Chop

“ It excited the children, and some of the older persons clapped their hands and exclaimed, "Very good, very good." But when he tossed it only a foot high and let go the chop-stick, making it change ends, and catching the bowl, they were ready for a general applause. In striking the bowl and thus manipulating his chop-sticks, his hands moved almost as rapidly as those of an expert pianist.
"Can you toss the knives?" piped up one of the children who had seen a juggler perform this difficult feat. ”

“ After you have cut the first chip in logging up a tree, chop on the base of the chip, swinging your hatchet from the opposite direction, and the chip will fall to the ground.
Having successfully chopped off one piece of the log, it will be a simple matter to cut off more. Chop slowly, easily, and surely. Don't be in a hurry and exhaust yourself; only a novice overexerts and tries to make a deep cut with the hatchet. [30]
Be careful of the blade of your hatchet; keep it free from the ground when chopping, to avoid striking snags, stones, or other things liable to nick or dull the edge. ”

“ We hardly realize the pains our mothers were at to teach us table-manners, nor that gentlemen of Europe ate with their fingers at a period when chop-sticks were in common use in China and Japan, except in time of mourning. ”

“ And from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop,—eaten by the flies, and in the course of the same day soaked with rain and roasted by the sun."
"Every Monday morning they opened a sack of flour and we made ourselves a bucketful of pancakes, and all the rest of the week, three times a day, one dug into that pail for something to eat. By Wednesday, no longer any pancakes, because they were all stuck together; nothing there but a mass of dough. One cut off a big chunk of dough with one's knife, put that in his belly, and then chopped and chopped again!" ”

“ Chip, chop, chip, chop, back and forth went the woodpecker's sharp bill, cutting out the chips from the old apple bough.
My! but it was hard work. The Miller's Boy always grumbled when his father told him to chop the wood, but Red Head kept right along, happy as could be. You see, the little people of the wood don't grumble if they have to work, and let me tell you in the Spring they have lots to do. Every one is busy making his home. Some are digging holes in the ground and some are making nests in the trees. But everybody is happy as the day is long. ”

“ There were many kinds of agreeable prospects here for the thoughts to dwell upon, and samples of the finished products were continually138 being sent up to the office for him to give his opinion on.
"I'll show you how you should chop, girls," he said sportively, and took the knives from Torbjörg.
The two chopping-knives in his hands went up and down in the chopping-tray so furiously that they could hardly be distinguished, and awakened unmistakable admiration in the whole kitchen, while all paused in bewilderment at the masterpiece. ”

“ Cooks can slice, chop or mince vegetables and various other food rapidly by placing the little device, as shown, on a chopping board. Ii is an ordinary staple, driven in just far enough to allow a space for the end of an ordinary pointed kitchen knife to fit in it. The staple is driven in the edge of the chopping board. The knife can be raised and lowered with one hand, as the material is passed under the blade with the other. Great pressure can be applied and the knife will not slip. ”

“ Choppers have been made which really chop the food without crushing it, but these machines are so clumsy and noisy, that they have not come into common household use. They consist of chopping knives which are raised and lowered by levers and a crank. ”

“ Do this by tapping the palm of the left hand with the thumb and first finger of the right hand, while the man cuts the wood.
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The four fingers working at the same time make it quite lively, but you will find that if the man chops fast, the children will pick the chips very quickly, and if the man works slowly the children will not hurry about gathering the chips. It will be very difficult for you to have the man chop slowly when the children are eager and quick at their task. ”

“ Over this is worn a girdle of silk, usually, in which they carry a sheathed knife and two sticks, used as forks, called chop sticks. They are extremely slovenly in their dress and person, seldom, if ever, washing a garment. ”

“ Even the sound of the paper crunching made the animal move a little nearer and hiss louder and paw the ground with one of its fore feet. I guess in a couple more seconds he would have had me, but I just threw one of the chops right at him and he pounced on it.
THE ANIMAL WAS CROUCHING ON THE GROUND, LOOKING UP.
That gave me two or three seconds to think. Because you can see for yourself that if an animal is ready to eat a boy scout it wouldn’t take him very long to eat a chop. ”

“ If you are naturally right-handed, the quickest way to learn left-handed wood chopping is to study your usual position and note where you naturally place your feet and hands. Then reverse all this and keep at it from the left-handed position until it becomes second nature to you and you can chop equally well from either position. This you may learn in a week or you may never learn it. It is a lot easier to write about than it is to do. ”

“ I have plumbed the depths of depravity in chops, and have found them often naturally hard, tasteless, and greasily fat; or if not naturally depraved, the wicked incapacity of those who cook them has in some magic way exorcised their every virtue. ”

“ A good cook changes his chopper once a year,—because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month,—because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. ”

“ Chope adds that in most cases the neck is more or less in the form of a woman, and undoubtedly represented the spirit of the harvest, and that "the main idea of the ceremony seems to have been that in cutting the corn the spirit was gradually driven into the last handful.... ”

“ MR CHOPS, THE DWARF.
It remains still a matter of surprise how so much was made out of this slight sketch by the simple force of its humorous delivery. “Mr. Chops, the Dwarf,” as, indeed, was only befitting, was the smallest of all the Readings. The simple little air that so caught the dreamer's fancy, when played upon the harp by Scrooge's niece by marriage, is described after all, as may be remembered by the readers of the Carol, to to have been intrinsically “a mere nothing; you might learn to whistle it in two minutes.” ”

“ No sooner had they bought the chops than they scurried away like two gleeful children to cook them. I followed, hoping to trace them to their home, but they soon out-distanced me, and that night I composed the following aphorism: It is idle to attempt to overtake a pretty young woman carrying pork chops. I was now determined to be done with her. First, however, to find out their abode, which was probably within easy distance of the shop. ”

“ The chopping-knife, or whatever it is, represents the woman's soul, which at this critical time is believed to be safer out of her body than in it. Hence the doctor must take great care of the object; for were it lost, the woman's soul would assuredly, they think, be lost with it. ”

“ Of the three ways in which a sword may be used for cutting, that called chopping, in which the work is done with the shoulder and fore-arm and little play of the wrist, and the blow comes down straight with a whack, is of the most value against body-armor. ”

“ The public was shy of bein' pulled in, and Chops was ringin' his little bell out of his drawin'-room winder, and was snarlin' to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back door—for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs—was snarlin':
"Here's a precious public for you; why the devil don't they tumble up?" ”

“ When thou hast cut the heart down the cow will die, and then thou must be careful where thou hidest, so as to escape the knife with which they will open the belly. But before thou doest this, first run to the man in whose house we lodge and tell him that we are going to the water side to wash." Then Kwaku Tse went to the house-master and told him, and returned into the belly of the cow, and chopped the side and cut the heart down, and the cow died. ”

“ French Chopping Knife.—The chopping knife is similar in shape to the cook's knife but of much stronger make. It may be had in two sizes, each made in two qualities, and costing respectively 3s. or 3s. 9d., with blades measuring 9 inches and 6s. or 6s. 6d., with blades 2 inches longer.
Mincing Knife.—A knife for chopping suet or mincemeat on a wooden board. As it is made with a firm wooden handle, the hand does not become so tired as when using an ordinary knife on a board; and the chopping is accomplished in a much shorter time. ”

“ The chopping block shown in the illustration was designed to overcome this element of danger and it may be used for chopping small kindling wood as well as for breaking up heavier pieces. When the blow is struck on the wood to be broken the pieces are thrown away from the person chopping. ”

“ Indeed, it is a less easy matter to spare them when chopping than I at first imagined, but the fall of one tree frequently brings down two, three, or even more smaller ones that stand near it. A good chopper will endeavour to promote this as much as possible by partly chopping through smaller ones in the direction they purpose the larger one to fall. ”

“ the chipped plates might have been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to one’s mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks in the company of other good fellows; ”

“ Fish, and all other articles for frying, after being nicely prepared, should be laid on a board and dredged with flour or meal mixed with salt: when it becomes dry on one side, turn it, and dredge the other. For broiling, have very clear coals, sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the pieces, and when done, dish them, and pour over some melted butter and chopped parsley—this is for broiled veal, wild fowl, birds or poultry: beef-steaks and mutton chops require only a table-spoonful of hot water to be poured over. ”

“ The goodman ordered me the pottage-pot to lick; for, says he, it is an old property to chapmen. Well, I had no sooner begun to it, then out came a great big mastiff-dog from below the bed, and grips me by the breast, then turns me over upon my back, and takes the pot himself. Ay, ay, said the goodman, I think your brother pot-licker and you cannot agree about your breakfast! A well, said I, goodman, you said that pot-licking was a chapman's property, but your dog proves the contrary. So away I comes, and I meeting the good wife at the door, bid her farewell for ever. ”

“ I made myself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when I became old but fortune was fickle and so was I; for I had not been a chapman above two days, until I began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden-dubs, biting dogs and boggles in barns, bangster wives and weet sacks; and what comfort is it, to ly in a cows oxter, the length of a cold winter night ”

“ A sweet be here mither, said he, do ye think that I'm a witch? Witch here or witch there, said the wife, swearing by her saul, and that was nae banning, she said, they'll be good substantial meat, a what say ye chapman? Indeed, goodwife, said I, sowens is but saft meat at the best, but if ye make them thick enough, and put a good lump of butter in them, they'll do very well for a supper. I trow sae lad, said she, ye hae some sense: so the old woman put on the pot with her sowens, and went to milk her cows, leaving me to steer ”

“ A man would kill four or five whitecoats by hitting them on the head with his gaff. He would pull them together and sculp them, that is, with his sculping knife he would make an incision on the under surface of the body, its entire length, through the skin and fat. ”

“ Such a jolly good rod, with the buds on, so stout, and so supple and lithe,
You've been flogged till you're hardened to flogging, but won't the first cut make you writhe?
You've been birched till you say you don't care as you used for a birching! Indeed?
Wait a bit, Master Charlie, I'll bet the third cut or the fourth makes you bleed.
Though they say a boy's bottom grows harder with whipping, and times make it tough,
Yet the sturdiest boy's bottom will wince if the Schoolmaster whips it enough. ”

“ She stretched her strong limbs that ached a little. She ran her fingers through her loosened hair for a while. She looked at her round arms as she held them straight up and rubbed them one after the other, observing closely, as if it were something she saw for the first time, the fine, firm quality and texture of her flesh. ”

“ As the breezes sport with the chaff upon some goodly threshing-floor, when men are winnowing—while yellow Ceres blows with the wind to sift the chaff from the grain, and the chaff-heaps grow whiter and whiter—even so did the Achæans whiten in the dust which the horses' hoofs raised to the firmament of heaven, as their drivers turned them back to battle, and they bore down with might upon the foe. ”