Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 8, 2025
The man is an American; he was born in 1858; he accomplished some of his best work in the Eighties and the Nineties, in the days when mutton-legged sleeves, whatnots, Rogers groups, cat-tails, peacock feathers, Japanese fans, musk-mellon seed collars, and big-wheeled bicycles were in vogue.
Bobby leaned out to watch with fascinated interest the sand, divided by the tire, flowing back in a beautiful curved V to cover the wheel-rim. As far as the eye could reach were marshes grown with wild rice and cat-tails. Occasionally one of these bayous would send an arm in to cross the road.
"She has been this way," said Tom, when they reached the pond. "See, that tuft of cat-tails has been broken. No, no, don't be afraid to look; see yonder where the bushes are swept down; she went away towards the shore." Mellen groaned aloud. This was his most terrible fear. They walked on, taking a path that curved round the bay, and leaving the shore tavern on the right, went down to the beach.
They saw the wide marshes of rushes and cat-tails, with their bayous and channels wherein swam the white-billed mud-hens; and the long booms to the left filled with brown logs. From this level, low to the water, these things seemed to them wonderful and vast. After a little the Robert O whistled again. They passed the swing at the upper end of the booms.
As he lay there in the warming sand by the cat-tails, the biggest, juiciest green bottle fly that Twinkle-tail had ever seen came skimming down to the very line of the water. It circled once. Twinkle-tail did not move. It circled twice, not an inch from the water! A single, sinuous flash of his whole body, and Twinkle-tail was out of the water! He had the fly in his mouth.
Take, for example, some marsh within a half-hour's trolley ride of any of our cities or towns. Select one where cat-tails and reeds abound. Mosquitoes and fear of malaria keep these places free from invasion by humankind; but if we select some windy day we may laugh them both to scorn, and we shall be well repaid for our trip.
It yielded adequate power to run the sawmills only during the spring freshets when the swamps overflowed, and it was our ill luck that the legislative commission decided to visit Tuscarora in dog-days while Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with cat-tails and lily-pads.
Here he was, in the lusty April of his days, and yet life was bitter to his palate, and there was canker at the heart of the rose of Spring. Nothing was right. The coast country, always beautiful, was at its best, the air sweet with the warm breath of summer. The elder was white with flowers, and in moist places, where the ditches dipped, huge cat-tails swayed to the light wind.
And as he worked faster he began to count to himself in a panting whisper: "Huh huh huh huf!" The boat streaked across the river's surface like a water-bug. At last they slid into some thick cat-tails. Gunnar got a hand-hold and propelled them forward until the prow grounded in the shallows. "This is as far as I can go," Piper told them in a sweating voice. "Over there is the tomb."
As it was, we beat out with flying colours, and anchored a few miles from the light. These were the first shot I ever saw fired in anger. Our brig had one man killed and three wounded, and she was somewhat injured aloft. One shot came in not far from my gun, and scattered lots of cat-tails, breaking in the hammock-cloths.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking