"Back door" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slowly down the sunlit courtway on which the back door of the club opened, swinging his stick and meditating. Spring was approaching its zenith. In the warm May afternoon pigeons tumbled about near-by church spires which cut brown inlays into the soft blue ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... acquaintance. I was in the park to study the home life of the animals, and had been told that in the woods, near the Fountain Hotel, I could see Bears at any time, which, of course, I scarcely believed. But on stepping out of the back door five minutes after arriving, I came face to face with a large ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... Mary Jane rushed to the jack and gave it a spin, while Ruby walked round by the back door, and appeared dripping on the threshold. "I declare 'tis like Troy Town this morning: wrecks and rumours o' wrecks. Now 'tis 'Ropes! ropes!' an' nex' 'tis 'Where be the stable key, Mary Jane, my dear?' an' then agen, 'Will'ee be so good as to fetch master's second-best spy-glass, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... became quite dark he approached the house, and hid himself under the steps beneath the back door leading from the hall into the garden, to watch his opportunity of entering. He soon found that his enterprise required great patience as well as courage. He had to wait more than two hours before he heard the ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... towards the back door of Mr Rogers' roomy, verandah-surrounded cottage farm, high up in the slopes of the Drakensberg, and looking a perfect bower with its flowers, creepers, and fruit-trees, many being old English friends; and Jack proceeded to make peace ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... took a long survey from a rocky eminence, and then reconnoitered the lowland for several miles. He located the herd of buffalo, and satisfying himself there were no Indians near—for the bison were grazing quietly—he returned to the cave. A soft whistle into the back door of the rocky home told Joe that the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... keeping his vigil before the door. He had no doubt that it was locked; did not Beaumaroy see Mrs. Wiles and himself out of it every evening—the back door to the little house led only on to the heath behind and gave no direct access to the road—and lock it after them with a squeaking key? He would have warning enough if anyone turned the key now. He was looking towards the road; ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... was not to spend the night without food and fire, he vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the back door. A woman was ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... custards to be baked in little cups and freckled with nutmeg, to please Uncle Edward. Then there was a quantity of eggs to be boiled hard. As Mrs. Clifford dropped these one by one into a kettle of water, Katie ran to the back door, and cried out ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... the personifications? Why shouldn't Morn and Eve come corporeally walking up their lawn, with little or no clothes on, or Despair be sitting in their woods with her hair over her face, or Famine coming gauntly up to their back door for a hand-out? Why shouldn't they any day see pop-eyed Rapture passing on the trolley, or Meditation letting the car she intended to take go by without stepping lively enough to get on board? He pretended that we could have the personifications back again, if we were not so conventional ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... winding road three men, apparently father and sons,—low-browed, heavy-eyed, brutal looking creatures,—who followed the foot path up toward the house, and glaring sullenly at the young men, shuffled around to the back door. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Highlanders, spying, took to be the red uniforms of soldiers, and a panic seized them—so much so, that some who had seized some pig-puddings and were fastening them hot on a pole, according to a local ditty, ran out through a back door, and, jumping from a heap of manure, fell up to the neck in a cesspool. The pillage near Ashbourne was very great, but they could not stay, for the Duke was already at Uttoxoter ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... woman of her own age and size who had died that very day. And bringing that body home secretly at night, she dressed it in her own clothes, and burned it till its identity was obliterated. And then she set fire to her house, and left it by a back door, and went away, abandoning all her wealth but the jewels that she wore, for the sake of her picture in the air[23]. And at that very moment, the Rajpoot came along, led by some of the townspeople to visit ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... time to see to the chicken. What is more, by the time you get back, all big obstacles will look like little ones to you. Go, please. I am to be in the office for the next hour, and if the house catches fire I will run over and put it out. I could even undertake to steal in the back door and put coal on the kitchen ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... not the back door of the continent. San Francisco is the front door. Every ship sailing out of its magnificent bay to the Orient, proclaims this fact. San Francisco will one day lead the continent. A city that cares for ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... this yer mill o' literatoor an' progress.' Thar waz two infants sittin' on high chairs havin' some innocent little game o' pickin' pieces o' lead outer pill-boxes like, and as soon ez they seed me one of 'em crawled under his desk and the other scooted outer the back door. Bimeby the door opens again, and a fluffy coyote-lookin' feller comes in and allows that HE is responsible for that yer paper. When I saw the kind of animal he was, and that he hadn't any weppings, I jist laid the Left Bower down on the floor. Then ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... sink had grown a gray, rough skin, a sort of fungoid coat, from the grease that clung to it, and the gas stove, furred with rust, skulked like some obscene monster in its corner. He was afraid, morally and physically afraid, to look at that thing of infamy behind the back door. He tried to pretend the scullery ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... knowledge of diplomacy. I say this for the reason that her diction could be construed to mean anything but what she intended; albeit there was such an openness about it generally that any clever gentleman might walk in at the back door. I thought it highly creditable in Betty to attempt a thing so mighty as the conquest of Bolt's heart—indeed there was an admirable heroism about it; but it caused a great flutter in the kitchen, where the sensitive Thomas brought forward a motion for her extradition. Thomas ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the chief consequence to us just now," said Tom; "shall we go up to the front entrance and tell them our errand, or find out the back door, and get a servant to go in ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... back door," said Felicity, with an agitated glance around the kitchen. "I told you, Dan, that you should have shovelled the snow away from the front door this morning. Cecily, set those pots in the pantry quick—hide those boots, Felix—shut the cupboard door, Peter—Sara, ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... went into the kitchen to strike a light, and taking the glowing fiery eyes of the cat for burning coals, he held a match to them in order to kindle it. But the cat, not seeing the joke, flew into his face, spitting and scratching. Then he cried out in terror, and ran to get out at the back door, but the dog, who was lying there, ran at him and bit his leg; and as he was rushing through the yard by the dunghill the ass struck out and gave him a great kick with his hindfoot; and the cock, who ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... the way silently through two dark rooms. Before she opened the back door, Peter could hear Cissie's mother and a younger sister moving around the outside of the house to give up the arbor to Cissie ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Clay was slightly mystified at this sudden summons, so early in the evening, but like a good chauffeur and the friend of Arethusa's which he so truly was, he asked no questions; and unfastened the back door for her, having driven in the back way without a word of comment. Arethusa knew that Ross and Elinor would still be up at this early hour, within hearing of the opening of the front door, and she wanted ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... of initiation. When all are assembled before the shed, the high priest calls aloud upon the devils. Immediately a hideous uproar is heard to proceed from the shed. It is made by men with bamboo trumpets, who have been secretly introduced into the building by a back door, but the women and children think it is made by the devils, and are much terrified. Then the priests enter the shed, followed by the boys, one at a time. As soon as each boy has disappeared within the precincts, a dull chopping sound is heard, a fearful cry rings ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... arrival of subpoenas from Washington; men were posted in the streets to give the alarm whenever the Marshal should attempt to serve papers; and before he entered the front door of a Mormon's house, the Church sentry had entered by the back door to warn the inmates. If the Federal power had been moving in a foreign land, it could not have been more determinedly opposed by local authority. Notorious polygamists, wanted as witnesses before the Senate committee, made a ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... knew what she was to do, or say, or what she never had done, or said, we coaxed her to the back door and pointed to our treasure. She couldn't refuse us, and the box was given ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... depression on its forehead is the mark of her hand when she placed a tika or sign there with coloured rice. The Deswars are also called Dui Duaria or 'Those having two doors,' because they have a back door to their huts which is used only by women during their monthly period of impurity and kept shut at all other times. One of the septs is named Manakhia, which means 'man-eater,' and it is possible that its members formerly offered human sacrifices. Similarly, the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... meats and strong soup. Julien made the trades-people give him commissions, and the glaziers never put up a pane of glass at a cost of a franc and a half but he had a franc put down to himself. Charles devoured the horses' oats and doubled the amount of their provender, reselling at the back door what came in at the carriage gate, while amid the general pillage, the sack of the town after the storm, Zoe, by dint of cleverness, succeeded in saving appearances and covering the thefts of all in order the better to slur over and make good her own. But the household waste was ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the judge, who had entered his cabinet by a back door, was interrupted in his examination of the documents, previous to interrogating the witnesses, by the officer Hendon, who demanded leave to make an important communication. "Amongst the witnesses," said he, "now waiting in the antechamber, are two women—one, la femme Santon, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... groom, for I never was one to get my notion of new masters from their other servants: I prefer to wait and see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that I had got into the right kind of house, and that things were done handsomely. A pleasant-faced cook met me at the back door and called the house-maid to show me up to my room. "You'll see madam later," she said. "Mrs. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... broad expanse of moss and heather. These men of God knew how to wrestle with the Angel of the Covenant, and betimes continued their prayers till the break of day. The pursuers had scented their game; in the morning a detachment of cavalry rode up to the house. The Covenanters escaped through the back door. To give them more time, Mrs. Howie stood in front of the soldiers, and disputed their entrance into the house. A burly dragoon attempted to push in. She grappled him by the shoulder, whirled him about, and shoved him out ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... Tom started toward the back door on his way to the kitchen, where his father and mother were sitting, and Rita ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... get out," said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which seemed the concentration of fear; "I would have got out of it if I could; but just step to the back door, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... he perceived something so like the lane that led to his own shanty that he joyfully proceeded, and at length reached what he believed to be a back door that he had directed his wife to leave "on ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... moment, the back door opened with a loud clang. Mrs. Mellen stood on the doorstep, and her eyes were very bright. She said nothing, but gazed calmly up and down the yard, as if considering the beauty of the night. Then, after a few minutes, she turned ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... in the large office room of the consulate. The big front doors stood open to the sea, where a mile away the breakers tossed and tumbled on the barrier reef. The back door was kept shut, to keep out the meaner noises of domesticity, but at intervals in the course of the trial you could hear the deliberate grinding of the consular coffee; the chasing of consular chickens; ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... morning arrived Finn surprised his friend the cook by not waiting for his customary dish of milk. Directly the back door was opened he slipped out into the sweet, early sunshine of that fragrant neighborhood, and was off at a good loping gait for the Downs. (It was a thousand pities he could not have carried his milk with him as a morning ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... have liked it yourself. Fancy his turning out of Verner's Pride in that guise, and encountering visitors! I don't know how it is, but there's some deficiency in Jan; something wanting. You know he generally chooses to come here by the back door: this day, because he had got the black kettle in his hand like a travelling tinker, he must go out by the front. He did! It saved him a few steps, and he went out without a blush. Out of my house, Lionel! Nobody ever lived, I am certain, who possessed so little ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the jewellery. Then he tied a cord round the neck of each sack and sealed it. Afterwards, with a sigh, he closed the safe and turned down the gas. He did not leave by the trap, which led through the shop, but opened and locked the back door of the cellar, ascended the steps and went out into the street through the side passage. "If they come," he thought as he walked into the gathering night, "they won't find these. No! no!" and he hugged the ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... was plain and blunt. His was an unattractive front. Yet children loved him; babe and boy Played with the strength he could employ, Without one fear, and they are fleet To sense injustice and deceit. No back door gossip linked his name With any shady tale of shame. He did not have to compromise With evil-doers, shrewd and wise, And let them ply their vicious trade ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... Gordon ordered her household as soldiers awaiting an onset of the enemy. Sarah Emily had a clean apron every morning, and the house was kept in speckless order from the stone step of the front porch to the rain-barrel by the back door of the woodshed. Even the barnyard was swept every morning before the younger Gordons left for school, and every day their Sabbath clothes were laid out in readiness to slip on at the sight of a carriage turning in off ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... that we got out of the cellars, stairs, and through a door to the back-kitchen, where the sink was, and the copper and the plate-rack. Oswald felt like a brother to the broken coal-scuttle. Our first instant thought was the back door. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... and he was received in a secret audience by Marie Antoinette. The interview took place at St. Cloud, July 3. The statesman did not trust his new friends, and he instructed the nephew who drove him, in disguise, to the back door, to fetch the police if he did not reappear in three-quarters of an hour. The conversation was satisfactory, and Mirabeau, as he kissed the queen's hand, declared with chivalrous fervour that the monarchy was saved. He spoke sincerely. The comedian and deceiver was not ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... can escape through their house or they through ours. I'll put on my rubber suit and shall not be gone long now at any one time. You can admit Merwyn or any of my agents who give the password. Keep plenty of coffee and your own courage at boiling-point. You will next hear from me at our back door." ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... vicious yellow bull-dog. It was a question which was the most unpopular and the most obnoxious bete noire with the villagers. We boys took a fearful delight in stealthily approaching the little tailor's back door in the evening, and then, with a sudden shout, taking to our heels around the corner, whereat the yellow fiend would burst out after us, with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... ironed, was not encumbered with much furniture. Her ironing-table occupied a large part of its centre, and in the ample fireplace was blazing a fire great enough to cook a repast for a moderate number of giants. Behind the back door stood a common pine bedstead, with an enormous bed upon it. How any bedstead held such a bed was remarkable; for Phillis believed there was a virtue in feathers even in the hottest weather, and she would rather have gone to roost on the nearest tree than to have slept on any thing ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... accustomed to our ricks of corn, and hay, and clover. There we might see a hundred of them almost any morning, come for warmth, and food, and comfort, and scarce willing to move away. And many of them were so tame, that they quietly presented themselves at our back door, and stood there with their coats quite stiff, and their flanks drawn in and panting, and icicles sometimes on their chins, and their great eyes fastened wistfully upon any merciful person; craving for a bit of food, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... decent, or of an inoffensive shabbiness, it would not be possible for his benefactors, in any grade of society, to ask him to their tables. He is sometimes fed in the kitchen; where the people of the house feed in the kitchen themselves, he is fed at the back door. ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which she intended giving her mistress notice the moment ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... ashamed to tell you, but I believe I will—Nettie and I wrote a letter in a sort of manly hand, signed his initials, and put it into an iron pot that she keeps standing near her back door. The letter requested that she would put her answer in the same place, and she did. Oh, it was rich! such a rapture of delight; and such spelling and such grammar as were used to express it! It was such fun that ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... tramp funny? Now instead of coming round to the back door and asking for a hand-out like any self-respecting tramp had ought to, they march up to the front door, and they're somebody with two or three names that's walking round the world on a wager they made with one ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... practice. However, I went back along the lane. With some trouble, I got over the tall brick wall down which I had dropped the night before. Then I climbed up to the pigeon-house, down the loft-ladder, into the inn-yard, to the broken back door of the tavern. The door hung from one hinge, with its lower panels kicked in just as the soldiers had left it. The inn was open to anybody who cared ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... take Master Kenton (he had never been so called before) out into the garden of pot-herbs behind the house, and Emlyn with her dancing step led the way, by a back door down a few steps into a space where a paved walk led between two beds of vegetables, bordered with a narrow edge of pinks, daisies, and gilliflowers, to a seat under the shade of an old apple tree, looking out, as this was high ground, over the ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... iron gateway, is flanked by two guardhouses painted with white and black stripes, the Prussian "colors," and two unbluffable Landsturm men mount guard, who will tell you to go around to the back door. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was by trade a shoemaker, to which he occasionally added the occupation of toll-keeper. The house in which Richard was born stood upon the border line which then divided the counties of Salop and Montgomery; the front door opening in the one county, and the back door in the other. Richard, when a boy, received next to no education, and as soon as he was of fitting age was put to common labouring work. For some time he worked in a quarry near his father's dwelling; but being of an ingenious turn, he occupied his leisure in making various articles of mechanism, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... quietly that nobody in the neighbourhood recognised His Majesty in the thin gentleman who got out of the modest looking coach at the Czar's lodgings. The Czar returned the visit with the same precautions, and was admitted into Kensington House by a back door. It was afterwards known that he took no notice of the fine pictures with which the palace was adorned. But over the chimney of the royal sitting room was a plate which, by an ingenious machinery, indicated the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Gladys stopped the car and Hinpoha ran after Mr. Bob. The yellow cur knew his neighborhood and turned into an alley just as Mr. Bob nearly had him. Mr. Bob, with Hinpoha hard after him, also turned into the alley. The back door of an empty store offered the fugitive a safe refuge and he darted inside. So did Mr. Bob, growling ferociously, and so did Hinpoha, panting for breath and holding her hand to her side. From the back room of the store the dogs passed to the front and Mr. Bob caught the yellow ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr. Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... the wind, a sound of someone crossing the yard behind the farm came to their ears. Nelly sprang to her feet and led the way upstairs. Farrell followed her, and as they moved, they heard Bridget open the back door and ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of breaking the engagement which he had made. He went to his room, made a bundle of his worldly possessions, and crept out of the back door, down ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... was heathenish for Barbara to let Georgina dress up in some little knickerbockers and a roundabout which had been stored away with other clothes worn by Justin as a small boy. But her disapproval was beyond words when Barbara herself appeared at the back door one morning, so cleverly disguised as a gypsy, that Mrs. Triplett grudgingly handed out some cold biscuits before she discovered the imposition. The poor she was glad to feed, but she had no use ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that the small garrison could not hold out, and seeing the enemy again approaching, he set fire to a rick of furze, and while the wind blew the smoke in the faces of the Spaniards, he and his son, each taking a sack of flour on their shoulders, issued out through a back door and made their way up the hill. They had got some distance up the steep ascent before they were discovered by the Spaniards, who then began firing at them. The gallant millers made their escape, but the old man ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... found a fearful draught through your front door. That's most hurtful. Better lock it at once. Would it matter if this kept your visitors off for two or three days? If someone happens to call unexpectedly—there's the back door. You had better shut this window as well, it's letting in the sunset rays only ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... Mexican who saw what happened—and that boy who looked in at the back door," Gordon asserted. "We just caught sight of him and couldn't make out his face against the light. Then he had skipped when we ran there. We never ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... everything hitherto by anonymous letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with the letter, you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o'clock this morning, I signed it 'your secret correspondent.' They let me in at once—very quickly—by the back door, and the noble lady ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... day after Gordon's return to Corbett's that Juanita heard a whistle while she was washing dishes after supper in the kitchen. Presently she slipped out of the back door and took the trail to the corral. A man moved forward out of the gloom ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... his pipe and opened the window and the back door to get rid of the smell of the tobacco smoke. Then he shifted the pair of steps noisily, and proceeded to work more quickly than before. Most likely it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... in the viewpoint of men who fought themselves into moral shreds in the big game of life and those who lived a thousand miles nearer to the dome of the earth. At the end of this first year came the wonderful event in the history of the Company's post, which had the Barren Lands at its back door. One day a new life was born into the little cabin of ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... which I had never known. We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered together and he closed it ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there! Every day stealing away out at the back door with a veil over her face and some one's else clothes on, and taking a taxicab for I don't ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... in fellowship with Malcolm, while it is for her interest to be faithful to you, for by reason of being your man she has access to those houses which may be presumed to be profitable in the plundering. I cannot tell you any particular thing she has done, but I can send a message to the back door by reason of which she will fly from your house and never again show ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... of rough gardeners. They spread the dirt around where it is wanted, and they make it the right height all along the foundation, and smooth it off, and they make the walks up to the front door and the back door, and they spread gravel on the walks. Sometimes they make terraces or banks, but they won't do that here. It will be a nice slope from the house down to the ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... have taken, as usual, the fertile land and the running water, and have allotted land to the Indian where neither wood nor water exist, no crops will grow, no human life can be supported. I have seen the land. I have seen the Indian begging at the back door. Oh, yes, they were an "inferior race." Oh, yes, they didn't and couldn't use the land to the best advantage, couldn't build Broadway and the Union Pacific Railroad, couldn't improve real estate. If you choose to call the whole thing "manifest destiny," I am with ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... dawn lay rosily on the town. The shimmering light in the pine woods was crossed and recrossed by the glare of rockets. Down the street came the sound of singing voices, the words of the song heralding the flight of a child-spirit to a better world. La Tulita slipped out of the back door and went to her home without meeting the procession. But before she shut herself in her room she awakened Ana, and giving her a purse of gold, bade her buy a little coffin draped with white and garlanded ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... was a cry of rage or alarm from the kitchen, a hurried scuffling of feet on the floor, and then through a window I saw my two friends the pedlars flying through the yard, and pausing not to look behind. I ought, of course, to have forthwith gone downstairs and done my duty by that back door, which I had so shamefully neglected earlier in the day; but I am ashamed to say that my momentary access of courage had entirely died away by this time, and that for no imaginable sum of money would I have dared to descend those stairs, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return to office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which it witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars,[1315] their numbers soon increased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the magistrates only having time to fly through a back door. The soldiers, on their part, with arms in their hands, allow all these things to go on, while several of them spur the assailants on. The windows are dashed to pieces under a hailstorm of stones, the doors are forced with iron crowbars, and the populace ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a back door to it, of course!" answered Sarah. "The first load of coals came in that way, but master wouldn't have it used: he didn't like a door to his house he never set ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the house, so that every one is exposed to rain, snow, slush, and ice in making the journey thither. But some corner of the woodshed or barn should be utilized or the small building should be moved up by the back door and connected therewith by a roofed passage. The barn location is objectionable if it involves outdoor exposure in going from the house to the barn. A liberal use of earth in the privy vault will eliminate odors, and a water-tight box or bucket ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... is, that soon after Pearson came out from the back room, where he and Knight and the Sheriff had been closeted, the Sheriff said that Knight was bailed—he would not say by whom. Knight being looked after, was not to be found. He had slipped out through a back door, and thus cheated the crowd of the pleasure of greeting him—possibly with that rough and ready affection which Barclay's brewers bestowed upon Haynau. The escape was very fortunate every way. Hughes and Knight have since been twice arrested and put under bonds of $10,000 (making $30,000 ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the front door!" cried Madeleine, fumbling with the key. She turned it and darted into the hallway, and fell back, crying angrily: "Oh, no! there's the back door—and the doctor's office and all the windows. It's no use! It's no use!" She broke into a storm of sobs. "You didn't help a bit!" she cried furiously to the other woman. "You ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the construction of their cottages. Their dwellings are often built, for convenience, in too close proximity to the barn. Because they do not construct a suitable sewer or drain, the filth and refuse food is thrown out of the back door, where it accumulates and undergoes putrefaction; the vitiated air penetrates the interior of the house, and, there being no means of ventilation, it remains to be breathed by the occupants. The result is, that for the sake of saving a few dollars, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... reports that the United States Treasury was selling gold; they proved to be true. Within fifteen minutes the whole fabric of the gold manipulation had gone to pieces. It is narrated that a mob, bent on lynching, searched for Gould, but that he and Fisk had sneaked away through a back door and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... enigmatically. "'Tis so, I assure ye, ma'am. My Lord Rotherby is of a family singularly cautious in the unions it contracts. In entering matrimony he prefers, no doubt, to leave a back door open for quiet retreat ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... her mother's voice, in a rather startled conversational tone, and then another woman speaking; then the voices died away. Mrs. Lessways had evidently opened the back door to somebody, and taken her at once into the sitting-room. The occurrence was unusual. Hilda went softly out on to the landing and listened, but she could catch nothing more than a faint, irregular murmur. Scarcely had she stationed herself on the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... himself up in the study, and she was sure that he was writing; so when the village children stopped in on the way from school for Mandy's new-made cookies, she used her customary trick to get them away. "Tag—you're it!" she cried, and then dashed out the back door, pursued by the laughing, screaming youngsters. Mandy followed the children to the porch and stood looking after them, as the mad, little band scurried about the back yard, darted in and out amongst the trees, then up the side of the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... sprintin' fr' the back door this minute! Are ye the sheriff's—woman?" and oddly enough the lady didn't flush; but the faintest gloss came over the saffron skin—of what? It was the same nonchalant, wordless insolence that had played in the eyes of the man who ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... I would raise one to that noble man!)—the fishmonger, I say, brought his usual little present to me. I let the cook take it and prepare it for my eating. I am always generous enough to permit the family to be served first—and then I have my dinner quietly at the back door. ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... out, and at the back door, leaning on his staff, stood a tall, raw-boned, ragged man, "pinked all over," as the steward ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... told you in the book before this one. Perhaps those tramps had gotten out of jail and had come to get more cake. Bunny and Sue sat close to mother and father while grandpa went around the corner of the house to see who was knocking at the back door. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... to reward her for sittin' on Cousin Ralph so long," says I. "Give her one of the fives. You can slip the other to him as we shoo him through the back door. Now, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of hunting," said Mr. Hume, as the boys walked round the great beast. "Some days you never get a shot, and other times you find game at your back door, so to speak. One of you boys will stay with Muata to skin and cut up. It will ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... house that he will go to the tavern, and not return until late in the evening, for I know him of old; and so I should prefer to remain in the house, whilst he is away, rather than go somewhere else. Therefore you had better come to our house in half an hour, and I will let you in by the back door, if my husband is not at home, and if he should be, we will set ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... the back door," he said, "and all go to some quiet place to dine. Hullo, who's this?" he exclaimed, as the tattered figure of the man ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... brought to a close by Moses making an exit via the back door, and when the privacy of the sheep-house had been gained he sat down on a big log and began counting how much money he had still on hand after his trip to town ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... across the space went Mary, cometwise, a vision of terror and flying cap strings, each moment expecting to hear pursuing feet. Puck, the Irish terrier, sleeping peacefully on the front verandah, leapt to his feet at the sudden bang of the back door, and came dashing through the house in search of the cause. Mary, half sobbing, ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... along by the garden wall, and round to the back of the house, and here it clattered into a cobble-stoned yard and stopped at the back door. ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... the side of the kopje, an unusual scene presented itself. A large group was gathered at the back door ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... lean-to at the back, and the right wing, were at this time the only really habitable parts of the mansion. The lean-to had an entrance from the living room, but Old Hucks and Nora his wife used the back door entirely. It consisted of a large and cheerful kitchen and two rooms off it, one used as a store room and the other as a sleeping chamber for ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... done the best I could. Nothing could ha' 'appened better—to start with. Directly Ted Brown and Joe Smith started, Mrs. Pretty and her sister, and all the kids excepting the baby, run out, and they'd 'ardly gone afore I was inside the back door and looking for that hamper, and I'd hardly started afore I heard them coming back agin. I was at the foot o' the stairs at the time, and, not knowing wot to do, I went ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... cooking them, no mere white man could possibly conjecture. But the romance of the eye, which really on this rich evening, clung about the shop, had its main source in the accident of two doors standing open, the front door that opened on the street and a back door that opened on an odd green square of garden, that the sun turned to a square of gold. There is nothing more beautiful than thus to look as it were through the archway of a house; as if the open sky were an interior chamber, and the sun a ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Barnabas stood hesitating, undecided whether to go on to Barrymaine's lodging or no, and finally struck off in the opposite direction, towards Gray's Inn Lane and so by devious ways eventually arrived at the back door of the "Gun," on which he ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... said Mrs. Cricket, opening the back door of the cottage, "you run out, straight up that path, and you'll ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... was in a hurry, and the two men, going out of Bristow's back door, walked down to the corner of the sleeping porch of No. 7, the nurses' home. The frail wire fences that had served to partition the back lots of Nos. 5, 7, and 9 had either fallen down or been carried away, but there was a tall five-board fence at the rear of the three lots. From ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... Ned, as he watched the disappearing figure of his chum. "Come back here! If there's going to be an explosion we ought to run out of the back door!