"Oakum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, "I want Will to come with me to make a little search for that old boat we were told could be found hidden under a shelving rock near the shore. It hasn't been used for some years, and is apt to be in poor shape, but I've got some oakum and a calking tool. With those, I hope to put it in condition, so with frequent baling we can use it on ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... at least three days and may be left in place for a week. In cases in which it is necessary to keep the dressing on for a week, or in cases where the patient is, through necessity, kept in quarters that are wet or unclean, the first bandage is covered with a layer of oakum which has been saturated in oil of tar and this in turn is held in place by means of several layers of bandages. The bandages are also saturated with oil ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... "Oakum to me, {156} ye sailors bold, Wot plows upon the sea; To you I mean for to unfold My mournful historie. So pay attention to my song, And quick-el-ly shall appear, How innocently, all along, I was ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... that swift little ship in the middle of the second watch, or two in the morning. He was "to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it [oakum or the like] that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered by a boiling up." Thomas Moone "at the hearing hereof" was utterly dismayed, for to him the project seemed flat burglary as ever was committed. Why, he ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... disheartened. This is not such bad work for a first attempt. The boat would look better if it were painted, and that would fill up a few of the cracks too. As some of the boards are not dovetailed together, you should have calked the seams with oakum." ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... there the fatal obstacle was, whatever it might be. "I am not free," she repeated, and again the italics were her very own. After much to-do, it came out that what she meant was that she had a brother who oughtn't to be free; ought, if justice were done, to be picking oakum or whatever else they pick in their leisure hours way back in U.S.A. And this was the whole and the sole fatal obstacle! Hemingway took it as it came; Mr. DAVIS seemed quite pleased about it; but I felt that I had been wantonly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... of maps; party employed in preparations for the journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria, camp duties, and preparing oakum for the schooner. Having found that the pork had been so much reduced in weight during the late journey, I made some experiments in the preparation of meat biscuits by mixing the preserved fresh beef with flour in equal proportions, with satisfactory results, as the reduction ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... found a coil of rope in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat's-cradle, or pick oakum. He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her boxes for a travelling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveller who should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... with Thongs, sticks across & Ribs of Bark, and they deposit Sheets of Bark in her Bottom to prevent Breaches there. These vessels are very light, each broken and often patched with Pieces of Bark as well as corked with Oakum composed of ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... the 'Past' of 'Past and Present,' which, with its intense and sympathetic mediaevalism, might have been written by a Tractarian. The 'Life of Sterling' is the favourite book of many who would sooner pick oakum than read 'Frederick the Great' all through; whilst the mere student of belles lettres may attach importance to the essays on Johnson, Burns, and Scott, on Voltaire and Diderot, on Goethe and Novalis, and yet remain blankly indifferent to 'Sartor ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... much, through the lewd demeanour and vexation of the beetles that inhabit the diarodal (diarhomal) climate of an hypocritical ape on horseback, bending a crossbow backwards, the plaintiff truly had just cause to calfet, or with oakum to stop the chinks of the galleon which the good woman blew up with wind, having one foot shod and the other bare, reimbursing and restoring to him, low and stiff in his conscience, as many bladder-nuts and wild pistaches as there is of hair in eighteen cows, with as much for the embroiderer, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the floor, tightly bound hand and foot, a gag of oakum stuck in his mouth and securely held there by cloth tightly strapped ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... above the element. The carpenter proposed, therefore, that the main-hatches, which had been off when the tornado occurred, but which had been found on deck when the vessel righted, should now be put on, oakum being first laid along in their rabbetings, and that the cracks should be stuffed with additional oakum, to exclude as much water as possible. He thought that two or three men, by using caulking irons for ten minutes, would make the hatch-way so tight that ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... said Dabney: "next time we come out we'll bring a hammer and nails, and some oakum, and I'll calk up that old punt so she'll float well enough. Only it won't do to ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... tolerably well at the age of eight. The next time I met them was in a 5s. one-volume edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in Falmouth, at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment of calkers' mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship in dry-dock. We had run in, in a sinking condition and with the crew refusing duty after a month of weary battling with the gales of the North Atlantic. Books are an integral part of one's life, and my Shakespearian associations are with that first ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... after pumping ship, the engineer reported a leak in the way of the propeller-shaft aft near the stern-post on the port side. The carpenter cut part of the lining and filled the space between the timbers with Stockholm tar, cement, and oakum. He could not get at the actual leak, but his makeshift made a little difference. I am anxious about the propeller. This pack is a dangerous place for a ship now; it seems miraculous that the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... until Neptune came on board, which he did with one of his wives. It was my morning watch, when the frigate was hailed and desired to heave to, which was done. The cooper, a black man, personated the sea-god. His head was graced with a large wig and beard made of tarred oakum. His shoulders and waist were adorned by thrumbed mats; on his feet were a pair of Greenland snow-shoes. In his right hand he held the grains (an instrument something resembling a trident, and used for striking ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... short of telling why the sergeant was tramping a country lane in tatters; or even to argue that he must have pretermitted some while ago his labours for the general defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his attention to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present; and the man of war went on to contend that drinking was one thing and a friendly ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... arrangements there, which of course were found in applepie order. My brother was greatly impressed by his own importance when the man in livery at the head of the procession repeatedly called to the crowd, "Make way for the Grand Jury!" He saw the prisoners picking "oakum," or untwisting old ropes that had been used in boats, tearing the strands into loose hemp to be afterwards used in caulking the seams between the wood planks on the decks and sides of ships, so as to make them water-tight; and as it was near the prisoners' dinner-time, he saw the food that had ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... thing to do is to insert tamping. In the improved form of hole the tamping should not he put directly upon the powder, but an air space should be left, as shown at B, Fig. 8. The best way to tamp, leaving an air space, is first to insert a wad, which may be of oakum, hay, grass, paper or other similar material. The tamping should be placed from 6 to 12 in. below the mouth of the hole. In some kinds of stone a less distance will suffice, and as much air space as practicable should intervene between the explosive and the tamping. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... raised to a sufficient height above the spring-tides, and rendered water-tight by pitch and oakum, was placed above the mouth of the shaft. Its sides were supported by stout props in an inclined direction. At the top of this wooden construction, which was twenty feet in height, a platform of boards was ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... to haul the boat out of the water, and to their satisfaction, and the amazement of Skipper Zeb, discovered that no serious damage had been done. A plank had been broken, but ribs and timbers were uncracked. The boat was soon mended and the new section of plank caulked with oakum, and shortly after midday the trap boat was again afloat, and quite as serviceable as before ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... A 'presidiario' is a convict, and convicts in Cuba are sentenced to eternal cigarette-making in lieu of oakum-picking. The government contract with the manufacturers for ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Street. That's where he's aiming for. The company's just where it has to have a boost. It's just GOT to. If it doesn't, there'll be a bust up that may end in fitting out a high-toned promoter or so in a striped yellow-and-black Jersey suit and set him to breaking rocks or playing with oakum. I'll tell you, poor old Palliser gets the Willies sometimes after he's read his mail. He turns the color of ecru baby Irish. That's a kind of lace I got a dressmaker to tell me about when I wrote up receptions and dances for the Sunday Earth. Ecru baby Irish—that's ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... tackle, sails, anchors, and the heavy bolts and nails for these vessels. You would also have to send from Nueva Espana two skilled ship-builders, two forges, and two dozen negroes from those that your majesty maintains at the harbor at Vera Cruz who might be taken without causing any shortage. Pitch, oakum, and grease, which are not to be had here, could be made without any further cost. The ships could be manned by slaves bought from these natives, or taken from those places which do not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... But this was no independent, self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." The captain asserted ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... necessity for work saved me from undue philosophizing; and night found me ten miles on my seaward voyage, with the three dogs skinned and their fur wrapped around me as a coat. I also frayed a small piece of rope into oakum and mixed it with the fat from the intestines of my dogs. But, alas, I found that the matches in my box, which was always chained to me, were soaked to a pulp and quite useless. Had I been able to make a fire out there ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... who killed every person on board, at the time of the capture, except a beautiful English lady, a passenger on the ship, who was brought ashore at night and brutally murdered at a ledge of rocks near Oakum Bay. As the fishermen who lived near were absent in their boats, the women and children, who were startled from their sleep by her piercing shrieks, dared not attempt a rescue. Taking her a little way from shore in their boat, the pirates flung her into the sea, and as she ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... clothing, sitting like a frog, his arms wrapped about his legs, his chin resting upon his knees. Smooth, oakum-coloured hair; long nose; mouth like a satyr's, with upturned, tobacco-stained corners. An eye like a fish's; a red necktie with a horseshoe pin. He began with a rasping chuckle that gradually formed ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... crossed, brilliantly lit up by the flames, while her attendant prayed. The fire did not last long: the house was wooden, with the crevices filled with oakum, like all those of Russian peasants, so that the flames, creeping out at the four corners, soon made great headway, and, fanned by the wind, spread rapidly to all parts of the building. Vaninka followed the progress ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... words, getting the cow on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of passengers' luggage; and there seemed ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... pig-iron, the strong, clean shaped T-rail for railroads; Oilworks, silkworks, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the great mills and factories; Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades, or window or door lintels— the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, Oakum, the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron—the kettle of boiling vault- cement, and the fire under the kettle, The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working knife of the butcher, the ice- saw, and all the work with ice, The implements ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... began to leak considerably, but we prevented it as well as we could, by stuffing the largest holes with oakum, which an old sailor had had the precaution to take before quitting the frigate. At noon the heat became so strong—so intolerable, that several of us believed we had reached our last moments. The hot winds of the Desert even reached us; ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... seem as if it could be, does it? I guess likely I'm gettin' him mixed with a feller name of Samuel Schwartz that I knew on South Street in New York one time. Run a pawn shop, he did. I remember that Schwartz 'cause he used to take stuff, you know—er—er—same as a Chinaman. One of them oakum eaters, that s what he was—an oakum eater. Why one ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... believe that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it .. coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots. He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging. No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging. What's the old man have so much to ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... ends brought to the capstan through snatch blocks. Planks were then strapped loosely on the lines and allowed to run along them freely, being weighted sufficiently to cause them to sink. After they were slung clear of the ship, they were held in position until a pad of canvas and oakum was inserted between them ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... doggie, don't wink in that idiotical way, you hanimated bundle of oakum! and don't wag yer tail so hard, else you'll shake it off some fine day! Well, Cuff, here you an' I are fixed—'it may be for years, an' it may be for ever'—as the old song says; so it behoves you and me to hold a consultation as to wot's the best to be done ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... tank itself can be as near the house as ten or fifteen feet but the piping connecting it with the soil line of the plumbing should be water tight. The best way is to use four-inch cast iron pipe, calking all joints with oakum and lead. At a convenient point between house and tank, this line of pipe should have a "clean-out" fitting so that rags, solidified grease, or other substances that might block it can be removed. Sometimes vitrified tile with cemented joints is used instead of cast-iron pipe; but it has the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... another trouble with which the mule is afflicted. Cut away the parts of the frog that seem to be destroyed, clean the parts well with castile-soap, and apply muriatic acid. If you have not this at hand, a little tar mixed with salt, and placed on oakum or tow, and applied, will do nearly as well. Apply this every day, keeping the parts well dressed, and the feet according to directions in shoeing, and ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... slipway, every detail of the vessel was visible, even to the last fathom of oakum now being hammered into her port garboard seam. White painted and trim, she spelled speed and weatherliness in every line, and a note of admiration escaped Barry as he regarded her clean underbody from a safe distance. A trickle of water was already creeping up towards her stern; the rudder ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... to the road again, pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore the beast to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their provisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the country that the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... down under us inside the next two hours. There's the pumps, too: for if she don't take in water like a basket I was never born in Wendron parish an' taught blastin'. Why, master, you must ha' blown the very oakum out of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... triangular form with a bulkhead running across, to which I nailed my side timbers, so as to give them an outward curve. These streaks I put on clinker-wise—that is, overlapping, and thoroughly caulked them with oakum soaked ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... guns they are!—you have nothing but the men engaged in commerce,—sharp, clever, shrewd, well-informed fellows; they are deep in flax-seed, cunning in molasses, and not to be excelled in all that pertains to coffee, sassafras, cinnamon, gum, oakum, and elephants' teeth. The place is a rich one, and the spirit of commerce is felt throughout it. Nothing is cared for, nothing is talked of, nothing alluded to, that does not bear upon this; and, in fact, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Plantagenet—"in so liquorish a fashion, you might well think they even had Jamaiky, in 'em. No, potaties is the essence of lobscous; and a very good thing is a potatie, Sir Jarvy, when a ship's company has been on salted oakum for a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... look, and then from a drawer in the table he took a piece of prepared oakum such as was used for lowering into the pan of a freshly primed gun, stepped to a case in which were some old rammers, and declared himself ready to start, but hesitated and went to his tool-drawer again, out of which he routed ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... actively superintending the operations of Sorel, the hunter, who was cooking some corn-bread over the coals for breakfast. R. was a well-formed and rather good-looking man, some thirty years old; considerably younger than the captain. He wore a beard and mustache of the oakum complexion, and his attire was altogether more elegant than one ordinarily sees on the prairie. He wore his cap on one side of his head; his checked shirt, open in front, was in very neat order, considering the circumstances, and his blue pantaloons, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... leak had, in the mean time, been found to arise from a plank having started from the timbers, at three or four streaks above the keel; and the open space being filled up with oakum from the inside, very little water came in; I therefore left the river and the Glass Houses for a future examination, and proceeded up the bay with the afternoon's flood. On the 18th at noon, we had passed two low islands surrounded with shoals, and were at ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... handsome fortification, in form of a regular tetragon; and as the Japanese were quite ignorant in the art of fortification, they suffered it to be finished, without any suspicion of deceit. Carron now desired the council at Batavia to send him some cannon, packed in casks filled with oakum or cotton, along with some other casks of the same form filled with spices. This was done accordingly, but in rolling the casks after landing, one of them that contained a brass gun burst open, by which accident the cheat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me down the same passage only twelve days before. As I ran, I saw the great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from wall to wall. Its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved. It was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height. ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... o' cordage swashin' about the Water Wagtail ever since she went ashore? An' haven't we got fingers? Can't we undo the strands an' make small cord? Surely some of ye have picked oakum enough to ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... folded, and then away go your marks at once; and you must learn to sweep your room out cleaner. We couldn't stand that in one of our regulars, you know;" and he pointed to some specks of dust upon the shining floor. "As for the oakum pickings which will be set you to-morrow, I'll show you the great secret of that art. Your fingers will suffer a bit at first, no doubt, but you'll be a clever one at it before long. Only buckle to, and keep a civil tongue in your head, young ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... quite correct, hemp, old nets, and the fibre of a certain creeper being used for oakum. The wood-oil is derived from a tree called Tong-shu, I do not know if identical with the wood-oil trees of Arakan and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... from behind. He turned round, and fiercely hammered away at the padding. He sprang about, jumped from one corner to another, knocked his stomach, his back, his shoulder, rolled over, and picked himself up again. His bones seemed softened, his flesh had a sound like damp oakum. He accompanied this pretty game with atrocious threats, and wild and guttural cries. However the battle must have been going badly for him, for his breathing became quicker, his eyes were starting out of his ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... just bethought me. We shall be ready for any night-rush. I'll take a leaf out of modern warfare, and show them not only that we are top-dog (a favourite phrase of the mate), but why we are top-dog. It is simple—night illumination. As I write I work opt the idea—gasoline, balls of oakum, caps and gunpowder from a few cartridges, Roman candles, and flares blue, red, and green, shallow metal receptacles to carry the explosive and inflammable stuff; and a trigger-like arrangement by which, pulling on a string, the caps ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... thither, who are employed in spinning wool and flax, in sewing, knitting, or winding silk, or making their clothes or shoes, and are taught to write, read, and cast accounts. The grown vagrants brought here for a time only are employed in washing, beating hemp, and picking oakum, and have no more to keep them than they earn, unless they are sick; and the boys are put out apprentices to seafaring men or artificers, at a certain age, and in the meantime have their diet, clothes, physic, and other necessaries ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales |
