"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admits of no doubt whatever. For there should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one, "You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him." Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise. There is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn. But age too must have its proper ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... she commanded, clapping her hands like a Sultana, "your feet together. Draw back your left—so. Very well! Bend the knee—stupid, not that one. Now your head. If I have to come to you, sir—there, that is better. Well done! Oh, I shall have a peck of trouble with you, I can see that. But you will do me credit before I have done ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... live in History? Erostratus by a torch; Milo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by his limbs; most Kings and Queens by being born under such and such a bed-tester; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches,—for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends, yield cheerfully to Destiny, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Canal Street on the north to Wall Street on the south; but Edison soon realized that this territory was too extensive for the initial experiment, and he decided finally upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce, and Ferry streets, Peck Slip and the East River, an area nearly a square mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps taken to enable him to figure on such a station and system was to have men go through this district on various days and note the number of gas jets burning at each hour up ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... your bosom friend. I got so bored that I left early and wandered back to the club. Somebody was making a racket in our old rooms in the High, windows open, you know, and singing. I stopped to look at them, and then they started, 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' and, 'pon my soul, I had to come away. Couldn't stand it. It reminded me so badly of you and Arthur and old John Lambert, and all the honest men that used to be there. It was infernally absurd that I should have got so sentimental, but that wasn't ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... hedge-sparrow. For days a sparrow has been watched while it fed a hungry complaining intruder. It used to fly on the cuckoo's back and then, standing on its head and leaning downwards, give it a caterpillar. The tit-bit having been greedily snatched and devoured, the cuckoo would peck fiercely at its tiny attendant—bidding it, as it were, fetch more food and not be long about it. Wordsworth tells us in a famous line that "the child is father of the man," and no apter illustration of this truth could be found than the cuckoo. Let us trace ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... for his book. Do you recollect Renzo tying four fat capons by the legs, and carrying them, with their heads hanging down, to Signor Azzeccagarbugli,—and the capons, in that awkward predicament, finding no better occupation than to peck at each other? "As is too often the case with companions in misfortune," observes the author, in his quiet, humoristic way. We were just as wise. Instead of saying, Mea culpa, we began to recriminate, and find fault with everything and everybody. It ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... All de work I am able ter do now is a little work in de garden. Dey say I is too ole ter work, so charity gives me a little ter go upon every week. For one weeks 'lowance o' sumptin' ter eat dey gives me, hold on, I will show you, dat beats guessin'. Here it is: 1/2 peck meal (corn meal), 2 lbs oat meal, 2 lb dry skim milk, and 1 lb plate meat. Dis is what I gits fer one week 'lowance. I can't work much, but de white folks gib me meals fur washin' de woodwork in dere houses, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... us never to buy a "pig in a poke." Equally good advice for the heroines of fiction or drama would be never under any circumstances to marry a bridegroom in a mask. In more cases than I can recall, neglect of this simple precaution has led to a peck of trouble. I am thinking now of Yvonne, leading lady in The Mark of Vraye (HUTCHINSON). I admit that poor Yvonne had more excuse than most. Hers was what you might call a hard case. On the one hand there was the villain Philippe, a most naughty man, swearing that she was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... without a quaver. At Calais we had the same good luck as at London—a compartment of the car all to ourselves. Here we were to be settled without change for that night and the next day, so with bags and shawl-straps, bundles, lunch-baskets and a peck of oranges, we adjusted ourselves. We breakfasted at Basle, after having pillowed on each other for the night as best we could. Now we were in the midst of the Jura mountains, and all day long we wound up and down their snowy sides and around the beautiful lakes nestling at their ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... slaves wuz 'lowed ter stay on de plantation en 'lowed ter farm en gib half dey made. Atter slavery I useter wuk fer fifty cents en git a peck ob meal, three pounds ob bacon en a quart ob syrup ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... had appeared a dove, but doves can peck on certain occasions, and no doubt she had a spirit at bottom. Her coming to him proved it. And had not the other been a dove all the morning and afternoon? Yet, jealousy had turned her to a fiend before his ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... and deficient in the selfish propensities and in ambition. He loves display and would like to have power, but is inadequate to the continued effort and the endurance necessary to obtain it. He wields a more potent influence in the pulpit, on the rostrum or in journalism. George W. Peck, T. DeWitt Talmage and R. B. Hayes represent three different types of this ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... going to Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three shillings for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in recruiting men." Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted of a peck of bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords, made by Gabriel's brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel himself. "These cutlasses," said subsequently a white eye-witness, "are made of scythes cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have never seen arms so murderous. ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... SNYDER, formerly of the house of Peck & Snyder:—"I have read the book from cover to cover ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... children flies to the back-door when school lets out. "Don't you come in here with all that mud!" she squalls excitedly. "Look at you! A peck o' dirt on each foot. Right in my nice clean kitchen that I just scrubbed. Go 'long now and clean your shoes. Go 'long, I tell you. Slave and slave for you and that's all the thanks I get. You'd keep the place looking like a hogpen, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... there? Whence doth come that trumpet-blowing?" Werner's music through the March night, Plaintive soared up to the castle, Begging entrance like a pet-dove, Which, returning to its mistress, Finds the window closed and fastened, And begins to peck and hammer. To the terrace went the Baron And his daughter; Hiddigeigei Followed both with step majestic. Through the cat's heart then swept omens Of a great, eventful future. All around they looked—but vainly. For the turret's gloomy shadow Covered both the bank and Werner. Like the blowing of ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... and heard the fowl crow again. Dermot halted Badshah in cover and waited. Presently there was a patter over the dry leaves lying on the ground, and a jungle cock, a bird similar to an English bantam, stalked across the glade twenty yards away. It stopped and began to peck. Dermot quietly raised his rifle and took careful aim at its head. He fired, and the body of the cock fell to ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... "Abner Peck saw your dog and Ventnor's running together through my sheep pasture at sundown on Tuesday evening," answered old Paul. "Wednesday morning I found this in the corner of the pasture where the sheep were worried. Your uncle admits that it was tied around ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Rhinelander in getting grants from the city officials. In 1806 he obtained two of large extent on the East Side—on Mangin street between Stanton and Houston streets, and on South street between Peck Slip and Dover street. On May 30, 1808, upon a favorable report handed in by the Finance Committee, of which the notorious John Bingham was a member, Astor received an extensive grant along the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... the fair Whitefoord, As she sat by the Bishop's knee, 'A peck o' white pennies, my good lord, If ye'll grant Hughie ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... one in our yard this spring, which none of the mother-hens would own. They would peck at it, and drive it away, till it was almost starved. Aunt Jennie told our little Hettie that she might have it for her own, if she ...
— The Nursery, July 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 1 • Various
... underripe acid plum. Wash the fruit and remove the stems. Put into the preserving kettle with 1 quart of water for each peck of fruit. Cook gently until the plums are boiled to pieces. Strain the juice and proceed the same ...
— Canned Fruit, Preserves, and Jellies: Household Methods of Preparation - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 203 • Maria Parloa
... to get used to the food and the beds," groaned Heavy. "But I never will. One teacher already has advised me about my diet. She says vegetables are best for me. I ate a peck of string beans this noon for lunch—strings and all—and I expect you can pick basting threads out ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... from this was the office of The Birmingham Journal, a very different paper then from what it afterwards became. It had been originally started as a Tory paper by a few old "fogies" who used to meet at "Joe Lindon's," "The Minerva," in Peck Lane; and this was how it came about: The Times had, early in 1825, in a leader, held up to well-deserved ridicule some action on the part of the Birmingham Tory party. This gave awful and unpardonable ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corne to y^t proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not fained, but ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... we got to Holbrook, a little gale did blow; It blew up sand and pebble stones and it didn't blow them slow. We had to drink the water from that muddy little stream And swallowed a peck of dirt when we tried ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... jury, is controlled by the self-interest of the owner who, of course, does not recklessly destroy his own property. The slave-codes are no just exponent of the actual state of things in slavery. For example,—by law a master may not furnish his slave with less than a peck of corn a week. This has a barbarous look. But to see the slaves feasting on the fat of the land you certainly would not be reminded of the "peck of corn," except by contrast. There must be some legal standard, below ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... it was not dead. It let her put her hand round it and draw it in, and to her delight she felt that it was soft and warm, and it even gave a gentle peck on her thumb. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... we do with her now we have her here?" asked the rash Tufter; but he was sorry he asked, for the Phoenix gave him a terrible peck. ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear you can peck butt little satisfaction out ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... restoration. According to Clarendon he was "a man of great honour and clear courage," and his defects the result of too little knowledge of the world. Lord Derby left in MS. "A Discourse concerning the Government of the Isle of Man" (printed in the Stanley Papers and in F. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations, devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book. He married on the 26th of June 1626 Charlotte ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... . . . The cat arched his back more than ever, mewed and gave Kashtanka a smack on the head with his paw. Kashtanka jumped back, squatted on all four paws, and craning her nose towards the cat, went off into loud, shrill barks; meanwhile the gander came up behind and gave her a painful peck in the back. Kashtanka leapt up ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Paddy-bird felt hungry, she flew to a cocoa-nut and began to peck at it. But she did not know the secret of the three little holes at the top of the cocoa-nut; so she pecked, and pecked, and got no further. At last she gathered all her strength, and gave a tremendous peck at the cocoa-nut. Snap! her bill broke off, ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... that I was at the picture show today I'd be in a peck of trouble," she said. "She won't let me go to the movies at all and I have to sneak away and I do enjoy them so much. Now you won't tell your mother or my mother or anyone, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... man came running across the lawn to meet his father, seizing him warmly by the hand, and having administered a dutiful peck to his aunt, turned to introduce the little group of ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... ideas were becoming slightly confused—"it would be natural for her to be melancholy—only if she were a bird she wouldn't care, she would fly off with some one else and leave Major Clowes, and all the other birds would come and peck him to death. They manage these things better in bird land." Isabel's eyes shut but she hurriedly opened them again. "I'm not going to go to sleep. It's perfectly absurd. It can't be much after nine o'clock. I dare say Captain Hyde will come out before ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... on high began to die— A sweet anticipation! Beware the scent, tho' hunger groan! My gentle kiss (a fishing smack) Shot far amiss and with a hiss I landed pretty well for'ard. A smack I smote with a fearful thwack, A stunning whack across the back, On the upper deck of the Judy Peck. At noon to-day, the fishermen say, We ornament the table— O, wretched deed!—or chicken feed, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Lucius Quintius Flaminius, and repeated for two days; and a vast quantity of corn, which Scipio had sent from Africa, was distributed by them to the people, with strict impartiality and general satisfaction, at the rate of four asses a peck. The plebeian games were thrice repeated entire by the plebeian aediles, Lucius Apustius Fullo, and Quintus Minucius Rufus; the latter of whom was, from the aedileship, elected praetor. There was also a feast of Jove ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... great business of his life. In science he was neither amateur nor dilettante, but a careful, patient, laborious worker. And hence his high position, and the respect he inspired in the scientific world. Small men might peck and nibble at him, but the true kings of science,—the Owens, Murchisons, Herschels, Sedgwicks, and Fergussons—honored him the more the longer they knew him. We miss an important fact in his life if we do not take note of the impression ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... His nett produce is less than the production of the larger methods, but his gross is greater, and usually it is mortgaged more or less. Along the selvage of many of the new roads we have foretold, his hens will peck and his children beg, far into the coming decades. This simple, virtuous, open-air life is to be found ripening in the north of France and Belgium, it culminated in Ireland in the famine years, it has held ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... dining car and had a good meal. We wuz a little over two days goin' from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, and durin' that time I calculated that I eat enough dirt, that bitter alkali sand, to last lawful all my life. I believe one peck of dirt is all the law allows one person to consume durin' their life. It seems as if I eat more than enough to meet legal requirements for me and Josiah, and I seemed to have a thick coatin' of it on my hull person. And poor little Tommy! ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... burst out Steve; "I tell you, fellows, we're going to have a peck of trouble with this here inquirin' ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... doesn't want to marry him, and I doubt whether he can be got to marry any one else. There is still a peck of difficulties." ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Carp either in Pond or River, if you mean to have sport with some profit, you must take a peck of Ale-graines, and a good quantity of any bloud, and mix the bloud and graines together, and cast it in the places where you meane to Angle; this feed will gather the scale Fish together, as Carp, Tench, Roach, Dace, and Bream; the next morning be at your sport very early, plum your ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went to feed ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... without any remarkable accident, was practised for about three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by sparks they picked up to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Juke, "I alone can save you from yon bloody pirut! Ho! a peck of oats!" The oats was brought, and the Juke, boldly mountin the jibpoop, throwed them onto the towpath. The pirut rapidly approached, chucklin with fiendish delight at the idee of increasin his ill-gotten gains. But the leadin hoss of the pirut ship stopt suddent on comin to the oats, and commenst ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... mixed a remedy as generous as the balm of Gilead itself. It was composed of the most potent ale, concocted with spices and a little white sugar, to be drunk every morning before taking food. For these prescriptions Bessie Dunlop's fee was a peck of meal and some cheese. The young woman recovered. But the poor old Lady Kilbowie could get no help for her leg, which had been crooked for years; for Thome Reid said the marrow of the limb was perished and the blood benumbed, so that she would ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... a peck of pickled peppers, Now if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where is that peck of ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... twenty years not far from there, in a little apartment near Saint-Roch. Drinking in the fresh air, under the striped awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... she said, running up to the good lady and giving her a kiss, which resembled the peck of an eager bird, on her cheek. "I ran on first, and Martha is following. I came to know how you are, and how you're bearing up—and is ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... unprofitable, being for the most part a confounding of intellectual substances. The painter paints, the composer makes music, the sculptor models, and the poet sings. Like the industrious crow the critic hops after these sowers of beauty, content to peck up in the furrows the chance grains dropped by genius. This, at least, is the popular notion. Balzac, and later Disraeli, asked: "After all, what are the critics? Men who have failed in literature and art." And Mascagni, notwithstanding the laurels he wore ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... 'My dear mother wrote to me that the granaries we had at our country seat had been secured by the revolutionary party, as well as every article of food in our town house. My mother and my younger brother were only allowed the scanty pittance of a peck of mouldy horse-beans per week. My dear father was shut up in prison, with an equally scanty allowance. But it was before I was acquainted with the sufferings of my beloved parents, that the consideration of the general scarcity prevailing in the country led me to think how wrong it was for ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... kit, meaning to finish the job next day. The following night they'd planned to drop in unexpected, sew the Boss up in his blanket before he could make a move, and cart him off until I could bail him out with a peck or so ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... song on Robin Goodfellow occurs. It is apparently by the same hand. I give the English, as it contains but six stanzas, and affords some variations from the copy printed by Percy; and indeed one stanza not given by him. Peck attributes the song to Ben Jonson, but we know not on what foundation. It must be confessed that internal evidence is against it. The publication of Percy's Reliques had a no less beneficial influence ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... across the table with a sinuous, beguiling motion, and, extending his long neck towards the prospector, with the air of a turkey-gobbler about to peck, he crooned, softly: "Ira, it's a heap risky puttin' your faith in maverick sharps that trail around the country, God-a'mightying it, renaming little, old rocks into precious stones, seein' gold mines in every gopher-hole they come to. They names your backyard ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... a grub, and then It would never feed again. My fields he'd skip, And peck, and nip, And on the caterpillars feed; And nought should crawl, or hop, or run When he his hearty meal had done. Alas! it was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... held in the hand—a spoon, for instance, striking the cheeks, chin, or nose, instead of at once going between the lips; this forms a striking contrast to the case of young chickens which are able to peck grains, etc., soon after they are hatched. Sucking is not a pure reflex, because a satisfied child will not suck when its lips are properly stimulated, and further, the action may be originated centrally, as in a sleeping suckling. At a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... the sick, and kindness be bought only at the price of threatened death? I was inclined to refuse to kiss Krak, but my mother made such a point of compliance that I yielded reluctantly. In days of health Krak had exacted, morning and evening, a formal and perfunctory peck; if I gave her no more now she looked aggrieved, and my mother distressed. Had Krak been possessed by a real penitence, I would have opened my arms to her, but I was fully aware that her mood was not this; she merely wanted to know that I bore no malice for just discipline, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... before my people, and the first fifty dollars of the sum was raised to restore the old man his daughters. Subsequently the case was taken up under the management of a committee of ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, consisting of the Rev. Gr. Peck, D.D., Rev. E.E. Griswold, and Rev. D. Curry, and the entire sum of 2,250 dollars, (L450.) was raised for two girls, fourteen and ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... revision is even more imperative; the change in the cultured speech of a language is a process that requires years to become pronounced, the evolution of slang is rapid and its usage ephemeral. For example Stephen Gaselee, in his bibliography of Petronius, calls attention to Harry Thurston Peck's rendering of "bell um pomum" by "he's a daisy," and remarks, appropriately enough, "that this was well enough for 1898; but we would now be more inclined to render it 'he's a peach.'" Again, Peck renders "illud erat vivere" by "that was life," but, in the words of our lyric ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... There should be a narrow wicket leading into the inner circle of our social life at which we should make them stand for examination before they are admitted. An old proverb says, "Before you make a friend, eat a peck of salt with him." We should try before we trust; and as we should be careful whom we receive, we should be equally careful whom we part with. "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not." With ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... basement for cellar and furnace, and a bathroom in front of the cabin and use it with some fixing over for a dining-room and kitchen. Then we will deepen and widen Singing Water, stick a bushel of bulbs and roots and sow a peck of flower seeds in the marsh, plant a hedge along the drive, and straighten the lake shore a little. I can make a beautiful wild-flower garden and arrange so that with one season's work this will appear very well. We will express this stuff and then select and fell some trees to-night. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Inside the egg there was a little chicken growing, for the mother hen had sat on it for three weeks. When the chicken was big enough he wanted to come out and so he went pick, peck, pick, peck, until he made a little hole in the shell. Then he stuck his bill through the hole and wiggled it until the shell cracked and he could get his head through. Then he wiggled it a little more and the shell broke ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... upon a glee which details divers peculiarities in the economy of certain small pigs, pleasantly enlivened by grunts and whistles, and the occasional asseveration of the singers that their paternal parent was a man of less than ordinary stature. This insensibly changes into "Willy brewed a Peck of Malt," and finally settles down into "Nix my Dolly," appropriately danced and chorussed, until a policeman, who has no music in his soul, stops their harmony, but threatens to take them into charge if they do not bring their promenade ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... new world I told you you'd be finding." Mary Cary laughed, running her hand through a peck measure of black-eyed peas. "And where but in Yorkburg will eggs ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... our mess crockery was smashed; the continual rolling seemed to make the servants wilfully reckless. Also, having an inefficient caterer, our sea stores were exhausted on the way, with the ludicrous exception of about a peck of nutmegs. Another singular incident remains in my memory. At dawn of the day before our arrival, a mirage presented so exactly, and in the proper quarter, the appearance of Table Mountain, the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... inhabitants. Three large mills operate there. A reliable business man, foreman in one of the mills, told me that the laboring people of South Milwaukee put $25,000 each month into the tills of the saloons. Dr. J.O. Peck, one of the most successful pastor evangelists of recent years, tells of a man who crossed Chelsea Ferry to Boston one morning, and turned into Commercial Street for his usual glass. As he poured out the poison, the saloonkeeper's ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... cent. of the raw gravel and costs from 23 to 30 cts. per cu. yd., for excavation, screening and washing. The drawings of Fig. 9 show a gravel washing plant having a capacity of 120 to 130 cu. yds. per hour, operated by the Stewart-Peck Sand Co., of Kansas City, Mo. Where washing alone is necessary a plant of one or two washer units like those here shown could be installed without excessive cost by a contractor at any point where water is available. Each washer unit consists of two hexagonal troughs 18 ins. in diameter ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... is a little dip-net. With that and the flash-light we could get a peck of them. These little ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... store, who should be there but Abby Matilda Stevens and Rhody Mills! Abby is generally thought a beauty, because she has great black eyes that are always so bright and shiny I wonder the hens don't try and peck at them; then she is tall and slim waisted, and her hair is as black as a coal, and longer than common; but I never liked such dreadful sparkly eyes, do you? I think the kind that have a sort o' hazy look come into them—like the pond when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a wonderful thing about the pelican, for never did mother-sheep love her lamb as the pelican loves its young. When the young are born, the parent bird devotes all his care and thought to nourishing them. But the young birds are ungrateful, and when they have grown strong and self-reliant they peck at their father's face, and he, enraged at their ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... from the long table, scoured as white as snow, but puts no linen on it. On the buttery-shelves, a set of pewter rivals silver in brightness, but Dorcas does not touch them. She places a brown rye-and-Indian loaf, of the size of a half-peck, in the centre of the table,—a pan of milk, with the cream stirred in,—brown earthen bowls, with bright pewter spoons by the dozen,—a delicious cheese, whole, and the table is ready. When Dinah appears, with her bright Madras turban, and says she is ready to dish the "bean-porridge, nine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... and a peck, and a hug around the neck. (She embraces JIM playfully. He hands her the gum, patting his shoulder as he sits on box.) Oh, thank you. Youse ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... county, and again proceeded at the gallop. When he reached the Grassmarket, Edinburgh—a full hour before the mail,—the grain-selling was just starting, and before the alarming war news had got time to spread Rennie had every peck of wheat in the market bought up. He must have coined an enormous profit by this smart transaction; but to him it seemed to matter nothing at all. He was one of the most careless of the harum-scarum sons of Adam, and if he ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... secured them by the legs under his arm, allowing them to peck away at his back, attempted the same manoeuvre, but the old people put on such a look of dull stolidity that I was certain they would give no more fowls for the dollar. I told him, therefore, to give up the dollar, and we continued on our way to another hut, where, for ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... out this afternoon and picked nearly a peck of blackberries. Berries of various kinds are very abundant. The fox-grape is also found in great plenty, and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... inside the coop, catch it in the notch of the bait stick where it will hold, and the trap is ready to be baited. The bait may consist of oats, wheat, "nannie berries" or the like, and should be strewn both on the platform and over the ground directly beneath and around it. If properly set, a mere peck at the corn will be sufficient to dislodge the pieces and the coop will fall over its captive. It is not an uncommon thing to find two or even three quail encaged in a trap of this kind at one fall, and after the first momentary fright is over, they seem to resign themselves to ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... had been at the siege of Troy; that his companions were changed into birds, and that these birds have their dwelling in the environs of the Temple of Diomede, which is situated near Mount Garganos; that these birds caress the Greeks who come to visit this temple, but fly at and peck the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... picked a peck of pickled peppers: if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the peck of pickled ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... sence I've been tryin' to start my garden this spring. As fur back as the time I was gittin' the seed in, them hens of Widder Sidene Pike, that lives next farm to mine, began their hellishness, with that old wart-legged ostrich of a rooster of her'n to lead 'em. They'd almost peck the seeds out of my hand, and the minit I'd turn my back they was over into that patch, right foot, left foot, kick heel and toe, and swing to pardners—and you couldn't see the sun for dirt. And at every rake ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... all this was going on, the sparrow, whose nest was in the hawthorn-tree, had brought a few seeds and a morsel of crust to her young ones. The seed she distributed with ease, but the morsel of crust was rather hard, and required her to pinch and peck it a good deal with her bill before it could be soft enough for the young birds. The young ones, however, were all so anxious to be first to receive the crust the moment it was ready, that they all began to make a loud chirruping, and scrambling, ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... With walls embattled and strong towers bedight. Now seeing that the sun was getting low, Our travellers at quicker pace did go. Thus as in haste near to the gate they came, Before them limped a bent and hag-like dame, With long, sharp nose that downward curved as though It beak-like wished to peck sharp chin below. Humbly she crept in cloak all torn and rent, And o'er a staff her tottering limbs were bent. So came she to the gate, then cried in fear, And started back from sudden-levelled spear; For 'neath the gate ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... someone could explain one of my failures a few years ago in planting some Persian walnuts. I went to another tree in western New York, and got a peck or more. They were planted the same day, in the same ground, and all came up. Those I got from another tree resembled a hill of beans, and stayed that way for three years. Why wouldn't those grow? In soil three feet from those, there were trees growing. Those nuts never did make trees. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... roof of the Eglise Reformee Francaise, a church situated in a much-frequented part. It is amusing to see a black rook perched on a red tile chimney, with the smoke coming up around him, and darkening with soot his dingy plumage. They take every scrap thrown out, like sparrows, and peck bones if they find them. The builders in Brighton appear to have somewhat overshot the mark, to judge from the number of empty houses, and, indeed, it is currently reported that it will be five years before the building speculation recovers ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, "Fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... buck-shot," said Gid. "And they could mow us down before we could cross that place. They still outnumber us two to one—packed in there like sardines. Don't you think we'd better scatter about and peck at 'em when they show an eye? I'd like to know who built that church. Confound him, he cut out too many windows to ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Snow James Allen, Nliddleport. Silver medal Apples Baldwin, Greening, Twenty Ounce, King M. L. Allen, Seneca Falls. Silver medal Apples Gilliflower, Northern Spy Clark Allis, Medina Apples Stump G. W. Anderson, South Onondaga. Silver medal Apples Twenty Ounce, King, Tallman Sweet, Peck's Pleasant, Northern Spy, Red Canada W. W. Anderson, Gasport. Silver medal Apples Northern Spy, Greening, Snow Marcus Ansley, Geneva. Bronze medal Pears Kieffer, Duchesse, Beurre Bosc Lewis Archer, Hilton. Bronze medal Apples Baldwin, Cooper's Market, Roxbury Russet Charles ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... man eats a peck of dirt in the course of his life," said Happy Tom, "but I know that I've already beat the measure a dozen times over. Why, I took in a bushel at least at the Second Manassas, but I still live, and here ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on the burning deck Eating peanuts by the peck. His father called, he would not go Because he loved his ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... throwing down a coarse bag containing a peck of corn, "thar, nigger, grab, you won't get ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... fortune lowly. It isn't the waistcoat that I look at. It is the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all mankind!' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... with iron missiles, and asked where he was going, replied, "To die on my threshold"; Watkins, of Baltimore; Frederick Hinton, with his polished eloquence; James Forten, the merchant prince; William Whipper, just essaying his youthful powers; Lewis Woodson and John Peck, of Pittsburg; Austin Steward, then of Rochester; Samuel E. Cornish, who had the distinguished honor of reasoning Gerrit Smith out of colonization, and of telling Henry Clay that he would never be president of anything higher than the American Colonization Society; Philip A. Bell, the born sabreur, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... realistic effect. Zeuxis, whose fame was at its height during the Peloponnesian Wars, seems to have regarded art as a matter of illusion, if one may judge by the stories told of his work. The tale of his painting a bunch of grapes so like reality that the birds came to peck at them proves either that the painter's motive was deception, or that the narrator of the tale picked out the deceptive part of his picture for admiration. He painted many subjects, like Helen, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... an' God bless you, Mr. Thady," said Mary. "You've a peck of throubles on yer head, this night," she added to herself, as she walked up the avenue, "an' it's little you did to desarve 'em, onless working hard night an' day war a sin. Well, God forgive us! shure you're betther off still, than the gay ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... this. He reckoned that they could get there in an hour or two, and it was to this urgent exploration that he resolved to devote the first hours of the day. He looked round him. The cocks and hens were beginning to peck about among the high vegetation. Agouties, goats, sheep, went and came on ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... a "box factory," on the canal in Grand Rapids. In the winter of 1865-66 he took me over to see it. It was a small affair run by water power. The "boxes" which they manufactured were measures of the old-fashioned kind like the half-bushel and peck measures made of wood fifty years ago. They were of all sizes from a half-bushel down to a quart and used for "dry measure." Before the top rim was added and the bottom put in it was customary to pile the cylindrical shells one on top of another in the shop. Looking ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... sent Pierce and Tommy Peck into the cabin, telling them to eat a good breakfast, that they might be able to make themselves useful. Harry, Mudge, and I followed; but we scarcely sat down a minute, tumbling the food into our mouths as fast as we could, and drinking ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Moor, Iago despises Othello's unsuspicious trustingness as imbecility, while he hates him as a man because his nature is the perpetual opposite and perpetual reproach of his own. Now, Reineke would not have hurt a creature, not even Scharfenebbe, the crow's wife, when she came to peck his eyes out, if he had not been hungry; and that [Greek: gastros ananke], that craving of the stomach, makes a difference quite infinite. It is true that, like Iago, Reineke rejoices in the exercise of his ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the envy attendant upon literary excellence might with equal justice be extended to every species of merit, and might be urged against all that is good in art or nature.—Scandal is said to attack always the fairest characters, as the birds always peck most at the ripest fruit; but would you for this reason have no fruit ripen, or no characters aspire to excellence? But if it be your opinion that women are naturally inferior to us in capacity, why do you feel so much apprehension of their becoming eminent, or of their obtaining power, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... my authority, and forty is the prime of life; yet, with an immense fortune and strong temptations, he has never launched out into a single act of imprudence or folly. No, Helen, he never sowed a peck of wild oats in his life. He is, on the contrary, sober, grave, silent—a little too much so, by the way—cautious, prudent, and saving. No man knows the value of money better, nor can contrive to make it go further. Then, as for managing a bargain—upon my ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a peck of pickled peppers; A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where's the peck of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... but he was in charge of one in whom his race instinctively trust, so I led him in. His apparel was simple: it consisted of a coarse shirt, very short, with a belt around the waist, and an old tarbouch on his head. Between the shirt and his bare skin, as in a bag, was about a half peck of cobras, asps, vipers, and similar squirming property; while between his cap and his hair were generally stowed one or two enormous living scorpions, and any small serpents that he could not trust to dwell with the larger ones. When I asked Abdullah where he contrived to ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... That's right, stick to the moccasins. Gee! That coat is sure wrinkled, an' it fits you a mite too swift. Just peck around at your vittles. If you eat hearty you'll bust through. An' if them women folks gets to droppin' handkerchiefs, just let 'em lay. Don't do any pickin' up. Whatever you ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... that's it, is it? Ah, well I've been there myself! Don't you let the fancy upset you, sir! It 'ull pass afore we gets into the open. Nothing like the sea for teachin' you to forget gals you've left behind you! Come down below and try and peck a bit. There's cold beef—and pickles. That'll send them kind o' ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice |
