"Forefinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the water; and was now swiftly manipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her knees watched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between his thumb and forefinger. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... me with his old shoulders thrust back and his stubby forefinger pointed to within a few inches of my nose, "I said that I kenned her and her kind well, havin' watched the likes o' her ridden out o' Dawson City on a rail more times than once. I said that she was naethin' but a wanton"—only ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Philip, and dragged the sledge on which he was lying still nearer to the fire. Then he threw on a fresh armful of dry sticks and from a pocket of his coat drew forth something small and red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird about the size of a robin. DeBar held it up between his forefinger and thumb, and looking at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an instant over ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... blue-stocking, you know, and has read a lot about the early history of this country. When I spoke of the monk she looked very queer and went straight to a shelf of books and took out this one—" Miss Ocky held up the one she was carrying, and Varr saw that she was keeping a place in it with one forefinger. "When she showed me a certain passage in it, I put it right under ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... cover a bucketful of it with one of those tubs?" Again Bettina's forefinger pointed. "That would keep the wind off and the water wouldn't freeze if it ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... the season o' the great moon," said old Solomon Binkus, scout and interpreter, as he leaned over the camp-fire and flicked a coal out of the ashes with his forefinger and twiddled it up to his pipe bowl. In the army he was known as "old Solomon Binkus," not by reason of his age, for he was only about thirty-eight, but as a mark of deference. Those who followed him in the bush ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the store and got a job. For a time she was in Eden. The doleful proprietor's doleful wife was usually down-cellar making ice-cream while her husband was out in the kitchen cooking candy. Kedzie was free to guzzle soda-water at her will. Her forefinger and thumb went along the stacks of candy, dipping like a robin's beak. She was forever licking her fingers and brushing marshmallow dust off her chest. She usually had a large, square caramel outlined ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... he said, "you want nothing," and he made an upward movement of his forefinger to indicate his trust in Providence. That was the gay rascal's way of saying that he stole from the bags of ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... forefinger upward. "Up there," she said in that awed tone in which little children speak of God, no matter how limited their knowledge concerning Him. And all of Miss Hetty's questions convinced her that Pearl's religion was limited ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... a lamp, and I handed him the doctor's statement. He read it without the least show of surprise; and, putting the paper into his pocket, he sat down, closed his eyes, and with his thumb and forefinger ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... great golden transparencies the lowered shades in the living room where Geraldine stood, pensive, distraite, idly twirling her crop by the loop. Presently it flew off her gloved forefinger and fell clattering across the carpetless floor. She bathed and dressed leisurely; later, when luncheon was brought to her, she dropped into a low, wide chair and, ignoring everything except the strawberries, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... tone to impress us more, and the point of the knife, as it were an emphatic forefinger, tapped the open palm forcibly. Did we think that a man was not already riding along the coast to Havana on a fast mule?—the very best mule from the stables of Don Balthasar himself—that murdered saint. The Captain-General ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... to the office (having a mighty pain in my forefinger of my left hand, from a strain that it received last night) in struggling 'avec la femme que je' mentioned yesterday, where busy till noon, and then my wife being busy in going with her woman to a hot-house to bathe herself, after her long being within ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of his coat, adjusts his collar, studies the posters, shakes his head over them as if they were not to his taste, goes to the desk, and after studying it smiles at the rose and gives it a kittenish peck with his forefinger. NORA comes back and MIFFLIN turns to her with ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... Zermatt you are too young to know," and then Chayne's forefinger dropped upon the ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... could have explained she did not set about it. Instead, in first recitation, where she sat behind Nancy, she poked her in the back with a needle-like forefinger and hissed: ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... token of distress is made by placing the right hand on the right side of the face, with the points of the fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the ear is snug between the thumb and forefinger. I here pause, and ask ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... many!" said Zeph "—see?" and he touched himself, the boy and Ralph and Fred with his forefinger in turn. ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... work of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind shall go on and on till his realm of living waters becomes a frozen and motionless ocean. But the other, crafty and unmoved, nursing his shaven chin between the thumb and forefinger of his slim and treacherous hand, thinks deep within his heart full of guile: "Aha! our brother of the West has fallen into the mood of kingly melancholy. He is tired of playing with circular gales, and blowing great guns, and unrolling thick streamers of fog in wanton sport at the cost of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the front row as she had said she would. She frowned at him forbiddingly. But he was as yet scarcely half through his speech. He picked up his manuscript from the table and glanced at it, and then looked appealingly at her. She was obdurate. She held a warning forefinger in the air. ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the skillfulest fingers to disentangle them. And yet, by the very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora was the more tempted to examine the knot, and just see how it was made. Two or three times already she had stooped over the box, and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger, but without positively trying to ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... the bedroom," said Mr. Grummit, emphasizing his remarks with his forefinger. "I come up and beat the bed black and blue with the copper-stick; you scream for mercy and call out 'Help!' 'Murder!' and things like that. Don't call out 'Police!' cos Bill ain't sure about that part. Evans comes bursting in to save your life—I'll leave ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... brushed the crumbs off his part of the bare board with his hand, he disappeared, to see what he could find for me in the kitchen. The man who remained also brought his meal to a close, but he did not whisk the crumbs away; he brushed them into little heaps, and, wetting his forefinger, raised them by this means to his mouth. He was about fifty; his chin was shaved, but he wore whiskers, and a long rusty overcoat hung nearly down to his heels. He was very quiet, and I thought he looked like a repentant cabman. There was something about the man that excited my curiosity, but I ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... bugs under that," Shirley announced, pointing with a dainty pink forefinger at the stone she had sent crashing ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... of the handle is complicated by the fact that some cutters rest the tool on the forefinger and some on the middle finger in tapping, and that a handle the sections of which are calculated for the one will not do equally ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... little man.—I don't think I shall forget it, as long as I can stretch this forefinger to point with, and see what it wears.—There was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight And marched toward the gloomy gate Of ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the respectful demeanour of the bailiff towards Hardy struck the Pastor. Hardy placed his forefinger across his lips. The bailiff told Hardy that if they wished to have lunch in the mansion they could do so, after a walk in the beechwoods and by the ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... by successive downward jabs of his grimy forefinger as if he were stabbing his adversary to the heart, and Hardy turned faint and sick with chagrin. Never had he hated a man as he hated this great, overbearing brute before him—this man-beast, with his hairy chest and freckled hands that clutched at him like an ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... both hands on the white cloth. They were shapely hands in spite of their size, with healthy pink nails, except on a thumb and forefinger, which had been badly mangled. "For five years you have worked seven hours every day on this routine ... and in order to enlarge your capacity and skill and knowledge you have worked many hours overtime on this same routine, I suppose without any extra pay... It seems ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... one from off the ground, and stroking it with her forefinger, "Poor little thing!" she said, "was ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... way one will describe the size of a pecan is to say it is as large as his thumb and about two thirds the length of his forefinger, and so thin shelled that two of them can easily be cracked in the hand with ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... and described with the forefinger, various figures in the air. Thereupon they saw confused images move slowly across it;—caravans, fine horses, riders gayly attired, numerous tents upon the sand of the desert; birds, and ships upon the stormy seas; silent forests, and populous places, and highways; ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... deities of the Past, the Present, and the Future, in the Chinese Collection, than upon the best of these breezy maniacs; whose every fold of drapery is blown inside-out; whose smallest vein, or artery, is as big as an ordinary forefinger; whose hair is like a nest of lively snakes; and whose attitudes put all other extravagance to shame. Insomuch that I do honestly believe, there can be no place in the world, where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor's chisel, are to be ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... most outrageous, high-handed,—" began Landover, explosively, but stopped short as Percival levelled his unlovely forefinger at him. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the difference between them and the orthodox consists merely in their not smoking tobacco, and in their making the sign of the cross with the thumb, the ring finger, and the little finger, while the orthodox Russians, on the other hand, make it with the thumb, the forefinger, and the middle finger. All Samoyeds are baptised into the orthodox faith, but they worship their old idols at the same time. They travel over a thousand versts as pilgrims to their sacrificial places. There ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... closer to her and held up a long, threatening forefinger. It was a playful gesture, but Sheila had a distinct little tremor of fear. She looked up into his small, brown, pensive eyes, and her own were held as though their look had been fastened to his ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and looks in. Then he moves a step across the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his little eyes ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... "Flanders," and the "Spanish cities," something else was needed, when confronted by an examination on the history of Belgium. His method of teaching was his own but effective, though many alumni will appreciate his remark to a young instructor, as he poised his right forefinger in midair and cleared his throat, "I wonder if you have any mannerisms that would make you conspicuous before a class?" Professor Hudson not only gave his library to the University but also left a legacy ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... the purpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flung herself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were there still; now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had a mysterious, hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching the remains of some new horror—looking back and walking stealthily and making horrible grimaces—that might alone have qualified her to walk up and down a sick man's counterpane, to the exclusion of all other ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... said he; "for your sake I'll peril my carcass; I have done that for many a one that was not worth your forefinger. It is no such mighty risk either. I'll but step into the skirts of the forest here. It is odds but they drive a hare or a fawn ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... obeyed his summons without a suspicion that my career as a civil attorney was to be abruptly terminated. As I closed the door behind me I saw the old lawyer standing near the window, his spectacles poked above his eyebrows and his forehead red with indignation. Between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... some talk with you when you've finished saltin'," he said, as he rose and meditatively prodded a junk of meat with his forefinger. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... room. A slight rustling in the bed made them turn: Mrs. Carr had half-lifted her head from the pillow, her lower jaw had fallen to its utmost extent in her effort to articulate, and she was pointing the forefinger of her left hand at the door. It was a frightful sight. Even Stephen turned pale, and sprang ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... he cried. "It's a room for a needle," his thumb and forefinger indicating an infinitesibly ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Paul an interesting illustration of the latter branch of industry by twisting his right arm round and round till he nearly wrenched it out of the socket, while Coker seized his left hand and pounded it vigorously with the first joint of his forefinger, causing the unfortunate ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... was the portrait there, but we found the original there too. He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... said Pavel Petrovitch graciously, and he tickled Mitya's little double chin with the tapering nail of his forefinger. The baby stared at ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down the corners of his mouth. To a man acquainted with the language of signs, this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddity into the bargain. The young man smiled slightly and ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... pretty it is!" he cried, softly smoothing the golden petals with his little bony forefinger. "Can I keep ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... water bore down, and ever more millions of tons of ice added their weight to the congestion. The pressures and stresses became terrific. Huge cakes of ice were squeezed out till they popped into the air like melon seeds squeezed from between the thumb and forefinger of a child, while all along the banks a wall of ice was forced up. When the jam broke, the noise of grinding and smashing redoubled. For another hour the run continued. The river fell rapidly. But the wall of ice on top the bank, and extending down ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... a gardener using any spraying contrivance on the end of a hose. In his thumb and forefinger, which he skillfully moves over the flowing stream, he has a combination of sprayers that can produce the heaviest stream or the finest mist at will. This is to be recommended, but few will care to follow the course of training necessary to acquire ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... leaving the dwelling of the Pennels, she met Sally Kittridge coming toward the house, laughing and singing, as was her wont. She raised her long, lean forefinger with ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... smiled, thinking of his own brown bird. Suddenly a glint came into his bright blue eyes. In the corner of the room, against the wall, leaned the two Sharp rifles. Smoky glanced about him, rose, walked to the corner, bent down, and smelt the muzzle of Ransom's rifle. Then he slipped his forefinger into the barrel ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... head. Then he reached for his spoon, and proceeded to force down a little more warm whisky and milk beside the clenched jaws. One knew, by the way he lifted one of Jan's flews, raised the dog's head, and gently rubbed his gullet between thumb and forefinger to help the liquor down, that he had handled sick dogs before to-day. He had covered Jan's body with an old buffalo robe, and now he proceeded to fill a jar with boiling water, and placed ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Forefinger and warned him that he was merely a Grain of Dust and a Weakling and a poor juvenile Mutt whose Mission in Life was to Lie ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... let me take the prison chaplain's place," he said, as he gave Murray's hand one short, strong grip. In his left hand he held a small Bible, with his forefinger marking a page. ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for Mayday, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... handing back the paper—indeed, Pepper had kept the grip of his forefinger and thumb on it all the time—"Of course, Mrs. Atterson's lawyer must see this before she agrees ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... on Tripp's face grew deeper. He frowned seriously from his tangle of hair. He separated his hands and emphasized his answer with one shaking forefinger. ...
— Options • O. Henry
... The bronze forefinger found a pin's point protuberance of gold, and pressing sharply, the shield flew up to reveal a tiny but exquisitely painted miniature of ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... gained the summit of a hill which commanded a view of the city below. Here Augustus, who was a little short-winded, paused to recover breath. As soon as he had done so, he pointed with his forefinger to the scene beneath, and said enthusiastically, "What a ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it!" cried the wailing Ikey, pointing at his adversary a forefinger wrapped in a handkerchief. "You did! You did! I ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... along on their jaded steeds, tired out with the long day's jaunt and the rough footing, the mare would move swiftly backward in a manner that would have done credit to the manege of a circus. And at this extreme advantage Persimmon Sneed and his raised adjuring forefinger seemed impossible to be gainsaid. His arguments partook of the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... observant girl recognized, with a dull pain at her heart, as disappointment. Lucyet averted her gaze to a dish of ill-shaped boiled potatoes; there was no need of watching longer the face opposite. Miss Delia read it all through again, dwelling on certain lines, which she indicated by her forefinger, with special attention; then she looked up timidly. She met Lucyet's unsmiling eyes for a moment; then she, too, looked away, hurriedly, helplessly, to ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... master's beckoning eye and came forward, slightly abashed, with a flush of irritation still on his handsome face, and his chestnut curls slightly rumpled. One, which Octavia had covertly accented by twisting round her forefinger, stood up like a crest on ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... hand in his trousers pocket, seized the butt of his revolver, cocked it with his forefinger, then suddenly produced the weapon and fired ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... a slim panetela and pinched it daintily between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. His host ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tough old beef by this time! But I never had nothing in particular against him more than I thought he ought to be kicked clean off the face of the earth!" said Mr. Shrimplin, rolling his drooping flaxen mustache fiercely between his stubby thumb and its neighboring forefinger. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship? Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all directions flowed over ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... voice—for no one could have a softer or prettier voice than Hoodie when she chose—always in the same tone, till the bird learnt to recognize it and to come at her summons. And oh the delight of the first time this happened! Hoodie was holding out her hand, the forefinger outstretched to the open door of the cage, half-cooing, half-whistling, in the pretty way Magdalen had taught her, when birdie, its head cocked on one side as if half in timidity, half in coquetry, at last mustered up courage and hopped on to the ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... spruce-tea route four times a day, and there are eighty of you to be dosed each time," Smoke informed Laura Sibley. "So we've no time to fool. Will you take it or must I hold your nose?" His thumb and forefinger hovered eloquently above her. "It's vegetable, so you ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... perturbed. Rather, she was pensive, sitting with an elbow resting on the arm of her chair, the hand raised so as to lay a forefinger on her cheek. "Don't you think that we often make news good or bad by ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... a pity if their former serfs really do some mischief to messieurs les landowners to celebrate the occasion," and he drew his forefinger round his throat. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... students of education. The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot compare ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... his breath and opened his mouth. Major Grover stepped in front of him and leveled a forefinger straight at the crimson ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nothing of them, and at last I decided that my very haste was preventing me from solving the mystery. Then I took it more slowly. Again and again my forefinger traced the first of those ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Salome, none has ever reached me. Back to their native land they must have gone, Or else you have them here in Germany. Only to me come down real British plays, The mid-Victorian twaddle, the false gems Which on the stretched forefinger of oblivion Glitter a ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... his legs, leaned forward and set his right forefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who is prepared to ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... possible, Joe raised the forefinger of his left hand to his eye, looked at Lyman with a meaning glance that told him what he craved ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... tombstone; then he picked up a stone off the path, a little, pointed stone, and began to scrape the letters carefully. He slowly effaced them altogether, and with the hollows of his eyes he looked at the places where they had been engraved, and, with the tip of the bone, that had been his forefinger, he wrote in luminous letters, like those lines which one traces on walls with the tip of a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... westward along the sector, several kilometres within the French lines, for J. B. and I were to have a general view of it all before we crossed to the other side. The fort of Malmaison was a minute square, not as large as a postage-stamp. With thumb and forefinger I could have spanned the distance between Soissons and Laon. Clouds of smoke were rising from Allemant to Craonne, and these were constantly added to by infinitesimal puffs in black and white. I knew that shells of enormous calibre ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... cried Robbie, raising his forefinger in an attitude of remonstrance, which he had just previously been practising on the unhappy Dash,—"Liza, think what it is to call this reverend clerk and sexton and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... with haggard indignation. So did we, who would have preferred, in a manner of speaking, death. But Kelmar was not to be put by. He edged Mrs. Hanson into a corner, where for a long time he threatened her with his forefinger, like a character in Dickens; and the poor woman, driven to her entrenchments, at last remembered with a shriek that there were still ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... two days before, had warned her with a certain threatening sharpness not to waste oil, and she lay on the hearth, her rough head almost in the ashes, reading a book by the unsteady light of the flames. She followed the printed lines with a strong, dark forefinger and her lips framed the words with slow, whispering motions. It was a long, strong woman's body stretched there across the floor, heavily if not sluggishly built, dressed rudely in warm stuffs and clumsy boots, and it was a heavy face, too, unlit ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... their returns and orders; the day's second baking was in the oven; she had an hour or two of quiet between the noon business and the night; then she was always glad to see Sylvie Argenter come down the street with her little purple straw work-basket swinging from her forefinger, or a book in her hand. Sylvie and Ray read new books together from the Dorbury library, and old ones from Mrs. Argenter's book-shelves. Dot was not so often with them; her leisure was given more ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the boys and girls about to join in a proposed game, arranges them either in a row or in a circle around him. He then repeats the rhyme, fast or slow, as he is capable or disposed, pointing with the hand or forefinger to each child in succession, not forgetting himself, and allotting to each one word of the mysterious formula. It may be, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that, you see, is why we don't want proportional representation to let in the wild men." I opened my eyes—the lids had dropped for a moment under the caress of those smooth sounds—to see if Bailey's artful forefinger wasn't at the side ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... timbers crunched, split, rose suddenly into wracked prominence, twisted beyond the semblance of themselves. Here and there single logs were even projected bodily upwards, as an apple seed is shot from between the thumb and forefinger. Then the jam moved. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... his eyes fixed on the ground. His hair fell over his shoulders in long curls which had once been brown. His pointed beard fell on his breast. He sat silent and motionless, save that constantly he twisted a curl around a forefinger, over and over again. It was his way. He was a long-hair, a man of another day. He had seen the world change in six short years, since the first wagon crossed yonder ridges, where now showed yet one more wagon ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... bend your forefinger do you first think it over, then deliberately put forth some special form of energy? Not at all: The very thought of bending the finger, if unhindered by conflicting ideas, is ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... she told him the story about the rats and the cat; for hardly a day passed just at this time without her not merely recalling it, but reflecting upon it. And the smith drew the back of his hand across both his eyes when she had done, and then pressed them both hard with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as if they ached, while his other arm went blowing away as if nothing was the matter but plenty of wind for the forge-fire. Then he pulled out the red-hot gad, or iron bar, which he seemed to have forgotten ever since Annie came in, and, standing ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... outward, rather like a tortoise emerging from its shell, blinking as he tried to recognize the shadowy forms that moved in the confusing lamplight. He seemed to know whom to expect and admit, for he beckoned Tess with a long crooked forefinger the moment she approached the gate, and in another ten seconds the iron clanged behind her, shutting her off from husband and all present hope of succor. The chance of any rescuer entering the palace that night, whether by ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... to point out to you, with your permission," he began, "just where you stand in this matter. In the confusion and haste of a busy time you may not have cast up your accounts. First," he checked off the point on his long, slender forefinger, "in injuring Mr. Baker in this ill-advised fashion you are injuring your old-time employer and friend, Mr. Welton, and this in two ways: you are jeopardizing his whole business, and you are rendering practically certain his conviction ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... into the Doctor's smiling eyes for a moment, then looked long at the penknife on the floor, and finally stooped and cautiously took it between his forefinger and thumb, eyeing it doubtfully the while. Then he suddenly sat down, pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and mopped off the perspiration that freely bedewed ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... or not, seems to have become almost a religious rite of itself. Vistas of faces gallery after gallery hanging on a note, two or three thousand souls suspended in space all on one tiny little ivory lever at the end of one man's forefinger ... dim lights shining on them and soft vibrations floating round them ... going to hear Paderewski play at the end of his season was going to hear a crowd at a piano singing with its own hands and having a kind of ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Then mysteriously—lifting his forefinger and lowering his voice, 'Now your friend wants "talent," eh? Real, genuine "talent"! I could put him ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... me?" replied the marionette, "My dear sire, to deceive me one must have a good - " and he touched his forehead with his forefinger as much as to say that within lay a great brain. "Before leaving home I studied so much that the teacher feared I should ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... around the gray broncho in a clumsy circle. The gray broncho showed her appreciation of the attention by nipping viciously at the flank of his horse. By Weldon's left side, Kruger Bobs halted and pointed an accusing forefinger at his knee. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... swagger it, after having worn that livery for three years?" he asked, and his lean forefinger pointed at my hideous motley of red and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... confirm his mendacious statement, keeps wriggling his forefinger at the top of the tube, while his fellow-conspirators suppress their ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the southern horizon. The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride. Billy was right. The man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet. Nothing could ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... road, where you will find much good company, but in especial one man. Is he clever? is he engaging? Mark the negligent ease of his gait, his neck's willowy curve, his languishing glance; these words are honey, that breath perfume; was ever head scratched with so graceful a forefinger? and those locks —were there but more of them left—how hyacinthine their wavy order! he is tender as Sardanapalus or Cinyras; 'tis Agathon's self, loveliest of tragedy-makers. Take these traits, that seeing you may know him; I would not have you miss so divine an apparition, ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... Claude, who seemed absorbed in a profound meditation, and stood resting, his forefinger bent backward on the folio which had come from the famous press of Nuremberg. Then he added these mysterious words: "Alas! alas! small things come at the end of great things; a tooth triumphs over a mass. The Nile rat kills the crocodile, the swordfish kills the whale, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... success, he ceased his labor. Then he pointed to the vine, and made several slashes across it with his forefinger, after which he pointed to the knife Mark was holding out, ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... no verbal answer. He merely looked at Soames and pointed with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames was wretchedly rising from his chair when, with a desperate, quick gesture, I swept together two dinner-knives that were on the table, and laid their blades across each other. The devil stepped sharp back against the table behind him, averting his ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... made by putting the thread with which double stitches are made over a pin, and there must be one or more Double stitches between each loop. By holding the pin point towards the right hand, between the forefinger and thumb of the left, the thread can be lifted over by the 2nd finger of the right hand, and many loops made without removing it. With reversed double stitches, the thread is lifted over by the shuttle as the 2nd stitch is being made. Loops can also be made by putting the shuttle ...
— The Bath Tatting Book • P. P.
... this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of frequently compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the side of my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces common to men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought, sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great caution and deliberation, put my hands behind my ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... stood up in front of the pulpit, with a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert —though ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hard that you should go away with a wound like this on the hand that has done so much for us," said David, as he carefully adjusted the black strip on that forefinger, roughened by ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... have no name? Why, because it is of all the fingers the least useful. When we clutch at or grasp things, we do so by the strength of the thumb and little finger. If a man scratches his head, he does it with the forefinger; if he wishes to test the heat of the wine[95] in the kettle, he uses the little finger. Thus, although each finger has its uses and duties, the nameless finger alone is of no use: it is not in our way if we have it, and we do not miss it if we lose it. Of the whole body it is the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... killer. We know where he is. We can be pretty sure we got him down on the books." He tapped the sheaf of papers from the computer with a firm forefinger. "We can be pretty sure that he's one of those guys ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he ventured to take me up behind, by the middle, between his forefinger and thumb, and brought me within three yards of his eyes, that he might behold my shape more perfectly. I guessed his meaning, and my good fortune gave me so much presence of mind that I resolved not to struggle in the least as he held me in the air above sixty foot from the ground, although ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... will dip your finger in your pouch—" Olivier suggested, pointing a thin forefinger at Villon's ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... attention. The prisoner gazed fixedly at the letters "R.F.," which flanked the arms of the Republic on the wall above the President's head, and stood as motionless as on parade. A close observer, however, would have noticed that his thumb and forefinger plucked nervously at the seam of his trousers, and that his hands, though held at attention, were never quite still. The escort kept ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Lives, was done, those Lives should be theirs to possess; so men took comfort from their toil and labour and the grinding and cutting of their griefs. But as their Lives began to shine with experience of many things, the thumb and forefinger of Yahn would suddenly close upon a Life, and the man became a shadow. But away beyond the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... when I had been persuaded by some boys of our neighborhood to go and bathe in the forbidden hours, he found me in the pond, led me home, and, cutting two tough peartree switches about the thickness, at the butt, of his forefinger, he took me down into the cellar, and making me strip off my jacket, broke them up to the stumps over my back, protected only by a cotton shirt. This was the deciding event which determined me to run away from home, which I did the next week, and though my escapade did not last beyond ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... out the message in the air with a pointing forefinger. He had entered into the spirit ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Bells." He spoke with assumed sincerity, cutting the air with his hands in the manner that a Cossack sweeps off a head with his blade. He sank his voice and hissed his words in a hoarse stage whisper, while pointing to the ceiling with a dramatic forefinger. In other words, he was the best actor it had been my pleasure to see for a long time—a second edition of his more famous colleague, the futile Kerensky. Little did I dream that within a few days I would beg for this man's life and ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... Westminster Abbey, and the World's Fair, but the most impressive sight I ever beheld is the upraised hand of a London policeman. I never heard one of them speak except when spoken to. But let one little blue-coated man raise his forefinger and every vehicle on wheels stops, and stops instantly; stops in obedience to law and order; stops without swearing or gesticulating or abuse; stops with no underhanded trying to drive out of line and get by ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... delightful that he quite forgot Bridget rhua. But that lady did not leave him long in his happy obliviousness. One day, while Dick was absent, and Andy rocking on a chair before the fire, twirling the massive gold chain of his gold watch round his forefinger, and uncoiling it again, his repose was suddenly disturbed by the appearance of Bridget herself, accompanied by Shan More and a shrimp of a man in rusty black, who turned out to be a shabby attorney ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Sim put a forefinger to his puckered lip. "I don't know as I want to take more'n about one pup now, and three or four hens. I'll fix up the price with you sometime. Yes, I got ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... see why I shouldn't have a wife as well as another," says the professor, idly tapping his forefinger on the table near him. "She would bore me. But a ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... 'wash' is translated by one hand tapping on the other; the word 'vegetable' by scratching the left forefinger; sleep is feigned by leaning the head upon the fist; drink by raising a closed hand to the lips. And for more spiritual expressions they employ a like method. Confession is translated by a finger kissed and laid upon the heart; holy water by five fingers of the left hand clasped on which ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is 35 shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... attending to the working of the crane, and directing the lowering of a stone into its place, when he inadvertently laid his left hand on a part of the machinery where it was brought into contact with the chain, which passed over his forefinger, and cut it so nearly off that it was left hanging by a mere shred of skin. The poor man was at once sent off in a fast rowing boat to Arbroath, where the finger was removed and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncomfortable. I placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very willing prisoner, scarcely moving at all even when approached and touched ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... they were checked by the expression of Pauline's face, the speaking eyes of which, and the silent mouth, were concentrated into an unmistakable "hush!"—which was emphasised by a significant forefinger. ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne |
