"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go off an' leave a good rope where you could get your claws on it, do you? Wait 'til we get these horses onto the flat-boat, and all the guns around here collected so you can't peck at us from the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... talk about providing something," grumbled the quartermaster, while riding at ease beside Deck. "I'd turn the shirt on my back into a peck of potatoes if I could, but the thing can't be done—and there you are. I've lived on nothing but hardtack and a couple of potatoes for two days,—and your father has done the same,—and yet some of the ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... learn until I was old enough to learn properly. He said I must not get into the habit of using the hunt-and-peck system, or I'd never ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... he has lived these ten years in a graveyard, so to speak, under a canopy of funereal gloom, and he thrives on it. He and Clarice are the most superior persons I know; and they have gone and got themselves into a peck, or rather several bushels, of trouble, about nothing at all. They must like it, or why should they do it? I doubt if I can ever be educated up to that point. I have the rude and simple tastes of a child: sunshine seems to ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... too swiftly speed the happy hours away In the company of Silverman and Underwood and Shea; Of Yenowine, McNaughten, Kipp, Peck, Lush, and General Falk— Eight noble men in action, but nobler yet in talk! These are the genial spirits to be met with in that spot. Where are winters never chilly and summers never hot! And a fellow having been there ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... glide in thin long streaks over it. In the distance is the dark mass of forests, the glitter of ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches us. We drive ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... and error. So he knows, or thinks he knows, why certain late-bearing apple-trees have fruit only every other year, and what effect on the potato crop is caused by dressing our sandy soil with chalk or lime; so he watches the new mole-runs, or puzzles to make out what birds they can be that peck the ripening peas out of the pods, or estimates the yield of oats to the acre by counting the sheaves that he stacks, or examines the lawn to see what kinds of grass are thriving. About all such matters his talk is the talk of an experienced man habitually interested in his ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... brain of some strange, glorious stuff, that takes all strength out of the character, and all sight out of the eyes. Those artists—they are like the birds we blind: they sing, and make people weep for very joy to hear them; but they cannot see their way to peck the worms, and are for ever wounding their breasts against the wires. No doubt it is a great thing to have genius; but it is a sort of sickness after ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... and listened. "Zounds!" he said, "what's that I hear there? Whence doth come that trumpet-blowing?" Werner's music through the March night, Plaintive soared up to the castle, Begging entrance like a pet-dove, Which, returning to its mistress, Finds the window closed and fastened, And begins to peck and hammer. To the terrace went the Baron And his daughter; Hiddigeigei Followed both with step majestic. Through the cat's heart then swept omens Of a great, eventful future. All around they looked—but vainly. For the turret's gloomy shadow ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... eyes and curling dark hair and beard, and a great fisherman with line and net. He lived near the inlet, and had the kind of boat commonly used in these shallow waters—flat-bottomed, broad in the beam, with centre-board and one mast set well forward. He had dug a peck or two of the large round clams, and two or three throws of his cast-net as we came through the creek procured ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... got to the top he was compelled "to make a road with his club among the albatross. These birds were sitting upon their nests, and almost covered the surface of the ground, nor did they otherwise derange themselves for their new visitors than to peck at their ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... after his mother's departure, Dicky almost missed kissing me good-by in his mad haste to catch his train. He rushed out of the door after a most perfunctory peck at my cheek, and I saw him almost running down the little lane bordered with wild flowers that led "across lots" ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck. (She embraces JIM playfully. He hands her the gum, patting his shoulder as he sits on box.) Oh, thank ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... greater portion of the seed that was exposed. I saw them on many occasions returning in countless numbers from a foray, each carrying in its mouth a grain of barley or wheat. I tracked them to their subterranean nests, in one of which I found about a peck of corn which had been conveyed by separate grains; and patches of land had been left ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Erostratus by a torch; Milo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by his limbs; most Kings and Queens by being born under such and such a bed-tester; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches,—for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends, yield cheerfully to Destiny, and read since it is written."—Has ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... "I'm in a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don't know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He'd not like it to get to the missis's ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to tell her—for ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Al Peck, an old and valued friend of mine, had several experiences with the Apaches, which culminated in the Peck raid of April 27, 1886, when Apaches jumped his ranch, killed his wife and a man named Charles Owens and carried off Peck's niece. Apparently ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... certain toucans which during the breeding season seek hollows in trees; there the female lays eggs and sits upon them, while the male pastes the opening with clay so that only her head is visible, and not until the young are hatched does the male begin to peck with his long beak and ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... MR. PECK—"Would you mind compelling me to move on, officer? I've been waiting on this corner three hours for ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... nonsense, Bruce," Jim said emphatically. "Sheer rot. She's just Betty Gordon and in a peck of trouble. It's up to you and me, being countrymen of hers, to see her through instead ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... of the impetuous mountain torrent, is laboriously, carefully cultivated. Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... in the hawthorn-tree, had brought a few seeds and a morsel of crust to her young ones. The seed she distributed with ease, but the morsel of crust was rather hard, and required her to pinch and peck it a good deal with her bill before it could be soft enough for the young birds. The young ones, however, were all so anxious to be first to receive the crust the moment it was ready, that they all began to make a loud chirruping, and scrambling, and pushing, and fluttering, and trampling, ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... said my companion; 'we had better not show ourselves for a little. They may be friends; but birds though they are, if they see anything strange in our appearance, they will fall upon us, and may peck out our feathers, if not our ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... me for my mother's sake, She needs my eyes to see." "Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... book she was reading. He come back with a copy he'd bought at Spokane and kept it on his bureau. Not that he read it much. It was harder to get into than 'Peck's Bad Boy,' which was ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... greater national reputation for books of genuine humor and mirth than GEORGE W. PECK, author of "Peck's Bad Boy and ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... and his early days would have been wretched enough, if his elastic spirits had allowed him to give way to misery. His father was a good-natured, weak-minded man, who on the death of his first wife married a second, who, as one hen will peck at another's chicks, would not, as a stepmother, leave the little Paul in peace. She was continually putting her own children forward, and ill-treating the late 'anointed' son. The father gave in too readily, and young ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to go over to that henyard and just trust to luck for a chance to catch one of those biddies. Of course, they might be lucky and get a hen that way, but then again they might be unlucky and get in a peck of trouble. ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... twenty bushels of coal in twenty-four hours, turns ten pair of stones, which grind eight bushels of flour an hour each, which is nineteen hundred and twenty bushels in the twenty-four hours. This makes a peck and a half of coal perform exactly as much as a horse, in ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... him of his disappointed ambition; but Cromwell had his troubles as well. Henry the Eighth, the king who broke them both, might have put up the same prayer; and the pope, who was a thorn in Harry's side, no doubt had a peck of disappointments of his own. Nature not only abhors a vacuum, but she utterly repudiates an entirely successful man. There probably never lived one yet to whom the morning did not bring some disaster, the evening some repulse. John Hunter, the greatest, most ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... their head-gear, trying alternate feet, and two determined hens were trying to peck each other free. But they wore generally resigned, and we might have grown so after the first minute, if it hadn't been for ...
— A British Islander - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... All indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, and the poorer ones by the peck-measure. It was a curious and melancholy spectacle, when an overladen coal-cart happened to pass through the street and drop a handful or two of its burden in the mud, to see half a dozen women ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... snail-water for a consumption. Take half a peck of Shell-snails, wipe them and bruise them Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... simply a gatherer of facts, collected from good sources with considerable care and judgment. 'He follows out with absolute faithfulness his own theory, which makes it necessary to omit no possible detail that can throw light upon the personality of his subject.' —Peck. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... York. As in most subjects of deep popular or scientific importance, the sense of need for more data by which to judge seemed in the air; and already the Labor Bureau of the State of New York, under the efficient guidance of Mr. Charles F. Peck, had begun a course of inquiries of the same nature. For years, beginning with the New York "Tribune," in the days when Margaret Fuller worked for it and touched at times upon social questions,—always in the mind of Horace Greeley, its founder,—there had been periodical stirs of feeling ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... scenes, perhaps; but it's different when you import the fresh, the ingenuous element from the outer world," said he (but what interest had he in the discussion?—he did not wear his heart on his sleeve for Miss Burgoyne to peck at). "Aren't you going to take Mr. Miles down ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... for three months' service. This being concluded, he was at once commissioned as Brigade Surgeon of U. S. Volunteers, and soon after promoted to the rank of Medical Director, serving as such on the staffs, successively, of Generale Stone, Casey, Sedgwick, and Peck. His army service was marked by the same strong individuality, the same resolute activity, the same executive talent, which we have seen stamped upon the boy and the youth. Added to all those other qualities, was that same genial humanity ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Beechams grew skillful at picking. They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from freezing; so every ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... to learn as much as I could and sought to draw him out with far-fetched gossip. I inquired who that woman could be who was scurrying about hither and yon in such a fashion. "She's called Fortunata," he replied. "She's the wife of Trimalchio, and she measures her money by the peck. And only a little while ago, what was she! May your genius pardon me, but you would not have been willing to take a crust of bread from her hand. Now, without rhyme or reason, she's in the seventh heaven and is Trimalchio's factotum, so much so that he would ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... without approval House bill No. 2507, entitled "An act granting a pension to Russel L. Doane, of Peck, Sanilac County, Mich." ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... to time for answer upon impeachments before the Senate to which we have had opportunity to refer are those of Judge Chase and Judge Peck. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... differed as to the source from which our [author] drew the first hint of writing Paradise Lost; Peck conjectures that it was from a celebrated Spanish Romance called Guzman, and Dr. Zachary Pearce, now bishop of Bangor, has alledged, that he took the first hint of it from an Italian Tragedy, called Il Paradiso Perso, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... hearty eater, so that the peck of corn flour allowed the slaves for a week's ration lasted him only a half. He used to lug large sticks of wood on his shoulders from the woods, which was from a mile to a mile and a half away, to first one and then another of his fellow negroes, who gave him ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to understand, are perfectly in keeping ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Volksmaerchen der Serben collected by Karadschitsch, the youngest brother has to take his brother-in-law's horse over a bridge under which he sees an immense kettle full of boiling water in which men's heads are cooking while eagles peck at them. He then passes through a village where all is song and joyfulness because, so the inhabitants tell him, each year is fruitful with them and they live, therefore, in the midst of plenty. Then he sees two dogs quarrelling which he cannot succeed in separating. ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... proceedings in the House in the case of charges which may involve impeachment have been well and wisely settled by long practice upon principles of equal justice both to the accused and to the people. The precedent established in the case of Judge Peck, of Missouri, in 1831, after a careful review of all former precedents, will, I venture to predict, stand ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at, if ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... mother, with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty, our faithful serving maid, with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wonder the birds didn't peck ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Bill Cronk had intimated, such a peck of oats was almost too much for Dennis, and he felt that he was in danger ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... marvellous fineness of power. For it is the accomplished artist who is fastidious as to his tools; the bungling beginner can bungle with anything. The fiddle-bow, however, affords only one example of a rule which is equally well exemplified by many humbler tools. Quarryman's peck, coachman's whip, cricket-bat, fishing-rod, trowel, all have their intimate relation to the skill of those who use them; and like animals and plants, adapting themselves each to its own place in the universal order, they attain to beauty by force of being fit. That law ...
— Progress and History • Various
... serve for all purposes—cooking, as well as warming. We split the rations up into slips about the size of a carpenter's lead pencil, and used them parsimoniously, never building a fire so big that it could not be covered with a half-peck measure. We hovered closely over this—covering it, in fact, with our hands and bodies, so that not a particle of heat was lost. Remembering the Indian's sage remark, "That the white man built a big fire and sat away off from it; the Indian made a little fire and ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... is, if she is a wopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundred weight of hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... words to me. She use to shake my cape, with all her strength and might, Every time I told her, They would both put one foot into my hand, Every time I told them, They would both scratch my hand, and peck on my cap, Every time ...
— A Complete Edition of the Works of Nancy Luce • Nancy Luce
... big log house when he come to Texas. He had sev'ral hundred head of cattle and more than that many hawgs. We raised cotton and grain and chickens and vegetables, and most anything anybody could ask for. Some places the masters give out a peck of meal and so many pounds of meat to a family for them a week's rations, and if they et it up that was all they got. But Marse Bob allus give out plenty, and said, 'If you need more you can have it, 'cause ain't any going to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... body lie unburied! May he rot upon the earth! May the ravens peck out his eyes! May a murderer drink his blood! May the wolves eat his heart! May the spirit of the fog grow fat upon his entrails! And may the spirits of his body scatter—as the clouds in the wild ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... any remarkable accident, was practised for about three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by sparks they picked up to live pretty ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... ANSTRUTHER, calls attention to the statement made by Mr. Christopher Wren, Secretary of the Order of the Garter (A.D. 1736), in his letter to Francis Peck, on the authority of the Register of the Order in his possession; which letter is quoted by Burke (Dorm. and Ext. Bar., iv. 408.), that "King Henry VII. had the title Defender of the Faith." It is not found in any acts or instruments of his reign that I am acquainted ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... son went into the small railed garden, where was a scent of red gillivers. By the open door were some floury loaves, put out to cool. A hen was just coming to peck them. Then, in the doorway suddenly appeared a girl in a dirty apron. She was about fourteen years old, had a rosy dark face, a bunch of short black curls, very fine and free, and dark eyes; shy, questioning, a little resentful ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Johnny stooped and stroked his glossy coat. Just as we left the spot, the partner of this exemplary bird arrived, and hastened to relieve him from duty, giving him notice to quit, by two or three quick, impatient chirps, and a playful peck upon the head, whereupon he resigned his place, into which the other immediately settled, with a soft, complacent, cooing note, as expressive of perfect content as the purring of a well-fed tabby, stretched cosily upon the earth-rug before a cheerful ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "Frank, I'm in a peck of trouble," he said, with a whimsical smile, "and I wish you could help me out, though I dislike putting ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... of the 26th Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear you can peck butt little ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... step. Take you, for instance. You're a good American, eh? And yet some spy might fool you with a cute story and get your help and maybe play you for a sucker on the other side. I saw that happen once. It was a nice young chap, and a pretty girl fooled him—got him into a peck of trouble. What you want to remember is that good spies never ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... class there is restraint and a rather stupid bashfulness. I have seen a wounded youngster flush apprehensively and only peck his mother in return for her sobbing embrace. That is not Bert's way. He knows—he is not a fool—that his mother looks a trifle absurd as, with bonnet awry, she surges perspiringly past the sentries, the tails of her skirt dragging in the dust and her feet ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... will not only guard and protect, but he will pay as he goes. I may not go far or stay long. Just let it stand that way. Tell inquiring friends that. I'll keep you posted. You know what my business is; it takes me here—it takes me there." He gave his wife a peck of a kiss and patted Vona's shoulder when he passed her. He picked up a valise ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the daylights out of him! I'll give you a whole peck of sugar if you kick the house into the river, ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... should caresses be confined to the sick, and kindness be bought only at the price of threatened death? I was inclined to refuse to kiss Krak, but my mother made such a point of compliance that I yielded reluctantly. In days of health Krak had exacted, morning and evening, a formal and perfunctory peck; if I gave her no more now she looked aggrieved, and my mother distressed. Had Krak been possessed by a real penitence, I would have opened my arms to her, but I was fully aware that her mood was not this; she merely wanted to know that I bore no malice for just discipline, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... young to have the entire charge of any living creature. After filling the glass with seed, she had put it back again, as she thought, into its place, where there was a round opening for the bird to come and peck at the seeds. But she had turned the glass round, so that the back of it was towards this hole, and the open part right away from her poor Dick, who might peck and peck against the hard glass, but could not get one seed. I think if nurse had known just how it all happened, she would not ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Fletcher v. Peck[185] was decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... scene of activity but not of excitement, or in any sense of joy. The matter was too hard an importance; it made too much difference on both sides whether potatoes were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. The dealers were laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours exchanged the time of day, but under the pressure of affairs. Now and then a lady of Elgin stopped to gossip with another; the countrywomen looked on, curious, grim, and a little contemptuous of so much demonstration ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... were presented and not less than a peck of the cheap presents distributed, the capper would pass up his ticket, and the boss proclaim in a loud tone: "Four hundred and sixty-two wins the capital prize, a solid silver tea set." The plate was set out on a table covered with a black velvet cloth to brighten ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... in turning up her Tail To bear the Threshing of her Gallant's Frail, A Groat (which always is a Cuckold's Fee) Under the Candlestick I've laid for me; Besides good Peck and Booze, so till she's Dead, She may and will Whore on ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... little cuss!" D'ri shouted as he went over to him. "Can't no snookin' wolf crack our bones fer us. Peeled 'em—thet 's what we done tew 'em! Tuk 'n' knocked 'em head over heels. Judas Priest! He can peck a ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... its victims, and from under the sphere of its influence, and plunge into the wild wastes of The Sahara, where I could breathe more freely. I must relate one other anecdote illustrating this oppression. A poor man sold me a peck of barley. The myrmidons of power, hearing of the sale, immediately went to him, and he refusing to give them the money, they got hold of his throat and nearly strangled him. To make them desist, I paid them also the value of the barley. Several of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... that year, and then came March, rough and boisterous and dull as usual, with its cruel east wind and the dust, "a peck of which was worth a king's ransom," as father used ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director, who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T. Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... figures, the average eating record of each man at the outing is about ten pounds of beef, two or three chickens, a pound of butter, a half peck of potatoes, and two dozen ears of corn. The drinking records, as given out, are still more phenomenal. For some reason, not yet explained, the district leader thinks that his popularity will be greatly increased if he can show that his ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... hope I may be given to see the truth and comfort to be derived from the Communion. I have in some degree seen it must be a means of very great grace; but of this in the future. It is a beautiful subject. Do not peck at words. Communion is better than sacrament, but communion may exist without the eating of the bread, &c. Sacrament means the performance of a certain act, which is an outward and visible sign of spiritual grace. You need not fear ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... induced his neighbor, Wm. Roy Mason, Esq. to test its powers by the most severe experiment we have ever known it subjected to. He selected a point of a hill, from which every particle of soil had been washed away, until nothing in the world would grow there. It would not produce, said he, a peck of wheat to the acre, but with a dressing of 300 lbs. African guano, it gave me thirteen bushels, and now while that is covered with clover, other, so called, rich parts of the field are almost bare. A field which had never produced ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... peck the cock. They must be keeping Lent, or perhaps the virtuous widows don't care for ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... speckled coat and a comb the color of red coral: very small, but lively and vigorous, and exhibiting in all her movements both grace and stateliness. She would nestle in my lap, take a ride on my shoulder, and walk the length of my arm to peck at a bit of cake in my hand, regarding me all the while with a queer sidelong glance, and croaking out her satisfaction and content. When she was ready to go she walked to the kitchen door, and asked in a very shrill voice to be let out. She continued these visits till late ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... being arranged each bird was held, in turn, to let the other peck him ferociously, probably with the idea of making them mad enough to fight. When the bets were all arranged the birds were placed on the ground facing each other, and with lowered heads and neck feathers erected they dashed together like tigers, jumping high over each other and endeavoring ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... right," growled Ben. "Scarecrows who were going to scare off all the crows as try to peck at his ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... Fragoletta, is the wind That rattles so the window-blind; And yonder shining thing's a star, Blue eyes,—you seem ten times as far. That, Fragoletta, is a bird That speaks, yet never says a word; Upon a cherry-tree it sings, Simple as all mysterious things; Its little life to peck and pipe As long as cherries ripe and ripe, And minister unto the need Of baby-birds that feed and feed. This, Fragoletta, is a flower, Open and fragrant for an hour, A flower, a transitory thing, Each petal fleeting as a wing, All a May morning blows and blows, And then ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... appears, "enlisted the Harts and others in an enterprise which his own genius planned," says Peck, the personal acquaintance and biographer of Boone, "and then encouraged several hunters to explore the country and learn where the best lands lay." Just why Henderson and his associates did not act sooner upon the reports brought back by the hunters—Boone and Scaggs and Callaway, who accompanied ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... as follow; "Hie furt man die mord vo danne un wil schleisse vn redern die rappen volget alle zit hin nach vn stechet sy." "Here they bring the murderers, in order to drag them upon the hurdle to execution, and to break them upon the wheel. The crows follow and peck them." ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... his wanderings. His clothes were of the coarsest, and they were in rags. Lady Clanranald's six good shirts had long since disappeared; it was as much as he could do to have a clean shirt once a fortnight. The provisions they carried were reduced to one peck of meal. In this state did the Prince arrive in the familiar country round Loch Arkaig. It was a year almost to the day since he had passed through that very country elate and hopeful at the head of his brave Macdonalds and Camerons. He was now a fugitive, ill-fed, ill-clad, with a price on his ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... Sometimes Aunt Nellie seems just like a girl, she is so jolly, she is not a bit like Aunt Josephine, though I am sure Aunt Josephine is a very nice lady and I don't mean that I don't love her, only Aunt Nellie kisses me as if she liked too and does not just peck my cheek. Last week she brought me home some lovly middy bloses like Peggy wears, and I play in bloomers all day and put on a white skirt for supper; Mr. Lee says Peggy and I look like twins. Auntie brought me a bathing suit, too, ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... favorite. He is not yet forty, and for this he is himself my authority, and forty is the prime of life; yet, with an immense fortune and strong temptations, he has never launched out into a single act of imprudence or folly. No, Helen, he never sowed a peck of wild oats in his life. He is, on the contrary, sober, grave, silent—a little too much so, by the way—cautious, prudent, and saving. No man knows the value of money better, nor can contrive to make it go further. Then, as for managing a bargain—upon my soul, I don't think he treated ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house, and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went home, and got a peck ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... excepted cities of Boston, Philadelphia, and the rest, under the polite coercion of the Eastern Conference, passing similar separation rules of their own. He foresaw the Guardian forced out of Graham and Peck's agency in Philadelphia, out of the Silas Osgood office in Boston, and losing its long established connections in other cities where the Guardian's business was as well selected and profitable as that of any company of them all. He looked gloomily down a long ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... consider the incredible number of little mouths, and the busy rate at which they ply them hour by hour, you may imagine what an immense number of grains of wheat must have escaped man's hand, for you must remember that every time they peck they take a whole grain. Down, too, come the grey-blue wood-pigeons and the wild turtle-doves. The singing linnets come in parties, the happy greenfinches, the streaked yellow-hammers, as if any one ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Hen began to scratch and peck upon the rough bark of the log, but Oh dear me! suddenly she began to feel very seasick. The log was rolling over! The log was teetering up on end like a boat in a storm! And before she knew what was really happening the poor Hen found ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... said Tom Betts, with a chuckle, "and I could string off more'n a few times when that same curiosity hauled Bobolink into a peck of trouble. But p'raps your father might let out the secret to you, after the old boxes have been taken away, and then you can ease his mind. Because it's just like he says, and he'll keep on dreamin' the most wonderful things about those cases you ever heard tell about. That imagination ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... only made me almost burst myself with eating and drinking, and all of the very best, but she has gone and filled my portmanteau too, filled it up chock full, sir! A fine ham of bacon, sir, and a pair of roasted fowls, with two bottles of brandy, and a matter of a peck of biscuit." ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... have. Why do I do it?" He smiled and shook his head. "Well, I don't know. For two reasons, maybe. First, I'd hate to be responsible for tippin' over such a sky-towerin' idol as you've been to make ruins for Angie Phinney and the other blackbirds to peck at and caw over. And second—well, it does sound presumin', don't it, but I kind of pity you. Say, Heman," he added with a chuckle, "that's a kind of distinction, in a way, ain't it? A good many folks have hurrahed over you and worshipped you—some of 'em, ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... woodland neighbors made us some trouble. It was no other than a veritable woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after spring flowers. The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had two openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a gentleman we never had had the pleasure of seeing; but we soon learned his existence from his ravages in our garden. He had a taste, it appears, for the very kind of things we ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Major, they've got buck-shot," said Gid. "And they could mow us down before we could cross that place. They still outnumber us two to one—packed in there like sardines. Don't you think we'd better scatter about and peck at 'em when they show an eye? I'd like to know who built that church. Confound him, he cut out too many windows ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... and nobleness. He was only twenty-eight years old, the age when life has just begun, but he rested his head on the surgeon's shoulder like a man who knew he was already through with it and that, though they might peck and mend at the body, he had received his final orders. His breast and shoulders were bare, and as the surgeon cut the tunic from him the sight of his great chest and the skin, as white as a girl's, and the black open wound against ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... Mrs. Peck, of The Ship, a widow herself of some years' standing, plump, amiable, prosperous, who in marrying Adam would have gladly opened her doors to Adam's son also had the son been willing to avail ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... wuzn't in a peck uv trubble! There he stood in the middle uv that hot—that all-fired hot—peraroor with his arms full uv eggs. What wuz there fur him to do? He wuz afraid to move, lest he should break them eggs; yet the longer he stood there the ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... part, and I speak from sad experience, I would rather be a convict in States Prison or a slave in a rice swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. If you have but fifty cents and can get no more for the week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and live on it rather than owe any man a dollar." He next started the Log Cabin. It was started in the beginning of 1840, designed to be run six months and then discontinued. Into this undertaking Horace Greeley threw all his energy and ability, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... A peck of perfectly ripe tomatoes, two quarts of fine cooking salt, half a pound of ground mustard, one ounce of cloves, two green peppers, two or three onions and one pound of brown sugar. Pierce the tomatoes with a silver fork ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight
... near two hundred souls Had left their bodies; and what's worse, alas! When over Catholics the Ocean rolls, They must wait several weeks before a mass Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals, Because, till people know what's come to pass, They won't lay out their money on the dead— It costs three francs for every mass ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was given to the old gaol formerly existing in Peck Lane. A writer, in 1802, described it as a shocking place, the establishment consisting of one day room, two underground dungeons (in which sometimes half-a-dozen persons had to sleep), and six or seven night-rooms, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... language or equivocal in purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his "Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut" ever made a drunkard, but it is certain that his "Cottar's Saturday Night" has converted sinners, edified the godly, and made some erect family altars. It has been worth a thousand homilies. And, taking ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... appearance." By and by Ku went in, and his mother told him the girl had come to beg a little rice, as they had had nothing to eat all day. "She's a good daughter," said his mother, "and I'm very sorry for her. We must try and help them a little." Ku thereupon shouldered a peck of rice, and, knocking at their door, presented it with his mother's compliments. The young lady received the rice, but said nothing; and then she got into the habit of coming over and helping Ku's mother with her work and household affairs, almost ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... down to the brook yester even and set some manner of snare, and this morning hath taken a peck or so of little fish, for all the world like a Dutch herring only bigger, and of these he says two must go into every hill of the corn, that is, this corn of theirs, for of wheat or rye or ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... door opened; and there marched gravely in—not a young lady—but a little old gentleman, whose hair was perfectly white, though he seemed to have a great deal of it, for his head was about the size of a half peck measure. He wore a very long-tailed coat, buttoned up very tight; his pantaloons only reached down to his knees; but to make up for that his stockings came up to meet them, and were fastened with perfectly beautiful garters, with a big silver buckle ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... gurgle of water in a throat? Hush! there is nothing to see or hear, Only a silent something is near; No knock, no footsteps three or four, Only a presence outside the door! See! the moon is remembering!—what? The wail of a mother-left, lie-alone brat? Or a raven sharpening its beak to peck? Or a cold blue knife and a warm white neck? Or only a heart that burst and ceased For a man that went away released? I know not—know not, but something is coming Somehow ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... for twenty years not far from there, in a little apartment near Saint-Roch. Drinking in the fresh air, under the striped awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... piece of flesh on his head, completely blinding him, and before he could recover from his surprise, lit on his back and began to peck him viciously. "I'll have you to know," she cawed, "that I'm a proper lady, and the man that compares me to them shameless French singing hussies ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... material form—a carved, highly-coloured bird of grotesque shape. This figure at the Head Feast is erected on the top of a pole, thirty feet or more in height, with its beak pointing in the direction of the enemy's country, so that he may "peck at the eyes of ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... restoration. According to Clarendon he was "a man of great honour and clear courage," and his defects the result of too little knowledge of the world. Lord Derby left in MS. "A Discourse concerning the Government of the Isle of Man" (printed in the Stanley Papers and in F. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations, devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book. He married on the 26th of June 1626 Charlotte de la Tremoille (1599-1664), daughter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... glass of red wine on the table: in an instant the bird plunged in his beak, and began sucking up the wine, drop by drop. The housekeeper, fearing he would break the glass, took it away; but at this Jocko was very angry, and tried to peck at her face. ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... miner, and found a pickaxe in his dead hand. This he hid, and reserved it for deadly uses; he was not clear in his mind whether to brain Hope with it, and so be revenged on him for having shut him up in that mine, or whether to peck a hole in the tank and destroy all three by a quicker death than thirst or starvation. The savage had another and more horrible reason for keeping out of sight; maddened by thirst he had recourse to that last extremity better men have been driven to; he made a cut with his ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... expressed my great surprise. Hot words ensued between us; and I told him very plainly that I would have nothing further to say to him or his political profligacy. However, his potatoes were sold, and brought upwards of three guineas the peck, the nabob being the purchaser, who, to show his contentment with the bargain, made Mrs M'Lucre, and the bailie's three daughters, presents of new gowns and princods, that were not stuffed ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... at a bound, and was met by a peck between the eyes that would have turned most dogs, but Crusoe only winked, and the next moment the eagle's career ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... new messmates. I was at home in a few minutes, and made up my mind that I should be very jolly. In this opinion I was confirmed by the assurances of another midshipman of about my own age, or rather younger, Tommy Peck by name, who had also come to sea for the first time, and who naturally became my chief chum. He was a merry fellow, delighting in fun and mischief; caring very little about the result of the latter, provided ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... girls. Mrs. Peck, the blonde, is the society writer for the Morning Trumpet. She is an elegant woman of a very fine Southern family, but she has had misfortunes. Her marriage was unhappy. She and Peck are separated now, and she ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the bag, and soon disclosed to the view of the coast-guards, not the lemons, but almost half a peck ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... creature shivered from time to time, closing the filmy lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took him up in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak, still ever ready to peck ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... are to pay for all their supplies, some think higher wages could be paid; but it would be necessary to require the negro to supply himself with at least two suits of clothes, one pair of shoes, a hat, and four pounds of pork or bacon, one peck of corn meal a week, vegetables at least twice a week, for a first-class hand. The laborer should pay for his medicine, medical attendance, nursing, &c.; also, house rent, $5 a month, water included; wood at $2 a cord ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... At heart, I always respected him. He wasn't a fellow to take the worst view of one's character, you know, or to make nasty innuendoes—" He stopped, and eyed Kennedy as a parrot eyes a finger put into his cage, which he could peck if he would. "He wasn't, you know, a kind of fellow who would force you to leave the table by sneering at you in hall—" He still continued to eye Kennedy, but in vain, for Kennedy kept his moody glance on the table and was ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... cattle, and lives entirely upon dead corpses. It does not kill or injure anything that has life, and even abstains from dead birds from its relationship to them. Now eagles, and owls, and falcons, peck and kill other birds, in spite of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... opening the maw, the stomach appeared distended to its fullest extent, and contained not less than half a bushel of various substances, besides a large quantity of the usual food in an undigested state, as, maize, barley, potatoes, onions, &c. There was nearly a peck of stones, most of which were as smooth and as highly polished as if they had passed through the hands of the lapidary; a sample of which I enclose you. Among this mass I found portions of tobacco-pipe, pieces of china and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... upon a glee which details divers peculiarities in the economy of certain small pigs, pleasantly enlivened by grunts and whistles, and the occasional asseveration of the singers that their paternal parent was a man of less than ordinary stature. This insensibly changes into "Willy brewed a Peck of Malt," and finally settles down into "Nix my Dolly," appropriately danced and chorussed, until a policeman, who has no music in his soul, stops their harmony, but threatens to take them into charge if they do not bring their promenade concert ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... that the Sioux Indians, for four years immediately preceding the Custer massacre, were regularly supplied with the most improved fire-arms and ammunition by the agencies at Brûlé, Grand River, Standing Rock, Port Berthold, Cheyenne, and Fort Peck. Even during the campaign of 1876, in the months of May, June, and July, just before and after Custer and his band of heroes rode down into the valley of death, these fighting Indians received eleven hundred and twenty ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... finish the job next day. The following night they'd planned to drop in unexpected, sew the Boss up in his blanket before he could make a move, and cart him off until I could bail him out with a peck or so of ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... have no boys but two girls, Matilda and Emma Maye Smith. Matilda Parker my daughter lives in Pittsburg, Pa. Emma Maye works to support us. She works as nurse for Mrs. J.H. Hunter but right now is out of work. Charity helps us a little. One half peck meal, 1 pound powdered milk, two cans grape fruit juice, one half pound coffee per week. This amounts to about eighty cents worth rations per week. The charity don't ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... necks like hungry fowls in their eagerness to peck at any problems Mark felt inclined to scatter before them. A ludicrous fancy passed through his mind that much of the good seed was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... thing she called a "puff" And some very peculiar whitish stuff, And using about a half a peck, She spread it over her face and neck, (Deceit was a thing she hated!) And she looked as fair as a lilied bower, Or a pound of lard or a sack of flour;— And ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... 17. Toucan (Ramphastos).] A native of America, where it builds in the hollows of trees, and sits at the entrance, ready to peck at the monkeys, who often endeavour to destroy and eat the young. It is about the size of a Magpye, but the head large in proportion, to enable it to support its immense bill, which is six inches and a half in length, but extremely thin. It is a mild inoffensive bird, and easily ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset
... other thing. What that thing is I will tell you when we have drunk the blood-brotherhood! But now it behoveth me to be a-going, so I'll away. But when you shall seek me, as seek me ye will, shipmate, shalt hear of me at the Peck-o'-Malt tavern, which is a small, quiet place 'twixt here and Bedgebury Cross. Come there at any hour, day or night, and say 'The Faithful Friend,' and you shall find safe harbourage. Remember, comrade, the word is 'The Faithful Friend,' and if so be you can choose your time—night is better." ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... his full length on the ground with the timely administration of a well-planted blow. Mr. Garth was probably too much taken by surprise to repay the obligation in kind, but he rapped out a volley of vigorous oaths that fell about his adversary as fast as a hen could peck. Then he remounted his horse, and, with such show of valorous reluctance as could still be assumed after so unequivocal an overthrow, he made the best ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... was Belcher begun to get wise and start his counter-attack; but the first time I had a chance to slip out and take a squint his way, I saw this whackin' big sign in front of his place: "Potatoes, 40 cents per peck." Which ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... picture in the south, the Turkish Cypriot economy has less than half the per capita GDP and suffered a series of reverses in 1991. Crippled by the effects of the Gulf war, the collapse of the fruit-to-electronics conglomerate, Polly Peck, Ltd., and a drought, the Turkish area in late 1991 asked for a multibillion-dollar grant from Turkey to help ease the burden of the economic crisis. Turkey normally underwrites a substantial portion of the TRNC economy. GDP: purchasing power equivalent - Greek area: $5.5 billion, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... near them. I remember, a thrush had the confidence to snatch out of my hand, with his bill, a piece of cake that Glumdalclitch had just given me for my breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds they would boldly turn against me, endeavoring to peck my fingers, which I durst not venture within their reach; and then they would turn back unconcerned, to hunt for worms or snails, as they did before. But one day I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... according to the fourth, fifth, and sixth resolutions of the former committee, upon the subject of weights and measures, agreed to by the house on the second day of June in the preceding year, the quart ought to contain seventy cubical inches and one half; the pint thirty-five and one quarter; the peck five hundred and sixty-four; and the bushel two thousand two hundred and fifty-six. That the several parts of the pound, mentioned in the eighth resolution of the former committee, examined and adjusted in presence of this committee,—viz. the half pound or six ounces, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of children flies to the back-door when school lets out. "Don't you come in here with all that mud!" she squalls excitedly. "Look at you! A peck o' dirt on each foot. Right in my nice clean kitchen that I just scrubbed. Go 'long now and clean your shoes. Go 'long, I tell you. Slave and slave for you and that's all the thanks I get. You'd keep the place looking like a hogpen, if I wasn't at you all the time. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... of this shell-fish, the common thin-shelled clam and the quahaug. The first is the most abundant. It is sold by the peck or bushel in the shell, or by the quart when shelled. Clams are in season all the year, but in summer a black substance is found in the body, which must be pressed from it before using. The shell of the quahaug is thick ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... catch him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon toward dusk with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's hungry. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... on 'is back ower this letter job,' said the father secretly to me. 'Mother, 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tom-foolery, isn't it? Ay! What's good o' makkin' a peck o' trouble over what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No—not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ty, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... spring of 1824, I went into company with two men by the name of Peck, from Bristol. We took two hundred of these movements and a few tools in two one horse wagons and started East, intending to stop in the vicinity of Boston. We stopped at a place about fifteen miles from there called East Randolph; after looking about a little, we concluded ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... Quimbo throwing down a coarse bag containing a peck of corn, "thar, nigger, grab, you won't get ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... whose branches depended seven roasted 'possums. It was some consolation to look at them, and imagine how good they would taste if he only could taste them. Presently a little gingerbread bird flew down and began to peck at him, and say, "Git up, Sam! You ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... house of my wife's father, he set down at the back-door a basket containing fish, a big joint of roast beef, and a generous load of fruit and vegetables, including some fine, fat oranges. At the other door he left a rather unpromising-looking lump of steak and a half-peck of potatoes, not of the first quality. When he had deposited these two burdens he ran back and started his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the Paddy-bird felt hungry, she flew to a cocoa-nut and began to peck at it. But she did not know the secret of the three little holes at the top of the cocoa-nut; so she pecked, and pecked, and got no further. At last she gathered all her strength, and gave a tremendous peck at the cocoa-nut. Snap! her bill broke off, and the blood ran ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... left unpicked at the very top of a tree. It seemed strange and out of place to behold apples in midwinter like that; but, for some reason, he took only a few pecks, and his devil prompted him down to peck at some soaked bread among the violets, and to drink at a spring so exquisitely encrusted with moss that it looked as if everything, every floating dead leaf, stone, and root, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... a handsome craft, she is," the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. "There," John would add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird of mine swearing blue fire and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which, with pain and difficulty, teach us nothing, Books done by pedants and tenebrific persons, under the name of men; dwelling not on things, but, at endless length, on the outer husks of things: of unparalleled confusion, too;—not so much as an Index granted you; to the poor half-peck of cinders, hidden in these wagon-loads of ashes, no sieve allowed! Books tending really to fill the mind with mere dust-whirlwinds,—if the mind did not straightway blow them out again; which it does. Of these let us say nothing. Seldom had so curious a Phenomenon worse ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... back more than ever, mewed and gave Kashtanka a smack on the head with his paw. Kashtanka jumped back, squatted on all four paws, and craning her nose towards the cat, went off into loud, shrill barks; meanwhile the gander came up behind and gave her a painful peck in the back. Kashtanka leapt up ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... tugging, wriggled his plump, round body into the hen-house. He walked over where a lonesome looking hen was sitting patiently on a nest. He put out a cautious hand and the hen promptly gave it a vicious peck. ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... to Riversley to his grandfather in your company, you scoundrel!' he cried in a rage, after listening to him. 'I mean to drive him over. It 's a comfortable ten-mile, and no more. But I say, Master Harry, what do you say to a peck o' supper?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cents, or two pence halfpenny. They run along the different avenues, taking the length of the city. In the upper or new part of the town their course is simple enough, but as they descend to the Bowery, Peck Slip, and Pearl Street, nothing can be conceived more difficult or devious than their courses. The Broadway omnibus, on the other hand, is a straightforward, honest vehicle in the lower part of the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... taking along are potatoes and onions. Choose potatoes with small eyes and of uniform medium size, even if you have to buy half a bushel to sort out a peck. They are very heavy and bulky in proportion to their food value; so you cannot afford to be burdened with any but the best. Cereals and beans take the place of potatoes ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Aunt Polly," argued the little girl, her eyes widening; "and I thought sisters were always alike. We had two sets of 'em in the Ladies' Aiders. One set was twins, and THEY were so alike you couldn't tell which was Mrs. Peck and which was Mrs. Jones, until a wart grew on Mrs. Jones's nose, then of course we could, because we looked for the wart the first thing. And that's what I told her one day when she was complaining that people called her Mrs. Peck, and I said ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... in one it hath; its blood is eath and quick of flow, Wide-mouthed, though all the rest be black, its ears are white as snow. It hath an idol like a cock, that doth its belly peck, And half a dirhem is its worth, if thou its price ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... we should prefer new to old friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses? The answer admits of no doubt whatever. For there should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one, "You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him." Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise. There is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn. But age too must have its proper position; ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that clothing was sufficient, so was food plentiful. At the end of each week each family was given 4 lbs. of meat, 1 peck of meal, and some syrup. Each person in a family was allowed to raise a garden and so they had vegetables whenever they wished to. In addition to this they were allowed to raise chickens, to hunt and to fish. However, none of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... people who certainly do not wear their hearts on their sleeves for daws to peck at. In the eyes of the more volatile southern Celts they seem a "dour" people. They are naturally reserved, laconic of speech, without "gush," far from lavish in compliment, slow to commit themselves or to give their confidence ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Equality that art to be! Is Royalty grown a mere wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow, mayest alight at pleasure, and peck? Not ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... elderly relative, and when Austin came into the room he found his friend stooping over a very small, very dowdy old lady dressed in rusty black silk, with a large bonnet rather on one side, who was standing on tiptoe, the better to peck at St Aubyn's cheek by way of a salute. She had small, twinkling eyes, a wrinkled face, and the very honestest wig that Austin had ever seen; and yet there was an air and a style about the old body which somehow belied her quaint appearance, and suggested the ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour |
