"Back door" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said "it wuz a shame to dedicate a book that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a lot of creeters that he wouldn't have in the back door yard." ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... who had bustled about the porch and pantry some time, appeared after a short interval, at the back door. Uncle Nathan understood the signal, and taking Mary by the hand, led her into a kitchen, neatly covered with a rag carpet, and furnished with old-fashioned wooden chairs. A little round tea-table stood in the middle of the room, covered ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... o'clock Saturday morning Linda ran the Bear Cat to the back door, where she and Katy packed it. Before they had finished, Donald Whiting came down the sidewalk, his cheeks flushed with the exercise of walking, his eyes bright with anticipation, his cause forever won—in case he had a cause—with Katy, because she liked the wholesome, ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the highest importance to the student of Mental Science. The great fact to be realized regarding Nature is that it is natural. We may pervert the order of Nature, but it will prevail in the long run, returning, as Horace says, by the back door even though we drive it out with a pitchfork; and the beginning, the middle, and the end of the law of Nature is the principle of growth from a vitality inherent in the entity itself. If we realize this from the outset we shall not undo our own work by endeavouring ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... 6 Leslie slipped out by the back door. He was attired in a long old fashioned ulster, a deer stalking cap, large golosha boots, and a hunting suit as he had gone to hunt for Sylvia. On his right arm he carried a bag containing clean under linen and other odds and ends also his money consisting ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... she finished, and walking straight through the kitchen and the consoling neighbours, I opened the back door, and closing it after me, sat down on the single step. I can't remember that I shed a tear or that I suffered, but I can still see as plainly as if it were yesterday, the clothes-line stretching across the little yard and the fluttering, half-dried garments ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... fertile land and the running water, and have allotted land to the Indian where neither wood nor water exist, no crops will grow, no human life can be supported. I have seen the land. I have seen the Indian begging at the back door. Oh, yes, they were an "inferior race." Oh, yes, they didn't and couldn't use the land to the best advantage, couldn't build Broadway and the Union Pacific Railroad, couldn't improve real estate. If you choose ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... front door, and finding a path reached the yard. The house was only a small one, with a little verandah at the rear on to which the back door opened. On either side of the door were two fair-sized windows, and by some good fortune it chanced that the catch of one ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... Fortunately I never had to witness the preceding scenes, except when pigs were slaughtered. Then it was sometimes unavoidable. One day is still fresh in my memory. I was standing in the hall and gazing out through the open back door into the court, where it just happened that several persons were down on the ground struggling with a pig that was squealing its last. I was paralyzed with horror. As soon as I recovered control of myself I took to ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... down. It was uninhabited; no one but a Parisian gamine could have lived in it, and Ninette had long occupied it, unmolested, save by the rats. Through the broken palings in the garden she had no difficulty in passing, and as its back door had fallen to pieces, there was nothing to bar her further entry. In one of the few rooms which had its window intact, right at the top of the house, a mere attic, Ninette had installed herself and her scanty goods, and henceforward this became my ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... here appeared his even break. He sprang up, went with swinging strides down the slope, taking the shortest cut, and reached the cabin by the back door. The Mexican still lay under his tree. Kendric looked in at the door. No one there, just a bare, empty untidy room. It was bedroom, kitchen and dining-room. In the latter capacity it appealed strongly to Kendric. He went in, set ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... should say her place was at the back door," declared Mildred. "Old Dick Buck's granddaughter needn't expect to get any ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... cramming his bandolier with cartridges and buckling it over his shoulder. Helen seized a flashlight and hurried through the back door to the stable. In thirty seconds they followed. They saw her reappear—they heard her ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... we will, with a famous supper, too, that would make a ghost hungry. Come with us up to uncle Nat's. Water, why there is a trough full at his back door, that you may bathe in all over if you like; and as for cider, we'll just try that before you say anything ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... hour later that she went to the back door, to send Roger home with Charley. What she saw there sent her flying once more to interfere with the children's play. Fastened by bits of rope and twine to the plank were her three choicest sofa cushions, of white ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... recognize her till he drew up before the house. Then he condescended, "Better jump out here and I'll take the boat around back. Say, see if the back door is unlocked, will you?" She unlatched the door for him. She realized that she still carried the damp glove she had stripped off for Erik. She drew it on. She stood in the center of the living-room, unmoving, in damp coat and muddy rubbers. Kennicott was as opaque as ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... them or not, we don't know. What we know is, that soon after Pearson came out from the back room, where he and Knight and the Sheriff had been closeted, the Sheriff said that Knight was bailed—he would not say by whom. Knight being looked after, was not to be found. He had slipped out through a back door, and thus cheated the crowd of the pleasure of greeting him—possibly with that rough and ready affection which Barclay's brewers bestowed upon Haynau. The escape was very fortunate every way. Hughes ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... time, came into the room; and when Yue-ts'un made inquiries and found out from him that the guests in the front parlour had been detained to dinner, he could not very well wait any longer, and promptly walked away down a side passage and out of a back door. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... than the back door of hell. Let it go and nail yours on top. Holy Smoke, if I'd knowed what a job this was—here, what are you doing now? Aw, give me that notice! Now where's your tacks? Say, Hank, pull ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... summer-time he used to forage for himself, subsisting mainly on roach, with an occasional conger-eel which he caught in the Dodder. One day early in April, 1902, the cat—whom we called Beethoven, because of his indulgence in moonlight fantasias—came to the back door mewing, and on opening the door my father found that it had lost an eye—probably in a fight—and evidently wished him to supply the loss artificially, which he did. I have never heard a cat purr so loudly as Beethoven did on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... at the timid knocking, and rubbed her eyes. It was long since she had slept in the daytime and she was annoyed at such laziness. She opened the back door and led the old woman to ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quiet in the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. She, on hearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closed and bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which he had been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, he returned to the scene ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... pans, and a variety of appetizing odors; above the cackle of Lisa and Gertrudis rang the merry laugh of Juanita as she waited on the busy cooks; while Miguel could be seen haunting the region of the back door. ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... big iron gateway, is flanked by two guardhouses painted with white and black stripes, the Prussian "colors," and two unbluffable Landsturm men mount guard, who will tell you to go around to the back door. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Phillis ironed, was not encumbered with much furniture. Her ironing-table occupied a large part of its centre, and in the ample fireplace was blazing a fire great enough to cook a repast for a moderate number of giants. Behind the back door stood a common pine bedstead, with an enormous bed upon it. How any bedstead held such a bed was remarkable; for Phillis believed there was a virtue in feathers even in the hottest weather, and she would rather have gone to roost on the nearest tree ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... At the dingy back door, the old horse stopped. The farmer and his wife almost carried Dorothy in, and the strain made her close her eyes again; ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... it you pleased called for—angelica, ma'am, did you say? At present we are quite out, I'm ashamed to say, of angelica, ma'am—Well, child," continued Mrs. Bertrand to her maid, who was at this moment seen passing by the back door of ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... through the back door, as it were. That is to say, instead of landing at Batavia, which is the capital of Netherlands India, and presenting my letters of introduction to the Governor-General, Count van Limburg Stirum, I landed at Pasuruan, at the eastern ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... turns out good, dear," she said, wiping her forehead with her apron. She looked out the open back door. The landscape was beginning to gray as heavier clouds moved down from the mountains and pressed the afternoon heat closer, more oppressively to the ground. "My, it's getting hot. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we didn't get a little rain this afternoon, Marilou." She turned ...
— One Martian Afternoon • Tom Leahy
... whatever else it may be. I have often thought that to this training of my tramp days is due much of my success as a story-writer. In order to get the food whereby I lived, I was compelled to tell tales that rang true. At the back door, out of inexorable necessity, is developed the convincingness and sincerity laid down by all authorities on the art of the short-story. Also, I quite believe it was my tramp-apprenticeship that made a realist out of me. Realism ...
— The Road • Jack London
... been selected by Titania and ourself as a proper abode for Endymion and his family, we waited until sunset, frogsong, and all the other amenities of life in Salamis were suitable for the introduction of our guest to the scene. This dwelling, having long lain untenanted, has a back door that stands ajar and we piloted the awe-struck lyrist inside. Now nothing rages so merrily in the blood as the instinct of picking out houses for other people, houses that you yourself do not have to live in; and those Realtors whom we have dismayed by our lack of enthusiasm would have been startled ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... came to a hole in the ground, an old house that had once belonged to her grandfather. Now this old house had a back door hidden close beside the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. Old Granny Fox just ran through the house, out the back door, through the hollow tree, and then jumped into a little brook where there was hardly more than enough water to wet her feet. Walking in the water, she ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... tell you all about it, an' you won't tell nobody. Well, I picks magnoleys an' wild roses an' sich purty things fur Roxy to give her missis, an' Roxy gives me cake, an' chicken, an' coffee at the back door, knowin' I ain't got much to buy 'em with. Lord bless her! she don't half know I don't think as much of them cakes an' snacks an' warm rich coffee, as I do of her purty eyes. She's a white angel with a little coffee in her blood, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the house and lay down for a little while. Then he rose up again, and took his knife. He said to himself: "When I went out by the front door, a Bird flew in my face; now I will go out by the back door." ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt
... the lead and they followed him out through a back door. They walked down a path and came to a small barn. Stan heard a horse snort. The German spoke ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... slave-girls of the minister." The boy said, "Go and tell the minister's wife that her sister's son is here. Tell her that he is standing by the village tank, that his coat is tattered and that his garments are torn, and ask her to let him come into her house through the back door." The slave-girls took him in through the back door. His aunt had him bathed, and gave him clothes to wear, and food to eat, and drink, and a pumpkin hollowed out and filled with gold coins. As he left, she called to him, "Do not drop it, do not forget it, ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... over a sweaty cotton shirt: the man, tall, lean, swarthy, grim; the boy grim and dark, too, and with a face that was prematurely aged. At the man's cabin a little girl in purple homespun was hurrying in and out the back door clearing up after the noonday meal; at the boy's, a comely woman with masses of black hair sat in the porch with her hands folded, and lifting her eyes now and then to the top of the spur. Of a sudden the man impatiently ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... ticked; and in every stress of life she would set the tea-kettle back if it were necessary. Amanda stood in the door, trembling. All at once there was a swift roll of wheels in the yard past the window. "Somebody's come!" gasped Amanda. Mrs. Field rushed to the back door, and Amanda after her. There was a buggy drawn up close to the step, and a man was ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... but just then another of his comrades came on the scene, and Jack led the way back to the house through a back door into Rennett's study. