Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel Quotes

“Suddenly the little boy said, ‘How are they going to get out?’ ”

“There they’ll be, Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne...Mike in his rocking chair and Mary Anne beside him, warming up the meetings in the new town hall.”

“Never had Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne had so many people to watch them; never had they dug so fast and so well; and never had the sun seemed to go down so fast.”

“All the other steam shovels were being sold for junk, but Mike loved Mary Anne. He couldn’t do that to her.”

″ ‘Sure,’ said Mike, ‘but Mary Anne can dig as much in a day as a hundred men can dig in a week.’ Though he wasn’t quite sure that this was true.”

“They left the canals and the highways and the big cities where no one wanted them anymore and went away out in the country.”

‘When people used to stop and watch them, Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne used to dig a little faster and a little better.”

“Everybody started talking at once, and everybody had a different idea, and everybody thought that his idea was the best.”

“Then suddenly it was quiet. Slowly the dirt settled down. The smoke and steam cleared away, and there was the cellar, all finished. The sun was just going down behind the hill. ”

“Mike Mulligan had a steam shovel, a beautiful red steam shovel. Her name was Mary Anne.”