"Crotch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... concerned, it was the same as that used by thousands of other trappers and hunters. He chose a big strong sapling which Albert and he with a great effort bent down. Then he cut off a number of the boughs high up, and in each crotch fastened a big piece of meat. The sapling was then allowed to spring back into place and the meat was beyond ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... expert look through the barrel. One of our best men, for example, has done nothing else all his life; his father before him was a barrel-sighter and his son has just entered the works. He does it this way—here, you try," and he handed a barrel to Hamilton. "Rest the barrel in this crotch," he continued, "and look at the window. You see there is a piece of ground glass with a thin black line running across it. Point the barrel so that it is aimed just below that line, and if you get it right, you will see a reflection of that line running lengthways ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... night and day. The very squirrel himself would run up before his face into the tree, and, crouched in a crotch, would sit silently watching the whole process of bombarding the empty hole, with great sobriety and relish. But Noble would allow of no doubts. His conviction that that hole had a squirrel in it continued ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... broken. Then they took him out and gave him wings and a bow and arrows, and sent him away. They told him he must not go near the trees, for if he did he would go so fast that he could not stop, but would get caught in the crotch of ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... explode, it is necessary that the nose of the fuse, containing the detonator, shall come in contact with a solid substance, in order to make ignition and cause the explosion. This had not been done; owing to the intervention of kind nature in the shape of the crotch in that tree catching and holding the shell fast in a firm embrace, we were saved from ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... to see the way the Frenchies farm! They got about an acre each, and, say, they use every inch of it. If they's a little dirt blows into the crotch of a tree, they plant a crop in there. I never see nothin' like it. Say, we waste enough stuff over here to keep that whole country in food for a hundred years. Yessir. And tools! Outta the ark, believe me. If they ever saw ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... received a peck in the hand that drew blood. Before the turkey could do any more harm the young hunter stunned it by a blow against the tree and then finished it. In the meantime the other hen was killed by Whopper, while Jed Sanborn took his gun and poked the gobbler out of the tree crotch and ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... in the red day-dawn, An' the wind war laid—'t war prime fur game. I went ter the woods betimes that morn, An' tuk my flint-lock, "Nancy," by name; An' thar I see, in the crotch of a tree, A great big catamount grinnin' at me. A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! A pop-eyed catamount ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... by intuition. Your counter-moves are—so—triumphant. Why, it's really an ornament!" With a little stress and strain that made her words interjectional, she had got it into place, thrusting one end up the throat of the chimney, and lodging the crotch that held the nest upon the stems of fresh pine that lay across the andirons; and the "odds and ends," in safe position, and suggesting neither harm nor unsuitableness, looked unique and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... see there, of about a two-foot length. We drove that down into the ground about six inches. Next we took a long pole, six or eight feet long, and drove the end down into the ground just back of the short stick with the forks. It rested in the crotch made by the forks so that its tapering end slanted upward at an angle, as you ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... its end over an upper branch. Presently I saw Coutlass' dead body go clambering ungracefully up among the branches, looking so much less dead than alive that I thought at first Will must have tangled the rope in the crotch of the tree and be clambering ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... horse has scented him. See him rear up, will you? Oh! he's gone and done it, as sure as you live—thrown the boy over his head! And the poor burro is caught fast, with his leading rope held in a crotch of the rocks. The boy will be killed if ever he meets up with that monster! Quick! We must do something to save him, Bob, but whatever shall it be?" and Frank ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... house of no use to any one. To be sure, it had been a very good home in its time. It had been made of tiny twigs, stalks of old weeds, leaves, little fine roots and mud. It was still quite solid, and was firmly fixed in a crotch of the young tree. But Whitefoot couldn't see how it could be turned into a home for a Mouse. He said ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... philosophy was quickly stifled as they recognized the gravity which sat upon the face of its enunciator, and Stuart inquired in all seriousness, "But how does he manage it? There's mains'l and jib and tiller—not to mention center board and boom-crotch—and sometimes ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... first small crotch of the tree, which was almost directly over the stranded launch, "if you girls have any pluck at all, I can get ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... bent again, and in this way fell into a sort of delightful up-and-down dipping motion, which he found very soothing and agreeable. Indeed, he was so pleased and comforted at finding himself near the ground once more that he lay back in a crotch between two branches, enjoying the rocking of the bough, and lazily wondering what had become of the Goblin, and whether this was the end of the Believing Voyage, and a great many other things, until he chanced to wonder where he was. Then he sat up on the ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... angularness^; aduncity^; angle, cusp, bend; fold &c 258; notch &c 257; fork, bifurcation. elbow, knee, knuckle, ankle, groin, crotch, crutch, crane, fluke, scythe, sickle, zigzag, kimbo^, akimbo. corner, nook, recess, niche, oriel [Arch.], coign^. right angle &c (perpendicular) 216.1, 212; obliquity &c 217; angle of 45 degrees, miter; acute angle, obtuse angle, salient angle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... not know, for at that moment I heard a voice call out sharply, "Halt! villain. Throw up your hands, or by heavens you die!" Turning swiftly, I saw Lafitte, his pistol barrel rested in very serviceable fashion in the crotch of a staff, the same as when he first accosted me on my stream, glancing along the barrel with an ominous gray eye ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... coup de soleil. Evading his beams you seek the covert of a grateful shade, where the spreading palm, with parasol-like leaves, forms romantic shelter, the cocoa-nut in its triple cluster hanging invitingly in its crotch; away high up upon its straight and graceful stem, birds of magnificent plumage are flitting from tree to tree, making the grove vocal with their notes; monkeys, mischievous, but not considered dangerous, dance overhead upon the boughs, and with comic antics provoke a smile. With gentle breezes wafting ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... seen las' night when I war down hyar afore, a-figurin' ter ketch that thar leetle owel," he said to himself when he had reached the tree and sat in a crotch, panting and excited. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... his rifle out over a forked limb and let it settle in the crotch. Then he slew his head around until he gained the bead he wished. Five minutes passed before he caught sight of his man and then he fired. Jerking out the empty shell he smiled and called ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... entered the Mississippi through one of its three mouths, and went up the river till he came to an Indian village, where the chief gave him a letter which Tonty, thirteen years before, when in search of La Salle, had written and left in the crotch of ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... became terrible. Once the glaring light in front moved, then become fixed. There was a light splashing. Instantly Smith realised that the man in front had set his torch in a tree-crotch and was now cowering somewhere behind a levelled weapon. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... supported, besides the birches, a single big hemlock. With his belt ax, Thorpe cleared away the little white trees. He stuck the sharpened end of one of them in the bark of the shaggy hemlock, fastened the other end in a crotch eight or ten feet distant, slanted the rest of the saplings along one side of this ridge pole, and turned in, after a hasty supper, leaving the completion of his ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... tersely from Pete. Then casting his eye over the sky he said: "Snow cum quick,—hide um. We cut caribou," whereupon he whipped out a big hunting knife, after placing his rifle in the crotch of a tree, and began slashing the still warm body of ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... his enamored gaze from her face long enough to glance toward the house, where the usually elegant useless Randolph was perched in the crotch of an old ash tree, sawing off a dead limb, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... President, the Right Hon. Lord Guernsey. Nearly 200 performers, including Master Buggins (a Birmingham boy alto) Mr. J.J. Goss (counter tenor), Signor Joseph Naldi (buffo), and Dr. Crotch, the conductor, organist and pianist. The last-named was a good player when only 3-1/2 years old. Receipts, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... season. The Indians then gather from a considerable distance, to spear and trap these fish, which they dry for winter use; and you will see at this season many picturesque Indian camps along the river. They set a crotch of two sticks in a salmon pool, and lay a log from the shore to this crotch. Upon this log the Indian walks out, with a very long spear, two-pronged at the end and there armed with two bone spear-heads, which are fastened to the shaft of the spear by very ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... up at the man, he was a thoroughbred tramp, burly, dirty, generally unkempt, but, unlike most tramps, he looked very much frightened. His position, on a high crotch of an apple-tree, was not altogether comfortable, and although, for the present, it was safe, the fellow seemed to have a wavering faith in the strength of apple-tree branches, and the moment he saw me, he earnestly besought me to take that dog away, and ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... the Galeria Pass the silence of the dry Arizona air seemed luminous and eternal. Whoever climbed to the crotch of that V, cut jagged against the sky for distances yet unreckoned by tourist folders, might have the reward of pitching the tents of his imagination at the gateway of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... across the summits of the hills into the brilliant sunset that lay like a wonderful canvas in the crotch of the peaks. A troubled little frown creased her forehead. For the first time there had come home to her the injustice of the social system under which she and her friends thrived. No adequate answer came to her. Verinder and Joyce joined in argument against the young ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... a mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "Aoa," and the other propped by a forked ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... involved herself in some enterprise from which she could not extricate herself without his help. Billy had to take heavy logs out of her arms, had to lay a plank across the stretch of creek she could not cross, had to help her down from the crotch of a tree with widespread ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... knowing nod, and the two of them quickly whisked the little lame French girl up in the first crotch ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... bad, he knew the day would be a hundred times worse. Already a gray light was sifting into the hollow of the sky. The vague misty outlines of the mountains were growing sharper. Soon from a crotch of them would rise a red hot cannon ball to pour its heat into the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... crabtree for cart and for plow; Save step for a stile of the crotch of the bough; Save hazel for forks, save sallow for rake; Save hulver and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... explained in speaking of tendencies in general, cooeperates with sensory stimuli in producing them. Clearly enough, the nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig. He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built nest. Only, he would not react to these stimuli unless the nesting fit were on him. The nest-building tendency favors response to certain stimuli, and not to others; it facilitates certain reactions and inhibits others. It facilitates reactions that are preparatory ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... with weak crotches and to remove crossing or interfering branches. A crotch formed by two branches of equal size, especially when the split is deep, is a weak crotch and should be avoided. Strong crotches are formed by forcing the development of lateral buds and making almost ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... the direction indicated, and saw the orang. He was lying on his back in the crotch of the tree, holding on with both hands to the branches. He must have been a heavy sleeper or the puffing of the engine would have aroused him. But Louis would not fire at him, as Scott suggested. He had a bigger orang than the one in the tree, and he did not want another. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... of different lengths, they are constantly needed at camp; select strong green sticks with a crotch on one end and drive a nail slantingly into the wood near the bottom of the stick on which to hang kettles, pots, etc. Be sure to have the nail turn up and the short side of the crotch turn ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... didn't feel the need of any gun except Ag's old six-shooter. That was the cussedest machine that ever got invented by man. When you pulled her off she'd spit fire in all directions, filling the crotch of your hand with powder burns, and sometimes two or three of the loads would go off at once, when she'd kick like a Texas steer. There was much talk of bear around, and we were always going to buy a real gun, some day, but we ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... considered sufficient to protect him from the storm. Sometimes he contented himself with a mere "breakwind," the rocky wall of a canyon, or large ravine. Near at hand he set up two poles, in the crotch of which another was laid, where he kept, out of reach of the hungry wolf and coyote, his meat, consisting of every variety afforded by the region in which he had pitched his camp. Under cover of the skins of the animals he had killed ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... another. The emblem of the Ottawas is a moose; of the Chippewas, a sea gull; of the Backswoodsmen, a rabbit; that of the underground tribe, to which I belong, is a species of hawk; and that of the Seneca tribe of Indians is a crotch of a tree. The Ottawa Indians are very nearly extinct in the state of Michigan as there are only two or three families in the state, whose national emblem is a moose, showing them to be descended from pure Ottawa blood; but those who represented themselves as the Ottawas ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... two lads swung themselves into the crotch of the great tree under which they stood; then climbed noiselessly higher up among the branches. Just as they had succeeded in screening themselves from possible discovery, a body of horsemen burst in ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... hall as he spoke, and presently Cavendish heard the click of a telephone receiver slipping from its crotch, and Barclay's voice speaking, to some one below, of a steak, vegetables, salad, and coffee. He stepped to the table, devoured two or three of the biscuits ravenously, poured himself a glass of sherry, sipped, and then swallowed it, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Robins were building around in our yard, in the maples by the road, and all through this orchard. One day I noticed some little twigs and a splash of mud on our back steps, and when I looked up I saw that something was building a nest in the crotch of the old grape vine. 'That's a queer place for a nest,' I said to myself, 'not a leaf on the vine and my window right on top. I wonder what silly ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... range lifted its crest into a sky of violet haze. Half an hour since the sun had set in a blaze of splendor behind a crotch of the hills, but dusk had softened the vivid tints of orange and crimson and scarlet to a faint pink glow. Already the mountain silhouette had lost its sharp edge and the outlines were blurring. Soon night would sift down over the ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... swiftly, but it did not serve. The other spread his legs, leaned against him, and in a flash came back in the dreaded crotch lock of the frontier, which some men boasted no one could escape at their hands. Woodhull was flung fair, but he broke wide and rose and rushed back and joined again, grappling; so that they stood once more ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... the trees came from the wood-pewee. The pewee I had noted from the building of her beautiful lichen-covered cradle in the crotch of a wild-cherry tree. The branch, dead and leafless, afforded no screen for the brave little mother. Look when one might, in the hottest sunshine or the heaviest rain, there sat the bird quite up out of the nest, head erect and eyes eagerly watching for intruders. The pewee, for all his ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the leg runs down from the center line from the point of the hip in the middle of the crotch in a line ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... calculated to elicit the admiration of susceptible young women—a "masher." His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since become familiar as a business suit. The low crotch of the vest revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes. From his coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same pattern, fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common yellow agates known as "cat's-eyes." ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... the stranger was white with rage. He turned from the tree in which the bear had now found a place of safety behind a crotch, and pointed his arrow at John. The lad saw his danger. Even as the stranger drew the arrow to its head John leaped forward; before the other knew what was happening, John seized him in his arms and with ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... fire pushed up into the crotch between two mountain-peaks and found them like a searchlight, filling their little valley with a ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... the devil to pay. It was a rough and tumble and no grips barred—just the kind of fight Rondeau likes. Nevertheless old Duncan floored him. While he's been away somebody taught him the hammer-lock and the crotch-hold and a few more fancy ones, and he got to work on Rondeau in a hurry. In fact, he had to, for if the tussle had gone over five minutes, Rondeau's youth would have decided ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... ARTHUR CROTCH Formerly Lecturer on Telegraphy and Telephony at the Municipal Technical Schools, Norwich, Eng. Author of "Telegraphy ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... chain. The preference for the chain over the rod attachment is based on the compressive and tensile stresses which come on the connection during wind storms. Rod connections are preferred, however, when rigidity is required, as in unions made close to the crotch; but for tying two branches together before they have shown signs of weakening at the fork, the chain may best be used, as the point of attachment may be placed some distance from the crotch, where the flexibility ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... free himself from the shawl, managed to pull his cap over his eyes, and howled in blind dismay. In the midst of the confusion, Grace rescued Miss Wales from her perilous position, and, finding her classic nose still unbroken, laid her carefully in the crotch of a tree, and prepared for revenge. In his desire to secure the obedience of his dog-team, Tom had fastened them securely, by long cords, to his belt; Pete had already managed to wind his tether tightly around Tom's legs, and Grace incited Turk to rebellion, so that he, too, ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... 8 inches below knee. Inseam from crotch to 8 inches below knee, around waist, around hips. Send ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... baby's be at three days old: This is the robin's almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... spot," said the little husband, whose name was Robert, perching on a limb of the old apple-tree and poking his bill into a crotch formed ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Near the spot selected for the mansion of the exiles there was a grove of small trees. The wood was light and soft, and Noddy found that he could fell the trees with his sharp hatchet quickly and easily. Four posts, with a crotch in the top of each, were set in the ground, forming the corners of the house. The frame was secured with nails and with ropes. The sides and the roof were then covered with the hibiscus from the grove. Noddy ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... expressions. A specimen or two may dispose the reader to turn over the pages which follow in a good-natured frame of mind. "If unconverted men ever got to heaven," he said, "they would feel as uneasy as a shad up the crotch of a white-oak." Some of his ministerial associates took offence at his eccentricities, and called on a visit of admonition to the offending clergyman. "Mr. Dwight received their reproofs with great meekness, frankly ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... an ideal studio to one accustomed to the disorder of beautiful things. Not only was there a hip roof, with heavy, stained beams and brown shingles, but near its crotch opened a wide, round-topped window which shed its light on the dilapidated relics of two generations—old spinning-wheels, hair trunks, high-post, uncoupled bedsteads; hair-cloth sofas, and faded curtains of yellow damask, while near the door rested an ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... one side and thought, and before he went to sleep that night, curled in the crotch of the great tree above the village, Teeka filled his mind, and afterward she filled his dreams—she and the young black men laughing and talking with the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... whipped out my sword and cut every shadow along the road to bits, till I came to the house of my mistress. I looked like a ghost when I went in, and I nearly slipped my wind. The sweat was pouring down my crotch, my eyes were staring, and I could hardly be brought around. My Melissa wondered why I was out so late. "Oh, if you'd only come sooner," she said, "you could have helped us: a wolf broke into the folds and attacked the sheep, bleeding them like a butcher. But he didn't ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... up agen just when Old-pot-head's son was a-climbin' thro' the upper branches o' the birch. So he slips over into the top o' the east pine, while I stays in the top o' the west pine, an' the bear sits down in a upper crotch o' the birch. ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... was so thrilling in its details, and so diametrically different from Mr. Webster's style, that I have often wondered who he got to write it for him. It related to the discovery of a boy by an elderly gentleman, in the crotch of an ancestral apple tree, and the feeling of bitterness and animosity that sprung up at the time between the boy ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... drilled a number of small holes. Then he got out his mending gear and began sewing the plates, in an overlapping pattern, to the legs of the snakeproof pants and to an old pair of moccasins. When he finished, he was pretty well armored as far as his crotch. It was an awkward outfit to move around in, but as long as he was able to stay on his feet, he figured he would be reasonably secure from the stingers. As for the bigger ones, he would just have to depend on seeing them ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... dragon before we could come at the fruit. Well! what was to be done! We couldn't think of leaving the field—that would be too bad—to be driven off by a snake, and before the eyes of our Dulcineas too—it couldn't be thought of! So one of us cuts a pole with a crotch at the end—the rest of us arm ourselves with stones and sticks, and then the poleman commences his attack upon the bush. Ha! that was a thrust, well aimed! hear him rattle, hum-m-m—how the bush flutters! he sprang then! That was a good thrust! Jupiter, how he rattles! see, see, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... erected as a Jubilee memorial in 1887, at a cost of over L200. It is built on the lines of the clocks at Westminster and Worcester Cathedral, and chimes the so-called "Cambridge quarters" as arranged by Dr. Crotch. Small though the clock looks from the level of the churchyard, it must be remembered that it is the massive tower that dwarfs it—the diameter of the face ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... back and half lay across his support in shooting attitude. Wabi had braced a foot, and his rifle was half to his shoulder, leveled over a knee. It was Rod's turn with the big revolver, and he had practised aiming through a crotch that gave a ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... see about this thing. I must hit that bear in the head the first time, sure." He stepped behind a tree and put his rifle through the crotch of a projecting branch. That tree had no shake in it; and the barrel grew steady. "He is getting up on his hind-feet ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... hedge around three sides of this one, and water on the other. Wild grapes climbed from the bushes to the lower branches and trailed back to earth again. Here, I had two secrets I didn't propose to tell. One was that in the crotch of some tiptop branches the biggest chicken hawks you ever saw had their nest, and if they took too many chickens father said they'd have to be frightened a little with a gun. I can't begin to tell how I loved ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... with water. She fitted a little forked stick into the top of the vase, and stuck the plum branch through the crotch of the forked stick, so it wouldn't fall over. She twisted it this way and that until it looked just right. Then she called Taro ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... our youth. It was scarcely two weeks ago that I detected a boy (apparently about twelve years of age) climbing one of the willow trees in our old Schmittheimer place. I crept up on him unawares and speedily became satisfied that he was after the eggs in a bird's nest that nestled cozily in a crotch of the limbs. I shouted lustily at the young scapegrace, and his confusion convinced me that my suspicions were correct. I kept him in his uncomfortable position in the tree until I had lectured him severely for the cruelty he contemplated and until I had exacted from him a promise ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... unwilling ears fifty times a day, which pursued me through my daily round of dish-washings, floor-sweepings, bed-making and potato-peeling, to overtake me at last in the very moment when I hoped to reap the reward of my diligence in a free afternoon by the river-side in the crotch of the water-maple that hung over the stream, clutching me and fastening me down to the hated square of patchwork, which bore, in the spots of red that defaced its white purity in following the line of my stitches, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Katie in confidence. But in the meantime, the three great iron kettles that had been in use during his father's lifetime made the only boiling apparatus; they hung over a fire of great logs, on a strong pole the ends of which rested on the "crotch" of two great logs or ports set up fifteen or twenty feet apart, and there was ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... rehabilitated himself as a heroic public character, a man of honor and a husband to be proud of; but she had not spent a sleepless night and a gray day without fortifying herself against him. All day her eyes had been fixed upon an abandoned squirrel box in the crotch of an elm outside her window; it had become the repository of her thoughts, the habitation of her sorrows. She turned her head slightly so that her eyes might rest upon this tabernacle of fear and illusion, and renewed the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... on the near bank to wait till the wagons were drawn up, lifted herself into the crotch of a cottonwood tree. The pastoral simplicity of the scene, the men and animals moving through the silver-threaded water with the wagons waiting and after the work the camp to be pitched, exhilarated her with a conviction of true living, of ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... From the crotch of one of the oaks—his watch-tower in other periods of stress—he saw the Major mount and continue his gallop eastward on the pike; and a little later the ancient Dabney family carriage came and went in a smother of white dust, wheeling in front of the home gate and pausing ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... about twelve inches before the breast, the thumb resting on the closed third and fourth fingers; the fore and second fingers separated and extended, palm toward the breast; then pass the extended index into the crotch formed by the separated fingers of the left hand. This is an invented sign, and was given to illustrate the difference between buying and trading. (Ute I.) ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... a minute Baree had no use of his jaws. Then, by accident, he wedged Papayuchisew in a crotch of a low ground shrub, and a bit of his nose gave way. He might have run then, but instead of that he was back at the owlet like a flash. Flop went Papayuchisew on his back, and Baree buried his needlelike teeth in the bird's breast. It was like trying to bite through a pillow, the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... all hope soured on me, Of my fellow-critters' aid— I jest flopped down on my marrow bones, Crotch deep in the snow, and prayed. By this the torches was played out, And me and Isrul Parr Went off for some wood to a sheepfold That he said ...
— Standard Selections • Various |
