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More "Purr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... All this time the propeller had been spinning from the rush of air alone. Now John threw in the clutch; the revolving propeller shaft grabbed the crankshaft of the engine, and once more it began its rhythmic purr. Just a little upthrust of the tail-elevators and ailerons brought them again into the horizontal in a huge swoop. Nothing could have been prettier. They had escaped the terrible tornado, leaving it still galloping westward far behind them, and were once more in normal position for continuing ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... two lions were harnessed to it. Then she called out another larger lion, which came unwillingly at first. She spoke sharply, and then struck him. He growled, but came on. Then she spoke softly to him, and made that peculiar purr, soft and rich. Now he responded, walked round her, coming closer, till his body made a half-circle about her, and his head was at her knees. She dropped her hand on it. Great applause rang through the building. This play had been quite accidental. But there lay one secret of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had remained seated with his eyes fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story, was obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad grace. Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-meat, and began to purr. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Kit Is not like other cats a bit; She cannot mew or scratch or purr, She has no whiskers and no fur. Yet, like all cats, her dearest wish Is just to be filled up with fish; But (and this isn't so feline) She always takes ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... half purr, half a coaxing growl. It was the animal the native had given him, confined in the next room. Bolden was not sure why he did what he did next. Instinct or reason may have governed his actions. But instinct and reason are divisive ...
— Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace
... fired him. There wasn't no one to tell good-by to, for the girl had to go to the country to see her aunt, she said. So Shorty hung around the store and kissed the grocery cat good-by. He'd been used to feeding the cat, and she'd sit in his lap and purr, he told me. He sends money back to that girl now. This hyeh country is no country for Shorty, for he will be a conspicuous ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious limousines, Mrs. Carew's car rolled down Commonwealth Avenue and out upon Arlington Street to Charles. Inside sat a shining-eyed little girl and a white-faced, tense woman. Outside, to give directions to the plainly ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... thinking of his remaining guest, an expression like that of a cat who is just going to purr stole over his old face: Mrs. Soames! She mightn't take much, but she would appreciate what she drank; it was a pleasure to give her good wine! A pretty woman—and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... subtlest silence of motion through the quiet garden, came a great yellow cat. She rubbed against Miss Camilla's knees with that luxurious purr of love and comfort which is itself a completest slumber song, then made a noiseless leap to a sunny corner of the bench, and settled herself there in a yellow coil of sleep. Presently there came another, and another, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Abraham suddenly appeared. He walked in one evening at dusk, but at first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the chauffeur that he would not require him again that night, and I had noticed the man touch his hat in the belief that this actually was his employer who addressed him, for the real Earl of Cranmere had lent us his car. I heard the car purr away in the darkness, and an instant later the door of number 300 Cumberland Place shut noiselessly ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... went out, the concourse of stars Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes Peered on them lockt. Far and faint The great stags belled; far and faint Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling Lent desolation to night; and low The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks Sounded the tireless lapping deep. Lockt they ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... views were popular. There was a little murmur of approval, something which sounded almost like a purr of content. It was just one more expression of that strangely discreditable yet almost universal failing,—the over-reliance upon others. The quiet remark of the man who suddenly saw fit to join in the discussion struck a chilling and ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... the master of the house—Lady Garvington sought out Mrs. Belgrove. That juvenile ancient was sunning herself on the terrace, in the hope of renewing her waning vitality, and, being alone, permitted herself to look old. She brisked up with a kittenish purr when disturbed, and remarked that the Hengishire air was like champagne. "My spirits are positively wild and wayward," said the would-be Hebe with a desperate ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... through the crowd of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... shifting cloud smoke. Millions of auks swarm from their moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air. Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks chirrup ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... she seemed to be saying. 'When the chairs are here I will sit on them; when the table is laid I will draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr on the hearth.' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... by them now save the slow measurement of time by their beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon their clothes, and the low purr of the blacksmith's bellows ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... play, Applauses too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... an attachment that now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved into an arch, the tail broadened, the purr became a growl. Had association lifted the brute's instincts to the plane ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... turning, saw a brilliant light flaring through the night above the crest of the hill they had just topped in their descent into the ravine, or, to be more explicit, the small valley, where stood the crumbling house of Squibbs. The purr of a rapidly moving motor rose above the rain, the light rose, fell, swerved to the right and ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... o' that," said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair—and they don't purr!" ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... purpose not to notice the mock in her tones. He very well understood what it imported and what prompted it. For the first time the tigress had disclosed her claws. Hitherto it was always the soft caress and the soothing purr—and when she wished, her caress could be very soft and her purr very soothing. He had assumed that there were claws, but she had hidden them from him; and what is ever hidden one after a time forgets. And she had some justification for her resentment. He admitted ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... blew stronger and the surf boomed louder and nearer, and the faint moon-path stretched farther and farther toward the smudgy sky-line, city-going street-cars began to fill with sunburned passengers, and motors began to purr out of the narrow side streets lined with shoddy buildings which housed the summer sojourners. One more Sunday night's revelry was tapering off into shouted farewells, clanging gongs, honking horns and the shuffling ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... Bevis, however, talked away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, finding ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... kitchen door. It was open, and they stepped inside. The Witch was not at home, but evidently she was not far away, for a fire was crackling in the stove and a kettle singing over the flames. An enormous black cat got up lazily from the hearth and rubbed himself against the visitors with a purr like ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... library had the air of having forgotten their presence altogether. Aided by a microscope, with a grave absorbed face, he studied and compared a series of prints spread before him. So quiet was it all, that the crackle and purr of the coal fire in the old-fashioned grate made itself quite audible, and the leisurely tick of the clock in the hall marked ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. She felt frightened ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... going on, Jane McCarthy was racing her father's car up and down the road at an ever-increasing rate of speed. Those in the camp could hear the purr of the motors, and now and then a flash of red showed between the trees as the car sped ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... perking his ears forward toward a new sound that had nothing weird or mysterious about it; a sound that was essentially earthly, material, modern, the distant purr of a high-powered automobile on the trail away to their right. Starr turned his face that way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love song but the fading memory of a dream. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the thin flooring, as though roused by her irreverent merriment, the big car shook itself awake with a roar and splutter of indignation. But the sliding doors were thrown open, and its rage died down at the prospect of release. It began to purr complacently, greedily. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... now into a wild spring storm and the rain was drumming like canister on the roof of Stuart's cottage, so they did not hear the purr of a motor which stopped outside. They were without warning when the door suddenly burst open, and across the bare shoulder of the woman, who still hung sobbing to him, Stuart saw the bloated and apoplectic face of Larry Holbury and at ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... child—too dear to my cost I've found— God made your soul for pleasure, not for use: It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse, Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound Full upon life, and on the rind of things Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings, Content with that, nor wishes ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... the stately gentleman's attempt to tap its nose with his finger, and evinced a desire to make the acquaintance of his wife, toward whom it put forth its head as far as possible out of its basket, beginning the while to purr. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... destroy as many as fifty sheep in a night, sucking their blood and leaving them as though they had died without any external injury. This terrible animal is easily tamed if captured young, and, strange to say, becomes one of the most affectionate and devoted of pets. It will purr about the feet and lick the hands of its master, and develop all the attractive characteristics of the ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... delectable than now, with her head on one side, pouring his tea. She kissed each lump of sugar as she put it in and laughed at her own conceit; and she brought the cup over to his chair and rubbed her apple blossom of a cheek against his with a little purr. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... circle of shade beneath a tree in the fields, or in front of the open hay-barn doors, as I do, and feel the fruition and satisfaction of nature all about you. The brimming meadows seem fairly to purr as the breezes stroke them; the trees rustle their myriad leaves as if in gladness; the many-colored butterflies dance by; the steel blue of the swallows' backs glistens in the sun as they skim the fields; and the mellow boom of the passing bumble-bee but enhances the sense of repose ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... outburst, and she looked up to see it being driven up and halted before the entrance. Lady Hartley had a perfect fleet of cars. Jeannette at once jumped to the conclusion that this was one of them. She had a sudden inspiration. It was running free—ready to start. There was temptation in the soft purr of its engine. The driver, quietly dressed, but not in livery, she appraised as ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... short and stared with a peculiar fascination at Dan, who started to speak again. His voice had changed—not greatly, for its pitch was the same and the drawl was the same—but there was a purr in it that made every man stiffen in his chair and make sure that his right hand was free. The ghost of his former smile was still on his lips, but it was his eyes that seemed to ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... my whole race, my whole city, may bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in the well; and little harm done forsooth! Let an idle fool set an image of me in wax before the fire, and whistle and caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily—and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at the first stave of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... having made an assignation with Tom Tortoiseshell, the feline phenomenon, they two sit curmurring, forgetful of mice and milk, of all but love! How meekly mews the Demure, relapsing into that sweet under-song—the Purr! And how curls Tom's whiskers like those of a Pashaw! The point of his tail—and the point only is alive—insidiously turning itself, with serpent-like seduction, towards that of Tabitha, pensive as a nun. His eyes are rubies, hers emeralds—as they should be—his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... from his basket for Tania's entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him, breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fall quietly asleep, as though it ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... been lovely with narcissus and violets; now golden rod had kindled its fairy torches in the corners and asters dotted it bluely. The call of the brook came up through the woods from the valley of birches with all its old allurement; the mellow air was full of the purr of the sea; beyond were fields rimmed by fences bleached silvery gray in the suns of many summers, and long hills scarfed with the shadows of autumnal clouds; with the blowing of the west wind old ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... nearly four, and then it would soon be light and he could get up. There seemed to be a light somewhere down the street through the trees. Not the street lamp either. Somebody sick likely. Hark! What was that? He wished he hadn't undressed. He sat up in bed and listened. The purr of a car! Someone was stealing Mark's car! Mark was away and everybody knew it. Nobody in Sabbath Valley would steal, except, perhaps over at the plush mill. There were new people there—Was that Mark's car? ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... rush that unrolled the miles behind us at a marvelous rate. For an hour we galloped silently, matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound arising in that wilderness of brown coulee banks and dun-colored prairie but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to give him room to trail, we urged ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a highly unsuitable manner, and proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... phrases with a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the wide river, the Aigle glided across a high-hung suspension bridge, the song of the water floating up to our ears mingling with the purr of the motor—two giant forces, one set loose by nature, the other by man, duetting harmoniously together, while the wind wailed over our heads. But for the third and last plague of Provence we would have had to search ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... opinion, whatever it may be, is not in itself essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. If only other people will applaud him, a man ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... her bird work urn fern sir word turn term stir worm hurt herd girl world purr jerk first worst burn ever chirp worth churn serve whirl worse burst perch thirst worship church kernel fir worthy curve verse firm worry curb verb third fur germ birth blur herb birch ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... Cross floated over the building, but that emblem of mercy made no difference to the Hun. The shells commenced to find range, and in a short time the roof was lifted off. A wounded man died close to me. I can only remember the purr of a motor as an ambulance rushed up. Then I saw four stretcher-bearers; two grabbed the German, and two caught hold of me. We were rushed to the ambulance and driven at maddening speed through the ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom," Madame responded. She bent down to stroke the yellow head, but, though Mr. Boffin gratefully accepted the caress, he did not condescend to purr. Presently he stalked away into the shadows, waving ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... passed off, an ardent noonday sun was collaborating with a coquettish breeze to make gay the window awnings of the chamber where Lanyard, in borrowed pyjamas and dressing-gown of silk, lay luxuriously bedded, listening to the purr of wide-awake Paris and, with an excellent cigar to chew on, ruminating upon the problematic issue of his latest turn of fortune, and not in the least downhearted ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... himself, as though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... be happy when I am in fear for my life?" said the cat. "I am getting old, and my teeth are only stumps. I cannot catch mice any longer, and I like to lie behind the stove and purr. But when I found that they were going to drown me, away I ran as fast as my four legs could carry me. But now that I have come away, ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... make him wash his paws. If you can make him wash and purr in a new place, he will stay. And then you must take him round and show him every room and every closet. And you must come down real often, Hanny. There's the lovely little park, you know. Aunt Boudinot has a key. They're such ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... up at the pilot, startled. He turned the gain down to a whisper. Paresi left the bulkhead and stood behind Johnny. "What's the matter?" he asked. His voice was feline, too—a sort of purr. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... 'You purr like an old cat over her kitten,' said Arthur, longing to see her smile once more; and he was not disappointed; it was a bright, contented, even joyous smile, that played on the colourless features, and the eyes beamed softly on him as ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... anything he had known since he left it. Sometimes he would have his little brother, sometimes his little sister, and sometimes both of them in the grass with him, and then he felt just like a cat with her first kittens, he said, only he couldn't purr—all he could do was ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... cottage were all open and the grass plot between the windows and the swing being a narrow one the closed door was of little avail. It was very still there in the shady dooryard, so still that they could hear old Yellownose purr, asleep on the cushion in the wooden arm-chair beside the swing. The broken sentences between the sobs were plainly audible. It seemed so terrible to hear a grown person cry, that Georgina felt as she did that morning long ago, when old Jeremy's ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... The purr of the motor car's engines now came again, and Pedro hastened up the ledge and followed down into the valley where she lay. In a moment she was out of sight, and the Peruvian was moving toward a rift in the wall of rock to ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... sight! They were so small and light and delicate! There was no clanking, and no shouting, and to fire them a man pulled a mere trigger. I thought to myself: "How simple and easy our civilization becomes. Think of the motor-cars, and how they purr. Think of the simple telephone, and all the other little things." And with this thought in my mind I continued to watch the guns. Without yells or worry a man spoke gently to other men, and they ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... then the Deer track was joined by the tracks of five Marten. In a few minutes they found the Deer down and the five Marten, a family probably, darting about in the near trees, making their peculiar soft purr as though in anticipation of the feast, which was delayed only by the coming of the hunters. These attempts to share with the killers of big ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... on a shelf; a bread tray, dishpan, a pot and two skillets on another shelf near the fireplace, two split-bottom chairs, a table, and a cat. The cat was a large, gray agnostic. He never admitted William's presence by so much as a purr or a claw, and I have noticed that the agnostic is the only creature living who can treat a preacher with so much contempt. We found him curled up on the window sill next to the ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... took on a sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away from this obnoxious man, but she knew ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... moment light seemed to come back to those sightless eyes, and with a purr, as if it understood, the great cat leaped lightly on to the table and sat before De Mouchy, whilst the latter put one finger on the tablets, and ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... Yes, I suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. [In a mocking tone.] Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy—only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... the steeds before the assembly, but nay- the-less a deep purr, like the purr of a tiger, proceeded from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot, all armed, with a cry as of a warrior springing into his chariot in the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... on our hearth Gives a homelike look to the place; With her warm grey fur, And her satisfied purr, And content in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... gesture were surprising in that they were expressions of this personality totally unexpected. Both were almost womanlike in their delicacy. They suggested the purr and soft padding of a cat, an odd contradiction to the white, bloodless face with the inky brows. The eyes of "Poker" Whaley could throw fear into the most reckless bull-whacker on the border. They held fascinating ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... That is just what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry with any degree of grace, but he ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... sorrow, almost smile. For the cry was a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his fore paws ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr—the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spinster, I suppose! Ah, me! And I'd far rather be the spinster's cat! Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call human—only we aren't really more than half so—have to keep our claws well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle! Wouldn't you like ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... myself down the road and get a picture of old blind Jimmy as he came along. I did so, and I knew at once that Jimmy knew I was there. He must have heard me in some way, and surely must have heard the purr of the focal plane shutter as I took his picture. One day in the market place in Jamaica, West Indies, there was a savage- looking man who looked the way you would imagine a pirate of the Spanish Main would look, and Father ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... soda fountains a disheartening place to the average male. He likes a dark, low-ceilinged, and not too obtrusively sanitary place to take his ease. At McSorley's is everything that the innocent fugitive from the world requires. The great amiable cats that purr in the back room. The old pictures and playbills on the walls. The ancient clocks that hoarsely twang the hours. We cannot imagine a happier place to sit down with a pad of paper and a well-sharpened pencil than at that table in the corner ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... place, looking dim and indistinct in the darkness, their voices hushed apprehensively, and the noise of the sled-runners slipping through the snow seemed to them to increase from a purr to a roar. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... or two, while Peter nervously pondered, the air was silent. Then another station called him. A loud droning purr filled the receivers. Peter gave the "k" signal. The brisk voice of the transport ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... feeling—a strong feeling of affection—for every piece of machinery in the power-house. He liked to hear the squeak of the belting and the steady chug-chug of the water-wheels; the purr of the dynamos was music, and he kept the commutators free from ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... laze And purr at my feet, But here in the blue summer days The seal-people meet. They bask on my ledges and romp In the swirl of the tides, Old bulls in their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others come visiting me Than grey seal or bird; Men come in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... Kit-Ki And run after Her with laughter And rub her fur So she will purr? Why do I know That Kit-Ki loves me so? I know it if Her tail stands up stiff And ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the bush, and did not hear the gentle purr of her engine as the man started down Cedar Lake in her own precious motor boat, dragging ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... he springs on Aunt Zenobia an imported landaulet, this year's model, all complete even to monogrammed laprobes and a morocco vanity case in the tonneau. It's one of these low-hung French cars, with an eight-cylinder motor that runs as sweet as the purr ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... Adams, a rosy, dark-haired woman, had heard the Overland arrive and depart. Through habit she listened until the distant rumble of the train diminished to a faint purr. No guests had arrived on the Overland. Stacey was not much of a town, and tourists seldom stopped there. Mrs. Adams stepped from the small office to the dining-room and arranged some flowers in the center of the long table. She happened to be the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the waltz from the ballroom I heard, When I called him a low, sneaking cur. And the wail of the violins stirred My brute anger with visions of her. As I throttled his windpipe, the purr Of his breath with ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... settled slowly downwards, moving softly yet with a great air of bustle and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to purr. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the window frame, Marcia closed her eyes. There was still the illusion of a purr about her. Probably because, as her kitten warmed in its circle, its coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. It well becomes our mutual ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... your fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... the little white cat jumped into the room. The princess took the little cat on her lap and stroked him with her hand, and the cat raised up its back and began to purr. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... clinging tangle of web in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... delusion that the only remarkable thing about us is that instinctive purring which arises from a certain feeling of comfort; for that reason they often stroke us awkwardly and then we usually purr to secure ourselves against blows. But if they knew how to manage us in the right way, believe me, they would accustom our good nature to everything, and Michel, your neighbor's tom-cat, would even at times be pleased to jump through a hoop for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... brute may "bash," the scoundrel shoot, Hack with his knife, "purr" with his boot; But though he "bash," or "purr," or hack, You must not touch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... his thoughts become thin and damp as the vapor about him. He shrugged his shoulders. He listened thankfully to the steady purr of the engine and the whir of the propeller. He would get across! He ascended, hoping for a glimpse of the shore. The fog-smothered horizon stretched farther and farther ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the Ana touched the flyer's hair wonderingly, comparing the bronze lengths with its own white fur. Since the Folk were hairless, hair was a strange sight in the Caverns. With a contented purr, it rubbed ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... the rattlesnake's signal, like the shaking of dry peas in a pod, springs instinctively aside, even though he knows nothing of snakes. How much more, therefore, would a suspicious waiter, whose nerves were all alert for the soft, deadly purr of dynamite mechanism, spoil everything the moment his hand touched the bag? Yes, Dupre reluctantly admitted to himself, the handbag theory was not practical. It led ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... several times they heard the purr of one of the prowlers, they reached the plateau ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... embracing him, rubbing her mouth against his neck with a feline purr. Before the captain could respond she continued with ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... up in her arms. Most mellifluously did he purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy he licked our hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a thankful cat; he was no longer lost, starving, imprisoned, helpless; he was with his comrades once more and he was going home—home ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented,— While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... have tried it," Janice cried as she touched the self-starter and the engine began to purr again. ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... night before, to be ready for his fire. On the other side was a black cat asleep, with her chin upon her paws. When the cat heard Jonas coming, she rose up, stretched out her fore paws, and then began to purr, rubbing her cheeks against the bottom ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... the snare which had taken him an hour to weave. For a long time he had been conscious of the curious, hissing monotone of the Aurora, the "music of the skies," reaching out through the space of the earth with a purring sound that was at times like the purr of a cat and at others like the faint hum of a bee. Absorbed in his work he did not, for a time, hear the other sound. Not until he had finished, and was placing the golden snare in his wallet, did the one sound individualize and separate ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... across the flowers, her bushy tail carried very high, not one hair of her silky white coat awry. She took no notice of anybody, but passed to the fire, sat down beside it with stiff dignity, curled her tail round her paws, yawned and then began to purr gently. It was as if nothing had happened. And she certainly was not hungry, for she turned up her dainty nose ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... age, called just like their relatives of the sylvan solitudes; my brown thrashers uttered the labial chirp of the species; my red-winged blackbird exclaimed "Chack! chack!" after the manner of his kind; my bluebirds expressed their feelings in the sad little purr of Sialia sialis; my flickers did not borrow the calls of the red-heads, but each clung to its own language; my catbirds mewed like poor pussy in trouble; and so on through the whole list. True, these pets may have heard their parents' calls before they ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... light. One after another her twelve engines sputtered into life, and ponderously she moved over the field, gathering speed as the staccato barking of the exhausts gradually blended into a smooth though deafening purr. The tail of the great vessel came up, then the wheels, and she was off into ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... that peculiar sound. As noon approaches other birds warm up. The reedy notes of the robin, and a musical passage of two parts, one a clear delicious gurgle, with several other birds I cannot place. To which is join'd, (yes, I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals from some impatient hylas at the pond-edge. The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze now and then through the trees. Then a poor little dead leaf, long frost-bound, whirls from somewhere up aloft in one wild ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... europaeus).—All through the twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... the car. Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression vibrated with ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... a very remarkable Christmas-day, and they long remembered it; for while they were absorbed in the fortunes of the Marquis of Carabas and the funny cat, who tucked his tail in his belt, washed his face so awkwardly, and didn't know how to purr, strange things were happening at home, and more surprises were in store for our little friends. You see, when people once begin to do kindnesses, it is so easy and pleasant they find it hard to leave off; and sometimes it beautifies them so that they find ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... them with joy, as cats pounce and purr on catnip. The whole country studied Brown's letters with the rapture of eavesdropping. Such letters! Such oozing molasses of sentiment! Such elephantine coquetry! Joel weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds and called himself ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... of the city fell away behind them. Now only a glow in the sky spoke of Geneva; now even that was gone and with a smooth continuous purr the car raced through the cool darkness. The great head lamps threw a bright circle of light before them and the road slipped away beneath the wheels like a running tide. Celia fell asleep. Even when the car stopped ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... species of fear of this big, masterful man: a fear rather fascinating in its tremors, like a novice's cringing to the vibration of electricity in a mildly pleasant form; a fear as opposed to her loathing of Robert Fenley as the song of a thrush to the purr of a tiger. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... back towards the front posts again, they found all the batteries along the road firing. The air was a chaos of explosions that jabbed viciously into their ears, above the reassuring purr of the motor. Nearly to the ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... days' wonder and like all other social phenomena grow too stale for comment, but meanwhile he should feel as if he were frying on a gridiron. Anne Goodrich would merely exclaim: "Abominable." Marian Lawrence would draw in her nostrils and purr: "Lee was always an erratic and impressionable boy. Just like him to fall in love with an old woman. And she's really a beautiful blonde—once more. Poor Lee." As for Gora and Suzan Forbes—well, Gora would understand, and impale them sympathetically in her next novel, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to grow up with so little instruction? I think so. Almost every dog has some tricks; many dogs have a great number. Yet how rarely do you see a cat of which anything more is expected than that she shall purr when she is petted, play with your ball of yarn, or growl when you give her a ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... possessed the tact of becoming instantly intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and it can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's harmless enough." ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... oriented him outward to the real world—he had felt wind and rain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings and the surge of a galloping horse, thresh of waves and laughter of women and smooth mysterious purr of great machines, with a fullness that made him pity those deaf and dumb ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... she had forgotten that it was in the dangerous quarter, and she did not recall that important fact even when she sat down again to watch her moose steaks broil on the glowing coals raked apart from the leaping blaze. The flames licked into the throat of the chimney with the purr of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Soon they were on the highway and not more than a block from the campus wall. As they neared the east gate a terrific reverberating peal of thunder rent the air. So completely did it obliterate all other sound that none of the four heard the purr of a motor behind ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time will ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Felis, tabby, puss, pussy; kitten, kitty; grimalkin (an old she cat). Associated Words: purr, mew, miaul, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... when you've got him cornered somewhere where he can't escape, whip out your note-book and make him hold up his arms. Butter him up a bit, and he'll give in; he's not been famous long enough not to feel inclined to purr if you rub him ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... "Wildcats to purr upon the hearth, and Indians to go to school!" quoth MacLean. "Were you taught here, Hugon, and did ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the way ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... all my neighbors as "the Grand Duc de Huiry" and he looks the part. Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat. He is not a bit caressing. He never fails to purr politely when he comes in. But he is no longer playful. He never climbs up to my shoulder and rubs against my face as some of Amelie's commoner cats will do. He is intelligent and handsome—just a miniature tiger, and growls like a ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... like to know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what is to become ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... the baby's soft curly head against her breast, Effie began to pace up and down with it. The baby was three months old; he was fractious and disinclined to sleep, but when his sister began to purr a soft song into his ear, an old nursery rhyme which her mother had sung to her long ago, his wide-open eyes closed, and he sank off into ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I talking about? Oh, yes, I am so glad we are to be ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... we were met by Olson, one of the squareheads, come to tell Newman that all was ready for the burial. So we joined the crowd, and Nils was put away, in the dead of night, by the light of one lantern and many stars. The hum of the wind aloft and the purr and slap of the waters against the bows were ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... the black cat. He looked about him strangely for a moment, and then began to purr, and rubbed up against ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... well— Only that little lonesome cell, Where never romping playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful charities, And crippled changeling's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... I said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. "Look," I said. I pointed to my smooth, gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. "I was in the Sadlerville Blast, too," I said. "But I didn't go crazy with hate when I lost ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... not presume too far on her good nature, that I will not indulge in any of those gross familiarities, those boisterous gambols which delight the heart of a dog, Lux yields herself more and more passively to my persuasions. She will permit an occasional caress, and acknowledge it with a perfunctory purr. She will manifest a patronizing interest in my work, stepping sedately among my papers, and now and then putting her paw with infinite deliberation on the page I am writing, as though the smear thus contributed ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... city lay white under its own dust. The electric fans began to purr in the Club, and Lent brought the flagging season to a full stop. I had to go that year on tour through the famine district with the Member, and we escaped, gasping, from the Plains about the middle of April. Simla was crimson with rhododendron blossoms, ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to amuse his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is the case with all biplanes, the engine being behind ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... not sour its temper in the least, and after the worst slight or roughest usage it was quite ready to purr and be pleased. Maisie thought this very nice of it, and she was sure it was anxious to do well, if it only knew how. It would allow her, with very few struggles, to dress it in a doll's nightgown and cap, and put it to sleep in a cradle; which neither of the others would submit to for ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... "motion," or scared by a "spout," Hera's pet, offspring of Typhon, the lion-clad Hero assailed, con amore; but you, Callous as Behemoth, hard as an iron-clad, "Conciliation" with coldness will view Fancy "approaching" the Hydra with honey-bait, Tempting the monster to parley and purr! How will Monopoly look on a money-bait? Hercules, too, who would "like to defer?" Not quite a true hard-shell hero—in attitude— Hercules (County) Concilians looks; Thinks he to move a true Hydra to gratitude? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... as we were settled and poor singed Josephus had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, Evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. We were to lodge and breakfast with her, but after that she was to play our way, and be at our disposal morning, afternoon, and evening, at luncheon, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... occupants of the house were not awakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick, who had been examining the cottager's old clock with a view to a thorough repair, touched some spring within it, and it made the usual purr preparatory to striking. When, lo! and behold, at the very first stroke, cottage, goblin, fairies, and all disappeared into utter darkness, and the baron found himself in his turret-chamber, rubbing his toe, which he had just hit with ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... creature herself, Gadabout followed the winding way, puffing along contentedly. Sometimes, when the turns were too sharp for her liking, she swung to them lazily, with a long purr of water at bow and stern, and seemed about to wallow off ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... over imaginary keys. The blue flame darted and quivered through the gloom. The hushed purr of the spring broke the stillness in metallic tinklings. A smile flitted across the sleeper's face. Her lips parted. The crackle of the flame seemed loud as ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... in a little while, as Uncle Wiggily was sitting there, listening to the big cat purr, he felt sleepy, and he was just going to sleep, when he ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... the air is chill, And winds are blowing loud and shrill, All snug and warm I sit and purr, Wrapped in ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford
... enthusiastically. "Purr-gatory, that was it," she declared. "And it was something a cat does—purr, you know; I knew it was. Mamma said living here ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Purr one day, "Here's a chance a joke to play; See him drop upon the floor All those books, and hear ...
— Pages for Laughing Eyes • Unknown
... can, and drive a gasoline car, keeping within the speed laws when necessary. Once each Fall, when the first frost shrivels the corn-stalk and when, if you chance to be out of doors after dark you hear, away up overhead, invisible, the accelerating, throbbing, diminishing purr of wings that drives the sportsman mad,—the town ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... an' quietness—tho' she's niver a scolding tongue, that a will say for her—we'n best keep this matter to ourselves till thou comes int' port again. T' lass upstairs 'll like nought better than t' curl hersel' round a secret, and purr o'er it, just as t' oud cat does o'er her blind kitten. But thou'll be wanting to see t' lass, a'll be bound. An oud man like me isn't as good company as a pretty lass.' Laughing a low rich laugh over his own wit, Daniel went to the bottom of the stairs, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his feet, glancing at the still form on the bed. Choking back a sob he staggered down the hall, shouting to Ann as he went down the stairs, redoubling his speed as he heard the purr of autojets in the driveway. In a moment he was in his own car, frantically stamping on the starter. It started immediately, the motor booming, and the powerful jet engines forced the heavy car ahead dangerously, taking the corner on two of its three wheels. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... below, and the other commanders did likewise. A moment later the purr of machinery became audible aboard each vessel. Each submerged until the tip of her periscope protruded above the water, and then they sped after the flagship into the darkness ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... he knew that he might now easily have to fight to retain his prize. Numa halted and turned his outraged head in the direction of the coming she. He voiced a throaty growl that was almost a purr. Tarzan was upon the point of prodding him on again when Sabor broke into view, and behind her the ape-man saw that which gave him instant pause—four ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was all meant ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... for the fish and the milk and the hay With a purr had been an easy task: But its hate and my blood were required to pay For the gifts that ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... pines I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... and listened to it purr for a moment. "I noticed that Steve has quite a few books about the Eastern Shore on his bookshelves," ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... as a headache or a toothache in his life, strap one of his legs in a section of water-spout, keep him in a room in the city for weeks, with the hot weather turned on, and then expect him to smile and purr and be happy! It is preposterous. I can't be cheerful ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... by the spirit with which she spoke the droll poem, "Pussy's Class," which some of my young readers may have read. The "meou" and the "sptzzs" were capital, and when the "fond mamma rubbed her nose," the children shouted, for Miss Bab made a paw of her hand and ended with an impromptu purr, which was considered the best imitation ever presented to an appreciative public. Betty bashfully murmured "Little White Lilly," swaying to and fro as regularly as if in no other way could the rhymes be ground out of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a little while, as Uncle Wiggily was sitting there, listening to the big cat purr, he felt sleepy, and he was just going to sleep, when he ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... stanchly built, graceful in lines of strength and speed, nosing at the wharf or tugging back on the mooring line, it may be a fine piece of building but it cannot be much admired. But place an engine in the hull and add to those fine lines the purr of a motor—there is a sight which brings a smile to the lips and a light in the eyes. Anthony had been like the unengined hulk, moored in gentle waters with never the hope of a voyage to rough seas. Now that his purpose came ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... conversations, take occasional strolls with messages, be a sorter companion to Miss Rosa, wots to be married in a veek or two, and, ginerally, to enjoy myself. I'm a tiger, I is, but I don't growl—oh no! I only purr. My name is Tummas, an' my ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... moment's pause, the lady laughed musically. Almost in the darkness you could see her throwing back her head and laughing. She had a noble contralto voice, with a rich mannish purr in it. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... queried Jose, a menacing purr in his tone. "I have it. It seems that you are in haste to use it. Too much haste, Francisco. But if you will stand instead of crawling as before, you may have your ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Christmas-day, and they long remembered it; for while they were absorbed in the fortunes of the Marquis of Carabas and the funny cat, who tucked his tail in his belt, washed his face so awkwardly, and didn't know how to purr, strange things were happening at home, and more surprises were in store for our little friends. You see, when people once begin to do kindnesses, it is so easy and pleasant they find it hard to leave off; and sometimes it beautifies them so that they find they love one another very ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... workshop came the soft purr of rapidly moving machinery, punctuated now and again by the roar of the heavy railroad trains that thundered past his little ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... come nigh to their goal. Like cats they curve their backs, they purr inwardly with their approaching happiness,—all good ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... stared with a peculiar fascination at Dan, who started to speak again. His voice had changed—not greatly, for its pitch was the same and the drawl was the same—but there was a purr in it that made every man stiffen in his chair and make sure that his right hand was free. The ghost of his former smile was still on his lips, but it was his eyes that seemed ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... it was a large heap of wood, which Jonas had prepared the night before, to be ready for his fire. On the other side was a black cat asleep, with her chin upon her paws. When the cat heard Jonas coming, she rose up, stretched out her fore paws, and then began to purr, rubbing her cheeks against ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through. The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... Paper, manufactured of rags, for better preservation. I never knew before how the Iliad and Odyssey were written. Tis strikingly corroborated by observations on Cats. These domestic animals, put 'em on a rug before the fire, wink their eyes up and listen to the Kettle, and then PURR, which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... breath of air passed, and there followed a peaceful calm. The valley was filled with the purr of running water; from their rocks the whistlers called forth their soft notes; up on the green plain the ptarmigan were fluting, and rising in white-winged flocks. These things soothed Thor, as a woman's gentle hand quiets an angry man. For five minutes he continued to rumble ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... a red car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... two, while Peter nervously pondered, the air was silent. Then another station called him. A loud droning purr filled the receivers. Peter gave the "k" signal. The brisk voice of the transport ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... first time she entered this big brick-floored, white-washed room, and nearly cried because she found it so dreary, that she would come to feel at home in it; that by her doing the brown earthenware stove in the corner, cold since Mrs. Fane's day, would again glow and purr; that over and over she would watch the row of flower-pots out on the terrace, with the stiff straw-colored remains in them of last year's carnations, grow slowly visible in the dawn; that from their pastel portrait the eyes of the mother ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... drew back from the stately gentleman's attempt to tap its nose with his finger, and evinced a desire to make the acquaintance of his wife, toward whom it put forth its head as far as possible out of its basket, beginning the while to purr. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... laws when necessary. Once each Fall, when the first frost shrivels the corn-stalk and when, if you chance to be out of doors after dark you hear, away up overhead, invisible, the accelerating, throbbing, diminishing purr of wings that drives the sportsman mad,—the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... had been excessively uneasy and restless all night, managed, with great difficulty, to clamber up on the bed, where he rubbed his nose against his master's hand—trying at the same time to purr in the old way, but failing lamentably. The baron woke instantly, and saw poor Beelzebub looking at him appealingly, with his great green eyes unnaturally dilated, and momentarily growing dim; he was trembling violently, and as his master's kind hand was stretched out to stroke his head, fell ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... saw an author in my life—saving, perhaps, one—that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus, LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... all your goodness to me, don't be angry that I am glad I am got into brave old London again: though my cats don't purr like Goldwin, yet one of them has as good a heart as old Reynolds, and the tranquillity of my own closet makes me some amends for the loss of the library and toute la belle compagnie celestine. I don't know ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his fore paws up to my knees and clutching ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant, they ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to purr) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to go away, papa," she said, with a little sob in her voice, as Tipsey scrambled up in her lap, and curling herself into a little round ball of fur began to purr a soft ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... opened, he never admitted that he had been impatient by "bolting" in. Though speech he had not, and the unpleasant kind of utterance given to his race he would not use, he had a mighty power of purr to express his measureless content with congenial society. There was in him a musical organ with stops of varied power and expression, upon which I have no doubt he could have performed Scarlatti's ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... yet have been amended; but this was not to be. Never yet had "Tiger" Waldron bowed the neck to living man or woman. Dominance was his whole scheme of life. Though he might purr, politely enough, so long as his fur was smoothed the right way, a single backward stroke set his fangs gleaming and unsheathed every sabre-like claw. And now this woman, his fiancee though she was, her beauty dear to him and her charm most fascinating, her fortune much desired and most ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... later when the Count von Hetzler, crouching back in the shadow of the square and waiting for the return of Clodoche, heard a dull, whirring sound that was unmistakably the purr of a motor throb through the stillness; and, leaning forward, saw an automobile whirl up out of the darkness, cut across the square, and dash off westward like a flash. Yet in the brief instant it took to go past the place where he waited there was time for him ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... little man had his own little axe to grind, and thought I might take a turn at the grindstone if he managed me well. So he nodded to de Sourdam of the Austrian embassy and had his word with Pluyvis, and rejoiced to have impressed me—I could see him bubble with happiness and purr. He proposed that we should stroll as far as the paper kiosque that he patronised habitually—it was kept by a fellow-Israelite—a snuffy ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... your thoughts ripen as the hay cures. You can sit in a circle of shade beneath a tree in the fields, or in front of the open hay-barn doors, as I do, and feel the fruition and satisfaction of nature all about you. The brimming meadows seem fairly to purr as the breezes stroke them; the trees rustle their myriad leaves as if in gladness; the many-colored butterflies dance by; the steel blue of the swallows' backs glistens in the sun as they skim the fields; and the mellow boom of the passing bumble-bee ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... commissioner." His speech was the elaborated and painfully emphasized English of the self-taught East Sider. It carried in it just the bare suggestion of the racial lisp, and it made an acute contrast to the menacing Hibernian purr of Donohue's heavier voice. "I kind of thought I'd conduct my own ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... car, jumped into the driver's seat, and advanced the spark. The purr of the motor deepened ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... rough nuts brown 100 (Men sell not such in any town); One heaved the golden weight Of dish and fruit to offer her: 'Come buy, come buy,' was still their cry. Laura stared but did not stir, Longed but had no money: The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste In tones as smooth as honey, The cat-faced purr'd, The rat-faced spoke a word 110 Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard; One parrot-voiced and jolly Cried 'Pretty Goblin' still for 'Pretty Polly;'— One ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... with a great air of bustle and importance. Was this the arrival of a dragon, or Mother coming after them? The blood thumped in their ears, their hands felt icy. The thing dipped slowly through the trees. It settled, stopped, began to purr. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... unrest and hot, muttered words. Martin did not move a muscle, the smile was set, but between the half-closed eyelids crouched Combat, on its toes. The Mexicans knew it was there without looking for it—the tone of his voice, the caressing purr of his words, and his unnatural languor were signs well known to them. Not a criminal sneaking back from voluntary banishment in Mexico who had seen those signs ever forgot them, if he lived. Martin watched the group ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... dim and dense, I sometimes seem to see The shadowy line of a backyard fence And a feline shape of me. I hear the growl, and yowl and howl Of each nocturnal fight, And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr Of passionate delight, As seeking an amorous rendezvous My ancient brothers go stealing Through the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air. Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks chirrup joyously ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... death-moth tick and stir, Slow-honeycombing through the bark; I heard the cricket's drowsy chirr, And one lone beetle burr the dark— The sleeping woodland seemed to purr. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... in him woke and stirred to life. There was a singular itching in his feet. Something in his butler-heart began to purr. "Looking, eh!" he thought. "There's something I've been looking for ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... bowl sat a company of roisterers, all flushed with wine and the attendant false happiness. Long clay pipes clouded the candle-light; there was the jingle of gold and the purr of shuffling cards; and here and there were some given to the voicing of ribald songs. To Victor this was no uncommon scene; and it was not long before he had thrown himself with gay enthusiasm ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... stronger and the surf boomed louder and nearer, and the faint moon-path stretched farther and farther toward the smudgy sky-line, city-going street-cars began to fill with sunburned passengers, and motors began to purr out of the narrow side streets lined with shoddy buildings which housed the summer sojourners. One more Sunday night's revelry was tapering off into shouted farewells, clanging gongs, honking horns and the shuffling of tired ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... again; for awhile nothing but that peculiar sound. As noon approaches other birds warm up. The reedy notes of the robin, and a musical passage of two parts, one a clear delicious gurgle, with several other birds I cannot place. To which is join'd, (yes, I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals from some impatient hylas at the pond-edge. The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze now and then through the trees. Then a poor little dead leaf, long frost-bound, whirls from somewhere up aloft in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a "perfect love"; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda's time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched like a young tiger, he sprang at her from the floor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... truth, a good deal affected, by the sight of the poor animal's excessive joy. It rubbed its head against Peterkin's cheek, licked his chin, and thrust its head almost violently into his neck, while it purred more loudly than I ever heard a cat purr before, and appeared to be so much overpowered by its feelings, that it occasionally mewed and purred almost in the same breath. Such demonstrations of joy and affection led us at once to conclude that this poor cat must have known man before, and we conjectured that it had been left either ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... that Pussy and I wanted to express just now, and that is always easy to show, with or without words. Mews in various tones from her were met by small, good-humoured half-barks and agreeable grunts from me, till at last she fairly left off mewing, and began to purr. Much pleased with my success so far, I now lay down, stretching out my front paws to their full length before, and my tail behind, brushing the floor in a half-circle with the latter. Then I yawned in a friendly way, and finally laid my head down ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... was delighted. He rubbed his large white hands together, and almost seemed as if he might purr in the excess of his gratification. He ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... sour its temper in the least, and after the worst slight or roughest usage it was quite ready to purr and be pleased. Maisie thought this very nice of it, and she was sure it was anxious to do well, if it only knew how. It would allow her, with very few struggles, to dress it in a doll's nightgown and cap, ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... poem, "Pussy's Class," which some of my young readers may have read. The "meou" and the "sptzzs" were capital, and when the "fond mamma rubbed her nose," the children shouted, for Miss Bab made a paw of her hand and ended with an impromptu purr, which was considered the best imitation ever presented to an appreciative public. Betty bashfully murmured "Little White Lilly," swaying to and fro as regularly as if in no other way could the rhymes be ground out of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... everything? Her trunk is at the station and she has the check," she explained to Mrs. Donovan. "Good-by." And with another kiss for Mary Rose she was gone. They could hear the purr of the taxicab as it ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... that to me, if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound—or I think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman—for dead to me she is, the she-cat Sanchia—looking at you because I can't help myself. You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of you. Was ever a man of property and station ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the table-cover fall back to its normal position and turned to get himself into a comfortable attitude, his hand touched something soft and yielding. For a moment he was startled, but the sound of a throaty purr, and the realization that his hand was resting on fur soon told him that his companion in hiding was ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... For my part, I see no difference; except that I sometimes think she has a kinder smile for Frank Henley than she ever yet had for me! But he is just as discreet as herself; so that it seems impossible to be jealous. Yet jealous I am! Ay and jealous I should be of my cat, if she were as ready to purr and rear her back to be stroked by every coarse ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... night, the steamship Nome was more than a thing of wood and steel. It was a living, pulsating being, throbbing with the very heart-beat of Alaska. The purr of the mighty engines was a human intelligence crooning a song of joy. For him the crowded passenger list held a significance that was almost epic, and its names represented more than mere men and women. They were the vital fiber of the land he loved, its heart's blood, its ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... they will fight for us like the lion, and zey—they will work for us like the ass and the oxen, because man he enjoys to be applauded greatly. A man likes to have his hair rubbed gently with the finger tips. He will smile and close his eyes and if he knew how he would purr like the cat. But, my dear, he do not like to have his hair pulled. Zat is something for you to remember,—you and all your determined women, as ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeaknibble was deceived; a sceptic ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... brilliant light flaring through the night above the crest of the hill they had just topped in their descent into the ravine, or, to be more explicit, the small valley, where stood the crumbling house of Squibbs. The purr of a rapidly moving motor rose above the rain, the light rose, fell, swerved to the right and to ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for joy if the cushat sang Its low song in the fir; The cat, perhaps, broke the quiet with Its regular slow purr; 'Twas music now, and her wheel gave forth A rhythm in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... aft came the purr of the motors as the last precious stores of "juice" were turned into the engines and the propellor shafts began to revolve ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... rejoice that the purring monster could tell no tales. How disconcerting it would be should the scarlet devil suddenly shout aloud: "Well, Steve, don't you hope we do not get stalled to-day the way we did going to Torrington?" Mercifully there was no danger of that. The engine might puff and purr and snort but at least it could not talk, and his secret was quite safe. This reflection lighted his face with courage and when the family came out to join him no one would have suspected that the slender boy waiting on the doorstep harbored a thought of anything but ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... Paddy up in her arms. Most mellifluously did he purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy he licked our hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a thankful cat; he was no longer lost, starving, imprisoned, helpless; he was with his ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... strict orders that perfect quietude reigned in the guard-room this night," said Chauvelin, murmuring softly, and there was a gentle purr in his voice, "and that you were left undisturbed for several hours. I would give orders that a comforting supper be served to you at once, and that everything be done to minister to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... curious. It was an unusual sound. They wondered what was producing it—nothing more. They quite shared the alarm of the shikarree, when the latter informed them that what they heard was neither more nor less than the "purr" ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... foray, and wondered whether the buck would satisfy the pair of fierce creatures. The fire flared up, crackled fiercely, sending up, as before, its fiery messengers into the air, then gradually died down to a glowing heap; and the leopards were still at their meal, purring now, a monstrous cat-like purr. There was comfort in it, however, for it seemed to him to tell of hunger satisfied, and by- and-by they indeed went off, grunting to each other. Then there came a long spell of silence. He gathered the unburnt fragments that fringed the two heaps ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... across the back of the hand. In a moment Leucha had fled from the room to seek Mrs Macintyre. Hollyhock flew into her own chamber, put wee Jean carefully and tenderly into the basket in which she had brought her from The Garden, stroked her for a minute to cause her to purr again, cut a hole or two in the lid of the basket to give the poor beast air, and then shoved cat ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... about a teakettle," Hortense reflected. "It likes to sit in a warm place and purr. And it likes any one who will give it what it wants. Its love ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... her joy declared: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes— She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... bite. I'm the kind of beast that runs away. I lie by the fire and purr, but at the first sign of trouble I jump for the open door. That's why the other fellows always got the better of me. They knew I was a coward, and profited by the knowledge. If my dear good uncle hadn't died, I don't know how I should ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... chuckle, a man's "Whew!" of surprise, the "Hem!" of annoyance or perplexity, the moan of pain, a scream, a whisper, a rasp, a sob, a choke, and a gasp. The utterances of animals, though wordless, are eloquent to me—the cat's purr, its mew, its angry, jerky, scolding spit; the dog's bow-wow of warning or of joyous welcome, its yelp of despair, and its contented snore; the cow's moo; a monkey's chatter; the snort of a horse; the lion's roar, and the terrible snarl of the tiger. Perhaps ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... the scientific phrases with a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of Lucca is a sort of unhappy silence, out of which from time to time rise the cry of Burlamacchi, a fool, yes, but a hero, the howling of the traitors, the whisper of feeble conspiracies, the purr of an ignoble prosperity, till in 1805 Napoleon came ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... worrying of the dogs, the growling and roaring of the lion. Then a dull sound followed as of some heavy object dashed against the wall. Then came a mournful howl—another, another—a noise like the crackling of bones—the "purr" of the great brute with its loud rough bass—and then a deep silence. The struggle was over. This was evident, as the dogs no longer gave tongue. Most likely they ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... keep, a rule which applies not only here, but everywhere, especially among semi-barbarous races. The people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were actually organized by the priests, to whom ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... city, may bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in the well; and little harm done forsooth! Let an idle fool set an image of me in wax before the fire, and whistle and caper to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it melts, entreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily—and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at the first stave ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... waif on our hearth Gives a homelike look to the place; With her warm grey fur, And her satisfied purr, And content in her ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... strength, and his laboring lungs more air; and then ran again. As the minutes passed, the thunder lessened rapidly into a muffled drone; and by the time Phil had panted up to the brink of the hole that gaped where but a little time before the sphere was standing, it had become but a distant purr. He leaned far over and peered into the hot blackness below, ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... were borne to the end of the garden to a sheltered spot where Marian always had her "thinks." She took the two in her lap. Tippy settled down at once, but Dippy had to have his head rubbed for some minutes before he began to purr contentedly. ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... large apple pie out of the closet, and cut them a tremendous slice apiece; and the little kittens were so glad that they kept saying, 'purr purr purr,' which meant, 'Thank you, ma'am! Oh, thank you, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful charities, And crippled changeling's hunch to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... headlong down the bluffy steep, stones rattling about her. She leaped into the car. Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression vibrated with its ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... used to get up at some unheard-of hour in the morning to feed her clamorous pet, and then would bring him down with her at breakfast-time and consign him to pussy's care; she, receiving him with a gentle purr of delight, would let him nestle into ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... cold as a stone, Little cat! Dey's done frowed you out an' left you alone, Little cat! I's a-strokin' you's fur, But you don't never purr Nor hump up anywhere, Little cat. W'y is dat? Is you's ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... her head on his arm, and purr, and lie down on his knee and take a nap. She had her bed on his heap ...
— Dick and His Cat - An Old Tale in a New Garb • Mary Ellis
... with impatience the bent figure of the Little Captain as she still leaned over the wheel, her ear tuned to the purr of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... tabby, puss, pussy; kitten, kitty; grimalkin (an old she cat). Associated Words: purr, mew, miaul, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... you will have to blow up then, or fly up to reach them," said Nellie. "The saucy things! Just see how they sit there and purr with contentment! Yes, I know they are laughing at us all ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... ruffle your fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem of ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... to all my neighbors as "the Grand Duc de Huiry" and he looks the part. Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat. He is not a bit caressing. He never fails to purr politely when he comes in. But he is no longer playful. He never climbs up to my shoulder and rubs against my face as some of Amelie's commoner cats will do. He is intelligent and handsome—just a miniature tiger, and growls like a new arrival ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... bridge deck, silence save for the subdued purr of the engine under their feet and the drip, drip of the drops from the awning edge. Steve peered anxiously ahead, his senses ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... as though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. If only ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used to sit in my mother's ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a sweet cat!" Oh, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill. Thomas was a genial animal, whose color-scheme, like a Whistler picture, was an arrangement in black and white. He had green eyes and a purr like a racing automobile. But his social engagements in the neighborhood kept him away much of the time. He was the popular and energetic secretary of the local cats' debating society. One could hear him at night sometimes reading the minutes in a loud, clear voice; ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... between expression and feeling should be attributed to nature, and how much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep and ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... not the Mistress and the Master whose approach stirred the fiery little collie to lightning activity. Lad knew the purr of the Place's car and he could distinguish it from any other, as far as his sensitive ears could catch its sound. But to Lady, all cars were alike; and all were signals ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... them. It is rather to make the telephone as universal as the water faucet, to bring within speaking distance every economic unit, to connect to the social organism every person who may at any time be needed. Just as the click of the reaper means bread, and the purr of the sewing-machine means clothes, and the roar of the Bessemer converter means steel, and the rattle of the press means education, so the ring of the telephone bell has come to mean unity ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... should specially choose to be. I long to be a cat sometimes. To be able to fluff out my fur and spit would be such a satisfaction. There are feelings that can be expressed in no other way. And then to be able to purr! Purring is the one sound in nature that expresses perfect comfort ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, finding his company unpleasant, drank but a week-day's ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... the four little robins gone? Oh, puss, you have done a cruel deed! Your eyes, do they weep? your heart, does it bleed? Do you not feel your bold cheeks turning pale? Not you! you are chasing your wicked tail. Or you just cuddle down in the hay and purr, Curl up in a ball, and refuse to stir, But you need not try to look good and wise: I see little robins, old puss, in your eyes. And this morning, just as the clock struck four, There was some one opening the kitchen door, And caught you creeping the wood-pile over,— Make ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... grasping the wire-stays for support. Then he stiffened and stood listening. The muffled purr of a high-powered motor disturbed the silence. From out the gloom to starboard he saw the bow of a big motor-boat cut the fog. The Mexican shrieked a warning and tightened his clutch ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... cage. A chariot was brought out, and the two lions were harnessed to it. Then she called out another larger lion, which came unwillingly at first. She spoke sharply, and then struck him. He growled, but came on. Then she spoke softly to him, and made that peculiar purr, soft and rich. Now he responded, walked round her, coming closer, till his body made a half-circle about her, and his head was at her knees. She dropped her hand on it. Great applause rang through the building. This play had been quite accidental. But there lay one secret of the girl's success. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... things in a highly unsuitable manner, and proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick for the purr and the comfortable airs of the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... wavering ribbons. But she had forgotten that it was in the dangerous quarter, and she did not recall that important fact even when she sat down again to watch her moose steaks broil on the glowing coals raked apart from the leaping blaze. The flames licked into the throat of the chimney with the purr of a ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... at the road that the car was devouring with an endless purr of triumph. He pursued his fancy, while the car pursued the glimmer of the Sound, which was escaping amid the first thin ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... to take it home to the boy, and as he picked it up and put it inside his coat the little outcast began to purr. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... and the poor little creature drank it willingly enough out of his tiny china saucer. He would remain for hours at a time stretched out on my knee like the shadow of a sphinx; I could feel his vertebrae like the grains of a chaplet, and he would try to acknowledge my caresses with a feeble purr that sounded like a death-rattle. On the day he died, he lay on his side gasping, but got himself up by a supreme effort, came to me, and opening wide his eyes, fixed upon me a glance that called for help with ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... under the delusion that the only remarkable thing about us is that instinctive purring which arises from a certain feeling of comfort; for that reason they often stroke us awkwardly and then we usually purr to secure ourselves against blows. But if they knew how to manage us in the right way, believe me, they would accustom our good nature to everything, and Michel, your neighbor's tom-cat, would even at times be pleased to jump through a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... after one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned the lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. Then Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it, realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that very moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... suppose! Ah, me! And I'd far rather be the spinster's cat! Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call human—only we aren't really more than half so—have to keep our claws well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle! Wouldn't you like to ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... willing hand Winning the all I can command, Shall be heard the pathetic tone, (Solvent sufficient for heart of stone,) Making thy simple wishes known; Nor shall the vibrating long-drawn "Mr—r" Of thy tranquil thunderous purr Breathe again, to my ear attent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the abrupt and incredible change. Moments before, the sky had been a vast, starry blanket of black velvet; then, abruptly, he had been hovering over the city, sliding down toward warm friendly lights and music. He checked the proper switches, and felt the throbbing purr of the anti-grav motors as the ship slid in toward the landing slot. Tall spires of other ships rose to meet him, circle upon circle of silver needles pointing skyward. A little later they were blotted out as the ship was grappled into ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... and the little white cat jumped into the room. The princess took the little cat on her lap and stroked him with her hand, and the cat raised up its back and began to purr. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... some food for them, and having packed our kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps. At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had never quite recovered from his riding exercises. Slight blood poisoning had set in. His leave had been extended ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... blue-white in the flat moonlight. I ran over and grabbed her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want anything ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... turned cold that night and there was a fire in the little heater. Donkin had opened the draft a little while before, and the sheet-iron sides now began to purr red-hot. Nobody noticed it. Regan's kindly, good-humored face had the stamp of horror in it, and he pulled at his scraggly brown mustache, his eyes seemingly fascinated by Donkin's fingers. Everybody's eyes, the three of them, were ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Win said to herself. "She's purring with joy because Miss Stein saw. (Do pigs purr?) Anyhow I am glad we've made a success. That must be some comfort! Why, at the Hands it's like a big theatre with a lot of different stages, where the curtains go up unexpectedly and give you a glimpse of ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... chauffeur that he would not require him again that night, and I had noticed the man touch his hat in the belief that this actually was his employer who addressed him, for the real Earl of Cranmere had lent us his car. I heard the car purr away in the darkness, and an instant later the door of number 300 Cumberland Place shut noiselessly ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... bored.] Yes, I suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. [In a mocking tone.] Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy—only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... addressed her neighbor, whose husband was notoriously brutal, and she spoke with a purr that was catty: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... to himself. In weather like this no one was abroad who could stay at home. He turned off into the country road, already deep in snow-drifts, and swept on, through the little wood whose leafless birches now looked unfamiliar, even spectral, in the increasing gloom. Save for the soft purr of his engine, his progress made no sound. He drove as far as he dared, then stopped the car off the road, in a clear space among the trees, and continued his way on foot. He must leave the car there, and take the chance of having it discovered. In the storm and darkness that ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... take a small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... thing crept, or glided, not even a slipping purr, noiseless, just a drifting shadow; only where a ribbon of moonlight from between a lotus and a leaf picked it out was the brown thing of evil marked against the marble. Then the divan blurred it from sight. From behind the divan to the ebony ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... well as purr. On one occasion he chanced to meet a lady who had figured among the occupants of the Schoenheiten. She was considerably past the first flush of youth, and Ludwig, exercising his prerogative, affected not ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... it? What's not in it!" And the man gave a gesture of mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An' minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an' seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an' beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer, retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening of the case, rose above the scene to purr: ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... purr out some commendation, when—"What a bear that man is!" burst with startling vehemence from Miss Kendal's ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... that way and got into any trouble with her machine the chances were few that anyone would some along to help. She had but a moment to decide, and something told her that the long way was the safe one and shorter in the end. She swept on, her engine throbbing with that pleasant purr of expensive well-groomed machinery, the car leaping forward as if it delighted in the high speed. The little woman by her side sat breathless and eager, with shining eyes, ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... her joy declar'd: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10 Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... in his arms and thrust its wet little body into his equally wet bosom, where the warmth began soon to exercise a soothing influence on the kitten's depressed spirits, so that, ere long, it began to purr. He then walked with the sailor towards the village, with his face black and blue, and swelled, and covered with blood, while Bob Croaker and his companions returned ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... grandma nursed the cat, Which uttered nor purr nor sound, While the Platypus followed the Minister's hat Around and ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented. Biglow Papers, Second Series, No. X. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... song ended always in "sweet! sweet! sweet!" usually followed by a trill, and was far more effective than his state performances. Sometimes, after the "sweet" repeated half a dozen times, each note lower than the preceding one, he ended with a sort of purr ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... nice little fat, dimpled arm holds me tightly against a loving heart, I feel very pleased and happy. If I were a pussy-cat I should purr, for I feel that I am in my ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to make him wash his paws. If you can make him wash and purr in a new place, he will stay. And then you must take him round and show him every room and every closet. And you must come down real often, Hanny. There's the lovely little park, you know. Aunt Boudinot has a key. They're such nice queer old ladies, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... me, for all my sorrow, almost smile. For the cry was a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... paper across the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. She felt frightened and nervous, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all the time she could on the shoulder of Putnam's Only Gentleman. Perched up there, aloof, lofty, and disdainful, she would purr away like a ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... the animals about the place were afraid of Jake, for he treated them roughly, and sometimes beat them. But they loved Jenny because she was gentle with them. The dog would follow her about, and the cat would curl up on her lap and purr itself to sleep. When she went to the pasture, the horses would trot up to her and rub their noses on her shoulder. She often gave them lumps of sugar, or other dainties that horses like. No matter how wild or shy they were with others, ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... Minister's views were popular. There was a little murmur of approval, something which sounded almost like a purr of content. It was just one more expression of that strangely discreditable yet almost universal failing,—the over-reliance upon others. The quiet remark of the man who suddenly saw fit to join in the discussion struck a ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... set, the twilight fell, the wind went down, the dust settled, and night mantled Benton. The roar of the day became subdued. It resembled the purr of a gorging hyena. The yellow and glaring torches, the bright lamps, the dim, pale lights behind tent walls, all accentuated the blackness of the night and filled space with shadows, like specters. Benton's streets were full of drunken men, staggering ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... probably rather," Rosalind said in her slow, soft, cruel voice, like a cat's purr. "Well, I'll write down the address for you. It's Dr. Evans: he'll probably pass you on to someone down at the seaside, if he considers you a ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... murmured, aware of a species of fear of this big, masterful man: a fear rather fascinating in its tremors, like a novice's cringing to the vibration of electricity in a mildly pleasant form; a fear as opposed to her loathing of Robert Fenley as the song of a thrush to the purr of a tiger. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... After all your goodness to me, don't be angry that I am glad I am got into brave old London again: though my cats don't purr like Goldwin, yet one of them has as good a heart as old Reynolds, and the tranquillity of my own closet makes me some amends for the loss of the library and toute la belle compagnie celestine. I don't know whether that expression will do for the azure ceilings; but I found it at my fingers' ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... a large apple pie out of the closet, and cut them a tremendous slice apiece; and the little kittens were so glad that they kept saying, 'purr purr purr,' which meant, 'Thank you, ma'am! Oh, thank you, ma'am! Thank you ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... tick and stir, Slow-honeycombing through the bark; I heard the cricket's drowsy chirr, And one lone beetle burr the dark— The sleeping woodland seemed to purr. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... I hear his dear familiar purr as he swept away from the door of the hotel (my balcony is a corner one, and I could just catch the well-known c-r-r-r) when I regretted intensely that I hadn't been en evidence, looking indifferent. Suddenly, I suffered ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... while, there in the window frame, Marcia closed her eyes. There was still the illusion of a purr about her. Probably because, as her kitten warmed in its circle, its coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... could fill up half the page With descriptions of her rage— (I might say that she went a bit too fur!) When he smiled and murmured: "Shoo!" "There is one thing I can do!" She answered with a wrathful kind of purr. "You may shoo me, and it suit you, But I feel my conscience bid Me, as tit for tat, to ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... it. As I got higher it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr—the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lovely—but what's that to me, if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound—or I think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman—for dead to me she is, the she-cat Sanchia—looking at you because I can't help myself. You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of you. Was ever a man of property and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... feet, glancing at the still form on the bed. Choking back a sob he staggered down the hall, shouting to Ann as he went down the stairs, redoubling his speed as he heard the purr of autojets in the driveway. In a moment he was in his own car, frantically stamping on the starter. It started immediately, the motor booming, and the powerful jet engines forced the heavy car ahead dangerously, taking the corner on two of its three wheels. He knew that Ann would call Security, ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... not recall that important fact even when she sat down again to watch her moose steaks broil on the glowing coals raked apart from the leaping blaze. The flames licked into the throat of the chimney with the purr of a ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of one who had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory manner, and got it comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as man could be, Mr Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a soft tune as he went He seemed to purr, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... might thereby be given to others or kept for oneself: and then I thought of Sandy Tom—of his large, round, soft head; his fine eyes (they were yellow, not blue, and glared with infinite tenderness); his melodious purr; his ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Jim's house a great tiger-cat leaped to Jim's shoulder with the silence and swiftness of a shadow. "He's always watching for me," said Jim, proudly. "Pussy! Pussy!" The cat began to purr loudly, and rubbed his splendid ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the huge circle of blinding light. One after another her twelve engines sputtered into life, and ponderously she moved over the field, gathering speed as the staccato barking of the exhausts gradually blended into a smooth though deafening purr. The tail of the great vessel came up, then the wheels, and she ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... gone? Oh, puss, you have done a cruel deed! Your eyes, do they weep? your heart, does it bleed? Do you not feel your bold cheeks turning pale? Not you! you are chasing your wicked tail. Or you just cuddle down in the hay and purr, Curl up in a ball, and refuse to stir, But you need not try to look good and wise: I see little robins, old puss, in your eyes. And this morning, just as the clock struck four, There was some one opening the kitchen door, And caught you ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were actually organized by ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... and gave himself up the day after he had at first fled. He was already pre-judged; for so violent was the feeling against the Papists that my Lord Lucas said in the House of Lords that if he could have his way, he "would not have even a Popish cat to mew and purr about the King." Coleman, I say, was the first of those who had before been accused; but a Mr. Stayley, a Catholic banker (who had his house not far from me in Covent Garden), was even before him judged and executed, on account of some words that a lying Scotsman had said he had heard him use in ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... among yourselves,' she seemed to be saying. 'When the chairs are here I will sit on them; when the table is laid I will draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr on ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, "You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn't talking." ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... a pretty sister, a pretty baby, two nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and felicity. I had a good audience last evening, and enjoyed it. My audiences, considering the horse disease and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We get ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... there's a ridge and a row of charred trees, which stand out gloomily etched against the sky. The sky is grey and damp and sickly; fleecy balls of smoke burst against it—shrapnel. You wonder whether they've caught anybody. Overhead you hear the purr of engines—a flight of aeroplanes breasting the clouds. Behind you observation balloons hang ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... the hard excrement, which had been long lodged in their bowels. Hence this becomes afterwards a mark of pleasure in them, and in dogs, and other tailed animals. But cats gently extend and contract their paws when they are pleased, and purr by drawing in their breath, both which resemble their manner of sucking, and thus become their language of pleasure, for these animals having collar-bones use their paws like hands when they suck, which dogs ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges. Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... black silk lap Spunk stretched luxuriously, and blinked sleepy eyes; then with a long purr of content he curled himself ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... chair that Annixter had occupied, the cat, Princess Nathalie, at last comfortably settled in her accustomed place, dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her breast, filling the deserted room with the subdued murmur of her contented purr. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... turned a double back somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... bare-headed upon the veranda listening to the sound of the engine dying away among the trees. He seemed to be lost in reflection from which he only aroused himself when the purr of the motor ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... YOU before, my dear Signor Ferarri, I know nothing whatever about women, and care less than nothing for their loves or hatreds! I have always thought of them more or less as playful kittens, who purr when they are stroked the right way, and scream and scratch when their tails are trodden on. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... graceful in lines of strength and speed, nosing at the wharf or tugging back on the mooring line, it may be a fine piece of building but it cannot be much admired. But place an engine in the hull and add to those fine lines the purr of a motor—there is a sight which brings a smile to the lips and a light in the eyes. Anthony had been like the unengined hulk, moored in gentle waters with never the hope of a voyage to rough seas. Now that his purpose came to him ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was all meant for ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... by the sight of the poor animal's excessive joy. It rubbed its head against Peterkin's cheek, licked his chin, and thrust its head almost violently into his neck, while it purred more loudly than I ever heard a cat purr before, and appeared to be so much overpowered by its feelings, that it occasionally mewed and purred almost in the same breath. Such demonstrations of joy and affection led us at once to conclude that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... hearing this sound, exhibited any feelings of alarm. The others were simply curious. It was an unusual sound. They wondered what was producing it—nothing more. They quite shared the alarm of the shikarree, when the latter informed them that what they heard was neither more nor less than the "purr" of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good, honest letter that says ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... been torn or hacked off. As I drew back from it, it made a feeble and pathetic effort to reach me and rub itself against my legs, as is the way with cats, but in so doing it fell down, and uttering a half purr, half gurgle, vanished—seeming to sink through the hard ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and standing by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St. George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was sure John Meredith ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not in it!" And the man gave a gesture of mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An' minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an' seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an' beast, Matthew ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... lion, and zey—they will work for us like the ass and the oxen, because man he enjoys to be applauded greatly. A man likes to have his hair rubbed gently with the finger tips. He will smile and close his eyes and if he knew how he would purr like the cat. But, my dear, he do not like to have his hair pulled. Zat is something for you to remember,—you and all your determined ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... circles. Churches and chapels are places of harmless assignation, and how many matches are made in Sunday-schools, where Alfred and Angelina meet to teach the scripture and flirt. As for the clergy, who are peculiarly the sons of God, they are notorious for their partiality to the sex. They purr about the ladies like black tom-cats. Some of them are adepts in the art of rolling one eye heavenwards and letting the other languish on the fair faces of the daughters of men. It is also noticeable that the Protestant clericals marry early and often, and generally ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... being at the back of the north wind than anything he had known since he left it. Sometimes he would have his little brother, sometimes his little sister, and sometimes both of them in the grass with him, and then he felt just like a cat with her first kittens, he said, only he couldn't purr—all he could do ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!' as he held his fingers over her, and she rubbed her ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mountains, over plains, out of valleys. It is a cry of warning, a cry to disarm foes. It is an outcry of good as against evil—the squawk of a hen to her chicks, the bleat of a sheep to her lambs, the grunt of a sow to her sucklings, the bellow of a cow to her calf, the purr of a cat to her kittens, the whine of a dog to her puppies, the drum of a partridge to her young. A cry from the heart to the heart, an appeal of flesh to its own flesh, it ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... are, old man." Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... Lucinda's theory of a soul; but his was no good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick her fingers with his pretty red tongue, like a "perfect love"; but when he had his fill, and needed no more, then came Miss Lucinda's time of torment. If she attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... grabbed her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You remember Bjoernsen had kicked her—and I didn't want ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... amber-eyed tabby may laze And purr at my feet, But here in the blue summer days The seal-people meet. They bask on my ledges and romp In the swirl of the tides, Old bulls in their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others come visiting me Than grey seal or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... for him to slip through, which he did very quietly, and got a shelter for the night. A woman, a tom cat, and a hen lived in this cottage. The tom cat, whom the mistress called, "My little son," was a great favorite; he could raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks from his fur if it were stroked the wrong way. The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs." She laid good eggs, and her mistress loved her as if she had ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... rataplan[obs3]; whirr; ratatat, ratatat- tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari[obs3], racket; cuckoo; repetition &c. 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c. 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. hum, purr. [animals that hum] hummingbird. [animals that purr] cat, kitten (animal sounds) 412. V. roll, drum, rumble, rattle, clatter, patter, clack; bombinate[obs3]. hum, trill, shake; chime, peal, toll; tick, beat. drum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a moment's pause, the lady laughed musically. Almost in the darkness you could see her throwing back her head and laughing. She had a noble contralto voice, with a rich mannish purr in it. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... cursory. Snared by a "motion," or scared by a "spout," Hera's pet, offspring of Typhon, the lion-clad Hero assailed, con amore; but you, Callous as Behemoth, hard as an iron-clad, "Conciliation" with coldness will view Fancy "approaching" the Hydra with honey-bait, Tempting the monster to parley and purr! How will Monopoly look on a money-bait? Hercules, too, who would "like to defer?" Not quite a true hard-shell hero—in attitude— Hercules (County) Concilians looks; Thinks he to move a true Hydra to gratitude? Real Leviathan chortles at hooks! "Come, pretty Hydra! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... the clutch for the third speed—and the fourth. The car leaped forward like a startled race-horse. The motor lilted merrily into its deep-throated song of the open road, its contented, silken humming passing into a sonorous and sustained purr. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... The moon went out, the concourse of stars Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes Peered on them lockt. Far and faint The great stags belled; far and faint Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling Lent desolation to night; and low The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks Sounded the tireless lapping deep. Lockt they ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... endorse the sentiment by a loud purr and a graceful wave of her tail, and Polly returned to the subject from which these ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... For an hour we galloped silently, matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound arising in that wilderness of brown coulee banks and dun-colored prairie but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to give him room to trail, we ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... wondering for a great many years, Mr. Benham, what you could be like,' she went on in a tone which is more nearly described as a purr than anything else. 'You know, our places up in Ulster County are almost adjoining. At times I've been tempted to scale your wall. It looked so very attractive from outside. But they told me you kept a private banshee, trained to visit those you didn't like. You ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... good things come nigh to their goal. Like cats they curve their backs, they purr inwardly with their approaching ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... always reminded his guest of the purr of a tiger, rang out. "Why, marry, good sir, there is no recoil! These guns do not use that powder which Sir Henry, founder of our line, did speak of. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... God, are we, Armenian and Copt, And we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped. Not one of us but spits at the creed the others mouth and purr, But we all believe, we all believe, in the ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... beam of blue. It took power to do that, power to hold a beam tight and strong and steady through the stress of one hundred thousand miles. But it had to be that far away ... and they had that power. From the bowels of the ship came the deep purr of it, the angry, silky song ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a sweet cat!" Oh, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... up a blush, and smile, and purr that she was SO glad, 'cause then she'd have comp'ny. And Eben would glower at Beriah and Beriah'd grin sort of superior-like, and the mutual barometer, so's to speak, would fall about a foot during the next hour. The brotherly business ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... head on his arm, and purr, and lie down on his knee and take a nap. She had her bed on his heap ...
— Dick and His Cat - An Old Tale in a New Garb • Mary Ellis
... to know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old, my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wants to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what is to become ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... A sort of satisfied purr was rising all round; and with horror Laurence perceived that this—this was the man accused of what he himself had done—this queer, battered unfortunate to whom he had shown a passing friendliness. Then all feeling merged in the appalling interest ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... an author in my life—saving, perhaps, one—that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus, LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the Roney place, looking dim and indistinct in the darkness, their voices hushed apprehensively, and the noise of the sled-runners slipping through the snow seemed to them to increase from a purr to a roar. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... repose. The cat, after another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... your body, this physical overplus will transmute some of itself into mental exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth confidently ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... settled and poor singed Josephus had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, Evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. We were to lodge and breakfast with her, but after that she was to play our way, and be at our disposal morning, afternoon, and evening, at luncheon, dinner, and supper, and the game was to be the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... red moon sank below the crest of the hill. Puffs of smoke rose in its place. Then there was borne to the waiting trio a sound of chugging. And the next instant, with a purr of its engine, and a whirr of its wheels, here into full ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... boxed for the night. Diana had wandered up and down before the narrow cages, looking at the big brutes still restless from the show, rubbing her cheek on the soft little round head of the cub she was holding in her arms, smiling at its sleepy rasping purr. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... his favourite roosting place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far from ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... far rather be the spinster's cat! Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call human—only we aren't really more than half so—have to keep our claws well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle! Wouldn't you like ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... the books I have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, "like a thousand cats." The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done. On the following morning the man and the tiger ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... kittens, they found their mittens, And they began to cry: "O mother dear, See here, see here! See! we have found our mittens." Put on your mittens You silly kittens, And you may have some pie. "Purr-r, purr-r, purr-r, O let us have the pie. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... not look as cunning as my daughter's baby-kitten's face. My mistress is very good to me sometimes, but sometimes she pulls my tail and makes me mad, and I scratch her and then she slaps me back; but when she is good to me, and pets me, and gives me cake, then I purr ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved into an arch, the tail broadened, the purr became a growl. Had association lifted the brute's instincts to the plane ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... amuse his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is the case with all biplanes, the engine being behind the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... head, so lit, fascinated Dick, and the mingled rhythms of her purring and the wizard's mounted and mounted, until to his bewildered mind the whole world seemed filled with their murmur, and the demoniac head seemed to dilate as he gazed at it. Suddenly, Rufus paused in his sing-song, and the cat's purr ceased with it, as though her share of ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... of the jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sounds of breathing. As he opened the door, a feeble ray of light streamed through the crevice, and he saw his mother lying in bed, with the faithful cat sitting beside her as her only companion. Puss, recognising the boy, began to purr and wave her tail, but the blind woman seemed to be stupefied by the ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to the garden—it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion of the ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that in them will—No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? 'Twas there, I ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... think, would have pressed his questions further, but at that moment the loud purr of a motor was audible, and we all turned to the window as it ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... jar fur slur tart cart bur furl star turf first curl gird jerk lard fern bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark shark mark spurt third parch smart churn perch harm charm starch march ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... have no conversation. They merely bellow—or twitter or bleat or low or gibber or purr, according to their respective incarnations,—about unspeakable mysteries and monstrous pleasures until I am driven to the verge of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... to purr o'th' fender rims, To freeten th' mice away; A cosy bed to rest mi limbs Throo neet ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... captured in the act of catching a grasshopper, then the two were borne to the end of the garden to a sheltered spot where Marian always had her "thinks." She took the two in her lap. Tippy settled down at once, but Dippy had to have his head rubbed for some minutes before he began to purr contentedly. ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... have to blow up then, or fly up to reach them," said Nellie. "The saucy things! Just see how they sit there and purr with contentment! Yes, I know they are laughing ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... I sometimes think she has a kinder smile for Frank Henley than she ever yet had for me! But he is just as discreet as herself; so that it seems impossible to be jealous. Yet jealous I am! Ay and jealous I should be of my cat, if she were as ready to purr and rear her back to be stroked by every coarse ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem of ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the fish and the milk and the hay With a purr had been an easy task: But its hate and my blood were required to pay For the gifts that it ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... boy, alone in the wilderness, and the loser of his comrades, felt for the moment a sense of comradeship with the bear, which was also alone, and doubtless the loser of a comrade, also. He uttered a soft growling sound like the satisfied purr of ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not indulge in any of those gross familiarities, those boisterous gambols which delight the heart of a dog, Lux yields herself more and more passively to my persuasions. She will permit an occasional caress, and acknowledge it with a perfunctory purr. She will manifest a patronizing interest in my work, stepping sedately among my papers, and now and then putting her paw with infinite deliberation on the page I am writing, as though the smear thus contributed spelt, "Lux, her mark," and was a reward of merit. But she never curls herself ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Johnny Bear and his basket in front of the grate. It was so "comfy" that he stopped yowling at once and began to purr. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!' ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... the Corporal, sighing, "the poor dumb animal makes me sad to think on't." And putting down his fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, with tail on end, and back bowed up, and uttering her lenes susurros—anglicae, purr;—rubbed herself to and fro, athwart the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to make the telephone as universal as the water faucet, to bring within speaking distance every economic unit, to connect to the social organism every person who may at any time be needed. Just as the click of the reaper means bread, and the purr of the sewing-machine means clothes, and the roar of the Bessemer converter means steel, and the rattle of the press means education, so the ring of the telephone bell has come to mean unity ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... raises your spirits; your thoughts ripen as the hay cures. You can sit in a circle of shade beneath a tree in the fields, or in front of the open hay-barn doors, as I do, and feel the fruition and satisfaction of nature all about you. The brimming meadows seem fairly to purr as the breezes stroke them; the trees rustle their myriad leaves as if in gladness; the many-colored butterflies dance by; the steel blue of the swallows' backs glistens in the sun as they skim the fields; and the mellow boom of the passing bumble-bee ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... ringing laugh of a child is sweet music to the ear. There are three most joyous sounds in nature—the hum of a bee, the purr of a cat, and the laugh of a child. They tell of peace, of happiness, and of contentment, and make one for a while forget that there is so much ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... examined Gladys, touched her contemplatively with the button of his mahl-stick, and listened absently to her responsive purr. Then, palette still in hand, he sat down opposite Valerie, gazing at her in that detached manner ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... gun, which we can hear when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats purr. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... Goliath. He was an enormous cat, and his purr was as oversized as his body. That was the hoarse sound that they had thought was heavy breathing. His footfalls too could be distinctly heard when all else was quiet, and he had evidently rubbed against some light article of furniture in the outer room and moved it. In the ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... delight, Mistress Down was seen walking sedately across the flowers, her bushy tail carried very high, not one hair of her silky white coat awry. She took no notice of anybody, but passed to the fire, sat down beside it with stiff dignity, curled her tail round her paws, yawned and then began to purr gently. It was as if nothing had happened. And she certainly was not hungry, for she turned up her dainty nose ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... musically to the milkers. Phoebe Lyddon and John Grimbal still stood at the farm-gate, and they watched, as a boy and an aged man came forward with buckets and stools. Then, to the muffled thud of the water-wheel and the drone and murmur of the river, was added a purr of milk, foaming into tin pails, and sharp, thin monitions from the ancient, as he called the cows by their names and bid them ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... anything else just then. But this was impossible as yet for the sensitive Wolfhound. The two bears in the next cage were playing together fubsily, and the tiger's breathing while he slept was a maddening kind of cross between a purr and a snore; maddening, that is, to one who found the creature's mere proximity incredibly distasteful. This hatred of the Killer's neighbourhood was no whim, no personal fastidiousness on Finn's part. It went much deeper than that. For example, so far, the hair on Finn's back would not assume its ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... before the camera, thank you; or I would, if I hadn't jumped right into the middle of this trick West before I knew what I was doing. Ket, what do you do to pass away the time? I don't see how you can have the nerve to live in an empty space like this and purr!" ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... tea, but above the noise and chatter of the twins she seemed to hear the soft purr of the wonderful car that had brought her home, and the voice of its owner who had called himself "the ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... there was no time to alter. The wer-tiger was already terribly close behind. I could gauge its distance by the patter of its feet—apparently the metamorphosis had only been in part—and by the steadily intensifying purr, purr; so unmistakably interpretative of the brute's utter satisfaction in its power to overtake me, as well as at the prospect of so good a meal. I was just thirteen stone, seemingly a most unlucky number even in weight! Had ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... dear," she said surprisingly, "freedom's best!" Her soft, fat chuckle sounded like a purr. "Freedom's best," ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... feather the wing of his apprehensions and set them soaring was his uncertainty concerning Storri. He could not gauge Storri; he would have felt safer had that nobleman been an American or an Englishman. Storri was so loaded of alarming contradictions; he could so snarl and purr, threaten and promise, beam and glower, smile and frown, and all in the one moment of time! Mr. Harley could not read a spirit so perverse and in such perpetual head-on collision with itself! Nor could he, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... with her new bed, and, after curiously sniffing and poking into all the nooks and corners of it, she curled up and began to purr herself to sleep. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... that ten minutes had elapsed, after Hodder's arrival, before the purr of an engine and the shriek of a brake broke the stillness of upper Dalton Street and announced the stopping of a heavy motor before the door. The rector had found Mr. Bentley in the library, alone, seated with bent head in front of the fire, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... passageway, the cadet began to figure out the plan of the ship, first locating the power deck by its roaring purr. He climbed a ladder to the next deck, walked slowly down the passageway toward what he thought to be the control room, and leaned against the hatch. He heard the soft tinkle of a radar signal and his heart skipped a beat. He had stumbled onto ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... affording a view of the door. Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through. The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions of ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... he has many voices wherewith to speak. He can give a barking cry, which is not unlike that of a deer; he can grunt like a startled boar, and squeak like the monkeys cowering at his approach in the branches overhead; he can shake the earth with a vibrating, resonant purr, like the sound of faint thunder in the foot-hills; he can mew and snarl like an angry wildcat; and he can roar like a lusty lion cub. But it is when he lifts up his voice in the long-drawn moan that the jungle chiefly fears him. This cry means that he is hungry, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... in the wide passage leading from the cargo lock to the vault as Gefty turned into it. His steps echoed between the steel bulkheads on either side. He paused a moment before the big circular vault doors, listening to the purr of the Queen's idling engines in the next compartment. The familiar sound was somehow reassuring. He inserted the first key, turned it over twice, drew it out again and pressed one of the buttons in the control panel beside the door. The heavy slab of steel moved ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... learn anything they don't want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. 'Now, my dears,' the old cat will say, 'one, two, three all purr together,' and we ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... other consonants thus situated are doubled. Exceptions: ebb, add, odd, egg, inn, bunn, err, burr, purr, butt, fizz, fuzz, buzz, and a few very uncommon words, for which see the chapter in ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... room silent save for the deliberate ticking of a big wall clock and the purr of the gas in the grate; at last came an interruption: the metallic clicking of a latch key, the tramp of a man's feet in the vestibule, and Darley Roberts entered. A moment after entering the newcomer paused attentive, his glance taking in every detail of the all too familiar ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer, mild ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... this unsuspecting new-comer slumbered contentedly in a dainty cot. The room was silent and darkened, the bright morning sunshine being shut out by the heavy curtains which were carefully drawn across the window: there was a ring of rare contentment in the crackle and purr of the wood-stove, that filled a remote corner of the room with its comfortable presence: and the sustaining spirit of wedded love, was as pronouncedly omnipresent as ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... ahead at the road that the car was devouring with an endless purr of triumph. He pursued his fancy, while the car pursued the glimmer of the Sound, which was escaping amid the first thin ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... dusk, but at first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... noises—the barking and worrying of the dogs, the growling and roaring of the lion. Then a dull sound followed as of some heavy object dashed against the wall. Then came a mournful howl—another, another—a noise like the cracking of bones—the "purr" of the great brute with its loud rough bass—and then a deep silence. The struggle was over. This was evident, as the dogs no longer gave tongue. ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... answered himself, as though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its paws as all ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... the din of the New York street—purr and throb of innumerable engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping of thousands of restless feet, making a blended current of sound upon which floated and tossed the shrillness of police whistles and newsboys' voices and auto horns. ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... they blasted off. Sinbad was curled on his bunk. For some reason the cat had not been prowling the ship before take-off as he usually did. First he had sat on Van's desk and now he was here, almost as if he wanted human company. Dane picked him up and Sinbad rumbled a purr, arching his head so that it rubbed against the young man's chin in an extremely uncharacteristic show of affection. Smoothing the fur along the cat's jaw line Dane carried him back to ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... a man at a play, who knows that at a word from him the complications would cease, and that were he to rise in the stalls and explain them away, and point out the real hero and denounce the villain, the curtain would have to ring down on the instant. He gave a little purr of satisfaction, and again marshalled his chances before him and smiled to find them good. He was grandly at peace with himself and with the world. Whatever happened, he was already richer by some 300,000 francs, and in a day, if ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... Cat. 'I could do a little singing with a living lover, but I never heard of singing for a dead one. But you see, bird, it isn't Cats' nature. When I am cross, I mew. When I am pleased, I purr; but I must be pleased first. I ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... leather, Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested, The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... were generally two or three astonished children to show him where tools were kept—milk buckets, being always up-ended on a fence post, needed no introduction, and the pump, for a sluice afterwards, was not hard of discovery. The big Rolls-Royce used to purr gently away through the bush paddock afterwards, often with a bewildered "mum" looking amazedly at the tall young man ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... kindness with which Laura had looked out at the world since she was in the cradle. It was so real: and yet it formed a weak spot in Laura's nature. For she wanted so much to be liked that she was—as some one had once said of her—just a little bit disappointed if a stray cat did not purr as she went past. Now she answered quite eagerly, but with a perfectly genuine eagerness: "Oh, I do hope you'll change your mind. Anyway, I'll send the shoes and stockings, though I'm afraid the shoes will be ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Hartley had a perfect fleet of cars. Jeannette at once jumped to the conclusion that this was one of them. She had a sudden inspiration. It was running free—ready to start. There was temptation in the soft purr of its engine. The driver, quietly dressed, but not in livery, she appraised as one of Lady ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeaknibble. 'No; I'll not hurt you,' said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece of savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeaknibble ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... doomed to be a spinster, I suppose! Ah, me! And I'd far rather be the spinster's cat! Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call human—only we aren't really more than half so—have to keep our claws well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle! Wouldn't you like to ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good, honest letter that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... known it strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats purr. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and began to ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... sound, half purr, half a coaxing growl. It was the animal the native had given him, confined in the next room. Bolden was not sure why he did what he did next. Instinct or reason may have governed his actions. But instinct and reason are ...
— Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace
... and how much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... home," he asked me to run with my camera and station myself down the road and get a picture of old blind Jimmy as he came along. I did so, and I knew at once that Jimmy knew I was there. He must have heard me in some way, and surely must have heard the purr of the focal plane shutter as I took his picture. One day in the market place in Jamaica, West Indies, there was a savage- looking man who looked the way you would imagine a pirate of the Spanish Main would look, and Father was much ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... not see what the woman was about, but heard the dish-clash of her jewellery for many minutes. A match lit up the darkness; he caught the well-known purr and fizzle of grains of incense. Then the room filled with smoke—heavy aromatic, and stupefying. Through growing drowse he heard the names of devils—of Zulbazan, Son of Eblis, who lives in bazars and paraos, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... told YOU before, my dear Signor Ferarri, I know nothing whatever about women, and care less than nothing for their loves or hatreds! I have always thought of them more or less as playful kittens, who purr when they are stroked the right way, and scream and scratch when their tails are trodden on. Try ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... orders that perfect quietude reigned in the guard-room this night," said Chauvelin, murmuring softly, and there was a gentle purr in his voice, "and that you were left undisturbed for several hours. I would give orders that a comforting supper be served to you at once, and that everything be done to minister ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... part, regarded Martini as a useful piece of household furniture. This visitor never trod upon his tail, or puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality. He behaved as a mere man should: provided a comfortable knee to lie upon and purr, and at table never forgot that to look on while human beings eat fish is not interesting for a cat. The friendship between them was of old date. Once, when Pasht was a kitten and his mistress too ill to think about him, he had come from England under Martini's care, tucked away ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... misunderstood animal. Like a cat, he is generally sleek and has become an adept in the art of ingratiating himself with those who wear skirts and dispense comforts. Like a cat, too, he has an insinuating manner; he can purr quite admirably in luxurious surroundings, and, on the whole, he prefers to attain his objects by a circuitous method rather than by the bluff and uncompromising directness which is employed by dogs and ordinary honest folk of the canine sort. Moreover, he likes a home, but—here ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... I,—steal an hour when we can, and drive a gasoline car, keeping within the speed laws when necessary. Once each Fall, when the first frost shrivels the corn-stalk and when, if you chance to be out of doors after dark you hear, away up overhead, invisible, the accelerating, throbbing, diminishing purr of wings that drives the sportsman mad,—the town knows me ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... her tea, but above the noise and chatter of the twins she seemed to hear the soft purr of the wonderful car that had brought her home, and the voice of its owner who had called ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... having to admit that this pair possessed not a trace of the quality. The singer seemed to be always on exhibition; and as for his spouse, though she performed no evolutions, she came boldly into sight, postured in the most approved Delsartian style, uttered a harsh purr or jerked out a "mew," with a sidewise fling of her head which showed the inside of her mouth to be black,—all for my benefit, and without the slightest embarrassment. She made it obvious to the dullest understanding, that while she did not like ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used to sit in my mother's ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... impatience the bent figure of the Little Captain as she still leaned over the wheel, her ear tuned to the purr of the engine. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... pack gave the short, sharp bark of a fox. Then, but for the crunching of my horses over the turf some yards away, there was silence. I could hear the heavy breathing of people in near-by lodges. Up from the wooded valley came the far-off purr of a stream over stony bottom and the low washing sound only accentuated the stillness. The shrill cry of some lonely night-bird stabbed the atmosphere with a throb of pain. Again the dog snapped out a bark and again ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... realized what a difference artistic surroundings make in the peace of one's soul. I sat last night and watched my fire throw nice highlights on my new old fender, and purred with contentment. And I assure you it's the first purr that has come from this cat since she entered the gates of ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... disappearing, tripping noiselessly upstairs, and remaining invisible till called down to supper. On the other hand, when Robert Moore was the guest, though he elicited no vivacities from the cat, did nothing to it, indeed, beyond occasionally coaxing it from the stool to his knee, and there letting it purr, climb to his shoulder, and rub its head against his cheek; though there was no ear-splitting cracking off of firearms, no diffusion of sulphurous gunpowder perfume, no noise, no boasting during his stay—that still Caroline sat in the room, and seemed to find wondrous ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr—the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... violently, and felt very weak. The ordeal through which she had just passed had unnerved her. What was she to do? she asked herself. How was she to save her child? She lifted her head and listened intently, hoping to hear the purr of John's car. But no sound greeted her attentive ears, listen ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... extent that for years they had lived in terror, they had made rather a point of being naughty and noisy and happy together, but by and by they would get tired and look affectionately across the table and purr. Father tinkered away at a broken lamp-shade till suddenly, without warning, he declared that Mother scolded him merely to conceal her faith in his ability to do anything. She sniffed, but she knew that he was right. For years Mother had continued to believe in the cleverness of Seth ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... was none of these unpleasant creatures who had knocked on Uncle Wiggily's door. It was Mrs. Purr, the nice cat lady, and when the rabbit gentleman had let her in she looked so sad and sorrowful that ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... all came down from the North in the big canoe with my father and mother, when we were little children and him a baby. He played of the rapids we passed over, and of the rustling of the poplar-trees and the purr of the pines. He played till the river you hear now was in the fiddle, with the sound of our paddles, and the fish jumping for flies. He played about the long winters when we were young, so that ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... in the clutch for the third speed—and the fourth. The car leaped forward like a startled race-horse. The motor lilted merrily into its deep-throated song of the open road, its contented, silken humming passing into a sonorous and sustained purr. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... races. The people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were actually organized ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... a rush that unrolled the miles behind us at a marvelous rate. For an hour we galloped silently, matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound arising in that wilderness of brown coulee banks and dun-colored prairie but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to give him room to trail, we urged ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with North Sea spray, We walked where tide and shingle meet; The long waves rolled from far away To purr in ripples at our feet. And as we walked it seemed to me That three old friends had met that day, The old, old sky, the old, old sea, And love, which is as old ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Phoebe Lyddon and John Grimbal still stood at the farm-gate, and they watched, as a boy and an aged man came forward with buckets and stools. Then, to the muffled thud of the water-wheel and the drone and murmur of the river, was added a purr of milk, foaming into tin pails, and sharp, thin monitions from the ancient, as he called the cows by their names ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... author in my life—saving, perhaps, one—that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus, LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... hum of the jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as a ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I with Death have gone on quest, And grief is mellowed in your breast; When you do nothing fret If jest come gently in with tea, And Purr is stroked for want of me; When thought robust bestirs your mind, And with a candid start you find The world must move To living love And you forthright on ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... returned. In addition to the possibility of submarine attack, the Gulf of Xeros is so narrow that our ship could have been hit by the cross fire of field guns. It was a very fine performance and, although during many years I have spent anxious hours hoping for the distant purr of a safe returning machine, I have never been happier than when after a long wait our seaplanes were again quickly raised on board. The only torpedo machine employed at the Battle of Jutland was a Sunbeam fitted with a 14-inch ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... even when she hasn't a mind to work at it," said Burton, making his pipe purr with a long, deep inspiration of satisfaction. "I know ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... "bash," the scoundrel shoot, Hack with his knife, "purr" with his boot; But though he "bash," or "purr," or hack, You must not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... the paper across the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. She felt frightened and nervous, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is that some girls have a queer idea of friendship. It's downright catty the way they purr and rub around to your face, and then show their spiteful little claws when your back is turned. That's what I've noticed Bernice doing lately. She calls her all the sugary names in the dictionary when she's with her, but when her back is turned—well, it's just a shrug of the shoulders ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... paw of one of its hind-legs had either been torn or hacked off. As I drew back from it, it made a feeble and pathetic effort to reach me and rub itself against my legs, as is the way with cats, but in so doing it fell down, and uttering a half purr, half gurgle, vanished—seeming to sink through the hard ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... working we could have light," he said. "But it seems to have stopped," and, indeed there was a lacking of the familiar purr and hum of the electrical machine. In fact none of the apparatus ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... made an assignation with Tom Tortoiseshell, the feline phenomenon, they two sit curmurring, forgetful of mice and milk, of all but love! How meekly mews the Demure, relapsing into that sweet under-song—the Purr! And how curls Tom's whiskers like those of a Pashaw! The point of his tail—and the point only is alive—insidiously turning itself, with serpent-like seduction, towards that of Tabitha, pensive as a nun. His eyes are rubies, hers emeralds—as they should be—his lightning, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... woman, with her Cat and her Hen. And the Cat, whom she called Sonnie, could arch his back and purr; he could even give out sparks—but for that, one had to stroke his fur the wrong way. The Hen had quite small, short legs, and therefore she was called Chickabiddy Shortshanks; she laid good eggs, and the woman loved her ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... around his favourite roosting place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far from ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... blinding light. One after another her twelve engines sputtered into life, and ponderously she moved over the field, gathering speed as the staccato barking of the exhausts gradually blended into a smooth though deafening purr. The tail of the great vessel came up, then the wheels, and she was off into ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... of centuries, dim and dense, I sometimes seem to see The shadowy line of a backyard fence And a feline shape of me. I hear the growl, and yowl and howl Of each nocturnal fight, And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr Of passionate delight, As seeking an amorous rendezvous My ancient brothers go stealing Through the purple ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... old gentleman talked at breakfast-time about the police, and having the young scoundrels sent to prison. Directly after, he went down the garden with me and nine cats, to inspect the damages, and when he saw the trampling and breaking of boughs he stroked a tom-cat and made it purr, while he declared fiercely that he would not let an hour pass without having the ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... about to purr out some commendation, when—"What a bear that man is!" burst with startling vehemence from Miss Kendal's ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... "Purr, purr, my darling child," said Mrs. Tabby Gray, in great excitement; "I have had a dreadful fright!" and before the black kitten could ask one question she picked him up and started for ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... difficult to make you understand; but I feel quite sure we'll all make a pet of it, and when you once hear it purr, you'll think it a prettier sound ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... who could stay at home. He turned off into the country road, already deep in snow-drifts, and swept on, through the little wood whose leafless birches now looked unfamiliar, even spectral, in the increasing gloom. Save for the soft purr of his engine, his progress made no sound. He drove as far as he dared, then stopped the car off the road, in a clear space among the trees, and continued his way on foot. He must leave the car there, and take the chance of having ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... woke and stirred to life. There was a singular itching in his feet. Something in his butler-heart began to purr. "Looking, eh!" he thought. "There's something I've been looking for ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw, and purr'd applause. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... under the bush, and did not hear the gentle purr of her engine as the man started down Cedar Lake in her own precious motor boat, dragging ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... used, it appeared, to this disgusting sport. There were no more wild springs, no more stubbings at the end of the massive chains. They lay down on the pavement, and presently began to purr, rolling on to their sides and rubbing themselves luxuriously. The prisoner still lay ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... them soaring was his uncertainty concerning Storri. He could not gauge Storri; he would have felt safer had that nobleman been an American or an Englishman. Storri was so loaded of alarming contradictions; he could so snarl and purr, threaten and promise, beam and glower, smile and frown, and all in the one moment of time! Mr. Harley could not read a spirit so perverse and in such perpetual head-on collision with itself! Nor could he, being fear-blind, see that in most, if not all of these, Storri was acting. If Mr. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... snare which had taken him an hour to weave. For a long time he had been conscious of the curious, hissing monotone of the Aurora, the "music of the skies," reaching out through the space of the earth with a purring sound that was at times like the purr of a cat and at others like the faint hum of a bee. Absorbed in his work he did not, for a time, hear the other sound. Not until he had finished, and was placing the golden snare in his wallet, did the one sound individualize and separate ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... been about nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to the garden—it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... on her good nature, that I will not indulge in any of those gross familiarities, those boisterous gambols which delight the heart of a dog, Lux yields herself more and more passively to my persuasions. She will permit an occasional caress, and acknowledge it with a perfunctory purr. She will manifest a patronizing interest in my work, stepping sedately among my papers, and now and then putting her paw with infinite deliberation on the page I am writing, as though the smear thus contributed spelt, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Cross P Charley's bride, Doc Hollis down the center, and twine the ladies' chain, Van Andrews, pen the fillies in big T Diamond's train. All pull your freight together, neow swallow fork and change; Big Boston, lead the trail herd through little Pitchfork's range. Purr round yer gentle pussies, neow rope and balance all!" Huh! Hit were gettin' active—the Cowboy's ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... a sort of panther-like purr. "A spirit has been for three days seeking to speak to a lost child through my daughter. Come in, and let us see. Let us see if my daughter can not pierce the mysteries of the unseen in ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals—cats—when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... this was going on, Jane McCarthy was racing her father's car up and down the road at an ever-increasing rate of speed. Those in the camp could hear the purr of the motors, and now and then a flash of red showed between the trees as the car sped past ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... window had its frame of ermine and fringe of icicles, and the sleet rattled furiously against the glass, then Ivory would throw a great back log on the bank of coals between the fire-dogs, the kettle would begin to sing, and the eat come from some snug corner to curl and purr on ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... (Impatiently) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to purr) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old, my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wants to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... glad we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I talking about? Oh, yes, I ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... be given to others or kept for oneself: and then I thought of Sandy Tom—of his large, round, soft head; his fine eyes (they were yellow, not blue, and glared with infinite tenderness); his melodious purr; his expressive whiskers; his ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... light seemed to come back to those sightless eyes, and with a purr, as if it understood, the great cat leaped lightly on to the table and sat before De Mouchy, whilst the latter put one finger on ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... livelong day, With thee I'd sit and purr away In ecstasy sublime; And in thy face, as from a book, I'd drink in science at each look, Nor fear the lapse ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... mother, she had some prescience of the future) and he had endeavoured to divert her thoughts by making "memory pictures" of the name and address after the method of a thought reader. He had told her to picture a cat sitting on a window ledge, and that would fix the name in her mind. "Purr"—"Sill"—there it was! As for the place, it was only necessary to imagine him wandering in a wood (he slyly suggested it)—Charleswood, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... prepared some food for them, and having packed our kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps. At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had never quite recovered ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... [or] [ur] her bird work urn fern sir word turn term stir worm hurt herd girl world purr jerk first worst burn ever chirp worth churn serve whirl worse burst perch thirst worship church kernel fir worthy curve verse firm worry curb verb third fur germ birth blur herb birch ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... and stared with a peculiar fascination at Dan, who started to speak again. His voice had changed—not greatly, for its pitch was the same and the drawl was the same—but there was a purr in it that made every man stiffen in his chair and make sure that his right hand was free. The ghost of his former smile was still on his lips, but it was his eyes that seemed ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... downstairs into the parlour on the following morning, the old dame was not there. A black cat sat on the only chair and purred; cats have been condemned to purr, because they are such lazy beasts, and ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... some great epic whose majesty and force dawns upon you by degrees not to be marked. It was still twilight in the place where he was when he heard the battling of birds' wings, the screaming of one bird's grief, and the angry purr of another, or of others. He peered through the bush as the sound swelled. Presently he saw a white bird come fluttering with a dropt wing, two hen-harriers in close pursuit. They were over her, upon her, there was a wrangle of wings—brown ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... we to understand by this? Not that the bride was displeased with the embraces of her amorous bridegroom; for, though some have remarked that cats are subject to ingratitude, yet women and cats too will be pleased and purr on certain occasions. The truth is, as the sagacious Sir Roger L'Estrange observes, in his deep reflections, that, "if we shut Nature out at the door, she will come in at the window; and that puss, though a madam, will be a mouser still." In the same manner we are not to arraign ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... his eyes fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story, was obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad grace. Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-meat, and began to purr. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... been excessively uneasy and restless all night, managed, with great difficulty, to clamber up on the bed, where he rubbed his nose against his master's hand—trying at the same time to purr in the old way, but failing lamentably. The baron woke instantly, and saw poor Beelzebub looking at him appealingly, with his great green eyes unnaturally dilated, and momentarily growing dim; he was trembling ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... and blue sitting-room enjoying a wood fire. Jim and Derry were in the playroom with Kittiwake; the house was silent, so silent that they could hear the drumming of rain on the leads, and the lazy purr ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... nursed the cat, Which uttered nor purr nor sound, While the Platypus followed the Minister's hat ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... on the current. There was a low, humming purr, which gradually increased to a whine, and the car moved slowly forward. It rolled along the gravel driveway to the road, Tom listening to every sound of the machinery, as a mother listens to ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
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