"Little finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... continue to measure in finger breadths, finger lengths, and hand breadths as did the ancient folks who called an arm length a cubit. Nor has the span been forgotten, especially by boys in their games with marbles; the space from the end of the thumb to the end of the little finger when the hand is extended must have been an important measurement from ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... children, looked bonny enough to warm any father's heart, as he marched up and down with an air learned by watching many a parade in barrack-square and drill ground, and though Nicholas did not cry in spite of falling hard, and Dora, who took the part of the Doctor, treading accidentally on his little finger in picking him up, still the Captain and his wife sighed nearly as often as they smiled, and the mother dropped tears as well as pennies into the cap which Tom, as the King of Egypt, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... desert for them to cross, and they've laid in a supply of water-bags accordingly,—but it's the meanest weapon! And then again, there's men that are iron, and not to be bent under calamities, that these tears can twist round your little finger. Well, I suppose Faith concluded 'twas no use to go hungry because her bread wasn't buttered on both sides, but she always acted as if she'd condescended ninety degrees in marrying Dan, and Dan always seemed to feel that he'd done her a great injury; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... were very glad to urge them to fight and to give them ammunition, but who had neither the power nor the inclination to help them when the time of trial came; that hitherto the Indians had felt only the weight of his little finger, but that he would surely destroy all the tribes in the near future if they did not make peace." During the winter of 1794-1795 parties of Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatomi, Sacs, Miamis, Delawares and Shawnees came in, and on February 11th, 1795, the preliminaries of a ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... to watch the curve of her shapely neck as she bent to pour the tea, and to note how her white hand grasped the battered teapot, little finger delicately poised. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... from a prevalence of the sensibility over the will; or it consists in a want of fortitude to bear pain or to undergo fatigue, however urgent the occasion. We meet with instances of people who cannot lift up a little finger to save themselves from ruin, nor give up the smallest indulgence for the sake of any other person. They cannot put themselves out of their way on any account. No one makes a greater outcry when the day of reckoning comes, or affects greater ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... is not a good vay to tie dot horse. By Chiminy, he vould break his neck mit der rope. Glen, vy you makes play mit der gun dot vay? Donnerwetter! ven I speak mit you, stand op mit der little finger to der seam of der pantaloons. You vill ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... and then through the columns of the Paris "Figaro." He was dressed entirely in black—a hypocritical livery, the somber hue of which suited his fine complexion and perfectly handsome features to admiration. On the little finger of the shapely hand that every now and then was raised to adjust his cigar, sparkled a diamond that gave out a myriad scintillations as it flashed in the evening light—it was of exceptional size and brilliancy, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... on a large scale here," said the banker, breaking off the ash of his cigar with the end of his little finger, "and we rather pride ourselves on the size of our inconsistencies, even. I know something of the state of things in Altruria, and, to be frank with you, I will say that it seems to me preposterous. I should say it was impossible, if it were not an accomplished fact; ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... 186- when I next met Guy Heavystone. He had left the university and had entered the 79th "Heavies." "I have exchanged the gown for the sword, you see," he said, grasping my hand, and fracturing the bones of my little finger, as he ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... reply immediately. His right little finger flipped the ash from off the end of his cigar, and then the dark curly head lifted and the glowing eyes looked straight ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... last words came a sudden interruption from Phina. The little finger of her left hand touched a G, and the fourth had, instead of falling on the key-note, rested on the "sensible," like Ralph in the "Huguenots," when he leaves at the end of ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... sonnet on the despair of love, he knowing nothing of despair, . . he will write of a broken heart, his own being unpricked by so much as a pin's point of trouble; and he will speak in his verso of dying for love when he would not let his little finger ache for the sake of a woman who worshipped him! Look not so vaguely! 'tis so, indeed! and as for the divine part of him, wait but a little, and thou shalt see ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... suffers by the Law, the Law swallows up the simple desired thing, which is restitution. The Law takes the money, the Law disposes of the chattels, and finally, Jack Ketch, who is the Law's Ancient and most grim functionary, lays claim to the clothes. There was more real justice, friend Will, in the little finger of the Law of Moses, than in the whole right arm and sword of our boasted English trull, and you may throw her scales and blind-man's-buff frippery ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... go, Miss Standish!" he said, in stern command, as if rebuking some fractious child. "Your little finger is worth more than that blackguard's whole body. Besides," he added, grimly, "mocking birds, that sing nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, must be prepared to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Beloochistan were saying one to another about her marriage to Kid McGarry. Not that it made any difference. There was no welter-weight from London to the Southern Cross that could stand up four hours—no; four rounds—with her bridegroom. And he had been hers for three weeks; and the crook of her little finger could sway him more than the fist of any 142-pounder ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... a lover, that was all, and there were plenty more to choose from, or there always had been; but the only one she wanted was the one who made no sign. She used to think that she could twist Stephen around her little finger; that she had only to beckon to him and he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Now fear had entered her heart. She no longer felt sure, because she no longer felt worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty and unworthiness, her lips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... groans and sobs. He creeps to another part of the lodge; where a savage sits in grim silence awaiting his coming. In his hand is a hatchet, and immediately in front of him is a dried buffalo skull. The sufferer draws near, and, holding up the little finger of his left hand, makes a short speech, and calling upon the Great Spirit to witness his self-sacrifice, unflinchingly lays the doomed finger on the skull. One quick, sharp stroke by the Indian who wields the hatchet and the finger drops from the hand—a ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... return to the duties of his parish, through his illness so long neglected, Mr. Herbert declined her ladyship's invitation to dinner, which, she assured him, consulting a watch that she wore in a ring on her little finger, must be all but ready, seeing it was now a quarter to eleven, and took his leave, accompanied by Dorothy's servant to bring back the horse—if indeed they should be fortunate enough to escape the requisition of both horses by one party or the other. At present, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... infamies against him was seized and so dealt with that he should in future neither speak nor write anything in any man's defamation. His tongue was cut out and his right hand chopped off, and the hand, with the tongue attached to its little finger, was hung in sight of all and as a warning from a window of the Church ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... When the skies were rent with thunder at the approach of a storm, she was hatching her brood, which caused the terrible commotion in the heavens. The bird was eternal. The "medicine men" claimed that they had often seen her, and she was about as large as a little finger. Her mate was a serpent whose fiery tongue destroyed the young ones as soon as they were born, and the awful noise accompanying the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... hold my flesh in case it attempted to run away. They added, as an additional incentive, that the spectacle of a man who weighs nearly three hundred pounds, doing the horizontal ladder, climbing a slack-rope hand over hand, or suspending his weight by his little finger, would be a 'big thing.' I asked them how I was to attain that end. 'By practice,' was the reply; 'practice makes perfect.' It did;—it made a perfect fool of me, as ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... such little goose—you do know everything, of course. Come tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell me everything.' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... future bride by his side, and never knew that the blasts came from the pernicious east. And she would lean on his arm as though he had been the friend of her earliest years, listening to and trusting him in all things. That little finger, as they stood together, would get up to his buttonhole, and her bright frank eyes would settle themselves on his, and then her hand would press closely upon his arm, and he knew that she was neither ashamed nor afraid of her love. Her love to her ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of you, without excusing myself Habit of antedating his sagacity He thinks or he chews If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger Look within, and avoid lying Mindless, he says, and arrogant One who studies is not being a fool The past is our mortal mother, no dead thing The proper defence for a nation is its history Then for us ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... said contemptuously; "I have seen a lad killed on such a night as this, by such a piece of bullying! Be thankful you have been stopped in time! I wouldn't raise my little finger to save you from twice such a thrashing. It has been fairly earned! Give the ghost his shroud, Gardener, and let him go; and recommend him not to haunt ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... tastes were simple. He always wore clothes of one pattern, and the style seldom varied. He wore no jewelry except a Napoleonic ring on his little finger. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... so want to know," she urged coaxingly. "And I can keep secrets really. All English people can. Try me!" She thrust forward the little finger of the hand that his arm held. "You must pinch it," she explained, "as hard as you can. And if I don't even squeak you will know I am ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... she to do? She held the paper by which all depended. Otto and Gondremark and Ratafia, and the state itself, hung light in her balances, as light as dust; her little finger laid in either scale would set all flying: and she hugged herself upon her huge preponderance, and then laughed aloud to think how giddily it might be used. The vertigo of omnipotence, the disease of Caesars, shook her reason. "O, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him. William Condor daintily knocked off the ash of his cigar faith the tip of his little finger, and said, calmly, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... flicking the ash from his cigarette with the tip of his little finger. "Nark it, Pryor, nark it, blimey, they are cushy if one's not caught with a shell goin' in, if one's not bombed from the sky or mined from under the ground, if a sniper doesn't snipe 'arf yer 'ead off, or gas doesn't send you to 'eaven, or flies send you to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... pitiful to see 'em. Den dey would handcuff an' beat 'em unmerciful. I don' like to talk 'bout back dar. It brun' a sad feelin' up me. If slaves 'belled, I done seed dem whip 'em wid a strop cal' "cat nine tails." Honey, dis strop wuz 'bout broad as yo' hand, from thum' to little finger, an' 'twas cut in strips up. Yo' done seen dese whips dat they whip horses wid? Well dey ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... boys appeared to be in pain, but they would not own it, and seemed to value themselves on having undergone the operation; though why it is performed, or why the females lose a part of the little finger, could not as yet ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... mulatto woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with a handkerchief of many colours. Nor is the landlord much behind her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to see us! What will we please to call for? A dance? It shall be done directly, sir: 'a ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... by Kama's arrows torn. If thou refuse to hear my prayer, Of grief and coming woe beware; For the sad fate will fall on thee Which came on hapless Urvasi, When with her foot she chanced to touch Pururavas, and sorrowed much.(502) My little finger raised in fight Were more than match for Rama's might. O fairest, blithe and happy be With him whom ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and Ham caught hold of Quinley and turned the body over. "Wal, I swun!" and he stared down at the left hand. The little finger had been recently shot away and the wound was still roughly bandaged. "So y'ur th' feller that I owe a finger tew. Wal, here it is," and he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the little buckskin-wrapped parcel, containing the little finger that he had ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton, with his father, set off ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... if she were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to himself. He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... finger and over the mesh, pass the needle upwards and behind the mesh in the large loop which forms the thread round the fingers, and at the same time through the first stitch or loop of the foundation. Draw the needle out, retaining the loops on the fingers and dropping them off, the little finger being the last to release the thread. As the thread tightens and the knot is firm, the loop on the little finger should be drawn up quickly and smartly. The next stitches are precisely similar, and row upon row is formed in the same manner. Having learnt ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... faith. If Whitecraft were hanged to-morrow it wouldn't give me half so much pain as if your little finger ached." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... struck or pulled, as the eardrum is easily broken. Do not put pencils, pins, or anything else in your ears. Wax naturally forms in the ear tube to keep out bugs and flies. The outer part of the tube may be kept clean by wiping it with a moist cloth over the little finger. If you often have earache or a running ear, you should have it examined by a physician. Neglecting a sick ear ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... moustache. "I don't know!" he replied. "Of course it was no surprise to find that there isn't a Mohammedan who'll lay his little finger on Professor Deeping's safe! There's no doubt in my mind that every lascar at the docks knows Hassan of Aleppo to be in England. Some other arrangement will have to be arrived at, if the thing is ever to be taken to the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... company, he played his part, he might have found it a flattering proof of her confidence that he never caught her eyes resting upon him. It is a reflection Newman did not make, but we nevertheless risk it, that in spite of this circumstance she probably saw every movement of his little finger. Young Madame de Bellegarde was dressed in an audacious toilet of crimson crape, bestrewn with huge silver moons—thin crescent and ...
— The American • Henry James
... in his paper on extra digits,[188] has {181} recorded no less than twenty-four cases where such excess coexisted in both little fingers; also one case in which the right little finger and little toe were so affected; six in which it was both the little fingers and both the little toes; and twenty-two other cases more or less the same, but in which the details were not accurately to ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... its literal sense, and meant only that a fashion of minuteness in investigation and in style had come upon us. There is a sense in which the dissector who makes a reticulation of the muscular and nervous systems of a little finger is a 'finer' surgeon than the giant of the hospitals whose diagnosis is an inspiration, and whose knife carves unerringly to the root of disease. There is a sense in which a sculptor, carving on cherrystones likenesses ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... of having one long nail on the little finger, to show that they do not labor like the poor, for if they did, the nail would break. Men in China ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... young girl of sixteen or seventeen with a very bad unhealed wound below one of her breasts, which was self-inflicted. Her father, a chief, had died only a short time previously. They often also cut off the little finger for similar reasons. Like the Samoans, the Fijians often cover their hair with white lime, and the effect of the sun bleaches the hair and changes it from black to a ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... numerous little finger-like caves that branched out from the main cave, but they led nowhere and seemed empty. Polly noticed that the dry leaves and loose shale scattered about appeared to have been undisturbed for months. Some of the leaves were from the harvest of the previous fall, ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... essence of youth freed from the parasitic growths of everyday life. I feel it roused and stirring. How sweet life is, and what wonderful instruments we are, that Hope can make us thus vibrate by a touch of her little finger! ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of machinery, which by and by will fight out our wars with only the clank and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as manhood retains any part of its pristine value, no country can afford to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the white-lined tunnel was a terrifying experience. The lining was tough and fibrous, a sort of coarse material corresponding to the silk of a spider of normal size, although these strands were as large as my little finger, and ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... weight, yet being equally poised on euery side, there is nothing can hinder its Circular motion. As in a Globe of Lead, or any other heauy substance, though it were 40. Fadome in compasse, yet being set vpon his two Poles, it would easily bee turned round euen with a touch of ones little finger. And therefore it is concluded that this circular motion is not impossible. The probabilitie of it is thus made plaine. The whole circuit of the Heauens, wherein are the fixed Starrs is reckoned ...
— A Briefe Introduction to Geography • William Pemble
... captivated my father as she had me; and as he entertained the greatest respect for the Freeland women in general, he had no objection whatever to a bourgeoise daughter-in-law. But only on condition that I gave up the 'insane' idea of remaining here. 'The girl has more sense in her little finger than you have in your whole body,' said he; 'she would little relish seeing her lover cast a shattered ducal crown at her feet. It is very fine to be a Freeland woman—but, believe me, it is much finer to be a duchess. Besides, these two very agreeable qualities can easily be united. Spend ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... halted on an old bit of stump as gray as himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off that stump as if it scorched him, ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... dreamer of day dreams. One of my pastimes was to imagine a host of tiny soldiers each the size of my little finger, "but alive and real." These I would drill as I saw officers do their men in front of the barracks some distance from our home. Or else I would take to marching up and down the room with mother's rolling-pin for a rifle, grunting, ferociously, in Russian: "Left one! Left one! Left ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... expression upon the girl's face as she looked at the man before her. She did not understand. Why should she? Barney drew a diamond ring from his little finger and held ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... off her horse, and she went to Majnun's dead body, and she cut her little finger inside her hand straight down from the top of her nail to her palm, and out of this gushed blood like healing medicine. Then she put Majnun's head on his shoulders, and smeared her healing blood all over ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... don't know;' and at the end, when the orb was put into her hand, she said to him, 'What am I to do with it?' 'Your Majesty is to carry it, if you please, in your hand.' 'Am I?' she said; 'it is very heavy.' The ruby ring was made for her little finger instead of the fourth, on which the rubric prescribes that it should be put. When the Archbishop was to put it on, she extended the former, but he said it must be on the latter. She said it was too small, and she ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... as cold as ice, as pure as snow. The priest has crusaded against her, and stones have flown at her as she went by from dissatisfied lovers; and the very children, paddling in the sea and making mud-pies in the sand, have put out forefinger and little finger and screamed, "Witch, witch! ugly witch!" as she passed with basket or brick load; but Dionea has only smiled, that snake-like, amused smile, but more ominous than of yore. The other day I determined to seek her and argue with her on the subject of her evil trade. Dionea has ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... bodies. Those of our adversaries who had no weapons endeavored to tear us with their sharp teeth. Many of us were cruelly bitten.—M. Savigny was torn on the legs and the shoulder; he also received a wound on the right arm which deprived him of the use of his fourth and little finger for a long while. Many others were wounded; and many cuts were found in our ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... a bite, I am sure—he'd give a joint of his little finger to be as well with her as I am. [Aside.] But here she comes! Charles, stand by me. Must not a man be a vain coxcomb now, to think this creature ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... bones, sedately; so I speered was not honest work sweet? 'As rain water,' said he, mocking. 'What was he a making?' 'A pair of bones to play on with thee; and with the refuse a St. Anthony's thumb and a St. Martin's little finger, for the devout.' The vagabone! And now, sweet Margaret, thou seest our manner of life faring Rhineward. I with the two arts I had least prized or counted on for bread was welcome everywhere; too poor now to fear robbers, yet able to keep both master and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... painted on them, owing to a curious superstition of theirs. They affirm—some of them—that if you have that mark tattooed upon all four limbs, you might fall overboard among seven hundred and seventy-five thousand white sharks, all dinnerless, and not one of them would so much as dare to smell at your little finger. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they have answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your little finger. Now you must answer ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... magic monster again moves its piston downward, the wheels make a turn, the massive vessel surges upon her lines, as if eager to press forward on her course. Another gentle touch, and, obeying the summons, the motive power is still; the man subjects the monster with his little finger. He has stopped her near the centre, where, with a slight touch, he can turn back or forward. Again, he lifts a small key, and the steam, with a deafening roar, issues from the escape: he is venting his chest. Simultaneously the second bell sounds forth its clanking medley: two minutes more, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... responded, with lifted eyebrows. "You are a vain man, Sir Max. I was not jealous—only—only a tiny bit—so much—" and she measured the extent of her jealousy on the pink tip of her little finger. "I am told you were falconing with the Duke of Burgundy to-day. If you go in such fine company, I fear we ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... dark man who greeted the assembly cheerfully. Professor Brierly looked at him curiously. The little finger on his left hand, was missing; it had been shot away in a brawl. The lobe of his left ear was also missing. Jimmy later learned that it had been chewed off in a rough and tumble fight in a Chinese joint on ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... of uneasiness. Fortunately the tap was a very small hole, and the jet from it of no great thickness. As near as I could tell by the touch, and from the repeated application I had made to it with my lips, this could not have been over the thickness of my little finger, which at that time was not of much greater circumference than a goose's quill. I knew that such a tiny stream would be a long while in spending the contents of so large a tank; and I endeavoured to recall to mind how long it might have been since I last ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... floor, in the center of a square of orange-colored matting, he saw a white woman sitting. She was drinking tea out of an egg-shell of a cup, and after putting down the cup she would carefully massage her lips with the point of her little finger. This movement puzzled the newcomer until he suddenly realized that it was merely to redistribute the ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... citizens have learned the Asiatic art of bargaining under a cloth. Both parties sit opposite each other, holding hands: if the little finger for instance be clasped, it means 6, 60, or 600 dollars, according to the value of the article for sale; if the ring finger, 7, 70, or 700, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... scold; but, finding scolding of no avail, he summoned a policeman. The policeman begged me to excuse the people, who had never seen a foreigner before; and asked me if I wished him to clear the street. He could have done that by merely lifting his little finger; but as the scene amused me, I begged him not to order the people away, but only to tell the boys not to climb upon the awnings, some of which they had already damaged. He told them most effectually, speaking in a very low voice. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... some drops of blood run from his little finger into a glass, gave it to his brothers, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... what things he ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.' Don't let him rule you. He is very like to try it, the only man in a family of women—for he shall make little account of Hans Moriszoon, though there is more sense in Hans's little finger than in all Aubrey's brains. If I can see into the future, Aubrey is not unlike to push you o'er, and Hans to pick you up again. Have a care, Lettice. You remember when Walter was in Court, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... a king one day, when he might do as he liked in all things. He found out now that even a king cannot always do that; it vexed him and made him angry. His ring began to prick him so often that his little finger was continually bleeding. He disliked this, as was natural, and soon began to consider whether it would not be easier to throw the ring away altogether than to be constantly annoyed by it. It was such a queer thing ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... mighty Asuras failed to seize him with their nooses. Seekest thou to seize that Kesava by force? While only a child, he slew Putana and two Asuras assuming the shape of birds, and O bull of Bharata's race, he held up the mountains of Govardhana (on his little finger) for protecting the kine (from a continuous rain). He hath also slain Aristha, and Dhenuka and Chanura of great strength, and Aswaraja, and Kansa, the doer of evil. He hath slain Jarasandha, and Vakra, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... where they are seated on cots and mats, and after a repast the bride's father takes his daughter's hand and places it in that of the bridegroom, and exhorts him to be loving and kind to the girl that he thus makes over to him. The groom then with the little finger of his right hand marks the girl on the forehead with vermilion, and then, linking the same finger with the little finger of her right hand, he leads her away to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... most fabulous conception of wealth. I was told when I was a boy if I went where the sun set and dug for gold I would find it. When I became a man I went three thousand miles in the direction of the sun setting and dug and found gold. It is not a dream, for as I close this writing I see on my little finger a gold ring made from the gold I there dug, which has been there for forty-five years. It is so fine that it has been wearing away, and it is not more than one-fourth the size it was when I first put it on, and time is likewise wearing on me, and it will probably last ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... good-humoured, careless, half-boyish student youth who had driven down the Praeneste road two years before, was the soldierly figure that Cornelia pressed to her heart. The campaigning life had left its mark upon Drusus. Half of a little finger the stroke of a Spanish sword had cleft away at Ilerda; across his forehead was the broad scar left by the fight at Pharsalus, from a blow that he had never felt in the heat of the battle. During the forced marchings and ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... ut rest," sez I; an' thinkin' I'd been a trifle onpolite, I sez, "The tay's not quite sweet enough for my taste. Put your little finger in the cup, Judy. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Betsy Bradly appeared at the mill with the ring on her little finger—a circumstance which soon drew attention, which was expressed first in looks and then in whispers, much to the quiet amusement and satisfaction of the wearer. No questions, however, were asked till the dinner hour, and then a small ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... man she loved, and had always loved, just as he loved and had always loved her, since the days they had more or less successfully followed the hounds on fat ponies. She sat meditatively twisting a heavy signet ring up and down her little finger. The finger, the one which advises the world of the fact that some man in it has singled you out of the ruck as being fit for the honour of wifehood, was unadorned, showing neither the jewels which betoken the drawn-up contract, nor ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... to smother my derision and unbelief. My glance summed up his fastidious apparel and grooming, the gloss on his curling dark hair and the dubious diamond on his little finger. ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... it like that," he exclaimed, "I can see that I jolly well am! It's an amazing thing, you know, habit and all that. I've been so accustomed for years to jumping through hoops and shamming dead when the mater lifted a little finger, that it absolutely never occurred to me that I had a soul of my own. I give you my honest word I never ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that we had better not talk of it. I can assure you of this, that if I could prevent him from marrying by holding up my little finger, I would not ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... ear with his finger as an itching dog would with his feet; infidel writers were not unfairly compared with such creatures.[2] If such sign-language were really maintained, it must have been extensively supplemented as the library grew in size, for although striking the thumb and little finger together would describe am Antiphonary, or making the sign of the Cross and kissing the finger would indicate a Gradual, yet some additions to the signs for a pagan book and a tract were necessary to signify what particular ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Jean drew from her finger a gold ring, set with three priceless diamonds. It was so small it would only go on the little finger of her lover's left hand. "This is a token of my love," she said gravely, "therefore guard it well. When the diamonds are bright and shining, thou shalt know that my love for thee will be burning clear and true; ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... hardly a doubt that exostoses on the legs, caused by too much travelling on hard roads, are inherited. Blumenbach records the case of a man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, and his sons had the same finger on the same hand similarly crooked. A soldier, fifteen years before his marriage, lost his left eye from ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... dignity. "We could pay rent for that matter, if—if it were desired. She is your sister," said Lucy, suddenly looking Wodehouse in the face, "as well as mine. I daresay she has done as much for you as she has for me. I don't ask any favour for her—but I would cut off my little finger if that would please her," cried the excited young woman, with a wildness of illustration so totally out of keeping with the matter referred to, that Miss Wodehouse, in the midst of her emotion, could scarcely restrain a scream of terror; ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... became so intoxicated that she fell asleep; and the story relates that it was a powder that Rhun put into the drink, that made her sleep so soundly that she never felt it when he cut off from her hand her little finger, whereon was the signet ring of Elphin, which he had sent to his wife as a token a short time before. And Rhun returned to the king with the finger and the ring as a proof, to show that he had cut it off from her hand without her awaking from ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... to you, and you'll never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that I've got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the little finger of a count. I never had a beau in my life. But all the other girls had; and they talked about 'em; and that seemed to make the fellows like 'em more. And, Andy, I look swell in black—you know I do. So I went out ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... finger bewraies carving, etc.) The passage in the text sufficiently shows that carving was a sign of intelligence made with the little finger, as the glass was raised to the mouth. See the prefatory letter to Mr. R. G. White's Shakespeare's Scholar, 8vo., New York, 1854, p. xxxiii. Mr. Hunter (New Illustrations of Shakespeare, i. 215), Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties, and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one of them gave him her little finger to kiss, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... lighted, though he should beg the oil. The women were required to light the lamps in memory of Eve, who by her disobedience extinguished the light of the world. Every Hebrew was obliged to pare his nails on Friday, beginning with the little finger of the left hand, and then going to the middle finger, after which he returned to the fourth finger, and then to the thumb and fore finger. In cutting the nails of the fingers of the right hand, he began with the middle ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... came close to the bear, which had now ceased dancing, and was thrusting out his nose toward the coveted bread, while making a queer noise. Not a fellow among the scouts moved so much as a little finger. Every eye was glued on the form of Smithy, and doubtless more than one of them really wondered while thus holding his breath in suspense, if the starving beast would actually seize upon the boy ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... round your little finger and trade on his good nature shamelessly," said Miss Craven severely, but her ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... you, then, come here and talk to me of love? Do you think I will stand this,—that I will endure to be treated in this way? Angel, indeed! I tell you that she cares more for Jack De Baron's little finger than for your whole body. She is never happy unless he is with her. I don't think very much of my cousin Jack, but to her he is ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... so much and so closely, Del, that it is most disproportionately prominent in your mind. You can put out Bunker-Hill Monument with your little finger, if you hold it close enough to your eye. Don't you remember what Mr. Sampson said to-night about somebody whose mind had no perspective in it? that his shoe-ribbon was as prominent and important ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the prerogative of the public to dictate in such matters, and I shall rebel whenever it presumes to lay even a little finger across my path. What, pray tell me, is the world, but an aggregation of persons like you and me, and what possible concern can you or I have with the fact that Mrs. Gerome burrows like a mole, beyond ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Do lay on the arm of poor Midge who never moved except to touch them now and then with a tender little finger, or to kiss them softly, saying, "Dear babies, it is very nice not to be all alone. Are you comfy, darlings?" till she fell asleep ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... celery into pieces as large as the first joint of your little finger, and then rub it in a clean towel till it is as dry as can be. Cut up the eggs, sprinkle all with salt, and add the mayonnaise and lay on lettuce. Or mix the celery and the walnuts and mayonnaise; ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... that Mr Dempster was right—that I was stupid and not worth my salt, and that he had only to hold up his little finger and he could get a thousand better lads than we were; but at the same time I felt puzzled that he should keep us on, and that Saturday after Saturday he should pay our wages and never say a word about discharging us—Esau for going to sleep ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... children; it is really distressing to witness the situation of those poor wretches. the radix of this plant is of the knob kind, of a long ovate form terminating in a single radicle, the whole bing about 3 or four inches in length and the thickest part about the size of a man's little finger. it is white firm and crisp in it's present state, when dryed and pounded it makes a fine white meal; the flavor of this root is not unlike that of annisseed but not so pungent; the stem rises to the hight of 3 or four feet is jointed smooth and cilindric; from r ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... mad! Forget my idiocy. You are the best of men. Your little finger alone is worth more than all stupid Jean-Christophe. You have the treasures of an ingenuous and delicate tenderness. I kiss your flower with tears in my eyes. It is there on my heart. I thrust it into my ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the portrait, and with his own hands burnt it in the stove. The motive of the act Stefan could not comprehend. He only knew that this man had robbed him of his mother twice. All that remained of her was her wedding ring, which, drawn from his father's cash-box, he wore on his little finger. With bitterness amid his joy he took the train once more, and saw the lights of the town's shabby inn blink good-bye ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... is dangerous. If it be painful to pull out the root of bitterness from your heart to-day, it will be more painful to-morrow. Take for example the love of money: we know well that though money is a useful servant it is a hard master; be assured if it get and keep the mastery of a soul, its little finger in the end will be thicker than its loins were at the beginning. Avarice chastises its slave in middle life with whips; but if he abide its slave, it will chastise him when he is old ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the middle of a word," retorted Elmer, as he drove his little finger into his pipe in an effort to save some of the tobacco. "I was just beginnin' a new piece. Things is gittin' so there ain't a place left in this town for a man to read in peace and comfort. Here I am, tryin' to post up on the local doin's, on polytics and religion, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... been curious changes since the stern Protector turned his rugged face to the wall, and laid down that golden sceptre with which he had ruled as with a rod of iron. Kingly title would he none; yet where kings had chastised with whips, he had chastised with scorpions. Ireland could tell how the little finger of Cromwell had been heavier than the arm of the Stuarts. She had trembled and had obeyed, and had prospered under that scorpion rule, and England's armaments had been the terror of every sea while Cromwell stood at the helm; but now that ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... knows everything. I sometimes wish he didn't. I'd be proud if I could teach him even that much!" and she measured off the amount on the tip of her little finger. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... came of age. But that is as far as his sense of harmony goes. He took music-lessons for three quarters, and then his mother gave it up in despair. The instrument was a piano. The Boy could not stretch an octave with his right hand, the little finger of which had been broken by a shinny-stick; and he could not do anything whatever with his left hand. He was constantly dropping his bass-notes, which, he said, were "understood." And even Miss ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... last night. Don't eat enough to keep a chicken alive." His cows appeared always to be dry, and every day he would send his niece, Sallie Pruitt, for a jug of buttermilk. He had but one industry, the tending and scraping of a long nail on the little finger of his left hand. He had a wife, but no children. His niece had recently come from the pine woods of Georgia. Her hair looked like hackled flax and her ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... would have made a good Lady Crawley, after all," Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call for her sacrifices). "She has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all your head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something, though I despise it for my part; and she would have held her own amongst those pompous ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for blackberries, raspberries, and a few other things. They are ordinarily made of roots from the size of a lead pencil to one's little finger, and are cut in lengths from 3 to 5 in. long. The cuttings are stored the same as stem-cuttings and allowed to callous. In the spring they are planted in a horizontal or nearly horizontal position in moist sandy soil, being ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... upon these errors, and added, "Let your arms hang naturally, with the elbows near the body, the palm of the hand a little turned to the front, the little finger behind the seam of the pantaloons. This you will find important when you come to drill with muskets. You will find that it will economize space by preventing your occupying more room than is necessary. Frank, will you show Sam Rivers and John Haynes ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... against whom not a shadow of suspicion had previously rested?—Hummel. Who dictated to the chiefs of police of foreign cities what they should or should not do in certain cases; and who could, at the beckoning of his little finger, summon to his dungeon-like offices in the New York Life Building, whither his firm had removed from Centre Street, the most prominent of lawyers, the most eminent of citizens?—Surely none but Hummel. And now Hummel was fighting for his own life. The only man that stood between him and the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... except to take from her somewhat which shall serve as a token to me and a memorial of her; that some sign endure between me and her." Then Kamar al-Zaman raised the young lady's hand and took from her little finger a seal-ring worth an immense amount of money, for that its bezel was a precious jewel and around it ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... while dictating his own terms, to receive in payment the honored currency of his fathers. When he took his pay, he measured it off after his own fashion, the unit being the distance from the elbow to the end of the little finger. According to one authority it made no difference whether a short or tall man measured it.[30] Adrian Van Tiedhoven, clerk of the court at the South river, however tells a different story, complaining bitterly "because the Indians always take the largest ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... it, Dad ... thank you. I had a touch of the blues today, but I never will again. I think more of his little finger than I do of all the other men I ever knew, put together. But how do you know him so well? I know him, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... time full of mistakes, of course. Chris often told her that she had more brains in her little finger than most of the girls of her set had in their whole bodies, but that had not saved her. If she was pretty, they were all pretty, too. If she wore beautiful clothes, they wore clothes just as beautiful, and with more assurance. If her wit was quick, and her common sense and human experience ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... been looking desperately serious, let out a small squeak and hurriedly blew her nose. Macgregor regarded her in astonishment, and she withdrew the little finger she had permitted ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... seen, and taken a view of the frightful place, which may rather be imagined than described. One part of the water was formerly so narrow, that a wager was laid by a gentleman that he could span it with the thumb and little finger, and which he would have accomplished, but his adversary, getting up in the night time, chipped a piece off the rock with a hammer, and thus won the wager. It is now, however, little more than from a foot and a half, to two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... and re-embarked, landed at its southern extremity six days afterwards, and thence made for the Upper Hudson. Here they found a fishing camp of four hundred Iroquois, and now Bressani's torments began in earnest. They split his hand with a knife, between the little finger and the ring finger; then beat him with sticks, till he was covered with blood; and afterwards placed him on one of their torture- scaffolds of bark, as a spectacle to the crowd. Here they stripped him, and while he shivered with cold from head to foot they forced him to sing. After about ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Give not such scoope to humerous discontent, Wee all are partners of your privat greefes. Kinges are the heads, and yf the head but ache The little finger is distempered. Wee greeve to se you greeved, which hurteth us And yet availes not to asswage your greefe. You are the Sunne, my lo:, wee Marigolds; Whenas you shine wee spred our selves abroad And take our glory from your influence; And when you ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... report to the National Convention concerning a terrible engagement of three hours near Grewenmacker, Beurnonville declares that, though the number of the enemy killed was immense, his troops got out of the scrape with the loss of only the little finger of one of his riflemen. On the 4th of February, 1793, a fortnight after the execution of Louis XVI., he was nominated Minister of the War Department—a place which he refused, under a pretence that he was better able to serve his country with his sword than with his pen, having ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... draw attention to himself by singing a song off by heart to the music, but that was nothing either, for all that he had a fine rolling voice. And a little while after, there was Gustaf, and if he hadn't got Inger's gold ring on his little finger! And how had it come about, when he never plagued nor pushed himself forward? Oh, he was forward enough in his way, but quiet with it all, as Inger herself; they did not talk of things, and she let him play with her hand as if without noticing. Later on, when she sat ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... there's no one else," said Mr. Brett. "Do have it. You see, I couldn't get it on my little finger. And won't you keep the big one too? It isn't as if I were like Mrs. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Theodora. 'If I had Arthur here, I would scold him well; and as to you, he may thank you for everything good belonging to him. Ten million fortunes would not be worth the tip of your little finger to him, and you know he thinks so. Without you, and with this money, he would be undone. Now, don't be silly! You have got your spirits tired out, and sleep will make you ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did hope that no seaman would be guilty of them." He was silent for some time, and lost in reflection. "I'll tell you what, Will," said he at last, "you must follow old Jerry's advice. It's sound, depend on it. That old man has more wisdom in his little finger than many a man has in the whole of his head. Go to your work to-morrow morning, and I'll look down in the course of the day and see your employer, and explain matters to him frankly. He, I have no doubt, will give you leave of absence for a few weeks, and when ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... blow, the executioner takes a leap and run, only striking as he reaches his victim. If possible to gain him by a bribe, he may diminish the punishment without detection. He may manage not to use his little finger on the instrument, which softens the force of the blow, without attracting the attention of the superintending officer. If the number of lashes is to be great, the operator is often bribed to give all his available force to the first blows, directing them principally ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... at term. Operation, May 2d: Uterus found empty, cavity 14 1/2 cm. long. Median incision in abdominal wall; cyst walls exposed; seen to be very slight and filled with enormous vessels, some greater than the little finger. On seizing the wall one of these vessels burst, and the hemorrhage was only rendered greater on attempting to secure it, so great was the friability of the walls. The cyst was therefore rapidly opened and the child extracted by the foot. Hemorrhage ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... work and read the service, from 'Dearly beloved' to 'amazement', as well as I could; and when I came to 'I, Henry, take thee, Nyleptha,' I translated, and also 'I, Nyleptha, take thee, Henry,' which she repeated after me very well. Then Sir Henry took a plain gold ring from his little finger and placed it on hers, and so on to the end. The ring had been Curtis' mother's wedding-ring, and I could not help thinking how astonished the dear old Yorkshire lady would have been if she could have foreseen that her wedding-ring ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... and told the whole story; how every time she was brought to bed, the old Queen, the King's stepmother, had stolen into her at night, had taken her babes away, and cut her little finger, and smeared the blood over her mouth; and then the Princes took the King, and shewed him the snake-pit where three babes lay playing with adders and toads, and lovelier children ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... risk," he answered humbly. "I know that Augusta has more brains in her little finger than I have in my whole body. I don't know how she can look ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... of paper between his fingers, taking care to put the paper of his confederate between the third and little finger; he then takes the folded paper from between his thumb and first finger and rubs it, folded as it is, over his forehead, at each rub mentioning a letter, as O, rub, H, rub, I O, after which he calls out that some lady or gentleman has ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... are worth while that it may be well to mention. One of these, and the most important, is to remove all the bark from the timber that has been cut, just as soon as possible after felling. And, in this, emphasis should be laid on the ALL, as a piece of bark no larger than a man's little finger will furnish an entering place for insects, and once they get in, it is a difficult matter to get rid of them, for they seldom stop boring until they ruin the stick. And again, after the timber has been felled and the bark removed, it is well to get it to the mill pond or cut ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... of his fellow gold-seekers, Cass was superstitious. "Cass!" His own name! He tried the ring. It fitted his little finger closely. It was evidently a woman's ring. He looked up and down the highway. No one was yet stirring. Little pools of water in the red road were beginning to glitter and grow rosy from the far-flushing east, but ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the relief of the candidate: he is then lowered to the ground and left to the care of the Great Spirit. When he recovers animation, he rises and proceeds on his hands and feet to another part of the caban: he there lays the little finger of the left hand upon a buffalo skull, as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit, and another Indian chops it off. The fore-finger is also frequently offered up in the same manner: this mutilation does not interfere with the use of the bow, the only weapon for which the left hand is required. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... giant snake lying there full length, while around it gathered six Amazon Indians and the one solitary New Yorker, here in the woods about as far from civilisation as it is possible to get. I proceeded to take measurements and used the span between my thumb and little finger tips as a unit, knowing that ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country—was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... spotted, and small mahogany-coloured Blattidae, are found under stones, which also conceal hordes of predatory beetles and scorpions, which bristle up at you as you expose them; and nests of tiny snakes, that coil and cuddle together, from the size of crowquills to the thickness of the little finger. During June and July, the monotonous Cicadae spring their rattles in the trees around, and one comes at last even to like their note, in spite of its sameness. A little later, flies and wasps send their buzzing progeny ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... one of the cooks. "But you must sit just there, and not put even your little finger in the way of us; for we are the Tzar's cooks, and we are in the middle of making ready his dinner." And the cook put a stool in a corner out of the way, and Ivan slipped in round the door, and sat down in the corner and looked about him. There were seven cooks at least, ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome |
