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Hard time   /hɑrd taɪm/   Listen
Hard time

noun
1.
A difficulty that can be overcome with effort.  Synonym: rough sledding.  "Analysts predicted rough sledding for handset makers"
2.
A term served in a maximum security prison.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hard time" Quotes from Famous Books



... your front lawn! They won't let her touch a plant, at our cottage, though she understands gardening so thoroughly. She won't sleep a wink to-night, if I tell her, and I had better keep that for the morning. Poor children! They have had a hard time of it; but they have come out like pure gold from the fire—I mean as many of them as can use their legs. But to be ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... "Auger Hole," Mrs. Morris, who was a strong Tory, but a very good woman, had concealed a refugee who at the time was sought for by the adherents of the patriotic side, and who probably would have had a hard time of it if he had been caught, for he was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... some. He explained his plan—in fact he spent the day in laying bare to his friend the criminal world of the city, and in showing him how he might earn himself a living in it. That winter he would have a hard time, on account of his arm, and because of an unwonted fit of activity of the police; but so long as he was unknown to them he would be safe if he were careful. Here at "Papa" Hanson's (so they called the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... side," the colonel said to his officers before starting, "and I have been asked to march you out in that direction, and to take up the outpost duties on a portion of the line there. The troops have been having a pretty hard time of it, and have been pushed backward once or twice, though they have always ended by winning back the ground they had lost. We have a reputation of keeping our eyes open, and the General told me this morning that I might consider it as a ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... perilous shallows of his early time through which his richly freighted argosy had passed with such wonderful escape from their dangers and such very slight marks of injury. That which is pleasant gayety in conversation may be quite out of place in formal composition, and Motley's wit must have had a hard time of it struggling to show its spangles in the processions while his gorgeous tragedies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... that? Sure, I know they don't like us, and why should they? We eat twice as much, take up twice the space, and I guess when we were kids we gave a lot of them a hard time. Besides, outside of a few exceptions like ourselves, all the younger generation are Yardsticks, with more coming every year. The older people hold the key positions and the power. Of course there's a lot of friction and resentment. ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... Good Company he introduces. One should stop with Malone, who was a good Gentleman: only rather too loyal to Johnson, and so unjust to any who dared hint a fault in him. Yet they were right. Madame D'Arblay, who was also so vext with Mrs. Piozzi, admits that she had a hard time with Johnson in his last two years; so irritable and violent he became that she says People would not ask him when they invited all the rest of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... us," he said, "is whether or not this chimney will draw. That's vital, I tell you, Dick, to a housekeeper. If it puffs out smoke and fills the cabin with it, we're to have a hard time and be miserable. If it draws like a porous plaster and takes all the smoke up it, then we're to have an easy time ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... lady turned away her head from the rice pudding in a kind of gesture of repulsion. She was in the fractious period of influenza, and Maggie had had a hard time ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... most important person in the house. There were a good many more seamen on the other benches,—indeed, the house was more than half filled with them, some in the pit, others in the upper boxes and galleries. The play was "The Brigand's Bride." The lady evidently had a hard time of it, and appeared to be in no way reconciled to her lot, her great wish being clearly to make her escape. In this attempt she was aided by a young noble in silk attire, who made his appearance whenever ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... to lodge there with Yellow Bill. They said Bill was a thief by profession; but I wasn't old enough to be a judge. Little Lizza Rock, the nondescript, as people called her, used to live at the Blazers. Poor Lizza had a hard time of it, and used to sigh and say she wished she was dead. Nobody thought of her, she said, and she was nothing because she was deformed, and a cripple. She was about four feet high, had a face like a bull-dog, and a swollen chest, and a hunchback, a deformed leg, and went with ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... the boys were having rather a hard time of it. They were close together, and a snowball coming over the walls was almost certain to hit one or another. More than this, the pile of snow around the flag was growing small, so that the flag was in great danger ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope

... a rest," said the matron. "My word, how white you are! Had a hard time, eh, like ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... William H. Ashley, the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, travelled up the Platte Valley, which a few years previously had been traversed by Captain Ezekiel Williams, whose routes were nearly the same. This party had a particularly hard time. Before they reached the buffalo country the Indians ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... a pretty hard time getting here. We are the last free-State men allowed over the ferry at Parkville. ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... younger girls were saying, "and I believe we ought to show people more than we do that we like them. I don't see why we're so scared to let a person know that we think she's done something well, or to sympathize with her when she's having a hard time." ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... four walls, the desks being wide boards, projecting out from the walls. Miss Sarah Jane Hanna was my first teacher. I came from my home across the prairie, through the snow in the bitter cold of the winter. Oftentimes I broke through the crust of the snow and had a hard time getting out. One of the incidents I remember well while going to school, was about a young Indian whom we called Josh, who pretended he was very anxious to learn English. Most every day he would come to the school, peer in at the windows, shade his eyes with his hand and mutter "A" "B" ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... over to Dreier's. That poor woman will have a hard time getting her rent. And whatever she has, she'll get rid of it. Why, a fellow ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... adjourn had been offered—a motion always in order in other Houses, and doubtless so in this one also. The President had refused to put these motions. By consequence, he was not in a pleasant place now, and was having a right hard time. Votes upon motions, whether carried or defeated, could make endless delay, and postpone the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... from stage to stage, so white a foam everywhere that the water cannot be seen at all. This fall is strewn with rocks, and contains some islands here and there covered with pines and white cedars. This was the place where we had a hard time; for, not being able to carry our canoes by land on account of the density of the wood, we had to drag them in the water with ropes, and in drawing mine I came near losing my life, as it crossed into one of the eddies, and if I had ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... hard time of it, beating about for eleven days, with cutting north-easters blowing, and snow and sleet falling for the ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... all in the party, five adults and six children—and Ona, who was a little of both. They had a hard time on the passage; there was an agent who helped them, but he proved a scoundrel, and got them into a trap with some officials, and cost them a good deal of their precious money, which they clung to with such horrible fear. This happened to them again in New York—for, of course, they knew nothing about ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... men were unchaining one of our wagons and rolling it out of the way. I ran across to see what was happening. In came Lee himself, followed by two empty wagons, each driven by one man. Everybody crowded around Lee. He said that they had had a hard time with the Indians keeping them off of us, and that Major Higbee, with fifty of the Mormon militia, were ready to take ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... habits, and appearance of these special gentlemen and of Mexicans in general. He knew Mexicans and knew where he could hit hardest. He wound up with gentle intimation that the town would have made a respectable pigsty, but that a decent pig would have a hard time keeping his self-respect among so many descendants of the canine tribe. It was a beautiful, an eloquent piece of work, and even as he delivered it he felt rather proud of his command of the Mexican idiom. Then he made a mistake. He promptly turned his back and started ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... am I!" said Midon. "Women have a hard time of it in this world, even under the best of circumstances,—and whatever man makes it harder for them, should be horse-whipped within an inch of his life, if I had my way. I have a wife—and a young daughter— and my old mother sits at home with us, as cheery and bright a body ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... Cherokee farmer. The whites were as little disposed as were the Indians, in this war, to pay any respect to private property. Hundreds of rifles were aimed at the poor pigs, and their squealing indicated that they had a very hard time of it. The army, in its encampment that night, feasted very joyously upon fresh pork. This thrifty Cherokee was also the possessor of a milch cow. The animal was speedily slaughtered ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... was a hard time. It sho was harder than the depression. It lasted a long time. Folks got a lots now besides what they put up with then. Seemed like they thought if they be free they never have no work to do and jess have plenty to eat and wear. They ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... said, "this is a holiday-time for the waves, and still more for the fish. All day long the poor creatures have a hard time of it, for hundreds and hundreds of skilful and eager fishermen are on the look-out for them. But at night their only enemies are those who live in the water, and I have heard that the whale and the swordfish go to bed at ten o'clock regularly, ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... her back,' he explained, 'and she's going to do well. But she has had a hard time, and there's no denying she is very weak and ill. So if you go back to your bell— ringing or any of those games you'll undo everything. She's to be ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... poor orphan chicken—an' a dog killed her mother—an' she had a dreadful hard time getting grown up as big as she is now. She's fallen into the well, an' had two of ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... be down in a minute; when I awoke, I saw he was asleep, and I concluded not to awake him. You know he had a hard time yesterday and last night, and I took the responsibility of not calling him. The poor man needs rest and it won't hurt you folks ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... upon a time a peasant-woman who had a daughter and a step-daughter. The daughter had her own way in everything, and whatever she did was right in her mother's eyes; but the poor step-daughter had a hard time. Let her do what she would, she was always blamed, and got small thanks for all the trouble she took; nothing was right, everything wrong; and yet, if the truth were known, the girl was worth her weight in gold—she was so unselfish and good-hearted. But her step-mother did not like ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... the end is not yet. Those who could not accept these reforms, or returns to older forms, took up the name of "Staro-obriadtsi," or Old Believers, holding that theirs was indeed the true old faith of their fathers. For them began, in very truth a hard time; a time which has left its mark most clearly upon their descendants to-day. Excommunicated and persecuted under Alexis and Peter I., they were driven in thousands from their village homes to seek refuge where they could, in forest, mountain or island; ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... strata of rough gravel and pebbles. Upon the roof of the balcony was maintained an evenly sonorous monotone of drubbing, as if innumerable fairy carpenters were nailing on the shingles. The invalid water-spout had a hard time of it; it was racked, shaken, and bullied, and continually choked itself with the volubility of its fluent utterances, which were instantly swallowed up in the bottomless depths of the waste-barrel. A strong, cool, earthy odor rose ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... lodge for the winter. There we set our traps for the fur-bearing animals. We took a good many of the smaller animals that have got furs, but the larger ones, that are good for food, were very few. We had a hard time, as food was very scarce. I could not find any deer to shoot, and we had come far from the great lakes and rivers, ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... search of some way of making a fortune. I know something of chemistry, and a knowledge of commercial requirements has put me on the scent of a discovery that is likely to pay. I can say nothing as yet about it; there will be a long while to wait; perhaps for some years we may have a hard time of it; but I shall find out how to make a commercial article at last. Others are busy making the same researches, and if I am first in the field, we shall have a large fortune. I have said nothing to Lucien, his enthusiastic nature would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... he said, "and some day I hope to be able to do more to show my gratitude; but you must take this, anyhow, to tide you over the hard time, and find food for your husband and sons when they come back from ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... booze inside, and my tongue swells. Just keep the keys till tomorrow, will you? Ruth kept them for me when I had my last big thirst, a few weeks ago—remember? But I would rather you kept them this time. I don't want her to know I'm having a hard time. She makes such a fuss over me, stuffs me with pills, and makes me ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... mansion on Fifth Avenue, and we are supposed to be very wealthy; but not one of our dear five hundred friends has discovered that the house we live in is merely rented, nor that your father's business is mortgaged to the full extent. We will have a hard time to pull through, and keep up appearances, until you two ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... the old diggings days when sewing-machines were scarce and the possession of one meant an independent living to any girl—when diggers paid ten shillings for a strip of "flannen" doubled over and sewn together, with holes for arms and head, and called a shirt. Mrs Douglas had a hard time, with her two little girls, who were still better and more prettily dressed than any other children in Bourke. One grocer still called on her for orders and pretended to be satisfied to wait "till Mr Douglas came back," and when ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... cried Shock with some excitement. "Volunteers for the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... captured German trenches on the left of Loos. No one knows yet just how the land lies there. The reports we have had are confused and rather conflicting. The boys you are going to relieve have been having a hard time. The trenches are full of dead. Those who are left are worn out with the strain, and they need sleep. They won't care to stop long after you come in, so you must not expect much information from them. You will have to find out things for yourselves. But ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... at standing up in an open square and awaiting the onslaught of a company of regulars,—it takes regulars to meet regulars out in the open; but behind trees and fences, from breast-works and scattered points of advantage, each minute-man was a whole army in himself, and the regulars had a hard time of it on their retreat, —the trees and stones which a few hours before had been just trees and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... I know you've had a hard time; but I shall have to take you to jail, any how, and see what the ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... long, hard time for the little fellow. The eyes must be washed with a solution that was very painful; he must spend long hours not only lying in bed but with all light shut from his eye. He grew very weary with it all. But after the months had gone, Afa Bibo went out of that hospital ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston

... reserved, Boy, but he's wise and good and loves you. He's had a hard time out here in the wilderness fighting his way with a wife and ten children. He never had a chance to get an education and the children didn't either. Some of us are too old now. There's time for you. We're going to ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... farmers have been unable to sell their produce and winter wages have gone down, and work is scarce, the position of the labourer is a very dull one, and it is feared the present winter will be a hard time for many homes. Numbers talk of emigrating, and some have taken the first step, and will sell their furniture and leave a land where neither farmer nor labourer has any hope. One middle-aged cottage woman, married, kept harping upon the holiday they ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... that also. "I can stand it," she said, "and I wouldn't for a great deal let Grandpa Dinsmore know what a hard time I am having. He would triumph over me, and say it was ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... throwing an arm across Sam's shoulder, "He only came in to help me when he saw I was having a hard time of it. The fellow made off in that direction." Michael pointed after Carter whose form had ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... have a mighty hard time findin' yo'se'f afteh election, Sheriff, as it is. The cowmen ain't crazy about you. They might take a notion to escort you out of the ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... surprise. It's my turn to lead." She confided to Milt, "Dear old Aunt Hatty is related to all of us. She's Gene's aunt, and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly related to Jeff. She came West early, and had a hard time, but she's real Brooklyn Heights—and she belongs to Gramercy Park and North Washington Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, though she has got out of touch a little. So I wanted ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... you mean it, Mr. Fort. And—you ought to know that once you've cleared the landing-dock, you'll have a hard time to keep her level unless you're up on the bridge. That is, while you're shifting the wing-angle. But you ought to be down here to do that; and, meanwhile, she might nose down and slam into something, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... He had a hard time sorting the type; part of it was smashed, part of it very dirty. His cart at last laden, he sorrowfully bore home his press and its appendages, only to spend still more time in cleaning and "getting it to rights." "I must finish that order," thought he, "for orders ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... centuries, until the rise of Mohammedan power in the East made them exiles. Russia, for many years, gave the titular prince a pension, but this was dropped about forty years ago, and since then the kings of Armenia have had a very hard time of it. The present king is a waiter in a small restaurant near Versailles. He is a quiet fellow, and does not parade either his pedigree or ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... of the lake. Then he sent the multitude away, and went up into the mountain to pray to his Father in heaven whom he loved so much. It proved to be a stormy night. The wind was dead ahead; and the sea was very rough. The disciples were having a hard time of it. Tired of rowing, and making little progress, there was no prospect of their getting to land before morning. But, dark as the night was, Jesus saw them. It is true as David says, that—"The darkness and the light are both alike to thee." Ps. cxxxix: ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... greatly improves with continued action. Under the process of continued action the average man can make a fair showing and with a reasonable degree of moral support will make good, while without it the ablest man will have a hard time and even fail if he is forced to accept changes that ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness

... is in earnest in this matter will have the same sort of experience as the recruit in the army who is compelled to learn walking after having walked almost all his life as a dilettante or empiricist. It is a hard time: one almost fears that the tendons are going to snap and one ceases to hope that the artificial and consciously acquired movements and positions of the feet will ever be carried out with ease and comfort. It is painful to see how awkwardly and heavily one foot is set before ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... "That was a hard time," she said with trembling lips, "but God was good; he didn't let it last long. There came an old friend back from abroad who had known father ever since he was a boy, and who happened to have been associated with him in business ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... both refreshed and hungry and Ossie had a hard time finding enough for them to eat. Perry described the astonishment of some Plymouth fisherman when he opened a codfish some fine day and discovered a rubber-soled shoe inside. "You'll read all about it in the paper, Steve, and won't ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... to be out of doors!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, contentedly. "See Mr. Robin out there, digging away for his family? He has a hard time hunting worms in the grass. I expect he wishes we had a newly dug garden around this place." Mary Jane looked up indifferently, just in time to see a twinkle in her mother's eye. Did the twinkle have anything to do with ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson

... something untoward had happened in Kay's to cause this sudden defection of the first fifteen of the house. He knew that Kennedy was having a hard time in his new position, and he did not wish to add to his discomfort by calling for an explanation before an audience. It could not be pleasant for Kennedy to feel that his enemies had scored off him. It was best to preserve a discreet silence with regard ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... became aware that the strange engraver was on the road to snatching from under their very noses the rich and beautiful prize to which they aspired. Even to Herr Sperber the situation seemed to be getting queer; and Herr Kosch had a hard time of it. The men made him a target for their remarks, and tried to set him in an absurd light. He held his own bravely, and gave valiant answers back. The rough give-and-take of the tavern had accustomed him to that, and at first he defended himself with equanimity—but ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... chilluns found some bones on de creek bank en took dem things and wanted ter sell dem to Mr. Shyer en he said 'take dem things way dey stink, dey aint cured up yet. Bury dem things den bring dem back to me. Us Chilluns bed a hard time gittin home cause we ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... that the Negrito has a hard time to get enough to cat, and for that reason there is scarcely anything in the animal or vegetable kingdom of his environment of which he does not make use. He never has more than two meals a day, sometimes only one, and he will often start early in the morning on a deer hunt without having ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... business. Then Riley sulked and referred to himself as a pillar of the Bank and a cherished friend of the Directors, and Reggie tore his hair. If a man's English subordinates fail him in this country, he comes to a hard time indeed, for native help has strict limitations. In the winter Riley went sick for weeks at a time with his lung complaint, and this threw more work on Reggie. But he preferred it to the everlasting friction when ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... was prematurely old and feeble, was gone, and the two orphan children were left to battle it with the world. My conjecture was the truth, as a neighbour of whom I made some inquiries on the subject was not slow to inform me. 'Ah, sir,' said the good woman, 'poor Mrs D—— have had a hard time of it, and she ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... through; all four will go by the mail, which is what I wish, for so I keep at least my start. Days and days of unprofitable stubbing and digging, and the result still poor as literature, left-handed, heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable and interesting as matter. It has been no joke of a hard time, and when my task was done, I had little taste for anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary letters filled the bowl ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... have a hard time getting an Alimentive to follow out any protracted line of action calling for strenuosity, speed or high tension. He will get as much done as the strenuous man when their mentalities are equal—and often more. The fat person keeps going in a straight ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... forest, with the pigeon tied to her arm. Fortunately, she had brought with her a small basket full of lunch, which had been left by her bed in case she should be hungry during the night. That was soon gone, however, and then she had a hard time finding enough to eat. But here and there she discovered wild berries, she drank water from the clear, cold springs, and at night she found a comfortable, fragrant bed under the pine trees, or in places where ...
— All About Johnnie Jones • Carolyn Verhoeff

... blame you," said Mr. Hooper. "I never knew that you had such a hard time. I supposed you ran away just for fun, and I tried to find you. I asked about you in all the places where we stopped, but no one ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... the dog-train dare blizzards—an effeminate type of man is more of a tragedy than a comedy. I think of one mission where the circuit is four hundred miles and the distance to railroad, doctor, post-office, fifty-five miles. This little curate had had a hard time, though his mission was an easy one. When his turn came to report, his face resembled the reflection on an inverted teaspoon. Hardship had taken all the bounce and laugh and joy and rebound out of him. The other frontier missionaries ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... the ice our streams did fetter, Oh then how her old bones would shake; You would have said, if you had met her, 'Twas a hard time for Goody Blake. Her evenings then were dull and dead: 45 Sad case it was, as you may think, For very cold to go to bed; And then for cold ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... man were a friend and not a foe, they would often turn to him for protection. During times of severe storm, extreme drought, or scarcity of food, if the birds were sufficiently tamed to come to man as their friend, as they do in rare cases now, a little food and shelter might tide them over the hard time and their service afterwards would repay the outlay a thousandfold. If the boys in your families would build bird-houses about the house and barn and in shade trees, they might save yearly a great number of birds. ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett

... shade. Here's the stump of a white oak cut last fall. It was about two feet in diameter. Let's count the rings to find its age—about ninety years. It flourished in its youth and grew rapidly, but it had a hard time after about fifty years. At that time it was either burned, or mutilated by a falling tree, or ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... I went down into the plains, looked over the battle-fields, and obtained a great deal of information from the villagers and country people. I stayed here nearly two years, and had a pretty hard time of it; but when I went away I took with me a very valuable ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... voice had grown gentle in an instant. "I can't think of your ever having had a hard time. You seem so ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... jerked open the gate, not caring who it might swing against, and walked to meet Jone. When I was near enough I called out to know what on earth had become of him that he had left me there so long by myself, forgetting that I hadn't wanted him to come at all; and he told me that he had had a hard time getting on shore, because they found the banks very low and muddy, and when he had landed he was on the wrong side of a hedge, and had to walk a good way ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... that even at our best we smell prudish. And as for our worst, when .we as we say let ourselves go, we dirty the life-force unspeakably, with chuckles and leers. But a race so indecent by nature as the simians are would naturally have a hard time behaving as though they were not: and the strain of pretending that their thoughts were all pretty and sweet, would naturally send them to smutty extremes for relief. The standards of purity we have adopted are far ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... went out with their axes, and soon all the roads and paths to the town were filled with logs and brush. The king's horse-men would have a hard time of it getting into Gotham. They would either have to make a new road, or give up the plan al-to-geth-er, and go on ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... get in to-night," I remarked. "No," said some one, "and he'll have a hard time of it out there in the rain." There was nothing to do but wait. Pete rummaged in his bag and produced a candle (we had a dozen in our outfit), sharpened one end of a stick, split the other end for two or three inches down, forced open the split end and set the candle in it and stuck the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... future. It seemed to Mrs. Lincoln that he never had appeared happier than during the drive. He referred to past sorrows, to the anxieties of the war, to Willie's death, and spoke of the necessity to be cheerful and happy in the days to come. As Mrs. Lincoln remembered his words: "We have had a hard time since we came to Washington; but the war is over, and with God's blessings, we may hope for four years of peace and happiness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have laid by some money, and during this time, we will save up more, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... "Thy hard time will come," said the Viking's wife; "and it will be terrible to me too. It had been better if thou hadst been set out by the high-road, and the night wind had lulled thee ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... like to be an osprey, for he seems to have such a hard time to get a living, and yet he is an honest, well-disposed laborer. After he has succeeded in catching a fish, a bald eagle often swoops down from some tall tree, where he has been watching him, and by main force compels this honest fisher to give up his hard-won prey. The eagle is considerably ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... and devout bearing of the little company at Canterbury gained for them the warm support and friendship of all classes. They had a very hard time of it. Sometimes a kind soul would bring them actually a dish of meat, sometimes even a bottle of wine, but as a rule their fare was bread—made up into twists, we hear, when it was specially excellent—wheat-bread, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... a comparatively poor man; I had just started in the banking business and I was having a hard time to make both ends meet, as I had been a clerk and was starting out on my own hook with a very small capital. The business in which I was engaged at that time under the old emigration laws is not possible now—I mean ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... about Jack White's early life. He was born in the sagebrush desert beyond the Sierras, and, like all Indian babies, doubtless had a hard time at the outset. A Christian's pig or puppy is as well cared for as a Piute papoose. Jack was found in a deserted Indian camp in the mountains. He had been left to die, and was taken charge of by the kind hearted ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... launched into a bitter face-to-face denunciation of the president's conduct in the hazing affair, outpacing the Chronicle by intimating, too plainly for courtesy, that the president's conduct toward Jones was characterized by duplicity, if not wanting in consistent adherence to veracity. "I had a hard time to keep from hitting him," said West afterwards, "but I knew that would be the worst thing I could possibly do." "Maybe so," sighed Mr. Fyne, apparently not with full conviction. Winter went too far in moving that the president's continuance in office was prejudicial ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... was boisterous, and the clumsy caravels had a hard time breasting the waves. The ships were soon separated by alternate storms and fog so that all three did not meet at their appointed rendezvous in the Straits of Belle Isle until the last week in July. Then moving westward along the north, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... between New York, Chicago and St. Louis. Every passenger-traffic man knows that most of the differentials—as the roads that take longer hours, and so are permitted to charge a slightly lower through fare between those cities, are called—have had a hard time of it in recent years. It is the excess-fare trains, the highest-priced carriers—which charge you a premium of a dollar for every hour they save in placing you in the terminal—that are the crowded trains. And the differentials have had increasing difficulty ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... dutifully promised to do her best, and she was not having what she herself called "a good hard time of it." Lord Algy was in one of his most provokingly vacillating moods—moreover, he had a headache, and felt bilious. Therefore he would not dance—he would not play tennis—he did not understand archery—he was disinclined ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... glad to see them two fires! I bet that boy sure hated to be left behind. Pretty tough—but it had to be done. This has been a thunderin' hard trip on Frankie and he's stood up to it fine. Good stuff!" He turned to the boy: "Well, Bobby, you had a hard time wranglin' them to-day—but you got 'em, didn't ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... a hard time. I do not see that there is any reason to make light of it. If you do, you rob him of the credit which, if ever man deserved it, he ought to be getting now—the credit for putting a good face upon it under conditions which, to him, especially at the beginning, were sheer undiluted misery. Some people ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... at the House most of the night, but about three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed till tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... birds sang except one little blackleg Robin, who sang so hard in his efforts to make up for the rest that he was as hoarse as a crow the next morning. The blackleg fairies had a hard time too. They hadn't a minute to gossip with the flowers, as they usually did when they flew round with their acorn-cups of dew and thistledown sponges and washed their faces and folded up their petals and kissed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... here, have you time to read this? Wait! Have you nerve for it? It will not help you. It is not good news nor encouraging news, and it comes at a hard time; and yet I don't know. We can bear any news, can't we, now that Johnnie ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... certainly of real use to the community. For the prophet is generally too much ahead of his times. He discounts the future at a ruinous rate, and he takes the consequences. If you happen ever to have read the Old Testament you must have noticed that the prophets had generally a hard time of it. ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when this occurs he has to content ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... selfish man," he would say—"I have met selfishness everywhere among my fellow men and women, and have imbibed it as a sponge imbibes water. I've had a fairly hard time, and I've experienced the rough side of human nature, getting more kicks than halfpence. Now that the kicks have ceased I'm in no mood for soft soap. I know the humbug of so-called 'friendship'— the rarity of sincerity—and as for ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... our villages can remember many changes in the social conditions of country life. They can remember the hard time of the Crimean war when bread was two shillings and eightpence a gallon, when food and work were both scarce, and starvation wages were doled out. They can remember the "machine riots," and tumultuous scenes at ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... his mind that he would go to Jerusalem for the Passover next year. He knew that if he did he would get into trouble. The disciples knew it too, for he had told them so. There was a hard time ahead ...
— The King Nobody Wanted • Norman F. Langford

... the Athenian colonists. Neocles had by then lived on his bit of land for thirty years, and was old to begin life again. The ruined family took refuge in Colophon, and there Epicurus joined them. They were now too poor for the boy to go abroad to study philosophy. He could only make the best of a hard time and puzzle alone over the ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... if she is pretty. What's that to me? I've got you through college, Joseph; and a hard time I've had of it, a-delvin' and slavin'; and here you come, and the very first thing you do you must take and court that 'ere 'Squire Jones's daughter, who was always putting himself up above me. Besides, I mean to have the law on that estate yet; and Deacon Dudley, he will have the law, too; and ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... that hearty enthusiastic reception to Stanley fourteen years ago in that gay little clubhouse next to the Academy of Music; we were thinking far more of a hearty greeting to the comrade of the quill who had been having a hard time but had scored 'a big beat' [laughter] than of adequate recognition to the man already well launched on a career that ranks him among the foremost explorers of the century. [Loud cheers.] It is the character in which you must welcome him now. The Royal Geographical Society has ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... not to be despised," the woman said. "We shall have a hard time of it for a bit, and that will carry us on through it. You are sure she can spare it; because we would rather starve than ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... is crucial. If persisted in it is fatal. It will actually mean their rejection as His messenger. This is the critical thing which we seem to have such a hard time getting hold of. The essential qualification for true service is the personal attachment to our Lord Jesus Himself, that warm heart love which the human heart longs for and gives to some one. He longs for this. ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... Colossians 3:20). The first necessary lesson in every human life is to learn the lesson of obedience; if this is not well studied and practiced in the home, the child, when he grows up and goes out for himself, will be quite sure to have a hard time of it and receive some severe buffetings. Those who break the laws of society and the state are those who have first broken the commandment to honour father ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... established in Pennsylvania and in northern Ohio. There are not just a few scattered trees having a hard time to survive but there are many thousands of them, growing vigorously, some producing big crops of fine nuts, others not producing any. They are ready now for the intelligent development you can give to them. Nature has gone about as far as she will without your assistance. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... good," was the answer. "Their hearts are good. They have had a hard time, and they have worked hard, and they will work hard ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... they find out that the river is booming, and that we are going to have a hard time to hold our jam, they'll let loose those twelve million on us. They'll break the jam, or dynamite it, or something. And let me tell you, that a very few logs hitting the tail of our jam will start the whole shooting ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White



Words linked to "Hard time" :   time, rough sledding, prison term, sentence, difficulty



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