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Rummage   Listen
verb
Rummage  v. t.  (past & past part. rummaged; pres. part. rummaging)  
1.
(Naut.) To make room in, as a ship, for the cargo; to move about, as packages, ballast, so as to permit close stowage; to stow closely; to pack; formerly written roomage, and romage. (Obs.) "They might bring away a great deal more than they do, if they would take pain in the romaging."
2.
To search or examine thoroughly by looking into every corner, and turning over or removing goods or other things; to examine, as a book, carefully, turning over leaf after leaf. "He... searcheth his pockets, and taketh his keys, and so rummageth all his closets and trunks." "What schoolboy of us has not rummaged his Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory account!"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books



... hung our meat high up upon them, so that wolves and foxes could not get at it. Then we put our sleighs containing our outfit on the top of each other and made them fast with cords. When this was done Jakob said: "Foxes are often very bold, and they come and rummage around the tents; and when famished they bite everything they get hold of. We shall be able to hear them from our snow houses if they try to get ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. "There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to rummage around an' poke him out for ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... disguise, and threatened her hostess with instant death unless she fetched out all her jewels and valuables on the spot. The poor woman accordingly had to open her great linen chest, in the bottom of which her little store of silver was hidden, and in this the ruffian began to rummage. Just when he had almost emptied it, and was stooping to reach the last articles from the bottom, a happy thought came into the brave woman's mind. She seized the robber unexpectedly by the legs and tipped him head first ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... was just telling the young ones about an adventure of my youth, when Gonsales Zarco touched there on his way to Madeira. With your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there is any flotsam in ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... are certain ferocious animals, male and female, scattered over the country, dark, livid, and all scorched by the sun, affixed to the soil which they rummage and throw up with indomitable pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and, when they rise to their feet, they show a human face; they are, in fact, men. At night they withdraw to the caves, where ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... to the cabin, to get his belongings and to cache the whiskey. If it come into our friend's heads to rummage we might have a ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... with thee.' If he redouble in calling on Allah's aid and conjure thee by the oath of divorce saying, 'Thou must assuredly come,' do thou reply, 'By Allah, I will not go, unless the Chief also go with me.' Then, as soon as thou comest to the house, begin by searching the terrace-roofs; then rummage the closets and cabinets; and if thou find naught, humble thyself before the Kazi and be abject and feign thyself subjected, and after stand at the door and look as if thou soughtest a place wherein to make water,[FN35] because there is a dark corner there. Then ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... not avail thee; even when thy mouth says: "Give food in addition to water that I may reach my goal in safety," they are deaf and will not hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handi-craftsmen and soldiers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot: they put aside the parts of it that have been made ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... first 120 pages of Moore's 'Life of Byron'; and he says they are charming, and not a syllable de trop. He is now busy at a grand rummage among his papers, and has already found one of Lord Byron's letters which shall be at Mr. Moore's service forthwith. He expects to find more of them. This is curious, as being the first of 'Byron' ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... "as soon as a shell's burst they sprint and rummage for the fuse is the hole, for the position of the fuse gives the direction of its battery, you see, by the way it's dug itself in; and as for the distance, you've only got to read it—it's shown on the range-figures cut on the time-fuse which is set ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up and down the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawer after another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters, mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he was not looking for anything—he simply wanted by some kind of external occupation to get away ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... down an innocent man," cried Paula with a deep sigh; and she sat down again in front of her toilet-table to finish dressing. Her hands still moved mechanically, but she was lost in thought; she answered the child vaguely, and let her rummage in her open trunk till Mary pulled out the necklace that had been bereft of its gem, and hung it round her neck. Just then there was a knock at the door and Katharina, the widow Susannah's little daughter, came into the room. The young girl, to whom the governor's wife wished to marry her tall son ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lie quietly there and allow this sneak-thief time to rummage around. Of course the precious paper wanted by Jules was securely hidden; but for all that it went against his grain to allow ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... like a log? Sorry for it is all a gentleman can say, if he happens to do anything awry, especially over his claret. I served in Hounslow, and should know something, I think, of affairs of honour. Let me hear no more of this, and we'll go in a body and rummage out the badger ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... grandmother. "It is luncheon time now. I am glad you came to-day, my daughter, for Nancy, the housemaid, has gone home for a week's rest, and there is a meeting of the women of the church this afternoon to arrange about a rummage sale, and a loan exhibition, and they are rather depending upon me to contribute to both; but as Nancy is away, I cannot well leave for I am a little overtired with more duties than usual. So I have made a list of things that I will lend, and ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... they daunt; They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle, Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt, And up-stairs in a ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... time to rummage out the muff, for Nursey had tucked it far back on the shelf behind other things. There was nobody in the nursery. Something unusual seemed to be going on downstairs, for doors were opening and shutting, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and he surprised his father to the point of making him refrain from any further communication, by adding, "And then you'll have plenty of time to rummage among those old Turanian verbs ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... though, mother, your coming in here both times? I wonder if you had me on your mind and wanted to see how I was. But you did not seem to. You kept groping your way toward that old closet as though you wished to rummage about in it. But do come and let me take you back to bed now, and I will stay with you so you will behave yourself and give ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook

... did not escape even the notice of her domestics. Some, however, went immediately to the place, and after much hesitation lifted up the lid, when lo! a bundle of straw was the reward of their curiosity. By degrees they began to rummage farther into the contents; but the whole interior was filled with this rare and curious commodity. They could hardly believe their eyes; and Dick, especially, shook his head, and looked as though he knew or suspected more than he durst tell; a common expedient with those whose mountain ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... rummage in a voluminous pocket, and the production of several articles irrelevant to the occasion—a thimble, a bit of ginger, and part of a tract—Mrs Gray brought to light a piece of paper, on which ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... pitched the contents of the portmanteau right and left. 'Never mind the boots, my boy. Your legs will be under the table during dinner, and we'll institute a rummage up here between that and the procession to the drawing-room, where you'll be examined head to foot, devil a doubt of it. But say, where have you been? She'll be asking, and we're in a mess already, and may as well have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... devoured books like "Engineering Wonders of the World," "How it Works," "How it is Made," "Engineering of To-day," "Mechanical Inventions of To-day"; also books on wireless telegraphy and aviation. A great lover of books, he liked on off-days to visit London bookshops and rummage their shelves. Very proud he was of his purchases during these excursions. From time to time he would have a run round the museums and picture galleries of London or take a trip to Hampton Court—Wolsey's palace and William III's ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... in surprise, growled something through his teeth, and began to rummage in his portmanteau. Out he drew a writing-book and threw it contemptuously on the ground; then a second—a third—a tenth shared the same fate. There was something childish in his vexation, and it struck ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... out to tea, but Jock discovered recently that the Watsons had a father who was a sea captain. That fact has thrown such a halo round the two ladies that he can't keep away from them. They have allowed him to go to the attic and rummage in the big sea-chests which, he says, are chockful of treasures like ostrich eggs and lumps of coral and Chinese idols. It seems the Miss Watsons won't have these treasures downstairs as they don't look genteel among the 'new art' ornaments admired in Balmoral. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... are piles of dusty memories in the old cockloft still untouched, but I shall rummage no more to-night. The scenes which have floated past me with the wreathing smoke of my cigar are green and fragrant to me with a freshness which time can never blight, but they never can harden into reality again for any mortal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... have a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are yet so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... bed stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... woodpecker. "The yaffil laughed loud."—See Peacock at Home. Smellfox, anemone. Dead men's fingers, orchis. Granny's night-cap, water avens. Jacob's ladder, Solomon's seal. Lady's slipper, Prunella vulgaris. Poppy, foxglove. To routle, to rummage (like a pig in straw). To terrify, to worry or disturb. "Poor old man, the children did terrify him so, he is gone into the Union." Wind-list, white streak of faint cloud across a blue sky, showing the direction ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that her meticulous ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... rummaging in the cinders with the end of his walking stick, very much to the detriment of Friar Ange, who coughed fit to give up the ghost, swallowing the ashes and coal-dust thrown into his soup plate. And the man in black still continued to rummage in the fire, shouting, "A Salamander! I see a Salamander!" while the stirred-up flames made the shadow of his bodily form tremble on the ceiling like a ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... southern part of the town, a second-hand bookshop, kept by an old snuffy spectacled German in a long shabby black coat. I remember him well because he was a very important person to me. It was the first shop of the kind I had seen—I doubt if there was another in the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour among this mass of old books on the dusty shelves and heaped on the brick floor was a novel and delightful experience. The books were mostly in Spanish, French, and German, but there were some in English, and among them I came upon Thomson's ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... looking at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully rubbed the plank from one end to the other. Then he greased ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the old rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Bums as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and cooking mathering everything he can scour off ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... makes me hungry," said Phil. "There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick. The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving. Is there any tidbit ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "it is perfectly fresh, and I like the shape. Just wait till you see it trimmed, Miss Bean. May I rummage a little among your drawers? I will not toss the ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... that girl was gone!' reflected poor Don, as he went sulkily back to his basket. 'It's enough to make a dog steal, upon my tail it is! I'm positively starved—no bones, no chicken, only beastly dry dog-biscuits and milk twice a day! I wish I could rummage about in gutters and places as Jock does—but I don't think the things you find in gutters are ever really nice. Jock does—but he's just that low sort of dog ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... cool meadowy ground and frantically reaching out under the running board of the car to her full arm's length she began to rummage awkwardly hither and yon beneath the heavy weight of the man in the desperate ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... acquaintance with a scrubbing-brush, and very little with a broom. A rickety old chest of drawers stood in one corner, presumably filled with hospital necessaries, from the very strong smell of drugs emanating from it, and from the fact that the nurses would bustle in and rummage for some desired article, giving glimpses of the confusion inside. On the top of the drawers were arranged a multitude of medicine-bottles, half full and half empty, cracked and whole. The broken old washstand had been of valuable service during the night, as with it ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... passed and I could venture out again to seek for food. Providentially for me, my banishment from Lucca had taken place in the summer; I suffered nothing from exposure, and had no real lack of sustenance. I used to rummage the streets of villages at night to get broken meat; as I have said, I did not scruple to rob henroosts, or to suck the teats of cows and goats in the byres. During this time I neither prayed to God nor thought of Virginia in her horrid peril. All my efforts of mind and sense ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... any longer the sharp pangs of hunger, Janina began to look around her room for something which she might sell. She began feverishly to rummage in her trunks. She had only a ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... woman, I should judge, is a native of the whole geography, well beaten with an oceanic egg beater, or if not that conglomeration, I should guess she owned an entire island in the wildest ocean, where there were nothing but ship-wrecked rummage sails ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... bring a basket and we will fill it with articles from the mantel and what-not," said Mary, "and carry them all to the attic, until you have a rummage sale some day. We'll burn these 'everlasting' and 'straw' flowers, and pampas grass, and this large apple stuck full of cloves. Here is a small china dog and a little china basket with a plaited china handle decorated with gilt, and tiny, pink-tinted china roses. ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... had to change the plan when they waked up; you done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help rummage.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases; whenever it dispatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage that cell, which belongs to the idea. But as their motion is seldom direct, and naturally turns a little to the one side or the other; for this reason the animal spirits, falling into the contiguous traces, present other related ideas in lieu of that, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... rummage every hold, Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest; And, as the priests who with their gods make bold, Take what they like, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... these lonesome days between!" objected Mrs. Patterson. "Indeed, it will not hurt me, Sarah. Why, I feel better already. And you'll help me. If you'll get out your work-basket, I'll rummage in this trunk ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... in the bow of the boat at that moment attracted attention. It was John Mitford, who, having taken off his own coat, and wrapped it round his shivering wife, had gone to the bow to rummage in a locker there, and had found a tarpaulin. Massey had overhauled the locker for food before him, but the tarpaulin had been so well folded, and laid so flat in the bottom, that it ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... there was a chance hand on a Wednesday) our letters reached us only once a week, along with our bread and butcher meat, by the weekly carrier, Robbie Hogg. His arrival used to be a great event, the letter-bag being turned out, and a rummage made for our own. Afterwards the Moffat carriers gave more frequent opportunities of getting letters; but they were apt to carry them on to Moffat and bring them back the ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde

... whispered sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... passport. Of course, it was forged. He had a trolley transfer from Wyndham, Ohio, 'bout a hundred miles west of Cleveland, and, let's see, a hotel bill of the Hotel Bishop in Cleveland. He has a suite there, I guess. I'd like to rummage through his trunk. I tripped him up two or three times, enough to find that he's got a lot of information about army places. Seems to have more of it in his head than he had in ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... renascence of history which is in a manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an indefinable ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... donned his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the deceased peasants lay as close-packed as a cloud of midges, for there ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... torch over it, and they all gazed in silence into its unfathomable depths. Satisfied that it was impassable, they consulted for a few minutes, and then, apparently coming to the conclusion that the place was untenanted, they returned to the middle cave, and began to rummage and toss about the things they ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... should free men deal and be, With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? No act of England's shone more generous gules Than that which sever'd once for all the strands Which bound you English. You may search the lands In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools, To find a deed more English, or a shame On England with more honor ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... his ax, and sent Brissac to the pantry to rummage for other weapons. "A rush is the next thing in order," he suggested; and they prepared as ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... her uncle, in a surprised but kind tone, as one who respected yet resented her feeling; "you may trust me not to rummage, as you call it, unnecessarily; but I know that I am executor, if you understand what that means, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... kindly outstretched hands—"what is the meaning of this?"—She looked at the miscellaneous turn-out of cupboards and chests of drawers, at the display of garments not usually submitted to the public gaze. "Are you preparing a rummage sale or are you—but no, surely not!—are you packing? I cannot describe how anxious I am to hear what has occurred. My sister, Mrs. Cowden, was extremely adverse to my facing the bad weather; but, I felt ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... hand, as though she caught hold of anything that might distract her from the picture, she began to rummage among the papers on the table. Suddenly her attention pounced upon them; she bent her head, took up some and carried them to the lamp. Five or six large envelopes, bearing a crest and monogram, addressed in a clear hand, and containing ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... remembered me at all. You were a child then, who was growing into a woman. Your life was an edifice which you were building for yourself. What niches it had for what saints and deities, I couldn't hope to know. I might have been scornfully thrust in among the cobwebs with other promiscuous rummage of outgrown days. I might have been hardly more important than the dolls that preceded me in your affections by only a couple of years. How could I tell?" He paused and questioned her with direct eyes. "No, I meant to come back into your life not as a ghost ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... our Pope controversy go on? and the pamphlet? It is impossible to write any news: the Austrian scoundrels rummage all letters. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... vicar gave out the hymn, he used often to shout out, "Here, hold on! I don't like that one; let's have hymn Number 25," or some such effort of psalmody. This request, or command, used to upset the organ arrangement, and the poor old clerk had to rummage among his barrels to get a suitable tune, and the operation, even if successful, took at least ten minutes, during which time a large amount of squeaking and the sounds of the writhing of woodwork and snapping of sundry catches were heard in the church. But the congregation was ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... A swift rummage of the dusty closet set them all sneezing, but they triumphantly brought forth an armful of defunct trousers and carried them up to their room. For the next fifteen minutes such giggles and exclamations and shrieks of laughter ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... it would have been rash to have termed it a man— turning its eye upwards to the place from whence the voice came, answered with a dreadful grin and shaking of its fist, yet presently began to undo a parcel, and rummage in the pockets of a sort of jerkin and pantaloons which it wore, seeking, it appeared, a bunch of keys, which at length it produced, while it took from the pocket a loaf of bread. Heating the stone ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... perceived, she; but I will make her feel it othergates fashion, so once I get my claw into her back; by the very body of Christ, I will lead her such a dance that she will run after me, as the madwoman after her child.' 'Ay,' rejoined Bruno, 'I warrant me thou wilt rummage her; methinketh I see thee, with those teeth of thine that were made for virginal jacks,[433] bite that little vermeil mouth of hers and those her cheeks, that show like two roses, and after eat ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Delia first," Calliope told me then, "to the Rummage Sale that the Cemetery Auxiliary, that the Sodality use' to be, give. That is to say, they didn't give it, as it turned out—they just had it, you might say. Abel was twenty-five or so, an' he'd just ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... were 80,000 dollars on board our prize, which had been taken on board at Lima clandestinely, and were concealed at the bottom of the hold in the run of the ship. But Captain Dampier would not credit this, neither would he wait till we should rummage her to the bottom, lest delay might mar his great designs. Having, therefore, taken on board a quantity of provisions from the prize, she was dismissed; and we set sail in the St George on the 19th May, leaving the Cinque-ports ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... we had the Scilly Islands over the taffrail, and Mr. Poke took command of the vessel in good earnest. Coming down channel, he had done little more than rummage about in the cabin, examine the lockers, and make his foot acquainted with the anatomy of poor Bob, as the cabin-boy was called; who, judging from the amount of the captain's practice, was admirably well suited for his station, in the great requisite of a kickee. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... to you—and remember you asked for—the rummage, Rose Mary," answered Everett in a tone as light as hers. Then suddenly he rose and stood tall and straight in front of her, looking down into her upraised eyes in the dusk. "You don't know, do you, you rose woman you, what a man's life can hold—of nothingness? Yes, ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... kidskins, bulging roundly, presumably with wine. Three covered food hampers, unopened; and, intact, a beautiful little inlaid chest, such as ladies have for their combs, brushes, ointment-pots and similar toilet articles. From their condition I conjectured that the bandits had just commenced to rummage the coach when the unexpected approach of the mounted constables, whose small numbers they most likely did not realize, had scared ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... around. Our proximity to the shore rendered the circumstance hazardous to us, and it appeared necessary that the vessel's head should be again put seaward; but this the captain was evidently anxious to avoid, as it involved the risk of protracting the voyage. A general rummage for ammunition was therefore ordered, and a supply of this necessary having been obtained, the ship's carronade was after considerable delay put in order, and minute guns were fired. After discharging some thirty rounds or more, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... face, till we were about to go forth and drew near the door of the house. I looked at the place [behind the door] and said, "What is yonder dark place that I see?" And I said to the sergeants, "Lift up this jar with me." They did as I bade them and I saw somewhat appearing under the jar and said, "Rummage and see what is under it." So they searched and found a woman's veil and trousers full of blood, which when I beheld, I fell down ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... round indiscriminately at his fellow-guests, and commence the serious business of eating and drinking. When the coffee stage was reached he would light a cigarette, draw the portfolio over to him, and begin to rummage among its contents. With slow deliberation he would select a few of his more recent studies and sketches, and silently pass them round from table to table, paying especial attention to any new diners who might be present. On the back of each sketch ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... the steps and turned in the direction of a large oak cupboard. Crouching on his knees behind the tapestry that covered the rail of the gallery, Shears watched and saw the man rummage among the papers with which the cupboard was crammed. What was he ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... more sing'lar," said Uncle Billy confidently. "And I've been thinking about it, and kinder seeing myself thar all day. It's mighty queer!" He got up and began to rummage among some torn and coverless ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... had quieted. Except for an occasional street car or passing automobile a silence brooded over the downtown district. Stray cats appeared to rummage in battered cans and a huge rat darted between ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... leads thither from the town. A wooden gate, and a fence, half stone and half bamboo, seem to separate the cemetery from the people in the town, but not from the goats and sheep of the parochial priest of the immediate vicinity. These animals go in and out to rummage among the tombs or to make that solitary place glad with ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... accompanied it into the city under police escort. In the evening a public reception was given at the Washington College of Law. From 1916 the association assisted the National Association at its new headquarters, 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, by serving tea afternoons and raising money through bazaars, rummage sales, card parties, etc. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... Ruthlessly she began to rummage Edith's treasure trunk. The other came to her assistance after a dazed interval. The family purse came ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... the understanding to come back when it was ready; and then we went to Burlington, and spent the rest in poshays like two gentlemen; and when we was down upon our stumps at last, for only one leg there is between us both, your honor, my boy he ups and makes a rummage in his traps; which the Lord he put it into his mind to do so, when he were gone a few good sheets in the wind; and there sure enough he finds five good guineas in the tail of an old hankercher he had clean forgotten; and he says, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... muttering lurid threats of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... the drawer of the desk and began to rummage through a tray full of pens, pencils, and other drawing materials. "I wonder if there is such a thing as a pair of dividers here," he remarked. And a moment later he exclaimed "Good!" and drew forth the compasses he was ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... and sailors. Count me in, girls, and you'll find me at the Liberty Shop early and late, where I promise to sell anything from an old hoopskirt to a decayed piano at the highest market price. We've had some 'rummage sales' in Washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. But I won't wear your uniform; I can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would on my ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... messmates, We'll plunder, burn, and sink, Then, France, have at your first-rates, For Britons never shrink: We'll rummage all we fancy, We'll bring them in by scores, And Moll and Kate and Nancy Shall roll ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... to rummage. At last he got down into the body of the wagon. With the rays of the lantern thus concealed, the other three ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... hand, it was urged that the arguments for open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced are practically lost to the library ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... and there clothing and oddments which, if they did not wear, they knew how to dispose of advantageously. What extremes of ways and means such people must be acquainted with! no ditch was too low to rummage in, no rat-hole too hidden to be ravaged; a gate represented something to be climbed over: an open door was an invitation, a locked one a challenge. They could dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of morality with equal impunity, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... confined Are coxcombs, but of rank and kind; Pervading all ranks, great and small, Who take and never give the wall. By ignorance is pride increased; They who assume most, know the least. Yet coxcombs do not, all alike, Our ridicule and laughter strike. For some are lovers, some are bores, Some rummage in the useless stores Of folios ranged upon the shelf, Another only loves himself. Such coxcombs are of private station: Ambition soars to rule the nation. They flattery swallow: do not fear,— No nonsense will offend their ear: Though you be sycophant professed, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... this was the result of a single evening's interview? The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed; but with that we have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable; and at last went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, and rummage up words in the dictionary. All the time she seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on with her Italian more diligently and sedately than usual, she was planning in her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... cat!" he said. "That sham stroke of apoplexy was your doing, lynx eyes!... Two words from me, and your throat would be cut in less than a week, but I forgive you, I am a Christian. You did not sell me either. But who did?——Aha! you may rummage upstairs," he shouted, hearing the police officers opening his cupboards and taking possession of his effects. "The nest is empty, the birds flew away yesterday, and you will be none the wiser. My ledgers are here," he said tapping his forehead. "Now I know who sold me! It could only be that blackguard ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... judiciously as he has. I never heard of Cardinal Lewis de Luxembourg in my days, nor have a scrap of the history of Normandy, but Ducarel's tour to the Conqueror's kitchen. But the best way will be to come and rummage my library yourself: not to set me to writing the lives of prelates: I shall strip them stark, and you will have them to reconsecrate. Cardinal Morton is at your service: pray say for him, and of me, what you please. I have very slender opinion ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... May 6. MY DEAR FRIEND: You asked me to write to you often and to tell you in particular about the things I might see. You also begged me to rummage among my recollections of travels for some of those little anecdotes gathered from a chance peasant, from an innkeeper, from some strange traveling acquaintance, which remain as landmarks in the memory. With a landscape depicted in a few lines, and a little story told in a few sentences ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... return to Salemina that I wished I had ordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber closed to the casual visitor. If I have known him long enough I put my hand on the latch and smile ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... "my Lord C—- and Sir J. W. had linings out of this very piece last night; it takes wonderfully, and I shall not have a remnant left enough to make my wife a pin-cushion by to- morrow morning at ten o'clock." Upon this they fell again to rummage the will, because the present case also required a positive precept, the lining being held by orthodox writers to be of the essence of the coat. After long search they could fix upon nothing to the ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... wouldn't get personal," he said curtly. Sitting down at a desk, he began to rummage with some papers and, turning ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... that those light steps were a woman's. Edoardo turned towards a table, as if to look for some papers, saying to himself: 'I am lost.' And Sophia knelt down by the trunk that contained her clothes, pretending to rummage for something in it, while she wiped away her tears, and ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... could lay hands on. Their attics were museums where were horded every sort of object against the time when it might be needed. But do we follow their example? No, indeed! In fact, we go to the other extreme and hurry out of the house, either to a junk dealer or a rummage sale, everything we cannot find immediate use for. To a certain extent our mode of living has forced us to this course. Most of us reside in cramped city quarters where there are no spacious attics in which to ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... according to his own certificate had gone to New-York and sent Mr Olmstead who, with Mr. Cowen's consent (for it must have been by his consent that he acted as a substitute) sat in convention, and voted for Mr. Young. Thus ingeniously does the citizen rummage the chain of cause and effect, to eke out ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... Capetown, and was known as the 'Garden Farm,' from the rare fact of its possessing a well-stocked garden and a large orchard of peach and apricot trees, all fenced in with a stout wooden railing to keep off the pigs and cattle that were allowed to root and rummage around the other homesteads at their own sweet will. The owner of this farm was an Englishman, named John Colton: but he was a naturalised burgher and married to a Dutch wife, so that every one—perhaps even Colton himself—had long forgotten ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... he was talking about M. de Gery, the Nabob's young secretary, who often comes to the Territoriale, where he does nothing but rummage among the books. Very polite certainly, but a very proud youngster who does not know how to make the most of himself. There was nothing but a chorus of maledictions against him around the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... He told J.W. to rummage through the one bookshelf in the study which held his small but usable collection of books and pamphlets on the Negro, and see what he might find. ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... opened my trunk, and leaving her to rummage in it he came to shave me, and to do my hair. Esther, delighted with her task, called in the assistance of her governess. She put on my bed a lace shirt, and the suit she found most to her taste. Then coming close, as if to see whether Le Duc ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... needles and thread," said Silver Ears. "I mean to rummage in these trunks and get a whole lot of stuff for dresses and bonnets and patchwork. And our shopping bag—we must not ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard

... simile came to him with startling emphasis, bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears like the roaring of a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... Rymer, you can find us a flagon of wine, too, and of the best, I know that," said Burdale. "Come, man, rummage out your stores, you used not to be ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... since, as I was thinking—for so I am pleased to call my muddy stirrings—what manner of essay I might write and how best to sort and lay out the rummage, it happened pat to my needs that I received from a friend a book entitled "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened." Now, before it came I had got so far as to select a title. Indeed, I had written the title on seven different sheets of paper, each time in the hope that by the run of ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... commissioners winked to each other and made a certificate on the spot that the governor had refused to answer their interrogatories or to submit to their examination. They then proceeded to rummage about the city for two or three days, in quest of what they called evidence, perplexing Indians and old women with their cross-questioning until they had stuffed their satchels and saddle-bags with all ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... like," said the Tenor, much amused. And thinking the Boy would enjoy himself best if he were left to rummage at his own sweet will, he took up a book, brushed his hand back over his shining hair, and was soon absorbed, But presently he was startled by a wild cry of distress from the kitchen, and, jumping up hastily, he went to see ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... would have been unlike him not to have remembered that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia—made of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods—the most enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark. And the Makalaka have a legend about a big flood and a wise old man who built a house of reeds ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... Mr. St. Claire should ask to leave his keys with me? One would suppose he'd trust his cousin to rummage his goods and ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... Should the seekers rummage among the wild grasses in the osier-beds and copses, I wish them the delight of finding the wonderful object that, at this moment, lies before my eyes. It is the work of a Spider, the nest of the Banded ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... paw and grub and rummage in the big paper parcel, scratching about in the glittering mess of silk and embroidery with a pertinacity ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... "I rummage my brains in vain for what often rushes into my head unbidden,—little traits and sayings which recall his looks, manner, tone, and gestures; and I have always continued to think that a crisis of life was arrived in which a new career of fame was opened to him, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... tired. I saw the men exchange glances, and then they came forward to examine us. Being utterly unconscious of any necessity for concealment, we had left several English books at the very top of the box. These they carefully took out, and laid on one side, and then proceeded to rummage the boxes from top to bottom. By this time, as most of our fellow-passengers had been examined, and had proceeded to their hotels, I was getting fatigued and nervous, when it struck me that a small douceur would perhaps set matters right. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... send my star bedquilt! They always have things of that kind at Cattle Show;" and Jill began to rummage in the closet for the pride of her heart, burning to display it to ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... tired, but that was no use. In conversation with his father one day, he found out that Nikolai Petrovitch had in his possession rather interesting letters, written by Madame Odintsov's mother to his wife, and he gave him no rest till he got hold of the letters, for which Nikolai Petrovitch had to rummage in twenty drawers and boxes. Having gained possession of these half-crumbling papers, Arkady felt, as it were, soothed, just as though he had caught a glimpse of the goal towards which he ought now to go. 'I mean ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... young men sat down to their morning meal with a hearty goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile and helped ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... wife. David Hunter, whose devout and intelligent character procured for him great respect, died at Blantyre in 1834, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a great favorite with his grandchildren, to whom he was always kind, and whom he allowed to rummage freely among his books, of which he had a considerable ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... the old lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. With many grunts and wheezes (for she was eaten with rheumatism) she drew out a bundle done up in an old shawl. This she opened ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... box-room or looking over the edge of a trunk to see what is inside in order to realise that this is a vice, if it is a vice, which we inherit from the animals. We find a comparable curiosity in children and other simple creatures. Servants will rummage through drawer after drawer of old, dull letters out of idle curiosity. There are men who declare that no woman could be trusted not to read a letter. We persuade ourselves that man is a higher animal, above curiosity and a slave to his sense of honour. But ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... can't do that! Who'll do all the work! Who'll git up grange banquets and rummage sales, and paper and paint and put down carpets in the meetin' house, and git up socials and entertainments to help pay the minister's salary, and carry on the Sunday School? and tend to its picnics and suppers, and take care of the children? ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley

... much in the great field of astronomy that is discouraging to the savant who hasn't the time nor means to rummage around through the heavens. At times I am almost hopeless, and feel like saying to the great yearnful, hungry world: "Grope on forever. Do not ask me for another scientific fact. Find it out yourself. Hunt up your own new-laid planets, and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... the girl, "I shall robe myself in the oldest garments I possess, and will rummage those dusty archives until I find the letters of him who was ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... garret. The night was even worse. As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work. And everywhere, in the ceilings, in the floors, in the cupboards, at the doors, there was a chase and a rummage, and so furious a noise of gimlets, pincers, and saws, that a deaf man could not have ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... rummage a little. Papers belonging to his father—an endless series of them; some in tin boxes marked with the names of various companies, mining and other; some in leather cases, reminiscent of politics, and labelled "Parliamentary" or "Local Government Board." Trunks containing Court ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... copy of Browning's poems, and several other sizable articles from the table close to Stanton's elbow. Nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. Finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, Stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate back pages of ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... Green, "I vote that as we're pretty safe, and have yet that piece of plunder, we set to work and cook it, for I'm devilish hungry, and so I think we must all be, seeing as how we hain't had a regular meal the whole day, besides if we rummage the place, we may chance to light upon somethin' else. I see the varmint have carried off the nice row of venison hams that used to hang up round the chimney, but there may be somethin' in ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... this Japanese country, seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers' little booths, take a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away. The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on for several days, as though we were trying to play off some excellent little ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... That's mine. You don't look like a panhandler. Neither am I. A month ago I was pushing the lines over the backs of the finest team of Percheron buffaloes that ever made their mile down Fifth Avenue in 2.85. And look at me now! Say; how do you come to be at this bed bargain-counter rummage sale." ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... book on the bed and walked to the table. She had experienced her share of battle for the day. "No children to rummage," passed through her brain. It was the final week of hot, dry August weather, while a point had been made of calling her attention to the extra cover when the room had been shown her. She might have said these things, but why say them? The shamed face of the ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... to rummage the basket for those songs which had the most tragical pictures—for Sally had a most tender heart, and delighted in whatever was mournful—Rachel looked steadfastly in her face, and told her she ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... alongside. He then very gravely took out of his mouth a tolerable sized quid of tobacco, and, having safely deposited that treasure in his jacket pocket, sent, the next moment, a torrent of Virginian juice below the bars. These preliminaries being over, he proceeded to rummage forth the contents of his bag; and among the odds and ends, hauled out a substantial piece of the wing of an ox, and showed that his cruise had not been a bad one. With this goodly blunter of the keen edge of hungry appetite securely clutched in his fist, it may be supposed ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... I answered a letter from Mr. Handley, who has taken the pains to rummage the Chancery Records until he has actually discovered the fund due to Lady Scott's mother, L1200; it seems to have been invested in the estates of a Mr. Owen, as it appears for Madame Charpentier's benefit, but, she dying, the fund was lost ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks who were not ashamed to describe love as it really is ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... There were no books in the rear room; of this he was presently assured. He came back into the front shop and began to rummage. A few trade catalogues rewarded him and he solemnly laid ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... upon the brink of a superb adventure. To rummage about in the lumber-room of a bygone period: to wipe away the dust from long-neglected annals: to burnish up old facts and fancies: to piece together the life-story of some loved hero long dead: that is a work of reverent thought to be undertaken in peace and seclusion. But to plunge ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... must go." She turned into the house, followed by her husband, and began to rummage in her bag. "Lucky thing I got these supplies in town," she said, hastily putting together her nurse's equipment and some simple remedies. "I wonder if that boy has fever. Bring ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... to be food in the cupboard," said Breton, beginning to rummage. "They've generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we are, Spargo—these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while I open one ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... rabbits. He put bran and sow-thistle into his bag, and stretching himself out at length, as if he had been dead, he waited for some young rabbit, not yet acquainted with the deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault

... some vague purpose of bringing up the arrears of his correspondence. Formerly, before his interest in the newspaper had lapsed at all, he used to give his Sunday leisure to making selections and writing paragraphs for it; but he now let the pile of exchanges lie unopened on his desk, and began to rummage through the letters scattered about in it. They were mostly from young ladies with whom he had corresponded, and some of them enclosed the photographs of the writers, doing their best to look as they hoped he might ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... of books, in English and French, many of them works on agriculture, on building, on mining, on the sugar and cotton industries in various parts of the world. There was a large writing-table of lacquer-work, on which stood a movable electric lamp without a shade, in the midst of a rummage of pamphlets and papers. Near it were a coffee-table and two deep arm-chairs. From the ceiling, which was divided into compartments painted in dark red and blue, hung a heavy lamp by a chain of gilded silver. A stick of incense burned ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... ceremony! What do you think? But you will want to know the interpretation of this preamble. Why, there is a new bill, which, under the notion of preventing clandestine marriages, has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony that every Strephon and Chloe, every dowager and her Hussey, will have as many impediments and formalities to undergo as a treaty of peace. Lord Bath invented this bill,(389) but had drawn it so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... now in the wide, cool hall at the Grange, and reflected for a moment as to what she should do. She then ran lightly up to her pretty bedroom, and, opening her trunk, began to rummage eagerly among its contents. Annie would not be Annie if she were not the most impulsive creature in the world. She meant to devote herself to Nora; she had a great gift for reading character, and a quick glance showed her how best she might amuse this little girl. Nora was pretty, but Nora was ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... enlarges, and the viscera are removed and devoured by the matron, who empties the carapace, her head buried in the body of her late companion. The legs of the miserable victim tremble, announcing the end. The murderess takes no notice; she continues to rummage as far as she can reach for the narrowing of the thorax. Nothing is left but the closed boat-shaped wing-covers and the fore parts of the body. The empty shell is left lying on the scene ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... companion along toward a group of rocks that rose upon one point of the island; there, after searching for some time, he began to rummage among the brambles, and, in so doing, scratched ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... Portsmouth tenders from Portland Bill to Beachy Head, and Folkestone and Dover tenders from Beachy Head to the North Foreland, thus completing the encircling chain. Nor was Ireland forgotten in the general sea-rummage. As a converging point for the great overseas trade-routes it was of prime importance, and tenders hailing from Belfast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, or making those places their chief ports of call, exercised unceasing vigilance over all ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... deed are the same Clumsily, blew his nose, to the great relief of his two arms Emotion when one does not share it Hearty laughter which men affect to assist digestion How rich we find ourselves when we rummage in old drawers Husband who loves you and eats off the same plate is better I came here for that express purpose Ignorant of everything, undesirous of learning anything It is silly to blush under certain circumstances Love in marriage is, as a rule, ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger

... the ship drive as it would. In this great hazard of our lives we were the beginning of the third night, when God in mercy ceased the storm of a sudden, and there was a great calm, which made us exceeding joyful; but when those beasts, for they were scarce men, that manned the vessel, began to rummage the bark, they could not find their compass anywhere, for the loss of which they began again such horrible lamentations as were as dismal to us ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain's cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward's pantry for ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... goose girl, went down to the strand again, where she stopped to rummage in her bag. Finally she fished out a little wooden shoe, which she placed on a stone where it could be plainly seen. Then she ran to little Mats without ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... two hands—or at least with one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, and ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... coming up to the Grange, we might have a rehearsal this afternoon, rummage up the properties, and all the rest of it," ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room, which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over her, exulting in ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... which one leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... evening they pitched their camp down in the plain fields amidst tall elmtrees, and had their banners still flying over the tents to warn all comers of what they were. But the next morning the chapmen and their folk were up betimes to rummage their loads, and to array their wares for the market; and they gat not to the road before mid-morning. Meantime of their riding Ralph had more talk with Bull, who said to him: "Fair lord, I rede thee when thou art in the market of Cheaping Knowe, bid master Clement ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... with a cold tongue, part of a buttock of beef, half a turkey, and a swinging lump of butter, and the matter of ten mould kandles, that had scarce ever been lit. The cuck brazened it out, and said it was her rite to rummage the pantry; and she was ready for to go before the mare: that he had been her potticary many years, and would never think of hurting a poor sarvant, for giving away the scraps of the kitchen. I went another way to work with madam Betty, because she ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... was fain to rummage in his pocket, either for a handkerchief or for a lump of Salem "Gibraltars:" both came out together in a state of happy union. Mercedes took hers simply. Only Miss Dolly was too proud to eat candy in the carriage. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson



Words linked to "Rummage" :   welter, muddle, jumble, search, clutter, hunting, mare's nest, hunt, smother, fuddle, ransacking



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