Word: gnaw
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...little cousin, wreaths of weeds in their hair, in a wild dance to the music of a concertina across broad sunny fields. At home the routine is monotonously wretched. His thieving older brother and dull sister, the mother's favorites, get the melon. He is allowed to gnaw the rinds before being sent to feed them to the rabbits. He is abused for answering a question with bread in his mouth, laughed at for being afraid of the dark. The child's torture is made credible by the sly malice with which his unnatural mother administers...
...solitary confinement cell little bigger than a coffin. According to Florida law it should be 3 ft. broad. There should be ventilation. Arthur Maillefert. called "Jersey" by his prison mates, had passed the previous evening in the sweatbox naked and inside a barrel out of which he tried to gnaw. He had also used a trusty's knife in an attempt to liberate himself. Four times during his stay at Sunbeam he had tried to escape. Once, when being returned in a police car, he plunged into the Halifax River, swam free in spite of handcuffs...
Largest of North American terrestrial rodents, the porcupine is, however, a highly destructive emergency food supply to have wandering unmolested through the land. It is a voracious vegetarian, not at all fastidious. Besides all manner of plants, buds and the inner barks of trees, it will gnaw at men's cabins, canoes and food containers, especially where any salty supplies have been stored...
Western porcupines migrate slowly, deliberately in the spring from their dens in the mountain lava cliffs to the valley farms, returning in the autumn. It is during these travels that they gnaw the butts of pine trees great and small. In some sections a huntsman would have no trouble killing 50 per day. Foolish is the huntsman who takes with him a dog. But for himself he need not worry. Legend to the contrary, porcupines cannot shoot or throw their quills. Only those get stuck who try to pinch or pat a porcupine...