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More "Purr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... joy declar'd: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10 Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... up in her arms. Most mellifluously did he purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy he licked our hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a thankful cat; he was no longer lost, starving, imprisoned, helpless; he was with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... waltz from the ballroom I heard, When I called him a low, sneaking cur. And the wail of the violins stirred My brute anger with visions of her. As I throttled his windpipe, the purr Of his breath ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... not in it!" And the man gave a gesture of mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An' minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an' seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... fill up half the page With descriptions of her rage— (I might say that she went a bit too fur!) When he smiled and murmured: "Shoo!" "There is one thing I can do!" She answered with a wrathful kind of purr. "You may shoo me, and it suit you, But I feel my conscience bid Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!" ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... to their mother dear; "Oh mammy dear, see here, see here, We've washed our mittens clean!" they cry. "You darling kittens, To wash your mittens," She says, and fondles them till they're dry— Purr, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... stars Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes Peered on them lockt. Far and faint The great stags belled; far and faint Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling Lent desolation to night; and low The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks Sounded the tireless lapping deep. Lockt they ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... at such times, much of it about my poor cooking. Kaiser and Pawsy appeared willing to do what they could to make it pleasant; and this time I put a chair at one end of the little table, and the cat jumped up in it and began to purr like a young tiger, while the dog sat on the floor at the other end and pounded the floor with his tail like any drummer might beat his drum. I also began to get them into the bad practice of eating at the same time I did; but I ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... that," said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair—and they don't purr!" ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... who had just entered had no sooner closed the lower door than one above flashed open, a stream of light gushed down the stairs, and a calm, well-modulated voice said serenely: "Come right up, Mr. Narkom. I knew it would be you before your motor turned the corner. I'd know the purr of your machine among ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... a poem now that Dorothea was wrestling, as she wriggled her toes in the sand and gazed blankly oceanward. Under the scorching August sun, the Atlantic seemed to purr like ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... woman with her Tom Cat and her Hen. And the Tom Cat, whom she called Sonnie, could arch his back and purr. He could even give out sparks; but for that one had to stroke his fur the wrong way. The Hen had quite little short legs, and therefore she was called Chickabiddy-shortshanks; she laid good eggs, and the woman loved her as ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... who had been excessively uneasy and restless all night, managed, with great difficulty, to clamber up on the bed, where he rubbed his nose against his master's hand—trying at the same time to purr in the old way, but failing lamentably. The baron woke instantly, and saw poor Beelzebub looking at him appealingly, with his great green eyes unnaturally dilated, and momentarily growing dim; he was trembling violently, and as his master's ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... constantly a black mist resembling shifting cloud smoke. Millions of auks swarm from their moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air. Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... had told the chauffeur that he would not require him again that night, and I had noticed the man touch his hat in the belief that this actually was his employer who addressed him, for the real Earl of Cranmere had lent us his car. I heard the car purr away in the darkness, and an instant later the door of number 300 Cumberland ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... under the delusion that the only remarkable thing about us is that instinctive purring which arises from a certain feeling of comfort; for that reason they often stroke us awkwardly and then we usually purr to secure ourselves against blows. But if they knew how to manage us in the right way, believe me, they would accustom our good nature to everything, and Michel, your neighbor's tom-cat, would even at times be pleased to jump through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... from the stately gentleman's attempt to tap its nose with his finger, and evinced a desire to make the acquaintance of his wife, toward whom it put forth its head as far as possible out of its basket, beginning the while to purr. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Julia, all on fire, 'and fairly; only think of that!'" Through every sentence that he jots down runs a vein of gentle satire on the sex. Every specimen that he has drawn from it possesses feline characteristics: if provoked, they scratch; if happy, they purr; when they move, it is with the bodies of panthers; when they caress their children, it is like snakes; and in every single one of his books the women listen, behind the door, behind the hedge, behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dimpled arm holds me tightly against a loving heart, I feel very pleased and happy. If I were a pussy-cat I should purr, for I feel that I am ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... perking his ears forward toward a new sound that had nothing weird or mysterious about it; a sound that was essentially earthly, material, modern, the distant purr of a high-powered automobile on the trail away to their right. Starr turned his face that way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love song but the fading memory of a ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... give strict orders that perfect quietude reigned in the guard-room this night," said Chauvelin, murmuring softly, and there was a gentle purr in his voice, "and that you were left undisturbed for several hours. I would give orders that a comforting supper be served to you at once, and that everything be done to minister to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... have been a very satisfactory pet—I have done little else but purr." I felt his eyes upon me in a wonderful nearness of love; and then I looked up and I saw ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... little while, as Uncle Wiggily was sitting there, listening to the big cat purr, he felt sleepy, and he was just going to sleep, when he heard a gentle ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... purr went round the court; the kind humane ladies and gentlemen who had fought for seats found this to their ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... "spout," Hera's pet, offspring of Typhon, the lion-clad Hero assailed, con amore; but you, Callous as Behemoth, hard as an iron-clad, "Conciliation" with coldness will view Fancy "approaching" the Hydra with honey-bait, Tempting the monster to parley and purr! How will Monopoly look on a money-bait? Hercules, too, who would "like to defer?" Not quite a true hard-shell hero—in attitude— Hercules (County) Concilians looks; Thinks he to move a true Hydra to gratitude? Real Leviathan chortles at hooks! "Come, pretty Hydra! 'Agreement provisional,' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... Mackerel Kit Is not like other cats a bit; She cannot mew or scratch or purr, She has no whiskers and no fur. Yet, like all cats, her dearest wish Is just to be filled up with fish; But (and this isn't so feline) She always takes them ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... that strangely peered out at him through the eyeholes of the pink, celluloid mask. Bohannan and the doctor stood by, curiously observing this conflict of two wills. Silence came, save for the droning purr of the engines, the buffeting gusts of wind along the fuselage, the slight trembling of the gigantic fabric as it hurled itself eastward through ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... everything? Her trunk is at the station and she has the check," she explained to Mrs. Donovan. "Good-by." And with another kiss for Mary Rose she was gone. They could hear the purr of the taxicab as ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... assigned to that humble hut misunderstood animal. Like a cat, he is generally sleek and has become an adept in the art of ingratiating himself with those who wear skirts and dispense comforts. Like a cat, too, he has an insinuating manner; he can purr quite admirably in luxurious surroundings, and, on the whole, he prefers to attain his objects by a circuitous method rather than by the bluff and uncompromising directness which is employed by dogs and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... we all came down from the North in the big canoe with my father and mother, when we were little children and him a baby. He played of the rapids we passed over, and of the rustling of the poplar-trees and the purr of the pines. He played till the river you hear now was in the fiddle, with the sound of our paddles, and the fish jumping for flies. He played about the long winters when we were young, so that the snow of those winters seemed falling again. The ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... herself again the purr of a swiftly moving motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray roadster coming toward them from the north. The Shell Road, before reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... blue. It took power to do that, power to hold a beam tight and strong and steady through the stress of one hundred thousand miles. But it had to be that far away ... and they had that power. From the bowels of the ship came the deep purr of it, the angry, silky song ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... stronger and the surf boomed louder and nearer, and the faint moon-path stretched farther and farther toward the smudgy sky-line, city-going street-cars began to fill with sunburned passengers, and motors began to purr out of the narrow side streets lined with shoddy buildings which housed the summer sojourners. One more Sunday night's revelry was tapering off into shouted farewells, clanging gongs, honking horns and the shuffling of tired feet ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... old man." Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the way from home ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... her joy declared: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... dim and dense, I sometimes seem to see The shadowy line of a backyard fence And a feline shape of me. I hear the growl, and yowl and howl Of each nocturnal fight, And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr Of passionate delight, As seeking an amorous rendezvous My ancient brothers go stealing Through the purple gloom ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... difficult to make you understand; but I feel quite sure we'll all make a pet of it, and when you once hear it purr, you'll think it a prettier sound ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... mar jar fur slur tart cart bur furl star turf first curl gird jerk lard fern bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark shark mark spurt third parch smart churn perch harm ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... we to understand by this? Not that the bride was displeased with the embraces of her amorous bridegroom; for, though some have remarked that cats are subject to ingratitude, yet women and cats too will be pleased and purr on certain occasions. The truth is, as the sagacious Sir Roger L'Estrange observes, in his deep reflections, that, "if we shut Nature out at the door, she will come in at the window; and that puss, though a madam, will be a mouser still." In the same manner we are not to arraign the squire ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... I got higher it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr—the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... just then. But this was impossible as yet for the sensitive Wolfhound. The two bears in the next cage were playing together fubsily, and the tiger's breathing while he slept was a maddening kind of cross between a purr and a snore; maddening, that is, to one who found the creature's mere proximity incredibly distasteful. This hatred of the Killer's neighbourhood was no whim, no personal fastidiousness on Finn's part. It went much deeper than that. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... who had accompanied her in her stroll, purred the purr of the pleased patron whose protegee has ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... boys, but she was afraid of this one. He had golden curls and a Fauntleroy collar, and the sweetest lips that ever said prayers, and clean dimpled hands that looked as if they had been made to stroke cats and make them purr. But instead of stroking them he rubbed their fur the wrong way, and hung tin kettles to their tails, and tied handkerchiefs over their heads. When Mrs. Chinchilla saw the Boy she humped her back, so that it looked like a gray mountain, and said, "Sftt!" ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Purr-gatory, that was it," she declared. "And it was something a cat does—purr, you know; I knew it was. Mamma said living here ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... best of cars always run better at night. I wonder why. So smoothly silky, so dreamily sweet-running, a pouring of cream! I wish I could convey to you the satin sound of her transmission, the low golden purr of her gears, the fanning of her velvet wings—wheels, that is. I would sooner ride in that verbal car of Holder's than walk round the real backyard that is my own, unless I fall behind with the rent, as I begin to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... never saw an author in my life—saving, perhaps, one—that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus, LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... disarm foes. It is an outcry of good as against evil—the squawk of a hen to her chicks, the bleat of a sheep to her lambs, the grunt of a sow to her sucklings, the bellow of a cow to her calf, the purr of a cat to her kittens, the whine of a dog to her puppies, the drum of a partridge to her young. A cry from the heart to the heart, an appeal of flesh to its own flesh, it ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom," Madame responded. She bent down to stroke the yellow head, but, though Mr. Boffin gratefully accepted the caress, he did not condescend to purr. Presently he stalked away into the shadows, waving his ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... Horse drew a long breath. "Then I did hear her purr," said he; "I am so glad." He never made a fuss about his troubles, for he was brave and unselfish, yet the Dappled Gray knew without being told how much lighter his heart was since he heard that the Cat had really been purring above ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a sweet ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... than it seems when I hear him. The second call is the last note of the first one, three or four times repeated with such rapidity that it has a flute-like reverberation that is almost like a round and very musical purr. The cry of this bird has been called eerie and disquieting, but I do not think it so, even in the loneliness of the question call. The satisfied one is as gentle and cuddly as one can ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... rate. Wondrous the magic power of blague, and "bleat" On Man—mouton degenerate! That "Bete Humaine," as ZOLA dubs him. Gr—r—r! The real brutes are braver; The tiger, when in chase of prey, won't purr, Nor will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... up to sit on his royal shoulder? If so, she would purr her loudest to drown the beating of her heart, and she would rub her head against the royal ear. How splendid to be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... on Aunt Zenobia an imported landaulet, this year's model, all complete even to monogrammed laprobes and a morocco vanity case in the tonneau. It's one of these low-hung French cars, with an eight-cylinder motor that runs as sweet as the purr of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... and she did not recall that important fact even when she sat down again to watch her moose steaks broil on the glowing coals raked apart from the leaping blaze. The flames licked into the throat of the chimney with the purr of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... had done with their cats? By the most prolonged and careful selection and exclusion they had developed a race of cats that did not sing! That's a fact. The most those poor dumb brutes could do was to make a kind of squeak when they were hungry or wanted the door open, and, of course, to purr, and make the ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... the fish and the milk and the hay With a purr had been an easy task: But its hate and my blood were required to pay For the gifts that ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... God, are we, Armenian and Copt, And we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped. Not one of us but spits at the creed the others mouth and purr, But we all believe, we all believe, ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... Mr. Emmet," he said in his courtly and deliberate manner, and with that suggestion of a purr in his voice which always betokened concealment and a latent ability to spring. "You find me just about to go out, but I still have a little leeway. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... opened the door, a sharp little voice would say "Good-morning! walk in." That is the gray parrot, Nick. As you walked into the kitchen, Pansy and Pickwick would come up to you and purr, and put up their heads to ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... That's to make him wash his paws. If you can make him wash and purr in a new place, he will stay. And then you must take him round and show him every room and every closet. And you must come down real often, Hanny. There's the lovely little park, you know. Aunt Boudinot has a key. They're such nice ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the little white cat jumped into the room. The princess took the little cat on her lap and stroked him with her hand, and the cat raised up its back and began to purr. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned the lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. Then Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it, realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that very moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four walls ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... his feet, glancing at the still form on the bed. Choking back a sob he staggered down the hall, shouting to Ann as he went down the stairs, redoubling his speed as he heard the purr of autojets in the driveway. In a moment he was in his own car, frantically stamping on the starter. It started immediately, the motor booming, and the powerful jet engines forced the heavy car ahead dangerously, taking the corner on two of its three wheels. He knew that Ann ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its paws ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... was Mr. Velvet Purr, a quiet old bachelor, who sat nearly all day in the sun on a garden seat watching the birds, but who was much too well fed to catch mice. Miss Velveteen Purr, his sister, went with him, she was a very pretty singer, wore a fur ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... purpose not to notice the mock in her tones. He very well understood what it imported and what prompted it. For the first time the tigress had disclosed her claws. Hitherto it was always the soft caress and the soothing purr—and when she wished, her caress could be very soft and her purr very soothing. He had assumed that there were claws, but she had hidden them from him; and what is ever hidden one after a time forgets. And she had some justification for her resentment. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... E.'s pretty little house. He has a pretty wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby, two nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and felicity. I had a good audience last evening, and enjoyed it. My audiences, considering the horse disease and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the white kitten in his arms and thrust its wet little body into his equally wet bosom, where the warmth began soon to exercise a soothing influence on the kitten's depressed spirits, so that, ere long, it began to purr. He then walked with the sailor towards the village, with his face black and blue, and swelled and covered with blood, while Bob Croaker and his companions returned to ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... it from the clinging tangle of web in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... down to First Street. In fact, she was in New York two weeks before she got as far south as 100th Street. She had almost forgotten that she had ever dwelt elsewhere than in New York. Her imitative instinct was already exchanging her Western burr for a New York purr. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... like all other social phenomena grow too stale for comment, but meanwhile he should feel as if he were frying on a gridiron. Anne Goodrich would merely exclaim: "Abominable." Marian Lawrence would draw in her nostrils and purr: "Lee was always an erratic and impressionable boy. Just like him to fall in love with an old woman. And she's really a beautiful blonde—once more. Poor Lee." As for Gora and Suzan Forbes—well, Gora would understand, and impale ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 'Ah! you'd best purr!' said Hazel. 'Sitting on cushions by the fireside all your life long you'll be, and Foxy with a ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... the history of Lucca is a sort of unhappy silence, out of which from time to time rise the cry of Burlamacchi, a fool, yes, but a hero, the howling of the traitors, the whisper of feeble conspiracies, the purr of an ignoble prosperity, till in 1805 Napoleon came ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Sometimes he was gone for days together, and at first the man used to be terrified, thinking he would never return; then he would hear the familiar cry at the door, and stumble to his feet and let him in. Then the two would dine together, sharing equally; then the Cat would rest and purr, and finally sleep in the ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, "like a thousand cats." The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done. On the following morning the man and the tiger were ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... homeless waif on our hearth Gives a homelike look to the place; With her warm grey fur, And her satisfied purr, And content ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90 An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented, While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, 95 Further an' further ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... I thrill and I vision! Then my camp of a night; Red and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream; Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight, Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream: Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine, When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil! Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... air of bustle and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to purr. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... tabby, puss, pussy; kitten, kitty; grimalkin (an old she cat). Associated Words: purr, mew, miaul, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... waned. He still loved it, but certainty is monotonous, and his eyes wandered to other objects. 'The Tiger is nothing but a domestic cat,' he said; 'I will pet and caress it when the mood takes me, and for the rest of the time it can purr to itself by the fire.' At last one day, after the Tiger was especially gracious and had purred with all essence of love, the man yawned. 'It is really a charming beast,' he said, 'but it is always the same; and then he went away and forgot even to ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... the dynamo was working we could have light," he said. "But it seems to have stopped," and, indeed there was a lacking of the familiar purr and hum of the electrical machine. In fact none of the apparatus in the ship ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. It well becomes our mutual happiness To go toward the same end more or less. There is not much dissimilarity, Not much to ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... race in him. Heraldry may lie; but voices do not. Low people make money, drive in state, throng to palaces, receive kings at their tables by the force of gold; but their antecedents always croak out in their voices. They either screech or purr; they have no clear modulations; besides, their women always stumble over their train, and their men bow worse than ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... like a great cat, and when Earle unhesitatingly approached, and, placing his hand upon the creature's head, proceeded gently to caress it, the animal not only endured the touch, but after a minute or two actually began to purr. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... continued the little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... ruffle your fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and standing by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St. George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was sure John Meredith must ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... did I hear his dear familiar purr as he swept away from the door of the hotel (my balcony is a corner one, and I could just catch the well-known c-r-r-r) when I regretted intensely that I hadn't been en evidence, looking indifferent. Suddenly, I suffered pangs of apprehension lest my stopping in ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... amuse his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is the case with all biplanes, the engine being behind ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... 'You purr like an old cat over her kitten,' said Arthur, longing to see her smile once more; and he was not disappointed; it was a bright, contented, even joyous smile, that played on the colourless features, and the eyes beamed softly on him as she said, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn't talking." ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... three little kittens found their mittens, And they began to cry, O mother dear, See here, see here; See, we have found our mittens. Put on your mittens, You silly kittens, And you may have some pie Purr-r, purr-r, purr-r, O, let us have the pie, Purr-r, ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... gesture were surprising in that they were expressions of this personality totally unexpected. Both were almost womanlike in their delicacy. They suggested the purr and soft padding of a cat, an odd contradiction to the white, bloodless face with the inky brows. The eyes of "Poker" Whaley could throw fear into the most reckless bull-whacker on the border. They held fascinating ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... views were popular. There was a little murmur of approval, something which sounded almost like a purr of content. It was just one more expression of that strangely discreditable yet almost universal failing,—the over-reliance upon others. The quiet remark of the man who suddenly saw fit to join in the discussion struck a chilling and ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... even when she hasn't a mind to work at it," said Burton, making his pipe purr with a long, deep inspiration of satisfaction. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... suitable things in a highly unsuitable manner, and proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... with joyful purr, In mouse fur his sharp claw sticks, Problems difficult and dear, With my spear I, ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... which he had spent at the house of a Joplin friend of the Madeiras. He was enjoying the ride now. The friend of the Madeiras had put good horses at Madeira's disposal and Miss Sally Madeira could get speed out of good horses as easily as other women get a purr out of a kitten. Even Madeira, just behind him, crowding forward upon him, did not very much bother Steering. ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... her bird work urn fern sir word turn term stir worm hurt herd girl world purr jerk first worst burn ever chirp worth churn serve whirl worse burst perch thirst worship church kernel fir worthy curve verse firm worry curb verb third fur germ birth blur herb birch curd stern ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... the captain's shoulder. Often the old man took his violin from the corner, and as he played he whistled or sang in a quavering voice, Jan's tail beat time on the floor, Hippity-Hop joined with a song of her own, though it was only a loud purr, while Cheepsie, perched on their loved master's shoulder, sang and trilled as loudly as he could, trying to make more music than the bird that ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... the back of the box, was filled with a tangle of wheels and pulleys, seeming to preclude the possibility that a human being could hide therein. As soon as these doors closed, a flat space in the chest of the Sheik opened, with a faint purr of machinery to expose internal organs of metal levers ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... room, and nearly cried because she found it so dreary, that she would come to feel at home in it; that by her doing the brown earthenware stove in the corner, cold since Mrs. Fane's day, would again glow and purr; that over and over she would watch the row of flower-pots out on the terrace, with the stiff straw-colored remains in them of last year's carnations, grow slowly visible in the dawn; that from their pastel portrait the eyes of the mother would watch her placing compresses ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... YOU before, my dear Signor Ferarri, I know nothing whatever about women, and care less than nothing for their loves or hatreds! I have always thought of them more or less as playful kittens, who purr when they are stroked the right way, and scream and scratch when their tails are trodden on. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... two, and then practically ran away from my work and rode over to that little butte. Some one was sitting on the same flat rock, and I climbed up to the place with more haste than grace, I imagine. When I reached the top, panting like the purr of the Yellow Peril—my automobile—when it gets warmed up and going smoothly, I discovered that it was Edith Loroman sitting placidly, with a camera on her knees, doing things to the internal organs of the thing. I don't ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... cold as a stone, Little cat! Dey's done frowed you out an' left you alone, Little cat! I's a-strokin' you's fur, But you don't never purr Nor hump up anywhere, Little cat. W'y is dat? Is you's purrin' ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... tabby may laze And purr at my feet, But here in the blue summer days The seal-people meet. They bask on my ledges and romp In the swirl of the tides, Old bulls in their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others come visiting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... ears came the purr of a police whistle. The taxi-man evidently did not hear the significant sound. Merciful Providence had rung down the curtain; for to-night my role in ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... many another that came at call, It would take too long to count them all. All black,—one could hardly tell which was which, But every cat knew his own old witch; And she knew hers as hers knew her, Ah, did n't they curl their tails and purr! ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... clothes and broad shoulder-band of leather, Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested, The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, Sparkles ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... look as cunning as my daughter's baby-kitten's face. My mistress is very good to me sometimes, but sometimes she pulls my tail and makes me mad, and I scratch her and then she slaps me back; but when she is good to me, and pets me, and gives me cake, then I purr ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... Where the Meuse runs green and clear, Do the children run to pick you In this springtime of the year? Do they stroke you and caress you Kiss the silky balls of fur, Take you to the priest to bless you And pretend to hear you purr? Do their small hot fingers wilt you? ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... fellow to know is whether her ears are sharp enough to hear him when he shouts that she's spending too much money and that she must reduce expenses. Of course, when you're patting and petting and feeding a woman she's going to purr, but there's nothing like stirring her up a little now and then to see if she spits fire and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... keep, a rule which applies not only here, but everywhere, especially among semi-barbarous races. The people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... side of a long, slow hill, to whose summit a few more weary steps now brought them. Here, for the first time since the chase had begun, the brindled dog came to a halt of his own accord—stopping short, with a deep, heavy growl, scarce louder than the purr of a panther. Burl looked before him and caught from afar the glimmer of a camp-fire, burning on the summit of an opposite hill. They had, indeed, at last come up with the flying foe, but under circumstances far less favorable ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... attributed to nature, and how much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Alexander Abraham suddenly appeared. He walked in one evening at dusk, but at first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to his feet, grasping the wire-stays for support. Then he stiffened and stood listening. The muffled purr of a high-powered motor disturbed the silence. From out the gloom to starboard he saw the bow of a big motor-boat cut the fog. The Mexican shrieked a warning and tightened ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... Kit-Ki And run after Her with laughter And rub her fur So she will purr? Why do I know That Kit-Ki loves me so? I know it if Her tail stands up stiff And she beguiles ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... with joy, as cats pounce and purr on catnip. The whole country studied Brown's letters with the rapture of eavesdropping. Such letters! Such oozing molasses of sentiment! Such elephantine coquetry! Joel weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds and called himself Little Brownie and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... sun and wind, her well-known friends, were larking about among the tombstones, she laid her cheek as affectionately against her father's head as if she were a daughter to be proud of, and would have purred if she had had had a purr as loudly as the most satisfied and ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time will ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... followed by great unrest and hot, muttered words. Martin did not move a muscle, the smile was set, but between the half-closed eyelids crouched Combat, on its toes. The Mexicans knew it was there without looking for it—the tone of his voice, the caressing purr of his words, and his unnatural languor were signs well known to them. Not a criminal sneaking back from voluntary banishment in Mexico who had seen those signs ever forgot them, if he lived. Martin watched ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... party, as serenely as a cat knows how. Again and again did he put me down with firm, but not ungentle hands, saying—"Go down, Toots," and pick stray hairs in a fidgety manner off his dress-trousers; and again and again did I return to his shoulder (where he couldn't see the hairs) and purr in his ear, and rub my long whiskers against his ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... if the cushat sang Its low song in the fir; The cat, perhaps, broke the quiet with Its regular slow purr; 'Twas music now, and her wheel gave forth A rhythm in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... haste to their mother dear; "Oh mammy dear, see here, see here, We've washed our mittens clean!" they cry. "You darling kittens, To wash your mittens," She says, and fondles them till they're dry— Purr, purr, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps. At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had never quite recovered from his ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... and they stepped inside. The Witch was not at home, but evidently she was not far away, for a fire was crackling in the stove and a kettle singing over the flames. An enormous black cat got up lazily from the hearth and rubbed himself against the visitors with a purr ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... settled on hill and plain, The moon went out, the concourse of stars Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes Peered on them lockt. Far and faint The great stags belled; far and faint Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling Lent desolation to night; and low The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks Sounded the tireless lapping deep. Lockt they lay thro' all ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... a while, I began to look at the queer old things in the garret. Pussy began to purr louder and louder, and at last I fell again into the same dreamy sleep that I was in ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... was rather neat For "Faute-de-Mieux," at any rate. Wondrous the magic power of blague, and "bleat" On Man—mouton degenerate! That "Bete Humaine," as ZOLA dubs him. Gr—r—r! The real brutes are braver; The tiger, when in chase of prey, won't purr, Nor will the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... Henley than she ever yet had for me! But he is just as discreet as herself; so that it seems impossible to be jealous. Yet jealous I am! Ay and jealous I should be of my cat, if she were as ready to purr and rear her back to be stroked by every coarse unwashed hand as ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... gave himself up the day after he had at first fled. He was already pre-judged; for so violent was the feeling against the Papists that my Lord Lucas said in the House of Lords that if he could have his way, he "would not have even a Popish cat to mew and purr about the King." Coleman, I say, was the first of those who had before been accused; but a Mr. Stayley, a Catholic banker (who had his house not far from me in Covent Garden), was even before him judged and executed, on account ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... in the papers again. Blackie went on smoking. There was no sound in the little room except the purr-purring of Blackie's pipe. Then: ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved into an arch, the tail broadened, the purr became a growl. Had association lifted the brute's instincts to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... powerful influence of the place, but in a different way. The pleasant, kindly animal to which she had likened the Casino was now a mighty monster, who must be approached with caution and even fear, whose gentle, feline purring was the purr of a tiger sitting with claws in sheath. How the great golden beast could strike and tear sometimes, the desperate face of her companion told. Mary feared for his sake that people might read the lines of misery, and whisper that here ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... got no lawyer, commissioner." His speech was the elaborated and painfully emphasized English of the self-taught East Sider. It carried in it just the bare suggestion of the racial lisp, and it made an acute contrast to the menacing Hibernian purr of Donohue's heavier voice. "I kind of thought I'd conduct ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... are sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... A soft purr, like that of a great cat, indicated that Woola understood, and then, with a word to him to follow, I turned to the right along the ledge, but scarcely had I done so than I felt his mighty fangs tugging at ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I vision! Then my camp of a night; Red and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream; Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight, Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream: Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine, When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil! Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . . Ha! there's ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... leaned upon her mother and obeyed. She was lying on her bed under the pink quilt, and Mrs. Amber had her hat and coat and walking-shoes off, and the gas fire began to purr, and a heavenly comfort visited her. She knew reluctantly that these matrons were horribly wise women, after all. She looked into her mother's eyes, and saw there the question which cried in her heart, but she could not read it. It was ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... his back against the door. The cat had awakened and she was gazing at him with her green eyes. She began to purr encouragingly. She really helped Marco to think. He was thinking with all his might and trying ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of Lucca is a sort of unhappy silence, out of which from time to time rise the cry of Burlamacchi, a fool, yes, but a hero, the howling of the traitors, the whisper of feeble conspiracies, the purr of an ignoble prosperity, till in 1805 Napoleon came and made her ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... rose, came across the room, and standing by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St. George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was sure John Meredith must hear ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... heels mighty loud, Miss." Dave caught in that soft answer the purr of malice. He remembered now hearing from Buck Byington that years ago Emerson Crawford had rounded up evidence to send Shorty to the penitentiary for rebranding through a blanket. "I reckon you come by it honest. Em always acted like he was ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... an odd, intimate feeling—a strong feeling of affection—for every piece of machinery in the power-house. He liked to hear the squeak of the belting and the steady chug-chug of the water-wheels; the purr of the dynamos was music, and he kept the commutators free from dust ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Paddy up in her arms. Most mellifluously did he purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy he licked our hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a thankful cat; he was no longer lost, starving, imprisoned, helpless; he was with his comrades once more and he was going home—home to his old familiar haunts of orchard and ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... busy with its own thoughts that all of the three tongues were still. Only the yellow cat, having but little mind, and that being soothed into a calm content by Pancha's gentle strokings of her sleek fur, expressed her perfect happiness, and so made talk for the whole party, in a rumbling purr. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Lucinda's theory of a soul; but his was no good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a "perfect love"; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda's time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched like a young tiger, he sprang at her from the floor and fastened on her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... him wash his paws. If you can make him wash and purr in a new place, he will stay. And then you must take him round and show him every room and every closet. And you must come down real often, Hanny. There's the lovely little park, you know. Aunt Boudinot has a key. They're such nice queer old ladies, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... The purr came nearer, but it was not appreciably louder. The gurgle of water past the prow of the boat could be heard and Dr. Bird could see a long ribbon of white on the water where the craft was passing. He stepped from his cover and leaned forward, straining his eyes to see the boat. It passed beyond ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and leaped northwards like ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... his hand, but the bear did not withdraw, uttering instead a low growl which had some of the quality of a purr, and which was not at all hostile. Henry felt real grief at ousting such an amiable animal, and he realized anew that he had become, in fact, a creature of the wild. It was obvious that the bear looked upon him as a brother, else it would have taken to ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... plains, out of valleys. It is a cry of warning, a cry to disarm foes. It is an outcry of good as against evil—the squawk of a hen to her chicks, the bleat of a sheep to her lambs, the grunt of a sow to her sucklings, the bellow of a cow to her calf, the purr of a cat to her kittens, the whine of a dog to her puppies, the drum of a partridge to her young. A cry from the heart to the heart, an appeal of flesh to its own flesh, it is ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... the cows home to the corner nearest the barn, and the boys milked them while night came on. Everything was as it should be: the strong smell of sunflowers and ironweed in the dew, the clear blue and gold of the sky, the evening star, the purr of the milk into the pails, the grunts and squeals of the pigs fighting over their supper. I began to feel the loneliness of the farm-boy at evening, when the chores seem everlastingly the same, and the world ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... was lovely!" she said, with a sort of purr like a contented kitten. "I'd like to have ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... to grind, and thought I might take a turn at the grindstone if he managed me well. So he nodded to de Sourdam of the Austrian embassy and had his word with Pluyvis, and rejoiced to have impressed me—I could see him bubble with happiness and purr. He proposed that we should stroll as far as the paper kiosque that he patronised habitually—it was kept by a fellow-Israelite—a snuffy ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... laze And purr at my feet, But here in the blue summer days The seal-people meet. They bask on my ledges and romp In the swirl of the tides, Old bulls in their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is the case with all biplanes, the engine being behind the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and his basket in front of the grate. It was so "comfy" that he stopped yowling at once and began to purr. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... tearful and foul-mouthed rage and you will have a few queer thoughts about human nature. Then there is the ladylike shrew. Ah, that being! What has she to answer for? She is neat, low-spoken, precise; she can purr like a cat, and she has the feline scratch always ready too. Pity the governess, the servant, the poor flunkey whom she has at her mercy, for their bread is earned in bitterness. "My lady" does not ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... stiff an' as cold as a stone, Little cat! Dey's done frowed you out an' left you alone, Little cat! I's a-strokin' you's fur, But you don't never purr Nor hump up anywhere, Little cat. W'y is dat? Is you's ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... justly. Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? Thy sheep be in the corn; And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Thy sheep shall take no harm. Purr! the cat ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... little Mackerel Kit Is not like other cats a bit; She cannot mew or scratch or purr, She has no whiskers and no fur. Yet, like all cats, her dearest wish Is just to be filled up with fish; But (and this isn't so feline) She always takes them steeped ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... was a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his fore paws up to my ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... combination lock on the Lady May's cage. He woke her gently and took her into his arms. She humped her back luxuriously, stretched her claws, started to purr, thought better of it, and licked him on the wrist instead. He did not have the pin-set on, so their minds were closed to each other, but in the angle of her mustache and in the movement of her ears, he caught some sense of gratification she ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... [ur] her bird work urn fern sir word turn term stir worm hurt herd girl world purr jerk first worst burn ever chirp worth churn serve whirl worse burst perch thirst worship church kernel fir worthy curve verse firm worry curb verb third fur germ birth blur herb birch curd ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away from this obnoxious man, but she knew she would do neither. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... an ardent noonday sun was collaborating with a coquettish breeze to make gay the window awnings of the chamber where Lanyard, in borrowed pyjamas and dressing-gown of silk, lay luxuriously bedded, listening to the purr of wide-awake Paris and, with an excellent cigar to chew on, ruminating upon the problematic issue of his latest turn of fortune, and not in the least ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... turned to his car, jumped into the driver's seat, and advanced the spark. The purr of the motor deepened ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... t' sake o' peace an' quietness—tho' she's niver a scolding tongue, that a will say for her—we'n best keep this matter to ourselves till thou comes int' port again. T' lass upstairs 'll like nought better than t' curl hersel' round a secret, and purr o'er it, just as t' oud cat does o'er her blind kitten. But thou'll be wanting to see t' lass, a'll be bound. An oud man like me isn't as good company as a pretty lass.' Laughing a low rich laugh over his own wit, Daniel went ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... part, I am glad to know, when I leave her, that she is not so helpless or so sleepy as she looks. It is a great thing to know that a cat's tree-climbing abilities are not hopelessly dormant. It does not make her purr the less when she is stroked. Her fur is as soft, her ways are as gentle as they ever were, and as she lies there so quietly upon the hearth-rug she looks as though she never had left it. Only once in a while she regards you out of one eye in a companionable ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... least afraid until I was in the water, and then she began to mew. She would not stay in the maid's lap, but ran to the side of the punt mewing piteously. I came to the side of the punt and stroked her and she began to purr at once. I thought she would be quite happy now, and so I left her, but I had hardly turned my back before I heard a little splash and turning round saw my maid vainly trying to rescue Ruffle, who had jumped into the water! Instead of trying to reach the bank she ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... window had its frame of ermine and fringe of icicles, and the sleet rattled furiously against the glass, then Ivory would throw a great back log on the bank of coals between the fire-dogs, the kettle would begin to sing, and the eat come from some snug corner to curl and purr ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... obscurity beyond the huge circle of blinding light. One after another her twelve engines sputtered into life, and ponderously she moved over the field, gathering speed as the staccato barking of the exhausts gradually blended into a smooth though deafening purr. The tail of the great vessel came up, then the wheels, and she was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... of cruel, unexpected, unmerited desertion. At first Lysbet tried to talk to her; but she soon saw that the effort to answer was beyond Katherine's power, and conversation was abandoned. So for an hour, an hour of speechless sorrow, they sat. The tick of the clock, the purr of the cat, the snap of a breaking thread, alone relieved the tension of silence in which this act of suffering was completed. Its atmosphere was becoming intolerable, like that of a nightmare; and Lysbet was feeling that she must speak and move, and so dissipate ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... the time, with the muffler cut out, and you can hear me coming for miles. But the Old Man,"—he leaned forward impressively,—"the Old Man, boy, has the eighty-power kind, built like a watch—no smoke, no dripping, and you can't even hear the engine purr. But when he throws her open! Well, he can pass everything on the road. Don't forget that." He turned to his desk again and reached for a stack of papers and cuts. "Good luck to you. If you want any further details you can get 'em from Hayes." ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Minister's views were popular. There was a little murmur of approval, something which sounded almost like a purr of content. It was just one more expression of that strangely discreditable yet almost universal failing,—the over-reliance upon others. The quiet remark of the man who suddenly saw fit to join in the discussion struck a ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bite. I'm the kind of beast that runs away. I lie by the fire and purr, but at the first sign of trouble I jump for the open door. That's why the other fellows always got the better of me. They knew I was a coward, and profited by the knowledge. If my dear good uncle hadn't died, I don't know how I ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... us like the lion, and zey—they will work for us like the ass and the oxen, because man he enjoys to be applauded greatly. A man likes to have his hair rubbed gently with the finger tips. He will smile and close his eyes and if he knew how he would purr like the cat. But, my dear, he do not like to have his hair pulled. Zat is something for you to remember,—you and all your determined women, as you ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... scientific phrases with a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... softly yet with a great air of bustle and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to purr. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... paw of one of its hind-legs had either been torn or hacked off. As I drew back from it, it made a feeble and pathetic effort to reach me and rub itself against my legs, as is the way with cats, but in so doing it fell down, and uttering a half purr, half gurgle, vanished—seeming to sink ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... sufficient age, called just like their relatives of the sylvan solitudes; my brown thrashers uttered the labial chirp of the species; my red-winged blackbird exclaimed "Chack! chack!" after the manner of his kind; my bluebirds expressed their feelings in the sad little purr of Sialia sialis; my flickers did not borrow the calls of the red-heads, but each clung to its own language; my catbirds mewed like poor pussy in trouble; and so on through the whole list. True, these pets may have heard their parents' calls before they were taken from the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... went, leaving the baby between the dragon's fore-paws, laughing and crowing with pleasure at the very large purr of it. ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... or two, while Peter nervously pondered, the air was silent. Then another station called him. A loud droning purr filled the receivers. Peter gave the "k" signal. The brisk voice of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... of the jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a child is sweet music to the ear. There are three most joyous sounds in nature—the hum of a bee, the purr of a cat, and the laugh of a child. They tell of peace, of happiness, and of contentment, and make one for a while forget that there is so much misery ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Above the throbbing purr of the engine which had already done ten miles, the man beside her caught the voice, but missed the ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... then, "Oh, I wish I could purr!" as he settled cautiously back at last to toast his pains against the blessed, scorching heat. "Most girls," he reasoned with surprising interest, "would have sent ice cold violets shrouded in tissue paper. Now, how does this special girl know—Oh, Ouch! ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... got a large apple pie out of the closet, and cut them a tremendous slice apiece; and the little kittens were so glad that they kept saying, 'purr purr purr,' which meant, 'Thank you, ma'am! Oh, thank you, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... joy declared: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... his bunk. For some reason the cat had not been prowling the ship before take-off as he usually did. First he had sat on Van's desk and now he was here, almost as if he wanted human company. Dane picked him up and Sinbad rumbled a purr, arching his head so that it rubbed against the young man's chin in an extremely uncharacteristic show of affection. Smoothing the fur along the cat's jaw line Dane carried him back to the ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... to run the farm immediately. There were generally two or three astonished children to show him where tools were kept—milk buckets, being always up-ended on a fence post, needed no introduction, and the pump, for a sluice afterwards, was not hard of discovery. The big Rolls-Royce used to purr gently away through the bush paddock afterwards, often with a bewildered "mum" looking amazedly at the tall young man who ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... All this time the propeller had been spinning from the rush of air alone. Now John threw in the clutch; the revolving propeller shaft grabbed the crankshaft of the engine, and once more it began its rhythmic purr. Just a little upthrust of the tail-elevators and ailerons brought them again into the horizontal in a huge swoop. Nothing could have been prettier. They had escaped the terrible tornado, leaving it still galloping ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... is just what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry with any degree of grace, but ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... deal affected, by the sight of the poor animal's excessive joy. It rubbed its head against Peterkin's cheek, licked his chin, and thrust its head almost violently into his neck, while it purred more loudly than I ever heard a cat purr before, and appeared to be so much overpowered by its feelings, that it occasionally mewed and purred almost in the same breath. Such demonstrations of joy and affection led us at once to conclude that this poor cat must have known man before, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... shock waves. As they died away, he gradually recovered his bearings and pressed the throttle control of his ion drive. It coughed and stuttered! For a moment Tom felt a surge of panic, but the jet motor smoothed into a steady purr ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... fish and the milk and the hay With a purr had been an easy task: But its hate and my blood were required to pay For the gifts that ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... Flints as being good-hearted and trusty people, and advised her cousin to board with them, at least until some better arrangement could be made for her. Meanwhile May was to go and spend part of every Sunday with Miss Lillycrop at Number 9 Purr Street. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... A sort of satisfied purr was rising all round; and with horror Laurence perceived that this—this was the man accused of what he himself had done—this queer, battered unfortunate to whom he had shown a passing friendliness. Then all feeling merged in the appalling interest ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... diviner: I mean the poisoning by incantation. I, and my whole family, my whole race, my whole city, may bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in the well; and little harm done forsooth! Let an idle fool set an image of me in wax before the fire, and whistle and caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily—and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at the first stave of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... your goodness to me, don't be angry that I am glad I am got into brave old London again: though my cats don't purr like Goldwin, yet one of them has as good a heart as old Reynolds, and the tranquillity of my own closet makes me some amends for the loss of the library and toute la belle compagnie celestine. I don't know whether that expression will do for the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Beelzebub, who had been excessively uneasy and restless all night, managed, with great difficulty, to clamber up on the bed, where he rubbed his nose against his master's hand—trying at the same time to purr in the old way, but failing lamentably. The baron woke instantly, and saw poor Beelzebub looking at him appealingly, with his great green eyes unnaturally dilated, and momentarily growing dim; he was trembling violently, and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... with worn clothes and broad shoulder-band of leather, Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested, The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. It well becomes our mutual happiness To go toward the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want anything like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... rub her head on his arm, and purr, and lie down on his knee and take a nap. She had her bed on his heap ...
— Dick and His Cat - An Old Tale in a New Garb • Mary Ellis
... conscious tail her joy declared: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes— She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... dish. Mouton, who had remained seated with his eyes fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story, was obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad grace. Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-meat, and began to purr. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Mats, "that I ought to know what concerns your life's happiness. You don't know how anxious I've been about you while you were sick...." If there seemed a tiny scratch in that, the next remark was more like a purr: "People say that he did something perfectly terrible, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... play, who knows that at a word from him the complications would cease, and that were he to rise in the stalls and explain them away, and point out the real hero and denounce the villain, the curtain would have to ring down on the instant. He gave a little purr of satisfaction, and again marshalled his chances before him and smiled to find them good. He was grandly at peace with himself and with the world. Whatever happened, he was already richer by some 300,000 ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... ringing laugh of a child is sweet music to the ear. There are three most joyous sounds in nature—the hum of a bee, the purr of a cat, and the laugh of a child. They tell of peace, of happiness, and of contentment, and make one for a while forget that there is so much ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the eternal law of necessity,—the necessity of sunburnt, stunted grass,—the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... has, naturally, made me careful in rendering those portions which were exclusively her own. I have preferred letting her say little to allowing her to express anything she did not intend. Her notes, which, doubtless, drew many a purr of approval from her own breast, and many a wag of approbation from the tails of her choice acquaintance, I have preferred leaving out altogether; and I have so curtailed the labours of her paw, and the workings of her brain, as to condense into half-a-dozen pages ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... fled from the room to seek Mrs Macintyre. Hollyhock flew into her own chamber, put wee Jean carefully and tenderly into the basket in which she had brought her from The Garden, stroked her for a minute to cause her to purr again, cut a hole or two in the lid of the basket to give the poor beast air, and then shoved cat and basket under ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... soft, caressing purr she stepped gently into the hat, took one of the squirrels by the neck, brought it to the edge of the table, and laid it down for a firmer hold; then sprang lightly to the floor. Over to the basket she walked and dropped it tenderly among her other babies. Then, having brought ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... upper Third Avenue. She had not yet been down to First Street. In fact, she was in New York two weeks before she got as far south as 100th Street. She had almost forgotten that she had ever dwelt elsewhere than in New York. Her imitative instinct was already exchanging her Western burr for a New York purr. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... pet, offspring of Typhon, the lion-clad Hero assailed, con amore; but you, Callous as Behemoth, hard as an iron-clad, "Conciliation" with coldness will view Fancy "approaching" the Hydra with honey-bait, Tempting the monster to parley and purr! How will Monopoly look on a money-bait? Hercules, too, who would "like to defer?" Not quite a true hard-shell hero—in attitude— Hercules (County) Concilians looks; Thinks he to move a true Hydra to gratitude? Real Leviathan chortles at hooks! "Come, pretty Hydra! 'Agreement provisional,' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... bees. They look like so many yellow peas, Lying there in the mud. I'd like to paint it. 'Plum pudding of Empire'. That's rather quaint, it Might take with the Kings. Shall I try?" "Oh, Sir, You distress me, you do." "Poor old Martin's purr! But he hasn't a scratch in him, I know. Now let us get back to the powders and patches. Foolish man, The Kings are here now. We must hit on a plan To change all these titles as fast as we can. 'Bouquet Imperatrice'. Tut! Tut! Give me some ink— 'Bouquet de la Reine', what ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... His speech was the elaborated and painfully emphasized English of the self-taught East Sider. It carried in it just the bare suggestion of the racial lisp, and it made an acute contrast to the menacing Hibernian purr of Donohue's heavier voice. "I kind of thought I'd ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... chauffeur that he would not require him again that night, and I had noticed the man touch his hat in the belief that this actually was his employer who addressed him, for the real Earl of Cranmere had lent us his car. I heard the car purr away in the darkness, and an instant later the door of number 300 Cumberland ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... are, old man." Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the way from home ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... moment light seemed to come back to those sightless eyes, and with a purr, as if it understood, the great cat leaped lightly on to the table and sat before De Mouchy, whilst the latter put one finger on the tablets, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... with a great air of bustle and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to purr. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... gleaming. It was a singular fact, but the boy, alone in the wilderness, and the loser of his comrades, felt for the moment a sense of comradeship with the bear, which was also alone, and doubtless the loser of a comrade, also. He uttered a soft growling sound like the satisfied purr of a bear ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... could express herself again the purr of a swiftly moving motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray roadster coming toward them from the north. The Shell Road, before reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want anything ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... (Impatiently) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to purr) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and called again. "I hope the coyotes ain't caught him while I was gone," he said at length. "They treed him a few times last year, but he just stayed up there and yelled until I came—spoiled his voice callin' so long, but you bet he can purr, all right." ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... books I have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, "like a thousand cats." The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done. On the following morning the man and the tiger were found lying ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... but everywhere, especially among semi-barbarous races. The people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... exhibited any feelings of alarm. The others were simply curious. It was an unusual sound. They wondered what was producing it—nothing more. They quite shared the alarm of the shikarree, when the latter informed them that what they heard was neither more nor less than the "purr" of a tiger! ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... wouldn't they purr?" she asked, bent on enjoying herself, while Ben held her skirts lest she should ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... thoughts however she decided to try and keep friends with him, because he might help her again if she got caught a second time. So she took no notice of the mouse until the next day, when she climbed down the tree and went to the roots in which she knew the mouse was hidden. There she began to purr as loud as she could, to show the mouse she was in a good humour, and called out, "Dear good little mouse, come out of your hole and let me tell you how very, very grateful I am to you for saving my life. There is nothing in the world ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... flower garden, too. It was all he could do to shove the lawn-mower around, in the dusk, after the puppies were in bed. Formerly he had found the purr of the twirling blades a soothing stimulus to thought; but nowadays he could not even think consecutively. Perhaps, he thought, the residence of the mind is in the legs, not in the head; for when your legs are thoroughly weary you ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Christmas-day, and they long remembered it; for while they were absorbed in the fortunes of the Marquis of Carabas and the funny cat, who tucked his tail in his belt, washed his face so awkwardly, and didn't know how to purr, strange things were happening at home, and more surprises were in store for our little friends. You see, when people once begin to do kindnesses, it is so easy and pleasant they find it hard to leave off; and sometimes it beautifies them so that they ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested, The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, Sparkles from ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... in a lightning arc to the blaster bolstered under his arm, but Mytor's damp hand was on his wrist, and Mytor's purr was in his ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr—the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... showed great delight when he came home after a long absence. She would put her paws on his shoulders, and rub his face, and purr in a most contented manner. She would never eat a mouse until she had first carried it to him; and after he had stroked her, and called her a good pussy, she would go away ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... on a sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... her machine the chances were few that anyone would some along to help. She had but a moment to decide, and something told her that the long way was the safe one and shorter in the end. She swept on, her engine throbbing with that pleasant purr of expensive well-groomed machinery, the car leaping forward as if it delighted in the high speed. The little woman by her side sat breathless and eager, with shining eyes, looking ahead for ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... crowds were drawing back into the obscurity beyond the huge circle of blinding light. One after another her twelve engines sputtered into life, and ponderously she moved over the field, gathering speed as the staccato barking of the exhausts gradually blended into a smooth though deafening purr. The tail of the great vessel came up, then the wheels, and she was off ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... and plain, The moon went out, the concourse of stars Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes Peered on them lockt. Far and faint The great stags belled; far and faint Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling Lent desolation to night; and low The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks Sounded the tireless lapping deep. Lockt they ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... be, is not in itself essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. If only other people will applaud ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... physical overplus will transmute some of itself into mental exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth confidently ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... there was then no railway, but only the quiet fields and footpaths of Hincksey hamlet. Well, no matter; at any rate, the hills beyond, and Bagley Wood, were there then as now; and over hills and wood we rise, catching the purr of the night-jar, the trill of the nightingale, and the first crow of the earliest cock-pheasant, as he stretches his jewelled wings, conscious of his strength and his beauty, heedless of the fellows ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... rejection of the plan never attained speech, for, at that instant, from the green sea of banana trees beneath them, came the sudden purr of an engine. A minute later the splutter of an exhaust told them the silencer had been taken off. The huge-fronded banana trees were violently agitated as by the threshing of a hidden Titan. They could identify the changing of ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and it can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... yore heels mighty loud, Miss." Dave caught in that soft answer the purr of malice. He remembered now hearing from Buck Byington that years ago Emerson Crawford had rounded up evidence to send Shorty to the penitentiary for rebranding through a blanket. "I reckon you come by it honest. Em always acted like ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... place were afraid of Jake, for he treated them roughly, and sometimes beat them. But they loved Jenny because she was gentle with them. The dog would follow her about, and the cat would curl up on her lap and purr itself to sleep. When she went to the pasture, the horses would trot up to her and rub their noses on her shoulder. She often gave them lumps of sugar, or other dainties that horses like. No matter how wild or shy they were with others, Jenny could ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... the ballroom I heard, When I called him a low, sneaking cur. And the wail of the violins stirred My brute anger with visions of her. As I throttled his windpipe, the purr Of his breath with the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... over the velvet of her cheeks, he began to purr again. "No one was ever like us, darling. No one ever will be. Don't worry your little head with ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... have been about nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to the garden—it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion of the truth had flashed upon him unwittingly. He heard ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... being driven up and halted before the entrance. Lady Hartley had a perfect fleet of cars. Jeannette at once jumped to the conclusion that this was one of them. She had a sudden inspiration. It was running free—ready to start. There was temptation in the soft purr of its engine. The driver, quietly dressed, but not in livery, she appraised as one of Lady ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... violently, and felt very weak. The ordeal through which she had just passed had unnerved her. What was she to do? she asked herself. How was she to save her child? She lifted her head and listened intently, hoping to hear the purr of John's car. But no sound greeted her attentive ears, listen ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!' ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... you will have to blow up then, or fly up to reach them," said Nellie. "The saucy things! Just see how they sit there and purr with contentment! Yes, I know they are laughing at ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... sure o' that," said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair—and they don't purr!" ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... mind. I keep it running on high all the time, with the muffler cut out, and you can hear me coming for miles. But the Old Man,"—he leaned forward impressively,—"the Old Man, boy, has the eighty-power kind, built like a watch—no smoke, no dripping, and you can't even hear the engine purr. But when he throws her open! Well, he can pass everything on the road. Don't forget that." He turned to his desk again and reached for a stack of papers and cuts. "Good luck to you. If you want ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... great many years, Mr. Benham, what you could be like,' she went on in a tone which is more nearly described as a purr than anything else. 'You know, our places up in Ulster County are almost adjoining. At times I've been tempted to scale your wall. It looked so very attractive from outside. But they told me you kept a private banshee, trained to visit ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... in a different way. The pleasant, kindly animal to which she had likened the Casino was now a mighty monster, who must be approached with caution and even fear, whose gentle, feline purring was the purr of a tiger sitting with claws in sheath. How the great golden beast could strike and tear sometimes, the desperate face of her companion told. Mary feared for his sake that people might read the lines of misery, and whisper that here was one ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of a doubt. While the deputy slowly rose to his feet this other chap started to follow the man who had broken into the house. But at that moment there was the sudden sound of a self-starter in a car, then the purr of a motor and the clatter of gears. Number one spun off in the darkness of the road as pretty as you please. Number ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, and sometimes made ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... thy wanton play, Applauses too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... shadow, so danced I with those men. Look!" The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air, that sang under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped again and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head as steam rumbles in a boiler. "I am Bagheera—in the jungle—in the night, and my strength is in me. Who shall stay my stroke? Man-cub, with one blow of my paw I could beat thy head flat as a ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... since she was born, and he honors her with his protection. Every morning he mews at her door, as though to inquire if she has slept well; every evening he keeps her company until it is time for her to go to bed. Whenever she goes out he speeds her with a gentle purr; whenever he hears her come in he hurries to meet her and rubs himself against her legs. In the morning, and at the midday meal, when she takes it at home, he sits beside her chair and silently waits for the scraps from ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... those that err! Jove has rebuked my sin: Now, helpless and without demur, You shall behold me where the tube-lifts purr Pale captive to the penny Thunderer With ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... Kennedy darted to the door in time to see a shadow glide silently away, lost in the darkness of the fine old willows. Some one had approached the mausoleum for a second time, not knowing we were there, and had escaped. Down the road we could hear the purr ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... The loud purr of an automobile stopping before the house left Mabel's message still unread. Depositing her wealth of correspondence on the seat of the swing, Grace tripped down the steps ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... English court there will be very juvenile and blooming. This set is rather younger than the dowagers with whom I pass so much of my summers and autumns; but this is to be my last sally into the world and when I return, I intend to be as sober as my cat, and purr quietly in my ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... of centuries, dim and dense, I sometimes seem to see The shadowy line of a backyard fence And a feline shape of me. I hear the growl, and yowl and howl Of each nocturnal fight, And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr Of passionate delight, As seeking an amorous rendezvous My ancient brothers go stealing Through ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... what's that to me, if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound—or I think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman—for dead to me she is, the she-cat Sanchia—looking at you because I can't help myself. You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of you. Was ever a man of property and station in ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Many-Colored Grass possible, the boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick for the purr and the comfortable airs of the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... sylvan solitudes; my brown thrashers uttered the labial chirp of the species; my red-winged blackbird exclaimed "Chack! chack!" after the manner of his kind; my bluebirds expressed their feelings in the sad little purr of Sialia sialis; my flickers did not borrow the calls of the red-heads, but each clung to its own language; my catbirds mewed like poor pussy in trouble; and so on through the whole list. True, these pets may have heard their parents' ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... anyone a reputation for wisdom," Madame responded. She bent down to stroke the yellow head, but, though Mr. Boffin gratefully accepted the caress, he did not condescend to purr. Presently he stalked away into the ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... He walked in one evening at dusk, but at first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... take it home to the boy, and as he picked it up and put it inside his coat the little outcast began to purr. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... for Miss Lucinda's theory of a soul; but his was no good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a "perfect love"; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda's time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... my evening at theatres or clubs—I am a man who would willingly give up all his clubs for one large pair of pink carpet slippers, and the theatres for a corpulent, aristocratic Maltese cat, with a baritone purr." ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... would have his little brother, sometimes his little sister, and sometimes both of them in the grass with him, and then he felt just like a cat with her first kittens, he said, only he couldn't purr—all he could do was ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... "they took me round everywhere in Moffitt, and showed me their big wells—lit 'em up for a private view, and let me hear them purr with the soft accents of a mass-meeting of locomotives. Why, when they let one of these wells loose in a meadow that they'd piped it into temporarily, it drove the flame away forty feet from the mouth of the pipe and blew it over half an ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the Corporal, sighing, "the poor dumb animal makes me sad to think on't." And putting down his fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, with tail on end, and back bowed up, and uttering her lenes susurros—anglicae, purr;—rubbed herself to and fro, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her up to sit on his royal shoulder? If so, she would purr her loudest to drown the beating of her heart, and she would rub her head against the royal ear. How splendid to be a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... of honour was given to the king of beasts, for the first of the cars bore the word "Lions;" but probably his majesty was asleep, for not so much as a muttering purr on a large scale came from the narrow ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to a stop beside the road fifty yards along—a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... verses, that you and Mr. Crow were very good friends," your Aunt Amy suggested, and Mrs. Mouser said with a purr of content: ...
— Mouser Cats' Story • Amy Prentice
... them with joy, as cats pounce and purr on catnip. The whole country studied Brown's letters with the rapture of eavesdropping. Such letters! Such oozing molasses of sentiment! Such elephantine coquetry! Joel weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds and called himself Little Brownie ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... tangle of web in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... kind of woman can't love. They are like cats, that want to be stroked and caressed, and to be petted, and to lie soft and warm; and they will purr to any one that will pet them,—that's all. As for love that leads to any self-sacrifice, they don't begin to know any ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Pure (morals) virta. Pure pistajxo. Purgative laksilo, laksigilo. Purgatory purgatorio. Purge laksigi. Purify purigi. Puritan Puritano. Purity pureco. Purloin sxteli. Purple purpura. Purpose celi, intenci. Purpose (end, aim) celo. Purr bleketi, murmureti. Purse monujo. Pursue forpeladi, postesekvi. Purveyor liveranto. Pus puso—ajxo. Push pusxi. Push through trapusxi. Pusillanimous timema. Pustule pustulo. Put meti. Put aside apartigi. Put on airs afekti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... pressed his questions further, but at that moment the loud purr of a motor was audible, and we all turned to the window as it ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... himself, as though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... him an hour to weave. For a long time he had been conscious of the curious, hissing monotone of the Aurora, the "music of the skies," reaching out through the space of the earth with a purring sound that was at times like the purr of a cat and at others like the faint hum of a bee. Absorbed in his work he did not, for a time, hear the other sound. Not until he had finished, and was placing the golden snare in his wallet, did the one sound individualize and separate ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... had friends whose faces I had never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... so good-naturedly that I made bold to pat her head also. In a day or two we were great friends; she would spring about with delight whenever she saw me, and would purr like a cat whenever I sat upon her back. I spent an hour or two every day among the animals, and found them all easy to tame except the hyenas, which would gladly have bitten me if I had allowed them a chance. The leopard, one day, bit me slightly on the hand; but I punished him by pouring ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem of much use ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... great hurry, and brought the creature up. The poor thing was chilled, and hungry, and frightened. They took her up to the stove, and Gypsy warmed her in her apron, and Joy fed her with cookies from her lunch-basket, till she curled her head under her paws with a merry purr, all ready for a nap, and evidently without the slightest suspicion that Gypsy's lap was not foreordained, and created for her especial habitation as long as she might choose to ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... from the tent way. Some dog of the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges. Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... let the table-cover fall back to its normal position and turned to get himself into a comfortable attitude, his hand touched something soft and yielding. For a moment he was startled, but the sound of a throaty purr, and the realization that his hand was resting on fur soon told him that his companion in hiding was ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... Corbett," Vidac broke in. "I appreciate your allegiance. I wouldn't like anyone who would accept another person in place of a friend without putting up a beef." His voice was as smooth as the purr of a cat. ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... tea, but above the noise and chatter of the twins she seemed to hear the soft purr of the wonderful car that had brought her home, and the voice of its owner who had ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... No sewage, no street cleaning, and the Lutheran minister and the priest represent the arts and sciences. Well, thunder, we submerged tenth down here in Swede Hollow are no worse off than you folks. Thank God, we don't have to go and purr at Juanity Haydock ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... want to go away, papa," she said, with a little sob in her voice, as Tipsey scrambled up in her lap, and curling herself into a little round ball of fur began to purr ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... starlit sky was obscured by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The Gloria waltzed and slipped in a mass of brown porridge, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... tabby: stroke them smoothly and they will purr and rub noses with you; but stroke them the wrong way and whirr! they scratch your hands and out of the window they fly! When I was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... sort of brutal criticism—a woman's voice relating love's young dream; and then the picture—a matron still handsome pouring into a lovely virgin's ear the last thing she ought; the young beauty's eyes mimicking sympathy; the ripe beauty's soft, delicious accents—purr! purr! purr! ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... lay white under its own dust. The electric fans began to purr in the Club, and Lent brought the flagging season to a full stop. I had to go that year on tour through the famine district with the Member, and we escaped, gasping, from the Plains about the middle of April. Simla was ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... a view of the door. Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through. The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions of ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... He heard the purr of a motor in the lane beside the house. The room was laden with suffocating fumes. Stuart stood clutching the chair and striving to retain composure—sanity. The car moved out ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... deal justly. Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? Thy sheep be in the corn; And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Thy sheep shall take no harm. Purr! ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Mathews made his way through the crowd of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn't talking." ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... little Helen, "and the wind seems to say, Hush! hush!" "I should not think you could hear any thing while Puss is purring so loud in your ears," replied Ned. "Do put her out of the room; I would rather hear the loudest wind that ever blew than hear a cat purr, purr, purr so forever; it makes my head spin to hear it; hush, Puss! stop purring." Puss purred on all the same, for Ned's words were followed by no hostile act towards her. No one, much less Helen's pet, was ever treated inhospitably ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don't want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. 'Now, my dears,' the old cat will say, 'one, two, three all purr together,' and we ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... naked marble make the soda fountains a disheartening place to the average male. He likes a dark, low-ceilinged, and not too obtrusively sanitary place to take his ease. At McSorley's is everything that the innocent fugitive from the world requires. The great amiable cats that purr in the back room. The old pictures and playbills on the walls. The ancient clocks that hoarsely twang the hours. We cannot imagine a happier place to sit down with a pad of paper and a well-sharpened pencil than at that table in the corner ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... realised he was disturbed, in some unexpected way. It might have been the pretty girl he met going into Esther's; it might have been the thought of Esther herself, the unheard call from her. So he left his glass untasted and telephoned her: "You all right?" To which Esther replied in a doubtful purr. "Want me to come up?" he asked, as he thought, against his will. And he swallowed a third of his firewater at a gulp and went to find her. He knew what he should find,—an Esther who bade him remember, by ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... humanity: many women have not mind enough to have an affection for a woman, or a friendship for a man. But the sexual weakness that makes woman depend on man for a subsistence, produces a kind of cattish affection, which leads a wife to purr about her husband, as she would about any man who fed ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... sort of model farm or bit of landscape gardening; there is always some small improvement to be made, a trench, a well, more shade against the sun, an increased vigilance in sweeping. Then it is pleasant to take care of the men, to see them happy, to hear them purr. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... inevitable accord between expression and feeling should be attributed to nature, and how much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep and powerful emotion—a sense unconsciously acquired from ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... masses of molten metal dropped from it. And now the Lavender Ray began slowly to sweep down the face of the cliff; and the yellow blast of helium gradually faded away until it was scarcely visible. The roar of the alternator died down, first to a hum and then to a purr. ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... back from the stately gentleman's attempt to tap its nose with his finger, and evinced a desire to make the acquaintance of his wife, toward whom it put forth its head as far as possible out of its basket, beginning the while to purr. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... utterly unconscious of any secret fault on her own part, and continued to purr contentedly to herself. "Felicia, dear child! will certainly take an excellent position. She will be in county society, the very thing which I have always desired for her; and she will enter it, not on sufferance, but as one of themselves. ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... bored.] Yes, I suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. [In a mocking tone.] Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy—only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... the letter that she failed for the first time since they got the car to hear its pleasant purr as it came down the road, and the big head-lights sent their rays out cheerfully without any one at the kitchen window to see. Father was getting worried that the kitchen door didn't fly open as he drew in beside the big flag-stone, when ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... spurting blood on both sides. They followed for three or four hundred yards, and then the Deer track was joined by the tracks of five Marten. In a few minutes they found the Deer down and the five Marten, a family probably, darting about in the near trees, making their peculiar soft purr as though in anticipation of the feast, which was delayed only by the coming of the hunters. These attempts to share with the killers of big ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Mr. Velvet Purr, a quiet old bachelor, who sat nearly all day in the sun on a garden seat watching the birds, but who was much too well fed to catch mice. Miss Velveteen Purr, his sister, went with him, she was a very pretty singer, wore a fur tippet, and drank ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... big, masterful man: a fear rather fascinating in its tremors, like a novice's cringing to the vibration of electricity in a mildly pleasant form; a fear as opposed to her loathing of Robert Fenley as the song of a thrush to the purr of a tiger. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... across the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. She felt ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it's difficult to make you understand; but I feel quite sure we'll all make a pet of it, and when you once hear it purr, you'll think it a prettier sound ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... will work for us like the ass and the oxen, because man he enjoys to be applauded greatly. A man likes to have his hair rubbed gently with the finger tips. He will smile and close his eyes and if he knew how he would purr like the cat. But, my dear, he do not like to have his hair pulled. Zat is something for you to remember,—you and all your determined women, as ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... animadversion, but the word should be churring. Churr is an echo-word, and though there may be examples of echo-words which have been bettered by losing all trace of their simple spontaneous origin, this is not one. It is like burr, purr, and whirr; and these words are best spelt with double R and the R should be trilled. The absurdity of not trilling this final R is seen very plainly in burr, because that word's definition is 'a rough ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... always reminded his guest of the purr of a tiger, rang out. "Why, marry, good sir, there is no recoil! These guns do not use that powder which Sir Henry, founder of our line, did speak of. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... made an assignation with Tom Tortoiseshell, the feline phenomenon, they two sit curmurring, forgetful of mice and milk, of all but love! How meekly mews the Demure, relapsing into that sweet under-song—the Purr! And how curls Tom's whiskers like those of a Pashaw! The point of his tail—and the point only is alive—insidiously turning itself, with serpent-like seduction, towards that of Tabitha, pensive as a nun. His eyes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... long to be a crab to live in it. Though a crab is not the animal that I should specially choose to be. I long to be a cat sometimes. To be able to fluff out my fur and spit would be such a satisfaction. There are feelings that can be expressed in no other way. And then to be able to purr! Purring is the one sound in nature that expresses perfect comfort ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to purr) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... preservation. I never knew before how the Iliad and Odyssey were written. Tis strikingly corroborated by observations on Cats. These domestic animals, put 'em on a rug before the fire, wink their eyes up and listen to the Kettle, and then PURR, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... word he gave her, but it was spoken with a soft little purr in his husky voice. Then he answered the judge with a kind of quiet dignity, which I saw that the twelve booted jurymen listened ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... certainty is monotonous, and his eyes wandered to other objects. 'The Tiger is nothing but a domestic cat,' he said; 'I will pet and caress it when the mood takes me, and for the rest of the time it can purr to itself by the fire.' At last one day, after the Tiger was especially gracious and had purred with all essence of love, the man yawned. 'It is really a charming beast,' he said, 'but it is always the same; and then he went away and forgot even to feed it. The Tiger ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... rooster's grandma nursed the cat, Which uttered nor purr nor sound, While the Platypus followed the Minister's hat Around and ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... the room to seek Mrs Macintyre. Hollyhock flew into her own chamber, put wee Jean carefully and tenderly into the basket in which she had brought her from The Garden, stroked her for a minute to cause her to purr again, cut a hole or two in the lid of the basket to give the poor beast air, and then shoved cat and basket ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... upon the veranda listening to the sound of the engine dying away among the trees. He seemed to be lost in reflection from which he only aroused himself when the purr of the ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... care released A faithful, furry, friendly beast. Responsive to the lightest word, About these walks her purr was heard. Love she received, for much she earned, And much in kindness she returned. Wherefore her comrades go not by Her little grave without ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... pretty sight! They were so small and light and delicate! There was no clanking, and no shouting, and to fire them a man pulled a mere trigger. I thought to myself: "How simple and easy our civilization becomes. Think of the motor-cars, and how they purr. Think of the simple telephone, and all the other little things." And with this thought in my mind I continued to watch the guns. Without yells or worry a man spoke gently to other men, and they all limbered up, quite easily. The weight seemed to have gone since ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... rattling about her. She leaped into the car. Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... of the history of Lucca is a sort of unhappy silence, out of which from time to time rise the cry of Burlamacchi, a fool, yes, but a hero, the howling of the traitors, the whisper of feeble conspiracies, the purr of an ignoble prosperity, till in 1805 Napoleon came ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... no conversation. They merely bellow—or twitter or bleat or low or gibber or purr, according to their respective incarnations,—about unspeakable mysteries and monstrous pleasures until I am driven to the verge of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... evening, the duck reached a little hut. Here dwelt an old woman with her tom-cat and her hen; and the cat could put up its back and purr, and the hen could lay eggs, and the old woman loved them both as her very children. For certain reasons of her own, she let the duck in to live ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... She might almost have given a purr. She rubbed her cold nose with the back of her hand, like a ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... I suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. [In a mocking tone.] Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy—only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage they ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... seemed to come back to those sightless eyes, and with a purr, as if it understood, the great cat leaped lightly on to the table and sat before De Mouchy, whilst the latter put one finger on the tablets, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... she has a kinder smile for Frank Henley than she ever yet had for me! But he is just as discreet as herself; so that it seems impossible to be jealous. Yet jealous I am! Ay and jealous I should be of my cat, if she were as ready to purr and rear her back to be stroked by every coarse unwashed hand ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... weather like this no one was abroad who could stay at home. He turned off into the country road, already deep in snow-drifts, and swept on, through the little wood whose leafless birches now looked unfamiliar, even spectral, in the increasing gloom. Save for the soft purr of his engine, his progress made no sound. He drove as far as he dared, then stopped the car off the road, in a clear space among the trees, and continued his way on foot. He must leave the car there, and take the chance of having it discovered. In the storm and darkness ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... car began to purr. Charlie clashed the clutch. Ruth jumped upon the step, and then crept into the covered vehicle. The ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... them, and having packed our kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps. At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had never quite recovered from his riding exercises. ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... by my side, and I'll give her some food; And she'll love me, because I am gentle and good. I'll pat little pussy, and then she will purr, And thus show her thanks for ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... come nigh to their goal. Like cats they curve their backs, they purr inwardly with their ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Urge him anew to mount his horse, Turn from the piteous sight away, And fresh begin life's saddened day, His loved ones looking yet to greet, Where ne'er shall part the blest who meet. Just then a voice that well he knew, A sound that mixed the purr and mew, Went to the father's heart. On a large stone King Alfred sat Against his buskin rubbed a cat, Snow-white in every part, Though drenched and soiled from head to tail. The poor Thane's tears poured down like hail— "Poor puss, in vain thy loving wail," Then came ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the grass plot between the windows and the swing being a narrow one the closed door was of little avail. It was very still there in the shady dooryard, so still that they could hear old Yellownose purr, asleep on the cushion in the wooden arm-chair beside the swing. The broken sentences between the sobs were plainly audible. It seemed so terrible to hear a grown person cry, that Georgina felt as she did that morning long ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... else happened. Then the car came gliding smoothly on, stopped again no more than thirty feet to Garfield's left. He could see it now through the screening bushes—a big job, a long, low four-door sedan. The motor continued to purr. After a moment, a door on the far side of the ...
— An Incident on Route 12 • James H. Schmitz
... silence, quickly followed by great unrest and hot, muttered words. Martin did not move a muscle, the smile was set, but between the half-closed eyelids crouched Combat, on its toes. The Mexicans knew it was there without looking for it—the tone of his voice, the caressing purr of his words, and his unnatural languor were signs well known to them. Not a criminal sneaking back from voluntary banishment in Mexico who had seen those signs ever forgot them, if he lived. Martin watched the group cat-like, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... little lonesome cell, Where never romping playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... to know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what is to ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... lengthy. She was conscious of something in the atmosphere that made her vaguely uneasy. Was it a cat he resembled, crouching there in front of her? No, there was nothing domestic about him though she had a feeling that he could purr when he was pleased. Yes, there was undoubtedly something feline about him, a supple grace, a noiselessness, a guile, that made her aware of the necessity for caution in her dealings with him. This was a man of many subtleties—she knew it instinctively—a man of tigerish temperament, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... place, looking dim and indistinct in the darkness, their voices hushed apprehensively, and the noise of the sled-runners slipping through the snow seemed to them to increase from a purr to ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... commented Captain Eri, as they hurried along. "Blessed if he don't pretty nigh purr. I like a cat fust-rate, but I'm always suspicious of a cat-man. You know he's got claws, but you can't tell where he's goin' to use 'em. When a feller like that comes slidin' around and rubbin' his head against my shin, I always ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... her wonderingly, now that he came to think of her. The thin, insignificant figure, the pale face, the drooping blonde hair lying demurely on the cheeks, the bright steel-blue eyes, the pussycat purr—— ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... of his voice she broke into a harsh rumbling which he recognized as an attempt to purr. He bent over to rub her cheek and she mewed again, an amiable inquiring little mew, to which he replied, "Certainly, you are greatly improved, and when you recover your plumage you will be a gorgeous bird." Much flattered, she stood up and marched ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... said in his courtly and deliberate manner, and with that suggestion of a purr in his voice which always betokened concealment and a latent ability to spring. "You find me just about to go out, but I still have a little leeway. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... on the Lady May's cage. He woke her gently and took her into his arms. She humped her back luxuriously, stretched her claws, started to purr, thought better of it, and licked him on the wrist instead. He did not have the pin-set on, so their minds were closed to each other, but in the angle of her mustache and in the movement of her ears, he caught some sense of gratification she experienced in finding him ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... And thus—purr, purr, purr—they went on, to the end of the chapter. Poor Ned Hinkley found the whole kennel was upon him. Not only did they deny everything that could by possibility affect the fair fame of the absent brother, but, from defending him, they passed, with an easy transition, to the denunciation ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... tail, instead of being extended and lashed from side to side, is held quite still and perpendicularly upwards; her ears are erect and pointed; her mouth is closed; and she rubs against her master with a purr instead of a growl. Let it further be observed how widely different is the whole bearing of an affectionate cat from that of a dog, when with his body crouching and flexuous, his tail lowered and wagging, and ears depressed, he caresses ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... soon, in a little while, as Uncle Wiggily was sitting there, listening to the big cat purr, he felt sleepy, and he was just going to sleep, when he ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!' ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... in my brain had settled down to a soothing purr. I began to add three and three hoping to get nine. Right now I needed a gestalt of something whose whole would be a lot greater than the sum of its parts. The parts I believe I had, and the sum I think was due to come ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... be permitted to grow up with so little instruction? I think so. Almost every dog has some tricks; many dogs have a great number. Yet how rarely do you see a cat of which anything more is expected than that she shall purr when she is petted, play with your ball of yarn, or growl when you give her a ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... to purr out some commendation, when—"What a bear that man is!" burst with startling vehemence from Miss ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... I have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, "like a thousand cats." The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done. On the following morning the man and the tiger were found lying ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... vast, starry blanket of black velvet; then, abruptly, he had been hovering over the city, sliding down toward warm friendly lights and music. He checked the proper switches, and felt the throbbing purr of the anti-grav motors as the ship slid in toward the landing slot. Tall spires of other ships rose to meet him, circle upon circle of silver needles pointing skyward. A little later they were blotted out as the ship was grappled into the berth from ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... kittens, they found their mittens, And they began to cry: "O mother dear, See here, see here! See! we have found our mittens." Put on your mittens You silly kittens, And you may have some pie. "Purr-r, purr-r, purr-r, O let us have the pie. Purr-r, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... drew back from the stately gentleman's attempt to tap its nose with his finger, and evinced a desire to make the acquaintance of his wife, toward whom it put forth its head as far as possible out of its basket, beginning the while to purr. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... familiarly known to all my neighbors as "the Grand Duc de Huiry" and he looks the part. Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat. He is not a bit caressing. He never fails to purr politely when he comes in. But he is no longer playful. He never climbs up to my shoulder and rubs against my face as some of Amelie's commoner cats will do. He is intelligent and handsome—just a miniature tiger, and growls like a new arrival from the jungle when ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... of air passed, and there followed a peaceful calm. The valley was filled with the purr of running water; from their rocks the whistlers called forth their soft notes; up on the green plain the ptarmigan were fluting, and rising in white-winged flocks. These things soothed Thor, as a woman's gentle hand quiets an angry ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... while Peter nervously pondered, the air was silent. Then another station called him. A loud droning purr filled the receivers. Peter gave the "k" signal. The brisk voice of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... back, to the soft accompaniment of its majestic purr, in acid-tipped accents she ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... hill, to whose summit a few more weary steps now brought them. Here, for the first time since the chase had begun, the brindled dog came to a halt of his own accord—stopping short, with a deep, heavy growl, scarce louder than the purr of a panther. Burl looked before him and caught from afar the glimmer of a camp-fire, burning on the summit of an opposite hill. They had, indeed, at last come up with the flying foe, but under circumstances far less favorable ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... herself. "She's purring with joy because Miss Stein saw. (Do pigs purr?) Anyhow I am glad we've made a success. That must be some comfort! Why, at the Hands it's like a big theatre with a lot of different stages, where the curtains go up unexpectedly and give you ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... to having a great deal of fun with Tom Carr and the others at such times, much of it about my poor cooking. Kaiser and Pawsy appeared willing to do what they could to make it pleasant; and this time I put a chair at one end of the little table, and the cat jumped up in it and began to purr like a young tiger, while the dog sat on the floor at the other end and pounded the floor with his tail like any drummer might beat his drum. I also began to get them into the bad practice of eating at the same time I did; but I had ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... highway and not more than a block from the campus wall. As they neared the east gate a terrific reverberating peal of thunder rent the air. So completely did it obliterate all other sound that none of the four heard the purr of a motor behind them, driven ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... said sadly, "It is very dull here, how much I should like to swim in the water and to dive." "What a foolish idea," said the hen. "You have nothing else to do, therefore you have strange fancies. If you could purr or lay eggs they would pass away; ask the cat, he is the cleverest animal I know, if he would like to dive in the water; ask our old mistress, there is no one in the world more clever than she is; do you think she would like to let the ...
— Aunt Friendly's Picture Book. - Containing Thirty-six Pages in Colour by Kronheim • Anonymous
... glad we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I talking about? Oh, yes, I am so glad we are to be at home. You can have a nice, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the plan never attained speech, for, at that instant, from the green sea of banana trees beneath them, came the sudden purr of an engine. A minute later the splutter of an exhaust told them the silencer had been taken off. The huge-fronded banana trees were violently agitated as by the threshing of a hidden Titan. They could identify the changing of gears and the reversing and going ahead, until, at the ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... beyond. If she went that way and got into any trouble with her machine the chances were few that anyone would some along to help. She had but a moment to decide, and something told her that the long way was the safe one and shorter in the end. She swept on, her engine throbbing with that pleasant purr of expensive well-groomed machinery, the car leaping forward as if it delighted in the high speed. The little woman by her side sat breathless and eager, with shining eyes, ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... clinging tangle of web in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... it was too dark. I knew he was a whopper, though, by the size of his squeak. But I am pretty sure that he could see me, for he seemed to come and sit upright in the middle of the clearing, and began to purr. Blessed if he didn't sound just like a threshing-machine out in the fields at ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... cold that night and there was a fire in the little heater. Donkin had opened the draft a little while before, and the sheet-iron sides now began to purr red-hot. Nobody noticed it. Regan's kindly, good-humored face had the stamp of horror in it, and he pulled at his scraggly brown mustache, his eyes seemingly fascinated by Donkin's fingers. Everybody's ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... to his feet, glancing at the still form on the bed. Choking back a sob he staggered down the hall, shouting to Ann as he went down the stairs, redoubling his speed as he heard the purr of autojets in the driveway. In a moment he was in his own car, frantically stamping on the starter. It started immediately, the motor booming, and the powerful jet engines forced the heavy car ahead dangerously, taking the corner on two of its three ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... engine is to a ship. Suppose a hull lies in the water, stanchly built, graceful in lines of strength and speed, nosing at the wharf or tugging back on the mooring line, it may be a fine piece of building but it cannot be much admired. But place an engine in the hull and add to those fine lines the purr of a motor—there is a sight which brings a smile to the lips and a light in the eyes. Anthony had been like the unengined hulk, moored in gentle waters with never the hope of a voyage to rough seas. Now that his ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... in the flat moonlight. I ran over and grabbed her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want anything like that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... my West before the camera, thank you; or I would, if I hadn't jumped right into the middle of this trick West before I knew what I was doing. Ket, what do you do to pass away the time? I don't see how you can have the nerve to live in an empty space like this and purr!" ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... rate. For an hour we galloped silently, matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound arising in that wilderness of brown coulee banks and dun-colored prairie but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to give him room to trail, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... europaeus).—All through the twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... before, to be ready for his fire. On the other side was a black cat asleep, with her chin upon her paws. When the cat heard Jonas coming, she rose up, stretched out her fore paws, and then began to purr, rubbing her cheeks against the bottom ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... the wide river, the Aigle glided across a high-hung suspension bridge, the song of the water floating up to our ears mingling with the purr of the motor—two giant forces, one set loose by nature, the other by man, duetting harmoniously together, while the wind wailed over our heads. But for the third and last plague of Provence we would have had to search in vain, for the land is ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... cat. He looked about him strangely for a moment, and then began to purr, and rubbed ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... surprised, and, to say truth, a good deal affected, by the sight of the poor animal's excessive joy. It rubbed its head against Peterkin's cheek, licked his chin, and thrust its head almost violently into his neck, while it purred more loudly than I ever heard a cat purr before, and appeared to be so much overpowered by its feelings, that it occasionally mewed and purred almost in the same breath. Such demonstrations of joy and affection led us at once to conclude that this poor cat must have known man before, and we conjectured that it had been ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... view of the door. Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through. The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... be happy when I am in fear for my life?" said the cat. "I am getting old, and my teeth are only stumps. I cannot catch mice any longer, and I like to lie behind the stove and purr. But when I found that they were going to drown me, away I ran as fast as my four legs could carry me. But now that I have come away, what am ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... told YOU before, my dear Signor Ferarri, I know nothing whatever about women, and care less than nothing for their loves or hatreds! I have always thought of them more or less as playful kittens, who purr when they are stroked the right way, and scream and scratch when their tails are trodden on. Try ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. "Look," I said. I pointed to my smooth, gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. "I was in the Sadlerville Blast, too," I said. "But I didn't go crazy with hate when I ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... Adams, a rosy, dark-haired woman, had heard the Overland arrive and depart. Through habit she listened until the distant rumble of the train diminished to a faint purr. No guests had arrived on the Overland. Stacey was not much of a town, and tourists seldom stopped there. Mrs. Adams stepped from the small office to the dining-room and arranged some flowers in the center of the long table. She happened to be the only woman ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry with any degree of grace, but he ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... came the soft purr of rapidly moving machinery, punctuated now and again by the roar of the heavy railroad trains that thundered past his little ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... around his favourite roosting place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the belly, so 't he kin' o' gagged 'n spit an' they want neither on 'em reel comf'able. The sof paws o' the panther was jes' like pincushions. He'd great hooks in 'em sharper 'n the p'int uv a needle. An' when he was goin' t' sleep he'd run 'em out jes' like an ol' cat—kind o' playfull—'n purr 'n pull. All t' once the boy felt sumthin' like a lot o' needles prickin' his back. Made him jump 'n holler like Sam Hill. The panther he spit sassy 'n riz up 'n smelt o' the ground. Didn't neither on 'em know what was ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... the library had the air of having forgotten their presence altogether. Aided by a microscope, with a grave absorbed face, he studied and compared a series of prints spread before him. So quiet was it all, that the crackle and purr of the coal fire in the old-fashioned grate made itself quite audible, and the leisurely tick of the clock in the hall marked ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a "perfect love"; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda's time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched like a young tiger, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... he, in a sort of panther-like purr. "A spirit has been for three days seeking to speak to a lost child through my daughter. Come in, and let us see. Let us see if my daughter can not pierce the mysteries of the unseen in your case. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... bobbed enthusiastically. "Purr-gatory, that was it," she declared. "And it was something a cat does—purr, you know; I knew it was. Mamma said living here was paradise ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... days' wonder and like all other social phenomena grow too stale for comment, but meanwhile he should feel as if he were frying on a gridiron. Anne Goodrich would merely exclaim: "Abominable." Marian Lawrence would draw in her nostrils and purr: "Lee was always an erratic and impressionable boy. Just like him to fall in love with an old woman. And she's really a beautiful blonde—once more. Poor Lee." As for Gora and Suzan Forbes—well, Gora would understand, and impale them sympathetically in her next novel, and Suzan would ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hurry, and brought the creature up. The poor thing was chilled, and hungry, and frightened. They took her up to the stove, and Gypsy warmed her in her apron, and Joy fed her with cookies from her lunch-basket, till she curled her head under her paws with a merry purr, all ready for a nap, and evidently without the slightest suspicion that Gypsy's lap was not foreordained, and created for her especial habitation as long as she might choose ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... departure. Thus viewed, a camp is a sort of model farm or bit of landscape gardening; there is always some small improvement to be made, a trench, a well, more shade against the sun, an increased vigilance in sweeping. Then it is pleasant to take care of the men, to see them happy, to hear them purr. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a large apple pie out of the closet, and cut them a tremendous slice apiece; and the little kittens were so glad that they kept saying, 'purr purr purr,' which meant, 'Thank you, ma'am! Oh, thank you, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... which piled his four passengers in a heap and pointed off to the northwest, a queer, startled, frightened look on his broad Flemish face. There was smoke there along the horizon—much smoke, both white and dark; and, even as the throb of the motor died away to a purr, the sound of big guns came to us in a faint rumbling, borne from a long way off by ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... for he knew that he might now easily have to fight to retain his prize. Numa halted and turned his outraged head in the direction of the coming she. He voiced a throaty growl that was almost a purr. Tarzan was upon the point of prodding him on again when Sabor broke into view, and behind her the ape-man saw that which gave him instant pause—four full-grown lions ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the steeds before the assembly, but nay- the-less a deep purr, like the purr of a tiger, proceeded from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot, all armed, with a cry as of a warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... had passed off, an ardent noonday sun was collaborating with a coquettish breeze to make gay the window awnings of the chamber where Lanyard, in borrowed pyjamas and dressing-gown of silk, lay luxuriously bedded, listening to the purr of wide-awake Paris and, with an excellent cigar to chew on, ruminating upon the problematic issue of his latest turn of fortune, and not in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... possessed the tact of becoming instantly intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... a highly unsuitable manner, and proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, the Bastable catering was of the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... he has known Doretta ever since she was born, and he honors her with his protection. Every morning he mews at her door, as though to inquire if she has slept well; every evening he keeps her company until it is time for her to go to bed. Whenever she goes out he speeds her with a gentle purr; whenever he hears her come in he hurries to meet her and rubs himself against her legs. In the morning, and at the midday meal, when she takes it at home, he sits beside her chair and silently waits for the scraps from ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... labor under the delusion that the only remarkable thing about us is that instinctive purring which arises from a certain feeling of comfort; for that reason they often stroke us awkwardly and then we usually purr to secure ourselves against blows. But if they knew how to manage us in the right way, believe me, they would accustom our good nature to everything, and Michel, your neighbor's tom-cat, would even at times be pleased to jump through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... familiarities so good-naturedly that I made bold to pat her head also. In a day or two we were great friends; she would spring about with delight whenever she saw me, and would purr like a cat whenever I sat upon her back. I spent an hour or two every day among the animals, and found them all easy to tame except the hyenas, which would gladly have bitten me if I had allowed them a chance. The leopard, one day, bit me slightly ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... us deal justly. Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? Thy sheep be in the corn; And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Thy sheep shall take no harm. Purr! the ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... beam of blue. It took power to do that, power to hold a beam tight and strong and steady through the stress of one hundred thousand miles. But it had to be that far away ... and they had that power. From the bowels of the ship came the deep purr of it, the angry, silky song of mighty ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... showiest goods on the shelf, but the vital thing for a fellow to know is whether her ears are sharp enough to hear him when he shouts that she's spending too much money and that she must reduce expenses. Of course, when you're patting and petting and feeding a woman she's going to purr, but there's nothing like stirring her up a little now and then to see if she spits fire and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... sure o' that," said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair, and—they don't purr!" ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the boots and shoes of a mornin', entertain wisitors at the door with brief conversations, take occasional strolls with messages, be a sorter companion to Miss Rosa, wots to be married in a veek or two, and, ginerally, to enjoy myself. I'm a tiger, I is, but I don't growl—oh no! I only purr. My name is Tummas, an' my 'ome ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... with us when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!' as he held his fingers over her, and she rubbed ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... different in disposition. All the animals about the place were afraid of Jake, for he treated them roughly, and sometimes beat them. But they loved Jenny because she was gentle with them. The dog would follow her about, and the cat would curl up on her lap and purr itself to sleep. When she went to the pasture, the horses would trot up to her and rub their noses on her shoulder. She often gave them lumps of sugar, or other dainties that horses like. No matter how wild or shy they were with others, Jenny could ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... 'em, wouldn't they purr?" she asked, bent on enjoying herself, while Ben held her skirts lest ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... looking-glass. And consider the pleasurable employment they give in idle moments. Satan, it is said, has mischief still for idle hands to do. But no one with such streamers as Sir Edward's can ever have idle hands. When you have nothing else to do with them you stroke your whiskers and purr. Certainly they are worth paying for. I think they would be dirt cheap at a tax of ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... twinkling silver, over the railway sheds—no, there was then no railway, but only the quiet fields and footpaths of Hincksey hamlet. Well, no matter; at any rate, the hills beyond, and Bagley Wood, were there then as now; and over hills and wood we rise, catching the purr of the night-jar, the trill of the nightingale, and the first crow of the earliest cock-pheasant, as he stretches his jewelled wings, conscious of his strength and his beauty, heedless of the fellows of St. John's, who slumber within sight of his perch, on whose hospitable board he shall ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... do click yore heels mighty loud, Miss." Dave caught in that soft answer the purr of malice. He remembered now hearing from Buck Byington that years ago Emerson Crawford had rounded up evidence to send Shorty to the penitentiary for rebranding through a blanket. "I reckon you come by it honest. Em always acted like he was ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... and languorous and caressing like the purr of a great cat; and there was something exotic in her accent, something seductive, something that ought to be prohibited by the police. She sank into her low chair by the fire, indicating one for me ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... race, my whole city, may bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in the well; and little harm done forsooth! Let an idle fool set an image of me in wax before the fire, and whistle and caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily—and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... not like the animals. The cat Sarah bumped her sleek head under your chin; you could feel her purr throbbing under her ribs and crackling in her throat. The white rabbit pushed out his nose to you and drew it in again, quivering, and breathed his sweet breath into ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... and how many matches are made in Sunday-schools, where Alfred and Angelina meet to teach the scripture and flirt. As for the clergy, who are peculiarly the sons of God, they are notorious for their partiality to the sex. They purr about the ladies like black tom-cats. Some of them are adepts in the art of rolling one eye heavenwards and letting the other languish on the fair faces of the daughters of men. It is also noticeable that the Protestant clericals marry early and often, and generally beget ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... with her Cat and her Hen. And the Cat, whom she called Sonnie, could arch his back and purr, he could even give out sparks; but for that one had to stroke his fur the wrong way. The Hen had quite little short legs, and therefore she was called Chickabiddy Shortshanks; she laid good eggs, and the woman loved her ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... now into a wild spring storm and the rain was drumming like canister on the roof of Stuart's cottage, so they did not hear the purr of a motor which stopped outside. They were without warning when the door suddenly burst open, and across the bare shoulder of the woman, who still hung sobbing to him, Stuart saw the bloated and apoplectic face ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... long time he had been conscious of the curious, hissing monotone of the Aurora, the "music of the skies," reaching out through the space of the earth with a purring sound that was at times like the purr of a cat and at others like the faint hum of a bee. Absorbed in his work he did not, for a time, hear the other sound. Not until he had finished, and was placing the golden snare in his wallet, did ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... hum of the jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair—and they don't purr!" ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious limousines, Mrs. Carew's car rolled down Commonwealth Avenue and out upon Arlington Street to Charles. Inside sat a shining-eyed little girl and a white-faced, tense woman. Outside, to give directions to the plainly disapproving chauffeur, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... dusk, but at first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... yet eagerly entered the Casino. She felt again the powerful influence of the place, but in a different way. The pleasant, kindly animal to which she had likened the Casino was now a mighty monster, who must be approached with caution and even fear, whose gentle, feline purring was the purr of a tiger sitting with claws in sheath. How the great golden beast could strike and tear sometimes, the desperate face of her companion told. Mary feared for his sake that people might read the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... round you carefully. Observe the demeanour of the machines that are trotted out (if such a term may be used) for your inspection. The flick of a tail, the purr of an engine or the slope of a wing may give the observant a clue as to the disposition ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... to blow up then, or fly up to reach them," said Nellie. "The saucy things! Just see how they sit there and purr with contentment! Yes, I know they are laughing at us ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn't talking." ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... walking sedately across the flowers, her bushy tail carried very high, not one hair of her silky white coat awry. She took no notice of anybody, but passed to the fire, sat down beside it with stiff dignity, curled her tail round her paws, yawned and then began to purr gently. It was as if nothing had happened. And she certainly was not hungry, for she turned up her dainty nose at ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... have tried it," Janice cried as she touched the self-starter and the engine began to purr again. ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... crossing of a canal she saw a zanjero turning the water through a new delivery gate into a new ditch, and checking El Capitan, she watched the brown flood rolling down the channel prepared for it and heard the dry earth hiss and purr as it sucked up the moisture with the thirst of a thousand years. She wanted to cry out a protest. The effort was so pitifully foolish. This awful, awful land would never yield to the men who sought to subdue it with such feeble means. From the little stream ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... the smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer, retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening of the case, rose above the scene to purr: ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, finding his company ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... on the hither side of him gave a wide ripple, and a lioness sprang out of it like a flash, and bounded noiselessly up to the lion. Reaching him, the great cat halted suddenly, and rubbed her head against his shoulder. Then they both began to purr loudly, so loudly that I believe that in the stillness one might have heard them two hundred yards or ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... commonly used in those parts for hard work and dress affairs, with a tramp snuffle and bark as they bounced along beneath the maples like house dogs that knew their business and made as much noise about it as they could; but a car with a purr like a soft petted cat by the fire, yet a power behind the purr that might have belonged to a lion if the need for power arose. It stole down the street like a thing of the world, well oiled and perfect in its way, and not needing to make any clatter about its going. The ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... is as hard to locate by sound as an echo would be and is usually much nearer than it seems when I hear him. The second call is the last note of the first one, three or four times repeated with such rapidity that it has a flute-like reverberation that is almost like a round and very musical purr. The cry of this bird has been called eerie and disquieting, but I do not think it so, even in the loneliness of the question call. The satisfied one is as gentle and cuddly as one ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... an hour when we can, and drive a gasoline car, keeping within the speed laws when necessary. Once each Fall, when the first frost shrivels the corn-stalk and when, if you chance to be out of doors after dark you hear, away up overhead, invisible, the accelerating, throbbing, diminishing purr of wings that drives the sportsman mad,—the town knows me ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... queried Jose, a menacing purr in his tone. "I have it. It seems that you are in haste to use it. Too much haste, Francisco. But if you will stand instead of crawling as before, you may have your ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... acxeti. Pure (clean) pura. Pure (morals) virta. Pure pistajxo. Purgative laksilo, laksigilo. Purgatory purgatorio. Purge laksigi. Purify purigi. Puritan Puritano. Purity pureco. Purloin sxteli. Purple purpura. Purpose celi, intenci. Purpose (end, aim) celo. Purr bleketi, murmureti. Purse monujo. Pursue forpeladi, postesekvi. Purveyor liveranto. Pus puso—ajxo. Push pusxi. Push through trapusxi. Pusillanimous timema. Pustule pustulo. Put meti. Put aside apartigi. Put on airs afekti. Put away formeti, forigi. Put down demeti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... help her again if she got caught a second time. So she took no notice of the mouse until the next day, when she climbed down the tree and went to the roots in which she knew the mouse was hidden. There she began to purr as loud as she could, to show the mouse she was in a good humour, and called out, "Dear good little mouse, come out of your hole and let me tell you how very, very grateful I am to you for saving my life. There is nothing in the world I will ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
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