"Cranky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think our school about the best going, and we aren't going to let anyone else think differently, if we can help it; are we, Ruth? So, if a girl takes it into her head to be rude and cranky to the teachers, or other girls, she finds herself in a corner pretty ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... came to facilitate the sluicing, more men were added to the force shovelling in the creeks, and this made our work heavier. An exceedingly cranky foreigner, as head cook, presided over the big coal range in the mess-house, and we women "played second fiddle," so to speak. However, we all had enough hard work, as a midnight supper for the second force had ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... "Why how cranky you are, man! If you hate me, hate me in God's name, but don't be so absurd as to forget you're a man, and to act like a child. I listened to you—and why can't ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... they might have acquired a sufficient stock of bankers and mechanics by this time, and be able possibly to discover a vacancy for a public-school man with a fairish knowledge of the world and some other things—one who, moreover, had himself served in a cranky and fussy Government Department and, though working in another sphere, had been thanked officially for certain labours—once by the Admiralty, twice by the Board of Trade; and anyway, hang it! one was not so infernally venerable as all that, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... debarred? Too old and cranky or something like that?" teased Jane. Her hair was bursting from her cap like an over-ripe thistle, and her cheeks were velvety in a rich glow of early winter tints. She hardly looked too old even for skipping rope ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... book-case which my father had recently purchased of some cranky inventor and had not filled. It was in shape and size something like the old-fashioned "wardrobes" which one sees in bed-rooms without closets, but opened all the way down, like a woman's night-dress. It had glass doors. I had recently laid out my ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... do," said Moriarty to me—"better hang your socks on Nosey Alf's crook to-night. His place is fifteen mile from here, and very little out of your way. Ill-natured, cranky beggar, Alf is—been on the pea—but there's no end of grass in his paddock. And I say—get him to give you a tune or two on his fiddle. Something splendid I believe. He's always getting music by post from Sydney. Montgomery had heard him sing and play, some time or other; ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Grey to be a jolly, cranky old seadog of the old school. He has been with the Hudson's Bay Company for thirty years, and has sailed the northern seas for fifty. He shook his head pessimistically when he heard about our expedition. "You'll never get back," he said. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... answered Paul firmly. "If she foundered, she went down too quickly to give any one a chance of escaping. We must just now look after ourselves; this craft is very cranky, I see." ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down to your new life. I'm very glad to hear that, although it isn't quite the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton? I've never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I'm a queer cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you something cheerful about all your friends here, but I'm afraid I can't. Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you in her last ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... internal-combustion engine, carburetion, compression, ignition, and explosion, but also a keen insight into the whims of the human, and terribly inhuman, thing—the gasolene-motor. Nothing can be sweeter when it is sweet, and nothing more devilish when it is cranky, than an ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... were a few who stood at his back, sich as the Bentons, an' me an' Empty. Nellie Strong, God bless her, an' Nan, her sister, didn't go agin 'em, but they were in a difficult persition with that cranky ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... the windpipe. Its very life-breath would be at our disposal. Ha! What about revolution, then? What about popular discontent, and stiff-necked legislators, and cranky editors? What about commercial and financial rivals? What about these damned Socialists, with their brass-lunged bazoo, howling about monopoly and capitalism and all the rest of it? Eh, what? Just one squeeze," here Flint closed his corded, veinous ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... conveniently to hand. The wind freshened perceptibly while I was thus engaged, veering into the southeast, so that all the cloth I dare spread was the jib and a closely reefed mainsail. The boat acted a bit cranky, but, confident she would stand up under this canvas, I crawled back to the tiller, eased off the sheet a trifle more, and waited results. We shipped a bucket full of water, and then settled into a good pace, a cream of surge along our port gunwale, and a white wake ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... the Ranger's crew, with a top-heavy, cranky ship under their feet, and a Commander who day and night insisted on every rag she could stagger under, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... that little girl reminds me of the time when I once sent some flowe's, but instead of sending them to a girl, I sent them to a big crusty old man. This man was, to a great extent, an exception to the rule that I have just laid down. That is, he was cranky and ha'd to get next to for nearly ever'body, and sometimes he was pretty rough with me. But I handled him fairly well and always got business out of him, although sometimes I had to use a little jiu jitsu ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... solemn and so cranky-eyed? 'Tis not a henchman's office, to show pride To his betters. He should smile and make good cheer. There comes a guest, thy lord's old comrade, here; And thou art all knitted eyebrows, scowls and head Bent, because somebody, forsooth, ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... "ride any kind of a log in any water, to propel a log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skilful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft." Altho the logs are carried by the river, they have to be "driven" ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the dim shadows of the cobwebby place, was the stanza that was proof of her son's genius. Then Peggy reflected with a glad heart that it was the accepted belief of the world that geniuses were always cranky and uncomfortable, and, womanlike, Peggy gave thanks that it was permitted her to have a genius for ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... scene would it not have been wicked to have delivered ourselves over to any cranky, miserly economy or to any distortion or affectation of thrift? Had fortune smiled, her gifts would have been sanely appreciated, for our ideas of comfort and the niceties of life are not cramped, neither are they to be gauged by the narrow gape ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... H. The brother of the patient stated that she was like other girls, and very good at school. At 16 she became quieter, less energetic. She came to America at 17. After arriving here she has seemed low spirited, cranky and faultfinding. She often complained of indefinite stomach trouble and headaches; when at home she often had a cloth around her head. The informant recalled that she said, "I wish I could get sick for a long time and ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... too. He should not be allowed to worry over such things. He wants me to give up buying him the fur-trimmed overcoat and get a coat and shoes for Goodman's children, as they were praying so hard for them, but I have enough to do without clothing other people's children. If Goodman would quit his cranky notions and use his talents for people who could understand him, instead of preaching to those ragamuffins he might now be receiving a magnificent salary and clothing himself and ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... is Pamela, I think, but we call her Pam for short. She wasn't ever married, though I guess she's old enough. Somebody once said Aunt Pam was an old maid; but that can't be, for old maids are always cranky, and get out of bed backward every morning. Now Aunt Pam was never cranky in her life; and I know she gets out of bed like everybody else, for I've slept with her many a time. And nobody in their senses would call Aunt Pam old, ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... quiet day of ordered satisfaction, the prescribed toll of unexacting labour, a little sensual pleasure, a little rational conversation, a cool argument, a judicious appreciation of all that the intellect can apprehend. Into this existence burst suddenly a cranky fanatic, with a religion. To the Greek it seemed that the breath of life had blown through the grave, imperial streets. Yet nothing in Rome was changed, save one immortal, or mortal, soul. The same waking eyes opened on the same objects; yet all was ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... out, the professor made a scramble to follow him. He rose to his feet, despite Barney's warning cry, and, a moment later, the cranky craft flipped bottom upward, with the swiftness ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... Sancho Panza may escape a good many sad experiences by knowing his master's weaknesses. But as Nietzsche no longer belongs to the Quixotic class, as Germany seems to emerge with him from her youthful and cranky nebulosity, you will not even have the pleasure of being thrashed in the company of your Master: no, you will be thrashed all alone, which is an abominable thing for any right-minded human being. "Solamen ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of a restive horse, a cranky boat, or even a trolley-car on rails is difficult enough for the inexperienced, and there are many who would quail before making the attempt; but to the novice in charge of an automobile, some serious damage is likely ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... dare to mail this letter until I get out of Russia for they are so cranky about their blessed old country. They would not even let me have a little flag to send to the boys at home! I found out to-day that a policeman comes every day to see what we have been doing, what hours we keep, etc. In fact every movement is watched, and one day when we returned ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... "No, merely cranky like all the Vallincourts. He's in a community, joined a brotherhood, you know, and proposes to spend the rest of his days repenting his sins and making his peace with heaven. I've no patience with the fool!" continued ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... imperilled the masts of these somewhat cranky ships of 1689, says a writer of about Dampier's time, who also tells us that ships then had awnings, and that "glass lanthorns were worthier best made of crystal horn; ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... let him, will yer?" he pleaded. "Cause I'll sure find it soon's I git home, an' Jane, she's kind o' cranky, yer know! But she's got her good streaks, Jane has! She brought me a bowl o' custard th' other day—that was proper nice o' Jane!" His wrinkled face lighted at remembrance of the ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... depend upon it, they're a cranky lot, the Forsytes—and you'll find it out, as you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... mid-summer he can take me right into the interior, in that cranky red car. And I don't know but what I am ready to risk it; there are places I'd like to see—where he was caught his first winter in a blizzard, and where he picked up the nuggets for my necklace. You remember it—don't you?—Mrs. Daniels. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... business to be a cranky car," Foster interposed pacifically. "Why, she's practically new!" He stepped over a puddle and stood beside Bud, peering down at the silent engine. "Have you looked at the intake ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... had to be able to ride any kind of a log in any water; to propel that log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skillful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft; as he must be prepared at any and all times to jump waist deep into the river, to work in ice-water hours at a stretch; as he was called upon to break the most dangerous jams on the river, representing, as they did, the accumulation which the jam ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... was never able to get a canoe that entirely satisfied me as to weight and model. I bought the smallest birches I could find; procured a tiny Chippewa dugout from North Michigan and once owned a kayak. They were all too heavy and they were cranky to ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... with a toss of her head, "the on'y differ there is in it is that I am the same as ever I was, an' you have turned crabby an' cranky." ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... cranky notion, Hannah Jane and me one day, While we were coming home from town, a-talking all the way; The old house wasn't big enough for us, although for years Beneath its humble roof we'd shared ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... championed was away on detached service, and Canker really did not know just what to do, and was too proud and sensitive to seek advice. He was a gallant soldier in the field, but a man of singularly unfortunate disposition,—crabbed, cranky, and suspicious; and thus it resulted that he, too, joined the little band of Ray haters, despite the fact that he felt ashamed of ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Legislature. It was entirely characteristic of him to vote against the adoption of the Federal Constitution, on the ground that it authorized other people to tax Carolinians; which he said was taxation without' representation. That was just like a narrow, cranky, opinionative, unmanageable Calhoun. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... was enveloped in reeds, and at a loss which way to go, the soft ripple of breaking waves struck my ear like sweet music. The sea was telling me of its proximity. Carefully balancing myself, I stood up in the cranky canoe, and peering over the grassy thickets, saw before me the broad waters of Helena Sound. The fresh salt breeze from the ocean struck upon my forehead, and nerved me to a renewal of my efforts to get within a region of higher land, and to a ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... Gilbert said to Lucia. "He's got a heart of gold, but he can be cranky and eccentric sometimes. Maybe he's got one of his moods to-day. I never know. Tomorrow he'll be all right—perhaps. I hope so, anyhow.... But come inside. You must be tired after your trip. Your ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... examine my 'coal room,' the place where I was digging coal. He came, and seemed to make a thorough examination, and ordered me back to work, saying, there was no danger, and that he thought I was going 'cranky.' I returned to my work, and had been digging away for something like an hour, when, all of a sudden, it grew very dark. Then it seemed as if a great iron door swung open, and I passed through it. The thought then came to my mind that I was dead and in another world. I could see no one, ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... might have known you would be ready with the cold water," she declared. "Clara is—well, cranky, and particular and all that, but the opportunity is wonderful. The girl would travel and meet the ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... were all ashore and looking around, before Bandy-legs managed to jump out of his cranky cedar canoe. He acted as though glad at least to have arrived safe and sound, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... him in one of his cranky moods, fretful at circumstances, and at her father who kept him there on the shore, and had no word of another ship to take the place of the Jean. Of late he had been worse than usual, for he had ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... takes little or no interest in the island, save for its wool, lumber and an inferior cork. Great ships pass it on the north and south, on the east and west, but only cranky packets and dismal freighters drop anchor in ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... suspicious. It was an unheard-of request. There was no precedent. What would the Rajah say to this? What would he do to them? The best part of the night was spent in consultation; but the immediate risk from the anger of that strange man seemed so great that at last a cranky dug-out was got ready. The women shrieked with grief as it put off. A fearless old hag ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... lie down and read under the shade of one of the trees," mused the boy, "for the trout will be all in the most cranky places right under the stones and roots. But one can't read without a book, and I came out on purpose to catch something, and I mean to do it; ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... a rude affair known as a "flat." It was long and narrow, with square ends and sides, and from its cranky motion ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... "Tom Fillot looks cranky, but there isn't much the matter with him. Coxswain Dance couldn't jig to save his life. T'others are blue mouldy, and old Whitney talks about 'em as if he was using bricks and mortar. He says he shall build ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... we had asked them. But you see, Diana, I feel myself responsible for the A.V.I.S., since I was the first to suggest it, and it seems to me that I ought to do the most disagreeable things. I'm sorry on your account; but you needn't say a word at the cranky places. I'll do all the talking . . . Mrs. Lynde would say I was well able to. Mrs. Lynde doesn't know whether to approve of our enterprise or not. She inclines to, when she remembers that Mr. and Mrs. Allan are in favor of it; but the fact that village improvement societies ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... up to the house, leapt on to the sill of the unused back-kitchen, some five feet from the ground, pushed with his paw at the cranky old hatchment, which was its only covering; and, in a second, the boy, straining out of the window the better to see, heard the rattle of the boards as the dog dropped ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... quite so gracious as he has been on former meetings," thought Tom, as he led the way inside. "I wonder if he is going to get cranky?" ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... hands with a cranky-eyed, bald-headed man, whose face looked youthful enough from what little could be seen of it, for most of it was covered by a snow-white beard, carefully trimmed—by his wife, who did it on Sundays, at which times she also shaved the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... amused at my enthusiasm? But consider my position here. I am an old man and have never been a strong man. At my age I would not have strength enough to force that little woman there—she thinks herself possessed and is quite cranky at times—to go to her own room when she doesn't want to. And do you see that man over there in the blue blouse? He is an excellent gardener but he believes himself to be Napoleon, and when he has his acute attacks I would be ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... it," Irons assented; "and I think Herman is too toploftical and full of cranky theories. They say Mrs. Greyson has hit the nail exactly on the head in that statue she showed in Paris last year. That pleased the critics and the public both, and that's exactly what we are after. I think we ought to ask her to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... depth, he would fall easy victim to the first well-aimed paddle-stroke. And he knew it. Thus, hesitant, his snarling teeth not two yards from the canoe, he stood growling in futile indignation at the cranky craft's crankier occupants. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... else; and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning, I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous old age. ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... of the cooking animals, they behave much more "naturally." They are a merry crowd, ever anticipating a good time, ever jolly, eager, greedy. Or, they are cranky, hungry, starved, miserable, and they turn savage now and then. Some are gluttonous. Many contract ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... she surrendered with a little grimace. "You think so now, but that's because you are being led astray by your appetites, like all men. You just wait: You'll be homesick for a sight of that fat, bald-headed, cranky old Patsy bouncing along on the mess-wagon and swearing in Dutch at his horses, before you're through. If you're not so completely gone over to Jakie that you will eat nothing but what he has cooked, come on up to the house. The Countess is making a twogallon freezer ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... or "cranky! cranky!" sounded from all the furniture; there was so much of it, that each article stood in the other's way, to get a look at ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... Bert Lloyd could hardly fail to be a happy boy, and no one that knew him would ever have thought of him as being anything else. He had his dull times, of course. What boy with all his faculties has not? And he had his cranky spells, too. But neither the one nor the other lasted very long, and the sunshine soon not only broke through the clouds, but scattered them altogether. Happy are those natures not given to brooding over real or fancied troubles. Gloom never mends matters: it can only ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... way all canoes have, I understand," Bristles chuckled. "They just watch till you're not lookin', and then chuck you overboard. Some of 'em are worse than a bucking bronco at throwing a feller. But looky here, Billy, how does it come you're in this cranky boat? I'd 'a thought your dad would have told you to leave ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... But I can't; for so sure as I did, Mister Archie would wake up and want some water, and begin to talk about Miss Minnie. Oh dear! It's far worse than mutiny—to go to sleep when you are on sentry; and it would be ten times worse to begin to snooze now, with that poor, half-cranky chap in such a state. So I'll have one or two of them finger-stall fruit things and a good drink of water, and then lean back against the side and see how many Malay words I can remember; and if that don't keep a ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... got me a fair and square meal o' vittles. She don't believe in cookin' nothin' ahead nor gettin' up anything decent. She's a Go-upper and thinks the end of the world is li'ble to come any minit. And the way I figger it, not havin' vittles reg'lar has give me dyspepsy, and dyspepsy has made me cranky, and not safe to be squdged too fur. And that's the whole trouble. I've got a hankerin' for strorb'ries. They may make me more supple. P'raps not, but ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... English in your ways, Henry, he wrote to his son, and I want you at home for a while. There's a young fellow called Marsh who can tutor you until you go to the University. I met him in Dublin a while since, and I like him. He's a bit cranky, but he's clever and he'll teach you a lot about Ireland. He's up to his neck in Irish things, and speaks Gaelic and wears an Irish kilt. At least he used to wear one, but he's left it off now, partly because he gets cold in his knees and partly because he's not sure now ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... for your condescension in asking. I trust soon to be restored to such measure of health and strength as I ever enjoy. At best I am but a cranky creature; but with quarters such as these I should be worse than ungrateful if I did not mend. I trust my presence here has caused you no inconvenience; for truly I believe that I am in your house, and that I owe to you the comforts ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sick and tired of winter. School lets out at four o'clock, and it's almost dark then. There's no time for play, for there's all that wood and kindling to get in, and Pap's awful cranky when he hops out of bed these frosty mornings to light the fire, and finds you've been skimpy with the kindling. And the pump freezes up, and you've got to shovel snow off the walks and out in the back-yard so Tilly can hang up the clothes when she comes to do the washing. And ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... a Boy Scout Troop is supposed to employ a lawyer. You strike me as a special pleader. You had better go in for the law instead of music. We are not so cranky that we would have objected to an ordinary descent upon us, even with the idea of showing us what inferior creatures we are. But when it comes to trying to frighten us, and some of the more timid girls were frightened, you behaved as ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... got you into it, Allan, I never thought they'd be so cranky." Again he groaned. "I ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Prayers in the household will not make up for everything. Some of the best people in the world are the hardest to get along with. There are people who stand up in prayer-meetings and pray like angels, who at home are uncompromising and cranky. You may not have everything just as you want it. Sometimes it will be the duty of the husband, and sometimes of the wife, to yield; but both stand punctiliously on your rights, and you will have a Waterloo with no Blucher coming up at nightfall ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... Cranky and peevish at times we grow: "Just like a man!" Now and then boastful of what we know: "Just like a man!" Whatever our failings from day to day— Stingy, or giving our goods away— With a toss of her head, she is sure to say, "Just ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... his hair out at the roots & he wares meny a horrible scar upon his body, inflicted with mop-handles, broom-sticks, and sich. Occashunly they git mad & scald him with bilin hot water. When he got eny waze cranky thay'd shut him up in a dark closit, previsly whippin him arter the stile of muthers when thare orfsprings git onruly. Sumptimes when he went in swimmin thay'd go to the banks of the Lake & steal all his close, thereby compellin ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... take her horse to the shed. Take an umbrella with you." Chauncey the younger, meekly drying his shoes by the kitchen fire, put them on, not stopping to lace them, and slumped down the porch steps, pursued by his mother's orders. She watched him a moment struggling with a cranky umbrella, and then turned her attention ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... schoolboy ever drew a truer circle with a bit of string and a slate-pencil than that cranky craft made on the placid surface of the river each time Ramrod put a little ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... have to decline the chance this time, Thad," he remarked, making a wry face. "Thought I felt the signs of one of my fits comin' on, a while back. I'd sure hate to have anything like that happen in such a cranky little boat; 'cause it might upset, ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... longer thou wouldst ramble about abroad. Well, but thou art a dashing fine fellow, a fine fellow; thou canst still lift ten puds in one hand as of yore, I suppose? Thy deceased father, excuse me, was cranky in some respects, but he did well when he hired a Swiss for thee; thou rememberest, how thou and he had fistfights; that's called gymnastics, isn't it?—But why have I been cackling thus? I have ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... which caused the ants to come about the camp, and we had to erect a little table with legs in the water, to lay these on. One roll had a slightly musty smell, and Gibson said to me, "This roll's rotten; shall I chuck it away?" "Chuck it away," I said; "why, man, you must be cranky to talk such rubbish as throwing away food in such a region as this!" "Why," said he, "nobody won't eat it." "No," said I, "but somebody will eat it; I for one, and enjoy it too." Whereupon he looked up ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... "I haven't enough trouble trying to keep a cranky man like her pa in good humour, without being plagued by Julia Elizabeth"—she paused, for there was a knock at the door.—"If," said she to the door, "you are a woman with ferns in a pot I don't want ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... leave the steamer and shoot the current of the swift Lesser Slave River in a cranky dugout. The Dominion Government, with a series of wing-dams, is putting this river to school, teaching it how to make its bed neatly and wash out its own channel. Where the Lesser Slave River runs into the Athabasca, we change the dugout for a scow, and from there to Athabasca ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... is about young Calverley. You remember Horace Calverley? Well, this is his son. Horace and I were schoolmates, you know, and after his death the boy, Fred, hung on to me rather. We're near neighbours down at Weybridge, and very good friends. I like Fred. He's a good fellow, though cranky, like all ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toyshop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah's Ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies' permission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a lubberly idea ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... and all good dancers, diet. That is, they are careful to eat what is best for them, and not everything that may tickle the palate yet raise a rumpus inside one and upset the whole system, and make them cross and cranky and homely and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... because I don't want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... stubbed her toe, plunging forward and tilting the litter so that it turned turtle, like a cranky hammock. With a little scream of alarm Hazel Holland pitched out headfirst and took a graceful, curving dive into the top of a tree just below them. The others saw her feet disappear in the foliage, heard a muffled ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... charge here ever since Mr. Butterwood took to travelling about for the good of his rheumatisms? Why, my dear young lady, the whole country looks upon Mike as a pattern man-of-all-work. He may be getting a little cranky and independent in his notions, for he has been pretty much his own master for years, but I am sure you could find no one to take his place who would be more trustworthy ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... making arrangements for the transport of our safari, when it should arrive, we entrusted ourselves to a small boy and a cranky boat. An hour later, clad in tropical white, with cool drinks at our elbows, we sat in easy-chairs on the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... been feted there. Year after year her pale eyes had watched over the welfare of distinguished visitors, American and foreign. They had seen the help come and go; she was still the "girl of the parlor floor." Discreet, silent, honest, they might well allow her a share of caprice. "Cranky" they called her, yet no one found fault. She neglected no duty. The lady manager of the interior was not always the same. She changed from time to time; Treesa was always the same, and always there. At length there came ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... replied: "'Twould be a merry riot, surely, doctor, if I gave in to my complaints, with noisy customers downstairs and two cranky patients above." ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... ordered, namely, to and from the South Coast with mail-bags. Many of those whom I had wished to see were absent; but Mr. Hogg set to work in the most business- like style. He borrowed a boat from the Rev. William Walker, of the Gaboon Mission, who kindly wrote that I should have something less cranky if I could wait awhile; he manned it with three of his own Krumen, and he collected the necessary stores and supplies of cloth, pipes and tobacco, rum, white wine, and absinthe ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... village is Tout-Petit. The deep blue sea, the green hills, and the tiny red-roofed, white-walled hamlet straggling down to the port made it very quaint. A rivulet, spanned by a cranky bridge, swept round the base of the hill to the left, and down the centre of the village street, till it found its way into the sea at the harbour. There were shady paths close to the shore, little knots of silver poplar and ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... on her way, bounding over the low, gentle swell of the calm ocean. Tom shivered whenever he thought of the possibility of the motors becoming cranky. With such important human freight aboard any mishap to the machinery would ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... really, Laura, I hope he'll win. George says he will. George says Henry Fenn is the only trouble Mr. Van Dorn will have, though I don't see as Henry could do much. Though George says he will. George says Henry is cranky and mean about the Judge someway and George says Henry is drinking like a fish this spring and his legs is hollow, he holds so much; though he must have been joking for I have heard of hollow horn in cattle, but I never heard of hollow ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... at first; For he'd a tongue of his own; and could use it, too, Better than most menfolk—a bonnie sparrer, I warrant, in his time; but past his best Before I kenned him; little fight left in him: And when his wits went cranky, he just havered— Ground out his two tunes like a hurdygurdy, With most notes ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... three legs, and with a deck-load of lumber she's cranky and topheavy. I'm warning you, Joey. Remember he is a poor ship owner who doesn't know his ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... one window after the other, with the cranky mien and action of a thwarted child, and slammed the shutters together, barring out the sinister sight of his guards. Gavin did not try to prevent him from this act of boyish spite. The master-mind's reaction, in its hour of brokenness, roused ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Bentham were situated at the extreme end of a dingy, depressing looking street which ran from the Adelphi to the Embankment Gardens. It was a street of private hotels which no one had ever heard of, and where apparently no one ever stayed. A few cranky institutions, existing under the excuse of charity, had their offices there, and a firm of publishers, whose glory was of the past, still dragged out their uncomfortable and profitless existence in a building whose dusty windows and ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fine thing to stay at work and support themselves. A lassie that's earned her siller in the works won't feel like going back to washing dishes and taking orders about the sweeping and the polishing frae a cranky mistress. I ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... move after the ladies have sailed is to smoke until his tongue feels like a pussycat's back, eat his lonesome meals at lunch-counter clip, and work himself into a mild bilious state. That makes him a little cranky with the help, and, as there's no one around to smooth 'em out, the cook and half a dozen maids leaves in a bunch. His head coachman goes off on a bat, the housekeeper skips out to Ohio to bury an aunt, and the domestic gear at Blenmont gets to runnin' about as smooth as ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... where they had stood like bits of flame-swept paper. Others pitched forward in the bottom of their crafts, while still others stood for a minute swaying from left to right like drunken men, to finally crash over the sides like fallen trees, taking their cranky crafts over with them in their ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "But old Hannibal's getting cranky," Collins objected. "I've been watching him and trying to get rid of him. Any animal is liable to go off its nut any time, especially wild ones. You see, the life ain't natural. And when they do, it's good night. You lose your ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... an' he's got lots o' cousins an' friends 'ut live all along on this 'ere river, more or less, till ye git to Chartham, that's sitooated to the mouth. Well, these fellers has been in the habit o' gittin' together and goin' deown river and hirin' once in a spell, some sort of old, cranky craft and goin' skylarking reound to Eastport and Portland. Arter a while they'd cum back and smuggle in a cargo o' somethin' or 'nother from the States, and sheirk the dooties. Well, 'beout a week ago, there was a confounded old ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... this, held by the horror of the thing they had done, and the cranky dugout, tipped far over by the recoil of the gun, took water steadily across its gunwale; and now there was a sudden stroke from below upon its careening bottom and it went over and they were in the lake. But shore was only ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... brave burgess is going to bring his daughter's dowry on. They are cranky brutes, Hal; bad customers for blind men— best let me give thee a hand ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the only other thing, besides you, I've ever wanted with all my heart? You do if you love me. The dear old house that was my father's! You know, when you sent up your name at the Dietz as Miss O'Reilly, I believed you were my cranky cousin Theresa, come to tell me she'd changed her mind about selling the house. Why, you owe it to me, if you care, to make up for that. Your Angel's husband has bribed Theresa to sell to him. The place has passed away from me forever. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I was delighted to see him, for I always thought him the noblest fellow that ever breathed, though most undoubtedly cranky if not crazy. I told him we were going to Halifax, and as he had no settled plan I made him come here ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... you, Dora?' I asked her. 'Don't you like me any more?' And she got wild and said she hated me like poison. She never talked to me like that before. It was a different Dora. She was always downhearted, cranky. The slightest thing made her yell or cry with tears. It got worse and worse. Oh, it was terrible! We quarreled twenty times a day and the children cried and I thought ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... four civilised houses in the whole place, counting this," said he. "There's the laird's—and saving the dear doctor's presence I must say his cousin is a damned queer fish, besides being as poor as he's cranky, and there are the two ministers, only one's away and the other's as dry as my own throat's getting. What do you say to ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... Bentley admiringly, as the girl came slowly up the green slope before the house. "I do hope she's nice. You can generally calculate on men boarders, but girls are doubtful. Preserve me from a cranky boarder! I've had enough of them. I kinder like ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... use of setting up your cranky opinions against the hard facts? The plain truth is that everybody who ever heard of Stanhope is going to give you the cold shoulder for a dog; we can depend absolutely ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... objected to keeping a cranky old body like Mysy in his house, Cree came back to Thrums and took a single room with a hand-loom in it. The flooring was only lumpy earth, with sacks spread over it to protect Mysy's feet. The room contained two dilapidated ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... shoot wo'th a cent," he whined, as they took their places in the cranky pirogue; "but I might jes' happen to kill a squir'l or a elephant ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... of the play in that first scenario was "The Fault-Finder," but my cranky Conan broke from that narrowness. If the play has a moral it is given in the words of the Mother, "It's best make changes little by little, the same as you'd put clothes upon a growing child." The restlessness of the time may have found its way into Conan's mind, or as some ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... fearlessness of her eyes gave her that. And Mrs. Baynes, too, shrewdly recognized that behind the uncompromising frankness of June's manner there was much of the Forsyte. If the girl had been merely frank and courageous, Mrs. Baynes would have thought her 'cranky,' and despised her; if she had been merely a Forsyte, like Francie—let us say—she would have patronized her from sheer weight of metal; but June, small though she was—Mrs. Baynes habitually admired quantity—gave her an uneasy ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
