"Thimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some time to find her thimble and needles and spools, for Polly wasn't a very neat little girl; but she got settled at last, and stitched away as if bent on ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and await their coming. The Menomini[240] have a charm called takosawos, "the powder that causes people to love one another." It is composed of vermilion and mica laminae, ground very fine and put into a thimble which is carried suspended from the neck or from some part of the wearing apparel. It is also necessary to secure from the one whose inclination is to be won a hair, a nail-paring, or a small scrap of clothing, which must also be put ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... become stone. Her two elder brothers go to seek her, and, as they meet no monk to warn them, they become stone. The third brother meets the monk, obeys his warning, and thus, like his sister, escapes the evil fate. To save him from Helios, the sister turns him into a thimble till she has Helios's promise to do him no harm. (Compare the Tiger and Tigress, p. 155 of this collection.) Helios gives him some water in a flask with which he sprinkles the stone brothers, whereupon they and all the other stone princes come ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... "Hunt the slipper," at which Torps, with his long arms, greatly distinguished himself, and "Hide the thimble," at which Double-O Gerrard, blinking through his glasses straight at the quarry without seeing it, was hopelessly disgraced. "General Post" and "Kiss in the Ring" followed, and quite suddenly the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James decreed it was time ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... father were here," she whispered huskily. "And to think that's the same little girl I used to rap on the head with my thimble for annoying the cat! Oh, if Jonas could be ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... he cut the stop of the fore-topmast halyards, overhauled the running part, and let the block swing in. He then hooked a block that he had carried out with him, and in which the bight of a rope had been rove through the thimble, and ran in as fast as possible. This duty, which had appeared the most hazardous of all the different adventures, on account of the proximity of the bowsprit to the reef, was the first done, and with the least real risk; the man being partly concealed ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... diving we have already seen, by his own accounts, he excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him, possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother, who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the bottom of the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... machinery do not reproduce machines after their own kind. A thimble may be made by machinery, but it was not made by, neither will it ever make, a thimble. Here, again, if we turn to nature we shall find abundance of analogies which will teach us that a reproductive system may be in ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... upon the floor all day long, with his big eyes watching Hannah knit, sew, spin, or weave, as the case might be. And if she happened to drop her thimble, scissors, spool of cotton, or ball of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been a fine one, a little laugh of triumph. Thus, even before he could walk, he ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... keep your eyes open, and niver say die! niver mind the change, and the expense: all fair and above board: them as don't play can't vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman! Bet any gen'lm'n any sum of money, from harf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn't name the thimble as kivers the pea!' Here some greenhorn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble—an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top-boots, who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... remember arbout a story Mary Beard told ter me erbout a slave woman dat war foolish. Her Massa couldn't git no body ter buy her, hee, hee, hee, so he dresses her up nice en buys her a thimble en gives her a piece of cloth ter sew on. It war right here in Hopkinsville in front of de court house dat de block war en he sold dis woman as a "sewing slave", en her war foolish en couldn't take er right stitch en she sho brought ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Card-sharpers and the like often suffered in the stocks. It appears from the Shrewsbury Chronicle of May 1st, 1829, that the punishment of the stocks was inflicted "at Shrewsbury on three Birmingham youths for imposing on 'the flats' of the town with the games of 'thimble and pea' and 'prick ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... double fan of exquisite workmanship, on each of which again glistened a delicate and fairy banquet. Here were ultimate quintessences—pines reduced to a drop of honeyed delight; bananas whose life lay in points of bewildering sweetness; enormous steamboat puddings compressed within the compass of a thimble, exclusive of the sauce; chocolates, oceans of which lay in mimic lakes, each of which the bill of a humming-bird might expand; tongues of most melodious singing birds—the nightingale, the thrush, and the goldfinch; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... upon for hiding, such as a coin, a button, a thimble, etc. A pupil is sent from the room. During his absence the object is hidden. Upon his return the children buzz vigorously when he is near to the object sought and very faintly when he is some distance away. The object is located by ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... crowned with what had once been a white felt sombrero, now tanned by desert sun, wind, and dirt into a dingy mud-color; his powerful legs were encased in worn deer-skin breeches tucked into low-topped, broad-soled, well-greased boots; his waist was girt with a rude "thimble-belt," in the loops of which were thrust scores of copper cartridges for carbine and pistol; his carbine, and those of all the command, swung in a leather loop athwart the pommel of the saddle; revolvers ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... make it any size I please, from a thimble to a sentry-box," said the Goblin. "And, speaking of sentry-boxes"—here he stopped and looked more stupid ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... lessens the jar and the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India-rubber is comfortable to his armpit. The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which exclude the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket comb and cup and thimble, are of the same material. From jars thermetically closed with India-rubber he receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon and the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... of ice-cream was passed, of which each took a spoonful and ate it. In the ice-cream had previously been hidden a dime, a ring, a thimble, a button, and a nutmeg. Whoever chanced to get the ring was destined to be married first. Whoever took the dime was destined to become very wealthy. The thimble denoted a thrifty housewife; the button, a life of single blessedness; and ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... bobbed daily side by side to school, and the favorite play was "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to cover the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. Nan sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the battered thimble on his fingertip with increased benignity of aspect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in room. To one who finds ring, speedy marriage is assured; thimble denotes life of single blessedness; ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... tumultuous shouts, that made poor Larry crumple up as if he wanted to hide in a thimble. He looked around at the dark and angry faces to the right and to the left; and again wished he had thought twice before embarking on ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... The title of an old work, Ayen-bite of In-wit, "Again-bite of In-wit," was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." Grund-weall and word-hora were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The German language still retains this power and calls a glove a "hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy compound expressions ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... that Shakespeare wrote, and by a prodigious effort of memory, and not by reference to Mrs. Clark's Concordance.] "Measures" occurs nearly thrice as often; "shears" is found no less than six times; "thimble," three times; "goose," no less than twenty-seven times!—and when we find, that, in all his thirty-seven plays, the word "cabbage" occurs but once, and then with the deliberate explanation that it means ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... fragments. These fragments, which are put to various uses, are called scruts; and one of the uses they are put to is a sentimental one. The dainty and luxurious Southerner looks to find in his Christmas pudding a wedding-ring, a gold thimble, a threepenny-bit, or the like. To such fal-lals the Five Towns would say fie. A Christmas pudding in the Five Towns contains nothing but suet, flour, lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins—and two or three scruts. There is a world of poetry, beauty, romance, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... good, but the abundance of paper has produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships at the wharves, as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation. Some new indications of the ideas with which the British cabinet are coming ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... tell us of her life in Ireland; but no act did she more bitterly deplore than her marriage; complaining that the object of her choice was far from what he appeared to be when she married him—and further observing that as he turned out a very bad speculation, and never gave her anything but a thimble, she wisely left him to his own society, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... him on the knuckles with my thimble, told him he was naughty, and said we must not suffer merit to think itself neglected. Clifton began to sing Britons strike home; which he soon changed to Rule Britannia: sure tokens that he was not pleased; for these are the tunes with which he always ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... with its big, light yellow, sprawling leaves, and its attractively red, thimble-shaped, but rather tasteless berries. The Indians, however, are very fond of them, and so are some of the birds and animals, likewise of the service berries, which look much like the blueberry, though their flavor is not ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... as Becky Sharp when we went to the Opera nor did I think his Rawdon Crawley very convincing. His Peter Pan was splendid the afternoon we spent in Kensington Gardens, and he thought my Wendy was so perfect he tried to make me give him a "thimble" right there ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait - That she couldn't audit the gossips' accounts. 'Tis true, to her cottage still they came, And ate her muffins just the same, And drank the tea of the widowed dame, And never swallowed a thimble the less Of something the reader is left to guess, For all the deafness of Mrs. S. Who SAW them talk, and chuckle, and cough, But to SEE and not share in the social flow, She might as well have lived, you know, In one of the houses in Owen's Row, Near the New River Head, with its water ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... see the charmers as they crept down the rough road close to the garden wall, and went sadly home, along the blooming path, to the 'Tomb of the Four Thimbles,' as Livy irreverently called the ruin which has an ornament at each of its corners like a gigantic thimble ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... and the rent frock of his honourable Cousin. To repair the one and replace the other was now the predominant consideration. By fortunate proximity to a descendant of St. Crispin, the latter object was speedily effected; but the difficulty of finding, in that neighbourhood, a knight of the thimble, appearing insurmountable, the two friends pursued their course, Dashall drawing under his arm the shattered skirts of his garment, until they reached Playhouse Yard, in Upper Whitecross Street, St. Luke's, to which they ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... been made in the Company's books; that leaves had been torn out; that some books had been destroyed altogether, and that others had been carried off and secreted. The vulgar arts of the card-sharper and the thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to avert detection and ruin by the directors of a Company which was promoted and protected by ministers of State and by the favorites ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... that finds, wins; and them that can't finds, loses.' Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw six or seven people, apparently all countrymen, gathered round a person standing behind a tall white table of very small compass. 'What,' said I, 'the thimble-engro of —- Fair here at Horncastle.' Advancing nearer, however, I perceived that though the present person was a thimble-engro, {288a} he was a very different one from my old acquaintance of —- Fair. {288b} The present one was a fellow about ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her search, blushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen ribbons, skeins of silk, an old fan—all deposited ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said. 'Changing your plates all the time—eating peas in the winter greener than grass, with nothing under the sun with them, and drinking coffee out of a cup about as big as a thimble. Give me the good old-fashioned way, I say, with peas and potatoes, and meat, and things, and cups that will hold half a pint and have some thickness that you can feel ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... pockets. The strangest jingling of keys and money then echoed among her garments. She always wore, dangling from one side, the bunch of keys of a good housekeeper, and from the other her silver snuff-box, thimble, knitting-needles, and other implements that were also resonant. Instead of Mademoiselle Zephirine's wadded hood, she wore a green bonnet, in which she may have visited her melons, for it had passed, like them, from green to yellowish; ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... kept these things here; I found them on the ground; it is not dirt." "Very well; keep them for yourself. Would you like a dress of calico, or one of silk?" The girl answered: "No, no! a calico dress." Instead of that, the Madonna gave her the silk one. "Do you wish a brass thimble, or a silver one?" "Give me the brass one." "No, take the silver thimble. Here is the bucket and your cord. When you reach the end of this passage, look up in the air." The girl did so, and a beautiful ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... token of Christmas. A weighty book, for which Dr. Maryland had been longing; and for Dr. Arthur a fine field glass. Mrs. Coles rejoiced in the prettiest ring she had ever possessed; while by Prim lay a heap of little articles,a fruit knife, a gold thimble, a superb cutting-out scissors a ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... in his attempt at guessing the contents of the pocket of Carmelita, wrong again with Fernanda, with Maria Josefa, with Micaela, but see, what a sly rogue! he knew exactly what was in Emilita's: some scissors, a handkerchief, a thimble, and three caramels. The girl began to groan and clasp her hands in a state of nervous collapse. "It was a trap! a trap!" The captain serene, unperturbed, and dignified as some hero of antiquity, refuted ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... enjoy it, for days seeing the family come in and out, talking as freely of him as if he were a log of wood, and how perfectly happy he was when, one morning Alice came in and sat by him, placing her tiny gold thimble upon her delicate finger, and bending over her bit of dainty embroidery, humming occasionally a sweet, mournful air, which showed that her thoughts were wandering back to the cottage by the river, where her mother ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... of her sex—that of sewing. She held in her hand a coarse garment, one of Spike's, in fact, which she seemed to be intently busy in mending; although the work was of a quality that invited the use of the palm and sail-needle, rather than that of the thimble and the smaller implement known to seamstresses, the woman appeared awkward in her business, as if her coarse-looking and dark hands refused to lend themselves to an occupation so feminine. Nevertheless, there ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... besides the fair sex were sufferers from the same cause, while the "thimble-player" plied his trade and secured the attention of some countryman with "cash in his fob ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... thimble, A, in combination with the end pieces, B, substantially as shown and described, and for ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... candle to light me to bed, and, as I went up stairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe's thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... you call it," said Mab, flirting away her thimble. "Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me like Schiller—I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Parliament. When it came time for his first tooth, and he was wickedly fretful, and the doctors had a consultation over him, it was Miss Braithwaite who had ignored everything they said, and rubbed the tooth through with her silver thimble. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... them, a wife always knew enough when the extent of her genius enabled her to distinguish a doublet from a pair of breeches. She did not read, but she lived honestly; her family was the subject of all her learned conversation, and for hooks she had needles, thread, and a thimble, with which she worked at her daughter's trousseau. Women, in our days, are far from behaving thus: they must write and become authors. No science is too deep for them. It is worse in my house than anywhere else; the deepest secrets are understood, and everything ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... better set to," sniffed Mrs. Updyke, fitting on a huge steel thimble open at the top; "they ain't much arternoons to these short days, anyhow. I'll take this star, an' you, Sairay, may work on the next, so't I kin kinder watch ye. 'Twon't do to hev any ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... she cleared up all my doubts. One day I expressed surprise that God does not give an equal amount of glory to all the elect in Heaven—I was afraid that they would not all be quite happy. She sent me to fetch Papa's big tumbler, and put it beside my tiny thimble, then, filling both with water, she asked me which seemed the fuller. I replied that one was as full as the other—it was impossible to pour more water into either of them, for they could not hold it. In ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... me, and I cannot tell you how much obliged to you I am for the prospect of the gold thimble, a thing I have always wished ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... for a work basket were chosen and included a silver needle case, a silver thimble case, a silver hem gauge, a unique tatting shuttle, a little silver ripping knife, a cunning strawberry emery with a silver hull and a wee wax ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... place another low table to the right of the one on which the tub sets, and on this table should be the baby's basket containing a soft brush, different sizes of pins in a pin-cushion, several threaded needles, a thimble, squares of soft linen, absorbent cotton, wooden tooth-picks, a powder-box and puff, or a powder-shaker containing pure talcum powder, a box of bismuth subnitrate, one of cold cream, a tube of white vaselin, a dish ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... all took a long time, for we managed our chop-sticks badly; nevertheless, in spite of this handicap, we finished every marvelous course placed before us. A tea-pot of hot sake did something to keep the creeping chill out of our bones, but very little: the thimble-like sake cups contained only a few drops, and one doesn't like to ask for the tea-pot more than seventeen times! During the meal. Mr. Y—— entertained us with many side-lights on the political situation, and we finally asked him to explain the meaning of the Twelve British ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... truth, probably founded on actual observation, is an improvement on a large, comprehensive piece of guess work. Emmerie Mollineux expunged the imaginary region, and substituted a small tongue of land, shaped like a thimble. It was doubtless copied from some Dutch chart; and though we must not look for precision of outline at so early a date, it is sufficient to show that some navigator had seen, hereabouts, a real piece of Australia, and had made a note of what ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... whit," quoth merry Robin Hood, for the fellow was he, "for in sooth all the holiness belonging to rich friars, such as ye are, one could drop into a thimble and the goodwife would never feel it with the tip of her finger. As for my name, it is Robin Hood, and thou ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... straightening on her knees to survey her garden. "Every single plant in my garden except the pink geraniums is wild. Look at those thimble-berry bushes round the spring, and the blue camass along the brook, and the squaw bushes round the house, and the squaw grass and pussy paws back of the clothes-lines. Some I transplanted, the rest I grew from seeds. And where will you find a ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Lordy!—'scuse me, Bishop,—she wuz cole an' dead! Doctor cyouldn't do nuthin', w'en I brung 'im. Rheumatchism o' th' heart, he says. It wuz turrible suddint, onyhow. 'Minded me o' them thar games with the thimble, you know, Bishop,—now ye see it, an' now ye don'; yes, 's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... lengthwise with seven metal wires held up by nineteen wooden bridges, just as the violin strings are supported by a bridge. The scale of the instrument proceeds in half tones from [F: a,] to [G: b''] The tones are produced by plucking the strings with the fingers (which are covered with a kind of metal thimble), and the instrument is held so that one of the gourds hangs over the left shoulder, just as one would hold ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... her, but not otherwise. How was it?" "Oh, it's finished, Mamma; ask Nurse; for when I rolled it against her foot last night, she took it for a great black dog." "Well then, I suppose this is yours, Hermione; but, I must say, I never knew a gold thimble earned so easily." Yes, dear little readers, it was a pretty gold thimble, and round the bottom of it there was a rim of white enamel, and on the enamel were ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... come back empty-handed," said Jack. "Look, mamma; here are a beautiful pair of scissors, a large paper of needles, another of pins, and a thimble! How rich you are now! And when you get well, you can make me a pretty waistcoat and a pair of trousers, for I am in great ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... had a comfortable chair, and filled it with shoulders hidden deep in its capacious depths, and legs straight out, only the arms and hands free enough to be within reach of the match-safe and thimble glasses. And with the ease and comfort of it all the talk itself slowed down to a pace more in harmony with that peace which passeth all understanding—unless you've a seat ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sworn foes of time, while others crowded the doors of the different coffee-houses; the fat jolly-looking friars cooling themselves with lemonade, and the lean mustard-pot-faced ones sipping coffee out of thimble-sized cups, with as much caution as if ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... silver in it, Thomas," said his mother, "and the one who gets it will be the lucky one in life, and a thimble for the one who is going ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... to the middle class exactly the pleasure and the ideal that it demands. It recognizes itself in his pieces, where nothing taxes the intellect." Dumas fils goes even further, and compares him to the sleight-of-hand performer with his trick-cups and thimble-rings, in whose performance one finds "neither an idea nor a reflection, nor an enthusiasm, nor a hope, nor a remorse, nor disgust, nor pleasure. One looked, listened, was puzzled, laughed, wept, passed ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... don't know the right way to throw with a thrawn man, like Andrew, and to come round a soft man, like Jamie, I'm sorry for you! A woman with a thimble-full of woman-wit could ravel them both up—ravel them up ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... this is," continued Rosa, "and, oh, look here," as she displayed the thimble inside. "Who can this ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... to put dolly to bed; so Topsy found another nice resting place, stretched out in mamma's workbasket, with her front paws lying on the pincushion; but when mamma came for thimble and thread kitty was ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... all your colloguing,[3] I'd be glad for a knoggin:[4] But I doubt 'tis a sham; you won't give us a dram. 'Tis of shine a mouth moon-ful, you won't part with a spoonful, And I must be nimble, if I can fill my thimble, You see I won't stop, till I come to a drop; But I doubt the oraculum, is a poor supernaculum; Though perhaps you may tell it, for a grace ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... that the boys must stick the peas right off, went on to the milk-house,—a log shanty beyond the well,—and finally came back to the sitting-room, where, as there was yet an hour of daylight, Mrs. Sapp sat down to the quilting-frame. Elvira borrowed a thimble and assisted her, having only to ply her needle and listen. The stream of talk ran on the subject of quilts, the various patterns in which they were pieced and quilted, the Rising Sun, the Lion's Paw, and the Star of Bethlehem being Mrs. Sapp's favorites. From the pile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... very ancient—"as otherwise the dates would be brought down too far or too near!" And this is the keynote of his entire policy: fiat hypothesis, ruat caelum! On the other hand Prof. Max Muller, enthusiastic Indophile as he seems, crams centuries into his chronological thimble ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... lost my silver thimble, a gift from my mother when I was a young girl. I prized it very highly. I looked everywhere, long and faithfully. The tears would come, at the best, it had been so long a constant companion. I gave up the search after a while, thinking some one ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... folded up her sewing, put her thimble and scissors away in her work-basket, and leaned her elbow on the arm of the garden seat as if prepared ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... piece of meat on a plate. Picking it up with the fork he examined it critically, and then said, quite amiably for him, "Yaas, yaas, [280] that's it, bring me some." Next he required coffee. The coffee arrived in what might have been either a cup or a thimble. "What's this?" demanded Burton. The waiter said it was coffee for one. "Then," roared Burton, with several expletives, "bring me coffee for twenty." Their bill at this hotel came to L163 for the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the conductor of the 1865 and 1866 lines joined together at the Newfoundland end, thus forming an unbroken length of 3,700 miles in circuit. He then placed some sulphuric acid in a very small silver thimble, with a fragment of zinc weighing a grain or two. By this primitive agency he succeeded in conveying signals through twice the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in little more than a second of time after making contact. The deflections were not ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... to break one of the seals, the object of the robber was to restore it as nearly as possible to its original appearance; and to effect this he used a dampened thimble, rolling it over the wax while the latter was hot. There was but one envelope of the kind in the lot, but it told the whole story to the eye that could penetrate its meaning. As the thimble passed along the edge, it left the mark of the rim, then a smooth, ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... ash-tree—the nicest suit I ever saw. Here is a spot of ink on your sleeve as real as can be (bravo!). And this button is coming off—quite right; I will sew it on with a dream needle, and dream thread, and a dream thimble! ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... and how caused Bradley returns A doctor wanted A doctor's fee at the mines Medicine scarce A hot air bath and a cold water bath Indians engaged to work Indian thimble-rigging An Indian gamester, and the stake he plays for More sickness Mormons move off A drunken dance by Indians An Indian song about the yellow earth and the fleet rifle An immodest dance by ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... wild plants and flowers have been now called to your notice. But children have sharp eyes, and you will find many more to inquire about in your vacation days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... mistress or whore of a gentleman of the scamp. The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... pin refastens the fabric more conveniently on her knee, smooths the seam down with the thimble, and speaks, without raising the narrowed eyes, her head bent just a ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... culprits, Rose felt that she might relent and allow them a gleam of hope. She found it impossible to help trampling upon the prostrate Prince a little, in words at least, for he had hurt her feelings oftener than he knew; so she gave him a thimble-pie on the top of his head, and said, with an air of an ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... outer orifice of the vagina in the virgin. When of a semilunar shape, it usually occupies the lower or posterior portion of the canal, leaving an opening in the upper or anterior portion, varying from the size of a quill to that of a thimble, through which the menstrual fluid exudes. This membrane is usually ruptured and destroyed by the first sexual intercourse, and, hence, its presence has been considered evidence of virginity. Its absence, however, must not be considered a conclusive evidence of sexual intercourse, for, as Dr. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... as he spoke, and placed a beautiful little gold thimble on her finger. "There, that's to ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... of the card-sharper and thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to save the candidate of Mozart Hall. Even the sachems of Tammany, to avert disaster, nominated James T. Brady, whose great popularity it was believed would draw strength from ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... poured into a receptacle for the purpose enough seed, no doubt, to make, mixed with other things, several admirable thimble-loaves of bread substitute, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... day. Here he was supposed to have buried some of his treasures, and many have been the attempts of the credulous to find the hidden gold, but it could not be found. There is also no doubt that he was wont to hide himself and his vessel among those curious rocks in Sachem's Head Harbor, called the Thimble islands. There is also upon one of those rocks, sheltered from the view of the Sound, a beautiful artificial excavation of an oval form, holding perhaps the measure of a barrel, called 'Kidd's Punch Bowl.' It was here, according ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Archie, after tea, "you will be put on rations. One cobnut and a thimbleful of sherry wine per diem. I hope somebody's brought a thimble." ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... abhorred, Confines her in a COCKLE SHELL, And breaks all her enchantments fell, Catches her principal LIEUTENANT, Makes him of a split pine the tenant; Carries away the lady, nimble, As e'er Miss Merton plied her THIMBLE; Oh! this story would your frowns unbend. Could I tell it to ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sight of the work as they never had over the costliest gifts of jewelry. Sitting down in the airy parlor, no longer kept in state for possible callers, she put on her thimble, and, with a courage and heroism greater than those of many a knight drawing for the first time his ancestral sword, she took her needle and joined the vast army of sewing-women. Lowly was the position ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... digest: it was for a hundred and ten francs and a few centimes. "The devil!" said he; "living has become dear in Paris!" Brandy entered into the sum total for an item of nine francs. They had given him a bottle, and a glass about the size of a thimble; this gimcrack had amused Fougas, and he diverted himself by filling and emptying it a dozen times. But on leaving the table he was not drunk; an amiable gayety inspired him, but nothing more. It occurred ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... a music lesson. She tried to imagine a lesson being given to herself under these conditions. The thought wa complete insensibility to music, her eyes bent on her work, the quick movements of her small, thin hands, the darting gleam of her thimble, the dry way she had of clearing her throat, a gesture that was an accentuation of the slightly metallic quality of her voice, and expressed, for Miriam, in sound, that curious sense of circumspect frugality she was growing to realise as characteristic of Mademoiselle's ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... she had none. He seized her, turned her pockets inside out, and found a bunch of keys; item, a printed dialogue between Peter and Herod, omitted in the canonical books, but described by the modern discoverer as an infallible charm for the toothache; item, a brass thimble; item, half a nutmeg. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old dotard. Off with you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble; "you will have ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... ladies; mislaid her handkerchief, her shawl, her gloves, her work, her music, her drawing, her scissors, her keys; would ask for a book when she held it in her hand, and set a whole class hunting for her thimble, whilst the said thimble was quietly perched upon her finger. Oh! with what a pitying scorn our exact and recollective Frenchwoman used to look down on such an incorrigible scatterbrain! But she was a poetess, as Madame said, and what ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... to the wife of Evert, the late mate of our ship, a small looking-glass, a steel thimble, a pound and a half of white darning yarn, and half a pound of brown thread, for which she gave us a piece ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... they have liked to go? We had ice-cream, just made of vanilla, cream-candy, and water,—delicious! Then there was a whole tea-potful of chocolate-tea, which was a chocolate-cream drop scraped fine and mixed with water. Do just try it sometime. Thimble-biscuits, too, and holes with cookies round them. I never expect to be as happy again as I was when I dropped the curtain at half-past four precisely, and lighted the chandelier, which I forgot to say was a candle cut in two, stuck in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... back fence, which was the nearest point of communication between her and her neighbour. "Mis' Smith," she called, and her confederate came hurrying to the door, thimble on and a bit of sewing clutched precariously in her apron, just as she had caught it up when the significant call brought her to ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was no smoke coming out of the chimney, and that the hens were gathered about the kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one never ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "The Home" the matron had given her a little needle-book containing a spool of thread and thimble for a good-by present. These now came into good play. She used the ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... upon me as a child—who has never—never thought—" But her dignity, flying to the rescue, assumed control. Her upper lip curled, her body stiffened for a moment, and she went on with her stitching. "You deserve I should rap your silly little skull with my thimble. You are no better than Ignacio and Fernando. Such scenes as I have had with them! They wanted to fight the Russian! How he would laugh at them! I have threatened they shall both be sent to San Diego if there is any more ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the wind is abaft the beam; a third, or shifting backstay, is temporary, and used where great strain is demanded when chasing, chased, or carrying on a heavy pressure of canvas: they are fitted either with lashing eyes, or hook and thimble with selvagee strop, so ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth |
