"Drilling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forget the awful situation in which I was; I tried to think of other things; to imagine that I was drilling with the rest of my company, with Tom Rogers on one side of me, and old Humphrey Peters on the other. You may say, perhaps, that this wasn't exactly the way of carrying out my promise of taking care of Miss Minturn and the others. But ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... perhaps a hundred feet deeper, I would be very likely to get all the water I wanted. But, of course, they could not tell how deep they must go, for some wells were over a thousand feet deep. I shook my head at this. There seemed to be only one thing certain about this drilling business, and that was the expense. I ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... clinging like flies to the precarious wall with on either hand a yawning abyss, their nerves failed them and they abandoned the enterprise. So it remained for an indomitable Scotchman, one George Anderson, finally to achieve the feat. Beginning where they had left off, drilling and climbing for a week, he had at last set foot upon that awful summit and gazed down into the depths where Mirror Lake reposed, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... secret, too," said Mrs. Talmage, leaning over toward the desk. "The boys have had their fathers meet with them every evening, advising and drilling them in ways and means to succeed, while my girls have had to do the best they can with Aunt Selina and me. This book will boost us far ahead of the Bobolinks and give the men who ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... natives, and in the second place to the Union. Thus, then, many of the professors who were natives of the seven States which had seceded resigned their appointments, and returned home to occupy themselves in drilling the militia and the levies, who were at once called ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... next I would be expected to do something entirely different; be a policeman, maybe, and arrest a rowdy dog in boxing-gloves. Oh, I couldn't begin to tell you the things I was expected to do, from drilling like a soldier to wheeling a doll carriage and smoking a pipe. Sometimes when I grew confused, and misunderstood the signals and did things all wrong, the ring-master would swing his whip until it cracked ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... searched diligently and succeeded in bringing to light a number of objects which fairly welt illustrate the culture of the ancient people. Among them were needles and awls of bone; a complete fire drill with a stick showing drilling, basketry work covered with pinon pith mats and girdles, threads of fibre or hair, and sandals plaited of yucca leaves. Wads of cotton and pieces of pottery were found in many places; and an interesting find was a "boomerang" similar to that ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... September it was clear that the area of trouble covered the eastern provinces from near Fusan to the north of Seoul. The rebels were evidently mainly composed of discharged soldiers and of hunters from the hills. We heard in Seoul that trained officers of the old Korean Army were drilling and organizing them into volunteer companies. The Japanese were pouring fresh troops into these centres of trouble, but the rebels, by an elaborate system of mountain-top signalling, were avoiding the troops and making their attacks on undefended spots. Reports ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... teeth of the upper jaw in front filed off, but not the men, who make plugs from yellow metal wire, procured in Tandjong Selor, with which they adorn their front teeth, drilling holes in them for the purpose. The plug is made with a round flat head, which is the ornamental part of it, and without apparent rule appears in one, two, or three incisors, usually in the upper jaw, sometimes in both. One of my men took his out ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Captain as if he were drilling his company, "I believe if you're not a Socialist, you're just as bad. But 'y gory, I fought for the right of free speech, and free meetings, and Socialist or no Socialist, that's your right. I'm going to defend you on my own lot." He ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... And Jim Jones, a heaven-built mechanic, the slyest young knave in the room, With a countenance grave as a horse's, and his honest eyes fixed on a pin, Queer-bent on a deeply-laid project to tunnel Joe Hawkins's skin. There were anxious young novices, drilling their spelling-books into their brain, Loud-puffing each half-whispered letter, like an engine just starting its train; There was one fiercely muscular fellow, who scowled at the sums on his slate, And leered at the innocent figures a look of unspeakable hate; And set his white teeth ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... then, I turned upon the second cask, and commenced drilling a hole in the end of it. I was not so excited as before, for I did not feel that so much depended upon the result. For all that, it caused me a good deal of disappointment, when, on getting the point of my blade through to the inside, I discovered that the stream that came jetting out was not ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... be effected by the land forces. I use the words "comparative inactivity" advisedly, for though the ships themselves were idle, as far as the prosecution of the campaign was concerned, the admiral was indefatigable in drilling and exercising the crews, and in accustoming those of the different ships to act in concert. And in addition to this there was an immense amount of passing to and fro between the fleet and the shore, in the transmission of despatches and the landing ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking little notes. I had spent the afternoon in drilling Singleton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour even longer than that ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... stop, a troop of girl scouts was drilling when she stepped off the train. New clothes and a better appearance, the result of that first pay at housework, had converted the mill girl into quite an attractive young lady, and as she waited at the pretty little square, ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... hunched up," or a shuffling gait, are owing partly to bad habits, or "slouchiness," but chiefly to weak muscles and a badly-fed nervous system, often due to a poor digestion and a weak circulation. If a child is not healthy and vigorous, then no amount of drilling or reminders to "sit straight" and "stand erect" ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... by the bees, and its drowsy evening prayers are barely audible to the angels. Its atmosphere crept over our spirits like ether and we did little else but sleep for the week that we were there. Parades would be ordered, but after a short time of drilling in the only field of the village, we would realize the sacrilege of our exertion, and the parade would be dismissed. Thereafter the only preparation for the day ahead that was persisted in consisted of lectures, when the droning ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... arrival of more savage troops, the Emir and his son spent a good deal of time in a kind of rough drilling of the powerful body of men who followed their standard, and it became quite a matter of course for Frank to accompany the young chief, who made him more and more a companion; but there were days when they rode about together, and as Frank grew more familiar with ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... gone through all this drilling for months to snatch the first chance to forget it. I will begin the day by ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... found advisable to reduce the quantity of sulphate of ammonia, or to leave it out altogether; and in other cases the potash may be judiciously omitted. The entire mixture should be sown at the time of drilling the turnips. If farmyard manure is used—and if used it should be applied in a well-decomposed state—no other manure than 3 cwt. of superphosphate ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... fell, she continued her caressing of his hair, while she idly watched a great gray squirrel, boisterous and hilarious, as it scampered back and forth in a distant vista of the redwoods. A crimson-crested woodpecker, energetically drilling a fallen trunk, caught and transferred her gaze. The man did not lift his head. Rather, he crushed his face closer against her knee, while his heaving shoulders marked the hardness with ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... thrilled to him. Now, more than ever, she thrilled. She imagined she saw him striding along through the big boles of the pines; passing swiftly, silent and stern, through a faint patch of light; standing in the shadows, listening, his keen eyes drilling the obscurity; passing on again, vigorous, forceful, determined, and "splendid." She wondered if he would come up with Swen Brodie; most of all she wondered when ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... They say that the emigrants, as they land here, are often simple-hearted people, willing to work, accustomed to early hours and plain living, decorous and respectful in their manners. It would seem as if aristocratic drilling had done them good. In a few months they become brawling, impertinent, grasping, want high wages, and are very unwilling to work. I went to several intelligence-offices the other day to look for a girl for Marianne, and I thought, by the way the candidates catechized the ladies, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... horse round, waved her sword, her bright hair floating in the wind, her eyes beaming with courage, she was enchantingly beautiful. But what would have charmed him in mere play seemed unfeminine now that this drilling had become a matter of life and death; and as soon as it was over, and Lenore came up to him with glowing cheeks, waiting that he should address her, he was silent, and she had to laugh and say to him, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... imprison or otherwise punish all who failed to be present at the drills. These young gentlemen, not being removable, according to the Constitution, and exempted from conscription by an act of Congress, volunteered some months ago for "local defense and special service," never supposing that regular drilling would be obligatory except when called into actual service by the direction of the President, in the terms of an act of Congress, which provided that such organizations were not to receive pay for military service, unless summoned to the field ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... found that, at such close range, his position under the lee of the low bulwark was anything but secure, since the nickel-jacketed bullets which the rebels were using were already drilling holes clean through the thick planking and passing out through the opposite bulwark. He therefore again painfully removed himself, taking up a new position with his back against the stout mast of the barge, with it between himself and the point from which the volleys were coming. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the seating capacity of his cabin by taking some long slabs and with an auger drilling holes in their round sides. Into these holes he drove wooden pegs, and thus provided serviceable benches without backs. These together with his other benches and his chairs gave sufficient seating accommodation for those ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... from neighboring towns. They enjoyed looking at the school work, and they enjoyed their lunch under the trees, and the marching and drilling of the boys ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... merchant marine as well as big hauls of green landsmen who had never dreamt of salt water; and First Lieutenant Perkins, as the only regular officer on board except the captain, soon found himself an exceeding busy man in organizing, disciplining, drilling, and shaping into place and routine, some ninety officers and men, all equally new to man-of-war life and methods, and requiring the necessary time and instruction to fit them for their new duties. A fair soldier may be made in three months—a good ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... squadron. Their seventy-fours have not five hundred men on board; they are worn out by a two years' cruise."[235] A month later he wrote: "The Toulon squadron appeared very fine in the harbor, the crews well clothed and drilling well; but as soon as a storm came, all was changed. They were not drilled in storms."[236] "The emperor," said Nelson, "now finds, if emperors hear truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.... These gentlemen ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... of acting as a decorative body-guard to enhance his own public appearances on gala days. He threw his whole soul into the enterprise. After the corps had been duly established, he amused himself by drilling them on Sunday afternoons and modelling new buttons for their uniforms; to give them the requisite military stamina he over-fed and starved them by turns, wrapped them in sheepskin overcoats for long route-marches in July, exercised ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... destined to last very long. As he approached the barracks he noticed a small crowd of idlers collecting near a gateway, and at the same instant the silence was broken by the sound of a drum. He knew what it was—the regiment had been out drilling on the neighbouring common, and was ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... intellectually a head and shoulders above his countrymen. He was a great man, which on the frontier means that he was a great murderer, and might have accomplished much with the quick-firing guns he was negotiating for, and the troops he was drilling "on the European model." The career of this Afghan Napoleon was cut short, however, by the intervention of Providence in the guise or disguise of the Indian Government. He might have been made use of. People who know the ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of the state where they are tapped. Because of this slow movement, a large number of wells in any one spot may exhaust the local supply faster than it is replenished from the remainder of the formation. The drilling of additional wells near at hand in such cases does not increase the total yield, but merely divides it among a ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... must be governed by definite aims.—Probably drilling requires more planning and care on the part of the teacher than any other work of the recitation. Drill applied indiscriminately wastes time and kills interest. To study a spelling lesson over fifteen times as some teachers require is folly. Every spelling list ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... shell would come popping over from somewhere to tear a hole in the roadside to make our automobiling more difficult. In fact, we discovered that during "Joffre's offensive" days of repose mean drill, drill, and more drill, and when the men are not drilling many ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a large cavalry company under the training of Col. J. W. Griffith. He had fought through the Mexican war, was an intelligent man, and a good soldier. He also fought through the late war, and was several times promoted. We had been drilling for some weeks, and the time was set for our departure. I had a good deal of unsettled business at Louisville, and went to the city to settle it up. During my absence the Federal authorities of Louisville were apprised, in some way, of the movements and purposes of our men, and ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... something about oil, for she had watched the drilling of every one of those shallow wells that had kept her in college, and what is more, she knew most of the property owners in this part of the state. In that advantage she believed lay ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... expired.[345] At Rome the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;[346] the task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... half-past four this morning. Father Neptune was to have paid us another visit in the evening, but the crew were busy, and there were some difficulties about arranging the details of the ceremony. The children were obliged, therefore, to be content with their usual game of drilling every one that they were able to muster for soldiers, after the fashion of Captain Brown's 'rifle practice,' or marching up and down the decks to the strains of Jem Butt's fiddle playing 'Tommy make room for your Uncle,' accompanied by the somewhat discordant noise of their own drums. These ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... officers to a council of war at the Executive Mansion, to discuss a more formidable campaign than had yet been planned. General Scott was opposed to such an undertaking at that time. He preferred waiting until autumn, meanwhile organizing and drilling a large army, with which to move down the Mississippi and end the war with a final battle at New Orleans. Aside from the obvious military objections to this course, such a procrastination, in the present irritation of the public temper, was not to be thought of; and the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... regular soldiers of the Maharajah, who were sepoys, all under the command of English officers; and they marched like veterans who had been drilling half their lives. They were followed by a company of Arabs, who seemed to have been imported for the occasion. Sir Modava explained what the troops were as they passed. Next came a whole squadron of Mahratta cavalry, which looked as though they were serviceable soldiers of ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... where the break was complete and the Rat River was viciously licking the vertical face of the rock a crew of men, six feet above the track level, were drilling into the first ledge a set of six-foot holes. On the next receding ledge, twelve feet above the old track level, a second crew were tamping a set of holes to be sunk twelve feet. Above them the drills were cutting into the third ledge, and still higher and farther back, at twenty feet, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... being in the Infantry," he answered. "And that would be my only other alternative. Besides I get out of the drilling." He laughed. "I should hate being shouted at and ordered about by a ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... loosening all the doors," The Ghost replied, and laughed: "It means the drilling holes by scores In all the skirting-boards and floors, To make a ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... so, my lord, if it be that there is a chance of something more lively than drilling hinds, and turning them into men-at-arms, which has been my business for years now, without a chance of striking a blow ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... the doctor walked slowly back to the hotel. As he passed the armoury of the black militia, they were still drilling under the command of Gus. The windows were open, through which came the steady tramp of heavy feet and the cry of "Hep! Hep! Hep!" from the Captain's thick cracked lips. The full-dress officer's uniform, with its gold epaulets, ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... reconnoissance out to Monterey, nearly half way to Corinth, and dislodged a detachment of hostile cavalry camped there. Every division and many of the brigades found a separate drill-ground in some neighboring field, and constant drilling was preparing the command ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... living, there are the continuation schools, which are in many parts of the country compulsory, and which are nicely adapted, according to their situation in shopkeeping cities, in factory towns, or in the country, to give the pupils the drilling and instruction necessary for their particular employment. The average amount of expenditure for these continuation schools is $6,250,000. In Prussia there are some 1,500 of these schools, with an ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... brooch had fetched. In the old days she could have soon earned a shilling or two by singing outside and inside taverns. But what she had done as a beggar maid could not be thought of in her fine clothes. And during the last six months, with good food, regular hours and systematic drilling, she had shot up half a head. She was a grown woman, and she felt instinctively that as such and with the winsome face Nature had bestowed upon her, singing outside taverns would be considered by men as a blind for something else. In addition she looked back upon her former ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... of eyes drilling him as he answered: "It seems to me, sir, that—disregarding such baffling obstacles to independence as their absolute defenselessness as a nation, the profound ignorance of the masses, lack of a common tongue, and all that,—I think that in view of the fact that ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Marston felt real sorry at leaving us so hurriedly, and she gave no end of directions to Nora and Betty, to say nothing of nurse. Nora didn't seem to mind this, but nurse sniffed—she always does that when she doesn't like what people are telling her—and Betty got impatient; you see Nannie'd been drilling Betty, too,—telling her to be nice to Nora, and to help with the little ones, and all that,—and I guess she'd got ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... comprehension, moved off toward the window with all a boy's disgust. In the span of a day he had learned and suffered over-much. Grogan's world of drills and noise down there was heartless and insistent. . . . It went on and on, puffing, drilling, sorting rattling stone. Up here in the shack was the lunacy of heart-things apart from him. The thought filled him with jealous anger. And upstairs— He wheeled and glared, fighting down the agony in his throat. Kenny was moving toward ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... are more kind and patient with the men than I should expect, since the former are mostly young, and drilling tries the temper; but they are aided by hearty satisfaction in the results already attained. I have never yet heard a doubt expressed among the officers as to the superiority of these men to white troops in aptitude for drill ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... joyously into Charleston. Harry saw at once that the city was even more crowded than Nashville had been. Its population had increased greatly in a few weeks, and he could feel the quiver of excitement in the air. Citizen soldiers were drilling in open places, and other ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with few variations, is practiced, although some of the soils are much better adapted to the purpose than are other soils of the area. The system of rotation practiced consists of drilling in wheat and timothy seed together on the corn stubble in the fall, and sowing clover in the following spring. The wheat is harvested in the early summer, leaving the timothy and clover, which, after obtaining a good ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... with them when they did it. April had come. The last vestiges of ice and snow were slipping away out of the broad, sun-kissed valley. Up at the cantonments a stalwart infantry major had a battalion of the Fortieth out along the prairie slopes for over two hours every morning, drilling, drilling, drilling, until officers and men came double-quicking in at 11.30, exuding profanity and perspiration from every pore, but owning up to it, after a rub down and a rest and a hearty dinner, that old Alex was ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... men's minds had begun to turn to war, and on every village green the farmers might be seen drilling every evening. Bands of minute men, that is, men who would be ready at a minute's notice, were organised. All sorts of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... back there. The other guys who abandoned them claims played hell with the timber—gormandized the whole lot—must have gone in for the timber business. So I bin cuttin' spruce up there on the hill. Wal, I often seen you drilling holes in this muck, but damn me if I ever seen your pard put a hand to the spade. He seems to live in that darned tent. I seen him twice hiking out—to Dawson, for a jag, I guess. Didn't seem ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... closely at Fort George— Red-hot for action in their summer-sleeves, And others drilling in their naked feet— Our poor equipment (which disgraced us there) Too scanty to go round. See they get arms, An ample outfit and good ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... to be consulted in the matter, so he followed in the wake of Mr. Snelling, who, by the way, it should be explained, was the assistant master, having special charge of all the younger scholars, and the drilling of them in the English branches of learning. The classics and mathematics the doctor reserved for himself, and a better teacher of the former particularly there was ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... it. This news was that the week before, an armed mob of several hundred had stopped the courts at their meeting in Worcester and forced an adjournment for two months; that the entire state, except the district close around Boston, was in a ferment; that the people were everywhere arming and drilling and fully determined that no more courts should sit till the distresses of the times had been remedied. As yet the state authorities had taken no action looking toward the suppression of the insurrection, in which, indeed, the great majority of the population appeared actively or sympathetically ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... were the chosen parts of Ireland for the new Fenianism to come to a head, and a certain amount of enrolling and drilling did ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... about a fortnight old the perforation in the septum of the nose is made by drilling it with a sharp-pointed piece of tortoise-shell, but the raised artificial scars, regarded as personal ornaments by the Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, are not made until long afterwards. According to Giaom, who states that among ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... encountered in France; an insolent teamster, who, having his horses strung across a narrow road- way in the suburbs of Saarburg, refuses to turn his leaders' heads to enable me to ride past, thus compelling me to dismount. Soldiers drilling, soldiers at target practice, and soldiers in companies marching about in every direction, greet my eyes upon approaching Pfalzburg; and although there appears to be less beating of drums and blare of trumpets than in French garrison towns, one seldom turns a street corner without hearing the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... training—how to walk quietly, how to avoid getting slashed by a vine, and so forth. It also involved forming two separate attack groups for Hollerith's plans. That meant drilling the groups to move separately, and drilling each group to ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... sat on top of the bus and watched with wide curious, eyes the strange traffic of London. The park had fascinated her—the little groups of drilling men in khaki, the mellow tones of a bugle, and here and there on the bridle paths well-groomed men and women on horseback, as clean-cut as the horses they rode, and on the surface as careless of what was happening across the Channel. ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tell what the crowd around us means, On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising, There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow, Do you hear the officers giving their orders? Do you hear the clank of the muskets? Why what comes over you now old man? Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively? The troops are but drilling, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... That was in line with the latest fad. It was always something or other, and physical culture was in the air at this time with every other girl in Gloucester, so far as I could see—either Indian-club swinging or dumb-bell drilling, long walks, and things of that kind, and telling how much better they felt after it. My cousin Nell, who went in for anything that anybody ever told her about, was trying to reduce her weight. According to some perfect-form charts, or something or other on printed sheets, she weighed seven pounds ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... men required for acceptance. There was no time to procure uniform, nor was it desirable; for these independent companies had chosen their own, and would have to change it for that of the United States as soon as this could be furnished. For some days companies could be seen marching and drilling, of which part would be uniformed in some gaudy style, such as is apt to prevail in holiday parades in time of peace, whilst another part would be dressed in the ordinary working garb of citizens of all degrees. The uniformed files would also be armed and accoutred; ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... now understand," remarked the professor, "how some airs become popular in Paris. I have forty pupils all trying the same thing. I am drilling them now in the Marguerite, and in a little time you will have nothing else in ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... sometimes, it was only to wonder at the harsh and blatant nature of their voices, only to pity the poor creatures who hastened to the prison, which youth thinks freedom and old age protection, at their shrieking summons. He preferred to be master of his soul, and had no desire to set it drilling at the command of painted women, or to drown it in wine, or to suffocate it in the smoke at which the voluptuary tries to warm his hands, mistaking it for fire. Intellectuality is to some men what religion is to many women, a trellis of roses that bars out the larger world. Valentine loved to watch ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... regiments of organized militia in this state? Name the principal regimental officers. By whose authority were these appointed? Is there any "company" near you? Have you seen them drilling? Who ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... drilling, and a military point of great strength. The enemy has felt us twice, at great loss and demoralization; will report at length this evening; am now much ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Mohammedans, Malays, and Dyaks, officered by a handful of Europeans. Curiously enough, the tall, dignified, deeply religious Sikhs and the little, nervous, high-strung Dyak pagans get on very well together, eating, sleeping and drilling in perfect harmony. Though the Dyak members of the constabulary are recruited from the wild tribes of the interior, most of them having indulged in the national pastime of head-hunting until they donned the company's uniform, they make excellent ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green states upon a board that it was established ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... home that night took me past the armory where the Zouaves, the boys whom Ellsworth trained, were drilling. You remember Ellsworth's story, Peter? He was the first officer to die in the war." The boy nodded solemnly, and the man went on. "With Abraham Lincoln's voice ringing in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of "drilling the nerves" strike the modern pedagogist with horror and doubt—doubt whether the tendency would not be brutalizing, nipping in the bud the tender emotions of the heart? Let us see what other concepts ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... opposite page is a picture of a "gusher" in the Sunset oil field, California, which tells the story of how we are permitting the valuable substances within the earth to be wasted. In drilling this well the oil men suddenly struck a deposit of oil and gas under great pressure. The drilling tools were blown out of the well and a column of oil and gas shot up 150 feet. For a time the well flowed forty thousand barrels of oil each day, and an unknown quantity of gas. Much of the ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... breath and stepped into the narrow trail. Behind him came the half breed, the neck of the sack drawn tight and its sharp contents drilling into his back. He was carrying two hundred pounds of freshly broken ore. He said nothing, but kept his black eyes fixed on the figure just in front of him. A little further on he stumbled over a root, recovered himself with a violent effort, and at that moment heard with dismay ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... waistcoat, a very full and degage black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as Colonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly across the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he went, and flung open the door of ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Sword does order all, Makes Peasants rise, and Princes fall; All Sylogisms in vain are spilt, No Logick like a Basket-hilt: It handles 'em joint by joint Sir, Quilling and drilling, and spilling, and Killing profoundly, Until the Disputers on Ground lie, And have never a word to say; Unless it be Quarter, Quarter, Truth is confuted by a Carter, By stripping and nipping, and ripping and quipping Evasions, Doth Conquer a Power of Perswasions, ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... not keep him waiting, and was at the gate with Mrs. Pernell beside her when the round-faced smiling farmer in his long coat of heavy blue drilling and his wide-rimmed hat came ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... there, and the boy saw that her foot was shackled to the floor, for the chain rattled as she moved. They gave him a piece of beef and a corn-cake, and stripping him of his tidy clothes, dressed him in the coarse blue drilling worn by slaves. The two men drank frequently from the same bottle, talking in low tones, and after a time both of them lay down and slept. The woman dandled her child to and fro, for it moaned painfully, and the pines without made a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... by enlistment in Virginia to seven hundred men each. Of Virginians there were nine companies of fifty men, who found no favor in the eyes of Braddock or his officers. To Ensign Allen of Halket's regiment was assigned the duty of "making them as much like soldiers as possible."[207]—that is, of drilling them like regulars. The General had little hope of them, and informed Sir Thomas Robinson that "their slothful and languid disposition renders them very unfit for military service,"—a point on which he lived ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... held equally important sway. An order in council authorized an army of 22,218 officers and men and the recruiting officers wasted no time in setting about their work. All over the Dominion men had been drilling ever since the danger of war became acute. The organized militia was hard at work. Volunteers were being rapidly gathered and after a thorough medical examination were put in charge of a drill sergeant. There was no difficulty in getting men and the recruiting officers from the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... that he was appointed commander Ramses rushed to work feverishly. He received each regiment as it arrived; he inspected its weapons, its train, and its clothing. He greeted the recruits, and encouraged them to diligent exercise at drilling, to the destruction of their enemies and the glory of the pharaoh. He presided at every military council, he was present at the examination of every spy, and in proportion as tidings were brought in, he indicated on the map with his ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... merely asleep. In the courtyard itself were other human forms, all still and silent. A row of pikemen leaned against the wall and in front of them, stretched out upon the ground, snored the sergeant who had been drilling them when the spell came upon the castle. A young squire, with a sleeping hawk upon his wrist, slept leaning against a sleeping horse which he had been about to mount. Near by lay a page with a hound in leash, both sleeping as soundly as though they never would awake, and ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... Sir Charles Eliot summed up the Chinese position in a sentence, "Let us learn their tricks before we make an end of them." Now it might read, "Let us learn their tricks before they make an end of us." The drilling soldiers, the modern barracks, the elaborately equipped arsenals, as well as the military schools found all over China to-day, show which one of the Western "tricks" seems to the man of the Middle Kingdom of most immediate value. At the military school ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... it; and Goodchild's standard, and still more that of his riding-master, who had been a captain in a cavalry regiment, was very high. I used to feel quite as if I were a boy again, and one under pretty severe discipline at that, when the Captain was drilling me. For his life he could not treat his pupils otherwise than as recruits. "Sit up straighter, sir! Do you call that sitting up? That's not the way to hold your arms! Knees in! Why, sir, when I was learning to ride I was made to put shillings between my knees and the side, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... open space near by, many soldiers were drilling. The drum and the fife could be heard in all directions. Wagons were coming and going. A line of unarmed men, a thousand, I guessed, marched by, going somewhere. They had no uniform; I supposed they were recruits. A group of mounted men attracted me; I had little doubt that here was some general ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... issues: recent test drilling for oil in waters around Saint Pierre and Miquelon may bring future development that ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... Soldiers are drilling everywhere and a raw lot they are. The treasury is empty, and many of them have only one shoe, and some none at all, only a coarse stocking bound round with rags. They may be experts at killing women and children, but they would make a sorry showing against trained soldiers. ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... away the time, nohow-camping. You know yourself... We had to put away twenty-five versts a day. The whole day drilling and drilling: field, formation, garrison. With a full pack. Used to get so fagged out from morning to night that towards evening you couldn't feel your legs under you... We were at the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... process is to drill the leg bones (I and J, and N and P) with an American twist-drill and brace, in order to push up a wire rod of sufficient stoutness to carry the weight of the body; leave plenty of length of wire above and below. [Footnote: In cases where drilling is impracticable, it will be sufficient to firmly lash the bones to the rod in the position which they should occupy during the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Baron Steuben, a Prussian officer who had served under Frederic the Great, arrived at the headquarters of Washington. Some say that he was a mere martinet, but he was exceedingly useful in drilling the American troops, working from morning till night, both patient and laborious. From that time Washington had regular troops, on which he could rely, few in number, but loyal and true. La Fayette also was present in his camp, chivalrous and magnanimous, rendering ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... one player represents a sergeant and the others are soldiers whom he is drilling. When he makes an action and says "Do this" the others have to imitate him; but if he says "Do that" ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... had, no doubt, caught it by imitation. I have heard another robin that had the call of the quail interpolated into its own proper robin's song. But I have yet to hear of a robin building a nest like a brown thrasher, or of an oriole building a nest like a robin, or of kingfishers drilling for grubs in a tree. The hen cannot keep out of the water the ducks she has hatched, nor can the duck coax into the water the chickens she has hatched. The cowbird hatched and reared by the sparrow, or the warbler, or the vireo does not sing the ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... corners as the lessons you learn in your form. The girls thought Ingred's new infatuation would soon wear off, but it had come to stay. She herself was quite surprised at the force of the attraction. It was almost like falling in love. She marched with Bess at drilling, chose her for her partner at tennis, and would have changed desks to sit next to her, had not Miss Strong refused permission. As a natural result of this new state of affairs came a shy invitation from Bess asking Ingred to tea ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... and q's, and, Monday morning, I will give you all a glass of whiskey bright and early." Agreeable to arrangement the slaves were assembled together on Sunday morning under the large trees near the great house, and after going through another drilling from the driver, Jones and Carlton made their appearance. "You see," said Jones to the Negroes, as he approached them, you see here's a gentleman that's come to talk to you about your souls, and I hope you 'ill all pay that attention that you ought." Jones then seated himself in one of the two ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... the world as if carved out of wood. They gradually get over their stiffness, however, and as officers usually have a fine bearing, as you may see if we meet any of them. I wish, though, that you could See a squad of 'plebes' drilling. They would provoke a grin on the face of old ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... or blood, or parental drilling, or any mere human culture, could give the qualities necessary to a successful Reformer. The Church had fallen into all manner of evils, because it had drifted away from the apostolic doctrine as to how a man shall be just with God; which is the all-conditioning question ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... dust! They blame it all on "that woman"—and members of the family concur in this. It was she who kept Lloyd to his resolve to play that mad concerto; and then, to cast aside all the master had taught them, all the results of weeks of drilling—and to play it in that frantic, demonic fashion. Now the men await the morning papers, which will bring them the verdict of "the world"; and they shudder with the foreknowledge of what ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... address, Governor Kennedy advised them to disband, as they were illegally organized, there being no authority for their organization. This was a great disappointment to them, as they had been to the expense of uniforms and band and drill hall; in addition to which they had been drilling for months, and now all for nothing. But there was nothing for it under these circumstances but to comply, and so the colored military were disbanded. They were succeeded by a company of white volunteers, who wore white blanket uniforms trimmed with blue. They used to drill on ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett |
