"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he watched in 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 ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... have had great designs of selling scions to orchardists and nurserymen over the whole country. Only a tiny twig, three inches long, is requisite for a scion for grafting into other trees. The Wild Rose Sweeting tree would produce thousands of such scions. Willis, who was a Yankee lad by ancestry, resolved to preserve the secret of the tree at all hazards. He ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... winding in the path, he found himself face to face with an old buffalo-bull, fast asleep, and lying down not ten yards off. To drop on one knee and level his piece was the work of an instant, but unfortunately he snapped a dry twig in doing so. The eyes of the huge brute opened instantly, and he had half risen before the loud report of the gun rang through the thicket. Leaping up, Tom Brown took advantage of the smoke to run back a few yards ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... will have mercy, and not sacrifice. And again, that it is not, nor shall be, in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that sheweth mercy. What hope, help, stay, or relief then is there left for the merit-monger? What twig, or straw, or twined thread is left to be a stay for his soul? This besom will sweep away his cobweb: The house that this spider doth so lean upon, will now be overturned, and he in it to hell fire; for nothing less than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... works upon the waves, or as the leaf's movements work upon the sap inside the branch. The whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has happened, and are different for the wave's and the leaf's action having occurred. A grafted twig may modify its stock to the roots:—so our outlived private experiences, impressed on the whole earth-mind as memories, lead the immortal life of ideas there, and become parts of the great system, fully distinguished from ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... person, he felt disinclined to go up to the house and demand to see Miss Chesterton. Yet see her he would—but how? He was frowning over this problem when it was resolved for him quite unexpectedly; roused by the sound of a snapping twig, he glanced up—and Hermione was before him. She was coming down a narrow path that wound amid the leaves, and because she wore no hat, the sunlight, filtering through the branches, made a glory of her hair as she passed. Her head was bowed, and she walked ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... or respectable. In my early childhood—if it may be called so—I was beaten and starved, set to beg, forced to thieve, and never had a kind word said to me or a kind deed done to me. No wonder I grew up a callous, hardened ruffian. As the twig is bent, so will ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... up against a tree and stretched her arms out like 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 at its nose." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... she became much alarmed, for the little child was gone. She sprang up, lighted a twig of the pine tree, and looked about; and, to her amazement, she saw, in the part of the bed to which she stretched her feet, not the beautiful infant, but a great ugly frog. She was so much disgusted with it that she ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... were a few who said, with gleeful certainty, that the elder daughter was a mere twig who could hide within the shadow of her bounteous ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... I painted you in, to every twig and flower, every hill and meadow, every sunrise ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said nothing, though, and she-still sweeping, with her back toward him—passed by the cage, and stooped to scratch at some hard-caked dirt or other close to the rubbish hole where the Hindoo waited. Still scratching, still working with her twig broom, still with her back toward the rubbish hole, she approached until the darkest ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... me," he thought in his little round head as he tried to wriggle across the road and 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 around ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... has had its supper, and now it is getting ready to go to sleep here, quite secure and content, never troubling itself what its food will be, or where its lodging on the morrow. Like David, it 'abides under the shadow of the Almighty.' It sits on its little twig content, and lets ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... was clear; then the thigh-deep grass, which is the lip of the bush, was about him, grey, dry as straw, rustling as he thrust through it with the noise of paper being crumpled in the hands. A green parrot, balancing clown-like on a twig, screamed raucously; he glanced up at its dazzle of feathers. Then the wall of the bush itself yielded to his thrusting, let him through, and closed behind his blue-clad back. Africa had received him to ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... roving gaze, the 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 so savagely! I watched them with an interest that grew as the wind ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... Gawain and his ladylove reached the top of a hill, whence they could look across a valley to a gigantic castle, perched on a rock, near which was a pine tree. Orgueilleuse now informed Gawain that the castle belonged to her mortal enemy, Gramoflaus. She bade him bring her a twig of the tree, and conquer the owner of the castle, who would challenge him as soon as he touched it, and promised that if he obeyed her exactly she ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... laughter, then like crying. It dropped closer, rushed headlong past the window, rattled and shook the sash, then dived away into the darkness. Its violence startled them. A deep lull followed instantly, and the little tapping of the twig was heard again. Odd! Just when the Night-Wind seemed furthest off it was all the time quite near. It had not really gone at all; it was hiding against the outside walls. It was watching them, trying to get in. The ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... rustling in the bushes at one side of the garden, and the sound of a breaking twig, and, seizing a hoe which stood by the door, he sprang toward the point from which ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... sacred wands around the rainbow, commencing on the west side of the painting, and repeated a prayer, pointing his finger to the head of each figure. He also placed a small gourd of medicine water in the hands of the rainbow goddess and laid a small cedar twig on the gourd. The invalid upon entering the lodge was handed an Apache basket containing sacred meal, which he sprinkled over the painting and placed the basket near the feet of the rainbow goddesses; the song-priest and choir sang ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... think it is 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 ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... winning ways had forced grim old winter to a hasty retreat northward, and now exulted in her unchallenged sway. All the birds on this morning seemed to have come out to help her in her celebration. A red-bird, perched on the tip-top twig of the venerable oak which stood near the church, bathing his crimson feathers in the morning sun, warbled his sweetest notes to his mate in a hawthorn thicket across the field. Rollicking robins were vying with each other ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... flakes, as they fall On bank and brier and broken wall; Over the orchard, waste and brown, All noiselessly they settle down, Tipping the apple-boughs, and each Light quivering twig of plum ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... robins whistled, thief-like, over the cherry-trees; the killdeer, from some high twig, sent forth his sweet clear note; and now and then a pair of wheels rolled softly along the smooth road: the rush of the wind filled up the pauses. Anybody who was down by the Mong might have heard the soft roll of his blue ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... rude resemblance is necessary for the first start," &c.; and a little lower he writes: "Assuming that an insect originally happened to resemble in some degree a dead twig or a decayed leaf, and that it varied slightly in many ways, then all the variations which rendered the insect at all more like any such object, and thus favoured its escape, would be preserved, while ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... gently by tickling his nose with a twig of wild honeysuckle. He said 'Bother the flies!' twice, and then opened ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... well-grown specimen is in April a brilliant picture of vivid colour, and the shrub is sooner or later destined to a chief place amongst our ornamental flowering shrubs. P. japonica Maulei (syn Cydonia Maulei), from Japan (1874), is a rare shrub as yet, small of growth, and with every twig festooned with the brightest of orange-scarlet flowers. It is quite hardy, and succeeds well under treatment that will suit the ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... Joseph and I got out and struck through a willow swamp along a dim path, and by and by came out on the steep bank of a slough or inlet or something, and we followed that bank forever and ever trying to get around the head of that slough. Finally I noticed a twig standing up in the water, and by George it had a distinct and even vigorous quiver to it! I don't know when I have felt so much like a donkey. On an island! I wanted to drown somebody, but I hadn't anybody I could spare. However, after another long tramp we found ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Barnabas fared forth into the world; a morning full of the thousand scents of herb and flower and ripening fruits; a morning glad with the song of birds. And because it was still very early, the dew yet lay heavy, it twinkled in the grass, it sparkled in the hedges, and gemmed every leaf and twig with a flaming pendant. And amidst it all, fresh like the morning and young like the sun, came Barnabas, who, closing the door of the "Coursing Hound" behind him, leapt lightly down the stone steps and, turning his back upon the ancient inn, set off towards that hill, beyond which ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... and hose were few in number, and feeble in act. The landlord himself wandered objectless, eternally taking off his cap to folk for want of thought; and the women, as they passed him in turn, thrust him quietly aside without looking at him, as we remove a live twig ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... return to our subjeck. With our resunt grate triumps on the Mississippi, the Father of Waters (and them is waters no Father need feel 'shamed of—twig the wittikism?) and the cheerin' look of things in other places, I reckon we shan't want any Muslum of Harts. And what upon airth do the people of Concord, N.H., want a Muslum of Harts for? Hain't you got the State House now? & what more ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... one, broke my pot yesterday, whilst he was scrambling with Philip for what remained of the contents." I inquired for the eldest; and she had scarcely time to tell me that he was driving a couple of geese home from the meadow, when he ran up, and handed Philip an osier-twig. I talked a little longer with the woman, and found that she was the daughter of the schoolmaster, and that her husband was gone on a journey into Switzerland for some money a relation had left him. ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... him in his tracks. The next minute, however, he laughed at his fright, for it was merely a mother burro and her baby colt which his steps had routed from their hiding-place and sent flying across the flats for safety. A twig snapping sharply under his feet startled him; what sounded like a warning hiss close by brought his heart into his mouth; and trembling from head to foot he paused by a clump of Spanish bayonets, uncertain what ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... I walked softly about the grounds, taking note of every familiar tree and bush and stump. I could have sworn that not a twig, not a blade of grass, had been despoiled or had disappeared in the years that marked my absence. I paused reverently under the old willow tree and affectionately rubbed my legs, for from this tree my parents had cut the instruments of torture for purposes ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... limb; shoot, sprout, sprig, spray, twig, tiller, switch, sucker, stolen, offshoot; ramification; division, department, bureau, wing; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... asleep, but everything was getting ready for the restoring slumber of evening and night-time. Everything seemed to be saying to man: 'Rest, brother of ours; breathe lightly, and grieve not, thou too, at the sleep close before thee.' I raised my head and saw at the very end of a delicate twig one of those large flies with emerald head, long body, and four transparent wings, which the fanciful French call 'maidens,' while our guileless people has named them 'bucket-yokes.' For a long while, more than an hour, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... my home, Up in a minaret's retreat: A twig or two, a bit of loam— My winter lodgings ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... 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 day I said to him I thought he was rather ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined;" This must have been a case in kind. "What's in the blood will sometimes show—" 'Round and around the wild ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... saw his head droop and his eyes cloud. Jan would wag his tail while being scolded, even vehemently, and five minutes later would require a second call, and in a sharp tone, before turning aside from an interesting scent or a twig in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... island home. Then, while the moonlight faded and glowed, other beavers appeared and swam hither and thither; some hauling old barkless poles, others bringing freshly cut poplar branches, and all busily engaged. A twig snapping behind the hunter, he turned his head, and as he caught a vanishing glimpse of a lynx in a tree, he was instantly startled by a tremendous report and a splashing upheaval of water beside his canoe. A beaver had ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Hall, you were pleased to express a wish that a' would send you up as arthentic a list as a' could conveniently make up of my qualifications for the magistracey. Deed, a'm sore yet, Sir Tomas, and wouldn't it be a good joke, as my friend Dr. Twig says, if the soreness should remain until it is cured by the Komission, which he thinks would wipe out all recollection of the pain and the punishment. And he says, too, that this application of it would be putting it to a most proper and legutimate use; the only ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... explanation. We shall merely introduce and describe some fancy models of kites, which are not often seen. The pattern, fig. 1, which is the figure called a star, is very easily made. The frame consists simply of the strips, or rods of light wood; spruce timber, willow twig's—and interlocked, as shown in the cut; so that each rod shall pass alternately over and under the other rods at each intersection. These rods being lashed together at the points, the whole frame is covered with white or yellow paper, and the ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... unaware of the existence of Eve, asserted himself in Rupert. He picked up his cap and stick without a word, and turned towards the door. There, however, he was confronted by Mrs. Carteret, tugging at a line of chairs attached to a plank, like a very small bird with a very large twig. To refuse the aid that she immediately demanded was impossible, and even before the future back row of the sixpennies had been towed to its moorings, he realised that hateful as it would be to stay and join in these distasteful revels, it would be better than ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... been a sharp frost overnight. Every branch and twig, every blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of rime. It crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean air like water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He was aware of its strength in the hard tension of his muscles as he walked. His own movement exhilarated ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... 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
... day was drawing to its close. The wind had gone down, but the snow was now falling in large, thick flakes. The evening twilight crept into the room. Antkowa was sitting in front of the fire; she broke off twig after twig of the dry firewood, and carelessly threw ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... for a woman who never came. He was older now, and he had ceased to wish that he had not been disappointed. There was the lodge, and around it were the trees, brilliant in the shining greens of June. Every twig sustained its bird, and every blossom its bee. The roadside was not muffled in a garment of dead leaves as it had been then, and the lodge-gate was not open as it always used to be. He paused to look through the bars. The drive was well kept and gravelled; ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... glancing into the deserted shanty, they descried a clean strip of white birch bark, lying conspicuously on the ground, a few feet within the entrance. On picking it up, they were soon enabled to read the following words, traced with the charred end of a twig: ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... 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 stem hurt ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... was bloomin' clever to twig we was English," he told the others of B Company; "but you wait till the lime-light's on me. I'll ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... his fright, quickly obeyed the caliph's orders. He drew out five or six very large fishes; and the caliph choosing the two biggest, tied them together by the head, with the twig of a tree. "After this," said he to the fisherman, "give me thy clothes, and take mine." The exchange was soon made; and the caliph being dressed like a fisherman, even to his boots and turban, "Take thy nets," ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... 