"Haystack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her, "If you will go to yonder haystack and fetch me a handful of hay, I'll give you the milk." So away went the old woman to the haystack; and she brought ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... eight P.M. he himself, accompanied only by a lieutenant and four sailors, cut the moorings of the chief explosion vessel, and drifted off towards the French fleet. Seated, that is, on top of 1500 barrels of gunpowder and a sort of haystack of grenades, he calmly floated off, with a squadron of fire-ships behind him, towards the French fleet, backed by great shore batteries, with seventy-three armed boats as a line of skirmishers. "It seemed to me," says Marryat, who was an ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... morning: the first good news I heard was that the cows had been found, and dragged by ropes down to the enclosure the horses had made for them-selves: they were half dead, poor beasts; but after struggling for four hours to and from a haystack two hundred yards off, one end of which was unburied, some oaten hay was procured for them. There was now not a particle of food in the house. The servants remained in their beds, declining to get up, and alleging that they might as well "die warm." In the middle of the day ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... accustomed to better things," said the beetle. "Do you call this beautiful? Why, there is not even a dung-heap." Then he went on, and under the shadow of a large haystack he found a caterpillar crawling along. "How beautiful this world is!" said the caterpillar. "The sun is so warm, I quite enjoy it. And soon I shall go to sleep, and die as they call it, but I shall wake up with beautiful wings to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... she's doin' on that place. Cheyenne, he's in camp when I'm go. I'm stop by the haystack. I'm see Cheyenne talk to Scotty. That ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... 'divarsion' in the country, and when there were big races at a distance Mick generally took the road a day beforehand, sleeping out in the soft spring night if it was dry weather, trusting to a convenient haystack or barn if it wasn't. He was known so widely that at every farmhouse along the road he was sure of a bite. And on the race-course every one was his friend; and the various parties picnicking were greeted by Mick with uproarious shouts and a flinging of his caubeen in the air, ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... "There's a haystack out there by the barn," said Hawley, pointing to a stack of some kind that could be seen in the rear of the nearest barn. "If you could only get behind that you could ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... said to her: "If you will go to yonder hay-stack, and fetch me a handful of hay, I'll give you the milk." So away went the old woman to the haystack and she brought the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... road in which the two men had been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle in the haystack. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the youngsters, of course, and not of much account, but he'd made a lot of friends. They've got a wreath as big as a haystack for the poor little man. They've made him into a hero; and they're all here—good fellows!" Thus the manager to the physician, as ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... Ma Fewkes was looking up at him, as if what he said must be the law and gospel. He had them all hypnotized, or as we called it then, mesmerized—so I thought as I went out of sight of them. After a while, Rowena came around the end of a haystack, and ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a needle." ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... an' he 's cock-sure that nobody 's chasin' him yet. He 's figurin' on two or three days' get-a-way, and so don't care a tinker's dam 'bout these yere marks. Once in the sand, an' thar won't be no trail anyhow. It's some kintry out thar, an' it would be like huntin' a needle in a haystack to try an' find them fellars after ter-night. This is my idea—we'll just mosey along slow, savin' the hosses an' keeping back out o' sight till dark. Them fellars ain't many hours ahead, an' are likely ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... who knows about ginger cookies and winter underwear, and whose Monday washing is fragrant with the clean-smelling scent of green grass and sunshine. But it was remarkable that she could pick this one needle from the haystack of socks and shirts that towered above her. She ran her hand through hundreds of garments in the day's work. Some required her attention. Some were guiltless of rent or hole. She never thought of mating them. That was the sorter's work. But with Eddie's socks it was ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... repair shop and round-house all by himself. He and I run this railway. It keeps us pretty busy, but we've always got time to stop and eject a sassy passenger. So you want to behave yourself and go through with us, or you will have your baggage set off here by the haystack!" ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... English," (from the first settlers being of that illustrious nation,) a distance of two miles from where we then lived. Our house was a good one. We did not like to leave it. Selling was out of the question: so we e'en resolved to take it with us, wishing, as the Highland robber did of the haystack, that it had legs to walk. A substitute for this was found in the universal resource of New Brunswickers for all their wants, from the cradle to the coffin, "the tree, the bonny greenwood tree," that gives the young life-blood of its sweet ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... may as well give the hunt up," answered his brother. "It would be worse than looking for a pin in a haystack, for we wouldn't know ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... a laugh, "to be chiefly occupied in sending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That is, I went with him the morning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would suit him but a small haystack of white roses. I hope it ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... just going off and forgetting to come back. Once—dear, dear! it gives me a turn to think of it!—she had been reading 'Neighbor Jackwood,' and was much delighted with the idea of the heroine's hiding in the haystack to escape her cruel pursuers. So she went out to the great haystack in the barnyard, pulled out a quantity of hay, crept into the hole, and found it so comfortable that she fell fast asleep. You may imagine, my dears, what my feelings were when dinner-time came, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... there is any thing I dislike, it is an attempt at poetry when you can't do it. I know some people who always try to show themselves in public; but when they are home, they never have their collar on straight, and in the morning look like a whirlwind breakfasting on a haystack. As for me, I am practical, and winter is winter, and sleet is sleet, and ice is ice, and a tea-cup is a tea-cup; and if you will pass mine up to the hostess to be resupplied, I will like it a great deal better ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... horse. I had now a chance of escape; but I was weary, wounded, and overcome with vexation. It happened, as I took my last view of my keeper outside, nodding on his horse's neck, that I glanced on a huge haystack in the stable-yard. The thought struck me, that helpless as I was, I might contrive to give an alarm to some of the British videttes or patroles, if your gallant countrymen should condescend to employ such things. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... dark, and often I must needs arise at night to run forth to the fold when there was an alarm of wolves. Day after day my head grew heavier from want of sleep, until at last I could keep my eyes open no longer. I stole under the haystack to snatch a few extra winks, and when I was discovered my shame and disgrace were heralded forth to all the world." And again the ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... I could have hoped on board our floating menagerie; stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of the incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotized by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner table, and winnied when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at one another in their cages ... and the big monkey, Jacko scoured about the ship and rested willingly ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... and had a villa and a steam launch at Surbiton: and was versed in the esoteric humours of the House. Who could have thought that the Hunter lay hid in him? Yet, after many weeks, they found him in a wild nook of Hampshire. Ragged, sun-burnt, the nocturnal haystack calling aloud from his frayed and weather-stained duds, his trousers tucked, he was tickling trout with godless native urchins; and when they would have won him to himself with honied whispers of American Rails, he answered but with babble of green fields. He is back in his wonted ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... soft shawls in the lee of the rocks, and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and encourage more heartfelt secret profanity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... a burden on his mind as big as a haystack," grinned Jack Bates. "Watch the way his jaw hangs down, will yuh? Bet ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... remonstrated. "No more of that; if you want to knock the brains out of that haystack on the back of your head, why, knock away; but spare my bones, if ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... a little farther and sit down in the fields, where an unfinished haystack offers us a couch. We can hardly distinguish the line of the horizon between the dark earth and the dark sky. A bat flits across our faces; and ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... lucky!" he exclaimed, springing to the ground beside me. "I've actually been praying for a week past that I might meet you. Holmes, of your service, told me you had pulled through, but everything is in such confusion that to hunt for you would have been the proverbial quest after a needle in a haystack. You have ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... took a high dive from the top. Down tumbled the others, over and over. But fortunately for all, there was a great haystack below, and upon this they landed in a jumbled heap close to the magic bean pole. As it happened, there was no one in sight. Up they jumped in a trice, and while the Comfortable Camel and Doubtful Dromedary munched contentedly ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for employment in the ever-changing variety of landscape, which even on the least picturesque lines will be found constantly coming into view. The most ordinary objects have then a fresh interest imparted to them. You catch a distant glimpse perhaps of a haystack on the brow of an eminence miles away before you. As you proceed, a farm-house, with its out-buildings and granaries to follow, marches right out of the haystack, and takes up its position at the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... good," he returned gloomily. "The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... something like this always 'appens on my birthday. Last time it was a fish. I fell into the stream and went right under. When I got out on to the bank again I found a trout in my pocket. The time before I slept beside a haystack, and when I awoke at sunrise I felt something warm and soft against my face like feathers. It was feathers. There was a 'en's nest two inches from my nose, and six nice eggs in it all ready for my birthday breakfast. I only ate four of them. You should never take all the heggs ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... as she was wrapping it up in paper, and Hugh, pointing to his purchase with a melancholy air, said, in an aggrieved tone: "It's a terrible quantity they're about givin' me—yards and yards—enough to rope round a haystack; and it's an ojis colour. Troth, now, if she takes the notion to be stickin' the whole of it on top of the little black head of her, it's an objec' she'll make of herself, she will so. It's a pity. I'd liefer there hadn't been the ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... to his twisted knees; he had long, yellow, overlapping horse's teeth in his mouth, with a fall-down under-lip and a drawn-back upper-lip; he had a matted rug of hair on his head. He was as high as a haystack. He carried in his twisted hand an iron spike pointed at the end. And wherever he was going he went as quickly as a ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... my friends, it would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack. You certainly do not understand the ways of the Indians. If the Indians have killed those men, they will take the bodies with them if they have to carry them a hundred miles. They will take them ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... France. In the fields were endless rows of vegetables—beans, turnips, cabbages, and garden truck of all sorts. This was the sort of country that had made Belgium known for years as the vegetable garden of Europe. Finally they stopped near a dark house, and made themselves comfortable in the lee of a haystack. And there they slept until the light of the sun came to rouse them. They awoke to see a peasant boy staring ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... eyes, for he had been asleep in the straw when Bunny jumped on him. "Yes, I've come back. I stayed in the field, under a haystack all night, but I couldn't stand it any longer. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... Here is located Williams College, one of the most famous of the smaller New England institutions; also Thompson Memorial Chapel, which is considered by architectural authorities to be one of the finest in this country. In Mission Park is located the famous haystack monument, marking the birthplace of foreign missions, a spot visited by pilgrims from ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in the floods? ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... under my orders here, and my instructions are to send you all directly back to the ford and across the river; and then the army is already on the march, and you might as well attempt to find a needle in a haystack as undertake to find your regiment in these woods in this darkness." If his first reason had not been sufficient, the latter one was quite convincing. I realized at once the utter madness of any attempt to reach the regiment, at the same time ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... haystack stood by the road-side, but over there in the field he saw a barn near a farm-house. He could find shelter in that. Waiting until it was dark, he crept cautiously through a small sheep door, and entered. He heard ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... was to find out where Hugh Davidson was likely to be found, if alive. Dr. Hunter felt as though he were beginning to search for the proverbial needle in a haystack; but by Mrs. Forester's advice he entrusted the matter to his lawyers, and in an incredibly short space of time he heard from them that the man he wanted was now the manager of the A1 Shipping and Transportation Company at Skaguay, Alaska, the ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... his voice became gentle. "There's some milk yet about that moustache of yours, my boy. You don't know what a man like me is capable of. I would hide behind a haystack if... Don't grin at me, sir. How dare you? If this were not a private conversation, I would... Look here. I am responsible for the proper expenditure of lives under my command for the glory of our country and the honour of the regiment. Do you understand that? Well, then, what ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... snake or two. Then, toward evening, they jolted home again, hot, dusty, and weary, but supremely content in having lived up to the traditions of Menlo Park. Tiny alone came out triumphant on these trying occasions. Dressed in cool white, she seated her diminutive self in the very middle of the haystack and talked little. The others, undaunted by the sun, started in high spirits, flirted with energy, and changed their positions many times. Upon the return journey, Tiny, again, sat serene and white; the rest ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... boat came up 2,000 meters in one jump. The rest of the formation had gone on, dropped their bombs on Rombach and were beating it for Ludwigshafen. By the time I got back to my right altitude I could see the effects of their bombs. The railroad station was burning like a haystack and smoke was coming from the munitions plant. I circled the town and the observer ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... though they are not half as airy, Samoan huts being very open; but in most of the Fijian huts I visited the only openings were the doors, and, as can be imagined, the interior was rather dark and gloomy. In shape they greatly resembled a haystack, the sides being composed of grass or bunches of leaves, more often the latter. They are generally built on a platform of rocks, with doors upon two or more sides, according to the size of the hut; and a sloping sort of rough plank with notches ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... you believe it? the Russians burned their own city! 'Twas a haystack six miles square, and it blazed for two days. The buildings crashed like slates, and showers of melted iron and lead rained down upon us, which was naturally horrible. I may say to you plainly, it was like a flash ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... food? Other things that people strive for in the main? They were nothing to Roberto. He could sleep under a haystack, crunch a crust of bread, and wear his garments until they ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... of boys were examined as to their knowledge of Samuel Mills. "Where was he born?" asked the leader. "Under a haystack!" replied a small boy. Had the question been, Where was the American Board of Foreign Missions born? the answer would not have been so far from the way. Its baptismal naming came some years later, but under a stack of hay in a meadow, ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... really a little walking haystack, and scared at his condition, because he thought he would probably never be a bear any more. He was so scared that he wanted his father to come and do something for him, and started to meet him, as fast as he could, with all that load of hay and molasses. He was crying, ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... with his own. "True son of Lilamani! But I fear he may have joined some secret society; and India is a large haystack in which to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... to a huge haystack and to several barns which stood on some high ground, and by the light of the flames I could easily distinguish the enemy column, consisting of Grodno Hussars. I had with me about a thousand brave men, and with ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... together for about half a mile, till they came to a barn. There was a haystack close by, and they dragged some of the dry ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... hostel of some scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple food they purchased by the way under some thick, tree, or beside a stream through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play. And they often preferred the chance shelter of a haystack, or a shed, to the less romantic repose offered by the small inns they alone dared to enter. They went in this much by the face and voice of the host or hostess. Once only Philip had entered a town, on the second day of their flight, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... minutes to recall what had happened and his whereabouts. Then he made his way to the canal, which was close by, washed the blood from his face, and set out to walk to Birmingham. He was too shaken and bruised to make much progress, and after walking for a while crept into the shelter of a haystack, and went off to sleep for many hours. After it was dusk in the evening he started again, and made his way to his lodgings at ten o'clock that night. It was a fortnight before he could leave his room, so bruised ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... have promised to go to the woods with the children, all of whom are as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have not ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... and I said that as he was walking for amusement he would probably only stay a few hours. "We can't treat him like that; tell him to stay a week and send for his gun. For the matter of that he can have one of mine. I don't expect he will be able to hit a haystack," was ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... "Now I know! You're going to live in the haystack. A haystack is cozy and warm; it's wind-proof; it sheds water; and ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... treeless causey burn beyond, Halts to unroll his bundle of strange food 210 And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman, Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm, Himself his large estate and only charge, To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, Nobly superior to the household gear That forfeits us our privilege of nature. I bait him with my match-box and my pouch, Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke, His equal now, divinely ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... day at the appointed time I was behind the haystack awaiting my adversary, who did not fail to appear. "We may be surprised," he said; "be quick." We laid aside our uniforms, drew our swords from the scabbards, when Ignatius, followed by five pensioners, came out from behind a haystack. ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... choice of weapons. The privilege, however, was not worth much to him. He had never handled cold steel, while his adversary was an expert fencer, and he was also such a poor marksman that he could not have made sure of hitting a haystack at twenty yards. Still, he reflected that, although de Beauvallon was unlikely to miss him with a rapier, he might possibly do so with a bullet. Accordingly, he ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... round his neck and kissed him till they were both out of breath. From that moment the eternal story of love began between them. They plagued one another in corners; they met in the moonlight beside the haystack and gave each other bruises on the legs, under the table, with their heavy nailed boots. By degrees, however, Jacques seemed to grow tired of her; he avoided her, scarcely spoke to her, and did not try any longer to meet ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... stop to look; for, after the restive kick at the chair, he had broken into a canter, dashed down the garden and through the gate into the meadow, across which he now galloped straight for the new haystack, for only a week before that meadow had been forbidden ground and full of long, waving, ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... roofed, by a rude structure of rough boards, which was open at the sides, and sustained on a number of pine poles about thirty feet in height, and bore a strong resemblance to the usual covering of a New England haystack. ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... what they'll do. However, by the time they can land and get checked up and ready to hunt for us, we'll be a mighty small needle, well hidden in a good big haystack." ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... creep into the thick branches of an evergreen tree, close up to the trunk. Some crawl under the edge of a haystack, others into thick vines or thorny bushes. All these are meant for hiding-places, so that beasts that prowl about at night, and like to eat birds, will not ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a sketch of the devil!" said this very angry and inconsiderate papa. "Why can't she do it some other day?—why the Twelfth? Good heavens! is everything conspiring to vex and annoy me so that I sha'n't be able to hit a haystack?" ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... his bare feet. His eyes were heavy with sleep, and to his cloudy gaze the familiar objects of the barnyard assumed grotesque and distorted shapes. The manure heap near the doorway presented an effect of unreality, the pig-pen seemed to have suffered witchery since the evening before, and the haystack, looming vaguely in the drab distance, appeared to be woven of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... rest of the army came up and helped in the search, but 'twasn't any use. That general's head had disappeared as if by magic. At first it was thought they might trace it by the cuss-words it was uttering, but you see by this time everybody was swearing, so it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. They kept on hunting for nearly a week, because Grandpa wanted to send that feller's head to his widow, so's she could give it a decent burial and also get ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Brandon Hills shimmered in a pale gray mirage. Over the trees which sheltered the Stopping-House a flock of black crows circled in the blue air, croaking and complaining that the harvest was going to be late. On the wire-fence that circled the haystack sat a row of red-winged blackbirds like a string of jet beads, patiently waiting for the oats to ripen and indulging in low-spoken but pleasant gossip about all the other birds in ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... favours; but she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully in the garden way, and she did not doubt she could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she should ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with the exception of Mr. McGraw" replied Donna. "Following a clew like that in San Pasqual would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But I think I could name the man who wrote ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... active, that he did not wait until daylight, when conditions would be best, but began the search in the face of apparent impossibility, brought her immediate confidence. She liked a man who would, without quoting the old saw, hunt for a needle in a haystack. ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... nothing but translation—this simple statement into English. The perplexity which first seizes the hapless school-boy over his "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" is nothing to it. Like him, he must go hunting, as if for a needle in a haystack, for the word to put first. It is the last idea in his sign-sentence. Then he slowly learns to pick out the words and arrange them in English order—an order, as I said before, not founded on philosophical principles, but in most instances wholly arbitrary. This ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... dry, (or ripen, as it is called,) it is the custom in some dairy-farms, to place the cheeses in the haystack, and keep them there among the hay for five or six weeks. This is said greatly to improve their consistence and flavour. Cheeses are sometimes ripened by putting them every day in ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... come blow me thy horn, The sheep in the meadow, The cow's in the corn. Where is the boy that looks after the sheep? Under the haystack fast asleep." ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... that day was employed in piling up the cocoa-nut branches and wood. Ready made a square stack, like a haystack, with a gable top, over which he tied the long branches, so that the rain would ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... my horse had not fallen and caused me to break my shoulder bone, the pain of which was so extreme that I nearly fainted several times. Not being able to continue my journey, I was lodged, with only one of my gentlemen, in a great haystack, while MM. de Brissac and Joly went straight to Beaupreau, to assemble the nobility, there, in order to rescue me. I lay hid there for over seven hours in inexpressible misery, for the pain from my injury threw me into a fever, during which ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... was not a palace. It stood, low and whitewashed, amid a medley of little tumble-down erections, and was guarded on one side by cowsheds and on the other by the haystack. You stepped across the threshold into the kitchen. A door on the right gave access to the bedroom. A ladder connected with a hole in the roof enabled you to reach the cockloft, the guest room of the establishment. That was all. What on earth could man want more? ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... he came to a city where a dreadful elephant came daily to make a meal off the inhabitants. Many mighty warriors had gone against it, but none had returned. On hearing this the valiant little weaver thought to himself, 'Now is my chance! A great haystack of an elephant will be a fine mark to a man who has shot a mosquito with a shuttle!' So he went to the King, and announced that he proposed single-handed to meet and slay the elephant. At first the King thought the little man was mad, but as he persisted in his words, ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... till we get over that haystack," said Jack, "and then play out rope till we lower him. It'll make a nice soft ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... goose she ran round the haystack, Oh, ho! said the fox, you are very fat; You'll grease my beard and ride on my back From this into yonder ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... place has since been called the Dancing Chamber. It is on the west side of the river, just through the Highlands. Boterberg (Butter Hill), and Hoyberg (Hay Hill), the one because it is like the rolls of butter which the farmers in Holland take to market, and the other because it is like a haystack in Holland; 't Claver Rack (Clover Reach), from three bare places which appear on the land;[365] and Kinder Hoeck (Children's Point), Noten Hoeck (Nut Point), Potlepels Eylant (Potladle Island), ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... lost their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to trundle, had been tilted up, with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the children had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and their only shelter was a haystack in a field ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... were posted beseeching the inhabitants to bring in all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected itself, and was sent a few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... obvious. Robespierre, Danton, Tinville, Merlin, and the whole of the demmed murderous crowd, will be busy looking after me—a needle in a haystack. They'll put the abortive attempt down to me, and you may—ma foi! I only suggest that you may escape safely out of France—in the Daydream, and with the help of your ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... I have said any one might infer that I had not read, or had not appreciated, that volume called "The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems," in which are to be found things of pure beauty, "Summer Dawn," "In Prison," "The Wind," "The Haystack in the Floods"; any one might suppose that I did not know "Love is Enough." These are the poems which, with "Sigurd," give William Morris his place amongst the poets. Mr. Clutton Brock feels this surely enough, because he possesses, besides intellect, that other ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... the elephant, each time holding down with his foot a separate bough, until he has secured it by the weight of another, placed in the same position opposite. This plan enables him to build up a load like a small haystack, which is then secured by ropes, and almost hides the animal that carries it. My mighty beast was condemned to this useful but degrading employment, instead of being honoured by a place in the line of shikari's elephants, and we started into the valleys among ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... been in action once and once only in the memory of man, and that time it was a haystack which had burnt itself out just as the rescuers had succeeded in fastening ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... had forgotten. I jammed my foot down hard, and the car seemed to lift out of the air. We went across the ditch, through a stake and rider fence, through a creek and up the other side of the bank, and brought up against a haystack with ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... doing this one little difficulty peculiar to such places as the Mansion House has to be met. The hall is so vast and the multitude so bewildering that, unless you know exactly where to look, it is as hopeless to expect to find any given partner at the right moment as to seek a needle in a haystack. The only safe expedient is to agree upon a pillar. A row of substantial pillars runs down either side of the hall, the base of each fringed with seats, apt head-quarters for chaperons, who, sitting there at ease, survey the fray ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... May I saw a pair of Ospreys coming and going to and fro from the nest. I hoped the birds might return another season, as the nest looked as if it might have been used for two or three years, and was as lop-sided as a poorly made haystack. The great August storm of the same year broke the tree, and the nest fell, making quite a heap upon the ground. Among the debris were sticks of various sizes, dried reeds, two bits of bamboo fishing rod, seaweeds, some old blue mosquito netting, and some rags ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... night to come; the horses, ruffled and shivering, with their tails to the wind, as they snap their frosted fodder, or paw through the rime to the frozen grass underneath, causing their icy fetlocks to rattle about their hoofs; the cattle, crowded to leeward of some deep-buried haystack, the exposed side of the outermost of them white with whirling flakes; the sheep, turning their pitiful, trusting eyes about them over the fields of storm in ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... information seemed at first sight valueless. A man takes an unknown cab from an unknown house in an unknown suburb to an unknown terminus, when he buys a ticket for an unknown destination. Sheer waste of energy to hunt for a needle in that haystack! ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... hauled it up. Then, as coolly ascending the bank, he approached one of the haystacks, and drew from it a few handfuls of fodder which he spread upon the ground, continuing to do so, as the cattle assembled around, until he had gained the outermost haystack bordering immediately upon the wood. This reached, he gave a loud yell, which was promptly answered by the Indians, who had continued to watch his movements up to the very moment of his disappearance; and darting along a narrow path which skirted the wood, ran with all ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... is a person to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?—for he tells me that I must ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... rhythm of my impromptu phrases, but it happened at that time that a play of mine had been accepted at the Grand Guignol, subject to an additional thrill being introduced, and I preferred pondering for a thrill in my garret to hunting for a pin in a haystack, ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... along the road, and occupied every exit from the castle. One detachment he hid behind a haystack, with another he seized the beehives, and with a third the distillery. The servants who lived outside he overcame after a short resistance, and then bound them tightly and locked ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... control her tears. After she had dashed a drop or two from her eyes, she said: "I cannot tell what it's all about. He's always in a ponder, ponder, with his mouth open—except when he's grindin' his teeth. I hate to see a man walking about like a haystack. And Robbie used to have so much fun once on ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... were searching for rebels, you thought a man was concealed in a dairy-yard in the neighbourhood of my mother's house, major, in Stephen's Green; and you thought he was hid in a hay- rick, and ordered your sergeant to ask for the loan of a spit from my mother's kitchen to probe the haystack." ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... this, how many a father of a family is there who goes to church for the sake of example? Does not the Church admit prayers for change of weather? Ask the clergyman on his way from church what he is doing with his own haystack, and his answer will let you know whether he believes in his own prayers. He has lent all the sanctity of his voice to the expression of words which had been written when the ignorance of men as to the works of nature ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... small haystack at the west end of the inn, which Donald marked out as his resting-place for the night. Thither he made his cautious way—the piobaireachd sounding ever more clearly ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... A variant of the usual form, which is kaupaku, the ridgepole of a house, its apex. The pa-ti when, worn takes the shape of a grass house, which has the form of a haystack.] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... confirm these deductions by observation. In April I unpotted my plant of thyme for the third time. I broke up the mould and spread it under the magnifying-glass. It was like looking for needles in a haystack; but at last I recovered my little Cigales. They were dead, perhaps of cold, in spite of the bell-glass with which I had covered the pot, or perhaps of starvation, if the thyme was not a suitable food-plant. I give up the problem ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... remember the Breeds cleared away from their old settlement lately. We've never found them. Once they take to the hills, it's like a needle in a haystack. Maybe friend ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... merely a question of destroying an organization it might be managed, for an organization presents a big front. But it's a question of destroying this one man, and his front is a razor edge. How are you going to find him? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, and such a needle! A needle which can become a piece of straw or ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... with a long whistle, "and you want Will Fletcher—which shows what a very pretty sheriff you would make. Well, if you're so strong on his scent that you can't turn aside, most likely you'll find him sleeping off his drunk under my haystack. But if you're looking for the man who killed Bill Fletcher, then that's a different matter," he added, taking down his hat, "and I reckon, boys, I'm ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... up and down in them. None of them were like the one he was looking for, neither could he see anything that looked like the colonel's straight slim figure and soldierly bearing. He was weary, but he persevered. A man in his position was not open to the charge of looking for a needle in a haystack, such as would now be justly brought to him. New York was not quite so large then as it is now. It is astonishing to think what a little place it was in those days; when Walker Street was not yet built on its north side, and there was a pond at the corner of Canal ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... the highest peak, Mt. Marcy (called by the Indians Tahawus or "cloud-splitter''), is near the eastern part of the group and attains an elevation of 5344 ft. Other noted peaks are M'Intyre (5210 ft,), Haystack (4918), Dix (4916) and Whiteface (4871). These mountains, consisting of various sorts of gneiss, intrusive granite and gabbro, have been formed partly by faulting but mainly by erosion, the lines of which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
