"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minute for something. He "would even get in ten minutes of work between river and Hall." He not only became a prize scholar and oarsman, but won walking races; he joined the Volunteers and became a crack rifle shot, and ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... much to say to the farmers about their farms, and seemed to know all their horses by name. There was an old fellow, with a round, ruddy face, and a night-cap under his hat, the village wit, who took several occasions to crack a joke with him in the hearing of his companions, to whom he would turn and wink hard when Master Simon ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... from the doorway moved towards and THROUGH me, and with the coldness of its passage I revived! With desperate energy I cut a couple of chunks off the washstand, and paring them down, eventually succeeded in slipping them in the crack of the door, and rendering it impossible to open from the outside. That done, I staggered to the bed, and falling, dressed as I was, on the counterpane, sank into a deep sleep. How long I slept ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... walking about with a temperature of 103. I was so much annoyed that I promptly smashed the thermometer, and we had a fine chase after the quicksilver. You never saw anything like it! It ran like a rabbit, in and out of the nooks and corners of the chair, until at last it disappeared through a crack in the floor; went to ground, you know. Doesn't Helen look ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... of those sunny and windy flats, he came upon a sort of cleft almost narrow enough to be called a crack in the land. It was just large enough to be the water-course for a small stream which vanished at intervals under green tunnels of undergrowth, as if in a dwarfish forest. Indeed, he had an odd feeling as if he were a giant looking over the valley ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... all other forms of work, so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf would get into some thick patch of bulberry bush and refuse to come out; or ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... down there," pointing out of the window in the direction of the capitol, "called the Congress, and if they would only give me the four battleships I want, I'd be perfectly willing to have any one take a crack at me." Then, for the first time recognizing the existence of the parents, the President said: "And I don't know but if they did pick me off I'd be pretty well ahead of ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... in its diameter, this hollow, as my gaze then measured it. It had three openings—one that lay like a crack in the northeast slope; another, the tunnel mouth through which we had come. The third lifted itself out of the bowl, creeping up the precipitous bare scarp of the western barrier straight to the north, clinging to the ochreous rock up ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... him well enough, all this down-on-your-knees business works against you, more than your worst enemy could do. I didn't know so much about it then. I've found it out since, worse luck. And I really believe if George had had the savey to crack himself up a little, and say he'd met a nice girl or two in the back country and hid his hand, Aileen would have made it up with him that very Christmas, and been a happy woman ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... spoonful of whisky, but you can't expect him to start right up and hop around. He got an awful crack, boy." ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... And after a swimming interval they heard him moving. "Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed the dark; something fell, thudding through the staccato uproar of the explosion. At the same moment the outer door opened on the crack and Carfax's ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... blew through the narrow passage with screaming gusts, and the volley of water was churned into flying foam as she rushed along under a heavy press of sail; for the young commander was bent on letting his officers and men see that he knew how to crack on without losing his head, and the average sailor rejoices in being able to say that he has sailed with a man who was "a slogger." On the other hand, I have more than once seen a whole crew come aft and ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... our stateroom before we are ill," she says presently, in a state of hopeful anticipation, and we retire to No. 49 in the Steamship San Miguel, which all who have taken this journey know to be the best double room on the "crack" steamer of the line. We put up hangers, divide pockets and racks, and prepare for a three weeks' occupancy. Having finished our work, we go to the stern to get a whiff of the stiff breeze blowing from the southeast. The air ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... as sure as you're born!" said Wyngate, with optimistic decision. "That's always the way. You'll find every crack of that blessed old shed stuck full of greenbacks and certificates of deposit, and lots of gold dust and coin buried all over that cow patch! And of course no one suspected it! And of course he lived alone, and never let ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... greatly increased? Who loads you like this, beyond reason and right? Is it done for a purpose, or just out of spite? Is it all your own treasures you have in your pack, That crumples your backbone and makes your ribs crack? It is really too much for an old ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... offer me a visit—I don't know when. I have just answered his note, and endeavoured to limit its meaning to the shortest sense I could, by proposing to give him a dinner or a breakfast. I would keep my bed rather than crack our northern ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... shell, and hemp to hackle; and at which ever corner of the fireplace Winthrop might set himself down, a pair of little feet would come pattering round him, and petitions, soft but strong, to cut an apple, or to play jackstraws, or to crack hickory nuts, or to roast chestnuts, were sure to be preferred; and if none of these, or if these were put off, there was still too much of that sweet companionship to suit with the rough road to learning. Winnie was rarely put off, and never rejected. And the little garret room used by Winthrop ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... energetic signal from their leader they struck up a march and started down street with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band arrived from the West and an hour later came the crack thirty-two-piece military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lacings and their horns than the local musicians carried in the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... paused long enough to pass a word with Hank, and Andrew, from his place behind the door of the horse shed, could hear it all. He could even look through a crack and see the faces of the strangers. They told how Tomo was wrought to a pitch of frenzied interest by this manhunt. Well-to-do citizens, feeling that the outlaw had insulted the town by so boldly venturing into it, had raised a considerable contribution toward ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... first round success of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in the December 1991 balloting spurred the Algerian army to intervene and postpone the second round of elections to prevent what the secular elite feared would be an extremist-led government from assuming power. The army began a crack down on the FIS that spurred FIS supporters to begin attacking government targets. The government later allowed elections featuring pro-government and moderate religious-based parties, but did not appease the activists who progressively ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... first declared that they were innocent—the first word of most of these men when they were apprehended. Parish died silent. George had spent some hours with a clergyman, and was apparently repentant. Just as he reached the box, he saw a friend peering through a crack in the wall. "Good-by, old fellow," he called out, and sprang to his own death without waiting for the box to be pulled from ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... same as in former times. But in the churchyard there were several new graves; and there also, in the grass, close by the wall, stood the old church bell! It had been taken down from its high position, in consequence of a crack in the metal which prevented it from ever chiming again, and a new bell now occupied its place. The mother and son were walking in the churchyard when they discovered the old bell, and they stood still to look at it. Then ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... struggle and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances their neighbor's newer house, diamonds, or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as these,—why, I tremble and tremble, and this scene to-night, every 'crack' ball this winter will be, not the pleasant society of men and women, but—even in this young country—an orgie such as rotting Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome in ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... five of the children huddled together for warmth in one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the need for warmth—for not a blanket did the house possess. When I asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last year, the mother somewhat indignantly pointed to various trousers and coats which ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the kind, I was satisfied. But in the midst of my pleasure, our successor—Marquis San Saturnino—made his appearance, and we had to prepare for our departure. One consolation, however, remained. I had just then been appointed to the high rank of cornet in the crack dragoon regiment "Royal Piedmont." I had never seen its uniform, but I cherished a vague hope of being destined by Fortune to wear a helmet; and the prospect of realizing this splendid dream of my infancy prevented me from regretting my Roman ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... They may have knowledge and skill in some things, but they are of no use here. At all the stables the driver is king; all the people on the route are deferential to him; they are happy if he will crack a joke with them, and take it as a favor if he gives them better than they send. And it is his joke that always raises the laugh, regardless ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... about ten yards past the shack, standing all in a group. The person inside couldn't see us through the opening in front of the shack but for all we knew he might be peeking at us through some little crack or hole. It made me feel funny to think that he was in there staring at us and we ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to clear, and he set himself to wonder with more force. This was not the deck, for he could feel that he was lying on what was like an old sail, and where his hand lay was not wood, but cold hard stone, with a big crack full of small scraps. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... loved could thus make a public exhibition of herself for the amusement of a very mixed crowd, set the fastidious, old-world temper of the man on edge. For all that he was in his place, well before the appointed time: and from the first crack of polo-stick on ball his eyes never left his wife's flushed ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... chateau served for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each other. The French, fired on from every point,—from behind the walls, from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars, through all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every crack in the stones,—fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men; the reply to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for me," he reflected. "Trevanion is always there, and any one can see he's madly in love with her. He bears one of the oldest names in England too, he's heir to an old title, and he's Captain in one of the crack regiments. And Nancy loves a soldier. She comes of a fighting race, and thinks there's no profession in the world worthy of being ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... with many a crack, All black and bare, I ween; Jet-black and bare, save where with rust Of mouldy damps and charnel crust They're patch'd ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... pole of las' year's fodder-stack. De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack? I cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... way delightful, and each will please best after an experience of the other. (3) But solitude for its own sake should surely never be preferred. We are bound by the strongest obligations to busy ourselves amid the world of men, if it be only to crack jokes. The finest trait in the character of St. Paul was his readiness to be damned for the salvation of anybody else. And surely we should all endure a little weariness to make one face look brighter or one hour go more pleasantly in this mixed world. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... close at its base. He advanced among them. The surface of the rock was uneven—and low down a crack showed. At that instant a slow, sobbing, gasping intake of breath ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... awful beating," pursued Clara. "But I got one good crack at him with a bottle." She laughed. "I don't think he'll be doing much flirting till his cheek heals up. He looks a sight!" She opened her nightdress and showed Susan a deep blue-black mark on her left breast. "I wonder if I'll get cancer from that?" said she. "It'd be ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Winsford, but most of the salt is extracted from brine both here and at Lawton, Wheelock and Middlewich. At Northwich and other places in the locality curious accidents frequently occur owing to the sinking of the soil after the brine is pumped out; walls crack and collapse, and houses are seen leaning far out of the perpendicular. A little ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... at the extreme rear, where she was safe for the time. She was about to advance, when checked by the crash of the window pane and the crack of the rifle. ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... crash! That makes things real. Every word was accompanied by the roar of guns—the rattle of the machine gun and the crack of the rifle. We never knew what it ...
— Your Boys • Gipsy Smith
... me, slave, curmudgeon! Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, and convulsions stretch and crack ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... of course, already had them. But an adult criminal who had the money to invest in robotic components, or went to the trouble to steal them, had something more lucrative in mind than street fights or robbing barrooms. To crack a bank, for instance, took a cleverly constructed, well-designed robot and plenty of ingenuity on the part of ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the damaged article remonstrated with "Goodness gracious, Wibird! You have broken the jug," his features lighted up, and he seemed immensely relieved. "I thought," He remarked, "I heerd somethink crack!" ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... part in this unlovely Correspondence: the geeho-ing of an expert wagoner, who has got a fiery young Arab thoroughly tied into his dastard sand-cart, and has to drive him by voice, or at most by slight crack of whip; and does it. Can we hope, a select specimen or two of these Documents, not on Grumkow's part, or for Grumkow's unlovely sake, may now be acceptable to the reader? A Letter or two picked from that large stock, in a legible state, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... after all, we were safe. Then her hand clutched mine firmly. A wolf had leaped from covert in the path of the file; loped eastward across the desert, and instantly, with a whoop that echoed upon us like the crack of doom, a young fellow darted from the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... down to the floor and laid his mouth alongside the crack, with the feeling that his message would be more impressive delivered in that way, since he was not to be admitted to the apartment to give it ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Away! Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips seal'd up? Not I: my soul Was never ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... boulders of different kinds of rocks, and very sparingly scattered through the soil. We had scarcely reached the summit of this hill, when it was enveloped in thick clouds, from which the lightning flashed, and the thunder pealed close to us, and crack after crack reverberated along the valleys. It soon passed away, however, and left us well drenched, but the western horizon was still black with clouds. From this hill we proceeded to another, which at first sight I had thought was of volcanic origin, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... own. Shakespeare's is the commonest-looking slab of all, being just such a flag-stone as Essex Street in Salem used to be paved with, when I was a boy. Moreover, unless my eyes or recollection deceive me, there is a crack across it, as if it had already undergone some such violence as the inscription deprecates. Unlike the other monuments of the family, it bears no name, nor am I acquainted with the grounds or authority on which it is ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Nipples.— Immediately after each nursing the nipples should be washed off in a saturated solution of boric acid in cold water, and dried with a soft cloth. If they are disposed to crack, anoint them with cocoa-butter immediately after each cleansing. If the skin of the nipple is very sensitive, a nipple-shield should be used for the first few days; or should the nipple become sore at any time, the shield can be resorted ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... have heard my father say the Puritan breed makes the stoutest men-at-arms; that nothing has been found to stiffen a battle-line equal to a good text. Give this fellow a pike, pit him against a boatload of Spanish papists, and, I 'll warrant, he 'll crack more heads than any two of us. Besides, he controls a perfect tornado of a voice, fit to frighten the crew of a frigate on ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... was rather an indication of honest fanaticism than of deliberate reasoning—rather a sign of being solemnly "on the rampage" than of giving way to careful conviction—and more symptomatic of a sharp virtuous rant, got up in a crack and to be played out in five minutes, than of a judicious move in the direction of permanent good. The orthodox looked down with a genteel contempt upon the preachers whose religion had converted Kingswood colliers, and turned Cornwall ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Benham, and before Amanda could realize what he was up to, she heard the crack of his revolver and saw a puff of blue smoke drift away above his right shoulder. The foremost beast rolled over and the goatherd had sprung to his feet. He shouted with something between anger and dismay as Benham, regardless of the fact that the other dogs had turned and were running back, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana accompanies his song with the crack of a driving-whip. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... do to save now. It was useless to expect such foresight on Maurice's part. But for herself, whenever she got an apple or a nut, she put it carefully aside. It was not that her little teeth did not long to close in the juicy fruit, or to crack the hard shell and secure the kernel. But far greater than these physical longings was her earnest desire to keep true to her solemn promise to the dead—to find, and give her mother's message and her mother's gift to ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked together on this ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... kin bet yer breeches I'm not goin' ter let no cave dweller or brush hider tromp onto my moccasins, an' turn ther other cheek ter be tromped on. Ther first feller o' that outfit I cotch sashay in' around me I'm goin' ter take a crack ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... that's your sort!" roared a purple-faced ruffian with a hang-lip. "A right proper gal is that. Give her a huzza and crack yer ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... two jobs on hand to-night," said the leader of the gang. "There's a crib to be cracked an' a guy to be croaked. Red, you an' Gypsie an' the Gunney will crack the crib. It's dead easy. Only an old man an' his wife. The servants are out except one an' he's fixed. I'll give you the layout presently. The other job's harder. Kid, I'll put you in charge, an' as it's got to be done early to-night I'll give you ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Then they crawled in and while Archer reached up and held the door, Tom broke the stick so that the opening was reduced to the inch or two necessary for ventilation. Reaching out, they pulled the vine over this crack until they felt certain that no vestige of door or opening could be seen from without, and this done they sat down upon the straw, their backs against the walls of the vat, enjoying the first real comfort and freedom from anxiety which ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... to the front; the Queen rode near by in her carriage; she wore a smart military coat, colors of her crack regiment; and General Kalkreuth, in a burst of enthusiasm, vowed that the Queen could herself win the war should ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me. I rest on my moving legs. My face is wet with rain. Green remains of the night Stick to my eyes. That's the way I like it— Even as the sharp, secret Drops of water crack on thousands of walls. Plop from thousands of roofs. Hop along shining streets... And all the sullen houses Listen to their Eternal song. Close behind me the burning night is ruined... Its smelly corpse burdens my back. But above me I feel the ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... bit—only a yard or two in breadth—that ran by the side of the road. Master Cheese, it must be confessed, did not want for bravery; he had a great deal rather face danger of any kind than hard work; and the rumour about Fred Massingbird's ghost had been rare nuts for him to crack. Up he went, having no thought in his head at that moment of ghosts, but rather ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... confusion, "I'm not at all wet, I'm not." Happily, the children don't know what fear is. The maids, however, were very frightened, as some of the sea had got down into the nursery, and the skylights had to be screwed down. Our studding sail boom, too, broke with a loud crack when the ship broached to, and the jaws of the fore-boom ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... pieces that have been left of roast or boiled fowls, either turkeys or chickens, crack the bones, cut off the meat, and chop it fine, put it in a small iron pot, or stew pan, cover it with water, put in the gravy that may be left from the fowls, season with pepper and salt, put in some chopped celery, crumbs ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... get out of this, ma'am, or I'll make you!—you and your cowardly man-pup there, as is afraid to look me in the face through the crack o' the door! Get out, I ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... on the cloister wall at Pisa, the Lord Death. His fleshless face peers from behind a bush at Zatzinger's stunted, fever-stricken lady and imbecile gentleman; he sits grinning on a tree in Orso Grafs allegory, while the cynical knights, with haggard, sensual faces, crack dirty jokes with the fat, brutish woman squatted below; he puts his hand into the basket of Duerer's tattered pedlar; he leers hideously at the stirrup of Duerer's armed and stalwart knight. No gods of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Crack! bang! went the rifle and shotguns, as the young hunters took hasty aim. When the smoke cleared away they saw the doe stretched on the ground and one of the deer limping forward painfully. The other ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... L. (BRITTLE WILLOW. CRACK-WILLOW.) Leaves lanceolate, taper-pointed, smooth, glaucous beneath (slightly silky when young), serrate throughout; stipules half heart-shaped, usually large. Branches smooth and polished, very brittle at base. A tall (50 to 80 ft. high) handsome Willow, with a ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... my Lord. If you knew me to be wrong you would not be so sore with me. Nevertheless I am under deep obligation for kind-hearted hospitality. If an American can make up his mind to crack up everything he sees here, there is no part of the world in which he can get along better." He had already written a long letter home to his friend Mr. Josiah Scroome, and had impartially sent to that gentleman not only his own lecture, but also a large collection of the criticisms ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... died. Don Lorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew strove to make his body one with Shiloh's small easy movements. The big gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift getaway leap. And he made it on the crack ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... would drift ashore somewhere; she could land anywhere; even on the steep Kleiner Berg side she could easily have found footing; she was well used to climbing its narrow ledges, and knew every crack and crevice and projection where a step could be taken. But, no; the boat was not going to drift ashore. It had stopped in a tangle of lily-leaves, far out in the water, and there was not a breath ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the painful scenes gone through but yesterday, and the sour-looking ring of men and women gathered to see the start, I was in high spirits as we went spinning down the Carlisle road, with my heart leaping to the crack of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Drainage of Stiff Clays," we shall see that the most obstinate clays are usually so affected by the operation of drainage, that they crack, and so open passages for ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... rule, and the patient may live. I had a patient, left alone for a moment on the climacteric day, who was found standing at her mirror combing her hair, and to-day she's as well as you or I. I had another who got out of bed, walked down a corridor, fell face downward and lay insensible at the crack of a doorsill with the rain blowing in on him under the door—and he got well. As to Fontenette, all his symptoms so far are good. Well—I'll ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... impossible to ignore the horrible truth. The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the Duchess, could not be opened from within. Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the passage. He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing! The whole seemed to be ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... that came from the top of the tree. A crack, a rustle and a shriek from Tara, who seemed to be coming down faster ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the very responsible head of the executive of a great political party. As that executive head he was compelled to regard Paul from a different angle. The millions of South Africa or the Middle West might vainly knock at his own front door till the crack of doom, while Paul the penniless sauntered in an honoured guest. But in his official room in the House of Commons more stern and worldly considerations had ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of hoof above the crack deep enough to draw blood. Soak foot in hot water, apply Pratts Peerless Hoof Ointment and cover with oakum. Pare out sole and open heel—blacksmith must use care in expanding. Apply Pratts Peerless Hoof Ointment daily to the coronet ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... off the edge of the glacial fringe onto the pressure ridges of the tidal crack already described, in spite of the free use of our pickaxes and the pickaxes of the pioneer division, which had gone before, the trail was a most trying one for men, dogs, and sledges, especially the old Eskimo type of sledge. The new "Peary" sledges, ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become steep acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will produce on you the effect of weighing a hundred pounds. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... neck, and was tethered to the spot. "We are obliged to lock this fellow in too, or he would make his escape. Every evening I tickle his neck with my sharp knife; he is so frightened at it!" and the little girl drew forth a long knife, from a crack in the wall, and let it glide over the Reindeer's neck. The poor animal kicked; the girl laughed, and pulled Gerda into bed ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Forrest says take them and carry them with him to wait upon him and cook for him, and put them in jail and send them to their masters." Still they kept on shooting. They shot at me after that, but did not hit me; a rebel officer shot at me. He took aim at my side; at the crack of his pistol I fell. He went on and said: "There's another ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... cottage, we were sure to see Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as Anne Scott had wickedly christened them) trotting from their pasture to lay their noses over the paling, and, as Washington Irving says of the old white-haired hedger with the Parisian snuff-box, 'to have a pleasant crack wi' the laird.'"[27] ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... the trench into [146] the battery, Where we will have gallions of six foot broad, To save our cannoneers from musket-shot; Betwixt which shall our ordnance thunder forth, And with the breach's fall, smoke, fire, and dust, The crack, the echo, and the soldiers' cry, Make deaf the air ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a knock at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... lug—that's certain! Dorey, go and stir down the clo'es in the boilin' suds, and be quick about it, too! Don't ye know better'n to stand starin' at folks like a sick cat?" This, to a little girl, presumably the herald of Joyce's approach, who had been peeping in through the crack of ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... either fear or interest. There followed a brief pause, in which the imagination might have conjured up unseen forces gathering themselves together for a final onslaught. It came at last, like a cry, suddenly, amidst a wild outburst of yells, screams, and the intermittent crack of revolvers fired at close quarters. Pandemonium had been let loose on the other side of the silver lake, but the silver lake itself remained placid and untroubled. Only the red eye winked more vigorously, as though its warning ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... Roland, slightingly. "You'll get over that in a day, and return thanks that there's one source of trouble less. Look here! If I were in the luck of having a good commission given me in some crack Indian regiment, would you not say, 'Oh be joyful,' and start me off at once? What are you the worse for George's being away? Mother!" he added somewhat passionately, "would you like to see me tied down for life to an old ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... mine. Besides, I'm older than you and if there was one thing your father taught you it was respect for your elders. Two heads are better than one. You crack right along and try to save your ranch in your way and I'll crack right along and try to save it my way. You pay your way and I'll pay mine. That's ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... started to shoot uptown, turning a corner into another deserted boulevard. As it skirted the great Park, he pointed at Central Tower. There seemed to be a slight crack in the smooth surface half way up but, as a moment's mist engulfed the tower, it looked flawless again. Then all the mist was gone and the crack was back, a ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... mediaeval scholars heartily to wish him in the Barathron, books and all, comes forward six hundred years later marshaling phrase upon phrase, clause upon clause, till a modern is forced to exclaim: "What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?" Now I have dealt with these complexes in different ways; and sometimes I have cleft and hacked and wrenched them out of all semblance of their original shape, and sometimes I have hauled them almost entire, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... He wouldn't mind me and made me mad, and I up with my stick and gave him one crack on ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... dear to her. The trumpet notes had come back, and in a few moments the music ceased.... Someone was closing the great doors from inside the schoolroom. As the side behind which she was sitting swung slowly to, she caught a glimpse, through the crack, of four boys with close-cropped heads, sitting at the long table. The gas was out and the room was dim, but a reading-lamp in the centre of the table cast its light ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... think yourself a baby; That you have taken these tenders for true pay Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, Wronging it thus) you'll tender me ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... before this, had become the property of a certain Mr. Armstrong, a civilian who had made a great fortune in the East, in an age when great fortunes were commonly made by East-Indian traders. His only son had been captain in a crack regiment, and had sold out of the army after his father's death, in order to marry Lady Laura Challoner, second daughter of the Earl of Calderwood, a nobleman of ancient lineage and decayed fortunes, and to begin life as a country ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... descend by lowering yourself from stone to stone. Through the Arch ran the creek, with rare minnows in its pools, while important paths led from the creek to a wilderness of hazelnut-bushes. He taught her to tear the drying husks from the nuts and crack the nuts with stones. At his request Gertie produced two pins from unexpected parts of her small frilly dress. He found a piece of string, and they fished for perch in the creek. As they had no bait whatever, their success ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... doctor, "that there is still water inside the moon which is gradually freezing. That operation would sometimes crack the surface, and this has probably caused the quaking that ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... If blazing eyes could crack glass, the spectacles of the old lady would have been splintered into many pieces as she stood by the roadside, the end of her umbrella jabbed an inch or two into the ground. After standing thus for some five minutes, she suddenly turned and walked vigorously away in ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... the children not be in school. Somehow they must all manage to break the bonds that held them there and escape from the death-trap before the fatal swinging menace reached them. The stroke of nine, booming out in that house, would be like the Crack o' ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... by a defense. Life is its own excuse for being, and every life is its own apology. Silence is better than wordy refutation. People who want to believe the falsehoods told of this man, or any other, will continue to believe them until the crack ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... about, to Kate cam' back, An' ga'e her mou' a hearty smack, Syne lengthened out a lovin' crack 'Bout marriage an' the care o't. Though as she thocht she didna speak, An' lookit unco mim an' meek, Yet blithe was she wi' Rab to cleek, In marriage, wi' the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... plank, he laid a hand on Stephen's arm, and tottered. The big Louisiana, Captain Brent's boat, just in from New Orleans, was blowing off her steam as with slow steps they climbed the levee and the steep pitch of the street beyond it. The clatter of hooves and the crack of whips reached their ears, and, like many others before them and since, they stepped into Carvel & Company's. On the inside of the glass partition of the private office, a voice of great suavity was heard. It was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... still comes out of a crack in the side of the mountain. This shows that any day melted rocks may boil forth again. About two hundred years ago the mountain threw out so much ash that it covered a ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... go and axe her to come to chapel Sunday, her and hers. I'd axe her kindly, and I'd crack a joke with her. And I'd get round her for the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... up some day," Anthea was saying, dreamily looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling gaily with Cyril, thrust a stout-shod little foot against his brother's chest; there was a crack!—the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father's second-best Waterbury watch, which ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... "if he will beat her!" And he stooped to lock the door. His hand was on the key, but he did not turn it. Who was that? Jan had keen hearing. He jammed his ear against the crack. It was the sound of breathing, heavy breathing, of breathing and tramping, and now—Jan had been listening for perhaps a ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... a pretense of hesitancy she turned into a black mouth of an entrance and up two flights. On each landing she paused more for tears than for breath. At a rear door leading off the second landing she knocked softly, but with insistence. It opened to a slight crack, then ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... these rocks there was one narrow opening, through which the sea ran clear and deep, making a safe channel to the shore. This was Cook's Crack. Very few of the fishermen knew of it. It was not likely, therefore, that anybody on board of the schooner would be able to pilot her ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... interrupted him with, "The big thing the Legion's got to teach is Americanism and let those crack-brained fools know just what this country stands for." While still another injected, "The average 'long-beard' has been so crazed by persecution in Russia that he would mistake Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... the storm came the thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breaking glass. In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones, the smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg. For three ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Anthony, "you never get a compliment out of this gal. She gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there mayn't be, a kernel ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he had been induced to go out and try for the football team at the university. His fellows knew him as a fair gymnast and a crack tennis player. He was muscular, well-built, and fast on his feet, almost perfectly put together for a halfback. On the second day of practice he had shirked a hard tackle, though it happened that nobody ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... and voting afforded as great a contrast compared with the present as in anything that has gone before. Possibly the ripest stage of the old wine of political life was during the last ten years of the old pre-Reform era, just before the new wine began to crack the old {95} bottles; but though the best glimpses of actual election work should be deferred to a later chapter, there are some incidents belonging to the early years of the century which ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with hell! I hope I'll live to ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... they danced about each other for a short space; the American, apparently whenever he chose, stepped in and landed left and right on the other's jaw with a sound like the crack of ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and men did squeak, Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak; No holy rage or frantic fires did stir Or flash about the spacious theatre. No clap of hands, or shout, or praise's proof Did crack the play-house sides, or cleave her roof. Artless the scene was, and that monstrous sin Of deep and arrant ignorance came in: Such ignorance as theirs was who once hiss'd At thy unequall'd play, the Alchemist; Oh, fie upon ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... with her ear close to the crack of the kitchen door when her daughter opened the outside one. She heard Thomas Payne's hearty greeting and Charlotte's decorous reply. The door of the front room shut, then she set the kitchen door ajar softly, but she could hear ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in the cold trenches at night, the shell of the Federal mortars rained down upon them, bursting, and mortally wounding them. All day long the fire of muskets and cannon—then, from sunset to dawn, the curving fire of the roaring mortars, and the steady, never-ceasing crack of the sharp-shooters along the front. Snow, or blinding sleet, or freezing rains, might be falling, but the fire went on—it seemed destined to go on ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... tolerably large, it will be necessary, as soon as they begin to boil, to throw in some cold water, and occasionally to repeat it, till the potatoes are boiled to the heart, (which will take from half an hour to an hour and a quarter, according to their size,) they will otherwise crack, and burst to pieces on the outside, whilst the inside will be nearly in a crude state, and consequently very unpalatable and unwholesome.—During the boiling, throwing in a little salt occasionally is found a great improvement, and it is certain that the slower they are cooked the better.—When ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... beyond certain episodes and caresses which could only follow each other in reality, but were united at the same moment in the dream, the sensation clear and precise of a being, of a fluid form disappearing, with the sharp sound of a percussion cap, or the crack of a whip close by, on waking. This being was felt near him so distinctly, that the sheet, disarranged by the wind of the flight, was still in motion, and he looked at ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... not buy shoes for his slaves. When they had to plow, their feet would crack and bleed from walking on the hard clods, and if one complained, they would be whipped; therefore, very ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... rapidly. The branch began to creak. Our hero doubted if it would sustain their double weight. However, he trusted to the wary instinct of the ocelot, which kept coming right forward. Jack was about eight feet from the end of the branch when it gave a very ominous crack. In fact, he saw the white splinters show where it joined ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... Mr. Dinsmore's voice in clarion tones, and instantly the crack of half a dozen revolvers was heard, a light blaze ran along the line of loopholes, and at the same instant a sudden, scalding shower fell upon the assailants ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... be sure that Allan, rotund and smiling, was always ready for a crack with the ladies, and to recommend the brand new Pamela, the support of virtue, or some contemporary work of lesser genius. Though the general costume was like that worn in the other parts of the island, perhaps a little behind London ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... calling many names, and at the same time the crack of a whip. But his name was not among the rest; and he just had time to notice that the Over-Lord stood still, with the other dogs about him. Then he was off in pursuit, straight as a line for the river. There the hare made its first turn, Murphy being twenty yards in rear. He was running mute now, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... gone so very far when he came to the edge of a forest, and there was an old crone with a green nose a yard long, and it was caught in a crack of a log. She was dancing and hopping about, but for all her dancing and hopping she got no farther than that one spot, for her nose held ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... few of the washed crystals in a watch glass. Suddenly there was a sharp crack and the material disappeared. Dr. Bird thrust his nose toward the glass ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... should be afraid to trust it, if it were not for the dogs. He can't crawl out between the logs, that much is certain; but the door is almost ready to drop from its hinges, and has a good deal of play back and forth behind the bar. If he had a thin, stout stick he could slip it through the crack, lift the bar and ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... victim seems to have consisted solely in his intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Mr. Hazlitt, and some other enemies of despotism and superstition. My friend Hunt has a very hard skull to crack, and will take a deal of killing. I do not know much ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... seething center of a submarine volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp crack of the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... size of a sparrow, dropped upon the deck of the ship, so nearly exhausted that one of the sailors was on the point of covering it with his hat. It stayed about the vessel nearly all day, flitting from point to point, or hopping along a few feet in front of the promenaders, and prying into every crack and crevice for food. Time after time I saw it start off with a reassuring chirp, as if determined to seek the land; but before it had got many rods from the ship its heart would seem to fail it, and, after circling about for a few moments, back it ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... knows it. It's one of the secrets of the trade. We cook for all the confectioners, and people think the good things come out of the cellars under their saloons. Good joke, isn't it?" And Snap laughed till a crack came in his neck and made ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... If by means of a raking drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and leave me, at the edge of the green, to play "one off eleven." It was, in fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the crack of light went Miranda. First her eye and then her ear were applied to the small aperture. She could see nothing but a table directly in front of the door about a foot away on which were quills, paper, and a large horn ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... this letter has been a long time coming, but somehow I always seem to have something to do. There are two noises I can hear now, one the squeak of a rat, but I know he won't come in (at least, I hope not), and two, the crack of a sniper's bullet, which I know has no chance of coming in. As the papers would say, "Situation normal on the Western Front." We get absolutely no news, you know more of what is going on in France than I do. We heard that the division ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... said at last. "It's a rather hard problem to crack. I wish there was some one in the family we could go ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal. Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... with the drawing-room, library, and reception-room until the daughter of the house is pronounced ready. The plastering, after a dry of eighteen years, has had plenty of time to settle, and is not apt to crack the costly papers or ruin the elaborate frescoes; and the wood-work no longer in danger of warping or ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... continued Parkhurst, more rapidly and coherently, "I saw that there was a crack above the hole where the water came through—as if it had been the old channel of the spring. I widened it a little with my clasp knife, and then—in a little pouch or pocket of decomposed quartz—I ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... the mare from her stall in a crack, And put in her place the old broken-down hack; The hack is so like her, I'm ready to swear The bailiff will ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... arms about each other's waists the two friends went skipping along, until they reached the apartment appropriated to the old gentleman. The door was partially open and they could see through the crack the dark figure of Carrie's father standing with his back toward them. The room seemed very bright and cheerful, and the rich colors of a gay carpet, and the elaborate carving of the massive and antique furniture rendered it still ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... they recalled to mind the long conversations with this man who made them stop almost by force at the road corners to communicate his ideas to them, who insisted on their going into his house when they were passing by his garden, who could crack a joke better than the lieutenant of the gendarmes himself, and who possessed such contagious gayety that, in spite of the repugnance with which he inspired them, they could not keep from always laughing ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant |
