"Broomstick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... concerning the peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning them. But the strega, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind, provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their unholy tryst beside ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... know that it is the awful magic mountain where the old witch who eats little children dwells?—and do you not know that she rides on a broomstick. I may need one to follow her, in case she has ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... from a barrel hoop and a piece of mosquito netting, to which he nailed an old broomstick for a handle. And for the first few days when he started making his new collection he didn't visit the swimming hole once. When his father asked him to do a little work for him—such as feeding the chickens, or leading the old horse Ebenezer to water—Johnnie Green was not so pleasant ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... one of them came right up to the man, who was stooping down, as if he were going to jump over him, which so frightened the fellow that, instead of rising, he seized the short broomstick, with one hand on either end, and held it over his head. He remained a few seconds in this position, when the sheep made a spring, and jumped fairly over him, without touching ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... sanctity conferred on God's angels was wings, and the ability to fly. If we come down to the mythology of more recent times we find our pious ancestors in New England thoroughly convinced that the witches they flogged and hanged were perfectly able to navigate the air on a broomstick—thus antedating the Wrights' experiments with heavier-than-air machines by ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the first time, who were old acquaintances of theirs! There—grinning and brandishing his stick—was the Little Black Man who had worried Rudolf many a night as far back as he could remember. There was the Old Witch on the Broomstick, whom Ann had often described to him. There again, were other Bad Dreams that made the children almost smile as they remembered certain exciting times. The Angry Farmer—Rudolf had seen him before; he remembered his fierce expression, ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... that," said another sapient of the same profession—"Robin Oig is no the lad to leave any of them, without tying Saint Mungo's knot on their tails, and that will put to her speed the best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... dinner must be drest by one: Where is that cur—(and I am loth To say that Betty swore an oath)— The sirloin's spoiled: I'll give it him!"— And Betty did look fierce and grim. Bob, who saw mischief in her eye, Avoided her—approaching nigh: He feared the broomstick, too, with physics ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... conversation, one of them said, 'Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman, that could inspire the dean to write so finely upon her.' Mrs. Johnson smiled, and answered, 'that she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the dean could write finely upon a broomstick.'" ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... was Artimisi, but dey call her Emily, and pa's name Jerry Wooten, 'cause he live on de Wooten place. My steppa named Barnes and I taken dat name. My parents, dey have de broomstick weddin'. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... to be the king of all birds." Down to the present time the "hunting of the wren" still takes place in parts of Leinster and Connaught. On Christmas Day or St. Stephen's Day the boys hunt and kill the wren, fasten it in the middle of a mass of holly and ivy on the top of a broomstick, and on St. Stephen's Day go about with it ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... this: She says that one hour after the thing was born the happy father was caught by the doctor and nurse seeing if it could hold its own weight up on a broomstick, like a monkey. She says he was acutely distressed when these authorities deprived him of the custody of his child. Wouldn't that fade you? Trying to see if a baby one hour old could chin itself! Quite all you would wish ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... purchase hosts Of squibs and sweets to mess the pantry; That horrid boy, and broomstick-ghosts On timid JANE would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... shoulder and held her at arm's-length. She writhed and struggled and cursed. Her oaths might have been learned in the gutter. She kicked at him and strove to reach him with her nails, clawing the air. She looked like a witch on a broomstick. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... gathered up in a corner was a truss of straw, covered with a rug and a thin old blanket, which had constituted a wretched substitute for a bed. That, however, which alarmed Barney most, was an old broomstick with a stump of worn broom attached to the end of it, as it stood in an opposite corner. This constituted the whole furniture of ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I have previously felt and lived. I have no legerdemain to invoke things out of the air, or to make a dry branch bud and blossom before the eyes. I must look into my heart and write, or remain dumb. Robert Louis Stevenson said one should be able to write eloquently on a broomstick, and so he could. Stevenson had the true literary legerdemain; he was master of the art of writing; he could invest a broomstick with charm; if it remained a broomstick, it was one on which the witches might carry you through the air at night. Stevenson had no burden of meaning to deliver to the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... down and round and round, faster and faster, growing smaller every second, until at last she was nothing but her real self, an ugly shriveled witch running round and round on a broomstick. With a loud shrill scream she mounted into the air and was away out of sight in an instant, leaving everybody staring open ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... great doctor of eminent skill, should, instead of directions to a patient, present him with a potion for himself. Suppose a minister should, instead of a good round sum, treat my lord ——, or sir ——, or esq. —— with a good broomstick. Suppose a civil companion, or a led captain, should, instead of virtue, and honour, and beauty, and parts, and admiration, thunder vice, and infamy, and ugliness, and folly, and contempt, in his patron's ears. Suppose, when a tradesman first carries in ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... visit to Newberg. His second sermon he preached in the Baptist church. To those simple-minded country people, he stood before them a living illustration of what the grace of God might effect. Six years previously he had startled and amazed them, as though he had ridden through the air on a broomstick; now he came back to them in peace and gentleness. Before he had laid sacrilegious hands upon the Holy Bible in the sacred pulpit; now he opened the same reverently and read from thence the words of eternal life. The change was indeed marvellous, and ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... got hold of a broomstick, and gave her a good lesson, in order to get something for the ten sequins which I had been foolish enough to pay in advance. But I have broken none of her limbs, and I took care to apply my blows only on her posteriors, on which spot I have no doubt that all the marks may be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... say not, unless your back is proof against a broomstick," answered Fairfield, coarsely. "I tell my servant to treat all ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... tattling, a tea-party hight, Which, like meeting of witches, is brewed up at night, Where each matron arrives fraught with tales of surprise, With knowing suspicion and doubtful surmise; Like the broomstick-whirled hags that appear in Macbeth, Each bearing some relic of venom or death, To stir up the toil and to double the trouble, That fire may burn, and that cauldron may bubble. The wives of our cits of inferior degree ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... to be regretted that he did not write an account of his travels in France; for as he is reported to have once said, that 'he could write the Life of a Broomstick[1155],' so, notwithstanding so many former travellers have exhausted almost every subject for remark in that great kingdom, his very accurate observation, and peculiar vigour of thought and illustration, would have produced a valuable work. During ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... matter of war, did he confine himself to his own kind. His huge strength and indomitable courage made him the match of almost anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick; the smith never did it again. While in the Border Ram he attacked Big Bell, the Squire's underkeeper, with such murderous fury that it took all the men in the room to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... road, and took the gate in a flying leap. But the animal never came down again. It was getting quite dark then, but she could still plainly see that a witch was upon its back, belaboring it with a broomstick. And she knew very well who that witch was. It was the "spectre" of Dulcibel Burton—for it had a scarlet bodice on, just such as Dulcibel nearly always wore. They two—the mare and its rider—went off sailing up into the ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... said to himself, as the house grew plainer; 'rebuilt at the worst time, by a man with no more taste than a broomstick. Still, he was the sixteenth owner, from father to son. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in and stole her stocking, hung it over the broomstick, and marched around the breakfast table singing to the ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... draperies at her waist, a little old lady with a tall black, sugar-loaf hat, a great white ruff around her neck and little red shoes with bright silver buckles on them—a little old lady who carried a black cat perched on one shoulder and a broomstick in one hand. ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... became of the fair-haired lady? No one knows. At the cry of Yvon she disappeared; but it was said that a wretched old hag was seen flying on a broomstick over the castle walls, chased by the dogs; and it was the common opinion among the Kervers that the fair-haired lady was none other than the witch, the godmother of the giant. I am not sure enough of the fact, however, to dare warrant it. It is always ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... you?' snapped the witch. 'Well, supposing you change this broomstick. You swore blue it was cut on a rainless Tuesday from an ash that had supported a murderer with a false nose. The very first time I used it, it broke at six thousand feet. I was over the sea at the time, and had to glide nearly four miles to make a ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... to make some use of her power and come out and carry me home on her broomstick steed," she answered, looking up at ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... the May-dew, though the women Like to wet with it their faces. I have never seen a soul yet Who by it improved her beauty; Have no faith in arts of witchcraft In the night of St. Walpurgis, Nor in broomstick-riding squadrons. Notwithstanding there belongs a Magic to the month of May. My old weary bones have suffered Many painful gouty twinges From the chilly winds of April. Now these pains are quite forgotten, And ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... was required in the play. No one had genius nor ambition enough to create an entire one, but a very realistic head was constructed, and this, fastened to a broomstick and thrust forward at the psychological moment, produced a startling and thrilling effect. The audience was stirred to its depth. Most of the young people were either on the stage or behind the curtain; but the few who were ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... not know why a woman should exhibit an overgrown broomstick when an Italian train passes a flag station, any more than I know why, when a squad of Paris firemen march out of the engine house for exercise, they should carry carbines and knapsacks. I only know that ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... woman on a broomstick in Mother Goose," Mrs. Buck informed the hen and then since there was no hurry about the potatoes she fell to dreaming again. It was very peaceful on the shady porch with that whirlwind of a Judy gone for several hours on one of her crazy peddling jaunts. What a girl she was ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... outside person, desperately frightened. It was a new terror, different from anything that he had known before. It was as though a huge giant had suddenly lifted him up by the seat of his breeches, or a witch had transplanted him on to her broomstick and carried him off. It was ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... still the servant of a musketeer, when once the blood mounted to his fat cheeks, seized a broomstick ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles—more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted to it at the machine-shop in Fairbanks. It ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... a broomstick form the subject of a poetical effusion, when the material of the broom itself is so often used in ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... would cry. "You are exquisite this morning! Your eyes are like stars on the sea. Come, then, angelic Rock, Rocher des Anges, and waltz with your Ste. Valerie!" And he would take Abby by the waist, and try to waltz with her, till she reached for the broomstick. I have told you, Melody, that Abby was the homeliest woman the Lord ever made. Not that I ever noticed it, for the kindness in her face was so bright I never saw anything but that; but strangers would speak of it, and Yvon himself, before he heard her speak, made a little face, I remember, that ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... out! that was my head," or, "That came within an inch of my nose—I do wish you'd be careful!" Kathie and the twins were playing house, holding lively conversations in a high key, while Alan paid them repeated visits, prancing around the room, and to their door, on a broomstick, which was his fiery steed, and to control which required both voice and whip; Nannie was hunting through our pile of violin music for a certain duet to play with Max when he got home; and in the midst of all the noise Phil lay on ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... our readers one more competent to do it. This person is Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, an old maid between thirty-seven and forty-nine years of age. She was tall and thin, and had all her life rejoiced at this, for she had a form three fingers in diameter. True, a broomstick can be grasped between the thumb and index finger, and yet is not very graceful. Let not any one think, though, in spite of this infantine vanity, that Mlle. Crepineau was of those virgins whom the Bible condemns as foolish ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... he was. His broomstick legs seemed twice the proper length, and so thin you would hardly have believed they could ever carry him. His head, which somehow suggested the lines of a boot-jack, was set awkwardly on ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... Peppe, who had entered unobserved. "Patrona mia, you should have seen this paladin," he continued, coming forward. "Why, Orlando was never half so furious as he when he stood there telling them what manner of dirt they were, and bidding them to bed ere he drove them with a broomstick." ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Mrs. Green, he was a damn lucky fellow to be able to do it," cried Vane, taking the kindly old hand in both his own. "If I wasn't afraid of him coming for me with a broomstick, I'd do the same ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... and wouldn't have cared if Miss Dierdre O'Farrell had flown off on a broomstick, or been kidnapped by a German aviator. My heart, however, was sure that nothing had happened and I suspected that her brother had trumped up an excuse to join us. It vexed me that Brian should show concern. If only he knew how the girl had ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the girl, demurely. "I am as old as the world, and can fly through the air on a broomstick, so don't think to escape me again, step-mamma. I trust you will enjoy your brief repose, for it will soon be morning, and if I don't see your fair face at the breakfast table, I shall not ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... gluttonous scoundrels, who swallowed long pieces of raw pork the whole of the day, and towards evening were, from repletion, hanging their heads over the sides of the canoe and quite ill. They had been regaled with pork and whisky going up; we gave them salt fish and a broomstick by way of variety on their return, and they behaved very ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... took this so much to heart but it was all, I suppose, part of that odd hatred that she has of Peter's earlier life and earlier friends. She has never met the man Brant, but I think that she fancies that he is going to swoop down one of these days and carry Peter off on a broomstick or something. She gave in about the name—indeed I have never seen Peter more determined—but I think, nevertheless, that she broods over it and remembers it. My dear, I am as sorry for her as I can ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... of expression, between any of the classes of his work, whether it range from the first volume of Modern Painters to Verona in time, or from The Seven Lamps of Architecture to Unto This Last in subject. If anybody ever could "write beautifully about a broomstick" he could: though perhaps it is a pity that he so often did. But this faculty, and the entire absence of bashfulness which accompanied it, are no doubt grand accommodations for letter-writing; and the reader of Mr. Ruskin's letters gets the benefit of both very often—of a curious ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... Douglas, "but there it is. Of course, at Gretna Green, which, as you say, is not far away, the blacksmith used to witness marriages, although his presence was unnecessary. Old stories have it that the contracting parties jumped a broomstick or a pair of tongs, or something of that sort, but whether there were any signatures I really do not know. Anyhow, the law in Scotland, as I have been informed, is that if a man and a girl agree to take each other as husband and wife, a marriage ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... an unlooked-for predicament. Would she be doing wrong if she took the brother and sister away without saying anything to the mother who did not know her own children any longer? She might speak to Mrs. Burnett, but how about that broomstick? For a moment she stood irresolute, scratching her head thoughtfully. Then with characteristic energy and decision, she grabbed Rivers with one hand and Fern with the other, and trotted off down the street, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... terrific cry was heard from the courtyard, as if not alone the cloister, but the whole world was in flames. Curses, cries, menaces, threats, screams, all mingled together, and shouts of "Run for a broomstick! the accursed witch! the evil hag! let ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... liberties with the lower part of her attire. Happily, the good dame is no gossamer, but a figure of rotundity and fleshly substance; else would these aerial tormentors whirl her aloft like a witch upon a broomstick, and set her down, doubtless, in ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there?) which has "gone and got itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and a Turkey-Foot,—which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... moral and physical, and to meet those little black, steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step—the flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of balm ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... Fricka. As for me,"—she shrugged her small shoulders,—"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break my neck, so I'm dreadfully afraid I shall annoy him—dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well—stand over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have, Kitten. Wait until you see the old fairy godmother unload her pumpkin. Or did she carry the dress on a broomstick? I forget the details. At any rate, while I'm thinking of a way to appease the wrath of Jane's father by not dishonoring his scholarship, it is the very least you can do to get ready for the dance. I know where you can hire a love of a dress—lots of girls do it—" ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Farintosh's Groom of the Stole, don't you know, to stand, or if I could sit, in the back seat of the box, whilst his Royal Highness made talk with the Beauty; to go out and fetch the carriage, and walk downstairs with that d—— crooked old dowager, that looks as if she usually rode on a broomstick, by Jove, or else with that bony old painted sheep-faced companion, who's raddled like an old bell-wether. I think, Newcome, you seem rather hit by the Belle Cousine—so was I last season; so were ever so many of the fellows. By Jove, sir! there's nothing I know more comfortable ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... live in either); log barn; 20 acres in cultivation; 60 acres timber land; balance pasture land; well watered. We will sell this place for $1575. Will throw in a cook stove and all the household furniture, consisting of a frying-pan handle and a broomstick; also a cow and a yearling calf; also one bay heifer; also 8400 lbs. of hay, minus what the above-named stock have consumed during the winter; also 64 bushels of oats, subject to the above-mentioned diminution. If sold, we shall have left on our hands one of the driest and ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... Jack. "She rode in on a broomstick—she crept in through the keyhole. Where's the fire? Let's take her ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... scientists, settling the matter in a sentence: "The cause is that feathers doe possess upward attractions." During four hundred years preceding Lord Verulam philosophers would have flown by aid of a broomstick. Bacon himself would have merely parried ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... died on the 27th of January, 1699. Swift then became chaplain to Lord Berkeley in Dublin Castle, and it was as a little surprise to Lady Berkeley, who liked him to read to her Robert Boyle's "Meditations," that Swift wrote the "Meditation on a Broomstick." In February, 1700, he obtained from Lord Berkeley the vicarage of Laracor with the living of Rathbeggan, also in the diocese of Meath. In the beginning of 1701 Esther Johnson, to whom Sir William Temple had bequeathed a leasehold farm in Wicklow, came with an elder friend, Miss Dingley, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... duty here for the witches' broomstick and the fairies' rush of European tales, but a similar conveyance is, I think, not unknown ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... them beneath the dignity of his vocation. He says nothing of the valiant matron in Chatham Row who, in the impatience of her patriotism, hoisted the American flag over her door two hours before the stipulated moment, noon, and defended it against a British provost officer with her broomstick. Nor does he allude to the great scene at the principal flag-staff, which the retiring garrison had plentifully greased, and from which they had removed the blocks and halyards, in order to retard the hoisting of the stars and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... supposed to come down the chimney, our stockings were pinned on a broomstick, laid across two chairs in front of the fireplace. We retired on Christmas Eve with the most pleasing anticipations of what would be in our stockings next morning. The thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet, bright and early, we would run downstairs in our bare feet ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... men and buckets and brooms would cleanse it, therefore every man and woman on the streets, grave doctors of divinity, stately Mr. Dombey, Flora McFlimsey and Edmund Sparkler, should each shoulder broomstick or bucket, and plunge pell mell into the reeking filth. This argument proceeds upon the assumption that Christians can purge amusements only by using them in the forms and with the appliances attendant upon the world's abuse of them. This is assuming altogether too much. We ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... a story. Little Juozapas, who was near crazy with hunger these days, had gone out on the street to beg for himself. Juozapas had only one leg, having been run over by a wagon when a little child, but he had got himself a broomstick, which he put under his arm for a crutch. He had fallen in with some other children and found the way to Mike Scully's dump, which lay three or four blocks away. To this place there came every day many hundreds of wagonloads of garbage and trash from the lake front, where the rich people ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... strong lad; but in mind he remained always at the happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very small children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not learn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing peals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his noise; and I had to tell him that he must find ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... remember it? I happen to know all about that. A fellow about town somehow got hold of an idea for a melody; he didn't know a note, but he whistled it to Sykes, and Sykes dotted it down. Now, Sykes knows no more of harmony than a broomstick, so he got another man to harmonise it, and then a fourth fellow wrote an orchestral accompaniment. That's the kind of ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... other boys were engaged in the fascinating game of blowing bubbles—one making the lather, another blowing the bubbles, while a third was trying to catch them. There were also three more boys—one of them apparently pretending to be a witch, as he was riding on a broomstick, while another was giving a companion a donkey-ride upon his back. All had the appearance of little cupids or angels and looked so lifelike and happy that we almost wished we were young again and could join them in ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Mr. Brown. And he did. And, surely enough, when the broomstick was held crosswise in front of him, up rose Toby on his hind legs, just as when Mr. Tallman had told ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... it! Don't let it bite me!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and he tried to get out of the way, but he slipped on his broomstick crutch and fell down, and a piece of prickly holly fell on him and tickled ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... wi' heaven, I doubt, considering wha I carry ahint me—and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, I'se be bound.—Come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
