"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on thinking to this effect: that this impulse that has come to so many of us, and has, incidentally, wrought such a harmony in our lives, is something more than duck-shooting, trout-fishing, butterfly-collecting, or a sentimental passion for sunsets, but is indeed something not so very far removed from religion, romantic religion. At all events, it is something ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... The black duck had a hard time of it from the beginning—that is, from the beginning of her life on the farm. She had been a free wild bird up to that time, swimming in the bay, playing hide-and-seek with her brothers and sisters and ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... buy 'em, or folks give 'em to us. My father sends me mine; but as soon as I get egg money enough, I'm going to buy a pair of ducks. There's a nice little pond for 'em behind the barn, and people pay well for duck-eggs, and the little duckies are pretty, and it's fun to see 'em swim," said Tommy, with the air ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... equipped for her enterprise. She carried a camera, three extra rolls of film, a telescoped tripod which she tied under her right stirrup leather, a pair of high-power Busch glasses (to glimpse with, probably), two duck-covered canteens filled and dripping, a generous lunch of sandwiches and cake and sour pickles, a box-magazine .22 rifle, a knife, a tube of cold cream wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth, and a very compact yet very complete vanity case. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... about two hours before noon, and soon afterwards a third. On this day likewise they took a bird resembling a heron, of a black colour, with a white tuft on its head, and having webbed feet like a duck. Abundance of weeds were seen floating in the sea, and one small fish was taken. About evening three land birds settled on the rigging of the ship and began to sing. These flew away at day-break, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... greatest successes is Wright. He is very hard working, very thorough, and absolutely ready for anything. Like Bowers he has taken to sledding like a duck to water, and although he hasn't had such severe testing, I believe he would stand it pretty nearly as well. Nothing ever seems to worry him, and I can't imagine he ever complained of anything in ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... our utmost endeavours to procure supplies. Pedro de Ircio requested to have the command on this occasion, to which Cortes assented: But as I knew Ircio to be a better prater than marcher, I whispered to Cortes and Sandoval to prevent him from going, as he was a duck-legged fellow, who could not get through the miry ground, and would only interrupt us in our search. Cortes accordingly ordered him to remain, and five of us set out with two Indian guides across rivers and marshes, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... with the vibrations of the mental orange-yellow, the mental efforts of other persons will rebound from your aura, or, to use another figure of speech, will slip from it like water from the back of the proverbial duck. It is well to carry the mental image of your head being surrounded by a golden aura or halo, at such times—this will be found especially efficacious as a protective helmet when you are assaulted by the intellect or arguments ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... then, by some increase of expression, we arrive at birds' beaks, wherein there is more obtained by the different ways of setting on the mandibles than is commonly supposed, (compare the bills of the duck and the eagle,) and thence we reach the finely developed lips of the carnivora, which nevertheless lose that beauty they have, in the actions of snarling and biting, and from these we pass to the nobler because gentler and more sensible, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... was not decisive enough in its character to greatly affect the general course of the war, though it somewhat strengthened and increased our hold on Middle Tennessee. The enemy in retiring did not fall back very far—only behind Duck River to Shelbyville and Tullahoma—and but little endeavor was made to follow him. Indeed, we were not in condition to pursue, even if it had been the intention at the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... the duck pond not far away—and the river, too. But the only water really close to Rusty's home was the watering-trough. And that was entirely too small to please Long Bill Wren. So no one ever saw him ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "I thought so when I arrived two days ago. When I came in sight of the place a lot of girls waved from the window and yelled at me. I no sooner got inside than a queer looking duck whom I took to be a nut came rushing up to me and cried: 'Too late for soup!'—This is Campe de Triage de la Ferte Mace, Orne, France, and all these fine people were arrested as spies. Only two or three of them can speak a word of French, and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... home.' Sometime she call her pappy Marse Ned jus' like dat. One day Marse Ned did come home. Dey brung him home. 'Twas 'bout sunset. I 'members kaze 'twas de same day dat my ole black hen hatched de duck eggs I done set her on, an' de apple trees wus bloomin'. De blooms look jus' like droves of pink butterflies flyin' on de sky. Dey brought Marse Ned in de house an' laid him out in de parlor. Mis' 'Riah stood ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... was a family in which there were seven daughters. One day when the father went out to gather wood, he found seven wild duck eggs. He brought them home, but did not think of giving any to his children, intending to eat them himself, with his wife. In the evening the oldest daughter woke up, and asked her mother what she was cooking. The mother said: "I am cooking wild duck eggs. I will give you one, but you ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... Scheming dowagers are glad to have her at their balls when there is a chance of young Hopeful following in her train, and her five o'clock tea is delightful when there is a young millionaire to sip it with. Deprived of her decoy duck she would soon lose ground, and be left to push her way in society with uncomfortably ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... dear sir," he stretched out his hand in emphasis, "you do not have to do anything untimely and extreme if you are in good earnest a dead game sport. The time comes, and you meet the occasion as the duck swims. There was one of ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... visit Lord Holland told him that he might order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with green peas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decide as wisely on every question in life, and you will never go ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... off and then he couldn't make bond. He appealed to the citizens to let him stay in office without bond but they wouldn't do it. When a man is trying to get elected they promise a lot of things but afterwards they is just like a duck—they swim off on the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... selection has been made for the Somerset and Devon districts, but the following varieties of cider apples are held in good repute in those parts:—Kingston Black, Jersey Chisel, Hangdowns, Fair Maid of Devon, Woodbine, Duck's Bill, Slack-my-Girdle, Bottle Stopper, Golden Ball, Sugar-loaf, Red Cluster, Royal Somerset and Cadbury (believed to be identical with the Royal Wilding of Herefordshire). As a rule the best cider apples are of small size. "Petites pommes, gros ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended ...
— Different Girls • Various
... a-tremblin' about, you coward?" growled Bud. "He won't shoot you; but he'll beat you at this game, I'll bet a hoss, and me, too, and make us both as 'shamed of ourselves as dogs with tin-kittles to their tails. You don't know the master, though he did duck you. But he'll larn you a good lesson this time, and me too, like as not." And Bud soon snored again, but Hank shook with fear every time he looked at the blackness outside the windows. He was sure he heard foot-falls. He would have given anything ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... it, kid!" he commanded. "We ain't runnin' no day nursery. These you see here is all the real thing. Maybe we asks fer a handout now and then; but that ain't our reg'lar lay. You ain't swift enough to travel with this bunch, kid, so you'd better duck. Why we gents, here, if we was added up is wanted in about twenty-seven cities fer about everything from rollin' a souse to crackin' a box and croakin' a bull. You gotta do something before you can train wid gents like us, see?" The ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wherefore he started and cried out, "Thou art caught." But little it availed, for wings could not outstrip fear. The one went under, and the other, flying, turned his breast upward. Not otherwise the wild duck on a sudden dives when the falcon comes close, and he returns up vexed and baffled. Calcabrina, enraged at the flout, kept flying behind him, desirous that the sinner should escape, that he might have a scuffle; and when the barrator ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... little duck," he gasped as soon as he was able to speak. "I was tissin' him, an' he ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... marrying me,' said the settler, entering from the outer door, and latching it behind him. 'Mary, get the pan and fix some supper quick. Them duck I shot won't be bad. You see, I've been expectin' you along rather;' and he flung down an armful of wood, which he began to arrange with architectural reference to the back-log ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... fish when he may eat roast duck?" he said, with a harsh cackle that made the Burman start and stare ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... redoubtable slave-buying hero before and after his involuntary immersion was so remarkable and great that his most intimate friend would have failed to recognise him. He went down into the slimy liquid an ill-favoured Portuguese, clad in white duck; he came up a worse-favoured monstrosity, clothed in mud! Even his own rascally comrades grinned at him for a moment, but their grins changed into a scowl of anger when they heard the peals of laughter that burst from the throats of their enemies. As for Briant, he absolutely ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... rayther short, an' came Just like a suckin duck; He little dream'd at th' sweets o' life Wod ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... a duck," he thought. The movement suggested a plebeian excitement and curiosity that displeased him. He recalled her face. Her extraordinary face. "Quite enough," he thought, "to put all that into my ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... heart, John Webster may perhaps have hoped that this was to be a real reincarnation. If so, he was doomed to disappointment, for the younger Daniel gave no promise of being either a statesman or an orator. But he took to ink as a duck to water, was never so happy as when his pen was spoiling good white paper, was elected editor of the News, and, commencement over, took the first train for New York, stormed the office of the Record, ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Billickin would exclaim (still no word being spoken by Rosa), 'you do surprise me when you speak of ducks! Not to mention that they're getting out of season and very dear, it really strikes to my heart to see you have a duck; for the breast, which is the only delicate cuts in a duck, always goes in a direction which I cannot imagine where, and your own plate comes down so miserably skin-and-bony! Try again, Miss. Think ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... healthy, and was employed as a voyageur by the American Fur Company. On June 16, 1822, when about eighteen years of age, he was accidentally wounded by a discharge from a musket. The contents of the weapon, consisting of powder and duck-shot, entered his left side from a distance of not more than a yard off. The charge was directed obliquely forward and inward, literally blowing off the integument and muscles for a space about the size of a man's hand, carrying away the anterior half of the 6th rib, fracturing ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... think us so. Once school-divines this zealous isle o'erspread. Who knew most sentences was deepest read, [441] Faith, Gospel, all, seemed made to be disputed, And none had sense enough to be confuted: Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain, [444] Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane. [445] If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? Oft, leaving what is natural and fit, The current folly proves the ready wit; And authors think their reputation ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... and serving-man, henchman and page Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage), And the scullions and cooks, With fidgety looks, Are grumbling and mutt'ring, and scowling as black As cooks always do when the dinner's put back; For though the board's deckt, and the napery, fair As the unsunned snow-flake, is spread out with care, And the Dais ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sound both in iudgement, and complexion, haue bene at last forced to take it also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular (like the two Philosophers that were forced to duck themselues in that raine water, and so become fooles as well as the rest of the people) and partly, to be as one that was content to eate Garlicke (which he did not loue) that he might not be troubled with the smell of it, in the breath of his fellowes. And ...
— A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco • King James I.
... rabbit just over the hill, He's eating a lettuce for tea; And a fat speckled duck, with a very large bill, Is quacking, "Oh, where can she be?" And two little mice are there, standing quite still, They're all of ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... to go to the bushes where the swan had fallen. I did not blame them much, for when the big bird came down, it seemed as if the very heavens were falling. We supplied our friends with ducks several days, and upon our own dinner table duck was served ten successive days. And it was just as acceptable the last day as the first, for almost every time there was a different variety, the cinnamon, perhaps, being ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... doubt, than when at home. People seldom live very well at home. There is always something requiring to be eaten up, that it may not be lost, which destroys the soothing and satisfactory symmetry of an unexceptionable dinner. We have detected the same duck through many unprincipled disguises, playing a different part in the farce of domestic economy, with a versatility hardly to have been expected in one of the most generally despised of the web-footed tribe. When travelling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... nothing but coffee and toast and some of that there sauce you're eating. She says when I'm on the continent I got to eat a continental breakfast, because that's the smart thing to do, and not stuff myself like I was on the ranch; but I got that game beat both ways from the jack. I duck out every morning before she's up. I found a place where you can ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... island was very barren as far as the point which closed Union Bay, and which had received the name of Cape South Mandible. Nothing could be seen there but sand and shells, mingled with debris of lava. A few sea-birds frequented this desolate coast, gulls, great albatrosses, as well as wild duck, for which Pencroft had a great fancy. He tried to knock some over with an arrow, but without result, for they seldom perched, and he could not hit them ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... figgerhead like a henhawk. He enjoyed himself here at the Cape. He fished, and loafed, and shot at a mark. He sartinly could shoot. The only thing he was wishing for was something alive to shoot at, and Brown had promised to take him out duck shooting. 'Twas too early for ducks, but that didn't worry Peter any; he'd a-had ducks to shoot at if he bought all the poultry ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... merely winding spools, compared to the activity of a great machine within. He grasped that A. V. stood for Alfred Vernon, the girl's cousin, a young man recently from England. . . . Yes, A. V. had occasionally gone into the jungle with a light rifle. Sometimes he had brought in a wild duck, or a grey marhatta hare; once a black-horned gazelle, but usually a parrot, a peacock or a jay. . . . Yes, sometimes he had been gone for hours. . . . Yes, she had told him about the evil and also ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... to city ways just like a duck to water; I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows; And there's no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter, And everything is right at hand and money freely flows; And hired help is all about, just listenin' to my call - But I miss ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... canoes and assisting in the search for useful minerals among the snow-clad ranges. He wore a wide, gray felt hat, which had lost its shape from frequent wettings, an old shirt of the same color, and blue duck trousers, rent in places; but the light attire revealed a fine muscular symmetry. He had brown hair and brown eyes; and a certain warmth of coloring which showed through the deep bronze of his skin hinted at a sanguine ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... duffel coat or pelisse, which I think country folk call a Joseph; but I followed her at a distance, through fields and owre stiles, till I saw her enter a sma' farm-house. There were some bits o' bairns, apparently hinds' bairns, sitting round a sort o' duck-dub near the stackyard. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... "Why didn't she duck in there and hide last night?" I asked, coming out of the charmed spell his description had cast ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... explained, in a slightly apologetic tone, "although Reuben is only a hunter, his parents were gentlefolks. They died when Reuben was quite a little fellow, so that he was allowed to run wild on a frontier settlement, and, as a matter of course, took to the wilderness as naturally as a young duck takes to the water. But Reuben is a superior person, Mr Tucker, I assure you, and as fine a disposition as you could wish. He's as bold as a lion too, and has saved my girl's life twice, and my own ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... been sheer prologue) led to these remarks. I was passing the crowd about one of the gentlemen—the more brazenly confident one—who deny the existence of a beneficent Creator, when the words, "Looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm," clanged out, followed by a roar of delighted laughter; and in a flash I remembered precisely where I was when, forty and more years ago, I first heard from a nursemaid that ancient simile and was so struck by its humour that I added it to my childish ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... duckling!" said the old duck. "He does not look like us. Can he be a turkey?—We will see. If he does not like the water, he is ...
— A Primary Reader - Old-time Stories, Fairy Tales and Myths Retold by Children • E. Louise Smythe
... Leonard hastily retraced his steps, and traversing Blow-bladder-street and Saint-Martin's-le-Grand, passed through Aldersgate. He then shaped his course through the windings of Little Britain and entered Duck-lane. He was now in a quarter fearfully assailed by the pestilence. Most of the houses had the fatal sign upon their doors—a red cross, of a foot long, with the piteous words above it, "Lord have mercy upon us," ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wanted to show his gratitude to me, so I thanked him, and examined the bird. It was larger and longer in the body than a common duck—a species of gannet—with a brown body, and under-part white, and a long beak; its expression of countenance indicating, I declared, the excessive stupidity it is said to possess. Several of the passengers crowded round to have a look at the stranger, and while thus engaged I was startled ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a car at the front of the house made Robin duck his head hastily. The car, he guessed, might be round at the garage any moment and it would not do for him to be discovered. He got clear of the window, rose to his feet, and tiptoed round the house by the way he had come. Then he crossed the drive ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... brightness, for there are no springs at Dulwich, yet fed purely enough by the rain and morning dew, here trickled—there loitered—through the long grass beneath the hedges, and expanded itself, where it might, into moderately clear and deep pools, in which, under their veils of duck-weed, a fresh-water shell or two, sundry curious little skipping shrimps, any quantity of tadpoles in their time, and even sometimes a tittlebat, offered themselves to my boyhood's pleased, and not inaccurate, observation. There, my mother ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... court. At one time a young duckling got into the well, to solace himself in his favourite element, when she immediately seized him by the leg, and took him under water; but the timely interference of Mr Dormer prevented any further mischief than making a cripple of the young duck. At another time a full-grown drake approached the well, when Mrs Fish, seeing a trespasser on her premises, immediately seized the intruder by the bill, and a desperate struggle ensued, which at last ended in the release of Mr Drake from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... he answered, and then paddled nearer. "Now I can't say as I rightly knows you, sah; an' I knows most everybody round here. Duck-shootin' maybe? Is ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... we could discover. And there was an abundance of fruit of several kinds also; we therefore quickly determined to settle down there and rest a bit before going any farther. There was a great patch of reeds along the western end of the lake, and here thousands of wild duck used to settle every night; and we soon found that it was an easy matter to get a few by simply waiting for them among the reeds and catching them ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... the foreground of the design catches the eye, the reflection in the water is as real as the reality. The Plaza, monstrous tons of steel and stone, floats between two elements. Then darkness gathers, the reflected lights in the blackening water grow more golden, and suddenly, perhaps, a duck swims across a tenth story window and sets it dancing in golden ripples. You may fare far among the ancient and "picturesque" cities of the earth without finding a rival for this strange bit of beauty in New York, an ethereal sky-scraper in white and gold gazing at its own reflection ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... together in a carriage, after breakfast, on a soft yet frosty morning, such as often gives to this region a winter sparkle and mildness like the Florida climate. They passed several tidal creeks, as the Duck and the Little Duck, the Blackbird and the Apoquinimink, and, as they advanced, the barns became larger, the hedges more tasteful and trimmed like those in the French Netherlands, the leafless peach orchards stretched out like the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... out words complacently. But something strange was working in Luke's blood, and other voices were sounding faintly in his ears. He heard the lisping of the leaves on the little poplar-trees, the whistle of the black duck's wings as he circled in the air, the distant drumming of the grouse on his log, the rumble of the water-fall in the River of Rocks. The spray cooled his face. He saw the fish rising along the pool, and a ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... therefore, slow and tedious, while that of example is summary and effectual." Says Franklin: "None teaches better than the ant, and she says nothing." "Not the cry" say the Chinese, "but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... In the fort a dozen of the gallant volunteers from Prince Albert and Crozier's Mounted Police lay groaning, some of them dying, with wounds. Others lay with their faces covered, quiet enough; while far down on the Duck Lake trail still others lay with the white snow red about them. The story was told the Commissioner with soldierlike brevity by Superintendent Crozier. The previous day a storekeeper from Duck Lake, Mitchell ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... else. I am a goot man. For dwendy-three hours and fifty-eight minutes in a tay I am as bure-minded as a child; then, in the ott dwo minutes somepoty tells me a dirdy sdory. I laugh, and I go avay, and I think of my blays and my boedry and my pusiness. It is water on a duck's pack.' ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... inhuman proceedings occurred at Oakly, near Bedford, on 12th July, 1707. There was one woman, upwards of sixty years of age, who, being under an imputation of witchcraft, was desirous to escape from so foul a suspicion, and to conciliate the good-will of her neighbours, by allowing them to duck her. The parish officers so far consented to their humane experiment as to promise the poor woman a guinea if she should clear herself by sinking. The unfortunate object was tied up in a wet sheet, her ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to boiled duck and broth for breakfast, and the two billies were soon steaming on the camp-fire, while the company yarned and smoked. It was nearly ten o'clock, and all hands were thinking of taking to their blankets for the night, when a sixth man came quietly through the trees, unobserved ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Now, the duck-pond was near-by. And at first Chirpy hadn't thought of looking there for his listener. But the second time he heard the voice he guessed that it came from the pond. So Chirpy leaped to the water's edge; and there, sitting on a lily-pad, was ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... watch it. Avert your eyes, and it instantly dries up.) The diversion, apparently of a trifling character, had, in truth, an enormous importance, though the parties concerned did not perceive this till later. It consisted in the passing of Mrs. Prockter and her stepson, Emanuel Prockter, up Duck Bank as James and Helen were passing ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... fingers into his luxuriant head-covering and pulling. "Wish y' luck! Ah! 'twas a wig. Gimme those spect'cles." She surveyed the results of her handiwork grimly. "Say, Clarence," she remarked, "y're a wise guy. Y' look handsomer with 'em on. Does any one know this duck?" ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... her shoulders. "But you were on the receiving end, which makes a big difference. She's a peculiar sort of duck. Brainy, but impersonal—academic. She knows all the words and all their meanings, all the questions and all the answers, but she doesn't apply any of them to herself. She's always the observer, never the participant. Pure egg-head ... pure? That's ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... and stern. The encroachments of her high poop and forecastle left but short waist-room; her waist-ribs limited the height of her "between decks;" while the "perked up" lines of her bow and stern produced the resemblance noted, to the croup and neck of the wild duck. That she was low "between decks" is demonstrated by the fact that it was necessary to "cut down" the Pilgrims' shallop—an open sloop, of certainly not over 30 feet in length, some 10 tons burden, and not very high "freeboard"—"to stow" her under the MAY-FLOWER'S spar deck. That she ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... "The god in question is asked what sacrifice he requires? a buffalo, a hog, a fowl, or a duck, to spare the sufferer; ... anxious as I am fully to illustrate the topic, I will not try the patience of my readers by describing all that vast variety of black victims and white, of red victims and blue, which each particular deity is alleged to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... visited the lake, its waters were unusually low. Here, they ran calm and shallow, into little, glassy, flowery creeks, that looked like fairies' bathing places. There, out in the middle, they hardly afforded depth enough for a duck to swim in. Near to the Bar, however, they spread forth wider and deeper; finely contrasted, in their dun colour and perfect repose, with the flashing foaming breakers on the other side. The surf forbade all hope of swimming; ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... things they gave to sailors. We agreed that salt horse, or fresh horse, either, did not strike our fancy. Anyhow, we ate up the soft bread the first day so we did not have to worry about it afterwards. We counted on getting fish and clams for chowders, and probably some lobsters at Duck Island. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... one hant in my life, an' I didn' know it wuz a hant 'til Aunt Peggy (an old slave woman) tole me so. Dis hant was in de shape o' a duck, an' it followed me one day frum de big house kitchen ter de hawg pen whar I wuz gwine ter slop de hawgs. When I got back, I said, 'Aunt Peggy, dar's a strange duck done tuck up wid us!' And she say, 'hush, chile, dat's ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... not less than five thousand pounds, wanted for a wild-duck farm in the island of Mull. Must be a man of iron constitution; Gaelic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... ever, but the wind now came in sudden claps and capfuls, not without danger to a boat so badly ballasted as ours; and we crept over the river in the darkness, trailing one paddle in the water like a wounded duck, and passed ever and again by huge, illuminated steamers running many knots, and heralding their approach by strains of music. The contrast between these pleasure embarkations and our own grim vessel, with her list to port and her freight ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the rehearsal, trembling with fear, but on seeing the person who was to play "Garrick," she quickly mastered herself. This amateur was hardly more than a boy, skinny, awkward, and simple-minded. He lisped and waddled about like a duck, but since he was the cousin of one of the influential journalists who backed him, he regarded everybody at the theater with a haughty expression and treated them with an air of condescension. The members of the company delicately ridiculed him to his face and laughed loudly at him ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... Mr Marline. It was ornamented with brilliant brass buttons, and the effect was completed by a bright bandana handkerchief which he had begged from me, and this, contrasting with a white shirt and duck trousers, made his toilet so thoroughly effective that Cuffee was ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... vote, Cyril," says I. "You're fired. Not for failin' to duck the roast, understand, but because you're ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... drawing-room, he would show her only stuttering servility, and fulfil all her wishes, and blame any one who did not do precisely as she bid them, in his study or his office he would overhaul the cook if she had served up so much as a duck without his orders, or any one responsible for sending a serf (even though at Madame's own bidding) to inquire after a neighbour's health or for despatching the peasant girls into the wood to gather wild raspberries instead of setting ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of his own, was listening to the information she gave him. How much of it did he carry away? He was told that the gray goose built its nest in the rushes at the edge of lakes: Sheila knew several nests in Borva. Sheila also caught the young of the wild-duck when the mother was guiding them down the hill-rivulets to the sea. She had tamed many of them, catching them thus before they could fly. The names of most of the mountains about here ended in bhal, which was a Gaelic corruption of the Norse fiall, a mountain. There were many ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... and pointed at her with their fingers. Oh, how frightened the little maid was! 'But if one has not done anything wrong,' she thought, 'nothing evil can harm one. I wonder if I have done anything wrong?' And she considered. 'Oh, yes! I laughed at the poor duck with the red rag on her leg; she limped along so funnily, I could not help laughing; but it's a sin to laugh at animals.' And she looked up at the doll. 'Did you laugh at the duck too?' she asked; and it seemed as if the doll ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Kathleen. "I'd have loved her just as much if she hadn't put a penny in. She is a duck, though! I can't think why I care so much about her, for she's ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... "Yes my duck," replied the outlaw, pouring the last of the egg-nog into his goblet, drinking it at a draught and chuckling as he ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... seen in 1767 and 1768. The Californian sea-elephant and the sea-dog of the West Indies have shared a like fate. Not a trace of these animals has been found for a long time. The extinction of the Labrador duck and the great auk have often been deplored. Both of these birds may be regarded as practically extinct. The last skeleton of the great auk was sold for $600, the last skin for $650, and the last egg brought ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... sisters—with all my heart, of course, dearest, best girls! but, having come out of that business, thanks to you, I don't want to go back, you know. No! no! It is not for that I fancy staying in Europe better than going home. But, you see, I don't fancy hunting, duck-shooting, tobacco-planting, whist-playing, and going to sermon, over and over and over again, for all my life, George. And what else is there to do at home? What on earth is there for me to do at all, I say? That's what makes me miserable. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sharp edge of his grandmother's words had been a little blunted by time, and the cares of other things had entered in, Aubrey again made his way to the lodgings occupied by Winter at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... few good popular words which do not unite two or more ideas, being founded on one, and catching up others as they go along. Thus I find 'dabchick' to be a corruption of 'dip-chick,' meaning birds that only dip, and do not dive, or even duck, for any length of time: but in its broader and customary use it takes up the idea of dabbling; and, as a class-name, stands for 'dabbling-chick,' meaning a bird of small size, that neither wades, nor dives, nor ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... battlements of a range of buildings, which formed the front of the castle, where a flat roof of flag-stones presented a broad and convenient promenade. The level surface of the lake, undisturbed except by the occasional dipping of a teal-duck, or coot, was gilded with the beams of the setting luminary, and reflected, as if in a golden mirror, the hills amongst which it lay embossed. The scene, otherwise so lonely, was occasionally enlivened by the voices of the children in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... us a chune, Master Angel before th' missus gets back! There's a duck. I'll give ye a pocket full of ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... But it must be very shocking to a person of your views to remember that the old Queen Anne muskets, shot guns and duck guns which your forefathers in such bad taste and contrary to all military science, levelled over those fence rails and hay at your friends the British in beautiful uniforms, were loaded with buckshot, slugs, old nails, and bits of iron from the ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... was too gross, too infirm, for your inspection; but if you durst have looked nearer, you would not have found Cowardice in the number of his infirmities.—We will try if we cannot redeem him from this universal censure.—Let the venal corporation of authors duck to the golden fool, let them shape their sordid quills to the mercenary ends of unmerited praise, or of baser detraction;—old Jack, though deserted by princes, though censured by an ungrateful world, and persecuted ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... male and female of the Chakravaka, commonly called Chakwa and Chakwi, or Brahmani duck (Anas casarca). These birds associate together during the day, and are, like turtle-doves, patterns of connubial affection; but the legend is, that they are doomed to pass the night apart, in consequence of a curse pronounced upon them by a saint whom ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... his spine. And there, far to his left, loomed the Washington monument, glittering like a shaft of opals. Some orderlies dashed by on handsome bays. How splendid they looked, with their blue trousers and broad yellow stripes! This was before the Army adopted the comfortable but shabby brown duck. How he longed to throw a leg over the back of a good horse and gallop away into the great green ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... with them I can make shift to slip down the wooden shaft of that pier, and so hold parley with thee. Walter has done the like before now, and I am more agile in such feats than he; moreover, I can swim like a duck if I should chance to miss my hold, and so reach the water unawares. That will be the best, for the boat may not linger at the wharf side. We know not what news may be afoot in the city, nor that there may not be searchers bent on finding Father ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and the duck, show that a risk of threatened disaster, as a result of rash speculation will be averted, and with the symbol of the three boots, fortunate prospects, and the guarantee of hope fulfilled, may safely be predicted ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... bill. Poultry abounded in the far away sections of the country, not yet ravaged by either army, which it was a pleasure to those fixtures of the army called "foragers" to hunt up. The brotherhood of "foragers" was a peculiar institute, and some men take as naturally to it as the duck to water. They have an eye to business, as well as pleasure, and the life of a "forager" becomes almost an art. They have a peculiar talent, developed by long practice of nosing out, hunting up, and running to quarry ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... little doubt about it, sir," answered Mr Hayward. "I can trust Tom's word, and Captain Torrens's servant assured him that he saw his master and Ensign Duck murdered with ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... take birth as a vile vermin. By stealing a piece of silken cloth, one becomes a Krikara. By stealing a piece of cloth made of red silk, one becomes a Vartaka.[515] By stealing a piece of muslin one becomes a parrot. By stealing a piece of cloth that is of fine texture, one becomes a duck after casting off one's human body. By stealing a piece of cloth made of cotton, one becomes a crane. By stealing a piece of cloth made of jute, one becomes a sheep in one's next life. By stealing a piece of linen, one has to take birth as a hare. By stealing different ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sturdily. "Not a bit of it. We've only been firing duck and swan shot so far. Now, I'm going to ask father if we hadn't better fire ball. Come on. Don't grump over a few horses. We don't want to ride away and be hunted ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... very glad; for he could sell the rope, and in that way get money to buy food. Walking a little farther, he found a gun leaning against a fence. This gun, he supposed, had been left there by a hunter. He was glad to have it, too, for protection. Finally, while crossing a swampy place, he saw a duck drinking in the brook. He ran after the duck, and at last succeeded in catching it. Now he was sure of a ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... big church was liftin' itself above the trees, the blessed saint begun to be onaisy in his mind, fur, says he to himself, 'Things is too aisy entirely. It's just thim times when all is goin' on as smooth as a duck on a pond that the divil comes down like a fox on a goslin' an' takes every wan unbeknownst, so wins the vict'ry. I'll have a care, fur afther the sunshine comes the shtorm,' says he. So that avenin' he ordhered his monks to say a thousand craydos, an' two ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... the copse 'gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck's brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 240 But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the Hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. 245 ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... her in a bear-hug. "You duck! I'll just crawl through the streets after this. You watch me! The police will have to call time on me to make sure I'm not obstructing the traffic. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... about six or eight miles away from the mines excellent snipe shooting is to be had, and duck and teal are also to be found. Spotted deer and bears are sometimes shot by sportsmen from the mines, but for those one must go further away. The fishing is not considered to be very good, but perhaps those who fish do not know how to set to work. The natives sometimes bring very large ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... went from the Dog and Duck by the Asylum; this coach-stand was at the Three Stags, there was no hackney coach there. I ordered my fellow-servant to stop, and I looked round and told the gentleman there was no hackney coach there; but that there ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... came too early, when the few previous arrivals were altogether too insignificant to be introduced to them. So they had to talk to each other. It was on a very warm Sunday afternoon in the season, and Whistler, by the by, was wearing a white 'duck' waistcoat and trousers, and a fabulously long frock-coat, made, I think, of black alpaca, and carrying a brass-tipped stick about four feet long in his right hand, and a wonderful new paint-box, of which he was proud, under his ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... you would carve this hare for me, I have no idea how it ought to be cut. I can manage a chicken, or a duck, but ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... riddle, behold me feeding these ducks. God knows why! I detest the creatures. The state feeds them badly, Monsieur le Ministre, I tell you: they are famished. Well? well?" she said to a species of Indian duck, bolder than the others, who snapped at the hem of her skirt to attract attention ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... side loomed up; here and there the near side dipped entirely and showed a broad path of water into the lagoon; here and there both sides were equally abased, and we could look right through the discontinuous ring to the sea horizon on the south. Conceive, on a vast scale, the submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, trimmed with green rushes to conceal his head—water within, water without—you have the image of the perfect atoll. Conceive one that has been partly plucked of its rush fringe; you have the atoll of Kauehi. And for either shore ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Stag; and in another the Chase of the Wild Boar, which gained him the greatest applause. There are many of his best works in the Dusseldorf Gallery. He painted all kinds of birds and fowls in an inimitable manner; the soft down of the duck, the glossy plumage of the pigeon, the splendor of the peacock, the magnificent spread of an inanimate swan producing a flood of light, and serving as a contrast to all the objects around it, are so attractive that it is impossible to contemplate one of his pictures of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... afternoon trying to find out a certain T.M. battery, and what should fly by quite close and quite unconcerned but a duck! We were not very high, and it was very misty. The duck just appeared, with his neck stretched out, eager and oblivious. And then vanished into the mist again. I was thinking about that duck too much to find out what I wanted. Anyway, it was a fruitless journey. But flying amongst clouds is very ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... came downstairs and I was impelled to slip behind the door and alarm her by some wild cry as she entered, I was able to stifle the impulse and to greet her with dignity and restraint. An overpowering desire to quack like a duck was met and mastered in the ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... attempting to seduce a churchwarden of the Church of England. I tell you what, he ran some danger, for some of my customers, learning his errand, laid hold on him, and were about to toss him in a blanket, and then duck him in the horse-pond. I, however, interfered, and said that what he came about was between me and him, and that it was no business of theirs. To tell you the truth, I felt pity for the poor devil, more especially when I considered that they merely sided against him because they thought him the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... came to see me yesterday—kissed my hand, and seemed in a general verve for embracing. He is very earnest, very simple, very childlike. I like him. Pen says of him, 'He is not really pretty. He is rather like his own ugly duck, but his mind has developed ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... of the climate, there can, I think, be but one opinion as to the soil. It is generally admitted that there is no more unproductive spot of earth upon the face of the deep than Bermuda. The only animals which appear to thrive are the goat and the duck; the cedar and a few calabash-trees are the only wood, and, except the most common kinds of vegetables, such as cabbages, onions, and sweet potatoes; I know of hardly another thing brought to perfection, even in the gardens. The fruits ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... home, the milk is coming; Honey's made when the bees are humming. Duck, drake on the rushy lake, And the deer live safe in the breezy brake, And timid, funny, pert little bunny Winks his nose, and sits all ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... all the animals, from duck to stork, and from dog to ox, now led happier lives. In the family, all declared that the behavior of the farm and the wind of the Zuyder Zee had combined to make a new man and a delightful father of old Van ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... jacket. 1 pair blue cloth pants. 1 pair blue satinet pants. 1 blue cap. 1 straw hat, of coarse, sewed straw. 1 Panama hat, bound. 2 knit woollen shirts. 2 pair knit woollen drawers. 2 white frocks. 2 pair white duck pants. 4 pair socks. 2 pair ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... along I met the President's private secretary, who had been writing a tariff letter and cleaning a duck gun ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... dripping, have you? Well, you ain't the first head-strong, high-strung chap that's found out water is wet when the creek blots out the big road, I reckon. I'm no duck myself. When I see water, I'm like the old cat in the corner; I always feel like shaking my foot. Kitty, call Bob and tell him to make a fire in the big room. He's asleep, I reckon, and you'll have to holler. Set a nigger down and he's snoring directly. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... was as well equipped for such an expedition as I could possibly wish, save in one particular. I had a smart, light-draught vessel, capable of "going anywhere where a duck can swim," as we say at sea; we were well armed, had plenty of ammunition, mustered a crew of twenty-six prime seamen, the pick of the Barracouta's crew—men who would go anywhere, and face anything—we carried an ample supply of ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... bay in the superbly appointed launch flying an Admiral's flag and manned by a picked crew in snowy duck, Ridge sat silent, in a very confused frame of mind, and paying scant attention to the gay conversation carried on by the other members of the party. He had been overcome by the courtesy of his reception in Santiago, and was feeling keenly ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... the girl informer a vicious look, which had as much effect upon her as water might have on a duck's back. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... better row, the backs of which look to the Thames; and on the south side stand the boundary-wall of Kew-Gardens, some buildings for soldiery, and the plain house of Ernest, duke of Cumberland. Among other persons of note and interest who reside here, are the two respectable daughters of Stephen Duck, the poet, who deserve to be mentioned as relics of a former age. In the western corner stand the buildings called Kew Palace, in which George III. passed many of the early years of his reign, and near which he began a new structure a few years before his confirmed malady—which I call the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... again,—"and make them yourself if you are a good housewife. Come, Lucy," said he taking her hand, "do you know how the wild fowl do on the Chesapeake?—duck and swim under water till they can shew their heads with safety? O spoil your eyes to see by ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... of his sermons on "The King who went a journey," and the "Hail, Mary"; and told him of the escape at Blainscow Hall, where the servant-girl, seeing the pursuivants at hand, pushed the Jesuit, with quick wit and courage, into the duck-pond, so that he came out disguised indeed—in green mud—and was mocked at by the very officers as a clumsy suitor ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Because the Muses never knew their pains. They boast their peasants' pipes; but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough, And few amid the rural tribe have time To number syllables and play with rhyme: Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care, Or the great labours of the field degrade With the new ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... have no idea how much younger he looked when he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his face, till I longed to be—well, say a duck, or something of that sort—that he might ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... road; the huge green stack Of dewy fodder that it slouched beneath Brushing the yellow walls on either hand, And shutting out the strip of burning blue: And I'd to face that vicious bobbing head With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare teeth, And duck beneath the snaky, squirming neck, Pranked with its silly string of bright blue beads, That seemed to wriggle every way at once, As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard! But I was scared, and nearly turned and ran: I felt that muzzle take me by the scruff, And heard those ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... of the acid of some coal mine; for there are coal works in this district. There is a well of purging water within a quarter of a mile of the Upper Town, to which the inhabitants resort in the morning, as the people of London go to the Dog-and-duck, in St. George's fields. There is likewise a fountain of excellent water, hard by the cathedral, in the Upper Town, from whence I am daily supplied at a small expence. Some modern chemists affirm, that no saline ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... solitary curlew, the saucy burr of the grouse, the screech of the owl, the croaking of the raven, the flight of the magpie, the slowly flying heron, the noisy cock, the hungry seagull, the shrill note of the woodpecker, the sportive duck, all become omens. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... be in his mind the brilliant and fascinating soubrette, and had become in the silly lover's-Latin, his "pug, his duck, his bird." He answered a letter she wrote him describing her success in the ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... couple of citizens, loitering about. I take pains to remember these small items, because they suggest the day-life or torpidity of what may look very brilliant at night. These corked-up fountains, slovenly greensward, cracked casts of statues, pasteboard castles, and duck-pond Bay of Balaclava then shining out in magic splendor, and the shabby attendants whom we saw sweeping and shovelling probably transformed into ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moment she got into it, she recovered the natural right of which she had been so wickedly deprived,—namely, gravity. whether this was owing to the fate that water had been employed as the means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The way that this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered, was as follows: One summer evening, during the carnival of the country, she had been taken upon the lake by the king and queen, in the royal barge. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... beautiful; it was quite perfectly beautiful, and of such classic mould that she might well have been the tutelary goddess of that temple (if it was a temple, and not a kiosk), in the white duck costume which the goddesses were wearing that summer. Her features were Greek, but her looks were American; and she was none the less a goddess, I decided, because of that air of something exacting, of not quite satisfied, which made me more ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Duncan. The boy was left under the care of one of our mariners in the old war, and he took to the water like a duck. Your honor knows that we have no ports on Ontario that can be named as such, and he naturally passed most of his time on the other side of the lake, where the French have had a few vessels these fifty years. He learned ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... frame ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it hung a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and fruit, half a water melon, a boar's head, and the pendent form of a dead wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a holland covering—the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge cocoon enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay a pile of articles which had evidently ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the birds, sir? I've seen 'em all the morning. Ducks and terns as well as gull things. They seem to be nesting about those rocks yonder. And of coarse that means noo-laid eggs for that there boy; yes, and roast duck. There's shooting tackle down below, isn't ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... to thee, O Tantlatch, that the wild goose and the swan and the little ringed duck be born here in the low-lying lands. It be known that they go away before the face of the frost to unknown places. And it be known, likewise, that always do they return when the sun is in the land and the waterways are free. Always do they return to where they were ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolis of the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back-duck on the top of the Washington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monument and plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glories when you have soft crabs? No, Sir,—you live too ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... I stumbled upon a very young sheep. The youngster lay low, like a wounded duck. Several times I walked within a few feet of him, coming closer each time until at length he sprang up and fled in terror. He took refuge by climbing an almost perpendicular cliff wall. Camera in hand, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... a duck!" replied the butler, who in his moments of relaxation was addicted to homely expletives of the lower London type. "If you don't call it pampering, what do you call pampering? He ain't allowed to touch nothing that ain't been—it's slipped my memory what they call it, but it's ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... said Burton, "I don't think women recognize any difference in flavors. I believe wild duck and hashed mutton would be quite the same to my wife if her eyes were blinded. I should not mind this, if it were not that they are generally proud of the deficiency. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... looking at the familiar shore, as we approached Fort Point, when I heard a sort of cry, and felt the schooner going over. As we got into the throat of the "Heads," the force of the wind, meeting a strong ebb-tide, drove the nose of the schooner under water; she dove like a duck, went over on her side, and began, to drift out with the tide. I found myself in the water, mixed up with pieces of plank and ropes; struck out, swam round to the stern, got on the keel, and clambered up on the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a little man, And he had a little gun, And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead; He went to the brook And saw a little duck, And he shot it right through the ...
— Little Bo-Peep - A Nursery Rhyme Picture Book • Leslie Brooke
... appear to be a greater specific difference between the Trout and the Salmon than there is between the horse and the ass, between the mallard and the musk duck, or between a cabbage and a turnip. But hitherto, in all my experiments, I have never succeeded in producing a hybrid between the Trout and the Salmon. [9] Yet I do not despair of doing so, for there was always a something to complain of, and to ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... business at Goldberg's office, sought a more familiar haunt on one of the side-streets among the forties. Here, just off Broadway, was a famous barber- shop—a spotless place with white interior and tiled walls. Six Italians in stiff duck coats practised their arts at a row of well-equipped chairs. A wasp-waisted girl sat at the manicure- table next the front windows. As Jim entered she was holding the hand of a jaded person in a light-gray suit, and ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... a duck to water," said Long Jack, a grizzly-chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway, and they could hear him ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... see them. I watched them settle, and then creeping up through tall wild rice I got a shot and killed one of them. I quickly reloaded. As I was out there alone I was necessarily on my guard. The duck was about twenty-five feet from the bank, and as the water was deep and cold and no one with me I concluded not to go in after it. So I took out the ramrod, screwed the wormer to it, lengthened it out with willow cuttings ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... and in hard winters wildfowl flock to it. I never have seen on the water any fowl that were wild, but it is crowded with swimming and diving birds. You can count thirty or forty coots, besides moorhens and a dozen dabchicks or so, and at the end where the mill stands there are fat duck and a bevy of swans. It is an arresting picture, the long, clear surface, the coots with their white foreheads dabbling in the weeds or rushing after one another with loud splashings, the dabchicks diving six at a time out of sight, and the dignified swans ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Maiden Knight' fellow does it," said Kenby, taking duck and pease from the steward ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... phiz, at an opening sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within, but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck, with the neatest of light pumps at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... farther on he overtook her. Rather, he sighted her in the trail, saw her duck in amongst the rocks and scattered brush of a small ravine, and spurred after her. It was precarious footing for his horse when he left the road, but John Doe was accustomed to that. He jumped boulders, shied around buckthorn, crashed ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... the skin of the bony scaled pike was taken for part of a sea-serpent's hide. A speckled mother duck, with a numerous brood of young ones swimming after her in a line on Lake Ontario, was described as the sea-serpent itself. And from such occurrences as these, perhaps, mingled with careless observation of the motions and appearances of porpuses, basking sharks, and balaenopterous whales, appears ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... the floor. In this situation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. The remainder of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, I regretted but little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding |
