"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fly too. I fancied I could see the thick oaken pillars of the gallery bowing to the ground. I cannot tell whether this was illusion or not, but in a moment the principal beam gave a loud crack and became depressed by three inches at the least. Then, my friends, it was horrible to behold—the deep silence of a minute before was succeeded by tumult, cries, screams, and ravings. That mass of human beings heaped up in the galleries, ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... started to his legs, that a trovoada de cima, or a squall from up-river, was upon us. We took down our hammocks, and then all hands were required to save the vessel from being dashed to pieces. The moon set, and a black pall of clouds spread itself over the dark forests and river; a frightful crack of thunder now burst over our heads, and down fell the drenching rain. Joaquim leapt ashore through the drowning spray with a strong pole, and tried to pass the cuberta round a small projecting point, while we on deck ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... all this confusion should not awake some of the boys in the hall; and by this time there was much turning on pillows, and leaning on elbows, and many scuttlings out of bed to listen at doors opened a crack, so that nearly every one of the occupants, on that particular hall soon knew that "old Fox" had Joel Pepper in her clutches, and that he ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... had been anxiously peeping from the crack of the kitchen door, and felt mortally offended when the company went out by the front way. "Was it not enough that the folks were too far removed from the kitchen to permit Sary to overhear what was said at table, but now they have to walk out at ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... fortunes go, how men struggle and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances their neighbor's newer house, diamonds, or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as these,—why, I tremble and tremble, and this scene to-night, every 'crack' ball this winter will be, not the pleasant society of men and women, but—even in this young country—an orgie such as rotting Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... defended myself bravely and had succeeded in keeping on my feet when your father sprang forward, set me free and led me away. What happened after I could not tell you now; it was one of those wild happy dreams in which you must hold your heart with both hands for fear it should crack with joy, or fly out and away up to the sky and in the very eye of the sun. Late in the evening I got home and a week after I was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... German bullets spin overhead or crack like whips against our sandbags, sending little clods of earth down into the trench; all down the line we stand on our firing platforms, and answer back to the little spurts of flame which mark the enemy trench; sudden flashes and explosions tell of bombs or grenades, and star shells from both sides ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half as spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... Baghdad and bid cry before them: 'This is the reward and the lest of the reward for whoso exceedeth in talk and vexeth the folk and turneth their joy to annoy.' This is what I wish, and no more." Said the Caliph, "Allah grant thee that thou seekest! Let us crack one last cup and rise ere the dawn draw near, and to-morrow night I will be with thee again." Said Abu al-Hasan, "Far be it!" Then the Caliph crowned a cup, and putting therein a piece of Cretan Bhang,[FN20] gave it to his host and said to him, "My life on thee, O my brother, drink this cup ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... from the top and of the other from the under side, as shown. Shape the under sides first. This can best be done by placing the two pieces in a vise, under sides together, and boring two holes with a 1-in. bit. The center of each hole will be 2-1/2 in. from either end and in the crack between the pieces. The pieces can then be taken out, lines gauged on each side of each, and the wood between the holes removed with turning ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... a woman resist a man who has had her often, who knows every crack and cranny of her body, has looked at her motte long enough to count every hair on it, a few rubs on her clitoris, and back she fell on the sofa. We were both dressed, but plunging up her, and grasping her ample rump, I was soon enjoying ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Laverick investigated his appearance through a crack in the door. He was a man of medium height, well-dressed, clean-shaven, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. He made himself comfortable in Laverick's easy-chair, and accepted the paper ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... They're pattering, clickety-click, all over the yard. Dear, dear! The grass will look just like the gravel-path, and the windows will crack ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... default and the claims of English bondholders as an excuse for taking its seat in Egypt and sitting there ever since. The bondholders were certainly benefited, but it is my belief that they might have whistled for their money until the crack of doom if it had not been that their claims chimed in with Imperial policy. It may have been wicked of us to take Egypt, but if so let us lay the blame on the right doorstep and not abuse the poor bondholder and financier who only wanted ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... knighthood. So, if she be not greatly belied, Lady Belamour plied all parties with her confidences, till she contrived to breed suspicion and jealousy on all sides, until finally Miss Sedhurst's brother, a crack-brained youth, offered such an insult to Mr. Belamour, that honour required a challenge. It was thought that as Mr. Belamour was the superior in age and position, the matter might have been composed, but the young man was fiery and hot tempered, and would neither retract nor apologise; and Mr. Belamour ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the person of Pope Pius X., and in virtue of that prayer, and through the omnipotent power of God, Peter still "confirms his brethren," and will continue to confirm them in the true and pure doctrine of Christ, until the final crack of doom. As the venerable Bishop W.B. Ullathorne wrote to Lady Chatterton, soon after the Vatican Council, i.e., 19th November, 1875: "There is but one Church of Christ, with one truth, taught by one authority, received by all, believed by all ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... found its way through the roof in torrents: I could even tell the hour of the night by the stars which passed over the long opening that ran along the ridge from gable to gable; and in stormy evenings I have paused at every ruder blast, in the expectation of hearing the rafters crack and give way over my head. The distiller had introduced upon his farm, on a small scale, what has since been extensively known as the bothy system; and this hovel was the bothy. There were, as I have said, but three farm-servants ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... again. "Best element," said he, sneeringly. "He is losing his time fooling with that crowd. All we radicals have to do is to crack our whips ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... cattle, with my head down on the horse's neck, letting him pick his way through the scrub in the pitchy darkness. This went on for about four miles. Then the cattle began to get winded, and I dug into the old stock-horse with the spurs, and got in front, and began to crack the whip and sing out, so as to steady them a little; after awhile they dropped slower and slower, and I kept the whip going. I got them all together in a patch of open country, and there I rode round and round 'em all ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... a crack at being patrol leader," Tim repeated. "I have two votes already, Ritter and Wally Woods. My own, of course, is three. All I need is another. Now, how ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... of the Gypsies is a real language, more like the Sanscrit than any other language in the world; whereas the speech of the Abrahamites is a horrid jargon, composed for the most part of low English words used in an allegorical sense—a jargon in which a stick is called a crack; a hostess, a rum necklace; a bar-maid, a dolly-mort; brandy, rum booze; a constable, a horny. But enough of these Pikers, these Abrahamites. Sufficient to observe that if the disguised priests associated with wandering companies it must have been with these people, who ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... that is all I have to ask at present. It is a very difficult nut we have to crack, Mr. Ferguson," he went on, when he and the first lieutenant were alone. "To attack six strongly armed prahus with the boats of this ship would be a serious enterprise indeed, and its success would be very doubtful, while the loss would certainly ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... marched in again, slowly and steadily, right to the end of the hall, and back to the front of the porch; and as he went the gliding sound was heard again, followed during the next march back by a very faint crack, and then for quite five minutes the long, soft-looking figure lay on ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... layer of cotton between them, at the bottom, replenished, a small vessel of salt added to absorb the moisture and prevent it from freezing on the panes, and strips of paper pasted over every possible crack. The outer doors are covered with wadded leather, overlapping the frames on all sides. The habitations being thus almost hermetically sealed, they are easily warmed by the huge porcelain stoves, which retain warmth so tenaciously that one fire per day is sufficient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... backed three paces when he bumped into some one. He was pushed violently forward, and, before he could recover, winced under a stinging crack ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... And I know now that I was right. But it takes a lot of telling to make a city know when it is doing wrong. However, that was what I was there for. When it didn't seem to help, I would go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together. When my fellow-workers smiled, I used to remind them of the Israelites ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the city was quiet. There were no signs, no sounds of riot or disorder. Surely, I thought, surely Pavannes must be mistaken. Either the plot had never existed, that was most likely, or it had been abandoned, or perhaps—Crack! ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... eggs, until, his nostrils filled with the warm body-scent, he stood rigid, a living statue of beauty. A moment of breathless excitement ensued. With a burst of sound the bird roared away. There followed the quick crack of the fowling-piece, a cloud of feathers in the air, a long slanting fall. Jim looked up, ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... culture haven't any of which to speak. All the beauties of art, this man thought, were exclusively for him and his precious company of lisping exquisites and giggling, mincing queans. The thought that those who create beauty are also they who possess it, never dawned upon this crack-pated ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... The dull grays on wall and ceiling became brightened as though mixed with gold fire paint. Everything snuggled in closer; the kitchen table covered with a red table-cloth, the mirror with putty in the centre of the crack to keep the pieces from falling out, the kitchen stove, the wooden chairs, the iron sink with the tin dishes hanging over it, and the shelf on the wall with the wooden clock ticking cheerfully away, all closed in ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not look so high As your immortal rod, he still did stand Honour'd, and held his forehead to thy brand. These scorpions, with which we have to do, Are fiends, not only small but deadly too. Well mightst thou rive thy quill up to the back, And scrue thy lyre's grave chords, untill they crack. For though once hell resented musick, these Divels will not, but are in worse disease. How would thy masc'line spirit, father Ben, Sweat to behold basely deposed men, Justled from the prerog'tive of their bed, Whilst wives are per'wig'd with their husbands head? Each snatches the ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... wagons, looking pert and swell; They get the ride, the Commons get the smell And full of thought and microbes wend their way. Maxy the Firebug says that Mammon's sway Is stringing Virtue to a fare-ye-well, But wait, he says, till Labor with a yell Soaks Mam a crack forninst the vertebray. ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather makes it ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... inclinations and point of view with that of the instructor, Jimmy got into very close touch with the little man, who was never tired of answering questions and making explanations. Reece had been for some years working for one or another of the crack international fliers who traveled in various parts of the world. He had no ambition to become a star himself, but knew most of the well-known airmen of two continents, and contained a store—-house of anecdotes about them ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... talk fell upon love and the place of women in the renascent world. The cloudbanks of India lay under a quivering haze, and the blaze of the sun fell full upon the eastward precipices. Ever and again as they talked, some vast splinter of rock would crack and come away from these, or a wild rush of snow and ice and stone, pour down in thunder, hang like a wet thread into the gulfs below, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... our places long before we heard a shot followed by another; then two, then three. The first was evidently a chassepot,—one recognized it by the sharp report, which sounds like the crack of a whip,—while the other three came from ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... had been smoking a pipe. There was a crack now as his teeth went through the mouthpiece. He flung the pipe into the fire, jumped up, and began pacing the room without a word or a glance at the other. At last he stopped as abruptly as he ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... fields: he was afraid of once more falling in with the soft, maddening breath that had blown upon him like a rushing wind during a calm in a storm. He thought that the walls of the town might preserve him from it. He never dreamed that for the enemy to slip within there needed be only the smallest crack in the closed shutters, no more than is needed ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... could feel their hearts thumping against their ribs. Through a small crack in the planking they could see the eyes of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... frightened, and when the dwarf comes back to his own shape again he says: 'That was very good, but that does not seem so hard, after all. Now, the way for you to hide, it seems to me, would be to make yourself very small, so that you could slip into a crack in the rocks. You can puff yourself up like a dragon, of course, but can you make yourself small as easily? Oh, no, I cannot ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... man. You are an American." The sarcasm was not lost on Truxton King, but he was not inclined to resent it. A twinkle had come into the eyes of the ancient; the deep lines about his lips seemed almost ready to crack into ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... indeed? Do you wish to know? Is your curiosity excited? Well, I DO know how I escaped. I could tell the most extraordinary adventures that happened to me. I could show you resemblances to people at home, that would make them blue with rage and you crack your sides with laughter. . . . And what is the reason I cannot write this paper, having all the facts before me? The reason is, that walking down St. James Street yesterday, I met a friend who says to me, "Roundabout my boy, have you seen your picture? Here it is!" And he pulls out a portrait, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... guns and his men in demoralization. A bit of pink caught his eye—the pink of a dress, a little girl's dress, down there at the edge of the garden by the road, at the same moment that some guns of the Browns, in a new position, opened on an inviting target. Over her head was a crack and a blue tongue of smoke whipped out of nothing; while a shower of shrapnel bullets made spurts of dust around her. She started to run toward the terrace steps and another burst made her run in the opposite direction, while she looked about in ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... of Colin's room. And there on the chimneypiece he saw an old photograph of himself at the age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of Colin's ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... I reckoned it'd be that way when I saw Fred Fenton was along. He put you up to that game of dividing your forces, and getting us under a cross-fire, I'll be bound. And that rattled us more'n anything else you did; for when you get a crack on the back of the head, it sort of knocks your calculations silly, and you can't pay attention to what you're doing. ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... returning to the mines after escorting young Mr. Seemann to the port, and who could find no place to rest in, excepting an old hammock, kept his long arms going round like a windmill, every now and then wakening every one up with a loud crack, as he tried to bring his flat hand down on one of his tormentors. A mosquito, however, is not to be caught, even in the dark, in such a way. It holds up its two hinder legs as feelers; the current of air driven before a descending blow warns it of the impending danger, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... said Bully, peeping out of a crack. "We are safe here, but how am I going to get home, and how are you going to ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... tous la, le dos courbee Crack! Encore un obus. Les shrapnels pour nous divetir, Au travail, nous font deguerpir. Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... doubting what was going on behind him, got out of the way, smiling kindly at the friend of his master, who thus found himself freed from the material obstacle which had prevented his reaching D'Artagnan. Porthos made his sturdy knees crack again in rising, and crossing the room in two strides, found himself face to face with his friend, whom he folded to his breast with a force of affection that seemed to increase with every day. "Ah!" he repeated, "you are always welcome, dear friend; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... looked about to see if there was any means by which she could escape. It did not seem easy. The three great doors were closely barred, and the one through which she had entered shut with a spring, but her feather was still in her hair, and by its aid she detected a crack in the wooden panelling, through which a streak of light could be dimly seen. Touching the copper pin which fastened her dress, the girl sent every one in the hall to count the cabbages, while she herself passed through the little door, not knowing ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... in the greater fall. It should also teach them to beg of God his blessing upon their endeavours, their honest and lawful endeavours. And it should put them upon a diligent looking to their steps, that if in their going they should hear the ice crack, they may timely go back again. These things considered, and duly put in practice, if God will blow upon a man, then let him be content, and with Job embrace the dunghill. Let him give unto all their dues, and not fight against the providence of God, but humble himself rather ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... you strike, And you've slipped through a dangerous crack, Get as forward as ever you like, But never, ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... folks that are good marks; and if there is no real right down good preacher among them, we build a handsome Church, touched off like a New York liner, a real taking looking thing—and then we look out for a preacher, a crack man, a regular ten horse power chap—well, we hire him, and we have to give pretty high wages too, say twelve hundred or sixteen hundred dollars a year. We take him at first on trial for a Sabbath or two, to try his paces, and if he takes with the folks, if ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and girls of the village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip." The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills, until the valley resounds with monotonous music. There ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... none, is she? That was a close shave—closer, a pile, than I'd want to have myself. Some savage critter, that bull. And if Dakota Joe's gal wasn't a crack shot that young lady would sure ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... is that of a sharp twang accompanied by a muffled crack. To avoid this and make a silent shot, the Indian bound his bow at the nocks with weasel fur; this effectually damped the vibration of the string, while the passage of the arrow across the bow, which gives the ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... There, that must be one. See how queer the hall looks through the crack of the door? I guess it's time now. Come on, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... veritable bucking bronco. It was flung high, it swooped down into the hollows. He made a desperate try for the next stake in line. The noose caught, and he snubbed quickly. The top of the stake came away with a dull crack of rotten wood when the next ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... but having seen the first one mount the tree alone, I never dreamt of his having a mate, which I suppose must have joined him while I was away. However, I soon made short work of the two; for I shot them one after the other, and they dropt down as quietly as possible; while I gave them each a crack on the head, to knock out any sense that might have remained, and then laid them, like a dutiful gallant, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... throug[h], enoug[h], w[h]ih is strangly spoken, stuff, enoug[h], boug[h]s, enoug[h], (corn enoug[h]) and sig[h]ed, and g[h]ed spells [h]ead, if ec be not cast away; let k be g[h]a, else k (unless for g[h]) as in back, stack, crack, would be a vain impertinent Letter, and deserves (as suh) in an orderly Family to be cic'd out o' th' doors. For our Battle-dore is a well-[g]overn'd SITY, w[h]ih shuts out all idle impertinent persnz, as vagrants wit[h] t[h]eir extravagancies ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... caress thy limbs, the fishes pluck thine eyes, the wolves crack thy bleached bones ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath, On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death; On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest, And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it wolloped me bang ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... through the crevice made by the chisel and Mayo planted his palm against the crack. The pressure held his hand as if it were clamped against the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... collecting rubbish, brush, old wood, and sods, and converting them into ashes or charcoal, is one which we could often adopt with decided advantage. Our premises would be cleaner, and we should have less fungus to speck and crack our apples and pears, and, in addition, we should have a quantity of ashes or burnt earth, that is not only a manure itself, but is specially useful to mix with moist superphosphate and other artificial manures, to make them dry enough and bulky enough ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... When the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock, Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... splendidly-equipped steamer, called the Narraganset, and esteemed at the time the swiftest boat on the Hudson River. I must confess I was rather timid when I did so, for the reckless manner in which the crack boats are run, in order to maintain their character for celerity, is proverbial, and, as may be supposed, is little consonant with safe travelling. The almost constant recurrence of steam-boat explosions ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... which are matured in gardens by the union of four or five single blossoms. His frame is on a larger scale, and possesses the advantage of size. As it is easier to see the reflection of the great sphere in large globes, though defaced by some crack or blemish, than in drops of water, so men of large calibre, though with some eccentricity or madness, like Pascal or Newton, help us more than balanced ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a sprightly crack!" said the citizen, preparing to go his. "I know them now, for my cousin Parker hath a venture in the Mere Honour, and that is the great ship the Queen hath lent Sir John, his other ships being the Marigold, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... said Tom, "is ever gained By sighs for what we lack; Nor can it mend a vessel strained, To let our temper crack. ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... Ratton, blithe will Nicol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' ye—like to like, ye ken—it's a proverb never fails; and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil's peats, I trow—hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o' his ingleside."—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... is played by the turkey blindfolded "going to roost" in some place where there are plenty of twigs or dry leaves to crack and rustle. At the first sound the turkey jumps. If not then in reach of the wildcat she is safe and another wildcat has a chance. This is sometimes very laughable for the turkey being blindfolded may jump right ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... shouted Tims. "You'll be reading as hard as ever in a week if I don't look after you. But see here, my girl, you've given me a nasty jar, and I'm not going to let you break your heart or crack your brain in a wild-goose chase. You can't get that First, you know; you're on a fairly good Second Class level, and you'd better make up your ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... of his brass ferrule and silver top, and on the sofa lay two worked cushions, pretty but stupid. When the play at the little theatre began, the rest sat and looked on; they were requested to applaud and stamp, or crack, when they felt gratified with what they saw. But the riding-whip said he never cracked for old people, only for the young who were not yet married. "I crack for everybody," said ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... point, Solomon Binkus paused to give his words a chance "to sink in." The silence which followed was broken only by the crack of burning faggots and the sound of the night wind in the tall pines above the gorge. Before Mr. Binkus resumes his narrative, which, one might know by the tilt of his head and the look of his wide open, right eye, would soon happen, the historian seizes ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary successful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won a battle with another tribe—I got a lot of offerings I didn't ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... your baseball games here, especially when Chicago plays you, but the most suspense per individual I've ever noticed has been in these Christmas Eve exercises when some youngster just high enough to step over a crack in the floor gets up to recite a piece, and fourteen parents and relatives lean forward and forget to breathe until he has gotten his forty words out, wrong end to, and has been snatched off the stage ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... inserted the crowbar in a wide crack between the fourth and fifth boards, then we all pressed our full weight upon it with a "Yo heave ho, my hearties!" from ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... that storm curtain it was traveling eastward at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In one minute we were all as wet as if we had fallen off the dock at home. We abandoned the car and ran for the shelter of a big tree near-by. We were no sooner under its spreading branches when, with a sound like the crack of doom, lightning struck it and it went crashing to earth in the opposite direction from us. We didn't stop to reflect what would have happened to us if it had fallen in our direction, but made for the open road where there was nothing but the sky to fall on us, which it ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... six of the crack Dragoons stood forth. They were brown, and Mexicans. Lopez bowed to Dupin, who called forth as many Contras. The Contras were of variously hued races, but they were all the Tiger's whelps. The file of Dragoons was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... which will not crack is made of one tablespoon of vinegar, brown sugar enough to mix and the beaten white of half an egg. Beat all well together and ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... of Jacob is our Refuge,' and so we may say to the storms of life, and after them to the last howling tornado of death—Blow winds and crack your cheeks, and do your worst, you cannot touch me in the fortress where I dwell. The wind will hurtle around the stronghold, but within there shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... also Cesar amongst them, and recognised Dominic's old, well-known, effective gesture, the horizontal sweep of his powerful arm. I recollect distinctly saying to myself, "Cesar must go down, of course," and then, as I was scrambling on all fours, the swinging tiller I had let go caught me a crack under the ear, and knocked ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... one-quarter of the entire number, enshrouding a host of older larvae. The cleaning zones, the cripples' gathering-room, all had given way to new activities, on the flat board, down near the kitchen middens, and in every horizontal crack. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... got to go. They haven't closed the door and said we can't come. If I backed out before they did, I'd be known the rest of my life as the guy who was going to crack the Markovian problem. But I'd much ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... rest, I must promptly Send a messenger on horseback, And he must alarm the city: 'Put up quickly all your banners, Load your cannons for saluting, And erect an arch of honour!' Then we enter the next evening Through the ancient gate in triumph, And my whip I'll crack so loudly That the town-house windows rattle. Then I hear the aged Baron Asking sharply: 'What's the meaning Of these banners and this uproar?' From afar I shout already: 'Heaven's blessing rests upon us; Here a bridal pair are coming, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... to turn to after his death. Arrie tells of her Master's illness, how she was the housemaid and was called upon to fan him and how she would get so tired and sleepy she would nod a little, the fan dropping from hands into his face. He would take it up and "crack my haid with the handle to wake me up. I wuz allus so sorry when I done that, but I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... furrow or crack, such as soldiers often experience, at the digito-plantar fold, seen first on the inner side. This process of furrowing never advances in soldiers, and has been given a name more expressive than elegant. In ainhum the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... but he could not continue to hold it indefinitely, and in a few moments there was a suggestive crack, and George desisted ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the trail in both directions. Hamlin quietly uncinched his saddle, flinging it to the coach roof; the bridle followed, and then, with a slap on the haunch of the released animal, he strode to the stage door, thrust his Henry rifle within, and took the vacant seat beside Gonzales. With a sudden crack of the driver's whip the four horses leaped forward, and the coach careened on the slope of the trail, causing the passengers to clutch wildly to keep from being precipitated into a mass on the floor. As the traces straightened, Miss Molly, clinging desperately to a strap, caught her first fair ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... into my present predicament; but I had dismissed the idea from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,—and, indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of his wordy wanderings ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... bullets began to whiz past my window and crack upon the tin roof in quite a shower. The Boer snipers had crept up into Brooks's Farm, beyond the Harrismith railway, and were firing at the heads of our men on Junction Hill. Whenever they missed the edge of the hill the bullets fell ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... could not eat the liver any more than she could the fruit or the fish eggs; and when Aponitolau heard the dogs barking, he knew that she had thrown it away. Then he grew suspicious and, changing himself into a centipede, [32] hid in a crack in the floor. And when his wife again wished for some of ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... sudden Boo, who up to then had no name, heard some one coming along the jungle path, stepping on twigs and tree branches and making them crack. By this sound the little girl lion cub knew ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... of Vienna with great cracking of whips, the police in vain calling out that it was forbidden in Vienna. The courier-posts, which at that time took the place of railways, formed one connected chain between Vienna and Semlin. The horses stood harnessed day and night, and as soon the crack of the whip at one end of the village announced the approach of the post, the postmaster brought out the new team from the stable, and in two minutes the cart with the fresh horses rolled away over hill and dale at a gallop. If two post-carts met on the road they changed horses and drivers, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Neal for not sending somebody to find me. His huntsman, I had heard, was gone to Anahuac, and would not be back for two or three days; but he might have sent a couple of his lazy negroes. Or, if he had only fired a shot or two as a signal. I stopped and listened, in hopes of hearing the crack of a rifle. But the deepest stillness reigned around, scarcely the chirp of a bird was heard—all nature seemed to be taking the siesta. As far as the eye could reach was a waving sea of grass, here and there an island of trees, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... The crack regiments of Europe, noted for their form, have for years been the object of jests in those new worlds where brawn and muscle, with mental acumen, have converted primeval forests into congested commercial centers. But that form, so derided by the pioneer spirit, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... Other white men might appear, as indeed they had, and he might reveal their plans. He had known in a vague sort of way that some mysterious deathtrap had been set in Mine No. 1, and when, through a crack in the wall to his prison, he saw the white men arrive, he determined to attempt to warn them. This he did by singing songs to the Orientals and, at the same time, making phonographic records to be sent rolling down the ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... the lash lay along the glistening side of the horse. The cab swayed, and the Anarchist, half-standing under the trap, put the hand containing the little glass tube upon the apron to preserve his balance. He felt the brittle thing crack, and the broken half of it rang upon the floor of the cab. He fell back into the seat with a curse, and stared dismally at the two or three drops of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... over, another on. Crack after crack sounded from the forest—from here and there and everywhere, it seemed—and with a song that like a hurtling insect ran the scale of notes, the bullets buried themselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once in a while I heard Weldon's answering shot, but I remembered ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... carpet within the tent and a trail of blood from that spot to the door. There could be no doubt that Ballantyne was killed inside. There was the third point to establish that theory. Neither the sentry on guard nor any one of the servants sleeping in the adjacent tents had heard the crack of the rifle. It would not be loud in any case, but if the weapon had been fired in the open it would have been sufficiently sharp and clear to attract the attention of the men on guard. The heavy double lining of the tent ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... their power shall own, When they shake to its base his watery throne; The billows in angry fury shall rise, And every sea-mark and dam despise; The lightning shall gleam through the firmament black While the poles of earth and of heaven shall crack, The ocean the heights of Olympus explore, From thousandfold jaws with wild deafening roar The thunder shall howl, while with mad jubilee The hurricane fierce sings ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... as Tom was at his comrade's insensibility, he yet felt that it was the shock, and the revulsion of feeling which caused it, and not any serious injury which he had received. No bones had been heard to crack and, although the compression had been severe, Tom did not think that any serious injury had ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... the verandah not very gracefully. She appeared to be limping a little—and then she vanished; the door swung behind her so noiselessly that I could not believe it was completely closed. I had a distinct suspicion of her black eye being at the crack to watch what I would do. I could not make up my mind whether to shake my fist in that direction ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... craz'd with Fear, dreading Shooba to be even then in the Room. And indeed the Tale he whisper'd me was enough to Craze a Christian Man, & hath all but crack'd mine own Witts. If 't were not for the Paper he slip't into my Palm, I should sett it down for a Phantazy, one of old Shooba's evil Spells. Most merciful God, how came he by that Paper ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... rather tight for me, and was much too small for him. He put it on, nevertheless, but with great difficulty, bursting all the seams. Saveliitch uttered something like a smothered howl, when he heard the threads crack. As for the vagabond, he was well pleased with my present. He re-conducted me to my kibitka, and said, with a profound bow: "Thanks, my lord, may god reward you. I shall ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... her brother starting across the pond, she followed, in spite of the bee. But they had gone only a little way when the ice began to crack, and then to ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... between the logs, that much is certain; but the door is almost ready to drop from its hinges, and has a good deal of play back and forth behind the bar. If he had a thin, stout stick he could slip it through the crack, lift the bar ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... cold glittering steel Their deadly purpose and their hate reveal. The click of pistols and the crack of guns Proclaim war's daughters dangerous as her sons. She who would wield the soldier's sword and lance Must be prepared to take the soldier's chance. She who would shoot must serve as target, too; The ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... The wild scenes of dissipation and recklessness disgusted him; he looked with loathing upon the saloons where gambling went on from morning till night, broken only by an occasional fierce quarrel, followed in most cases by the sharp crack of a revolver, or by desperate encounters with bowie knives. Bad as things were, however, they were improving somewhat, for a Vigilance Committee had just been started, comprising all the prominent citizens of the town. Parties of armed ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... Wells of England points out in his able "Outline of History"), there is no evidence of any particular ceremony conjunctive with the marriage of "a male and a female." Even with the advent of Neolithic man, a wedding seems to have been consummated by the rather simple process of having the bridegroom crack the bride over the head with a plain, unornamented stone ax. There were no ushers—no bridesmaids. But shortly after that (c- 10,329—30 B.C. to be exact) two young Neoliths named Haig, living in what is now supposed to be Scotland, discovered ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... his hands he clung on to a clump of heather. "Hurrah!" he cried, "it's got two eggs in it, Wright;" and he stretched downwards to take them. Just as he was doing so, he heard the root on which his foot rested give a great crack, and with a violent start he made a spring for one of the lower branches. The motion caused his whole weight to rest for an instant on his arms;—unable to sustain the wrench, the heather gave way, and with a wild ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... is almost exclusively used by the natives, for their huts; where it can be procured good it is better than any thing else. I have frequently seen sheets of bark twelve feet long, and eight or ten feet wide, without a single crack or flaw, in such cases one sheet would form a large and good hut; but even where it is of a far inferior description, it answers, by a little system in the arrangement, better than almost any thing else. Projecting, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... it turned out very well, Reuben. Aside from putting the first crack in Mavis Greenfield's defenses, it shook up Dr. Al to the point where he decided to collect as much as he could tonight, cash the checks, and clear out. So he set himself up for the pinch. We probably gained as much as three or ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... edge of a hill and crossing a snow-drift, they came in view of Bruin sixty yards away. He came straight toward them against the wind, when there appeared on the left Bruin No. 2, to which the doctor directed his attention. Both bears fell at the crack of the rifles, and with grunt and snort rolled to the foot of the cooly. Houston climbed a snowbank to reconnoitre, aware, as there were no trees to climb, that an open cooly was no good place in which to face wounded bears. Away ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... was given a glance aloft, where she saw another craft, a small flapping affair like the surgeon's. It was just rising on a long slant so as to cross above her course. And at that very instant there came a sharp crack, followed by a splintering crash. The surgeon's flier lurched heavily to ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... after a particular pattern, sent over to China a specimen dish, ordering that it should be exactly copied for the whole service. It unfortunately happened that in the dish so sent over the Chinese manufacturer discovered a crack; the consequence was, that the entire service sent over to the party ordering it had a crack in each article, carefully ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... now," said Mr. Dooley, "an' he tells me he was talkin' with th' Alderman an' they both agreed we're sure to have war with th' Japs inside iv two years. They can see it comin'. Befure very long thim little brown hands acrost th' sea will hand us a crack in th' eye ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... held one hundred and ten acres of land in Hemingston by serjeanty; for which, on Christmas day every year, before our sovereign lord the King of England, he should perform altogether, and at once, a leap, puff up his cheeks, therewith making a sound, and let a crack. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... the undoubted whip-like crack of a rifle, and a man just behind, uttering a cry, held up a bleeding arm. Dick had a lightning conviction that the bullet was intended for himself. It was certain also that the shot had ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler |
