"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... griddle. Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an' splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a grasshopper. Sam he comes back an' tells Ed all about the latest devilment. You hear of it; then, mebbe, ye begin to limber up an' think ye'll try it yerself. An' some morning ye'll wake up an' find yer moral character has scooted. You fellers that go t' meetin' here an' talk about resistin' temptation—if you ever git t' goin' it down there in New York City, temptation 'll have to resist you. My friends, ye don't ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... a rule to attack the enemy with renewed vigour, as soon as he begins to limber up his artillery in the combat, then on this particular fact depends a course of action which is aimed at the general situation of the enemy as inferred from the above fact, namely, that he is about to give up the fight, that he is commencing to draw off his troops, and is neither capable of making ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... warm sun, two different things that added up to make one lovely feel for a little girl. The way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping . . . it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so different and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... could in any way he could. He tried to butt with his head and ram his knee into Abe's stomach as soon as they came together. Half drunk Jack is a man who would bite your ear off. It was no rassle; it was a fight. Abe moved like lightning. He acted awful limber an' well greased. In a second he had got hold of the feller's neck with his big right hand and hooked his left into the cloth on his hip. In that way he held him off and shook him as you've seen our dog shake a woodchuck. Abe's blood was hot. If the whole crowd had piled on ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... along the tender blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... garments Comes royally, at call - Comes limber-hipped Indiff'rence Free stepping, straight and tall - Comes singing and lamenting, The sweetest pipe ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than be sech a limber-jinted coward!" said Nimbus. "I'm sorry I ebber tuk ye in atter Marse Sykes hed put yer out in de big road, dat I am." There was a murmur of approval, and he added: "An' ef yer hed enny place ter go ter, yer shouldn't stay in ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... on with this discourse, she—[that is, Ouse]—not so far hath run, But that she is arrived at goodly Huntingdon Where she no sooner views her darling and delight, Proud Portholme, but becomes so ravished with the sight, That she her limber arms lascivious doth throw About the islet's waist, who being embraced so, Her flowing bosom shows to the ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... er the boys run up wi' you an' begin to git limber-jawed," league continued, "thes hang your thum' in that kinder keerless like, an' they'll sw'ar by you thereekly. Ef any of 'em asts the news, thes say they's a leak in Sugar Creek. Well, well, well!" he exclaimed, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... the post in order to view the ground, over which, they stated, they were going to attack, in two days' time. At dusk our troops withdrew through the night-outpost line; "C" Sub-section, with the one limber that accompanied it, returned to camp, independently. On this day the Squadron watering-party was bombed by hostile aircraft, but no casualties occurred. October 30th was spent in "resting," and in the afternoon every man was ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... installed about halfway between it and the flitter were two of the alien warriors. Perhaps they had changed watches during the night. If they had not, they could go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that if he stepped over some invisible boundary he would be ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... frog, 'A little child, a limber elf,' With health and spirits all agog, He does the long jump in a bog Or teaches men to swim and dive. If he should be cut up alive, Should I not ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency—the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... "Oh, you'll limber up soon," said Hank, cheerfully. "Now, if you boys will get the water, and break out the grub, I'll get supper. It'll soon ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... excellent and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S—-'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... could put out his feet; patent leather gaiter-boots, and a cane that he flourished right and left with such determined strokes, that the children kept carefully out of his way. Several persons looked back to wonder and laugh at this strange figure, the drollery of which was greatly enhanced by his limber style of walking, and a certain expression of the whole outer man, which said, "Who says I am not as good as anybody on this avenue; Mr. Fillmore, or any ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... ridge and plumping into the ground. None were so successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself, and I watched it as a mouse ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... she was very clear and good-looking, almost she seemed to gleam. And Albert was a tiny bit afraid of her. She very rarely addressed Joe whilst the hay-loading was going on, and that young man always turned his back to her. He seemed thinner, and his limber figure looked more slouching. But still it had the tender, attractive appearance, especially from behind. His tanned face, a little thinned and darkened, took a handsome, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... walled garden switching a limber trout-rod when Miss Erith came upon him next morning,—a tall straight young man in his kilts, supple and elegant as the lancewood ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... requires a great deal of practice; for, while the hand is held apparently open, balls, corks, lumps of sugar, coins, etc., must be held unseen, the fingers remaining perfectly free and limber. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... other than the man Garnache had known as "Sanguinetti"—brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black, oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck, and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look. There was a thick stubble of beard of several days' growth about his chin and face; his eyes were furtive ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... he said. "And my old hoss can wrastle a bag of oats, too. He's got a ride in front of him and he'd appreciate a chance to rest and limber up." ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... the new Convert more than half inspir'd, Strait to his Closet and his Books retir'd. There for all needful Arts in this extreme, For knotty Sophistry t'a limber Theme, Long brooding ere the Mass to Shape was brought, And after many a tugging heaving Thought, Together a well-orderd Speech he draws, With ponderous Sounds for his much-labour'd Cause. Then the astonisht Sanedrim he storm'd, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... washed at home they usually come out quite limber and flimsy. To give them the stiffness add a pinch of sugar to the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... contradicted. "You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. Caribou meat is very good, and soon will ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... they was about half rotten. When we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was close ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... grand ball-game arranged for the following Sunday at Erribiague, a far-distant village, near the tall mountains. Ramuntcho, Arrochkoa and Florentino were to play against three celebrated ones of Spain; they were to practice that evening, limber their arms on the square of Etchezar, and Gracieuse, with other little girls of her age, had taken seats on the granite benches to look at them. The girls, all pretty; with elegant airs in their pale colored waists cut in accordance with the most recent vagary of the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... striped stockings of a suspiciously feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in the pictured visions ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... no one had been hurt by the explosion. These shattered houses and the distant sound of gun fire, which we first heard about Hazebrouck, were the first signs of war that we noticed. After a long wait a limber arrived at the station to take ourselves and our valises to the camp of the 7th N.F. at Ouderdom. It was not really a very long journey, I believe, but it seemed so to us after our long and wearisome journey ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... but it had to be made the best of; and both the civilian and the soldier agreed that their only chance was to fight. Williams opened fire with his Infantry, and Ricketts took command of the guns. At the first discharge the horses bolted with the limber, and never appeared again; almost at the same moment Williams fell, shot through the body. Ricketts continued the fight until his ammunition was completely expended, when he was reluctantly obliged to retire to a village in ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... three of the gunners got down and stood there, quite at a loss. They ought to load; yet the word of command, "Prepare for action!" had not been given. And how could they load when the seats and the limber-boxes were still locked, and when the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... away, but it was 4.30 a.m., just at dawn, before the last limber was unloaded and sent away. The scene of limbers hopelessly locked, plunging mules, serenely indifferent camels, cursing transport drivers, and dripping unloading parties who could not find the limbers they were to unload, will not be soon forgotten ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... "It'll limber us up and at the same time help the horses," he said. "Knowing what kind of rifles we carry and how we can shoot, the Sioux won't be in any hurry to ride into the forest directly after us. We've a big advantage now in being able to see without being seen. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... off for wrestling. Creon and Eudorus of Aegina were together. Each boy poured oil into his hand from a little vase and rubbed the body of his antagonist to limber his muscles. Then he took fine sand from a box and dusted it over his skin for the oiled body might slip out of his arms in the wrestling match. Then, at a signal, the pairs of wrestlers ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... how hornets sting! I was not afraid of the babies, but was not sure that all the old wasps were out. It was a cold day, and wasps get stiff very quickly, so I watched carefully to see whether the warm air of the room would not limber up some stiff joints which were perhaps in hiding up-stairs in the house. Sure enough, in a few moments out crawled a worker, looking quite dazed and sheepish at the change in temperature. I did not wait ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... a quarter of a pound of butter rubbed in the flower and sugar, then wet it with the yolks of two Eggs, and halfe a spoonfull of white Rose-water, a spoonfull or little more of Cream as will wet it; knead the Past till it be soft and limber to rowle well, then rowle it extreame thin, and cut them round by little plates; lay them up on buttered papers, and when they goe into the Oven, prick them, and wash the Top with the yolk of an Egg beaten, and made thin with Rose-water or faire ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... scornful deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. "He only took Hill's place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that University you're runnin' here. I say—you fellers oughter get him to tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. It'd limber you fellers up to ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and blame-don! ef the girl didn't keel right over in my arms—as limber as a rag! Clean fainted away! Honest! Jest the excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so suddent-like—'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes thought, better'n even she did her own mother. Didn't go half so ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... bring in the many tents belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out. I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them. The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes. The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons. I am satisfied the enemy's infantry and artillery passed Lick Creek this morning, traveling all of last night, and that he left to his rear ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... keeper, and the lanky left-handed hitter strolled up to the plate, while Riordan, who was on deck, took up a couple of bats, swinging them about nervously to limber his arms. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... cuirassiers came riding up, and the retreat now sounding through our ranks, we were obliged to fall back upon the infantry. The French pursued us hotly; and so rapid was their movement, that before Ramsey's brigade could limber up and away, their squadrons had surrounded him ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... guns had been overturned into the limber containing its ammunition, and set fire to. This kept burning, hissing, and firing shots like a gigantic and malevolent cracker for a long time. But the Blue Jackets recovered the gun. When the victorious troops crowned the last ridge, the valley of Tamai ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... its full flower for the bran-dances—which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs, leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered it an inch deep with clean wheat bran, put up seats roundabout it, also ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... will look the most attractive. By driving two limber poles into the ground by the side of each of two gate posts, and bringing the two ends of the poles together, and fasten them securely, a respectable arch can be made. At the foot of each pole plant a Clematis Jackmanii, and train them ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... can be more beautiful than that of the small valleys of California. Ascending the range of elevated mountains which border the Cache creek, we had a most extensive view of the broad plain of the Sacramento, stretching with islands and bells of limber far away to the south as the eye could penetrate. The gorges and summits of these mountains are timbered with largo pines, firs, and cedars, with a smaller growth of magnolias, manzanitas, hawthorns, etc., etc. Travelling several miles over a level plateau, we ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... After preparing several shells and receiving no word from his general he made ready several charges of canister, knowing the enemy to be close at hand. Still nobody came for the ammunition. He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, turning them back to a front position. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... herself. The partially successful opposition infuriated the man. He was not accustomed to defence. His fury knew no restraint. He rained the blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself. Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise; unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her head just below the ear. It stretched her ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... most three, or may be four hour agone. See thar!" he continued, raising one of the limbs, and letting it drop again; "limber as a eel! Ef he'd a been dead last night, the leg'd ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the assembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced by the ringing of a cow-bell, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill, suddenly shoot forth; which {now} stood there with a root newly-formed, {and} not with the iron {point} driven in; and, now no longer as a dart, but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring {spectators}, a shade that was ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... cutery corn, Apple seed and apple thorn; Wire, brier, limber-lock, Five geese in a flock, Sit and sing by a spring, ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... same moment, the limber Yankee sprung into the wagon, and the steam man started ahead at a speed which was as ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... the snow-shoes With a long and limber stride; And I hailed the dusky stranger, As ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... light and slender and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... for a spin you don't ride it around for half an hour in the yard to see whether it will go. No, you first look after the machinery, to see if all is in working order, and then you start out, knowing it will go. I do a lot of gymnastics each day, to exercise the voice and limber up the anatomy. These act as a massage for the voice; they are in the nature of humming, mingled with grunts, calls, exclamations, shouts, and many kinds of sounds—indeed so many and various they cannot be enumerated. ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... we rested, but at night there was a dance, for which my maiden aunt played the piano. The dear good soul, whose old brown fingers were none too limber, had skill that scarcely mounted to the speed of a polka, but she was steady at a waltz. There was one tune—bink a bunk bunk, bink a bunk bunk—that went around and around with an agreeable monotony even when the player nodded. There was a legend in the family ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Mr. Puffington, fat, fair, and rather more than forty—Puffington, no longer the light limber lad who patronized us in Bond Street, but Puffington a plump, portly sort of personage, filling his smart clothes uncommonly full. Men no longer hailing him heartily from bay windows, or greeting him cheerily in short but familiar terms, but bowing ceremoniously as ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Chickens The Causes of Poultry Diseases Chicken Cholera Roup Chicken-pox, Gapes, Limber-neck ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... was i' the foremost rank, A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, [stately, compact, limber] An' set weel down a shapely shank, As e'er tread yird; [earth] An' could hae flown out-owre a ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the man hurled the bills in the direction of the deck, and that was exactly what he did. But the years had robbed his pitching-arm of the limber strength which, forty summers back, had made him the terror of opposing boys' baseball teams. He still retained a fair control but he lacked steam. The handkerchief with its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good six feet ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... sport with the above-mentioned species Number Two; but, so long as I remained, that was the sum total of their spoil. One could almost observe, by the gradual melancholy which settled upon their countenances as the time went on with no thrilling rap to make the top of the limber rod dance again, the hopeless fading out of these unsubstantial specimens from even the imagination. The east wind of course had been against everything ever since the trout season opened, and it was not surprising to learn that; though the weir ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... we got him limber, straightened out, and warm, it didn't rip so when he breathed, then they put him in the parlour on the big davenport. Leon said if the sparkin' bench didn't bring him to, nothing would. Laddie sat beside him and mother kept peeping. She wouldn't let Dr. Fenner go, because she said Mr. Pryor ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... in strange clothes at window.) What brings me is to put my curse upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone and vanished out of this, without bringing me my request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would limber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged with the dripping of ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... court-martialed for his mix-up with the quartermaster sergeant, and got seven days field punishment No. 1. This meant that two hours each day for a week he would be tied to the wheel of a limber. During those two-hour periods Jim would be at Bill's feet, and no matter how much we coaxed him with choice morsels of food, he would not leave until Bill was untied. When Bill was loosed, Jim would have nothing to do with him—just walked away in contempt. Jim respected the king's regulations, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... or entire control of the muscles of the neck the common name of the affection is limber-neck. In medical science limber-neck is regarded as a symptom rather than a disease, and may be due to a number of causes, such as derangement of the digestive organs, intestinal worms and ptomaine ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... dear Mary, I must draw my letter to a close. In the army we are obliged to write under difficulties. I am writing this on my knapsack for a desk, and that is not quite so easy as a table. The constrained position in which I am forced to sit has tired me, and I think I will go out and 'limber' myself a little. Frank, who has just finished a letter to his mother, will no doubt join me. Two of my comrades are sitting close by, playing euchre. When I joined them I found they were in the habit of playing for small stakes, but I have succeeded in inducing them to give up a practice ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... take me,' she says; and blame-don! ef the girl didn't keel right over in my arms as limber as a rag! Clean fainted away! Honest! Jest the excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so suddent- like—'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes thought, better'n even she did her own mother. Didn't go half so hard with her when her other sister married. Yes-sir!" ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... much like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well with his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shathmont's length, And sma' and limber was his thie, Between his e'en there was a span, And between his ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... contraband: (1) Arms of all kinds, including arms for sporting purposes, and their distinctive component parts; (2) projectiles, charges and cartridges of all kinds, and their distinctive component parts; (3) powder and explosives specially prepared for use in war; (4) gun-mountings, limber boxes, limbers, military wagons, field forges and their distinctive component parts; (5) clothing and equipment of a distinctively military character; (6) all kinds of harness of a distinctively military ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... that he might discover some sign of their passage—a discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site—he continued farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon. Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a winding river he determined to turn about and start for ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the kiboko—the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... thy limber bit of a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany, shows like a housewife's distaff when the flax is ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... despite hath wax'd amain, And now with gleaming ring enfolds the world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in Heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin's hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o'er his visage ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Brigade events. Our men won the Brigade Tug-of-war right out, and got great fun out of the wrestling on horseback on huge Artillery steeds, so that we came back to camp very elated. At 3 p.m. we marched down again for the finals in Sports; our fellows rigged up an Oom Paul and a Naval gent on a gun limber; this we dragged all round the camps and created quite a furore. The heat and dust were awful in the sports, but we pulled them off on the whole successfully, and all came back to camp tired out. I had my Christmas dinner with the Irish Fusiliers, who had drawn out an amusing ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Mister Age begins a-stealin' Thoo yo' back an' knees, W'en yo' bones an' jints lose der limber feelin', An' am stiff'nin' by degrees; Now der's jes one way to feel young and spry, W'en you heah dem banjos soun' Git a great big swig o' de ole corn juice, An' w'en you ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... You put me off with limber vows; but I, Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily, You shall not go; a lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... up outside with rifles and bayonets, 120 rounds of ammunition, wearing our tin hats, and the march to church began. After marching about five kilos, we turned off the road into an open field. At one end of this field the Chaplain was standing in a limber. We formed a semi-circle around him. Over head there was a black speck circling round and round in the sky. This was a German Fokker. The Chaplain had a book in his left hand-left eye on the book-right eye on the aeroplane. We Tommies were lucky, we had no books, so had ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... two field-pieces said to have been planted by the Confederates on the bluffs, while a second force, composed of the 4th Wisconsin, 9th Connecticut, the other two sections of Nims's battery, and the four guns of Everett's, marched directly forward up the cliff road. An abandoned caisson or limber was ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... with the doctor's, but the place was empty; and on continuing our quest, Barton's and Haynes's were all missing, while the men's troopers were gone, and a glance at the sheds showed that not a gun or limber was left. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... children wanted her in the bedroom, her father was sure to shout out from the stable for Stineli to come to his help, for he had mislaid his cap, or his whip-lash was in a knot, and she found the one in a trice,—it was generally on the meal-box,—and her limber fingers had no trouble in untying the knotted lash. So, you see, Stineli was always busy running about and working, but always merry with it all, and rejoiced also in winter, when the school began. Then she went ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... the dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work —what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... and I informed the nation, And led you all the way to reformation; Not with dull morals, gravely writ, like those, Which men of easy phlegm with care compose,— Your poets, of stiff words and limber sense, Born on the confines of indifference; But by examples drawn, I dare to say, From most of you who hear and see the play. There are more Rhodophils in this theatre, More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear: But yet too far our poet would not run; Though 'twas well ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... forward, nose up, chin up, eyes very bold, he swung a most amazing weapon. It was as scarlet as his own coat, as long as he was tall, and polished to a high degree. But it was not unbending, like a sword: It was limber to whippiness, so that as he twirled it about his blonde head it snapped and whistled. And Gwendolyn remembered having seen others exactly like it hanging on the bill-board at the Face-Shop. For it was ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... in a big carry-all motor-van about the time Jack and his followers trooped on the field, and began to pass the ball around to limber up their muscles for the great test. They were given a royal reception, for there were many hundreds of Harmony rooters on hand to help the boys with cheers and the waving of flags and pennants. Besides, Chester was showing a fine spirit that could applaud a clever play, even ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... Wednesday perhaps, when we start to go over the entire thing again and try new signals, it will be time. There are a few weak spots in the team that need help, and I'm going to devote two afternoons to them exclusively. Wander around, and limber up with walks or a bicycle ride. But please don't employ your spare time rounding up any ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... little child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight 660 As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... it to catch bumblebees and whisk 'em; to bail the water from a leaky boat; to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees' nests, and to transport pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John usually carried a sling in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick, sharp at one end, from which he could sling apples a great distance. If he walked in the road, he walked in the middle of it, shuffling up the dust; or if he went elsewhere, he was likely to be running on the top of the fence or the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Aw, now, Stella; can't you be a good fellow for once? Do it, if it hurts you. Honest, I hate to say it, but you're the limit, you are! My God! limber ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... awoke, it was full daylight. She felt a little chilly under her big green leaf, and stiff in her limbs, so that her first movements were slow and clumsy. Clinging to a vein of the leaf she let her wings quiver and vibrate, to limber them up and shake off the dust; then she smoothed her fair hair, wiped her large eyes clean, and crept, warily, down to the edge of the leaf, where she ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... horsemen who raced the flier to wait on the ground until the engine rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the headway the train already had, to start a hundred yards or so before the engine came abreast, in order to limber up ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... were all slip-shoed; stockingless some; only under-petticoated all; their gowns, made to cover straddling hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels; but hastily wrapt round them, as soon as I came up stairs. And half of them (unpadded, shoulder-bent, pallid-lips, limber-jointed wretches) appearing, from a blooming nineteen or twenty perhaps over-night, haggard well-worn strumpets ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of the well-bred, well-fed Englishman—tall, brawny, limber, not uncomely, with a red neck, a powerful jaw, and a keen eye. Something more of repose, of self-possession, and a slightly more intellectual brow, would have made him the best type of conquering, civilising Briton. He came of good ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... down here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily and simple exercise I am fond of—to pull on that young hickory sapling out there—to sway and yield to its tough-limber upright stem—haply to get into my old sinews some of its elastic fibre and clear sap. I stand on the turf and take these health-pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly an hour, inhaling great draughts ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... that moved in a while ago is to begin school next week, and two miles and back every day will be just about enough for you to walk to keep your legs limber." ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... season," and the Peace, That now is foremost in your prayers, Shall crown your harvest with increase, And bless with smiles the home of tears; Your wounds be healed; your noble sons, Unhurt, unmutilated—free— Shall limber up their conquering guns, In ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... woods, and Ba'tiste straightened. Soon he was talking and pointing,—now to describe the spruce and its short, stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter, longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the man at his side. A moment before, they had been only pines, only so many trees. Now each was different, each had its place in the mind of the man who studied them ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump the railway line—a pretty stiff little obstacle—the narrow gauge metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression, ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... to where his long, limber, trout rod was resting on three hooks, all ready with winch, taper line, and cast, under the eaves of the mill-shed nearest to ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... barred With lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This roused the guard, but "Forward!" was the word, And on we rushed, slaying ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... him out!' cried he; 'hustle him out! he didn't get his liquor here: I've no room for such company!' I then endeavored to put my companion upon his feet, but his legs bent under him, and his whole body seemed as limber and lifeless as a wet rag. 'You can't do any thing with him in that way,' continued the landlord; 'if you want to get him home to-night, you must take him on your back and carry him there yourself. He'll be bright enough in the morning.' I saw no other way of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... and Fionn grew long and straight and tough like a sapling; limber as a willow, and with the flirt and spring of a young bird. One of the ladies may have said, "He is shaping very well, my dear," and the other replied, as is the morose privilege of an aunt, "He will never be ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... sixteenth of an inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a metallic obstruction. Sure enough, Tom could feel the troublesome hasp, but alas, the wire was now too limber to push ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... with a hundred paid-up subscribers of a dollar each he can make a go of it. He says Elijah says set him up the press an' he don't ask no better fun than to live on bread an' water while he jumps from peak to peak of fame, but Mr. Kimball says Elijah's young an' limber an' he shall want the paid-up subscriptions himself afore he begins to transport a printin' press ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... Proclamation, and their wild enthusiasm can scarcely be restrained. They want to go out to meet Jameson and bring him in with triumphal outcry. It is hard to be only a 'she-thing' and stay in the house with a couple of limber-kneed men, when such stirring happenings ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... to be nice to Birdie on account of Mr. Smelts' stiff leg. Not that it ever did him any good when it was limber, but I always feel mean when I see it sticking out straight when he ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're right side up 'n movin'. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... up at Centerport. They saw that I was limber and could do a turn or two, and they made me join. They promised me good wages and a fine time, but as soon as we got on the road they treated me worse than ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... five minutes more, Durville," called Lieutenant Lawrence, looking in. "The Navy fellows have been on the field ten minutes already. You want to limber up your men a bit before ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... hole near the top of the door (A), and a corresponding one through the door-jamb between two logs. Set the door in place. A strip of rawhide leather, a limber willow branch, or a strip of hickory put through the auger hole of the door and wedged into the hole in the jamb, makes a truly wild-wood hinge. A peg in the front jamb prevents the door going too far out, and a string and peg ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... grand American expression—it is brawny enough, and limber and full enough. On the tough stock of a race who, through all change of circumstance, was never without the idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... loose an' left 'im—'e was almost tore in two— But he tried to follow after as a well-trained 'orse should do; 'E went an' fouled the limber, an' the Driver's Brother squeals: "Pull up, pull up for ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... on the second morning as if you could never reach your journey's end, start off easily, and you will limber up ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... Even as I write our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... done at Twenty Mile, and the customary activity prevailed inside that flat-roofed cube of mud. Sounds of singing, shooting, dancing, and Mexican tunes on the concertina came out of the windows hand in hand, to widen and die among the hills. A limber, pretty boy, who might be nineteen, was dancing energetically, while a grave old gentleman, with tobacco running down his beard, pointed a pistol at the boy's heels, and shot a hole in the earth now and then to show that the weapon was really loaded. Everybody was quite used ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Ridge one winter's night, (Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, And straggling files of men; when these were gone, A double limber and six mules went by, Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, And soon he saw ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... You put me off with limber Vowes: but I, Though you would seek t' vnsphere the Stars with Oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going: Verely You shall not goe; a Ladyes Verely 'is As potent as a Lords. Will you goe yet? Force me to keepe you as a Prisoner, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... rose and tightened his belt about him and set out afresh. The long sleep had restored his vigor and his eye gleamed with satisfaction. The muscles that had stiffened from long disuse—he would not have admitted that the stiffness came from age—were limber as of old, and he felt that, after all, it was good to be once more upon the trail. But even his confidence would have been rudely shaken could he have foreseen the peril wherein that trail ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... in the garden was nearly ready to be picked. Some few things needed a little more December sun, but everything looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would not pop out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks were hardly as limber as they might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the chapel for the greater part of the time, and only went over the garden once a day to see if ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... an' white men, Mexicans, half-breeds an' Injuns is a-mixin' an' meanderin' 'round, a-lyin' an' a-laughin' an' a-drinkin' of Red Light whiskey mighty profuse. Four or five mule skinners has their long limber sixteen-foot whips, which is loaded with dust-shot from butt to tip, an' is crackin' of 'em at a mark. I've seen one of these yere mule experts with the most easy, delicate, delib'rate twist of the wrist make his whip squirm in the air like a hurt snake; an' then he'll straighten ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the front parlour had a chronic lock-jaw from want of use. Some of the white keys stuck fast when they were touched, and the black ones were so stiff they almost required a hammer to make them sound. Do let her limber them at her own 'sweet will.' Who wants a piano locked up, like that hideous old china and heavy glass that your grandfather's fifth cousin ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... eighteen years since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only ten years ago, at the battle of Liao-yang, as I watched a cloud of shrapnel smoke sending down steel ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... was on the way from Blair to report to me, coming down just as McPherson was going up the road, and the same skirmish-line that killed McPherson killed the horses of that battery and captured a portion of the men, and McPherson really almost fell upon the limber of one of the guns. This was Murray's United States Battery of four pieces. I do not know as I have seen this mentioned in any of the reports, unless it is in mine; but these are the facts of the matter. That is the way a battery ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... ain't got a sufficiency yet, boys. Limber up them guns again. Same order as before. Put a few more petals on them flowers, and I'll trim their eyelashes ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dusty cheeks, making furrows like plowshares of grief. He feared lest he might have killed his aunt Janet. Women, and not very young women, might presumably be unable to survive such rough usage as very tough and at the same time very limber little boys, and he loved his poor aunt Janet. He grieved because of his aunt, his parents, his uncle, and rather more particularly because of himself. He was quite sure that the policeman was coming for him. Logic had no place in his frenzied conclusions. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock, Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock? What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan,— "Out of a river-reed music ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... Sa'adan rode out with forty-thousand stalwart fighting-men, under each standard a thousand cavaliers, doughty champions, foremost in champaign. The two hosts drew out in battles and bared their blades and levelled their limber lances, for the drinking of the cup of death. The first to open the gate of strife was Sa'adan, as he were a mountain of syenite or a Marid of the Jinn. Then dashed out to him a champion of the Infidels, and the Ghul slew him and casting him to the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... fallen so that his head was clear of the water, and rested upon a little bank of sand; along which, his soft and limber trunk lay extended to its full length. Curving like a pair of gigantic scimitars from its base, were the yellow enamelled tusks; those ivory arms that for years,—ay centuries, perhaps,—had served him to root up the trees of the forest, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... you like, Pete; it's all the same to me. I'll be glad to limber my arm up a little, too. It feels a tiny bit stiff, and a good work-out will ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... little county of Surrey, my own grandfather had standing at Wotton, and about that estate, timber that now were worth L100,000. Since of what was left my father (who was a great preserver of wood) there has been L30,000. worth of limber fallen by the axe, and the fury of the hurricane in 1703, by which upwards of 1,000 trees were blown down. Now, no more Wotton! stript and naked, and ashamed almost to own its name." The Wotton woods are still flourishing, and within the last fourteen years we have passed many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... Much confusion was observed among the artillery-men, and in a short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations of grief and fury were ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... the doorway the Texan stood watching, in open admiration, the swift, sure precision of her every move. She glanced up, a slice of bacon held above the pan, and their eyes met. During a long moment of silence the man's heart beat wildly. The girl's eyes dropped suddenly: "Crisp, or limber?" she asked, and to the cowboy's ears, the voice sounded even richer and deeper ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles of MR. E. DROOD to American minds and matters, was subsequently issued from the press ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... see the finish of Plain John's romance, my sinister Syl, if you don't limber up your spine. Genius, love, and ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... when he first came from his hole on the morning of this story. He had lain all night coiled up like a rope among the rocks, and his tail felt very cold. But the glad sun warmed the cockles of his heart, and in an hour or two he became limber, and this made him happy in his snaky fashion. But, being warm, he began to be hungry, for it had been a whole month since he had eaten anything. When the first new moon of August came, his skin loosened everywhere and slipped down over his eyes like a ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... adversary had a right to call a champion. "We all do it," the soldiers assured him. "Now your blood's up you're ready for a dozen of us;" which was less true of a constitution that was quicker in expending its heat. He stood out against a young fellow almost as limber as himself, much taller, and longer in the reach, by whom he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh and head. Seeing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, previously quite civil, cursed him for having got the better of their fallen comrade, and went off discussing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... descended into the valleys, an astonishing number of parasites and epiphytes was observed, especially on the pines and oaks. The round yellow clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain seasons ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... a dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned by the earthwork, where ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... now got a long, limber Willow rod an inch thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These were lashed at their upper ends to the Willow rod, and now they were ready ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... doing no good here, and now that my knee is getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on active service again. I wondered whether maybe you might like to do ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gentleman was trying to limber up the joints of his charger—a hack of the same caliber as Rocinante—and was just taking his horse on a tour of exercise, making him skip hither and thither, wherever his master's agonized spurring would carry him. Each time he would land heavily on his stiff legs, and it was when ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... rubber in my old trainin' camp outfit, though, Hunk had his good points. I've gone on the table to him with a set of shoulder muscles as stiff as a truck trace and inside of half an hour jumped up as limber as a whale-bone whip. And I'd never sign up for more'n a ten-round go without sendin' for Hunk first thing after the forfeits was up. Course, when it come to society, there was others I liked better, and I expect after I quit the ring I didn't take any particular ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... limber up my German vocabulary he passed us along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober- Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in Brussels, and that under no circumstances should we be allowed to return within the Belgian lines. In this way began ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... entertained of the possibility of getting it over. The general had placed himself on an eminence, to see his army file to the opposite side of the river. A consultation was held upon the practicability of passing the guns. Captain Miller volunteered to conduct the first gun. The limber was taken off, and drag ropes were fastened to the washers, to prevent the gun from descending too rapidly. The trail, carried foremost, was held up by two gunners, but, notwithstanding every precaution, the bridge swung ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... costly fur-lined overcoat with a sable collar, properly creased trousers with a perceptible stripe, grey spats and unusually glistening shoes that could not by any chance have been of anything but patent leather. Light tan gloves, a limber walking stick, a white carnation and a bright red necktie—there you have all that was visible of him. Even at a great distance you would have observed that he was ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... questioning this way about orders from on high? I've heard you preach many a time about the sin of such doings as that. You preach in the pulpit about stubborn clay in the hands of the potter having to be put through the mill again, and now that you're out here in the field, seems to me you get limber like a tallowed rag when an ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... twenty years younger tha allus set off bi thisen an left me to mooild amang it th' best way aw could; but nah, when tha knows 'at aw can hardly put one fooit afoor tother tha wants me to goa for a walk. Its weel enuff for thee to climb ovver hills an daan dales, becoss thi limbs are limber—thanks to me for takkin care on thi as aw have done. It's miserable for me to caar ith' haase all bi misen, an thee wanderin abaat as tha does, an hardly ivver turns up except at meal times, an net allus then. If tha'd ha takken moor nooatice ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... success if he could have brought himself to follow John Kollander's advice. But Amos could not abide the presence much less the counsel of the professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel Sands—as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove improbable contentions—odd jobs in his church, odd jobs in his party ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... what possessed me, thus to trifle with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to "get hold of me;" but, wisely for him, and happily for me, his wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles, which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation, I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh, in case he should undertake to execute his threats. I am glad there was no necessity for this; for resistance to him could not ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... out from behind the railway embankment passed me on the road, the horses walking grandly, the men tired but in high enough spirits. The enemy long-range guns were waking up now and playing a damnable tattoo on the main routes leading west. I saw one limber-waggon belonging to the Engineers blown sky-high, and three maimed horses ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... while the Advocate splashed his way through the mud and mire of the kennels by the dancing light of the torches his four tipsy lackeys bore. In the course of these merry doings, a-foot and on horseback, Messire Philippe de Coetquis had formed a shrewd notion that Madame Violante had a limber waist and a full, firm bosom of her own, and there and then had been smit by ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... the Syrian spears, so limber and so straight, Tell of the slender dusky maids, so lithe and proud of gait. Languid of eyelids, with a down like silk upon her cheek, Within her wasting lover's heart she queens ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... body of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for merchandise until one of them suddenly ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... drunk. The oysters formerly mentioned grow on trees resembling willows in form, but having broader leaves, which are thick like leather, and bearing small knobs like those of the cypress. From these trees hang down many branches into the water, each about the thickness of a walking-stick, smooth, limber, and pithy within, which are overflowed by every tide, and hang as thick as they can stick of oysters, being the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... sprinkling it on this midshipman's uniform? You are the fellow who runs the temperance drinks place? A nice business for you to be in—drugging midshipmen and trying to ruin them! To prison you go, unless you limber up your tongue. Who put you up to this miserable business? Talk quickly—or off to a cell ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... the first place," continued the captain, jerking at his line, and then beginning to count on his fingers—"There is the 'man- rope;' then come the 'bucket-rope,' the 'tiller-rope,' the 'bolt- rope,' the 'foot-rope,' the 'top-rope,' and the 'limber-rope.' I have followed the seas, now, more than half a century, and never yet heard of a 'cable-rope,' from any one who could ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... meant to operate it himself, while his wife sold tickets and his boy acted as usher,—a family combination which to Luck seemed likely to be a success. This man, when Luck made known his needs, said he was perfectly willing to "limber up" his machine and himself on The Phantom Herd, if Luck would let his wife and boy see the picture, and would pay the slight operating expenses. So that was settled ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... and as for the meddling Tryphaena, she received her just deserts, for, at great length, I described her moral turpitude to the crowd, our altercation had caused a mob to collect, and, to give weight to my argument, I pointed to limber-hamed Giton, drained dry, as it were, and to myself, reduced almost to skin and bones by the raging lust of that nymphomaniac harlot. So humiliated were our enemies by the guffaws of the mob, that in gloomy ill-humor they beat a retreat to plot revenge. As they perceived that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand just about ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various |
