"Hen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather than upset your cherished plans, he would gladly consent to settle down in Sidmouth for life. I honoured him for his filial spirit; but, frankly, I think he was wrong. An eagle is not made to live in a hen coop, nor a spirited lad to settle down in a humdrum village; and I own that, although I regret the manner of his going, I cannot look upon it as an unmixed evil, that the force of circumstances has taken him out of the course marked out for him, and that he will have an opportunity of seeing ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... imaginary, unless, indeed, one of the reapers had cut his fingers with the sickle. Some streams and fountains became bloody; and, finally, in one place in the country, some goats turned into sheep. A hen, also, became a cock, and a cock ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... measure forces with some redoubtable possessor of the range. When the moon rose, round and white and all-revealing, and threw sinister shadows from rampike and rock, he kept to the densest thickets and felt oppressed with strangeness. But when he succeeded in surprising a hen partridge hovering over her brood, with the blood warm in his mouth he began to feel at home. This fine range should be his, whoever might contest the sovereignty. Coming across a deer trail leading beneath an overhanging rock, he climbed the rock and ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... writing a different phonogram in each, explaining that these are the names of the families living there, as, "ed," "eg," "est," "en," etc. Distribute to the class cards containing a word with one of these endings, and let "the children run home." Those holding the words ten, pen, men and hen, will run to the house where "en" lives. The children holding rest, best, nest, etc., will group themselves at ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... approaching his hut from the back. The place was in darkness, and he groped in his pockets for matches. He had to pass the old hen-roost, which, in their early days in Barnriff, had kept him and Jim supplied with fresh eggs. As he drew abreast of this he suddenly halted and stood listening. There was a commotion going on inside, and it startled him. He could hear the flapping of wings, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... who she is or why she is or who is aboard her," he told Nellie, after recounting to her the previous visitation of the schooner. "She reminds me of a nervous old hen keeping track of a stray chick. Pretty soon I won't be able to curse the weather without being afraid my guardian will hear me. I say guardian, and yet I don't know whether she is friendly or merely fixing up some calamity to break all at once. You know I have enemies. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... name it continued to bear, long after the unlucky Wolfert was driven forth once more upon a wrangling world, by the tongue of a termagant wife; for it passed into a proverb through the neighborhood, and has been handed down by tradition, that the cock of the Roost was the most hen-pecked bird ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the Phasianidae family in Central and Western Asia, David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine, 401-421; the Phasianus Reevesii or veneratus is called by the Chinese of Tung-lin, near Peking, Djeu-ky (hen-arrow); the Crossoptilon auritum is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... surcharged with water, broke it. Fortunately the hatches were on, and only the master, mate and four men on deck. The immense body of water it contained fell with such violence that it carried away all her masts, boats, spars and hen-coops, with all the live stock, as well as washing the master and three of the men overboard. The mate and the other man were saved by jumping into the caboose which held on, although they were half-dead with fright and half-drowned ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... many a discussion of the menagerie men over the real danger and loss involved in the escape of an animal. The fugitive rarely did much damage except to hen roosts, beyond scaring human beings. The trouble was that armed farmers, pursuing, thought it great sport to bring down the fugitive with a shot. Big Bob was worth a good deal of money to the show. The ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... married a sensible woman with her head on the right way, and not one of these flyaway pieces you see knocking around these times. I'd die of despair to see you married to a woman with no more gumption than an old hen!..." ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... qualifications whatever for the position he has chosen. An orator, a great orator, he one day failed to keep his pledged word, and the apostate word condemns him to never regain the executive power through its intervention. In the sessions of parliament he will resemble the plucked and cackling hen thrown by the Sophists into Socrates' lecture-room. The admired Heine, so fertile in genial ideas, represented the gods of Phidias and Plato, besides being downfallen and vagabond, selling rabbit skins on the seashore, and being forced to light brushwood fires by which to warm ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... and all manner of interesting things of that sort. But never before had he been able to make out so many animal shapes in the clouds. The sky was almost as good as a Zoo. There were kangaroos and elephants and a hen with chickens and wallabies and rabbits and a funny man with large ears and all ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... comet of 1680, the extraordinary story got about that, at Rome, a hen had laid an egg on which appeared a representation ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... all these young ones to look after?" answered the hen. "Why, if once they are scattered I shall never ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... Hen that Hatched Ducks The Nutcrackers of Nutcracker Lodge The History of Tip-Top Miss Katy-Did and Miss Cricket Mother Magpie's Mischief The Squirrels that live in a House Hum, the Son of Buz Our Country Neighbours The ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of the nest, and directs all of the same species to work after the same model! It cannot be imitation; for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for were animals endued with it to as great a degree as man, their buildings would ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... which were sent secondes with as much care and diligence as occasion required. The baggage, and a parte of the horse, marched before the battell; the rest of the horse troopes fell in before the rearewarde except thirty, which, in the head of the rearelorne hope, conducted by Sir Hen. Danvers, made the retreit of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... down on one of the chairs she had dusted so carefully, and gathered the frightened children about her as a hen gathers her chickens under her wing. "There, now," she said cheerfully, as she wiped their tears upon the corner of her apron, "let's save our tears until we really know what we have to cry for. There never yet was misery that couldn't ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... think it will be very difficult," Molly replied. "Major Fern is a farmer. He probably has lots of hams in the smoke house and plenty of eggs in the hen house and milk in the dairy and preserves and pickles in the pantry, and if there isn't enough bread the cook can make up some ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... "Hen-houses, indeed! Why, that is Fulton Market. I shall take you through it when we come back. You can buy anything in there, from a live eel to a book ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... raids on the pantry and hen-coop, Or light, stealthy tread Of cat gossips, meeting by moonlight ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... crazy old frame-house, over a saloon. Her kitchen is approached by a sort of hen-ladder, a foot wide, which terminates in a balcony, the whole of which was occupied by a big gray goat. There was not room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... of the Merse, no later writer than the former has adduced any evidence in favour of its Scottish domicile. The last examples of the native race were probably two killed in 1838 near Swaffham, in Norfolk, a district in which for some years previously a few hen-birds of the species, the remnant of a plentiful stock, had maintained their existence, though no cock-bird had latterly been known to bear them company. In Suffolk, where the neighbourhood of Icklingham ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... straightway the hen with feathers ruffled over her brood. "You must be careful, Wayne," she clucked at him. "When you are alone with Ann please try to avoid all unpleasant subjects, or anything you see she would ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... That spacious hall from side to side With noblest fare was well supplied, There quarters of the boar, and here Roast of the buffalo and deer, There on gold plate, untouched as yet The peacock and the hen were set. There deftly mixed with salt and curd Was meat of many a beast and bird, Of kid and porcupine and hare, And dainties of the sea and air. There wrought of gold, ablaze with shine Of precious ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... that perhaps are not familiar to you gentlemen nearer the capital. The trut' is, that we are not always as wise and as sober as our parents, and grandparents in particular, could wish us to be. It is t'ought a good thing among us sometimes, to rummage the hen-roosts and poultry-yards of the burghers, and to sup on the fruits of such a forage. I do not know how it is with you, gentlemen; but I will own, that to me, ducks and geese got in this innocent, game-like way, taste sweeter than when they are bought in the market-hall: our own supper ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... is a bird of prey, and altogether an unclean bird. The bird wants a mate, and doesn't much care how she finds one. And the bird wants money, and doesn't much care how she gets it. The bird is a decidedly bad bird, and not at all fit to take the place of domestic hen in a decent farmyard. In plain English, Johnny, you'll find some day, if you go over too often to Porchester Terrace, either that you are going to marry the bird, or else that you are employing your cousin ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... I scorn, who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... devastation Will he make in my good larder! Now farewell, you lovely brook-trout, Which I had reserved for Sunday, When the Dean of Wehr will dine here. Now farewell, thou hough of bacon! The old clucking hen, I fear much, Also now must fall a victim, And the stranger's hungry horse will Revel in our ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Humphrey,' Ambrose said. 'There's three little ducks amongst them. Aunt Lou put the eggs under the old mother for fun. Grannie does not know, and when the little ducklings waddle off to the pond, she'll be in a fright, and think they'll all be drowned, and so will the hen.' ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... the new guide the start was made. The party had water in plenty in the water-bags, so that no effort was made to pick up a water hole when they made camp late in the afternoon. The guide had brought in his pack a tough old sage hen, at which the lads were inclined to jeer when he announced his intention of cooking ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... gophers. To the relief of the farmer, many birds feed upon these destructive little rodents. The Crow occasionally captures a mouse, while the Shrikes or Butcher-birds catch a great many. The Screech Owl feeds largely upon mice. The Red-tailed Hawk is called the Hen-hawk or Chicken-hawk by most farmers, but this is very unfair to the bird, for its principal food is mice. In fact, most of the Hawks and Owls of the United States are really valuable friends of the farmer because of the injurious rodents which they devour. (See "Hawks and Owls of the United ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... birds in, The birds from the sky. Allie calls, Allie sings, Down they all fly. First there came Two white doves Then a sparrow from his nest, Then a clucking bantam hen, Then a robin red-breast. ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... with a very strong bill, and not larger than a hen, was numerous at Bountiful Island; and appeared to subsist upon the young turtle. The effect of instinct is admirable in all cases, and was very striking in these little amphibious creatures. When scratched out from their holes, they no sooner ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... some of the over-ripe vegetables and stale hen-fruit which the audience may toss at the performers is liable to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... jelly-like substance. At the time the egg is laid this outer jelly is hardly noticeable, but it soon swells up, and thus forms a soft, elastic covering to the growing frog, effectually protecting it from injury. This black ball, by the way, answers to the yellow yolk of the hen's egg: it differs from the yellow yolk in that it is colourless internally, and black externally. The black outside coat apparently serves to attract the heat of the sun, and thereby to bring about the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and drove us to the shelter of our tent; then it rained! Lord help us! the water came down in such torrents that on account of the spray we could not see thirty feet; then came hailstones as large as hen's eggs. There was some lightning and thunder, but either the splashing of the water drowned the rumbling or the electric fluid was so far distant that the reports were not loud when they reached us. Suddenly there was a ripping noise, followed by a sort of subdued roar which stampeded ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... and round high over the kloof, in which doubtless they bred, apparently quite undisturbed by the shooting. Or, perhaps, they had their eyes upon some of the fallen geese. I took the rifle and waited for a long while, till at last my opportunity came. I saw that the larger hen falcon was about to cross directly over the circle of its mate, there being perhaps a distance of ten yards between them. I aimed; I judged—for a second my mind was a kind of calculating machine—the different arcs and speeds of the birds must be allowed for, and the ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... four-horse stage. The guests came out, and so did the boots, and chamber-maids and waiters, and the cook came also. They stood in line and bade the parting guests godspeed, and all the guests were supposed to express gratitude tangibly. The landlady was busy, flying about like a Plymouth Rock hen with a brood of ducks. She saw me handing up the pink-and-white Grace and Myrtle and the dignified, tailor-made White Pigeon, and she came out and apologized profusely for not having had room to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... oldest Welsh poems are attributed are Aneurin, who is supposed to have lived A.D. 500 to 550, and Taliesin, Llywarch Hen (Llywarch the Aged), and Myrddin or Merlin, who were a few years later. The authenticity of the poems which bear their names has been assailed, and it is still an open question how many and which of them are authentic, though it is hardly to be doubted that some are so. The poem of Aneurin ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool. But wool was so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a necessity. England had the looms and the spindles, but she could not secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it. The cotton pod, as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton gushes out in a white mass. Unfortunately, each pod holds eight or ten seeds, each as large as an orange seed. To clean a single pound of cotton required a long day's work by a slave. The production of cotton was slow ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... mingling with domestic voices not so melodious. Among these the harsh "screek" of the guinea-fowl; the more sonorous call of the turkey "gobbler;" the scream of the goose, always as in agony; the merrier cackle of the laying hen, with the still more ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... laughter added when Gus took a piece of chalk and with a few quick strokes made what suggested a broadcasting station, with a rooster shouting "cock-a-doodle-doo" into the transmitter. Then he drew a lot of zigzag lines to indicate the Hertzian waves, and at the other end of the board, a hen listening in and registering horror when she hears the sounds translated into "quack, quack." Meanwhile, Bill had plunged headlong into ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... a fierce swoop, as if he meant to take the old hen and the chickens too; but Mother Biddy sprang up and faced him so boldly, that he did not know what to ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... state briefly the amount of information he already possesses on the subject. For instance, had Mr. "T.H. Turner," when inquiring after beaver hats (No. 7. p. 100.), stated, that he had met with the mention of them as early as the time of Hen. III., I, of course, should not have troubled you with a notice of them in the reign of Elizabeth. Indeed, I owe Mr. Turner an apology; for if I had reflected a moment upon the extensive antiquarian information of the querist, I should ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... eagle's plume The generous hearts accept their doom; Shot by the peacock's painted eye The vain and airy lovers die: For careful dames and frugal men, The shafts are speckled by the hen: 40 The pies and parrots deck the darts, When prattling wins the panting hearts: When from the voice the passions spring, The warbling finch affords a wing: Together, by the sparrow stung, Down fall the wanton and the young: And fledged by geese the weapons ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Hen and Its Folly. In our own country there exists a grouse species so foolish in its mind, and so destitute of the most ordinary instinct of self-preservation that it has been known for many years as "the Fool Hen." Definitely, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... none of the Gang take her off, she may, in the common course of Business, live a Twelve-month longer. I love to let Women scape. A good Sportsman always lets the Hen Partridges fly, because the Breed of the Game depends upon them. Besides, here the Law allows us no Reward; there is nothing to be got by the Death ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... called this one the Fust National. They never started a second, suh. Our people wouldn't permit it, and befo' I get through you'll find out why. They began by hirin' a buildin' and movin' in an iron safe about as big as a hen-coop. Then they sent out a circular addressed to our prominent citizens which was a model of style, and couched in the most co'teous terms, but which, suh, was nothin' mo' than a trap. I got one and I can speak by the book. It began by sayin' that eve'y ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... unmercifully quizzed in the cockpit, I grew more partial to the society of Tom than to that of my brother middies. Tom always addressed me,'Sir,' and they named me Puddinghead; till at last we might be called friends. During many a night-watch, when I have sneaked away for a snooze among the hen-coops, has Tom saved me from detection, and the consequent pleasant occupation of carrying about a bucket of water on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to it, set by Hen. Lawes, is printed in a book, entitled Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, to sing to the Theorbo Lute, and Bass Viol, folio. 1675, and in Playfield's Antidote against Melancholy, 8vo. 1669, and also ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... body nor a whole bone in me skin when we get out of this!" he gasped, as they reached high ground between two spreading deeps of mingled weeds and water. "The sight of us'd frighten the whole rebel army, if we don't come on them aisy loike, as the fox said when he whisked into the hen-house." ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Bath War Hospital a hen lays an egg every day in a soldier's locker. Only physical difficulties prevent the large hearted bird from laying ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... of white root of the size of a hen's egg, and almost similar in form; it did not seem to be of a very pleasant taste, and consequently we did not take any particular pains to learn its history, yet the natives cook ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had come on, and the days were very hot,—so hot and changeless, with their unclouded skies and their glowing centre, that they seemed to grow stupid with their own heat. It was as if—like a hen brooding over her chickens—the day, brooding over its coming harvests, grew dull and sleepy, living only in what was to come. Notwithstanding the feelings I have just recorded, I began to long for a wider horizon, whence some wind might ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... understand how your arguments can possibly be shaken. The statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21 evidently relates only to such dispensations upon the suit or for the benefit of individuals as had been theretofore usually issued by the Roman Chancery, and to wrest it into the power of establishing an uncanonical see appears a ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... up as though somebody had been hunting treasure. My wife found a $10 gold piece hidden in a crack between the 'dobe bricks and later my son, John, unearthed twelve Mexican dollars beneath some manure in the hen-coop. Whether this had belonged to the Chinaman, Louey, who had disappeared, or to another Chinaman who had been staying with him, we could not determine. At any rate, we found no trace of ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... Disconsolately he waded down the river. At the mouth of the PELUTAN he wept anew, throwing aside the crocodiles as he explored the bed of the river. At LONG SALAI he found his wife's coat and wept again. At LONG LAMA he found his wife's waist-cloth and gave up hope, and at TAMALA he clucked like a hen, so great was his grief. Still he went on wading down the river. The water, which at LONG PLUSAN was only just above his ankles, reached his middle at the mouth of the TUTAU, and covered all his body at the place where the Tinjar (the largest tributary) ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... with them; but she was like a hen with a brood of ducklings. They passed out of her element, and only returned as hunger called them. When they did return she was all that soap and water, loving reproaches, and tender appeals could be; and as they were very ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... antagonist people. They were spirited to Asia, spirited to Germany, so spirited to Great Britain that the international attitude of the mother country to her great daughter was constantly compared in contemporary caricature to that between a hen-pecked husband and a vicious young wife. And for the rest, they all went about their business and pleasure as if war had died out with ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... indeed, the image of slothful content, as he sat silent by the side of old Marsden, who drove like a woman, with a rein in each hand, twitching them uselessly from time to time, and clucking like a hen to urge on his horse when the sand grew unusually deep ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... another flower, which immediately contracted with such force that they saw drops of blood squeezed out. After some minutes the flower opened, as beautiful as ever, and discharged an oblong ball compressed to about the size of a hen's egg, though the bird that was placed within it had been as large as a small duck. Towards evening these flowers sent up their most beautiful song, to hear which flocks of birds came from far and ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... was co-operation, how the system would be blamed!" exclaimed Ben Hay. "I declare, it makes me madder than a hen in a fence—I've caught that of Cameron," laughingly,—"to hear the things people have said about us. They're forever blathering about fair play—I wish they'd give a little, as well as take all. Wait till we've come to the end, say ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count through tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his kraal gate upon him. We forgot, both of us, the proverb that points out how numerous are the slips between the cup and the lip, which, by the way, is one that has its Zulu equivalents. One of them, if I remember right at the moment, is: "However loud the hen cackles, the housewife does not always ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Dances in the evenings were started at the corner of the row to the strains of a melodeon, and were carried on to the early hours of the morning. It was from these gatherings that the young lads generally raided the fields and hen runs of the hostile farmers, returning with eggs, butter, potatoes, and even cheese—everything on which they could ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... me," said Musq'oosis. "I not tell you that for cause it is only foolishness. She is an old woman. She jus' a fool-hen. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... from the Goodman's lips, he quietly crawled out on all fours and disappeared through the door. Dan found him afterwards out by the straw-stack, and as there was a yellow streak on his black face, concluded he had learned his lesson about the hen's nest altogether too well. He was given a hoe and taken to the corn-field at once. Here Daniel showed him just how to cut out the weeds with the hoe and loosen the earth about the roots of the corn. Zeb nodded and grinned so cheerfully that, after watching him a few moments, Daniel called ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a hen that liked water," interrupted Phineas. "Er a turkey either. Don't you worry about 'em. You better worry about that side-meat you're fryin'. Ef my nose is what it ort to be, I'd say that piece o' meat was bein' burnt to death,—an' that's a lot wuss than bein' drownded. They say drowndin' ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... dog once that I was tremendous fond of," Uncle Solon continued. "His name was Spot. He was a bird-dog, and so bright it seemed as if he could almost talk. But he took to suckin' eggs, and began to steal eggs at my neighbors' barns and hen-houses. He would fetch home eggs without crackin' the shells, and hold 'em in his mouth so cunning you wouldn't know he had anything there. He used to bury them eggs in the garden and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... black hen, She lays eggs for gentlemen: Gentlemen come every day To see what my black ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... hare sleeps where it lies, With wary half-closed eyes; The cock has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck: Only the fox is out, some heedless duck Or chicken ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... leaving the door ajar for the first time, he soon started a draft; that with the coming of cooler evening lowered the child's temperature, and made her hungry. As he worked Mickey talked. The grass, the blooming orchard, the hen and her little downy chickens, the big cool porch, the wonderful woman and man, the boy whom they expected and who did not come; and then cautiously, slowly, making sure she understood, he developed his plan to take her to the country. Peaches drew back and opened ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... answered, nodding, as though he could see. "I get wild pigeons and sometimes a wild duck or a prairie-hen." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... water and the scent of the moss and the wild violet seemed to flavour their meal. Tom had brought a small gun with him, and, soon after they resumed their walk, saw some partridges and fired upon them. All the birds flew save a hen that stood clucking with spread wings. Coming close, they could see her eyes blinking in drops of blood. Trove put his hand upon her, but she only bent her head a little and spread her wings ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the parent hen amid her brood, Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part And straggle from her presence, still a brood, And she herself from the maternal bond Still undischarged; yet doth she little more 250 Than move with them in tenderness and love, A centre ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... objection. And next, brushing his attempted explanations aside, "One of two things would happen. Either I should cancel our partnership agreement and go away, leaving you to get another chaperone to chaperone your chaperone; or else I'd take the old hen out in the whale-boat and drown her. Do you imagine for one moment that I sailed my schooner down here to this raw edge of the earth in order to put myself ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... within its grasp. We let the pearl go and amused ourselves by sucking the eggs of the liho, a bland-faced bird which makes its nest in the surface coral branches. [Footnote: The liho is in many respects the most remarkable fowl in existence. It is of the gallinaris or hen- family crossed with the male shad which causes the bird to produce eggs in unheard of quantity.] Here, too, we laughed over the ridiculous ratatia, that grotesque amphibian who is built like a ferry-boat, with a head at either ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... taken the last eggs, and that twenty-one days was the time allotted by nature for the bringing forth of chickens, so she shrewdly suspected what she would find; but it had not occurred to her that she would find chickens alive without the aid of a hen. ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... hen-eggs, if properly filled and well secured against the penetration of the air, and exposed to solar rays, will ascend to the skies and sometimes suffer a natural change. And if the eggs of the larger description of swans, or leather balls stitched with fine thongs, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... trump that tells of scattered corn, Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 30 Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 34 With watchful, measuring eye, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Detroit, Mich., in August, 1875, we had the pleasure of examining a specimen, exhibited by Prof. Wilder, of a chick which had undergone a considerable degree of development within the ovary of the hen. It had a head, a rudimentary brain, and internal viscera, but no feathers nor limbs. It was, in fact, an egg hatched before it had been laid. The anomaly excited much interest at that time and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... the Wizard two other personages from the outside world had been allowed to make their home in the Emerald City. The first was a quaint Shaggy Man, whom Ozma had made the Governor of the Royal Storehouses, and the second a Yellow Hen named Billina, who had a fine house in the gardens back of the palace, where she looked after a large family. Both these had been old comrades of Dorothy, so you see the little girl was quite an important personage in Oz, and the people thought she had brought them good luck, and ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the woman as the original of a type frequently seen on the boards of those resorts, played by male impersonators. Directly she saw Mavis, Mrs Bale hurried to the bedside and seized the baby, to dandle it in her arms, the while she made a clucking noise not unlike the cackling of a hen. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... passe. They have hook-billed noses, crow's-feet under their sunken eyes, and a mellow tinting of the hair. They are connoisseurs in the matter of snuff. They discard hoops, waterfalls, and bandeaux. They hold hen conventions, to discuss and decide, with vociferous expression, the orthodoxy of the minister, the regularity of the doctor, and the morals of the lawyer. They read the Tribune with spectacles, and have files of The Liberator and Wendell ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... have," was the retort, "and a third interest in Harper and Ladue's. And I can see my corner lots selling out for more than your hen-scratching ever ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Three long hen-coops which stood piled against the wall were laid on the ground and covered with mats; on these the tired men stretched their limbs, but they could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... s'pose not," responded Dotty, giving up the attempt to compare trials with such a wretched being; "but then I may be blind, some time, too. P'rhaps a chicken will pick my eyes out. A cross hen flew right up and did so to ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... White Cross on the Hill." There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from the high-peaked belfry that overlooked the hill and valley and the smooth, far-winding stream. No other sounds ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... too boo hen ee too boo ho [to be way] bla Tel ey wees ee lu Hoi kay yu kar, heno yah ha, Kaye yu kar, hen o yar-hah, Kay yu kar, hen o yah-hah, kay ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... the rascal vanguard have cleared every hen from the country-side. It was this very morning that Norbury, my squire, lamed his horse in riding round in quest of one, for we have a bag of truffles, and nought to eat with them. Never have I seen such ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rusty. It was not an interesting place, for it was not likely to afford him anything to eat. Yet, with the instinct of the human animal, he went shifting and prying and nosing about everywhere. Presently he heard a curious sound, which he recognized as made by a hen. More stealthily yet he went creeping hither and thither, feeling here and feeling there, in the hope of laying his hand on the fowl asleep. Urged by his natural impulse to forage, he had forgotten Clare's warning. His hand did find her, and had it been his grandmother instead of Clare in the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... distance. 'Yonder's the 'bus comin' again,' said he, looking towards the station, 'loaded like a market-gardener's turnip-waggon. That'll pay,' added he, with a knowing leer at the landlord of the Hen Angel, Newington Butts. 'And who have we here, with the four horses and sky-blue flunkeys? Jawleyford, as I live!' added he, answering himself; adding, 'The beggar had better pay me ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... turned to her His eyes of roguish blue, "Oh, yes, I know," he said; "but then, Old hen goes with them, too." ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... accomplishment in Baby. In the tall grass beyond the barley fields were flocks of prairie chickens, and during one of the hunting expeditions he found several nests of eggs. They are just as much more delicious than the common egg as the prairie chicken is more delicate than the hen. Baby never thereafter forgot the eggs. Singularly, he never ate any of them. Apparently the orang does not crave them in his native state, but the little rascal had an eye to the good things, and when he saw ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... coolly. "It's only a bit of news, and that's how it will be taken. Nothing to be done, but perhaps double the sentries in the weak places. Not that they're very weak, or we shouldn't have been hen; when ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... Gilbert. Stepping stones to literature, v. 2. (Chicken Little.) Asbjoernsen. Fairy tales from the far north. (Hen who went to Dovrefjeld.) Bailey and Lewis. For the children's hour. (Chicken Little.) Blaisdell. Child life in tale and fable. (Chicken Little.) Darton. Wonder book of beasts. Lansing. Rhymes and stories. ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... the salad being poked and turned about so that it would be all absorbed. Perhaps it was because he was so busy narrating the escapades of Maltby Symmes that the old gentleman kneaded it about so long; all the time fussing over it like a hen-partridge with her chicks, and interrupting himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, the opera star, and he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of railroad shares. (Really, you know, ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... with his face hidden and spoke no word; at the sight of him his wife's face had turned to sudden rage, and she stood over him like a ruffled hen, and clacked commination of masculine imbecility, intermixed with wild plaints for ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... suggesting (but I think erroneously) that this may have arisen from the difficulty larger birds would have in concealing themselves if they called the attention of their enemies by loud notes, goes on thus:—"I should rather conceive it is for the same reason no hen bird sings, because this talent would be still more dangerous during incubation, which may possibly also account for the inferiority in point of plumage." This is a curious anticipation of the main idea on which ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... somewhere near at hand alarmed me. I slipped my letter under the glove on the writing-table and fled out precipitately. Only in time, as it proved, for Terence Murphy came round the house chasing a refractory hen, which, as luck would have it, flew through the door I ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... dear, you're a hen with one chick. If there is a rustle in the leaves you think a hawk ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... a cock, there must be hens and a hen-roost hereabouts," observed Miles Soper, hurrying in the ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... of the mother was longing after her boy, like a human hen whose chicken had run from under her wing and come to grief. He had sinned, he had suffered, and was in disgrace—good reasons why the mother's heart should cling to the youth, why her arms should long to fold him to her bosom! The things which made his father feel he could not speak to him ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "more better'n Pine Creek last year," Cheon allowed us a glimpse of the pudding through a cloud of steam, the company standing reverently around the fire trench in a circle, as it bent over the bubbling boiler; then scuttling away before us like an old hen with a following of chickens, he led the way to the waterbags, and asked our opinion on the hop-beer: "You think him jump-up longa dinner time? Eh, boss ?" he said anxiously, as the Maluka, holding a bottle between us ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... tittle, don't tarry; I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, [give] Gif ye will advise me to marry [If] The lad I lo'e ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... honest and hearty brutality. There was consequently something very grotesque about the document. Philip, in the outset, was made to sustain towards his undutiful subjects the characters of the brooding hen and the prodigal's father; a range of impersonation hardly to be allowed him, even by the most abject flattery. "Ye are well aware," thus ran the address, "that the King has, over and over again, manifested his willingness to receive ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... intended port. As we approached the land, the sea-fowl, which had accompanied us hitherto, began to leave us; at least they did not come in such numbers. Nor did we see gannets, or the black bird, commonly called the Cape Hen, till we were nearly within sight of the Cape. Nor did we strike sounding till Penguin Island bore N.N.E., distant two or three leagues, where we had fifty fathom water. Not but that the soundings may extend farther off. However, I am very sure that they do not extend very far west from the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr |
