"Coot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ban," she exclaimed. "Look at the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. It fairly swarms with teal and coot, and see the snipe on the sand." She stood up and watched the sandy strip they were nearing. They were a goodly distance out from the shore, but Pepi poled nearer midstream. "The pity of it," she sighed; "but I doubt not the place swarms ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... here," said the other, "one of your hands came ashore mad as a coot and broke into the house of the American Consul, and resisted arrest and raised hell generally. The inspector says you got to send a provost guard or something ashore to take him off. There's been several mix-ups among ships' ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... sweet and all that; but after all, I never saw her, and you say she has no ear for music, and I am afraid that would have been a pretty bad thing, don't you think so yourself? So I guess it is all right, and I am as jolly as a coot. Awfully jolly about the new neighbours turning out such bricks. Do any of them ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... afternoon, she stepped to the door and glanced anxiously up and down the creek. At last, just at sundown, she saw a rider pause before the gate of the corral. She flew to the door, and drew back hurriedly: "It's that horrid Long Bill Kearney," she muttered, in disappointment, "disreputable old coot! He ought to be in jail along with other denizens of the bad lands. Dad sure picked a fine bunch of neighbours—all except the Cinnabar Joes—and they say he used to be a bartender—but he's a ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what a coot is like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... the suite where I'm registered. She was shaking all over. After I calmed her down a bit, she spilled out her story. She and her husband, Brock Kinmarten, are rest wardens. With another man named Eltak, whom Solvey describes as 'some sort of crazy old coot,' they're assigned to escort two deluxe private rest cubicles to a very exclusive sanatorium on Mezmiali. But Brock told Solvey at the beginning of the trip that this was a very unusual assignment, that he didn't want her even to come near the cubicles. That wouldn't have bothered her ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... time beginning to feel a little disgusted at the man's boorish incivility. "Will you pe so coot as to tell me," he asked, "if Mister ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... yonk Vontoofen, my coot frend Zhall cum to zee you vhare you be, Dese skarlet carters I zhall zend, O die dem ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... "A coot morrow to you all, creat and small," said Betty Williams, curtsying awkwardly at the door as she went out before ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... crowded city's horrible street; Or thou step alone through the morass Where never sound yet was Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill, For the air is still, and the water still, When the blue breast of the dipping coot Dives under, and all is mute. So at the last shall come old age, Decrepit as befits that stage; {670} How else wouldst thou retire apart With the hoarded memories of thy heart, And gather all the very least Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, Let fall through eagerness ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... gay, In hundreds haunt the grove; O'er marsh and moor, the loon and heron, The coot and plover rove; But I miss the lark's glad matin song, And the thrush and blackbird's lay, The summer songsters, sweet and wild, In the Green Isle, far away. Along the blue horizon line The "bluffs" rise 'gainst the sky, But in dreams I see Old Erin's coast— Her mountains wild ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... voice, and his walk on the stage, whether in concert or opera, was provocative of the risibles, but even his mannerisms were fascinating. Shall we, because a critic did not like him, be ashamed for having thrilled a little when we heard his "Coot boy, sweetheart, c-o-o-o-t boy!" thirty years ago? I trust not. And if he were here again, and his manager were to come with the old request, "Do me a favor, won't you, and if you chance to meet dear old Brig say something ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... and epicures, perhaps, the lordly canvas-back—though brown from the oven, I challenge the supercilious gourmet to distinguish between his favorite, and a fat American coot. But for me the loud-voiced mallard, with his bottle-green head and audaciously curling tail; for ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... "Coot! Coot!" came the signal again, and in spite of my companion's opinion I felt forced to agree with the Arab that there was something more than a bird hooting, for at times I ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various |
