The strippings of maize, nut-shells, pea-pods, &c. Hence applied to worthless persons.
1811. The straw and the shucks, after the stacks are in, will bestow a cover inpenetrable to draught.—Mass. Spy, June 12.
1837. Every one thought of their toes as he passed them, and he thumped round the deck like a cat shod with walnut shucks.—Yale Lit. Mag., ii. 220 (April).
1845. A Texas feather bed is said to be made of corn cobs and shucks.—St. Louis Reveille, Dec. 29.
1847. He aint wuth shucks, and ef you don’t lick him fur his onmannerly note, you aint wuth shucks, nuther.—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 135 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1848. The deep shade, whar the water is sleepin still and dark as a nigger baby in a shuck-pen.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 147 (Phila.).
1848. They mought as well looked for a needle in a shuck-pen, as to try to find him in sich a place.—Id., p. 175.
1849. [Interior of Georgia.] Bed-time coming, one by one the family retired to the corner, and all lay together on the corn-shucks, sleeping as on ‘downy couch.’—Knick. Mag., xxxiv. 117 (Aug.).
1851. I kalkilated them curs o’ hisn wasn’t worth shucks in a bar fight.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 51.
1853. Morris whipped his customer until his hide was so blistered as to scarcely hold shucks.—Daily Morning Herald, St. Louis, Feb. 16.
1854. I have often watched him [a fox-squirrel], as he sat bolt upright in a hickory, eating nuts, and throwing the shucks on the ground, with all the gravity of a judge.—H. H. Riley, ‘Puddleford,’ p. 44 (N.Y.).
1856. [When Charles Vellum eats baked pea-nuts], shells, ‘shucks,’ and ‘chads’ fly on either side, and his jaws move with a rapid, grinding noise, as if he had a small coffee-mill in his mouth.—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 347 (Oct.).
1857. “Not worth shucks.”—Head-line, Oregon Weekly Times, Nov. 10.
1860. Shucks wanted. The subscriber wishes to purchase any quantity of good dry Shucks. He prefers them in bales.—Advt., Richmond Enquirer, May 11, p. 1/1.
1860. We were chums and fast friends: we studied together, walked together, ate at the same table, and enjoyed in common our shuck-mattress and scanty quilts.—Knick. Mag., lv. 613 (June).
1862.
| An’ this, ef an’thin’, proves the wuth o’ proper fem’ly pride, | |
| Fer such mean shucks ez creditors are all on Lincoln’s side. | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 2nd Series, No. 3. |
1908. The chairs were ancient Shaker rockers, some with homely “shuck” bottoms, and each had a tidy of snowy thread or crochet cotton fastened primly over the back.—Eliza C. Hall, ‘Aunt Jane of Kentucky,’ p. 4.
1909. Mr. Stewart tells an amusing story of Lincoln’s reception of Alexander H. Stephens at Fortress Monroe to discuss the question of peace. Stephens, a little man, was much bundled up in several layers of clothing when he arrived. The President looked down at him while he was unwinding himself, and then remarked, wonderingly: “Well, that’s a mighty little ear for so much shucks.”—N.Y. Evening Post, April 26.