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?" he muttered. He leaned forward and ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... came but seldom to our house. His daughter Patience was a great favourite with my mother; and for that matter I did not dislike the child, and would oftentimes pluck her an apple from our trees or cut a whistle for her out of a twig ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... away a dozen paces and stopped in the shadow of the trees, conversing earnestly. I endeavored to keep my eyes off from Le Gaire, and remain cool. It seemed to me I saw every movement of a leaf, every dropping of a twig, yet could scarcely realize the position I was in. I was about to face that man yonder—now carefully loading his weapon—to deliberately fire upon him, and receive in return his fire. I felt as though it were a dream, a nightmare, and yet I was conscious of no fear, of ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... never describe to you the weird beauty of a moonlight night among the pines when the snow is sparkling and gleaming, the deep silence unbroken even by the snapping of a twig. We stood shivering and straining our ears and were about to go back to bed when we heard faintly a long-drawn wail as if all the suffering and sorrow on earth were bound up in that one sound. We couldn't tell which way it came from; it seemed to vibrate through ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... traced the four points of the compass, as he could still determine them by the sunset light, with a large printed W to indicate the west! This boyish contrivance particularly pleased him. If he had only had a pole, a stick, or even a twig, on which to tie his handkerchief and erect it above the clump of mesquite as a signal to the searchers in case they should be overcome by fatigue or sleep, he would have been happy. But the plain was barren of brush or timber; he ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions, but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... grit slip grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell drug twig grim snap scum bran stub snag stem plum sped spill prop slam drum gruff snug tress snub smell spell brim ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... it is finished, feathers are stuck in the ground around it, and sacred meal is scattered on parts by some of the assisting singers. Others scatter the meal promiscuously; one of the maskers uses a spruce twig and medicine shell, applying meal to every figure and object in the painting. Then the medicine-men all gather up portions of the sacred meal, putting it in their medicine pouches. The patient soon enters and takes his seat in the centre of the painting. The usual incantations are gone through, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... they throw a short and spent cigar in the face of the offender; if they are pleased, they lift the candidate off his legs, and send him away with a hearty slap on the shoulder. Some of the shorter, when they are bent to mischief, dip a twig in the gutter, and drag it across our polished boots: on the contrary, when they are inclined to be gentle and generous, they leap boisterously upon our knees, and kiss us with bread-and-butter in their ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of honeylocust is seriously affected by a canker and twig fungus, Thyronectria austro-americana. The disease often kills many twigs and branches and sometimes results in death of the tree. In most areas it causes only slight injury. Bowen S. Crandall and Jesse D. Diller have made a few observations ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... round and round. But it was strange—so strange as to cause the White Hawk to pause and gaze long and fixedly upon the ground—there was no path which led to this flowery circle. There was not even a crushed leaf nor a broken twig, nor the least trace of a footstep, approaching or retiring, to be found. He thought he would hide himself and lie in wait to discover, if he could, ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... mouth, nostrils, and vent to prevent escape of juices into plumage. A small sharpened twig will serve to place the plugs. Slip the bird head first into ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... the air of a popular song he has heard whistled about the streets, but does not know well enough to reproduce. How he envies the light-hearted robins, whose house-hunting consists merely in a gay flitting from twig to twig. Yet, even in his disturbance and nostalgia of spirit, he comforts himself with the common consolation of his cronies—"Oh, well, one always finds something"—and thus (in the words of good Sir Thomas Browne) ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... had no sooner obtained their liberty, than some were seen hopping on the ground, others darting into the air, or sporting in the trees, from twig to twig, and some flying about the windows, chirping, as though out ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... walk in the yard, and catch the grasshoppers and butterflies. We would talk about the birds and flowers and grass and Jumbo and Pearl. If you liked, we would run and jump and hop and dance, and be very happy. I think you would enjoy hearing the mocking-birds sing. One sits on the twig of a tree, just beneath our window, and he fills the air with his glad songs. But I am afraid you cannot come to Tuscumbia; so I will write to you, and send you a sweet kiss and my love. How is Dick? Daisy is happy, but she would be happy ever if she had a little ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... backs of the striding beasts, and they were afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop; there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call, the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull Leader they ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... mighty arms to fondle willow-twig across the shady aisles, and maidenblush rubbed cheeks with Spitzenberg, all reddening in the sun. Under many of the trees the ground was as bare as if fire had devastated it, for the sun never fell ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... mouth of the cavern was completely closed. The water running over spread to both sides on the moss. The top fagots were perfectly dry; then Dr. Weber, supplying himself with a torch, himself lit the fire. The flames ran from twig to twig with an angry crackling, and soon leaped toward the sky, chasing ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... forward with a 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 playfully into her lap, and laughing a ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... beside a tiny fire, toasting bread on the end of a beech twig. He held the twig in one hand and an open book in the other. He looked up without changing his position when the tramp came ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... scatter'd by autumnal storms; 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
... her brother's cold and handsome young face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough, and peeling the gummy ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a Naturalist in the Chinese Seas,' 1868, p. 182.) in speaking of the difficulty in collecting certain butterflies in the Malay Archipelago, states that "a dead specimen pinned upon a conspicuous twig will often arrest an insect of the same species in its headlong flight, and bring it down within easy reach of the net, especially if it be of the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... interloper were of small account. The robin went, of course, but returned, and, perching close to the object of interest, leaned over and looked at it as long as she chose, while the owner stood calmly by on a twig and did not interfere. I know he was not afraid of the robin, as later events proved; and it really looked as if the pair deliberately delayed sitting to give the neighborhood a chance to satisfy its curiosity; as if they thus proclaimed to whom it might concern that there was ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... much for him; he had been keeping time with his tail to this declamatory crescendo. With the last effort he cocked it a shade too high, lost his balance, and landed, considerably ruffled, some four feet beneath his own reserved and particular twig. His eye was on me, and I felt it too serious a matter for laughter. He made what was evidently intended for a dignified ascent, choosing, with minute exactness, the steps he had originally employed on my approach. It was a full minute before he broke the silence, and ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... strange, beating hearts and fore-glimmer of beauty and wonder and loveliness, they walked west to the Park, and entered that Crystal Palace. For every branch, every twig, every stone and rail had its pendent ice and icicle, and the strong sun smote the world with flakes of flame. The trees were showers of rainbow-flashing glory; now and then an icicle dropped like a ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... guessed the cause, and returning with the ferocity of a demon who had succeeded in getting his victim into his fangs, hoarsely whispered, "I have given your race this day much, I shall give them this also, surely now the debt is paid," when cutting the hazel twig with his sword, the intrepid youth was dashed from crag to crag until he reached the stream below, a bloody and misshapen mass. Macranuil again commenced his flight, but one of the Mackenzies, who by this time had come up, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... foot of a rising ground, on which grew a grove of magnificent beeches, their large silvery boles rising majestically like columns into a lofty vaulting of branches, covered above with tender green foliage. Here and there the shade beneath was broken by the gilding of a ray of sunshine on a lower twig, or on a white trunk, but the floor of the vast arcades was almost entirely of the russet brown of the fallen leaves, save where a fern or holly bush made a spot of green. At the foot of the slope lay a stretch of pasture ground, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... overcome by its emotion, whilst the little grumbler, silenced, but not convinced, turned sulkily away. It did not relish the kind advice of its true friend, nor did it at all intend to follow it, but still it settled down on its tiny twig so very quietly, that all its relatives firmly believed it had given up its foolish scheme of imaginary happy freedom; but they were mistaken, for a few days after a north wind came quite unexpectedly upon them. It bent the Aspen tree almost to breaking, still the loving ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... that after 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 ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... would come beneath a suspended blossom. Sometimes one of the little creatures would dart off into the air, to catch some insect invisible to the eye; and we could only judge of what it was about by its peculiar movements. As we watched, a tiny bird would perch on a slender twig, and rest there for a few seconds, thus giving us an opportunity of examining its beauties. Ellen could scarcely restrain her delight and admiration at the spectacle; for though we had often seen humming-birds before, we had never beheld them to such advantage. The little creature ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... Rabelais' lighter talk have had, as he lounged—so the story goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of the sound respect for natural science, and much, too, of the contempt for the superstition around them, which is notable in that group of great naturalists who were ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... speaking of the 'resurrection' of this superstition in our own country. It has, in fact, never died, and there is scarcely a part of the country where a 'diviner' has not tried his—or her, for it is often a woman—skill with the 'twig' from time to time. These attempts have seldom been known beyond the immediate locality and the limited circle of those interested in them, and it is only of late years, since folklore became more of a scientific and general study, that the incidents have been seized ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... perceive its connection with the branch or limb, and tree, and its unity in being with every other leaf on the tree. After a bit the unfolding consciousness of the leaf enables it to perceive the stem that connects it with the twig. Then it begins to realize certain relationships, and feels its vital connection with the twig and the few other leaves attached to the same twig. Later on, it unfolds sufficiently to perceive that certain other leaf-bearing ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Whatever the all-beholding sun could see in those woodland depths we have here,—sketches of the shaggy Pan snatched at unawares in sleep. One may study these pictures till he becomes as familiar as a squirrel with fern and tree-bark and moose-wood and lichen, till he knows every trunk and twig and leaf as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Cried, "We are with you, so you do not dupe us!" Ursus and Taurus also, Bull and Bear, Were eager in the game to take a share. Said Vulpus to the assembled quadrupeds, "Company Boards, like ships, need figureheads, Wooden but ornamental! Eh? You twig? Sweet are the uses of—the Guinea Pig! Dull, but respectable and decorative, That tribe, to whom credulity is native. They'll sit around our Board in solemn row, And never, never 'want to know, you know,' Beyond convenient ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... Nut trees are sometimes attacked by the twig girdler[24] (Fig. 11). This beetle lays eggs in the twigs, which are girdled so as to stop the flow of sap that would normally prevent hatching. The girdled twigs usually become detached from the trees and as a result the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... of stone hammers in Europe. Solid hammers belong to the earliest period. They are made of longish rolled pebbles; some are shaped a little artificially, and are grooved round to hold the handle, which was a flexible twig bent double and with the two ends tied together, so as to keep the stone head in its place. The hammers of a later period of the "stone age" are shaped more like the iron ones our smiths use at the present day, and they have a hole bored in ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... flowering vine, Drawing his lips to cling upon her own. A ray of sunlight pierced the leaves to shine Where her half-opened bodice let be shown Her white throat fluttering to his soft caress, Half-gasping with her gladness. And her pledge She whispers, melting with delight. A twig Snaps in the hornbeam hedge. A cackling laugh tears through the quietness. Eunice starts up in terrible distress. "My God! What's that?" ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... 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 ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... came into my mind as unconsciously as you broke off that twig just now. If I do not get what I lack, nothing can be accomplished—there can be no explosion! I shall abandon the whole thing and let ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... serving not only to make it easily visible, but also impeding its flight sufficiently to admit of the boy following it. The next was at the top of a large blue gum tree, about three feet in diameter, and sending up a smooth column for fifty feet without a branch or twig. Most people would have given up all thoughts of a honey feed for the day; not so Mr. Larry, whose movements we followed with considerable curiosity. Divesting himself of his clothing, he repaired to an adjoining scrub, and with his tomahawk cut out a piece of lawyer cane ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... first arising therein, in a gospel dispensation; whose benign influences caused the small grain of good seed, sown by the skill of the Great Husbandman, to grow up to a fruitful plant, the tender twig to spread itself into a noble vine, and the little cloud, like a man's hand, to cover the whole hemisphere of the visible church of Scotland, which long ago, as a church and nation, had enlisted themselves under the LORD JESUS CHRIST, ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... drought and heat of the climate are so much greater,' answered Sam Holt; 'and the preponderance of pines, loaded to the end of every leaf and twig with pitch and resin, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... manifestations are not common among gypsies, but I can remember how one, the wife of black Ben Lee, was thus surprised and affected. How well I recall the time and scene,—by the Thames, in the late twilight, when every tree and twig was violet black against the amber sky, where the birds were chirp-chattering themselves to roost and rest, and the river rippled and murmured a duet with the evening breeze. I was walking homeward to Oatlands when I met the tawny Sinaminta, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... himself up to Aurora's influence. The plenitude and the ardour of her love carried him along; he felt at times like a twig in a torrent, but the sensation was luxurious, and another joy of life was with him. He opened wide arms to it. Once again he saw the world with new eyes, and for having despised and mistrusted it so found it the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "I left my right hand on the field of battle. It was in the fight round Conde. A young Huguenot—for he was smooth faced, and but a youth—shred it off with a sweeping backhanded blow, as if it had been a twig. So there is no more wolf hunting for me; but even if I had my right hand back again, I should not care for any more such rough sport ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... some of the reflections which I have here expanded; or I walked along the shore and gazed up the stream, where the whole space above the falls was filled with mellow light. As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for Nature looked sternly upon me on account ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... been fine; but it wasn't worth mentioning beside Laddie and the Princess, and Robert and Shelley. You should have seen my mother! She rocked like a kingbird on the top twig of the winesap, which was the tallest tree in our orchard, and for once there wasn't a single fly in her ointment, not one, she said so herself, and so did father. As we watched the big ve-hi-ackle, as Leon called it, creep ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... tire one with his garrulity. He is our attendant in all our pleasant winter-walks, in 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various |