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... daring than that of Nancy's effort, it required twice the amount of self-sacrifice. He was to be, from June twenty-seventh till August twenty-seventh, Bill Harmon's post-office clerk and delivery boy, and the first that the family would know about it would be his arrival at the back door, in a linen jacket, with an order-book in his hand. Bravo, Gilly! One can see your heels disappearing over the top of ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Overhead an oriole sang in the weeping elm, now and then breaking his song to scold like an overgrown wren. Song-sparrows and catbirds sang in the shrubbery; one robin had built its nest over the front and one over the back door, and there was a chippy's nest in the wistaria vine by the stoop. During the next twenty-four hours I saw and heard, either right around the house or while walking down to bathe, through the woods, the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... she knew what she was to do, or say, or what she never had done, or said, we coaxed her to the back door and pointed to our treasure. She couldn't refuse us, and the box was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... for you." He moved now to open the spring-house door; she turned and was lost to him in the lights and shadows of the woods-pasture. On its further border her cabin stood, and from it came the sound of a pitiful wail; at the back door a little child stood, staying itself by the slats let into grooves in the jambs. She had left it in its low cradle asleep, and it must have waked and clambered out and crept to the barrier and been crying for her there; its small ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... stranger's legs till he got to know the man. You'd 'a' thought he'd rub 'em all off, but not so; it seemed to make 'em grow twice as long—biggest whiskers for a cat of his size I ever see. Well, sir, I came down here to the back door one night to lock up, heard him scratching and let him in. He gave me an awful scare, for as he looked up two big blazing eyes shone brighter than the lantern I was carrying. From his squeal I knew it was Jerry, so I picked him up and brought him over here to get a good look at him. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... heard her mother's voice, in a rather startled conversational tone, and then another woman speaking; then the voices died away. Mrs. Lessways had evidently opened the back door to somebody, and taken her at once into the sitting-room. The occurrence was unusual. Hilda went softly out on to the landing and listened, but she could catch nothing more than a faint, irregular murmur. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... this thrilling episode our two lads had watched it in breathless excitement without once thinking of leaving the building, though a back door opened close at hand. So intent were they upon what was taking place that they did not notice the approach of a third person until he was close beside them and had addressed White by name. He was the St. Johns travelling man, who had engaged the Baldwin pack ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... must fight for God. He must tell all his townspeople of his conversion. Parrot was terrified, but there was no escape. When the Adjutant arrived with the band to carry him off, he slipped out of the back door, but there he was met by the wisest of recruiting sergeants, a man who understood men and loved them. Trembling in every limb, Parrot was marched off to The Army Hall, and sat by the Adjutant on the platform. In an open-air meeting in his own street, an Army cap was placed on his head. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... told her that this part of the city was still new, and consequently few families had settled there as yet; but she had longed for other companionship than Glen could give her, and this was too good an opportunity to miss. So, flinging on her wraps, she hurried out of the back door, so as not to disturb Elizabeth and her caller, and ran after the children already at the street crossing, preparing to wade into the rushing torrent of muddy ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... look at you, Sir Knights," he said with a smile, "that you have been the guests of the Old Man of the Mountain, and left his house so hastily by the back door. Three days more and you will be as lusty as when we met beyond the seas upon the wharf by a certain creek. Oh, you are brave men, both of you, though you be infidels, from which error may the Prophet guide ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... scarcely closed the gate when the back door creaked, and Miss Muller came in smiling, magnetic from head to foot, as her disciples in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... tapped softly against the panels of the front door. When there was still no answer, footsteps stole softly round the side of the house, and there came the signal from the rear,— and then, again, tapping of fingers against what was, apparently, the back door. No notice being taken of these various proceedings, the footsteps returned the way they went, and, as ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... suspicious and elusive as a fox. A professional criminal's daily business is to observe whether or not he is being followed, and he rarely if ever, makes a direct move. If he wants a drink at the saloon across the street, he will, by preference, go out the back door, walk around the block and dodge in the side entrance under the tail of an ice wagon. In this case the detectives followed the presenter for days before they reached Fisher, and when they did they had still to locate ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... have thought beyond a child's achievement. He would get as much out of life as any man that ever lived. At the thought of the contrast between this heir to everything and the other child, that poor waif who all his life long would be sent round to the back door, tears rushed to her eyes, and she cried indignantly, "Oh, I do think you might be nice to Roger." Richard looked at her sharply. "What, do you really mind about it, mummie?" The surprise in his ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... "and make smithereens of 'em. Don't leave a mother's son of 'em alive; present, fire!" With that they gave another halloo, and smashed every pane in the window. The robbers were frightened out of their lives. They blew out the candles, threw down the table, and skelped out at the back door as if they were in earnest, and never drew rein till they were in the very ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... by a back door, but had to cross the hall to reach the stair. As she ran up, her father came in at the front door, saw her, and called her. She went down again to meet the tempest of his rage, which now broke upon her in gathered fury. He called her a treacherous, unnatural ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... made another attempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of this interview the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home, on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing near. In this way he found the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... hunting for it, we came to the lane. Until I found that reason it seemed wise for me to turn there, and under the cover of the orchard to reach the hiding of the barn, where I could leave Penelope while I scouted and had a peep through the keyhole of the back door. But Nathan saved me from such an ignominious return. He kept right on. My efforts to stop him only made him trot, and in a moment we were at the gate. He seemed to like the house and the shade of the oaks, for he halted, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... me, I was always A Swede at heart. Eh! that did you experience Both in Silesia and at Nuremberg; I had you often in my power, and let you Always slip out by some back door or other. 'Tis this for which the Court can ne'er forgive me, Which drives me to this present step: and since Our interests so run in one direction, E'en let us have a thorough ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... Maria; "he went out o' the back door, and along the edge of the woods, and he was soon out of sight, fur George has got long legs, as you well know; and the last I saw of him was just out there by that fence. And if there isn't Jim Anderson! Come in, Jim; what are you doin' ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... have knocked me down with a feather!" she resumed. "He telephones me awhile ago and says to be outside the back door at ten to-night, because he'd something he wanted to tell me. Of course he couldn't come in and tell it me here, because he'd been fired and everything. So I goes out, and there he is. 'Hello, kid!' he says to me. 'Fresh!' I says to him. 'Say, I got something to be fresh about!' he says ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... from the post and Nicholas ran up the remainder of the road and swung himself over the little gate which led into the small square yard immediately surrounding the house. At the pump near the back door his father, who had just come from work, was washing his hands before going into supper, and near a row of pointed chicken coops the three younger children were "shooing" up the tiny yellow broods. The yard was unkempt and ugly, run wild in straggling ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... went with them quite quietly. The back door was open; he could have walked out. I did not advise him to. I'm glad no one saw his face except myself. You see," she added, "he's devoted to Derek, and Derek knows it; that's why he feels it so, and will feel it more and more. The boy has a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... we bundled up or put into handy boxes and bags we found there. Father had come up by this time as close as he could to the back-yard. We carried everything out and put them into his express-waggon; he shoved a rug over them and drove off, quite easy and comfortable. We locked the back door of the bank and chucked away the key, first telling the manager not to make a row for ten minutes or we might have to come back again. He was a plucky fellow, and we hadn't been rough with him. He had sense enough to see that he was overmatched, and not to fight when it was no good. I've known bankers ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... house as he ceased speaking, and at the moment he did so Westerman and his thirty men turned the corner of the avenue. He rushed from the back door through the passages of the chateau into the hall, where he seized hold of a large cloak belonging to de Lescure, which he threw over his shoulder as he ran up stairs. On the stairs he met his cousin, with Madame de Lescure and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Society of Friends, told the slave-owners that if they wished to search his barn, they must first get an officer and a search warrant. While the parties were disputing, the farmer began nailing up the front door, and the hired man served the back door in the same way. The slaveholders, finding that they could not prevail on the Friend to allow them to get the slave, determined to go in search of an officer. One was left to see that the slave did not escape from the barn, while the other went off at full speed to Mount Pleasant, the nearest town. ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... by a back door, and in a little waiting-room I was introduced to some of the speakers. They were a scratch lot as seen in that dingy place. The chairman was a shop-steward in one of the Societies, a fierce little rat of a man, who spoke with a cockney accent and addressed me as 'Comrade'. But one of them roused ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... interminable conversation with her in the schoolroom, interrupted at last by a summons to speak to a Cocksmoor woman at the back door, and she was returning from the kitchen, when the doctor ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the girls had been standing in line for an hour waiting for the gymnasium doors to open, but a few, like Betty and Helen, had had reserved seat tickets given them by some one on the teams. These admitted their fortunate holders by a back door ahead of the crowd. All the faculty seats were reserved, of course, and the occupants of them were still coming in. As each appeared, he or she was met by a group of ushers and escorted ceremoniously across the floor, amid vigorous hand-clapping ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... got out, took a crate from the body of the van, and went with it to the back door. After a moment of waiting, the door opened. Thorn noticed that it was opened very cautiously, only an inch or so. He caught a glimpse of a heavy chain stretched across the inch opening, and saw a ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... that I can scarce say I was afraid; only I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing to some craziness. Our house boys protested they were not afraid; all I know is they were all watching him round the back door, and did not follow me till I had the axe. As for the out-boys, who were working with Fanny in the native house, they thought it a bad business, and made no secret of ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... own door after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence by the back door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from the office-window, and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him, initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by overhauling the books. Henchard entered, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... impatient disgust he loosed her, and went into the back room. It was empty. He went up the rickety stairs, and, as he had expected, found the door of the bedroom locked. He kicked it open and went into the frowsy room. The child was not in it. He came downstairs and opened the back door. As he did so, he heard a scuttling rustle. The garden was empty, but the rustle he had heard set him exploring the dirty, rag-covered hedge with keen eyes. He saw nothing, and walked down the garden, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... the acquaintance of another very large family of gypsies, who sang at a rival cafe, and who had also treated me very kindly. I was at once conducted to a house, which we entered in a rather gypsy way, not in front, but through a court, a back door, and up a staircase, very much in the style of certain dwellings in the Potteries in London. But, having entered, I was led through one or two neat rooms, where I saw lying sound asleep on beds, but dressed, one or two very dark Romanys, whose faces I remembered. Then we passed into a sitting-room, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... is by the roadside, the front door opening on to the road, the back door into the yard; the cowhouse and pigsty are under one roof, the barn, stable, and cart-shed forming the other three sides ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... wondered if I could escape. Perhaps I might slip out of the back door and run for it, without my great coat or hat although the night was so cold and I should probably be taken up as a lunatic. No, it was impossible for I had forged a chain that might not be broken. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... expected to wash in a tin basin at the back door, and wipe on the family towel, but all the means of toilet, such as they were, he found at hand here, and a surprise which he had felt at a certain touch in the cooking renewed itself at the intelligent arrangements for his comfort. A secondary quilt was laid across the foot of his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... door of the Confederacy," he said. "You men at the front know nothing. You are merely fighting to defend the main entrance. But while you are getting yourselves shot to pieces without knowing any special reason why, all sorts of people slip in at this back door. It is true not only of this government, but also ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... me to go along, Thad, I'll accommodate you; but have you any little scheme on foot today?" continued Hugh, leading the way toward the back door, since he under stood that his chum had left his bundle there ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... reference when he condemned the plaiting of hair and the wearing of gold and jewels. Quaint, queer and simple-hearted, she had but little idea of any world this side of heaven, except the one bounded by the "huckleberry" hills and the crystal waters of Fairy Pond, which from the back door of the farmhouse were plainly seen, both in the summer sunshine and when the intervening fields were covered ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... 'Hurry to the back door, Fenwick!' he said; and Fenwick, throwing down the creel, but grasping the long landing-net, flew to the back way. Logan opened the drawing-room window, took out his matchbox, with trembling ringers lit a candle, and, with the candle in one hand, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Foley and the baby arrived home there stood upon the platform at the back door of the house a most amazing figure. She knew every child in Dogtown, and none of them had ever made such an appearance. She almost dropped the ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... closed the house. She went out by a back door which was used by the servants, the key of which was in ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... I'll be serving thee the same way; thee see I've found the trick of it." The doctor could not but hear so much as he made his way into his own house by the back door, after finishing his surgical operation. Bridget was recounting to her champion the fracas that had occurred; and he, as was so natural, was expressing his admiration at ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... slipped out of the back door, and closed it softly behind her. She could not distinguish the dark outlines of the barn in the equal darkness of the autumn night. She gave a long sobbing gasp as she groped her way forward. As she neared the barn, she was startled to ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... this agglomeration of priests and monks neither more nor less than a death warrant. The last of the bishops of Treguier left one evening by a back door leading into the wood behind his palace and fled to England. The concordat abolished the bishopric, and the unfortunate town was not even given a sub-prefect, Lannion and Guingamp, which are larger and busier, being selected in preference. But large buildings, fitted up so as to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... At 'em!" he cried. "Push 'em back! Throw 'em into the water! Show 'em they can't enter our camp, that the back door, like the front door, is closed! That's the way! Good for you, Grosvenor! A sword is a deadly weapon when one knows how to use it! A wonderful blow for you, Tayoga! But you always deal wonderful ones! Careful, Robert! 'Ware ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Foster is coming," whispered Anna, and the two little girls ran swiftly behind the shed, holding the trembling frightened rabbits, and then across the fields toward Mr. Lyon's house. Not until they reached the back door of the parsonage did either of them remember Luretta, and then it was Anna ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... to which Billy had been almost born, one might say. Kelly owned the feed-store back of which the gang had loafed for years, and though himself a respectable businessman his name had been attached to the pack of hoodlums who held forth at his back door as the easiest means of locating and identifying ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... writing a story where one hasn't got to deal with the absolute possibilities, one could always have made Kara have a safe of that character in order to make his escape in the event of danger. He might keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back door, throw out his ladder to a friend and by some trick arrangement could detach the ladder and allow the door to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... front room with stairway in the corner leading to one above. A back door leads to a side porch flanked by a two roomed ell, and ended by a pantry. Chimneys with fireplaces once gave heat, but economy had put in Aunt Katherine's tiny stove which she a lump at a time in the winters of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the Indians seemed determined to have the building at any hazard; so they cut a large amount of wood and piled it against the back door, with the intention of burning it down so as to gain an entrance. The door was blockaded with sacks of grain, to prevent the bullets from coming into the room, and while the savages were placing the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... The back door was gained, and Job Haskers entered and felt his way up the semi-dark stairs. As he reached the upper hallway he found himself confronted by Doctor Clay, who had come in rather late, and who had been on the point of retiring when certain strange ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses; these are large but enclosed with buildings, that on all hands face the streets; so that every house has both a door to the street, and a back door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years end they shift their houses by lots. ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... expedition the others seldom spoke now and only with bated breath. "Sleep-walking, of course!" said everybody, no matter what everybody might think. But, now that Major Plume knew that in her sleep his wife had wandered up the row to the very door—the back door—of Mr. Blakely's quarters, was it not strange that he had taken no pains to prevent a recurrence of so compromising an excursion, for strange stories were afloat. Sentry No. 4 had heard and told of a feminine voice, "somebody cryin' like" in the darkness of midnight about Blakely's, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... little jokes. He was a bishop of the old-fashioned kind, owing his position to family influence rather than to any special attainment or qualification; but he was a good man, and popular, and the See of Morningquest would have had much to regret if the back door by which he got into the Church had been shut before he ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... finding fault. "I done the best I could. Nothing could ha' 'appened better—to start with. Directly Ted Brown and Joe Smith started, Mrs. Pretty and her sister, and all the kids excepting the baby, run out, and they'd 'ardly gone afore I was inside the back door and looking for that hamper, and I'd hardly started afore I heard them coming back agin. I was at the foot o' the stairs at the time, and, not knowing wot to do, I went up 'em ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... mister, suppose I sneaks up round to the back premises and fixes the pretty things all serene and comfortable to one of the outhouses, then lights the fuses and retires. In a little while—bang! bang! What price that for fetchin' yer friend out at the back door just to see if something hasn't maybe ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... and violent knocking at the back door prevented anyone from having to be polite about how sorry they were, or fanciful about being sure the ring would ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... great stupid boy who stared down at her with his small perplexed eyes, the two made a picture that afforded endless amusement to her husband, a short fat bald-headed man who went about clad in blue overalls and a blue cotton shirt. Coming to the back door of his house, that was within a stone's throw of the station, Henry Shepard stood with his hand on the door-jamb and watched the woman and the boy. Above the scolding voice of the woman his own voice arose. "Look out, Hugh," he called. "Be on the jump, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... "Come to the back door, Donald. Just a moment, while I speak to Louise. And make 'Scotchie' keep still," said Faith, turning into the path leading ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... girls. They meant to do something, and, in a fever of excitement, they got the drum and took the cracked fife from the bureau drawer. Mrs. Bates, intent on the scene outside, did not heed them, and they slipped out by the back door, unnoticed. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... falling to the floor, like stacks of cards piled up by a child and blown over by the wind. Zwanziger had taken refuge at the top of the ladder; he was howling. Theresa stood by the till looking like the ghost of ages. Philippina came in through the back door, and eyed what was going on without one visible trace of surprise or discomfort; she merely smiled. Just then the policeman's whistle blew; in less time than it takes to draw one breath, the rebellious insurgents were ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... here for shelter to Squire Bill Blake's. Well, I knocks away at the front door, till I thought I'd a-split it in; but arter a-rappin' awhile to no purpose, and findin' no one come, I gropes my way round to the back door, and opens it, and feelin' all along the partition for the latch of the keepin' room, without finding it, I knocks agin, when some one from inside calls out 'Walk!' Thinks I, I don't cleverly know whether that indicates 'walk in,' or 'walk out,' it's plaguy ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of iniquity or I will straightway lay mine halberd about thine ears. I bethink me that I saw thee at the fight of Worcester, on the part of the man Charles Stuart." Here Diggory judged it prudent to slink away through the back door. "And so," continued the Puritan corporal, as he swept the silver into his pouch, "and so the gains of iniquity fall into ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of tramp funny? Now instead of coming round to the back door and asking for a hand-out like any self-respecting tramp had ought to, they march up to the front door, and they're somebody with two or three names that's walking round the world on a wager they made with one of the Vanderbilt boys or John D. Rockefeller. They've walked thirty-eight hundred ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "I stole out through the back door, and sent Marie out with one of the porters to head you off. Then I came on here. I didn't even stop to ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... supper time Mickey appeared and without a word began watching Mrs. Harding. Suddenly her work lightened. When she was ready for water, the bucket was filled, saving her a trip to the pump. When she lifted the dishpan and started toward the back door, Mickey met her with the potato basket. When she glanced questioningly at the stove, he put in more wood. He went to the dining-room and set the table exactly as it had been for dinner. He made the trip ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... After another searching look in all directions, he started off through the tangle of weeds and burdocks to circle the house. He passed through what once must have been the tennis-court of Alix the First,—now a weedy patch,—and came to the back door. Below him lay the deserted stables and outbuildings, facing the barnyard in which a few worn-out farm implements were to be seen, weather-beaten skeletons of a ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... pet lambs, two or three pigs, about twenty fowls, eight children which seemed a dozen, and Mrs M'Swat bundled out through the back door at our approach. Those children, not through poverty—M'Swat made a boast of his substantial banking account—but on account of ignorance and slatternliness, were the dirtiest urchins I have ever seen, and were so ragged that those parts of them which should ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken. The ministers have done their best to prevent all recreation on the Sabbath. They would like to stop all the boats on the Hudson, and on the sea— ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... how he could stand a single one more, and yet he couldn't see how he was going to get out without receiving several more. All at once he had a comforting thought. He remembered that Johnny Chuck usually has a back door. If that were the case here, he would be all right. He would find out. Cautiously he poked his head out of the snug bedroom. There was the long hall down which he had come. And there—yes, Sir, there was another hall! It must be the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... the hour named, and punctually at that hour John Crumb knocked at the back door of Sheep's Acre farm-house. Nor did he come alone. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixet, the baker of Bungay, who, as all Bungay knew, was to be his best man at his marriage. John Crumb's character was not without ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... of the small horse. He looked as though he were trotting relentlessly toward some wolfish goal of satisfied hunger. A little cloud of dust rose up from the wheels and stood between Sheila and the wagon. She conquered an impulse to run after it, shut her hand tight, and walked in at the back door of the saloon. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... of the Frenchman were somewhat violent in his defence. Upon one occasion, several of them took Friend Hopper up and put him out of the house by main force; while at the same time they let their friend out of a back door to avoid him. However, Friend Hopper met him a few minutes after in the street and seized him by the button. Alarmed by the popular excitement, and by the perseverance with which he was followed up, he exclaimed in agitated tones, "Mon Dieu! What is it you ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... poetic laws or traditions. To such critics Whitman's crudity seems typical of a country where one is in nightly danger of losing his scalp, where arguments are settled by revolvers, and where a hungry man needs only to shoot a buffalo or a bear from his back door. Meanwhile America, the country that planted colleges and churches in a wilderness, that loves liberty because she honors law, that never saw a knight in armor but that has, even in her plainsmen and lumberjacks, a chivalry for woman ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... streets to the eastward should be noble and populous, but hitherto they have come to nothing. The building, therefore, is wrong side foremost, and all mankind who enter it, Senators, Representatives, and judges included, go in at the back door. Of course it is generally known that in the Capitol is the chamber of the Senate, that of the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Judicial Court of the Union. It may be said that there are two centers in Washington, this being one and the President's house the other. At these ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... his errand, when a loud commotion was heard in the passage. Mr. Dan Duff had burst in at the back door, uttering sounds of distress—of fright—his eyes starting, his hair standing on ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... before, his brother-in-law, knowing he had private enemies, had come to the house and spent the night trying to induce him to flee, but all in vain. But the next morning, his house being attacked, he yielded, and tried to escape by the back door. He was stopped by some of the National Guard, and placed himself ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, they found ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... excavated, the more complex and baffling the problem became; the ground was honeycombed with passages. What enemy has this weasel, I said to myself, that he should provide so many ways of escape, that he should have a back door at every turn? To corner him would be impossible; to be lost in his fortress was like being lost in Mammoth Cave. How he could bewilder his pursuer by appearing now at this door, now at that; now mocking him from the attic, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... outlying provinces and the Russian border. General Bauman at Vernoye had informed us that in this way English goods were swung clear around the circle and brought into Russia through the unguarded back door. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... will you, father?" whispered Rose; for the man had opened a back door leading into the shed and was regarding his undesired guests with ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... the result of her experiment, if the Commodore did not arrive, Mrs. Dunlop went out to the front gate to see if there were signs of his approach. At the same moment Allan entered the house by the back door, and looked about for his mother. Impelled by a "fatalistic necessity" he went up to her room, the sound of his carefully modulated tread upon the stairway filling the heart of Rose with delight, for was not that her own father, who had probably been informed at the ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... was over and the bill, a very moderate one, paid, the whole family shook hands with us again and wished us every kind of happiness and good luck. Monsieur then conducted us to a back door, and let us loose into an alley quite as dark and filthy as the one by which we entered. He was always firm about refusing to allow us to go by the way we came. I have no idea what his reasons were, but the plan of smuggling us out of the establishment ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... glancing eyes. The sweet breath touched his cheek. The candlestick was taken from him by a swift, deft movement. He heard it knock the wainscoting as it was set down. He went out into a pitch-black corridor, where a soft hand seized his own and led him—by a back door, it seemed—out into the open air of the hill-side immediately behind ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Maxwell, and several soldiers, with one or two others, went in and searched for the Khalifa. A few minutes previously he had slipped out by a back door with the more important part of his personal treasures. His harem had been sent away earlier in the day. Mr Hubert Howard, correspondent of the New York Herald and the London Times, was near the headquarters staff. He came over to where I was and chatted. To a companion ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... can't get out," said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which seemed the concentration of fear; "I would have got out of it if I could; but just step to the back door, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643, in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat by Dewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rush through the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniards being quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of another lot of Mauser and Remington rifles and a goodly store of ammunition, for ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... back door first, but that was locked, and she had rapped on it gently until she remembered that of evenings the missionary and his daughter occupied the front room always and that they would not have heard her had she hammered. She tapped now, very gently, with ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Teddy had wanted a cart, and when his seventh birthday came, there by the back door stood the "Eastern Mail" with a birthday letter from ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... Man's Coffee-house at Charing Cross, had a back door into Spring Garden. It seems to have been specially frequented ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... into the stable, down past the stalls, and out the back door. Then they set out toward the river trail, and, with many furtive glances toward the house, gained it without interruption. Felipe's lumber rigging and team of scrawny horses stood in the shade of a cottonwood, and Franke made the horse fast to the outhanging end of the reach. When he was ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... half-vindicated. For the remedy proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the congregation. Some had it in a mild form—only one shutter open, or a back door not closed—but in many it came out over the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... know, sir—there's a sight o' folks dropping off quite unaccountable else. I'm not dependent on one nor another, and what I says I stands to: I'll never call at Dr. Carnegie's back door again while that Irish lass is about his kitchen; she's give me the rough side of her tongue once, but she ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... informed her of everything hitherto by anonymous letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with the letter, you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o'clock this morning, I signed it 'your secret correspondent.' They let me in at once—very quickly—by the back door, and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Hot words flew back and forth between judge, lawyers and witnesses, and it began to look as if the man in whose barn the calf was placidly munching was guilty. Just then Russell, with a chuckle, slipped from the counter and disappeared through the back door. In a minute he returned, and solemnly pushed a white-faced calf with a broken horn squarely among the almost fighting disputants. There was a lull in the storm of angry words. Here was the lost calf. With a bawl of dismay and many gyrations of tail, it occupied the centre of the floor. None could ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... begrimed and coated with a century's mud, that no one pane of glass could possibly fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty times. But the grand mystery of Todgers's was the cellarage, approachable only by a little back door and a rusty grating; which cellarage within the memory of man had had no connection with the house, but had always been the freehold property of somebody else, and was reported to be full of wealth; though in what shape—whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine, or casks of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to five o'clock, when an excited negro, panting and perspiring, rushed up to the back door of Sheriff Campbell's dwelling, which stood at a little distance from the jail and somewhat farther than the latter building from the court-house. A turbaned colored woman came to the door in response to ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... if you were in your rooms. But you told us in your first evidence that from about 7.20 or so until eight o'clock you were smoking your pipe at the market-place entrance to the Moot Hall, where, of course, you couldn't see your back door. That correct? Very well. Now, while you were at the front, was your wife in your rooms ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... which once served at the front door by some steps under an arbor of rustic work; but this was still so novel that the younger children had not outgrown their pride in it and were playing at house-keeping there. Clementina ran around to the back door and out through the front entry in time to save the visitor and the children from the misunderstanding they began to fall into, and met her with a smile of hospitable brilliancy, and a recognition ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and gloomy, and a small open door dimly lighted-from within. Hurried across the strip of narrow pavement, and shut in immediately, I had no time to identify localities—no choice, except to follow my conductor and blindly pursue the adventure to its close. Having entered by a back door, we went up and down a labyrinth of staircases and passages, for the mere purpose, as it seemed, of bewildering me as much as possible—then paused before an oaken door at the end of the corridor. Here my conductor signified by a gesture that I ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... my being seen from the house. As I drew near, I saw Lucy standing at the back door, looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... morning with his wife's list of the day's needs. When the list was filled, the articles were placed in a basket; and the baskets thus filled were systematically deposited by the marketboys at the back door of the house to which they were consigned. Then the housekeeper came to the back door at her convenience, and took the basket in. Exposed as this position must have been, such a thing as a theft of the day's edibles was unknown, and the first authentic account of any illegitimate ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... pair went out at the rear, Plimsoll jumped into the front room. Sam, closing the back door behind them noiselessly, heard the gambler cursing at the bolted door. Silently as a cat, he covered the short distance between the house and the arroyo of the creek and disappeared, merged in its shadow. Sandy joined him and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... The knock shook the back door before Michaels could say anything. The door opened and Doc Candle slithered in disjointedly, a rolled-up ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach. Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window, than be absolutely excluded. In a minute, the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour, were filled. Mr. Grenville, advancing ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... meal, and had a good pull at the jug of ale, which was a liquor he had not tasted for a long while, rose from the table and went out of the back door and found there Oswald Partridge. He accosted him, stating the reason for his coming over to him. "I did not know that Jacob had a grandson; indeed, I never knew that he had a son. Have you been living ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... and amazement at seeing her in the arms of an Indian! One instant she stood rivetted to the spot, not knowing how to act. The next she turned, and again hurried in to the house, from whence she escaped by a back door, and sped breathlessly towards 'the Burying Hill.' She knew that the service was over—for the last strains of the parting hymn had been borne down by the evening breeze as she left the house—and therefore ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... the greatest service. And so when Cicero was in danger, and implored his aid, he would not admit him into his presence, but shutting up his gates against those that came to mediate for him, slips out at a back door, whereupon Cicero fearing the result of his trial, departed privately ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... robes, and evolve a thrilling mental picture therefrom. The tag game and her noisy little companions vanished. She was peopling the place with stealthy Indians. Stealthy, cunning, yet savagely brave. They bore no relation to the abject, contemptible, and rather smelly Oneidas who came to the back door on summer mornings, in calico, and ragged overalls, with baskets of huckleberries on their arm, their pride gone, a broken and conquered people. She saw them wild, free, sovereign, and there were ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber |
