"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not ground too small; put in some boiling water, to cover the bottom of your mashing-vat before you put in your malt; mash it with more boiling water, putting in your malt at several times, that it may be sure to be all wet alike; cover it with a peck of wheat bran, then let it stand thus mashed four hours, then draw off three gallons of wort, and pour it upon that you have mashed, so let it stand half an hour more, till it runs clear, then draw of all that will ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... one it hath; its blood is eath and quick of flow, Wide-mouthed, though all the rest be black, its ears are white as snow. It hath an idol like a cock, that doth its belly peck, And half a dirhem is its worth, if thou its price ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... one other thing. What that thing is I will tell you when we have drunk the blood-brotherhood! But now it behoveth me to be a-going, so I'll away. But when you shall seek me, as seek me ye will, shipmate, shalt hear of me at the Peck-o'-Malt tavern, which is a small, quiet place 'twixt here and Bedgebury Cross. Come there at any hour, day or night, and say 'The Faithful Friend,' and you shall find safe harbourage. Remember, comrade, the word is 'The Faithful Friend,' and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... restoration. According to Clarendon he was "a man of great honour and clear courage," and his defects the result of too little knowledge of the world. Lord Derby left in MS. "A Discourse concerning the Government of the Isle of Man" (printed in the Stanley Papers and in F. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations, devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book. He married on the 26th of June 1626 Charlotte de la Tremoille (1599-1664), daughter of Claude, duc de Thouars, and grand-daughter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... these hurried lines, if I have been unjust in my estimate of the world's honors and the rewards of the Muses, you will forgive me, if you will remember how the great Burke reduced the value of earthly honors and emoluments to less than that of a peck of wheat. My fire is gone out. My candle is flickering in the socket. There is light in the cold, gray ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... didn' git erlong widout his trials en tribberlations. One day a woodpecker come erlong en 'mence' ter peck at de tree; en de nex' time Sandy wuz turnt back he had a little roun' hole in his arm, des lack a sharp stick be'n stuck in it. Atter dat Tenie sot a sparrer-hawk fer ter watch de tree; en w'en de woodpecker come erlong nex' mawnin' fer ter finish his nes', he got gobble' up mos' fo' he ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... perfectly still at her feet, blinking horribly—such was her attraction. His birds also, a jackdaw and an owl, who had the run of the studio, tolerated her as they tolerated no other female, save the housekeeper. The jackdaw would perch on her and peck her dress; but the owl merely engaged her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which never ended ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dull person who made the remark, Ex pede Herculem. He might as well have said, "From a peck of apples you may judge of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure! Read, instead, Ex ungue minimi digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, matrem, avos et proavos, filios, nepotes et pronepotes! Talk to me about your [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]! Tell ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... circles a sick fish hovers In a pond surrounded by grass. A tree leans against the sky—burned and bent. Yes... the family sits at a large table, Where they peck with their forks from the plates. Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent. The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous, Voracious mouth, like a dog—a filthy enemy. Bums suddenly collapse without a trace. A ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... the rest of the life that had thus been given back to him. While he was on his way down the town to go on board the vessel, I should think that if he had one dollar given him, he had at least half a peck, though I do not expect they would be much use to him where he was going to. I never heard any more of him, but I don't suppose many men could say that they had been ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... from the ditch to the trunk of an elm where the thick bark is green with lichen: he goes up the tree like a woodpecker, and peers into every crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a place where something is hidden: then he proceeds farther up the trunk: next he descends a few steps in a sidelong way, and finally hops down some three inches head foremost, and alights again on the all but perpendicular bark. But his tail does not touch the tree, and in another ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... other chickens came a beautiful little white rooster. He looked almost like a toy, he was so tiny. With a glad little crow he flew straight up to Mary's shoulder, where he began to peck at the cherries. He ate very daintily. Sometimes he would stop eating and cuddle down on Mary's shoulder. When the ripe red treat was all eaten he gave another glad crow ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams
... in a peck of trouble," he said, with a whimsical smile, "and I wish you could help me out, though I dislike putting you ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... authority of the Alabama Legislature and the city government of Mobile, the labor of thousands of willing men could be hired for the low wages of twenty-five cents per day, with an allowance of a peck of corn-meal and four pounds of bacon for each man per week. It does not change the character of the crime against these humble laborers, but it certainly enhances its degree that the law-makers of Alabama preferred an oppressive fraud to the honest payment of a consideration so small ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... our year, pretended that he had been your bosom friend. I got so bored that I left early and wandered back to the club. Somebody was making a racket in our old rooms in the High, windows open, you know, and singing. I stopped to look at them, and then they started, 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' and, 'pon my soul, I had to come away. Couldn't stand it. It reminded me so badly of you and Arthur and old John Lambert, and all the honest men that used to be there. It was infernally absurd that I should have got so sentimental, but that wasn't ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... do," he was saying. "A runabout, perhaps." He came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. "Mr. Peck says," he began,—"this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,—says that the place we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. It's ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her head, she first of all perceived before her a large tablet with blue ground, upon which figured nine dragons of reddish gold. The inscription on this tablet consisted of three characters as large as a peck-measure, and declared that this was the Hall of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... sure that no one ever got a chance to stay abed more than his eight hours while Polynesia was around. She used to watch the ship's clock; and if you overslept a half-minute, she would come down to the cabin and peck you gently on the ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... should recommend two parts hay and one part straw, or in forward animals three parts hay and one part straw cut in chaff. Those of average size will eat somewhere about five bushels per day, with 4 lbs. to 5 lbs. oil-cake, and half a peck of mixed meal, barley and peas, or beans, and, if cheap, a proportion of wheat also, to be increased to one peck per day in a month or six weeks after they have come to stall, the oil-cake and meal to be boiled in water for half-an-hour or three-quarters, and thrown ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... away from here; nothing has ever grown on this farm for us two but wormwood. Perhaps there are new, happy days waiting for us out there; and there are parsons everywhere. If we two work together at some good work out there, we shall earn a peck of money. Then one day we'll go up to a parson, and throw down half a hundred krones in front of his face, and it 'u'd be funny if he didn't confirm you on the spot—and perhaps let himself be kicked into the bargain. Those kind of folk are very ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the kitchen-window two white doves, and after them some turtle-doves, and at last a crowd of all the birds under heaven, chirping and fluttering, and they alighted among the ashes; and the doves nodded with their heads, and began to pick, peck, pick, peck, and then all the others began to pick, peck, pick, peck, and put all the good grains into the dish. Before an hour was over all was done, and they flew away. Then the maiden brought the dish to her step-mother, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... our hearts upon our sleeves for cynics such as you to peck at?" she replied. "The art of dissembling is one of our few privileges. But do you think the Countess is angry? She ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... (alias wild Carrot) a reasonable burthen of Saxifrage, Wild-sage, Blew-button, Scabious, Bettony, Agrimony, Wild-marjoram, of each a reasonable burthen; Wild-thyme a Peck, Roots and all. All these are to be gathered in the fields, between the two Lady days in Harvest. The Garden-herbs are these; Bay-leaves, and Rosemary, of each two handfuls; a Sieveful of Avens, and as ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... better, to deserve well of her. Thorbeorn was very proud of her; but it had been her mother's work to have her carefully trained. If she had lived this tale might not have been written; but she did not. She died a year before it begins, and left her old husband to a peck of troubles. ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... he overreached himself. The chair slid back. He tried to balance himself and, in the mad effort to maintain a perpendicular position, made a frantic clutch at the pipe. Ruin and devastation! Down came the pipe, and with it a peck ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... parts of us that live in air. In fact, over five-sixths of the weight and bulk of our bodies is made up of water. Some one has quaintly, but truthfully, described the human body as composed of a few pounds of charcoal, a bushel of air, half a peck of lime, and a couple of handfuls of salt dissolved in four buckets of water. The reason why nearly all our foods, as we have seen, contain such large amounts of water is that they, also, are the results of life—the tissues and products of plants ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it would perish. Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost as fast as its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and peck at its food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and all of its needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at birth is practically blind and deaf and the senses of ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... the good of this pipe?" He leaned back, steeped in a luxury of satisfaction. He went on, pursuing a private train of thought: "Things have changed a lot since my young days. When I was a youngster, a young fellow had to look out for peck and perch—he put the future in his pocket. He did well or not, according as he had stuff in him. Now he's not content with that, it seems—trades on his own opinion of himself; thinks he is what he says ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... turncoat. I take it all in all, he is the most onpopular man in Illinoy to-day. His conduct is as hard to swaller as a dose of them old Greek twins, Castor Oil and Politics, we use to wrastle with at school. Of course in political life, like in ordinary life, you have to eat a peck o' dirt before you die, but you don't have to eat it all at oncst like he's a doin'! Why, old war-horses, Republicans all their lives, were turned down for this here upstart! It's done the party a deal of harm. And then, as I said before, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... I have had to pay constant visits to my cousin, who lives in a big castle on the sea-side, ten miles from here, over the mountains, and who is in a peck of troubles;—in spite of her prosperity one of the unhappiest women, I should say, that you could meet anywhere. You know so much of her affairs that, without breach of trust, I may say so much. I wish she had a father or a brother to manage her matters ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the greater portion of the interior hollow, as we have seen in the case of the cactus branches. How the birds found that these stalks were hollow is a problem not yet solved, but, nevertheless, they take the trouble to peck away at the hard bark, and once penetrated, they commence to fill the interior; when one space is full, the bird pecks a little higher up, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... quietus." Whatever we say against them, however, lacks the great essential—truth, and that is why we go on saying, thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter. Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a smiling wife, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... fighting through eternity. The two bitches were two sisters who fought until they died over the inheritance left them by their father. The old man whose hair the oxen eat was a farmer who always pastured his cattle on his neighbors' fields. Now he has his reward. The man at whose eyes the ravens peck was an ungrateful son who mistreated his parents. The man with the awful thirst that can never be quenched was a drunkard, and the one at whose lips the apples turn to ashes was ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... to the source from which our [author] drew the first hint of writing Paradise Lost; Peck conjectures that it was from a celebrated Spanish Romance called Guzman, and Dr. Zachary Pearce, now bishop of Bangor, has alledged, that he took the first hint of it from an Italian Tragedy, called Il Paradiso ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... waste, and the most prodigal waste, on every hand. In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and thrown away or left behind. If I went to a grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the heaping measure, the groceryman, instead of picking it up, kicked it into the gutter for the wheels of his wagon to run over. The butcher's waste filled my mother's soul with dismay. If I bought ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... bedight. Now seeing that the sun was getting low, Our travellers at quicker pace did go. Thus as in haste near to the gate they came, Before them limped a bent and hag-like dame, With long, sharp nose that downward curved as though It beak-like wished to peck sharp chin below. Humbly she crept in cloak all torn and rent, And o'er a staff her tottering limbs were bent. So came she to the gate, then cried in fear, And started back from sudden-levelled spear; For 'neath the gate ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... still, we were threatened with a tremendous influx of people. The new bridge at Fulton Ferry across the East River would soon be opened. It looked as though there was to be another bridge at South Ferry, and another at Peck Slip Ferry. Montauk Point was to be purchased by some enterprising Americans, and a railroad was to connect it with Brooklyn. Steamers from Europe were to find wharfage in some of the bays of Long Island, and the passage across the Atlantic reduced to six days! Passengers six days out of Queenstown ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... and took her bread and milk in the gray clear air, with the swallows circling above her head, and one or two of them even resting a second on the edge of the bowl to peck at the food from the big wooden spoon; they had known her all the sixteen summers of her life, and were her playfellows, only they would never tell her anything of what they saw in winter over the seas. That ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... he got to the top he was compelled "to make a road with his club among the albatross. These birds were sitting upon their nests, and almost covered the surface of the ground, nor did they otherwise derange themselves for their new visitors than to peck at their ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... The hens peck the cock. They must be keeping Lent, or perhaps the virtuous widows don't care for ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... "I am not. I would like to see her married some day. Meanwhile I would like to see a dozen lovers about her. It is as natural for a young girl to coquet as it is for a canary to peck at its seed or trim its bill on a bit of fishbone. It is had for the girl and the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... somewhat longer, and they cost us no more for food; for, as I have already stated, they were entirely kept with the produce of our "four-acre farm," till about three weeks before they were killed. About a bushel and a half of barley meal and a peck of peas was all ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... of Fletcher v. Peck[185] was decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... two-story rooms, with basement for cellar and furnace, and a bathroom in front of the cabin and use it with some fixing over for a dining-room and kitchen. Then we will deepen and widen Singing Water, stick a bushel of bulbs and roots and sow a peck of flower seeds in the marsh, plant a hedge along the drive, and straighten the lake shore a little. I can make a beautiful wild-flower garden and arrange so that with one season's work this will appear very well. We will express this stuff and then select and fell some trees to-night. Soon ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... flatters me extremely about my "World," but it has brought me into a peck of troubles. In short, the good-natured town have been pleased to lend me a meaning, and call my Lord Bute Sir Eustace. I need not say how ill the story tallies to what they apply it; but I do vow to you, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... window-blind; And yonder shining thing's a star, Blue eyes,—you seem ten times as far. That, Fragoletta, is a bird That speaks, yet never says a word; Upon a cherry-tree it sings, Simple as all mysterious things; Its little life to peck and pipe As long as cherries ripe and ripe, And minister unto the need Of baby-birds that feed and feed. This, Fragoletta, is a flower, Open and fragrant for an hour, A flower, a transitory thing, Each petal fleeting ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... take a peck, or a peck and a half, according to the greatness of the stream and deepness of the water, where you mean to angle, of sweet gross-ground barley-malt; and boil it in a kettle, one or two warms is enough: then strain it through a bag ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... Equality that art to be! Is Royalty grown a mere wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow, mayest alight at pleasure, and peck? Not ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... now wait! I want some flowers; please hang about my neck A dozen lais; and give me half a peck Of nice bouquets; then I will hire a band And celebrate my entrance to your land. I'll dance the Hula, up and down the street And cry Aloha, to each girl I meet; And if she frowns, and calls me cad, and churl, I'll shout, Long Live the New Hawaiian Girl - Rah, rah, rah, ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hummed, and chair by winter fire; When market-morning came, the neat attire With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd; My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire, When stranger passed, so often I have check'd; The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd. ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... had been shipped, the boat had steamed down the river, and the place, lately so full of busy life, had returned to its accustomed quiet seclusion, the redbirds came to peck up the corn left upon the ground. I remember how once, upon a cold, gray afternoon, I put on my wraps and ran down to the Sycamore Barn, on purpose to watch the shy, beautiful things. Snowflakes were beginning to fall and whisper about the great bamboo vines; twisted ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... like it," he would say sometimes to his wife; "I don't like it, Sarah. This doling out a peck of potatoes and two quarts of apples—why, Sarah, just think of the bushels and barrels I 've grown myself! It's so ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... was so great that, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirmation of the intelligence, poured down in the porch of the Senate- house, nearly a peck of gold rings taken from ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... George W. Peck's hand is of the free and independent order of chirography. It is easy and natural, but not handsome. He writes very voluminously, doing his editorial writing in two days of the week, generally Friday and Saturday. Then he takes a rapid horse, a zealous bird dog and an improved ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... treated with the same mercy?—no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed, be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's first appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand an equally bad chance, and a million of flaws ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... first quality. If land be so poor that clover will not take, as is sometimes the case, seed to clover with millet very early in the spring, and harrow in with the millet thirty bushels of wood-ashes, or two hundred pounds of guano per acre; then sow the clover-seed one peck per acre; brush ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... cannot in conscience invite you to a fireside. The Guerchys and French dined here last Monday, and it rained so that we could no more walk in the garden than Noah could. I came again, to-day, but shall return to town to-morrow, as I hate to have no sun in May, but what I can make with a peck of coals. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... "Mrs. Peckover! Hullo there, Peck! where are you?" roared a stern voice from the stable department of the circus, just as the clown's wife seemed about to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... dear," she said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit peaky this afternoon, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... in which the Chincoteague people welcomed me. "If you don't drink, stranger, up your way, what on airth keeps your buddies and soulds together?" queried a tall oysterman. A lady had kindly presented me with a peck of fine apples that very morning; so, in lieu of "drinks," I distributed the fruit among them. They joked and questioned me, and all were merry save one bilious-looking individual, not dressed, like the others, in an oysterman's garb, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... we do with her now we have her here?" asked the rash Tufter; but he was sorry he asked, for the Phoenix gave him a terrible peck. ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... Blinkie will look?" said Bob, trying to picture the jackdaw as he would appear when conscious of his owner's return; and then, deciding in his own mind that the only tribute of affection which he might expect would, most probably, be a sharp peck from Blinkie's beak, he added, "I dare say he won't remember me ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... your child; you'll soon believe The text which says, we sprung from Eve. As an old hen led forth her train, And seemed to peck to shew the grain; She raked the chaff, she scratched the ground, And gleaned the spacious yard around. A giddy chick, to try her wings, On the well's narrow margin springs, And prone she drops. ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... mother of his should be left alone as little as possible. He ended a responsible letter, and directed it, and made it a thing of the past with a stamp on it in a little basket on the hall-table outside. Then he came back to his mother, and bestowed on her the kiss, or peck, of peace. It always made him uncomfortable when he had to go away to the hospital under the shadow ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... have a foreboding that we shall not always be exempt from the woes which affect our neighbours. Wessex scarcely tempts the plunderer now; neither does East Anglia. Northumbria is half Danish, and kites do not peck out kites' eyes. No; on Mercia, poor Mercia, the blow must sooner ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... handsome craft, she is," the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. "There," John would add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the future. The cold was intense. Although dressed in the thickest of tweeds and sheepskin jacket, sable pelisse, enormous "bourka," and high felt boots, it was all I could do to keep warm even when going at a hand gallop, varied every hundred yards or so by a desperate "peck" on the part of ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... sigh: for his fair and wayward Alexandra had cost him no little care before that summer afternoon. "And to speak truth, Master Tynneslowe, I would not be sorry to put the maid forth, for she is somewhat a speckled bird in mine house, whereat the rest do peck. Come within!" ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... The street cries of 1709 are described in Lauron's "Habits and Cries of the City of London." They included "Any card-matches or save-alls" and "Twelve-pence a peck, oysters."] ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... a tall, well-set-up woman, with a handsome face and keen eyes. She wore her usual morning costume—a breakfast sacque of black silk profusely trimmed with lace, and a black silk skirt. She kissed Annie, with a slight peck of closely set lips, for she liked her. Then she sat down opposite her and regarded her with as much of a smile as her sternly set mouth could manage, and inquired politely regarding her health and that of the family. When ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Stuart, Ninian W. Edwards, Jesse K. Dubois, O.H. Browning, were but a few of the brilliant men who were throwing all their ability and ambition into the contest for political honors in the State. Nor were the Whigs a whit superior to the Democrats. William L.D. Ewing, Ebenezer Peck, William Thomas, James Shields, John Calhoun, were in every respect as able as the best men of the Whig party. Indeed, one of the prominent Democrats with whom Lincoln came often in contact, was popularly regarded as the most brilliant ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... the man, apparently not gratified at the reminder of his flock; "there's a peck o' them ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not been addressed at all, but he was not thin-skinned.) Within ten minutes he had organized another "White massacree"—that is, a raid on the home barn, and in half an hour he returned with a peck of corn. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... jobs, we saws an' splits wood an' totes bundles, an' some of 'em raises gyahden, but mos' of us, we fishes. De fish bites an' we ketches 'em. Sometimes we eats 'em an' sometimes we sells 'em; a string o' fish'll bring a peck ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... along the log Of the tree we felled, Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck Till its last ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... husband hath travelled as far as Plymouth (which is near forty miles), and hath with great toil brought a little corn home with him, and before that is spent the Lord will assuredly provide.' Quoth the other, 'Our last peck of meal is now in the oven at home a-baking, and many of our godly neighbors have quite spent all, and we owe one loaf of that little we have.' Then spake a third, 'My husband hath ventured himself among the Indians for ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... sore at me for getting the best of him and not falling for his gag and he was afraid to tackle me himself and he told big Shaffer a peck of lies about some dam letter or something and said I stole it and it made Shaffer sore and no wonder because who wouldn't be sore if they thought somebody was reading their male. But a man like Shaffer that if he stopped ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... was beginning to feel the effects of her run, or whether she did it out of the pure effrontery of her warped and unpleasant nature, I do not know; but she now slowed down to walk, and even began to peck in a tentative manner at the grass. Her behaviour infuriated me. I felt that I was being treated as a cipher. I vowed that this bird should realise yet, even if, as seemed probable, I burst in the process, that it was no ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... we haven't hunted for buried treasure before is that we have lacked the opportunity. We think we have it now. Captain Killam, here, has told us of an island on which is a buried pirate hoard—millions in gold, priceless jewels by the peck. And that's what ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... always in demand, particularly in diplomatic circles, by far the most interesting and kaleidoscopic in the European capitals. I was told that she never paid a visit to England without finding an invitation from the King and Queen at her hotel, as well as a peck of other invitations. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... slowly in the west, The village labourer from the threshing-floor Hied home full laden with the gathered corn, When soon there came, as from a cage just freed, Two lovely doves intent to peck the grain That scattered lay upon the vacant field. Between these birds, by instinct closely linked, Attachment fond had grown. It seemed, indeed, That God for speech denied to them had given Sense exquisite to know each other's ways. Not all the speech of favoured man in truth Could meaning ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... but me 'n him are great friends, ain't we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"—she was running on now in a tender, caressing tone—"and I gave him some of my pie. He could crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would have been a dead loss, for I've already got ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... One peck of green tomatoes, put through a food chopper. Boil, drain and add as much water as juice drained out. Scald and drain again. Add water as before, scald and redrain. This time add half as ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... pensioner. "'I can better take a blister of a nettle than a prick of a rose; more willing that a raven should peck out my eyes than a dove. To die of the meat one liketh not is better than to surfeit of that he loveth; and I had rather an enemy should bury me quick than a friend belie me when ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... fringed apices, and are very minute and colourless. In Roestelia the peridia are large, growing in company, and splitting longitudinally in many cases, or by a lacerated mouth. In most instances, the spores are brownish, but in a splendid species from North America (Roestelia aurantiaca, Peck), recently characterized, they are of a bright orange. If Oersted is correct in his observations, which await confirmation, these species are all related to species of Podisoma as a secondary form of fruit.[k] In the Roestelia of the pear-tree, as well as in that of the mountain ash, ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... House in the case of charges which may involve impeachment have been well and wisely settled by long practice upon principles of equal justice both to the accused and to the people. The precedent established in the case of Judge Peck, of Missouri, in 1831, after a careful review of all former precedents, will, I venture to predict, stand ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... white eggs, and when she had as many as she could conveniently take care of, she began to sit on them to keep them warm, till the little ducks should be ready to peck their way out. She plucked the soft white down from her breast, to line the nest, and to make it of a more even temperature for the eggs; and, whenever she left to procure food, or to take a short swim on the pond, she ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... the joy of ladies' bowers, the counsellor of earls and heroes, the rival of a mighty king? Which of you will compare yourself with him,—whom you dared not even strike, you and your robber crew, fairly in front, but, skulked round him till he fell pecked to death by you, as Lapland Skratlings peck to death the bear. Ten years ago he swept this hall of such as you, and hung their heads upon yon gable outside; and were he alive but one five minutes again, this hall would be right cleanly swept again! ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Olympias herself joined in the laugh. The last-named damsel carried on all her mental processes in public, instead of presenting her neighbours, as most do, with results only. And when people wear their hearts upon their sleeves, the daws will come and peck at them. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... wishing to show the perfection of the picture, said to some people who were looking at it, 'These strawberries are so very natural and perfect, that I have seen birds coming down from the trees to peck them, mistaking ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... where his brother directed his attention, and noticed a party of penguins returning from the sea. These separated as soon as they approached the line of nests, different individuals sidling up to the sitting birds and giving their partners a peck with their beaks, by way of a hint, barking out some word of explanation at the same time. In another moment, the home-coming penguin had wedged itself into the place of the other, which struggling on to its feet then proceeded outside the thicket, where, being joined by others whose guard had ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... buck-shot," said Gid. "And they could mow us down before we could cross that place. They still outnumber us two to one—packed in there like sardines. Don't you think we'd better scatter about and peck at 'em when they show an eye? I'd like to know who built that church. Confound him, he cut out too many windows to ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... to thy married mate— She has two warm eggs in her nest: Tell her the hours are few to wait Ere life shall dawn on their rest; And thy young shall peck at the shells, elate With a dream of ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... their suffering is most unchristian, and 'tis evident thereupon to me, that a French post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words...... and...... in which there is as much sustenance, as if you give him a peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from my soul to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question—they must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it will ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... will care If I act like a bear And tear your two wings from your neck," "What a nice little pen You have got!" says the hen, Beginning to scratch and to peck. ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... it probable that conspicuously coloured caterpillars were protected by having a nauseous taste; but as their skin is extremely tender, and as their intestines readily protrude from a wound, a slight peck from the beak of a bird would be as fatal to them as if they had been devoured. Hence, as Mr. Wallace remarks, "distastefulness alone would be insufficient to protect a caterpillar unless some outward sign indicated to its would-be destroyer ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... doors from this was the office of The Birmingham Journal, a very different paper then from what it afterwards became. It had been originally started as a Tory paper by a few old "fogies" who used to meet at "Joe Lindon's," "The Minerva," in Peck Lane; and this was how it came about: The Times had, early in 1825, in a leader, held up to well-deserved ridicule some action on the part of the Birmingham Tory party. This gave awful and unpardonable offence, and ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... that fool boy wuzn't in a peck uv trubble! There he stood in the middle uv that hot—that all-fired hot—peraroor with his arms full uv eggs. What wuz there fur him to do? He wuz afraid to move, lest he should break them eggs; yet the longer he ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... over the door he entered. Men and women were buying and selling, but the Indian stood aside shyly until all were served, and Master Peck cried out: ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury; it is a privilege; it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the pregnant weight of this new parcel. But he did not stop to investigate. He did not care to gulp and lose the mystery at one swallow. He scurried off with it, chucklingly, like a barnyard hen with a corncob, to peck at it in solitude. He swung south and then west again, to his own street. He went up his own steps, through his own door, and up to his own top-floor room with the rakish back wall. There he cautiously lighted the gas, drew the blinds, and locked himself in. Next, he dragged a chair over to the bedside, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... ham, 4 cans corned beef, 2 lbs. cheese, 3 lbs. lard, 8 cans condensed milk, 8 lbs. hard tack, 10 packages soda crackers, 6 packages sweet crackers, 12-1/2 lbs. of wheat flour, 12-1/2 lbs. of yellow cornmeal, can baking powder, 1/2 bushel potatoes, 1 peck onions, 3 lbs. ground coffee, 1/2 lb. tea, sack salt, 7 lbs. granulated sugar, 3 packages prepared griddle cake flour, 4 packages assorted cereals, including oatmeal, 4 lbs. rice, dried fruits, canned corn, peas, beans, canned baked beans, salmon, tomatoes, sweetmeats ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... get rid of, usually went to the Palais-Royal. He had lived for twenty years not far from there, in a little apartment near Saint-Roch. Drinking in the fresh air, under the striped awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... They'd sent off for their breaking and entering kit, meaning to finish the job next day. The following night they'd planned to drop in unexpected, sew the Boss up in his blanket before he could make a move, and cart him off until I could bail him out with a peck or so of ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Why do I do it?" He smiled and shook his head. "Well, I don't know. For two reasons, maybe. First, I'd hate to be responsible for tippin' over such a sky-towerin' idol as you've been to make ruins for Angie Phinney and the other blackbirds to peck at and caw over. And second—well, it does sound presumin', don't it, but I kind of pity you. Say, Heman," he added with a chuckle, "that's a kind of distinction, in a way, ain't it? A good many folks have hurrahed ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... other woman in the field, against whom if she tried conclusions she would be broken like the earthen pot in the fable, she generally succeeds in achieving her ambition, although she may be in name a servant. There are such phenomena as hen-pecked priests, and those who peck them have no right whatever to do it. It is a state of things brought about by too much submission, for the sake of peace, to a mind determined to be uppermost while pretending ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... that all this was going on, the sparrow, whose nest was in the hawthorn-tree, had brought a few seeds and a morsel of crust to her young ones. The seed she distributed with ease, but the morsel of crust was rather hard, and required her to pinch and peck it a good deal with her bill before it could be soft enough for the young birds. The young ones, however, were all so anxious to be first to receive the crust the moment it was ready, that they all began to make a loud chirruping, and scrambling, and pushing, and fluttering, and trampling, ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... wopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundred weight of hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... it is,—besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black, oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of thy health-giving air, and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour: when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... sat there with a gun across his knees, first one and then half-a-dozen large birds, emboldened by the silence, came stalking out from beneath the bushes, looking something like so many farmyard hens as they began to peck ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... demand the Nag, if you ask for Humfrey the Ostler, by the same token he has bin there this foure dayes and had but one peck of provender. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Avener. He shall give the horses in the stable two armsful of hay and a peck of oats, daily. A Squire is Master of the Horse; under him are Avener and Farrier, (the Farrier has a halfpenny a day for every horse he shoes,) and grooms and pages hired at 2d. a day, or 3 halfpence, and footmen who run by ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... in holes that she digs in the ground under Cow or Horse-dung, and there rests all Winter, and in March or April comes to be first a red, and then a black Beetle: gather a thousand or two of these, and put them with a peck or two of their own earth into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm, that the frost or cold air, or winds kill them not, and you may keep them all winter and kill fish with them at any ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... shillings went into the pockets of Master Hopkins. In this manner he made one old woman confess, because four flies had appeared in the room, that she was attended by four imps, named "Ilemazar," "Pye-wackett," "Peck-in-the-crown," and "Grizel-Greedigut." ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... birds is only equaled by their courage, or rather their audacity. Sometimes they may be seen furiously chasing birds twenty times their size, fastening upon their bodies, letting themselves be carried along in their flight, while they peck fiercely until their tiny rage is satisfied. Sometimes they fight each other vigorously. Impatience seems their very essence. If they approach a blossom and find it faded, they mark their spite by a hasty rending of the petals. Their only ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... peck o' maut, And Bob and Allan cam to see; Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, Ye wad ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... at the price of threatened death? I was inclined to refuse to kiss Krak, but my mother made such a point of compliance that I yielded reluctantly. In days of health Krak had exacted, morning and evening, a formal and perfunctory peck; if I gave her no more now she looked aggrieved, and my mother distressed. Had Krak been possessed by a real penitence, I would have opened my arms to her, but I was fully aware that her mood was not this; she merely wanted to know that I bore no malice for just discipline, and it went to my ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... at an inn where he dined, complained very much that the plates and dishes were very dirty. The waiter, with a degree of pertness, observed, "It is said every one must eat a peck of dirt before he dies."—"That may be true," said Chesterfield, "but no one is obliged to eat it all at one meal, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... sauce [vegetables]. For supper for four, two quarts of milk and one loaf of bread, when milk can conveniently be had, and when it cannot, then apple-pie, which shall be made of one and three fourth pounds dough, one quarter pound hog's fat, two ounces sugar, and half a peck apples.' In 1759 we find, from a vote prohibiting the practice, that beer had become one of the articles allowed for the evening meal. Soon after this, the evening meal was discontinued, and, as is now the case in the English colleges, the students had supper in their own rooms, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... gave a cry of delight. For from a pocket of the coat peaked the head of his little bird, and there was the hole between the logs, where the coat had hung. The bird seemed quite pleased that they had found her, and after a while flew off her nest to peck from Koto's hand. After some days her eggs were hatched, and then the father bird consented to enter the cabin and help feed the young ones. When the little birds grew large enough, they flew away ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... it upon Dooley—for a consideration. It is a discovery which I made by accident, thirty-eight years ago, in my father-in-law's house in Elmira. There was a scarred and battered and ancient billiard-table in the garret, and along with it a peck of checked and chipped balls, and a rackful of crooked and headless cues. I played solitaire up there every day with that difficult outfit. The table was not level, but slanted sharply to the southeast; there wasn't a ball that was ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... rolling-pin per day for each man. This had to serve for all purposes—cooking, as well as warming. We split the rations up into slips about the size of a carpenter's lead pencil, and used them parsimoniously, never building a fire so big that it could not be covered with a half-peck measure. We hovered closely over this—covering it, in fact, with our hands and bodies, so that not a particle of heat was lost. Remembering the Indian's sage remark, "That the white man built a big fire and sat away off from it; ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Take a peck of cling-stone peaches; such as come late in the season, and are very juicy. Pare them, and cut them from the stones. Crack about half the stones and save the kernels. Leave the remainder of the stones whole, and mix them with the cut peaches; add also the kernels. ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... from time to time, closing the filmy lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took him up in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak, still ever ready to peck ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... running along the bottom, and being filled, the juice slowly simmers Much of the foreign substance rises in a scum to the surface and is skimmed off by the sugar maker. It is further purified by the addition of Thomaston or what is called sugar lime. At one half a peck is considered sufficient for seven hundred and fifty gallons of juice, but much depends upon the quantity of saccharine matter it contains. Another set of pipes now permit the liquor to run into the evaporators, in the boiling room below. These are also heated by circles of steam pipes, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... was astounded at the note of reproach in his voice. "We're even now—let by-gones be by-gones! You helped me, I helped you. You trapped me into the fort, I tricked you into breaking a mirror and laying up a peck of trouble for yourself. Surely you don't treasure ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... equivocal in purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his "Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut" ever made a drunkard, but it is certain that his "Cottar's Saturday Night" has converted sinners, edified the godly, and made some erect family altars. It has been worth a thousand homilies. And, taking his songs as a whole, they have done much to stir the flames of pure love, of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ideal wife—not a companion, but a beautiful, fluttering creature to be supplied with everything it wanted. If he had done that he wouldn't have waked up to the fact that the creature gave him nothing whatever back—beyond preening its feathers and forbearing to peck. Lionel respected and loved women, so that he could afford to feel a certain contempt for Estelle, but he had always feared Winn's feeling any such emotion. Winn would condemn Estelle first and bundle her whole sex after her. Lionel hardly ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched. So it does; but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? What made it lay the foundations of those limbs which should enable it to run about? What made it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was hatched, so that it might peck all round the larger end of the eggshell and make a hole for itself to get out at? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken throws away this horny tip; but is it reasonable to suppose that it would have grown it at all unless it ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... I couldn't learn until I was old enough to learn properly. He said I must not get into the habit of using the hunt-and-peck system, or I'd ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don't know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He'd not like it to get to the missis's ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... them. I remember, a thrush had the confidence to snatch out of my hand, with his bill, a piece of cake that Glumdalclitch had just given me for my breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds, they would boldly turn against me, endeavoring to peck my fingers, which I durst not venture within their reach; and then they would hop back unconcerned, to hunt for worms or snails, as they did before. But one day, I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily, at a linnet, that I knocked ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... GREAT PIES—To a peck of flour, add the yolks of three eggs. Boil some water, put in half a pound of fried suet and a pound and a half of butter. Skim off the butter and suet and as much of the liquor as will make a light crust. Mix well and ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... or two before she rejoined Wilhelmine, who was removing her wrap in a leisurely way while the other ladies there eyed her rudely. It was very like the advent of a strange bird into a cage of canaries; the indigenous birds were all prepared to peck at the intruder. How willingly would they have torn out the strange bird's feathers! Wilhelmine appeared unconscious of this unfriendly scrutiny, though, in reality, she was disagreeably aware of it. Madame de Stafforth had torn the hem of her skirt walking through the crowded antehall, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields, because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out. In North Germany they say that "the Cock sits in the last sheaf"; and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, "Now we will chase out the Cock." When it is cut they say, "We have caught the Cock." At ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... cibilized times. Dey wasn't educated up to de use ob de pen. Deir han's was only fit for de ruff use ob de swoard. Now, as de modern poet says, our swoards rust in deir cubbards, an' peas, sweet peas, cover de lan'. An' what has wrot all dis change? De pen. Do I take a swoard now to get me a peck ob sweet taters, a pair ob chickens, a pair ob shoes? No, saar. I jess take my pen an' write an order for 'em. Do I want money? I don't git it by de edge ob de swoard; I writes a check. I want a suit ob clothes, for instance—a ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... know that her order for a steak, a peck of potatoes, and two lemons, is registered in the grocery boy's book under ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... from Mr. Russell U. Peck, of Berlin, Conn., "has been used fresh, on corn and meadow, with ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... hope the meal was with you this day, thirty-five bolls,—for it was at Invar last night. It shall be my study to have more meal with you on Monday night, for you must distribute a peck a man; and cost what it will, there must be frocks made to each man to contain a peck or two for the men to have always ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... find The father's, but her own. 'He is yet green And may grow straight,' so flickers his last jest, Then out for ever. At the last he begged A penny-pott of malmsey. In the bill, All's printed now for crows and daws to peck, You'll find four shillings for his winding sheet. He had the poet's heart and God help all Who have that heart and somehow lose their way For lack of helm, souls that are blown abroad By the great winds of passion, without power ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... for the field the Thirteenth New York, Colonel Quinby; the Sixty-ninth New York, Colonel Corcoran; the Seventy-ninth New York, Colonel Cameron; and the Second Wisconsin, Lieutenant- Colonel Peck. These were all good, strong, volunteer regiments, pretty well commanded; and I had reason to believe that I had one of the best brigades in the whole army. Captain Ayres's battery of the Third Regular Artillery was also attached to my brigade. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... mother's departure, Dicky almost missed kissing me good-by in his mad haste to catch his train. He rushed out of the door after a most perfunctory peck at my cheek, and I saw him almost running down the little lane bordered with wild flowers that led "across ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens, and two pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, sow, and till half an acre of the lord's land, and give his work as directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... the table when he arrived. He went up to her for the customary little peck on the cheek which passes for a kiss among relatives, and Helen May waved him off with a half smile that was unlike ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... one barrel, in order to make it more generally useful to the community at large; however, the same proportions will answer for a greater or less quantity, only proportioning the materials and utensils. Take one peck of good malt ground, one pound of hops, put them in twenty gallons of water, and boil them for half an hour, then run them into a hair cloth bag, or sieve, so as to keep back the hops and malt from ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... John Howard Payne The Grapevine Swing Samuel Minturn Peck Lullaby of an Infant Chief Sir Walter Scott The First Thanksgiving Day Margaret Junkin Preston A Visit from St. ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... always keep a kind of picture of a horse in my eye. Well, I have known a very enthusiastic gentleman say, "The Bard, sir, The Bard; the big horse, the mighty bay. He'll smother 'em all." I modestly said, "Do you think he is big enough?" "Big enough! a giant, sir! Mark my words, sir, you'll see Bob Peck's colours in triumph on the bay." I mildly said: "I thought The Bard was a very little one when I saw him, and he didn't seem bay. He was rather like the colour you might get by shaking a flour-dredger over a mulberry. Have you had a look at him?" As usual, I ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the foot of an oak tree that I had chopped down one cold winter day, I found a poor ground squirrel frozen solid in its snug grassy nest, in the middle of a store of nearly a peck of wheat it had carefully gathered. I carried it home and gradually thawed and warmed it in the kitchen, hoping it would come to life like a pickerel I caught in our lake through a hole in the ice, which, after being frozen as hard as a bone and thawed at ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... have said all this in game? Go, or I shall send thee hence in the devil's name! Avoid, thou lousy lurden and precious stinking slave, That neither thy name knowest nor canst any master have! Wine-shaken pillory-peeper,[191] of lice not without a peck, Hence, or by Gods precious,[192] I shall break ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... shrugged his fat shoulders, and bent his head in thought. An instant later he looked up. "You can't do it," he informed the detective vehemently; "you haven't got a shred of evidence against me! What's there? A pile of oranges and a peck of trash! What of it?... Besides," he threatened, "if you pinch me, you'll have to take the girl in, too. I swear that whatever stealing was done, she did it. I'll not be trapped this way by her and let her off without a squeal. Take ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... to peck at—that is the heart," laughed Mr. Ayrton. "Talking of woman's soul, how is Lady Earlscourt?" he added, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... One-half peck green tomatoes, two large heads of cabbage, fifteen onions, twenty-five ripe cucumbers, one pint of grated horseradish, one-half pound of white mustard seed, one ounce of celery seed, one-half teacup each of ground ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... a bound, and was met by a peck between the eyes that would have turned most dogs, but Crusoe only winked, and the next moment ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne |
