"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me for a long time. Peggy only appeared after dinner, looking pale and lovely enough in her loose wrapper to make Peter act excessively like——a young married man, and to make me wish myself at an invisible distance, doing something beside picking up Kate's things, that she always dropped on the floor whenever she sewed. Peggy saw I was bored, so she requested me one day to walk down to the poultry-yard and ask about her chickens; she pretended a great deal of anxiety, and Peter had sprained ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... in her own mind (as well as she could, for the day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... luck of picking up a mermaid," she declared. "I may find Father Neptune, or the Sirens, if I go a little farther; or perhaps I might drag back the sea serpent, as a neat little specimen for the school museum. If the trippers are often going to provide us with such ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... me offer you some fish;" and with those words he drew his sword, and, picking up a cake of baked fish upon the point of it, thrust it towards the wardsman's mouth. Any ordinary man would have been afraid to accept the morsel so roughly offered; but Chobei simply opened his mouth, and taking the cake off the sword's point ate ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... 'How wonderfully you are picking up,' she said, after watching him pull for a few minutes. 'Do you know, Wilf, your tendency is to stoutness; in a few years you will be portly, if you live too sedentary ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... then. I have since seen him, and relieved him more than once, although he never asks for anything. How he lives, Heaven knows. Without money, without friends, without useful education of any kind, he tramps the country, as you saw him, perhaps doing a little hop-picking or hay-making, in season, only happy when he obtains the means to get drunk. I have heard through the kitchen whispers that you know come to me, that he is entitled to some property; and I expect ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... provided I do not intrude, but I must see to the horses." Thereupon I conducted the man to the place where the horses were tied. "The trees drip rather upon them," said the man, "and it will not do for them to remain here all night; they will be better out in the field picking the grass, but first of all they must have a good feed of corn;" thereupon he went to his chaise, from which he presently brought two small bags, partly filled with corn—into them he inserted the mouths of the horses, tying them over their heads. ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... that; he had once, indeed, omitted to send the excuse of a subsequent engagement, and everybody had waited a quarter of an hour for him to put in a belated appearance. And when he did not his hostess had remarked that he must be "picking daisies," and the procession had gone dinner-wards with a ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... the counterpane and picking imaginary bits off it. 'And you might have known I shouldn't go to ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... of stifling, as if her throat were closing together, oppressed her suddenly, and picking up her hand-bag, she ran downstairs and out of ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Christopherson began picking out books from the solid mass to show me. Talking nervously, brokenly, with now and then a deep sigh or a crow of laughter, he gave me a little light on his history. I learnt that he had occupied these lodgings for the last eight years; that he had ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... remarked Dick, "and picking up the obsolete name, Jewel, I'll attach it to some quaint and attractive character and it'll start its ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that information was received that "the French have considerable force in the West Indies" and that "it is thought that a small squadron under the command of an officer of your intelligence, experience and bravery might render essential service and animate your country to enterprise by picking up a number of prizes in the short cruise ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said, holding out both of his plump pink hands. "Ah, Elinor too! I was sure I could not be mistaken. And I am exceedingly glad to make your acquaintance." He shook Phil's hand up ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... used in washing and picking it clean; drain it, and throw it into boiling water—a few minutes will boil it sufficiently: press out all the water, put it in a stew pan with a piece of butter, some pepper and salt—chop it continually with a spoon ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... looked across the perpetual rainbow of the foam, and saw the whole further sky deflowered by the formless, edgeless, languid, abhorrent murk of smoke from the nearest town. Much rather would I see that water put to use than the sky so outraged. As it is, only by picking one's way between cities can one walk under, or as it were in, a pure sky. The horizon in Venice is thick and ochreous, and no one cares; the sky of Milan is defiled all round. In England I must choose a path alertly; and so does now and then a wary, fortunate, fastidious wind that has so found ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... the ashes revealed nothing. He set to work more carefully then, picking them up by handfuls, examining and discarding. Within ten minutes he had in a pile beside him some burned and blackened metal buttons, the eyelets and a piece of leather from a shoe, and the almost unrecognizable ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... they will laud their editor to the skies! There lies the contemptible sheet! In it stands my defeat, trumpeted forth with full cheeks, with scornful shrugs of the shoulders—away with it! [Walks up and down, looks at the newspaper on the ground, picking it up.] All the same I will drink out the dregs! [Seats himself.] Here, right in the beginning! [Reading.] "Professor Oldendorf—majority of two votes. This journal is bound to rejoice over the result."—I don't doubt it!—"But no less a matter for rejoicing was the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... could have told her many days before, that her grandmother was going to die. Mrs. Meeker stared after her with a grieved sense of the abrupt ending of the coveted interview, then she recovered her self-possession, and, picking up the forsaken pail, stepped lightly over the ruts and frozen puddles, following Nan eagerly in the hope of witnessing more of such extraordinary behavior, and with the design of offering her services as watcher or nurse in ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... old man, not wishing to attract attention, avoided the broad street, with its arcades and cafes, instead picking his way along the canal, packed with fishing craft of every description, until he to a superb white bridge, the pride of the ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... was elaborately done for the day, but she wore a roomy peignoir instead of a frock; it was Chinese, in the Imperial yellow, inconceivably embroidered with flora, fauna, and grotesques. She always thus visited her husband at breakfast, picking bits off his plate like a bird, and proving to him that her chief preoccupation was ever his well-being and the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... master was looking over these one day, he noticed the new figure and compelled the slave to tell how he had learned it. He flew into a rage, and said, "I'll teach you how to be learning new figures," and picking up a horse-shoe threw it at him, but fortunately for the audacious chattel, missed his aim. Notwithstanding his ardent desire for liberty, the slave considered it his duty to remain in bondage until he was twenty-one years old in order to repay by his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... defended himself laughingly against the insinuation; although he need not have been ashamed of the dignified, buxom woman, so scrupulously neat and clean. It certainly was a fact that no one ever saw the landlord of the Auer, and that the landlady's two smart boys, who helped so cheerfully in picking up the skittles, bore a striking ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey and a few brace of pigeons, by which time breakfast was ready. Then, to his dismay, the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... joke on us for a fact, Tom, if we wandered off, and then after picking up a few gallons of petrol—even one, if it came down to that quantity, would serve—and then couldn't for the life of us find where we left the plane. Yes, let's skirmish around, and locate ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... a few brick store buildings stood far up the main street; and over at her right the enormous brick mills loomed high above the frozen stream. The dull roar of the machinery drifted through the cold air to her ears. Up the track, along which she had just come, some ragged, illy clad children were picking up bits of coal. The sight seemed to fix her decision. She went directly to them, and asked ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... house flashing before them. Hastily restoring the jewel to the little bag he had made for it out of the finger-end of an old glove—a bag in which he assured me he had been careful to keep it safely tied ever since picking it up on the college green—he thrust it back into his pocket and prepared to help the ladies out. But just then a disturbance arose in front. A horse which had been driven up was rearing in a way that threatened to overturn the light buggy to which it was attached. As the occupants of this buggy ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... not! No; you are too proud to beg. That's right. But you couldn't make a living picking rags, and the law doesn't permit a child to pick rags ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... afternoon in summer Mr. Keyes and his boys were in the field some distance from the house, picking up logs and burning them with the stumps and brush, to enlarge the farm. Around the house were fields of corn and flax and waving grain. The cows and sheep were browsing in the edge of the woods. Mrs. Keyes ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... now," added Aletha. "He and Dr. Chuka were out picking a place to leave the records. The sand dunes here are terrible, you know. When an explorer-ship does come to find out what's happened to us, these buildings could be covered up completely. Any place could be. It isn't easy to ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... top of the hill and saw boulders there he could use to build the monument. They were large—he might crush Tip against his chest in picking them up—and he took off his jacket, to wrap it around Tip and leave him lying ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... Mr. Jones for a few turns around the garden, I inhaling the fresh wholesome odors of the soil with pleasure, and Merton and the two younger children picking up angle-worms. ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... Karen's marriage. She was right in feeling that it menaced her own position. He did her justice; he made every allowance for her; he intended to be straight with her; but the fact that stood out for Gregory was that, already, she was not straight with him. Already she was picking surreptitiously, craftily, at his life; and this ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... growth. We are like babies learning to walk. The baby tries day after day, and does not feel any strain, or wake in the morning with a distressing sense of "Oh! I must practise walking to-day. When shall I have finished learning?" He works away, time after time falling down and picking himself up, and some one day finally walks, without thinking about it any more. So we, in the training of our wills, need to work patiently day by day; if we fall, we must pick ourselves up and go on, and just as the laws of balance guide the baby, ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... as she set for him a chair, toward which he trod gingerly, and picking every step, for his own sake as well as of the garniture. For the black oak floor was so oiled and polished, to set off the pattern of the sea-flowers on it (which really were laid with no mean taste and no small sense of color), that for slippery ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... younger man had a mass of connaissances,—to use the irreplaceable French word,—the result of his more normal training and his four years of intelligent travel, which Fontenoy was almost wholly without. Many a blunder did George save his chief; and no one could have offered his brains for the picking with a heartier goodwill. On the other hand, the instinctive strength and acuteness of Fontenoy's judgment were unmatched, according to Tressady's belief, in the House of Commons. He was hardly ever deceived in a man, or in the significant points ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... human being in view, and he was anxious to get some information about the rocks whose grim outlines were rapidly becoming faint and indistinct in the gathering darkness. And so as the girl came towards him, picking her way across the pools which lay amidst the brown ribs of sand, he went forward, throwing away all formality and reserve ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... violets, or a few sprigs of mignonnette, begged from Dutch Johnny; now a bird's nest, manufactured by himself out of twine and a few twigs; and once a huge turnip which he had seen fall from a market-cart as it passed on its way down the avenue, and picking it up, after vainly trying to make the carter hear, had laid it aside as a suitable gift for me; and another time he brought for my acceptance a hideous, miserable, half-starved kitten, which, as I was known by the servants ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... in the garden picking a bouquet for the table, and Wally went to help her. She gave him a smile that made his heart do a trick, and when he bent over to help her break a piece of mignonette, his ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... other very well," said Mrs. Travers, picking up from the rail the long glass that was lying there. "I always liked him, the frankness of his mind, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... felt as if we were going to do something very treacherous, till I recalled reading about some one having died twenty minutes after the bite of one of these snakes, and that made me feel more merciless, as I followed my leader, who kept picking his way, so that his feet should not light upon some dead twig which would give ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... no other could be found capable of acting in a similar way. And here again we have occasion to marvel at that sagacity of observation among the ancients to which we owe so vast a debt. Not only did they discover the alcoholic ferment of yeast, but they had to exercise a wise selection in picking it out from others, and giving it special prominence. Place an old boot in a moist place, or expose common paste or a pot of jam to the air; it soon becomes coated with a blue-green mould, which is nothing else than the fructification of a little plant called Penicillium glaucum. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... in order to get a particular kind of germ plasm. Although the different classes of individuals may overlap, so that one can not always judge an individual from its appearance, nevertheless on the whole chance favors the picking out of the kind ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... nones shall be said rather early, about the middle of the eighth hour; and again they shall work at what is necessary until vespers. But if the exigency or the poverty of the place demands that they shall be occupied by themselves in picking fruits, they shall not be cast down; for then they are truly monks if they live by the labor of their hands, as did also our Fathers and ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... yon they hopped and flitted, picking the weevils out of the dead tips of the growing pine trees, serving the beech trees such a good turn that the beechnut crop was the heavier for their visit, doing a bit for the maple-sugar trees, and ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any book of mine in which I viewed life—I cannot bring myself to transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold—I ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... child, picking himself up from a tumble, turned to his mother with the words "Forgive me." Hiding his own hurt, he sought pardon for the pain he had caused her. Louise, I was that child, and such as I was then, I am now. Here is the key to ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... beginner, no better advice can be given than that which applies to the picking out of the rocks—use the material which is close at hand. This is not, by any means, a mere suggestion to follow the lines of least resistance. It is far more. In the first place, there is always an endless amount of beautiful and ...
— Making A Rock Garden • Henry Sherman Adams
... kitchen after a moment's absence, Clotilde and Pascal were stupefied to see Martine sitting at her table, picking some sorrel for the breakfast. She had silently resumed her place ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... will have the why and the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted. On his own showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman's pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman's house, to a place which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he has not the remotest idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... day. In the afternoon went well out over the floe to the south, looking up Nelson at his icehole and picking up Bowers at his thermometer. The surface was polished and beautifully smooth for ski, the scene brightly illuminated with moonlight, the air still and crisp, and the thermometer at -10 deg.. Perfect conditions for a ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... meet you," said Mr. Morrison, after his scrutiny, "as my son has a habit of picking up some rather peculiar friends. In this instance, I think he has shown much wisdom, considering his usual ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... episodes are extant, one of which is the brilliant story of the Dinner of Trimalchio. The action takes place for the most part in Southern Italy, and the principal characters are freedmen who have made their fortunes and degenerate freemen who are picking up a precarious living by their wits. The freemen, who are the central figures in the novel, are involved in a great variety of experiences, most of them of a disgraceful sort, and the story is a story of low life. Women play an important role in the narrative, more important perhaps than ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... only one of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N. Maffit, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a drop of liquid glue into the cotton of the eye sockets and inside the lids, using a bit of wire for the purpose. Set the eyes with regard to expression to suit the position, picking the lids over their ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... confusion. On the walls, a series of beautiful Highland scenes recalled the Land o' Lakes. Pausing before a sketch of a stern old Scottish keep of the moyen age, Major Alan Hawke softly sneered: "Oatmeal Castle! The family stronghold of the old line of the Sandy Johnstone's, nee Fraser." And, picking up the last number of the Anglo-Indian Times, he then affected a composure which ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... not necessary," Narcone assured him with a laugh. "Of what use to learn a trade like mine if one cannot strike true? The knife went home, twice—once for us, once for poor Galli, who was murdered. It was like killing sheep." Picking up the wisp of grass which he had dropped, he began to dry his hands ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... picking the bones of those same husky doughboys if we hadn't vamoosed," defended Billy. "Gee! it seemed to me that there must have been ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... of the woods in winter. Everything is quiet, cold and solemn. Occasionally a rabbit may go jumping over the snow, and if the woods are really wild woods, we may sometimes get a sight of a deer. Now and then, too, some poor person who has been picking up bits of fallen branches for firewood may be met bending under his load, or pulling it along on a sled. In some parts of the country, wood-cutters and hunters are sometimes seen, but generally there ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... scorching heat and in the dusk of night, of rebuffs and daunting failures. Flett, as he admitted, had several times been cleverly misled and had done some unwise things, but he had never lost his patience nor relaxed his efforts. Slowly and doggedly, picking up scraps of information where he could, he had trailed his men to the frontier, where his real troubles had begun. Once that he crossed it, he had no authority, and the American sheriffs and deputies were ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... drop her heavy hair from its coil high on her head and, picking up her comb, divide it with deft movement. Brushing it into shape, she braided it as of old, in two braids, and then fished with rapturous fingers in her ribbon box for the bows she had always worn with that dress. When the bows were tied she put ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... love his vittles," observed a trooper, picking up the cap that had been jerked from his head ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... him go, but followed him still with her eyes as he gat him into the saddle. She walked on beside his horse's head; and Ralph marvelled of her that for all her haste she had been in, she went somewhat leisurely, picking her way daintily so as to tread the smooth, and keep her feet from ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... was passing on the sabbath through the grain fields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking heads of grain. [2:24]And the Pharisees said to him, See what they do on the sabbath, which it is not lawful to do. [2:25]And he said to them, Have you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry? ...
— The New Testament • Various
... Mukoki boiled up a large pot of caribou fat and bones, and when Rod asked what kind of soup he was making he responded by picking up a handful of steel traps and dropping ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. "And it's an awful hard world ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... said, picking up my hat, "I am to start north to find a place called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses, among other household utensils, two extinct ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... century, from the rule of the patriarch of Alexandria (Peter Mongus), and remained "without king or bishop'' till they were reconciled by Mark I. (799-819).1 The term is also used to denote clerici vagrantes, i.e. clergy without title or benefice, picking up a living anyhow (cf. Hinschius i. p. 64). Certain persons in England during the reign of King Henry I. were called Acephali because they had no lands by virtue of which they could acknowledge a superior lord. The name is also given to certain legendary ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Mercadet (picking up the hat and dusting it with his sleeve) Come now, old fellow. Haven't we seen life! We two began it together. What a lot of things we have said and done! Don't you recollect the good old time when we swore to be friends always ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... to the witness-chair, picking his way through feet and legs. As he turned, facing the coroner, his hand upraised, Ollie looked at him steadily, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Everywhere in the settlement women and children, and a few old men unfit for harder labor, were engaged in the same back-breaking occupation. The spreading out always seems easy enough, for they deal out the fishy slabs as cards are thrown upon a table, but the picking and turning are arduous for ancient spines stiffened by years ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... no reason to suppose that he often got his beating, though one may be sure that Madame Eglentyne, busily chanting through her nose, never gave him the slightest help. In his spare moments, when he was not engaged in picking up those unconsidered trifles which the monks let fall from the psalms, Tittivillus used to fill up odd corners of his sack with the idle talk of people who gossiped in church; and he also sat up aloft and collected all the high notes of vain tenors, who sang to ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Picking it up, he examined with interest a small hypodermic syringe loaded to the full capacity of its glass cylinder, plunger drawn back—all ready for ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and badly served, the young men were in poor spirits. Mr MacWhirter retired to read. Mr Holiday sat picking his teeth; Mr. Allport begged Vera to play ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... a Canadian steamer, loaded with provisions, ran into a cliff two hundred feet high in a fog on the northeast end of Belle Isle, and became a total wreck, her flour floated all up and down the Straits. I remember picking up a sack that had certainly been in the water some weeks; and yet only about a quarter of an inch of outside layer was ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... adventure to break the military monotony of their lives; the shopgirls, also in hope of something to "take them out of themselves"—pathetic desire of escape from the little prison, where the soul sits, picking its oakum sometimes, in its cell of flesh!—young men making for the parks, workmen for the public houses, an old woman, in a cap, peering out of an upper window in Prince's Gate; Italians with ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... to the cave for help. And Fleetfoot hurried and told Antler; and Antler, picking up some little things which she knew she would need, and telling the women to follow quickly with a large skin, went with Fleetfoot to the spot where ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... the two old men walked on in silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking its way ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... picking his way forward to where Boreland was already busy with the outfit, paused and leaned a moment against the main-mast. His eyes with one slow glance took in land ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... spirit, "On your account, and be d—d to you! No, if the old cull of a justice had not sent me hither, I believe it would have been long enough before I should have come hither to see after you; d— n me, I am committed for the FILINGLAY, [Footnote: Picking pockets.] man, and we shall be both nubbed together. 'I faith, my dear, it almost makes me amends for being nubbed myself, to have the pleasure of seeing thee nubbed too." "Indeed, my dear," answered Wild, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... next book, which was just what his delightful engagement with the Beacon would give him leisure and liberty to do. The kind of work, all human and elastic and suggestive, was capital experience: in picking up things for his bi-weekly letter he would pick up life as well, he would pick up literature. The new publications, the new pictures, the new people—there would be nothing too novel for us and nobody too sacred. We introduced everything and ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... milksop as to need to dry off before a kitchen fire. See, this is the better way"; and catching up a stout hazel-stick, he bade Arvid stand on his guard. Nothing loath, Arvid Horn accepted the kingly challenge, and picking up a similar hazel-stick, he rapped King Charles' weapon smartly, and the two boys went at each other "hammer and tongs" in a ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... whose feet wanted the fleetness, and whose arm lacked the strength, of a man's, but he was nevertheless the favourite of the Great Spirit. He was less in stature than a man, and crooked withal, his height being little more than that of the tall bird[A] which loves to strut along the sandy shore, picking up the fish as they flutter joyously along in the beams of the warm and cheering sun. But if he was diminutive in body he was great in his soul—what others lacked in wisdom he supplied. His name was Ohguesse, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... lists are not all deserving of unqualified recommendation. In fact, some of them are included because they are the least objectionable of their much-needed kind, and others because they have some good grains that the reader will find worth picking from a mass of non-nutritious ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... up and hid in the bushes. John held the strings of course. We could see the pigeons picking up the grain, and when a number were ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... tons of guano per annum, if he will undertake to "pick up bones" enough to furnish him the same amount of phosphates contained in that quantity of guano. Then if all who are now using it, would drop guano and take to bones, it would soon be found to be hard picking. Save all the bones and apply them to the soil, is a standing text with us; upon the same soil use all the guano your can procure and you will not need to pick bones—you will grow bones to pick. It may be very patriotic to talk about expending the money at home, for bones, instead ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... and on returning to the deck at 7.30 he was told that the work was completed, but that some five hours before Wilson, Ferrar, Cross and Weller had got adrift of a floe, and that no one had thought of picking them up. Although the sun had been shining brightly all night, the temperature had been down to 18 deg., and afar off Scott could see four disconsolate figures tramping about, and trying to keep themselves warm on a detached floe not more than ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... from Bias—had come to Tennis directly from Alexandria that afternoon. The galley was said to belong to Philotas, an aristocratic relative of King Ptolemy. If she was not mistaken, he was the stately young Greek who was just picking up the ostrich-feather fan that had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one from t'other?" asked Phoebe, with round eyes of reproach. And spreading her clean kerchief on the grass she laid her Bible and Prayer-book and class card on it, and set vigorously and nattily to work, picking one flower and another from the fragrant confusion, nipping the stalks to even lengths, rejecting withered leaves, and ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... was picking a quarrel had been evidenced by her use of an exploded rumor of a contemplated attack on the Austrian Legation in Belgrade to prove how excited public opinion was in Serbia, and to what lengths she was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... old man hesitated—"no, suh, co'se not." And Chad climbed out and the old negro followed him with his eyes. He did not wholly approve of his master's picking up an unknown boy on the road. It was all right to let him ride, but to be taking him ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of the bait-box. At last, when he found that all he could do would not induce his willful friend to help him, he turned round as if struck by a sudden thought, and, snatching up in his trunk the box that held the bait, came and laid it down at the major's feet; then picking up his rod, he held it out ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... when we chanced One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, Who crept along fitting her languid gait Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands Was busy knitting in a heartless mood Of solitude, and at the sight my friend In agitation said, ''Tis against that That we ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... searched this wide, flat expanse of brilliant green. Nothing moved on it save a great heron picking its deliberate way on stilt-like legs. It was well for Quintana that he had ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... ejaculated, stopping short; "that's the worst o' my trade; makes a man suspicious of everything and everybody. Why, I nearly accused the missus of picking my pockets of that sixpence I forgot I spent with a mate. It's all right. They were as tight as ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... object," remarked Spargo, picking it up. "I never saw anything like that before. What can ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... subjects sensibly different from those rendered by a gathering of masons or grocers. At various periods, and in particular previous to 1848, the French administration instituted a careful choice among the persons summoned to form a jury, picking the jurors from among the enlightened classes; choosing professors, functionaries, men of letters, &c. At the present day jurors are recruited for the most part from among small tradesmen, petty capitalists, and employes. Yet, to the great astonishment of specialist writers, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... camped on the edge of a billabong. Barlas was kneading a damper, Drysdale was tenderly packing coals about the billy to make the water boil, and I was cooking the chops. The hobbled horses were picking the grass and the old-man salt-bush near, and Bimbi, the black boy, was gathering twigs and bark for the fire. That is the order of merit— Barlas, Drysdale, myself, the horses and Bimbi. Then comes the Cadi all by himself. He is given an isolated and indolent position, because ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... overlooked, the coat unmended, the bastings allowed to stand in all their hideous white prominence, the invalid's appetite untempted. Like a good spirit, our chink-filler glides in and out among the fallen threads in the tangled web of life, picking up dropped stitches, fastening loose strands, and weaving the tissue into a harmonious whole, and yet doing it all so unobtrusively that the great weavers, looking only at the vast pattern they are forming, are unconscious ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... been!' Temple continued. 'Come along-we run for it! Come along, Richie! They 're picking up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... out very suddenly, and picking up the old man, armchair and all, shook him to and fro until he ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Following watercourses, fording swollen streams, picking their way over rocks and loose boulders, through mud and sand. Besides there was the constant dread of the Indian. Their fears were confirmed before they reached Cumberland Gap. While they were still in Powell Valley a band of Indians ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... agin, eh, damn your soul?" he said genially, and picking up a bit of board, fallen from the side of the shed, he smote the mustang mightily along the ribs. The mustang, as if it recognized the touch of the master, pricked up one ear and side-stepped. The brief rest had filled it with ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... 15th (the day of the battle) we had manerals so long. At my gun we had lost private Horton and Corporal Gunner Ed. King. Hilen L. Rosser at another gun had part of his head shot away. That night as I was pouring some water for Lumsden to wash, he was picking something out of his beard, and said: "Maxwell, that is part of Rosser's brains", out of the 40 men that we had at guns, we had only 22 left, balance having been killed or captured. A Federal officer rode around ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... fellow-sentry. He, like myself, is an old campaigner in such campaigns as our generation has known. So we talk California, Oregon, Indian life, the Plains, keeping our eyes peeled meanwhile, and ranging the country. Men that will tear up track are quite capable of picking off a sentry. A giant chestnut gives us little dots of shade from its pigmy leaves. The country about us is open and newly ploughed. Some of the worm-fences are new, and ten rails high; but the farming is careless, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... "I have been picking out my little house to work in; there it is over there; the one with the gable in the roof. Mine is the middle room on ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a boy was at least a half-holiday. The fishing, the hunting, the berrying, the Sundays on the hills or in the woods, the sugar-making, the apple-gathering—all had a holiday character. But the hoeing corn, and picking up potatoes, and cleaning the cow stables, had little of this character. I have never been a cog in the wheel of any great concern. I have never had to sink or lose my individuality. I have been under no exacting master or tyrant.... I have never been a slave to any bad habit, as smoking, drinking, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... the key to all mysticism, to the three-card trick, and to the basket-trick; it sheds a glory upon thimble-rigging, a halo upon legerdemain; it even radiates vagabond beams of splendour upon pocket-picking and the cognate arts. It explains how the apples get into the dumpling; how the milk comes out of the cocoanut; how the deficit issues from the surplus; how matter evolves itself from nothing. It renders the hypothesis of a First Cause not only unnecessary, but exquisitely ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... gazed. The woman's eyes were closed, and she seemed to be asleep, nothing but her short, quick breathing showing she was still alive. For some minutes the man stood thus, then turned and strode out of the hut, picking up his bow as he passed it, and carrying it with him. Without a word to his wife, who had begun to cook a piece of the deer meat, and was busily at work over the out-door fire, he occupied himself with his bow and arrows, testing ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... the sitting room shared by Bob and Frank, and the latter picking up a handy pillow promptly smothered his big chum with it ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... them!' said George, stooping down and picking up a handful of guineas from the mass of dust and dirt and horsehair that was strewn on the floor of the yard. 'They're guineas right enough; they came pouring out like water when I got to the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... men!" cried Sayd, and every gun was discharged, Sambroko picking out one of the chiefs, who fell wounded, as did several more, though none were killed. Still other chiefs led the way; undaunted they advanced in spite of another volley, the defenders of the knoll loading and discharging their muskets as fast as they could. In vain Ned set ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... that the main object I had in settling in Rensselaer County was rest and more leisure than I had enjoyed for some years, I had a great deal more to do than I desired. Nevertheless, I might have continued to live on my little farm, raising vegetables, picking cherries, and practicing medicine in the neighborhood, had not the fate, which seemed to insist that I should every little while come before a court of justice for something or other, followed me even here. A certain hardware dealer in Albany, with whom I ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... fact is exactly—well, could not easily be replaced. sir, I was precisely I speak more wondering whether—of in pain than in anger course I know this is a when I say that it has bad time—indeed I have been a matter of profound been very pleased to see surprise to me to business picking up a note that you have not bit lately, and I am sure seen fit to acknowledge my own department has my value to the firm in been—but to tell you the some substantial way. I truth, sir, I have been think I may say that wondering—of ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the last few hours, into a wholly new phase of consciousness. He put on his fur coat, turning up the collar and crossing the lapels to hide his white tie. Then he put his cigar-case in his pocket, turned out the gas, and, picking up his hat and stick, walked back through ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... a crowd of them talking over suicide one snowy night up in Coblenz—young talk enough but Ted had been the only one who really meant it—he had got quite vehement on picking up your proper cue for exit when you knew that your part was through or you were tired of the part. He remembered cafe hangers-on in Paris—college men—men who could talk or write or teach or do any one of a dozen ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... chance to catch an unwary head. They had learned to press close and flat against the face of the trench or to get well down at the first hint of the warning rush of an approaching shell; they were picking up neatly and quickly all the worst danger spots and angles and corners to be avoided except in ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... true; but you are not sure that your dog has been stolen," he said. "You had best wait a while. Hero may have wandered off and may come home safely. I'd not ask any favors of America's enemies," he concluded, picking up his spade and ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... street, and dimly saw a man slowly approaching, apparently picking his way with care. The newcomer was nearly opposite the dilapidated entrance gate, when the side door of the house was cautiously opened and a figure stole out, and, making a quick dash through the gate, collided ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln |
