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Back door   Listen
noun
Back door  n.  A door in the back part of a building; hence, an indirect way.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Back door" Quotes from Famous Books



... saw the hat she screamed! She jumped from her chariot as though it had been flames! She tore the scraggly gray wig from her head! She tore the hump from her back! She kicked off her wooden shoes! Her feet were silk! She ran like the wind for the back door! ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... a black night. The moon was well on its last quarter and would not rise till late. My thirst was too great to allow me to tarry, so about nine o'clock, so far as I could judge, I started to descend. It wasn't easy, and half-way down I heard the back door of the house open, and saw the gleam of a lantern against the mill wall. For some agonizing minutes I hung by the ivy and prayed that whoever it was would not come round by the dovecot. Then the light ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... marksmen inside for the purpose of taking down any of the police who should appear at the back windows, they proposed to burn the house in which the police took shelter. They carried bundles of hay and placed them against the back door and roof. The police seized on Mrs. M'Cormick's children, and held them up to the windows, to terrify or appease the people. At this juncture the Catholic clergymen appeared on the scene. Either, being appalled by the scene of death before ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... methods employed in its collection it gets stamped out of districts. The trade in it starts on a bit of coast; for some years so rich is the supply, that it can be collected almost at the native's back door, but owing to his cutting down the vine, he clears it off, and every year he has to go further and further afield for a load. But his ability to go further than a certain point is prevented by the savage interior tribes not under white control; and also ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... were prompt, but the little boys were prompter. The back door swung on its hinges and Max and Archie, puffing, ejaculating and wrathful, gave over attempts at capture for efforts at repair, Max going off to hunt up Algernon, while Archie gathered up scattered cards and mopped up the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... "Ah," she answered, "I am to look for a basketful of strawberries, and am not to go home until I can take them with me." When she had eaten her bread, they gave her a broom and said, "Sweep away the snow at the back door with it." But when she was outside, the three little men said to each other, "What shall we give her as she is so good, and has shared her bread with us?" Then said the first, "My gift is, that she shall every day grow more beautiful." The second said, "My gift is, that gold ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... dedication he said "it wuz a shame to dedicate a book that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a lot of creeters that he wouldn't have in the back door yard." ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... and behind this three small rooms, and a square hall with a side entrance. The fence was down between the theater and Catholic church, next door. I stopped in the church to see Georgie, who was already at work there, came and left by the back door, and entered the theater by the ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... war with the mother country had begun, an attack upon Canada seemed to be an act of self-defense; for through the valley of the St. Lawrence the colonies to the south could be invaded. The "back door," as Canada was called, which was now open for such invasion, must be tightly shut. In fact it was believed that Sir Guy Carleton, the governor of Canada, was even now trying to get the Indians to sweep down the valley of the Hudson, to ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... that Englishman is liable to be back any minute, an' he may make trouble for ye. I know ye're innocent lads, an' I'd hate to see ye mixed up in a mess with that fellow. So I slips up here early, an' ye can leave by the back door if ye want to, an' the officer of His Imperial Majesty, King Edward VII, will never know a ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood

... the glaziers never put up a pane of glass at a cost of a franc and a half but he had a franc put down to himself. Charles devoured the horses' oats and doubled the amount of their provender, reselling at the back door what came in at the carriage gate, while amid the general pillage, the sack of the town after the storm, Zoe, by dint of cleverness, succeeded in saving appearances and covering the thefts of all in order the better to slur over and make ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... northwest, so bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was nipped by it in a moment's exposure. And within forty rods of us was the farmstead of Amos Bemisdarfer; who stood looking at us in amazement as we came across the rippled surface of the snow to his back door. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... scarcely closed the gate when the back door creaked, and Miss Muller came in smiling, magnetic from head to foot, as her disciples in Berrytown were used ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... quantity of provision, he hid in a piece of woods in the rear of the house. He then returned, and continued in the house till about nine in the evening, when, pretending to go to bed, he passed out of a back door, and hastened to ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... went around to the rear, dutifully. His rubbers were wet and muddy and Nettie's living-room carpet was a fashionable grey. The back door was unlocked. It was Canary's day downstairs, he remembered. He took off his rubbers in the kitchen and passed into the dining room. Voices. Nettie had company. Some friends, probably, for tea. He turned to go to his room, but stopped at hearing his ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... Defence in the provinces. A number of indignant citizens hastened to the office of Le Combat in order to seize Pyat and consign him to durance, but he was an adept in the art of escaping arrest, and contrived to get away by a back door. At the Hotel-de-Ville Rochefort, on being interviewed, described Pyat as a cur, and declared that there was no truth whatever in his story. Public confidence completely revived on the following ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... see if they are pressed. Tell them that they must hold out without my help for a short time. I am going to send six officers out by the back of the house, to collect some of our men together. Another will be in readiness to open the back door, as soon ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... is printed on his cards in very small type: and he is a rising barrister of the Western Circuit. He is to be found at home of mornings: afterwards "at Westminster," as you read on his back door. "Binks and Minchin's Reports" are probably known to my legal friends: this is the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the landlord has some of the same bin which served as Hippocrene to Judge Blackstone when he wrote his 'Commentaries')—these make up the legal element of the 'Cheese.' Sharp attorneys in practice are not popular there. There is a legend that a process-server once came in at a back door to serve a writ; but being detected by a waiter, was skilfully edged by that wary retainer into Wine Bottle Court, right past the person on whom he was desirous to inflict the 'Victoria, by the grace, &c.' Once in the court, he was set upon by a mob of inky-faced boys just released from the works ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... wrist, his face distorted. "What the devil are you up to now, you swine?" he said, spitting down into Anders' face. "He's trying to sneak out by the back door!" he said, looking round the circle with a face wrinkled like that ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... plaiting of hair and the wearing of gold and jewels. Quaint, queer and simple-hearted, she had but little idea of any world this side of heaven, except the one bounded by the "huckleberry" hills and the crystal waters of Fairy Pond, which from the back door of the farmhouse were plainly seen, both in the summer sunshine and when the intervening fields were covered ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... from his chum at the corner of the lane one afternoon, when he caught sight of Johan near the big back door of the house opposite the one ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... where he had been the last twenty minutes, occupying a seat out in the porch at the back door and waiting for Aunt Stanshy. He had fallen asleep, so thoroughly tired was this patriotic young American, and the day for him was ending as it began—in a chair. Aunt Stanshy came at last, feeling her way through ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... than Betty expected her, but the clean, cool house, peeping out from the dense shadows of the maples, looked like a paradise to the tired, dusty woman, who rode down the street in the village hack and surprised Betty sitting in the back door cutting off corn to dry and talking to Uncle Billy, whose scythe lay on the grass while he drank from the gourd swimming on ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... tramps who had appeared at her back door on Los Muertos had addressed her; how and with what formula certain mendicants of Bonneville had appealed to her. Then, having settled upon a phrase, she approached a whiskered gentleman with a large stomach, walking briskly in ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... against that upholstery, or else she's in the habit of preparing herself for manslaughter by a system of vocal calisthenics. At any rate, we were having it hot and heavy, and I was trying to think of some good and unselfish actions I had done, when we heard the back door of the cottage open and close, then somebody moving in ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... Saturday morning Linda ran the Bear Cat to the back door, where she and Katy packed it. Before they had finished, Donald Whiting came down the sidewalk, his cheeks flushed with the exercise of walking, his eyes bright with anticipation, his cause forever won—in case ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... pulled down. It was uninhabited; no one but a Parisian gamine could have lived in it, and Ninette had long occupied it, unmolested, save by the rats. Through the broken palings in the garden she had no difficulty in passing, and as its back door had fallen to pieces, there was nothing to bar her further entry. In one of the few rooms which had its window intact, right at the top of the house, a mere attic, Ninette had installed herself and her scanty goods, and henceforward this became my ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... incorrigible egotist in the neighbourhood, had introduced a collection of octogenarian aunts to his household, and, when I was performing my afternoon beat, I was just in time to see the butcher's boy, assisted by the gardener, delivering what looked to be a baron of beef at Sir Meesly's back door. It was an enervating and disgusting spectacle, well calculated to upset the moral of the steadiest special ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various

... blind and lock the door," he commanded her through the keyhole. "The back door is locked already, so you are ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... streaming over her shoulders, she must have looked a perfect fury as she rushed out and deluged the up-turned faces and shoulders of the savages with the boiling mess. They dropped yelling to the ground, and Jenny at once turned her attention to the back door of the van, where already one of the leading Gaucho malos—aunt's beautiful blackguards of the day before—had gained footing. This villain she fairly bonneted with ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... he never neglected, no matter how late he went to bed, nor how tired he was. Half way to the barn he halted. A light was waving wildly by the Dickerson back door. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... the long axis of the diamond. Their "rear elevations," therefore, were not far from officers' row. From the front of Sumter's house, around by way of the main gate to the doctor's door—the first to the left (north) of the post traders's—was quite a walk. From back door to back door, however, it was less than two hundred paces. "We are near neighbors," Doctor Larrabee had been saying, "though my wife thinks it a long walk on a windy day. I could reach you day or night, almost in a minute. As for ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... no' a' equal. There's as muckle difference among folks here as elsewhere, whatever be your ticket. There are folk coming and going here, that in my country I would hate sent round to the back door; but naething short of the company of the minister himself will serve them. Gentlemen like the Judge, or like Mr Greenleaf here, will sit and bide the minister's time; but upsettin' bodies ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... brother-in-law, knowing he had private enemies, had come to the house and spent the night trying to induce him to flee, but all in vain. But the next morning, his house being attacked, he yielded, and tried to escape by the back door. He was stopped by some of the National Guard, and placed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hoped. No one had thought of that possible way of escape. No doubt the back door of the yard was watched; but she would never have sent him ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... house. She went out by a back door which was used by the servants, the key of which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... said Cousin Maria; "he went out o' the back door, and along the edge of the woods, and he was soon out of sight, fur George has got long legs, as you well know; and the last I saw of him was just out there by that fence. And if there isn't Jim Anderson! Come in, Jim; what are you doin' ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton

... 'Perhaps I should have found out something though,' he said, with a smile,'if it had not been for that there old dog as we used to keep in the tub at the back of the house. Such a lot of folk used to come to our back door all day long after victuals, some out of the village, and some from the next parish, and some as went round regular, and gipsy chaps, and chaps as pretended to come from London—you never saw such a crowd,—just because the old man ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... hate," he wrote to Pope soon after Gulliver was published, "I heartily hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth." The philanthropist will often idealise man in the abstract and hate his neighbour at the back door, but that was not Swift's way. He has been called an inverted hypocrite, as one who makes himself out worse than he is. I should rather call him an inverted idealist, for, with high hopes and generous expectations, he entered ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... no more daring than that of Nancy's effort, it required twice the amount of self-sacrifice. He was to be, from June twenty-seventh till August twenty-seventh, Bill Harmon's post-office clerk and delivery boy, and the first that the family would know about it would be his arrival at the back door, in a linen jacket, with an order-book in his hand. Bravo, Gilly! One can see your heels disappearing over the top of ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... conceived in a more adventurous vein than appears at first sight. In an unsubdued country one contends with beasts and men who are openly hostile. But when one is a stranger in the midst of civilization and meets civilization at its back door, he is astonished to find how little removed civilization is from downright savagery. Stevenson and his companion learned as they could not have learned otherwise how great deference the world pays to clothes. Whether your heart is ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... in a long tunnel, which made him think of one that led to his own home. At the other end of it he came out into daylight again; and he knew then that it was an old woodchuck's burrow, in which nobody lived any longer. And it was the back door that opened into ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey

... the door, the place seemed deserted, but she picked her way, among barrels and boxes, saddles and hams, to the dry-goods department in the rear. Through the open back door she could see two men in the yard, one repairing a chicken-coop, and the other standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the job. The man with the hammer and saw, she knew. He was the manager of the store. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... eight-day clock in the lobby solemnly struck four, there was a loud knock at the back door, and the post-messenger from Pendlepoint strode into the kitchen, holding in his ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... cigar which was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every time you come 'round with the groceries. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... large family of gypsies, who sang at a rival cafe, and who had also treated me very kindly. I was at once conducted to a house, which we entered in a rather gypsy way, not in front, but through a court, a back door, and up a staircase, very much in the style of certain dwellings in the Potteries in London. But, having entered, I was led through one or two neat rooms, where I saw lying sound asleep on beds, but dressed, one or two very dark Romanys, whose ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... half-opened it—and his face was so horrible I tried to shut it again at once. And he struggled with me, but I was strongest. Then he tried to get in at the window, but luckily I had fastened the iron bar across the shutter—and the back door. But it all held, mercifully. He couldn't get in. Then he abused me through the door, and said he would have killed me and the child, if he could have got in—and some day he would come again.' ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that he would whip me, because I had hurt his boy. Soon after, McKinney was seen making his way to the office by one of the printers, who informed me of the fact, and I made my escape through the back door. ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown

... letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with the letter, you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o'clock this morning, I signed it 'your secret correspondent.' They let me in at once—very quickly—by the back door, and the noble ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... I arrived I sent for the Deputy Sheriff and City Marshal, and on their arrival moved the prisoners to the bar room of the hotel. The Deputy asked me to remain and assist in guarding the prisoners. At the hotel the Deputy and Marshal guarded the street door, while I kept watch on the back door. Langdon was shackled and laid down on a lounge and fell asleep. Harrison was sitting near me and had started in to tell me all about the murder. I was sitting sidewise to the street door, and hearing it open, turned my head just as four men sprang upon the two officers and bore ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... most drunken of the party, but Maurice wanted the man, and was prepared to take some trouble to reduce him to a condition of serviceableness again. He grasped him by the collar of the coat, and pushed him through the back door into the yard. A delighted stable boy worked the pump handle while Maurice held the groom under the stream of cold water. The cure was ineffective. Maurice walked him up and down the yard for half an hour, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... hastened down to pick him up; but the two pails had fallen on his chest and he lay there with feet outstretched. The old man was extremely frightened. Without uttering a sound, he took hold of the water-carrier's feet, and dragged him through the back door to the bank of the stream which flowed by the garden. Then he fetched the pails and set them down beside the corpse. After that he went home, locked the door and ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... of the crowd, packed struggling about the door, came the woman's scream again. McPhail dashed around the crowd, running two or three of them down, and entered the back door. Vance, McIlvaine, and Lincoln ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... the back door, and closed it softly behind her. She could not distinguish the dark outlines of the barn in the equal darkness of the autumn night. She gave a long sobbing gasp as she groped her way forward. As she neared the barn, she ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... and they followed him out through a back door. They walked down a path and came to a small barn. Stan heard a horse snort. The German spoke softly to Sim ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery

... possibly "the park." The air quivered with expectations of a railroad, maybe two or three, and each cluster of hovels expected to find itself in a short time constituted the county-seat, with a gleaming steel road at its back door. ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... the yard, Mr. Bancroft could afterward never tell. It must have been a good fairy that led him to the back door, where he stood a few seconds looking out into the darkness, longing for a sight of the little face ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... than you," whispered Hamilton, "I'll harangue them, and it won't take Dr. Cooper long to understand and flee through the back door—and may the devil ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... very old apricots, and very old plums. The plums, however, were at present better than the peaches or the apricots. The fault of the house, as a modern residence, consisted in this,—that the farm-yard, with all its appurtenances, was very close to the back door. Ralph told himself when he first saw it that Mary Bonner would never consent to live in a house ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... of my mother! now it's just struck me: perhaps I can get a small advance on the strength of my future services? for I am in arrears with my landlady, whose look of melancholy so admonishes me every time I enter the house, that I have for more than a week taken advantage of the back door." The general shrugged his shoulders, declared the will good enough to render the desired relief, but that the means were wanting. To be out-spoken, he hinted to Mr. Tickler that, in the event of joining his service, it must be upon the condition that he depend on the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... There, in the dusk that so early settles into such places, I saw the red glow of the kitchen range. The hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a ladle in her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door. As soon as she disappeared, an Irish man-servant, in a white jacket, crept slyly forth, and threw away the fragments of a china dish, which, unquestionably, he had just broken. Soon afterwards, a lady, showily dressed, with a ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... armoir without doors. Knives and forks for dinner to-day, though the table still consists of a single plank. The house really has a suffocating effect on me, there is such a close look about it. The front is fully a foot below the level of the street, while quite a flight of steps leads from the back door to the yard. In fact, the whole town consists of abrupt little mounds. It is rather a pretty place; but Heaven save me from the misery of living in it! Miriam is crazy to remain—even advocates that dirty, bare, shutterless boarding-house where we ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... two doors to my cottage—the front door with the porch leading to the lane, and the back door out of the scullery which opens into my little slip of garden. At the bottom of the garden is a disused stable, utilised by me to store wood in, and old boxes. The gate to the back way to the stable ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... light a candle; and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of the cat, he mistook them for live coals and held the match to them to light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprung at his face, and spit, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades and told the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... go to the back door, and Sir Willoughby's private door: you came out by the hall door; and I know what you want, Miss Middleton, you want not to pay ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... I went to the Rev. Mr. Bastow's house, at a quarter to nine last night. At nine o'clock Squire Thorndyke and the Parson came in together. They sent the servant up to bed, and then the Squire sent me round to examine the fastenings of the doors. I found that one back door had been left unfastened, and locked and bolted it. The Squire told me to lie down until one o'clock, and he would watch, and Mr. Bastow ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... Tagalos well armed with bolos, who crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643, in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat by Dewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rush through the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniards being quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of another lot of Mauser and Remington rifles and a goodly store of ammunition, for which they ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... them quite quietly. The back door was open; he could have walked out. I did not advise him to. I'm glad no one saw his face except myself. You see," she added, "he's devoted to Derek, and Derek knows it; that's why he feels it so, and will feel it more and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... about five o'clock, she was allowed to go, and was led away through the back door by her escort, the Nijni man and the Tchoovash. Then, still within the entrance to the Law Courts, she gave them 50 copecks, asking them to get her two rolls and some cigarettes. The Tchoovash laughed, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... woman, there is always more than one way in which they may be taken. Let us find that back door, and some of us may quietly enter there while the others are parleying at the front. Once within the walls, the fire-sticks should quickly clear the house ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... remembered them both. As soon as she could take breath, she said: "I've had such a time to get here! I've been trying all day, and I couldn't get a chance, they kept such watch of me. At last, when they was all abed and asleep, I crept down stairs softly, and come out of the back door, and locked it ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... said, "when I think of what the security inspectors who approved the plans for this arrangement are going to say when I call this little back door to their attention, it almost makes it ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... palpable that the attempt to baffle us was being shrewdly organised. I tried a different way of getting information—an attack, so to speak, by the back door. I enlisted the help of a criminal. He was acting more or less blindly, but by his help we stopped the burglary affair that was planned. In the pocket of one of the men we arrested, we discovered two advertisements, worded so as to convey a cipher key without ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... oysters and liquor, Pinky was on hand in a few moments. From the back door of the house they entered a small yard, and passed from this through a gate into a narrow private alley shut in on each side by a high fence. This alley ran for a considerable distance, and had many gates opening into it from yards, hovels and rear buildings, all of the most ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... sweep of wind, and smoky smell. He ran round to the rear. Close up against the back door, quite out of the moonlight, something was piled. Forked tongues of flame were shooting out of it everywhere. He seized the chain attached to the factory-bell, and rang it rapidly. There was a window thrown up, and a ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... and approached the house from the rear, worming their way through the Indian grass toward the back door. Dave crept forward and tried the door. It was locked. The window was latched and the blind lowered. He drew back and ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... voice again more insistently, and his mother appeared at the back door and stood framed in its arch of carved granite. Marjorie Ruan was still a fine young woman; her thirty-odd years sat lightly upon her. Her tanned skin and the full column of her long, bare throat gave her a look of exuberant health. She was dressed in a smart ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... writing a story where one hasn't got to deal with the absolute possibilities, one could always have made Kara have a safe of that character in order to make his escape in the event of danger. He might keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back door, throw out his ladder to a friend and by some trick arrangement could detach the ladder and allow the door to swing ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... his own home. He had always thought it a very nice home. He had built it just as he wanted it. From the doorstep he could look in all directions over the Green Meadows. It had a front door and a hidden back door. Yes, it was a very nice ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess

... 'His name was Karl Mayer, ant he servet in ze Austrian Jagers.' 'He were of pig stature, ant a handsome man like yourself,' puts in Mariechen. I say, 'I know your Karl.' 'Amalia,' exclaimet my Vater. 'Come here! Here is yong man which knows our Karl!'—ant my dear Mutter comes out from a back door. I knew her directly. 'You know our Karl?' says she, ant looks at me, ant, white all over, trembles. 'Yes, I haf seen him,' I says, without ze corage to look at her, for my heart did almost burst. 'My Karl is alive?' she cry. 'Zen tank Got! Vere is he, ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... he came home with his team, watered and fed the horses in a leisurely way, and then entered his house by the back door. Enid, he knew, would not be there. She had gone to Frankfort to a meeting of the Anti-Saloon League. The Prohibition party was bestirring itself in Nebraska that summer, confident of voting the State dry the following year, which purpose it ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... Forum was to shorten his journey, and perhaps was safer than to risk meeting the mob in the streets. Firmian took the step; and while their attention was directed elsewhere, brought Agellius safely through it. They then proceeded cautiously as before, till they stood before the back door of ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... and sell in six figures, and reckon up how they've hit the market for great chunks—but it's all under their lids. You can't spend pipe dreams, if you win; and if you lose, it don't shrink the size of your really truly roll. It's almost as satisfyin' as walkin by the back door of a bakery when you're hungry. That kind of game is about Piddie's size, too. All it calls for is plenty of imagination, and he's got that by the bale. I was kind of glad to see him enjoyin' himself so innocent, and now and then I'd ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... one evening concealed in the middle of a floor-cloth, which the maid had rolled up and set at the outside of the back door, whilst she swept the passage, and neglected to take it in again till the evening, In that I hid myself, and upon her laying it down, ran with all speed down the cellar-stairs, where I continued till the family were all gone to bed. ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... Aggie was creeping down the stairs. "Charlie!" she cried. Charlie threw open his coat, stuck his fingers in the armholes of his waistcoat, said in a voice of hatred, passion, and rage, "Go and pawn yourself!" and then swaggered out at the back door. The keeper made show of following, but John Storm called on him to stop. The man looked at the dog and obeyed. "Wot d'ye ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... four in the afternoon, perhaps, when the back door was thrust slowly open, and a strange old native woman crawled into the house almost on her belly. She was swathed in black stuff to her heels; her hair was grey in swatches; her face was tattooed, which was not the practice ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sudden squawking among the hens in the farm-yard, and through the back door, past the glowing hearth and into the court, rushed two children, followed by a huge shepherd dog. The children were blue-eyed and golden-haired, like their Mother, and looked so big and strong that they might easily have passed for twelve years of age, though they really were but ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins

... come prancing in before long, just as he always does. He usually remains out until you are nearly wild, and then he comes crawling in by the back door, and wonders why the chef isn't on hand to cook a ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks

... buckled her arctics upon her warmly stockinged feet, drew her hood down over her ears, strapped on her skis and slipped on her mittens before she left the kitchen. From the back door which in summer was three feet above ground she pushed her way out upon the level snow. Then, through a white world of silence she moved quietly through the clear, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... my own idea how that was done," said Galloway, who had been an attentive listener to the innkeeper's replies to Colwyn's questions. "Show the way downstairs to the back door, Mr. Benson." ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... suddenly embarrassed. Mrs. Ogden had gone through the house and out at the back door, and Aunt Melinda had followed her, and so had the girls. Molly had suddenly gone up-stairs to her own room. Aunt Melinda had taken everything off the kitchen stove and put everything back again, and here now was Mrs. Ogden back again, hugging ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... patchwork, and before long I'd have enough to put together in a quilt. I went to piecin' as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle and a piece o' cloth, and one o' the first things I can remember was settin' on the back door-step sewin' my quilt pieces, and mother praisin' my stitches. Nowadays folks don't have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn't any sewin'-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for 'em to know how to eat; ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... nowhere to be seen. In none of the spots where she might have been expected to be at such a time was she to be found. Ashe had almost given up the search when, going to the back door and looking out as a last chance, he perceived her walking slowly on ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... is by the roadside, the front door opening on to the road, the back door into the yard; the cowhouse and pigsty are under one roof, the barn, stable, and cart-shed forming the other three sides of ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... hands from before her face, sees the waistcoat, gives a faint scream, and falls back in a swoon. The peasant runs to support her.—At this instant the back door of the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... shepherd dog barked as she went up the path. She rapped at the front door. A woman appeared at the window and pointed to the side of the house. Abbie's face expressed surprise and resentment. She backed down the steps and made her way to the back door. The woman, Owen Frazer's wife, let her into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... I had taken the basin, and was washing my face and hands by the back door, I could hear him telling mother about it, as jubilant as one of those old Hebrews over the fall of ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... reached the village, and Lord Martindale, saying he must speak to a workman, took them through a pretty garden to a house, the front rooms of which were shut up; they entered by the back door, and found themselves in a kitchen, where a couple of labouring people were sitting, in church-going trim. While Violet shook off the rain, and warmed herself at the fire, Lord Martindale spoke to the man; ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... too, before I leave you: there's a Roger, which some call a Butcher, I speak of certainties, I do not fish Luce, nay do not stare, I have a tongue can talk too: and a Green Chamber Luce, a back door opens to a long Gallerie; there was a night Luce, do you perceive, do you perceive me yet? O do you blush Luce? a Friday night I saw your Saint, Luce: for t'other box of Marmalade, all's thine sweet Roger, this I heard and ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... land you have got into!" I begged her with tears in my eyes to intercede for me. She answered, "My intercession would be of no service to you: but I will endeavor to save you by other means." She then took my hand, carefully led me out by a back door, and guided me to ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... notorious in this country that they repealed them on account of the injury it was doing themselves, and took America into consideration about as much as they did the inhabitants of Kamschatka. The conditional repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees was a back door for them, and they availed themselves of it to sneak out of it. This necessity, this act of dire necessity, the Federal papers cry up as evincing a most forbearing spirit towards us, and really astonish the English themselves who never dreamt that it could ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... can't you say it's in the house—in my office? Stretton's going to take it into Caraquet; there's no sense in making a mystery to him. Come on, Stretton, and have a look at it now!" He stuck his fat little arm through mine, and we went back to the house by the back door and Charliet's untidy kitchen. It was the shortest way, and it was not till afterwards that I remembered it was not commanded by the window in his office, like the front way. I was not keen on going; ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... the post and Nicholas ran up the remainder of the road and swung himself over the little gate which led into the small square yard immediately surrounding the house. At the pump near the back door his father, who had just come from work, was washing his hands before going into supper, and near a row of pointed chicken coops the three younger children were "shooing" up the tiny yellow broods. The yard was unkempt and ugly, run wild in straggling ailanthus shoots ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... Steve took this little walk. There was soon a well-beaten track between the back door and the hen-house. He always returned empty-handed, and Nannie watched with an impish smile ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... complexioned face confirmed the impression. Her sister, keeping as much as she could under her lee, was about twelve years old, much more childish as well as softer, smaller, with lighter colouring and blue eyes. Going round the end of the house, they entered by the back door, and turning into a little parlour, they threw off their hats and gloves. The younger one began to lay the table for dinner, while the elder, throwing herself ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... next stopping place at half past four, P.M. It was a weather-stained house, which we must have entered by the back door, for we passed into the kitchen at once, where were a stout, pleasant-faced woman, with two stout, pleasant-faced daughters, and a big fat yellow dog, who sat up in a chair beside them at the window, as though he were indeed a part of the family. We were ushered into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... that question when I heard their voices at the other side of the house. The back door was smaller than the front, but it had this advantage in the way of strength—it was made of two solid oak boards joined lengthwise, and strengthened inside by heavy cross pieces. It had no bolts like the front door, but was fastened by a bar of iron running across it in a slanting ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... if referring the crisis to his longer experience, scrutinized severally the faces of the members of the family, and, wincing at each resounding whack, finally gathered himself together apprehensively, as doubtful whose turn might come next, and discreetly slunk out unobserved by the back door. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... took them one after the other and packed them on the top of his coach; then more gently, he loaded on those containing eggs; finally he tossed up from below several little bags of grain, small packages wrapped in handkerchiefs, pieces of cloth, or paper. Then he opened the back door, and drawing a list ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... round to the back door, under the room where Pierre slept. He knew that he would not be out fishing then, as the ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a lumber ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... however, he was brought back into the house with a jump by the sudden slamming of the back door of the house and a cry of warning from Bud, followed by shouts from the other boys. Then a shot outside, and a ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... relation to Ananias. Hot words flew back and forth between judge, lawyers and witnesses, and it began to look as if the man in whose barn the calf was placidly munching was guilty. Just then Russell, with a chuckle, slipped from the counter and disappeared through the back door. In a minute he returned, and solemnly pushed a white-faced calf with a broken horn squarely among the almost fighting disputants. There was a lull in the storm of angry words. Here was the lost calf. ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... Gaunt had given them to her,—and, at the last moment, went and made up her mistress's fire, and put out everything she thought could be wanted, and, five minutes after seven o'clock, tied a scarlet handkerchief over her head, and stepped out at the back door. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... down to the beef and beer. Both of them found the beef splendid; but beginning to find the ale rather long in making its appearance, they descended the cellar, and found Johnny Darbyshire had gone quietly off at a back door. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... said to their father. Grethel wept bitterly, and said to Hansel, "What will become of us?" "Be quiet, Grethel," said he; "do not cry, I will soon help you." And as soon as their parents had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his coat, and, unbarring the back door, slipped out. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay before the door seemed like silver pieces, they glittered so brightly. Hansel stooped down, and put as many into his pocket as it would hold, and then going back he said to Grethel, "Be comforted, dear ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... half-past eleven in the evening, in order to accompany him to manoeuvres that were to be held at a place several hours' distance on the following day. Leaving the palace on foot shortly after eleven, he entered the railroad station by a back door, and managed to slip in without ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy



Words linked to "Back door" :   access code, access, backdoor, back entrance, outside door



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