"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and I intended to have remained much longer, when I perceived, all of a sudden, the bear's head within a foot of me; he had climbed up after me, and I saw that he was very angry, so in a moment I threw myself off my perch, and down I went to the ground at the foot of the tree, a matter of near twenty feet, even faster than I went down inside of it. I was severely shaken with the fall, but no bones were broken; in fact, I was more frightened ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... down quilt that the freaks of live had thrown to the ground. The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had been left at a distance from the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated over again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... went that unmerciful clock from its perch on the wall, all through the long days and nights, and poor Pet was in despair at the thought of living locked up in the old woman all her life. Now, indeed, she could groan most heartily when the old woman ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... her lips tight, for she was afraid. However, his long, supple fingers closed over her wrist like steel and she got quickly and easily to her perch and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the marble.' What a perch to select! Imagine the contrast of the two men, and remember that the Duke of Newcastle was for an unprecedented time the great dispenser of patronage, and so far the most important personage in the government. Walpole had reason for some of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... days later. With a merry, jingling chorus they perch in the leafless trees. We know now that soon there will be leaves and blossoms, and ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... vaguely, then went across the track and secured the plump perch. At intervals during their conversation he caught ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... further than this. Sometimes he came to a stand-still in his writing, murmured to himself, frowned, walked heavily up and down the room, but found no way out of the difficulty. Then, as a last resource, he would open the door of Jack's cage and invite him to perch on his finger. Jack would step jauntily down, raising all the grey feathers on his head till it was twice its usual size. Absently, but with great tenderness, the doctor would scratch it with one large forefinger; ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... forgetting their manners and gliding off into Gaelic, but as often recollecting themselves, apologizing, and starting afresh upon the path of English. Long before they reached the end of their journey, Valentine, able from his perch to listen in some measure of ease, came to understand that he had to do, not with rustics, but, whatever their peculiarities, with gentlemen of a ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Dan as she slid down from her perch and darted into the saloon next door. She had wasted no time in conjecture or sympathy; she had plunged at once into action. When she returned, the fat saloonkeeper lumbered in ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... went up to Robber Mother and scratched at her skirt, and Robber Mother bent down to her and praised her young. The horned owl, who had just begun his night chase, was astonished at the light and went back to his ravine to perch for the night. The male cuckoo crowed, and his mate stole up to the nests of the little birds with her ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... the opposite face of the island, and found myself on a shelf of rock about three feet wide, with one hundred and fifty feet, more or less, of vertical cliff beneath, and about the same height of half-cliff behind and above. It was a pretty perch, and gave one a feeling of consequence; for what pigmy perched on Alps ever failed to consider his elevation one of stature strictly, and not at all of position? The outer edge of the shelf rose, inclosing me as in a box, so that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight. Samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by contrived to draw nearer ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the muse to roam? 'Tis time to call the wanderer home. Who could have thought the nymph would perch her Up in the clouds with Father Kircher? So, health and love to all your mansion! Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in, The flow of heart, the soul's expansion, Mirth and song, your board illumine. At all your feasts, remember too, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... their own property still she proceeded, greatly rejoicing At their own crops, and at the corn which nodded so bravely, Over the whole field in golden majesty waving. Then on the border between the fields she follow'd the footpath, Keeping her eye on the pear-tree fix'd, the big one, which standing Perch'd by itself on the top of the hill, their property bounded. Who had planted it, no one knew; throughout the whole country Far and wide was it visible; noted also its fruit was. Under its shadow the reaper ate his dinner at noonday, And the herdsman was wont to lie, when tending his cattle. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... misguided, joined him during the period of his success. Many of them blindly seemed to entertain the opinion that no reverse could befall him, and all he had to do was to march along, and victory after victory would perch upon his banner. They couldn't even dream of a disaster or an end to his triumphs. Many of them have already sadly and dearly paid for their infatuation, while others are doomed to a similar fate. This remarkable raid, certainly the most daring of the war, is about at an end. Morgan is ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... and neck, and pawing impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was richer by several hundreds a year, he began to dream of a more resplendent residence for Emmy and the boy than the little flat in Chelsea. He had observed that there were very nice houses in Berkeley Square. He wondered how much a year they were, with rates and taxes. For himself, he could perch in any attic close by. He resolved to discuss Berkeley Square with Emmy as soon as she arrived. William Octavius Oldrieve Dix, Member of Parliament, ought to start life in ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... looked truly to a man who had paddled two days in a hot sticky fog, as, clad in white, she sat still and placid on her airy perch. Her hair, of the very light fleecy gold seldom seen after babyhood, hung over her shoulders unconfined by comb or ribbon, felling around her like a veil and glittering in the horizontal sunbeams; her face, throat and ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... chased all over the ship by one or two juveniles until caught, panting and trembling with the unwonted exertion. Presently it was given its liberty, partook freely of bread crumbs and drank of fresh water, then assumed a perch aloft, where it carefully dressed its feathers, and after thanking its entertainers with a few cheerful notes it extended its wings and launched out into space, no land being in sight. The broken mainmast of a ship, floating, with considerable top ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Quadrant, or Opera Colonnade; and Sir Walter Scott celebrating the Field of Waterloo, not in the broad-margined octavos of Paternoster-row, but about the purlieus of the Horse Guards. Wordsworth would be his own Skylark. The laureate, Southey, would perch himself on the dome of the New Palace. Campbell would step out of New Burlingtonstreet into the Park; Miss Mitford would keep a Covent-Garden audience awake with her own tragedies, and Planche would no longer entrust his rhymes to Paton or Vestris. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... money. He was sent home, and hung upon a nail over against my table. He lived outside a counterfeit dwelling- house, supposed (as I argued) to be a dyer's; otherwise it would have been impossible to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go: a shock which ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... her equanimity, and a listening look gradually displaced the emotion on her countenance. Over the half-door of the shop appeared two men, each bearing on his shoulder the socks (shares) of two ploughs, to be sharpened, or set. The instant she saw them she tumbled off her perch, and before they had got the door opened was half way to it, crying, "Dooie! Dooie!" Another instant and she was lifted high in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... rigorous exercise of all our lawful and proper powers, contending against Treason, Rebellion, and the public Enemies, and, whether in public life or in private station, supporting the arms of the Union, until its Cause shall conquer, until final victory shall perch upon its standard, or the Rebel foe will yield a dutiful, rightful, and unconditional submission. And, impressed with the conviction that an Army of reserve ought, until the War shall end, to be constantly kept on foot, to be raised, armed, equipped, and trained at home, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... than she realized. The throng hung breathless upon each move of the players, while there was no sound but the noise of shifting chips and the distant jangle of the orchestra. The lookout sat far forward upon his perch, his hands upon his knees, his eyes frozen to the board, a dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Crowded upon his platform were miners tense and motionless as statues. When a man spoke or ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... that the leading horse could barely stagger another fifty yards, notwithstanding the inhuman efforts of the cocchiere to make the most of the poor brute's failing energies. At last the animal stumbled and fell, nearly pulling the driver off his perch. It was sad, but he had more than earned his price, for Palermo lay ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... provisions the peasant wanders about in the trackless forests, and too often returns after many days with a very light bag; or he starts in autumn for some distant lake, and comes back after five or six weeks with nothing better than perch and pike. Sometimes he tries his luck at deep-sea fishing. In this case he starts in February—probably on foot—for Kem, on the shore of the White Sea, or perhaps for the more distant Kola, situated on a small river which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... old Laird's dog-kennel, now deserted, unless when occupied, as one or two tubs seemed to testify, as a washing-house. She tried another—it was the rootless shed where the hawks had been once kept, as appeared from a perch or two not yet completely rotten, and a lure and jesses which were mouldering on the wall. A third door led to the coal-house, which was well stocked. To keep a very good fire was one of the few points of domestic management in which Dumbiedikes was positively active; in all other matters ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... gathered up his reins and shouted a good-natured farewell to the crowd. A quick and vigorous application of the whip awakened the dozing horses so suddenly that they started up with a spasmodic jerk which nearly threw the old fellow from his perch. By a desperate effort, however, he maintained his seat, but his broad-brimmed hat went flying from his bald head and rolled to the ground, scattering in its fall his snuff-box, spectacles and a monstrous red bandanna handkerchief. This little episode called forth a peal of laughter from ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... these three vulgar sorts; one of little worth, being brittle, and very much resembling the fore-mentioned sallow, with reddish twigs, and more greenish and rounder leaves: Another kind there is, call'd perch, of limber and green twigs having a very slender leaf; the third sort is totally like the second, only the twigs are not altogether so green, but yellowish, and near the popinjay: This is the very best for use, tough and hardy. ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... piscatorum, a sand-worm much used for bait. Also, of old, the term for a perch or rod used in land-measuring, containing 16-1/2 feet, and which may have ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... at that moment Nelson opened furiously on the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll knock you off your perch, you rascal, if you are so inattentive.—Sir Ed'ard, send your best ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the suddenness of his coming; she half started to rise before she remembered the instability of her perch, and then crouched even lower than before when she saw that he was not yet aware of her nearness. It was not at all like the encounter which she had so ably managed in her imagination an instant before, and somehow that ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... was dressed I hastened downstairs, for I longed to revisit my old haunts,—the little plot of garden I had sown with anemones and tresses; the walk by the peach wall; the pond wherein I had angled for roach and perch. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of things were the cunners, known along Massachusetts Bay mainly as perch. Names are good only in certain localities. If you ask a Hingham boy how the cunners are biting he will be likely to throw rounded beach stones at you, thinking he is being made game of. Down at Newport, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... the fireplace, and bring a story-book out of my pocket, and read aloud to all the little children. Then the toys on the tree will become alive, and the little waxen Angel at the top will spread out his wings of gold leaf, and fly down from his green perch. He will kiss every child in the room, yes, and all the little children who stand out in the street singing a carol about the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... channel from the seaward, red buoys are on the starboard, or right hand; white buoys are kept on the port, or left side. Buoys at the end of a channel are usually surmounted each by some device or other fastened at the upper end of a perch. Thus, at the outer entrance of Gedney Channel in New York Harbor, a ball surmounts the perch; at the inner entrance the buoy carries a double square. Sharp angles in a channel are similarly marked. In many instances the buoy carries, as a warning signal, a bell that rings as ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... back, they had fifty dollars that Mr. Temple had sent, but we decided we wouldn't use a single cent of it, just so as to show him that we could look after ourselves. Anyway, we should bother about fifty dollars, because we had a big string of perch and some catfish. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... plunge of the breakers with the silent, unreasoned enjoyment of a child. All at once he developed a passion for fishing. He would sit all day nearly motionless upon a point of rocks, his fish-line between his fingers, happy if he caught three perch in twelve hours. At noon he would retire to a bit of level turf around an angle of the shore and cook his fish, eating them without salt or knife or fork. He thrust a pointed stick down the mouth of the perch, and turned it slowly over the blaze. When the grease stopped dripping, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... swept him off the narrow shelf? Harlan was unutterably weary now. He longed to let go his hold on the rocky wall, to cease fighting, and let himself be taken out into obliteration; but he drove himself on . . . and on. . . . After a long while he gained the perilous perch where Loll bravely awaited him above ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... friends went down—"Big Jack" David, and Wresmak, the Bohemian, Klowoski, the Pole, and finally Jerry Minetti. Little Jerry waved his hand from his perch on Hal's shoulder; while Rosa, who had come out and joined them, was clinging to Hal's arm, silent, as if her soul were going down in the cage. There went blue-eyed Tim Rafferty to look for his father, and black-eyed "Andy," the Greek boy, whose father had perished in a similar disaster ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... taking Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead from his perch was aware of having been boarded by ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... grinning. "You see," he continued, turning to the girls, "the Captain and I were practising shooting at a target once, out in the country, and the Captain came so near the bull's eye that he shot the perch out from under a parrot in a cage fifty feet away. O Mother dear, Jerusalem! You never saw such a surprised bird in all your life!" Slim was overcome by the remembrance, and the Captain grinned feebly at the laughter which the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... and all my respect for it is gone. I used to think the Creevy the best river in England for fish; but I wouldn't give a sixpence now for all the perch I ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... all and over all. Like White, too, though by nature solitary, Burroughs is on cordial terms with his kind. He is an accurate observer, and he takes Bryant to task for giving an odor to the yellow violet, and Coleridge for making a lark perch on the stalk of a foxglove. He gloats over a felicitous expression, like Arnold's "blond meadow-sweet" and Tennyson's "little speedwell's darling blue"; though in commenting on another poet he waives the question of accuracy, and says "his happy literary talent makes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... hurried, peeping exploration, and soon, for the rooms were quickly counted in Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, simplex munditiis. Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. I ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the lady. "I expected as much. Well Daisy—I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot-cushion to give you a little more altitude. However—I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting down her ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... took the trap from the fox's leg, and stretched him out on the doorstep to gloat over the treasure and stroke the glossy fur to his heart's content. His attention was taken away for a moment; then he had a dazed vision of a flying black animal that seemed to perch an instant on the log fence and vanish ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... warn him, or do anything except let out a horrified "Oh-h!" he had leaped lightly from his high perch and was standing in front ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... me perch upon a tree, Rewarding me with 'Sweety—nice!' And threatens to exhibit me With four or five ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... like Christmas, once a year, and we are taking a little tour in Scotland to see the curiosities, and to breathe the sea air, and to get some fishing whenever we can. I'm the fat cashier who digs holes in a drawerful of gold with a copper shovel, and you're the arithmetical young man who sits on a perch behind me and keeps the books. Scotland's a beautiful country, William. Can you make whisky-toddy? I can; and, what's more, unlikely as the thing may seem to you, I can actually ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the freeborn nations of the air, Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear As to exchange his native liberty Of soaring boldly up into the sky, His liberty to sing, to perch, or fly When, and wherever he thought good, And all his innocent pleasures of the wood, For a more plentiful or constant food. Nor ever did ambitious rage Make him into a painted cage Or the false forest of a well-hung room For honour and preferment ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... may readily pick up food and other objects from the ground. The muscles of their toes are so arranged that the simple weight of the body closes them, and they are able, in consequence, to sit on a perch a long time without fatigue. Even in a violent wind a bird easily retains its hold of the branch or twig on which it is sitting. Their bills are of almost all forms: in some kinds they are straight; in others curved, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards; in others they are ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... curtains had been drawn, and the lighted lamp, with its frosted glass globe, shone serene and silvery, like a minor and domestic moon. Mona Macdonald sat sewing near a table, whilst Amanda read aloud. On a sofa a lazy lapdog dreamed, the parrot slept on its swing, and the bullfinch on the perch in its cage, and in the pauses of Amanda's voice, the drowsy cat was heard purring in its evening doze. Nothing was heard without, except the fitful bark of the Newfoundland dog at some stray passer by; and, at length, even that ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... can't!" cried Clifford, laughing. "And yet, my dear sir, I am as transparent as the water of Maule's well! But come, Hepzibah! We have flown far enough for once. Let us alight, as the birds do, and perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult wither ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pike was born he did not grow up by months or by days, but by hours. Every day it was two inches longer than the day before. In a month it was two yards long; in two months it was twelve feet long; in three months it was raging up and down the river like a tempest, eating the bream and the perch, and all the small fish that came in its way. There was a bream or a perch swimming lazily in the stream. The pike saw it as it raged by, caught it in its great white mouth, and instantly the bream or the perch was gone, ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... world—" began Mrs. Penniman, for Wilbur in the hollow of his arm bore a forked branch upon which seemed to perch in all confidence a free bird ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... seven bells, he thought he discovered some object in the water three or four points off the lee bow. Hailing the deck to keep off for it, he very soon made out fragments of a vessel—spars, water casks, pieces of deck and, as they came still nearer, a boat; but the captain, even from his lofty perch, could see no sign of any one ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the chapel, holding their breath as one pointed to the figure of a tiny child in the organ loft. Was it possible, they asked themselves, that a child could produce such beautiful music? They remained rooted to the spot, till Wolfgang happened to see them and crept meekly down from his perch. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and Laura is to stay with ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... slow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel; flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race! They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the pedigree ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... possible. The front of the fowl-house should be latticed, taking care that the interstices be not wide enough even to tempt a chick to crawl through. Nesting-boxes, containing soft hay, and fitted against the walls, so as to be easily reached by the perch-ladder, should be supplied. It will be as well to keep by you a few portable doors, so that you may hang one before the entrance to a nesting-box, when the hen goes in to sit. This will prevent other hens from intruding, a habit to which ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... here," said Tom. "There are too many boats around. I can take you to a place where there are some good perch and sunnies." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... of my own friends—of pious bards and genial companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending little place, near ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... way wouldn't suit me. I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple tree, when I'm ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... "father" used to come home at eventide to the small but cosy cottage in that green lane, far, far away in the pleasant country; and she used to stand at the gate to watch for his coming, sometimes running half-way up the lane to meet him, and he would perch her on his shoulder, where she felt, oh! so safe, and bring her home to mother. Or she would climb his knee as he sat by the fire, and watch dear mother get the nice supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above his grassy grave in that distant churchyard; and ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... not to compare with our fish! Or would you seriously set your perch and carp against our mackerel, herrings, haddocks, flounders, and all our unparalleled ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit being jolly" ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... inspiration came to him—he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then he got Tricky to perch on the top of the pump, tied the rope round his neck, and all was ready. The shepherd had heard that the object of hanging was to break the neck of the criminal by a sudden 'drop,' but as he could not give Tricky ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... must be experienced by the driver, who sat all day long on the box, and controlled his four horses with his whip. Now he saw this happy creature nearer; for the post-wagon stopped, and the lad never once removed his eyes from the wonderful man, as he came down from his perch, stepped into the inn, and came out again with an enormous piece of black bread in his hand, upon which lay a ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain. During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented below; its perch firmly grasped with all hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs. The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention of the Singhalese, who capture the creature for the purpose of extracting them as charms ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... cold, that they no longer looked upon exposure as the worst thing that could happen to them. They had made up their minds that it could not be avoided, and told themselves that the sooner it was over and they were allowed to leave their airy perch the sooner they would breathe easily again. They could not talk now. They could only sit and gaze in the direction in which the hostler had disappeared, and wait for somebody to come and call off the dogs. Bob hoped that somebody would be Bert. He ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... in front of him and frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose you're right," he said, slowly; "but if we ever get off this chicken-perch, and I run across him, let him look out, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... possession of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... wildwood warblers, which I am credibly informed are many and varied in character; and by imitating those calls we charm the feathered minstrels to leave their accustomed haunts on the sheltering bough and to come and perch on our ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Another perch for Noah's duck! Where will I be in a week or two from this? I shall make a mark, twenty pages from here, and see where I shall be when I reach it. Here, most probably; but oh, if I could then be at home! General Carter, who ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... mounting the sofa, and applying her eye to the crack. "I'm afraid the Revolution has demoralized me, but I must see the thing through. Andy, they look—they look magnificent!" Ruth was quivering on her perch. Janie flung prudence and dignity to the winds, and climbed to Ruth's side, and, being taller, gained a portion of the crack above ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... but to pass the night well above the jungle perils in the suapattah hut, like a cockatoo screeching defiance at a cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and with about as much grace as a monkey manipulating ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... me; while he hauled and hauled away, and soon brought to the surface a fish shaped something like a perch, but apparently of sixty or seventy pounds weight. It was indeed, I saw, a species of sea-perch, from the large ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... has been lovely, and from my perch among the clouds here I am looking down upon a lovely view. Following the irregular line of buildings of the street, the eye suddenly becomes embowered in a thick rich valley of foliage, beyond which a hill rises, whose sides are covered ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said the gentleman, "for all these ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... straight to the tree; but Jim, in his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the log, and it was swept from under him by the raging water, and he soon joined the other two victims upon their forlorn perch. The excitement on shore increased, and almost the whole population of the village gathered on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up the stream, and securing another piece of rope, called to the men in the tree to catch it if they could ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... hey?" said the lady. "I expected as much. Well, Daisy I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot- cushion to give you a little more altitude. However I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... three-quarters of the population are villagers whose life is bound up with the welfare of plants and animals and lies at the mercy of rivers that overflow or skies that withhold the rain. To such people nature-myths and sacred animals appeal with a force that Europeans rarely understand. The parrots that perch on the pinnacles of the temple and the oxen that rest in the shade of its courts are not intruders but humble brothers of mankind, who may also be the messengers ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... dragon-flies darted to and fro, or sat on water-plants as if they were flowers. Snakes swam across the channels, vibrating their heads from side to side. Swallows swept over his head. Pike "struck" from the verge of the thick weeds as he came near. Perch rose for insects as they fell helpless into ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... mentor and child. Nothing, however, must be so individual as punishment. For some, a threat at rare intervals is enough; while for others, however ominous threats may be, they become at once "like scarecrows, on which the foulest birds soonest learn to perch." To scold well and wisely is an art by itself. For some children, pardon is the worst punishment; for others, ignoring or neglect; for others, isolation from friends, suspension from duties; for others, seclusion—which last, however, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... queenly one was giving a toast at a banquet, and the revelers were leaning toward her, drinking in every word of her rich musical voice, marveling at her brilliancy, when suddenly she saw a tiny figure perch on the table in front of her fiance,—yes, he was fianceing them both. The little figure on the table had a sweet, round, dimply face, and wooing lips, and loving eyes. The fiance took her in his arms, and stroked ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... understand how it was that Doa Maria, notwithstanding the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... gentlemen, and when the tables were removed, the lady, robed in green samite, and richly adorned, came forth of her chamber into the hall wherein they sate, and before the eyes of Pyrrhus and all the rest of the company hied her to the perch, on which stood the sparrow-hawk that Nicostratus so much prized, and loosed him, and, as if she were minded to carry him on her hand, took him by the jesses and dashed him against the wall so that he died. Whereupon:—"Alas! ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... enough in shape to be credited with strange actions: but ichthyologists say positively no: that the noise (at least along the coast of the United States) is made by a Pogonias, a fish somewhat like a great bearded perch, and cousin of the Maigre of the Mediterranean, which is accused of making a similar purring or grunting noise, which can be heard from a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and guides the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... When its beard just sprouting is; Whence a young stream, that trod on moss, Prettily rimpled the court across. And in the pool's clear idleness, Moving like dreams through happiness, Shoals of small bright fishes were; In and out weed-thickets bent Perch and carp, and sauntering went With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare; Or on a lotus leaf would crawl A brindled loach to bask and sprawl, Tasting the warm sun ere it dipped Into the water; but quick as fear Back ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... feathers was sticking out from one end of one of these baskets; and as we approached to examine it, out came the live head of a white peacock—a Japan peacock and peahen. The gentleman to whom the carriage belonged appeared next, carrying on a perch a fine large macaw. This perch was made to fasten behind the carriage. The servant who was harnessing the horses would not tell to whom the carriage belonged. He replied to all inquiries, "It belongs to ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... you tackle these abstruse subjects. I will come down from my lofty perch, Molly. What more can your ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... the House, off and on, for thirty-four years before discovering that he was on the wrong side, Mr. MOSLEY has made the same discovery after an experience of barely as many weeks. From his new perch he inquired this afternoon if Government cement was being sent abroad, to the detriment of British builders. Dr. ADDISON contented himself with professing ignorance of any such transaction. A less serious Minister might have replied that the Government needed all their cement to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... permitted, I should have retained my perch till daylight, but with the consciousness of escape from the jaws of the ferocious brute came a sense of overpowering weakness which almost palsied me, and made my descent from the tree both difficult and dangerous. Incredible as it may seem, I lay down in my old bed, and was soon lost in a ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... chair at the desk as he urged, climbing instead to the only other seat which the office afforded. It was a high stool beside the shelf where pens, ink and money-order blanks awaited the needs of the public. Mary had often occupied it, and from this perch had given the Captain some of the most amusing hours of ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had drifted out over the Hudson at an altitude of 2,500 feet. Here Donaldson descended from the airy perch which he had been occupying since our start on the concentrating ring, when one of us asked how long he expected the cruise to last. He replied that he hoped to be able to sail the Barnum at least three or ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... a map of Timber Run. This stream is the Perch River, and this is Bear Pond. The naming is in French, but that is the English ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp. Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm. What is the reason? Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... This perch of Ann Gossaway's was the eyrie from which she swept the village street, bordered with a double row of wide-spreading elms and fringed with sloping grassy banks spaced at short intervals by hitching-posts ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... broad leaves of Villarsia and Nymphaea, and well stocked with numerous large fish, which betrayed their presence by an incessant splashing during the early part of the night. John Murphy caught the small striped perch of the Lynd; and another small perch-like fish, with a broad anal fin, which had already excited our admiration at the Lynd, by the beauty of its colours, and by the singularity of its movements. Charley saw the Silurus and the guardfish, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... HIM (indicating the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell about that job. G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he fetched him off the perch!' ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the window. What youthful, yet manly figure, was that actively descending from his perch ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... FROM my perch over the bay window of the library, I had heard Tom Thornton express his savage determination to crush out of me the information he wanted. Being forewarned, I was in a measure forearmed, and I did not intend ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... your perch!" says I. "Ain't you makin' extra money on this? And when you fetch up at the club, do it like you was used to ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... tell!' Says t'other, perch'd upon the wheel, 'Did ever any mortal fly Raise such a cloud ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... swung herself from a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... otherwise. What I required was the dominion over the mind; I cared little about the sultan's attentions to other women. Like the tamed bird which flies from its cage, and after wandering a short time, is glad to return to its home and reassume its perch, so did I consider it would be the case with the sultan. I never, therefore, wearied him with tears or reproaches, but won him back with smiles and good humour. I expected that this new face would detach ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is not, allowed to carry fire-arms, and for this reason the squirrel may perch upon a high limb, jerk its tail about and defy him; the hare may run swiftly away, and the wild turkey may tantalise him with its incessant "gobbling." But the 'coon can be killed without fire-arms. The 'coon can be overtaken and "treed." The negro is not denied the use of an ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... called softly. But he was a sound sleeper, she remembered; she would have to find him and wake him. In the darkness she felt about on Thomas Jefferson's perch for Thomas Jefferson. When the little groping hand came upon something very soft and warm, the other hand went up to join it, and together they lifted Thomas Jefferson down. He gave a protesting croak, and then, because he was acquainted with the clasp of the two small ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... with no assurance, my friend. Let us understand each other now. I am not now supposing that you can fly back again. You have found your perch, and you must settle on it like a good domestic barn-door fowl." Again he scowled. If she were too hard upon him he would certainly turn upon her. "No; you will not fly back again now;—but was I, or was I not, justified when ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... four flounders, or half a dozen perch, two onions, and a bunch of parsley. Put them into three quarts of water, and boil them till the fish go entirely to pieces, and dissolve in the water. Then strain the liquor through a sieve, and put it into a kettle or stew-pan. Have ready a few more fish with ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... great unconquered heroes famed on earth from west to east, Kankas perch upon their foreheads, hungry wolves upon ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this advantage Washington wrote, "This river,... is well supplied with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; and, in the spring, with the greatest profusion of shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &c. Several valuable fisheries appertain to the estate; the whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery." Whenever there was a run of fish, the seine was drawn, chiefly for herring and shad, and in good years this not merely amply supplied the home requirements, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" On the third day of his fasting By the lake he sat and pondered, By the still, transparent water; Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, Scattering drops like beads of wampum, Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, And the herring, Okahahwis, And the Shawgashee, the crawfish! "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Nonsuch arrived immediately opposite the opening that Dyer was able, with the assistance of the perspective glass, to pick up the little narrow streak of unbroken water in the midst of the flashing surf which marked the channel through the reef, and from his lofty perch he immediately shouted down the necessary orders to George, who stood aft upon the poop, and who in his turn repeated them to the mariners, whereupon the ship was brought to the wind and, under the pilot's directions, headed straight for ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell promptly from her perch on the ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... freak of the demons of chance to perch on my unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks later in the firm's private office. It had ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of branch in one hand, the bird in the other. He glanced at us to see if we were watching him, and then smoothing the feathers quickly, he began to buzz and whirr like a beetle, as cleverly as a ventriloquist. Next he made the dead bird he held dart from its perch, and imitated the quick flight of one chasing a large beetle through the air, catching it, and returning to its perch, where with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of it swallowing its prey, and then ruffling itself up again ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... me for a time, and I felt a certain joy when I saw the bird slowly descend, and having spied my uncomfortable boat, perch heavily on the other end of it. He did not do so until he had looked at me with evident alarm; and, worn out as he was, and his heart beating as though it would burst through his yellow coat, he still kept his eyes fixed ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... lacked animal food, for we could always snare rabbits or, except in the depths of winter, catch fish. The lake was full of perch, roach, and eels; every mountain stream contained trout. On rare occasions we would find Lord Powerscourt's pheasants in our snares. I am sorry to say that in winter we would eat blackbirds, which we caught in a crib made of elder-rods. This I always knew to be a disgraceful thing ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... answered, "Very good!" He read Cream's note. Cream had suddenly to produce a new sketch, and he had overhauled John's piece and put it on at the Wolverhampton Coliseum. "It went with a bang, my boy! Absolutely knocked 'em clean off their perch! ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... noise and bustle came Miss Easton and Jack. The groom scrambled down from his perch, and the two got out. In an instant she was surrounded by three or four men, all talking at the same time and upon the same subject: "Was not the day superb?" "Did she know which way the hounds were to run?" "Was she going ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... unlike aught she had ever seen. His stature was gigantic, and a pale phosphoric light enshrouded him. As he advanced, forked lightnings shot into the room, and the thunder split overhead. The owl hooted fearfully, quitted its perch, and flew off by the way it had ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... eleventh day, ere the sun had dried the dew from the springing grass, the keen-eyed watchman, in his perch on the topmost tower, cried out in happy accents to the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... so angry, it was very difficult to keep him on his perch for the last scene of all. He submitted, however, rather than spoil the grand finale, hoping that its beauty would efface that ill-timed pleasantry from the public mind. So, when the agreeable clamor of hands and voices ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... as common as the schoolboy's familiar friend, the minnow. Others, like the cat-fish and sea-horse, are rare—in England, at any rate. Then there are kinds known to every lover of angling, such as the perch and pike. Seldom has a popular name been so aptly bestowed as in the case of the pretty little sea-horses. In the upper half of their wee bodies they have all the equine look and bearing, but in the lower half there is ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various |
