"Oakum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aided me down the same passage only twelve days before. As I ran, I saw the great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from wall to wall. Its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved. It was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height. It fills me ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... poor thief or the forger to jail, oh, Where he cleans out his cell and picks oakum all day; You pose as a martyr and get a cheap halo Ready-made by the public, with nothing to pay. Believe me, dear Sir, there is nothing can beat For triumph and joy the career ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... performed on her, that, without further repair, she had sailed from Virginia to London. This being brought to Cook's ear, he gave Monkhouse the charge of carrying out a similar experiment. A studding sail was taken, on which oakum and wool was lightly sewn and smothered with dirt; it was then lowered over the bows and dragged by ropes over the place where the worst of the leak was situated, and there secured, with the result, according to Banks, that in a quarter of an ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... and, lo! an army of workmen step on board with their tools, and with much hammering and drilling, the outward application of a steel plate, some oakum, and some white lead, her hurts are plastered and she ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... per Baccho! what great guns they are!—you have nothing but the men engaged in commerce,—sharp, clever, shrewd, well-informed fellows; they are deep in flax-seed, cunning in molasses, and not to be excelled in all that pertains to coffee, sassafras, cinnamon, gum, oakum, and elephants' teeth. The place is a rich one, and the spirit of commerce is felt throughout it. Nothing is cared for, nothing is talked of, nothing alluded to, that does not bear upon this; and, in fact, if you haven't a venture in Smyrna figs, Memel timber, Dutch dolls, or some such ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... "Nae oakum picked I," said Sandy with an air of grim determination. "It was clean against ma conscience to gi' aid or comfort to the King's enemies ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... his front and shouldered arms, as he saw Howard approach, smartly and with alacrity. The men were cleaning their arms as if they took pride in the task, not like paupers picking oakum; others were laughing loudly, or playing like schoolboys, and Harry noticed ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... made very soon afterwards by Messrs. Newcomen and Cawley of Dartmouth, it consisted in employing for the steam-vessel a hollow cylinder, shut at bottom and open at top, furnished with a piston sliding easily up and down in it, and made tight by oakum or hemp, and covered with water. This piston is suspended by chains from one end of a beam, moveable upon an axis in the middle of its length, to the other end of this beam ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... planks had only been scorched very superficially. But the action of the fire on the flanks of the ship had been of a much more serious character; a long portion of the inside boarding had been burned away, and the very ribs of the vessel were con- siderably damaged; the oakum caulkings had all started away from the butt-ends and seams; so much so that it was little short of a miracle that the whole ship had not long since gaped ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... ship! do they thrill, The brave two hundred scars You got in the River-Wars? That were leeched with clamorous skill, (Surgery savage and hard), Splinted with bolt and beam, Probed in scarfing and seam, Rudely linted and tarred With oakum and boiling pitch, And sutured with splice and hitch At the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... them to send their carpenters to assist in searching for the leak, and some of each of their companies to aid our men in pumping. Some were set to rummage the hold in search of the leak, and others to stick our sprit-sail full of oakum, with which we made several trials under the ship's bilge, but could not find the leak. We at length found, by divers trials within board, that the leak was before the main-mast; and we, next morning, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... overtook near Tewkesbury, a man of about sixty as I should judge, who was sitting by the roadside cooling his blistered heels in a little runnel of clear water, and crying quietly to himself as he tried to rid his fingers of the tar which stuck to them after his workhouse morning's experience of oakum picking. I sat down beside him and offered him a fill of tobacco, and by and by got into talk with him. He was a man of some intelligence and education, and had begun life as a journeyman watchmaker. He had risen to be an employer, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Hill 60 and beyond. These could be heard and witnessed from the Apex and it was generally understood that the British were endeavouring to improve their ground or positions by sapping forward. Occasionally a naval searchlight would illuminate the area. At other times flares, made of oakum soaked in petrol and secured to wooden contrivances, would be thrown out into No-Man's Land—there, for a time, to burn merrily. Pistol flares were then only just making their appearance and very few had ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... that the rival coach (the Self-Defence) was not overtaking us—yet Falmouth, when we reached it, was best of all; Falmouth, with its narrow streets and crowd of sailors, postmen, 'longshoremen, porters with wheelbarrows, and passengers hurrying to and from the packets, its smells of pitch and oakum and canvas, its shops full of seamen's outfits and instruments and marine curiosities, its upper windows where parrots screamed in cages, its alleys and quay-doors giving peeps of the splendid harbour, ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... fair beginning had been made. A fire was built over which the smoke of melting pitch ascended, while oakum was filling the seams of the boat's sides under the hands of ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... necessary for me to earn at least six dollars per week, to keep even with the world. All who are acquainted with calking, know how uncertain and irregular that employment is. It can be done to advantage only in dry weather, for it is useless to put wet oakum into a seam. Rain or shine, however, work or no work, at the end of each week the money must ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... peals of ordnance, the horse-hoofs beating the boards like heavy drum-taps. Chains clanked, a ship's dog barked incessantly from a companionway, ropes creaked in complaining pulleys, blocks rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and strangled, while all the air was redolent of oakum, of pitch, of paint, of spices, of ripe fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, of tar, of bilge, and the brisk, ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... description, and supposes it might thrive in England if its seeds could be brought over, as the country in which it grows is as cold as Britain, and it is reckoned the most valuable timber of that country both for beauty and duration. The bark of this tree makes excellent oakum for that part of ships which is under water, but does not answer when exposed to the sun and air. They export also the wood of a tree named luma, for axle-trees and the poles of carriages; of a particular kind of hazle for ship-building, which answers excellently for oars; they likewise ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... now," he replied, "I'll be caught and get a month. I'll have to eat skilly, you know, and pick oakum, and get my ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... sour about, you oakum trimmed lobster? She don't kiss you. You don't have to sit on her lap and listen to talk that would make the book of a musical comedy sound like the maxims of Epictetus. You ought to be thankful you're not a dog. Brace up, Benedick, and bid ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... holds to examine whether there was a possibility of stopping the leak. We soon had reason to suppose the principal injury had been received from a blow near the stern-post, and, after cutting away part of the ceiling, the carpenters endeavoured to stop the rushing in of the water, by forcing oakum between the timbers; but this had not the desired effect, and the leak, in spite of all our efforts at the pumps, increased so much, that parties of the officers and passengers were stationed to bail out the water in buckets at different ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... how you have a mind to give him a salt eel for his supper, here am I, without hope of fee or reward, ready to stand by you as long as my timbers will stick together: and if I expect any recompense, may I be bound to eat oakum and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... marine smell of oakum and salt-fish was in the air, and "O," sighed Kitty, "doesn't it make you long for distant seas? Shouldn't you like to be shipwrecked for half a day ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... moss: lichen, and wild cotton; stalks or bark, broken up and rubbed small between the fingers; peat or cattle-dung pulverised; paper that has been doubled up in many folds and then cut with a sharp knife into the finest possible shavings; tow, or what is the same thing, oakum, made by unravelling rope or string; and scrapings and fine shavings from a log of wood. The shreds that are intended to touch the live spark should be reduced to the finest fibre; the outside of the nest may be of coarser, but ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... would have been much preferable could they have constructed a good, stout boat; but it was not feasible, though Jeff and Tim would have built it had they possessed the necessary planking and boards. They had provided themselves with oakum, pitch, and other material; but the labor of sawing out the right kind of stuff would have taken weeks. The Irishman had learned from his late experience; as a result of which a double-decker, as it may be termed, was planned. This consisted first of a ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an' scrub, or break ten to eleven hundredweight o' stones. I don't 'ave to break stones; I'm past sixty, you see. They'll make you do it, though. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... another were filling the icehouses to the very throat with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of passengers' luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going on anywhere, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... him to the road again, pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore the beast to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their provisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the country that the feat was an impossibility. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... a Spanish ship, richly laden, was beset off Marblehead by English pirates, who killed every person on board, at the time of the capture, except a beautiful English lady, a passenger on the ship, who was brought ashore at night and brutally murdered at a ledge of rocks near Oakum Bay. As the fishermen who lived near were absent in their boats, the women and children, who were startled from their sleep by her piercing shrieks, dared not attempt a rescue. Taking her a little way from shore in their boat, the pirates flung her into the sea, and as ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a small piece of rope into oakum, and mixed it with fat from the intestines of my dogs. Alas, my match-box, which was always chained to me, had leaked, and my matches were in pulp. Had I been able to make a light, it would have looked so unearthly out there on the sea that I felt sure they ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... leaks in the boat; we must then form some oars from the spars we have got and the staves of the casks. They won't be very shapely, but they will serve to move the boat along, and the ends of the ropes will afford us oakum. We have cotton enough to make a suit of sails, although they might not be fit to stand a strong wind. We have also spars for ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... sure! What can Mr. Grey mean? There was Mrs. Oakum's gray and silver brocade, and Mrs. Cotton's point-de-Venice mantle, and Miss Prime and Miss Messe and Miss Middlings, who always dress exquisitely, and Mrs. Shinnurs Sharcke with that superb India ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... back in the forecastle and got some tools, a piece of old sailcloth, and a large bundle of oakum; and then made his way with the two sailors down into the after hold. The way in which the upper tier of cargo lay heaped against the sides showed that it would, as the captain said, have been impossible to enter while the motion was at its worst. The rolling, however, had greatly ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... and we made use of it as a stretcher to carry the lad into the tent. And afterwards, we carried all the loose woodwork of the boat into the tent, emptying the lockers of their contents, which included some oakum, a small boat's hatchet, a coil of one-and-a-half-inch hemp line, a good saw, an empty colza-oil tin, a bag of copper nails, some bolts and washers, two fishing-lines, three spare tholes, a three-pronged grain without the shaft, two balls of spun yarn, three hanks of roping-twine, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... de mist'ess of England and lets sich goings on as dese go on in her kingdom. And if I can't get speech of the queen, I going to tell de fust magistet I can find—dere! And you, too, you whited salt-peter! you ought dis minute to be pickin' of oakum in a crash gown and cropped hair! And you shall be, too, afore many days, ef eber I lives to get out'n dis house alive!" shrieked Katie, shaking her fist first at one culprit and then at the other, and glaring inextinguishable hatred and defiance upon ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... for having taken a draught too much, through the lewd demeanour and vexation of the beetles that inhabit the diarodal (diarhomal) climate of an hypocritical ape on horseback, bending a crossbow backwards, the plaintiff truly had just cause to calfet, or with oakum to stop the chinks of the galleon which the good woman blew up with wind, having one foot shod and the other bare, reimbursing and restoring to him, low and stiff in his conscience, as many bladder-nuts and wild pistaches ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... cover the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worth pickin' oakum for a year jist to take down his blamed consate. Did ye iver see such a banty rooster as the young wasp was? The little sailor chap wasn't half bad. And, say, Scot, did ye hear him say he was a Canadian or from ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... thief! He would have given me six months without the option in another minute, but I had the good luck to remember how much money I had paid my witnesses. The thought of paying that for nothing—worse than nothing, for six months in jail!—in an English jail!—pick oakum!—eat skilly!—that thought brought me to my senses. 'By Gassharamminy,' I said, 'I may be mad, but I'm sober! If it's a crime to desire to be English, then punish me, but let me first commit the offense!' So he laughed, and didn't ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the true cause of the corn and remove it if possible. Take away all pressure from over the corn and turn the animal out in some damp pasture. If this cannot be done, put on a flat "bar" shoe, packing the sole of the foot with Pine Tar and Oakum; then place a leather between the foot and shoe. Repeat this application every two weeks, as this will keep the sole soft and flexible, and with proper shoeing your animal will ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... confinement for disobedient and idle apprentices. They are kept separate, in airy cells, and have an allotted task to be performed in a certain time. They, the men and women, are employed in beating hemp, picking oakum, and packing of goods, and are said to earn ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the capacity of the slave. The females who thus hire their time, pursue various modes to procure the money; their masters making no inquiry how they get it, provided the money comes. If it is not regularly paid they are flogged. Some take in washing, some cook on board vessels, pick oakum, sell peanuts, &c., while others, younger and more comely, often resort to the vilest pursuits. I knew a man from the north who, though married to a respectable southern woman, kept two of these mulatto girls in an upper room at his store; his wife told some ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... caulking the ship, when a pitch-kettle, which had been heated, contrary to orders, on the fore part of the main deck, caught fire, and the people, instead of damping it out, most imprudently attempted to extinguish it with buckets of water. The steam blew the flaming pitch all around; the oakum caught fire, and the ship was immediately in a blaze. Many of the crew jumped overboard, and others were preparing to hurry out of her, when the presence and authority of the Admiral allayed the panic. He ordered to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... knowing look, and then from a drawer in the table he took a piece of prepared oakum such as was used for lowering into the pan of a freshly primed gun, stepped to a case in which were some old rammers, and declared himself ready to start, but hesitated and went to his tool-drawer again, out of which he ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... feet beam, to draw 2-1/2 feet water. Carpenters tools, including hatchets and long saws. Iron work and nails. Pitch and oakum. Cordage rigging, and sails. 2 Boat compasses. 2 Spying-glasses for day or night. 2 Small union flags. 6 Dark lanterns. 2 Tons of Carolina rice. ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... I . . . Humph! Mind if I tell you a little story? 'Twon't take long. When I was a little shaver, me and my granddad, the first Cap'n Lote Snow—there's been two since—were great chums. When he was home from sea he and I stuck together like hot pitch and oakum. One day we were sittin' out in the front yard of his house—it's mine, now—watchin' a hoptoad catch flies. You've seen a toad catch flies, haven't you, Mr. Fosdick? Mr. Toad sits there, lookin' half asleep ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gripped by two or more persons, who by pulling the rope to and fro caused the roller to revolve rapidly, till through the friction the linen in the sockets took fire. The sparks were immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved about in a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw was applied to it, and the blazing straw used to kindle the fuel that had been stacked to make the bonfire. Often a wheel, sometimes a cart-wheel or even a spinning-wheel, formed part of the mechanism; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Plantagenet—"in so liquorish a fashion, you might well think they even had Jamaiky, in 'em. No, potaties is the essence of lobscous; and a very good thing is a potatie, Sir Jarvy, when a ship's company has been on salted oakum for ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... by the way, that in America he may, under the "Law of '84," as it is called, be criminally prosecuted, incarcerated, and made to pick oakum, as he has hitherto ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... deemed by the medical authorities as not unnatural that he should become blind from caustic quick-lime, and he was admitted into the convalescent gang, where he had only the simple and easy task of picking oakum. The deceit was as cleverly kept up for years as it was cleverly commenced at the outset, and was only detected by Dr. Cowpar, a hard-headed Scotchman and skilful surgeon, who, during the absence of the permanent incumbent, had been appointed by the Government to officiate as medical officer of the ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... quite ignorant in the art of fortification, they suffered it to be finished, without any suspicion of deceit. Carron now desired the council at Batavia to send him some cannon, packed in casks filled with oakum or cotton, along with some other casks of the same form filled with spices. This was done accordingly, but in rolling the casks after landing, one of them that contained a brass gun burst open, by which accident ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... oakum-seller, already mentioned, when the object of a riot, took refuge in a mill and there hid himself in a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... was carried out. Bird had brought some oakum, which was forced in between the seams with a chisel, and as the party surveyed their work, they had reason to hope that the boat would at all ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... rope in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat's-cradle, or pick oakum. He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her boxes for a travelling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveller who should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a telephone; you cannot ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." The captain asserted ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... carpenter to come on shore, still making them believe they would have a boat; and Mr. Fea went over and met him alone, and talking with him, told him they could not repair the boat without help and without tools. So persuading him to go back and bring a hand or two with him, and some tools, some oakum, nails, etc., the carpenter being thus deluded, went back and brought a Frenchman and another with him, with all things proper for their work. All of whom, as soon as they came on shore, were likewise seized and secured by Mr. Fea and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... a forge for making nails, and burnt charcoal with endless trouble owing to the heavy rains which prevented the tinder from taking fire. They made nails from the shoes of the horses which had been killed to feed the sick. For tar they used the resin from the trees, for oakum they used blankets and old shirts. Then they launched the little home-made boat, thinking their troubles would be at an end. For some four hundred miles they followed the course of the river, but the supply of roots and berries grew scarcer and men perished ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... knew that the crew were all at supper, and then stole out to the stern of the ship, raised one of the hatches carefully, and spreading some oakum on the top of a tar barrel set it afire and laid the hatch on again, after which I hurried back to my stateroom ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... fibres of old tarry ropes sundered by teasing, and employed in caulking the seams between planks in ships; the teasing of oakum is an ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... fifteen inches wide, covered with felt or fearnaught, previously coated with tar or white lead; patches of sheet-lead, all with nail-holes punched; and trouser-slings for lowering men outside the vessel, to be provided with a pouch or pocket, to contain a hammer and nails. Tarred canvas or oakum should be prepared to shove into the shot-holes before the patches of board or lead are nailed on. Although shot-plugs are still to be allowed, the means just described are ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... of war! Every man knows exactly what to do, for he has been well drilled. Some hand up kegs of powder and balls of oakum soaked in tar. Others carry these along the deck and down below. Now they drag two eighteen-pounders amidships, double-shot them, and point them down the main hatch, so as to blow out the bottom of the ship. In a few minutes ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... his master with regard to the truth of this account, owned that every circumstance was justly represented; saying, he did not value their cheese-toasters a pinch of oakum; and that if the gentleman had not shot in betwixt them, he would have trimmed them to such a tune, that they should not have had a whole yard to square. Peregrine reprimanded him sharply for his unmannerly behaviour, and insisted upon his asking pardon of those he had injured upon the spot: ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... for a City prisoner, to that dock, for it is one of the best of its kind. He had not been there before. There was an astonishing vista, once inside the gates, of sherry butts and port casks. On the flagstones were pools of wine lees. There was an unforgettable smell. It was of wine, spices, oakum, wool, and hides. The sun made it worse, but the boy, I think, preferred it strong. After wandering along many old quays, and through the openings of dark sheds that, on so sunny a day, were stored with cool night and cubes and planks of gold, he found his ship, the Mulatto Girl. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... exactly as in Art one is only concerned with what a particular thing is at a particular moment to oneself, so it is also in the ethical evolution of one's character. I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me. The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard ropes shredded into oakum till one's finger-tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each day begins and finishes, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... came on board, which he did with one of his wives. It was my morning watch, when the frigate was hailed and desired to heave to, which was done. The cooper, a black man, personated the sea-god. His head was graced with a large wig and beard made of tarred oakum. His shoulders and waist were adorned by thrumbed mats; on his feet were a pair of Greenland snow-shoes. In his right hand he held the grains (an instrument something resembling a trident, and used for striking fish). He was seated on a match tub placed on a grating, with his wife, a young topman, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... In Lieu of a Gunnel, they have a small Pole fastned with Thongs, sticks across & Ribs of Bark, and they deposit Sheets of Bark in her Bottom to prevent Breaches there. These vessels are very light, each broken and often patched with Pieces of Bark as well as corked with Oakum composed of ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... fiber, fibril; funicle^, vein; hair, capillament^, cilium, cilia, pilus, pili; tendril, gossamer; hair stroke; veinlet^, venula^, venule^. wire, string, thread, packthread, cotton, sewing silk, twine, twist, whipcord, tape, ribbon, cord, rope, yarn, hemp, oakum, jute. strip, shred, slip, spill, list, band, fillet, fascia, ribbon, riband, roll, lath, splinter, shiver, shaving. beard &c (roughness) 256; ramification; strand. Adj. filamentous, filamentiferous^, filaceous^, filiform^; fibrous, fibrillous^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it .. coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots. He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging. No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging. What's the old man have so much to ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... handspikes, shaftings, lubricants, wire coils, rope, sea chests, life preservers, spar varnish, copper paint, pulleys, ensigns, twine, clasp knives, boat hooks, chronometers, ship clocks, rubber boots, fur caps, splicing compounds, friction tape, cement, wrenches, hinges, screws, oakum, oars, anchors—it was no wonder that the force quailed at sight of the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... employed in spinning wool and flax, in sewing, knitting, or winding silk, or making their clothes or shoes, and are taught to write, read, and cast accounts. The grown vagrants brought here for a time only are employed in washing, beating hemp, and picking oakum, and have no more to keep them than they earn, unless they are sick; and the boys are put out apprentices to seafaring men or artificers, at a certain age, and in the meantime have their diet, clothes, physic, and other necessaries ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... hold at the main-hatch, all the other hatchways having their coamings above the element. The carpenter proposed, therefore, that the main-hatches, which had been off when the tornado occurred, but which had been found on deck when the vessel righted, should now be put on, oakum being first laid along in their rabbetings, and that the cracks should be stuffed with additional oakum, to exclude as much water as possible. He thought that two or three men, by using caulking irons for ten minutes, would make the hatch-way so tight that very little ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... a ship by forcing oakum into the seams. Hence the verb to caulk is explained as coming from Mid. Eng. cauken, to tread, Old Fr. cauquer, caucher, Lat. calcare, from calx, heel. This makes the process somewhat acrobatic, although this is not, philologically, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... is called fothering the ship, was immediately committed, four or five of the people being appointed to assist him, and he performed it in this manner: He took a lower studding sail, and having mixed together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty small, he stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail, as lightly as possible, and over this he spread the dung of our sheep and other filth; but horse dung, if we had had it, would have been better. When the sail was thus prepared, it was hauled ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... protruded; though the guns that seemed so formidable were really only logs of wood. Two high smoke-stacks, built of empty pork-barrels, rose from the centre of this strange craft; and at the bottom of each stack was an iron pot, in which was a heap of tar and oakum that sent forth volumes of black smoke when lighted. One dark night the fires in this sham monster were lighted, and she was towed down to the Confederate batteries, and set drifting down the river. She was quickly discovered, and the batteries on ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... a few moments and thought, and then he went to work. From the useless little vessel which, had belonged to the Rackbirds he gathered some bits of old rope, and having cut these into short pieces, he proceeded to pick them into what sailors call oakum. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... oblivious. The Hon. Slote will add much to the gaiety of nations. The distinctive articles of his attire were a red cravat, a coat of the vintage of '49, a tobacco-stained shirt-front and a whisp of oakum- colored chin beard. As a bit of bric-a-brac, or a curio from one of the oldest portions of the unhallowed west, he will be of value in the interior decoration of the Capitol, but it is to be feared that his oratorical vent has been choked up for ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... telling why the sergeant was tramping a country lane in tatters; or even to argue that he must have pretermitted some while ago his labours for the general defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his attention to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present; and the man of war went on to contend that drinking was one thing and ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... slipway, every detail of the vessel was visible, even to the last fathom of oakum now being hammered into her port garboard seam. White painted and trim, she spelled speed and weatherliness in every line, and a note of admiration escaped Barry as he regarded her clean underbody from a safe distance. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... at the storms of protest. "Some progressive journals hope to see me picking oakum for the benefit of the state." The comic newspapers pictured Bismarck as a ballet dancer, pirouetting over eggs marked Right, Law, Order, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... month he tholed the cold of that same punishment- cell; and during the next was in his old cell, but in chains, picking oakum. All this time, if he was aware of high winds by night, he was in an agony, till the next day the great bell ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... "Oakum to me, {156} ye sailors bold, Wot plows upon the sea; To you I mean for to unfold My mournful historie. So pay attention to my song, And quick-el-ly shall appear, How innocently, all along, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... with mud plaster or cement, and then forcing in quartered pieces of small logs and nailing them or spiking them in position. If your logs are straight spruce logs and fit snugly, the cracks may be calked up with swamp moss (Sphagnum), or like a boat, with oakum, or the larger spaces may be filled with flat stones and covered with mud. This mud will last from one to seven or eight years; I have some on my own log cabin that has been there even ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... length he became a pleasant companion among us. I gave him a new suit of frieze after the English fashion, because I saw he could not endure the cold, of which he was very joyful; he trimmed up his darts, and all his fishing tools, and would make oakum, and set his hand to a rope's end upon occasion. He lived with the dry caplin that I took when I was searching in the pinnace, and did eat dry ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... to come with me to make a little search for that old boat we were told could be found hidden under a shelving rock near the shore. It hasn't been used for some years, and is apt to be in poor shape, but I've got some oakum and a calking tool. With those, I hope to put it in condition, so with frequent baling we can use ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... be superficial, at least, not deeper than the connective tissue between the external and internal oblique muscles, and not more than one inch by two in size. This I opened, and squeezed out about half a ounce of pus. Introduced a tent and applied oakum over both tents, for the purpose of absorbing the pus, and applied a compress over the main sinus or pouch, and a bandage over the whole ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox
... be sure, Ali," replied Bob. "I'll be bound to say, if the truth was known, there isn't a nigger within a mile of us. Here, look alive, my lads; it seems a pity to burn such a boat; but orders are orders, and we shall have a gun fired directly, by way of recall. There, that will do; lay the oakum there, and pour the spirits over it. She'll ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... was necessary to close this leak at once. An iron bolt, which was screwed for a nut at one end, was obtained and passed through a strong piece of wood about 2 feet square. The inside of this board was cushioned with canvas and oakum, and it was taken down outside the ship by the diver and placed over the hole, with the feathered end of the bolt sticking through the hole; the diver was then sent down inside the hold, and with a nut set up ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... the stern-post, and bring it alongside; and in order to relieve the ship from the pressure aft, the guns and other heavy things were carried forward; this, however, was of so little avail, that the guns and anchors were soon thrown overboard. They then prepared a sail with oakum and tar, and got it over the stern, in order, by passing it under the keel, to stop the leak. For a time this seemed to have the desired effect, and hopes were entertained that they might be able to carry ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... used to hasten down to the landing-steps on the beach, where the new inn called the Trafalgar now stands, and watch the tide as it receded, and pick up anything I could find, such as bits of wood and oakum; and I would wonder at the ships which lay in the stream, and the vessels sailing up and down. I would sometimes remain out late to look at the moon and the lights on board of the vessels passing; and then I would turn my eyes to the stars, and repeat the lines which I had heard ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... knock the propeller and stern-post off altogether. At 9 a.m., after pumping ship, the engineer reported a leak in the way of the propeller-shaft aft near the stern-post on the port side. The carpenter cut part of the lining and filled the space between the timbers with Stockholm tar, cement, and oakum. He could not get at the actual leak, but his makeshift made a little difference. I am anxious about the propeller. This pack is a dangerous place for a ship now; it seems miraculous that ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... said Dabney: "next time we come out we'll bring a hammer and nails, and some oakum, and I'll calk up that old punt so she'll float well enough. Only it won't ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... a company where the shape of the earth was disputed, said, "Why look ye, gentlemen, they pretend to say the earth is round; now I have been all round it, and I, Jack Oakum, assure you it is as ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... ends brought to the capstan through snatch blocks. Planks were then strapped loosely on the lines and allowed to run along them freely, being weighted sufficiently to cause them to sink. After they were slung clear of the ship, they were held in position until a pad of canvas and oakum was inserted between them ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... Gentlemen of Verona" tolerably well at the age of eight. The next time I met them was in a 5s. one-volume edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in Falmouth, at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment of calkers' mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship in dry-dock. We had run in, in a sinking condition and with the crew refusing duty after a month of weary battling with the gales of the North Atlantic. Books are an ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... oakum picking can be dismissed in the one case, so can much of the theological machinery for the discipline and punishment of sinners against spiritual laws be dispensed with, in the case of those who are, spiritually speaking, ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... snow-shoes, until our mouths had a wild flavor more spicy than if we had chewed spruce-gum by the hour. Spruce-gum is the aboriginal quid of these regions. Foresters chew this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns at tobacco, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... See Cunningham's "Handbook of London." Bridewell was the Prison to which harlots were sent, and were made to beat hemp and pick oakum and were whipped if they did not perform their tasks. See the Plate in Hogarth's "Harlot's Progress." The Prison has, happily, been cleared away. The hall, court room, etc., remain at 14, New Bridge Street. The ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... various lengths must be gas-tight, and are made as follows: into the hub (the enlargement on one end of the pipe) the spigot end of the next length is inserted, and in the space left between the two a small piece, or gasket, of oakum is rammed in; the remaining space is filled in with a mixture of the best Portland cement and clean, sharp sand. The office of the oakum is to prevent the cement from getting on the inside of the pipe. The joint is then wiped around with ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... that while the Claimant was on board his ship he amused himself by picking oakum and reading "The Garden ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... four months had passed. Besides the bellows and forge, he made a lathe, and indeed manufactured everything that was required. His sails were composed of fine mats, woven by the natives; and the rope was manufactured from the hemp which grew on the island. In the same way he found substitutes for oakum, pitch, and paint, and ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Baker's boy had suggested it to his Imperial Highness. I think not—though it would be like him. Baker's boy is the famine-breeder of the ship. He is always hungry. They say he goes about the state-rooms when the passengers are out, and eats up all the soap. And they say he eats oakum. They say he will eat any thing he can get between meals, but he prefers oakum. He does not like oakum for dinner, but he likes it for a lunch, at odd hours, or any thing that way. It makes him very disagreeable, because it makes his breath bad, and keeps his teeth all stuck up with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conveying water from the flume to the wheel, should be constructed of liberal size, and substantially, of two-inch chestnut planking, with joints caulked with oakum, and the whole well bound together to resist the pressure of the water. Means should be provided near the bottom for an opening through which to remove any obstructions that may by accident pass by the rack. Many wheels have plates provided in ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... which the mule is afflicted. Cut away the parts of the frog that seem to be destroyed, clean the parts well with castile-soap, and apply muriatic acid. If you have not this at hand, a little tar mixed with salt, and placed on oakum or tow, and applied, will do nearly as well. Apply this every day, keeping the parts well dressed, and the feet according to directions in shoeing, and the trouble ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... right the ballast a bit and get steerage way on her afore the sea works up, she'll go down under us inside the next two hours. There's the pumps, too: for if she don't take in water like a basket I was never born in Wendron parish an' taught blastin'. Why, master, you must ha' blown the very oakum out of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... hooks; the lines appear to be manufactured from the bark of various trees which we found here, of a tough stringy nature, and which, after being beaten between two stones for some time, becomes very much like, and of the same colour as a quantity of oakum, made from old rope: this they spin and twist into two strands: in fact, I never saw a line with more than two. Their hooks are commonly made from the inside, or mother of pearl, of different shells; the talons of birds, such as those of hawks, they sometimes make this use of; but the former ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... who was languishing in sickness. That they might not be wholly dependent on one lamp, of which some accident might deprive them, they made another. In collecting such wood as had been cast on shore for fuel, they had fortunately found some cordage and a little oakum (the sort of hemp used for calking ships), which they turned to great account as wicks for their lamps. When this store was consumed, they had recourse to their shirts and drawers—a part of dress worn by almost all Russian peasants—to supply ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... in the ship was the commander, the carpenter, one midshipman, and myself. After the boats left us we had two chances—either to jump or sink. We cold just get into the sailroom and got up a new forecourse and stuck it full of oakum and rags, and put itt under the ship's bottom; this is called fothering the ship. We found some benefit by itt for pumping and bailing we gained on hur; that gave us a little hope of saving our lives. We was in this terable situation for nine weeks before ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... blunders as well as another man. Go, mix me a glass of just what I love when I've not had a drop all day. Gentlemen, will any of you honour me, by sharing in a cut? This beef is not indigestible, and here is a real Marylander, in the way of a ham. No want of oakum to fill up the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... over, and with the aid of a tackle fixed to the mainmast, they canted her so much that her keel was laid bare. Stages being formed, the crew got on them, some cleaning the planks from the growth of seaweed, some extracting the caulking which was rotten, when the caulkers put in fresh oakum, and pitched it over. The officers took upon themselves the task of supplying the men with food and drink while they were at work, and so much dispatch was used that in one day and night they had finished one side. They then turned her ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Oakum to me[3], ye sailors bold, Wot plows upon the sea; To you I mean for to unfold My mournful histo-ree. So pay attention to my song, And quick-el-ly shall appear, How innocently, all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... but long it was not, for he had not been asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a light sleeper ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... shell that when once removed it is found impossible to replace them. A bland oil is pressed from the seeds, which is used by artists, and at Para the fibrous bark of the tree is used for calking ships, as a substitute for oakum. ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... up about the same as birds, wrapping the leg bones in tow, oakum or cotton and filling out the body with the same material. The skull cleaned and poisoned had best be put in the centre of the body with the filling, when it can be found at any time by ripping a ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... which curdles like real milk. When it is soft the fruit is like green hazel-nuts in taste, and better; and there is a serum for many ills and infirmities, which is called whey, as it looks much like that of milk. It is there called tuba. They make honey from this tree; also oakum with which to calk ships, which lasts in the water, when that from here would rot. Likewise they make rigging, which they call cayro; and they make an excellent match for arquebuses, which, without any other attention, is never extinguished. The ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... to rig a sea anchor," declared Ben, "but in the first place, Frank, get below and empty your canvas clothes bags, stuff 'em with oakum and pour all the lubricating oil you can spare in on top of the oakum and then make a lot of holes in the side with ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... street. The streets were all narrow, and most of them crooked, in that quarter of the town; but at the end of one the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones of the pavement were worn ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lapidary; a sample of which I enclose you. Among this mass I found portions of tobacco-pipe, pieces of china and glass, brass buttons, copper coins, nails, and what most likely caused the death of the bird, a large quantity apparently of the head of a woollen mop, with portions of oakum, which from its size and quantity had proved too much for the bird to digest. It would appear, however, that many substances remain for years in the folds of the stomach, without injury; as on opening an Ostrich that died at Exeter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... scraping, scrubbing, watching, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, the merchants and captains think the sailors have not earned their twelve dollars a month, their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum—ad infinitum. The Philadelphia ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... gunwales. Several bars rather than seats were laid across the canoe from gunwale to gunwale, the small roots of the spruce fir afforded the fibre with which the bark was sewn or stitched, and the gum of the pine tree supplied the place of tar and oakum. Bark, some spare fibre, and gum were always carried in each canoe for repairs, which were constantly necessary (one continually reads in the diaries of the pioneers of "stopping to gum the canoe"). The canoes were propelled with paddles, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... dragged her to shore, and got her on the stocks, and then set about to find materials to mend her. Tools were all too few—a hammer, a saw, and an adze were all we had. A piece of board or a nail were treasures then, and when the timbers of the craft were covered, for oakum we had resort to tree-gum. For caulking, one spared a handkerchief, another a stocking, and another a piece of shirt, till she was stuffed in all her fissures. In this labour we passed eight days, and then were ready for the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cordage, cable, hawser, lasso, lariat, cabestro, tether, tow; pl. shrouds, ratlines. Associated Words: marline, marline spike, marling, strand, oakum, winch, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Numbers of people deliberately transgressed the "Law" by turning out at five in the morning to make sure of their meat; and the Summary Court was kept busy fining these miscreants ten shillings each, with the usual "oakum" alternative. One lady (in a letter to the Editor) drew a vivid picture of the rush for meat. She had travelled a good deal, she told us, and had "roughed it" on Boxing nights; she had been (unaffectionately) squeezed to suffocation in London. But nowhere outside the Diamond Fields ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... age in poverty through your underhand intriguing with my wife, I mean at least that you shall not remain unpunished for your pains; and God, sir, will deny me a very considerable satisfaction if you do not pick oakum from now ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do is to insert tamping. In the improved form of hole the tamping should not he put directly upon the powder, but an air space should be left, as shown at B, Fig. 8. The best way to tamp, leaving an air space, is first to insert a wad, which may be of oakum, hay, grass, paper or other similar material. The tamping should be placed from 6 to 12 in. below the mouth of the hole. In some kinds of stone a less distance will suffice, and as much air space as practicable should intervene between the explosive and the tamping. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... one helper aboard ship, "Oakum Otie," a gray and whiskered individual who combined in one person the various offices of first mate, second mate, A-1 seaman, and hand before the mast-as well as the skipper's boon companion-the Polly was manoeuvered to her anchorage in Saturday Cove and was ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... curly hair and a brown face, like the angels in a fifteenth-century picture, seemed to be in breeches, for his trousers ended at the knee in a ragged fringe of brambles and dead leaves. This necessary garment was fastened upon him by cords of tarred oakum in guise of braces. A shirt of the same burlap which made the old man's trousers, thickened, however, by many darns, open in front showed a sun-burnt little breast. In short, the attire of the being called Mouche was even more startlingly simple ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the old lady's money had fallen in during the voyage of the Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke of that engagement cleared away, secure of his ship. I suppose he was about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close reasoner; when he pleased, of a really elegant address; and when he chose, the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... boards, raised to a sufficient height above the spring-tides, and rendered water-tight by pitch and oakum, was placed above the mouth of the shaft. Its sides were supported by stout props in an inclined direction. At the top of this wooden construction, which was twenty feet in height, a platform of boards was secured, on which a windlass was placed. The ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... another on the larboard, and the remaining pair face to face on the opposite bulwarks above the main-chains. They each had bits of unstranded old junk in their hands, and, with a sort of stoical self-content, were picking the junk into oakum, a small heap of which lay by their sides. They accompanied the task with a continuous, low, monotonous, chant; droning and drilling away like so many gray-headed bag-pipers playing ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever he reached that end of the room in ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... oakum had excoriated his nose, and a certain quantity of the cold salt-water from alongside had wetted through his bedclothes, Mr Vanslyperken was completely recovered, and was able to speak and look about him. Corporal Van Spitter ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... davits. James pointed out a spot just below the waterline, and the man, standing a yard or two away, fired at it, the ball making a hole through both sides of the boat. Another shot was fired two or three inches higher, and the four holes were then plugged up with oakum. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... he gave him an order to scuttle that swift little ship in the middle of the second watch, or two in the morning. He was "to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it [oakum or the like] that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered by a boiling up." Thomas Moone "at the hearing hereof" was utterly dismayed, for to him the project seemed flat burglary as ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... at the captain's elbow, and suggested, in a low voice, that he examine the treasure-chests in the 'tween-deck. "I was down stowing away some oakum," he said, "an' I was sure I heard the lid close; but nobody answered me, an' ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... for Existtence has been too much for. They are a wonderful system. The weak morality is supplied with bread and water and a cell to develop in, and it is exercised on a treadmill, and allowed to expand and pick oakum, and so it is turned into a ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... Some required hacking off with cutlasses, while on to others pieces of planks were nailed to get the required curve. By the end of five months the hull was planked and decked, and all felt very proud of the work. It was caulked with oakum obtained from some of the least serviceable of the ropes of the brig, dipped in a resin that they ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... bare; and on the outer side they put planks, upon which all the crew got to work at the ship, some cleaning the planks from the growth of sea-weed, others extracting the calking, which was quite rotten, from the seams; and the calkers put in fresh oakum and then pitched it over, for they had a stove in a boat ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... this was a difficulty. Our diver did indeed stuff it with oakum in a way that at once diminished the influx of water; but this was merely a makeshift. It now became a question whether it were possible to effect the necessary repairs while at sea. Our young engineer removed the difficulty. He undertook to rivet ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... the old fish-box and placed on the pebbles in it an old saucepan half full of oakum soaked in paraffin. Across the saucepan we ledged a sooty swivel, and on the swivel a black tin kettle which leaked slowly into the flame. Tony and myself lay with our four feet cocked along the edge of the box for warmth. The smoke stank ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... ship is like a lady's watch, always out of repair;' the steward is polishing the brass-work of the quarter-deck; the cook is scouring his pots and pans; the sailmaker is stitching away in the waist; and the crew are, one and all, engaged in picking oakum, spinning yarns (not such yarns as those amiable gentlemen, the naval novelists, talk so much about, but rope-yarns, by the aid of spinning-winches), platting sinnet, preparing chafing-gear, bowsing slack rigging taut, painting boats and bulwarks, scraping yards and masts, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... trifle prone to baldness, there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... intend to be hard-taskmasters. The work given will be of a light character, and suited to the strength of each. We are not going in for oakum picking and stone breaking. We shall do our utmost to make everything bright, cheerful and easy. We have no idea of ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... That's where he's aiming for. The company's just where it has to have a boost. It's just GOT to. If it doesn't, there'll be a bust up that may end in fitting out a high-toned promoter or so in a striped yellow-and-black Jersey suit and set him to breaking rocks or playing with oakum. I'll tell you, poor old Palliser gets the Willies sometimes after he's read his mail. He turns the color of ecru baby Irish. That's a kind of lace I got a dressmaker to tell me about when I wrote up receptions and dances ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... again. A hulk came alongside, took our cargo, and then we went into dry dock to get our copper stripped. No wonder she leaked. The poor thing, strained beyond endurance by the gale, had, as if in disgust, spat out all the oakum of her lower seams. She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a bottle. We went back to the hulk ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad |
