"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the good going once more, Barry swung into the saddle and headed straight back west. No doubt the posse would ride up and down the creek bed until they found his trail turning back, but they would lose precious minutes picking it up, and in the meantime he would be far, far away toward the ford of Tucker Creek. Then, clearly, but no louder than the snapping of a dry twig near his ear, he heard the report of a revolver and it spoke to him of many ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... that when we hear rapping it will be the spirits, and not the heels, which rap," she said. "Yes, I am contented now." And she added, with a smile, "Celie may even have her scarf," and, picking up a white scarf of tulle which Celia had brought down with her, she placed it ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... Pinzo's rustlers, and we were detailed to put them out of business. I was assigned to go on duty as a cowboy, which wasn't so hard, as I had been one nearly all my life before joining the army. I worked on several ranches, picking up bits of information here and there, and I completed all I needed to get in Happy Valley," ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... end of it. He fought the savages after their own fashion, retiring to cover after the first onset, and fighting singly, rifle in hand, officers and men alike, from the commander down, becoming sharpshooters for the time, and picking off the Indians like born frontiersmen. And the battle was a victory, a brilliant success, in that it inflicted a terrible punishment on the Nez Perces, strewed the valley with dead Indians, and sent the crippled remnant of the band fleeing to ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... golden rays of the declining sun flash through the tangled boughs upon its dancing waves, a noble-looking boy of four years old is sailing his mimic fleet, while a lovely girl, two years younger, toddles about, picking "pitty flowers," and bringing them to "papa, mamma, or grandmamma," as her capricious fancy prompts. Near by, papa, mamma, grandmamma, and one pleased and honored guest, are grouped beneath the bending boughs of a magnificent black ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... of news-collecting, it may be admitted that the American newspapers for a time led the world. I mean in the picking-up of local intelligence, and the use of the telegraph to make it general. And with this arose the odd notion that news is made important by the mere fact of its rapid transmission over the wire. The English journals followed, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march with ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... no such rift in the lute's perfection. The sands, the wheeling sea-birds, the tall girl in white whose hand he held—all these were even as he had imagined them. Thither they came every day, passing along the straight dusty avenue, and then wandering for hours picking shells. They talked only when the mood took them, and in the pauses they listened idly to the slumbrous pulsations of Adria. John Arniston had lied at large in the letter he had written to his love. He had assaulted a man who righteously withstood him in ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... had risen from the top of Sgurr Dearg to show that a stag had been killed at the burnhead. The lumpish hill pony with its deer-saddle had gone up the Correi in a gillie's charge while we followed at leisure, picking our way among the loose granite rocks and the patches of wet bogland. The track climbed high on one of the ridges of Sgurr Dearg, till it hung over a caldron of green glen with the Alt-na-Sidhe churning in its linn a thousand feet below. It was a breathless evening, I remember, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... the garden picking a bouquet for the table, and Wally went to help her. She gave him a smile that made his heart do a trick, and when he bent over to help her break a piece of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... happened. The wind suddenly shifted from the north to the southeast, the hurricane increased in fury, and, picking up the waters of the gulf, hurled them with crushing force against the four miles of residences stretched along the beach. There was nothing in the way of protection, and houses were knocked over like ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... Contrary to German custom, Greifenstein never expected any one to stay long in the house, and merely stipulated that any one who wished to leave should give warning a fortnight previously. Neither he nor his wife were yet so old as to tempt servants to stay on for the death, in the hope of picking up something worth having in the general confusion. There was something strange in the way the pair lived, lonely and unloved in their ancient home, amidst a crowd of ever-changing attendants, who succumbed one by one to the awful dreariness of the isolated life, and went away to give ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... she set for him a chair, toward which he trod gingerly, and picking every step, for his own sake as well as of the garniture. For the black oak floor was so oiled and polished, to set off the pattern of the sea-flowers on it (which really were laid with no mean taste and no small ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... spring are passing away, and the warm bright sunshine has begun to pour down upon the grassy paths of the wood, who does not love to go out and bring home posies of violets, and bluebells, and primroses? We wander from one plant to another picking a flower here and a bud there, as they nestle among the green leaves, and we make our rooms sweet and gay with the tender and lovely blossoms. But tell me, did you ever stop to think, as you added flower after ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... gobbles it up,—the table-cloth preventing any of the bits which tumble over from soiling the carpet. It has been asserted that he wipes his mouth afterwards in the napkin; but I suspect that he is merely picking up the bits outside. I am sorry to say that he forgets to fold up his table-cloth neatly and to put it away, which he certainly should do; nor can he be persuaded to wash out his bowl, though he does not object to lick it clean. People and dogs, however, have different ways of ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... by a basket-maker are few and simple. They consist, besides the foregoing, of a shop-knife for cutting out material; a picking knife for cutting off the protruding butts and tops of the rods after the work is completed; two or three bodkins of varying sizes; a flat piece of iron somewhat narrowly triangular in shape for driving the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... orchards you may see fully three-quarters of the whole crop on the ground, lying in a circular form beneath the trees, yet hard and green,—or, if it is a hill-side, rolled far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. All the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls, and this will make ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... directions, a piece of heavy tarpaulin was lashed over the broken skylight, securing the ends to ringbolts in the deck; but hardly had the covering been made fast ere we could see the chief engineer picking his way towards us, struggling through the water that still lay a foot deep in the waist and looking as ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... his sleep. He'd feel them running over him, even when he'd spent an hour picking the bed clean of them by the light of the carbide lantern. They scurried with tickling little feet ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... but two killed and four wounded. You may judge, too, how industrious the savages had been, when I tell you that the whites who wanted lead, commenced gathering their balls after they left, and succeeded in picking out of the logs, and from the ground, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... honeymoon way, she walked to market, passing blocks of other little houses like her own, with bare dooryards where nipped chrysanthemums dangled on poles, and where play wagons, puddles of water, and picking chickens alternated regularly. Other marketing women looked at Cherry with the quickly averted look that is only given to beauty; but the men in the shops wrote down the new name and address with especial zeal and amiability. ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Presses have been too long silent. What are your Committees of Correspondence about? I hear Nothing of circular Letters—of joynt Committees, &c. Such Methods have in times past raised [the] Spirits of the people—drawn off their Attention from PICKING UP PINS, & directed their Views to great objects—But, not having had timely Notice of the Return of this Express, I must conclude (with my earnest prayers for the recovery of your Health,) ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... the saddle. Ahead lay the shadowy foothills of the mother range, vague masses in the starlight. Some thirty miles behind was the railroad and the trail north. There was no chance of picking up a fresh horse. The country was uninhabited. Alone, the gunman would have ridden swiftly to the hill country, where his trail would have been lost in the rocky ground of the ranges and where he would have had the advantage of an unobstructed outlook ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... put the pith away out of their sight, or they'll be picking it out with the spying eyes they have, and saying it's rich we are, and not sparing us ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men forward. "It'll take me a month ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... job of it. Afterward he commented on the improved appearance, especially of the back yard. "Yes, it looks considerable better," he said, "but of course I couldn't keep it that way. I'm a poor man and my time is worth sixty cents an hour. I can't afford to spend any of it picking up after myself." ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... same remark numberless times before, its effect was not startling. In silence she went on picking out ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... quite clear whether he was a stranger to me or otherwise. He was an elderly gentleman, but came tripping along in the pleasantest manner conceivable, avoiding the garden-roller and the borders of the beds with inimitable dexterity, picking his way among the flower-pots, and smiling with unspeakable good humour. Before he was half-way up the walk he began to salute me; then I thought I knew him; but when he came towards me with his hat in his hand, the sun shining on his bald head, his bland face, his bright spectacles, his fawn- ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... grew impatient; more fellows arrived; another demijohn was seen in the distance swiftly bearing down upon us from the upper end of the wharf, and at this moment a dainty yacht skimmed gracefully around the point of Telegraph Hill, picking her way among the thousand-masted fleet that whitened the blue surface of the bay, and we at once knew her to be none other than the "Lotus," a crack yacht, as swift as the wind itself. In fifteen minutes there was a locker full of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... first bellowed orders of the boss, Bill Carmody had leaped onto the heaving jam and, following in the wake of others, began picking his way ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... so badly that he was laid up in the hospital for several days. After that I took a much more cheerful view of life, and as it seemed hardly fair to make one cadet bear the whole brunt of my displeasure toward the entire battalion, I began picking quarrels with anyone who made pretensions of being a fighter, and who chanced to be bigger ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... breaks from the bulb. It is noticeable, too, that the early and imitative work of great men generally belongs to a particular school to which their maturity bears a logical relation. They do not cruise about in search of a style or vehicle, trying all and picking up hints here and there, but they fall incidentally and genuinely under influences which move them and afterwards qualify their ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... became absorbed in picking the broken feathers out of her fan. She took no interest in Mr. Flaxman Reed. What she wanted was to be roused, stimulated by contact with a great intellect; and the precious opportunity was slipping minute by minute from her grasp. Wyndham was wasting it in deliberate trivialities. She longed ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... and a shock, and fell backwards to the ground. I was not hurt, and picking myself up saw that the ball had struck the parapet to the left, just where my guard was sitting, and he lay covered with its fragments. His turban lay some yards behind him. Whether he was dead or not I ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... capturing that vessel as though I had her now, and I do not wish to injure her any more than is necessary," said Captain Breaker, as he sighted the Parrot, and devoted especial attention to her. "She is a very fast steamer, and she will be very valuable in our navy in picking up just such vessels as ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... she did that was wrong, is welcome: I don't care. Sally is a good, patient, loving woman to-day; I don't know anybody more so: I, for one, respect her. I wish I could be half as patient;" and Hetty stooped, and, picking up a handful of the pine-needles with which the road was thickly strewn, crumbled them up fiercely in her hands, and tossing the dust high in ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... quarrel, and if he were a poet, or even if he were not, he wrote verses in her honor, and sighed and died for her. The lady was not supposed to do anything in return; she might at most smile upon her knight or drop her glove, that he might be made happy by picking it up. In fact, the more disdainful the lady might be the better it was, for then the poet could write the more passionate verses. For all this love and service was make-believe. It was merely a fashion and not meant to be taken seriously. A man might have a wife ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... devoted to anybody, rejoice in Karen's marriage. She was right in feeling that it menaced her own position. He did her justice; he made every allowance for her; he intended to be straight with her; but the fact that stood out for Gregory was that, already, she was not straight with him. Already she was picking surreptitiously, craftily, at his life; and this ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... After picking up a chair which, in his alarm, the fugitive had overturned in his flight, Mademoiselle Gontier herself opened the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... entirely, to the manner of bringing up. Here we see the thick skulled plodding Dane, making a wooden dish; or else some of the most ingenious making a very clumsy ship: while others submitted to the dirtiest drudgery of the hulk, for money; and there we see a Dutchman, picking to pieces tarred ropes, which, when reduced to its original form of hemp, they call oakum; or else you see him lazily stowed away in some corner, with his pipe, surrounded with smoke, and "steeping his senses in forgetfulness;" while here and there, and every where, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... nothing more remote both from my capacity and my form. I have picked up charity boys to serve me: who soon after have quitted both my kitchen and livery, only that they might return to their former course of life; and I found one afterwards, picking mussels out of the sewer for his dinner, whom I could neither by entreaties nor threats reclaim from the sweetness he found in indigence. Beggars have their magnificences and delights, as well as the rich, and, 'tis said, their dignities and polities. These are the effects ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... with his nose down to the level of the keyhole. But the intruder did not intrude rapidly, and the lawyer jumped on to his feet, almost upsetting Dolly with the effort. There was a pause, during which Mr Bideawhile moved away from the table,—as he might have done had he been picking a lock;—and then Mr Longestaffe bade the stranger come in with a sepulchral voice. The door was opened, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... effort to restore his fortunes, and set his precious family once more on a sound financial basis, had come in search of the gold which report said was to be had on Suffering Creek for the trouble of picking it up. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... apparent that tuberculin should be applied only by or under the direction of a competent veterinarian, capable not only of injecting the tuberculin but also of interpreting the results, and particularly of picking out all clinical cases by physical examination. The latter observation is extremely important and should always be ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... spleen took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of Spurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a bath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his grinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk and hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps, many not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painter ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... at the thought that they were to be kept idle, like cats watching a rat-hole. At last Capt. Worden, who was there with his redoubtable monitor "Montauk," determined to destroy the privateer, despite the torpedoes and the big guns of the fort. He accordingly began a movement up the river, picking his way slowly through the obstructions. The fort began a lively cannonade; but Worden soon found that he had nothing to fear from that quarter, as the guns were not heavy enough to injure the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... be used in washing and picking it clean; drain it, and throw it into boiling water—a few minutes will boil it sufficiently: press out all the water, put it in a stew pan with a piece of butter, some pepper and salt—chop it continually with a spoon till it is quite dry: serve it with ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... of the rookery, the colony now begin to clear it of every species of rubbish, picking up stone by stone, and carrying them outside of the lines, and close by them, so as to form a wall on the three inland sides. Just within this wall a perfectly level and smooth walk is formed, from six to eight feet wide, and extending ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of picking up his book again, which had risen when he heard of the admirable physical state of Melissa and ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... Cappadocia, which was an actual portion of the Roman Empire, when he found that Tiberius, so far from resenting the seizure of Armenia, had sent instructions to Vitellius, that he was to cultivate peaceful relations with Parthia. Apparently he thought that a good opportunity had arisen for picking a quarrel with his Western neighbor, and was determined to take advantage of it. The aged despot, hidden in his retreat of Capreae, seemed to him a pure object of contempt; and he entertained the confident hope of defeating his armies and annexing ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... his hands plunged in the pockets of his dinner coat, wandered down the garden towards the apple tree, picking an early red rosebud as he passed a bush—its scent intoxicated him a little. Then he went to the gate, and, opening it, he strolled into the park. Here was a vaster and more perfect view. It was all clothed in the unknown of the half dark, and yet he could ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... buy one of these blank books," added Bobby, picking up the one he had dropped on the floor in ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... philosopher was merely picking up scraps of sheddings outside the dark wood of the mystery they were to him, and playing imagination upon them. This primary element of his nature soon enthroned his chosen lady above their tangled obscurities. Beneath her tranquil beams, with the rapture ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Here's the very ones we wanted. Wasn't it nice of the wind to blow 'em down?" she called out, picking them up and running after her sister, who had strolled moodily along, still looking about for her sworn foe, Sally Folsom. The flowers soothed the feelings of the little girls, because they had longed for them, and bravely resisted the temptation ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... said; "picking up the countryside's gossip. I have no love for the Athole and Great Glen folks as ye ken; but I could long syne have got letters of fire and sword that made Badenoch and Nether Lochaber mine if I had the notion. Don't ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... entered in hesitating fashion, and the eyes of all were fixed on his dazzlingly white shoes picking their way through the beer- bottles, corks and cigarette-ends. So white and neat and scented was he, that, in all these clouds of smoke, and amid all these flushed, drunken fellows, he might have been likened to a lily in the marsh, had he not looked so frail and worn-out, and if his features had ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... "Why are you always picking at me?" she demanded of Mr. Wells. "I'm only a little girl and you're a big man but never once since I came to Waloo have you looked as if you wanted to be friends with me. I don't mean to be impudent ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... provided abundant copy for the compositors, he sallied forth into Wall Street, picking up material for his stock-tables and subjects for paragraphs. From four to six he was at his office again, winding up the business, of the day. In the evening he was abroad,—at theatre, concert, ball, or public meeting,—absorbing fresh material for his paper. He converted himself, as ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... his telephone and, picking up the suit, regarded it curiously. "Five thousand dollars," he muttered. "Five thousand dollars." And ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... short duration. The next morning, as they were waiting for the waggonette to take them to the station, Elizabeth wandered into the deserted garden, and Malcolm, who followed her, found her standing under a Guelder rose-tree, picking ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... kindling, then dry spruce lying lengthways, then a bank of green wood standing on end to keep in the heat and shed the dirt that sloughed down from the roof. In the morning our fire would be burned out, and enough pay-dirt thawed to keep us picking all day. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... pursuit, but stopped directly, feeling sure that if I did so the act would result in trouble to us both, and determined to write to Mr Ezra about him. I was glad I did so the next minute, for Courtenay and Philip came down the garden to amuse themselves picking ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... to go greatly, and ours would have been every possible comfort that one can have while traveling, ... but the tyrant Anne thought that as I was picking up a bit it was wrong to change conditions, and I yielded, hardly against my judgment, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... shirt open. He rose. She came to the window to see him off, and stayed leaning on the sill between two pots of geranium, clad in her dressing gown hanging loosely about her. Charles, in the street buckled his spurs, his foot on the mounting stone, while she talked to him from above, picking with her mouth some scrap of flower or leaf that she blew out at him. Then this, eddying, floating, described semicircles in the air like a bird, and was caught before it reached the ground in the ill-groomed mane of the old ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... People who enjoyed 'picking-up' things, who admired poetry, despised sordid calculations of profit and loss, and nourished ideals of honour and love, she placed in a class by themselves, superior to the rest of humanity. There was no need actually to have those tastes, provided one talked enough ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... "Well, friends, in the midst of all this pillaloo, hands-across and down-the-middle, with old Aaron as bad as any and flinging his legs about more boldacious with every caper, I happens to glance up the hill, and with that I gives a whistle; for what do I see but a man aloft there picking his way down on his heels with a parcel under his arm! Every now and then he pulls up, shading his eyes, so, like as if he'd a lost his bearin's. I glances across to Aaron, and thinks I, 'Look out ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... All right! Don't be alarmed, dad!" Albert reassured him, picking up the things. "I was asking ye, did ye ever speak ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... up bones" enough to furnish him the same amount of phosphates contained in that quantity of guano. Then if all who are now using it, would drop guano and take to bones, it would soon be found to be hard picking. Save all the bones and apply them to the soil, is a standing text with us; upon the same soil use all the guano your can procure and you will not need to pick bones—you will grow bones to pick. It may be very patriotic to talk about expending the money at home, ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... have the knack of picking up information. I told the young man I had travelled with you from London; that you had some secret business at the barracks; that I didn't know what it was; and the moment I asked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the latter made them feel all the more confident that they could beat him, and extremely reluctant that he should get away. In consequence they determined to take seven or eight hundred of the least tired, best armed, and best mounted men, and push rapidly after their foe, picking up on the way any militia they met, and leaving the other half of their army to follow ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... getting as many of our things as I could back into the cutter; for I felt that, in the present condition of affairs, it may be imperatively necessary for us to be off at a moment's notice. But I do not feel very much fatigued; I am picking up strength rapidly, and my experience of to-day has shown me that I am stronger than I really thought I was. There are a few things still lying about here which were rather too heavy for me single-handed; but ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... At length picking time came, and Mr. Waddington's predictions were realised to the very letter; there being not more than a quarter of a crop grown that year. Mr. Brown had not only failed to follow his friend's advice, but, relying upon some other information, had actually neglected to lay in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the lover's presents,—the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the fruits,—the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not eat,—she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, she does not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the witness-chair, picking his way through feet and legs. As he turned, facing the coroner, his hand upraised, Ollie looked at him steadily, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... was running now, miraculously picking his way over the treacherous footing. The girl had fainted, no doubt of that, and something ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... bolted round to their mother's side. Then, feeling safe under her care, they cautiously advanced in a row to sniff the rabbit, and wondered, yet instinctively guessed, at the meaning of the situation. The vixen growled, and, picking up her prey, carried it to the bramble-clump. The cubs followed, making all sorts of curious noises in mimicking their dam, and evincing the utmost inquisitiveness as to the reason of her unexpected conduct. Presently, having succeeded in arousing their inborn passion ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... suddenly, and picking up the old man, armchair and all, shook him to and fro until ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... indecision, during which Dolly, rosy with excitement, was hurriedly rearranging her disordered apparel, Charles-Norton, picking up the lamp, strode to the door and opened it. His lips were unable to hold a short exclamation of surprise. For, framed in the door-way, here stood the mysterious stranger whom twice he had caught watching him ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... manner. He held out a cup of lava-lava, the most deadly beverage of the islands. It is mixed with phosphorus and glows and tastes like hell-fire. I saw his plan and for once was grateful. We took the bowl from his hands and filed into the tiny cabin—each picking out a corner ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... annoyance. It is relieved of a portion of the parasitic ticks, so common on the hides of thick-skinned animals, by means of the red-beaked rhinoceros birds, Buphaga erythrorhynca, a dozen or more of which may be seen partly perched on its horns and partly moving about on its back, and picking up the ticks on which they feed. The hunter is often guided by these birds in his search for the buffalo, but oftener still they give timely warning to their host of the dangerous proximity of the hunter, and have thus earned the title ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... to have a visitor," he went on, picking Johnnie up and settling her in his lap,—"a distinguished visitor. Curly, you must put on your best manners, for she comes especially to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... do. But we are doing little harm here. In a few days all these berries will be rotten. I guess he has given up picking them." ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... Martin Luther was Peter's first sorrow that his mother couldn't fully share, as he knew she didn't like cats. Martin Luther had known that, too, and had kept his distance. He hadn't even made friends with Emma Campbell, who loved cats to the extent of picking up other people's when their owners weren't looking. This cat had loved nobody but Peter, a fact that endeared it to him a thousandfold, and made its ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... threw himself into a fighting attitude, jerking his head to and fro in the most approved manner; and, bringing forth a roar of delight from the little crowd around him, as quick as lightning he delivered two sharp blows right and left to a couple of unoffending schoolfellows, picking out, though, two who ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... over the dead body, and thrust his hand into a pocket of the Quartermaster, out of which he drew a purse. Emptying the contents on the ground, several double-louis rolled towards the soldiers, who were not slow in picking them up. Casting the purse from him in contempt, the soldier of fortune turned towards the soup he had been preparing with so much care, and, finding it to his liking, he began to break his fast ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... Nyoda, stopping short. "Which path did they take, I wonder?" In the road at the foot of the blazed tree lay a small heap of stones pointing in the direction taken by the leaders. "What's this?" asked Nyoda, picking up a small box from beside the stones. It was marked "For Nyoda." She lifted the lid and out hopped a tiny live frog. In the bottom of the box was a piece of paper on which ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... my letter from her," said Brigaut, falling on his knees and picking up the lines in which he had told his little friend to come instantly and softly away from the house. He kissed with pious ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of the most abandoned character. Thus, Armenteros, whose name was synonymous with government swindling, who had been rolling up money year after year, by peculations, auctioneering of high posts in church and state, bribes, and all kinds of picking and stealing, could not contain his horror as he referred to wafers eaten by parrots, or "toasted on forks" by renegade priests; and poured out his emotions on the subject into the faithful bosom of Antonio Perez, the man with whose debaucheries, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ma'am?" Pete Timmons said, picking, up her valise. The girl nodded, and together they went up the rude stairs to her room where Timmons paused at ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... he did everything she wanted. 'At one place, some suburban villa, he could get no answer to his ring, and he "hove" his cards over the gate just as it opened, and he had the shame of explaining in his unexplanatory French to the man picking them up. He was excruciatingly helpless with his cabmen, but by very cordially smiling and casting himself on the drivers' mercy he always managed to get where he wanted. The family was on the verge of their many moves, and he was doing some small errands; he said that the others ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a frightful grimace that was somehow sympathetic and shrugged his shoulders. "If you smash, my dearly-beloved, your faithful comrade will have the priceless privilege of picking up the pieces. Why you came here is another matter. I have sometimes dared to wonder if the proximity of my poor castle—No? Not that? Ah, well then, it must be that our destinies are guided by the same star. To my mind that is an even more thrilling ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the Eighth's time there was already a saying among the Italians, "Give the Englishman his beef and mustard,"[221] while the English in turn jibed at the Italians for being "like Nebuchadnezzar,—always picking of sallets." "Herbage," says Dallington scornfully "is the most generall food of the Tuscan ... for every horse-load of flesh eaten, there is ten cart loades of hearbes and rootes, which also their open Markets and private tables doe witnesse, and whereof if one talke with them fasting, he ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... said Mother Bear, as she emptied the broken eggs into the frying pan and began picking out pieces of the shells and tossing them into ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... explained to him, while picking up the pieces of the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a national air, and even an official one, since the regimental bands had substituted that gentle melody for the fierce 'Marseillaise'; ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... garden picking some currants to sell the following morning. He was hard at work, and his coat lay upon ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... entered the cave. The two fugitives held their breath, and Nessus sat with an arrow in the string ready to shoot. The brand, however, gave but a feeble light, and the native, picking up the bodies of three of the young bears, which lay close to the entrance, threw them over his shoulder, and crawled back out of the cave again. As they heard his departing footsteps the fugitives drew a long ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... Goodchild by his side, to the nuptial music of the City bands and the marrow-bones and cleavers; whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in a garret lest the officers are coming to take him for picking pockets. The Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., becomes Sheriff of London, and partakes of the most splendid dinners which money can purchase or alderman devour; whilst poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through the canyon, and presently indications that they had made the ascent of the mountain to the south. Leaving a guard with his horses and pack-mules, the lieutenant ordered up his men, and soon the little command was silently picking its way through rock and boulder, scrub-oak and tangled juniper and pine. Rougher and steeper grew the ascent; more and more the Indians cowered, huddling together in rear of the soldiers. Twice Mr. Billings signalled a halt, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... them sent up from Las Vegas," Bert added, picking up the cue and lying glibly. "I saw the express agent deliver a box of them to him one day. There was four dollars and ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... to marry his daughter, Clementina, to a certain Cardinal, who has offered to renounce the scarlet hat for love of her. When she piques her lover by her evident unwillingness to wed, Don Jaques packs her off to a convent at Viterbo. By picking up a copy of verses Clementina becomes acquainted with Signiora Miramene, who relates the history of her ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... on coconuts, enjoying the scientific name of Birgus latro, the Burglar; but it seems to be a special invention, as big as a cat and armed with two fearful pairs of pincers in front for rending the outside casings of the fruits, and a more delicate tool on its hind-legs for picking out the meat. Other animals have to do without it, as had man, I opine, in the stone and copper ages. With the iron age came a chopper, called in Western India a "koita," with which he can hack his way through most of the obstructions of life. When, with this, he has slashed off the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the dressing-table picking up the odds and ends there in a careless kind of way, but evidently in an attitude of deep attention. Beatrice's feeling of alarm became somewhat less as she saw that the case of diamonds on the dressing-table had not been touched. If anything like ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... one of the scales, or calyx leaves, attached, by which the slice is lifted, and dipped in oil and vinegar before using. The English present the head whole, or cut into quarters, upon a dry plate; the guests picking off the scales one by one, which have a fleshy substance at the base. These are eaten after being ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... instant, tossed his head as if to give the breeze a chance to creep beneath his flowing mane, cast a quick glance back at his rider, and throwing out his muzzle uttered a long, loud neigh that seemed like a joyful hail, and pressed on with quick, careful steps, picking his way along the ledge of out-cropping granite which constituted the ford, as if traversing a ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... a chance," Burris said. "Anyhow, not just then. Not until they got around to picking up the pieces of the ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the garden, which was shaded by the high wall, Margaret sat, an uncut book on her knees, her eyes resting on the green marsh to be seen through the open door. Near by Ned in his little invalid chair was picking the mortar from the brick wall with a nail he had been able to reach. The two were often alone like this for ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... beginning to bite his fingers, as he often did when studying some problem, "let's see. A good kicker might do two or three miles an hour, by picking out the water. Two good kickers might put her up to five, good conditions. Some days we ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... same burden. She ran towards a stone-wall, but was met by a terrier, who killed her, catching her with the greater facility in consequence of her obstinacy in carrying away what Mr. St. John still thought was her prey. On picking it up, however, he found that it was a young weasel, unable to run, which its mother was endeavouring to carry to a place of safety, her former hole in an adjoining field having been ploughed over. Another proof of the weasel's affection for her young, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... at you!" said Faith. "I know not how it is, but since we came to London, you are for ever picking quarrels with Aubrey, and seeking occasion against him. Are you envious of his better fortune, or ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing, and smoothing its black petticoat. "Nothing like it, is there? I don't do any now. I'm getting on. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... afraid of these women (picking the letter up). It does seem to have a key in it. (He opens the letter, and takes out a key and a note.) "Dear Mitch"—Well, ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... and fed more cocoa-husks to his make-shift oven. The shower had passed, moving in a gray curtain down the valley, and picking my way through the mire of the yard, I followed it ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... would look up to shake her head, often from the telephone over which she was saying: "Nothing to-day, dear. Sorry!" She didn't exactly feel that the motion-picture business had gone on the rocks, but she knew it wasn't picking up as it should. And ever and again she would have Merton Gill assure her that he hadn't forgotten the home address, the town where lived Gighampton or Gumwash or whoever it was that held the good old job open for him. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... I about?" answered Laura. "Why, Valentine, I was just picking off some of these leaves, which appear to have been broken. The bed looks almost as if some—some creature ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... thinking how pleasant it was thus to escape the routine of travel, to find one's self in a purely foreign atmosphere, among French people, picking up by the way French habits and ways of thought, when one of the officials of the company bustled up ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... inclined to converse or remonstrate, he endeavoured to get through with his supper with as much expedition as possible, that he might enjoy all the comforts of refreshing sleep. Yet he was often on the eve of picking a quarrel with Joe, when he suffered a sudden twinge from his broken tooth, while striving to tear the firmer portion of the venison from the bone. But when he reflected upon his peculiar participation in the occurrence which ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Then I ran two or three miles directly toward the country of the Malites, and returning I stamped along the course of the river for a mile or so in both directions. Then I walked back to Arite, again picking my way carefully among crowds of Oroids, who now feared me so little that I had difficulty in ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... smooth, neat countenance, upon which no record either of experience or of thought was engraved, and decided fleetingly that he was lying. She judged him capable of picking up acquaintances on the street, but thought that more originality might ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt no body by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the two midshipmen again shoved off from the frigate's side. Jack had of course his faithful rifle with him, and he felt pretty certain that, should he once get a sight of the enemy, he should be able to use it with good effect. "I have not the slightest compunction about picking off those slaving scoundrels," he observed, as he was busily employed in loading his piece. "They seem to be completely lost to all sense of what is right and just, such perfectly abandoned sinners, that there can be no hope of their reforming, so I only feel as if I was destroying a ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the mines for fifteen years. It wasn't that he minded work really, but the foreman had it in for him. Always giving him a bad time; always picking out the lousy jobs ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett
... confounded—the situation had become reversed. She found herself impugned and called to defend when she had thought only to attack. It was a bitter reflection that he had, all along, hidden his contempt, while she had been idly picking flaws in him. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Lannis searched this wide, flat expanse of brilliant green. Nothing moved on it save a great heron picking its deliberate way on stilt-like legs. It was well for Quintana that he ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... social life but also over the policy, both external and internal, adopted by their countrymen. Like most monopolists, they showed a marked tendency to abuse the advantages of their position. Science was relegated to a position of humiliating inferiority, and had to content itself with picking up whatever crumbs were, with a lordly and at times almost contemptuous tolerance, allowed to fall from the humanistic table. Bossuet once defined a heretic as "celui qui a une opinion" ([Greek: airesis]). A somewhat similar attitude was at one time adopted to those ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... worried, to put it bluntly. We can't hide those rockets, you know. Their own Luna-based radar has been picking up every one of them as they come in and leave. They're wondering why we're making so many trips all ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... effort. Picking Rex up, he ran the intervening distance, although it was twice as far as he usually bore his burden ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... alone, he terrifies his wife with the story of the witch of Schornstein, who is given to eating little children, and they both hurry off to bring Haensel and Gretel home. Meanwhile, out in the forest the children amuse themselves with picking strawberries and making flower garlands, until the approach of night, when they find to their horror that they have lost their way. They search for it in vain, and at last, completely tired out, they sink down upon the moss beneath ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... permit of their pursuing it, saw also deer Elk and buffalo tracks. [May 28—45th day] We started out, but I would gladly have stayed today, rested & cooked some more, for the guides said we would have no more wood for 200 ms, & we must now take to "picking up chips."[48] When a few miles out we came to a very bad slue, deep & muddy, it would be a fortune to some one to bridge it, it could be easily done, for it is not wide & the timber could be had on Elm creek which is but a few miles back, & any one would rather pay a reasonable toll, than to ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... anything.... The only thing in careers that I can fancy at the moment is art dealing—picking up nice things cheap and selling them dear, you know. Only I should always want to keep them, of course. If I don't do that I shall have to live by my needle. If they pass the Sweated Industries Bill, I suppose ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... King is weary Of dainty and such picking grievances; And, therefore, will he wipe his tables clean And keep no tell-tale to ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... the stick at his feet, looked up and asked for more, as plainly as ever did Oliver Twist. Here was a pleasant amusement for young people. The grave Hugh and the gay Merryweathers, Peggy and Jean, all became absorbed in picking up sticks and throwing them. There was no end to the puppies' enthusiasm, apparently; they yelled, and rushed, and yelled and rushed again; and when Margaret came out an hour afterward, anxious lest her guests should find time hang heavy on their hands, she found ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... dreamed of virile deeds, and vast, And then come back from dreams with wobbly knees, To find your way (the braver vision past), By picking meekly at typewriter keys; By bending o'er a ledger, day by day, By some machine-like drudging? No great woe To grapple with. Slow, painful is the way, And still, the bravest fight ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... and painfully they climbed the steep ascent, sometimes following a narrow path which wound along the edge of a precipice, sometimes leaping, from rock to rock, or over some deep gorge, and sometimes picking their way among the crags and cliffs. The sun at last went down, and one by one the stars came out; and the moon was rising, round and red, when Siegfried stood by Regin's side, and gazed from the mountain-top ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... several reasons: First, the small bulbs grown from seed or from bulblets do not all ripen at the same time, and if digging is deferred until after some of them have matured, these drop from their stems in handling, and keep one picking them up, which is a great hindrance. If taken up in time, they can be pulled off from the green stalks in handfuls. Second, when the little bulbs mature they change color from white to brown, and if any drop it is not so easy to find them in the brown soil. They may be taken up when no ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... haven't!" choked Ingred. "At least, it was my fault you ever went into the field at all. Miss Strong told me to tell you the horse was savage, and you were such a long way off picking cowslips that I didn't trouble to go after you. I trusted to Verity ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... by the side of the road about half-past eight in the evening. I suppose you don't remember my picking ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... having hard work of it. Time and again he launched himself at the swaying legs, bringing the canvas man to earth, but always picking himself up to find the coach observing him very, very coldly, and to hear that exasperating gentleman ask sarcastically if he (Joel) thinks he is playing "squat tag." And then the dummy would swing back into place, harboring no malice ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Sayd, and every gun was discharged, Sambroko picking out one of the chiefs, who fell wounded, as did several more, though none were killed. Still other chiefs led the way; undaunted they advanced in spite of another volley, the defenders of the knoll loading and discharging their muskets as fast as they ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... little things! Are they not little beauties?" said Cornelia, picking up one of them, and laying its soft feathery ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... you use it, then, instead of lobsterine?" replied the stranger, picking up his package and the change. Miss Clarissa deigning to give no reply but an angry frown, the stranger expressed his gratitude for the amusement he intimated she had afforded him and he further said he hoped he would see her at the Charity Ball and he made bold to ask her to save the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... hunters stuck close together, but they soon separated, each picking out for himself what seemed to be choice places in the little wood. Yielding to the incessant firing the birds began to desert their roosts in great flocks until at last but few lingered on the barren limbs. Charley was about to call his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... resume, boiled down and condensed into a patent royal elixir of learning. Your caterpillar, then, runs many serious risks in early life from the annoying persistence of sundry evil-disposed birds, who insist at inconvenient times in picking him off the leaves of gooseberry bushes and other his chosen places of residence. His infant mortality, indeed, is something simply appalling, and it is only by laying the eggs that produce him ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... morning, with big hats on their heads, deep baskets on their backs, low stools in their hands. There is a big field of black-currant bushes beside my garden to the south. All day, in the heat, they sit under the bushes picking away. At sundown they carry their heavy baskets to the weighing-machine on the roadside at the foot of the hill, and stand in line to be weighed in and paid by the English buyers for Crosse and Blackwell, Beach, and such houses, who have, I suppose, ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... the body, and as his eyes wandered from the corpse to the gun, which lay on the ground, and back again to the corpse a ferocious gleam of gratified revenge, like the lurid gleam of fires at night, swept over his swarthy face. Picking up, then, the gun, the knives and tomahawks, and stripping the corpse of the articles containing the powder and bullets, the Indian started in ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams |
