"Crooning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to tinkle with such challenge in their piercing sound that the whole crowd trembled with emotion. Vivid, slender, supple as a serpent, the damsel whirled rapidly, her nostrils dilated, and a strange cry came crooning from her throat. With each impetuous movement, two dark little breasts held tight by a green silk net, trembled like two ripe fruits in the wind, and their sharp, thickly painted nipples were like rubies, as they protruded ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... who had been for some time lying on his breast on the weather cat-head, crooning over some interminable "love-song about murder," suddenly surceased his singing, raised himself up, and cast an eager and hurried glance ahead of the ship, shouted "Fish ho!" at the very top of his lungs, sprang from the cat-head, and ran down the fore-scuttle. In an instant ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the sleeping man, loosening the knife in his girdle. There was no sound within the lodge, only the faint crooning of Pocahontas without; yet something, some feeling of danger, aroused the Englishman. Through his half-closed lids he scarce distinguished the slowly advancing red body from the red earth over which it was moving. But when ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... back on her pillow with a sigh; she did not even question the old negress who sat crooning over the fire, as to where she was, or what had befallen her; but accepted this new place as only another misty delirium, and in her secret heart prayed, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... What does it mean? Why are they in white? As we came hither in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled together at the prow, and their long black raiment hung overboard and touched the brine. They were mumbling and crooning hate-songs, and pointing with skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. What is it that has changed their mood? What is it that can have turned the robes of the Eumenides white, and enamelled their ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... mare Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind and rain and fire; Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet, While glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares: Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... softly, and looked through a long arrow-slit upon a dismal scene. Smoke filled a wretched apartment. On a couch a man lay, apparently dying, while beside him, wrapped in a long cloak, a woman sat with bent head, crooning to herself and occasionally moistening the sufferer's ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... suddenly, but it was as suddenly chased away by his hearing the voice of Jane crooning over the words of some doleful old West Country ballad, not of a cheering nature certainly, but sufficient to prove that someone was ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... the girl crossed the space, and fell on her knees beside the inert form, crooning over it pitifully. In the same moment, the gust of anger in Zeke ended. He stood motionless, except for his quickened breathing, with eyes fast on the girl. Remorse stabbed him as he realized her distress, for which he was responsible. He went toward her hesitatingly, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... in his little garden until late at night, under the stars, with the sea crooning and calling to him down the slope. When he finally went to bed he did not sleep, but lay until morning with tear-wet eyes and despair in his heart. All the forenoon he went about his usual daily work ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... song, which Mrs. Burns, the wife of the poet, was fond of crooning to her children, is not yet without some vogue outwith the printed page—though mainly in this verse, the place of which, by the bye, would be difficult to fix in the ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... one arm underneath the pillows, and gently drew the wounded head upon her own breast, tenderly kissing the brow and cheeks; then taking his hand within her own, she stroked and caressed it, meanwhile crooning over him in low, murmuring tones, as though he ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... friends. Mucklewame was there, panting heavily, and cannily commending his soul to Providence. Messrs. Ogg and Hogg were there, shoulder to shoulder. M'Ostrich, the Ulster visionary, was there, six paces ahead of any other man, crooning some Ironside canticle to himself. Next behind him ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... horror, sudden it burned blue; Whereat each silent, fearful beholder Felt in the gloom to touch his fellow's shoulder, Yet, in that moment, knew an added dread To see the fire from blue turn ghastly red; Then, as the Witch did o'er it crooning lean, Behold! it changed again to baleful green. Whereat the Witch flung bony arms on high, As though with claw-like hands she 'd rend the sky; And while the lurid flames leapt ever higher, She thus invoked the Spirit of ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight from his eyes to the fireplace, and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... colors, atrocious reds, blues and yellows. These windows were opened a little at the top, and through the openings came soft sounds of Spring, the wind racing among the budding branches, the sudden call of a bird, and occasionally the crooning, sleepy cackle of hens from a distance. Now and then a cloud drifted by, across the sun, dimming the interior for a moment, so that the minister's voice seemed to come from farther off. The sunlight through the stained glass projected colored splotches here and there. I wondered ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... her old room, caught the merry glint of young green on the trees below her hill, heard the piping of birds to their nesting mates, the eager breeze singing among the waving grasses and the low sweet crooning of baby voices—felt a tiny greedy hand upon her breast, was bewildered with a sudden overwhelming rush of mother-longing ... young, young? Oh, God, she was young, and in the springtime with its stirring sap, its call to life and action, its urge to create, to build, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... time and had made him chary of exposing himself to similar mortifications. His stock of clothes at best was limited—especially his shoes—and as the weather continued bad and the streets impassable, he preferred waiting for clearer skies and safer walking. So he spent his nights in his room, crooning over the coke fire with Fred, or all alone if Fred were at the Academy, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the summer dusk to me, The summer dusk when all the world seems still; When purple shadows creep along the hill, And birds are softly crooning in each tree. You are the gentle-cool-eyed mystery Of twilight hours. Sometime I think you will Melt from me out into the dark, until You turn ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... to-day. That noble poet! Happy town, Marseilles the Greek, that him doth own! Daughter of Homer, fair to see, Of Virgil's son the mother she. To you I'd say, Hold, children all, Let but your eyes on his work fall; These papers are the sacred nest In which his crooning fancies rest; To-morrow winged to Heaven they'll soar, For new-born verse imprisoned still In manuscript may suffer sore At your small hands and childish will, Without a thought of bad intent, Of cruelty quite innocent. You wound ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not. His heart yearned after his daughter—yes, and after a long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had arisen with the shadows, and come out of their lurking-places at the twilight summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness all about him. When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes crooning, sometimes howling, in the house. When the old trees outside were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook, unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, high-up "Caw!" When, at intervals, the window trembled, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... was a low crooning note, like the language in which doves converse, mingled with a twittering current of undertone. But every moment it rose into higher notes, evidently expressing wonder or admiration, ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... sequin ornaments and a quantity of Oriental bangles, which enhanced the fantastic effect, and gave her the appearance of a true Romany. She was not at all afflicted with shyness, and performed her share of the entertainment with a zest that charmed her audience. Her southern songs, with their crooning refrains, seemed to bring visions of moonlit lagoons and the luscious scent of tropical flowers. She accompanied herself quite prettily on the banjo, and had a stock of encores ready to meet the demands for a further exhibition ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... unhappily, looking up into her face. And when she noticed him he reared up and flung his long body across her lap, thrusting his wet nose into her face. She caught his head in her hands and rubbed her cheek against his rough hair, crooning over him softly. Even the dog was comfort in her loneliness, and they both waited for ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... The hills seemed to watch it, and the great cloud-heads as they looked down between the parting summits, and the three tall pines, standing about a young bird's flight from each other by the shore and mingling their fitful crooning with ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true; As her mother's cradle crooning ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... atmosphere of Switzerland it could never be too hot to please Ann—she was a veritable sun-worshipper—and she lay back on a wicker chaise-longue, basking contentedly in the golden warmth while she awaited Lady Susan's return from Evian. From below came the drowsy crooning of the lake, as the water lapped idly against the stones that edged it—a lake of a blue so deep as to be ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... clothed the rickety woodwork in a fairy garment of green and ivory-white. Each least sound was crystal clear in the rarefied air; the quarrelling of two sparrows, the high-pitched chatter from the compound behind the cottages, the crooning of ring-doves among the pines. Butterflies, like detached flowers, fluttered in and out. A faint breeze stirred the roses, so that an occasional creamy petal fell ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... which he must have been aware; but being what he was, he was content to enjoy them and to exercise them modestly, and at such scanty intervals as his daily duties afforded. He composed his songs as he went about his work, plowing, sowing, reaping; crooning them as he strode along the fields, and correcting them in his head as the hours dragged on, until night came, and he could write them down in his little room by the light of his solitary candle. He had no illusions ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the end of the bed and the opposite wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... I will tell you what they were singing," and she began crooning. "Something like that, your reverence. You don't believe me, but we have only our ears and our eyes ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... them less, for it was always her habit to banish a disagreeable thought if she could. One day she went into the garden with her spade and an old tin biscuit-box. She put the box on the ground beside her, with the lid off, and began to dig. By-and-by the kitten came crooning and sidling up to her, and hopped into the box. Beth instantly put on the lid, and the kitten was a corpse which must be buried. She hurriedly dug its grave, put in the box, and covered it up with earth. Just as she had finished, a gruff voice exclaimed: ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... The great ocean, crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The vast sky, like the outspread azure wings of the brooding mother-bird, nestled the island round with its downy plume. For on the distant horizon a deep ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... had two little feathery arms, with which she fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she kept on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she was ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... and appeared at once in the lighted room, of which we had a view. Gazing through the window we were surprised to find that the only person within save Andrew, was a young woman, who, crouching over a smouldering fire, was crooning a lullaby while she attended to a large ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... the school of life. Let me say in conclusion, that he would have an unresponsive heart that could not feel linked in a bond of fellowship with these people, and that God has made of only one blood all nations of the earth, when he hears a Bornean mother crooning her child to sleep with words identical in sentiment with "Rock-a-bye Baby,"—what though the mother's earlobes are elongated many an inch by heavy copper rings, her arms tattooed to the elbow, and her blackened teeth filed to points. Once upon a time ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... doorway. The moon was filling the sky with its radiance. A chorus of crickets sang joyously in the short brown grass about the sunflowers. The cottonwoods along the river course gleamed like alabaster in the white night-splendor, and the prairie breeze sang its low crooning song of evening as it flowed gently over the land. "How beautiful the world is," Virginia said, as she caught the full radiance of ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... that way about it," he answered me, or rather I think that is what he said, because he was crooning to me and the Ladies Bird at the same time, and with a mixture of epitaphs and endearments that I didn't care to untangle. "There, there, lovely lady, don't be scared; it is going to be all right," he soothed, as he lifted one of the fluffy biddies and ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to herself, and when Emile returned he found her crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered her boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his tuition her passion for ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... truly alone. Huge mountains, crowned with jagged pinnacles, surrounded us on all sides,—here and there tufts of heather clinging to large masses of dark stone blazed rose-purple in the declining sunshine,—the hollow sound of the falling stream made a perpetual crooning music in our ears, and the warm, stirless air seemed breathless, as though hung in suspense above us waiting for the echo of some word or whisper that should betray a life's secret. Such a silence held us that it was almost unbearable,—every nerve in my body seemed like a strained ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... limping. Blood matted with dust stained his coat, making him almost as red and white as the Range stud. Drew holstered the Colt and went to his horse, crooning softly as he caught one of ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... see She did so; and when she came back, said she saw nought. The second day she did the same, and saw nought. The third day she looked again, and on coming back said to the old wife she saw nought but a great Black Bull coming crooning along the road. "Well," quoth the old witch, "yon's for you." On hearing this she was next to distracted with grief and terror; but she was lifted up and set on his back, ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... were saying that Amy Foster was beginning to find out what sort of man she had married. He looked upon the sea with indifferent, unseeing eyes. His wife had snatched the child out of his arms one day as he sat on the doorstep crooning to it a song such as the mothers sing to babies in his mountains. She seemed to think he was doing it some harm. Women are funny. And she had objected to him praying aloud in the evening. Why? He expected the boy to repeat the prayer aloud after him by-and-by, as he ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... the vast plain that stretches out from river to river. And it must suggest the toiler at his task, the employer at his desk, the man of leisure in his home, the voyager on the ocean, the soldier in the ranks, the child at his lessons, and the mother crooning her ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... came from beyond the glade a soft, crooning noise, which in an instant more became that sweetest of sounds, the voice of a happy ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... with this grim and tender little idyll crooning through my brains. I took my key and bed-candle, and asked the porter if a letter had arrived for me from Sylvester Berkley. Not a line! This silence became inconvenient. Not only did I rely upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... about her, her voice was heard chanting in the crooning monotone of Indian death dirge: "Jesu—have pity on us! Jesu—have pity on us!" The next moment the child was thrown into the flames, repeating the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... flat, music made part of every day's programme. Pixie, seated on the hearthrug, would sing Irish ballads in a voice of crooning sweetness, she and Pat would join in duets, occasionally Stephen was persuaded to join in a trio, and presently, as the performers became "worked up" to their task, they would recall one by one performances of bygone days, and perform them afresh for the delectation of their visitor. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Burgstead men greeted that folk kindly and humbly, and again they fell to praising the dead man, saying how his deed should long be remembered in the Dale and wide about; and they called him a fearless man and of great worth. And the women hearkened, and ceased their crooning and their sobbing, and stood up proudly and raised their heads with gleaming eyes; and as the words of the Burgstead men ended, they lifted up their voices and sang loudly and clearly, standing together in a row, ten of them, on the dais of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... up along the river, that lay half asleep and crooning drowsily to the little clouds that were mirrored upon its tranquil breast. Tiny blue pools among the rushes at the bend in the stream gave back glints of sapphire and turquoise, with now and then a glimmer of gold. Sometimes, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... was already back in her corner with the child, hugging it, kissing it, rocking it in her arms, crooning over it, holding it tightly against the lump that hung down on her barren bosom. Long after the baby had ceased to cry she sat crooning and yearning over it. And the mothers watched her, with wonder and scornful amusement in ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the wilderness brook; the little birch knoll, yellow in the evening glow; the mellow voice of the summer night crooning through the pines. But he had the rare tact to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... never believed the tale. Yet now I saw this thing with mine own eyes, a fair sight and a marvellous, so beautiful she looked, with head unhelmeted, and the wild fowl and tame flitting about her and above her, the doves crooning sweetly in their soft voices. Then her lips ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... hear the childish prattle of the children and the crooning of Naudin as she hushed, with swaying body, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... had lived and died in that ancient house, and tonight dim shapes seemed to throng its chambers and corridors. Physically fearless, she owned to a feminine dread of the unknown. It would be a relief to get away from this abode of grief and mystery. The fantastic dreaming of the unhappy creature crooning memories of a past life and a lost husband had unnerved her. She resolved to seek the fresh air, and wander through gardens and park until the fever in ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... her breast, and she, whose inmost nature was maternity, delighted in the pressure of the tiny body, crooning songs to him when they were left alone, and pausing now and then to pity and kiss the little shrunken foot that ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... among some stones that had fallen from above, where a clump of myrtles perfumed the soft evening air, he settled himself down, and soon sank into a comfortable drowsy state, in which he listened to the munch munch of the horses, and a low crooning song uttered by Hamed as he finished his task of bathing his swollen ankles, and then walked up and down more strongly, pausing every now and then to ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... her a stiff little bow, and hurried away without so much as one look behind him. But as he passed the next house, and heard a voice near some upper window crooning a lullaby, he smiled ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the village of Cawsand Bay an aged man stood, supported by an elderly man, at a window, gazing seaward with an expression of intense expectation, while a very aged woman sat crooning over the fire, holding the hand of a fair girl ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... and passages, knock at the bedroom door, run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roof nearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with her friend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge of the terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west window commanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square fields and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... splashed playfully round while its mother was drinking. It would dash a few paces into the stream and then look back to see if its mother approved. Evidently she did not, for she would stop her drinking and call the fawn back to her side with a soft, crooning noise. Suddenly she raised her head, the long ears shot up, and she seemed to sniff the air. She waded through the deeper water to get round a rocky bluff which ran out into the creek. Then she turned and called the little ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... but with the calmness which is the outgrowth of an excitement so tense that it is still. As the vision floated nearer, I heard soft music—a crooning, yearning, soul-satisfying lullaby; I saw a little child, a mother, and a father. The child was as beautiful as an angel, and there was that in its face which made my eyes flood with tears, and my heart ache with yearning; the faces of the ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... Stones"; or rather a group of five pretty little villages, almost touching but distinct, like five flowers or five berries on a single stem, each with its own old church and individual or parish life. It is a pretty tree-shaded place, full of the crooning sound of turtle-doves, hidden among the wide silent open downs and watered by a clear swift stream, or winter bourne, which dries up during the heats of late summer, and flows again after the autumn rains, "when ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... bed, on his great, rough knees, he fairly fell, crooning incoherently, and by a mighty effort keeping his stiff, cold hands ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... began while I was in the City. I learnt afterwards that Marjorie (my wife) was crooning to her needles the unmetrical jumper lullaby, "Six purl, eight plain; then the same all over again." Anyhow she was knitting, when she suddenly found herself looking into the wistful eyes of a tortoiseshell ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... after them. She was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked after them until they reached the top of the staircase—not without halting to rest by the way—and passed out of his sight; and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the dull rays of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. Moreover, not a sound disturbed me. Soft darkness had hidden the whole world from my sight, and buried me in ideal rest. Only the lonely, crooning voice of silence strikes in monotones on my ear, and the dark monsters out there will draw me to them when night comes, and they will bear me far across the sea, through strange lands where no man dwells, and they will bear me to Princess Ylajali's ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... she could get around she ran away. The squaws went out to look for her, and found her crooning on the banks of the Big Beard. She would talk with the squaws, but if a warrior appeared, she hid herself till he was gone. The squaws took her food, and she lived in a covert on the bank of the stream for many months. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... estate. "She was forced," writes Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, one of the two translators, "to affect a desire to learn spinning, that she might join the girls at their spinning parties, and so overhear their songs more easily; she hid in the tall maize to hear the reapers crooning them, ... she listened for them by death-beds, by cradles, at the dance, and in the tavern, with inexhaustible patience.... Most of them are improvisations. They usually begin and end with ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the salt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... might be merely a little wind that was troubling her. She held the baby upright, hoping that the pain would pass away with a change of position, and she walked up and down the room rocking the child in her arms and crooning to her for fully half an hour. At last the child ceased to wail, and she laid her in her cradle and sat watching, thinking that if she were to lose her baby she must go mad.... She had lost Dick's love, and if the baby were taken away there would be nothing left for her to ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... woman in a crooning voice, somewhat hoarse from sleep. "Why, I was waiting for you and waiting, and even became angry. And after that I fell asleep and all night long saw you in my sleep. Come to me, my baby, my lil' precious!" She drew him to her, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... pace to a canter, hushing the beat of its feet upon the soft sand as he rode on, seeing no one stirring, and at last, in the deepest despair, feeling as if he dare go no farther. But just at that moment a low crooning sound fell upon his ear, and the reaction was so sudden and so great that Dyke nearly shouted aloud as he pressed on to the door, feeling now that he had been letting his imagination run riot, and that there was nothing whatever the matter. In ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... Brocton. "Besides, this dance isn't going to be for soloists," and Nettie swung away with Janet, crooning and humming to ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... to the grocery. Big sister has come out and climbed on the vegetable-stand, and is sitting in the potatoes with little sister in her lap. Little sister waves her fat, red arms in the air and shrieks in babyish delight. The old women with the shawls over their heads are talking together, crooning over the spectacle ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... dark-blue depths of the defile, and caused the stiff, upright larches on the knoll behind the barraque to rustle their boughs, and distilled from the rank soil the voluptuous scents of ace-rose and pitch-pine, and evoked in the trees' quiet gloom a soft, crooning, somnolent lullaby. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... who listens to the summer rain Against the roof when all the night is still, Save for the wind beneath the window-sill, Crooning its homely, comforting refrain,— And listening feels that neither joy nor pain Can trouble now—only the faint sweet thrill Of drowsiness and peace and rest until The barque glides softly into ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... cold. When Gudrun dismounted before the house at Holl, there was no one outside to greet her or announce her arrival, and so she entered, going straight into the bastofa. There she found her father sitting on his bed, knitting a seaman's mitten, crooning ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... and the crooning stillness set in broken only by the many sounds of the night, we would sit huddled together by the fire. It was dread for him she felt, not for herself. And in both our minds rose red images of hideous foes skulking behind his brave form as he trod the forest floor. Polly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... poor little children and their father and mother! It makes me feel quite sentimental. Most cooks are sentimental, you know: it's such a—a warm occupation," she added vaguely. "When I'm cooking something that requires particular care I always find myself crooning a love song!" At which Wally collapsed into such a hopeless giggle that Jim and Norah, in little better case themselves, looked at him in horror, expecting to see him annihilated. To their relief, Miss de ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... room. He sprang from his couch, seized his musket, and rushed downstairs. The defenders were gathered at their loop-holes once more, while Du Lhut, the seigneur, and Amos Green were whispering eagerly together. He noticed as he passed that Onega still sat crooning by the body of her son, without having ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... remains of many villages, or rather towns with large market-places. Now, however, these were burned with fire, or deserted, or occupied only by a few old bodies who got a living from the overgrown gardens. These poor people, who sat desolate and crooning in the sun, or perhaps worked feebly at the once fertile fields, would fly screaming at our approach, for to them men armed with guns ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... believing me, Kenneth, the harder part iss for those of us who cannot fight but must wear away the long days and mirk nights at home. At the least I am thinking so whatever. The long live day we sit, and can do nothing but wait and wait. After every fight will not some mother be crooning the coronach for her dear son? Every glen will have its wailing wife and its fatherless bairns. And there will be the lovers too for whom there iss the driech wait, forby (besides) that maybe their dearest will be lying ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the contents of the money-pouch, running his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the coins into little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the wealth the while he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone. ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... told them—I think I first started the idea in my pamphlet—that the thing is to sleep on a pile of hemlock branches. I think I told them to listen to the wind sowing (you know the word I mean), sowing and crooning in the giant pines. So there they are upside-down, doubled up on a couch of green spikes that would have killed St. Sebastian. They stare up at the sky with blood-shot, restless eyes, waiting for the crooning to begin. And there isn't a ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... want him thrown. Chaska hold him." The bright-eyed boy from the mountain top—yes, the same—came forward and, holding the pony's head, began crooning a little song. The pony rubbed his nose against him, recovered his calm, and thanks to Hartigan's help—for he had volunteered eagerly to lend a hand—the operation progressed without mishap. There were, however, one or two little tussles, ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... early in the morning. He reflected that he was too tired to care if there might be a night attack and then wrapped in his blankets he went peacefully to sleep in the grass under a big tree with the crooning of some soldiers around their ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... with supplying Thomson with songs, he wrote letters full of hints and suggestions anent songs and song-making, and now and then he gave a glimpse of himself at work. We see him sitting under the shade of an old thorn crooning to himself until he gets a verse to suit the measure he has in his mind; looking round for objects in nature that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of his fancy; humming every now and then the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... canceled checks in her lap. Their cottage was at the very edge of the strand; its veranda was often damp from spray after a storm. It was not storming as she sat there, "taking stock"; under a blue sky an almost tranquil sea was crooning softly in the sunlight, innocent and happy and playful as a child. She, dressed in a charming negligee and looking forward to a merry day in the auto, with lunch and dinner at attractive, luxurious places farther down the coast—she was stricken with a horrible sadness, with a terror ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... intently. The cook, serene and cool, was smoking in the doorway of his cabin. Above the dull roar of the river Paul could hear Min Tolley's cackle of laughter from the cottages a hundred yards away, and Mrs. Hopps crooning over her baby. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... had not changed. It was one of the oldest forms of present life, better fitted to survive than the breed of Plato, Shakespere, or Washington. Its insect kind was the most dangerous enemy man had: the only form of life he had not conquered, and would be crooning cradle-songs when humanity, perhaps through its agency, or perhaps through the sun growing cold, had passed from the earth. Not impossibly, insects would render extinct all other beings, and then the cockroach could proclaim that creation had ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... old woman having the appearance of a witch sat at a dark table by the little criss-cross window of the dark room. She was crooning to herself, and I made the sign of the evil eye and asked her in French for wine; but French she did not understand. Catching, however, two words which sounded like the English 'White' and 'Red', I said 'Yaw' after the last and nodded, and she brought up a glass of exceedingly good ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... night seemed to break out and sing. All the world yearned one way; the stars leaned out of their courses and looked, not at him, but south; the north wind went by him, crooning, hurrying, and the moon sailed southward past the ragged clouds. All his soul went out with them, and his body ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... against her soft, ample bosom—sat by the kitchen fire. It was long after dark. The wind was up; the cottage shook in the squalls. She had long ago washed Dolly's eyes and temporarily stanched the terrifying flow of blood; and now she waited, rocking gently and sometimes crooning a plaintive song of the coast to ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... quiet and gentle way, that ever blest my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody.... We shall appreciate him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to do with his ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... and tell me stories—mostly very childish, and often seeming to mean hardly anything. Now and then they would call a general assembly to amuse me. On one such occasion a moody little fellow sang me a strange crooning song, with a refrain so pathetic that, although unintelligible to me, it caused the tears to run down my face. This phenomenon made those who saw it regard me with much perplexity. Then first I bethought myself that ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... especially that brown dusty province of Andalusia, with its oranges and pomegranates; its dancing fountains splashed with sunshine; its winsome damozels with such lisping languors of voice; its philosophic waiters upon the morrow, happy in a cigarette, a melon and a guitar; its muleteers crooning snatches of lazy song; its peasants with hair tied in beribboned pigtail; its tawny boys in Manola colours; ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... his accent it was impossible to discover whether he was American or English. "On behalf of self an' partner, we welcome you to Bughouse Lodge. When do you go to the chair—he's due to-day," he jerked his thumb at the crooning priest. "I can't say I'm sorry. So far as I am concerned he's been dead ever since ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... She knew the fight was out of him and picked up the still screaming baby, which she hugged to her breast, crooning over it while Garron got lamely to his feet. Without another word she started back to the hut, Garron following his mate and his son ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... was a comfort and relief to pass from the funeral gloom to the little pink-ruffled chamber among the cherry-trees, where the birds were singing and the summer breezes blowing, and the pretty Kathleen was crooning her Irish songs, and invoking the holy virgin and all the saints to bless ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the studio was slightly ajar, and the sound of a singularly sweet voice crooning out a lullaby was plainly audible. Malcolm, who was about to knock, changed his mind and peeped in through the aperture; then he beckoned to Anna to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... setting; and they floated through waves as rosy as the rosy sky. A fresh wind filled the sail, and ruffled Gulliver's white breast as he sat on the mast-head crooning a cheery song to himself. Dan held the tiller, and Davy lay at his feet, with Nep bolt upright beside him; but the happiest face of all was Moppet's. Kneeling at the bow, she leaned forward, with her lips apart, her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... cocked up on the rail, his eyes on the vague expanse about him. There was no moon; the sky was starlit. Barlow had said "Good night" half an hour before; Philippine Charlie was muttering over the wheel; Nigger Ben's voice was crooning from the galley where he was making a friendly call on the canary. The water slipped and slapped and splashed alongside, making pleasant music in the ears of a man who gave free rein to his fancies and let them soar across a handful of centuries, back into the golden day ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... and in the dull light he saw the Hussar officer standing in the stall by the mare, crooning some endearing words, while the beast, in her delight, rubbed her face against his clothes and whinnied her plea to be taken for a gallop over ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... "It is the music of Humanity. All human notes are needful to its making: the faint wail of the new-born, the cry of the dying thief; the beating of the hammers, the merry trip of dancers; the clatter of the teacups, the roaring of the streets; the crooning of the mother to her babe, the scream of the tortured child; the meeting kiss of lovers, the sob of those that part. Listen! prayers and curses, sighs and laughter; the soft breathing of the sleeping, the fretful feet of pain; voices of pity, voices of hate; the glad ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... mounted on his grey mare, Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fire; Whiles haulding fast his gude blue bonnet; Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; Whiles glowring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares; Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and houlets ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... murmurs and half-lost echoes that rose to his ears, muffled by the leaves of the plane trees. The whole town, and the little hill out of which it grew as naturally as an ancient wood, seemed to him like a being lying there half asleep on the plain and crooning to ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... followed the Indians who had led us from the fort. Lifting the tent-flap, we found ourselves inside. A withered creature with snaky, tangled hair, toothless gums, eyes that burned like embers, and a haunched, shrivelled figure, stood gesticulating and crooning over a low monotone in ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... song, was the crooning wailing tune that the wise woman sung. At the first note almost, you would have thought she wanted to frighten the princess; and so indeed she did. For when people WILL be naughty, they have to be frightened, and they ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... aroma of his hair reached her. The subtle warmth of his body met hers. As the mystic eyes opened below her eyes, a crooning lullaby hidden somewhere within her found its way to her throat and there stuck. She grew dizzy and her throat ached. Don, ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Christmas come again! Day gone beyond the last waving pines in a cold flush of red and gold: Christmas Eve here at last. Pattie Batch's soft arms were still wanting; there were a thousand kisses waiting on her tender lips for giving; her voice was all attuned to crooning sweetest lullabys; but her heart was empty—save for a child of mist and wishes. It was dark, now; but though the wind was still rollicking down there was no snow blowing, and the shy stars were winking wide-eyed upon the busy world ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... him, kissing her, crooning over her.] Oh, my dear, my dear! My little one, my love, ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... eight, nine; only the shaman's could be still standing. There! They were at work upon it now. He could hear the shaman grunt as he piled it on the sled. A child whimpered, and a woman soothed it with soft, crooning gutturals. Little Koo-tee, the old man thought, a fretful child, and not overstrong. It would die soon, perhaps, and they would burn a hole through the frozen tundra and pile rocks above to keep the wolverines away. Well, what did it matter? A few years ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... as if her heart would break and Bet was saying in a crooning voice: "Joy dear, you can talk about the boys as much as you want to from now on. I'll never again ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... was discovered cowering over the ruins of what was once her home, crooning to a dead child at ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... nearly an hour had been gliding smoothly forward with a soothing, cradling motion of its heavy trucked Pullmans, and a crooning, lullaby sound of its droning wheels, came to a jarring stop at one of the mountain stations, and Lieutenant Allison wakened with a start. The echo of the laugh that he had heard in his dream still sounded in ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... plane is this northernmost symphony, with a crooning note almost of savage, and sudden, fitful bursts from languorous to fiery mood. The harmony, the turn of tune have a national quality, delicious and original, though the Oriental tinge appears, as in Slav and Magyar music, both in bold and in melancholy humor. Though full ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... The sea was crooning behind him over the half-buried rocks. He stood again on the brink with his poor worn face turned to the sky. He had come to the end of his reasoning. The tired brain had ceased to grapple with the cruel ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... since the day on which he met the stranger, and which already seemed of long ago, Lewis had time to think. A sadness settled on him. What were they doing at Nadir on this starry night? Were the goats corraled? Who had brought them in? Was mammy crooning songs of low-swinging chariots and golden stairs? Was Mrs. Leighton still patiently sewing? The Reverend Orme, was he still sitting scowling and staring and staring? And Natalie? Was she there, or was she gone, married? He drew a ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... on the river-bank and gave myself up to the gracious influences that stole in upon, me from trees and air and grass and the flowing river. The Sabbath feeling began to grow upon me, as the pines behind and the river in front sang to each other soft, crooning songs. As I lay and listened to the solemn music of the great, swaying pines and the soft, full melody of the big river, my heart went back to my boyhood days when I used to see the people gather in the woods for the "Communion." There was the same soothing quiet over all, the same soft, ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... "there's one person out there that isn't hardened and degraded." She looked with reverent eyes at Angel, who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm; "and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... random in the darkness. But afterward all sounds, save the rhythmic dip and drip of Jennifer's paddle, faded on the sense of hearing till, as it would seem, this gentle monody of dipping blade and tinkling drops became a crooning lullaby to blot out all the years that lay between, and make me once again a little child sinking asleep in my ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... see, the exciseman's work told heavily against his farming, his poetry, and his habits of life. But it was some time before this became apparent. The solitary rides through the moors and dales that border Nithsdale gave him opportunities, if not for composing long poems, at any rate for crooning over those short songs in which mainly his genius now found vent. "The visits of the muses to me," he writes, "and I believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between; but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of Nithsdale, just as I ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... now thou canst, or clasp her small hands fair. Thou hast my Paradise. Lo, thine I bear Afar from thee. See, then! Its transient woe Thy babe e'en now forgets; and sweet and low It babbles on my knee. In sooth, not long Endure her griefs, and through my crooning song She kisses me, recalling not the place Whence she has come. Nay, nor her mother's face." Long time stayed Lilith in that land. More calm Each day she grew, for soft, like healing balm, The child's ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... skinny old hags were crooning over the pots, surrounded by swarthy children and lazy men, who were watching the preparation ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... conspicuous bird, supposed to be increasing in many places in England. Its absence from so promising a locality seemed strange. Another species, also said to be increasing in the country—the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the tall beech woods its low, montonous crooning note was heard all day long from all sides. In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, one prefers this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being more continuous and soothing, and of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes reminded me of the low monotone I have heard ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Victor!" exclaimed a third. As the man and the bear came nearer, they saw it was neither of these. The man's voice was not unpleasant; it had a rolling, crooning sort of sound, a little weird, as though he had lived where men see few of their kind and have much ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said the Donkey; and the random chords changed to a crooning melody which wonderfully pleased Buddie, whose opportunities to hear music were sadly few. As for the White Blackbird, he tucked his little head under his wing and went ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Ma Moll was crooning over the kettle. She was a woman older than any one even dared guess. With a cackling laugh she always answered questions as to her age with the assertion that she was "nigh on to two hundred and a deal more than that," and no one could contradict her, for she was old when ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... melody they're tuning Has the sweet and sleepy crooning That the mother hums the baby at her breast, Till the world forgets its sorrow And the cares that haunt the morrow, And is sinking, hushed and happy, to its rest Sometimes bubbling o'er with gladness, Sometimes soft and ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... knew he was grateful, for she suited him better than anyone else. If she was late, he was impatient; when she had to go, he seemed forlorn; and when the tired head ached worst, she could always soothe him to sleep, crooning the old songs ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... could count the years which they had lived. The long hair which covered their heads had been gray since they were born; and they had among them only a single eye and a single tooth which they passed back and forth from one to another. Perseus heard them mumbling and crooning in their dreary home, and he stood very ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... left an order with the telephone company to run a wire to Medicine Woods the first thing in the morning, and drove to the depot to arrange for the ticket and check. In less than an hour he was holding the Girl's hands and crooning over her. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... shop itself; but on every golden morning of that luxurious summer-land, for a little while before the carpenters and plasterers arrived and dragged off their coats, the pair spent a few moments wandering through and about the building together, she with her hen-like crooning, he with his ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... destined minstrel Wandering on the range to-day, Driving sheep and crooning softly ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... tidy the room automatically. Through the partitioning wall she could hear George crooning like a guardian angel to his charge, and she smiled tenderly. "The darling!" she thought. His immature and uncomprehending sympathy warmed her chilled heart as nothing else could have done. She had a great new sensation of leisure; there was all day to potter about in and no one ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... eating my lunch near a fountain, there came up a moody, meditative hen, crooning plaintively after her wont. I threw her a crumb of bread while she was still a good way off, and then threw more, getting her to come a little closer and a little closer each time; at last she actually took a piece from my hand. She did not quite like it, but she did it. "A very little ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... had been long, and the struggle with the March wind pulls hard upon the strength, and outside the pines were crooning softly, and gradually the brave head drooped till between the stitches she fell asleep. But not for many minutes, for a knock at the kitchen door startled her, and before long she heard Jessie's ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... came without bringing the children in, nurse became very cross indeed. Baby had been somewhat troublesome all the forenoon. Auntie Alice had lately got into the habit of taking him of a morning, walking him about in her arms, crooning sweet nothings over him in her soothing voice. He was old enough to miss her, and to-day was not satisfied at being put off with only nurse. He had, besides, a new tooth coming—a tiny pearly thing, peeping like a speck of ivory ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... low keys of the bass. I remember that I had a particular fondness for the black keys. Always on such evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her arms, often for a very long time. She would hold me close, softly crooning some old melody without words, all the while gently stroking her face against my head; many and many a night I thus fell asleep. I can see her now, her great dark eyes looking into the fire, to where? ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... listlessly up and down the garden, turned the corner of a yew hedge, and came suddenly upon a figure that might well have appeared one of the kobolds of German legend. He was digging slowly but steadily, crooning a strange song—so low that, until she saw him she did not ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... his arms toward the president of the court, "You will let me go to her, senor? Your Mercy will let me go to her?" He murmured her name over and over, "Maria de la Luz! Maria—Luzita mia!" until the words became a kind of crooning. Then he would break forth again, entreating, commanding, "Your Mercy will let me see her? Senor, you will ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... trees like mummies. Still the sound continued, seeming to come from under my feet. I stopped, and, kneeling down, put my ear to the crust, and there, as distinct as possible, I heard the wimpling of a baby brook, crooning to itself under its thick white blanket. Here then was the cradle of one of those streams that later would become such an ugly customer to meet. It was babily innocent now, and the one living thing beside myself on this May day in the great ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... pillows told of days when a convalescent might look in comfort at the garden beneath; the counterpane, with its old-fashioned rose pattern, the little white tidies on the back of each chair, and Mandy crooning beside the window, all helped to make a ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... as they entered Junior Mansions. It was an old Negro melody, and the crooning notes were soft ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... I'd just know he needed killing. There, there—" she had her mother's head on her breast now, fondling it, crooning over it as if it were Mag's baby. "Look—you've made her cry!" She stamped a furious foot at her sister. "What are you staring at with your cold, wicked eyes? You told me she was a bad woman—my mother! If she is, then I choose to be bad myself. I'd rather ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... loud rush or the low crooning of water, and over every wall comes the scent of jasmine and rose. Far off, from the red purgatory between the walls, sounds the savage thrum-thrum of a negro orgy, here all is peace and perfume. A minaret springs up between the roofs like a palm, and from its balcony the ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... he cried contritely, and in an instant his strong arms closed about the huddled figure, and he held her fast, crooning softly in her ear as a mother might over her babe, until at length the convulsive gasps eased, grew less frequent, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... crooning incoherent things. He wiped her face and hands, combed her hair, and pushed the table against the bed. He broke toast in a glass and poured milk over it. Then he cooked the egg and gave her that, keeping only ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... returned immediately with a board and a well-worn pack of cards. These she shuffled and, after Pearl had cut them several times, she began to lay them out in neat rows on the board on her knee, uttering a strange, crooning sound the while and studying each card as it fell with ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow |
