"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed racing to overtake and smother the chaser. The tons of water discharged upon her decks would have sunk a less buoyant craft. All she did was to squatter under the weight of the water like a duck, her ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... but Escombe's threatened invocation of Britain's might and majesty seemed to discompose those obstinate Indians not at all; to use his own expression when talking of it afterwards, his threats glanced off them as harmlessly as water off a duck's back, and all that they seemed in the least concerned about was his welfare and comfort during the journey. With much solicitude Tiahuana enquired whether it would please him to walk or to be carried in the litter. "We would have brought your horse with us for your ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the allies is generally solicited by the pipe of peace, the stalk of which is about four feet and a half long, and is covered all over with the skin of a duck's neck, the feathers of which are glossy and of various colours. To this pipe is fastened a fan made of the feathers of white eagles, the ends of which are black, and are ornamented with a tuft ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... wisely taken the precaution of having the cork drawn from the bottle when he bought it, replacing it so that it could be easily extracted when required, and Vincent acknowledged that the spirit was a not unwelcome addition to the meal. When morning broke they had reached Duck's River, a broad stream ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... clock with the faces of the sun and moon dodging out when it was day or night, and Father Time with a scythe coming out at the hours, and the name on it was 'Flint. Ashford. 1776'; and there was a fox eating a stuffed duck in a glass case, and horns of stags and other animals ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... rage assailed his ears, and Jimmie turned just in time to duck under a mighty swing. Angered at the persistence displayed, Jimmie let fly a stinging hook that fell short of its intended mark. Instead of landing on Otto's chin, as he had purposed, Jimmie flung his fist full upon the "Adam's apple" of his antagonist, bringing forth a gurgling ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... cabbage and another dish cooked with turnips. The fowl and mutton was cooked in several different ways. In the center of the table was a very large bowl about two feet in diameter of the same yellow porcelain, in which there was a chicken, a duck and some shark fins in a clear soup. Shark fins are considered a great delicacy in China. Besides this there was roast chicken, boneless chicken and roast duck. Ducks and chickens are stuffed with little pine needles to give them a fine flavor ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... him along, Radowitz fighting all the way, and too proud to call for help. The intention of his captors—of all save one—was mere rowdy mischief. To duck the offender and his immaculate white flannels in Neptune, and then scatter to their beds before any one could recognise or report them, was all they ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... appeared; the servants must have been at dinner, as the coachman had foreseen. Arriving at a wooden fence, I opened a gate in it, and found myself on a bit of waste ground. On my left, there was a large duck-pond. On my right, I saw the fowl-house and the pigstyes. Before me was a high impenetrable hedge; and at some distance behind it—an orchard or a garden, as I supposed, filling the intermediate ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... captured by the thousands. I might add that the tuba does not affect the flesh of the fish, which can be eaten with safety. As a means of obtaining food in wholesale quantities fishing with tuba is perhaps justified. As a sport it is in the same class with shooting duck from airplanes with machine-guns. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... Samuel Clemens best in those days say that he was a slender, fine-looking man, well dressed—even dandified—given to patent leathers, blue serge, white duck, and fancy striped shirts. Old for his years, he heightened his appearance at times by wearing his beard in the atrocious mutton-chop fashion, then popular, but becoming to no one, least of all to him. The pilots regarded him as a great reader—a student of history, travels, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... man, leaving the front seat of the car. "Duck that cigarette, Brennan. Remember, no smoking or talking. You boys follow me and do what I tell you. One misstep and you're liable to get the commissioner killed. And you"—he turned to Benton—"don't you try shooting any pictures until Mr. Gibson ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... sicklier-lookin' critter atween this an' Johnny Groats' than that ould rook. There was a kind o' shever ran through 'n, an' hes feathers went ruffly-like, an' hes legs bowed in, an' he jes' lay flat to groun' and goggled an' glazed up at that eye like a dyin' duck in a thunderstorm. 'Twas a rich sight, sir; an' how I contrived not to bust mysel' wi' laffin', es more'n I can tell ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in thus awaiting the attack put the invaders on their guard, for they would not approach nearer than 50 yards. A closer range was desired, for there was a special barrel loaded with coarse salt, and the invaders were innocent of clothing. However, a round of duck-shot had some effect, though the blacks who escaped the pickling slapped themselves in a defiant and grossly-contemptuous manner. Each who did so, however, grieved, for another round was fired, and each hero must have depended ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... thought of allowing the troopers to be butchered was insupportable. His hammers were cocked and his finger was on one trigger when he considered how useless the alarm would be. The troopers knew that he had gone duck hunting. They would expect to hear him shoot and would pay no attention to it. To rush out after the Indians would ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... the wide ocean: in that sea is the island of Bujan, and upon this island there grows a green oak, and beneath this oak is an iron chest, and in this chest is a small basket, and in this basket a hare, and in this hare a duck, and in this duck an egg; and he who finds this egg, and breaks it, at that same ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... was the scientific duck I made in the last round. We'd gone clear through the menu, and they was finishin' up their cordials, when I spots the waiter comin' with a slip of paper on his tray as long ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a Krikara. By stealing a piece of cloth made of red silk, one becomes a Vartaka.[515] By stealing a piece of muslin one becomes a parrot. By stealing a piece of cloth that is of fine texture, one becomes a duck after casting off one's human body. By stealing a piece of cloth made of cotton, one becomes a crane. By stealing a piece of cloth made of jute, one becomes a sheep in one's next life. By stealing a piece of linen, one has to take birth as a hare. By stealing different kinds of colouring ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... contingencies of an ordinary man's position—professional, family, and personal—is to go about under a constant burden; the difference between a thorough-going and an easy-going circumspection is a large additional demand upon the forces of the brain. The being on the alert to duck the head at every bullet is a charge to the vital powers; so much so, that there comes a point when it is better to run risks than to pile up costly ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... doesn't know, don't tell him," he said in an undertone. "He's a queer duck, in some ways; he mightn't think ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... spoke and said, "This, O king, is the art I profess: On land I can track the wild duck over nine ridges and nine glens, and follow her without being once thrown out, till I drop upon her in her nest. And I can follow up a track on sea quite as well as on land, if I have ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... that station. With both varieties and species, use and disuse seem to have produced a considerable effect; for it is impossible to resist this conclusion when we look, for instance, at the logger-headed duck, which has wings incapable of flight, in nearly the same condition as in the domestic duck; or when we look at the burrowing tucu-tucu, which is occasionally blind, and then at certain moles, which are habitually blind and have their eyes covered with skin; or when we look ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... come back dripping, have you? Well, you ain't the first head-strong, high-strung chap that's found out water is wet when the creek blots out the big road, I reckon. I'm no duck myself. When I see water, I'm like the old cat in the corner; I always feel like shaking my foot. Kitty, call Bob and tell him to make a fire in the big room. He's asleep, I reckon, and you'll have to holler. Set a nigger ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... so astonished as well as so distressed at the duck's speech that for a moment he could find no words to reply. But when he had forced back his tears, he said in ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... loudly on her tawny hide, and crippled her in the shoulder, upon which she charged with an appalling roar, and in the twinkling of an eye she was in the midst of us, At this moment Stofolus's rifle exploded in his hand, and Kleinboy, whom I had ordered to stand ready by me, danced about like a duck in a ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... him without injury. He still thought so. In spite of his danger he felt that some chance of escape would be offered him. Grimly confident of this he smiled at the man, though still holding his gaze, determined, if he saw the faintest flicker of decision in his eyes, to duck and tackle him regardless ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... cormorants." "Prodigious seals," we read in another note, "inhabit the rocks, whose grave faces and grey beards look more like the human countenance than the faces of most other animals. They are very unwieldy in their movements when on shore, but most expert in the water. There is a small kind of duck in the bay, which, from the clearness of the water, can be seen flying with its wings under water in chase of small fry, which it speedily overtakes from its ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... Hyderabad, in the Dakhan, will not part with even the eggs. The shape of the Canarian bird is rather that of a pheasant than a 'rooster.' The coat varies; it is black and red with yellow shanks, black and yellow, white and gold, and a grey, hen-like colour, our 'duck-wing,' locally called gallinho. Here, as in many other places, the 'white feather' is no sign of bad blood. The toilet is peculiar. Comb and wattles are 'dubbed' (clean shaven), and the circumvental ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... each other, and breaking out into great commotion every time the gate is hoisted—the otter is now and then seen gliding in the farther nooks—and a quick eye may catch, particularly about the dam, where he generally burrows, a glimpse of the musk-rat as he dives down. Now and then too the wild duck will push his beautiful shape with his bright feet through it—the snipe will alight and "teter," as the children say, along the banks—the woodcock will show his brownish red bosom amongst the reeds as he comes ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... to wild duck is the precisely timed 18 minutes in a quick oven! And celery salad, which goes with all game, need not be ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... cows come home the milk is coming; Honey's made while the bees are humming; Duck and drake on the rushy lake, And the deer live safe in the breezy brake; And timid, funny, pert little bunny Winks his nose, and sits ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... down the bay in the superbly appointed launch flying an Admiral's flag and manned by a picked crew in snowy duck, Ridge sat silent, in a very confused frame of mind, and paying scant attention to the gay conversation carried on by the other members of the party. He had been overcome by the courtesy of his reception in Santiago, and was feeling keenly the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... is to supply the market. He seems to think no more about the effect upon next season's supply, of his stretching a net across a river and catching all the fish going up to spawn, than does the market hunter who would, if he could, shoot the last duck. Is it not strange that many fishermen will do anything in their power to evade the laws governing the catching of fish when by doing so they injure their ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... mallard," says J.G. Millais (Natural History of British Ducks, p. 6), "appears to be carried on by both sexes, though generally three or four drakes are seen showing themselves off to attract the attention of a single duck. Swimming round her, in a coy and semi-self-conscious manner, they now and again all stop quite still, nod, bow, and throw their necks out in token of their admiration and their desire of a favorable response. But ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not know which it prefers; it is a hybernian, for when times are dull and nothing much going on it buries itself under the mud at the bottom of a puddle and hybernates there a couple of weeks at a time; it is a kind of duck, for it has a duck-bill and four webbed paddles; it is a fish and quadruped together, for in the water it swims with the paddles and on shore it paws itself across country with them; it is a kind ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the scarlet Government motor, with awnings out, slide up the road from the direction of Fulham; and yet five minutes more before the three men appeared with their servants behind them—Maxwell, Snowford and Cartwright, all alike, as was Oliver, in white duck from ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... the little city stands will this same wood-cutter's name and history stand also. He had camped where it stood now, when nothing was there save the wild duck in the reeds, the antelopes upon the hills, and all manner of furred and feathered things; and it all was his. He had seen the yellow flashes of gold in the stream called Pipi, and he had not gathered it, for his life was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... properties of nerves, because extirpating the brain of the same animal inflicts one-thousandth part of the prolonged suffering which it undergoes when it makes its natural exit from the world by being slowly forced down the throat of a duck, and crushed and asphyxiated in that ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... ain't no use 'round this section less he kin row a boat with the best. And if so be yuh 'spect to jine with us some day, the more yuh larn about this same thing the better for yuh. Joe, he was a reg'lar water duck—but he was too darin' and he tried the game onct too often. Beware o' that inlet, lad. The tide sweeps outen it like a mill race sometimes, an' the best man couldn't hold his own agin it. It's ben a mystery to me always how it happened. Nobody ever knowed, only that we found the boat two ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... inscriptions in India ink as the lid of an Egyptian sarcophagus. Notwithstanding all the sly hints and remonstrances of the French officers, she immediately approached the man, and pulling further open the bosom of his duck frock, and rolling up the leg of his wide trousers, she gazed with admiration at the bright blue and vermilion pricking thus disclosed to view. She hung over the fellow, caressing him, and expressing ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Bishop; "with two or three thousand slaves working under the same roof, and he doing nothing but eating their vitals. I'll have no big mills where I'm main master. Let him look to it. Here goes," and he jumped off the table. "Before an hour I'll pay this same Trafford a visit and I'll see whether he'll duck me. Come on my prime Doggy," and nodding to the Chartist to follow him, the Liberator left ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... beggar!" said Daventry. "And we don't know so very much more about it all than he does. I expect he's a Muscovy duck, or drake, if you're a ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... two individuals, to whom we shall now direct the reader's attention. The one is a pleasant-countenanced, good-humoured Krouman, who had been christened 'Pompey the Great'; most probably on account of his large proportions. He wears a pair of duck trousers; the rest of his body is naked, and presents a sleek, glossy skin, covering muscles which an anatomist or a sculptor would have viewed with admiration. The other is a youth of eighteen, or thereabouts, with ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... as she passed. Lily was quite excited, stopped just long enough to refuse a drink and then left him very quickly. She was afraid it showed on her face, when she got home, and his words still rang in her ears, that she was awfully pretty, the prettiest girl on the stage, a peach, a duck, a ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... for silence. "We'll give 'em a taste of what we can do, boys," he said, "just to show 'em, not to hurt 'em." At that he drew the trigger twice. His first two chambers were loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. Twice the big gun roared; twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. As the smoke cleared away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly cowed with terror, saw ten or a dozen torn and bleeding birds float mangled upon ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... face if you want to," says he. "But I guess," says he, "it will learn 'em another time to take a little more pains with their duck's tracks, dumb 'em!" ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... said I bitterly, "how little you have learned in England. Propriety in connection with you is evidently like water and a duck's back. An intelligent person would have acquired the light overcoat principle in three days, and never have gone out without ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... handed round, every particle firm and separate and white, and then a rich brown mixture with prawns and other interesting ingredients, which was the curry. You mix the curry with the rice, when a whole trayful of condiments is offered to eat with it, things like very thin water biscuits, Bombay duck—all sorts of chutney, and when you have mixed everything up together the result is one of the nicest dishes it has been my lot to taste. Note also, you eat it with a fork and spoon, not with a fork alone as mere ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... followed his labors at the fort, and officers and soldiers were seen bowing at the same altar, happy in the enjoyment of a common salvation. Still holding his connection with Green Bay, he visited that place and preached in Fort Howard and also among his Indians who had removed to Duck Creek. ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to me that lots of married men thought they were contented when they were merely resigned, but that it was the only life, and that Sam, Junior, could swim like a duck. Incidentally, he said that Alison was his wife's cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper intervals, married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good looks ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "A duck! A duck!" cried the opposite side, in raptures of delight. To have taken her wicket in the first "over" was a success such as they had never expected, and a triumph for the Lower School not to be forgotten ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... resistless sun rose a full orb above it, flooding the grey plains and making the leaves of the banyans gleam with the lustre of old bronze. But though the sun was come, we would often press on for yet three hours, through belts of squirrel-haunted wood, beside great sheets of water with wild-duck floating far amidst, and borders starred with yellow nenuphars, across groves of mango and plantain trees into landscapes of tiny terraced plots, where the vivid green rice-blades stood thick in the well-soaked earth, and bowed brown ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... lecture, calling him several unhandsome names, and asking him what he meant by attempting to seduce a church-warden of the Church of England. I tell you what, he ran some danger; for some of my customers, learning his errand, laid hold on him, and were about to toss him in a blanket, and then duck him in the horse-pond. I, however, interfered, and said, 'that what he came about was between me and him, and that it was no business of theirs.' To tell you the truth, I felt pity for the poor devil, more especially when I considered that they merely sided against ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... gave directions to his friend. "Duck back into the restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I got to stay and ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane, the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow; a solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call or whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventriloquous note of the rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... matter, my dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in to your little Duchess? I will not be your Duchess any more, monsieur, no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster." ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... was a pompous little man to whom the inelegant applied the term of runt. He never could have passed the army examination, for he had no instep. He walked like a duck, flat-footed, minus the waddle. He was pop-eyed, and the fumes of strong drink had loosened the tear-ducts so that his eyes swam in a perennial mist of tears. His wife still called him William, but down town he was Bill. He ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... others in their shirt sleeves sat smoking with companions in blue overalls; two or three wore guns loosely belted at their hips. Here and there was the pale-faced, white-collared, tied and tailored tourist. In the corner near the big window a group of women, some in white duck, some in khaki or corduroy, sat chatting and enjoying the scene. No one paid the least attention to the newcomer. The tough-looking driver of the hack dropped the suit case near the desk with a bang and turned to reply to a good-natured remark addressed to him by a jovial, well-dressed ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... out of silver paper. Present—Dr. Herdman, Miss R——d, and Miss R. Miss E. percipient. Miss R. holding percipient's hands, but all thinking of the object. Told nothing. She said, 'Something light.... No colour.... Looks like a duck.... Like a silver duck.... Something oval.... Head at one end and tail at the other.' ... The object being rather large, was then moved further back, so that it might be more easily grasped by the agents as a whole, but percipient persisted that it was like a duck. On being told ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... Ambition, the desire to mount aloft, touched and fired the boy's mind. As he read, studied, and observed, while his hands were busy with his work, there was a constant fluttering going on in the eyrie of his thoughts. By an instinct analogous to that which sends a duck to the water, the boy took to the discussion of public questions. It was as if an innate force was directing him toward his mission—the reformation of great public wrongs. At sixteen he made his first ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words. The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do, but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to him. He was an elderly ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... this jolly!" exclaimed Joe Harris, as Tom Leslie was leading her over the line of plank, when they were about half way across, and when, from the instability of a part of the structure, there seemed a fair prospect of taking a duck in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... brown boys in India looked like the bronze Cupid who was on the mantelshelf, but this little boy was white, or rather sallow-faced, and well dressed too, in a tight, round, leather cap, and a dark blue kind of shaggy gown with hairy leggings; and what he was shooting at was some kind of wild-duck or goose, that came tumbling down heavily with the ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pickled the buffalo beef for use in winter. He killed great numbers of black bear, and made bacon of them, precisely as if they had been hogs. The common game were deer and elk. At that time none of the hunters of Kentucky would waste a shot on anything so small as a prairie-chicken or wild duck; but they sometimes killed geese and swans when they came south in winter and lit ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without tumbling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing at first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five minutes whenever the man at the helm cried 'Bridge!' and sometimes, when the cry was 'Low Bridge,' to lie down nearly flat. But custom familiarises one to anything, and there were so many bridges that ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Water, I know that you know What the teal and the black duck are dreaming at noon, And the way of the wistful wild geese as they go Through the haze of the hills to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... hushed, the wild creatures were no longer held aloof. Hitherto the red squirrels and the indifferent, arrogant porcupines were the only animals he had noticed. But now he saw an occasional slim and snaky mink at its fishing; or a red fox stealing down upon the duck asleep in the lily patch; or a weasel craftily trailing one of the brown hares which had of a sudden grown so numerous. All these strange little beasts excited his curiosity. At first he would sniff, and snort, and approach to investigate, which would lead, of course, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sir, as I'm proud to see you in my house," he said, with a duck of his head, and an ingratiating but uncomfortable smile. "Your father, I hope, as he's well, sir, and all the family? We are a kind of neighbours now; not as we'd think of taking anything upon us on account of living in Grange Lane. But Phoebe here—Phoebe, junior, as we call's her—she's a ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... swim like a duck," said Rosamund, "and I am a great deal bigger than you are; and, clever as you think yourself, you would be no match for me in ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... designs. Sometimes I would find him staring at my Madonna, as if he said, 'What in the world are all those topsy-turvy children about?' Then he'd sit in the middle of a brook, in a water-color sketch by Vautin, as if bathing his feet, or seem to be eating the cherry which one little duck politely offers another little duck, in Oscar Pletch's Summer Party. He frequently kissed my mother's portrait, and sat on my father's bald head, as if trying to get out some of the wisdom stored up there, like honey in an ill-thatched bee-hive. My bronze ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... delicate piece of work like this, one can't be too careful. It ain't often I can hear your paddle dip in the water, not once in a hundred times, but then, you see, that once might cost us our scalps. We have got to go along as silent as a duck swimming. Speed ain't no object, for we shall be miles down Lake Champlain before daylight; but, if the French know their business, they will have half a dozen canoes in these narrows, to prevent us scouting on Lake Champlain; ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... little black duck, One little gray, Six little white ducks Running out to play. One white lady-duck, motherly and trim, Eight little baby-ducks bound for a swim. One little white duck Running from the water, One very fat duck— Pretty little ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... day without tasting anything. At last he saw a flock of ducks swimming in the river. He knew that they belonged to a rich man named Lin who lived in the village. They were fat ducks, so plump and tempting that it made him hungry to look at them. "Oh, for a boiled duck!" he said to himself with a sigh. "Why is it that the gods have not given me a taste of duck during the past year? What have I done to ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... going down Duck Bank into the hollow. On the right, opposite the lighted Dragon Hotel, lay Duck Square in obscure somnolence; at the corner of Duck Square and Trafalgar Road was a double-fronted shop, of which all the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... not been forgotten at Harrow, though it is a bend of the Cam (Byron's Pool), not his favourite Duck Pool (now "Ducker") ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... no greater pleasure to me than to wander with a matchlock through one of the great forests or wild tracts that still remain in England. A hare a day, a brace of partridges, or a wild duck would be ample in the way of actual shooting. The weapon itself, whether matchlock, wheel-lock, or even a cross-bow, would be a delight. Some of the antique wheel-lock guns are really beautiful specimens of design. The old powder-horns are often ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... story of David William Duck, related by himself. Duck is an old man living in Aurora, Illinois, where he is universally respected. He is commonly ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... were permitted to attend the potlatches and witness the animal and other dances, among which were the "Panther," "Red Headed Woodpecker," "Wild Swan" and the "Sawbill Duck." Generally we were welcome at the festivals, provided we did not laugh or show sign of any feeling save that of grave interest. Among my Indian acquaintances of those days was Ka-coop-et, better known in the district ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... so wickedly deprived—namely, gravity. Whether this was owing to the fact that water had been employed as the means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The manner in which this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... duck-pond was near-by. And at first Chirpy hadn't thought of looking there for his listener. But the second time he heard the voice he guessed that it came from the pond. So Chirpy leaped to the water's edge; and there, sitting on a lily-pad, ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... again. At the apex, however, he turned the horse sharply round and drove with equal violence up the other side of the garden, visible to all those in the group. With a common impulse the little crowd ran across the lawn as if to stop him, but they soon had reason to duck and recoil. Even as he vanished up street for the second time, he let the big yellow bag fly from his hand, so that it fell in the centre of the garden, scattering the company like a bomb, and nearly damaging Dr. Warner's hat for the third time. Long before they had collected themselves, the cab ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... me to swim," pleaded Dolly, who took to water like a duck. So Mr. Rose gave her her first lesson and she was so promising a pupil that he declared she would soon learn ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Easter egg, and it seemed to be the only egg that was not mentioned. There were birds' eggs, and reptiles' eggs, and fishes' eggs, and molluscs' eggs, and crustaceans' eggs, and insects' eggs, and frogs' eggs, and Augustus Egg, and the eggs of the duck-billed platypus, which is the only mammal (except the spiny ant-eater) whose eggs are "provided with a large store of yolk, enclosed within a shell, and extruded to undergo development apart from the maternal tissues." I do not know whether it ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... The sea-cow is one of these animals; the last specimens of which were seen in 1767 and 1768. The Californian sea-elephant and the sea-dog of the West Indies have shared a like fate. Not a trace of these animals has been found for a long time. The extinction of the Labrador duck and the great auk have often been deplored. Both of these birds may be regarded as practically extinct. The last skeleton of the great auk was sold for $600, the last skin for $650, and the last egg brought the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... himself up, for he is a dapper little chap, and became very blustering and abusive. But I kept my temper, and said civilly, 'Little gentleman, hard words break no bones; but if ever you molest Mrs. Somers again, I will carry you into her orchard, souse you into the duck-pond there, and call all the villagers to see you scramble out of it again; and I will do it now if you are not off. I dare say you have heard of my name: I am Tom Bowles.' Upon that his face, which was before very red, grew very white, and muttering something ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know that they are all somewhere beneath your feet: moles, pocket gophers, and the pretty striped gopher which used to sit up on his hind legs, fold his front paws, and look at you in the summer time, then give a low whistle and duck; meadow mice in their cozy tunnels through which the water will be pouring when the spring freshets come; the woodchuck in his long, long sleep, and the chipmunk with his winter store of food. And so watching, listening, ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... going to be tied, she preferred her freedom. She was not, however, unwilling to play a friendly game of tag; it was her favorite sport and she was very proficient in it. When the big soldier would come within reach of her, she would lower her head and duck under his arm, and before the astonished pursuer could collect his wits and look around, she would be browsing ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... replenished the pile of logs for burning during the night. Isabel, cuddling in a large chair, watched Antonia, as she went softly about putting on the table such delicacies as she could find at that hour. Tamales and cold duck, sweet cake and the guava jelly that was Isabel's favorite dainty. There was a little comfort in the sight of these things; and also, in the bright silver teapot standing so cheerfully on the hearth, and diffusing through the room a warm perfume, ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... its uses. It is the best game and fish country, natural or artificial, that is left in the South today. In their appointed seasons the duck and the geese flock in, and even semi-tropical birds, like the brown pelican and the Florida snake-bird, have been known to come there to nest. Pigs, gone back to wildness, range the ridges, each razor-backed drove captained by a gaunt, savage, slab-sided old boar. By night the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... adding of kin, let, ling, ock, el, erel, or et: as, lamb, lambkin; ring, ringlet; cross, crosslet; duck, duckling; hill, hillock; run, runnel; cock, cockerel; pistol, pistolet; eagle, eaglet; circle, circlet. All these denote little ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... monster; but the immortals must think him worth something to have given him such magnificent grinders in his ugly mouth, and to have preserved him mercifully for fifty years—for that is about the rascal's age. If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with those teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash his bones ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the water A duck said, "Quack!" Up in the tree-top A crow answered back, Two of us amusing, Two of us confusing: So we had to give up talking, And just listen ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Linda, rapt in praise, As with poised oars the two looked oceanward. Then, keeping time, they pulled out from the shore. "But you row well!" cried Charles. "I might return The compliment," said Linda. "See that duck! How near, how still he floats! He seems to know The holy time will keep him safe from harm." "Had I a gun," said Charles—"You would not use it," Cried Linda, flushing. "And why not?" quoth he. "'Nobility obliges'; sympathy Now makes all nature one ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... fine feathers growing on the breast of the eider-duck, great numbers of which frequent the coast and lakes of Iceland. This duck is wild except at the nesting season; then it is as tame as the domestic fowl and makes its nest not only around and on top of the buildings but frequently inside them. A heavy fine is imposed on any one ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Danny looked this way and looked that way anxiously and then scampered across as fast as he could make his little legs go. When he was safely across, he would wait for Grandfather Frog. If a shadow passed over the grass, Danny would duck under the nearest leaf and hold ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... almost imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings—the wings of fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed—"spoke" like swords through the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... together because so many of them were deaf, and when we were lucky enough to overhear the conversation, it seemed to concern their adventures at sea, or the freight carried out by the Sea Duck, the Ocean Rover, or some other Deephaven ship,—the particulars of the voyage and its disasters and successes being as familiar as the wanderings of the children of Israel to an old parson. There were sometimes violent altercations when the captains differed ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Timber Town's rival hostelries—The Bushman's Tavern and The Lucky Digger. The Bank and hotels, conspicuous amid the other buildings, had no verandahs in front of them, but each was freshly painted; the Bushman's Tavern a slate-blue, The Lucky Digger a duck-egg green. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... was; a grass ground of many thousand acres, where fifty years ago the Indians had pastured, but where now the farmers laboriously saved their hay when the floods allowed, and in spring launched their punts and went duck-shooting with long guns and wading-boots. For in winter one sheet of water—or of ice, as it might happen—covered the meadows and made the great river one with the many brooks that threaded their way to her. But at this season they ran low between their ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... fine buck may be purchased for a dollar, and a brace of pheasants for a rupee. It was now the month of May, and the swans and geese had departed, and game was becoming scarce as the weather became fine; still, however, there was a duck or so to be picked up, so I joined a party bent on trying their luck, and we prepared ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... path, hat in hand, with bowed head. He did not stop before his graftings; he passed the clump of petunias without giving them that all-embracing glance I know so well, the glance of the rewarded gardener. He gave no word of encouragement to the Chinese duck which waddled down the path in front ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thick duck trousers, broad-brimmed hats, blucher boots, and leggings, with a strap round the waist to hold the axe and pouch containing matches, knife, and other small articles. Their course was to be towards ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... rose! There was no more talk of politics as they neared England. He described the successive ships to her; he called her attention to the strings of wild-duck flying up Channel; he named the various headlands to her. Then, as they got nearer and nearer, the little Anneli had to be sought out, and the various travelling impedimenta got together. It did not occur to Mr. Lind or his daughter as strange that George Brand should be travelling without ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... her white duck sails, glided gracefully away from the wharf, and bounded through the coral reef; the red sunlight faded, the stars came out, the Honolulu light went down in the distance, and in two hours the little craft was out of sight of land on the broad, crisp Pacific. It was so chilly, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... and agents. It was delivered without appearance of excitement or emotion of any kind, the demeanour of the speaker being quite as simple as that of Wessex Hodge when he recommends one to go straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay towards Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more than the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... bottoms, and floating the dead leaves from the vegetable-baskets with which they were loaded. Miserable little back yards, opening to the water, with steep stone steps down to it, and little platforms for the ducks; and separate duck staircases, composed of a sloping board with cross bits of wood leading to the ducks' doors, and sometimes a flower-pot or two on them, or even a flower,—one group, of wallflowers and geraniums, curiously vivid, being seen against the darkness ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... could watch both the ford and the fork in the trail. He squatted down against a tree in a comfortable position, laid his gun across his knees, and rummaged in his pack for the cold flapjacks, wrapped around slices of duck breast, which he had ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... be coached by a girl of twelve; but Rhoda set her teeth and determined that if pluck and energy could help, it would be a short time indeed before she got her reward. Oh, those first few games, what unmitigated misery they were! The ankle pads got in her way, and made her waddle like a duck, and when at last she began to congratulate herself on overcoming the first difficulty, they tripped her up, and landed her unexpectedly on the ground. Although she was repeatedly warned to keep her stick down, it seemed to fly up of itself, and bring disgrace upon her; ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... full hour—Boston kept a-telling what a hell of a one (that was the sort of careless way Wood put it) he was at big-game hunting; but Wood judged—taking all his talk together—the only thing he'd ever really shot bigger'n a duck or a pa'tridge was a deer the dogs had chased into a pond for him so it hadn't no chance. But it wasn't none of Wood's business to stop a director's nephew from blowing if he felt like it, and so he just let him ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... rose to a higher flight, and told the story of President Lincoln's death-bed with a degree of feeling that brought tears into their eyes. The other guests made no figure at all. The Speaker consumed his solitary duck and his lonely champagne in a corner ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... crowded with shoppers to the point of actual discomfort, contained only one man. He wore a white-duck uniform, and recited rapidly and monotonously, as the car shot upward: "Corsets, millinery, muslin underwear, shirt-waists, coats and suits, infants' wear, and ladies' shoes, second floor; no ma'am, carpets and rugs on the third floor; this car don't go to the ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr |
