"Squatting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... battle of Cowpens[6] Colonel William Washington[7] fought on the American side, and Tarleton got badly whipped and had to run. Not long afterward he happened to see some boys squatting on the ground, with a lot of corn instead of marbles. They were playing the battle of Cowpens. A red kernel stood for Tarleton, and a white one for Colonel Washington. The boys shoved the corn this way and that; sometimes the red would win, sometimes the white. At ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... summer breeze. I have seen a little thing convert a crew on the point of mutiny into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls who—until the wind veered again—would not hurt a fly. So with these. They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile, and in their eyes that had looked ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... judged it best under the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike, seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were old men, bent and worn and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... eight, nobody entering their trench would have dreamed that the Hotwaters were going into a serious action in half an hour. The men were lounging about, squatting on the firing-step, chaffing and talking—laughing even—quite easily and naturally; some were smoking, and others had produced biscuits and bully beef from their haversacks and were calmly eating ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... and Churchill, squatting down by the fireplace and poking the burning papers with old-fashioned irons, not until then, when there began a conversation and other pairs conversed on certain points all around the room, did I gain a clear idea of just what had happened. What they said, the vital ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Squatting in loose-flowing robes, princely bred, and almost saintly with his beautiful gray beard, the patriarch looked frail enough to be squashed under the Sikh's enormous thumb. But he wasn't ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... become more frequent as we ascend; and the inhabitants—squatting on the ground, or leaning against the door-posts—just condescend to glance at us as we pass, and then return to their meditations, and their cigarettes, if they happen to have any. These ranches are the merest huts of canes, thatched with palm-leaves; and close by each a little patch of ground is ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... The fakir was squatting in the distance, on a big white stone, and in the quiet of the gloaming Cunningham could hear his coarse, lewd voice tossing crumbs of abuse and mockery to the seven or eight villagers who squatted near him—half-amused, half-frightened, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... garden). In the background several polar bears were crouching, who smoked and hardly ever spoke, except to growl out now and then a real fatherland 'Donnerwetter' in a deep bass voice. Near them was squatting a Polish wolf in a red cap, who occasionally yelped out a silly, wild remark in a hoarse tone. There, too, I found a French monkey, one of the most hideous creatures I ever saw; he kept up a series of grimaces, each of which seemed more lovely than ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... industry and self-denial, are glad to return to their native land and live upon its income. Interest is very high in China, and money is scarce. It is curious to watch these second-class passengers. In fine weather they crowd the forward deck, squatting upon their hams in picturesque groups, and playing cards or dominos for small stakes of money. The Chinese are inveterate gamblers, but are satisfied generally to play for very small stakes. When the sea becomes rough and a storm rages, they exhibit great timidity, giving up all attempts at amusement. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... nature. The oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it, but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the statues resemble ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... entering a great gateway guarded by soldiers, and as soon as we were inside the heavy iron-studded doors closed with an ominous clang. I glanced round at the thick impregnable walls and knew that we were in the Kasbah, or citadel. Gaily-dressed soldiers were leaning or squatting everywhere as we crossed the several court-yards, one after the other, until, by the direction of one of the officials who had joined us on entering, we were led through a low arched door, and thence a dozen soldiers who had come forward hurried us down a flight ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... one who suggested that there might be a danger in too close devotion to Nature, "Yes, for a mediocre artist!" It is for the sake of the strange new beauty, "the unedited poses," "the odd beautiful huddle of lines," in a stopping or squatting form, that all these wild and subtle moments are portrayed. The limbs must be adjusted or surprised in some pattern beyond their own. The ideas are the occasion and the excuse for new outlines,—that ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... dusk and too windy for candles, so I must say goodnight and eat the dinner which Darfour has pressed upon me two or three times, he is a pleasant little creature, so lively and so gentle. It is washing day. I wish you could see Mabrook squatting out there, lathering away at the clothes with his superb black arms. He is a capital washer and a fair cook, but ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... least, but the unseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat, which, warped as a camel's skeleton in the desert, and almost as bleached, lay pot-wise inverted amidships, one side a little tipped, furnishing a subterraneous sort of den for family groups of the blacks, mostly women and small children; who, squatting on old mats below, or perched above in the dark dome, on the elevated seats, were descried, some distance within, like a social circle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebon flights of naked boys and girls, three or four ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the back of his hand the Indian smoothed the sand. Squatting back more on his haunches, he refilled his pipe and began to tell of the trappers. In their description he referred always to the map he had drawn on Bolton's imagination as though it had actually lain spread out before ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... burnt into my memory, and how I can picture it all now! The bright garden, the flowers, and the promise of fruit, and the house beginning to look more lovely every month; and now in front of it Red Indians squatting about, or standing with their bows strung, arrows in a case behind them, and axes in hand, ready at the word from their chief ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... the adversaries were not of a nature to spill blood upon the turf, there was something warlike about their countenances which would have done honor to ancient paladins. Lambernier squatting upon his legs, according to the rules of pugilism, and with his fists on a level with his shoulders, resembled, somewhat, a cat ready to bound upon its prey. The artist stood with his body thrown backward, his legs on a tension, his chin buried ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... open French windows, the ground looked as if sprinkled with snow beneath the white light of the full moon. Two or three of the mess servants were squatting in the veranda, talking in low voices. A sentry walked backwards and forwards by the gate leading into the mess house compound; beyond, the maidan stretched away flat and level to the low huts of the native lines on ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... muddy feet out o' the only water we got to sleep in." Again a soldier squats shivering with fear in a shell hole, while the bombs are crashing over him, and dirt threatens to bury him. A comrade looks in and to his captious remarks the squatting soldier answers, "If you knows where there's a better 'ole, go to it!" Three men seated on a plum jam box during a terrific bombardment. Trees are falling, buildings crumbling, the landscape heaving, and Bert says, "Alf—we'll miss this old war ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... and in an instant Nat was squatting down, and going through what is known to boys as the cobbler's hornpipe for a few moments, a triumphal terpsichorean performance, which he ended directly, and ran to the wall, ducked down head and hands, till he planted them on the stone floor, ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... dozen of the queer little Ryls were squatting upon the ground before him, and they nodded ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... our way. Here, in the gloom, we made out the tonga empty, and stuck fast against the far bank. It was all right though, for Jane had crawled out at the front and wandered on in search of the dak bungalow, leaving the driver squatting helplessly ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... habitations. Dry wood is always abundant, and they get fire by the following method. A notch is cut in one of the sticks, which, with a close-grained outside, has a small core of pith, and this notched stick is laid horizontally on a knife-blade on the ground; the operator squatting, places his great toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... and indolent, and wanting in strength and agility. Looking at them squatting down, standing or walking, with their long hair flowing down their backs, one would take them for the women of a harem rather than savages used to enduring the inclemency of the weather and to struggle for existence. Stretched upon skins with their dogs and horses ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the pelt and the head in the rock crevice and their quarrelling filled the beach. He turned his head sometimes to look at them as he sat squatting like a gipsy before the little fire, tilting the tin by the handle and stirring the contents with his knife. He was a man of resource for, before filling the tin with fresh water, he had dipped it in the sea so as to get some ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... and by the other guests streamed in, and after amusing themselves for a little while about the grounds they began to enquire for Burton. But no Burton was to be seen. At last someone happened to look up the highest tree in the compound and there was the guest of the day high among the branches squatting like a monkey. He had got up there, he said, to have a little peace, and to keep on with the book he was writing about Brazil. He came down, however, when the lunch bell rang, for though he grumbled ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... whirling in circles upon their toes, as though going through the mazes of a dance. Their most popular diversion seems to be the game of leap-frog, and their long legs being specially adapted to this sport, they achieve a wonderful success. One of the birds quietly assumes a squatting position upon the ground, when his sportive companions hop in turn over his expectant head. They then pirouette, turn somersaults, and go through various exercises with the skill of gymnasts. Their sportive proclivities seem to have no bounds; and being true humorists, they preserve ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... in its habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day. Timid as he is, he makes little effort to conceal himself, usually squatting beside a log, stump, or tree, and seeming to avoid rocks and ledges where he might be partially housed from the cold and the snow, but where also—and this consideration undoubtedly determines his choice—he would be more apt to fall a prey to his enemies. In this, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... theatrical manager's daughter, and got his plays brought out that way. The ear of any age or country is like its land, air, and water; it seems limitless but is really limited, and is already in the keeping of those who naturally enough will have no squatting on such valuable property. It is written and talked up to as closely as the means of subsistence are bred up to by a teeming population. There is not a square inch of it but is in private hands, and he who would freehold any part of it must do so by ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... take part, the Tilting and Tent-pegging, not occurring until nearly half-way down the programme. Noreen was awaiting it too anxiously to enjoy, as she otherwise would, the novel scene, the gaiety, the band in the enclosure, the well-dressed throngs of English folk, the gaudy colours of the crowds squatting round the polo-ground and wondering at the strange diversions of the sahib-logue. Charlesworth did well in the men's event, securing two first prizes and a third, and Noreen could not help admiring him in the saddle. He was a graceful as well as a good rider. ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... Sura-kerta I recollect that once, when holding a private conference with the Susunan at the residency, it became necessary for the Radan adipati to be dispatched to the palace for the royal seal: the poor old man was, as usual, squatting, and as the Susunan happened to be seated with his face toward the door, it was fully ten minutes before his minister, after repeated ineffectual attempts, could obtain the opportunity of rising sufficiently to reach the latch ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... spaceport by now, across from the street-shrine at the edge of the square. It was here that the little toy-seller had vanished. But it was exactly like a thousand, a hundred thousand other such street-shrines on Wolf, a smudge of incense reeking and stinking before the squatting image of Nebran, the Toad God whose face and symbol are everywhere on Wolf. I stared for a moment at the ugly idol, then ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... ones. He had learned his lesson of experience, and profited thereby. He made his virgin kill and devoured it, squatting in the muddy pond, while around him rose the voices of the wild things of the night; and never had morsel tasted sweeter to his pampered tongue. And so the hunt went on, a never-to-be-forgotten hunt, when crawfish nipped their tails, when ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... curious passage; in which, looking on some wretched group of Indians, squatting stupidly round their fires, besmeared with grease and paint, and devouring ants and clay, he somewhat naively remarks, that were it not for science, which teaches us that such is the crude material of humanity, and this the state from which we all have risen, he should have ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... heard by his uncle, 'If that bird was rampant, you would see your own arms, Marquis.'" And Mel replied, quietly for him to hear, 'And as that bird is couchant, Mr. George, you had better look to your sauce.' Couchant means squatting, you know. That's heraldry! Well, that wasn't bad sparring of Mel's. But, bless you! he was never taken aback, and the gentlefolks was glad enough to get him to sit down amongst 'em. So, says Mr. George, 'I know you're a fire-eater, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to a figure squatting in the middle of the cour with his broad back against one of the more miserable trees. This figure was clothed in a remarkably picturesque manner: it wore a dark sombrero-like hat with a large drooping brim, a bright red gipsy shirt of some remarkably fine ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... shape of this column reminded Alan of something, namely of a very similar column, although fashioned of a different material which stood in the granite-built office of Messrs. Aylward & Haswell in the City of London. Nor did this seem wonderful to him, since on top of it, squatting on its dwarf legs, stood a horrid but familiar thing, namely Little Bonsa herself come home at last. There she sat smiling cruelly, as she had smiled from the beginning, forgetful doubtless of her wanderings in strange lands, while round her stood a ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... be de hawk. Lemme git myself a stick to mark wid. (The curtain rises slowly. As it goes up the game is being organized. The boy who is the hawk is squatting center stage in the street before the store with a short twig in his hand. The largest girl is lining up the ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... madame," replied Rosalie, who, sweating and dishevelled, was squatting on the tiled floor and scrubbing it with all the strength ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... glimpse of life. All the bustle and movement of the night before was finished. At midnight every road and track leading to the forward trenches had been brimming with men, with regiments tramping slowly or squatting stolidly by the roadside, smoking much and talking little, had been crawling with transport, with ammunition carts, and ambulances and stretcher-parties, and sappers heavily laden with sandbags and rolls of barbed ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the outlook was not promising. The village was small and dirty, squatting here amidst bananas and palms and sugar-cane, its people the same kind as at Chagres. (To-day the surface of the great Gatun Lake, formed by the famous Gatun dam which has blocked the course of the Chagres River in order to obtain water for the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... valley where the sandal-wood grows, to learn on what supply we can depend. High up the valley we come suddenly on a platform on which grows a large grove of bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, toa, and other trees. Amid them is a large idol of hewn stone of a man in a squatting posture. The figure is not ill sculptured. His mouth is wide, and his eyes and ears large, while his arms and legs are short and out of proportion. There are numerous other idols, of the same size and form, made out of the bread-fruit tree, arranged on either side and behind him, as ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... yards away was the entrance to the castle. Here everything was bustle. Troops were filing out, laden with casks and cases. Others were squatting in the paved court, ready to receive their burdens. All were laughing and chatting merrily. There were even troops of young girls, of from ten to fifteen years old, who were to carry parcels of less ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... roof to keep out the weather, and furnished with little besides hammocks and cooking utensils; yet we were every where asked to go in and sit down: all the floors were cleanly swept, and a log of wood or a rude stool was generally to be found for a seat for the stranger, the people themselves squatting on the ground. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... gas—the bluish light of early morning reflected on the flesh tones—upon nearly three thousand girls and students in costumes one might expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just before the fall of Rome. Now they form a huge circle, the front row sitting on the floor, the second row squatting, the third seated in chairs, the fourth standing, so that all can see the dancing that begins in the morning hours—the wild impromptu dancing of the moment. A famous beauty, her black hair bound in a golden fillet with a circle wrought in silver and ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... inculcating new and higher ideas of right, denouncing the darkness of the false gods, calling on all men to worship the cross and adore the mysteries of the true God? Compare now the impotency of the Protestant missionary, squatting in gross comfort with wife and babes among the savages he has come to convert, preaching a disputatious doctrine, wrangling openly with the rival sent by some other sect—compare this impotency with the success that follows the devoted sons of the Church, impressing their proselytes ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... story of the battle. I discovered their position on my map. I reached the battery. The state of the ground was indescribable. It was more like a "sea of mud," and standing in the middle of this morass was the giant gun, for all the world like a horrible frog squatting on its haunches. Each time it breathed it belched out flame and smoke with the most unearthly crash that could possibly be produced, and with each breath there flew with it a mass of metal and high explosive weighing fourteen hundred pounds, scattering death and destruction for hundreds ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... fancied he heard the clang of iron striking iron, and he redoubled his pace. There was no repair going on in his section. What did it mean? He emerged from the woods, the railway embankment stood high before him; on the top a man was squatting on the bed of the line busily engaged in something. Semyon commenced quietly to crawl up towards him. He thought it was some one after the nuts which secure the rails. He watched, and the man got up, holding a crow-bar in his hand. He ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... state of desire for what poor Mazzini used to denounce as "territorial aggrandisement," we paid our usual post-shearing visit to Christchurch. F—— had his agent's accounts to examine, a nice little surplus of wool-money to receive, and many other squatting interests to attend to; whilst I had to lay in chests of tea, barrels of sugar and rice, hundreds of yards of candle-wick, flower-seeds, reels of cotton, and many other miscellaneous articles. But through all our pleasant, happy little bustle ran the constant thought: "What shall we do for more ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... no letters. We play more wildly, squatting down in the mud with the board before us. I have sometimes seen a full house, a straight, three of a kind, or probably four big ones. "I raise you five," says Bill. Bang!—a whiz bang explodes twenty yards away. "I raise you ten." Bang!—a ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... is calling me? Who has come to cast my dead body into the sea, for it will soon be all over with me." Then a little shrivelled wrinkled crone came up panting and coughing, hobbling along by the aid of her staff; she approached the wounded youth, and squatting down beside him, she burst out into a most repulsive chuckling and laughing. "You foolish child, you foolish child," whispered the old woman, "are you going to perish here—will you stay here to die, while a golden ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... pipes, they formed a most interesting picture. Their big pipes even blocked the pavement at times, the men squatted on their haunches with their pipes a couple of feet in front and a passer-by had to be careful not to upset and smash them. A fine picture was made by two old fellows squatting on a rug in the open window of a small shop, smoking and drinking coffee, and looking as if they could curse to fourteen generations any customer bold enough to disturb them in their innocent enjoyment of doing nothing. One of our officers who knows this town and ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... have always held strongly that men ought to know when to stop. There is nothing more melancholy and contemptible than to see a successful man, who has brought out a brood of fine things, sitting meekly on addled eggs, or, still worse, squatting complacently among eggshells. It is like the story of the old tiresome Breton farmer whose wife was so annoyed by his ineffective fussiness, that she clapt him down to sit on a clutch of stone eggs for the rest of his life. How often have I thought how deplorable it was ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... exclaimed Morrison to Jim and Phil, as he left them at the end of the avenue, "I used to like Brenchfield, but I don't know what's come over me lately with him. When he laid his hand on me a few minutes ago, I felt as if a wet toad was squatting on ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... up the Nile, your shopping becomes more primitive. On the mud banks, at the stations at which your boat stops, Arabians, Nubians, and Egyptians sit squatting on the caked mud with their gaudy clothes, brilliant embroideries, and rugs piled around them all within arm's reach. Here also you must bring the guile which I have ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... a sort were Elymas, the sorcerer whom Paul found squatting at the ear of the Roman Governor of Cyprus; the magicians at Ephesus; the vagabond Jews exorcists, who with profitable eclecticism, as they thought, tried to add the name of Jesus as one more spell to their conjurations; and, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... and Godfrey picked up one of the books and ran rapidly through the pages. "You remember we found him squatting on the floor with a rag and a tooth and a bone in front ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... seneschal, rendered sleepy by the heat, seeing it was the month of August, waggled about in his saddle, like a diadem upon the head of a cow, and seeing so frolicsome and so pretty a lady by the side of so old a fellow, a peasant girl, who was squatting near the trunk of a tree and drinking water out of her stone jug inquired of a toothless old hag, who picked up a trifle by gleaning, if this princess was going to ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... forward to the little inn of the place to order supper. I meanwhile yielded to Spira's urgent wish, and turned into her cottage to be introduced to the remaining members of her family. You will smile, children, when you hear that I found squatting round the hearth a great-grandfather of a hundred years old, and a grandfather of eighty-two; her mother, a handsome woman with scarlet vest and girdle encrusted with cornelians was there also, and these, with Spira and her boy, made up ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... oh, long ago when human kind was very young, that I made me a snare and a pit with a pointed stake upthrust in the middle thereof, for the taking of Sabre-Tooth. Sabre-Tooth, long-fanged and long-haired, was the chiefest peril to us of the squatting place, who crouched through the nights over our fires and by day increased the growing shell-bank beneath us by the clams we dug and devoured from the salt mud-flats ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... sharks, speculators, usurers and politicians who aspire to a notoriety they will never win—a station they will never occupy—swarm over the West thicker than frogs in Egypt, and more intrusive than were these squatting, crawling, jumping pests, when evoked from the river's slime by the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... frontier of Afghanistan, and alluding to Penjdeh, said that it was inhabited by Turcomans, and he thus described the position: 'The state of affairs seems to have been that the Turcomans acknowledged that they were squatting on Afghan land, and were liable to pay taxes, and each year they paid something as an acknowledgment of Afghan rights; but so long as this was done, the Afghans looked upon them as a protection against the Tekke further north, and left them ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... that they might go to see the soldiers, and as they had to get off long before daylight, they went to bed early, and left all "the other boys"—that is, Peter and Cole and other colored children—squatting about the fires and trying to help the ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... cleared away from my camping-place and taken to the prahus, the kapala and three women, one of them his wife, came and seated themselves in a row close together in a squatting position. With the few words of Malay he knew he explained that the women wanted to say good-bye. No doubt it was their way, otherwise they have no greetings. At the landing float the "onder" and his Kahayan assistant ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... thinness of soup mostly to blame, I guess. Then things began to get good. First we ran across a flock of ten ptarmigan. They were in the burned-over semi-barren of the hill-top. They seem to lack entirely the instinct to preserve themselves by flying. Only ran ahead, squatting in apparent terror every few feet. We followed with our pistols. I killed eight and George one, my last was the old bird, which for a time kept away from us, running harder than the rest, trying to hide among the Arctic shrubs. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... four, and from that time till he was made to get out of bed for his dinner Harry Heathcote was allowed to sleep. He had richly earned his rest by his work, and he lay motionless, without a sound, in the broad daylight, with his arm under his head, dreaming, no doubt, of some happy squatting land, in which there were no free- selectors, no fires, no rebellious servants, no floods, no droughts, no wild dogs to worry the lambs, no grass seeds to get into the fleeces, and in which the price of wool stood steady at two shillings ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... and painful illumination about the room. In the darkest corner stood the press whose servant Denton had now become: it was a huge, dim, glittering thing with a projecting hood that had a remote resemblance to a bowed head, and, squatting like some metal Buddha in this weird light that ministered to its needs, it seemed to Denton in certain moods almost as if this must needs be the obscure idol to which humanity in some strange aberration ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... are taught how and when to rise on thundering wings. Many ends are gained by the whirr. It warns all other partridges near that danger is at hand, it unnerves the gunner, or it fixes the foe's attention on the whirrer, while the others sneak off in silence, or by squatting, escape notice. ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... within two blocks, on either hand we find nothing but the infinitely small and astonishingly numerous forms of traffic on which the hordes around us thrive. No corner is too cramped for the squatting street cobbler; and as for the pipe cleaners, the cigarette rollers, the venders of sweetmeats and conserves, they gather on the curb or crouch under overhanging windows, and await custom with the philosophical ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... capital, and ensuring success to the experiments to be tried of cultivating the estates by free labour, lay in the timely introduction of proper regulations. It would be vexatious if, after all, the negroes should take to squatting, and pass their lives in indolence; but half of the good work would have been achieved until the black was raised to the condition of a free and laborious citizen. As matters stood, the negroes refused to enter into contracts; the only method for obtaining ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... did not transpire, but he returned with a pint flask containing stuff that looked and smelt enough like whisky to get by if there had been a label on the bottle. He poured a powder into it in Jeremy's presence, the two of them squatting on the floor of the corridor with the bottle between them so that no one else might see ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... the brilliant moon, I doubted the evidence of my sight), wearing a tweed overcoat and a soft felt hat with the brim turned down, sprang up, from nowhere as it seemed, swooped upon the horrible figure squatting, simianesque, between Smith's shoulder-blades, and grasped him ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... no less than his schooling, helped to give a mystic tinge to his mind. The peasants who dwelt around his father's house always possessed a peculiar fascination for him; he would watch them as they sat by their doorway, squatting on their heels, as their custom is—grave, monotonous, motionless, the smoke from their pipes almost the sole sign of life. For the Flemish peasant is a strangely inert creature, his work once done—as languid and lethargic as the canal that passes by his door. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... main street of straw booths are vendors of miscellaneous goods, squatting under temporary fan-shaped straw screens, which are rented at the rate of five paras per day (about a farthing); beneath these may be seen vendors of butter and other grease, contained in a large jar by their side, while upon ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... opportunity offered. But Nero, the lion, was perhaps the greatest surprise of all, for so tame, so docile, so little feared was the animal, that its cage door was open, and they found one of the attendants squatting cross-legged inside and playing with it as though ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... of which were so terrible that three times he fell on my head. At length he reached the cord of the valve, opened it, and the gas having a way of escape the monster ceased to rise but it still shot along in a horizontal line with prodigious rapidity. There were we squatting down upon the frail osier car. 'Take care!' we cried, when a tree was in the way. We turned from it, and the tree was broken; but the balloon was discharging its gas, and if the immense plain we were crossing had yet a few leagues, we were ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... accumulation of debris, left by the workmen, still littered the ground in the vicinity. A board walk led from the street to the wide, arched entrance. From the steps one could look down the street at the station and the other buildings squatting in the sunlight, dingy with the dust of many dry days. Except for the cowponies and the buckboard and the prairie schooner there was a total absence of life or movement, offering a striking contrast to the bustling cities to which the young ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... seen more particularly was an awful-looking crimson and grey spider as big as a soft-shell crab. He was squatting on a bone in one corner, glaring at her with his little evil eyes, and moving his horizontal mandibles as if he would dearly ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... you, I was that curious that next morning at daybreak I comes here and squats behind those bushes, and a dreadful fright I was in for fear my old woman would come and look for me and see me squatting there." His old frame shook for a moment with the laugh he gave to emphasize the situation, and he poked Caius with his finger. "And I looked and I looked out on the gray water till I had the cramps." Here he poked Caius again. "But I tell you, young sir, ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... virginity, if he please to accept it: where the ordinary way of salutation is by putting a finger down to the earth, and then pointing it up toward heaven: where men carry burdens upon their heads, and women on their shoulders; where the women make water standing, and the men squatting: where they send their blood in token of friendship, and offer incense to the men they would honour, like gods: where, not only to the fourth, but in any other remote degree, kindred are not permitted to marry: where the children ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Bhimbhai Kirparam writes, [517] "women sew their bodices and young children's clothes for everyday wear, every family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors sew in their own houses, and in the tailor's shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed quilts. The wives and sons' wives of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... killed by some younger man so soon as his first virile activity declined. Over most of the great wildernesses of earth you would have sought him in vain; only in a few temperate and sub-tropical river valleys would you have found the squatting lairs of his little herds, a male, a few females, a child ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... spider that was barring their path. It was a small spider, barely more than waist-high. But something in its malevolent eyes made the two men hesitate about attacking it. At the same time it was squatting in the only clear path in sight, with tangles of stalks and leaves on either side. A journey around the ferocious brute might be a complicated, ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... restless brutes—possibly dangerous, certainly soulless. Yet will coquetry teach her to caress any dog in the presence of a man enslaved by her. Even Zuleika, it seems, was not above this rather obvious device for awaking envy. Be sure she did not at all like the look of the very big bulldog who was squatting outside the porter's lodge. Perhaps, but for her present anger, she would not have stooped endearingly down to him, as she did, cooing over him and trying to pat his head. Alas, her pretty act was a failure. The bulldog cowered away from her, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Indians is that you find them squatting in the corridor, comparing notes on what varieties they find in their clothing! Considering the way one gets smothered with their blankets in the bunks it is the most personally alarming element in ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... the noisy players came suddenly into the glare carrying a rotund, compact bundle, and, squatting down, began with grunts and sighs the great "coco-nut" act, obviously one of the masterpieces of the corroboree. In perfect time the sham coco-nuts were beaten with hands in lieu of sticks or tomahawks, while the accompaniment became faster and faster. Ever ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... sitting around on railings and steps and squatting on the grass. There was a little ripple of murmuring as he passed through the sprawling throng, but no one spoke to him. That was not because they did not appreciate, but because he was different and a stranger. Perhaps it was because they ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Saracen's-head ghost, in the midst of a waste, is now the fairest, loveliest garden of Tripoli! Amongst its rich fruit-trees is an immense peach-tree—the largest in all this part of Africa. It is a round, squatting, wide-spreading tree, not nailed up to the walls, but the size of its girth of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... them, and sought their well-known roosts. They stood two and two, closely crowded together on the perches or huddled in the holes. They drew their heads into their feathered throats and slept. The rumour diminished to just a soft mumbling; and then nothing more. The pigeon that sat over there, squatting low on her eggs, faded from sight in her dark corner; and the whole upper row vanished in the dusk ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... but of no great depth. The trees on its banks were much broken and bent by a violent flood which had occurred within the year. Considering the number of miles we have travelled along the banks of the Burdekin, few impediments have been encountered, while the extent of country suited for squatting purposes is very considerable—water forming a never-failing ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... had walked round the horses, turning them towards the middle of the plain, and was squatting ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... or six studies by a particular artist. The details of the picture scarcely held the mind, for the imagination of the beholder was instantly caught and enchained by the central figure—the figure of a great ape, painted with cruel and extraordinary truth. The animal was squatting upon the ground, devouring a luscious fruit; its small and greedy eyes were alight with gluttony; in its unbridled appetite, its hairy fingers crushed the fruit against its sharp teeth, while the juice ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... protruding, and, indeed, thanks to the dusk which occluded the top of the stairs, giving no indication of its presence to the enemy. Thus, with the wall manned, and the remainder of his little party squatting on the stone floor of the gun-chamber ready to support their comrades, Henri and his men waited for perhaps half an hour, during which time the fusillade from the men of the 24th Brandenburg Regiment sent a ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... of impressions thronged Wes's bewildered eyes: a huge, misty-dark room, columns lining it—the vague form of a great idol squatting at the far end, massed people bowed before it—a weird chant rising into murmuring echoes along the high, dim ceiling. There were priests standing rigidly in front of the idol, their hands stretched high; and every ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... squatting before his lodge. A piece of wood was laid across his lap, and he was chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife. He smelled of oil, and smoke, and half-cured hides; yet he met me as a ruler meets an ambassador. As I stumbled after him into his dark lodge, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... drew water from the fountains on high and poured it down as rain. The sun was a radiant wheel, or a golden bird, or an eye, or a shining egg, or a horse of matchless speed, or a slayer of the cloud-dragons. Sometimes it was a frog, when it seemed to be sinking into or squatting upon the water; and out of this fancy, when the meaning of it was lost, there grew a Sanskrit legend, which is to be found also in Teutonic and Celtic myths. This story is, that Bheki (the frog) was a lovely maiden who was found by a king, who asked her to be his wife. So she married ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... each man's hunk of dried meat being handy, so there was really no preparation to be made, except to wash. No compulsion, however, as to that. But having distinguished company, all hands washed this morning before squatting for breakfast. ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... this, however, to show you that I was never a mere rough soldier like Rapp or Ney. As I lay in that brigands' camp, I had little time or inclination to think about such matters. They had thrown me down under a tree, the three villains squatting round and smoking their cigarettes within hands' touch of me. What to do I could not imagine. In my whole career I do not suppose that I have ten times been in as hopeless a situation. 'But courage,' thought I. 'Courage, my brave boy! You were not made a Colonel of Hussars at twenty-eight ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... while we came to where the six Indio girls were squatting. They had apparently not moved since I had ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... villages Carlitos slowed down—then stopped. There was a group of old women squatting in the street before the door of an adobe dwelling. They swayed from side to side, moaning in unison, while now and then one would lift up her head and ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... jutted out from the mountain was the eagle's nest, made of rude sticks of wood gathered from the forest. Sitting beside the nest was Mrs. Eagle, larger and more pompous even than her husband, while squatting upon the edge of the nest were two half-grown eaglets with enormous claws and heads, but rather skinny bodies that were covered with loose and ragged feathers. Neither the nest nor the eaglets appeared to be very clean, and a disagreeable smell hung ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... of the camels refusing to travel, lying down occasionally. Distance travelled about fifteen and a quarter miles. I wish our animals were now in the same condition they were at Hayward's Creek and I would soon be at Port Denison. I am surprised that the squatting stations are not further advanced up this river. Our invalids are slowly recruiting. Has ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... until he happened to recall the incidents leading to Fadeaway's discharge from the Concho. He reclined beneath a tree familiar to him as a former basis for recuperation. He felt of himself reminiscently while watching Chance nose about the camp. Presently the dog came and, squatting on his haunches, faced his master with the query, "What next?" scintillating ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... along. Here and there a group of people were squatting on the ground, talking noisily. Here and there a beggar stretched out a maimed limb and sought for alms. Then close to the gate he saw that for which he searched: a man sitting apart with a blanket over his head. No one ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... acquire rights of emfiteuse directly from the owner of the land, like an ordinary lease; or he may acquire them by settlement—"squatting," as the popular term is. Wherever land is lying waste, any one may establish himself upon it and cultivate it, on condition of paying to the owner a certain proportion of the yield of the land—generally one quarter—either in kind or in money. The landlord may, indeed, refuse the right of settlement ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... goin' to do with the Colonel here?" said Sam, indicating under that gallant title the infant shrike, who, with his claws deeply imbedded in Sam's finger, was squatting like a malignant hunchback, and resisting his transfer to Peggy. "Won't HE make it rather lively for the others? He looks pow'ful discontented for one ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... had passed at the ford came to the bluff above the camp, and arranging themselves in a squatting posture, looked down upon Williamson's party with longing eyes, in expectation of a feast. They were a pitiable lot, almost naked, hungry and cadaverous. Indians are always hungry, but these poor creatures were particularly so, as their usual supply ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Japan to work squatting on the floor, with the blocks and tools also on the floor in front of the craftsman. Our own habit of working at a table is less simple, but has some advantages. One practice or habit of the Japanese is, however, to be followed with ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... tale of Christian miracle did she tell to Dickie—he squatting on a rug beside her, resting his curly head against her knees, while the pink-footed pigeons hurried hither and thither, picking up the handfuls of barley he scattered on the flags, and the peacocks sunned themselves with a certain worldly and disdainful ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... thereof, is most noticeable. In Sydney the signs of wealth are not wanting to an examiner, but a superficial observer would say that there were not half as many wealthy men as in Melbourne. Few South Australians get beyond the comfortable stage, and, on the other hand, a greater number reach it. 'Squatting,' of course, supplies the largest section of the wealthy class; but, especially in Melbourne, gold-mining and commerce have contributed ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... knew that this same fear was clutching at the hearts of Bob White, hiding in the brown stubble; of Mrs. Grouse, squatting in the thickest bramble-tangle in the Green Forest; of Uncle Billy Possum and Bobby Coon in their hollow trees; of Jerry Muskrat in the Smiling Pool; of Happy Jack Squirrel, hiding in the tree tops; of Lightfoot the Deer, lying in the closest ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess
... ladies never looked at the poor little king squatting upon his stool. They gathered at once about the chief counselor, ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... into a squatting position, and held out his hands invitingly. There could be no mistaking his attitude. There could be no mistaking the appeal this lonely little creature made ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... figures visible there were squatting, grotesque things whose bodies were covered with whitish hair and whose leathery faces were disfigured by gashes of mouths filled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... men whom we had last seen on the Suez Canal—here they were, already, in the orchard alongside of the old lichened, steep-roofed barn—four or five of them squatting round a fire of sticks, one stuffing his pipe and talking, talking, talking all the while. I knew that they were happy there before ever they said it. A track led across a big field—there were two Australians walking along ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... stood with hands joined together and in a supplicating posture, enough to melt the heart of even the very ugliest of idols. The service (by particular desire) began by three of the most unctuous of the Lamas squatting down on some planked spaces before the divinities, and raising a not unmusical chaunt, accompanying themselves at the same time with a pair of cymbals, while two large double-sided tom-toms or drums gradually insinuated themselves into the melody. These ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... servant, because he had not seen him for a long time. The little Ssassaror had been an active member of the Egg-stealer's Guild until the night three years ago when he had tried to creep into Mapfarity's strongroom. The crafty guildsman had avoided the Giant's traps and there found the two geese squatting upon ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... {179} as the latter gave the words "Ready! present!" But at this instant his vociferous daring forsook him. As the men levelled their muskets at him, with inconceivable rapidity he sprang bodily round, still preserving his squatting posture, and received the fire from behind; while the less noisy, but more brave, Ogston looked the firing-party full in the face as they discharged their ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... place was inhabited. Squatting in the middle of the cabin, seated on her legs crossed under her, with nothing between her and the wet earth, there crouched a woman with a child in her arms. At first, so dark was the place, Herbert hardly thought that the object before him was a human being. She ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... egg, that's all," replied a small, but sharp and distinct voice, and looking around her the little girl discovered a yellow hen squatting in the opposite corner of ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... goodwill towards cats spontaneously generated them. They appeared, one after another, to the number of five; but when the time came for us to leave the red house forever, the cats would not and could not be packed up, and they were left behind. In my mind's eye I still see them, squatting abreast, silhouetted against the sky, on the brow of the hill as we drove down the road; for they had scampered after our carry-all when we drove away. Cats teach Americans what they are slow to learn—the sanctity ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... scarcely an hour passed over, that the family did not get some amusement with these two animals. Whenever he was within doors, his whole occupation was watching and pointing the cat from morning to night. When she flitted from one place to another, so did he in a moment; and then squatting down, he kept his point sedulously, till he was either ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... in the stern, sitting on the deck, surrounded by squatting Lascars, some Chinamen and a solitary white man, the chief engineer's assistant. The center of interest was Rajah, who was performing his tricks. Among these was one that the bird rarely could be made to perform, the threading ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... Griff. Twice a day the coach from Birmingham to Stamford passed by the house, and the coachman and guard in scarlet were a great diversion. She thus describes, the locality in Felix Holt: "Here were powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel, and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high wages at the alehouse with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... shall leap above its father and its mother as the sun above forlorn fields.—She arose from her bed. She held her child in her arms. She walked through the reeling block with feet aflame. She entered the shop.—There—squatting with feet so wide to see—her man: his needle pressed by the selfsame finger. The world was not changed for her child. Behold her child changing—let her sit for ever upon her seat of tears—let her lay like fire to her breast this endless vision of her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... streaked with gray, was braided, and fell below his shoulders on either side. His costume was that of ordinary civilization, save for a pair of new, tight moccasins. Having apparently all the time there was, he had been a frequent spectator of operations, squatting by the hour watching the work. Occasionally his interest had been rewarded by a meal or a plug of tobacco. These things he had accepted without comment and without thanks. His ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm |
