"Kicking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arms on the mantelpiece, she dropped her face a moment on them and rebelled, kicking hard against the pricks; and sunk in that profitless occupation, heard vaguely the sound of rapid steps and suddenly realized what ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... cried; "no such people ever lived. My father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie there than in kicking them out. My mother was a good woman in the beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such a life as she led with my father. I believe she was fond of me, ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... give for a bouquet, but I don't think we'll get a decent one for less. Dresses, etc., for Mary Ellen—the green stockings will have to be ordered specially, and so will come to a little money. And we may have to get that grey tweed dress which Mrs. Ford wants, just to prevent her kicking up a row. Two dresses, stockings, etc., for Mary Ellen, say L4. That will include shoes with buckles. She'll have to wear an Irish brooch of some sort, but we'll probably be able to borrow that. Lunch for the Vice Regal party on the ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... adj. Describes a slow, difficult, and disgusting process. First popularized by a famous quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of IBM's mainframe OSes. "Well, you *could* write a C compiler in COBOL, but it would be like kicking dead whales down the beach." ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... the shabby, sallow-faced, out-of-work captain of artillery, was kicking his heels in morose idleness at Marseilles, and whiling away the dull hours in making love to Desiree Clary, the pretty daughter of the silk-merchant in the Rue des Phoceens, his sisters were living with their mother, the Signora Letizia, in a sordid ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... of poor Yarrow's throat,—and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would "drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile," for that part, if he had a chance: it was no use kicking the little dog; that would only make him hold the closer. Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. "Water!" but there was none near, and many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriar's Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a large, vague, ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... suppose That the Grasshopper wore his summer clothes, And stood there kicking his frozen toes And shaking his bones apart; And the Ant, with a sealskin coat and hat, Commanded the Grasshopper, brusque and flat, To "Dance through the winter," and things like that, Which he ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and, kicking off my shoes, lest the sound of them upon the deck should reach the stranger through that still and breathless atmosphere, I proceeded upon ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... "bag and baggage, mostly bag," kicking the accommodating and inoffensive telescope. "I hate to ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... "18" painted upon the white wood just above us. Then the door itself was hurled hastily open, and with fierce exclamation of rage a gray-hooded Capuchin monk bounded forth like a rubber ball, and instantly began kicking vigorously right and left at our struggling figures. It gives me pleasure to record that the Spaniard, being on top, received by far the worst of it, yet I might also bear testimony to the vigor of the priest's legs, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... followed their united efforts—except as regards the muffled shouting within, which increased in vigour and was accompanied by no small amount of kicking by what of Gashford remained ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... completely blocked the only crossing for miles above and below. Teamsters and wagoners leave their charge and rush to the rear. In the small space of one or two hundred yards stood deserted ambulances, wagons, and packs of artillery mules and horses, tangled and still hitched, rearing and kicking like mad, using all their strength to unloosen themselves from the matted mass of vehicles, animals, and men, for the stock had caught up the spirit of the panic, and were eager to keep up the race. As by intuition, the flying soldiers felt that the roadway ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... it's real jolly up there when the big barn is full and eighty horses have to be taken care of. I love to go and see 'em. Mr. Towne asked me to come and be stable-boy when I rode the kicking gray the rest were afraid of. I hankered to go, but Miss Celia had just got my new books, and I knew she'd feel bad if I gave up going to school. Now I'm glad I didn't, for I get on first rate and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... me again," he cried. "His kicking days are over. He's kicked me once too often, he ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... their faces were fat and swollen. I had met a girl in the village, a young half-Tamil with long hair and snow-white teeth; she was the prettiest of them all. I came upon her one evening at the edge of a rice field. She lay flat on her face in the high grass, kicking her legs in the air. She could talk to me, and we did talk, too, as long as I pleased. Glahn sat that evening in the middle of our village outside a hut with two other girls, very young—not more than ten years old, ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... taken himself off, no one—except the individual aforementioned—knew whither. Fortunately, Betty announced the fact of her existence by rushing to a window and shrieking. David ran his escape towards the window, mounted the ladder, carried the damsel down, bore her, kicking, into a neighbouring house, and left her in fits. Meanwhile the cook rushed to the same window, shrieked, and fell back half-suffocated with the smoke which just then surrounded her. A policeman gallantly ran up the escape, jumped into the room, gathered up the cook with great ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... know it was not Churchman-like,—I know it was a case of 'kicking against the pricks.' But Leveson's 'pricks' are too much like hog's bristles for ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Johann Mosts, and if the United States escapes the general use in time of that terrible, secretive, and deadly weapon of sabotage. Sabotage is the arm of the slave or the coward, who dares neither to speak his views nor to fight an open fight. As someone has said, it may merely mean the kicking of the master's dog. Yet no one is so cruel as the weak and the cowardly. And should it ever come about that millions and millions of men have all other avenues closed to them, there is still left to them sabotage, assassination, and civil war. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... off!" shrieked the one against whom the angry Ralph had collided; for both of them had gone down in a scrambling, kicking heap. ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... away, where the new sign-board stood beside the trail a horse struggled to rise, heaved its fore quarters up, and crashed down again, kicking in agony, raising a cloud of dust. Facing it, bending slightly forward, stood a man, holding a gun in his ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying: 'Here's a dead mongoose. Let's ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... done," thought Jacob, and he turned to bend his hasty steps towards his own cottage, when he heard the galloping of a horse and violent screams; a minute afterwards James Southwold passed him with the old lady tied behind him, kicking and struggling as hard as she could. Jacob smiled, as he thought that he had by his little stratagem saved the old woman's life, for that Southwold imagined that she was King Charles dressed up ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... and moved forward, but suddenly something extraordinary happened. He uttered an exclamation, his whole bulky person staggered, rose from the ground, his legs kicking in the air, and before the ladies had time to shriek, before any one had time to realise how it had happened, the officer's massive figure went plop with a heavy splash, and at once ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... in his own phraseology, "put it acrost" her. But ultimately he had one good day too many, or else he felt unusually stalwart, for the woman lay motionless in the corner of the cellar where she was flung, and wouldn't answer when he had finished kicking her. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... I've chased it away. Isn't that a shame." Phyllis was very serious. "But, do you know, I think it was the brownie's own fault. I felt something a minute ago, just punching and kicking at my face, and I thought perhaps it was an ordinary leaf but of course it ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... attention being engaged looking for water, my horse took fright at a wallaby, and rushed into some scrub, which pulled me from the saddle, my foot and the staff that I carry for placing my compass on catching in the stirrup-iron. Finding that he was dragging me, he commenced kicking at a fearful rate; he struck me on the shoulder joint, knocked my hat off, and grazed my forehead. I soon got clear, but found the kick on my shoulder very painful. Mounted again, and at seven miles we came upon some more ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... to cook us, to be sure, what else would the cannibals be kicking up such a row about if it were not ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... "the only man whose temper could stand all he would have to put up with. We had good proof of that even on the wedding-day, when you kept him kicking his heels for half an hour in the church while you were admiring the effect of your new finery in ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... any High School basketball organization, either directly or indirectly, caused the injury of an opponent, I should forbid basketball for the rest of the season at least, and perhaps absolutely. Tripping, striking and kicking are barred out of the boys' games and will certainly not be tolerated in those ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... he was struck in the face, he would clap his hand with affected vehemence to the place, and cry as rapidly, "Oh, Lord!" If the blow came on the arm, he would grasp his arm, with a similar exclamation. The master would then go, driving and kicking him; while the patient accompanied every blow with the same comments and illustrations, making faces to us by way ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... overmastering in one's interest is this shell-fire. It is frightfully interesting to watch the shrapnel bursting near bodies of troops, to see the shells kicking up the earth, now in this direction and now in that; to study a great building gradually losing its shape and falling into ruins; to see how death takes its toll in an indiscriminate way—smashing a human being into pulp a few yards away and leaving oneself ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Kicking off their chaps the cowboys tossed them on the riding gear, piled already against the fence of the corral, and straggled stiffly toward the house. On the wire enclosing the back yard Sing Pete had hung a couple of heavy towels, coarse and long. Some basins and several chunks of yellow laundry ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... notches, the scars of the old leaf-marks, that had long ago fallen off, with some larger holes, where, perhaps, whole branches had been broken off by the wind. The quick eye of the sailor at once perceived the advantage of these marks—which would serve him as steps—and kicking off his shoes, he clutched the trunk both with fingers and toes, and commenced climbing upward like ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... break your heart over that old story of the blow. It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get over them,—even to pay back a few of them,—and here I am still, like the mackerel in our nursery-book (I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking, oh!' This is my last kick, though; and then, to-morrow morning, and—'Finita la Commedia!' You and I will translate that: 'The variety show is over'; and will give thanks to the gods that they have had, at least, so much mercy on us. It is not much, but it is something; and for this and all ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... which disgusted her," he said, "and no wonder, for if ever a man looks like an idiot, it is when he is kicking up his heels to the sound of a viol, and wheeling around some woman whose skirts sweep everything within the circle of a rod, and whose face wears that die-away expression I have so often noticed. I've half a mind to swear I'll ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the immediate and intuitive. We often feel, even in Raphael's pictures, that the aim is lower than, for instance, Fra Angelico's. But it is at least genuine, and what that saves us from we may see in some of Perugino's and Pinturicchio's altar-pieces, where spirituality means kicking heels, hollow cheeks, and a deadly-sweet smile. That Raphael, among all his Holy Families, painted only one Madonna di San Sisto, and that hastily, on trifling occasion, shows that it was a chance-hit rather than the normal fruit of his genius. The beauty that shines like celestial flame from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... I never had. You know the old man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask—you know how curious all dreams are—through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... another driver fastening six others, horses and mares, to another long halter, led them to the side opposite the first six. As soon as they were stationed, waving long-lashed whips, plunge! ahead went the wild horses, jumping into the wheat-sheaves breast-high, rearing, squealing, kicking, lashing out their hoofs, their eyes starting from their heads, while each driver stood firm in one spot, whirling his whiplash and keeping his team within a circle one half of which was in the wheat ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his foot once more, for a kick. But, with a lazy competence, Brice moved forward and gave him a light push, sidewise, on the shoulder. There was science and a rare knowledge of leverage in the mild gesture. When a man is kicking, he is on only one foot. And, the right sort of oblique push will not only throw him off his balance, but in such a direction that his second foot cannot come to earth in position to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the way down-stairs and into the office, where he pointed to two huge account books. 'Every page in that one must I turn over this blessed night; and if he had only told me three hours ago, I could have done the chief of it, instead of kicking ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answers in the multiplication table, she was the next moment singing and dancing in defiance in the garden. Caroline did not choose to endure this, and went to fetch her in, thus producing such a screaming, kicking, rolling fury that Mrs. Coffinkey might have some colour for the statement that Mrs. Folly Brownlow was murdering all her children. The cook, as the strongest person in the house, was called, carried her in and put her to bed, where she fell sound asleep, and woke, hungry, in high ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fable does, I wonder? Before the arrival of that hamper, Master Briggs was in no better repute than any other young gentleman of the lower school; and in fact I had occasion myself, only lately, to correct Master Brown for kicking his friend's shins during the writing-lesson. But how this basket, directed by his mother's housekeeper and marked "Glass with care," (whence I conclude that it contains some jam and some bottles of wine, probably, as well as the usual cake and game-pie, and ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heavily-wooded banks, the bluffs and mountain, present a scene which would delight the soul of the artist. A hundred boys were frollicking in the water near the pontoons, tumbling into the stream in all sorts of ways, kicking up their heels, ducking and splashing each other, and having a ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... three volumes, is on its way to you. I wish you to review it in all the periodicals with which you are connected. Last time I wrote a novel, my nephew reviewed it, very perfunctorily, in the Pandrosium; this time I want only to be reviewed by my friends." He was kicking on the sofa, and apparently trying to commit suicide with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... knows that you and she are fond of one another. I believe he is only idle and thoughtless. If I thought for a moment that he was contemplating a blackguardly act, he should be no friend of mine, and I would not only tell him so, but I would give him a good kicking, or look on with pleasure while you did it. But you must be quiet, Hawkstone, at present, for you know nothing, and a quarrel would only do ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Five minutes later a frightful racket broke out in the barn—sounds of stamping, kicking, and plunging, mingled with loud shouts. We ran to the scene of the trouble, and found our "hired man" rushing breathlessly toward the house. When he was able to speak he informed us that we had "a devil in there," pointing back to the barn, and that ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... as the lights go down, and while the bald stout gentleman is kicking our top-hat out of his way, treading heavily on our toes and wheezing, "Sorry, sorry," as he struggles to his seat, a buzz begins behind the curtain. What the players are saying is not distinguishable, but a merry girlish laugh rings out now and then, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... meadows are covered with herds of black buffaloes, wallowing in the ditches, or staring at us sullenly under their drooping horns. Little bunches of horses, and brood mares followed by their long-legged, awkward foals, gallop beside our cavalcade, whinnying and kicking up their heels in the joy of freedom. Flocks of black goats clamber up the rocky hillsides, following the goatherd who plays upon his rustic pipe quavering and fantastic music, softened by distance into a wild sweetness. Small black cattle with white ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... below made me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit my last match ... and it incontinently went out. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... yet how strong and free is her use of words!—"I lay at the foot of the bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by continial fighting and kicking, but I was very dull, and continially at work reading the Arabian Nights, which I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... urchins nosing the windows of an eating-house. Sometimes a more audacious one would advance closer, but the owner would, when it came within reach, quickly lift up one of its feet and strike at it, like a feeding horse kicking at another that came near its provender, and the intruder would have to retire discomfited. These little spiders probably fed on minute insects entangled in the web, too small for the consideration of the huge owner, to whom they may be of ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... myself ever conscious of having signally forfeited a title. It glimmers back to me that I quite definitely and resignedly thought of him as in the most exemplary manner already beforehand with me, already seated at his task when the attempt to drag me crying and kicking to the first hour of my education failed on the threshold of the Dutch House in Albany after the fashion I have glanced at in a collection of other pages than these (just as I remember to have once borrowed a hint ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... for though no mention is made of the Hospital ambulance, yet it is hinted that much sticking-plasterre must have been used in fastening up and healing the many contusions, grave, startling, and various, resulting from the furious kicking of legs, and struggling of bodies, inevitable in the progress of "Un Scrimmage" in which Three-quarters-back, 'Arf-backs, Forwards, and even Goal-keeperes were often mingled in confusion, bewildering and prolonged, and only saved from being deadly and prostrating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... Blaesus Agellus, the best horse-master about Reate. He had watched till he thought he knew all the young stallion's tricks. No kicking, rearing or bucking could unseat him and the beast tried several unusual and bizarre contortions. Blaesus stuck on. Then the horse-dealer seemed to give a signal, as the horse cantered ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... me to peer forth once more. They had dragged the charred and blackened trunk of the dead soldier down from the post where it had hung suspended, and were fastening De Croix in its place, binding his hands behind the support, and kicking aside the still glowing embers of the former fire to give him space to stand. It was brutally, fiendishly done, with thongs wound about his body so tightly as to lift the flesh in great welts, and those who labored at it striking ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... done, and doubtless the knights of old would have contrived a way of rescue. To the latter-day knight, however, there was something inevitable in the on-coming of the wheel, with its rider's feet kicking in a futile search for the pedals. It reminded him of his own futile search for his motif. Both searchers seemed equally helpless to attain their objects. Moreover, when a tall and muscular maiden sweeps down upon ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... aiming his matchlock at it as though about to fire. I shouted to him to desist, but too late to save the mad fellow from his folly. There was a flash, and a loud report, and the giant chicken lay on its back, its legs kicking ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... I said, 'I'm going to my Princess,' and I stooped down and picked him up very gently—kicking and shouting—and put him out of my way. In a minute all the fields about me seemed alive with running men. I saw one on horseback galloping beside me and reading something as he rode—shouting it. He finished and turned and galloped away from me—head down. ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... she could obtain a hearing from the special magistrate in her district. While Mr. H. was relating to me this fact, a girl came in with a little babe in her arms. He called my attention to a large bruise near her eye. He said her master knocked her down a few days since, and made that wound by kicking her. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... least, because he does not weigh anything, you know.) If you push hard enough to get the elephant started, he rises slowly toward the ceiling. When he objects on the way, and struggles and kicks and tries to get back to the floor, it does not help him at all. His bulky, kicking body floats steadily on till it crashes ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... than the dog came in sight, with its nose to the ground, following up our trail. Its masters must be, I guessed, close behind. Lifting my rifle, as the hound was a dozen paces from me, I fired. Its loud baying ceased, and over it rolled with its legs kicking in the air. Feeling sure that it was done for, I turned and ran, having just time to get behind some thick bushes, when the Kentuckians reached the spot where the dog lay dead. I could hear their loud oaths and execrations on the man ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... woman. "Here's your room," kicking open the door at the top of the stairs. "You can sleep there if you wish, but I hope the British have arrived when you ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... him down, and he jest laid there kicking his feet in the air and trying to keep her from hitting him in ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... Mr. Kennedy, but this isn't the easiest ground in the world," he said, kicking aside some fragments of quartz with which the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... front seat,—senator's hat is jammed over his eyes and nose quite unceremoniously, and he considers himself fairly extinguished;—child cries, and Cudjoe on the outside delivers animated addresses to the horses, who are kicking, and floundering, and straining under repeated cracks of the whip. Carriage springs up, with another bounce,—down go the hind wheels,—senator, woman, and child, fly over on to the back seat, his elbows encountering her bonnet, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... beginning to kick up the soil. At length reaching the last tuft of grass which would assist in concealing him, he shoved forward his pole to its utmost extent. Back came one of the birds, and Walter saw that it had actually passed the noose; then round it turned and began energetically kicking away, not noticing the trap laid in its path. Presently it stepped into the very middle of the noose, when Nub by a violent jerk drew it tight, and starting up, rushed away, dragging the astonished bird after him. The rest looked about for a moment, very much surprised at the unusual ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... As we swung along, kicking up the acrid alkali dust from the cattle-trail that snaked its way through the cactus and sagebrush, the roar behind us died; and before us, far away, dull muffled thunders grew up in the hush of the burning noon. Thunders ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... relishes the strong feeling of personal contention which always develops when there are many openings inviting many men. As one World War II commander expressed it: "During war the ball is always kicking around loose in the middle of the field and any man who has the will may pick it up and run ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... was not till I had tired myself out with trying to push up the lid that I set to work to screaming, and that made it all the more provoking that my calls brought no one. At last I got so out of patience that I set to work again kicking for no use at all, but just because I was so angry. I kicked and screamed, and at last I burst into tears and roared. Then I caught sight, through the chink, of Lady Regina's blue dress, where the doll was lying on the floor ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... again from Spithead on the fourth day after our arrival, and nothing of importance occurred for quite a fortnight, during which we were kicking about in the chops of the Channel, keeping a bright lookout all the while for anything that might chance to come in our way, whether in the shape of captured British merchantmen, privateers, French ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... unusual difficulty. The two pack animals were together, one tied to the tail of the other; the second had several times acted badly, but in passing over this bit of road, he jumped and plunged, so that his pack loosened and slid to one side. Plunging, kicking, and falling, he dragged down the unfortunate beast to whose tail he was tied; the old rope tugged and creaked, and, for a moment, we expected to see the very tail of the forward animal pulled out, and both packs destroyed ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... the copyright essay, the judge, I think, comes very near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I commenced these remarks, that I would read that article, but I now believe ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... accommodatin' class of paternage that's passin'," growled the Cap'n, kicking an inoffensive chair as he came back to his platform. "They talk about him as though he was Lord Gull and ruler of the stars. Jest as though a man that had sailed deep water all his days knowed all ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... passed the reefs safely. They pull like heroes. There! Up go her oars—they are in-board. There are a man and a woman in the water, struggling for life. The man is trying to save the woman. The chaise seems to hang upon a rock, and the horse is kicking and plunging to clear ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... you think I'll let my wife get worse while the doctor is coolly kicking his heels in the room below? No, sir, I am a plain man, and I tell you that you will either go up ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his mind? A writer of a method article in a recent issue of The Sunday School Times related an incident of a chap whom he described as "a motor-minded boy." He said that he was sitting on top of a school desk at recess, kicking back with his heels, and when asked what he was thinking about, replied: "I was wondering, if my legs were horses, how ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... grandsons, for his better accommodation, had rolled a large snow-ball, and placed it below his head. The wrath of the ancient chief was awakened by a symptom of what he conceived to be degenerate luxury. 'Out upon thee,' said he, kicking the frozen bolster from the head which it supported, 'art thou so effeminate as to need a pillow?' The officer of engineers, whose curious Letters from the Highlands have been more than once quoted, tells a similar story of Macdonald of Keppoch, and subjoins the following remarks: 'This ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... knife; once in the shoulder, once in the forehead and the third time in the chest. He fought wildly, waving his arms around in the darkness, kicking and crying: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... when it interfered so far. In particular, the scourgings and flagellations resorted to in Wexford and Kildare, &c., must have been originally suggested by minds familiar with the habits of the Irish aristocracy in the treatment of dependants. Candid Irishmen will admit that the habit of kicking, or threatening to kick, waiters in coffee houses or other menial dependants,—a habit which, in England, would be met instantly by defiance and menaces of action for assault and battery, —is not yet altogether obsolete in Ireland. [7] Thirty years ago it was still ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... such a piece of revenge as cutting the beds to bits in the house of an innkeeper who had offended him.[355] Nor does he speak with any shame of the savage cruelty with which he punished a woman who was sitting to him as a model, and whom he hauled up and down his room by the hair of her head, kicking and beating her till he was tired.[356] It is true that on this occasion he regrets having spoiled, in a moment of blind passion, the best arms and legs that he could find to draw from. Such episodes, to which it is impossible ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Tommy do?" asked Dorothy, bent on trying to plead for the culprit, who was now alternately roaring and kicking the ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... dignity," cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. "Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... familiar trench profanity was gathering in volume; under other circumstances he would have found a certain enjoyment in the sound. He looked back and saw what he expected: the barrow overturned; the flowers scattered, the donkey surprised out of its drowsiness, thrown on its back and kicking in its harness; the coster straddling the sudden ruin and calling down all the rigors of the law. A crowd was running together; it hesitated between the coster and Tabs, uncertain as to which would provide the more exciting entertainment. When the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... kicking up the dust with his toes. That was something he had been told not to do, so now in this state of mind he liked to do it. The sun beat down fiercely upon his small red cropped head in the burned straw-hat, and his slender shoulders in the calico ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... am kicking my heels here at an engineer's store, waiting for an engineer officer who is wanted to plan some new dug-outs for our battery, and as there is no one to talk to inside except the most inarticulate Hielander I ever struck, I shall at last make use of one of ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it for him. Give him ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... set off to Rishyamuka, the residence of Bali, watered by the Pampa. In the way Rama performs a miracle by kicking away the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... cried, and as I threw the shutter back, they lifted the table to the sill and pushed it through. Before the Indians understood what was happening, I had dropped beside it, pulled it around to screen me, and was kicking the brands away from the building. Then they understood, and made a rush for the house, but met so sharp a reception from Brightson and his men that they fell back, and contented themselves with keeping up a sharp fusilade upon my place of concealment. It was ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the matter is," says he, "that you've been kicking up a devil of a row, and that you'd much better have gone quietly with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to the victim; the other to give the straining winch a crueller twist. It was not the gentler way my captors took, as you would guess; and when I came to know and see and feel again a pair of them were kicking me alive, and I was sore ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Simon followed his father, however, but made, as he went along, all manner of "faces" at the old man's back; gesticulated as if he were going to strike him between the shoulders with his fists, and kicking at him so as almost to touch his coat tail with his shoe. In this style they walked on to the mulberry-tree, in whose shade Simon's brother ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... great deal of kicking and hustling on the part of the victim's schoolfellows to arrest this process, and the cure is generally only effected outwardly. Priggishness cannot be eradicated from the system in a moment, even by the ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... watched them absently—"the Committee rounded him up and took him out to the oak, next morning. Trial took about fifteen minutes, all told. They had him hung, in their own minds, before the greaser quit kicking. I know the man shot in self-defense; I saw the Spaniard pull his knife and start for him with blood in his eye. But some of the Committee had it in for Sandy, and so—it was adios for him, poor devil. They murdered ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... said. "You fellows might have to get busy as soon as you hit the coast. Kicking off a tank can't be done with an FW dropping out of a cloud on ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... string; and had fastened to the end of the string a pellet of tobacco stolen from the old man's pouch. With this bait he had been fishing in the lotus pond; and a frog had swallowed it, and was now suspended high above the pebbles, sprawling in rotary motion, kicking in frantic spasms of disgust and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... into the quicksand pit. Did you ever hear of anybody's getting out of that pit alive? I never did until that incident; but I have found out since that both those assistants, Chick and Ten-Ichi, are alive and kicking, down in New York, ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... After supper watches were assigned, as usual, the latter part of the night guardianship falling to Coyote Pete and Jack once more. When, soon after midnight, Walt and Ralph Stetson aroused them, there was nothing much to report except that One Spot had engaged in a spirited kicking match with his brethren. Outside of that, all ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... up in the sky, and the snow was melting. While I still moodily eyed my young enemy and wondered how I should go about to acquit myself of the task laid upon me—to play with him—he solved the question by kicking into the moist snow with ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... I'm not kicking. I'm lucky to be alive at all. That fellow made an awful swipe at me, and if it had hit me fair it ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... the maid, who disliked Muriel, stopped and made a noise like an exploding pop bottle, at the same time taking a little run in Muriel's direction and kicking at her with a menacing foot. Muriel, wounded and startled, had turned in her tracks and sprinted back up the staircase at the exact moment when the Honorable Freddie, who for some reason was in a great hurry, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... you keep me here for?' thundered Dempster, 'kicking my heels like a beggarly tailor waiting for a carrier's cart? I ordered you to be here at ten. We might have driven to Whitlow by ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... stiffened in their chairs. The tall old man came down to the fireplace, disgustedly kicking a stray, crumpled sheet of tissue paper out of ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... increasing beauty of the mountain road, the living emerald of the rice-fields, and the picturesque mills for husking the grain, which give special character to this unique district of Celebes. Suddenly the rickety conveyance comes to a full stop, and a kicking match begins, the plunging ponies refusing to budge an inch. The incapable Jehu implores his fare's consent to an immediate return, but meets with an inexorable refusal, the halting Malay sentences eked out with an unmistakable pantomime of threats and warnings. The driver's whip, supplemented ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... magnitude in society," who went about fishing for (p. 175) introductions. "But this," it concluded, speaking of his England, "was his last kick, and we shall not disturb his dying moments." Two years later the magazine seemed to think he had some power of kicking left, for it returned to the charge in consequence of his review of Lockhart's "Life of Scott." In this article he was called a "spiteful miscreant," an "insect," a "grub," a "reptile." The "Quarterly Review" ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... up the embassy walked at the usual slow and somewhat shambling pace which the Lancashire rustic assumes at times of leisure—pausing every now and then to emphasise the point of some remark, switching at the hedge with their sticks, playfully kicking up the dust, or sending a tempting pebble spinning along in front of them—faint notes of music reached them, coming apparently from the direction towards which they were bending their steps. These notes were feeble and faltering, as though the player were practising an unfamiliar air; in another ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... but I soon grew better. I knew beforehand the impossibility of sinking in this buoyant water, but I was surprised to find that I could not swim at my accustomed pace; my legs and feet were lifted so high and dry out of the lake, that my stroke was baffled, and I found myself kicking against the thin air instead of the dense fluid upon which I was swimming. The water is perfectly bright and clear; its taste detestable. After finishing my attempts at swimming and diving, I took some time in regaining the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Petheram, reassured, kicking over a heap of papers to give more room for his feet. "Take it that I continue as editor. We can discuss terms later. Under the present regime I have been doing all the work in exchange for a happy home. I suppose you won't want to spoil the ship for a ha'porth ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... to have awakened to a full consciousness of the situation. Drinkers, dealers and roughs gathered in large numbers on the street to wait for the praying women. A mob, headed by an organization of brewers, rushed upon them, kicking them, striking them with their fists and hitting them with brickbats. The women were locked in a store away from the infuriated mob, who, on the arrival of a stronger body of police, were dispersed, cursing and yelling as they went. ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... under his breath, and kicking his heels so restlessly that only the soundest sleeper could still remain ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... an apron and a shabby embroidered cap, had suddenly appeared from the depths of the taproom, accompanied by his wife, a monstrous, red-faced creature clothed in a grey flannel frock. The porter whom Dumnoff had felled, and who was not altogether stunned, was kicking violently in the attempt to gain his feet among the fallen chairs, a dozen people had come in from the street at the noise of the fight and stood near the door, phlegmatically watching the proceedings, and the poor old woman from the country, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... all be larking and smoking and kicking up no end of a row, and poor old Jack's serious face'll ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... knew who used to go wrong in his head every now and again, and try to commit suicide. Once, when the station-hand, who was watching him, had his eye off him for a minute, he hanged himself to a beam in the stable. The men ran in and found him hanging and kicking. 'They let him hang for a while,' said Mrs Spicer, 'till he went black in the face and stopped kicking. Then they cut him down and threw a bucket ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... day drew on, however, the weather gave signs of changing. The wind, which had been blowing steadily from the northward, chopped round to the north-west, and then to the westward, growing stronger and stronger, and very quickly kicking up an ugly sea, while thick rain began to fall, increasing ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... barking of a legion of dogs announces our approach, for however poor the inhabitants of these places may be the bands of mongrel curs which they keep seem to find means of living. We approach the huts, our horses kicking and snorting at the attacks of the dogs. A few of the houses are built of the usual adobe bricks; the major portion—there may be a dozen or so—are simply jacales, as the Mexican wattle-hut is termed. Dirt, rags, and evil odours surround the place, for primitive man is a filthy being, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Gripping the kicking spokes, Chris watched him and the reluctant cook go forward into the howling darkness. The Sophie Sutherland was plunging into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tense steel stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind. A buffeted cry came to his ears, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... middle of the musty woodshed, pessimistically kicking at the scattered wood. His face was stern, as became a man of eight who was a soldier of fortune famed from the front gate to the chicken-yard. An unromantic film of dirt hid the fact that his Scandinavian cheeks were like cream-colored silk stained with rose-petals. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... very remarkable. When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, with a few associates as fanatical as himself, used to meet, with all the gravity of political importance, to settle an equal government by rotation; and Milton, kicking when he could strike no longer, was foolish enough to publish, a few weeks before the restoration, notes upon a sermon preached by one Griffiths, entitled, the Fear of God and the King. To these notes an answer was written by L'Estrange, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson |
