"Skunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sullen bear, in cautious silence passed him by and shunned the fetid breath of monster lizards and venom stings of centipedes and scorpions; but woman-like she feared the hydrophobia-skunk more for its scent than for ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... cowardly action, Julian," he agreed. "I'm hot with shame when I think of it. But don't, for heaven's sake, think I had anything to do with the affair! We have a secret service branch which arranges for those things. It's that skunk Fenn who's ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Hear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer," replied Whitefoot. "It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always some one hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why I am so timid. If I were not ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... anywhere. When we had Wild Bills in the old days, we formed Vigilant Committees, and went out after the law breakers with a gun; but now, we are a law-abiding people. We are a law-abiding age, don't you forget that! When you skin a skunk now days, you do it according to law, slowly, judiciously, no matter what the skunk does to you meantime, even tho' it get away with the chickens. Fact is, we're so busy straining at legal gnats just now that we're swallowing a whole generation ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Hendricks skeered a skunk out of a holler log. Si Pettingill stirred up a hornet's nest, Deacon Witherspoon sot down in a huckleberry pie and Aunt Nancy Smith got a spider on her, and she started in to yellin' and jumpin' like ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... see I begin to like the smell of skunk cabbage, and, when a man gets that way, it's ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... Blasted Heyst, the time isn't yet. My head's cooler just now than yours. Let's go in again. Why, we are exposed here. Suppose he took it into his head to let off a gun on us! He's an unaccountable, 'yporcritical skunk." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... that away. I never tuck no hand in 'er disputes with my wife, an' ef hard things has been said about Sally, why they never come from me. Lord, I've got plenty else to think about besides gals an' women. I think I'm on track o' the skunk 'at ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... skunk saluted, and the car drove off, Mademoiselle Ottilie waving her handkerchief. Now they were gone, and as the three little girls filed back into the hall wiping their eyes, the Van Drissels exchanged ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... that—and you can call a skunk 'Kitty' on your way home from the club, but that fact won't change your wife's opinion of you when you come in. You walk up to Dave Everett now with your political exigency in your hand, Luke, and it would turn to a political axegency, and you'd have a ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... at Iowa City that Major Woods heard that the inhabitants on the Iowa, English, and Skunk Rivers had been making the loudest complaints. Accordingly he started up the Iowa River to the vicinity of Marengo. Here he learned that a few days before the settlers near the town, becoming tired of having Indians about them, armed themselves and by force broke ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... intruders from their nests. This is an invariable device of the Partridge, and I have no doubt that it is quite successful with the natural foes of the bird; indeed it is often so with Man. A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be misled and duped, and there is little doubt that a mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare no better. Imagine the effects of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and suddenly, with a loud 'whirr,' she springs up and tumbles a ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... triphyllum). Green dragon (Arisoema dracontium). Sweet-flag (Acorus). Skunk cabbage (Spathyema). Calla (Richardia). Caladium (Caladium). Calocasia (Calocasia). Phyllodendron (Phyllodendron). Fuchsia (Fuchsia). Wandering Jew (Tradescantia). Rhubarb (Rheum). Grape (Vitis). ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... like a flash, a gun in each hand, saying, 'Stand up, you measly skunk, so I can see you.' Half a dozen men rose in different parts of the house and cut loose at him, and as they did so the lights went out and the room filled with smoke. Masterson was blazing away with two guns, which so lighted up the rostrum that we could see the professor crouching ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... wearisome bore of English and Scotch life, the stories of the big game they killed. A bear was an occasional amusement; a wapiti was a constant necessity; but the only wild animal dangerous to man was a rattlesnake or a skunk. One shot for amusement, but one had other ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... he's got away on us—the skunk! He's down there in the brush, somewheres, waiting for somebody to go in and drag him out by the ear. I betche he's laying low, right now, waiting for a chance to pot-shot us. We better git back out uh this." ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a skunk!" ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... try that on me. You've let Eva down plop, and I'm jolly glad; but all the same you're a skunk. Nothing can alter that. Why don't you ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... a woman. "I hope they don't forgit to lock them cages up! Folks git awful careless when they do a thing every day! I forgot to shet up the hins last week, an' that was the night the skunk got in." ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... out on the ocean," answered the old tar, and then he continued: "You know how they tried to board us—after Carey, Bossermann, that skunk o' a Wingate, an' Ulligan went to 'em. Well, fust we kept 'em off with fireworks and with a shotgun. We didn't have much steam up, but Frank Norton—bless his heart—worked like a beaver, and the ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... delicate-minded we can't interfere and that was what my friend, President Wilson, meant when he opined that America was too proud to fight. So we're nootrals. But likewise we're benevolent nootrals. As I follow events, there's a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... brought shouts of encouragement—to the villain. "Kill him!"... "Shoot one to his kidneys!"... "Ahhhhh," as the villain hit the hero in the stomach.... "Muss his hair. Attaboy!"... "Kill the skunk!" And finally groans of despair when the hero won his ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... you and me and Lahoma could just live here in the cove till time was no more, reading our books, and smoking our pipes, and taking peaceful morning trips like this—to see whether we'd caught a coyote in our traps, or a bobcat, or a skunk." ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... our smaller wild animals are very common and very troublesome to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is hard to keep them out of the hen-house. That little ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... buffalo heads covering their heads and faces from view, down to their breasts, their bodies to the waist painted black, no sign of pencillings visible to relieve the austerity of intention, legs painted black and white, with cuffs of skunk's fur round the ankles to represent the death mask symbol, relieving the edges of the buckskin moccasins—in all this you have the notes that are necessary for the color balance of the idea of solemnity presented to the eye. You find even the white ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... I can see it in his eye!" thought Jack. "Well," continued he mentally, "let him do his worst; I mean mischief too, and we will see who is the better player at the game. But I must keep cool if I am to come out on top; and, who knows? the skunk may say something which will afford me ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... This dance and the whoops of the Indians attracted spectators from Traverse and St. Peter; and with boyish curiosity, I was as near as possible to the dancers. Suddenly I spied one brave, dancing about, with a skunk skin tied to his heel and trailing on the ground behind him. Obeying a mischievous impulse, I jumped upon the trailing skin, and stopped the wild dancer. The savage wheeled, quickly raised his tomahawk, and was ready to strike; ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... No, folks. But it's easy to guess for why he hangs back." He blinked truculently into the faces gathered about him, mutely daring anybody else to state that reason. But few cared to discuss the redoubtable doctor, so he was permitted to continue. "Doc's a sight too friendly disposed toward sech a skunk as Jim Thorpe. We've clear enough proof that feller is a cattle-rustler. We've the evidence of our eyes, sure. There's the cattle; ther's his brand—and—running with his own stock, hidden away up in the foot-hills. Do we need more? Psha! No. At least no one with ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... western state! More than all Hindostan can boast of, and nearly half the railway mileage of the United Kingdom. Of this immense system of interior connexion Chicago is the centre and heart. Other great centres of commerce have striven to rival the City of the Skunk, but all have failed; and to-day, thanks to the dauntless energy of the men of Chicago, the garden state of the Union possesses this immense extent of railroad, ships its own produce, north, east, and south, and ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... said the snappy, birdlike old woman whom Janice ushered into the sitting room. "I only got back from Skunk's Holler, where I been visitin', this very day. And what d'ye s'pose I found when ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... NOT frightened—no, I'm not. The Phoenix has never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us through somehow. I believe ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... he made and put over in the corner and I'd hear the ratti-tat-tat of that machine gun a-goin'. I ast him what was he goin' to do with it an' he said: 'We're a-goin' out one of these nights and kill a skunk.' ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... so much ready money for that skunk," added the showman. He cocked his head to one side to avoid his cigar smoke, and stared down on P.T. pecking the last scraps of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... looking handsomer than ever. The light November chill had whipped a thin flush into her face. He watched her as she took off her dark skunk furs and ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... commended to players of golf, who are inclined to be "worldly." The episode of Oconio at the best is too long to quote; it, too, has its lesson! One reads Mr. Abbott's defence of the skunk cabbage, for ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... harem did not come to water. Cash done the regular hike after them. His thumb don't hurt him for hazing donkeys. Bill and harem come in after Cash left. They must of saw him go. Cash was out four hours and come in mad. Shot a hidrophobia skunk out by the creek. Nothing doing. ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... see why those fellows were wished on us," growled his twin. "I'd just as lief have a skunk in the place as to ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but now a British consul; and that he writes under the signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... him because he's a coward and a skunk," explained George, lowering his voice with praiseworthy consideration. "You see, it's just this way, Simmy. He didn't do the right thing by Anne. He ought to have come back here and made her marry him. That's where he's to blame. He ought to have gone right up to the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... sure to fetch along with him when taking this big hike, and that was his little camp hatchet. Fritz had begged to be allowed to carry his old Marlin shotgun, under the plea that they might run across some ferocious animal like a wildcat, or a skunk, and would find a good use for the reliable firearm; but the scoutmaster had set his foot ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Jim himself!" He laughed. "He just made a joke of it. But he is a mean skunk! I've found out since that he wanted to buy Preston out for the part Preston had taken in another affair. There's a pretty case coming on directly, with Jim for hero. ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... younker, that ere Lone Wolf that they call such a great chief (and I may as well own up and say that he is), is heavy on ransoms and he ain't the only chief that's in that line. That skunk runs off with men, women and boys, and his rule is not to give 'em up ag'in till he gits a good round price. He calculated on making a good thing off you, and I rather think ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... cowpuncher disappeared through the door, Cinnabar Joe's eyes narrowed. "You damn skunk!" he muttered, biting viciously upon the stump of his cigar. "If you was drinkin' anything I'd switch glasses on you, an' then shoot it out with you when you come to. From now on it's you or me. You've got your hooks into me an' this is only the beginnin'." ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the Skunk Nest's gang—that's this lot, and I got here—just in time! I don't believe you could have done it, Mr. Grier. No master is popular in the real sense with his men. I think they'd have turned you down. So it was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "'Trouble, yeh skunk,' he howls; 'our throats is hot as hell, all th' skin's comin' off 'em; Bill Tomson's got his lips that blistered he can't hold his pipe between ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... parson, that part of it had never struck me. I ain't bright and never was. But I ain't no skunk. I give that woman some of her own money back and that week I sold out at a loss and slunk around some more. I couldn't go back to my own work. I had a grudge against it, someway. By and by the money was all gone and an old pal of mine offered to set me up in business out here, away ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... the man, breathless, in part from his exertions, and partly also, Leslie believed, from apprehension; "it's all right. But let go, sir, please, and let's get a few fathoms away from the ship, for there's no knowin' when that skunk Turnbull may take it into his head to come on deck and 'ave a look round; 'e's as nervous as a cat, and that suspicious that you can't be up to 'im. There, thank 'e, sir; I dare say that'll do; they won't be able ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sitting. This was evidently loud enough to be heard in the next house, for our next-door neighbour once asked my husband why he selected such curious hours for hanging his pictures. Another strange and fairly frequent occurrence was the following. I had got a set of skunk furs which I fancied had an unpleasant odour, as this fur sometimes has; and at night I used to take it from my wardrobe and lay it on a chair in the drawing-room, which was next my bedroom. The first time that I did this, on going to the drawing-room I found, to my surprise, my muff ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... Don Carlos, you'll make me and Myra the laughing-stock of London if you tell people that!" Tony protested, looking quite distressed. "Myra will be furious with me and with you, and—er—I—I suppose you are thinking I am a mean sort of skunk. I'm frightfully sorry! I say, old chap, can't you suggest some way out ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... beat on ahead and take you myself. I want you to understand. And you do know, I guess. You must have heard, for I thought you were sure-enough dead in the box, an' I swear to Heaven I meant all I said then. I wouldn't have come. I was glad you two got away. But this Bucky is a skunk and a scoundrel— and mebbe if I take you— I can help you— later on. They'll be ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... his wife died he refused to come into the house till the last minute. He stayed to work in the barn until all the folks had assembled, and even the men were all settin' down on benches in the kitchen. The parson sent me out for him, and I'm blest if the old skunk didn't come in through the crowd with his sleeves rolled up,—went to the sink and washed, and then set down in the room where the coffin was, as cool as ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the colony could not continue without scavengers! So our ancestors searched on other worlds, and presently they found a creature which would multiply enormously and with a fine versatility upon the wastes of our human cities. True, it smelled like an ancient Earth-animal called skunk—butyl mercaptan. It was not pretty—to most eyes it is revolting. But it was a scavenger and there was no waste product it would ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... him, and it stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... grub boxes in camp, securing their contents from wet, insects and rodents. Ants in summer and mice at all times are downright pests of the woods, to say nothing of the wily coon, the predatory mink, the inquisitive skunk, and the fretful porcupine. The boilers are useful, too, on many occasions to catch rain-water, boil clothes, waterproof and dye ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... of pink satin with a beaded tunic of purple chiffon. Other stunning costumes were worn by Mrs. Alexander Britton, who was in purple velvet with lace and brilliants; Miss Catherine Britton, scarlet chiffon. Miss Mary Green wore a lovely gown of blue charmeuse and chiffon with bands of skunk. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... riding, and he blatted so we had to tie a handkerchief around his nose, and his feet made such a noise on the floor that we put some baby's socks on his feet. Gosh, how frowy a goat smells, don't it? I should think you Masons must have strong stummix, Why don't you have a skunk or a mule for a trade mark. Take a mule, and annoint it with limburg cheese and you could initiate and make a candidate smell just as bad as with ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... coming in at the door. He saw what I was doing, and glared at me vengefully. He actually turned white with rage at this breach of his authority, and came at me with set teeth and doubled fists. "Give me that apple, damn yeh!" he cried. "You sneakin' skunk, you, I'll larn ye ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, because it is too filthy to handle and too noisome ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... farmer entered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the woodpile,' said the old man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.'" The Senators retired, and nothing more was heard from them about ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... are dead! Max fights with Shep, he scorns to follow me! Some fresh disaster momently I dread; Is that a skunk ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... being Mr. John Coulter," chuckled he. "And, oh, the things I said to him! I tremble to recall them. I told him Corcoran was a low-down skunk, I know that. And I gushed on a lot about Hal and Louise. I only wish I could remember what I did say. Jove! He must have split his ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... down large doors over some hay or long grass and they gathered underneath and then I lifted the doors up every day and with a stick I smashed hundreds of them. I have posted a notice to leave the skunk and mink alone; I don't want anybody on the place ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Well, that's the only good thing the sneakin' skunk ever done! Why didn't you tell ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... putting my nose down for a sniff, so good is the smell of a fresh trail, so close are we to the rest of the pack. In the thick of the swamp I stopped a moment to examine the footprints of an otter at a shallow, shelving place along the bank, where, opening through the skunk-cabbage and Indian turnip, and covered almost ankle-deep with water, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... spreading out and arranging pelts of black fox, white fox, silver fox, beaver, skunk, and racoon (there were wolfskins in plenty, too, but these she did not produce, as they were commoner, and so would doubtless not appeal to the rich man's fancy); then she heard a noise of knocking in the store, and, running out, found ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... throughout the country. I quote it for its value as a specimen of that sort of journalistic and political utterance amongst us, which is as seriously embarrassed by facts as a skunk by its tail. Had its author said: "The Declaration of Independence was signed by Christopher Columbus on Washington's birthday during the siege of Vicksburg in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and Judas ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... who has been in North America, is my authority for stating that the celebrated odour of the skunk is mild and refreshing, compared to the unutterable loathsomeness of that of the kauri-bug. I can well believe it. How well I remember one of my first nights in the bush! It appears that one of these diabolical insects had got into my ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... and four hundred head. The water is running still up in the range. We should have done better if that skunk Wombo hadn't bolted.' ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... drink afore me, Ned. That's the skunk I war a-thinkin' 'bout, an' hev been all the day. I've seed other sign beside this—the which escaped the eyes o' the others. An' I'm gled it did: for I didn't want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin' it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... violations. The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a "conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war" "pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their manhood—if they have any dregs. They would make them sick—even them; and I should like them all to be sick—sick unto death. ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... say I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly replied the under-dog. "You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... and dapper, He, a red-haired, stalwart trapper, Hunting beaver, mink, and skunk In the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... that wasn't anything," said Standifer, "hemming" loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. "And now, ma'am, who was the infernal skunk—I beg your pardon, ma'am—who was the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... for the lonely store in the woods. All through the summer there was a procession of birchbark canoes, filled with red men and white, coming down the river to the bay, laden with skins of wolf, fox, beaver, wolverine, squirrel, and skunk, the harvest of the winter's trapping. Then in winter the cove and the river were often crowded with boats, driven to anchorage there by the ice, and to escape the fearful storms sweeping over the bay. The river was more favoured as an anchorage than the cove, because it was more sheltered, ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... ma'am. Water is so scarce that they gets to regardin' it as somethin' onnatural and dangerous. More'n enough of it to give 'em a drink or two and water the Jennies acts on 'em all same like it does on a hydrophoby skunk. They foams at the mouth ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... ferrets, martens, skunks, and others. The ermine and sable are included with the martens; and the three first send forth a disagreeable odour. They, however, are not to be compared in this respect to the skunk, which of all creatures is one of the most disagreeable, in consequence of its foetid gland, which secretes the offensive liquor sent forth when the animal is frightened or irritated. Nothing will obliterate this odour, no other scent overcomes it; no burying in the earth, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Presbyterian, de spirit have never moved me to pray for de horse and rider dat went off wid my beads dat my mistress give me. When I tell Marster William Woodward, my husband's old marster, 'bout it, him say: 'De low dirty skunk, de Lord'll take vengeance on him.' Marster William give Alf a half a dollar and tell him to git me another string of beads, though Alf ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... job off my hands." His face expressed a sort of gloomy dissatisfaction. Then without looking at Mose he went on: "That's one reason daughter looks so pert. She's free of that skunk's clutches now—and can hold up her head. She's free to marry ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... us deeply and painfully was the skunk. They were fearless little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. When the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would let ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Tribune, feels lonesome if he gets through the day without a poorly spelled, spattered, daubed and profane valentine threatening his life. The last time I saw him he showed me a few of them. They generally referred to him as a blankety blank "skunk," and a "hound of hell." He said he hoped I wound pardon him for the apparent egotism, but he felt as though the Tribune was attracting attention almost everyday. Some of these little billet-doux invited him to call at a trysting place on Tribune avenue and get his ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Orde. "The old skunk knows his own rollways are so far down stream that he's safe, flood water or no ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... he to himself, as he started to his feet; "the skunk is coming this way. Good! he has the advantage of me in being mounted; but I have a rifle that I dare say will make up for the difference—enfant de grace! ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... thing like that—is there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don't mean this to have any future—as far as you are concerned. It's a 'once for all' transaction. Well, what do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more listless than ever—nearly asleep.—I believe the skunk was really too lazy to care. Small cheating at cards, wheedling or bullying his living out of some woman or other, was more his style. Cloete swears at him in whispers something awful. All this in ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... escaped his watchful eye. From the crest of the Cumberland to the yellow flood of the Ohio he knew that land, and he loved every acre of it, whether blue-grass, bear-grass, peavine, or pennyroyal, and he knew its history from Daniel Boone to the little Boones who still trapped skunk, mink, and muskrat, and shot squirrels in the hills with the same old-fashioned rifle, and he loved its people—his people—whether they wore silk and slippers, homespun and brogans, patent leathers and broadcloth, or cowhide boots and jeans. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... floor, Santry gazed out into the twilight. "That dirty, low-lived Swede? But we'll fix him, boy. I know his breed, the skunk! I'll...." The veins in the old plainsman's throat stood out and the pupils of his eyes contracted. "I'll run his blamed outfit out of the valley before noon termorrer. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... to Buzzard, who has not hitherto been known as a writer; why the fair Columba thinks it must belong to the reverend Merula; and why they are all alike disturbed in their previous judgment of its value by finding that it really came from Skunk, whom they had either not thought of at all, or thought of as belonging to a species excluded by the nature of the case. Clearly they were all wrong in their notion of the specific conditions, which lay unexpectedly in the small Skunk, and in him alone—in spite of his education ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... sped by, lengthening into weeks and the weeks into months. Birch and maple dropped their leaves, a rustling carpet about their feet. Wedges of wild geese winged their way southward through the trackless sky, making the nights vocal with their honking. The bear, woodchuck, skunk, raccoon and chipmunk, fat from their summer feeding, had retired to den or hollow tree where they were to sleep ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... the City Merchants' days how Britten and I scoffed at that pompous question-begging word "Evolution," having, so to speak, found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a various and splendid disorder ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... similarity never came to light, but apparently the lady had, in a fit of high-minded inadvertence, had gone through the ceremony of marriage with, one quotes the unpublished discourse of Mr. Butteridge—"a white-livered skunk," and this zoological aberration did in some legal and vexatious manner mar her social happiness. He wanted to talk about the business, to show the splendour of her nature in the light of its complications. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. E fany thin's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.—H. B] This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Saltriver). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good bluenose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' Throughout is swarmin' with the most ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... The yellow cat flattened back her ears, growled, and stood her ground till he was within a foot of her. Then, with an angry 'pf-f-f' she turned tail and fled. The stranger was so calmly sure of himself that she concluded he must be some new kind of skunk—and her respect for all ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... (Mydaus meliceps) is confined to the mountains of Java (where it is called the teledu), Sumatra and Borneo. The head and body are about 15 in. long, and the tail no more than an inch; the fur is dark brown, with the top of the head, neck and a broad dorsal stripe, white. Like the skunk, this animal can eject the foetid secretion of the anal glands. The sand-badgers (Arctonyx) are Asiatic; the best-known species (A. collaris) ranges from the eastern Himalayas to Burma; the smaller A. taxoides is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... relative of the stately calla lily proclaims spring in the very teeth of winter, being the first bold adventurer above ground. When the lovely hepatica, the first flower worthy the name to appear, is still wrapped in her fuzzy furs, the skunk cabbage's dark, incurved horn shelters within its hollow, tiny, malodorous florets. Why is the entire plant so foetid that one flees the neighborhood, pervaded as it is with an odor that combines a suspicion of skunk, putrid meat, and garlic? After investigating the Carrion-flower and the Purple ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... "Listen, you infernal skunk," Old Heck went on coldly, "as quick as you're able to travel you'll find Eagle Butte's a right good place to get away from! You understand what I mean. If I catch you around, well, I won't use no fists!" And without waiting for an answer he ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... stolen the rat trap from the oat bin, and had set it up in the wood lot, and yesterday morning was so fortunate as to catch a fine big skunk. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... prisoner, Jean. Ye've played the skunk. Guess you ain't goin' now. Neither is my share o' the contents o' that chest. Savvee? If ye think o' moving that wad we're goin' to ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... the claim he thought he located he really jumped. That was Turkeyfoot's part a' it—purtendin' ter be the perfesser's friend an' goadin' him on ter fall in with Heppner's plan. Oh, Turkeyfoot's a missable skunk, ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... "There's a skunk down there with a bad eye an' a gun that jumps out of its leather like it had a mind of its own. He picked me for fifty bucks by nailing a dollar I tossed up at twenty yards. Then he gets a hundred because I couldn't ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... and invention of the people. Most of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an artificial air, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... your schemes," said Bill, "and I'm going to say this about them: I think you are the dirtiest, meanest skunk ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron |
