"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... streamed slowly out to mingle with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance where Queen Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, and where in peaceful days doves flit and flutter down to peck at the grain ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the situation when the case of Fletcher vs. Peck * in 1810 raised before the Supreme Court the question whether the Georgia Legislature had the right to rescind a land grant made by a preceding Legislature. On any of three grounds Marshall might easily have disposed of this case before coming to the principal question. In the first ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... 5th, 1832, and was succeeded by Kinau, half-sister of the king. The king's minority was declared to be at an end in March, 1833. A tract of land was leased to Ladd & Co. in 1835, and about the same time a silk plantation was commenced by Peck & Titcomb. Cotton was raised and manufactured on a small scale ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... in the cities were dressing and undressing their dolls, Wanda was taming a palpitating heart in some little fury [Transcriber's note: furry?] breast or leaning breathlessly, like a small mother bird herself, over a nest in the grass watching eagerly for the tender bills to peck and chip their way out into the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... . . The kea is pretty to look at, having rich red and green plumage, but it is a cruel bird. It is said that it will fasten on the back of a living sheep and peck its way down to the kidney-fat, for which this parrot has a special fancy. No tourist need feel compunction ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... small birds is only equaled by their courage, or rather their audacity. Sometimes they may be seen furiously chasing birds twenty times their size, fastening upon their bodies, letting themselves be carried along in their flight, while they peck fiercely until their tiny rage is satisfied. Sometimes they fight each other vigorously. Impatience seems their very essence. If they approach a blossom and find it faded, they mark their spite by a hasty rending of the petals. Their only voice ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... with eating and drinking, and all of the very best, but she has gone and filled my portmanteau too, filled it up chock full, sir! A fine ham of bacon, sir, and a pair of roasted fowls, with two bottles of brandy, and a matter of a peck of biscuit." ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the rival of a mighty king? Which of you will compare yourself with him,—whom you dared not even strike, you and your robber crew, fairly in front, but, skulked round him till he fell pecked to death by you, as Lapland Skratlings peck to death the bear. Ten years ago he swept this hall of such as you, and hung their heads upon yon gable outside; and were he alive but one five minutes again, this hall would be right cleanly swept again! Give me his body,—or ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Robert must and ought to be a favorite. He is not yet forty, and for this he is himself my authority, and forty is the prime of life; yet, with an immense fortune and strong temptations, he has never launched out into a single act of imprudence or folly. No, Helen, he never sowed a peck of wild oats in his life. He is, on the contrary, sober, grave, silent—a little too much so, by the way—cautious, prudent, and saving. No man knows the value of money better, nor can contrive to make it go further. Then, as for managing a bargain—upon my soul, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... towers bedight. Now seeing that the sun was getting low, Our travellers at quicker pace did go. Thus as in haste near to the gate they came, Before them limped a bent and hag-like dame, With long, sharp nose that downward curved as though It beak-like wished to peck sharp chin below. Humbly she crept in cloak all torn and rent, And o'er a staff her tottering limbs were bent. So came she to the gate, then cried in fear, And started back from sudden-levelled spear; For 'neath the gate lounged lusty ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, it's thy look-out, not mine. She's a little ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... failing utterly to gather food. The king Powhatan was grown so lofty in his bearing, because of the honor some of our foolish people had shown him, that it was well nigh impossible to pay the price he asked, even in trinkets, for so small an amount as a single peck of corn. ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... child— See—in its face he prays her not to find The father's, but her own. 'He is yet green And may grow straight,' so flickers his last jest, Then out for ever. At the last he begged A penny-pott of malmsey. In the bill, All's printed now for crows and daws to peck, You'll find four shillings for his winding sheet. He had the poet's heart and God help all Who have that heart and somehow lose their way For lack of helm, souls that are blown abroad By the great winds of passion, without power To sway them, chartless captains. Multitudes ply Trimly enough from ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... starting a new fashion. This may be done by an ornament, if it is well selected so that it will "take."[381] Beads have been a fashionable ornament from the days of savagery until to-day. An Indian woman in Florida "had six quarts (probably a peck) of the beads gathered about her neck, hanging down her back, down upon her breasts, filling the space under her chin, and covering her neck up to her ears. It was an effort for her to move her head. She, however, was ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... "I'm in a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don't know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He'd not like it to get to the missis's ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to tell her—for ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... man eats a peck of dirt in the course of his life," said Happy Tom, "but I know that I've already beat the measure a dozen times over. Why, I took in a bushel at least at the Second Manassas, but I still live, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck. (She embraces JIM playfully. He hands her the gum, patting his shoulder as he sits on box.) Oh, thank ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... should always be money. A foot is always twelve inches, but when is a dollar a dollar? If ton weights changed in the coal yard, and peck measures changed in the grocery, and yard sticks were to-day 42 inches and to-morrow 33 inches (by some occult process called "exchange") the people would mighty soon remedy that. When a dollar is not always a dollar, when the 100-cent dollar becomes the 65-cent ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... in the county, and again proceeded at the gallop. When he reached the Grassmarket, Edinburgh—a full hour before the mail,—the grain-selling was just starting, and before the alarming war news had got time to spread Rennie had every peck of wheat in the market bought up. He must have coined an enormous profit by this smart transaction; but to him it seemed to matter nothing at all. He was one of the most careless of the harum-scarum sons of Adam, and if he made money easily, so in a like manner ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... eight pounds of the undercut of prime beef, half a Bayonne ham, two young chickens, and a sweetbread. To these add leeks, chervil, carrots, turnips, fifty heads of asparagus, a few truffles, a large cow-cabbage, a pint of French beans, a peck of very young peas, a tomato cut in slices, some potatoes, and a couple of bananas. Pour in three gallons of water, and boil furiously till your soup is reduced to about a pint and a-half. As it boils, add, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... and very fond of children, and very good to all the world as long as it was good to him. Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of the nursery window—that when any one else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck them, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... imp, and she was sentenced to be burned, and twenty shillings went into the pockets of Master Hopkins. In this manner he made one old woman confess, because four flies had appeared in the room, that she was attended by four imps, named "Ilemazar," "Pye-wackett," "Peck-in-the-crown," ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... they were off in the way of food. She replied that they had about a peck of corn meal in the house and several bushels of potatoes buried in the garden; and she reckoned they could do right well till she could get some more washing and other work to do. I gave that patient, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... admitted? But, no! no! I tell you, no! You shall never be able to utter more than pec, pec, pec; and while with your mouths open you are stammering and stuttering to get out cavi, Satan and his blackguards shall come and peck you, even as crows peck carrion. Yes, Jehu and Jezebel! Remember! I give ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... for the onslaught of the ten, as men had thought they must, sprang forward, each at the line of foes who were before him. While the ten still stood confused, for it had been their plan to attack, the Wolf-Brethren were upon them. Groan-Maker was up, but as for no great stroke. He did but peck, as a bird pecks with his bill, and yet a man dropped dead. The Watcher also was up, but he fell like a falling tree, and was the death of one. Through the lines of the ten passed the Wolf-Brethren in the gaps that each had made. Then they turned swiftly and charged towards each ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... me afore he deed,' continued Reuben, slowly; 'an he towd me aw about his affairs. Six hunderd pund he'd got saved—six-hunderd-pund! Aye, it wor a lot for a yoong mon like him, and after sich a peck o' troobles! And he towd me Mr. Gurney ud pay us th' interest for yor bringin-up—th' two on yo; an whan yo got big, Davy, I wor to tak keawnsel wi Mr. Gurney, an, if yo chose for t' land, yo were to ha yor money ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... understand it: some people are worms, others sparrows. The sparrows are the merchants. They peck the worms. Such is their destined lot. They are necessary But I and you—all of you—are to no purpose. We live so that we cannot be compared to anything—without justification, merely at random. And we ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... earth has turned its brown to green After three nights of humming rain, And in the valleys peck and preen Linnets with a ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... dwarfs he was the smallest. His feet were like an eagle's, and close to the knees, for legs he had none. His royal robes were not above half a yard long, and trailed one-third part upon the ground. His head was as big as a peck, and his nose long enough for twelve birds to perch on. His beard was bushy enough for a canary's nest, and his ears reached a foot above his head.—Comtesse D'Aulnoy, Fairy Tales ("The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked forth in its morning-time to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the first mention of the potato occurs in the household book of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. From Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh we learn that the price in 1701 was half-a-crown a peck. Robertson, of Irvine discovered what he thought the earliest evidence of potatoes in Scotland in the household book of the Eglinton family. The date of this entry, however, was 1733, and Robert Chambers showed that the date in the Buccleuch ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... describes the blotches. In this one ordinary speech seemed to have been insufficient to describe the blotch, and he had to resort to a neologism. "Is that supposed to be a 'perpendicament'? It's got a head like a sea devil; the upper part seems like a peacock trying to peck him in ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... left upon the mountain side, more desolate and helpless than before, with no possessions in all the world except a pair of pistols, a saddle, a bridle, a side of bacon, a peck of corn meal, and a few ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... recollections of my childhood are my mother, with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty, our faithful serving maid, with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wonder the birds didn't peck her ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... we were threatened with a tremendous influx of people. The new bridge at Fulton Ferry across the East River would soon be opened. It looked as though there was to be another bridge at South Ferry, and another at Peck Slip Ferry. Montauk Point was to be purchased by some enterprising Americans, and a railroad was to connect it with Brooklyn. Steamers from Europe were to find wharfage in some of the bays of Long Island, and the passage across the Atlantic reduced to six days! Passengers six days out of Queenstown ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... think she is, at all," said Hester, her plumage ruffled, administering her contradiction right and left to her two best friends like a sharp peck from a wren. "I think we ought to believe the best of people until they prove themselves ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... discarded my first notes, and in another week of ten hours a day labor I had results which astonished myself and satisfied him. Still there was no trace of praise in words or manner. He signified that it would do by placing before me about a half a peck of bones, telling me to see what I could make of them, with no further directions to guide me. I soon found that they were the skeletons of half a dozen fishes of different species; the jaws told me so much at a first inspection. The task evidently was to fit the separate bones together ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... to melt at the tongue's root, Confounding taste with scent, Beats a full peck of garden fruit: ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... th' monkey on 'is back ower this letter job,' said the father secretly to me. 'Mother, 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tom-foolery, isn't it? Ay! What's good o' makkin' a peck o' trouble over what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No—not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ty, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... name was given to the old gaol formerly existing in Peck Lane. A writer, in 1802, described it as a shocking place, the establishment consisting of one day room, two underground dungeons (in which sometimes half-a-dozen persons had to sleep), and six or seven night-rooms, some of them constructed ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... chicken, Miss West. He was just a little golden ball. He would run up to me and peck out of my hand. And he was handsome when he grew up, too—white as snow, with such a beautiful curving white tail, though Mary Vance said it was too short. He knew his name and always came when I called him—he was a very intelligent rooster. And Aunt Martha had no right to kill ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with a speckled coat and a comb the color of red coral: very small, but lively and vigorous, and exhibiting in all her movements both grace and stateliness. She would nestle in my lap, take a ride on my shoulder, and walk the length of my arm to peck at a bit of cake in my hand, regarding me all the while with a queer sidelong glance, and croaking out her satisfaction and content. When she was ready to go she walked to the kitchen door, and asked in a very shrill voice to be let out. She continued these visits till late in the fall, when she ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... which they were created. On this point, the evidence is clear and satisfactory. In Vermont, a prohibitory law has existed for over twenty-three years. In some parts of the State it is rigidly enforced; in others with less severity. Judge Peck, of the Supreme Court says: "The law has had an effect upon our customs, and has done away with that of treating and promiscuous drinking. * * * In attending court for ten years, I do not remember to have seen a drunken man." In St. Johnsbury, where there ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... third was an aged starling, for whose convenience a wicker cage hung in one corner; but the owner was hopping in perfect freedom about the hearth, and occasionally varying that exercise by pausing to give a mischievous peck to the tail of the fourth, a very large white and tan dog. The dog appeared so familiarised with this treatment as scarcely to notice it, unless the starling gave a harder peck than usual, when he merely moved his tail out of its way, accompanying the action in specially severe ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... occasionally, and keep the vessel well covered. When slacked, strain into another barrel through a sieve. Put a pound of glue in a glue-pot; melt it over a slow fire until dissolved. Soak the glue in cold water before putting the pot over the fire. Dissolve a peck of salt in boiling water. Make a thin paste of three pounds of ground rice boiled half an hour. Stir to this half a pound of Spanish whiting. Now add the rice paste to the lime; stir it in well; then the glue; mix well; cover the barrel, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the most prodigal waste, on every hand. In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and thrown away or left behind. If I went to a grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the heaping measure, the groceryman, instead of picking it up, kicked it into the gutter for the wheels of his wagon to run over. The butcher's waste filled my mother's soul with ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... scenery worth looking at," said Harry, as we started again, after watering the horses, and taking in a bag with a peck of oats—"to feed at three o'clock, Frank, when we stop to grub, which must do al fresco—" my friend explained—"for the landlord, who kept the only tavern on the road, went West this summer, bit by the land mania, and there is now no stopping place 'twixt this and Warwick," ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... make a road with his club among the albatross. These birds were sitting upon their nests, and almost covered the surface of the ground, nor did they otherwise derange themselves for their new visitors than to peck at their legs ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... one of Fred's best chums. Not a great while back he had fallen into what he called a "peck of trouble, with the pot boiling over," and Fred had been of great help to him. In fact, had it not been for him the mystery of who was taking some of Miss Muster's opals might never have been cleared up; and the elderly spinster, who was Bristles' mother's aunt, must ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... a laugh. "A peck of them will completely satisfy me, my boy." Then, turning to Lobelalatutu, who was keenly watching ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... sky, that boded ill for the future. The cold was intense. Although dressed in the thickest of tweeds and sheepskin jacket, sable pelisse, enormous "bourka," and high felt boots, it was all I could do to keep warm even when going at a hand gallop, varied every hundred yards or so by a desperate "peck" on ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... Aunt Polly," argued the little girl, her eyes widening; "and I thought sisters were always alike. We had two sets of 'em in the Ladies' Aiders. One set was twins, and THEY were so alike you couldn't tell which was Mrs. Peck and which was Mrs. Jones, until a wart grew on Mrs. Jones's nose, then of course we could, because we looked for the wart the first thing. And that's what I told her one day when she was complaining that people called her Mrs. Peck, and I said if they'd only look for the wart as I ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... enough; but he was not going to tell this crushing fine lady how well he remembered. If he had not exposed his heart for Elisabeth to peck at in the old days, he certainly was not going to expose it now; then she would only have been scientifically interested—now she would probably be ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... strongest in the State!" denied the stranger. "I know a man who can lift a barrel of flour as easily as I can a peck ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... but he bore up. When she was asleep, he said, he would hop on to the frilly things of her night-gown and peck at ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at. Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail; shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew. Gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds of the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... a certain thing Ferdinand Laxley had said he had heard from the mouth of this lady's brother when ale was in him. Alas! how one seed of a piece of folly will lurk and sprout to confound us; though, like the cock in the eastern tale, we peck up zealously ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... handsome craft, she is," the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. "There," John would add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hullo there, Peck! where are you?" roared a stern voice from the stable department of the circus, just as the clown's wife seemed about to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... get away from here; nothing has ever grown on this farm for us two but wormwood. Perhaps there are new, happy days waiting for us out there; and there are parsons everywhere. If we two work together at some good work out there, we shall earn a peck of money. Then one day we'll go up to a parson, and throw down half a hundred krones in front of his face, and it 'u'd be funny if he didn't confirm you on the spot—and perhaps let himself be kicked into the bargain. Those kind of folk ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had yet, I had but a small quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peck of each kind. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... the mast does universally yield (once in two years at least) for the fatting of hogs and deer, I shall shew upon another occasion, before the conclusion of this Discourse. A peck of acorns a day, with a little bran, will make an hog ('tis said) increase a pound-weight per diem for two months together. They give them also to oxen mingled with bran, chop'd or broken; otherwise they ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... devil with systems and avenues! said he. That was all the doing of those cursed Frenchmen. He knew how it would be when they brought their plaguy frigate here in the first fever year—'93—and the fools marched up from Peck's Slip after a red nightcap, and howled their cut-throat ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... conduct. It is a sound old book, written in the thirteenth century by a certain good Bishop Poore (excellent name!) for a household of such good women at Tarrent, on the River Stour; and it contains a peck of counsel which might be preached not only upon the scandal-mongering women who are the curse of this place—yes, and applied; for it recommends here and there, a whipping as salutary—but even, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... waist line, with the opening straight and wide, And there wasn't any limit to what you could get inside; They would hold a peck of marbles, and a knife and top and string, And snakes and frogs and turtles; ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... you can't throw worth a cent," replied Jamie, gamboling down the hall in his slippers and producing a ball from some of the mysterious receptacles in which boys have the art of storing rubbish enough to fill a peck measure. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Peloponnesian Wars, seems to have regarded art as a matter of illusion, if one may judge by the stories told of his work. The tale of his painting a bunch of grapes so like reality that the birds came to peck at them proves either that the painter's motive was deception, or that the narrator of the tale picked out the deceptive part of his picture for admiration. He painted many subjects, like Helen, Penelope, and many genre ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... and gave him a peck of a kiss, "and does not that prove what I say, that there are no villainies in Ferrara? For, see, the trees are as thick as a forest." She made him laugh again before many paces. His ringing tones caught the ears of Captain Mosca, and set ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... doctor. "I am not. I would like to see her married some day. Meanwhile I would like to see a dozen lovers about her. It is as natural for a young girl to coquet as it is for a canary to peck at its seed or trim its bill on a bit of fishbone. It is had for the girl and the canary when ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... position. Pleasant as that had been, it no longer contented the restless, ambitious Barnum. He opened a "porter-home," but sold out a few months later, at a good profit, and took another clerkship, this time at 29 Peck Slip, New York, in the store of a certain David Thorp. He lived in his employer's family, with which he was a great favorite, and where he had frequent opportunities of meeting old friends, for Mr. Thorp's place was a great resort for Bethel ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens, and two pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, sow, and till half an acre of the lord's ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... just like they were children, too. Sometimes Aunt Nellie seems just like a girl, she is so jolly, she is not a bit like Aunt Josephine, though I am sure Aunt Josephine is a very nice lady and I don't mean that I don't love her, only Aunt Nellie kisses me as if she liked too and does not just peck my cheek. Last week she brought me home some lovly middy bloses like Peggy wears, and I play in bloomers all day and put on a white skirt for supper; Mr. Lee says Peggy and I look like twins. Auntie brought me a bathing suit, too, and a tennis raket Peggy ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... the little orphan, but he did not know how to peck it with his bill. I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the forsaken nest. What will become of him there, if his mother does not ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... a great noise of some that endeavor to peck out the crows' eyes; that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out their eyes with new annotations; among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for honor's sake I often mention, deserves if not the first place ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... you waited" Ernest Dowson Romance Andrew Lang Good-Night Hester A. Benedict Requiescat Rosamund Marriott Watson The Four Winds Charles Henry Luders The King's Ballad Joyce Kilmer Heliotrope Harry Thurston Peck "Lydia is Gone this Many a Year" Lizette Woodworth Reese After Lizette Woodworth Reese Memories Arthur Stringer To Diane Helen Hay Whitney "Music I Heard" Conrad Aiken Her Dwelling-place Ada Foster Murray The Wife from Fairyland Richard Le Gallienne In the Fall o' Year Thomas ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... ob de pen. Deir han's was only fit for de ruff use ob de swoard. Now, as de modern poet says, our swoards rust in deir cubbards, an' peas, sweet peas, cover de lan'. An' what has wrot all dis change? De pen. Do I take a swoard now to get me a peck ob sweet taters, a pair ob chickens, a pair ob shoes? No, saar. I jess take my pen an' write an order for 'em. Do I want money? I don't git it by de edge ob de swoard; I writes a check. I want a suit ob clothes, for instance—a stroke ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... that art to be! Is Royalty grown a mere wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow, mayest alight at pleasure, and peck? ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... some good,' said he turning into Peck Slip. 'Saved two young women. Took 'em off the streets. Fine women now both of them—respectable, prosperous, and one is beautiful. Man who s got a mother, or a sister, can't help ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... and gave them hearts without fear. One of them, perhaps the original bold explorer, seeking vainly for another crumb, hopped upon his bare hand as it lay in the grass, but feeling its warmth flew away a foot, hung hovering a moment or two, then came back and took a peck. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... un wil schleisse vn redern die rappen volget alle zit hin nach vn stechet sy." "Here they bring the murderers, in order to drag them upon the hurdle to execution, and to break them upon the wheel. The crows follow and peck them." ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of driving beautiful white horses beside sparkling waters ... and through flowery meadows ... And great green birds perched on all the trees and flew towards her as if to peck the cherries of her lips ... but when she tried to beat them off they all turned into Timothys and she hugged them close to ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... small ball or a marble. His game was to give it a hard peck and see it roll. If it rolled away from him, he ran after it and pecked again; but sometimes it rolled toward him, and then he bounded into the air as if he thought it would bite. And what was funny, he was always offended at this conduct of the ball, and went off ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... hatched, of picking up small particles of food, seems to be started into action through the sense of hearing; for with chickens hatched by artificial heat, a good observer found that "making a noise with the finger-nail against a board, in imitation of the hen-mother, first taught them to peck at their meat."[18] ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... peck of cling-stone peaches; such as come late in the season, and are very juicy. Pare them, and cut them from the stones. Crack about half the stones and save the kernels. Leave the remainder of the stones whole, and mix them with the cut peaches; ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... attendant upon literary excellence might with equal justice be extended to every species of merit, and might be urged against all that is good in art or nature.—Scandal is said to attack always the fairest characters, as the birds always peck most at the ripest fruit; but would you for this reason have no fruit ripen, or no characters aspire to excellence? But if it be your opinion that women are naturally inferior to us in capacity, why do you feel so much apprehension ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... at the House of the interpreter, the fighting, the adventures, the pleasing young ladies at the palace the name of which was Beautiful, and their very interesting museum of curiosities. As for the allegorical meaning, it went through her consciousness like a peck of wheat through a bushel measure with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... pretty tired of Mr. Rogers, even before he died; and they kept the supply a-goin' till—all was blue, before they could settle on anybody. In fact they couldn't seem to agree on anybody till Mr. Peck come." ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... man!" Trigger jumped up, bent over his chair and gave him a quick peck on an ear tip. "If I ask one more question, we'll be sitting here the next two hours. I'll run instead! See you ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... as heart can wish. A peck o' trouble, by the looks of it. Chris Blanchard be gone—vanished like a dream! Mother Blanchard called her this marnin', an' found her bed not so much as creased. She've flown, an' there's a braave upstore 'bout it, for every ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... comrades assured me the jays were not in need of my sympathy or pity. They liked the invigorating cold and chattered merrily in the desolate boughs and enjoyed many a nice meal from under the melting snow. The crimson dogwood berries, standing out like rosettes of coral, at which they liked to peck, also furnished them an aesthetic and sumptuous feast. Much more to be dreaded than the winter's cold was the cruel sportsman, ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... accomplished and deeply lamented Lady Amberly; and they seem to prove conclusively that the chick does not need a single moment's tuition to enable it to stand, run, govern the muscles of its eyes, and peck. Helmholtz, however, is contending against the notion of pre-established harmony; and I am not aware of his views as to the organisation of experiences of race or breed.] In fact, the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a Power absolutely ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... been sprinkled.' The sharp, quick tones of the sergeant of the guard (more like the sound of a tenpenny nail scratching mahogany than aught else in nature) soon set matters right. You think you have surely swallowed your peck of dirt that morning, and feel even more gastric than you usually do on an empty stomach. You can go home to breakfast now: but you hear Johnny Todd's cheery voice sing out; 'Fall in, cocktail squad!' and march off with a score of your comrades to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... see from the table, that the plot which had the superphosphate, potash, etc., the year before, gives a peck less wheat this year than the other plot which had none. Practically, the yield is the same. There is an increase of 13 bushels of wheat per acre—and this increase is clearly ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... them was a real one; not the perfunctory peck of greeting that usurps its name. For, as flowers most exquisite spring from strangely unpromising soil, so had those two weeks of isolation and heart-hunger on the unloveliest hill-top of Northern India generated an ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... unexpected quarter. Grace's rooster had at last been persuaded to rush violently between the required posts. In one of its excited turns, it brushed close behind the old goose. Here was a chance for revenge! The rooster gave a flying peck at the goose's tail ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... squares one peck of small potatoes and a pound and a half of salt pork; arrange the fish, pork, and potatoes into mounds; divide each equally into four parts; add one quarter of the fish to the stock, next a quarter of the pork, ...
— Fifty Soups • Thomas J. Murrey
... were, in the streets, people to press against you, or horses to collide with you, as to make (his horse) shy, and he were to fall, would that too be a joke? The gall of both of you is larger than a peck measure; but it's all you, Ming Yen, who has incited him, and when I go back, I'll surely tell the nurses ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and New York were John Peck, John B. Vashon and Peyton Harris and all through the North, each state held colored men who were anxious to do what they could to elevate the race, and it seems as if God gave each one a special duty to perform, which combined, made one mighty stimulus to the young colored youth to do what he ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... well as the Greeks, and it is a fact that in the year 1073 her poems were burnt at Rome and Constantinople, "as being," in the words of Professor Gilbert Murray, "too much for the shaky morals of the time." Another recent writer, Professor Peck of Columbia University, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... heart, if you can find it," declared Winnie, "but unless you handle her just right, you're in for a peck of trouble. Rosemary's temper blazes up and burns fierce enough dear knows, but it burns itself out good and clean and leaves a good clean ash. Now you take Sarah—she goes into a fit of the ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, and the poorer ones by the peck-measure. It was a curious and melancholy spectacle, when an overladen coal-cart happened to pass through the street and drop a handful or two of its burden in the mud, to see half a dozen women and children scrambling for the treasure-trove, like a dock of hens and chickens ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... work I am able ter do now is a little work in de garden. Dey say I is too ole ter work, so charity gives me a little ter go upon every week. For one weeks 'lowance o' sumptin' ter eat dey gives me, hold on, I will show you, dat beats guessin'. Here it is: 1/2 peck meal (corn meal), 2 lbs oat meal, 2 lb dry skim milk, and 1 lb plate meat. Dis is what I gits fer one week 'lowance. I can't work much, but de white folks gib me meals fur washin' de woodwork in dere houses, de white folks in Hayes's Bottom. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... liked and many could not eat. It was boiled cracked wheat with a little meat chopped in, no sauce or other relish upon it. I mentioned the case to the doctor, who said, "They purchased a quantity of potatoes, half a peck of which I took to my house and cooked, finding only one or two, among the whole, fit to put into the human stomach. Hence, I looked over my army dietary, found the cracked wheat answered a good purpose, and proposed it ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... that I was at the picture show today I'd be in a peck of trouble," she said. "She won't let me go to the movies at all and I have to sneak away and I do enjoy them so much. Now you won't tell your mother or my mother or ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... feathers—a kind of downy hair. I can hardly express how pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the front backwards, like a hen, and gave a chirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was just nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if ever he was hatched, as soon as ever I found the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... been shot when very young, some stray pellets having found their way into his wing. Norah had found him fluttering helplessly along the ground, and had picked him up, sustaining a severe peck in doing so. It was, however, the first and last peck he ever gave Norah. From that moment he seemed to recognize her as a friend, and to adopt her as an intimate—marks of esteem he accorded to very few others. Norah had handed him to Jim on arriving at the house, a change which ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... woman, and a mother into the bargain. She had, too, the remains of a woman's heart, where lingered a few maternal sympathies. These were quick to prompt her to duty. Turning away without a reply, she weighed out two pounds of fish, measured a peck of potatoes, poured out some milk in a cup, and filled a small paper with flour. These she handed to Mrs. ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... get out soon. The sun and the rain will thaw us out if we don't dig a way. Hullo! The lid's off the tin, and the biscuits are half of them in the snow. Never mind. Set to work and eat, while I pick up all I can find. I'm hungry. Peck away, lad, and think you're a squirrel eating your winter store. I say, who would think one could be so warm and snug surrounded ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... of houses at bleak and bare spots,—you wonder how there can be any enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,—it looks observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... any anxiety to say a word to any soul concerning the Master whom they profess to love. I know, of course, that deep feeling is silent, and that the secrets of Christian experience are not to be worn on the sleeve for daws to peck at. And I know that the conventionalities of this generation frown very largely upon the frank utterance of religious convictions on the part of religious people, except on Sundays, in Sunday-schools, pulpits, and the like. But for all that, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... reflecting on the chances that Sara and Lottie might turn out to be big cats and jump on him. At last his heart told him they were really nicer than they looked, and he hopped nearer and nearer, darted at the biggest crumb with a lightning peck, seized it, and carried it away to the other side ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was not knocked out of me I don't know, but it wasn't, and I kicked and thrashed about till I got my head and shoulders to the surface, with a peck of snow down the back of my neck. I looked for the buffaloes, and there they stood in blank astonishment, wondering, I guess, if I always got off of a horse that way. I ran my sleeve along the barrel of my rifle, rested it over a lump of frozen snow ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... no fool," declared Nick, hotly. "He's made a peck o' money there in London town, and 's going to buy the Great House in Chapel lane, and ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... stops opposite my door.—Do I want any huckleberries?—If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon my soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, spreads his broad hands around its lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries, and so they run nimbly along the narrowing channel until they tumble rustling down in a black cascade and tinkle on the resounding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... not know that for ten years Mr. Stockton had refused the offers of his friends to put him up for membership at the literary club to which his fancy turned so fondly and so often. He could not afford it. When friends from out of town called on him, he took them to Peck's for a French table ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... he sees your eye upon him, he hops a little nearer; not too near, however, either to mislead you or to put himself in your hands, but just near enough to tempt you to try to tempt him. You hold out a nut, and then, with a quick dart and a sharp peck with a bill trained to certain and sure work, your thumb and finger lose that which they held, and Mr. Bluejay is eating it in perfect security well beyond your reach. Oh, he is a fascinating creature is this bunch of beautiful blue feathers decorating the harshest voice of all birddom ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... bugs and angleworms and arranged them temptingly in rows, but the big, white rooster passed them by with a feeble peck or two. Bits of bread failed to tempt him, or even his favorite cooky crumbs. His eighth appetite departed—his seventh, sixth, ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... and bent his head in thought. An instant later he looked up. "You can't do it," he informed the detective vehemently; "you haven't got a shred of evidence against me! What's there? A pile of oranges and a peck of trash! What of it?... Besides," he threatened, "if you pinch me, you'll have to take the girl in, too. I swear that whatever stealing was done, she did it. I'll not be trapped this way by her and let her off without a squeal. Take me—take her; ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... poetess of you! But as to the mud, I don't mind a little mud. It is only dirt, and has its part in the inevitable peck, I hope." ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... character of the Moor, Iago despises Othello's unsuspicious trustingness as imbecility, while he hates him as a man because his nature is the perpetual opposite and perpetual reproach of his own. Now, Reineke would not have hurt a creature, not even Scharfenebbe, the crow's wife, when she came to peck his eyes out, if he had not been hungry; and that [Greek: gastros ananke], that craving of the stomach, makes a difference quite infinite. It is true that, like Iago, Reineke rejoices in the exercise of his intellect: the sense of his power and the scientific employment ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... you don't get us into a peck of it," chuckled Grace, tucking herself in under the blankets. "Thank you for getting the bed so ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... life of Priest Sander began in 1901. Then Jos. C. Peck, racer and raiser of trotting horses, met this priest in Albany, who wore the ordinary garb of a citizen. They met at the race track, which was not a very good recommendation to say the least of it, ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... again, sprang toward her friend, dabbed a little kiss, like the peck of a bird, on each cheek, cried: "Well, I must be off, or mother will have to tie up the professor to keep him," and was off accordingly with the speed and lightness ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... way, was rendered with Victorian propriety by a well-known Oxford professor, "What a quantity of perspiration!" etc. Probably Horace had been watching the sowing of barley or oats on a fine March morning, "the peck of March dust," which we know is "worth a King's ransom," flying behind the harrows. George Cruikshank gives a very spirited and comic realization of Horace's lines, in Hoskin's Talpa, where ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, harvesting, thrashing, grinding ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the Volksmaerchen der Serben collected by Karadschitsch, the youngest brother has to take his brother-in-law's horse over a bridge under which he sees an immense kettle full of boiling water in which men's heads are cooking while eagles peck at them. He then passes through a village where all is song and joyfulness because, so the inhabitants tell him, each year is fruitful with them and they live, therefore, in the midst of plenty. Then he sees two dogs quarrelling which he cannot succeed in separating. He next ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... Nag, if you ask for Humfrey the Ostler, by the same token he has bin there this foure dayes and had but one peck of provender. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... said Jo. "Do you remember the time he had here last fall, with that braggin' hunter chap, Mc-Something, who came along with his rifle, darin' all hands about here to shute with him? He had one of them new peck-lock rifles, and nobody dared shute with him; and Bart came along, and asked to look at the feller's gun, and said something 'bout it, and Mc-Somebody dared him to shute, and Bart sent over to Haw's and got 'old Potleg,' that Steve Patterson shot himself with, and loaded 'er up, and then ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... been known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... can be finished with a dark stain and waxed, or, as it is small, it can be easily fumed. If stain is used, stain and wax the pieces before putting them together. The fuming process is more easily done after the clock is assembled. Secure a bucket, a peck measure, or any receptacle large enough, when inverted, to put over the clock. Pour about 2 oz. of strong ammonia into a saucer or small pan. Support the clock above the saucer and cover both with the inverted bucket. Allow it to stand for three or four days—the ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor
... of his elegance and art in the wedding-supper, which had been committed to his management and direction. This genial banquet was entirely composed of sea-dishes; a huge pillaw, consisting of a large piece of beef sliced, a couple of fowls, and half a peck of rice, smoked in the middle of the board: a dish of hard fish, swimming in oil, appeared at each end; the sides being furnished with a mess of that savoury composition known by the name of lub's-course, and a plate of salmagundy. The second course displayed a goose of a monstrous magnitude, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... ready to leave, and the locomotive was filling the great train-shed with stertorous hissings, when a red-faced man slipped through the gates to saunter over to the Pullman and to peck inquisitively at the porter. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... thy pan o' milk, missus, and set on t' kettle. Milk may do for wenches, but Philip and me is for a drop o' good Hollands and watter this cold night. I'm a'most chilled to t' marrow wi' looking out for thee, lass, for t' mother was in a peck o' troubles about thy none coining home i' t' dayleet, and I'd to keep ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his sentient heart For crows and jays to peck, ofttimes to such He seemed a silent fellow, who o'ermuch Held from the general gossip-ground apart, Or tersely spoke, and tart: How should they guess what eagle tore, within, His quick of sympathy for humblest smart Of human wretchedness, or probed his spleen ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... playing with pigeons. The number of pigeons she collects about her is quite amazing; you would never have thought that San Massimo or the neighboring hills contained as many. They flutter down like snowflakes, and strut and swell themselves out, and furl and unfurl their tails, and peck with little sharp movements of their silly, sensual heads and a little throb and gurgle in their throats, while Dionea lies stretched out full length in the sun, putting out her lips, which they come to kiss, and uttering strange, cooing sounds; or hopping about, flapping ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... something of a troubled fashion at Anderson, then at Carroll. His mind was in the throes of displacing a barrel of sugar and a half-peck of pease by a little boy. Then his face brightened. He ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched. So it does; but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? What made it lay the foundations of those limbs which should enable it to run about? What made it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was hatched, so that it might peck all round the larger end of the eggshell and make a hole for itself to get out at? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken throws away this horny tip; but is it reasonable to suppose that it would have grown it at all unless it had known that it would want something with which to break ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... I had lost control, and if you'd only wanted you could have stopped its plunge; but you'd rather see me get into a peck of trouble. How d'ye suppose I'm ever going to lug that heavy thing back up to the road now?" ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... quarreling himself, old Mr. Crow loved to look on while others wrangled. And though he had no taste himself for actual fighting, he liked to see his neighbors pummel and peck and buffet and ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... be noticed from the table, only part of Longstreet's corps was present. The main body had been sent, about Feb. 1, under command of its chief, to operate in the region between Petersburg and Suffolk, where our forces under Peck were making a demonstration. This detail reduced Lee's army by ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... a district extending from Canal Street on the north to Wall Street on the south; but Edison soon realized that this territory was too extensive for the initial experiment, and he decided finally upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce, and Ferry streets, Peck Slip and the East River, an area nearly a square mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps taken to enable him to figure on such a station and system was to have men go through this district on various days and note the number of gas jets burning at each hour ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... admits of no doubt whatever. For there should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one, "You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him." Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise. There is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn. But age too must have its ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... dinner served up just as the king had given these orders, the bird, flapping his wings, hopped off the king's hand, and flew on to the table, where he began to peck the bread and victuals, sometimes on one plate, and sometimes on another. The king was so surprised, that he immediately sent the officer to desire the queen to come and see this wonder. The officer related it to her majesty, and she ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... one, from a piece of birch bark in which they were rolled, and another pecked a large hole in a keg of castile soap. A duck which I had picked and laid down for a few minutes had the entire breast eaten out by one or more of these birds. I have seen one alight in the middle of my canoe and peck away at the carcass of a beaver I had skinned. They often spoil deer saddles by pecking into them near the kidneys. They do great damage to the trappers by stealing the bait from traps set for martens and minks, and by eating trapped game. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... in a maze, in a peck of troubles, puzzled, or at a loss what course to take in any business. To look over the wood; to ascend the pulpit, to preach: I shall look over the wood at St. James's on Sunday next. To look through the wood; to stand in the pillory. Up ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al. |
