United States or Latvia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One of the amusements of Sir Walter's retirement was to walk out frequently among his plantations at Abbotsford, with a small hatchet and hand-saw, with which he lopped off superfluous boughs, or removed an entire tree when it was marring the growth of others.
"This cockney grocer for after all he is nothing else who I dare say scarcely knows a hawk from a hand-saw leaves his figs and raisins, and sets out on a marauding excursion into the county of Surrey, and regardless of property of boundaries of laws of liberties of life itself strides over every man's land, letting drive at whatever comes in his way!
"If," thought Elmer, "Holden is Armstrong's brother, he has a right to stay; if not, he has at least saved Faith's life, as she says herself, and he knows after all, a 'hawk from a hand-saw. Young Holden, too, is a sensible fellow, and I think I may trust them." In some such way thronged the thoughts through Elmer's mind.
Grey hairs come, and stiff limbs, and shortened sight; but the spring is green and hope is fresh for all the changes in the world and in ourselves. We can tell a hawk from a hand-saw, a March Brown from a Blue Dun; and if our success be as poor as ever, our fancy can dream as well as ever of better things and more fortunate chances.
Indeed, when it is recollected that Humphrey had only the hand-saw and ax, and that he had to cut down the tree; and then to saw it into plank, it must be acknowledged that it required great patience and perseverance even to make a wheelbarrow; but Humphrey was not only persevering, but was full of invention.
"I want you," he wrote, "to leave the plantation, and go with your old maumer to the village. It will be safer there." He was sure the letter would reach her. He had a plan to escape to-night, and he could put it into a post inside the lines. Ben was to get a small hand-saw that would open the wicket; the guards were not hard to elude.
Taking up a hand-saw he seized a piece of stick, and, although not an expert, sawed a lump off the end of it in a few seconds. As this would probably have cost an Eskimo full half an hour to accomplish with his blunt knives, they were suitably impressed, and Cheenbuk, seizing the saw, forthwith attempted to cut off the end of a rod of iron with what effect it is scarcely necessary to explain.
"You know a hawk from a hand-saw. Nobody can pass a motor-car off on you for a horse, can they, Bunny dear? Not while you have that eagle eye of yours wide open. Yes, sir. That is the scheme. I am going to pay the rental of this mansion with its contents. Half a million dollars' worth of contents means how long at twenty-five hundred dollars a month? Eh?" "Gad! Henriette," I cried.
She was a very cross hen, and her feather unmentionables fitted badly. Moreover, she was utterly useless, and never laid an egg, which was fortunate, for if she had laid one it would have been an egregious monstrosity. She was obviously tough. If they had slain her for the table they would have had to cut her up with a hand-saw, or grind her into meal to fit her for use.
The language likewise continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; and so critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his dialect that his reading of a Low Dutch psalm has much the same effect on the nerves as the filing of a hand-saw. Kaimes. Pavonia, in the ancient maps, is given to a tract of country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy.
Word Of The Day