"Thimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In the former, it is one doctrine in the Englishman and in the Hottentot; the differences are accidents not affecting the subject, otherwise than as different seals would affect the same wax, though Molly, the maid, used her thimble, and Lady 'Virtuosa' an 'intaglio' of the most ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... call it," said Mab, flirting away her thimble. "Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me like Schiller—I want to take the world in my arms and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to have been known to them, at least thimble-rig, or the game of cups, under which a ball was put, while the opposite party guessed under which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... own part, I have lent my broom, my thread, my tape, my spoons, my cat, my thimble, my scissors, my shawl, my shoes, and have been asked for my combs and brushes, and my husband for ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... Here he cut the stop of the fore-topmast halyards, overhauled the running part, and let the block swing in. He then hooked a block that he had carried out with him, and in which the bight of a rope had been rove through the thimble, and ran in as fast as possible. This duty, which had appeared the most hazardous of all the different adventures, on account of the proximity of the bowsprit to the reef, was the first done, and with the least real risk; ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Thesis tezo. They ili. Thick dika. Thick (dense) densa. Thicket arbetajxo, arbetaro. Thickness dikeco. Thickset dikkorpa. Thickskinned dikhauxta. Thief sxtelisto. Thieve sxteli. Thievish sxtelema. Thigh femuro. Thigh bone femurosto. Thimble fingringo. Thin (slender) maldika. Thine cia, via. Thing (matter) afero. Thing, some io. Thing, any io. Think pensi. Thinker pensulo. Think over pripensi. Thirst soifo. Thirsty, to be soifi. This ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that night into a flying fury; finally, along with my brothers, being captured, washed, and dressed, to join with other spirits worse than ourselves in "dooking" for apples and eating mashed potatoes in momentary expectation of swallowing a threepenny-bit or a thimble. To-night, far from the other spirits, far from the chill winds and the cabbage-stalks, I have been watching the sunset on the desert making the world a glory of rose and gold and amethyst. Now it is dark; the lights are lit all over the ship; the floor of heaven ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... I had been to see him off, and found him detained by the sudden illness of one of his elders. I rode over again to take him the little parcel. Of course I don't know what it contained; by its size and shape I should judge it might be a thimble, or a collar-button, or a sixpence; but, at all events, he must have needed the thing, for he certainly did not let the grass grow under his feet after he received it! Let us go into the sitting-room until they come down,—as they will have to, poor wretches, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... little larger than the top of the dish and about one-fourth of an inch thick. Cover the pie with this, having the edges turned into the dish. Roll the remainder of the paste the same as before, and with a thimble, or something as small, cut out little pieces all over the cover. Put this perforated paste over the first cover, turning out the edges and rolling slightly. Bake one hour in a ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... so the letter began, "not only for accepting my verses on 'A Thimble,' but also for the words of encouragement with which you accompany the acceptance. You say that you are especially glad to print the verses because they suggest a return to the type of womanhood of an earlier day, for which you retain an ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... or their widows in Bristol Road.—The journeymen printers opened a branch of the Provincial Typographical Association Oct. 12, 1861, though there was a society here previously.— The first local union we find record of was among the knights of the thimble, the tailors striking for an increase in wages in 1833; a branch of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors has lately been organised.—In 1866 a general Trades' Council was formed, which utilises by combined action the powers ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... for heating purposes," continued the chemist, "seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through small holes. For light you want something different. Suppose you send a current of gas up into this sewing-thimble: it can find an exit only by turning backward. Then suppose it escapes from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity above it, whence it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of the usual size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. It will be seen that only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... squatted around the squalling gamblers, and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story- teller who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility: in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig with coffee-cups, all intent upon the game, and the player himself very wild lest one of our party, who had discovered where the pea lay, should tell the company. The devotion and energy with which all these pastimes were pursued, struck me as much as anything. These people ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them that can't finds, loses.' Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw six or seven people, apparently all countrymen, gathered round a person standing behind a tall white table of very small compass. 'What,' said I, 'the thimble-engro of —- Fair here at Horncastle.' Advancing nearer, however, I perceived that though the present person was a thimble-engro, {288a} he was a very different one from my old acquaintance of —- Fair. {288b} The present one was a fellow about half-a-foot ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... can scarcely be worn out; and when worn, the wearable parts, a prepared wood journal, and movable thimble in the hub (held in place by a key) can be easily and cheaply renewed. WE GUARANTEE OUR "BOSS" to plow more acres than any ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... genius enabled her to distinguish a doublet from a pair of breeches. She did not read, but she lived honestly; her family was the subject of all her learned conversation, and for hooks she had needles, thread, and a thimble, with which she worked at her daughter's trousseau. Women, in our days, are far from behaving thus: they must write and become authors. No science is too deep for them. It is worse in my house than anywhere else; the deepest secrets are understood, ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions!—at the little house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... give the prizes. Luckily she had some sweets, which were not wet, and there was just one for each of them, but none for herself. The party were anxious she, too, should have a prize, and as she happened to have a thimble, the Dodo commanded her to hand it to him, and then, with great ceremony, the Dodo presented it to her, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble," and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "My thimble won't suit your finger, I've a notion, my little maid," he observed; "but I dare say you've got one of your own in your pocket. Feel for ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... answer for it, the guinea-hen won't make her happy, and you'll be happy EVEN without; because you are good. Let me come and help you to-morrow," continued she, looking at Susan's work, "if you have any more mending work to do—I never liked work till I worked with you. I won't forget my thimble or my scissors," added she, laughing—"though I used to forget them when I was a giddy girl. I assure you I am a great hand at ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... not; I know what they've had to live and dress on, and so do you. That child will like as not come here with a bundle o' things borrowed from the rest o' the family. She'll have Hannah's shoes and John's undershirts and Mark's socks most likely. I suppose she never had a thimble on her finger in her life, but she'll know the feelin' o' one before she's been here many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece o' brown gingham for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of course she won't pick up anything after herself; she probably never saw ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder-box, were all that they contained, and I began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the door, with the things dropping from her lap. One of these was a spool, that rolled down the steps and out upon the sandy road. She turned to pursue it, and recovered it at the cost of dropping her scissors and thimble out of opposite sides of her skirt, which she had gathered up apronwise to hold her work. When she rose from the complicated difficulty, in which Mrs. Maynard had amiably lent her aid, she confronted Mr. Libby, who was coming towards ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be vacant bureau drawers and wardrobe. The guest, especially if her visit be for a short time, and she has not brought her workbox, will much appreciate a small workbasket fitted out with needles, thread, thimble, and scissors. A desk fitted with stationery, pens, and postage stamps adds much to the comfort of a guest chamber, for, no matter how brief the stay, facilities for writing to the distant home are needed promptly ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... without it, because you are good. Let me come and help you to-morrow," she went on, looking at Susan's work, "if you have any more mending to do—I never liked work till I worked with you. I won't forget my thimble or my scissors," she added, laughing—"though I used to forget them when I was a wilder girl. I assure you I am clever with ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... second method a thimble is used in place of the knife. The cheese is forced into its interior, and the open end of the thimble inserted far beneath the bowl, allowing about half its length to ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... They made dreadful stitches. Kathleen cried because the needle pricked her, and Rachel wanted to wear the thimble on the wrong finger. Amy did the best. When they went away they all wanted to kiss me, and Norah said she guessed I was the best teacher in the school. Wasn't that cunning? Mrs. Wallis is real kind. She brought ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... wouldn't they have liked to go? We had ice-cream, just made of vanilla, cream-candy, and water,—delicious! Then there was a whole tea-potful of chocolate-tea, which was a chocolate-cream drop scraped fine and mixed with water. Do just try it sometime. Thimble-biscuits, too, and holes with cookies round them. I never expect to be as happy again as I was when I dropped the curtain at half-past four precisely, and lighted the chandelier, which I forgot to say was a candle cut in two, stuck ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... for a supper and dance, to the sugar-house, where there was a bride's cake, with all the usual accessories, such as the ring and thimble, to be cut for. And of course, before the end of the evening, there was the usual distribution of bits of cake to be "dreamed on." This last, indeed, was so important that nearly every girl on the plantation slept ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... made with as little parade and ceremony as possible. If it is a small matter, a gold pencil-case, a thimble to a lady, or an affair of that sort, it should not be offered formally, but ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... Squintina (grandmother of Cousin Tabitha Twitchit)—died of a thimble in a Christmas plum-pudding. I never put any article of metal in MY ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... f'um house to house lookin' for locust and persimmon beer. Chillun went to all de houses huntin' gingerbread. Ma used to roll it thin, cut it out wid a thimble, and give a dozen of dem little balls to each chile. Persimmon beer and gingerbread! What big times us did have at Chris'mas. New Year's Day, dey raked up de hoss and cow lots if de weather was good. Marster jus' made us wuk enough on New Year's Day to call ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... have already seen, by his own accounts, he excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him, possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother, who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the bottom of the river. His practice of firing at a mark was the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... affairs. It was early in the afternoon, and the children were out playing. She hung up her sun-bonnet, and dropped wearily down into a chair. Then, remembering a pile of clothes that must be mended before dark, she got up and began to hunt for her thimble and thread. ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... your new workbox, my dear Mabel,' said her aunt; 'you will find it stocked with all necessary things—thimble, and scissors, and needles, and cotton—and all that I require of you is to keep ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... many bad things have happened to me," said I, waving my thimble-finger, which had lost its tip-end ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... the giraffes, though they could look over. There was a bit of pasture-land shut in for the cows, who fell to nibbling as soon as they were put in it. A clover-leaf lasted one of the sheep two days. The tinman sent some little tin dippers no bigger than a thimble, and the children were delighted to see the animals drink. The boys handed one of the dippers into the ark for the tigers. The giraffes found a bush just high enough for them to eat from. The doves sat on the ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... buy me a milking can, A, I, O. Where's the money to come from, A, I, O? Sell my father's feather bed. Where must your father sleep? Sleep in the boys' bed. Where will the boys sleep? Sleep in the cradle. Where will the baby sleep? Sleep in the thimble. What shall I sew with? Sew with the poker. Suppose I burn myself? Serve ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... thee, and what a cup hast thou brought! Dost thou take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn? Why didst thou not bring thy thimble? Hast thou ne'er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket with a bit of nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill. So, again. See who that is. [One knocks.] Set down the bottle first. Here, here, under the table:- ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... meagre than the ordinary accessories of an American race-course: here is no assemblage of the beau-monde, no populace, no four-in-hand drags, no costermongers, no donkeys, no dukes, no thimble-rig, no gipsies; in short, "no nothin'," except a few quiet-looking hacks and a ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... was born at the village of Eton Constantine, in 1615. He received from officiating curates of the little church such literary instruction as could be given by men who had left the farmer's flail, the tailor's thimble, and the service of strolling stage-players, to perform church drudgery under the parish incumbent, who was old and well-nigh blind. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a school at Wroxeter, where he spent three years, to little purpose, so far ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the effects of the heat, and resumed his accelerated pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a child's small knife. When he picked it up, he discovered a thimble and also a needle-case not ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... broad shield contracted now in span Raised as a screen or fluttered as a fan; The gleaming helm a hollow thimble proves, And weighty gauntlets dwindle into gloves. The plumes that winged the arrow through the sky, Waft to and fro the shuttlecock on high; Two trusty swords are into scissors cross'd, And dinted breastplates are in corsets lost; While ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... pigmies who live on the scanty food of personal envy, when the very earth quakes beneath their feet; let even the honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a water-glass;—let those who believe the weather to be calm, because they have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads in pillows of domestic ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... sheets they were thin and the blankets were sma', And the taylor fell through the bed, thimble and a'." ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... which such men carry in their souls, and she was a mortal woman no longer, but a transfigured, glorified creature,—an object of awe and wonder. He was actually afraid of her; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and thimble, her bonnet-string, everything, in short, she wore or touched, became invested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence of men that could walk up and talk to her,—that could ask her to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... of many colours, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows, and motions and faces. There was a white-haired man who stood drinking a many-hued cordial from a crystal thimble set on a golden stem. There was a girl with a flowery face, dressed like Titania with braided sapphires in her hair. There was a room where the solid, soft gold of the walls yielded to the pressure of his hand, and a room that was like a ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... readily be adduced. The universe itself is built upon them and is the greatest of them. They lie before the threshold and at the basis of all existence. For example:—here is a lump of compact, whitish, cheese-like substance, about as much as would go into a thimble. From this I profess to be able to produce a gigantic, intricate structure, sixty feet in height and diameter, hard, solid, and enduring, which shall furthermore possess the power of extending and ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... was alive there still, and her speech was clear, however low. If anything, its sound savoured of revival. But she was not clear about her whereabouts and whom she was speaking to. She seemed to think it was Susan Burr, who "would find her thimble if she looked underneath." Thus much and no more had come articulate from the land of dreams. The moment after she was quite collected. Was that Phoebe, and her Lady? This was not the conventional ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... pleased with Jack, and grandma continued to grumble over his misdemeanors, especially when he would rummage in her work-basket, and carry off her silver thimble or bright ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... all completed, and twenty were well along toward completion. Twenty garments have been finished and disposed of. All of the material has been sent from Northern friends and homes, and some of the girls have learned the first things of needlework, having learned to use needle, thread and thimble. One little girl when first given a needle said, "O see! there is a hole in one end of it." One old ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... of a place in New South Wales—he found where a big fire had been made, and some bones burnt into white cinders and smashed small with a stick. He kicked the ashes over, and found the steel part of a woman's stays, and the charred heel of a woman's boot, and even a thimble and a few shillings that had probably been in her pocket. I was on the station at the time, waiting for wool, and saw the relics when the boundary man brought them in. There are queer things done when every man is a law ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... ever saw was one Mrs. Preston used when I was with her at the Springs. I remarked upon it and she said that when she used a thimble she always had that kind. "I feel about a thimble as I do about mitts, which I always wear instead of gloves, because I like to see my fingers come through. So I like to see my finger come through my thimble. It is a tailor's thimble. Tailors always use ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... several Southern States, where fragments of territory were occupied. In the event of a close election in the North, the electoral votes in these manufactured States would be under the control of the executive authority, and serve to determine the result. For some years the Southern States were used as thimble-riggers use peas: now they were under the cup of the Union, and now they were out. During his reign in New Orleans the Federal General Banks had prepared a Louisiana pea for ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... are tidy here, but at home your temptation is to plaster some neatly folded garment or sash over the recesses of an untidy drawer, or to use anything that comes to hand, any racquet, or croquet-mallet, or oil-can, or thimble; your own cannot be found—you take the nearest and then leave that ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... time to find her thimble and needles and spools, for Polly wasn't a very neat little girl; but she got settled at last, and stitched away as if bent ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are like me, nothing but just honest workmen, you better try and make 'em think you're working some game—tell 'em you're the Queen of the Thimble-riggers or some dern thing like that. Come on, now. Been gathering wood; got enough. You can follow me. The bunch ain't so very criminal—not ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Juana Coello, was a scullion in the king's kitchens), to form an acquaintance with secretary Escovedo's cook, whom he saw every morning. Now, as they prepared for the sick man a separate broth, this scullion, taking advantage of a moment when nobody saw him, cast into it a thimble-full of a powder that Diego Martinez had given him. When secretary Escovedo had taken some of this food, they found that it contained poison. They subsequently arrested one of Escovedo's female slaves who must have been employed to prepare the pottage; and, upon this proof, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... of the cell and the honey will come forth, just then to creep down on the egg and with careful balancing sit on it as on a boat; for if they should come down into the honey; they would drown. And while the bee covers the thimble-like cell with a green roof and carefully shuts in its young one, the yellow larva tears open n the egg with its sharp jaws and devours its contents, while the egg-shell has still to serve as craft on the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... echoed Aunt Maria. "Jacob Metz! You know little of the dangers of the big cities! But then, men ain't got no sense! I never met one yet that had enough to fill a thimble!" ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... "and a solemn and a lively time I had of it, for I hadn't but six big needles in the cabin and I broke five on 'em the fust night, for the cones was gummy and hard, and it takes a good, stiff needle to go through one ef the man who is punchin' it through hasn't any thimble and the ball of his thumb is bleedin'. Lord-a-massy, Bill, Rover knew the trouble I was havin' as well as I did, for arter I had broken the second needle and talked about it a moment, the old dog got oneasy and began to edge away, and by the time I had broken the fourth needle and got through ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... FOR NEURALGIA.—1. Fill a tight-top thimble with cotton wool, and drop on it a few drops of strong spirits of hartshorn. The open mouth of the thimble is then applied over the seat of pain for a minute or two, until the skin is blistered. The skin is then rubbed off, and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Tom, "for she fears nothing!" and he sealed the letter with a dab of black wax flattened by the impression of the woman's thimble, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Jarvis placidly, sitting down on the edge of the porch and poking about in Janet Ferry's work-bag until he found a thimble, which he placed on the only finger it would fit, the smallest one on his right hand. He had washed the hands before he came to the porch, but they were so brown that the little gold thimble looked most absurd in ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... obeyed, and as the little cases opened they exclaimed admiringly, for each case held a pair of scissors, a silver thimble, a tiny emery ball and ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... pleased at this permission to set out on her travels; so she kissed her mother, and bade good-by to her nurse, who gave her a little ball of spiders' threads to sew with, and a beautiful little box, made of the egg-shell of a wren, to keep her best thimble in, and took leave of her, wishing her ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... fust idee that's big an' grand. They'd 'a' laft an' made fun O' Creation itself afore 'twas done!" So he kept his secret from all the rest, Safely buttoned within his vest; And in the loft above the shed Himself he locks, With thimble and thread And wax and hammer and buckles and screws, And all such things as geniuses use; Two bats for patterns, curious fellows! A charcoal-pot and a pair of bellows; An old hoop-skirt or two, as Well as Some wire and several old umbrellas; A carriage-cover, for ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... need no counsel in this direction. The wrinkles on their brow, the pallor on their cheek, the thimble-mark on their finger, attest that they are faithful in their maternal duties. The bloom, and the brightness, and the vivacity of girlhood have given place for the grander dignity, and usefulness, and industry of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... The ladder is provided with two large hooks at one end, for the purpose of fixing it to a roof, window-sill, &c. The bag is of canvas, three feet wide and four feet deep, with cords sewed round the bottom, and meeting at the top, where they are turned over an iron thimble at each side of the mouth of the bag. The steel cross-bow is of the ordinary description, of sufficient strength to throw the lead bullet with the cord attached, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... nodded affirmatively. "I'm a jolly tar, a bo'sun's mate, a salt-horse wrangler. I just jumped a full-rigged ship—thimble-rigged!" He winked at Phillips and thrust his tongue into his cheek. "Here's my papers." From his shirt pocket he took a book of brown rice-papers and a sack of tobacco, then deftly fashioned a ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait - That she couldn't audit the gossips' accounts. 'Tis true, to her cottage still they came, And ate her muffins just the same, And drank the tea of the widowed dame, And never swallowed a thimble the less Of something the reader is left to guess, For all the deafness of Mrs. S. Who SAW them talk, and chuckle, and cough, But to SEE and not share in the social flow, She might as well have lived, you know, In one of the houses in Owen's Row, Near the New River Head, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... contained a supply of ordinary carpenters' tools, and a few more delicate implements for carving; while for her personal use she had a few hundreds of pins, some needles, some grey and white thread, a pair of scissors, and a copper thimble; two bowls and a cup, all in wood; a hair shirt, and a discipline. Her wardrobe, as may be supposed, was of the most simple description, but sufficient ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... maintain order. "But I don't think they are going to succeed," she added. Silently, impassively, Khalid hears this. And after going through the second course, eating as if he were dreaming, he gets up and leaves the table. Mrs. Gotfry, somewhat concerned, orders her last course, takes her thimble-full of coffee at a gulp, and, leaving likewise, hurries upstairs and calls Khalid, who was pacing up and down the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... is made, and I am a rich man for life," exclaimed Pierre, clapping his hands; "why, I shall have to marry you like the girls of Acadia, with a silver thimble on your finger and a pair of scissors at your girdle, emblems of industrious habits and proofs of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Then an empty purse—with a hole in it; a silver-embroidered gauntlet such as horsemen wear on the Mexican frontier; a white table-doily partly embroidered with silky blue forget-me-nots—the threaded needle still jabbed in the work—and the small thimble, Stanton could have sworn, still warm from the snuggle of somebody's finger. Last of all, a fat and formidable edition of Robert Browning's poems; a tiny black domino-mask, such as masqueraders wear, and a shimmering ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of that, only I'd like Joan to go too. But you can't walk comfortably without any buttons on your shoes. If you could find me two, and a needle and cotton, and a thimble, I would sew them on for you. Oh, here is a work-basket. I will take what I want from ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... her pocket "a handkerchief, a piece of wax-candle, an apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp-bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors, a handful of loose beads, several balls of worsted and cotton, a needle-case, a collection of curl-papers, a biscuit, a thimble, a nutmeg-grater, and a few miscellaneous articles." Clemency Newcome married Benjamin Britain, her fellow-servant at Dr. Jeddler's, and opened a country inn called the Nutmeg-Grater, a cozy, well-to-do place as any one could wish to see, and there were few ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... thimble-rigger," said Smith genially, "while I take ten minutes' rest we'll have a little polite conversation. Or, rather, a monologue. Because I don't want to ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... salmon-berries; skunk-cabbage, beloved by bears, and the roots of which the Indians roast and eat; above four thousand feet, white rhododendrons, and, above four thousand five hundred feet, heather; hellebore also in the high places; thimble-berries and red elderberries, tag-alder, red honeysuckle, long stretches of willows in the creek-bottoms; vining maples, too, and yew trees, the wood of which the Indians use ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... answered pleasantly, "I think we might venture as far without fear of the workhouse! But what on earth made you bring such a thimble of a bottle ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... If necessary place the tub on a low table, place another low table to the right of the one on which the tub sets, and on this table should be the baby's basket containing a soft brush, different sizes of pins in a pin-cushion, several threaded needles, a thimble, squares of soft linen, absorbent cotton, wooden tooth-picks, a powder-box and puff, or a powder-shaker containing pure talcum powder, a box of bismuth subnitrate, one of cold cream, a tube of white vaselin, a dish containing castile, ivory, or pure French soap should be placed by the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... to," sniffed Mrs. Updyke, fitting on a huge steel thimble open at the top; "they ain't much arternoons to these short days, anyhow. I'll take this star, an' you, Sairay, may work on the next, so't I kin kinder watch ye. 'Twon't do to hev ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... material take the shape of any mould into which you put it; and you may go on forcing it into moulds of different depths, till at last the plate of silver will have been shaped into a cylindrical form; a thimble, a pencil-case, a toothpick-case, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... perforated around with holes to give a firmer grip was held by seven or eight stalwart men, and at a given signal a girl lying in the centre was sent flying into the air, she who reached the greatest height receiving the appropriate prize of a needle or thimble. At night the dance was continued, and on this occasion a fire was kindled around which the medicine men seated themselves, mumbling incantations and casting small pieces of deer or walrus meat into the flames as a sacrifice to the evil spirits. The whale entertainment lasted ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... the Kid attended a religions function with his reverend employer. Nickie was orderly, wakeful and fairly attentive. When the plate came round he put threepence in, but he took a shilling out. It was a useful trick, taught him by an expert in the art of rigging the thimble and the pea. Nickie, when he had fairly good clothes, often attended church merely to practise it. To-night the exploit was more an act of unseemly and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the conductor of the 1865 and 1866 lines joined together at the Newfoundland end, thus forming an unbroken length of 3,700 miles in circuit. He then placed some sulphuric acid in a very small silver thimble, with a fragment of zinc weighing a grain or two. By this primitive agency he succeeded in conveying signals through twice the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in little more than a second of time after making contact. The deflections were not of a dubious character, but full ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have 'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me—David, I bought me that high comb I used to wear, and—and a blue handkerchief—and a thimble—and—and—this ring. And I said you give 'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a little wad, and buried it. But I didn't ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... same evening, at the bivouac, to repair this accident. Selecting his best needle and thread from the stores of his housewife, and arming his finger with a thimble, he began to play the tailor by the light of the watch-fire, having first drawn off his cavalry-boots, and also (if it must be confessed) the injured garment itself, which he turned the wrong side out the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... tablespoonful of butter and two of flour, and moisten with cold milk. Add two small cups of boiling water to the oyster liquor, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the flour mixture, and let it cook until it thickens like cream. Make a light biscuit dough and cut out with a thimble. Drop these into the boiling mixture, cover the saucepan and cook until the dough is done. Put the oysters on a hot dish and pour biscuit ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... Kegowh, n. a fish Keskemon, n. a whet-stone Keskeboojegun, n. a saw Kechepezoon, n. a girdle, a sash, a belt Kebeshang, adj. deaf Kepahgah, adj. thick Kebesquang, adj. hoarse Kesahgehenah? Do you love me? Kenahweskewin, n. falsehood Kashahweahyah, adj. loose Kondahegwahsowin, n. thimble, an instrument used to push with in sewing Kahyahtenewaid, n. a mid-wife Kahezhewabuk, it was so Kekenahwahjechegun, n. a sign or mark Kegedooweneneh, n. a speaker or lawyer Kahgahgewinze, n. hemlock Kahgahgeh, n. wind-pipe Kekindewin, n. a covenant Kezebegahegahnahboo, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... at the gangway and the floggings through the fleet, the stealings, highway robberies, swearings, gamblings, blasphemings, thimble-riggings, smugglings, and tipplings of a man-of-war, which throughout this narrative have been here and there sketched from the life, by no means comprise the whole catalogue of evil. One single feature is full ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... seemed to go through her heart. At nine the watching became unbearable. She said softly "I must go to bed. I am tired;" but she put away with her usual neatness her work, and her spools of thread, her thimble and her scissors. Her movement in the room roused the doctor thoroughly. He stood up, stretched his arms outward and upward, and said "he believed he had been sleeping, and must ask their pardon for his indifference." And then he walked to the window and looking ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... looked at each other. I believe I heaved a deep sigh, and dropped my thimble, which "Joey" instantly seized, and with a low chirrup of intense delight, commenced to poke down between the boards of the verandah. It was too bad of us to give such broad hints by looks if not by words. Poor Mr. C. H—— was a bachelor in those days: he had not been at ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... And then, because I did not, in my shyness, thank her quite as promptly as I should have done, she rapped my head with her bethimbled finger to 'teach me better manners.' It hurt horribly—I've always had a tender head. And that has been Aunt Jane's way ever since. When I grew too big for the thimble treatment she used her tongue instead—and that hurt worse. And you know, mother, how she used to talk about my engagement. She is able to spoil the whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a bad humor. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... try," said Raggedy Ann, "but there are no needles or thread in the nursery, and I have to have a thimble so the needle can be pressed through Raggedy ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... How was it?" "Oh, it's finished, Mamma; ask Nurse; for when I rolled it against her foot last night, she took it for a great black dog." "Well then, I suppose this is yours, Hermione; but, I must say, I never knew a gold thimble earned so easily." Yes, dear little readers, it was a pretty gold thimble, and round the bottom of it there was a rim of white enamel, and on the enamel ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... box this is," continued Rosa, "and, oh, look here," as she displayed the thimble inside. "Who ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... shoe, and the rent frock of his honourable Cousin. To repair the one and replace the other was now the predominant consideration. By fortunate proximity to a descendant of St. Crispin, the latter object was speedily effected; but the difficulty of finding, in that neighbourhood, a knight of the thimble, appearing insurmountable, the two friends pursued their course, Dashall drawing under his arm the shattered skirts of his garment, until they reached Playhouse Yard, in Upper Whitecross Street, St. Luke's, to which they had been previously directed, the epitome of Monmouth ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to the speculative mind. The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very gradual process, to the floor. On the remaining third stood an inkstand and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip. The rest of the table had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and rubber, compasses, paper, and ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... wore a scanty white dress, and had a nameless rustic air which would have led one to speak of her less as a young lady than as a young woman. She was evidently a girl of a great personal force, but she lacked pliancy. She was hemming a kitchen towel with the aid of a large steel thimble. She bent her serious eyes at last on her work again, and ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... diversion of the quiet matronly set, each one bringing her own bit of needlework to while away an hour or so in pleasant conversation. One of the number may read aloud, with pauses for comment at will. The thimble bee is a modern version of the good old-fashioned "spend the afternoon and take tea." Both the shower and the thimble bee may be given ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... finds, wins; and them that can't finds, loses." Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw six or seven people, apparently all countrymen, gathered round a person standing behind a tall white table of very small compass. "What!" said I, "the thimble-engro of . . . Fair here at Horncastle." Advancing nearer, however, I perceived that though the present person was a thimble- engro, he was a very different one from my old acquaintance of . . . Fair. The present one was ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of an hour," said Dame Nelly; "he is not the lad to stay out twenty-four hours at a stretch. And for the papers, I am sure your honour will pardon him for just giving me a peep at the corner, as I was giving him a small cup, not so large as my thimble, of distilled waters, to fortify his stomach against the damps, and it was directed to the King's Most Excellent Majesty; and so doubtless his Majesty has kept Richie out of civility to consider of your honour's letter, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... speculation, not only is the process lucid in itself, but it is luciferous, illuminating all the obscure hiding-places of Nature. It is the magic-lantern of creation; it is the key to all mysticism, to the three-card trick, and to the basket-trick; it sheds a glory upon thimble-rigging, a halo upon legerdemain; it even radiates vagabond beams of splendour upon pocket-picking and the cognate arts. It explains how the apples get into the dumpling; how the milk comes out of the cocoanut; how the deficit ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... purple glory, black-eyed Susans basking in the sun, cone-flowers with brown disks and purple petals, like gypsy maidens with gaudy summer shawls. Closer to the fence are lemon-yellow coreopsis with quaint, three-cleft leaves; thimble weeds with fruit columns half a finger's length; orange-flowered milkweed, like the color of an oriole's back, made doubly gay by brilliant butterflies and beetles. On the sandy bank which makes the background for this scene of splendor, the New Jersey ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Sydney, and found themselves in the saddling-paddock in a half-dazed condition, trying to realize what had happened to them. During the afternoon they were up at the end of the lawn near the Leger stand and could hear the babel of tongues, small bookmakers, thimble riggers, confidence men, and so on, plying their trades outside. In the tumult of voices they heard one that sounded familiar. Soon suspicion grew into certainty, and they knew that it was the voice of "Father" Ryan. They walked to the fence and looked over. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. "How cool I feel!" said the boy, "I must be getting better;" and he ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... rejoicing flood that pours into us. There is an old story about a Christian father, who, having been torturing himself with theological speculations about the nature of the Trinity, fell asleep and dreamed that he was emptying the ocean with a thimble! Well, you cannot empty it with a thimble, but you can go to it with one, and, if you have only a thimble in your hand, you will only bring away a thimbleful. The measure of your faith is the measure of God's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... distinguished. Becky was, as perhaps you may have guessed, head of the millinery business, next door to which was housed the firm of Ray, St. Cloud & Stiggany, leather- dressers, the three partners in which all presently become suitors for the hand of Becky. This in effect is the story—under which thimble will the heart of the heroine be eventually found?—a problem that, in view of the obviously superior claims of young St. Cloud over his two elderly rivals, will not leave you long guessing. An element of novel complication is however furnished by the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... (whose fruit, if rubbed on a bull's hide, immediately converts it into a tender beef—steak) and absolutely stifling you with sweet perfume; and then the sangaree old Madeira, two parts of water, no more, and nutmeg and not a taste out of a thimble, but a rummerful of it, my boy, that would drown your first—born at his christening, if he slipped into it, and no stinting in the use of this ocean; on the contrary, the tidy old brown nurse, or mayhap a buxom young one, at your bedside, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... block to be inserted between the teeth to prevent closure of the jaws on the endoscopic tube. This is the McKee-McCready modification of the Boyce thimble with the omission of the etherizing tube, which is no longer needed. The block has been improved by Dr. W. F. Moore of ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... worked in French embroidery and point Russe, with coloured purse silk on silk or cashmere. The thimble, cotton, and ribbon are worked in applique with glace silk. The colours are chosen according to personal taste. The thimble is ornamented with small gold beads. A bead is placed in the centre of each pair of scissors ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... route to London. Braintop bit daintily at his toast, unwilling to proceed under the discouraging expression of Wilfrid's face, and the meditative silence of two or three others. The discovery was forcibly extracted that Emilia had no money;—that all she had in her possession was sevenpence and a thimble; and that he, Braintop, had but a few shillings, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... abaft the beam; a third, or shifting backstay, is temporary, and used where great strain is demanded when chasing, chased, or carrying on a heavy pressure of canvas: they are fitted either with lashing eyes, or hook and thimble with selvagee strop, so ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... sat, spectacles on nose, thimble on twisted finger, ivory-egg in hand, in active preparation for that work, woman's par excellence, that alone rivals Penelope's. Surely that assortment of yellow, ill-mated, half-worn, and holey hose, was a treasure to her, that no gold could have replaced, in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... learned my Greek alongside of a bevy of beauty on the opposite benches that mashed up the irregular verbs for us very badly. Incidentally, those girls are all married long since, and all the Greek they know now you could put under a thimble. But of ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... treacherous buffalo which were then very numerous in that portion of the country. This was about one hundred years ago. He has seen there things that would be almost incredible at this present age: liquor sold to the Indians measured with a woman's thimble, a thimbleful for one dollar; one wooden coarse comb for two beaver skins; a double handful of salt for one beaver skin—and so on in proportion in everything else; the poor Indian had to give pile upon ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... abundance of paper has produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships at the wharves, as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation. Some new indications of the ideas with which the British cabinet ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... mind. She united in her own person all the sins of forgetfulness of all the young ladies; mislaid her handkerchief, her shawl, her gloves, her work, her music, her drawing, her scissors, her keys; would ask for a book when she held it in her hand, and set a whole class hunting for her thimble, whilst the said thimble was quietly perched upon her finger. Oh! with what a pitying scorn our exact and recollective Frenchwoman used to look down on such an incorrigible scatterbrain! But she was a poetess, as Madame said, and what could ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... many, and then they would sit down close together, and have such a nice, happy talk! for Ruth had to tell all about the chickens, and Dandy, the pony, who loved sugar so dearly; and how she had hemmed six pocket-handkerchiefs for her dear father, and most wore a hole in her little thimble; and how her little baby brother had scrabbled off with old Dobbin's bran-bag, just as the poor old horse was going to eat his dinner, and poked his own dear little head in it, and when he pulled it out, the bran was all over his face, making him look as if ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... with its big, light yellow, sprawling leaves, and its attractively red, thimble-shaped, but rather tasteless berries. The Indians, however, are very fond of them, and so are some of the birds and animals, likewise of the service berries, which look much like the blueberry, though their flavor is not ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... inquisitive, after a great horse-bite. And she always let me look at the arm, as I had been first doctor; and she held it up in a graceful manner, curving at the elbow, and with a sweep of white roundness going to a wrist the size of my thumb or so, and without any thimble-top standing forth, such as even our Annie had. But gradually all I could see, above the elbow, where the bite had been, was very clear, transparent skin, with very firm sweet flesh below, and three little blue marks as far asunder ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore |
