"Squat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chamber about 7 ft. deep and 4 ft. square lay open to us. At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound, wooden box, the lid of which was hinged upwards, with this curious, old-fashioned key projecting from the lock. It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had eaten through the wood so that a crop ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the wood hard and durable and of pleasing colour, and so beautifully grained that it is fast becoming popular for furniture and cabinet-making. It bears a prolific crop of large beans, from two to five in each of its squat pods, but they are, as Mr Standfast found the waters of Jordan, "to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold," and require special treatment in order to eliminate a poisonous principle. Many chemists analysed ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... down Ancient streets of Hastings town— Slowly thread them—when behold, French canary-merchant old Shepherding his flock of gold In a low dim-lighted pen Scann'd of tramps and fishermen! There a bird, high-coloured, fat, Proud of port, though something squat— Pursy, play'd-out Philistine— Dazzled Nelly's youthful eyne. But, far in, obscure, there stirr'd On his perch a sprightlier bird, Courteous-eyed, erect and slim; And I whisper'd: "Fix on him!" Home we brought him, young and fair, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... elegance. A noteworthy change in the choice of attitudes will also be remarked. Orientals find repose in postures which would be inexpressibly fatiguing to ourselves. For hours together they will kneel; or sit tailor-wise, with the legs crossed and laid down flat to the ground; or squat, sitting upon their heels, with no other support than is afforded by that part of the sole of the foot which rests upon the ground; or they will sit upon the floor with their legs close together, and their arms crossed upon their knees. These four attitudes were customary among the people from ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... now—he was sure of it. He had seen him as he turned to cross the bridge which would set him on the way to the church of San Salvatore—a short, squat man, masked and dressed from head to foot in black. Quick as the movements of the fellow were, dexterous his dives into porches and the patches of shadow which the eaves cast, the priest's trained eye followed his every turn, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... to the right the squat tower of the college loomed against the lighter rack of clouds, and rising amid the dark lines of trees that beautify that part of the outskirts, formed a coup d'oeil sufficiently impressive. Here and there, in such of the chamber windows as looked over the meadows, lights twinkled cheerfully; ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... tag." They are all simply the game of tag with the additional rule that when a player is in contact with iron, stone, trees, wood, and so on he is safe from being tagged by the one who is "it." The game of "squat tag" is similar, except that to be safe the one pursued must squat quickly on the ground before "it" catches him. In cross tag, "it" must select a victim and continue to run after him until some one runs ahead and crosses his path, when "it," who may be breathless by this time, must abandon his ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... impressive, for it has nothing of the lightness and grace of the Transitional work in the Temple, and the heavy round arches opening into the circular aisle are supported by eight massive piers. Above there is another series of eight pillars, very squat, and of about the same girth as those below, and the spaces between are subdivided by a small pillar supporting two semi-circular arches. Part of the surrounding aisle collapsed in 1841, and the ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... overhung the chalk pit, in which stood the house, a monstrous squat Egyptian shape that Cossar had built for his sons when the Giant Nursery had served its turn, and behind was a great dark shed that might have covered a cathedral, in which a spluttering incandescence came ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... Castle. I shall not easily forget the face and figure of the matron. To a countenance of masculine feature, and masculine complexion—including no ordinary growth of beard, of a raven tint—she added a sturdy, squat, muscular figure—which, when put into action, moved in a most decided manner. A large bunch of massive keys was suspended from a girdle at her side; and her dress, which was black, was rendered more ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... corn, for instance, the tent-like stouts, the shucks, the rustling blades, the ripe pumpkins strewing the field; for, notwithstanding England is such a garden, our corn does not flourish there. I saw no buckwheat either, the red stubble and little squat figures of the upright sheaves of which are so noticeable in our farming districts at this season. Neither did I see, any gathering of apples, or orchards from which to gather them. "As sure as there are apples in Herefordshire" seems to be a proverb in England; yet it is very certain that ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... power in the North, when long distances and staying qualities are required. But for short, sharp dashes of twenty to thirty miles the lighter built and more vivacious Straits dog is the speedier and certainly the less wolfish. We have attempted crossbreeding our somewhat squat-legged Eskimo dogs with Kentucky wolf hounds, to combine speed with endurance. The mail-carrier from Fullerton to Winnipeg found that combination very desirable. With us, however, it did not succeed. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... thy tender leg shall rake: (I spare the thistles for Sir Arthur's[2] sake) Sharp are the stones; take thou this rushy mat; The hardest bum will bruise with sitting squat. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by the blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and desolate surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat, truncated mass of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a feeble wisp of smoke still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired of his forge, had banked its ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... know she almost lives on acids and small whey— laces herself by pulleys and often in the hottest noon of summer you may see her on a little squat Pony, with her hair plaited up behind like a Drummer's and puffing round the Ring ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... bullet scars on the rough red brownstone surface. Green outside shutters lay inertly back from dull leaded panes which reflected metallically the orange glow of the setting sun, and over the door, which was squat and low and level with the pavement, an ancient four-sided lantern, hung from a bracket of rusty black iron, was gathering cobwebs in disuse. All this lay within Mary Louise's field of vision from the summerhouse and yet she saw it not. She was ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... movement in the camp, for the old Emir had mounted his camel, and some of his party were already beginning to follow their companions. The squat lieutenant, the Moolah, and about a dozen Dervishes surrounded the prisoners. They had not mounted their camels, for they were told off to be the ministers of death. The three men understood as they looked upon their faces ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... upon chains from the painted ceiling. The intricate perforations of the lamp were inset with colored glass, and the result was a subdued and warm illumination. Odd-looking oriental vessels, long-necked jars, jugs with tenuous spouts and squat bowls possessing engraved and figured covers emerged from the shadows of niches. A low divan with gaily colored mattresses extended from the door around one corner of the room where it terminated beside a kind of mushrabiyeh cabinet or cupboard. Beyond this cabinet was a long, low ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... hoarse tongue lolleth out! Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs With thy swollen palms, and roar As thou never hast before! Lustier! Wilt thou! Peal on peal! Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel— Wrestle with thy loins, and then Wheeze thee ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... deep groan. She was the one who had been deceived, she always was. Boehnke, too, had deceived her. Had he not told her that fly agarics—the orange-red mushrooms with white warts—were very poisonous, and that the devil's toadstool—the brown, squat one which so strongly resembled the boletus edulis—was even more so? He had brought a book with him, and had read it to her secretly in the little garden with the palings all round, where they had stolen like a pair of lovers who want to ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... pensively. "I've heard tell," she said, "of great cuttles that sit and squat under the water; and sometimes, when they are hungry, they fling up their suckers and pull you down off ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... they also narrow the apparent width of a wall space. It is best to have such line effects indistinct unless they appear as in the illustration on page 63, where they are intended to reduce the breadth effect of the pattern and neutralize a squat tendency. ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... about seven feet deep and four feet square lay open to us. At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the lid of which was hinged upwards, with this curious old-fashioned key projecting from the lock. It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had eaten ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the battleship, was hoisted and stowed on board. Almost immediately a long line of signal flags fluttered from the squat mast. Smoke began to pour from the funnels. The flags were hauled down and another festoon of them was hoisted in their place. I could see an answering stream of flags fluttering from one of the ships ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... to start with. I'd like to get a few of the kinks out of my arms. Here, squat down, and begin work with that mess. Plenty more where that came from, ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... short, fat, burly little fellow by nature; but when he put on his winter dress he became such a round, soft, squat, hairy, and comical-looking creature, that no one could look at him without laughing, and the shout with which he was received on deck the first time he made his appearance in his new costume was loud and prolonged. But ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... an American, who had gone into the shop with me. This American is a sort of transatlantic Bunsby. He talks little, but thinks much. His sole observation to me as we walked away was this, "They will squat, sir, mark my words, they will squat." I received this oracular utterance with respect, and I leave it to others to solve its meaning, I am myself a person of singular credulity, but even I sometimes ask myself ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... chromos of simpering saints with preternaturally large eyes, more nearly resembling advertisements for a hair dye or complexion bleach than ecclesiastical subjects. Around the main altar stood armoured soldiers of Biblical antiquity, squat, inelegant figures that had first been painted on canvas and were afterward cut out like gigantic paper dolls, being put into wooden grooves to ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... leaping about with their raised rumps showing their white scuts. Others, white ones with pale ruby eyes, and black ones with jet eyes, galloped round their hutches with playful grace. Now a scare would make them bolt off swiftly, revealing at every leap their slender reddened paws. Next they would squat down all in a heap, so closely packed that their heads ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... of laborers was engaged in moving the timbers back from the railroad siding. Superintending the work was a squat little man—Bannon could not see until near by that he was not a boy—big-headed, big-handed, big-footed. He stood there in his shirt-sleeves, his back to Bannon, swearing good-humoredly at the men. When he turned toward him Bannon saw that he had that morning played an unconscious joke upon ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... and muzzle thrust forward, its head poking into the night, its whole body poised in that attitude of intense rigidity that precedes the spring into freedom, the running leap of attack. It seemed to be about the size of a calf, leaner than a mastiff, yet more squat than a wolf, and I can swear that I saw the fur ridged sharply upon its back. Then its upper lip slowly lifted, and I saw the whiteness of ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... up the raft which it would tow all the way up to Ching-Fu. Upon this raft was a long, squat cabin, in and out of which poured incessantly members of China's ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... her fat body, broad and squat, upon a bench beside the door. She had been talking all the afternoon, and had wound herself ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... into the firmament, range after range of blue and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when entered is quite eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet vendors and the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; curs yelp between your legs; negroes are ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... out,' says Akira, setting the smoking-box (hibachi) in the middle of the floor, and spreading beside it a little mat for me to squat upon. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... father hurried us towards the tall belfry. It rose cold and white against the moon, at the end of a nettle-grown lane. A garth of ilex-oaks surrounded it; and beside it, more than half-hidden by the untrimmed trees, stood a ridiculously squat church. By instinct, or, rather, from association of ideas learnt in England, I glanced around this churchyard for its gravestones. There were none. Yet for the second time within these few hours I ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... devil has no need to blockade or besiege the gate of our ear if he has any of his good things to offer us. The gate that can only be opened from within will open at once of itself if he or any of his newsmongers but squat down for a moment before it. Shame on us, and on all of us, for our ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... have struck with her stern, sir," said a short, squat man, hurrying to Armitage's side. He spoke with a strong accent and passed as a Lithuanian. His expert knowledge of electricity as well as his skill in making and mending apparatus had caused Armitage to intrust him with much ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... beneath which a vast number of round unmeaning faces were solacing themselves after the heat of the day. Each lusthuys we passed contained some comfortable party dozing over their pipes, or angling in the muddy fish-ponds below. Scarce an avenue but swarmed with female josses; little squat pug-dogs waddling at their sides, the attributes, I suppose, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... for intelligent men to tire of all this burlesque of politics and this solemn joke of calling it "great statesmanship," that is breeding these ungainly toadies—squat and warty. A country is great only as her political institutions are good and wise—not merely when it is strong in numbers, large in acres, and swarming with politicians and parasites that are worshipped as great ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... squat, misshapen vessels, circling down like vultures, hissing, screeching, landing with a grinding crash in the tall thicket near the place where the city had stood. Ravdin's signal had guided them in, and the Hunters had seen them, standing on a hilltop above the demolished amphitheater. ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... their feathers. The best instances of this adpression of the feathers and apparent shrinking of the body from fear, which Mr. Weir has noticed, has been in the quail and grass-parrakeet.[15] The habit is intelligible in these birds from their being accustomed, when in danger, either to squat on the ground or to sit motionless on a branch, so as to escape detection. Though, with birds, anger may be the chief and commonest cause of the erection of the feathers, it is probable that young ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root,—from those days to these the town had ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... blushed! He rose up politely; and as he is very tall and straight, rather thin, and extremely dark, he reminded me of a cedar towering beside one of those squat Dutch trees cut into the shape of some ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... were two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with a corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the other, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand on tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers and a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little table, formed ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... love-letter, like the weird sisters in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and scarcely less malignant. Mrs. Heukbane was a tall womanshe held the precious epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs. Shortcake, a little squat personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... tried something quite different. At daybreak of the 12th the whole fleet stood into Gabarus Bay, a large open roadstead running west from the little Louisbourg peninsula. The Provincials eyed the fortress eagerly. It looked mean, squat, and shrunken in the dim grey light of early dawn. But it looked hard enough, for all that. Its alarm bells began to ring. Its signal cannon fired. And all the people who had been living outside hurried ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... gratuity to each of the post-boys, asked for the traveller's luggage. There was none! At this announcement, the landlord, as he afterwards expressed himself was "struck all of a heap," though what he meant by it was never clearly comprehended, as any alteration in his curiously squat figure must have been an improvement. While he remained in perplexity and in the rain, the latter of which might easily have been avoided, another message arrived from the lady, ordering fresh horses to be procured, and those, with the chaise, to be kept in ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... unmistakable, that, whatever kind of malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... hear. The word "bowssen," too, is very frequently heard in these parts; it is a provincialism for a stall or shed where oxen are kept. "Boose" is the word from which it originally sprang. A very expressive phrase in common use is to "quad" or "quat"; it is equivalent to the word "squat." Other words in this dialect are "sprack," an adjective meaning quick or lively; and "frem" or "frum," a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon "fram," meaning fresh or flourishing. The latter word is also used in Leicestershire. Drayton, who knew the Cotswolds, and wrote poetry about the district, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Martha never found wholly unhappy. They constantly reminded her of the good times at Oakdale when she used to bring in her young mistress's breakfast. She could recall the dainty, white egg-shell china, the squat silver service bearing the Carnavon arms, and the film of lace which she used to throw around her ladyship's shoulders, lifting her hair to give it room. The butler would bring the tray to the door, and Martha would carry it herself to the bedside, where ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Ithaca, where there is a high mountain called Neritum, covered with forests; and not far from it there is a group of islands very near to one another—Dulichium, Same, and the wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the sunset, while the others lie away from it towards dawn. {75} It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my eyes know none that they better love to look upon. ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... you can't walk on any further, Step Hen, say so, and I'll get up something that ought to keep the wolves away; but of course, if you're ready to call quits, why I suppose we'll have to climb up here, and squat like a couple ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... after the departure of Bard that Sally Fortune awoke. For a step had creaked on the floor, and she looked up to find Steve Nash standing in the centre of the room with the firelight gloomily about him; behind, blocking the door with his squat figure, stood ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... bench on which he had been seated, and began to pace his cell. It was this archaic pile of stone, he finally decided, which was causing his depression. Unlike the bright and cheerful castle, this place, older than any other building in the realm, was squat, thick-walled, and gloomy. Here, in the dusky cells which lined labyrinthine corridors, the early generations of the race had found protection from outside dangers. All of which was all right, Kirby thought, but just the same he wished he had insisted upon ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... power to support them; our Government can't help to float a bad loan, but I am sure we have done the French no harm at Washington. It will be good policy on the part of Maximilian to encourage Confederate soldiers, provided they don't come and squat in too great numbers. I understand that the French army is not to be withdrawn until it is no longer wanted by Maximilian, but that will not be till the day of ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... which had once escaped Stanley Lake—as the likeliest solution, that Mark Wylder had made a left-handed marriage somehow and somewhere, and that a subterranean wife and family would emerge at an unlucky moment, and squat upon that remainder, and defy the world to disturb them. This gave to his plans and dealings in relation to the vicar a character of irresolution and caprice foreign to his character, which was grim and decided enough when his data were clear, and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and belaboured them everywhere, that never was corn so thick and threefold threshed upon by ploughmen's flails as were the pitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the merciless baton of the cross. If any offered to hide himself amongst the thickest of the vines, he laid him squat as a flounder, bruised the ridge of his back, and dashed his reins like a dog. If any thought by flight to escape, he made his head to fly in pieces by the lamboidal commissure, which is a seam in the hinder ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... compositions with absurdities, he never succeeded in retaining a phrase in his mind; and now he solves problems, writes correctly, and sings his lessons like a song. And his iron will can be divined from the seeing how he is made, so very thickset and squat, with a square head and no neck, with short, thick hands, and coarse voice. He studies even on scraps of newspaper, and on theatre bills, and every time that he has ten soldi, he buys a book; he has already collected a little library, and ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... his visitor, but received no answer. Shefford saw a dark, squat figure bending forward in the saddle. The man was tense. All about him was dark except the glint of a rifle across the saddle. The face under the sombrero was only a shadow. Shefford kicked the fire-logs and a ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... make her senses reel, This mystery, or dim her zeal, Till by degrees she seems to feel Her broken lot; She roams aloof, she grows depressed; And then, her broody sorrow guessed, Men lure her to a well-filled nest And bid her squat. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... being squat, the square upthrusts of towers and of towers over-topping towers gave just proportion of height without being sky-aspiring. The sense of the Big House was solidarity. It defied earthquakes. It was planted ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... striking description of Satan "squat like a toad" by the ear of the sleeping Eve ('Paradise Lost', IV, 800). In this passage "Eve" refers to Queen Caroline with whom Hervey was on intimate terms. It is said that he used to have a seat in the queen's hunting chaise "where he sat close behind her perched ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the tasteful design of the commonest earthenware bowl: the little board and chopper for slicing the raw fish: the clean white rice-tubs with their brass bindings polished and shining: the odd shape and entirely Japanese character which distinguished the most ordinary things, and gave to the short squat knives a romantic air and to the broad wooden spoons a suggestion of witchcraft: finally, the little shrine to the Kitchen God, perched on a shelf close to the ceiling, looking like the facade of a doll's temple, ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... South lat. Besides this, we lost our top-mast, which was broken off, and which, in spite of the heavy sea, had to be replaced; the vessel, meanwhile, being so tossed about, that we were often unable to take our meals at the table, but were obliged to squat down upon the ground, and hold our plates in our hands. On one of these fine days the steward stumbled with the coffee-pot, and deluged me with its burning contents. Luckily, only a small portion fell upon my hands, so that the accident was ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... once he was tempted to give the thing up, he felt so out of breath and exhausted from the heat and his exertions combined. And at such times the miserable bird would squat down on the ground, just as if tempting him to further labor; so once more he would start ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... tired, Wils?" queried Bludsoe, a squat, bow-legged cowpuncher who appeared to be crippled or ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... are more reserved, more proud and altogether less "jolly," and appear, with their religion, to have acquired also some of the characteristics of the modern or true Malays. A Pagan can sit, or rather squat, with you and tell you legends, or, perhaps, on an occasion join in a glass of grog, whereas the Mahomedan, especially the true Malay, looks upon the Englishman as little removed from a "Kafir"—an uncircumcised Philistine—who through ignorance constantly offends ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... prehistoric skull. The thigh-bone is very much heavier than any known human femur of the same length, and so appreciably curved that the owner was evidently in a condition of transition from the semi-quadrupedal crouch of the ape to the erect attitude of man. The Ape-Man, in other words, was a heavy, squat, powerful, bestial-looking animal; of small stature, but above the pygmy standard; erect in posture, but with clear traces of the proneness of his ancestor; far removed from the highest ape in brainpower, but almost equally far removed from the lowest savage that is known to us. We shall ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... the erection of this fort, and the appointment of this ugly little man of war as commander, the Yankees continued the interlopings hinted at in my last chapter, and at length had the audacity to squat themselves down within the jurisdiction of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... had it! Both the Hurons and the Iroquois laid in large stocks of fire wood, by forming piles of logs slanted together on end; and in one pile, here, was an opening through which he might squeeze into the center space, there to squat as under a tent. The ground in the village had been scraped bare of snow; he ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... woman, big with child, who was charged with concealing stolen property. This woman was silent, but she approvingly smiled at the actions of the prisoners without. The fourth of the women who stood at the window, and was undergoing sentence for illicit trading in spirits, was a squat little country woman with bulging eyes and kindly face. She was the mother of the boy who was playing with the old woman, and of another seven-year-old girl, both of whom were in jail with her, because they had no one else to take ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... that nuncks was a vile bore; and the sacrilegious declaration gave great offence to the diminutive gentleman aforesaid, who hesitated not in pronouncing Timothy Surety destitute of taste and vertu; to which accusation Timothy, rearing his squat form to its utmost altitude, indignantly replied, "that there was not an alderman in the City of London of better taste than himself in the qualities of callipash and callipee, and that if the little gemmen presumed ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in silence. It was a strange thing to ask. And yet not strange at all. All day long she sat there and saw nothing but the squat, red-faced stable opposite. Or if she went out it was to buy cheaply from the barrows in a mean side street. And now she was remembering that there were trees somewhere, perhaps ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... A squat tub of a boat, her stern piled high with wicker crab-pots, came round the northern headland and entered the little bay. The elderly fisherman who was rowing rested on his oars and sat contemplating the crab-pots in the stem. A younger man, clad in a jersey ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... forgotten and the world overlooked, for it got lost among the low sandhills and the sand drifted over, and it is only fifty years since it has been found again, a delight to the few who ever see it, with its squat grey tower barely seen over a tall hedge of tamarisk, and before it the short grass rich with thyme, giving place to the sand-hills which run out to the long level stretch of the beach, and behind it the sand-hills yielding to the clean dry grass ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... wise judge!'" gibed Ted. "Ought to have a suit of ermine. Proper stunt, too. Let me put it, Cora; I'll be the court crier. Come on and let's squat on the bank like the rest. Judge, you ought to be the most elevated. Now, then, here's the dope: Did Edison really ever do anything much to help with ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... shoulders in a way that makes one think that she has washed and sunned it, and has forgotten to put it up again. She wears a sort of crown or band at the top of her head. There is nothing in the homely face, with the squat nose and thick lips, that would betray sentimentalism, and yet those honest eyes were probably continually suffused with the tears for which her ultra-sensitive nature was responsible. Below her picture follows this simple introduction, without reference to any "laudable ambition," "acquisition ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... there was no such thing as blindness!" said the women, thrusting their heads out of window. "But then, of course, he's from the country. And now he's going to deliver his work. Lord, how long is he going to squat up there and earn bread for that sweater? The red'll soon go from his cheeks if he stops there much longer!" And ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... figure is a dancing girl, only partly draped, balancing a sword on her head, while a brilliant green veil flies from head and face. Other Oriental women squat upon the floor watching her with a half indolent expression, while their Oriental masters and their friends sit in pomp at one side, absorbed in the dance and in the girl. The expressions upon all the faces are excellent and, the jewelled light that falls upon the group, the rich clothing, ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... as to what I should say, what excuse I should give in this case. But almost instantly my mind was made up. About the most conspicuous thing in the room was a squat Japanese idol—a fat, grinning, hideous thing which sat upon a sort of pedestal near the door. So I laid my hand ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... Billy, and a ribald song you sing, While the old men sit and tell us war it is a ghastly thing, When the swift machines are busy and the grim, squat fortress nocks At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls that spatter ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... was a big man, no man here so big save Kootanie George alone, who was two inches the taller and fully thirty pounds the heavier. The Canadian stood four inches better than six feet in his squat, low-heeled boots and must turn sideways to get his massive shoulders through most doors hereabouts. Unlike most very tall men George carried himself straight, his ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... savages here," he told me; "you must not mind. The sentry has orders to keep everybody away from the palace, as people come in the afternoon and squat under my windows to jabber, and I cannot sleep. Those orders, I assure you, were not meant for you. You will be my guest all the time you are in the city, and I can ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... unlawful interference from any source. It seemed that Seward, Chase, and their friends did not desire a settlement before the election. And Sumner's speech on the "Crime of Kansas" was a challenge to war. He compared Douglas to "the noisome squat and nameless animal whose tongue switched a perpetual stench," and Senator Butler, of South Carolina, a leader of the highest character, was a man who could not open his mouth ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... is imperative that he should know them. In those higher species where parental education is developed, the mother shows her young what things are good for it, and teaches it the terror necessary. The little bird or beast must squat and be still, must stay in the cave or lie hid in the grass; lest the fox, hawk, lion, or whatever enemy is to be dreaded should pounce upon it. And this pre-human method of culture has come down to its through long lines of savages with their ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... rushing up to the house to announce that some "men-bush" are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers a few words in broken ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... original desert life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel, which has been domesticated from a very ancient period. Young pigs, though so tame, sometimes squat when frightened, and thus try to conceal themselves even on an open and bare place. Young turkeys, and occasionally even young fowls, when the hen gives the danger-cry, run away and try to hide themselves, like young partridges ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... roofs and green trees. Scattered all through the town were the huge mounds of earth marking the mining-shafts of various colours, from dark brown to pure white, and beside them, with the utmost regularity, were the skeleton towers of the poppet heads, the tall red chimneys, and the squat, low forms of the engine-houses. On the right, high up, could be seen the blue waters of Lake Wendouree flashing like a mirror in the sunlight. The city was completely encircled by the dark forests, which stretched far away, having a reddish tinge over their trees, ending in a sharply defined ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... people, on their way to the local tabernacle. In fact, he had swooped up a bucket of water and turned back with it before he was aware that they had been close behind him all the time. His first thought was to squat down, taking cover behind the bucket; but, remembering the exigency of his errand, he girded up his fortitude— which was the only thing he had to gird—and faced the springcarts, for the sake of my hut, as bravely as his ancestors had faced earcropping, and similar cajoleries, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... became the victrola phrases of a bewildered diplomacy. But the diplomacy was not confined to frock-coats. It buzzed, snarled up and down the factory districts, in and out of the boulevard cafes and the squat resident sectors. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... finishing his first string of five, swabbed out his gun, leaned it against the rack, and went to squat in the group where he commented to his friends on his own or others' luck, but always quietly. An air of the strictest business held the ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... yielding black grapes are trained, as a rule, up tall stakes, although some few are trained espalier fashion. Women dexterously detach the bunches with pruning-knives and throw them into the seilles—small squat buckets with wooden handles—the contents of which are emptied from time to time into baskets—the counterpart of the chiffonnier's hotte, and coated with pitch inside so as to close all the crevices of the ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... that the voice is well developed. But if we look forward, past Amphibians altogether, we find the voice becoming a maternal call helping to secure the safety of the young—a use very obvious when young birds squat motionless at the sound of the parent's danger-note. Later on, probably, the voice became an infantile call, as when the unhatched crocodile pipes from within the deeply buried egg, signalling to the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... direction of the Rhine, a mile and a quarter from Mulhausen, the camp was pitched. In the fitful light of the overcast August day, beneath the lowering sky that was filled with heavy drifting clouds, the long lines of squat white shelter-tents seemed to cower closer to the ground, and the muskets, stacked at regular intervals along the regimental fronts, made little spots of brightness, while over all the sentries with ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... on the hilltop. The little creatures attacked each other with such fury, with such rapid changes of color from gray to green and from green to brown, with such unexpected mutations of shape from long and slender to short and squat, with such sudden dartings out and angry flamings of the transparent membrane beneath the throat, with such swift springs and flights and glancings to and fro, as were wonderful to see. It seemed as though both must succumb to the fierce scratchings and clawings; and when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... forehead gathered in puzzled furrows, Jimmie Dale stepped to the door, and locked it; then, drawing aside the portiere that hung before the little alcove at the lower end of the room, knelt down before the squat, barrel-shaped safe, and his fingers began to play ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... in a semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Albion. For the first time, too—losing their channel of communication—they grew out of touch with each other's microscopic affairs, and their mutual detestation increased with their resentful ignorance. And so, shrinking and silent, and protected as far as possible by their big bonnets, the squat Madame Depine and the skinny Madame Valiere toiled up and down the dark, fusty stairs of the Hotel des Tourterelles, often brushing against each other, yet sundered by icy infinities. And the endurance on Madame Depine's round face became more vindictive, and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... were commanded on this occasion by a little squat figure, all belly, with a short pair of legs at one end, and a little red, fiery face, that looked as if it would explode—at the other. The figure was mounted on horseback, and as it and its party gallantly ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... commanding all others to put theirs to rest. He then arranges his men on each side of the rope, like artillerists at the drag rope. Every man is commanded to grasp the rope firmly with both hands, straighten it, and squat down, inclined a little forward. The leader then passes from rear to front, and from front to rear, reviewing the line to see that every man grasps the rope. All is now still as the grave for a moment, when the commander, or marshal of the day, roars ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... vacant lots appeared stretching away in flat spaces, broken here and there by ridges of ugly, squat, little tenement blocks. Over this landscape vast banners of smoke streamed, magnified by the misty rain which was driven in from ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland |
