"Scratch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of Her Majesty's visits to the Crystal Palace. Among the American manufactures were some fine soaps, and among these a small head, done in white Castile, and so exactly like marble that the Queen doubted the soap story, and in her impulsive, investigating way was about to test it with a scratch of her shawl-pin, when the Yankee exhibitor stayed her hand, and drew forth a courteous apology by the loyal remonstrance—"Pardon, your Majesty,—it is ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... get out of the paddock, it may be safely asserted; and then, when he was examined, it was discovered, much to the wonder of everybody, including himself, that, beyond a scratch or two from the branches of the elm, he was quite unhurt, in spite of the toss the bull gave him and his unexpected flight ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... says. 'The woman is earning her daily bread—actually helpin' her husband. Did you ever hear o' such a thing! I'll have to scratch 'em off my list. It's ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... and spooks? I been meetin' up with 'em all my life. When I was younger I was such an old scratch I'd meet 'em right in de road, some without heads. I'd take to my heels and then I'd stop and look 'round and they'd ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Conceits, as ever to be said to be in Fashion, or out of Fashion. I remember there was a Fashion, not many years since, for Women in their Apparel to be so Pent up by the Straitness, and Stiffness of their Gown-Shoulder-Sleeves, that They could not so much as Scratch Their Heads, for the Necessary Remove of a Biting Louse; nor Elevate their Arms scarcely to feed themselves Handsomly; nor Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table, but their whole Body must needs Bend towards the Dish. This must needs be concluded by Reason, a most Vnreasonable, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... six years of such far-flung internal preparedness in our history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... nevertheless believe he'll play it. That's why," Miss Barrace kindly went on, "we take such an interest in you. We feel you'll come up to the scratch." And then as he seemed perhaps not quite to take fire: "Don't let him ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... contemptible assailants. Of all that they wrote against him, nothing has survived except what he has himself preserved. But the constitution of his mind resembled the constitution of those bodies in which the slightest scratch of a bramble, or the bite of a gnat, never fails to fester. Though his reputation was rather raised than lowered by the abuse of such writers as Freron and Desfontaines, though the vengeance which he took on Freron and Desfontaines ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... placed in a beaker of water and the water is heated by a Bunsen burner. As the water becomes warmer and warmer the level of the mercury in the tube steadily rises until the water boils, when the level remains stationary (Fig. 9). A scratch is made on the tube to indicate the point to which the mercury rises when the bulb is placed in boiling water, and this point is marked 212 deg.. The tube is then removed from the boiling water, and after cooling for a few minutes, it is placed in a vessel containing finely ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... lime in the food is often obvious when children show a tendency to eat chalk, and even to scratch walls in order to eat the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... they are unsurrounded by protecting fence or the moral restrictions of dominant Mussulmans, and the sheep, cows, and goats of the "infidel giaour" graze among them; and oh, shade of Mohammed! hogs also scratch their backs against the tombstones and root around, at their own sweet will, sometimes unearthing skulls and bones, which it is the Turkish custom not to bury at any great depth. The great number and extent of these cemeteries seem ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... he cried; "you've got off light, for there's no a scratch on your lily-white cheek, and the blood-letting from the nose will clear out the dregs of ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... her hands and shins, which were rendered necessary in consequence of Tony's activity with his nails and the toes of his boots, to say nothing of his teeth. For many weeks past—it seemed to her years—Miss Trim had not bandaged a cut, or fomented a bruise, or mollified a scratch with ointment. She absolutely felt as though she ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a frightened, piteous look in its eyes, and mewed in a strange manner. For a moment I was startled, for the animal clung to my breeches. The poor creature looked half-starved. In its frenzy, it might bite or scratch my leg or hand. Blood-poisoning would be likely to follow. I gently lowered my gloved hand and caressed its head. With a soft purr it relaxed its hold of my leg and dropped to the ground. Feeling more comfortable I unfastened my satchel and, taking out ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yesternight at supper You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing and sighing, with your arms across; 240 And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks: I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head, And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot: Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not, 245 But with an angry wafture of your hand Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did, Fearing to strengthen that impatience ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... then yet is, we yt should be partners of humilitie and peace, shall be examples of jangling & insulting. Yet your money which you ther [Southampton] must have, we will get provided for you instantly. 500li. you say will serve; for ye rest which hear & in Holand is to be used, we may goe scratch for it. For Mr. Crabe, of whom you write, he hath promised to goe with us, yet I tell you I shall not be without feare till I see him shipped, for he [i.e. his going] is much opposed, yet I hope he will not faile. Thinke ye best of all, and bear with patience what is wanting, and ye Lord guid ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... services, the Somerset East Mounted Rifles had become reduced to less than half their original strength: yet fortune so far favoured me that when at length the corps was disbanded I was one of the very few who escaped without so much as a scratch to show ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the bear swam along the edge to a lower place, and we pulled Chadozee up by means of our lariats. All this time he had been groaning so loud that we supposed he was badly torn; but when I looked for his wounds I found a mere scratch." ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of the yellow hen was reprehensible in the extreme. The comments passed upon her would have been sufficient to make her wince, had she been a hen of any sensibility. But regardless of the disapproval so openly expressed, she continued to scratch and summon her brood, with every indication of being perfectly ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... greatest innocence and assuming to be thinking of anything but making an attack. So playful a creature, enjoying itself thoroughly in the sunshine, could never have approached a walrus herd before. Now it was rolling legs upward, and giving itself a peculiar wriggle, as if to scratch its back; then it was sitting up like a cat, and reaching round to have a lick at the part of its person which had just been rubbed in the ice. A minute later it was on its flank, with all four legs stretched out, and its muzzle in the snow; and all these changes were made with ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... events," I thought, "I'll be handsomely clothed if there's a scratch-quarrel with Walter Butler—which God avert!" Then for the first time it occurred to me that it might not be Walter Butler, but I myself, lying stretched on the lawn behind the Coq d'Or, and I was comforted to know that, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the great shaggy head moved, only an infuriating scratch was given, the smoke betrayed the man's place, and the Grizzly made savage, three-legged haste ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... ground," and the attempt made by three battalions, with two other battalions in reserve, to capture it. A battalion of Zouaves, under the command of Colonel Cere, carried it in fine style, but the Russian reserves came up in great force, and their own reserves "declining to come to the scratch," as Gordon laconically put it, the Zouaves were in their turn compelled to fall back, with a loss of 200 killed. Encouraged by this success, the Russians gave the French another surprise a few days later, throwing up a second battery 300 yards further in advance of the first ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse, she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his cheek, which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers, deliberate ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... some of our officers to bring us round to face them proved unavailing. I am utterly unable to give any clear account of what followed immediately after that, for we were all, friends and foes, mixed up for some minutes in the wildest confusion, and how I ever got out of it all without a scratch is a mystery to me. More than once I was in violent collision with Colorado men, distinguished from ours by their uniform, and several furious blows with sword and lance were aimed at me, but somehow I escaped them all. I emptied the six chambers of my Colt's revolver, but whether my bullets ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... clearing dust three figures were visible, extricating themselves from the ruins. Sanders, the hotel chauffeur, was groaning and rubbing his ankle. His only passenger, a bald, thick-set man, with smooth face and bulldog jaw, had a bleeding scratch down his right cheek and a badly torn coat. Whittington, apparently unharmed, was chalky ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... first cleaned as thoroughly as possible to remove all extraneous impurities. In the cleaning operations care should be taken to scratch or abrade the bran as little as possible, for this reason: The outer coating of the bran is hard and more or less friable. Wherever it is scratched a portion is liable to become finely comminuted in the subsequent reductions, so finely that it is impossible to separate it from the flour by bolting, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... you've never been a journalist! The agony, the violence to soul, when you have to come up to scratch, when your copy has to be delivered by a certain hour! Writing without time to revise or even to read what you've already written—the compositors setting up the beginning of an article while you're still writing the middle. . . . And the public pays its ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... from eating canned meat is just a "bug-a-boo." It should be clearly understood that botulism is one of the very rare maladies. The chances for getting it by eating canned goods, say the experts, is rather less than the chances from dying of lockjaw every time you scratch your finger. To regard every can as a source of botulism is worse than regarding every dog as a source of hydrophobia. Moreover, for the very timid, there is the comforting certainty that the exceedingly slight danger is completely eliminated by re-cooking the ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... cooked! Mark that. There is not a surer shot, or a deadlier foe on earth then Persimmon Bill. He has defied the whole border for the past three years—ridden right into a military post and shot men down, and got away without a scratch. They say he has been adopted by the Sioux, and if he has, with such backing he'll do more ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... from another direction as he saw this strange sight: a horse galloping madly over the prairie, on its back a young man shouting loudly, and in his arms a small dirty child, alternately snarling at his captor, trying to scratch his face, ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... some of the causes we have stated is the extreme idleness of the Irish labourer. There is nothing of the value of which the Irish seem to have so little notion as that of time. They scratch, pick, dawdle, stare, gape, and do anything but strive and wrestle with the task before them. The most ludicrous of all human objects is an Irishman ploughing. A gigantic figure—a seven-foot machine for turning potatoes in ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... suffered a little in the beginning of the action; three Mexicans had been killed and eighteen wounded, as well as two Apaches. Of my Shoshones, not one received the smallest scratch; and the Arrapahoes, who had been left to scour the prairie, joined us a short time after the battle ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... to light the gas and fight it out. You have no doubt seen a man scratch a match on the leg of his pantaloons. Perhaps you have also seen an absent-minded man undertake to do so, forgetting that his pantaloons were hanging on a chair at the other ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... small rubber-pouch containing a few drams of the poison; the pouch was worn strapped to the waist on the left side, when on their hunting excursions, and they were extremely careful in handling it and the arrows. The slightest scratch with the poison would cause a ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... certain person down among the crowd, who had a yellow wig, should be at once put away, or something bad would happen. This done, the Czar became quiet again. The Czarina added, he was subject to such attacks of frenzy; and that, when she saw it, she would scratch his head, which moderated him. 'VOILA MONSIEUR,' concluded the King, addressing me: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Just a little scratch, sir," protested the trooper. "But even if I had no right arm at all, I could ride and shoot, and when it came to yelling I'd ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... story in a few incoherent phrases. The old man examined and dressed his wound, but remained curiously silent throughout the story. At last he said: "See here, my lad; let me tell you, this is serious business. I don't mean this scratch of a bullet—don't you be uneasy about that; but this whole row is mine. They haven't any grudge against you, but you're a sheep herder for me, and that is bad business just now. If you've killed a man ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... ago, a tuft of grass growing at the foot of one of the grand marble columns of the Parthenon at the Acropolis at Athens, I found a compass mark in the footing, or foundation—a mere scratch in the stone—made, probably, by some architect's assistant, before the Christian era. I make no claim to more than having made a scratch of some sort on the foundation stone of some pillar, or other, of Confederation. And I throw together these ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... force of constables claimed admittance, forty-one women, virtually indistinguishable one from the other, ran out into the street, and the bewildered minions of the law were left lifting their helmets to scratch puzzled heads and admitting "the wimmen were a bit too much for us, this ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... skirmish, Lincoln had received the scratch of a lance, at which he was chafing in his own peculiar way, and vowing revenge upon the giver. It might be said that he had taken this, as he had driven his short bayonet through his antagonist's arm, and sent him off with this member hanging by his side. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... after three cruises I had plenty of money, and determined to have another spell on shore, that I might get rid of it. Then I picked up Sue, and spliced again; but, Lord bless your heart, she turned out a regular built tartar—nothing but fight fight, scratch scratch, all day long, till I wished her at old Scratch. I was tired of her, and Sue had taken a fancy to another chap; so says she one day, "As we both be of the same mind, why don't you sell me, and then we may part in a respectable manner." I agrees; and I puts a halter round her neck, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... voice said in his earphones. "Just sit tight. I'm bringing you back in. There's a call here from Sun Lake City. They want you down there in a hurry. We'll have to scratch you ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... were accompanied by a corresponding gesture. With the point of his knife, the savage traced a circle upon my breast—just as if he had been scribing it on the bark of a tree. The scratch was light, though here and there it drew blood. At the words "red spot in the centre," as if to make the direction more emphatic, he punctured the spot with his knife till the blood flowed freely. Had he driven the blade to its hilt, I could ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... The ropes, cased in frozen spray, were as thick as a man's arm, and if the wind had increased much we would have had to cut away the sails, since there was no possibility of lowering them. Some members of the scratch crew were played out by the cold and the violent tossing. The schooner was about seventy feet long, and she responded to the motions of the storm-racked sea in a manner that might have disconcerted ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... To make the polish look nice, rub it with an old silk handkerchief, being careful first of all to dust off any small particles, which otherwise are apt to scratch the surface. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... let her child run barefoot, no matter how they clamor to do it. If they wish to go shoeless, let them wear bathing sandals without stockings, is the advice of the writer, who adds, the germ of tetanus, better known as lockjaw, is frequently found in the soil and a child with even a small scratch or cut takes big risks. For girls, especially, running barefoot should be a forbidden pleasure as it makes the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... sir; a scratch from a splinter, sir. The same shot that tripped up poor Wiggins, sent a ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... civilian in a safer position. The missile landed some ten paces from where they were and exploded, covering them both with earth and debris. The citizen kept his feet and received not so much as a scratch, while the officer had both ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... distressing moments, my faithful Kees never moved from my side. We sometimes got out of our carriage, and then his sure instinct led him to a plant. Frequently the stalk was fallen off, and then all his endeavours to pull it out were in vain. In such cases, he began to scratch in the earth with his paws; but as that would also have proved ineffectual, I came to his assistance with my dagger, or my knife, and we honestly divided the refreshing root with ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... Here is one of them:—Robin went as fiddler to a wedding. When the candles came he blew them out, and giving the men boxes on the ears he set them fighting. He kissed the prettiest girls, and pinched the ugly ones, till he made them scratch one another like cats. When the posset was brought he turned himself into a bear, frightened them all away, and had it all ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... not been a plaything for young pointers—it has not occupied a bacon scratch, or a bread and cheese cupboard—it has not been scribbled on within and without; but it has been treasured ever since 1538, to the honour of a succession of worthy clergymen."—O si ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... to see you wandering about here, alone," he said. "The men on the road are a scratch gang, picked up anyhow, not like the regular miners. I hope you are ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... steels chromium steels chromium-vanadium heat treatments nickel-chromium steels nickel steels screw stock silico-manganese steel standard steels Salt bath for tempering Scleroscope test Scratch hardness Screens for furnaces Screw stock, S. A. E. Sensible heat Sentinels, melting of Separating work from compound Shields for furnace doors Shore Scleroscope Short method of carburizing Shrinking ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... Cameron had not had a scratch, and the men had come to think he had a charmed life. More than he knew he was beloved of them all. More than they knew their respect for him was deepening into a kind of awe. They felt he had a power with him ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... It was but a scratch of the pen to the King. It was everything to the Virginians, and when news of it reached them all Virginia was ablaze. They who had clung to the King in his evil days, they who had been the last people belonging ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... was almost human. With a low growl, she dropped the thoroughly cowed poodle at Peggy's feet and then turned and stalked from the room, the very picture of scornful dignity. Mrs. Stewart snatched the poodle to her breast. There was not a scratch upon it save the one inflicted by Sultana, and richly deserved, as the tuft of the handsome cat's fur ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... misfortune to be recognised as thieves and robbers by the Government, and it is one of my duties to point this out to them. As a matter of fact they are no more thieves than you or I. It is as natural for them to scratch in the sand for antiquities as it is for us to pick flowers by the roadside: antiquities, like flowers, are the product of the soil, and it is largely because the one is more rare than the other that its promiscuous appropriation has been constituted an offence. The native who is sometimes ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... Dutch and Indians came to Montreal with news that peace had been signed in Europe; and, at the end of May, Major Peter Schuyler, accompanied by Dellius, the minister of Albany, arrived with copies of the treaty in French and Latin. The scratch of a pen at Byswick had ended the conflict in America, so far at least as concerned the civilized combatants. It was not till July that Frontenac received the official announcement from Versailles, coupled with an address from the king to the people ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... a sprinkling of the general public, whose time apparently hangs heavily on their hands. In a Stage-box is the Author herself, with a sycophantic Companion. A murky gloom pervades the Auditorium; a scratch orchestra is playing a lame and tuneless Schottische for the second time, to compensate for a little delay of fifteen minutes between the first and second Tableaux in the Second Act. The orchestra ceases, and a Checktaker at the Pit door whistles "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... potters, the brothers Elers from Nuremberg, settled for a time in Staffordshire, and introduced an improved manufacture, but they shortly after removed to Chelsea, where they confined themselves to the manufacture of ornamental pieces. No porcelain capable of resisting a scratch with a hard point had yet been made in England; and for a long time the "white ware" made in Staffordshire was not white, but of a dirty cream colour. Such, in a few words, was the condition of the pottery manufacture ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... of sinners everywhere and the same defects in all the saints. Sometimes I even wished some one would develop a new sort of wickedness, a kind that would vary the dreadful monotony of repentance and cause William to scratch his theological head for a different kind of sermon. But no one ever did; whether we were in the mountains or in the towns, among the rich or the poor, the people transgressed by the same mortal "rule of three" and fell short of the glory of God ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... scratch when you're cleaning plate," Willie observed. "I sometimes help Simpkins, and there's only one spoon that he'll let me clean, for fear I should scratch; and that's quite an old one that doesn't matter. So I have to clean it over and over again. But ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... your hanner and your Orange face. Ah, the Orange boys are the boys for keeping faith. They never served me as Dan O'Connell and his dirty gang of repalers and emancipators did. Farewell, your hanner, once more; and here's another scratch of the illigant tune your hanner is so fond of, to cheer up your ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... this way, then. Whether you join now or not, come down once in a while as my guest, and fill in for the scratch matches. Later you may be able to pick up a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... home from Arizona. He mounted with Caesar under his left arm. The dog had never learned to climb a perpendicular ladder, and never did he feel so much his master's greatness and his own dependence upon him, as when he crept under his arm for this perilous ascent. Up there was even gravel to scratch in, and a dog could do whatever he liked, so long as he did not bark. It was a kind of Heaven, which no one was strong enough to reach ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... ill-treated by his companions; they used to scratch and bite him, and jump on him till they were tired, while he never offered to resist, but cried in the most heart-rending manner. One young squirrel, however, was his secret friend, and whenever an opportunity offered of doing ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... with lawn tennis," she said, "but beyond that I find that not a dozen years ago you were a scratch golfer, and you certainly won the amateur championship ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at them. "Hungry, hungry," cried he; "is that a proper expression to use before a father who is sitting down here, all gayety" (scratching wildly with his pen) "and hilarity" (scratch) "to write a com—com—" he choked a moment; then in a very different voice, all sadness and tenderness, he said: "Where's the youngest—where's Lucy? As if I didn't know ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... inspire them with his own knowledge, and to give them that training in working together which, in all those kinds of activities which require large numbers of men to work together, whether on the cricket field, at football, in an army, or in a navy, constitutes the advantage of a practised over a scratch team. ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... without taking anything. All the house was in utter confusion for a while; but finding nothing stolen, they went to bed again. The boy sat holding his breath a short while; but making up his mind to get out of his narrow prison, began to scratch the bottom of the box with his finger-nails. The servant of the house, listening to the noise, supposed it to be a mouse gnawing at the inside of the box; so she came out, lamp in hand, and unlocked it. On removing ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... rains lash down through the jungles, and he was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman night came down, it seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... and the character of the ground leads to the belief that large nuggets may yet be found in the river bed. After going through a great many of the levels I felt tired, and sat down, and, to amuse myself, proceeded to scratch in the side of the heading in order to fill a little pannikin, which Miss Cornwall said each of the children and I were to have to wash out in the old-fashioned miner's way. Each pannikin was marked and sent to the top in charge of one of ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... sometimes very strong and hooked, as is the case with the birds of prey, while in other species it is only slightly curved and is not meant as a weapon of offense or defense, but chiefly to enable the bird to "scratch for a living." ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the quicksilver. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... abstracted companion; so much so, indeed, that Tim Linkinwater suspected he must have made the mistake of a figure somewhere, which was preying upon his mind, and seriously conjured him, if such were the case, to make a clean breast and scratch it out, rather than have his whole life embittered by ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... only to discover that some of their necessary parts are either in Auckland, or in Sydney, or in Melbourne, or, perhaps, in all three cities. It will be but poor consolation to learn that the rest of them may, perhaps, be discovered among the sands of the desert—that is to say, if they scratch about long enough looking for them. Personally, if I get the chance, I shall immediately go about purloining other people's physical perfections, so that, when at last I am ready for the next move onward, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... Darkovi['c], the leader of the Montenegrin deputies, that his followers and the rebels should not come to blows. The reply, which annoyed the General, was to the effect that if the rebels made an attack, then Darkovi['c] with his scratch forces would defend himself—and the battle lasted for two or three days. A junior French officer, who had been in command of a small detachment at Cetinje, told me that the noise of firing had awakened him every night and he had not ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... she began, directly she saw him, "last night you did not see my family, you must admire them, we are all here together for tea; this is our second, holiday tea. You can make friends with them all; only Shurotchka won't let you, and the cat will scratch. Are ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... "Scratch out those last words," said Mrs Peagrim irritably. "You really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase for ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... subterfuge," Sommers answered hotly, "fit only for clergymen and beggars for charities. I am not sure, anyway, that I want 'to do for' people. I think no fine theories about social service and all that settlement stuff. I want to be a man, and have a man's right to start with the crowd at the scratch, not given a handicap. There are too many handicaps in ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... any more than Dr. Johnson did why the Scotch, who couldn't scratch a living at home, and came up to London, always kept on bragging about their native land and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a monkey?" is asked. The other player might answer: "Because it is full of tricks." "Why is my cat like a candle?" "Because its eyes glow like a candle in the dark." "Why is my cat like a pin?" "Because its claws scratch like ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that—but there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us remember our manners, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... said, with a little laugh. "A mere scratch. Why, if it were a patient I was attending—you, for instance—I should say you were making ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... finger because of blood poisoning. I had a scratch on my finger. Pulled a hangnail out of it. I went around a lady who had a high fever and she asked me to sponge her off and I did it. I got the finger in the water that I sponged with and it got blood poisoned. I like ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished. He could raise scruples dark and nice, And after solve 'em in a trice; As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound, Only to show with how small pain The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we find, They always leave a scar behind. He knew the seat of Paradise, Could tell in what degree it lies; And, as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... did not think it would look right on the stage. As Katherine she wanted me to wear steely silver and bronzy gold, but all the brocades had such insignificant designs. If they had a silver design on them it looked under the lights like a scratch in white cotton! At last Mrs. Carr found a black satin which on the right side was timorously and feebly patterned with a meandering rose and thistle. On the wrong side of it was a sheet of silver—just the right steely silver ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... usual signs of life. In the rear a woman draws water from a well, lowering the bucket from the end of a long well-sweep, heedless of the stir about the door. Fowl scratch about in search of food, and there is a dog at one side. Some one within looks with idle curiosity from the window into the yard. It is little touches like these which give the ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... who refuses to lend himself to the business on any terms, and bolts on principle; while the rider of the black horse remains in stationary meditation.) Go on—that black horse—go on! (The chestnut is at length brought up to the scratch snorting, but again flinches, and retires with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... to receive no hurt in this battle, excepting a small scratch on the side of my neck by the push of a pike; but my friend received a very dangerous wound when the battle was as good as over. He had engaged with a German colonel, whose name we could never learn, and having killed his man, and pressed very ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... moment, comrades," said Leo, "and, chief, give me your arm; my scratch grows stiff; I cannot walk fast. We ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... slight. Carrying my arm in a sling gives too serious an impression. I merely had one of the fingers of my left hand shot away, and a scratch on my shoulder." ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... have trampled down the bushes as they went through. I wish their skins were as thin as mine," Mysa said as she wiped away the blood from a deep scratch on her cheek; "they would keep up in their own woods then and not come down ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... the Witch may be ordered to touch afflicted Persons in order to their healing or recovery out of a sick Fit, why may not the Diseased Person be as well ordered to touch the Witch for the same cause? And if to touch him, why not to scratch him and fetch Blood out of him, which is but an harder kind of touch? But as for this Mr. Perkins doubts not to call it a Practice of Witchcraft. It is not safe to meddle with any of the Devils Sacraments or Institutions; For my own part, I should be loath to say to a Man, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... her own gate, and in Peace's mind this could mean only one thing,—Allee had fallen below grade in her arithmetic that afternoon and had been kept after school to make it up. As a further indication that this was the case, she was intently studying the front page of a scratch-tablet, and when Peace called to her, she hastily hid the paper under her apron, while her rosy cheeks grew rosier still, and a look of guilty alarm flew into ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here she had come out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz made a minute examination. He looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discovered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger. Then he sat down in the stern sheets, passive, with his knees close together and ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... but not a drinking one, and it runs right through the up-stairs to the skylight. You have to pay for that. Think of charging for daylight! We went to a bird show and I saw a cockatoo sitting on a pole asleep. 'Scratch its back with your parasol, Gladys,' said mother, so I did, and it opened one eye when I stopped, and said, 'Encore,' I was put out to think even the birds didn't talk American, but when I said so, mother laughed but I don't ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... cocus, ebony, etc.; these may be rapidly polished in the lathe, on account of their texture, with the white polish. In spiriting-off a very soft piece of chamois leather (if it is hard and creased it will scratch) should be damped with methylated spirits, then wrung so that the spirit may be equally diffused; the lathe should then be driven at a rapid speed, and the leather held softly to the work. In a few minutes, if a dark wood, a brilliant ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... When we feel that kind of irritability we should ignore it, as we would ignore a little snapping dog across the street, while at the same time removing its cause as quickly as we can. There is nothing that delights the devil more than to scratch a man with the irritability of hunger, and have him respond to it at once by being ugly and rude to a friend; for then the irritation immediately becomes moral, and every bit of selfishness rushes up to join it, and to arouse ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... half-seas over. He wore black cloth gaiters up to his knees, and padded to make his legs look stouter; his trousers were lined with the thickest fustian; his waistcoat was buttoned up to his cheeks; a red scratch wig hid half his forehead, and he had added nearly three inches to his height; in short, the oldest frequenter of the Cafe David could not have recognized him. From his squarecut coat of black cloth with full skirts he might have been taken ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... his mind had anything to them or if they were entirely impracticable. Here was opportunity, definite, concrete, and spelled with a capital O, here was a deliberate invitation to avail himself of a short cut out of his embarrassment. A mere scratch of a pen and he would have money enough to move on to some other Dallas, and there gain the start he needed—enough, at least, so that he could tip his waiter and pay cash for his Coronas. Business men are ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... my Missus say, 'John O., you let my nigger alone.' You see, my Missus had her niggers en den old Boss had his niggers cause when old Missus been marry Massa John O. Bethea, she had brought here share of niggers from whe' she was raise in de country. It been like dis, old Missus father had scratch de pen for everyone of his chillun to have so many niggers apiece for dey portion of his property so long as dey would look after dem en treat dem good. Den if dere been talk dat dem chillun never do what he say do, dey was to take ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... calliope and not even turning his head to look at the cabin. In half an hour Hale thought he heard something crashing through the bushes high on the mountain side, and, a little while afterward, the boy crawled through the bushes to him alone. His cap was gone, there was a bloody scratch across his face and he was ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... unamiable and even distinctly ferocious. That, being made gooseherd, and finding the birds troublesome, he knocks them about, killing some goslings, may not be an unpardonable atrocity. And even when, being set to scratch his father's back, he employs a wool-comb for that purpose, much to the detriment of the paternal skin and temper, it does not very greatly go beyond the impishness of a naughty boy. But when, being promoted ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... do! If you do not like it, just say to yourself: The big boy is dreaming, I will awaken him, I will step in front of him and draw myself up to my full height [With gestures], and let him see that it is no longer a little child that stands before him—[He points to a scratch on the door]—that shows how big you were at eleven!—but a very proper, grown-up girl, who could reach the sugar when it is upon the sideboard! Surely you remember! That was the place, the firm fortress, where it was safe from us even without being locked up. We used to amuse ourselves by slapping ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sense of any writing than by reading it without stops! Most of the parsons that read the first and second lessons practise Mr. Cooke's method of making them intelligible, for they seldom observe any stops. George Selwyn proposes to send the man his own sermon, and desire him to scratch out the stops, in order to help ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... she sighed "All right," and put up her cheek to pay the price. His arms tightened about her, and his lips were not content with her cheek. He fought to win her lips, but she began to tear off her gloves to scratch his eyes out if need ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... as to myself and the children. Several fierce men with swords jumped on my cart. One struck at the baby, but I parried the blow with a pillow, and the little fellow only received a slight scratch on the forehead. Then they dropped their swords and began tearing at our goods at the back of the cart. Heavy boxes were dragged over us, and everything was taken. Just then a dreadful looking man tried to reach us from the back of the cart ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... Q. Now the witches scratch you, and pinch you, and bite you, don't they? A. Yes. Then he put his hand upon her breast and belly, viz. on the clothes over her, and felt a living thing, as he said; which moved the father also to feel, and ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the people. They have the makings of a wonderful nation. They are keen as mustard and without silly antique prejudices inherited from the middle ages. It is true, as a nation, they have something of a swelled head. But give them a chance; they will come up to the scratch some day; ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... hog? Eschilus fore threatned by the fall of an house, when he stood most upon his guard, strucken dead by the fall of a tortoise shell, which fell out of the tallants of an eagle flying in the air? and another choaked with the kernell of a grape? And an Emperour die by the scratch of a combe, whilest he was combing his head? And Aemylius Lepidus with hitting his foot against a doore-seele? And Aufidius with stumbling against the Consull-chamber doore as he was going in thereat? And Cornelius ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... that best of monarchs, viz., his father Santanu. And, O king, passing through many forests, rivers, hills, and woods abounding with trees, he arrived (at the capital) in no time. Of immeasurable prowess in battle, the son of the ocean-going Ganga, having slain numberless foes in battle without a scratch on his own person, brought the daughters of the king of Kasi unto the Kurus as tenderly if they were his daughters-in-law, or younger sisters, or daughters. And Bhishma of mighty arms, impelled by the desire of benefiting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he will," replied Kitty. "Isobel Carson rang up just now to ask if Nan would come over. It appears that, barring the injury to his back, he escaped without a scratch. He didn't even know he was hurt till he found he couldn't use his legs. Of course, he'll be in bed. Isobel says he seems almost his usual self, except that he won't let anyone sympathise with him over his injury. He's just savage ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... congeners. They are fearless while haunting their nesting places, and are not to be scared with a gun; and are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus called hippoboscae hirundinis; and often wriggle and scratch themselves, in their flight, to get rid of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... : cikatro. scarf : skarpo. scarlet : skarlato. scene : vidajxo, sceno. scenery : pejzajxo. scent : odoro, parfumo; flari. scissors : tondilo. scold : riprocxi, mallauxdi. scorpion : skorpio. scoundrel : kanajlo. scour : frotlavi; scourge : skurgxi. scrape : skrapi, raspi. scratch : grati. screen : sxirm'i, -ilo. screw : sxrauxbo. scrupulous : konscienca, skrupula. sculpture : skulpti. scum : sxauxmo. scurvy : skorbuto. seal : sigel'i, -o, (animal) foko. seaside : marbordo. season : sezono; spici. seasonable : gxustatempa. secret : sekreta, kasxita. secretary : sekretario. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... hills, and I was watching at home, thinkin' maybe of the next Michaelmas fair, and many a fine bit of fun thereby. The fire was gone out, but I had lighted a scrap of candle, which sweeled sadly down, I remember, in the socket. Well, just as I was getting sleepy I heard a scratch, and then a whine at the door. 'What's to do now,' thinks I, 'that the dogs are here again so soon?' an' without more ado, I lifted the latch, when, sure enough, it was them, dirty draggled beasts, they might ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out-"scratch!" how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... importunate whine, and began to scratch against the door. The lad threw it open—the dog brushed past him in an instant, and his quick, short, continuous yelping, expressed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... they can but scratch my beautiful nickel-plate," he said. "But there will be no 'worst,' for I think I can manage to frighten these absurd soldiers very easily. Follow me closely, all ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the strongest instinct of our nature. Nature is still 'red in tooth and claw,' though she has begun to make fine flourishes with tooth-brush and nail-scissors. Even the mild dog on my hearth-rug has been known to behave like a wolf to his own species. Scratch his master and you will find the caveman. But the scratch must be a sharp one: I am thickly veneered. Outwardly, I am as gentle as you, gentle reader. And one reason for our delight in fire is that ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... of real melody, and will afford one more delight perhaps than any other class. The robin is the most familiar example. Their manners, flight, and form are the same in each species. See the robin hop along upon the ground, strike an attitude, scratch for a worm, fix his eye upon something before him or upon the beholder, flip his wings suspiciously, fly straight to his perch, or sit at sundown on some high branch caroling his sweet and honest strain, and you have seen what is characteristic of all the thrushes. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... approvingly, as he finished his examination, "but I don't perceive any trace of a scar on either the right or left. Will you go over them, Jervis? The robbery took place a fortnight ago, so there has been time for a small cut or scratch to heal and disappear entirely. Still, the matter is ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Carrington, he won't come to the scratch. Perhaps as well for him that he does not," said the colonel, chuckling in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... my old outfit. To-morrow I'm going to the city to round them up. They've stood by me before in many a tight place. It cost them a lot sometimes. But they stuck just the same. Now I've got a chance to stick by them. And I'm going to do it because I know they'll come up to the scratch." ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... Tom and Jack seemed to be in the ascendant, for they did not receive even a scratch. Later they found reason to believe that a number of the leaden missiles had come very close to their persons; for the marks upon the body of the plane itself, as well as the tiny holes in the stout linen covering ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... have been a tough one to have jumped the train without receiving a scratch," said a voice in the ear of the detective, as he flashed the rays of a lantern down on ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... Chintz Imp. "Do you think I am as old as your great-aunt, without knowing much more than you do! Bring me the knife. I'm going to swarm up the chimney and scratch away the mortar. Leave it entirely to me, and Santa Klaus will be down here ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... he will afterwards find to his sorrow that he exchanged them for something far more tenacious in these microscopic Harvest-mites. If he has obtained a good supply of them, he will in a few hours begin to suffer from severe itching, and for the next two or three days will be likely to scratch until ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... a sentence from his last letter: he often writes to me as well as to Gladys. Yes, here it is: 'Your last letter has been a great comfort to me, my dear Etta: it was more than a poor fellow had a right to expect. I do believe that this long absence has served my purpose, and the scratch I got at Singapore. Girls are curious creatures; one never can tell how to tackle them, and my special cousin knows how to keep one at a distance, but I begin to feel I am making way at last. She wrote to me very sweetly ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... always said, give me Master B for kind-heartedness-like. Many's the job as we've been on together, sir, though I never did no racing nor aught of that, but just the plain labour, as you might say. I'm getting a bit too old and stiff for it nowadays, sir—just scratch about in the garden here and grow a bit of a logarithm, or raise a common denominator or two. But Mr. Euclid he use me still for ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... to Elliott for corroboration on this point and Elliott grew almost interested trying to decide whether or not Chanticleer knew he was "Chanticleer" and not "Sunflower." There were also "Fluff" and "Scratch" and "Lady Gay" and "Ruby Crown" and "Marshal Haig" and "General Petain" and many more, besides "Brevity," so named because, as Priscilla solicitously explained, she never seemed to grow. They all, with the exception of Brevity, looked ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... Minister reflected profoundly, standing the while, in order that he might assist his faculties by scratching himself, even as we, when thinking, scratch our heads. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... bio-graphy, an' she'll go down to histhry as a termygant. A termygant, Hinnissy, is a woman who's heerd talkin' to her husband after they've been marrid a year. Hogan says all janiuses was unhappily marrid. I guess that's thrue iv their wives, too. He says if ye hear iv a pote who got on with his fam'ly, scratch him fr'm ye'er public lib'ry list. An' ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... sharp. The mouse, which is not the field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal of a different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp snout. Shrewd means sharp generally. Its bad sense is only incidental. They seem connected with scratch; screw; shrags, the end of sticks or furze (Halliwell); to shred (A.-S., screadan, but which must be a secondary form of the verb). That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin sorex, seems to be an accidental coincidence. That is said to be derived from [Greek: urax]. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... had supreme contempt for "no count niggers that didn't hav' no white Folks". She was thrifty and frugal. Having a large family, most of her small earnings was spent on them. However, she early taught her children to scratch for themselves. Two of her daughters died after they had each brought several children into the world. Charlotte thought they were being neglected by their fathers and proceeded to take them "to raise ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... to say to that terrible woman, papa?" shuddered Jessica as they neared the Brant home. "I'm afraid she'll scratch ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... the young gnome was playing with the cat, and began to pull his tail. The cat, not liking this, began to scratch Class 81, Q. At this, the little fellow cried and yelled, while the cat scratched all the more fiercely. But Selma, who ran into the room on hearing the noise, was equal to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... bath; and this he did in order to mortify his comfort-seeking body. He practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would neither receive nor touch a penny, either with leave or without it. For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of that: she would be contented, with him,—on a desert island! Oh, if he could only always be enough for her! He vowed to himself, in sudden boyish solemnity, that he would always be enough for her. Aloud, he said he thought he could scratch up two ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... back he was gone," said the Captain. "But I bear marks of a scratch which he gave me, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident. Day by day we are forced to believe this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who disappears from apparent life under the influence of the hostile agency at work around us, had the same powers as I—I also am subject to the same laws. In the face of all this we call ourselves lords of the creation, wielders of the elements, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... stopped, as on the previous night, being overcome by a sudden sense of silence. There was not the faintest sound of gnaw, or scratch, or squeak. The silence was as of the grave. He remembered the odd occurrence of the previous night, and instinctively he looked at the chair standing close by the fireside. And then a very odd ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... little battle, while it lasted," he stated, "but it ain't deuce high alongside this fight we've got on our hands right now. For he's just as near over as I'd care to see a man, unless it was someone I'd a little prefer dead! It ain't that scratch on the head that's got him slippin', either." Joe paused and turned to address Garry Devereau's still white face itself. "You sat in an' backed my game like a gentleman born," he said, "and now I'm a-goin' to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... were in Armenia, I durst not let her know when you were hurt: For at the first on every little scratch, She kept her Chamber, wept, and could not eat, Till you were well, and many times the news Was so long coming, that before we heard She was as near her ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... in London, and she it was who carried the letter to Charles Rennett—a letter that made him scratch his head many times before he took a sheet of paper, and addressing the manager ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... knee-joint, remaining fast there for a stride or two, and then falling to the ground. At first the beast did not seem to be incommoded by this wound; indeed, it only caused it to gallop quicker, and Benita rejoiced, thinking that it was but a scratch. Then she forgot about it, for some of the Matabele, who had guns, began to shoot them, and although their marksmanship was vile, one or two of the bullets went nearer than was pleasant. Lastly a man, the swiftest runner of them all, shouted ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... that besides that of a fine lady, which is all mere art and mummery, every such woman hath some real character at the bottom, in which, whenever nature gets the better of her, she acts. Thus the finest ladies in the world will sometimes love, and sometimes scratch, according to their different natural dispositions, with great fury and violence, though both of these are equally inconsistent with a ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... say) struggles against this sweet enchantment of autumn, but Nature is too strong for us. Why is it that all these strikes occur just at this time of year? The old hibernating instinct again, perhaps. The workman has a subconscious yearning to scratch together a nice soft heap of manila envelopes and lie down on that couch for a six months' ear-pounding. There are all sorts of excuses that one can make to one's self for waving farewell to toil. Only last Sunday we saw ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... each other, that young Scott called together his retainers, and addressing them, said—"Look ye, friends, is it not a crying sin and a national shame to see things going aglee as they are doing? There seems hardly such a thing as manhood left upon the Borders. A bit scratch with a pen upon parchment is becoming of more effect than a stroke with the sword. A bairn now stands as good a chance to hold and to have, as an armed man that has a hand to take and to defend. Such a state ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... warmly"Heaven forbid that any process of philosophy were capable so to sear and indurate our feelings, that nothing should agitate them but what arose instantly and immediately out of our own selfish interests! I would as soon wish my hand to be as callous as horn, that it might escape an occasional cut or scratch, as I would be ambitious of the stoicism which should render my heart like a piece of the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... were to tell it. I don't like to hear reading," replied Enna in her imperious way, at the same time taking quiet possession of Elsie's little rosewood rocking-chair—a late present from her papa, and highly prized by the little girl on that account—and beginning to scratch with her thumb nail ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... deserted without a word of notice or explanation, and in a few days none remained but little Isaac. The ladies had no maid or attendants; and the general, commanding all the mighty forces of the United States on the Pacific coast, had to scratch to get one good meal a day for his family! He was a gentleman of fine social qualities, genial and gentle, and joked at every thing. Poor Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Ogden did not bear it so philosophically. Gibbs, Fitzgerald, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... china dragon that always stands on top of it. But I could see that she was not enjoying their visit. She was afraid that Stuart's rockers would bump against her handsome old mahogany furniture, or that they would scratch it in some way, or break some of her fine vases ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Trirodov, "we are looked upon by the rest of Europe as almost Mongols, as a race mixed with Mongolian elements. You know the saying: 'Scratch a Russian and you will find ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... you!' says I (for I had never a want of wit); and so we fell to work at the gooseberry-bush, laughing and talking as happy as might be. In the course of our diversion Nora managed to scratch her arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw, yet I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever conferred upon me, and ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... scratch ner a pimple on him,' says the feller, kind o' resentin' my looks. 'He's sound an' kind, an' 'll stand without hitchin', an' a lady c'n drive him 's ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... Brer Fox, he fotch up, en dey pass de time er day wid one er nudder monst'us perlite; en den, bimeby atter w'ile, Brer Rabbit, he up'n say, sezee, dat he got some mighty good news fer Brer Fox; en Brer Fox, he up'n ax 'im w'at is it. Den Brer Rabbit, he sorter scratch he year wid his behime foot en ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... Miss Sprotts, the dog resigned his comfortable place with a plaintive growl, but the cat, of a more irritable temperament, set up and made a sudden scratch at her hand, drawing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... each other at what looked, in the screen, like just over pistol-range, two of them firing into the third, which was replying desperately. The third one blew up, and somebody was yelling out of a screenspeaker, "Scratch one traitor!" ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... side of her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front, where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting with her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand. She may not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to scratch herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself with her own hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood, which, when it is not in use, is stuck in her hair. She may speak to nobody but her mother; indeed nobody else would think of coming near her. At evening ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... they found him without scratch or blemish, save for a curious and inflamed disfiguration on his left arm, just below the shoulder. Though this soon healed, it was long before its mystery was explained; but when Truman Flagg saw it, he pronounced it to be the tattooed mark ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... at those who had gathered about him to render succor. One of the sailors now picked him up in his arms, and laid him upon the tarpaulin of the main hatch, when, certain restoratives having been applied by Luke's wife, he soon began to scratch his head, and exhibit such other signs of animation as made it certain the country would not be deprived of his services just yet. Nor was it many minutes after he had given out such strong proofs of his willingness to meet death, when he looked piteously up at the good woman, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... not crying, however, but thinking, thinking, thinking, and trying to find some way out, when he heard a little scratch, scratching on the corner of the shed. He sat up and listened. The scratching went on. He held his breath. Could it be that some one was trying to get in to help him? Nonsense, of course it was only a rat. Next ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... where she had boxed them and as he turned a rather foolish face surprisedly toward the intruders, a scratch showed livid on one cheek. The girl's hair streamed disheveled by the struggle. She caught up, hastily, a handsome opera cloak to ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... will do that. I was wondering if it has ever struck you how prettily and kindly your little hands behave to each other. Right hand is the cleverest and quickest, of course, but left hand is always willing and ready too. They take care not to hurt or scratch each other, and if by chance one is ever hurt, the other is as tender as possible not to rub or touch the ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... Justice!" He laughed sardonically. "Poor old lady, she couldn't stop within forty miles of Perkins' Committee if she had forty bandages over her eyes, and both ears plugged with cotton! You wait till their farce of a trial is over. You may get off, by a scratch—I hope ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower |
