"Shearing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kept two cows and some sheep, which supplied the family with all their milk and butter, nearly all their meat, and most of their clothes. He also rented two or three acres of land, upon which he raised various crops. In sheep-shearing time, he turned out and helped his neighbors shear their sheep, a kind of work in which he had eminent skill. As compensation, each farmer thus assisted gave him a fleece. In haying time, too, he and his boys were in the fields lending a hand, and got ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when late in the day I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to have a dance, and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed to return my despairing embrace; and in the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to his Sheep-shearing, and placed a Whore (Tamar) in his Way, in the Posture of Temptation, so made him commit Incest ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... his country. That such a one should become a Praetor and a Governor was natural. He went to Africa with proconsular authority, and of course fleeced the Africans. It was as natural as that a flock of sheep should lose their wool at shearing time. He came back intent, as was natural also, on being a Consul, and of carrying on the game of promotion and of plunder. But there came a spoke in his wheel—the not unusual spoke of an accusation from the province. While under accusation for provincial robbery he could ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... water. The king received reports from the chief shepherds and herdsmen, and it was the duty of the governors of the chief cities and districts of Babylonia to make tours of inspection and see that due care was taken of the royal flocks and sheep. The sheep-shearing for all the flocks that were pastured near the capital took place in Babylon, and the king used to send out summonses to his chief shepherds to inform them of the day when the shearing would take place; and it is probable that the governors of the other great cities sent ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... "Shearing commences to-morrow!" These apparently simple words were spoken by Hugh Gordon, the manager of Anabanco station, in the district of Riverina, in the colony of New South Wales, one Monday morning in ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... feeling. His thousand sheep had cost him L250, and his cattle as much more. The lambing season had come and gone, and the flock of sheep had doubled in number. The cattle, too, had greatly increased, and the sheep were nearly ready for shearing. Altogether the value of the stock was over L1000. The loss would not be absolute ruin, as he had still L600 of his original capital in the bank at Buenos Ayres; but it would be a ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... carry against that thunderous roar. In the same instant, she caught sight of Brett's head and shoulders in the distance, and she waved and beckoned to him frenziedly. With a choking gasp of relief, she caught his answering gesture before he turned and headed straight for the shore, shearing through the water with a powerful over-hand stroke that brought ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered; so that ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... At shearing-times and yearly wakes, When Themilis his pastime makes, There thou shalt be; and be the wit, Nay more, the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his suggestion had it not been so exactly congenial to their own temper of arrogance and tyranny and contempt for the people who meekly, year after year, presented themselves for the shearing with ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... were objects of great interest to the children, and the little lambs they very justly regarded as types of purity and innocence. When the season of sheep washing and shearing came, they went over to the farmer's, and witnessed these ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... long all last year. This year she has forty head of nice sheep worth four dollars each, and she doesn't have to feed them the year round as she would chickens, and the wolves are no worse to kill sheep than they are to kill chickens. When shearing-time came she went to a sheep-man and told him she would help cook for his men one week if he would have her sheep sheared with his. She said her work was worth three dollars, that is what one man would get a day shearing, and he could easily shear her sheep in one day. That is how she ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... says Mr. Hay, the county historian, "nicknamed, Tom the Devil, was most ingenious in devising new modes of torture. Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into the hair cut close and then set on fire; some, while shearing for this purpose, had the tips of their ears snipt off; sometimes an entire ear, and often both ears were completely cut off; and many lost part of their noses during the like preparation. But, strange to tell," adds Mr. Hay, "these atrocities were publicly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Bay, that by lightening the loads upon the drays, we might the more easily force a passage through the dense scrub which I knew we had to pass before we reached that point. In the afternoon the men were engaged in shearing the remainder of our sheep, washing their own clothes and preparing everything for breaking up the camp, whilst I rode down to Streaky Bay, and went on board the cutter to give orders relative to the reception of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Shall greet you here; for we have been Wrought quaintly, on the Arcadian pattern. Your poet's lips will break in song For joy, to see at last appearing The bulls and bears, a peaceful throng, While a lamb leads them—to the shearing! ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life! As to a laird farming his own property; sowing his own corn in hope; and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say unto him, "What dost thou?"—fattening his herds; shearing his flocks; rejoicing at Christmas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of a little tribe—'tis a heavenly life! but devil take the life of reaping the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long; Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing.' ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... between three and four dollars). Of every animal slain the shoulder, two joints, and the stomach went to the priests. Of the vintage and oil and grain they received about one-fiftieth. In addition a tithe was turned over to the Levites. Part of the wool in every sheep-shearing, as well as a part of the bread which they baked, found its way to the temple. In addition a large income came through the vows made by the people or the conscience money which was paid either in currency or gifts. Although the priests had no temporal authority by which to enforce these laws, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... the old wife spaed me true, for did she not fore-tell I'd break a ring with Ronald Grey beside the Hidden Well? It came to pass at shearing-time, before he went to sea (We're nighbours' bairns) how could she know ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... the clock ticks, one after one. The clock nicks off the edges of her life. She is chipped like an old bit of china; she is frayed like a garment of last year's wearing. She is soft, crinkled, like a fading rose. And each minute flows by brushing against her, shearing off another and another petal. The Empress crushes her breasts with her hands and weeps. And the tall clouds sail over Malmaison like a procession of stately ships bound for ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... thoroughly mastered it, and afterwards became a brewer, pursuing this trade for two years, at the end of which time he apprenticed himself to a coachmaker. Upon completing his term at this trade, he engaged with his brother in the cloth-shearing business, and continued in it until the general introduction of foreign cloths, after the War of 1812, made it unprofitable. He then became a cabinet maker, but soon after opened a small grocery store on the present site of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... and by his appearance you might judge him capable of any venture in the getting of money. He would say in his cynical, loud way that the end justifies the means, and with him the end is Angelique des Meloises. She is probably going to be the Delilah of New France, the woman who is shearing it of its upholding ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... forget what charms did once adorn My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme, And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn? The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime; The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time; My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied; The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime; The swans, that, when I sought the water-side, From far to meet me came, spreading ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... he dared yet to think of a love confessed and reciprocated. The prince in disguise is all very well in a fairy tale; in England of the twentieth century he is an anachronism; and Medenham would as soon think of shearing a limb as of profiting by the chance that threw Cynthia in his way. Of course, a less scrupulous wooer might have devised a hundred plausible methods of revealing his identity—was not Mrs. Devar, marriage-broker and adroit sycophant, ready to hand and purchasable?—and ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... conduct of an officer: penalty as of Rhadamanthus waited upon all failure there. That he liked it is by no means said; he much disliked it, and his disgusts were many. An airy young creature:—and it was in this time to give one instance, that that shearing of his locks occurred: which was spoken of above, where the Court-Chirurgus proved so merciful. To clog the winged Psyche in ever-returning parade-routine and military pipe-clay,—it seems very cruel. But it is not to be altered: ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... breathed more freely, and as time went by and there was no sign of his confidence-disturbing influence in the market, the "System" began to bring out its deferred deals. Times were ripe for setting up the most wildly inflated stock lamb-shearing traps. It had been advertised throughout the world that Tom Reinhart, now a two-hundred-time millionaire, was to consolidate his and many other enterprises into one gigantic trust with twelve billions ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... merchandise. A considerable number of labourers will find employment about the towns, at the stores, on the wharfs, &c. at about 24s. weekly. Country work on the sheep-stations—as shepherds, drivers of bullock-drays, sheep-washing and shearing, cooking for the men, &c.—is remunerated by about L.25 and food. These live far off in the solitary plains, almost apart from men, and come to town once, twice, or thrice a year, as their distance and employment ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... English in point of expression. I was rather startled at hearing one gentleman ask another whether he meant to wash this year, and receive the answer "No." I soon discovered that a person's sheep are himself. If his sheep are clean, he is clean. He does not wash his sheep before shearing, but he washes; and, most marvellous of all, it is not his sheep which lamb, but he ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... in his little umbrellaed cart was vanishing up the hill, and the sunbonnet was floating down the road. The sky was an unmitigated blue, save for a few masses of cloud, like piles of new fleece on a shearing-floor. Green woods, gray road, blue sky, pale clouds, all were steeped in heat and silence so intense it seemed that something ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... an open reel; not only to gather the grain, but his cutters or shears, were attached to, and revolved with the reel;—very much, if not exactly on the principle of shearing cloth. ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... and captured. Last night two were brought into the station. Of course every accommodation is provided for the care and treatment of sheep in the various stages of their existence, including the means of washing and shearing them. An orchard and fruit-garden close by yield tons of fruit every year for the merest scratching of the soil. To obtain labour is the difficulty. The birds, especially parrots, are terrible enemies to the fruit-crops. In the early morning one may see a tree laden with splendid ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... empty casks,—a dusky, interesting place, with pomegranates and dried bunches of grapes and oranges and pieces of jerked meat hanging from the rafters. Near by is a cornhouse and a small distillery, and the corrals for sheep shearing are not far off. The ranches for cattle and sheep are on the other side ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cavalry across the Stone-bridge at the Topferberg: who drove in Ziethen's picket there; but were torn to pieces by Ziethen's cannon. Ziethen across the Schwartzwasser is alert enough. How form in order of battle here, with Ziethen's batteries shearing your columns longitudinally, as they march up? Daun recognizes the impossibility; wends back through Liegnitz to his Camp again, the way he had come. Tide-hour missed again; ebb going uncommonly rapid! Lacy had been about Waldau, to try farther up the Schwartzwasser ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... She had been farm-servant to my mother's brother—James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor, friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra' Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought after ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... premature old age that had been crowding upon him of late fall away like the wool of a sheep at shearing. Here, at last, was hope—real hope. After almost two and a half centuries of non-communication, the men of the infant planet had returned to the aid of the aging planet. For, once they saw the condition of ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... association in any case; but there is a sort of satisfaction after all in imagining that one is a free and independent being, and going to destruction in his own way, unguided, while he gets a little amusement out of his own shearing. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... among the pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed, how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a trifle more personal ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... to a northern slope of the Cotswolds, by a road that took them past High Farm; and there they found John Hurst superintending his sheep-shearing. Aggie, regardless of his feelings, insisted on getting out of the trap and looking on. John talked all the time to the shepherd, while Arthur talked to Aggie, and Aggie, cruel little Aggie, made remarks ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... it left him hot with indignation. He felt impelled to tell the victim how he had been robbed, but thought better of the impulse and assured himself that this was none of his affair. For perhaps ten minutes he looked on while the sheep- shearing proceeded. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... tendency to divide time by natural phenomena and natural events, it may be noticed that even by our own peasantry the definite divisions of months and years are but little used; and that they habitually refer to occurrences as "before sheep-shearing," or "after harvest," or "about the time when the squire died." It is manifest, therefore, that the more or less equal periods perceived in Nature gave the first units of measure for time; as did Nature's more or less equal lengths and weights give the first units of measure ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... expansion of steel and concrete is nearly the same, otherwise changes of temperature would cause shearing stress at the junction of the two materials. If the two materials are disposed symmetrically, the amount of load carried by each would be in direct proportion to the coefficient of elasticity and inversely as the moment of inertia of the cross ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... prizes, too! Out in the flock there was a white sheep which she called hers, since she had brought it up as a lamb when its mother would not own it, as is sometimes the way with sheep— silly things! It was shearing-time now and she ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... fellow," resumed Alister, "that I had my shearing to do, and hadn't the time to go with him. 'Is this your season for sheep-shearing?' said he.'We call cutting the corn shearing,' I answered, 'because in these parts we use the reaping hook.' 'That is a great waste of labour!' he returned. I did not tell him that some of our land would ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... novels, because of the contrast they furnish to the essentially competitive life of modern Australia. Brentwood is 'excessively attached to mathematics, and has leisure to gratify his hobby'; Harding, 'an Oxford man,' is 'an inveterate writer of songs,' a pastime which only the annual business of shearing is permitted to interrupt; Buckley is intent on the education of his son, in which he is careful to provide for a knowledge of the Latin Grammar; while Doctor Mulhaus finds the new country an even better field than the old one for his researches as a ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... into a screaming chorus of hate, of rage. Unmindful, the Italian was already frantically attacking the Myzab. Blow after blow he rained upon it with the sharp, cutting edge of the pick, that at every stroke sank deep into the massive gold, shearing it in deep gashes. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... various dips, as Lime and Sulphur, which is recommended by the United States Bureau of Animal Industry. This is very effective and inexpensive. Scabby sheep should be dipped a week or ten days after shearing; two dippings are necessary at the interval of ten days. After dipping, move to ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... ballad over and over again until he was tired, then sat still, smiling and stroking the fox skin. He had learned the song when he was a child from his mother, who had sung it all day long one spring while she was shearing the sheep. And he could not think of any other for the moment. It wasn't, in fact, a bad song. There were many good rhymesters in Iceland. He began singing again, rocking his body back and forth ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... doubtful. As in a dream, I watched the giant Jodd cut down a gorgeous captain, the axe shearing through his golden armour as though it were but silk. I watched a comrade of my own fall beneath a spear-thrust. I gazed at the face of Heliodore, who stared wide-eyed at the red scene, and at the white-lipped Irene, who was clinging ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... When you see me contriving in my little gardens, Christy Mahon, you'll swear the Lord God formed me to be living lone, and that there isn't my match in Mayo for thatching, or mowing, or shearing ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... mind, a slight sketch or two of anything characteristic of the seasons, in mountainous scenery especially, I shall regard them as apples of gold. I am very anxious to learn whether any particular customs or festivities are kept up in the sheep-districts of Scotland at sheep-shearing time, as were wont of old all over England; and where is there a man who could solve such a problem like thyself? I am sensible of the great boldness of my request; but as my object is to promote the love of nature, I am willing to believe that I am not more influenced by such a feeling than thou ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... life-like way that I was afraid to touch it until Lloyd put a sofa pillow over its head and sat down on it. Then I began to shear off a little near the tail, where I thought it wouldn't show much; but the mattress didn't fill up very fast. So I kept on shearing, a little farther and a little farther, here a patch and there a patch, until I had taken a great streak out of the middle of the back, and ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fairly," quoth Thomas, staring a wee astonished like, and not a little surprised to see my birse up in this manner; for, when he thought upon shearing a lamb, he found he had catched a tartar; so, calming down as fast as ye like, he said, "Hooly and fairly, Mansie," (or Maister Wauch, I believe, he did me the honour to call me,) "they'll maybe no be sae hard ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... fathers came of roving stock That could not fixed abide: And we have followed field and flock Since e'er we learnt to ride; By miner's camp and shearing shed, In land of heat and drought, We followed where our fortunes led, With fortune always on ahead And always ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Highness, who also laid the corner-stone of a new building in connection with this institution. Later, a demonstration of six thousand children was attended and a Reception held in the evening. The next day was devoted to shooting and to seeing an exhibition of sheep-shearing, bullock-riding and buck-jumping, with a military Tattoo in the evening and the usual spectacle of brilliant illuminations. The last day, but one, in South Australia included in its programme the ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering, Bandsters are lyart,[14] and runkled, and gray; At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching [15]— The Flowers of the ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... the good steed that I bestride his footing can but keep." Swift was the steed, but swifter borne on Bavieca's stride, Three fathoms from the sea my Cid rode at King Bucar's side; Aloft his blade a moment played, then on the helmet's crown, Shearing the steel-cap dight with gems, Colada he brought down. Down to the belt, through helm and mail, he cleft the Moor in twain. And so he slew King Bucar, who came from beyond the main. This was the battle, this the day, when he the great sword won, Worth a full ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... in the steel reinforcement. Years ago, the writer recommended that, in such beams, some of the rods be curved up toward the ends of the span and anchored over the support. Such reinforcement completely relieves the concrete of all shearing stress, for the stress in the rod will have a vertical component equal to the shear. The concrete will rest in the rod as a saddle, and the rod will be like the cable of a suspension span. The concrete could be in separate blocks with vertical ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... two or three hundred feet from the boiler.* [footnote... In the case of rambling premises, such as iron shipbuilding yards, the conveyance of steam by well-protected pipes put underground for the purpose of driving engines to work punching and plate-shearing machines (which have to be near at hand when the work is required), has very great practical ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... them additions of his own creation. Living also, his shepherds, for whom he received only insignificant hints from Greene. In "Pandosto" we hear of "a meeting of all the farmers daughters in Sycilia," without anything more, and from this Shakespeare drew the idea of his sheep-shearing feast, where he delights in contrasting with the rough ways of his peasants the inborn elegance of Perdita: "O Proserpina," says she, in her ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... dominion over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet to be told of the rights for which we went to war? Oh, excellent rights! Oh, valuable rights! Valuable you should be, for we have paid dear at parting with you. Oh, valuable rights! that have cost Britain thirteen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... general name under which are comprised coarsely foliated rocks banded with irregular layers of feldspar and other minerals. The gneisses appear to be due in many cases to the crushing and shearing of deep-seated igneous rocks, such ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... annual election of officers resulted as follows: President, George E. Peck, Geneva; Vice-Presidents, Thomas McD. Richards, Woodstock, and Daniel Kelley, Wheaton; Secretary and Treasurer, W. C. Vandercook, Cherry Valley. It was decided to hold the association's annual public sheep-shearing at Richmond, McHenry county, April 29 and 30, and C. R. Lawson, L. H. Smith, and A. S. Peck were designated a committee to represent the association at the annual ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our boys threw flints at him; he crept by night 'into the huts, and licked the babe from between the mother's hands; he called his companions and pulled down men in broad ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... soon therefore, as his means would allow, he bought a small stock of the necessary articles and began afresh,—his amateur master showing him how to paint; and the pupil succeeded so well that he excelled the master's copy. His first picture was a copy from an engraving called "Sheep-shearing," and was afterwards sold by him for half-a-crown. Aided by a shilling Guide to Oil-painting, he went on working at his leisure hours, and gradually acquired a better knowledge of his materials. He made his own ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... was, that as he thought this he continued to keep eye on Shagpat, and the hunger that was in him passed, and became a ravenous vulture that flew from him and singled forth Shagpat as prey; and there was no help for it but in he must go and state his case to Shagpat, and essay shearing him. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and jostling shock Of bluebells sheaved in May Or wind-long fleeces on the flock A day off shearing day. ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... lofty, in others only stringy-bark or low bushes. A river passed in front at the distance of less than a quarter of a mile, full and flowing in winter, but after the heats of summer consisting of a succession of water-holes connected by a trickling rill. During the shearing season the river was a scene of the greatest animation, as all the flocks from far and near were driven up to it, that the sheep might be washed before being deprived of their fleeces. After a sudden downfall of rain, the quiet stream became a roaring, boiling torrent, sweeping ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... last shearing-time," said the shepherd, whose dates were few and simple, sheep-washing, shearing, lambing, and next and last sheepfair ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... hope that she might now undisturbed have the benefit of the wool as well as the younglings of the sheep. She was, however, mistaken. When the firstling of the sheep was born, Aaron appeared and demanded it, for the firstborn belongs to the priest. She had a similar experience with the wool. At shearing time Aaron reappeared and demanded 'the first of the fleece of the sheep,' which, according to Moses' law, was his. But not content with this, he reappeared later and demanded one sheep out of every ten as a tithe, to which again, according to the law, he had ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... April day, when the great news came, it came like a sword that, with one stroke, slashed the State in twain, shearing through the strongest bonds that link one man to another, whether of blood, business, politics or religion, as though they were no more than threads of wool. Nowhere in the Union was the National drama so played to the bitter end in the confines ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... corn from the furrows of a tiny field, Demeter lover of wheat, Sosicles the tiller dedicates to thee, having reaped now an abundant harvest; but again likewise may he carry back his sickle blunted from shearing of the straw. ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... the wealthiest and most intelligent portion of the population. A large part of the foreign trade is in their hands, and at the season of the sheep-shearing their agents and representatives are found everywhere among the Bedouins and Madan Arabs of the interior, purchasing the wool and selling various commodities in return. They are the bankers of the country, and it is through their communications ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... make up its mind to blow from this quarter or that, died away altogether. At the same time the horizon appeared to close in perceptibly; what little definition it had had in earlier hours was erased; and the Sybarite, shearing the oily and lifeless waters of a dead calm, seemed less to make progress than to struggle sullenly in a pool of quicksilver at the bottom of a slowly revolving sphere of clouded glass, mutinously aware that all her labouring wrought no sort ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... example. Whilst, therefore, the powder was drying, I began with a large pair of scissors to execute my new office upon the eldest of four or five chins presented to me; and as great nicety was not required, the shearing of a dozen of them did not occupy me long. Some of the more timid were alarmed at a formidable instrument coming so near to their noses, and would scarcely be persuaded by their shaven friends, to allow the operation ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... wonder, therefore, that we all looked forward to our first great shearing as a very busy time indeed. Our great wool harvest was, indeed, one of the principal events of the year. Moncrieff said he always felt young again at the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... keep under shelter, while around the tents was a semicircle of sheep wagons. There was a substantial horse corral, and across the creek the sheep-pens had tripled in size, with a row of well-built shearing-pens beside them. Under a long shed with a corrugated-iron roofing there were sacks of wool piled to a height which gave Kate a feeling of deep satisfaction each ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... pen them up there, and drag them one by one into the water and make good clean Baptists of them! But sheep are no fighters, they struggle for a moment and then passively submit to the baptism. My older brothers usually did the washing and I the herding. When the shearing was done, a few days later the poor creatures were put through another ordeal, to which after a brief struggle they quickly resigned themselves. Father did the shearing, while I at times held the animal's legs. Father was not an adept hand with ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... village for the young people and children. Tusser, who wrote a book upon Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, did not forget the treats which ought to be given to the labourers, and alludes to the sheep-shearing festival in the ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... him in and fed him and cut his hair with a pair of sheep shears. It was a more or less rough job, because shearing sheep does not make a man a good human barber by any means. But Shelley looked at his head in the glass and said it was the most beautiful haircut in the world. Fussy people might criticize it here and there, but they could never say it ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... that, Mr. Medlicot, will burn for weeks sometimes. I'll tell you fairly what I'm afraid of. There's a man with you whom I turned out of the shed last shearing, and I think he might put ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... streams of whirlwind meeting, too, over the island, drove the lagoon hither and thither, catching up the white pond-lilies by their long stems, twisting off the dense thickets of mangroves by the roots, burrowing holes in the sandy beds of the cactus, and shearing off their flat, thorny leaves and needle points by the acre together; then a rushing whirl around the cocoa-nuts, bowing their tufted tops at first till they nearly touched the earth, when, the stout trunks snapping like glass, they would go pitching and tossing ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... before the dust is laid, the arroyos turn to rivers and the rivers to broad floods, drifting with trees and wreckage. But the cattlemen and sheepmen who happened to be in Bender, either to take on hands for the spring round-up or to ship supplies to their shearing camps out on the desert, were not worrying about the railroad. Whether the bridges went out or held, the grass and browse would shoot up like beanstalks in to-morrow's magic sunshine; and even if the Rio Salagua blocked their passage, or the shearers' tents were beaten into the mud, there would ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... of our employer's time, but somehow we do hate to squander that thirty-three minutes, which is the exact chronicide involved in despoiling our skull of a ten weeks' garner. If we were to have our hair cut at the end of eight weeks the shearing would take only thirty-one minutes; but we can never bring ourselves to rob our employer of that much time until we reckon he is really losing prestige by our unkempt appearance. Of course, we believe in having our hair cut during office hours. That is the only device we know to make ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... hence its popular names, as given above. Its habit is very compact, and one of great symmetry. If the plants are set about a foot apart, and in two rows,—these rows a foot apart,—you will have a low hedge that will be as smooth as one of Arbor Vitae after the gardener has given it its annual shearing. When the bush takes on its autumnal coloring it is as showy as a plant can well be, and is always sure of attracting attention, ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... and young ones huddled together beside the water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one after the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonderful sight to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could afford to linger. At first the great brutes flew round in a huge ring, as if to make sure what the exact extent of the danger ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the proposal is not altogether wanting in alluring colours, but in what manner will Yan interpret the commands of those who place themselves before him, when he has attained sufficient proficiency to be entrusted with the knife and the shearing irons?" ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... full mighty cring'd under the shield; Into grasp of the Franks the King's life was gotten 1210 With the gear of the breast and the ring altogether; It was worser war-wolves then reft gear from the slain After the war-shearing; there the Geats' war-folk Held the house of the dead men. The Hall took the voices; Spake out then Wealhtheow; before the host said she: Brook thou this roundel, lief Beowulf, henceforth, Dear youth, with all hail, and this rail be thou using, These gems of folk-treasures, ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... background of dark foliage, or light grasses against grave ones; and when we hit on any new combination, each summons the other to be lost in admiration. And when we are too sore and stiff from weeding, grass-shearing or watering, we fall to framing little pictures, or to darning stockings, which she does so beautifully that it has become a fine art with her, or I betake myself to the sewing-machine and stitch for legs that seem to ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... few seconds in which he grasped them, and then bore the child up the embankment in desperate bounds, a hail of bullets poured round him, ringing on his breastplate, shearing the plume from his hat, but scarcely even heard; and in another moment he had sprung down, on the inner side, grasping the child with all his might, but not daring even to look at her, in the wondrous flash of that first conviction. She ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wife came forward and greeted us very cordially, and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady, who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a log in ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... supplies, for it was drawing nigh unto the great event of the year. In another week's time the bleat of thousands of sheep, and the incense of much tar and wool, would be ascending to the heavens from the vicinity of Five-Bob Downs. I was looking forward to the shearing. There never was any at Caddagat. Uncle did not keep many sheep, and always sold them ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... digging, dressing, settling the ground, growing tulips in pots. They would awaken at the singing of the lark to follow the plough; they would go with baskets to gather apples, would look on at butter-making, the thrashing of corn, sheep-shearing, bee-culture, and would feel delight in the lowing of cows and in the scent of new-mown hay. No more writing! No more heads of departments! No more even quarters' rent to pay! For they had a dwelling-house of their own! And they would eat the hens of their own ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... shoots will push far beyond the others. They should be cut back evenly, and in accordance with the shape the hedge is to take. The pyramidal form appears to me to be the one most in harmony with Nature. In October, the hedge should receive its final shearing for the year; and if there is an apparent deficiency of vigor, the ground on both sides should receive another top-dressing, after removing the summer mulch. As the hedge grows older and stronger, the ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... the glen in a cart, and he was the only sober body in the funeral, perhaps because it was his own. Many a time I wondered that the widow did so well in the farm for Captain Campbell, with no man to help her, the sowing and the shearing, the dipping and the clipping, ploughmen and herds to keep an eye on, and bargains to make with wool merchants and drovers. Oh! she was a clever woman, your grandmother. And now she's dead. Well, it's a way they have at her ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... wise. He that has a meikle nose thinks ilka ane speaks o't. He that teaches himsell has a fule for his maister. It's an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'. Lippen[156] to me, but look to yoursell. Mair whistle than woo, as the souter said when shearing the soo. Ye gae far about seeking the nearest. Ye'll no sell your hen on a rainy day. Ye'll mend when ye grow better. Ye're nae chicken for a' ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... sea-birds, curiosity seemed to have overcome fear, for they came circling and wheeling overhead in clouds so dense that they almost darkened the sky—many of them swooping close past the Eskimos and then shearing off and up with ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be fulfilled, apart from the fineness of the cotton-wool. The plant, to be worth shearing, must be dead and dry. I have never seen the harvesting done on fresh plants. In this way, the Bee avoids mildew, which would make its appearance in a mass of hairs ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... ever I hear that you have betrayed the first symptom of age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of evenings and hear ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... termed—probably I would, when very young, follow the others to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought nothing of jumping dikes, breaking hedges, stealing turnips, and committing other ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... began stripping the Limberlost, cutting the ferns, shearing the vines from the trees, mowing the succulent green things of the swale, and setting the leaves swirling down, he watched the departing troops of his friends with dismay. He began to realize that he would be left alone. He made especial efforts toward friendliness ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... eccentric wanderings of the rivulet; but after climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season's shearing of mohair. "Alia Franga!" is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the "Ah, I'Anglais." of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude carts, and a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... flat on their cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 12. There are also punches made spiral on their cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 13. This punch, instead of being flat, as in Fig. 12, is of a helical form, as shown in Fig. 13, so as to have a gradual shearing action commencing at the center and traveling round to the circumference. Its form may be explained by imagining the upper cutter of a shearing machine being rolled upon itself so as to form a cylinder of which its long edge is the axis. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... to inquire from him whether I could bring a suit against the priest. He told me that, but a short time since, a family had been ruined for having sheared the moustache of a Sclavonian—a crime not nearly so atrocious as the shearing of all my front locks, and that I had only to give him my instructions to begin a criminal suit against the abbe, which would make him tremble. I gave my consent, and begged that he would tell M. de Malipiero in the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... pasture, the Lambs could not tell which were their mothers. Shearing off their long and dingy fleeces had made such a difference in their looks! The twin brother knew his mother by her way of walking and by her voice, but he could see that his sister did not know her at all. He saw his mother wandering around ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... both in disguise, arrived at the old shepherd's dwelling while they were celebrating the feast of sheep-shearing; and though they were strangers, yet at the sheep-shearing every guest being made welcome, they were invited to walk in, and join ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Mrs. Egg, shearing the whisper. "Only Dammy ain't got any sense about cards. I tried to teach him pinochle, but he never could remember none of it, and the hired men always clean him out shakin' dice. He can't even beat his papa at checkers. And that's an awful thing to say of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen without interference of foreign capitalists. As to the mass of the people, the nation at large, it was, as Paul has just said, a matter of indifference whether they were fleeced by the capitalists of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the painful ploughman plies his toil With shear and coulter shearing through the soil, That costs him dear and ditches it about, Or crops his hedge to make it undersprout, And never stays to ward it from the weed, But most respects to sow therein good seed; To th' end when summer decks the meadows plain, He may have recompense of costs and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... that swept back to the abrupt wall of the range, against which a low house was scarcely distinguishable from the sere, rocky ascent. Finally he drove in, over a faintly marked track, past a corner of the fence railed about a trough for sheep shearing, to the house. A pine tree stood at either side of the large, uncut stone at the threshold; except for a massive exterior chimney the somberly painted frame structure was ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago, He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... shearing," said the manager, "just cleaned up a deficit in last year's business. Wastefulness and inattention have been the rule heretofore. The autumn clip will leave a small profit over all expenses. Next year there will ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... or they would legislate. In the one event they would be worthless as a restraining influence. In the other, I apprehend, a blow would fall similar to the blow which fell upon the House of Lords, only it would cut deeper. Shearing the House of Lords of political power did not dislocate the administration of English justice, because the law lords are exclusively judges. They never legislate. Therefore no one denounced them. Not even the wildest ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... understanding these subjects, very puzzling. The two main exports are wool and whale-oil, and to both of these productions there is a limit. The country is totally unfit for canals, therefore there is a not very distant point beyond which the land-carriage of wool will not repay the expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into the interior; moreover, the country farther inland becomes extremely poor. Agriculture, on account of the droughts, can never ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... rob of black Currant jam is taken in Scotland with whiskey toddy. Shakespeare in the Winter's Tale makes Antolycus, the shrewd "picker-up of unconsidered [141] trifles" talk of buying for the sheep-shearing feast "three pounds of sugar, five pounds of currants, and rice." In France a cordial called Liqueur de cassis is made from black Currants; and a refreshing drink, Eau de groseilles, from ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Here's, and hair floating free, And full of the sun as the spray of the sea, 1100 Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, Who can trip through the forests alone without fearing, Who can drive home the cows with a song through the grass, Keeps glancing aside into Europe's cracked glass. Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches up her lithe waist, And makes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... say that I have not the slightest objection to the shearing of trees. The only trouble is in calling the practice art and in putting the trees where people must see them (unless they are part of a recognized formal-garden design). If the operator simply calls the business ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... Everywhere were tokens of feverish activity, in office, shop, and slip. As we picked our way across, little narrow and big wide gauge engines and trains whistled and steamed about. We passed rolling-mills, forging-machines, and giant shearing-machines, furnaces for heating the frames or ribs, stone floors on which they could be pegged out and bent to shape, places for rolling and trimming the plates, everything needed from the keel plates to ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... quarters and the field, by expressions of sympathy and affection. The arrival of Paco, who established himself behind the esquilador, in a gap of the circle, was insufficient to distract their attention from the important and all-absorbing interest of the dog-shearing. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various |
