"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her best because she made her living by serving lunches to the soldiers; she had a nickname for each of us, and if any one was missing she had to hear all about it. Many a pleasant evening we spent in her little home. A bunch of us would go together, and we would take along our mandolin, banjo, and mouth organ, and have a little concert; Madame would sit there and smile, not understanding a word we said, but enjoying seeing us having a good time—another thing, it was always warm there, and that was something that our billets ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... the most charming performance he ever beholds. It consists of a regular play, with a ballet between the acts, and a minstrel performance introducing the celebrated scene of a negro teaching another negro to tune the banjo, where the pupil climbs up the back of his chair while endeavoring to ascend the scale; and all ending with a puppet-show, the whole being done by three young fellows. "Why-ee! 'twas ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... music, grows as intense as does their furor in a Methodist revival meeting. They have, too, dances and music peculiar to themselves—jigs and country dances which seem to have no method, yet which are perfectly adapted to and rhythmic with the inspiring abrupt thud of the banjo and the bones. As they dance, they shout and sing, slap their hands and knees, and lose themselves in the enthusiasm of the moment. The negroes look forward to Christmas not less as the season for present-giving than that of frolicking and jollity. Early in the morning they hasten upstairs, and catch ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... hours in their company, content to listen to the arguments that raged about him. Once in a while he would make a droll observation that was greeted with fits of laughter. He was always referred to as "old Tom," or "good old Tom"; presently, when he began to pick out chords on the banjo, it was discovered that he had a good tenor voice, though he could not always be induced to sing.... Somewhat to the jeopardy of the academic standard that my father expected me to sustain, our rooms became a rendezvous for many clubable souls whose maudlin, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... casually mentioned, the Negro Folk Rhyme was used for the dance. There are Negro Folk Rhyme Dance Songs and Negro Folk Dance Rhymes. An example of the former is found in "The Banjo Picking," and of the latter, "Juba," both found in this collection. The reader may wonder how a Rhyme simply repeated was used in the dance. The procedure was as follows: Usually one or two individuals ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... never trust those gilt-edge Britishers," said Jean Graham with authority. "There was old man Peters who took one of them in, and he'd sit in the store nights making little songs to his banjo, and talking just wonderful. Said he was a baronet or something, if he had his rights, and made love to Sally. Old fool Peters believed him, and lent him three hundred dollars to start a lawsuit over his English property with. Dessay Peters thought red-haired Sally ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... understand 'em. And he's scared at them chaps what works the lead mines over at High Shale. It's all in this parish, you know. And they are a horrid rough lot, a deal worse than the fisher-folk. But Dick he don't mind 'em. And he can do anything with 'em too, plays his banjo and sings and makes 'em laugh. The mines belong to the Farringmore family, you know—Lord Wilchester owns 'em. But he never comes near, and a' course the men gets discontented and difficult. And they're a nasty drinking lot too. Why, the manager—that's ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... all hands set about adoring the house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet—these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time with ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed. There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano-organist—I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed—they never would be missed! Then the idiot ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... yielded. The stipulation that Charteris should play only before prep. was rigidly observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request, but ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... after a shower of rain, and for those who see in such a fire no mere holocaust of dead twigs, but the Red Flower of the Jungle, the symbol and spirit of wild life, this spontaneous minstrelsy has a charm peculiarly its own. A charm of the simplest, certainly; for at camp-fires the banjo reigns supreme; and the aptest songs are those that 'rip your very heartstrings out' and offer fine facilities for effervescing between ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... with the ease begotten by the experience of a lifetime. Meanwhile Von Baumser, at the other end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo. In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker vessels among the dancers and tested the stamina of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the banjo laugh? Hear the fiddles scream? Broncho Bill leaned at the door, watched the twirling stream. Twenty fiends were at his heart snarling, "Kill him sure." (Out of hell that woman came.) "I love you, Belle McClure." Broncho Bill, he laughed and chewed ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... can play them. They will sell readily if they are shown off. It is good you can play the banjo. We can play that and the accordion whenever we want to open up, and thus attract a crowd. Some use a bell, but music, even when it is poor, is better. Sometimes I used to sing a comic song or two for old Gulligan ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... feel fatigue in the joyous scenes which followed. The fiddle and the banjo, animated as it would seem like living things, literally knew no rest, night or day; while Terpichore covered her face in absolute despair in the presence of that famous double-shuffle with which the long nights and "master's shoes" were worn away ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... justifiable, as she has several magnificent cats, about whom she has published a number of interesting stories. Her Madame Ref is quite a noted cat, but Mrs. Wilcox's favorite and the handsomest of all is named Banjo, a gorgeous chinchilla and white Angora, with a silken coat that almost touches the floor and a ruff, or "lord mayor's chain," that is a finger wide. His father was Ajax, his mother was Madame Ref, and Mrs. Wilcox raised him. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... honey girl. The silly old presentiment is overworked. It will pass bye and bye—when you see me coming home so many, many times to play that old banjo for you and sing ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... curling all over her head; who answered indifferently to the name of William or Bill; whose speech was heavy with the flowers of the vernacular; who could act in amateur theatricals, play on the banjo, rule eight servants and two horses, their accounts and their diseases, and look men slowly and deliberately between the eyes—yea, after they had proposed to her ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... bottle or "Bass," Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the grass, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are! Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart Banjo-twang makes 'em jar. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... their mere aspect. He has remained the only banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son of a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to this sentimental inspection, and after meditating a while over the strings under ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... stages of the work, gasoline lamps and Kitson lights were used. The former, of the familiar banjo type, and a modification of this, with a section of wrought-iron pipe for the reservoir, were very unsatisfactory, and were out of repair and leaking a large proportion of the time. The Kitson lights were given only a short trial, but were found unsatisfactory, owing to the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... that in his concerts Gottschalk could have made an effect with his famous piece "The Banjo," which is a very realistic transcription of a negro banjo performance, the banjo effect on the piano, in his case, I think, having been accomplished by the touch, whereas many others find themselves obliged to lay a sheet of music on the strings ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... we can have music as we sail, and Grif will bring his violin, and Ralph can imitate a banjo so that you'd be sure he had one. I do hope it will be fine, it is so splendid to go round like other folks and enjoy myself," cried Jill, with a little bounce of satisfaction at the prospect ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... told you," replied the fat man. "I am a clown—a musical clown.... I interpret comic romances.... I dress up as a negro, I play the banjo!" This jovial individual began humming an air which was the rage ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... struggle of good and evil, the combat between vice and virtue. But it evidently seemed rather commonplace to Dumas, ancient history, in fact, and he wanted to rejuvenate the old theme by trying to arrange for an orchestra with organ and banjo. The result he obtained was a fearful cacophony. He wrote a foolish piece, which might have been a beautiful one. The originality of his style, the loyalty of his ideas, and the brutality of his humour sufficed for rejuvenating ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... broken ceiling, marred woodwork and stained wall paper; but etchings, foreign photographs, sketches put up with thumb tacks and bright hangings made it odd and attractive. On a low couch piled with cushions lay Helen's mandolin and a banjo. A plaster cast of some queer animal roosted on the mantel, craning its neck down towards ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... three colored men, Abraham, Peter, and Jacob, who acted as menservants in our youth. In turn they would sometimes play on the banjo for us to dance, taking real enjoyment in our games. They are all at rest now with "Old Uncle Ned in the place where the good niggers go." Our nurses, Lockey Danford, Polly Bell, Mary Dunn, and Cornelia ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... music made by earthly hands. Let it be abolished. Electrocute the composer and banish the music-critic. Then let there be elected a supervisory board of trusty guardians, men absolutely above the reproach of having played the concertina or plunked staccato tunes on a banjo. Entrust to their care all beautiful music and poetry and prohibit the profane, vulgar, the curious, gaping herd from even so much as a glance at these treasures. For the few, the previous elect, the quintessential ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... she said: "I shall have to think about it awhile before I can promise. I shall not be out long. If you girls have nothing planned for the afternoon, suppose you wait for me here. Get out my old college chafing-dish and make yourselves some chocolate, string up my banjo, and I'll give you a package of old letters to read, telling of some ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said Billy. "He's a sport. I can stand that kind. Did you ever hear him sing? No? Well, he can sing a comic song fit to make you die. I can sing a bit myself, but to hear him sing 'The Man Who Couldn't Get Warm' is a show in itself. He can play the banjo too, and the guitar—but he's best on the banjo. It's worth a dollar to listen to his Epha-haam—that's Ephraim, you know—Ephahaam Come Home,' and 'I Found ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... highest enjoyment of a Frenchman is to hear the last cantatrice, the Spaniard enjoys the most skillful thrust of the matador in the bull arena, the Neapolitan the taste of the maccaroni, the German his beer and metaphysics, the darkey his banjo, and the American— ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... become business manager of a monthly magazine published by that society. In these ambitions I succeeded. For one of my age I had more than an average love of business. Indeed, I deliberately set about learning to play the guitar well enough to become eligible for membership in the Banjo Club—and this for no more aesthetic purpose than to place myself in line for the position of manager, to ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... shone brightly. I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy sing. There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the porch. I did not have a well-defined idea about ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... province of the boy scouts and wholly beneath the dignity of an officer of the Houssas. And he felt horribly guilty as he read Hamilton's letter, for the night before it came he had most certainly entertained his company with a banjo rendering of the Soldiers' ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... tight as banjo strings, had an awful instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the respectable Ugly-Wugly shook ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... River Press, flapping impotently in the embrace of a willow, caught the eye of Banjo, a little blaze— faced bay who bore the captive. He squatted, ducked backward so suddenly that his reins slipped from Slim's fingers and lowered his head between his white front feet. His rider seemed stupid beyond any that Banjo had ever known—and ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... terpsichorean evolutions." Two or three men would come up, stand awhile and listen at the curious sounds from within, resembling very much the noise made by a pack of curs after a rabbit they did not hope to catch; or, perhaps, more like a plantation jamboree when all the strings of the banjo were broken but one and ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin— Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. One assassin picks the banjo, and ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... his banjo. He, too, liked the new summer "hit;" in fact, every one was whistling it as well as they could, but it took tuned strings to ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... mocked him, languidly; and then, like a banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry gasp, and her ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... had been laid down, and an awning placed over them to make a place where bags of cotton were tied up to be taken to the gin. Gathered around this platform were a number of negro men, women and children. One of the men had an old banjo, and though the instrument seemed battered and broken, he managed to get ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... instinct. Music is for the most savage natures. The boor that couldn't appreciate the Taj Mahal, or the sculpture of Michael Angelo, might be swept off his feet by the music of a master, though he couldn't understand its story. Besides, I've carried a banjo and a cornet to the ends of the earth with me. I saved my life with the cornet once. A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hangs about, and watches the trains, as if he had never seen any before. I suppose there are none in the country he comes from. Between whiles he sometimes plays on his banjo and sings a bit for us. I cannot quite make him out; but as he is very quiet and well-behaved, and never interferes with nobody, it is no business ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... corn shuckin' what happened 'fore de war wus over, an' what a time dem niggers did have. Dey kisses when dey fin' a red year an' atter dat dey pops some popcorn an' dey dances ter de music of de banjo which Uncle Jed am a-playin'. Dey dances all night de best I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the northern slave States are a thoughtless, happy set, spending their evenings in dancing or singing to the banjo; and 'Oh, carry me back to Old Virginny,' or 'Susannah, don't you cry for me,' may be heard on summer evenings rising from the maize and tobacco grounds of Kentucky. Yet, whether naturally humane instincts may lead to merciful treatment of the slave, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... be had for nothing at all, or the next thing to it, if you can prevail upon yourself to go and fetch it. Perhaps Punch and Judy will pitch their little citadel in front of your dwelling; or, more likely still, a band of mock Ethiopians, with fiddle, castanets, and banjo, may tempt your liberality with a performance of Uncle Ned or Old Dan Tucker; or a corps of German musicians may trumpet you into a fit of martial ardour; or a wandering professor of the German flute soothe you into ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... wealthiest in the South, at a time when all planters were wealthy. They numbered their slaves by thousands. Standing on the broad piazza of one of these Southern homes, one could see the rows of rough huts that made up the negro quarters, and hear faintly the sound of the banjo and rude negro melodies, mingling with the music of piano or harp within the parlor of the mansion-house. Refined by education and travel, the planters of the region about Port Royal made up a courtly society, until war burst upon them, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... follow his advice. The next four men she visited—who were Jo Plum, Jo Egg, Jo Banjo and Jo Cheese, named after the trees in their orchards—she made Colonels of her Army; but the fifth one, Jo Nails, said Colonels and Generals were getting to be altogether too common in the Army of Oogaboo and ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Company.' We had five or six young fellows, all musicians, as well as handy painters, and we used to capture the towns with our music. One fellow could whistle like a nightingale, another sang like an angel, and another played the banjo. I scuffled ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... about his or her part as if its success depended on that alone. Mr Buckle, next to his own recitation, relied a good deal on the introduction of a friend of his from Lenham, who had promised to perform on the banjo and sing a comic ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... led the way down to the camp of workmen. Reade stopped to speak with one of his reliable negroes, whom he found softly strumming a banjo ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... school for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the afternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra, made up of members of the school, was gathering. There was a cornetist, two or three violins followed, then a banjo and guitar. The service that day was to be a great event, for the wonderful woman in charge of that school who had done away with the cells, taken down the great spiked iron fence and planted flowers in its stead had persuaded ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... crowds. Lights in their eyes. High-pitched, garbled words, brass bands, flags, speeches.... Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord but we don't want the Bacon, All we Want is a Piece of the Rhine(d).... A brass monkey playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" on a red banjo.... Allons, les enfants ... le jour de gloire est arrive! You tell 'em, kid! Store fronts, cabarets, hotel lobbies, sign-boards, office buildings all become shining citadels of righteousness ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... wire strings, and sounded with a plectrum; used as a bass to the cittern. The banjo is a modification of the bandore, as the name is a negro ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... got out his banjo and played "Shady Grove," and "Blind Coon Dog," and "Sugar Hill," and "Gamblin' Man," while Chad's eyes glistened and his feet shuffled under his chair. And when Dolph put the rude thing down on the bed and went into the kitchen, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of whom there were a goodly number, time hung heavily, and the younger ones had proposed a dance. Musical instruments were not numerous, but such as there were, were brought out, and two non-professionals with an accordion and a banjo, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Miss Blake, a banjo from her father, skates from Delia, she had longed for just such a new pair, and innumerable other articles bearing no giver's name, but coming, every one, from the same generous source Nan knew well enough. She absolutely lost her head in the delight ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... soldiery, and bubbled with impotent suggestions and reverential laughter at the witticisms of Mr. Taylour. Fanny Fitz and Captain Carteret finally removed themselves to a grimy corner behind the proscenium, and there practised, sotto voce, the song with banjo accompaniment that was to culminate in the hornpipe. Freddy Alexander had gone forth to purchase a pack of cards, in the futile hope that he could prevail upon Mrs. Carteret to allow him to inflict conjuring tricks upon ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... It sure is a swell rig!" Weary paid generous tribute. "Only I will say old Banjo reminds me of an Irish cook rigged out in silk and diamonds. That outfit on Glory, now—" He ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... used for side-arms. Opposite were two old rifles, and beneath them two stone beer-mugs, and a German student's pipe absurdly long and richly ornamented. A mantel close by was filled with curiosities, and near it hung a banjo unstrung, a tennis-racket, and a blazer of startling colors. Plainly they were relics of German student life, and the odd contrast they made with the rough wall and ceiling suggested a sharp change in the fortunes of the young worker beneath. Scarcely ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' whin th' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... another youth, as he stepped out of the waiting-room of the depot. "How are you anyway?" and he came up, swinging a banjo-case from his right hand to his left so that he might shake hands. Luke Watson had always been one of the favorite musicians at Oak Hall, playing the banjo and the guitar ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began to strum a few wandering notes. Hutchinson ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... Banjo and the Military Brushes and left Number Two marooned in the Rat Pit with the Oak Dresser and the Pictures of ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... Ratcliff Road into polite literature. That is quite true. He owes his fame partly also to the brilliance with which he talked adventure and talked "shop" to a generation that was exceptionally greedy for both. He, more than any other writer of his time, set to banjo-music the restlessness of the young man who would not stay at home—the romance of the man who lived and laboured at least a thousand miles away from the home of his fathers. He excited the imagination of youth with ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... afternoon. The grave arches of the bridge, made complete circles by the reflexion of the water, sustained, as if by some unifying and justifying reason, the erratic flat flashes and streaks and glares of traffic that fretted to and fro overhead. A voice sang intermittently and a banjo tinkled, but remotely enough to be ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... left Mesopotamia I made up my mind that there was one man in Palestine whom I would use every effort to see if I were held over waiting for a sailing. This man was Major A.B. Paterson, known to every Australian as "Banjo" Paterson. His two most widely read books are The Man from Snowy River and Rio Grande's Last Race; both had been for years companions of the entire family at home and sources for daily quotations, so I had always hoped to some day meet their author. I knew that he had ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... inspect the lilies in pots, the gold and silver fish, fat and wonderfully shaped, which glided about in the tanks and ponds, and then led us into a kind of arbour, where, beneath a kind of wooden eave, an instrument was hanging from a peg. It was not a banjo, for it was too long; and it was not a guitar, for it was too thin, and had not enough strings; but it was something of the kind, and evidently kept there for the use of ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... ceased to be heard; again another voice announced that the fourth talk would be given on a certain date a few days later. A negro song with banjo accompaniment followed and ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... greenhouses. After that they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her friends ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... the torpedo room, bottled up under water where no sound could escape to attract the attention of the outside world, Mike Mowrey had tuned up his old banjo and the boys were ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... commodious alcove, in a glow of pink light from above, was a life-sized group of musicians—statues in colored metal of a Spanish girl playing a mandora, an Italian with a slender calascione, a Russian playing his jorbon, and an African playing a banjo. Luxurious couches hung by spiral springs from the ceiling to a convenient height from the floor, and here and there lay rugs of rare beauty and great ottomans ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... arms and shouted to the company in the bar-room. What he said no one could hear. Hissing and roaring filled the world, submerging the crackling of the fire, the banjo tunes, and human voices. Men looked at each other, stupefied, holding their pipes from their mouths. Then a wave struck the solid old tavern, hissed across its gallery, and sprawled through the hall upon the bar-room ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... having his good college time. College widows made love to him, and college girls loved him, and he was indefatigable in his dancing. He never cut a smoker, a beer bust, or a rush, and he toured the Pacific Coast with the Banjo and Mandolin Club. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Mayor being, of course, in the chair. Harry sang 'In Old Madrid,' accompanied by his stepmother, with faultless expression. Mr. Duncalf astonished everybody with the famous North-Country recitation, 'The Patent Hair-brushing Mashane.' There were also a banjo solo, a skirt dance of discretion, and a campanological turn. At last, towards ten o'clock, Mr. Gordon, who had hitherto done nothing, rose in his place, amid ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... in a mist of silver, and the nearer heights in blue -gray silhouette. A wizardry of night and softness settled like a benediction, and from the dark door of the house stole the quaint folklore cadence of a rudely thrummed banjo. Lescott strolled over to the stile with every artist instinct stirred. This nocturne of silver and gray and blue at once soothed and intoxicated his imagination. His fingers ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... assembly of odd characters in the parlor Saturday night, six of whom looked as though they were but so many reflections of the same individual in different glasses, and the seventh differed from the rest only in playing exquisitely on the banjo—"Too well to be a gentleman," I fear. These were soldiers, come to "call" on us. Half an hour after we arrived, a dozen of them took possession of the bench on the bank of the river, one with his banjo who played and sang delightfully. Old Mrs. Greyson, who is rather eccentric, called, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... black fellow, with white teeth and bright eyes, and he could play the fiddle and pick the banjo, and knock the bones and cut the pigeon-wing, and, besides all that, he was the best hoe-hand, and could pick more cotton than any other negro on the plantation. He had amused himself by courting and flirting with all of the negro girls; but at last he had been caught himself ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... by the grace of heaven, or by the practice of some peculiar artistic dexterity, they bring into prominent and most ludicrous display. The languishing elegance of some, the painstaking laboriousness of others, above all, the feats of a certain enthusiastic banjo-player, who seemed to me to thump his instrument with every part of his body at once, at last so utterly overcame any attempt at decorous gravity on my part that I was obliged to secede; and, considering what the atmosphere was that we inhaled during the exhibition, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... might've learned this town well enough by now," he reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it." Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since nature had arranged ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a cold, musty effluvium ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... disappeared. Then he washed and wiped the glass, and put it back in its place ready for use. After this he threw himself upon the settee, took hold of his right leg with his left hand, by the ankle, dragged it up, and held it across his body rigidly as if it were a banjo, and began to strum imaginary strings with his right hand, while in a whisper he sang a song about a yaller gal somewhere in the south, with close-shut eyes and a long wide mouth, and so on, through seven verses, with a ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... when she read in his next letter that some of them were not half bad-looking, surprisingly well groomed for so far West, and fairly attractive till they opened their mouths. Then, he said, they twanged the banjo at every vowel and went over the letter "r" as if it were a bump in the road. He had no desire for blinders, but he said that he would derive comfort from a pair of ear-muffs. By and by he was writing her not to be worried about losing him, for there was safety in numbers, and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... their meal was finished, and tin cups and plates had been put aside, the officer took from its nail an old banjo, and began strumming. Presently he was singing, and his rich, clear voice, admirably suited to the time, place and surroundings, filled the little cabin and floated across to the green where the Indians camped. Song followed ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... and a clamorous throng With braying bugles and with bragging drums— Bards and bardies laboring at a song. One lifts his locks, above the rest preferred, And to the buzzing flies of fashion thrums A banjo. Lo him follow all the herd. When Nero's wife put on her auburn wig, And at the Coliseum showed her head, The hair of every dame in Rome turned red; When Nero fiddled all Rome danced a jig. Novelty sets the gabbling ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... after dinner on the smoking-room table, and take in kites at night,—such was the easy routine of their life. In the evening—above all, if Tommy had produced some of his civilisation—yarns and music were the rule. Amalu had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. There was a sense in which the little man could sing. It was great to hear him deliver My Boy Tammie in Austrylian; and the words (some of the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... it was, sure enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon the side of it; and it had banjo-strings stretched so as to sound when the wind blew. I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean[4] harp, whatever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him because he wuz ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... who prided himself on being able to play any tune on the banjo after he had heard it once, perched himself on the side of a hill one Sunday morning and began to pick the strings in a ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... that the giant's little boy banged so hard on the piano with his little finger nail that he broke a string, and made a funny sound, like a banjo out of tune. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... from Cuba And the birds are on the wing, And our hearts are patting juba To the banjo of the spring, Then it's no wonder whether The boys will get together, With a stein on the table and ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... with a delicious mingling of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement. He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not singing. Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in company with John, but with a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... graduated from Madison, and in his day at college had done much to relieve the gray Calvinistic tone of that sedate institution. It was he who had transformed the old "college chorus"—it had been a "chorus" almost from the foundation—into a glee club, and he had organized the first guitar and banjo club. The pleasant glow he left behind him still hung over the campus when Fred entered four years later. Charles's meteoric social career had dimmed the fact (save to a few sober professors) that he had got through by the skin of his teeth. Fred's plodding ways, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... realize that such things could be, now that he was a guest in a Southern home and saw the bright side of their life. Never had he seen anything brighter than the smiles of those negro musicians as they proudly touched their instruments: the violin, the banjo, the flute, the triangle and castanets, and watched the dancers swing through each number. There could be no mistake about the ring of joy in Sam's voice. It throbbed with unction. It pulsed with pride. Its joy was contagious. He caught himself ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... lieutenant, genially. "But fancy your knowing Sparks! He has the next station to mine; I'm at one end of the Shire River and he's at the other; he patrols from Fort Johnson up to the top of the lake. I suppose you've heard him play the banjo, haven't you? That's where we hit it off—we're both terribly keen about the banjo. I suppose if it wasn't for my banjo, I'd go quite off my head down here. I know Sparks would. You see, I have these chaps at Chinde ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... tune up! we can pay you as well as the toffs; let's have a song!" They had a concert all the way, Wingfield singing the solos. The hat was sent round and a collection made, and to the bitter end Wingfield had to bang away at his banjo and squeak with what little voice he had left. This nearly finished him. Arriving at Victoria, he hailed a hansom. One driver after another eyed him scornfully and passed on. He then for the first time realised that it is not a customary thing for an itinerant nigger ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... is also very free, and only sometimes musical, but he hammers in his images with a vengeance. But of all the new Americans, Vachel Lindsay's jolly fantasies, with a slightly heard banjo accompaniment, are the most fascinating and least ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... watch from his pocket and Mr. Simms turned to look at the old banjo clock in his office, and both men quickly said in one voice: "Oh, no, Jake! You have plenty of time to get off and make camp ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy |
