"Spry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of sixteen, assorted black and white, that foolish bronze turkey hen just come out from under the woodpile with thirteen little pesters, Sniffer has got five pups—three spots and two solids—and Mrs. Butter has twin calves, assorted sex this time. They are spry and hungry and you'd better come ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fishermen were standing by with their nets, and when they drew them in, the fish that had swallowed Tom was one of the haul. Being a very fine fish it was sent to the Court kitchen, where, when the fish was opened, out popped Tom on the dresser, as spry as spry, to the astonishment of the cook and the scullions! Never had such a mite of a man been seen, while his quips and pranks kept the whole buttery in roars of laughter. What is more, he soon became the favourite of the whole Court, and when the King went out a-riding Tom sat in the Royal ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... importance distinguished the naval transactions of this year on the side of America. In the beginning of June, captain Spry, who commanded a small squadron cruising off Louisbourg, in the island of Cape Breton, took the Arc en Ciel, a French ship of fifty guns, having on board near six hundred men, with a large quantity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be particularly spry.' ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... don't the French police take this up if it's got to be taken up? I always heard that they were spry ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... are not free from danger. Great sea-serpents or sharks sometimes make it hot for them, but they are watchful, spry, and being "Folks," with power to think and plan, can generally look out for themselves and ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... his meals and kept him comfortable, trudging over and back every day from the little cottage, but she proved invaluable in the choice of domestic help. She knew her people thereabouts, just who was spry, and who was trifling, and with the latter she would have nothing whatever to do. She acted rather as if he were a guest in his own house, and what was more would take no pay for it. Of course there had to be some return for so much kindness, ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... glad when Timothy appeared in their pond one day and explained that he intended to be in the neighborhood at least a week. In the first place, the Beavers, as a whole, were a busy, cheerful family, who did not like disagreeable folk for company. And in the second place, they were spry workers; and they had little use for anybody as slow as Timothy Turtle, who never did any ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... latter "Little Prig;" Bun replied, "You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Spry, the puppy dog, probably carried the smoking-cap to the orchard; but all that is known with certainty is that Mr. St. Clair, the evening before, then wearing the cap, reclined upon several chairs with his head out of the window, gazing at the moon, and there fell asleep, and that, as ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... you what it is, Mister Major—you may think yourself a devilish fine feller, but I guess as how an officer of the Michigan Militia is just as good and as spry as any blue coat in the United States rig'lars; so there's that (snapping his fingers) for ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to leap away from the midshipman's prostrate body. Despite the bear's lumbering body and shambling gait he can be spry enough at need. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun', Swing Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun', Oh, swing Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun' Fa' you well, my dahlin'." Had to laff at ole man Johnson, he 's a caution now, you bet— Hittin' clost onto a hunderd, but he 's spry an' nimble yet; He 'lowed how a-so't o' gigglin', "I ain't ole, I 'll let you see, D'ain't no use in gittin' feeble, now you youngstahs jes' watch me," An' he grabbed ole Aunt Marier—weighs th'ee hunderd mo' er less, An' he spun huh 'roun' de ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... done my husband no end of good. It's taken pounds and pounds of fat off him. It brings out the prespiration on him something wonderful. And it's taken years off his age. He's that spry and full of jokes and he's gettin' right spoony. He used to be a tumble cut-up, and then he settled down so there was no livin' with him. But now he keeps at me to buy some new clothes and he's thinkin' of gettin' a tuxeda. His old disp'sition seems to have come back and he's as cheerful and, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... fast growing dark when Joe Welling came along the station platform toward the New Willard House. In his arms he held a bundle of weeds and grasses. In spite of the terror that made his body shake, George Willard was amused at the sight of the small spry figure holding the grasses and ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... was a little tussle at first; but how could a old man hold his own against such a spry young body as that! She threatened to run away from him, and kicked up Bob's-a-dying, and I don't know what all; and being the woman, of course she was sure to beat in the long run. Pore old nobleman, she marches him off to church every Sunday as regular as a clock, makes him read family ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... But, spry as I am for one of my settled habits and sedate character, I found myself passed by Mr. Gryce; and when I would have accelerated my steps, he darted forward quite like a boy and, without a word of explanation ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... fact is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's pooty much took up with the school. She's an industris young. woman,—yis, she is industris,—but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry a worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she is n't fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,—that—is, if so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... be back in old times and hear 'em sing, "Swing, low, Sweet Chariot." I can't sing, now you knows can't no old man sing what ain't got no teef or hair. I used to like to swing dat 'Ginia Reel and I's spry and young den. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... night they will have! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs's room, so that the boys may have time to put the light out, to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry may be put ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... the "freedom papers" were read. She had had 13 children by her two husbands, both deceased, and lives with her youngest daughter in Beaumont. Their one-room, unpainted house is one of a dozen unprepossessing structures bordering an alleyway leading off Pine Street. Rosa, a spry little figure, crowned with short, snow-white pigtails extending in various directions, spends most of her time tending her small flowerbeds and vegetable garden. She is talkative and her memory seems ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the chemists of a steel works' laboratory may have to determine also the tungsten, chromium, vanadium, titanium, nickel, cobalt, phosphorus, molybdenum, manganese, silicon and sulfur, any or all of them, and be spry about it, because if they do not get the report out within fifteen minutes while the steel is melting in the electrical furnace the whole batch of 75 tons may go wrong. I'm glad I quit the laboratory before they got to speeding ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... do remember things that ain't of no account; but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we went to work spry to get to rights before ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Mink was small and spry, and his wits were as nimble as his feet. He saw all that was going on about him, and he was wise enough to keep his tongue still, so that it never got him into trouble as gossipy tongues ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though 'tis pity she's a trollop): There's a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... on, don't it? Eighty-seven last birthday, an' spry as a man o' fifty up to—" He broke off to devote his attention to a couple of strangers farther down the tree-lined street: two men who approached slowly on the plank sidewalk, pausing every now and then to peer inquiringly at the front doors ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... father and mother were killed when I was eight years old, and the people that murdered them tried to kill me too, but I was a spry little tike and give them the slip. It was a bad country, and I like to have died, only there was a band of Navajos out trading ponies, and one morning, after I'd been alone all night, they picked me up and took care of me. I was pretty near gone, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... was, to "H'ist up the John B. Sail." We sang that classic chanty, as we went out with all our canvas spread to a lively northeast breeze—and I realised once more how good the sea was for all manner of men, whatever their colour, for we all livened up and shook off our land-laziness again, spry and laughing, and as keen as the jib stretching out like a gull's wing into the rush and ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... was fated to be a sight-seer that morning. When he entered Buckingham Palace Road, the strains of martial music banished the gaunt specter called into being by the red cotton banner. A policeman, more cheerful and spry than his comrades who marshaled the procession shuffling towards Westminster, strode to the center of the busy crossing, and cast an alert eye on the converging lines of traffic. Another section of the ever-ready London crowd lined up on the curb. Nursemaids, bound for the parks, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... wa'n't de quares' thing 'bout de goopher. When Henry come ter de plantation, he wuz gittin' a little ole an stiff in de j'ints. But dat summer he got des ez spry en libely ez any young nigger on de plantation; fac', he got so biggity dat Mars Jackson, de oberseah, ha' ter th'eaten ter whip 'im, ef he did n' stop cuttin' up his didos en behave hisse'f. But de mos' cur'ouses' ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... is a finer spot just below us," he said—"a creek that is like no other that I have ever met with in the neighborhood. It is formed by the Alabama—is as deep in some places, and so narrow, at times, that a spry lad ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... bean flowers: I would have rather had it Carrion, or the stink of smouldering brimstone. And larks aloft, the happy piping fools, And squealing swifts that slid on hissing wings, And yellowhammers playing spry in hedges. I never noted them before; but now— Yes, I was mad, and crying mad, to see The earth so fine, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... know, for it chanced that mention was made of it this very day I am describing. Pons was all of sixty years. He was mostly toothless, and, despite a pronounced limp that compelled him to go slippity-hop, he was very alert and spry in all his movements. Also, he was impudently familiar. This was because he had been in my house sixty years. He had been my father's servant before I could toddle, and after my father's death (Pons and I talked of it this day) he became my servant. The limp ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... where Laming, a pakeha Maori, resided. Laming was an Irish-Protestant who had great influence with his tribe, which was numerous and warlike. He was admired by the natives for his strength and courage. He was six feet three inches in height, as nimble and spry as a cat, and as long-winded as a coyote. His father-in-law was a famous warrior named Lizard Skin. His religion was that of the Church of England, and he persuaded his tribe to profess it. He told them that the Protestant God was stronger than the Catholic God worshipped by his fellow countryman, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... mighty old now, but I used to be pretty spry. I used to go 60 miles out on de Gulf o' Mexico, as 'terpreter on dem big ships dat come from France. Dat was 'fore I done forgot my French talk what I was raised ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... my nets by the foamin' sea, Them little bare feet trot there with me, And a shrill little voice I love'll say: "Dran'pa, spin me a yarn ter-day." And I know when my dory comes ter land, There's a spry little form somewheres on hand; And the very fust sound my ears'll meet Is the welcomin' run of ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on the table, under Miss Hepsy's directions. A glad smile crept to her eyes at sight of Tom; it seemed ages since he had gone out. She looked timidly at her uncle as he shook hands with her, remarking she was a pale-faced thing, and needed work and exercise to make her spry. Then the company sat down, and Tom, if Lucy did not, did ample justice to Miss Hepsy's cookery. It was an unsociable, uncomfortable meal. Aunt and uncle ate, as they did everything else, as if for a wager, and were finished before Lucy had touched her ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... next day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogs fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my rifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th' door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups and knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first shot I takes, and there be th' skin. ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... mate said; "I reckon you are about as spry for a green hand as any I have come across; I had my eye on you, and you'll do. You go on like that, and you will make a ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... sail to-day," said the captain gay, As he stepped on board the boat that lay So high and dry, "Come now, be spry; We'll land, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... be comin' to you one of these days, Miss, and that's what I was wantin' to speak to ye about. I understand, of course, that when you get there you'll be wantin' younger blood to serve ye. My feet ain't so spry as they once was, and my old hands blunder sometimes, in spite of what my head bids 'em do. So I wanted to tell ye—that of course I shouldn't ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... man lolls back in his chair, With a pipe in his mouth, and his legs in the air, Yet surely an Old England man such as I To a kinsman by blood should be civil and spry. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... take me no two minutes to keep my word the same as ever,—'n' father's black bow too. But laws, he was n't after no bow!—I very quickly found out as all as he was after was the funeral, f'r it seems as they was uncommonly spry with it. He told me right off as they had it pretty prompt too, for he says when it comes to buryin' a wife there 's no need for a man to go slow, 'n' so he had all Meadville up with the lark 'n' out after old Mrs. Ely. He seemed to feel all of a sudden as it was a little awkward me not havin' been ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... soldierlike. 4. Wander, deviate, err, stray, swerve, diverge. 5. Abate, decrease, diminish, lessen, moderate. 6. Emancipation, freedom, independence, liberty. 7. Old, ancient, antique, antiquated, obsolete. 8. Adorn, beautify, bedeck, decorate, ornament, 9. Active, alert, brisk, lively, spry. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... a-nap-pin', and Lee-yander plumb demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin' ter hide ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... grim philosophy far beyond her years. Then she added, with a quick loyalty that made the girls' hearts warm to her: "I don't mind. I'd do anything for dad an' I guess if he thought I was gettin' discouraged he'd jest plum up an' quit. He's gittin' old, he is, an' he ain't that spry like he used to be. All he has is his hope in that mine—an' me. Ef you killed that you might as well ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... first a-constructing this ingenious theory your objection might have carried force; for I didn't have a fact to stand on, as you observe. I conjectured round pretty spry, too. Reckon it took me all of half a second—while them two warriors was giving me the evil eye. I'll tell you how it was." He related the story of the shooting match and the lost bet. "And to this unprovoked design against an inoffensive stranger ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... breathing for some time," replied Ardan, quietly, still unconsciously speaking French. "A little more rubbing and pulling and pounding will make him as spry ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... the sixteenth year of her age, Natively quick and spry As all young people be, When God commands them down to dust, How quick they drop ...
— Quaint Epitaphs • Various
... loose the key-logs of the bunch, and the tumbling citizens of the woods and streams toss away down the current to the wider waters below. He was only a lad of fourteen, and the girl was only eight, but she—Junia—was as spry and graceful a being as ever woke the echoes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. You'll go, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... pay, and you pooh-pooh! 'Tis always the same. We do not mind giving our time and our money, Or facing March blasts, or the floods of July; But till nettles bear grapes, Sir, or wasps yield us honey, You won't get snubbed men to pay up and look spry. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... brimstone by the foot: 550 Here, take this measurin'-rod, as smooth as sin, And keep a reckonin' of what loads comes in. You'll not want business, for we need a lot To keep the Yankees that you send us hot; At firin' up they're barely half as spry As Spaniards or Italians, though they're dry; At first we have to let the draught on stronger, But, heat 'em through, they seem ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... black stocking. Then, there were little work-boxes with gold thimbles and bodkins, and scissors in crimson velvet cases, and snakes that squirmed so naturally as to make you hop up on the table to get out of the way, and little innocent looking boxes containing a little spry mouse, that jumped into your face as soon as you raised the lid, and music boxes to place under your pillows when you had drank too strong a cup of green tea, and vinaigrettes that you could hold ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... least three of these dummies will have something to do with the development of Cowperwood's story, they may be briefly described. Edward Strobik, the chief of them, and the one most useful to Mollenhauer, in a minor way, was a very spry person of about thirty-five at this time—lean and somewhat forceful, with black hair, black eyes, and an inordinately large black mustache. He was dapper, inclined to noticeable clothing—a pair of striped trousers, a white vest, a black cutaway coat ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... they drown the Little Beast?" Suggestions which, to say the least, Are not what we expect to hear From Daughters of an English Peer. His grandmamma, His Mother's Mother, Who had some dignity or other, The Garter, or no matter what, I can't remember all the Lot! Said "Oh! that I were Brisk and Spry To give him that for which to cry!" (An ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc
... present in four pitched battles with the Danes, and who, while yet scarce twelve years old, had charged the Danish line at the head of his guards and shot down the stout Danish colonel, who could not resist the spry young warrior. His mother was a sweet-faced Danish princess, a loving and gentle lady, who scarce ever heard a kind word from her stern-faced husband, and whose whole life was bound up ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of us about. You won't find the order more flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa Valley. But we could do with some lads like you. I can't understand a spry man of the union finding no work to do ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and set out for Lorette with the rest to ask a reinforcement. On the way he met the French, who tried to surround him; and he told his men to fall back to the house. They remonstrated, saying that they "felt spry," and wanted to show the regulars that provincials could fight as well as red-coats. Thereupon they charged the enemy, gave them a close volley of buckshot and bullets, and put them to flight; but scarcely had they reloaded their guns when ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... feelin' as spry as a cricket." The little fellow threw back his shoulders and headed for ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... crazy to get married," he argued, half angrily. "You know in reason she is—they all are. The fust night when you brung her here I named it to her that she was pretty well along in years, and she'd better be spry about gettin' her hooks on a man, or she was left. She said she'd do the best she could—I never heered a gal speak up pearter—most of 'em would be 'shamed to name it out so free. Why, if it was me, I'd walk her down to a justice's office an' wed her ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... beyond the brook, tempting Miss Kitty Cat to explore it. At that hour of the morning there were many birds twittering among the trees. And spry chipmunks were frisking about in search of their breakfast. Miss Kitty Cat just naturally began to think of her ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... as a dumpling, and ever so fat, In running and climbing he's spry as a cat, And if the long ladder should happen to break, And he should fall down, what a crash ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to go camping, do you?" said he. "Sit down and let us talk it over. I think the young lady is all right. She looks spry enough, and I expect she could eat pine-cones like a squirrel if she was hungry and had nothing else. As for you, madam, you don't appear as if anything in particular was the matter with you, and I should think you could stand ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... we got drough Our work betimes, an ax'd a vew Young vo'k vrom Stowe an' Coom, an' zome Vrom uncle's down at Grange, to come. An' they so spry, wi' merry smiles, Did beaet the path an' leaep the stiles, Wi' two or dree young chaps bezide, To meet an' keep up Easter tide: Vor we'd a-zaid avore, we'd git Zome friends to come, an' have a bit O' fun wi' me, an' Jeaene, an' Kit, Because ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the voices of the sailors hauling at ropes, taking in sail,—a reminder to Isolde that the land, the terrible land, is near. Kurwenal hurries in: "Up, up, you ladies! Briskly and cheerily! Quickly prepare to land! Ready at once, nimble and spry! And to Madam Isolde I was to say from Tristan, my master: the pennant of joy waves merrily from the mast, making her approach known in Mark's royal castle. Wherefore he begs Madam Isolde to haste and make ready, that he may escort her ashore." Isolde, for a minute convulsed with a shuddering ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... energy, gnawing the strings, and rustling the nuts out of the paper in wonderfully quick time. Sometimes she would tie a nut to the end of a bit of twine and swing it backward and forward over his head; and after a succession of spry jumps, he would pounce upon it, and hang swinging on the twine, till he had ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... get quit of this confounded Babel yet—and you must want somebody badly. So I send Rupert down. He'll do everything you want, better in fact than I could, for he is young and spry, and as good a boy as lives. He will see to everything, and you can get off as soon as you like. I think he had better go along all the way; his mother wit is worth a dozen stupid couriers, even though he don't know quite so much about routes and hotels; ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... sir," declared the subaltern, when telling his story to his colonel afterwards, "never did I see so spry a bit of work as I did when I had said my little say. The Duke was ten men rolled into one, sir. Orders here, there, and everywhere; fellows sent darting about like hares. In a few minutes—minutes! I was going to say seconds—every sabre had been got together, and we were all tumbling over ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... next day she followed the cows through the lane. And she hadn't waited long at the bars when Aunt Polly Woodchuck came hobbling up to her. Being a very old lady, Aunt Polly was somewhat lame. But she was spry, for all that. And her eyes were ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... relish a little food, so that if no relapse set in they had hopes to bring her through. They brought the little one and showed her to me, and she seemed so different from what she was when we went away. Then she could run about camp climb out and in the wagons, and move about so spry that she reminded one of a quail. Now she was strangely misshapen. Her limbs had lost all the flesh and seemed nothing but skin and bones, while her body had grown corpulent and distended, and her face had ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... remarked Thad; for that was an expression often used among the boys, Davy being such a spry chap, ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... Erastus's wife and how he had set his eyes by her, and I made up my mind to go in the next mornin', unless she was better, and see what I could do; but the next mornin' I see her at the window, and pretty soon she came steppin' out as spry as you please, and a little while afterward Mrs. Babbit came in and told me that the Doctor had got a girl from out of town, a Sarah Jones, to come there, and she said she was pretty sure that the Doctor ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... "You're spry," said Jane Cleveland, when he brought the shovel to the door. "It took Hannah twice as long, and she didn't ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... as't was, he guessed he'd hev to send one to market for a roaster. I went daown to the barn to see 'em, an' there was one, the cutest little critter I ever sot eyes on, and I've seen more 'n four pigs in my day,—'t was a little black-spotted one, as spry as an ant, and the dreffullest knowin' look out of its eyes! I fellowshipped it right off, and I said, says I, 'Orrin, ef you'll let me hev that 'ere little spotted feller, I'll git a place for him, for I do take to him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... from it," Bob Cristy nodded. "Still beach- combs, drinks when he gets the price, and keeps all his senses, though he's not spry and has to use glasses when he reads. And his memory is perfect. Now if Abel Ah Yo catches him . . ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... at last, shouting at the top of his voice, "Ahoy, there, men! Give us a hand at this 'ere lumber, an' be spry about it, fur there's a storm brewin', an' I've got ter be twenty mile down the ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... panted. Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt and gave ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... his head and frown terribly, at which the midshipmen, as he was not their captain, laughed the more heartily. The Admiral had heard, too, of the trick Jack and his messmates had played with Quirk, the monkey, on Lieutenant Spry, of the marines, and while he told the story as he had received it from Jack, with a few amplifications of his own, the tears ran down his eyes, till Captain Sourcrout, boiling over with ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... catch a Chinaman spraining his ankle," said Bradley; "they're too spry for that. They'll squeeze through where a white man can't, and I wouldn't wonder if they could turn themselves inside out ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... you, sir!" said Rake passionately; "them words are better nor ten tosses of brandy! You see, sir, I'm so spry and happy in a wild life, I am, and if so be as you go to them American parts as you spoke on, why I know 'em just as well as I know Newmarket Heath, every bit! They're terrible rips in them parts; kill you as soon as look at you; it makes things uncommon larky out there, uncommon spicy. You ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... year, an' I'll be doggoned if I'm goin' to be taught my business by any man!' 'This ain't no river,' says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived on the Kennebec.' 'Pity you hed n't stayed on it,' says he. 'I wish to the land I hed,' says I. An' then I come away, for my tongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic that I knew if I stopped any longer I should stir up strife. There's some folks that'll set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wa'n't good fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em, when ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be crawlin',—I'xpect too spry to be 'hulsome. Well, he tells me you've ben 'crost the water. 'Ta'n't jest like this over there, I guess. Pretty sightly places they be though, a'n't they? I've seen picturs in Melindy's jography, looks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... well-plucked woman for seventy-five, was Bessie Bussow; and had a head on her shoulders too. While Tummels was harnessing, she fit and boiled a dish o' tea to fortify herself, and after drinking it nipped into the cart as spry as a two-year-old. Off they drove, and came within sight of Stack's Folly just about the time when Phoby Geen was bringing the Fly into St. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... noodles that the boss don't know nothing. He gets there mighty spry sometimes. He's had too much of things lately to keep his eyes shut. We got to ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Annie, coming quickly toward him. "I am real glad to see you so spry and well. It seems to me that you are getting young again;" and she shook the ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... by making the schoolhouse a meeting-place for the community, more especially for the intellectual and aesthetic activities of the community. A good example of this kind of work is the John Spry School of Chicago. In connection with this school there is a lecture course each winter; there is a musical society that meets every Tuesday evening; there is a men's club that meets every two weeks to discuss municipal ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... keep close together and look spry," Abe shouted as he approached; "we have come upon signs of a large body of Indians, a hundred and fifty or two hundred strong, I reckon, out there on the plains. They have passed along this morning, and ain't up to no good, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... They are very spry, and run all about. When the mother Biddy finds any nice bit, she clucks; and every little chick comes running ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... frantic sprint to Sixteenth Street and one of those horrid intervals that shake the very citadel of human reason when I ponder whether it is safer to wait for a possible car or must start hotfoot for the station at once. All this is generally decided by setting the clock for 6:50. Then, if I am spry, I can be under way by 7:20 and have a little time to be philosophical at the corner of Sixteenth and Pine. Of the vile seizures of passion that shake the bosom when a car comes along, seems about to halt, and then passes without ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... hell's that to me? Look spry. He mustn't lie there all night. It's too near the ken. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Zociya. She has just struggled out of the ranks of the common girls. The girls, as yet, call her impersonally, flatteringly and familiarly, "little housekeeper." She is spare, spry, just a trifle squinting, with a rosy complexion, and hair dressed in a little curly pompadour; she adores actors—preferably stout comedians. Toward ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... about among the trees, now swinging on this branch, now leaping far out to that one, Mrs. Squirrel sometimes wondered how he could keep dashing about so madly. Though the old lady was pretty spry, herself, she was content to sit still some of the time. But Frisky Squirrel was almost never still except when he was asleep. There was so much to do! Frisky wished that the days were longer, for though ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by gum, if it ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... he might come back, though everybody gave him up years ago. I can't help thinking what if he should come back, and find I wa'n't here! There; I'm glad to please John: he sets everything by me, and I s'pose he thinks he's going to make a spry young woman of me. Well, it's natural. Every thing looks fair to him, and he thinks he can have the world just as he wants it; but I know it's a world o' change,—a world o' change and loss. And you see, I shall have to go to a strange meetin' up there. ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... jist as soon set down and jaw away by the hour together with a dirty-faced, stupid little poodle lookin' child, as if it was a nice spry little dog he was a trainin' of for treein' partridges; or talk poetry with the galls, or corn-law with the patriots, or any thing. Nothin' ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the performance were strenuous indeed. All the Juniors had been pressed into service. They scurried through halls; darted in and out of rooms laden with draperies, gowns and furniture, mum as sphinxes, spry ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... side of the chief. And don't you think this affair is going to be a circus. I tell you it is going to be a hard job. There ain't a dozen white men as have been over that country, and we shall want to be pretty spry if we are to bring back our scalps. It is a powerful rough country. There are peaks there, lots of them, ten thousand feet high, and some of them two or three thousand above that. There are rivers, torrents, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took up for dead but he 's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it over I recclected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... one's nose in. Adj. active, brisk, brisk as a lark, brisk as a bee; lively, animated, vivacious; alive, alive and kicking; frisky, spirited, stirring. nimble, nimble as a squirrel; agile; light-footed, nimble-footed; featly^, tripping. quick, prompt, yare^, instant, ready, alert, spry, sharp, smart; fast &c (swift) 274; quick as a lamplighter, expeditious; awake, broad awake; go-ahead, live wide-awake &c (intelligent) 498 [U.S.]. forward, eager, strenuous, zealous, enterprising, in earnest; resolute &c 604. industrious, assiduous, diligent, sedulous, notable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was her month in the dirty Harlem flat she'd be spry enough. She knows what I mean whan I say that, and she knows she better cut out this pouting. Quit breathing through your mouth or I'll stick ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... he either lets you take all the diamonds and things he has stolen from fools who hadn't revolvers, or runs away. I cut a slit in my trousers behind, and sewed in a pocket, and practised lugging the revolver out in a jiffy, and getting a bead on an imaginary brigand. I was pretty spry at it, and knew I should be all right. And it was just that revolver which saved me, as you ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... ran to the kitchen door. A woman of more than middle age but, as said herself, "still mighty spry," approached the porch. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... fact of it is, 'Tenty is so handy and so spry, I can't see how to spare her. Ed'ard, he wants a sight of waitin' on; and I am so nervous, and husband is afflicted with neuralogy, beside that he is considerable in years, so we can't be around as we used to be; and 'Tenty steps about and gets ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... drums and flying banners, they marched off "like a disciplined company." They entered the house of one Mr. Godfrey, slew him, his wife, and child, and then fired his dwelling. They next took up their march towards Jacksonburgh, and plundered and burnt the houses of Sacheveral, Nash, Spry, and others. They killed all the white people they found, and recruited their ranks from the Negroes they met. Gov. Bull was "returning to Charleston from the southward, met them, and, observing them armed, quickly rode out of their way."[495] In a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Judd, ignoring the praise, "That little sucker is a spry one, isn't he? A shoe-string more an' I'd never ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... warning, clambered over the back of the seat into the place beside the chauffeur. For a time the two conferred, heads together, their words indistinguishable in the sweep of air. Then, in the same spry fashion, the little ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... as we learn by telegram, the famous Una Callingham, whose connection with the so-called Woodbury Mystery is now a matter of historical interest. The mysterious two-souled lady possesses, at present, all her faculties intact, as before the murder, and is indeed, people say, a remarkably spry and intelligent young person; but she has most conveniently forgotten all the events of her past life, and more particularly the circumstances of her father's death, which is commonly conjectured to have been due to the pistol of some unknown lover. Such freaks of memory are common, we all know, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... be spry, The moments fly; Meet every date you make. Be weather fair Or foul, be there In ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Judge Lynch, "you'll very soon have ease; I'll give you satisfaction, squire, in any way you please; What are your weapons?—knife or gun?—at both I'm pretty spry!"; "Oh! 'tarnal death, you're spry, you are?" quoth Silas; "so ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... never get used to it. Lately she has ceased even to mention the clock. My daughter thinks I am becoming a grumbler in my latter years. My son smiles indifferently. I admit that my son's secretary is more sympathetic. Like most people who are both idle and short of sleep, I usually look very well, spry and wideawake. My friends remark on my healthy appearance. You did. The popular mind cannot conceive that I am merely helplessly waiting for death to put me out of my misery; but so it is. There must be quite a few others in the same fix as ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... "You saw how spry a creature he is, and if he should happen to drop down upon us from the branch of a tree, those sharp claws of his would play ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... quite kill em," said Uncle Moses, turning his eyes benignantly upon the two boys. "They seem to me jest now to be oncommon spry—arter it all. They don't look very nigh death, as far as appearances go. No harm's done, I guess; an so, I dare say, we'd best jest let ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... in 1882 and has seven sons and seven daughters. Owns his own home and plenty of other property around the neighborhood. Ninety-six years of age and still feels as spry as a man of fifty, keen of wit, with a memory as good can be expected. This handsome bronze piece of humanity with snow-white beard over his beaming face ended the interview saying, "I am waiting now to hear the call of God to the promise land." He once was considered as a candidate ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... ain't a-foolin' me this season of the year," he continued, as Teague Poteet shook his head doubtfully; "he ain't mustered out'n my mind yit, not by a dad-blamed sight. I'm jest a-tellin' of you; he looks spry, an' he ain't no sneak—I'll swar ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... as you were," she continued; "you're getting on in years, and your step's a bit shaky, and your hairs are turning white. You wants your comforts, father—course you do. Why, this room—it was shameful when I come in, and look at it now!—it's a bit spry, ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... had come to, and after this cart followed two brisk old women, snugly clothed and tightly tucked in against the cold like the child, who vied with each other in catching up the lumps of coke that were jolted from the load, and filling their aprons with them; such old women, so hale, so spry, so tough and tireless, with the withered apples red in their cheeks, I have not often seen. They may have been about sixty years, or sixty-five, the time of life when most women are grandmothers and are relegated on their merits to the cushioned seats of their children's homes, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a wizened, dried-up little man, not much more than five feet in height. His shoulders were bent with the infirmities of age—they judged him to be over seventy—but his movements were spry, and they had already seen by the way he handled his boat that he was not lacking in dexterity. There was a suspicious redness about his nose that was explained by Lester's hint about his fondness for a certain black bottle. ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... to examine the big ambulance. He was spry as a cat. In ten minutes he knew all that was under the hood, had tested the levers, looked at the oil and gasoline ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... get round to folks, then?" said Mrs. Salter. "The houses are pretty scattering in these parts; he'd be a spry man if he could ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... are in me the makings of a very fine loafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... your father is out at the gate: Be spry as a cricket; he don't like to wait! Here's the firkin o' butter, as yellow as gold— And the eggs, in this basket—ten dozen all told. Tell father be sure and remember the tea— And the spice and the yard o' green gingham for me; And the sugar for baking:—and ask him to ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... as though he might drop, his face a flaming red, his hands trembling and missing, when a "Well, go on," sounded and a third victim was called. This time it was a well-known actor who responded, a star, rather spry and well set up, but still nervous, for he realized quite well what was before him. He had been here for weeks and was in pretty fair trim, but still he was plainly on edge. He ran and began receiving and tossing as swiftly as he could, but as with the others so it was his turn now to be given such ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... she 's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that that Hopkins boy's round the Posey gal, come to think, she's the one you went with some when you was here,—I 'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's pretty low,—ninety-four year old,—born in '67,—folks ain't ginerally very spry after they're ninety, but he ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... windows of the north choir aisle, between the transept and the Chapel of the Martyrdom, which are of great beauty, and should be examined carefully. In the transept itself are windows in memory of Dean Stanley, Dr. Spry, and Canon Cheshyre. ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... someone around to drive off the vultures, even if it's only a scarecrow—and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... as Hilda might dictate, while they walked side by side that morning, but she was strangely silent. It thus happened that little passed between them until they reached the post office. There, he was formally introduced to the spry little postmistress, who looked at him ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... said he, "ah! young sir, my 'air's gray, an' I'm not so spry as I was—nobody wants a man as old as I be, and, seeing as you've got the 'oss, you ain't got no call to make game o' me, young sir. You ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... that this is going to lead to trouble," she said once more. Rusty Wren said, "Nonsense!" He was overjoyed at the prospect of having a spry young helper. And he hurried out to tell Mr. Chippy's son that he might ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey |
