"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Billie and Laura and Vi stood under the maple tree before anything happened. It really was only about five minutes. Then a sound was heard through the darkness. It was the cracking of a twig. ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... wrinkle. As soon as each sail was hauled up and the bunt made, the jigger was bent on to the slack of the buntlines, and the bunt triced up, on deck. The mate then took his place between the knightheads to "twig" the fore, on the windlass to twig the main, and at the foot of the mainmast, for the mizen; and if anything was wrong,—too much bunt on one side, clews too taught or too slack, or any sail abaft the yard,—the whole must be dropped again. When all was right, the bunts were triced well ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... had ceased; across Fifth Avenue the Park resembled the mica-incrusted view on an expensive Christmas card. Every limb, branch, and twig was outlined in clinging snow; crystals of it glittered under the morning sun; brilliantly dressed children, with sleds, romped and played over the dazzling expanse. Overhead the characteristic deep blue arch of a New York sky spread untroubled by a cloud. Her family—that is, her ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... you come in to the Chief," the man admonished her, with good-humored severity. "Have you not learned that babbling turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road, either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley. When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Humans—'Trackers' is what they are called, at least the Mounted Troopers' horses told me so (my word! the Troopers' horses are jolly fellows!) Well, these black trackers went in front of each party just like dogs, with their heads to the ground, and they turned over every leaf and twig, and said if a Human, a horse or a kangaroo had broken it or been that way. They found your track fast enough, but one evening it came to an end quite suddenly, and weren't they all surprised! I ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... Intense darkness surrounded her; not a star was visible; she could not see her own hand. For a little while Carl's footsteps could be heard feeling for more familiar ground; and then, occasionally, the crackling of a dry twig, as he trod upon it, showed that he was not far off. Then he whistled; then he softly called, "Hello!" in the woods; moving all the ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... not produce the series of movements all by itself, but, as was explained in speaking of tendencies in general, cooeperates with sensory stimuli in producing them. Clearly enough, the nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig. He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built nest. Only, he would not react ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the thirteen short-styled plants under the net, which were not fertilised, produced twelve capsules, containing on an average 5.6 seeds. As some of these capsules were very fine, and as five were borne on one twig, I suspect that some minute insect had accidentally got under the net and had brought pollen from the other form to the flowers which produced this little group of capsules. The one uncovered short-styled ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... Oesterley, in his German translation of the Baital Pachisi, points out that Grimm, in his "Kindermarchen," iii. p. 238, quotes a similar incident from the travels of the Three sons of Giaffar: out of four princesses, one faints because a rose-twig is thrown into her face among some roses; a second shuts her eyes in order not to see the statue of a man; a third says, "Go away; the hairs in your fur cloak run into me;" and the fourth covers her face, fearing that some ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... accurate in speaking of the 'resurrection' of this superstition in our own country. It has, in fact, never died, and there is scarcely a part of the country where a 'diviner' has not tried his—or her, for it is often a woman—skill with the 'twig' from time to time. These attempts have seldom been known beyond the immediate locality and the limited circle of those interested in them, and it is only of late years, since folklore became more of a scientific and general study, that the incidents have been seized upon and recorded ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... crazy with delight when she had a "new pair o' boots, and a pair o' shaker," and was allowed to toddle about on the pavement in the sunshine. She had a green twig or a switch to flourish, and could now cry, "Hullelo!" to those waddling ducks, and hear them reply, "Quack! quack!" without having such a trembling fear that some stern Norah, or firm mamma, would ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... commenced a cautious stalking through the woods, silent as an Indian, stealthy of foot, with eyes that glanced sharply in all directions. Once a twig snapped under foot, and after that he remained motionless through a long moment, shrinking against the trunk of a tree and scanning the forest anxiously in all directions. At length he ventured out again, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... when they frankly speak out of it with a strange interest. There is such a freedom from responsibility and from worldly wisdom,—it is heavenly wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, because there is no ruin; nothing has gone to decay about them yet,—not a leaf or a twig. Until he is well into his teens, and sometimes later, a boy is like a bean-pod before the fruit has developed,—indefinite, succulent, rich in possibilities which are only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. How rudimental are all his ideas! I knew a boy who began ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... does not count," said Stineli. "I dreamed once that Peterli climbed, all alone, to the top of the highest pine-tree; and when he was on the top twig, suddenly he changed into a bird and called out, 'Come, Stineli, and put on my stockings for me.' So you see that it does not mean any thing when ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... older," which remark, on the principle that one never knows what may happen, is incontrovertible as far as it goes. No one would wish to assert dogmatically that Charlie will not ripen into a reader, but at the same time no one very seriously supposes that he will. "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined" is felt to be peculiarly applicable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... and very successful mode of taking them. It is performed by a native, with a tat-tat-ko, or long rod, tapering like a fishing rod, but longer, and having a piece of string at the end, with a slip noose working over the pliant twig which forms the last joint of the rod. [Note 74: Plate 4, fig. 1. (not reproduced in this etext)] This being prepared, and it having been ascertained where the birds are, the native binds a quantity of grass or weeds around his head, and then taking his long instrument, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... trees of the groves of the Pacific coast, but as compared to the forests of the northeast. The ground was covered with pine needles and soft moss, so that it was not difficult to walk noiselessly. Once or twice when I trod on a small dry twig, or let the nails in my shoes clink slightly against a stone, the hunter turned to me with a frown of angry impatience; but as he walked slowly, continually halting to look ahead, as well as stooping over to examine the trail, I did ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... A twig snapped in the adjacent grove. She sprang up. "Hush, Graydon," she whispered; "not yet. Please trust me. Oh, what am I thinking of to be out so late!—but could not resist. Come;" and she ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... will take up his stand in a tree, and explore its branches till he has caught every worm. He sits on a twig, and with a peculiar swaying movement of his head examines the surrounding foliage. When he discovers his prey, he leaps upon it ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... excavators stopped to refresh themselves by nibbling at some succulent roots. While they were thus occupied, and apparently absorbed, from somewhere up the slope among the birch-trees came the faint sound of a snapping twig. In half a second the beavers had vanished noiselessly under water, down the canal, leaving but a swirl of muddy foam to ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... presumed would prove a scene of devastation. All was fair and smiling, gaze where I would. Here was the trim and smoothly shaven lawn—there the blooming parterre—beyond the early flowering shrubs not a twig, not a leaf injured. I ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... and ornamental, will be prosecuted under the immediate superintendence of Mrs. Wheelwright, who will spare no pains in the inoculation of the soundest lessons of virtue, while yet their young and youthful minds can be bent like the twig, and inclined like the tree, as the poet says. Those who desire it will receive instruction in the elements of moral philosophy, for which purpose they must be provided with Newtown's Principles, and other works of the ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... reversion takes place in the bud. One or two buds on a shrub bearing perhaps a thousand bunches of white flowers produce twigs and leaves in which the red pigment is noticeable and the flowers of which become brightly colored. If such a twig is left on the shrub, it may grow further, ramify and evolve into a larger group of branches. All of them keep true to the old type. Once reverted, the branches remain forever atavistic. It is a very curious sight, these small groups of red branches among the many white ones. And ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... hither, open hence, Scarce a bramble weaves a fence, Where the strawberry runs red, With white star-flower overhead; Cumbered by dry twig and cone, Shredded husks of seedlings flown, Mine of mole and spotted flint: Of dire wizardry no hint, Save mayhap the print that shows Hasty outward-tripping toes, Heels to terror on the mould. These, the woods of Westermain, Are as others to behold, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blistered into his boyish heart in that battle that never heal over; that tuft of sod is a girl's face—a little girl's face that he loved as a boy; there is his first lawsuit—that ragged pile of leaves by the twig at the log's end; and the twig is his first ten thousand dollars. All of it lies there before him, his victories and his defeats, his millions come, and his millions going—going?—yes, all but gone. Yonder that deep gash in the sod at the left hides ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... notes of a few were strangely contrasted with the harsh and discordant croaking of others. "The modest partridge appeared in company with the magnificent Balearic crane, with his regal crest; and delicate humming birds hopped from twig to twig with others of an unknown species; some of them were of a dark shining green; some had red silky wings and purple bodies; some were variegated with stripes of crimson and gold; and these chirped and warbled from among the thick ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... he said, "almost above our seat. Look, Lucy, it is made out of willow down and spider webs, bound round and round the twig. Don't you want to see the eggs? Look!" He bent the limb until the dainty white treasures, half buried in the fluffy down, were revealed—but still she ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... thy window-ledge, and when summer is over 't will be white as snow. Leave it in a snowbank, or in a cellar under wet moss, and 't will turn again to rose-color. This I have seen. In the winter nights the Frost King hangs his ice-diamonds on every twig and rope and eave, and when they shine in the red sunrise they look like these crystals. And I have seen all the sky from the zenith to the horizon at midnight full of leaping rose-red flames above such a world of ice. 'Tis very beautiful there, Reine Margot, and fit kingdom ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... maman," replied Lisa, and went towards her, but Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow. "I talk to her just as if life were not over for me," he thought. As she went away, Lisa hung her hat on a twig; with strange, almost tender emotion, Lavretsky looked at the hat, and its long rather crumpled ribbons. Lisa soon came back to him, and again took her stand ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... are you afraid of?" cried the dwarf in a little, dry voice, that sounded like the cracking of a dry twig beneath one's foot. ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... taking cunning advantage of every bush, stump, and boulder. For all his awkward looking bulk, he moved as lightly as a cat, making himself small, and twisting and flattening and effacing himself; and never a twig was allowed to snap, or a stone to clatter, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ill-disposed woman, named Susy Martin, living in Salisbury. Mr. Pike, who dwells near this Martin, saith she is no witch, although an arrant scold, as was her mother before her; and as for the girl, he saith that a birch twig, smartly laid on, would cure her sooner than the hanging of all the old women in the Colony. Mistress Weare says this is not the first time the Evil Spirit hath been at work in Hampton; for they did all remember the case of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... prince—Prince of the Black Islands—and here's your principality. Call out my prime minister, Pat Moore. I sent him across the bog to meet us at Moriarty's. Here he is, and Moriarty along with him to welcome you. Patrick, give Prince Harry possession—with sod and twig. Here's the kay from my own hand, and I give you joy. Nay, don't deny me the pleasure—I've a right to it. No wrong to my daughter, if that's what you are thinking of—a clear improvement of my own,—and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... formed; when the mind will be turned to things useful and praiseworthy, or to dissipation and vice. Fix on whichever it may, it will stick by you; for you know it has been said, and truly, that 'as the twig is bent so it will grow.' This, in a strong point of view, shows the propriety of letting your inexperience be directed by maturer advice, and in placing guard upon the avenues which lead to idleness and vice. The latter will approach like a thief, working ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... doomed enemy. Somers dared not look out from the tree to obtain even a single glance at the foe; for he knew how accurate is the aim of some of these Southern woodsmen. He had nothing to guide him but the rustling of the dried branches beneath his tread, or the occasional snapping of a twig ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... she tossed another berry into the dog's mouth. A twig snapped, and she raised a startled ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... away; But there comes a coal-black rider upon a coal-black horse, And he strives to save the new-born tree and drive the foe afar: Long they fight till the New Year's dawn—until black knight yields, And the foeman hews away the twig, and rides into the dawn, But there will come a time,'tis said, when the white knight must yield, And the twig will grow and its leaves will blow until the trunk is great: So great that a proud war horse 'neath its lower branch may go. And when the branch is grown and blown will come the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... grow ripe and big, Black and ripe for this bird of mine"? How little bright-bosom bends the twig, Drinking the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... 1-2 inches long, pointing in the general direction of the twig on which they grow, frequently curved at the tip, whitish-yellow when young, and brown at maturity; scales when mature without prickles, thickened at the apex; outline very irregular but in general oblong-conical. The open ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... gliding as I goe, With this burthen full of woe, Through still silence of the night, Guided by the Gloe-worms light, Hither am I come at last, Many a Thicket have I past Not a twig that durst deny me, Not a bush that durst descry me, To the little Bird that sleeps On the tender spray: nor creeps That hardy worm with pointed tail, But if I be under sail, Flying faster than the wind, Leaving ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... mercy, and not sacrifice. And again, that it is not, nor shall be, in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that sheweth mercy. What hope, help, stay, or relief then is there left for the merit-monger? What twig, or straw, or twined thread is left to be a stay for his soul? This besom will sweep away his cobweb: The house that this spider doth so lean upon, will now be overturned, and he in it to hell fire; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... village, and there stopped short, to watch us till we disappeared in the darkness. The nights at this high altitude were chilly. We had no blankets, and not enough clothing to warrant a camp among the rocks. There was not a twig on the whole plateau with which to build a fire. We were alone, however, and that was rest in itself. After walking an hour, perhaps, we saw a light gleaming from a group of mudhuts a short distance off the road. From the numerous flocks around it, we took ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... sent out new leaves, so that foliage was foliage that ought to have come on the next year, that is, it was exhausting next year's buds. The same year the tree sent out its blossom buds, so it had no fruit the following season. This slide shows one of the pests in the pecan orchard, the twig girdler, at work. The insect deposits its egg under the bark up at about that point, then goes down below girdles the twig, and it breaks off, goes to the ground, and the insect comes out, goes into the ground and comes out the next season. There are a good many drawbacks that are occurring and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... a trained roping horse, stood, blown and panting, his feet braced, keeping the rope taut while Farrel dismounted and casually strolled back to the tree. He broke off a small twig and waited, while the hounds, belling lustily, came nosing across the meadow. Kay rode up, as the dogs, catching sight of the helpless cat, quickened their speed to close in; she heard Farrel shout to them and saw him ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... rising ground, on which grew a grove of magnificent beeches, their large silvery boles rising majestically like columns into a lofty vaulting of branches, covered above with tender green foliage. Here and there the shade beneath was broken by the gilding of a ray of sunshine on a lower twig, or on a white trunk, but the floor of the vast arcades was almost entirely of the russet brown of the fallen leaves, save where a fern or holly bush made a spot of green. At the foot of the slope lay a stretch of pasture ground, some parts covered by "lady-smocks, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... unpleasant position. Stretching out his hands to the root above his head, he found that it was beyond his reach. The sudden fear that this produced caused him to make a violent struggle, and in his next effort he succeeded in catching a twig; it supported him, for a moment, then broke, and he fell back again into the mud. Each successive struggle only sank him deeper. As the thick adhesive semi-liquid clung to his lower limbs and rose slowly on his chest, ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the place where he had cut his hazel-twig. There he did as the master of black-arts had told him; he poured the yellow water over the stump of hazel from which he had cut his staff. Then everything happened just as the other had said: first there came seven green snakes out of the hole at the foot of the ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... the trigger, my lids lifted alertly, and as alertly reclosed. Outside the window one of the officers, rising by some slender foothold, had been looking in upon me, and in sinking down again and turning away had snapped a twig. He glanced back just as I opened my eyes, but once more my head was in shadow and the moonlight between us. When I peeped again he ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... truthful, Swam through all the deep-sea waters, Floating like a branch of aspen, Like a withered twig of willow; Swam six days in summer weather, Swam six nights in golden moonlight; Still before him rose the billows, And behind him sky and ocean. Two days more he swam undaunted, Two long nights be struggled ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... the appreciation of gardens, he learns to distinguish plants by their forms. This is particularly true for trees and shrubs. Each species has its own "expression," which is determined by the size that is natural to it, mode of branching, form of top, twig characters, bark characters, foliage characters, and to some extent its flower and fruit characters. It is a useful practice for one to train his eye by learning the difference in expression of the trees of different varieties of cherries or pears or apples or other fruits, ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... possibility is forgotten, and it is a pure autumn pleasure to appreciate the richness of color, to be soon followed by the more sober cognizance of the elegance of outline and form disclosed when all the delicate tracery of twig and bough stands revealed against winter's frosty sky. The sugar maple has a curious habit of ripening or reddening some of its branches very early, as if it was hanging out a warning signal to the squirrels and the chipmunks to hurry along with their storing of nuts against ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... finger up at some one, opens his eyes wide, and purses up his lips. There is a sound of a light snapping. The sportsmen look at each other significantly, and tell each other with their eyes that it is nothing. It is the snapping of a dry twig or a bit of bark. The shadows of evening keep growing and growing, the patches of crimson gradually grow dim, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... her love of system; for she knows that order was made for the family, and not the family for order. Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or overlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently rectifies. Everybody in her sphere breathes easy, feels free; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her operations and movements, that none sees that it is she who holds all things in harmony; only, alas, when she is gone, how many things suddenly appear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... flower-bed diffused a heavy fragrance. The birds twittered only at rare intervals with somnolent voices. The trees stood motionless as though listening to the sunlit tranquility of that August day. Only now and then some leaf or withered twig would float down in a spiral line upon the lawns. The golden splashes of sunlight filtering through the branches formed a shifting mosaic upon the grass and gleamed like ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... word was spoken now, and as they went they took the greatest pains not to brush against any branch or twig. ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon their laps. The heads of all save three were averted, and they were Luke Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead daughter's son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the twig flicked against the pane. The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at one side, travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or twice, the plain rebuke of Luke Claridge's look compelled her eyes upon her folded hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, 'T was filled with candle spiced and hot ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Leon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first bench in silence. Leon made a cigarette, ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could not unfold their meaning, so, at once discarding this press, he went over and opened the door of the press of the "Secondary Records" and took out a book, in which, on examination, he found a representation of a twig of Olea fragrans. Below, was a pond, the water of which was parched up and the mud dry, the lotus flowers decayed, and even the roots dead. At the back ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... recovered of his fright, quickly obeyed the caliph's orders. He drew out five or six very large fishes; and the caliph choosing the two biggest, tied them together by the head, with the twig of a tree. "After this," said he to the fisherman, "give me thy clothes, and take mine." The exchange was soon made; and the caliph being dressed like a fisherman, even to his boots and turban, "Take thy nets," said he to the fisherman, "and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... were angry with them. A rook carried a stick to the tops of the tall trees, and the women drew their cloaks about them. The train passed across the vista, and the women wondered how long it would take Jack to walk from the station. Then another rook stooped to the edge of the plantation, gathered a twig, and carried it away. The wind was rough; it caught the evergreens underneath and blew them out like umbrellas; the grass had not yet begun to grow, and the grey sea harmonised with the grey-green land. The women waited on the windy lawn, their skirts blown against ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... forth starting at the sound, From underneath an aged oak That slanted from the islet rock, A damsel guider of its way, A little skiff shot to the bay, That round the promontory steep Led its deep line in graceful sweep, Eddying, in almost viewless wave, The weeping willow twig to rave, And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, The beach of pebbles bright as snow. The boat had touched this silver strand Just as the Hunter left his stand, And stood concealed amid the brake, To view this Lady of the Lake. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... "Just twig 'em, Jimmy!" shouted one who had tipped over half a dozen of his companions in his enthusiasm. "Their tails is as long ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... in a moment, and she set up her finger to me to hush, as that she heard somewhat in the wood that lay all the way upon our right. And, indeed, something I heard too; for there was surely a rustling of the leaves, and anon a dead twig crackt with a sound clear and sharp ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... teetotum, made of a crust of rye-bread transfixed by a twig, silently spinning on the cover of a school-book, will give a correct enough image of the earth, which retains unmoved its original impulse, and travels along a great circle, at the same time turning on itself. Gummed on its disc, scraps of paper properly coloured will ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... zero weather that week, but bright and clear, with spicules of frost glistening on every twig; and I recollect how sharply the tree trunks snapped—those frost snaps which make "shaky" ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... The ant at last met one of his companions, who was also carrying a burden. They stopped, took counsel for an instant, bringing their antennae together, and started for the hillock. The second ant then left his burden, and both together then seized a twig and introduced its end beneath the first load which had been abandoned because of its weight. By acting on the free extremity of the twig they were able to use it exactly as a lever, and succeeded almost without trouble in passing their booty on to the other ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... blush for every twig, and a drop curtain for every branch. Thank God for the Penrhyn graft! Let us hope that it will do as much good as its fairest flower has already done the degenerate scion of all the Dartmouths. But, to the castle! I would get through—I ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... plum-pudding; and this, King Frost had hardened by his patent adamantine process, so that it might not cause any inconvenience to foot passengers or lose its virgin freshness; while, at the same time, he decked and bedizened each separate twig and branch of the poor, leafless, skeleton trees with rare festal jewels and ear-drops of glittering icicles; besides weaving fantastic devices of goblin castles and airy, feathery foliage on the window panes, fairy armies in martial array and delicate gnome-tracery—transforming ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thing. I couldn't even find a broken twig in any of the little clumps of outgrowing trees. There wasn't a sign of the sand having been disturbed anywhere down the face of the cliff, and I shouldn't think a human being had been on that beach during our lifetimes. I have had my ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shrub is sooner or later destined to a chief place amongst our ornamental flowering shrubs. P. japonica Maulei (syn Cydonia Maulei), from Japan (1874), is a rare shrub as yet, small of growth, and with every twig festooned with the brightest of orange-scarlet flowers. It is quite hardy, and succeeds well under treatment that will suit the ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... all after the Blow-Out," said Mac, and he went out, buried the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... sprouting out of new individuals—new plants—a ceaseless multiplication of individuals, and not the preservation of the same individual. The species is preserved, but not the particular individual. Each limb, each twig, even each leaf is a new individual, which grows out from the previous growth as the first sprout grew from the seed. Each part furnishes a soil for the next. When a plant no longer sends out new individuals, we say it ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... that knows death is near, he wandered restlessly hither and thither, to look for some quiet spot. The courtyard only irritated him, so he walked down to the river where yellow leaves were floating, and threw a dry twig into the stream. For a long time he watched the eddying circles on the water as the floating leaves danced. He turned back and went towards the house, stopping to look at the ruined flower-beds where the last red blossoms yet lingered. Then ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... ways, too, the plant shows its capacity to act as a whole at various places of its organism. Otherwise, no plant could be propagated by cuttings; in any little twig cut from a parent plant, all the manifold forces operative in the gathering, transmuting, forming of matter, that are necessary for the production of root, leaf, flower, fruit, etc., are potentially present, ready to leap ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse—or when she asks him to show it off, we know not which—he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... tree, and for an instant saw them. A most gratifying tribute to his diplomacy—but devilish disturbing to a young fellow without a girl! Hurriedly he snapped a twig; he snapped another; he broke a branch; he whistled, he coughed, he shouted. And then they looked up, vaguely surprised to find there was another ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... not wide enough for a paper-knife, although it would be famous for cutting magazines. Is it a baton? Where did Willie find it, and what can it be? There is something engraved on one side, something that looks like birds on a twig,—yes, three little birds; and see the lovely cairngorm set in the end! Oh, it has words cut in it: 'To Jean: From Hynde Horn'—Goodness me! I've opened ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... half-buried in a bright dazzle of snow, the midwinter miracle that sets the most jaded heart singing and the weariest blood to moving more quickly. The bare trees glittered in a glassy casing, and every twig carried its burden of soft fur. Half-a-dozen shovels were scraping and clinking about Crownlands when Nina and Harriet came downstairs, and Harriet saw the men laughing and talking as they worked. The telephone announced Francesca Jay, with an eager luncheon invitation ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... adventure that we had that day. But we've had a lot since then. We picked our way up through the woods on the side of the ridge, using our compass, because we couldn't see far ahead. It was getting dark and the woods were awful still. Every time a twig cracked under us it seemed to make a loud noise. There were crickets chirping too. It kind of reminded me of Temple Camp after supper. We kept straight west because we knew that was where the tree was. I guess we all got sort of excited as we came up near to ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... destroyed before they reach the beginnings of strength. But here and there an acorn drops on favourable soil; the rich earth nourishes it; the germ, when it has lived on all the store within the shell, can gather its future needs from the ground. Little roots and fibres pierce the soil; a green twig rises to seek the sun; there are long years of silent precarious growth, and then the sapling stage is passed and a young tree sends countless leaves to draw nourishment from air and sky. Following this comes the ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... the man in memory of whom it is. The Dyaks consider the adding to any tugong bula they may pass a sacred duty, the omission of which will meet with supernatural punishment, and so, however pressed for time a Dyak may be, he stops to throw on the pile some small branch or twig. ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... again discontentedly, put his nose on his paws, and feigned slumber, one restless eyelid betraying the hollowness of the pretence. Presently he rolled over—and chancing to roll on a spiky twig, rose with a wild yelp of annoyance. Across Norah's laugh came a stock-whip crack; and the collie came to life suddenly, and sprang up, as impatient as the terrier. Norah slipped out ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... aside hastily, stooped for a little twig that lay on the roadside, and began assiduously breaking it up. And the silence was not interrupted again, till we came in sight of our friends in advance of us, leisurely walking to let us come up. Then Hugh and I plunged ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... but also impeding its flight sufficiently to admit of the boy following it. The next was at the top of a large blue gum tree, about three feet in diameter, and sending up a smooth column for fifty feet without a branch or twig. Most people would have given up all thoughts of a honey feed for the day; not so Mr. Larry, whose movements we followed with considerable curiosity. Divesting himself of his clothing, he repaired to an adjoining ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... case, closed it, and stood for some minutes holding it and thinking; but I did not carry it away with me as a memento. Drawing down a branch of the tree, I hung the little case securely by its handles to a twig, where it would be in full view of ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... by this practice, roughly asked what was the object which so constantly allured her from her bed, and was told that it was the sweet voice of the Nightingale. Having heard this he set all his servants to work, spread on every twig of his hazels and chesnut trees a quantity of bird-lime, and set throughout the orchard so many traps and springs, that the nightingale was shortly caught. Immediately running to his wife, and twisting the bird's neck, he tossed it into her bosom so hastily ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... get it, drink water twenty times a day, while others will not perhaps drink more than once or twice during the same time. I have found a very effectual preventive to thirst by drinking a large quantity of water before breakfast, and, on feeling thirsty on the march, chewing a small green twig or leaf. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... his deep, low voice, "we're here for game," and off he started, but slowly and with great caution. I felt impatient, but restrained myself, saying nothing and continued to follow my big guide who now moved with the most painstaking care. Not a twig broke beneath his moccasins as with panther-like step and crouching form he led me through a lot of young trees over a rocky place until we struck a small spring with a soft muddy margin. Here Pete came to a sudden halt. I asked him why he did not go on, and he pointed ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... glancing, gleaming, humming world of the rose-garden. Here a golden beetle crept across the lawn; there the air seemed full of gayly colored butterflies. On the edge of the fountain sat a golden-green lizard in the sun. Over on the hedge a great variety of wonderful insects swarmed on every leaf and twig! What a harvest he could gather! He ran about in every direction; he was beside himself with delight; discovering every moment something new and unexpected. Nor was this in the garden only. Down by the river, under the old trees, in the thick hedges, in the damp earth by the water-side, ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... the bush beyond moved. There came no sound, and the waiting man wondered if his eyes deceived him. No cat could have moved more silently upon its prey. Not a twig creaked. It moved on stealthily, inexorably, till it paused at the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig to ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... is the tree to be desecrated?" "Has the idolater broken off dry bark, or green boughs; has he taken from it a staff, or a twig, or even a leaf—it is desecrated." "Has he trimmed it for the sake of the tree?" "It is forbidden." "Has he trimmed it, but not for the sake of the ...
— Hebrew Literature
... might be able to do on his way back was another matter; for it was Malka that Moses Ansell was going to see. She was the cousin of his deceased wife, and lived in Zachariah Square. Moses had not been there for a month, for Malka was a wealthy twig of the family tree, to be approached with awe and trembling. She kept a second-hand clothes store in Houndsditch, a supplementary stall in the Halfpenny Exchange, and a barrow on the "Ruins" of a Sunday; and she had set up Ephraim, her newly-acquired ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... surgeon replied; "but let that willow twig alone, or you will weary your wrist, and then you will not fire steadily. You might kill your man instead ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... song-priest placed the sacred wands around the rainbow, commencing on the west side of the painting, and repeated a prayer, pointing his finger to the head of each figure. He also placed a small gourd of medicine water in the hands of the rainbow goddess and laid a small cedar twig on the gourd. The invalid upon entering the lodge was handed an Apache basket containing sacred meal, which he sprinkled over the painting and placed the basket near the feet of the rainbow goddesses; the song-priest ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... did. All I know is that it was an Indian, and that he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... have heard it said that this apparently brutal action has anything but the maddening effect tenderly nurtured persons might suppose, and that the patient is soothed and satisfied with a rapidity and completeness unattainable by other and more polite methods. Do you suppose," he went on, flicking a twig off a tree with his whip as we passed, "that the intellectual husband, wrestling intellectually with the chaotic yearnings of his intellectual wife, ever achieves the result aimed at? He may and does go on wrestling till he is tired, but never does he in the very least convince her of ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... and hemlock 5 Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... in the willow-wand then, after all!" cried the king, half amused and half angry. "I warrant me tough boughs grow on the tree from which that slender twig has sprung. Tell me, fair rebel," he continued, "your name and lineage, and ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of the sound respect for natural science, and much, too, of the contempt for the superstition around them, which is notable in that group of great naturalists who were boys in Montpellier at that day. Rabelais ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... entered the forest. A purple light filled its vast aisles. Far overhead bits of azure gleamed through the rifts in the foliage, but around them was the constant patter and splash of rain drops, falling slow and heavy from every leaf and twig. There was a dank, rich smell of wet mould and rotting leaves, and rain-bruised fern. The denizens of the woodland were all astir. Birds sang, squirrels chattered, the insect world whirred around the yellow autumn blooms and the purpling ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... on the same type as those which were lost. The new jaw, or leg, is a newt's, and never by any accident more like that of a frog. What is true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant; the acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such as that from whose twig it fell; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which gave it birth; and at the other end of the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the paternal nor the maternal side ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... are to exorcise this spirit of indifference that has settled down like a miasma upon clubdom we must find James's original germ of interest—the twig upon which our cluster of bees is ultimately to hang. Here we may introduce two axioms: Everyone is deeply interested in something; few are supremely interested in the same thing. I shall not attempt to prove ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... midwife, who still persisted to feed Mrs. Trunnion with hopes of a speedy and safe delivery; observing that she had been concerned in many a case of the same nature, where a fine child was found, even after all signs of the mother's pregnancy had disappeared. Every twig of hope, how slender soever it may be, is eagerly caught hold on by people who find themselves in danger of being disappointed. To every question proposed by her to the lady, with the preambles of "Han't you?" or "Don't you?" ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... he pressed on it with his foot and put his whole weight on it, just as he had seen his father do to the other tree,—snap went the tree like a twig, and Salar tumbled head over heels and went ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... poor bird thus with eagerness strains, Nor regrets his torn wing while his freedom he gains: The loss of his plumage small time will restore, And once tried the false twig—it shall cheat him ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... sword as a part of his dress. He is now contented with a regular stand-up fight, and exhibits a fist like a knuckle-bone of mutton—hard, coarse, and of certain magnitude. The bludgeon hammer-headed whip, or a vulgar twig, succeeds the clouded and amber-headed cane; and instead of the snuff-box being rare, and an article of parade, to exhibit a beauty's miniature bestowed in love, or that of a crowned head, given for military or diplomatic services, all ranks take snuff out of cheap and vulgar boxes, mostly of inferior ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... an organic whole. The individual man is more intimately united to every other man, and to all past and coming generations, than the leaf which flutters on the twig of a great tree is connected with the tree itself, and with every other leaf that swells its foliage, or with the seed which was ages ago planted in the soil, and from which the noble plant has ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... one afternoon looking out over the lake, I was the only one to see a little commotion in the water, half hidden by the near branches, as of some tiny swimmer struggling to reach the shore. Rushing to its rescue in the canoe, I found a yellow-rumped warbler, quite exhausted, clinging to a twig that hung down into the water. I brought the drenched and helpless thing to camp, and, putting it into a basket, hung it up to dry. An hour or two afterward I heard it fluttering in its prison, and cautiously lifted the lid to get a better glimpse of the lucky captive, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... is nearly done, thrust a twig or wooden skewer into it, down to the bottom. If the stick come out clean and dry, the cake is almost baked. When quite done, it will shrink from she sides of the pan, and cease making a noise. Then withdraw the coals (if baked in a dutch oven), take off the lid, and let ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... and said he had recognized my stuff as soon as he heard it, but hadn't said anything in hopes I wouldn't twig him. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... load of the frozen fish. Besides what they had eaten for dinner, there were at least a hundred handsome fellows, and the boys had strung each fisher's catch on a birch twig which they had cut and trimmed while coming down to the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... were there in plenty; for every limb was covered with pendent cactuses, gorgeous orchises, and wild pines; and while one-half the tree was clothed in rich foliage, the other half, utterly leafless, bore on every twig brilliant yellow flowers, around which humming-birds whirred all day long. Parrots peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... drowsily from mazy thicket where sullen shadow thinned, little by little, until behind leaf and twig was a glimmer of light that waxed ever brighter. And presently amid this growing brightness was soft stir and twitter, sleepy chirpings changed to notes of wistful sweetness, a plaintive calling that was ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... round him. There was not a sign of anything that might aid him—not a log, not so much as a twig. Nothing was at hand but the grass that a moment before had looked so fresh and alluring, but which now seemed to suggest all that was ugly and treacherous. Even the slain deer was already beginning to yield ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... quite cower before the eye of Bhima Gandharva as he stood looking calmly forward beside me. So we tramped on through the thickets and grasses. An hour passed; the deployed huntsmen had again drawn in together, somewhat bored; we were all red-faced and twig-tattooed; no tiger was to be found; we gathered into a sort of circle and were looking at each other with that half-foolish, half-mad disconsolateness which men's faces show when they are unsuccessfully engaged in a matter which does not amount to much even after it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... of the striding beasts, and they were afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop; there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call, the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... ducks talked together in low tones for a few minutes. Then they flew to the woods. They soon brought back a strong twig and dropped it in front of ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... a common practice to send for so-called "water finders," who being usually shrewd observers would locate by the aid of a hazel twig the exact spot where water could be found. In searching for water one sometimes runs across these men even to-day. The superstitious faith in the power of the forked twig or branch from the hazelnut bush to indicate by its twisting or turning the presence of underground water was at one ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... Jack, two jet-black persons, in loose striped gingham shirts and bare feet, with an attempt at a grave expression of thick-lipped coffee-coolers, the whites of their eyes turned up with becoming decorum, and preceded by the old twig of a clerk, who seemed to crackle in the sea-breeze as he again hung himself, stern on, to his stool of a trunk, entered the cool counting-house, bearing trays, fruits, and bottles, which they methodically arranged ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... cry. In play they are as mirthful and boisterous as any white child. They ride mock horses, and play mud ball. The Indian boy prepares willow sticks, peels off the bark, then rolls the wet clay into balls, and, sticking the ball on the end of the twig, he throws it at a mark with great speed and accuracy. Perhaps the most popular sport among the children is what they term the stick game. Again willow rods are used without the bark, only this time they are cut short enough to be rigid, and ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... are drenched with moonlight and every leafs awake; The little beads of dew sit white on every twig and blade; A thousand stars are scattered thick beneath the forest lake; We pass—with only laughter for the ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... hath sense, Or peerless eloquence, or reach of soul, Unwrap him, and you'll find but emptiness. 'Tis no disgrace even to the wise to learn And lend an ear to reason. You may see The plant that yields where torrent waters flow Saves every little twig, when the stout tree Is torn away and dies. The mariner Who will not ever slack the sheet that sways The vessel, but still tightens, oversets, And so, keel upward, ends his voyaging. Relent, I pray thee, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Heydinger's renewed advances with invariable kindness. Yet something of the old relations were presently restored. He would talk well to her for a time, and then snap like a dry twig. But the loaning of books was resumed, the subtle process of his aesthetic education that Miss Heydinger had devised. "Here is a book I promised you," she said one day, and he tried ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... no 'giving up' in that smile of his. 'I'll tell you what I'd do: I'd begin and break it, twig by twig, till I forced my way through, and got out safe at the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... great anger. The jackal's greatest asset and protection, when he meets with an enemy, is bluff. He raises his ugly mane, lifts his ungainly shoulders and assumes the look of a Jason, while in reality he is as harmless as a mouse, and the smallest child could drive him away with a twig. His bravery is all pose—a make-believe game—which he plays over and over again with ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... sevillana I came out from the shadows of the kiosk and walked without a sound of rattling pebble or cracking twig, along a path which the moon had ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... scraggly orchard, and he broke a crotched limb from a tree. With a "leg" of this twig clutched firmly in either hand he stumped about on the sward until the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... dimly to fore-shadow the office of the evil archer Loki, who in the Scandinavian mythology shoots Balder with a mistletoe twig. The language closely resembles ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... not that murmur, that hush and hollow roar, As when to the south-wester bow the pines upon the shore; And that low crackling intermix'd, like wither'd twig that breaks, When in the midnight greenwood ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... out bore five marks; the priest showed it to the jarl, and without a word dropped it in the bag again. This was again shaken and another stick drawn out; this bore but four notches; the chances were even. The silence was unbroken until the third twig was drawn. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... problem is architectural, creative—to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid; well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling—twig? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remember; a third said they looked like maples; and a fourth thought that silence, like honesty, as the copybooks used to tell us, was the best policy. And yet the name linden was writ large on those trees,—on the beautiful gray bark, the alternate method of twig arrangement, the fat red winter buds, which shone in the sunshine like rubies, and especially on the little cymes of pendulous, pea-like fruit, each cyme attached to its membranaceous bract or wing. Of course, if the pedestrians had been in the midst of rich woods and there found a trunk ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... was comparatively light. I had merely to tread in the beaten path. I was not, however, thereby secured from disaster, as I found when, having advanced about half a mile, my right shoe caught a twig to which it held for a moment, and then, breaking loose, allowed me to pitch head down with such violence that I almost reached mother earth four ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... sensations I see again the horrible swaying head playing gently up and down, nearer and nearer, the sun glistening on the burnished coils, while others were hidden, to have their presence revealed by the quivering of twig and trembling of leaf, as they passed fold over fold, the monstrous reptile playing, as it were, with its victim, and approaching in a slow leisurely manner; but it was with the sense that in an instant it could fling itself upon its prey with the speed, force, and certainty of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... crashing the underbrush and shouting lustily, the three stood motionless, guns ready: the suspense grew tense and the beaters grew silent as they hurried, unseen, from the line of fire. A moment of dead silence, then Lindsey heard to his right a dry twig snap and turning saw a big boar slip out from the brush and pause, its ugly tusks foam-flecked. His heavy gun crashed, the boar leaped convulsively across the clearing, falling at a second shot. As it dropped he whirled to cover a big buck which sped across his field of fire: as it fell he heard ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... head-quarters, the valley being their exercising ground. This morning a Russian soldier was flogged at parade. I was not in time to witness the punishment, but it was explained to me by one of the midshipmen. The whole regiment was drawn up in two lines facing each other, each man having in his hand a small twig or stick. The offender, stripped of his jacket and shirt, was made to run the gauntlet through the ranks, every man giving him a sharp cut as he passed, while the officers and sergeants stood by to see that the blows were sufficiently ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... declared dolefully. "We drew lots on the other side. Greg drew the shortest twig, so he had to stay at the camp. I got the next shortest twig, so my ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... from Bangor down the Penobscot River. The clouds of steam rising into the cold air from the surface of the warmer water were tinged with gold by the newly-risen sun. A heavy frost rested on the spruces and balsams that fringed the banks of the river, and as the sunlight struck one twig after another, it covered them with millions of points like diamonds. Many cakes of ice were floating in the river, showing that its navigation would soon be closed ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... only of hoops and dolls, she had found sufficient music in her soul for the whole of a charming opera. She was a prodigy. Had it not been for death, who came to seize her at sixteen like her sister, the greatest musician of the eighteenth century would, perhaps, have been a woman. But the twig, scarcely green, snapped at the moment when the poor bird commenced her song. Gretry had Lucile married at the solicitation of his friends. 'Marry her, marry her,' they incessantly repeated; 'if Love has the start of Death, Lucile ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... what I can do for you," promised the Rainbow's Daughter, and flying to the ground she took a small twig in her bill and with it made several mystic figures on ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and in the intense silence the lads could almost hear the beating of their hearts. Then at a little distance a twig cracked and sent the blood racing ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... ants, that make a most determined onslaught on the raisins and sweetmeats, invading the boxes and lugging them off to their haunts among the grape-vines. A favorite occupation of the bul-buls is sitting on a twig just outside the bungalow and watching for the appearance of these ants dragging away raisins. The bul-bul hops to the ground, seizes the raisin, shakes the ant loose, flies back up in his tree, and swallows the captured raisin, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... chose the first, Augustus Caesar the second, and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunder-storm.[592] These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where the magical properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit; and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown of Tiberius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote a laurel ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... possible I should like to learn to shudder; I don't understand that a bit yet." The eldest laughed when he heard this, and thought to himself: "Good heavens! what a ninny my brother is! he'll never come to any good; as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined." The father sighed, and answered him: "You'll soon learn to shudder; but that won't help you to make ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... seen tumblers before?" asked the elder, a black-browed, swarthy man, as brown and supple as a hazel twig. "Why shrink from us, then, as though we were the spawn of ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle |
