"Big tree" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and as dark as imaginable. I stumbled down the path to the little landing wharf, where the water made the very faintest of gurgling under the timbers. The sound of a big tree falling in the mainland forest, far across the lake, stirred echoes in the heavy air, like the first guns of a distant night attack. No other sound disturbed ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... running through the forest, not far from where they pitched their tent, and their first attempt was rewarded by a catch of several fine fish. Fenn, who had been elected cook, soon had them frying with some bits of bacon, and Bart, leaning back comfortably against a big tree, made the remark ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... morning of the Occasion, cheerful sunshine filtered through the quivering leaves of the big tree near the house, glorifying a late breakfast-table, around which the family were gathering, when horses driven in hot haste were reined up at the door. Stepping quickly forth, the major found his hand clasped by "our member," who begged the hospitalities of the house for the great Daniel Webster ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... barked at him. He found his feet again, and, making off, ran through the wheat, glancing back over his shoulder as he tore along. He crossed into the grass paddock, and running to a big tree dodged round and round it. Then from tree to tree he went, and that evening at sundown, when Joe was bringing the cows home, Jack was still flying from ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... the big tree across the street. I'm sure he's watching the Foger house, and when Andy came to the door that time, I happened to look around and saw that man focus a pair of opera glasses on him and ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... cheekiest thing I ever did with a bear was one night over in Devil's Gulch. A big storm come up just about dark an' I found a sort o' cave to crawl into. A big tree, a Pinus Lamberteeny" (another sly glance at the professor), "had fell alongside o' some rocks an' made a fine dry den. A lot of dry leaves was made into a bed, an' I says to Sunday: 'Reckon we 'll have company before long. Wonder ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... well-worn clothing, many with pieces of water-proof cloth around their shoulders, hanging down. They dash'd along pretty fast, in wide close ranks, all spatter'd with mud; no holiday soldiers; brigade after brigade. I could have watch'd for a week. Sheridan stood on a balcony, under a big tree, coolly smoking a cigar. His looks and manner ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a big tree as the others are," sighed the little Tree. "Then I could spread my branches so far, and with the tops look out into the wide world! Birds would build nests among my branches; and when there was a breeze, I could nod as grandly ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... last Christmas, as we trimmed the big tree and made ready for the family gathering, that this Christmas would find me in a foreign country teaching a band of little heathens, wouldn't you have thought somebody had wheels in ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... a slight groove in the solid rock. This was my only chance. It was not inviting, but I had no alternative. It led me down a hundred feet, then tightened into a sort of chimney. Just below I could see the swaying top of a big tree. Firewood must be near at hand! Wider ledges must ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... their tent on the lake-shore! They spent long afternoons picturing just how they would live—what they would eat, and what they would wear, and what they would study. As for Cedric—so they had called the baby—they saw him playing beneath the big tree in front of the tent. And what fun they would have giving him his bath on the little beach ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... standing aside in the road, sunk deep, like an English country lane, into the soft soil of the Campo. They cowered; their eyes glistened very big for a second; and then the light, running on, fell upon the half-denuded roots of a big tree, on another stretch of nopal hedge, caught up another bunch of faces glaring back apprehensively. Three women—of whom one was carrying a child—and a couple of men in civilian dress—one armed with a sabre and another with a gun—were grouped about a donkey carrying ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... one of the old Redheads flew over in alarm. "Kik-a-rik, kik-a-rik," it cried as it hurried from tree to tree, trying to keep an eye on me while looking for the youngster. Neither of us could find it for some time, but after looking in vain over the west side of a big tree I rounded the trunk and found it calmly sitting on a branch on the east side—which goes to prove that it is never safe to say a Woodpecker isn't on a tree, till ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... yards back, or to that impenetrable tangle, a dozen yards on, which has climbed a small tree, and then a taller one again, and then a taller still, till it has climbed out of sight and possibly into the lower branches of the big tree. And what are their species? what are their families? Who knows? Not even the most experienced woodman or botanist can tell you the names of plants of which he only sees the stems. The leaves, the flowers, the fruit, can only be examined by felling the tree; and not even always then, for sometimes ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... slipped off my boots, and carrying them in my hand, left the room, and went downstairs to the morning-room. This apartment looked out over the garden, and possessed a window shaded by a big tree. Opening it, I jumped out and carefully closed it after me. Then, pausing for a moment to resume my boots, I crept quietly down the path, jumped a low wall, and so passed into the back street. About fifty yards from the tradesmen's entrance, but on the opposite side of ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... met him. There's the little glade, and this big tree is the one I climbed up into. I saw him lying there. I know he was dead when I bled him. But I must be blind, for the elk certainly is not here now. Oh! Did he come to life again, and run away?" said poor Bluff, ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... this spot when down it came. The edge of it caught me and tumbled me about; sometimes on the surface, sometimes on the ground; now on my face and now feet uppermost, I was pitched this way and that like a cork in a torrent, till a big tree—the one Sox is sitting on, I think—slapped me on the back with its branches and hurled me twenty feet away among the rocks. It was then I got hurt; but on the other hand, being flung out of the snow like that saved ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... he passed a certain big tree. All around the ground was carpeted with brown, dead leaves. There were no bushes or young trees there. Peter never once thought of looking for a nest. It was the last place in the world he would expect to find one. When he was well past the big tree there ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... that the basis of my speculation was near the centre of the field, and busily feeding on the bountiful growths of nature, I crept softly through the wires of the fence that I might gather some pecan nuts under a big tree that stood some twenty rods away. I reached the tree in safety, and proceeded to pick up the nuts. I had filled one pocket only when I heard a noise behind me, and, looking up, I saw that all the profits of my stock ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... as some one has defined architecture,—for here winter had constructed from water a wondrous array of columns, panels, filigree, fretwork, relief-work, arches, giant icicles, and stalagmites as large as, and in ways resembling, a big tree with a fluted ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... two with arms about each other sitting in the doorway in the evening many a time when their work was done. Or how she had found them in loving embrace when by chance she happened to pass along the far end of their corn patch. "Under the big tree, mind you!" Granny Withers scandalized beyond further speech clapped hand to mouth, rolled her eyes in dismay. "Just so plum lustful over each other they can't bide till night time. The marriage bed is the fitten place for such ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Nemours in Louis Stevenson's Rob Roy. We generally congregate down in the garden by the big tree after dinner. Mama swings in the hammock, looking as pretty as possible, and we all form a group around her on the grass, Louis and Bob Stevenson babbling about boats, while Simpson, seated near by, fans himself with a ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... out of Teddy's arms, and with the usual quickness of monkeys, was soon on top of the pile of boxes—the "tower" as Ted and Jan called it. When they gave their circus they planned to cover the pile of boxes with green boughs and pretend it was a big tree ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... that some of the trees were thirty feet in diameter, and 325 feet in height; that sixteen Yosemite braves on their ponies had taken refuge from a terrible storm in the hollow of a single sequoia. Alfonso prized highly a cane, fashioned by the Indian maiden from a fallen Big Tree. The wood had a pale red tint, and was ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... pointed, and there, in the glare of the light, could be seen an immense python, fully twenty-five feet long, the forward part of its fat ugly body circled around the slender prow of the airship, while the folds of the tail were about a big tree. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... boys had posted a watch on the shore, in the person of Billy Gordon, who seated comfortably on the ground, his back against a big tree, glanced frequently out over the lake to where the "Red Rover" lay at anchor, her red ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... seated ourselves on a circular bench surrounding a big tree, which had the mighty word GOETHE cut deeply into its rugged bark. When the others began to return to the Malkasten, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... followed them for the gallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left as bucks generally do, the oribe swam the stream and took to the Bad Lands beyond. I followed it, and within a hundred yards of the big tree the dogs killed it. Hendrika wanted to turn back at once, but I said that we would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there was a spring of water near. Well, we went; and there I saw you all lying like dead; but Hendrika, who is very clever in some ways, said no—and ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... "but even trees of closely related character show very different effects of lightning. 'Nothing but lightning,' writes John Muir, 'hurts the Sequoia or Big Tree. It lives on through indefinite thousands of years, until burned, blown down or undermined, or shattered by some tremendous lightning stroke. No ordinary bolt ever hurts the Sequoia. I have seen silver firs split into long peeled rails radiating like spokes of a wheel from a hole in the ground ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... asked Sammie and Susie to go to the cabbage-field store for her, but, as Sammie wanted to stay home and make a whistle out of a carrot, Susie went alone. As she was walking along under a big tree, she heard a noise in the branches, and, looking up, she saw a number of squirrels. One was the squirrel who had given her old nest to Mrs. Wren. The little gray chaps were running about, seemingly much excited over something. Presently they all scampered down, and Susie saw ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... Paul's teeth stopped chattering and he began to be a little ashamed of showing how it had startled him. He was also a little put out that Mr. Welles had remained so unmoved. "You don't know how dangerous a big tree is, when it falls!" he said, accusingly, to defend himself. "If you'd lived here more, and heard some of the stories . . . ! Nate Hewitt had his back broken with a tree falling on him. But he was ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... three hundred yards, when we suddenly came upon a dip in the ground. We each lifted our eyes from the land, which we had continued to closely scan for traces of the trail, when we were startled by a snarl, and just ahead, lying under the trunk of a big tree which had fallen across the dip, was a huge panther, apparently just awakened from its sleep by our approach. The brute was lashing its tail and quivering with rage, and was evidently preparing to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... one night, and I slid down the big tree near my window. Then he came one morning to bring me flowers. I am glad he is coming for keeps. He livens ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Eli. "It don't make no difference to me which does which. But if I was you, cap'n, I'd cut a good big tree, because we might as well have a good one ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... and the white figs, too; figs that Teddy and Martie had knocked that morning from the big tree in the yard. Lydia noticed with resentment that Pa had really brightened perceptibly under the unexpected stimulus. It was Lydia who said mildly, almost reproachfully, "I'm sorry that I have to give you a rather small napkin, Mr. Dryden; we had company to dinner last night, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... rule and independence. I was an American, quite a new element in the family circle. We had many and most animated discussions over all sorts of subjects, in two or three languages, at the tea-table under the big tree on the lawn. French and English were always going, and often German, as de Bunsen always spoke to his daughter in German. My mother-in-law, who knew three or four languages, did not at all approve of the careless habit we had all got ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... suff. campn., 829; ad. Congregat. ministers' meet., spks. at Unit. Club dinner, teach. institute, societies, Pres. Jordan invites to Stanford Univers., Mrs. Stanford sends passes and invites graduates' recep., 830; social courtesies, Ebell Club, Alameda Co. Wom. Cong., in Yosemite, big tree named for her, 831; lect. in San Jose, guest Mrs. Knox Goodrich, ovation in Los Angeles, at Riverside, Pasadena, Pomona, Whittiers, San Diego, 832; recep. Hotel Florence, floral offerings, picnic at Olivewood, day at Santa Monica, recep. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... a spot as they could, and sat down under a big tree; as they did so his hand came in contact with Julia's wet sleeve and cold arm. "How cold you are!" he said. "You have ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... and trucks whirled, and people passed in throngs all day, just across the narrow road, stood the loveliest, most perfect little white clapboard cottage that ever was built on this earth, with porches all around and a big tree growing up through the roof of one porch. It stood out against the night like a wonderful mirage, like a heavenly dove descended into the turmoil of the pit, like home and mother in the midst of a rushing pitiless world. He could have cried real ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... a big tree in de yard, and a grape vine swing in it for de little baby "Istidji", and I was swinging him real early in de morning befo' de sun up. De house set in a little patch of woods wid de field in de back, but all out on de north side was a little open space, ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... seemed bound to collapse under the impact; up the corresponding ascent as hard as the four Walers could lay leg to the ground; off the track, tearing through the scrub on two wheels, righting again to shave a big tree by a mere hair's-breadth; it certainly was a fine exhibition of nerve and of recklessness redeemed by skill, but I do not think that elderly ladies would have preferred it to their customary jog-trot behind two fat and confidential old slugs. One ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... a stout young gentleman on horseback, who was levelling his deadly aim at them; there the same stout young gentleman, with whiskers and general appearance slightly altered, was standing behind a big tree, firing at a hare who was coming straight toward him, pursued by a pack of terrible hounds; again, on a third wall, the stout young gentleman had undergone a further metamorphosis which almost endangered his identity; he was standing at the edge of a ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Fortunately a big tree was at that time temporarily hanging against the rock in the river, just below the sawmill beach. Into that tree the canoe shot with a crash, and I hung on, and shipping my paddle, pulled the canoe into the slack water again, by ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... distrustin' one another, I thinks it's time for me to distrust them. So I spent all day yesterday huntin' for a good spot, and comed along this way, and thought I couldn't do better than stow the stuff at the foot of this big tree." ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... she trotted along with her mother and Norah, "Mun isn't in a balloon. His balloon is caught in a big tree and the little ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... half-starved man who must be helped out of his dangerous predicament. What had best be done was the question that Mustagan, Big Tom, and the other Indians were discussing. Some suggested cutting down the big tree at once. This was discouraged by some, who said that the blows of the axe on the dead tree would dislodge so much dry, dusty, rotten wood that it would about smother the imprisoned man. So it was quickly decided that he must be pulled out ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... of the universal or almost universal inevitableness of death? A Sequoia or "Big Tree" of California has been known to live for over two thousand years, but eventually it died. A centenarian tortoise has been known, and a sea-anemone sixty years of age; but eventually they ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... The big tree in the center of the earth. [It is not known whether or not this relates to the first destruction of the earth, when Mi/nab[-o]/zho escaped by climbing a tree which continued to grow and to protrude above the surface of the flood. One Mid[-e]/ thought it ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... eat sassafras. I know a big tree of it, and Dan told me how squirrels dig up the roots and eat them, and I love to dig," returned Rob, undaunted by the ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... "Well, at least the big tree there and the ranchhouse will not be very hard to find. But I suppose I'll have to travel in a circle around the Little Brothers, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... dark painted floors and rag rugs and unmistakably shabby furniture. Flowers were everywhere, doors stood open, and breezes blew in at the windows, billowing the straight scrim curtains. The guest's room was small and slant-ceilinged. One picture, an unframed photograph of a big tree leaning over a brook, was tacked to the wall; a braided rug lay on the floor; on a small table were flowers and a book; over the queer old chest of drawers hung a small mirror; there was no pier-glass at all. Very spotless ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... of a dead branch fell on her dress. She raised her eyes. It came from the plane-tree. She drew near the big tree with its smooth, pale bark; she stroked it with her hand as if it had been an animal. Her foot struck something in the grass—a fragment of rotten wood; it was the last fragment of the very bench on which she had sat so often with those of her own ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... preserved by them with spirit and eaten like olives. Beyond the brushwood, which grows where the original forest has been cut down, there are large trees covered with numerous epiphytes—Tillandsias, orchids, ferns, and a hundred others, that make every big tree an aerial garden. Great arums perch on the forks and send down roots like cords to the ground, whilst lianas run from tree to tree or hang in loops and folds like the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Howard awaiting them on one of the big tree seats, outside the Hall. Clayton was with him, strumming on a ukulele, as they talked, happily and lazily. The girls followed Kit into the library, as she went on a hunt after Semele, and here Amy ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... John! do you remember that day we started home when it rained? You had been sick, and commenced to cry. We got under a big tree; but it was November; the leaves had all blown down, and the rain beat through the branches. What disconsolate little people we were! And when you sat down on a flat stone, and declared you'd stay there and ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... her. It was in an open place, where the trees are big and wide apart. We started up and chased her when she ran from us, but feared to shoot. And in one moment she climbed up into a small tree, then, like a monkey, passed from its highest branches into a big tree. We could not see her there, but she was there in the big tree, for there was no other tree near—no way of escape. Three of us sat down to watch, and the other went back to the village. He was long gone; we were just going to leave the tree, fearing ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... heavens, Ferko felt the blazing heat scorch him, and sought for some cool shady place to rest his aching limbs. He climbed to the top of a hill and lay down in the grass, and as he thought under the shadow of a big tree. But it was no tree he leant against, but a gallows on which two ravens were seated. The one was saying to the other as the weary youth lay down, 'Is there anything the least wonderful or remarkable about ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... a few years ago shows how well this kind of hunting succeeds. It was in a gloomy evergreen swamp, in a big tree, some eighty feet from the ground. I found it by a pile of pellets of hair and feathers at the foot of the tree; for the owl devours every part of his game, and after digestion is complete, feathers, bones, and hair are disgorged ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... bridge head where the two dacoits still hacked away, striking harder and faster now that the rifles cracked on the lip of the ravine. One dropped into the river with a splash, the other leapt into cover of the big tree to which the bridge was swung, and was safe from the darting bullets. But his gleaming dah still flashed into sight now and again as he hewed fiercely at ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... was seized with an ardent desire to hit Francoeur also with his spade. But as this presented insurmountable difficulties, he resigned himself to do what was easier, and that was to stand with his nose against the trunk of a big tree and ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... as of something striking the ground. He also caught the flutter of some hairy form that seemed to vanish amidst the branches of the big tree under which Steve chanced to be ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the cave Tad was rapidly whispering to the Ranger captain what had occurred. He told him the bandits were all in the cave and that he believed the only exit was there behind the roots of the big tree. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... Cloud} (Stepping into shadow of big tree where he remains inconspicuous though dimly visible) I would see this Sun Man and talk ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... at Huldy. He discovered she was throwing a side glance at him. They both smiled, but said nothing. He drove around the big tree that stood in the centre of the square in front of the grocery, which brought the team quite close to the store platform. No one was in sight, but just as he reached Mrs. Hawkins's boarding house ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... had given their word not to leave the region of the big tree. There was therefore nothing to be done except to endure the waiting until ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... everything was in readiness, and the Scouts gathered in the gymnasium. A big tree stood in the center, glistening with tinsel and shining with brightly colored balls. Underneath, attractively wrapped in Christmas paper and ribbon, the presents were invitingly piled. Santa Claus, with several of the girls who were to assist ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... sat by the fire, which by this time was reduced to one tiny red coal. There was not a sound in the house except the regular breathing of little Jim from the adjoining room. A night wind stirred the big tree in front of the house, and its branches touched the shingles softly, like a ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... I wanted to tie Kari to a big tree, but he refused to be tied up that night. He paced up and down the shore without making the slightest noise. Then he would suddenly stand still and stop the waving of his ears in order to listen very intently to shadows of songs that might be passing. ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... infirmities. Above, the trees were hinting that life might still be lived acceptably, as in Eden days; though they seemed to suspect that the stage of it to which they were amazedly awakening must be at least the autumn, and timidly clothed themselves accordingly. The elm, the first big tree to stir in its sleep, showed tiny, curled leaflets of a doubting, yellowish green; and the later moving oaks were frankly sceptical, one glowing faintly brown and crimson, another silvery gray and pink. They would need at least ten ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... so?" He was pleased. The Indian horseman of the plains who could talk to the big tree began to be felt by the boy as ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... perfectly unbroken descent from the window sill to the ground. But there's a big tree close by, and the branches of that brush ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Margery Burton, happily. "Come on down, you two, and we'll go over to that big tree and eat our dinner in the shade. Walter, if you'll go and fetch us a pail of water from the spring, we'll have dinner ready when you get back. And I bet you'll be surprised when you see what we've got, too—something awfully good. We got Mrs. Farnham to let us ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... it and the river. The picket-rope stretched from one corner of the hut, where it seemed to be secured around the end of a projecting log, out into the night, evidently finding its other terminus at a big tree whose spreading top I could dimly perceive shadowed against the sky. Along it were tethered the horses, a few impatiently champing their bits and pounding with their hoofs on the trampled ground, but the majority resting quietly, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... Town Hall, and into Buckeye Street. He was depressed by the thought that he was not a part of the life in his own town, but the depression did not cut deeply as he did not think of himself as at fault. In the heavy shadows of a big tree before Doctor Welling's house, he stopped and stood watching half-witted Turk Smollet, who was pushing a wheelbarrow in the road. The old man with his absurdly boyish mind had a dozen long boards on the wheelbarrow, and, as he hurried along the road, ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... big tree beside the house he bade her good-by, the men busying themselves with turning about the buckboard noisily, and Bud discreetly taking himself to the back door to get one of the men ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... found that the old fellow was right, for the boat shot down the stream like an arrow. I saw in a moment that there was no hope of paddling her across, and that all I could do was just to keep her head straight. But I hadn't the chance of doing even that very long, for just then a big tree came driving along, and hitting my boat full on the quarter, smashed her like an egg-shell. I had just time to clutch the projecting roots, and whisk myself up on to them, and then tree and I went away down stream together, at I don't know ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... led the way in among the twisted trunks, planted closely together in serried ranks, and I followed sharp at his heels. The moment we were out of sight he turned and put down his gun against the roots of a big tree, and I did likewise. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... appeared the next morning; women brought in firewood and products of the country to trade; all was well. The entire day, and the succeeding days for over a week, Kingozi sat under his big tree, smoking his black pipe. The sultani sat beside him. For long periods at a time nothing at all was said. Then for equally long periods a lively conversation went on, through an interpreter mostly, though occasionally the sultani launched into his bastard Swahili or Kingozi ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... I wait some time; at last I think that the young lady and you and your father get tired with the long swim, so I thought I might as well bring the raft down the channel as far as I could tow it; but it stuck in the roots of a big tree which stretched nearly across the water, and so, as I could not by myself get it past them, I jumped overboard, and swam along to tell you. If you all come along, some can rest on it, and others can swim alongside, and we then go much faster than ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight. The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket shouting a little way back to know ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... been lavished on its arrangement that it had an astonishing air of space. The flower-covered trellis at the end had an air of being there because it chose, and not in the least because it marked an arbitrary division of land. The one big tree made an oasis of shade, and had a low circular seat round its trunk, and the flowers bloomed in grateful recognition of ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... went back home to the Yadkin Valley, he married a tall, dark-haired girl named Rebecca Bryan. Sometimes he liked to tease her. One summer day before they married he was sitting beside her under a big tree. Suddenly he took his broad-bladed knife and cut a long slit ...
— Daniel Boone - Taming the Wilds • Katharine E. Wilkie
... to make him more cautious and calculating. He knew that he was a better soldier than when he was banished. In a fortnight he made his way to Guantanamo, to the spot where he had disbanded his men years before. The big tree was still standing, taller and grayer with age, rotted in spots, but quite as sturdy as ever. Under this tree he had sheathed his sword. Under its branches he once more drew it from its scabbard against the Spanish oppressor. In a few weeks he had recruited almost a thousand men. Starting out ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... great Forest of Burzee? Nurse used to sing of it when I was a child. She sang of the big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it; of their rough coating of bark and queer, gnarled limbs; of the bushy foliage that roofed the entire forest, save where the sunbeams found a path ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... hundred feet of the ground. It was in good leaf, except at the top, which was gnarled and weather-beaten. Its base had been cruelly burned. This tree bears a striking resemblance to the grizzly giant which we saw later in the Mariposa big tree grove near Wawona. Not far from this fine old guardian of the pass, were groups of noble trees, fully as tall, but not as large as the one described, but perfect trees, erect, stately, and imposing. The bark of all of these trees was very smooth ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... very red, and started home down the elm-shaded street. When she reached her little gray house under its big tree, she went first into the cow-barn—a crumbling lean-to with a sagging roof—to see if a sick dog which had found shelter there was comfortable. It seemed to Lizzie that his bleared eyes should be washed; and she did this before she went through ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... forty feet up in a big tree, was a jabiru's nest containing young jabirus. The young birds exercised themselves by walking solemnly round the edge of the nest and opening and shutting their wings. Their heads and necks were down-covered, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... drawing near to the end of his destination when he had a large tract of timber to pass through. When he had nearly gotten through the timber he saw an old man sitting on a log, looking wistfully up into a big tree, where sat a ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... with terror, the boy cried that the Spaniards had come, that they had set fire to the farm, had hanged his mother among the nut trees and bound his nine little sisters to the trunk of a big tree. At this the peasants rushed out of the inn. Surrounding the child, they stunned him with their questionings and outcries. Between his sobs, he added that the soldiers were on horseback and wore armor, that they had taken away the cattle of his uncle, Petrus Krayer, and would ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... best I can do, Geraldine White. I'm hot all over now," and she dropped down on the soft grass at the foot of a big tree. ...
— A Day at the County Fair • Alice Hale Burnett
... upper set plated with bronze scales, a bronze corselet, and, fitting closely to his shoulders, covering head and neck together, a great, heavy helmet. He carried a large shield, squarish in shape, but curving to fit him as if he were hiding behind a section of the outer bark of a big tree. He was armed with a keen, straight ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... to the rooster, and she went on until she reached a big tree where perched a monkey, and he also asked where she ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... biscuit and milk can taste when one has been working hard and has a young appetite, although Leslie and Allison had been known to scorn all cereals. Still, there were cookies and wonderful apples from the big tree in the back yard ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... shin up this big tree that sends a limb out right over your head, don't you see, Steve?" Max told him, reassuringly. "Once I get above you and we'll make good use of this rope of mine. The limb will act as a lever, and when the boys get to pulling at the other ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... seen before, and beneath the dirt which was thickly coated over it I could see that both the modelling and colouring of it were very beautiful. It represented a figure lying upon the ground beside a big tree-stump, which, after the mud should be scraped out of it, was evidently intended to contain ink, and a milestone, when a similar operation had taken place, would doubtless contain one pen; a coloured three-cornered hat flung beside the figure upon the ground ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... spot, George. It will be easy for the boats to find it in the dark, from that big tree close to the water's edge. Now we will paddle about for half an ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... woods near Sandy Beach. Have been gathering blueberries and my cup runneth over. The sun has turned the beach into a Sahara, but here in the woods it is dim and cool and pleasant. I am leaning against a big tree with my feet stretched out in front of me. There is a spider weaving a web from one foot to the other. I hate to break down his handiwork, or rather, his footiwork, but I can't stay here forever, much as I would like to. He ought to have been more careful about getting ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... they came to Gort na Cloca Mora, but here the he-goat did not stop. They went past the big tree of the Leprecauns, through a broken part of the hedge and into another rough field. The sun was shining gloriously. There was scarcely a wind at all to stir the harsh grasses. Far and near was silence and ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... both skilled riders, but Dick's illness made him timorous at times. He, however, fought hard to master his weakness; and when Jack cried, "Come on, Dick; let's race to the big tree and back," he stuck his knees into the cob's plump sides and away they went, with the wind rushing by their ears, and the cobs keeping neck and neck, rounding the big tree about a mile away on the plain, and then making the dusty earth rise in clouds ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... pleasant walks windin' round every which way and once in awhile a big tree shadin' a cozy nook where you could sit down and enjoy the beauty and perfume. It wuz good to be there, and it seemed as if the hull world had the same mind about comin' and wuz all there walkin' about or else ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... public beneficence would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner beatitude blind people show—a kind of rapture shining over ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the crops was laid by Master Hunt called them to the house at one o'clock by so many taps of the farm bell. It hung in a great big tree. He read a paper from his side porch telling them they free. They been free several months then and didn't a one ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... he went almost daily to Guarico. Then, like that! Fray Ignatio died. He died—his heart stopped—on the path between Guarico and La Navidad. He had been preaching, and then, Guarin told me, he put his hand to his side, and said, "I will go home!" He started up the path, but at the big tree he dropped. Men and women ran to him, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... the absence of the boys. While the inspectors are making the round of tents, the boys should assemble either in the permanent building of the camp or under some big tree, to listen to a practical talk by the camp physician, a demonstration in first aid work, the reading of a story, or to something equally educational in character. This is a valuable hour when occupied in this manner. (See chapter on ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... anybody here really, except mother and me. I never mind very much about what she says. There's Mother Izan in the doorway,—and oh, what has she got hanging up in the big tree?" ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Hillyard camped at Lueisa, near to that big tree under which it is not wise to spread your bed. He took his bath at ten o'clock at night under the moon, and the water from the river was hot. He stretched himself out in his bed and waked again that night after the moon ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... 'em, Misser Harry. Tryin' to find 'em. Big tree on leetle island. Can't see 'em." He pointed out over the sea where he had been gazing. Then he turned and pointed inland. "Big tree there. Can ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... towards Mittenwalde, Furstenwalde and the furzy environs, far and wide; at home, our Sister and Mother waiting with many troubles and many loves, and Papa sleeping, Pan-like, under the shadow of his big tree:—Thirty years ago, ah me, gone like a dream is all that; and there is solitude and desolation and the Russian-Austrian death-deluges instead! These, I suppose, were Friedrich's occasional remembrances; silent always, in this locality and time. The ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the big tree saw what was happening it told the little Morning-glory it would not have it climbing about its branches, because it would ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... saying, "lost our way; took wrong turning at Big Tree Fork. Brought up, somehow, at Mrs. Fay's. Accepted invitation to dinner,—chicken pie!—Start back immediately after the E in Pie! See? Expect us when we get there. Will accumulate a butter and a egg or two, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... the day, talking now of the beauty of the Prince, now of the father of the Princess, and then of the misfortune that had happened. At last the night arrived, and all the little birds were asleep high up on the branches of a big tree. The fox climbed up stealthily and caught the little creatures with his paws one after the other; and when he had killed them all he put their blood into a little bottle which he wore at his side and returned with it to Grannonia, who was beside herself ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... you sit whistling instead of working?" she asked. "Poor prince, you must be hungry. Here is a little table set for two under this big tree. When things worry you, don't give up. The man who keeps his appetite has no cause ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... through the hall, revolving this matter in his mind, and out at the rear door, which framed an inviting vista of green. He strolled back past the barn toward the upper reaches of the brook path, and sitting amid the comfortably gnarled roots of a big tree he lit a cigar and began with violence to snap little pebbles into the brook. If he were promoting a crooked scheme, he reflected savagely, he would have no difficulty whatever in floating it upon almost any terms he wanted. Well, there was ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... the men in the square under the big tree and going the rounds to see that each was properly armed, etc. At the last moment we made one change. Finding that two of the men who were to have gone with the firing parties knew little or nothing of guns, but were good spearsmen, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... And he wished that he might get rid of his thick coat. But though Cuffy was beginning to believe himself a very wise little bear, he could think of no way to slip off his heavy black fur. So he sat down in the shade of a big tree, where the breeze blew upon him, and tried to be ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... happened to see any, except two or three that ran into the brush soon as they got a whiff of me. And this one I hunted out of a hole under a big tree root. It's a lie about them wintering in caves. They'd ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was hot enough. In the hottest part of it General Johnston rid up, an' when he saw our exposed position he told us to hold the line, but to lay down for shelter. A big tree was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral seed me an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... he mentioned. Stokes appears to have been in the habit of visiting that gentleman's property pretty frequently. He had a regular hiding place, a sort of store where he used to keep all the game he killed. He described the place to me. It is a big tree on the bank of the stream nearest the high road. The tree is hollow. One has to climb to find the opening to it. Inside are the cups, and, I should say, a good deal of mixed poultry. That is what he told me, sir. I should advise you, if I may say so, to write a note to Sir Alfred Venner, ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... dear little chap," he said, gently. "I sent Mick out with Boone to-day, and—and they buried him under that big tree where he fell, and heaped up stones so that nothing could get at him." He stopped, his voice uncertain as Norah's hand ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... sound it himself. The man with his automobile is in the same case. When it balks, he is stimulated to overcome it; but when it runs smoothly for him, he has a sense of mastery and power that is highly gratifying. Chopping down a big tree, or moving a big rock with a crowbar, affords the same kind of gratification; and so does cutting with a sharp knife, or shooting with a good bow or gun, or operating any tool or machine that increases one's power. Quite apart from the utility of the result ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... went to where Hearne was shot and saw that there was a big tree by the blue door, and before the shrubbery. A shot fired from behind the bushes would by chance strike the tree. The bullet which killed my brother was not found in the heart. It passed through and was in the tree-trunk. Kara knifed it out and brought ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... thundered out Tom, as he leaped from behind a big tree. "Dutcha boy heap big scalp-me take um! Burra!" And he danced up to Hans, flourishing a big tin knife as he did so. The masquerade was a perfect one, and he looked like an Indian who had just stepped forth ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... the big tree!" shouted Redman. "If you walk in your sleep, Grant, perhaps you will pay ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... attention to the generous act of the State of California in conferring upon the United States Government the ownership of the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove. There should be no delay in accepting the gift, and appropriations should be made for the including thereof in the Yosemite National Park, and for the care and policing of the park. California has acted most wisely, as well as with great magnanimity, in the matter. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... street. It was mid-morning now, the summer sun beating down on the wide space and making every big tree shadow grateful. Great overarching elms, sometimes an oak or a maple, ranged along in straight course and near neighbourhood, making the village look green and bowery, and giving the impression of an easy-going thrift and habit ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... in one dead level of blackness. So it was that my companion and myself, after stumbling into ditches and out of them, after knocking our horses' heads against an ammunition car, or a party of soldiers sheltered under some big tree, found ourselves, after three hours' ride, in this village of Dolo. By this time the storm had greatly abated in its violence, and the thunder was but faintly heard now and then at such a distance as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dawson River, near Mrs. McNabb's station, it was in flood. We felled a big tree across the stream, and with boughs and other timber, improvised a bridge. For three days we were working in our shirts only, getting the sheep and—when the water fell—the teams across. Mosquitoes, sandflies, and a hot sun ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... At her call he turned quickly with apology—"Good day, honoured lady. A strange event! Ah! The honoured household still sleeps. All is silent.... Strange indeed! A man has hung himself on the big oak tree in the temple ground. Deign to look." He pointed to the big tree close by in the grounds of the Myo[u]gyo[u]ji.[35] Sure enough: forty feet from the ground dangled the body of a man. It swayed gently to and fro in harmony with the movement of the branches. A hand seemed to grasp the heart of Tsuyu. The ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... tasting the poignant sweetness of life when some great dread has been removed from it. The morning was a cup filled with mist and glamor. In the corner near her was a rich surprise of new-blown, crystal-dewed roses. The trills and trickles of song from the birds in the big tree above her seemed in perfect accord with her mood. A sentence from a very old, very true, very wonderful Book came ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... understand what it was all about. It listened awhile, and then lifted its head as high as ever it could and shouted to its tall neighbor: "Will you not stoop and tell me what is happening?" And the big tree stooped down and whispered: "The shepherds out on the hilltops are telling strange stories while they watch their sheep. The air is filled with sweet music, and there is a wonderful star coming up in the east, traveling westward ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... "to have to cut down these trees. Of course, I know it's done so as to help the forest, not to hurt it, and that if the big trees weren't cut down the young ones couldn't get sunlight and wouldn't have a chance to grow. But still one hates to see a big tree go." ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sent her children into the wood to pick up sticks. They found a big tree lying on the ground. It had been felled, and towards the roots they noticed something skipping and springing, which they could not make out, as it was sometimes hidden in the grasses. As they came ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class. Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles. But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous to the Green Mountains, as ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... umbrella-trees cling stubbornly to its sides, a pandanus palm grows comfortably at the base of a limb, tons of staghorn, bird's-nest, polypodium, and other epiphytal ferns, have licence to flourish, orchids hang decoratively, and several shrubs spring aspiringly among its roots. But the big tree still asserts its individuality. It is the host, the others merely dependents or tenants. Most of the functions of the tree are associated with the sea. Twice a year it studs its branches with pink fruit, food for many weeks for a carnival of birds, the relics of the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... in my hand a small branch from a big tree. This branch is from an apple tree. Here are seen the tiny buds, the promise of the blossom, and after that the fruit. Have you ever seen an apple orchard in blossom? People rave about the cherry blossoms of Japan, and the fire trees, flaming red, of the Philippines. I have been in ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright |
