"Spunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sam was almost a stranger on the maps; he hadn't a friend in the world, apparently, while he had more enemies than he could shake a stick at. Every body snubbed him, and every body wanted to lick him. But Sam has now grown to be a crowder; his spunk, too, goes up with his resources, and he don't wait for any body to "knock the chip off his hat," but goes right smack up to a crowd of fighting bullies, and rolling up his sleeves, he coolly "wants to know" if any body had any thing to say about him, in that crowd! Uncle Sam is no longer ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... remember, an' I c'n remember putty near. As I told ye, I felt a twitch at my hair, an' he said, 'What be you thinkin' about, sonny?' I looked up at him, an' looked away quick. 'I dunno,' I says, diggin' my big toe into the dust; an' then, I dunno how I got the spunk to, for I was shyer 'n a rat, 'Guess I was thinkin' 'bout mendin' that fence up in the ten-acre lot's ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... seizure of fever came, and the sweat gathered on her lips, and her eyes went wild, she gritted her teeth and just clung to him. She had spunk—admirable, if perhaps destructive. "Love yuh," Frank ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... this moment nine waggon-loads of plunder in the Fremantle barn. No woman is safe on the streets after sundown, and scarcely so in the day-time, while night after night the town rings with their drunken carousals. I told Friend Penrhyn the other night that if he had the spunk of a house cat he would get something to fight with, if 't were nothing better than a toasting-fork tied to a stick, and cross the river to Washington; and so I say to every man who stays in Trenton. I only wish ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... light, jovial tone that would most quickly soothe her agitation, "but I think I'd take my chances with the worms rather than with the dry rot of a backwoods farm. You may not get your meals so regular out in the world, but you certainly do live. Yes—that backwoods life, for anybody with a spark of spunk, is simply being dead and knowing it." He tore the Courier into six pieces, flung them over the side. "None of the others saw the paper," said he. "So—Miss Lorna Sackville is perfectly safe." He patted her on the shoulder. "And she owes me a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... already riddled. Dick, your wife's affair with Andy Buckton is mentioned oftener than the weather. People say he always loved her and, now that he is rich and rolling high, that he is winning out. Many sporting people that I know glory in his 'spunk,' as they call it. They are counting on a divorce as ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... That it ain't so easy tryin' To grin and grip your rifle by the butt, When the 'ole world rips asunder, And you sees yer pal go under, As a bunch of shrapnel sprays 'im on the nut; I admit it's 'ard contrivin' When you 'ears the shells arrivin', To discover you're a bloomin' bit o' spunk; But, my lad, you've got to do it, And your God will see you through it, For wot 'E 'ates is ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... you heard, my deer Anne, how my spirits are sunk? Have you heard of the cause? Oh, the loss of my Trunk! From exertion or firmness I've never yet slunk; But my fortitude's gone with the loss of my Trunk! Stout Lucy, my maid, is a damsel of spunk; Yet she weeps night and day for the loss of my Trunk! I'd better turn nun, and coquet with a monk; For with whom can I flirt without aid from my Trunk! * * * * * Accurs'd be the thief, the old rascally hunks; Who rifles the fair, and lays hands on their Trunks! He, who robs the King's ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... caird prevail'd—th' unblushing fair In his embraces sunk, Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, [so sorely] An' partly she was drunk. Sir Violino, with an air That show'd a man o' spunk, [spirit] Wish'd unison between the pair, An' made the bottle clunk To ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... grin and bear a cut of ten per cent.? Well, I don't think you've got much spunk, I must ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Janus. "She's got the spunk, but she needs watching. She'll get the whole outfit in trouble. Tell me about it," he concluded, turning ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... your pluck and spunk," said Case, "and I think of your performance as Major Noah said of Adam and Eve: 'As touching that first kiss,' said he, 'I have often thought I would like to have been the man who did it; ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... bared throat. But he rallied gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior full in the face. Sloat marked the effort with which he cleared away the huskiness that seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk with which the young officer ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... the torture. There he was, without a feather to cover himself with, and the cool autumn nights coming on. So I took some gray cloth and made him these clothes. He would have been picked to the bone if I hadn't. But they put spunk into him. That Shanghai rooster has found out he has to assert himself, captain, ...
— A British Islander - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... gosh-derned cowards heard what I said and got up spunk enough to tackle matrimony," interrupted the venerable town marshal. "June seems to be a good month fer weddin's everywhere else in the world except right here in Tinkletown. The last one we had was in December, and ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... sent Root a certificate for eight shares, and John Lamb, an assemblyman from Root's home, gave up eight more; but the Delaware congressman, angry because deprived of his fifty shares, refused to accept any. "I had come prepared to take the fifty," he wrote, "and in a fit of more spunk than wisdom, I rejected ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... contradicted so emphatically what Dr. Gunnip had told her she says she felt as if she had been dead and buried all those dreadful weeks and had come back to life. Miss Crilly insists that if it hadn't been for Miss Twining's "martyrdom" we never should have had "spunk" enough to go to Mr. Randolph with our awful story. I guess she is right. That stirred us up to do something. Miss Twining is pretty well now. She writes nearly every day, and as she can sell as much as she likes she earns a good deal. She ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... ennything. We'll crowd around the stage, fust throwin' keards for who's to put out his hoof to be accidently trod onto by the infernal teacher ez he gits out. Then satisfaction must be took out uv the teacher. It'll be a mean job, fur these teachers hevn't the spunk of a coyote, an' ten to one he won't hev no shootin' irons, so the job'll hev ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... if they look like trouble," his host advised. "They've plenty of spunk, but I can tell you they make tracks for their holes if they hear one of those ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about the making of these Bodies, and several Histories out of Authors. Scarce any other Body hath such a texture; the fibrous texture of Leather, Spunk, &c. (which are there describ'd) come nearest to it That upon tryal with a piece of Spunge and Oyl the necessity of respiration could not ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... since the be-ginnin' o' time, and mony ane o' them's deid and dusty in foreign lands. It it hadnae been for the want o' a half inch or thereby in the height o' my heels "—here he stood upon his toes—"I wad hae been in the airmy mysel'. It's the only employ for a man o' spunk, and there's spunk in Mungo ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... maybe I shouldn't have done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston get married. She is the property of her grandmother, who is a very important part of Twickenham Town. Having no parents or sisters or brothers, and only enough money of her own for her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on for years loving an awfully nice chap named Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing, and the thing ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... scared him so long, Our whole line of argyments, lookin' so strong, All our Scriptur' an' law, every the'ry an' fac', Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro-slavery black. Why, ef the Republicans ever should git Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em the wit An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitootion an' Court With Columbiad guns, your real ekle-rights sort, Or drill out the spike from the ole Declaration Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' creation, We'd better take maysures for shettin' up shop, An' put off our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... humpies, called towns—also for the convenience of foreign speculators; and populated mostly by mongrel sheep, and partly by fools, who live like European slaves in the towns, and like dingoes in the bush—who drivel about 'democracy,' and yet haven't any more spunk than to graft for a few Cockney dudes that razzle-dazzle most of the time in Paris. Why, the Australians haven't even got the grit to claim enough of their own money to throw a few dams across their watercourses, and so make some of the interior fit to live ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Barney Tompkins," Jake replied. "He's a useless feller, with a big family. He does odd jobs fer Si, runnin' errands, sweepin' the store, an' sich like. He's got no spunk." ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... cold, surely," declared Edith Watts. "Why, it's just fine to be out to-day. And I know Lucile would never stay away because it was cold. She has too much spunk for that." ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 10, March 8, 1914 • Various
... he's never been fired on afore! He's pretty near wild with narvousness, but he's got too much spunk to leave his fam'ly, an' go off an' hide from creatures like you. They's no caution in him. Look at him tearin' 'round to give ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... drink their rations, Go, begone from these ovations! Here's no place for bashful boys; Like the plague, they spoil our joys.— Bashful eyes bring rustic cheer When we're drunk, And a blush betrays a drear Want of spunk. ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... rouses loyal spunk To think of that old tree! Its stately stem, its spacious trunk By Nature robbed of pith and punk To guard ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the last round, gentlemen," he reminded. "Are you all in? Don't leave with regrets. You," he said, direct to me. "Are you in such short circumstances that you have no spunk? Why did you come here, sir, if not to win? Why, the stakes you play would not buy refreshment for ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... international relations. A hard, merciless contempt settled rigidly on the Chief Inspector's face as he walked on. His mind ran over all the anarchists of his flock. Not one of them had half the spunk of this or that burglar he had known. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... were seventeen cows on the farm in 1790, and for the benefit of some of the members of the younger generation who live on farms, here are their names: Cerloo, Red-heifer, Spotty, Debro, Beauty, Madge, Lucy, Daisy, White-face, Mousie, Dun, Rose, Lady Cherry, Black-eye, Spunk and Roan. ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... Won't eat. Aint got no spunk left. All the dogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don't know how to tell him. Mebbe he is going ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... jealous. Well, I wuzn't, I declare to goodness I wuzn't. Hit wuz beca'se I jest couldn't 'low her to git married to him, knowin' whut I do. I wuz tryin' to make up my mind to go an' see her some time an' tell her not to marry him, but I jest couldn't seem to git the spunk to do it. She used to come to see me when I wuz sick last winter an' she wuz ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... on the face er the yeth good enough fer Sis, but that air feller's got the looks an' the spunk. I'll set in this very day an' hour, an' I'll bake Sis a cake that'll make the'r eyes water." And so it went. Everybody on Hog Mountain had some small ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... break in to it. It's a great thing when he's learned to pick grapes a whole long day and come home at the end of it with that tired happy feeling, instead of being in a state of physical collapse. That fireplace—those big stones—I was soft, then, a little, anemic, alcoholic degenerate, with the spunk of a rabbit and about one per cent as much stamina, and some of those big stones nearly broke my back and my heart. But I persevered, and used my body in the way Nature intended it should be used—not bending over a desk and swilling whiskey... and, well, here I am, a better man for it, and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... considered fair game for his companions; and I have seen him reduced to the ignominy of having a tin kettle tied to his tail. His ears and tail have generally been docked to suit the caprice of the unholy band of which he is a member; and if he has any spunk, he is invariably pitted against larger dogs in mortal combat. He is poorly fed and hourly abused; the reputation of his associates debars him from outside sympathies; and once a Boys' Dog, he cannot change his condition. He is not unfrequently sold into slavery by his inhuman companions. ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... Farmers will find a cistern in their house lots or inside the barn a great convenience—but the one near the kitchen is of the greatest importance because the men will not carry water if they can help it, and the farmer's wife, if she has any spunk, will insist upon the water being carried for her or raise the roof off the house, and I don't blame her—the hair on the top of my head is very ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... spunk, all the energy, had been sapped out of me long before, and even her promise couldn't revive it. My search for a berth wasn't much more than a sham. At the back of my head I knew very well what I'd come to. The only work I was capable of was dancing attendance on her, and ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... continued, after a pause, "I like your spunk,—just what I should have done myself. But tell me how you managed to get off without the old ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... lad. Hence it comes,—BOXIANA, disgrace to thy page!— Having floored, by good luck, the first swell of the age, Having conquered the prime one, that milled us all round, You kickt him, old BEN, as he gaspt on the ground! Ay—just at the time to show spunk, if you'd got any— Kickt him and jawed him and lagged[6] him to Botany! Oh, shade of the Cheesemonger![7] you, who, alas! Doubled up by the dozen those Moun-seers in brass, On that great day of milling, when blood lay in lakes, When Kings held ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend herself, she's ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... them off if I could, 'til we were fixed and quiet again. But at that, their chance isn't so grand. This isn't worrying Lily any. She saw all of it happen, she knows what's going on. What I want, dearest lady, is for you to get on the job, and spunk up to them, just like you did about Junior going away. I didn't think you'd get through with that, and I know Peter didn't; but you did, fine! Now if you and Peter would have a little private understanding and engineer this visit that I scent in the air, so that ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the Lord's ain hand out o' the Heevens struck the Horror whaur it stood; the auld, deid, desecrated corp o' the witch-wife, sae lang keepit frae the grave and hirsled round by deils, lowed up like a brunstane spunk and fell in ashes to the grund; the thunder followed, peal on dirling peal, the rairing rain upon the back o' that; and Mr. Soulis lowped through the garden hedge, and ran, wi' skelloch ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... He was a slender, sad-colored man, possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, but hadn't no more spunk'n a wet rag. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... question, an' he says as how he was too plumb scared ter do sich a thing. But jest as he was goin' ter holler he finds that he's loose, an' all his spunk comes back again. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... drowned" [15th January, in the Chimbwe]; "he had to cross a marsh a mile wide, and waist-deep.... I went over first, and forgot to give directions about the dog—all were too much engaged in keeping their balance to notice that he swam among them till he died. He had more spunk than a hundred country dogs—took charge of the whole line of march, ran to see the first in the line, then back to the last, and barked to haul him up; then, when he knew what hut I occupied, would not let a country cur come in sight of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... "but three months ought to be enough time for anyone. And Aunt Tommy is only going to be here another month. If Dick could be made a little jealous it would hurry him up. And he could be made jealous if you had any spunk ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... separated into two grand divisions, "the boys on teacher's side," and those "on the Cody side." The teacher would send his pets out to get switches, and part of our division—we girls, of course—would begin to weep; while those who had spunk would spit on their hands, clench their fists, and "dare 'em to bring them switches in!" Those were hot times ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Innes! I canna hand myself in. 'Puir Erchie!' I'd 'puir Erchie' him, if I had my way! And Hermiston with the deil's ain temper! God, let him take Hermiston's scones out of his mouth first. There's no a hair on ayther o' the Weirs that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what he has in his hale dwaibly body! Settin' up his snash to me! Let him gang to the black toon where he's mebbe wantit—birling on a curricle—wi' pimatum on his heid—making ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... degree of long-suffering entirely unwarrantable. There is no use in suffering, unless you cannot help it; and a good, stout, resolute protest would often be a great deal more wise, and Christian, and beneficial on all sides, than so much patient endurance. A little spirit and "spunk" would go a great way towards setting the world right. It is not necessary to be a termagant. The firmest will and the stoutest heart may be combined with the gentlest delicacy. Tameness is not the stuff that the finest women are made of. Nobody can be more kind, considerate, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... anyone with the least grain of spunk in him do the same if he'd been called a coward fer nuthin'? This young chap is no coward, let me tell ye that. He did more'n his bit over in France when you was hidin' away in the hills. Oh, I know all about it, ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... U.S.," she said, staring him straight in the face without sign of recognition. "But he's real lazy. He saw me making custard at Grandpa Quiller's this morning, and he wasn't even smart enough to lift the saucepan off the fire. I thought he might have had spunk enough for ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Such-and-such, and herein there is naught to excuse of harm or hindrance, and the day's engagement between us if it be not to-morrow will come after to-morrow." So he farewelled his host and left him and returned homewards. Now that Yuzbashi was a man of honour and sagacity and pluck and spunk and by nature a brave. He ceased not wending until he had reached his home where he found the Barber standing at the house door and the fellow came up to him and said, "Allah upon thee, O my lord, when thou goest within do ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Tommy, and perhaps it was this that gave him spunk to say tremulously, "Wh-what are ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... he says he wants to try it out!" snapped the aroused Giraffe, who at any rate was not lacking in spunk. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... of a great majority of the women of that day was thrown on the side of slavery, as was undoubtedly the case, the minority largely made up for the disparity of numbers by the spunk and aggressiveness of their demonstrations. A good many of the most indomitable and effective Abolition lecturers were women—such as Mrs. Lucretia Mott, the Grimke sisters, Abby Kelly, and others ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... prevail'd—th' unblushing fair In his embraces sunk, Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, An' partly she was drunk. Sir Violino, with an air That show'd a man of spunk, Wish'd unison between the pair, An' made the bottle clunk To ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "I'd dee ere I'd give in till them. Oh, Jean! I'm a lassie clean flung awa; he has neither hairt nor spunk ava, yon lad!" ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... mine at Yale. He gave me some nice milk and some fine wheat bread. "As a Mason," said he, "I'll feed you; share the last crumb with you; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till the last drop of blood and the last ditch."—"I hardly know which to admire most, your spunk or your milk," I replied. Thereupon he gave me another drink, and insisted on my imbibing a little of what he called "apple-jack." I was a "teetotaler"; but thinking the occasion warranted, I "smiled" ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... Middleton's speech. Why, she did not know exactly, but all evening she had been putting herself in Judith's place, wondering what life would have held for her if at the turning point she had shown the character and spunk of this young girl. She had gone with the rest to shake hands with the girl after Judge Middleton's speech. She longed to declare their relationship, but was afraid to until the family accepted Judith. So Miss Ann merely took Judith's ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... see you folks in that house last night," he said, "I thought to myself, 'Judas priest!' thinks I. 'Them women has got more spunk than I've got.' Gettin' into a house like that all alone in the dark—Whew! Judas ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thicknesses of tin foil may be pressed into a cavity with a rubber point or hard piece of spunk, allowing it to come well out to the margin; filling the rest ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... looking with pity at the young skipper he worshiped. "He's done fer you true this time, but the end of things is a tarnal long ways off yet, an' don't you go losin' yer spunk!" ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... confound him,' says the parson; for, ye see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Porky. "I knew you had the spunk. We will be in it somehow ruther, if they don't stick us ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... "we've got to do it, Uncle Israel, for we six have sworn to help you through the winter. So spunk up." ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... nae mair nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the spunk o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. Hae ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... keeps out of my way," said Strout. "But that Sawyer was like that malary that the boys got off to war. It gets into your blood and you can't get it out. Why, he snubbed 'Zeke Pettingill jest the same as he did me when they had that sleigh ride, and he didn't have spunk enough to hit back. If 'Zeke had jined in with me we'd had him out o' town lively. And then the way he butted in at my concert and turned a high-class musical entertainment inter a nigger minstrel show by whistling a tune vas enough to make ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... descriptions of scenery, and was not the only member of the club whose essays got into print. More memorable perhaps was an itinerant match-seller known to Thrums and the surrounding towns as the literary spunk-seller. He was a wizened, shivering old man, often bare-footed, wearing at the best a thin ragged coat that had been black but was green-brown with age, and he made his spunks as well as sold them. He ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... men's talk; but when old Ocock—he never had a good word to say for the riotous diggers—took his pipe out of his mouth to remark: "A pack o' Tipperary boys spoilin' for a fight—that's what I say. An' yet, blow me if I wouldn't 'a bin glad if one o' my two 'ad 'ad spunk enough to join 'em,"—at this Polly could not refrain from saying pitifully: "Oh, Mr. Ocock, do you really MEAN that?" For both Purdy and brother Ned were in the rebel band, and Polly's heart was ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... boy scouts, named four qualities for a fine lad: unselfish, gentle, strong, brave. They're your qualities, lad dear. And you proved the last one when you took that whipping with the ropes—ah, is a boy poor when he's got the spunk in him? He is not! Well, along with those four qualities I can honestly add these others: you're grateful, you're clean (in heart and in mouth, liking and speaking what's good), you're merciful, you're truthful, you're ambitious, you've ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... your spunk," said the doctor, after a pause. "If you're going my way, as I suppose you are, I can carry you a couple of miles. That's better than ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... don't I'm afraid he will drive them out. No one likes to live with such quarrelsome neighbors. They don't belong over in this country, anyway, and we would be a lot better off if they were not here. But I must say I do have to admire their spunk." ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Lookin' down th' list I see that divvy-divvy is free also. This was let in as a compliment to Sinitor Aldhrich. It's his motto. Be th' inthraduction iv this harmless dhrug into th' discussion he's been able to get a bill through that's satisfacthry to ivrywan. But I am surprised to see that spunk is on th' free list. Is our spunk industhree dead? Is there no pathrite to demand that we be proticted against th' pauper spunk iv Europe? Maybe me frind Willum Taft had it put on th' free list. I see in a pa-aper th' other day that what was needed at th' White house was a ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... She had plenty of spunk, I'll say that for her. "I have the power of prophecy, and the gift of healin'," Pheola ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... spunk up a little," he said, "for I want to use this net," but in spite of his resolve, he was soon watching, as before, for ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... the apartment and plain refused to put away another woman's pots and pans. It was just spunk. I don't know that I blame her. So Belle got that low ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... and was wetted nearly all over. Our hands being benumbed with the cold, it was some time before we could get off our snow-shoes, and we were no sooner out of the water than our moccasins and leggings were frozen stiff. Our spunk wood got wetted by the water, and when we at last reached the shore we were unable to light a fire. Our clothes also were so completely frozen ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... lucky! You can let George go, and not have to watch him. Fat old Georgie! Never peeps at another woman! Hasn't got the spunk!" ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... she sat and dreamed of what she would do if she could. If she might in any way have moulded her home to her own more delicate instincts, it may be that her step-mother need not have had to complain that "there was no spunk or snap to her about anything." It was not in her to "whew round" among tubs and whey,—to go slap-dash into soapmaking, or the coarse Monday's washing, when all nicer cares were evaded or forbidden, when chairs were shoved back against each other into corners, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a lively time of it now," he mused. "I wish he'd show a little more spunk, an' stand up fer his rights. Ma an' Flo'd think more of him if he did. I don't believe all women act ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... lad after my own heart," Billings said, approvingly, as he extended a huge, grimy hand for the boy to shake. "If half the men here had your spunk Wright wouldn't have got the best of us so easy. Did you fix that ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... first time lowering the weapon and letting it hang at his side. "No one don't need to tell me ever again that women-folks in cities is afraid. You ain't much—just a little soft pretty thing. But you've sure got the spunk. And you're trustful on top of it. There ain't many women, or men either, who'd treat a man with a gun the way ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... Anything that has spunk to grow is welcome in this essentially San Franciscan garden. And no one is allowed to bully the others. Big burly geraniums and proud dahlias must keep in their places and give the dainty lobelia, ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... a perfect ecstasy of high spirits. "This is certainly grand," he said. "Lord, I applaud your spunk. Do you think Mr. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... mind I'd got spunk enough, and I'd go right over there and tell Simon Basset I wanted my rope. So I took off my apron and clapped it over my shoulders—I've had a little rheumatism lately, and the wind's kind of cold to-day—and I run ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... I want you to bear in mind, is, that I shall not be captured without a struggle; and that every chance I get I shall try to escape. I am going to show those fellows that I have some spunk. I want you to act natural, and to prevent me from getting away from you; but you must not abuse me. You can treat the others as roughly as you please. Do you agree to ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... travel a piece, yet.... Say, Jake, be you a man or be you a poor dumb critter what ain't got no spunk?" ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... approved the girl. "Get up your spunk. Cuss, if you like. Rip loose, good and hard. It will ease ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... just like mother, wouldn't it, to come back if it was anyways convenient, and see to them butternuts? Well, then! You wouldn't be scairt of mother, would you? I've no patience with you. The dumb critter there has more spunk than what you have." ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... not the kind of man that's satisfied to go on working all his life for only just enough to keep body and soul together. That's all right maybe for pikers—poor devils that have no spunk—but not for 'yours truly.' I'm a pusher, a climber, I am, and, what's more, I'm a man with ideas. No one can keep me down in the world. One of these days I'll be driving my own automobile and Fanny will be riding in ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... what you're going to say, but that was different. He never had any spunk, anyway. Nobody believed in him but Robey, and Robey was wrong, just as he is about you. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that there's no use getting waxy if some idiot shoots off his mouth. The fellows who really count don't ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... to cry softly to himself. It was a good thing he did for he soon cried the cinder out and when his eye stopped hurting, he got some of his spunk back again and began to plan some way of ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... with the widely-known world," said Pringle wearily, "is that people won't play their hunches. They haven't spunk enough to believe what they know. Let me spell it out for you in words of two cylinders, Breslin: You saw that I knew Creagan and Applegate, while they positively refused to know me at any price; you heard the sheriff deny that I was at the Gadsden ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... a 'oly show of ourselves for them mugs?" he demanded. "They don't love us, an' bloody well glad they'd be a-seein' us cuttin' our throats. Yer not 'arf bad, 'Ump! You've got spunk, as you Yanks s'y, an' I like yer in a w'y. So ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... got spunk enough not to care," Mrs. Kate interposed hastily. "Phenie's pretty, of course—but it takes more than that to attract a man like Ford. You can't expect him to like her when she won't look at him, hardly; it makes me feel ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... my lord," replied Dawson. "Not to put up in the streets, but to show to the shop stewards. They won't believe that the Cabinet has any spunk until they see the proclamation signed by you. They know that ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... all them black sarpents yander poking out their tongues at us? I won't go till I wear out this pole on 'em. Ha! ha! ha! I thought you hadn't spunk enough to gallup through 'em on your own accord," said Sneak, looking at the pony, and knowing that he would follow the steed always, if left to ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... spunk of a chipmunk you and me'll take a peek at that there packet. I bet you it's thousand-dollar bills — more'n ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... the looks of that four-eyed teacher, anyway," declared the old lady, with some asperity. "I'm going to see about it. Your father would just let you be driven from pillar to post—he's got no spunk. What you Lockwoods need in this town is a ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... "Got spunk, ain't you? Now you git down and come along with me, Pete. No use you riding back to the mesa to-night. Your dad ain't there. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... way to talk, dear," nodded Patricia. "Let's take a walk. Forget the mean things I just said to you, but I had to do it to put some spunk ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... from his knowledge of character. But with some acquired savage instinct he, too, remained silent, null, passive; one might have thought him absent. Perhaps his quiescence, indeed, fostered some doubt of his presence here, for suddenly there sounded the rasping of flint on steel, the spunk was aglow, and then in the timorous flame of the kindling candle, taken from his own stores above, Varney recognized the face and figure of the stately and imperious old chief Colannah. The next moment he remembered something ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... persisted Noel. "You're doing what I hadn't the spunk to do. I think she ought to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... This Bishop's wife absolutely refused to give the Japanese policeman her age. Not that she had any reason to be ashamed of her age. In fact she could easily have passed for twenty years younger than she probably was, but she just had the average American woman's spunk ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... will say, Jack," he drawled, "you had a pretty good nerve to get us out on a night like this to tell us that! You might at least have waited 'til mornin'. Still, I reckon if I'd been nigh on to a quarter of a century gettin' my spunk together to ask a woman to marry me an' had finally done it, I'd ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... throat. And suppose, thinks I, when I get in the cave, the waves come up and devour me? Suppose somebody has crawled in there to sleep, some tramp or something, and he should catch me by the leg? Or the bank should tumble in on top of me? All my spunk was gone, and I turned to run, when, bunk! I came ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Miss Bean reflectively, "say it's a coward that commits suicide; but, my soul and body! I think it's just the other way; I never should get up spunk enough." Then, with an abrupt change of subject, she added: "Speaking of folks dying, I see Mr. Solomon Baxter as I was coming along. He's aged a good deal since his wife died, and no wonder, poor man! with all ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... for his spunk, as they termed it, and when Fred only bowed to the question, and pulled his hat a little more over his eyes, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... approved. "I like you for that, too. You've got spunk an' fight. I like to see it. It's what a man needs in his wife—and not these fat cows of women. They're the dead ones. Now you're a live one, all wool, a yard long ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... now don't!" said Jim tenderly, pressing the distressed lad still closer to his heart. "Don't ye do it; it don't do no good. It jest takes the spunk all out o' ye. Ma's have to die like other folks, or go to the poor-house. You wouldn't like to have yer ma in the poor-house. She's all right. God Almighty's bound to take care o' her. Now, ye jest ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... up to her, and laying his hand on her shoulder, "I ken weel ye hae the spunk to work till ye drap. But there's na occasion the noo. Sit ye doon an' tak yer breath ameenute—here i' the shaidow o' this stook. Whan Glenwarlock's at the tither en', we'll set tu thegither an' be up wi' him afore ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... done fussin' and beatin' de cullud folks, I don't want 'em to come talking religion to me. We used to hab on our place a real Guinea man, an' once he made ole Marse mad, an' he had him whipped. Old Marse war trying to break him in, but dat fellow war spunk to de backbone, an' when he 'gin talkin' to him 'bout savin' his soul an' gittin' to hebbin, he tole him ef he went to hebbin an' foun' he war dare, he wouldn't go in. He wouldn't stay wid any such rascal ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... motions of the Chalmetta it was plain that, though incapable of accomplishing any wonderful feat in the attainment of speed, she had a considerable amount of that commodity somewhat vulgarly termed "spunk." As she passed the mouth of the Yazoo river, another steamer, apparently of her own calibre, rounded gracefully into the channel, from a wood-yard. This boat—the Flatfoot, No. 3—seemed, by her straining and ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... replied, reluctantly, smiling at her, "I would. But I wanted to spare you. This trip has been hard. I'm sure proud of you. And, Carley—you can overdo it. Spunk is not everything. You simply ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... repeated. And then, besides, it seems to be generally understood that you were the one who wanted to straighten things out when you had no idea it was too late, and everybody whose opinion is worth having knows it's easy enough to slip into a mistake, but takes a lot of spunk to stand up and say so long ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... spunk o' fire fa' into your bosom! I've na faith in siccan heathen omens; but auld carlins wud say it's a sign o' death within the year—save ye from it, my puir misguidit bairn! Aiblins a fire-flaught o' my een, it might be—I've had them ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... that. I haven't enough spunk," confessed Cecily with a blush. "But I'll tell you what I did do once. He wrote me a long letter last week. It was just awfully SOFT, and every other word was spelled wrong. He even spelled baking soda, ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... you, Phil! I like your spunk," said Paul, heartily. "I wouldn't go back to the old villain if I were ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour. But matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than ever at the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something before long to wake up the spunk of Lawson. Chance favoured his design. The Quaker had a high-blooded filly, which he had been very careful in raising, and which was just four years old. Lawson took great pride in this animal, and had refused a large sum of money ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... ought to be cuffed a time or two; I know her. Look here, Elv, you've simply got to let me fix you a pompadour and have your seams made straight. You'd have a presence to eclipse us all if you'd spunk up to your dressmaker and not let her put off crooked gores on you. I'm ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... buried decently, and had all the insignia of a veteran warrior buried with him; consisting of a war club, tomahawk and scalping knife, a powder-flask, flint, a piece of spunk, a small cake and a cup; and in his ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... days ahead. Are you after them?' 'Yes; my team. Run them off under my very nose, the cusses. I've gained two days on them already—pick them up on the next run.' 'Reckon they'll show spunk?' asked Belden, in order to keep up the conversation, for Malemute Kid already had the coffeepot on and was busily ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... skipper howled, in his best sea tones. "You're the last woman to coax and beg for him, if half what they tell me is true. He has abused you wuss'n he has any one else. If you and the rest ain't got any spunk, I have. You'll be one brother out if he comes slam-bangin' ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... exaggerated resentment one feels at such a time. I'd drop off, get nearly to sleep, only to be jerked broad awake again by the thudding. Listening carefully I decided that the bothersome window was in Worth's room, and finally I got up sense and spunk enough to roll out of bed, stick my feet into slippers, and sneak over with the intention ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... O for a spunk o' Allan's glee, Or Fergusson's the bauld an' slee, Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, If I can hit it! That would be lear eneugh for me, If I ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... advice and avoid him. And what is more I'd give up Peggy Gartland for good. Isn't it a mane thing for you, Frank, to be hangin' afther a girl that's fonder of another than she is of yourself. By this and by that, I'd no more do it—avvouh! catch me at it—I'd have spunk in me." ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... mean to be, my dear; but really, Caroline, you do annoy me. Have you no spunk at all in your composition? Are you still fretting your heart out for that ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... it is indeed so; for Sabrey Haviland never uttered aught but perfect truth and sincerity in all her life. Why, God bless her for her spunk and independence, living and visiting, as she mostly has, from a child, in that circle of high-toned and bitter tories. And it argues well for your suit, too, Woodburn, which till now I have considered rather an unpromising one; for it tells me that she will struggle ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... confound him,' says the Parson, for you see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the Doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Elliot; "did I not say it was nae want o' spunk that made ye sae mim?—Weel, weel, I meant nae offence; but there's just ae thing ye may notice frae a friend. The auld Laird of Ellieslaw has the auld riding blood far hetter at his heart than ye hae—troth, he kens naething about thae newfangled notions o' peace ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... "am no poet, Mistress Stair; but I have a 'spunk enough of glee' to enjoy the gift ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... spunk. Have you thought of being a nurse? All work is hard and I should think that would be interesting. Must meet a jolly lot of people. You should see the becoming uniforms the London nurses wear. Prettiest women on the ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton |
