"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rooms, with basement for cellar and furnace, and a bathroom in front of the cabin and use it with some fixing over for a dining-room and kitchen. Then we will deepen and widen Singing Water, stick a bushel of bulbs and roots and sow a peck of flower seeds in the marsh, plant a hedge along the drive, and straighten the lake shore a little. I can make a beautiful wild-flower garden and arrange so that with one season's work this will appear very well. We will express this stuff and then select ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... again, soft and insistent. Christine knew it was not a branch, for she had taken the trouble to ascertain; and that a stray ostrich should choose her window to peck at for three nights running seemed fantastic. Irrelatively, one of the children murmured drowsily in sleep, and the little human sound braced the girl's nerves. The sense of loneliness left her, giving place ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... sick, in the hope of a legacy, I look upon him in this to be no better than a raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck out ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... cannon may be fired from a distance in this way, and as there is no danger of any spark remaining after the current is shut off, it is safer than the ordinary cannon which is fired by means of a fuse. —Contributed by Henry Peck, Big Rapids, Mich. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... that fool boy wuzn't in a peck uv trubble! There he stood in the middle uv that hot—that all-fired hot—peraroor with his arms full uv eggs. What wuz there fur him to do? He wuz afraid to move, lest he should break them eggs; yet the longer he stood ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... fortunes happy. Socrates, when he heard one of his friends saying, "How dear this city is! Chian wine costs one mina,[736] a purple robe three, and half a pint of honey five drachmae," took him to the meal market, and showed him half a peck of meal for an obol, then took him to the olive market, and showed him a peck of olives for two coppers, and lastly showed him that a sleeveless vest[737] was only ten drachmae. At each place Socrates' friend ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... its little leg, warmed the injured bone by sucking it, and strapped it to little wooden splints. And behold it really set: the bird got quite well and fluttered about the workshops again as sound as before, and whenever it saw me it would perch upon my shoulder and peck very gently at my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... only all her being was singing with the utter joy of the ride. Beneath her Brunette was spurning the turf with dainty hooves; stretching out in her gallop, yet gathering herself cleverly at her fences, with alert, pricked ears—judging her distance, and landing with never a peck or stumble. The light weight on the pony's back was nothing to her; the delicate touch on her mouth was all she needed to steady her at ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... them was coming out ahead. There was no fairness in their positions; Hortense had Eliza in a cage, penned in by every fact; but it doesn't do to go too near some birds, even when they're caged, and, while these two birds had been giving their sweet manifestations of song, Eliza had driven a peck or two home through the bars, which, though they did not draw visible blood, as I have said, probably taught Hortense that a Newport education is not the only instruction which fits you for ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... had the confidence to snatch out of my hand, with his bill, a piece of cake that Glumdalclitch had just given me for my breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds, they would boldly turn against me, endeavoring to peck my fingers, which I durst not venture within their reach; and then they would hop back unconcerned, to hunt for worms or snails, as they did before. But one day, I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily, at a linnet, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... how badly he was hurt. Her call had been brief, and, as he had succeeded in convincing her that the extra twist to his legs would have no serious effect, she had not called since. But Sarah-Mary, the eldest girl, had brought a basket containing a cranberry pie, a half-peck, more or less, of molasses cookies, and two tumblers of beach-plum jelly, and Sarah-Mary had said nothing to her Uncle Sears about the magnificent Mr. Phillips ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... with all her strength against the shutter. She had thought the wooden buttons would give way, but by the clinking sound she knew that the iron bar had been put across. She was quite quiet for a time. Clambering down, she took from the table a small one-bladed penknife, with which she began to peck at the hard ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Top, shine on! Across the realms of space Shine on! What though I'm in a sorry case? What though my collar is a wreck, And hangs a rag about my neck? What though at food I can but peck? Never you mind! ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... one of Fred's best chums. Not a great while back he had fallen into what he called a "peck of trouble, with the pot boiling over," and Fred had been of great help to him. In fact, had it not been for him the mystery of who was taking some of Miss Muster's opals might never have been cleared up; and the elderly spinster, who was Bristles' mother's ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... a wood; bewildered, in a maze, in a peck of troubles, puzzled, or at a loss what course to take in any business. To look over the wood; to ascend the pulpit, to preach: I shall look over the wood at St. James's on Sunday next. To look through the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... left early and wandered back to the club. Somebody was making a racket in our old rooms in the High, windows open, you know, and singing. I stopped to look at them, and then they started, 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' and, 'pon my soul, I had to come away. Couldn't stand it. It reminded me so badly of you and Arthur and old John Lambert, and all the honest men that used to be there. It was infernally absurd that I should have got so sentimental, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... him in various ways, and soon drive him out of his retreat. The Jay, usually his first assailant, like a thief employed as a thief-taker, attacks him with great zeal and animation; the Chickadee, the Nuthatch, and the small Thrushes peck at his head and eyes; while other birds, less bold, fly round him, and by their vociferation encourage his assailants and help ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... you half as much as I do now, I shall always come to see you, I think; and, as I shall be a very old man by that time, perhaps you will still sit on a stool at my knee and give me a kiss now and then—oh, a mere bird's peck, just for kindness.... The Via de' Bardi is grey, and you are there in yellow. You are like a young daffodil dancing in the winter grass. But soon you will have strained to your full flower-time, and I see you in your summering, lithe and rather languid, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Then there was a lovely road along Moffat Water, with a succession of wild green dells and hillsides cleft with fern-choked ravines. Still we were in Burns's country, for by Craigie Burn lived Jean Lorimer, to whom he wrote love-songs; and a little farther on was the scene where "Willie brewed a peck o' maut." The next bit of beauty was associated with the Ettrick Shepherd (I can't bear to think of his name being Hogg), for he wrote a Covenanter story, "Brownie of Bodesbeck," about a mountain we could ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to the seventeenth month there is great uncertainty in finding the mouth with anything held in the hand—a spoon, for instance, striking the cheeks, chin, or nose, instead of at once going between the lips; this forms a striking contrast to the case of young chickens which are able to peck grains, etc., soon after they are hatched. Sucking is not a pure reflex, because a satisfied child will not suck when its lips are properly stimulated, and further, the action may be originated centrally, as in a sleeping suckling. At a later stage biting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... I hear there? Whence doth come that trumpet-blowing?" Werner's music through the March night, Plaintive soared up to the castle, Begging entrance like a pet-dove, Which, returning to its mistress, Finds the window closed and fastened, And begins to peck and hammer. To the terrace went the Baron And his daughter; Hiddigeigei Followed both with step majestic. Through the cat's heart then swept omens Of a great, eventful future. All around they looked—but vainly. For the turret's gloomy shadow Covered both the bank and Werner. Like the blowing of ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... were in vain; the desperate struggles which the prisoner made to free himself from the fatal trap only drew the ends tighter, and confined his foot more firmly. Suddenly a detachment took wing, and, retiring about a hundred paces, returned rapidly, and, one by one, gave a peck at the snare, which each time, owing to the determined manner of the attack, received a sharp twitch. Not one of the swallows missed its aim, so that, after half an hour of this persevering and ingenious labor, the chafed string broke, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... attendant upon literary excellence might with equal justice be extended to every species of merit, and might be urged against all that is good in art or nature.—Scandal is said to attack always the fairest characters, as the birds always peck most at the ripest fruit; but would you for this reason have no fruit ripen, or no characters aspire to excellence? But if it be your opinion that women are naturally inferior to us in capacity, why ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Paris, let me tell you. But murder, duelling, and pillage—they sacked the hotel of the Duc de Castries the other day because his son wounded Charles de Lameth in a duel—are every-day occurrences now. Lafayette is in a peck of trouble, and received me with the utmost coldness. He knows I cannot commend him, and therefore he feels embarrassed and impatient in my society. I am seriously pained for d'Azay, too. I met him at Montmorin's, and he confessed to me that he knew not how ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... wanted last week, by the bushel or peck or barrel,—finest, juiciest apples you ever laid your ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... 26th Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear you can peck butt little satisfaction ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of Fletcher v. Peck[185] was decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... in all directions through his camp, urging the men by every consideration to pass over. Lieutenant-Colonel Bloome, who had been wounded in the action and recrossed the river, together with Judge Peck, who happened to be in Lewiston at the time, mounted their horses and rode through the camp, exhorting the companies to proceed—but all in vain. Crowds of the United States Militia remained on ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... amusement. The two creatures had become great friends, though Quacko now and then showed an inclination to pick the feathers out of his companion's back; but when he made the attempt, she resented it by a severe peck on his head—and one day caught the tip of his tail, and gave it a bite which was calculated to teach him not to behave in the same manner again. Whenever we asked Kallolo to try and catch us some more pets, he invariably replied, "Wait till I can make my blowpipe and some poison, and then ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... was saying. "A runabout, perhaps." He came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. "Mr. Peck says," he began,—"this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,—says that the place we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. It's clearing, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... answered. "I'll take charge of him. The cold water is what he needs. He got too close to the coop, and a peck on the nose frightened him into ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... in order to become inured to hardships. From the first moment that you breathed the air of heaven, you have been accustomed to nothing else but hardships. The heroes of the American Revolution were never put upon harder fare, than a peck of corn, and a few herrings per week. You have not become enervated by the luxuries of life. Your sternest energies have been beaten out upon the anvil of severe trial. Slavery has done this, to make you subservient to its own purposes; but it has done more than ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... has been done in this country upon marine Protozoa. A few observations have been made by Kellicott, Stokes, and Peck, but these have not been at all complete. With the exception of Miss Stevens's excellent description of species of Lichnophora I am aware of no single papers on individual forms. Peck ('93 and '95) clearly stated the economic position ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... practically all our mess crockery was smashed; the continual rolling seemed to make the servants wilfully reckless. Also, having an inefficient caterer, our sea stores were exhausted on the way, with the ludicrous exception of about a peck of nutmegs. Another singular incident remains in my memory. At dawn of the day before our arrival, a mirage presented so exactly, and in the proper quarter, the appearance of Table Mountain, the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... embattled and strong towers bedight. Now seeing that the sun was getting low, Our travellers at quicker pace did go. Thus as in haste near to the gate they came, Before them limped a bent and hag-like dame, With long, sharp nose that downward curved as though It beak-like wished to peck sharp chin below. Humbly she crept in cloak all torn and rent, And o'er a staff her tottering limbs were bent. So came she to the gate, then cried in fear, And started back from sudden-levelled spear; For 'neath the gate ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... scale. No dinner. The estimate is called 150,000l. All your members were present yesterday, and if we had voted against the Government, only see how we would have diminished their numbers.—Mr. Chard is in a peck of troubles. He has not got the address, without which it is useless to go to the Levee.—I was glad of Brougham's mention of Lady Grenville's pension (it certainly was not an attack), because it produced an authorized ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... our wild woodland neighbors made us some trouble. It was no other than a veritable woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after spring flowers. The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had two openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a gentleman we never had had the pleasure of seeing; but we soon learned his existence from his ravages in our garden. He had a taste, it appears, for the very kind of things we wanted to eat ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the lightning. To be furious Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still A diminution in our captain's brain Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason, It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek Some ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a little dip-net. With that and the flash-light we could get a peck of them. These little streams ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... wonder how there can be any enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,—it looks observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... victory, because of the enormous odds he fought. Longstreet, with two of his divisions, was not at Chancellorsville, but was at Suffolk opposing the Federals under Peck. Hooker's army had numbered a hundred and thirty thousand, while Lee had less than sixty ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... string of high and distinguished names, as patrons and patronesses of the celebrated animal called the Bonassus. Crossing the road in their approach to the door, Tallyho could not help admiring the simple elegance of a shop-front belonging to a grocer, whose name is Peck. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to pay me by the day," said Dick, "but says he will give me so much when I have planted this peck, and so ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... running across the lawn to meet his father, seizing him warmly by the hand, and having administered a dutiful peck to his aunt, turned to introduce the little group of strangers ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... grey old crow Was pecking some carrion down below; A poor little lamb, half alive, half-dead, And the crow at each peck turned up its head With a cunning glance at the linnet above— What a demon is ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... cold porridge I'll take—um, yes—a little hot partridge. And you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consomme, anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... some spiritual Use out of all Afflictions, I should rather recommend to those who are visited with Women of Spirit, to form themselves for the World by Patience at home. Socrates, who is by all Accounts the undoubted Head of the Sect of the Hen-peck'd, own'd and acknowledged that he ow'd great part of his Virtue to the Exercise which his useful Wife constantly gave it. There are several good Instructions may be drawn from his wise Answers to People of less Fortitude than himself on her Subject. A Friend, with Indignation, asked how ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... hospital, and when he recovered, transported for the rest of the life that had thus been given back to him. While he was on his way down the town to go on board the vessel, I should think that if he had one dollar given him, he had at least half a peck, though I do not expect they would be much use to him where he was going to. I never heard any more of him, but I don't suppose many men could say that they had been ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... bell kill dress duck Jack fell till Jess tack pack Nell fill less press lack Bell pill neck luck sack sell will Bess still tack tell hill block stick shall well mill peck trill shell yell rock ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... little peccadilloes by damning yours and mine. I forget how it goes. But there'll be more in by-and-by, and then we'll have another table. Those who come late will be more in your line; not so ready to peck your eyes out if you happen to forget a card. That Miss Ruff is dreadful." Here an awful note was heard, for the Lady Ruth had just put her thirteenth trump on Miss Ruff's thirteenth heart. What Littlebathian female ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... the amount of unnecessary duffle with which they encumbered themselves was simply appalling. Why a shrewd business man, who goes through with a guide and makes a forest hotel his camping ground nearly every night, should handicap himself with a five-peck pack basket full of gray woolen and gum blankets, extra clothing, pots, pans and kettles, with a 9 pound 10-bore and two rods—yes, and an extra pair of heavy boots hanging astride of the gun-well, it is one of the things I shall never understand. ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... I have had to pay constant visits to my cousin, who lives in a big castle on the sea-side, ten miles from here, over the mountains, and who is in a peck of troubles;—in spite of her prosperity one of the unhappiest women, I should say, that you could meet anywhere. You know so much of her affairs that, without breach of trust, I may say so much. I wish she had a father or a brother to manage her matters for her; but she has none, and I ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... you'll soon believe The text which says, we sprung from Eve. As an old hen led forth her train, And seemed to peck to shew the grain; She raked the chaff, she scratched the ground, And gleaned the spacious yard around. A giddy chick, to try her wings, On the well's narrow margin springs, And prone she drops. The mother's breast ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... where he introduced me to my new messmates. I was at home in a few minutes, and made up my mind that I should be very jolly. In this opinion I was confirmed by the assurances of another midshipman of about my own age, or rather younger, Tommy Peck by name, who had also come to sea for the first time, and who naturally became my chief chum. He was a merry fellow, delighting in fun and mischief; caring very little about the result of the latter, provided he could amuse ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... spread, and dinner served up just as the king had given these orders, as soon as the dishes were placed, the bird, clapping his wings, leaped off the king's hand, flew upon the table, where he began to peck the bread and victuals, sometimes on one plate and sometimes on another. The king was so surprised that he immediately sent the officer of the eunuchs to desire the queen to come and see this wonder. The officer related it to her majesty, and she ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... fowls the most economical things a farmer can keep? Because for every grain they give a peck. ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... lie unburied! May he rot upon the earth! May the ravens peck out his eyes! May a murderer drink his blood! May the wolves eat his heart! May the spirit of the fog grow fat upon his entrails! And may the spirits of his body scatter—as the clouds in the wild anore (winds) scatter! May his soul forever seek to find its kindred spirits ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... Commissioner Peck, of New York, shows that during the year 1891, in about 6,000 manufacturing establishments in that State embraced within the special inquiry made by him, and representing 67 different industries, there was a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... "Gee, Jack, here's a peck of trouble," he said. "I got down here and found that Mr. Simms, the big boss, and Mr. Carew, the manager, had been ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... that few liked and many could not eat. It was boiled cracked wheat with a little meat chopped in, no sauce or other relish upon it. I mentioned the case to the doctor, who said, "They purchased a quantity of potatoes, half a peck of which I took to my house and cooked, finding only one or two, among the whole, fit to put into the human stomach. Hence, I looked over my army dietary, found the cracked wheat answered a good purpose, and proposed it here." The potatoes ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? "You may be a treasure," quoth Master Cock, "to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... most prodigal waste, on every hand. In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and thrown away or left behind. If I went to a grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the heaping measure, the groceryman, instead of picking it up, kicked it into the gutter for the wheels of his wagon to run over. The butcher's waste filled my ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... go up to the Hall; first Mrs. Apostleman and Mrs. White, as was fitting, and then a score of other women. Mrs. Apostleman had been the social leader in Santa Paloma when Mrs. White was little Clara Peck, a pretty girl in the High School, whose rich widowed mother dressed her exquisitely, and who was studying French, and could play the violin. But Mrs. Apostleman was an old woman now, and had been playing the game a long time, and she was glad to put the sceptre ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... my voice, Mog, louder still, As sure as you were born, Why should you ask "How many loaves Came from the peck ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... very same mother of his should be left alone as little as possible. He ended a responsible letter, and directed it, and made it a thing of the past with a stamp on it in a little basket on the hall-table outside. Then he came back to his mother, and bestowed on her the kiss, or peck, of peace. It always made him uncomfortable when he had to go away to the hospital under the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... interesting story of English political and social life, making no demands upon one's credulity, but satisfying the requirements in the way of a thoroughly good novel. The characters are all drawn with real fidelity to life.—HARRY THURSTON PECK, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... at a time, we reduced the speed of the stones gradually, and then suddenly piling in a peck or more slowed it down till it fairly came to a standstill, glutted with cobs. The water-wheel had stopped, although the water was still pouring down upon it; and in that condition we left it, with the miller boys peeping about the flume and the millstones ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... branches, or bars of cage, in an absurd manner, as if partly imagining itself hung up in a larder, are by no means the most vital matters about the bird. Whereas, that its beak is always extremely short, and is bent down so roundly that the angriest parrot cannot peck, but only bite, if you give it a chance; that it can bite, pinch, or otherwise apply the mechanism of a pair of nut-crackers from the back of its head, with effect; that it has a little black tongue capable of much talk; above all, that ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... beat fast as the door opened; and there marched gravely in—not a young lady—but a little old gentleman, whose hair was perfectly white, though he seemed to have a great deal of it, for his head was about the size of a half peck measure. He wore a very long-tailed coat, buttoned up very tight; his pantaloons only reached down to his knees; but to make up for that his stockings came up to meet them, and were fastened with perfectly beautiful garters, with ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Sutherland, the soirees of English agitators, and the orgies of Exeter Hall. Let GEO. THOMPSON introduce them as the first fruits of his philanthropic labors in America. Let them travel among the starveling English operatives, who would gladly accept slavery if assured of a peck of corn each week; let them wander among European serfs, whose life, labor, and virtue are the sport of despots, compared to whom the crudest slave driver is an angel—and there proclaim their 'holy alliance.' If the victims of English and Continental ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... undiminished stock in trade at nightfall. All indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, and the poorer ones by the peck-measure. It was a curious and melancholy spectacle, when an overladen coal-cart happened to pass through the street and drop a handful or two of its burden in the mud, to see half a dozen women and children scrambling for the treasure-trove, like a dock of hens ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Peck's hand is of the free and independent order of chirography. It is easy and natural, but not handsome. He writes very voluminously, doing his editorial writing in two days of the week, generally Friday and Saturday. Then he takes a rapid horse, a zealous bird dog and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... summoned, and soon returned, saying, "There's a little fellow that wants to speak with you, and won't give his message. He's a queer little body, and not so bad-looking either, with a bolster on the top of his head, and himself not higher than a pillow; a pigeon could sit upon his shoulder and peck up peas out of his shoes; he struts like a grenadier, and, by the powers! a grenadier's cap would serve as an extinguisher for him. Shall I ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... blinking horribly—such was her attraction. His birds also, a jackdaw and an owl, who had the run of the studio, tolerated her as they tolerated no other female, save the housekeeper. The jackdaw would perch on her and peck her dress; but the owl merely engaged her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which never ended ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hen. No one knew better than she how foolish it would be to go over to that henyard and just trust to luck for a chance to catch one of those biddies. Of course, they might be lucky and get a hen that way, but then again they might be unlucky and get in a peck ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; The good physician Melampus, loving them all, Among them walked, as a scholar ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that then it will open, and you will be admitted? But, no! no! I tell you, no! You shall never be able to utter more than pec, pec, pec; and while with your mouths open you are stammering and stuttering to get out cavi, Satan and his blackguards shall come and peck you, even as crows peck carrion. Yes, Jehu and Jezebel! Remember! ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to make Diversion fit for you. Grant we may please, and we've our utmost Aim, 'Tis to your Favour only we lay claim. In what can we oblige? Cou'd we present you With Mistress young, and safe, it wou'd content you; Then Husbands, weary'd out with Spouse alone, And hen-peck'd Keepers that drudge on with one, I fancy hither wou'd in Crouds resort, As thick as Men for Offices to Court: Who'd stay behind? the Beau above Threescore, Wou'd hobble on, and gape for one bit ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... galloping of the fine horses, the skill of the riders, the gay dresses, the music, and the agile matador; in short, in the whole pomp and circumstances of the combat, than when one looks quietly on to see two birds peck each other's eyes out, and cut each other to pieces. Unlike cock-pits in other countries, attended by blacklegs and pickpockets and gentlemanly roues, by far the largest portion of the assembly in the pit was composed of the first young men in Mexico, and for that matter, of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... known put a Peck or more of Peas, and malt them with five Quarters of Barley, and they'll greatly mellow the Drink, and so will Beans; but they won't come so soon, nor mix so conveniently with the Malt, as ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... I have to say now is by no means a criticism. I am merely asking for an explanation. I have no regard for those people who are continually looking for flaws to peck ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... with the same mercy?—no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed, be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's first appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand an ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... higher class there is restraint and a rather stupid bashfulness. I have seen a wounded youngster flush apprehensively and only peck his mother in return for her sobbing embrace. That is not Bert's way. He knows—he is not a fool—that his mother looks a trifle absurd as, with bonnet awry, she surges perspiringly past the sentries, the tails of her skirt dragging ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... no work. Let the young man whose conceit greatly exceeds his brains, be ashamed of his cane and kid gloves; but never let a man who works be ashamed of his hard hands. There is an old proverb which says, "Mere gentility sent to market, won't buy a peck ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... restoration. According to Clarendon he was "a man of great honour and clear courage," and his defects the result of too little knowledge of the world. Lord Derby left in MS. "A Discourse concerning the Government of the Isle of Man" (printed in the Stanley Papers and in F. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations, devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book. He married on the 26th of June 1626 Charlotte de la Tremoille (1599-1664), daughter of Claude, duc de Thouars, and grand-daughter of William the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... sometimes to seize upon the freshly-laid egg that some lady macaroni had laid, right under the eyes of its owner, feloniously appropriating it to their own use; while they thought nothing of giving an occasional peck to one of the king penguins if he got in their way, regardless of ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... from this was the office of The Birmingham Journal, a very different paper then from what it afterwards became. It had been originally started as a Tory paper by a few old "fogies" who used to meet at "Joe Lindon's," "The Minerva," in Peck Lane; and this was how it came about: The Times had, early in 1825, in a leader, held up to well-deserved ridicule some action on the part of the Birmingham Tory party. This gave awful and unpardonable offence, and retaliation was decided upon. Notes were ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... with its "boxing," "scraping," "gathering" and "distilling," is all piece-work, paid in cash. The Negroes are among the trees before daylight and work till dark. By so doing they earn 75c., $1.00 or $1.25 per day. The plantations pay "rations"—a peck of common meal and four pounds of bacon per week, and 35c. to 50c. per day, the latter mostly ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... part of the house in which they live. Then comes the threshing, which is done with old-fashioned mills, by pounding with a wooden mallet, or by rubbing between two large pieces of wood. Then they winnow it, holding it up by the peck or half bushel to let the wind blow the hulls off, and dry it by placing it on mats of woven bamboo. I saw tons of rice prepared in this way by the side of the road near where I lived. This being ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... to put three or four stones into a spoon, and so putting them into his mouth together, he swallows them all down, one after another; then (first spitting) he drinks a glass of beer after them. He devours about half a peck of these stones every day, and when he clinks upon his stomach, or shakes his body, you may hear the stones rattle as if they were in a sack, all of which in twenty-four hours are resolved. Once in three weeks he voids a great quantity of sand, after which he has a fresh appetite for these stones, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... accident, was practised for about three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by sparks they picked up to live pretty easily together, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Peck!" they urged. "They've got Coulter going, and he will lose the game right here ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... would, that is, if she is a wopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundred weight of hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover hay, because the horse likes it best; give him through ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... bank he flamed and rioted. In the sumac he uttered not the faintest "Chip!" that might attract attention. He was so anxious to be inconspicuous that he appeared only half his real size. Always on leaving he gave her a tender little peck and ran his beak the length of her wing—a characteristic caress that he delighted ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often dances all night, most gracefully, and in the morning she turneth up her little nose, just as gracefully as the elephant turneth up his snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, at the awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers. The private parlor dance is the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into the coaches by the general ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... land on spec, Plow and sow, There's a place for every peck, You can grow. Swat the Kaiser in the neck, Issue him a passage check ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... boy," she cried, and gave him a peck of a kiss, "and does not that prove what I say, that there are no villainies in Ferrara? For, see, the trees are as thick as a forest." She made him laugh again before many paces. His ringing tones caught the ears of Captain Mosca, and set that ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... their carriages; then the young lord had a custom of lying in wait with a few intimates, and shooting at passers-by with an air gun, on a wager; then inside the court was a peacock, which flew at everybody's head and tried to peck out his eyes. Man and beast were trained here to harass the stranger. The day when the arrival of Father Peter was expected, the mistress took care to have her beloved child's air gun put away, for the round Jesuit hat would ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... ardor experienced a sudden chill, and I indulged in a most unpatriotic wish that I was safe at home again, with a quiet day before me, and no necessity for being hustled up, as if I were a hen and had only to hop off my roost, give my plumage a peck, and be ready for action. A second bang at the door sent this recreant desire to the right about, as a little woolly head popped in, and Joey, (a six ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... And when he finds a likely spot to dig, down he'll go through drifts and crusts until he reaches the stubble." Uncle Billy shook his head and drew a long breath. "Young man," he said, "you've got us into a peck of trouble. This whole village has to move. ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the spawn or eggs of a Beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground under Cow or Horse-dung, and there rests all Winter, and in March or April comes to be first a red, and then a black Beetle: gather a thousand or two of these, and put them with a peck or two of their own earth into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm, that the frost or cold air, or winds kill them not, and you may keep them all winter and kill fish with them at any time, and if you put some of them into a little earth ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... and found that the first contained corn meal enough to keep him and his hungry family in hoe-cake until he could earn money from the committee to buy more, and that there were three chickens and about a peck of potatoes in ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... great admirer of his genius, wishing to show the perfection of the picture, said to some people who were looking at it, 'These strawberries are so very natural and perfect, that I have seen birds coming down from the trees to peck them, mistaking them ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... an exceedingly dull person who made the remark, Ex pede Herculem. He might as well have said, "From a peck of apples you may judge of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure! Read, instead, Ex ungue minimi digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, matrem, avos et proavos, filios, nepotes et pronepotes! Talk to me about your [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... about eleuen yeares agoe, this Examinate and her mother had their firehouse broken,[E4a] and all, or the most part of their linnen clothes, & halfe a peck of cut oat-meale, and a quantitie of meale gone, all which was worth twentie shillings, or aboue: and vpon a Sunday then next after, this Examinate did take a band and a coife, parcell of the goods aforesaid, vpon the daughter of Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... was born in them parts, down to Canton, where father belonged; but mother was a Simsbury woman, and afore I was long-togged, father he moved onter the old humstead up to Simsbury, when gran'ther Peck died. Our farm was right 'longside o' Miss Buel's; you'll see't when you go there; but there a'n't nobody there now. Mother died afore I come away, and lies safe to the leeward o' Simsbury meetin'-house. Father he got a stroke a spell back, and he couldn't farm it; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various |
