United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We walked up the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just once, for only Americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the library. My heart beat a trifle fast as I took inventory of the room; for I never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the poet-laureateship.
My eyes had closed but a moment when rat-a-tat-tat on the mixing pan announced breakfast. Joe had prepared it, and the others came straggling out one by one looking sleepy and happy, enjoying the thought of the day's rest, the more that it was the kind of day to make it impossible to travel. Returning to my tent after the meal I lay down to sleep.
Those six white soldiers in front of the fort were ready to attack. And there were more coming. "Load!" he commanded. Each little soldier took up a snowball. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. The drums sounded nearer now. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Around the house came the sound of the drum. Over the walls of the fort they peeked very carefully.
Could you manage to want me just a little, Lord Taborley? Not for long, you know; only till I've got past the loneliest places till I've begun almost to persuade myself that he may come back. To think that you wanted me would help." Before he could answer, she had sprung to her feet, all but over-turning the lamp. "What's that?" A sharp rat-a-tat-tat had reverberated through the house.
Just then a long, rolling rat-a-tat-tat rang out just over their heads. "There's another one of them," chuckled Jenny. "That's Downy, the smallest of the whole family. He certainly makes an awful racket for such a little fellow. He is a splendid drummer and he's just as good a carpenter. He made the very house I am occupying now." Peter was sitting with his head tipped back trying to see Downy.
"Rat-a-tat-tat!" went the acorns on the wooden panels. "Ha! Those must be my friends!" exclaimed the bad owl, opening the door a little crack so he could peek out, but taking care to stand in front of it, so that Uncle Wiggily couldn't slip out. But, of course, the owl saw no one. "It must have been the wind," he said as he shut the door. Then Johnnie Bushytail threw some more acorns at the door.
Pigg and Uncle Wiggily that is if my furnace fire doesn't go out in the street roller-skating with the coal man. Some one knocked on the door of the pen where Dr. Pigg and his wife and Buddy and Brighteyes lived one day. "Rat-a-tat-tat," went the rapping. "My! I wonder who that can be?" exclaimed Mrs. Pigg. "Run and see, will you, Buddy, like a good boy?"
With that they heard a sound far off. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. "What's that?" cried the smallest little soldier. And Captain Jehosophat answered: "Drums, drums, "The enemy comes!" Then he laughed. He had made a rhyme without thinking anything about it. But he stopped laughing. It was no time for play. There was hard work ahead.
Zendjan is celebrated for the manufacture of copper vessels, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the workmen beating them out in the coppersmiths' quarters is heard fully a mile outside the gate; the hammering is sometimes deafening while trundling through these quarters, and my progress through it is indicated by what might perhaps be termed a sympathetic wave of silence following me along, the din ceasing at my approach and commencing again with renewed vigor after I have passed.
Taking the heavy Bible down from the shelf, he lit a rushlight at the fire, although it was still broad daylight, and sat there with the great book open in his lap until the sun went down and the chill night wind crept in along the floor; yet he could not read a single word and never turned a page. Rat-a-tat-tat at the first dim hint of dawn went the chamberlain's knuckles upon the door.
Word Of The Day