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... youth come out of its million graves and its uniform hanging from its limp frame? Do you want to see the war dead, the young ones ripped to pieces in the trenches standing like tired beggars at your back door, dead hands and dead eyes and wailing softly: "I was so young. I died so soon. All of us from all the countries who died so soon, we grow lonely on the other side. Ah, my unlived days! My uneaten bread! My uncounted years! They lie in a little corner and nobody ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the blacksmith shop three yokels were languidly pitching horseshoes—"quaits" they called them—at a stake driven in the earth. Just beyond, the woods shredded out into a long, yellow and green peninsula which stretched up almost to the back door of the smithy, so that late of afternoons the slanting shadows of the near-most trees fell on its roof of warped shingles. At the extreme end of this point of woods Mr. Trimm was squatted behind a big boulder, squinting warily through a thick-fringed curtain of ripened goldenrod tops and sumacs, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... started Johnny Chuck to thinking about his own home. He had always thought it a very nice home. He had built it just as he wanted it. From the doorstep he could look in all directions over the Green Meadows. It had a front door and a hidden back door. Yes, it was a very nice ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... in there! Whoo-oo-ee-ee!" yelled Nick, rushing toward the middle door. It gave before his weight and he dashed in. Tuttle followed, not knowing what was happening, yet sure that his friend was daring some danger. But the room was empty. Through the back door Dysert and his companion had gained a corral, into which opened several other houses, and in some one of these had disappeared and ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... answered promptly. "There's a back door into the court and a trap-door to the roof. That's the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... of the discipline and the duty of the Christian life. One part of that watchfulness consists in exercising a very rigid and a very constant and comprehensive scrutiny of our motives. For there is no way by which evil creeps upon us so unobserved, as when it slips in at the back door of a specious motive. Many a man contents himself with the avoidance of actual evil actions, and lets any kind of motives come in and out of his mind unexamined. It is all right to look after our doings, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... said Madama, with pride, "is the best. It grows, in beautiful bottles, in the dark places among the banana-trees. Si, Senor. Only at midnight can they be picked by sailor-men who bring them, before daylight comes, to your back door. Good aguardiente is a verree difficult fruit ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... be. Arrah musha, were the man as sensible as his fowl I'd know. But, colleen, keep an eye to that back door. Fayette's behind, in the store closet. It's behind he must stay ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Fox came to a hole in the ground, an old house that had once belonged to her grandfather. Now this old house had a back door hidden close beside the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. Old Granny Fox just ran through the house, out the back door, through the hollow tree, and then jumped into a little brook where there was hardly more than enough water to wet her feet. Walking ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... face that was stamped with the impress of wide and sordid experiences. Kate's voice broke the short silence, "He said 'water,' Mother." She spoke sharply, and with a curt inclination of her head to the sheepherder added, "The water barrel's at the back door, Mister. Come with me." Apparently this made his decision for him, for he followed the girl at once, while Jezebel with a shrug walked ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... and said to Hansel, "What will become of us?" "Be quiet, Grethel," said he; "do not cry, I will soon help you." And as soon as their parents had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his coat, and, unbarring the back door, slipped out. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay before the door seemed like silver pieces, they glittered so brightly. Hansel stooped down, and put as many into his pocket as it would hold, and then going back ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... think of what the security inspectors who approved the plans for this arrangement are going to say when I call this little back door to their attention, it almost makes it ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... bell and put a notice in the lighted side-window, saying, "Go to the back door," sat in the parlor, supported by his chum, Gus, while Ed played softly on the piano, hoping to lull Jack to sleep. It did soothe him, for a very sweet friendship existed between the tall youth and the lad of thirteen. Ed went with the big fellows, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Coffee-house at Charing Cross, had a back door into Spring Garden. It seems to have ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... in the unfloored hut, watching through broken chinking. There was a back door as well as a front door, hung on wooden hinges, and she had pinned the front door as she came in. The opening of the back door made Jeannette turn her head, though with little interest in the comer. It was a boy, with a streak of blood down his face and neck, and ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... too, ef you're a mind, when you git the dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a lumber room, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... America is not at all simple. It is more than a problem of immigration. The problem of the European immigrant is one part of it. There is also the problem of the relation of the American people to the yellow races at our back door, and the problem of the negro, who is here through no fault of his own, but who, because he is here, must be brought into friendly and helpful relation with ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... looking with basilisk or tigerish eyes upon his fellows, no music so sweet to him as the sound of breaking hearts, is, at death, to get out of the landau at the front door of the sepulcher and pass right on through to the back door of the sepulcher, and find a celestial turnout waiting for him, so that he can drive tandem right up primrosed hills, one glory riding as lackey ahead, and another glory riding as postilion behind, while that poor woman who supported her invalid ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... only to run my course through my mind before the supper-bell was rung at the back door by Mrs. Fishley. Should I go in to supper as usual, and meet the whole family, including Ham? I answered this question in the affirmative, deciding that I would not sulk, or make any unnecessary trouble to any one. I went in, and took my seat as usual at the table, by the side of Flora. It was a ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... the tramp, who at the back door solicited alms of a suspicious housewife. His nose was large and of a purple hue. The woman stared at it with an accusing ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... later George's pallid face appeared at the back door: "You come in here quick and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... stay in some street off the Strand, and chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the stranger who first enters it by the ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... served as Hippocrene to Judge Blackstone when he wrote his 'Commentaries')—these make up the legal element of the 'Cheese.' Sharp attorneys in practice are not popular there. There is a legend that a process-server once came in at a back door to serve a writ; but being detected by a waiter, was skilfully edged by that wary retainer into Wine Bottle Court, right past the person on whom he was desirous to inflict the 'Victoria, by the grace, &c.' Once in ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and stood facing the church whose flag streamed to the south. The roadman straightened himself and leaned upon his mattock; the huswife shut the back door, and the dog crept into his barrel. The schoolyard, accustomed at that hour to flood suddenly with noise, remained empty. But the milkmaid's horse drew to the hedge for a bite, the birds on the hillside settled about the halted plow, and the ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... aching heart Mrs. Cliff looked upon the little picket-fence which ran across the front of her property! How beautiful that fence would be with a new coat of paint, and how perfectly well she could afford it! And there was the little shed that should be over the back door, which would keep the sun from the kitchen in summer, and in winter the snow. There was this in one room, and that in another. There were new dishes which could exist only in her mind. How much domestic gratification there was within her reach, but toward which she ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Makin' a hash o' my back door wi' your dirty feet! What are ye slinkin' roond here for, when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till ye paid for the last lot? Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... he said, amiably. "But as I slipped out through the back door before your visitors left, I dropped to the fact that you had some damage done to that left arm. Yes, I'll carry any message you like to your doctor, for I like your nerve. But I must say it's thankless work to stand up as a silent target for cold lead, just so some one else may dance ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... by the back door, and had almost reached the street, when a footman ran after him and said, "Maria Dmitrievna told me to ask ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Cinderella—with the good girl who worked for the witch, and shook her feather bed every morning; till at last, given leave to go home and see her mother, the gold and silver shower came down about her, departing at the back door. Perhaps she should get her pay, some time, and go home and ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... do it, Julia," he agreed; "tonight at two o'clock I will be at the back door with two slaves whom I can trust. I will have a place prepared to which I can take the girl till it is safe to carry her from ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the vine over the back door," said Romund, "and I dare say my mother can find you some shelves and hooks to put up. The women can cook and sew. You may stay for a few days, at ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... that the front doors of many of Broek's houses are opened only twice in their owners' lives—when they marry and when they die. For the rest the back door must serve. The custom is not confined to Broek, but is found all over North Holland. These ceremonial front doors are often very ornate. It was also at Broek that Ireland picked up his information as to the best means of winning the Dutch heart. "Laughable as ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... other than the accursed witch Lizzie Kolken, a coach with four horses drove quickly up to the door, wherein sat six fellows, who straightway all jumped out. Two went and stood at the front, two at the back door, and two more, one of whom was the constable Jacob Knake, came into the room, and handed me a warrant from the sheriff for the arrest of my daughter, as in common repute of being a wicked witch, and for her examination ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... back of the pavilion there was a secret door in the panelling, the key of which the Consul always carried in his pocket. Many a light recollection of the gallantries of his youth rose up before him, when at rare intervals he now opened this small back door, from which a narrow spiral stair led to a chamber above, so narrow that it was now difficult for him to ascend it; but in his younger days—good Heavens!—how lightly he ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the brigandess, sizing us up for a couple of pikers, reckoned that we wouldn't pan out much cash, and that the Boss might be used some rough by the gang. That prospect not setting well on her mind, she rolls out the back door of their camp, makes a swift trip around to our new private entrance, squeezes through the bars, and comes up ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... windows, evidently not inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable—a thing more like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began drawing aimlessly on the back door—drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, and finally the ideal Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials did not permit of any delicate rendering of his noble and national expansion of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton |
