"Cuss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... folks is havin' bad luck with thar dugouts." said Brayton. "Some trifin' cuss took old Steve Brayton's jes to cross the river, without the grace to tie it to the bank, let 'lone takin' it back. I've heard ez how Aunt Sally Day's boy Ben, who was a-fishin' that evenin, says ez how he seed Isom's harnt a-floatin' across the river in it, without techin' ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... gone, poor thing!" said Mrs. Tetley, who was cooking something on the stove; and her husband broke in: "She looked like it. Cuss them police! But we euchred them. A young trooper rides up to the door and drives me round prospecting with a lantern. Of course, he found nothing, and when he rode off I began to tumble. Found your friends in the log-trail and ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... old fellow who's been under fire is along to stiffen you rookies!" replied grandfather tartly. "You'll be all right once you get going. You'll settle down to be real soldiers yet. And I'd like to hear a little more cussing. How the Hussars used to cuss! Too much reading and writing nowadays. It ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... who was in command of Little Slave, made us welcome, introducing us ensemble to his friend, a former H.B. factor, to the Yankee who was looking for a timber limit, to the "Literary Cuss," as he called the young man in corduroys and a wide white hat, who was endeavoring to get past "tradition," that has damned this Dominion both in fiction and in fact for two hundred years, and do something that had in it the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... well enough," continued Sam; "but I don't take a cent's wuth of stock in thet thar father of her'n. He's in with them sharps, sure pop, an' it don't suit his book to hev Foster hangin' round. It's ten to one he sent that cuss to watch 'em. Wa'al, they're a queer lot, an' I'm afeared thar's plenty of trouble ahead among 'em. Good luck to you, Major," and he pushed back ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... never got me down so't I had to holler 'nough. You ask anybody. Casey Ryan's goin' out to see what he can see. If he meets up with Miss Fortune, he'll tame her, Bill. And this little Ford auty-mo-bile is goin' to eat outa my hand. I don't give a cuss if she does git sore and ram her spark plugs into her carburetor now and agin. She'll know who's boss, Bill. I learnt it to the burros, and what you can learn a burro you can learn a Ford, take ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... he said. "It don't matter a cuss where or how I hustle my dry hash. I was born that way. Fix things the way you feel. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... Englishman and his wife who had come from Montreal to St. Paul in an ox-cart. The whole plains was covered with sneakin' red cusses on the war-path. But that darned Britisher was stubborn-set on pullin' out that night for Fort Garry, with his wife and kid, and what did the cuss do but nail a blame little Union Jack on his cart, poke the goad in his ox, and hit the trail! My God, I kin still see the old ox with that bit of the British Empire, wiggling out of St. Paul at sundown. And the cuss got there all right, too, though we was all wearing crape beforehand ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... baby got ready for dress-parade; and I went down to New York and seen 'em off; but here's where old Fate gets in his work again. That rascal of an O. B. Sanderson—I didn't notice the name before—was my own nephew, the very young cuss whose picture kept me from marryin' the baby's mother! I never tumbled till I ran across his mother, she was ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... an unlucky cuss," said Mr. Strout to his hearers one evening at the grocery. "But think of me. This is our busy season and with everything piled onto me I'm just about tuckered out. What help will he ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... a hospitable cuss," he retorted. "Don't be a hog on top of it, Henry. I want to see that ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... reg'lar tussle this mornin', Rose," he said. "The logs are determined not to move. Ike Billings, that's the han'somest and fluentest all-round swearer on the Saco, has tried his best on the side jam. He's all out o' cuss-words and there hain't a log budged. Now, stid o' dog-warpin' this afternoon, an' lettin' the oxen haul off all them stubborn logs by main force, we're goin' to ask you to set up on the bank and smile at the jam. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... plant, arter you put it to your nose once, you can't smell it a second time. Oh what beautiful galls they be! What a shame it is to bar a feller out such a day as this. One on 'em blushes like a red cabbage, when she speaks to me, that's the one, I reckon, I disturbed this mornin'. Cuss the rooks! I'll pyson them, and that won't ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... knowledge of English appeared to be limited to an explosive sort of profanity. Lum Gillespie declared on the third day after Mrs. Smith's car first came to his garage for live storage, that "that feller Francose" knew more English cuss-words than all the Irishmen ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... offend thee, Mrs. Ormerod. A'm sorry A spoke. A allays do wrong thing. But A did so 'ope as tha might coom. Tha sees A got used to moother. A got used to 'earin' 'er cuss me. A got used to doin' for 'er an' A've nought to do in th' evenings now. It's terrible lonesome in th' neeghttime. An' when notion coom to me, A thowt as A'd mention un to ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... where the surface is just the reverse; being seamed and furrowed as if it had just emerged from a devastating flood. It is said that the teamster who successfully navigated the route up Bitter Creek, considered himself entitled to be called "a tough cuss from Bitter Creek, on wheels, with a perfect education." A justifiable regard for individual rights would seem to favor my own assumption of this distinguished title after traversing the route with a bicycle. Ten o'clock next ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... or hot, Differs nothing, matters not; For to quote that Roman cuss, Why dispute "de gustibus?" If to this or that one should Take a fancy, it is good. If these rhymes look good to me, What care I how ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... be enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents; Sink the steamboats! cuss the railways! rot, O rot the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... I suppose, of mere peculiarity, my own attention—I frankly confess I am not a connoisseur—was considerably engrossed by "two little Niggers." No doubt the number afterwards swelled to the orthodox "ten little Niggers." One was a jovial young "cuss" of eleven months—weighted at 29lbs., and numbered 62 on the card. He was a clean-limbed young fellow, with a head of hair like a furze-bush, and his mother was quite untinted. I presume Paterfamilias was a fine coloured gentleman. The other ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... ever touches it herself, but when she does she makes me mix it. She's just old persimmons. Even the scrub-boy of this establishment would fight for her. It lasts the year round, for in winter it's some poor, frozen cuss that she's warming up on ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... over to our island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. The cuss got kind of affectionate, and after a while crawled right into our hut to catch flies and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of his time there. Bill Bates hadn't the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... token of recognition and welcome. He had been minded to dismount and walk with her, but his heart burned with resentment. Of what worth now were all his buoyant anticipations, while she was listening to the sugared flatteries of the "town cuss"? He had this subject for cogitation, while, in a stifling room, he was regaled with hard cider and apple-jack by no more fascinating Hebe than old Mrs. Slade, with her withered sallow skin, her excited, anxious eye, her fluttered, tremulous, skinny fingers, her hysteric cap with its maddeningly ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was awful, it was heartrending; and though we exerted ourselves to the utmost from six o'clock in the morning until eight at night, we advanced our camp only two miles that day. And when we gathered around the fire at night, how we did "cuss" that river! None of us, however, was discouraged, nor flinched at the prospect. Our oil-tanned, cowhide moccasins and woollen trousers were beginning to show the result of the attacks of bush, rock, and water, but our blue flannel shirts ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... tall private. "You little fool. You little damn' cuss. You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for six months, and yet you talk ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... warmly. "Don't yuh never go near old Murton. In the first place, he ain't a cowman—he's a sheepman, on a small scale so far as sheep go but on a sure-enough big scale when yuh count his feelin's. He runs about twelve hundred woollies, and is about as unpolite a cuss as I ever met up with. He'd uh roasted yuh brown just for saying cattle at him—and if yuh let out inadvertant that yuh took him for a cowman, the chances is he'd a took a shot at yuh. If yuh ask me, you was playin' big luck when yuh went and ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the day's march—he'll likely have too much sense and spirit to be safe. He'll more than likely prance around when you get on and buck you off if he thinks he can get away with it. If you've got a safe horse, one that's scared to death of you, he won't be a good horse—a yellow cuss that has to be dragged through every mud-puddle. These are all Indian ponies, the best that can be got up here, but they're not old ladies' driving mares. Miss Tremont, the best horse in this bunch is my bay, Mulvaney—but nobody can ride him but me. I'd love ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... mammy, and I had to swing the fly bresh over my old Mistress when she was sewing or eating or taking her nap. Sometime I would keep the flies off'n old Master, and when I would get tired and let the bresh slap his neck he would kick at me and cuss me, but he never did reach me. He had a way of keeping us little niggers scared to ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... careless cuss. He took a big drive down the Mississippi for Paul and when the logs were delivered in the New Orleans boom it was found that he had driven the wrong logs. The owners looked at the barkmarks and refused to accept them. It was up to Paul to drive ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... was clearly a most cool-headed cuss, snatched for his gun where he'd dropped it, to make sure she got it ahead of me. She snatched, yes—and then jerked back, letting off a sizable squeal of pain, ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... he muttered between his teeth. "That Sergeant Moore hee's a queer cuss, sure 'nuff, to give away a dog like thees for nothing; and then, by gar, to pay me ten ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... the fact that his customary happy and seductive grin was slightly stiff about the corners as if his face needed oiling. "Hang it all! Nobody but an undertaker could look happy in this town," Jimmy thought after his final effort. "No wonder that old cuss is so solemn. I'd be too, if I ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... a cuss, Uncle Adam ain't. He's a nice man, and he knows what he's about too. If you'd see some o' the fools that come down here to shoot you'd be particular too, I guess. They're a good deal more apt to hit their guide than the birds, I ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... cuss if he had left me 'nough money to get home on the doggoned, grey-haired red pirate," he shrilled, in a seething sentence. The pudgy man gazed at the little man ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... Mr. Pepper, as they had grown to call him, "I heard that sung by a fellow up in Chartres Street two nights hand-running before this thing happened,—a merry cuss, too, with a rather loose hand on his shekels. Lots of people may ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... Thursday. He is not yet dead, but his physician wishes to visit a mother-in-law at Lard Springs, and is therefore very anxious to get the case off his hands. The undertaker describes the patient as "the longest cuss in ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... my dear. I wasn't thinking cuss-words at all. I was only reflecting that we didn't miss ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... loss. Or Stone either. And I can't see any one getting that amount of money out of old Wade, whether it was in the bag when it went into his safe or not. Your testimony on the jingle feature ain't worth a cuss. The Bunker boys had that bag marked for their own; for we know now that they were out on a raid that night and cleaned up several good horses. I must say, Jake, that you are a hell of a hired man. If you had kept the main road, this trouble which will raise blazes with things in this county ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... managerial character. Therefore, 'tis the brother-authors, "hoi Adelphoi," who have blundered. Undoubtedly. An Adelphi audience is not to be satisfied with a one-scene piece, when that scene is without any incident in it worth a melodramatic father's cuss. A fancy-dress ball at Covent Garden, however well put on the stage,—and, after all, it has not beaten the record of the Masked Ball at the Opera House in Paris, as given in Mr. IRVING'S revival of The Corsican Brothers,—will not carry a piece of far stronger calibre than The Black Domino, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... after all the man could not have glimpsed their vanishing faces as they ducked so swiftly, for he continued to advance in the direction of the well and Perk could hear him softly singing, just as though he might be a "musical cuss," as Perk told himself with one of his customary chuckles since his first stab of alarm had passed off under the realization ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... is beggars naow, or next door tew it. Everybudy hez a kick fer a soldier. Ye'll fine em mosly in the jails an the poorhaouses. Look at you fellers as wuz a huntin me. Ther's Meshech on the floor, a drunken, worthless cuss. Thar ye be, Abner, 'thout a shillin in the world, nor a foot o' lan', yer dad's farm gone fer taxes. An thar be ye, Peleg. Wal Peleg, they dew say, ez the neighbors ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... which had been cruelly growing for three weeks, well-nigh up to an exploding climax. I was told not to lose my ticket, or I could not get in; and when the ticket taker seized hold of it, I held on until he finally yelled angrily, "Let go, you little cuss!" whereupon my father came to his rescue. The show on the whole was very satisfactory, except for the color of Columbus, the fine old elephant, which for some reason, probably from the show bills on the barns, I had expected to be of a greenish tint. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... whether we are or not! Those rag-tag and bobtail vermin are calling us names!—and, if I can't fight, by gad, I'll cuss back!" ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... the "stump" could even sell it for a dime to the other niggers for after all—wasn't it General Toombs' cigar? The General never wore expensive clothes and always carried a crooked-handled walking stick. I'se never heard him say "niggah", never heard him cuss. He always helped us niggars—gave gave us ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... strongly religious temperament. Their comparative freedom from swearing, for instance,—an abstinence which I fear military life did not strengthen,—was partly a matter of principle. Once I heard one of them say to another, in a transport of indignation, "Ha-a-a, boy, s'pose I no be a Christian, I cuss you sol"—which was certainly drawing pretty hard upon the bridle. "Cuss," however, was a generic term for all manner of evil speaking; they would say, "He cuss me fool," or "He cuss me coward," as if the essence of propriety were in harsh and angry speech,—which I take ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... immediately, gave Mr. Bull their custom. He grew rich suddenly, not so much from building boats as from using them. Nobody patronized Sam's now old-fashioned craft. Uncle Sam, generally supposed to be a "smart old cuss," couldn't understand it at all. "It's one of those things that no fellow can find out," he said, "but next time we have a family meeting we'll appoint a committee to get at what this here 'decadence' comes from." So he appointed a committee, and they ran around six months among ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... her face in her friend's dress. "It was awful." She spoke without looking up. "But, O Mag—Doctor Jim was fine—so gentle, so kind. The Judge thought he would cuss around a lot, but he didn't—not even to him—the Judge said. And the Doctor came to me as bashful and—as—well, your own father couldn't have been better to you. So I just quit, and the Judge got me the job in the Company store and the Doctor ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... bait them and they will go for you; and, oh, won't we give 'em a lesson? You bet we will; we'll just clean them out and give the money to some needy person—that is, you can—and you'll meet many a poor cuss before ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... your P.D. exercised and won't let anybody but himself ride him. He says you will need him. For you can't budge the stubborn little cuss. He declares you're coming back. When we tell him you're worth twenty millions and he's plumb full of primitive foolishness and general ignorance of the outside world, he says, 'Si, he will come back!' like some heathen oracle that's strong on ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... to be kind of put out with me this evening," he remarked, addressing himself to the company. "He's the most ungratefullest cuss I ever come up with. I was only oratin' on how proud the city ought to be of him. He fairly keeps Plattville's sportin' spirit on the gog; 'die out, wasn't for him. There's be'n more money laid on him whether he'll strike over and above the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... and indignantly, "I hope so; he's a mean cuss—what d'ye think? never give Locust's boy so much as a half-sovereign! Now don't such a feller deserve to lose? And do you think Locust's boy will interest ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... won't stand for it around the stables. The man before you, sir, could cuss most beautifully; and I think that's why he was fired. At least, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went right along with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... atteignen to gret welthe As for the time that it lasteth. For love awaiteth evere and casteth Hou he mai stele and cacche his preie, Whan he therto mai finde a weie: 6550 For be it nyht or be it day, He takth his part, whan that he may, And if he mai nomore do, Yit wol he stele a cuss or tuo. Mi Sone, what seist thou therto? Tell if thou dedest evere so. Mi fader, hou? Mi Sone, thus,- If thou hast stolen eny cuss Or other thing which therto longeth, For noman suche thieves hongeth: 6560 Tell on forthi ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... saw now a lean, lined, sad face, a morose droop of thin and bitter lips; he saw gray hair standing up stiffly above a careworn forehead; he saw kind, troubled eyes. And as he looked, he frowned. "I'm an ugly cuss," he said to himself, sighing; "and I look sixty." In point of fact, he was nearly fifty. "But so is she," he added, defiantly, and took down his hat. "Only, she looks forty." And then he thought of Mrs. Maitland's ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the little man started off, "just bring the saddle back to me here when you've weighed. I'll put it on Diablo myself; he's a touchy cuss, and I don't want ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... sleek muzzle in front! It will puzzle Your critics, my boy, to pick holes in you then: There's howling "HISTORICUS,"—he's but a sorry cuss! WEG, too, that grandest of all grand old men; He's ridden some races; of chances and paces, Of crocks versus cracks he did ought to be judge. He sees you are speedy; when MORLEY sneers "Weedy," Or LAB doubts your staying, WEG knows it's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... "I reckon you an' me better try to live mo' righteously 'n what we've been doin', or he'll be took from us." An', sir, the very nex' communion we both up an' perfessed. An' I started sayin' grace at table, an' lef' off the on'y cuss-word I ever did use, which was "durn." An', maybe I oughtn't to say it, but I miss that word yet. I didn't often call on it, but I always knowed 't was there when needed, and it backed me up, somehow—thess the way knowin' I had a frock-coat in the ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... one of your men. T'other cleared, he did. I was comin' in afoot. I had a notion of suthin' goin' on, 'n' left the critters out thar, with the rancheros, 'n' stole in. Got in just in time to pop the cuss that had ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are such a tragic cuss that I never can think things are as bad with you as ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... you'll remember it. I've known too many men think they'd paid a debt when they'd given their bond. I don't want you to think that. If you're goin' to pay me, you'll do it without a bond, and if you ain't, I ain't goin' to sue you; I'm jest goin' to think what a' o'nery cuss you are." ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... his sperits, beein' 'twas onny a fit he had had from bein' a most smothered wud de handful of strah and kippin his laugh down. But Jeems knowed better. 'T[macron a]-uent no use, sir,' he says, says he, to de doctor; 'de cuss of de Pharisees is uppan me, and all de stuff in your shop can't do me no good.' And Mas' Meppom was right, for about a year ahtawuds he died, poor man! sorry enough dat he'd ever intaf[macron e]red wud things dat didn't consarn him. Poor ol' feller, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... reckon there's a cuss on this gold, do you? Just see how many people it has killed. Dick Winters and Bill Frank and Jim and Haney, besides all the prospectors that have died huntin' for it. You-all don't reckon anything will happen to us, or to ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... cuss," said Falkner, pausing with a forkful of beans half way to his mouth. "Where in God A'mighty's ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... satirists. Artemus Ward's reports of his own conversations with the mighty of the earth were made highly ludicrous by the homely want of self-consciousness, displayed by the owner of the Kangaroo, that "amoosin' little cuss," and of the "two moral B'ars." But it is vain to attempt to analyze the fun of Artemus Ward. Why did he make some people laugh till they cried, while others were all untouched? His secret probably was almost entirely one of manner, a trick of almost idiotic naivete, like ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... tried my hand at givin Blind-man concerts, appearin as the poor blind man myself. But the infamus cuss who I hired to lead me round towns in the day time to excite simpathy drank freely of spiritoous licker unbeknowns to me one day, & while under their inflooance he led me into the canal. I had to either ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... "That little cuss that scared the hosses. There he is, now, holdin' up that piece of brushwood. 'Twould be just like his cheek, now, to ask me to let him ride. Here he comes, runnin'. Wonder where t'other is?—they most generally travel together. We call 'em the Imps, about these parts, because they're ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... the hot sun went for us, And br'iled and blistered and burned! How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us When a cuss in his death-grip turned! Till along toward dusk I seen a thing I couldn't believe for a spell: That nigger—that Tim—was a crawlin' to me ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... never been a breath of scandal attached to Diana Mayo's name. I've known the child since she was a baby. Rum little cuss she was, too. Confound that old woman! She would wreck the reputation of the Archangel Gabriel if he came down to earth, let alone that of ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... fanatics crazy from fright, looking around for guns and so on. Don't you believe you'd keep an eye around the corners, kind of—eh? I'll bet a hat he was taking it all in, lying there in his bunk, 'turned the other way.' Eh? I pity the poor cuss—Well, there's only one more entry after that. He's good ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... said: " He's a sly cuss, anyhow." The railway man grinned. After an elaborate silence the wine merchant asked: " Know Miss Black long, Rufus?" Coleman looked scornfully at his friends. " What's wrong with you there, fellows, anyhow?" The Chicago man answered airily. " ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... thinking the occasion warranted, I "smiled" upon it, "strictly as a medicine!" "Apple-jack" seemed to me the same thing as "Jersey lightning." He became quite friendly, but was horribly profane. "Look here," said he, "you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if you don't! What in h—l are you Yanks all comin' down here for?"—"You have a gift at swearing," I said; "did you, among your other oaths, ever swear to support the Constitution of the United States?"—"Well, yes."—"That's what's the ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... pretty little cuss," said one of the miners, after a moment. "I wouldn't guess him for ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... insolent, you young cuss. Keep a civil tongue in your mouth or it won't be well for you. I want to know if you have a young ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... the government couldn't feed its army if it wasn't for a few big cowmen like them. There's a strange corporal over the three herds and they're working on five horses to the man. But the major-domo's the whole works; he's a windy cuss, and intimates that he has a card or two up his sleeve that will put these quarantine guards to sleep when he springs them. He's a new man to me; at least he wasn't with ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... from the crowd, "bring out that old cuss. Drag him to the platform, we want to hear what ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... I—I am gonter be a p'liceman. I don't want to be 'dopted. That's what I git for lettin' you wash my face, Polly." He picked up a handful of dirt and smeared it over his face. With the help of the tears it was very effective. "I'm jest as bad as bad can be. I know a whole string of cuss words an' I can say them as fast as now-I-lay-me. Doggone, devil, deuce, ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... dang what I run into on the way. Polly shied somethin' terrible jest afore we got to the pike an' I come derned near bein' throwed. An' right there 'side the road was this feller, all in a heap. I went back an' jumped off. He was groanin' somethin' awful. Thinks I, you poor cuss, you must 'a' tried to stop that feller on hossback an' he plunked you. That accounted fer the second shot. But while I wuz tryin' to lift him up an' git somethin' out'n him about the matter, I sees his boss standin' in the road a couple o' rods away. I couldn't understand a word he said, so I thought ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Cuss it!" said he, strongly, "if that ain't too bad! I brought her a Creole doll from New Orleans, which Madame Claire said was dressed finer than any one she'd ever seen. All lace and French gewgaws, Colonel. But you'll ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of that darned Baptist pointing you out Bunker's Hill," said the sea-captain from Maine; "just like the ill-mannered republican cuss!" It was useless to tell him that I had felt really obliged for the information given me by his political opponent. "Never mind," he said, "to-morrow I'll show you how these moral Bostonians break their darned liquor law in ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life. You'll tip over backwards first thing ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... road agent. You and Jim, that darned innocent old cuss, robbing mails and cattle ranches. It is a real scoop up for me, you bet. I'd heern of bush-ranging in Australia, but I never reckoned on their bein' men like you and Jim. So the muchacha went back on yer—snakes alive! I kinder expected it. I reckon ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... for us like it was pay day and he had the cash box. We brought up before the saddest-lookin' cuss I ever saw out of bed. I couldn't make out whether he was sick, or scared, or both. He had flopped in a big leather chair and was tryin' to wave 'em away with both hands, while about two dozen, lookin' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... on the edge of the big table, his hands in his pockets, and one foot swinging nervously. "I hope you dear people don't think I'm an ungrateful cuss, not to have come to Green Hill this summer; but the fact is, I've been awfully up against it, trying to make ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... hint and departed, assuring Andy, by way of farewell, that he was an unappreciative cuss and didn't deserve any sympathy or sick-calls. They also condoled openly with Pink because he had been detailed as nurse, and advised him to sit right down on Andy if he got too sassy and haughty over being shot up by a real outlaw. They said that any fool could build ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Crushed upon the leaden forms; Muckintosh, the famous thinker, Muckintosh, the great and mighty, Felt a trembling, felt a quaking, Saw the earth about him open, Saw the flame and sulphur smoking, Came the printer's little devil, Far from distant lands the printer, Man of unions, man of cuss-words, From the depths of sooty blackness; Came the towel of the printer; Many things that Muckintosh saw,— Galleys, type, and leads and rules, Presses, press-men, quoins and spaces, Quads and caps and ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... after MacNeff's scalp," replied Ken. "And I put the ball over for Prince to hit. What else could I do? Why, that little chunky cuss has an eye, and he can sting the ball—he's almost as good as Reddy. But, Worry, you mustn't give me the credit. Reddy ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... conventions, green cotton umbrellers, and pickled beats. Otheller is a good provider and thinks all the world of his wife. She has a lazy time of it, the hird girl doin all the cookin and washin. Desdemony in fact don't have to git the water to wash her own hands with. But a low cuss named Iago, who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth named Roderigo ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... stated. "Not one little wrangle, even. Of course I was expectin' it. I've watched 'em come around too many times not to know how they can cuss a man cold one minute, and then make him plumb ashamed of mankind in general, with beggin' and pleadin'. I just beat him to it the morning he woke up; I told him what he could have, and what he couldn't, and he took it calmly enough. He just set there, pretty blue and shaky, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... my card. You give me an hour to-morrow, Jingle Bells, and I'll do all the credential stuff your little heart desires. Louis Slupsky knows me and my whole family. His mother used to stuff feather pillows for mine. Kahn here is my brother-in-law and partner in business. He's a slow cuss and 'ain't grasped the situation yet. But are you on, little one? Is it St. Louis Thursday ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... a philosopher remarked, stirring the embers. "So it don't get under my skin, I don't care a cuss what ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... said Mrs. Wiggs. "You can coax a' elephant with a little sugar. The worser Mr. Wiggs used to act, the harder I'd pat him on the back. When he'd git bilin' mad, I'd say: 'Now, Mr. Wiggs, why don't you go right out in the woodshed an' swear off that cuss? I hate to think of it rampantin' round inside of a good-lookin' man like you.' He'd often take my advice, an' it always done him good an' never hurt the woodshed. As fer the childern, I always did use compelments on them ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... never knew the Revolution was a-goin' on till it was over. Old Napoleon couldn't thrash 'em, and it don't stand to reason that the Yanks could. I thought there was some skullduggery. Why, it took the Yanks four years to lick themselves. I got a book at home all about Napoleon. He was a tough cuss." ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... said, slowly and kindly, "I know that ye have told me the truth. I believe every word of it. We all know that Hoag is the meanest cuss and biggest liar on the river. He's a nuisance, and always was. He only promised to give ye the canoe and the rifle, and since he don't want to, we can't help it. About the trouble in the woods, you got two witnesses to his one, and ye got the furs and the traps; ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "Mate, should the pony go straight, You've no time to stop or turn restive;" Says I, "Who means to stop? I shall go till I drop;" Says he, "Go it, old cuss, gay and festive." ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... repeat them to her, that she might know for sure he was the man who did it. He stammered and hitched—tried subterfuges. She waited, inexorable. Finally, in desperation, blushing fiery red, he blurted out "a lot of cuss-words." "You know," he said apologetically, in telling of it, "when I am in a place like that I can't ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... closer come tenderfoot, An' harder the whip to the hoss I put; But the Eastern cuss, with a smile on his face Ran up to my side with his easy pace— Rode up to my side, an' dern his hide, Remarked 'twere a pleasant day fer a ride; Then axed, onconcerned, if I had a match, An' on his britches give it a scratch, Lit a cigarette, said he wished me good-day, An' as ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... frontier, my motive for writing is this. I am a mountaineer—that is a trapper a good many years ago I met with your father Horace Greely on the plains, and greatly admired the old gentleman. The way I came to make his acquaintance is this. A drunken, unruly Cuss seeing that your father appeared quiet and peaceable thought it safe to play the bully at his expence so he commenced to insult and threaten Mr. Greely in a pretty rough manner. Seeing that your father was quiet and ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... game is to get in with the girl, figgerin' that he'll be more liable that way to get a chancst at Ben Radford. But whatever his game is, I ain't interferin'. He's got a season contract an' I ain't breakin' my word with the cuss. I ain't ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... general of ARTAXOMINOUS Was far less terrible than—well, thrasonic. To tear a thing to tatters, shout and "cuss," In an assembly callous and sardonic, Savours a bit too much of sheer burlesque, Scarce to the level of fine acting rises. The unexpected's piquant, picturesque, But a sound drama is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... was right at my back, an' I saw with a kind o' surprise, He gazed at the lake with a heartful of ache, an' the tears irrigated his eyes. An' sez he: "Cuss me, pard! but that there hits me hard; I've a mother does nuthin' but wait. She's turned eighty-three, an' she's only got me, an' I'm scared it'll soon be ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... for A score or more Of guests," the hostess said, "We'll have the Poodle Sing Yankee Doodle, A-standing on his head. And when this through, Good Parrot, you, Please show them how you swear." "Oh, dear; don't cuss," Cried the Octopus, And he walked off on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... "Oh, cuss me, if you ain't simple for your kind! I know all about that. And when you got to the grass-country, you just picked up the honey, and the flowers, and a calf, and a lamb, and a mule here and there, 'without money and without price,' and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Sawtooth had on its pay roll men who were paid to kill and to leave no trace. So many heedless ones crossed the Sawtooth's path to riches! Fred Thurman had been one; a "bull-headed cuss" who had the temerity to fight back when the Sawtooth calmly laid claim to the first water rights to Granite Creek, having bought it, they said, with the placer claim of an old miner who had prospected along the headwaters of Granite at ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... mused. "He sure is a rantankerous cuss when he's lickered up. He'd jest as soon ride his horse through that door as he would to walk through, an' he's always puttin' somethin' over on someone. But he's a man. He'd go through hell an' high water fer a friend. He was the only one of the whole outfit had the guts to ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... Some circles. "We believed! ASQUITH was on our side," The roughs will say. "He's tried, And we—well, we're deceived. If we're permitted in this Square To muster there, why should we care? The game has lost its beauty! Licence unfettered is our plan. Who cares a cuss for Rights of Man, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... Upon this the young cuss of life slowly emerged from the forecastle, holding a cold potato in his hand. The scene on deck made no impression on him, but he walked aft with ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... tear-wet eyes. "Listen to me. I shan't go to bed until I do know that she's all right. I couldn't sleep. Mary Rose has done too much for me. When I think—Lord!—when she came here I was a friendless young cuss hanging on to a job by the skin of my teeth and now—You know I used to be crazy to know you when I met you in the hall and on the stairs and it was Mary Rose, bless her heart! and her canary who made it possible for us to be friends. I can't forget ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and inconsolable, in a red polka jacket and white muslin slip. Mr. Marle, having discovered her place of refuge, now stepped in to lecture and reclaim. Vain proceeding! The Curate's daughter looked at him with a scream, exclaimed, "Cuss me, h'Adam! cuss me!" and rushed out. "H'Adam," after a despondent soliloquy, followed with his eloquent handkerchief to his eyes; but, while he had been talking to himself, our old friend the Highwayman had been on the alert, and had picked Fanny up, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... you see, can read and wroite foine, and ha' got a smooth tongue, and knows how to talk to gals, so some thought she would take him; oi knew well enough she wouldn't do nowt of the koind, for oi ha' heard her say he were a mischievous chap, and a cuss to Varley. Thou know'st, Maister Ned, they do say, but in course oi knows nowt about it, as he be the head of the Luddites in this part ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... dramatic cuss, Rupert. I leaves him posin' in front of the mirror on the bathroom door, gazin' sort ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left the 'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't a cuss left for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced enough I started off ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... information is brought by a Sainte Nitouche of a "Sister" of some Theatrical Order (not admitted after half-past seven), whose very appearance is a suggestio falsi. Equally, of course, a letter is found, which, as exculpating Gooseberry, induces the old cuss of a Puritan father to shake hands with the converted "Spotted Nobleman"; but, be it remembered, the Dook is still his landlord, and the value of the property is going up considerably. Then it appears that the old humbug of an agent has sagaciously speculated in the improvement of the island, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... dat I eber git, an' de only time dat eber I cuss bad wuz when de Yankees come. Dey stold de meat an' things from de smoke house, an' eber thing else dat dey can git. Dey ain't done nothin' ter me, but de way dey done my white folkses made me mad, an' I jumps straight up an' down an' I yells, 'Damn dem Yankees an' damm ole ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the old lady are out buying new togs. I got a letter here that'll astonish them when they get back. It's from that English cuss, Courtney. D'ye ever hear about him? He was hanging about Genevieve all last winter. And this letter says he's coming back, that his grandfather's dead, and he's a lord now, and he's coming back. Do you mind that now, Faraday?" he said, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... I like dogs. I don't like babies—except Mrs. Rickett's and he's such a jolly little cuss." He smiled over the words, and again she felt a deep compassion. Somehow his face seemed almost ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... soul, do you think I'm a fool, or anyone else? It is true I was made an offer for him the last time I was in town, and, for the man looked kinder simple, and you know how it is yourself with hoss trading, I asked the cuss mor'n the animal might have been worth. I asked him forty pounds, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... We'd still be a-many a bend behind the Antelope at sundown but fo' one thing. At Natchez she's got to discharge an all-fired lot o' casting an' boilers, things she can't put ashore 'ithout han'spikes, block-an'-taickle an' all han's a-cuss'n' to oncet. Like as not we'll ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... a-chucklin' that I had saved twenty-five cents on it, wouldn't that be meanness itself? Some time ago I had a ham that I couldn't and wouldn't eat, and they wouldn't take it back at the store, so I got some of the Lord's poor brethren to come to dinner, and I palmed it off on them. But I had to cuss myself the whole evenin' to pay up for ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... went on; and an imperceptible pause followed the words. "We rid down to Garyville to be wed, an' we went from the jestice's office to the office of this here Dickert. He had a cuss with him that was no better'n him; an' when it come to the time in the signin' that our names was put down, an' my wife was to be 'examined privately and apart'—ez is right an' lawful—ez to whether I'd made her sign or not, this other cuss steps with her ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... "Cuss away, y'ould witch!" said old Tom, with a grin through his pipe-stem. "How's the leg?" and Marielihou with a final volley disappeared among the bushes, and ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: 'Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like'—so Miss Lucy say—'he listen to you mo' dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to 'suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be 'round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes'—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin' in her po', thin face—'but he always been'—dem was ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... this: you disobeyed me on your own showing and risked a valuable jewel, messing about on the moor for vanity, or some worse reason. And them that be careless of a lover's wishes before marriage won't care a cuss for 'em after. In a word, I've done with you. This is the last of a lot of pin-pricks you've given me lately, and I've caught ideas and opinions from you during the past month that made me ask myself some difficult questions. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... offensive diagnosis: Old Doc Purdy, the medical examiner, whose sworn testimony had years before procured the judge his pension as a Civil War veteran, became brutal about it. Said Purdy: "I had to think up some things that would get the old cuss his money and dummed if he didn't take it all serious and think ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Ma'tine," he began, "don' yer cuss me fer eatin' all the supper. I 'lowed ter this Jackson, as yer call 'im, that yer'd get a bite somewhar else, en ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... bad man from Way Back," he yelled at the top of his voice. "I'm the toughest cuss in Coyote county, and no darned greasers from Buller's can close up this town when I'm in it. You hear me! Salt Lick's wide open, and I'm standing in the street ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr |
