"Picket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... followed me. "Go to Enrique," I whispered; "he'll just bubble over at a good chance to tell you. Yes; it was the Dona Anita who caused the delay." A smothered chuckling shook the old man's frame, as he sauntered over to where Enrique was saddling. As the two led off the horse to picket in the gathering dusk, the ranchero had his arm around the vaquero's neck, and I felt that the old matchmaker would soon be in possession of the facts. A hilarious guffaw that reached me as I was picketing my horse announced that the story was out, and as the two returned to the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the eighth, cloaked in utter darkness, took shadowy form against the sky. The handy-man stumbled into his unkempt front yard, its metes and bounds but indifferently defined by the remnants of what had been a picket fence; he made his way to the side door, which he threw open without ceremony. As he had surmised, his old woman was up. She was seated by the table in the corner, engaged in mending the ragged trousers belonging to Joseph ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... into the receiver of the telephone which communicated with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. "Who? Oh, she may come in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... extra guards out, and a picket down the road to town," muttered Private Hyman, who stood next to Hal in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... joined up with that regiment, became Adjutant. During that campaign he was always to the fore in every crisis and showed particular skill in rooting out men who were inciting the Indians to revolt. One morning of dense fog away beyond Fort Pitt our outside picket was fired on when I had charge of the guard. Calling out the guard and getting them under arms I went over to notify the officer commanding in the camp, but met Constantine with his forty-five ready for action. He had scented the alarm and did not wait ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... for more words, Neville waved his hand in encouragement, and putting spurs to his horse was out of sigh in a moment. In a few minutes he galloped up to the post held by the British picket, and flung himself off his reeking steed—incurring imminent risk of being bayoneted by the sentry, because he took no notice of his peremptory challenge. Bursting into the guard-room, he called for the officer of the day, Lieutenant Fitzgibbon. A few words ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... said the old chief, "when you came up. Some of our young men have gone up, indeed, to the picket yonder, to hear the harper sing, whose voice you catch sometimes, when we are ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... safety, whilst the other two grounded and burnt out without causing further inconvenience. Captain Knox describes the scene as a display of "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be conceived." The only result was to cause the retirement of a picket at the western end of the Ile d'Orleans, and the officer in command, who thought he was about to be attacked in force, was to have been tried by court-martial, but being advised to throw himself on Wolfe's mercy, was pardoned for his error of judgment. To guard against a repetition of ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... man picket his horse with those of the staff," he said, "and see that it has forage at once. Take the man to the orderlies' quarters, and see that he is well ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... we had to live in, I tell you we had a tough affair, a picket concern, you might say no house a-tall. The beds was one of your own make; if you knowed how to make one, you had one, but of course the chillen slept on the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... to wash away no stain Upon your wasted lea; I raise no banners, save the ones The forest wave to me: Upon the mountain side, where Spring Her farthest picket sets, My reveille awakes a ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... upon the king. The news spread to the camp of the League that the Bearnese was the leader of the skirmishers. Mayenne believed it, and urged the instant advance of the flying squadron and of the whole vanguard. Farnese refused. It was impossible that the king should be there, he said, doing picket duty at the head of a company. It was a clumsy ambush to bring on a general engagement in the open field, and he was not to be drawn out of his trenches into a trap by such a shallow device. A French captain, who by command of Henry had purposely allowed himself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... heavy hand suddenly smites EDWIN in the back, almost snapping his head off, and there stands spectrally between them Mr. BUMSTEAD, who has but recently found his way out of the back-yard in Gospeler's Gulch, by removing at least two yards of picket fence from the wrong place, and wears upon his head a gingham sun-bonnet, which, in his hurried departure through the hall of the Gospeler's house, he has mistaken for his own hat. Sustaining himself against ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... excellent chance to send a force out of the Palace Gate near the Hotel Dieu, by which the assailants had passed, and to attack them in the rear. For this duty Colonel Caldwell was told off and he took with him Nairne and his picket of about thirty men. The force plodded through the deep snow in the tracks of the enemy who, about daybreak, were astonished to find themselves shut in by British forces at each end of the Sault au Matelot. A hand to hand ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... indeed. Another rod and he found himself in front of a gate, on the high post of which was perched a diminutive, bare-legged girl in a soiled, damp frock, superintending the drying of three pair of mud-covered shoes arranged in a row on the picket fence, while she issued orders to the two sisters sitting in the middle of the ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... of Brant. The latter, however, did not relax his vigilance, and after the advance the next day he made a minute inspection of the ground he was to occupy, its approaches and connections with the outlying country, and the rebel lines; increased the stringency of picket and sentry regulations, and exercised a rigid surveillance of non-combatants and civilians within the lines, even to the lowest canteener or camp follower. Then he turned his attention to the house he was to occupy as ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... area called "the Wilderness." Jackson rode round him, cutting his communications and so forcing him to fight, and Lee beat him soundly at Chancellorsville. The battle was, however, won at a heavy cost to the Confederacy, for towards the end of the day the mistake of a picket caused the death by a Southern bullet of the most brilliant, if not the greatest, of Southern captains. As to what that loss meant we have the testimony of his chief and comrade-in-arms. "If I had had Jackson with me," said Lee after Gettysburg, "I should have ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... minutes, the rain having almost ceased, we put on our rubber boots and went out to look after the other horses. Old Browny we found in the lee of the sod house, not exactly asleep, but evidently about to take a nap. The pony had pulled up her picket-pin and retreated to a little hollow a hundred yards away. We caught her and brought her back. By the light of the lantern we found that the great stroke of lightning had struck the curb of the well, shattering it, and making a hole in the ground beside it. The storm had gone muttering ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... beautiful stream of water runs about forty feet below us with the clearest and coldest of water. One of our first occupations in the morning is to take the animals down to water, and afterwards to picket them in amongst the long grass, growing in great profusion and height during the short summer on all the foot hills and wherever there is an open space. The first afternoon we were up here we went for a ride round Imogene basin, and were delighted with the wild flowers, which are quite ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... in my face as I galloped away up the vineyard road and out on to the long plateau where, on every hillock, a hussar picket sat his wiry horse, carbine poised, gazing ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... one of us would be killed, but no one was shot except the one just mentioned. Out-posts were always stationed two hundred yards or more from camp every night, or in front of our trenches, to prevent a night attack. If the enemy started through our picket lines they were fired on by the pickets, who would then rapidly fall back to our lines of trenches. This out-post duty is very important and very dangerous, especially when the sneaking ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... Cincinnati to the mouth of the Big Miami, opposite which we were to settle. Here was some cleared land, and one or two log cabins, but they had been deserted on account of the Indians. My father rebuilt the cabins, and inclosed them with a strong picket. It was early in the spring when we arrived at the mouth of the Big Miami, and we were soon engaged in preparing a field to plant corn. I think it was not more than ten days after our arrival, when my father ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... her brows in perplexity, but his hand was on the white picket gate, and she had to walk through it ahead of him as he ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... wide smooth faces, loose clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous tongue, are much like savages. They sing wild chants as they picket their sheep in long double lines at night, and with their savage mastiffs sleep unsheltered under the frosty skies under the lee of their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their caravans, and walked round their orderly lines of sheep and their neat walls of saddlebags; ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... that it?" said Stuart, in matter-of-fact tones, as he turned again to the house. "Good idea. Tell him to fire lower next time. And, I say," he went on, as he bowed curtly to the assembled company on the veranda, "since you have got a picket out, you had better double it. And, Clay, see that no one leaves here without permission—no one. That's more important, even, than ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Sing Sing prison presents the appearance of a huge, square pen, covering many acres of land, and enclosed by a high, brick wall on the three land sides, and a tall, iron picket fence on the side adjoining the ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... the Chief for the sign," Said little Dan O'Shea, "Though never I come from the picket's line, But a faded suit of grey: Yet over my death will the road be safe, And the ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... State with the same prompt obedience as if he were detailed to go upon a court-martial. The soldier, if detailed to act as a justice of the peace, must obey as quickly as if he were detailed for picket duty. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... a hollow with my knife, I swathed myself in my blanket with a saddle for pillow. I watched the stars for a while, as they drifted slowly over me. The horses stamped, shaking their picket-ropes. The sentries walked their rounds, or came to the camp-fires to call their reliefs. The night was full of strange noises. The presence of so many sleeping men was strange. It was very beautiful, very solemn. It gave one a kind of awe ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... kept along pretty easily, seeming just in their glory, all this being new work to them. After some little firing from the cannon the enemy retreated into the town, which was well fortified. We placed an outlying picket of some three hundred men to watch the enemy's manoeuvres, while the body of our army encamped in the rear in a line stretching from sea to sea, so that the town standing upon a projecting piece of land, all communication from the mainland was cut off. The country around meanwhile abounded ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... Lieutenant Crofton, Captain O'Connor with the first boatload having gone a longer route. A reef near the beach threw the men out, and they stumbled through the water up to their breasts. When they reached dry land they immediately went into the bush to form a picket-line. Two horses had been forced to swim ashore, when suddenly a rifle-shot, followed by continuous sharp firing, warned the men that the enemy ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... but glanced at the house where she lived. It was an unpainted, three room cabin, more dilapidated than the average, with bare dirt and cinders about it, and what had once been a picket-fence, now falling apart and being used for stove-wood. The windows were cracked and broken, and upon the roof were signs of leaks that had been ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... the group scattered in every direction. "Pshaw!" said one, "we are out of range; besides, it is a telescope that he has. By——, it is a Rebel, reconnoitring our camp!" There was a manifest sensation here, and one man wondered how he had passed the picket. Another suggested that he might be accompanied by a troop, and a third convulsed the circle by declaring that there were six other Rebels visible in a woods to the left. Mr. Fogg had meantime come up and proffered me a field-glass, through which I certainly made out a ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... this time on the right. Bud saw that they were passing a picket fence. The barking of this dog started another farther ahead and to the left. Houses so close together could only mean that he was approaching Crater. Bud began to pull Sunfish down to a more conventional ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... were attacked in the market-place with stones and halberds; the delinquent had escaped to the Rue des Lombards and rushed into a house. They broke open the doors and searched the dwelling, but in vain. Comminges, wounded by a stone which had struck him on the forehead, had left a picket in the street and returned to the Palais Royal, followed by a menacing crowd, to ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... evening of the 20th of July, the garrison discovered the boats of the British army ascending the river. On the following morning general Clay, now in command of this post, despatched a picket guard of ten men to a point three hundred yards below the fort, where it was surprised by the Indians, and seven of the party either killed or captured. The combined army of British and Indians, were soon afterwards encamped on the north side of the river, below ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... brave, heroic soul! Hid in the dim mist of the things that be, We call thee up to fill the highest place! Whether to till thy corn and give the tithe, Whether to grope a picket in the dark, Or, having nobly served, to be cast down, And, unregarded, passed by meaner feet, Or, happier thou, to snatch the fadeless crown, And walk in youth and beauty to God's rest,— The purpose makes the hero, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this wigwam on stilts looked most inviting just then, and we yielded to the seduction. We got off, and throwing ourselves at full length on the grass, allowed our horses to graze close to us, without taking the trouble to picket them. ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... could see not only the places of interest, but something also of that motley population which made the town so different to all others save only its younger sister, Montreal. Passing and repassing along the steep path with the picket fence which connected the two quarters, they saw the whole panorama of Canadian life moving before their eyes, the soldiers with their slouched hats, their plumes, and their bandoleers, habitants from the river cotes ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the half march approaches I get out my whistle. Then at a shrill blast Bowers wheels slightly to the left, his tent mates lead still farther out to get the distance for the picket lines; Oates and I stop behind Bowers and Evans, the two other sledges of our squad behind the two other of Bowers'. So we are drawn up in camp formation. The picket lines are run across at right angles to the line of advance and secured to the two sledges at each end. In a few minutes ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... he went inspiredly on. "There was a thick clump of hedge, cold and dreary in the mist, that awoke pictures of a prison I used to dread the sight of when I was—I don't know how old. Once I partly thought I must be dreaming; so I put out my hand and touched the wet, sodden picket of an old fence. I looked suspiciously behind me. But there was only an old man behind, fully two hundred yards away. Then the idea came to me that it would be a relief to talk to somebody; I hadn't interchanged a word with any one since I got ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... something. It was a gate in a picket fence and the gate swung open. He staggered up the path on the other side of that gate, the path which led to the doorway ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Women of the better sort, if they ventured out at all, walked quickly, heavily cloaked and veiled. The trollops and street walkers of a garrison town emerged from their lairs even at midday, and stood in little groups at the corners exchanging jests with the soldiers on picket duty, or shouted ribaldries to the yeomen and dragoons who passed them. Idle maid servants, sluttish and dishevelled, leaned far out of the upper windows of the houses to gaze at the pageant beneath them. In the High Street a crowd of loafers—coarse women and soldiers ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... steamboat-hands, and I resolved to let them go ashore as little as possible. Most articles of furniture were already, however, before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used only as a picket-station. The only valuable article was a piano-forte, for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. I had made up my mind to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which I should be covertly attacked, and nothing else; and as this house ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... up two carriages and a large automobile, and out of the automobile climbed a well-dressed woman who took a bundle of the pamphlets from the girl picket and began passing them about among the people. Two policemen who stood in front of the crowd took off their helmets and accompanied her. The crowd cheered. Frank came hurrying across the street to where Sam stood in front of the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... house from which the voice seemed to come. It was near at hand, a shabby little cottage with a thin slice of yard closed in by a dilapidated picket fence. He perceived no observers in the alley, and he stepped into the yard. The front windows were open, for the evening was warm, but no lights ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... hide in their bosoms deep, broad lakes. Yet the soil of the lowlands is of extraordinary fertility, and the climate, though humid, deals kindly with the Anglo-Saxon constitution. Nor is this all; for, advanced from it north and south, like picket-stations, are Norfolk isle and the Auckland group, which, if they have no other attractions, certainly have this great one, good harbors. And it requires no prophet's eye to see, that, when England needs posts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... microscope and a chemical laboratory to analyze every blade of grass along the route for Paris green. The best we can do is to take our chances and keep going north. But I think we'd better establish outside picket lines which will stay well in advance, and off to the flanks. If it can be done, this system will succeed in at least frightening them off for a while. Everybody prepare to stand ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... powdering it finer and finer in the street. Along the sidewalks dusty hacks and carriages were ranged, and others were driving up to let people dismount at the entrances to the college yard. Within the temporary picket- fences, secluding a part of the grounds for the students and their friends, were seen stretching from dormitory to dormitory long lines of Chinese lanterns, to be lit after nightfall, swung between the elms. Groups of ladies came and went, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... on the job of getting water, because I shall picket the horses where they can get a drink," ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... covering a good deal of ground and yet without any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed about it and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been gradually sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield. By immemorial custom the cottage had always been painted ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... were the worst; they were insatiable. They ate the head-ropes that fastened them to the horse-lines, and the incensed picket spent half the night chasing them and tying them up again with what was left of the rope. Fortunately we obtained chains at railhead, and as these were uneatable they turned their attention to the horse-blankets and ate them! Soon it was impossible ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... into temporary insanity by a. Sunday-school class of pinky little girls. On that sagging porch a laughing woman had fed him and other boys with doughnuts and gingerbread; yonder he saw the staggered relics of the iron picket fence he had made his white pony jump, on a dare, and in the shabby, stone-faced house behind the fence he had gone to children's parties, and, when he was a little older he had danced there often, and fallen in love with Mary Sharon, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... animals and saddle-horses do much better on the trail if they can be permitted to graze free, or only hobbled. They like to forage about for themselves, and usually will eat more and better grass than when tied by a picket rope. During the first three or four days out, horse or mule is apt to wander back to the home pasture. Hobbles can be bought or made. When bought, they are broad, flexible strips of leather about eighteen inches long, with cuffs which buckle ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... lay somnolent around the cage. Trees were nearby. The cage stood in a corner of a field by a low picket fence. Behind the trees, a ribbon of road stretched away toward a distant shining river. Down the road some five hundred feet, the white columns of a large square brick house gleamed in the moonlight. And behind the house ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... and bears cared nothing for surveyor's stakes, and held possession of most of the cities, howling defiance at the march of civilization. The troops were still in Kansas establishing slavery, and we lived in a constant state of alarm. The men were organized for defense against Indians, and must do picket duty. All the money was in the hands of the enemy. Citizens had everything to buy and nothing to buy it with. Provisions were brought up from St. Paul by wagon, except when a boat could come from St. Anthony. ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... didn't like this change, that Mr. Hopewell had kinder inoculated me with other guess views on these matters, so he began to throw up bankments and to picket in the ground, all round for ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... cottage is a servant house at the rear of a white family's residence. A gate through an old-fashioned picket fence led into a spacious yard where dense shade from tall pecan trees was particularly inviting after a long walk in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... north side of the cube looked into a great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun with trumpet vines and woodbine, shaded long beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The rear of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed with a white-washed picket fence. Always were there flowers at Granny's house. In the cold days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses and gloxinias crowded against the little square panes of the windows and looked defiantly ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... we cooked breakfast, a strong picket of wolves watched all around the camp, feasting their greedy eyes from a distance on my elk-meat. When we started from camp, a hundred or more of them followed us, often coming quite close to the back pony, and biting and quarrelling about the elk that was never to be their ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... wings, each with its row of fluted columns supporting the classical roof of a piazza across its whole front, each vying with the others in the whiteness of those wooden walls enveloping its bright green blinds. One had to look over picket fences to see these houses, and in doing so caught the notion that they thus railed themselves off in pride at being able to remember before the railroad came to the village, or the wagon-works ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... number of graves covered by the undergrowth of shrubbery, and perchance hers might be one of them. Accepting the possibility I found the one I sought, which could not fail to be recognized, for strange to say, time had dealt so gently that the slender picket fence was undecayed by his "effacing; lingers," and the name painted upon the little wooden head-board was distinctly visible. Grouped in quadrangular growth were four little trees, gracefully arching in a bowery drapery over the grave, as if nature in ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... memorandums. Finally, the relaxation of the ban was applicable only to the continental United States. In response to a request for guidance from the European commander, the Joint Chiefs of Staff informed all overseas commanders that as guests of Allied nations, U.S. servicemen had no right to picket, demonstrate, or otherwise participate in any act designed to "alter the policies, practices, or activities of the local inhabitants who are operating within the framework of ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... my wurrd for ut, you Orth'ris there an' Learoyd, an' kape out av the Married Quarters—as I did not. No good iver comes av ut, an' there's always the chance av your bein' found wid your face in the dirt, a long picket in the back av your head, an' your hands playing the fifes on the tread av ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... line of breastworks, then in succession the Fernandina Railroad, the Jacksonville Railroad, and pike, moving all the time nearly parallel with the picket line. Here we had to halt. Hommat was suffering greatly with his feet. The shoes that had been given him by the widow lady were worn out, and his feet were much torn and cut by the terribly rough road we had traveled through ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Mr. Walker. He was a hod carrier when dey built de old red brick Arlington. I remember lots of things dat happened here. I remember seein' de smoke from de fire—dat big one. We was a livin' near Picket Springs—you don't know whare dat is. Well, does you know where de soldier's breast work was—now I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... plucked a nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls 'granny's mutches'; and indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns, ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence. Outside, looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high, perhaps. We did not recognise the head at once, and asked the little woman who ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Trees and hedges and climbing honeysuckle had contributed, no doubt, to the defense of these relics of a more genial day, but the dogged determination of their owners to save their old homes at any cost must have been the determining factor, Starratt had often thought, as he lingered before the old picket fences, in an attempt to revive his memories of other days. He could not remember, of course, quite back to the time when the Hyde Street hill had been in an opulent heyday, but the flavor of its quality had trickled through to his generation. This was ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... man save an unmitigated tenderfoot would picket a horse on loco, which looks very much like wild peavine and is known the West over as the deadliest weed that grows. A little of it mixed with a diet of grass will drive horses and cattle insane, and there is no authentic case of recovery, that I ever heard, once the infection is complete. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... so long as they were peaceful and within the law, any of the means of intimidation that numbers of the other firms were using—special police and thugs. The girls sent word back that they would picket peacefully and quietly. But afterward, on their own admission, which was most disarming in its candor, they became careless and "too gay." They went picketing in too large numbers and were too noisy. Instantly the firm employed police. Before this, however, the girls ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... of two good swimmers will be on duty while bathing is going on, and ready to help any girl in distress. This picket will be in the boat with bathing costume and overcoat on. They may bathe only when the general bathing is over and the last of the bathers has left the water. If bathing in the surf, a stake should be driven into the sand on the beach and a rope ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... reappearing in her working-gown, but shod with strong, low-heeled shoes. "Good evening, Mr. Forest Ranger," she said, smiling, yet perturbed. "I didn't recognize you at first. Won't you 'picket' and come in?" She said this in the tone of one consciously ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Ray's men rode in the perfection of uniform, so far as armament and equipment were concerned. Each greatcoat, precisely rolled, was strapped with its encircling poncho at the pommel. Each blanket, as snugly packed, with the sidelines festooned upon the top, was strapped at the cantle. Lariat and picket pin, coiled and secured, hung from the near side of the pommel. The canteen, suspended from its snap hook, hung at the off side. Saddle-bags, with extra horse shoes, nails, socks, underwear, brushes and comb, extra packages of carbine and revolver cartridges and minor impedimenta, equally distributed ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... whereabouts, doings, and plight of him, once more missing, with whom a scant year-and-a-half earlier—if any war-time can be called scant—she had stood on that very spot and sworn the vows of marriage: to know his hazards now, right now! with man; police, informer, patrol, picket, scout; and with nature; the deadly reptiles, insects, and maladies of thicketed swamp and sun-beaten, tide-swept marsh; and how far he had got on the splendid mission which her note, with its words of love and faith and of patriotic abnegation, had ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the sea-beach, and the sea itself, as far as the eye could reach, seemed like a pure white carpet. Snow lined the upper edge of every paling, filled up the key-hole of every door, embanked about half of every window, stuck in little knobs on the top of every picket, and clung in masses on every drooping branch of the pine trees in the forest. Frost—sharp, biting frost—solidified, surrounded, and pervaded everything. Mercury was congealed by it; vapour was ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the day, until the morning break, Out to the winds' untainted kiss, the waters' clean caress. I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. I will revisit my lost loves, ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... mother should go tied always thus. Could you not make a picket fence, Martin? And she should have some refuge against the storms," to the which I agreed. Thus as we went back we fell to making plans, one project begetting another, and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... that about a hundred of Barco's Hussars were in a hamlet which was only a short distance away. Questioned about the defensive precautions taken by these Hussars, he said that before one reached the houses, they had posted a picket-guard which was in a garden surrounded by hedges, and that when he went through the hamlet, the remainder were preparing to water their horses at a little pond on the far side ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... feeling, there would be a song of his father's to translate the effervescence into words of cadenced beauty.... He had an irreverent vision of God smiling and talking comfortably to his father while the bald-headed bankers cooled their fat heels and glared at one another outside the picket-gates of heaven.... The world had gained something with the last ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... to the officers of the Union fleet that the enemy had a ram up the river, it does not appear that any preparation for defence had been made, or plan of action adopted. Even the commonplace precaution of sending out a picket-boat had not been taken. The attack, therefore, was a surprise, not only in the ordinary sense of the word, but, so far as appears, in finding the officer in command without any formed ideas as to what he would do if ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... peril he crossed the river on a couple of logs, lashed together, some distance above the spot where the picket had seen Mademoiselle. It was a moonlight night, and he might easily have been picked off by a bullet, if a wary sentry had been alert and malicious. But the truth was that many of these pickets on both sides were in no wise unfriendly to each other, and more than once exchanged tobacco ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... jesting, they went verse by verse through that immortal ode in which Horace and Lydia extol with such grace the charms of their new loves, and end by adding a postscript to their old ones. As they reached the corner of the street a rather strong picket of soldiers suddenly issued ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... of joy, was the name of Odin's house, and it was built all of gold, set in the midst of a wood whereof the trees had leaves of ruddy gold—like an autumn-gilded forest. For the safety of All-Father it was surrounded by a roaring river and by a high picket fence; and there was a ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... stood on picket on the cold, stormy night to guard you against surprise, did you creep up and warm their congealing blood with an infusion of the white man's Government? When, with a wild hurrah, on the 'double-quick,' they rushed upon the enemy's ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... of Appleby Hundred we passed the legion picket line, and I began to wonder why we went so far; wondered and made bold to ask the ensign in command, turning it into a grim jest and saying I misliked to come too weary to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... on the outskirts of a village and subsequently devoured him. As far as I can remember the weapon used was a cavalry sabre, and the issue of the sporting episode was rather more of a matter of life and death than if it had been an encounter with a tiger. A picket of Cossacks was sleeping in that village lost in the depths of the great Lithuanian forest. The three sportsmen had observed them from a hiding-place making themselves very much at home among the huts just before the early winter darkness set in at four o'clock. They had observed ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... tie or picket Sleepy at night; he sticks close to old Fox. That's my horse, the red one. You'd think Fox was going to die, too, but he isn't. He used to be a cow horse; and a mean one, too, they say; but all at once he reformed ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... of Snoop and Downy," cautioned Freddie, as Dinah took up her picket duty. "Look out the boys don't get 'em," with a wise look at the youngsters, who were spoiling for more sport ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... stake pin. He's the best cow hoss I ever slung a leg over. The puncher who broke him an' reached him all he knows was my pard, long ago. An' he's daid. Kid, he'd roll over in his grave if he knowed ol' Cal was tied to a picket pin." ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... the barracks and learned the worst, Brace sharing my surprise that so little plundering had been going on; and whilst we were standing once more in the court with the men drawn up, a picket at the gate, and one of the horses laden with provisions and ammunition, Haynes turned ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... animals will do that. I've read of horses and dogs drowning themselves. This horse had been clipped and his tail was docked, and he was turned out to graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a picket fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making no effort to get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... invocations of St. Anne in one breath, and invocations of a personage not mentioned in the cure's "petee cat-ee-cheesm" in the next breath, and imprecations that their "souls might be smashed on the end of a picket fence,"—the voyageur's common oath even to this day,—the boatmen stored goods fore, aft, and athwart till each long canoe sank to the gunwale as it was gently pushed out on the water. A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... us to go there, and be independent, no matther what it may cost our hearts to suffer by doin' so, than to stay here until the few hundre' that I've got together is melted away out of my pocket into the picket of a landlord that never wanst throubles himself to know how we're gettin' on, or whether we're doin' well or ill. Then think of his conduct to Bryan, there; how he neglected him, and would let him go to ruin widout ever ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... by some counter-operation, I was expected to furnish, by scouting and all other means available, information as to what was going on within the Confederate lines. To do the work required, necessitated an increase of my command, and the Seventh Kansas Cavalry was therefore added to it, and my picket-line extended so as to cover from Jacinto southwesterly to a point midway between Rienzi and Booneville, and then northwesterly to the Hatchie River. Skirmishes between outposts on this line were of frequent occurrence, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... or, as the native say, 'shurum lugta hai'—'it becomes ashamed of itself,' and it then stands with its trunk curled, shrinking from the men. Ropes are now tied round its body, and it is mounted at its picket for several days. It is then taken out for exercise, secured between two tame elephants. The ropes still remain round its body to enable the mahout to hold on should the elephant try to shake him off. A man precedes it with a spear to teach it to halt when ordered ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the attack with a battery of three-pounders. They might have rushed the camp with bayonet and tomahawk and killed most of the defenders asleep, but the cannonade alarmed the Kentuckians and they took cover behind a picket fence, using their long rifles so expertly that they killed or wounded a hundred and eighty-five of the British regulars, who thereupon had to abandon their artillery. Meanwhile, the American regular force, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... nervous picket set the camp in uproar by challenging a phantom of his imagination. We were all impatient as hounds in leash. Since they would not come up and give us battle we wanted to be off and have it out with them. And the people were tired of delay. The cry of 'ste'boy!' was ringing all over the north. They ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... is the first moment I have had to write in since last Tuesday. I am on picket, and writing in the ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... his new-made bivouac, but I dissuaded them and convinced them that it would be much better for them to lug it over to the incinerator and throw it into the pit. To complete the plot and give it an artistic finish, it was necessary to have a ham bone, and Gunboat volunteered to get it. "I'm on picket tonight," he said, "and I'll go to the cookhouse when the cook is asleep and fix it." He did so; when the cook was dreaming of everything but the front line, Gunboat quietly slipped in, unearthed the ham that was in readiness for our breakfast, and with his knife he quickly extracted ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... their changing shadows over the loves of Paul and Virginia. Scouting at night, and to strangers (as were Rolfe and his men) in the land, was not without its perils. Objects of alarm were near and around. The nopal rose before you like the picket of an enemy. Its dark column gleaming under the false light of the moon is certainly some sentinel on the outpost. A halt is the consequence, and silent and cat-like one of the party, on his hands and knees, steals nearer and nearer, through ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... one night when my turn came to go to the river on picket duty, and the earth was covered with snow several inches deep. When my watch was off and the opportunity to sleep was afforded the question was, where to lie down. I spread on the snow some boughs that I had cut from a cedar tree and laid a gum cloth upon them. Upon this ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... gabion now at the lower end of the bay at Pont du Sable, in which he slept and shot from nights when the wind was northeast—a comfortable, floating box of a duck-blind sunk in an outer jacket of tarred planks and chained to a heavy picket driven in the mud and wire grass, for the current ran dangerously strong there when the ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... our Regiment was ordered to the front by way of Harper's Ferry. When we arrived at the Ferry I was the first officer detailed for a two-days' turn of picket duty on Bolivar Heights. ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... bet among strangers, got on five Naps more with different parties, who to "prevent accidents" submitted to deposit the money with the Countess, and all things being adjusted, and the course cleared by a picket of infantry, Mr. Jorrocks ungirded his sword, and depositing it with his frock-coat in the cab, walked up to the fifty yards he was to have for start. "Now, Colonel," said the Yorkshireman, backing him to the mound, so that he might leap on without shaking him, "put your best leg first, and it's ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... marching on In a wider field than ours; Those bright battalions still fulfil The scheme of the heavenly powers; And high brave thoughts float down to us, The echoes of that far fight, Like the flash of a distant picket's gun Through the shades of ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Belgians met them with blasts of lead which shrivelled the grey columns as leaves are shrivelled by an autumn wind. By mid-afternoon the Belgians and Germans were in places barely a hundred yards apart, and the rattle of musketry sounded like a boy drawing a stick along the palings of a picket-fence. During the height of the battle a Zeppelin slowly circled over the field like a great vulture awaiting a feast. So heavy was the fighting that the embankment of a branch railway from which I viewed the afternoon's battle was literally carpeted ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... shelter of the ravelin, to pick up the wounded, and bear them within the walls for surgical help. They were so near he could see their faces, could hear them speak; yet he durst not make any sign to them when he lay within range of the French picket's fire. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... lead the saddle-horses back to the willows and picket them. The rest to the stables and bring out the working beasts. The plows are by the corral, and the first team that comes up is to be harnessed to each in turn. Then start in, and turn over a full-depth furrow a furlong ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... school yard, down to the end where an old- fashioned picket fence shut off the playground from a vacant lot that later would be divided off into the school gardens, ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... pretty little parks, with the bronze statues which all looked noble—in the moonlight; it was such a combination and piquant contrast of shabby ease and stately elegance —negro cabins and stone mansions, picket-fences and sheds, and flower-banked terraces before rows of residences which bespoke wealth and refinement. The very aspect of the street population was novel; compared to New York, the city was as silent as a country village, and the passers, who have the fashion of walking ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... be in command of the Choctaws when you leave? Will they be sufficient to picket and scout on the other side of the river far enough to give notice of any advance of the enemy down the river? I do not wish it to be generally known that Cabell's forces are under my command, but prefer the enemy should think them a separate command; for this reason I do not send ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... several others insisted upon gaining the brow of the hill, as a point of vantage, and all plodded to the top, where they went into camp in the midst of the trees, half a dozen men being sent out to do picket duty, so that Bison Head's band might not crawl up during the night and ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... a signal light glowed red, And a picket came to the track. 'Enemy holding the line ahead, Three of our mates we have left for dead, Only we two got back.' And far to the north through the still night air, They ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... of a brother's blood had now Brought their innumerous legions to the strife, And formed them in magnificent array: The picket guards were almost thrown together, When Tur sprung forward, and with sharp reproach, And haughty gesture, thus addressed Kabad: "Ask this new king, this Minuchihr, since Heaven To Irij gave a daughter, who on him Bestowed the mail, the battle-axe, and sword?" ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Sigel's division to aid a regiment of cavalry and a flying battery that had been quickly sent to retard the enemy's centre and give Carr's division time to deploy. Osterhaus met the cavalry returning, and threw his detachment against the advancing line. The picket posted at Elkhorn tavern, where Carr was to deploy, was attacked and driven back, and Carr's division had to go into line under fire. Osterhaus found himself opposed to the corps of McCulloch and McIntosh, and was about being overwhelmed when Davis' division moved to his support. ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... the street and the traffic of Wisconsin Avenue. The longer wing, toward the back, had a back door that opened onto Water Street. The space between the house and Wisconsin Avenue had been made into a neat oblong flower garden, fenced off from the sidewalk by box shrubs and a white picket fence. Behind it, along the other side of the long wing, lay a meticulously arranged vegetable garden and a few ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... unwrapped the lead-rope from the saddle horn and took the horses away to picket, he wondered what wonderful adventure she would have to relate, for she seemed able to extract entertainment from nearly anything. By the time he returned she had removed her hat, gloves and spurs, washed her dust-streaked face, smoothed ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... a stronghold waxed too strong to be denied. Three of the walls were formed of odd planks scavenged from neighboring woodpiles and fences, eked out, here and there, with a few pantry shelves taken from vacant houses. The fourth was nothing but the picket fence, but as Silvey expressed it when viewing their handiwork, "It doesn't rain much from the north, anyway." Door for the low entrance there was not, and the roof, whose shingles were purchased by an arduously earned half-dollar, became a veritable sieve ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... the horses would lift their heads, prick their ears in the direction of the sound, and rise to their feet and stand trembling, with extended nostrils snuffing the unknown danger, pawing the ground, and occasionally making desperate efforts to break loose from their picket ropes. ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... reached, General Wolfe and the troops with him leaped ashore, and clambered up the steep hill, holding by the roots and boughs of the maple, spruce and ash trees, that covered the declivity, and with but little difficulty dispersed the picket which guarded the height. At daybreak General Wolfe, with his battalions, stood on the plains of Abraham. When the news was carried to Montcalm, he said, "They have at last got to the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give battle, and crush them before mid-day." ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... From across the street, between the Olsen and the Isham houses, came a shower of stones. Most of these fell short, though one struck a scab on the head. The man was no more than twenty feet away from Saxon. He reeled toward her front picket fence, drawing a revolver. With one hand he brushed the blood from his eyes and with the other he discharged the revolver into the Isham house. A Pinkerton seized his arm to prevent a second shot, and dragged him along. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... rope. Then the string can be twisted round the body without fear of detection, and when the time comes lowered, with a stone at the end. We shall be below with a strong rope ladder, made with the picket-ropes and bamboo staves; and once fixed, we shall be up in no time. I leave it to you to decide who are the best linguists. They must of course be asked if they are willing to undertake it. I will speak to the guides. What do you think of ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... of something I had read not long before. It was about an aged lion that had broken loose from his cage at Coney Island. He had not offered to hurt any one; but after wandering about a little, rather aimlessly, he had come to a picket-fence, and a moment later began pacing up and down in front of it, just the length of his cage. They had come and led him back to his prison without trouble, and he had rushed eagerly into it. I noticed that Jean was listening anxiously, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a corporal, and fourteen men of the Twelfth Regiment of the Line had been sent out to occupy a house on the main highway. They would be at least a half of a mile in advance of any other picket of their own people. Sergeant Morton was deeply angry at being sent on this duty. He said that he was over-worked. There were at least two sergeants, he claimed furiously, whose turn it should have been to go on this arduous mission. He ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... "personal, relative, and adjective;" with a subdivision of the last. Of these is Lindley Murray, in his late editions, with his amenders, Ainsworth, Alger, Bacon, Bullions, Fisk, A. Flint, Frost, Guy, Hall, Kirkham, Lennie, Merchant, Picket, Pond, and S. Putnam. (5.) Kirkham, however, changes the order of the classes; thus, "personal, adjective, and relative;" and, with ridiculous absurdity, makes mine, thine, hers, ours, yours, and theirs to be ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a leg or an arm. It was a weird sight as they eagerly worked, by the light of dimly burning candles, on this cold, full-mooned midnight, cheerfully telling where they were a year ago, lying in rifle-pits or on picket duty, and wishing themselves only able to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... three sides of a parallelogram, the open portion of the court in the centre, facing the cliff. A strong picket served to make a defence against bullets on that side; while the dead walls of solid logs were quite impregnable against any assault known in forest warfare, but that of fire. All the windows opened on the court; ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... about it is that it was the widest, featheriest lid I ever saw in captivity, and it's balanced on more hair puffs than you could put in a barrel. But what added the swell, artistic touch was the collar. It's a chin supporter and ear embracer. I thought I'd seen high ones, but this twelve-inch picket fence around Maizie's neck was the loftiest choker I ever saw anyone survive. To watch her wear it gave you the same sensations as bein' a witness at a hanging. How she could do it and keep on breathin', ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... arms by moonlight, Resting, ignorant of danger. Bright the ever-shifting heavens, Dark the trees and woodland shadows, 'Round the band of Regimentals, Near the river-bridge of Lincoln. Gently came the night besiegers, Softly marched the twenty-seven, When a sharp, out-standing picket Sounded forth the note of warning, With his damp and rusty weapon, Blazoned forth the call of danger, With the snapping of his musket. Quick the camp is in commotion. "To arms!" "To arms!" shout the Militia, The surprised and sleepy Cornstalks. And the ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... ordered us to start at once. The Russians had turned our flank. Our colonel must needs get himself into a scrape, by choosing that moment to take leave of a Polish lady who lived outside the town, a quarter of a mile away; the Cossack advanced guard just caught him nicely, him and his picket. There was scarcely time to spring into our saddles and draw up before the town so as to engage in a cavalry skirmish. We must check the Russian advance if we meant to draw off during the night. Again and again we charged, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... picket pins, your thoughts go back thru years To Outside, Home, and Sweetheart, and this last thought sort of cheers; You recollect the days you spent beneath a Southern sky And with regret you now remember they all ended with good-by. ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... house; but as he passed the garden he saw standing in one corner, with a rake in her hand, a beautifully formed woman in homespun, and near by a negro lad dropping garden-seed. His eyes lighted up with pleasure; and changing his course at once, he approached and leaned on the picket fence. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... suggestive and solemn thing to see a man standing guard by night. It thrilled through me, as at the gate of an arsenal in Charleston, the question once smote me, "Who comes there?" followed by the sharp command: "Advance and give the countersign." Every moral teacher stands on picket, or patrols the wall as watchman. His work is to sound the alarm; and whether it be in the first watch, in the second watch, in the third watch, or in the fourth watch, to be vigilant until the daybreak flings its "morning glories" ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... in the battle day. Colonel Valois and Major Peyton share their frugal meal. The rattle of picket shots grows into a steady, teasing firing. Well-instructed outpost officers are carrying ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... watch-dog, Tray, who had gamboled with me in my boyhood, and held himself worthy of protecting me in his old age, followed us, wagging his tail in evident delight at the prospect of bearing me company. A soft breeze fanned over the beach, the dew-dripping rose bushes, that lined the green-topped picket fence, waved their tops to and fro, the sparrows whistled and sung, and wooed, as if Providence had made them for that alone; and all nature seemed putting on her gayest attire to inspire ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... fasten, bind, secure, clinch, twist, make fast &c adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple^, link, yoke, bracket; marry &c (wed) 903; bridge over, span. braze; pin, nail, bolt, hasp, clasp, clamp, crimp, screw, rivet; impact, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... below him, on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... into purple, with purple flushing into rose, with rose shining into silver, and glowing into gold. The straggling line of black picket-fence below, that had faded away with the stars, came back with the sun. What was that object moving by the fence? Jenny raised her head, and looked intently. It was a man endeavoring to climb the pickets, and falling backward ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... were in the camp a picket came in, whose officer reported having had a skirmish with the enemy, in which the Northerners had been whipped. The way the cavalry outposts engaged with each other was curious enough. The ground they met on did not admit of cavalry ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... objection to the questions if you are appointed questioner. But let me get you a chair. Even when on picket duty and challenging each new comer, you are allowed a more restful attitude than your present one, I hope. You startled me ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... continue their perilous quest. Once they were hailed by a Southern sentinel, but Colonel Winchester replied promptly that they belonged to Buckner's Kentuckians and had been sent out to examine the Union camp. He passed it off with such boldness and decision that they were gone before the picket had time ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... contest began with the picket firing in Vermont and Maine in September, was continued in what might be called the grand guard fighting in October in the great States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and the final battle took place all along the line on November ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... horizontal red streaks cut the obscurity and knew that one of her guards was in the midst of the rustlers, doing his single-handed best. The red splashes of answering shots showed on all sides of him. She tugged on her chaps and boots, slipped Papoose's picket rope and vaulted ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... A picket enclosure, mounted with cannon, protected the humble buildings erected for the use of the first settlers on what is now the Custom-house Square. The little stream—not much more than a rivulet except in spring—which for many years rippled between green, mossy ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... stop unless clothing is sent in abundance and immediately to the various recruiting camps and regiments. With every exertion, this department has not been able to obtain clothing to supply these demands, and they have been so urgent that troops before the enemy have been compelled to do picket duty in the late cold nights without overcoats, or even coats, wearing only thin summer flannel blouses.... Could 150,000 suits of clothing, overcoats, coats, and pantaloons be placed today, in depot, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... than before. "It's all over," he said briskly. "The first warehouse is gone; the second will go, but they'll save the others easily enough, now that you have pointed out that the lines may be utilized otherwise than as adjuncts of performances on the high trapeze!" They were standing by a picket-fence, and he leaned against it, overcome by mirth in which she did not join. Her gravity reacted upon him at once, and his laughter was stopped short. "Will you not accept me as an escort to your home?" he said formally. "I do not know," she returned simply, the sort of honest trouble in her ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... Mexico; Melchor Joseph de Foncerrada and Andres Alvarez Calderon, state's attorney; there being in the cathedral the most illustrious and reverend Archbishop, His Excellency Gabriel de Aristizabal, the municipal council and religious communities, and a complete picket with draped banner, and taking the wooden box covered with plush and gold trimmings, in the interior of which was the box of gilded lead, which contained the remains exhumed on the preceding day, the President Joaquin Garcia, the Regent Joseph Antonio de Vrisar and the Justices, Dean Pedro Catani ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... too," Dias said. "You had better begin; Jose and I will picket the mules and hobble the llamas. If they were to make off, we should have a lot of ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... deserving men and a limited number of officers. Work was found for the rank and file in drill and outpost duty sufficient to prevent idle habits. The commissariat was closely watched, and fresh rations more frequently issued, which much improved the health of the army. The system of picket-duty was more thoroughly developed, and so vigilantly carried out as to impress its importance upon, as well as teach its details ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... stream. The track of the animal on the mud or sand under the banks was also examined; if the sign was fresh, he set his trap in the run of the animal, hiding it under water, and attaching it by a stout chain to a picket driven in the bank, or to a bush or tree. A float-stick was made fast to the trap by a cord a few feet long, which, if the animal carried away the trap, would float on the water and point out its position. The trap was baited ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... where shades were drawn the grotesque shadow of a fir-tree stood against the window; silhouettes moved past. Picket fences marched crookedly along. At each intersection of streets a white arc-light dangled, hissing and spreading its radiance to the ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... —— Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, was found asleep at his post while on picket duty last night. The court-martial has sentenced him to be shot in twenty-four hours, as the offense occurred at a critical time." "I thought when I gave Bennie to his country," said farmer Owen as he ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... stationed far out from the camp has need of much greater courage than the soldier in battle ranks rushing on toward the enemy. The man at the lonely picket post, cloaked in darkness, is guarding against uncertainty. He can not tell at once whether a dark object is a dangerous spy or a browsing Brindle. Sounds must be noted and sorted lest the enemy steal up to the slumbering army and destroy it. ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... they came to anchor, Captain Castleman went on shore, and returned on board the next morning with the owner, John Picket, Esq. Soon after they got Purnell into a boat, and carried him on shore; but he was still so very feeble, that he was obliged to be supported by two men. Mr. Picket took a very genteel lodging for him, and hired a nurse to ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... slow steam towards a precipitous islet, which with its castle was recognised by some as the Isle d'If, made famous by Dumas' "Count of Monte Cristo," a hail was received from a picket boat, which came racing out from the direction of the shore. In response, the Transport changed her course abruptly, as it seemed she had been on the verge of entering ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... for ever from the lips that quivered like a child's; he turned from her, but she had looked once into his face as the Law Giver must have looked at the land of Canaan outspread at his feet. She watched him go down the long path and through the picket gate, she watched the big yellowish dog that had waited for him lumber up on to its feet—stretch—then follow him. She was conscious of but two things, the vengeful lie in her soul, and a little space on her arm that his ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... trains, care being taken to give all equal facilities for wood and water, and at the same time to take advantage of the features of the country for military purposes, such as the guarding of roads in all directions, the establishment of the picket line, &c. The leading division arrives perhaps at 5 P.M., and its commander is shown to the locality assigned him. He immediately distributes the ground to the brigades, and the troops, as fast as they arrive, filing into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
