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More "Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment, and with the most dreadful howl that ever was heard, the National Guard was seen to rush forwards wildly, and with immense velocity, towards the foe. The fact is, that the line regiment behind them, each selecting his man, gave a poke with his bayonet between the coat-tails of the Nationals, and those troops bounded forward with an ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like to see a fat deer; the fatter the better; he was accustomed, too, to poke his thumb into the dead plumage of a plump grouse when Malcourt's men laid out the braces, on which he himself never drew trigger; and which interested him only when ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Mr. Wicker's window to gaze at the strangely fascinating jumble of oddments that were displayed. Now, however, he felt in no mood to visit the curiosity shop and stood shifting his feet and looking aimlessly about. Mike, beside him, was becoming restive, and gave him a poke. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind, and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grows thickest ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... importance. When the young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick. Is that the way they heave in the marchant service? he roared. Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and as methynketh also, Mizaldus in his Mirabile Centuries, doe affirme thatt not to bloshe is a sign of noble bloods and gentyl lineage—for itt may bee planely seene that every base-borne churle's daughter blosheth, if thatt yee give hir a poke under ye chinn, whereas ye countesse of highe degre only smileth sweetlie and sayth merily, 'Aha! messire—tu voys que mon joly couer est endormy!' for shee well knoweth that a gentyllman, like ye kynge, can ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... come. On going near he saw a tall man with dark skin and straight black hair that was streaked with gray—undoubtedly an Indian. He held up a bag and said, "I got coon in that hole. You hold bag there, I poke him in." Rolf took the sack readily and held it over the hole, while the Indian climbed the tree to a higher opening, then poked in this with a long pole, till all at once there was a scrambling noise and the bag ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... have been more surprised if it had! It drummed on its diaphragm, and then suddenly boomed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and gave its pushcart a vicious poke at me! I jumped aside, and away it went while ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... Rinconete, who was of a very inquiring disposition, begged leave to ask Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go with ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... we all a merry joke At Archedemus poke, Who has not cut his guildsmen yet, though seven years old; Yet up among the dead He is demagogue and head, And contrives the topmost place of the rascaldom to hold? And Cleisthenes, they say, Is among the tombs all day, Bewailing for ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... I'd slipped a stitch in the wrong place—it hardly showed a bit—and because one sock was an inch longer than the other. War isn't a bit like I thought it would be," she sighed plaintively, with a vengeful poke at the knitting, which Migwan had just ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... of Spenser's style was its spaciousness, that he habitually dilates rather than compresses. But his way of measuring time was perfectly natural in an age when everybody did not carry a dial in his poke as now. He is the last of the poets, who went (without affectation) by the great clock of the firmament. Dante, the miser of words, who goes by the same timepiece, is full of these roundabout ways of telling us the hour. It had ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple; "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles! Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a "First, if you ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... was caught and tied by the legs, and when all the Madangs were assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping for a moment to take breath, he asked that, if any one had evil intentions, the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... three hours I took my eyes off the nest only to follow the movements of the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... brave man, and fear neither man nor beast. I am your servant, and for you am ready to give my life. I have brought with me two long bamboos, and with them I shall go and poke in the drain, rouse the ferocious beast, and as he jumps out you will kill him. If I shall lose my life, which I am ready to do for you, please think of my ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B—- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves over our necks, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... the sweet perfume of the fresh flowers. Millie paused in the act of pouring coffee into big blue cups to "get a sniff of the smell," but Aunt Rebecca was impatient at the momentary delay. "My goodness, but you poke around. I like to get the supper out ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... a slow-poke who keeps right on doing a thing without wasting any time always gets somewhere sooner or later, very often sooner than those who are naturally quicker, but who waste their time. So it was with Old Mr. Toad. He kept right on, hop, hop, hipperty-hop, while ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... Shakespeare seems to poke fun at the way in which the Elizabethans overdid the use of 'element' in this sense, in Twelfth Night, III, i, 65, and in 2 Henry ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... soldiers, and what may or may not really happen to all my sensations put together, which I call me? Should I bear apples if a phantasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why should I die if another phantasm seemed to come and poke me in ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... you to, all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... full of ingenuity—for barbarians, that is. Not in the same class with you seaboard nobles, of course, but we poke along." The Barbarian stood up, and his expression turned serious. "Look, son—you remember that knife of mine you borrowed for a while? I'll have to lend it to you again, in about twenty minutes. Your friend Dugald's going to have one just ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... Bridges. We was raised up children together and married. I had five sisters. My brother died here in Oklahoma about two years ago. He was a Fisher. Mary Russell, my sister, she lives in Parish, Texas; Willie Ann Poke, she lives in Greenville, Texas; Winnie Jackson, lives in Adonia, Texas, and Mattie White, my other sister, lives in Long ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... characteristic of the large mass of the English people—for after all, the rather low-Church section WAS the largest single mass—in early Victorian times. She had dreams, I suspect, of going to church with him side by side; she in a little poke bonnet and a large flounced crinoline, all mauve and magenta and starched under a little lace-trimmed parasol, and he in a tall silk hat and peg-top trousers and a roll-collar coat, and looking rather like the Prince Consort,—white angels almost ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... ours? I am glad of it! Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to make a wood-fire Finding the world disagreeable to themselves ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... else they poke a finger in your neck, and expect you to laugh at the fun. I do laugh sometimes at the absurdity of their ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to their ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... his environment; after all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities. His hobbies began to poke forth their noses, to whinny, to neigh; but some force stronger or more dexterous than himself seemed to be guiding the talk, and the name of Medora Giles began to mingle with the click of silver on china and to weave itself into the progress ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... do the best he could for them, and the Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be interfered with—it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to stir up. They had no notion of going to school again—which no one wanted them to do—nor to church, because it was like little boys; and they wouldn't ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... money into Jenny's pocket I cannot say. But it's a feature; and while I'm in England, I'll ask you to keep your eyes skinned and try and find out as much about Giuseppe as you can. Not from his wife, however. I needn't tell you that. You'll be free to poke about and try and surprise 'Red Waistcoat.' Perhaps you'll do the trick; but take care he doesn't surprise you. All I ask is that you don't believe a quarter you hear, or half you see. We must get under the appearances if we're ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... possibly have punctured her tire—that would delay her fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't worry, my dear boy. I showed her how to fix a punctured tire all right. It's simple enough—you take the rubber thing they give you and fasten it in that metal thingumbob, glue it up, poke it in, pull it out, pump her up, ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... about to be washed, the water reaching up to his middle. Then Alan saw a terrifying thing, for suddenly the horrid, golden head of Big Bonsa, towing Little Bonsa behind it, began to swim with a deliberate motion across the stream until, reaching the man, it seemed to rear itself up and poke him with its snout in the chest as a turtle might do. Then it sank again into the water and slowly floated back to its station, directed by some agency or power ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... artificial, iron, or composition logs in it, hacked and painted, in which gas is burned, so that it has the appearance of a wood-fire. This seems to me blasphemy. Do you think a cat would lie down before it? Can you poke it? If you can't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke a wood-fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world. The crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire. I do not know how any virtue whatever is possible over an imitation gas-log. What a sense of insincerity ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate than those that come from the other side of the Atlantic. It may be the fact that the good Americans, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... her cover. Hour after hour passed by, but I could hear no sounds except the notes of the birds in the trees, the woodpeckers searching for insects in the bark, and the cries of the squirrels as they skipped from branch to branch. I really wished that one of them would poke his nose into my nest, that I might have the chance of capturing him, for I was getting very hungry, and would have eaten him raw without compunction; but none came ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the men's broad hats and the women's poke bonnets, seen dimly against the pale light of the windows as they passed, plainly revealed their sect. The similarity of their garments almost obliterated the personal ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... before in the post-office. Then he would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... and people never like me. There is an old saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... amusements in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about, because he would be knocking his nose ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor, and I waited. I hunched that ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... couple of boys. The Shawanoe delighted to tease the noble creature, who delighted to have him do so. One habit of the youth was to pretend he was offended with the stallion. He would turn his back upon him and repel his advances toward a reconciliation. Whirlwind would poke his nose first over one shoulder and then the other, rubbing it against the cheek of Deerfoot. If the latter sulked too long, Whirlwind would show his impatience by flirting his head against that of the youth, whirling about, kicking up his heels and galloping off. No words could ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... whittle nicely, made some little canoes, and when Billy was looking through the hose for savages, it was Teddy's part to poke the canoes with a long stick like a fish-pole, so they would float right in front of Billy's hose. Then Billy would scramble down the wall, and come running to us 'round behind the chimney, and tell us to lie very still, for there were seven canoes full of cruel savages ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... remarked coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that dog of yours will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'." The head groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it! As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... he got back to camp. One of the patrol leader's lips was puffed. Tim looked away quickly. A cup of hot coffee would have put the early morning chill to route, but not for anything would he have suggested a fire. He pretended to poke through his things, trying to kill time, trying not to look at his companion, trying to figure out how they were going to get through breakfast. That Don was sore on him for keeps he did ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... went back to the fireside. He began to poke the fire in protest, but a smile gave the lie to the moroseness and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... case with the Poke or Garget (Phytolacca decandra). Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple stems now and early in September. They are as interesting to me as most flowers, and one of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. An' I'm ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... can't read without being interrupted by a child who knows no better than to poke her impudent little nose in ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boy-chap—never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism," said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain and keep ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Let's poke a hole in their gas bag," proposed Sam. "That will make them think they're not so smart as ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... choose fuel. Food nourishes the body; but fuel, warming the body, warms the soul too. I do not wonder that the hearth has been regarded from time immemorial as the centre, and used as the symbol, of the home. I like the social tradition that we must not poke a fire in a friend's drawing-room unless our friendship dates back full seven years. It rests evidently, this tradition, on the sentiment that a fire is a thing sacred to the members of the household ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning—it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... noticed, at the other end of the pueblo from her quarters, a large room which was frequented by men alone. It might be a temple; it might be a hall for the transaction of public business; such were the diverse guesses of the travellers. Into the mysteries of this apartment Aunt Maria resolved to poke. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... stap ye in her poke, I wot she wadna fail; And boil ye in her auld brass pan, And ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... wine, on a little table at her side, and a volume of Blair's sermons, which were both agreeable sedatives, and conducive to a prolonged sleep. Bryda then went hastily upstairs, and tying on her high poke bonnet, slipped out at the front door, and found, as she expected, Jack awaiting her at the corner of the square. The sight of his friendly, honest face had never been so welcome before, and she showed her pleasure by the ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... ranged in a double line along a spacious, well-aired sleeping-room; some, too young for this, rocked in cosy cradles; but all clean, safe, and happy. What needs it to say whether the good ladies who tended them wore the habit of St. Vincent de Paul, the poke-bonnet of the Puseyite "sister," or the simple garb of unpretending Protestantism? The thing is being done. The most helpless of all our population—the children of the working poor—are being kept from the streets, kept from harm, and trained up to habits of decency, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... mixture. By degrees, the singularities which distinguished him were softened; his thee and thy yielded to the common forms of speech; his drab suit altered its cut and hue; his hat came off occasionally; his women abated the rigor of their poke bonnets; he was able to say to the enemy of his country, "Friend, thee is standing just where I am going to shoot." The disintegration of his individuality set free the good that was in him to permeate surrounding society; his fellow flowers ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... suddenly unties the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves of ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... dining-room at the "Vittoria" is not in use just now. We take our meals in two smaller rooms adjoining each other, one of which leads into the kitchen where privileged guests may talk secrets with the cook and poke their noses into saucepans. At a table by herself sits the little signorina who controls the establishment, wide awake, pale of complexion, slightly hump-backed, close-fisted as the devil though sufficiently vulnerable to a bluff ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... shameful trait? May not a Boob expect to see angels in the shimmering blue of heaven? Is he more disreputable than the knave who frisks his watch meanwhile? And suppose he does see an angel, or even only a blue acre of sky—is that not worth as much as the dial in his poke? ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... hanging all out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the spectators into shrieks of amusement, and they there ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... on his overalls an' said He'd work down in the cellar till 'twas time to go to bed. He started in to rattle an' to bang an' poke an' stir, An' the dust began a-climbin' up through every register Till Ma said: "Goodness gracious; go an' shut those things up tight Or we'll all be suffocated an' the house will be ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... continued for 68 hours, everything used being carefully weighed and measured. One day the machine was worked for 151/4 hours on end; the other days it was worked with an interval of half an hour every 12 hours to clear the hearth, poke the fire and lubricate the machine; and it was clearly established that with a big enough generator it would be quite possible to work continuously for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... and a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... away his weapon,' said the Marquis; 'and he wished for nothing better than to poke about in the gutters for insects; it was only Redgie that teased him into ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a full stop. The natives then retired from those rocks, and commenced their attack by throwing spears through the tea-tree from the opposite side of the creek. Here we had the back of our gunyah for a shield, and could poke the muzzles of our guns and rifles through the interstices of the boughs. We were compelled to discharge our pieces at them to ensure ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... into a hearty fit of laughter. Tom at first felt inclined to quarrel with him, but a poke in the ribs from his messmate, and the word "humbug," made him instead join in Desmond's cachinnations. Adair had invited his midshipmen to dine with him, and had by his kind remarks succeeded in driving Tom's absurd notions out of his head. Tom, who really felt grateful to him, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... her propensity to poke fun. "I have been detailed for that service for more than two years. Moreover, I was a good enough scout to pass within the lines of your army to-night, and to travel the whole length of ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... neither the police nor anybody else must be allowed to poke a nose into our concerns," said Herrera in a low voice, as he lighted his cigar from Lucien's. "It would not agree with us. I have hit on a plan, daring but effectual, to keep our Baron and his agents quiet. You must go to see Madame de Serizy, and make ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, when ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the judge said sharply, with a suspicious frown. Then he recovered himself with a start. For a moment he had half fancied that fellow, Forbes-Ewing, meant SOMETHING by what he said—meant to poke innuendoes at him. But, after all, it was a mere polite form. How frightened we all are, to be sure, when we know ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... you have heard of working on the 'stop,' most likely. Which means picking pockets when the party is standing still; but it is more difficult on the 'fly.' You must remember that. I remember once going along Oxford Street, and I prigged an old woman's 'poke,'[17] on the 'fly.' She missed it very quick, and was coming after me when I slipped it into an old countryman's pocket as I was passing. She came up and accused me with stealing her purse. I, of course, allowed her to search me, and asked her to fetch a 'bobby,' if she was not satisfied. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... thing. There are others too numerous to mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must be on my way," he said briskly. ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was a signal to withdraw," suggested Dan. "I hope it was." But Poke Stover shook his head, for he had seen much of the Comanches and understood ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... Fe caravan was a noble sight: the enormous hooded wagons, flaring like poke bonnets, each drawn by twelve and sixteen oxen or mules, lumbering on in a long double file or sometimes four abreast; the booted teamsters trudging beside the fore-wheels, cracking their eighteen-foot lashes; the armed out-riders guarding the flanks—galloping here and there in quest of ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... came to Warren's Grove, had put her treasure into so secure and out-of-the-way a hiding place that she felt quite easy about it. Lydia would never, never think of troubling her head about that attic sloping down to the roof, still less would she poke her fingers into the little secret cupboard where the ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... said, emphasizing every word with a poke. 'He's too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain't true, and his tongue's too smart. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while Sally Ann ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door with the knobby stick to assure ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... w'ich I never seen a mug ever do. Las' thing of 'is I see, 'e was tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An' w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman comin' along the street 'e chucks the crust into the drain, an' borrows the old gent's stick to poke it out. An' then the ole gent ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... little humorously caught at, to paint her a picture of former heroes of fiction, who win their trying lady by their perfection of good conduct on a background of high birth; and who are not seen to be wooden before the volume closes. Her fatigue of sleeplessness plunged her into the period of poke-bonnets and peaky hats to admire him; giving her the kind of sweetness we may imagine ourselves to get in the state of tired horse munching hay. If she had gone to her bed with a noble or simply estimable plain ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Take of poke root 3 ozs., lard 1 lb., boil for a quarter of an hour and strain. This ointment has quite a reputation in Virginia, with the old ladies, for all kinds of old sores and ulcers, and it is an excellent application to indolent and ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... eye on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at River Falls, Wisconsin, in sandy soil with an ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... both missionaries, also poke offering to associate themselves ] changed to: [ both missionaries, also spoke offering to associate ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... this, I grew pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... down-hearted, he was nearly ready to give up when he happened to poke his head in the hollow end of a tree whose roots were pinioned down by the huge rock. The small heart of the trunk had decayed, offering an entrance just large enough for ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... brakesman at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called "picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction that draws the youth ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... unties the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... brother of EBENEZER (q. v.), with whom he co-operated in founding the Secession Church; his sermons and religious poems, called "Gospel Sonnets," were widely read; one of the first of the Scotch seceders, strange to contemplate, "a long, soft, poke-shaped face, with busy anxious black eyes, looking as if he could not help it; and then such a character and form of human existence, conscience living to the finger ends of him, in a strange, venerable, though highly questionable manner ... his formulas casing him all round like ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... where she was. As she stayed, incongruously, a joke out of an old Punch came into her head—not at all an esthetic one. It was a picture of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while the tips of her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot. The husband was saying: "Ye may poke at me and ye may threaten me, but ye canna break my manly sperrit. I willna come out fra ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles —a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of predilection ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a, "First, if you please, my ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... 'I'd have ye to undherstand that no wan iver come out iv Roscommon that cud hold up their heads with th' Hogans,' she says. ''Tis not f'r th' likes iv ye to slandher a fam'ly that's iv th' landed gintry iv Ireland, an' f'r two pins I'd hit ye a poke in th' eye,' she says. If it hadn't been f'r me bein' between thim, they'd have been trouble; f'r they was good frinds wanst. What is it th' good book says about a ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... directly overhead, does not borrow my food or hire my services, but she does something far worse. Whenever I dare to poke a fire, or play on the piano, or shut a window, or let a door bang, as any ordinary domestic door is bound to bang in the course of a windy day, rap, rap, rap comes a premonitory knocking on the floor, as if to say, "Inconsiderate and selfish worm! How dare you attend ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was such a curious variety of draughts, that one was scarcely missed; every door and window in the room sent in its current of air, to search under the table, flare the candles, bear in in triumph the smell of burnt fat from the kitchen, and poke into the tender places of rheumatic patients; while, in spite of all these, the room was so close and redolent of dinner, that fish, flesh, and fowl were breathed in every breath. A scant and well-worn carpet covered the space on which the dinner-table stood; and portable curtains of insufficient ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... with a loud outcry half a man's body came down the chimney and fell at his feet. "Holloa," he exclaimed; "only half a man answered that ringing; that is too little." Then the ringing began afresh, and a roaring and howling was heard, and the other half fell down. "Wait a bit," said he; "I will poke up the fire first." When he had done so and looked round again, the two pieces had joined themselves together, and an ugly man was sitting in his place. "I did not bargain for that," said the youth; "the bench is mine." The man tried to push him away, but the youth would not let him, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... opportunity for looking about the garden, for Mr Solomon led the way at once to the stoke-holes down behind the glass-houses, rattled open the doors, and gave a stoke here with a great iron rod, and a poke there where the fires were caked together; while, without waiting to be asked, I seized upon the shovel I saw handy and threw ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... appeared that morning in his shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of kit fox with the tail attached, which hung from the front of his girdle like the sporran of a Scotch Highlander. Out of it he drew a roll of birch bark painted with juice of poke-berries. The Tallega spread it on the grass, weighting one end with the turtle-back, as he read, with the ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... keeping. Even now disaster may be a-brewing; and is there not a richly-freighted ship on its passage with silks and spices? I'll put it out of her reach this time anyhow. No! I'll hide it where never a witch in Christendom shall poke it out." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... day; we slapped their faces at Montenotte, we thrashed them at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we never let 'em up. A soldier gets the taste of conquest. So Napoleon whirled round those Austrian generals, who didn't know where to poke themselves to get out of his way, and he pelted 'em well—nipped off ten thousand men at a blow sometimes, by getting round them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen, and then he gleaned as he pleased. He took ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... whole of the day, Working and toiling without any pay, Only perchance a few mouthfuls of hay, From earliest dawn till late. Held by the horns 'neath this cumbersome yoke, Firmer fixed thus than a "pig in a poke," Feeling the "prong" and the lengthy stick's stroke, Ours, alas, is ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... to get in that for a fire," remarked Dozia. She was, however, trying on the scaly breastplate, and attempting to poke her head into the helmet. "Are you sure this stuff is no world's war relic? I wouldn't care to rub shoulders with some ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... can't do in New York, and pretty much everything goes there, or it used to, where I hung out. But here you're just your own master, and there's no law and no religion and no relations nor newspapers to poke into what you do nor how you live. You can understand what I mean if you've ever tried living in the West. I used to feel the same way the year I was ranching in Texas. My family sent me out there to put me ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... at work; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might pass for one of those coquetries of old ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... universal amongst men. Every nation indulges in it to a greater or less extent. Every nation, civilised or savage, has its game, from whist and cribbage at Almacks to "chuck-a-luck" and "poke-stick" upon ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... are a stern-eyed folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I greatly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... was called in because he knew the disease of the patient. He had his remedy about him. The pills and the draught were in his pocket—yes, in his patriotic poke; but he refused to take the lid from the box—resolutely determined that the cork should not be drawn from the all-healing phial—until he was regularly called in; and, as the gypsies say, his hand crossed with a bit of money. Well, he now swears with such vigour to the excellence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... one once," retorted the midget, "and in the eight months of his management he turned over quite a lot of money to me, enough to gamble on, to buy a block of blue sky or a pig in a poke. Maybe there's enough to make a bid on a ranch, a property with a crazy man on it, armed with a gun and threatening to shoot intruders. If you are the receiver, I want to make a bid for the Bar-O ranch, ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... the end kept up his correspondence with Mrs. Howard, and his letters to her are often delightful reading, especially when he had nothing in particular to say, or when he was able to poke kindly fun at ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... make me stumble only of purpose to entreat me lie down and rest me! But now, and I could find my fellow Dick, I would play the knave with him honestly, i'faith. Well, I will grope in the dark for him, or I'll poke with my staff, like a blind man, to prevent a ditch. [He ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... You won't see my trail for smoke when I get a gait on for God's country, my wad in my poke and the sunshine in my eyes. Say! How'd a good juicy tenderloin strike you just now, green onions, fried potatoes, and fixin's on the side? S'help me, that's the first proposition I'll hump myself up against. Then a general whoop-la! ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... granny was sick, an' Sonny Bunny Rabbit' mammy want to send her a mess o' sallet. She put it in a poke, an' hang de poke round de little rabbit ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... there had apparently mingled in her dotage some dream of early enjoyment,—a dream of the days when she had plucked berries, a little herd-girl, on the banks of the Auldgrande; and the vision seemed to have sent her out, far advanced in her second childhood, to poke among the bushes with ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... wild honeysuckle, yarrow, wild roses, coreopsis, golden rod, wild pea, larkspur, woodbine, early crocus, elderberry, sweet flag, (great patches of it,) poke-weed, creeper, trumpet-flower, sun-flower, scented marjoram, chamomile, snakeroot, violets, Solomon's seal, clematis, sweet balm, bloodroot mint, (great plenty,) swamp magnolia, wild geranium, milk-weed, wild heliotrope, wild ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... 1-cent store and buy a fly catcher." So off he went and pretty soon he came back with a great big fly catching box, and after he had set it down, they stood and watched the flies go in until it was so full that not another one could even poke in ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... "Well, I bet girls can't be pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... my desk, so we must give up work for the day." He also, on these occasions, often brought with him a daughter, and the two carefully looked into the decorated desk, when they were rewarded by finding the nest and eggs of a "feather-poke" (long-tailed tit), or some other rare bird, which he always took home and preserved in his study, as a trophy till the following year. No questions were asked as to how the decorations were obtained, but in practice the process was as follows. On the day before, between school hours, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... fireplace, with artificial, iron, or composition logs in it, hacked and painted, in which gas is burned, so that it has the appearance of a wood-fire. This seems to me blasphemy. Do you think a cat would lie down before it? Can you poke it? If you can't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke a wood-fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world. The crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire. I do not know how any virtue whatever is possible over an imitation gas-log. What a sense of insincerity ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... warms it, and sometimes by the time the Indian shawl, which could go through a wedding ring, but never would when it was wanted to, had been refolded and fastened again with the great cameo brooch, and the poke bonnet, like some fractious child, shaken and petted into good condition, she would be singing softly to herself, nodding her head to the words: which were generally to the effect that somebody was too old and somebody else too bold and another too cold, "so he wouldn't do for me;" and stepping ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... vntyes the Poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, 650 As ready was them all to choke, So greeuous was the pother; So that the Knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post, Tom Thum, nor Tomalin could boast ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... big, grown-up people will poke fun of us—at you for reading these nonsense tales of the Magical Monarch, and at me for writing them. Never mind. Many of the big folk are still children—even as you and I. We cannot measure a ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... have looked squarely at her as soon as she came, because, you know, he had to look at her sometime, but he had a mean, slinking, afraid feeling, such as people always have when they have done something wrong and have had time to think about it. Besides, he had changed his mind since the wooden poke had been put on him, and somehow his running away seemed very foolish now. He wondered how he could ever have thought it any fun, and he was so disgusted that he couldn't keep his ears still, but moved them restlessly when he ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... guns and a rifle, we scoured the Fiord for many miles round. No sooner did we fire at one seal that rose on the gig's bow, than another would poke his rat-like head above the water, at the stern, and a third and fourth on either beam. The report of our guns was incessant; and the multitudes of crows, wild geese, ducks, eagles, and gulls that croaked, and screamed, and whirled about above our heads, to hear the echoes rattling ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... autumn sunlight, falling through the plain glass windows, shone on his temples. Immediately below him, in a front pew, sat his mother, a dried little old woman, with beady black eyes and a pointed chin, which jutted out from between the stiff taffeta strings of her poke bonnet. She gazed upward, clasping her Prayer-book in her black woollen gloves, which were darned in the fingers; and though she appeared to listen attentively to the sermon, she was wondering all the time if the coloured servant at home would remember to baste the roast pig she had ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. Adieu affectionately. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... at the moon. Not far off was a camp of quarrelsome Flying Foxes, and the melancholy Nightjar in the distance was fulfilling its mission of making all the bush creatures miserable with its incessant, mournful "mo-poke! mo-poke!" As Dot could understand all the voices, it amused her to listen to the wrangles of the Flying Foxes, as they ate the fruit of a wild fig tree near by. She saw them swoop past on their huge black wings with a solemn flapping. ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... allowed to poke their impertinent young noses into our Form room," said Doreen Tristram. "I told you before ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Sopentater jump up out'n bed, An' she poke her head outside o' de d[o]'. She say: "Ole man, my gander's gone. I heared 'im w'en he holler 'quinny-quanio,' 'Quinny-quanio, quinny-quanio!' Yes, I heared 'im w'en he ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... with Mab Arden. During the reading of the lessons his eyes were roving here and there in search of that beloved face, but much to his dismay he could not see it. Finally, on a chair near a pillar, he caught sight of Miss Whichello in her poke bonnet and black silk cloak, but she was alone, and there were no bright eyes beside her to send a glance in the direction of George. Having ascertained beyond all doubt that Mab was not in the church, and believing that she was unwell after the shock of Jentham's attack ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... can't take it in. I'll tell you what—she goes slick through the water, a-head or a-starn, broadside on, or up or down, or any way; and all you have to do is to poke the fire and warm your fingers; and the more you poke, the faster she goes ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... man, and fear neither man nor beast. I am your servant, and for you am ready to give my life. I have brought with me two long bamboos, and with them I shall go and poke in the drain, rouse the ferocious beast, and as he jumps out you will kill him. If I shall lose my life, which I am ready to do for you, please think of my wife ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... she, after surveying me, in great apparent astonishment, for some moments—"Vell, Monsieur?—and vat den?—vat de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?" ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the "ayes" or the "noes" would seem to have it! And upon this a poll would be demanded. In such cases the Speaker calls on two members, who come forth and stand fronting each other before the chair, making a gangway. Through this the ayes walk like sheep, the tellers giving them an accelerating poke when they fail to go on with rapidity. Thus they are counted, and the noes are counted in the same way. It seemed to me that it would be very possible in a dishonest legislator to vote twice on any subject of great interest; but it may perhaps be the case that there are no dishonest legislators ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... force—like Punch and the devil at the two ends of the stick. At last, after she had held me in a corner for half a minute, I made a rush upon her, drove her right to the opposite corner, so that the end of the handle gave her a severe poke in the body, which made her give up the contest, and exclaim as soon as she recovered her breath,—"Oh! you nasty, ungrateful, ungenteel brute! You little viper! Is that the way you treat your mother—and nearly ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... anything else, and the irresistible picture of a man editing a woman's magazine, brought forth an era of newspaper paragraphing and a flood of so-called "humorous" references to the magazine and editor. It became the vogue to poke fun at both. The humorous papers took it up, the cartoonists helped it along, and actors introduced the name of the magazine on the stage in plays and skits. Never did a periodical receive such an amount of gratuitous advertising. Much of the wit was absolutely without malice: some ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... you go, both of you dead as a couplin'-pin. Smeared all over those rocks. Get me? And me—I'll be sorry the regrettable accident was so naughty and went and happened—and I just got off in time meself. And I'll pinch papa's poke while I'm helping get ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... than is usual in Africa, arguing that they are a rougher and more war-like people than the generality. If shoved aside, or pushed with a stick, they show their savage nature by turning fiercely like a fatted pig upon whoever tries to poke ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... bragged about her to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take notice of other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blase roue of five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke his finger into the soft spot ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... toil in the factories—very likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes froze as early as September. Will Stoker had had nothing further to do down there than poke fires. He had been fireman, night fireman in the factory; but during the day he had nothing to do but sleep, earning sure money by a lazy life—merely ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Bullion that short man, father, with the cold eyes and gruff voice, and the queer eyebrow which he seems to poke at people?" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... he to Neptune, 'may it please your worshipful honor; I do not wish for wings to fly, for I do not care to poke my nose into strange places; I might get lost or hurt, you know; I was contented enough until the other day, when I saw a great rope come down into the water, and fasten itself in some mysterious way about ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... I began opening one after another the drawers in the chest. Each was neatly lined with paper, but otherwise empty. As though possessed by a mania for searching, I took out each paper and carefully assured myself that nothing had slipped underneath. Val, roused by my action, began to poke into the drawers of the dressing-table; but his search was just as fruitless. There was nothing to be done but to settle as to the packing of the ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it seemed to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... home when we spoke of the majestic Cuchullins and the heathery braes of Balquidder. In the Peerless every one took wine or liqueurs. There was no bill of fare, but a long list of wines and spirits was placed by each plate. Instead of being disturbed in the middle of dinner by a poke on the shoulder, and the demand, "Dinner ticket, or fifty cents," I was allowed to remain as long as I pleased, and at the conclusion of the voyage a gentlemanly Highland purser asked me for my passage ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... was rude and he was rough! He used to pinch, he used to poke, And called his rudeness just a joke. What made him plague his playmates so? He was a Goop and ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... But yesterday he was the father of six children, running from May, the eldest, who was thirteen and at school, to the baby, just old enough to poke its little fingers into its father's eyes and crow and jump when he came in from his long and dreary tramps. They were as happy a little family as a family of eight could be with the wolf scratching at the door, its nose already poking through. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... and he poked him all the harder with a big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke him with a stick. ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... leaned across the aisle and patted Mary's hand in friendly fashion. "I'm so glad you are going to sit here," she said in an undertone. "I was afraid Miss Merton would put some old slow-poke there who wouldn't say 'boo' or pass notes or do anything to ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... had, of course, bowed inside the door, and all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him in ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... torn between the dignity and excitement of his new post, stalked ahead and thrust printed notices into the outstretched hands. Robert seized hold of one, but he was too excited to read. He felt Rufus poke him insistently. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... there I determined that some day I would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass wire for curios—a ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... malice, albeit we must always distrust a man of parts like you. But it is a dangerous game. Shall I give you an instance? Natoile, who runs a little outdoor theatre in the Champs Elysees, was arrested the day before yesterday for anti-patriotism, because he made Polichinelle poke fun ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a Frenchy on ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... marvel, for we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B—- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... and stick by me in what's going to happen in the next few days. This bunch," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the captain's cabin, "are fixing their necks for halters, an' I for one don't intend to poke my head through any noose of another man's making. There's more in this thing if it's handled right, and handled without too many men in on the whack-up than we can get out of it if that man Divine has to be counted in. I've a plan of my own, an' it won't take but three ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... roared, and Coburn said awkwardly: "I owe you an apology, and the privilege of a poke in the nose besides. But it was a situation—I ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a gentle poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor, and I waited. I hunched that Barcelona would be curious to know how his contact-girl was ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... sight, said to herself that she really must go down soon and see old Dr. Ben, poke among his old books, feed his pigeons, and scold him for his untidy ways. The girl's generous imagination threw a veil of romance over his life; she told Sally that he was like some one in ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... to the mill, This way and that way, and this way and that way; They took a lick out o' this wife's poke, And a lick they took out o' that wife's poke, And a loup in the lade, and a dip in the dam, And hame they cam' wallopin', ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... him is not seen of any; wherefore meseemeth we were best go thither in quest thereof without delay, ere any forestall us. We shall certainly find it, for that I know it well, and when we have gotten it, what have we to do but put it in our poke and getting us to the moneychangers' tables, which you know stand still laden with groats and florins, take as much as we will thereof? None will see us, and so may we grow rich of a sudden, without having to smear walls ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children's books of the period, if we except the "Jests" and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on the title-pages. The title of "The ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... that day, too. It was a great sight to see Andy Lowes leap nimbly up the ladder and poke in window after window with his spiked ax, stepping backward now and then into nozzleman Jones's face in order to view the effect. The axmen got glory enough to last for years, and it was an axman who put out the last scrap of fire. ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... Ruhleben, gloried in the event and in the spirit it showed, and were ready to welcome them heartily—"you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut down months ago. Now, look still farther, and I will tell ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... me poke as much fun at her as I chose, because she said she was so glad to have me at breakfast; and I stayed long after breakfast, for I had told my mother that it was her birthday, and that I should be late. And ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... had it, why, I thought 'twas simply prime! And used to poke the hands around ter make it "cuckoo" time; And allers when we'd company come, they had ter see the thing, And, course they almost had a fit when "birdie" come ter sing. But, by and by, b'gosh! I found it somehow lost its joys, I found it kind er made me sick ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thing doesn't make a man tired," he laughed, leading me back to the library, where he began to poke the fire into a blaze. "Sit down awhile. You must be tired, I think,—you've worked hard in this campaign, a good deal harder than I have. I haven't said much about it, but I appreciate it, my boy." Mr. Watling had the gift of expressing his feelings naturally, without sentimentality. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by the other occupants of the trench. And each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets, saying: "Verdamnt Englaender" and: "Englaender Schwein,"—pigs of English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion. There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or good-natured pity for ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... trappers undertake any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. The body, hung ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... you don't f'rever have to be telling him you're sorry you did what you did, and he hasn't all time got one eye on you either, like God, and got to follow you 'round. And Santa Claus don't all time say, Shet your eyes and open your mouth,' like Doctor Sanford, 'and poke out your tongue.'" ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... These added to Ray's feeling of restlessness and impermanence. Sometimes she wore a hat that came down over her head, covering her forehead and her eyes, almost. The hair he used to love to touch was concealed. Sometimes he dined with an ingenue in a poke bonnet; sometimes with a senorita in black turban and black lace veil, mysterious and provocative; sometimes with a demure miss in a wistful little turned-down brim. It was like living with a stranger who was always ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... shore and the packet wharf. It drew near, and he saw that it was carried by an old man with long white hair and chin beard, who walked with a slight limp. Beside him was a thin woman wearing a black poke bonnet and a shawl. In the rear of the pair came another woman, a young woman, judging by the way she was dressed and her lithe, vigorous step. The trio halted on the platform of the building. The old man blew out the lantern. Then he threw ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him there, always with the short stick in his hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony, rattling the stick in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... presence. When distant, or supposed to be distant, we can call him hard or tender names, nay, even poke our poor fun at him. Mr. Punch, on one occasion, when he wished to ridicule the useful-information leanings of a certain periodical publication, quoted from its pages the sentence, "Man is mortal," and people ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... sought advice, acting upon which he slit the cows' ears, cut their tails half off to bleed them, and poured pints of "pain killer" into them through their nostrils; but they wouldn't make an effort, except, perhaps, to rise and poke the selector when he tried to tempt their appetites with slices of immature pumpkin. They died peacefully and persistently, until all were gone save a certain dangerous, barren, slab-sided luny bovine with white eyes and much agility in jumping fences, ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... laughing a little. "A man the other night told me he was going to make inquiries concerning the fortunes of his beloved one. He said he had no idea of buying a pig in a poke. That was ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... cheers he bottomed. The last work he did, po' man, was for Mrs. Mickleborough of whom we were speakin'. I used to hear of her befo' the war when she was pretty Miss Sarah Bland, in a white poke ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me on the stairs—she did. Here's the room, and no woman in it. Give us a Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... the populace—confiscating canes, umbrellas and parasols—before allowing people to enter an art-gallery is necessary; although it is a peculiar comment on humanity to think people have a tendency to smite, punch, prod and poke beautiful things. The same propensity manifests itself in wishing to fumble a genius. Get your coarse hands on Richard Mansfield if you can! Corral Maude Adams—hardly. To do big things, to create, breaks down tissue awfully, and to mix it with society and still do big things ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... did not pick up and we continued to poke along at about six knots, hardly consoled by the knowledge that she was doing no better. Time seemed to be creeping on its hands and knees. The Orchid, if such were the yacht ahead of us, continued beyond the fringe of mist, now mixed with a fine drizzle, showing ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... she acknowledged, with a wistful look at him, half deprecating humility. "I guess I'll poke off to bed." ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... my time's nearly up and I know it." "Oh, hell!" I exclaimed, with a good-natured impatience, and giving him a poke in ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... dear. Twenty-two shillings here, thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... anxious to do the best he could for them, and the Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be interfered with—it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to stir up. They had no notion of going to school again—which no one wanted them to do—nor to church, because it was like little boys; and they wouldn't ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these wretched veils suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. Poverty is hic et ubique," says he, "and if you do shut the jade out of the door, she will always contrive in some manner to poke her pale, lean ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... oath and thy silver, and no harm whatever shall befal thee." And she ceased not to persuade me and importune me and make light of the matter till evil entered into my mind and I put my head in the poke[FN344] and, declaring I would ne'er consent, consented. So I veiled my eyes and held up the edge of my mantilla between me and the people passing and he put his mouth to my cheek under the veil. But while kissing me he bit me so hard a bite that it tore the flesh from my cheek,[FN345] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... life, I'll pay you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... isn't it? I think I'll ask first and see if anybody else is going to give in our names. Perhaps Iva or Nesta may. It would be much nicer than seeming to poke ourselves forward." ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... of the Englishman, Koenigin?" I asked, giving the fire another poke, not from shamefacedness, but because it really needed it, for the evening ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... live oak yonder!" cried Nick, pointing a trembling finger as he spoke. "It must be hollow, because I saw the beast poke his old head out. He ducked back again like fun when he saw me looking. A bear, fellows! Just think how many steaks he'd give us, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... sorry—take the bird for your pains," replied Grubb, and apprehending another pig in a poke, he bobbed down and retreated as fast as his ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... E, as arranged in relation to the yoke, C, and in combination with the poke, A, in the manner as ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the donkey said to the horse who preferred hay to thistles. Usually the public likes best the very piece the composer himself cares least about. So wherever I go I hear, 'Oh, Professor, do sing us that beautiful song about Sammy Patch.' And I can't poke my head inside the Thistle Club but some donkey bawls out, 'Here's Bray! Now we'll have a song. Sing us Sammy Patch, old fellow.' Really, I've sung that song so many times I'm tired of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... his body shaking and his voice quavering, "why do you, in all your hope and comfort here, speak of that to me? Do you think I have never been tempted to do that very thing? And yet you call me a coward. Have I not breathed foul air for days, fearful to poke up our air tube in deserted waters lest by the millionth chance it might lead to a capture? And yet you speak of deliberate surrender! Even though I destroyed my charts, the capture of a German submarine in those seas would set the forces of the outer world searching for the passage. If they ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... pronounced by philosophers the sure basis of a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since distinguished them, and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about 'buying a pig in a poke.' ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... return with goods to Hindon. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for some years, during which the officers of the excise had stared a thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the quaint old woman in her poke bonnet and shawl, driven by a blind man with a vacant face, and had suspected nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of brandy delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was an honest gentleman, ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... are as vivid now as though the year 18— (I had very nearly let my age slip then) had not been long ago numbered with the past. Strangely enough, some of the most vivid of my recollections are the efforts of the London street-boys to poke fun at my and my companion's complexion. I am only a little brown—a few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all admire so much; but my companion was very dark, and a fair (if I can apply the term to her) subject for their rude wit. She was hot-tempered, poor thing! and as there were no policemen ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... tramway. They sit in your lap; they stand on your toes; when they wish to pass they simply push you. Everything in silence; they know that silence is golden, and they have the worship of gold. When the conductor wishes your fare he gives you a poke, very serious, without a word. As for the types— but there is only one—they are all variations of the same—the commis-voyageur minus the gaiety. The women are often pretty; you meet the young ones in the streets, in the trains, in search of a husband. They ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into her hair ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... not to be let loose, and he soon showed his disgust by sharp angry barks. The old raven came slily—hop, hop, hop—behind them, to give some one a dig with his hard beak; but Fred knew his tricks now and kept him at a distance; while Philip, who was not attending, received a sharp poke right in the calf of the leg, which sent him chasing his aggressor round the yard, armed with the stump of an old birch broom; but the raven hopped upon the dog-kennel, then upon the wall, and from ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... stocking-machine incessantly at work; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might pass for one of those coquetries ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... birds that think themselves musical," she continued: "they are well behaved and considerate enough in the day, but as soon as it is a nice, quiet, calm night, or a bit of a moon is in the sky, they make night hideous to everyone within earshot—'Mo-poke! mo-poke!' Oh! it gives ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke of papers and ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... guttural response which might have meant anything, but she proved that she was uninjured by getting on her feet. She stared at her disturber bewilderedly, then, perceiving her bonnet, stooped to pick it up, and stood for a moment trying sleepily to poke it into shape and readjust its tawdry plumage. But all of a sudden she gave a start and began looking around her with recovered energy. She missed something, evidently. Gorham followed the direction of her gaze as it shifted, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke a hole ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Excellency," said the Captain, twisting his hard features into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, "if they do not put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the present, your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever Dugald Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune there are in M'Callum More's pibroch, or ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... old driver to the boy, as he gave him a vigorous poke in the ribs and then went off into one of his dreadful laughing spells—"see what it is to be a performer an' not workin' for such an old fossil as Job is! He'll be so sweet to you now that sugar won't melt in his mouth, an' there's no chance of his ever ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... still extant. I lighted, among other dingy and eccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's eye in it, and in the dirtiest Possible state. When I reached this window, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements, Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider them born for no earthly purpose but to "save ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... see my trail for smoke when I get a gait on for God's country, my wad in my poke and the sunshine in my eyes. Say! How'd a good juicy tenderloin strike you just now, green onions, fried potatoes, and fixin's on the side? S'help me, that's the first proposition I'll hump myself up against. Then a general whoop-la! for ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... had for forty years; for, first, they went to Bartlett's Hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted with them for a full hour,—and then it was discovered by the younger portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn, surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly soul, who could take and give a joke, and steer a sled as well as the smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could send a ball further than Bill Sykes himself, who could out-throw any boy in town, and roll ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Sir Bill, but they was a few went over to the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's some o' them runnygades behind us. They're 'spectin' to git a lot o' plunder an' a horse apiece an' ride 'em back an' swim the river at the place o' the many islands. We'll poke down to the trail on the edge o' the drownded lands afore sunrise an' I kind o' mistrust ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... with whom he co-operated in founding the Secession Church; his sermons and religious poems, called "Gospel Sonnets," were widely read; one of the first of the Scotch seceders, strange to contemplate, "a long, soft, poke-shaped face, with busy anxious black eyes, looking as if he could not help it; and then such a character and form of human existence, conscience living to the finger ends of him, in a strange, venerable, though highly questionable ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was a turtle as big as a wash tub in the river" she sobbed, "and I wish it would eat that old Black Bass to the last scale. And I'm going to take the shotgun, and go over to the embankment, and poke it into the tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won't go off too and leave me. I want this onion bed spaded right away, so ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of former heroes of fiction, who win their trying lady by their perfection of good conduct on a background of high birth; and who are not seen to be wooden before the volume closes. Her fatigue of sleeplessness plunged her into the period of poke-bonnets and peaky hats to admire him; giving her the kind of sweetness we may imagine ourselves to get in the state of tired horse munching hay. If she had gone to her bed with a noble or simply estimable plain image of one of her friends in her heart, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I grew pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... miss none of the fun. The dachshunds sat on their haunches, looking up, and probably wondering why their friend, Tommy, insisted on roosting up a tree. The Captain and Charley were immediately below, engaged in an earnest effort to poke the 'coon into ascending the hole. Tommy was reporting the result of these efforts from above. The General, his feet firmly planted, had unlimbered a huge ten-bore shotgun, so as to be ready for anything. Uncle Jim stood by, smoking his pipe. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... started to poke among the ruins, thinking they might possibly turn up something of value. While they were at this task Barringford and ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... up to respect the laws of God and the prophet. When I came to marriageable age, and, "unsight, unseen," was induced to espouse the veiled Amina, it was, as we say in Bagdad, like "buying a pig in a poke," although rumor greatly magnified her charms, and a secret inclination prompted me. I longed eagerly for the wedding-day; and when her face was revealed to conjugal eyes, methought that Mahomet had sent down a houri from his paradise. Yet I found out, to my cost, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tea-and-gossip book, not the kind to hiss a scandal at you. It was bound in blue cloth and was a heavy book, so that I held it on a cushion. (And this device I recommend to others.) It was the kind of book that stays open at your place, if you leave it for a moment to poke the fire. Some books will flop a hundred pages, to make you thumb them back and forth, though whether this be the binder's fault or a deviltry set therein by their authors I am at a loss to say. But Shaw ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... it can't be helped. Don't know why he couldn't come and have his dinner first. Like to see the death-bed I'D go to without MY dinner; it's a full-skin billet, if you ask me. Well, must just dine without him, and he'll have to buy his pig in a poke after all. Mind touching that bell? Suppose you know what he came to see me about? Sorry I sha'n't see him again, for his own sake. I liked Raffles—took to him amazingly. He's a cynic. Like cynics. One myself. Rank bad form of his mother ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... certainly very ugly. She had a hooked nose and pointed chin. Grey wisps of hair straggled out from beneath her poke bonnet. Her eyes were like two snakes, and when she opened her mouth to speak she showed her long pointed iron teeth. She was dressed in a black cloak, from which protruded her long skinny arms and claw-like hands. She carried a broom-stick, ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... that," said my grandfather, beginning to poke the fire, "and when a man has got through his doubting, what does he begin to build up in the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... morning-sun nearly broiled us, till we got into a sort of cave, excavated in the hill, it is said, with an idea of finding treasure. It seems there was once a Mexican calendar cut in the rock at this spot; and some white people who were interested in such matters, used to come to see it, and poke curiously about in search of other antiquities. Naturally enough, the Indians thought that they expected to find treasure; and with a view of getting the first chance themselves, they cut down the calendar, and made ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... the basket and exclaimed in joy as she breathed in the sweet perfume of the fresh flowers. Millie paused in the act of pouring coffee into big blue cups to "get a sniff of the smell," but Aunt Rebecca was impatient at the momentary delay. "My goodness, but you poke around. I like to get the supper out before it ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... and the girl gave him approving survey when he appeared that morning in his shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... endless ballad telling the fortune of a young man who went to sea, and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... place, and otherwise quite immovable, and very like other young gentlemen, Bill did not feel much the wiser for looking at him. He had a better view of him soon, however, for Master Arthur began to poke his friend's legs with the donkey-headed stick, and to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... you play jokes on the Colonel, Billy," said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. "There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun and Colonel ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred the town, and Margaretta ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... wouldn't know him if you saw him," she retorted. "Besides, he could see you long before you could see him, for his eyes are wonderfully keen." Then she gave her son a poke that sent him into the tunnel and bouncing down upon the soft nest at the bottom of it. "You stay there until I come home again!" she called. "Do you want to go where your two brothers and ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "Poke one of the tent poles in to him and let him bite it!" roared Mr. Sparling. "Half a dozen of you get around behind the cage and when we have his attention one of you pull Bob out. Keep your poles in the opening when you open ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... phrases and in the long ornate periods of the editor, the serfdom and the squalor and the heroic hope of these peasants and miners and artisans became vivid to me for the first time. Occasionally the compositor, a boy of about fifteen with a brown ink-smudged face, would poke his head in the door and shout: "It's true what they say, but they don't say enough, they don't ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... robe de chambre. In this costume and condition he will dance into Honeyman's apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache or over a novel or a newspaper; dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there; dance up to the cupboard where his reverence keeps his sherry, and help himself to ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Briggs, with an air of defiance, "what can do, eh? poke me into a family vault? bind me o' top of an old monument? tie me to a stinking carcase? make a corpse of me, and call it one of ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... their water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... looked, she saw the pike-gate open and a woman's figure enter, and she kept her eyes idly upon it as she walked on toward the house. The woman came slowly and hesitatingly toward the yard. When she drew nearer, Margaret could see that she wore homespun, home-made shoes, and a poke-bonnet. On her hands were yarn half-mits, and, as she walked, she pushed her bonnet from her eyes with one hand, first to one side, then to the other—looking at the locusts planted along the avenue, the cedars in the yard, the sweep of ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... he panted, swinging the nobbly stick in his hand, "can't come on more nor two at vunce. Be ready vith your stick—at their eyes—poke at 'em—no 'itting—" the rest was drowned in the echoing rush of heavy feet and the boom of hoarse voices. But now, seeing their quarry stand on the defensive, the pursuers checked their advance, their cries sank to growling murmurs, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... flag stick would just poke through the ventilator railing. Being effectively poked it struck Mr. J. Jervice neatly in the back of the neck, and the poke being vigorous, it aroused his attention ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... to say to you," said La Cibot. "M. Pons' heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M. Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep the secret—such a secret!—With your head on the block, you must not say where the pictures come from, nor who it ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... that we Blue Birds were little hustlers, but I never paid much attention to them then; but now I think we are hustlers when I see the way you Bobolinks poke away for two weeks and nothing to show ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... to poke the vine, and looked up at the daughter sadly. "Of course there's Lila; if it is best for her—why that's ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Julia was bunched up in a low chair between him and his father. She too was a tall stag of a thing, but she sat bunched up like a witch. She wore a wine-purple dress, her arms seemed to poke out of the sleeves, and she had dragged her brown hair into straight, untidy strands. Yet she had real beauty. She was talking to the young man who was not her husband: a fair, pale, fattish young fellow in pince-nez and dark clothes. This was ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... "pay him gold pieces five," "How—pay a rogue?" the Knight did fierce retort. "A ribald's rant—give good, gold pieces for't? A plague! A pest! The knave should surely die—" But here he met Duke Joc'lyn's fierce blue eye, And silent fell and in his poke did dive, And slowly counted thence gold pieces five, Though still he muttered fiercely 'neath his breath, Such baleful words as: "'S blood!" and "'S bones!" and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... hung open—he had laid aside his coat—displaying a broad stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into a poke in front for the better shelter of small, pale twinkling eyes set in a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... you can buy an apple dumplin for $3.00, and 25 cents extra for a tooth-pick, while at some other places it costs a man 1/2 a dollar to poke his ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... of: and they ought to say so fairly, instead of libeling us who were Apostles and gentlemen. But thus it is that the rascals make free with our names: and the cherubs keep track of these antics, and poke fun at us. So that it is not all pleasure, this being a Holy Apostle in Heaven, Jurgen, though once we Twelve were happy enough." And ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... quarters, and take a friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of their comrade excited neither anger nor resentment among the other boys, who yelled with delight at his discomfiture, but it made them more careful in approaching the cage, and though they continued to poke the prisoners with sticks they did not venture again to thrust a hand through the bars. At sunset the guards again came round, lifted the cage and carried it into a shed. A platter of dirty rice and a jug of water were put into the cage; two of the men lighted their ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... devil at the two ends of the stick. At last, after she had held me in a corner for half a minute, I made a rush upon her, drove her right to the opposite corner, so that the end of the handle gave her a severe poke in the body, which made her give up the contest, and exclaim as soon as she recovered her breath,—"Oh! you nasty, ungrateful, ungenteel brute! You little viper! Is that the way you treat your mother—and nearly kill ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... kettle which held about ten gallons. He put on so many small airs while the boys were bringing in the firewood and arranging it beneath the kettle that they began to dub him "Health Officer," "Doctor," and poke fun at him in several ways. Finally Dick came up and inspected the whole arrangement as if he had never seen ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... Boyd. As they drove hastily back they met a new, strange sight in Deadwood. A man in a sort of military uniform was marching along carrying a big drum which he pounded rhythmically; behind him were a dozen men and women in poke bonnets and blue skirts. Above them was a flag inscribed "Salvation Army." They stopped to sing a hymn, and were soon surrounded by a crowd of people who made scoffing remarks. The leader prayed, and all joined in a warlike hymn punctuated by ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... relief[Fr], high relief. hill &c. (height) 206; cape, promontory, mull; forehead, foreland[obs3]; point of land, mole, jetty, hummock, ledge, spur; naze[obs3], ness. V. be prominent &c. adj.; project, bulge, protrude, pout, bouge|[Fr], bunch; jut out, stand out, stick out, poke out; stick up, bristle up, start up, cock up, shoot up; swell over, hang over, bend over; beetle. render prominent &c. adj.; raise 307; emboss, chase. [become convex] belly out. Adj. convex, prominent, protuberant, projecting &c. v.; bossed, embossed, bossy, nodular, bunchy; clavate, clavated[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fussy, nervous, irritable, worrying men and women of life, who poke their noses into other people's affairs, retail all the scandal, and hand on all the slander and gossip of empty and, therefore, evil minds. They are invariably well to do and without any work or responsibilities. They go gadding about restless and feverish ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... baskets, and by occasional processions of sheep or cattle. One man went slowly by driving a huge pig; he was in sight for quite five minutes, dawdling along, and allowing the pig to have his own sweet will as far as speed was concerned, but occasionally giving him a gentle poke with a stick when he paused to burrow his nose in the mud. Small groups of men stood talking at the corner of the market place; a big family went by, evidently returning from a country walk; presently the lamps were lighted, and then immense excitement reigned in the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... you can have. Two can sleep here nicely. True, the bed has not been made, but I can soon settle that!" and putting his lantern on the floor, he gave the bed a poke or two, and tried ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... He had, of course, bowed inside the door, and all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him in the chest. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Fred saw it, was not to poke into other people's private affairs, but to get the clothes of Sam dry as soon as possible. Then he would feel that he and Bristles ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... near them," cautioned Mr. De Vere. "If you breathe too deeply of those fumes, you'll be killed. Get a boat hook, poke them out of the locker, spear them with the sharp point, and thrust them up through the broken ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... but I dare say I shall pick it up presently. And after dinner, in the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia did introduce me to two girls—the Roose girls—you know. Well, Lady Jane is the best of the two; Lady Violet is a lump. They both poke their heads, and Jane turns in her toes. They have rather the look in their eyes of people with tight boots. Violet said, "Do you bicycle?" and I said, "Yes, sometimes;" and she said, with a big gasp: "Jane and I adore it. We have been ten miles since tea with Captain Winchester ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... this time there was a tear in her eye. Sanders was little better than an "orra man," and Sam'l was a weaver, and yet—But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... English players are wise, perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate than those that ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... at her propensity to poke fun. "I have been detailed for that service for more than two years. Moreover, I was a good enough scout to pass within the lines of your army to-night, and to travel the whole length ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... to the fireside. He began to poke the fire in protest, but a smile gave the lie to the moroseness and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... good part of the summer. Mr. Mavick's business keeps him in the city and we have to poke about a good deal alone. Now, Miss Alice, I am so glad I have met your cousin. Perhaps he will show us some of the interesting places and the beauties of the country he knows so well." And she ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... solar-hat, a poke-bonnet sort of head-gear, was designed and tied on the pates of one thousand transport camels as an experiment to prevent sickness and sunstroke. Although the brutes have the smallest modicum of brains, they are very liable to attacks of illness from heat-exhaustion. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... whut Mandy and me said," drawled Pleasant. "If you poke yore nose over the line 'bout three of us will shoot you on sight. We'd do it fer Juno, an' if she ain't alive we'll do ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... in my face, flung on the ground near a fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... unfortunate moment. Everything was just beginning to get into shape. I had just bought a cinema for the men; our gunners were working better every day; there was a chance of my becoming a general, and Dundas was teaching me jazz. And then the politicians poke their noses in and go and make peace, and Clemenceau demobs Aurelle! Life's just one ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... Jacob, is a wag, but pleasantries are not always understood in the ghetto, and he is made to pay for them. His practical jokes and his small respect for the notables of the community, whom he dares to defy and poke fun at, are ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... went to their house duties, and the boys to their out-door work till half-past nine, when a bell called them to prayers. Then books and slates were got out, and school commenced. All were kept steadily at work till twelve, the cook girls only occasionally getting up to poke the fire or peep into the pots. Dinner was at half-past twelve, pork, beans, turnips, potatoes, and bread; and then there was intermission until half-past two, when they assembled ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's. The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized Allison's, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... an excellent place, Tim Tim!" Mrs. Tamytam said, as she threw her little poke bonnet back from her head. "An excellent place!" Tim Tim Tamytam scrambled up the root of the tree and peered into the dark hole in the tree trunk. "HMMM!" he said by way of reply, "Did you bring the candle ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... No, I think not. Her captain he is too big fool. But I think she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and shove her oar in every ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... pale. "Well, I bet girls can't be pirate-killers," he retorted angrily, "like Jim Hawkins. Or a p'liceman on horseback, or a millionaire, or own islands all by theirselves, or ride el'phants like Aladdin, or poke other girls ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... it was too late to cure them, and McQueen was not the man to pay social visits. Of his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung Archie fell from. When he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. He was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a blessing of an ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... hit, 'specially with the ladies. Some of 'em would poke him with their fingers to see if he was real or only a kind of a stuffed figure like they burn in elegy. And when he'd move they'd squeak, and make eyes at him as they went up to the slosh. He looked fine in his halberdashery. He slept at $2 a week in a hall-room on Third Avenue. He invited ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... cancelli, utricle, bladder; pericarp, udder. stomach, paunch, venter, ventricle, crop, craw, maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c. (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but what mattered that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic odors ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... won't, dear. You couldn't if you wanted to—but you don't really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea. I hope you have ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of noise you fancy you hear. It was like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and listened and then came another noise, like some one poking a fire. Now, you remember there was no one to poke a fire or move a chair downstairs, because Eliza and Father were both out. They could not have come in without our hearing them, because the front door is as hard to shut as the back one, and whichever you go in by you have to give a slam that ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... put in your two cents' worth, you old croaker?" said Herb, giving Jimmy a poke in his well padded ribs. "I'll win that prize just as well by not working as you will by working. You know you're too fat and lazy, to make up a ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. "There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to rummage around an' poke him out for ourselves: ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... "What's a name? Prob'bly some man named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office to change the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... dreamt it fifty times it wouldn't make any difference," ses George Hatchard. "Here! wot are you up to? 'Ave you gone mad, or wot? You poke me in the ribs like that agin if ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... was the German's turn to be astonished. Ranjoor Singh strode in, dressed as a Sikh farmer, and frowned down Yasmini's instant desire to poke fun at him. The German rose to salute him, and the Sikh acknowledged the salute with a nod such as royalty ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... if such silliness as this pleases my daughter, it makes no difference to me. For, after all, you would be the one they'd poke fun ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... not to mix yourself with people's affairs till you do know a little about 'em. What business is it o' yourn, eh, whether my children goes to Sunday-School? Sunday-School! what a poke it is!" ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... Metcalf to the governorship of Canada, vacated by Sir George Arthur. An article in the London Times attacked Sir E. Wilmot with uncommon acrimony, attributed by himself to the influence of private spleen. He was described as a mere joking justice, accustomed in his judicial office to "poke fun" at prisoners, destitute alike of talents and dignity, and his character a contrast with that of the new Canadian governor. This bitter diatribe was published in the colonies, and was not forgotten in the strife of ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... magnetism, counts; so does an intelligent knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit on five copies safely ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... that failed to knock at my door. From the time I heard the name of Ursula Priscilla Jenkins and knew it belonged to me, I can recall but one beautiful memory of my childhood. It is the face of my mother in its frame of poke bonnet and pink roses, as she leaned over to kiss me good-by. I never saw her again, nor my father. Yellow fever laid heavy tribute upon our southern United States. I was the only one left in the big house on the plantation, and my old black ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... disappointment to be feared in that respect. Situation, orientation, outline, altitudes, levels, hydrography, climatology, lines of communication, all these were easily to be verified in advance. People were not buying a pig in a poke, and most undoubtedly there could be no mistake as to the nature of the goods on sale. Moreover, the innumerable journals of the United States, especially those of California, with their dailies, bi-weeklies, weeklies, bi-monthlies, monthlies, their reviews, magazines, bulletins, &c., had been ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... sensitive and excitable, though he never lost his head, while Kreis and Hamilton were like a pair of cold-blooded savages, seeking out tender places to prod and poke. As the evening grew late, Norton, smarting under the repeated charges of being a metaphysician, clutching his chair to keep from jumping to his feet, his gray eyes snapping and his girlish face grown harsh and sure, made a grand ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... at home when we spoke of the majestic Cuchullins and the heathery braes of Balquidder. In the Peerless every one took wine or liqueurs. There was no bill of fare, but a long list of wines and spirits was placed by each plate. Instead of being disturbed in the middle of dinner by a poke on the shoulder, and the demand, "Dinner ticket, or fifty cents," I was allowed to remain as long as I pleased, and at the conclusion of the voyage a gentlemanly Highland purser asked me for my ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... room and the next one opened into each other and were quite large, and both were covered with heavy rugs. Pussy's favorite game was to race back and forth from one end of the rugs to the other; sometimes he would poke his nose under the edge of a rug and wriggle in between the rug and the floor until he was simply a hump in the middle of it, like a dumpling. It was well Miss Mary always knew where he was, or he might have been stepped ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... knew how those gentry go to work! One never guesses what they're up to next. One of them treads on your foot, another gives you a poke in the eye with his stick and the third picks your pocket before you know where you are.... I've been had that way myself." He stopped and then continued, angrily. "But, bother it, what's the use of hanging about here! What a mob! It's ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..." ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... big hit, 'specially with the ladies. Some of 'em would poke him with their fingers to see if he was real or only a kind of a stuffed figure like they burn in elegy. And when he'd move they'd squeak, and make eyes at him as they went up to the slosh. He looked fine in his halberdashery. He slept at $2 a week in a hall-room on Third Avenue. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... had no idea of her countermoves. The scheme seemed to him in proper train, and he turned to poke out the fire. She instantly seized the glass, and poured its contents down her bosom. When he faced round again she was holding the glass to her ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... am a Poker bold and free, And I poke the livelong day. I love the land and I hate the sea, But the sky and the clouds are there ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... to say that you are the sole judge of the conditions of the purchase. I don't wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke. If to-morrow you authorize me, I won't say to buy, but to let these people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I'll confer with one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I'll stand up for your interests as if ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Yellow Pine, "if any hostiles should ever make out to git inside the notch, this 'ere'd be the best kind of fort. Them holes are all big enough to poke a muzzle through." ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It seemed that she had something to conceal. I brooded ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... an end to all rational conversation. Philip jumped up to inspect the crackers and pin-wheels. To my surprise, Mr. Flint showed no annoyance, but began to poke about among the Roman candles and rockets, as if he rather liked it. Jimmy has taken a great fancy to him, it seems. I must admit that it is in a man's favor to be liked by boys and dogs. So they drove stakes ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... certainly is cold weather for this Priest Captain fellow," Young commented, "if we've got hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you're about right, Professor—he'll want t' take it out of our hides. Just poke up th' Colonel t' telling all he knows about this old dodger. Th' Colonel's got his tongue pretty well greased just now with his own prime old Bourbon—pass me that jar, Rayburn, I don't mind if I have another whack at it ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... thought Nic; but he altered his mind the next moment, for he saw a spear come forward with a poke on one side of the tree, and then drive at the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Minos called these pale, frightened youths and sobbing maidens to his footstool, gave them each a poke in the ribs with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and dismissed them with a nod to his guards. But when his eyes rested on Theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his face ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... then, old rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more With your croak, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... image wearing them in the cracked mirror by the side of the big fireplace. She had to make experiments with dripping tallow dips before she got a light which would enable her to get the full effect of an ornate old poke-bonnet which was the chief treasure from the chest, but finally she did so, and exclaimed in ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... him,' she said, emphasizing every word with a poke. 'He's too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain't true, and his tongue's too smart. I ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to find Buck trying to follow him—trying to, because the old man, who hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him to do—roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... and OLDBOY enter. They chuckle, and poke one another in the ribs, remarking "Gad" and "Zounds" at intervals. They bless the young couple, and order up some of the old Madeira. The curtain falls as OLDBOY gives the health of the young people, with the wish that they may have a dozen children, and a cellar ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... Rice concluded to poke fun at the "Enterprise" reports, pointing out their mistakes. But this was not wise. Clemens, in his next contribution, admitted that Rice's reports might be parliamentary enough, but declared his glittering ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the most discreet among them quite content to leave the house; others, with their curiosity inflamed anew, to poke about and peer into corners and curtained recesses while the opportunity remained theirs and the man of whom they stood in fear sat lapsed in helpless unconsciousness. A few, and these the most thoughtful, devoted all their energies to a serious quest ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... the young ladies obtained the melons from a farmer," explained Tom Reade, giving Dan an unseen poke in ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... now, only give me time, and if God spares my life, I'll pay you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying "There, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... you only realized in what anguish I went there, all on account of you. You know. I've told you before. Don't laugh at me; don't poke ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... the party is sent up the tree, and given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or pry the cornered animal out of his castle. Compelled to leave the hole, it creeps out upon a limb, and squatting down, snarls at the stranger, who tries to shake loose its hold. But this is a vain attempt. A raccoon can cling like a burr. Try to drag your pet ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Don't you know it's time to get up?" said Maisie Talbot, administering a vigorous poke that would have roused the Seven Sleepers of legendary lore, and ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... but he could not walk about the farm any longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg like that's ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... he ejaculated. "All that tall talk—! Probably got it from some man who hangs about; learned it off like a parrot. Did she poke this in here herself last night, or did she send that sneak-faced Frenchwoman? I like her nerve!" He wondered whether he might have been breathing audibly when the intruder thrust her head between his curtains. He was conscious that he did not look a Prince Charming ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... a cautious look around. There they sat, lined up like schoolboys, on the dresser, trying to get at the impudent squirrels in the glass! Failing in that, they investigated the bottles and boxes. They didn't care much for the smell of camphor, but one poke-nosey fellow put his nose in the powder jar and puffed; when he backed away, he looked like a merry old Santa Claus, his whiskers white with powder and his ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... others fled screaming. One doubtful type raised a spear, but no one else tried that after the pterodactyl-eye picked him up and dropped him in the swamp. The priests were a hard-headed lot and weren't buying any lizards in a poke; they just stood and muttered. I had to ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... whisked away into their holes, and left the inquirers in the lurch, who could not tell what had become of them; for though they did find a round hole that they thought might be one of their burrows, it was so narrow that they could only poke in their noses, but could get no further; the grey squirrels being much fatter and bigger ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... disposition, begged leave to ask Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go with it, and, if possible, the very place in which it is deposited. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... call a man by his Christian name. It seems more sociable. That's one thing I like about the French—sociability. They go in for liberty, equality and brotherhood. But I don't take any stock in their skeptical notions. I'd as soon eat poke-root and sleep on pizen-vine as read Voltaire and Rousseau. Tom Payne is no better. What's the latest news from Washington? Is Tom Jefferson going to make war on Spain? It ain't war we want; it ain't more territory ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... to crawl out from under his tent, with the help of others. He had several bumps to prove what a close call it had been. The others could not lose a chance to poke fun at him; for it was not often the opportunity came when the fun-maker of the troop could be ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... safely hope to quit the dreadful field Delug'd with ink, and sleep behind my shield; Unless dire Codrus rouses to the fray In all his might, and damns me—for a day. As turns a flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... tempts us to reply to their prejudiced and absurd reflections, "Physician, heal thyself;" for if there is one thing more ugly than another, it is the old-fashioned bonnet with crown, curtain, and poke, to which a few old maids rigidly adhere—just as Quakeresses do to their hideous and antiquated style. There is a kind of self-righteousness in the protests of these ladies, with which we confess that we have no sympathy. We ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... of the graveyard is set apart as a sort of potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried. This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, 'tis only on the less important parts, that you ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of them near Church Butte and Granger stations, nearly nine hundred miles west of Missouri River. You have to poke among cobble-stones, etc. to find them, and when a person comes upon a handsome specimen, he will shout, as did a minister from Chicago, one day, with me, when he picked up a nice one as large as ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... me the most characteristic of all. Y is the most curious figure in Martinique folk-lore. Y is the typical Bitaco,—or mountain negro of the lazy kind,—the country black whom city blacks love to poke fun at. As for the Devil of Martinique folk-lore, he resembles the travailleur at a distance; but when you get dangerously near him, you find that he has red eyes and red hair, and two little horns under his chapeau- Bacou, and feet like an ape, and fire in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... aisle and patted Mary's hand in friendly fashion. "I'm so glad you are going to sit here," she said in an undertone. "I was afraid Miss Merton would put some old slow-poke there who wouldn't say 'boo' or pass notes or do anything to help the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... the bishop, positively assured Mr Harding that he wanted another resident chaplain,—not a young working chaplain, but a steady, middle-aged chaplain; one who would dine and drink a glass of wine with him, talk about the archdeacon, and poke the fire. The bishop did not positively name all these duties, but he gave Mr Harding to understand that such would be the nature of ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... saw how kind he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile pertinacity, would poke his small self ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. "Ah, if I could but shudder!" said he, "but I shall not learn it here either." Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner, "Au, miau! how cold we are!" "You simpletons!" cried he, "what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by the fire and warm ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... lady too, 'Pear-like, makes so much o' you—, Least, they've allus pampered me Like one of the fambily.— The boys, too, 's all thataway— Want you jes to come and stay;— Price, and Chape, and Mandaville, Poke, Chasteen, and "Catfish Bill"— Poke's the runt of all the rest, But he's jes the beatinest Little schemer, fer fourteen, Anybody ever seen!— "Like his namesake," old man claims, "Jeems K. Poke, the first o' names! Full o' tricks and jokes—and you Never know what Poke's go' do!" Genius, ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... like a fiery serpent along the river. The dark outlines of strange, wildly-fantastical figures silently move amongst the flames. Sometimes they raise their arms towards the sky, as if in a prayer, sometimes they add fuel to the fires and poke them with long iron pitchforks. The dying flames rise high, creeping and dancing, sputtering with melted human fat and shooting towards the sky whole showers of golden sparks, which are instantly lost in the clouds ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... "Oh, a poke is a pocket; or a hiding-place of any sort. Of course, this information sent father to digging around every fir tree and oak tree on the place. As you know, there are hundreds of both kinds of trees, so the directions ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... in the bedrooms to make all kinds of mysterious measurements, to open and shut doors, to examine closets, to try window-sashes, even to poke her head up ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... they went to Bartlett's hill, where the boys and girls were coasting, and coasted with them for a full hour; and then it was discovered by the younger portion of his flock that the parson was not an old, stiff, solemn, surly poke, as they had thought, but a pleasant, good-natured, kindly soul, who could take and give a joke and steer a sled as well as the smartest boy in the crowd; and when it came to snow-balling, he could send a ball further than Bill Sykes himself, who could out-throw any boy in town, and ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... little time for play on his plantation. Even the very small children were assigned tasks. They hunted hen's eggs, gathered poke berries for dyeing, shelled corn and drove the cows home in the evening. Little ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... been over all that a million times? My mind's sore workin' with it; there ain't a thought in me that don't ache from it. But David's right. We've got to part. I put your things in this poke here," she said, and she gave him a bag made from an old pillow tick, with a few clothes lumping it half full. "I'll carry the baby, Laban." She pulled back from him with the child in her arms. "Or no, you can carry her; you'll have to leave her, too, and you've ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... antics as before were again gone through. After this description it will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees to peep ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... invited, I consented to spin them a yarn. The old gentleman settled himself in his chair, my mother smoothed her apron, folded her hands, and looked meekly into my face. Tom Lokins filled his pipe, stretched out his foot to poke the fire with the toe of his shoe, and began to smoke like a steam-engine; then I cleared my throat and began my tale, and before I had done talking that night, I had told them all that I have told in this little book to you, good ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... cook, and seemed to poke an invisible fire with an unseen poker - the cook seemed to be putting an unseen dish into an ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... his eye on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... as arranged in relation to the yoke, C, and in combination with the poke, A, in the manner as and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Bells'? I'll go over at once and poke that mystery out. Maria! Maria! She's sure to to be eaves-dropping somewhere near. Maria, come here ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... dragging on quite long enough," said George Cannon, as he stooped to poke the morsel of fire in the old-fashioned grate, which had a hob on either side. On one of these hobs was a glass of milk. Hilda had learnt that day for the first time that at a certain hour every evening George Cannon drank a glass of warm milk, and that this glass of warm milk ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... panted. Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... she?" commented her companion. "Well, that'll mean lots of fun watching Paul squirm. But don't mind him, Lydia." Madeleine was one of the women who prided herself on her loyal sense of solidarity among her sex. "If he says a word, you poke him one in the eye. Keep her till after your confinement, anyhow. A woman ought to be allowed to run her house without any man butting in. We let them alone; they ought ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... my grandfather, beginning to poke the fire, "and when a man has got through his doubting, what does he begin to build up in the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... in their way. An elder of the kirk at Muthill used to manifest his humour and originality by his mode of collecting the alms. As he went round with the ladle, he reminded such members of the congregation as seemed backward in their duty, by giving them a poke with the "brod," and making, in an audible whisper, such remarks as these—"Wife at the braid mailin, mind the puir;" "Lass wi' the braw plaid, mind the puir," etc., a mode of collecting which marks rather a bygone state of things. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the window. It was as I expected. Outside the garden gate, in the road, a young slight girl in a large poke-bonnet and shawl and rather short-skirted dress was waiting, in great anxiety, as I could see by the way she held to the railings. Her face I could not see. The young man came out; she clasped her hands, he shook his head; they went off together ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... him. 'What would the neighbours say? They would poke fun at us; it'd be the joke of the village. Besides, we're too old ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... he. The giant can carry nothing heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors are to walk from his sentry-box to the door, and from the door back to his sentry-box, and to read the Sunday paper, and to poke the hall fire twice or thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does Cruikshank hate and scorn worse ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stars—with one of those keen profiled men who have such roguish eyes when they come to earth. Frenchmen strolling down the boulevards glanced skywards and smiled. They were brave lads who defended the air of Paris. No Boche would dare to poke the beak of his engine above the housetops. But one or two men were uneasy and stood with strained eyes. There was something peculiar about the cut of those wings en haut. They seemed to bend back at the tips, unlike a Bleriot, with ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... got to keep watch," observed Tom Tubbs; "and I hope our black guards will keep a look-out for any snake, leopard, or lion who may chance to poke his nose into the camp; although I wish that Mr Pikehead had left us our arms ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom Brown and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... say," she began, buttering a piece of bread energetically, "that it isn't like us Outdoor Girls to let anything scare us into staying near the house. Why, I declare, I don't believe there is one of us who would dare poke her nose past that rose bush in front of the porch after sundown. That's a pretty ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... became the conversation, and, when it had reached the stage where all feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had three hobbies, viz., personal ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... leaving his mother on Sunday, but Mrs. Worse said, "Go along, you great stupid! do you suppose that Samuelsen and I care to have you sitting and laughing at us when we are playing draughts; and besides," said she, giving him a sly poke with her finger, "don't you know there is somebody out there ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... great variety of them. These added to Ray's feeling of restlessness and impermanence. Sometimes she wore a hat that came down over her head, covering her forehead and her eyes, almost. The hair he used to love to touch was concealed. Sometimes he dined with an ingenue in a poke bonnet; sometimes with a senorita in black turban and black lace veil, mysterious and provocative; sometimes with a demure miss in a wistful little turned-down brim. It was like living with a stranger who ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... oysters and bean-soup has guv' me a splendid woice; and instead of skeering 'em away, if the thieves were to hear me singing out, my style of doing it would almost coax 'em to come and be took up. They'd feel like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk up, and poke their coat collars right into my fist. Then, after a while, I'd perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of pig ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry elegant, requires genus. 'Tisn't every man that can come ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... flock, we birds of prey. Come along! Why sit there sulking, like a spoiled child? You've made an ass of yourself, following me to Paris; sadly though you bungled that job in London, I gave you credit for more wit than to poke your head into the lion's mouth here. But—admitting that—why not be graceful about it? Here am I, amiably treating you like an equal: you might at least show gratitude enough to accept my ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Wool, in addition to being carders, spinners, and weavers, women were dyers, handling all the color resources of the times, boiling poke-berries in alum to get a crimson, using sassafras for a yellow or an orange, and producing a black by boiling the fabric with field-sorrel and then boiling it again with ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... member of its faculty one who possessed such excellent taste in the matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Sleepy Sam if I could only see Dick and Bob poke their noses over some of these rocks around here," said Archie. "They will be after us, as soon as they find out that we are captured; and when they get their eyes on these 'Greasers,' as they call them, ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... the west, and awètsal (cliff rose) in the north; join them together at the top and cover them with any shrubs you choose. Get two small forked sticks, the length of the forearm, to pass the hot stones into the sweat-house, and one long stick to poke the stones out of the fire, and let all these sticks be such as have their bark abraded by the antlers of the deer. Take of all the plants on which the deer most like to browse and spread them on the floor of the sweat-house, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... an armful of wood behind the sheet-iron camp stove, Bruce gave a disparaging poke at a pan of yeast bread ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... telephoned Flame almost at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or a—or a fur ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... A friend of mine had procured such a pass, and I was bent on doing likewise, though I had to face the president of the railroad to accomplish it. I'm a bashful individual, though I can't get any one to believe it; so it cost me a great effort to poke about the Worcester depot till the right door appeared, then walk into a room containing several gentlemen, and blunder out my request in a high state of stammer and blush. Nothing could have been more courteous than this dreaded President, but it was ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... are always plentiful, but at H.Q. one has an opportunity of sifting these, in fact I could always get the exact truth by asking members of the Staff, but I feel as a non-combatant that I have no right to openly poke my nose into purely military matters. Rumour said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could not imagine ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... won't find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... theer i' t' valley, wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke? Huthersfield is what they call it, wheer fowk live like pigs i' t' poke; ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a strange, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... Since single-stepping through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button. This allowed one to 'crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... together. I think they grew merrier as I approached, and I am quite sure I was hotter than I had been all day. "Confound the fellow! can't he turn into an innyard—anywhere out of the main street?" thought I, giving my driver a poke. He knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had a wrench, and the two hind wheels jolted over a high ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... appointed him to the responsible office of brakesman at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called "picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... there was something fishy about it," commented Thad. "Never again do I buy a pig in a poke!" ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... looked so moighty plisint that night that I took a lunar or two, jist to divart mesilf with, when Spokeshave wint below and there was nobody lift to poke fun ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... and the next one opened into each other and were quite large, and both were covered with heavy rugs. Pussy's favorite game was to race back and forth from one end of the rugs to the other; sometimes he would poke his nose under the edge of a rug and wriggle in between the rug and the floor until he was simply a hump in the middle of it, like a dumpling. It was well Miss Mary always knew where he was, or he might ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... with their baskets, and by occasional processions of sheep or cattle. One man went slowly by driving a huge pig; he was in sight for quite five minutes, dawdling along, and allowing the pig to have his own sweet will as far as speed was concerned, but occasionally giving him a gentle poke with a stick when he paused to burrow his nose in the mud. Small groups of men stood talking at the corner of the market place; a big family went by, evidently returning from a country walk; presently ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... seized hold of the branches that swept them off, and held their heads above water, but the youngest of the Chinese having floated away with the current, the Cossack and myself had the greatest difficulty in paddling the raft up to him. We came just in time to poke our poles down after him as he sunk for the third time, which he fortunately seized, and we drew him upon the raft half drowned. As the current was running at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, we were carried more than half a verst down before ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... said Jeremiah, 'we've not told you particulars. Yo're thanking us for a pig in a poke; but we had more forethought, and we put all down on a piece ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... noise you fancy you hear. It was like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and listened and then came another noise, like some one poking a fire. Now, you remember there was no one to poke a fire or move a chair downstairs, because Eliza and Father were both out. They could not have come in without our hearing them, because the front door is as hard to shut as the back one, and whichever you go in by you have to give a slam that you can hear all down ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Rexford; and then in a minute, "I am glad to see that you feel her loss, I am sure." Here she got half off her chair to poke the damper of the stove. "There is no loss so great as the loss of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... graveyard is set apart as a sort of potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried. This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster, upon whom no one, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his soberest moment would have been slow to admit a suspicion that any of the human race, which he regarded as on its knees before him, was venturing to poke fun at him. Drunk as he now was, the openest sarcasm would have been accepted as a compliment. After a gorgeous dessert which nobody more than touched—a molded mousse of whipped and frozen cream and strawberries—"specially ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... on the scored and scarred rail. "Now haow in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. Poke-hooked, too." They hauled together, and landed a goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod. He had taken the ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... apparition and sent for a surgeon. This surgeon sent for another, and both went over the skeleton, tapping, listening, prodding and counting. "All he needs is food and work," said surgeon Number One, giving the subject a final poke ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... man to live permanently in a large hall into which three or four horses, of a race already intelligent, should be allowed to go and come freely from the time they were born, just as dogs do in a family where they are pets, or something to that effect. They should have full liberty to poke their noses in their master's face, or lay their heads on his shoulder at meal-time, receiving their treat of lettuce or sugar or bread, only they must understand that they would be punished if they knocked off the vases or upset furniture, ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and wretched that they creep along the ground. They live on the heath, or high up in the mountains, or in the cold arctic regions. In the winter, they are quite hidden under the snow; in the summer, they just poke up their noses above the tops ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... front door as a distinguished visitor I am happy to show you the place. You can prowl about the garden, poke your nose into the pantry and learn, if it amuses you, all about my private life. But if you rent a high attic overlooking my premises and stair out of your window all day long, watching my movements and noting down everything I do, why, damn it, I call that vulgar. Staring ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... victorious Esperantists, at present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, entitled Lingvo de Molenaar, and sung to the tune of the American song Riding down from Bangor, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it changed ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... loves and rules us best. The rosy god lights not his taper For him who, in a trading paper, Behind a printed notice screens, And fears to tell us what he means. Why don't he to the busy marts Come forth and seige our tender hearts? 'Tis wrong to buy pigs in a poke: To wed so—what a silly joke! In promenade, church, or bazaar, At proper moments, there we are, To be secured by manly hearts, And, when secured, to do our parts To temper life with him we love, And woman's fondest instincts prove; To yield submission ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... long, thin line of eminently respectable ladies and gentlemen in early Victorian costume. The men in peg-top trousers and silk stocks, the women in crinolines and poke bonnets. Among them, holding the hand of a benevolent-looking, stoutish gentleman, was a mere girl. The terminating frills of a white unmentionable garment showed beneath her skirts. She wore a porkpie hat ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... un um! W'en dat chile rize up, ef rize up he do, he'll des nat'ally be a shadder. Yer I is, gwine on eighty year, en I aint tuck none er dat ar docter truck yit, ceppin' it's dish yer flas' er poke-root w'at ole Miss Favers fix up fer de stiffness in my j'ints. Dey'll come en dey'll go, en dey'll po' in der jollup yer, en slap on der fly-plarster dar, en sprinkle der calomy yander, twel bimeby dat chile won't look like hisse'f. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... Near Calcutta, they often break into gardens, put their noses into pastrycook's and fruiterer's shops, and have not the least hesitation, when they are affronted, in going up to the offenders and giving them a poke with their horns. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. The ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... o'clock of that morning when Silas Trimmer had found Bobby at his desk; by eleven Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, in the outer office, were quite unable to work; by twelve they were snarling at each other; at twelve-thirty Johnson ventured to poke his head in at the door, framing some trivial excuse as he did so, but found the two merchants with their heads bent closely over the advantages of the great combined stores. At a quarter-past one, returning from a hasty lunch, Johnson tiptoed to the door again. He still heard an insistent, high-pitched ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... he did not struggle or make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in frosty weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom; but when he saw and smelled that strange big fishy, black and white, speckledy bird, the like of which he had never before seen, he rushed wildly to the farther corner of the kitchen, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... and even when you're outside the three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about the only opportunity you two will ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... vehemence, that he had won the spoils in fair battle, at the expense of his head and shoulders, which he immediately uncovered, to prove his allegation. But his remonstrance having no effect upon his master, "Wounds!" cried he, "an I mun gee thee back the pig, I'se gee thee back the poke also; I'm a drubbing still in ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and wabbled up the "Turn-off" from the direction of the bay shore and the packet wharf. It drew near, and he saw that it was carried by an old man with long white hair and chin beard, who walked with a slight limp. Beside him was a thin woman wearing a black poke bonnet and a shawl. In the rear of the pair came another woman, a young woman, judging by the way she was dressed and her lithe, vigorous step. The trio halted on the platform of the building. The old man blew out the lantern. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and two together," agreed Mr. Hucks, still nodding, "and then the fat's in the fire. No, I wouldn' have the police poke a nose into the 'Oly Innocents—not if I was you. But how do I come into ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... effect they will have on the stupid dear face at the end of the coil of wire. After all, words must be very different after they've trickled round and round a long wire coil. Whatever becomes of them! And I, who am a bit deaf myself, and may in the end have a deaf-machine to poke at my friends, it ill becomes me to be so unkind, yet that's how I feel. So ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... before them. They were solid stone vaults, with open fronts grated with huge iron bars—our ancestors, whatever were their faults, did not err in the direction of flimsiness. Between two of these bars, then, Tom, having procured a long pole, proceeded to poke at the beast; but he soon found that the pole thickened too rapidly towards the end he held, to pass through the bars far enough to reach him. Thereupon, in utter fool-hardiness, backed by the groom, he undid the door a little way, and, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the kitchen and told his wife she must come to the ball that had followed the banquet. She did not wish to go, but he took her by the arm and led her into the midst of the festival. Imagine how the poor woman felt at that ball, dressed as she was, and with the pot of broth! The king began to poke his sword at her in jest, until he hit the pot, and all the broth ran on the floor. Then all began to jeer her and laugh, until poor Stella fainted away from shame, and they had to go and get some vinegar to revive her. At last the king's mother came forward and said: ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... along through the dust kicked up by the choo-choo car the boys rolled away in, I came upon a youth who held me up in the middle of the road and asked how I'd like to continue my run against time in an airship. He was a cheeky looking chap, and I felt like giving him a poke in the breather, when he grinned and gave me the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to his conscience, pity, or pride: nothing but a sharp poke among his ribs, a steady shower of blows on his fuzzy old back, and frequent 'yanks' of the reins produced any effect. It was impossible to turn out for anything, and the ladies resigned themselves to the ignominy of sitting still, in the middle of the road, ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... astonishin' part either," he observed. "While those bills were in the dark at the bottom of that crack they must have sprouted. They went in there nothin' but tens and twenties. These you just gave me are fives and twos and all sorts. You'd better poke astern of those boards again, Jed. The roots must be down there yet; all you've scratched ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Webber as some called him—was not only a man of parts, but had a peculiar flavour of his own: he had the sense of humour and observation of a memoirist and his wit healed more than it cut. For hours together he would poke about the country with a dog, a gun and a cigar, perfectly independent and self-sufficing, whether engaged in sport, repartee, or literature. He wrote and published for private circulation a small ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... questioners, too, sank into silence. The peasant tugged at his horse at rare intervals; the peasant woman exchanged brief remarks with him. Stepan Trofimovitch fell into a doze. He was tremendously surprised when the woman, laughing, gave him a poke and he found himself in a rather large village at the door of a ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't worry, my dear boy. I showed her how to fix a punctured tire all right. It's simple enough—you take the rubber thing they give you and fasten it in that metal thingumbob, glue it up, poke it in, pull it out, pump her up, and there ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... eating, Pine-apples, to preserve, Plovers, to roast, Plum charlotte, Plums for common use, Plums, to preserve, Plums,(egg,) to preserve whole, Plums, (green gage,) to preserve, Plum pudding, baked, Plum pudding, boiled, Poke, to boil, Pomatum, (soft,) Pork and beans, Pork cheese, Pork, (corned,) to boil, Pork, (pickled,) to boil with peas pudding, Pork cutlets, Pork, (leg of,) to roast, Pork; (loin of,) to roast, Pork, (middling piece,) to roast, Pork pie, ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... scamper'd all, vull run, An' out cried Tom, "I think The grinden-stwone is up on tun, Vor I can zee the wink. This is some kindness that the vo'k At Woodley have a-done, min; I wish I had em here, I'd poke Their numskulls down the ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... awful tired, you know;" Augusta, in a Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... carried up the steps into the sleeping-car, and for the next quarter of an hour it seemed to me that my box changed position every two minutes. The porter was getting us settled for the night He was about to poke the box that held me under the berth where little Elsie and her nurse were to sleep, when Stuart called him from the berth above, into which he had just climbed. So I was tossed up as if I had been an ordinary ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... exclaimed Miriam. "Almost any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a carriage? It ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... supper to-night! And we're going to have fried onions, and potatoes and ham omelette!' I had half a notion to ask Billy to come along with us on this trip, but somehow I hated to think of the fun he'd poke at me in case my wonderful invention turned out to be a fizzle, like so many of them have in the past. I knew you wouldn't give me away, Hugh, if that happened,—-and if I lived to tell the tale! Well, I hope I can get my pack on my back again for the last hundred feet; ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... the right!" shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. "Ready, exercise—one, two"—and so on. And then he would yell: "No, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms—swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there—what would some day be there; the exercise meant that these affable young Leesville store-clerks were ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... willowy girl, with masses of brown hair coiled in the funnel depths of a poke bonnet, a long check apron and a pair of tin buckets, became the typical guardian ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... what you don't poke your nose into. But now don't go chattering about this. Do be good—for father's sake. Do ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying "There, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... been such a friendly, tea-and-gossip book, not the kind to hiss a scandal at you. It was bound in blue cloth and was a heavy book, so that I held it on a cushion. (And this device I recommend to others.) It was the kind of book that stays open at your place, if you leave it for a moment to poke the fire. Some books will flop a hundred pages, to make you thumb them back and forth, though whether this be the binder's fault or a deviltry set therein by their authors I am at a loss to say. But Shaw ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... Bathe digs and climbs and clips and gathers, therefore she wears easily laundered garments; a white linen or cotton skirt and blouse, a Chinese coat to the knees, of pink cotton crepe and an Isle-of-Jersey sun-bonnet, a poke with curtain, to protect the neck and strings to tie it on. So while she claims never to have consciously considered being a decorative note in her own garden, her trained instinct for costuming herself appropriately and becomingly brings about ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... a possible interruption, "I was ready to poke fun at you last night just for being something capable and . . . and splendid. There was my jealousy again, I suppose. You ought to have heard papa on that score; 'Look here, my fine miss; if you could just be something worth ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... he was nearly ready to give up when he happened to poke his head in the hollow end of a tree whose roots were pinioned down by the huge rock. The small heart of the trunk had decayed, offering an entrance just large enough for ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... quite jumped and exclaimed, "Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone. Why didn't you poke up my memory?" ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... plenty of time to poke about, because the luggage hadn't yet come. And Mrs. Parsley had tea set out all ready; she wasn't one of those horrid landladies who won't give anything at the first start for fear they should possibly ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... appears, have a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Dan'l; "I've got it. You get a big strong clothes-prop, and I'll get another, and we'll poke him off. If he comes down your side, mind this: he'll be like a rat, and off as quick as quick; but don't you let him go. Drop your prop, and throw yourself on him; we'll ketch him, and take him in to the gov'nor, and he'll know ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Jack panted. Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt and gave ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... highways. It was said that people had to toil in the factories—very likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes froze as early as September. Will Stoker had had nothing further to do down there than poke fires. He had been fireman, night fireman in the factory; but during the day he had nothing to do but sleep, earning sure money by a lazy life—merely ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... resorting to your agency. All I ask is, that you will have the book fairly printed, and that you will send one copy to my address, Householder Hall, Dorsetshire, Eng., and another to Captain Noah Poke, Stonington, Conn., in your own country. My Anna prays for you, and is ever your friend. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... Plachores Elton Planet Etena Planett John Platte William Plemate Francis Plenty John Ploughman Thomas Plunkett James Plumer John Plumstead Thomas Plunkett Motthew Poble Henry Pogan Daniel Poges Salvador Pogsin Michael Poinchet Gilman Poirant William Poke John Poland John Pollard Peter Pollard Jonathas Pollin Elham Poloski Samuel Polse William Polse Charles Pond Pennell Pond Peter Pond Culman Poni Fancis Ponsard Hosea Pontar Joseph Pontesty Robert Pool David Poole Hosea Poole John Poole Richard Poole Robert Poole Morris Poor Thomas Poor Henry Poore ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... down town would poke fun at you," said she, "if they knew you had me with you all the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... growing and streaming from him, 'how all this village life is a kind of dream we act out against the background of the sunshine, while our truer, deeper life is hidden somewhere far below in half unconsciousness? Our daily doings are but the little bits that emerge, tips of acts and speech that poke up and out, masquerading as complete? In that vaster sea of life we lead below the surface lies my big story, my fairy-tale—when we sleep.' He paused and looked down questioningly upon them. 'When we sleep,' he repeated impressively, struggling with his own thought. 'You, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear as well ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... moment, he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... kirk at Muthill used to manifest his humour and originality by his mode of collecting the alms. As he went round with the ladle, he reminded such members of the congregation as seemed backward in their duty, by giving them a poke with the "brod," and making, in an audible whisper, such remarks as these—"Wife at the braid mailin, mind the puir;" "Lass wi' the braw plaid, mind the puir," etc., a mode of collecting which marks rather a bygone state ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Wilson answered, cordially; but she could not refrain from adding, while Miss West was doing up the hat, and Ellen surreptitiously tried on a black poke bonnet, "Now, don't you spile her, Lucindy! She's a nice little girl as ever was, but you ain't no more fit to bring up a child than ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... boy," said he, shaking his finger threateningly and frowning severely, "else I'll be obliged to give you a poke in the nose. I wonder, now, Frog, if you ever had a mother, or if you only grew out of the earth like a plant. Tell me, were you ever dandled in a mother's arms? Do you know anything of maternal affection, eh? Humph! I suspect not. You would not look so besottedly ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... does to poke your finger into a bird's nest," observed Elsie, with a sapient shake of the head. "The eggs always addle if you do, or the young birds refuse to hatch out; and of course in the case of turtle-doves it would be all the more so. 'Lay low, Bre'r Fox,' and wait for what ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... says, 'I'd have ye to undherstand that no wan iver come out iv Roscommon that cud hold up their heads with th' Hogans,' she says. ''Tis not f'r th' likes iv ye to slandher a fam'ly that's iv th' landed gintry iv Ireland, an' f'r two pins I'd hit ye a poke in th' eye,' she says. If it hadn't been f'r me bein' between thim, they'd have been trouble; f'r they was good frinds wanst. What is it th' good book says about a woman ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... spent the evening at the cafe and there heard of the visits which Lily received during his absence. The neighbors he didn't mind about, but Jimmy. Jimmy again! The damned dog! Why should he poke his nose in? And, perhaps, at heart, Trampy was not sorry to have a scene with Lily, for he wasn't bringing home a pfennig, having spent all his money on champagne with girls. He felt himself at fault. He would get out of it ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... study does Desdemona (that's me) seriously incline; and the more I study the more I want to know and to see. In short, I am crazy to travel in Greece! The danger is that some good-for-nothing bashaw should seize upon me to poke me into his harem, there to bury my charms for life, and condemn me for ever to blush unseen. However, I could easily strangle or stab him, set fire to his castle, and run away by the light of it, accompanied by some handsome pirate, with whom I might henceforward live at my ease ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... cliffs. The high-road climbs the hill on the western bank, known as the Wynecliff, from the top of which there is a grand view over the valley and to the southward towards and beyond Chepstow. This cliff rises nine hundred feet above the river, and is the great monarch of a realm of crags that poke up their heads in all directions. Across the Wye, on a tongue of land projecting into the stream, Sir John Wyntour in the Civil War, with one hundred and eighty Royalists, hastily built a fort to command the river. Before their intrenchments were complete the enemy in superior force ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... others when I saw that the scribe's daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her hand—for I had it still hidden in my poke—and, whispered to her: "I had two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... worth?" asked Miss Chris in her cheerful tones, while Aunt Verbeny gave a suspicious poke beneath one of the flapping wings, followed by ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... was somethin' wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.—I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's some o' them runnygades behind us. They're 'spectin' to git a lot o' plunder an' a horse apiece an' ride 'em back an' swim the river at the place o' the many islands. We'll poke down to the trail on the edge o' the drownded lands afore sunrise an' I kind o' ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... would reveal little frocks stitched by hand, and a pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set down in the printed picture-books at the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... 'He said not a word—they only found it out—because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a fellow stood ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a harum-scarum way, is even more typical of Dickens in its spirit of fun and laughter. He had been engaged, as we have noted, to furnish a text for some comic drawings, thus reversing the usual order of illustration. The pictures were intended to poke fun at a club of sportsmen; and Dickens, who knew nothing of sport, bravely set out with Mr. Winkle on his rook-shooting. Then, while the story was appearing in monthly numbers, the illustrator committed suicide; ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... for seven years, but I am going to poke your fire," said Henriette, when they were ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... require more than half an hour in the morning to inspect the papers and finish up what you have to do; why don't you start your escort out very early, so it won't be obliged to trot after the ambulance, or you to poke along with it? You can then move out ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... with me, but I am sick of you, Naum Ivanitch, that's what it is." The old man got up, trembling all over. "You poke yourself in here ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Cheruscan who, of felt-cloth or bear's-hide, with bone or metal needle, set about making himself a coat, before Tailors had yet awakened out of Nothing,—did not he make it even so? A loose wide poke for body, with two holes to let out the arms; this was his original coat: to which holes it was soon visible that two small loose pokes, or sleeves, easily appended, would be ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... weeks, and already their Jews' market is in full caw. The more complaisant chestnut dandles its sticky knobs. Soon they will be brussels-sprouts, and then they will shake open their fairy umbrellas. So says a child of my acquaintance. The water-lilies already poke their green scrolls above the surface of the pond; a few buttercups venture into the meadows, but daisies are still precious as asparagus. The air is warm as your love's cheek, golden as canary. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... called in because he knew the disease of the patient. He had his remedy about him. The pills and the draught were in his pocket—yes, in his patriotic poke; but he refused to take the lid from the box—resolutely determined that the cork should not be drawn from the all-healing phial—until he was regularly called in; and, as the gypsies say, his hand crossed with a bit of money. Well, he now swears with such vigour to the excellence of his physic—he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into. In none of these, however, could they find the smallest breach of the strictest laws of the revenue; until at last, having exhausted their bodies by great zeal both of themselves and of mind, they braced them again to the duty of going, as promptly as possible, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... "Talk about railroadin'—wait till you hit the Pennsylvania, four tracks, no water tanks, take water on the fly, that's goin' some." "The Northern Pacific's a bad road now." "Salinas is on the 'hog,' the 'bulls' is 'horstile.'" "I got 'pinched' at El Paso, along with Moke Kid." "Talkin' of 'poke-outs,' wait till you hit the French country out of Montreal—not a word of English—you say, 'Mongee, Madame, mongee, no spika da French,' an' rub your stomach an' look hungry, an' she gives you a slice of sow-belly an' a chunk ...
— The Road • Jack London
... come ag'in No More!" and neighbors all jine in! Here's a feller come from town Wants that-air old fiddle down From the chimbly!—Git the floor Cleared fer one cowtillion more!— It's poke the kitchen fire, says he, And shake ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... temper of God (which is what interests an adult reader) is shocking and blasphemous. But it is a capital story for a child. It interests a child because it is about bears; and it leaves the child with an impression that children who poke fun at old gentlemen and make rude remarks about bald heads are not nice children, which is a highly desirable impression, and just as much as a child is capable of receiving from the story. When a story is about God ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... heathers of Scotland, or in the Golden Gate of California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows passed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... an opportunity presented itself; but notwithstanding these offerings, the two sombre eyes continued to regard him with an unchanged expression. One day, to arouse him from his condition of indifference or latent kindness, Rounders introduced a stick under the bars to poke him up in a friendly way, touching him on his extended paws. The beast struck quickly, and almost caught his hand. As it was, one of his fingers was bruised by the blow. Brinton, unperceived by Rounders, had been standing behind him ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... all very well for you to poke fun at me, Mister Machowl," said Mrs Baldwin, "but you're young yet, an' my Joe's past his prime. When you've done as much work as he's done—there now, you've done it at last. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... bandboxes. Some of them were empty, but in others were odds and ends of finery and quaint examples of millinery, the turban and poke and calash of vanished generations, some of them clearly copied after the model worn by Lady Maude at the very moment when at the church door she turned haughtily from Lord Crewston forever. We drew the chests to the light and took ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. First Prize—Champion and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was invariably of grey taffeta or brocade, bunched at the back and trailing on the ground; there were ruffles, of priceless lace at the elbow-sleeves and V-shaped neck; a plain straw poke-bonnet served for all outdoor functions, and an ebony stick, called "the wand" by the denizens of the slums, who adored ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... possessed such excellent taste in the matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of these was ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... hastily back they met a new, strange sight in Deadwood. A man in a sort of military uniform was marching along carrying a big drum which he pounded rhythmically; behind him were a dozen men and women in poke bonnets and blue skirts. Above them was a flag inscribed "Salvation Army." They stopped to sing a hymn, and were soon surrounded by a crowd of people who made scoffing remarks. The leader prayed, and all joined in a warlike hymn punctuated by the ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "sometimes it's all the difference between hell-fire and content, and—for God's sake buy the bairn a pair of boots!" As he spoke he slipped, by a motion studiously concealed from the company, some silver into the beggar's poke. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... not been. They walked upstairs together, and Mr. Woodstock asked his companion to be seated. He himself stood, and began to poke the fire. ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... cavalier attitude toward Judge Willis Enderby. For Enderby was a man of real power. He might easily have been the most munificently paid corporation attorney in the country but for the various kinds of business which he would not, in his own homely phrase, "poke at with a burnt stick." Notwithstanding his prejudices, he was confidential legal adviser, in personal and family affairs, to a considerable percentage of the important men and women of New York. He was supposed to be the only man who could handle ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Twice Shakespeare seems to poke fun at the way in which the Elizabethans overdid the use of 'element' in this sense, in Twelfth Night, III, i, 65, and in 2 Henry IV, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... still he had not heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, for the afternoon was warm, and luncheon—well, at any rate, he remained neutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophical inquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond; a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; or Maria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stop discussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... is quite simple. You lose the ball, of course, to begin with. That is easy enough. Then you search for it, and the longer you search the deeper grows the mystery of its vanishing. Your companions come and help you to poke the hedge and stir up the ditch, and you all agree that you have never known such a perfectly ridiculous thing before. And having clearly proved that the ball isn't anywhere in the neighbourhood, you take another out of the bag, and proceed ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Flame almost at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... your hand, comply to it, and, without force on your part, he will bend to your hand in every articulation. Without these, however unintentionally on your part, you will be perpetually subjecting him to the severest torture, to defend himself against which he will resist your hand, poke his nose, and stiffen his neck, and every other part of his body. The horse can endure no greater torture than that resulting from an uneven hand. This is known to every hack-cabman. Every hack-cabman has hourly ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... would not have said so, rather wished he had not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to show ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden poke to her frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which extremely increased its usually severe expression; and any one contemplating her at the moment would have thought that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to come ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... any idea how the house will look outside," asked Jack, giving the fire a poke, "or is that to be left to take care ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... people reproduce just like the barrels in the mud cities; two individuals grow a third one between them. Another proof of Leroy's theory that Martian life is neither animal nor vegetable. Besides, Tweel was a good enough host to let him poke down his beak and twiddle his feathers, and the examination ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... money of yours," he replied, more calmly than ever. "My mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly not going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all hope of inheritance. I am quite safe ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... to him—teasingly). Me and Tom had a race, Papa. I beat him. (She sticks her tongue out at her younger brother.) Slow poke! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... in the long ornate periods of the editor, the serfdom and the squalor and the heroic hope of these peasants and miners and artisans became vivid to me for the first time. Occasionally the compositor, a boy of about fifteen with a brown ink-smudged face, would poke his head in the door and shout: "It's true what they say, but they don't say ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... maintain that the new way is infinitely less fraudulent, less ruinous, more straightforward than the old. Publicity means time for reflection and inquiry. If here and there a shareholder is taken in, he has himself to blame, nobody sells him a pig in a poke. The manufacturing industry——" ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... of a party of foraging apes who went into a cornfield with the purpose of robbing it, and discovered two men. They immediately rushed upon them and attempted to poke their eyes out with sticks and would have succeeded but for the intervention of two other men who chanced to be near. The extreme cleverness of apes in applying their reason and judgment is shown in Vosmaer's account of the female orang-outang, who tried ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Kai regards his reflection and his shadow as his soul or parts of it; hence you should not tread on a man's shadow for fear of injuring his soul. The soul likewise dwells in his heart, for he feels it beating. Hence if you give a native a friendly poke in the ribs, he protests, saying, "Don't poke me so; you might drive my soul out of my body, and then I should die." The soul moreover resides in the eye, where you may see it twinkling; when it departs, the eye grows dim and vacant. Moreover, the soul is in the foot as much as in the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... worst of them. Sir Thomas's hamper of his choice wine (which, by the by, he purchased at a cheap shop for the occasion) was opened; and slices of ham were cut with the only knife and fork. Jack Richards tried to be facetious, but it would not do. He gave Bagshaw a poke in the ribs, which was received with a very formal, "Sir, I must beg—" To Mr. Wrench, junior, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... I've had it o'er long in my keeping. Even now disaster may be a-brewing; and is there not a richly-freighted ship on its passage with silks and spices? I'll put it out of her reach this time anyhow. No! I'll hide it where never a witch in Christendom shall poke it out." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... just a little too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in his hand. Before he had realized what had happened, he darted ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... use of your going down there at all," Ebenezer went on, turning to poke the fire. "It doesn't look well after the things ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... is spelt now with a final k and now with a final ch; out of this variation two different words have been formed; with, it may be, other slight differences superadded; thus is it with 'poke' and 'poach'; 'dyke' and 'ditch'; 'stink' and 'stench'; 'prick' and 'pritch' (now obsolete); 'break' and 'breach'; to which may be added 'broach'; 'lace' and 'latch'; 'stick' and 'stitch'; 'lurk' and 'lurch'; 'bank' and 'bench'; 'stark' and 'starch'; 'wake' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a strange, unnatural sort ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... see the raised prow of what looked to be a genuine birch bark canoe poke in sight. In these modern days when even the Indians up in Maine manufacture up-to-date canvas canoes by the thousand, it is a rare event to run across one made of birch bark. The trees that are large enough for the purpose have about all been destroyed, so the Indians ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... did not like leaving his mother on Sunday, but Mrs. Worse said, "Go along, you great stupid! do you suppose that Samuelsen and I care to have you sitting and laughing at us when we are playing draughts; and besides," said she, giving him a sly poke with her finger, "don't you know there is somebody ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... would poke him in the cheek, very gently, and say: "Why, I never! What a rum little beggar he is! He's got some tremendous joke against us, ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... Julie dropped into her chair while Peter knelt to poke the fire. Then he lit a cigarette, and she refused one for once, and he stood there looking ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... Sepulchre they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... close by, and making straight toward him. It could not be the Chilian, for he would never be making all that disturbance—unless indeed he had gone mad under the stress of being hunted—so it must necessarily be a stray Peruvian soldier. Jim at once sprang to his feet and began to poke about among the bushes with the muzzle of his carbine, as though searching for somebody who might possibly be hidden among them, at the same time turning his back on the approaching man, who was still ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... valuable growths. The methods of the Salvation Army do not appeal to the dilettante; but it is more than possible that the grandchildren of the man whose imagination has been touched, if ever so slightly, by the crude appeal of trombones out of tune and the sight of poke-bonnets and backward-striding maidens, will be more intelligent and susceptible human beings than the grandchildren of the chawbacon whose mental horizon has been bounded by the bottom of his ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... adjusting his tie, which had mysteriously appeared under his right ear. "Norah and I were talking beautifully, and you hadn't any business to come poke your nose in, if you couldn't behave, had he Nor.?" Whereat Norah and Jim grinned cheerfully at each other, and Wally collapsed, remarking with indignation that you couldn't hope to get justice for either of the Linton twins when it came ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... safe, for one, even after it was mortally wounded, attacked Mr. Oswell's horse, and thrust the horn through to the saddle, tossing at the time both horse and rider. I once saw a white rhinoceros give a buffalo, which was gazing intently at myself, a poke in the chest, but it did not wound it, and seemed only a hint to get out of the way. Four varieties of the rhinoceros are enumerated by naturalists, but my observation led me to conclude that there are but two, and that the extra species have been formed from differences in their ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... tell ye, Cap, I reckon thar ain't no guerilla a goin' ter poke his nose 'round yere 'less he 's a lookin' fer sudden death; thar's mighty few o' 'em ain't heerd o' Jed Bungay—Whut in thunder 's ther matter with ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... two-headed tarrier. All we wanted was a live man, to say, 'Here, boys, all together now! You've got your stint, and I've got mine. I'm boss in this shop,—but I can't do the first thing, unless every man pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is on the throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke the fires, hook on, and let's yank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... out to field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... it seems a little off now to call you by your given name, cut short, though we used to do so before you were promoted. But what are you feeling for?" asked Ben, as his companion continued to poke ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... and along the smoother stretches we've got to keep our eyes peeled for signs of an ambuscade," Teddy observed. "Well, luckily we've got some pretty sharp-eyed fellows along with us; and then there are the experienced guides. Who cares for expenses? As long as I can poke into unknown sections where few white men have ever set foot, and Frank can write stunning letters to his paper about the strange things we run across, it doesn't matter a cookey. We'll get to our destination, ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Katie got a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to sit down," said Juliet. "I'm just exploring. I think it's so much fun to poke around the first day and see how everybody is fixed. You don't mind, do you, if I walk around ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you. It was bound in blue cloth and was a heavy book, so that I held it on a cushion. (And this device I recommend to others.) It was the kind of book that stays open at your place, if you leave it for a moment to poke the fire. Some books will flop a hundred pages, to make you thumb them back and forth, though whether this be the binder's fault or a deviltry set therein by their authors I am at a loss to say. But Shaw would be ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... march,' 'Right counter march,' and they were then marched for more than two hours. After that he saw them 'fall in three deep,' and were then told (by Captain Hanrahan) to prepare to 'receive cavalry,' and 'charge cavalry'—Poke your pike into the guts of the horse, and draw it out ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... can't trust that sneaking Mabel not to come in and poke about," she explained grimly. "I know ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... that evening. The son passed the father's doorstep—the worn stone step, ground by the generations of customers—he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where Grandfather Iden sat—he might, had he paused and listened, have heard the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man—the son passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... harder with a big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke him with ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... English people—for after all, the rather low-Church section WAS the largest single mass—in early Victorian times. She had dreams, I suspect, of going to church with him side by side; she in a little poke bonnet and a large flounced crinoline, all mauve and magenta and starched under a little lace-trimmed parasol, and he in a tall silk hat and peg-top trousers and a roll-collar coat, and looking rather like the Prince Consort,—white angels almost visibly ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... nicely, made some little canoes, and when Billy was looking through the hose for savages, it was Teddy's part to poke the canoes with a long stick like a fish-pole, so they would float right in front of Billy's hose. Then Billy would scramble down the wall, and come running to us 'round behind the chimney, and tell us to lie very still, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank, and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the steps in the hollow the view of the Devil's Bridge, and likewise of the cleft, is very slight and unsatisfactory. To view it properly, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... contemporaries, but I sometimes let myself be carried away by my argument. If any one is ashamed to be seen wearing a leathern apron or handling a plane, I think him a mere slave of public opinion, ready to blush for what is right when people poke fun at it. But let us yield to parents' prejudices so long as they do not hurt the children. To honour trades we are not obliged to practise every one of them, so long as we do not think them beneath us. When the choice is ours and we are under ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... her daughter when Harry was gone, for she had quick senses and was a good bit amused to see her shy girl open out and show interest in the man; but to chaff Millicent was always the way to shut her up, and she wouldn't let her mother poke fun at her. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... After this description it will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees to ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... "Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick," said the engineer. "Wot did you say was the concern ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... that think themselves musical," she continued: "they are well behaved and considerate enough in the day, but as soon as it is a nice, quiet, calm night, or a bit of a moon is in the sky, they make night hideous to everyone within ear-shot—'Mo-poke! mo-poke!' Oh! it gives ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... stunned by her grandeur and beauty. She turned this way and that, directing him to observe the beautiful tints and the fashionable cut of her garments, and asked him if the bonnet with its enormous "poke," filled with monster roses, was not a thing of beauty and a joy so long as it should last. Dic agreed with her, and told her with truth that he had never seen a fashion so sweet and winsome. Then he received his reward, ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in his hand. Before he had realized what had happened, he darted out, brandishing the knife, and came fairly on ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... was not sure that there might not be room for a man to lie flat under some of the big slabs, and began to poke about among them. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the front door and ran up stairs. She tolled her hostess up to the attic to show her some ancient gowns and poke bonnets that she hadn't seen since she was a little girl in which she and Mark used to dress ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... him—trying to, because the old man, who hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him to do—roam the woods and poke his long nose in ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... German's turn to be astonished. Ranjoor Singh strode in, dressed as a Sikh farmer, and frowned down Yasmini's instant desire to poke fun at him. The German rose to salute him, and the Sikh acknowledged the salute with a nod such as royalty might spare for ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... my dear boy," he answered. "You'll be doing the most loyal thing in your power, for you'll be winning back a subject who would otherwise be lost, and gaining many little subjects too, maybe, old fellow," he added, with a poke in my wounded ribs which ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... all the Madangs were assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping for a moment to take breath, he asked that, if any one had evil ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... got Node Beckley into hit; they has things all trimmed with feathers. Now you know what has made our chickens look so bobbed; they ain't one uf 'em thet's got es much tail feathers es a blue bird in poke berry time. An' yer peafowl feather duster,"—here Lin raised her hands—"why they ain't enough left to shoo a pis-ant, let alone a fly. Lor' Mary, hit's orful, they must-a had a sham battul or a war, fer Node is kivered with blood an' Alfurd looked peeled in several places. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... so far imitate a vulgar clown as to smack a friend on the back, poke him in the ribs, or by clapping his hand upon his shoulder. It is equally bad taste to use a familiar shout, or "Hullo, old boy!" or any other "Hail fellow, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... that morning when Silas Trimmer had found Bobby at his desk; by eleven Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, in the outer office, were quite unable to work; by twelve they were snarling at each other; at twelve-thirty Johnson ventured to poke his head in at the door, framing some trivial excuse as he did so, but found the two merchants with their heads bent closely over the advantages of the great combined stores. At a quarter-past one, returning from a hasty lunch, ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... climbing around the sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, digestive organs good, sleeps well, and is the early riser in the mornings. He says ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... the room, conceal myself behind the theatre, and spout the play with fervid solemnity. And they would giggle, and make flippant commentaries, and at my most impassioned climaxes burst into guffaws. My mice, as has been said, were overfed and lazy, and I used to have to poke them through their parts with sticks from the wings; but this was a detail which a superior imagination should have accepted as one of the conventions of the art. It made the servants laugh, however; and when I would step to the front in person, and, with tears in my eyes, beseech ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... be described as the Paul Pry of canine society. His insatiate inquisitiveness induces him to poke his nose into everything; every strange object excites his curiosity, and he will, if possible, look behind it; the slightest noise arouses his attention, and he wants to investigate its cause. There is ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... identified as having formed part of the cargo of his ship. Still there was a very large part of the missing property not forthcoming. Nothing else was found for some time, till one of the men, of an inquisitive turn of mind, happened to poke his head into one of the pigsties, where, in the farthest corner, his eye fell on several bales piled up one above the other to the roof. The clue to the sort of place in which the well-known ingenuity of the Greeks had taught them to conceal their booty once being discovered, a considerable ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... pints. Pit, put. Placads, proclamations. Plack, four pennies (Scots). Plackless, penniless. Plaiden, coarse woolen cloth. Plaister, plaster. Plenish'd, stocked. Pleugh, plew, a plow. Pliskie, a trick. Pliver, a plover. Pock, a poke, a bag, a wallet. Poind, to seize, to distrain, to impound. Poortith, poverty. Pou, to pull. Pouch, pocket. Pouk, to poke. Poupit, pulpit. Pouse, a push. Poussie, a hare (also a cat). Pouther, powther, powder. Pouts, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... relative hopped about in her flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness had an ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... have not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke of papers ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we-alls knows, is a heap onusual. No one, onless he's the postmaster, ever does hear his name. He sorter ha'nts about Red Dog an' Wolfville indiscriminate for mighty nigh a year; an' they calls him 'Slim Jim' with us, an' 'The Tenderfoot' in Red Dog; but, as I says, what's his real name never does poke up its head. ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... heart and hand, A gallant and courageous band, If e'er a foe dares look awry, We'll one and all poke ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the little thing makes the big thing not use weighing and this which is a marvel is not a tremor it is not any shape or kind of undertaking. It is more than that origin. It is the poke. ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... brave, and even when you're outside the three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about the only opportunity you two will have to discuss anything; and if ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... king's-hood in a spleuchan! [second stomach, tobacco pouch] He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchan [(Author of Domestic Medicine)] An' ither chaps, The weans haud out their fingers laughin', [children] And pouk my hips. [poke] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... food, choose fuel. Food nourishes the body; but fuel, warming the body, warms the soul too. I do not wonder that the hearth has been regarded from time immemorial as the centre, and used as the symbol, of the home. I like the social tradition that we must not poke a fire in a friend's drawing-room unless our friendship dates back full seven years. It rests evidently, this tradition, on the sentiment that a fire is a thing sacred to the members of the household ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... take the lead, Horace; I'm taller," said Larry, at the same time giving his brother a poke In the ribs as a ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... allowed me to get up to warm my hands. As soon as I reached the fire-place, I snatched out the red-hot poker, and, brandishing it over my head, made for the door. They all jumped up to detain me, but I made a poke at the foremost, which made her run back with a shriek, (I do believe that I burnt her nose.) I seized my opportunity, and escaped into the street, whirling the poker round my head, while all the women followed, hooting ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... out of my desk, so we must give up work for the day." He also, on these occasions, often brought with him a daughter, and the two carefully looked into the decorated desk, when they were rewarded by finding the nest and eggs of a "feather-poke" (long-tailed tit), or some other rare bird, which he always took home and preserved in his study, as a trophy till the following year. No questions were asked as to how the decorations were obtained, but in practice ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... times it wouldn't make any difference," ses George Hatchard. "Here! wot are you up to? 'Ave you gone mad, or wot? You poke me in the ribs like that agin if ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go with it, and, if possible, the very place in which it is deposited. When ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... bump on the head somewhere," answered George, "but he'll come out of that all right, in time. I wasn't rejoicing because your chum got a poke on the belfry," George went on, whimsically, "I was shouting because the man who stole the code message didn't ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... used to be considered rather eccentric," he said. "I remember the fellows at college nick-named him 'Old-Woman Erveng,' because—so they said—he had a large picture in his room of a fat old woman in a poke bonnet; and at the social gatherings to which he could be induced to go, he always devoted himself to the oldest and fattest ladies in the room, without noticing the young and pretty girls. I thought he was rather a nice sort of fellow; what's the ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... obliged to burn it on the hearth. Here he sits poking and stirring the fire with one end of a tongs, while the room is as murky as a smithy; railing at French chimneys, French masons, and French architects; giving a poke at the end of every sentence, as though he were stirring up the very bowels of the delinquents he is anathematizing. He lives in a state militant with inanimate objects around him; gets into high dudgeon with doors and casements, because they will not come under English law, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... had been deluding Mark! Then Lady Fotheringham asked us, and—it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way—but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a Santa Fe caravan was a noble sight: the enormous hooded wagons, flaring like poke bonnets, each drawn by twelve and sixteen oxen or mules, lumbering on in a long double file or sometimes four abreast; the booted teamsters trudging beside the fore-wheels, cracking their eighteen-foot lashes; the armed ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... damned scoundrels! You don't understand a thing, and poke your noses into an affair like this—a government affair. Cattle! You ought to thank me, fall on your knees before me for my goodness! If I were to say so, you would all be put to ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... reading of the lessons his eyes were roving here and there in search of that beloved face, but much to his dismay he could not see it. Finally, on a chair near a pillar, he caught sight of Miss Whichello in her poke bonnet and black silk cloak, but she was alone, and there were no bright eyes beside her to send a glance in the direction of George. Having ascertained beyond all doubt that Mab was not in the church, and believing that she was unwell after the shock of Jentham's attack on the previous night, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Bank and got some money, and then through the best parts of the town, along the Michigan Boulevards, through which we had glimpses of the Lake, but everything here is sacrificed to the almighty dollar, and the railway engines poke themselves in everywhere, down the best streets, and destroying the prettiest landscapes, and making unearthly noises close to your bedroom, or puffing their steam out under your nose as ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... slightest thing worth remembering; as there was no election, he did not even take part in a Whig procession. He got away two or three times. The first thing his owner would know when he pulled the chain out was that there was no coon at the end of it, and then he would have to poke round the inside of the box pretty carefully with a stick, so as not to get bitten; after that he would have to see which tree the coon had gone up. It was usually the tall locust-tree in front of the house, and in about half ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... house in the village, where fish, brandy, and so forth are offered to him. Some people prostrate themselves before the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... at his bar-keeper and winked, and then giving Roch a poke in the ribs, said, with a hearty laugh: "Oh! you have found them out, have you?" Then, with another poke: "You're a sly fellow, you are," and burst into a roar of laughter, in which he was ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... frills of romance, opportunity to do so was about the only thing that failed to knock at my door. From the time I heard the name of Ursula Priscilla Jenkins and knew it belonged to me, I can recall but one beautiful memory of my childhood. It is the face of my mother in its frame of poke bonnet and pink roses, as she leaned over to kiss me good-by. I never saw her again, nor my father. Yellow fever laid heavy tribute upon our southern United States. I was the only one left in the big house ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... all her attention absorbed in the button which is just half in the button-hole, one little poke and 'there it's done,' ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... words lead thee to Juhannam, why, there will be a great surprise for thee. There thou wilt behold our Maker sitting on a flaming glacier waiting for the like of thee. And he will take thee into his arms and poke thee in the ribs, and together you will laugh and laugh, until that glacier become a garden and thou a flower therein. Go thy way, therefore; be not afraid. And no matter how many tears thou sheddest on this side, thou wilt surely be ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and this bore poke in his head: "Oh I forgot to tell you; the Old Turks are going up today, like a shot." And with this he slammed the door again, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... boy, before you cut loose from all reason and reflection. Don't you think it would be a capital idea to poke in a little patriotism among the names; patriotism goes so far in our part of the world. Congress Rocks would be a good title for the highest part of the reef, and Washington Sands would do for the landing you told me ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... move or give his customary, querulous grunt when Marthy nudged him at daylight, one morning in mid-April. Marthy gave another poke with her elbow and lay still, numbed by a sudden dread. She moved cautiously out of the bed and half across the cramped room before she turned her head toward him. Then she stood still and looked and looked, her hard face growing ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... sensitive as a skinned eel, is Layman, and he winced at that poke at his soft sawder like any thing, and puckered a little about the mouth, but he didn't say nothin', he only bowed. He was a Unitarian preacher once, was Abednego, but he swapt preachin' for politics, and a good trade he made of it ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... this he stopped and looked back, but an Indian behind him gave him a poke with the butt of his gun, which there was no resisting. For a moment the lad thought of trying to break away, run home, and tell his father of Nelly's fate; but a second thought convinced him that this course was utterly impracticable. As for Nelly, she was too far from her brother ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... invariably of grey taffeta or brocade, bunched at the back and trailing on the ground; there were ruffles, of priceless lace at the elbow-sleeves and V-shaped neck; a plain straw poke-bonnet served for all outdoor functions, and an ebony stick, called "the wand" by the denizens of the slums, who adored ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... moment. Everything was just beginning to get into shape. I had just bought a cinema for the men; our gunners were working better every day; there was a chance of my becoming a general, and Dundas was teaching me jazz. And then the politicians poke their noses in and go and make peace, and Clemenceau demobs Aurelle! Life's just one damned thing ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may have ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... excited neither anger nor resentment among the other boys, who yelled with delight at his discomfiture, but it made them more careful in approaching the cage, and though they continued to poke the prisoners with sticks they did not venture again to thrust a hand through the bars. At sunset the guards again came round, lifted the cage and carried it into a shed. A platter of dirty rice and a jug ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... pouch, wallet, reticule, knapsack, pocket, cul-de-sac, haversack, portmanteau, poke, scrip, satchel, suitcase, quiver, valise, sporran, gunny sack; udder; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... utterly absorbed in her task, her pencil flying over her slate, squeaking madly, when right in the midst of "irresponsible" with one "r" and several other letters wanting, she paused. It was a poke from Rosie that disturbed her. Elizabeth was accustomed to being poked by Rosie, for her seat-mate always attracted one's attention this way; but her pokes were always eloquent and this one betokened alarm and urgency. For a moment or ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... of seven Canadian winters had bred a hardy spirit in this little backwoodsman, and besides what was there to dread in the forest? It had been his playground ever since he was first able to steal away from Granny and toddle off to "the bush" to gather blue flags and poke up the goggle-eyed frogs from their fragrant musk-pools. But here was something unfamiliar; a strange uncanny place the swamp seemed to-day; and, being Nature's intimate, he fell into sudden sympathy with ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... those not acquainted with the treatment of this dreadful calamity to communicate with him. The symptoms are known by the cow getting restless, lifting her legs and setting them down again, a wild appearance, and attempting to poke her keeper: then succeeds a quick motion in the flank; she begins to stagger, falls, but recovers herself again. This is repeated several times, till she is at length no longer able to rise. Her head will be turned to one side; she loses the sense of feeling, ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... and Ise grin a poke, and we to War will leanes, Ise lay thee flat upon thy Back and then lay to the steanes; Ise make hopper titter totter, haud the Mouth as still, When twa sit, and eane stand, merrily grind the Mill: With ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... pass. Donkeys are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... lobfor see, Bullock caper like monkee, Dance, and shump, and poke him toe, Like one humane ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... should disappear before my eyes, he suddenly burst out with the strange call I had heard. It was clearly a cry of joy, of welcome, for out of the water, up on to the ledge beside him, scrambled at that moment a grown-up ouzel. He gave one poke into the wide-open mouth of the infant, then slipped back into the water, dropped down a foot or more, climbed out upon another little shelf in the rock, and in a moment the song arose. I watched the singer closely. The notes were so low and so mingled with the roar of the ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... back. I went out into the woods, walked up and down the road, but could see nothing of him. The shadows fell short and the old people and Guinea and Chyd returned from church, and the noon-tide meal was spread, but Alf came not. But save with me there was no anxiety, as he was wont to poke about alone they said. Evening, bed-time came. Chyd went home, and I went up to my room. I heard the old man locking the smoke-house door—heard his wife singing a hymn, heard Guinea's faint foot-steps as she returned from the gate, whither she went to bid her lover ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus staring after ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... no bidden guest, For him who loves and rules us best. The rosy god lights not his taper For him who, in a trading paper, Behind a printed notice screens, And fears to tell us what he means. Why don't he to the busy marts Come forth and seige our tender hearts? 'Tis wrong to buy pigs in a poke: To wed so—what a silly joke! In promenade, church, or bazaar, At proper moments, there we are, To be secured by manly hearts, And, when secured, to do our parts To temper life with him we love, And woman's ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... scene. He had, of course, bowed inside the door, and all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... retired to an easy-chair, with a glass of port wine, on a little table at her side, and a volume of Blair's sermons, which were both agreeable sedatives, and conducive to a prolonged sleep. Bryda then went hastily upstairs, and tying on her high poke bonnet, slipped out at the front door, and found, as she expected, Jack awaiting her at the corner of the square. The sight of his friendly, honest face had never been so welcome before, and she showed her pleasure by the warmth ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... objected to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am just ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people who like that sort of thing. They are looked after by a venerable, half-naked old Hindu, who calls them up to the terrace by uttering a peculiar cry, and, when they poke their ugly noses out of the water and crawl up the steps, teases them with dainty morsels he has obtained at the nearest slaughter-house. It is not a ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... his words with scorn and appeal. 'You have kept your head on your shoulders and the rent from your lands in your poke. But oh, sir, it is certain that, being a man, you love either the new ways or the old; it is certain that, being a spurred knight, you should love the old ways. Sir, bethink you and take heed of this: that the angels of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... the center of the grounds opposite the house, and could see Price clinging to a post; the next move must be to navigate the raft up to the side of the house and reach for Price. It sounds easy; but poke around with our poles as wildly or as scientifically as we might, the raft would not budge. The noonday sun was blazing right overhead, and the muddy water running all over slippered feet and dainty dresses. How long we stayed praying ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was not as yet acquainted ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... smile. The rooks have known it for some weeks, and already their Jews' market is in full caw. The more complaisant chestnut dandles its sticky knobs. Soon they will be brussels-sprouts, and then they will shake open their fairy umbrellas. So says a child of my acquaintance. The water-lilies already poke their green scrolls above the surface of the pond; a few buttercups venture into the meadows, but daisies are still precious as asparagus. The air is warm as your love's cheek, golden as canary. It is all a-clink and a-glitter, it trills and chirps on every hand. Somewhere close ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... about when he got back to camp. One of the patrol leader's lips was puffed. Tim looked away quickly. A cup of hot coffee would have put the early morning chill to route, but not for anything would he have suggested a fire. He pretended to poke through his things, trying to kill time, trying not to look at his companion, trying to figure out how they were going to get through breakfast. That Don was sore on him for keeps he ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... the graveyard is set apart as a sort of potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried. This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... welcome them heartily—"you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut down months ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Coburn said awkwardly: "I owe you an apology, and the privilege of a poke in the nose besides. But it was a situation—I was in ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of Ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. The husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. The pastures looked as brown in the ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... you for seven years, but I am going to poke your fire," said Henriette, when they were ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Anne? Just let me show you how to poke it—see the sparks? I did it for you, Anne, 'cause I was so glad you ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... know if you had a birthday due most any minute and your head was full of the presents you hoped to receive, and you saw three bundles on the shelf in your grandma's closet, you know you would probably do just what Brother did; poke your finger into the top bundle. Brother poked. Then he prodded. The top bundle slipped and carried the other two with it. Brother was brushed off the chair and three bundles and one boy landed in ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... the rub," sighed the caliph, drooping his wings composedly; "who told you that she was young and beautiful? That is what I call buying a pig in a poke!" ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... talk," she said to herself; "Jack means to do what's right. And it's even worse to scold or be cross to him, for that only makes him stay away more." And she gave the pillow she was stirring up a savage poke to relieve ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... manner of those in love—of meeting with Mab Arden. During the reading of the lessons his eyes were roving here and there in search of that beloved face, but much to his dismay he could not see it. Finally, on a chair near a pillar, he caught sight of Miss Whichello in her poke bonnet and black silk cloak, but she was alone, and there were no bright eyes beside her to send a glance in the direction of George. Having ascertained beyond all doubt that Mab was not in the church, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... his bar-keeper and winked, and then giving Roch a poke in the ribs, said, with a hearty laugh: "Oh! you have found them out, have you?" Then, with another poke: "You're a sly fellow, you are," and burst into a roar of laughter, in which he was heartily ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"these people that poke their noses into other's people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus staring ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... bodies of the rats, I sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as handsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I had made it a mere physician's business; they'd have thought it some conjuration. Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes, sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses in the village, and by good fortune (mark here that Mars was in opposition to Venus) burned the corn-handler's shop to the ground. Mars loves not Venus. Will Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... for the coin. Well, now listen, folks! I'm going to give those birds a chance! They can stand right up here and tell me to my face that I'm a galoot and a liar and a hick! Only if they do—if they do!—don't faint with surprise if some of those rum-dumm liars get one good swift poke from Mike, with all the kick of God's Flaming Righteousness behind the wallop! Well, come on, folks! Who says it? Who says Mike Monday is a fourflush and a yahoo? Huh? Don't I see anybody standing up? ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... was that he did not struggle or make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in frosty weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom; but when he saw and smelled that strange big fishy, black and white, speckledy bird, the like of which he had never before seen, he rushed wildly to the farther corner of the kitchen, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... is, of course; and you have heard of working on the 'stop,' most likely. Which means picking pockets when the party is standing still; but it is more difficult on the 'fly.' You must remember that. I remember once going along Oxford Street, and I prigged an old woman's 'poke,'[17] on the 'fly.' She missed it very quick, and was coming after me when I slipped it into an old countryman's pocket as I was passing. She came up and accused me with stealing her purse. I, of course, allowed her to search me, and asked her to fetch a 'bobby,' if she was not satisfied. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... idea took hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It seemed that she had something to conceal. I brooded ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit—hit's got my bundle of yarbs in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... walls, and the ceiling. The Cardinal drew off each plum-colour'd shoe, And left his red stockings exposed to the view; He peeps, and he feels in the toes and the heels; They turn up the dishes,—they turn up the plates,— They take up the poker and poke out the grates, —They turn up the rugs, they examine the mugs:— But, no!—no such thing;—They can't find THE RING! And the Abbot declared that, "when nobody twigg'd it, Some rascal or other had ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... up, whimpering, "Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to surprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... an' don't give a damn. Someone that's got more money than brains. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an' you needn't think I've forgot the poke in the jaw you give me. I'll ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... Sanger's speed, Roger did his best to poke out a safety, and would have succeeded only for a surprising one-handed stop by Roberts, who got the ball to first ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... /element:/ sky. Twice Shakespeare seems to poke fun at the way in which the Elizabethans overdid the use of 'element' in this sense, in Twelfth Night, III, i, 65, and in 2 ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... fact; and the picture it gives us of the temper of God (which is what interests an adult reader) is shocking and blasphemous. But it is a capital story for a child. It interests a child because it is about bears; and it leaves the child with an impression that children who poke fun at old gentlemen and make rude remarks about bald heads are not nice children, which is a highly desirable impression, and just as much as a child is capable of receiving from the story. When a story is about God and a child, children take God for granted ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... to Neptune, 'may it please your worshipful honor; I do not wish for wings to fly, for I do not care to poke my nose into strange places; I might get lost or hurt, you know; I was contented enough until the other day, when I saw a great rope come down into the water, and fasten itself in some mysterious way about the gills of a sweet little cousin of mine, and she was hauled and dragged out of ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... young Poins cocked his bonnet more jauntily, and, setting out up river to Hampton, changed his scarlet clothes for a grey coat and puritan hose, and in the dark did his errand very well. He carried a large poke in which he put the larded capons and the round loaves that the cook sold to him. Later, following a reed path along the river, he came swiftly down to Isleworth with his bag on a cord and, in the darkness from beneath the walls, he slung bag and cord in at Katharine ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... said he, "what could they do? If I want to go down to John Jones' cabin, down somewhere in the cane-brakes, and give him five dollars for a judgment that he has forgot about, or is scared to try to collect, why, I get the judgment, and it's legal, ain't it? Or suppose I just poke him up to collect it and he gives me half? That's legal, ain't it? And who can help it, even if anybody knew? Why, say, if I was Mr. Eddring there, knowing what he does about these claims, do you ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Letters" in which two distinguished Persian travellers turn the whole existing society of France topsy-turvy and poke fun at everything from the king down to the lowest of his six hundred pastry cooks, the book immediately went through four editions and assured the writer thousands of readers for his famous discussion of the "Spirit of the Laws" in which the noble ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... agreeable contemporaries, but I sometimes let myself be carried away by my argument. If any one is ashamed to be seen wearing a leathern apron or handling a plane, I think him a mere slave of public opinion, ready to blush for what is right when people poke fun at it. But let us yield to parents' prejudices so long as they do not hurt the children. To honour trades we are not obliged to practise every one of them, so long as we do not think them beneath us. When the choice is ours and we are under ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... suggested his name, had been regardless of the poke, the tug, and the pinch, but was alive to the hint. He at once came to the sitting posture on hearing the dreaded name of "bobby," and rubbed his eyes. On seeing that there was neither policeman nor guard near, he uttered an ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... Burke, with a toss of his head, "'tis little I bother meself along wid the likes o' Sir John. Lave him poke his nose into the Sacandagy an' dhrown there, bad cess to him! We've a thrick to match his, an' ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the giant came back from killing her seven brothers. He would return with their seven heads swinging pitifully from his girdle, and, when he reached the castle gates, he would gnash his teeth through the keyhole with a noise like the grinding together of great rocks, and would poke his head through the fanlight of the door, and say, fee-faw-fum in a voice of such exceeding loudness that the castle would be shaken ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... and being unable to start her, especially when my master or mistress wants to get there in a hurry and doesn't consult my convenience. So I was down in a jiffy when his lordship spoke, and there I stood, pretending to swing the handle and to poke about inside the bonnet until the sergeant had turned the corner of the drive, and it was safe ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... some so small and wretched that they creep along the ground. They live on the heath, or high up in the mountains, or in the cold arctic regions. In the winter, they are quite hidden under the snow; in the summer, they just poke up their noses above the tops ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... overhead, does not borrow my food or hire my services, but she does something far worse. Whenever I dare to poke a fire, or play on the piano, or shut a window, or let a door bang, as any ordinary domestic door is bound to bang in the course of a windy day, rap, rap, rap comes a premonitory knocking on the floor, as ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... as methynketh also, Mizaldus in his Mirabile Centuries, doe affirme thatt not to bloshe is a sign of noble bloods and gentyl lineage—for itt may bee planely seene that every base-borne churle's daughter blosheth, if thatt yee give hir a poke under ye chinn, whereas ye countesse of highe degre only smileth sweetlie and sayth merily, 'Aha! messire—tu voys que mon joly couer est endormy!' for shee well knoweth that a gentyllman, like ye kynge, can doe ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... want to see yours for the same reason you want to see ours—curiosity. I like to poke my nose in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... authority, that at the taking of the city of Nankin the Tartars put all the Chinese women in sacks, without regard to age or rank, and sold them to the highest bidder; and that such as, in thus "buying the pig in the poke," happened to purchase an old, ugly, or deformed bargain, made no ceremony in throwing it into the river. If Father Le Compte was not the inventor of this, among many other of his pleasant stories, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... evening I had ever spent in my life. To begin with, I felt as if I had suddenly become older, and bigger, and much more important. I became inclined to adopt magisterial airs to my mother and my sweetheart, laying down the law to them as to the future in a fashion which made Maisie poke fun at me for a crowing cockerel. It was only natural that I should suffer a little from swelled head that night—I should not have been human otherwise. But Andrew Dunlop took the conceit out of me with a vengeance when Maisie and I told him the news, and I explained everything ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities. His hobbies began to poke forth their noses, to whinny, to neigh; but some force stronger or more dexterous than himself seemed to be guiding the talk, and the name of Medora Giles began to mingle with the click of silver on china and to weave itself into ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... from ridicule. The world must have the truth, and I see no better means than by resorting to your agency. All I ask is, that you will have the book fairly printed, and that you will send one copy to my address, Householder Hall, Dorsetshire, Eng., and another to Captain Noah Poke, Stonington, Conn., in your own country. My Anna prays for you, and is ever your friend. Do not ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... judge said sharply, with a suspicious frown. Then he recovered himself with a start. For a moment he had half fancied that fellow, Forbes-Ewing, meant SOMETHING by what he said—meant to poke innuendoes at him. But, after all, it was a mere polite form. How frightened we all are, to be sure, when we ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... ingredient in that wonderful mixture. By degrees, the singularities which distinguished him were softened; his thee and thy yielded to the common forms of speech; his drab suit altered its cut and hue; his hat came off occasionally; his women abated the rigor of their poke bonnets; he was able to say to the enemy of his country, "Friend, thee is standing just where I am going to shoot." The disintegration of his individuality set free the good that was in him to permeate surrounding society; his ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... was allowed to use her hand again she had decided that never, never, NEVER would she poke her finger into anything. It takes only a second to poke a finger in but it takes a good long time to get a badly hurt finger well, she had ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... and if God spares my life, I'll pay you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... I'll tell you what happened: that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... "On-ding,'—that's odd,—that is the very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac]. "Tak' your lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,—Maida gamboling through ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... dear. You couldn't if you wanted to—but you don't really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea. I hope you have something ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... only knows what you don't poke your nose into. But now don't go chattering about this. Do be good—for father's ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... be American, but, despite Bartlett, really old English from Lancashire, the land which has supplied many of the so-called "American" neologisms. A gouge is a hollow chisel, a scoop; and to gouge is to poke out the eye: this is done by thrusting the fingers into the side-hair thus acting as a base and by prising out the ball with the thumbnail which ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... you live, my dear shark?... Let me see everything. Let me poke around everywhere. Everything of yours interests me. You will not say now that I do not love you. What a boast for Captain Ferragut! The ladies come to seek him on ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... variety of draughts, that one was scarcely missed; every door and window in the room sent in its current of air, to search under the table, flare the candles, bear in in triumph the smell of burnt fat from the kitchen, and poke into the tender places of rheumatic patients; while, in spite of all these, the room was so close and redolent of dinner, that fish, flesh, and fowl were breathed in every breath. A scant and well-worn carpet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... all my force—like Punch and the devil at the two ends of the stick. At last, after she had held me in a corner for half a minute, I made a rush upon her, drove her right to the opposite corner, so that the end of the handle gave her a severe poke in the body, which made her give up the contest, and exclaim as soon as she recovered her breath,—"Oh! you nasty, ungrateful, ungenteel brute! You little viper! Is that the way you treat your mother—and nearly kill ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Poetry, a piece of versajxo. Poignant dolorega. Point punkto. Point (cards) poento. Point (tip of) pinto. Point (to sharpen) pintigi. Point out montri, signali. Points (railway) relforko. Poise balanci, ekvilibri. Poison veneno. Poisonous venena. Poke the fire inciti la fajron. Poker fajrincitilo. Polar polusa. Pole (wooden) stango. Pole (shaft of car) timono. Pole (geography) poluso. Polecat putoro. Polemic disputo, polemiko. Police polico. Policeman policano. Polish poluri. Polish (substance) polurajxo. Polished ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... owin' to the office,' he says to her, 'an' now you eat—lemme see you eat, Linda,' he says, an' that seemed to be food enough for him. He didn't half touch a thing. 'Eat all you want,' he says, 'an', Peleg, poke up the fire. There's half a ton o' coal comin' to-morrow. An' we're goin' to have this every day,' he ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... myself along through the dust kicked up by the choo-choo car the boys rolled away in, I came upon a youth who held me up in the middle of the road and asked how I'd like to continue my run against time in an airship. He was a cheeky looking chap, and I felt like giving him a poke in the breather, when he grinned and gave me the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... is sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly sent ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... a ride?" he exclaimed; and before Jerry suspected what was going to happen he found himself seated on the monster's tail! "There you go, on the back of a sea-elephant," exclaimed Mr Kilby, giving the beast a poke with his stick. "Hold on tight, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... two women rose and went to the dining-room as mechanically as though they had just been discussing the last "poke" bonnet or Mother Hubbard mantle, in the most usual way imaginable. However, a new tie bound them together now, and though no direct allusion, was afterwards made by either party to the strange narrative, yet their sympathy so strong, though new-born, manifested itself in the look ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... to go fast. She knew no fear of horses. She would have undertaken to drive the car of Phaeton, himself, had she been given the chance. She had little patience to poke along, and that was exactly what ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... muffled by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but what mattered that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... away after a little, I know. I go to the card catalogue like a lamb to the slaughter, poke my head into Knowledge—somewhere—and am lost, but the light of it on the spirit does not fade away. It leaves a glow there. It ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of deep holes with a plate at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is—when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d——d—my dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at the bottom of St. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... scanty in the skirt, and one of those funny little old-fashioned black shawls with a sewed-on border, that you seldom see nowadays. Do you know the kind I mean? It was a narrow, shawl-pattern border, and there was a short tufty black fringe below the border. And she had a gray poke bonnet, a bonnet made of silk 'gathered' on to a large stiff frame; 'drawn' bonnets they used to be called. I took in all these details of her dress in a moment, and even in that moment I noticed too that the materials of her clothes looked good, though so plain and old-fashioned. ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... cold weather for this Priest Captain fellow," Young commented, "if we've got hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you're about right, Professor—he'll want t' take it out of our hides. Just poke up th' Colonel t' telling all he knows about this old dodger. Th' Colonel's got his tongue pretty well greased just now with his own prime old Bourbon—pass me that jar, Rayburn, I don't mind if ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... all the harder with a big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke him ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button. This allowed one to 'crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of cave, excavated in the hill, it is said, with an idea of finding treasure. It seems there was once a Mexican calendar cut in the rock at this spot; and some white people who were interested in such matters, used to come to see it, and poke curiously about in search of other antiquities. Naturally enough, the Indians thought that they expected to find treasure; and with a view of getting the first chance themselves, they cut down the calendar, and made this large ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... knowing that the queen-mother lay under his suspicion, 'My dear father,' said he, 'there is one thing herein of which we must take good heed; and that is, that the queen, my mother, who likes to poke her nose everywhere, as you know, learn nothing of this enterprise, at any rate as regards the main spring of it, for she would spoil all for us.' 'As you please, sir; but I take her to be so good a mother, and so devoted to the welfare of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... naughty she might be she was a companion with whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as it ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... that go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to the hows and wherefores. Never was there such an age. Let's poke behind the scenes ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... certain whether she had actually made it or not; with the result that her talk was a sort of continuous, blurred expectoration, out of which would emerge, at rare intervals, those sounds and syllables of which she felt positive. Swann supposed himself entitled to poke a little mild fun at her in conversation with M. Verdurin, who, however, was not at ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... methought it said, "Come, bore me!" —I found the Weser rolling o'er me.' You should have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 'Go', cried the Mayor, 'and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!'—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a 'First, if you please, my thousand guilders!' A thousand guilders! The Mayor ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... reproduce just like the barrels in the mud cities; two individuals grow a third one between them. Another proof of Leroy's theory that Martian life is neither animal nor vegetable. Besides, Tweel was a good enough host to let him poke down his beak and twiddle his feathers, ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... hamper of his choice wine (which, by the by, he purchased at a cheap shop for the occasion) was opened; and slices of ham were cut with the only knife and fork. Jack Richards tried to be facetious, but it would not do. He gave Bagshaw a poke in the ribs, which was received with a very formal, "Sir, I must beg—" To Mr. Wrench, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... her captivity," continued Mushymush, "she managed to stain her face with poke-berry juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once undetected, she boldly ingratiated herself with the Boy Chief,—how honestly and devotedly he best can tell,—for I, Mushymush, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... who, immured in studies and dreams, found all life to be "a fairy-tale book with half the leaves uncut,"—the charming little snow-drop of a Carlotta, "who would sit next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I like you much,—much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put herself completely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... the Chilian, for he would never be making all that disturbance—unless indeed he had gone mad under the stress of being hunted—so it must necessarily be a stray Peruvian soldier. Jim at once sprang to his feet and began to poke about among the bushes with the muzzle of his carbine, as though searching for somebody who might possibly be hidden among them, at the same time turning his back on the approaching man, who was still pushing his way through the bush ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... he could not walk about the farm any longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... pass the service has come to when midshipmen take such liberties with their superiors, eh, Captain Sourcrout?" he exclaimed, giving a poke in the ribs with his elbow to a stiff, old, martinet style of post-captain, who sat next to him, and had looked utterly horrified ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... business, in friendship, and in love. One has ceased to be interesting to the women of thirty and the men of forty. The achievement of years shrinks to depressing dimensions, and the real test is on. One becomes uncomfortably aware of the shrewd poke of Degas that "any one can have talent at twenty-five. The great thing is to have ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Saperda and Hylotoma grubs when I place them on a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please, poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested. Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very strange ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... words surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke fun at the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... long winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them but throw them a handful ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... climb the rocks again, each seeking for the plants it liked in its own fashion, some jumping over everything they met till they found what they wanted, others going more carefully and cropping all the nice leaves by the way, the Turk still now and then giving the others a poke with his horns. Little Swan and Little Bear clambered lightly up and never failed to find the best bushes, and then they would stand gracefully poised on their pretty legs, delicately nibbling at the leaves. Heidi stood with her ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... detection just now. What I wanted to say to you is this. Keep a close tongue in your head and stick by me in what's going to happen in the next few days. This bunch," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the captain's cabin, "are fixing their necks for halters, an' I for one don't intend to poke my head through any noose of another man's making. There's more in this thing if it's handled right, and handled without too many men in on the whack-up than we can get out of it if that man Divine has to be counted in. I've a plan of my own, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for you. I didn't steal a bit of it— I saw from your face you wouldn't like things got that way. Here's a fine happing of fur to keep you warm; and I've got a full dozen of eggs given me, and a beef-bone to make broth, and a poke o' meal: and they promised me a cape at the green house, if I bring 'em some herbs they want. We shall get along grandly, you'll see. I've picked up a fine lot of chestnuts, too,—but them be for me; the other things be for you. I'll set the bone on this minute; it's ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... then he drew a dial from his poke; And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock; Thus we may see,' quoth ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... plain glass windows, shone on his temples. Immediately below him, in a front pew, sat his mother, a dried little old woman, with beady black eyes and a pointed chin, which jutted out from between the stiff taffeta strings of her poke bonnet. She gazed upward, clasping her Prayer-book in her black woollen gloves, which were darned in the fingers; and though she appeared to listen attentively to the sermon, she was wondering all the time if the coloured servant at home would remember to baste the roast pig she had left ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... vexed at her propensity to poke fun. "I have been detailed for that service for more than two years. Moreover, I was a good enough scout to pass within the lines of your army to-night, and to travel the whole length ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... Don't you know that Mr. Worth expects us to make the trip in the shortest possible time? We've got to get that money into Republic to-morrow evening, and before if we can. There is too much at stake to poke along ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... regarded this as a wholly insane proceeding. Was he going to attempt to poke a hole through a wall three ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this bake-oven. Whew, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... hadn't oughter git it. If he don't lift his hands, but jest sets with his mouth open, he gits mostly flies. The old birds, with a nest full o' howlin' young ones, might go on, I s'pose, pickin' up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an' feedin' 'em, but they don't. They jest poke 'em out o' the nest, an' larn 'em to fly an' pick up their own livin'; an' that's what makes birds on 'em. They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest to poke 'em out, and let 'em ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... again. He was dirty, care-free; his furs supplied food and clothes for him and certain rags for her, and filled his cupboard with strong drink. He remembered that the girl had had no money, and that he had come first to the North to find gold. If he had succeeded, if his poke were heavy with the yellow metal, he could go back to his city and take up his old life anew, but he couldn't begin at the bottom. With wealth at his command he might even find a more desirable woman than Virginia: perhaps the years had changed her even ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... broke no precedents. We started off in fine style, feeling like old-time emperors traveling in state; and within ten minutes we were using paddles ourselves to poke and beat our men into understanding of the laws of balance, they abusing one another while the canoes rocked and took in water through the loosely ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... growing out of those early reports, and possibly less satisfactory to its owner, was the one accorded to Clement T. Rice, of the Virginia City Union. Rice knew the legislative work perfectly and concluded to poke fun at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... share with you?" he said roughly, when, a few hours later, he and Rateau parted in the street outside the Cabaret de la Liberte. "Who are you, I would like to know, to try and poke your ugly nose into my affairs? How do I know where you come from, and whether you are not some crapulent spy of ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... wounded, attacked Mr. Oswell's horse, and thrust the horn through to the saddle, tossing at the time both horse and rider. I once saw a white rhinoceros give a buffalo, which was gazing intently at myself, a poke in the chest, but it did not wound it, and seemed only a hint to get out of the way. Four varieties of the rhinoceros are enumerated by naturalists, but my observation led me to conclude that there are but ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, three excursions and three hunts were required to fill them. In ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... idea how the house will look outside," asked Jack, giving the fire a poke, "or is that to be left to ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... again. Thereafter he became a Nemesis to Mr. Grimes, haunting him through the jungle of chairs, and tables, pursuing him into distant corners, and shady places, where, so sure as the sausage-like finger poised itself for an interrogatory poke, or the fat, red fist doubled itself for a spring-testing punch, the innocent-seeming Adam would thereupon fall against him from the rear, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... fine wall of net, swim into it. Now the openings in the net—the meshes—are one inch across, just wide enough for the Herring to poke his head through. Once through, he is caught. His gill-covers prevent him from drawing back again. Thousands of other Herrings are held tight, all around him, and the rest of the shoal ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... He intended to surprise the folks by walking down and taking his place with the others when the dinner bell rang. Daisy Ellington would clap her hands and sparkle in her enthusiastic way. Shorty would begin to poke fun at him. Mrs. Seymour would probably just smile in her slow, motherly fashion and see that he got one of the choice steaks. And Ruth—would she flash at him her swift dimpled smile of pleasure? Or would she still be ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... nearly ready to give up when he happened to poke his head in the hollow end of a tree whose roots were pinioned down by the huge rock. The small heart of the trunk had decayed, offering an entrance just large enough for a ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... expose his fighting fangs. "Numa!" he muttered; but he did not stop. Numa might not be at home—he would investigate. The entrance was so low that the ape-man was compelled to drop to all fours before he could poke his head within the aperture; but first he looked, listened, and sniffed in each direction at his rear—he would not be taken by surprise from ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fire another vigorous poke before continuing. The Captain slid to the edge of his chair, holding on ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... seeing the multitude of delighted spectators who went up and down without accident, he resolved to try it, too, and so successfully that he was able after a few attempts to carry a stick with him, stand on the highest rung, and poke up the pigeons. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... find it," said Polly, consolingly. "How did the pin look?" she asked, for the first time remembering to ask, and beginning to poke around ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... carriages can pass. Donkeys are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or work ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... wearies of the perpetual deal and turn-up of the cards at rouge-et-noir, of the rattle of the ball as it dances into its pigeonhole at roulette, of the monotonous chant of "Make your game, gentlemen," or "The game is made." The croupiers rake in their gains or poke out the winnings with the passive regularity of machines; the gamblers sit round the table with the vacant solemnity of undertakers. The general air of the company is that of a number of well-to-do people bored out of their lives, and varying their boredom with quiet nods ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... raised prow of what looked to be a genuine birch bark canoe poke in sight. In these modern days when even the Indians up in Maine manufacture up-to-date canvas canoes by the thousand, it is a rare event to run across one made of birch bark. The trees that are large enough for the purpose have ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... and dear. Twenty-two shillings here, thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... was growing tired, for her foot had become painful, and so she was cross, and neither returned answer, nor paid heed to the warning. For when we are cross, all our other faults grow busy, and poke up their ugly heads like maggots, and the princess's old dislike to doing any thing that came to her with the least air of advice about ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. An' I'm plumb ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the man?" which was more certainly demonstrative of certain facts than had those facts been stated in the fullest detail, met his eye, Mr. Tatham paused and laid down the letter with a start. His ruddy colour paled for the moment, and he felt something which was like the push or poke of a blunt but heavy weapon somewhere in the regions of the heart. For the moment he felt that he could not read any more. "Do you know the man?" He did not even ask what man in the momentary sickness of his heart. Then he said to himself, almost angrily, "Well!" and took ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... this was the whole truth, fell weeping upon Sidonia's neck, and asked forgiveness for her suspicions. "There, that will do," said Sidonia,—"that will do, old preacher; only be more cautious in future. What! am I to poke under my bed to see if any one is hiding there? You may go, for I suppose you have often hidden a lover there, your eyes ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... repetition of the word wallah and the gobbling of a turkey-cock; and then seeing that the boys laughed he repeated the performance, waved his clumsy spear over his head, and made a dash at the bullocks, prodding them in the ribs, administering a poke or two to the horses, and sending them off at a gallop ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... from and is very much more extensive than ours. The Kai regards his reflection and his shadow as his soul or parts of it; hence you should not tread on a man's shadow for fear of injuring his soul. The soul likewise dwells in his heart, for he feels it beating. Hence if you give a native a friendly poke in the ribs, he protests, saying, "Don't poke me so; you might drive my soul out of my body, and then I should die." The soul moreover resides in the eye, where you may see it twinkling; when it ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... over to him—teasingly). Me and Tom had a race, Papa. I beat him. (She sticks her tongue out at her younger brother.) Slow poke! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... the police nor anybody else must be allowed to poke a nose into our concerns," said Herrera in a low voice, as he lighted his cigar from Lucien's. "It would not agree with us. I have hit on a plan, daring but effectual, to keep our Baron and his agents quiet. You must go to see Madame de Serizy, and make yourself ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... members of that rising race with which a Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements, Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
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