"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the alarming traffic at the time in spiritualities fallen extinct. Had he given a list of these, as he has already in part done, without labelling them so, he would only, he believed, have given offence both to the old-rag worshippers and those that had cast the rags off, and were all, unwittingly to themselves, going about naked; considerate he in this of preserving what of worth was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... incomin's an' her outgoin's. Her daddy was a Yankee kunnel, who died fighting fer ou' freedom. She come heah when we—yas, Mr. Chuhman, when you an' Br'er Cotten—was jes sot free, an' when none er us didn' have a rag ter ou' backs. She come heah, an' she tuk yo' child'n an' my child'n, an' she teached 'em sense an' manners an' religion an' book-l'arnin'. When she come heah we didn' hab no chu'ch. Who writ up No'th an' got ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... their new jobs very hard to do—all except Chee-Chee, who had hands, and could do things like a man. But they soon got used to it; and they used to think it great fun to watch Jip, the dog, sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it for a broom. After a little they got to do the work so well that the Doctor said that he had never had his house kept so ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... I hope, in the future. I am tempted to risk a battle with 'The Observer.' With Cairns and O'Connor, myself, and one or two others—yourself, for instance, doctor—we might make the old rag gallop, possibly ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... poor dry-rotted unfortunate whose decadence we are tracing is like a leper in the scattering effects which he produces during his shaky promenade. He is indeed alone in the world, and brandy or gin is his only counsellor and comforter. As to character, the last rag of that goes when the first sign of indolence is seen; the watchers have eyes like cats, and the self-restrained men among them have usually seen so many fellows depart to perdition that every stage in the process of degradation is known to them. No! there ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... that he realized what was going on in the building a guarded door was opened and Edipon came out, blowing his sizable nose in a scrap of rag. The creaking wheel turned and when its rotation brought Jason around again he called out ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... on the Southern inhabitants; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag that covers his nakedness. On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and the difficulty of defence: nay, they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Miss Caroline to be a formidable person whom Little Miss resembled, Clem said, "as aigs look lahk aigs." No further detail could I elicit from him save that his Mistress was "not fleshily inclahned," and that Little Miss was "sweetah'n honey on a rag!" ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... duck him in the fountain in the court, it was Benham, in a state between distress and madness, and armed with a horn-handled cane of exceptional size, who intervened, turned the business into a blend of wrangle and scuffle, introduced the degrading topic of duelling into a simple wholesome rag of four against one, carried him off under the cloud of horror created by this impropriety and so saved him, still only slightly wetted, not only from this indignity but from the experiment in rationalism that had ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... but to set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson—which was the name of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else—and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth— Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges Blitzen only ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... ridicule, and against the high silliness of the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped him of his last rag of pretension and touched through to the quick of his vanity with the realization of his apprehended foolishness. Literature will have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to miss the essential triviality at the head of the present war. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... den of wild beasts," said Queenie. "You won't have a rag left on you when they're through ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... eyes and see it yet. I can see my pupils coming forward to speak their "pieces." I hardly knew them and they hardly knew me, for we were "dressed up." Many a head showed father had mowed it with the sheepshears. Mother had been busy with the wash-rag—clear back of the ears! And into them! So many of them wore collars that stuck out all stiff like they had pushed their heads on thru their ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... bounder," he muttered. "Why the blazes didn't I give my right name? I wonder what they'd say—how that girl would look—if I told them that I was the Lord Selbie this rag was cackling about? Shall I tell them? No. It would be awkward now. I shall be gone in a day or two, and ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the usual oily rag. He was a short, wiry man with grey hair and a grizzled moustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous, frank-faced resolution which one notes ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... later on, she had been angry with the gentleman neighbour for his unseemly inquiry, "What, madam, pray, might be your fortune?" and had bade them refuse him the house; and how it was then that she had given directions that, after her decease, everything to the last rag should pass to Fedor Ivanitch. And, indeed, Lavretsky found all his aunt's household goods intact, not excepting the best cap with ribbons of salmon colour, and the yellow gown of tru-tru levantine. Of old papers and interesting documents, upon ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... dirt from the weeds, put one in a dish of water, and slip a sheet of paper under it. Then lift it carefully nearly out of the water, and arrange all the little branches naturally with the brush. Now lay the paper which contains the weed on a piece of blotting-paper: over it put a rag, so that the weed is entirely covered by it, and over that another piece of blotting-paper, and on this in turn lay another sheet of paper upon which a weed has been floated. Proceed in this manner until you have a pile ready. Place it between two ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... suspicious redness around Miss Fink's eyelids. "Ain't you sweet to come over here in the headache department and help me out! Here's the wine list. You'll prob'ly need it. Say, who do you suppose invented New Year's Eve? They must of had a imagination like a Greek 'bus boy. I'm limp as a rag now, and it's only two-thirty. I've got a regular cramp in my wrist from checkin' quarts. Say, did you hear about ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... went away we were busy all day long, drawing notes and mortgages. Every unincumbered piece of our property, the orts, dregs, and offcast of our operations, were made the subjects of transfers to the rag-tag and bobtail of Lattimore society. A lot worth little or nothing was conveyed to Tom, Dick, or Harry for a great nominal price, and a mortgage for from two-thirds to three-fourths of the sum given back by this straw-man purchaser. Our mill was ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... went on he passed a fruit stand where a man was buying some bananas. In putting his change into his pocket he dropped a nickel, which rolled toward Tode who promptly set his foot on it, and then pretending to pull a rag off his torn trousers, he picked up the coin and went on chuckling over his "luck." But suddenly he stopped short and the hot color rose in his cheeks as he exclaimed ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... some pictures and statues displayed, was proposed as a model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion. Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... 'during composition.' But I am very grateful to the reviewer whoever he may be—very—and with need. See how the 'Sun' shines in response to 'Blackwood' (thank you for sending me that notice), when previously we had had but a wintry rag from the same quarter! No; if I am not spoilt by your kindness, I am not likely to be so by any of these exoteric praises, however beyond what I expected or deserved. And then I am like a bird with one wing broken. Throw it out of the window; and after the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... but there was no snow on the ground and the village boys had built a bonfire on a plot of land near Uncle Bart's joiner's shop. There was a large gathering in celebration of the historic event and Waitstill crept down the hill with her homemade rag doll in her arms. She stood on the outskirts of the crowd, a silent, absorbed little figure clad in a shabby woollen coat, with a blue knit hood framing her rosy face. Deborah, her beloved, her only ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... without defence. The godless soul will 'be found naked' and ashamed. All 'works of darkness,' laden with rich blossom or juicy fruit though they have seemed to be, will then be seen to be in tragic truth 'fruitless.' A life's spinning and weaving, and not a rag to cover the toiler after ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... pitying audience melt in tears. But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears. In vain Thalestris with reproach assails, For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 5 While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; Silence ensu'd, and thus the ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the wax will float on the surface. Put the wax into a mortar, and triturate it with a marble pestle, adding soft water to it until it forms a soft paste, which, laid neatly on furniture, or even on paintings, and carefully rubbed when dry with a woollen rag, gives a polish of great brilliancy, without the harshness of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... leading the dog and the leash slipped out of his hands," gasped the affrighted girl. "Before I'd a notion what he was going to do he was off after the puppy. I'm weak as a rag. If anything had happened ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... walked toward him until so near that he was assured that his piece would carry that far. It actually came within thirty yards of him, and he shot it while lying prone on the ground, the graceful animal noticing nothing but the white rag that had attracted ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... street, which they said was a sidewalk, and would add to the value of property in the neighborhood. Not being dressed with coal- ashes, however, during the winter, the sidewalk vanished next summer under a growth of rag-weed, and hid the increased values with it, and it is now an even question whether this monument of municipal grandeur will finally be held by Art or resumed by Nature,—who indeed has a perpetual motherly longing for her own, and may be seen in all outlying and suburban ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... agents to their doors; where the men mow and rake their fields with modern inventions, but only get their newspapers once a week; where the "help" are neighbors' girls, who wear overskirts and high hats, and sit at the table with the family; where there are rag carpets and "painted chamber-sets;" where they feed calves and young turkeys, and string apples to dry in the summer, and make wonderful patchwork quilts, and wax flowers, and worsted work, perhaps, in the long winters; where they go to church and to sewing societies from miles about, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hay, and over that the popple poles again well tied with hand twisted ropes of wild hay, to those below. It was a good roof, only it leaked like a sieve. The floor was just the ground. Over it we put a layer of the wild hay and then staked a rag carpet over it. A puncheon shelf to put my trunk under, and the furniture placed, made a home that I was more than satisfied with. It took my husband over two weeks with a pair of trotting oxen to go for the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Was it credible that a man who possessed miraculous power should not, in this supreme moment, use it to deliver Himself? Did not 'Physician, heal Thyself,' come in properly there? Would any of the most besotted followers of this pretender retain a rag of belief in His Messiahship if He was crucified? Could it be possible that, if there was a God at all, He should leave a man that really trusted in Him, not to say who was really His Son, to die ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... for after they began to grow bigger they were not so sure about it. We little ones were all of one mind: that a creature that couldn't fight and was aye carrying tales, and couldn't so much as shy a stone without flapping its arm like a rag in the wind, was no use for anything. And then the airs that they would put on, as if they were mother and father rolled into one; for ever breaking into a game with "Jimmy, your toe's come through your boot," or "Go ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pleasanter. At least, the bear seemed pleased to meet me, but this grizzly old man! Well, I suppose my hail disturbed his siesta, and my little sloop passing his great ship had somewhat the effect on him that a red rag has upon a bull. I had the advantage over heavy ships, by long odds, in the light winds of this and the two previous days. The wind was light; his ship was heavy and foul, making poor headway, while the Spray, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... cut two holes in the walls for windows, and she covered them with greased paper to let in the light. He made a wooden door that could be shut against the cold winter winds. Abe and Dennis gave the walls and low ceiling a coat of whitewash, and Sarah spread her bright rag rugs on the new ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... detailed for guard-duty, walks off; his voice grows fainter and fainter in the distance, and we call forth our poet. One eye is bandaged with a dirty cotton rag. He is bareheaded, and his hair resembles a dismantled straw stack. His elbows and knees are out, and his pants, from the knee down, have a brown-toasted tinge imparted by the genial heat of many a fire. His toes protrude themselves prominently ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... day, but some of the women were there—a young married woman, two big girls, and six or seven children. It was a hard frost and their sleeping accommodation was just as in the summer-time—bundles of straw and old rugs placed in or against little half-open canvas and rag shelters; but they all appeared remarkably well, and some of the children were standing on the hard frozen ground with bare feet. They assured me that they were all well, that they hadn't caught colds and didn't mind the cold. I remarked that I had thought ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... to broad noon, and hunger makes it dinner-time, and the young kinsmen who have strolled abroad come home, one of them with his hand bound up in a white rag that has drops of blood on it, for he has picked a quarrel in the street and steel has been out, as usual, though no one has been killed, because the 'bargello' and his men were in sight, down there near the Orsini's theatre-fortress. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... old man, with a rag-bag in his hand, was picking up a number of small pieces of whalebone which lay on the street. The deposit was of such a singular nature, that we asked the quaint-looking gatherer how he supposed they came there. "Don't know," he replied, in a squeaking voice; "but I 'spect some unfortunate ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... rag and wipe your face and hands, and give it to the others and let them use it, too. Put those plates upon the table." We immediately obeyed orders, and took our seats again around the fire. "One of you go and ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... wring out a long strip of rag in cold water, and put it round your neck, letting the ends rest on the chest," said Jan. "A double piece, from two to three inches broad. It must be covered outside with thin waterproof skin to keep the wet in; you know what I mean; Decima's got some; oil-skin's too thick. And get a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... enough, and the two together ran the heavy contrivance across the room to the position selected. Once a leg caught in the rag carpet, and Keith lifted it out, bending low to get a firmer grip. Then he held out his hand ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... these people are! Oh dear! You are fools, fools," she cried, addressing the whole room, "you don't know, you don't know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! She take it, she? She'd sell her last rag, she'd go barefoot to help you if you needed it, that's what she is! She has the yellow passport because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, husband! Do you see? Do you see? What ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... March, she says: "This is the time to be here; this is what I enjoy! To wear my old clothes every day, grub in the ground, dig dandelions and eat them too, plant my seeds and watch them, fly on the tricycle, row in a boat, get into my dressing-gown right after tea, and make lovely rag rugs all the evening, and nobody to disturb us,— this is fun!" In the house and out of it she was capable of everything. How beautiful her skill was as a dressmaker, the exquisite lines in her own black or gray or white dresses testified to every one who ever saw ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... '69 was 7,506—a little above the average majority. The canvass was fought largely upon the issue of the greenback payment of the debt. The Pendleton plan of indirect repudiation failed, and the rag infant was decently interred, ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... him were bare, dirty-white walls, that seemed to grow out of the gray light of a wet morning as the natural deposit from such a solution. Two slender poles, meant to support curtains, but without a rag of drapery upon them, rose at his feet, like the masts of a Charon's boat. Was he indeed in the workhouse he had pre—ferred to Cairncarque? It could hardly be, for there was the plaster fallen in great patches from the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... you like!" was the reply; and as Mr. Taylor was not usually a man given to violent language, I understood that Miss Blake's name acted upon his temper with the same magical effect as a red rag does upon that of ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... smooth, thick-bottomed frying pan, scald it out with hot water, and wipe it dry; set it on the stove or range, and when very hot, rub it over the bottom with a rag dipped in butter; then place your steak or chops in it, turn often until cooked through, take up on a warm platter, and season both sides with salt, pepper and butter. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... Stephen roused himself. He took a piece of soap from a shelf of the cupboard, threw a dirty rag over his arm, and went down to wash at the tap in the yard. Only on returning did ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... at the Hon. P.C. McGovern's Fourth Ward Association's excursion and picnic, at which he was one of the twenty-five vice-presidents. On this occasion Hefty had jumped overboard after one of the Rag Gang whom the members of the Half-Hose Social Club had, in a spirit of merriment, dropped over the side of the boat. This action and the subsequent rescue and ensuing intoxication of the half-drowned member of the Rag Gang had filled Miss Casey's heart with admiration, and she told ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... it, Drake. I don't want a cent. I'm not hard up. Thanks all the same." Garrison's rag of honor was fluttering in the ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... his frowning forehead, Patty ran to the piano, and began to play "Silver Threads Among the Gold," to a rag-time ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... with a philosophic, "Aside from the question of brutality, this marriage by capture isn't a sporting proposition. It's like jacking deer. I'm not for it. And, O Lord, what's the use of chewing the rag so much about it? Wait a while. We'll get them yet, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... having booked a few details of each case, produced a form of oath to be accepted. Nothing could be conceived more passive than the obedience promised, or more stringent than the terms by which the juror bound himself. The man who forfeited a pledge so awful could scarcely have a rag of honour or any of the consolations of religion left to him. Florizel signed the document, but not without a shudder; the Colonel followed his example with an air of great depression. Then the President ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rags, clothes, O.N. dudi, "vestes plumatae" (Haldorson), duda (duetha), to wrap up heavily, to swaddle. Gael. dud, rag, is a loan-word from O.N. It is possible that the word may have come into Lowland Sco. by way ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom
... him out of the way, or to make his testimony incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-lunatic returned from Europe a year ago, our friend Honeywell here, in some way located him at the Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through a letter broker who deals with the rag and refuse collectors, he got all the second-hand mail from the Caronia. Meantime, William Honeywell Robinson had moved away, and as chance would have it, William Hunter Robinson moved in, receiving the pinprick letters ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Ruvignes Great Sankanya, a village west of the Volta, where a large gold-field was reported. As we drew near the spot we were told that the precious metal appears during the 'yam-customs,' and that only prayers, sacrifices, and presents to the fetish will make it visible. Presently we saw a white rag on a pole, which the dark youth, our guide, called a 'sign,' and groaned out that it would surely slay us. A woman, whose white and black beads showed a 'religious,' pointed to a place where gold is 'common as ashes ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... meantime Phineas was taken to Newgate, and was there confined, almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the people,—the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls, Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen, Judges, Bishops, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... fourth. To prevent confusion and promote 'sport,' the Pit will be enclosed and furnished with seats; so that those having a curiosity to witness a species of diversion originating in a better day (for they had no rag money then,) can have that very natural ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... down into an attic, which was also a lumber-room. It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders and picture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... against the wall. The ragged man looked up, moved his bucket of water, dipped his mop-rag into it and went on with his work. Henry took a stop forward, and then felt for the wall again. A death-like paleness had overspread his face, and he appeared vainly to be trying to shut his staring and expressionless eyes. The waiter took hold of ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... over into the water, and the ship, sailing onward all the time, leaves it there, floating edge upwards. The man who holds the reel lifts it up high, so that the line can run off easily as the ship moves on. As soon as the first rag runs off, which denotes the beginning of the marked point of the line, he calls ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... thumping of a rockerless chair on the floor. Presently the mother of the child came out. She blinked from the staring blue eyes which she timidly raised to Mostyn's face. Her dress was a poor drab rag of a thing which hung limply over her thin form. Her hair was tawny and drawn into a tight, unbecoming knot at the back of her head. No collar of any sort hid ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... barber himself, an unwashed, greasy, but foppishly dressed youth of three and twenty, is busy clearing up; there is really nothing to be cleared away, but he is perspiring with his exertions. In one place he polishes with a rag, in another he scrapes with his finger or catches a bug and ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in the name of Gott, how could you set it on fire without burning it?" "I never set it on fire at all," said the jockey; "I set this on fire," showing us a piece of half-burnt calico. "I placed this calico above it, and lighted not the handkerchief, but the rag. Now I will show you something else. I have a magic shilling in my pocket, which I can make run up along my arm. But, first of all, I would gladly know whether either of you can do the like." Thereupon the Hungarian and myself, putting our hands into our pockets, took out shillings, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... man had, besides the lanthorn, a bowl of water and a piece of rag in his hand. He set them down, and going out again, fetched in a stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on a nail, took the bowl and rag, and invited me ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils! Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins! Thou rag of ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... would scarce have been safe if, in his Emperor's present mood, the two had been together—this old man had a grudge against the one perfect girl on earth. There was no black rag of scandal he would not stoop to pick out of the mud and fly as a flag of battle, soothing his conscience—if he had one—by saying it ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the soldiers, "it will be pretty tough if Props' rag baby gets scalped, that's a fact. Come on! Shack along, boys! They are looking for ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... old man! He is wedded to his 'rag,' as he calls the Clarion. But, at the same time, I do look forward to seeing him again, and hearing his beautiful rich ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... and dressed her arm as well as she could. Verena was quite a skilful little nurse in her own way, and as Pauline had some of the wonderful ointment which the Kings' cook had given her, and as Verena knew very nicely how to spread it on a piece of rag, the arm soon became ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... such an ox?" the Syrian retorted. "A fly can sting him; a little knife can bleed him; a red rag can enrage him; and the crows who devour that sort of meat won't worry as to whether he was killed according to ritual! He has money for Feisul, has he? Well, never mind. He has a letter as well, and that is what I want. Will ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... in 1818-19, I frequently saw slaves on and around the public square, with hardly a rag of clothing on them, and in a great many instances with but a single garment both in summer and in winter; generally the only bedding of the slaves was ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the scholars talk aloud, drink healths, and curse Meroz in the very streets; insomuch that when the King came in, they were not only like them that dream, but like them who are out of their wits, mad, stark, staring mad." This unholy 'rag' (to modernise the old gentleman's language) continued for a twelvemonth: that is to say, until the Vice-Chancellor—holding that the demonstration, like Miss Mary Bennet's pianoforte playing in Pride and Prejudice, had delighted the company long enough—put his ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... malcontents, the Parliament was abruptly dissolved. What then stepped in to take its place? A small body, effectively about eighty strong at the utmost, having no pretence of representing the community at that time, or of being anything else than the casual surviving rag of a Parliament of 500, the members of which had been elected at various times, and irregularly, between 1640 and 1649. Nay, it was not even the surviving rag of that Parliament itself, but the rag of a stump to which that Parliament had been already reduced in 1649 by prior military hacking ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... on the way back she had seen the young Mexican riding along, and he had looked perfectly harmless and innocent, and he had a rag tied around his head besides, and kept putting his hand up, and wabbling in the saddle exactly as though he was just about ready to fall off his horse. And how, for gracious sake, was a person going to know he was only pretending and not sick or hurt a speck, but merely ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... in the matter of standing collars and rag-time, but she leads the world in profanity. Without being swelled on myself, I'll say, too, that I once had more'n a local reputation in that line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits which has won modest attention, ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... while, very dreadful. Again, in the morning, a great stone, being six-pound weight, did remove from place to place,—we saw it,—two spoons throwed off the table, and presently the table throwed down. And, being minded to write, my inkhorn was hid from me, which I found, covered with a rag, and my pen quite gone. I made a new pen; and, while I was writing, one ear of corn hit me in the face, and fire, sticks, and stones throwed at me, and my pen brought to me. While I was writing with my new pen, my inkhorn taken away: and, not knowing how to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... called the bower-bird, because when a bower-bird wishes to go courting he builds in the Bush a little pavilion, and adorns it with all the gay, bright objects he can—bits of rag or metal, feathers from other birds, coloured stones and flowers. In this he sets himself to dancing until some lady bower-bird is attracted, and they set up housekeeping together. The bower-bird is credited with ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... on the veteran's faded coat, the staff saluted; for the cross, though it were hung on rag's, wherever it went was entitled by custom to the salute of officers and ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... full to overflowing. He would pull curiosities from them, transparent pebbles found on the banks of the Seine, pieces of old iron, dried berries, and all sorts of strange rubbish, which not even a rag-picker would have cared for. His chief love, however, was for pictures; as he sauntered along he would seize on all the stray papers that had served as wrappers for chocolate or cakes of soap, and on which were black ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... place strewed with old bones, shells, parrots' feathers, etc., close to which stood a platform of interwoven sticks. I was terribly puzzled at first to account for the presence of this miniature rag and bone depot, and my astonishment culminated when ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... are of this description. The coloquintida grows in great abundance in all of them, it is used by the Arabs to make tinder, by the following process: after roasting the root in the ashes, they wrap it in a wetted rag of cotton cloth, they then beat it between two stones, by which means the juice of the fruit is expressed and absorbed by the rag, which is dyed by it of a dirty blue; the rag is then dried in the sun, and ignites with the slightest spark of fire. The Arabs nearest to Egypt use the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... him with her wand and covered him with wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over his whole body; she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine ones; she changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also gave him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to sling ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... orders, when a shot took the box from beneath his feet, throwing him heavily upon the deck. Mr. Brum, the master, a veteran man-o'-war's man, was struck by a huge splinter, which knocked him down, and actually stripped every rag of clothing from his body. He was thought to be dead, but soon re-appeared at his post, with a strip of canvas about his waist, and fought bravely until the end of the action. Some days before the battle, a gentleman of Oswego gave one of the sailors a glazed ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... himself. He says he can do nothing—you should have seen him walking up and down the room, dressed in a suit of clothes out of a rag shop, yellow-grey things two sizes too big for him; he has to roll up the ends of the trousers. He had no collar on, and to keep his neck warm he had tied an old pink scarf round his throat. He couldn't walk either way above a couple of yards, for the roof slants down almost to the floor; ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... strange steel monsters, half bird, half reptile, with steel beaked and winged helmets and claw-like steel shoes, and jointed steel corselet and rustling steel mail coat; before the infantry of Gascony, rapid and rapacious with their tattered doublets and rag-bound feet; before the over-fed, immensely plumed, and slashed and furbelowed giants of Switzerland, and the starved, half-naked savages of Brittany and the Marches—before this multifaced, many-speeched army, gathered from the rich cities of the North and the devastated ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... way to a small room with white curtains at the windows and rag rugs upon the floor and a big silk crazy-quilt on an old four-poster bed. She hurried about and found soap and towels for him, and left him with the hope that he would make himself ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... man, whose mistake was responsible for Alfred's grotesque appearance, was stationed by the jokers behind a fence near the depot. As Alfred hove in sight with the old rag carpet flapping around his form, Gus shouted: "Goot bye, Mr. Fieldt. Goot luck. Your show iz great. Kum unt see us agen. I hope your show ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... more than the car was the fur coat, and the haughty and fastidious manner in which Miss Ingram accepted it from the chauffeur, and the disdainful, accustomed way in which she wore it—as though it were a cheap rag—when once it was on her back. In her gestures he glimpsed a new world. He had been secretly scorning the affairs of the luncheon and all that it implied, and he had been secretly scorning himself for his pitiful ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... whom the reverse might have been expected. As for the innumerable army of anaemic and tailorish persons who occupy the face of this planet with so much propriety, it is palpably absurd to imagine them in any such situation as a love-affair. A wet rag goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery. Apart from all this, many lovable people miss each other in the world, or meet under some ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... descended upon the minister in twinkles of amusement around his eyes and lips much like the smile that Tom MacMertrie had worn, only there was not a rag of hurt pride about it. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... said nothing that we hear; silently became a Nun, an Abbess: and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest like an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding and tossing. Her two Brothers also, joint Burggraves after their Father's death, seemed to have reconciled themselves without difficulty. The elder of them was already Sigismund's Brother-in-law; married to Sigismund's and Wenzel's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... of stimulation died down, Ralph could see that it was with the most exhaustive effort that his fireman kept up his nerve and strength. Fogg was weak and panting the last shovel full of coal he threw into the furnace, as they sighted Stanley Junction. He was as limp as a rag, and looked wretched as the train ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... to the doctor as a red rag to a bull. "Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going right over to the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... viewing from the coveted window the scene between Julia and Sir George; a scene which gave her the profoundest satisfaction. What she could not see—her eyes were no longer all that they had been—she imagined. In five minutes she had torn up the last rag of the girl's character, and proved her as bad as the worst woman that ever rode down Cheapside in a cart. Lady Dunborough was not mealy-mouthed, nor one of those who ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... little beggar." An odd note of tenderness crept through the grimness of Monck's speech. "But I didn't stop then. He had to have his lesson and he had it. When I had done with him, there was no kick left in him. He was as limp as a wet rag. But he was quite sober. And to the best of my belief he has never been anything else from that day to this. Of course it was all highly irregular, but it saved a worse row in the end." Monck's faint smile appeared. "He realized ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... are red fellows on horseback, with spears and shields, but without a rag on them," he exclaimed. "They seem to be fighting with another set of fellows dressed as Spaniards, and, hang it, the latter are turning heels and flying." The rancheroes seemed very much excited all the time, and rode a little way down the hill, that they might ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... in this water—not until I can see bottom," declared Grace, finally selecting a bit of rag that Betty used to polish the brass work of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... like, "I must say you were very brave to kill that wooden figure. I'm not afraid of snakes, but I'd certainly be afraid of a wooden figure. Tell me, did you ever kill a rag doll?" ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... night before in a fight outside a music-pavilion. The contempt and the ridicule that were heaped upon him in the conversation of the boys were immeasurable. When he came next morning with a black, extravasated eye, which he bathed at intervals with a rag, he was regarded by most of us as absolute scum. The German master, a tall, good-looking man, was treated as utterly incompetent because, when he asked a question in grammar or syntax, he walked up and down with the book in front ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... on the previous Saturday, so that considerable time was allowed for the elucidation of the mystery. "And the things is already being packed, and her Ladyship,—that is, if she is her Ladyship,—is taking every dress and every rag as she ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... fishing. One did not have to go in search of it, for it was there at the rail. A three-inch steel hook, on the end of a stout line, with a piece of white rag for bait, was all that was necessary to catch bonitas weighing from ten to twenty-five pounds. Bonitas feed on flying-fish, wherefore they are unaccustomed to nibbling at the hook. They strike as gamely as the gamest fish in the sea, and their first ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... come prepared to surprise and bully rag the most astute police detective of whom he had any knowledge; he found himself ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... most unsuitable one to my mind, she being a chilly sort of woman, poor dear, who always shivered if she saw so much as a hen moulting. I'm sure it would distress her terribly if she knew that poor creature over there had to stand in the glen in all weathers, year in and year out, with only a rag to cover her. And a stone rag at that, which is a cold material at the best. Yes, this is only the beginning of a track which runs for miles across the hills to the South. It is so green that you can always make it out from the heights, and there are all sorts of legends about it. It is ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... surroundings with a minuteness which contrasted oddly with the brief, hurried entries further on. He found himself, as he had anticipated, in a society composed of some of the most heterogeneous elements. Stillwater, viewed from a certain point, was a sort of microcosm, a little international rag-fair to which nearly every country on earth had contributed one of its shabby human products. "I am moving," wrote Mr. Taggett, "in an atmosphere in which any crime is possible. I give myself seven days at the outside to light upon the traces of Shackford's murder. I feel him in the air." ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... road ran between the summer fields, lying waveless, low, gracious in promise; but, coming to a wood of hickory and beech and walnut that stood beyond, he might turn his down-bent-hat-brim up and hold his head erect. Here the shade fell deep and cool on the green tangle of rag and iron weed and long grass in the corners of the snake fence, although the sun beat upon the road so dose beside. There was no movement in the crisp young leaves overhead; high in the boughs there was a quick flirt of crimson where two robins hopped noiselessly. No insect raised ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... and Godfrey picked up one of the books and ran rapidly through the pages. "You remember we found him squatting on the floor with a rag and a tooth and a ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... A French rag this morning had some cheering telegrams about the Allies—that left, centre, and right were all more than holding their own, even if the enemy is rather near Paris. What about the Russians who came through England? We've heard of trains ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... bullock-cart comes along, drawn by two lean animals with their ribs sticking out. A heavy yoke passes across their necks, but otherwise they have not a scrap of harness on them. That lean man huddled up on the pole between them, clad in a few yards of rag, prods them with a pointed stick when he wants them to go this way and that. He dares not now twist their tails till he breaks them, or keep open running sores so that he may prick them in a sensitive part, as he ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... know," said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see. Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like a red rag to a bull ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... tears in his eyes, and I beckoned the daughter to follow me. We passed into the parlor, drew the curtain over the doorway—and there was nothing but that rag between ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... lad to himself, and he stuck his finger in. When he drew it out it was covered all over with gold. The lad scrubbed and scrubbed, but he could not get the gold off. Then he was terribly frightened. He took a rag and wound it about his finger and hoped his master would not notice it. He shut the door into the cellar and ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... ball and flung it away into the bushes, where I daresay it is at this moment. "Away with you," I cried, "away with you, symbol of conventionality, of slavery, of pandering to a desire to please—away with you, miserable little lace-edged rag!" And so young had I grown within the last few minutes that I did not even ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... fate call us. And I have a thousand things to tell you, to bless you for, to consult you about. There is not a thought in my mind that you shall not know—bad, good, and indifferent—if you care to turn out the rag-bag. Shall I begin with the morning—my experiences at the club, my little nieces at the Zoo?" He laughed, but suddenly grew serious again. "No, your story first; you owe it me. Let me know all that concerns you. Your past, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thistle, pigeon-weed, burdock, broad and narrow-leaved dock, poke-weed, clot-bur, three-thorned bur, supposed to have been introduced from Spain by the Merino sheep, Jamestown or "jimson" weed, sorrel, and, in favorable seasons, a heavy growth of lambs quarter and rag-weed. ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... of life he was thoroughly consistent, always showing contempt for money, stubborn persistence in the right, and courage in the face of danger. Some people thought him too ambitious, for even with philosophers 6 the passion for fame is often their last rag of infirmity. After Thrasea's fall Helvidius was banished, but he returned to Rome under Galba and proceeded to prosecute Eprius Marcellus,[251] who had informed against his father-in-law. This attempt to secure a revenge, as bold as it was just, divided the senate into two ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... hat—for the small shape of which she breathed a prayer of thankfulness!—and her own shoes under her arm and covered by the shawl, she took the candle again, closed the trap-door, and stepped over to the washstand. Here, she dampened a rag, that did duty as a facecloth, and thrust it into her pocket; then, blowing out the candle, she groped her way to the door, locked it behind her, and without any attempt at secrecy made her ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... in the saddle, like a wet rag, and the Indian girl was slipping from his arms to the ground when Ted seized her and transferred ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... that, and Fleda's cheeks growing crimson, Mrs. Plumfield stepped forward to ask after the old lady's health; and while she talked and listened Fleda's eyes noted the spotless condition of the room—the white table, the nice rag-carpet, the bright many-coloured patch-work counterpane on the bed, the brilliant cleanliness of the floor where the small carpet left the boards bare, the tidy look of the two women; and she made up her mind that she could get along with Miss Barbara very well. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... purifying when they burn a rag," observed the Duke, serenely. He lighted another cigar, beaming through the smoke ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, didn't get Uncle Wiggily after all, and if the pepper caster doesn't throw dust in the potato's eyes, and make it sneeze at the rag doll, I'll tell you next about ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... clothes, and some change of linen," said Maurice. "I have them in a bundle here, done up in a great sheet. Hullo! there are two bundles. I didn't notice that you had brought a second one, Brown-Eye. You'll not leave me a rag to my back if you give Neal ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... A bailiff!" Finally he was compelled to kneel down and to curse his father and mother. Having performed this ceremony he was permitted,—and the permission was blamed by many of the Savoyards,—to limp home without a rag upon him. [789] The Bog of Allen, the passes of the Grampians, were not more unsafe than this small knot of lanes, surrounded by the mansions of the greatest nobles of a flourishing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hours, and the sun was slanting down before the road yielded, far and far away, a speck that grew into a cart going slowly. By and by she was able to see her husband driving, but nobody with him—only a rag or a garment that fluttered from the side. Her mind snatched at it; was it—God! ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... squalid streets that night, where squatters were vending old shoes and boots that seemed scarcely worth picking out of the kennel, and garments that appeared beneath the notice of the rag merchant, I saw the little Bedouins still in full force, just as though no effort had been made for their reclamation and housing. As they crowded the doorsteps, huddled in the gutters, or vended boxes of lights and solicited the honour of shining "your boots, sir," I could ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... murmuring his name, then rubbed her eyes. It took her several minutes to realise that it was all a dream. She was in her own little room in the brown house, and the sun was peeping through the shutters. The holes in the rag carpet, the cheap, cracked mirror, the braided mat in front of her washstand, and the broken pitcher ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... could not follow and could only sit and thrill to the impact of unguessed power. Then she played to him—no longer at him—and probed him with music that sank to depths beyond her plumb-line. His nature opened to music as a flower to the sun, and the transition was quick from his working-class rag-time and jingles to her classical display pieces that she knew nearly by heart. Yet he betrayed a democratic fondness for Wagner, and the "Tannhauser" overture, when she had given him the clew to ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... him go. At the moment of leaving he turned round and let fall a few more words. We will not gather them up. History has no rag-picker's basket. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... standing warning against spoiling one's patients. I wouldn't have them and their whole tag-rag and bobtail ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passengers did, but we had afterwards the liberty of little cabins for such of us as had any bedding to lay in them, and room to stow any box or trunk for clothes and linen, if we had it (which might well be put in), for some of them had neither shirt nor shift or a rag of linen or woollen, but what was on their backs, or a farthing of money to help themselves; and yet I did not find but they fared well enough in the ship, especially the women, who got money from the seamen for washing their clothes, sufficient to purchase ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... rag-and-bone man blundered up first, his face a perfect tangle of beard and hair, and the eyebrows like bits of tow stuck on with sealing-wax. It was The Tramp—Traveller of the World, the Eternal Wanderer, homeless as the wind; ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... from him to spin down the long floor of the sala, hands on hips, whistling a rag-time tune. The Prince and young Breckenridge caught her up, and she spun back with the latter, while Gillow-it was believed to be his sole accomplishment-snapped his fingers in simulation of bones, and shuffled after the couple on ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... drawing is finished it is placed on a board lined with sheets of blotting paper, then one spreads all over it the aniline brown with a brush, and, lastly, after drying, the paper is carefully rubbed with a bung of cotton or a rag imbued with turpentine until the lines of the ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... some of those vagabonds, that strip the dead soldier on the field of glory, came and took every rag off me; they wrought me no further ill, because ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... nothing to wear," began Fan impressively; "I 've been too busy to think or care till now, but here it is nearly May and I have hardly a decent rag to my back. Usually, you know, I just go to Mrs. O'Grady and tell her what I want; she makes my spring wardrobe, Papa pays the bill, and there I am. Now I 've looked into the matter, and I declare ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... specially and seriously good man, a proud father, a very patient husband, a sane moralist, and a reliable ally. One could not be so very much surprised if somebody pretended to be Tony Weller. But the Eatanswill Gazette is definitely depicted in "Pickwick" as a dirty and unscrupulous rag, soaked with slander and nonsense. It was really interesting to find a modern paper proud to take its name. The case cannot be compared to anything so simple as a resurrection of one of the "Pickwick" characters; yet a very good parallel ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... inquired the Colonel. "I'm gwine to feed it, sir; its mammy is ded, an' I hab to feed it myself." "What do you give it to eat?" "I char 'tater, spit it out on my finger an' wipe 'cross de chile's mouf, arter dat I make a sugar rag, put some sweet flag in it, put de rag in de chile's mouf and lay it down; it goes to sleep, an' wen it wakes up ef it cries I gin it some more 'tater." "But," queried the Colonel, "suppose it is sick?" "I kin always tell dat; ef it draws up its legs and kicks, I kno dat sumthin' ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... such a crippled army, what else can a fellow do?" replied the leader of the other crowd. "We throw up the sponge, and wave the white rag. You're too much for us, that's what. I reckoned it'd be that way when I saw Fred Fenton was along. He put you up to that game of dividing your forces, and getting us under a cross-fire, I'll be bound. And that ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Bella brings out a dirty bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at the fountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some sticky toffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the apple is rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called a pocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and share the things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into its mouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, for they ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, but hadn't no more spunk'n a wet rag. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown |
