"Bumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Bumble Bee Inn for tea. You needn't be a prig about it! Lots of really nice people go, and what's the harm?" She picked up her gloves and trailed to the door. "I suppose you'll ask who I was with next, and I sha'n't tell you, my dear. I'm bored to death doing ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... instructive account of the holy abbot's endeavors to purify the monastic orders from the stain of simony, her hand clutched his, and doing a delicate cake-walk she compelled him along with her, announcing, "The Hornet and the Bumble-bee went walking hand in hand!" Fancying this prank not to have been without success, she next performed an improvised pas seul illustrative of the text, "The mountains shall skip like ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... question was in the handwriting of a fussy officious "bumble" friend of the wealthy man, who dwelt in the town of ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack over which some bumble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book; both with attentive faces; Jenny with the sharper; Lizzie with the more perplexed. Another little book or two were lying near, and a common basket of common fruit, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... BUMBLE will ope his eyes, egad, In hutter consternation. He'd think as soon of a park-prad For covies in my station. Our Board o' Works knows wot is wot, And has a feller-feeling. About the parish must I trot? No, hang ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... tell what "phen-dubs" means? I can. Can you say all off by heart The "onery twoery ickery ann," Or tell "alleys" and "commons" apart? Can you fling a top, I would like to know, Till it hums like a bumble-bee? Can you make a kite yourself that will go 'Most as high as the eye can see, Till it sails and soars like a hawk on the wing, And the little birds come and light on ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... dropped on hands and toes and ran along like a dog, thus far untouched by bullets, though they were thick as a nest of liberated bumble bees about ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... drive in two flies? and mud-turkles? and bumble-bees? and muskeeters? Say, uncle Josiah, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... Another bumble-bee went over along the tips of the wheat—burr-rr—as he passed; then a scarlet fly, and next a bright yellow wasp who was telling a friend flying behind him that he knew where there was such a capital piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and make into paper for the nest ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... their names, Nell and Ned, a mare and a colt. Fine hacks they were, too! Anybody could ride them, they were so quiet. Dad reckoned Ned was the better of the two. He was well-bred, and had a pedigree and a gentle disposition, and a bald-face, and a bumble-foot, and a raw wither, and a sore back that gave him a habit of "flinching"—a habit that discounted his uselessness a great deal, because, when we were n't at home, the women could n't saddle him to run the cows in. Whenever he saw the saddle or heard ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... the doubt, They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. The Governor came, with his Light-horse Troop And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; Halberds glittered and colors flew, French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; So he rode with all his band, Till the President met him, cap in hand. - The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said, - "A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." The Governor hefted the crowns. Said ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... shrillest of voices; a gnat seemed to be chiming in with the voice. Now it ceased, but the gnat still squeaked on; athwart the energetic, insistently-plaintive buzzing of the flies resounded the booming of a fat bumble-bee, which kept bumping its head against the ceiling; a cock on the road began to crow, hoarsely prolonging the last note; a peasant cart rumbled past; the gate toward the village creaked. "Well?" suddenly quavered a woman's voice.—"Okh, thou my dear little sweetheart," said Anton to a little ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... moaning filled the air. First like the drone of a huge bumble-bee, it gradually increased in intensity. The ranchers strained their eyes toward the east, where the copper tint had merged to a sickly green. A light breeze sprang up, ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... own they were wrong, or to put Mrs. Wing down. Every one twittered and chirped, and made a great noise; but no one would give up, and all went to roost in a great state of uncertainty. But, the next day, it became evident that Mrs. Wing was right; for Major Bumble-bee came buzzing in to tell them that old Daddy Winter's hut was empty, and his white head had been seen in the sunny porch ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... our white folkses' back yard. Us had a white teacher and all he larnt slave chillun was jus' plain readin' and writin'. I had to pass Dr. Willingham's office lots and he was all de time pesterin' me 'bout spellin'. One day he stopped me and axed me if I could spell 'bumble bee widout its tail,' and he said dat when I larnt to spell it, he would gimme some candy. Mr. Sanders, at Lexin'ton, gimme a dime onct. It was de fust money I ever had. I was plumb rich and I never let my Daddy have no peace ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... like sparks of fire. Not only did he see and feel, he could even hear it now: his ears were filled with a humming sound, growing louder and louder every minute, like the noise made by a large colony of bumble-bees when a person carelessly treads on their nest, and they are angered and thrown into a great commotion and swarm out to defend their home. Very soon out of this confused murmur louder, clearer sounds began to rise; ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... of his guardians writes to me about him. He is a country gentleman, with a large estate, who married a cousin of my pupil. He is a big, pompous, bumble-bee kind of man, who prides himself on speaking his mind, and is quite unaware that it is only his position that saves him from the plainest retorts. He writes to say that he is much exercised about his ward's progress. The boy, he says, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "I certainly have most outspoken cousins! They don't seem to hesitate to tell me what to bring and what not to bring them. But I'm sure of one thing! Bumble Barlow won't be so fussy particular; she'll take whatever I ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... because he can work better in a soft shirt. There are plenty of men now who would wear dog-harness if they thought they could work more in it. I know another man who walks away out into the country every Sunday: not that he likes the country—he wouldn't recognize a bumble bee if he saw it—but he claims that if he walks on Sunday his head is as clear as a bell for ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... remembered that the Lizard is rendered doubly perilous by a sea-covered stack of rocks lying to the southward. Before oil was introduced for the lamps it is said the lantern was lit by coal-fires—a kind of first-hand use of gas. Below the lighthouse is the striking Bumble Rock, and close to this the hollow known as the Lion's Den, formed by a natural sudden subsidence in 1847. This formation was an immediate object-lesson as to the manner in which these remarkable hollows, caverns, and rock-freaks have been produced in the course ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... hens cackling and calling to their chickens. I thought I heard our dog bark; but all was so warm, and still, and sleepy, that I felt as if I should go to sleep too if I kept my eyes shut much longer. I heard the birds though, and a great bumble-bee that flew by ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... stuffy workshop the light was like a golden river, streaming down between the two rows of houses, and always in the same direction, down to the sea. Then a speck of white down came floating on the air, followed by whitish-gray thistle-seeds, and a whole swarm of gnats, and a big broad bumble-bee swung to and fro. All these eddied, gleaming, in the open doorway, and they went on circling as though there was something there which attracted them all—doubtless an accident, or perhaps ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is a mere code address, and I use it here symbolically. I have seen commerce pretty close. I know what it is worth, and I have no particular regard for commercial magnates, but one must protest against these Bumble-like proceedings. Is it indignation at the loss of so many lives which is at work here? Well, the American railroads kill very many people during one single year, I dare say. Then why don't these dignitaries come down on the presidents ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... was not alone in puns and conundrums that the social life of Brook Farm was rich. It was rich in cheerful buzz. The bumble-bees had no more melodious hum than the Brook Farmers. They had thrown aside the forms that bind outside humanity. They were sailing on a voyage of discovery, seeking a modern El Dorado, but they did not carry with them ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... conventions and principles. Ajax said with reason that Johnnie Kapus, the nephew of our neighbour, old man Kapus, played the game of life in such a sorry, blundering fashion that he marvelled why his uncle gave him house-room. Ajax christened Johnnie—Bumble-puppy. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... always fill me with despair!' cried Bess. 'I am never ready when ours begins to buzz through the house, like a gigantic, melancholy-mad bumble bee. Of course I must change, dear; firstly, because I am smothered with dust, and sixthly, as Dogberry says, because I have brought a pretty gown to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... he began bluffly, "it's a cursed shame! I'm hanged if it isn't! If we weren't so solemn, my boy, I should quote Bumble about the law. Of course it's the grossest absurdity, and as far as I'm concerned——. By Jove, Piers!" he cried, with sudden change of subject, "if you knew the hard times Biddy and I have been going through! Eh, but she's a brick, is Biddy; she sent you her love, old ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... supply electric power or interfere with transit, is accountable for much disheartening bungling. Instead of taking a clear line from the outset, and denouncing these glorified vestries as useless, impossible and entirely unscientific organs, too many Socialists tried to claim Bumble as their friend and use him as their tool. And Bumble turned out to be a very bad friend and a ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... by her indignation the absurd Fyne dog began to bark in the porch. It might have been at a trespassing bumble-bee however. That animal was capable of any eccentricity. Fyne got up quickly and went out to him. I think he was glad to leave us alone to discuss that matter of his journey to London. A sort of anti-sentimental journey. He, too, apparently, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Bellairs not to make a fool of himself about the disputed right of way across his property where it joined Wentworth's own land. Colonel Bellairs always bungled into business matters of the simplest nature as a bumble bee bungles into a spider's web. For Colonel Bellairs to touch business of any kind was immediately to become hopelessly and inextricably involved in it, with much furious buzzing. His mere presence entangled ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... very nicely so far without one. Did I have one on the Miele? And yet I was the only woman on board. There are only three things I am afraid of—bumble-bees, scarlet fever, and chaperones. Ugh! the clucking, evil-minded monsters, finding wrong in everything, seeing sin in the most innocent actions, and suggesting sin—yes, causing ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... think Borrow's experience was very convincing. I have known people who "have gone where money was" and have fallen honestly and rapturously into love, but you have got to be very sure that money in such a case is not the motive. If it is the penalty never fails to follow. Mr. Bumble married Mrs. Corney for "six teaspoons, a pair of sugar tongs, and a milk-pot, with a small quantity of secondhand furniture and twenty pounds in money." And in two months he regretted his bargain and admitted that he ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... steadily until it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that those who do not play bridge, which means "auction," are seldom asked out. And the epidemic is just as widespread among girls and boys as among older people. Bridge is always taken seriously; a bumble puppy game won't do at all, even among the youngest players, and other qualifications of character and of etiquette must be observed by every one who would be sought after ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Dalmossie dell I sought a nook Beneath a thick and widely-spreading tree, And there I sat to con my little book, My book of old black-letter grammarie. All stillness in that deep and lonely dell Save hum of bumble-bee on nimble wing, Or zephyr sporting round the wild blue bell, While ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... lines of yellow shocks; and in the corners of the meadow fence stand clumps of flower-stalks,—joe-pye-weed, boneset, goldenrod,—bare and already bleaching; and deep within their matted shade, where the brook bends about an elder bush, a single amber pendant of the jewel-weed, to which a bumble-bee comes droning on wings so loud that a little hyla near us stops his pipe ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... as I can see! If you'd been stung by a bumble bee, An' your nose wuz swelled an' it smarted, too, You wouldn't want people to laugh at you. If you had a lump that wuz full of fire, Like you'd been touched by a red hot wire, An' your nose spread out like a load of hay, You wouldn't want strangers who come your way To ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... who betrayed me into this folly was a bumble of the utmost beauty. The bars of his coat "burned" as "brightly" as those of the tiger in Wombwell's menagerie, and his fur was softer than my mother's black velvet mantle. I knew, for I had kissed ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... said Gilbert. "I won't call you 'sloppy' again because I'm tired of telling you that, but really that's what you are. You've only got to see a beautiful woman for a couple of seconds and you start buzzing round her like a bumble bee. Of course, I'm sloppy myself. We're all sloppy. Damn it, here we are, two healthy young fellows who ought to be working hard, and we're wasting a fine morning ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... never does come down no-more! An' it's all done as easy as a set-lock rifle! The wizard climbs the danglin' string of kyarpet-rags, hand over hand; then he drifts off an' up'ards ontil he don't look bigger than a bumble-bee; an' then he's lost in the gatherin' shadows ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... freely and his game was the apotheosis of bumble-puppy. Archibald, his partner, was much irritated ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... go into winter-quarters by or before this time; the bumble-bee, hornet, and wasp. But here only royalty escapes; the queen-mother alone foresees the night of winter coming and the morning of spring beyond. The rest of the tribe try gypsying for a while, but perish in ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... again upon the distant shores of Portugal. From here the signals are sent that give notice of arriving ships. Beneath the cliffs rises out of the sea that strange black crag, looking like a projecting pulpit, which is known as the Bumble Rock. In the green sward above the cliffs a yawning gulf opens its rocky mouth, and is called the Lion's Den. It terminates in a rocky tunnel which communicates with the sea through a natural archway. This was a cavern, the rocky roof of which ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, I am not as one of these"? If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with another gentleman ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... of sounds, and of introducing them into the ear without causing the observer the least discomfort. You would never have imagined, dear master, the charm which one feels in perceiving these thousands of imperceptible sounds which are confounded, on a fine summer day, in an immense murmuring. The bumble-bee has his song as well as the nightingale, the honey-bee is the warbler of the mosses, the cricket is the lark of the tall grass, the maggot is the wren—it has only a sigh, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... low ceiling; and hung against the wall, between two glaring woodcuts representing "Lady Caroline" in red and "Highland Mary" in blue, is a deep frame filled with worsted flowers, to which a butterfly and a bumble-bee have been pinned. Paper lacework depends from their kitchen-shelves, and common eggshells, artificially colored, decorate the lilac-bushes in the side yard. They are always making new mats or piecing quilts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... brain power," she said; "you must utilize them, or be content to remain forever the inferior race. Get land, every one that can, and as fast as you ean. A landless people must be dependent upon the landed people. A few acres to till for food and a roof, however bumble, over your head, are the castle of your independence, and when you have it you are fortified to act and vote independently whenever your interests are at stake." That part of her lecture (and there was much of it) that dwelt on the moral duties and domestic relations ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and the recipe were given her by an Indian woman. To make the Sudden Remedy, grandma got roots, herbs, barks, twigs, leaves, mints, moss, and tree gum. These were scraped, grated, or pounded; sifted, weighed, measured, stewed, and stirred; and the juice simmered down with the oil of juniper, and bumble-bees' wax, and various smarty, peppery, slippery things whose names must be kept private for a particular reason. The Sudden Remedy cured her instantly; and as meal was wanted, and no other person could be spared from the place, she offered to go ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... many a homely name has a complimentary meaning. Mr. Wegg did not like the name Boffin, but its oldest form is bon-fin, good and fine. In 1273 Mr. Bumble's name was spelt bon-bel, good and beautiful. With these we may group Bunker, of which the oldest form is bon-quer (bon coeur), and Boffey, which corresponds to the common French name Bonnefoy, good faith; while the much more assertive Beaufoy ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the sewing-machine began to hum through the old house like a cheerful bumble-bee, and Mag entered upon what was certainly the happiest period of her career. Laces, silks, fine muslins—these had the effect upon her developing soul that a virgin canvas has upon the painter. Her fingers wrought with them eagerly, deftly, achieving results which astonished Jemima, herself ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Such are Bill Sikes, whose ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the Jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they should not go; and Master Dawkins, the Artful Dodger. Such, too, is Mr. Bumble, greatest and most ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... leave it while there was enough to catch even a bumble-bee. The birds are back. They came directly I'd gone ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... there were lots of men-folks in the house, and she kept calling to Tom, Bill, Jerry, Nehemiah. O, she had a string of 'em, all on her tongue's end! I don't know but she pointed a gun out of the winder, man-fashion. What did that crittur do but gather up his traps and walk off as harmless as a bumble-bee when his sting is gone. I've heard with my own eyes my grandmother tell that story ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... wondering did not help him, and he gave up the riddle, and began, in his pleasant holiday idleness, to look about at other things in the unfrequented wilderness through which the river ran. To trace the raven by following it home seemed too difficult, but it was easy to follow a great bumble-bee, which went blundering by, alighting upon a block of stone, took flight again, and landed upon a slope covered with moss, entering at last a hole which went sloping down ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... looks as big as all out-of-doors, and e'en BUMBLE was hardly as bumptious. He'd make my London a Paradise, which is a prospect that's perfectly scrumptious. But oh! he is big, with the funniest rig; a Titan who, if he should tumble, Might squelch me as flat as an opera-hat, and make me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... them, the animals would not budge an inch until she permitted them to go. Here are a few of the common superstitions current in Berkshire. If a corpse be kept over a Sunday another death will occur before the week is out; should a big bumble-bee enter the window, a guest may be expected; and when the woodpecker, commonly called the yaffle, laughs, they say the rain is coming. When the thick mist lies in the valley, the people say it is the White Lady, a ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... motionless that the drops which still hung here and there on their needles seemed frozen. Everything was motionless under this yellow light, the grass-blades, the moss-blossoms, and the little blue butterflies, and a bumble-bee crawled into the bell of a bennet and hung there as if enchanted. In the thicket a fox drew near, his head lowered to sniff the ground, and suddenly he too stood still without stirring a muscle and stared into space, his eyes transparent as green glass, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... a bumble-bee was beating itself against the window-pane and buzzing. Sofya Petrovna looked at the threads on the socks, listened to the bee, and pictured how she would set off . . . . vis-a-vis Ilyin would sit, day and night, never taking his eyes off her, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... literature a power in the land. Thus, the man or the law that stands defiantly against public opinion is beaten the moment you make that man or that law look like a joke; and Dickens made a huge joke of the parish beadle (as Mr. Bumble) and of many another meddlesome British institution. Moreover, he was master of this paradox: that to cure misery you must meet it with a merry heart,—this is on the principle that what the poor need is not charity but comradeship. By showing ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... told what a person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle. But the nickname restores his lost rights, and takes the man at once out of the ignoble vulgus to give him identity. We recognize this gift and are proud of our nicknames, when we can get them to suit us. Only the sharp judgment of our peers reverses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Crumpetty Tree Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl; The Snail and the Bumble-Bee, The Frog and the Fimble Fowl (The Fimble Fowl, with a Corkscrew leg); And all of them said, "We humbly beg We may build our homes on your lovely Hat,— Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... when he catches any small creature he sticks it on the thorns and leaves it there spiked until it is wanted. Look at this one's larder. He has a wretched little dead sparrow hanging by its neck from a big thorn, and two or three bumble-bees spiked too. We can imagine the mamma saying to the little ones: 'No, dears, you mustn't have any sparrow to-night just before you go to bed; it would give you indigestion and make you dream. Papa will have some of that for his supper, but if you'll be good children I'll give ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... voice of the Bumble-Bee was heard in every nook and corner of the wood, and from end to end of the deep valley, for Unktomee, the generous, was giving a feast, and the Bee was his herald, the ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... it to me, but Baxter claimed the whole discovery as his own, saying he was out on his own hook when the mine was located, which was a falsehood. But though Baxter claimed the mine he could not locate it, nor could I do so. It was along a creek which a certain Jack Wumble had called Bumble Bee, but we could not locate this creek, and Jack Wumble had departed for fresh fields. But I have located the old miner, and he has told me that Bumble Bee Creek was in reality one of the south branches of the Gunnison River, ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... us in up the wind with a steady hand till the roadstead opened before us. But it was empty. Torode was off after plunder, and we turned and ran for Peter Port. We found John Ozanne as busy as a big bumble-bee, but he made time to greet my grandfather very jovially, and showed him all over his little ship with much pride. He was in high spirits and anxious to be off, especially since he had ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... prefer bumble-bees to humble-bees, and even to honey-bees, notwithstanding the dictionaries, and never lie down in the long rich grass, with a great-coat under me; and am not afraid of catching cold though I may sit upon damp roses, or tread upon the sweet-scented earth, or ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... nations of Xerxes' army were but a handful to these. In their millions they have perished; but somewhere, coiled up, as it were, and sealed under the snow, there must have been the mothers and germs of the equally vast crowds that will fill the atmosphere this year. The great bumble-bee that shall be mother of hundreds, the yellow wasp that shall be mother of thousands, were hidden there somewhere. The food of the migrant birds that are coming from over sea was there dormant under the snow. Many nations have a tradition ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the dandelions dipped In crimson foam of clover-bloom, And dripped and dripped and dripped; And they clinched the bumble-stings, Gauming honey on their wings, And bundling them in lily-bells, With ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... As you see, he started with a fly, as they say, and now it's grown to a bumble-bee. It was a fly then, and now—it's a bumble-bee.... And he still loves her. Look at him, he loves her! I expect he's walking now to the town to get a glimpse of her with one eye.... He'll get a glimpse ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... "so delicate," unless caught in the pantry hastily devouring onions and beefsteak. To be hungry is so vulgar! One should live by nothing grosser than inhalation, and should never have an appetite greater than that of a healthy bumble-bee. But, thanks to the robust, latter-day theory, that the best saints have the best bodies, this puerile class is diminishing. For who can doubt that the senses are entitled to their full blossom? Gustation was meant to be delightful; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... have been a lethal weapon (and if it was a weapon, what in Heaven's name could it be? I wondered); it might conceivably have been a large bird some distance off, just as by a reverse illusion men are said to have fired at bumble bees when grouse driving. Also, it was within the bounds of possibility that the tinkling stones might not have been thrown down by some one above in order to draw me under that face. Everything had been so vague that all these alternatives were conceivable. But my ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... have thought," says Preyer, "that the abundance and beauty of the pansy and of the clover were dependent upon the number of cats and owls But so it is. The clover and the pansy cannot exist without the bumble-bee, which, in search of his vegetable nectar, transports unconciously the pollen from the masculine to the feminine flower, a service which other insects perform only partially for these plants. Their existence therefore depends upon that of the bumble-bee. The mice ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... watched awhile. A timid animal world had come to life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up through the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes; overhead, bumble-bees flew hither and thither in the thickening light, their drone coming and going like the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... before that, Seemed like I saw the march o' regiments o' children, Marching to the robin's fife and cricket's rat-ta-tat! Lily-banners overhead, with the dew upon 'em, On flashed the little army, as with sword and flame; Like the buzz o' bumble-wings, with the honey on 'em, Came an eerie, cheery chant, ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... fly ever buzzed himself so fatally into the spider-webs of other people's love affairs? I asked myself sternly. As soon as Providence plucked me out of one web, back I would bumble into another, though I had no time for a love affair ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... America. Her elder son is married too, but she does not agree with his wife. The Wesleyan minister came along and took the younger boy. She is alone in the house. A steamer, probably bound for Cardiff, now crosses the horizon, while near at hand one bell of a foxglove swings to and fro with a bumble-bee for clapper. These white Cornish cottages are built on the edge of the cliff; the garden grows gorse more readily than cabbages; and for hedge, some primeval man has piled granite boulders. In one of these, to hold, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... as gold Sat perched on a red-clover top, When a grasshopper, wiry and old, Came along with a skip and a hop. "Good morrow" cried he, "Mr. Bumble Bee, You seem to have come ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... most fascinating of stories, as good as a fairy tale. In connection with this comes very naturally the story of the bees and the pollen. The child will be delighted to learn that the bees collect pollen as well as honey; that the honey bees and bumble-bees have baskets on their legs on purpose to carry it home; that they knead it up with honey and make it into what is known ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... have Comic Histories, Comic Geographies, and Comic Grammars, but a Comic Bible would horrify us. At sight of such blasphemy Bumble would stand aghast, and Mrs. Grundy would scream with terror. But Bumble and Mrs. Grundy are less important personages in France, and so the country of Rabelais and Voltaire produces what we are unable to tolerate ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... "the only Inn of any suitability" in the place. Thereby be made an unexpected acquaintance. Before a week had elapsed, he became much interested in the fact that under the same roof, but in more bumble quarters than his own, was lying and dying another stranger in the place. This was a man of some forty years, known only as "Mr. George." His home is not a clear matter, nor that he had any relatives except a little girl of six or seven years old, his child. It is likely that in alluding ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... that most of them were orchids, several of which were new to him. The air of the place was heavy with mingled odours—one might almost have called them perfumes, were it not for a certain smack of rankness and pungency in them—and alive with birds, varying in size from that of a bumble bee up to that of a carrion crow, a few specimens of which could be seen perched here and there on the topmost branches of the tallest trees. Several of the birds were of the humming bird or sunbird species, and these, of course, gleamed and flashed in the sunlight like winged jewels, while nearly ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... which developed a hornets' nest of sharpshooters armed with telescopic rifles, who could pick a man's ear off half-a-mile away. The bullets from their guns had a peculiar sound, something like the buzz of a bumble-bee, and the troopers' horses would stop, prick up their ears and gaze in the direction whence the hum of those invisible messengers could be heard. Unable to reach them mounted, we finally deployed dismounted along a staked rail fence. The confederates were ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... fell into the hands of the mistress of the poorhouse, who was named Mrs. Bumble. It contained the dead mother's wedding-ring, and, as Mrs. Bumble was a dishonest woman, she hid both locket and ring, intending sometime to ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... procure, through botanists, a hybrid or cross between the red and white clover, in order to get something with the rich honey-producing properties of the red, and yet with a short blossom into which the honey-bee might insert its proboscis. The red clover produces a vast amount of food for the bumble-bee, but is of no use at all to the honey-bee. I had hoped to procure a variety which might answer all the purposes of our farmers as a field crop. Quite recently I have ascertained that such a hybrid has been originated in Sweden, and has been imported into ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... birds were there With yellow feathers instead of hair, And bumble bees crocheted in the trees— And bumble bees crocheted in the trees— And all the birds ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... they are caught, for very few are caught. A friend of mine who had lived on the river near Clifton Hampden for some eight years, could only remember eight trout being caught in that time. I thought I was going to have one once. I was fishing for chub with a bumble bee, and a great spotted trout rose to it in a way which made me hope I was going to have a trophy to boast of for life. But he "rose short," and I saw him no more. I believe all the brooks which ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... A bumble-bee lit on a hollyhock flower That was wet with the rain of a morning shower. While the honey he sipped His left foot slipped, And he could n't fly again for half ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... who has been stung by a bumble-bee; she places herself once more, and of her own accord, upon the griddle of suspicion, and begins her struggle with the unknown all ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... orphans, and with difficulty resisted a strong desire to catch and kiss the pretty baby, she scandalized her neighbours by laughing outright the next minute. A particularly portly, pious-looking priest, who was marching with superb dignity, and chanting like a devout bumble-bee, suddenly mislaid his temper, and injured the effect by boxing a charity boy's ears with his gilded missal, and then capped the climax by taking a pinch of snuff with a sonorous satisfaction that convulsed ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... "It was a Bumble Bee," he comforted her. "It came between us for a bit, its shadow fell upon you, nothing more! Such things will happen; we must be prepared for them. It was nothing in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... capital astringent, these containing much tannin; also for its fruit, which is supplied with malic and citric acids, pectin, and albumen. Blackberries go often by the name of "bumblekites," from "bumble," the cry of the bittern, and kyte, a Scotch word for belly; the name bumblekite being applied, says Dr. Prior, "from the rumbling and bumbling caused in the bellies of children who eat the fruit too greedily." "Rubus" is ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... another: "Never lose your head." My most favourite form of literature, I may remark, is accounts of mountaineering exploits, though I have never seen a glacier or a permanent snow mountain in my life. I do not care a row of pins how badly they may be written, and what form of bumble-puppy grammar and composition is employed, as long as the writer will walk along the edge of a precipice with a sheer fall of thousands of feet on one side and a sheer wall on the other; or better still crawl up ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... slope looked like a cultivated garden. The only birds seen that afternoon above timber-line were those already mentioned. What do the birds find to eat in these treeless and shrubless altitudes? There are many flies, some grasshoppers, bumble-bees, beetles, and other insects, even in these arctic regions, dwelling among the rocks and in the short grass below them watered ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... evening. And the man had taken a fancy to the song and remembered it after in London, and whenever it came to his mind it made him think of evenings—the kind you don't get in London—and he heard a soft wind going idly over the moor and the bumble-bees in a hurry, and forgot the noise of the traffic. And always, whenever he heard men speak of Time, he grudged to Time most this song. Once afterwards he went to that Northern moor again and found the tiny valley, ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... added, after another pause, and jumping up smartly, "this will never do. Rouse yourself, John, an' give up this mumble-bumble style o' thing. Why, it'll kill you in the long-run if you don't. Besides, you promised Mr Young to carry on the work, and you must ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... himself a boy again. He was too much exhausted to take the trouble of cutting any fern or seeking for moss, but just threw himself down under a tree, when exactly above his head he heard a great buzzing as a bumble-bee alighted on a honeysuckle branch. 'What are you doing here?' asked the bee in a cross voice; 'at your age you ought to be ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of special risk, when incendiary fires were too common, the principal inhabitants took their turn in keeping watch. To find the Parish Beadle in the full-blown dignity of his office we must therefore go to the towns, to Royston for instance, where we shall find Mr. Bumble in all the stately pomp of cocked hat, great coat with a red cape, and gold lace, breeches and hose, and a staff with the royal authority of Georgius {53} Rex emblazoned thereon! A full figure, and an interesting character, worthy in every way of the old Georgian ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... sunny, bright, spring day, When to the wood he took his way; He knew that in a certain spot A Bumble Bee his nest had got. The Bee was out, the chance was good, But just when grabbing all he could, He heard the Bee behind him humming, And only ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... generally were, it seemed on this drowsy and oppressive afternoon that they would never be able to move again. Mr. Bob, Hinpoha's black cocker, shared in the prevailing laziness; he lay sprawled on his back with all four feet up in the air, breathing in panting gasps that shook his whole body. A bumble bee, blundering up on the porch, broke the spell. It lit on Mr. Bob's face, whereupon Mr. Bob sprang into the air, quivering with excitement, and knocked Hinpoha's glass out of her hand. Hinpoha picked up the pieces with one hand and patted Mr. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... flocked into the building in a very short time, thronged about the bier, the black table, and Panna, who was leaning against it, carrying on a low, eager hum of conversation till it seemed as though countless swarms of bumble-bees were ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... goldfinches were darting around inviting all creation to "See me?" as they gathered the silken down for nest lining. Over the sweetly perfumed purple heads, the humming-birds held high carnival on Sunshine Hillside all the day. The honey and bumble bees fled at the birds' approach, but what were these others, numerous everywhere, that clung to the blooms, greedily thrusting their red noses between the petals, and giving ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... venture to think that his "all" merely includes his own circle. At the same time, however, we admit that militant Atheism is still, as of old, an offence to the superfine sceptics who desire to stand well with the great firm of Bumble and Grundy, as well as to the vast army of priests and preachers who have a professional interest in keeping heresy "dark," and to the ruling and privileged classes, who feel that militant Atheism is a great ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... could sing nothing But fiddle cum fee, The mouse has married The bumble-bee; Pipe, cat; dance, mouse: We'll have a wedding ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... one afflicted with a combination of myopy and bulimy. Even now there is room for plenty of improvement in our counterfeit presentment; but in those days the body was made with yellow mohair, ribbed with red silk and gold twist, and as thick as a fertile bumble-bee. John Pike perceived that to offer such a thing to Crocker's trout would probably consign him—even if his great stamina should over-get the horror—to an uneatable death, through just and natural indignation. ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases Along the road-side in the shadows dim, Went following the blossoms of their faces As though their sweets must needs be shared ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... rectory gate and turned in with his brains in the air, dashing here and there like a dragon-fly, skimming after the fashion of a swallow, flying steadily, bumble-bee-fashion, and flopping faintly as the butterfly did whose wings were so much out of proportion to the size of its body. Either way would do, he thought, or better still, if he could fly by a wide-spread membrane stretched upon steel or whalebone ribs ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... and with field mice and the frogs, toads, lizards, and snakes. Also with the wild bees and wasps. One season I made a collection of bumblebee honey, studying the habits of five or six different kinds and rifling their nests. I kept my store of bumble-bee honey in the attic where I had a small box full of the comb and a large phial filled with the honey. How well I came to know the different dispositions of the various kinds—the small red-vested ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... forgotten all about the business—but he had done nothing to deserve the Copley, and all I can say is that if the present award is contrary to law, the "law's a hass" as Mr. Bumble said. But I don't believe that ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... notion, Finding it easy for a Frog to jog On with a kind King Log. But in the fulness of the time, there came A would-be monarch—Legion his fit name; A Plebs-appointed Autocrat, Stork-throated, Goggle-eyed, Paul-Pry-coated; A poking, peering, pompous, petty creature, A Bumble-King, with beak for its chief feature. This new King Stork, With a fierce, fussy appetite for work; Not satisfied with fixing like a vice Authority on Town and Country Mice, Tried to extend his sway to pools and bogs, And rule the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... That's a capital notion! Drat them and their "statutes" and "digests"! "Convenience of reference." Ah! that is one of their imperent sly jests. Removal of Noosances? Yah! If we started on that lay perniskers There is more than a few in the Westries 'ud feel suthin' singein' their wiskers, Or BUMBLE'S a Dutchman. Their Circ'lar—it's mighty obliging—defines 'em, The Noosances namely; I wonder if parties read Circ'lars as signs 'em, If so, Local Government Boarders must be most oncommonly knowin', And I'd like to 'eave bricks at that DILKE and his long-winded ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Mrs. Gummidge, Dickens draws types rather than characters. Pecksniff, Podsnap, Dolly Varden, Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Gamp, Mark Tapley, Turveydrop, Mrs. Jellyby—these are not characters; they ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... it, "Steam-pudding or pumpkin-pie?" echoed the maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in her most cutting tones; "Both!" I ejaculated, with equal distinctness, but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of Twist. The female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the shock, and I noticed that after communicating her experience to her fellow waiting-woman, I was not thought of much account for the remainder ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... difference. The Australian representative of the great blackguard tribe is better dressed, better fed and more liberally provided in all respects than his confrere of other nations. He is the street bully, par excellence, inspired to this tyranny by unfailing beef and beer. When Mr Bumble heard of Oliver Twist's resistance to the combined authority of Mrs Sowerberry and Charlotte and Noah Claypole, he repudiated the idea of madness which was offered as an explanation of the boy's conduct. "It isn't madness, ma'am," said Mr ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... when it is seized and handled. Many other Hymenoptera, honey-gatherers or hunters, are quite as spiritless; and I can assert to-day, after a long experience, that only the Social Hymenoptera, the Hive-bees, the Common Wasps and the Bumble-bees, know how to devise a common defence; and only they dare fall singly upon the aggressor, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... as if he had all the time in the world, as indeed he had. He was feeling very good-natured, was Jimmy Skunk. And why shouldn't he? There was everything to make him feel good-natured. Summer had arrived to stay. On every side he heard glad voices. Bumble the Bee was humming a song. Best of all, Jimmy had found three beetles that very morning, and he knew that there were more if he could find them. So ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... prices, A clever Cook, and oh! such whopping slices! What wonder then that customers are clamorous, That appetites, of good cheap victuals amorous, Sharpen at sight of that big toothsome joint? The carver does not wish to disappoint; He is no Union Bumble, stingy, truculent, He knows his dish is savoury and succulent, That "Cut and Come again's" a pleasant motto, But deal out "portions" all this hungry lot to? Amphitryon feels the thing cannot be done, Though he should slice the saddle to the bone With all the deftness of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... This engagement we called the capture of fort "Hell." For some time thereafter we made regular raids into the surrounding country in quest of an enemy. We were eventually successful in our quest, as in quick order we ran across and captured a company of bumble bees. This we called the "Battle of the Wilderness." Victory over a nest of hornets we called the capture of "Fort Sumter." A large nest of wasps gave us perhaps the hardest fight of our campaigning. This we ran across in the fields not ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... bumble-bee from a butternut," said Will. "City children don't know anything, and she'll be awfully in the way. Won't she tag after you ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... certain strain on my eyes, which are already growing tired, I succeeded in finding the said organ in the Bembex-wasps, the Halicti (Cf. Chapters 12 to 14 of the present volume.—Translator's Note.), the Carpenter-bees, the Bumble-bees, the Andrenae (A species of Burrowing Bees.—Translator's Note.) and the Megachiles. (Or Leaf-cutting Bees. Cf. Chapter 8 of the present volume.—Translator's Note.) I failed in the case of the Osmiae, the Chalicodomae ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... seven years old. Yesterday (April 14) I saw a butterfly in our yard. It was a blue-black with light spots. I tried to catch it, but couldn't. The same day I saw a bumble-bee. I have a shepherd dog named Punch, and when I go anywhere, he always squeals to go too. He is my best playmate, as I have no brothers or sisters. I think the Post-office Box in YOUNG PEOPLE ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... family in its spangled cloud. Victoria blossomed in diamonds, William Adolphus sprouted in plumes; my mother embodied the stately, Cousin Elizabeth a gorgeous heartiness; the Duke's eyes wore a bored look, but the remainder of his person was fittingly resplendent. Bederhof was Bumble in Olympus; beyond these came a sea of smiles, bows, silks, and uniforms. Really I believe that the whole thing was done as handsomely as possible, and the proceedings are duly recorded in a book of red leather, clasped in gold and embellished with many pictures, which the Municipality ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... more limited in its scenes and characters than any other novel he wrote, excepting "Hard Times" and "Great Expectations." But the description of the workhouse, its inmates and governors, is done in Dickens's best style, and was a frontal attack on the Poor Law administration of the time. Bumble, indeed, has passed into common use as the typical workhouse official of the least satisfactory sort. No less powerful than the picture of Oliver's wretched childhood is the description of the thieves' kitchen, presided over by Fagin. Bill Sikes and the Artful ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... small but angry bumble bee, Bobby flew at Tim. They clinched and plunged head-long into the snow, where they pounded and wrestled and grunted and gasped as all boys do when they are fighting a thing out. Tim was not a fair fighter, nor a very brave one, and ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... much the same case, I looked another way while the two girls joined us, Theodora having for the moment directed my attention to a tremendously large queen bumble-bee which came booming along the ground and began burrowing in a little ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... his order," and yet better than this stately panegyric is the happy accident, if it be one, that the poor flower girls of London have pitched their camp upon the steps, and have successfully defied all the efforts of Mr. Bumble ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... few lines in the press of business to tell you I am well, but very lonely, with a view out over the green, in this dull, rainy weather, while the bumble-bees hum and the sparrows twitter. Grand audience tomorrow. It's vexatious that I have to buy linen, towels, table-cloths, and sheets. * * * Farewell. Hearty love, and write! Your ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... safe under leaf and flower, Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; The bumble-bee, within the last half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed.—But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of the birds,—like August there,— Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... all night, and gnawing hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, I am not as one of these?" If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with another gentleman of my own ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... are long feet, short feet, broad feet, splay feet, club feet, and bumble feet, to which may be added cloven feet in the case of certain animals, and ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... Mice had eight Mouse babies in their nest. The babies were no larger than Bumble Bees at first and very pink. This was not because their fur was pink, but only because it was so very short that through it and their thin skin one saw the glow of the ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... 'tain't. But what is it then? You see, I'm as stupid as a bumble bee; I don't understand nothin' without it's druv into me—unless it's my garden. Ef you ask me about cabbages, or early corn, I kin tell you. But I don't know no more'n the dead what you are ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... butterflies and enameled wings for the girls and stick pins with bumble bees in black and gold for the boys. On the back of each pin was the date and ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... His Little Cousin and the "Gnats." The Aurora Borealis. A Bumble-bee Scrape. Another Bee Scrape. Justification by Faith Alone. Readiness to Fight. Love ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... these little creatures was revealed. There were times when Noozak captured a whole family before they could escape. And to these were added frogs and toads, still partly somnambulent; many ants, curled up as if dead, in the heart of rotting logs; and occasional bumble-bees, wasps, and hornets. Now and then Neewa took a nibble at these things. On the third day Noozak uncovered a solid mass of hibernating vinegar ants as large as a man's two fists, and frozen solid. Neewa ate a quantity of these, ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... beat you? Did he beat you?' Phyllopneustes wise folk call them, But don't know what did befall them, Why they ever thought of coming All that way to hear gnats humming, Why they built not nests but houses, Like the bumble-bees and mousies. Nor how little birds got wings, Nor what 'tis the small cock sings— How should they know—stupid fogies? They daren't even believe in bogies. Once they were a girl and boy, Each the other's life and joy. He a ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... the path a tiny Book, not much bigger than a postage-stamp. It had two slender legs, like those of a bumble-bee, and upon these it ran so fast that all the leaves fluttered wildly, the covers being ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... settled beside him he uttered a peculiar, shrill whistle. The humming sound grew louder, then, and presently hundreds of great bees rose above the flower tops and hovered in the air. But none of them approached the bush except one monstrous bumble-bee that had a body striped with black and gold, and this one sailed slowly toward the visitors and alighted gracefully upon a branch in ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... so happened that Elda, who had followed Maya at a distance, could no longer restrain her jealousy when she perceived him walking and talking so earnestly, and, as she considered, really making love to these fair mortals. She took the shape of a big bumble bee, and flying to him settled on his back, stinging him so severely that he uttered an exclamation of pain; and the young ladies were tenderly enquiring where he was hurt, when he felt convinced that it was Elda who had thus punished him. Fairies have consciences as well as mortals. Maya ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... wear it when I sit Among the broadcloth'd heirs of BUMBLE! But Foreign Minister too humble Were butt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... constantly on the mind, as the great features of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (bromus, the bumble bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... brow, bedecks him with a bunch of white ribbons, and jogs jovially to church arm in arm with the pretty cause of all this beneficent disturbance. And the spectacle is mighty taking and commendable; but you'll excuse me for holding that it is not Love. It bears about the same relation to Love that Bumble-puppy bears to good whist. Among the eccentricities that make up the Average Man I find none more diverting than his complacent belief that he is, or has been, or will certainly some day be, in love. As a matter of fact, the capacity to love belongs to ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... walnut trees far away on the lawn; thrushes sang their deep-throated bugle-calls; finches twittered. A light breeze creeping up the avenue rustled the full foliage languorously. Ursula Winwood closed her eyes. A bumble-bee droned between visits to foxglove bells near by. She loved bumble-bees. They reminded her of a summer long ago when she sat, not on this seat—as a matter of fact it was in the old walled garden a quarter of a mile away—with ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... leaning against the door-posts, and waiting to see if anything would happen! As a rule, nothing did happen, but there was no knowing what joyful day might bring a new sensation. Sometimes there was a dog-fight. Once—thrilling recollection!—Ozias Brisket's horse had run away ("Think 't 's likely a bumble-bee must ha' stung him; couldn't nothin' else ha' stirred him out of a walk, haw! haw!") and had scattered the joints of meat all ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... number of his pieces in my book, and I'm fond of 'em. But this man makes things so kind of true and natural I feel at home with HIM. And this one I've longed to read, though I guess I can't understand much of it. His 'Bumble Bee' was just lovely; with the grass and columbines and the yellow breeches of the bee. I'm never tired of that;" and Becky's face woke up into something like beauty as she glanced hungrily at the Emerson while she dusted ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Reddy couldn't think of a thing to say in reply, and so he hurried on, trying to find a place where he would be left in peace. But nowhere that he could go was he free from those taunting voices. Not even when he had crawled into his house was he free from them, for buzzing around his doorway was Bumble Bee and Bumble ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... no lover lent His aid; and yet with glee At dusk she sought her home, content, That beauteous Bumble Bee. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... bumble-bee, In coat of black and yellow, Got caught inside a window-pane; The silly ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... Indeed what can? What is there like it? Has a church-bell any tone approximating it even? Has a violin? Has a hautboy? Has a French horn? Has a jew's-harp? Ay, that's the thing! A Jew's-harp has something like it; and so—so has a bumble-bee. A thought strikes me! It is possible that Zounds and Sounds are—Yes,' said I, rising and shouting with the excitement, 'Zounds and Sounds are bumble-bees!—bumble-bees curiously prepared; gathered ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... this gentleman," said the Queen. "Feed him with apricots and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. Steal honey-bags for him from the bumble-bees, and with the wings of painted butterflies fan the moonbeams from his ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... instructed her attendant fairies to be kind and courteous to the gentleman, and to feed him with apricots, dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. Then they were to steal the honey-bags from bumble bees for his service, and to crop their waxen thighs, and light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, to show her love to bed; and further, to pluck the wings from butterflies, to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. By Puck's mistake, the love juice was laid in absence of the fair Athenian ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... led nowhere. Why not something specific? Wasn't the time ripe for action—thousands of men, walking the streets, locked out because they dared to demand a decent and even break? And this in the face of all the altruistic rumble-bumble which war had evoked? He played this theme over and over again, and finally one night with an almost casual air ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... yellow as gold, Sat perched on a red-clover top, When a grasshopper, wiry and old, Came along with a skip and a hop. "Good-morrow!" cried he, "Mr. Bumble-Bee! You seem to have come ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... not what I started to say. I wanted to tell you how the least thing distracts me nowadays from my duty to the Sadhana. In my last letter[1] I told you of the bumble-bees which hover round me in some fruitless quest, to the tune of a meaningless humming, ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... trait upon trait, must be laid in the lives of the children," said Mr. Goodloe, slowly, and he smiled as across from the Little House came wee Susan's exquisite treble in a waltz song which was backed up by Mother Spurlock's bumble and Charlotte's none too accurate accompaniment. And ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... his thick lips together like the stem-end of a tomato and shot a bumble-bee dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. One after another the several chewers expressed a charge of tobacco juice and delivered it at the deceased with ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... off, reclined upon his back with his face lifted to the sky. Where his head rested, the wild thyme grew, and one great, black bumble-bee boomed at a deaf ear as it clumsily struggled in the purple blossoms. He lay almost naturally, but some distortion of his neck and a film upon his open eyes proclaimed that the man neither ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the squirrels brought a present of wild honey; it was so sweet and sticky that they licked their fingers as they put it down upon the stone. They had stolen it out of a bumble BEES' nest on the tippity ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... and abdomen are yellow incircled with transverse rings of black, they are ferce and sting very severely, we found them troublesome in frightening our horses as we passed those mountains. the honey bee is not found here. the bumble bee is. one of the men brought me today some onions from the high plain of a different speceis from those near the borders of the river as they are also from the shive or small onion noticed below ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... holler? Does the little, chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Jest show me that! Ur prove't the bat Hez got more brains than's in my hat, An' I'll back down, an' not till then!" He argued further, "Nur I can't see What's the use o' wings to a bumble-bee, Fur to git a livin' with, more'n to me; Ain't my business Important's his'n is? That Icarus Made a perty muss: Him an' his daddy Daedalus They might 'a' knowed wings made o' wax Wouldn't stand sun-heat an' hard whacks. I'll make mine o' luther, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... me! Things combine so a hero to humble! I fancied that Bull-headed Minotaur—BUMBLE, Would fall to my hand like Pasiphae's monster To Theseus. But oh! every step that I on stir Bemuddles me more. I did think myself clever, But fear from the Centre I'm farther than ever, Oh, this is a Labyrinth! Worse than the Cretan! Yet shall the new Theseus admit himself beaten? Forbid ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... pick a man up quicker and throw him down harder than even the double-distilled brand of prohibition busthead. Like champagne at 2 a.m., it is good to look upon and pleasant to the palate; but at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an able-bodied bumble-bee in a pair of blue-jean pants. Like alcoholism, love lies in wait for the young and unwary—approaches the victim so insidiously that ere he is aware of danger he's a gone sucker. The young man goeth forth in the early evening and his patent leathers. His coat-tail pockets bulge ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the committee briefly reported their interview, were as puzzled as the members of the committee, and questioned and discussed, affirmed and denied until Pat said to his companions on the porch that it sounded like "a flock av domned bumble bees." ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright |
