"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... railroadin'—wait till you hit the Pennsylvania, four tracks, no water tanks, take water on the fly, that's goin' some." "The Northern Pacific's a bad road now." "Salinas is on the 'hog,' the 'bulls' is 'horstile.'" "I got 'pinched' at El Paso, along with Moke Kid." "Talkin' of 'poke-outs,' wait till you hit the French country out of Montreal—not a word of English—you say, 'Mongee, Madame, mongee, no spika da French,' an' rub your stomach an' look hungry, an' she gives you a slice of sow-belly an' ...
— The Road • Jack London
... expect you to, all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping the stick coming, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... quite understood this, and that we should in fact reply that it was an offer "to buy a pig in a poke" which we were not prepared to accept. He added that he thought his Government would fully anticipate a reply in this sense, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... in dumb show defies the sniggerers to 'heave' a marble or two in his direction. Here in he is detected by the aunt (a rigorous reduced gentlewoman who has the charge of offices), and I perceive that worthy relative to poke him in the side, with the corrugated hooked handle of an ancient umbrella. The nephew revenges himself for this, by holding his breath and terrifying his kinswoman with the dread belief that he has made up his mind to burst. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... blazes up, but very soon there's nothing left to blaze with. The fire'll be out directly, so I says to our Mary, you look after the fire, so our Mary goes to the heap and fetches a shovel of coal, and claps it on the top of the hot cinders, and she won't let our Esther poke it no more, so it burns steady and bright, and throws out a good heat, and lasts a long time. Now, when you take your drop of beer, you're just poking the fire, you're not putting any coal on; you can work like a lion for a bit, but you're only using up the old stock of strength ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... words surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke fun at the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, 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 Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... for 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
... for play on his plantation. Even the very small children were assigned tasks. They hunted hen's eggs, gathered poke berries for dyeing, shelled corn and drove the cows home in the evening. Little ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... thought of it the more worried he became; more earnest became his efforts to shut out the chilly dampness. It occurred to him that it would be wise to crawl out and poke up the fire in the next room. Then he remembered that there was a gas grate in his bedroom, behind the bureau. Of course, it would be quite a task to move the bureau and even then he might find that the gas pipe ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... a few went over to the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's some o' them runnygades behind us. They're 'spectin' to git a lot o' plunder an' a horse apiece an' ride 'em back an' swim the river at the place o' the many islands. We'll poke down to the trail on the edge o' the drownded lands afore sunrise an' I kind o' mistrust we'll ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... stock, the butter-making, the sending off of the milk for sale; a thousand things get done while most people are fast asleep, and before lazy folk are well at breakfast she is off in her pony-carriage to the other farms on the place, to rate the "mamsells," as the head women are called, to poke into every corner, lift the lids off the saucepans, count the new-laid eggs, and box, if necessary, any careless dairymaid's ears. We are allowed by law to administer "slight corporal punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... horses. He's going to own a stock farm— so he says. You'd better combine interests," said Helen, with some scorn. "I like horses to ride, and butter to eat, but— well, I prefer buttercups just now. Hurry up, Miss Slow-poke! We'll never get enough flowers ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... out and walked to the window of the room on the ground floor that she knew the young Californian occupied. It was open. Leaning through the rose-vine she called faintly,—"Archie! Archie!" But the young painter slept solidly, and she was forced to take a stick and poke the bunch of bed-clothes in the corner before she could arouse the sleeping Archie. When he came to ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... it's not far from where we suffered ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died! that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... 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 the boys in town would be there, telling ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... of his 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... when he appeared that morning in his shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to poke them softly together she caught sight of a scrap of paper lying in the grate. It looked like part of a torn letter, and without thinking June picked it up—the one word "dearest" stared up at ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... business, as Fred saw it, was not to poke into other people's private affairs, but to get the clothes of Sam dry as soon as possible. Then he would feel that he and ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... under them like wet hay. Their heads were bent, their eyes fixed upon the ground, their faces bearing a look of utter concentration. Cleek watched them moving slowly across the wide, flat reaches of the Fens, stopping now and then to poke among the rank marsh-grass, and prod into the earth, and then turned ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... correct explanation. The "allegria" is used by 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 United ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... and the colonel had to poke his words into the conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and Mrs. Culpepper, being in due and proper awe of so much family and such apparent consequence, spoke little and smiled many times. And if it was "Miss Molly" this and "Miss Molly" that, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her hand—for I had it still hidden in my poke—and, whispered to her: "I had two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beans swell, and consequently cause greater discomfort the longer they are in; do not poke at any foreign body lodged either in the nose or the ear, for the ear drum may thus be injured, while in the former case it may be pushed into ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... she repeated, bobbing a curtsy and momentarily eclipsing the rolling eye under the poke of a very large bonnet, "Mrs. Snummitt, sir, which though a widder I'm respectable and of 'igh character and connections. Which me 'aving only one heye ain't by no manner of means to be 'eld ag'in me, seeing as it were took away ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they stood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enough to make one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt upright ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 'He said not a word—they only found it out—because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a fellow stood ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you trying to poke out of the sky with that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come from the contractor, you say?—from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your job is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing, such-and-such ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... had 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 ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since distinguished them, and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about 'buying a pig in a poke.' ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... be permitted to garner his unholy harvest of eggs in his pocket, then lose his balance, catch the seat of his pantaloons on a knot-hole, and hang doubled up, with the smashed eggs trickling down his jacket, and getting into his hair and eyes. Then the good little girls should be lugged in, to poke fun at him, and ask him if he likes 'em hard or soft. This would be a most ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... moment, he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... man who went to sea, and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... 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 ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ingenuity—for barbarians, that is. Not in the same class with you seaboard nobles, of course, but we poke along." The Barbarian stood up, and his expression turned serious. "Look, son—you remember that knife of mine you borrowed for a while? I'll have to lend it to you again, in about twenty minutes. Your friend Dugald's going to have one just like it, ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... put on his overalls an' said He'd work down in the cellar till 'twas time to go to bed. He started in to rattle an' to bang an' poke an' stir, An' the dust began a-climbin' up through every register Till Ma said: "Goodness gracious; go an' shut those things up tight Or we'll all be suffocated an' the house will ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... and Quixote, all against her, started fierce, o'erturning boat, balloons, and all; loud roared the bulls, hideous, and the crash of wheels, and chaos of confusion drear, resounded far from earth to heaven. And still more fierce in charge the great Lord Whittington, from poke of ermine his famed Grimalkin took. She screamed, and harsh attacked my bulls confounded; lightning-like she darted, and from half the troop their eyes devouring tore. Nor could the riders, crickets throned sublime, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... desolate hearts 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
... Charliet's head poke around the corner of the kitchen door and called to him to carry Marcia to her room, and to get fires going and something to eat; for the queer part of it was that there seemed to be two of me, and one of them was thinking it was starving. It saw Charliet ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... wished she would go away, for they were afraid of her. No wonder, when she would catch up a dear sugar baby and eat him, or break some respectable old grandmamma all into bits because she reproved her for naughty ways. Lily calmly sat down on the biggest church, crushing it flat, and even tried to poke the moon out of the sky in a pet one day. The king ordered her to go home; but she said, "I won't!" and bit his head off, crown ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... will join hands and proceed due east at a break-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring for them to follow her in a westerly direction, is most amusing—except, perhaps, for the big sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke him to see if he is real. They stoutly maintain, against all argument and much to the discomfort of the victim, that the bashful young man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda." A crowded street-corner suggests itself to their minds as a favorable spot for the discussion of family affairs ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... snatched at the stick. Again and again he nearly caught it, but I was just a little too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in his hand. Before ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... given up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the artistic ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... increase Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into her hair ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... till you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door," he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw on her golden ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets, saying: "Verdamnt Englaender" and: "Englaender Schwein,"—pigs of English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion. There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or good-natured pity for ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... a 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
... Brest, he blockaded the port. It was in the depth of winter and the shore was dangerous, but Winslow did his duty so well that the Florida dared not poke her nose outside, until he was compelled, because of shortness of provisions, to steam over to Cadiz to obtain them. He made all haste to return, but when he arrived the Florida had slipped out ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... "how comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)—how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heads stood the drivers of the various vehicles, anxious to miss none of the fun. The dachshunds sat on their haunches, looking up, and probably wondering why their friend, Tommy, insisted on roosting up a tree. The Captain and Charley were immediately below, engaged in an earnest effort to poke the 'coon into ascending the hole. Tommy was reporting the result of these efforts from above. The General, his feet firmly planted, had unlimbered a huge ten-bore shotgun, so as to be ready for anything. Uncle Jim stood by, smoking his ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... good, so everything, Jenny,' said Adeline, 'that I am sure you will have her confidence in time, if only you won't poke after it.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... raised prow of what looked to be a genuine birch bark canoe poke in sight. In these modern days when even the Indians up in Maine manufacture up-to-date canvas canoes by the thousand, it is a rare event to run across one made of birch bark. The trees that are large enough for the purpose have about all been destroyed, so the Indians claim, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... poke your nose into any room in the house now; so, after walking up and down the stairs for a while, you go and sit in your own bedroom. This becomes uninteresting, however, after a time, and so you put on your hat and stroll ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that dog home. Mother hates dogs. She never would have one in the house, though I've always wanted a dog of my own. I knew Liz would call him a horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me—and, oh, dear! I'd rather have gone to the dentist's or taken a Saturday-night scrub than go into that dining-room ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... go to his rooms at once. It's of no use to give the police time to poke their dirty ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Take of poke root 3 ozs., lard 1 lb., boil for a quarter of an hour and strain. This ointment has quite a reputation in Virginia, with the old ladies, for all kinds of old sores and ulcers, and it is an excellent application to indolent and purulent ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... trying to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..." ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... a stern-eyed folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I greatly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... and gave him a moment to get his breath. Then he set him to turning somersaults. They spread the cushions from the couch in the tent on the roof, and Jim would poke his head down and say a prayer, and then curve over as gracefully as a sausage and come up gasping, as if he had been pushed off ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... an' don't give a damn. Someone that's got more money than brains. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an' you needn't think I've forgot the poke in the jaw you give me. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... at the Universities there is, or is expected to be, more deliberate and conscious effort. Men are in a position to "try all things" before committing themselves to any. Their new-found freedom does not merely consist in the right to poke their own fires, order their own breakfasts, and use their own cheque-books. These things, which make so much impression on the mind at first, are only the outward signs of freedom. The boy who has just left ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... writes against Master's Gowns, and Poke Sleeves, with a Word in Defence of large Scarves. Answer. I resolve not to raise Animosities amongst ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in the French window that opened from the terrace to the library Mrs. Keep lingered irresolutely. "Fred," she begged, "you—you're not going to poke around in the bushes, are you?—just because you think ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his back to her for the moment, having turned to poke up the fire, and Magda raised herself on her elbow, preparatory to getting off the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... by Aunt Barbara always made Kate shrink back into herself, and the presence of a little girl before elders likewise rendered her shy and bashful, so she came forth as if intensely disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered her favourite "—do" so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how proud and ungracious it looked, and to make up said, "My niece has been very eager for your coming." And then the two little girls drew off into the window, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Sir, what should I be doing at home among the Malvern Hills upon a patrimony of 800 pounds?—for to that it has dwindled. Can I hoe turnips, or poke a knowledgeable finger into the flanks of beeves? I wonder if your literary explorations ever led you across the furrow ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... cattle. One man went slowly by driving a huge pig; he was in sight for quite five minutes, dawdling along, and allowing the pig to have his own sweet will as far as speed was concerned, but occasionally giving him a gentle poke with a stick when he paused to burrow his nose in the mud. Small groups of men stood talking at the corner of the market place; a big family went by, evidently returning from a country walk; presently the lamps were lighted, and then immense excitement ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... Gardner thought I had been deluding Mark! Then 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
... inspected the Museum, and were shown SHAKSPEARE'S jug, a rather ordinary concern; the identical dial which one of the clowns in his plays drew out of a poke, and a ring with W. S. engraved on it, found in the churchyard some years ago, and, no doubt, dropped there by the poet himself, while absorbed in the composition of his ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... 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 ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... turtle as big as a wash tub in the river" she sobbed, "and I wish it would eat that old Black Bass to the last scale. And I'm going to take the shotgun, and go over to the embankment, and poke it into the tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won't go off too and leave me. I want this onion bed spaded right away, so ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... with its winding sheet all in ribbons around it; and the tattered cerements are like in shape and colour to the seaweed it frequents, so that it hides and feeds in safety. The long ends of ribs which seem to poke through the skin to excite our compassion are really 'protective resemblances,' and serve to allure the prey more effectually within reach of these awful ghouls. Just as the leaf-insect is imitative of a leaf, and the staff insect of a twig, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... it on-ding o' snaw!" said Mrs. Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'—that's odd,—that is the very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac]. "Tak' your lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,—Maida gamboling through the snow, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... this is such a fine chance!—all the girls are learning how to make their own hats. And I thought, maybe, after I'd learned how on my own, that maybe I could make you one. Do you remember that adorable violet straw you used to have when I was a little girl?—poke shape and with the pink rose? I remember father always said it was the most becoming hat you ever had. And I was thinking, maybe, I could ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children's books of the period, if we except the "Jests" and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... ould moon looked so moighty plisint that night that I took a lunar or two, jist to divart mesilf with, when Spokeshave wint below and there was nobody lift to poke fun at, sure!" ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... stairs, with a carpet nearly as handsome as yours, Mr. Bows. My life is passed in grinding the people, is it?—in ruining virgins and robbing the poor? My good sir, this is very well in a comedy, where Job Thornberry slaps his breast, and asks my lord how dare he trample on an honest man and poke out an Englishman's fire-side; but in real life, Mr. Bows, to a man who has to work for his bread as much as you do—how can you talk about aristocrats tyrannizing over the people? Have I ever done you a wrong? or assumed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was somethin' wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.—I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... cold, although I was in a burning fever; and they allowed me to get up to warm my hands. As soon as I reached the fire-place, I snatched out the red-hot poker, and, brandishing it over my head, made for the door. They all jumped up to detain me, but I made a poke at the foremost, which made her run back with a shriek, (I do believe that I burnt her nose.) I seized my opportunity, and escaped into the street, whirling the poker round my head, while all the women followed, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but what mattered that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... am glad of it! Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... that night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect the enchantment. In fact, he was quite sure he would ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... tiny square of earth that I called my own, where I was at liberty to pull up my pinks and lady's delights every day, to see whether they had taken root, and where I could give my lazy morning-glory seeds a poke, morning after morning, to help them get up and begin their climb. Oh, I should miss ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... declared ourselves ready to set out forthwith. Off we set, with a little pemmican and bread in our pockets, and our rifles and long poles in our hands, fully expecting some good sport. Short said that the she-bears and cubs are supposed to hibernate; but that no doubt we should be able to poke them out of their holes. We soon left the plain, when the trail led us up among the rugged defiles of the mountains. I confess that I could not have distinguished the marks of the bear's feet in the snow; but Short's more practised eye did so, and he every now and then pointed them out to me, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... intelligent knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit on ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... then, Billee," asked Mr. Merkel, "that nothing happened to me? I just came from there. I don't buy a pig in a poke. I went to Dot and Dash and sized the place up before I closed the deal with Jed Barter. How is it Death ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... fine wall of net, swim into it. Now the openings in the net—the meshes—are one inch across, just wide enough for the Herring to poke his head through. Once through, he is caught. His gill-covers prevent him from drawing back again. Thousands of other Herrings are held tight, all around him, and the rest of the shoal scatters for ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... sorrowfully at her with an 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... "All folks ain't got a funny side to see. They're just naturally nasty. Always seein' what's wrong and talkin' about it. Muther says some folks is born to poke for rubbish, and if they can't find a thing mean to say they'll say it anyhow. Crittersizers, I believe she calls 'em. Some who ain't good at anything else is great at ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness had an ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... talk in which words and sign language both were used and frequently repeated. Eventually an understanding was reached. The three stepped back, picked up some small game which they had dropped on beholding Lourenco, returned, and led the way along the path. Lourenco cast aside his poke stick and resumed his usual place in the column. The whole line moved ahead at a much ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... a look at him—the stiffening is out of his back-bone now, I tell you!" cried Ben, triumphantly. "See him a trying to poke his head under the moss just at the sight of a yaller ash leaf—ain't he ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... as a duck-pond as soon as you're past Cape Finisterre. I'll run a Clovelly herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the way. Who'll join? Don't think you're buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner's mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you the chart of it, now, and see if he don't tell you over the ruttier as well as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. First Prize—Champion and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the world at large, and to nibble the grass amongst which its mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may have ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... 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 drove stakes into the grass, and set up inclined planes for the rockets; and, when it grew dark ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank, and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the steps in the hollow the view of the Devil's Bridge, and likewise of the cleft, is very slight and unsatisfactory. To view it properly, and the wonders connected with ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... exhausted her experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind and shoot steadily forward, while the waves dashed fair against her weather side ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... glory vines, in bloom at this season, climbing around the sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, digestive organs good, sleeps well, and is the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... due by the Books; none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say no ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... swinging the nobbly stick in his hand, "can't come on more nor two at vunce. Be ready vith your stick—at their eyes—poke at 'em—no 'itting—" the rest was drowned in the echoing rush of heavy feet and the boom of hoarse voices. But now, seeing their quarry stand on the defensive, the pursuers checked their advance, their cries sank ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... stumble only of purpose to entreat me lie down and rest me! But now, and I could find my fellow Dick, I would play the knave with him honestly, i'faith. Well, I will grope in the dark for him, or I'll poke with my staff, like a blind man, to prevent a ditch. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... people, and people never like me. There is an old saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of all things ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... no wise are they like the sweet South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in you—such is your distemper—that it is too much a witch's cauldron in the kitchen, "eye of newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon your food. Bus boys bear off the crockery as though they were apprenticed to a juggler and were only at the beginning of their art. Waiters bawl strange messages to the cook. It's a tongue ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... for more water, the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny, for thy dogs have gnawed their way through four doors!" As he was returning to the hut his sister said to him, "That water does not boil up quickly enough! Take the fire-shovel and poke the fire!" So he did so, and the faggots blazed up, but when she had gone away he sprinkled them with water again, so that they might burn more slowly. Then he went into the courtyard again, and the starling met him and said, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar; be as slow as thou ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... thee Lest that the housemaid or, perchance, the cat Should mischief thee, imponderable pat. Ah, mine no more! for lo! 'tis noised around How thou wilt soon cost seven bob a pound. As well demand thy weight in radium As probe my 'poverished poke for such a sum. Wherefore, farewell! No more, alas! thou'lt oil These joints that creak with unrewarded toil; No more thy heartsick votary's midmost riff Wilt lubricate, and, oh! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... his mind was "impelled to concern itself with all the needs of mankind, impelled to poke its nose into every pot where the good God cooks the future." The theatre offered for a time another form of dissipation than his religious hysteria. He hated concerts, and compared himself to a conjurer or a clever trick poodle; he took up with the Revolution of 1830; Saint-Simonianism enmeshed ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... lights not his taper For him who, in a trading paper, Behind a printed notice screens, And fears to tell us what he means. Why don't he to the busy marts Come forth and seige our tender hearts? 'Tis wrong to buy pigs in a poke: To wed so—what a silly joke! In promenade, church, or bazaar, At proper moments, there we are, To be secured by manly hearts, And, when secured, to do our parts To temper life with him we love, And woman's fondest instincts prove; To yield submission to his will, And, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... 