"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he ses, giving me a little poke in the ribs, "I picked up a cab and, fust leaving my bag at Aldgate, I drove on to your 'ouse and knocked at the door. I knocked twice, and then an angry- looking woman opened it and asked me wot ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... unblinking eye. If he liked his new lodging under the cozy eaves he made no mention of it, and if he pined for his winter palace in the Canadian forest he was equally uncommunicative. Hinpoha longed to poke him in order to make him give some expression of feeling. But at all events, he did not struggle against his captivity, and Hinpoha reflected judicially that after all it was a good thing that he had such a stolid personality, for a calm frame of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... he drew a dial from his poke; And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock; Thus we may see,' quoth ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... marriages; at least, that's one thing. There are others too numerous to mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... little sub," said another. "I used to poke around the Great Barrier Reef, skindiving out the air lock or loafing on the surface. You wouldn't believe how blue the waves could be. They tell me on Rustum you can't come down off ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, 'tis only on the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... harbor after they'd been gone for years. Leslie never thought he was dead—and she was right. A thousand pities too! The next summer Captain Jim was in Havana—that was before he gave up the sea, of course. He thought he'd poke round a bit—Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a man—and he went to inquiring round among the sailors' boarding houses and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the crew of the Four Sisters. He'd better ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head. But, little John (who though of a spare figure was a very spirited boy), started up from the little bench on which he sat; gave Master C. J. London a hearty pat on the back (accompanied, however, with a slight poke in the ribs); and told him that if Master Wiseman, or Young England, or any of those fellows, wanted any thing for himself, he (little John) was the boy to give it him. Hereupon, Mrs. Bull, who was always proud of the child, and always had been, since his measure was first ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Nay then, old rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more With ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... old chap," she said to him. "It's time for your act." And, climbing on his back, she bent low over his neck and urged him forward with a cluck and a poke. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... give his customary, querulous grunt when Marthy nudged him at daylight, one morning in mid-April. Marthy gave another poke with her elbow and lay still, numbed by a sudden dread. She moved cautiously out of the bed and half across the cramped room before she turned her head toward him. Then she stood still and looked and looked, her hard face growing each moment more ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... with me," he said. "I promised to go down and have breakfast with dear Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven. Would you be inclined to come out with me then? We could ride over to that burnt land and have a poke round for sites ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Egyptian bondage and made them slaves to Himself, outside the gates were people who were not expected to obey the law of Moses; so that while he might not touch the fire—nor even the candlesticks which had held fire—from Friday evening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at the logs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from the ground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sort of fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strange privileges, this little old woman with the shawl over her head, as the child discovered gradually. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the White Chief wrapped the lock of hair in a handkerchief and laid it away in the hiding place. As carefully he drew out a small moose-hide poke and putting the candle on a nearby table, sat down before it. He removed the tag attached to the top and read the inscription: "Eldorado Creek gold," then ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... replied Bog, with his eyes still on the floor, "'cept when the boys poke fun at us; 'cos we can't run after 'em in them boxes, and wollop 'em. 'S rather hard, that." Bog caught Miss Minford's eye as he concluded these remarks, and blushed till he perspired, to think that he should have dropped such a brutal ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... his toes and tingled through every inch of him. Helen should sit in the chair when she pleased; Mary should be allowed to dress and undress the large woollen dog, known as "Sulks," his own especial and beloved property, so often as she wished; Jampot should poke the twisted end of the towel in his ears and brush his hair with the hard brushes, and he would not say a word. Aunt Mary should kiss him (as, of course, she would want to do), and he would not shiver; he would (bravest deed of all) ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... in 1940 are now 3 and 4 feet high and apparently in a good state of health. They are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the side of the road," said he, "and poke your batons in front of you. Keep a tight hold ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... us open the packet and look it through ourselves before we decide. What the devil business is it of anybody else's. He was my brother and your husband. These people weren't even his friends. They've no right to poke their noses into our affairs. You tell them so; sister-in-law. Give me the packet. Come away with me somewhere where we can look it through quietly. I'm fair and straight. It shall be halves, I swear. I say, sister-in-law Agnes, you ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, when sons of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... then swept her trailing bombazine into the house. "I have come to tell you that you may as well send the bonnet back, Julia," she began at once. "Flowers are much too fine for me, my dear. I need only a plain black poke." ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... he's ist so fat an' tame, We on'y chain him up at night, to save the little chicks. Holler "Greedy! Greedy!" to him, an' he knows his name, An' here he'll come a-waddle-un, up fer any tricks! He'll climb up my leg, he will, an' waller in my lap, An' poke his little black paws 'way in my pockets where They's beechnuts, er chinkypins, er any little scrap Of anything, 'at's good to ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... continuously in little convulsions. He peered every minute at some new thing, very closely, holding first his tablets so near that he could see only with one eye, then the whistle that hung round his neck, then a little piece of paper that he took from his poke. He cried out in a deep voice—'Aye! aye! Not over well. Witchcraft and foul weather and rocks, my mates and masters all!' so that he appeared to be a seaman—and indeed he traded to the port of Antwerp, in the Low Countries, where he had learned ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... below was the drone of the dynamo and the wheeze and whine of the Weir pumps. 'Go on,' I said. 'Mind, the last wooden door on the right. Don't go round the corner. Understand?' He looked at me for a moment and then flitted away down the long iron tunnel. I saw him poke about with his key, his body all crouched, the white bundle sticking out behind him. And then he vanished, and the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... . . . Well, there he was comin' across the stubble—at a fine pace, too, with his coat 'pon his arm—when as I guess he spied me down in the road below and stopped short, danderin' about an' pretendin' to poke up weeds with his stick. 'Some new-fashioned farmin',' thought I; 'weedin' stubble, and in August month too! I wonder who taught the Widow that trick'—for I won't be sure I reckernised your friend, not slap-off. But Cap'n Hunken ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... objected to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... everything that comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... you great softy!' responded the Blinkard contemptuously, giving him a poke with his elbow, and both, stooping, entered ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... I grew pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that I was gradually ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... the New Mexican belles to preserve the complexion, and get it up towards some special occasion, such as a grand fiesta or "fandango," when it is washed off, and the skin comes out clear and free from "tan." The "allegria" is the well known "poke-weed" of the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... before in the post-office. Then he would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was not as yet acquainted with it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... in a litter, and marched in mournful procession towards the burying ground, followed by a great concourse of people. Mixing with the crowd, in disguise, I at length stooped under the litter, and giving the chief, who lay extended in a winding sheet, a smart poke with a pointed stick, up he jumped, to the astonishment of the beholders; who cried out, "A miracle! a miracle! the dead is raised to life!" while I made my escape in the throng; but being fearful that the many tricks I had played, especially this ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... one-shelled molluscs, poke their heads out of the shell when feeding or moving. Oysters and their two-shelled cousins cannot do this, for the simple reason ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... a party of foraging apes who went into a cornfield with the purpose of robbing it, and discovered two men. They immediately rushed upon them and attempted to poke their eyes out with sticks and would have succeeded but for the intervention of two other men who chanced to be near. The extreme cleverness of apes in applying their reason and judgment is shown in Vosmaer's account of the female orang-outang, who tried to open the padlock of her ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... he heard the drawing to and barring of shutters, the swish of curtains being pulled together; then the spurt and glare of a match—in its feeble flame he saw Miss Pett's queer countenance, framed in an odd-shaped, old-fashioned poke bonnet, bending towards a lamp. In the gradually increasing light of that lamp Mallalieu ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... beside Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... frills of romance, opportunity to do so was about the only thing that failed to knock at my door. From the time I heard the name of Ursula Priscilla Jenkins and knew it belonged to me, I can recall but one beautiful memory of my childhood. It is the face of my mother in its frame of poke bonnet and pink roses, as she leaned over to kiss me good-by. I never saw her again, nor my father. Yellow fever laid heavy tribute upon our southern United States. I was the only one left in the big house on ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... The fat, the small, the lean and the tall. They're all after you. The moment you poke your nose outside the gate next year, they're all going to pounce on you and try to carry ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... disappointment to be feared in that respect. Situation, orientation, outline, altitudes, levels, hydrography, climatology, lines of communication, all these were easily to be verified in advance. People were not buying a pig in a poke, and most undoubtedly there could be no mistake as to the nature of the goods on sale. Moreover, the innumerable journals of the United States, especially those of California, with their dailies, bi-weeklies, weeklies, bi-monthlies, monthlies, their reviews, magazines, ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... pell-mell through everything towards my hut. If the Kamraviona or any of the boys could not move fast enough, on account of the crops on the fields, they were piked in the back till half knocked over; but, instead of minding, they trotted on, n'yanzigging as if honoured by a kingly poke, though ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... something? You are a pretty fellow not to speak or even look up." Such was Pitkin's first remark. Sometimes he was talkative and would insist on giving his opinion of things in general. At other times he preferred to be left alone to bury himself and his wrath in his books. Since he had failed to poke the fire, though the room was very warm, I had decided that he would dive into his books and be heard no more until a half hour past his suppertime, but I had made a mistake. Today he was in a talkative mood, and knowing that work was impossible, I devoted the next half hour to listening ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Gifford Woodhouse," John said, leaning forward to give the fire that inevitable poke with which the coming guest ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sensible plan is to begin the investigation at the outlet and then proceed up, section after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the cause of the constipated condition ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... in the woods. The rigours of seven Canadian winters had bred a hardy spirit in this little backwoodsman, and besides what was there to dread in the forest? It had been his playground ever since he was first able to steal away from Granny and toddle off to "the bush" to gather blue flags and poke up the goggle-eyed frogs from their fragrant musk-pools. But here was something unfamiliar; a strange uncanny place the swamp seemed to-day; and, being Nature's intimate, he fell into sudden sympathy with her ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... lying on its face upon his waistcoat to keep the place, and otherwise quite immovable, and very like other young gentlemen, Bill did not feel much the wiser for looking at him. He had a better view of him soon, however, for Master Arthur began to poke his friend's legs with the donkey-headed stick, and to ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... one of his hands with the other and shaking it violently. He said not a word, and left me to poke about and stumble on the limp warm carcass of a ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... in and down and on and breaks and eats things in the most terrible fashion, and he has all sorts of creeps and crawls in his pocket all of the time. He pulls bugs and worms apart and tries to put them together again; and he choked the old rooster nearly to death trying to poke down his throat some bread and mud ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of authorities state that intercourse before marriage is the rule. At the very least, a probe, or trial, is regarded as a matter-of-course preliminary to a marriage, since no one wishes "to buy a pig in a poke." In Saxony, likewise, we are told, it is seldom that a girl fails to have intercourse before marriage, or that her first child is not born, or at all events conceived, outside marriage. This is justified as a proper proving of a bride before taking ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... his father were on their way from Sitka to the Copper River. Mr. Strong was on the United States Geological Survey, which Ted knew meant that he had to go all around the country and poke about all day among rocks and mountains and glaciers. He had come with his father to this far Alaskan clime in the happiest expectation of adventures with bears and Indians, always dear to the ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... O'Keefe. "Damn it, Goodwin, there are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a—like a bundle of rags—it's not discipline! Put me down, ye omadhaun, or I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer—who only boomed gently, and stared at the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... shall come and poke their noses Into our churns as sweet as roses; And to quiz MAUDLIN in clean kirtle The toffs of Town ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... Grecian temples, studded with "Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein, and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed farm-house, cowering among apple and cherry trees; an old stone church, with elms, willows, and button-woods, as old-looking as itself, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... scamper'd all, vull run, An' out cried Tom, "I think The grinden-stwone is up on tun, Vor I can zee the wink. This is some kindness that the vo'k At Woodley have a-done, min; I wish I had em here, I'd poke Their numskulls ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... put to bed, and though he tried it every morning until the end, he never could get up again. He would lie there and cough and cough, day and night, wasting away to a mere skeleton. There came a time when there was so little flesh on him that the bones began to poke through—which was a horrible thing to see or even to think of. And one night he had a choking fit, and a little river of blood came out of his mouth. The family, wild with terror, sent for a doctor, and paid half a dollar to be told that there was nothing to be done. Mercifully ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... a matter of opinion, Sydney," Dorothy said, with a deep curtsey. "When you first began to fence, I have no doubt you were stiff and awkward, and I am sure if you had always had someone by your side, saying, 'Keep your head up!' 'Don't poke your chin forward!' 'Pray do not swing your arms!' and that sort of thing, you would be just as awkward as I feel. I am sure I would rather run about with the others; the process of being turned into a young lady ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... American twist of extreme twist. His ground strokes are not good, and he rushes the net at every opportunity. His forehand drive is very fast, excessively topped, and exceedingly erratic. His backhand is a "poke." His footwork is very poor on both shots. He volleys very well, shooting deep to the baseline and very accurately. His shoulder-high volleys are marvellous. His overhead is remarkable for its severity and accuracy. He seldom misses ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... morning? He's going down in charge of the cattle. The cattle-train starts about daylight. It won't be so comfortable as the passenger; but you'll save your fare, and you can give Andy a hand with the cattle. You've only got to have a look at 'em every other station, and poke up any that fall down in the trucks. You and Andy ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... wanted to say to you is this. Keep a close tongue in your head and stick by me in what's going to happen in the next few days. This bunch," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the captain's cabin, "are fixing their necks for halters, an' I for one don't intend to poke my head through any noose of another man's making. There's more in this thing if it's handled right, and handled without too many men in on the whack-up than we can get out of it if that man Divine has to be counted in. I've a plan ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this put an end to all rational conversation. Philip jumped up to inspect the crackers and pin-wheels. To my surprise, Mr. Flint showed no annoyance, but began to poke about among the Roman candles and rockets, as if he rather liked it. Jimmy has taken a great fancy to him, it seems. I must admit that it is in a man's favor to be liked by boys and dogs. So they ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... a man whose mission it is to wear stuff and a horse-hair wig to 'poke borak' at that venerable and eminently respectable institution—the law, and still worse is it for a practising barrister to actually set to work, even in the most kindly spirit, to criticise ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... On going near he saw a tall man with dark skin and straight black hair that was streaked with gray—undoubtedly an Indian. He held up a bag and said, "I got coon in that hole. You hold bag there, I poke him in." Rolf took the sack readily and held it over the hole, while the Indian climbed the tree to a higher opening, then poked in this with a long pole, till all at once there was a scrambling noise ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose in there?" ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... slip about, whip about Hoop. Wheel like a top at its quickest spin, Then, dear hoop, we shall surely win. First to the greenhouse and then to the wall Circle and circle, And let the wind push you, Poke you, Brush you, And not let you fall. Whirring you round like a wreath of ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... two carriages can pass. Donkeys are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or work at ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... remark seemed to remind Lila of something, for she quite jumped and exclaimed, "Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone. Why didn't you poke up my memory?" ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... how you play jokes on the Colonel, Billy," said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. "There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun and Colonel ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... well-meaning maidens enter with fruit and vegetables for the military, but, on the discovery that their wares are properties, and too firmly glued to the baskets to be detached, they retire in confusion. A small sail is seen behind the battlements; the soldiers poke at it with halberds until it retreats, whereupon, soldier-like, they dance. The sail returns with a still smaller one; red fire is burnt under the walls, which so demoralises the Genoese soldiery that they all tumble down with precaution, and the Venetians burst in and stand ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... once to acknowledge her botany to be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's. The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... was abruptly recalled to terrestrial objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... a Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first startling act—he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly accepted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the bishop said, "'Tis true for war thou art meant; "And reasoning—bless that dandy head! "Is not in thy department. "So leave the argument to me— "And, when my holy labor "Hath lit the fires of bigotry, "Thou'lt poke them with thy sabre. "From pulpit and from sentrybox, "We'll make our joint attacks, "I at the head of my Cassocks, "And you, of your Cossacks. "So here's your health, my brave huzzar, "My exquisite old fighter— "Success to bigotry and war, "The musket and the mitre!" Thus prayed the minister ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... a little lane through their wire at that point, and there would be, no doubt, a sap head or a listening post near. I tried to lie still and burrow into the dirt at the same time. Nothing happened. Presently the lights died, and Bellinger gave me a poke in the ribs. We started to crawfish. Why we weren't seen I don't know, but we had gone all of one hundred feet before they spotted us. Fortunately we were on the edge of a shallow shell hole when the sentry caught our movements and Fritz cut loose ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... to put in your two cents' worth, you old croaker?" said Herb, giving Jimmy a poke in his well padded ribs. "I'll win that prize just as well by not working as you will by working. You know you're too fat and lazy, to make up a set all ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... is Henry Bridges. We was raised up children together and married. I had five sisters. My brother died here in Oklahoma about two years ago. He was a Fisher. Mary Russell, my sister, she lives in Parish, Texas; Willie Ann Poke, she lives in Greenville, Texas; Winnie Jackson, lives in Adonia, Texas, and Mattie White, my other sister, lives in Long Oak, ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... warmly. "I sneered at him the other day, I know. Like the little poppinjay I was I thought myself in the position to poke fun at him. To-day I got my first true idea of the man's nature. To-day I found out—can you guess what I found out? That Brayley in many things is ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... said Dan'l; "I've got it. You get a big strong clothes-prop, and I'll get another, and we'll poke him off. If he comes down your side, mind this: he'll be like a rat, and off as quick as quick; but don't you let him go. Drop your prop, and throw yourself on him; we'll ketch him, and take him in to the gov'nor, and he'll know now where the fruit goes. You couldn't ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... with another poke, and another, and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn't give it up again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some very pretty ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... donkey that looked as if made of an old trunk, so rusty and rough was he as he went trotting along, his long ears wagging, and his small hoofs clattering over the fine hard road, while Marie sat on the shaft with a long whip, talking and laughing, and giving Andre a poke now and then, crying 'E! E! houp la!' to make ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at his ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... amusements in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about, because he would be knocking ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... evening at the cafe and there heard of the visits which Lily received during his absence. The neighbors he didn't mind about, but Jimmy. Jimmy again! The damned dog! Why should he poke his nose in? And, perhaps, at heart, Trampy was not sorry to have a scene with Lily, for he wasn't bringing home a pfennig, having spent all his money on champagne with girls. He felt himself at fault. He would get out of it ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... to poke at the ashes in the stove. "Build a fire," he returned, looking about for material. He gathered up what waste paper was at hand, pushed it into the stove, and catching up the way-bills from the desk, threw them in on the paper and began to feel in ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... trustful young man, "I'm perfectly confident that you would never ask me to do anything that I couldn't do with profit to myself. Buy a pig in a poke? From you, without a moment's ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... blankets. So long as the wind could not get under the covering and "raise them off" I was comfortable. When the wind was high, I usually laid our harness over my bed. In case of snow storms, we would often wake up under a blanket of soft snow, and raise up and poke our arm through the snow to make an air hole, then ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... remember the brutal reception given to the Saperda and Hylotoma grubs when I place them on a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please, poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested. Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... kind of noise you fancy you hear. It was like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and listened and then came another noise, like some one poking a fire. Now, you remember there was no one to poke a fire or move a chair downstairs, because Eliza and Father were both out. They could not have come in without our hearing them, because the front door is as hard to shut as the back one, and whichever ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... and younger than in former days. He had all the hilarious good spirits evinced by nine out of ten of the boys who came home on leave—the cheery capacity to laugh at the hardships and dangers of the front, to poke good-natured fun at "old Fritz" and to make a jest of the German shells and the Flanders mud, treating the whole great adventure of war as though it were ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... said Jeremiah, 'we've not told you particulars. Yo're thanking us for a pig in a poke; but we had more forethought, and we put all down on ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... makes my mouth water," she muttered. "Come here, little Gretelkin, poke your head into the oven and tell me if you think it hot enough for us to bake in." At this awful moment ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... know to this day how we got therewhether we jumped over the island or hauled round it; but there we was, and there we lay, under easy sail, fore-reaching first upon one tack and then upon tother, so as to poke her nose out now and then and take a look to windard till the gale blowed ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Miriam. "Almost any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a carriage? It ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to show ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... No, I think not. Her captain he is too big fool. But I think she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and shove her oar in every place. How ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as it made "us" ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... very far up the lane when she saw, seated on a bench, a bent old woman in a poke-bonnet with a crutch-handled stick in her hands, and this old woman Priscilla (who was very quick of observation) instantly guessed to be a fairy—in which, as it fell out, she ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... short man, father, with the cold eyes and gruff voice, and the queer eyebrow which he seems to poke at people?" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... never did the slightest thing worth remembering; as there was no election, he did not even take part in a Whig procession. He got away two or three times. The first thing his owner would know when he pulled the chain out was that there was no coon at the end of it, and then he would have to poke round the inside of the box pretty carefully with a stick, so as not to get bitten; after that he would have to see which tree the coon had gone up. It was usually the tall locust-tree in front of the house, and in about half a second all ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... "fall in" certainly appeared to be translated "poke in" by the greater part of the corps, for it was directly followed by such a treading upon everybody's toes, and a ramming of elbows into other people's stomachs and chests, and such imminent danger incurred of every eye in the company being put out with bayonets held ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... my pet," she said; "but I do declare that stupid driver is taking us wrong. Oh, if he goes up that way it will be such a round that I shall be late for Jasper's dinner. Poke your parasol through the little window in the roof, Judy, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Lady Fotheringham asked us, and—it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way—but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a fine farm here, father,' I say. 'It's not so bad,' says father, 'but how's everything back home?' 'Oh, everything is all right there; last year we got twelve kroner for a ton of hay.' 'What!' says father. 'Are you here to poke fun at me, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was. Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... they didn't make up the dough. The gentleman that showed you around—old Sate, we call him—had his eyes on the preacher for a long time. When we got him, we had a barrel of liquor and carried him around on our shoulders, until tired of the fun, and threw him in the furnace yonder. We call him “Poke,” for that was his favourite game. Oh, Poke,’ shouted my friend, ‘come here; here's a gentleman who wants to see you—we'll give you five drops of water, and that's more than your old ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of those arguments ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... talked a good deal, and pretty loud sometimes, and had a way of turnin' up his nose when he didn't like what folks said, that one of my boarders, who is a very smart young man, said he couldn't stand, no how, and used to make faces and poke fun at him whenever he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... uncle; 'I don't want to poke fun at you. I was only going to suggest this. Why don't you go in for real scouting? Learn to play the game properly. It's a wonderful game if you tackle it seriously—splendid sport, and a thousand times more useful, and better fun, than ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... in a shaped dress to-day, but he had recalled her as she was in her poke-bonnet days, when she had been wont to accept the same kind of salutation without demur. It did not seem so very long ago since he had seen her bare-kneed, in short, crimson skirts and all sorts of fantastic caps and brilliant turbans; and he now reminded her of the ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... been placed across the other end of the room all the chairs in the house, as it seemed and Mademoiselle started violently when she saw that fully half a dozen of these chairs were occupied. And by the queerest people, too an old woman with a poke bonnet tied under her chin with a red handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat wreathed in flowers and the oddest hands that stuck out over the chair in front of her, several men with strange, clumsy figures, and ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... is it common?" repeated the Captain; "why then, 'fore George, such chaps are more fit to be sent to school, and well disciplined with a cat-o'-nine tails, than to poke their heads into a play-house. Why, a play is the only thing left, now-a-days, that has a grain of sense in it; for as to all the rest of your public places, d'ye see, if they were all put together, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... with sticks. The mattress was stowed away in a lean-to behind the kitchen, and there it remained. It was not alone. Mary sometimes stood and considered, with a rueful eye, the many discarded objects that bore it company. Richard—oddly enough he was ever able to poke fun at himself—had christened this outhouse "the cemetery of dead fads." Here was a set of Indian clubs he had been going to harden his muscles with every morning, and had used for a week; together with an india-rubber gymnastic ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... "Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I am a Poker bold and free, And I poke the livelong day. I love the land and I hate the sea, But the sky and the clouds are ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... you for that, Fardorougha," said the Bodagh. "No, no; I'll never buy a pig in a poke. If you won't act generously by your son, go home, in the name of goodness, and let us hear no ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the semicircular seat let into a dismal little Temple of the Sun, we shall see a half-moon of apathetic figures. There, enjoying a moment of lugubrious idleness, may be sitting an old countrywoman with steady eyes in a lean, dusty-black dress and an old poke-bonnet; by her side, some gin-faced creature of the town, all blousy and draggled; a hollow-eyed foreigner, far gone in consumption; a bronzed young navvy, asleep, with his muddy boots jutting straight out; a bearded, dreary being, chin on chest; and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... thing more, nor inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little—yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I climbs in ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows passed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple tree. There are a million clover blooms to ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Commander Kerr. Though armed with only a single machine gun, this small boat was so persistently troublesome to the enemy that it earned for itself the name "Terror of the Danube." Of dark nights it would poke its way into creeks and passages, alarming the Austrians constantly and causing them no little loss. Once it even succeeded in persuading one of the monitors to pursue it into a carefully prepared mine field, over against the Serbian shore, with the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... them they managed, with bits of stick and by singeing their fingers a little, to poke and shove the dragon till they made it creep into the silver hunting bottle, and then the Prince ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to their bodies." ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'." The head groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it! As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of nights under the bridges, or, ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Wellington and we'll have a grand celebration. Any small contributions which you may feel it your duty to drag along will be thankfully received. I'm going to start for college a week from next Tuesday. I suppose I'll be there ahead of you, so I'll have everything fixed up comfy when you poke your distinguished head in ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... This reflection made me suffer cruelly; but it did not conquer my longing to won the work of Clerk Alexander. While I was thus meditating, I heard a coachman swear. And I discovered it was I whom he was swearing at only when I felt the pole of a carriage poke me in the ribs. I started aside, barely in time to save myself from being run over; and whom did I perceive through the windows of the coupe? Madame Trepof, being taken by two beautiful horses, and a coachman all wrapped up in furs like a Russian Boyard, into ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism," said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... great enthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others passed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companion would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at the end of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacity and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, described ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... conversation, and, when it had reached the stage where all feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had three hobbies, viz., personal ranks and decorations in the Prussian State, the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... marches of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind, and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grows ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... another, and so on, until all was got rid of, and on the following day they would return with goods to Hindon. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for some years, during which the officers of the excise had stared a thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the quaint old woman in her poke bonnet and shawl, driven by a blind man with a vacant face, and had suspected nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of brandy delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was an honest gentleman, and in his anxiety to find the rightful owner ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson |
