"First of May" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swarmed with the armed galleys of Pisa, the staunch supporter of the discrowned Otho. With many a tack and many a turn the galleys headed north, while the watchful look-outs scanned the horizon for hostile prows. On the first of May, the peril of Pisa was past, and Genoa's gates were opened to receive him. Genoa was called the "door" to his empire, but foes and hardships lay in wait for him behind the friendly door. On the fifteenth of July, the boy and his escort ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... to pay the rent due, but she was not out of trouble. The time had come when it was necessary to decide whether she would retain the house for the following year. In New York, as many of my young readers may know, the first of May is moving-day, and leases generally begin at that date. Engagements are made generally by ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... it is enacted, that "the slaves shall be allowed half an hour for breakfast, during the whole year; from the first of May to the first of November, they shall be allowed two hours for dinner; and from the first of November to the first of May, one hour and a half for dinner: provided, however, that the owners, who will themselves take the trouble of having the meals of their slaves prepared, be, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... of deliberation it had been decided that James Morris should start for the west about the first of May. Dave and Henry were to go with him, and likewise Sam Barringford and three other frontiersmen named Lukins, Sanderson, and Jadwin. The party was likewise to contain four Indians of the Delaware tribe under White ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... been upon the story of Ahab and Naboth, and his text had been, "Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall they lick thy blood, O king." Henry, the court, and most likely Anne Boleyn herself, were present; the first of May being the great holy-day of the English year, and always observed at Greenwich with peculiar splendour. The preacher had dilated at length upon the crimes and the fall of Ahab, and had drawn the portrait in all its magnificent wickedness. He ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... give a kind reception to the articles of the Union as passed in Scotland, when they were laid before that House, as was evident from the quick dispatch in approving of and ratifying the same; and so the Union commenced on the first of May 1707, a day never to be forgot by Scotland; a day in which the Scots were stripped of what their predecessors had gallantly maintained for many hundred years, I mean the independency and soveraignty of the kingdom, both which the Earl of Seafield so little valued, that ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Golden Hours and Joys, Troops of glittering Golden Boys Danced along with a jocund noise, And their gilded emblems carried! In short, 'twas the year's most Golden Day, By mortals call'd the First of May, When Miss Kilmansegg, Of the Golden Leg, With a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the first of May," Elkan suggested—"not that I am so crazy to move out to Burgess Park, y'understand; but I don't see what is the sense buying a house in the country and then not living ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... and schoolmate, Alma Cutting, of New York, invites a small party of ladies and gentlemen to accompany her in a cruise through the Levant, on her father's new and elegant steam yacht 'Cleopatra'. I have pressing letters from Alma and Mr. Cutting, kindly urging me to join them in New York by the first of May, at which time they expect to start on a preliminary cruise through the North and Baltic seas; drifting southward so as to reach Sicily and Malta as soon as cool weather permits. Do you wonder that so charming and picturesque a tour tempts ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Why aim thy idle arms at human kind? Thy shafts prevail not 'gainst the noble mind. 10 The Cyprian3 heard, and, kindling into ire, (None kindles sooner) burn'd with double fire. It was the Spring, and newly risen day Peep'd o'er the hamlets on the First of May; My eyes too tender for the blaze of light, Still sought the shelter of retiring night, When Love approach'd, in painted plumes arrayed; Th'insidious god his rattling darts betray'd, Nor less his infant features, and the sly Sweet intimations of his threat'ning eye. 20 ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... lines. In the first place, Lord B. did not bring forward his play, but opposed the same; and, secondly, it was not condemned, but is continued to be acted, in despite of publisher, author, Lord Chancellor, and (for aught I know to the contrary) of audience, up to the first of May, at least—the latest date of my letters. You will oblige me, then, by causing Mr. Gazette of France to contradict himself, which, I suppose, he is used to. I never answer a foreign criticism; but this is a mere matter of fact, and not of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... First of May: Garth was in the garden before breakfast. Jane heard him singing, as he passed beneath ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... to know more of their grievances, real or supposed, and upon their invitation, I appointed several meetings; for I was requested to hear their whole story, and to help them. I therefore appointed the twenty-first of May, 1833, to attend a council to be called by my brethren. In the mean while I went to Falmouth, nine miles distant, where I held forth upon the civil and religious rights of the Indians. Some, who apparently thought that ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... town called la Roquette, I was shewn the place where formerly stood an elevated Altar whereon, three young citizens were sacrificed annually, and who were fattened at the public expence during a whole year, for the horrid purpose! On the first of May their throats were cut in the presence of a prodigious multitude of people assembled from all parts; among whom the blood of the victims was thrown, as they imagined all their sins were expiated by that barbarous sacrifice; ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and determined for the Commission of the Merchants of this Company resiant (resident) in Russia, and at the Wardhouse, for the second voyage, 1555, the first of May, as followeth. ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... away the first of May. That evening Charlotte sat on the door-step in the soft spring twilight. Her mother had just come home from her sister Hannah Berry's. "Thomas Payne went this afternoon," her mother said, standing ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... once only before we reached the Sandwich Islands, which we made on the first of May early in the morning. When drawing in with the Island of Hawaii about four in the afternoon, the man at the mast head gave notice that he saw a shoal of black fish on the lee bow; which we soon found to be canoes on ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... Missouri; or at all events would hazard our horses which we left in charge of the Chopunnish who informed us that they intended passing the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri as early as the Season would permit them which is about the first of May. Should these people leave their Situation near Kooskooske before our arival we may probably find much dificulty in recovering our horses; without which there will be but little possibility of repassing the Mountains; we are therefore determined to lose as little time as possible in ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... "It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the Mayers, though we're too late, I expect. Hullo! there's ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... batteries had to be moved forward over corduroy roads, (artificial roads made of logs.) All the accumulation of information and preparations necessary for breaking through the enemy's line had been quietly and secretly accomplished. On the first of May in the afternoon the artillery began its fire on the Russian positions. These in some five months had been perfected according to all the rules of the art of fortification. In stories they lay one over the other along ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... On the first of May, 1573, the articles of convention between England and Spain, with regard to the Netherland difficulty, had been formally published in Brussels. The Duke, in communicating the termination of these arrangements, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... now in a country unknown to them and almost unknown to any white man. On the thirty-first of May, a messenger came down the Grand Osage River bringing a letter from a person who wrote that the Indians, having been notified that the country had been ceded to the Americans, burned the letter containing the tidings, refusing to believe ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... twentieth of April the young white-oak leaves were the size of a squirrel's ear,—the old Indian sign of the proper time for corn-planting, which was still accepted by the new race, and the first of May saw many fields already specked with the green points of the springing blades. A warm, silvery vapor hung over the land, mellowing the brief vistas of the interlacing valleys, touching with a sweeter pastoral beauty the irregular alternation of ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... you can come in a fortnight, Lloyd? Come the first of May, and everything shall be perfect. ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... material and moral malady rendered acute by a period of social crisis, but above all it explains to us that unity of intelligent, disciplined, class-conscious solidarity which presents, in the world-wide celebration of the first of May, a moral phenomenon of such grandeur that human history presents no parallel example, if we except the movement of primitive Christianity which had, however, a much more restricted field ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... a Thursday, the first of May, and the seventeenth day of the moon, that the Milesians arrived in Ireland; and as he set his right foot on the soil of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Chicago whose attention he could secure if there were any work, and the answer was "No, sir!" This took him till about the first of May. He had no influence. He had no friend who had influence, nor any chance to get one. His watch, rings, and scarf-pin gradually went to the landlady. His shot-gun, field-glass and clothes were carried to the pawnbrokers. For his musket he got ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... the great hearbes, as are Radish, Lettuce, Colewortes, Borage, and such like, doe waxe ripe, greater, more sauourie and delectable in taste then ours, within sixteene dayes after the seede is sowen. Wheate being sowed the first of Februarie, was found ripe the first of May, and generally, where it is lesse fruitfull, the wheate will be ripe the fourth moneth after the seed is sowne, and in some places will bring foorth an eare as bigge as the wrist of a mans arme containing 1000. graines; Beanes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... who writes himself Mat Meager, complains, that whereas he constantly used to Breakfast with his Mistress upon Chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his usual Treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... was the night of the first of May—I was sitting in General Stuart's tent, looking into his blazing log fire, and musing. In this luxury I was not interrupted. It was nearly midnight, and the rest of the staff had retired. Stuart was writing at his desk, by the light of a candle in a captured "camp candlestick," and ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the first of May, semi-weekly excursions were made from the university, the public being invited to attend. The people came to these excursions by hundreds, and all classes were represented in them—physicians, apothecaries, preachers, merchants, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... St. Mark's Gospel will have passed through the press. The two remaining Gospels will be printed before the arrival of Christmas, and by the first of May the entire New Testament, in the Mandchou language, will have been published. I wish this intelligence to be communicated to the public, who are at liberty, provided the Lord does not visit me with some heavy affliction, to hold me culpable, if my assertion ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... ask permission from the English General for you to leave the town. You see they fear even small Americans," she concluded laughingly. But before dinner was over it was decided that, if all went well, Ruth should go to Barren Hill about the first of May. That seemed a long time to Ruth; but she remembered that Betty's table was not even begun, and if she and Winifred did decide to make furniture for their dolls the three weeks that must pass before her visit to Barren Hill would perhaps ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... ready for the royal assent. Then she thanked the parliament for having despatched the public business: she warned them to avoid the fatal effects of animosity and dissension: and ordered the lord keeper to prorogue them to Thursday the first of May; but on the fifth of April they were dissolved by proclamation, and another was published for calling a new parliament. The queen, accompanied by the prince of Denmark, made an excursion to Newmarket, and afterwards dined ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... be the case," said Moscione, "you deserve to be the king of the custom-house, and you should be chosen for standard-bearer on the first of May. But I should like to see a proof ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... between them, into which Tyrone entered to the depth of his saddle; but Essex stood on the opposite bank. After half an hour's conference, where Tyrone behaved with great submission to the lord lieutenant, a cessation of arms was concluded to the first of May, renewable from six weeks to six weeks; but which might be broken off by either party upon a fortnight's warning.[**] Essex also received from Tyrone proposals for a peace, in which that rebel had inserted many unreasonable and exorbitant conditions: and there appeared afterwards ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... of the first of May, when France was to be ruined by the "mob" of socialists and anarchists, was very fantastically described by the Paris correspondents of the American newspapers. These gentlemen seem to have known everything. They discovered that the cause of the threatened revolution was to be found in the irresponsible ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... of scene. We went to New York on the 27th of April, stopping with my niece, Mrs. Alfred M. Hoyt. On the next day we witnessed from the battery the naval parade in honor of the centennial of the inauguration of Washington. On the first of May my little party, composed of Mrs. Sherman, Miss May Hoyt, my daughter Mary and myself, were driven to the steamer "City of New York," and there met Senator Cameron and his wife, with their infant child and nurse, Mrs. Colgate Hoyt, a niece of mine, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... sail on a wind to the south, intending to draw the frigates after him, as he was confident that the Peacock, a very fast vessel, could outsail them. [Footnote: Letter of Capt. Warrington, May 4, 1814.] The plan succeeded perfectly, the brig reaching Savannah on the first of May, and the ship three days afterward. The Epervier was purchased for the U.S. navy, under the same name and rate. The Peacock sailed again on June 4th, [Footnote: Letter of Capt. Warrington, Oct. 30, 1814.] going first northward ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the plotters had marked him out as a life which was the main danger to the new state of things. Strafford still hoped in his master; he had a pledge from Charles that his life should be saved; and on the first of May the king in a formal message to the Parliament had refused his assent to the Bill of Attainder. But the Queen had no mind that her husband should suffer for a minister whom she hated, and before her pressure the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... the prominent citizens of Holland. A festival much the same as this was held in Ancient Rome and also in India. The May-pole properly pierces a disc and thus conforms with the lingam-yoni of India. We also know that the first of May was a favorite time for all nature worship with the ancients. For a number of interesting suggestions the reader is referred to R. P. Knight, Worship of Priapus and Hargrave ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... that he runs no risk. Find out what he'll really take, but don't come talking to me about five thousand pounds or anything of that kind, for that's ridiculous. Tell him that if proceedings are not begun by the first of May his wife won't get any more money from Van Torp, and he won't get any more from his wife. Use any other argument that strikes you. That's your business, because that's what I pay you for. What I want is the result, and that's justice ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... on the twenty-first of May, at two o'clock, the same day on which the troops entered Paris. On Sept. 20 Rochefort was tried with the Communists before the military tribunal of Versailles. Physically he seemed to have suffered much during ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the squire and Mrs Dale that the removal from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the first of May. When he had been made to understand that Dr Crofts had thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master to induce Mrs Dale to consent to abandon her project. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... I went to Mary Reynolds and tried to get her to lend me some of the treasury money until my money came, but she wouldn't do it. That is why she cried so often. When the first of May came I watched the bulletin board and took the bill again. It had Hanford's address in one corner so I knew it. All the time I kept hoping that Ida would send my money before it was too late. Yesterday morning it came, but in her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... The first of May is ever a day of uncertainty and unrest in the world of labour. It is a time for readjustment, for the fixing of wage scales, for the assertion of labour rights and the ventilating of labour wrongs. It is a time ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... passed away. Toward the last of April, the two armies, which had been opposite each other for four months, began to move, and, about the first of May, the greatest of Lee's battles was fought. My command was on the extreme left, and, as Hooker crossed the river, we followed a raiding party of the enemy's cavalry over toward the James River above Richmond; so I did not see my father at any time during ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... On the first of May, 1846, I left Vienna, and, with the exception of slight stoppages at Prague, Dresden, and Leipsic, proceeded directly to Hamburgh, there to embark for the Brazils. In Prague I had the pleasure of meeting Count Berchthold, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... best growers make a practice of sowing the seeds in boxes about the last of April or first of May. Some make a couple of later sowings between that date and the first of June, sowing these in carefully prepared seed-beds in the open ground. This is to keep up a succession of flowers. So many sowings are scarcely necessary now that there are both early and ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... before the close of their twenty-first and twenty-fourth. I do not mean that they should in any wise hasten actual marriage; but only that they should hold it a point of honor to have the right to marry. In every year there should be two festivals, one on the first of May, and one at the feast of harvest home in each district, at which festivals their permissions to marry should be given publicly to the maidens and youths who had won them in that half-year; and they should be crowned, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... had attended the dedication ceremonies of the previous autumn, and nearly all talked of going to the formal opening, appointed for the first of May; among them Grandma Elsie, her father and his wife, Captain Raymond and his wife and family. The captain's plan was to go by water—in his yacht—up along the coast to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, through that up the river of the same name, through the Welland Canal and round ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... York; for his long furlough had now run out, and he had felt a man's call of duty upon him. Moreover, it was already arranged that he should come again for a real betrothal visit, sometime before the first of May. Yet he lingered on for four days now, a man magnetized beyond his own control. Radiant days ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... said this same boy's mother, on the first of May, 1810, when he asked her to lend him one hundred dollars to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong liking for the sea; "on the twenty-seventh of this month you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time, you will plow, harrow, and plant with corn the eight-acre lot, I will ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... About the first of May, near —— landing, in Choctaw county, a freedman was hung; and about the same time, near the same neighborhood, a planter shot a freedman, (who was talking to one of his servants,) and dragged his body into ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... deprived of a complete lesson, except for the fact that, whether or not the contest finally resulted in the fall of Atlanta, the rebellion in that part of the South would have been practically as far from an end as it was the first of May! Johnston would have been there in front of Sherman, all the same, and at least one more campaign would have been required before the march to the ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... first of May has just come to hand. I commenced writing you a letter three or four days ago but was interrupted so often that I did not finish it. I wrote one to Mary which no doubt was duly received, but do not remember whether it ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frighten'd porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... get home would be to travel by way of Hong Kong and Yokohama, taking the steamer from there to San Francisco. It would take him more than a month to make the trip, and, as it was now the second week in March, he could hardly expect to reach New York before the first of May. He at once cabled Mr. Jennings that he would leave at once for Hong Kong, and received an answer telling him to do so by all means, and to continue to write letters describing his trip. Archie knew that these letters would probably not reach New ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... talking, and Boone listening. The end of all this was, that they determined, when spring opened, to go to Kentucky. Boone knew that there were hardships and perils in the way, and Finley had practically felt them; but what were dangers or difficulties to these fearless men? The first of May was agreed upon as the day for starting, and Finley was then again to ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... for the same to Chicago. It is very apt to be the case that the rate of taxation is higher in large cities than in villages; and accordingly it often happens that wealthy inhabitants of cities, who own houses in some country town, move into them before the first of May, and otherwise comport themselves as legal residents of the country town, in order that their personal property may be assessed there ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... delighted me the most was spring. I would count the days until St. Taminas, which, as you knew, falls on the first of May. And the old custom was for the young men to deck themselves out as Indian bucks and sweep down on the festivities around the Maypole on the town green, or at night to surprise the guests at a ball and force the gentlemen to pay down a shilling, and sometimes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... country. They found a difficulty in establishing soup kitchens, because dry meal was universally preferred; and they further say that relief by food instead of by public works was extremely unpopular with every class. All works, they announce, had been stopped on the first of May. To this general stoppage, some exceptions, it would seem, were permitted. Memorandum No. 12 of the Relief Department (marked "confidential") vests certain relief officers with a discretionary power to continue the works in those ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and said so; but Josephine was silent and thoughtful. Nothing more worth recording passed that night. But the next day was the first of May, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... head was proudly raised, nor did it once sink again. The last witness for the prosecution was called and took the stand, and deposed that he lived ten miles down the coast in an isolated, obscure place; that on the first of May, 182-, the body of a woman had been found at low tide upon the beach, that it had the appearance of having been very long in the water—the clothing was respectable, the dress was dark blue stuff, but was faded in spots—there ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... On the first of May, many allotments of ground were parcelled out by the governor to convicts whose periods of transportation were expired, and who voluntarily offered to become settlers in the country. The terms on which they settled, and their progress ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... nakedness, it seemed to Brenton more than ever like the Book of Revelation. Day after day, his enthusiasm for his theme increased its pace, threw off the bridle of hard, concrete fact, ran to the speculative limits of its course, and then ran past them. By the first of May, Brenton's lectures had made themselves one of the features of the college world; but, by the same token, they had ceased to be lectures upon chemistry, and had become harangues upon every phase of the allied sciences, harangues which ran through the entire gamut of abstract investigation, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... issued on the first of May, 1662. It confirmed the popular constitution of the colony, and contained more liberal provisions than any yet issued by royal hands. It defined the boundaries so as to include New Haven colony and a part of Rhode Island on the east, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. In 1665, the New Haven ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... partridge drums, when the hyla pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when the grass greens in the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last snowflake dissolves in mid-air. It may be the first of May before the first swallow appears, before the whippoorwill is heard, before the wood thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon the mountains, no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, a kind of ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit (Andre), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed Commandant of the Post ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... appear a too hackneyed topic for a place in these Glimpses, and yet they were very different from present day observances. The "May-dolling" by children in the streets of Royston as every first of May comes round is clearly a survival of the more picturesque mummeries of the past. There is this in common, in all the procession of Mayers through the ages, that their outward equipment has always ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... hardly have waited for the spring to come. Mr. Rudd had gained slowly but positively throughout the winter, yet it was not thought best for him to come home until the spring should be well advanced. The first of May was the date set, and proved a judicious choice, for April was a cold and rainy month. There was just one odd fact about this month of April—during its course Sally received at least one letter from every member of her own family and from each one of those ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... wallowed, and blew, and in divers fashions drove along till we were deep in the heart of the North Atlantic. It was then a morning that brought the first of May within a biscuit-toss of our reckoning of time: a very cold morning, the sea flat, green, and greasy, with a streaking of white about it, as though it were a flooring of marble; there was wind but no lift in the water; and Salamon Sweers, in whose ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... Day. He then repaired at dusk in his gilded barge, with splendid attendance of nobles and citizens, to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore, whither, in 1009, the body of St. Stephen was brought from Constantinople. On the first of May the Doge visited the Convent of the Virgins, (the convent building now forms part of the Arsenal,) where the abbess presented him with a bouquet, and graceful and pleasing ceremonies took place in commemoration of the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... end of February that the Arthurs made their last voyage together. David was to sail as captain, in a fine merchant-ship, the first of May; and everything had been arranged for our marriage, which was to take place the tenth of April; and I was to make a bridal tour to London with my husband in the new ship. I was wild with anticipation and delight, and would let my work drop from my hands twenty times a-day, while building ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... with the Diamond, which was bound for Jamaica, on the latter end of March 1725, and kept company until the first of April. By the providence of Heaven we passed safely through the Gulf of Florida, and reached Salem Harbor on the first of May, two years, ten months and fifteen days after I was first taken by pirates; and two years, and two months, after making my escape from them on Roatan island. That same evening I went to my father's house, where I was received as ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... a member of Mather's Church, and one of the Special Court to try the witches. Its Session was to commence in the first week, probably on Thursday, the second day of June. The letter, dated on Tuesday, the thirty-first of May, is addressed to John Richards alone; and commences with a strong expression of regret that quite a severe indisposition will prevent his accompanying him to the trials. "Excuse me," he says, "from waiting upon you, with ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... to sail the first of May; so Mary Alice went home almost immediately, and on an evening late in March got off the train on to that familiar platform whence she had so fearfully set forth ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... January he served notices on all the tenants that unless the whole arrears were paid on or before the end of the next month, they would be ejected; and to many of those who held portions of the better part of the land, he sent summary notices to quit on the first of May next following. These notices were all served by Pat, who assured the tenants that he only performed the duties which he had now undertaken that he might look after Mr. Thady's interests, and as, as he said, "there could be no use in life in his refusing to do ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... blind, childish giant; do you never think? You are only a probationer with one year's leave. That year is up on the first of May." ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... uncommonly forward about learning our letters, and wished very much to go to school and finish our education; but were told that the "committee men" would not let us in till we were four years old. My birthday came the first of May, and very proud was I when mother led me up to a lady visitor, and said, "My little girl is four years old to-day." I thought the people "up street" would ring bells and fire cannons, but they forgot it. I looked in the glass, and could not see the great change in my face which I had ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... and apparently made every preparation to attack the enemy while the navy bombarded the main forts at Haines' Bluff. This move was made without a single casualty in either branch of the service. On the first of May Sherman received orders from me (sent from Hard Times the evening of the 29th of April) to withdraw from the front of Haines' Bluff and follow McPherson with two divisions ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... duly back with interest, All this doth my song keep secret. Poetry and dry statistics Are, alas, not on good terms. Also Anton came now hurrying Through the garden with a message: "The three ladies from the convent, Who the first of May went with us To the fishing, send their greeting To your gracious ladyship, and Also make most kind inquiries For the health of Master Werner, Who, they trust, will ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Kong and Manila is 630 miles, and it needed only a little figuring on the part of the inhabitants to decide that the dreaded squadron would be due on the following Saturday evening or early the next morning, which would be the first of May. The self-confidence of Admiral Montojo and his officers was almost sublime. All they asked was a fair chance at the "American pigs." They hoped that nothing would occur to prevent the coming of the fleet, ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... honor; he procured the signature; Tremblay and Louviere resigned their appointments; I have paid every year twenty-five thousand francs to these two gentlemen; on the thirty-first of May, every year, M. d'Herblay himself comes to the Bastile, and brings me five thousand pistoles to ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Traces of the holy fires, and fire worship of the Druids[26] may be observed in several customs, both of the Devonians and the Cornish; but in Ireland may still be seen the holy fires in all their solemnity. The Irish call the month of May Bel-tine, or fire of Belus; and the first of May Lubel-tine, or the day of Belus's fire. In an old Irish glossary, it is mentioned that the Druids of Ireland used to light two solemn fires every year, through which all four-footed beasts were driven, as a preservative against contagious distempers. The Irish have this custom at the present moment, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... still a good deal of unoccupied time on my hands between the first of October and the first of May, and having learned to read (in the old-fashioned way, by wrestling with the alphabet and plain spelling), at the age of about five years, I was willing enough to give some of my juvenile leisure to books and try to find out what ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... an alliance with the king of France, General Washington thought it proper to seize every occasion of doing honor to our allies; and when the French were thrown into all sorts of rejoicing by the birth of an heir to the throne, he decided that we should celebrate the same event. The thirty-first of May was fixed upon for the celebration. Great preparations were made for the festival. In General Washington's orders, invitations were given to all the officers in the army, and they were requested ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... at this hickory bark borer is for everybody to cooperate and cut those trees out, or at least the affected parts of the tree, before the first of May. I know of no other effective method of getting them. Cut them out and burn them. Some say, peel off the bark and destroy that; but if you do that, you have got to cut off the smallest branches and burn those, and I am afraid you would not get all of the grubs. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... town on the first of May, a week in advance of her house-party, so that she might have leisure to visit her brothers and sisters, and put the final touches to her own preparations. She did not mention the hour of her arrival, ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... migration took place on the first of May, and was long cited in tradition as the grand moving. The anniversary of it was piously observed among the "sons of the pilgrims of Communipaw," by turning their houses topsy-turvy, and carrying all the furniture through the streets, in emblem of the swarming ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 1589, and having consummated his marriage, was induced by the invitation of his father-in-law to pass the winter at Copenhagen, from whence he did not sail till the spring, and, after having encountered a variety of contrary winds and some danger, reached Edinburgh on the first of May in ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... are days when every stream is Pactolus and every man is Croesus, and thanks to that first and greatest of all alchemists, the sun, the morning I write of was a morning when to breathe was gold and to see was silver. And to breathe and see was all one asked. It was the first of May, and the world shone like a great illuminated letter with which that father of artists, the sun, was making splendid his missal of ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... learn the meaning of our celebration. Some of you may know that the early inhabitants of Great Britain, Ireland, and parts of France were known as Celts, and that their religion was directed by strange priests called Druids. Three times in the year, on the first of May, for the sowing; at the solstice, June 21st, for the ripening and turn of the year; and on the eve of November 1st, for the harvesting, those mysterious priests of the Celts, the Druids, built fires on the ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... the fire on the end of May, the Beltane." And again, in his remarks on Peblis to the Play, (p. 315,) he says:—"The play was not the name for a stage play, but indicated the sports and festivals which took place at Peebles annually at Beltane, the second of May, not the first of May, as is usually supposed. These had in all probability come in place of the ancient British practice of lighting fires on the hill tops in honour of Baal, the sun god, hence the name Baaltein, Beltane, i.e. Baal's fire. The Christian ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... those volumes of his Lives of the Poets which were at this time published, with a request to have permission to wait on him; and his Lordship, who had called on him twice, obligingly appointed Saturday, the first of May, for receiving us. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Lords and Ladies It is the first of May, We hope you'll view our garlands, They are ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... insect, to deposite fresh eggs. But the practical part of all this is the remedy: keep the ground clean around the trees, and rub off frequently all the rough bark; place around each tree half a peck of air-slaked lime, and the borer will not attack it. This should be placed there on the first of May, and be spread over the ground on the first of October; refuse tobacco-stems, from the cigar-makers, or any other offensive substance, as hen-manure, salt and ashes, &c., will answer the same purpose. We should recommend the annual cultivation of a small piece ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... reclaimed; (which came to pass). "But for Gibb, there are many devils in him (said he), wo be to him; his name will stink while the world standeth." They were all taken to Edinburgh tolbooth, and about the first of May gave in a paper to the council, shewing how many days they had fasted all at once, how they had burnt the psalms,—and renounced the confession of faith, covenants, reforming acts of assembly, the names of days, months, &c. These extravagancies pleased York then in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... was more to the present purpose, a special agreement was concluded on the same day, by which Spain bound herself to declare war against England unless that Power should make peace with France before the first of May, 1762. For the safety of her colonies and her trade Spain felt it her interest to join her sister nation in putting a check on the vast expansion of British maritime power. She could bring a hundred ships of war to aid the dilapidated navy of France, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Illinois wrote that she had a dear little son in heaven, and wanted David to come to her to supply his place in the home circle, where he would find those whom he might call "father, mother, and grandmother." A clergyman in Connecticut proposed to adopt him, and was coming to New York the first of May to take him home, if it should be ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... at Evreux, as well as at Rouen. Another institution, of equal absurdity, was peculiar, I believe, to this cathedral[41]. It bore the name of the Feast of St. Vital, as it united with the anniversary of that saint, which is celebrated on the first of May: the origin of the custom may be derived from the heathen Floralia, a ceremony begun in innocence, continued to abomination. At its first institution, the feast of St. Vital was a simple and a natural rite: the statues of the saints ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... other in a time like this?" After that events moved quickly. We read aloud together Beatrice Potter's little book on "Cooperation," and discussed all the difficulties and fascinations of such an undertaking, and on the first of May, 1891, two comfortable apartments near Hull-House were rented and furnished. The Settlement was responsible for the furniture and paid the first month's rent, but beyond that the members managed the club themselves. The undertaking "marched," as the French say, from ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... battle was fully foughten on the first of May, and ere a half month was fully worn the Barons' League sent a herald to Longshaw praying for peace; but Sir Godrick straightway sent back answer that he would grant the Barons peace when they had delivered ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... the morning, upon the first of May, And Dewey was the admiral, down in Manila Bay; And dewy were the Regent's eyes, them royal orbs of blue, And do we feel discouraged? We do ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... four and a half that first of May, stood at the edge of the tulip border, bowing to two hen turkeys who were poking their heads elegantly here and there among the flowers. She was absurdly like her mother, the same oval-shaped face, dark arched brows, large and clear brown eyes; but ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... On the first of May, the Monthly Magazine, a work of great celebrity, for the talent displayed in its pages, as well as for the philanthropic character of the gentleman who has so ably and successfully conducted it for so many years, published ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... our latest spring frost averages the 20th of April, and yet I have several varieties that do not bloom until after the first of May. That's the ideal condition. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... yes,—and such a heat and moil I never felt on any May morning, which is most onwholesome, I am sure. A cold May and a warm June is what I prefers myself,—but when you get the cuckoo and the nightingale clicketin' together in the woods on the First of May, you can look out for quarrelsome weather at Midsummer, leastways so I have heard my mother often say, and she was considered a wise woman in her time, I ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... first of May, and the day before Clare's birthday. It was one of the most beautiful days of the year, with a hint of summer in its light and shadow, a shimmer of golden sun shaking through the trees in the orchard, flung from there ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... February, Beza was of the opinion that the King of Navarre would not suffer him to remain longer in the realm to which he himself had invited him so earnestly only six months before. At all events, he would be publicly dismissed by the first of May, and with him many others. With this disquieting intelligence came also rumors of an alliance between the enemies of the Gospel and the Spaniard, which could not be treated with contempt as baseless fabrications.[24] But meanwhile the truth ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... traced till past the middle of the last century, though fast becoming obsolete, or passing into mere popular customs of the country, which the peasantry observe without thinking of their origin. About 1769, when Mr. Pennant made his tour, the ceremony of the Baaltein, Beltane, or First of May, though varying in different districts of the Highlands, was yet in strict observance, and the cake, which was then baken with scrupulous attention to certain rites and forms, was divided into fragments, which were formally dedicated to birds ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... notice the fact, that the bees somehow disappear, and there is no more at the end of five years than at the end of one. A stock of bees may contain 6,000 the first of May, and raise 20,000 in the course of the year; by the first of the next May, as a general thing, not one more will be found, even when ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... to visit, or rather to revisit, Europe. I was not able, however, to make the necessary arrangements to do so until the Summer of 1848. On the first of May of that year, I dissolved partnership with my brother, and in June started for Europe. In the following December, while at Galignani's News Room in Paris, I read in the New York Herald the message of President Polk, which ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... Tossing his crimson cockscomb to the blue And crowing like Chanticleer, Give them a rouse! Tickle it, tabourer! Nimbly, lasses, nimbly! Tuck up your russet petticoats and dance! Let the Cheape know it is the first of May! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... remember I was seventeen on the first of May, and Mrs. Craven gave us a syllabub in honour of the occasion?" and Verity's dark eyes were a little reproachful. It seemed so strange to her that he could have forgotten that day. But Amias only tugged at ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... till I get it arranged. Now write this: '"The Opp Eagle" has organized a club called the B.B.B. Club, meaning the Busy Bottle-Breakers Club. A handsome prize of a valued nature will be awarded the boy or girl which breaks the largest number of whisky and beer bottles before the first of May.' The boats to Coreyville run different on Sunday, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... as these birds are, they had been on a long journey to the southward to spend the winter, and now on the first of May, they had returned to their old home to find the land at its fairest—all blossoms, buds, balmy air, sunshine, and melody. As they flitted about in their restless way, they sang the soft, low, warbling trills, which gave them ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... excitement and profound anxiety followed; and then came the crash. On the thirty-first of May the mob of Paris rose; the palace of the Tuileries was besieged by a vast array of pikes; the majority of the deputies, after vain struggles and remonstrances, yielded to violence, and suffered the Mountain to carry a decree for the suspension and arrest of the deputies whom the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... David. "Wa'al, it come along to the second spring, 'bout the first of May. She'd ben more like folks fer about a week mebbe 'n she had fer a long spell, an' I begun to chirk up some. I don't remember jest how I got the idee, but f'm somethin' she let drop I gathered that she was thinkin' of havin' a new bunnit. I will say this for her," remarked David, "that ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... to the eastward on the following day, and we shaped our course across the Atlantic, bound for Savannah, whither we arrived, without the occurrence of any remarkable incident, about the first of May, 1817. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... likewise severely repressed. The judge was empowered to inflict a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or marriage,[32] on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not infrequent. We find a sentence bearing date the first of May, 1660, inflicting a fine and a reprimand on a young woman who was accused of using improper language, and of allowing herself to be kissed.[33] The code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and drunkenness ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... equal to her weakness choose; Bids her frequent the haunts of humble swains, Nor dare to traffic in ambitious strains; Bids her, indulging the poetic whim In quaint-wrought ode, or sonnet pertly trim, 120 Along the church-way path complain with Gray, Or dance with Mason on the first of May! 'All sacred is the name and power of kings; All states and statesmen are those mighty things Which, howsoe'er they out of course may roll, Were never made for poets to control.' Peace, peace, thou dotard! nor thus vilely deem Of sacred numbers, and their power blaspheme. ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... injurious insects in the Northern States have scarcely begun their work of destruction, as the buds do not unfold before the first of May. We give an account, however, of some of the beneficial insects which are now to be found in grass-lands and in gardens. The farmer should know his true insect friends as well as his insect foes. We introduce to our readers a large family ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... next morning it was with the understanding that Jean should return to Boston the first of May. Uncle Tom looked pretty grave when he was reminded that the days of his niece's stay with him were numbered; and it was amusing to hear him use the very arguments that Uncle Bob had voiced when Jean had left ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... and her cauldron; to Andras the Horrible; to Wyn ab Nudd, Lord of Unknown, and to Beli, Emperor of the Sun. I thought on the times when the Beal fire blazed on this height, on the neighbouring promontory, on the cope-stone of Eryri, and on every high hill throughout Britain on the eve of the first of May. I thought on the day when the bands of Suetonius crossed the Menai strait in their broad-bottomed boats, fell upon the Druids and their followers, who with wild looks and brandished torches lined the shore, slew hundreds ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Cooke, of the Estrella, which captured a post on the Atchafalaya called Butte a la Rose, on the 20th of April, the same day that Opelousas, sixty miles from Alexandria, was entered by the army. The latter pressed on toward Alexandria, while the gunboats pushed their way up the Atchafalaya. On the first of May two of them, the Estrella and Arizona, passed into the Red River, and ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... Nature, days which are worth whole months,—I might say—even years. One of these favoured days sometimes occurs in spring-time, when that soft air is breathing over the blossoms and new-born verdure, which inspired Buchanan with his beautiful Ode to the first of May; the air, which, in the luxuriance of his fancy, he likens to that of the golden age,—to that which gives motion to the funereal cypresses on the banks of Lethe;—to the air which is to salute beatified spirits ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... villages. I calculate another cool hundred on cod, haak, etc. I think we shall pay back the Board's loan in three years, besides paying handsome dividends to our shareholders. The boat is in the hands of a Belfast firm. She will be ready by the first of May. On that day she will be christened the 'Star of the Sea,' and will make her first run to ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the lawful possessors, to the Indians; and to obtain fresh estates, which they claimed as their own. And, having thus established a sort of lawless independence, they passed their time in drinking and wild revelry. On the first of May, they erected a may-pole, in old-English fashion; but, not contented with celebrating that day of spring-time and flowers with innocent pastimes, they hung the pole with verses of an immoral and impious character, and, inviting the ignorant heathen to share in their festivities, they abandoned ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... reached me sooner, I should have set out immediately to rejoin you; but the account of the treaty, which we received the first of May, prevented my leaving this country. The opening campaign does not allow me to retire. I have always been perfectly convinced that by serving the cause of humanity, and that of America, I serve also the interest of France. Another motive for remaining longer is, that the commissioners have ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... 1518[30], Diego Velasquez, governor of the island of Cuba, dispatched his nephew, John de Grisalva, on the first of May, with four ships and two hundred soldiers, to discover Jucutan. On the 3d of May, he fell in with the island of Cozumel, in 19 deg. north latitude, which he named Santa Cruz, because discovered on the 3d of May, being the anniversary of the holy cross. Grisalva coasted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... trial, but he thought it best, under all the circumstances of the case, that Suffolk should leave the country. He therefore issued a decree of banishment against him for five years. He was required to leave England before the first of May, and not to put his foot upon any English soil until the five ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... in the girl's voice—a sound of mystery that suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and, turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to the ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... one of the chief festivals of ancient times and also in more modern times. The Romans held the "Floralia" or festivals in honor of Flora, the Goddess of Flowers, from April 28th to the First of May. The Celts and English used to celebrate May Day extensively. But time makes many changes and as the years increase this custom has decreased, so that in some parts of the country the present generation know May first only as moving day instead ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... terribly to make so perfect a Saviour known to the whole wide world. There lies on my desk a Birthday Book which I very highly value. It was given me at the docks by Mr. Thomas Spurgeon as I was leaving England. If you open it at the twenty-first of May you will find these words: '"Simply to Thy Cross I cling" is but half of the Gospel. No one is really clinging to the Cross who is not at the same time faithfully following Christ and doing whatsoever ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Boston, which took possession of Port Royal and all the province of Acadia. In a month the expedition returned, with sufficient plunder to repay its cost. Meanwhile the British settlers deputed six commissioners to meet at New York in council for their defense. On the first of May, 1690, these deputies assembled, and promptly determined to set an expedition on foot for the invasion of Canada. Levies of 800 men were ordered for the purpose, the contingents of the several states fixed, and general rules appointed for the organization of ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... turned toward home. She had nothing to do for the rest of the day, nor for the days to come; for the season was over in millinery as well as in society, and a week earlier Mme. Regina had notified her that her services were no longer required. Mme. Regina always reduced her staff on the first of May, and Miss Bart's attendance had of late been so irregular—she had so often been unwell, and had done so little work when she came—that it was only as a favour that her dismissal had hitherto ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... always, on that day, a grand procession in Sweden, known as the May Ride, in which a flower-decked May king (Odin) pelted with blossoms the fur-enveloped Winter (his supplanter), until he put him to ignominious flight. In England also the first of May was celebrated as a festive occasion, in which May-pole dances, May queens, Maid Marian, and Jack in ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the first of May, and the lilacs in the Luxembourg Gardens are in blossom. It has just struck four o'clock. The bright sun and the pure sky have rendered more odious than ever the captivity of the office to Amedee, and he departs before the end of the sitting ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... Matanzas, Cienfuegos, and Santiago, is little if any greater than in Boston, New York, or Washington. A difference appears in the fact that about three-quarters of Cuba's precipitation comes between the first of May and the first of October. But the term "wet season" does not mean that it rains all the time, or every day, any more than the term "dry season" means that during those months it does not rain at all. At times during the winter, or dry season, there come storms that are due to unusual ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... explained that Dr. Graham, on the first of May, had moved over to Brooklyn, and was occupying a house about ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... first of May; but May was in an April mood,—half cloudy, half shiny,—and belied her name. Sprinkles of silvery rain dotted the way-side dust; flashes of sun caught the drops as they fell, and turned each into a tiny mirror fit ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... when the first of May, 1864, came, and the army was to start south, leaving us behind to hold the forts we had helped ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... they called Floralia, or Floral Games, which began on the twenty-eighth of April, and lasted several days. Later in England, and especially in the Middle Ages, it was the custom for people of all ranks, even the Court itself, to go out early in the morning on the first of May and gather flowers. Especially did they gather hawthorn, and huge branches of this flower were brought home about sunrise, with accompaniments of pipe and tabor, and much joy and merriment. Then the people decorated their houses with the flowers they had brought. And because of this, they ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... justice to yourself, but fulfilling wishes now rendered binding. Often and often my dear mamma said, "How I wish we knew the lady who wrote Little Susy!" Her health, always delicate, never recovered from the shock of Pearlie's death, and suddenly, on the morning of the first of May, the Angel of Death darkened our dwelling with the shadow of his wings. Not long did he linger—only two hours—and our mother had left us. She was with her treasure and the Saviour, who said so lovingly on earth, "Come ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... passed the 31st of March, 1787, the time for presenting the certificates of Udny Hay and his assistants was extended until the first of May then next, which time has not been further extended by any law of this state: so that all certificates of those denominations which were not presented within the times and in the manner specified in those laws, are expressly barred and for ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... first of May, 1781, General Washington commenced a military journal. The following is a brief statement of the situation of the army at that time. "I begin at this epoch, a concise journal of military transactions, &c. I lament not having attempted it from the commencement of the war in aid of my ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... poor little African; but it would hurt my feelings; besides I haven't got any chimney—no, nor a house;—don't own anything, I'm happy to say, but a bandbox and a tooth-brush; don't care a snap of my thumb for the "first of May" in New-York; it ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... the old chronicles give the story of her devotion to her aged parent, but none of them seem to have been aware that she is destined to remain with him till the day of doom, whilst Gwyn ap Nudd, the king of the fairies, and Gwythyr op Greidiol, fight for her every first of May, and whichever of them may be fortunate enough to be the conqueror at that time will obtain her as a bride.] the daughter of Lludd, the constant maiden, and Ewaedah, the daughter of Kynvelyn, [Footnote: The Welsh have a fable on the subject of the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... as if the place had only a dim existence in her remotest consciousness. "Oh! The ice isn't near out of the lake yet. You can't count on it before the first of May." ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Sunday is that twenty-first of May when the red-mouthed cannon roar from dawn till dark. At eventide, the grim regulars bayonet the last defenders of the redoubts at the Point du Jour gates. The city ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... were duly wreathed with garlands; and every village in the suburbs had its May-pole, which stood in its place all the year. On that happy day labour rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble round the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May—Youth, and Mirth, and Music, "brought the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no water Ever since the first of May; And a busy man will the miller be At dawning of ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... their first flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to see them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is a fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, with us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard seems still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for the first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing—one of the finest of all—to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after weeks of drought. How it comes softly out ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... were introduced in this locality there was a general washing of them in the brook about the first of May, after which sheep-shearing ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... are fine, especially the one known as the Cloisters, which remains much as it was in the time of the founder, and is ornamented with rude sandstone statues erected in honor of a visit from King James I. In accordance with ancient custom, on the morning of the first of May, just as five o'clock strikes, a solemn Te Deum is sung on the top of Magdalen Tower, where the choristers assemble in surplices and with uncovered heads. When it closes the crowd on the ground below give out discordant blasts from myriads of tin horns, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... he had ventured to hope, on the first of May, near the town of Lutzen, celebrated already as the scene of the battle in which King Gustavus Adolphus died. The allies crossed the Elster suddenly, under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the left flank of the French, who had been advancing in column, and who thus commenced the action ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... chapter of the Augustinians held on the first of May I was present, at their instance; for they were divided into two parties by their usual passion. They were presided over by the most serious friar of their order, but the bold acts of the youthful ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... Chillicothe. They are found in woods, especially under oak trees, but are also found in open places. I found them on the High School lawn in Chillicothe. Some very fine specimens that were found growing in a well marked ring, in an old orchard, were brought to me about the first of May. Their season is from the first of May ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... ready for delivery to Members who have paid their Annual Subscription of 1l., due on the first of May last.— ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... were running. Passengers were carried free until the first of May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads into electric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. He was negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise to electrize ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... hotels and lodgings, and become either Irish landlords or tenants, or both, with a view to the better understanding of one burning Irish question. We heard of a charming house in County Down, which could be secured by renting it the first of May for the season; but as we could occupy it only for a month at most we were obliged to ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... lights, for candles, for washing, for baths, for boots, and for what-know-I, after the most explicit declaration that the first demand included everything. Nothing definite could be evolved but the fact that when the season began, or after the first of May ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... tell you, madam," he said, "that I am about to hold jousts in the castle on the first of May, at which your good brother and mine, the Lord Rochford, will be the challenger, while I myself shall be the defendant. You will ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth |