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 spectators into ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and Stan nodded beside the stove. An hour passed and he roused himself to poke in more wood. He dozed off again and was roused by an orderly making the rounds calling the crews. The stove was cold and he fumbled with stiff fingers as he lighted it again. When it was cherry red in spots, O'Malley poked ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... poke their cutlasses in between the packages, and would undoubtedly have run any one through who had been inside them. While they were thus employed, three or four ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... placed the cutting- board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. "Ah, if I could but shudder!" said he, "but I shall not learn it here either." Toward midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one cornier, "Au, miau! how cold we are!" "You simpletons!" cried he, "what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Her nurse had bragged about her to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take notice of other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blase roue of five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke his finger into the soft spot ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... I could only see Dick and Bob poke their noses over some of these rocks around here," said Archie. "They will be after us, as soon as they find out that we are captured; and when they get their eyes on these 'Greasers,' as they ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... together and whenever she spoke he contradicted her with a sort of vicious playfulness. Tried to poke clumsy fun at her. Called her 'Lady Harman.' Only it was quite evident that what she said stuck in his ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... 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 ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... them to search with the greatest care, and to poke into places that they had not disturbed before. They returned an hour later with no further specimen of the blue and orange variety, although on a subsequent date they succeeded in unearthing one, but they were rejoicing over ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... as well poke along the top to camp," he said at last, getting to his feet. "I sent that breed back, down there, so we could talk without having to keep cases on him. This is beginning to look like a hopeless case, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... come up a side way somewhere, old thing! They've given me a chunk of cardboard with little holes in it. You've got to poke your finger in till you see which fits. Lord, I'm glad you don't get married more than once ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... that he find her no Guinevere or Semiramis or other loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... my old hearty, the first thing for you to do is to poke out your manifest, and any other little matters of vallew ye may have stowed away; and be quick, mind ye, for you haven't much time to sail in this 'ere craft. Howsoever, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... an option on certain remote lands supposed to be of great value for water and power, and no one wants to buy a pig of that size in a poke, so it was ordained that the city fathers, with their engineer and various clerks and functionaries entitled to a vacation and desiring information (or vice versa), should visit the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... them this; it was she, too, who drew back the sheet from Avery's face in order that they might see it. She was a rosy, apple-cheeked woman, and her vivid colouring was thrown into relief by the long black cloak and the close-fitting, black poke-bonnet that she wore. Maurice, for whom the dead as such had no attraction, turned from his contemplation of the stark-stretched figure on the shelf, to watch the living woman. The exuberance of her vitality had something ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... 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 ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... fists full of sweet things; "they're tied up in that bandana—not the blue one! That blue one got some o' his mammy's things I gwine look over; maybe might be something make him shirts or aprons, an' if there is a clean dress in that poke I—I like to have it put on 'im 'fore she sees him—Madame Caron, an', an' Mist'ess, o' course! I like her to ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... correspondences. Thus "to look a gift-horse in the mouth" is literally reproduced in French and German. Sometimes the symbols vary, e.g., the risk one is exposed to in acquiring goods without examination is called by us "buying a pig in a poke."[75] French and German substitute the cat. We say that "a cat may look at a king." The French dramatis personae are a dog and a bishop. The "bird in hand" which we regard as the equivalent of two in the bush is in German compared advantageously ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the beast there close to him, and his first thought was to poke the butt of the rifle directly at its head, striking with all his force. The blow landed heavily, but as the beast gave way, Bob lost his balance, and fell directly ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept Into his ragged ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... to poke fun at, if you didn't have me?" demanded Cricket, quite undisturbed. "But I'll second the motion about the wringing-machine. I wonder why you didn't get ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... made myself and can make another—certainly—the coal I paid dearly for by fatigue, but I can get another lump, and send it home by coach, yes; then why am I so uncomfortable. I looked at the glowing fire which was getting insufferably hot, and gave it a passionate poke, exclaiming, I wish I could stop your draught. Draught! draft, I repeated, what has become of my draft that I received yesterday for my last paper? I began to recollect myself where I had laid it, and quickly came to the awful conclusion that I had placed it carefully between the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... "I maintain that the new way is infinitely less fraudulent, less ruinous, more straightforward than the old. Publicity means time for reflection and inquiry. If here and there a shareholder is taken in, he has himself to blame, nobody sells him a pig in a poke. The manufacturing industry——" ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... 