"Patter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up the rigging, others stood by to prevent jibing, and the mate put the wheel hard alee. The schooner's head swung sharply, there was a thunder and rattle of canvas, a patter of reef points, and the great booms swung over. The wind caught the sails, the Charming Lass heeled and bore away ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... There was a sudden patter of tiny feet, a scamper, a rush, a succession of ecstatic little growls followed by a still more ecstatic yelp of rapture and glee. Melchisedek had emerged from his temporary retirement and come prancing upon the scene. He bore something ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... darkness Philip could see nothing. But not once did Jean falter, and the dogs followed him, occasionally whining at the strangeness and unrest of the night; and close behind them came Philip. For a long time there was no sound but the tread of their feet, the scraping of the toboggan, the patter of the dogs, and the wind that bit down from out of the thick sky into the spruce tops. They had travelled an hour when they came to a place where the smothering weight of the darkness seemed to rise from about them. It was the edge of a great open, a bit of the Barren that ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... is as still as a tomb. Outside the wind is rising, and the heavy patter, patter, of the rain-beats on the glass. That, and the light fall of the cinders in the polished grate, are the only sounds ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... to see him. All who did call on him, however, tell me that he was well dressed, but that all the interior of the house was dirty. Well, that was to be expected of a man who loved to live with the gipsies, and patter to them in Romany of Egyptian lore, for it could not have been want of means. Borrow must have made a good deal of money by his books, and I have heard his landed property estimated at five hundred per year. The house looked like the residence of a miser who would not lay out ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... by a slight feeling of awe of the discipline that controlled them, melted away almost noiselessly, like those Arabs who 'folded their tents' according to the poem, the boys being all in their bare feet, and their patter along the deck and down the hatchways not making any sound above a faint shuffling; and soon this was drowned by the eldritch screeching of our friends the seagulls circling round on the wing in their wonted ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... stifled chords on their lyres from time to time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little golden chain, and the regular patter of her ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... is vera' serious. The Scotch trustee gave one glowering look at that drunken prophet; and he rang the street-car bell; and he went at the patter of a dead run to the polling place; and for the first time in his life he voted, not Whig, not free trade, not reciprocity and Laurier, but Tory ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Helders came stamping on the kitchen porch, but this time there was a patter of other steps, and Ellen caught open the door before he summoned. Helders stepped into the room, and with him was ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter, then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length the thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, they poured their torrents on the earth. I was soon drenched, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... irresolutely, and the mask seemed to melt into the darkness. White strained his ears to catch the soft patter of its shoes as it mounted the stairs, but no sound came. Then with a start he seemed to awake as if from a bad dream, and without another word strode down the remaining stairs into ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... accustomed to the dimness, she ventured a remark which died abruptly as she caught her breath. Beneath the low canopy of branches the ground was bare of vegetation, and on the cool brown earth, packed hard by the patter of webbed feet, a dozen or more sea-parrots were sitting ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Spider called him back with a word, and gestured to the door back of the bar—the doorway to The Spider's private room. The Mexican entered the room and closed the door softly, drew up a chair, and sat close to the door in the attitude of one who listens. Presently he heard the patter of hoofs, the grunt of horses pulled up sharply, and the tread of men entering the saloon. The Mexican drew his gun and rested his forearm across his knees, the gun hanging easily in his half-closed hand. He did not know who the men were nor how The Spider had known that they were coming. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in their old nests of reference, but the stray things of the hedge and the chiffchaff from over sea in the ash wood. They go on without me. Orchis flower and cowslip—I cannot number them all—I hear, as it were, the patter of their feet—flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on, and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed the sward of the hill. Nature sets no value upon life, neither ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... The patter of the raindrops on the deck of the houseboat could still be heard, and the wind still blew hard. But the thunder and lightning were not so bad, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... few tired-looking mothers, peeping from windows or glancing from doorways, smile and nod and forget awhile their weariness in the children's delight, as Ravenslee, the battered hat cocked at knowing angle, proceeds to "business." Shrill voices supplicate him, little feet patter close around him, small hands, eagerly outstretched, appeal to him. Anon rise shrieks and infantile crowings of delight as each small hand is drawn back grasping a plump paper bag—shrieks and crowings that languish and die away, one by ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... the position assigned to him. The gun was in readiness. Outside, the Mausers rattled, bullets coming from all quarters and thumping sharply against the opposite walls with a patter that warned the Americans ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... runs through me, and I crush the scarf down on my face, And gulp in the warmth and the blueness, and my eyes swim in cool-tinted heavens. Around me are columns of marble, and a diapered, sun-flickered pavement. Rose-leaves blow and patter against it. Below the stone steps a lute tinkles. A jar of green jade throws its shadow half over the floor. A big-bellied Frog hops through the sunlight and plops in the gold-bubbled water of a basin, Sunk in the black and white marble. The west wind has lifted a scarf On the seat close beside ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... to bring them back to the patter. "Who puts his trust in God alone!" he shouted in a voice that drowned the clamor; but they did not take it up—the little devils! Then he hit indiscriminately. He knew quite well that one was just as good as another, and was not particular where the strokes fell. He took the long-haired ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... kook antique patter backstage, until I sometimes wonder whether I'm in Central Park, New York City, nineteen hundred and three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteen hundred and same. The truth is that although ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... thundered, with a frightful scowl and a faint aroma of garlic, "patter your pater-nosters as fast as you conveniently may. You have but ten minutes to exist. Has either of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... melancholy words of foreboding, and his confidences about his wife—French, Catholic, servant. Molly could not help trying to piece these strange facts together by imaginations of her own, and found it very hard work to attend to kind Miss Phoebe's unceasing patter. She came up to the point, however, when the voice ceased; and could recall, in a mechanical manner, the echo of the last words, which from both Miss Phoebe's look, and the dying accent that lingered in Molly's ear, she perceived ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in the old man's ears. There was a whirr of wheels, a patter of feet grappling with dirt and throwing it all over him—another whirr and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed, and the field was off, leaving ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... sir. Hai, what a pity you cannot patter the gentle Romany tongue. Kek! Kek! What does it matter, when you speak Gentile gibberish like an angel. Sit, rye, ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... in the octagonal room on the piano nobile of the castle, where his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond; and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... hoarse roar Of the monster guns; And the sharp bark Of the lesser guns; The whine of the shells, The rifles' clatter Where the bullets patter, The rattle, rattle, rattle Of the mitrailleuse in battle, And the yells Of the men who charge through hells Where the poison gas descends, And the bursting shrapnel rends Limb from limb In the dim Chaos and clamor of the strife Where no man thinks of his life But only of fighting ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... but the shadow and promise of leaves to be. The turf of the high pasture-lands springing under the foot; the smell of sweet fern and brake; the tinkle of cow-bells among the rocks, or the soft patter of feet as the sheep run toward the open bars—what New England boy or girl does not remember and love, till loving and remembering are over for the life we live here? Yet in all the ferment of old and new beliefs—the strange departures from a beaten track—the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... taking a last farewell of plant and flower, and only the sudden patter of raindrops made him lift his eyes to the angry sky. The storm was coming now in earnest and he had hardly time to lead his horse to the barn and dash to the porch when the very heavens, with a crash of thunder, broke loose. Sheet after sheet swept down the mountains ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... little bag of tricks, his funny Irishman, his Chinaman—no, the Chinaman came first, because he used the queue afterward to wrap around his chin and simulate Irish "galloways"—his Dutch comedian monologue about married life, his old-time songs and dances. He furbished up some old "patter" and injected new anecdotes. And this he kept up morning and evening until the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Then class after class from above marched past the door and on its clattering way, while voices from outside, shrill with the joy of the release, came up through the open windows in talk, in laughter, together with the patter of feet on the bricks. Then as these familiar sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away, some belated footsteps went echoing through the building, a ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... came with its lonely patter and Kenny told him tales of Ireland, delighted at the sympathetic quiet of his mood. Unbrandied, the evenings, after all, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... 'She doesn't care a twopenny curse for art or for the public. She and her lot want any money that is floating loose and the whole social game in London has become a three-card trick in their hands. The theatre and newspapers are just the sharper's patter.' ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... retired to a room at the top of the house and began to paint, but the incessant patter on the roof got on her nerves; the painting bored her, and she threw aside the brushes in disgust. She came downstairs and found Ferdinand in the dining-room, standing at the window looking at the rain. It came down in one ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Go, patter to lubbers and swabs, do ye see, 'Bout danger, and fear, and the like; A water-tight boat and good sea-room for me, And it ain't to a little I'll strike. Though the tempest topgallant-masts smack smooth should smite, And shiver each splinter of wood,— Clear the deck, stow ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... interested and entertained. Yet, since that strange blurring of fog still confused his vision and his judgment, vaguely suspicious that he missed the main intent of her speech. Suspicious as one who, listening to the clever patter of a conjurer, detects in it the effort to distract attention from some difficult feat of legerdemain, until that feat has passed from attempt merely ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... shadows here and there on the flower-embroidered moss of the old bridge. There was that solemn, plaintive stillness in the air which makes the least sound—the hum of an insect's wing, the cracking of a twig, the patter of falling water—so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But we plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling "fire," and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the house. And at that ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the scene progresses, the image of the Jack-in-the-box becomes more apparent, so that at last the characters themselves adopt its movements,—Sganarelle pushing Pancrace, each time he shows himself, back into the wings, Pancrace returning to the stage after each repulse to continue his patter. And when Sganarelle finally drives Pancrace back and shuts him up inside the house—inside the box, one is tempted to say—a window suddenly flies open, and the head of the philosopher again appears as though it had burst open the lid ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... for example, abandoned the Rosenkavalier waltz, having never succeeded in struggling through more than about ten bars of it, and those the simplest. But her French dances she had notably improved in. She knew some of them by heart and could patter them off with a very tasteful vivacity. Instead of practising, she now played gently through a slow waltz from memory. If the snoring man was wakened, so much the worse—or so much the better! She went on playing, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... prolonged. I at last seated myself by the fire, and lulled by warmth and the patter of the rain on the window, I fell asleep. I may have dreamt, for during my sleep I had a vague semi-consciousness as of hands being softly pressed on my pockets—no doubt induced by the story of the robbery. When I came fully to my senses, I found Hemlock ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... patter of little feet on the hard snow; then we saw the chipmunks approaching from all directions. Some stopped and ran experimentally up a tree or a log, as if uncertain of the exact direction of the call; others chased one ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... sound at the window made her look up. It was almost an instinctive movement on her part. She could not have said that she actually heard anything besides the falling rain which had died down to a soft patter among the trees in the compound. But something induced her took up, and so doing, she caught a glimpse of a figure on the verandah without that sent all the blood in her body racing to her heart. It was but a momentary glimpse. The next instant ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... there, wishing chance would bring her out of the house, there appeared a light in the door-window of the room where he knew the convalescent boy lay. Margaret's shadow formed a silhouette on the blind. Yates caught up a handful of sand, and flung it lightly against the pane. Its soft patter evidently attracted the attention of the girl, for, after a moment's pause, the window opened carefully, while Margaret stepped quickly out and closed it, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... But I have been delayed in carrying out my idea till I could associate myself with a gentleman such as yourself. Will you join me? I should be the Moody of the tour; you would be its Sankey. I would speak my patter, and you would intersperse my orations with melodious ballads bearing upon the virtues of Poulter's Pills. The ballads are ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... creator of the delightful Dooley, express themselves in pure and excellent English the moment they drop the mask of their personage. This is very characteristic. Many educated Americans take great delight, and even pride, in keeping abreast of the daily developments of slang and patter; but this study does not in the least impair their sense for, or their command of, good English. The idea that the English language is degenerating in America is an absolutely groundless illusion. Take them all round, the newspapers of the leading American cities, in their editorial ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... thunderstorm—and turned up my face towards it. At that instant I heard a short warning cry from somewhere by the helm; not a call of alarm, but just such a gasp as a man will utter when slapped on the shoulder at unawares from behind; then a patter of naked feet rushing aft; then a score of outcries blending into one wild yell as the whole boatload of Moors leapt and swarmed ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Avenue, and had reached Twelfth or Thirteenth Street when I thought I heard the patter of the Eskimo dog's feet behind me. I spun, around, startled, but there was only the long stretch of pavement, wet from a slight recent shower, and the reflection of the white arc-lights ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... could scarcely take his eyes from the familiar face as it changed in phosphorescent light. The features lifted themselves with firm nobility, expressing an archangel's beauty. Sainte-Helene's lips parted, and above the patter of the reciting Recollet the watchers were startled by one note like ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... dare to look out, so fearful was he of being seen. He believed that the heads of the savages were turned toward him, in which case the risk was too great. He therefore, unheedful of the large drops that were beginning to patter ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... but one, dearie. And a feather bed!" All this as she bustled to and fro, and very quietly despite her size, while I sat gazing into the fire and hearkening to the patter of rain on the windows and the wind that howled dismally without and rumbled in the wide chimney so that I must needs wonder how it fared with the travellers and if I should ever see either of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... waiting for them in the cool bare room; and the scent of the coffee penetrating from the kitchen, where the two maids kept up a dumb but perpetual warfare. Then afterwards Mary, emerging from her sun-bonnet, would be tumbled into her white bed upstairs, and lie, a flushed image of sleep, till the patter of her little feet on the boards which alone separated one storey from the other, warned mother and nurse that an imp of mischief was let loose again. Meanwhile Robert, in the carpetless salon, would lie back in the rickety armchair ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sudden flare of light in a corner of the dark mass, followed quickly by another and another, till many hundreds of torches were aflame, sputtering, smoking and sending up tongues of flame into the black air. Again a word of command, and the even tramp of footsteps began to be heard, a mere patter as of big raindrops upon stones at first, but swelling gradually, and increasing, till the sound roused great echoes from the glowing buildings, while the blazing pitch flared up, brighter and brighter, into a broad sea of flame ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... and, though the vowel sounds were not wholly impeccable, having the tang in them common to the speech of the cockney bred, the aspirates happily remained inviolate. And Iglesias listened, still with a curious indifference, as, sitting in the body of the house, he might have listened to patter from the other side of the footlights. It passed the time. Presently he would get up, taking the whole of his rather sorrowful personality along with him, and go out by the main entrance, while she left by the stage door—and so vanished, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Crystal was a long time before she made up her mind to open it: the paper—damp with the rain—seemed to hold a certain fatefulness within its folds. At last she read the letter, and long after she had read it she sat at the open window, listening to the dreary, monotonous patter of the rain, and to the distant sounds of moving horses and men, the rattle of wheels, the bugle calls, the departure of the allied troops to meet the armies of the great adventurer on the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the dear little feet Came with a patter to climb on my seat; Two merry eyes, full of frolic and glee, Under their lashes looked up unto me; Two little hands pressing soft on my face, Drew me down close in a loving embrace; Two rosy lips gave the answer so true, "Good to love you, mamma, ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the fun is in the untying of the string," thought Mrs. Reed. "Oh, how the little 'earts will go pitter-patter! Don't I know it myself? Why, when I were nothing more than a five-year-old Phipps, I remember as well as possible taking my presents out of this werry stocking, and trembling all over when I couldn't ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... discovered, with something of a shock, to be the beating of her own heart. The sound of her progress was almost inaudible. As the day was damp, she was wearing goloshes, and her small, rubber-shod feet fell upon the stone floor with a gentle patter ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... wife and children came, bringing new brightness and joy to the serious-minded warden. With ever increasing interests, he passed on from youth to middle life, and from middle life to old age. Then his son married, and again the patter of little feet filled the old home and made music in the ears of Grandfather Coster, whom the baby ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... their asseverations of veracity; the truth shone through their uncouth stories. They were widely different from the glib patter that runs out of a crook's mouth in the presence of an official. Some of these men were seasoned criminals; often they did not themselves understand how iniquitous was the "deal" that had been given them, being too much inured to the tricks and treachery ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... quarter of the moon's course before I heard the patter of bare feet in the trail and ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... me was directed first to find that I knew enough Latin and Greek to make use of those languages; that I could patter a little of them evidently pleased him. He didn't care for those detestable rules for scanning. Then came German and French, which were also approved: I could read both, and spoke the former fairly well. He did not probe me in my weakest place, mathematics, for ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... and made the patter of thieves and burglars "familiar in our mouths as household words." It deafened us in the streets, where it was as popular with the organ-grinders and German bands as Sullivan's brightest melodies ever were in a later day. It clanged at midday from the steeple of St Giles, the Edinburgh cathedral; ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... a day that there was scarce a change when dusk fell. Grey wreaths of cloud hung over the tree-tops, and fine rain dripped with a soft, steady patter, as though it would never cease; nor was there another sound, inasmuch as neither horn, nor watchman's cry, nor bell might break the silence, for the sake of the wounded men; nay, even the hounds, meseemed, understood that the daily course of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on our ears save the soft puff now and then of a porpoise, the slow creak of the masts as we swayed gently on the swell, the patter of the reef-points, and the occasional flap of the hanging sails. An awning covered the fore and after parts of the schooner, under which the men composing the watch on deck lolled in sleepy indolence, overcome with excessive heat. Bloody Bill, as the men invariably ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... no answer. He did not dare to raise his eyes, but his ears were strained to catch the swift patter of the approaching bare feet. If Sally should recognise him—if, of course she must—if she should speak, what irreparable mischief might not be made in ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... of a stagecoach; it is greater speed than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, and rattle past the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing foot tramps. There is something royal in the swaying of the coach body, and an excitement in the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what an honor it must be to guide such a machine through ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in every corner; the big house-cat stretched its limbs on the straw mat and arched its back against Reinhard's hand, which he unthinkingly held out to it. Outside in the garden the sparrows were already chirping their patter [Footnote: Literally, "sang out pompously, like priests." The word seems to have been coined by the author. The English 'patter' is derived from Pater noster, and seems an appropriate translation.] from among the branches, and giving notice to all that the night ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... singing, and the jangle made Nick feel all puckered up inside. By and by the playing ceased, and the singers came to the end of their song. In the brief hush the sharp rattle of the dice sounded like the patter of cold hail against the shutter in the lull of a ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... the drowsiness that was stealing over me, I got up, walked up and down the floor, and then drew up the blind, and gazed out into the deserted street. Not a footfall to be heard, neither man's nor beast's; nothing but patter, patter, patter. At length, after standing fully fifteen minutes—oh, joyful sound!—a coming footstep, firm and quick. My first thought was that those steps would stop at our door. But, directly after, I felt that very ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... account to be disturbed that evening, . . no matter what visitors called for him, none were to be admitted. He had made up his mind to have a long and energetic practice, and he felt a secret satisfaction as he heard the steady patter of the rain outside, . . the very weather favored his desire for solitude,—no one was likely to venture forth ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the dome of the tent, still going through their acts, now heard the patter of heavy rain drops on the canvas top. The lights throughout the tent flickered a little under the draught that sucked in through the openings in the tent and the open space at the top ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... heard the swift patter of feet over the crisp surface, and the grey beast came and halted suddenly not three yards from us, and on his haunches he sat up and howled, and I heard the answering yells in no long space of time coming whence we had come. His eyes glowed green with a strange light of ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... patter of heavy drops of water, beating upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... because he had been brought up among people who talked badly, but he could read as well as any Grammar School boy, and had plenty of intelligence behind his freckled face to grasp what he read. He was deep in the little volume, when he heard the patter of running feet behind him. He turned, and saw Dick Elliott coming up to him. They knew each ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... generous heart swelled until it seemed bursting from his bosom. He heard the patter of little bare feet upon the cabin floor as Totty ran about hunting hers and Benny's stockings, and after she had hung them up, heard her sweet voice again as she wondered over and over if Santa really would forget ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... saloon, the regular evening dance was in full swing. The ship's orchestra crashed into silence, there was a patter of applause and Clio Marsden, radiant belle of the voyage, led her partner out into the promenade and up to ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... Chinaman now, and immediately he took up his trot, for a little while keeping up, dodging along between light and shadow, presently falling behind. At intervals she heard the patter, patter, patter of his footsteps following; at intervals she lost the sound, and shadows would engulf the figure, and she would wait in a panic for its reappearance. For she knew it was there somewhere, ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... begins, the wind drops. The only sound is the patter of rain dropping like fine shot on the young ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... notwithstanding that it shocked Pee-wee's sense of fitness, inasmuch as they were scouting and "roughing it," was not inappropriate, for even as Tom spoke the patter of ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... smiling lasses, just let loose from schooldom's cares, Patter, patter, race and clatter, up and down the ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Edward, "across the table from him sits our old MacTavish, lisping, 'What is the Atlantic? Is it a herb?' I'll bet my soul they're in their billets at this moment, MacTavish mugging up some stable-patter out of NAT GOULD, and Blenkinsop imbibing a dose of ship-chatter from 'BARTIMEUS.' They'll come in for food presently, MacTavish doing what he imagines to be a 'cavalry-roll,' tally-hoing at the top of his voice, and Blenkinsop weaving his walk like the tough old sea-dog he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... raindrops in at the tower window. Patter, patter, patter, they fell, faster and faster, and in the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... is sweeping O'er some scene of household mirth, The sickle hand is reaping O'er some ancient rural hearth— Where the mother and the daughter In the evenings used to spin, And where little feet went patter, Full often out ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the slave who pays, and baser prose— Hang uninspired patter! 'Tis in verse That angels praise, and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... whistle shrilly through the air, and the sky became so black they could scarcely see a hundred yards in any direction, Then came some distant flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, and soon the patter of rain. ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... sitting around the camp-fire at bed-time, when I heard a distinct patter on the leaves. "Something coming," I whispered. All held still, then out of the gloom came bounding a snow-white Weasel. Preble was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head and the Weasel fearlessly jumped on my colleague's broad ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... feel Narcone staring at him now, as he sat nodding to the senseless patter of the Chief in a sort of breathless, terrifying suspense. Would his own face recall to the fellow's mind that night in the forest of Terranova and set his fears aflame? Blake's reason told him that such a thing was beyond the faintest probability, yet the flesh upon his back was crawling ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... he heard a strange rustling of the leaves in the near thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this way and that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived his whole life in the swamp (he was three weeks old) and yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity was greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lay low, but that was understood to be ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... the darkness and the blade of a barong whistled past his face, slicing off the front of his hat and missing his head by the width of an eyelash. As he sprang back the door slammed in his face and he heard the bolts shot home, followed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the floor and the patter of naked feet. Realizing that the men he was after were making their escape by another exit, Jennings hurled himself against the door, an automatic in either hand. It gave way before his assault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky blackness of ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... based on good Negro psychology, for his fear of the spirits of night was well known. Citizens of that time have told us many tales of the dread which the slave had of meeting these night raiders whom they termed "patter-rollers" and how they came to sing of them ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... her pardon; also he remained where he was, and heard the drops from the tree patter hollow on ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... flew in vast showers. Bits of charred wood from the burning forest, caught up by the wind, began to fall on the thin roof of the old house, and kept up a steady, droning patter. The veil of gray ashes upon the floor and on the scanty furniture grew thicker. The coloured woman never ceased for a moment to ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... to a rattle and a crackle. The rain had turned to hail, and it was like the patter of rifle fire on ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... A patter of rain which fell as she finished speaking, brought a realizing sense of the situation to the women, and bravely they rose to meet it. For one short hour they had indulged their sorrow. In the greatness of the calamity ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... day that Florio, hiding in the woods, heard a strange rustling among the bushes. He was so used to wandering about after old Fuss, and living anyhow and anywhere, that he was more like a little creature of the woods himself than anything else, and it took a good deal to frighten him. Patter, patter, patter it went. What could it be? He peered in and out and under the bush, but he saw nothing except a nest full of little blue eggs, which he would not touch for the world; no, he knew too well how pleased old Fuss would be to have him disturb this little bird family, ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... founded," roared the dummerar, "if he can't patter romany[32] as vel as the best on us! He ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... screams of the terrified guests, the patter of numberless fragments of crockery and countless drops of filthy dishwater as they reached the floor. And then the big man picked himself up some twenty feet from the spot where he had dared the ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... There was a patter of feet overhead, and soon Bobsey came tearing down, half wild with excitement over the novelty of everything. He started for the door as if he were going head first ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... dissociate the natural factors of his habits, actually attending to one thing while seemingly attending to another; at the same time his eyes and his gestures and his 'patter' misdirect the attention to what is apparently the essential field of operation, but really only a blind to distract attention away from the true scene of action. The conjurer directs your attention to what he does ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... few months old, he followed us all to church without our knowing it; nor did we see him, till, in the most solemn part of the service, we heard a patter, patter, patter, coming up the aisle, and there stood Phantom at the door of our pew. In his mouth was a long-handled feather duster, which he had found in some obscure corner of the building, and where it had been put (as it was supposed) ...
— The Nursery, December 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... there were, and there were twenty-two of us; so we told off men to each row, and then made for them at a moment when no man was about—hacking at the ropes, and laughing to see the tents fall. It was strange to watch the shadows start up and stand motionless, as the first patter of feet came and the first blows fell, and then bustle, helpless and confused, with savage shouts and curses, as the heavy canvas and skins fell ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... with an amber light, And waters in fountains fall, There are landscapes which vie with Italy bright, And servants within my call; There are sounds of music, bewitchingly sweet, With tender, plaintive chords, Like the patter of tiny innocent feet, Or the voices of joy when loved ones meet And their ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... physical gain that, when you come to sum it up, is largely fictitious in value—or comes inevitably to be thought so—I would like to have you step forward and name it. I have been all through that phase of it, and I know; and I also know by heart the patter of the persons who recommend it. Further, I know the person round the forties doesn't live who enjoys this sort of thing—no matter what he says about it; and without enjoyment exercise is of no use or worse than ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... of the invisible, a swelling monotone through which, incessantly, near and distant, broken, cheery little flurries of bugle music, and far and farther still, where mists hung over a vast hollow in the hills, the dropping shots of the outposts thickened to a steady patter, running backward and forward, from east to west, as far as the ear ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... Katy-did, had looked in to make her a morning visit. It was a fine morning, too, which goes for as much among the Katy-dids as among men and women. It was, in fact, a morning that Miss Katy thought must have been made on purpose for her to enjoy herself in. There had been a patter of rain the night before, which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other till nearly morning; but by dawn the small winds had blown brisk little puffs, and whisked the heavens clear and bright with their tiny ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... time to the circular movement of the scythes, the jingle of the cattle bells, and the young men's and girls' voices laughing afar in the silence of the night. It is a strange harmony, especially when the night is clear and there is a bright moon, and the heavy dew falling makes a pitter-patter on the leaves of ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear girlish laugh—sweet as the carol of a meadow lark—came ringing along the road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Louise," hastily said Cap'n Abe as he heard the bedcords creak and the patter of the girl's feet on the matting. "Cap'n Am'zon knows of a craft that'll sail to-day from Boston and I must jine ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper |
