"Thimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fought, and overcame in a struggle perhaps desperate, while we shoot it at a distance with little risk or effort. In warfare he fought hand to hand and eye to eye, while we kill "with as much black powder as can be put in a woman's thimble." He caught and domesticated scores of species of wild animals and taught them to serve him; fished with patience and skill that compensated his crude tools, weapons, implements, and tackle; danced to exhaustion in the service of his gods or in memory of his forebears imitating every animal, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... through the fine muslin, seemed to go through her heart. At nine the watching became unbearable. She said softly "I must go to bed. I am tired;" but she put away with her usual neatness her work, and her spools of thread, her thimble and her scissors. Her movement in the room roused the doctor thoroughly. He stood up, stretched his arms outward and upward, and said "he believed he had been sleeping, and must ask their pardon for his indifference." And then he walked to the window ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... preserved them in molasses. The last we gathered were the swamp, or high-bush blueberries. These had a sub-acid, delicious flavor, not unlike the smell of the swamp pink, which grew in the same spot. The black raspberry, which we called thimble berry, was found along the stone walls, but was not abundant. I knew a few bushes and kept it secret, for if I found a saucerful I was sure of a small pie baked by my mother, and all my own. If I could not find enough for a pie I strung such ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... us most, yet which our own minds are never finely attuned enough to conceive unaided. The swain in the poem tells of his intention to make a bonnet for his chosen nymph to wear. He will fashion it with "golden thimble, scissors, needle, thread"; taking velvet from the April sky as a groundwork, stars for trimming, moonlight for banding, and a web of dreams for lining. He will scent it with the perfume of "the reddest rose that the singing ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges, squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary, and some people call them thimble berries." ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... and what a cup hast thou brought! Dost thou take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn? Why didst thou not bring thy thimble? Hast thou ne'er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket with a bit of nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill. So, again. See who that is. [One knocks.] Set down the bottle first. Here, here, under the table:- what, wouldst thou go with the bottle in thy hand like a tapster? As I'm a ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... strawberry in its formation. We will take that of the raspberry as our example; for though the berries of the whole tribe are on the same construction, we cannot have one better known or which would better illustrate the subject. If you pull off the little thimble-shaped fruit from its stem, you will find beneath a dry, white cone; this is the receptacle, and the very part which you eat in the strawberry. If you look attentively at a ripe raspberry, you will find that it is composed of many separate little balls of fleshy and juicy substance, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... drawn down to the woodhouse. Afterwards the needs of the farm can be attended to, and a farm, like an arch, is never at rest. A little later will come maple-sugar time, when the stately maples are tapped as the sap begins to stir, and be-ringed with absurd little buckets (a cow being milked into a thimble gives some idea of the disproportion), which are emptied into cauldrons. Afterwards (this is the time of the 'sugaring-off parties') you pour the boiled syrup into tins full of fresh snow, where it hardens, and you pretend to help and become ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... lover in the deserts of the sea. But the general persuasion is, that they are both in that part of the land of souls where the sun never sets, where oil is always fresh, and provisions always warm. The virgins sometimes throw a thimble and a needle into the bay, from which the hapless maid departed; and when a Greenlander would praise any couple for virtuous affection, he declares that they love like Anningait ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... her locket and ear-rings, and seeing her pocket lie near, she reached it and spread the contents on the bed before her. There were the locket and ear-rings in the little velvet-lined boxes, and with them there was a beautiful silver thimble which Adam had bought her, the words "Remember me" making the ornament of the border; a steel purse, with her one shilling in it; and a small red-leather case, fastening with a strap. Those beautiful little ear-rings, with ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Maria. "Jacob Metz! You know little of the dangers of the big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I never met one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!" ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... playing cards by daylight; but on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them immediately after breakfast, he began to take an enforced interest in our proceedings. Like a dove above the dovecot, he circled for an hour or two about the table—a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom—and then, with a murmurous coo about the weather showing no signs of clearing up, he took a hand. Constant dropping—and it was much worse than dropping—will wear away a stone, and it is my belief if it had ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... treatment upon these culprits, Rose felt that she might relent and allow them a gleam of hope. She found it impossible to help trampling upon the prostrate Prince a little, in words at least, for he had hurt her feelings oftener than he knew; so she gave him a thimble-pie on the top of his head, and said, with an air of an ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Cinta was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her search, blushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen ribbons, skeins of silk, an old fan—all deposited in books and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Thimble Thread Needles Tape-measure Pins Tailor's chalk or pencil Milliner's pliers or wire cutters Scissors, large and ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... on, and so do you. That child will like as not come here with a bundle o' things borrowed from the rest o' the family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's undershirts and Mark's socks most likely. I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in her life, but she'll know the feelin' o' one before she's been here many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece o' brown gingham for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of course she won't pick up anything after herself; she probably never saw a duster, and ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... silk bag; out of it drop crackers, an account book, a thimble, a thread-and-needle case, a bottle of pepsin tablets, etc. They all stoop to pick ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... saw an opium-eater, lying stretched out upon a mat on the floor. At his side was a cup of tea, with some fruit and a little lamp, besides several pipes, with bowls that were smaller than a thimble. On our entrance, he was just inhaling the intoxicating smoke from one of them. It is said that some of the Chinese opium smokers consume from twenty to thirty grains a-day. As he was not altogether unconscious of our presence, he managed to raise himself, laid by his pipe, and dragged himself ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... in what one gains under the name of shelter, what one pays rent for, must be kept clearly in mind. Two or three decades since it was a tight roof, thinly plastered walls, and a chimney with "thimble-holes for stoves," possibly a furnace with small tin flues, a well or cistern, or perhaps one faucet delivering a small stream of water. To-day even in the suburbs there is furnished light, heat, abundant water, care of halls and sidewalks. The elevator-boy takes the place of "buttons," ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... card-sharper and thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to save the candidate of Mozart Hall. Even the sachems of Tammany, to avert disaster, nominated James T. Brady, whose great popularity it was believed would draw strength from both Opdyke and Wood; but Brady refused to be used. Opdyke had been a ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... front door close after her, she quilted her needle carefully into her square, then she folded the patchwork up neatly, rose, and laid it together with her thimble, scissors, and cotton, in her little rocking-chair. Then she went and stood still before uncle Jack, with her arms folded. It was a way she had when she wanted information. People rather smiled to see Letitia sometimes, but uncle Jack had always ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... the hostess for denying the gentleman to be there when she asked for him; but indeed the poor woman had not erred designedly; for Mrs Slipslop asked for a clergyman, and she had unhappily mistaken Adams for a person travelling to a neighbouring fair with the thimble and button, or some other such operation; for he marched in a swinging great but short white coat with black buttons, a short wig, and a hat which, so far from having a black hatband, had nothing black ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... had a comfortable chair, and filled it with shoulders hidden deep in its capacious depths, and legs straight out, only the arms and hands free enough to be within reach of the match-safe and thimble glasses. And with the ease and comfort of it all the talk itself slowed down to a pace more in harmony with that peace which passeth all understanding—unless you've a seat at ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... would hang till his bones dropped, a shame and a blot on the clean face of the earth, blackened by the heat, drenched white by the rain, twirled and swung by every breath of wind, while the pies and the crows made thimble-pits of his face, a waste rag of humanity. Come now, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... exceedingly disagreeable and Aggie and I began to get uncomfortable. But when Tufik brought us little thimble-sized glasses filled with a milky stuff and assured us that the women had only gone to prepare the bride, we felt reassured. He said that etiquette demanded that we ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... few of California's wild plants and flowers have been now called to your notice. But children have sharp eyes, and you will find many more to inquire about in your vacation days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the tailor's thimble,' declaimed the portentous toast master. 'May the needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!' and then ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... chimney, and that the hens were gathered about the kitchen door clamouring for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open the screen of mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... licorice ball, fancy handkerchiefs, and every thing else you can think of. Here, too, was the general post office, where you might see letters marvellously folded, directed wrong side upward, stamped with a thimble, and superscribed to some of the Dollys, or Pollys, or Peters, or Moseses aforenamed or ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... also to have been known to them, at least thimble-rig, or the game of cups, under which a ball was put, while the opposite party guessed under which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... after all on'y wants to throw dust in our eyes! But it's no go, they're no better than a parcel o' thimble riggers just making the pea come under what thimble they like,—and it's 'there it is,' and 'there it ain't,'—just as they please—making black white, and white black, just as suits 'em—but the liberty of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... title of an old work, Ayen-bite of In-wit, "Again-bite of In-wit," was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." Grund-weall and word-hora were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The German language still retains this power and calls a glove a "hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy compound expressions ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... as he spoke, and placed a beautiful little gold thimble on her finger. "There, that's to encourage ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... her tears would rise to their founts - Supposing a little scandal at play 'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait - That she couldn't audit the gossips' accounts. 'Tis true, to her cottage still they came, And ate her muffins just the same, And drank the tea of the widowed dame, And never swallowed a thimble the less Of something the reader is left to guess, For all the deafness of Mrs. S. Who SAW them talk, and chuckle, and cough, But to SEE and not share in the social flow, She might as well have lived, you know, In one of the houses in Owen's Row, Near the New River Head, with its water cut off! ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... theory that one bottle would fill all our glasses. Seeing the glasses empty he would call for another bottle, and say to us, "Gentlemen, I have ordered another bottle." The General evidently drinks, when he imbibes at all, simply to be social, and a thimble-full would answer his purpose ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... We sold to the wife of Evert, the late mate of our ship, a small looking-glass, a steel thimble, a pound and a half of white darning yarn, and half a pound of brown thread, for which she gave ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... what you call it," said Mab, flirting away her thimble. "Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me like Schiller—I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must kiss you instead, little mother?" She ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming back, she touched the girl on the shoulder—very gently. "They're all fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... looks upon me as a child—who has never—never thought—" But her dignity, flying to the rescue, assumed control. Her upper lip curled, her body stiffened for a moment, and she went on with her stitching. "You deserve I should rap your silly little skull with my thimble. You are no better than Ignacio and Fernando. Such scenes as I have had with them! They wanted to fight the Russian! How he would laugh at them! I have threatened they shall both be sent to San Diego if there is any more nonsense." Then curiosity overcame her. "You never had the least, least reason ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... sugar, being finely beat, and the yolks of four new laid eggs, and a grain of musk, a thimble full of caraway seed searsed, a little gum dragon steeped in rose-water, and six spoonfuls of fine flour beat all these in a thin paste a little stiffer then butter, then run it through a butter-squirt ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... carrying. She stoutly protested she had none. He seized her, turned her pockets inside out, and found a bunch of keys; item, a printed dialogue between Peter and Herod, omitted in the canonical books, but described by the modern discoverer as an infallible charm for the toothache; item, a brass thimble; item, half a nutmeg. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the younger man, who was looking at Maggie's silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman, with some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie's pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... education, who would weep with sympathy over the fictitious woes exhibited in a novel. And waking from her reverie of grief, while her eye was yet wet with tears, would call her little waiter, and if she did not appear at the first call, would rap her head with her thimble ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... secretary; carved mother-of-pearl paper-knife, gold seal, gold pencil, case full of fancy writing paper; made in Paris 1 bula work-box, elegant; inlaid 125 with silver and lined with ci-satin, fitted with gold thimble, needle, scissors, pen-knife, gold bodkin, cotton winders; outside to match French piano 1 long knitting-case to match the 40 above, fitted with needles, beads and silk of every description 1 papier-mache work-box, and 5 fitted up 1 morocco work-bag, ornamented 3 with bright steel; fitted up with ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Mrs. Bowse might have come on some household errand. But it was Little Ann Hutchinson instead of Mrs. Bowse, and there was a threaded needle stuck into the front of her dress, and she had on a thimble. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was like her own made up by energy of will; but neither of them could bear the strain long; and when the final clearing away of the dinner-dishes gave her a breathing-time she resolved to dress herself and put her thimble in her pocket and go over to Miss Finn's quilting. Miss Lucy might not be like Miss Anastasia; and if she were, anything that had hands and feet to move instead of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... see the picture plainly still. I am sitting on a low chair before the nursery fire, one knee supported in my locked hands, meanwhile Mrs. Fursey's needle grated with monotonous regularity against her thimble. At that moment knocked at my small soul for the first time the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... went to her back fence, which was the nearest point of communication between her and her neighbour. "Mis' Smith," she called, and her confederate came hurrying to the door, thimble on and a bit of sewing clutched precariously in her apron, just as she had caught it up when the significant call brought ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... species of raspberry (Rubus occidentalis) that is almost as dear to memory as the wild strawberry—the thimble-berry, or black-cap. I confess that the wild flavor of this fruit is more to my taste than that of any other raspberry. Apparently its seeds have been sown broadcast over the continent, for it is found almost ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... would not be sufficient for dinner. Accordingly, about 10 o'clock, a parcel came from Clapham, containing 11s. and the following articles: 12 yards of calico, a frock, a chemise, 2 petticoats, a flannel ditto, 2 handkerchiefs, 2 pinafores, a furnished workbag, an old silver thimble, and half a franc. Thus the Lord kindly provided us with means for the dinner, and we took it as a token for good that He would send what else might be needed this day. There came in still further ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... (pointing to table R.) There's a needle and thread, and a thimble on my table. Take off your coat and I'll sew till the basket ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... die! niver mind the change, and the expense: all fair and above board: them as don't play can't vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman! Bet any gen'lm'n any sum of money, from harf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn't name the thimble as kivers the pea!' Here some greenhorn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble—an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top-boots, who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, regrets his own inability to bet, in consequence ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... is mum," said Hannah. "There's not a scrimption left—not so much as the full of a thimble." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... sympathy with heroes any more than he had with men of letters, artists, or any other class of talent. He was a dry, uncompromising, blunt, unfeeling lawyer, looking at justice as a thimblerig looks at his pea; lift which thimble you may, he will take care the pea shall not be found if he can help it. He smiled a grim, inhuman smile at Bumpkin's tears, and muttered that he was an ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... I thought our friend was an idiot. She looks uncommonly like it,' he muttered, with a supercilious glance. 'And what does the thimble ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... if he could get at them in a roundabout way. "Once upon a time"—("Ugh!" thought the Child to himself, "this is going to be a fairy story!" But it wasn't). "Once upon a time," went on Uncle Andy slowly, "there was a young bat—a baby bat so small you might have put him into your mother's thimble. He lived high up in the peak of the roof of an old barn down in the meadows beside the golden, rushing waters of the Nashwaak stream, not more than five or six miles from Fredericton. We'll call him Little ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a door key, some rusty scissors, and a blue head—of the fox; glass beads, blue beads, such as John Smith told Powhatan were worn by great kings, thus obtaining a hundred bushels of corn for a handful of the beads; a pewter spoon, a bent thimble, and a whole blue dog—no, his miserable ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... did enjoy it, for days seeing the family come in and out, talking as freely of him as if he were a log of wood, and how perfectly happy he was when, one morning Alice came in and sat by him, placing her tiny gold thimble upon her delicate finger, and bending over her bit of dainty embroidery, humming occasionally a sweet, mournful air, which showed that her thoughts were wandering back to the cottage by the river, where her mother lived and died. While she was sitting there Mrs. Worthington joined ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... and not over correct or well-spelt was its address; and, above all, a yellow, dingy wafer filled up the place of the green wax we had expected, and the true lover's motto, "Though lost to sight, to memory dear," was supplied by the impression of a thimble. We opened it. Horror and amazement! never was such penmanship beheld. The lines were complete exemplifications of the line of beauty, so far as their waving, and twisting, and twining was concerned; and the orthography it was past all human ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... the same state of affairs. It was early in the afternoon, and the children were out playing. She hung up her sun-bonnet, and dropped wearily down into a chair. Then, remembering a pile of clothes that must be mended before dark, she got up and began to hunt for her thimble ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... dint of smirking and nodding on the part of the lady of the house, to sit next to Miss Bradwardine at dinner, to be Miss Bradwardine's partner at cards. If he came into the room, she of the four Miss Rubricks who chanced to be next Rose, was sure to recollect that her thimble, or her scissors, were at the other end of the room, in order to leave the seat nearest to Miss Bradwardine vacant for his occupation, And sometimes, if papa and mamma were not in the way to keep them on their good behaviour, the misses would titter a ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... were played. One was "hide the thimble," and when it was Madeline's turn to hide it she put it right between the front legs of her Candy Rabbit as he sat on the table. Not one of the boys or girls thought of looking there for it, so they had to give up, and it was Madeline's turn ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope
... rolling on the floor. She was not much hurt however, and got up in a moment. Then she saw that what she had fallen over was not unlike a great iron bucket. When she examined it more closely, she discovered that it was a thimble; and looking up to see who had dropped it, beheld a huge face, with spectacles as big as the round windows in a church, bending over her, and looking everywhere for the thimble. Tricksey-Wee immediately ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... was looking out of the window, as she did sometimes, as if she was looking nowhere. She jumped up and hugged and kissed me, and called me 'Dear Tulee, good Tulee.' The little darling was always mighty loving. When I went there again, her needle was sticking in her work, and her thimble was on the frame, but she was gone. I don't know when she went away. Thistle's come back alone; but he does that sometimes when little missy goes ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... being pelted with them round the lawn; and had filled it with nuts, for which he had not found it so difficult to obtain pardon. He knew every hole and corner in it! he was intimate with all her little feminine nicknacks—her silver thimble, her scissors, her bit of wax, and the yard-measure, which twisted itself in and out of an ivory cottage—he knew them all, as well as though they were his own; and he knew also where ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... rapid scribe. It had taken her a considerable while to write this, and the household was astir. She folded it up in the smallest possible dimensions, and wedged it into her thimble. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... from his waist down; he wore shoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. All the materials of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back empty-handed," said Jack. "Look, mamma; here are a beautiful pair of scissors, a large paper of needles, another of pins, and a thimble! How rich you are now! And when you get well, you can make me a pretty waistcoat and a pair of trousers, for I am in great want ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... his head and kissed the bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested on it he felt it glide slowly from beneath them, and saw that Mattie had risen and was silently rolling up her work. She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... on from guest to guest, Betty cried out that she had found the thimble. Then Lloyd held up the crystal charm, the one the bride had said was doubly lucky, because it held imbedded in its centre a four-leaved clover. Nearly every slice had been crumbled as soon as it was taken, in search of a hidden token, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... coffee-coloured and shaped like a thimble. If you hold them to the light, you see in the thickness of their skin five circular zones, darker than the rest and producing almost the same effect as the hoops of a barrel. The end attached to the suspension-thread is slightly conical; the other is lopped off abruptly ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... barns and yards and stables, and pigmy livestock in the little pastures, and hand-high crops in the little meadows; and smoke came from the tiny chimney of the farmhouse, and Lionel was drawing water from a well in a bucket the size of a thimble. And all the colors were so bright and painted that the little farmstead seemed to have been conceived of the gayest mind on earth. But through his amazement Hobb had no thought except for the child, and he ran calling him by his name, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... nose, thimble on twisted finger, ivory-egg in hand, in active preparation for that work, woman's par excellence, that alone rivals Penelope's. Surely that assortment of yellow, ill-mated, half-worn, and holey hose, was a treasure ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... gazing wistfully towards Albano. He did not see the charmers as they crept down the rough road close to the garden wall, and went sadly home, along the blooming path, to the 'Tomb of the Four Thimbles,' as Livy irreverently called the ruin which has an ornament at each of its corners like a gigantic thimble ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... down by the shaded lamp and slipped a finger into her thimble. But her needle, which in the afternoon had glanced and glinted swiftly, as the dainty braid was being fastened into place, somehow refused to do its work. The little blue suit fell from her hands; the thimble rolled ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... volunteers went across the prairie immediately, and scalped him, dividing his scalp into four pieces, each one cutting a hole in each piece, putting the ramrod through the hole, and placing his part of the scalp just behind the first thimble of his gun, near its muzzle. Such was the fate of nearly all of the Indians found on the battle ground, and such was the disposition ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... special crucible lined with magnesia tar, which is baked at a red heat until the tar is driven off and the magnesia left. This lining should last from twelve to fifteen reactions. This magnesia lining ends at the bottom of the crucible in a ring of magnesia stone and this ring carries a magnesia thimble through which the molten steel passes on its way to the mould. It will usually be necessary to renew this thimble after each reaction. This lower opening is closed before filling the crucible with thermit by means of a ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... and found, in a tiny box of faded morocco, an ivory thimble exquisitely carved with minute Chinese figures. It fitted her slender finger to perfection, and she gazed at it with great delight, while Miss Wealthy and Martha shook their heads ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... own pet recipe for her Christmas pudding, of undoubted antiquity, none being later than that left as a precious legacy by grandmamma. Some housewives put a thimble, a ring, a piece of money, and a button, which will influence the future destinies of the recipients. It is good that every person in the family should take some part in its manufacture, even if only to stir it; and it should be brought to table hoarily sprinkled with powdered ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... lengthened rummage in a voluminous pocket, and the production of several articles irrelevant to the occasion—a thimble, a bit of ginger, and part of a tract—Mrs Gray brought to light a piece of paper, on which was written the ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... don't fry fish with books.' Mrs. Beckenstein wrested it away from her, and dashed it on the floor. The pencil-case rolled one way, the thimble another. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... all confidence in the avowal. He professes sympathy with modern Science, and almost in the same breath he treats, or certainly will be understood to treat, the Atomic Theory, and the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, as if they were a kind of scientific thimble-riggery. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... end, for the purpose of fixing it to a roof, window-sill, &c. The bag is of canvas, three feet wide and four feet deep, with cords sewed round the bottom, and meeting at the top, where they are turned over an iron thimble at each side of the mouth of the bag. The steel cross-bow is of the ordinary description, of sufficient strength to throw the lead bullet with the cord attached, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... needed. It was a well-appointed, handsome dwelling, but it was terribly gloomy. The heavy, substantial leather chairs always remained undisturbed in level rows against the wall, and the crimson cloth upon the table was as bare as a billiard-table. A thimble lying upon it, or fallen on the carpet and almost crushed by my careless tread, would have been as welcome a sight to me as a blade of grass or a spring of water in some sandy desert. The sound of a light foot ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Christ, and his utterances will supplement and correct the uncertain sounds of nature; and then there is the Holy Ghost to finally supply all omissions, and clear up all difficulties. Now to our mind this is simply intellectual thimble-rigging. Or rather does it not suggest the three-card trick? One card is useless, two cards are unsafe, but with three cards to shuffle you are almost sure to win. Dr. Newman gets his God through intuition; he maintains that the existence of God is a primary fact of consciousness, and entirely declines ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... bound down by the cords of plunder, think alike upon the great questions that have called the American party into existence. Little do we regard the slanders of the pensioners of party. Let their speeches and publications teem with wholesale slanders of our creed: the political jockeyism of these thimble-riggers, as in your own case, is ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... to the exudate which passes through the lower layers of the cells of the epidermis and collects beneath the impervious upper layer, detaching this from its connections. If a small wad of cotton, soaked in strong ammonia, be placed on the skin and covered with a thimble and removed after two minutes, minute blisters of exudate slowly ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... in the North, the electoral votes in these manufactured States would be under the control of the executive authority, and serve to determine the result. For some years the Southern States were used as thimble-riggers use peas: now they were under the cup of the Union, and now they were out. During his reign in New Orleans the Federal General Banks had prepared a Louisiana pea for the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the wind dead ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... stuck up to you, why you must have been sorry for me, Sophy. And Mary is sorry for that rogue, no doubt, and believes that he did it for her sake, I dare say. The womenkind always do think that. If a big thief gets swung for breaking open a cash-box, his lassie will swear he was looking for her thimble. If you was to go now for discoursing of this matter, you would never put up with poor Poppet's account of him, and she would run him higher up, every time you ran him down; ay, and believe it too: such is the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... strolling about, and looking the sworn foes of time, while others crowded the doors of the different coffee-houses; the fat jolly-looking friars cooling themselves with lemonade, and the lean mustard-pot-faced ones sipping coffee out of thimble-sized cups, with as much caution as ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... the room was a square table, on which lay a mass of thick black silk and rich trimmings, which even Emma Rowles's country eyes could see were being put together to form a very handsome mantle suitable for some rich lady. A steel thimble, a pair of large scissors, a reel of cotton and another of silk lay beside the materials. In strong contrast to this beautiful and expensive stuff was the sight which saddened the further corner of the small room. Close under the sloping, ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... on to the milk-house,—a log shanty beyond the well,—and finally came back to the sitting-room, where, as there was yet an hour of daylight, Mrs. Sapp sat down to the quilting-frame. Elvira borrowed a thimble and assisted her, having only to ply her needle and listen. The stream of talk ran on the subject of quilts, the various patterns in which they were pieced and quilted, the Rising Sun, the Lion's Paw, and the Star of Bethlehem being Mrs. Sapp's favorites. From the pile resting on a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... and a lively time I had of it, for I hadn't but six big needles in the cabin and I broke five on 'em the fust night, for the cones was gummy and hard, and it takes a good, stiff needle to go through one ef the man who is punchin' it through hasn't any thimble and the ball of his thumb is bleedin'. Lord-a-massy, Bill, Rover knew the trouble I was havin' as well as I did, for arter I had broken the second needle and talked about it a moment, the old dog got oneasy and began to edge away, and by the time I had broken the fourth needle and got through ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... find her thimble and needles and spools, for Polly wasn't a very neat little girl; but she got settled at last, and stitched away as if bent on beating her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... pleased at this permission to set out on her travels; so she kissed her mother, and bade good-by to her nurse, who gave her a little ball of spiders' threads to sew with, and a beautiful little box, made of the egg-shell of a wren, to keep her best thimble in, and took leave of her, wishing ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... thousands of women in this country believe that if two people look in a mirror at the same time, or if one thanks the other for a pin, or if one gives a knife or a sharp instrument to a friend, it will break up friendship. If a young lady is presented with a thimble, she will be an old maid. Some people think that after leaving a house it is unlucky to go back after any article which has been forgotten, and, if one is obliged to do so, one should sit down in a chair before going out again; that if a broom ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... handkerchief, a piece of wax-candle, an apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp-bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors, a handful of loose beads, several balls of worsted and cotton, a needle-case, a collection of curl-papers, a biscuit, a thimble, a nutmeg-grater, and a few miscellaneous articles." Clemency Newcome married Benjamin Britain, her fellow-servant at Dr. Jeddler's, and opened a country inn called the Nutmeg-Grater, a cozy, well-to-do place as any ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... was a curiosity to the speculative mind. The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very gradual process, to the floor. On the remaining third stood an inkstand and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip. The rest of the table had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and rubber, compasses, paper, ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... my dear fellow. Have the car ready, and leave the brain-work to me. You can drive a car with anybody in Europe, Ewart, but when it comes to a tight corner you haven't got enough brains to fill a doll's thimble," he laughed. "Permit me to speak frankly, for we know each other ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... point: with them, a wife always knew enough when the extent of her genius enabled her to distinguish a doublet from a pair of breeches. She did not read, but she lived honestly; her family was the subject of all her learned conversation, and for hooks she had needles, thread, and a thimble, with which she worked at her daughter's trousseau. Women, in our days, are far from behaving thus: they must write and become authors. No science is too deep for them. It is worse in my house than anywhere else; the deepest secrets are understood, and everything is known except what should be known. ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... content to sit upon the floor all day long, with his big eyes watching Hannah knit, sew, spin, or weave, as the case might be. And if she happened to drop her thimble, scissors, spool of cotton, or ball of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been a fine one, a little laugh of triumph. Thus, even before he ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... London Bridge, the grasping Armenian merchant who softened at the sound of his native tongue, the giddy young spendthrift Francis Ardry and the confiding young creature who had permitted him to hire her a very handsome floor in the West End, the gipsies and thimble-riggers in Greenwich Park—what moving and lifelike figures are these, stippled in with a seeming absence of art, yet as strange and as rare as a Night in Bagdad, a chapter of Balzac, or the most fantastic scene in the ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... is determined upon for hiding, such as a coin, a button, a thimble, etc. A pupil is sent from the room. During his absence the object is hidden. Upon his return the children buzz vigorously when he is near to the object sought and very faintly when he is some distance away. The object is located by the intensity of ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... diffunt from other times. We used to have quiltin' parties, candy pullin's, dances, corn shuckin's, games like thimble and sich like." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Clerk, "wipe your shoes with pleasure, and think it my honour to do so, when I reflect that you had the Prince for your handmaid!" Perhaps not the worst gift sent to Flora, during her stay at Leith, was a thimble and needles, with white thread of different sorts, from Lady Bruce. This act of friendship Flora felt as much as any that she received, for she had suffered as much from the state of idleness during her being in custody, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson |
