"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slippery by the moss, and Lynde followed on in silence, hardly able to realize the success of the ruse which had come so near being a failure. His companion was equally preoccupied. Once she stopped for Lynde to detach her dress from a grasping twig, and once to pluck one of those pallid waxen flowers which sometimes dauntlessly find a footing even among the snowdrifts of the higher Alps. The air was full of the resinous breath of the pines, whose boughs, meeting and interlacing overhead, formed an arabesqued roof, through the openings of ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... allowing no bushes to rustle as they passed. Willet led the line, and Tayoga brought up the rear. Grosvenor was just behind Robert. He, too, was now able to bring down his feet in soundless fashion, and to avoid every stick or twig that might break with a crack beneath his weight. While he was aware of the perils before them, his heart beat high. He felt that he was making further progress, and that he was becoming a worthy ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Ride your ways, Ellan- gowan! Our bairns are hanging at our weary backs; look that your braw cradle at home be the fairer spread up. Not that I am wishing ill to little Harry, God forbid! So ride your way, for these are the last words ye'll ever hear Meg Merrilies speak, and this is the last twig that I'll ever cut in the bonny woods ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... let me measure you. My, but you have grown tall, and keep slim, so there will be less for stays to do. 'As the twig is bent,' you know," laughing and showing her even teeth, of which she was very proud. "And a fine figure is a great advantage. Your hands are not ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... allow half a pound of sugar, and a pint of wine. Cover the dish, with a large sheet of brown paper tied on; set it in a moderate oven, and let them bake till tender all through which you may ascertain by sticking a broom twig through them. They will he done in about an hour, or they may probably require more time; but you must not let them remain long enough in the oven, to break or fall to pieces. When cool, put them up in a stone jar. In cold weather they ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... to Liverpool in the steamer, I became acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family. Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my other relations mention with immense pride and respect the Todworths,—as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to be able to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of his snoring, which kept them awake, Thor thrice dealt him fearful blows with his hammer. These strokes, instead of annihilating the monster, merely evoked sleepy comments to the effect that a leaf, a bit of bark, or a twig from a bird's nest overhead had fallen upon his face. Early on the morrow, Skrymir left Thor and his companions, pointing out the shortest road to Utgard-loki's castle, which was built of great ice blocks, with huge glittering ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... at my watch; it was six o'clock, and thus wanted two hours to daybreak. Hurriedly I left the inn and went out again. A rimy frost had come upon every twig and bush and tree, and in the light of the moon the ice crystals sparkled as though the spirits had scattered myriads of precious stones everywhere. But I thought not of this. I made my way toward the spot from which I thought I had heard the sound ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... wild rwose now do hang in zight, To mornen zun an' evenen light, The bird do whissle in the gloom, Avore the thissle out in bloom, But here alwone the tree do leaen. The twig that woonce did whiver there Is now a limb a-wither'd beaere: Zoo I do miss the sheaede above My head, an' me'th ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... was not successful. When within a few feet of the summit, the adventurer grasped at a twig too slenderly rooted to sustain his weight. It gave way in his hand, and he fell backward down the precipice. His head struck against the less perpendicular part of the rock, whence the body rolled heavily down to the detached fragment, of which mention has heretofore been made. There was ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the bright round smooth pebble, by the gaily fluttering bit of paper, by the smooth bit of board, by the rectangular block, by the brilliant quaint leaf. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself erect, that can walk only with the greatest care—he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it, and like the bird carries it to his nest. See him again, laboriously stooping and slowly going forward on the ground, under the eaves of the roof (the deep eaves of the Thuringian peasant house). ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... think it was, dear old Patricia miss?" persisted Bones, and interrupted her ingenious speculation in his usual aggravating manner: "The sound of a footstep breakin' a twig a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... wood was of wonderful toughness, and Gourlay had been known to bet that no man could break the handle of his stick by a single grip over the crook and under it. Yet now, as he saw his bargain whisked away from him and listened to Wilson's jibe, the thing snapped in his grip like a rotten twig. He stared down at the broken pieces for a while, as if wondering how they came there, then dashed them on the ground while Wilson stood smiling by. And then he strode—with a look on his face that made ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... country of the Weezee, of whose curious customs they had an opportunity of seeing more. Both sexes are inveterate smokers. They quickly manufacture their pipes of a lump of clay and a green twig, from which they extract the pith. They all grow tobacco, the leaves of which they twist up into a thick rope like a hay-band, and then coil it into a flattened spiral, shaped like a target. They are very fond of dancing. A long strip of bark or cow-skin is laid on the ground, and the Weezee ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... monotonous!" he exclaimed, still speaking French. Then rapidly recovering his consciousness as the full horror of the situation began to break on his mind, he went on muttering audibly: "Have they really hopped the twig? Bah! Fudge! what has not been able to knock the life out of one little Frenchman can't have killed two Americans! They're all right! But first and foremost, let ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikiu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool," chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... The twig is so easily bended, I have banished the rule of the rod; I have taught them the goodness of Knowledge, They have taught me the goodness of God. My heart is a dungeon of darkness, Where I shut them from breaking a rule; My frown ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... it be in one of the classrooms, Eric; not up here, lest we have another incursion of the 'Rosebuds.' I shall have to cut preparation, but that don't matter. It's Harley's night, and old Stupid will never twig." ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... judging from the many reports sent us by our youthful correspondents. Crocuses have pushed upward to the spring sunshine, and rose bushes are beginning to send out tender green shoots. "Pussies" have been reported by C. H. W., Mary M. R., Joe Ward, and many others; and Louis C. Vogt sends a twig of these pretty downy tokens of spring, which he accompanies with a very neatly printed letter. It is now time to begin to watch for violets and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the pan and teeth of the trap, thinking to hide it; but it not only smells of the hand, but withers up and turns brown, and acts as a warning to that wary creature. It is a better plan if any dead leaves are lying near to turn them over and over with the end of a twig till they fall on the trap, that is if they are dry: if wet (unless actually raining at the time), should one chance to be left with the drier under surface uppermost, the rat may pause on the brink. Now that the remotest chance of leaving a scent was avoided the wire became ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... altered the appearance of the country and given me a new scene. The invisible air, as if charged with colour, has spread another tone broadly over the landscape. Omitting no detail, it has worked out afresh every little bough of the scattered hawthorn bushes, and made each twig distinct. It is ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... the orchard or the wood, in the garden or by the rustic wayside. We have seen him, on still winter-days, flitting from tree to tree, with the liveliest motions and in the most engaging attitudes, examining every twig and branch, and winding over and under and in and out among them, and, after a few lively notes, hopping to another tree to pass through the same manoeuvres. Even those who are confined to the house are not excluded from a sight of these birds; one cannot open a window, on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... no doubt," said the palliard, who was incomparably the shabbiest rascal in the corps. "Though a needy mizzler mysel, I likes to see a cove vot's vel dressed. Jist twig his swell kickseys and pipes;[31] if they ain't the thing, I'm done. Lame Harry can't dance better nor he—no, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the next day might bring forth. I wanted to sleep and rest, so as to rise refreshed when the doctor called me two hours after midnight, when I was to relieve guard; but sleep would not come, and I lay fidgeting about, wondering how it was possible that such a small twig could set up so much irritation ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice, which were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore, and having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being pulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you walked ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... regularity, seemed awful, and the deep low sigh uttered by Breezy sounded quite startling; but there was nothing else—no sound of the powerful cats coming cautiously round, winding in and out among the rocks and bushes, and not a twig was stirred. ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... burned. In the narrow crack between the oven and the wall rested always a birch rod, which was often referred to at critical moments. A new rod, with brightly coloured feathers attached to the tip of every twig, appeared regularly on Shrove Tuesday and tended slightly to spoil that otherwise glorious day, when large cross buns stuffed with a mixture of crushed almond and sugar were served in hot milk for ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... appears dimly to fore-shadow the office of the evil archer Loki, who in the Scandinavian mythology shoots Balder with a mistletoe twig. The language closely resembles ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... dark patches on the log; the color was as concealing, here in its natural surroundings, as is the color of our common wood-frog among the dead leaves of our woods. When I stirred it up it jumped to a small twig, catching hold with the disks of its finger-tips, and balancing itself with unexpected ease for so big a creature, and then hopped to the ground and again stood motionless. Evidently it trusted for safety to escaping observation. We saw some monkeys ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... dry ditch with laborious care. They advanced no single inch without first taking care to move aside any twig the snapping ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... known by its two tall trees, and that nearest the sea, when viewed from the east, appears surmounted by what resemble the "Kangaroo's Head:" they are cones of regular shape, covered to the topmost twig with the lightest green Flagellaria. The "bush" now becomes beautiful, rolling in bulging masses of verdure to the very edge of the clear brown stream. As in the rivers of Guinea, the llianas form fibrous ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Siege of Leyden, 1574. J. William Beekman, the President of the Holland Society, said: "Gentlemen, we will now proceed to the next regular toast. It is of interest to all: 'New York, the child of New Amsterdam—Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.' I call upon Mr. Frank R. Lawrence, President of the Lotos Club, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... He leaves his retreat before sunrise to feed on the insects over the water; he returns to it as soon as the sun's rays cause a glare of light, is sedentary all day long, and comes out again for a short tune after sunset. He builds his nest on a twig over the water in the unfrequented creeks: ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... used at other times for the protection of the strawberry beds) they were enabled, under shelter themselves, to shake the branches of the big tree which overshadowed the swing and the position of the enemy. Every twig and branch was, of course, laden with snow, and masses fell in rapid succession upon the heads of the defenders. This was annoying at first, but at a word from Sir Toady, Sweetheart and he seized their intrenching tools, calling out: "Thank you—thank ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... worth looking at. He lay rigid, like a dried twig, with his eyes shut tight, and his mouth shut tight, and his hands clenched tighter still. It really seemed as if this time Mr. Snawdor was going to make good his old-time threat ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... In regard to connection of this "sign-language" and Indian "pictography," Mr. McRae has told me the following: Whenever an Indian breaks up his camp, and wishes to leave behind him information in what direction and how far he is going, he plants into the ground near the fire a twig or stick, and breaks it so that it forms an acute angle, planting the other end in the ground also in the direction in which he intends to camp the following evening. The following would very well give the appearance of this little ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... "Twig the yellow beggar, will you, Gib?" said McGuffey; "one eye half open for all the world like he was winkin' at ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... to believe that fifty years ago this spot was the end of the Petersburg world. But at that epoch the Nevsky was decorated with rows of fine large trees, which have now disappeared to the last twig. The Fontanka River, or canal, over which we stand, offers the best of the many illustrations of the manner in which Peter the Great, with his ardent love of water and Dutch ways, and his worthy successors have turned natural disadvantages ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... hither, open hence, Scarce a bramble weaves a fence, Where the strawberry runs red, With white star-flower overhead; Cumbered by dry twig and cone, Shredded husks of seedlings flown, Mine of mole and spotted flint: Of dire wizardry no hint, Save mayhap the print that shows Hasty outward-tripping toes, Heels to terror on the mould. These, the woods of Westermain, Are as others to behold, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Say," he drawled, when he had lighted it with a twig from the fire, "what the hell did you whallop me in the jaw for? I seen it comin' but I couldn't dodge, an' when she hit—it seemed like I was all tucked away in my little crib, an' somewhere, sweet ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... and which the visitor might have hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of a great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... contrast between the two Visions—the blossoming twig and the boiling caldron brewing tempests from the North. Unrelated as these seem, they symbolise together Jeremiah's prophesying throughout. For in fact this was all blossom and storm, beauty and terror, tender yearning and thunders ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... them, makes a picture that is brilliant in the extreme, when you consider the relative values of the colors composing it. Then you will discover that the charm is not confined to the color of the fruit, but to the delicate tracery of branch and twig, as well. ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... the lash of Sim's whip to his collar that he might not go too fast for them, told him to find Theodora. Instantly he pulled away through the brushwood, giving a little yelp now and then as the stiff remnant of some broken twig or ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... a lady of charm and beauty in the vicinity who went by the name of Mrs. Bo. They said she had gone well to hounds in her youth, but I had never observed her jump a twig. She often joined us when Peter and I were changing horses and once or twice had ridden home with us. Peter did not appear to like her much, but I was too busy to notice this one way or the other. One ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... no one to warn her of the dangers abroad, so when she came to the railroad track she just settled upon it, with no more fear than if it were a twig. An ugly brown worm that had been sunning himself on a ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ultimately becoming professional stage dancers. They know the emoluments. They know that one daughter on the dancing stage is worth ten in the parlor—financially. They know, too, that old adage "as the twig is bent," and the rest of it, so they start their twigs straight and in fertile soil with faith that in this way their child's future is well and happily provided for. A knowledge of stage dancing is a life insurance policy that ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... could now here and there make out, by the aid of his light, a broken twig, trampled ferns and down-crushed grass. Once he distinguished a blood-stain on a limb—fresh blood, not coagulated. A groan burst from between his ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... hurried to say, 'the solitude has grown intolerable. I know what that means, I have lived so long in the eternal stillness sometimes that the first patter of a rain on the leaves came like the tramp of an army, and the snapping of a twig rang ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... off three twigs of the pine. Just snapped them in two with nervous fingers. Here are pieces lying on the ground. Now, a man does that sort of thing almost unconsciously. He will not reach up for the twig or down for it, but he breaks it because it presents itself to him at the corner of his eye. This man was six feet in height or more and built very powerfully. I think I know him! Yes, I'm sure I know him! Nor is it at all strange that ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... here and there its scarlet tinge. It was very still, yet all alive with woodsy sounds. Now a belated cicada swung his rattle as if in a fright, next a bull-frog, with hoarse kerchug! took a header for his evening bath. Once, later on, when the shadows were falling, a sleepy thrush settled upon a twig near by, and sang his good-night in sweetest tones. About this time he heard a farm-boy calling anxiously through the neighboring wood for the lost Sukey of the herd, and at times a dusty rumble announced a wagon jolting homeward over the unseen ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... which has been guided by no critical faculty, and which doesn't know where to stop. I try to admire it; and I end in pitying the poor artist. Look at that leafless felled tree in the middle distance. Every little twig, on the smallest branch, is conscientiously painted—and the result is like a colored photograph. You don't look at a landscape as a series of separate parts; you don't discover every twig on a tree; ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural, creative - to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid; well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling - twig? ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... third vetch, which clothe themselves in a segmented rod in turn. While on the other hand the fine sand-like grain of this snap-dragon needs storing in a capsule—such a quaint one it is (whether most like a bird or a mouse sitting on a twig is hard to say)—but it is a perfectly adapted treasure-bag for the delicate things, and when they are ripe the two eyes open, and the wind shakes the seed out by them! Each one lays itself out for ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... just about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There, over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender twig, balanced the little songster, pouring out his ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... gently and monotonously on the bar. The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune—some broken dream of old memories. A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... occasional crackle as a rotten twig or branch snapped beneath the hoofs. Slender trees slid athwart the moonlight, closed on one another, and opened out, and still, though the snow was scanty and in places swept away, Grant and a big ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... covered with green water weeds, I rapturously took in picture after picture. I still remember the man with bare body, engaged in a belated toilet on the edge of the tank, cleaning his teeth with the chewed end of a twig. Suddenly my elders became aware of my presence behind them. "Get away, get away, go back at once!" they scolded. They were scandalised. My feet were bare, I had no scarf or upper-robe over my tunic, I was not ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the train, the men of the evening shift, just come on, were swarming about the end of the overhang like ants upon the tip of a broken twig,—alert-eyed, quick-handed, cool-brained "Sons of Martha," who, balanced unconcernedly in mid-air on narrow stringers, clenched fast the rivets in Death's steel harness. During the lulls between ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... mysterious, impalpable portion of his own substance, and hence he seeks to embody it in some object, which thus becomes consecrated. The baho, which is inserted in the roof of the kiva, is a piece of willow twig about six inches long, stripped of its bark and painted. From it hang four small feathers suspended by short cotton strings tied at equal distances along the twig. In order to obtain recognition ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... twigs a bit here and there, and then, as she rose to depart, she looked me suddenly in the face and stopped, as much as to say, "Well, well! here's a pretty go! A man spying upon me!" I wondered whether she would throw up the work, but in another minute she was back again with another twig. The nest, I should have said, was about four feet from the ground, and perhaps twenty feet from the cottage. Four days later, I found her sitting upon it. She flew off as I came up, and I pushed into the scrub far ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... A twig crackled under a tread, and the next moment a man came out of the bushes at the left, and without a word took the bridle of the old horse from her fingers and vaulted into the saddle. The hand that rested a moment on the cantle as he rose grasped a "navy six." He was dressed in dull ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... dark, and he had not taken over a score of steps when he floundered into a hollow filled with water and mud. He leaped across this, to find himself in a split of the cliff, where the bushes were unusually high and thick. Here the rain hung heavily from every twig and soon soaked ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... we had to creep on all fours through the brushwood with the greatest caution; for gorillas are sharp-sighted, and they have a remarkably acute sense of hearing, so that sometimes the breaking of a dry twig under one's foot is sufficient ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Malvern Hill Remember every thing; But sap the twig will fill: Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... of the woods deepened into a stillness so profound that a dead leaf, fluttering from its twig and rustling to the ground, made her ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... lord, you will recall to mind that night We found the Prince in slumber deeply sunk Down in the garden 'neath the plantain trees. He dreamed, it seemed, of victories on the morrow, And in his hand he held a laurel-twig, As if to test his heart's sincerity. You took the wreath away, and smilingly Twined round the leaves the necklace that you wore, And to the lady, to your noble niece, Both wreath and necklace, intertwining, gave. At such a wondrous sight, the Prince, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby take out a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against the fence, something occurred to him. There was a curious exception to that rule of Alice's isolation. She had made at least one friend. Levi Gorringe seemed to like ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Should she go forward, or should she go back? At length she went forward, and, finding in the hedge the gap which Clayhanger had made, forced her way through it. Her skirt was torn by an obstinate twig. Quite calmly she bent down and with her fingers examined the rent; it was not important. She was now in the garden of the Clayhangers, and he whom she sought was moving somewhere in the house. "Supposing I do meet him," she thought, "what shall I say to him?" She did not know what she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... sage. Still Bannister waited. A less experienced plainsman would have blazed away and exposed his own position. But not this young man with the steel-wire nerves. Silent as the coming of dusk, no breaking twig or displaced brush betrayed his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... rich in design, and independent in its individuality. Counterpoint, said a critic in the London Musical News, shows the student how to make a harmonic phrase like a well-shaped tree, of which every bough, twig and leaf secures for itself the greatest independence, the fullest measure of light and air. Composer, interpreter and listener may all profit ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... twig in his hand, got it ablaze, and lighted his cigarette. He did not look at Billy Louise until he had taken a whiff or two. Then he stared at her for a full minute, and ended by flipping the charred twig ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... ahead of us, as sure as you live. Oh, look! That little twig jumped up into place right before my very eyes. Don't you see what that means, Maurice? He passed along here only a minute or so ahead of us. That twig didn't have time enough to get back to its position up to now. Phew! Perhaps he's laying for ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... The clouds of steam rising into the cold air from the surface of the warmer water were tinged with gold by the newly-risen sun. A heavy frost rested on the spruces and balsams that fringed the banks of the river, and as the sunlight struck one twig after another, it covered them with millions of points like diamonds. Many cakes of ice were floating in the river, showing that its navigation would soon be closed ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... hitherto attempted to fathom it. Utilizing his wide range of zoological and anatomical knowledge, he constructed a hypothetical tree of descent—or, if you prefer, ascent—from the root in a protozoon to the topmost twig or most recent offshoot, man. From that day till this Haeckel's persistent labors have been directed towards the perfection of that ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... "preferment" as he calls it, and a cure of souls at Margate. Rather rough on the dear old mater—bless her, always—She so liked the Hindhead country. But if you run up against Praddy you might let him know and he might get into touch with Vavasour Williams's people—twig?—F.G. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... animal that knows death is near, he wandered restlessly hither and thither, to look for some quiet spot. The courtyard only irritated him, so he walked down to the river where yellow leaves were floating, and threw a dry twig into the stream. For a long time he watched the eddying circles on the water as the floating leaves danced. He turned back and went towards the house, stopping to look at the ruined flower-beds where the last red blossoms yet lingered. Then ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... we could follow with greatest safety. M'Iver seemingly stopped to listen, or made up his mind to deviate to the side after a little; for I soon found myself running alone, and two or three men—to judge by their cries—keeping as close on me as they could by the sound of my plunging among twig and bracken. At last, by striking to an angle down a field that suddenly rolled down beside me, I found soft carpeting for my feet, and put an increasing distance between us. With no relaxation to my step, however, I kept running till I seemed a good way clear of Dalness policies, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of early spring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twig osiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampy places. Sylvia and Judith felt themselves one with this upward surge of new life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for no reason, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... self-consciousness, and all his attitudes are free and unstudied. The favorite position of the deer—his fore-feet in the shallow margin of the lake, among the lily-pads, his antlers thrown back and his nose in the air at the moment he hears the stealthy breaking of a twig in the forest—is still spirited and graceful, and wholly unaffected by the pictures of him which the artists have put ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... couldn't because his back was so stiff. "Now I am an old man and I shall never see another summer. Good-bye." And Fuzzy Caterpillar rolled himself up in a gray blanket and hung himself on the end of a dried twig. "This is the last of me," he said once more as the dried little grub he now was rattled ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a fine man in spite ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... power of sound. Nature is alive with music. In the fields, in the air, sound is a token of life. On high, bare, or snow-covered mountains the sense of oppression comes in great part from the absence of sound. But stand in spring under a broad, sapful Norway maple, leafless as yet, its every twig and spray clad in tender green flowerets, and listen to the musical murmur of bees above you, full of life and promise, a heavenly harmony from unseen choristers. Here is a symbol of the creative energy, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... bred, and although his progress was slower than the Texan's had been, he crept along as silently as one of the redskins themselves. Not a mesquite twig snapped under his body; not a pebble rattled. It seemed to take him hours to reach the hill which Kid Wolf had pointed out to him. As he did so, the moonlight again became so bright that it made the landscape nearly as white as day. For ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... no twig, no bough nor branch, therefore, The Saracens cut from that sacred spring; But yet the Christians spared ne'er the more The trees to earth with cutting steel to bring: Thither went Ismen old with tresses hoar, When night on all this earth spread forth her ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... is here, or none that hinders thought. The redbreast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd. Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drop of ice, That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Shu[u]zen spoke—"'A twig broken on the flowering branch of plum, and the whole is to be cut off.' Such the words of Kuro[u] Hangwan Yoshitsune. Kiku, you are a vile, treacherous woman; undeserving of Heaven's favour and the kindness shown by Shu[u]zen. Now you lie—with ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... across the pond, his dog following. Near the far shore was a bare spot on the ice cut by one of the sleigh-runners. Up in the woods, opposite, was the Moss Trail. Sunlight fell on the hills above him. He halted, looking up at the tree-tops. Twig, branch, and trunk glowed with the fire of diamonds through a lacy necking of hoar frost. Every tree had put on a jacket of ice and become as a fountain of prismatic hues. Here and there a dead pine rose like a spire of crystal; domes of ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... observed cases in only four genera, though we have vainly observed the cotyledons of many others. The genus cassia seems to be pre-eminent in this respect: thus, the cotyledons of C. tora, when extended horizontally, were both lightly tapped with a very thin twig for 3 m. and in the course of a few minutes they formed together an angle of 90o, so that each had risen 45o. A single cotyledon of another seedling was tapped in a like manner for 1 m., and it rose 27o in 9 m.; and after eight additional minutes it had risen 10o more; the opposite cotyledon, which ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... while we counted out the last seconds of the half, came a snap like that of a whip's lash, and the bowl of Richter's pipe lay smouldering on the grass. The noble had cut the stem as clean as it were sapling twig, and there stood Richter with the piece still clenched in his teeth, his eyes ablaze, and his cheek running blood. He pushed the surgeon away when he came forward with his needles. The Count was smiling as he put up his sword, his friends crowding around him, when Ebhardt cried out that his man ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sign of wit within. And as ill neighbours in the night Pull down an alehouse bush for spite; The laurel so, by poets worn, Is by the teeth of Envy torn; Envy, a canker-worm, which tears Those sacred leaves that lightning spares. And now, t'exemplify this moral: Tom having earn'd a twig of laurel, (Which, measured on his head, was found Not long enough to reach half round, But, like a girl's cockade, was tied, A trophy, on his temple-side,) Paddy repined to see him wear This badge of honour in his hair; And, thinking this cockade of wit Would his own temples better ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... more criticism, about Spenser &c. I think I could say something about him myself—but Lord bless me—these "merchants and their spicy drugs" which are so harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body, till I shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a few thoughts on paper for a newspaper. I "engross," when I should pen a paragraph. Confusion blast all ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... contributed to the moulding of our country and our people, as we find them at the present day. But again, as in geology, so here, we find few traces in our own immediate neighbourhood of the earlier links in this series—the people who preceded the historic Britons. On Twig Moor, near Brigg, in the north of the county, a tract of ground very similar to our own Moor, many flint implements have been found. On an excursion of our “Naturalists’ Union” to that tract, one of the party found ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... said, and raised her to the saddle—if I may say raised, for no bird ever hopped more lightly from one twig to another than she sprung from the ground ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... the Doctor seated in it, slowly ascending the winding steps of the Table. Reaching the flat top at last, it halted and the Doctor stepped out upon the flowery carpet. So still and perfect was the silence that even at that distance above I distinctly heard a twig ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Rigwoodie, tough. Rigwiddie is the rope crossing the back of a horse yoked in a cart; rig, back, and withy, a twig. Applied to anything strong-backed. {82c} Rise, "cherries in the rise," cherries on the twig. First English, hris, a twig, or thin branch. The old practice of selling cherries upon shoots cut from the tree ended in their ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... and dreary time for Hester, alone in the room where she had spent so many happy hours. She sat in a window, looking out upon the leafless trees and the cold gloomy old statue in the midst of them. Frost was upon every twig. A thin sad fog filled the comfortless air. There might be warm happy homes many, but such no more belonged to her world! The fire was burning cheerfully behind her, but her eyes were fixed on the dreary square. She was hardly thinking—only ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the pathway, Flecked with leafy light and shadow. 205 And his heart within him fluttered, Trembled like the leaves above him, Like the birch-leaf palpitated, As the deer came down the pathway. Then, upon one knee uprising, 210 Hiawatha aimed an arrow; Scarce a twig moved with his motion, Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled, But the wary roebuck started, Stamped with all his hoofs together, 215 Listened with one foot uplifted, Leaped as if to meet the arrow; Ah! the singing, fatal arrow; Like a wasp ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... He felt a tingling in his cheeks, his eyes were chill with momentary tears; he would have liked to move quite noiselessly, to steal along in secret. A cross gust of wind blew suddenly on him; he almost shuddered, and his heart stood still; a drowsy beetle fell off a twig and dropped with a thud on the path; Bersenyev uttered a subdued 'Ah!' and again stopped. But he began to think of Elena, and all these passing sensations vanished at once; there remained only the ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... on her broomstick. As she thought about it she became very enthusiastic, and getting upon her broom she went galloping about the house and back. When she got through performing in this outrageous manner—which fairly froze Gretel's blood in her veins—the old witch tickled Haensel with a birch-twig till ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and landed beside Amy on the stump while Betty and Mollie stepped to one side out of the reptile's path. Then, almost miraculously—or so Betty thought when she looked back upon it afterward—her eye fell upon a forked twig lying at her feet. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... that it was an Indian, and that he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of him ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... to do so Accustomed to the faded gallantries Alexander's exuberant discretion All Italy was in his hands All fellow-worms together Allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist Artillery At length the twig was becoming the tree Auction sales of judicial ermine Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies Beneficent and charitable purposes (War) Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century Burning of Servetus at Geneva ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the army. While riding in the country, he would often put his horse into a gallop, and with a pistol in each hand, never fail to cut off, in passing, the heads of the ducks or chickens which he took as his target. He could cut off a small twig from a tree at twenty-five paces; and I have even heard it said (I am far from guaranteeing the truth of this) that on one occasion, with the consent of the party whose imprudence thus put his life in peril, he cut half in two the stem of a clay pipe, hardly ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... a time I should wonder what event of the day would be woven into a dream; as I performed certain acts I found myself wondering, will this appear tonight, and how? One Sunday I walked across lots to church and on the way picked a twig of balm of Gilead poplar keeping it with me through service for its fragrance. That night I dream that I am in a pasture looking for fertile fronds of the cinnamon fern which I fail to find. I see cows and am afraid.—This based on reality of a few days before.—At length by a stone I ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... with a fair young armorer's aid, Fixing it on her rounded arm, A mimic shield with pride displayed; Then, springing towards a grove that spread Its canopy of foliage near, Plucked off a lance-like twig, and said, "To arms, to arms!" while o'er her head She waved the light ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... be snatched, same as a build-in' craw will pick sprigs o' green wood for her nest an' leave the dead twig to rot. Here I be, rotten an' coffin-ripe any time this two year, yet I'm passed awver for that braave young youth. An' how is it wi' you, Mr. Tregenza? I s'pose the Lard do look to His awn ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... often five nights out of the seven on duty in the cold and wet, the French had five nights out of seven in bed. This gave them far greater time to forage for fuel, which was principally obtained by digging up the roots of the vines and brushwood—every twig above the surface having long since been cleared away—to dig deep holes under their tents, to dry their clothes and to ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... one of those hand-electric torches, did you, Jack?" he exclaimed. "Well, a flashlight never had a better chance to make itself useful than right now. It's going to be a picnic from here on. I can see every little twig and blade of grass; and as for our trail, a fellow could follow it with one eye shut. Thank goodness! our troubles for the day are ended; unless it comes on to rain cats and dogs ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... too," said Cooney, "so soft, and even, and small, and warm, that it's playin' the very devil. Nothin' could stand it. Why it ud make a rotten twig grow if it was put into ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... was a mere twig on the Trans-Mississippi branch; and when the fall of Vicksburg severed the branch from the tree the twig ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... the back door and crept along the shadows of the hill. Beneath his foot a dry twig snapped. It was enough. He fled panic-stricken, pursued by all the demons of hell his fears could evoke. A deadly, unnerving terror clutched at his throat. The pounding blood seemed ready to burst the veins at ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... big Yale man stepped softly, as if he feared to alarm somebody or something. The moss beneath his feet gave no sound. Not even a twig snapped. Without knowing that he did so, Hodge ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... her flying visit to town. It was a pleasant room, with book-cases all round it filled with green glass in a lattice of brass-work. The books were hidden by the glass, but it reflected every movement of a bird or a twig or a cloud outside like green waters. The ceiling was domed like a sky and painted in sunny Italian scenery. It was not dull in the book-room on ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Harry Hazelton declared dolefully. "We drew lots on the other side. Greg drew the shortest twig, so he had to stay at the camp. I got the next shortest twig, so my ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads; 350 The countless Aphides, prolific tribe, With greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe; Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big, And pendent nations tenant every twig. Amorous with double sex, the snail and worm, Scoop'd in the soil, their cradling caverns form; Heap their white eggs, secure from frost and floods, And crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods. Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims, Breathes with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... now with joy. The shiftless one had not been taken nor slain, and doubtless none of the others either, or they would have referred to it. But he waited to hear more, and not a dead leaf nor a twig stirred in the thicket, he was ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of Westmoreland; he was one of the first of his day and his class to recognize that there was a future in trade, so, breaking his own little twig from the family tree, he went south to Wark and entered a ship-owning firm. In thirty years' time he died, the owner of one of the biggest trades in England, having married the daughter of his chief. My father was twenty-four and ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... cock, and examining every thicket of bushes to see if it concealed an enemy, we made but slow progress. Yet trusting more to the dog than to ourselves, we at length came in sight of the scene of our former exploits. All was quiet and still in the vicinity. Not a twig moved, unless displaced by a gaudy-colored parrot, too lazy, under the withering influence of ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... a little leaf was heard to cry and sigh, as leaves often do, when a gentle wind is blowing. And the twig said, "What is ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... three weeks, more and more wrinkled by abstinence, the little Spider never relaxes her position. Then comes the hatching. The youngsters stretch a few threads in swing-like curves from twig to twig. The tiny rope-dancers practise for some days in the sun; then they disperse, each ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... twig of box, a lilac spray, Will drive the goblin-horde away; And charm thy childlike heart to keep Her happy dream ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. Hush, beating heart of Christabel! Jesu, Maria, shield her well! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, And stole to the other side of the oak. What sees she there? There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. I hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in England. Yet change is at work, even in such a village as Whitnash. At a subsequent visit, looking more critically at the irregular circle of dwellings that surround the yew-tree and confront the church, I perceived ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... slavery, when that sovereignty is denied to the same people while in a territory, is a piece of transparent hypocrisy. Does not any sensible man know that prohibition of domestic slavery in a territory, is essentially prohibition of it in a State to be formed of that territory? As the twig is bent by Congress in the territory, so will the tree be inclined in the State. If slavery does not exist in a State at its organization, it will never exist there, unless forced there by the Federal government under the Breckinridge construction ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... somniferous school of literature. The profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleep, ordinarily, is as light, as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. To such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself, that he stirred not in his chair, when old Roger Chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Roman strenae were originally twigs, Christmas gifts in sixteenth-century Germany showed a connection with the twigs or rods of St. Martin and St. Nicholas. The presents were tied together in a bundle, and a twig was added to them.{65} This was regarded by the pedagogic mind of the period not as a lucky twig but as a rod in the sinister sense. In some Protestant sermons of the latter half of the century there are curious ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... my eyes as dazzled by the crown as yours were by the robes? Why did we leave the green hills of Osia? What destiny writes, fate must unfold. And oh, the dreams I had of being great! I am fifty-eight and you are seventy. And look; I am a broken twig, and you tower above me like an ancient oak, and as strong." To the chancellor he said: ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the county. From association with her Phil and Martin had developed an equal interest in outdoors. The Landis boy often came running into the Reist yard calling for Amanda and exclaiming excitedly, "I found a bird's nest! It's an oriole this time, the dandiest thing way out on the end of a tiny twig. ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... Aisi, so that so long as they stayed there they might, perhaps, get supplies of provisions with tolerable regularity. "But if you're over the water, my lad," said the old fellow with the can, picking his teeth with a twig, "and have got to get your victuals by ship; by George, you may have to eat grass, or ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... this"—Havelock made a clumsy stage-gesture of aversion from Chantry, the villain. "And for an instant he thought she was afraid of a Jersey cow that had come up to take part in the discussion. So he threw a twig ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... species between 18th and 30th May. Builds near the tops of moderate-sized trees in open districts, making a very shallow nest of thin elastic grasses sparingly used and without lining. The nest is placed on some horizontal branch against some upright twig, or at some horizontal fork. It is nearly round and has a diameter of about 6 inches. They lay three or four eggs of a sordid vernal green ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... I twig," said Ben, going forwards and then down the main hatchway, slipping off the cover ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... branches and the old woman's bent back jogged in time with it She never once spoke or looked around at us. "It isn't the noise we make that'll give us away," I said at last; and just then the old woman turned her head and pointed silently with the osier-twig she used as a whip. Just ahead of us lay a heap of ruins: the wreck, apparently, of a great chateau and its dependencies. "Lermont!" Rechamp exclaimed, turning white. He made a motion to jump out and then dropped back into the seat. "What's the use?" ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... Goodie She trots betimes Over the meadows To Farmer Grimes. And never was queen With jewelry rich As those same hedges From twig to ditch; Like Dutchmen's coffers, Fruit, thorn, and flower - They shone like William And Mary's bower. And be sure Old Goodie Went back to Weep, So tired with her basket ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... so that each commanded one of the runways indicated. How light it was, though the sun was hidden! Every branch and twig beamed in the sun like a lamp. A downy woodpecker below me kept up a great fuss and clatter,—all for my benefit, I suspected. All about me were great, soft mounds, where the rocks lay buried. It was a cemetery of drift ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... Bolshevism, he declared, was within our gates. He had been out to collect Christmas decorations in his own private fenced spinney, and confound it if some scoundrels hadn't been and gone and stripped his pet holly-tree of every twig! Anarchy was yapping at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... after, as Rosy lay up in a tree, waiting for the sun to rise, she heard a great buzzing close by, and saw a fly caught in a cobweb that went from one twig to another. The big spider was trying to spin him all up, and the poor fly was struggling to get away before his legs and wings ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... him. "And we certainly couldn't find ourselves surrounded by a prettier scene, with every twig covered with snow." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... developed, and very solitary footprint at which Robinson Crusoe is wont to stare in nursery picture-books. No; it was a print which was totally invisible to ordinary eyes, and revealed itself to these children of the woods in the form of a turned leaf and a cracked twig. Such as it was, it revealed a track which the three children followed up until they found Tom Brixton—or his body—lying on the ground ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... the two men coming toward him. They were outlined against the radiance from the motor-cars. Cautiously he stepped toward the south, hoping that they would pass him in the darkness, but he dared not move rapidly, lest a stumble or the breaking of a twig betray him. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... it is almost summer," said Rap, as they walked down a narrow lane toward the river. There were bushes lining the path on each side, and from the singing you would think that every bush had a bird on each twig. In fact, there were so many birds in sight that Nat did not know which to ask about first, and so kept looking instead ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Peter-bird's mind and soul with heavenly learning, how much she learned herself! Love poured from her, through voice and lips and eyes, and in return she drank it in thirstily from the little creature who sat there at her knee, a twig growing just as her bending hand inclined it; all the buds of his nature opening out in the mother-sunshine that surrounded him. Eleven thirty came all too soon. Then before long the kettle would begin to sing, the potatoes to bubble in the saucepan, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... adding to any tugong bula they may pass a sacred duty, the omission of which will meet with supernatural punishment, and so, however pressed for time a Dyak may be, he stops to throw on the pile some small branch or twig. ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... herbs, and flowers, might be able to rise with him, that they too might see this splendour, and experience this joy. The great majestic oak was not quite happy in his happiness, while he had not them all, great and little, about him; and this feeling of yearning trembled through his every twig, through his every leaf, warmly and fervently ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... thing. I couldn't even find a broken twig in any of the little clumps of outgrowing trees. There wasn't a sign of the sand having been disturbed anywhere down the face of the cliff, and I shouldn't think a human being had been on that beach during our lifetimes. I have had my night's ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... graves to hew the sprout away; But there comes a coal-black rider upon a coal-black horse, And he strives to save the new-born tree and drive the foe afar: Long they fight till the New Year's dawn—until black knight yields, And the foeman hews away the twig, and rides into the dawn, But there will come a time,'tis said, when the white knight must yield, And the twig will grow and its leaves will blow until the trunk is great: So great that a proud war horse 'neath its lower branch may go. And when the branch ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nearly done, thrust a twig or wooden skewer into it, down to the bottom. If the stick come out clean and dry, the cake is almost baked. When quite done, it will shrink from she sides of the pan, and cease making a noise. Then withdraw the coals (if baked in a dutch oven), take off the ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... fearful joy" by surreptitious visits to the mill stream, and when, with a little hazel rod, length of whipcord, and rude hooks whipped to twisted horsehair, we would hurry home to breakfast with a dozen roach strung through the gills upon a twig of osier. They were all ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... scabbard, and sheathed themselves in it cleverly. But when they came down, there was need of taking care lest they happened to touch the head, feet, or other parts of the body. For they fell with the point downwards, and in they stuck, or slit the continuum of some member, or lopped it off like a twig; either of which generally was enough to have killed a man, though he were a hundred years old, and worth as many thousand ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... place where he had cut his hazel-twig. There he did as the master of black-arts had told him; he poured the yellow water over the stump of hazel from which he had cut his staff. Then everything happened just as the other had said: first there ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... varied outlines of the clumpy foliage began to assume or imitate—say rather SUGGEST other shapes than their own. A light wind began to blow; it set the boughs of a neighbour tree rocking, and all their branches aswing, every twig and every leaf blending its individual motion with the sway of its branch and the rock of its bough. Among its leafy shapes was a pack of wolves that struggled to break from a wizard's leash: greyhounds would not have strained ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald |
