United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Marfa went up to one of the benches and cautiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper. Under the paper on an immense dish there reposed a huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and decorated with capers, olives, and carrots. Ahineev gazed at the sturgeon and gasped. His face beamed, he turned his eyes up. He bent down and with his lips emitted the sound of an ungreased wheel.
The estate had only recently been put on to the new reformed system, and the new mechanism worked, creaking like an ungreased wheel, warping and cracking like homemade furniture of unseasoned wood. Nikolai Petrovitch did not lose heart, but often he sighed, and was gloomy; he felt that the thing could not go on without money, and his money was almost all spent.
The stillness was so profound one heard nothing save the howl of the jackal, the cry of fighting geese, and the ungreased wheel of an ammunition limber, or the click of a picketing peg against a stirrup. "The instinct to smoke was almost irresistible. A dozen times one's hands felt for one's pipe, but not a match was struck in all that army of thousands of men.
I held out my hand and tried to speak, but my voice went like an ungreased waggon wheel, and I gave it up, and only squeezed her hand. 'That's all right, she said; then tears came into her eyes, and she suddenly put her hand on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. 'You be off you're only a boy yourself. Take care of that boy; be kind to your wife, and take care of yourself.
"Don't you want some candy, Budge?" "No you ain't GOT no candy, I bleeve." "Well, you sha'n't have any if you don't stop being so cross." The only reply to this was a mighty and audible rustling of the bedding in the boys' room, followed by a sound strongly resembling that caused by a slap; then came a prolonged wail, resembling that of an ungreased wagon-wheel. "What's the matter, Toddie?"
All the train fell into a sullen silence, and no sound was heard but the unsteady rumble of the wheels, the creak of an ungreased axle, and the occasional crack of a whip. Clouds of dust arose and were whipped by the stray winds into the faces of the travelers, the fine particles burning like hot ashes. The train moved slowly and heavily, as if it dragged a wounded length over the hard ground.
The whole are set in motion by oxen travelling round the same as in a thrashing-mill. The ungreased axles of the rollers, squeaking and screeching like a score of tormented pigs, generally inform the traveller of their vicinity long before he reaches them. The juice is boiled, and an impure sugar made from it.
In the distance could be seen long trains of ox-carts, coming from remote settlements, the low monotonous moan of their ungreased wheels making a weird accompaniment to the muttering thunder; or a black-robed procession of nuns, on their way to the small chapel on the prairie, whose tinkling bell was calling them to prayers.
Word Of The Day