"Shuck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resources, the Southern people became home manufacturers. The inner shuck of Indian corn was made into hats. Knitting became fashionable. Homespun clothing, dyed with the extract of black-walnut bark or wild indigo or swamp maple or elderberries, was worn by everybody. Barrels and boxes which had been used for packing salt fish and pork were soaked in water, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... he went past! Weather most outrageous hot!— Fairly hear it sizz Roun' Dock an' Mike—till Dock he shot, An' Mike he slacked that grip o' his An' fell, all spraddled out. Dock riz 'Bout half up, a-spittin' red, An' shuck his head— An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em As me an' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... whistle an' stew, He whistle up anudder Nigger an' dat make two. Two liddle Nigger boys shuck de apple tree, Down fall anudder Nigger, an' dat make three. Three liddle Nigger boys, a-wantin' one more, Never has no trouble a-gittin' up four. Four liddle Nigger boys, dey cain't drive. Dey hire a Nigger hack boy, an' dat make five. Five liddle Niggers, bein' calcullated ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... ourselves, and then he shook me off. But I wasn't to be put off this way. I told him I guessed I had to have some place to laugh, and I grabbed the hoe-handle again, and went on with my tittering. 'Young fellow,' he said, 'you just about suit me. You won't stay shuck off, and that's the sort of a man that gets next to me.' So we shook hands and without another word on the tender subject we went on talking about something else. Oh, he's all right, and the girl is too, I think. I don't know about the ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... of the servants to be drawn from their secret corners, the meal to be measured, and the bacon to be sliced with the care which fretted her lavish hands. After this there came the shucking of the corn, a negro frolic even in war years, so long as there was any corn to shuck, and lastly the counting of the full bags of grain before the heavy wagon was sent to the little mill beside the river. From sunrise to sunset the girl's hands were not idle for an instant, and in the long evenings, by the light of the home-made tallow ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... shot into Watson's, so when my son found Jim he was alone, sittin' on the edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an' the sky about was black with buzzards; an' Jim he just sat an' stared up at 'em, and when my son spoke to him he never answered any more than a dead man. He shuck him by the arm, but Jim just sat there, watchin' the sun, the buzzards, and ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and let Adam tell us the same things he's been saying for these many months, and then we'll let him shuck his fine clothes and come on home in my rockaway ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... eatin', though not very much fer style! Shuck an arm-full fer yer dinner, sot 'em on en let 'em bile; Salt 'em well, en smear some butter on the juicy cobs ez sweet Ez the lips of maple-suger thet yer sweet-heart has to eat! Talk about ole Mount Olympus en the stuff ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... dey would have to shuck corn some of de days en wouldn' nobody work in de field dat day. Oh, my Lord, dey would have de big eats on dem days. Would have a big pot right out to de barn whe' dey was shuckin corn en would boil it full ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... something, beware—oh, beware!—of the native English cigar. When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking purposes it is also open to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is. The flames smolder in the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the smoke sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly back draft comes and the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... it's this way," explained the foreman with a grin. "Y'u're right pleasant and friendly, but the boys have got a savvy way down deep that y'u'd shuck that friendliness awful sudden if any of them dropped around with 'Object, Matrimony' in their manner. Consequence is, they're loaded down to the ground with admiration of their boss, but they ain't ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... ob slick, shiny fellers, and de odders jes common big ones. When dey'd got 'em all counted they done some figurin,' an' sed dey'd hev ter draw out 'bout t'ree hundred an' fifty votes. So dey put 'em all back in de box, all folded up jest ez dey wuz at de start, an' den dey shuck it an' shuck it an' shuck it, till it seemed ter me 'em little fellers wuz boun' ter slip fru de bottom. Den one on 'em wuz blindfolded, an' he drew outen de box till he got out de right number—mostly all on 'em de big tickets, mind ye, kase dey wuz on top, yer know. Den dey count de rest an' ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to shuck," replied Joel. "Suppose this wounded man dies on our hands? What then? Haven't you heard pa tell how soldiers died from slight wounds?—from blood-poisoning? If we have to go, we might as ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... trabbels gone; He leaf de land behind De Lord's breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind. We own de hoe, we own de plough, We own de hands dat hold; We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But nebber chile be sold. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... ain' nothin dis day en time. Ain' worth a shuck no time. De old ones can beat dem out a hollow anywhe'. Ain' no chillun raise in dese days, I say. After freedom come here, I know I been hired out to white folks bout all de time en, honey, I sho been put through de crack. Lord, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... 'roun', he did, en try ter shake de leafs off'a 'im, but de leafs, dey aint gwine ter be shuck off. Brer Rabbit, he shake en he shiver, but de leafs dey stick; en de capers dat creetur cut up out dar in de woods by he own-alone se'f wuz scan'lous—dey wuz ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... some fresh nuts. In a moment half a dozen of the great, oval, green nuts came pounding down into the sand. Another little fellow snatched them up, and with a sharp parang, or hatchet-like knife, cut away the soft shuck until the cocoanut took the form of a pyramid, at the apex of which he bored a hole, and a stream of delicious, cool milk gurgled out. We needed no second invitation to apply our lips to the hole. The meat inside was so soft that we could eat it with a spoon. The cocoanut of commerce contains ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Hampton Roads. After a little conversation, he asked me if I had seen that overcoat of Stephens's. I replied that I had. "Well," said he, "did you see him take it off?" I said yes. "Well," said he, "didn't you think it was the biggest shuck and the littlest ear that ever you did see?" Long afterwards I told this story to the Confederate General J. B. Gordon, at the time a member of the Senate. He repeated it to Stephens, and, as I heard afterwards, Stephens laughed ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... the pop that followed that tech was somethin' to remember. It shuck the water, it shuck the air, an' it shuck the hull we was on. A reg'lar cloud of smoke an' flyin' bits of things rose up out of the Mary Auguster; an' when that smoke cleared away, an' the water was all b'ilin' with ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... as one of his scouts when we fired the Cherokee hill towns last summer," said Tom, with pride. "Thar was blood and thunder for ye! We went down the Great War-path which lies below us, and when we was through there wasn't a corn-shuck or a wigwam or a war post left. We didn't harm the squaws nor the children, but there warn't no prisoners took. When Nollichucky Jack strikes I reckon it's more like a thunderbolt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... roastingears; we went back and gathered more roastingears, time and again. The bank was lined with green roastingears. Well, what was to be done? We began to shuck the corn. We would pull up a few shucks on one ear, and tie it to the shucks of another—first one and then another—until we had at least a hundred tied together. We put the train of corn into the river, and as it began to float ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... professional beggary to his schemes of predacity. You may tie your abortive little paper to the tail of the "Ape," but that animal is too weak in the hinder legs to pull it out of a financial hole. Go plug yourself. Shuck your long-tailed hand-me-down Albert Edward, trade your paper for a double-shovel plow, gird up your yarn galluses and make a reasonable effort to earn an honest living. Had you expended half the nervo-muscular energy in the cotton patch that you have wasted in working ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... but I ain't knowed near ez many ez my ole Marster. He done shuck hans w'en he wuz live wid um great en small. I'se done hyern 'im tell in my time how he shuck de han' er ole Marse Henry right over dar in dat ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... some and he told 'em no, 'at he was much obleeged, Bills was kind o' tuck down, you understand, and had to say somepin'; and says he, "I reckon you ain't no better 'n the rest of us, and we 've be'n a-drinkin' of it." But Steve did n't let on like he noticed Bills at all, and rech and shuck hands with the other boys and ast how ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... was why dey think is Quality. Some of dese nigger gals was raised in de house but most of dem was made work ebery whar on de plantation. My Massa has his nigger gals to lay fence worms, mak fences, shuck corn, hoe corn en terbacco, wash, iron, and de missus try to teach de nigger gals to sew and knit. But shucks niggers aint got no sense nuf ter do fancy things. Sometimes I tended ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... best crops on sandy loam, as its roots run deeper than the common eight-rowed yellow or white. In moist seasons the latter varieties usually do well. They are grown most generally in the Northern part of the State, while in the Southern section the Ohio dent is principally raised. The shuck and blade are much used as fodder for cattle, in the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... finally collapse came, giving an era of uplift, it is obvious that we could account for such cycles. There is very clear evidence that the outermost layer of the earth's crust is but a thin shell like the outer shuck or exocarp of a butternut, so thin that it is not at all possible that it can sustain itself for more than a hundred miles or so, or for more than a very few years at the outside. Hayford's[1] investigations are the latest that show that the continents project because, on the whole, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... sitting on the edge of the stone doorstep with a bit of beechnut clutched in his paws. And when he looked up and saw somebody's nose appear in the doorway he tumbled right over backward. The only sound he made came from the beechnut shuck, which made a faint click as it fell upon the stone. And Miss Kitty Cat's sharp ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a summer school for teachers in which last year were registered 437 teachers from fifteen Southern and several other States. Most of these teachers elect such practical subjects as canning, basket-making, broom-making, shuck and pine needlework or some form of manual training, as well as the teacher-training courses. One of these students, who was the supervisor of the Negro schools of an entire county, when she returned from her summer school work proceeded to vivify ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... young Abraham Lincoln that he had fallen heir to a fortune the boy could hardly have felt more elated. Shuck corn only three days, and earn the book that told ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... comforts o' home. Nice place fer a picnic, ain't it? But I reckon as how them gals will have ter take pot-luck with the rest o' us. Leastways, I don't see no chance now ter get shuck o' 'em. I 'll tell ye how it happened, Mr. Winston; it 'd take Stutter, yere, too blame long ter relate ther story, only I hope he won't fly off an' git mad if I chance ter make mention o' his gal 'long with the other. He 's gittin' most damn touchy, is Stutter, an' I 'm all a-tremble ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... lost time. Then she went into the house, an' I turned for home; but I hadn't gone ten steps afore I come agin somebody stan'in' in the middle o' the road. 'Hullo!' says I. The next thing he had a holt o' my coat-collar an' shuck me like a tarrier-dog shakes a rat. I knowed who it was afore he spoke; an' I couldn't 'a' been more skeered, if the life had all gone out o' me. He'd been down to the tavern to see a drover, an' comin' home he'd follered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... And his canteen from his saddle-horn was swung. He said that he had to leave his home, his pa had married twice; And his new ma whipped him every day or two; So he saddled up old Chaw one night and lit a shuck this way, And he's now trying to ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... up. One of the girls on the flying trapeze fell off into the net from the roof of the tent and broke her suspenders, so when they got her down in the ring it seemed as though everything she had on was going to shuck loose, and leave her with nothing but a string of beads, and pa went up to wrap his coat around her, and she kicked his hat off and ran into the dressing-room. The audience just yelled, and pa blushed scarlet, 'cause he saw it was a put-up job ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... an' shuck it," said the old woman, laughing immoderately. "Laws, how he shuck it—dat Jip did—yer aunt's beyeutiful cap with the new puppel ribbons! Ye see it tumbled off; I dunno wedder she sneezed, or wot she did, but anyway, it tumbled off on de flo', and dat little pison scamp jumped up from his ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... boys, after a big supper of "fresh meat and all kinds of good things, and plenty of sho' nough pound cake"—(that pound cake he can't seem to forget)—would gather around and to the tune of an old fiddle in the hands of a plantation musician, they would sing and shuck corn until the whole pile was finished. Many races were entered into and the winners proclaimed amid much shouting and laughter. This merriment and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... finger; why, saints are Christ's members, his members are of himself. With what strength of argument would a man plead the necessariness of his members to him, and the unnaturalness of his adversary in seeking the destruction of his members, and the deformity of his body! Yea, a man would shuck and cringe, and weep, and entreat, and make demurs, and halts, and delays, to a thousand years, if possible, before he would lose his members, or ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shuck hands forever," said the repentant Moggs. "I've been looking out and expecting loaves and fishes long enough. Loaves, indeed! Why I never got even a cracker, unless it was aside of the ear, when there was a row on the election ground; and as for fishes, why, if I'd stopped any longer for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... gorl-durned 'fun'ral boards,' you're gittin' kind o' fresh, but I'd bet a greenback to a last year's corn-shuck you don't quit ther' an' come grazin' around Carney's pastures, long as ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Philadelphia?" Rose-Ellen demanded. "Where? Not to a Home? I won't! I'd rather go on and shuck oysters like Pauline Isabel and her folks. I'd rather go on where they're cutting marsh ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... long-drawn hymn. Shivering and damp from our walk up the yard, we opened the door, to see Minerva, with kilted skirts, standing in an expanse of frozen slush and singing at the top of her voice, while she sluiced fresh deluges of water from her shuck brush. I was too disgusted for words, but resolved that this should not occur again. As soon as I could communicate with the outside world I had the hall floors covered with oilcloth (then the fashionable covering). Also, Minerva was displaced, and Phyllis ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... matt, matt as a Marsh Hase. Dree monats ago I call on board his prig to talk pizness. And he says like dis—'Glear oudt.' 'Vat for?' I say. 'Glear oudt before I shuck you oferboard.' Gott-for-dam! Iss dat the vay to talk pizness? I vant sell him ein liddle case first chop ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad |
