"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fine, Two 'undred pounds between 'is knees; Eight stone he was, an' rode at nine, As light an' limber ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ten days ago, when I leaves Vee and my peaceful little home after a week-end swing, I expects to be shot up to Amesbury, Mass., to inspect a gun-limber factory. Am I? Not at all. By 3 P.M. I'm in Bridgeport, Conn., wanderin' about sort of aimless, and tryin' to size up a proposition that I'm about as well qualified to handle as a plumber's helper called in to tune a ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... keep your backbone limber! Hold his head up now at this jump—don't drag at his mouth that way! Why! damn it all! . . . you haven't as good hands as a cab-driver,' is the kind of stuff he keeps yellin' at poor ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... befriends the grand American expression—it is brawny enough, and limber and full enough. On the tough stock of a race who, through all change of circumstance, was never without the idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant tongues. It is the powerful ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... tuned, and on this, under the music master's direction, she ran scales for the better part of an hour—to limber her fingers, ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... its time. Even as I write our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him to a rascal. The ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... stretched himself upon the opposite place, reclining upon his elbow in a most painful and awkward situation, with his head raised above the end of the couch, that the economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle, without sustaining any misfortune but that of his stocking being torn by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the rest of his limbs. But the baron, who was neither ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... met upon the threshold of the "billet" (half a limber load of bricks and an angle iron) was quite sure the Salvage Company couldn't take a dog, as they had an infant wild boar and two fox cubs numbering on their strength; but he thought that he could plant my prodigy with a friend of his, a bombardier in the E.G.A., ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... as much docility as the slave had done, and by their united efforts the patient was soon dressed in warm dry clothes, wrapped in a hot, thick blanket, and tucked up comfortably in bed. But though her form was now limber, and her pulse perceptible, she had not yet spoken or opened her eyes. It was a half an hour later, while Hannah stood bathing her temples with camphor, and Mrs. Jones sat rubbing her hands, that Nora showed the first signs of returning consciousness, and these seemed attended with ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... streams. Just one degree fainter in its hue—or shall we rather say brighter—for we feel the difference without knowing in what it lies—stands, by the Alder's rounded softness, the spiral LARCH, all hung over its limber sprays, were you near enough to admire them, with cones of the Tyrian dye. That stem, white as silver, and smooth as silk, seen so straight in the green sylvan light, and there airily overarching the coppice with lambent tresses, such as ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Doctor Chickens The Causes of Poultry Diseases Chicken Cholera Roup Chicken-pox, Gapes, Limber-neck Lice ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... bursting about them and bullets too soon began to strike upon the lawn. A battery that sought to drive back the advancing column was exposed to such a heavy fire that it was compelled to limber up and retreat. The officers urged Lee to withdraw and at length, mounting Traveler, he rode back slowly and deliberately to his inner line. Harry often wondered what his feelings were on that day, but whatever they were his face expressed nothing. When he stopped ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... customary for the horsemen who raced the flier to wait on the ground until the engine rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the headway the train already had, to start a hundred yards or so before the engine came abreast, in order to limber up to the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the meeting in the church excitement ran continuously higher. Business was at length suspended; the fishermen forgot their nets; and the limber tongues of the town gossips steadily increased their clatter. Don Mario's store and patio assumed the functions of a departmental office. Daily he might be seen laboriously drafting letters of incredible length and wearisome prolixity to acting-Bishop Wenceslas; ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... with this?" demanded Fred. "It may not be very beautiful, but it'll do the work all right. It's limber too, so that if a high wind comes up it will bend and ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... about that, Bert. You see, I ain't quite so limber as what I used to be when I was your age or jest a little older. Now you jest hop along, both of you, ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... feel for a little girl. The way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping . . . it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so different and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... "Prince," which must come to the mind of every one who reads the "Farewell Address," one sees at once that the "Prince" is more limber, it may be more spontaneous, but the great difference between the two is in their fundamental conception. The "Address" is frankly a preachment and much of its impressiveness comes from that fact. The "Prince," on the other hand, has ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... an' at most three, or may be four hour agone. See thar!" he continued, raising one of the limbs, and letting it drop again; "limber as a eel! Ef he'd a been dead last night, the leg'd been stiff long ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... machine-gun mounted in the gallery, its grim muzzle pointed out through a slit in the colloid screen. "The six guns we've got aboard, in strategic positions, look like good medicine to me! Wouldn't it be the correct thing to call the gun-crews and limber up a little? These chaps aren't going to be all day in getting here, and when ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... "Oh, you'll limber up soon," said Hank, cheerfully. "Now, if you boys will get the water, and break out the grub, I'll get supper. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... a pair of ordinary old shoes, stuff them out with newspapers, and use them for Santa Claus's feet. Roll two pieces of cardboard, or pieces of limber pasteboard boxes, into cylinders; ink or blacken them. When dry, cut a curve in one end of each, like Fig. 223, and fit these tops over the stuffed shoes to make them into boots. Set the boots on a bench or a low table, placed across in front of Santa Claus, and adjust them ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... You put me off with limber Vowes: but I, Though you would seek t' vnsphere the Stars with Oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going: Verely You shall not goe; a Ladyes Verely 'is As potent as a Lords. Will you goe yet? Force me to keepe you as a Prisoner, Not like a Guest: so you shall pay your ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... post in order to view the ground, over which, they stated, they were going to attack, in two days' time. At dusk our troops withdrew through the night-outpost line; "C" Sub-section, with the one limber that accompanied it, returned to camp, independently. On this day the Squadron watering-party was bombed by hostile aircraft, but no casualties occurred. October 30th was spent in "resting," and in the afternoon ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock, Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock? What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan,— "Out of a river-reed music ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... Cardinal's big man. Honor read hungrily every scrap of print which came to her,—her stepfather taking care that every mention of Jimsy King reached her. It was in his Sophomore year that he played the lead in the college play and Honor read the newspapers limp and limber—"James King in the lead did a remarkable piece of work." "King, Stanford's football star, surprised his large following by his really brilliant performance." "Well-known college athlete demonstrates his ability to act." Honor ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... legs we used to fling Limber-jointed in the dance, When we heard the fiddle ring Up the curtain of Romance, And in crowded public halls Played with hearts like jugglers' balls.— Feats of mountebanks, depend!— Tom Van ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... which, as a carpenter, had been rather stiff. I took lessons of him, and as he was a practical business man, I escaped the vicious habit of flourishing in my writing. He insisted that I should write a plain, simple, round hand, which I did. As my fingers became limber, I made excellent progress, and I was really ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... afternoon, with the remark: "I find it does not tend toward efficiency." It was a remark that irritated and, to the minds of the men at the country clubs, seemed to place him. They liked to play polo because they liked to play polo, not because it kept their muscles limber and ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... Aw, now, Stella; can't you be a good fellow for once? Do it, if it hurts you. Honest, I hate to say it, but you're the limit, you are! My God! limber ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... change, Marrying the eager echoes that weave in A music clear and strange. But pausing soon, each lays his hammer down And deeply breathing bares His chest, stalwart and brown, To the sunny airs. Laughing one to another, limber hand On limber hip, flushed in a group they stand, And now untired renew their ringing toil. The sun stands high, and ever a fresh throng Comes murmuring; but ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... said he, "has puzzled half the doctors on the Pacific Slope. It's as good as new, and as limber as a hickory twig." ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is a rule to attack the enemy with renewed vigour, as soon as he begins to limber up his artillery in the combat, then on this particular fact depends a course of action which is aimed at the general situation of the enemy as inferred from the above fact, namely, that he is about to give up the fight, that he is commencing to draw off his troops, and is neither capable of ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... form, but having broader leaves, which are thick like leather, and bearing small knobs like those of the cypress. From these trees hang down many branches into the water, each about the thickness of a walking-stick, smooth, limber, and pithy within, which are overflowed by every tide, and hang as thick as they can stick of oysters, being the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found himself lying ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... alleyway. "And you have been sprinkling it on this midshipman's uniform? You are the fellow who runs the temperance drinks place? A nice business for you to be in—drugging midshipmen and trying to ruin them! To prison you go, unless you limber up your tongue. Who put you up to this miserable business? Talk quickly—or off ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... upon the snow-shoes With a long and limber stride; And I hailed the dusky stranger, As ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... run up wi' you an' begin to git limber-jawed," league continued, "thes hang your thum' in that kinder keerless like, an' they'll sw'ar by you thereekly. Ef any of 'em asts the news, thes say they's a leak in Sugar Creek. Well, well, well!" he exclaimed, after a little pause; ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... in the end,—the springboard of the Pacific coast logger, whose daily business lies among the biggest timber on God's footstool. Each then clambered up on his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of the tree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there was the undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree would fall. That done, they ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight 660 As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was the rush that the Federal artillerymen were surprised. The gun was double-shotted with canister, and the head of the column should have been swept away. But the aim was high and the Confederates escaped. Then, as the limber came forward, the horses, terrified by the heavy fire and the yells of the charging infantry, became unmanageable; and the gunners, abandoning the field-piece, fled through the streets of Port Republic. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This roused the guard, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... expectations, in tolerances, and these rather increase with the lapse of time. We should say that your theory of the stiffening tastes is applicable to the earlier rather than the later middle life. We should say that the tastes if they stiffen at the one period limber at the other; their forbidding rigidity is succeeded by an acquiescent suppleness. One is aware of an involuntary hospitality toward a good many authors whom one would once have turned destitute from the door, or with a dole of Organized Charity meal-tickets at ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... had placed himself on an eminence, to see his army file to the opposite side of the river. A consultation was held upon the practicability of passing the guns. Captain Miller volunteered to conduct the first gun. The limber was taken off, and drag ropes were fastened to the washers, to prevent the gun from descending too rapidly. The trail, carried foremost, was held up by two gunners, but, notwithstanding every precaution, the bridge swung ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... the cappers, the steerers, and the snatchers of crumbs in all cannot find protection under the flag and its institutions? That was what the gamblers' trust of Comanche wanted to know. In order to insure it they had the city incorporated, and put in a good, limber-wristed bartender ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... lips, and proceeded to stump up and down the lobby, "to limber up," as she said, although her three companions offered to do anything that ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... down on de ground, and set me down on it; then he fall down dere on de grass by me and blubber out and warm my fingers in his hands. I just took pity on him and told him mighty plain dat he must limber up his tongue and ask sumpin', say what he mean, wantin' to visit them pigs so often. Us carry on foolishness 'bout de little boar shoat pig and de little sow pig, then I squeal in laughter over how he scrouge so close; de slop bucket tipple over and I lost my seat. Dat ever ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... fuse for one second's time. After preparing several shells and receiving no word from his general he made ready several charges of canister, knowing the enemy to be close at hand. Still nobody came for the ammunition. He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... must be abundantly generated. Simply to enter such a room in the morning, is almost sufficient to sicken a healthy individual; how much more injurious must be its effects upon the lodgers themselves. Examine in the morning a child, who has passed the night thus confined. You will find him limber as a rag, exhausted by perspiration, wholly destitute of animation, without appetite, and on the very verge of cholera. I should recommend an entirely different plan of management. Instead of a feather bed, the child should be placed on a hard mattress, or on blankets folded and laid upon the floor. ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out. I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them. The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes. The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons. I am satisfied the enemy's infantry and artillery ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of August stood white on the plain Jules Francois was ordered to go to Lorraine, Since the guns would get flirting with good Mr. KRUPP And wanted Jules Francois to limber them up, To lay and to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... have ordered my next canoe on lines and dimensions that, in my judgment, will be found nearly perfect for the average canoeist of 150 to 160 pounds. She will be much stronger than either of any other canoes, because few men would like a canoe so frail and limber that she can be sprung inward by hand pressure on the gunwales, as easily as a hat-box. And many men are clumsy or careless with a boat, while others are lubberly by nature. Her dimensions are: Length, 10 1/2 feet; beam, 26 ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... riding up, and the retreat now sounding through our ranks, we were obliged to fall back upon the infantry. The French pursued us hotly; and so rapid was their movement, that before Ramsey's brigade could limber up and away, their squadrons had surrounded him ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Van Horn, taking advantage of the calm to exercise the boat's crew with the fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was passing out the Lee-Enfields from their place on top the cabin skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to stalk stiff-legged. But the wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes, was not unobservant. He watched and ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... between bites of a doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're right side up 'n movin'. We ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... The limber, maturing, rounding form of Hulda stepped on the footstool of his mind, touched his knee, and exhaled the aroma of her youth like a subtile musk, till he leaned back languidly, as if he smoked a pipe and on its bowl her bust was painted, and all her modesties dissolved into the intoxication. Brutality ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... rested, but at night there was a dance, for which my maiden aunt played the piano. The dear good soul, whose old brown fingers were none too limber, had skill that scarcely mounted to the speed of a polka, but she was steady at a waltz. There was one tune—bink a bunk bunk, bink a bunk bunk—that went around and around with an agreeable monotony even when the player ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... "why, thy limber bit of a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany, shows like a housewife's distaff when the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and both the civilian and the soldier agreed that their only chance was to fight. Williams opened fire with his Infantry, and Ricketts took command of the guns. At the first discharge the horses bolted with the limber, and never appeared again; almost at the same moment Williams fell, shot through the body. Ricketts continued the fight until his ammunition was completely expended, when he was reluctantly obliged to retire to a village in the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Christmas everything in the garden was nearly ready to be picked. Some few things needed a little more December sun, but everything looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would not pop out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks were hardly as limber as they might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the chapel for the greater part of the time, and only went over the garden once a day to see if everything ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... considerable weight and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth, light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile, considerable knowledge of what he should not know, and no experience of what he ought to do. Few boys had more narrowly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Peace, That now is foremost in your prayers, Shall crown your harvest with increase, And bless with smiles the home of tears; Your wounds be healed; your noble sons, Unhurt, unmutilated—free— Shall limber up their conquering guns, In triumph grand ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... of view of the German trenches, but well within shell-range, the harvesting was being done by French soldiers. One of them was driving the reaping—machine and looked like a gunner on his limber, with his kepi thrust to the back of his head. The trousers of his comrades were as red as the poppies that grew on the edge of the wheat, and three of these poilus had ceased their work to drink out of a leather ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... troops mounted the Huft Kothul, giving three cheers when they reached the summit. Here Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham, with a party of sappers, pressed the enemy so hard, that they left in their precipitation a twenty-four pound howitzer and limber, carrying off the draft-bullocks. Having heard that another gun had been seen, and concluding that it could not have gone very far, I detached a squadron of dragoons, under Captain Tritton, and two horse-artillery guns, under Major Delafosse, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... keep your jabbering tongues still," he said, "and let me have a chance to talk. It's so long since I've seen a boy from up on the Earth that I'd like to talk a spell myself—to limber up my old tongue. It's grown pretty ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... to sneak out of my window when I was a boy, so I need not disturb the aunts, and now I rather like it, for it's the shortest road, and it keeps me limber when I have no rigging to climb. Good-bye till breakfast." And away he went down the water-spout, over the roof, and vanished among the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... tear the hooks from their hold. Successful fishing depends upon two things,—the presence of fish and knowing more than fish do. At the instant of the fish's leap the Professor slackened his line: down came the bass on a limber loop, defeated in his strategy and wearied by his effort, to be hauled quickly to the boat's side and landed, wriggling and tossing, at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the earth lurched as it swung, and every joint in my body went limber as a rag. I caught at El Mahdi's mane, then I felt Jud's arm go round me, and heard Ump talking at my ear. But they were a long distance away. I heard instead the bees droning, and Ward's merry laugh, as he carried me on his shoulder a babbling youngster in a little white kilt. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill, suddenly shoot forth; which {now} stood there with a root newly-formed, {and} not with the iron {point} driven in; and, now no longer as a dart, but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring {spectators}, a shade that was ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... wheel-ropes, made of green hide, laid up in the form of rope, were stretched and fitted; and new top-sail clewlines, etc., rove; new fore-topmast back-stays fitted; and other preparations made, in good season, that the ropes might have time to stretch and become limber before we ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... John Kollander's advice. But Amos could not abide the presence much less the counsel of the professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel Sands—as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove improbable contentions—odd jobs in his church, odd jobs in his party organization, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... seed and apple thorn, Wire, brier, limber lock, Three geese in a flock; Along came Tod, With his long rod, And scared them all to Migly-wod. One flew east, one flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.— Make ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... better now; that glass was warming.— You rascal! limber your lazy feet I We must be fiddling and performing For supper and bed, or starve in the street.— Not a very gay life to lead, you think? But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers need neither victuals ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... outside with rifles and bayonets, 120 rounds of ammunition, wearing our tin hats, and the march to church began. After marching about five kilos, we turned off the road into an open field. At one end of this field the Chaplain was standing in a limber. We formed a semi-circle around him. Over head there was a black speck circling round and round in the sky. This was a German Fokker. The Chaplain had a book in his left hand-left eye on the book-right eye on the ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... ball as though your hand was frozen; keep your hand limber and see that you get the belly of the ball in it, not one end; then it won't tilt itself out. When you get the ball from center rise quickly, put your back against guard, and throw your weight there. And it's just as necessary for you to have confidence in ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... more we rumbled through Miraflores tunnel through a mole-hill, past her concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as silently returned. I climbed by a stone-faced ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S—-'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We endeavoured to procure ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... on the go pretty steadily, but what's a horse good for? Thursday afternoon we had our cross-country run and the ground was horribly stiff. I thought he had sprained his off foreleg for he limped a good deal on the home stretch, but he seemed to limber up all right the last few miles. I was sorry not to let him rest yesterday; would have put him in better trim I suppose for to-day's twenty mile pull,—but Cartwright and Peterson wanted to make up a tandem, and when they asked ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... there with two pair o' pants on," answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels. I used to think, when I was a boy, that 'twas the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an' follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There warn't nobody but me ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... breathed Mr. Phipps, as the lad rode away at the same time straightening out his rope which he allowed to drag behind his pony while he recoiled it, working it in his hands to limber ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... 'A little child, a limber elf,' With health and spirits all agog, He does the long jump in a bog Or teaches men to swim and dive. If he should be cut up alive, Should I not be ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... what store of woods and timber of prodigious size were grown in our little county of Surrey, my own grandfather had standing at Wotton, and about that estate, timber that now were worth L100,000. Since of what was left my father (who was a great preserver of wood) there has been L30,000. worth of limber fallen by the axe, and the fury of the hurricane in 1703, by which upwards of 1,000 trees were blown down. Now, no more Wotton! stript and naked, and ashamed almost to own its name." The Wotton woods are still flourishing, and within the last fourteen years we have passed many delightful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise world is little else, in ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... each green fir branch Is plumed and tasselled, till each heather stalk Is delicately fringed. The sycamores, Through all their mystical entanglement Of boughs, are draped with silver. All the green Of sweet leaves playing with the subtle air In dainty murmuring; the obstinate drone Of limber bees that in the monk's-hood bells House diligent; the imperishable glow Of summer sunshine never more confessed The harmony of nature, the divine, Diffusive spirit of the beautiful. Out in the snowy dimness, half revealed Like ghosts in glimpsing moonshine, wildly run The children ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... was steppin' over a hot griddle. Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an' splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a grasshopper. Sam he comes back an' tells Ed all about the latest devilment. You hear of it; then, mebbe, ye begin to limber up an' think ye'll try it yerself. An' some morning ye'll wake up an' find yer moral character has scooted. You fellers that go t' meetin' here an' talk about resistin' temptation—if you ever git t' goin' it down there in New ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... limber up my German vocabulary he passed us along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober- Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in Brussels, and that under no circumstances ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... There ain't anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple juice to limber his tongue! ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... around for half an hour in the yard to see whether it will go. No, you first look after the machinery, to see if all is in working order, and then you start out, knowing it will go. I do a lot of gymnastics each day, to exercise the voice and limber up the anatomy. These act as a massage for the voice; they are in the nature of humming, mingled with grunts, calls, exclamations, shouts, and many kinds of sounds—indeed so many and various they ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... veils are washed at home they usually come out quite limber and flimsy. To give them the stiffness add a pinch of sugar to the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the floor. Repeat upright position. Keep the knees straight throughout. Aim to stretch the entire body and hands upward and backward as far as possible, with the upward motion of the arms. If you can't touch the floor without bending the knees, just come as near it as you can. Practice will limber you up until you can ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... had found Jimmy entirely too limber a foil to use with any degree of skill, and she knew from past experience that Sandy and Carter were much better matched. If Sid Gray had been there also, she would have been quite happy. In Annette's estimation it was all a mistake about love ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... not so limber as what Ralph is. There does be giddiness and delay in my feet. It might fail me to heave it to a hiding place and to ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... ole Mister Age begins a-stealin' Thoo yo' back an' knees, W'en yo' bones an' jints lose der limber feelin', An' am stiff'nin' by degrees; Now der's jes one way to feel young and spry, W'en you heah dem banjos soun' Git a great big swig o' de ole corn juice, An' w'en you ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your legs! Tommy! ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... scant a shathmont's length, And sma' and limber was his thie, Between his e'en there was a span, And between his shoulders there ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... young or old, is to be your compagnon de voyage, Miss Harz, and the most determined widower on record her escort; a perfect John Rogers of a man, with nine little motherless children, her brother Raguet ('Rag,' as we called him at school, on account of his prim stiffness, so that 'limber as a rag' seemed a most preposterous saying in his vicinity). He is handsome, however, and intelligent, a perfect gentleman, but on the mourners' bench just now, like some others you know of"—heaving ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... body of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for merchandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering and sat up. Others, again, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... unendurable. Sergeant Leroy L. Key, of Company M, our battalion, resolved to make an effort to crush the Raiders. He was a printer, from Bloomington, Illinois, tall, dark, intelligent and strong-willed, and one of the bravest men I ever knew. He was ably seconded by "Limber Jim," of the Sixty-Seventh Illinois, whose lithe, sinewy form, and striking features reminded one of a young Sioux brave. He had all of Key's desperate courage, but not his brains or his talent for leadership. Though fearfully ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... free of the sling now, and, though it was still a bit stiff, it was beginning to limber up nicely. In another week it would be as good as new, with only a slight scar left to serve as a reminder of the episode that had led to so much. In time that too would disappear; and then— But he was not concerned with the future. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... run," Smoke contradicted. "You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. Caribou meat is very good, and soon will come summer ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the development of a problem with which I, that is, my mind, can have very little to do. Question: shall I get stiffer as the days grow colder, until on the hike they will discharge me as an old man; or will it all work off as I get used to the exercise, until I am limber? It is really a very serious matter, my dear, this being forty-five years old. One should turn life into a profession, and study how to become young. There are a number of men of my age or older here at camp, and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... grand ball-game arranged for the following Sunday at Erribiague, a far-distant village, near the tall mountains. Ramuntcho, Arrochkoa and Florentino were to play against three celebrated ones of Spain; they were to practice that evening, limber their arms on the square of Etchezar, and Gracieuse, with other little girls of her age, had taken seats on the granite benches to look at them. The girls, all pretty; with elegant airs in their pale colored ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... to me at the time, but owing to our hurried movements and the vicissitudes of the battle, I have never had an opportunity to verify it. It was said that during the retreat of the artillery one piece of Stewart's battery did not limber up as soon as the others. A rebel officer rushed forward, placed his hand upon it, and presenting a pistol at the back of the driver, directed him not to drive off with the piece. The latter did so, however, received the ball in his body, caught up with the ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... limber, bounding feet That swept the winter's snows? What stateliest stag so fast and fleet? Their speed ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... yesterday, your high nobility, they drove a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and vinegar; they are leading him apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got drunk yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber of ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I could fire a couple of bursts?" Edwardson asked, his fingers on the gunfire button. "Just to limber the guns?" ...
— The Hour of Battle • Robert Sheckley
... open admiration, the swift, sure precision of her every move. She glanced up, a slice of bacon held above the pan, and their eyes met. During a long moment of silence the man's heart beat wildly. The girl's eyes dropped suddenly: "Crisp, or limber?" she asked, and to the cowboy's ears, the voice sounded even richer and deeper of tone ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... also the glow seen in his whirling globe. Continuing his investigations, he soon discovered that solid glass rods when rubbed produced the same effects as the tube. By mere chance, happening to hold a rubbed tube to his cheek, he felt the effect of electricity upon the skin like "a number of fine, limber hairs," and this suggested to him that, since the mysterious manifestation was so plain, it could be made to show its effects upon various substances. Suspending some woollen threads over the whirling glass cylinder, he found that ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the twain forwards pressed for a long time, and the Raven of cut-and-thrust croaked over the field of fight and they exchanged strokes with the Hindi scymitar and they thrust and foined with the Khatti spear and more than one blade and limber lance was shivered and splintered, all the tribesmen looking on the while at both. And they ceased not to attack and retire and to draw near and draw off and to heave and fence until their forearms ailed and their endeavour failed. Already there appeared in the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... strategical military organization in public, and caused it to illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles of MR. E. DROOD to American minds and matters, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... a severe and dangerous sport. A lump of soft clay was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw apples from sticks, with considerable force. When there were fifty or a hundred players on each side, the battle became warm; but anything to arouse the bravery of Indian boys seemed to them a ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... successful opposition infuriated the man. He was not accustomed to defence. His fury knew no restraint. He rained the blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself. Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise; unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her head just below the ear. It stretched her ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... The circus man took hold of Pony and felt his joints. "You're put together pretty tight; but I reckon we could make you do if you'd let us take you apart with a screw-driver and limber up the pieces with rattlesnake oil. Wouldn't like it, heigh? Well, let me see!" The circus man thought a moment, and then he said: "How would double-somersaults on four ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... had nor horse, nor ox, nor ass, but the deer so little and limber; They ran in the forest to please themselves, why shouldn't ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... admired him and talked about his great change, and Mr. 'Possum touched him and said his complexion seemed pretty solid, somewhat like a shell, and Mr. Crow told him how he had to move rather carefully in it, at first, though very likely it would limber up in time. Then he told them how he was going to do the kitchen that way, and perhaps other things, and they all got excited and talked about it, and Mr. 'Possum said that probably he would have them give ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... when song was great In days of old Amphion, [1] And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, Nor cared for seed or scion! And had I lived when song was great, And legs of trees were limber, And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, And ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... be the last night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes knows more. I can find a safer, if not a more honest employment, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wore long pink-and-white striped stockings of a suspiciously feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White |
