"Crotch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... listened quietly, brooding, his elbows upon the table, his inscrutable face propped in the crotch of his hand. A ruby, set quaintly in a cobra's head, gleamed from a ring upon his little ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... could hardly surpass him in the drollery of its expressions. A specimen or two may dispose the reader to turn over the pages which follow in a good-natured frame of mind. "If unconverted men ever got to heaven," he said, "they would feel as uneasy as a shad up the crotch of a white-oak." Some of his ministerial associates took offence at his eccentricities, and called on a visit of admonition to the offending clergyman. "Mr. Dwight received their reproofs with great meekness, frankly acknowledged his faults, and promised amendment, but, in prayer ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the dark masses of the tree—oh, yes! the lantern revealed the heel of a shoe in a crotch, and above,—yes, undoubtedly, the rest of Jonathan, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... exclaims a deep voice. "I thought the rope was caught in a crotch; but 'twasn't. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... mass, but the boys below carried torches so as to shed light on each part in turn. At first Yan found neither hole in the trunk nor Coon, but after long search in the upper branches he saw a great ball of fur on a high crotch and in it two glowing eyes that gave him a thrill. He yelled: "Here he is! Look out below." He climbed up nearer and tried to push the Coon off, but it braced itself firmly and defied him until he climbed above it, when it leaped and ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... poor Grip, in his efforts to free himself from the shawl, managed to pull his cap over his eyes, and howled in blind dismay. In the midst of the confusion, Grace rescued Miss Wales from her perilous position, and, finding her classic nose still unbroken, laid her carefully in the crotch of a tree, and prepared for revenge. In his desire to secure the obedience of his dog-team, Tom had fastened them securely, by long cords, to his belt; Pete had already managed to wind his tether tightly around Tom's legs, and Grace ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... then let down his lariat and Garry tied the bag to the end. Phil then drew it up into the tree and placed it securely in a crotch in one of the branches. This done, Phil clambered back down, remarking when he ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... long patient days on her nest. And forth comes cheeping life in her own image, answering the call of her mothering spirit. The mother-bird in the nest in the crotch of the tree gives her life day by day in brooding love. And her wee nestling offspring, in her own image, answers with glad increase ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... tersely from Pete. Then casting his eye over the sky he said: "Snow cum quick,—hide um. We cut caribou," whereupon he whipped out a big hunting knife, after placing his rifle in the crotch of a tree, and began slashing the still warm body of the ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... sometimes hewn so as to give a firm resting-place for the body. This platform had an elevation of from six to eight or more feet, and never contained but one body, although frequently having sufficient surface to accommodate two or three. In burying in the crotch of a tree and on platforms, the head of the dead person was always placed towards the south; the body was wrapped in blankets or pieces of cloth securely tied, and many of the personal effects of the deceased were buried ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... to the great ape in the crotch of a tree the boy had shivered through an almost sleepless night. His light pajamas had been but little protection from the chill dampness of the jungle, and only that side of him which was pressed against the warm body of his shaggy companion approximated ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the red day-dawn, An' the wind war laid—'t war prime fur game. I went ter the woods betimes that morn, An' tuk my flint-lock, "Nancy," by name; An' thar I see, in the crotch of a tree, A great big catamount grinnin' at me. A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! A ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... upon one side and thought, and before he went to sleep that night, curled in the crotch of the great tree above the village, Teeka filled his mind, and afterward she filled his dreams—she and the young black men laughing and talking with the young ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... head! I declare, you escaped narrowly! That dead limb would have dispersed all your theology, had it struck your head. Well, Dancer, what are you staring at? Do you think the old tree dropped one of its limbs on purpose? Ah, ha! I see! Peter, do you see that tuft of dark moss in the crotch of that largest maple: well, I am going to shoot at it for sport, so here goes! I thought it was a black squirrel; how he leaps from the top boughs. Hurrah! here we go over logs and through bushes; the squirrel still ahead of us, springing from tree top to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... quickly stifled as they recognized the gravity which sat upon the face of its enunciator, and Stuart inquired in all seriousness, "But how does he manage it? There's mains'l and jib and tiller—not to mention center board and boom-crotch—and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... near view of a mulberry orchard in Chekiang province, which has been very heavily fertilized with canal mud, and which was at the stage for cutting the leaves to feed the first crop of silkworms. A bundle of cut limbs is in the crotch of the front tree in the view. Those who raise mulberry leaves are not usually the feeders of the silkworms and the leaves from this orchard were being sold at one dollar, Mexican, per picul, or 32.25 cents per one hundred ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "Aoa," and the other propped by a forked bough planted in ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... holding the pot of water, which, boy-like, he did not want to spill, and the other grasping the rabbit, Wilbur was terribly handicapped. But, by the greatest good fortune, as he stooped, the crotch of the stick that he was carrying caught the wild-cat under the body as she launched herself at him from the tree. The stick was knocked out of the boy's grasp, but it also turned the cat aside, and she half fell, landing on Wilbur's outstretched ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... near bank to wait till the wagons were drawn up, lifted herself into the crotch of a cottonwood tree. The pastoral simplicity of the scene, the men and animals moving through the silver-threaded water with the wagons waiting and after the work the camp to be pitched, exhilarated her with a conviction of true living, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... have holes! And the birds build their nests In the crotch of the sycamore-tree! But the Little Son of God had no place for His head When He cameth to ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... smashing to the floor. Then the wonderful agility of the Englishman was displayed. In a distance of less than a two-foot drop he turned completely like a cat. Leaping up, he was free, and, getting a waist-hold with a Cornish heave, he bore Locasto to the floor. Quickly he changed to a crotch-lock, and, lastly, holding Locasto's legs, he brought him to a bridge and worked his weight ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... became terrible. Once the glaring light in front moved, then become fixed. There was a light splashing. Instantly Smith realised that the man in front had set his torch in a tree-crotch and was now cowering somewhere behind a levelled weapon. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... elm, ash, and crab tree for cart and for plow, Save step for a stile of the crotch of a bough; Save hazel for forks, save sallow for rake: Save hulver and thorn, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... eagle is no longer found in England, but is still plentiful in the Scottish Highlands, where it makes its nest on some lofty ledge of rock among the mountain solitudes. Swiss naturalists state that it sometimes nests in the lofty crotch of some gigantic oak growing on the lower mountain slopes, but Audubon and other eminent ornithologists declare that an eagle's nest built in a tree has never come under ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the Navaho house is called hogan. In its most substantial form it is constructed by first planting four heavy crotch posts in the ground; cross logs are placed in the crotches, and smaller ones are leaned from the ground to these, the corner logs being longer, forming a circular framework, which is covered with brush and a heavy coating ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... of an outcast world, rose from their quarry; and Wayland, fevered, delirious, laughing, crying, kneeled over the body of a man lying on his face with his bloody hand clutched in death grip round an upright post driven into the alkali bottoms, a post with a drinking cup hung on the notched crotch, the Desert sign of a water spring beneath the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... of the hills into the brilliant sunset that lay like a wonderful canvas in the crotch of the peaks. A troubled little frown creased her forehead. For the first time there had come home to her the injustice of the social system under which she and her friends thrived. No adequate answer came to her. Verinder and Joyce joined in argument ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... Grinder, and almost fell from his perch. But he managed to save himself, and hung in a crotch, weak and almost helpless, the blood flowing freely and dripping to the ground, where the wolves licked it up eagerly. A few had retreated at the report of the gun, but now all came back, snarling and yelping more wildly ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... was white with rage. He turned from the tree in which the bear had now found a place of safety behind a crotch, and pointed his arrow at John. The lad saw his danger. Even as the stranger drew the arrow to its head John leaped forward; before the other knew what was happening, John seized him in his arms and with a mighty effort wrenched away the weapon. ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... branch to another, the redstart weaves threads of reddish gold and black, like strands of night and noon, among the old trees. He has wandered over through the woods from the creek, where his mate built a cup-like nest in a crotch toward the top of a slender white oak. Busy always, he stays but a few moments and then passes on as silently as a July zephyr. The halting voice of the preacher, the red-eyed vireo, comes out of the thicket; then, from an oak overhead, where a little ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... under the shade of a mango, whose shadow played checkerwise over his face; the soldier sat stiffly on the pony; and Kim, making sure that there were no snakes, lay down in the crotch of the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... firmly in a crotch where the red fruit was thickest and picked mechanically while she unburdened her mind of the previous day's doings. She chattered about her adventures till Marian could have repeated every word of her conversation with the Captain off by heart, and might have given ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... struck the tree, well down toward its base. The jolt nearly shook the boy from his perch in a crotch of the tree. Very slowly at first, then with increasing speed the tree began to fall. It came down with a mighty crash, hurling little Lucien some distance ahead of it. He was bruised and shaken and for a few minutes he lay ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... when Keble wrote an Ode on the Duke of Wellington's installation as Chancellor at Oxford, Dr. Crotch was employed to write the music, and Mr. Newman wrote to his friend: "I hope Dr. Crotch will do your ode justice." And on difficulties arising with the composer, he wrote again to Keble: "I like your ode uncommonly. I would ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... "is to let an expert look through the barrel. One of our best men, for example, has done nothing else all his life; his father before him was a barrel-sighter and his son has just entered the works. He does it this way—here, you try," and he handed a barrel to Hamilton. "Rest the barrel in this crotch," he continued, "and look at the window. You see there is a piece of ground glass with a thin black line running across it. Point the barrel so that it is aimed just below that line, and if you get it right, you will see a reflection ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... would attend to his case, and I tho't I'd wipe out my rifle afore I loaded it again. I was standin' by the upturned roots of a tall fir tree that had been blown down, and in fallin' had lodged in a crotch of a great birch, maybe twenty feet from the ground, and broke off. I stepped onto the butt of the fallen spruce, and was takin' my time to clean my gun, when I heard a crashin' among the brush on the other side of the ridge, as if some mighty big animal was comin' my way. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... matches he had gone off to the bottom of the garden among the laurels, looked everywhere except above the wall to be sure that he was alone, and at last lit up, only as he raised his eyes in gratitude for the first blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little boy peeping at him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden. As though God had sent him to be ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... fairy-like dwelling was that nest on the apple-tree; about the size of a walnut, with one leaf for a shelter. It was placed—I had almost said grew—in a slender crotch of a low-hanging bough. No coarse grass stems or bark fibres bound it to its slight moorings; it seemed to stand by its own fitness, to be a part of the branch itself. Soft, creamy-hued vegetable cotton, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... about the Galeria Pass the silence of the dry Arizona air seemed luminous and eternal. Whoever climbed to the crotch of that V, cut jagged against the sky for distances yet unreckoned by tourist folders, might have the reward of pitching the tents of his imagination at the gateway ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... producing them. Clearly enough, the nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig. He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built nest. Only, he would not react to these stimuli unless the nesting fit were on him. The nest-building tendency favors response to certain stimuli, and not to others; it facilitates certain reactions and inhibits others. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... "brooding," as well as the old word underneath, is a mother word. The brooding hen sits so faithfully, day after day, upon the eggs, bringing the new lives by the vital warmth of her own body. The mother-bird nestles softly down upon the nest in the crotch of the tree, patiently, expectantly brooding, by the strength of her own life giving life to the coming young. She who, in the holiest, greatest function entrusted to her, comes nearest to God in ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... fifty feet from the water's edge a birch knoll supported, besides the birches, a single big hemlock. With his belt ax, Thorpe cleared away the little white trees. He stuck the sharpened end of one of them in the bark of the shaggy hemlock, fastened the other end in a crotch eight or ten feet distant, slanted the rest of the saplings along one side of this ridge pole, and turned in, after a hasty supper, leaving the completion of his permanent camp to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... so thrilling in its details, and so diametrically different from Mr. Webster's style, that I have often wondered who he got to write it for him. It related to the discovery of a boy by an elderly gentleman, in the crotch of an ancestral apple tree, and the feeling of bitterness and animosity that sprung up at the time between the boy and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... an idler. Since his appointment to his precentorship, he has published, with all possible additions of vellum, typography, and gilding, a collection of our ancient church music, with some correct dissertations on Purcell, Crotch, and Nares. He has greatly improved the choir of Barchester, which, under his dominion, now rivals that of any cathedral in England. He has taken something more than his fair share in the cathedral services, and has played the violoncello daily to such audiences as he ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Brownie, contemptuously. 'Ridiculous, isn't it? Snow on the ground, and not time to build this two weeks; but you see, he wants to keep the little house on top of the pole lest some other bird should claim it, and she wants to build in the crotch of the evergreen, and the neighbors are all there taking sides. She has the right of it—the tree is much the prettier place; but dear me! she might just as well give up first as last, for he's sure to have his way—husbands are such tyrants!' said Captain Bobtail's Brownie, with a coquettish ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... here all hope soured on me Of my fellow-critter's aid,— I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones, Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed. * * * * * By this, the torches was played out, And me and Isrul Parr Went off for some wood to a sheepfold That he said was somewhar thar. We found it at last, and a little shed Where ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... his part, Whitefoot couldn't see anything but a deserted old house of no use to any one. To be sure, it had been a very good home in its time. It had been made of tiny twigs, stalks of old weeds, leaves, little fine roots and mud. It was still quite solid, and was firmly fixed in a crotch of the young tree. But Whitefoot couldn't see how it could be turned into a home for a Mouse. ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... the Ottawas is a moose; of the Chippewas, a sea gull; of the Backswoodsmen, a rabbit; that of the underground tribe, to which I belong, is a species of hawk; and that of the Seneca tribe of Indians is a crotch of a tree. The Ottawa Indians are very nearly extinct in the state of Michigan as there are only two or three families in the state, whose national emblem is a moose, showing them to be descended from pure Ottawa blood; but those who represented themselves ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... resulted from these long and arduous marches. The losses in swimming large rivers, from fire, the attacks of predatory animals, hunger, and fatigue, are so great that but few reach the sea, and the remnant always perish there. Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, who has studied the habits of these animals for ten years, now suggests that they are moved by an hereditary instinct, and that their prehistoric home was some country west of Sweden, and now covered by ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still clinging. Here and there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar; and all round it was suspended ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... side is supported by two stone slabs built into the wall and extending from the hood to the floor. Upon the upper stone rests one end of the wooden lintel supporting the long side, while the other end, near the corner of the room, is held in position by a light crotch of wood. Fig. 64 illustrates this hood; the plan indicating the relation of the stones and the forked stick to the corner of the room. Fig. 71, illustrating a terrace fireplace and chimney of Shumopavi, shows the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... 7. President, the Right Hon. Lord Guernsey. Nearly 200 performers, including Master Buggins (a Birmingham boy alto) Mr. J.J. Goss (counter tenor), Signor Joseph Naldi (buffo), and Dr. Crotch, the conductor, organist and pianist. The last-named was a good player when only 3-1/2 years old. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... direction, in the hope of wresting from him whatever of his kill they could take by craft or prowess. And now he turned snarling upon them as they circled the tree, while the girl, huddled in a crotch above them, looked down upon the gaunt, yellow monsters padding on noiseless feet in a restless circle about her. She wondered now at the strange freak of fate that had permitted her to come down this far into the valley by night unharmed, ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... appearance is in his favor. Suddenly he will pounce upon an unsuspecting neighbor, and with one blow of his beak take off the top of its head, dining on its brains. If there is a chance to kill several more, he will, like a butcher, hang his prey on a thorn, or in the crotch of a tree, and return for his favorite morsel when his hunt is over. After devouring the head of a bird he will leave the body, unless game is scarce. It is well they are not plentiful, or else our canary pets would be in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... and to Miss Fitch's little men and women "the Green" had all the importance and excitement of a park. Each one of the trees which stood upon it possessed a name of its own. Every crotch and branch in them was known to the boys and the most daring among the girls; each had been the scene of games and adventures without number. "The Castle," a low spreading oak with wide, horizontal branches, ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... two lads swung themselves into the crotch of the great tree under which they stood; then climbed noiselessly higher up among the branches. Just as they had succeeded in screening themselves from possible discovery, a body of horsemen burst in ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... decisive. 21. A-vailed', was of use, had effect. 22. Al-ly', a confederate, one who unites with another in some purpose. 25. Tense, strained to stiffness, rigid. Re-laxed', loosened. 20. Chid'ing, scolding, rebuking. 27. Crotch'et, a perverse fancy, a whim. 30. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... pursued me through my daily round of dish-washings, floor-sweepings, bed-making and potato-peeling, to overtake me at last in the very moment when I hoped to reap the reward of my diligence in a free afternoon by the river-side in the crotch of the water-maple that hung over the stream, clutching me and fastening me down to the hated square of patchwork, which bore, in the spots of red that defaced its white purity in following the line of my stitches, the marks of the wounds that my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... there who did not feel pleasure at the approaching event, and that was a dwarf about a foot high, very ugly and wicked, who, by some means or other, had got into this goodly company, and who was now seated in a crotch of the tree, very close to the rope by which the crowd was lowering the lady's head. No one perceived him, for he was very much the color of the tree, and there he sat alone, quivering with ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... detected a boy (apparently about twelve years of age) climbing one of the willow trees in our old Schmittheimer place. I crept up on him unawares and speedily became satisfied that he was after the eggs in a bird's nest that nestled cozily in a crotch of the limbs. I shouted lustily at the young scapegrace, and his confusion convinced me that my suspicions were correct. I kept him in his uncomfortable position in the tree until I had lectured him severely for the cruelty ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field |
