"Spade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the hermit was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the King, he greeted him and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... back by the vacillating Vaudreuil, had not yet come from Montreal, and the swiftest of the Canadian paddlers was sent down Lake Ticonderoga in a canoe to hurry him on. Then the entire battalion of Berry went to work at once with spade and pick and ax to prepare a breastwork and abattis, stretching a line of defense in front of the fort, and not using ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my spade for tears or mirth, Letting down two clay pipes into the earth? The one I smoked, the other a soldier Of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet Perhaps. The dead man's immortality Lies represented lightly with my own, A yard or two ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... have been gey hard on me, wee lad. The grape and spade would be clumsy to my hands, there being no life to them after the swinging spars. And my fingers, used to splicing rope, would not have the touch for milking a cow. And I'd feel lost, wee fellow, some day and me plowing a field, to see a fine ship on the waters, out of ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... casual and fluctuating nature of ghosts by drawing his spectre in shaky lines, as if the model had given the artist the horrors. This simulacrum rises out of the earth like an exhalation, and groups itself into shape above the spade with which all that is corporeal of its late owner has been interred. Please remark the uncomforted and dismal expression of the simulacrum. We must remember that the ghost or "Ka" is not the "soul," which has other destinies in the future world, good or evil, but is only a shadowy ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... of John Quincy Forrest doing any manual labor with an axe or spade. During our short acquaintance that had been put to the test too often to admit of question; but I encouraged him to fly right at the bank, assuring him that in case his tools became heated, there was always water at hand to cool them. The wrangler had rustled ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... the soil which we turn with our spade, and stamp with our shoes, covers millions upon millions of years. It is the ashes of the mountains, the leavings of untold generations of animal and vegetable life. It came out of the sea, it drifted from the heavens; it flowed out from ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... necessary in order to get at the full value of reserves." Our infantry is now accustomed to the rapid and thorough "organization" of the defensive. In August it neither liked nor had the habit of using the spade. Today those who see our trenches are astounded. They are veritable improvised fortresses, proof against the 77-millimeter gun and often against artillery of higher calibre. During the last five ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Abijah understood him. When his father had gone, he went into the meadow, and dug a deep pit, beside which he placed the sods at first removed by the spade. He then carefully loaded his rifle and called to the old gray. The poor animal, who was accustomed to obey the voice of every member of the family, feebly neighed and tottered to the brink of the pit. The young man threw a handkerchief over ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... bullocks that draw it, and is fastened to the yoke. A harrow, consisting of a wooden board about six feet long by two wide, is also used, being dragged over the ploughed land attached to the yoke by iron chains. If found not sufficiently heavy, the driver stands upon it. A spade or shovel, exactly like its English counterpart, and a reaping-hook, or sickle, having its cutting edge furnished with minute teeth, complete the list of a Baluchi's ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... had neither axe nor saw, nor knife nor spade. How could he do it? He had nothing but his hands. He tried to pull it out by the roots, but in ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... makes everything wrong," said the young girl, attacking with a little spoon in the shape of a spade the apex of a pink ice. And then she returned to her idea of a moment before: "You must promise to tell me—to warn me in some way—whenever I strike a false note. You must give a little cough, ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... said Abel to Hester a few days later, planting his spade on the ground, and slowly scraping off upon it the clay from his nailed boots, "as that Muster Vernon gave 'em a dusting in the school-yard as they won't forget in a hurry. He said he could not speak out before ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... say'st:[10] And the more pity that great folks should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even christian.[11] Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... homes to return to at night, they had characters, perhaps. Most of them were big strong fellows like himself. Why should he not become one of them? He fancied he could wheel a barrow, and ply a crowbar, and dig with a spade, as well as any of them; he was not afraid of hard work any more than they were, and the wages that kept a roof over their heads would surely keep ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... had used in the construction of the house, and forgotten. We put it carefully by, in order that we might fasten it to a pole, and use it in the moment of our flight as a spear. We found, also, a spade in the court, which we hid, that it too might serve as a weapon. Besides this, the sailors, on the night when we made the attempt, were to arm themselves with some long poles, which had been ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... gardens, and groves. I can see steps and galleries cut in the face of the cliff, and caves and caverns, natural and artificial: for one can cut this tufa with a knife; and it would hardly seem preposterous to attempt to dig out a cool, roomy mansion in this rocky front with a spade. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... altogether unprecedented extension of historical knowledge. Early in the 'forties the Frenchman Botta, quickly followed by Sir Henry Layard, began making excavations on the site of ancient Nineveh, the name and fame of which were a tradition having scarcely more than mythical status. The spade of the discoverer soon showed that all the fabled glories of the ancient Assyrian capital were founded on realities, and evidence was afforded of a state of civilization and culture such as few men supposed to have existed on the earth before the Golden Age of Greece. Not merely ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... have noticed this. Nearly all our little controversies begin in one way. Somebody says, 'I call a spade a spade and BONAR LAW (or LLOYD GEORGE) a lying, treacherous scoundrel.' I propose that we form ourselves into the Society for Not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... said; 'I have dug too often in this graveyard for any to wonder if they see me with a spade.' ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... the marble was removed, and the coffins of Jane and Enoch Grey rested side by side. The voice of the minister ceased, and only little Stanley's sobs broke that mournful silence which always ensues while spade or trowel does its sad work. Then the sculptured slab was replaced, and brother and sister were left to that blessed repose which is granted only to the faithful when "He giveth ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the battle would ever become an easy one. The powers of evil against which we fight are second only in strength to those of righteousness and light. In conflict between these powers there will always be the sacrifices of war to reckon upon, the spade work, the tunnelling, the weariness; surprises of the enemy, rushed advances, sick and wounded to care for, and captured territory to be occupied, organized, and governed, before the ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... dirt like giant fingers, turning out the potatoes which are tossed between the rows of dirt so men, who follow, may pick them up. But we'll dig ours by hand. And in digging potatoes you must be careful not to stick your fork, spade or whatever you use, into the potato tubers, and ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... We are set in motion. In front of the tool-depot there is a halt and trampling. To each is given a spade or pickax. An N.C.O. presents the handles in the gloom: "You, a spade; there, hop it! You a spade, too; you a pick. Allons, hurry ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... house languished a wretched, abortive garden, running over with weeds and sage-brush, and here a man pottered with the purposeless energy of old age, working with an ear cocked in the direction of the house, as he turned a spade of earth again and again in hopeless, pusillanimous industry. But when his strained attention was presently rewarded by a shouted summons to supper, and he stood erect but for the slouching droop of shoulders that was more a matter of temperament than of age, one saw a tall man ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... poor, ignorant savages. It is an ugly word, isn't it? But why dissimulate? At least, we can call a spade a spade. These men are human beings. Their right to life and happiness is as good as yours or mine, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... his god does not want him to work and he will be punished if he does, it is especially necessary to touch his religious nature first. When he accepts the Christian's God, then he will be ready to go to work for himself. The taking up of the hoe and the spade is his first confession of faith. What has already been accomplished through the new laws giving him his civil rights, puts an added responsibility upon the church. It is the Indian's last chance. Our further neglect is his certain death. Shall we leave him with his "Land and Law" without ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... an exception to most rules that you have got in your note-book, Mr. Stackpole," said the younger man. "But there is no guessing about the garden, for I have with my own eyes seen these gentle hands at one end of a spade, and her foot at the other a sight that, I declare, I don't know whether I was most filled with astonishment ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sun was hot, So Lu-cy took her pail and spade, And went to find a nice dry spot Where wells and cas-tles ...
— The Infant's Delight: Poetry • Anonymous
... I noticed the plants were blooming and it occurred to me that there must be artichokes on the roots. I got my spade and began to dig. I could not find a single artichoke. I took my spade back home and decided within myself that both parties were mistaken when they claimed to have grown so many hundreds of bushels to the acre. After a few days I went to my lower ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... and adventurers. Abraham Yachiny, the illustrious preacher, an early believer, was inspired to have a tomb opened in the ancient "house of life." He asked the sceptical Rabbis to dig up the earth. They found it exceedingly hard to the spade, but, persevering, presently came upon an earthen pot and therein a parchment which ran thus: "I, Abraham, was shut up for forty years in a cave. I wondered that the time of miracles did not arrive. Then a voice ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... example, you, as the female dancer will come upon the stage, with a distaff, twirling it, or with a pail to draw water; or with a spade for digging. Your companion will come next perhaps driving a wheel-barrow, or with a sickle to mow corn, or with a pipe a-smoaking; and though the scene should be a saloon, no matter, it will come soon to be filled ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... Elizabeth Stanton would be tied down with babies and household cares, Susan saw a bleak lonely road ahead for the woman's rights movement. She did so want her best speakers and most valuable workers to remain single until the spade work for woman's rights was done. Almost in a panic at the prospect of being left to carry on the Saratoga convention alone, Susan wrote Lucy irritable letters instead of praising her for drawing up a marriage contract and keeping her own name. Later, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... men and women who died, they two alone had burying. For I digged a hole with the stable-spade under the front lilac; and I wound them in the sheets, foot and form and head; and, not without throes and qualms, I ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... inclined to demur. A few deft and pointed questions, very clear, such as might naturally occur to Hillyard or Luttrell, or Sir Chichester himself might come in usefully to put the polish, as it were, on Millie's spade work. Harry Luttrell ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... Poets, we hear in some quarters, are the anointed kings of mankind—at least, so the little poets sing, each to his little fiddle. There is no greater mistake. It is the practical, prosaical fanatic who does the work; and the poet, if he tries to do it, is certain to put down his spade every five minutes, to look at the prospect, and pick flowers, and moralise on dead asses, till he ends a Neron malgre lui-meme, fiddling melodiously while Rome is burning. And perhaps this is the secret of Raleigh's failure. He is a fanatic, ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... being calculated to decide the great question, and all the principal geologists were on the spot several hours before operations commenced, for the purpose of inspecting the surface of the ground before it was disturbed by the spade and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of German archaeologists has revealed what town-planning meant in a small town rebuilt in the Alexandrine period. No other even approximately complete example has been as yet uncovered on any other site. But spade-work at the neighbouring and more famous city of Miletus has uncovered similar street-planning there. In one quarter, the only one yet fully excavated, the streets crossed at right angles and enclosed regular blocks of dwelling-houses ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... and through the town of Mallow: Castle Richmond stands close upon its banks, within the barony of Desmond, and in that Kanturk region through which the Mallow and Killarney railway now passes, but which some thirteen years since knew nothing of the navvy's spade, or ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... road of Ireland Toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us Tranquil insolence Under the name of religion (so many crimes) Unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing Upon their knees, served the queen with wine Use of the spade Utter want of adaptation of his means to his ends Utter disproportions between the king's means and aims Valour on the one side and discretion on the other Walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures We have the reputation of being a good housewife ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... siege, for the first time, the spade was used by soldiers in the field. Hitherto the work had been considered derogatory to troops, and peasants and miners had been engaged for the work; but Prince Maurice had taught his soldiers that their duty was to ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... his spade into the earth, turned down his sleeves, and rested—a fair-skinned, bronzed, wholesome object, good to look at—while Austin stumped away. In less than five minutes the two youths started off together, tramping through the long, lush meadow-grass ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... it there. It is observable that this proverbial kind of expression, for freedom of words and sentiments, has been adopted into almost every language, though the image conveying it is different. Thus the Greeks call a fig a fig, etc. We say, an honest man calls a spade a spade; and the French call "un chat un chat." Boileau says, "J'appelle un chat un chat, et ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... wait another minute," cried the old sailor, who was nearly as excited as the boys. "Get your spade an' we'll start ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of men at work there," he said. "I can hear muffled sounds like digging, and once or twice a sharp click, as if a spade struck a stone. I am very much afraid they are throwing up a battery there. I was in hopes they would have begun in the open, because we could have commanded the approaches; but if they begin among the trees, they can come in and out without our seeing them, and bring up their guns by the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... obliquely, fled from it, and it, flowing from behind, followed with a mighty noise. As when a ditch-worker leads a stream of water from a black-flowing fountain through plantations and gardens, holding a spade in his hands, and throwing out the obstructions from the channel; all the pebbles beneath are agitated as it flows along, and, rapidly descending, it murmurs down a sloping declivity, and outstrips ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... hands—hands that had never done anything more toilsome than to lift a bridle rein or to clutch the handle of a gun. He was the horseman in all his training, and though he owned hundreds of acres of land, he had never so much as held a plow or plied a spade. His manner was that of the cow-boss, the lord of great herds, the claimant of empires of government grass-land. Poor as his house looked, he was in reality rich. Narrow-minded in respect to his own interests, he was well in advance of ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... plans which they had all studied closely, Dennis looked in vain for any sign of a definite objective. There was no sandbagged parapet, nothing but a confused mass of holes and heaps scattered broadcast over the landscape—the result of the terrific spade-work of the guns—which had to be crossed before the village was reached. The village, too, of which he caught a glimpse, was only a pulverised mass of debris, with here and there the angle of a shattered house or the ribs of ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... desires they will never realize, dissatisfaction of the lot from which they will never rise! Allons! one is viewing the dark side of the question. It is all the fault of that confounded Riccabocca, who has already caused Lenny Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after looking round and seeing no one near him, groan ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Gray was ready to aid in this way, after vainly trying to handle a spade, a task rendered impossible by his wound. He was hard at work over his work, carrying basketful after basketful with one hand, when Captain Smithers came up, saw how he was striving, and stood looking on ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... spring morning, and daylight just coming in, whan he cam to the yett yonder, thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o't, he dug away with his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin handles, and the green banes and sic like, till he stoppit a wee to take breath.—What! are ye whistling to yoursell?" quoth Isaac to me, "and no ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... out all my store of tools, and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the general ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... the Saint Ne'er once turned faint, And his halo shone with redoubled light. 'Hallo, I fear You're trespassing here!' Said St Cuthman, 'To me it is perfectly clear, If you talk of the devil, he's sure to appear!' 'With my spade and my pick I am come,' said old Nick, 'To prove you've no power o'er a demon like me. I'll show you my power— Ere the first morning hour Thro' the Downs, over Poynings, shall roll in the sea.' 'I'll give you long odds,' ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... Riccabocca) was admiring the picture-book, and Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll. Then Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in the garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her spade, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... buried within the walls of the cathedral, Catherine of Arragon, who died at Kimbolton Castle, in 1536; and Mary Queen of Scots, who was executed at Fotheringhay Castle fifty-one years afterwards. The accompanying engraving is a representation of the old sexton, with his spade, pickaxe, and ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... farmer! In the shade He works his crops by letters-patent now: Steam drives the reaper (which is union-made), As in the spring it pushed the auto-plough; A patent milker manages each cow; Electric currents guide the garden spade, And cattle, poultry, pigs through "process" wade To quick perfection—Science shows them how. But while machinery plants and reaps, he rests Upon his porch, and listens to the quail That pipe far off in yonder ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... After which all went away; the children were shut out of the churchyard; the old clergyman disappeared to the vestry; a young florid man, with pale hair, tightened his leather belt, turned up his sleeves, watched a grand pair of biceps roll up as he crooked his elbows, then, taking a spade, set to work upon the wet mound he had dug from the earth the day before to clear those few square feet of space below. As he worked, he whistled, for his occupation held no more significance to him than ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... vegetable products, receiving assiduous attention, will afford ample manual occupation, and chaste supplies for the bodily needs. It is intended to adorn the pastures with orchards, and to supersede the labor of cattle by the spade ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... near Edgeworth Town, we saw many well-known faces at the cabin doors looking out to welcome us. One man, who was digging in his field by the roadside, when he looked up as our horses passed, and saw my father, let fall his spade and clasped his hands; his face, as the morning sun shone upon it, was the strongest picture of joy I ever saw. The village was a melancholy spectacle; windows shattered and doors broken. But though the mischief done was great, there had been little pillage. Within our gates we found all ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the work done, and used his tongue pretty freely; still he was a man who would speak the truth, and treated his men as well as he dared to do under the brutal regime ruling in Chatham. He speedily told me off to a barrow and spade, and I was fully enlisted as barrow-and-spade ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... hopes that at a particular spot we should succeed by digging, more especially as on scraping away a little of the surface gravel with our hands, there were sufficient indications to induce us to set Morgan to work with a spade, who in less than an hour dug a hole from which we were enabled to supply both our own wants and those of our animals; and as there was good grass in the creek, we tethered them out in comfort. This discovery ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... drop you in jail if you talk like that!" he chided, his red face growing redder, his fingers nervously feeling the buttons on his picturesque silk waistcoat. "There's conspiracy in Ireland, and you never truly know if the man that serves you at your table, or brings you your horse, or puts a spade into your ground, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is in thee a Nature but infected, A poore vnmanly Melancholly sprung From change of future. Why this Spade? this place? This Slaue-like Habit, and these lookes of Care? Thy Flatterers yet weare Silke, drinke Wine, lye soft, Hugge their diseas'd Perfumes, and haue forgot That euer Timon was. Shame not these Woods, By putting on the cunning of a Carper. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of not more than two score years, returns from his day's labour a while after I had arrived. And as he stands in the door, his pick-axe and spade on his shoulder, his sister runs to meet him, and whispers somewhat about the stranger. Sitting on the threshold, he takes off his spats of cloth and his clouted shoes, while she gets the pitcher of water. After having ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... which is a toole wherewith labourers stubbe rootes out of decayed woode-land grounds, onely this shall be somewhat broader and thinner, somewhat in fashion (though twice so bigge) vnto a Coopers Addes, with a shaft at least foure foote long: some onely for this purpose vse a fine paring spade, which is euery way as good, and as profitable, the fashion of which ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... object, we immediately mounted our horses, Uncle Denis and the Dominie each carrying a spade, and the two men a pickaxe a-piece, while Boxer and Toby followed at our heels. As we galloped over the ground, we were not long in reaching the scene of the massacre. Dio, who had the sharpest eyes amongst us, was stationed to keep a look-out, while we, ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... many-coloured flowers on the surface of the grave move like a fluttering garment. She sank, and the figure threw his dark cloak round her. It became night—the night of death. She sank deeper than the sexton's spade could reach. The churchyard lay like ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... shot and shot till our rifles burned us. Still they swarmed on towards us. We took careful aim all the while. "Ah, good, did you see that?" I turned to my friend and as I did so heard a terrible dull sound like a spade striking upon newly turned earth. His head was fallen forward. I spoke, I called him by name. He was moaning a little. Then I turned to my work again. They are advancing quickly now. Ah! how cool I was. I shot ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... warming himself by the stove might be the man they were after. But the gamekeeper's wife was quick to see his peril. She was baking bread and had just put the loaves into the oven with a long-handled spade. "Here, you lummox!" she cried, and whacked him soundly over the back with it, "what are ye standing there gaping at? Did ye never see folks afore? Get back to your work in the barn." And Gustav, taking the hint, slunk out of ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... the son of a parson, he pursues his reaction against conventional cant beyond the bounds of legitimate paradox, replacing the narrow by the narrower. Nietzsche was necessary; some one had to call a spade a spade. The great forces of modern thought, which have been gathering for centuries, had to find shameless expression; and Nietzsche's scorn for those who have tried to patch up hollow truces with bygone beliefs, and dress up new heresies in old Sunday clothes, is amply ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... collection no doubt found eager customers. Another paper tells us that "Herman Zedwitz, teacher of the violin, announces to the public that he has just returned from Europe and will give a concert in the assembly rooms at the 'Sign of the Golden Spade.'" Later, in 1774, this same man evidently found that the public did not appreciate him musically, for the intervals were so long between lessons and engagements for his violin that he was forced to take up the occupation of a chimney sweep. From accounts ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... all know each other, Pardeau. Call a spade a spade. Wyckoff was a reactionary scoundrel whom you did away with for ...
— The Clean and Wholesome Land • Ralph Sholto
... conversation had been going on Temple indicated the spot which he thought suitable, and, with a spade which he carried, had commenced excavating a hole ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... house that the neighbors stood aghast. Some of the older ones shook their heads and wondered what old Colonel Selden Phelps would say if he could say anything. And the spirit of progress and improvement reached even to the grounds. Zenas Third toiled with spade and pruning-knife and bundles of shrubs and plants came from Boston and were set out with lavish prodigality. In the matter of alterations to the house Eve was consulted on every possible occasion, while garden improvements were placed entirely ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... is well under way, they prepare to go in search of the cabbage. They bring a hand-barrow, on which the paien is placed, armed with a spade, a rope, and a great basket. Four strong men carry him on their shoulders. His wife follows him on foot, the ancients come in a group behind, with grave and pensive mien; then the wedding-party falls in two by two, keeping time to the music. The pistol-shots begin again, the dogs howl louder ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... of the situation, yet still keeping a wary eye about to guard against any treachery, the plainsman, discovering a spade in the nearest wagon, hastily dug a hole in the sand, wrapped the dead bodies in blankets, and deposited them therein, piling above the mound the charred remains of boxes as some slight protection against prowling ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... heard by letter that a party of Americans had made a great discovery of gold among some rocks in a creek of the Sacramento, and that they had found, sticking fast in a crevice close by, a small spade marked with the name of Bill Williams, which the poor fellow had cut on the handle, as I well remembered, in one of his many idle hours. This explained to me Bill's long absence when he went to look for the Indians, his after-anxiety, and where he had been in the delirium of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money I ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... and compelled the garrison to shelter themselves behind an inner rampart, constructed during the winter in anticipation of this extremity:—"So that, in effect," says Rycaut, "this most impregnable fort of the world was forced and taken by the spade and shovel, and by a crew of unarmed labourers, who understood nothing more than the plough and harrow." The promised succours, however, were now at hand. On the 22d of June, a French fleet appeared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... chillen; you know, he got a year' staht o' all de res', you know. Yes, seh. Dey got 'bout hund'ed fifty peop' yond' by Gran' Point', and sim like dey mos' all name Roussel. Sim dat way to me. An' ev'y las' one got a lil fahm so lil you can't plow her; got dig her up wid a spade. Yes, seh, same like you diggin' ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of the house the tilled ground, either ploughed or dug with the spade, came up to the very windows. There was hardly even a particle of grass to be seen. A short way down the hill there were rows of olive trees, standing in prim order and at regular distances, from which hung the vines that made the coopering of the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... announced cheerfully when the gun was finally assembled on the carriage, "get a sizeable timber an' spike it to the centre o' the deck. I'll run the trail spade up against that cleat an' that'll keep the recoil from lettin' the gun go backward, clean through the opposite rail and overboard. Gimme a coupler gallons o' distillate and some waste, somebody. This cosmoline's got to come ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... must apply to Mrs. Brent, {2} For she, as priestess, knows the rites Wherein the God of Earth delights. First, nine ways looking, let her stand With an old poker in her hand; Let her describe a circle round In Saunder's {3} cellar on the ground A spade let prudent Archy {4} hold, And with discretion dig the mould; Let Stella look with watchful eye, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... girl tried to say it in French, but could not remember the French for spade; the mother prompted her, and then told her in French where to look for the spade. And this made ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... traitors. As time goes on, a new thing opens to the view: a short week ago it seemed but a molehill: now it has risen to the height of a man, and hourly increases in size. Two weeks, and now its summit is far above the reach of spade or shovel throw, and crowned by a platform firmly knit and held together by well-spliced timbers. As to its object we are somewhat dubious, but think it the beginning of an earthwork fortress, built high in order that guns may ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the sweat of our brow as an example and encouragement for them to labour; and promising them the produce of their own industry, we find that they take great delight in their gardens. Necessity may compel the adult Indian to take up the spade and submit to manual labour, but a child brought up in the love of cultivating a garden will be naturally led to the culture of the field as a means of subsistence: and educated in the principles of Christianity, he will ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... sheltering me were already partly fallen; and I was thus not only perilously exposed myself, but enabled to command some part of the garden walks and (under an evergreen arch) the front lawn and windows of the cottage. For long nothing stirred except my friend with the spade; then I heard the opening of a sash; and presently after saw Miss Flora appear in a morning wrapper and come strolling hitherward between the borders, pausing and visiting her flowers—herself as fair. THERE was a friend; HERE, immediately ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a few hurried preparations, they stole forth with bright, expectant faces, bearing a broken spade and a rusty implement that had done many a day's service when Raff was a hale ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... to pay a visit to blind Susan, went away at once into the garden, where she found Stephens the gardener leaning on his spade and rake, and gazing down in dismay at the ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... him a sign from the top of the tower that if he wished to have his clothes again he must fetch them; the vampire began to ascend the steeple, but the Hungarian threw him down backwards from the ladder, and cut his head off with a spade. Such was the end of ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... 1828 by Charles Carroll, the patriot who had staked his broad lands of Carrollton in 1776 against the maintenance of feudalism in this country. "I consider this," said Carroll, after his slender and aristocratic hand had relinquished the spade, "among the most important acts of my life—second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence." Railroads, excepting coal-mine trams, were as yet untried; Stephenson had not yet exhibited the Rocket; for travel and transportation the locomotive was unknown, and the Baltimoreans conceived ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... tranquillity that he showed his true capacity. He employed the natives as labourers in making roads, useful both for war and peace. They found wages better than warfare. As navvies, they were paid half a crown a day, and were reported to do more work as spade-men than an equal number of soldiers would. At no time did the Maoris seem to make such material progress as during the twelve peaceful ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... responsible for the greater prevalence of slavery ancient and modern in southerly latitudes; or when he follows Cairnes in asserting that upon the American slave plantations "the only form of culture practised was spade culture, merely agglomerating upon a single area of land a number of isolated laborers"; or when he contends that either slavery or serfdom since based on force and fraud "destroys the possibility of fiduciary credit by cancelling the conditions [of trust and confidence] which alone can foster ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... he set to climb the rock, while the others laughed and made fun of him. But he did not care a bit for that; up he climbed, and when he got near the top, what do you think he saw? Why, a spade that stood ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... younger, the bailiff, whether certain trees ought or ought not to be taken down; they were arguing the matter as if it concerned their own property. I then saw how much the countess was beloved. I spoke of it to a poor laborer, who, with one foot on his spade and an elbow on its handle, stood listening to ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... a chiaroscuro kind of gloom, there were again noises of wings rustling and of water lapping and the old stricture of the throat. Across the table, a Paisley cover between them, Mr. John Burkhardt, his short spade of beard already down over his shirt-front, arm hanging lax over his chair-side and newspaper fallen, sat forward in a hunched attitude of sleep, whistling noises coming occasionally through his breathing. A china clock, the centerpiece of the mantel, ticked ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... colored friends taught me the fear of God. The first time I ever attended church, I rode behind on horseback, and sat with them in the gallery. I imbibed some of their superstitions. They consider it bad to allow a sharp tool, as a spade, hoe or ax, to be taken through the house; to throw salt in the fire, for you would have to pick it out after death. They would kill a hen if she crowed; looked for a death, if a dog howled; or, if one broke a looking-glass, it meant trouble of some kind for seven years. They believed ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... murderous rampage, when least expected, to pillage and burn the houses and then massacre the inhabitants. In those days it was impossible to labor singly in the fields. The tillers of the soil were obliged to work in groups, with a gun in one hand, and a scythe or spade in the other, often at the peril of their lives. These intrepid French Catholics had left peaceful, happy homes, and the blessings of a Christian government, for no other purpose than to convert wild Indians, who were absolutely under the dominion of the devil, and to spread ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... "Oh, I quite forgot! Of course, the shed door is shut! Father has put his tools there, his spade ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... America, a labor-saving machine, a cargo of wooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, an age of inventions. Boys need not be kept back to the hand-craft of the knife. For in-doors there are the type case and printing press, the paint box, the tool box, the lathe; and for out doors, the trowel, the spade, the grafting knife. It matters not how many of the minor arts the youth acquires. The more the merrier. Let each one gain the most he can in all such ways; for arts like these bring no harm in their train; quite otherwise, they lure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... to bite my enemies." "In smoothing the rough hillocks I smooth my temper. In a short time I can hear the bobolinks sing and see the blessed deluge of light and color that rolls around me." Somewhere he has said that the writer should not dig, and yet again and again we find him resorting to hoe or spade to help him sleep, as well as to smooth his temper: "Yesterday afternoon, I stirred the earth about my shrubs and trees and quarrelled with the pipergrass, and now I have slept, and no longer am morose nor feel twitchings in the muscles of my face when a visitor ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... protrudes like a balloon, with a hernia, often, at the navel. The extremities are short, bowed, cold, and livid, covered with rolls of the infiltrated skin, rolls which cannot be smoothed out. Hands and feet are broad, pudgy, and floppy, the fingers stiff, square and spade-like, the toes spread apart, like a duck's, by the solid skin. Above the collar bones there are frequently great pads of fat which sometimes ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... It would seem to be a fixed law of nature, that the progress of society adds almost nothing to the application of machinery to agriculture, but indefinitely to its importance in manufactures. Observe an old man digging his garden with a spade—that is the most productive species of cultivation; it is the last stage of agricultural progress to return to it. No steam engines or steam ploughs will ever rival it. But what is the old weaver toiling with his hands, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... this till noon; he trimming, lifting and placing the logs—and elephants have never swung teak more splendidly—while I, with our jointed camp spade, filled in the sand. The use of an axe could not possibly betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed, because the breeze continued from him to us, and also for the equally good reason that the bite of an axe in ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the shummaker told me o' that rum rig; and his nevvey sa, that the beer-good was fystey; and that Nutty was so swelter'd, that she ha got a pain in spade-bones. The bladethacker wou'd ha gin har some doctor's gear in a beaker; but he sa ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... outline his dispositions were as follows. The bed of the river, which lies nearly east and west, is from fifty to one hundred yards wide and about thirty deep, in soil that lends itself easily to the spade. On both sides, for a mile above and below Wolveskraal Drift, the edges of the banks were trenched, and at either end of these trenches traverses, thrown forward at right angles, served to strengthen against enfilading attack. North of the river, some cannon were placed in advanced ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... shed at the bottom of the garden, and found a spade and a box that was suitable. Then he came out to his neat, bare, wintry garden. The girls flew towards him, putting the elastic of their hats under their chins as they ran. The tree and the box lay on the frozen earth. The air ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... high reputation," I answered quietly, though I had an instinctive feeling that my father would make sport of this assertion. But experience had taught me that with him it was best to call a spade a spade. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... introduce the subject and unduly disclose her own state of ignorance. And a game of bridge, played for moderately high points, gave ample excuse for convenient lapses into reticence; if questions took an embarrassingly inquisitive turn, one could always find refuge in a defensive spade. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... the heart Of guests with wine, when they must needs depart: And reverence most the priests of sacred song: So, when hell hides you, shall your names live long; Not doomed to wail on Acheron's sunless sands, Like some poor hind, the inward of whose hands The spade hath gnarled and knotted, born to groan, Poor sire's poor offspring, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... range; with varied skill Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing, Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pile which still its ruins shows; In whose small vaults a pygmy folk is found, Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls them, wondering, from the hallowed ground; Or thither, where, beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, No slaves revere them and no wars invade. Yet frequent now at midnight's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Mary, what on earth is the matter with you?" he said, throwing down his spade, and taking her ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... its sides are just trees and bushes such as grow right here in our yard. Then there are large rocks, some of them the size of this house, and springs of water where many animals and birds may drink. And in some places there are large flower-gardens, where the flowers grow without the use of the spade or the hoe. I would certainly like to take you to see the mountain, Edwin, if it were not so far away, but it would take us too long to go and come, for it is very much farther ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... of doubt, Sim walked into the courtyard of the homestead. He had not been seen since the day of the parson's visit, but, without giving sign of any consciousness that he had been away, he now took up a spade and began to remove a drift of sleet that had fallen during the previous night. Rotha's eyes brightened, and she hastened to the door and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... between men, but there is one side of human nature that is the same; it is that we call the heart—that which loves, that which fears, that which suffers, that which is the same in the poorest laborer that ever handled the spade as in the greatest scholar that ever graced a university. If we can get the rubbish from the heart, the good news of God sounds the ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... o'clock and go at six? why, about this much, ma'am," said the gardener, marking off a piece of the border with his spade. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... settles, press it down with a spade next the box, and add more litter upon the top, which should be done every other day, observing that when you increase one lining to have the dung in readiness for the next; each lining not being calculated to last more than a month or five ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... prompt, so silent in action, so punctual in destruction? The vestry keeps, as it were, a tryst with the grass. The "sunny spots of greenery" are given just time enough to grow and be conspicuous, and the barrow is there, true to time, and the spade. (To call that spade a spade ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... across the valley to the cabin. Miller pointed out the spot where the stolen treasure was cached. With an old axe as a spade Dave dug away the dirt till he came to a bit of sacking. Crawford scooped out the loose earth with his gauntlet and dragged out a gunnysack. Inside it were a number of canvas bags showing the broken wax seals of the express ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... been content to tell us what he knew of his own villages and people, not as the leader of a new and only correct school of poetry, but simply as a country gentleman of sense and feeling, fond of primroses, kind to the parish children, and reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson had tilled his lands: and I am by no means sure that his influence on the stronger minds of his time was anywise hastened or extended by the spirit of tunefulness under whose guidance he discovered ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... experience. More probably, however, the wind and clouds, the weather, the soil, crops and taxes, his family and food and how to provide for them, are the main thoughts that occupy his mind. Before he will strike mattock or spade in the soil, lay axe to a tree, collect or burn underbrush, he will select a stone, a slab of rock or a stick of wood, set it upon hill side or mud field-boundary, and to this he will bow, prostrate himself ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... this connection much praise was accorded to the King as one of the chief factors in its evolution. Mr. W. R. Cremer, M.P., the well-known Radical, made the following comment in the Daily News as to this victory for Arbitration: "It has been the privilege and joy of others to do the spade work in this beneficent movement, but to King Edward the opportunity was, at the psychological moment, presented to complete the work of thirty years. How well and how nobly His Majesty performed his part the history of the past ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... followed. There Bopp developed the study of comparative grammar on the basis of the Sanskrit. There Dietz founded Romance philology. Ritschl turned his students to the study of Latin inscriptions to reconstruct the past. Lepsius began the study of Egyptology with a spade. Niebuhr's Roman History (1811) was the institution's first fruit, and his successor, Ranke, showed his students how to study history from the sources. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Lotze made over philosophy. Fechner and Wundt began there ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... boys set to work among the ruins, looking into every hole and corner they could think of and locate. They pulled away heavy boards and logs, and Joe even got a spade and dug up the ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... the required implement, conducted his visitor a little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss, besides the spade. ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Irish: 1. In the quantity of stall-fed stock which is kept, and by which a supply of manure is regularly secured; 2. In the strict attention paid to the collection of manure, which is skilfully husbanded; 3. By the adoption of rotations of crop. We found no plough, horse, or cart—only a spade, fork, wheelbarrow, and handbarrow. The farmer had no assistance besides that of his family. The whole land is trenched very deep with the spade. The stock consisted of a couple of cows, a calf or two, one or two pigs; ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... me an axe and spade, Bring me a winding-sheet; When I my grave have made, Let winds and tempests beat: Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay. True ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... a little street with the remains of an old temple, now stood a convent; a grave was dug in the garden, for a young nun had died, and she was to be lowered in the earth at this early hour of the morning. The spade struck against a stone which appeared of a dazzling whiteness—the white marble came forth—it rounded into a shoulder;—they used the spade with care, and a female head became visible—butterfly wings. They raised from the grave, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... Funston who ordered that the old men and the weaklings should take this work in hand. They did it willingly enough, but had they refused the troops on guard would have forced them. It was ruled that every man physically capable of handling a spade or a pick should dig for an hour. When the first shallow graves were ready the men, under the direction of the troops, lowered the bodies several in a grave, and a strange ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... known to pass in leaving the water to feed on the herbage of the neighbouring plain. These pits have to be dug in the rainy season, when the ground is soft; for during the dry months the earth becomes so hard as to resist the poor implement used by the natives in place of a spade. The pit is concealed with much care, and as months may pass without a hippopotamus straying into the trap, it may be imagined how strong an effort of perseverance and patience is required in capturing one of ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... such strength combined with the utmost gentleness, and an uncommon regularity of nature. Occasionally he returns for a day or two to resume his place among scholars and idle people, as, for instance, the present week, when he has thrown aside his spade and hoe to attend the Commencement at Cambridge. He is a rare man,—a perfect original, yet without any one salient point; a character to be felt and understood, but almost impossible to describe: for, should you seize upon any characteristic, it would inevitably ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... turf with the other leg until the worms crawled out of their burrows, when they were instantly devoured. Nevertheless, worms do not invariably leave their burrows when the ground is made to tremble, as I know by having beaten it with a spade, but perhaps ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... it, T. A. Because you don't mean it. I've had to fight for most of my happiness. I've never before found it ready at hand. I've always had to dig for it with a shovel and a spade and a pickax, and then blast. I had almost twenty years of that—from the time I was eighteen until I was thirty-eight. It taught me to take my happiness seriously and my troubles lightly." She shut her eyes for a moment, and her voice was very low and very deep and ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... others, crowding forward to look closer. Tom set down the lantern and picked up a broken spade. There was a cavity in the wall of this pocket-like passage. With a flourish Tom dug the broken blade of the spade into the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... now since I, as a young man, bought a piece of waste land on the north side of this parish," said the farmer. "The ground had never been touched by a spade. Half of it was bog, the other half a mass of stones. It looked pretty bad. On that very land I worked like a slave, digging up stones until my back was ready to break. But I think I laboured even harder with the swamp, before I ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... of immediate danger. The citizens formed themselves into military companies, and worked day and night throwing up redoubts and rifle pits about the city. Men unaccustomed to manual labor vigorously plied the pick and the spade, and kept up their unwonted toil with an earnestness worthy of veteran soldiers. To add to this confusion and alarm, the trains of Milroy's division that had escaped capture were rattling through the streets in search of a resting place. Throughout ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... began in the streets. Leaving, he went with his dark-skinned Eastern musicians to the provinces. And the government trembled. Peasants threw aside spade, forgot vodka and rushed to his free concerts, given in canvas-covered booths; and the impetus communicated to this huge, weltering mass of slaving humanity, broke wave-like upon the remotest borders of the empire. The church ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden |
