"Scarecrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pesky thing on your head, making you look so like a scarecrow, do you?" he said gently, as with a jerk he broke the strings and then threw the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... force in terms that would have done dishonor even to a St. Bartholomew assassin or anti-Albigensian crusader. Monsieur Romieu held up Le Spectre Rouge to the eyes of a generation incapable, from fright, of distinguishing between a scarecrow and the Apollo. The Red Spectre haunted him, and the people for whom he wrote, as relentlessly as the Gray Spectre came upon the chiefs of Ivor. He saw in the working classes—those men who asked then, as in modern times they have only asked, "leave to toil"—millions of creatures "regimented ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... uglier significance; his trousers were most atrociously rent and tattered; he walked with a limp, and shivered in the cold night air. This unpromising-looking person approached the priest and addressed him with an elaborate courtesy oddly out of keeping with his scarecrow-like appearance, but with words appropriate enough to ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... misgivings. "I dunno but you might jest as well wear it a few Sundays," her mother had said; "you're goin' to have your silk dress to come out bride in. I dunno as there's any sense in your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... one evening I shot the head off a scarecrow he had put up in the cherry tree when I was hiding around a corner to keep out of his sight. All the Springvale boys learned how to ride and shoot and to do both at once, although we never had any shooting to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... in this very year, 1300, we may always look for the central mediaeval idea in any subject: and observe how he represents Cupid; as one of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan and Death; and he himself "a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver, and fillet, and feet ending in claws,"[155] thrust down into Hell by Penance, from the presence of Purity and Fortitude. Spenser, who has been so often noticed as furnishing the exactly intermediate type of conception between the mediaeval ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... first to declare that we are fully and definitively convinced. You will readily believe that we do not regret our defeat, but are honestly and heartily glad of it. Who would not be glad to discover that a dreadful figure which filled him with terror and alarm was nothing but a scarecrow? And even a sense of shame has been spared us by the magnanimity of the leader of the opposite party, who laid emphasis upon the fact that not merely we, but even his adherents outside of Freeland, still cherished in their hearts the same foolish ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... totally disproportioned to the delict, and the consequence is, that means are found out of evasion by legal fictions and the like. The judges listen to these; they become frequent, and the rule of Court ends by being a scarecrow merely. Formerly, delays of this kind were checked by corresponding amendes. But the Court relaxed this petty fine too often. Had they been more strict, and levied the mulct on the agents, with no recourse upon their clients, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different points of view, it should appear to change,—now an old man, now an old woman,—a gunner, a ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shore of this great ocean-world. Swim who can, and whoso is too clumsy let him sink. The right is with him that prevails. Family honor? A valuable capital for him that knows how to profit by it.—Conscience? An excellent scarecrow with which to frighten sparrows from cherry-trees.—Filial love? Where is the obligation? Did my father beget me because he loved me? Did he think of me at all? Is there anything holy in his gratification of carnal appetite? ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Again, I placed a scarecrow or bogey in a parti-coloured dress in the spacious kennel of a hound while he was absent from it. When the dog wished to return to his kennel, he drew back at the sight of it, and barked for a long while. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... not want the dude to think me a scarecrow," she said to herself; "though who cares what he thinks? I did not favor his coming, and they know it. I told them they would have him on their hands for life, and Bessie actually said they might have a worse thing. I don't know about that, but I do know ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... himself into the lowest of low spirits, until such time as he could shake himself out of the house and shake another threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or dead sober (he had come to such a pass that he was least alive in the latter state), it was always on the conscience of the paralytic scarecrow that he had betrayed his sharp parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum, which were all gone, and that her sharpness would infallibly detect his having done it, sooner or later. All things considered therefore, and addition made of the state of his body ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... simply a drier of animal tissue to a certain extent, but so are hundreds of other agents not so dangerous. It is also perfectly useless as a scarecrow or poison to those betes noire of the taxidermist, the larvae of the various clothes and fur eating moths of the genus Tinea, or the larvae of Dermestes lardarius, murinus, and other museum beetles. They simply laugh arsenic to scorn; indeed, I believe, like the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... plan—at least, if you consent to it, my lord. My paternal valley is very empty—my father and my mother are long since dead; I should wish, of all things, to establish myself near you. Although lame, I am still good for something, if only to serve as a scarecrow to hinder the birds from eating your apples and cherries. I will forget that you are 'my lord:' I will call you 'Master James,' I will call the duchess, 'Dame James,' your children shall call me Father Polypheme; I will tell them of my battles, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Bob at his home of an evening, but whilst this dialogue was still going on an acquaintance made his arrival known by a knock at the door. It was a lank and hungry individual, grimy of face and hands, his clothing such as in the country would serve well for a scarecrow. Who could have recognised in him the once spruce and spirited Mr. Jack Bartley, distinguished by his chimney-pot hat at the Crystal Palace on Bob's wedding-day? At the close of that same day, as you remember, he and Bob engaged in terrific combat, the outcome ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... apart, grim mirth in his eyes, as Tiffany ushered into the circle a lean, shabby country-gentleman, whose habit would have shamed a scarecrow. Tiffany disappeared and the new-comer made Brilliana an awkward bow. "Sweet lady, you sent for me ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... usual way. When we did I heard them saying to each other, 'Well, I thought we would come down overboard, in a lump—sticks and all—blame me if I didn't.' 'That's what I was thinking to myself,' would answer wearily another battered and bandaged scarecrow. And, mind, these were men without the drilled-in habit of obedience. To an onlooker they would be a lot of profane scallywags without a redeeming point. What made them do it—what made them obey me when I, thinking consciously how fine it was, ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... of all a brilliant soldier, then a brilliant lawyer, then a brilliant historian. His doctor's degree—he was Doctor of Laws—was gained by fair hard work. Think of that, and then look at my picture of the sodden, filthy scarecrow! Yes; that man began my education, and had I only gone straight on I should not be loafing about The Chequers. You ask how he could have anything to do with my education? Well, long ago I was a little bookworm, living in a lonely country house, and I had the run of ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Parliaments, the war has been, in large part, excited by the manoeuvres of an international band of the dealers in military supplies and by their all-powerful newspapers, when it shall be thoroughly comprehended that these dealers and these newspapers have played with rumors of war as with a scarecrow, for the purpose of keeping up a general condition of disquiet favorable to their sinister operations, then, too late, alas! there will be a revulsion of public opinion to sustain finally those men, like our friends, who have ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... and he fell in, his fishing-line somehow became twisted about his arms and legs, else most likely he would have scrambled out, as it was not very deep. This was the end; nor was he even remembered. Does any one sorrow for the rook, shot, and hung up as a scarecrow? The boy had been talked to, and held up as a scarecrow all his life: he was dead, and that is all. As for granny, she felt no twinge: she ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... Gurney, "you scarecrow creatures don't know how horrid sore the process o' comin' down is. An' one gets so cold, too. It's just like ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... said Desmond heartily. "I am a bit of a scarecrow, no doubt, but we've won the trick, man. The real guy is down below, dead from fright ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... about, saying, "Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to send hame such a piece o' wark as that coat to ony decent man? Do ye dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider, that I could be crammed, neck and heels, into such a thing as that? Fye, shame—it would not button on yourself, man, scarecrow-looking ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... shrank from both the task and the exposure which it would entail. I must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I am that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my clothes. False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. I will vanquish, not my accuser, but my judges. I will indeed answer his charges and criticisms on ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... selfish, incompetent little beast," she whispered. "Bill ought to thump me, instead of being kind. I can't do anything, and I don't know much, and I'm a scarecrow for looks right now. And I started out to ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... true, this last, for Martin learned that five years before, Captain Dabney had salvaged Little Billy off the beach at Suva, a dreadful scarecrow of a man, and Ruth's nursing, and the clean sea life, had built a new William Corcoran. But the appetite for the drink was uneradicable, and the genial hunchback's life was a series of losing battles ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... W. Thomson. Tell George from me not to sit upon you with his mathematics. When I threatened your tropical cooling views with the facts of the physicists, you snubbed me and the facts sweetly, over and over again; and now, because a scarecrow of xy has been raised on the selfsame facts, you boo-boo. Take another dose of Huxley's penultimate G. S. Address, and send George back to college. (383/2. Huxley's Anniversary Address to the Geological Society, 1869 ("Collected Essays," ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... a hole you have pitched upon for living in? I positively couldn't ride down upon the thing they offered me at the station. It wasn't even clean. Look at it, my dear girls! It holds my respectable belongings, and not me. It's the scarecrow or ghost of the ordinary station-fly. Could you have imagined the station-fly could ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... dummy Grayson perished in a cornfield. His empty coat served well for a scarecrow. A wisp of straw stuck out through a hole in ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... gathering that a ghost appeared—a lank, saffron ghost, ragged as a scarecrow—wearing a foolish smile and the cape of a cavalryman's overcoat with no coat beneath it. The apparition was a youth of about twenty, with a downy beard all over his face, and countenance well mellowed with coal-soot, as though ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Tom said, gruffly. "I'll see you to the stage. There it stands yonder—and a jolly old scarecrow of a carriage ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... deliberately, "the 'Courier' has fun every now and then over the poor but honest farmer, and prints pictures of him when he comes to town for the State Fair that make him look like a scarecrow. Farming, Morton, is a profession, nowadays, and those poor yaps Eggleston wrote about in 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' were all dead and buried before you were born. Farmers are up and coming I can tell you, and I wouldn't lose their ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Miss Adams as a hawk does a hen; he watched Etienne as a hawk does a scarecrow, Etienne watched Miss Adams as a weasel does a henhouse. He paid ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... useless to expostulate with this feminine scarecrow; her son was, happily for himself, unconscious, and after some more wrangling he was laid down on her doorstep, where he shortly afterward expired, his body being afterward carted away like so ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... usually takes all this care to hide its nest and its eggs from observation, it is sometimes just as careless and builds in strange places, where it is almost sure to be noticed. It will boldly make its nest in the hat of a scarecrow, which is intended to frighten birds away. A little while ago, according to the newspapers, one of these birds built its nest and hatched its eggs in the pocket of a child's old waistcoat which had been thrown aside as useless. Other birds often display the same boldness or carelessness. Many ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... chuckle as he eyed the threadbare suit and tattered appearance of the burglar, who had resumed his seat in the prisoner's cage. "Who would have stood surety for that scarecrow?" ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... moment longer, Sister Nightmare," answered Scarecrow. "I thought I had a glimpse of something behind ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habiliments. So we gradually flung them all aside, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... those straw-stuffed dummies, with their hats tipped over their faces, or upon one side, and their empty sleeves flapping in the winds that swept through the valley. But old Mr. Crow was too wise to be fooled so easily. He would scratch up the corn at the very feet of a scarecrow—and chuckle ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... maid speak of me as a dumpy old scarecrow? No, thank you!" and she calls the waiter to bring a demitasse ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... want to have such a thing in his home no one can say. Some naturalists believe that he uses it as a scarecrow to frighten his enemies away. But I do not think he could give a reason if he ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... could she doubt her final success, when her plans were already affording her so much more than she had expected? Who would have looked for the great red stag himself to come browsing so soon about the scarecrow! He was too large game, however, to be ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... no one seemed to know anything about him. He learned also that she had brought down some honey for sale on the day following her appearance at Ashacombe, and had bought a sack of oatmeal at the mill, which she had taken away on a scarecrow of an Exmoor pony. There were of course sundry stories of her, but these were dark and uncertain, and of no value for tracing her to her dwelling place. Then Colonel George took long rides over the moor, crossing it this way and that from end to ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... yellow, ragged, lame, unshaven scarecrow of a chap. They were fools to think he could have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to have originally been an Ecce Homo, which was perhaps the ornament of some village church, then carried off by some unbeliever, and made more shapeless than its creator, not proficient in art, had made it. It has a greater resemblance now to a frightful scarecrow than to any ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... laughed Sandy, "you look as if you had been dragged through a slough. You are just painted with mud from top to toe. Well, I never did see such a looking scarecrow!" ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... of my friend Paddy changing clothes with the scarecrow. I don't know which name is the most distinguished, that of the English bishop ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he had the most outlandish rig on a fellow ever saw!" exclaimed Luke. "I think he must have borrowed it from some scarecrow." ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... bird, pecking, flitting, Round the cherries on the tree. Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting, Crouched for silly things, like thee! Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. 'Touch not, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... presented to the impatient glance of the new proprietor the visage of the grumbling Gael. He was an old decrepit man, with bright ferocious eyes gleaming through his elf-locks. If he had succeeded in making a "swap" of his habiliments with any scarecrow south of the Tay, he would have had by far the best of the bargain, for his whole toilet consisted in a coarse blue kilt or petticoat (for it had none of the checkers that give a showy appearance ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... was freezing, and the company began to turn away, and to mutter among themselves, in order to cover their confusion. "It's the Baron!" "No?" "Yes." "Disgraceful!" "Disgusting!" "Shocking!" "A scarecrow!" ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and whines and argues like a hundred Jews an' ole Irishwomen put tergether, an' accuses me o' takin' his blarsted country from him, an' makes me an' the missus laugh; an' we gives him a bottl'er rum an' a bag of grub ter get rid of him an' his rotten ole scarecrow tribe—It all tells up. I was allers soft on the blacks, an', beside, a ole gin nursed me an' me mother when I was born, an' saved me blessed life—not that that mounts to much. But it all tells up, an' I got me licence ter pay. An' some ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... worldly welfare merited her gratitude. What could he mean by the "exchange" he proposed? The "great love" of which he had spoken to Katharina was legible in every line of his letter, and any woman can forgive any man—were he a sinner, and a scarecrow into the bargain—for his audacity in loving her. Oh! that he might but set his heart on her—for hers, it was vain to deny it, was strongly drawn to him. Still she would not call it Love that stirred within her; it could only be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hurricane winding through gravel pits whirled towards the Eureka this shouting of "Joe." It was the howl of a wolf for the shepherds, who bolted at once towards the bush: it was the yell of bull-dogs for the fossikers who floundered among the deep holes, and thus dodged the hounds: it was a scarecrow for the miners, who now scrambled down to the deep, and left a licensed mate or two at the windlass. By this time, a regiment of troopers, in full gallop, had besieged the whole Eureka, and the traps ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... head sadly. 'It was very wrong of me,' he said bitterly: 'very wrong and very thoughtless. I ought to have remembered it and stopped away. I'm a caput lupinum, it seems, in Pilbury Regis, a sort of moral scarecrow or political leper, to be carefully avoided like some horrid contagion by a respectable, prosperous head-master. I might have known it, I might have known it, Edie; and now I'm afraid by my stupidity I've got dear Ernest unintentionally into a pack of troubles. Come on, my child, my poor dear child, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to be looked at, not to be touched. I had to mind what I was about,' said the wind. 'The cottage was allowed to stand for the sake of the stork's nest; in itself it was only a scarecrow on the heath, but the dean did not want to frighten away the stork, so the hovel was allowed to stand. The poor soul inside was allowed to live in it; she had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... unteachable, untamable creatures men are. They learn wisdom about all the little matters of daily life by experience, but they do not seem to do so about the higher. Even a sparrow comes to understand a scarecrow after a time or two, and any rat in a hole will learn the trick of a trap. But you can trick men over and over again with the same inducement, and, even whilst the hook is sticking in their jaws, the same bait will tempt them once more. That is very largely ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... neither spin—an error that might not have been dispelled without longer and closer observation than he seemed to court; for his progress up Abersush Street, toward the Home in the gloom of the winter evening, was not visibly faster than what might have been expected of a scarecrow blessed with youth, health, and discontent. The man was indisputably ill-clad, yet not without a certain fitness and good taste, withal; for he was obviously an applicant for admittance to the Home, where poverty was a qualification. In the army of indigence the uniform is rags; ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... At any rate, I would prefer any of them to such an ill looking scarecrow as you," she retorted. "It is bad enough when they kill off some of those Gauls, who are far too good for such work; but the best of them I have seen in the arena lacks six inches, both in height and breadth of ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... Corn Stalk The Scarecrow Skitter Farmerettes Fancy Popcorn Waltz Orchard One-step Pumpkin Pie Walk Red Ear ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... tree was too small to support or hide a climber; the only shed stood open and obviously empty; there was no sound save the droning of summer flies and the occasional flutter of a bird unfamiliar enough to be surprised by the scarecrow in the field; there was scarcely a shadow save a few blue lines that fell from the thin tree; every detail was picked out by the brilliant day light as if in a microscope. The girl described the scene ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... my fault," she said, pettishly. "I live on cream, and it's no good. Of course, I know I'm an object and a scarecrow; but I'd rather people didn't ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hesitate to put upon her shoulders the garment that draped so charmingly those of the living statue hired to parade before her. Jacqueline could not help laughing as she watched this way of hunting larks; and thought the mirror might have warned them, like a scarecrow, rather than have tempted them ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... lucky fellows who never seems to get his neck broken, however much he may jeopardize it; and, moreover, he was that rare genius, who can make a "pretty" ride where other broncho-fighters resemble nothing so much as a scarecrow in a cyclone. Andy not only could ride—he could ride gracefully. And the reason for that, not many knew: Andy, in the years before he wandered to the range, had danced, in spangled tights, upon the broad rump of a big gray horse which galloped around a saw-dust ring with the regularity ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Marechal Duc de Belleisle,' (1762) it is asserted that Charles was offered the leadership of the attack on Minorca (April 1756), and that he declined, saying, 'The English will do me justice, if they think fit, but I will no longer serve as a mere scarecrow' (epouvantail). In January 1756, however, Knyphausen, writing to Frederick from Paris, discredited the idea that France meant ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... of glistening emeralds and listens to all the troubles of her people, which they are sure to tell her about. Around Ozma's throne, on such occasions, are grouped all the important personages of Oz, such as the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, Tiktok the Clockwork Man, the Tin Woodman, the Wizard of Oz, the Shaggy Man and other famous fairy people. Little Dorothy usually has a seat at Ozma's feet, and crouched on either side the throne are two enormous beasts known as the Hungry ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the elbows and great holes in it which you will not let anybody patch because you are too proud to wear patches, and those wretched faded trousers, out at the knees, and which have been turned up and hemmed at the bottom so often that they are six inches above your shoes, and your whole scarecrow appearance, I was so ashamed of you that I could not keep the tears out of my eyes. To tell a respectable gentleman like Doctor Wicker that you were my brother was more than I could bear; and I was glad when I saw you get up and sneak out of the way. I hate to talk to you in this ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... experienced weather eye, then began to look for a possible shelter from the coming shower. On either side, the fields stretched away in undulating lines, with no sign of a habitation in sight. A dejected old scarecrow, and a tumble-down shed in the distance were the only objects ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... to him, his eyes blazing. "Shut your dirty mouth, or I'll tear you apart!" he threatened. "You're a liar, an' you know it. Sharp told me about you settin' the Toltec on Betty. I know the rest. I know you tried to make a monkey out of my dad, you damned old ossified scarecrow! If you open your trap again, I'll just naturally pulverize you! I reckon that's all I've got to say ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure. "Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... more than I can say," the other replied. "He's evidently a white man, and I fancy an Englishman. At home we should call him a scarecrow. He turned up from across the Ford just now, and tumbled down in the middle of the stream like a shot rabbit. Never saw such a thing before. He's not ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... scarecrow!' He said to the Barin. 'You crazy old clown!' His jaw once unmuzzled He let enough words out To stuff the Pomyeshchick With Fathers and Grandfathers Into the bargain. The oaths of the lords Are like stings of mosquitoes, ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... against the central scaffold, and up this Demdike, having cast off his houppeland, mounted and adjusted the rope. His tall gaunt figure, fully displayed in his tight-fitting red garb, made him look like a hideous scarecrow. His appearance was greeted by the mob with a perfect hurricane of indignant outcries and yells. But he heeded them not, but calmly pursued his task. Above him wheeled the two ravens, who had never quitted the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... human life. A lean and threadbare scarecrow flapped his ragged coat-sleeves in the wind that swept across the barren garden patch farther up the slope,—this was the nearest approach to human life that came within the range of vision. And as if to invite jovial companionship, this pathetic ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... a coat from a strange gentleman like yourself and have an easy conscience. Sure, this old coat of mine is only fit to be used for a scarecrow. ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... my best to save a little timit scarecrow of a child, aged about six, from the blows of its brutal father, who had already given it a black eye—my heart blazed within me,—and from that moment Berkeley had no spell ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a flock of geese, so slowly that I soon caught him up; and such a man or such geese I had never seen. To begin with, his rags were worse than a scarecrow's. In one hand he carried a long staff; the other held a small book close under his nose, and his lean shoulders bent over as he read in it. It was clear, from the man's undecided gait, that all his eyes were for this book. Only he would ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... results in facts which he could grasp and take possession of. Granting, indeed, that a man's arm is moved by a simple physical cause, then of course we may dispute about the various external influences which, when it changes its position, sway it to and fro, like a scarecrow in a garden; but to assert that the motive cause is physical, this is an assumption in a case, when our question is about a matter of fact, not about the logical consequences of an assumed premiss. And, in like ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the afternoon in throwing stones at a scarecrow. His aim was fairly good, and he succeeded in knocking off the hat and finally prostrating the wooden framework. Followed—an exciting ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... he wishes, for Pierre was in everything, from the Bastille to Waterloo.' The old man took another stool at my request and we plunged into a sea of revolutionary reminiscences. This old man, albeit clothed like a scarecrow, was like any one ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... ears. Though Hozier's whisper could hardly have reached him, he held up a warning hand, even while he brought the catamaran ashore on the shingle, so gently that not a pebble was disturbed. He rose, a gaunt scarecrow, stepped off, and drew the shallow craft somewhat further up the sloping beach. Then he helped Iris to her feet. She became conscious at once that his thumb-nail was of extraordinary length, and—so strangely constituted is human nature—this peculiarity made a lasting impression ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People too Numerous to ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... capable of endless delight. The time had been when now and then he read a good book and dreamed noble dreams. Even yet the stuff of which such dreams are made, fluttered in particoloured rags about his life; and colour is colour even on a scarecrow. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... and contumelious taunts. In open market-place produced they me, To be a public spectacle to all: Here, said they, is the terror of the French, The scarecrow that affrights our children so. Then broke I from the officers that led me, And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground To hurl at the beholders of my shame; My grisly countenance made others fly; None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deem'd me not secure; So ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... poetry, and that no poet can make you feel more than he feels himself, though he cannot always make another feel as much; and that the worth of his art exists only just in so far as he can say what he feels; and then I thought of my old friend's mind as I might think of a scarecrow among lonely fields, a thing absurd, ragged, and left alone, while real men went about their business. I did not say it, but I thought it in my folly. So I told my young friend ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... their hearts they bear Love for our tyrant? I should like to lay They've our hate for him in their pockets! Here, But that I turned in haste and broke away, I should have kissed a corporal, stiff and tall, And like a scarecrow stuck against ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Keep a scarecrow in the yard, Fierce old bulldog near 'em; Chase off joy that's tryin' hard To come in an' cheer 'em. Wear their blinders big and strong, Dodge each happy sight; Like to keep their faces long; Think the day ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... window to make the light fall from upwards; two or three horsehair chairs, nearly worn out; a table in a corner, littered with books and papers; a horrible lay-figure, at the present moment dressed apparently for a scarecrow; a large easel, on which stood a half-finished oil-painting—these constituted almost the whole furniture of the room. With his pocket-handkerchief Percivale dusted one chair for Wynnie and another for me. Then standing before us, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... mountain-linden? Bridegroom, well dost thou remember, Thou hast hoped it all thy life-time, Hoped to bring the Maid of Beauty, Thou a thousand times hast said it, Better far than any other, Not one like the croaking raven, Nor the magpie from the border, Nor the scarecrow from the corn-fields, Nor the vulture from the desert. What has this one done of credit, In the summer that has ended? Where the gloves that she has knitted, Where the mittens she has woven? Thou hast brought her empty-handed, Not a gift she brings thy father; ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... said to herself "what birds may come to gether worms an' golachs (beetles) aboot the boody craw (scarecrow), ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... harvest's guerdon While the tree is yet in bloom? Wherefore drudge beneath the burden Of an unaccomplished doom? Wherefore let the scarecrow clatter Day and night upon the tree? Brothers mine, the sparrows' chatter ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... provoke argument and recrimination. He was naturally quarrelsome—and a bully because of his unquestioned physical courage. He was popular in a way with those of his fellows who looked upon a gunman—a killer—as a kind of hero. The foreman of the T-Bar-T found him valuable as a sort of animate scarecrow. Gary's mere presence often served to turn the balance when the T-Bar-T riders had occasion to substantiate a bluff or settle a dispute with some other outfit riding the high country. And because Gary imagined that Bailey of the Concho had deliberately sent such youngsters ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... thrown somehow, And gave his back a crick, And though that is his coat, 'tis now The scarecrow of a rick; You'll see when you get nearer - 'Tis ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a brood of chickens raised in it,—these elements, duly adjusted to each other, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you think you can make your heroes and heroines,—nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,—out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You must study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Yes, I'll trot; and I trot with a sick heart, Kit French, to leave you drinking your wits away with that low blind man. For a low man you are - a low blind man - and your clothes they would disgrace a scarecrow. I'll go to my bed, Kit; and O, dear boy, go soon to yours - the old room, you know; it's ready for you - and go soon and sleep it off; for you know, dear, they, one and all, regret it in the morning; thirty years I've kept this house, and one ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... replied Johnston, "who was on his way to my uncle's to stop there for the night. Divil a scarecrow in Europe would exchange clothes with him ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... spoils, the rioter with his rock, the anarchist with his bomb, the assassin thrusting out his black hand, the lyncher with his battering ram, his rope and his rifle; these are some of the outside lawless who conspire with the inside lawless to make a scarecrow of American law, making it the perch and not the terror of the birds of prey. And who knows how soon all of these lawless ones may stand up together and, with a monarch's voice cry, Havoc in the confines ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... how very much queerer all this is than anything we anticipated. For the central riddle we are prepared; we have all seen at a glance that there was something wrong about the last earl. We have come here to find out whether he really lived here, whether he really died here, whether that red-haired scarecrow who did his burying had anything to do with his dying. But suppose the worst in all this, the most lurid or melodramatic solution you like. Suppose the servant really killed the master, or suppose the master isn't really dead, or suppose the master is dressed up as the servant, or suppose the ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... as she had once done before, and borrowed 10s. of me, promising to repay it at night, but I hear nothing of her. I shall trust her no more. Great talk there is of a fear of a war with the Dutch; and we have order to pitch upon twenty ships to be forthwith set out; but I hope it is but a scarecrow to the world, to let them see that we can be ready for them; though, God knows! the King is not able to set out five ships at this present without great difficulty, we neither having money, credit, nor stores. My mind is now in a wonderful ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sat a scarecrow, which had been there since spring and which protected the leafless branches with ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc |
