"Broomstick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Flatt, "I'd shut up. A man who lets his wife lick 'un, and is afeared to go home because she'd pull his hair or broomstick 'un, shouldn't talk to other men about being cowards. I'd like to see ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... stickth her tail up; do me good to zee un! Now thiccy trough, thee zany, and tak thee girt legs out o' the wai. Wish they wud gie thee a good baite, mak thee hop a bit vaster, I reckon. Hit that there girt ozebird over's back wi' the broomstick, he be robbing of my young zow. Choog, choog, choog! and a drap more left in ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... however, wholly prepared for what happened next. The man in green, riding the frail topmost bough like a witch on a very risky broomstick, reached up and rent the black hat from its airy nest of twigs. It had been broken across a heavy bough in the first burst of its passage, a tangle of branches in torn and scored and scratched it in every direction, a clap of wind and foliage ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... say," replied Douglas, "but there it is. Of course, at Gretna Green, which, as you say, is not far away, the blacksmith used to witness marriages, although his presence was unnecessary. Old stories have it that the contracting parties jumped a broomstick or a pair of tongs, or something of that sort, but whether there were any signatures I really do not know. Anyhow, the law in Scotland, as I have been informed, is that if a man and a girl agree to take each other as husband and wife, a marriage is legally performed, and is as binding ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... scoundrels, who swallowed long pieces of raw pork the whole of the day, and towards evening were, from repletion, hanging their heads over the sides of the canoe and quite ill. They had been regaled with pork and whisky going up; we gave them salt fish and a broomstick by way of variety on their return, and they behaved very well under the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... general topic of conversation, some one said, "Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman that could inspire the Dean to write so finely upon her." Mrs. Johnson smiled, and answered that "she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick."—JOHNSON: Life of Swift. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... are thinking of a broomstick marriage. Trust me. We are still legally married, and if I should try to sneak out of my obligations to you by this performance, I should still be liable in the eyes of the law for your debts. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... she is not afraid. So much the worse for her. Mayhap she's gone riding on a broomstick herself. How ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, carrying grit—plain grit." ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... started out to see Donner Lake, which reposes between Summit, the highest point on this trip across the Great Divide, and Truckee. We were in a sleigh drawn by a team of huskies: real Alaskan dogs. I have ridden pretty much everything from a broomstick to a bronco, but this was my first experience with huskies. I thought it was going to be hard work for the dogs, but they frolicked about in the snow with their pink tongues out, showing all ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... even when they were brutally and bloodily in earnest, and when their surroundings of castles and donjons, savage landscapes and half-savage peoples, were in keeping; but those doings gravely reproduced with tinsel decorations and mock pageantry, by bucolic gentlemen with broomstick lances, and with muffin-rings to represent the foe, and all in the midst of the refinement and dignity of a carefully-developed modern civilisation, is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... duty here for the witches' broomstick and the fairies' rush of European tales, but a similar conveyance is, I think, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... find expression in the narrow treadmill of labor alone. The child needs to learn to work; but along with his work must be the opportunity for free and unrestricted activity, which can come only through play. The boy needs a chance to be a barbarian, a hero, an Indian. He needs to ride his broomstick on a dangerous raid, and to charge with lath sword the redoubts of a stubborn enemy. He needs to be a leader as well as a follower. In short, without in the least being aware of it, he needs to develop himself through his own activity—he needs freedom to ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... live in either); log barn; 20 acres in cultivation; 60 acres timber land; balance pasture land; well watered. We will sell this place for $1575. Will throw in a cook stove and all the household furniture, consisting of a frying-pan handle and a broomstick; also a cow and a yearling calf; also one bay heifer; also 8400 lbs. of hay, minus what the above-named stock have consumed during the winter; also 64 bushels of oats, subject to the above-mentioned diminution. If sold, we shall have ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... beauty, the reckless vitality of souls still under the spell of spring. When poor Sara could escape from town into the country, mount her horse, and tear through a storm, the neighbours compared her to a witch on a broomstick, and, shaking their heads, would foresee much sipping of sorrow by the spoonful in the future of Lord Garrow. To-day, however, the young lady assumed her most demure expression, and received the guests at luncheon as though she ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... "speculator" and brought to Georgia where he was sold to the Wyches of Macon. He cooked for them at their Hotel, "The Brown House" for a number of years, then was sold "on the block" to Mr. Stevens of Upson County. Betsy was sold at this same auction. Betsy and Peter were married by "jumping the broomstick" after Mr. Stevens bought them. They had sixteen children, of which Emily is the next to the last. She was always a "puny", delicate child and her mother died when she was about seven years old. She heard people ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... severely that this nose is far longer than the classic rule admits, and this arm has not the swelling proportions of life,—never seeing, that, though another statue was indeed designed for an Antinoues, this was never meant to be anything but a broomstick dressed in your grandfather's cloak, with a lantern in a pumpkin for a head. Oh, the dreariness of having to explain pleasantry! of appending to your banter Artemas Ward's parenthesis, "This is a goak"! of dealing with people who do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... acquaintances of theirs! There—grinning and brandishing his stick—was the Little Black Man who had worried Rudolf many a night as far back as he could remember. There was the Old Witch on the Broomstick, whom Ann had often described to him. There again, were other Bad Dreams that made the children almost smile as they remembered certain exciting times. The Angry Farmer—Rudolf had seen him before; he remembered his fierce expression, ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... sent the healthful tempest And scatter'd all these pestilential vapours! But that we owed them all to yonder Harlot Throned on the seven hills with her cup of gold, I will as soon believe, with kind Sir Roger, That old Moll White took wing with cat arid broomstick, And raised the last night's thunder. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... perhaps. Riverdale Park!" she repeated, with scornful emphasis. "There isn't any river; there isn't any dale; there isn't any park. Nothing but a lot of wooden houses scattered over a flat prairie, and a few trees no bigger than a broomstick, and no more leaves on them either. In the morning the men all rush for the train, and the rest of the day the nurse-girls trundle the babies along the plank walks, while 'society' amuses itself. Society consists of Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown, Mrs. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... trumpet together: another mimics a bagpipe with a German flute, and makes it full as disagreeable. There is an admired dulcimer, a favourite salt-box, and a really curious jew's-harp. Two or three men intend to persuade you that they play on a broomstick, which is drolly brought in, carefully shrouded in a case, so as to be mistaken for a bassoon or bass-viol; but they succeed in nothing but the action. The last fellow imitates * * * * * curtseying to a French horn. There are twenty medley overtures, and a man who speaks a prologue ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the party. One never knew just how she would come, on wings, or on a broomstick. This time she came walking, and dressed in a short red gown and a white apron. Her kind eyes twinkled as she gave her gift ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... (if indeed we may speak of the abuses of what is in itself an abuse,) sinless? I am aware, that Prof. Hodge says, that it was so: and, when he classes despotism and slavery with adiaphora, "things indifferent;" and allows no more moral character to them than to a table or a broomstick, I trust no good man envies his optics. May I not hope that you, Mr. Smylie, perceive a difference between despotism and an "indifferent thing." May I not hope, that you will, both as a Republican and a Christian, take the ground, that despotism has a moral character, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... saloons. He also remembered that this wooden frame was much taller than any of the long procession of frames which followed it, and that, from a hole in the right side thereof, protruded a fist about the size of the boy Bog's, clutching a broomstick, with which the inmate kept a semblance of order among the wilful and eccentric occupants of the frames behind him. "Oh, yes; I have seen you very often, Bog. How do you like the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... past, Edward learned from her that the dark hag, which had somewhat puzzled him in the butler's account of his master's avocations, had nothing to do either with a black cat or a broomstick, but was simply a portion of oak copse which was to be felled that day. She offered, with diffident civility, to show the stranger the way to the spot, which, it seems, was not far distant; but they were prevented by the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... supposed to come down the chimney, our stockings were pinned on a broomstick, laid across two chairs in front of the fireplace. We retired on Christmas Eve with the most pleasing anticipations of what would be in our stockings next morning. The thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet, bright ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... mount, and, looking at the woe-begone O'Hara, laughed. "A nice trick this is, Sergeant," he said, "to start out on a trip to dodge Indians with a spavined horse. Why didn't you get a broomstick? Now go back to camp as fast as you can go; and that horse ought to be blistered when you get there. See if you can't really cure him. He's too good to be shot." He patted the gray's nervous head, and the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... wouldn't be in it. Then, when he comes home, a little the worse for wear, she ups an' reproaches 'm, which, God knows, that ain't no time to argue with a man. You don't want to argue with a fella when he's so. You just want to tellm'. Tell'm with the help of a broomstick if you want to, but tell'm, or leave'm alone. An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... Why should not a broomstick form the subject of a poetical effusion, when the material of the broom itself is so often used in schools to stimulate ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... green one is her runabout. The big red one is a touring broomstick, high power and very fast; you can hear ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... when people were more afraid of the Devil and of witches than they are now, they liked to have a priest or a minister somewhere near to scare 'em off; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman that would ride round the room on a broomstick, Barnum would build an amphitheatre to exhibit her in; and if he could come across a young imp, with hoofs, tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of one of those "daemons" which the good people of Gloucester fired at, and were fired at by "for the best part of a month together" ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this: She says that one hour after the thing was born the happy father was caught by the doctor and nurse seeing if it could hold its own weight up on a broomstick, like a monkey. She says he was acutely distressed when these authorities deprived him of the custody of his child. Wouldn't that fade you? Trying to see if a baby one hour old could chin itself! Quite all you would ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... of developed object lessons such as Mr. Acland adverted to. Anybody who knows his business in science can make anything subservient to that purpose. You know it was said of Dean Swift that he could write an admirable poem upon a broomstick, and the man who has a real knowledge of science can make the commonest object in the world subservient to an introduction to the principles and greater truths of natural knowledge. It is in that way that ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Dawn"—you remember it? I happen to know all about that. A fellow about town somehow got hold of an idea for a melody; he didn't know a note, but he whistled it to Sykes, and Sykes dotted it down. Now, Sykes knows no more of harmony than a broomstick, so he got another man to harmonise it, and then a fourth fellow wrote an orchestral accompaniment. That's the kind of thing—division ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... frighten them by her dreadful howlings. It was also said that she had been seen in the shape of a hare, milking the cows dry in the meadows belonging to the convent; that she used to perform as an actress on the boards of Drury Lane theatre in London, and, on the very same night, return upon a broomstick to Wuerzburg, and afflict the young ladies with pains in all their limbs. Upon this evidence she was condemned, and burned alive in the market-place ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and lightning), cried the vrouw. "There's my best cap, that cost twenty guilders, utterly ruined." Then she bravely ran for the broomstick. ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... recollect they used to play at cricket In the bye-streets years ago, With a broomstick for a bat, a coat for wicket? Now the Bobbies hunt them so! The old ladies grumble at their skipping; The old gents object to their tip-cat; So they squat midst slums that shine like dirty dripping, Not knowing what the dickens to be at. And the young Town Children, O my brothers, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... a witch, not mounted on a broomstick, but on the respectable household cat, changed for that night into a flying fury; finally, along with my brothers, being captured, washed, and dressed, to join with other spirits worse than ourselves in "dooking" for apples and eating mashed potatoes in momentary ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... all, I suppose, part of that odd hatred that she has of Peter's earlier life and earlier friends. She has never met the man Brant, but I think that she fancies that he is going to swoop down one of these days and carry Peter off on a broomstick or something. She gave in about the name—indeed I have never seen Peter more determined—but I think, nevertheless, that she broods over it and remembers it. My dear, I am as sorry for her as I can be. There she stands, loving Peter with all her heart and soul, terrified ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... the girl, demurely. "I am as old as the world, and can fly through the air on a broomstick, so don't think to escape me again, step-mamma. I trust you will enjoy your brief repose, for it will soon be morning, and if I don't see your fair face at the breakfast table, I shall ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... only smiled in a half-pitying way, took an old broomstick that he used for a poker, and scraping the ashes of the fire aside rolled the clay pig-pudding into the middle of the fire, and then covered it over with the burning ashes, and piled on some bits of wood and dry cabbage-stumps, ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... to reputation, admitting that he had assisted "a sight of couples over the broomstick," adding, however, that the knack had its drawbacks. There were many door-stones in Zorra that he dared not cross. And he wagged his head over Timmins's case, wisely, as a lawyer ponders over the acceptance of a hopeless ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... conduct on the part of the vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she had done nothing worse; but, she did something worse still, as you shall learn. For, she got astride of an official broomstick, and muttered as a spell these two sentences, 'On Her Majesty's service,' and 'I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant,' and presently alighted in the cold and inclement country where the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... another sapient of the same profession. "Robin Oig is no the lad to leave any of them without tying Saint Mungo's knot on their tails, and that will put to her speed the best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick." ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... by a table, absently balancing on his forefinger a long, broad, ivory paper-knife. He was, Brigit remembered, curiously adept in balancing, and once she had seen him go through, for Tommy's amusement, a whole series of the kind, from the classic broomstick on his chin, to blowing three feathers about the room at a time, allowing none of them to fall. How quickly he had moved, in spite of his great height, and how Tommy had laughed. But, for the past week, something had gone wrong ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... marry? They say they jump the broomstick together! But they had brush brooms so I reckon that whut they jumped. Think the moster and mistress jes havin' a little fun outen it then. The brooms the sweep the floor was sage grass cured like hay. It grows ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... Just as if we didn't know that as soon as the rest of us innocents are quiet and dreaming of blueberries, your window will fly open and off you'll go on a broomstick." ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... jumping over the other's back. Three other boys were engaged in the fascinating game of blowing bubbles—one making the lather, another blowing the bubbles, while a third was trying to catch them. There were also three more boys—one of them apparently pretending to be a witch, as he was riding on a broomstick, while another was giving a companion a donkey-ride upon his back. All had the appearance of little cupids or angels and looked so lifelike and happy that we almost wished we were young again and could ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... them came right up to the man, who was stooping down, as if he were going to jump over him, which so frightened the fellow that, instead of rising, he seized the short broomstick, with one hand on either end, and held it over his head. He remained a few seconds in this position, when the sheep made a spring, and jumped fairly over him, ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles—more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted to it at the machine-shop ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... adopt you as my child," said she lightly. "Here I am with a son risen from the grave. Come! we will begin at once. I will go out and get what I want; you can dress, and come down to breakfast with me when I knock on the ceiling with the broomstick." ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... know where all the brats offa junk heaps that witches use in their doin's gets to in the end? Watch the chimney! Maybe it flew outa there on a broomstick. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... him hither on a broomstick, I suppose: or what matter how? Here he is; and here we are, worse luck!" And, setting his teeth, Amyas awaited ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and if we take naturally to one another I will know more of her and she of me at the end of forty days (I had almost said of forty minutes) than I knew of my mother at the end of forty years. A contemporary stranger is a novelty and an enigma, also a possibility; but a mother is like a broomstick or like the sun in the heavens, it does not matter which as far as one's knowledge of her is concerned: the broomstick is there and the sun is there; and whether the child is beaten by it or warmed and enlightened by it, it accepts it as a fact in nature, and does not conceive it as having ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... the least offended. She paraded, jauntily switching her great hips and laughing. "Jealous!" she teased. "You poor little broomstick." ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... shores of Chesapeake Bay, in 1812 or 1813, Lord Byron wrote his well-known stanzas. "By the god of war!" said Sir Peter to his sailors, "I'll make you touch your hat to a midshipman's coat, if it's only hung on a broomstick ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... his wrists tied together with a handkerchief, and his legs secured just above the ankles with another handkerchief; his arms are then passed over his knees, and a broomstick is pushed over one arm, under both knees, and out again on the other side over the other arm. The "cocks" are now considered ready for fighting, and are carried into the center of the room, and placed opposite each other with their toes just touching. ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the marriage done over again in whatever way I thought proper on our return to Europe. But I was in far too great a Hurry to be Married to look too narrowly which way the Cat jumped; and a Romish Wedding is surely better than jumping over a Broomstick, which, unless we had adopted the uncouth Moresque custom, would have been all the Ceremony of Matrimony we could have had. So Pere Lefanu came privately, to avoid Gossip, to the Physician's House, and Lilias Lovell and John Dangerous were made One in the French Language, the contracting ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... could blast the corn with mildew and lame the oxen in the plough, that she could smite her persecutors with pains and sickness, that she could rouse storms in the sky and strew every shore with the wrecks of ships and the corpses of men, that as night gathered round she could mount her broomstick and sweep through the air to the witches' Sabbath, to yield herself in body and soul to the demons of ill. The nascent scepticism that startled at tales such as these was hushed before the witness of the Bible, for to question the existence of sorcerer or daemoniac seemed questioning ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... ain't it. Loose this 'ere pin (tugs frantically at a portion of the mechanism.) 'Ang me if I can make it go! (Removes a pin which suddenly releases the magazine), well, I've done it now and no mistake. Might as well send one to fight with a broomstick. (A shell explodes just behind him.) Well, I am in a 'ole and no mistake. [Battle proceeds with results ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... sometimes classed as one) exhibit a command of lyric metre hardly inferior to the command displayed in that masterpiece. In fact, if ever there was a poet who could write, and write, perhaps beautifully, certainly well, about any conceivable broomstick in almost any conceivable manner, that poet was Drayton. His historical poems, which are inferior in bulk only to the huge Polyolbion, contain a great deal of most admirable work. They consist of three divisions—The ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... A few faint hand-claps instead of the old expectant laughter welcomed him. A generation had apparently risen that knew not Petit Patou. His heart sank. The heat of the footlights shimmered like a furnace and smote him with sudden lassitude. He began his tricks. Took his tiny one-stringed broomstick handled fiddle and played it with his hands encased in grotesquely long cotton gloves. Presently, with simulated impatience, he drew off the gloves, threw them, conjurer fashion, vanishing into the air, and then resumed his violin to find himself impeded ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... O'Neill—"put straws into the cow's teats, an' let the milk run, while he laid out on the grass an' slep', and Miss Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?" ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... and said I'd dropped something. So I had. It was a rose. I was going to disclaim it, with all the haughty grace of a broomstick, when suddenly I remembered that it was my carte d'identite, so to speak. The Dragon had prescribed it in his last letter to Madame de Maluet about meeting Ellaline. As there might be difficulty in recognition if she came to the station with a chaperon as strange ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "clear down along under the sand dunes in a green-painted house with a garden in front of it with as many colors as Joseph's coat. Those Costas lived 'most any way." Then my aunt added, over her shoulder: "They say the old woman was a gypsy and got married to one-armed Manel jumping over a broomstick. And I wouldn't wonder a mite if 'twas true. She was a queer looking old hag with black, piercing eyes and a proud way of walking. The boys are a wild crew. Why, I remember this girl Deolda, like a little leopard cat with blue-black shadows in her hair and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... there?) which has "gone and got itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and a Turkey-Foot,—which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... down and round and round, faster and faster, growing smaller every second, until at last she was nothing but her real self, an ugly shriveled witch running round and round on a broomstick. With a loud shrill scream she mounted into the air and was away out of sight in an instant, leaving everybody staring open mouthed ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... their caps, three of the tallest children were appointed to "help teacher." This helping consisted in marching proudly out from behind a screen of bushes, carrying three gay little May poles, decked with flowers and colored paper streamers. They had been made by swinging a barrel hoop from a broomstick handle, by means of a number of ribbon-like strips of cloth. Of course the hoops were wound with the cloth, and besides that were trimmed with apple ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... her pretty card to admire it further, and she scrutinized closely the funny old witch riding on a broomstick, after ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... witch's costume consists of a union suit (Munsing or any other standard brand), corset, brassiere, chemise, underpetticoat, overpetticoat, long black skirt, long black stockings, shoes, black waist and shawl, with a pointed witch's hat and a broomstick. The "modern" witch's costume is much simpler and inexpensive ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... you do not know Lady so well as I. Not Cromwell's best horse could comfort me for her. I MUST find her. Give me leave, sir; I must go and think. I cannot mount and ride, and leave her I know not where. Go I will, if it be on a broomstick, but this morning I ride not. Let the men put up their horses, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... You would never think to fear him; And you can not, must not hear him. He's so particular, you know, He'd just pick up his traps and go If but one little eye should peep That he thought was fast asleep. Searching broomstick, nails, and shelf, Till he finds the little stocking— Softly lest you hear his knocking— Smiling, chuckling to himself, He fills it from his Christmas store, And out he slips to ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... the abyss of inanity in such feasts—it may be literally called a yawning abyss. The abyss is the vast chasm between the money power employed and the thing it is employed on. To make a big joke out of a broomstick, a barrow and an old hat—that is great. But to make a small joke out of mountains of emeralds and tons of gold—surely that is humiliating! The North Pole is not a very good joke to start with. An icicle hanging ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... got hold of a broomstick, and gave her a good lesson, in order to get something for the ten sequins which I had been foolish enough to pay in advance. But I have broken none of her limbs, and I took care to apply my blows only on her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... form of easel, made of four uprights. The main front uprights are of strips 5/8" x 1-1/4", and the rear uprights are of 1/2" x 1" material. A thin broomstick will serve as the pivot bar for the upper end. The rest is made of two strips, each 1/2" x 1", nailed together to form an L, and nails or wooden pins will serve to hold the rest in any desired position. The front uprights should be at least ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... among us; but I believe we all allow we are sinners more or less, and after all do daily the things we should not do. Still if anybody wanted my help, I should hate to have 'em chase me with a broomstick, for I couldn't do a thing for 'em if they did; and if we think anybody is going into a ditch of a wrong idee, we'd better not scare 'em to death hollerin at 'em, it would be apt to send 'em in head first, while if we could kinder creep along behind, and speak a ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... sixteenth century, are no mysteries for us. The Egyptian ancestors of that mysterious people of Indian origin, the gypsies of the present day, simply used to drug their clients with hashish, a practice that fully accounts for broomstick rides and flights up the chimney, the real-seeming visions, so to speak, of old crones transformed into young damsels, the frantic dances, the exquisite music, and all ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on a broomstick, with a cat at her side, riding toward the moon. Each child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... think I should like my windows Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, sir; storks and coffins, and appropriate moldings above: I brought some from Fountains Abbey the other day. Look here, sir; angels' heads putting their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a broomstick, and the devil looking on from the mouth of an alligator, sir.[32] Odd, I think; interesting. Then the corners may be turned by octagonal towers, like the center one in Kenilworth Castle; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross slits for arrows, battlements for ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... the mother says threateningly, "Your 'will' is in your mother's pocket." It is in her pocket that she carries the rope for whipping the child. Another locution is, "Your will is in the corner" (i.e. the corner of the room in which stands the broomstick) (431. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... her without making her his wife," said the priest. "He will jump over a broomstick with her and will ask me to help him,—so that your feelings and hers may be spared for a week or so. Mrs. O'Hara, he is a villain,—a vile, heartless, cowardly reprobate, so low in the scale of humanity that I degrade myself by spaking to him. He calls himself an English peer! Peer to what? ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... also frequently made of a bright-coloured fabric. This is their every-day dress, and thus habited the men work with square-bladed spades resembling our own, whilst those of the women have handles as long as a broomstick and bent spade-or heart-shaped blades. The gala or holiday dresses of the peasantry are very handsome, each district having its own peculiar costume, but of these we will say a few words hereafter. Sometimes, as one walks or drives through the country, he may see the peasants ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Mozart, reigns like an enchanter. What though the tale of The Magic Flute is foolish beyond words. Who cares for the tale? Who thinks of the tale? It is only the wand in the hand of the magician. Though it be but a broomstick, it will open all the magic casements of earth and heaven, it will surround us with the choirs invisible, and send us forth into green pastures and by ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... turnspit? Bob is gone, And dinner must be drest by one: Where is that cur—(and I am loth To say that Betty swore an oath)— The sirloin's spoiled: I'll give it him!"— And Betty did look fierce and grim. Bob, who saw mischief in her eye, Avoided her—approaching nigh: He feared the broomstick, too, with physics As dread ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Something fantastic, inconceivable. I am in a condition to be surprised at nothing. If a witch on a broomstick rode in through my open window and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept her visit as a ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... figure (suppose that of a witch, riding on the conventional broomstick) is suspended by fine threads or wires on the screen remote from the spectators. Behind this are ranged, one behind the other, and at right angles to the screen, a row of lighted candles. Being all in the same line, they throw one shadow ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... to the least knowing what he meant. To lean so much as a broomstick, it seemed, against that tottering ruin ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... 'em in it. There's an old woman. One never hears of these things till the mischief's done; all sorts of defects are found out in the stable door after the horse is stolen; there's an old woman turns up now. An old woman who seems to have been flying into town on a broomstick, every now and then. She watches the place a whole day before this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, she steals away with him and holds a council with him - I suppose, to make her report on going off duty, and be damned ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... not know why a woman should exhibit an overgrown broomstick when an Italian train passes a flag station, any more than I know why, when a squad of Paris firemen march out of the engine house for exercise, they should carry carbines and knapsacks. I only know ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... doctor, however; on the contrary, he spoke of him as a "very clever and nice man, as much so as anybody need to live with;" but of his wife he could not speak so favorably; indeed, he described her as a most tyrannical woman. Said Elijah, "she would make a practice of rapping the broomstick around the heads of either men, women, or children when she got raised, which was pretty often. But she never rapped me, for I wouldn't stand it; I shouldn't fared any better than the rest if I hadn't been resolute. I declared over and over again to her that I would scald her ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... up those eyeless sockets wherein naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in prayer where no ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... with perfect gravity, "if we should be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda, unless you have a broomstick ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... of Galileo's speech and presence put the abstract Ricci in the shadow. The right man can make anything interesting, just as Dean Swift could write an entrancing essay with the broomstick as a central theme. The man's the thing, Hamlet to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Stella was told that Dean Swift had composed a poem, not in honour of her, but of Vanessa, she replied, with exquisite feminine amenity, that it was well known that the Dean could be eloquent over a broomstick. If he that night extolled Bristol above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... the neighbourhood, because it was rumoured that the faeries had taken her. A villager was said to have long struggled to hold her from them, but at last they prevailed, and he found nothing in his hands but a broomstick. The local constable was applied to, and he at once instituted a house-to-house search, and at the same time advised the people to burn all the bucalauns (ragweed) on the field she vanished from, because bucalauns are sacred to the faeries. They spent the whole night burning them, ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... rushed in with the tidings that one of the prisoners, and that the young wench, had escaped, although the door of the keep was locked and the window barred. She was clearly a witch, and only one thing was possible; namely that she had flown through the barred window, after the manner of witches on a broomstick, or in the shape of a bird, a bat, or an owl; nay, this was as good as certain, inasmuch as that the watchman had seen a wraith in the woods at about the hour of midnight, and the same face had appeared to the kennel-keeper. Both swore ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more competent to do it. This person is Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, an old maid between thirty-seven and forty-nine years of age. She was tall and thin, and had all her life rejoiced at this, for she had a form three fingers in diameter. True, a broomstick can be grasped between the thumb and index finger, and yet is not very graceful. Let not any one think, though, in spite of this infantine vanity, that Mlle. Crepineau was of those virgins whom the Bible condemns as foolish ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... she explained, opening a little box. "See the caldron and the bells on the handle? I got this in Denmark. That's from Andersen's tale of the swineherd's magic kettle, you know. Kitty's is from Tam O'Shanter's town. That's why there is a witch and a broomstick engraved on it. This spoon for Elise came from Berne. I think that's a darling little bear's head on the handle. What did you get, Betty?" she continued, turning to her suddenly. "You haven't shown me a ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody a happy New-Year in words appropriately ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... can get out, I expect, when he wants to," replied the wrinkled humorist, with a weather-beaten grin. "They do say he whips off on a broomstick about once a month and steers for Bos-ton!" His fashion of utterance was a leisurely sing-song, like the roll of a ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Wait until you see the old fairy godmother unload her pumpkin. Or did she carry the dress on a broomstick? I forget the details. At any rate, while I'm thinking of a way to appease the wrath of Jane's father by not dishonoring his scholarship, it is the very least you can do to get ready for the dance. I know where you can hire ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... of the fair-haired lady? No one knows. At the cry of Yvon she disappeared; but it was said that a wretched old hag was seen flying on a broomstick over the castle walls, chased by the dogs; and it was the common opinion among the Kervers that the fair-haired lady was none other than the witch, the godmother of the giant. I am not sure enough of the fact, however, to dare warrant it. It is always prudent to believe, without ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... shouted Jack. "She rode in on a broomstick—she crept in through the keyhole. Where's the fire? Let's take ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... set up a broomstick, and call it a true son of liberty,—a democrat,—or give it any other epithet that will suit their purpose, and it will command their votes in toto![1] Will not the Federalists meet, or rather defend, their cause on the opposite ground? Surely they must, or they will discover a want of policy, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Irishman, detested by everybody for his cruelty to American prisoners in his charge. Mrs. Day had often seen him. He stormed, and swore, and tugged in vain at the halyards, for they had become entangled; and Mrs. Day applied her broomstick so vigorously that the blustering Provost-Marshal was finally compelled to beat a retreat, leaving the American flag floating in triumph in the crisp November air over the well-defended ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... do wish you'd be careful!" Kathie and the twins were playing house, holding lively conversations in a high key, while Alan paid them repeated visits, prancing around the room, and to their door, on a broomstick, which was his fiery steed, and to control which required both voice and whip; Nannie was hunting through our pile of violin music for a certain duet to play with Max when he got home; and in the midst of all the noise Phil lay on the sofa, his head nearly level ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... he was a damn lucky fellow to be able to do it," cried Vane, taking the kindly old hand in both his own. "If I wasn't afraid of him coming for me with a broomstick, I'd do the same myself. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... roared the water-carrier; "is it you, ye bankrupt vagabonds, who have annoyed me? Begone; or by the sword of the Prophet, I'll impale you all three on my broomstick." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a boathook, the skipper seized a broomstick, and in a loud voice shouted to his crew, "Boarders! repel boarders!" In a boat alongside stood a female, her countenance flushed and irate, showing by her actions her intention of climbing up the ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... I jumped a broomstick. To git unmarried, all you had to do was to jump backwards over ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... from the vineyard). We were watching her riding up to the moon on your broomstick, Giuseppe. You will never ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... pardoned if, as he passes, he touches his forehead with three fingers of his right hand and murmurs: "Allah il Allah!" Some such exorcism seems to be needed to ward off the evil spirits that one would think must cluster around the ponderous structure, perching, perhaps, like the broomstick riders of Salem, on ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... died—a glimpse of the moon was all that had been granted to her. After watching for an hour or more, the moon moved up the skies; and in Kate's dream the moon was the great yellow witch in the pantomime, who, before striding her broomstick, cries back: 'Thou art mine only, for ever and ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Miss Ries left Moscow for Paris, but on her way stayed in Vienna, studying under Professor Hellmer. One year later, at the Vienna Spring Exhibition, she exhibited her 'Die Hexe.' Here is no traditional witch, though the broomstick on which she will ride through the air is en evidence. She is a demoniac being, knowing her own power, and full of devilish instinct. The marble is full of life, and one seems to feel the warmth of her delicate, powerfully chiselled, though ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... pretty quickly to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout broomstick ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... than there came running to him all the conjurers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in those parts (and there are too many of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many in black coats and white ties who might have known better, considering in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... The affrighted Mujik runs all round the stage bellowing fearfully; the bull-dog seizes him by the nether extremities and hangs on with the tenacity of a vice. Round and round they run, Mujik roaring for help, bull-dog swinging out horizontally. The audience applauds; the master flings down his broomstick and seizes the dog by the tail; the old woman seizes master by the skirts of his coat; and all three are dragged around the stage at a terrific rate, while the younger members of the family shower down miscellaneous blows with their sticks and cudgels, which always happen to fall ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... was required in the play. No one had genius nor ambition enough to create an entire one, but a very realistic head was constructed, and this, fastened to a broomstick and thrust forward at the psychological moment, produced a startling and thrilling effect. The audience was stirred to its depth. Most of the young people were either on the stage or behind the curtain; but the few who were in the audience broke ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... A broomstick dost thou not at least desire? The roughest he-goat fain would I bestride, By this road from our ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... voice. Mostly he only got a jeer in reply. The fellow would sit drinking These-an'-That's cider and laughing with These-an'-That's wife, until the pair, very likely, took too much, and the woman without any cause broke into a passion, flew at the little man, and drove him out of doors, with broomstick or talons, while the gamekeeper hammered on the table and roared at the sport. His employer was an absentee who hated the Parson, so the Parson groaned ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Woggle-Bug thus raved, the Chinaman's wife (who was Mattie De Forest before she married him) heard the conversation, and decided this love affair had gone far enough. So she suddenly appeared with a broomstick, and with it began pounding the Woggle-Bug as fiercely as possible—and Mattie was ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... sound of the quick young feet had died away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and corner broomstick." ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... She took her broomstick. Then, slinging all the empty bags across it, and balancing the cat on the other end, ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... "Nary a broomstick," replied the hunchback. "When they are a-follerin' Mister Ward's drovers, it's a little too ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very small children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not learn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing peals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the door ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... there are excellent materials to form one out of: but whilst the only merit an officer possesses is his ability to raise men; whilst those men consider and treat him as an equal, and in the character of an officer, regard him no more than a broomstick, being mixed together as one common herd; no order nor discipline can prevail, nor will the officer ever meet with that respect which is essentially ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... know that it is the awful magic mountain where the old witch who eats little children dwells?—and do you not know that she rides on a broomstick. I may need one to follow her, in case ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... So I takes up the knife, which had got a mother-o'-pearl handle to it, and tries to cut the apple, but I could only make a mark on it such as you see on a hot-cross-bun. Then I looked at the blade of the knife, and it were just like silver, but were as blunt as a broomstick. However, I tried again, but it wouldn't cut; so I axes a tall chap in livery as stood behind my chair if they'd such a thing as a butcher's steel in the house, for I wanted to put an edge to my knife. Eh, you should have seen ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy came to my house, and stole a piece of beef; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not at home; Taffy came to my house, and stole a marrow-bone. I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed, I took up a broomstick and flung ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... sunlight shot across the room. "By my soul! it's clearing off. Is this her work also? Has she swept away the clouds with her broomstick? And there goes the dinner-bell, too;" and he went to his room two steps at a time, as he ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... vehemently suspected of dealings in necromancy, and of riding to nocturnal orgies on a broomstick, according to the custom of witches. Certain persons had seen her putting the harness on her broom in the stable, which, as everyone knows is on the housetops. To tell the truth, she possessed certain medical ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... up. Dr. Le Grand came slowly up to them, paused and raised his hands for silence. "Why this excitement so early in the morning?" he asked. "We's prepared fer um ter day," said a woman, coming forward and brandishing a broomstick. "Dey says dey gointer kill niggers, but we's gwine ter tek er few er dem long wid us." "Bah!" exclaimed the minister. "What will such a thing as that amount to against rifles? Disperse and go home, or you'll be sorry." This command ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Sainte Marthe promised to make him some broth if he would do no harm while she was gone, and just to make sure he kept his promise she made him hold out his fore-paws and tied them hard and fast with her girdle, while he sat with his fore-legs around his—er—knees, and her broomstick thrust crosswise between. Then she got out her largest kettle and made a good savory broth of all the herbs in her garden—there were three hundred and sixty-five kinds. She knew that if he drank it all, the blessed herbs would work such a change in his inside ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Stop it! Don't let it bite me!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and he tried to get out of the way, but he slipped on his broomstick crutch and fell down, and a piece of prickly holly fell on him and tickled ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... by standing up and letting someone read the ceremony to them. My master was a Christian. There wasn't no jumpin' over a broomstick on my master's place. The white folks didn't have no nigger preacher for their churches. But the colored folks had 'em. They preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers—leastways they was ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em from the broomstick ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... could stay him the statesman proceeded to enter the cottage. As soon as he had opened the door a broomstick fell upon his shoulders ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... than synthesized fear.... I venture that many a vote for prohibition comes from gentlemen who look longingly through swinging doors—and pass on in propitiation of Satan and their alert consorts, the lake of brimstone and the corrective broomstick.... ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... years before, and had been so laughed at by some of the rough children of the village that she had turned on them violently and they had not dared come near her since. They had vented their spite, however, in calling, "Witch! Witch! Fly home on your broomstick," as Louise hobbled off toward home, vowing that never again would she go near a school, and sobbing ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... "We'll jump the broomstick in about a month from now," Dad said, full of satisfaction for his business stroke. "I aim to settle down ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... whether it range from the first volume of Modern Painters to Verona in time, or from The Seven Lamps of Architecture to Unto This Last in subject. If anybody ever could "write beautifully about a broomstick" he could: though perhaps it is a pity that he so often did. But this faculty, and the entire absence of bashfulness which accompanied it, are no doubt grand accommodations for letter-writing; and the reader of Mr. Ruskin's letters gets the benefit of both very often—of ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... and doubled down so as to form a tongs; and gathered up in a corner was a truss of straw, covered with a rug and a thin old blanket, which had constituted a wretched substitute for a bed. That, however, which alarmed Barney most, was an old broomstick with a stump of worn broom attached to the end of it, as it stood in an opposite corner. This constituted the whole ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... wi' heaven, I doubt, considering wha I carry ahint me—and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, I'se be bound.—Come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... if she was willin', den Marster would tell all de other Niggers us was a-goin' to have a weddin'. Dey would all come up to de big house and Marster would tell de couple to jine hands and jump backwards over a broomstick, and den he pernounced 'em man and wife. Dey didn't have to have no licenses or nothin' lak dey does now. If a man married up wid somebody on another place, he had to git a pass from his Marster, so as he could go see his wife evvy Wednesday and Sadday nights. When de patterollers ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman—a true woman! Would you have had one of them ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time by standing up and letting someone read the ceremony to them. My master was a Christian. There wasn't no jumpin' over a broomstick on my master's place. The white folks didn't have no nigger preacher for their churches. But the colored folks had 'em. They preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers—leastways they was little blue back ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... consists of a union suit (Munsing or any other standard brand), corset, brassiere, chemise, underpetticoat, overpetticoat, long black skirt, long black stockings, shoes, black waist and shawl, with a pointed witch's hat and a broomstick. The "modern" witch's costume is much simpler and inexpensive ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... witchcraft in her, I profess," said he to Mr. Dimmesdale. "She needs no old woman's broomstick to ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
