"Plank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful, with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, some reaching it just as they were about to sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on it somehow, and staying there in company ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... night-light burning, however. Well, about two in the morning I had sunk into a light sleep when I was suddenly aroused by a slight noise. It was like the sound which a mouse makes when it is gnawing a plank, and I lay listening to it for some time under the impression that it must come from that cause. Then it grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a sharp metallic snick. I sat up in amazement. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of punts have been made out of rattans, covered with tarred canvas, and the canoe had plank sides put to it, in lieu of the gunwales, which were burnt. There were some thunder and lightning in the evening, and heavy rain, which caused the tents to leak, they having ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... on to total reform; the only one which can give full effect to each working class demand; the only one which can make of each reform, of each victory, the starting point and basis of more extended demands and bolder conquests...." Here we have the plank on which Jaures undoubtedly laid the greatest weight, and it was supported unanimously partly because of the necessity of party unity. For this is as much as to say that no reform will ever be brought to a point that wholly satisfies ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... and if so, her captain was D'Albert de Rions, in Suffren's opinion the foremost officer of the French navy. "The crash occasioned by their destructive broadsides," wrote an English officer who was present, "was so tremendous that whole pieces of plank were seen flying from her off side ere she could escape the cool, concentrated fire of her determined adversaries. As she proceeded along the British line, she received the first fire of every ship in passing. She was indeed in so shattered a ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... next few hours Keith got confused and mixed impressions of many things. The fortresslike warehouses; the plank roads; the new Jenny Lind Theatre; the steam paddies eating steadily into the sand hills at the edge of town; the Dramatic Museum; houses perched on the crumbling edges of hills; houses sunk far below ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... cessation of the wind, the ship righted, and we flew on before it, though matters in other respects seemed but little mended. As the sea beat against the ship it seemed like a huge battering-ram trying to knock her to pieces, every blow making each plank shake though none gave way. Now she plunged her head into an immense hollow, now she rose rapidly to the top of a foaming sea, while the next instant another rolling ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... I am to be once more where Freedom reigns!" said the Secretary as he walked proudly down the gangway plank. ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... is regularly laid out, the streets crossing each other at right angles, and generally of considerable length, and of convenient width. The majority of the houses are still nothing more than log cabins, but lately a great number of plank and brick houses have been erected. The chief edifices of Nauvoo are the Temple, and an hotel, called the Nauvoo House, but neither of them is yet finished; the latter is of brick, upon a stone foundation, and presents a front of one hundred and twenty ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the water, Angelique followed the bank of the Chevrotte, that she might cross it on a plank which served as a bridge. But Felicien had gone a shorter way through the brambles and brushwood. Until now he had always been overcome by his timidity, and he had turned redder than she as he saw her bare feet, pure and ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Bill. "An' so I would mighty lively, ef I could; but the load is heavy, and your path is as slippery as the plank over the creek at the Dutchman's, ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... a moment he could see very little through the cloud of dust that swept the street. When it blew away it revealed a row of women advancing two by two along the plank sidewalk. They were of different ages and stations in life, but they all came on as if with a fixed purpose, and they had resolute faces. Mrs. Nelson led them, carrying a riding quirt, and though George was not astonished to see her, he started when he noticed Flora Grant near the end ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... the tools, shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and running plank to the number I want, and I will go to work on your cellar, Friday, if you will give me $100." The merchant said he could not afford to give more than $80 for the job and that he would have to take $20 ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... hills, drops a pea therein, and covers it with the foot, the same way as at the first. Instead of making depressions with the heel, some use a long stake, an inch or two in diameter, to the lower end of which is affixed a piece of plank, fastened two inches from the end, and four or five inches long (fig. 4). This is used for punching the holes, and the piece of plank near the end prevents it from making the impression too deep. This is another of the inventions of the Virginia Peanut-planter; so true is it that "necessity ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... feather of the eagle in his hair; by his side would hang a sword of ruddy copper; in his hand would be a spear tufted with finest fur. The green branches of peace would be waved, and he would pass in peace along the plank-way from the shore; but while he talked with Umpl and the other chiefs at the council his eyes, like a wise man's, would be roving hither and yonder, learning much about this new village and its people. And there, as she would be standing modestly ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as I required, I sought for no more, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... nations of both Europe and America. 'Around the curving shore of the Bay and upon the sides of three hills, which rise steeply from the water, the middle one receding so as to form a bold amphitheatre, the town is planted and seems scarcely yet to have taken root, for tents, canvass, plank, mud and adobe houses are mingled together with the least apparent attempt at order and durability.' However, the appearance of the city is fast improving—for churches and schools and public buildings are springing up on every side, and substantial edifices are fast taking ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... thought, Kate, that I have made you miserable, when I should have striven only to make you happy. The thought, too, that I must leave you, to see you perhaps never again—these unman—these madden me, Katharine; and I feel desperate like the man striving with his brother upon the plank ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... rope, and they caught and made it fast. They swung her boat in, ran a plank from stern to bow, and Despard gave her his hand. She came on board, and they sat on the stern deck to talk. Only one kind of woman could have done that with safety, but she was that kind. She had shot a man down for ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... manufacture and traffic in liquors through Congress, to be signed by a President chosen with a knowledge of his prohibition principles, will have to have a good running mate for its prohibition issue. Yet I believe the prohibition plank in the platform of the great progressive party, lineally descending, would be the centre of attraction and of repulsion. I grant that. But the balance will be so kept that multitudes who take, at first at least, a livelier interest in some other measure which also is promoted ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... any sort; for the thought of them had never entered my mind before going to sea; so that I was obliged to sleep on the bare boards of my bunk; and when the ship pitched violently, and almost stood upon end, I must have looked like an Indian baby tied to a plank, and hung up against a tree ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... crossing a plank at a mill, fell into the stream at night, and was saved by his Newfoundland dog, and who afterwards recovered his hat, which had fallen from his head, and was floating ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... in a nearly perpendicular direction from the surface, by the side of the wall, when intending to undermine it. On arriving at the bottom, if circumvented by the projecting stones, they will usually abandon their work. Plank of hard wood, or hard burnt bricks, may answer this purpose when stone cannot ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... the crew were all in the sea, and, to my amazement, bearing up the boat with their shoulder and one hand, while swimming and guiding us ashore with the other! There on the land we were hauled up, and four weary days were spent fetching and carrying from the Mission Station every plank, tool, and nail, necessary for her repair. Every boat for these seas ought to be built of cedar wood and copper-fastened, which is by far the most economical in the end. And all houses should be built of wood which is as full as possible of gum or resin, since the large white ants devour not ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge, a port-hole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone ditch—plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of patriots—he hovers perilous. Such a dove towards such an ark! Deftly thou shifty usher; one man already fell, and lies smashed, far down there, against ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... remained in his possession. And, that the messenger might see that I was in earnest, before he left me, I sent the carpenter to break up three or four canoes that lay ashore at the head of the harbour. The plank was carried on board, as materials for building a house for Omai, at the place where he intended to settle. I afterward went, properly accompanied, to the next harbour, where we broke up three or four more canoes, and burnt ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... and that out of the dip the sea fell without emptying it out; and if our ship has not been damaged, we can put out our boat and tow the ship into it." There was a bottom of loam where they had been riding at anchor, so that not a plank of the ship was damaged. [Sidenote: The Irish] So Olaf and his men tow their boat to the dip, cast anchor there. Now, as day drew on, crowds drifted down to the shore. At last two men rowed a boat out to the ship. They asked ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... grew grave. A leak at sea is a serious menace. The point at which the water was entering the Southern Cross was soon found to be through a sprained plank a little below the water line. Captain Hazzard ordered canvas weighted and dropped overboard around the leak so that the pressure of water would hold it there. The carpenter's gang then set to work to calk ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... right, sir. Miss Keenan will go. She'll be on her way in five minutes. I've told her to go aboard and buy her ticket from the purser or from the ticket agent at the gang plank." ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... and another kept us quite busy that morning. The Doctor had no sooner gone below to stow away his note-books than another visitor appeared upon the gang-plank. This was a most extraordinary-looking black man. The only other negroes I had seen had been in circuses, where they wore feathers and bone necklaces and things like that. But this one was dressed in a fashionable frock coat with an enormous bright red ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... was unquestionably unique as regards architectural details, having been constructed by sections, in accordance with the rapid development of the camp, and enjoyed the further distinction—there being only two others equally stylish in town—of being built of sawn plank, although, greatly to the regret of its unfortunate occupants, lack of seasoning had resulted in wide cracks in both walls and stairway. These were numerous, and occasionally proved perilous pitfalls to unwary travellers through ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of board that chanced to be lying on the ground just over the wall, he flew to where Polly was standing, placed his tiny plank over the puddle, and felt the greatest pride when he saw her walk across, her dainty shoes without ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... would have noticed it, John. If there was anything of that sort it must be outside. However, we will take a good look round the yard to-morrow. The warehouse is strongly built, and I don't believe that any plank could be taken off and put back again, time after time, without making a noise that would be heard in the house. What ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... high point of land, about four hundred feet above the water. The record is in a prune can, at the bottom of the pile of stones, and was written by Marvin himself in lead-pencil. The cairn is surmounted by a cross, made of the oak plank from our sledge runners. It faces north, and at the intersection of the upright and the crosspiece there is a large "R" cut in the wood. When I went up to see it, soon after our arrival this last time, the cross was leaning toward the north, as if from ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... off de battlefiel' out de way o' de balls, an' I laid 'im down onder a big tree till I could git somebody to ketch de sorrel for me. He wuz cotched arfter a while, an' I hed some money, so I got some pine plank an' made a coffin dat evenin', an' wrapt Marse Chan's body up in de fleg, an' put 'im in de coffin; but I didn' nail de top on strong, 'cause I knowed ole missis wan' see 'im; an' I got a' ambulance an' set out for home dat night. We reached dyar de nex' evein', arfter travellin' ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... all question, neither to commit murder nor robbery. What, then, would your just man do, if, in a case of shipwreck, he saw a weaker man than himself get possession of a plank? Would he not thrust him off, get hold of the timber himself, and escape by his exertions, especially as no human witness could be present in the mid-sea? If he acted like a wise man of the world, he would certainly do so, for to act in any other way would cost him his life. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... clean hearth, two wrecks of beds, a table, and two chairs which some kind neighbor had loaned. The Government boats had left them rations. There was an air of thrift, even in their desolation, a plank walk was laid about the door, the floor was cleanly swept, and the twenty-five surviving hens, for an equal number were lost in the storm, clucked and craiked comfortably about the door, and there were two-and-a-half dozen fresh eggs to sell us at a higher rate than paid in town. We stood, ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... further side was, however, open, and he began sliding forward, foot by foot, to locate himself. Once his foot slipped over the edge, and he drew back hastily. He felt on the other side, and discovered that he was upon what seemed a plank walk, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet above the ground, with no rail on either side, and some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... Then, in that last state, but not before, I might reveal myself; stand by the hopeless and succourless bed of death; shriek out in the dizzy ear a name, which could treble the horrors of remembrance; snatch from the struggling and agonizing conscience the last plank, the last straw, to which, in its madness, it could cling, and blacken the shadows of departing life, by opening to the shuddering sense the threshold of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that name very naturally angered him. It was a slight, a slur upon his voice, and he resented it at once. It must be remembered also that the crow had never seen a white rabbit before, and Bumper's appearance floating on the plank had excited the bird's curiosity. White rabbits don't run wild in the woods, and Bumper was almost as much a mystery to the crow as the latter was to the former. All the rabbits Mr. Crow knew were gray or brown, ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... granted a remuneration calculated in such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... for an hour or more, and then handed me the book with a faint sigh. While moving about Russia, she had seen Razumov too. He lived, not "in the centre," but "in the south." She described to me a little two-roomed wooden house, in the suburb of some very small town, hiding within the high plank-fence of a yard overgrown with nettles. He was crippled, ill, getting weaker every day, and Tekla the Samaritan tended him unweariedly with the pure joy of unselfish devotion. There was nothing in that ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... "Urgent" is a screw steamer, and right over the blades of the screw was an orifice called the screw-well, through which one could look from the poop down upon the screw. The surface-glimmer, which so pesters the eye, was here in a great measure removed. Midway down, a plank crossed the screw-well from side to side; on this I placed myself and observed the action of the screw underneath. The eye was rendered sensitive by the moderation of the light; and, to remove still further all disturbing ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... hand, and looked at last into his eyes. What he read in hers filled him with contentment. She ran across the plank and joined her father and mother, to whom Desmond had already said his adieux. At the last moment Bulger came up puffing, a miscellaneous collection of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... sat by the rail and watched the green banks flying by. In one place a group of children were sailing a tiny boat from the bank. It was only a plank, with a crazy cotton sail. They shoved it off and watched while the current seized it and carried it along. Then they cheered, and called good-bye ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... painter's stage, and four of the lad's shipmates held the plank upon their shoulders, with the weighted feet of the shrouded form pointed outboard. The rest of us, sailors and stiffs, stood about with bared, bowed heads; aye, and most of us, I think, with wet eyes and tight throats. It seemed a cruel ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... —such a one as makes a fellow feel good clear down to the ground. The air was sweet with the smell of the dewy grass. The clouds in the east—kind of smeared across the sky—began to redden; they were the color of coral as we picked our way along the narrow plank walk. As we left behind us the bridge, which crossed a beautiful little stream lined with cotton woods and willows, they had turned a bright vermillion. There was not a mortal to be seen besides ourselves. The only sound that interrupted our conversation ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... they cut a road through the woods and brought all their worldly gear on a sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. Their neighbors helped them build a house of logs, with a roof of black-ash bark and a floor of hewn white-ash plank. A great stone chimney and fireplace—the mortar of red clay—gave light and warmth, and cooked the meat and baked the bread, when there was any to cook or to bake. Here they lived and reared their family, and found life sweet. Their unworthy descendant, yielding to the inherited love of ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... his boyhood and youth we know nothing, unless it be from the glimpse he gives us in the preface to his "Comedies" of himself as a boy looking on with delight while Lope de Rueda and his company set up their rude plank stage in the plaza and acted the rustic farces which he himself afterwards took as the model of his interludes. This first glimpse, however, is a significant one, for it shows the early development of that love of the drama which exercised such an influence on his life and seems ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... '95, the crew of the brig Terrible lost all their provisions, except a quantity of candles. After these were gone, they took a plank out of the side of the vessel and sliced it, which was their board for a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... had been his wont of late. They walked cautiously through the park, for the moon was brilliant and outlined every object with startling vividness. The trees here were sparser. Close by was the sunk fence and the tiny rustic bridge—only a plank ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... wood, vertically sided, and battened, (with 1-1/2 inch tongued and grooved pine plank,) with horizontal strips in line of the window sills and floors, to hide the buts, and small triangular pieces in the corners, which gives the pretty effect of paneling. The whole is stained by a mixture of oil, &c., that heightens the ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... one plank in Bleak's modest platform, but he walked it so happily that it began to look like a gangplank leading onto the Ship of State. He expressed his doctrine very agreeably in his speech accepting the party nomination; though credit should be given to Theodolinda, ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... idly talking, At the ship the workmen stared: Some one, all their labor balking, Down her sides had cut deep gashes, Not a plank was spared! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... day rushes recently torn up were seen floating near the vessels. A plank hewn by an axe, a carved stick, a bough of hawthorn in blossom, and lastly a bird's nest built on a branch which the wind had broken, and full of eggs on which the parent-bird was sitting, were seen swimming past on the waters. The sailors brought ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... over which they placed Bart's arms and then with Frank holding on to Bart's body and Billy guiding the plank they struck out ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... plane the entire length of the deck, inclining with a gentle curve from the bow and stern toward the waist. The bulwarks are high, and are surmounted by a paneled monkey-rail; the belaying-pins in the plank-shear are of lignum-vitae and mahogany, and upon them the rigging is laid up in accurate and graceful coils. The balustrade around the cabin companion-way and sky-light is made of polished brass, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... in Switzerland are never very terrible, que?" With a comprehending smile to the puzzled porter, Tartarin, more and more convinced that the "whole thing was blague," stretched himself out on the plank rolled in his blanket, the muffler up to his eyes, and went to sleep, in spite of the light, the noise, the smoke of the pipes and the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... that by which we crossed the broad river Agano is surprising. It consists of twelve large scows, each one secured to a strong cable of plaited wistari, which crosses the river at a great height, so as to allow of the scows and the plank bridge which they carry rising and falling with the twelve feet variation ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... to careen and fill. Being, unfortunately, loaded with gravel on this particular trip, she subsided incontinently to the bottom of San Pablo Bay, while Neils and his crew of two men sought refuge on a plank. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... won't—very well: now all I have to say is this: that the moment I can find strength to do it, I'll stave out a plank; I'll scuttle the vessel, that's all; I have made up my mind, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... compassing the four sides of it, as they often did in days when the builder had only to turn his hand to the forest. It stood on the very edge of the town; wheatfields in the summer billowed up to its fences, and corn-stacks in the autumn camped around it like a besieging army. The plank sidewalk finished there; after that you took the road or, if you were so inclined, the river, into which you could throw a stone from the orchard of the Plummer Place. The house stood roomily and shadily in ornamental grounds, with a lawn in front of it and ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... narrow boxes of rough plank. These were tenderly handled, and the soldiers who bore them upon their shoulders carried sad faces, too; for happily as yet the death of friends in the South was not made, by familiarity, a thing of course. And lastly—lifted ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was twelve years of age her sister wrote in her journal, "Frank said we might as well have a ship if we did live on shore; so we took a hen coop pointed at the top, put a big plank across it, and stood up, one at each end, with an old rake handle apiece to steer with. Up and down we went, slow when it was a calm sea and fast when there was a storm, until the old hen clucked and the chickens all ran in and we had a lively time. Frank was captain and I was ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... indecorousness of the incident, cried out, "Put him out! put him out!" the attendants rushed in, and, taking poor Goldsmith by his collar, hustled him out through the door, across the deck, and tossed him ashore without reference to the gang-plank. This accomplished, a personal explanation of their course was made by the quarrelling generals, and, peace having been restored, a committee was sent in search of Goldsmith with suitable apologies. The good and kindly soul returned, ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... Without stopping to think, she seized the shoes in one hand and the tray in the other and rushed after the soldier. A little gully had to be crossed on the way to the dugout and the only bridge was a twelve-inch plank. The soldier crossed in safety and turned to look after the girl. Just as she reached the middle of the plank a shell burst not far away. The lassie was so startled that she nearly lost her balance, ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... Venere!) on a strip of sand between the rocks of our castle: the thing was really miraculous, for this coast is like a shark's jaw, and the bits of sand are tiny and far between. She was lashed to a plank, swaddled up close in outlandish garments; and when they brought her to me they thought she must certainly be dead: a little girl of four or five, decidedly pretty, and as brown as a berry, who, when she came to, shook her head to ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... didn't know how they should be run. Well, I and two other men have bought them for a song, and, while the place is tumbling in, the plant seems good. Now, I can get hold of orders for flour when I want them, and everybody with dollars to spare will plank them right into any concern handling food-stuffs this year. You go down to-morrow with an engineer, and, when you've got the mills running and orders coming in we'll sell out to a company, if ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... low, pleasant boat-shop, close on the shore of a little arm of the sea. The tide ebbs and flows before its wide double doors, and sometimes rises so high as to flow the sills; then you have to walk across in front of the shop on a plank, laid upon iron ballast. There is a little wharf or pier close at hand, the outer end of which is always going to be repaired. There are two or three other shops near by, and about them is the pleasant litter of a boat-yard. In ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud left in the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were bits of plank scattered—which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to speak, of my canoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking advantage of two of the trees being together, I rigged up a kind of storm-shelter with these vestiges. And ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... be concealed, at need. The strangers displayed great familiarity with the nature and ordinary positions of these private recesses. Not a chest, a closet, or even a drawer of size, escaped their vigilance; nor was there a plank that sounded hollow, but the master of the valley was called on to explain the cause. In one or two instances, boards were wrested violently from their fastenings, and the cavities beneath were explored, with a wariness that increased as the investigation ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Boston, lowering his piece, as the other returned and took his seat again on a projecting plank in a pile of timber. "Don't try to leave; that's all. I wouldn't miss this chance even if I had to shoot an old acquaintance to make it go. I don't want to hurt anybody specially, but this thousand dollars I'm ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... was cabled to New York, with the name of the steamer in which John Rowland had sailed (for his movements had been traced in the search for evidence), where it arrived, too late for publication, the morning of the day on which, with Myra on his shoulder, he stepped down the gang-plank at a North River dock. As a consequence, he was surrounded on the dock by enthusiastic reporters, who spoke of the story and asked for details. He refused to talk, escaped them, and gaining the side streets, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... yards, at particularly bad places, one came across a panel or so of plank fencing; but they were always old and weak, and they generally leaned out over the chasm and did not make any rash promises to hold up people who might need support. There was one of these panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ark dragging after them some wiry, emaciated debris of the Jardin des Plantes, which looked as if they had not eaten for a week. The amount of whipping and poking with sticks which was necessary to get them up the plank was amazing; I think they had had either too few or too many rehearsals. But they were all finally pushed in. Then commenced the rain—a real pouring cats-and- dogs kind of rain, with thunder and lightning and the stage pitch-dark. The whole populace climbed up on the rocks and crawled ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... that some ordeal lay before him; but no one would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer room by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could hear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or twice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were discussing his candidacy. Then there entered an inner guard with a green and ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for a man wuz a-comin' to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the "Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... obvious way to the cottage, across the low pastures by the Kent Ditch; instead, she went back a few yards to where a dyke ran under the road. She followed it out on the marsh, and when it cut into another dyke she followed that, walking on the bank beside the great teazle. A plank bridge took her across between two willows, and after some more such movements, like a pawn on a chess-board, she had crossed three dykes and ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... lover. At times a cold half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had lost all—name, fame, home, and kindred—for his sake! She clung to the few pitying words spoken by him as a shipwrecked sailor to the plank which chance has thrown in his way. It might float her for a few hours, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... served on an unplaned plank, the ends resting on kegs in front of the boilers. The unwashed gang simply helped themselves, and then retired to any convenient spot where they chose to eat. I discovered a fairly comfortable seat ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the keel, and all her wales and stringers bolted-to; she was therefore so far advanced that the next thing in order was to lay her planking. This planking, it may be mentioned, was of oak throughout, arranged to be laid on in two thicknesses, each plank of the outer skin overlaying a joint between two planks in the skin beneath it; and every plank had already been roughly cut to shape and carefully marked. All, therefore, that was now required was to complete the trimming of each plank and fix it in ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... thankful for my success. At all events I should not have to die shut up in a chest. But I was very far from being free. Getting up on my feet I thrust my head through the hole I had made, and tore back the broken pieces of plank. Had I possessed a light I should have seen how next to proceed, but I was still in total darkness. I could not tell what I might find outside the chest. Moving carefully I climbed out, moving about with my feet to find the ground, which was lower I thus ascertained than the bottom ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... the part where the cider-mill was, was the corn-house. I went up over the wide plank stairs and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... it was stoutly done of you, I must say," said Wildrake,—who had been listening with much interest. "I am a bold dare-devil enough, yet when I had two inches of oak plank between the actual fiend and me, hang him that would demolish the barrier between us, say I—I would as soon, when aboard, bore a hole in the ship, and let in the waves; for you know we always compare the devil to the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... also a considerable trade to Norway and to the Baltic, from whence they bring back deals and fir timber, oaken plank, balks, spars, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and sail-cloth, with all manner of naval stores, which they generally have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very great number of ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... say one word about myself, allow me dutifully to describe my parents. First, then, I will portray my queen mother. Report says, that when she first came on board of the lighter, a lighter figure and a lighter step never pressed a plank; but as far as I can tax my recollection, she was always a fat, unwieldy woman. Locomotion was not to her taste—gin was. She seldom quitted the cabin—never quitted the lighter: a pair of shoes may have lasted her for five ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... her last bell. Captain Dunscombe put his wife on board, and had barely time to jump off the boat again when the plank was withdrawn. The men on shore cast off the great loops of ropes that held the boat to enormous wooden posts on the wharf, and they ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... shy and retiring bird, the Pewee is known to almost every person, on account of its remarkable note. Like the swallow, he builds his nest under a sheltering roof or rock, and it is often fixed upon a beam or plank under a bridge that crosses a small stream. Near this place he takes his station, on the branch of a tree or the top of a fence, and sits patiently waiting for every moth, chafer, or butterfly that passes along. Fortunately, there are no prejudices existing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... short, hair-covered horns, which are rather longer in the male than in the female, in a curious manner; for, with his long neck, he swings his head to either side, almost upside down, with such force that I have seen a hard plank deeply indented by a ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Radovi['c]'s powerful father-in-law) who disliked the new statute which limited the Royal Family to Nikita and his children. Danilo protected this party for personal reasons. As for the third political party, that of General Martinovi['c], its principal plank was its opposition to the other two parties. Mita Martinovi['c] himself was not much of a politician; he was a sturdy friend of Russia. Of his rivals, Lazar Miu[vs]kevi['c], a bearded, rather stout, medium-sized man, has a pious opinion of his own abilities, and is, or was, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... heel of the coulter, which formed the principal part of the plough, and was in shape similar to the letter L, the shank of which went through the wooden beam, and the foot formed the point which was sharpened for operation. One handle and a plank split from the side of a winding block of timber, which did duty for the mould-board, completed the implement. Besides provisions for a year, I think each family had issued to them a plough-share and coulter, a set of dragg-teeth, a log chain, an axe, a saw, a hammer, a bill hook and a grubbing ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... rejoicing the next moment to find itself brought up boiling and bubbling in the basin, to issue in the gathered hope of experience. Then we turned down the stream a little way, crossed it by a plank, and stood again to regard it from the opposite side. Small as the whole affair was—not more than about a hundred and fifty feet in height—it was so full of variety that I saw it was all my memory could do, if ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... B. M. O., watching the mountain plank through his glasses; "every variety of adventurer in their ranks—cattlemen, ranchmen, Hudson Bay trappers, North West police, lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters, Indians, renegade frontiersmen, soldiers of ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... thickness of the gate a heap of reeds in a corner; and strewn all about in this artificial grotto, old rusty utensils, a grater, a strainer, broken pots, papers, rags, half-burnt logs, a straw hat, and a walking stick! And over a kind of recess, on a plank, a little shrine, two broken Madonnas picked out of some dust-heap, withered flowers in a crock, and a sprig of olive, evidently of last Palm Sunday! Poor little properties, so poor, so wretched that they had remained unmolested, ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... "we concluded that the chief plank in the platform of the architects and builders was 'Millions for display—not ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... sufficient time, gave the order to advance. Captain Crosse, of the 52nd, was the first to reach the gate, followed closely by Corporal Taylor of his own company, and Captain Synge of the same regiment, who was Campbell's Brigade-Major. In single file along the narrow plank they crossed the ditch in which lay the shattered remnant of the gallant little band; they crept through the wicket, which was the only part blown in, and found the interior of the gateway blocked by an 18-pounder gun, under which were lying ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... saw the hooks of the scaling ladder catch firm hold of the broken wall, before a single plank had been laid over its frail and distant rungs, she bounded over it with the light and airy foot of a practised dancer—finding account at that perilous moment in one of those indelicate accomplishments in which she had been instructed for purposes ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... should be not less than 2 feet from that point, the others interspersed about 2 feet apart—the greatest strain being near the top. The arch should be 7 feet high by 5 wide in front, with a gather on the top and sides of about 1 foot, with plank floor; and if this has a little incline it will facilitate shoveling the lime when drawn. The arch should have a strong capstone; also one immediately under the well of the kiln, with a hole 2 feet in diameter to draw ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... command of the situation. Making sure that the submarine was securely moored ashore, he retreated again to the deck of the U-boat, drawing after him the heavy plank that had been laid down as a gangplank. The battle on the outskirts of the village was still raging with fury. Shells were bursting all around the submarine. Running to starboard, Jack took up his position directly behind the conning ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... floating plank, over which they placed Bart's arms and then with Frank holding on to Bart's body and Billy guiding the plank they struck out for the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... perhaps, days, until some herdsman passed by; and he began to shout wildly in the hopes of attracting attention. To his great joy, his shout was answered, and Count Larinski climbed up the other side of the gorge, carrying a plank, torn from a fence he passed on his way. By means of this, he bridged the gorge, and rescued the father of Antoinette, and naturally, he had to accompany him to the hotel, and stay to dinner. As we ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Well, we yawed once or twice, and motioned to him to keep off for fear he should get hurt; but he came right on afore the wheel, and I hope I may be shot if the paddle didn't strike the bow of the boat with that force, it knocked up the starn like a plank tilt, when one of the boys playin' on it is heavier than t'other; and chucked him right atop of the wheel-house. You never seed a feller in such a dunderment in your life. He had picked up a little English from seein' our folks there so much, and when he got up, the first thing he said ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... he descended from an evil ark of a cab at the corral attached to Beaver Beach, and followed the path through the marsh to the crumbling pier. A red-bearded man was seated on a plank by ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... and try them," cried Captain Smith, in a hoarse voice, "we may have started a plank by ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... plank bridge over a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he happened to see his own reflection in the water. He thought it was another dog with a piece of meat twice as big; so he let go his own, and flew at the other dog to get the larger piece. But, of course, all that happened ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... sow lay, black and silent, showing nothing to the enemy but a side of strong plank, covered with hide to prevent its being burned. It lay there for three hours, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... lost to me; yet, while Catharine lived life was not a detestable possession: but now, severed from the companion of my infancy, the partaker of all my thoughts, my cares, and my wishes, I was like one set afloat upon a stormy sea, and hanging his safety upon a plank; night was closing upon him, and an unexpected surge had torn him from his hold ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... gates, he stood awed at the wonder and magnificence of all that he saw. The whole structure was complete. Not a pole or plank of scaffolding was left standing, no litter or rubbish heaps were to be seen; every approach, every yard of the enclosure was beautifully swept. A few officials, in a remarkable uniform moved here and ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... the real thing!" exclaimed Russ, as a goodly part of the company, including Mr. DeVere and his daughters, started for the Battery one morning. They were to board the yacht there, and one of the scenes would show the girls going up the gang-plank. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... unscrewed. There was a lock on the door of the chamber in which Mr. White slept, but the key was gone. It had been taken away and secreted. The footsteps of the murderer were visible, outdoors, tending toward the window. The plank by which he entered the window still remained. The road he pursued had thus been prepared for him. The victim was slain, and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that somebody within had cooperated with somebody without. Everything proclaimed that some ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... the throat of the "Heads," the force of the wind, meeting a strong ebb-tide, drove the nose of the schooner under water; she dove like a duck, went over on her side, and began, to drift out with the tide. I found myself in the water, mixed up with pieces of plank and ropes; struck out, swam round to the stern, got on the keel, and clambered up on the side. Satisfied that she could not sink, by reason of her cargo, I was not in the least alarmed, but thought two shipwrecks in one day not a good ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... warning as the bows, caught by the current, began to swing out into the stream, and the end of the gangplank slipped along the edge of the wharf. It threatened to fall into the river, and the girl was not yet on board. Blake leaped upon the plank. Seizing her shoulder, he drove her forward until a seaman, reaching out, drew her safe on deck. Then the paddles splashed and as the boat forged out into the stream, the girl turned and thanked Blake. He could not see her clearly, for an overarching deck cast a shadow ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... make their way to Crantock "churchtown", situated on the western side of the Gannel, a small tidal stream which is crossed by means of a plank bridge. The village of Crantock is ancient and interesting, but the great attraction of the place is the church. Less than a dozen years ago the fabric was in a ruinous condition until the vicar succeeded in ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... than six, were all laid in lime, too; it having been found necessary to burn some of the material to plaster the interior. Then the gates were massive, being framed in oak, filled in with four-inch plank, and might have resisted a very formidable assault. Their strong iron hinges were all in their places, but the heavy job of hanging had been deferred to a leisure moment, when all the strength of the manor might be collected for that purpose. There they stood, inclining ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the one for the winter, the other for the summer solstice: and the two erections might be constructed with very little expense; for two pieces of timber frame-work, about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... scarcely large enough to contain the few articles of furniture absolutely required. Its walls were of unplaned plank occasionally failing to meet, and the only covering to the floor was a dingy strip of rag-carpet. The bed was a cot, shapeless, and propped up on one side by the iron leg of some veranda bench, while the open window looked out into the street. There was a bolt, not appearing particularly secure, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... ran after Wenceslas and caught him up at the corner of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin; she was afraid of his Polish artlessness. Not wishing to be involved in the matter, she said a few words to Wenceslas, who in his joy hugged her then and there. She had no doubt pushed out a plank to enable the artist to cross this awkward place in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... one room overhanging the stream which ran through the centre of the house from the sacred tanks. Directly below the place we occupied was a little waterfall, which conversed pleasantly day and night; and by taking-up a loose plank in the floor we could see as well as hear it. Learning that there were some ruins in the neighbourhood, supposed to have existed from before the birth of our Saviour, we started in the afternoon for a place called Bowun, or more ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... clambered up a rickety staircase, a still more rickety ladder, and came to a platform at a level with the top of the organ; and all around them, reaching up out of the dim light below, were the open pipes. Passing hurriedly around, on a narrow plank, to the back of the organ, their agitated guide paused before a row of immense pedal pipes, and, without allowing his own eyes to look, he held the light that he carried ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... resided in London; he was one of the half-dozen great shipbuilders and owners who founded "Lloyd's." Splendid East Indiamen, of some 1000 tons burden, were then built at Scarborough; and scarcely a timber was moulded, a plank bent, a spar lined off, or launching ship-ways laid, without my being present to witness them. And thus, in course of time, I was able to make for myself the neatest and ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... alone the Rovers might have had some difficulty in gaining entrance to the dock; but the detective led the way, showing his badge; and soon the party found themselves at the gang-plank of the steamer. ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... nonage. Future maps may exhibit it as Wynnsboro', in honour of the founder. A station on the line of rail to connect the Ottawa with Lake Huron is to stand beside that concession line (now a level plank road) where Robert Wynn halted eleven years ago, axe in hand, and gazed in dismay on the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... The man measured the plank carefully, and after some hesitation cut off a good piece. "I can spare that much," said he; "poor folk should ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... misty mornings, as he tramped in to his work, dinner-pail in hand, his footsteps on the plank bridge seemed hammering out with concentrated will: "To-day ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... or two, which I threw overboard, tying every one with a rope that it might not drift away. Climbing down the ship's side, I pulled them toward me and tied four of them fast together in the form of a raft, laying two or three pieces of plank ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... of dilapidated shacks where the miners lived was clinging to the mountain side at the rear, while the fronts were propped up with rough posts. They were all alike with patched rubberoid roofs, broken tile chimneys, windows with broken panes. Rough plank houses unpainted, though here and there a board showed traces of once having been red or brown. Between the houses at rare intervals a fence post remained. But the pickets had long since been torn away ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... and they did not do much better, for they put us into a stall beside it. I call it a stall, for the word describes it most fully. It was one of a range, partitioned off from the large room in which were the noisy miscreants, and from each other by loose plank, with cracks wide enough to let the wind circulate freely through them. Most of the windows of the large room were out, which greatly increased the cold. Our stall was only eight or nine feet wide, and perhaps sixteen in length. It was bare of any furniture—not even having a chair, ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... law, to destroy persons shipwrecked, or prevent their saving the ship, is capital. And to steal even a plank from a vessel in distress, or wrecked, makes the party liable to answer for the whole ship and cargo. (Ff. 47. 9. 3.) The laws also of the Wisigoths, and the most early Neapolitan constitutions, punished with the utmost severity all those who neglected to assist any ship in distress, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... that's in the Middleburgh house of Vanbeest and Vanbruggen, and told him some goose's gazette about his being taken in a skirmish with the land-sharks; he gave him for a footboy. Me let him escape! the bastard kinchin should have walked the plank ere I troubled ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a spring to get out on dry land. Of course his boat went away from him, nearly jerking Rowles into the water. As for the awkward creature himself, he fell on his knees on the plank edging of the bank, and his feet dangled in the stream. The launch went on again, crushing the ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... the clouds below us, as they are on Penang Hill. The path up the mountain—if path it can be called—is almost a staircase of tumbled rocks, and requires both strength and agility to climb. It was quite beyond me; but I was carried on a man's back, sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of trees thrown from one rock to another. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... the space between the castle and the town was once a meadow. For that matter, they also say that the whole channel between here and France was once so narrow that the Bishop of Coutances used to cross to Jersey on a plank." ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... of all was Noah's Ark. First the ark came on alone—then a plank seemed to be put down—then came the great elephants, lions, tigers, and bears, marching up the plank two and two into the ark—and after them all the rest of the animals in the world, getting smaller and smaller, until little ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... same thing. It is all very well to experiment for oneself, but when one sees these dear things of one's own, so young and inexperienced and so capable of every sort of gallant foolishness, walking along the narrow plank, going down into dark jungles, ah! then it makes one want to wrap them in laws and foresight and fence them about with 'Verboten' boards in ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Boulogne flotilla was lying in the harbour. Independently of the decks of the gunboats being full of soldiers, with very few sailors intermixed, playing at different games of chance, not a plank, not a log, or piece of timber, was there on the quay but was also covered with similar parties. This then accounts for that rage for gambling, which has carried to such desperate lengths those among them whom the fate of war has lodged ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... what it was all about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer—from my manner of stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow—and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens |
