"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chance had fashioned them. Their great charm consists in this rudeness and in the individuality of each article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking up for one's self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never been handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the red hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such an incident ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Tennessee—an error which has no justification whatever, unless it be based on the presumption that it was absolutely necessary that Longstreet should ultimately rejoin Lee's army in Virginia by way of Knoxville and Lynchburg, with a chance of picking up Burnside en route. Thus depleted, Bragg still held Missionary Ridge in strong force, but that part of his line which extended across the intervening valley to the northerly point of. Lookout Mountain ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... then, such a picture as this might be the true portrait of him:—a sickly body, with an iron will in it; a youth with no outstanding brilliancies, who never lost his nerve and never made mistakes in policy; with no ethical standars above those of his time:—capable of picking his names coldly on the proscription lists; capable of having Cleopatra's innocent children killed;—one, certainly, who had followed the usual custom of divorcing one wife and marrying another as often as expediency suggested. Above all, following the ends of his ambition unerringly ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... stick and walking erect by its help in the wild state is not true. Monkeys, then, are both four-handed and four-footed beasts; they possess four hands formed very much like our hands, and capable of picking up or holding any small object in the same manner; but they are also four-footed, because they use all four limbs for the purpose of walking, running, or climbing; and, being adapted to this double purpose, the hands want the delicacy of touch ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Daun, picking his steps and positions, latterly with threefold precaution, got into Konigsgratz neighborhood, a week after Friedrich; and looked down with enigmatic wonder upon Friedrich's new settlement there. Forage abundant all round, and the corn-harvest growing white;—here, strange ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... our wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march with the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... young man said "Signor Contini" instead of Contini alone. It was quite clear that Del Ferice had already acquainted him with all the details of the situation, for he seemed to understand all the documents at a glance, picking out and examining the important clauses with unfailing acuteness, and pointing with his finger to the place where Orsino ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... others had been busy. The secret service men had each tackled a man, and had him secure by now, while Joe and Blake, by mutual agreement picking out another member of the party had, after a struggle, succeeded in ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... excited," said the tramp detective, dropping his pruning knife, and picking it up again with great deliberation. "There is a man coming up from the river, he must be getting pretty near us. No, don't ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Stracey, the old wit, picking his teeth, and speaking for the first time; "if you tell Barabel you have seen a handsome woman, he says, mysteriously frowning, 'Handsome, sir! has she ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their regular routine of summer camp duties, occupy themselves with fishing, moccasin making, and berry picking. The girls join their mothers in picking berries, which are plentiful and of great variety—raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, blueberries, gooseberries, swampberries, saskatoonberries, pembinaberries, pheasantberries, bearberries, and snakeberries. They gather also wild celery, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... papa, or if you had spoken sternly to me, as grandpa Dinsmore would have done in your place, I'd have been in a great passion in a minute. I was feeling like just picking up my slate, and dashing it to pieces against ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... was rather heavy for the little children, and they were glad to step inside the cabin. Even though the roof leaked in places, there were spots where it did not. Picking out one of these spaces, Freddie moved some boxes over to it, and he and his sister sat down, tired and wet, but feeling better now that they were ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... Dungeness. Lydd has now its own branch line from Ashford, but when I first knew it the nearest point by rail on one hand was Folkestone, and on the other Appledore. Between these several points lies a devious road, sometimes picking its way through the marshes, and occasionally breaking in upon a sinking village, which it would probably be delightful to dwell in if it did not lie so low, was not so damp, and did not furnish the inhabitants with an opportunity for obtaining remarkably close acquaintance ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... word, but turned, and went with her while she walked slowly beside me, thinking deeply, and picking a rose to pieces as she went; and I, too, thought much, what could she want me for? surely, but for one thing; and ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... complication and a character in action commonly resemble gleaners who are intent only on picking up the cars of grain and huddling their store. Disinterestedly or interestedly they wax over-eager for the little trifles, and make too much of them. Observers should begin upon the precept, that not all we see is worth hoarding, and that the things we see are to be weighed in the scale ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... without white spots of a curious pattern. They may be more or less hairy and so forth. Even the seeds exhibit differences in size, shape or color, and of late Martinet has shown, that by the simple means of picking out seeds of the same pattern, pure strains of clover may be obtained, which are of varying cultural value. In this way the best subspecies or varieties may be sought out for separate cultivation. Even the white spots on the ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... all. But, in many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country), men have been pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed by its fruitfulness; furnishing them constant employment for picking up things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While Mechanic Arts, Manufactures, Agriculture, Commerce, and all those products of knowledge which are confined to gross—definite—and tangible objects, have, with the aid of Experimental Philosophy, been every day putting ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Lenny Fairfield—pattern boy of the village. Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish, after all; some good-for-nothing vagrant—that cursed tinker, who goes about with a very vicious donkey—whom, by the way, I caught picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday: worst day of the week, I am sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and depredations. Between the services, and after ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... hardly wait till it's time to start digging," said Sam Higgins. "Here we are, on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... I suppose they were sandpipers, one of the numerous family of birds that get their living by wading among the shallows, and picking up ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the British; some of these were of a thrilling character, and strongly depicted the miseries of war, presenting a lamentable picture of the debasing influence of sanguinary struggles on the human mind. The barbarous mode of harassing the British troops, by picking off stragglers, which the lower orders of Americans pursued, in most instances for the sake of the wretched clothing and accoutrements of the victims, the former being dyed of a dark colour, and sold for a ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... little shanty built against a half-demolished brick wall. A gilt cage hung in the doorway, with a canary, singing beautifully. An old woman was working in the garden patch, picking out bits of brick and plaster the rain had washed up, digging with her fingers around the pale carrot-tops and neat lettuce heads. Claude approached her, touched his helmet, and asked her how one could find the way to the ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... I wish I could go now, but that's impossible, and there's no use in suggesting that Mr. Jernyngham should send somebody else. Besides, I believe I'd have the best chance of picking up the right trail. You won't mind my saying that ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... and the 3d, and they brought back a number of enormous Bavarians who were like the Brobdingnagians to these little men of Lilliput and disgusted with that humiliation. I met the whole crowd of them after that adventure, as they sat, half naked, picking the lice out of their shirts, and the conversation I had with them remains in my memory because of its grotesque humor and tragic comicality. They were excited and emotional, these stunted men. They cursed the war with the foulest curses of Scottish and Northern dialects. There was one fellow—the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Picking like a trained beast its backward steps, with cautious strength the throbbing machine, storm-crusted and storm-beaten, hissing its steady defiance at its enemy, halted, and Gertrude was lighted and handed across the short path, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... number) who were divided into two groups, the plow group and the hoe group. His father happened to be the foreman of the hoe gang. His brothers and sisters also worked here in the fields being required to hoe as well as plow. When picking time came, everyone was required to pick. The usual amount of cotton each person was required to pick was 200 lbs. per day. However, when this amount was not picked by some they were not punished by the overseer, as was the case on neighboring plantations, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... doors of the coffee-house in the Piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked, and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... awkwardly. "Well, gee, you can't miss picking up some stuff about the fighting. All the other guys ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the garden picking a bouquet for the table, and Wally went to help her. She gave him a smile that made his heart do a trick, and when he bent over to help her break a piece of mignonette, his hand ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... a small basket nearly half filled with leaves. The handsome, well preserved old man with the shrewd, kindly, white-bearded face told me now that these bushes with the grayish green, lanciform little leaves were Chinese tea, and that he was picking the two or three outside leaves on each twig in order to dry them for his domestic consumption. I listened while he informed me of the details of tea culture and the curing of the crop; then, having at the moment to take off my hat and wipe the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... walking, and will end by picking up Jem coming out of school. We used to wait for him so often, that at last he said we should be laughed at, so there's a law against it which no one dares to ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was its returning path to freedom. Twelve of these stalwart and strenuous operators, lining the long walls at regular intervals, six a side, were at it with might and main (payment by results being the rule in this department of industry), and attendant boys strolled up and down, picking the fleeces from the floor and carrying them to the sorter's table. One was the tar-boy, whose business it was to dab a brushful of tar upon any scarlet patch appearing upon a white under-coat where the shears had clipped too close. The sorter or classer ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... gloss of novelty was completely worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes of species seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown great skill in picking out salient points in the argument for change of species; but I am deeply disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find that his timidity prevents him giving any judgment.... From all my communications with him, I must ever think that he has ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... muscles are affected by the ataxia, further exercises are ordered for them, bending and twisting movements, picking up objects from the floor, etc. For the hands and arms, which, except in those very rare cases where the ataxia first shows itself in the upper extremities, seldom exhibit much incooerdination in the primary and middle stages, the movements are the picking up of ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... the Duke of Grafton was a German of the name of Imhoff. He called himself a baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman who, born under the Arctic circle, was destined to play the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps of metal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yours is the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to this room since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into the ante-room, but come no further. The furnace can be cleaned ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... casts a feeble light over the scene. Then up and away for the final climb. How rough the path is among the black rocks along the ridge! Now we strike out on the gently rising glacier, across the crust of snow, picking our way among the crevasses, with the rope tied about our waists for fear of a fall. How cold it is! But now the gray light of morning dawns, and now the beams of sunrise shoot up behind the Glockner, and now the sun itself ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Frobisher was sent in search of it, with two barks of twenty-five tons each, and one pinnace of ten tons. He entered the strait, leading into what was afterwards called Hudson's Bay: this strait he named after himself. He discovered the southern coast of Greenland; and picking up there some stone or ore which resembled gold, he returned to England. The London goldsmiths having examined this, they reported that it contained a large proportion of gold. This induced the Russian Company to send him out a second time, in 1577; but during this voyage, and a third in ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... all be pathfinders, or there'd be no one to carry the dinner! We'll have to figure out some way of picking out two, because that's ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... on the minds of the Montpellier students; and still more influence—and that not altogether a good one—must Rabelais' lighter talk have had, as he lounged—so the story goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of the sound respect for natural science, and much, too, of the contempt ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... midst of this little by-play of good feeling, a dark shaggy animal leaped upon the scaffolding, and very coolly commenced, with an activity that denoted the influence of the keen mountain air on his appetite, picking up the different particles of meat that had, as yet, escaped the eye of Uberto. The intruder was received much in the manner that an unpopular or an offending actor is made to undergo the hostilities of pit and galleries, to revenge some slight or neglect for which he has ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... true, and he told where the house might be found. A picture of the house is preserved in the Nunnery, and was sometimes shown us. There are also wax figures of Joseph sawing wood, and Jesus as a child, picking up the chips. We were taught to sing a little song relating to this, the chorus of ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... pearls she pinched last winter? They were a handsome string, as I remember, too handsome to market readily. Mrs. Leary has a passion for precious baubles, Archie," the Governor explained. "A brilliant career in picking up such trifles; a star performer, Red, if you don't mind my bragging ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... not for spring chicken or roast duck whenever there is the wish; for the best part of the year eggs are despicably common. Every low tide advertises oysters gratis, and occasionally crabs and crayfish for the picking up. Delicate as well as wholesome and nutritious food is ours at so little cost that our debt to smiling Nature, if she kept records and tendered her accounts, would be somewhat embarrassing. And if Nature frowns with denial and there are but ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... concert hall, lay the black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted house, with weather-curled boards; naked as a tower, the crook-backed ash seedlings where the dishcloths hung to dry; the gaunt, molting turkeys picking up ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... picking up her field glasses. Yes, beyond all this she saw the knoll upon which her father's house stood, even the building itself through its clump of cedars. But her glasses, raised higher sweeping back and forth, had found the river, and travelling on picked up the Bar L-M buildings and ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... to-night when I had warned her to hide her signature from Macartney; but I was not picking at trifles. I said: "Well, I've trusted you, too! I knew the first night I came back here that you were meeting some man secretly, in the dark. But it was none of my business and I held my tongue about it; then, and when you ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... silent a moment after making this portentous announcement. Then he leaned forward, with the evident intention of picking ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... bulky and mechanically inefficient. Stirling substituted for the two stages of adiabatic expansion and compression the passage of the air to and fro through a "regenerator,'' in which the air was alternately cooled by storing its heat in the material of the regenerator and reheated by picking the stored heat up again on the return journey. The essential parts of one form of Stirling's engine are shown in fig. 1. There A is the externally fired heating vessel, the lower part of which contains hot air which is taking in heat from the furnace beneath. A pipe from the top of A leads ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a rag-bag in his hand, was picking up a number of small pieces of whalebone which lay on the street. The deposit was of such a singular nature, that we asked the quaint-looking gatherer how he supposed they came there. "Don't know," he replied, in a squeaking voice; ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the appointed place to find the haunt of the robbers. Filing along singly, we peered into the underbush. Lo, and behold, I see it! It is a white thing hanging on a bush! Yes! And listen, I hear voices! It is the robbers! Why, no, these are only children's voices! They are picking berries, the dear things. Poor children! Don't you know that you may be robbed and murdered by some of these infernal rascals who beat innocent men, take their money and come out here into this wilderness and wash the blood off their garments and hang ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... rejoicings at London upon our glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers prancing by; the mob waving hats, roaring cheers, picking pockets, and our friends in a balcony in Fleet Street looking on and blessing this scene of British triumph. But now that the French Invalides have been so vulgar as to imitate the Tower, and set up their St. Cas against our St. Malo, I scorn to allude to the stale subject. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so ably did both parties ply their batons that for a while the issue of the combat was extremely doubtful. At length, however, the fiddler could easily discover that his opponent's vigour was much in the fagging order. Picking up renewed courage in consequence, he plied the ghost with renewed force, and after a stout resistance, in the course of which both parties were seriously handled, the ghost of Bogandoran thought it prudent to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... him for this service for two reasons. In the first place, because I know he will do it well, and even those who consider that I am rash and headstrong, admit that I have the knack of picking out good men. In the next place, I want to reward him for the service he has done for us. I cannot, at his age, make a colonel of him, but I can give him a chance of distinguishing himself in a service in which age does not count for so much, and Count Piper, knowing ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... up to Aikenside. I wouldn't leave Maddy so long as there was hope. I did not tell them this morning. I couldn't make that poor couple feel worse than they are feeling; but when I looked at her, tossing from side to side and picking at the bedclothes, I knew it would soon be over—that when I saw her again the poor little arms would be still enough and the bright eyes shut forever. Guy, I couldn't see her die—I don't like to see anybody die, but her, Maddy, of all others—and so I came away. If you stay long enough, you'll ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... picking up a pen, docketed the paper with the day of the month and the year. He then pulled out a drawer on the left-hand side of his knee-hole table, selected a packet labelled "Complimentary, P. B."—his clerk's initials—slipped ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... angle, and slowly, very slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant driving of the catboat upon the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... by the side of the road about half-past eight in the evening. I suppose you don't remember my picking you up?" ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a very emphatic grunt).—That depends; some have lots of bones, and fine clothes, and warm beds, without doing anything harder for them than picking the one, putting on the other, and sleeping on the third;—but never mind that; what have you got there in your ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... with much dignity, "you have wronged me greatly, and would have wronged me still more had not these strangers come to my rescue. I have been ready for picking all the past week, but because you were selfish and desired to continue your unlawful rule, you left me to stand ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... stronger he began to romp with the other boys of the village. With them he followed the women down to the river's brink, picking up shiny pebbles from the sand, or watching the minnows dart about in the sunlight. With them, when the days were long, he crawled through the brambles, looking for luscious berries, or ran with the wiry Indian dogs into copse and brushwood. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... word was spoken. The path wound on, faintly marked, but easy enough to follow with Tucu picking it out. It was not one of the frequently used trails of the Monitaya people, but a mere picada, or hunter's track; yet even this had its pitfalls to guard the tribal house. Soon after leaving the clearing Tucu turned aside, passed between trees off the trail, ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... way. I have given my word. They are picking the lock. Fasten all the doors, and let them break them down; it ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... FERROVIUS (picking up a sword) I'll die sword in hand to show people that I could fight if it were my Master's will, and that I could kill the man who kills me ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... old I was put to work on the farm with other children, picking weeds, stone up and tobacco worms and to do other work. We all got new shoes for Christmas, a dress and $2.50 for Christmas or suits of clothes. We spent our money at Mr. Randorph's store for things that we wanted, but was punished ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... stores of knowledge have ever been laid up by civilized man. The consciousness of strength will give him confidence, and he will go to the rich treasures themselves, and take what he wants, instead of picking up eleemosynary scraps from those whom, in spite of himself, he will regard as his betters in literature. He will be let into that great communion of scholars throughout all ages and all nations,—like that more awful communion of saints in the holy church universal,—and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... little bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other parts of their dress. They seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to consider them as just worth the picking up, but not worth the refusing to any body who asked them, They gave them to their new guests at the first request, without seeming to think that they had made them any very valuable present. They were astonished to observe the rage of the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep awake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that there is a history ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the dance ended, noted twenty phases of life in twenty faces. And Donnegan saw the flushes of liquor, and heard the loud voices of happy fellows who had made their "strikes"; but in all that brilliant crew he had no trouble in picking out Jack ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... bring the bees. Some of these are chosen because the child can do something with them, can find their own uses for them, can play with them. And, speaking generally, playing with them is the child's way of appreciating both plant and animal. Picking feathery grasses, red-tipped daisies, sweet-smelling clover and golden dandelions; feeding snapdragons with fallen petals, finding what's o'clock by blowing dandelion fruits, paying for dock tea out of ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... removed. To become a good runner this is important. Adenoids, which are growths far back in the mouth, often interfere with nose breathing and are serious in other ways. Don't stick anything in the nose; and nose picking is not cleanly. If crusts form in the nose, use a little vaseline to soften them. Don't blow the nose too vigorously. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... picking me to pieces? I think that is true. If you had been loving me for a long, long time—[The agony rushes back on her.] But now I'm only afraid. You might have some pity for me ... I'm ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... for ever, Their world would be wise as ours— And the king be cutting capers, And the priest be picking flowers. ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... in the act of picking a bracken fern from the hedge with which to fan his face when he heard an alarmed shout. Turning his head he saw that a young bull had broken loose from his captors and was making a dash along the road ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... to restore his fortunes, and set his precious family once more on a sound financial basis, had come in search of the gold which report said was to be had on Suffering Creek for the trouble of picking it up. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... would give her a lame leg for seven years, and that then they would cure her by striking her leg with a herb growing on Dartmoor. So next day Molly found herself lame, and kept so for seven years, when, as she was picking mushrooms on Dartmoor, a strange-looking boy started up, struck her leg with a plant he held in his hand, and sent her home sound again. There is another story of the Pixies which is very beautiful. An old woman near Tavistock had in her garden a fine bed of tulips, of which the Pixies became very ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... years back instructions were begun among the young people at Tigara in the simple art of cooking. At first the girls viewed it in the line of a novelty, but when they noticed the eligible young men picking out the cooks for their wives, it was astonishing to see what zeal all the marriageable girls suddenly developed. As soon as they had learned to turn a slapjack, or to make a cup of coffee, they would, on returning to their ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... in this world! It's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, seeing how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid way Father and Mother make us do, of always washing up the dishes we dirty, and always picking up the things we drop. Seems as though I'd die happy, if I could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and leave it there, and know that it would get hung up ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... English sailors, used to the rough adventures of sailing new and uncharted seas, there was little excitement in picking up two half-drowned Indians, although they had never done such a thing before. They warmed the two with blankets, they revived them with fiery remedies, and they sat about them on the deck, trying to talk to them by means of ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... as different as it can be," said she, picking up her comb from the floor and thrusting it through her hastily twisted knot of hair. "I should not have come here at all if your grandmother had not positively asserted that there would be nothing for me to do but to listen and to write. And Mother Anastasia and ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... picking up the bit of paper on which Edwin had written the memorandum about "The ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the side of the building, increasing the danger from fire, or, floating off, they obstruct the river. This was not only a saw-mill, but a grist-mill, then. The inhabitants of Oldtown, Stillwater, and Bangor cannot suffer for want of kindling-stuff, surely. Some get their living exclusively by picking up the drift-wood and selling it by the cord in the winter. In one place I saw where an Irishman, who keeps a team and a man for the purpose, had covered the shore for a long distance with regular piles, and I was told that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Silkie sat down on the floor and began gathering up the chestnut-shells they both yawned and yawned. And since Mrs. Bear had left the room they didn't bother to say "Excuse me!" They were so sleepy! And before little Silkie had finished picking up her shells she just rolled herself up into a round ball and fell fast asleep. As for Cuffy, being a little older, he managed to stay awake just long enough to get the floor all nice and clean. And then he rolled himself ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... used sometimes to take refreshment. As it was showery weather, I went to take shelter for a few minutes. I found there three children, who were much more interesting than children of marble. They were two little girls, very pretty, and very busily employed in picking up all round the summer house dry sticks, which they put into a sort of wallet which was lying upon the king's table, whilst a little ill clothed thin boy was devouring a bit of bread in one corner of the room. I asked the tallest of the children, who appeared to be between eight and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Langlade, the only white man in the Indian band, was drawn to him somewhat by the mere fact of racial kinship, and the two frequently talked together in the evenings in what was a sort of compulsory friendliness, Robert in this manner picking up scraps of information which when welded together amounted to considerable, being thus confirmed in his belief that Willet with the letter had reached the lake in time. St. Luc with a formidable force had undertaken a swift march on Albany, but the town had been put in a position of defense, and ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... light and sat down by the window. The night was breathless; not a leaf of the elm trees quivered. She heard the Rothel picking its way down the rocky channel of The Gore. She gave herself up to thought, far-reaching both into the past and the future. Soon, mingled with the murmur of the brook, she heard her son's quiet measured breathing. She rose, walked noiselessly ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... Easter—probably an annual stunt. She was about eighty and perfectly safe. He spent twenty years in the Tyringham, the dullest and most respectable hotel in the world, and his chief recreation was a leisurely walk in the park before going to bed. You could set your clock by him. Pretty thin picking for a dramatist, I should think. He used to take me to the theatre regularly every other Thursday—it was a date—and his favorite entertainment was vaudeville with black-face embellishment preferred. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... Flanders, though not unkindly, and "improper" rather from the force of circumstances than from any specially vicious inclination, is certainly not a person for whom one has much liking. Colonel Jack, after his youthful experiences in pocket-picking, is rather a nonentity, something of a coward, a fellow of no particular wits, parts, or definite qualities of any kind. Singleton is a rascal who "plays Charlemagne," as the French gambling term has it, and endows ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... went, picking his way so slowly and cautiously, now pausing on one little hillock, now on another, and anon turning aside to avoid a patch of mud which seemed more than usually suspicious, that all the company had got some little distance ahead of me. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... alert as he always was for anything approaching an outlet or river mouth, would scarcely have missed one here. As for any knowledge of the interior that was gained, of course there was none, even the conjectures of a worn out, starving man, picking his way painfully around the sea shore, would have scarcely been of much value. Eyre has, however secured for himself a name for courage and perseverance, under the most terrible circumstances that could well beset a man, and this qualification leads us to overlook his errors ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... indigo-planter, perceiving his mistake and offering me his hand. "There is just time for a bath before breakfast," he added; and a good tubbing, in sufficient light to see and evade creeping things by, was far from unacceptable. I stayed with my good-natured host two days and nights, picking up, in the mean while, much curious information touching the cultivation and manufacture in which he was occupied. Like most persons of his calling, he was an ardent sportsman. The early hours of the morning he gave almost daily to a stroll with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Street, and extorted from them an extra shilling, in consideration of their evident rustication, he bent his course towards the Opera House; for clouds were gathering, and, with the favour of Providence, there seemed a chance about midnight of picking up some helpless beau, or desperate cabless dandy, the choicest victim, in a midnight ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... myself like a child," observed he, "playing on the sea-shore, and picking up here and there a curious shell or a pretty pebble, while the boundless ocean of ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as they always call themselves, undergo inside and out, in preparation for the season, is a rite to which all London bows during April as far as it can afford it. The lodging-house may restrict itself to picking out in fresh green its front door and window-frames, or perhaps reddening its area railing; but private houses pretending to be smart clothe themselves from eave to basement in coats of creamy white, or other blond tints susceptible of the soonest harm from the natural ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it in their countenance. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, picking up cockleshells, and thinking them great things; but, in a poor week, imagination slackens: they begin to discover that cockles produce no pearls, and then—O then!—if I could interpret for the pretty creatures (I know they have not the courage to confess it themselves) ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... towards Him, and your familiarity with the Word has blinded you to its spirit and its power. You have gone over the field so often that you have made a path across it, and it seems incredible to you that there should be anything worth your picking up there. Ah! dear friends, Jesus Christ, when He was here, 'in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' had to the men that looked upon Him 'neither form nor comeliness that they should desire Him,' and He was to them a stumbling-block and foolishness. And ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... cunning spy might be some enthusiast from Clifford, who, believing that his team had suffered through treachery on the preceding Saturday, when Bellport overwhelmed them, wished to even matters by picking up Columbia's signals. ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Mendelssohn, who suddenly drops and crawls on all fours between Gounod's legs; Sullivan cowers, and even Piccolomini's iron-framed nerves desert him. She extends her hand. There is a frantic rush to escape. Have you ever seen a little boy picking dormice out of a cage? I always see this same nightmare during that dreadful pause, a vision of a writhing heap of kicking, struggling, maddened composers, and of a ghoulish piano grinning expectant, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... his can and rose, taking off his coat and throwing it on the ground. Picking up the knife and chisel he went back to where the bulrushes began and crushed in among them. Knapp, packing the other can, could hear the sound of his heavy movements, the hacking of the knife at the bulrush ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... caverns, windin' in an' out an' round about, with the sides and the floors and the ceilin's all of a blaze with glittering di'monds, an' top'zes, an' purls, an' what not; with Naiggurs be the dozen picking them up in handfuls. An' sure," he would add, "if we was wance there, we could fill our pockets in no time, an' then, hooray for ould Ireland! an' live like Imperors ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... During his absence, Yue-ts'un occupied himself in turning over the pages of some poetical work to dispel ennui, when suddenly he heard, outside the window, a woman's cough. Yue-ts'un hurriedly got up and looked out. He saw at a glance that it was a servant girl engaged in picking flowers. Her deportment was out of the common; her eyes so bright, her eyebrows so well defined. Though not a perfect beauty, she possessed nevertheless charms sufficient to arouse the feelings. Yue-ts'un unwittingly ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and the fire crackled joyously. "Don't say we shall have to leave these to the Hun, doctor!" I said in shocked tones, picking up four copies of ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... which was an accumulation of all his irritations. "Run, you!" he howled. "Bring them here! I'll show them—" A private ran swiftly to the rear. The remainder of the squad began to shout nervously at the two delinquents, whose figures they could see in the deep shade of the orchard, hurriedly picking fruit from the ground and cramming it within their shirts, next to their skins. The beseeching cries of their comrades stirred the criminals more than did the barking of the sergeant. They ran to rejoin the squad, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... end of the garden, which was shaded by the high wall, Margaret sat, an uncut book on her knees, her eyes resting on the green marsh to be seen through the open door. Near by Ned in his little invalid chair was picking the mortar from the brick wall with a nail he had been able to reach. The two were often alone like ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... subsided, and as Hermes walked along the shore, his foot struck accidentally against the shell of a dead tortoise. Across the inside of the shell the dried sinews were tightly stretched. Hermes picked it up and touched the sinews with his fingers. He was amazed to hear the sweet tones which the picking of the strings produced. He set to work to make a musical instrument, using the shell of a tortoise for the body and placing strings across it. In substantiation of this legend we find in examining the lyre of the ancient Greeks ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... morning and Jane enjoyed picking cherries. Marian saw her and came too, establishing Jilly comfortably at the foot of the tree with a rubber doll and the two pups as companions. Jilly was usually a placid baby and she settled down contentedly ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... I don't want to!" Martha snapped back at him, and went down on all fours to gather up the things he had thrown down. "Whatever Parks was thinking of, to go and get fever, when she was the only one that could manage you, I don't know! And me picking up after ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... nonplussed. "May I have this?" she asked at last, picking up a bit of rag from a pile of things untidily heaped on a chair. Mrs. Lang, though, was gone, and did not hear her. Jessie looked at the rag, and pondered. At last, however, the temptation to wipe off some of the dust became too much for her, and she used it. "I can wash out the rag again," ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... dissembler and rascal. In a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers. Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Nothing disturbed his three hours' rest, not even the gathering cloud of flies, whose droning over a neighbouring thicket must have kept awake a lighter sleeper. But Manvers was so fast that he did not hear footsteps in the wood, nor the sound of picking in the peaty ground. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... hear things?' added Pat, looking the old woman straight in the face, for he had had, before this, experience of old Nance's extraordinary power of picking up news. 'Is she really a witch?' he added to himself, though he would not have dared to ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... returned. He was picking his teeth as though he had dined more substantially than on a mere wafer and a ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... serious disease, but the only way to find out whether it's chronic or not is to experiment. That's what I'm doing now. The thing I'm at work on may turn out to be a sea story. So I spend some time around the wharves and aboard the few sailing ships in port, picking up material." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... myself lucky if I could have a woman once or twice a month. My allowance was not large enough to admit of such luxuries; and I was only able to do what I did by being economical in my general expenditure and living, and by running up bills for whatever I could get on credit. I lived in the hopes of picking up 'amateurs' who would give me what I wanted for the love of it and without payment. My efforts were not very successful at present, except in the case of M.S. I considered myself very lucky in having discovered her, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... villainous-looking fellow, "Open to Conviction;" a horse insisting on drinking at a pond through which he is being driven, "Stopping at a Watering-Place;" a hare nursing her young, "The Hare a Parent;" a man wrestling with his cornet, "A most Distressing Blow;" and a street-boy picking a soldier's pocket, "Relieving Guard." But he was soon promoted to other work; and to the first and second volumes, at times of pressure, he even contributed a cartoon. This service was four times repeated in 1846, and again in ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows bold," said the unmoved scout. "There would be picking, too, among the skins of the devils, if there was light and time for the sport. But, concerning the life that is to come, major; I have heard preachers say, in the settlements, that heaven was a place of rest. Now, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... a little cry, and ran on a few steps. Some way before them a small figure stood out dark against the sky, from time to time stooping as if picking up something. Bridget had excellent eyes when she chose ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... double-quick time, and go and pick up nails in the gutter like that good fellow yonder; you can tell by the look of him that he has been in the army.—Isn't it a shame that an old soldier who has walked into the jaws of death hundreds of times should be picking up old iron in the streets of Paris? Ah! God A'mighty! 'twas a shabby trick to desert the Emperor.—Well, my boy, the individual you saw this morning has made his forty francs a month. Are you going to do better? And, according to Finot, he is the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Poolewe, when two ships laden with his lordship's retainers from the Lewis sailed into Lochewe. They were at once signalled to return to Stornoway, Seaforth waving them back with the jawbone of a sheep, which he was in the act of picking for his dinner, and in this way, it is said, was fulfilled one of the prophecies of the Brahan Seer, by which it was predicted "That next time the men of Lewis should go forth to battle, they would be turned back by a weapon smaller than the jawbone of an ass." Meanwhile Seaforth's ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... in order means having everything in its place in every room. It means sweet, fresh air in every room; it means removal of dust and litter. A good housekeeper "tidies" her rooms as she goes along, always picking up anything that is out of place and putting it where it belongs. But she also has a method in doing things. Perhaps she sweeps the entire house every day or every other day, or perhaps she puts one room in order on one day and another on another and so on. The important thing ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... pushing the cars out from the head, said to himself that he was glad Ralph was no longer picking slate. It was better that he should work in the mines. It was cool there in summer and warm in winter, and it was altogether more comfortable for the boy than it could be in the breaker; neither was it any more dangerous, in his opinion, than ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... fleetness, and whose arm lacked the strength, of a man's, but he was nevertheless the favourite of the Great Spirit. He was less in stature than a man, and crooked withal, his height being little more than that of the tall bird[A] which loves to strut along the sandy shore, picking up the fish as they flutter joyously along in the beams of the warm and cheering sun. But if he was diminutive in body he was great in his soul—what others lacked in wisdom he supplied. His name was Ohguesse, which signifies a Partridge. His brothers gave him this ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... saw," replied he, rather curtly. "We're accustomed to it here. Hardly a day passes, this hot weather, but she's picking up some poor, god-forsaken mortal and bringing him in. Then she comes behind the counter herself and fixes up a drink to suit the occasion. She's all sorts of fancies about what's what for all kinds of times and conditions, and you bet she can ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... pick up those fifty scraps of paper. He is an English General on the Retired List, and of imposing appearance: his manner on occasion is haughty. He did not see himself on his hands and knees in the chief street of Dresden, in the middle of the afternoon, picking up paper. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... had drawn on a pair of men's boots over her bare feet, buckled her ulster over her night-dress, and rushed back upstairs to drag the blankets from the beds. Laden with these she sprang down the steps, called to Jennie to follow, soaked the bedding in the water-trough, and, picking up the dripping mass, carried it to Carl and Cully, who, now that the Gray was safely tied to the kitchen porch, were on the roof of the tool-house, fighting the sparks that ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pleasant. His stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do this, fire was necessary; ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... and now and forever, Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... could have. When he retired Nick walked out with him. The doctor's house was near by and he had come on foot. He left the visitor with the assurance that in all probability Mr. Carteret, who was certainly picking up, would be able to see him on the morrow. Our young man turned his steps again to the abbey and took a stroll about it in the starlight. It never looked so huge as when it reared itself into the night, and Nick had never felt more fond ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... he testified. "Picking flowers on my own land, never dreaming of danger. Suddenly this man rushed upon me from behind the trees. 'I am the Dodo,' he says, 'and I can do you to a frazzle. Put up your hands.' I smiled, but with that, biff, biff, he struck me, knocking me down and spilling ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... he walked out through the house with her and down the garden-path, carrying the basket as far as the gate. The scent of pine-shavings came with him. Half-way down the path Naomi turned aside and picking a sprig of Boy's Love, held it up for him to smell. The action was trivial, but as he took the sprig they both laughed, looking in each other's eyes. Then they kissed; and the staid woman went her way down the road, while the staid man loitered ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Smiley sitting precisely as we left her, and, picking up our thread, Fowler and I located the table and the cone and reassumed our positions. The table, which was quite out of reach of Mrs. Smiley's hands, now stood with its end toward the three of us, sitting in a crescent shape opposite the psychic—a position which produced, so the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... there were very evident appearances of an approaching separation. Not wishing to augment the rupture, between two personages so necessary to each others service, and to those who were to be benefitted by it, I begged of my fair hostess, who, with two pretty girls (her daughters), were picking the stalks from some strawberries, which were intended for my desert, at the other end of the room, that she would favour me with another knife. The maitresse d'hotel, who had a pair of fine dark expressive eyes, very archly said, "Why would you wish to change it, Sir? it is an english ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... narrow gap between Blueberry Island and the mainland, and now and then she heaved an impatient sigh. "Oh, please, dear Bluebird," she said aloud, "please hurry up!" By and by her eyes rested upon Sahwah, silhouetted against the sky on top of the diving tower. Picking up a big dry pine cone from the floor of the Crow's Nest, she took careful aim and sent it sailing downward in a swift, curving flight. The prickly missile hit Sahwah squarely in the back of the neck. She started violently and threw ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... for an eight o'clock supper; spent an hour after breakfast with brother Cameron, rode twenty-seven miles to Deer Lodge, half the way in a hard rain, getting pretty wet. The monotony of the trip was broken, Thursday, by picking my way through the brush rather than following the road. For ten miles before reaching Deer Lodge, I followed closely the track of the storm, the week before. Trees were torn up, houses and barns unroofed, ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 44, No. 5, May 1890 • Various
... defended himself laughingly against the insinuation; although he need not have been ashamed of the dignified, buxom woman, so scrupulously neat and clean. It certainly was a fact that no one ever saw the landlord of the Auer, and that the landlady's two smart boys, who helped so cheerfully in picking up the skittles, bore a ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the house without waiting to say, "By your leave," and picking up the distaff, began to put some ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... be communicative were certainly all right, but not a word was intelligible. As he kept picking at his dress and pointing to it, I ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... shaky. Jim went below, crawled along the drive, lit his candle, and stuck it in the spiked iron socket and the spike in the wall of the drive, quite close to the hole, without noticing either the hole or the increased freshness in the air. He started picking away at the 'face' and scraping the clay back from under his feet, and didn't hear Kullers come to work. Kullers came in softly and decided to try a bit of cheerful bluff. He stuck his great round black face through the hole, the whites of ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... all the gum inside and out to torture, tongue and tooth, tooth and tongue, hard at it, and I to pay the reckoning, till all my mouth is as hot as brimstone, and I'd venture the roof of my mouth that at this moment, at which I conjecture my full-happinessed friend is picking his crackers, not one of the double rows of ivory in his privileged mouth has as much as a flaw in it, but all perform their functions, and having performed it, expect to be picked (luxurious steeds!) and rubbed down. I don't think he could be robbed, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... for us to distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave an upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gipsy brat picking blackberries from a low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horsewomen and a hyaena set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any useful geographical information from that source; but there was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment somewhere along ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... of strata, marking periods of intervening time which there is no means of measuring, but during which we know that the progress of change in the animals then living never ceased. When such a break is reached, the course of phylogeny is like picking up an interrupted trail, with the additional complication that the one we find is never quite like the one we left, and it is in such conditions that the systematist must apply his knowledge of the general progressive tendencies ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul! Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me add, without ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... her desk writing the stereotyped account of the event, it was like picking up a live wire to speak to her. As she wrote, we could tell at just what stage she had arrived in her copy. Thus, if she said to the adjacent atmosphere, "What a whopper!" we knew that she had written, "The crowning glory of a happy fortnight of social gatherings found its place when——" ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... have us feel and groan under our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves from the bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our imaginations by a recapitulation and renewing of sins and their images in detail. Do not, he says, stand picking the flaws out one by one, but plunge into the river and drown them!—I venture to be ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... them into first-class rules," he said, picking up the waist-line of an Improper Fraction and snapping it easily across his knee. "They'd keep the Plynck ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... will see how detestably false all the charges are," cried Phyllis, rising,—the servants had now left the room,—and picking up the Spiritual Aneroid from where Ella had ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... is over at the Churches and Meeting-Houses on a Sunday, we find a great many Hands at work plying the Doors and Avenues; in hopes of picking up now and then one of these straggling Gentry: For there are very staunch Church-Folks, as well as rigid Presbyterians of this Species; and I have seen some of them, whose Zeal has transported them so far, as to render ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... they rested for a half hour, but the dawn found them trudging along steadily, though somewhat wearily, and having about completed the third side of their square. Accordingly, they soon made a right-angle turn to the left, and had been picking their way over the rough ground for nearly two hours, with the sun already high in the sky, when they noticed a diminution of light. Glancing up, they saw that one of the moons was passing across the sun, and that they were on the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... I was shaving. I had slept well, and my mind was very lively, even gay and frisky. It was reveling in a fantastic and joyful episode of my remote boyhood which had suddenly flashed up in my memory—moved to this by the spectacle of a yellow cat picking its way carefully along the top of the garden wall. The color of this cat brought the bygone cat before me, and I saw her walking along the side-step of the pulpit; saw her walk on to a large sheet of sticky fly-paper and get all her feet involved; saw her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fine, picking out all bits of gristle. To a pint-bowlful allow a large cup of boiling water; a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour; a teaspoonful of salt; and a saltspoonful each of pepper and mace. Make a roux with the butter and flour, and add the ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell |
