tally-stick

Sinan gracefully accepted Hildegart as his new concubine, and taught her the abacus and the tally-stick.

The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection Dozois, Gardner 2006

The fantastic notion that the stethoscope was that sort of tally-stick nagged and nagged at me.

The Nursing Home Murder Marsh, Ngaio, 1899-1982 1963

When the arrow of the water-clock registered the moment of the change from one division into another, the Cock-man on duty struck the appropriate tally-stick on a stone set for that purpose beside the door of the Palace.

Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems Translated From the Chinese 1921

My tally-stick gave the thirteenth of September as the date of our arrival at Howard's Creek.

A Virginia Scout Hugh Pendexter 1907

Another notch had to be cut in the tally-stick of my ornithological journey -- I had learned how the whip-poor-will takes his nocturnal dinner of moths and beetles, and I felt that there was still such a thing as news to be gathered in birdland.

Our Bird Comrades 1896

If that guess should be by a player on the side that had just lost a point, and the guess prove to be successful -- that is, the pile pointed at contain the "chief" -- then the messenger takes the tally-stick that had been put at the end of the row of the opposite side and stands it in front of the successful guesser.

Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs 1880

If the "chief" is not found among the disks, the side to which the unsuccessful guesser belongs loses a point, and the messenger takes from the small mat a tally-stick and stands it at the end of the row of players on the opposite side.

Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs 1880

He could not take back a tally-stick that had been won by a guess unless all the tally-sticks had been taken from the small mat.

Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs 1880

As soon as the foreman (dressed in a blouse and high boots, and carrying a tally-stick) caught sight of

Childhood Leo Tolstoy 1869

Nowadays, when there wasn't much in the way of coined money in the village, Hanbil sold his brew by tally - you brought in a bushel of barley, a bunch of hops, a dozen eggs, some pork or chicken, and he would reckon up how much in 'real" money that represented and put it on a tally-stick for you.

Owlflight Lackey, Mercedes 1997