"Squirm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plain enough. I have seen men raise Cain out of sheer devilishness, out of a desperate notion to smash everything because they were going to smash themselves. Some people seem able to amuse themselves by watching other people squirm. Maybe you are like that. You had complete power over me once. I surrendered to that gladly, then. You appear to have a faculty of making men dance to any tune you care to play. But all the power you have now, so far as I'm concerned, is to make me suffer a little more by giving ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with an augmenting irritation. Here was my great and comely idea transmuted by "George Glock"—which was the woman's foolish pen-name,—into a rather clever melodrama, and set forth anyhow, in a hit or miss style that fairly made me squirm. I would cheerfully have strangled Marian Winwood just then, and not upon the count of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... I had miserably squirmed my way through Mods., as a man may squirm through some hole in a prison wall, that I had the slightest idea of what was meant by ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sunlight. At the marble fountain she paused for a long, long time, talking to the golden fishes which darted so swiftly past each other, and wishing she could take them in her hand "just to see them squirm." ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... save that the man upon whose shoulders the gigantic hands lay—not as yet heavily—attempted to squirm away. Iron-like fingers bit into his flesh and, wincing with a smothered yell of pain, he stood trembling. Halloway passed one hand over his hostage's shoulder and drew the pistol from its holster—then he sent the ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law, to keep it in a warm, healthy, flourishin' condition. Why, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... days on the steamboat had wearied Jim. The prenatal Scotch idea of industry was upon him, and conscience had begun to squirm. He applied for work as soon as he walked out on the levee. The place was the office of the steamboat company. He stated in an offhand way that he had had experience on the water-front in Chicago, Rock ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... my circumference. You don't permeate my orbit. You don't get on to me. It was this way. I got up and looked out on the world. I says: 'J. R., it's clear you haven't enough cash for your ambitions. But you've got a opportunity. Throw it in. Be bold. If your conscience squirms, let it squirm. If it wriggles, let it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large ideas.' I took it. Say, I made parties unwilling investors in me. Now, then, there they are, as delegated in you. Here's me, Julius R., monarch by purchase and election of ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... here looked toward him, and seeing that he was intently searching for something, asked what was the matter. Brown answered that a snake was in the boat and that he was trying to find it. Here Jones commenced to twist and squirm. "Hallo!" said Brown: "here's another!" No sooner had he said another when Jones sprang into the canal. He made several lunges and, Peter like, looked as if he was walking on the water. Smith added more steam to the boat and Jones was overhauled and taken into ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... cravings which first called so piteously for gratification, will soon be gorged, and flying away laugh at the poor fool who nursed them in his breast. The wife will come to know that her husband is a coward, because she sees him squirm under the lash of his animal passions; and as woman loves strength and power, so in proportion as he loses his love, will she lose her confidence. He will look upon her as a burden, and she will look upon him in disgust as a brute. Conjugal happiness will have departed, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... shoulders, which quivered and bent somewhat. He went to the desk, from which he took another letter, thrown down a moment before, and unread yet. Something in the room was moving; certain little steps ran along the carpet quietly. Puffie had woke; had run to the man, and begun to squirm at ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... to be well occupied. Carried on willy-nilly I mounted the first steps at hand; elbowed on down the aisle until I managed to squirm aside into a vacant seat. The remaining half was at once effectually filled by a large, stout, red-faced woman who formed the base of a pyramid of boxes ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... kennel, its door closed and bolted, Marcel was free to squirm out of the window and roam and range Paris at will. And it was thus that he came by most of his knowledge of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... in it all, of course. Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... face—it is sheer and smooth and icy now, as then. He was probably the first man to attempt its descent, and I was always weak and spent when he ended his story of it, so vividly did he portray its dangers. I sat tense, digging my nails deep into my palms, living through every squirm and twist with him, from the moment he slid down from the comparatively safe "Narrows" to the first niche in the glassy, precipitous wall, till, after many nearly-the-last experiences, he landed safely at its foot. That adventure had almost ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... a spasm of progressive development," she said, calmly. "You take it as a child takes teething—with a squirm and a mental howl ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... this moment, the boat fifteen feet above the water and immovable, himself fainting with weakness and without a particle of strength left in him, he still believed that death ended all, and he was still unafraid. His views were too simply and solidly based to be overthrown by the first squirm, or the last, of ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... looking as if she was dead on the ground I felt I must do something, and seeing a pail of water standing near by, I held it over her face and poured it down on her a little at a time, and it wasn't long before she began to squirm, and then she opened her eyes and her mouth just at the same time, so that she must have swallowed about as much water as she would have taken at a meal. This brought her to, and she began to cough and splutter and look around ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... felt a multitude of tiny pin pricks over the entire surface of his body. The suffering was not intense, but the irritation made him squirm and wince. He could not discover the cause of his discomfort, but at the professor's command it ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... us," went on Leveson. "Any other pretty bits? Oh—ah! Listen to this: 'Notice. Our poet is stuck for a rhyme to "hunger." If any one can oblige the poet, we'll give him a paragraph all to himself in the next number. N.B.—The rhyme must be a name of some kind—bird, beast, or fish.' Ho, ho! Don't squirm so, Plunger. What branch of the animal kingdom do ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... a passionate gesture. "Nerves!" he cried bitterly. "Yes, that's what they say when an actor dares to think. 'Go on! Play your part! Be a marionette forever!' That's what you tell us! 'Slave for your living, you sordid little puppet! Squirm and sweat and strut, but don't you ever dare to think!' You tell us that because you know if we ever did stop to think for one instant about ourselves you wouldn't have any actors! Actors! Faugh! What do we ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... custom of the house, intended to be a pleasing assurance that our fish was fresh, but a custom with just a savour in it of cannibalism. I have never cared to be on speaking terms with the creatures I am about to eat. I squirm when I see the lobster for my salad squirming, though I know the risk if it should not squirm at all. Had I lived in the country among my own chickens and pigs and lambs, I should have been long since a confirmed vegetarian. But to go to the Cabaret ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... ci'der bit'ter thirst'y chirp mi'ser dif'fer third'ly flirt spi'der din'ner birch'en girl vi'per frit'ter chirp'er shirt cli'ent lit'ter girl'ish squirm gi'ant riv'er gird'er squirt i'tem shiv'er stir'less third i'cy sil'ver first'ly girt spi'ral in'ner birth'day ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Jug, too, is analytical in its conduct. Almost from the first it is evident that Adam, the village judge, is himself the culprit in the case at trial in his court, and the comic efforts of the arch-rascal to squirm out of the inevitable discovery only serve to make his guilt the surer. In this comedy the blank verse adapts itself to all the turns of familiar humorous dialogue, and the effect of the Dutch genre-paintings of Teniers or Jan Steen ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... don't know," said Mark slowly, as he began to squirm and alter the set of his clothes. "Yes, pricked ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... and cream puffs for breakfast!" stormed Josie. "Mr. Chester Hunt I certainly hope to make you squirm. But I wish I could find out why Dink gave up the kiddies and why she destroyed her ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes pit-a-pat," replied Nancy. "There! I'm not going to talk any more. If you won't tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room and have ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... showed no surprise as he stepped back to get a better look at the czar, who began to squirm ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... true enough in a sense; but your lungs are thinking about the air, if you are not. And so it is with your rich people—they may not be thinking of money, but they're breathing it all the while; take them into another element and see how they squirm and gasp!" ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... looked in the canteen, and who is now here for justice for that skeleton. He's waited twenty years for it, Carey, but he's going to get it to-day. Don't squirm so. You distract my mind from ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... blows we made our advance. There was a curious creeping, uneasy sensation in the region of my stomach as I trod thus on the bodies of wounded men who were not dead yet, and felt them moving, and heard their groaning; and I was conscious of a feeling of relief when a body that I trod upon did not squirm beneath my foot, and so by its stillness assured me that I was standing only on dead flesh that had ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... tremble, tremble like an aspen leaf; quiver, quaver, quake, shiver, twitter, twire[obs3], writhe, toss, shuffle, tumble, stagger, bob, reel, sway, wag, waggle; wriggle, wriggle like an eel; dance, stumble, shamble, flounder, totter, flounce, flop, curvet, prance, cavort [U.S.]; squirm. throb, pulsate, beat, palpitate, go pitapat; flutter, flitter, flicker, bicker; bustle. ferment, effervesce, foam; boil, boil over; bubble up; simmer. toss about, jump about; jump like a parched pea; shake like an aspen leaf; shake to its center, shake to its foundations; be the sport of the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 'em, Tayoga," he said. "You put a little dart squarely in their hearts, and they don't like it. But they can squirm as much as they please, we're out of their reach ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperaesthetic in one sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... in it. Boas above our heads, snakes and scorpions under our feet. Land-crabs, terrapins, and iguanas move about in our vicinity. Malaria is in the air we breathe; the road is infested with "hotwater" ants, which bite our legs until we dance and squirm about like madmen. Yet, somehow, we are fortunate enough to escape annihilation, and many another traveller might also. Yet here, in verity, are the ten plagues of Egypt, through which a traveller in these regions must ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... it was useless to say No; and, besides, by this time we had lost most of our terror. I dropped on to my knees at once, and began to squirm through the passage. Hugh followed me, and the strange man followed after Hugh. It was not really difficult, except just at the beginning, where the stems were close together. When I had wriggled for ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... spirit,' said Augusta. 'I admire that man, and he couldn't have passed his stone on to better hands than yours. Shea went down as if he had been shot. I was afraid of my life he would clutch at my skirts as he fell or squirm up against me after he was down. But he lay quite still. By the way, Mary, I suppose ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... tell yuh." Whereupon Andy smoked relishfully and in silence, and from the tail of his eye watched his audience squirm with impatience. "A man gets along a whole lot better without any conscience," he began at last, irrelevantly, "'specially if he wants to be mean. I trailed this jasper up the coulee and out on the bench, across that level strip between Black Coulee and Dry Spring Gulch, and ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... boche who like the first had been squatted down rose to his feet, slowly, it seemed, alongside me. We were both bereft of speech from the surprise; the fellow under me was incapable of locomotion as well, for while I felt him squirm ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... alone forbade Your stout progenitor to squirm Through all the months the Huns essayed To pink his epiderm— The thought that you, through what he'd done, Might find ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... as I was told, and stood helping father when the beaver came too—after getting a big whiff of hartshorn. We washed the torn flesh with water, and father poured on something from a bottle that made the old fellow squirm, but he sensed that we were helping him ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... his eyes sternly fixed upon him, Captain Clinton stood confronting the unfortunate youth, staring at him without saying a word. The persistence of his stare made Howard squirm. It was decidedly unpleasant. He did not mind the detention so much as this man's overbearing, bullying manner. He knew he was innocent, therefore he had nothing to fear. But why was this police captain staring at ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... skin was soft and wet. I poked him once to see him squirm. And then Will said, "I wonder if He ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... cloudless heavens since their first impress on the sinking soil. Here and there along the right of way—a right no human being would care to dispute were the way ten times its width—some drowsing lizards, sprawling in the sunshine along the ties, roused at the sound and tremor of the coming train to squirm off into the sage-brush, but no sign of animation had been seen since the crossing of the big divide near Promontory. The long, winding train, made up of mail-, express-, baggage-, emigrant-, and smoking-cars, "tourists' ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... inches. "What in the world is the matter—am I all swollen—could it be due to having eaten too many mushrooms?" "That is quite possible," said Chaudebonne; "yesterday you ate enough of them to split." All the accomplices joined in ridiculing him, and he began to squirm and show a somewhat livid color. Mass was rung, and he was compelled to attend in his chamber robe. Laughing, he said: "That would be a fine end—to die at the age of twenty-one from having eaten too many mushrooms." In the meantime, Chaudebonne advised the use of an antidote ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... and snap at me. I picked up a stick about three feet long, thinking to defend myself; but just as soon as I took that stick in my hand, it turned to a snake. I could feel its slimy body writhe and squirm in my hands, and in trying to hold it to keep it from biting me, every finger-nail cut like a knife into the palm of my hand, and the blood streamed down over that stick, that to me was a living snake. Hell is a heaven compared to what ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... person sitting in a place they held that was the place for that person to be sitting. Katie almost wished that mighty "Shoo!" would indeed reverberate 'round the world. It would be such fun to see them scamper and squirm. And would there not be the keenest of satisfaction in finding out what sort of place one would fit up for one's self if none had been fitted up for one ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... quell quite quiz quire quail queer quote quest quick squire squirt queen quince quake squint squaw quack squirm square quaint ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... dont know what may happen to you yet. There now! I know, without opening my eyes, that you are shocked, bless your delicacy! How do you think I should have got through life if I'd been thin-skinned? What good does it do you? You are pining away in this hole of a lodging. You squirm when Mrs. Myers tries to be friendly with you; and I sometimes laugh at your expression when Eliza treats you to a little blarney about your looks. Now I would just as soon gossip and swear at her as go to tea with ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... between her ears—rather a new scar—three or four days old, I should say. It looked ghastly and blue-white in the flat moonlight. I ran over and grabbed her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... when Lincoln left the railroad and crossed the prairie at some isolated town, that he went in state. The attentions he received were often very trying to him. He detested what he called "fizzlegigs and fireworks," and would squirm in disgust when his friends gave him a genuine prairie ovation. Usually, when he was going to a point distant from the railway, a "distinguished citizen" met him at the station nearest the place with a carriage. When they were come within two or three miles of the town, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... That's the man we're in with—I can't tell you his name, now—he's the one that owns the forty-nine per cent. They're crazy about copper or he'd never have looked at me—there's some big market fight coming on. And didn't he curse and squirm and holler, trying to make me give up my control? He told me in years he had never gone into anything unless he got more than half for a gift! But I told him 'no,' I'd been euchered out of one mine; and after his expert had reported on ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... summer not long ago, and that he gave her to understand that she could not, so she went away. If she's back, it means only one thing, and I think probably she'll succeed; but you can be sure it will make me squirm properly." ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... grassy concise nothing ginger faraway kettle shadow next mercy scrub hilltop internal recite shoestring narrative thunder seldom harbor jury eagle windy occupy squirm hobby balloon multiply necktie unlikely supple westbound obey inch broken relish ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... apt to mistake them for their natural Grub. When quickly drawn from the liquid element by the angler, they sometimes come up with a single drop of water hanging to them, and sometimes—though more rarely—with two Gills. The question whether the hook hurts them, or only tickles till they squirm, is one of those knotty problems that physiologists have failed to solve. COWPER, the poet, had a tenderness for the earthworm. So also had IZAAK WALTON, who recommends that he be skewered "tenderly, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... making desperate efforts to squirm away now, but his position was such that he was unable to bring his full strength to ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the fat rower, 'I know what you're after, sir—it's Jack Everett's launch, commonly called "Squirm". She's got a four-bladed propeller, and one blade ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... ball glides along in the intense and immediate vicinity of the object-ball, and a count seems exquisitely imminent, lift one leg; then one shoulder; then squirm your body around in sympathy with the direction of the moving ball; and at the instant when the ball seems on the point of colliding throw up both of your arms violently. Your cue will probably break ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in the Bible that you had to do because it said to, whether you liked it or not, that was the one you struck oftenest in life and it took the hardest pull to obey. It was just the hatefulest text of any, and made you squirm most. There was no possible way to get around it. It meant, that if you liked a splinter new slate, and a sharp pencil all covered with gold paper, to make pictures and write your lessons, when Clarissa Polk sat next you and sang ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. Ay! your first-person-singular novelist delights in relating his love-story, simply because he can invent something to pamper his own romantic notions; whereas, a similar undertaking makes the faithful chronicler squirm inasmuch as ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and back again, but it was plainly the Wonder whom he wished to propitiate. Then he suddenly backed as if he had dared too much, flopped on to the wet grass and regarded us both with foolish, goggling eyes. For a few seconds he lay still, and then he began to squirm along the ground towards us, a few inches at a time, stopping every now and again to bleat and gurgle with that curious, crooning note which he appeared to think would pacificate ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... oppression of the times and by the barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden purses; and the scene generally ends in a bit of wild horse-play. There is fighting enough, and ambush and sudden death lurk at every turn of the lonely roads; but there is also a ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... out. He laid the book down to light it before he began to read. In spite of himself he listened to hear what they were saying now in the next room. Eugenia was talking and he didn't like what she was saying about those recurrent dreams of Marise's, because he knew it was making poor Marise squirm. She had such a queer, Elly-like shyness about that notion of hers, Marise had. It evidently meant more to her than she had ever been able to make him understand. He couldn't see why she cared so much about it, hated to have it talked about casually. But he wasn't Eugenia. If Marise ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... desk, Donna was beginning to squirm quietly and make groping motions with her outstretched hands. Truesdale had retreated to the forward end of the control room, ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... resolved in the selection of her draperies and ornaments to buy things which suggested by their looks that they were handsome, and whose claim to distinction was not mere sober unobtrusiveness. She realized that some of her purchases would have made Wilbur squirm, but since his death she felt more sure than ever that even where art was concerned his taste was subdued, timid, and unimaginative. For instance, she believed that he would not have approved her choice of light-blue satin for the upholstery ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... wad of bills squirm out of the toe of a stockin'! It's new game to me. I've always worked the personal touch. But I'll sure give ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... which sbiten is brewed for all attending a local market—hastened to seat himself upon the shaft horse, which almost sank to the ground beneath his weight. "NOW they will go all right!" the muzhiks exclaimed. "Lay it on hot, lay it on hot! Give that sorrel horse the whip, and make him squirm like a koramora [22]." Nevertheless, the affair in no way progressed; wherefore, seeing that flogging was of no use, Uncles Mitai and Minai BOTH mounted the sorrel, while Andrusha seated himself upon the trace horse. Then the coachman ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of principal and principle is different. When I was young, educated people in my circle always, I believe, distinguished them; so to this day when I hear principal pronounced as principle it gives me a squirm, tho' I am afraid nearly everybody does it now. That the words are etymologically distinct does not greatly matter; it is of more importance that I have sometimes been puzzled to know which word a speaker meant; if I remember right, I ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... not want to fly," said he, "I only want to squirm!" And he drooped his wings dejectedly, But still his voice was firm; "I do not want to be a fly! I want to ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... paddock and jogged quietly down to the starting point. There were some eight starters. Down went the flag, away we went, and I took Albatross to the front. He was a fine jumper, but he had one fault; he was inclined to run down his fences, and squirm a little when jumping. We went once round the course. We were coming to the wall for the second time just in front of the grand stand and Albatross was moving like a bird. I let him just "gang his ain gait"; nothing behind me could force the pace. He led the field easily, and ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... with a snort. "Had to, didn't he? Farnsworth asked him where he was, didn't he? Had to squirm out somehow, didn't he? Got about as much spine as a taller candle with the wick drawed out, accordin' to his own showin'. Better weed him out, better weed him ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... to squirm out of the man's grasp—a fruitless effort, for his strength availed nothing against that iron grip. The boy had no idea what "'dentify" might mean but he had his reasons for preferring to keep at a distance from the guardians of the law. There was no help ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... wise, and shudder as in misery; in vain the prima donna tries to win approving smiles from me; in vain the tenor or the bass, to gain from me admiring looks, pours floods of music through his face—I squirm as though on tenderhooks. And people watch my curves and sigh; "He has it all by heart, by jing! What melody would reach the sky if he would ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... done it. And I'm no more of a renegade than the usual run of the men who have to play politics for results. I don't believe you are going to get results, General. But that's neither here nor there. There's no more squirm left in me. I'll take hold of this campaign and elect you. If there's any crumbs coming to me after that, all right! I'm ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... they ask. And that is not an easy task; I have to be so many things, The frog that croaks, the lark that sings, The cunning fox, the frightened hen; But just last night they stumped me, when They wanted me to twist and squirm ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... second. I reckoned he couldn't fall complete, fur where his feet was tied would likely hold even if his knee come straight—but he would die mebby with his head filling up with blood. But finally he made a squirm and raised himself a lot and grabbed the rope at one side of the bar. And then he reached and got the rope on the other side, and set straddle of her. And jest as he done that the wind ketched the balloon good and hard, and she turned out toward Lake Erie. It was too late fur him to pull the rope ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... hair entirely burnt off on the top of my head?" he asked in comical despair. "These are the hottest coals of fire I've ever had handed out to me, That wretch of a Ruth knew she was making us squirm." ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... river, where it was cool and refreshing, he uttered no word of complaint, but rather enjoyed the experience.The crocodile crawled in to a cave, and prepared to digest the marionette at its leisure. Pinocchio was naturally annoyed at this and began to kick and squirm about. ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... that Happy Jack endeavored to expostulate, but Irish glared at him in a way to make Happy squirm and stammer incoherently. ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... states is used as a club to beat our brains out. Once, when we were all primed to settle this issue decisively, the immortal Theodore Roosevelt—our two-fisted, non-bluffable President at that time—made us call off our dogs. Later, when again we began to squirm under our burden, the Secretary of State, pacific William J. Bryan, hurried out to our state capital, held up both pious hands, and cried: 'Oh, no! Really, you mustn't! We insist that you consider the other members of the family. Withhold this radical legislation until we can settle ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... night," answered outspoken Hal; "where to put the verbs, and how to split them, makes my hair stand on end, and the ink squirm ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... grossly inartistic, lacking every feature which makes for solemnity and beauty. The detail was coarse and roughly finished, the red-brick walls, as always, an offence to the eye; big texts seemed to squirm, like semi-paralysed eels, over the chancel arch and round the East window. The latter, off which Jimmy could hardly take his eyes, was a veritable triumph of the Victorian tradition. Its colouring was gruesome, its design grotesque; and ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... my head an' shoulders through. 'low I could squirm out o' hell if I could git my shoulders through. I'll go ahead an' you pass out ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... news." As he spoke he was gathering the amazed Ruth and Martha under his wing and kissing them, crying, "Take that one for luck—and that to grow on." Then he let out his laugh. But in vain did Emma Morton try to squirm from his grasp; in vain she tried to quiet his clatter. "Say, girls, cluster around Brother George's knee—or knees—and let's ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to banish that before-breakfast ill-humour, you must brave cold water in an attempt to find enough fuel to cook with, then your philosophy and early religious training avail you little. The first ninety-nine times you are forced to do this you will probably squirm circumspectly through the bush in a vain attempt to avoid shaking water down on yourself; you will resent each failure to do so, and at the end your rage will personify the wilderness for the purpose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... by the good, but the cloud that hides the sun and casts the shadow. Not the "silence implying sound," but the discord breaking the harmony. Evil is as real as the fire that burns you, as the flood that drowns you. Evil is as real as the typhoid germ that you can put under a microscope and see it squirm and grow. Evil is negative,—yes, but it is a real negative,—as real as ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... boy to give in without a struggle, but kick and squirm as he might, he could not free himself. Presently those who were carrying him stopped and laid him on the sidewalk. Then he heard a knock and a gate opened. Then he was lifted up again and, almost before he knew it, he was thrust into a little ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... hell one night and stop bothering him with her damned wailing ... and Frankie dying at her feet whispering, "What the devil, Pauline?" Then the trial. Hot and cold hours. A roomful of silent, open-mouthed faces listening to her weep, watching her squirm with proper shame and anguish as she told her story to the jurors ... the details of the abortion. "And then I couldn't stand it. I don't remember what happened. Oh, I loved him! I don't remember. He cursed me. He called me a ... Oh, God, names. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... a couple of strides to the edge of the little stream and there held her threateningly over the bank. The two young men shouted approval and Myrtle began to squirm. At first she demanded coyly to be set down, and then with more sharpness in her tone. Joe looked into her eyes. They were unfathomable. Her peach-bloom cheeks were quite pink. But there were a few tiny wrinkles about her mouth that he had never seen before. Made her look ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... wished myself at home. The tales I had heard of the voracity and fierceness of the striped catamount were made much more terrible by the darkness. My position was so cramped and the old sleigh so hard that I had to squirm occasionally; but every time I did ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... said Mollie, dropping her voice. "Mother is dreadfully worried over him. And everybody is talking, Eb. It just makes me squirm. Flora Jane Fletcher asked me last night why father never testified, and him one of the elders. She said the minister was perplexed about it. I felt my face ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hot after him, and he knew not how to defend himself. His photograph was implored. He was waylaid by journalists shabby and by journalists spruce, and the resulting interviews made him squirm. He became a man of mark at Pickering's. Photographers entreated him to sit free of charge. What irritated him in the whole vast affair was the continual insistence upon his lack of years. Nobody seemed to be interested in his design for the town ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... well-aimed, a backward tug, A well-resisted squirm, Then calm indifference as before. But oh, alack, ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... like a bear with a sore head; he also cast a side look at his companion, as though questioning his sincerity. Asa liked to see anyone squirm, and often did and said things just for that privilege. His companions had long ago declared that he was cut out for a surgeon—or a butcher, ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... has no more heart than a butterfly, and I'd like to see her squirm on a pin! Poor Ruth! we'll settle that matter, and bury old Ben like an admiral, hang me ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... out!" she warned Buster. "Once the Robber Fly pounces on you you'll be so frightened you can't even squirm." ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... her bundle squirm from the moment it was given to her. She enlarged on the hint Colonel Menard had given, and held the drapery bound tightly around the prisoner. The boat shot past the church, and over the spot where St. John's bonfire ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... piercing voice; "you're the very man I wanted to meet to-day. Good morning, Wentworth. Well, how about diamonds now, Sir Gorgius? You'll have to sing small. It's all up with you Midases. Heard about this marvellous new discovery of Schleiermacher's? It's calculated to make you diamond kings squirm like an ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... man on her seaboard alone—plunder that would enrich a nation—and she has neither a navy nor half a dozen first-class ports to guard the whole. No man catches a snake by the tail, because the creature will sting; but you can build a fire around a snake that will make it squirm. ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... she and I. Door gave on to a lane running up into the Penny Green road. She tried at him again, gently, very tenderly, 'Marko, Marko, dear.' Would have made your heart squirm. I tried at him: 'Now then, old man.' Swung round on us. 'Let me alone. Get away. Get ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... as pods of bees swarming about their queen. So dense is this grouping of living creatures that the inner ones are smothered by their crowding fellows and serve merely as a foundation on which these build. Even among these swarm starfishes and limpets and other crustaceans, and streamers of kelp squirm out from the rock where they keep slender hold, to sway in the restless water, just as all the rocks above a certain depth and below a certain height are olive black with dense hangings of rockweed while ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... course. He knew then that he could beat Paul. Good to know. But never sure of it, always having to prove it. The successes came, and always he let Paul know about them, watched Paul's face like a cat. And Paul would squirm, and sneer, and tell Dan that in the end it was brains that would pay off. Sour grapes, of course. If Paul had ever squared off to him again, man to man, they might have had it over with. But Paul just seemed content to sit ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... out a little—there's a big hole underneath. You can squirm your way through. I'm going ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... had, cause you ain't old enough to 'member it. Many a time I've heard the bull whips a-flying, and heard the awful cries of the slaves. The flesh would be cut in great gaps and the maggits (maggots) would get in them and they would squirm in misery. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... of these." I indicated the garment over the pillow, and he wiggled. "Please don't squirm," I said coldly. "You will wear out your—lingerie, and I will ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the railing, and his big, flat chin resting on his upturned, stubby thumbs. He was there to see that each of us, his creatures, dependent absolutely upon him for our political lives, should vote as he had sold us in block. There was no chance to shirk or even to squirm. As the roll-call proceeded, one after another, seven of us, obeyed that will frowning from the gallery,—jumped through the hoop of fire under the quivering lash. I was eighth ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... they watched the dwarf drone-grubs squirm feebly on the grass. Many sound bees had nursed on that frame, well knowing their work was useless; but the actual sight of even useless work destroyed ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling |
