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More "Haystack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the farmer (who wasn't). "There's some one behind that haystack, and the old watch-dog's back is up. See! there he runs; and as I'm a sinner, it's that black rascal who was loitering round, the day my ricks were fired, and you lads let him slip. Off after him, for I fancy I see smoke." And the farmer ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... rest of us. It was a great piece of foolishness me forgetting about the line of the Chihuahua Northern and its telegraph. But there's a chance Chaves has forgot, too. Anyway, get back as soon as you can; after we're hidden, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack to put his fat ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... Niedermeyer, with a laugh, "to be chiefly occupied in sending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That is, I went with him the morning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would suit him but a small haystack of white roses. I ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected itself, and was sent a few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, a ride of about ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... started. In his hurry to escape pursuit, and the many thoughts which occupied his brain, Joey had made no observation on the weather; if he had, he probably would have looked after some more secure shelter than the lee-side of a haystack. He slept soundly, and he had not been asleep more than an hour, when the wind changed, and the snow fell fast; nevertheless, Joey slept on, and probably never would have awakened more, had it not ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... farther and sit down in the fields, where an unfinished haystack offers us a couch. We can hardly distinguish the line of the horizon between the dark earth and the dark sky. A bat flits across our faces; ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... all rippin' th' air 'ith them air joemightyful big sabres, tew," D'ri went on. "Hed a purty middlin' sharp edge on us. Stuck out luk a haystack right 'n' left." ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its 'column,' and the pyramid at the extremities its 'cap.' Now, here, first you have a straight column, as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here you have a short thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at the ends; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no column at all between them! Then here is a crystal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; and here is one stalked like a mushroom, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the rocks, and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... of course - a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for education both in time and money, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who has got into ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... clawing the unfortunate wretches who fell into their hands, burning farms and harvests, broaching barrels of wine and oil, and crowning these exploits by orgies with "the Athletes of Christ." When they saw a haystack blazing in the fields, the country-folk were panic-stricken—the "Circoncelliones" were not far off. Soon they appeared, brandishing their clubs and bellowing their war cry: Deo laudes!—"Praise be to God." "Your shout," said Augustin to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... a needle in a haystack," said Bob. "Their trail's done petered out. They might be in any one of a hundred pockets right close, or they may have bore 'way off to the right. All they got to do is hole up ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... here," continued Wessex, leading up the lane; "but at the corner by the big haystack they join up with the tracks of a motor-car! I ask for nothing clearer! There was rain that afternoon, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... near it, as a place for prayer and worship, reminds one of the historic prayer meeting that was held near Williamstown, in 1806, when Samuel J. Mills, and four other students of Williams college, Newell, Nott, Hall and Judson, met in the shadow of a haystack and united in prayer, that God would fit them and prepare the way for them to carry the gospel into ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... had thought them to be hard and intellectual and lacking in all that broader base of humor which aims at truth. His writing—catching the bad habit of the time—is too ready to proclaim a paradox and to assert the unusual, to throw aside in contempt the valuable haystack in a fine search for a paltry needle. His reviews are seldom right—as most of us see the right—but they sparkle and hold one's interest for ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... in a bloomin' haystack," he said to himself. "I might as well go back to Clankwood. 'E's a good riddance, ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... attention as possible by the way. After they had once recovered from their parting with Rhoda their spirits rose, and they tramped along lightly and cheerfully. It was eleven o'clock when they started, and through the night they did not meet a single person. Towards morning they got under a haystack near the road, and slept for some hours; then they walked steadily on until they had done twenty miles since their start. They went into a small inn, and had some breakfast, and then purchasing some bread and cold ham, went on through the town, and leaving ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... washed, snowy, and touched the floor. The big rocker, the straight-backed chairs, and the sofa were beautiful red mahogany wood, and the seats shining haircloth. If no one happened to be looking, you could sit on a sofa arm, stick your feet out and shoot off like riding down a haystack; the landing was much better. On the sofa you bounced two feet high the first time; one, the second; and a little way the third. On the haystack, maybe you hit a soft spot, and maybe you struck a rock. Sometimes if you got smart, and tried a new place, and your feet ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... friends inquire about you. Bill Johnston told me he was sorry he had to have you arrested for overturning his hay stack; that he did not believe you was to blame, the boys with you led you into oversetting the haystack to catch ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... outside. There is another house, and also a mosque built in the same style, but much smaller. Of the rest of the habitations, a few are stone sheds, but the greater part are huts made of the dry stalks of the fine herb called bou rekabah, in the form of a conical English haystack, and are very snug, impervious alike to rain and sun. There are not more than one hundred and fifty of these huts and sheds, scattered over a considerable space, without any order; some are placed two or three together within a small enclosure, which serves as a court or ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... that it is so with my friends; and, for myself, I am happy in this occasion to make a public avowal of my own."[48] Without the "Reliques," "The Ancient Mariner," "The Lady of the Lake," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," "Stratton Water," and "The Haystack in the Floods" might never have been. Perhaps even the "Lyrical Ballads" might never have been, or might have been something quite unlike what they are. Wordsworth, to be sure, scarcely ranks among romantics, and he expressly ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... appeared at a doorway. His long grey beard gave him a most venerable aspect. The note of welcome in his cheery voice was unmistakable and soon the maid who had spoken from the balcony had shown the way up a winding circular staircase to a welcome exchange to the shelter of a haystack which I had begun to fear would be my only ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... in a haystack," I answered, suddenly suspicious that she might know something of the fugitive. "Will ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... familiar objects of the barnyard assumed grotesque and distorted shapes. The manure heap near the doorway presented an effect of unreality, the pig-pen seemed to have suffered witchery since the evening before, and the haystack, looming vaguely in the drab distance, appeared to be woven of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... emerged from the woods a short distance to our right and stood in line of battle most needlessly exposed. In less than five minutes a shell burst among them, killing and wounding eleven men. This over, we moved to a haystack nearby, where our horses had more than one refreshing feed during lulls in the battle. It seemed, also, an attractive place for General Jackson, as he was seldom far from it till the close of the ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... said he, "is this no' a bonny morning? Here is a day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Obed White. "My watch says it's one o'clock in the morning, and my watch is always right, because I made it myself. We've had a pretty good rest, enough to go on, and what we find may be worth finding. A needle in a haystack may be well hid, but you'll find it if you ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... really a little walking haystack, and scared at his condition, because he thought he would probably never be a bear any more. He was so scared that he wanted his father to come and do something for him, and started to meet him, as fast ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... it would all have it too. In Packingtown the fertilizer is pure, instead of being a flavoring, and instead of a ton or so spread out on several acres under the open sky, there are hundreds and thousands of tons of it in one building, heaped here and there in haystack piles, covering the floor several inches deep, and filling the air with a choking dust that becomes a blinding sandstorm when the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... needle-in-the-haystack," the Secret Service chief had said to Ned, on the morning of his departure for the mountains. "We have men looking over every inch of the large cities. We want you to rake those mountains with a fine-tooth comb! Personally, I believe that ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... deep power in his youthful heart, akin to the wondrous sympathy of women, had been touched. Like a shock of fire it came home to him. He, too, might lose his dearest possession thus, and be unable to climb trees, jump ditches, risk his neck along the edge of the haystack or the roof. 'That might happen to me too!' was the terrible thing he realised, and had burst ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... more than I could have hoped on board our floating menagerie; stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of the incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotized by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner table, and winnied when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at one another in their cages ... and the big monkey, Jacko scoured about the ship and rested willingly ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... friend had the best of the start, and we gained not an inch upon him. To our unspeakable mortification, he reached the dense cover on ahead, where we might as well have sought for a needle in a haystack. Never, however, shall I forget that mad headlong scramble. Fancy an elephant steeple-chase. Reader, it was sublime; but we ached ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... I want of burnin' a stack?" remonstrated Andrew, blinking defiantly round the table. "Tell you how it come. Hold on a minute"— he went to the bucket, and refilled his pannikin—"It was this way: I was jist startin' to thatch a new haystack for two ole bosses o' mine, on the Vic. side o' the Murray, when ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... good enough horse wrangler for a through Texas outfit, but when it comes to playing second fiddle to a cook of my accomplishments—well, you simply don't know salt from wild honey. A man might as well try to cook on a burning haystack as on a fire ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... about a fortnight after the last-recorded events, an elderly tramp was sitting against a haystack upon some farm premises, at no great distance from the town of Cottonborough. His age might be sixty, or, allowing for the rough life he had led, something less. He looked jaded and unwell. The day had been very warm, and the man was eating, ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... loudly murmurs that we have not yet seen any of "the sights." For my part I abominate sights, and all people who want to look at them. A great deal more instruction, to say nothing of pleasure is to be got out of the nearest haystack or hedgerow taken quietly, than in trotting over two or three counties to see "the view" or "the site" or the extraordinary cliff or the unusual tower or the unreasonable hill or any other monstrosity deforming the face of Nature. Anybody can make ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... six months to slum work, he had remained two years without showing any inclination to give it up. Sometimes he lived at the flat, and sometimes he was lost for a week at a time somewhere east of St. Paul's, where one might as well have looked for him as for the proverbial needle in a haystack. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... "A good haystack," said Quentin, "is a convenient bed for an astrologer, and a much better than a heathen scoffer at our blessed religion and ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... of it. Their rifles are infinitely superior to these army muskets, and every man of them can hit a deer behind the shoulder at the distance of 150 yards, while at that distance most of our men would miss a haystack." ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... to my country required it from me. But that's unthinkable, so don't you even hint at such a thing." He glared awfully, but his tone softened. "There's some milk yet about that moustache of yours, my boy. You don't know what a man like me is capable of. I would hide behind a haystack if . . . Don't grin at me, sir! How dare you? If this were not a private conversation I would . . . Look here! I am responsible for the proper expenditure of lives under my command for the glory of our country and the honour of the regiment. Do you understand that? Well, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... with the pilot. Follow us and do exactly as we do. I've got this fellow under my thumb. He knows he'll get a good long term for smuggling, but I can get some of it taken off if he pilots us out, and I've promised him to do my best for him. It'll be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack to get a pilot and we have him, so what's the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... them. Off as fast in the opposite direction ran also Hans, Karl, and Wilhelm, playing as they went. They played and ran, ran and played till they reached the open fields and the houses; and then they sat down under a haystack and did not move for the rest of the day. Ah! that was a fine concert! but there was no music at the wedding, which is sad to ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... through the fence after the escaping man, but in that heavy undergrowth he knew it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After a time he gave it up and returned ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by his chain. When she had ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... for the beaver to multiply the third time. Each year the beavers are undisturbed they take down and enlarge their house, until, if thus left for years, and the dam keeps good and the water supply sufficient, they will continue extending their habitation until it is as large as a good- sized haystack. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... We followed your trail to where we found the rig. After that it was guessing where the needle was in the haystack It just happened we were cutting across country to water when we ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... which seemed to answer for a barn, a haystack beside it, and a well-appearing vegetable garden. Then, in one corner of the yard, was a heap of old lumber, stone, brick, doors, window sash, in fact, it looked as if some one had been gathering all the unmated parts of various houses ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... your job and not mine," he said, by way of leave-taking. "If your guess is right, it's like looking for the traditional needle in the haystack." ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... it. You remember the Breeds cleared away from their old settlement lately. We've never found them. Once they take to the hills, it's like a needle in a haystack. Maybe friend ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... to Wilson to look out, but he had already jumped on to the sledge (for he was running) having seen Stareek put his paws through. It was a nasty crevasse, about twenty feet across with blue holes on both sides. The sledge ran over and immediately on the opposite side was brought up by a large 'haystack' of pressure which we had not seen owing to the light. Meares' team, on our left, never saw any sign of pressure. The light was so bad that we never saw this cairn of ice until ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... whereabouts. Then he made his way to the canal, which was close by, washed the blood from his face, and set out to walk to Birmingham. He was too shaken and bruised to make much progress, and after walking for a while crept into the shelter of a haystack, and went off to sleep for many hours. After it was dusk in the evening he started again, and made his way to his lodgings at ten o'clock that night. It was a fortnight before he could leave his room, so bruised and cut was his face, and a month before the ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... gray goose she ran round the haystack, Oh, ho! said the fox, you are very fat; You'll grease my beard and ride on my back From this ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the doctor. "As the heated air rises from the fire the cool air from the veldt rushes in to take its place. Why, don't you remember when the haystack was on fire at the farm at home how we went to see it, walked close up, and felt the cold wind rushing towards the flames so that you had a stiff ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... miles from where we then lived. Our house was a good one. We did not like to leave it. Selling was out of the question: so we e'en resolved to take it with us, wishing, as the Highland robber did of the haystack, that it had legs to walk. A substitute for this was found in the universal resource of New Brunswickers for all their wants, from the cradle to the coffin, "the tree, the bonny greenwood tree," that gives the ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... that day was employed in piling up the cocoa-nut branches and wood. Ready made a square stack, like a haystack, with a gable top, over which he tied the long branches, so that the ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have not been wanting, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... gave way to a storm of sobs. One of the group, who had been watching him more closely than the others, soon withdrew from the game, and going in the opposite direction from that taken by Bud Perkins, came tiptoeing around the haystack. ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... have been here now for six months, and have had no opportunity as yet for showing any special adaptability. Now I propose to test your powers with something really difficult. Are you up to it, Sweetwater? Do you know the city well enough to attempt to find a needle in this very big haystack?" ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... me!" he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a needle." ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... or two others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblers complete. The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and looking for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task as searching for a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where to begin, and how? But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen's nest,—first find your bird, ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... his powers of sufferance were quite worn out, and he was about to implore them to leave him to his fate in the first cottage or shed—or under a haystack or a hedge—or anywhere, so he was left at ease, Collier, who rode ahead, passed back the word that they were at the avenue to Fairladies—'Was he to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... "There's a haystack out there by the barn," said Hawley, pointing to a stack of some kind that could be seen in the rear of the nearest barn. "If you could only get behind that you could see ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the whole heap—grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other shell creatures—was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass, clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... all discharged in memory of the day they had been all charged that morning, and having no suspicion of my situation, I was shot over the houses on the opposite side of the river, into a farmer's yard, between Bermondsey and Deptford, where I fell upon a large haystack without waking, and continued there in a sound sleep till hay became so extravagantly dear (which was about three months after), that the farmer found it to his interest to send his whole stock to market. The stack I was reposing on was the largest in the yard, containing about five ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... Battalion Headquarters lived in a little cottage, "No. 1" Albert Road, two Companies occupied a large farm house in the same neighbourhood fitted up as a rest house, one Company lived in a series of curiously named keeps—"Haystack," "Z Orchard," "Path," and "Dead Cow," and one Company only was ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Brandon Hills shimmered in a pale gray mirage. Over the trees which sheltered the Stopping-House a flock of black crows circled in the blue air, croaking and complaining that the harvest was going to be late. On the wire-fence that circled the haystack sat a row of red-winged blackbirds like a string of jet beads, patiently waiting for the oats to ripen and indulging in low-spoken but pleasant gossip about all the other ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... content in having lived up to the traditions of Menlo Park. Tiny alone came out triumphant on these trying occasions. Dressed in cool white, she seated her diminutive self in the very middle of the haystack and talked little. The others, undaunted by the sun, started in high spirits, flirted with energy, and changed their positions many times. Upon the return journey, Tiny, again, sat serene and white; the rest dangled over the sides as a last relief for aching limbs and backs, and forgot ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "Why, my friends, it would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack. You certainly do not understand the ways of the Indians. If the Indians have killed those men, they will take the bodies with them if they have to carry them a hundred miles. They will take them to their village and spend two or three days in having ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... time the woman walked on. Her steps became feebler, and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road, now indistinct amid the penumbrae of night. At length her onward walk dwindled to the merest totter, and she opened a gate within which was a haystack. Underneath this she sat ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... tail and scampered. Billy slid from its back and as he fell he clutched wildly, caught the folded tail, and instinctively clung to it. The turkey gave one scream and relaxed its muscles. Then it fled in disfigured defeat to the haystack. Billy scrambled to his feet holding the tail, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... on my game today," said George modestly. "Sometimes I slice as if I were cutting bread and can't putt to hit a haystack." ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... were heavy showers, accompanied by fierce lightnings and crashing thunders. They were as thoroughly soaked as if they had been thrown into the river, and at night had to sleep on a haystack, in the open field, in their wet clothes. Rodney's feet, too, had become very sore, and he walked in great ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... fun playing about the High Haystack. Here they all gathered after a snow storm, for the snow soon melted ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... turnips, cabbages, and garden truck of all sorts. This was the sort of country that had made Belgium known for years as the vegetable garden of Europe. Finally they stopped near a dark house, and made themselves comfortable in the lee of a haystack. And there they slept until the light of the sun came to rouse them. They awoke to see a peasant boy ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which I had played upon; the bars were up now and "Standard Oil" was ready to begin its familiar trick of going through ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... all the world there is only one woman specially created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the haystack? You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... were that a lecturer on Pope began by asking the, perhaps not impertinent, question, 'Was he a poet?' And the method had its merits, for the question once asked, it was easy for the lecturer, like an incendiary who has just fired a haystack, to steal away amidst the cracklings of a familiar controversy. It was not unfitting that so quarrelsome a man as Pope should have been the occasion of so much quarrelsomeness in others. For long the battle waged as fiercely over Pope's poetry as erst it did in his own Homer over ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... as they really were, she looked upon them with incredulous horror, as things in which she could hardly have had any part or lot. Then returned her wanderings and homeless miseries, when often a haystack or a heap of straw in a shed was her only joy—whisky always excepted. Last of all came the dread perils, the hairbreadth escapes of her too adventurous voyage on the brander;—and after all these things, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... refused to give the milk unless the old woman first gave her a handful of hay. So away went the old woman to the haystack; and she brought the ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... had the choice of weapons. The privilege, however, was not worth much to him. He had never handled cold steel, while his adversary was an expert fencer, and he was also such a poor marksman that he could not have made sure of hitting a haystack at twenty yards. Still, he reflected that, although de Beauvallon was unlikely to miss him with a rapier, he might possibly do so with a bullet. Accordingly, he ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... till we get over that haystack," said Jack, "and then play out rope till we lower him. It'll make ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... the way, such as wealthy uncles seem to secrete and exude almost unconsciously, as toads yield moisture; but Mark paid only a moderate degree of attention to it as they spun past the low dim edges; he hardly noticed what could be seen along the road even, which was not much—a gable-end or a haystack starting out for an instant from the fog, or a shadowy labourer letting himself through a gate—he was thinking of the girl whose eyes had met his the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... of the army for miles, was a succession of hospitals. Every house, and barn, and haystack, formed the nucleus of a hospital, where men, shot through the head, through the limbs, through the body; with every conceivable variety of wounds, lay groaning in anguish. Surgeons toiled day and night with never lagging zeal to relieve these sufferings, but ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... Tex. If you was lookin' for a needle in a haystack you'd find it in yore mouth when you picked up a straw ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... home, the long-sought-for opportunity; he felt as though he could send a million supplications to the throne of Heaven for such an exalted privilege. Poor Leos, who was somewhere in the crowd, looking as attentively as if he was searching for a needle in a haystack; here is stood, wondering to himself why Ambulinia was not there. "Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here, how I could relish the scene! Elfonzo is certainly not in town; but what if he is? I have got the wealth, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... on the road, I might have reached Paris very soon if my horse had not fallen and caused me to break my shoulder bone, the pain of which was so extreme that I nearly fainted several times. Not being able to continue my journey, I was lodged, with only one of my gentlemen, in a great haystack, while MM. de Brissac and Joly went straight to Beaupreau, to assemble the nobility, there, in order to rescue me. I lay hid there for over seven hours in inexpressible misery, for the pain from my injury threw me into a fever, during which my thirst ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... that he is unkind, but that he does not value it himself. And if he sent his own son to be not merely brought up in the house of the carpenter of a little village, but to be born in the stable of a village inn, we need not suppose because a man sleeps under a haystack and is put in prison for it next day, that God does not care ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... for instance, the play of his arm, the cast of his line or net,—these take the eye as do the stealthy movements of the hunter, the fine attitudes of the wood-chopper, the grasp of the sailor on the helm. A haystack and a boat are always picturesque objects, and so are the men who are at work to build or use them. So is yonder stake-net, glistening in the noonday light,—the innumerable meshes drooping in soft arches from the high stakes, and the line of floats stretching ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... I saw the stranger in a sloping meadow behind the house. She was seated at the foot of a sunny wall, against which the inhabitants of the place had piled a few stones. Her white dress shone out on the verdant meadow, and the shade of a haystack screened her face from the sun. She was reading in a little book that lay open on her lap, and every now and then interrupted her reading to play with the children from the mountain, who came to offer her flowers, or chestnuts. On seeing me, she attempted to rise as if to meet me half-way, and ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... there. See that haystack. The greaser's asleep this side of it. Right under where that saddle is hanging on ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... the family had assembled—some thirty or forty people, in fact, for Finland is famous for big families—and tables of cakes and coffee were spread at a point from which every one could see the enormous Kokko, as high as a haystack, standing on a lonely rock in the water. The boatmen went off and lighted it, having thrown turpentine over the dried branches, and stacked up tar-barrels, so that it might the more readily catch fire, and in a few moments huge volumes of smoke began to ascend, and the flames danced high into ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... for employment in the ever-changing variety of landscape, which even on the least picturesque lines will be found constantly coming into view. The most ordinary objects have then a fresh interest imparted to them. You catch a distant glimpse perhaps of a haystack on the brow of an eminence miles away before you. As you proceed, a farm-house, with its out-buildings and granaries to follow, marches right out of the haystack, and takes up its position at the side. Then the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... after the visit of Mr. Lovejoy, Samson and Harry built a hollow haystack about half-way from the house to the barn. The stack had a comfortable room inside of it about eight feet by seven and some six feet in height. Its entrance was an opening near the bottom of the stack well screened by the ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... karbovantsya[27] are all I ask."—"Good, I agree," said the parson. So he engaged Ivan as his servant, and the next day he sent him out into the fields to tend his cattle. Ivan drove the cattle into the pastures, but he himself perched on the top of a haystack while the cattle grazed. He sat there, and sat and sat till he grew quite dull, and then he said to himself, "I'll play a bit on my fife, I haven't played for a long time." So he began to play, and immediately all the cattle fell a-dancing; and not only the cattle, but all the ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... at the appointed time I was behind the haystack awaiting my adversary, who did not fail to appear. "We may be surprised," he said; "be quick." We laid aside our uniforms, drew our swords from the scabbards, when Ignatius, followed by five pensioners, came out ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... tied up in handkerchiefs. This may sound old-maidish, but it is a trick I learnt from Swiss climbers and I am very thankful. Anyone who has hurriedly searched his sack for some particular bit of gear knows the sort of haystack which results, while if first-aid equipment, sealskins, spare bindings, emergency rations, mending outfit, etc., are all carried in separate, differently coloured bundles inside the sack, endless time is saved. This is particularly worth considering in ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... to his work in the morning paralyzed by dread of what the day may bring. Why, there is a perfect panic among them. They are falling about like a set of ten-pins. This morning I sent for Wash (best hand on the place) to see about setting out tobacco plants, and behold Wash curled up under a haystack getting ready to die! It is enough to—So as soon as you came this morning a plan entered my head for putting a stop to the thing. It will be necessary to acknowledge that two or three of them are under the spell, and it is better to select those who already fancy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... a section of the north-west part of the State. "Their style of lodge is the same which prevails generally along Russian River, a huge frame-work of willow poles covered with thatch, and resembling a large flattish haystack. Though still preserving the same style and materials, since they have adopted from the Americans the use of boards they have learned to construct all around the wall of the wigwam a series of little state rooms, if I may so call them, which are snugly boarded up and furnished ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... the fools!" said an exasperated voice. "Off you go, with no cap, and a head like a haystack. Do you remember that they have a burra khana[1] on? Do you want to be turned back for a lunatic? Dress first and get there early, and then speak to her. Call your boy, can't you? Why I should ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... looking for a needle in a haystack. But I shall find him. I am a coward to doubt it," said ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... thumb. He knows he'll get a good long term for smuggling, but I can get some of it taken off if he pilots us out, and I've promised him to do my best for him. It'll be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack to get a pilot and we have him, so what's the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... pious—he doubtless was—but his dark fixed eyes, moving so slowly and heavily, his lank black hair, his grey coarse skin, all made her dislike him now—all his personal ugliness and ungainliness struck on her senses with a jar, since those few words spoken behind the haystack. ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you would say... of a truth, there is no choice between this pair of perfect twins: one is as exquisite as the other.... And yet you must take one and I the other... this or that, whichever you prefer.... You shall take it home with you to-night and practise thrusting at a haystack or at a bobbin, as you please... The sword is yours to command until you have used it against my unworthy person... yours until you bring it out four days hence—on the southern ramparts of Boulogne, when the cathedral bells chime the evening Angelus; then you shall cross it against ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... 'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.' It seems my lady wept and the troll swore By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen; Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score, A haystack bunch to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... than is the adaptedness of gold and silver to the purposes of currency. Your standard or measure, for instance, must, in the first place, possess a certain uniformity; if it be a measure of capacity, it must not be of the size of a thimble in the morning, and as big as a haystack at night, like the mystic bottle of the fairy tale; if a measure of length, it must not be made of caoutchouc, as long as your finger to-day, and as long as the Atlantic Cable to-morrow; and so, if a measure of value, it must not equal one thousand at ten o'clock, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... down the mountain. Other people came and went, took a look, and ran away; but he was a fixture. He says he always does so,—goes off somewhere and 'finds an Ararat,' and there drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he's in New York; but that's a needle in a haystack. I never heard of him till I found him at Catskill. He's an English-man, and they say had more to his name once. It was Wharnecliffe, or Wharneleigh, or something, and there's a baronetcy in the family. I don't doubt, myself, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... From changeful seasons, or capricious earth; But views the future with the present hours, And looks for failures as he looks for show'ers; For casual as for certain want prepares, And round his yard the reeking haystack rears; Or clover, blossom'd lovely to the sight, His team's rich store through many a wint'ry night. What tho' abundance round his dwelling spreads, Though ever moist his self-improving meads Supply his dairy with a ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... I know! You're going to live in the haystack. A haystack is cozy and warm; it's wind-proof; it sheds water; and ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to bring in all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected itself, and was sent a few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, a ride of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... such is not his intention, papa?' said Kate merrily. 'Old Catty had a dream about a piebald horse and a haystack on fire, and something about a creel of duck eggs, and I trust that every educated ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... to identify a Jane Harris, and found her—oh, with what unutterable relief!—to be a coloured lady who had married a Rifleman. After that he had perked up, and continued his quest for the beloved needle lost in the haystack of Gueldersdorp with renewed belief in the ultimate possibility of finding it. Then, in the middle of one awful night, the darkness of his mental state had been luridly illuminated by the conviction that she had joined Slabberts. Now strange voices whispered ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... any good," he returned gloomily. "The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Mike said, "I guess we had better go to bed." Off we started across the lots until we came to a big haystack, and Mike stooped down and began to pull hay out of the stack and work his way inside. Remember I was green at the business; I had never been away from home before; and Mike, though only a little older, was used to this kind of life. Well, I pulled out hay enough, as I thought, and crawled in, but ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... wind; for six hours of a good fresh breeze would utterly obliterate our trail, by reason of the movement of the ice, and their search for us in the broad waste of that white world would have been like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... small pink house of a retired tradesman, who observed them magnificently though a plate-glass window all the while, with a cigar in his teeth, and ultimately gave them ninepence between them. They slept here and there—once, on a rainy night, in real lodgings, once below a haystack. Frank said hardly a word to Gertie, and did little more than listen to the Major, who was already beginning to repeat himself; but he was aware that the girl was ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... out iv a three; 'tis a way I have,' says I, shovin' in a fresh cartridge from my waistcoat pocket, fair an' aisy, an' kapin' me back to the haystack. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... place," and therefore started saying his prayers. His brother George used to push him over when he was praying half-dressed in the bedroom, or occasionally vary proceedings by stirring him up with a sweeping brush. At last he found out a quiet place under a haystack, and there retired to pray. The old man drew a perfect picture of the first prayer thus offered, and told us he could remember every little detail of the spot, and the great oak tree spreading its branches ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... leave that haystack for me to slide on," complained the boy, "and he said he wouldn't, and began to pull it down. I wish ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... a haystack three years ago, and never spoke no more. We have always kept off the parish, ma'am. This bit of a cottage was my poor wife's, and she do want to leave it to the boy; but she be but frail, poor maid, and if she gave in, there'd ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I saw a pair of Ospreys coming and going to and fro from the nest. I hoped the birds might return another season, as the nest looked as if it might have been used for two or three years, and was as lop-sided as a poorly made haystack. The great August storm of the same year broke the tree, and the nest fell, making quite a heap upon the ground. Among the debris were sticks of various sizes, dried reeds, two bits of bamboo fishing rod, seaweeds, some old blue mosquito netting, and ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... that a girl with a tangled braid hanging down her back, a little wad over one ear, a ragged, jagged fringe edging its way into her eyes and half a dozen little wisps standing out here and there in haystack fashion—how one can even fancy that such a head as that is pretty is more than I can explain. Clothes may make the man, but rational hairdressing goes a pretty long way toward making the woman. Observe my lady in curl-papers ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... horror and terror which lies cheek to cheek with us. No more wakings in hell. No more mornings like that. But instead, the cool, sweet waking in the crystal light in the open air. And to see the sun come up, and to lie still against the clean, fragrant haystack and let it warm you! And to watch the quiet, friendly beasts rise up in the long meadows! And to wake hungry, instead of that dreadful, maddening thirst! And to like to eat—how good that is, even if you go fasting half the day! But I never do. The poor will always give ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... accordingly, our friend opened a white gate, and scoured along the fields without any misgivings as to the prudence of his choice. He arrived at his first leap—there was the hedge, its summit just discernible in the dim light. On the other side, to the right was a haystack, and close by this haystack seemed the most eligible place for clearing the obstacle. Now since the banker had visited this place, a deep ditch, that served as a drain, had been dug at the opposite base ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lucky guy, Tex. If you was lookin' for a needle in a haystack you'd find it in yore mouth when you picked up ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... to get it with. But threepence was exactly the price of a little book, The Tale of a Tub, which he spied in a bookseller's window. He bought it, took it into a field near Kew Gardens, and sat down to read; read on till it was dark, tumbled to sleep under a haystack, and woke to ask the head gardener for work. He was given work, but the gardener persuaded him to return home. Ten years later he ran away from Farnham again, and for the last time. He was out on the road to meet some friends on the way to Guildford ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... on the floor—the other fell asleep on his horse. I had now a chance of escape; but I was weary, wounded, and overcome with vexation. It happened, as I took my last view of my keeper outside, nodding on his horse's neck, that I glanced on a huge haystack in the stable-yard. The thought struck me, that helpless as I was, I might contrive to give an alarm to some of the British videttes or patroles, if your gallant countrymen should condescend to employ ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... faces, Walter judged that the other four convicts were in doubt as to which of the two plans they should lend their support to. "Are you sure we'll catch 'em, Cap?" inquired one, doubtfully, "there are so powerful many forks to this river, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... weary, but supremely content in having lived up to the traditions of Menlo Park. Tiny alone came out triumphant on these trying occasions. Dressed in cool white, she seated her diminutive self in the very middle of the haystack and talked little. The others, undaunted by the sun, started in high spirits, flirted with energy, and changed their positions many times. Upon the return journey, Tiny, again, sat serene and white; the rest dangled over the sides as a last relief for aching limbs and backs, and forgot ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... food 210 And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman, Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm, Himself his large estate and only charge, To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, Nobly superior to the household gear That forfeits us our privilege of nature. I bait him with my match-box and my pouch, Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke, His equal now, divinely unemployed. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to locate any tracks, but he had walked miles in the cold and sneaked around the barns and in the chimney corners to eavesdrop at the homes of those whom he suspected of being disloyal to the Confederate cause. While hiding under a haystack late one afternoon, he heard voices and he recognised his master's mule as it was sold by a stranger with a decided northern brogue to the owner of the place on which he was hiding. Uncle Jake almost ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... as plain as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which I had played upon; the bars were up now and "Standard Oil" was ready to begin its familiar trick ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... things," said the beetle. "Do you call this beautiful? Why, there is not even a dung-heap." Then he went on, and under the shadow of a large haystack he found a caterpillar crawling along. "How beautiful this world is!" said the caterpillar. "The sun is so warm, I quite enjoy it. And soon I shall go to sleep, and die as they call it, but I shall wake up with beautiful wings to fly with, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dark and shadowy against the north. Another loomed dimly beyond it; a haystack rose to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the field headquarters of a General, commanding a division of twenty thousand men, whom we had the pleasure of meeting. Under a great haystack which stood alone in the center of an open field had been excavated several rooms used as the General's Headquarters. Some yards away from the haystack a stove-pipe projected out of the sod in a foolish unrelated manner; under it was the kitchen in which was cooking ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... with them, scouring the country like your true bacchantes, clawing the unfortunate wretches who fell into their hands, burning farms and harvests, broaching barrels of wine and oil, and crowning these exploits by orgies with "the Athletes of Christ." When they saw a haystack blazing in the fields, the country-folk were panic-stricken—the "Circoncelliones" were not far off. Soon they appeared, brandishing their clubs and bellowing their war cry: Deo laudes!—"Praise be to God." "Your shout," said Augustin to them, "is more dreaded ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... after all, some fantasy born of the music and his dreaming imagination? And would it ever be possible to dream her again; or, if she were real, where, where could he find her? To discover a fairy princess and to lose her, lose her, as he ruefully confessed, like a needle in a haystack, was worse than never to ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... lasted, and, second and more important, that I had a plan which might serve to keep them away for a while at least after the storm stopped. I got up and looked out of the window, but I might as well have looked into a haystack for all I saw. I could not even see the houses on the other ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... my place in the diligence from Paris, and when I arrived at Notre Dame des Victoires it was all ready for a start; the luggage, piled up as high as an English haystack, had been covered over and buckled down, and the conducteur was calling out for the passengers. I took my last hasty whiff of my cigar, and unwillingly threw away more than half of a really good Havannah; for I perceived that ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... past the lilac-tree, whose bronze leaf-buds were coming unfastened. Just a fragment remained of the haystack, a monument squared and brown, like a pillar of stone. There was a little bed of hay from the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided, and where roads are few and ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... the hand with his own. "True son of Lilamani! But I fear he may have joined some secret society; and India is a large haystack in which ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... her clatterin' tongue. If she'll talk like that to us, you know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... with my vision, I can see as clear and as far as the best of you, and I'm not bad, you'll allow, at following up a trail over hard ground; but when it comes to squinting along the barrel of a gun I'm worse than useless. It's my belief that if I took aim at a haystack at thirty yards I'd miss it. No, Vic, I must give up the idea of ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... expression upon luminosity—different from the luminosity of incandescence—that comes upon objects falling from the sky, or entering this earth's atmosphere. Now our expression is that worlds have often come close to this earth, and that smaller objects—size of a haystack or size of several dozen skyscrapers lumped, have often hurtled through this earth's atmosphere, and have been mistaken for clouds, because they were ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... tree, and later of the arbor near it, as a place for prayer and worship, reminds one of the historic prayer meeting that was held near Williamstown, in 1806, when Samuel J. Mills, and four other students of Williams college, Newell, Nott, Hall and Judson, met in the shadow of a haystack and united in prayer, that God would fit them and prepare the way for them to carry the ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... him, and, never thinking that it should be applied to himself, he will use the word "Bromide" in season and out of it. To the Sulphite, however, Sulphitism is a thing to be watched for, cultivated, and treasured. He will search long for the needle in the haystack, and leave the bromidiom to be observed by the careless, thoughtless Bromide. And, as the supreme test, it may be remarked that, should buttons be put on the market, bearing the names "Bromide" and "Sulphite" ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... 's cock-sure that nobody 's chasin' him yet. He 's figurin' on two or three days' get-a-way, and so don't care a tinker's dam 'bout these yere marks. Once in the sand, an' thar won't be no trail anyhow. It's some kintry out thar, an' it would be like huntin' a needle in a haystack to try an' find them fellars after ter-night. This is my idea—we'll just mosey along slow, savin' the hosses an' keeping back out o' sight till dark. Them fellars ain't many hours ahead, an' are likely ter make camp furst ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... I crawled into a haystack to sleep one night, because it was warmer, and along comes a village constable and arrests me for being a tramp. At first they thought I was a runaway, and telegraphed my description all over. I told ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... things. These men are all accustomed to fighting in the woods, while our men have no idea of it. Their rifles are infinitely superior to these army muskets, and every man of them can hit a deer behind the shoulder at the distance of 150 yards, while at that distance most of our men would miss a haystack." ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... friendly haystack stood by the road-side, but over there in the field he saw a barn near a farm-house. He could find shelter in that. Waiting until it was dark, he crept cautiously through a small sheep door, and entered. He heard in another part of the building the cattle munching the last of ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... honour to those who undertook it, not merely without raising the smallest objection, but with the greatest keenness. Let us consider for a moment the risk they ran. Our tent on the boundless plain, without marks of any kind, may very well be compared with a needle in a haystack. From this the three men were to steer out for a distance of twelve and a half miles. Compasses would have been good things to take on such a walk, but our sledge-compasses were too heavy and unsuitable for carrying. They therefore had to go without. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... of the youngsters, of course, and not of much account, but he'd made a lot of friends. They've got a wreath as big as a haystack for the poor little man. They've made him into a hero; and they're all here—good fellows!" Thus the manager to the physician, as the train bore ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the sea to excite a tempest: they embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity, the fiend rolling himself before them upon the waves dimly seen, and resembling a huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a foreign ship richly laden with wines, where, invisible to the crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome; and then Satan sunk the vessel and ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... in our great city with its constant removals and changes of population. The individual is like the proverbial needle in the haystack, unless we adopt a method of accounting not only for each family but for each individual down to the latest-born child.* *In order that I may not be as one that beateth the air, I venture to suggest a method of laying the foundation of records that has been helpful in ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... for which the Bad Lands had for years been famous. Geography favored the criminal along the Little Missouri. Montana was a step or two to the west, Wyoming was a haven of refuge to the southwest, Canada was within easy reach to the north. A needle in a haystack, moreover, was less difficult to lay one's finger upon than a "two-gun man" tucked away in one of a thousand ravines, scarred with wash-outs and filled with buckbrush, in the broken country west ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... and resumed his march. He went out of the town, hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... his mind as big as a haystack," grinned Jack Bates. "Watch the way his jaw hangs down, will ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... Gabr'el," continued Jimmy unabashed. "When folks called him to blow his trumpet he was under the haystack fast asleep." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large eyes, looked ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... give six months to slum work, he had remained two years without showing any inclination to give it up. Sometimes he lived at the flat, and sometimes he was lost for a week at a time somewhere east of St. Paul's, where one might as well have looked for him as for the proverbial needle in a haystack. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... which the emigrants seemed quite sure, it was more than likely that the Indians and stock were several hundred miles away, and that it would be next to impossible to get any trace of them, and in my opinion it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... swam pleasantly before John's eyes. The earth hearkened to man's wants and answered; the clement sun and summer rains hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered to feed the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw-thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard boughs bent with their burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... had been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... are, standing eighty to a hundred feet high, with never a branch, but only a great spreading crown of leaves, with strings of dates hanging down from their midst. Beneath, in marshy places, grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack; and elsewhere were patches of rice, which grows like corn with us, but thrives well in the shade, curiously watered by artificial streams of water. And for hedges to their property, these Moors have agaves, with great spiky leaves which no man can penetrate, and other strange plants, whereof ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... found Chad springing from a bed in a haystack—ten miles from Lexington. By dusk that day, he was on the edge of the Bluegrass and that night he stayed at a farm-house, going in boldly, for he had learned now that the wayfarer was as welcome in a Bluegrass farm-house as in a log-cabin in the mountains. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... other way to make him understand. They were either too surprised or too sleepy to fire, for each of them let me pass. But after I had made a mark of myself three times I lost my nerve and sought cover behind a haystack. I lay there until there was light enough to distinguish trees and telegraph-poles, and then walked on to Ath. After that, when they stopped me, if they could not read, the red seal satisfied them; if they were officers and could read, they cursed me with strange, unclean oaths, and ordered ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... began to hum a hoary roundelay about the splendid audacity of old Mister Haystack and his questionable adventures, set to an unprintable refrain of "Winktum bolly mitch-a-kimo," or some such jumble of words. I have never heard this song in the mouth of any other man. He must have found it somewhere ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... blood, which Descartes adopted from Harvey, supplied additional arguments in favour of his mechanical theory, and he probably did much to popularize the discovery. A fire without light, compared to the heat which gathers in a haystack when the hay has been stored before it was properly dry—heat, in short, as an agitation of the particles—is the motive cause of the contraction and dilatations of the heart. Those finer particles of the blood which become extremely ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... any time for cash; hay, too, as long as there was still some remaining in his lofts. He would also sell hay against promises of lambs, especially wethers, once it was certain that the cold of winter was past. But his old haystack he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... of the family had assembled—some thirty or forty people, in fact, for Finland is famous for big families—and tables of cakes and coffee were spread at a point from which every one could see the enormous Kokko, as high as a haystack, standing on a lonely rock in the water. The boatmen went off and lighted it, having thrown turpentine over the dried branches, and stacked up tar-barrels, so that it might the more readily catch fire, and in a few moments huge volumes of smoke ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... "No more of that; if you want to knock the brains out of that haystack on the back of your head, why, knock away; but spare my bones, ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... considerable time the woman walked on. Her steps became feebler, and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road, now indistinct amid the penumbrae of night. At length her onward walk dwindled to the merest totter, and she opened a gate within which was a haystack. Underneath this she sat ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... over that haystack," said Jack, "and then play out rope till we lower him. It'll make a nice soft ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... a space, stole back to where he could hear any sound from the porch even if he could not see, and when he was certain that Baumberger had gone back to his bed, he got his horse, took him by a roundabout way to the stable, and himself slept in a haystack. At least, he made himself a soft place beside one, and lay there until the sun rose, and if he did not sleep it was not his fault, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... have had no opportunity as yet for showing any special adaptability. Now I propose to test your powers with something really difficult. Are you up to it, Sweetwater? Do you know the city well enough to attempt to find a needle in this very big haystack?" ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... for his kindness, they walked in the direction he had given them and soon came to a great haystack on the top of which was a ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... Ellen, with a reluctant groan, "I reckon you'll have to. You can send Tony for her when he gets back, though how he'll find her I don't know. You might's well hunt for a needle in a haystack as to track down Melviny. She's liable to be most anywheres tendin' babies or trimmin' bunnits; an' Tony's such ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... my hunger was over I began again to feel annoyed at their trivial persecutions, and so continued to gather the fallen nuts to throw at them. It amused and piqued me at the same time to see how wide of the mark my missiles went. I could hardly have hit a haystack at a distance of ten yards. After half an hour's vigorous practice my right hand began to recover its lost cunning, and I was at last greatly delighted when of my nuts went hissing like a bullet through ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... a campaign in a country more difficult than the interior of Samar. The traditional needle in the haystack would be easy to find compared with an outlaw, or band of outlaws, in such ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... very large place; but looking for a lady there was something like looking for the fabulous needle in the haystack. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a high dive from the top. Down tumbled the others, over and over. But fortunately for all, there was a great haystack below, and upon this they landed in a jumbled heap close to the magic bean pole. As it happened, there was no one in sight. Up they jumped in a trice, and while the Comfortable Camel and Doubtful Dromedary munched contentedly at the ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... bore Elsbeth's hand-writing—behind a haystack, and there studied each letter of it in solitude for wellnigh ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by his chain. When she ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... his voice became gentle. "There's some milk yet about that moustache of yours, my boy. You don't know what a man like me is capable of. I would hide behind a haystack if... Don't grin at me, sir. How dare you? If this were not a private conversation, I would... Look here. I am responsible for the proper expenditure of lives under my command for the glory of our country and the honour of the regiment. Do you understand ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... solemnly, that some crisis of my life was approaching. How the monition came to me I hardly know; I felt like a man wandering in the dark, with eyes strained and hands outstretched, who is dimly aware of some great object, tree or haystack or house, looming up ahead of him, which he cannot directly see, but of which he is yet conscious by the vibration of some sixth sense. The wonder came by degrees to overshadow my thoughts with a sense of expectant awe, and ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the face of this distressing catastrophe; there was no time to be lost if the desperadoes were to be headed before they succeeded in reaching the Dawsbergen passes with their lovely captive. Once there, it would be like hunting a needle in a haystack; they could elude pursuit for days among the wild crags of upper Dawsbergen, where none but outlaws ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... past a barn, missed a mesh of clothesline, frightened the barnyard chickens into a panic, and rose up again clear over a haystack—all this almost quicker than it takes to tell. Then we came down in an orchard, and when my feet had touched the ground I fetched up the balloon by a couple of turns of the trapeze ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... Hills shimmered in a pale gray mirage. Over the trees which sheltered the Stopping-House a flock of black crows circled in the blue air, croaking and complaining that the harvest was going to be late. On the wire-fence that circled the haystack sat a row of red-winged blackbirds like a string of jet beads, patiently waiting for the oats to ripen and indulging in low-spoken but pleasant gossip about all the other birds in ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... had not testified, just before then, that he had returned about three o'clock to the ranch and pottered around the corral with the mare and colt, and unsaddled his horse before going into the house at all. It was only when he had discovered Johnny Croft's horse at the haystack, he said, that he began to wonder where the rider could be. He had gone to the house—and found him on the ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... week past that I might meet you. Holmes, of your service, told me you had pulled through, but everything is in such confusion that to hunt for you would have been the proverbial quest after a needle in a haystack. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... myself more than I could have hoped on board our floating menagerie; stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of the incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotized by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner table, and winnied when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at one another in their cages ... ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... through the breaking of the mains. 'But I had a hunch, just a hunch,' said Lane, 'that there was water somewhere in the pipes.' He had learned that a fire company which had given up the fight was asleep on a haystack somewhere in the Western Addition. He went out and found them. They had been working for thirty-six hours; they lay like dead men. Lane kicked the soles of the nearest fireman. He returned only a grunt. The next fireman, however, woke up; Lane managed to get him enthusiastic. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... raised Joan from her bed beside the haystack, fearing that if she awoke she might make a noise. She did awake, however, sat up, looked all round in a frightened fashion, then began to whimper. Drawing a fold of shawl across her mouth and whispering to Darby to keep ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... way. (We all have our "mouse," haven't we? I'm yours. Just now, the new hats are mine.) She has told me a splendid story about a thing he did in Bengal: saved twelve people's lives in a house that was on fire in the middle of the night—the kind of house which blazes like a haystack. And, according to her, he thinks no more of rescuing drowning persons who jump off ships in seas swarming with sharks than we think of fishing a fly out of our bath. Now, is it possible for a man like that to be treacherous to women, and ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Mr. Kimball, whose haystack was partly saved, heard about this, and sent the boys five dollars. Mr. Stimson, in view of the good work of Bert and Vincent, sent the new department ten dollars, so they began to see their way clear, especially as the Jamesville authorities voted to give ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... to remember that haystack over there," said the boy, with entire irrelevance, "but there's a house with a light in it, and—maybe we'd best ask if we're on the right road. ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... couldn't hit a haystack. Their hands are all of a tremble with climbing. We're right enough. I hit ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... us some distance, and we travelled until we became very tired, when we went to bed under a haystack. On the 17th, we took breakfast at an inn. We passed a small village, and asked a man whom we met with a dearborn, what would be his charge to Windgap. "One dollar and fifty cents," was the ready answer. So in we got, and rode to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... "cole" or haystack of the smallest sort close at hand. To this Jock went, and, throwing off the top layer as possibly damp, he carried all the rest in his arms and piled it on Ralph till he was covered up to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... of burnin' a stack?" remonstrated Andrew, blinking defiantly round the table. "Tell you how it come. Hold on a minute"— he went to the bucket, and refilled his pannikin—"It was this way: I was jist startin' to thatch a new haystack for two ole bosses o' mine, on the Vic. side o' the Murray, when up comes ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... fool," said the farmer (who wasn't). "There's some one behind that haystack, and the old watch-dog's back is up. See! there he runs; and as I'm a sinner, it's that black rascal who was loitering round, the day my ricks were fired, and you lads let him slip. Off after him, for I fancy I see smoke." And the farmer flew to ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... in the same style, but much smaller. Of the rest of the habitations, a few are stone sheds, but the greater part are huts made of the dry stalks of the fine herb called bou rekabah, in the form of a conical English haystack, and are very snug, impervious alike to rain and sun. There are not more than one hundred and fifty of these huts and sheds, scattered over a considerable space, without any order; some are placed two or three together within a small enclosure, which serves as a court or yard, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... contingent of some sort. They had evidently struck a corps shifting southward. At last a good sized gap in the long, ghostly line gave them courage to cross. They got through safely enough, and kept on steadily for a time across country. They skirted two villages, and reached a haystack near a river-bank before daybreak. Out toward the east they saw the faint outlines of a fairly large town. Before them lay the river, spanned by a bridge guarded at each end by a German sentry. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... thought a man was concealed in a dairy-yard in the neighbourhood of my mother's house, major, in Stephen's Green; and you thought he was hid in a hay- rick, and ordered your sergeant to ask for the loan of a spit from my mother's kitchen to probe the haystack." ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... children suddenly discovered that they had not been snowflakes at all but only a cloud of white feathers sent whirling through the house, out of the windows, and up the chimney by some disturbance in the midst of a great heap in one corner of the room as high as a haystack. From the middle of this heap of feathers stuck up two very thin yellow legs with shabby boots that gave one last despairing kick and then were still. Near by at a counter a Gentleman Goose in a long apron was weighing ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... or rather roofed, by a rude structure of rough boards, open at the sides, and sustained on a number of pine poles about thirty feet in height, and bore a strong resemblance to the usual covering of a New England haystack. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the expense of your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... possible by the way. After they had once recovered from their parting with Rhoda their spirits rose, and they tramped along lightly and cheerfully. It was eleven o'clock when they started, and through the night they did not meet a single person. Towards morning they got under a haystack near the road, and slept for some hours; then they walked steadily on until they had done twenty miles since their start. They went into a small inn, and had some breakfast, and then purchasing some bread and cold ham, went on through the town, and leaving the London road, followed that leading ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... amours and his treasons? Have you any notion that he will be the more or the less likely to do so when he learns that there's a French gentleman of your make in the country-side, and a friend of Doom's, too, which means a Jacobite? A daft errand, if I may say it; seeking a needle in a haystack was bairn's ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... by-the-by, of course - a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for education both in time and money, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who has got into little occasional difficulties ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?—for he tells me that I must ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
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