"Pried" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I made out from examining the thing afterward. Cain had been monkeying with the lever. He'd pried loose one of the wires that hooked to the transformer, and short-circuited it, not knowing, of course, just what he was doing. The result was that when Tode pressed that lever, instead of blowing the whole contraption to pieces, he got a couple of billion volts of electricity through his body, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... "I pried the boat loose, jumped in as she swung clear, and pulled with all my might, headed toward the centre of the river. I was almost clear when I was drawn over a dip, bow first, and struck a glancing blow against another rock I had never seen. There was a crash, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... the windows cheering like mad. The ends of the heavy chains resting on the strip of dirt were now caught up and hauled along the cobbles to be intertwined with the squared timber; anchors weighing tons were pried up and dragged across the tracks by lines of men urged on by gray-haired old merchants in Quaker-cut dress coats, many of them bare-headed, who had yielded to the sudden unaccountable delirium that had seized upon everyone. Colonel Clayton, Carter Thom, and Mowbray could be seen working side ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... long pole Bunny now pried up on the rear of the raft. At first it did not move, and Bunny began to be afraid he and Sue would not, after all, have a ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... had devised was a very simple one. The slope of the land on the island was about four feet to a rod. The bateau was to be rolled up the acclivity about thirty feet, and turned bottom upward. The lower end was then to be gradually pried up until it was level with the upper end, leaving a space of four feet under the higher part. Stakes were to be set in the ground under the gunwale to support the boat, and form the sides of the house. ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... of how the thumb was removed for good and all. It was Mrs. Budlong herself that removed it. Carthage could never have pried ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... looked. There was a watch—all covered with mold and mildewed. I pried it open. It's got ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of a small, ditch-like spring branch. Mr. Stewart had to stay on our wagon to hold the bronco, but all the rest, even Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, gathered around and tried to help. They hitched on a snap team, but not a trace tightened. They didn't want to unload the game in the snow. The men lifted and pried on the wheels. ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault—some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... mountains all his lifetime, and knew how to be cool and decided in the presence of danger. He had his knife and drinking-cup beside him, and his horn slung over his shoulder. In a moment he had made Nan stand still while he milked her, and then he pried open the stiff lips of the lad, and forced the warm liquid within. As he did so, the child revived and swallowed, for he had not been long unconscious. Then putting him on Jan's back, and driving Nan before him, Franz made his way ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self—ere she had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her years ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... landed here, since dark," broke in Tom Halstead, all a-quiver with dismay. "While we were at supper some sneak or sneaks have landed on this island. They have pried their way in here, and they've crippled our ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... shift—"into the room above. Just over the alcove library is a small sittin'-room. The—a bedroom opens off it—but has nothing to do with the case. It's one of those new-fangled bare floor rooms. Right over the cabinet space was a big rug. I pulled it aside and pried around with a hair pin until I found ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... leg—there was generally one or more of 'em shinnin' over me somewhere. It squalled when I took hold of it and she says: 'Oh, it doesn't want to come, does it! It must have a very affectionate disposition to be so attached to you.' Seemed to me 'twas attached by its claws more'n its disposition, but I pried it loose and handed it to her. Then she says again, 'What unusual colorin'! Will you sell this one to me? I'll give you five dollars ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... they are!" exclaimed Joyce. "Oh, I have an idea, Cynthia! Can we open the locket? Let's try." She picked it up and pried at the catch with her thumb-nail. After a trifling resistance it yielded. The locket fell open and revealed itself—empty. Joyce took up the disk and fitted it into one side. With the gold back pressed inward, it slid into place, leaving no shadow of doubt that it had originally ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... hands in the prisoner's pockets, brought forth the stones and ivy. The others looked into his other pockets, examined his hat, made him strip, shook his clothes, pried into his boots—in short, gave him ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... certain. It's only when things are wrapped up in a merciful haze of obscurity that life is tolerable at all. Do you suppose I wanted to find out that my husband was a rascal? I shut my eyes to it as long as I could, and then Truth came with all her cruel tools and pried them open. Oh, Jan, it ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... as wide as two inches but remain hard to find. Their turtleback shells, covered with moss, look just like rocks, and they stick so tightly to the big stones that—even when they are seen—they can scarcely be pried loose. ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... you. Rupert came over last night and sat on my gallery making very roundabout inquiries concerning Jeems. I pried out of him the details of your swamp battle. But I want to know now just what Jeems has been doing. Your brother ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... hand, might put together in a single day. It was hardly based on a foundation, but rather set on the slope side of the hill, and accordingly had settled down on the lower side toward the door. Not an old place, but the wind had pried and the rain warped generous cracks between the boards through which the rising storm whistled and sang and through which the chill mist of the coming rain cut ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... under the centre of White's dormitory," said King. "There are double floor-boards there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own house, could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some trace—and Rabbits-Eggs was phenomenally ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... suitable piece pried loose. He cut a part of a cocoanut shell away and in its place he put a sheet of isinglass. That evening at dark he gathered several handfuls of the great fire beetles and put them in his lantern. ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... to descend once more. Captain Bergen was so occupied in attending to his friend that he gained little time to open the oysters, and could only look longingly at them. Now and then, while the diver was cautiously working below, the captain snatched one up and pried the shells apart, and the success he met with was enough to turn the head of the coolest and most unconcerned of men. Beyond question, as we have said, the bank contained oysters of astonishing richness, fully three-fourths ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... Rougemont Castle, its wooded declivities now fashioned into a public garden. He watched the rooks at their building in the great elms, and was gladdened when the naked branches began to deck themselves, day by day the fresh verdure swelling into soft, graceful outline. In his walks he pried eagerly for the first violet, welcomed the earliest blackthorn blossom; every common flower of field and hedgerow gave him a new, keen pleasure. As was to be expected he found the same impulses strong in Sidwell Warricombe and her sister. Sidwell could tell him of secret spots where ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... not awaken. He drew the sacrificial knife from his belt, and plunged it into the ground. Tarzan did not move. Cautiously the Belgian pushed the blade downward through the loose earth above the pouch. He felt the point touch the soft, tough fabric of the leather. Then he pried down upon the handle. Slowly the little mound of loose earth rose and parted. An instant later a corner of the pouch came into view. Werper pulled it from its hiding place, and tucked it in his shirt. Then he refilled the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of all that pried about The walls, I overlook'd em best, An' what o' that? Why, I meaede out Noo mwore than all the rest: That there wer woonce the nest of zome That wer ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... simplest possible. In our jauntings we shall pass a town where she visits a good deal—the home of an ancient aunt. It's a jolly old place, big grounds, with elms and maples all round, and there's a tea house with a tile floor, and there's a particular blue tile under a bench that can be pried out with a pen knife. That's our post-office, and much safer than registered mail. Of course my business correspondence is a different matter. I pick that up in countless places between here and California—reports ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... in the meantime pried up her eyelids and asked what was wrong with that. And her eyes were coy about it, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... quite sane, yet he hated those men at mealtime. He was haunted by a fear that the food would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin-boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. They reassured him countless times; but he could not believe them, and pried cunningly about the lazarette to see with ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... myself above the four-foot shelf was a dull, yellow spot on the gray rock, near enough so that I could lean forward and touch it with my fingers. A two-inch circle of the real thing—I'd seen enough gold in the raw to know it without any acid test—hammered into the coarse sandstone. I pried it up with the blade of my knife and looked it over. Originally it had been a fair-sized nugget. Hans or Rowan had pounded it into place with the back of a hatchet (the corner-marks told me that), flattening ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... they proved to be terrible agents of destruction; leaving marks of their devastation everywhere. Not content with stealing many unequalled works of art, they often wantonly destroyed what they could not conveniently take away with them. In the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella, at Grenada, they pried open the royal coffins, in search of treasure; at Seville they broke open the coffin of Murillo, and scattered his ashes to the wind; Marshal Soult treated the ashes of Cervantes in a similar manner. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... was from suffocation; to meet this Mrs. Dalton and her companion pried open the door as far as the fallen trunk would allow, and kept it in position by means of a large chip which they found in the pit. This gave them sufficient air through a chink three inches in width; and they next looked about them for means of egress. After ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... apart, each eyeing his neighbor warily, and scattered into the woods. Only the two grim bird-lizards remained, seeming to have a sort of understanding or partnership, or possibly being a mated pair. They pried into the cartilages and between the joints of the skeletons with the iron wedges of their beaks, till there was not another tit-bit to be enjoyed. Then, hooting once more with satisfaction, they spread their batlike vanes and flapped darkly ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... four in front, Bann's springy tread, Clay's sturdy tramp, the little stiffness that shows in ancient Corder's gait, and the untiring litheness of Knudsen's swing. Beside me Reardon trudges silently, his hat always flopped a little over his eyes, his head up. Sometimes I make him talk, and have pried out of him much of his family history. Beyond him Pickle goes on springs, cracking jokes like a little internal combustion engine. And David, now very tanned and wide awake, finishes our four. Without looking, we know the voice of each of our ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... beauty, fashioned by Hephaestos, and endowed with every gift and all graces by Athena, sent by Zeus to EPIMETHEUS (q. v.) to avenge the wrong done to the gods by his brother Prometheus, bearing with her a box full of all forms of evil, which Epimetheus, though cautioned by his brother, pried into when she left, to the escape of the contents all over the earth in winged flight, Hope alone remaining behind in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... treasure. There also is a braid of Queen Bengerd's hair that was found when her grave was opened in 1855. The people's hate had followed her even there, and would not let her rest. The slab that covered her tomb had been pried off, and a round stone dropped into the place made for her head. Otherwise her ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... more to seek the elm; once more to explore the ground; to scrutinize its trunk. What could I expect to find? Had it not been a hundred times examined? Had I not extended my search to the neighbouring groves and precipices? Had I not pored upon the brooks, and pried into the pits and hollows, that were adjacent to the ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... crow soon discovered it, and came into the tree to see what it meant. His suspicions were aroused. There was some design in that suspended meat, evidently. It was a trap to catch him. He surveyed it from every near branch. He peeked and pried, and was bent on penetrating the mystery. He flew to the ground, and walked about and surveyed it from all sides. Then he took a long walk down about the vineyard as if in hope of hitting upon some clew. Then he came to the tree again, and tried first one eye, then the other, upon it; ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... workingman be pried loose from his traditional party affiliation by a labor event of transcendent importance for the time being, should he be stirred to political revolt by an oppressive court decision, or the use of troops to break a strike; ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... learned late in the summer of his first year, became a passion with him. He climbed the elms and the maples along the road and the fruit trees in the orchard. In the barn, too, he clambered about on the scaffolds and pried into all the ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the bluff was rather crumbly, with big rocks near the edge looking as if they had been left there by the frost, or rather as if the frost had pried away their brothers to let them crash down into the lake. They soon found a big rock that looked as if it would move easily. Pud found a small tree that had fallen down, and with this as a lever they loosened the rock and it ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where it had stood and remained painful and ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... one, and not all rusty. Gale pried open the reluctant lid. A faint old musty odor penetrated his nostrils. Inside the box lay a packet wrapped in what once might have been oilskin. He took it out and removed this covering. A folded paper ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the short minute between our hearing the shots and racing out there to have fallen asleep again, especially when he was tied up so tightly. I think you will find that I am right,—when Holmes returns with the information he has pried out of ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... for me. He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open, stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier. She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... rhymes, Nor yet comply with him nor with his times? Unskilled in schemes by planets to foreshow, Like canting rascals, how the wars will go; I neither will nor can prognosticate To the young gaping heir his father's fate; Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried, Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride: For want of these town-virtues, thus alone I go conducted on my way by none; Like a dead member from the body rent, Maimed and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... I stood at the window, watching it, faint sheen of beam in the dimness. It crept with sinister deliberation along our front building-wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows and pried with its ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got there we found it torn up from one end to the other. A few scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried off alone remained. Handy Solomon ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... lad had repaired to a nearby house, borrowed a red hot poker, and returning to the hall, bored two peep-holes through another shutter, while an enterprising companion pried open a third window, thus giving a full view of the pictures to all who were fortunate enough ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... house a visit; Horses were to his pine-trees tied, Mourners in every corner sighed, Widows brought children there that cried. Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, (People Knott never could abide,) Into each hole and cranny pried 480 With strings of questions cut and dried From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, For the wise spirits to decide— As, for example, is it True that the damned are fried or boiled? Was the Earth's axis greased or oiled? Who cleaned the moon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... die. The kitchen in question was in the deep basement of the main building, lit up by small windows fully six feet above the floor. When the cooks had retired, Billy and Paul made their way to one of these windows. They pried it open. Paul persuaded his companion to crawl into the window head first, while he lowered him by holding on to his legs and feet. He instructed Billy that when the floor was reached he could with the aid of a chair easily pass out the much needed supplies. Billy began his descent. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... pried open, and the applications put onto large platforms, where they were shuffled and mixed—symbolically enough with rakes and hoes—for it was quarter-sections of land they ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... of the raft had run upon the root of a tree, which held it fast. I was very grateful for the service this root had rendered me, for the raft might have gone down to Riverport before Sim discovered that anything was the matter. Fixing the poles underneath, we pried the raft off, and the current started it on its course again. I mounted the steering platform, and grasped the long oar. The ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... belonged to her when she was a girl of Mary Louise's age. The watch was stem-winding and had a closed case, the back lid of which had seldom been opened because it fitted very tightly. But now Mary Louise pried it open with a hatpin and carried it to the light. On the inside of the gold case ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... floor of rails; then they built a pen, five or six rails high, which they strengthened with "outriders." When the pen was finished, they pried up the side nearest the thicket, from the bottom rail, about a foot; that is, high enough for the animals to enter. This they did by means of two rails, using one as a fulcrum and one as a lever, having shortened them enough ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... the suggestion for an experiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a grassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small watermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of decoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to the caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its impossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather destructive results, he set about it with unconquerable ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... home at Easter; but when he arrived for the long vacation he brought more smart clothes; appearing in the morning in wonderful shooting-jackets, with remarkable buttons; and in the evening in gorgeous velvet waistcoats, with richly embroidered cravats, and curious linen. And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, such a beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quantity of lovely rings and jewellery. And he had a new French watch and gold chain, in place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of jingling seals, which had hung from ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... then, after she had set her withered breech upon the bottom of a bushel, she took into her hands three old spindles, which when she had turned and whirled betwixt her fingers very diversely and after several fashions, she pried more narrowly into, by the trial of their points, the sharpest whereof she retained in her hand, and threw the other two under a stone trough. After this she took a pair of yarn windles, which she nine times unintermittedly veered and frisked about; then at the ninth revolution or turn, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the cord, cut off an ear, and let it drop to the floor. He then jumped down, got a good grip of the heavy ear, carried it to the top of one of the slippery, polished bed-posts, seated himself comfortably, and, holding it well balanced, deliberately pried out one kernel at a time with his long chisel teeth, ate the soft, sweet germ, and dropped the hard part of the kernel. In this masterly way, working at high speed, he demolished several ears a day, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... had to pay dearly in men and guns for not having created a row of alternative positions. His force had been a cover for Brussilov's operations on both sides of the western passes as well as for the whole Russian line in the Carpathians. Now that Von Mackensen had pried the lid off, Brussilov's men in the south encountered enormous difficulties in extricating themselves from the Carpathian foothills, suddenly transformed from comparative strongholds into death-traps and no longer tenable. They suffered severely, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... clapped his hand upon her mouth. Her screaming stilled, but his own outcry more than replaced it. In a twinkling the virago's hard teeth closed over his fingers. Two ran from the oars to him. But the woman, conscious that she fought for life or death, held fast. Curses, blows, even a dagger pried betwixt her lips—all bootless. She seemed as a thing possessed. And all the time the Etruscan ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the turf, at close quarters, with your eyes on the blades of grass? Whilst I was waiting for Babet, I pried indiscreetly into a tuft which was really a whole world. In my bunch of grass there were streets, cross roads, public squares, entire cities. At the bottom of it, I distinguished a great dark patch where the shoots of the previous spring were decaying ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... began to swirl off the chart table. I twisted my body frantically, kicking loose from the grip of the slot, fighting the sucking pull of air. I fell to the floor inside the room, the slot cover slamming behind me. I staggered to my feet. I pried at the cover, but I couldn't open it against the vacuum. Then it budged, and Thomas' hand came through. The metal edge cut into it, blood started, but the cover was held open half an inch. I reached the chart table, ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... continued standing over him, but Scott took no further notice of his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in between the jaws on one side, and was trying to get it out between the jaws on the other side. This accomplished, he pried gently and carefully, loosening the jaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated White Fang's ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... frequently do when they get torn loose from the moorings they know and are moved by forces within them and beyond them, forces which bewilder and dismay them. The war and your idea of duty, of service, pried us apart. Natural causes—natural enough when I look back at them—did the rest. We all want to be happy. We all grab at that when it comes within reach. That's all you and I have done. We will probably continue doing that the same as every ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he thought of her, when she said, 'My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!' he has said, 'Do you really like it?' and pried it right out of its setting right then ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... whole scheme of existence. Unwelcome thoughts of this sort had come of late, and would not be banished. Once she had made a pet of a magpie, but the bird's habits had forced her to dispose of it. She remembered the way it forever pried into things; how nothing was safe from that sharp beak and inquisitive eye. Its waking hours had been busied in a tireless, furtive search for forbidden objects. Now she could not help likening her mother to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... he pried here and there, And marked each way, each passage and each tent: The knights he notes, their steeds, and arms they bear, Their names, their armor, and their government; And greater secrets hopes to learn, and hear, Their hidden purpose, and their ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... in a moment, the canvas door pried open and the three men passed beyond, carefully closing the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... evident that he was suffering great physical and nervous anguish as the result of his too intimate acquaintance with the poisons in question. "I will tell you precisely how is was, Professor Kennedy. When I was called in to see Miss Lytton I found her on the bed. I pried open her jaws and smelled the sweetish odor of the cyanogen gas. I knew then what she had taken, and at the moment she was dead. In the next room I heard some one moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour, and that she was deathly sick. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of the mortise where a V-shaped opening is made the full depth of the mortise that is to be. Continuing from the middle, vertical cuts are taken first toward one end and then toward the other. The chips are pried out as the cutting proceeds. In making the last cut this prying must be omitted, otherwise the edge of the mortise would be ruined. It will be necessary to stand so as to look along the opening in order to get the ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... wall, the professor had concealed the opening that he had found. As he turned to go he picked up a bit of the rock that he had pried loose. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... good while, thinking and thinking to hisself; and then he got the frog out and pried his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley, he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... it none," Blackie admitted. "Von Gerhard, he told me I had about five years or so t' live, about two, three years ago. He don't approve of me. Pried into my private life, old Von Gerhard did, somethin' scand'lous. I had sort of went to pieces about that time, and I went t' him to be patched up. He thumps me fore 'an' aft, firing a volley of questions, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... and got to you a few seconds after Scotty had grabbed you by the waist. When I saw your face, I had a few bad moments until I could take a closer look. You were a bloody mess, to put it mildly, with more than a few splinters adding color. But I could see your manly beauty wasn't gone forever. We pried you loose from the rocket and stretched you out on the lawn. Your pulse was pretty good and you were breathing steadily, so we gave you a few whiffs of oxygen from Scotty's ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... that point of time in which he is now living—the present. He may know experience and he may grasp opportunity, but he can know nothing of futurity. The future is a riddle, an unexplored continent, a terra incognita into which no human eyes have ever pried or ever may pry, sealed as it is by the counsel of God against the curious vision of His children. And to some extent I think we all must admit that this popular notion holds true. There are those to whom the future must be a blank, who peer into ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... not know that jelly tumblers are not opened with can openers. Mother Blossom and Norah always pried off the tin lids and used them the next year ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... oaken stave some six feet in length, sharpened to a point and hardened in the fire until it was almost iron-like in its quality. Plunged into the gravel as far as the force of a blow could drive it, and pulled backward with the leverage obtained, the gravel was loosened and pried upward either in masses which could be lifted out entire, or so crumbled that it could be easily dished out with the clamshell. The work went on more slowly, but not less steadily nor hopefully than on ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... upon his face, he drew his keen hunting knife and cut boldly into the flesh of the shoulder until he reached the bullet. Then he pried it out with the point of the knife, and threw it away in the bushes. A rush of blood followed and Tayoga groaned, but Robert, rapidly cutting the Onondaga's deerskin tunic into suitable strips, bound tightly and with skill both the entrance and the exit ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... or slid a dozen kinds of shellfish spying out refuges against the breakers and their brother enemies in the troughs and holes of the coral floor. With my small spears I pried out dozens of them, Mao, starfish, clams, oysters, furbelowed clams, sea-urchins, and sponges. The mao is the turbo, the queer gastropod sold in the market in Papeete. He lives in a beautiful spiral shell, and has attached to him a round piece of polished shell, blue, green, brown, or yellow, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the scent of a greyhound, pried about until he discovered that the count had given his mistress a legal document, assigning to her a valuable piece of property which, in the ordinary course of law, should be entailed on the boy, Paul. The countess at once hastened to the place, broke ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... I thought. Well, she's done it, though thet has n't pried her loose from Gaskins. He 's hauntin' her like a shadow. It 's garrison talk they 're engaged, but I ain't so sure 'bout thet. She an' I hev got to be pretty good friends, though, o' course, it's strictly on the quiet. I ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... must listen. When I have taken my solitary walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his room he pried loose one of the corner braces. At night he scraped away at this with his bit of glass until the wood began to take the shape of a revolver. This he carefully blacked with the ink brought him by his guard. To the end of his weapon he fitted an ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... but a gesture from the captain restrained us; our ammunition was low, and he wished to save it until we actually needed it. By our united efforts we pried off two of the volcanic rocks, which, with a great leap, disappeared into the darkness below, oftentimes appearing for an instant before rushing to the sea. Every time an Illanum fell we gave a hearty American cheer, which was answered by savage yells. Still they fought on and up, making ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... me and pried my crushing hands off her arms. Juli rubbed the bruises mechanically, not knowing she was doing it. Mack said, "You can't do it, Cargill. You wouldn't get as far as Daillon. You haven't been out of the zone ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... figure of the questioner leaned forward breathlessly and then pushed into the ring. Without a word he stood near Westerfelt, unpinned the sheet that was round him, and slowly took off his mask. Then he put a long forefinger into his mouth, pried a wad of cotton out of each cheek, and threw them ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... beyond the neck and face muscles. During the contractions the face may be drawn into frightful contortions. Food can be given only through such spaces as may exist between the teeth, as often the patient cannot open his mouth himself, nor can it be pried open by any force that would be allowable. When the muscles of the trunk are affected the abdomen may be drawn inward, become very hard and stiff, chest movements are affected, making it difficult ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... they're as sweet as ever," proposed Chairman Westbury. He took out a great jack-knife and carefully pried out the bungs. "Smell 'em, 'Lias," he said, yielding precedence to the ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... be pried or screwed out was gone. Port, starboard, and masthead lights; teak gratings; sliding sashes of the deckhouse; the captain's chest of drawers, with charts and chart-table; photographs, brackets, and looking-glasses; cabin doors; rubber cuddy mats; hatch-irons; half the funnel-stays; cork ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... himself in congratulation, "Between us, we pried old Bayweather loose from his soft soap, pretty neatly," and gave the man before him a look of friendly understanding. He was a little startled, for an instant, by the expression in the other's bright eyes, which he found fixed on him with an intentness almost ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... reg'lar gent's cutter and fitter. He'd 'a' had you all over the floor in another minute; if I hadn't pried you apart they'd 'a' sewed sawdust up inside of you like you was a doll. He had the old bone-handled skinner in his mit; that's why I let go of him. Laughing Bill! Take it from me, boys, you better walk around him like he was a hole in ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... to smash in the window nearest the door. He pried open the window with his bayonet, and got there before them. There was a big black fellow at the broken window. Our marine shot him dead, which gave him time to turn to the side window, which they had now broken in with the butts of their ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... perturbed imaginations, is uncertain, but they thought they discerned a slight sort of fitful, spring-like motion, in the domino. Nothing, however incidental or insignificant, escaped their uneasy eyes. Among other things, they pried out, in a corner, an earthen cup, partly corroded and partly encrusted, and one whispered to the other, that this cup was just such a one as might, in mockery, be offered to the lips of some brazen statue, or, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... and peeped, and pried, too, until there were points upon which he knew more than either his son ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silenced from sheer exhaustion and fright, was unceremoniously thrust, after which the sack was tied and flung into the wagon. This formidable obstacle overcome and the Roneys still slumbering peacefully, the rest was easy. The granary door was pried open and the wheat shovelled hurriedly in upon the empty floor. Charlie then crept up to the house and slipped his note ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... upon the day when he first pried a big rock off its base, as a turning-point in his career; a move that put the game in his own hands. The sensation was different from what he had anticipated. He had fancied that he was about to engage in a single-handed struggle, but no sooner had his grip closed upon the crowbar, no sooner ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the box under a muffling pile of bedding and send a bullet or two through the lock. But his wandering eye caught sight of a Morocco sheath-knife above them on the wall, and a moment later he had the point of it under the steel-bound lid, and as he pried it flew open ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... over her head. She crossed the dooryard, followed the path through the orchard, and came to the lane. Below the barn she turned back and attempted to cross. The mud was deep and thick, and she lost an overshoe; but with the help of a stick she pried it ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Augustine (354-430), in his great work on The City of God, speaks with some bitterness of "medical men who are called anatomists," and who "with a cruel zeal for science have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes of sick persons, who have died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured." [22] During the early Middle Ages the Greek medical knowledge practically disappeared, and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY |
