"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him it was the third of June:—barely three weeks since that strange, poignant parting with Rose. Not seven weeks since the infinitely more poignant and terrible parting with Lance. Yet, as his mind stirred unwillingly, picking up threads, he seemed to be looking back across a measureless gulf ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... life merely as a looker-on," said Arnold. "I would prefer to be an actor in it. When I have built my own house, and have digged my own potatoes, I shall know the meaning of house and potatoes. My wife, meanwhile, will be picking the roses for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... curiosity to her, as she was so different from the Chinese women. But as poor Rina could never acquire a word of the language of the country, the empress soon ceased to take interest in her. As I was always very good at picking up languages, she had me at the palace a great deal, asking all sorts of questions about the Western countries and people. I was also able to tell her much about bygone ages, which information she thought, of course, ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... the veil and the loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the fruits,—the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not eat,—she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... satisfactory—nothing in the slightest degree doubtful, no prevarications, no mysteries. In a word, Mr. Marmaduke himself was thoroughly well vouched for, and Mr. Marmaduke's income was invested in securities beyond fear and beyond reproach. Even sister Judith, bent on picking a hole in the record somewhere, tried hard, and could make nothing ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... as the manager would take for that sum, was often paid at the gallery door. It was feared that this, like gambling, would furnish another inducement to rob; and some of the worst of the convicts, ever on the watch for opportunities, looked on the playhouse as a certain harvest for them, not by picking the pockets of the audience of their purses or their watches, but by breaking into their houses while the whole family might be enjoying themselves in the gallery. This actually happened on the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... made, I have learned that of the ten Dutch ships which were at the harbor-mouth of Marivelez only four have come back to these islands. One of them brought the wounded men from Oton; a second one, when our fleet went out to seek that of the enemy, was going out to sea, picking up Sangley ships. When it saw our fleet, without going back to theirs, it cast loose a very rich junk which it was towing astern, and took to flight. The captain of this vessel, they tell me, the Dutch put to death ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... hitherto been so loud and so many, that they have served only to confuse. We have the image before our fancy of a vast crowd of human beings hastening over seas and deserts towards certain geographical points, where they meet, struggle, fix. We see them picking up lumps of gold from the surface, or digging them out of the earth, or collecting the glittering dust by sifting and washing; and then we hear of vast torrents of the precious metal finding their way into Europe, threatening to swamp us all with absolute wealth, and confound ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... wants some wood,' replied the man, picking a few branches off the trees and flinging them idly on the roadside, 'so I am just ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... may make up his mind to tell yet," remarked Obed, picking up fresh hope, "when he finds that I mean all I said, and that he's ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... not, sir," said Johannes, leaning over the side, as the boat glided on, and picking up the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... cemetery, overgrown with high weeds, and having a great iron cross rising up in its centre; to the right stood the presbytery under the shadow of the church. It was a house of the most extreme simplicity and frigid cleanliness. We entered the enclosure. A few chickens were picking up some oats scattered upon the ground; accustomed, seemingly, to the black habit of ecclesiastics, they showed no fear of our presence and scarcely troubled themselves to get out of our way. A hoarse, wheezy barking fell upon our ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... capturing it, there would be a badger fight at the Fred Harvey mess hall that night—provided no gambling or betting was done. Since the show was to be put on by the cowboys, they themselves should have the honor of picking the men fortunate enough to hold the ropes with which the badgers would be tied. Among the rangers broke out a frenzied dispute as to which ones should be chosen. That was more than the guides could stand for. No ranger ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Picking her way, for the stairs were thick with mud from dirty boots and with droppings from pails, beer-cans, and milk-jugs, Mrs. Rowles went up the first flight. In the front room a woman's voice was scolding in strong language; in the back ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... the house. She must fly somewhere—anywhere—to escape the thoughts that were picking with sharp beaks at her aching heart. Half-way up the walk she turned and fled to a refuge she would not have thought of half an hour before to ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... that powder certainly burst the bombs all to pieces," said Ned, picking up a shattered piece ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... morning. So the policeman resumed, with great severity, following that supreme law of appearances which makes poverty always suspected: "Stop a bit, young woman! it seems you are in a mighty hurry, to let your money fall without picking it up." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... our wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... which we have just now observed to have been prophetically denounced against him. He had been already convicted of three robberies; viz., of robbing an orchard, of stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the blackest. He fairly shivered with the horror of it. The car slipped past a suburban station from which passengers were emerging—comfortable black-coated men such as he had once been. He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of the great crowd of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal. "Why was I tethered to sich a conscience?" was his moan. But there was that stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul. "You flatter yourself you have done your share," he was saying. "You will make pretty stories ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... the sweets of revenge, went to the table and, picking up the pad and pencil, presented them to Skippy ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... that He is the Son of God; that 'He came from God'; that He 'went to God'; that He 'gives His life a ransom for many'; that He is to be the Judge of mankind; that if we trust in Him, our sins are forgiven and our nature is renewed. Do not go picking and choosing amongst His teachings, for these which I have named are as surely His as 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,' or any other of the moral teachings which the world professes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... carbon, as Indian ink; after death the colouring-matter may be found in the proximal glands. If the tattooing is superficial (merely underneath the cuticle) the marks may possibly be removed by acetic acid or cantharides, or even by picking out the colouring-matter with a fine needle. With regard to scars and their permanence, it will be remembered that scars occasioned by actual loss of substance, or by wounds healed by granulation, never disappear. The scars ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... own breakfast wherever he might find it. It was true then, as now, that people proceeded to the breakfast table in an aggregation, and flocked around the centres of food supply; so we may assume the picture of man stealing away alone, picking fruits, nuts, berries, gathering clams or fish, was no more common than the fact of present-day man getting his own breakfast alone. The main difference is that in the former condition individuals obtained the food as nature left it, and passed it directly from ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... your familiarity with the Word has blinded you to its spirit and its power. You have gone over the field so often that you have made a path across it, and it seems incredible to you that there should be anything worth your picking up there. Ah! dear friends, Jesus Christ, when He was here, 'in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' had to the men that looked upon Him 'neither form nor comeliness that they should desire Him,' and He was to them a stumbling-block and foolishness. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... on his hind legs or stand on his head for periods apparently unlimited. In fact, so obedient and willing we found him, that when for the third time he had inverted himself, no persuasion short of picking him up by his tail, a proceeding which I deemed necessary to avert asphyxia, could induce him to resume his normal position. But that which rendered the entertainment specially fascinating and ludicrous was the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... recovered from his surprise, Hervey was picking his way along the rocky ledge at the base of the mountain, apparently oblivious to all that had happened, and intent upon a rambling quest for tracks. It was quite characteristic of him that he based his search upon no hint or well considered plan, but went looking ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... her to think highly of American scenery, and he drove her to great distances, picking out the prettiest roads and the largest points of view. If we are good when we are contented, Eugenia's virtues should now certainly have been uppermost; for she found a charm in the rapid movement through ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... notable history ever since 1620, and in picking out here and there a few of the influences which have tended to develope her material resources, we would not be unmindful of those Christian influences which are also a part ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... the attractive Lena. She is so graceful; quiet grace, ma calls it. She leaned against a heavy, carved chimney-piece, with dark-red plush hangings, and she looked for all the world just like a tall, white flower, slender, beautiful! She was slowly picking to pieces, leaf by leaf, a pale-pink rose, which she had stolen away from somewhere about her willowy, white throat. And while she was doing all this—and it took quite a while, too—she looked full in the face of the man by her side, that rather good-looking, stuck-up Calburt Young, ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... a cheat indeed. This way of breaking, it is nothing else but a more neat way of thieving, of picking of pockets, of breaking open of shops, and of taking from men what one has nothing to do with. But though it seem easy, it is hard to learn; no man that has conscience to God or man, can ever be his crafts-master in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... like a human. They ran down to where Abishai's craft had vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothing more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though no one had hinted at picking them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess she run clear under. Must ha' been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' they never thought to pump her. That's one more boat gone along o' leavin' port all ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... up-stairs, little missy," said Tom, the servant man, who opened the door for them, picking ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... the little mare about once more this season," he told Dixon. "The babes can't cut teeth, and grow, and fight it out in punishing races on dusty hay and hard-shelled oats, when they ought to be picking grass in an open field. She's too good a beast to do up in her young days. The Assassins made good three-year-olds, and the little mare's dam, Maid of Rome, wasn't much her first year out—only won once—but as a three-year-old she won three out of four starts, and the fourth year never ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... the happy man, for the moment when his forehead will wrinkle, when disappointment will descend upon his head like a leaden skull-cap, and when picking up the two blocks he has cursed he will make two crutches ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... picking up six men at Hut Point on March 11, had gone back to Cape Evans. The position chosen for the winter quarters of the 'Aurora' was at Cape Evans, immediately off the hut erected by Captain Scott on his last Expedition. The ship on March ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... or fowl," replied Christy, laughing. "My father suggested the name to the Department, and it was adopted. He talked with me about a name, as he thought I had some interest in her, for the reason that I had done something in picking her up." ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of such a thing," returned the peddler, picking the checkerberries that grew on the thin soil where he sat, and very deliberately chewing them, leaves and all, to refresh his mouth. "What progress could they make here, in their heavy boots and spurs, and long swords? No, no—they may go back and turn out the foot, but the horse pass through ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... months, before a writ was taken out against him for debts incurred by his wife. He was secreted; and his friend then procured him a protection from a foreign minister. In a short time afterwards she ran away from him, and was tried (providentially in his opinion) for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. Her husband was with difficulty prevented from attending the Court, in the hope she would be hanged. She pleaded her own cause and was acquitted. A separation between them took place.' Gent. Mag. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and west direction, instead of in a line with the route, north and south. These marks along the line of the route may easily be missed in fog, if they are not close enough together; and if one thus gets out of the line, there is a danger of not picking it up again. According to this new arrangement we therefore marked this depot in 80deg. S. with high bamboo poles carrying black flags. We used twenty of these — ten on each side of the depot. Between each two flags there was a distance of 984 yards (900 metres), ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... out, buffeting the murk, striking evanescent glimmers from the rocking facets of the waters. Deckhands busied themselves rigging out an accommodation ladder. A tender of little tonnage panted nervously up out of nowhere and was made fast alongside. The light raked its upper deck, picking out in passing a group of men in uniforms. Fugitively something resembling a petticoat snapped in the wind. Then several persons moved toward the accommodation ladder, climbed it, disappeared through the cargo port. The wearer of the petticoat ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... so good," I said, picking him up; "we must be in the neighbourhood of the sheds. Now to find them, and creep along in ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... to the house she would be sent for and questioned something like this: 'Who was that young man? How come you with him? Don't you ever let me see you with that ape again. If you cannot pick a mate better than that I'll do the picking for you.' The explanation: The girl must breed ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... delicate, and commonly considered tender meat; but those who talk of tender lamb, while they are thinking of the age of the animal, forget that even a chicken must be kept a proper time after it has been killed, or it will be tough picking. ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... in abundance. Few habitants had orchards, but most of them had one or two fruit-trees grown from seedlings which came from France. Wild fruits, especially raspberries, cranberries, and grapes, were to be had for the picking, and the younger members of each family gathered them all in season. Even in the humbler homes of the land there was no need for any one to go hungry. More than one visitor to the colony, indeed, was impressed by the rude comfort in which the habitants lived. 'The boors ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... crash and a shock, and fell backwards to the ground. I was not hurt, and picking myself up saw that the ball had struck the parapet to the left, just where my guard was sitting, and he lay covered with its fragments. His turban lay some yards behind him. Whether he was dead or not I ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... seated in the middle of the box, was lolloping upon the table with his customary ease, and picking his teeth with his usual inattention to all about him. The intrusion, however, of so large a party, seemed to threaten his insensibility with unavoidable disturbance; though imagining they meant but to look in at the box, and pass on, he made not at their first approach any alteration ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... inquired what was the matter. His voice and tone of authority brought the sailor back to the position he occupied; he restrained himself, therefore, and spoke no more. Already Noy feared that his passion might have raised suspicions, and now, turning and picking up his catalogue, he made hasty departure before those present had opportunity to take much further notice of him. The man hurried off into the rattle of the busy thoroughfare, and in a moment he and his sorrows and his deadly purpose had ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... fatigue, went picking his way among the dead and wounded. He had lost Peter and Hannibal in that battle, and Hamilton and John were dead; he alone remained, and it was not just. He felt that the Great Reaper had spared the weed among the flowers, and he was bitter against ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... been climbing the hill at six in the morning, with big hats on their heads, deep baskets on their backs, low stools in their hands. There is a big field of black-currant bushes beside my garden to the south. All day, in the heat, they sit under the bushes picking away. At sundown they carry their heavy baskets to the weighing-machine on the roadside at the foot of the hill, and stand in line to be weighed in and paid by the English buyers for Crosse and Blackwell, Beach, and such houses, who have, I suppose, ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... I was passing through the city of Chicago, when, picking up a newspaper, I noticed that this man whom the minister had won to Christ, had died suddenly. I got a letter from the minister not long afterwards, and he said, "I was with him when he died. He sent a messenger for me to come and see him, and when I arrived he ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... fans; it had quivers and arrows upon it, and bunches of hearts looped up in azure festoons, and doves perched upon them; though Augusta's little sister, who was too young to know what hearts and doves were, when she saw them for the first time, said they were pretty little birds picking at apples. The fan was packed up in a nice case, and then on scented note paper did the dear dandy indite a bit of namby-pamby badinage to his fair one, which he thought ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... our champion boxer had reported sick in anticipation. He looked convincingly pale and complained of the usual "pains all over." The Medical Officer gave him "light duty" and he spent the day in camp, picking up matches, bits of ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... The skippers and roundabouts have both been mentioned before. The latter were a sort of bugs, which had a remarkable power of whirling round and round with the greatest rapidity, upon the surface of the water. While Rollo was endeavoring to entrap some of these animals, the other boys were picking up pebbles, or gathering flowers, until at length their attention was suddenly arrested by a loud and long exclamation of surprise and ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... the oxen to the farther end of the vineyard, and the boys and girls climbed upon the wagon with their baskets, and were carried under the festoons of vines, picking clusters of grapes here and there as they rode ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... meet with an answer, perhaps to hear only silence. I will supply an instance. I see a child, a curious, delicate little thing, seated on the doorstep of a house. It is an alley in some great city, and there is a gloom of evening and vapor over the sky. I see the child is bending over the path; he is picking cinders and arranging them, and as I ponder I become aware that he is laying down in gritty lines the walls of a house, the mansion of his dream. Here spread along the pavement are large rooms, these for his friends, and a tiny room in the centre, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... the girl. "I go everywhere where there's a chance of picking up a swell husband. They've got to come to these shows, they can't help themselves. One never knows what incident may ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... myself. Brought up on a farm and familiar from my earliest years with the avocations of rural life, spending the early spring-times in the maple-sugar camp, the later weeks in gardening and gathering stove-wood, the summers in picking and spinning wool, and the autumns in drying apples, I found little opportunity, and that only in winter, for books or play. My father was a generous-hearted, impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, intelligent, but uneducated woman. Both ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... if that new berry picking chap can get the best of us, Ern," he said to Merritt when he was alone with a few of his cronies after Harry Dickson's declaration that Jack was good enough for any ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... her shoulder at the length of train sweeping the path, but she made no movement toward picking it up. ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and stopped me with a gesture. Then, picking up a piece of chalky stone, he advanced to a black basaltic rock and scrawled this ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... over the advertisement; and then picking up and relighting his fragment of cigar, puffed earnestly in silence ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... over along the hood until it reached the slanting windshield. There it spun wildly upward, left a cloud of feather's fluttering about Tommy's head, and fell still squawking into the road behind. By the back-view mirror, Tommy could see it picking itself up and staggering dizzily back to the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... slip in the world. My plan was to follow close behind, dogging their footsteps, and picking them off one by one till they were all gone. It would have been a big thing, ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... at a time, to be sure, but are constantly picking. This habit is also observable in the way the calf nurses. The first specimen of milk was procured on the morning of April 5, the second on the 9th, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... safe landings; the odd ones are occasionally crashes. Incidentally it may be said that forced-landing practice by flying pupils is the most beneficial which may be imagined. It teaches control over a machine as nothing else will. It may be carried out from any height, shutting off the motor, picking out a field, gliding for it, turning and twisting to get into proper position as regards the wind, and "giving her the gun" just at the fence and ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... him on the day of settlement, and he is frequently actuated by the purpose of getting as much as possible and working as little as possible. Cases are numerous in which the negro abandons his own crop at picking time, because he knows that he has already eaten up its full value; and so he goes to picking for wages on some other plantation. In other cases, where negroes have acquired mules and farming implements upon which a merchant has secured a mortgage in the manner described, they are ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... politeness he made me sit down, picking out my chair, the most comfortable in the room, then taking the next best for himself. He fitted into it as tightly as a ripe plum into its skin, and talked with one leg crossed over the other and swinging, the points of his brown fingers joined. I ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... of immortal fame. All of this was somewhat marred by their occasional gulping and hiccoughing, for six-course dinners are not friendly to ethereal oratory. When one of them got through, the other, having finished the picking of his teeth, would take the stand and divulge anew to these underfed immortals the secrets of the Book ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... The next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered, to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that, which putteth an edge upon anger, as much or more than the hurt itself. And therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much. Lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation, doth multiply and sharpen anger. Wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... staring at me in meeting when they ought to have been looking at the minister. I used to try and keep my eyes fast on my hymn book, but it seemed as if I could see right through the lids; and I knew well enough that when Ned Hassel bent down his head and pretended to be picking out his notes in 'Sacred Psalmody,' he was peeping at me all the time. I suppose I was a little spoiled by having so many beaux, for Calanthy was a regular old maid: you mustn't ever mention it, but she'd been disappointed once, and wouldn't keep company with anyone ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... net, the male bird's foot caught in it and he began to struggle, whereupon all the other birds took fright and flew away. But presently his mate came back and hovered over him, then alighted on the net, unobserved by the fowler, and fell to picking and pulling at the mesh in which the male bird's foot was entangled with her beak, till she released him and they flew away together. Then the fowler came up and mended his net and seated himself afar off. After awhile, the birds came back and the female pigeon was caught in the net, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... tame bird which she was in the habit of letting out of its cage every day. One morning as it was picking crumbs of bread off the carpet, her cat, who always before showed great kindness for the bird, seized it on a sudden, and jumped with it in her mouth upon a table. The lady was much alarmed for the fate of her favourite, ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... picking himself up from a tumble, turned to his mother with the words "Forgive me." Hiding his own hurt, he sought pardon for the pain he had caused her. Louise, I was that child, and such as I was then, I am now. Here is the key to ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the question is asked, "What is my duty to my neighbour?" and a part of the answer is, "To keep my hands from picking and stealing." I suppose "picking" must mean, secretly taking little pieces of cake, or sugar, or any thing of the kind, of small value. I presume Jimmy was in the habit of "picking," at his grandmother's before he ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... the country, her death is attributed to a fall whilst in the act of picking an apple from a tree in an ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... had placed her batteries after due study of the Baron's past life, which her husband had narrated in much detail, after picking up some information in the offices. The comedy of modern sentiment might have the charm of novelty to the Baron; Valerie had made up her mind as to her scheme; and we may say the trial of her power that she made this morning answered her highest expectations. Thanks to her manoeuvres, sentimental, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... there's very pretty picking in 3000 pounds per annum! one would not think much of a little ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... do so. You're always so good to let me tell you everything. I am only afraid of trying your patience too far. Even in this long letter I can't tell you all I want to; so I shall write you again soon. Jerrine will write too. Just now she has very sore fingers. She has been picking gooseberries, and they have been pretty severe on ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... from you, not considering that you didn't know where to address her, or that it was rather scant time for a letter to come from La Guayra, where Captain Stearns would take you if he succeeded in picking ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... know what these things are," she remarked, "but they probably have nothing to do with this affair, anyway. Grandfather was always picking up queer old things on his travels. But he must have thought them interesting, or he never would have kept them in here. But we must go now," she ended, closing the box. "And I'll see you dear people all to-morrow. This has surely ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... the casting office as she would look up to shake her head, often from the telephone over which she was saying: "Nothing to-day, dear. Sorry!" She didn't exactly feel that the motion-picture business had gone on the rocks, but she knew it wasn't picking up as it should. And ever and again she would have Merton Gill assure her that he hadn't forgotten the home address, the town where lived Gighampton or Gumwash or whoever it was that held the good old job ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... landmark as the sea to our left. It hardly seemed worth while to focus my mind, but I did it occasionally just by way of testing myself. Schwartz still threw away his gold coins, and once, in one of my rare intervals of looking about me, I saw Denton picking them up. This surprised me mildly, but I was too tired to be very curious. Only now, when I saw Schwartz's arm sweep out in what had become a mechanical movement, I always took pains to look, and always I saw Denton search for the coin. Sometimes he found it, and sometimes ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... busy bug flew back home and she kept busy up to nine o'clock, making beds and dusting the crumbs off the mantelpiece and picking up grains of sand off the floor. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps of metal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yours is the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to this room since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into the ante-room, but ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about, behind the front, and after a battle, picking up everything that has been thrown away. Everything is sorted and gone over with the utmost care. Rifles that have been thrown away or dropped when men were wounded or killed, bits of uniforms, bayonets— everything is saved. Reclamation is the order of the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... and turned around, picking up his range hat, an example followed by Nort. The latter had opened his pocket knife, which contained a large, keen blade, and, a moment later, a right-angled cut was made in the back wall of ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... the quarantined house; but when he sought it, he might be seen to stop at one gate and another, picking up here a jar, there a bowl, here again a paper bag; till by the time he reached the Laxen gate he stood out all over with packages ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... have given over urging him to do what he longed to do, and let him go on that search he knew was hopeless, and in which he had no joy. But she did not see; she would never see. He laughed aloud, for all the world as if the sun were bright and the fret for adventure were still keen in him, then, picking up his ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Diego a tomato vine only eight months old, which was nineteen feet high and twenty-five feet wide, and loaded full of fruit in January. A man picking the tomatoes on a stepladder added to the effect. And a Gold of Ophir rose-bush at Pasadena which had 200,000 blossoms. This is vouched for by its owner, a retired missionary, who cannot be doubted. There are truly true pumpkins that weigh 256 pounds and are ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... the gun, and I rapidly opened the breech and slipped in the cartridges, just as firing began from aft, and I saw that Mr Frewen was standing against the companion-way aiming at the boat containing Jarette, which had sheered off after picking up their leader and another man, while now the second boat hove in sight from under the bows, in time for Mr Frewen to send a stinging charge of shot at her ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... fencing the lots in the village in a very neat, substantial manner. On my arrival at the Mission I found Egerton, about half a mile from the village, stripped to the shirt and pantaloons, clearing land with between twelve and twenty of the little Indian boys, who were all engaged in chopping and picking up the brush. It was an interesting sight. Indeed he told me that he spent an hour or more every morning and evening in this way, for the benefit of his own health, and the improvement of the Indian children. He is almost worshipped ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the bad effects of the grub-worm, I tried ashes, lye of ashes, and urine, but to no purpose, so that the women were kept constantly employed in picking them off the few plants ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... they were to be kept idle, like cats watching a rat-hole. At last Capt. Worden, who was there with his redoubtable monitor "Montauk," determined to destroy the privateer, despite the torpedoes and the big guns of the fort. He accordingly began a movement up the river, picking his way slowly through the obstructions. The fort began a lively cannonade; but Worden soon found that he had nothing to fear from that quarter, as the guns were not heavy enough to injure the iron sides of the little monitor. But, as he went up the river, the "Nashville" ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the "Nobilitas" of "The Asinaeum," and thereby saved himself from utter penury, she was perfectly convinced, from her knowledge of character, that the illustrious MacGrawler would not long continue that protection to the rebellious protege which in her opinion was his only preservative from picking pockets or famishing. To the former decent alternative she knew Paul's great and jejune aversion; and she consequently had little fear for his morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for a while to chance. Any anxiety, too, that she might otherwise have keenly experienced was ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to die of hunger while their king was living in abundance. John beheaded her with his own hands in the market-place, and then, in insane frenzy, danced around her body in company with his other wives. Her loss was speedily repaired. The angels were kept busy in picking out new wives for the inspired tailor, till in the end he had seventeen in all, one of whom, Divara by name, gained great influence by her spirit ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Macbeth indeed are ridiculous on the modern stage, and we doubt if the furies of Aeschylus would be more respected. The progress of manners and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch's picking pockets, in the Beggars' Opera, is not so good a jest as it used to be: by the force of the police and of philosophy, Lillo's murders and the ghosts in Shakespeare will become obsolete. At last there will be nothing left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... ocean, and permanently changed the coast-line of the country. The most striking and extraordinary part of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's description of this flood is an extract from the log of a sailing packet—a sea-going vessel—which directed its course over and about the plain of Moray, picking the inhabitants off the roofs of their houses, or such other elevations ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the Reverend Doctor Gaster, gracefully picking off the supernal fragments of an egg he had just cracked, and clearing away a space at the top for the reception of a small piece of butter—"I am really astonished, gentlemen, at the very heterodox opinions I have ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... adventurers of the New World, one of the most dazzling was that of a rich empire far to the south, a very El Dorado, where gold was as abundant as were the common metals in the Old World, and where precious stones were to be had, almost for the picking up. These rumours fired the hopes of three men in the Spanish colony at Panama, namely, Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, both soldiers of fortune, and Hernando de Luque, a Spanish priest. As it was primarily from the efforts of these three that that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... into thin slices; leaving one of the scales, or calyx leaves, attached, by which the slice is lifted, and dipped in oil and vinegar before using. The English present the head whole, or cut into quarters, upon a dry plate; the guests picking off the scales one by one, which have a fleshy substance at the base. These are eaten after being dipped in ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... as though the broken water were full of living gems. The sky was full of strange gulls with long, forked tails, and a lovely little flying lizard with transparent wings of the palest green—like those of a grasshopper—was flitting about picking ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... hope they've got more, and I hope they've gentled down by this time and are used to being without him. Anyway, they can do without him now easier than what I can, because..." Bud did not finish that sentence, except by picking Lovin Child up in his arms and squeezing him as hard as he dared. He laid his face down for a minute on Lovin Child's head, and when he raised ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... urging to leave the spot. Finally he consented to go. As he climbed in he saw the overturned wash tub, and his concentrated wrath and grief were heaped upon it. Picking it up, he hurled it savagely at a tree, and, when it fell to pieces with the concussion, he exclaimed, ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... answered, picking it up and dusting it carefully before restoring it to its place ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... have been sent for to attend to a shell casualty," says Saxham, picking up and putting on his Service felt, and moving to take down the canvas wallet that is his inseparable companion, from the hook on which it hangs. "Or, rather, Taggart was; and as he has thirty diphtheria cases for tracheotomy at the Children's Hospital, and McFadyen's ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... answered it, to whom Mrs. Hepburn said, in a friendly voice, "The box in my desk." Adelaide and Ann said, "How do you do, Mari?" When she brought the box, Mrs. Hepburn unlocked it, and produced some yellow letters, which we looked over, picking out here and there bits of Parisian gossip, many, many years old. They were directed to Cavendish Hepburn, by his friend, the original of the portrait. But the letters were soon laid aside, and we examined the contents of the box. Old brooches, miniatures painted on ivory, silhouettes, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... that Mr. Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking up a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline's ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... MELISANDE (picking up her book). Father and Jane are outside, Bobby, if you have anything you wish to tell them. But I suppose they know already. (She ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... his niece with humble admiration not unmixed with awe, and retires to his study to lay his dictionaries by. Victoria rolls her eyes ceilingward, and says, "Well, I declar'!" then falls to work picking up the ruins of their various offerings, and the two ladies turn to help her ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was coming home from a ramble, Will found Marjory in the garden picking flowers, and, as he came up with her, slackened his pace and continued ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... picking me to pieces, between you!" said Philippe, laughing. "What an inspection! Why don't you give my wife a kiss? ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... mind, sir, picking up those oars," said the Englishman, "I will get the young lady into the boat, and then we can ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the town the ravages of war were far more marked. All the way along the roadside were clumps of little crosses, French, English, German, planted above the hurried graves of the brave fellows who had fallen. Ambulances were picking their way warily, returning with the last night's toll of wounded. We saw newly dead men and horses, pulled to one side, who had been caught in the darkness by the enemy's harassing fire. In places the country had holes the size ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... as also from their iron-clad railroad car, occupying a position on the other side of the river, close to the entrance to the bridge. At this point they also had sharpshooters, who tried hard, but did not well succeed in picking off our men. ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... system then comes to the fore, and we see clearly that to sit down and reflect upon human life, picking out its pleasant moments and condemning all the rest, is to initiate a course of moral retrenchment. It is to judge what is worth doing, not by the innate ambition of the soul, but by experience of incidental feelings, which to a mind without creative ideas may ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... butter in a saucepan, and place in it the onions and potatoes sliced; then add water, salt and flavourings, and boil for one hour. In the meantime prepare the kale by picking off all but the tender middle shoots, trim the stalks and throw the kale into salt and water; rinse well and see that it is all quite free from insects, and boil separately in salted water for ten minutes. When the soup has boiled an ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... casually. "I seem to be in luck to-night. I got into that room next door, but an empty room is slim picking. And then it seemed to me I heard some one in here mention five thousand dollars twice, which makes ten thousand, and which happens to be just exactly the sum I need at the present moment—if I can't ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... me, you impertinent little hussy?" cried the old gentleman, interrupting her in the middle of her sentence; and catching her by the arm, he shook her violently; then picking her up and setting her down hard upon a chair, he said, "Now, miss, sit you there until your father comes home, then we will see what he thinks of such impertinence; and if he doesn't give you the complete whipping you deserve, ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... are very rich, and have no legal heirs, may entertain themselves very much at the expense of hungry expectants and lean legacy-hunters. Who has not seen a poor dog standing on his hind legs, and bobbing up and down after a bone scarcely worth picking, with which some mischief-loving varlet has tantalized the poor animal till all its limbs have ached? That poor dog shadows out the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... a fool than you have to, Brookings. There's a lot of difference between scared and knowing when you are simply wasting effort. As you remember, I tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by picking her off with an attractor from a space-ship. I would have bet that nothing could have stopped me. Well, when they located me—probably with an automatic Osnomian ray-detector—and heated me red-hot while I was still better than two hundred miles up, I knew then and there ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... listen," faltered Margaret. "I shall go and leave you right away," she finished tremulously, picking up the tray and hurrying ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... windows, window-curtains; canning and preserving fruit; making sauces and jellies, and "catchups" and pickles; making and baking bread, cake, pies, puddings; cooking meats and vegetables; keeping in nice order beds, bedding, and bedchambers; arranging furniture, dusting, and "picking up;" setting forth, at their due times and in due order, the three meals; washing the clothes; ironing, including doing up shirts and other "starched things;" taking care of the baby, night and day; washing and dressing children, and regulating their behavior, and making or getting ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... sunny, and my hands is full," says I, "With the fair by and by, And the village dance and all; And the turkey poults is small, And so's the ducks and chicks, And the hay not yet in ricks, And the flower-show'll be presently and hop-picking's to come, And the fruiting and the harvest home, And my new white gown to make, and the jam all to be done. Can't you leave a girl alone? Your love's too hot for me! Can't you leave a girl be Till the ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... call up Governor's Island and get General Wood or his aide, Captain Dorey, on the phone. They sent me here. Ask them. I'm not picking out gun sites for the Germans; I'm picking out positions of defense for Americans ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... started back with a smothered cry. There by the great fireplace stood Louis Trudel picking up a red-hot cross with a pair of pincers. Grasping the iron firmly just below the arms of the cross, the tailor held it up again. He looked at it with a wild triumph, yet with a malignancy little in keeping with the object he held—the holy relic he had stolen ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... might have been tumbling if that one had been one who was running. That one was tumbling that one had been one who commenced to be one commencing to run. In being that one that one was one tumbling. In being one tumbling any one could be one picking up that one. In any one picking up that one some were certain that that one could have been one tumbling. In picking up that one some were certain that that one was one who would not be tumbling. In picking ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... indescribable, half-crouching, mean malignity, as we enter; but a sharp word, with perhaps some menace of stick or cane, sends the cowardly brutes sneaking away. In a corner is a circle of stones, on which cooking is done; and another day we may find the family here picking their food out of a pot, and serving themselves to it, with the fingers. Save this primitive fireplace, and perhaps a kettle for the dogs to lick clean, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... without trying, that it would fit the box, but idly turned the lock. As she opened it, a bit of paper fluttered out, and, picking it up, she read in her aunt's cramped, But distinct hand: "Hepsey gets a dollar and a half every week. Don't you ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... it. It had been unconventional, and the recital amused Her Majesty. It was then that I realised how humorous her mouth was, how very blue and alert her eyes. I told it all to her, the things that insisted on slipping off my lap, and the King's picking them up; the old envelope he gave me on which to make notes of the interview; how I had asked him whether he would let me know when the interview was over, or whether I ought to get up and go! And finally, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tremens of the subdued kind; beginning with suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts and hysteria, and ending with downright raving. As he sat in a chair in front of the fire, or walked up and down the room picking a handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor Moriarty really thought of Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own fall for the most part; though he ravelled some P. W. D. accounts into the same skein of thought. He talked, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... cavities which the broken staff now presented, rattled several gold coins. At the sight, the old hag scrambled toward where the major had fallen senseless. The Jew, after picking up the broken pieces of wood, would have lingered to recover those of the precious metal though at cost of a scuffle with Baboushka. But his daughter rebuked him in their language with an indignant tone, which brought him to his ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... the house was settling down to quietness for the night, and when Dinah and Mrs. Bobbsey were picking up the dishes, the circus dog marched around like a soldier, with a stick for a gun, and one of the fancy caps, that came in the "surprise" packets, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... beard, and the fringe of hair that outlined his bald head made an incongruous pale yellow pattern against the sunburnt darkness of his face. In his youth, Jacovik had been almost pathologically devoted to boxing—even to the point of picking fights with others in his village for no reason at all, except to fight. Twice, he had been brought up before The Chief's court because of the severe beating he had given to men bigger than he, and he had finally killed a man with ...
— The Destroyers • Gordon Randall Garrett
... for Steve and old Jasper left no resource untried, knowing well that the fight, if there was one, would be fought to a quick and decisive end. The day for the leisurely feud, for patient planning, and the slow picking off of men from one side or the other, was gone. The people in the Blue Grass, who had no feuds in their own country, were trying to stop them in the mountain. Over in Breathitt, as everybody knew, soldiers had come from the "settlemints," had arrested the leaders, and had taken them ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... said Gregory, picking it up, "your bright colors will soon be lost. Death has come to you too. Why must this wretched thought of death be thrust on one at every turn? Nature is full of it. Things only live, apparently, for the sake of dying. Just as this ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... more conflicting feelings. There was a certain sense of desecration in their act. How her proud lip would have curled had she seen him—he who but a few hours before would have searched the whole slope for the treasure of a ribbon, a handkerchief, or a bow from her dress—now delving and picking the hillside for that fortune her accident had so mysteriously disclosed. Mysteriously he believed, for he had not fully accepted Parkhurst's story. That gentle misogynist had never been an active prospector; an inclination to theorize ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... dining-room and looking at the cards on the bouquets heaping the tables, to find whether any one had sent them flowers. Others whom young men had brought bunches of violets hid their noses in them, and dropped their fans and handkerchiefs and card-cases, and thanked the young men for picking them up. Others, had got places in the music-room, and sat there with open boxes of long- stemmed roses in their laps, and talked up into the faces of the men, with becoming lifts and slants of their eyes and chins. In the midst of the turmoil children struggled ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... enumerated below. He is told to take one pair of bear-skin moccasins, one pair of wolf-skin, and one pair of birds'skins, in addition to those which he wears upon his feet; these are to be carried to the structure in which the Mid[-e] spirits are feasting, walking barefooted, picking a strawberry from a plant on the right of the path and a blueberry from a bush on the left, plucking June cherries from a tree on the right and plums on the left. He is then to hasten toward the Ghost Lodge, which is covered with ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... man—he was sufficient in himself. As to the little old door in the back of the shop, "We know nothing about that, sir." So I had to talk to him and humour him. He had for sale on the counter an instrument for picking up a lump of sugar in a new way. He was pleased when I looked at it and he began to praise it. I asked him what was the use of it, and he said that it was of no use but that it had only been invented ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... upon him, and departed, picking up her stick from the path and turning to wave to him as she ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... damp, drizzly day; there was not a settled rain, yet it was too wet to work in the corn. Mark was therefore busy in picking loose stones from the surface of a field cultivated the year before, and now "seeded down" for grass. A portion of the field bordered on a pond, and the alders upon its margin formed a dense green palisade, over which might be seen the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Supported like a table, these maps would be studied by the pupils taking out the blocks and returning them to their places as they learned their names, etc. It is no uncommon thing to see a pupil throw these blocks into a confused heap, mix them all up, and, then picking them up one by one, put each in its place with as much accuracy as the most accomplished pianist will strike each key in a simple march ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying, "It must have rained peas, last night." "We must think of something else," said the King; "keep thy shoes on when thou goest to bed, and before thou comest back from the place where thou art taken, hide one of them ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers |