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 like that's being paralyzed, if ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... leap-frog it with a few other boys. He has a natural genius for combining pleasure with business. This is the reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a pitcher of water, and the family are waiting at the dinner-table, he is absent so long; for he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone, or, if there is a penstock, to put his hand over the spout and squirt the water a little while. He is the one who spreads the grass when the men have cut it; he mows it away in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... always full of slits where long, smoky sun-rays can poke in. An amber warmth cheers the darkness of garrets; you feel certain there is nothing ugly hiding behind the remotest and dustiest box. If rats or mice inhabit it, they are jovial fellows. But how different is a cellar, and especially a cellar neglected. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... as he asked me, and as I was going, I tried with my stick to poke the ground from which the dog had wished to turn. I wanted to know why he was not willing to let ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... hour he gave voice to them in one simple, bitter sentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join the Navy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from his cramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrument panel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty. He decided to come out, and did so, worming his ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they had a lawsuit ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... red tam or the brown velvet hat was the most becoming, and finally favored the tam, because she had once heard the Doctor say that red was the color for winter, and besides, the brown hat had a sharp rim that might give a person a nasty poke in ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... what it was that made me poke my head out of the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting right through it. Anyhow, as I did so I heard Job whisper, in ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they had ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... other dingy and eccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Jabez, as he helped himself to a third potato, "'S you say, it's a chance fer her, an' she's a likely sort er girl,—pass the salt, will ye?—but I hope it won't poke her head full er notions,—I'll thank ye fer a biscuit,—so's when she comes home she won't remember who ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... fantastically, and the child running in advance, an agile and bedrabbled looking little creature, was more in masquerade than the others. She wore an old poke bonnet and carried a crooked stick, and there seemed to be a hump ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... a battle are always plentiful, but at H.Q. one has an opportunity of sifting these, in fact I could always get the exact truth by asking members of the Staff, but I feel as a non-combatant that I have no right to openly poke my nose into purely military matters. Rumour said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... abnormal had happened. It educates him in an impersonal attitude towards calamity which makes it bearable. It forces him not to regard anything too tragically. If you can stand aside from yourself and poke fun at your own tragedy—and tragedy always has its humorous aspect—that helps. The songs which have been inspired by the trenches are examples ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... woman's figure enter, and she kept her eyes idly upon it as she walked on toward the house. The woman came slowly and hesitatingly toward the yard. When she drew nearer, Margaret could see that she wore homespun, home-made shoes, and a poke-bonnet. On her hands were yarn half-mits, and, as she walked, she pushed her bonnet from her eyes with one hand, first to one side, then to the other—looking at the locusts planted along the avenue, the cedars in the yard, the sweep of lawn ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "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 ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... poke is a pocket; or a hiding-place of any sort. Of course, this information sent father to digging around every fir tree and oak tree on the place. As you know, there are hundreds of both kinds of trees, so the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, entitled Lingvo de Molenaar, and sung to the tune of the American song Riding down from Bangor, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it changed into Universal. ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before he returned to his mate, the cries greeted him, the mouthful was administered, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... get into its little ways, and was busily driving about and attending to my business as I had planned, 6,000 more men suddenly wanted something, brought me up to a full stop one rainy day, and said that they had decided that if I wanted to ride I would have to walk, or that I would have to poke dismally about in a 'bus, or worm my way through under the ground. As I understood it, there was something that they wanted and something that they were going to get; and while of course in a way, they recognized that ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is told of 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 ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... under those briers," he said; "I'm going to poke the tip of my rod under—this way—Hah!" as a heavy splash sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... had settled enough for thorough inspection of the entire aft portion of the wreck. Rick and Scotty helped the frogmen poke into every possible place without finding more than a ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... door open, and this bore poke in his head: "Oh I forgot to tell you; the Old Turks are going up today, like a shot." And with this he slammed the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... him—teasingly). Me and Tom had a race, Papa. I beat him. (She sticks her tongue out at her younger brother.) Slow poke! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... that some day I would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass wire for ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell |
