"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fort. 2. A steamer trip. 3. How I played truant. 4. Kidnapped. 5. The misfortunes of our circus. 6. Account for the situation shown in a ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... and gazed upon thee, ROSE, Across the pebbled way, And thought the very wealth of mirth Was thine that winter day; For while I saw the truant rays Within thy window glide, Remember'd beams reflected came Upon the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... however, by a set of compositions very celebrated in England under the name of "The Water Music." When King George was going from Whitehall to Westminster in his barge, Haendel followed with a company of musicians, playing a succession of pieces, which the king knew well enough for a production of his truant capellmeister. Accordingly he received him once more into favor, and Haendel went on ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... thing, but Jane Is sure, just then, to smile again; Or, out the truant sun will peep, And both the babies fall asleep. The fire burns up with roar sublime, And butcher's man is just in time. And oh! My feeble faith grows strong Sometimes, when ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... up with. Foremost among these was the bragging of certain overgrown young rogues who were considerably ahead of us others in years, but in spite of that still sat on the A.B.C. bench, and from time to time played truant. They got nothing out of it at the time but double and threefold boredom, for as they dared not go home and could not find any playmates, there was nothing for them to do but crouch down behind a hedge or lurk in a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sent to a school kept by two very nice rather young Quaker ladies in Walnut Street. It was just opposite a very quaint old-fashioned collection of many little dwellings in one (modelled after the Fuggerei of Augsburg?) known as the Quaker Almshouse. One morning I played truant, and became so fearfully weary and bored lounging about, that I longed for the society of school, and never stayed from study any more. Here I was learning to read, and I can remember "The History of Little Jack," and discussing with a comrade the question as to whether ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... mother that her other son shall comfort her old age; For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a cage. For my father was a soldier, and even as a child My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild; And when he died, and left us to divide his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... something of his strong virility had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair. She had wondered then how the Senorita Valdes could keep from loving this splendid fellow if he cared for her. All the more she wondered now, for her truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her race. It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance far above her humble hopes. She found herself longing for chances to wait upon him, to do little services ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... Miss Betham,—Not my will, but accident and necessity made me a truant from my promise. I was to have left Merton, in Surrey, at half-past eight on Tuesday morning with a Mr. Hall, who would have driven me in his chaise to town by ten; but having walked an unusual distance on the Monday, and talked and exerted ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... tell him how to find the lost lambs; but the dog knew exactly what had happened, and had no doubt at all about whose duty it was to get the flock together again. All night long the shepherd sought in vain, not being able even to discover what direction either of the three flocks of truant lambs had taken; but in the morning he suddenly came upon his dog, guarding the whole flock—all the seven hundred brought back, and not one of ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... I deserve it! I have been nothing but a truant and a vagabond. I have never obeyed anyone and I have always done as I pleased. If I were only like so many others and had studied and worked and stayed with my poor old father, I should not find myself here now, in this field ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... prayer-meetin' ower a young chap as wanted to 'list, and nearly deafened him, till he picked up his hat and fair ran away. And they'd tell tales in th' Sunday-school o' bad lads as had been thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o' Sundays and playin' truant o' week days, and how they took to wrestlin', dog-fightin', rabbit-runnin', and drinkin', till at last, as if 'twere a hepitaph on a gravestone, they damned him across th' moors wi', 'an' then he went and 'listed for a soldier,' an' they'd all fetch a deep breath, and throw up their ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... that I should do this of my own accord; but my father has strongly urged on me the importance of the habit, and I accordingly practise it systematically. Whenever I find my mind wandering away from the subject on which I am engaged, I bring it back forcibly, just as if it were a truant, or a deserter from his colours. Some people can think of two things at the same moment; but my father says it is much better to think of one thing well at a time, as likewise to do one thing well; so, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... characteristics of Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Person:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style.... But what can ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... The truant hour came back at dawn to-day, Across the hemispheres, And bade my sleeping soul retrace its way These ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... men left us they started rowing back up the river and they didn't get along very fast on account of the tide being against them. Gee whiz, I'd kind of like to be a detective if I was a man, but I wouldn't want to be a truant officer. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... cords were stout, and after a while she quieted down and stood exhausted and quivering. I then approached; she suffered me to lead her to the roots of our tree, which for the present formed our stables, and there I tied her up close to the donkey, who was likewise prevented from playing truant. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... stone-cross beheld a desolate infant, unnaturally left to perish in the wilderness! It was famishing—expiring. I raised it to my breast, and its little arms twined feebly round my neck Florian! thou wert heaven's gracious instrument to reclaim a truant to his duties! Welcome! I cried to thee, young brother in adversity!—"thou art deserted by thy mortal parents, and my heavenly father has forsaken me!" From that moment I felt I had a motive left to cherish life, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away. They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy complexity ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... dressing, gamble at cards, and often would get very much intoxicated at wild midnight carousals. He would ramble in the mall and in the parks, and feed the aquatic birds upon the ponds there, day after day, with all the interest and pleasure of a truant schoolboy. He roamed about thus in the most free and careless manner, and accosted people far beneath him in rank in what was considered a undignified way for ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... ostensibly reading when Marguerite was announced, for an open book lay on a table beside her; but it seemed to the visitor that mayhap the young girl's thoughts had played truant from her work, for her pose was listless and apathetic, and there was a look of grave ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the girl's mouth disappeared slowly as she passed a small brown hand across her forehead and replaced a truant lock. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... brought a ball with him, for they had lost theirs. He threw his ball to him. But aren't you coming to play with us? Not to-day, Joseph answered. I'm on my way to school. Well, to-morrow? Not to-morrow. I may not play truant from learning, Joseph answered sententiously, walking away, leaving his former playmates staring after him without a word in their mouths. But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out: the fishmonger's son is going by to his lessons and ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... lamp out! To be sure there was no visible reason why she should have had it put out, except as a picturesque and imaginative way of rubbing her altruism into its nearest victim. Unless, indeed, it was done in order that the darkened window should seem to announce to the returning truant that she had gone to bed, and to lull his mind to unconsciousness of the ambush that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... When the truant waggons came up we marched on a few miles, following the road, which is just a hard track across the veldt, and bivouacked for the night, the out-spanned waggons ranged in rows in a rough square, as far as ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... expenditure, the provision for the school population of the country is, in places, fearfully inadequate. In our large cities, if the truant and labor laws were properly enforced, the lack of school provision would be still more apparent. In New York City alone more than 100,000 children are attending school but ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... rummaged old cuddies, closets, vaults, and cocklofts, and pried into every recess of the Chancery, the Land Office, the Committee-Rooms, and the Council-Chamber, searching up-stairs and down-stairs, wherever a truant paper was supposed to lurk. Groping with lantern in hand and body bent, he made his way through narrow passages, startling the rats from their fastnesses, where they had been intrenched for half a century, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... first has been all his life one of that easy, wayward, truant class whom the world is accustomed to designate as nobody's enemies but their own. Bred to a profession for which he never qualified himself, and reared in the expectation of a fortune he has never inherited, he has undergone every vicissitude of which such an existence ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... religion by whom he was sometimes assailed, he usually termed the generation of vipers. Conversing with others, he was grave and sententious, not without a cast of severity. But he is said never to have been observed to give way to violent passion, excepting upon one occasion, when a mischievous truant-boy defaced with a stone the nose of a cherub's face, which the old man was engaged in retouching. I am in general a sparer of the rod, notwithstanding the maxim of Solomon, for which school-boys have little reason to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... tide turned again and the truant waters came back, lapping once more the sides of our boat. The Commodore had to see that anchors were run ahead and astern, and all made snug for the night. Then, in the enjoyment of one of the most charming features of houseboating, an evening meal served ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... seeing that I looked towards him, got free from his mother and ran to me, saying that he must go home, and that I must speak for him, as his mother was wroth with him for playing truant. ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... showing where Charley Ross was last seen and Carrie Nation was first sighted. We shall pile up tall monuments to Sitting Bull and Nonpareil Jack Dempsey and the man who invented the spit ball. Perhaps then these truant Americans will come back oftener from Paris and Florence and abide with us longer. Meanwhile though they will continue to stay on the other side. And on second thought, possibly it is just as well for the rest ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... days when we played truant and climbed down in the morning's first freshness from the high room overlooking Rome and the work that had to be done in it, and loafed all day in Roman galleries and at Roman ceremonies, or strayed ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... eyes grew full of laughter, and the next moment the little questioner had squeezed her way through a slightly open door, and was toddling down the broad stone stairs and across a landing to Hetty's room. The room-door was open, so the truant went in. A bed with the bed-clothes all tossed about, a half worn-out slipper on the floor, a very untidy dressing-table met her eyes, but ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... brightest and most marked elements of his character—never failed to sustain him between the recurrences even of his most acute suffering; and the pursuit of his most beloved Art became every year more determined and independent. The first beginnings in landscape study were made in happy truant excursions, now fondly remembered, with the painter Haydon, then also a youth. This companionship was probably rather cemented by the energy than the delicacy of Haydon's sympathies. The two boys were directly opposed ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... years we have gone abroad in the middle of October, and returned for Christmas and the New Year," she finished, "but we have made up our minds to remain in England this year. Why, here comes the truant, and it is actually ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... wretched man, who had been working in the vegetable-garden, had been watching all morning for an opportunity to steal away and get a drink. Finding the coast clear, when Mrs. Ashton and Allie had gone in with Mamie, he, like a truant child stealing away from its parents, glided out on to the sidewalk, and hastily made his way to the ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... eagerly over a book and talking earnestly. They were interesting looking people, and she hovered near, hoping that she had at last found the "children" who would "play" with her—a remembrance of one of her nursery stories coming to her just then, and a ludicrous sense of her resemblance to the truant boy who spent the long, bright day in the woods searching for one not ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... sky is blue, and the sward is green, And the soft winds wake from the balmy west,— The leaves unfold in their gilded sheen, And the bird, in the tree top, builds its nest; The truant zephyr plumes her wings Once more, and quitting her perfumed bed, Soft calls on the sleeping flowers to wake, And sportive ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "the service you have done me." And with that, and before my lord had finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left the room. In face of the outbreak of his lordship's lamentations she made haste to follow the truant. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mentioned are some of the shorter poems and detached lyrics. Here Shelley forgets for a while all that ever makes his verse turbid; forgets that he is anything but a poet, forgets sometimes that he is anything but a child; lies back in his skiff, and looks at the clouds. He plays truant from earth, slips through the wicket of fancy into heaven's meadow, and goes gathering stars. Here we have that absolute virgin-gold of song which is the scarcest among human products, and for which we can go to but three ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... ever published, its preservation may one day be useful in the socialistic archives of the South, to whose posterity slavery will seem almost a mythical thing. With as little bias in the second tale, I have etched the young Northern truant abroad during the secession. The closing tale, more recently written, in the midst of constant toil and travel, is an attempt to recall an old suburb, now nearly erased and illegible by the extension of a great city, and may be considered ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... letting the capricious thing out of your sight. It is so fickle that it forms wanton attachments for every one it meets,—for urchins, idlers, loafers, mechanics, permits them all sorts of familiarities, so that when, like a truant, it comes wandering back, it is no longer the same, but a new creature, which you must ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... we are de Soyecourts, you and I," he repeated, in a new voice. "After all, I cannot drag you to Noumaria by the scruff of your neck like a truant school-boy. Yes, let us recognize the fact that we are de ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... pebbles which had been washed clean by the rain, while Robert walked on reading his book. At last, John, calling after his brother, said, "I do not see what is the use of going to school this fine morning; let us play truant." ...
— Child's New Story Book; - Tales and Dialogues for Little Folks • Anonymous
... infinitely more discreet on his part did he avoid further disturbing Mrs. Braydon, who presumably was alone and who might be easily frightened. So he would just slip on past the Braydon apartment, and in the hallway on the fourth floor he would cannily bide, awaiting the truant ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He stared at each familiar object in the room as though he were trying to recall a truant mind. Finally his eyes came around to Helene, and with a quick smile and the old toss of the head with which he was wont to throw off a mood, he brought himself back ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... Attendance Officer and a terror to every boy in the neighbourhood. He looks at the truant and says fiercely, "Where was you?" Then he wags a savage finger at him. "Yes, you was," he says, "you was, you know you was. I caught you in the hact." No boy has ever been known ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... playin' truant maybe. A' mind gettin' ma paiks for birdnestin' masel. I'll wager that's ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... that there is or could have been one truant fluttering murmur of the heart against the reality of glory. And partly for these reasons: 1st, That, hoc abstracto, defrauding man of this, you leave him miserably bare—bare of everything. So that really and sincerely ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... course not," said he, "except Strep, and Hipp, and Chal, and those boys, because their fathers are fishermen. No, we have to be in our fathers' offices, we big boys; the little fellows, they let them stay at home. If I was here without you now, that truant-officer we passed just now would have had me at home before this time. Well, you see they think we learn about business, and I guess we do. I know I do," said he, "and sometimes I think I should like to be a Proxenus when I am grown up, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... say that Edison became an electrician by chance, but it is the sober fact that to this pre-eminent and brilliant leader in electrical achievement escape into the chemical domain still has the aspect of a delightful truant holiday. One of the earliest stories about his boyhood relates to the incident when he induced a lad employed in the family to swallow a large quantity of Seidlitz powders in the belief that the gases ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... they have reason to esteem a far better offer. In which respect I have returned my dutiful acknowledgement, which I beseech you to present, when you shall call a convocation, about some matter of greater moment. Because their letter was in Latin, methought it did enforce me not to show myself a truant, by attempting the like, with a pen out of practice: which yet I hope they will excuse with a kind construction of my meaning. And to the intent they may perceive that my good will is as forward to perform as to promise, and that I purpose to shew it to their best contentation, I do hold ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... by no means inclined to play knight-errant to children and attendant damsels, and he would probably have continued to watch the little scene without advancing, had not the girl, halting distressfully to call the truant, chanced to turn her face so that the strong morning light fell full upon it. Why, it was the violinist! Or was he deceived by some chance resemblance? Sydney did not think so, but it behoved him instantly ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... invisible world there is one class which lives a particularly painful life, sometimes for a great many years, namely, the suicide who tried to play truant from the school of life. Yet it is not an angry God or a malevolent devil who administers punishment, but an immutable law which proportions the sufferings ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... tell you how I long to be at home again and in my old place. In my dreams and in my waking hours, I am often back at the old homestead; my thoughts play truant while I pore over my books, and even while I listen to my teacher in the class-room. I would give so much to know what you are all doing—so much to feel that now and then I am in your thoughts, and that you do ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... moonlight on the long trail from Las Vegas down. The face of a strong and self-repressed man is difficult to read. It does not change lightly under any passing emotion. Tom Osby's face perhaps looked even harder than usual, as he sat there listening, his unlit pipe clenched hard between his hands. Truant to his trusts, forgetful of the box of candy which regularly he brought down from Vegas to the Littlest Girl, Curly's wife; forgetful of many messages, commercial and social,—forgetful even of us, his sworn cronies,—Tom Osby sat and listened ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the meaning of your leaving the house like a truant schoolboy at this hour of the morning, and in such garb!" demanded Mrs. Bundercombe, eying him severely through her pince-nez. "Is your memory failing you, Joseph Henry? Did you or did you not arrange to accompany me this morning to a ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be past; For, where you are, I have been; All that you see, I have seen. Hopes that beamed around my way, Cast their light on yours to-day. All that you do, I have done; All your childish ways I've run, All your joys and pangs I've had— All that make you gay or sad; I have sported in the brook, Truant from my work or book; Chased the butterfly and bee, Robb'd the bird's nest on the tree; Damm'd the brook and built my mill; Flew my kite from hill to hill; Sported with my top and ball— Childish joys, I know them all. Childish sorrows, too I've felt— Anguish that my heart would ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... of one fled, as the truant fawn seeketh again the covers of the woods," said Content. "Our hunt was uncertain, and it might have been vain, so many feet have lately crossed the forest, were it not that Providence hath cast our route on that of our friend, here, who hath had reason to ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... widespread nature of the movement may be illustrated by the school strike of the spring of 1912, during which every boy and girl above the age of fourteen in most of the primary and secondary schools of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia played truant as a protest against the misgovernment of Croatia. On that occasion a crowd of 5000 school children paraded the streets of Agram shouting "Down with Cuvaj" (the Ban or Governor of Croatia), and cheering the police when they tried ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... be here soon," replied Lady Stanley, and she went away to seek the truant sister, leaving her husband to beguile the tediousness of the time by engaging in conversation with his brother. Sir Thomas was in high glee, and could find no sympathy with the miserable forebodings ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... it well to quit the churchyard at once for some place where he was not likely to be seen; he had never played truant before, and for the next hour or two was thoroughly miserable as he slunk about the premises of a neighboring farm, and finally took refuge in a shed, and began to consider his position. He would remain ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... a couple of schoolboys playing truant, and then they disappeared under the doorway of a dilapidated house, whilst I was left wondering how two such elegant gentlemen dared be abroad in Lyons these days, seeing that every man, woman and child ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the house of her brother Lazarus of Bethany was set in order three days before the expected arrival of Passover guests. Followed by Eli, who was girt about with a long towel, Martha made a last survey of the large and well furnished living-room, looking for a truant speck of dust. She paused for a moment at a table containing writing materials and bade the servant wipe it carefully and place it, with a case of scrolls, at one end of the wide, latticed window-couch, ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... "Ah, truant!" cried the fair maiden, as she caressed her little favourite, "how could you wander from me—how could you ever fancy yourself safe apart from Duty? I saw the hawk wheeling in the air, and I trembled for my beautiful pet; but he has found here a refuge and protector. Nelly, I thank ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... a benefactress to a man she had never spoken of but as "the Wretch;" the younger held her truant bridegroom's heart, I may say, in her hand all the road and was his protectress. Neither recognised the hand-writing; for no man can write his own hand ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... son of the district doctor, was a blue-eyed youngster in knickerbockers and a sailor blouse. He was playing truant, no doubt—Klaus had his lessons at home with a private tutor—and would certainly get a thrashing from his father when he ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... emotion to lively apprehensions for her safety, but he soon saw her run back, and, on observing him coming to meet her, assume an untroubled countenance. "Has this serene night," said she, "made you too a truant with your pillow? I have, of late, been little disposed to sleep, and enjoy a moon-light walk amazingly."—"Do not those dogs annoy you," inquired Sedley, with more of moody displeasure than tenderness; "I should think they would form ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... day wet and rainy, though not uniformly so. No temptation, however, to play truant; so this will make some amends for a blank day yesterday. I am far in advance of the press, but it is necessary if I go to Drumlanrig on Wednesday as I intend, and to Lochore next week, which I also meditate. This will be no great interruption, however, if I can keep the Canongate moving, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... youth who had broken through the stronger argument of a mother's tears. Messengers were dispatched in every direction; the police scoured the roads for miles outside the city; friends and acquaintances were warned not to harbor the truant. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... husband of the conduct of their truant son, as Harry had wished, and had in reply received his full forgiveness for the boy. Captain Grosvenor had written that he much regretted not having taken Harry along with him, "for," said he, "a second thought would have ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... waters, green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked, shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters purled, a light breeze rustled the olive-leaves, and birds were singing loud and wild, as birds will ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... her uncle she threw heir arms about his neck and imprinted a kiss on his noble brow, then sinking on a stool at his feet began to take him to task after the following fashion: "You truant, you naughty uncle, to let me breakfast alone in my own room thinking you hundreds of miles away, and not to let me know that you returned last night; and Mrs. Fraudhurst is just as bad, and I will not forgive her or ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... tramped along Oxford Street towards his hotel. He had just reached the Circus when the malignant wind, hiding in ambush down Regent Street, rushed at him unawares and sent his hat roistering into the doorway of a store. With a frown, Selwyn stopped and stared at the truant. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... girls there, and I've played truant, and—yes, I think I shall go back presently, when I have taken my fill of freedom and this ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... always counted, they say, Rather a bad stick anyway, Splintered all over with dodges and tricks, Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six"; I, the truant, saucy and bold, The one black sheep in my father's fold, "Once on a time," as the stories say, Went over the hill on a winter's day— Over ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed.—But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of the birds,—like August there,— Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, Like some drenched truant, cower. ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim of his genius: those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will play truant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of their own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off with wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... government should be a model for the other municipal governments of the Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the housing of the poor, the creation of small parks in the districts inhabited by the poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for the taking care of the children, in truant laws, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... dead silence, as if it were a calm, although every passion was roused and on the alert; every bosom heaved tumultuously, and every pulse was trebled in its action. The same feeling which so powerfully affects the truant schoolboy—who, aware of his offence, and dreading the punishment in perspective, can scarce enjoy the rapture of momentary emancipation—acted upon the mutineers, in an increased ratio, proportioned to the magnitude of their stake. Some hearts beat with remembrance of injuries and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... department of the art, and his pictures held a highly respectable place at the annual exhibitions of the Scottish Academy. Among his pictures which became favourites may be mentioned the "Wee Raggit Laddie," "The Old Church Road," "The Gaberlunzie," "Tak' your Auld Cloak about ye," and "The Captive Truant." His illustrations of his friend, Mr James Ballantine's works, "The Gaberlunzie's Wallet" and "The Miller of Deanhaugh," and of some other popular works, evince a lively fancy and keen appreciation of character. He executed a number ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... country twenty, thirty years, were better qualified to judge than I was. For peace and quiet I pretended acquiescence, and my purpose thus acquired a taste of stealth. It was with the feelings of a kind of truant that I had set out at length without a word to anyone, and with the same adventurous feelings that I now drew near to Karameyn. Two soldiers, basking in the sunshine on a dust-heap, sprang up at my approach. One was the man ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... comes of talking in metaphor," rejoined Brandon, smiling; "they who begin it always get the worst of it. In plain words, dear Lucy, I can give no more time to my own ailments. A lawyer cannot play truant in term-time without—" ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... night young Cupid lost his way, And came to me to find it. He'd been a truant all the day, But didn't ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells; Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, Blush at the curious stranger peeping in; Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more; Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing, Beat hemp for others, riper for the string: From these dire scenes ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... day there came a message from the schoolmaster that the boy was absent too often. The message was repeated. Ditte could not understand it. She had a long talk with the boy, and got out of him that he often played truant. He made a pretense of going to school, hung about anywhere all day long, and only returned home when school-time was over. She said nothing of this to Lars Peter—it would only have made ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... back smiling, and the reverend men Departed, heavy at heart. He spoke no more, But, haply musing on his truant days, Passed from us, and was smiling when he died. —WILLIAM CANTON, in The ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... of a child is in truancy from school, which, if it cannot be handled by the teacher, is turned over to the local truant officer. In many cases the truant officer is appointed because of his availability for such work rather than his special competency, and the enforcement of the truancy law is handled in a most perfunctory ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry;— ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... 'I wish—,' he began, and stopped dead again. 'Anyhow, I'll go back. I am afraid, Herbert, I've been playing truant. It was all very well while—To tell you the truth I can't think QUITE straight yet. But it won't last for ever. Besides—well, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... I must parry, Still a wayward truant prove: Where I love, I must not marry; Where I marry, can ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... had not occurred. The holiday visit to the seaside would have been joy untold if Aunt Maria had never appeared and given her unwelcome invitation, but now!—now a return to Seaview would be in the character of a truant carrying within her heart the consciousness of failure and defeat. In the moment's silence which followed Aunt Maria's startling announcement the words of advice and exhortation spoken by her father passed one ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the horses forward. We abused the press-censor roundly—we were extremely indignant with him. It was so like him to lose himself the day Ladysmith was relieved. "Confound him," we muttered, and grinned guiltily. We felt as we used to feel when we were playing truant from school. ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... small sister snores, And his whistle no longer annoys; He's the pride of the house and the king of out-doors,— This wonderful Santa Claus boy! He hastens to school with a heart full of glees, And he never turns truant to play: His lessons he learns with the greatest of ease,— He recites in a beautiful way; And the teacher's so glad that the boy who was bad All his failings has learned to destroy; And she smiles with delight as she breaks ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... tree, that once been the home of bees, having recently fallen, the mother with two more cubs was feasting on the dainty food that this accident had placed within her reach; while the first kept a jealous eye on the situation of its truant ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... ridicule, when the duke himself entered the room, and told Valentine the welcome news of his friend Proteus' arrival. Valentine said, "If I had wished a thing, it would have been to have seen him here!" And then he highly praised Proteus to the duke, saying, "My lord, though I have been a truant of my time, yet hath my friend made use and fair advantage of his days, and is complete in person and in mind, in all good grace ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... I am a Lad of about fourteen. I find a mighty Pleasure in Learning. I have been at the Latin School four Years. I don't know I ever play'd [truant, [1]] or neglected any Task my Master set me in my Life. I think on what I read in School as I go home at noon and night, and so intently, that I have often gone half a mile out of my way, not minding whither I went. Our Maid tells me, she often hears ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... me up, and when I first struck the water, which I did upon the summit of a wave, I bounded off again and ricochetted several times from one wave to another, like the shot fired from a gun along the surface of the sea, or the oyster-shell skimmed over the lake by the truant child. The last bound that I gave, pitched me into the rigging of a small vessel on her beam-ends, and I hardly had time to fetch my breath before she turned over. I scrambled up her bends, and fixed myself astride ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... uncultured breast, Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, A truant-boy, I sought the nest, Or listed, as I lay at rest, While rose on breezes thin, The murmur of the city crowd, And, from his steeple jangling loud, Saint Giles's mingling din. Now, from the summit to the plain, Waves all the hill with yellow ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... missed him, and glanced down the table with a gaze of mingled disappointment and displeasure. A few words from him might have recalled Louis, but they were not spoken, and the only impression conveyed to the poor truant was, that the friend he most cared about, in common with the rest, considered him beneath ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45 Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages. But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50 Toy with the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... eventful one, Ephie played truant, on the ground of headache, partly because her fancy pictured him lying in wait like an ogre to eat her up, and partly from a poor little foolish fear lest he should think her too easily won. Now, however, she blamed herself for not having given him ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... did it devise, But sad compassion and atoning zeal! One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd! And this it is my woeful hap to feel, When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid With face averted and unsteady eyes, Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on; And inly shrinking from her own disguise Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone. O worse than all! O pang all pangs above ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... his shirt, a wasp's nest, which his father took from him and plunged into hot water. Between four and five he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership of Thomas Edward, he was dismissed from the school in ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... a great deal to do with schools after his docile childhood. When he began to run wild with the other boys he preferred their savage freedom; and he got out of going to school by most of the devices they used. He had never quite the hardihood to play truant, but he was subject to sudden attacks of sickness, which came on about school-time and went off towards the middle of the forenoon or afternoon in a very strange manner. I suppose that such complaints are unknown at the present time, but the Young People's fathers ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... sitting one day near the soeter, herding the goats and sheep, because one of the herd-boys had played truant and she had to do his work. It was a warm midday; she was sitting in the shade of a hillock overgrown with birch and underwood; she had thrown off her jacket and taken her knitting in her hand, and was expecting Inga. Something rustled behind ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... went out he was soon aware of something else being wrong, for Brookes was rating the three blacks, who had thoroughly enjoyed their truant holiday, and would have stayed away for days in the myall scrub, but the bush in wet weather is to a blackfellow not pleasant, from the showers of drops falling upon his unclothed skin. Consequently the storm had sent ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... enough to pay the first necessary expenses. He worked in gardens and as a janitor for some time. During his course he taught six terms as principal of a high school, and one year as assistant superintendent in the Essex County Truant School, at Lawrence, Mass., pushed a rolling chair at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, was porter one season at Oak Hill House, Littleton, N. H., and canvassed for a publishing house one summer in Maine. None of his fellow-students did ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden |
