"Haystack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its click and clatter. The explosion of voices, the confused clamour, the dreadful disorder—cars, wagons, omnibuses—it makes you feel religious and rather cold down the back. What a needle in a haystack a poor girl must be here if there is nobody above to keep track ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... remained two years without showing any inclination to give it up. Sometimes he lived at the flat, and sometimes he was lost for a week at a time somewhere east of St. Paul's, where one might as well have looked for him as for the proverbial needle in a haystack. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... laughed vociferously at the hail bouncing off Dad. Once Dad staggered—a hail-boulder had struck him behind the ear—and he looked like dropping. Paddy hit himself on the leg, and vehemently invited Dave to "Look, LOOK at him!" But Dad battled along to the haystack, buried his head in it, and stayed there till the storm was over—wriggling and moving his feet as though he ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... church, by-the-by, of course - a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for education both in time and money, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who has got into little occasional difficulties ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... perhaps never attempted a campaign in a country more difficult than the interior of Samar. The traditional needle in the haystack would be easy to find compared with an outlaw, or band of outlaws, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... to take joyfully the spoiling of my goods, and with pleasure for His name's sake wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. I lay four months in the coldest season of the year in a haystack in my father's garden, and a whole February in the open fields not far from Camragen, and this I did without the least prejudice from the night air; one night, when lying in the fields near to the Carrick-Miln, I was all covered with ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "is this no' a bonny morning? Here is a day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a barn, missed a mesh of clothesline, frightened the barnyard chickens into a panic, and rose up again clear over a haystack—all this almost quicker than it takes to tell. Then we came down in an orchard, and when my feet had touched the ground I fetched up the balloon by a couple of turns of the trapeze ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... a tramp, a mere tramp, clearly a man of no importance to you or me or anyone else in the world. The evening was warm, the place secluded and remote, and, other things being equal, he climbed over the hedge, chose a comfortable position against a haystack, pulled from his pocket a fragment of a newspaper and a fragment of a pipe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... can see as clear and as far as the best of you, and I'm not bad, you'll allow, at following up a trail over hard ground; but when it comes to squinting along the barrel of a gun I'm worse than useless. It's my belief that if I took aim at a haystack at thirty yards I'd miss it. No, Vic, I must give up the idea ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... was willing to sell food at any time for cash; hay, too, as long as there was still some remaining in his lofts. He would also sell hay against promises of lambs, especially wethers, once it was certain that the cold of winter was past. But his old haystack he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... several charges with their infantry, too. We find they don't like the bayonets. Their rifle shooting is rotten; I don't believe they could hit a haystack at ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... like your true bacchantes, clawing the unfortunate wretches who fell into their hands, burning farms and harvests, broaching barrels of wine and oil, and crowning these exploits by orgies with "the Athletes of Christ." When they saw a haystack blazing in the fields, the country-folk were panic-stricken—the "Circoncelliones" were not far off. Soon they appeared, brandishing their clubs and bellowing their war cry: Deo laudes!—"Praise be to God." "Your shout," said Augustin to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... actually been praying for a week past that I might meet you. Holmes, of your service, told me you had pulled through, but everything is in such confusion that to hunt for you would have been the proverbial quest after a needle in a haystack. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... good," he returned gloomily. "The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... doorway. His long grey beard gave him a most venerable aspect. The note of welcome in his cheery voice was unmistakable and soon the maid who had spoken from the balcony had shown the way up a winding circular staircase to a welcome exchange to the shelter of a haystack which I had begun to fear would be my ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... haystack in the farmyard, that is at the corner, and when he heard the boy come whistling along, he jumped out at him and ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... fallen and caused me to break my shoulder bone, the pain of which was so extreme that I nearly fainted several times. Not being able to continue my journey, I was lodged, with only one of my gentlemen, in a great haystack, while MM. de Brissac and Joly went straight to Beaupreau, to assemble the nobility, there, in order to rescue me. I lay hid there for over seven hours in inexpressible misery, for the pain from my injury threw me into a fever, during ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... day at the appointed time I was behind the haystack awaiting my adversary, who did not fail to appear. "We may be surprised," he said; "be quick." We laid aside our uniforms, drew our swords from the scabbards, when Ignatius, followed by five pensioners, came out from behind a haystack. He ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... get over that haystack," said Jack, "and then play out rope till we lower him. It'll make a nice ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... see the fugitive within. There was no view except overhead, and Henry resolved to remain there the whole of the next day. If the warriors came pursuing on the river he would be once again the needle in the haystack, and even if by some chance they should spy him out, he could escape, refreshed and ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... haul him home. I'm about full of him, and I'm going to leave home before next Christmas, or my name ain't what it is. Mother says the kiddies would starve if I leave; but Stanley is coming on like a haystack, I tell him, and he does kick up, and he ought to be able to plough next time. I ploughed when I was younger than him. I put in fourteen acres of wheat and oats this year, and I don't think I'll cut a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a haystack," I answered, suddenly suspicious that she might know something of the fugitive. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... many things now. The old house that had been patched and patched, and had one corner propped up from outside. The barn that was propped up all around and had a thatched roof that suggested an immense haystack. Old Barby crooning songs by the kitchen fire, sweet old Miss Arabella with her great high cap and her snowy little curls. Why did Aunt Priscilla think curls wrong? She had a feeling Aunt Elizabeth did not quite approve of hers, but Betty ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... to a huge haystack and to several barns which stood on some high ground, and by the light of the flames I could easily distinguish the enemy column, consisting of Grodno Hussars. I had with me about a thousand brave men, and with a cry of "Vive L'Emperor!" we charged at the gallop towards the Russians who, taken ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Clare at last turned his back upon Walkherd Lodge, and went the way he came. The road he trotted along, with his feet on good Rutlandshire soil, but his head still somewhat in the clouds, got gradually more and more narrow, till it ended at a broad ditch, with, a dungheap on the one side and a haystack on the other. It was now that John perceived for the first time that he had lost his way. While walking along with Martha Turner, he no more thought of marking the road than of solving riddles in algebra, and, besides a faint consciousness ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... study were lined with books, reports from Congress; everything pertaining to the business of the government at Washington. Certainly finding that old-time needle in a haystack was an easy duty compared with locating the city directory in such ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... lacking in all that broader base of humor which aims at truth. His writing—catching the bad habit of the time—is too ready to proclaim a paradox and to assert the unusual, to throw aside in contempt the valuable haystack in a fine search for a paltry needle. His reviews are seldom right—as most of us see the right—but they sparkle and hold one's interest for their perversity and ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... what I have told you, and what you have told me. Then I will point out the futility of looking for a needle in a haystack. He may be inclined to let the case drop. He ought to be weary of it ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... trail ended. Now we struck out over a trackless land that grew rougher the farther we went. To look for a quarter-section here was like looking for a needle in a haystack. It was late summer and the sun beat down on the hot prairie grass and upon our heads. We had driven all day without sign of shade—and save for that brief interval at noon, without sight of water. Our faces and hands were blistered, our throats ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... employment in the ever-changing variety of landscape, which even on the least picturesque lines will be found constantly coming into view. The most ordinary objects have then a fresh interest imparted to them. You catch a distant glimpse perhaps of a haystack on the brow of an eminence miles away before you. As you proceed, a farm-house, with its out-buildings and granaries to follow, marches right out of the haystack, and takes up its position at the side. Then the angles all change as the line of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... in all the world there is only one woman specially created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the haystack? You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with her in September. You have also seen them together (occasionally) ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected itself, and was sent a few ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... no attention to the birds, but when my hunger was over I began again to feel annoyed at their trivial persecutions, and so continued to gather the fallen nuts to throw at them. It amused and piqued me at the same time to see how wide of the mark my missiles went. I could hardly have hit a haystack at a distance of ten yards. After half an hour's vigorous practice my right hand began to recover its lost cunning, and I was at last greatly delighted when of my nuts went hissing like a bullet through the leaves, not further than a yard from the wren, or whatever the little ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... from where he stood. The level stretch along the margin of the pool showed clear enough, but around him the vegetation was so dense that, unless he had some clue to guide him, to prosecute a search within it was like trying the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... cloudy gaze the familiar objects of the barnyard assumed grotesque and distorted shapes. The manure heap near the doorway presented an effect of unreality, the pig-pen seemed to have suffered witchery since the evening before, and the haystack, looming vaguely in the drab distance, appeared to be woven ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... a city where a dreadful elephant came daily to make a meal off the inhabitants. Many mighty warriors had gone against it, but none had returned. On hearing this the valiant little weaver thought to himself, 'Now is my chance! A great haystack of an elephant will be a fine mark to a man who has shot a mosquito with a shuttle!' So he went to the King, and announced that he proposed single-handed to meet and slay the elephant. At first the King thought the little man was mad, but as he persisted ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... determined to take a walk uptown, to get the outdoor exercise and also in hope of seeing something of the tramp who had taken the packet. He knew that looking for the tramp in the metropolis was a good deal like looking for a pin in a haystack, but imagined that even that pin could be found if one looked long and sharp enough ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... Ospreys coming and going to and fro from the nest. I hoped the birds might return another season, as the nest looked as if it might have been used for two or three years, and was as lop-sided as a poorly made haystack. The great August storm of the same year broke the tree, and the nest fell, making quite a heap upon the ground. Among the debris were sticks of various sizes, dried reeds, two bits of bamboo fishing rod, seaweeds, some old blue mosquito netting, and ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... fortunately for himself, was now like the needle in the haystack. While the trumpets signaled and the groups of Mexican horsemen rode into one another he stole back to the old mission and knocked upon the door with the butt of his rifle. Answering King's questions through the loophole, ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... voice, "my husband has been acting as Sub-Warden. It is too long! It is much too long!" My Lady was a vast creature at all times: but, when she frowned and folded her arms, as now, she looked more gigantic than ever, and made one try to fancy what a haystack would look like, if ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... for a pin in a haystack," grumbled Roger. "If he got into these woods it's good-bye to him. We might search all night and not get a ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... haystack and stable were all in flames in a moment, and unearthly screams issued from ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but if I don't find him I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to, and that I haven't spent any of his money. I'll keep it locked in my trunk until my arm gets so that I can handle a spade, and then I'll hide it in ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... were now collecting of their own accord in the garden, and we had to drive up the pigs, whose stye was threatened with submersion. The scene was truly one of desolation as we looked beyond our own homestead; trunks of trees and palings, and now and then a haystack, and barns, and parts of houses, and occasionally whole dwellings came floating by, showing what ravages the flood must have committed above us. Malcolm and I agreed that it was fortunate we had repaired our canoe. As the waters extended, the current in the river ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... hold yourself on," she explained. Before he could reply, she rose in her stirrups and pointed ahead with her quirt. "Look, that's the top of the biggest haystack, up by the feed-sheds. You'll see the buildings in ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... do," I remonstrated. "No more of that; if you want to knock the brains out of that haystack on the back of your head, why, knock away; but spare my bones, if ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... the whole country embraced within a radius of 40 to 60 miles, including, as the landscape shows, Parks Hill to the south; Katahdin, the Traveller, and Mars Hill to the southwest; Quaquajo, the Horseback, the Haystack, and one or two peaks beyond the Aroostook to the west; the heights upon the Fish River and the southern margin of the Eagle Lakes to the northwest, and those south of the St. John (except a small angle obstructed by the Aroostook Hill) to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... order to cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... to say we've managed to carry out a lot of things before now that looked as hopeless as searching for a needle in a haystack. Rod, we might stand a chance of finding this same Andre, if you thought it was up to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... was great fun playing about the High Haystack. Here they all gathered after a snow storm, for the snow soon ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... with him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... "I am going with the pilot. Follow us and do exactly as we do. I've got this fellow under my thumb. He knows he'll get a good long term for smuggling, but I can get some of it taken off if he pilots us out, and I've promised him to do my best for him. It'll be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack to get a pilot and we have him, so what's the use ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... of men with green scarves on their arms were being drilled by an officer. Horses were picketed in a long line up the main street; they were mostly very poor cart-stock, ill-provided, as I learned afterwards, with harness. Men were bringing hay to them from whatever haystack was nearest. From time to time, there came a loud booming of guns, above the ringing of the church bells. Three ships in the bay, one of them La Reina, were firing salutes as they hoisted their colours. It was all like a very noisy fair or coronation day. It had little ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... about half-past seven, having come in all thirty miles. At the bishop's house we were welcomed and there got some supper, putting our three animals in his corral. We did not care to sleep in the house, choosing for our resting-place the last remains of a haystack, where we spread our blankets, covering the whole with a paulin, as the sky looked threatening. I never slept more comfortably in my life, except that I was half-aroused in the stillness by water trickling ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... which is as good as, or, thanks to the two heroines, Catriona and Barbara Grant, is even better than, the original. To think of it is to wish to take it from the shelf and read it again. It is all excellent, from the scenes where Alan is hiding under a haystack (suggested by an adventure of the Chevalier Johnstone after Culloden), and the first meeting with that good daughter of Clan Alpine ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... haystack. The greaser's asleep this side of it. Right under where that saddle is hanging on ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... often I must needs arise at night to run forth to the fold when there was an alarm of wolves. Day after day my head grew heavier from want of sleep, until at last I could keep my eyes open no longer. I stole under the haystack to snatch a few extra winks, and when I was discovered my shame and disgrace were heralded forth to all the world." And again the ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... on northward, glancing down the while on the Baker's River valley, dotted over with human dwellings like shingle-bunches for size, you behold the great Franconia Range, its Notch and its Haystacks, the Elephant Mountain on the left, and Lafayette (Great Haystack) on the right, shooting its peak in solemn loneliness high up into the desert sky, and overtopping all the neighboring Alps but Mount Washington itself. The prospect of these is most impressive and satisfactory. We ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... hunting for a needle in a haystack, going out to find a man in that wilderness," said Helm with optimistic cheerfulness; "and besides Beverley is no easy dose for twenty red niggers to take. I've seen him tried at worse odds than that, and he got out with a whole skin, too. Don't you fret about ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... September, when the squadrons had newly arrived at Saponay. Four machines of No. 5 Squadron were completely wrecked, and others damaged. Lieutenant L. A. Strange saved his Henri Farman machine, which had made a forced landing, by pushing it up against a haystack, laying a ladder over the front skids, and piling large paving-stones on the ladder, using hay twisted into ropes for tying down the machine. A diary of No. 3 Squadron records that when the machines of that squadron arrived at Saponay, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... deal like looking for a needle in a haystack," was the comment of the senator's son, after a full hour had ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... said Niedermeyer, with a laugh, "to be chiefly occupied in sending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That is, I went with him the morning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would suit him but a small haystack of white roses. I hope ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... mosque built in the same style, but much smaller. Of the rest of the habitations, a few are stone sheds, but the greater part are huts made of the dry stalks of the fine herb called bou rekabah, in the form of a conical English haystack, and are very snug, impervious alike to rain and sun. There are not more than one hundred and fifty of these huts and sheds, scattered over a considerable space, without any order; some are placed two or three together within a small enclosure, which serves ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... third time, with a friend, after hitting the gaoler in such a manner that he afterwards died. The friend was caught at once, but David ran well—"never did a fox double the hounds in better style"—and got away in woman's clothes. As he was resting in a haystack after his run of ten miles in an hour, he heard a woman ask "if that lad was taken that had broken out of Dumfries Gaol," and the answer: "No; but the gaoler died last night at ten o'clock." He got arrested in Ireland through sheer carelessness, was recognised and taken ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... here now for six months, and have had no opportunity as yet for showing any special adaptability. Now I propose to test your powers with something really difficult. Are you up to it, Sweetwater? Do you know the city well enough to attempt to find a needle in this very big haystack?" ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... a little "cole" or haystack of the smallest sort close at hand. To this Jock went, and, throwing off the top layer as possibly damp, he carried all the rest in his arms and piled it on Ralph till he was covered up ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... people looking at it, so I looked too. You won't believe me! 'No. 137, two hundred and fifty dollars. No. 294, six hundred and seventy-five dollars.' I looked for No. 137, and what do you suppose it was when I found it? It wasn't more'n two foot by eighteen inches—just a river and a haystack and a cow or two. No. 294 was some bigger, but there wasn't nothin' in it except a corn-field—just a plain corn-field, with some hills 'way off and mebbe a few clouds. And there was a ticket on it, and it said 'Sold.' What do you think ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... farmer (who wasn't). "There's some one behind that haystack, and the old watch-dog's back is up. See! there he runs; and as I'm a sinner, it's that black rascal who was loitering round, the day my ricks were fired, and you lads let him slip. Off after him, for I fancy I see smoke." And the farmer flew ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... to continue on the road after dark, although for some time before sunset he had been unable to see a farm-house or even a tree as far as the eye could reach. Giving "Paul" the rein, he followed a blind road, after crossing a sluice-way, which ultimately led them to a haystack on the prairie, where the captain decided to spend the night. A pack of prairie wolves, or coyotes, soon came upon the scene, several of which he shot, but he was shortly after reinforced by a friendly ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... mo'! What's that? Looks like a regular haystack," grunted Stuart, as he dropped from the train and stood in the fairway, one hand held out in front of him, and a ponderous finger ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... which she had forgotten. I jammed my foot down hard, and the car seemed to lift out of the air. We went across the ditch, through a stake and rider fence, through a creek and up the other side of the bank, and brought up against a haystack with a ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... farther and sit down in the fields, where an unfinished haystack offers us a couch. We can hardly distinguish the line of the horizon between the dark earth and the dark sky. A bat flits across our faces; and ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... the field headquarters of a General, commanding a division of twenty thousand men, whom we had the pleasure of meeting. Under a great haystack which stood alone in the center of an open field had been excavated several rooms used as the General's Headquarters. Some yards away from the haystack a stove-pipe projected out of the sod in a foolish unrelated manner; under it ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... maybe not—no telling what they'll do. However, by the time they can land and get checked up and ready to hunt for us, we'll be a mighty small needle, well hidden in a good big haystack." ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... villa and a steam launch at Surbiton: and was versed in the esoteric humours of the House. Who could have thought that the Hunter lay hid in him? Yet, after many weeks, they found him in a wild nook of Hampshire. Ragged, sun-burnt, the nocturnal haystack calling aloud from his frayed and weather-stained duds, his trousers tucked, he was tickling trout with godless native urchins; and when they would have won him to himself with honied whispers of American Rails, he answered but with babble of green ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... Battalion Headquarters lived in a little cottage, "No. 1" Albert Road, two Companies occupied a large farm house in the same neighbourhood fitted up as a rest house, one Company lived in a series of curiously named keeps—"Haystack," "Z Orchard," "Path," and "Dead Cow," and one Company only was in the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... through the white wonder of the winter woods, till, late in the afternoon, it swung back towards the starting point. The deer had undoubtedly intended to begin their yard that day on the ridge I had selected; for at noon I crossed the trail of the two from the haystack, heading as if by mutual understanding in that direction. But the big buck, feeling that he was followed, cunningly led his charge away from the spot, so as to give no hint of the proposed winter quarters to the enemy that was after him. Just as the long shadows were stretching across all ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... "without the praying for. When the fire came owre the hill the other day, I just put up a bit prayer to the Lord, that He'd spare the haystack, and He spared it. (I didna stop working, ye ken; I worked the harder; if ye dinna mean to work, ye should na pray.) But I never prayed for rain,—I didna, ye see, like to ask the Lord to upset all his gran' ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the next white face I saw would surely be his. India is a big place—a dreadfully big place—and the chances of finding any one particular person there are about as great as of discovering a needle in a haystack. He might have left India long ago; he might have fallen in the massacres of the past few months; he might be somewhere right across the continent. And so, though I could not get rid of a vague sort of expectation, during the first few days ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... to hum a hoary roundelay about the splendid audacity of old Mister Haystack and his questionable adventures, set to an unprintable refrain of "Winktum bolly mitch-a-kimo," or some such jumble of words. I have never heard this song in the mouth of any other man. He must have found it somewhere among ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... order; and having laid one round of eggs, off they go to erect, or rather to excavate, another dwelling. You have scarcely learned the way to their nook above the great beam when it is abandoned, and they betake themselves to a hole at the very bottom of the haystack. I wish I could tell you a story about a Hebrew prophet crawling under a barn after hen's eggs, and crawling out again from the musty darkness into sweet light with his clothes full of cobwebs, his eyes full of dust, his hands full of eggs, to find himself winking and blinking in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... as William and Conde. It was at once undignified and dangerous; and though danger was all to his taste, it was one thing to risk one's life in open battle with enemies worthy of a soldier's steel, and another and very different thing to run the chance of a stray bullet from behind a haystack or through a cottage window. The line of country he had to patrol (for his work was really little more than that) was all too large for the forces at his disposal. The enemies with whom he had mostly to deal were either old men or women, for the Covenanters were well supplied ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... health, but our leading men tell us he was needed in Washington. They wanted to see him and get some pledges from him. He'll be home by some lake boat in the morning. They get in about daylight, but it's like a needle in a haystack. Why, the last time I came from Mackinaw they landed me on a pile of soft coal—blest if they didn't! Stay all night, puss. Or go home, if ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... day was employed in piling up the cocoa-nut branches and wood. Ready made a square stack, like a haystack, with a gable top, over which he tied the long branches, so that the rain would ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?—for he tells me that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... but the song went on without a quaver. The girl was evidently in the field and the voice seemed to come vaguely from a haystack about twenty feet in ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fence after the escaping man, but in that heavy undergrowth he knew it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After a time he gave it up and returned to ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... off. The rule was that no natural impediment should cause them to digress or to stop. So they went through the fields and over the fences, across ditches and pools, and even clambered up and down a haystack, if one happened to be in the way, or through a barnyard. Of course they often reached home spattered with mud or even drenched to the skin from a plunge into the water, but with much fun, a livelier circulation, and a hearty appetite to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... blow your horn; what haystack have you been under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look over our spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... rumbling sound, like a very large old gentleman asleep after dinner; and there was a smaller sort of rumble going on at the same time; and there was a sort of crowing, clucking sound, such as a chicken might make if it happened to be as big as a haystack. ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... and I was warmed up a bit. The terrible cold snap we're having just now almost caught me before I got out of the water. The trouble was, I lost my bearings and wandered miles and miles out into the lake. Then it was like hunting a needle in a haystack to find dry land. I'm sure I travelled a circle for hundreds of miles before I accidentally wandered upon the beach down there by the Fresh Air place. I really believe this is a colder night than the first ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... gallant race of it. The foot men perspired and swore, but it was not to be. Our striped friend had the best of the start, and we gained not an inch upon him. To our unspeakable mortification, he reached the dense cover on ahead, where we might as well have sought for a needle in a haystack. Never, however, shall I forget that mad headlong scramble. Fancy an elephant steeple-chase. Reader, it was sublime; but we ached ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully in the garden way, and she did not doubt she could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she should do nicely, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... arrived at Salisbury Plain and were immediately ordered to march across the Plain another ten miles to Pond Farm, I knew I shouldn't be able to do it, and confided my troubles to Bill and another fellow named Laughlin. After we had gone about four miles we came to an inviting haystack; it was too much for us and all three of us slipped out of line, but before we could reach the stack we were caught by Major Anderson. Bully old major! He volunteered to carry my pack. In turn, I carried his greatcoat, and we ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... growing on the dry ground lying between the marshes," said Ned, "and I suppose that the Mexicans cut it for the Vera Cruz market. Maybe we can find something like a haystack or a windrow. Dry grass makes a ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... des Italiens between half-past two and half-past three that afternoon, should report immediately to me. The examination of these men proved a very tedious business indeed, but whatever other countries may say of us, we French are patient, and if the haystack is searched long enough, the needle will be found. I did not discover the needle I was looking for, but I came upon one quite as important, if not ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... I suppose. I crawled into a haystack to sleep one night, because it was warmer, and along comes a village constable and arrests me for being a tramp. At first they thought I was a runaway, and telegraphed my description all over. I told them I did n't have ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... sides of the road, because as it is now, I never fall off twice in succession on the same side. If I fell on the same side always, it would get to be monotonous after a while. This creature has scared at every thing he has seen to-day, except a haystack. He walked up to that with an intrepidity and a recklessness that were astonishing. And it would fill any one with admiration to see how he preserves his self-possession in the presence of a barley sack. This dare-devil bravery will be the death of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pursued by them in turn; and looking herself, with her white night-dress over her clothes, and her tousled hair, the weirdest little elfin figure in the world. Finally, to escape capture, she ran up a ladder that had been left against a haystack. Blocks of hay had been cut out, leaving a square shelf half way down the stack, on to which Beth scrambled from the ladder. There was room enough for her to lie at her ease up there and recover her breath. The hay ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... southward. At last a good sized gap in the long, ghostly line gave them courage to cross. They got through safely enough, and kept on steadily for a time across country. They skirted two villages, and reached a haystack near a river-bank before daybreak. Out toward the east they saw the faint outlines of a fairly large town. Before them lay the river, spanned by a bridge guarded at each end by a German sentry. Hope fell ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... recovered from their parting with Rhoda their spirits rose, and they tramped along lightly and cheerfully. It was eleven o'clock when they started, and through the night they did not meet a single person. Towards morning they got under a haystack near the road, and slept for some hours; then they walked steadily on until they had done twenty miles since their start. They went into a small inn, and had some breakfast, and then purchasing some bread and cold ham, went on through the town, and leaving the London ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... exclaimed. "Now I know! You're going to live in the haystack. A haystack is cozy and warm; it's wind-proof; it sheds water; and there's ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... he added significantly. "You see, it's my birthday to-day, and something like this always 'appens on my birthday. Last time it was a fish. I fell into the stream and went right under. When I got out on to the bank again I found a trout in my pocket. The time before I slept beside a haystack, and when I awoke at sunrise I felt something warm and soft against my face like feathers. It was feathers. There was a 'en's nest two inches from my nose, and six nice eggs in it all ready for my birthday breakfast. I only ate four of them. You should never take all the heggs out of a nest." He ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Fell off a haystack three years ago, and never spoke no more. We have always kept off the parish, ma'am. This bit of a cottage was my poor wife's, and she do want to leave it to the boy; but she be but frail, poor maid, and if she gave in, there'd be nothing for it but to give up the place and go to ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... bags, or tied up in handkerchiefs. This may sound old-maidish, but it is a trick I learnt from Swiss climbers and I am very thankful. Anyone who has hurriedly searched his sack for some particular bit of gear knows the sort of haystack which results, while if first-aid equipment, sealskins, spare bindings, emergency rations, mending outfit, etc., are all carried in separate, differently coloured bundles inside the sack, endless time is saved. This is particularly worth considering in a blizzard, when ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... it is so with my friends; and, for myself, I am happy in this occasion to make a public avowal of my own."[48] Without the "Reliques," "The Ancient Mariner," "The Lady of the Lake," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," "Stratton Water," and "The Haystack in the Floods" might never have been. Perhaps even the "Lyrical Ballads" might never have been, or might have been something quite unlike what they are. Wordsworth, to be sure, scarcely ranks among romantics, and he expressly ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... big thing stickin' up in that field a haystack? I—I'd like a piece of that sponge cake that's left from what we ate at noon, and then crawl in there an' sleep straight through till to-morrow," she declared. "Did you want to go on any ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... here," continued Wessex, leading up the lane; "but at the corner by the big haystack they join up with the tracks of a motor-car! I ask for nothing clearer! There was rain that afternoon, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... something special," Wallie replied, mysteriously. "Tie your horse to the haystack. I'll hurry ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... strange food 210 And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman, Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm, Himself his large estate and only charge, To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, Nobly superior to the household gear That forfeits us our privilege of nature. I bait him with my match-box and my pouch, Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke, His equal now, divinely unemployed. 220 Some smack of Robin Hood ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in which the two men had been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... myself more than I could have hoped on board our floating menagerie; stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of the incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotized by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner table, and winnied when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at one another in their cages ... and the big monkey, Jacko scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... of the devil!" said this very angry and inconsiderate papa. "Why can't she do it some other day?—why the Twelfth? Good heavens! is everything conspiring to vex and annoy me so that I sha'n't be able to hit a haystack?" ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with one or two others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblers complete. The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and looking for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task as searching for a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where to begin, and how? But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen's nest,—first find your bird, then ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the woods with the children, all of whom are as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have not been wanting, nor its hours of shame and confusion of face; but these are things that ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... nights on his manse wall to catch him smoking (and got him). Old wives grumbled by their hearths when he did not look in to despair of their salvation. He told the maidens of his congregation not to make an idol of him. His session saw him (from behind a haystack) in conversation with a strange woman, and asked grimly if he remembered that he had a wife. Twenty were his years when he came to Thrums, and on the very first Sabbath he knocked a board out of ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... cottagers were going to their day's labor, and saw, to their astonishment, that several acres of ground were strewn with black ashes. In the middle of a field there was a heap of whitened bones a great deal higher than a haystack. Nothing else was ever seen of the dreadful Chimera. And when Bellerophon had won the victory he bent forward and kissed Pegasus, while the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... hundred and seventy-five blanks. Once I almost saw a big grain-elevator burn in a Western town. That is, I would have seen it, if I had looked out of my hotel window. But I'd run two miles to see a burning haystack in the afternoon, and I was so dead tired that I slept right through the performance that night. And once I did see a row of stores burn, back in Homeburg—at the distance of a mile. I was in school, and the teacher wouldn't dismiss us. By stretching my neck several feet I could just ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... for a space, stole back to where he could hear any sound from the porch even if he could not see, and when he was certain that Baumberger had gone back to his bed, he got his horse, took him by a roundabout way to the stable, and himself slept in a haystack. At least, he made himself a soft place beside one, and lay there until the sun rose, and if he did not sleep it was not his fault, for ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... given them their last instructions, and at half-past eight P.M. he himself, accompanied only by a lieutenant and four sailors, cut the moorings of the chief explosion vessel, and drifted off towards the French fleet. Seated, that is, on top of 1500 barrels of gunpowder and a sort of haystack of grenades, he calmly floated off, with a squadron of fire-ships behind him, towards the French fleet, backed by great shore batteries, with seventy-three armed boats as a line of skirmishers. "It seemed to me," ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... Pelham. Archibald Powell held watch and ward on the heights of Heath and George Hall on the lofty meadow in Rowe. Each drew his pay from the treasury of the colony; and each had a magnificent lookout from his solitary sentry-box. Monadnock is in plain sight to the east, and Haystack to the north from the site of Fort Shirley and the Hoosacs to the west and Greylock overtopping them greeted the roving gaze of George Hall from the picketed enclosure of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... "Why, my friends, it would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack. You certainly do not understand the ways of the Indians. If the Indians have killed those men, they will take the bodies with them if they have to carry them a hundred miles. They will take them to their village and spend two or three ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... approached the little inn, I saw the stranger in a sloping meadow behind the house. She was seated at the foot of a sunny wall, against which the inhabitants of the place had piled a few stones. Her white dress shone out on the verdant meadow, and the shade of a haystack screened her face from the sun. She was reading in a little book that lay open on her lap, and every now and then interrupted her reading to play with the children from the mountain, who came to ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... cries Frere. "Pretty fellows you are, all of you! I suppose you couldn't hit a haystack at twenty yards? Why, the man wasn't three feet from the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... leaving an address. That would be useless. My decision is unalterable. It is futile to come after or try to find me. In a large city I will immediately become a needle in a haystack and that is what I want and need for my work. Do not worry. You know very well I can take excellent care of myself, and in case of unforeseen accident I will always be identified by your name and address on me. So by my very silence ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... for to live in the country! And I love for to live on the farm! I love for to wander in the grass-green fields— Oh, a country life has the charm! I love for to wander in the garden— Down by the old haystack; Where the pretty little chickens go 'Kick-Kack-Kackle!' And the little ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... about three o'clock to the ranch and pottered around the corral with the mare and colt, and unsaddled his horse before going into the house at all. It was only when he had discovered Johnny Croft's horse at the haystack, he said, that he began to wonder where the rider could be. He had gone to the house—and found him on the ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to trundle, had been tilted up, with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the children had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and their only shelter was a haystack in a field under ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... could not speak German, and there was no other way to make him understand. They were either too surprised or too sleepy to fire, for each of them let me pass. But after I had made a mark of myself three times I lost my nerve and sought cover behind a haystack. I lay there until there was light enough to distinguish trees and telegraph-poles, and then walked on to Ath. After that, when they stopped me, if they could not read, the red seal satisfied them; if they ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... Gabr'el," continued Jimmy unabashed. "When folks called him to blow his trumpet he was under the haystack fast asleep." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... they loved to spread the simple food they purchased by the way under some thick, tree, or beside a stream through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play. And they often preferred the chance shelter of a haystack, or a shed, to the less romantic repose offered by the small inns they alone dared to enter. They went in this much by the face and voice of the host or hostess. Once only Philip had entered a town, on the second day of their ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... If she'll talk like that to us, you know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the name (attempt) no doubt tends to affect the whole doctrine. Some acts may be attempts or misdemeanors which [67] could not have effected the crime unless followed by other acts on the part of the wrong-doer. For instance, lighting a match with intent to set fire to a haystack has been held to amount to a criminal attempt to burn it, although the defendant blew out the match on seeing that he was watched. /1/ So the purchase of dies for making counterfeit coin is a misdemeanor, although of course ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... Mr. Cavanagh. You hear a lot about the machinery of the law, but as a matter of fact, looking for a clever man hidden in London is a good deal like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then, he may have been bluffing when he told you he had the Prophet's slipper. He's already had his hand cut off through interfering with the beastly thing, and I really can't believe he would take further chances by keeping it in his possession. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer |
