"Pitchfork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no power belongs To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from impediment ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... very powerfully built, her features were coarse and swollen, and there was something repelling and yet fascinating to Biddy in her cunning, shifty glance. The way in which she strode along the road, too, swinging a rake, or hoe, or pitchfork in her hand, gave an impression of reckless strength which made the little nurse-girl shudder, and yet she felt unable to remove her gaze as long as ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... were in some kind of fancy dress with buttons and shoulder—straps, breeches and puttees, and they seemed to be making a game of the war and enjoying it thoroughly. Oxford dons were harvesting, and proud of their prowess with the pitchfork—behold their patriotism!—while the boys were being blown to bits on the Yser Canal. Miners were striking for more wages, factory hands were downing tools for fewer hours at higher pay, the government was paying any price ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... for their conduct; I had helped to excite them, and dare not, in honour, desert them; and trembling, I went on, prepared to see the worst; following, as a flag of distress, a mouldy crust, brandished on the point of a pitchfork. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of broad trough, running in a slanting direction and called a sluice, was on one side, and into this a quantity of wash was put, and a tap at the top turned on, which caused the water to wash the dirt down the sluice. Another man at the foot, with a pitchfork, kept shifting up the stones which were mixed up with the gravel, and by degrees all the surplus dirt was washed away, leaving only these stones and a kind of fine black sand, in which the gold being heavy, had stayed. This sand was carefully gathered up with ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the figurehead to a third! At last I caught sight of what I made sure was it,—a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts,—yes, that must be it,—and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead of a club; but that might be my uncle's mistake; or perhaps Hercules sometimes varied his weapons. 'Cast off!' roared a voice from the quarter-deck. 'Hold on!' cried I, rushing frantically ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... is within its rights whenever it is as free from self-consciousness as was the life-radiating Annette in the heavenly clear waters of Bermuda. On the other hand, Neptune and his pasteboard diadem and wooden-pointed pitchfork, should have put on his dressing-gown and retired. As a toe dancer in an alleged court scene, on land, Annette was a mere simperer. Possibly Pavlowa as a swimmer in Bermuda waters would have been as much of a mistake. Each ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... people to arouse them so that they should prepare themselves for all the sacrifices, for the sake of the country. Every day I disseminated stories and caricatures, which represented the French as dwarfs in rags, poorly armed, not heavier than a gerbe which one could lift with a pitchfork." ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... even condemn, a portion of the Puritan mind: knowing full well, that the fabric which they builded on the shores of this Continent is sufficient to bear witness to the real manhood that was in them. But what was the reason of their failure? Simply they were trying to drive out Nature with a pitchfork, and she of course will perpetually keep coming back. So we say of this world, the sporting world, so liable to abuse, and so unsparingly abused, what is true of all the worlds, and that is, that it would be well for mankind, if they were to bestow ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... uncertain shuffle. Clearly he was suffering from overwork. As I paused by the wayside to speak to him a wagon loaded with hay was passing. He fixed his eyes upon it with a hungry, wolfish glare, clutched a pitchfork and leaned eagerly forward, watching the vanishing wagon with breathless attention and heedless of my salutation. That night he was arrested, streaming with perspiration, in the unlawful act of unloading that hay and putting it into its owner's barn. He was tried, convicted ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... sir," said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' so ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... had only the Sharpe version, he was the last man to "pitchfork" into it, "accidentally," a stanza from "some other ballad," that stanza being as Colonel Elliot says "inapplicable" to Telfer and his circumstances. Poor Jamie, a small tenant-farmer, with ten cows, and, as far as we learn, not one horse, had no hawks and hounds; no "vassal lands," and no reason ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... there in his own travail Hilary sighted little foci of struggle, Earthmen with ax and pitchfork and spade battling valiantly in a sea of Mercutians. A swirl, an eddy, and all too often a sudden surge and flowing of gray warty faces, and smooth rippleless heads where an Earthman had ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... you aint agoin' to eat us; Caleb haint no monopoly to court the seenoreetas; My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn be, by golly!" An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in'my. Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle (It 's Mister Secondary Bolles,[8] thet writ the prize peace essay; Thet 's wy he did n't ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... As for that Bridget Bishop, She has been tried before; some years ago A negro testified he saw her shape Sitting upon the rafters in a barn, And holding in its hand an egg; and while He went to fetch his pitchfork, she had vanished. And now be quiet, will you? I am tired, And want to sleep here ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the crown of it. He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a well-cleaned pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the keys, in case like he should take any thing out. And syne came the auld my ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... handwriting and their spelling improved, that his children were growing up. But when he thought of them they seemed remote, prattling youngsters whom Minnie was for ever worrying over and who seemed to have been always under the heels of his horse, or under the wheels of his wagon, or playing with the pitchfork, or wandering off into the sage while he and their distracted mother searched for them. For a long while—how many years Brit could not remember—they had been living in Los Angeles. Prospering, too, Brit understood. The girl, Lorraine—Minnie ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... and John the Evangelist, though only two of the stories depicted belong to the Bible. One of them, next to the "Majesty," shows the Evangelist seated in a caldron of boiling oil, in which he is being held by a hideous tormentor with a pitchfork, while a seated figure of Christ confers protection upon the Saint. In another medallion the Evangelist is seen raising to life the dead Drusiana, a lady of Ephesus who died just before the Apostle came to the city; he is also shown turning sticks and stones into gold and jewels, which ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... one bank to the other and scrambled through the willow trees, emerging, flushed and anxious-eyed, to confront a boy about fourteen years old in a torn straw hat and faded overalls and a tall, lean middle-aged man with a pitchfork in his hands. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... be handsome, sir. With the women, the cassock gives charms to the ugliest. I have known a sweet and lovely creature become mad after one of these rogues who had a head like a pitchfork. He did with her what he wished. He made her devout, shrewish, and the worst of whores. Yes, yes, they say that the red breeches get over the women, but the black gown bewitches them. Explain that if you can. They ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... I am the most distinguished of ecclesiastics, and that you are the most superficial of metaphysicians. Thus you see I am not altogether blind; but to one of my profession, the eyes you speak of would be merely an incumbrance, liable at any time to be put out by a toasting-iron, or a pitchfork. To you, I allow, these optical affairs are indispensable. Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use them well;—my vision ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that day, and found no one who cared to quibble with him. From the captain, never jealous of his dignity, to the roly-poly sutler, there was a very outrush of facts. As they came, he received them with pitchfork sharpness, examined them and tossed them aside, which led a wag to remark that the storekeeper was kin to Simon. Yet, when "retreat" sounded, he admitted himself hedged in by indisputable testimony. Lancaster's death was beyond easy solving. If ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... on looking round, she saw Kester's face pressed against the glass, and, reassured, she softly opened the door. There he stood in the dusk outer air, distinct against the gray darkness beyond, and in his hand something which she presently perceived was a pitchfork. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it? You might just as well try to stop the Irrawaddy with a pitchfork. And it's growing worse; there are some big people in it—the Hidden Hand Company—who keep out of sight, pay the money, employ the tools and collar the swag. They have agents all over this province, as well as India, China ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... of tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner he understood it still less. He had some vague idea that he was being conveyed home. His amazement at finding himself ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... posts, such as "Inspector of white labour", and inspector of goodness-knows-what (all of them carrying high emoluments), were created for political favourites, General Beyers's appointment caused no surprise, as the "pitchfork" had already become part of our Government machinery. But how such a man as Manie Maritz became a Colonel in the Colonial Defence Force is one of those things which, as Lord Dundreary would say, "no ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... ancient precedent. Ancient precedent! more majorum! And how was that? eagerly demanded the emperor. He was answered—that the state criminal in such cases was first stripped naked, then impaled as it were between the prongs of a pitchfork, and in that condition scourged to death. Horror-struck with this account, he drew forth two poniards, or short swords, tried their edges, and then, in utter imbecility of purpose, returned them to their scabbards, alleging that ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... dramatic appearance of Uncle Ben Dabney, not only as a peacemaker, but as Mr. Daubigny the bona fide purchaser and owner of the land. It was known and accepted with great hilarity that "old marm McKinstry" had defended the barn alone and unaided, with—as variously stated—a pitchfork, an old stable-broom, and a pail of dirty water, against Harrison, his party, and the entire able posse of the Sheriff of Tuolumne County, with no further damage than a scalp wound which the head of Seth Davis received while falling from the loft of the barn ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... needs a map to explain it. The trails were like a pitchfork, with its prongs touching the hills of San Juan. The long handle of the pitchfork was the trail over which we had just come, the joining of the handle and the prongs were El Poso. El Caney lay half-way along the right prong, the left one was the trail down which, in the morning, the troops ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... and hopeful (if so pleased the Lord) to turn a good many more years yet, as a strong horse works his furrow. For he was strong and of a cheerful face, ruddy, square, and steadfast, built up also with firm body to a wholesome stature, and able to show the best man on the farm the way to swing a pitchfork. Yet might he be seen, upon every Lord's day, as clean as a new-shelled chestnut; neither at any time of the week was he dirtier than need be. Happy alike in the place of his birth, his lot in life, and the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Jim; 'she's blind mad drunk, and she's got a bottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringing out ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... in the lantern light was inscrutable. "I'll obey to-night, Lydia," he said, "but the time's coming, when I won't," and he picked up the pitchfork he had dropped. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... new name for you—Pitchfork Mix." Mr. Mix spread a thin smile over his lips. "Supposed to ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... first broke out, as he, a boy of fifteen, was pitching hay out of a cart, one Doane, an old Tory, who was talking with his father, a good Whig, said to him, "Why, Uncle Bill, you might as well undertake to pitch that pond into the ocean with a pitchfork as for the Colonies to undertake to gain their independence." He remembered well General Washington, and how he rode his horse along the streets of Boston, and he stood up to show us how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... gratifying his base desire. Then he is free to go on so far as that vice is concerned. He has been purged from that evil without intervention of an angry deity or a conventional devil with hell's flames and pitchfork to administer punishment, but under the immutable law that as we sow so shall we reap, he has suffered exactly according to his vice. If his craving for drink was of a mild nature, he would scarcely ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... a pitchfork in front of the barn door. He was a stout man of about fifty years of age, with an ox-like face. His countenance showed the sullen stolidity of a man who spoke little but listened always, of a man who indulged in suspicious thoughts. He knew everything ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... set down the lamp. "Wer ist da? I see you! Damnation!" he roared, and lumbered out, seizing a pitchfork ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... down below his huge shoulders; and such clothes as clung about him were rags and tongues of red and yellow, so that he had the air of being dressed like an Indian in feathers or autumn leaves. The rake or pitchfork, or whatever it was, he used sometimes as an alpenstock, sometimes (I was told) as a weapon. I do not know why he should have used it as a weapon, for he had, and afterwards showed me, an excellent six-shooter in his pocket. 'But THAT,' he said, 'I use only for peaceful ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Pistil (botany) pistilo. Pistol pafileto. Piston pisxto. Pit (well, etc.) puto, fosajxo, kavo. Pit (theatre) partero. Pitch (to smear with) kalfatri. Pitch pecxo. Pitch (of ships) subakvigxi. Pitcher krucxo. Pitchfork forkego. Piteous kompatinda. Pitfall enfalujo. Pith suko. Pitiable kompatinda. Pitiful kompatinda. Pitiless senkompata. Pity kompati, bedauxri. Pity, it is a estas domagxo. Pivot akso. Placable kvietebla, kvietema. Placard afisxo, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... waiting for somebody to give me one," said Ralph, taking up a pitchfork and preparing to throw some hay into the ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... it was Yollande. Yollande as Barnum, Yollande as trainer, Yollande holding in one hairy wing a stout whip, in the other the pitchfork as a protection ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... bare; the gale had blown for nearly a week. Fish-houses bid spiritedly against one another, and when at last a trade was made and the schooner's crew began to pitchfork the fish into the winch buckets, and the buckets rose creaking out over the rail, the two captains went into the office of the fish-house to figure ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... genius of FRANK LOCKWOOD a former House was able to realise the figure presented by the present. Earl SPENCER, whilst still with us in the Commons, skipping along in the purity of a Monday morning smock, carrying in his right hand a garlanded pitchfork. What the present House, jaded with a succession of Budgets and the persistence of the Ulster question, would like to see is the entrance of those twin brethren, Lord CASTLEREAGH and Earl WINTERTON, walking arm-in-arm, arrayed in garb approaching as nearly as possible that which, thanks ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... him what he thinks of pledges and him and church doings, and it wasn't purty. And he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as what he now is in rain-water, and every fish that nibbles at his toes was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a-jabbing at him, they could jab till the hull hereafter turned into snow afore he'd ever sign nothing a man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any mule he ever nailed shoes onto, and proud of being ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Sylvie dressed herself with a pitchfork; she had been growing more sensible than that for a long time, to say nothing of her quiet mourning; though for that matter, I have seen bombazine and crape so voluminously bundled and massed as to remind one of the slang phrase ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... twelve-year-old famishing child will do. One night he came to his aunt Donoghue, who lodged with Casey. The latter told the aunt and uncle not to allow him into the house, as the agent's drivers had given orders about him. The aunt beat him away with a pitchfork, the uncle tied his hands with cord behind his back. The poor child crawls to the door of a neighbour, and tries to get in. The uncle is called to take him away, and he does so. He yet returns with hands still tied behind, having been severely beaten. The child seeks refuge in ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... careful observation I saw that a number of girls were working on the same crop, luckily at the other end of the field. They appeared only to be gleaning, but as it was quite likely this was preparatory to the carting, I resolved to keep a very sharp look-out to avoid being transfixed by a pitchfork and hoisted on to a cart. About breakfast-time a peculiar noise came from somewhere quite close, so, parting the corn carefully, I peered out in that direction. There, to my horror, were three men scything the rushes along a ditch which passed ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... that you are attacked by some person using a pitchfork, implies that you will have personal enemies who would not scruple ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... laboured under the delusion that this poor old creature, with others in the village, held him under the spell of witchcraft. Returning from his work one day, and carrying a pitchfork in his hand, he saw this woman. He immediately ran at her, struck her on the legs thrice, and then on the temple, till he knocked her down. From these injuries she died. Well, it was found that he had the delusion ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... wages here? Mebbe a pound a month. In our city the girls get four pounds for doin' next to nothin'. An' to see the dhress an' the shtyle o' thim fine girls! Why, yez cudn't tell them from their own misthresses. What wud yez be doin' in New York, wid yer clothes thrun on yez be a pitchfork, an' lukkin' as if they were made in the ark? But if ye wor as smart as the lady that waits on the Queen, not wan fut will ye set in New York if Mrs. Dillon says no. Yez may go to Hartford or Newark, or ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of Zards swept steadily past us, and it was a good half an hour later that the final ones had left the gates and the city far behind. Most had taken some type of weapon, a pitchfork or club or occasionally a sword, for the threat of war was a constant, but none of them had any idea that their only danger was behind them. It was not all in the clear though, for a patrol of guards equipped with long spears and ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... arrogantly to quit my present business and go directly about what he should order me. I replied to him that my master had given me so much to perform that day, and that I must therefore faithfully complete it in that time. He then broke out in a great rage, snatched a pitchfork and went to lay me over the head therewith; but I as soon got another and defended myself with it, or otherwise he might have murdered me in his outrage. He immediately called some people who were hearing at work for him, and ordered them to take his hair rope and and come and bind me with ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith
... a taste you have? How can a man be called handsome that never altogether opens his eyes, except when he turns up the whites until you'd think he'd never be able to get the balls back to their proper place? Then, what a chin he has—as sharp as a pitchfork, and who but a girl child would fancy a man with his hair combed sleek like a woman's on each side of his ears, with big whiskers at the same time that looks for all the world like the brush of a seven years running fox, Handsome! If my pup 'Dragon' ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... he say when he finds out that the King of the Tonga Islands picks his teeth with a pitchfork?" added Shuffles, contemptuously. "I don't intend that he shall find it out? and he won't, unless you ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... wagon and climbed aboard. Douglas dropped his pitchfork and walked deliberately toward the fence. As he climbed it, he said, "Judith, you aren't going. You keep your date with Maud." He dropped from the ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... down the road, with a pitchfork in one hand and a rope in the other. He ran up to the bull and slipped the rope over the animal's neck. Then he tied the creature ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... mornings had missed her broom or pitchfork?—R. Once the broom was gone, but she had found it again behind the stove, and may be left it ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... could have a better view. All the crew were Portuguese. The man who helped them climb over was Joe Fayal, father of Manuel and Joseph and Rosa. He stood like a young brown Neptune, his white teeth flashing when he laughed, a pitchfork in his hands with which to spear the goosefish as they turned up in the net, and throw them back into the sea. If nothing else had happened that sight alone was enough to mark it ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... by way of condolence, "the man what's stabbed by a pitchfork hain't much better off 'n the man that walks bar'footed ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... it!" he exclaimed, his face brightening. "Will you hand me that three-tined pitchfork over there? With that in my hands I'll make Swallow see—Look out! For heaven's sake, don't go near him! He'll kill you." She had taken two or three steps toward the dog, her hand extended pleadingly, only to be met by an ominous growl, a fine display of teeth, and ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... get them to strike!" said Rybin, coming up to Pavel. "Greedy as these people are for a penny, they are too cowardly. You may, perhaps, induce about three hundred of them to follow you, no more. It's a heap of dung you won't lift with one toss of the pitchfork, I tell you!" ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the stables. Grimaud had tried to waken the stable boys, and the stable boys had beaten him. When they opened the window, they saw the poor lad lying senseless, with his head split by a blow with a pitchfork. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... doing its work, he takes a small black-handled knife from his pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat," he finishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the end of a three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundred armed men, "not counting the mob," he marches along, and, in the Rue Saint-Honore, he has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate without mistake whose head it is.—They ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... violin under his arm, feeling as awkward as if he had never handled anything more delicate than a pitchfork. But Mysie sat down to the table, and began to pour out the tea, and he came to himself again. Presently her father entered. His greeting was warm and mild and sleepy. He had come from poring over Spotiswood, in search of some ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the gate on that queer-lookin' creatur' o' his. I watched him, 'n' he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I shouldn't like to have him raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep'n within reach. He may be all right; but I don't like his looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' raoun' the Institoot for, after ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... but not convinced, determined to keep his eye upon them both. "I swore it and I'll do it," said this honest fellow. "But I can't face her tongue; it goes through me like a pitchfork; but as for him"—and he clinched his fist most significantly; then he revolved one or two plans in his head, and rejected them each in turn. At last a thought struck him. "Mr. Levi! he 'twas that put me on ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... your horns and tail And pitchfork? Not a vestige do I see Of your famed look! You have no frightful glance; I cannot even so far flatter you As to say special badness makes your face Great and distinguished. If you're Prince of Hell, How villanously ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... late; and 'if,' said she, 'you had come a little sooner, you might have done us a kindness; for a wolf came into the farm, and has made butchers work enough among the cattle; but tho' he got off, he has no reason to laugh, for a servant of ours ran him through the neck with a pitchfork.' As soon as I heard her, I could not hold open my eyes any longer, and ran home by daylight, like a vintner whose house had been robb'd: But coming by the place where the cloaths were turned to stone, I saw nothing but a puddle of blood; and when I got home, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... friend, or the marriage of some other. I was willing to look again, and this time remembered three things that Fanny had just been reading when I had looked up at Miss Agnes. One was about Mr. Paul Shattuck;—in descending from a haycart, he had fallen upon a pitchfork, and had seriously wounded his thigh. Another was the marriage of Mr. Abraham Black to Miss Susan Whitcomb, and Fanny had wondered if she were related to the Whitcombs of Hadley. Then she had read a singular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... after this experience the twins were out in the barn feeding the horses. Somehow in their actions one boy accidently stuck the tine of the pitchfork right into the eyeball of the other boy. Wife hearing their screams, ran out and brought them into the house. She washed the blood from the injured eye and laid the boy on the bed; then she and the twin ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... I would na' touch it with a pitchfork. Such books should be burnt. And this Madame Blavatsky's book—what is that? Is ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... bolt at the top, you won't be able to reach,' interposed Toby. 'Stand upon one of the hall chairs. There are three there, Bill, with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on 'em: which ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... pasture, his animals would not require looking after until the owner of the soil turned them out again. Their guardian naturally devoted the interval to slumber. Nor was there danger of oversleeping: the pitchfork of the irate husbandman always roused him at ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... exciting occurred, and Philo Gubb was about to consider this a dull evening's work, when Joe Henry appeared in the doorway, a pitchfork in one hand and the slab of pine in the other. He looked up and down the street and then, with surprising agility, sprang across the street toward where Philo Gubb lay hid. With a wild cry, Philo ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... Verman collection. With the air of a proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie (who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to a dramatic climax—the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... general, and they began to bang one another right and left with anything that came to hand. Blood was flowing freely and the dragoman was in despair. He rushed into a stable and came out with a wooden pitchfork with which he drove them back, and restored ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... stair; the handle of a pitchfork doing, in my case, the duty of an alpenstock. At the bottom, the guide enquired whether we should go first to the Cave of the Winds, or to the Horseshoe, remarking that the latter would try us most. I decided ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... just for the sake of staying together on the ranch. I cannot say that they did it uncomplainingly—for the bunk-house was saturated to the ridge-pole with their maledictions while they compared blistered hands and pitchfork callouses, and mourned the days that were gone; the days when they rode far and free and scorned any work that could not be done from the saddle. But they stayed, and they did the ranch work as well as the range work, which is the ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... chilly, feverish, headaching, and thirsty. I drew aside the curtains; it was late, light, but foggy; a nasty winter's morning. Fred and the three ladies lay snoring, some covered, others partially so, the floor looking as if every article of bed-furniture had been thrown down with a pitchfork. I drank water, and fucked out as I was, my lubricity was unsatiated. I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... a sergeant of another company, one Allien, a cooper by trade, taunted one of the men with having carried a pitchfork the day before, in disobedience to orders. He replied that the mayor had permitted him to carry it; Allien not believing this, proposed to some of the men to go with him to the mayor's and ask if it were true. When they saw M. Marguerite, he said that he had permitted ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hogs. I regard my temporary connection with the sheet much as Jean Valjean must his tramp through the Parisian sewers. It is a ten- legged nightmare, an infamy that I can never outlive. I strove manfully to make the foul thing respectable, but the Augean stables proved too much for my pitchfork. I managed to occasionally inject into the sphacelated sheet a quasi-intelligent idea, to disguise its feculence with a breath of sentiment that by contrast seemed an air from Araby the blest; but the stupid ignorance and dollar-worshiping of the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... oath ordered Dan to clear out; but the sight of the outrage on her whom, I now firmly believe he loved better than his own soul, made poor Dan completely forget himself—and made him forget too, in that fatal moment what he afterwards wished he had remembered. Dan seized a pitchfork and plunged it into young Tillotson's back; the prongs went in between his shoulders, and one of them had penetrated the left lung. Young Tillotson expired almost immediately, and Dan seeing what he had done, ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... Stockbridge, New York, was haunted by the tales of adventure and fortune wafted across the continent from the new El Dorado. "I brooded over the difference," he says, "between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging gold by handfuls, until, one day, I threw down the pitchfork, went to the house, and told mother that I had ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... and ordure of Rabelais were to the taste of his time; his severer censures of Church and State were disguised by his buffoonery; flinging out his good sense and wise counsels with a liberal hand, he also wields vigorously the dunghill pitchfork. If he is gross beyond what can be described, he is not, apart from the evil of such grossness, a corrupter of morals, unless morals be corrupted by a belief in the goodness of the natural man. The graver wrongs of his age—wars ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... went out again into the storm they had left so eagerly. Billy Louise showed him where was the pitchfork and the hay, and then did the milking while he piled full the mangers. After that they went together and turned the shivering work horses into the stable from the corral where they huddled, rumps to the storm; ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... hens from the top of a broken-down cabriolet. The courtyard was enclosed on this side by cow-sheds, in front of which rose in mountainous grandeur a dunghill which at this moment a girl as broad as she was long, with straw-coloured hair, was turning over with a pitchfork. The liquid manure filled her sabots and bathed her bare feet, and you could see the heels rise out of her shoes every now and then as yellow as saffron. Her petticoats were kilted and revealed the filth on her enormous calves and thick ankles. While ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... attempt or offer, with force or violence, to do a corporal hurt to another, as by striking at him with or without a weapon, or presenting a gun at him at such a distance to which the gun will carry, or pointing a pitchfork at him, or by any other such like act done in angry, threatening manner, etc.; but no words can amount to ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... replied. "Oh, I know that the reactionaries are in the saddle now—that they have been ever since they had the war as an excuse to mount! But I know also that you can no more drive out by law the spirit of liberalism from the American mind than you can drive out nature with a pitchfork. For a little while you may think you have got the better of it; but it will crop out in spite of you. Now, I am a part of returning nature, of the inevitable rebound toward the spirit of liberalism. In the thought of the people who voted for me, ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... infantryman, "You smell like a livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork for a bayonet and come on up where ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... through his farm, which I could easily jump over. He told me that one afternoon he was watering his horses, when he perceived a shoal of salmon swimming up the creek. He had no spear at home, having lent it to a neighbour. He, however, succeeded with a pitchfork in capturing fifty-six ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... Sooner or later there will be advertisements in the papers, and that sort of thing, but that will pass. God knows I would not touch his money with the devil's pitchfork, nor allow anybody whom I loved to touch it. Let him be buried under the name by which he was known here. It is not the name, needless to say, on the bank books. While living under other than his rightful name, he must have gone to New York in person to supply himself with cash. There was some ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... ginger has been drunk by some of England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the "Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the "Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his immortal action with the "Furibonde," Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Pekin. Think of it, my boy! the moral effect. One side gets home every time and the other plasters its bullets up against steel plates. No troops would stand it. The nation that gets it first will pitchfork the rest of Europe over the edge. They're bound to have it—all of them. Let's reckon it out. There's about eight million of them on a war footing. Let us suppose that only half of them have it. I say only half, because I don't want to be too sanguine. That's four million, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... at this friendly piece of information. A prick from some two-pronged instrument, evidently a pitchfork, gently checked my retreat. I was then conducted to the brink of several other precipices, and ordered to step over many dangerous chasms, where the result would have been instant death if I had committed the least ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... love and war, in African parlance 'woman-palaver' and 'land-palaver.' However much the 'quiet grace of high refinement' may disguise original significance, Nature will sometimes return despite the pitchfork; witness a bal de l'Opera in the palmy days ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... which was made in an apron which the man wore, which socket was fastened securely to the man's hips and shoulders by strong straps, so that he could sustain the weight of the pole by means of them. The pole was about thirty feet high, and the top was branched like a pitchfork. It was shaped, in fact, exactly like a pitchfork, except that there was a bar across from the top of one branch to the top of the other, and a rope hanging down from the middle of the bar half way down to the place of bifurcation—that is, to the place where the straight part of the pole ended ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... in the field since sunrise, but not all of the long bright day had been given to labor. Early in the morning their father's pitchfork had uncovered a nest of field mice, and the Twins had made another nest, as much like the first as possible, to put the homeless field babies in, hoping that their mother would find them again and resume ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Roosevelt's departure in September, a skunk had invaded the cabin and made itself comfortable under one of the bunks. Lincoln and the Highlander were in favor of diplomacy in dealing with the invader. But Gregor Lang reached for a pitchfork. They pleaded with him, without effect. The skunk retaliated in his own fashion; and shortly after, they moved forever out of the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... right, Daisy! It's a dream of luxury!" and carried her off, hardly giving her time to thank Nani and to say a winningly kind word to the hideous one, who gazed back at her, pitchfork in hand, without reply. No one will ever know whether or not she felt any more cheered by Ruth's pleasant ways than the cows did who were putting their heads out from the stalls ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the stampede. He had a different way with a bayonet, so Owens claimed. An' Dorn was heavy, powerful, an' fast. He lifted an' slung those two Germans, one after another, quick as that!—like you'd toss a couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an' he sent them rollin', with blood squirtin' all over. An' then four more Germans were shootin' at him. Right into their teeth Dorn run—laughin' wild an' terrible, Owens said, an' the Germans couldn't stop that flashin' bayonet. Dorn ripped them all open, an' before they'd stopped ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... a long time which was excusable as she was somewhat confused. First she seized a cord, then a pitchfork, then a chair. For an instant she thought of lowering the cow to the bottom of the well so that poor Ourson might have a drink of fresh warm milk. At last she found the ladder before her eyes, almost in her hands, but she had not ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... in the circus, you can buy a capital house at Sora, or Fabrateria, or Frasino, for the price at which you are now hiring your dark hole for one year. There you will have your little garden ... live there enamoured of the pitchfork.... It is something to be able in any spot to have made oneself proprietor even of a single lizard.... None but the wealthy can sleep ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... was mysterious too. He was one-eyed, and the loss endeared him to the children, relating him also, once or twice removed, to Come- Back Stumper; it touched their imaginations. Being an artist, too, he never told them how he lost it, a pitchfork and a sigh were all he vouchsafed upon the exciting subject. He understood the value of restraint, and left their minds to supply what details they liked best. But this wink of pregnant suggestion, while leaving them divinely unsatisfied, sent them busily on the search. They imagined the lost optic ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Stavanger again. The great sea suddenly lifts under his one good leg. And Tobias with his Bibles and his prayer books struggles in the dark of his Grand Avenue bedroom. The devil comes and sits on his window sill, a devil with long locks and bronze wings beside his ears and a three-pronged pitchfork in his hand. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... of hours with his father in the fields. The peanuts were being harvested. Amos Burr, with a peanut "share" attached to the plough, was separating the yellowed plants from the ripe nuts underground, and Nicholas, lifting the roots upon a pitchfork, shook them free from earth and threw them over the pointed staves which were the final supports of the "shocks." A negro hand went before him, driving the sticks into the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the bright sunlight into the twilight of the barn, the farmer peered around, not seeing clearly for a moment. But the tramps saw him plainly enough, as they saw also the pitchfork in his hand, and they made a rush past him for the open air. Taken by surprise, Sam was almost upset, and they took full advantage of the chance. A howl of pain showed that Tige had nipped the taller one, but he shook the dog off and ran after his companion, who was making ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... with you; but you are only the heir of the pit of darkness, you dirty hell-dog! You are scarcely worthy of a night's lodging," added he, "and yet we'll grant you some nook, wherein to await the dawn;" and with that word the goblin with his pitchfork, gave him more than thirty tosses in the fiery air, until he at length cast him into an abyss out of sight. "That may do," said the other, "for a squire of half blood, but I hope you will behave better to a knight, who has had the honor of serving the king in person, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... very cruelly to the enemy's wounded, prisoners, or stragglers. I myself was witness to one of their barbarous acts. They had laid a ring of straw round a wounded Frenchman and set fire to it, and when the poor man tried to crawl out, he was only received with a pitchfork which sent him again into the centre. We soon made the Portuguese fly by firing in amongst them; but when we came up to the poor man, his hair, fingers, and face were fearfully burnt already. He ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... bishop enter And see the sepulchre, while we keep guard. They pushed me in. But when I was inside There was no dome, above us was the sky, And what seemed walls was nothing but a fence. Before us was a stable with a stall Where two cows munched the hay. There was a farmer Who with a pitchfork bedded down the stall. "Where is the holy sepulchre?" I asked— "My army's at the door." He kept at work And never raised his eyes and only said: "Don't know; I haven't time for things like that. ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... such Atlases in the world. The man's torso was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins, and psalmodic versions of a more doubtful authorship. And when at the hour of ten, which was the appointed time, he led his warlike force, which consisted of six rustics, armed with sticks of incredible thickness, three guns, one pistol, a broadsword, and a pitchfork, (a weapon likely to be more effectively used than all the rest put together;) when at the hour of ten he led them up to the room above, where they were to be passed in review before the critical eye of the Squire, with Jacobina leading the on-guard, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tried to drive off the old beggar with her pitchfork. But the fork broke like glass in her hands as it touched the poor man's tatters, and at the same ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... censer attached to a long chain, which struck the solitary dot like a shot amid acclamations. To show that he did not consider the feat a tour de force, the artist turned the paper, and taking the same marks drew a devil in an entirely different attitude, the difficult point being reached by his pitchfork. This gave rise to a learned discussion as to whether the devil's emblematic pitchfork was not a descendant of Neptune's trident, which I did not stay to hear, as Afra whispered she wanted to present me to Monsieur C——, and I was taken to a gentleman of no great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... it, gallantly cleft asunder, on the corner of the bran-bin, with its umber and chrome standing out boldly against a background of murky bitumen; and sometimes he placed it on the threshold of the barn door, with a rake or a pitchfork alongside, and other squashes (none too certain in their perspective) looming up ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... company with a performance on a Jew's harp. Then there was a lame old gentleman, who looked as if he would be all the better for his bath when the time came, who carried a big sledge-hammer in his hand; and another fishy sort of person, who flourished about with a three-pronged pitchfork. A very cross-looking lady sat next to the gentleman at the head of the table. By the way she kept her eye upon him, contradicting every word he said, and snubbing him at every opportunity, she was evidently his wife. Another good-looking lady was playing with a very pert-looking boy, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... from one direction, the captain ran toward them from the other, shouting to Uncle Jack and the boys to fall back, while just then Sam German came out of the garden armed with a pitchfork, the first thing likely to act as ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... side of the pen; he had seized a fat porker, and was actually lugging him off in his arms! The pig was kicking and squealing, but the bear had him fast. He did not seem at all inclined to give up his prey, even when attacked. He looked sullen and ugly; but a few jabs from a pitchfork, and a shot in the shoulder, convinced him that he ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... all evident. A triangular piece had been sawed out of the end of a strip of board four inches wide, and the rest of it had been cut down and rounded off, and the thing looked more like a pitchfork than anything else. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... crop, and likely to do so for centuries to come. As the Indians disliked work much, and church services more, they were encouraged in both matters by rather forcible means, as the Irishman "enticed" the pig into his pen with a pitchfork. We "tourists" who, dismounting from our carriages, view with sentimental reverence the picturesque ruins, the crumbling arches, the heavy bells now silent but mutely telling a wondrous story of ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Faint but piteous memories from his own childhood stirred in his brain, and he realized how irremediable, how final and desperate, seem a child's small sorrows. A sudden resolve took hold upon him. This bitterness, at least, his little one should not know. He jammed the pitchfork energetically back into the mow and left the barn with the quick step of an ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... by is the medieval piece of stage-property known as 'Hell-Mouth,' i.e. a red painted cave with a jaw-like opening into which a mountebank dressed in scarlet (CHEAT-THE-DEVIL) is poking 'Lost Souls' with a pitchfork. ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... compost can be an impossible, sweat-drenching, back-wrenching chore, or it can be relatively quick and easy. It is very difficult to drive even a very sharp shovel into a compost pile. One needs a hay fork, something most people call a "pitchfork." The best type for this task has a very long, delicate handle and four, foot long, sharp, thin tines. Forks with more than four times grab too much material. If the heap has not rotted very thoroughly and still contains a lot of long, stringy material, a five ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... to understand. "I didn't intend to pitchfork you into the forest life quite so suddenly," he said. "Don't give up yet ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... shouted Anthony Wallner, grasping the arm of an old man, who, armed with a pitchfork, was speeding ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... reared myself on my knees and peered about me this way and that. Immediately an irrepressible tremor ran through my system. Directly behind me, armed with a dangerous pitchfork and maintaining an attitude combining at once defence and attack, was a large, elderly, whiskered man, roughly dressed and of a ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... voice, and over the fence corner sprang Peter Apgar, a pitchfork in his hand. He had been gathering up the loose hay left along the edge of the field after the hayloader ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... man should come out to see what was the matter; his strength forsook him, and flinging the handkerchief and meat over the hedge, he ran away with all his speed. The handkerchief fell within reach of the dog, who instantly snapped at it; luckily it did not come untied. Hardy saw a pitchfork on a dunghill close beside him, and, seizing upon it, stuck it into the handkerchief. The dog pulled, tore, growled, grappled, yelled; it was impossible to get the handkerchief from between his teeth; but the knot was loosed, the meat, unperceived by the dog, dropped out, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Seizing a pitchfork, Donald attacked the hay like a giant, getting more and more careful as he drew near the bottom of the mow, until at last, with a shout of "I've got him," he stooped down and dragged the senseless form of Bert from the very bottom of the pile. Taking him in his arms, he ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... but uncommonly tall, uncommonly lanky and loose-boned, and his clothes had the general air of being thrown on with a pitchfork. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... the excitement and turmoil, and sadly discomposed his powdered ringlets. Advices were brought to him (we must now use the phrase military) of the demonstration made by the young gentlemen in the schoolroom. He hurried with the pitchfork in his hand, which he had been using, and appeared at the entrance of his pandemonium, almost, considering his demoniac look, in character. He made a speech, enforced by thumping the handle of the fork against the floor, which speech, though but little attended to, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Mattie, laughing. "Look at the size of us! I defy any man in the village, with an arm only the length of mine, to do more than I! Of course I can't measure myself with the neighbours. To handle Farmer Fairweather's pitchfork would break my back, and to hook a great perch, like Miller Mealy, in the mill-race, might be the capsizing of me. Still, what does that matter? I can catch little sprats for my little wife's dinner; I can dig in our patch of garden, and mend our tiny ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of his said brain, The stomach, like a belt. like an auger. The pylorus, like a pitchfork. The worm-like excrescence, like The windpipe, like an oyster- a Christmas-box. knife. The membranes, like a monk's The throat, like a pincushion cowl. stuffed with oakum. The funnel, like a mason's chisel. The lungs, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... do. When I brought pen and ink and some paper he cleared his throat, screwed up a solemn mien, and took hold of the pen. In trying to shake off some of the ink he sent splashes all over the table. At last he proceeded to write his name. He handled the pen as he would a pitchfork. It was quite a laborious proceeding, and his first attempt was a fizzle, for he reached the end of the paper before he finished the "in" in Nodelman. He tried again, and this time he was successful, but it was three minutes before the task was completed. It left ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... high; and out of the heart of the mist leaped a brook, and to hear it at one moment, and then to have the sharp freezing silence in one's ear, was piercingly weird. It all tossed the mind in my head like hay on a pitchfork. I forgot the existence of everything but what I loved passionately,—and that had no shape, was like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... continued, as he held out the rest of the piece of cake. "That's only his way of coming down. Whatcher frightened about? Oh, I see; it's that snake;" and catching up one of the spears which he had leaned up against the big door, he used it pitchfork fashion to the writhing reptile, and sent it flying upward on to the roof, for it to begin scuffling ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... the word has practically gone out of military use, but it is still employed in the navy, where the distinction is clearly preserved; any vessel provided with cannon is an armed vessel; an armored ship is an ironclad. Anything that can be wielded in fight may become a weapon, as a pitchfork or a paving-stone; arms are especially made ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... crowd, waited for him to come again; and many others, seeing the hopeless circuit the mongrel followed, did likewise, armed with bricks and clubs. Among them was the pimply clerk, who had been inspired to commandeer a pitchfork from a hardware store. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... bull was a vicious brute that had attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him back to the house. And I won't even kill my own hens, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... fairy land, as he called the home of his pure, good thoughts, he was a worker in all ways. If a sudden shower threatened the meadow, he was there with the men, doing all he could to aid them, and not slow to learn the use of rake and pitchfork. If Aunt Peg needed attention he was soon over to see her, and when he went to the village, he was the errand boy for any and all. He became well known among us, and the dear old home among the hills gave him a hearty welcome. Even Deacon Grover came to the conclusion that the city ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... make the haying a society affair for ladies in French frocks, or an athletic event for a lot of young fellows who don't know a rake from a pitchfork?" ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... and Joshua Hammond. He was answered that there were no such men in the house. Kline, followed by Mr. Gorsuch, attempted to go up stairs. They were prevented from ascending by what appears to have been an ordinary fish gig. Some of the witnesses described it as "like a pitchfork with blunt prongs," and others were at a loss what to call this, the first weapon used in the contest. An axe was next thrown down, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... ornamented nor fantastic, it must be evidently built for the uses of common life, and have a matter-of-fact business-like air about it. Its outhouses and pigsties, and dunghills should therefore, be kept in sight: the latter may be made very pretty objects, by twisting them with the pitchfork, and plaiting them into ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... Italian and I don't understand what it's all about, except it's mostly about a bull fighter—he calls him a Toreador. You ought to hear him when we're out back of the barn some morning. He not only sings, but he acts it, too. He sticks the pitchfork into the straw stack, like as if it's a bull, and makes you believe he's killing ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... visions of rooks cawing in the elms; of young curates in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of housekeepers named Meadows or Fleming, in rustling black silk; of old Giles—fifty years, man and boy, on the place—wearing a smock frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the young marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... like new religions and I reply that Moses and Jesus were new once, it is plain that a different stratum of mind is operative than when I dream that I am in an old fort and chased by three rats, or that a snake is on my bed and my father kills it with a pitchfork, or strangest of all, that I throw an egg at the plug of a sap bucket which it hits and then flies to the left; it is rotten. Again, a very vague dream, I, see two eggs and then am climbing inside a kind of tower. A dream which immediately preceded the menstrual period, is as ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... I don't like to see a rat leaving a ship; the ship's sure to sink, if he does. How do you suppose I'm going to run Lion's Head without you to throw down hay to the horses? It will be ruin to me, sure, Jombateeste. All the guests know how you play on the pitchfork out there, and they'll leave in a body if they hear you've quit. Do say you'll stay, and I'll reduce your wages one-half ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... did come to answerin' her back—'cept, of co'se, the time she chastised me—was the way I used regular to heat my knife-blade good an' hot 'twix' two batter-cakes an' flatten that devil out delib'rate. But he'd be back nex' day, pitchfork an' all. ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... E. to sit down, which she did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all, on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling the glasses ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... people collected did not amount to more than 300. The arms, at least were wretched, consisted of culverins, which went off with an enormous report, and matchlocks with short rests, like the end of a pitchfork. The bows were long and good. The helmets were worn on the head when going and coming, but were allowed to sling on the back while resting here; they are rude iron things, like bowls, but covered for some way up the sides ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and peeping slyly out, Solomon saw a sight that made him very angry. A hayrack stood alongside the stack; and on it stood Farmer Green and his hired man. Each had a pitchfork in his hands, with which he tore great forkfuls of hay off the stack and piled it upon ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... brown paper will answer every purpose, and this, with care, may be made to last two or three seasons. The drying was last season principally done on the bare ground, but there is much loss by shelling, as those dried are required to be turned; a pitchfork is used for that purpose. Brown building paper can be procured of city paper dealers in large rolls at four and a half cents per pound; according to the thickness, it will cost from one and three-quarters to three and a half cents per square yard. A thin, tough, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... cup wid brimstone—fill it steamin' ter de top; But de rich man say he swear off, dat he never tech a drop! But Satan grab his pitchfork whilst de rich man give a squall, En in 'bout a half a second he had swallered cup ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... pale faces, and by their shy, uncertain demeanour. There was heard the sound of alarm-bells unceasingly ringing, And the approach of danger restrain'd not their violent fury. Soon into weapons were turn'd the implements peaceful of tillage, And with dripping blood the scythe and the pitchfork were cover'd. Every foeman without distinction was ruthlessly slaughter'd, Fury was ev'rywhere raging, and artful, cowardly weakness. May I never again see men in such wretched confusion! Even the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... whites and small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"—Governor of the state and later member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted in the Bland-Allison act, and ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... and his wife. They were loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned the whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back under ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the premises, and covered them with twelve hundred houses, on building leases; the farmer was converted into a steward: his brown hempen frock, which guarded the outside of his waistcoat, became white holland, edged with ruffles, and took its station within: the pitchfork was metamorphosed into a pen, and his ancient practice of breeding up sheep, was changed into that of ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... was aroused after about an hour by the pressure of something sharp and painful against his side, near the region of the heart, and on looking up, he discovered Bartle Flanagan standing over him with pitchfork in his hand, one end of which was pressed against his breast, as if he had been in the act of driving it forward into his body. His face was pale, his dark brows frightfully contracted, and his teeth apparently set together, as if working over some fearful determination. When Connor awoke, Flanagan ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I brought wood and replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast, and ate up a huge mound of buckwheat cakes. After breakfast, Mr. Ripley put a four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to understand was called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley being armed with similar weapons, we all three commenced a gallant attack upon a heap of manure. This office being concluded, and I having purified myself, I sit down to finish this ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ten minutes later she had to pass that way again and she did look in. Nothing had been done. The stable was in confusion and a pitchfork lay prongs upward midway of the ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... animal, whose implacable viciousness was the talk of the place; not even the ploughman, with whom he was more familiar than anyone else, daring to approach him without the protection of a long-handled pitchfork. ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... growing rich,—or thought it was, which is the same thing,—Brownwell seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with the score of life. The Banner of course ran as a daily, but it was a miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, and edited, as the printers used to say, with a pitchfork. It looked shiftless and dirty-faced long before Brownwell began to look seedy. Editor Brownwell was forever going on excursions—editorial excursions, land-buyers' excursions, corn trains, fruit trains, trade trains, political junkets, tours of inspection of new towns ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... point of wasting visibly away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House. And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real old-fashioned ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... part of the Khedive. All Europe would applaud—all save England, and what could she do? Can she defend slavery? There'll be no kid-gloved justice meted out to Kingsley by the Khedive, if he starts a campaign against him. He will have to take it on the devil's pitchfork. You ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
