," "London Bridge is Falling Down," "Hide the Thimble," and other such infantile entertainments proved exceedingly mirth-provoking. The big babies were continually crying over fancied woes, and sometimes even the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... imagine a lesson being given to herself under these conditions. The thought wa complete insensibility to music, her eyes bent on her work, the quick movements of her small, thin hands, the darting gleam of her thimble, the dry way she had of clearing her throat, a gesture that was an accentuation of the slightly metallic quality of her voice, and expressed, for Miriam, in sound, that curious sense of circumspect frugality she was growing to realise ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... thimble; I have always kept it carefully in my dressing-case," said Charles, presenting a pretty gold thimble to Madame Grandet, who for many years ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... great quantities, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges, squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary, and some people call them thimble berries." ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the tailor's thimble,' declaimed the portentous toast master. 'May the needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!' and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the dates would be brought down too far or too near!" And this is the keynote of his entire policy: fiat hypothesis, ruat caelum! On the other hand Prof. Max Muller, enthusiastic Indophile as he seems, crams centuries into his chronological thimble without ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... contents of the pocket of Carmelita, wrong again with Fernanda, with Maria Josefa, with Micaela, but see, what a sly rogue! he knew exactly what was in Emilita's: some scissors, a handkerchief, a thimble, and three caramels. The girl began to groan and clasp her hands in a state of nervous collapse. "It was a trap! a trap!" The captain serene, unperturbed, and dignified as some hero of antiquity, refuted the imputation, and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... good dame, here's my purse and my thimble; A fig for Poll Ady and fat Sukey Wimble; I now could jump over the steeple so nimble; With joy ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... made dreadful stitches. Kathleen cried because the needle pricked her, and Rachel wanted to wear the thimble on the wrong finger. Amy did the best. When they went away they all wanted to kiss me, and Norah said she guessed I was the best teacher in the school. Wasn't that cunning? Mrs. Wallis is real kind. She brought ever so much gingerbread, and gave each of ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the door, with the things dropping from her lap. One of these was a spool, that rolled down the steps and out upon the sandy road. She turned to pursue it, and recovered it at the cost of dropping her scissors and thimble out of opposite sides of her skirt, which she had gathered up apronwise to hold her work. When she rose from the complicated difficulty, in which Mrs. Maynard had amiably lent her aid, she confronted Mr. Libby, who was coming towards them from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was a scullion in the king's kitchens), to form an acquaintance with secretary Escovedo's cook, whom he saw every morning. Now, as they prepared for the sick man a separate broth, this scullion, taking advantage of a moment when nobody saw him, cast into it a thimble-full of a powder that Diego Martinez had given him. When secretary Escovedo had taken some of this food, they found that it contained poison. They subsequently arrested one of Escovedo's female slaves who must have been employed to prepare ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... the little cases opened they exclaimed admiringly, for each case held a pair of scissors, a silver thimble, a tiny emery ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... first he had hinted, in surprising, furtive, agitating moments, at poetry, imagination, hidden, romantic secrets. Tom, May, Clare, the older children, had never been known to hint at anything—hints were not at all in their line, and of imagination they had not, between them, enough to fill a silver thimble—they were good, sturdy, honest children, with healthy stomachs and an excellent determination to do exactly the things that their class and generation were bent upon doing. Mrs. Scarlett was fond of them, of course, and because ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... the bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested on it he felt it glide slowly from beneath them, and saw that Mattie had risen and was silently rolling up her work. She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought to ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... tail-carrier, or ever brought a poor sarvant into trouble — But then they oft to have some conscience, in vronging those that be sarvants like themselves — For you must no, Molly, I missed three-quarters of blond lace, and a remnant of muslin, and my silver thimble; which was the gift of true love; they were all in my workbasket, that I left upon the table in the sarvants-hall, when mistresses bell rung; but if they had been under lock and kay, 'twould have been all the same; for there are double keys to all the locks in Bath; and they say as how the very ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... rogue, no doubt, and believes that he did it for her sake, I dare say. The womenkind always do think that. If a big thief gets swung for breaking open a cash-box, his lassie will swear he was looking for her thimble. If you was to go now for discoursing of this matter, you would never put up with poor Poppet's account of him, and she would run him higher up, every time you ran him down; ay, and believe it too: such ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... pilferers, who were making an attack on the great pear tree, he was admitted into the house, and became one of its most vigilant and valued inmates. He could fetch or carry either by land or water; would pick up a thimble or a ball of cotton, if little Annie should happen to drop them; or take Harry's dinner to school ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the gangway and the floggings through the fleet, the stealings, highway robberies, swearings, gamblings, blasphemings, thimble-riggings, smugglings, and tipplings of a man-of-war, which throughout this narrative have been here and there sketched from the life, by no means comprise the whole catalogue of evil. One single ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... slipper," at which Torps, with his long arms, greatly distinguished himself, and "Hide the thimble," at which Double-O Gerrard, blinking through his glasses straight at the quarry without seeing it, was hopelessly disgraced. "General Post" and "Kiss in the Ring" followed, and quite suddenly the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James decreed it ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... and admonished her father to search every corner of her apartment. She even affected to assist his inquiry; with her own hands pulled out a parcel of small drawers, in which her trinkets were contained; desired him to look into her needlecase and thimble, and, seeing his examination fruitless, earnestly intreated him to rummage her closet also, saying, with a sneer, that, in all probability, the dishonourer would be found in that lurking-place. The manner in which she ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... as he spoke, and placed a beautiful little gold thimble on her finger. "There, that's to ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pig-tail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder-box, were all that they contained, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... aluminum plates in the form of an anchor ring some seventy-five feet in diameter, while over the circular structure of the Ring itself rose a skeleton tower like a tripod, carrying at its summit a huge metal device shaped like a thimble, the open mouth of which pointed downward through the open centre of the machine. Obviously this must be the tractor or radiant engine. There, too, swung far out from the side of the ring on a framework of steel, was the thermic inductor which had played ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... exorbitant prices.... This may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory [agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen dollars for one pound of tobacco!"—U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... listen whilst I tell What to a certain Elf befell, Who left his house and sallied forth Adventure seeking, south and north, And west and east, by path and field, Resolved to conquer or to yield. A thimble on his back he carried, With a rose-twig his ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young ladies; mislaid her handkerchief, her shawl, her gloves, her work, her music, her drawing, her scissors, her keys; would ask for a book when she held it in her hand, and set a whole class hunting for her thimble, whilst the said thimble was quietly perched upon her finger. Oh! with what a pitying scorn our exact and recollective Frenchwoman used to look down on such an incorrigible scatterbrain! But she was a poetess, as Madame said, and what could ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... where I first became acquainted with the Zulu Kafirs, a naked set of negroes, whose national costume principally consists in having their hair trussed up like a hoop on the top of the head, and an appendage like a thimble, to which they attach a mysterious importance. They wear additional ornaments, charms, &c., of birds' claws, hoofs and horns of wild animals tied on with strings, and sometimes an article like a kilt, made of loose strips of skin, or the entire skins of vermin strung close together. These things ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... the usual alloys, was also used in the manufacture of other articles, such as bells, beads, disks, balls, rings, whistles, thimble shaped objects, and amulets of varied shapes. Bells are more generally made of bronze, because, perhaps, of its greater degree of resonance. Thin plates, or rather circular sheets, of gold leaf are numerous. One mentioned by Bollaert was 7-1/4 inches in diameter. They are plain or crimped about ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... Becky was, as perhaps you may have guessed, head of the millinery business, next door to which was housed the firm of Ray, St. Cloud & Stiggany, leather- dressers, the three partners in which all presently become suitors for the hand of Becky. This in effect is the story—under which thimble will the heart of the heroine be eventually found?—a problem that, in view of the obviously superior claims of young St. Cloud over his two elderly rivals, will not leave you long guessing. An element of novel complication is however furnished by the device of making St. Cloud at first engaged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... photographs, underclothing, gloves, medicines,—is bagged. The strings in the bags pull both ways, and nothing is commoner than to see Benella open and close seventeen or eighteen of them when she is searching for Francesca's rubbers or my gold thimble. But what other lady's-maid or travelling companion ever had half the Derelict's unique charm and interest, half her conversational power, her unusual and original defects and virtues? Put her in a third-class carriage when we go 'first,' and she makes friends with all ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... two assistants close behind him, one of them sallow with a mean-looking face and an expression of devouring envy in his glance, the other wearing a collar and straps drawn very tightly, with a sort of thimble of black taffeta on his index-finger—and both ignobly dirty, with greasy necks, and the sleeves of their ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... been boiled, and hashed up together, and, of what remained, all that was required was to make it into balls and fry it. This was not a matter to occasion much delay. In fifteen minutes from the time she laid aside her needle and thimble, the table had been set, with its one dish upon it, and Harry and little Emma were eating with keen appetites their simple meal. But, to Mrs. Gaston, the food was unpalatable; and Ella turned from ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... of receiving instruments. Messages have been sent from England to America through one Atlantic cable and back again to England through another, and there received on the mirror galvanometer, the electric current used being that from a toy battery made out of a lady's silver thimble, a grain of zinc, and a drop of ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... from year to year, and often spend their lives in this lay sisterhood of penance. Every inmate, be she prisoner or penitent, is taught to sew, first by hand, then on the machine: many on their first entrance are so ignorant that they do not know on which finger to place the thimble, but after a while most are able to do a good day's work on common shirts and linen articles which the order contracts for with the wholesale shops. Another source of profit to the house is the laundry, but this is conducted exclusively by the nuns themselves. They do all the washing of surplices, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various |
