"Kitten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wonder if you had blankets enough on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have back in the time when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She lugged it around in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and make it ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... story-book and picked up her white kitten, and went out to the side verandah, her favourite spot ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... of vineyard!" said the uncle. "Ay, she's a pretty one, gentle as a lamb, well made and active, and obedient as a kitten. She were the light ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... a beautiful disorder. A grey kitten and a white puppy sat together on the grass, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company and pretending to be asleep; and though the kitten displayed no interest in the visitors, holding its personality of more importance than anything else, the puppy jumped up, barked, and rushed at ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Dog, they called the Cat, And little Kitten too, And down they put the Cod and sauce, To ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... duchess was in exile she shared her disgrace, refused to betray her, and was sent to the Bastille for her loyalty. She resigned herself to her imprisonment with admirable philosophy, amused herself in the study of Latin, in watching the gambols of a cat and kitten, and in carrying on a safe and sentimental flirtation with the fascinating Duc de Richelieu, who occupied an adjoining cell and passed the hours in singing with her popular airs from Iphigenie. "Sentimental" is hardly a fitting word to apply to the coquetries of this remarkably clear ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... dreadful in your being caught fast asleep, like a white kitten on a velvet rug. If you are never guilty of anything worse, you and your ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... playful as a kitten, tricksy[obs3], frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c. 838; cock-a- hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... giving medical care to any wounded enemies who might fall into our hands. When Boer shells began to burst about our ears Dr. Stark was the most practical advocate of caution. He would leave the Royal Hotel at daybreak every morning or even earlier, carrying with him a pet kitten in a basket, and sufficient supplies for a whole day up to dinner-time. When the light began to fade so that gunners could hardly see to shoot straight, and therefore ceased firing, he would emerge from his riverside retreat and return to the hotel. ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... read and write. Oh, Miss Maude now—I don't want to recite. I don't want to." (But she did "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "The Playful Kitten"—the latter all of 40 lines.) "I think, I think they both come out of McGuffey's second Reader. Yes ma'am I remember's McGuffey's and the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... all be attended to, kitten. According to Bland, Johnny checked out before he disappeared. Also his airplane disappeared with him. That doesn't look like he'd been made away with, exactly. He's all right, probably—but we'll find out. I've a right to know what he did with that flying ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... has he saved me from the rough treatment of rude and ill-conducted curs, when I have been returning from a concert, or tripping quietly home after a pleasant chat with a friend. Often and often, when a kitten, has he carried me on his back through the streets, in order that I might not wet my velvet slippers on a rainy day: and once, ah! well do I remember it, he did me even greater service; for a wicked Tom of our race, who ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... written by Miss Salon, in the name of a kitten at Little Strawberry Hill, with whose gambols Lord ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... bother of objecting to it. In one of his books he hints that talking to certain persons is like trying to pet a squirrel; if you are wise, you will not imitate that frisky little beast but assume the purring-kitten attitude ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... things than for cotton-picking or plantation work, and handed him over to their surveyor, who needed a man to help him. I used often to meet him after this, tripping at his master's heels with the theodolite, or scampering about with tapes and chains like a kitten with a spool of thread. He did not look then as though he were destined to die of a broken heart, though that was his end not so many months afterward. The plantation manager told me that Arick ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... noon voice. Sometimes there sits the brother who follows the sea, their representative man; who knows only how far it is to the nearest port, no more distances, all the rest is sea and distant capes,—patting the dog, or dandling the kitten in arms that were stretched by the cable and the oar, pulling against Boreas or the trade-winds. He looks up at the stranger, half pleased, half astonished, with a mariner's eye, as if he were a dolphin within cast. If men will believe it, sua si bona ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... on the middle of the floor with a blind kitten just three days old in her lap. The kitten squalled frightfully, and Babs kept on calling it 'poor, pretty darling.' I thought badly of the kitten's future prospects, but well of its nurse's; ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... with a pretty flushed face beneath a French hat, and two little hands stretched out in greeting. Mr Asplin looked at her critically. Was it Peggy? For a moment memory was baffled by the sight of the elegant young lady, but a second glance revealed the well-known features—the arched brows and kitten-like chin. For the rest, the hazel eyes were as clear and loving as ever, and the old mischievous gleam shone through ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... high opinion of this town, where she only lives on account of her husband, a retired something-or-other who owns the house. Although convulsed with grief, both of them, at the moment of my arrival—a favourite kitten had just been run over—they at once set about making me comfortable in a room with exposure due south. The flooring is of cement: the usual Viareggio custom. Bricks are cold, stone is cold, tiles are cold; but cement! ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... day or two his quick ear caught the sound of a feeble mewing inside the arch, and, of course, he wanted to know what it was. So he was told that kittens had to be kept quiet and that Down would be very vexed if her kitten was disturbed; but that by-and-bye she would doubtless bring it out for him to see, and then, of course, he could play with it. Now, Baby Akbar was always a reasonable little fellow, so he waited patiently; though every night when he went to bed and Down came out for her supper, ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... stand everything else," said Rose, "if we could just get the children out of the house. Edwin is still as weak as a kitten, and Myrna looks as if she might come down with the fever ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the nature of a religious festival," said Sir Modava. "There are scores of snakes brought before you; but they have had their poison fangs extracted, and they could not harm you much more than a playful kitten. This is a day appointed to make prayers and offerings to the snakes, in order to conciliate them and to insure immunity from their bites. Though these occasions occur all over India, I don't believe there is a single bite the less ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... again, the Master grimly watchful, Montgomery as alert as a kitten. The Master tried a sudden rush, squattering along with his awkward gait, but coming faster than one would think. The student slipped aside and avoided him. The Master stopped, grinned, and shook his ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... baggage-waggon her cradle, the camp-dogs her playfellows, the caserne oaths her lullaby, the guidons her sole guiding-stars, the razzia her sole fete-day: it was little marvel that the bright, bold, insolent little friend of the flag had nothing left of her sex save a kitten's mischief and coquette's archness. It said much rather for the straight, fair, sunlit instincts of the untaught nature, that Cigarette had gleaned, even out of such a life, two virtues that she would ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Among the treasured pathetic scraps kept in his father's desk, his executors found a pencil drawing by his wife, the closed window of a silent house, into which the perfectly sketched figure of a little kitten was trying ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... minute," said the doctor when they were about to start, and after fumbling in a drawer he produced a red ribbon with a little bell attached. "Dere, now, you can find him in de dark," he said, tying it round the kitten's neck. The girls were enchanted with the new pet and promptly christened it "Kitty Wohelo." Playing with it whiled away many a tedious hour for Sahwah when she could not join in the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite of The Daily Mail) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... reminiscences, when her father and mother, the second year after her marriage, had broken up their household in New York, and resolved on a holiday, late in life, in Europe. It was a comfortable, shabby old thing, that she had used to curl up on to learn her German, with the black kitten in her lap, and the tip of its tail for a pointer. She had always meant to cover it new, but had never had time. There was a large gray travelling shawl folded over it now, making extra padding for back and seat, and the thick fringe fell below, a garnishing ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... I help myself?" screamed one of the children, drumming loudly on the table. "I'd rather have bread and molasses!" cried another; and "Oh, Ma, when we move to-morrow will you let me take the kitten I found?" ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... black kitten, played a part in the story also. The Bobbsey twins were very fond of Snoop, and had kept him so many years that I suppose he ought to be called cat, instead of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... the happy pair giggled, and exchanged looks which were meant to imply that their most desperate quarrels were mere kitten's play; and that Uncle John did so interpret them, he made manifest by a ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... "My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon genius. He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he has derived from it, are truly astonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the same time as playful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the activity of his mind I will mention a few circumstances that may interest you and Colin. You will believe that to him we never appear to regard anything he does as anything more than a schoolboy's amusement. He took ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... little Dutch girl and her mother and that's a kitten, and the little girl has her hand up as if she was doing something to her forehead. She has shoes that curve up ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... should retire and be able to have a home. This is the dream of every officer who gives his days and strength and brains to the service of his country. Then they packed the few articles that they felt most necessary to their comfort, gave away ten guinea pigs, eight white rats, four pigeons and a kitten, crated Bill's collie and the Major's Airdale, and started off for their first post, Fort Sill, where the Major was stationed at the School of Fire ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... the other way. They turned up their heads sidewise and blinked at the sky, all blue and calm and infinite, with white clouds sailing over it like swans on a limpid lake; and one stood up on his hind legs and reached up both paws, like a kitten, to pull down a cloud to play with. Then the wind stirred a feather near them, the white feather of a ptarmigan which they had eaten yesterday, and forgetting the big world and the sail and the cloud, the cubs took to playing with the feather, chasing ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... time than it takes to tell the story the carrier returned, bringing a receipt for the mail that had been sent, and a pretty little kitten which arrived breathless from its spin through ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... along a road which was being treated according to the iniquity of Macadam. Over the broken stones had been shot, to consolidate them, a complex of ashes, cabbage-leaves, egg and periwinkle shells, straw, potato-parings, a dead kitten (over which a few carrion-flies were hovering), and other promiscuous nuisances. The road in question, be it remarked, is highly "respectable," if not actually fashionable. The houses facing upon it are severely rated, and are inhabited chiefly by "carriage people." ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... kept a maternal eye on his socks and shirts and a soft spot in her heart for the bel Anglais who chaffed her unmercifully, but paid his rent with commendable promptitude. A huge woman, with a shrewd not unkindly face, she sat in a rocking chair with a diminutive kitten on her shoulder and a mass of knitting in her lap. As she listened to Craven's inquiry she tossed the kitten into a basket and bundled the shawl she was making under her arm, while she rose ponderously to her feet and favoured the stranger with a stare that was frankly and undisguisedly ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... did, They called in adventitious aid. A faithful, favourite dog ('twas thus With Tobit and Telemachus) Amused their steps; and for a while They viewed his gambols with a smile. The kitten too was comical, She played so oddly with her tail, Or in the glass was pleased to find Another cat, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... big brown shawl wrapped around his stooped shoulders, a piece of home spun jeans pinned around his head and a pair of patched jeans trousers supported by heavy bands of the same material for suspenders. As he returned from milking, I wondered if he had my gray kitten in his pocket, but suddenly I realized he was hobbling hurriedly, the milk pail was thrown aside and he seemed badly frightened. I ran to find out what had occurred to upset Uncle Jake's ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Nearly every ruined barn or house sheltered one or more of them and they were, as a rule, quite wild. Some, however, had been caught and tamed by the soldiers who made great pets of them. Frequently a soldier would be seen going in or out of the front line with a kitten perched contentedly on top of his pack. There was one big brindle "madame" cat who adopted our machine gun outfit when we first went in. She traveled up and down the line but never stayed anywhere except in one of the machine gun emplacements. ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... remaining picture showed a little girl seated in a big armchair and reading with profound culture the most massive of bibles: she had her grandmother's mutch cap and spectacles on, and looked very sweet and solemn; a doll sat bolt upright beside her, and on the floor a kitten hunted a ball of wool with ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Trailanga replied, "Lahiri Mahasaya is like a divine kitten, remaining wherever the Cosmic Mother has placed him. While dutifully playing the part of a worldly man, he has received that perfect self-realization for which I ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... very fond of animals—that was always one of his good traits—and he one day found a little stray white kitten somewhere about the place, and brought it into the room where I sat alone at work. He began grimly to play with it. Just then Janet opened the door. She gave a delighted exclamation, and, coming eagerly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... was gambolling all around her anchor among the silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at the sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while the spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of a gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm sorry I can't stay any longer with you. I'm going North," and would sidle off, halting suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. "As I was just going ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... herself in the depths of her dreaded jungle. It was so confusing she did not know which way to turn. The roar and clang of a great city smote on her ears as she stood in the big Union depot, helpless, bewildered, and as lost as a stray kitten in the midst of that noisy, pushing crowd. Sharp elbows jostled her this way and that; strange faces streamed past her by thousands, it seemed. How could anybody find anybody else in such a whirlpool of people? Hunting for a needle in a haystack seemed nothing in comparison to finding ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and Ike dusted the blinds from the top to the bottom in a "wholesale way," as he called it, and cleaned the knives on the wrong side of the Bath-brick to his heart's content. Every one, even the dumb animals, seemed conscious of Aunt Lina's departure. My little pet kitten, Norah, resumed her place by the side of the heater in the library, starting once in a while in her dreams and springing up as though she heard the rustle of Aunt Lina's gown, or the sharp, clear notes of her voice—but coiled herself down with a consoling "pur," ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me three francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will never let me out except to come here—and he calls me his little kitten! Mamma never called me anything but bad names—and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the china doll, has only one leg, and my three wax dolls are no better. Fanny has only one arm; both Julia's eyes are out; and the kitten scratched off Maria's wig the other day, and she has the most dreadful-looking, bald pate you ever saw! Instead of its being made of nice white wax, it is nothing but old brown paper! I think it is very mean not to make dolls' bald heads like other ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... shrug with her shoulders, and did not say a single word more. Lady Fanny, who was as gay as a young kitten (if I may be allowed so to speak of the aristocracy), laughed, and blushed, and giggled, and seemed quite to enjoy her sister's ill-humour. And the Countess began at once, and entered into the history of the thirteen ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... home. "If we must economize on cats," cried Nancy passionately, "don't let's begin on this one! She doesn't look it, but she is a heroine. When the Rideout's house burned down, her kittens were in a basket by the kitchen stove. Three times she ran in through the flames and brought out a kitten in her mouth. The tip of her tail is gone, and part of an ear, and she's blind in one eye. Mr. Harmon says she's too homely to live; now what ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... by there was a pluck beneath the water, and you struck. Whatever else it was, it was no fish; but you carefully winched up and brought in a black kitten not long drowned. Fortune was not content with smiting you, it derided. As you blushingly remarked to the laughing but unappreciative Jamie, this was nothing short of catastrophe. Jamie beguiled the next drift by reminiscences of Sir George Griffith ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... came through parted green wool curtains, a girl so flaxen-haired, with such blue eyes—like a friendly kitten—that Wesley Dean almost forgot the errand that had brought ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... as still as a sentinel with his back against the gate-post and a look of triumph on his face, clutching firmly to his breast a small jet-black kitten. It was mewing piteously, with some reason—for in his determination not to let it go, he gripped it hard, so that it was spread out flat and could hardly breathe. The children gathered round ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... his mother!" cried Vanda. "Come and kiss me, my kitten. No, it is not your grandfather you are to thank, but monsieur, who is good enough to lend me one. I am to have it to-morrow. How are they ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... seven-toed kitten, little daughter. I expect that she will catch a great many mice with those big feet of hers, when she grows ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... little kitten, chasing a ball of yarn, had suddenly turned around and attacked Janice, tooth and nail, the girl would ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... and forwards between her and a gap in the hedge, until Beth understood that she wished her to follow her through it into the next garden. Beth did so, and the cat led her to a little warm nest where, to Beth's wild delight, she showed her a tiny black kitten. Beth picked it up, and carried it, followed by the cat, into the house in a state of breathless excitement, shrieking out the news as she ran. Beth was immediately seized upon. What was she doing at home when ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... was no kitten, might not be altogether infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before—remember the Scottish lord's son—and shown a humorous appreciation of ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... out of the way than Tonio slyly disappeared—following, doubtless, the example set him by his master and mistress—possessing no more sense of responsibility to restrain his movements than a kitten or a butterfly. Thus the dwarf found himself, greatly to his satisfaction and delight, left in sole charge of the captives ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... Felix had pushed a slip of paper over to Alice, on which she read—"'Forget-me-not, ladybird, linnet, kitten." I don't think I ever saw a linnet. Isn't ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the man. The poor mourned bitterly that he was gone, and even the newsboys were filled with regret over his taking away. In speaking of his parent, President Roosevelt once said: "I can remember seeing him going down Broadway, staid and respectable business man that he was, with a poor sick kitten in his coat pocket, which he had picked up in the street." Such a man could not but have a heart overflowing ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... a kitten; his eyes were shut, and he was smiling, too. Every one was very quiet; only Rosita moved, reaching out ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still, enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... for, after all, the ears had a generous look, in harmony with the frank, open face, and the shadowed eye was the softest, sweetest blue eye I ever saw. She had been called Puss when a baby, because of her nestling, kitten-like way, and the odd name clung to her. Luke Lord was homely; but he didn't care a bit. He was so jolly and good-natured that everybody liked him, and he liked everybody, and so was happy. He had light hair, very light for fifteen years, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the poor fellow collapsed and sank to the ground as weak as a kitten. Frank let the bag fall ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... as her mouth had a natural propensity for looking; balancing herself occasionally on the arm of the sofa, which, being rather small and of a light figure, she could do with both impunity and grace; or else rushing to the open window, ostensibly to let her black kitten investigate street-sights from its mistress's shoulder. Agatha was very much of a child still, or could ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... she answered coaxingly, rubbing her head against his sleeve like a kitten. "Come, I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... mode of settling a question. Now, as for our friend the landlord, I am sorry to say that his new business doesn't seem to have improved his manners or his temper a great deal. As a miller, he was one of the best-tempered men in the world, and wouldn't have harmed a kitten. But, now, he can swear, and bluster, and throw glasses at people's heads, and all that sort of thing, with the best of brawling rowdies. I'm afraid he's taking lessons in ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... went to her room, where she sat down and tried to think hard. A Pink Kitten was curled up on the window-sill and ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... "Oh, Mr. Curiosity," she exclaimed, "that is too much for you, you can't lift that up." To her horror and amazement, however, he had lifted it up, and was putting it on again after popping the kitten in, whose remains were discovered at the bottom when the soup was strained. The poor cook was so bewildered, that she did not know what to do: it was time for the dinner to be served, and she, therefore, for the look's sake, thought it best to send the soup in as it was, even if it were sent ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... enough to eat, nor half enough to wear. What was worse than that, she had nobody to kiss, and nobody to kiss her; nobody to love her and pet her; nobody in all the wide world to care whether she lived or died, except a half-starved kitten that lived in the wood-shed. For June was black, and a slave; and this Frenchwoman, Madame Joilet, was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... softness, the velvet grace of a kitten; her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... she went to New York shopping. She secretly regarded that as an expedition. She was terrified at the crossings. Stout, elderly woman as she was, when she found herself in the whirl of the great city, she became as a small, scared kitten. She gathered up her skirts, and fled incontinently across the streets, with policemen looking after her with haughty disapprobation. But when she was told to step lively on the trolley-cars, her ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... freedom of the coming day and of many coming desert days, filled her heart with an almost childish sensation. She felt younger than she had felt for years, and even foolishly innocent, like a puppy dog or a kitten. Her thick black hair, unbound, fell in a veil round her strong, active body, and she had the rare consciousness that behind that other more mysterious veil her soul was to-day a less unfit companion for its mate than it had been since her ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... a boy, after a moment's thought, replied—"A kitten is remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... only creatures who are busy in this way. There is your kitten, for instance, who a few months ago was only a tiny bit of fur, but is now turning gradually into a grown-up cat. It is her daily food which is daily becoming a cat inside her—her saucers of milk now, and very soon her mice, all ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... "The thought of her should cheer, and not cloud our meeting. Her presence never brought me sorrow, nor does her remembrance. Come, dear," she added, cheerfully, taking the child's hand, "come in and rest your poor little tired self. Kate, find the white kitten for her. A prettier one you never saw in France or Cuba, Miss Carrie,—that's what papa ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... ones were quite right. So they hustled and tumbled one another at each fresh log in their haste to be first, and squealed little squeals, and growled little growls, as if each was a pig, a pup, and a kitten all rolled into one. ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... position, one to which I was a comparative stranger. There was nothing to do but to make the best of the situation, however, and this I did, though I can truthfully say that for the first five innings I was as nervous as a kitten. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... like her old self again, and the two girls were laughing merrily over the antics of Eva's Angora kitten when the doorbell rang, and Eva, looking rather ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... was accustomed from day to day to take her station quietly at my elbow, on the writing table, sometimes for hour after hour, whilst I was engaged in study, became at length less constant in her attendance, as she had a kitten to take care of. One morning she placed herself in the same spot, but seemed unquiet, and, instead of seating herself as usual, continued to rub her furry sides against my hand and pen, as though resolved to draw my attention, and make me leave off. As soon as she had accomplished this ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... the last bead and looked at the unstable baubles in her pink left palm. She tilted her hand so that they rolled back and forth. "Could a kitten look at a king?" she asked with ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... is no one with whom to leave the puppies." "Yes, we rented our house to Mrs. S—— for less than we expected to get for it, because she is so fond of cats and promised to take good care of Pom Pom"—which recalls to my mind a dear little girl who had a white kitten that she was entrusting to a neighbor. The neighbor, a busy person with eight children, received the kitten without demonstration of any kind. Little Lydia looked at her for a few moments and then said, "Mrs. F——, that kitten must be loved." That is really the trouble, not only must they ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... When Nance's kitten, presented to her by their neighbour, Mrs. Helier Baker, solved much speculation as to its sex by becoming a mother, Tom gladly undertook the task of drowning the superfluous offspring. He got so much amusement out of it that, for weeks, Nance's horrified inner vision saw little blind heads, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... one corner. Then his captors would get a firm grip on the back of his neck. If the squirrel proved to be a young one, they would put on a collar and little chain, that they had always ready, and keep him to train for a pet. Once Paul caught a gray squirrel kitten so small and young that he had to feed it on milk and crushed walnuts. He called it May. The tiny creature lived in his pocket and desk and shared his bed at night. It would sit on the off page of his book whilst he ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... a sandboy, he is happier than a king, And his trawler is the darling of his heart (With her cuddy like a cupboard where a kitten couldn't swing, And a smell of fish that simply won't depart); He has found upon occasion sundry targets for his guns; He could tell you tales of mine and submarine; Oh, the holes he's in and out of and the glorious risks he runs Turn his son—who's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... walked a hundred feet under ordinary circumstances, but that scream brought me here on the run. Now that the excitement is over I feel weak as a kitten," Charley answered. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... my Infant, lo! What a pretty baby show! See the Kitten on the Wall, Sporting with the leaves that fall, Wither'd leaves, one, two, and three, From the lofty Elder-tree! Through the calm and frosty air Of this morning bright and fair, Eddying round and round they sink Softly, slowly: one might think, 10 From ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... Chinese boy, as it seemed, although at second glance he looked rather old for a boy. He wore blue clothes and was shelling peas. His glossy black "pigtail" reached down to the floor, and the kitten was trying to raise the end of it in her pretty white paws. As Lucy had said, heavy black silk cords were braided in with the hair, ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... is just what she did. She got the bread all right, but, on the way back she stopped to pet a kitten that rubbed up against her. And then Vi got turned around, and she went down a side street, and walked two or three blocks before she ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... well one," growled Tag, "you never would have put me down, or held me. But I'm like a kitten ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... not a louder sound, not more emphatic, imperative or clear than the others; it was formless, feeble and ineffably pathetic. It was its utter incongruity which reached Dewforth through the robotic clamor, and which touched him ... a mewing, as of a kitten ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... small round intent, Like sportive kitten with its tail; While no sick-headache they bewail, And while their host will credit give, Joyous and ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... and smiling that the twins knew at once there must be something very nice in the bundle, but what it was they could not guess. Taro thought, "Maybe it's a puppy." He had wanted a puppy for a long time. And Take thought, "Perhaps it's a kitten! But it looks pretty large for a kitten, and it doesn't mew. Kittens always mew." And they ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... kitten, by any means, so I went up to my shark friends and struck one of them for enough to carry me up to Broken Bow and back. He was a big winner and came right up with the twenty. They wanted to let me in the game again on 'tick,' but then I had sense enough to know that I'd ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... telling about their pets. I have a little dog that can turn somersaults. He shuts doors when you tell him to, and gives you his paw if you ask him in French. He is a black and tan. Then I have a pet kitten, and I tie a blue ribbon round its neck. It jumps through my arms; but it is too fond of staying out all night on the fences. I have seventeen dolls. The largest is a Japanese baby, and is as large as a live one. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... two years ago and opened a shop, was seen kicking a small kitten out of his house. The next day a committee of Riverdale citizens waited on him, and said they had had a great deal of trouble to root out cruelty from their village, and they didn't want any one to come there and introduce it again, and they thought he had better move on to ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... what's in your mind, Phil, but you needn't trouble about that. We're just trying to get acquainted, you and I. We understand each other beautifully, and after while we'll see whether we have any advice for each other. At your age I hadn't the sense of a kitten. You're most astonishingly wise; I marvel at you! And you've grown up a nice, sensible girl in spite of your aunts—none of their cattishness—not a hint of it. I can't tell you how relieved I am to find ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... to frisk about in the green woods could not be happy shut up in a box. This pretty little animal became so much attached to her kind-hearted protector, that she would run about after him, and come like a kitten whenever he called her. While he was gone to school, she frequently ran off to the woods and played with wild squirrels on a tree that grew near his path homeward. Sometimes she took a nap in a large knot-hole, or, if the weather was very warm, made a cool ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... man dozed o'er the latest news Till the light in his pipe went out; And, unheeded, the kitten with cunning paws Rolled and tangled the balls about; Yet still sat the wife in the ancient chair, Swaying to and fro in ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the snarler And the guests of every sort— The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog; Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin— Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. One assassin picks the banjo, and ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the big chairs, and all the paraphernalia of Race Guides and race-glasses, fox-masks and stags'-horns, and hunting-whips. And yet, something that from the first moment struck him as not quite in keeping, foreign to the picture—a little jumble of books, a vase of flowers, a grey kitten. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... but I never did it again. I caught one, a kitten, and set off with a number of boys to kill it; but as we went along it began to play with my necktie, and to purr. Our hearts were softened, so we let it go. Ah, Corrie, my boy, never go hunting ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... possible way. If you wouldn't let them smash their pots on the table, if you wouldn't let them drag the kitten about with a string round its neck, if you wouldn't give them whatever they asked for, every mortal thing—then there was a shine on, and their mother coming in asking—"What's the matter with him? What have you done to him? What is it, Darling?" And then she'd turn on you as if she'd trample ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... profits. The day that the elopement was the talk of the town, Colonel Alphabetical Morrison was in the office. He said that he remembered Juanita Sinclair when she was a princess and wore Dolly Varden clothes and was the playfullest kitten in the basketful that used to turn out to the platform dances on Fourth of July, and appear as belles of the suppers given for the Silver Cornet Band just after the war. "But," added the Colonel, "this town is full of saffron-coloured old girls with wiry hair and sun-bleached eyes, who ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Many a time have I seen him placidly extended before a fire, while puss used his shaggy body as a sleeping box, and once he was observed to help that anxious tabby-mother with the toilet of her kittens by licking them carefully all over. At every lick of Rufus's huge prehensile tongue a kitten was lifted bodily into the air, only, however, to descend washed and unharmed to the ground. But out of doors, in the society of Flick, Rufus's whole nature seemed to change. He became a demon-exterminator of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... laugh, in which Agnes joined, and the two, banishing the thoughts of sick babies and pale-faced women, had a gay time. In the meantime, the children had scrambled over rocks to gather lichen, and dug holes deep enough to bury a kitten in, in their efforts to get moss; they had sailed little nut-shell boats down the stream, and in the many ways that children have enjoyed themselves. Everybody was hungry of course, so by the time Agnes was ready for her ferns, there were empty baskets in which to ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... very sick at heart, he saw a little black cat running madly back and forth along the edge of a steep cliff from one of whose crevices came a persistent, unhappy mewing. The poor cat was a mother-cat, and was trying to rescue a kitten of hers that had fallen down between the rocks. At great risk of being dashed to pieces himself, the brave Prince climbed down the precipice, rescued the kitten, and gave it back to ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... on the floor and clung to the walls; but the lash at the end of the big whip caught her everywhere, cracking against her ears with the noise of fireworks, streaking her flesh with burning weals. A regular dance of the animal being taught its tricks. This poor kitten waltzed. It was a sight! Her heels in the air like little girls playing at skipping, and crying "Father!" She was all out of breath, rebounding like an india-rubber ball, letting herself be beaten, unable to see or any longer to seek a refuge. And ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... "but I remember you carried me home once when I had hurt my foot, and you jumped into the ice pond to save my kitten, and—" ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... kitten, my kitten, And hey my kitten, my deary, Such a sweet pet as this Was neither far ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... half-way through the hamlet and all goes well; still no sign of life except—yes, this so-called proof of every rule is always forthcoming, except that there is the sudden appearance of one stately cock. This is followed immediately by its sudden and unstately disappearance. A kitten also emerges from somewhere, glares, arches, fuffs, becomes indescribable, and—is not! Two or three children turn up and gape, but do not recover in time to insult, or to increase the dangers of the awkward turn in the road which is now ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... each had a kitten in one hand and an elegant bouquet of pine needles and grass in the other, and what with the due presentation of the bouquets and the struggles of the kittens, the hugging and kissing was much interfered with. Kittens, bouquets, and babies were all somehow squeezed into the sleigh, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... stood engaged in talk With mother on that narrow walk Between the laurels (where we play At Red-skins lurking for their prey) And the grey old wall of roses Where the Persian kitten dozes And the sunlight sleeps upon Crannies of the crumbling stone —So hot it is you scarce can bear Your naked hand upon it there, Though there luxuriating in heat With a slow and gorgeous beat White-winged ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling, wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it annoyed him just the same—took his mind off important things. And what had English to cry over anyway? The ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... minute, and frown on you the next—toss you flowers with one hand, and hail stones with the other. I know her. Many's the time she has coaxed me out of a good, warm bed, wheedled me into the fields in a white dress and thin shoes, and then sent me home wet as a drowned kitten, with a snapping ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... to intone in concert a strange chant which is as tangled as a skein of wool after serving as a plaything for a kitten's prolonged game of sport. Sadly the chant meanders, wavers, to a high, wailing note. Then, as it were, it soars yet higher towards the dull, murky sky, breaks suddenly into a snarl, and, growling like a wild beast in terror, dies away ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... pour over her, her heart would expand with a tender warmth, and the tears would stream down her cheeks. But that lasted only a moment. Then would come emptiness again, and the feeling, What is the use of living? The black kitten Bryska rubbed up against her and purred softly, but the little creature's caresses left Olenka untouched. That was not what she needed. What she needed was a love that would absorb her whole being, her reason, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... and we are almost at the door. Flames are darting at us like serpents, leaping kitten-like at our heels. Above us is a billowy canopy of fire soaring upward with a vast crackling roar. Fiery splinters shoot around us, while before us is a black pit of smoke. Smooth walls of fire uprear about us. We are in a cavern of fire, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... four short but eventful years of Genevieve Maud's life. Her method of approach had been singularly compelling; old and young paused not to argue, but freely stripped themselves of adornments she fancied, and animals, from the kitten she carried round by one ear to the great St. Bernard she half strangled in recurring moments of endearment, bore with her adoringly, and humbly followed the trail of cake she left behind her when she ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... can see, then his sin remains. Habitually a bungler as he is, and callous when not actively cruel, we are forced to regard him, when he seems to exhibit benevolence, as not divinely benevolent, but merely weak and capricious, like a boy who fondles a kitten and the next moment sets a dog at it. And not only does his moral character fall from him bit by bit, but his dignity disappears also. The orderly processes of the stars and the larger phenomena of nature are suggestive of nothing so ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... were there when I was at an age when attachment to a place gets most deeply rooted, I think. As a mere child one enjoys and suffers like a kitten from hour to hour. But when one is just old enough to form associations and weave dreams, and yet is still a child—it is then, I fancy, that a home gets almost bound up with ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... out of the water so smoothly that the Island Queen hardly rocked, dangling the limp form of the Zid from its great rubbery lips like a drowned kitten. ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... commenced a kitten-like frolic with Bill, who was always only too happy to second any of her motions, and readily promised that after supper she would go with him a walk of half a mile over to a neighbor's, where was ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I've knowed Homer sence he was knee high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby you hain't.... ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet, or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over it—just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it was all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... usually met under rather unconventional circumstances, I believe,” he remarked dryly. “My introduction to her came through the kitten she smuggled into the alms box of the chapel. It took me ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... my kitten, And hey my kitten, my deary, Such a sweet pet as this Was neither far ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... jocose, when he rallies the step-mother of his friend Beauchamp in a sprightly manner, or exchanges quips with Harriet's cousins at the house of "that excellent ancient," her grandmother. It is a mammoth posing as a kitten, though whatever he says or does, his audience throw up their hands and eyes and ask: "Was there ever such a man?" "Thank Heaven, never!" the nineteenth century ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... like this before, and my wonder at it almost drove the pain away. Mother and I always chased rats and birds, and once we killed a kitten. While I was puzzling over it, one of the boys cried out, ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... her that she was guiltless of any design against her former admirer. This was quite unnecessary, as the gentle Isabel, after bidding Brace, with a rap on the knuckles, to "go and play," contented herself with curling up like a kitten beside Miss Keene, and left that gentleman to wander somewhat aimlessly in ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... remember him by. Archer chose a paper-knife, because he did not like to choose anything too good; Jacob chose the works of Byron in one volume; John, who was still too young to make a proper choice, chose Mr. Floyd's kitten, which his brothers thought an absurd choice, but Mr. Floyd upheld him when he said: "It has fur like you." Then Mr. Floyd spoke about the King's Navy (to which Archer was going); and about Rugby (to which Jacob was going); and next ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... of course! I suppose not. And it doesn't take anything at all to make the tears come in her eyes; the other day I didn't know whether to laugh or be vexed at the way she went on with a kitten, for half an hour or more. I wish you had seen her! I am not sure she didn't cry over that. Now I suppose the next thing, brother, you will go and make her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... attended by Hector, the large Newfoundland dog already spoken of, and who was now lying stretched on the floor at Pumpkin's feet, his nose resting on his fore feet, and his eyes, with great gravity, watching the motions of a skittish kitten under the table. Opposite to him sat Tonson the gamekeeper—a thin, wiry, beetle-browed fellow, with eyes like a ferret; and there were also, one or two farmers, who lived ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... farm, or the building of a house; she could work, she could order, plan, regulate, and execute; but what to do with a baby? There it lay, helpless, soft, incapable, not to be scolded, or worked, or made responsible in any way, the most impracticable creature possible: a kitten she could have put into a basket at night, and set in the shed; a puppy she could and would have drowned; but a baby, an unlucky, red, screeching creature, with a soul, was worse than all other evils. However, she couldn't let it die; so she went after some milk, and, with Aunt Rhody's help, after ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... laugh at me, perhaps, for my long "harping" on my ward; but anyhow, don't misunderstand. It's not because she is pretty and engaging (one would say that of a kitten), but because of the startling contrast between the real girl and the girl of my imagination. I can't help thinking about her a good deal for this reason, and what I think of I have generally talked of or written of fully to you, my best and oldest friend. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson |
