"Plumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between them two gals like a hot corn pone. He'd take Nella-Rose quick enough if she'd have him, but barrin' her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke's got two naturs, same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to anythin'; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act like ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... and vanished behind me. The place was full of smoke and the plunder that was scattered around; you could neither see nor walk, and that bear was swatting the door in a fashion that showed he was going to give us a call any old how, and I was plumb distracted—for the life of me I ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... whole circle is flaming clear of the earth, only not a circle, but seemingly almost square with rounded corners. Round its path on the veldt there is a broad wash of dusty gold. A lot of us came out of the tents, and were spell-bound by the sight. Every evening the sun goes down plumb into the veldt out of a cloudless sky, and comes up just so in the morning. While he is gone it is bitterly cold now, always with hard frost, but in the middle of the day often very hot. I have never known such extremes ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... seemed to have a sense of humour. I felt sure that he, at least, was plumb straight. 'Sure, doc,' I said, 'I'm sorry about the tree, and I guess the new bulbs will be on me. But perhaps you'd like to know what I was doing in your garden?' 'I think the facts do call for an explanation,' he replied. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... more ways than one, for I could not leave the ladder where it was, and it was nearly twice my height. I struck a match and lit up a sufficient perspective of lumber and cobwebs to reassure me. The loft was long enough, and the trap-door plumb under the apex of the roof, whereas I had stepped sideways off the ladder. It was to be got up, and I got it up, though not by any means as silently as I could have wished. I knelt and listened at the open trap-door for ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... what is this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?— Oh! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord,—quite an irregular thing; not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, my ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the men by Director General Hines, who succeeded McAdoo. Meanwhile the Brotherhoods, through their counsel, laid before the congressional committee a plan for the government ownership and joint operation of the roads, known as the Plumb plan, and the American people are now face to face with an issue which will bring to a head the paramount question of the relation of employees on government works to the Government ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... An' thinkin' it's safe t' do so, I lets go o' Bull's halter. An' while I'm studyin' an' takin' a nip from a flask I happens t' have in my jeans, I forgets Bull for a minit, an' when I looks up, he's plumb absent. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... eat it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plumb-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... an emotional disposition. Cheswardine, who had a black beard, simply came along and married the little thing. She fluttered down on to his shoulders like a pigeon. She adored him, feared him, cooed to him, worried him, and knew that there were depths of his mind which she would never plumb. Woodruff, after being best man, went on loving, meekly and yet philosophically, and found his chief joy in just these suppers. The arrangement suited Vera; and as for the husband and the hopeless admirer, they had always ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... deflection of plumb lines from the vertical, by the action of mountains. The attraction of a projecting mass of known bulk and density, with one whose bulk alone is known, is thus determined, and hence the density of the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... don't bust," warned Dextry. "I've seen men get plumb drunk on mountain air. Don't expand too strong in one spot." He went back abruptly to his pipe, its villanous fumes promptly averting any danger of the air's ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... declamatory kind of Lady Macbeth who had stepped into the role flatly on a No. 7 last, rather than from a Juliette who had fattened into the part; that congenial stateliness now thrown completely out of plumb by a violent limp, which, resulting from a railway accident, threw out her entire left leg as ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... child I'd serve notice that this circle business should stop. I wish you'd talk to 'em. I don't count—but they'll listen to you. I'm glad to have met you. I hope you'll come up again. I'd like to mill that business over with you; it's all very curious, but I'm just plumb distracted with ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the speediest girl on the main floor, and now that she's come into those five hundred, instead of planting it for a rainy day, she's quit work and gone plumb crazy with it." ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... really—not all her thoughts." And had Major Durward, honest fellow, realized the volcanic force of passion hidden behind the tense inscrutability of his wife's lovely face, he would have been utterly confounded. We do not plumb the deepest depths even of those who ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... th' penitentiary. Pride's stubborn, Hiram. But layin' aside th' root o' th' trouble, an' lookin' at th' matter through their eyes, it's really a shame th' way yer paw's place has gone to ruin—th' way you've gone th' same route. I'd druther see ye plumb bad ern so all-fired no-good all round. Ye had jobs a number o' times drivin' eight an' ten on jerkline, freightin' tanbark from Longport. Ye're a good jerkline skinner, Hiram—no better in the country—but ye won't ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... he turned to unharness and feed his other dogs. And again, "Well!" And then, after a pause: "Now I know you're plumb crazy. But all the same—Well, it's got me properly beat. Anyhow, crazy or no, I guess you're meat just the same, an', by the great Geewhillikins! you'll be dead meat, an' digested meat at that, before you're an hour older, my son, if I know anything ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... this morning, eh? Wish it well for me. If I've got to be civilized I'm going to be plumb civilized. Well, ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... cable car coming along about that time. The skipper yelled to me to ease off the larboard stay. Now, I might know something about mince pie, but a larboard stay is not my long and hasty. Then some one pushed me aside, and succeeded in putting things in such excellent shape that we ran plumb through the dock. It ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... they ain't so bad as they sound, is too strong meat for babes. Now I'm Orthodox to the core" (here she lowered her voice as if there might be a stray deacon in the garden), "but 'pears to me if I was makin' out lessons for young ones I wouldn't fill 'em so plumb full o' brimstun. Let 'em do a little suthin' to deserve it 'fore you scare 'em ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you was late Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor’s forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.’ ‘I do,’ says Peachey. ‘Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.’ ‘Shake hands, Peachey,’ says he. ‘I’m going now.’ Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, ‘Cut, you beggars,’ he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he struck the water, and I could ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... with the notion of speeding you up a bit," he said, "because I felt plumb sure that there wasn't a live man in the place, nothing but a ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... declare," said Mother Mayberry, as she watched the expedition wend its way down the white Road in the direction of the Bolivar pike, "the way the Deacon do love the children is plumb beautiful, and sad some too. I don't know what he would do without Jem or they without him. Seeing 'em together reminds me of that scraggy, old snowball bush in full bloom, leaning down to the little Stars ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Fowle. Observe the Evening is best before Sun-set. Stake down your Nets on each side the River half a foot within the Water, the lower part so plumb'd as to sink no further; the upper slantwise shoaling against, but not touching by two foot, the Water, and the Strings which bear up this upper side fastned to small yeilding sticks prickt in the Bank, that as the Fowle strike may ply to the Nets to entangle them. And thus lay your ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... out over this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that one tiny flaw, his neglect to take up that option—you remember, I told you—right down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down for it and hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up from ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... thereby Unto the All draw nigh? Shall it avail to plumb the mystic deeps Of flowery beauty, scale the icy steeps Of perilous thought, thy hidden Face to find, Or tread the starry paths to the utmost verge of the sky? Nay, groping dull and blind Within the sheltering dimness of thy wings— Shade that ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... carpenter's square in a slit to the top of a stake by means of a screw, and then tie a plumb-line at the angle so that it may hang along the short arm, when the plumb-line hangs vertically and sights may be taken over it. A carpenter's spirit-level set on an adjustable stand will do as well. The other arm ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... on S. S. passed a Isd. Called Sheeco Islan wind from the N W Camped in a Prarie on the L. S., Capt Lewis & my Self Walked out 3 ms. found the Country roleing open & rich, with plenty of water, great qts of Deer I discovered a Plumb which grows on bushes the hight of Hasle, those plumbs are in great numbers, the bushes beare Verry full, about double the Sise of the wild plumb Called the Osage Plumb & am told they ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... could say? Certainly nobody knew or was likely to know; for the Master of Saint Bede's was a person, the depth of whose nature could not be fathomed easily with any line. Possibly because, old as he was, it happened, as does happen in some lives, that the right plumb-line, by the right hand, had never ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... which conferred upon him no power for being or doing what it required. It is like a looking-glass placed before a child to show him that his face is soiled, but having no power to cleanse that face. It was like a plumb- line applied to a leaning wall, which shows how far it deviates from the perpendicular, but which has no power to make it upright. Nay, it even comes to pass that in consequence of inbred sin, the law multiplies offences. It causes sin to abound. We find even in ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... also says: "I am the way." As such, he is so narrow that, as the prophet represents, it is as if a fire of destruction were on the one hand and a flood of wrath on the other. Ah, Brethren, the truth can never be made to bend. It is as the builder's line to the foundation; and as the plumb line to the column. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... any of you younger people old enough to remember that Irishman's house on the marsh at Cambridgeport, which house he built from drain to chimney-top with his own hands? It took him a good many years to build it, and one could see that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy in outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A regular hand could certainly have built a better house; but it was a very good house for a "self-made" carpenter's house, and people praised it, and said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the figures down all right," nodded Lieutenant Danvers, thoughtfully. "The risky part is in trying to run over that derelict's sunken hull in order to locate it and make your soundings. Now, you run a big chance of running plumb on to some other stump of a mast. The 'Hastings' may easily get an injury, from the stump of another mast, that may tear a real hole in our plates and send us ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... instance in which the lieutenant has lately excited our wonder. His temper, which had been soured and shrivelled by disappointment and chagrin, is now swelled out, and smoothed like a raisin in plumb-porridge. From being reserved and punctilious, he is become easy and obliging. He cracks jokes, laughs and banters, with the most facetious familiarity; and, in a word, enters into all our schemes of merriment and pastime — The other day his baggage arrived ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well, did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb deranged. Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked him out of it—likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely to happen again. There's ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... very useful broom; Yet should not ceaseless hunt about the room To catch each straggling pin to make a plumb: Too oft Economy's an iron vice, That squeezes even the little guts of mice, That peep with fearful eyes, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the blue ribbon. Sam said it took a good eye and a steady arm and a good seat to manage the thing, and he enjoyed watchin' 'em. 'But,' says he, 'why they call the thing a t'u'nament is more'n I could make out. I stayed there a plumb hour, and I couldn't hear nor see anything that sounded or ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... Buck, whose mildness of the last question had been merely the cover for a bursting wrath that now sent his voice booming, "maybe you know a whole pile, boy—I hear Jasper has give you consid'able education—but what you know is plumb wasted on me. Understand? As for lookin' up another blacksmith, you ought to know they ain't another shop in ten miles. You'll do this job, and you'll do it my way. Maybe you got another way ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance This strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud Instinct with fire and nitre hurried ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... said the Doctor, leaning over to knock the ashes from his pipe. "I'm plumb certain she cares for you, and just as certain that you're making a mistake by running away." He stood up and scowled fiercely at the moon. "Well, I must be off. I'll see you to-morrow. You're not going until ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... muttered Fred, hoarsely, a worried look showing in his eyes, "I'm getting plumb down to the bottom of anything ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... Alfred vent her chaste delight On darling rooms, so warm and bright;[43] Chant 'I am weary' in infectious strain, And 'catch the blue-fly singing on the pane;' Though praised by critics and adored by Blues, Though Peel with pudding plumb the puling muse; Though Theban taste the Saxon purse controls, And pensions Tennyson ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... laughed, saying, "I cannot fight a monk," and sheathed his sword. He did not love monks, none of his house did. He had seen the new gallows, could measure the build of the fellow in the quarry; and though he could not plumb the girl's soul through her misty eyes, he could read her shaking lips and clinging hands; he could see, and be shocked to see, how young she was to be acquainted with grief, and with sin how likely familiar. The hint of the thing ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... don't have to tell you why," he said diplomatically. "You know as well as I do she's plumb corroded with jealousy of you for winning out with her dear Abigail just when she thought she had things fixed. I don't suppose you know the inside story of how your predecessor got the sack? The Pride person was responsible. Miss Matring was in her way, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... was, an' that ain't but half of it," the lank rider complained regretfully. "It ain't ever gonna be any more. These here red-coats are plumb ruinin' trade. Squint at a buck cross-eyed, whisper rum to him, an' one o' these guys jumps a-straddle ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... no more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would give her back her freedom; he would give it back to ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... repeat the experiment with the partly eaten fungi. The result is the same. In one short night the food is divined under its covering of sand and attained by means of a burrow which descends as straight as a plumb-line to the point where the fungus lies. There has been no hesitation, no trial excavations which have nearly discovered the object of search. This is proved by the surface of the soil, which is everywhere just ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the solid rock which supports Ben Lomond, there exists a natural shaft which descends perpendicularly into the vein beneath. A week ago I went to ascertain the depth of this shaft. While sounding it, and bending over the opening as my plumb-line went down, it seemed to me that the air within was agitated, as though beaten ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... fascinated me. I made good there, and got together a fat wad of bills, which was useful seeing I had my young cousin's—you know, young Will Henderson, of Barnriff; he's a trapper now—education on my hands. Just as things were good and dollars were coming plenty the enterprise bust. I was out—plumb out. I hunched up for another kick. I had a dandy patent that was to do big things. I got together a syndicate to run it. I'd got a big car built to demonstrate my patent, and it represented all I had in the world. It was to be on the race-track. Say, she didn't demonstrate worth ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... so fussy. When I have children I'm just going to leave them plumb alone. I don't care ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... lady. When George first went to wait upon his mother's friends, he found our old acquaintance, Mr. Draper, of the Temple, sedulous in his attentions to her; and the lawyer, who was married, told Mr. Warrington to look out, as the young lady had a plumb to her fortune. Mr. Drabshaw, a young Quaker gentleman, and nephew of Mr. Trail, Madam Esmond's Bristol agent, was also in constant attendance upon the young lady, and in dreadful alarm and suspicion when Mr. Warrington first made his appearance. Wishing to do honour to his mother's ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... family here in Kentucky, and we oughtn't to bring strangers into the family council, even if we do have a disagreement. Besides, he represents the Knights of the Golden Circle, and what they are planning is plumb foolishness. Even if you are bound to go out and split up the Union, I'd think you wouldn't have anything to do with the wholesale grabbing of Spanish-speaking territories ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Noah discovered Ararat," replied Pinzon. "You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb into an island, after floating about for three months, and then you couldn't tell it from a continent, even when you had it right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family that he discovered a roof garden as for ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... afternoon it looked bright to Daisy; but then her heart sank; Sunday evening would be near. What should she do? She could not settle it in her mind what was right; between her mother's anger and her father's love, Daisy could not see what was just the plumb-line of duty. Singing would gain a hundred dollars' worth of good; and not singing would disobey her mother and displease her father; but then came the words of one that Daisy honoured more than father and mother "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day;" and she could ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... accession King George has been confronted with trials and troubles enough to daunt the stoutest heart, and none of us can plumb the depth of anguish that must have been his through the awful years of the Great War. He has been tried and proved in the fierce fires of adversity, and has emerged ennobled by pain, and dowered by sorrow with a gift of expression that has placed him among the masters of the glory ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... with the English of the country, there is apparently very little difference between them; but still there is a difference, and of no small importance in a moral point of view. The country peculiarity is like the bloom of the plumb, or the down of the peach, which the fingers of infancy cannot touch without injuring; but this felt but not describable quality of the town character, is as the varnish which brings out more vividly the colours of a picture, and which may be freely and even rudely handled. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... carried on with as much care as a mason would give to the laying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. The mason knows that if he does not lay his foundations deep and firm, that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he puts faulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a success. The work at every stage must be a success or the completed structure must be ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... is easily answered," he said. "For the miracle to happen, in fact, the sieve must be held as level as the top rail of a mason's T-shaped plumb-line frame, and as steady as if clamped in a vise. For a woman to carry water in a sieve the weather must be dry, for in damp weather the water would run through the meshes, even if the threads or wires were just oily ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... substructure is cased with the finer material to a height of nearly twenty-four feet, which is quite enough to account for Xenophon's statement. As for his dimensions, they should not be taken too literally. In their rapid and anxious march the Greek commanders had no time to wield the plumb-line or the measuring-chain; they must have trusted mainly to their eyes in arriving at a notion of the true size of the buildings by which their attention was attracted. The tower at Nimroud must have been about 150 feet square, measured along its plinth; the present ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... bein' sent for a killing to-day," said Old Man Curry. "Well, she'll have 'Lisha to beat, I reckon. And all he's runnin' for is the purse, Frank, like you said. I did my best to bet 'em until the price got too plumb ridiculous, but the children of Israel wouldn't ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... side, and upon any length of line which may be taken on the tracing-board as a base for elevation, an Equilateral Triangle will be found whose sides are of course all equal and therefore known, as they are equal to the base, and whose line joining apex to centre of base is a true Plumb line, forming at its foot the perfect right angle, so important in the laying of every ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... raised the heavy lid, sliding it to one side. How deep was the black chasm beneath he could not even guess. Doubtless it led into a coal bunker, or it might open over a pit of great depth. There was no way to discover other than to plumb the abyss with his body. Above was death—below, ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one.... I was comin' back from leave at Grenoble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raisin' hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like that ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... issue or two, we note a letter from Edwin Magnuson, a deluded denizen of Duluth, who says he's plumb disgusted because Astounding Stories receives far more bouquets than brickbats, when according to him the mag deserves to be panned plenty. Get in step, Edwin, you're falling ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... rocks, heaped in frightful disorder. When, closing my eyes, I contemplate these results of the convulsion of the soil in my mind's eye, when I hear the screaming of the eagles, which go wheeling through the bottomless abysses, whose inky shadows the eye dares hardly plumb, vertigo seizes me, and I open my eyes to reassure myself by ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... with a blue plumb; wounded with a bullet. A sortment of George R—'s blue plumbs; a volley of ball, shot from ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... drew back, leaving the old man absorbed in ecstasy, and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which he pointed, had neutralized all effects. They examined the picture, moving from right to left, standing directly before it, ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... pesterin' 'bout thet. Them young-uns 'druther sleep out'n in, any time. Ef I'd let 'em they'd grow up plumb wild. When yo've got worshed up come on right in the kitchen an' set by. Us Wattses is plain folks an' don't pile on no dog. We've et an' got through, but yo' take all the time yo're a mind to, an' ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... keep the tears from starting again—"'cause he ain't got much appetite. But when he's eatin' good his legs is jest great. Why, there ain't no other dog in Golconda that's got as strong legs as Baldy when he's—when he's eatin' good," he repeated hastily. "An' Golconda's plumb full o' ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... blunt saw, a blunter ax, a wooden spade, two great augers, that I believe had a hand in bringing us here, but have not been any use to us since, a center-bit, two planes, a hammer, a pair of pincers, two brad-awls, three gimlets, two scrapers, a plumb-lead and line, a large pair of scissors, and you have a small pair, two gauges, a screw-driver, five clasp-knives, a few screws and nails of various sizes, two small barrels, two bags, two tin bowls, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... I give her the name, myself," he observed, at last. "Seein' I just got her a week ago last Saturday. I ASKED Casper Hoyt what under the canopy possessed him to give her a name like that. Said his father named her. Well, I thought his father must be plumb foolish, or something, but I didn't like to say so to HIM. Seems too bad to waste them gilt letters, or I'd a-had another name on her 'fore this. I wanted to use as many of them letters as I could, an' I thought of callin' her for my aunt, over ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... if he will—says he's gone to bed, an' that there ain't a cussed female in this blasted country he'd git up for," he reported circumstantially to the clerk. "He told me to tell you to go plumb to hell, an' that if any one else come poundin' 'round thar to-night, he'd take a pot shot at 'em through the door. 'Fifteen' seemed a bit peevish, sir, an' I reckoned if he was riled up much more, he might git rambunctious; his language ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... right. Yer see," he went on, "her father's my pal, and he married the girl that—a girl—well, the best kind of a girl yer can think of" (poor Sam), "and they both worked hard and was gettin' along fine, until sickness come, and then he lost his job, and it's plumb four months now that he's been idle; and that girl, the wife, was thin as a rail, and they would die all together in a heap before they'd let any one ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... hand away from the butt of his ivory-handled gun. The Texan had pulled his other revolver with the bewildering speed of a magician. Goliday was covered, "plumb center." ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... mournfully; "bot' tumbs up! but it's a pity. Carson's an Irish gintleman, an' if I could till him ye was a gurl, he'd knock the head plumb off any b'y that 'ud bother ye. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... alarming theory, particularly if it be true, as it is said to be, that since 1880 the towers have perceptibly come out of plumb. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... or thereabouts; this is filled with stiff, well-worked mud, which is dumped in by bucketsful and continually tramped by barefooted laborers; harder bricks are used for the doorways and windows. The bricklayer uses mud for mortar and his hands for a trowel; he works without either level or plumb-line, and keeps up a doleful, melancholy chant from morning to night. The mortar is handed to him by an assistant by handsful; every workman is smeared and spattered with mud from head to foot, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... yeller. You've got to have one good fight to save a lot of others an' this is the day you're goin' to have it. After school you've got to smash Jimmy Marquess a wallop on his front teeth an' if you don't shake 'em plumb loose I'm goin' to take you back in the woods an' give you a revelation in lickin's that'll linger with you for years." Ham paused and then added ominously, "Now you can do just exactly as you like. I don't want ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... to follow the same army to certain other strongholds, his evil fortune would have it that he should be killed while attempting to measure certain heights at a difficult point; for when he had put his head out beyond the wall in order to let a plumb-line down, a priest who was with the enemy (who feared the genius of Cecca more than the might of the whole camp) discharged a catapult at him and fixed a great dart in his head, insomuch that the poor fellow ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... of these tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and set every thing as straight up-and-down as the back ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... present to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the history of a state,—do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... finest boys dat one ever did see. At dat time Claude, he 'bout two year old and Clarence, he 'bout four er mebbe little less. Ella, she worked in da house cooking for Miss Fannie an' nussin' de chillun and she plumb crazy 'bout de chillun an' dey just as satisfied wid her as dey was wid dere mama and Ella thought more dem chillun dan she did anybody. She just crazy 'bout dem boys. Mars Luch, he gibe me job right 'way sort flunkying for him and hostling at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... in the United States in 1837-1839 and in England in 1864-1866, large houses and powerful institutions of credit had maintained a whole scaffolding of speculation which was already out of plumb, but still able to stand upright through the general effect of the parts which connected them, and in this unstable equilibrium it sufficed for a single one to detach itself in order to overthrow the whole edifice ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... them on the round of the cliff-track—all in one quiet golden glow. War? Who could think of War? . . . Nicky-Nan at any rate let the thought of it slip into the sea of his private trouble. It was as though he had hauled up some other man's "sinker" and, discovering his mistake, let it drop back plumb. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... know not; nor what Natural Reason to assign for that which I find amongst the Observations of the Imperial Academy for the Year 1687, viz. That in an Orchard where are choice Damascen Plumbs, the Master of the Family being sick of a Quartan Ague, whilst he continued very ill, four of his Plumb-trees instead of Damascens brought forth a vile sort of yellow Plumbs: but recovering Health, the next Year the Tree did (as formerly) bear Damascens again; but when after that he fell into a fatal Dropsie, on those Trees were seen not Damascens, but another sort of Fruit. The ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... Shoop as he mounted. "Now, if I was to tell that dog he was gettin' too old to ramble with me, he'd feel plumb sick and no account. But when I tell him he's got to do somethin'—like watchin' the house—he thinks it's a reg'lar job. He's gettin' old, but, just like folks, he wants to think he's some use. You ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... thus, the thicknesse of halfe the earth is (as shall be shewed) about 4000 miles, now the plumb height of the highest mountaines is not accounted aboue a mile and a halfe, or two miles at the most. Now betweene two miles and foure thousand, there is no sensible proportion, and a line that is foure thousand and two miles long, will not seeme sensibly longer then that which ...
— A Briefe Introduction to Geography • William Pemble
... West Kootenay and were working south to leave the country dead broke. We had found "float" in plenty, and had followed it up ridges and over divides across three ranges of mountains. Our horses were plumb played out. We had camped on a ridge to let them fatten up enough to beat it out of British Columbia for ever. Well, we found some galena "floats" in a dry gully on the other side of the valley. We had provisions ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... concerned face of Genevieve Cooper. From the intentness with which she hung upon my every action and change of expression, I knew that she was trying to plumb the farther depths and learn the trend of the hidden currents of this drama, which was of such vital moment to her. I was glad that I could still offer her the encouragement of ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... tellin' about the next couple of hours. 'Cordin' to my reckonin' they was years and we'd ought to have sailed plumb through the broadside of the Cape, and be makin' a quick run for Africy. But at last we got into smoother water, and then, right acrost our bows, showed up a white strip. The fog had pretty well blowed clear ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... plumb waste of money to take a newspaper when you're around, Steve," drawled Colter, in amiable derision. "Happen to notice the color ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... right to home!" laughed the cow-boy. "You just light down and we'll trail over to Chola Charley's and prospect a tub of frijoles. The dinner-bell when you are broke is plumb correct. Got any more of that po'try ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... plumb forget, wuz pore white trash an' he wuz meaner dan de meanest nigger. Anyhow I wuz too little ter do much wuck so I played a heap an' I had a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... "did you ever hear about that prospector that found a thousand pounds of gold in one chunk? He was lost on the desert, plumb out of water and forty miles from nowhere. He couldn't take the chunk along with him and if he left it there the sand would cover it up. Now what was that poor feller ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... sunken-eyed slip of humanity had a spell for those who heard him speak. There was no subject, moral, intellectual, or philosophic too remote or too profound for him to measure it at a moment's notice, with the ever-ready, fallacious plumb-line of his brilliant vanity. He would talk for hours: be eloquent, convincing, almost noble; and afterwards accompany his audience to ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... stick to things hereafter, Johnny. It was plumb foolish to lay down just because a tree got in our way, and it was my fault, too. It isn't going to happen again, though. Let's get through that creek to-night, if we have to work by the ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... globe, heavy collars connected the mast with the ship. These were removed, and a heavy trap door, upon which the foot of the flagstaff rested, was its only support. A massive bolt alone held the trap in place. Will and the Professor were by the ice shaft, watching the plumb-line. At a signal, the Doctor struck the bolt a heavy blow with a sledge, the trap fell, and the beautiful mast shot like a flash of lightning down through the frosty atmosphere, entered the ice hole precisely in the center, and sank to the depth of 35 ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... inconclusive observations on minor portions of rock may be; for I never mark an angle unless enough of the upper or lower surface of the beds be smoothly exposed to admit of my pole being adjusted to it by the spirit-level. The pole then indicates the strike of the beds, and a quadrant with a plumb-line their dip; to all intents and purposes accurately. There is a curious distortion of the beds in the ravine between the Glacier des Bois and foot of the Montanvert, near the ice, about a thousand feet above the valley; the beds there seem to bend suddenly back under the glacier, and in ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... be precisely formulated are better fitted to symbolize life to us than the rigidly geometrical. The same experience has taught us that the curvilinear forms are closer to life than the angular; hence again the tendency, for aesthetic purposes, to introduce minute departures from the plumb-line and rule. There is, however, a type of life specifically human, the life of reason, which is best symbolized by mathematical relations; hence the Greeks, and all those who have followed the classical ideal, all who have had a passion for reason, have ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... jus' plumb broke Old Marse up. It wasn't long till he moved into Tyler and left my paw runnin' the farm on a halfance with him and the niggers workers. He didn't live long, but I forgits jus' how long. But when Mr. Bob heired the old place, he 'lowed we'd jus' go 'long ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... watched it hovering near That mystery 'yond thought to plumb, Perchance sometimes in loathed fear They heard cold Danger ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. "Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... you—shooting now?" he jibed when he could speak. "You must figger I'm plumb loco. Any fool ought to know anybody would hold off till you located the mine. Even supposing I was going to plant you, ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... temporarily removed, engaged, not with mattock and death's head, but with spirit-level and measuring-cord. They were levelling a stretch of newly-turned and smoothed ground, and they pointed with pride to the portion of the work already accomplished, serried rows of spick-and-span headstones, all "plumb," as they explained, and freshly scraped—not a sign of caressing moss or a tendril of vine to be seen. A neat job, if there ever was one. We should have seen the yard before they had taken it in hand! There wasn't a stone that was straight, and the weeds and the brambles—well, ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... as the applause of murmurs fell off. "And from yarns like that one you wouldn't never figure it that I was the son of a minister brung up plumb ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... I ain't fooling, Miss Rhody," said the cowpuncher earnestly. "When me and my roan come up this fur and seen we didn't see nothin', I was plumb twisted. Says I to me: 'Here, Tom Collins, is where you got to go an' see a spectacles man 'cause you got optical delusions' And I ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... with a bad eye an' a gun that jumps out of its leather like it had a mind of its own. He picked me for fifty bucks by nailing a dollar I tossed up at twenty yards. Then he gets a hundred because I couldn't ride this hoss of his. Which he's made a plumb fool of me, Dan. Now I was tellin' him about you—maybe I was sort of exaggeratin'—an' I said you could have your back turned when the coins was tossed an' then pick off four dollars before they hit the ground. I made it ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... it's a good thing for that kid," said Curly. "She ought to be plumb soft-spoken all her life, after all that lard in her frontispiece. But it won't do 'em no good,—they'll eat my strychnine next. This here stage-coach—with her along," jerking his thumb towards the physician in charge, "won't ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... William Penn; one of the early settlers. I was reading the other day about him; when he first arrived, he got a lot of Indians up a tree, and when they'd shook some apples down, he set one on top of his son's head and shot an arrow plumb through it, and never fazed him. They say it struck them Indians cold, he was such a terrific shooter. Fine countenance, hasn't he? Face shaved clean; he didn't wear a mustache, I believe, but he seems to've let himself out on hair. Now, my view is that every man ought to have a picture ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Society, drawn by Evelyn, but not used, because the king gave them the choice of using the Royal Arms in a canton. The first of Evelyn's designs exhibits a ship in full sail, with the motto Et Augebitur Scientia. The other are as follows:—A hand issuing from the clouds holding a plumb-line—motto, Omnia probate; two telescopes saltier-wise, the earth and planets above—motto, Quantum nescimus; the sun in splendour—motto, Ad majorem lumen; a terrestrial globe, with the human eye above—motto, Rerum ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of everything is a capacity which comes more naturally to this type than to others. This is due to the psychological fact that nothing is truly humorous save what is slightly "out of plumb." ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... plait, a fold. razed, destroyed. plate, flattened metal. pries, inspects closely. plumb, perpendicular. prize, to value. plum, a fruit. pray, to supplicate. place, site; spot. prey, a spoil. plaice, a fish. pore, a small opening. please, to gratify. pour, to cause to flow. pleas, excuses. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... fine points, like where the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart every time, for why?—because if He hadn't 'a' done it Pharaoh would 'a' give in the very first time and spoiled the whole thing. And then the Lord would visit so plumb natural and commonlike with Moses—like tellin' him, 'I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, for by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them.' I thought that was awful cute and friendly, stoppin' to talk ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... country has changed a lot in a hundred years and I don't know just where we are. I'm only guessing, doing dead reckoning on our motor speed. But we ought to see the place I've got in mind, before plumb dark." ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... instead of letting a man in a red tie do it for him, and after six weeks came to the conclusion that a strike is a game that more than one can play at. He strikes now only in his holidays. He never now forgets his tools or leaves taps running. He does a good day's plumb for a good day's pay. And he sings while he works. Strange to say that little tooth of his has given up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... to think. He hated half measures. For a certain space he had to live on earth, and he wanted to discover what life really was. What lay beyond the grave he did not know, "sufficient for the day were the day's evil things." But he felt that he must try and plumb the depth or shallowness of the day's interests. He could not bear the idea of ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... don't you fellows branch out?" Bagsby always ended. "What do you want to stick here for like a lot of groundhogs? There's rivers back in the hills a heap better than this one, and nobody thar. You'd have the place plumb to yoreselves. Git in where the mountains ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... unsuccessfully to console Mrs. Loring for the destruction of the plum tree, and exchanging with her somewhat awe-struck comments on the scene they had both just witnessed. No summons came, however; but half an hour later, he came across Carnaby alone, and an interview promptly ensued. He wanted to plumb the depth of the boy-mind and to learn exactly what motives had prompted Carnaby to this sudden and startling action in the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Say! If you ain't got any place to go—why—I've got a ranch and about twenty-five hundred head of cattle and some horses. If you didn't mind marrying me, I could take you out there and give yuh a home. I'd be plumb good to you, if you're willing ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... arm in a friendly grip, with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' not even my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scared before a growler like that,"—touching Bruin's carcass with his foot,—"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... Longman've failed a lot sence Myry an' Ezry died," agreed Jake. "An' no wonder! Them two didn't amount to much to my way o' thinkin', but their pa an' ma set considerable store by 'em ... Ben Letts were a bad 'un, too. It used to make me plumb ugly to see 'im botherin' Tess when ye was shet up, Orn, an' him all the time the daddy ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... nothing; and what made it more difficult was, that the walls here were lined completely with small flat bricks, and looked much the same all round. I examined these bricks as closely as I might, and took course by course, looking first at the north side where the plumb-line hung, and afterwards turning round in the bucket till I was afraid of getting giddy; but to little purpose. They could see my candle moving round and round from the well-top, and knew no doubt what I was at, but Master Turnkey grew impatient, and shouted ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... once had an audience with Mr. William Whiffletree in regard to one of Mr. Whiffletree's molars which Bill thought had a "speck" on it, he soon convinced the victim that the said molar not only was specked, but out of the dead plumb of its nearest neighbor at least the 84th ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... liquor and refilled the glass. "Most fat men," he imparted irrelevantly, "are plumb mindful that they're easy hit, an' consequent they're cheerful-hearted an' friendly. Likewise, they mind their own business, which is also why they've be'n let grow to onhuman proportions. But, not to seem ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... faith and assurance which reverberate in the words of this service were, on his lips and in his sympathetic and superb reading, like the overtones and rich harmonies of an organ. There was no formalism nor coldness, no hesitancy to plumb the stark reality of the occasion, but only the vibrant convictions of his own great faith in the goodness of God. Few can fail to recall the clarity and feeling with which he read St. Paul's immortal passage in 1st Corinthians, nor ever forget the prayer he invariably ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... plate, having inscribed on it the name of the founder, date, &c. Being furnished with a trowel and mortar by the master mason, Mr. John Holme, he spread it; another massy stone was then let down upon the first, and adjusted to its position, Mr. Wordsworth handling the rule, plumb-line, and mallet, and patting the stone he retired. The Rev. R.P. Graves next offered up the following prayer for the welfare and success of the undertaking: "The foundation-stone of the new parochial school-house of Bowness being ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... and told me, with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plumb-porridge. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... with evil intent to batter down our flimsy breastworks. Battalion H.Q. and the signallers will probably not easily forget the morning when they found themselves the objective in this kind of work. One shot dropped plumb on the H.Q. concrete shelter, half removing the roof and scattering the contents of the orderly room in a disrespectful manner, whilst the next one pushed in the signaller's dug-out, wounding L.-Cpl. Wild. It ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... he was just plumb ruined. He said he'd snatch Ikey bald-headed, and do a lot of other things to him, if he didn't walk right out into State street and bring back that Little Brass God. Holy Moses! You ought to have seen how scared ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... here woods pretty well, but I'm blamed if I know where we are now. Everything looks turned around; I'd swear now, that that was the west over there, yet there is the sun a-risin' as big as life. I'm plumb addled!" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... him as he strode the carpet. "He not only saves my property without havin' to fight for it—and that was a blamed good play itself, for I don't want you boys shootin' up anybody even in self-defense—but he disarms Brad's plug-uglies, humiliates them, makes them plumb sick of the job, and at the same time wipes out Steelman's location lock, stock, and barrel. I'll make that ten thousand shares, by gum! ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... going to be any picnic, boys," he said. "We've got to take our time and keep our eyes open. Dakota ain't no spring chicken, and if he don't want to come with us peaceable, he'll make things plumb lively." ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer |
