"Pitchfork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... retreat is always ruin; the horseman sells his horse; the foot-soldier sells his musket; and the artilleryman sells his powder and ball, breaks up his gun-carriage for a fire, and throws his gun into the next ditch. The peasantry then fall on them all, repay their plunder with the pike and the pitchfork, and in three days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... led to unlucky accidents. At Caseburg, as a man and his wife were making hay, the woman threw down her pitchfork and went away, telling her husband that if a wild beast should come to him during her absence he must throw his hat at it. Presently a she-wolf rushed towards him. The man threw his hat at it, but a boy came up from another part of the field and stabbed the animal with his pitchfork, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... roll-call, a sergeant of another company, one Allien, a cooper by trade, taunted one of the men with having carried a pitchfork the day before, in disobedience to orders. He replied that the mayor had permitted him to carry it; Allien not believing this, proposed to some of the men to go with him to the mayor's and ask if it were true. When ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... as their shoes are called, may still be seen on the walls of a smithy here and there. Shoeing oxen is no joke, since to protect the smith from their horns they have to be thrown down; their necks are held by a pitchfork, and their ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... I reared myself on my knees and peered about me this way and that. Immediately an irrepressible tremor ran through my system. Directly behind me, armed with a dangerous pitchfork and maintaining an attitude combining at once defence and attack, was a large, elderly, whiskered man, roughly dressed and of a ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... would appear, insane. Thomas Campbell, it appears, is a very powerful young man, about thirty years of age, and a native of the North road, Drogheda. At the lodge, in the Phoenix Park, he asked to see the Lord Lieutenant; but, being armed with a pitchfork and a hammer, he was not considered an eligible visitor, and after a desperate struggle with the guard, whom he kept at bay, he was knocked down and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... the road, with a pitchfork in one hand and a rope in the other. He ran up to the bull and slipped the rope over the animal's neck. Then he tied the creature to ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... bundles of faggots, "we are doing the very best we can for your discomfort. But you damned have no consideration for us, and do not remember that we are on our feet day and night, waiting upon you," said the little devil, whimpering, as with his pitchfork he raked up the fire about Coth. "You do not even remember the upset condition of the country, on account of the war with Heaven, which makes it so hard for us to get you all the inconveniences of life. Instead, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... responsible for their conduct; I had helped to excite them, and dare not, in honour, desert them; and trembling, I went on, prepared to see the worst; following, as a flag of distress, a mouldy crust, brandished on the point of a pitchfork. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... understand no jesting if their beloved acres are touched, and, at the first sign of any intention on his part to disturb their possessions, would quickly have set fire to his house and, moreover, tattooed on his body, with the tines of a pitchfork, a protest to which a counter-plea would scarcely have been possible. Only he could never carry self-control and composure so far that, after nearly twenty years' habitude, he did not become furiously excited at the sight of certain pieces of land, and experience ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... successful voyages under Zeke's command, and was home again and discharging beside the Town Quay, when, one summer's day, as John Penaluna leaned on his pitchfork beside a heap of weeds arranged for burning he glanced up and saw Captain Tangye hobbling painfully towards him across the slope. The old man had on his best blue cut-away coat, and paused now and then to ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... like some angry animal, seized a pitchfork that was leaning against the side of the spinster's ell, and charged the group of suitors. His mien was too furious. They fled, and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction of the Town Hall. Hyacinth's father clutched a pitchfork and prepared to dash into the stye in the forlorn hope ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House. And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real old-fashioned country ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... often of the fairy land, as he called the home of his pure, good thoughts, he was a worker in all ways. If a sudden shower threatened the meadow, he was there with the men, doing all he could to aid them, and not slow to learn the use of rake and pitchfork. If Aunt Peg needed attention he was soon over to see her, and when he went to the village, he was the errand boy for any and all. He became well known among us, and the dear old home among the hills gave him a hearty welcome. Even Deacon Grover came to the ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... will be!" he thought with a smile, and holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... has striven hard to be a realist, and at times he has seemed to acquiesce altogether in the naturalistic formula, but in truth he has never had anything essential in common with M. Zola." In other words, he has fallen between two stools. He has tried to expel nature with a pitchfork and still she runs back upon him. He has put his hand to the plough and has looked back: or (if you take my view of "the naturalistic formula") he has sinned, but has not sinned with his whole heart. For to produce a homogeneous story, either ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... overcame his fear, and he rushed back, shouting, "He is mine! He is mine! I won't give him to you!" and fired a pistol almost in Sam's face. The ball carried away a portion of one of Sam's ears, and with a yell, even more thrilling than those he had given before, he plunged his pitchfork into the body of the guerilla, then, exerting all his immense strength, he lifted him upon it, as if he had been a truss of straw, took three steps to the great bonfire and cast the ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... suspense around the house could have been shoveled out with a pitchfork. If one of the other frats had the right Smith and knew it, and had pledged him during the night, there was positively no use in living any longer. Petey, who had shared his room with our Smith, reported that he was now like ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... off in his arms! The pig was kicking and squealing, but the bear had him fast. He did not seem at all inclined to give up his prey, even when attacked. He looked sullen and ugly; but a few jabs from a pitchfork, and a shot in the shoulder, convinced him that he was making ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... Then I brought wood and replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast, and ate up a huge mound of buckwheat cakes. After breakfast, Mr. Ripley put a four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to understand was called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley being armed with similar weapons, we all three commenced a gallant attack upon a heap of manure. This office being concluded, and I having purified myself, I sit down to finish this ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pity we's not got a gun!" whispered Ebony. "If we's only had a spear or a pitchfork, ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... I watched him, 'n' he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' raoun' the Institoot for, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... did come to answerin' her back—'cept, of co'se, the time she chastised me—was the way I used regular to heat my knife-blade good an' hot 'twix' two batter-cakes an' flatten that devil out delib'rate. But he'd be back nex' day, pitchfork an' all. ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... employed in the navy, where the distinction is clearly preserved; any vessel provided with cannon is an armed vessel; an armored ship is an ironclad. Anything that can be wielded in fight may become a weapon, as a pitchfork or a paving-stone; arms are especially ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... speedy traveller, marched over the premises, and covered them with twelve hundred houses, on building leases; the farmer was converted into a steward: his brown hempen frock, which guarded the outside of his waistcoat, became white holland, edged with ruffles, and took its station within: the pitchfork was metamorphosed into a pen, and his ancient practice of breeding up sheep, was changed into that of ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... meet many such Atlases in the world. The man's torso was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... light was inscrutable. "I'll obey to-night, Lydia," he said, "but the time's coming, when I won't," and he picked up the pitchfork he had dropped. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Joshua Hammond. He was answered that there were no such men in the house. Kline, followed by Mr. Gorsuch, attempted to go up stairs. They were prevented from ascending by what appears to have been an ordinary fish gig. Some of the witnesses described it as "like a pitchfork with blunt prongs," and others were at a loss what to call this, the first weapon used in the contest. An axe was next thrown down, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... death of some friend, or the marriage of some other. I was willing to look again, and this time remembered three things that Fanny had just been reading when I had looked up at Miss Agnes. One was about Mr. Paul Shattuck;—in descending from a haycart, he had fallen upon a pitchfork, and had seriously wounded his thigh. Another was the marriage of Mr. Abraham Black to Miss Susan Whitcomb, and Fanny had wondered if she were related to the Whitcombs of Hadley. Then she had read a singular advertisement for a lost ring, a seal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... borne. Faint but piteous memories from his own childhood stirred in his brain, and he realized how irremediable, how final and desperate, seem a child's small sorrows. A sudden resolve took hold upon him. This bitterness, at least, his little one should not know. He jammed the pitchfork energetically back into the mow and left the barn with the quick step ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... every purpose, and this, with care, may be made to last two or three seasons. The drying was last season principally done on the bare ground, but there is much loss by shelling, as those dried are required to be turned; a pitchfork is used for that purpose. Brown building paper can be procured of city paper dealers in large rolls at four and a half cents per pound; according to the thickness, it will cost from one and three-quarters to three and a half cents ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' so ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... domiciliary catastrophe the author of "Margaret Mayfield" has formed a melodrama, which in every other respect is founded, like a chancellor's decree, upon precedent; it being a good old-fashioned, cut-throat piece, of the leather-breeches-and-gaiter, plough-and-pitchfork school. A country-inn parlour of course commences the story, where certain characters assemble, who reveal enough of themselves and of the characters assumed by their fellows (at that time amusing themselves in the green-room), to let any person the least acquainted with the literature of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... tail And pitchfork? Not a vestige do I see Of your famed look! You have no frightful glance; I cannot even so far flatter you As to say special badness makes your face Great and distinguished. If you're Prince of Hell, How ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... it's in Italian and I don't understand what it's all about, except it's mostly about a bull fighter—he calls him a Toreador. You ought to hear him when we're out back of the barn some morning. He not only sings, but he acts it, too. He sticks the pitchfork into the straw stack, like as if it's a bull, and makes you believe he's killing it with ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... would soon be home. So the youth went out to clean the stable. First, he tried to do the work as any other boy would do it; but when he found that in a very short time he would not have room to stand, he quickly turned the pitchfork around and used the handle. In a few moments the stable was as clean as a stable could be. Then he went back to his room and wandered about it with his hands in his pockets, looking quite as innocent as if he had not raised the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... hung a village church in the air, and church-steeple piercing ever so high; and out of the heart of the mist leaped a brook, and to hear it at one moment, and then to have the sharp freezing silence in one's ear, was piercingly weird. It all tossed the mind in my head like hay on a pitchfork. I forgot the existence of everything but what I loved passionately,—and that had no shape, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... leaning on a pitchfork in front of the barn door. He was a stout man of about fifty years of age, with an ox-like face. His countenance showed the sullen stolidity of a man who spoke little but listened always, of a man who indulged in suspicious ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... equal to the occasion. He goes to the stables and fetches a pitchfork and places it at the other side of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Percy put it. I told him what Dinky-Dunk had once told me, about Olga killing a bull. The bull was a vicious brute that had attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him back to the house. And I won't even kill my own hens, but have ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... reminiscence ought to take you back to where it starts. Begin at your hat an' work down over your jaw 'til you come to your shirt, an' the same on the other side, takin' in your lip an' chin in transit, as the feller says. An' hold it like a razor, an' not like a pitchfork. Now you got to lather all ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... would go to Ayrshire if he went by himself, and with nothing but a pitchfork in his hand. Argyle, after long resistance, consented, against his better judgment, to divide his little army. He remained with Rumbold in the Highlands. Cochrane and Hume were at the head of the force which sailed to invade ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... awful shock, he did not move. His adversary stood glaring at the still form for a moment, dazed himself by the sudden outcome, then dashed into the barn, came out with a harness throat-latch and a pitchfork, strapped Woodell's hands together, pulled them over his knees, and between the knees and wrists passed the long ash fork-handle. The man, slowly recovering his senses, was "bucked" in a manner known to any schoolboy; as securely bound as if with handcuffs and with shackles; as ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... man, without coat and shouldering a pitchfork, hailed me to follow him, and showed me into the apartment where I had been formerly received with a gruff "Sit down; ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... we've got to dig 'em out! I'll get the pitchfork. That's what Sam does when he gets the hay to feed the horse. I can dig out Flossie and Freddie!" ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are," answered Mr. Jonah. "We're doing the best we can," and he came out of the darkness and rested his pitchfork on the floor while he wiped the perspiration from ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... seeing this new figure, and supposing, perhaps, that it was a more active enemy than the others, the bull made as if to leap forward, with lowered horns. But, fortunately, the young farmer had an effective weapon in a pitchfork. Its sharp tines Sandy held toward the bull, pricking the creature slightly. This was too much for the beast, and with a bellow of pain, instead of rage, as before, he turned, and with drooping tail crashed his way through the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... It's a dream of luxury!" and carried her off, hardly giving her time to thank Nani and to say a winningly kind word to the hideous one, who gazed back at her, pitchfork in hand, without reply. No one will ever know whether or not she felt any more cheered by Ruth's pleasant ways than the cows did who were putting their heads out from the stalls where she ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful black, and says he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I can't;" and says fayther to he, "No one likes they soart o' things, but how can ye help it? The old boy's behind ye wi' his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he bethought him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get ye down wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley, pullin' his hat ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the Seamew. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... evidently built for the uses of common life, and have a matter-of-fact business-like air about it. Its outhouses and pigsties, and dunghills should therefore, be kept in sight: the latter may be made very pretty objects, by twisting them with the pitchfork, and plaiting them into braids, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... big voice, and over the fence corner sprang Peter Apgar, a pitchfork in his hand. He had been gathering up the loose hay left along the edge of the field after the hayloader had gathered the ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... idea was hers Fly was to go with the message. Mick raked down a handful of soot from the chimney, and rubbed her face and hands till they were black, then dressed her in a pair of old bathing-drawers and a black fur cape. Patsy got the pitchfork from the stable for her to carry ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... whose business it was to cut and haul timbers for the mines in and around the town of Sulphide, which lay in the mountains seven miles southwestward from our ranch. We found it congenial work, and Joe and I, who were now seventeen years old, hardened to labor with ax, shovel or pitchfork, saw no reason why we should not put in these odd five or six weeks cutting timbers on our own account. No reason but one, that is to say. My father would readily lend us one of his wagons, but he could not spare a team, and so, until we ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... stay will you stay too, Jombateeste? I don't like to see a rat leaving a ship; the ship's sure to sink, if he does. How do you suppose I'm going to run Lion's Head without you to throw down hay to the horses? It will be ruin to me, sure, Jombateeste. All the guests know how you play on the pitchfork out there, and they'll leave in a body if they hear you've quit. Do say you'll stay, and I'll reduce your wages one-half ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... out of the yard, and fell upon the little terrier, Viper. Old Neptune flew to the rescue, and to the great alarm of Lily, Reginald ran up with a stick; happily, however, a labourer at the same time came out with a pitchfork, and beat off the enemy. These two delays, together with Reginald's propensity for cutting sticks, and for breaking ice, made it quite late when they arrived at South End. When there, they found that ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of research in positive science they are magnificently laborious and accurate. But most of them have no notion of style, and seem to compose their books with a pitchfork. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... shall see. As for that Bridget Bishop, She has been tried before; some years ago A negro testified he saw her shape Sitting upon the rafters in a barn, And holding in its hand an egg; and while He went to fetch his pitchfork, she had vanished. And now be quiet, will you? I am tired, And want to sleep here ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... belonged to another vessel, and the figure-head to a third! At last I caught sight of what I made sure was it—a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts—yes, that must be it—and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure, it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead of a club; but that might be my uncle's mistake, or perhaps Hercules sometimes varied his weapons. 'Cast off!' roared a voice from the quarter-deck. 'Hold on!' cried I, rushing frantically through the crowd. 'Hold on! ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... urged the mare to a trot and got past the barn without having been observed. An ancient straw stack stood in the rear of the barn and in the shadow of this he halted, removed the riata from the pommel, dragged the body close to the stack, and with a pitchfork he hastily covered it with old, weather-beaten straw. All of this he accomplished without any purpose more definite than a great desire to hide from his wife and from his daughter this offense which Pablo had thrust ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... The last pitchfork had tossed up its fragrant burden, and the great horses were already straining in the shafts after the driver, as he walked slowly in front with one hand upon their bridles. He was a stalwart fellow, with sunburned neck and hands. Then, for the first time, I noticed, perched aloft ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the house and down the path to the stables. A many-tined pitchfork rested against one of the sheds. It was one which William had used that morning in turning over sod for a new flower-bed. Priscilla in her hurried transit with David had marked the fork, and chosen it as her best weapon. Of all those cruel ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... her pitchfork, hitched her skirt in at the waist, and regarded him cheerfully. He saw that her toil-worn, weather-exposed hands were like a man's, callused, large-knuckled, and gnarled, and that her stockingless feet were thrust ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... they were, they bent backs over irrigating ditches and sweated in the hay fields just for the sake of staying together on the ranch. I cannot say that they did it uncomplainingly—for the bunk-house was saturated to the ridge-pole with their maledictions while they compared blistered hands and pitchfork callouses, and mourned the days that were gone; the days when they rode far and free and scorned any work that could not be done from the saddle. But they stayed, and they did the ranch work as well as the range work, which is ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... varying aspects and with varying accessories. Sometimes he posed it, gallantly cleft asunder, on the corner of the bran-bin, with its umber and chrome standing out boldly against a background of murky bitumen; and sometimes he placed it on the threshold of the barn door, with a rake or a pitchfork alongside, and other squashes (none too certain in their perspective) looming ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... which socket was fastened securely to the man's hips and shoulders by strong straps, so that he could sustain the weight of the pole by means of them. The pole was about thirty feet high, and the top was branched like a pitchfork. It was shaped, in fact, exactly like a pitchfork, except that there was a bar across from the top of one branch to the top of the other, and a rope hanging down from the middle of the bar half way down to the place of bifurcation—that is, to the place where the ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... can be an impossible, sweat-drenching, back-wrenching chore, or it can be relatively quick and easy. It is very difficult to drive even a very sharp shovel into a compost pile. One needs a hay fork, something most people call a "pitchfork." The best type for this task has a very long, delicate handle and four, foot long, sharp, thin tines. Forks with more than four times grab too much material. If the heap has not rotted very thoroughly and still contains a lot of long, stringy material, ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... Jean Valjean must his tramp through the Parisian sewers. It is a ten- legged nightmare, an infamy that I can never outlive. I strove manfully to make the foul thing respectable, but the Augean stables proved too much for my pitchfork. I managed to occasionally inject into the sphacelated sheet a quasi-intelligent idea, to disguise its feculence with a breath of sentiment that by contrast seemed an air from Araby the blest; but the stupid ignorance and dollar-worshiping of the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... be handsome, sir. With the women, the cassock gives charms to the ugliest. I have known a sweet and lovely creature become mad after one of these rogues who had a head like a pitchfork. He did with her what he wished. He made her devout, shrewish, and the worst of whores. Yes, yes, they say that the red breeches get over the women, but the black gown bewitches them. Explain that if you can. They want to know what is underneath ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... Philo Gubb was about to consider this a dull evening's work, when Joe Henry appeared in the doorway, a pitchfork in one hand and the slab of pine in the other. He looked up and down the street and then, with surprising agility, sprang across the street toward where Philo Gubb lay hid. With a wild cry, Philo Gubb fled. The pitchfork clattered at his feet, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... pretty and literary," I said to him; "you ought to be getting at the peasant with a pitchfork and a ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... basins have held.... If you can tear yourself away from the games in the circus, you can buy a capital house at Sora, or Fabrateria, or Frasino, for the price at which you are now hiring your dark hole for one year. There you will have your little garden ... live there enamoured of the pitchfork.... It is something to be able in any spot to have made oneself proprietor even of a single lizard.... None but the wealthy can sleep ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... what he thinks of pledges and him and church doings, and it wasn't purty. And he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as what he now is in rain-water, and every fish that nibbles at his toes was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a-jabbing at him, they could jab till the hull hereafter turned into snow afore he'd ever sign nothing a man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any mule he ever nailed shoes onto, and proud of being that stubborn. That town was ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... honour, I am quite serious. It does appear to me to be a very great pity. What a capital plan for younger brothers! It is a kind of thing I have been trying to do all my life, and never could succeed. I began at school with toasted cheese and a pitchfork; and since then I have invoked, with all the eloquence of Goethe, the evil one in the solitude of the Hartz, but without success. I think I should make an excellent bargain with him: of course I do not mean that ugly vulgar savage with a fiery tail. Oh, no! Satan ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... shrunk back at this friendly piece of information. A prick from some two-pronged instrument, evidently a pitchfork, gently checked my retreat. I was then conducted to the brink of several other precipices, and ordered to step over many dangerous chasms, where the result would have been instant death if I had committed the least mistake. I have neglected to say that my movements were accompanied by dismal ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... amid acclamations. To show that he did not consider the feat a tour de force, the artist turned the paper, and taking the same marks drew a devil in an entirely different attitude, the difficult point being reached by his pitchfork. This gave rise to a learned discussion as to whether the devil's emblematic pitchfork was not a descendant of Neptune's trident, which I did not stay to hear, as Afra whispered she wanted to present me to Monsieur C——, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... is quite plain. I am going to fasten a small mirror on a light pitchfork, inclining it downwards. This pitchfork I shall fasten firmly to pole; then some one will climb, dear papa, without any danger, as far as the strong branches reach; from thence he can draw up the pole and its mirror, with a long string, and by raising ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... Father. The lowing of the cattle recalled him to himself, and he turned homeward, passed up the lane into the barn, and was soon throwing hay into the mangers below. Suddenly he stopped, thrust his pitchfork deep into the hay, and said: "My mother shall have a better room than that if it costs five hundred dollars! Now that's so! Hurrah!" Good once more had triumphed over evil, as the experience of the morning culminated in this ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... except Nelly, who, with Bill, comes forward; Bill, with a bundle on a pitchfork, over his shoulder. Throws down the bundle, and takes ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... into the field with my pitchfork on my shoulder to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon a peach tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... went on, but ten minutes later she had to pass that way again and she did look in. Nothing had been done. The stable was in confusion and a pitchfork lay prongs upward midway of the ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... said Jim; 'she's blind mad drunk, and she's got a bottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringing out for ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... of Tantalus until in time he realizes the impossibility of gratifying his base desire. Then he is free to go on so far as that vice is concerned. He has been purged from that evil without intervention of an angry deity or a conventional devil with hell's flames and pitchfork to administer punishment, but under the immutable law that as we sow so shall we reap, he has suffered exactly according to his vice. If his craving for drink was of a mild nature, he would scarcely miss the liquor which he cannot there obtain. If his desires were ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... during all this time. No one troubles about him, though. He is a bad husband, or rather he is—a husband, and Benedict has nothing to fear as far as he is concerned. But one day a peasant, who does not like the looks of Benedict, attacks him with his pitchfork and puts an end to this ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... so for centuries to come. As the Indians disliked work much, and church services more, they were encouraged in both matters by rather forcible means, as the Irishman "enticed" the pig into his pen with a pitchfork. We "tourists" who, dismounting from our carriages, view with sentimental reverence the picturesque ruins, the crumbling arches, the heavy bells now silent but mutely telling a wondrous story of the past, and tiptoe quietly ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... policeman, afraid to risk another shot because of the crowd, waited for him to come again; and many others, seeing the hopeless circuit the mongrel followed, did likewise, armed with bricks and clubs. Among them was the pimply clerk, who had been inspired to commandeer a pitchfork from a ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... group had gathered. There was John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, uncommonly awkward in a frock coat and a pair of kid gloves that sat on his great hands like a clout on a pitchfork. Dick, the miller, was there, too, with Giles Raisley, the miner; and Job Sheepshanks (by the way of treaty of peace) stood stroking the tangled mane of Gubblum Oglethorpe's pony. Children hung on the fence, women gathered about the gate, dogs capered on the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Spur Treadwell to the center, with Cross P Charley's bride, Doc Hollis down the center, and twine the ladies' chain, Van Andrews, pen the fillies in big T Diamond's train. All pull your freight together, neow swallow fork and change; Big Boston, lead the trail herd through little Pitchfork's range. Purr round yer gentle pussies, neow rope and balance all!" Huh! Hit were ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... higher, I began to meet people. A few labouring men came past me, one of them carrying a pitchfork. I noticed that they looked at me curiously. One of them spoke, and said, "You have been in the wars, master!" So I said, "Yes," and passed on, wondering what he meant. After I had passed, the man stopped to look back at me. I even heard him take a few steps towards me, before ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... kep away from the whelps. My gals is all in titters about it; and Beck Teezle, says she, 'I wonder, says she, if Des and Luce Faddle, says she, will feel above us now?' They couldn't git me to dew their dirty Work, with all their ile and palaver. I bought a pitchfork on 'em, once in hayin', and got a platter there when Josephyne was married, and I paid 'em tew in mink skins; and that's all I had to dew with 'em. You lost a good 'eal by ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... performance on a Jew's harp. Then there was a lame old gentleman, who looked as if he would be all the better for his bath when the time came, who carried a big sledge-hammer in his hand; and another fishy sort of person, who flourished about with a three-pronged pitchfork. A very cross-looking lady sat next to the gentleman at the head of the table. By the way she kept her eye upon him, contradicting every word he said, and snubbing him at every opportunity, she was evidently his wife. Another good-looking lady was playing with a very ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... house. But, alas! he remembered nothing of a man who became so celebrated in his day except that he would eat after dinner any number of oranges, and was so fond of active exercise that he would take a pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with manure, or work just like a labourer on a farm. Of the Doctor's aversion to church-bell ringing we have a curious illustration in a letter which appeared in the Suffolk Chronicle in 1825: 'A short time since ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... a taste you have? How can a man be called handsome that never altogether opens his eyes, except when he turns up the whites until you'd think he'd never be able to get the balls back to their proper place? Then, what a chin he has—as sharp as a pitchfork, and who but a girl child would fancy a man with his hair combed sleek like a woman's on each side of his ears, with big whiskers at the same time that looks for all the world like the brush of a seven years running fox, Handsome! If my pup 'Dragon' was only half so much like a beast, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... continued, as he held out the rest of the piece of cake. "That's only his way of coming down. Whatcher frightened about? Oh, I see; it's that snake;" and catching up one of the spears which he had leaned up against the big door, he used it pitchfork fashion to the writhing reptile, and sent it flying upward on to the roof, for it to begin scuffling away amidst ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... down the lamp. "Wer ist da? I see you! Damnation!" he roared, and lumbered out, seizing a pitchfork from the manure-pile. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... observed presently, in a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that lawyer's capabilities; "but, you see, he isn't up to the law as Wakem is. And water's a very particular thing; you can't pick it up with a pitchfork. That's why it's been nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers. It's plain enough what's the rights and the wrongs of water, if you look at it straight-forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me Pivart's ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... which is lent to him, he strikes the bare neck, but the dull saber not doing its work, he takes a small black-handled knife from his pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat," he finishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the end of a three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundred armed men, "not counting the mob," he marches along, and, in the Rue Saint-Honore, he has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate without mistake whose head it is.—They grow merry over it: after filing alongside of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Can ride the besom, the stick can ride, Can stride the pitchfork, the goat can stride; Who neither will ride to-night, nor can, Must ...
— Faust • Goethe
... by way of condolence, "the man what's stabbed by a pitchfork hain't much better off 'n the man that walks bar'footed in ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... can shake them all off at one time, rake them all up with the rake, take a pitchfork rake, carry them to the barn and throw them in storage in a dry place. You don't have to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... but good ol' grass fr'm th' twinty-acre meadow. Th' ship-yards 'll be moved fr'm th' say, an' laid down in th' neighborhood iv Polo, Illinye, an' all th' Mississippi Valley 'll ring with th' sound iv th' scythe an' th' pitchfork buildin' th' definse iv our counthry's honor. Thank th' Lord, we've winrows an' winrows iv Shafter's armor plate between ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... then walked out of the tent and picked up another man at haphazard from the crowd which was staring at the great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his mouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he placed the man on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of the victim's arm. He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself to be led away. He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of Baines's shuttered windows, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... without advice and medicine. His expenditure on drugs was considerable, as he had to keep a regular store of them. Once some wayfarers brought Chekhov a man they had picked up by the roadside in the middle of the night, stabbed in the stomach with a pitchfork. The peasant was carried into his study and put down in the middle of the floor, and Chekhov spent a long time looking after him, examining his wounds and bandaging them up. But what was hardest for Chekhov was visiting the sick at their own homes: sometimes there was a journey of several hours, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... sea suddenly lifts under his one good leg. And Tobias with his Bibles and his prayer books struggles in the dark of his Grand Avenue bedroom. The devil comes and sits on his window sill, a devil with long locks and bronze wings beside his ears and a three-pronged pitchfork in his hand. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... finished. "A great deal of what you tell me, child, is already known to me. I've had certain theories of my own about this Jane Finn. You've done extraordinarily well so far, but it's rather too bad of—what do you know him as?—Mr. Carter to pitchfork you two young things into an affair of this kind. By the way, where did Mr. Hersheimmer come in originally? You ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... but not convinced, determined to keep his eye upon them both. "I swore it and I'll do it," said this honest fellow. "But I can't face her tongue; it goes through me like a pitchfork; but as for him"—and he clinched his fist most significantly; then he revolved one or two plans in his head, and rejected them each in turn. At last a thought struck him. "Mr. Levi! he 'twas that put me on my guard. I'll tell him." Accordingly ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... ginger has been drunk by some of England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the "Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the "Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his immortal action with the "Furibonde," Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fever. Every morning, as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the waggon at dawn and look out. But there was no river to be seen—only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton-wool tossed up lightly with a pitchfork. It was the fever mist. Out from among the scrub, too, came little spirals of vapour, as though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it—reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting vegetation. It was a beautiful place, but the beauty was the beauty of death; and all those ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... farmer, who defended himself with a pitchfork, and in doing so killed the dog. The owner was greatly distressed, and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... I'll go out to my cage near by, and let my Boy Constructor loose! & ef he gits amung you, you'll think old Solferino has cum again and no mistake!" You ought to hev seen them scamper, Mr. Fair. They run ort as tho Satun hisself was arter them with a red hot ten pronged pitchfork. In five minits the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... an' thinner an' weasler an' weasler, tell finely he wan't nothin' 't all but a skel'ton, an' the Bad Man won't 'low nobody 't all to give his parch' tongue no water, an' he got to, ever after amen, be toast on a pitchfork. An' Oleander Magnolia Althea is the nex'," he continued, enumerating Peruny Pearline's offspring on his thin, well molded fingers, "she got the seven year itch; an' Gettysburg, an' Biddle-&-Brothers-Mercantile-Co.; he name fer the sto' where ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline gits ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... fire. Said he could smell the brimstone and hear the trumpet callin' him to judgment. Likewise he hove in a lot of particulars concernin' the personal appearance of the Old Boy himself, who, he said, was standin' up wavin' a redhot pitchfork. Some folks might have been flattered at bein' took for such a famous character; but I wan't; I'm retirin' by nature, and, besides, Ez's description wan't cal'lated to bust a body's vanity-biler. I was prouder of the consequences, the same bein' that Ezra ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... that the reactionaries are in the saddle now—that they have been ever since they had the war as an excuse to mount! But I know also that you can no more drive out by law the spirit of liberalism from the American mind than you can drive out nature with a pitchfork. For a little while you may think you have got the better of it; but it will crop out in spite of you. Now, I am a part of returning nature, of the inevitable rebound toward the spirit of liberalism. In the ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... young curates in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of housekeepers named Meadows or Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old Giles—fifty years, man and boy, on the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... very arrogantly to quit my present business and go directly about what he should order me. I replied to him that my master had given me so much to perform that day, and that I must therefore faithfully complete it in that time. He then broke out in a great rage, snatched a pitchfork and went to lay me over the head therewith; but I as soon got another and defended myself with it, or otherwise he might have murdered me in his outrage. He immediately called some people who were hearing at work for him, and ordered ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith
... bare; the gale had blown for nearly a week. Fish-houses bid spiritedly against one another, and when at last a trade was made and the schooner's crew began to pitchfork the fish into the winch buckets, and the buckets rose creaking out over the rail, the two captains went into the office of the fish-house to figure some ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... top, you won't be able to reach,' interposed Toby. 'Stand upon one of the hall chairs. There are three there, Bill, with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on 'em: which is the old ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Baptist, and John the Evangelist, though only two of the stories depicted belong to the Bible. One of them, next to the "Majesty," shows the Evangelist seated in a caldron of boiling oil, in which he is being held by a hideous tormentor with a pitchfork, while a seated figure of Christ confers protection upon the Saint. In another medallion the Evangelist is seen raising to life the dead Drusiana, a lady of Ephesus who died just before the Apostle came to the city; he is also shown turning ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... public prosecutor? If that were the case, the punishment which it would be for you, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, to mete out to me would be something stupendous. But all that apart, how can an allusion to an imminent social revolution, even to a pitchfork revolution, constitute an instigation to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie? And this is, after all, what the public prosecutor must be held to allege in the passage cited, and this in fact is what he does allege. Hatred and contempt can be aroused against any man only by his own acts and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... introducing her husband! My offering him a chair, but being all the time obliged to cover him with a derringer under the bedclothes. Your rushing in from your peaceful pastoral pursuits in the barn, with a pitchfork in one hand and the girl in the other, and dear old mammy sympathizing all round and trying to ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner he understood it still less. He had some vague idea ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... stopped and the thirsty horses drank deeply. His father came out of the barn, a pitchfork in his hand, and sat down on the edge of the trough, fanning himself with his hat. The boy noticed that his father seemed more tired than usual. His brown hair was already mixed with gray and was damp where the hat had rested. His eyes seemed less cheerful than usual, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... are only the heir of the pit of darkness, you dirty hell-dog! You are scarcely worthy of a night's lodging," added he, "and yet we'll grant you some nook, wherein to await the dawn;" and with that word the goblin with his pitchfork, gave him more than thirty tosses in the fiery air, until he at length cast him into an abyss out of sight. "That may do," said the other, "for a squire of half blood, but I hope you will behave better to a knight, who has had ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... remarked to Mrs. Quirk, "or one day I will be running at him with the pitchfork, and it would never do for the priest's sister to be pursuing the postman through the town to ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... name for you—Pitchfork Mix." Mr. Mix spread a thin smile over his lips. "Supposed to be ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... her little two-day old, red and white calf cuddled down in a straw bed in the corner; and the little field mice darting over the barn floor; and the swallows twittering overhead among the beams and rafters; and the old grindstone that the children liked to turn; and the scythe and pitchfork that Grandpa charged them "not even to look at;" and the yellow ears of corn peeping out of their dry husks, in a pile in the corner, and the old rooster strutting round it, (followed by his hen wives,) now and then stopping short, with one foot lifted up, and cocking his eye at them from ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... grandfather's library I dug up a book on the Hawaiian Islands, written by some missionary. In it I found a story of how the natives speared fish off the edges of reefs. Straightway I procured a pitchfork. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... in the morning they heard a terrible riot in the stables. Grimaud had tried to waken the stable boys, and the stable boys had beaten him. When they opened the window, they saw the poor lad lying senseless, with his head split by a blow with a pitchfork. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Wattie to Mattie, laughing. "Look at the size of us! I defy any man in the village, with an arm only the length of mine, to do more than I! Of course I can't measure myself with the neighbours. To handle Farmer Fairweather's pitchfork would break my back, and to hook a great perch, like Miller Mealy, in the mill-race, might be the capsizing of me. Still, what does that matter? I can catch little sprats for my little wife's dinner; I can dig in our patch of garden, and mend our ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various |
