"Crooning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the car with his arm over his eyes. The rain fell endlessly, rattling on the roof of the car, dancing silver in the coffee-coloured puddles of the road. Their boredom fell into the rhythm of crooning self-pity ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... and passages, knock at the bedroom door, run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roof nearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with her friend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge of the terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west window commanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the narrow, straggling path into the cool dusk of the woods, she began to sing. The crooning chant was as mournful as ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... for nearly an hour had been gliding smoothly forward with a soothing, cradling motion of its heavy trucked Pullmans, and a crooning, lullaby sound of its droning wheels, came to a jarring stop at one of the mountain stations, and Lieutenant Allison wakened with a start. The echo of the laugh that he had heard in his dream still sounded in his ears, a tantalizing, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... they're tuning Has the sweet and sleepy crooning That the mother hums the baby at her breast, Till the world forgets its sorrow And the cares that haunt the morrow, And is sinking, hushed and happy, to its rest Sometimes bubbling o'er with gladness, Sometimes soft and fall of sadness, Through my dreaming rings the music ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... wail of an infant sounded from a pole crib at the other end of the room, and the woman rose quickly and crossed to its side. Connie saw her stoop over the crib and mutter soft, crooning words, as she patted the tiny bed clothing with her hand. The wailing ceased, and the woman tiptoed back to his side. "It is the little Victor," she explained, and Connie noticed that her eyes were wet with tears. Suddenly she broke down and ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... crane, the booming of the bittern, the vulpine bark of the eagle, the loud trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky; or by the seashore, the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, the wild crooning of the flocks of gulls, repeated, continued by the hour, swirling sharp and shrill, rising and falling like the wind in a storm, as they circle above the beach or dip to the dash of the waves,—are much more ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... The great ocean, crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The vast sky, like the outspread azure wings of the brooding mother-bird, nestled ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... was setting; and they floated through waves as rosy as the rosy sky. A fresh wind filled the sail, and ruffled Gulliver's white breast as he sat on the mast-head crooning a cheery song to himself. Dan held the tiller, and Davy lay at his feet, with Nep bolt upright beside him; but the happiest face of all was Moppet's. Kneeling at the bow, she leaned forward, with her lips apart, her fuzzy hair blown back, and her eyes fixed on ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... empty shell of a huge sea urchin, which in accord with a whim of the sea had floated and was now held aloft slantwise to the lips of the wind, firm in the branching tines of stag's-horn coral. A rustic pipe—giving forth a sonorous moan, now cooing and crooning, now bold and confident, and again irresolute and unschooled. Not too sure of instrumentalism, oft the note was hesitating, soliciting a compliant ear as became a modest wooer of the muses, polishing his unceremonious serenade to some, shy mermaid, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Sheba was ill at ease. Crooning her quaint lullabies to the baby, she would often lift her eyes to heaven and sigh, "De good Lord hab marcy on dem! Dey's all a drinkin' at de little shaller pools dat may dry up any minit. It's all ob de ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... villages, or rather towns with large market-places. Now, however, these were burned with fire, or deserted, or occupied only by a few old bodies who got a living from the overgrown gardens. These poor people, who sat desolate and crooning in the sun, or perhaps worked feebly at the once fertile fields, would fly screaming at our approach, for to them men armed with guns must of necessity ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... microphone, he gave an animal call, a cry that started out on a low crooning note and rose in volume and intensity until it hurt the ears. He repeated this three times. Then he set the microphone down and turned back to his colleagues, an expression ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... the answer. "I guess 'twas all the talking I done last night that brung 'em into my head. I picked 'em up from that fellow I was telling you about. He'd start crooning 'em whenever he looked at the stars to find ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... young green corn for supper, as she told me the two little fables that follow. There was a poise and graciousness about this woman, quite outstanding; yet she was a simple, smiling, motherly person who often laughed quietly, or broke into a rhythmic crooning song as she imitated ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... bitterly that he'll give any of us fifty to one they ain't a person in the place that ever so much as even heard of Price's Addition to Red Gap. And so the talk went for a little, with Jake Berger ever and again crooning to the waiter for another round of stingers. I'd had two, so I stayed out on the last round. I told Jake I enjoyed his hospitality but two would be all I could think under till they learned to leave the dash of chloroform out of mine. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... busy at some game—possibly wigwams with the blankets and sheets—already the chamber-maid had complained of finding the sheets knotted round the bed-posts. He was singing a song to himself as he played. Jean could hear his voice crooning. The sound filled her with an immense tenderness. Little Mhor with his naughtiness and his endearing ways! And beloved Jock with his gruff voice and surprised blue eyes, so tender hearted, so easily affronted. And David—the dear ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... with her a curious old instrument, like a lute with many strings, and upon this she struck chords to the song she sang, "The Wronged Love of Great Laird Gregory," the melody of which seems ever to be with me; and yesterday, when I heard Nancy crooning it to herself, I cried aloud as a woman might, for the unfulfilled in all our lives, and my ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... crescent over the houses, and its faint mild rays were like a benediction upon us. Then we had turned to the left, and were in the Bois de Boulogne. We stopped the carriage under the trees, which met overhead; the delicatest breeze stirred the branches to a crooning murmur. All around was solitude and a sort of hushed expectation. Suddenly Rosa put her hand into mine, and with a simultaneous impulse we got out of the carriage ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... old woman having the appearance of a witch sat at a dark table by the little criss-cross window of the dark room. She was crooning to herself, and I made the sign of the evil eye and asked her in French for wine; but French she did not understand. Catching, however, two words which sounded like the English 'White' and 'Red', I said 'Yaw' after the last and nodded, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... to herself, and when Emile returned he found her crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered her boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his tuition her passion for music had ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... come out and climbed on the vegetable-stand, and is sitting in the potatoes with little sister in her lap. Little sister waves her fat, red arms in the air and shrieks in babyish delight. The old women with the shawls over their heads are talking together, crooning over the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... nothing else all her life. Grey hair, skilfully drawn lines on the forehead, and a plain gown, with cap, little shawl, and check apron, changed her into a comfortable, motherly creature who found favour the moment the curtain went up and discovered her rocking, darning, and crooning an old song. In a short soliloquy about Sam, her boy, who wanted to enlist; Dolly, her discontented little daughter, who longed for city ease and pleasures; and poor 'Elizy', who had married badly, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... into the shapeless features, crooning and gurgling, and emitting short, sharp whines of delight. Her beady eyes glittered wickedly, like the eyes of a snake, and the withered lips curled into a horrid grin, exposing the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... thirstily of the cool water. The fawn splashed playfully round while its mother was drinking. It would dash a few paces into the stream and then look back to see if its mother approved. Evidently she did not, for she would stop her drinking and call the fawn back to her side with a soft, crooning noise. Suddenly she raised her head, the long ears shot up, and she seemed to sniff the air. She waded through the deeper water to get round a rocky bluff which ran out into the creek. Then she turned and called the little one. The fawn waded until the water reached its knees, then stopped and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... that way about it," he answered me, or rather I think that is what he said, because he was crooning to me and the Ladies Bird at the same time, and with a mixture of epitaphs and endearments that I didn't care to untangle. "There, there, lovely lady, don't be scared; it is going to be all right," ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wall the little cooper took a candle and a huge bowl. Then on he went over the moist floor until there rose before them in the candlelight, darker than the gloom about it, a gigantic tun. In a crooning murmur the cooper began to tell of his possessions. He called the vaults his realm, the tuns his dearly loved subjects—for, as the peasant gazed, he saw a long procession of tuns stretching away into the darkness. He shouted ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... brook, I suppose," glancing at the clock. "Well, I'll tell Joe just as soon as he gets home," and slipping into the big chair again, she set to work, and presently the old kitchen was very quiet, except for the little song that Phronsie was crooning to Seraphina. At last this stopped, and Polly, looking off from her work, saw that Phronsie had fallen over on the floor, ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... cool, dust-laden wind blew down Providence Road, twisted the branches of the tall maples along the way, tore roughly at the festoons of blooming vines over the gables of the Briars, startled the nestled doves into a sad crooning, whipped mercilessly at the row of tall hollyhocks along the garden fence, flaunted the long spikes of jack-beans and carried their quaint fragrance to pour it over the bed of sober-colored mignonette, mixing it with the pungent zinnia odor and flinging it all over into ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... She motions the rattles to begin. Behind her are the Old Men, with the drums and rattles; on each side, the Fighting Men seated on the ground. The dance begins, the CHISERA singing. The Old Men keep up a crooning accompaniment; from time to time the Fighting Men join the singing and exhibit a growing excitement as the dance progresses. At intervals, one and another of them, leaps to his feet and joins the ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... she knew he was grateful, for she suited him better than anyone else. If she was late, he was impatient; when she had to go, he seemed forlorn; and when the tired head ached worst, she could always soothe him to sleep, crooning the old songs her father used ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... that evening. He was in excellent spirits. His light-hearted abandon on the Wiggle-Woggle had been noted and commented upon by several lookers-on. Confronted with the Hairy Ainus, he had touched a high level of facetiousness. And now, as he sat with her listening to the band, he was crooning joyously to himself in accompaniment to the music, without, it would appear, a care in ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... with his supremest test. He gave me a heritage from the Old World, hate and vengeance and blood, and said, "Cast it all into my Crucible." And I said, "Even thy Crucible cannot melt this hate, cannot drink up this blood." And so I sat crooning over the dead past, gloating over the old blood-stains—I, the apostle of America, the prophet of the God of our children. Oh—how my music mocked me! And you—so fearless, so high above fate—how you ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... cool ones, damping his brow with the eau-de-cologne the nurses gave her, and smiling at him. Her voice soothed him. It was so clear and yet soft, like a song,—not a song of romance or passion, but like the cheerful crooning songs that mothers sing. And her face reminded him even more of his mother than Pamela's. She was not the least like his mother, but there was something in her expression that first youth cannot ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but it suited his mood; it formed a background for his gloomy thoughts. And, while he rested, he fell to talking as though Ralph were living, and merely rested with him. He talked and answered himself, and, later, leaned over his dead, crooning like some woman over her child. The time passed. Again he rose, and once more shouldering the body, now stiff and cold, ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... to weave, crooning the mystic weaving-song meanwhile, so that the magic of its words might sink into every part of the Cloak, and make its power certain. He feared not to weave it under the eyes of him who should receive it, for ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... a throng of the Folk, one of whom reached for Thrala with a crooning cry. It was ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... it was as suddenly chased away by his hearing the voice of Jane crooning over the words of some doleful old West Country ballad, not of a cheering nature certainly, but sufficient to prove that someone was ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... she, 'so bonny and fat and glossy, and the wee bit speckled quey calves they'll be leaving,' and with that she walked up the byre and ran her hand over the tors of the beasts, crooning away to herself; and another month saw the last of the ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... the Wick folk. She told him island stories about gentle fairies and good-humoured elves who lived in a green windy country by summer seas, and her air would be wistful as if she thought of her lost home. And she sang him to sleep with crooning songs which had the sweetness of the west wind in them. But her maids were a rougher stock, and they stuck to the Wicking lullaby ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... caught up into her arms the halfgrown youngster, petting his silken head, running her white fingers through his shining mahogany coat; making crooning little friendly ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... passionate violence of the hills, the tempest broke. Safe inside, he talked and smoked with the patriarch and his thoughts wandered, as he sat there by the hearth, back to the room from which now and then drifted a fragment of plaintively crooning song. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... back to the last time I had seen him. About two years ago, it had been. I had looked in at his place while on a motor trip, and he had put me right off my feed by bringing a couple of green things with legs to the luncheon table, crooning over them like a young mother and eventually losing one of them in the salad. That picture, rising before my eyes, didn't give me much confidence in the unfortunate goof's ability to woo and win, I must ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of a bark in it, but yet was not a bark. It had a good deal of a kind of crooning whine about it, but yet was not a whine. It was just a cry of almost overpowering joy and gladness; and it was so uncannily different from any dog-talk she had ever heard, that the singed and frightened husky bitch by the fire stood gaping ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... he hid a grin under his thick, curling beard which he had grown since the first frost as a protection against cold. He picked up the mitten and laid it to dry on the slab mantel, and when he returned, Lovin Child was sitting in the pan, rocking back and forth and crooning "'Ock-a-by! 'Ock-a-by!" with the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... table feverishly. The light reflected back as from some living mass of crimson fire, now shading darkly, now glowing into wondrous, colourful transparency as he moved the case to and fro with jerky motions of his hands—and he was babbling, crooning ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Pawnee. It became broken, but at no time lost its distinctive character. It never rose to a high key, and from the beginning to the end, its variation in tone was no more than two notes of the musical scale. Had the volume been less, it would have called to mind the crooning of the housewife by her spinning wheel or over the cradle of the infant she ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... nestled down upon the breast, his chest heaving, while the man stroked the soft curls, soothing him with every word known to love's alphabet, till finally, crooning a cradle song, the exhausted child fell asleep. He had found a father by the love. His faith was saved, and by it, she who had groped blindly among the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the weekly mail. Priestley, at his wagon, was bullocking even more desperately than usual, with a view to getting out of sight of the station as soon as possible. Pawsome, repairing a side-saddle, on his extemporised bench, was softly crooning a familiar hymn, the sentiment of which seemed appropriate to himself, whilst the language breathed the very ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... babies laughing. She rose and stole softly through her garden. The moon was shining brightly on the tulip bed, and the flowers were swaying to and fro. The old woman looked closely and she saw, standing by each tulip, a little Fairy mother who was crooning and rocking the flower like a cradle, while in each tulip-cup lay a little Fairy baby laughing ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... sang it seemed to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight from his eyes to the fireplace, and all the comfort that it was possible to have flowed through his soul, and at last he slept. ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... was asleep, I should judge, sir. The old hag was rocking to and fro, crooning to herself until one of the two—the live one, I should call him—hurled a curse at her in Spanish and told her to dry up or he'd kill her. All a bluff, for he ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... was squatting down on his heels, face to face with White Fang and petting him—rubbing at the roots of the ears, making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growling responsively, the crooning note of the ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... supplying Thomson with songs, he wrote letters full of hints and suggestions anent songs and song-making, and now and then he gave a glimpse of himself at work. We see him sitting under the shade of an old thorn crooning to himself until he gets a verse to suit the measure he has in his mind; looking round for objects in nature that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of his fancy; humming every now and then the air with the verses; retiring to his study to commit ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... striking squeal of a hen, accompanied by the crouching attitude, together indicate the appearance of a hawk as plainly as though it uttered the warning in words. It is obvious, therefore, that all the sounds made by animals, such as cackling, clucking, crooning, purring, crowing, growling, and roaring, as well as modifications of these sounds, impart some meaning which can be distinguished by their kind, and are frequently ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... few chords softly. And then her voice rose in a low crooning note that went straight ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... eyes. There in front of her sat Nya, crooning her low song, and there, on either side crouched the mutes tapping upon their little drums and gazing into their bowls of water, while against her leaned Noie, who stirred like one awaking from sleep. Ages ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... great, rough knees, he fairly fell, crooning incoherently, and by a mighty effort keeping his stiff, cold ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... lived in the glen for nearly three-quarters of a century, and he, if any one, must know the girl. With the thought, Clayton sprang through the window, and a few minutes later was at the cabin. The old man sat whittling in the porch, joining in the song with which his wife was crooning a child to sleep within. Clayton easily identified Europa, as he had christened her; the simple mention of her means ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... pointed ears, the exquisite animal face was quite mad. She whispered to me, but her dialect was so thick that I could follow only a few words, and would just as soon not have heard those few. An older chak grunted for silence and she subsided, swaying and crooning. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of the rippling, crooning song, and before the verse was half done, joined unconsciously in with the others, forgetting the need of words in the melody ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... pallid lips of fear, the scowl of hate, or the amused shrug of contempt; while in the same land, people of the same race, facing the same problems and perils, speak it with glad voices and hopelit eyes. Many a mother crooning over her babe prays that it may be saved from the Socialism to which another, with equal mother love, looks as her child's heritage and hope. And with scholars and statesmen it is much the same. With wonderful unanimity ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper Union in the name of every child in New York, but crooning low and tenderly, soothing one little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony, without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago on the bed upstairs, spent and ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... The sweet, subtle aroma of his hair reached her. The subtle warmth of his body met hers. As the mystic eyes opened below her eyes, a crooning lullaby hidden somewhere within her found its way to her throat and there stuck. She grew dizzy and her throat ached. Don, ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... over before they had time to pose and put on expressions; and when they found they had been photographed, they thought it the great event of their lives. The mere fact is sufficient with these good folk; possession of the likeness is a very secondary consideration. We left them crooning and laughing and casting admiring glances after H.C.—even at eighty years of age: possibly with a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... glance deflected, alert and apprehensive—his ear had caught a low crooning of song. It came from a small boy who, a little wooden boat in his hand, was advancing up the slope. This was Tito Murano, Junior, Tito's first-born, nine years old, softly footing it home after a joyous hour along the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the cliffs and light-house in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy scented; and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Psalms beside the sick, and prayed like the voice of God at their dying beds. He went cheerily from farm to farm, from cot to cot; and when he wearied on the moorland roads, he refreshed his soul by reciting aloud one of Ralph Erskine's "Sonnets," or crooning to the birds one of David's Psalms. His happy partner, our beloved mother, died in 1865, and he himself in 1868, having reached his seventy-seventh year, an altogether beautiful and noble episode of human ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... fiddle scattered flowers along the street; Into the dust of Brookfield Fair Carried a shining primrose air, Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet, Drew us close, and held us bound, Then—to the tune of Pedlar's Pound, Caught us up, and whirled us ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... Wilson had begun to feel the effect of a night's disturbed rest, evinced in frequent droppings off to sleep, while she sat by her sister-in-law's bedside, lulled by the incessant crooning of the invalid's feeble voice, she was startled by a man speaking in the house-place below, who, wearied of knocking at the door, without obtaining any answer, had entered and was ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hear the childish prattle of the children and the crooning of Naudin as she hushed, with swaying body, her baby ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the Bible. One of the latter, seated at the right of the teacher, was reading aloud, in a sing-song voice, the section of the Pentateuch assigned for the following Sabbath in the synagogue, and his cantillation blended with the crooning of the teacher's wife as she sat by her baby's bed, ... but every now and then the master's voice rose and drowned the sounds of both, as the growl of the thunder stifles the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... recognised the performance of Andy Callaghan, who, when they turned the corner of the allotment, was discovered seated on the boxes as when they saw him last, and crooning the dismalest melody. But he had, in the meantime, recovered himself sufficiently to gather brushwood, and kindle a fire beside the road; likewise to cook a panful of rashers as the shadows grew longer and the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... had the lazy forethought to bring, his feet cocked up on the rail, his eyes on the vague expanse about him. There was no moon; the sky was starlit. Barlow had said "Good night" half an hour before; Philippine Charlie was muttering over the wheel; Nigger Ben's voice was crooning from the galley where he was making a friendly call on the canary. The water slipped and slapped and splashed alongside, making pleasant music in the ears of a man who gave free rein to his fancies and let them soar across a ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... more than such modulated sounds; it is not in definite words, and hence, is not capable of translation; it is but the expression of feeling through the voice, as is the wail of the infant, the rippling laughter of youth, the crooning of senility, the groans ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... sunset of gold and crimson flamed in our backs and turned the clear pools to fire. Far off down the vale the plains and the sea gleamed half in shadow. Somehow in the fragrance and colour and the delectable crooning of the stream, the fantastic and the dim seemed tangible and present, and high sentiment revelled for ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... permission to depart, offering at the same time some small token of our approval of her songs, to which she replies in the words that commence this chapter. We catch a last glimpse of her, bidding us good-bye in the gentle manner that tells its own tale, and of Mimi crooning to herself and trying to push a much-crumpled playing-card,—the Queen of Hearts,—into the ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... That noble poet! Happy town, Marseilles the Greek, that him doth own! Daughter of Homer, fair to see, Of Virgil's son the mother she. To you I'd say, Hold, children all, Let but your eyes on his work fall; These papers are the sacred nest In which his crooning fancies rest; To-morrow winged to Heaven they'll soar, For new-born verse imprisoned still In manuscript may suffer sore At your small hands and childish will, Without a thought of bad intent, Of cruelty quite innocent. You wound their feet, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... joyfully sniff him and joyfully wag his tail. But Skipper did not awake and a fine spray of rain, almost as thin as mist, made Jerry curl up and press closely into the angle formed by Skipper's head and shoulder. This did awake him, for he uttered "Jerry" in a low, crooning voice, and Jerry responded with a touch of his cold damp nose to the other's cheek. And then Skipper went to sleep again. But not Jerry. He lifted the edge of the blanket with his nose and crawled across the shoulder until he was altogether inside. This roused ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... this bad gal. You'd better hush. I tell yer he's er-comin'. Here, Susan Jane, take th' cloth. There, gra'mammy; there's jest es sweet er little gal es ye'd find in er dog's age." And the old lady at once cuddled the little one in her arms, swinging back and forth in her home-made rocker, and crooning ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... and lamentations, but only in silent tears and heart-breaking sighs. These alarming symptoms soon revealed the truth: reason had fled. For hours at a time poor Edmee rocked to and fro, with a bundle of rags clasped tightly to her breast, crooning over it the same lullaby she had been wont to sing ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... and lights gleamed only in upper windows of apartments, where sick sufferers tossed, or tender mothers sang soft lullabys to restless babies crooning in their cribs. Now and then a sudden gust of wind shook the yellow berries from the china trees, that bordered the pavements, and very soon the moonshine faded, then flashed fitfully, and finally vanished, as the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... slats of the bed creaked as she sat down. Thankful that the darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and its mother crooning over it. No one was on the porch. A vast weight of misery and chagrin was on him. He sat down on the steps and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. But his nerveless fingers broke the only match he had, as he attempted to strike it on the step, and, holding his pipe before him, he sat staring ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... or rather a group of five pretty little villages, almost touching but distinct, like five flowers or five berries on a single stem, each with its own old church and individual or parish life. It is a pretty tree-shaded place, full of the crooning sound of turtle-doves, hidden among the wide silent open downs and watered by a clear swift stream, or winter bourne, which dries up during the heats of late summer, and flows again after the autumn rains, "when the springs rise" in the chalk hills. ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... our front door, and I have known the male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent, but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were, rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy of more than forty years, heard him ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... under great maples where a shadowy light sifted through, and the houses looked like fragments of dreams, with here and there a lamp in a distant window. The slow wind wandered through pines and hemlocks, as if some fairy Puck had laid his finger to his lips, saying to crooning insects, "Hush, hush!" A night to dream as ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... in and sang, such a song I warrant as my lords and ladies had never bent their ears to hear before, a crooning death incantation of the Choctaws, which fell as naturally from my lips ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... intently. The cook, serene and cool, was smoking in the doorway of his cabin. Above the dull roar of the river Paul could hear Min Tolley's cackle of laughter from the cottages a hundred yards away, and Mrs. Hopps crooning over ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... from oral tradition in some out-of-the-way part of the country. The numbers, too, which have been preserved, seem to be exceeded by the numbers that have unfortunately been lost. Who has not in his ears the hum of many lyrics heard by him in his childhood—from mother, or nurse, or some old crooning dame at the fireside—which are to be found in no collection, and which are now to himself but like a distant, unformed sound? All our collectors, whilst smiling in triumph over the pearls which they have brought up and borne to the shore, lament the multitude ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... misnamed Amelia was already back in her corner with the child, hugging it, kissing it, rocking it in her arms, crooning over it, holding it tightly against the lump that hung down on her barren bosom. Long after the baby had ceased to cry she sat crooning and yearning over it. And the mothers watched her, with wonder and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his gray mare Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind and rain and fire; Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet, While glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares: Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and houlets ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Picking out, then, a snug spot among some stones that had fallen from above, where a clump of myrtles perfumed the soft evening air, he settled himself down, and soon sank into a comfortable drowsy state, in which he listened to the munch munch of the horses, and a low crooning song uttered by Hamed as he finished his task of bathing his swollen ankles, and then walked up and down more strongly, pausing every now and then to stoop and rub ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... paths he led the way buoyantly and now and then he broke into low almost inaudible crooning of an ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... within but old Ursela, who sat crooning over a fire with a bundle upon her knees. She did not see the Baron or ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... have pained her, if he had now proceeded to try to escape through the ceiling. Cats were so emotional. However, he remained calm, and, after padding silently about the room for awhile, raised his head and uttered a crooning cry. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... mentioned: at the creation, at this coming of Jesus, at the coming crowning of Jesus in John's Revelation. Below, the only music was that of the babe's holy young mother, God's chosen one to mother His Son, crooning to her babe; and the gentle lowing in minor key of the oxen whose stall He shared. Above, the great glory shining, the messenger of God speaking a message of peace and love. Below, only ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... Lage Ulfson had been walking about the fields to look at the crop, both smoking their evening pipes. But as they came down toward the brink whence the path leads between the two adjoining rye-fields, they heard a sweet, sad voice crooning some old ditty down between the birch-trees at the precipice; they stopped to listen, and soon recognized Aasa's yellow hair over the tops the rye; the shadow as of a painful emotion flitted over the father's countenance, and he turned his back on his ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... gathered her up in her arms and rocked her for a long time in the rocking-chair, crooning over her queer little rambling tunes without meaning; only once she spoke, and then what she said was this: "Libby Anne, I hope you will never be as lonely to see me as I am right now to ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true; As her mother's cradle crooning ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... room automatically. Through the partitioning wall she could hear George crooning like a guardian angel to his charge, and she smiled tenderly. "The darling!" she thought. His immature and uncomprehending sympathy warmed her chilled heart as nothing else could have done. She had a great new sensation of leisure; there was all day to potter about ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... bird, supposed to be increasing in many places in England. Its absence from so promising a locality seemed strange. Another species, also said to be increasing in the country—the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the tall beech woods its low, montonous crooning note was heard all day long from all sides. In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, one prefers this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being more continuous and soothing, and of the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... colour to her somewhat freckled complexion; and the limbs that rested in a careless attitude on the stone bench were long and languid, though with years and favourable circumstances there might be a development of beauty and dignity. Her lips were crooning at intervals a mournful old Scottish tune, sometimes only humming, sometimes uttering its melancholy burthen, and she now and then touched a small harp that stood by ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dust the other six. It is in the midst of a great grain-producing country, and is famed for its market, held every Sabbath. The surrounding folk dress for market, instead of dressing for Sunday, and exhibit the whitest of bornouses above the dustiest of legs as they sit crooning over trays of eggs or onions, brought far on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... girl!" cried Patty,—but as she noted Azalea's pale face and worried, harassed eyes, she just clasped her in her arms, with a little crooning ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... to sleep as sound as if you were in a hammock just off middle watch,' said Harry; and the next moment he had her rolled up in her little blue dressing-gown, nestling on his broad shoulder, while he walked up and down the room, crooning out a nautical song, not in first-rate style, but the effect was perfect; the struggles and sobs were over, and when at the end of a quarter of an hour Harry paused and looked at the little thin sharp face, it was softened ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... twisting his lips, old Jake stooped, picked up a roll of bills, and, mumbling and crooning to himself, laid it on the table. Jimmie Dale immediately transferred it to ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... while she stood in the doorway, looking out upon the river over which the mantle of night had settled. Mammy was crooning to the Indian baby before the fire. It was an old darky lullaby, and the faithful servant had sung it to her when she was a child. It brought back memories of her youthful days, which now seemed so long ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... lugubrious recital of the exploits of "the Arethusa, Seventy-four," in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, "On b-o-o-o-ard of the Arethusa." It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song,—it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my hands had streikit. The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him. My back was to the window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does nae guid, it does nae harm.' She recited in ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... gray mare, Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, [spanked, puddle] Despising wind, and rain, and fire; Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet; Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; [song] Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, [staring] Lest bogles catch him unawares, [goblins] Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... son; then dropping upon her knees beside the bed, she slipped one arm underneath the pillows, and gently drew the wounded head upon her own breast, tenderly kissing the brow and cheeks; then taking his hand within her own, she stroked and caressed it, meanwhile crooning over him in low, murmuring tones, as though he had ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... but, although she appeared inconsolable, she was secretly pleased to have the uncontrolled education of her infant son. An elderly lady with a baby-boy is like a girl with a doll—just as the little mother dresses and undresses its counterfeit presentment of a child in wax and rags, crooning over its tiny cradle, talking to it in baby-language, pretending to watch with anxious solicitude its every mood, so Mrs. Purling found in Harold a plaything of which she never tired. She coddled and cosseted him to her heart's content. If he had cried for the moon some ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... effect, and gave her the appearance of a true Romany. She was not at all afflicted with shyness, and performed her share of the entertainment with a zest that charmed her audience. Her southern songs, with their crooning refrains, seemed to bring visions of moonlit lagoons and the luscious scent of tropical flowers. She accompanied herself quite prettily on the banjo, and had a stock of encores ready to meet the demands for a further exhibition of her skill. She was ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. Moreover, not a sound disturbed me. Soft darkness had hidden the whole world from my sight, and buried me in ideal rest. Only the lonely, crooning voice of silence strikes in monotones on my ear, and the dark monsters out there will draw me to them when night comes, and they will bear me far across the sea, through strange lands where no man dwells, and they will bear me to Princess Ylajali's ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun |
