"Ramrod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for all that, John seems stiff as a ramrod, and their front-parlor is like a tomb. You ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... she was only trying to be thoughtful. Foolishness! She turned and climbed back into the saddle, and sat up straight, her backbone as stiff as a ramrod, and looked over his head and far away. For the moment she was so hopping mad she forgot the danger they were in. They made their way down into the heavy growth of Engelmann spruce that filled the notch, crossed the floor of the notch, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... things! Immediately before me I saw the excitement of little Fyne—mere food for wonder. Further off, in a sort of gloom and beyond the light of day and the movement of the street, I saw the figure of a man, stiff like a ramrod, moving with small steps, a slight girlish figure by his side. And the gloom was like the gloom of villainous slums, of misery, of wretchedness, of a starved and degraded existence. It was a relief that I could see only their shabby hopeless backs. He was an awful ghost. But indeed ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... few steps into the prairie and shot an ounce ball through his body and he fell dead near the margin of the woods. Some Kentucky volunteers went across the prairie immediately, and scalped him, dividing his scalp into four pieces, each one cutting a hole in each piece, putting the ramrod through the hole, and placing his part of the scalp just behind the first thimble of his gun, near its muzzle. Such was the fate of nearly all of the Indians found on the battle ground, and such was the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... one a lieutenant and the other a chief petty officer. Two others were state highway patrolmen. Another, in a blue uniform, was evidently the local policeman. The rest were in civilian clothes. All of them were watching a lean, youthful man who sat ramrod straight in a chair. ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... cautiously, creeping as near as they could to the animals, whose attention was directed to the horsemen. The Hottentots were nearly within range, when Omrah, who was mounted on the Major's spare horse, fastened to the ramrod of the Major's rifle a red bandanna handkerchief, which he usually wore round his head, and, separating quickly from the rest of the horsemen, walked his horse to where Big Adam was creeping along to gain a shot, ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... our camp. I dropped off now and then, but never for long, and whenever I woke I could see that there was a light in more than one of the officers' tents, and talking was going on in a low tone amongst the men, the snapping of a lock or springing of a ramrod sounding far in the still air, telling of preparation for the coming strife. A little after midnight we fell in as quietly as possible, and by the light of a lantern the orders for the assault were then read to the men. They were to the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... all your pictures, Ramrod," Gary said. "Silver City Raiders, Rustlers of Silver City, ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert
... state, and the excitement of the people was increasing daily. Two of my men went into the town to buy grass, and, without any provocation, they were surrounded by the natives, and the gun of one man was wrested from him; the other, after a tussle, in which he lost his ramrod, beat a hasty retreat. A number of the soldiers immediately collected, and I sent to the chief to demand the restoration of the gun, which was returned that evening. I could literally procure nothing without the greatest ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... shoulders, the hanging jaw, and the shuffling gait, tell the story of chronic, wasting disease more graphically than words. We have a ludicrously inverted idea of cause and effect in our minds about "a good carriage." We imagine that a ramrod-like stiffening of the backbone, with the head erect, shoulders thrown back and chest protruded, is a cause of health, instead of simply being an effect, or one of the incidental symptoms thereof. And we often proceed to drill ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... I lashed one edge to the ramrod of my rifle, having first passed the latter through the upper swivel of the piece. With the thumb of my left hand I was thus enabled to hold the rammer steady and transverse to the barrel. I now dropped upon my knees—holding the gun shoulder-high—and the gay-coloured ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... are a queer lot," said Slugs, with a grin, "yer as stiff as a rifle ramrod to look at, but there's warm and good stuff in ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... I was bent to get at the very bottom of this mystery (if there were any), having less fear of witch or wizard, with a man of Uncle Reuben's wealth to take my part, and see me through. So I rattled the ramrod down my gun, just to know if the charge were right, after so much walking; and finding it full six inches deep, as I like to have it, went boldly down the steep gorge of rock, with a firm resolve to shoot any witch unless it were good Mother Melldrum. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... fault, and how it didn't matter a hill of beans anyway, for we'd soon get our spades on to it. It stood to reason it couldn't be far away or buried very deep, and a little fossicking with an iron ramrod would feel it out in ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... of a ramrod than ever to-day," said Egon to his friend as they went on. "Whenever that cold, calculating countenance comes near me I feel frost-bitten and long to ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... out at the report of the gun, and getting such planks as were available laid them on the floating ice; but still they could not reach the boat. Tommy Daily with fertile ingenuity tying some twine to his ramrod fired it over the skiff, when it was easy to send out a strong fisherman's line, which Mick tied to the thwarts, and a dozen strong arms drew the boat ashore. [Footnote: The present writer witnessed the rescue of ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... A man hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without his name attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... from the flask; then a circular patch of greased linen had to be laid on the muzzle of the weapon, and a ball laid on it and hammered into the barrel with a leaden or wooden mallet; then it had to be driven into its place with a ramrod (often requiring the aid of the mallet), and, lastly, there was a new cap to be fitted. Yet although so much time was occupied between the shots, the animal remained as ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... not seem to Stephen as if he was walking when he went toward the ground glass door. He opened it. There was Colonel Carvel seated on the bed, his goatee in his hand. And there was the Judge leaning forward from his hips, straight as a ramrod. Fire was darting from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "Mr. Brice," said he, "there is one question I always ask of those whom I employ. I omitted it in your case because I have known your father and your grandfather before ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bitten him in the wrist, on which the punctures of the fangs were plainly visible. A handkerchief was at once tied round the wounded limb, with a small pebble so placed as to compress the brachial artery inside the forearm, and with the iron ramrod from a carbine as a lever, we screwed this rough tourniquet up until the circulation was in great measure cut off. Luckily Dunmore had a pocket-knife with him, for the sheath-knives we carried were but rude instruments for surgery, and with the small blade he slashed the bitten part freely, while ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... what he had done with the blunderbuss, and was told that it had been thrown into a well. Ania now concealed three flints that he kept about him in some sand in the upper story they occupied, and threw an iron ramrod and two spare bullets into a ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of a ramrod, denotes unfortunate adventures. You will have cause for grief. For a young woman to see one bent or broken, foretells that a dear friend or lover will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... under a trip-hammer, and then rolled to the proper shape, by an operation similar to the barrel-rolling. The socket is forged separately, and afterwards welded to the blade under a trip-hammer. It is then passed twice under the drop, then milled and polished, when it is ready for use. The ramrod is cut from steel rods about the size required. It is then ground in the same manner as the barrel, and the hammer is swaged on by two operations under the drop. The screw-cutting and polishing are very simple, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound it down with a ramrod, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... paving. In one end there was a wide fireplace grimy with soot, in the other a mere peep-hole for a window: a wooden bench, a bed of skins and two or three stools were barely visible in the gloom. In the doorway Oncle Jazon sat whittling a slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for his long ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... is, too. We'll decoy and pot him. I'll get ready now and you raise your cap on a ramrod above the hole. He'll lift his head to ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... thought he was going to save the country all by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And now they all ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... made in her dulcet tones, that he would permit their carriage to proceed under protection of his escort. The Englishman, who was busy loading another pair of pistols for his servant, and held the ramrod between his teeth, nodded assent as a matter of course, but without lifting up his eyes. The fair Venetian was not accustomed to such indifference. "O Dio!" ejaculated she softly as she retired, "como sono freddi questi Inglesi." ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... as a ramrod in his natty khaki uniform. And he was holding up his right hand just like the big policeman on the corner downtown. As he dropped it to shake hands with Bob, there was a sudden ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... 248, unravel &c. 219, unwrap. Adj. straight; rectilinear, rectilineal[obs3]; direct, even, right, true, in a line; unbent, virgate &c. v[obs3].; undeviating, unturned, undistorted, unswerving; straight as an arrow &c. (direct) 278; inflexible &c. 323. laser-straight; ramrod-straight. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "Now take the ramrod of one of my pistols, put it through the bandage, and then twist it. You need not be afraid of hurting me; my leg is quite numbed, at ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... The Ramrod Broken; or the Bible History and Common Sense in Favor of the Moderate Use of Good Spirituous Liquors; showing the Advantage of a License System in Preference to Prohibition, and "Moral," in Preference to "Legal, Suasion." By a New England Journalist. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... by a Unitarian. I had the great satisfaction of meeting its author, Sir John Bowring, at a public dinner in London during the summer of 1872. A fresh, handsome veteran he was, too—tall and straight as a ramrod, and exceedingly winsome in his manners. He had been famous as the editor of the Westminster Review and quite famous in civil life, for he was a member of the British Parliament and once had been the Governor ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... naked character of his vessel. She appeared suspiciously full of corn for a boat homeward bound. There was an awkward smell about the closely-boarded forecastle which resembled that of unwashed negroes. Abd-el-Kader drew a steel ramrod from a soldier's rifle, and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Fuz were looking as if they were dreadfully ashamed of something; but poor Dick was sitting up as straight as a ramrod, under the influence of a glance that he had taken at the face ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... which grow profusely in this land, and are, perhaps, of some relation to the chestnut. An oaken stick, sufficiently long to reach from one side of the fireplace to the other, and trimmed with knives until it was no larger around than the ramrod of a matchlock, forms our spit, and this we thrust through the body of the bird from end to end. A pile of rocks on either side of the fireplace, at a proper distance from the burning wood, serves as rests for the ends of the wooden spit, and when thus placed the bird will be cooked in front of ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... the average of his tribe. His muscular limbs showed a strength and athletic training that would be the envy of any Yale man or West Pointer. His back was as straight as the proverbial ramrod and as supple as the leaf of the cocoanut palm. His eyes were brown, and fairly danced with good nature and intelligence. They were frank, too, an unusual thing with a native. All in all, he was a perfect model of the physical man ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... nineteen out of twenty of them; dress them how you would, disguise them as you like. They step the regulation length, bring their foot down in the regulation way, are as stiff as if they had swallowed a ramrod. They have neither suppleness nor adaptability. They are so accustomed to obey that they have almost lost the power of originating, and would be taken and shot before they were in the enemy's lines ten minutes. Now, Fergus has the advantage of knowing both languages, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... no concern of ours I will here give him his popular nickname of "Ramrod," a name by which he was well known not only in our village but for a considerable distance around. It was conferred upon him, I suppose, because he walked so upright and stiff, and also perhaps because he at one time had ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... answered, with a look of scorn. 'Are you a negro slave, to let yourself be driven with a ramrod like that! You are as silly as a canary bird. Your dress suits your nature.* Pshaw! you've no ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... never before fired a gun, I held it rather loosely aginst my shoulder and the recoil lamed my arm and bloodeyed my pug noose. But this was soon forgotten when I saw I had plugged my meat. In haste I began to load to prepare for another bird—I seized The patch put mr ball on the patch took mr ramrod and rammed home the ball alas! just as I was pounding her home I remembered I had forgotten something quite necessary in loading a gun—it was the powder. I was in a terrorable fix then—I first thought I would hasten home put up the gun and let father get out of the fix the ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... view through the jungle, and they turned into a narrow track leading to a strong gate ridiculously disproportionate to the strength of the stockade. Artillery might have battered in vain at the gate: one might force the walls with the gunner's ramrod. As they swung around the last twisting angle of the path, a flutter of white contrasted with the dark greenery for an instant, then came the sound of a gate crashing shut, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... windows on the lower floor and two on the upper. Each of these was too narrow to permit any man to force his body through. It was from one of the lower ones that Simon Girty had displayed the flag of truce, only to have it whipped off the ramrod and appropriated by the watchful Jethro, who, after wearing the garment for a time, laid it aside in order to escape the merriment his appearance ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... shots, and was thus placed between two fires. As we had followed him, we were now compelled to remain at his side. To his uncle's great joy, my son exhibited no symptom of fear whatever. But the generals trembled at seeing the emperor exposed to such danger. The ramrod of some awkward soldier might prove as dangerous as a ball. In the midst of this imposing spectacle, I was struck with astonishment at the contrast presented by the troops under different circumstances. When drawn up in line of battle, ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... stiff as a ramrod and laid a set of imposing-looking documents on the vast desk before Bliss. His accent was stiff as his spinal column. Bliss glanced casually at the papers, nodded and handed them back. So this, he thought, was how a "normal," a pre-atomic, a ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... and painted the portrait of that old pioneer which is reproduced in "Men of Action." Boone was at that time ninety years of age, and Harding found him living almost alone, roasting a piece of venison on the end of his ramrod, as had been ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... were; he had blown or beaten them nearly all off the poor creature's back, and was in a fair way completely to disable my gun, the ramrod of which was already broken and splintered clubbing his victim. But a couple of shots from the revolver, sighted by a lighted match, at the head of the animal, quickly ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... notes of the bullets jarred on his senses. Then pride and the animal instinct of fighting for life flamed upward. So swiftly that he was scarcely conscious of what he was doing he snatched a cartridge from the box, tore its end between his teeth, and rammed it home. He replaced the ramrod in its thimbles with one quick thrust, and as he raised his eyes from the nipple upon which he had placed the cap, he saw that the Rebel squad had gained the foot of the knoll and started up its side. He raised teh gun to fire, but as he did ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... but has been shortened 11-1/2 inches. Brass mounts and long brass patch-box. Ramrod missing. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... ramrod so long it's going to be hard to learn to be a clinging vine. I've been my own support for so many years, I don't use a trellis very gracefully—yet. But I think I'll get the ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... fifteen years before England will see a Tory Government,' said Mr. Rigby, drawing his ramrod, 'and then it will only ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... opinionated ramrod of a Scotchman who'd drive any girl to break her engagement a dozen times if she had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... later than was prudent, did not account Mumps's Ha' a safe place to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore, from Meg's good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... trampled, and swore, and quarreled, beneath him, in the blackness of the gloom; balked of their prey, and savage for some amends. There was a moment's pause—a hurried, eager consultation; then he heard the well-known sound of a charge being rammed down, and the sharp drawing out of a ramrod; there was a flash, a report, a line of light flamed a second in his sight; a ball hissed past him with a loud, singing rush, and bedded itself in the timber, a few inches above his uncovered hair. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... full; then these were reeled off into hanks of thread, then spooled on to corn-cobs with holes burned through them. These were placed in an upright frame, with long slender rods of hickory wood something like a ramrod run through them. The frame held about one hundred of these cob-spools; the end of the cotton thread from each spool was gathered up by an experienced warper who carried all the threads back and forth on the large warping-bars; this was a difficult task; only the brightest negro ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... Jack, thrusting the ramrod into his pistol-barrel, "are you there, Mr. Coates? Pay ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... found several old stumps, and thrusting a ramrod down Harry found, to his surprise, that the soil was from three to four feet deep. He tried again a little farther off, and found that it was two feet; further still, ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... the bullet home, or should the latter, in the act of aiming, start from its place and roll toward the muzzle, the gun would probably burst in discharging. Many a shattered hand and worse casualties besides have been the result of such an accident. To obviate it, some hunters make use of a ramrod, usually hung by a string from the neck, but this materially increases the difficulty of loading. The bows and arrows which the Indians use in running buffalo have many advantages over fire arms, and even white men occasionally ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... breast, I might have hit my companion. As the smoke cleared away I saw the deer spring into the air and fall lifeless to the ground. The bullet had struck her in the very spot I intended. Charley rose to his feet, and I ran forward, anxious to ascertain if he was injured. Providentially, his ramrod alone was broken, and, except a bruise on the shoulder which caused him some pain, he had ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... before noon those of us who were at the loopholes saw the shine of a scarlet coat among the trees on the nearest slope, but before there was time to aim a musket something white fluttered above it. It was, as it proved, but a handkerchief tied to a ramrod, but it was a flag of truce for all that, and a flag of truce is respected by gentlemen ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... nobody's business except our own—hers and mine, I mean. But at all events I went forth from the lilac clump by the well, and picked up my full water cans with a heart wondrously strengthened, and so up the path to Heathknowes with a back straight as a ramrod, because of the eyes that I knew were watching me through the chinks in the wall ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... up the board-walk, her back as stiff as a ramrod. Any one with half an eye could see that she was resolved not to drop the parasol again. No savage warrior on battle bent ever gripped his ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... no daughter, major," Hard-Head Sagen growled, standing with his legs braced apart and his ramrod shoulders looking ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... behind us and waved him over to the crying chair. He folded at the knees and hips, as if he were hinged only there, as if there were no hinges at all in the ramrod of his back. He sat up straight, on the edge of his chair, ready to spring into instant charge of battle. I went around back to my desk and ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... everybody and everything in it look as if they had swallowed a ramrod," snarled he. "Mr. Schwartz, can't you teach the young men to throw a little ease and grace into the arrangement of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... thickly studded with freeholders, was a strong reason for her being paid every attention in Lord Callonby's power to bestow; Miss Betty O'Dowd—for so she was generally styled—was the very personification of an old maid; stiff as a ramrod, and so rigid in observance of the proprieties of female conduct, that in the estimation of the Clare gentry, Diana was a ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... greetings from one window, a rosy little audacious figure in a night-dress peeped out furtively from another, and the house-door was opened by a tall old soldier-servant, stiff as a ramrod, with hair tightly tied and plastered up into a queue, and a blue and brown livery which sat like ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he dragged himself to dinner, Beulah was stiff as a ramrod, but he could note no difference in the manner of the rest. Was it possible she had not told her father? He did not think this likely, and his heart was in ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... and stood anxiously watching for another rabbit, while Jim "looked into" both barrels of the offending piece, and tried them with the ramrod. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... tactics and certain papers on military history had won much favor among the studious men in the army, and it was with pride and pleasure that he entered on the allotted task. He wrote, as did Zachary Taylor, a hand that looked much as though a ramrod rather than a pen had been used, and naturally his first thought was to find his transcriber of the previous winter. There she was at her desk in the library, and looking far younger, happier, and better than when he saw her last, and the frank pleasure ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... and stared—kind of combine between a ramrod and an icicle. 'Who the perdition are you?' he said—or he looked it, anyway. So, seeing him above a friendly warning, I lit out, feeling sheep-faced; and I've bluffed some hard men in my time. Since then I've been rooting round, and I'm concluding there is good ore ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... his son used to relate, he had a very long combat with a chief noted for the certainty of his aim,—the Indian behind a tree, the white man behind a fallen log. Four times the wily Calhoun drew the Indian's fire by elevating his hat upon his ramrod. The chief, at last, could not refrain from looking to see the effect of his shot; when one of his shoulders was slightly exposed. On the instant, the white man's rifle sent a ball through it; the chief fled into the forest, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... of rations. Fortunately during the night some waggons loaded with bread, beef and groceries had arrived, but the necessities of hunger were so keen that the men could hardly wait for a proper distribution of the supplies. There was no means of cooking meat except by toasting it on the end of a ramrod poked over a fire of fence rails, but that was only a trifling matter to a hungry soldier. Loaves of bread were torn asunder in chunks, as bread-knives were not in evidence, while butter was spread by means of a chip. But the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... officer Larry straightened himself like a ramrod, squared his shoulders, and affected to be intensely angry with the small person who had delayed him upon his beat. But he could not deceive the keen eyes of the more experienced policeman ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... thrown upon their own resources, and compelled to make it themselves, notwithstanding their lack of proper utensils. I had often seen bread baked upon a flat rock, or a board, or by twisting it around a ramrod or stick, and holding it to the fire, but one method of baking corn bread was practiced successfully upon this march which I had never witnessed before. It was invented, I believe, in Breckinridge's battalion. The men would take meal dough and fit it into a corn-shuck, tying the shucks tightly. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... "a thousand apologies for disturbing you, but I'm in the most awkward position. And there's a son of a ramrod there that I should know the looks of, and more, betoken, I believe that he knows mine. Being in this family, sir, and in a place of some responsibility (which was the cause I took the liberty to send for you), you are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... powder without leave or licence; and all the rocks and woods catch up the echo, and kick it from cliff to cliff, playing at football with it till its breath is beaten out; a rolling fire of old muskets and bird-pieces crackles along the shore, and in five minutes a poor lad has blown a ramrod through his hand. Never mind, lords do not visit Penalva every day. Out burst the bells above with merry peal; Lord Scoutbush and the Waterwitch are duly "rung in" to the home of his lordship's ancestors; and he is received, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... creature bigger than an ant could conceal itself on that bare, arid sand stretch, but the ticked dog was standing rigid, nose pointing almost between his forefeet, and the red dog was backing him, tail like a ramrod, right ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... can. Or, for want of caustic, explode gunpowder in the wound; of else do what Mr. Mansfield Parkyns well suggests, i.e., cut away with a knife, and afterwards burn out with the end of your iron ramrod, heated as near a white heat as you can readily get it. The arteries lie deep, and as much flesh may, without much danger, be cut or burnt into, as the fingers can pinch up. The next step is to use the utmost energy, and even cruelty, to prevent ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... their historians, from Dame Juliana Berners to Peter Beckford, and that more recent Peter whose patronymic was Hawker; while, on our side of the Atlantic, the late "Frank Forester" has reduced kennel-practice to a system from which the Nimrod of the ramrod may not profitably depart. Apart from history, however, and from didactic argument, the individual trails of dogs remarkable in their day have but too rarely been recorded. Certainly the shepherd's colley has been admirably individualized by the Ettrick Shepherd; but many a terrier—"a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... wasn't Darcy's at all," said Sweeny firmly, standing as straight as a ramrod, with his hands behind his back, a picture of surly, wronged integrity. "And there's no man livin' can prove she was. Ask him now what way did he ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... confess I did attach Misconduct to your name; If I withdraw the charge, will then Your ramrod do the same? ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... twenty yards, walked to the regulation four paces, and saluted together, each as well-set-up as a ramrod and little taller. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... few minutes the lots were drawn, and the shooting began. Each hunter wiped out the barrel of his piece with his ramrod as he stepped forward; then, placing a ball in the palm of his left hand, he drew the stopper of his powder-horn with his teeth, and poured out as much powder as sufficed to cover the bullet. This was the regular measure among them. Little time was lost in firing, for these men did not "hang" ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... bursting over us, around us, and many of them altogether too near to be pleasant. Moreover, by one of those blunders which cannot always be avoided, some of our own men, mistaking us, opened fire on our rear; but to this a stop was speedily put by a flag of truce, improvised from a ramrod and a white handkerchief. We were allowed to fire only three or four volleys in return. This skirmishing tries courage, I believe, more than a pitched battle. To lie on the ground for hours, two or three miles in front of your main body, ten feet from the nearest man, and be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottom chair and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bold steep: we near the Den. Later the foe came shouting down In sortie, which was quelled; and then We stormed them on their left. A chilly change in the afternoon; The sky, late clear, is now bereft Of sun. Last night the ground froze hard— Rings to the enemy as they run Within their works. A ramrod bites The lip it meets. The cold incites To swinging of arms with brisk rebound. Smart ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... or two they were crowded so thick round him that I could not perceive what they were doing, but after that they separated, and I beheld him bleeding profusely, his ears and nose having been cut off, and a broken iron ramrod passed through both cheeks. And now a scene took place, at the remembrance of which, even now, my blood curdles. Some caught up the burning sticks and applied them to his flesh, others stuck him full of small splints, the ends of which they lighted. The Indian warriors shot at him with ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... cooked, and Tom took it off the fire and handed the pieces on the ramrod, that had served as a spit, to the others, together with some bread, poured out the tea from the kettle, and placed a bag of sugar before them. There was little talk until after the meal was over. Then the Indian and Jerry smoked steadily, while Tom took a single ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty |
