"Thimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one gains under the name of shelter, what one pays rent for, must be kept clearly in mind. Two or three decades since it was a tight roof, thinly plastered walls, and a chimney with "thimble-holes for stoves," possibly a furnace with small tin flues, a well or cistern, or perhaps one faucet delivering a small stream of water. To-day even in the suburbs there is furnished light, heat, abundant water, care of halls and sidewalks. The elevator-boy ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... varied by electricity. I devised a telephone receiver which was afterward known as the 'loud-speaking telephone,' or 'chalk receiver.' There was no magnet, simply a diaphragm and a cylinder of compressed chalk about the size of a thimble. A thin spring connected to the centre of the diaphragm extended outwardly and rested on the chalk cylinder, and was pressed against it with a pressure equal to that which would be due to a weight of about six pounds. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... from the country who is looking on, an interested spectator—is astonished at such a proposition, and looks upon the individual making it as little better than a fool; for didn't he see the ball placed under the thimble, and therefore must it not be there still? His idea on this point is soon confirmed—a bystander takes up the bet, the thimble is raised, and there sure enough is the ball—just ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... with its big, light yellow, sprawling leaves, and its attractively red, thimble-shaped, but rather tasteless berries. The Indians, however, are very fond of them, and so are some of the birds and animals, likewise of the service berries, which look much like the blueberry, though their ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... other. I believe I heaved a deep sigh, and dropped my thimble, which "Joey" instantly seized, and with a low chirrup of intense delight, commenced to poke down between the boards of the verandah. It was too bad of us to give such broad hints by looks if not ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... pinned on at present. It's that way with all of us. Our Plebs sew 'em on for us at night, and use the door for a thimble." ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... trying to catch sight of some special mystery inside, for Dr. Boaze, the chief doctor of the place, and Murdock had been busy all the afternoon. Murdock came out, and asked my informant to run down to a shop near by for a thimble. On returning with the thimble, the boy pretended to have lost it, and, whilst searching in every pocket, he managed to slip inside the door of the workshop, and then produced the thimble. He found Dr. Boaze and Murdock with a kettle filled with coal. The gas issuing from it had ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... his wife, he would regard it as no better than lost. He was therefore obliged to excuse his conduct, being caught in the act of poring after something, to tell, if not a lie, at least the very smallest part of the truth, and say that he had lost his thimble. The money was not found, and to make bad worse, he was in danger of losing a good job, and all the Ritter's work forever, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... plunged her hand into her dress pocket, and turned it wrong side out, scattering the contents—thimble, thread, two "scalybarks," and some "ground peas" over the floor. Then stooping, she slipped off one shoe, turned it upside down, and hung it thus on a horseshoe fastened to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... squalling gamblers, and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story- teller who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility: in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig with coffee-cups, all intent upon the game, and the player himself very wild lest one of our party, who had discovered where the pea lay, should tell the company. The devotion and energy with which all these pastimes were pursued, struck me as much as anything. ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you, I take it. What do you say? Has he got any employment? Not he! Dabbles in chemistry (experiments, and that sort of thing) by way of amusing himself; and tells the most infernal lies about it. The other day he showed me a bottle about as big as a thimble, with what looked like water in it, and said it was enough to poison everybody in the hotel. What rot! Isn't that the clock striking again? Near about bedtime, I should ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... determined upon for hiding, such as a coin, a button, a thimble, etc. A pupil is sent from the room. During his absence the object is hidden. Upon his return the children buzz vigorously when he is near to the object sought and very faintly when he is some distance away. The object is located by ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... thoroughly furnished work-box from Mamma Vi, with "actually a gold thimble in it," to encourage her in learning to sew. One for Gracie also exactly like it, except that Lulu's was lined with red satin and Gracie's with blue. Each had beside a new doll with a neat little trunk packed full of clothes made to fit it, and a box filled with pretty ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... due course are hammered into fragments. These fragments, which are put to various uses, are called scruts; and one of the uses they are put to is a sentimental one. The dainty and luxurious Southerner looks to find in his Christmas pudding a wedding-ring, a gold thimble, a threepenny-bit, or the like. To such fal-lals the Five Towns would say fie. A Christmas pudding in the Five Towns contains nothing but suet, flour, lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins—and two or three scruts. There is a world of poetry, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... the Company are playing "Hide the Thimble;" i.e., someone has planted that article in a place so conspicuous that few would expect to find it there. As each person catches sight of it, he or she sits down. Uncle JOSEPH is still, to the general merriment, wandering about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... my father. A man, he was— No fonder of his glass than a man should be. Few like him now: I've not his guts, and Jim's Just a lamb's head, gets half-cocked on a thimble, And mortal, swilling an eggcupful; a gill Would send him randy, reeling to the gallows. Dad was the boy! Got through three bottles a day, And never turned a hair, when his own master, Before we'd to quit Rawridge, because the dandy Had put himself outside of all his money— Teeming it down his ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... ground; it is not dirt." "Very well; keep them for yourself. Would you like a dress of calico, or one of silk?" The girl answered: "No, no! a calico dress." Instead of that, the Madonna gave her the silk one. "Do you wish a brass thimble, or a silver one?" "Give me the brass one." "No, take the silver thimble. Here is the bucket and your cord. When you reach the end of this passage, look up in the air." The girl did so, and a beautiful ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... brother, Sir," replied the unconscious Chandos, flattered to find such attention paid to him; "and as like to me as one thimble, I mean as one pea, is to another. Well, the strange thing is, the deuce alone knows how it happened, but Jack got through." Here he took a bumper of port, as though in honor of that occasion. "It's a perfect marvel, but the best thing for him (as well ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... morning, M. Athanase Gautherot presented himself with two assistants close behind him, one of them sallow with a mean-looking face and an expression of devouring envy in his glance, the other wearing a collar and straps drawn very tightly, with a sort of thimble of black taffeta on his index-finger—and both ignobly dirty, with greasy necks, and the sleeves of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... parcels, laid the six stockings on the table by the side of the gifts, and then began to select the most appropriate gifts for each. Yes; Alison should have the little basket which contained the pretty thimble, the little plush pin-cushion glued on at one corner, and two reels of cotton kept in their place by a neat little band, and the needle-book at ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... a globe of glass, with a hole like a thimble in the top to contain ink. Hannibal found himself looking at this, and noting the perfect miniature reproduction of the big calendar on the wall, as it was refracted by the glass. With his thoughts far away, his eyes continued to look at the neat little curly ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... stories; astonished her with narratives of my own exploits at Eton, and caused her serene blue eyes to open in admiration at the marvels of London. At fourteen, I began to pick up her pocket-handkerchief, hunt for her thimble, accompany her in duets, and to read poetry to her, as she occupied herself with the little lady-like employments of the needle. About the age of seventeen I began to compare cousin Anna, as I was permitted to call her, with the other young girls of my acquaintance, and the comparison ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... examination of the assessors or acolytes, or witch-doctor's chorus, by which it was established at length that the thimble had been lost three days before, when Tabitha was sitting on a stone sewing, that she believed it had fallen into a crevice ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... friends of the Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the tailor's thimble,' declaimed the portentous toast master. 'May the needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!' and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... niver mind the change, and the expense: all fair and above board: them as don't play can't vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman! Bet any gen'lm'n any sum of money, from harf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn't name the thimble as kivers the pea!' Here some greenhorn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble—an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top-boots, who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, regrets his ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... wore shoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the cap and the hair together made ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... tapped with her thimble upon the quilting frame and every one became very busy. "I hope," she said, taking the conversation into her own hands for safe keeping, "that you found all well upon your return, Mrs. Coombe? I hardly ever seem to see Esther ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... romantic secrets. Tom, May, Clare, the older children, had never been known to hint at anything—hints were not at all in their line, and of imagination they had not, between them, enough to fill a silver thimble—they were good, sturdy, honest children, with healthy stomachs and an excellent determination to do exactly the things that their class and generation were bent upon doing. Mrs. Scarlett was fond of them, of course, and because she was a sentimental woman she was sometimes quite needlessly ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... of the card-sharper and thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to save the candidate of Mozart Hall. Even the sachems of Tammany, to avert disaster, nominated James T. Brady, whose great popularity it was believed would draw strength from both Opdyke and Wood; but Brady refused to be used. Opdyke had ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the little Crab Spider is no less well-versed in the nesting art. I find her settled on a privet in the enclosure. Here, in the heart of a cluster of flowers, the luxurious creature plaits a little pocket of white satin, shaped like a wee thimble. It is the receptacle for the eggs. A round, flat lid, of a ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... men who were about us. There were twenty-one in our sleeping quarters. At my left slept my friend, the painter; on my right, a great devil of a trumpeter, with face pocked like a sewing thimble and yellow as a glass of bile. He combined two professions, that of cobbler by day and a procurer of girls by night. He was, in other respects, a comical fellow who frisked about on his hands, or on his head, telling you in the most naive way in the world the manner in which he expedited at ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... cried Lilian, struggling to prevent the last instalment going into his pocket. "He has my thimble and scissors already. Here," to the others, "your chief is stealing. But he can't have my spoons. You—" catching hold of the nearest one— "Jack! Ben! Harry!" (for as soon as she got one good look at the faces of her callers ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. "How cool I feel!" said the boy, "I must be getting better;" and he ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... purse and brought it to the bed. Her mother opened it and brought out a thimble, a bootlace, five buttons, one sixpenny piece and a penny. ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... by gentlemen who had birth, worth, piety, learning, or all united to recommend him to promotion. Now it is an arena where impure influence tilts against unblushing hypocrisy. The race is between some shuffling old lawyer, or a canting saint. One has reached the woolsack by political thimble-rigging, which means starting patriot, and turning, when the price is offered, a ministerial hack. He forks a drunken dean, his son, into a Father-in-Godship with all the trifling temporalities attendant on the same. Well, the other fellow is a 'regular go-a-head,' denounces popery, calculates ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... needle. Thrust a pin, C, through the cork at right angles to the needle and stick two sharpened matches in the sides of the cork so that they will project downward as shown. The whole arrangement is balanced on a thimble with balls of wax stuck on the heads of the matches. If the needle is not horizontal, pull it through the cork to one side or the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... she poured into a receptacle for the purpose enough seed, no doubt, to make, mixed with other things, several admirable thimble-loaves of bread substitute, and told ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... door of your house, 'Too many potatoes, too little meat! Farewell, Mr. Potato-King.'" "What wouldst thou have forsooth, grasshopper?" said the mistress, and grew angry, and seized a dishcloth, and was just going to strike him; but my little tailor crept nimbly under a thimble, peeped out from beneath it, and put his tongue out at the mistress. She took up the thimble, and wanted to get hold of him, but little Thumbling hopped into the cloth, and while the mistress was opening it out and looking for him, he got into a crevice in the table. "Ho, ho, lady ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... down the garden path beside her sister, the sixpence tightly clasped in her hand, 'is there anything I could get for a present for two of my pennies? I want to get some of the toys for myself with papa's three pennies, and I want to get a thimble with one, 'cos I've lost mine, and my workbox ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India-rubber is comfortable to his armpit. The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which exclude the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket comb and cup and thimble, are of the same material. From jars thermetically closed with India-rubber he receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon and the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... her thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by her friend, he immediately sent her four others to take ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the Supreme Being. In the former, it is one doctrine in the Englishman and in the Hottentot; the differences are accidents not affecting the subject, otherwise than as different seals would affect the same wax, though Molly, the maid, used her thimble, and Lady 'Virtuosa' an 'intaglio' of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... remember how many bad things have happened to me," said I, waving my thimble-finger, which had lost its ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... "My thimble won't suit your finger, I've a notion, my little maid," he observed; "but I dare say you've got one of your own in your pocket. Feel for it, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... were gathered about the kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... trail rapidly mounting; a little stream tinkling by on the one hand, big enough perhaps after the rains, but already yielding up its life; overhead and on all sides, a bower of green and tangled thicket, still fragrant and still flower-bespangled by the early season, where thimble-berry played the part of our English hawthorn, and the buck-eyes were putting forth their twisted horns of blossom; through all this, we struggled toughly upwards, canted to and fro by the roughness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made with as little parade and ceremony as possible. If it is a small matter, a gold pencil-case, a thimble to a lady, or an affair of that sort, it should not be offered formally, ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... love and marriage by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear," he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... do anything of the sort," she said smiling. "I'll run up Nell's tatters meesilf!" As she spoke she produced from her pocket—a handy little "housewife," containing needles and thread, as well as a thimble, which useful articles the good lady seldom stirred out without; and, sitting down on a shawl which the Captain spread over a bit of turf that he assured her was free from nettles, and ten yards at least from the nearest rabbit-burrow, she proceeded to sew away at a brisk rate on the torn frock ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw six or seven people, apparently all countrymen, gathered round a person standing behind a tall white table of very small compass. "What!" said I, "the thimble-engro of —- Fair here at Horncastle." Advancing nearer, however, I perceived that though the present person was a thimble-engro, he was a very different one from my old acquaintance of —- Fair. The present one was a fellow about half-a-foot taller than the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... succeed," she added. Silently, impassively, Khalid hears this. And after going through the second course, eating as if he were dreaming, he gets up and leaves the table. Mrs. Gotfry, somewhat concerned, orders her last course, takes her thimble-full of coffee at a gulp, and, leaving likewise, hurries upstairs and calls Khalid, who was pacing up and down the hall, into ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... looked. New Orleans was just a colorless mass of something in the distance, and the dome of the St. Charles Hotel, upon which the sun shimmered for a moment, was no bigger than the top of old Aunt Chloe's thimble. ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... shouts, that made poor Larry crumple up as if he wanted to hide in a thimble. He looked around at the dark and angry faces to the right and to the left; and again wished he had thought twice before embarking on this wild ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... Dora, hunting for her needle and then for her thimble, and then for her twist; "but there's more ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... this same red-labeled bread-crate in front of the bakery, this same thimble-shaped crack in the sidewalk a quarter of a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Single Tax is the question at issue. Their cause is so palpably just, its underlying principle so transparently simple and elementary, its practical application so direct, feasible and efficient that no mere wizardry of words, no thimble-riggery or language, can by any possibility obscure the principle—or confuse the advocates. Of course there are among Single Taxers, as among other enthusiasts, men who indiscreetly use abuse for argument, and of these you may have some reason to complain; ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the huge piles of rocks and dirt that their shovels and strong arms had reared, "but thar's no countin' on what it'll do. 'Twouldn't s'prise me none, if we took out a wagon load of gold; an', ag'in, 'twouldn't s'prise me none, if we didn't take out a thimble load. Gold is 'bout as unsart'in an' queer as women. When you think you've got it shore, gosh, it ain't thar at all! But, I reckon you're right 'bout th' pans an' pails; an' I shore hopes you're right 'bout th' wagon ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... perpetually frightened to death with the expectation of hearing them crack and let her down from a great height,—seemed beautiful to me from the mere fact of daily breathing the same air with such an angel, sharing her liquorice-stick, and borrowing her sweet little thimble. ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... applied to him when any of their pets were ill, and had the utmost confidence in his opinion and treatment. The most difficult cases were successfully managed by him; he had even saved the life of Agatha's jack-daw when it had swallowed a thimble. Mr Greenop was an object, therefore, of gratitude and admiration, and no visit to Dorminster was complete without going ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... make her happy, and you'll be happy EVEN without; because you are good. Let me come and help you to-morrow," continued she, looking at Susan's work, "if you have any more mending work to do—I never liked work till I worked with you. I won't forget my thimble or my scissors," added she, laughing—"though I used to forget them when I was a giddy girl. I assure you I am a great hand ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Bible on the lightstand, and Mrs. Blackett's heavy silver-bowed glasses; her thimble was on the narrow window-ledge, and folded carefully on the table was a thick striped-cotton shirt that she was making for her son. Those dear old fingers and their loving stitches, that heart which had made the ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... with both ends made fast, so that a purchase may be hooked to its bight. Also, a small line or cord, the middle of which is usually attached to a stay, whence the two ends branch outwards to the right and left, having either a block or thimble attached to their extremities. It is used to confine some ropes which pass through the corresponding blocks or thimbles ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... How he did enjoy it, for days seeing the family come in and out, talking as freely of him as if he were a log of wood, and how perfectly happy he was when, one morning Alice came in and sat by him, placing her tiny gold thimble upon her delicate finger, and bending over her bit of dainty embroidery, humming occasionally a sweet, mournful air, which showed that her thoughts were wandering back to the cottage by the river, where her mother lived and died. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... care," defended Molly, straightening on her knees to survey her garden. "Every single plant in my garden except the pink geraniums is wild. Look at those thimble-berry bushes round the spring, and the blue camass along the brook, and the squaw bushes round the house, and the squaw grass and pussy paws back of the clothes-lines. Some I transplanted, the rest I grew from seeds. And where will you ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... replied the little culprit, not a whit dismayed. "Then 'twas Prudy. We was playing 'thimble-coop.' She broked ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... nodded and began to sew again, sailor fashion, thrusting the big needle with the leather "palm" which seamen use instead of a thimble. Goodwin, standing by his bunk, began to cut himself a fill for ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the socialist ideal, into what Professor Veblen calls, "some excursion into pragmatic romance,"[7] such as Social Settlements, Prohibition, Clean Politics, Single Tax, Arts and Crafts, Neighborhood Guilds, Institutional Church, Christian Science, New Thought, Hearstism, or "some such cultural thimble-rig." Yet more, there are many of the "educated and professional classes" who call themselves socialists, because they cherish the charming delusion that it is possible to separate the positive from the negative ideals of Socialism, and ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... old Lewes gaol come a lock and a key strong enough to hold Jack Sheppard; and from Horsham Gaol a complete set of fetters for ankles and wrists, once used to cramp the movements of female malefactors. Here, in a case, is a tiny bronze thimble that tipped the pretty finger of a Roman seamstress—one only among scores of tokens of the Roman occupation of the county. Flint arrow heads and celts in profusion take us back to remoter times. A Pyecombe crook hangs on one wall, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... there be a duller, more unsatisfactory occupation? Particularly if your stitches would always look crooked and straggling, and when the thimble hurt your finger, and the needle got sticky, and the thread broke when you least expected it. It was quite as bad as music in its way. Penelope would sigh wearily over her task, and envy the people in the Waverley novels, who, she felt sure, ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown; in fact it was the liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to the petulant brasswork, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a monkey. Upon the work-table lay a housewife and thimble, and scissors, and skeins of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and cloth for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working,—she was preparing to work; she had been preparing to work for the last hour and a half. Upon her lap she supported a novel, by a ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to have been known to them, at least thimble-rig, or the game of cups, under which a ball was put, while the opposite party guessed under which of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... ha! I thought our friend was an idiot. She looks uncommonly like it,' he muttered, with a supercilious glance. 'And what does the thimble say, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... speculation, not only is the process lucid in itself, but it is luciferous, illuminating all the obscure hiding-places of Nature. It is the magic-lantern of creation; it is the key to all mysticism, to the three-card trick, and to the basket-trick; it sheds a glory upon thimble-rigging, a halo upon legerdemain; it even radiates vagabond beams of splendour upon pocket-picking and the cognate arts. It explains how the apples get into the dumpling; how the milk comes out of the cocoanut; how the deficit issues from the surplus; ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... done!" exclaimed Allison, dropping her thimble into her work-bag, and throwing her coat across a chair. "It's almost time for the bell. I must take Juliet Lynn ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... blistering, catching the oil in a gasoline can that he was able to empty into the main tanks. He washed out innumerable small oil pipes with gasoline, and flushed out the crankcase itself, and had at the end of his working as many small scraps of metal as would half fill a thimble. He ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... danger in the future. This young man was the nephew of one of the Nob Hill magnates, who run the San Francisco Stock Exchange, much as more humble adventurers, in the corner of some public park at home, may be seen to perform the simple artifice of pea and thimble: for their own profit, that is to say, and the discouragement of public gambling. It was thus in his power - and, as he was of grateful temper, it was among the things that he desired - to put John in the way of growing rich; and ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... venture to tread with natural step. He entered the drawing-room, and there, from amid a heap of household linen which required the needle, rose the penitent wife. Ostentatiously she drew from her finger a thimble, then ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... that can't finds, loses.' Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw six or seven people, apparently all countrymen, gathered round a person standing behind a tall white table of very small compass. 'What,' said I, 'the thimble-engro of —- Fair here at Horncastle.' Advancing nearer, however, I perceived that though the present person was a thimble-engro, {288a} he was a very different one from my old acquaintance of —- Fair. {288b} The present one was a fellow about half-a-foot taller than ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Oh, stern featured K! Who would have suspected—You'd leanings that way! Peter called his a Thimble—(I think it sounds tame To call Kisses ...
— The Peter Pan Alphabet • Oliver Herford
... I tell What to a certain Elf befell, Who left his house and sallied forth Adventure seeking, south and north, And west and east, by path and field, Resolved to conquer or to yield. A thimble on his back he carried, With a rose-twig his foes ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... your colloguing,[3] I'd be glad for a knoggin:[4] But I doubt 'tis a sham; you won't give us a dram. 'Tis of shine a mouth moon-ful, you won't part with a spoonful, And I must be nimble, if I can fill my thimble, You see I won't stop, till I come to a drop; But I doubt the oraculum, is a poor supernaculum; Though perhaps you may tell it, for a grace ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... declined Edward's company rather peremptorily. "Stay and comfort your sister," said she. But that was a blind; the truth was, she could not bear her children to mingle in what she was doing. No, her ambition was to ply the scissors and thimble vigorously, and so enable them to be ladies and gentlemen at large. She being gone, Julia made a parcel of water-colour drawings, and sallied forth all on fire to sell them. But, while she was dressing, Edward started on a cruise in search ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... results practice had to come before actual performance, and many weary hours were spent over drill in reading, drill in number, drill in handwork, drill in needlework. The extreme point was reached when babies of three had thimble and needle drill long before they began needlework. There were also conduct drills; Miss Grant, of Devons Road School, remembers a school where the babies "practised" their conduct before the visit of the "spectre," as they called him, he being represented as a stick set up on ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... the picture plainly still. I am sitting on a low chair before the nursery fire, one knee supported in my locked hands, meanwhile Mrs. Fursey's needle grated with monotonous regularity against her thimble. At that moment knocked at my small soul for the first ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... coins, birds' eggs, and postage-stamps, the fishing-rods, the guns, revolvers, and bows and arrows, the sweets and cakes and nuts, he would get all for himself. He never thought of so much as a pennyworth of toffee for Ethel, or a silver thimble for his mother, or a twopenny ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... sensible on this point: with them, a wife always knew enough when the extent of her genius enabled her to distinguish a doublet from a pair of breeches. She did not read, but she lived honestly; her family was the subject of all her learned conversation, and for hooks she had needles, thread, and a thimble, with which she worked at her daughter's trousseau. Women, in our days, are far from behaving thus: they must write and become authors. No science is too deep for them. It is worse in my house than anywhere else; the deepest ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... terror. It all ended with a feast at a long table made of sawhorses and boards covered with a white cloth, and when the cake was cut there was wild excitement as to who would get the ring and who the thimble. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... dwelling, but it was terribly gloomy. The heavy, substantial leather chairs always remained undisturbed in level rows against the wall, and the crimson cloth upon the table was as bare as a billiard-table. A thimble lying upon it, or fallen on the carpet and almost crushed by my careless tread, would have been as welcome a sight to me as a blade of grass or a spring of water in some sandy desert. The sound of a light foot and rustling dress, and low, soft voice, would have been the sweetest music ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... liest, thou thread, Thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail; Away thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt think on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... he spoke, and placed a beautiful little gold thimble on her finger. "There, that's ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... one of the ten little fingers, and as he touched them he said their names: "Little Thumb; Forefinger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger; Little Thumb; Forefinger; Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger!" And as he named the fingers, one after another, the tiny fairies bowed their tiny heads; there was a fairy for ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... several important items which must not be forgotten, and among them are hand-towels and soap, combs, hand-mirror, thread, needle and thimble, a ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... packing somewhat by darting to and fro, bringing her mother sacred souvenirs given her by the Shaker sisters and the children—needle-books, pin-balls, thimble-cases, packets of flower-seeds, polished pebbles, bottles of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her, and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely anyone who needs a thimble so little. You see, though still a tiny child, it was really years and years ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... He turned to Hedwig, who was bringing in a bowl of raspberries. "Will you please get me some tea from the pantry, Hedwig? Your mistress is very stingy with tea. Bring it in a pitcher, will you? I have only a glass thimble to put it in, and it's more convenient to have the pitcher by my own side. What were we talking about? Was I going to sit at the table with some one I knew was untruthful? If I didn't I'd eat alone pretty ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... looked to me as though the people of the North would tamely submit to a disruption of the Union, and the orators of the South used, openly and constantly, the expressions that there would be no war, and that a lady's thimble would hold all the blood to be shed. On reaching Lancaster, I found letters from my brother John, inviting me to come to Washington, as he wanted to see me; and from Major Tamer, at St. Louis, that he was trying to secure for me the office of president of the Fifth ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... upon the floor all day long, with his big eyes watching Hannah knit, sew, spin, or weave, as the case might be. And if she happened to drop her thimble, scissors, spool of cotton, or ball of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been a fine one, a little laugh of triumph. Thus, even before he could ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... nose, thimble on twisted finger, ivory-egg in hand, in active preparation for that work, woman's par excellence, that alone rivals Penelope's. Surely that assortment of yellow, ill-mated, half-worn, and holey hose, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... species of raspberry (Rubus occidentalis) that is almost as dear to memory as the wild strawberry—the thimble-berry, or black-cap. I confess that the wild flavor of this fruit is more to my taste than that of any other raspberry. Apparently its seeds have been sown broadcast over the continent, for it is found almost ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... really pitied her, if a slaveholder ever can pity a slave, and yet he reproached her severely. He told her she was a fool to run away; that niggers never knew when they were well off; that if she had had a thimble-full of sense she might have known she couldn't make her escape. He said they had just been offered a thousand dollars for her,—which was then considered an enormous price,—by a gentleman in Virginia, and they had been on the ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... the floor. She was not much hurt, however, and got up in a moment. Then she saw that she had fallen over something not unlike a great iron bucket. When she examined it more closely, she discovered that it was a thimble; and looking up to see who had dropped it, beheld a huge face, with spectacles as big as the round windows in a church, bending over her, and looking everywhere for the thimble. Tricksey-Wee immediately laid hold of it in both her arms, and lifted it ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... me a milking can, A, I, O. Where's the money to come from, A, I, O? Sell my father's feather bed. Where must your father sleep? Sleep in the boys' bed. Where will the boys sleep? Sleep in the cradle. Where will the baby sleep? Sleep in the thimble. What shall I sew with? Sew with the poker. Suppose I burn myself? ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... paste a little larger than the top of the dish and about one-fourth of an inch thick. Cover the pie with this, having the edges turned into the dish. Roll the remainder of the paste the same as before, and with a thimble, or something as small, cut out little pieces all over the cover. Put this perforated paste over the first cover, turning out the edges and rolling slightly. Bake one hour ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... a libeller (because he ruined the critical character of Warburton)—and "a libeller (says Warburton, with poignancy), is nothing but a Grub-street critic run to seed."—He compares Edwards's wit and learning to his ancestor Tom Thimble's, in the Rehearsal (because Edwards read Greek authors in their original), and his air of good-nature and politeness, to Caliban's in the Tempest (because he had so keenly written the "Canons of Criticism").—I once saw a great literary curiosity: ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... start a handy box of your own when you go back, and keep it in the nursery. You don't know how many times a day you will be able to help the others out. A little darning yarn, an odd thimble, a bit of soft linen, and all the things that clutter and would be thrown away, go to fill up a handy box. You can be the good fairy ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... terror; and, promptly springing up, now followed by his wife, he found the two sailors again belabouring the boy, and that one of them, in his blind fury, had laid hold of a rope-end, armed, as is common on shipboard, with an iron thimble or ring, and that every blow produced a wound. The poor boy was streaming over with blood. The master, in the extremity of his indignation, lost command of himself. Rushing in, the two men were in a moment dashed against the deck;—they seemed powerless ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... for opportunities tortured her. She sold her thimble once,—a pretty golden one, my father's gift—that I might have a book I needed. She did our household drudgery that the servant's wage might go for my tuition in a thorough school. Oh, how we labored, she ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... Greek alongside of a bevy of beauty on the opposite benches that mashed up the irregular verbs for us very badly. Incidentally, those girls are all married long since, and all the Greek they know now you could put under a thimble. But of ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... first," said O'Brien. "But then the jantleman was as well as I am this minute, that minute afore—and the nixt fell his length on the floor entirely. Well! I set and up again, and, for want of better, filled out a thimble-full, say, of the spirits of wine as they call it, which he got by good luck for the varnish, and made him take it down, and he come to, and I axed him how was he after it?—Better, says he. That's well, says I; and who will I send for to ye, sir? says I. But afore ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... from {62} the size of rope your cringle is required to be, whip both ends, reeve the strand through the left hand eyelet hole in the sail, having one end longer than the other—nearly a third—keeping the roping of the sail towards you. If a thimble is to be put in the cringle, lay up the parts of the strand together, counting three lays; commence with the short end of the strand towards you, then reeve the long strand from you through the right hand eyelet hole, taking it through the cringle, and it will ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... last year I came back on business—another confounded legacy; end of June too, just as I was off to Finland. But Messrs. Thimble and Rigg, the highly respectable firm who look after my affairs, represented that I owed it to others, whom I kept out of their share of the legacy, to stay near town till affairs were wound up. They told ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... of conscience don't you get a thimble, Jonathan? The idea of your stickin' the needle in, and then pressin' it against the chair to make it go through. If that 'aint just like a helpless man, ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... thimble] The taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... little voice that ever was heard. It had a tinkling sound, such as Susan had often made when she tied her mother's gold thimble to a string and struck it with a knitting-needle. Just as she was wondering where it came from, a little old woman stepped from behind one of the andirons and shook the ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... needs releading. The lead has decayed and the whole is loose and shaky. The ancient glass has worn very thin, pitted almost through like a worn-out thimble with little holes where the alkalis have worked their way out. It is as fragile and tender as an old oil-painting that needs to be taken off a rotten canvas and re-lined. If you examine a piece of old glass whose lead has had time to decay, you ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall |
