"Shovel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the foothills, after the surrender, was made during the heat of the day; and though it was only some five miles or thereabouts, very nearly half the men of the cavalry division dropped out. Captain Llewellen had come back, and led his troop on the march. He carried a pick and shovel for one of his sick men, and after we reached camp walked back with a mule to get another trooper who had fallen out from heat exhaustion. The result was that the captain himself went down and became exceedingly sick. We at last succeeded ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... again, and had reached a point half a mile beyond the lake, came upon a lone touring car and a little camp. Frequently now Hiram looked back, to see perplexity and worry on the usually placid brow of Jerkline Jo. A half mile beyond the camp they found seven men working with ax and pick and shovel, repairing ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... Urquhart finely said that peace could not be purchased by victory. Where destined to appear at all, it is likely to be developed in extreme youth, which explains such instances as the gamins de Paris, and that of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who in boyhood conveyed a dispatch during a naval engagement, swimming through double lines of fire. Indeed, among heroic races, young soldiers are preferable for daring; such, at least, is the testimony of the highest authorities, as Ney and Wellington. "I have found," said the Duke, "that raw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... grudge it, of course, but I was a little astonished when I saw the wine and cigar bill. It struck me that the best of them scarcely noticed what they got—I think they'd been up against it at one time, as we have; and it would have done the rest of the guzzlers good if they'd had to work with the shovel all day on pork and flapjacks. But we'll let that go. What have you and I done that we should swill in champagne, while a girl with a face like that one below and a child who dances like a fairy haven't enough to eat? You know what I paid for the last cigars. What confounded hogs ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... receives siven in lieu of the final syllable, and makes the substantive, mtesiven, axe or tool with which to chop. Many of these words likewise terminate in rina, as bcusirina, flute, from bcudan, I whistle, and bhirina, shovel, from ...
— Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language - Shea's Library Of American Linguistics. Volume III. • Buckingham Smith
... let him sleep right on, an' when he woke to light fires, and start baking, I just give him a real elegant breakfast with cream in his coffee, an' asked him if he'd like a bottle of rye for his head. But say, I never see him shovel coal harder in my life than he did in that coal-box after breakfast. I'd like to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... he, touching his hat, almost a shovel. "Will you do me the honour to introduce me to the ladies," and to them he uncovered with the grand formal politeness which even then was becoming rather old-fashioned, and which they returned ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and Judson were to dig the holes, putting the surface dirt to the right, and the poor earth to the left; I was to prune the roots and keep tab on the labels; Johnson and Anderson were to set the trees,—Anderson using a shovel and Johnson his hands, feet, and eyes; while Thompson was to puddle and distribute the trees. The puddling was easily done. We sawed an oil barrel in halves, placed these halves on a stone boat, filled them two-thirds ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... he would do it. His attempt to follow Saddleback by trailing was a failure, and all his searching for the den was useless, but he had come prepared for any emergency. In case he found the den he had brought a pick and shovel; in case he did not he had brought ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... Brass Hearth for a Chamber with Dogs Shovel Tongs & Fender of the newest Fashion (the Fire is ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Saturday, August 23, 1914, passed peacefully for the British soldiers, still working on their trenches. But distant boom of guns from the east continued to vibrate to them at intervals. Of its portend they knew nothing. Doubtless as they plied the shovel they again speculated over it, wondering and possibly regretting a chance of their having been deprived ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... "What's this? An old shovel, by the feel of it—the thing they've dug the tunnel with," Henri told his comrades as they stood at the entrance of the tunnel in the dense darkness, and felt all about them. "My fingers dropped upon it as I bent at the entrance, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... even the blind beggar appeals to the charitable in two languages; where the citizens ride in up-to-date motor-cars and the visitors in the high-slung, swing-shaped horse calache; where the traffic takes the French side of the road; where the shovel hats and cassocks of priests are as commonplace as everyday; where the vivacity of France is fused into the homely good-fellowship of the Colonial in a ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... are ye girnin' at?" asked Archie, turning round on him. "Are ye feart Mag bites ye? Man, she's got a' her bitin' by noo, although I admit she's made a hell o' a mess at the end. Pit your shovel in here an' lift this pickle, an' no' stand there gapin' like a grisly ghost at the door o' hell! Fling it into her gapin' mouth, if you think she's goin' to bite you!" and the others laughed ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... mustache, and a heavy jaw. The red fell of hair on his hands reminded Warrington of a sow's back. Everything about McQuade suggested strength and tensity of purpose. He had begun work on a canal-boat. He had carried shovel and pick. From boss on a railway section job he had become a brakeman. He took a turn at lumbering, bought a tract of chestnuts and made a good penny in railroad ties. He saved every dollar above his expenses. He bought a small ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... appease their discontent, made an excursion to Portsmouth, where he dined with the admiral on board the ship Elizabeth, declared his intention of making him an earl in consideration of his good conduct and services, conferred the honour of knighthood on the captains Ashby and Shovel, and bestowed a donation of ten shillings on every ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Fitz's admiration and love, but afforded the broker the pleasantest of contrasts to the life he led in the Street, a contrast so delightful that Fitz seldom missed at least an evening's salutation with him. That not a shovel of earth had yet been dug on the line of the Colonel's Railroad, and that the whole enterprise was one of those schemes well nigh impossible to finance, made no difference to Fitz. He never lost an opportunity to ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... remainder. The latest devised system of washing the sand in place, by upward spraying with water, called the "Blaisdell method," thoroughly destroys the Schmutzdecke above, and, at the same time, must permit the formation of a subsidiary one below. In the Nichols method, the material removed by shovel scraping is conveyed by an ejector to a portable separator, where it receives a single washing; the dirty water overflows to the sewer, while the washed sand is discharged through a hose and deposited on the recently scraped surface. As the latter is partly impregnated ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... shovel, T, arranged to fit in a socket, V, and bar, S, in combination with standards, G G, and cross-bar, I, as and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... He dropped the shovel, coal and all, with a wild snort of rage, as turning towards the fire box door he saw Ralph reach over swiftly, grab the half empty bottle from under the cushion, and give it a fling to the road bed, where it was dashed into a ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... larger wages than the man who shovels the earth to form its pathway, because the supply of men competent to drive an engine is small in proportion to the number of men who are wanted for that work, while almost any man can shovel dirt. Let us state, then, for our second principle: The amount of wealth which any man receives should depend on the ratio between the demand which exists for his services and the supply of those able to render like service. ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... include digging with a hoe and a shovel also, but I could omit that. The sun and wind were ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... for the first course requiring such a utensil; the others are used in their order. The knife is held in the right hand; by the handle, not the blade. The fork should not be held like a spoon, or a shovel, but more as one would hold a pencil or pen; it is raised laterally to the mouth. The elbow is not to be projected, or crooked outward, in using either knife or fork; that is a very awkward performance. The fork should ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... they were transfixed; and so was the invader. He—a personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on broad shoulders a hawk's head, beak, and eye, the whole surmounted by a Rehoboam, or shovel hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood—he folded his arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends, if friends they were, much at ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... suspicious material might be brought upon the premises. She had even persuaded Teamster John to examine the trench and the articles which Fayette had placed there. He had found nothing wrong, and the pick and the shovel had been so long disused that they had rusted. Of late Cleena had let William Gladstone play down there in the soft dirt, while she was ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... at Dicky's suggestion, they went out and made a search for some rude instrument wherewith to dig a grave. They found a broken shovel and a dull adze-like implement. The grave prepared, and dusk having come, Bob was struck with the idea that they had ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... with the sharp corner of the shovel-stirrup. I avoid such expressions as "spurring" and "pricking over the plain," because apt to give ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... second a goodly number of kegs, cartridge-cases and cartridge-boxes, full of powder, explosive cottons and gelatines, and liquid nitro-glycerine, and earthy dynamite, with some bombs, two reels of cordite, two pieces of tarred cloth, a small iron ladle, a shovel, and a crow-bar; the cab came next, containing a considerable quantity of loose coal; and lastly, in the private carriage lay four big cans of common oil. And first, in the Laboratory, I connected a fuse-conductor with a huge tun of blasting-gelatine, and I set ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... biscuit, and dropped it into the oven he had set aside on the hot coals. Swiftly he shaped eight or ten other biscuits and dropped them as the first. Then he put the heavy iron lid on the pot, and with a rude shovel, improvised from a flattened tin can, he shoveled red coals out of the fire, and covered the lid with them. His next move was to pare and slice potatoes, placing these aside in a pan. A small black coffee-pot half full of water, was set on a glowing part of the fire. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... there's nothing to blow up but a pile of dirt, I'm going through the camp with an arsenal on me, and I'll splash blood over the ugly place till it looks like a Chicago beef-cannery. It would save transportation expenses, too. When the last shovel's dumped and the Police gone home to supper I'm going to boil over and roast ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... to the solitary boy. However, at that time no one who had a pair of hands, however feeble, to work need starve in Sacramento, and for some weeks Dick hung around the town doing odd jobs, and then having saved a few dollars, determined to try his luck at the diggings, and started on foot with a shovel on his shoulders and a few ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... when he begins. I say, though, you should have given me notice of all this, and then I'd have had a carpenter here to skin the walls and ceiling so as to have made everything nice and easy for you. I say, Mr Norton, you'll want a pickaxe and shovel ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... the threshold of his first voyage? Did he picture to himself, swimming, through a hail of Dutch and English cannon-shot with the dispatch that turned the battle, the round black head of a little cabin-boy who was one day to be Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel? Did he see a vast dreary ice-field outspread beneath the cold blue arctic sky, and midway across it the huge ungainly figure of a polar bear, held at bay with the butt of an empty musket by a young middy whose name was Horatio Nelson? Was it the low sandy shores of Egypt that ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... be excluded from the public balls! I've a-heerd of his goings on. He have my property! Why, he'd blush to own who gid it to him. He have it! No; I'd rather an earthquake swallowed up every acre of it, before a shovel-full should come ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Gabriel said should be in the last days: "But the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand." I really hope no one will be troubled with your forthcoming article. It would be far easier for you to shovel the Alleghany mountains into Lake Ontario than to attempt to gain one day, or prove ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... or a shovel of coals, held over varnished furniture, will take out white spots. Care should be taken not to hold the coals near enough to scorch; and the place should be rubbed with flannel ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... laughed in that light-hearted way of his, "I would go into the heart of China on a treasure hunt, for the mere fun of it. Enthusiasm? Nothing would gratify me more than to strike a shovel into the spot where this treasure, this pot of gold, is supposed to lie. It will be great sport; nothing like it. I was merely supposing. I have never heard of, or come into contact with, a man who has found a hidden treasure. I am putting up these doubts because we are never sure of anything. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... any telling. She and her friends probably have been at work with pick and shovel, for months, trying to undermine his foundations. They are an insidious crew, Reed, totally insidious. If a man is the least bit nervous, their absent-treatment methods get in their work with a fatal effect sometimes. I've been ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... nearly in the old form, stretching over the pathway, and a flight of steps leading up to the promenade around it. The hospital buildings are constructed around an open quadrangle, and upon the quaint black and white building are some fine antique carvings. The old "Malt-Shovel Inn" is a rather decayed structure in Warwick, with its ancient porch protruding over the street, while some of the buildings, deranged in the lower stories by the acute angles at which the streets cross, have ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... had been the means of saving, I found myself for a time his guest on the Scilly Islands. There we could divert our minds from our different occupations, conjuring up visions of heroes like Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who lost his life here, and of the scenes of daring and of death that these beautiful isles out in the Atlantic have witnessed. Nor did we need Charles Kingsley to paint for us again the visit of Angus Lee and Salvation Yeo, for Sir Frederick, as his book, "The Cradle of the Deep," shows, is ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... light, where Joe Barnicoat kept his gardening tools, with other odds-and-ends, such as bast, peasticks, sieves, shears, and traps for birds and vermin. Hugh and I went directly to this lower chamber to get a shovel ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... weather remaining to a man whose business it was to cut and haul timbers for the mines in and around the town of Sulphide, which lay in the mountains seven miles southwestward from our ranch. We found it congenial work, and Joe and I, who were now seventeen years old, hardened to labor with ax, shovel or pitchfork, saw no reason why we should not put in these odd five or six weeks cutting timbers on our own account. No reason but one, that is to say. My father would readily lend us one of his wagons, but he could not spare a team, and so, until we could procure a team of our own, we were ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... the cool energy that characterized him. Out of a piece of board he fashioned a kind of shovel with his knife. Bits of broken timbering lay at the foot of the shaft. These he dragged into the tunnel for fuel to feed a small fire which he built to give light for the work. All through the night and till noon the following ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... found a good pocket is to buy himself into business and keep away from the hills. The logical thing is to set out looking for another one. My friend the Pocket Hunter had been looking twenty years. His working outfit was a shovel, a pick, a gold pan which he kept cleaner than his plate, and a pocket magnifier. When he came to a watercourse he would pan out the gravel of its bed for "colors," and under the glass determine if they had come from far or near, and so spying he would work up ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... former was engaged in sweeping up the dust, which, from the clouds that surrounded us, would not appear to have been disturbed for six months before at least. I had nearly broken my shins, on my first entrance, over the fire-shovel and bucket, and I was now in more danger of being choked with filth. "Who inhabited this delightful place before, Mark?" "A mad wag, but a generous gentleman, Sir, take notice, one Charles Rattle, Esq., who was expelled college for smuggling, take notice: the proctor, with ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 'asn't got no papers of 'is own, 'E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, So we must certify the skill 'e's shown In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords: When 'e's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush With 'is coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear, An 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush Will last an ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the shovel and the hoe Take down the fiddle and the bow— Old master has gone to the slaveholder's rest; He has gone where they all ought ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... disclosing objects in succession, until the eye could embrace all that came within its extent of vision. As the officers yet lingered near the rude grave of their companion, watching with abstracted air the languid and almost mechanical action of their jaded men, as they emptied shovel after shovel of the damp earth over the body of its new tenant, they were suddenly startled by an expression of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... ground. Her fingers were twisting and tangling together, and her bosom, restless as the sea, rose and fell fitfully. She was pale, save at the lips; like Prosper she smiled, but the smile was stiff. Prosper set to work with the shovel and soon filled up the grave. Then he turned ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the Gray boys and the others will shovel snow," she cried impulsively. "I don't give a fig for the ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... in the notes for all these escapes. After some twenty adventures Furwitz is beaten off, and Umfallo tries his powers. Here the misadventures do not involve so much folly on the hero's part— though, to be sure, he ventures into a lion's den unarmed, and has to beat off the inmates with a shovel. But the other adventures are more rational. He catches a jester—of admirably foolish expression- -putting a match to a powder-magazine; he is wonderfully preserved in mountain avalanches and hurricanes; reins up his horse ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... churches their specialty. Especially does this seem to be the case with the citizens of Genoa. I think there is a church every three or four hundred yards all over town. The streets are sprinkled from end to end with shovel-hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and the church bells by dozens are pealing all the day long, nearly. Every now and then one comes across a friar of orders gray, with shaven head, long, coarse robe, rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals or entirely bare. These worthies suffer ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... out, and the whole family doomed. The hired man came around with pick and shovel to dig them out, while we and the dogs stood by. Old Vix soon showed herself in the near woods, and led the dogs away off down the river, where she shook them off when she thought proper, by the simple ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it, you know—and so soon, too. He's probably out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's selecting his brimstone-shovel this ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... case the fire shovel doesn't burn a hole in the tablecloth and let the sugar run out and catch cold, I'll tell you about the piggies ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... The little "Thetis" had throbbed and panted steadily. At the door of the engine room, the engineer—the grey MacKenny, his back discreetly turned—sat smoking a pipe and taking the air. From time to time he would swing himself into the engine room, and the clink and scrape of his shovel made itself heard as he stoked ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... gave such a start as made him drop his shovel hat. "Mistress!" And this was she—this fine young creature who was tall and grandly enough built and knit to seem a radiant being even when clad in masculine attire. He picked up his hat and bowed so low that it almost swept the floor in his obeisance. ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Not who first see the rising sun commands, But who could first discern the rising lands. Who best could know to pump an earth so leak, Him they their lord, and country's father, speak. To make a bank was a great plot of state; Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate. Hence some small dikegrave unperceived invades The power, and grows, as 'twere, a king of spades; But, for less envy some joined states endures, Who look like a commission of the sewers: For these half-anders, half-wet and half-dry, Nor bear strict service, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... its maximum efficiency? It has been shown by the application of what is called "scientific management," that the output of labour can be increased to a remarkable extent. For instance, instead of shovelling 16 tons a day, a man can shovel 59 tons; a man loading pig-iron increased his total load per day from 12-1/2 to 47-1/2 tons; the day's tale of bricks laid has been raised from 1000 to 2700. The list could be extended to cover operatives working at machines. In the endeavour to screw up industry to a maximum of production, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... particularly successful, nor were his researches very extensive, being carried on entirely with his private means; yet his name will always be honorably remembered, for he was the first who went to work with pickaxe and shovel, who hired men to dig, who measured and described some of the principal mounds on the Euphrates, thus laying down the groundwork of all later and more fruitful explorations in that region. It was in 1820 and Mr. Rich was then political resident or representative ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... "The shovel. I went to ask him to give me a soldo to get some polenta at the corner shop, and he hit me with ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... was black and Polished; and the flags, and window-curtains, and such things as were to be white and clean, were just spotless in their purity. Opposite to the fire-place, extending the whole length of the room, was an oaken shovel-board, with the right incline for a skilful player to send the weights into the prescribed space. There were baskets of white work about, and a small shelf of books hung against the wall, books used for reading, and not for propping up a beau-pot of flowers. I took down one or two of ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... diggers to work. He promised a rich reward to those men of the pick and shovel who should dig the fastest and throw up the most dirt, so that the masons could, at the earliest moment, begin their ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... that this new school of the prophets is the only one that can work miracles, the only one that can constantly appeal to nature for evidence that it is right, and you will comprehend that it is of no use to try to barricade us with shovel hats and aprons, or to talk about our ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Joe to himself, as with shovel and broom he cleared the path in the court-yard, and shovelled the kitchen steps clean. He did it so well that his father tossed him some pennies—for he was saving up to buy Blinky a collar—and he turned off with a light heart for school, with Blinky ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... over to the stump and Leslie thrust her hand into the hole. "There's nothing else in there," she averred, "but perhaps it might be worth while to dig around here and see if there might be some other article buried near it. I'll get a shovel." ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... shot of yourn was a good one," said Jerry. "Tit for tat is my rule for them varmints; an' we're even with 'em on this arternoon's work. I reckon we'd better take a shovel along, an' bury that poor feller ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... requires half an hour's boiling; a more indifferent kind, somewhat less. To sow the rice, they first plough the ground, then level it with a drag-harrow, and let on the water; when the earth has become soft, they smooth it with a shovel under the water, and then sow the rice ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Earthworks, which played so large a part in the defence both of Sebastopol and Richmond, are unknown at Paris. Barricades made of paving stones in the streets, and forts of solid masonry outside, are considered the ne plus ultra of defensive works. For one man who will go to work to shovel earth, you may find a thousand who will shoulder a musket. "Paris may be able to defend itself," the Americans say, "but it is not defending itself after what our generals would consider the most approved method." We have no intelligence of what is passing ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... With a shovel of tamarisk he cleared the slab of its drift of sand. He found that the block broadened at the base and was separate from the sheet of rock on which it stood. Among his supplies was a roll of reed ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... a brisk wind, flames were spouting from amid the timbers at several points. Already men were pitching the burning beams over the side, however; and finding a shovel, Alex joined those who were smothering them ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... snake. About half—the latter half—its length was visible outside the back of a nesting place (a box open at the front), and a blow from a shovel disabled it. Further examination showed that the snake had squeezed through a knot hole in the box. A lusty man hauled on the snake violently. The box was heavy, and from the front the snake could be seen. It looked troubled and uncomfortable, but not inclined to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... see her look of terror as she caught sight of the circling thing upon the floor, and then the look of desperation as the mother instinct rose superior and she dashed into the room, seized the great iron shovel that stood before the fireplace, and began dealing reckless blows at the hissing serpent. A big black-snake is not a pleasant customer, but neither—for a black-snake—is a frenzied mother with an iron fire shovel in her hand, and this particular ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... you'll pardon," said Mr. Gubb politely, "but my name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger, and I'm looking up a case. Might I trouble you for the loan of a spade or shovel?" ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... it!' says I. ''Twould be the judgment of Providence for settin' the warlike talent of a Clancy to gradin' the tropics with a pick and shovel. But 'tis not so much a question of insurrections now, me little man, as 'tis of the hired-man problem. 'Tis anxious I am to resign a situation of responsibility and trust with the white wings department of your great and degraded country. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of life, in transportation, in manufacturing, machinery has come in to replace the heavier and more mechanical portions of labor. The steam-shovel, the hoisting-engine, an infinite combination of mechanical principles have been applied to the doing of things to save human muscle. To stand by the machine which turns out the familiar grape-basket, ready to fill with the fruit, and then to watch the housemaid ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... Sandy replied. "Hiyu skookum me." He leaned on his shovel for a moment, stretching his young, sinewy body, grinning at the Indian. The latter dismounted, and, stooping down, touched the young ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... had been to cut the boat loose so that it should drift on to the right bank (as it would have done with the natural swing of the current), where no doubt a party of Masai were waiting to dig their shovel-headed spears into us. Seizing one paddle myself, I told Umslopogaas to take another (for the remaining Askari was too frightened and bewildered to be of any use), and together we rowed vigorously out towards the middle of the ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... instant, abandoned her decision, and retied her bonnet-strings; she might find her mistress the quicker if she acceded to his request. She stepped to the stove, examined the fire to see that it was all right, added a shovel of coal and, with Pickert at her heels, groped her way down the dingy stairs, her fingers following the handrail. In the front hall she stopped to say to the janitress that she was going to Rosenthal's and to tell Mrs. Stanton, when she came, that she was not to leave ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... black moustaches and eagle noses who, to the despair of mill superintendents, had decided in the morning that three days' wages would since to support their families for the week .... In the midst of the throng might be seen occasionally the stout and comfortable and not too immaculate figure of a shovel bearded Syrian priest, in a frock coat and square-topped "Derby" hat, sailing along serenely, heedless of the children who scattered out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... handkerchief from his eyes for a moment to rub his nose, and as he did so he saw Butterwick looking at him. A thought seemed to strike Smith. He dashed away a couple of tears; and stepping over a heap of loose earth as they began to shovel it in, he grasped Butterwick by the hand. Butterwick gave him a sympathetic squeeze, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... comprise the hundred and one things an officer is expected to know, from "Military Law" to "Protection when at Rest." This last subject will require revision after the present campaign, it being the writer's opinion that soldiers never rest—not when there is a foot of Allied soil unturned by a shovel, ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my advice," interrupted his mother's voice with that muffled effect which is caused by a skirt being slipped over the head, "and I gave it. Wear a white duck sailor suit with blue anchors and carry a red tin pail and a shovel, if you want to look young. Only get into it in a jiffy, Son, because breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. I can tell by the way Annie's crashing the cups. So step lively if you want to pay ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... There hed bin some trouble in gittin em reconstructed, it bein deemed nessary to take the conseet out uv em, wich they wuz all a doin. Ez I rode up, the old lady bed jest knocked one uv em down with a fire-shovel, and wuz dancin a Highland fling onto her prostrate body. Almira, the oldest gal, hed her fingers in the wool uv her gal; and tother one wuz a thumpin hern to redose her to her proper level; and the Deekin ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... spent endeavouring to make it drift-tight; but as the materials at our disposal were very limited, the result was never absolutely satisfactory. The small veranda serving as an entrance-porch was deluged with snow which drove in past the canvas doorway. The only way to get over this trouble was to shovel out the accumulations every morning. On one occasion, when Close was nightwatchman, the drift poured through in such volume that each time he wished to go outside it took him half an hour to dig his way out. On account of this periodic influx, the vestibule doorway ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... be seen eating bundles of meat from their fingers and drinking tankards of iced buttermilk. The Mexicans, a shade more civilized, shovel with their knives great quantities of the same food into the capacious receptacles provided by nature. The Americans, despite what is said of their rapid eating, take time to laugh and crack jokes, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... moon hung above the tree tops on the western boundary of the enclosure, and its wan spectral lustre lit up the churchyard, showing Regina the tall form of Hannah, who carried a spade or short shovel on her shoulder, and had just passed through the gate, leaving it open. Following as rapidly as she dared, in the direction of the iron railing, the child was only a few yards in the rear, when the old woman stopped suddenly, then ran forward, and a cry like that of some ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... necessarily a species of indistinction. But in the complexion of any social assembly we Americans are at a disadvantage with Europeans from the want of uniforms. A few military scattered about in those boxes, or even a few sporting bishops in shovel-hats and aprons, would have done much to relieve them from the reproach I have been heaping upon them. Our women, indeed, poor things, always do their duty in personal splendor, and it is not of a poverty in their modes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Sheep-shank, a sheep's trotter; nae sheep-shank bane a person of no small importance. Sheerly, wholly. Sheers, scissors. Sherra-moor, sheriffmuir. Sheugh, a ditch, a furrow; gutter. Sheuk, shook. Shiel, a shed, cottage. Shill, shrill. Shog, a shake. Shool, a shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shore, to offer, to threaten. Short syne, a little while ago. Shouldna, should not. Shouther, showther, shoulder. Shure, shore (did shear). Sic, such. Siccan, such a. Sicker, steady, certain; sicker score ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the gaud of red peppers. 8. A door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor. 9. In this parlor claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors. 10. Andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops. [Footnote: Asparagus tops were commonly used to ornament the old-fashioned fireplace in summer.] 11. Mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... which diffused an unpleasant odor, and fitted with rude tables and benches; but the meal laid out in it was bountiful and varied: pork, hard steak, fish from the lakes, potatoes, desiccated fruits, and tea. The shovel-gang paid six dollars a week for their board and got good value. As usual, most of them were satisfied in fifteen minutes, for in the West the rank and file eat with determined haste, and when they trooped out Prescott ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... the caretaker shovel the things on to the tray, and, sighing bitterly the while, drag wearily out of the room with them. She turned to me, then, with a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... exploded, in a voice that could be heard to the turnpike. "Didn't I say Baxter warn't fittin', and that he ought ter be grubbin' clams? Go and dig a hole some'er's and cover him up head and ears,—and dig it quick, too, and I'll lend ye a shovel." ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... o'clock sharp delicious watermelons were brought from the icehouse to the shade of the stately oaks which adorned the spacious lawn; then, two hours later, after a sumptuous dinner, a small darky brought from the kitchen a shovel of coals (matches were not a Southern product) to light our pipes. So the time passed. It was to this hospitable home that General Lee retired with his family immediately after Appomattox, and was living on this estate when he accepted ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... different fuel values, they are all necessary to start the fire in the grate and to keep it burning properly. Moreover, any one of them would keep a fire going alone, after a fashion, provided that you had a grate or furnace large enough to burn it in, and could shovel it in fast enough; and the same is true, to a certain degree, of ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... at a time to accomplish a great deal if we work long enough. Perhaps most of you have read of the little girl whose mother was presented with a ton of coal by a charitable neighbor. She took her little fire-shovel, and began to take up the coal, a shovelful at a time, and carry it into the cellar. A friend, who was passing by, said to the child, "Do you expect to get all that coal in with that little shovel?" "Yes, sir," said the little girl, dipping her shovel again into the heap, "I'll do it if I work ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... talking at the top of its voice, while colonies of ibis croaked out the news of the day in gruff, discordant notes; cranes flying laboriously, with long legs trailing, emitted their deep "honks;" frogs lifted up their voices from out the reeds, and at intervals came the booming cry of the shovel-beaked bittern, and the harsh, baboon-like bark of the green-crested toucan. The noise of the home-going of the winged multitudes ceased as the night drew its black mantle over ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... disappeared and a bench took their place. There followed a procession of folk apparently passing through the park. A workman, shovel and pick over his shoulder, stopped to look up at the trees. That was James. A young man and his sweetheart—Roger and Ethel Brown—strolled slowly along. Dicky rolled a hoop. Margaret, carrying a baby borrowed from the audience, ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... modern sailor faces death soberly and decently in forms far more terrible than were ever dreamt of by his forefathers. When the Calliope steamed out of Apia Harbour in the hurricane of March, 1889, the youngest grimy coal-trimmer, whose sole duty it was to silently shovel coal, even though his last moment came to him while doing it, never once asked if the ship was making way. All hands in this department were on duty for sixteen hours, and during that time no sound was heard, save the ring of the shovels firing the boilers, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... to Florida. But the rough leader never lost heart or spared himself in any way. He was obliged to heave-to at Cape Antonio (Cuba), and here with indomitable courage went to work, putting heart into his men by digging with pick and shovel in a way that would have put a navvy to the blush, and when their efforts were rewarded he took his ships through the Bahama Channel, and as he passed a fort which the Spaniards had constructed and used as a base for a force which had murdered many ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... a king with a scepter in his hand saying, "I rule all;" a soldier with a sword in his hand saying, "I fight for all;" a bishop with a Bible in his hand saying, "I pray for all," and a working man with a shovel in his hand saying, "I ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... the ground with an expression which looked to the white men like an interrogation. Cromwell nodded, and the Indian began to dig. Cromwell brought a shovel, and ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... Hal was about to leave the office with the broom and the shovel, a tall, well dressed ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... swampy hollow. His servants might gather a basket of these flowers daily in the season. So the memory of the first President for Pahang will be kept green. A plant rarely seen is V. limbata from the island of Timor—dusky yellow, the tip purple, outlined with white, formed like a shovel. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... little boy was staring about him in a blissful sort of maze, holding a wooden shovel in one hand and the skirts of a young girl with the other. Her back was turned to Jill, but something in the long brown braid with a fly-away blue bow hanging down her back looked very familiar to Jill. So did the gray suit and the Japanese umbrella; but the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... garden, and that there was nothing wanting but to prepare the ground to receive such seeds as I should choose to plant...It was no easy matter...for we had neither hoe nor spade with us...however, we were in possession of a coal shovel which, though it was thin and much worn, served ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... seventies when old Peaceful Hart woke to a realization that gold-hunting and lumbago do not take kindly to one another, and the fact that his pipe and dim-eyed meditation appealed to him more keenly than did his prospector's pick and shovel and pan seemed to imply that he was growing old. He was a silent man, by occupation and by nature, so he said nothing about it; but, like the wild things of prairie and wood, instinctively began preparing ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... occurrence, and it is these which add difficulty and danger to the lumberman's work. Carrying pike-poles and cant-hooks, the former being simply long tough ash poles with a sharp spike on the business end, and the latter shorter stouter poles, something like the handle of a shovel, with a curious curved iron attachment that took a firm grip of a log and enabled the worker to roll its lazy bulk over and over in the direction he desired—with these weapons taking the place of the axe and saw, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... at Wilton, and was astonished at the heaps of rubbish. The house is grand, and the place glorious; but I should shovel three parts of the marbles and pictures into the river. Adieu, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Red Shirt. He declares the "Rough Necks" among the students is not their fault but the fault of the teachers. A crazy person beats other people because the beaten are wrong. Very grateful, indeed. If the students were so full of life and vigor, shovel them out into the campus and let them wrestle their heads off. Who would have grasshoppers put into his bed unconsciously! If things go on like this, they may stab some one asleep, and get freed as having done ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... the beginning of the world, what a subject of satisfaction and astonishment for us to see the two armies back again at the point from which they started, and the assailants reduced in self-defence to have recourse to the shovel and the axe!" ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... being enraged the more at this, struck at the Spaniard with his hatchet, and swore he would serve him as he intended to serve the savage; which the Spaniard perceiving, avoided the blow, and with a shovel, which he had in his hand (for they were all working in the field about their corn land), knocked the brute down. Another of the Englishmen, running up at the same time to help his comrade, knocked the Spaniard down; and then two Spaniards more came in to help their man, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... woman! She has actually opened the window, and is clearing the snow off the sill with a fire-shovel. Her eyes meet Signor Odoardo's; she smiles and shakes her head, as though to say: ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... and tell me what you see outside. Do you see that place where Driggs has been digging? Do you see the hole he started, and the shovel beside it? Can you guess how we could dig that hole deeper, and put ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... small amount goes for such purposes. Some farmers have concrete floors in cow stables and pig pens and use a hose frequently to wash these floors clean. Other stables never see a stream of water and only see a shovel at infrequent intervals. The amount of water used outside the house is too uncertain a quantity to estimate on the average, but its influence and importance ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... I say! It would be foolish and wasteful to set a hundred men to digging when one steam shovel will do the work better and quicker than they can. And it's the same way with this water here. If we can put up a pipe in about an hour that will save two or three hours of chasing every day, whenever water is needed, it must be sensible ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... experiment—what the one alchemist whom fortune has allowed to get all his coveted materials and set to work at last with fire and melting pot—what he produces after all the talk of him and the like of him; why, you get pulvis et cinis—a man at the mercy of the tongs and shovel." In later life, however, Browning spoke of Wordsworth in a different tone. In a letter to Mr. Grosart, written Feb. 24, 1875, he said, "I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered, I can't remember how many times. There is no sort of ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning |
