"Crawl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time, 'Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... in the bow, tossed and muttered incessantly. Every once in a while, Walter would crawl forward and sprinkle cold water on the lad's hot face; it was all he could do to relieve the sufferer, whose ravings fell heavily on his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... better calculated to harass than to conduct a government; lastly, below them, were pitch-forked in, pell-mell, councillors of State, masters of requests, members of Parliament, well-informed and industrious gentlemen, fated henceforth to crawl about at the bottom of the committees, and, without the spur of glory or emulation, to repair the blunders which must be expected from the incapacity of the first and the recklessness of the second class amongst their colleagues." [Lemontey, Histoire ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a composition to one who has recorded two or three of the really impressive visions of the moving millions of England. You are the only man alive who can make the map of England crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable accomplishment. Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even if it achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only be a ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... even the shelter of their roof for the night. They are not keeping hotel, they say, which is quite true; they have a right to refuse, even if it is twenty miles to the next place; and they do refuse. "There's the empty Chinese bunk-house over there. You can crawl in there, if you arn't afeerd of ghosts," is the parting remark, as the door closes and leaves me standing, like an outcast, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to be spent in places like Seelisberg and Muerren, at the edge of precipices, in front of mountains, or above a lake. The cloud-masses crawl and tumble about the valleys like a brood of dragons; now creeping along the ledges of the rock with sinuous self-adjustment to its turns and twists; now launching out into the deep, repelled by battling winds, or driven onward in a coil of twisted and contorted serpent curls. In the midst ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... days the benumbed survivors crawl around the streets. Open gates enable provisions to reach the half-famished dwellers within the walls. Over patched bridges, the railways pour the longed-for supplies into Paris. Fair France is fruitful, even in her year of God's awful ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... upon him in a mad fury, and forcing him back into the chair.] You won't, you dog! You dare say that—to me! By Heaven, you will! You'll lick the dust off this floor, if I tell you! You'll go on your hands and knees, and crawl! Sit down, you! Sit down and take up your filthy pen. So. [Thoroughly cowed, WALTER has taken up the pen again.] And now—his name. Don't make me ask you again, I tell you, don't. What ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... meaning of his harangue, astonishment was still dominant,—sheer astonishment. She scarcely listened. But, as he finished, the thatch of the summer house caught her eye. A vision arose of a man beside whom Eliphalet was not worthy to crawl. She thought of Stephen as he had stood that evening in the sunset, and this proposal seemed a degradation. This brute dared to tempt her with money. Scalding words rose to her lips. But she caught the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... He dropped through space and landed—in a vat of ice-cold water. Then he was dragged out, thumped on the head with stuffed clubs, deafened by the horns that bellowed in his ears, and tossed in a blanket till his head bumped against the ceiling. Then he was forced to crawl through a piano box that was filled with sawdust. He was pushed and pulled and hammered and thumped till he was sore in every part of ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... the insects of Brazil are is generally known, particularly in the warm and moist lands along the coast, in the vicinity of Rio Janeiro. Few of them crawl on the ground; the greater part of them live on the leaves and fruits, or under the bark of trees, in flowers, and in the spongy excrescences of the trees. Among the coleoptera, the Stachylinus is a rarity: the white-winged Cicindela ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... that I was a lucky fellow to have such a parent. I could not be behind the rest, so I lit up, too, and for a few minutes all was as gay as a feast. But, Harry Monmouth, sir! in half an hour we were the sickest boys in Westchester County. It was all we could do to crawl home to our beds; and not one of us but was sure he was dying, and cried to his mother to send for the doctor before it was ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... Jennie. I am down in the depths once more. I shall not try to crawl out again—at least, not while my ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... wolves, both extremely large, and besides these the small prairie wolves, not much bigger than spaniels. They would howl and fight in a crowd around a single carcass, yet they were so watchful, and their senses so acute, that I was never able to crawl within a fair shooting distance; whenever I attempted it, they would all scatter at once and glide silently away ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... knocked. There came no response, so I knocked louder; then pushed, and the heavy woodwork yielded, groaning. But the darkness within was even darker than the darkness without. The others had contrived to crawl down and join me. Michael struck a wax vesta and held it up, and slowly the room came out of the ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them, Men for a title to-day crawl to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... his battle alone. At last, falling on his knees from the shock of exertion, he got the boat poised on a secure balance on top the wall. Crawling on hands and knees, he placed in the boat his rabbit-skin robe, the rifle, and the pail. He did not bother with the ax. It meant an additional crawl of twenty feet and back, and if the need for it should arise he well knew he ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... comes to a dead stop and lists heavily to starboard. Evidently something is wrong. We see men crawl out over the stern and fish around with boat hooks and poles. Cold as it is, one man goes overboard and remains under water so long we could not believe he would come up alive. The boat had fouled ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... general way, there ain't more difference between a grub and a butterfly, than between a sweetheart and wife. Yet the grub and the butterfly is the same thing, only, differently rigged out, and so is the sweetheart and wife. Both critters crawl about the house, and ain't very attractive to look at, and both turn out so fine and so painted when they go abroad, you don't scarcely know them agin. Both, too, when they get out of doors, seem ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... again, have they? (Without conviction.) Dear me, what nasty creatures! I'll give them away! I'll sell them!!—I'll kill them!!! (But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humility, crawl up to ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... to cry that you're beaten and die, It's easy to crawfish and crawl, But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight, Why, that's the best game of them all. And though you come out of each grueling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred— Just have one more try. It's dead easy to die, It's the keeping ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... of fresh-water molluscs has been a horrid incubus to me, but I think I know my way now; when first hatched they are very active, and I have had thirty or forty crawl on a dead duck's foot; and they cannot be jerked off, and will live fifteen and even ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... were indispensable—encumbered and top-heavy where it should be level and compact, weak in the waist, broad at stem and stern, awkward in manoeuvre, helpless in rough weather, sluggish under sail, although possessing the single advantage of being able to crawl over a smooth sea when better and faster ships were made stationary by absolute calm, the galley was no match for the Dutch galleot, either at close quarters or in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... also found out the bull's-eye overhead, through the cracks round which she could sniff the cool air. Close beneath it she accordingly took up her abode; and thence she used to crawl down when dinner was on the table, getting into her master's lap, and looking up longingly and lovingly into his face, sometimes putting out her little tongue with impatience, and barking, if the beginning of the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... a far higher order. Yet for some reason or another I could not make up my mind to tell him straight out how splendid it would seem when I had married Sonetchka and we were living in the country—of how we should have little children who would crawl about the floor and call me Papa, and of how delighted I should be when he, Dimitri, brought his wife, Lubov Sergievna, to see us, wearing an expensive gown. Accordingly, instead of saying all that, I pointed to the setting sun, and merely remarked: ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... small-caliber howitzers, and before many hours Ypres was in flames in many places. The allied forces fought fiercely to compel the Germans to withdraw. Hand-to-hand fighting, bayonet charges, and general confusion was the order of the day. Thousands of men would creep out of their holes in the ground and crawl, availing themselves of whatever covering presented itself, to some vantage point and there stand up as one man and charge directly into ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... only bear one," said I; "and we will have to crawl over separately after all. Are you up ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... get away from here, sir. I am cold, I am afraid, and there are creatures which crawl ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... perhaps leave the wretched dog mangled and maimed to crawl away and starve? Carol! what ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... to look for the dog, she could only tell them that she had last seen him in the grounds, not far from the cottage. The useless search being abandoned, and the carriage having left the gate, who should crawl out from the back of a cupboard in which some empty hampers were placed but Tommie himself! How he had contrived to get back to the smoking-room (unless she had omitted to completely close the door on her return) it was impossible to say. But ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... into a place so narrow that I knew he couldn't follow me. I crawled under the floor of a shed that was only about six inches above the ground. Fatty was at least ten inches thick and I thought I was safe. But he didn't try to crawl under the floor after me. He went inside the shed and found that the boards of the floor sank beneath his weight like spring boards. And there that human hippopotamus stood jumping up and down while he mashed ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... roan horse gentle," he advised as they moved toward the door. "Better hobble your stirrups before you crawl him." Several men turned and grinned. In riding contests women were allowed to hobble their stirrups while the same precaution ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... face and sang: woe! woe! woe! unto Jerusalem, and whenever he met a scribe he would cry: woe! woe! woe! unto Jerusalem, hindering them in their work about the Temple. Some stones were thrown, but enough life was left in him to crawl away, and as soon as he recovered from his wounds he was about again, singing his melancholy ditty (he knows but one). He was told if he did not cease he would be beaten with rods, but he could not cease it, and started ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... stuff must have been brought on the ship in the trunks and then transferred to the cases, perhaps after the code wireless message was received. But we have been overpowered and locked in a cabin with a port too small to crawl through. The cases have been lowered over the side of the ship to a motor-boat that was waiting below. The lights on the boat are out, but if you hurry you can get it. The accomplices who locked us in are going to disappear up the wharf. If you could only get the ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... bombers stand down. No longer are they on round-the-clock alert. Tomorrow our children will go to school and study history and how plants grow. And they won't have, as my children did, air-raid drills in which they crawl under their desks and cover their heads in case of nuclear war. My grandchildren don't have to do that, and won't have the bad dreams children once had in decades past. There are still threats. But the long drawn-out ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... now settled at Blackheath for the summer; where unseasonable frost and snow, and hot and parching east winds, have destroyed all my fruit, and almost my fruit-trees. I vegetate myself little better than they do; I crawl about on foot and on horseback; read a great deal, and write a little; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... imagine everybody else, certainly. Medieval persons who have a hankering after tournaments and crawl ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the ranch and go back to town for a while—Valencia will get there ahead of Manuel, he says, and you can pull out before Manuel shows up. A licking might do Jose good, but it would stir up a lot of trouble and raise hell all around, so crawl into any hole you come to. I'll quit as soon as rodeo is over, and meet you in town. Now don't be bull-headed. Let your own feelings go into the discard for once, and do what's best for the whole valley. Everything's going smooth ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind, For a piece o' twisty rag An' a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment 'e could find. When the sweatin' troop-train lay In a sidin' through the day, Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl, We shouted "Harry By!" [Footnote: O Brother] Till our throats were bricky-dry, Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all. It was "Din! Din! Din! You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been? You put some juldee in it Or I'll marrow you ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... could not dissuade John by argument, he tried to move his pity; he pretended to be sick and like to die; that he should leave his wife and children in a starving condition, if John did abandon him; that he was hardly able to crawl about the room, far less capable to look after such a troublesome business as this lawsuit, and therefore begged that his good friend would not leave him. When he saw that John was still inexorable, he pulled out a ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... great Carnival prefixed to the long fast of Lent. The celebration on Shrove Tuesday and the previous Sunday constituted a Christian Bacchanalian festival in which all classes joined. The greatest freedom and activity of physical movement was encouraged; "some go about naked without shame, some crawl on all fours, some on stilts, some imitate animals."[108] As time went on the Carnival lost its most strongly marked Bacchanalian features, but it still retains its essential character as a permitted ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... enchanter. Nearer and nearer it came, with a great scurrying of the feet and wings, towards the motionless head of the serpent. Until Anderson, picking a stone from the roadside, threw a well-aimed shot which bounded over the head of the snake, causing it to turn immediately and crawl into the recesses of the deep underbrush of the adjoining field. The bird, freed from the source of its sinister charm, flew ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... one-planet basis and right out of your own little fat head," Fao sneered, "you have set yourself up as Grand High Chief Mogul, and all the rest of us are to crawl up to you on our bellies ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... my arm sometime ago, case my right side am daid an' I tries ter crawl offen de bed. When I gits back from de hospital dey ties me in dis cheer ter keep me from fallin' out, but I want ter git a loose. De nigger boy what helps me up an' down ain't raised lak I wuz, he fusses an' he he ain't got de manners ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... off, where the scene was burlesque. Not a carriage could move; not a horse could stand; and the company walked home with napkins tied round their feet. [But Mrs. Reeve, who was at the dinner, wrote: Our fiacre managed to crawl home with Hopie and me. Henry, who had gone to the Thiers's, returned safely on his feet tied up in dusters. M. Thiers suggested dusters on the hands also, so as to go a quatre pattes; but Henry did not become a quadruped. I was horribly ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... precise—as well as in ideas, in fidelity to human nature and the flowers of the fields as well as to principles, in facts reported more than in deductions proposed. Though a writer write on something as innocuous as the white snails that crawl up broomweed stalks and that roadrunners carry to certain rocks to crack and eat, his intellectual integrity, if he has it, will infuse ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... of rare steak until he wants to crawl off in a corner like the family mutt and go to sleep. Once she gets him in a somnolent state, she drapes herself tastefully on his shoulder and gets soft ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... sleeveen, don't think you'll crawl up my wrist—as you do up M'Clutchy's and M'Slime's. Is it true that you ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... minutes; though, for some unknown reason, the enemy did not make the usual rush for the scalps. Sergeant Dunham fell with the others; and he had heard the voice of Mabel, as she rushed from the blockhouse. This frantic appeal aroused all his parental feelings, and had enabled him to crawl as far as the door of the building, where he had raised himself against the logs ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... climbing than anything else, except that there was no danger of falling. He crawled over the surface in the same way that an Alpine climber might crawl up the side of a steep slope—seeking handholds and toeholds and using them to propel himself onward. The only difference was that he covered distance a great deal more rapidly than ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... when, one morning, I was so sore and stiff that I could not get out of bed. One of the other hired men came to my rescue and gave me a thorough rubbing with liniment, after which I was able to crawl down to breakfast. The old skinflint of a farmer then had the audacity to discharge me, saying that he "didn't want no dood from the city monkeyin' around in ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... Wonderful virtues are attributed to St. Declan's Stone, which, on the occasion of the patronal feast, is visited by hundreds of devotees who, to participate in its healing efficacy and beneficence, crawl laboriously on face and hands through the narrow space between the boulder and the underlying rock. Near by, at foot of a new storm-wall, are two similar but somewhat smaller boulders which, like their venerated and more ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... may safely move, sir, and the sooner you do so the better, for them villains have scuttled us, and I don't doubt but what the water's pourin' into us like a sluice at this very moment. So please crawl over to me, keepin' yourself well out of sight below the rail, for I'll bet anything that there's eyes aboard that brig still watchin' of us, and cast me loose, so that I can make my way down below and plug them auger-holes without any ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... of all, he must be able to endure hardship and exposure. Sometimes he lives for months in the woods with no food but meat and no shelter but a lean-to of brush or even the trunk of a hollow tree into which he may crawl. ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... trouble she was causing, had caught her train and was speeding home, little dreaming, though, of all that lay before her, for in her alarm for Betty she had quite failed to grasp the other and more serious news that Betty had written; and, as the long minutes dragged by, and the train seemed but to crawl, it was only for Betty that her anxiety increased, is her mind had time to dwell on what had happened, and picture all the dreadful things that ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... comfort in this thought, but it couldn't help me out of the scrape. I dared not sit still, lest a sunstroke should be added, and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged path, in the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could extemporize a crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket, and was feebly working on a branch with my pen-knife, when the sound of a heavy ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... want you to climb on the pinto and ride around behind them rocks and wait for me. Take Rabbit with you. Act like you was going for help, or was scared and running away from a corpse. You get me? I'll crawl over there after ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... circled the fire twice, they begin to thrust their wands toward it. Their object is to try to burn off the tip of eagle down. They dash up to the fire, crawl up to it on their faces, run up holding their heads sidewise, dart up backward and approach it in all sorts of attitudes. Suddenly, one approaching the flaming pile throws himself on his back, with his head to the fire, and swiftly thrusts his wand into the flames. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... he ran against a rock, striking with such violence that he saw stars. As soon as he recovered he began an examination, and was not a little pleased to find that under one portion of it there was a hollow big enough for him to crawl in and protect himself from the tempest. He had scarcely done so when the ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl stiffly forward: and it was just then that the first of the disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... to spy through my bunghole the faint light of day struggling down the hatches. Above, I heard a clanking noise, and the voices of the men hiccoughing a dismal chant. They were lifting anchor. I crawl'd forth and woke Delia, who was yet sleeping: and together we ate the breakfast that lay ready set for us on the head ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... "Well, let them crawl like children until they learn how to walk by themselves. But whether they go on two legs or on all fours, the first thing, the only thing you can ask is that ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... tell me, did you ever see anything like this boat? Did you ever imagine a thing could crawl with such a slowness—such a slowness? I shall die of it! I believe the screw is ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... him!" Steve leaned over to examine those crimson stains. "You must have found him with both shots, judging from the way he's bleeding. He's gone into that cedar swamp; he won't travel far, and I hate to let him crawl in there, wounded like that, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... d'ye suppose the sillies are poking poles under there, for?" ejaculated William; "and just when I was going to propose that we pull up a board, and crawl through the hole." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... to himself; everything seemed closed against him in this great city. It was not so at home on Kennedy Square. Its fence, was a shackly, moss-covered, sagging old fence, intertwined with honeysuckles, full of holes and minus many a paling; where he could have found a dozen places to crawl through. He had done so only a few weeks before with Sue in a mad frolic across the Square. Besides, why should the constable speak to him at all? He knew all about the hour of closing the New York gates without the policeman reminding him of it. Had he not ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, Equality 7-2521, steal out and run through the darkness to our place. It is easy to leave the Theatre; when the candles are blown [-out-] and the Actors come onto the stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl under our seat and under the cloth of the tent. [-Later,-] {Later} it is easy to steal through the shadows and fall in line next to International 4-8818, as the column leaves the Theatre. It is dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with—a crust; some say, a very thin crust, such as might be got up by a skilful patissier, and over which gilded court-flies, and even scaraboei, may crawl with safety, but—which must inevitably cave in beneath the boot-heels of a real, true, thinking man. We cannot forget that there are measureless catacombs and caverns yawning beneath the streets and houses of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... traded your jack-knife for TOM SMITH'S bull-pup, if there had been a tariff on the pup. Or, if you are of the feminine persuasibility, would you have swapped your crying-doll for BETSY JONSES' ring-tailed cat, if the cat had been compelled to crawl through the custom-house and pay duties? Besides, don't you remember how often your mother deprived you of a second cup of tea, on the plea that it would injure your health? Much as I respect your mamma, I can not refrain from informing you that that plea was false, and that it was the absence of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... of the trapper's mission to my home was yet uncertain, and Museau and I myself expected the payment of my ransom, I was treated kindly enough, allowed to crawl about the fort, and even to go into the adjoining fields and gardens, always keeping my parole, and duly returning before gun-fire. And I exercised a piece of hypocrisy, for which, I hope, you will hold me ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... living. Now I ..." "Now, you," interrupted the other, "do it for a living, too, because you want your fruit trees to bear fruit, and your roses to thrive, and your cabbages to prosper. Who more merciless than you on slugs and other pests that fly or crawl? No, no, we are all out for a living, you as much as the spider, the spider as much as the fly." "We are all Huns," said I. "What a detestable world it is." "Not at all," said he. "It's a very jolly world. I drink to the ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... to try." Then Sol, the little one, spoke: "By darn! Le's hurry back an' hide'n the barn, An' pay him fur tellin' us that yarn!" "Agreed!" Through the orchard they crept back, Along by the fences, behind the stack, And one by one, through a hole in the wall, In under the dusty barn they crawl, Dressed in their Sunday garments all; And a very astonishing sight was that, When each in his cobwebbed coat and hat Came up through the floor like an ancient rat. And there they hid; And Reuben slid The fastenings back, and the door undid. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... the Eskimo language, meaning house. When winter comes big snow drifts soon cover the igloosoaks, and the snow keeps out the wind and cold. As a further protection, snow tunnels, through which the people crawl on hands and knees, are built out from the entrance to the igloosoak, and these keep all drafts, when a gale blows, from ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... bread trap o' yourn," Romescos shouts at the top of his voice. "You're only a green croaker from the piny woods, where gophers crawl independent; you ain't seen life on the borders of Texas. Fellers, I can whip any man in the crowd,—can maker the best stump speech, can bring up the best logic; and can prove that the best frightenin' man is the best man in the nigger business. Now, if you wants a brief ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... unspeakably to the general wretchedness. To be carried to the infirmary was certain death,—no one lived in that heap of contagion; and even this shelter was not always to be had,—some of the streets were full of dying creatures who had been turned out of their houses and could crawl no farther. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horrors for a girl bred as Susan had been! Horrors moral, horrors mental, horrors physical—above all, the physical horrors; for, worse to her than the dull wits and the lack of education, worse than vile speech and gesture, was the hopeless battle against dirt, against the vermin that could crawl everywhere—and did. She envied the ignorant and the insensible their lack of consciousness of their own plight—like the disemboweled horse that eats tranquilly on. At first she had thought her unhappiness came from her having been ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... long defiance of the laws of both God and man. He had been a member of one of those troops of human vermin that crawl round Jerusalem, raiding solitary houses, attacking solitary travellers, guilty of sins at once the bloodiest and the meanest, comparable only to the French apaches of our own day. Well, he had been gripped at last by the Roman machine, caught in some sordid adventure, and here, resentful and ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... out the rogue, my master, and I will do it at once. I will get the bird out for myself, as you really have hit it." Then he lay down on the ground, and began to crawl into the thicket. ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the tendrils of Bignonia capreolata, says it is a highly remarkable fact that a leaf should be metamorphosed into a branched organ, which turns from the light, and which can, by its extremities, either crawl like a root into crevices, or seize hold of minute projecting points, these extremities subsequently forming cellular masses, which envelope by their growth the first fibres and secrete ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... faint stirring in the bed where the children slept, and a little boy's form began to crawl from amongst the rough bedclothes, his eyes gazing in amazement at the bowed figure of his mother. She was crying, he concluded, for her shoulders were heaving and it must be something very bad that made his beautiful mother cry like this. ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... will find that, as we progress, many of these points which now seem complicated and obscure will gradually take on the aspect of simplicity and clearness. We must crawl before we can walk, in psychic research as well ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... assented the young commanding officer. "Ill take a chance and let you." He knew of the pact of friendship existing among the five Brothers. "Take some one with you. But crawl—don't try to walk." ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... animal's head, and by the sudden plunge he made into the water, and the appearance of blood on the surface, as he was swimming towards the opposite shore, it seemed that one or both of the shots had penetrated his eye or throat. We saw him reach the shore, and crawl through the mud ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... wonderful how quick animals are at detecting the presence of strangers—but the people took no notice of us. Here and there a tumbled-down tree blocked the way. There were tracts of pasture land. My men were considerably excited on seeing a poisonous snake crawl swiftly towards our mules. It was perhaps an absent-minded or a short-sighted snake, for no sooner did it realize our presence than it quickly veered round to escape. My ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had rolled over, he would have rolled right into the old woman's garden, and frightened ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... wi' a joke in your mouth, Mr. Gaither. Now that you've spit it out, less start fresh. A spiteful joke before breakfus' 'll make your flesh crawl arter supper, Mr. Gaither." ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... some of these unfortunates, with crushed-in planks, twisted buffers and general dismemberment, it seemed a wonder that they had been able to perform their last journey, or crawl to the hospital. Some of the trucks especially might have been almost said to look diseased, they were so dirty, while at the corners, where address cards were wont to be affixed, they appeared to have broken out in a sort of small-pox irruption ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... where the King of the Eels lives. There the trees all grow with their heads down and the sky is 'way, 'way below the trees. You see the sky might as well be down as up for the eels. They aren't like us, just obliged to crawl around on the ground without ever being able to go up or down at all. The up-above sky belongs to the birds and the down-below sky belongs to the fishes and eels. And I am not sure but one is just as ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... tracks, and in an instant a scene of terrible confusion occurred. Wounded horses screaming in pain rushed wildly back upon their own comrades or through the ranks of the foe. Injured men, shot from their saddles, were seeking to crawl out of the way. Whirling eddies of smoke alternately hid and disclosed enemies, and from both left and right came the continuous and deafening crash of infantry ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had no means of knowing how successful had been the rifle-fire and they hesitated to crawl closer. Each party in turn taunted the other in unknown tongues, but they well knew that the strange voices carried fearful insult from the loud defiance of the intonation. The gray bears or the mountain cats were as merciful as any there. As the sun started on its downward course ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... the house. They watched him away—ill able, apparently, even to crawl along. He went down the hill, nor once lifted his head. They turned and looked at each other. Profound pity for the wretched old man was the feeling of both. It was followed by one ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... minute. For one thing, the water sucked past the tree in a current that forced Meg to brace her feet wide apart to keep her balance. And when Bobby had climbed the tree, he found the limb wasn't strong enough to bear his weight and he couldn't crawl out to ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... would remain between them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these states—civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century, while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity—seems always to produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks" to the savage and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... man perceived that they were speaking of Malachy, who, as he remembered, had not long before passed a night in that house. And the bedding was still in its place; and taking courage, with his utmost effort he began to crawl, weak in body but strong in faith. And lo, in the air there was clamour and shouting: "Stop him, stop him, hold him, hold him; we are losing our prey." But, carried on by faith and the desire to escape, the more they shouted the more he hastened to the remedy, straining with knees and hands. ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... suddenly, breathless and faint, and longing after air, and had risen to crawl from the cave, when a slight rustle in the leaves of the couch set ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... he had fired the hut he made his way from the village as quickly as he could crawl along. He saw behind him the flames rising higher and higher. The wind was blowing keenly, and the fire spread rapidly from house to house, and by the time he reached the road along which the army ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... behind his whiskers and bringing one of his ill-fed hirelings to help drive the stuff back. Safety is rubbing his hands and acting very sprightly, with an air of false good fellowship. It almost seems like he was afraid they had thought better of the trade and might try to crawl out. He wants it over quick. They all go down and help him drive his purchase out of the lower field, where they been hiding in the tall grass, and in no time at all have the bunch headed down the lane on to the county road, with Safety's man ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... fell a-pondering over all the comfort and help that I might have been and that I might have had, if I had been but a little of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before abbot and bishop and baron and bailiff, came the thought over me of the evil of the world wherewith I, John Ball, the rascal hedge-priest, had fought and striven in the Fellowship of the saints in heaven ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... for we've been trying to go to Pine Ridge all the week; but this affair has kept me spinning like a top, and when I do stop I expect to fall over with weariness. I was so sorry about Rockcliffe Commencement. Some day, perhaps, mamma will have finished bringing me out, and then I can crawl in again where it is quiet, and live. Ah, you went to the house and saw her, and she said we were going away next week? I did not know it, but we flit about so one can never tell. I've half a mind to be rebellious and ask to be left here with Lavinia Dorman for guardian, I'm so tired ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... had ridden old Bess about the camp, waving his miniature sabre; the day he had been thrown to the ground by a strange horse which he had disobediently mounted, just as his father arrived on the scene. Philip had never forgotten his father's words that day. "Don't crawl, son,—don't whine. It was your fault this time and you deserved what you got. Lots of times it won't be your fault, but you'll have to take your licking anyway. But remember this, son—take your ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... others had gone on; I'd been kept in, and it was nearly dark. It was blowing hard, and when I got to the first rock here I thought it was going to blow me over. So I went down on my hands and knees and was just going to crawl, when old Hirzel Mollet came down the other side with a great sheaf of wheat on his back. He was taking it to the Seigneur for his tithes. And then in a moment he gave a shout and ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... special means of livelihood save the battening on the countless miseries and sorrows which this Revolution, which was to have been so glorious, was bringing in its train; idlers and loafers, who would crawl desultorily down the few worn and grimy steps which led into the cabaret from the level of the street. There was always good brandy or eau de vie to be had there, and no questions asked, no scares from the revolutionary guards or the secret agents of the Committee ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... hair flying in the breeze blows wild Across my face. See, there, the gathering squall, That dark line to the eastward, watch it crawl Stealthily towards us o'er the snow-wreaths piled Close on each other! Ah! what joy to be Drunk with salt air, in battle ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... stones and the gold it might have gone fairly well, if such a lot of horrid things had not been lying all around the island. It looked like whales and sharks and other big sea-monsters. But the boy understood that it was the sea-trolls, who had gathered around the island and intended to crawl up on it, to fight with the land-trolls who lived there. And those on the land were probably afraid, for he saw how a big giant stood on the highest point of the island and raised his arms—as if in despair over all the misfortune that should come ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... living Christ, I only know that I would crawl after you, and kiss your holiest feet before all the world, if ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... of the place, this fact had been, next to the Indians, the reigning nightmare of the inhabitants. It was easy enough, after a time, to drive away the savages; for "a screeching Indian Divell," as our fathers called him, could not crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable easemates they reared their ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Christmas Day—and as I've heard tell that's NO DAY IN LAW, but just like Sunday—Dan'l mebbe thought that he might crawl outer that satisfaction piece, ef he ever wanted ter! ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... about clumsily in the little breezes that visited the grass by the lake shore. Squirm, Glummie's caterpillar brother, had been heard to say that it was so sweet about those clover blossoms that he could scarcely crawl by them; it made him faint. But every morning, just as the sun got up, Hummy came whirring along, singing so busily and sweetly, that even Toadie Todson stuck his head out of his mudhole to listen, and the Frisky Frog on ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... dramatically toward him, "crawl out of the reception room window and dart into the street just as O'Ryan came in the front door ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln |
