To carry. The word is commonly used of carrying in the hand, or on the back or shoulders; and the extended use of it by R. M. Bird (1837) is exceptional. See generally Notes and Queries, 10 S. ii. 161.
1677. They were … commanded to goe to work, fall trees, and mawl and toat ratios.—Virginia Mag., ii. 168 (1894).
1816.
| Away she sail’d so gay and trim | |
| Down to the Gallipagos, | |
| And toted all the terapins, | |
| And nabb’d the slipp’ry whalers. | |
Analectic Mag., vii. 312. (Italics in the original.) |
1816. See JULEP.
1820.
| And its oh! she was so neat a maid, | |
| That her stockings and her shoes | |
| She toted in her lily white hands, | |
| For to keep them from the dews. | |
James Hall, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 91 (Lond.). |
1825. “I’ll not be cotch again, by your tricks.” “Cotch!—I reckon!—clear nigger that, I guess. Might as well say fotch, or holp—or tote.—”—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 414.
1827. [One fellow] wished to know if I would have that ’ere thing I toted over my head shingled.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 22: from the Augusta Chronicle, Ga.
1833. In our day, father, the merchants were well enough satisfied to tote their plunder upon mules and pack horses.—James Hall, ‘Legends of the West,’ p. 49 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1833. I had fairly toted him, as they say here, to the brink of the stream, and one second more would have heard him plunging over head and ears in its dark tide.—Asa Greene (‘Elnathan Elmwood’), ‘A Yankee among the Nullifiers,’ p. 76. (Italics in the original.)
1833. Your whiskey is as good as your fire; and that is saying a great deal, for you are the severest old beaver to tote wood that I ’ve seen for many a long day.—James Hall, ‘The Harpe’s Head,’ p. 135 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1833. I cut him up, threw away some of him, and brought at four turns as much as I could tote, (carry,) and put it on the bank. [The editor inserts the explanation, carry.]—‘Sketches of D. Crockett,’ p. 103 (N.Y.).
1835. He is as gentle as a cat. But he won’t tote double. Me and my old ’oman wants to go to meetin’, that’s the main thing that we wants a horse for, and he won’t tote us both.—Mrs. Smedes, ‘Memorials of a Southern Planter,’ p. 51 (Baltimore, 1887).
1837. [Uncommon use]. I say, captain, if your men will fight, just tote’em back…. [Is it wiser] to send an able-bodied man to fight them [the Injuns]; or to tote him off, a day’s journey thar and back ag’in…?—R. M. Bird, ‘Nick of the Woods,’ i. 133, 145 (Lond.).
1842. See PLUNDER.
1843. An iron hook to tote squirrels.—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 122.
1843. The excellent Servetus would have been toted on our shoulders, and feasted in the tents on fried ham, cold chicken fixins and horse sorrel pies!—Id., ii. 143. (Italics in the original.)
1845. Did you ever see a woman as tall as that one that toated the hickory?—W. T. Thompson, ‘Chronicles of Pineville,’ p. 65 (Phila.).
1846, 1847, 1848. See PLUNDER.
1846. He had all the odds, you know, for I was toting a two hundred pounder.—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 50 (Phila.).
1818. I’ve jist bought me a hickory-stick, what I’m gwine to tout.—‘Joneses Fight,’ p. 34 (Phila.).
1848. It may do well enuff for people what don’t know the difference between niggers and white folks; but I could never bear to see a white gall toatin my child about, and waitin on me like a nigger. It would hurt my conscience to keep anybody ’bout me in that condition, who was as white and as good as me.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 14 (Phila.).
1851. Thar … goes as clever a feller as ever toted a ugly head!—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 140 (Phila.).
1851. See HUMAN.
1852. I heard it said when I was a child, that it was allowable to “make the Devil tote brick to build a church.”—Mr. Stanly of North Carolina, House of Repr., June 12: Cong. Globe, p. 693, App.
1860. Each gang was attended by a “water-toter,” that of the hoe-gang being a straight, sprightly, plump little black girl, whose picture, as she stood balancing the bucket upon her head, shading her bright eyes with one hand, and holding out a calabash with the other to maintain her poise, would have been a worthy study for Murillo.—Olmsted, ‘Journey in the Back Country,’ p. 48 (N.Y.).
1860. We ’ll have a game of euchre to decide who shall tote to-morrow’s supply of wood.—Knick. Mag., lvi. 534 (Nov.).
1868. It was necessary to unload our wagons and “tote” the trunks up a hill at least half a mile, the horses being barely able to haul the empty vehicles.—Sol. Smith, ‘Autobiography,’ p. 90.
