"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very pensive; her name, she told us, was Zoe, and she seemed glad to hear news of her native town, though the recollection revived, evidently, very painful thoughts. As we sat drawing, these poor people remained wandering about, picking up sticks and resting in the shade; the ground was damp, and the old woman—who had asked her companion, in patois, the subject of her talk with us, as she did not understand French—looked very benevolently towards us, and presently took off her apron, and came insisting that we should use ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... us to follow him mounted, down the hill, he most kindly braved the danger for my sake, and I resigned myself to the intelligence of my mule, who very soon assumed the entire control of his own conduct, shaking his head whenever he felt the reins tighter than convenient, and picking his way with all imaginable care: I always found, when the ground appeared uncertain, that the sagacious animal would pause, and putting out his foot, discover, by scratching, whether the ground might be trusted, before he ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... man, would be like picking out one star in the Andromeda nebula. Not impossible. Not ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... scurries around, picking up the coat and vest, opera-cloak, &c., as rapidly as possible, and throwing them over her arm without any idea of order. It is very apparent that she is rather fearful of the anger of WILL while he ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... supplies, and that in due season he would not only halt for battle, but assume the bold offensive. Of course it was to my interest to bring him to battle as soon as possible, when our numerical superiority was at the greatest; for he was picking up his detachments as he fell back, whereas I was compelled to make similar and stronger detachments to repair the railroads as we advanced, and to guard them. I found at Cassville many evidences of preparation ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Domingo, when they were first discovered by the Spaniards, used to wear little bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other parts of their dress. They seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to consider them as just worth the picking up, but not worth the refusing to any body who asked them, They gave them to their new guests at the first request, without seeming to think that they had made them any very valuable present. They were astonished to observe the rage ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... been more zealous for God than God had been for Himself. He forgets the national acknowledgment of Jehovah at Carmel, and the hundred prophets protected by good Obadiah. Despondency has the knack of picking its facts. It is colour-blind, and can only see dark tints. He accuses his countrymen, as if he would stir ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... said to himself, picking up a paper that he had bought in Liverpool and beginning to read. "I must talk to Gilbert ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... way of leaving her books and playthings just where she had used them last, gave her mother much trouble in picking them up and putting them ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was to be lost, the alarm might be sounded in a moment, and the thieves, picking up a valise which stood near by, entered the vault, and securing all the available gold, silver and bank-notes, placed them in the satchel and ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... the dead body, and thrust his hand into a pocket of the Quartermaster, out of which he drew a purse. Emptying the contents on the ground, several double-louis rolled towards the soldiers, who were not slow in picking them up. Casting the purse from him in contempt, the soldier of fortune turned towards the soup he had been preparing with so much care, and, finding it to his liking, he began to break his fast with an air of indifference that ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... those absurd children." Then, opening the gate, she called: "John! Dorry! come out and show yourselves." But nobody replied, and no one could be seen. The nosegay lay on the path, however, and picking it up, Katy exhibited to the girls a long end of black ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... newspaper across the breakfast cup was also denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal—nothing at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be—if it ever were—a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills, perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and in verse which was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... this band of Del Pinzo's rustlers, and we were detailed to put them out of business. I was assigned to go on duty as a cowboy, which wasn't so hard, as I had been one nearly all my life before joining the army. I worked on several ranches, picking up bits of information here and there, and I completed all I needed to get in Happy ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto, mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully conscious of four long holidays, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... within hail; they will at least sail round the burning vessel, in the hopes of picking up somebody. Come, my men, let's make some kind of sail of our jackets, a half a mile nearer the ship may save us all ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... the general truth to which it testifies; that the Turkish rule was not popular even with Moslems, and that the German war was not particularly popular even with Turks. When all deductions are made for the patriot as a partisan, and his way of picking up only what pleases him, it remains true that the English attack was very widely regarded rather as a rescue than an aggression. And what complaint there was really was, in many cases, a complaint that the rescue did not come with a rush; that the English forces had to fall back when they had actually ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... to suggest that it was just the hour when some of the workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley public-house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his chance of picking up details of useful information as to localities and household. He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on his road to the town they had quitted; he should take out his cheap newspapers and tracts; he should talk politics—all workmen love politics, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pursued. "You were going to sing a solo. I saw it advertised in the paper, and laid my plans accordingly. But I was in a fright! I thought you might just happen to feel bad and be obliged to come out, and catch me. I felt that strongly when I was picking your ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... The officers took up their abode in the cabin, while I was thrown on the hospitalities of the forecastle. The prize-master of the pilot-boat honored me with a pressing invitation to join the crew of the felucca, assuring me there was "good picking" along the coast, and he would put me in the way of doing well. I felt flattered by his good opinion; but under the circumstances thought ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... And Dale appeared, picking bits of hay off his uniform, and striving vainly to compose his features into their customary expression of a stolid alertness that hears nothing but his master's orders, sees nothing that does not concern his duties. He gave one sharp glance at the car, and his face grew chauffeurish, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... and quinze?" enquired the Marchesa, lazily picking out the most delicate morsels from the cold fish on ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... wildly about, uttering an incoherent inventory, which Harold cut short by handing over articles to the porter according to his own judgment, and sweeping her into the carriage, returning as I was picking up the odds and ends that had been shed on the way. "You have had a considerable charge," said I, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Spear filled a clay pipe with natural leaf that he crumbled in his hand, and deftly picking a coal from the fireplace with a shovel one hundred fifty years old, puffed five times ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... cover and tried to read. But she laughed so heartily all the time, and her leaves kept flying out of her hands at such a rate, that it was not possible to understand what she was saying. It was all about clapping hands and running races, and picking flowers and having a good time. Everybody laughed just because she laughed, and Susy's papa could hardly keep his face grave long enough ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... been signaling came up. One of them fired at the Wasp, and as the latter could not fight two new foes, she ran off easily before the wind. Neither of her new antagonists followed her, devoting themselves to picking up the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... and the moon blinded me, and I felt lazy; and cornflowers were growing all about, and such big ones! And they all turned their heads to me. And I thought in my dream I would pick them; Vassya had promised to come, so I'd pick myself a wreath first; I'd still time to plait it. I began picking cornflowers, but they kept melting away from between my fingers, do what I would. And I couldn't make myself a wreath. And meanwhile I heard someone coming up to me, so close, and calling, "Lusha! Lusha!"... "Ah," I thought, "what a pity I hadn't time!" No matter, I put that moon on my head instead ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... sitting room shared by Bob and Frank, and the latter picking up a handy pillow promptly smothered his big chum with it and then sat ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... I have given my word. They are picking the lock. Fasten all the doors, and let them break them down; ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... baskets of scarlet currants lay at her feet. All things in the kitchen shone by reason of her diligence, and the windows were open to the summer sunshine. Susannah sat with a large pan of red gooseberries beside her; she was picking them over one by one. Somewhere in the outer kitchen the hired boy had been plucking a goose, and some tiny fragments of the down were floating in the air. One of them rode upon a movement of the summer air and danced before Susannah's ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... your own thoughtfully; watching those of others carefully. And you will find that in the smallest tasks of your hands you can put forethought, while every use to which people put their hands will teach you something if you observe carefully. It may be folding a paper or picking up a pin, or anything else quite common; that matters not, common things, like any others, can ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... Creek, about thirty-five miles distant from the Springs, but the situation was complicated by these parties having no orders to wait at these points. Putting all of his land force who were at the canyon mouth on the south side of "this turbid, unmanageable stream," and picking three crews of nine persons each, with rations for fifteen days, he was ready to go ahead with this unwise enterprise, "imagining," as he admits, "but few of the many difficulties that were to be met." It was on ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... struck him—by visiting and "pumping" Mrs. Leslie, the patroness of Mrs. Butler, of C——-, the friend of Lady Vargrave? It was worth trying the latter,—it was little out of his way back to London. His success in picking the brains of Mr. Onslow of a secret encouraged him in the hope of equal success with Mrs. Leslie. He decided accordingly, and fell asleep to dream of Christmas battues, royal visitors, the Cabinet, the premiership! Well, no possession ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... consists merely of digging out the yam and picking other fruit, and it is a sociable affair, with much talking and laughter. There is always something to eat, such as an unripe cocoa-nut or a banana. Serious work is not necessary except at the planting ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... gave the launch a little more power, and it became clear to all that the pursuer was picking up the ground, or rather water, that she had lost. Then for several minutes no difference in speed was perceptible. A space of a furlong separated the two when they shot past the point of land bearing the odd name of Thomas Great Toe, ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... Picking up baskets of chips was the common punishment that Bella was subjected to for her childish misdemeanors. There was a bin in the stoop, where she used to put them, and a small basket hanging up by the side of it. The chip-yard was behind ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... he should be read, but only by those who are robust and well prepared by a course of stricter models; and for this object, to exercise their judgment on both sides. For there is much that is good in him, much to admire; only it requires picking out, a thing he himself ought to have done. A nature which could always achieve its object was worthy of having striven after a better object than ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... to bite his fingers, as he often did when studying some problem, "let's see. A good kicker might do two or three miles an hour, by picking out the water. Two good kickers might put her up to five, good conditions. Some days ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... moved up the Alexandria Turnpike to Broad Run Church, where they deflected on the road to Greenwich, and soon after struck our trail just behind the Third Corps, and eagerly pursued it. They were busy picking up stragglers and making some preparation for an attack upon our unsuspecting corps, when about noon General Warren's Second Corps, which was still behind, and bringing up the rear, made its appearance on the tapis, and materially changed ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... that bit of road in the Park, the Mountain-side towering precipitously above us on the left and sloping below us in groves on the right; our horses galloping faster and faster; our dash into a bold rocky cutting; our consternation!—a young maiden picking up autumn leaves within two yards before our galloping horses! Near by, I remember quite clearly now her companion, and not far off ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... "here's your bird." And, stooping and picking up Benny Ellison's pickerel, he hurled the dead fish far out into the stream. The fish struck the water with a splash, as Benny Ellison, turning in dismay and wrath, started back with ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... white marl composed of shells of clams and oysters white as chalk. I had sent one vessel load of this to New Haven the year before. At Richmond I was looking after our old accounts, settling up, collecting notes and picking up some scattered clocks. ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... male-discouraging, male-encouraging, and chronically-in-different expressions of face in the mirror (as all good young ladies always do preparatory to their evening prayers,) the lovely twain made solemn nightcap-oath of eternal friendship to each other, and then, of course, began picking the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... Experience teaches him to use a favorite professional phrase, that there are times when "you can't keep the public out of the market with a club," and that when engaged in stock operations they usually display the judgment of a child picking sweets out of a box. His first care, naturally, is to protect himself, financially and otherwise, against the losses which ensue. Hence he surrounds their transactions with every legal and friendly restraint. But his existence depends on their success, or in replacing them. The broker, therefore, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... me trembled as I helped her out, and I saw that she regarded the placid creature with a dread that she could not disguise. Picking up a little stick, she stepped cautiously and hesitatingly toward the animal. While still ridiculously far away, she stopped, brandished her stick, and said, with a quaver in her threatening tone, "Get up, ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... party waited in vain for Marion's return; but on the beautiful lawn, where the late roses were doing their best to prolong their summer beauty, Marion went from bush to bush, picking the fairest, and conning a lesson which somehow seemed to her to be a postscript to her mother's letter, that was, "Study wisely done was the ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... direction in which his son had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran to see what had happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met the little boy, who was running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened, and on questioning him the man elicited that after picking a posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing he called it, and on peeping through the branches he ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the plate, man! ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... from which protruded through the opened cover the golden head of a small, quaint image peering out like some fat spider from its web. In falling the head had snapped open so that from the interior of the thing a tiny roll of parchment had slipped out. Wilson, picking this up, put it in his pocket with scarcely other thought than that it might get lost if left on the floor. Then he took the still unconscious man in his arms and dragged him ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... mind, sir, picking up those oars," said the Englishman, "I will get the young lady into the boat, and then ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the vicinity of the camp that Mr. Bradbury, in the course of a morning's excursion, shot nearly three hundred with a fowling-piece. He gives a curious, though apparently a faithful, account of the kind of discipline observed in these immense flocks, so that each may have a chance of picking up food. As the front ranks must meet with the greatest abundance, and the rear ranks must have scanty pickings, the instant a rank finds itself the hindmost, it rises in the air, flies over the whole flock and takes its place in the advance. The next rank follows in its course, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... she said to herself with a sigh. "I must do it all myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this," he answered, picking up both the telegrams; "one of our groom fellows at home has a brother who knows everything about Blackmore's stable, and he has just wired to me that Dainty Dick will win the Flying Welter at Hurst Park to-day, and I was off to back it when I get a wire from my ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... for picking out Comanche for her," remarked Kitty; she preferred herself to be the object of Blue Bonnet's approbation and could not be roused to much enthusiasm on ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... covered by Sergeant Cassen and Privates Bennett and Mawhood. The reason why so many officers fell may be attributed to the fact that the Boers employed sharpshooters who walked coolly about lifting their field-glasses and picking off such persons as appeared in any way conspicuous. The prominence of the officers, however, was not due to peculiarity in their uniforms, they having discarded swords, revolvers, and belts, and adopted kharki ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the cocoa, soup, meat, all the various sorts of food, in their respective cooking-places, we tasted: found them of excellence superlative. The prisoners sat at work, light work, picking oakum, and the like, in airy apartments with glass roofs, of agreeable temperature and perfect ventilation; silent, or at least conversing only by secret signs: others were out, taking their hour of promenade in clean flagged courts: methodic composure, cleanliness, peace, substantial wholesome ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... is in perfection longer than the apple. Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other, that I value it more highly than ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... being young," he said quietly, picking up his racquet from the floor and preparing to go. "It is being certain that Lucy cares for me really. It is that love and youth ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... not depend upon him to man one of the watch-towers. Eye and hand were too unsteady to do good service in picking off escaladers. The ex-soldier was brave enough for any feat, however, and was delighted when the Englishman suggested, rather than gave orders, that his should be the duty of lighting the bonfires. That done, he was to take his stand in the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed, of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we were at that time, beating about the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... of it is sixteen feet deep. It has been suggested that it might have been dug out in order to obtain the coarse slate; but the difficulty of working a confined seam like this, in any other way than by picking it out piecemeal with immense labour, seems impossible. It can never have been meant to convey water to the mill, as the highest part begins in the solid rock, and the object must always have been ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... Western Africa. A man accused of murder or theft walks down a trench full of live charcoal and about a spear's length, or he draws out of the flames a smith's anvil heated to redness: some prefer picking four or five cowries from a large pot full of boiling water. The member used is at once rolled up in the intestines of a sheep and not inspected for a whole day. They have traditionary seers called Tawuli, like the Greegree-men of Western Africa, who, by inspecting the fat and bones of slaughtered ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of the ones who gave him the meat. This man you must kill and scalp, as he is the one I want killed. Then take the white and black horse and each mount and go to the hunting grounds. There you will see two of the enemy riding about picking up empty shells. Kill and scalp these two and each take a scalp and come over to the high knoll and I will show you where the horses are, and as soon as you hand me the old man's scalp I will disappear and you will see me no more. As soon as I disappear, ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... down-the-middle, with old Aaron as bad as any and flinging his legs about more boldacious with every caper, I happens to glance up the hill, and with that I gives a whistle; for what do I see but a man aloft there picking his way down on his heels with a parcel under his arm! Every now and then he pulls up, shading his eyes, so, like as if he'd a lost his bearin's. I glances across to Aaron, and thinks I, 'Look out for squalls! Here's big brother coming, and a nice credit ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the tailor engaged in picking out the scraps and cutting them to fit the holes I had made. Zenobia looked on in a kind of stupor, and when she saw me begin to slash the dresses she turned pale and made an involuntary motion to stay my hand, for not knowing my intentions she thought I must be beside myself. Her husband had got ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Sabbath morning, when the sun lit on our "street," And illumed the happy dugout with effulgence kind and sweet, It was fine to see us forking, raking, picking off the bugs, Treading flat the snails and woodlice ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... aroused Lexington just as daylight was gray overhead, they were on the road to Ashland. If Red Springs might have proved poor picking, John Clay's stables did not. One sleek thoroughbred after another was led from the stalls while Quirk ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... interests of his fellow-men. It appears that a philanthropic gentleman in London had been applied to by two young thieves, who had relinquished their evil practices and were obtaining a precarious but honest livelihood by picking up bones and rags in the streets, their loss of character closing against them all other employments. He had just been reading an address of Lord Ashley's in favor of colonial emigration, and he was led to ask one of the young men how he would like ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... fully provided for, and on the 30th of September the squadron sailed for the Coromandel coast, where the state of French interests urgently called for it. Cuddalore was reached in four days; and here another incapable officer wrecked the "Bizarre," of sixty-four guns, in picking up his anchorage. In consequence of the loss of these two ships, Suffren, when he next met the enemy, could oppose only fifteen to eighteen ships-of-the-line; so much do general results depend upon individual ability and care. Hughes ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... continuous, and like all the snow I saw at this season, the surface was honeycombed into thin plates, dipping north at a high angle; the intervening fissures were about six inches deep. A thick mist here overtook us, and this, with the great difficulty of picking our way, rendered the ascent very fatiguing. Being sanguine about obtaining a good view, I found it almost impossible to keep my temper under the aggravations of pain in the forehead, lassitude, oppression of breathing, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... attention of his audience rather than to arrest and capture it. He once or twice asked me to make his works the subject of a critical and comprehensive essay. With some diffidence I consented, and accomplished this delicate task by picking out a number of his best and most carefully finished passages, which showed what he could do if he tried, and how far by pure carelessness he elsewhere fell short of the standard which he himself had set. For example, from his "Human Tragedy" I quoted the following lines, one of which refers ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... that! He's as considerate as old Job Haskers used to be," exclaimed the senator's son. And then, picking up a pillow, he shied it at ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... no difficulty in picking out the boy who had saved the woman's life, and somehow the word had been passed around ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... unequalled cinnamon ([Greek: kinnamo pollo te kai diapheronti]); and he entertained them as guests for thirty days." (Ch. xi.) "Some of the Tyrians perished in the island, one indeed by sickness, but the others smitten by the gods. One man, picking up some pellets of sheep's dung, drew lines on the sand, and challenged another who happened to be looking on, to play a game with them. The challenger held the sheep's dung, but the other, who could not find any dung of camels (for there are no camels in that island), took cow-dung, of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... quarantined smallpox patient, and a 'non-com' like myself is barred out, until I win a pair of shoulder-straps; when my rank would make me socially possible. Meantime, I'm a sergeant, and if Lyn went to picking friends out of the ranks, I'm not sure they wouldn't drop her like a hot potato. Sounds rotten, but that's their style; and you've been through the mill at home enough to know what it is to be knifed socially. It's different ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... The doctor was picking up his hat and medicine case to leave when the office door opened again. Two more ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march with ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... picking oakum, in a small room giving on a yard. They sat in line on a form, with their backs to a window; before them, a table, and their work. The oldest Refractory was, say twenty; youngest Refractory, say sixteen. I have never yet ascertained in the course ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Picking a living in our sheaves, And happy in their loves, Near, 'mid a peepul's quivering leaves, There ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... you've done," Mat cried; and then Beverly was picking up "Little Lees," sprawling, all mud-smeared and happy, in the ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... asses we have been!' Temple continued. 'Come along-we run for it! Come along, Richie! They 're picking up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the characters feigned or exhibited in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminated idea[173], which he would not suffer to be violated; and, therefore, when Steele had shown him innocently picking up a girl in the temple, and taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing sir Roger for ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... swept through the house for a few minutes; then Mrs. Grant stood on the steps at the front door to watch them off. Dick touched up old Rameses, and drove along the lane with a flourish. Picking up the midges at the Owl's Nest gates, with many injunctions from Rance to take good care of her charges, they made the best of their way onward, not exactly as the crow flies, but taking all the short cuts ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... definite seasonal change came from our old friend Danny Randall, who hailed us at once when he saw us picking our way gingerly along the edge of the street. In answer to his summons we entered the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... have usually a very superior flavor. The raisin-making industry of California also depends on the same condition, because, in order to insure a good quality of the product, the bunches of grapes, after picking, must be dried on the ground. To a certain extent this is also true of other fruits, such as dates, figs, and ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... on board who have been in slavers, and who are full of tales of islands where everything grows without the trouble of putting a spade in the ground, where all sorts of strange fruit can be had for the picking, and where the natives are glad enough to be servants or wives, as the case may be, to whites. It's just such tales as these as leads men away, and I will warrant there's a score at least among the crew of the Caesar who are telling such ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... words, "Bowling Green, ten minutes," he walked away, going past the table where the man with the steeple-crowned hat had been sitting and carelessly knocking off the pewter. Picking it up, he looked at it and saw scratched on ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... dressing himself with great secrecy crept to the door to make his escape. It was locked and the key taken away. But he was determined to make his escape somehow, and not wait to be whipped; so, by and by, he drew the little deal table close against the wall, and getting on to it began picking the rushes one by one out of the lower part of the thatch. After working for half-an-hour, like a mouse eating his way out of a soft wooden box, he began to see the light coming through the hole, and in another half hour it was large enough for him to creep through. When he ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... bell-shaped pestle made of yellowish gray quartzite. The surface has been evenly roughened by picking, but has become slightly polished on parts most exposed when in use. The base part is subrectangular in section, and the bottom is slightly but evenly convex. The upper part, which has been shaped for convenient grasping by the hand, is evenly rounded at the top. Height, ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... his rule was to keep himself just out of reach of any other block. If they knock me over, my dear Miss Bunley, he once said to me—ah! May, what a voice he said it in, what an eye!—if they knock me over, I shall be so busy picking myself up that I shall be forced to be selfish, and can't help them, so I had better keep away, and then I can be of some service. That was Colonel Burr's principle. He declared it was the only way in ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... impossible to wait for a chance taxi; furthermore, the meanness of the district made it extremely unlikely that one would appear, and glancing guiltily behind him to make sure that no one was taking cognisance of his strange exploit, Jimmy began picking his way along dark lanes and avoiding the lighted thoroughfare on which the "Sherwood" was situated, until he was within a block ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... and the servants looked with some curiosity, mingled perhaps with disapproval, at the couple, but they recognised the girl as being English, and of course there was no accounting for what any of that nation did! It was a lovely morning, and Barbara, picking her way over the rocks, hummed gaily to herself, for it was an excursion after her ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... Servia seen bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies starved to death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along the Yzer for three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known sticking out of the mud, or hung up on the barb wire, with the crows picking them. ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... fleete, did tell him that if the Dutch should come on, the Duke was to follow him, the Prince, with his fleete, and not fight the Dutch. Out of all this a great deal of good might well be picked. But it is a sad consideration that all this picking of holes in one another's coats—nay, and the thanks of the House to the Prince and the Duke of Albemarle, and all this envy and design to ruin Sir W. Coventry—did arise from Sir W. Coventry's unfortunate mistake the other day, in producing of a letter from the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... is easy," said the carpenter, picking up the paper and examining it. "And the seats of the chairs shall be of white hide, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... as he well knew that the Lord had nothing to do with it. He kept his thoughts to himself, however, and busied himself with picking up the various articles and broken fragments which ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... robbed his schoolmaster at Dublin and ran away from school, becoming a member of a touring theatrical company under the assumed name of Barrington. At Limerick races he joined the manager of the company in pocket-picking. The manager was detected and sentenced to transportation, and Barrington fled to London, where he assumed clerical dress and continued his pocket-picking. At Covent Garden theatre he robbed the Russian prince Orlov of a snuff-box, said to be worth L30,000. He was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... back and forth, keeping the blood stirring in his veins, talking to himself. At last he decided that the time had come for him to go down the river. He took up a small stick to help him feel the way along the shore, pulled his sodden felt hat down securely on his head, and started, picking his way carefully and silently among the stones. After a few minutes he began to zig-zag along the bank so that he could not possibly miss that oblong thing for which he was searching. He was wondering if he had passed it, or if, after all, it had just been a ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... bit of rock go? Ah, there it is! Right at your feet, sir," and he darted forward with a smile of satisfaction and, picking up the chunk of rock that had struck the indignant landlord, placed ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... Nature's mode of operations. To us, the elephant's trunk was burlesque, its walk risibly clumsy; the eagle and the kite seemed to us, as they sat, to have a severe appearance and a haughty glance; the apes, picking lice from one another and eating the vermin, were, to our eyes, contemptible and ridiculous at the same time; but Nature took everything equally seriously, neither sought nor avoided beauty, and to her one being ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... well-dressed lady, to pass the obstruction. One or two other pick-pockets stand near. All this is as intelligible to a police officer as the letters on a street sign. He knows that the man, who is assisting the gentleman or lady, is picking his or her pocket; he knows that the man who obstructs the entrance is his confederate; he knows that the others, who are hanging about, will receive the contents of the pocket-book as soon as their ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... himself that he shall not disturb another. And nones shall be said rather early, about the middle of the eighth hour; and again they shall work at what is necessary until vespers. But if the exigency or the poverty of the place demands that they shall be occupied by themselves in picking fruits, they shall not be cast down; for then they are truly monks if they live by the labor of their hands, as did also ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... understood of the fall of Jerusalem or of the final coming of the Lord, it will come 'as a snare' upon men who are absorbed with the earth which they inhabit. They will be captured by it, as a covey of birds in a field busily picking up grain, are netted by one sudden fling of the fowler's net. A wary eye ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren |
