"Yarn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grown. Aunt Joe is a fine cook. Miss Cornelia learnt her how. I could learned to played too but I didn't want to. I wanted to knit and crochet and sew. Miss Cornelia said that was my talent. I made wrist warmers and lace. Sister Mary would spin. She spun yarn and cotton thread. They made feather beds. Picked the geese and sheared the sheep. I got my ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... his yarn. For a time no one spoke. Outside, the volume of rain was subsiding. Windy Bill reported a few stars shining through rifts in the showers. The chill that precedes the dawn brought us as close to the fire as ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... said Bill o' Burnt Bay. "I'll lay you alongside the Black Eagle, Archie," he added, "an' you can have a little yarn ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... we can easily spin a yarn to the rest," said Garnett more cheerfully. "In the meantime let's go and get something to eat. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... stranger, when casting his eye over the town of Ballytrain, on his way to have an interview with Birney, who, we may as well observe, was in his confidence, perceived that it was market-day. As he went out upon the street, a crowd of persons were standing opposite the inn door, where an extensive yarn market, in these good old times, was always held; and we need scarcely say that his gentlemanly and noble figure, and the striking elegance of his manner, at ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Charley tell of several other visits they made that night; but, as I said before, even a Christmas yarn and a ghost story must not spin itself out, like Banquo's line, to the crack of doom. However true or authentic a story may be—and you can easily verify this by asking any member of the Christmas Club in Huckleberry Street—however true a yarn may be, it must not be so long ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... floored, of course; but his only way of carrying the thing through was to play the martyr, and tell the story that for a year somebody had been writing to him daily or weekly over the name of Abbot. What a very improbable yarn, Putnam! Just think for yourself. What man would be apt to do that sort of thing? What object could he have? Why, the doctor himself well realized what a transparent fiction it must appear, and away he slips by the night train the moment he gets back. And now our friend, the landlord, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... not propose to enter into details respecting the progress of the trades of Belfast. The most important is the spinning of fine linen yarn, which is for the most part concentrated in that town, over 25,000,000 of pounds weight being exported annually. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the linen manufacture had made but little progress. In 1680 all Ireland ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... hitch to his trousers, which Is a trick all seamen larn, And having got rid of a thumping quid, He spun this painful yarn: ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... "The same old yarn. I've been all over that ground. There's no reef there, and if there had been it would have been found and skinned years ago," said dogmatic Billy, with ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... half an hour Levi's friends came; the first a little, thin, wizened man with a very foreign look. He was dressed in a rusty black suit and wore gray yarn stockings and shoes with brass buckles. The other was also plainly a foreigner. He was dressed in sailor fashion, with petticoat breeches of duck, a heavy pea-jacket, and thick boots, reaching to the knees. He wore ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... saltpetre, lead, accidences, oil, calamine stone, oil of blubber, glasses, paper, starch, tin, sulphur, new drapery, dried pilchards, transportation of iron ordnance, of beer, of horn, of leather, importation of Spanish wool, of Irish yarn: these are but a part of the commodities which had been appropriated to monopolists.[**] When this list was read in the house, a member cried, "Is not bread in the number?" "Bread," said every one with astonishment. "Yes, I assure you," replied ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... from force of habit, just as he had paused for the last twenty years. There had been times when roars of incredulous laughter had greeted this boast, but most of this particular group had heard the yarn more than once and let it pass with a smile and a wink, remembering the night that Abel Day had asked old Bill how they got the oxen out of the cannon on that ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dropped at the end of the yarn she had drawn through the stocking heel, and she stared at Jeff. Then she resumed her work with the decision expressed in her tone. "Your father lived to be sixty years old, and Jackson a'n't forty! The doctor said ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for restraint and submission, but he seemed to have been physically unable to take it. He rushed, instead, blindly to perdition. "I don't believe that yarn," he said. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... cheap that it was a humiliation not to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eating and drinking, but for wear and household use—from pots and pans to rag- carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there, with his arms extended before him, 895 She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers, Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding, Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?— Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... she could tell stories of her own; and now and then we used to persuade her to "spin a yarn," as Bella Dornton, whose father had been a naval ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... 9th. That linen, yarn, beef, butter, tallow, hides and all other commodities, will raise to that degree by being bought with half-pence, and workmen paid with brass money, that commissions from abroad will not reach them, therefore such goods must lie on ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... principally European, several likewise come from Siberia, Bucharea, the Calmucks, and China. They consist of course woollen and linen cloths, yarn stockings, bonnets and gloves, thin Persian silks, cottons and nankeens, handkerchiefs, brass and copper pans, iron stoves, files, guns, powder and shot, hardware, looking-glasses, flour, sugar, tanned hides, &c. Though the merchants have a large profit upon these important goods, they have ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... years, has been successfully cultivated in this State for domestic use, and some for exportation. Two or three spinning factories are in operation, and produce cotton yarn from the growth of the country with promising success. This branch of business admits of enlargement, and invites the attention of eastern manufacturers with small capital. Much of the cloth made in families who have emigrated from States south of the ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts bukhing. Ask him." He pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed scornfully over ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Miss Fenshawe, an' mebbe you've on'y heard half a yarn, if you'll pardon my way of puttin' it. Anyway, the Baron is in a mighty hurry to be off; an' isn't it plain enough that he doesn't want to be here when Mr. Royson comes back? You mark my words, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the Youngster. "I am disappointed again. I thought that was a simon-pure newspaper yarn—one of your reporter's ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... person in whose hands it was, and brought it with him to these parts; but he keeps it jealously from all eyes, in order that the Duke may not get wind of it, fearing he should in some way be deprived of his treasure." While spinning out this lengthy yarn, Messer Alfonso did not look at me, because we were not previously acquainted. But when that precious clay model appeared, he displayed it with such airs of ostentation, pomp, and mountebank ceremony, that, after inspecting it, I turned to Messer Alberto and ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of the Mahars are the weaving of coarse country cloth and general labour. They formerly spun their own yarn, and their fabrics were preferred by the cultivators for their durability. But practically all thread is now bought from the mills; and the weaving industry is also in a depressed condition. Many Mahars have now taken to working in the mills, and earn ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the cotton manufacture has been as beneficial to Liverpool as to those districts where the yarn is spun and woven. The canal system has fed, not rivalled or "tapped," the trade of the Mersey. The steamboats on which the seafaring population of Liverpool at first looked with dislike and dismay, have created for their town—first, a valuable coasting trade, independent of wind or tide, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... have the goody sort! By the poker! they sell their sermons dearer than we sell the rarest and realest thing on earth—pleasure.—And they can spin a yarn! There, I know them. I have seen plenty in my mother's house. They think everything is allowable for the Church and for—Really, my dear love, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—for you are not so open-handed! You have ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... two hours, and returned with Mrs. Darbishire. The landlord met us, and gravely said "I've been away, but the potman tells me a queer yarn. Mr. Darbishire made queer signs out of window to the man you call the Ramper, and Mr. Ramper goes to the pub over the way and then up to the room. And now Mr. Robert's been locked in for a hour and a half." My heart gave one leap, and then I felt cold. We hurried up stairs, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... were neither men nor animals, and all faintly luminous. No one ever pretended to see human forms—always queer, huge things they could not properly describe. Sometimes the whole wood was lit up, and one fellow—he's still here and you shall see him—has a most circumstantial yarn about having seen great stars lying on the ground round the edge of ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... you are mine, not indeed by the ridiculous accident of birth (since to speak the truth I am an unmarried old sea-dog), but by the far higher and more honourable title of having been selected by me to hear this yarn. You know well enough that such a tale must be told to grandchildren, and since you undoubtedly possessed grandparents, and have been hired at a shilling an hour to listen to me, I have every right to address you as I did. Therefore I say, my grandchildren, attend to what ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... and concealed himself under the waters of a cascade called Franangursfors, where he employed himself in divining and circumventing whatever stratagems the AEsir might have recourse to in order to catch him. One day, as he sat in his dwelling, he took flax and yarn, and worked them into meshes in the manner that nets have since been made by fishermen. Odin, however, had descried his retreat out of Hlidskjalf, and Loki becoming aware that the gods were approaching, threw his net into the fire, and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... and discussion here started, lasted the ladies for some time. Talk and business got full under weigh. Scissors and speeches, clipping and chattering, knitting and the interminable yarn of small talk. The affairs, sickness and health, of every family in the neighbourhood, with a large discussion of character and prospects by the way; going back to former history and antecedents, and forward to future probable ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... and wrong, Lend a hand to help him along; When his stockings have holes to darn, Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had not fallen from the cliffs, if I had sustained my glorious position among the boys of Raxton and Graylingham as 'Fighting Hal.' I might never have won little Winifred's love. Here was a revelation of the mingled yarn of life, that I remember struck me ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and lighting his pipe, "if you fellows like, I will spin you a yarn. I was telling one of you the other night about those three lions and how the lioness finished my unfortunate 'voorlooper,' Jim-Jim, the boy whom we buried ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... found the Fire-fish. So they threw the other fish back into the water, and Wainamoinen drew his knife and began to cut up the Fire-fish. Inside of the pike he found the trout, and inside of the trout the whiting, and on opening the whiting he came upon a ball of blue yarn. Wainamoinen quickly unwound the blue ball, and within that found a red ball, and when he had opened the red ball he came to the ball of ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... quantity of foreign goods which I have been fortunate enough to purchase and to place on board his sloop without paying the duty, which you know is heavy. It consists of sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton yarn, ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... or doing laborious work, it was customary with The Lifter, as well as with our hero, to sit among the women and assist them in such offices as the peeling of turnips or potatoes; and holding the yarn skein whilst one of the women rolled the thread into a ball; or in scouring the knives and forks. One afternoon while all the men save The Lifter were absent, the group was seated round a small open fire. Hanging from the crane was a pot of fruit which ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... more careful this time. During the revising process "The Woman-Haters" has more than doubled in length and, let us hope, in accuracy. Even now it is, of course, not a novel, but merely a summer farce-comedy, a "yarn." And this, by the way, is all that it ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... the lad holds the ship in hand," said the oldest of all the seamen, who kept his gaze fastened on the proceedings of Wilder; "he is driving her through it in a mad manner, I will allow; but yet, so far, he has not parted a yarn." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... freezing. Hurry up, so far. Afterwards there'll be a good yarn to tell in the sewer where the boys are, about what we did ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... running ahead of my yarn. We shared the hatch-cover between us. We took turn and turn about, one lying flat on the cover and resting, while the other, submerged to the neck, merely held on with his hands. For three days and nights, spell and spell, on the cover and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... you hear of an old-time sea-fight? Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... short story, written by an Englishman who is regarded by a good many persons, competent to judge, as being the cleverest writer of English alive today. The story was beautifully done from the standpoint of composition; it bristled with flashing metaphors and whimsical phrasing. The scene of the yarn was supposed to be Chicago and naturally the principal figure in it was a millionaire. In one place the author has this person saying, "I reckon you'll feel pretty mean," and in another place, "I reckon I'm not ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... with spatter-work that the biggest brother had done, and with photographs and magazine pictures in splint frames. Over the front door was tacked the first yarn motto that the little girl had ever worked. It was faded, but her mother, though her eyes were dimming, could read the uneven line: "God Bless Our Home." The new cane-seated chairs were set about against the walls, and a bright blue cover ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... time there was a rich farmer who had a thrifty wife. She used to go out and gather all the little bits of wool which she could find on the hillsides, and bring them home. Then, after her family had gone to bed, she would sit up and card the wool and spin it into yarn, then she would weave the yarn into cloth to ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... Cockle," said I, "as Moonshine will be gone some time, suppose you spin us a yarn ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... wasn't of much account. I was neither dangerous, like Jim Cringle, nor good to eat, like a muskrat or a pickerel. So I don't appear any more in this yarn. If you find yourself wondering how I came to know about some of the things I'm going to tell you, just make believe I got it from the chickadee, who is the most confidential little chap in the world, or from the whisky-Jack, who makes a point, as you may have observed, of knowing everybody ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... winter and water freeze in summer. We have no more reverence for the sun than we have for a fish-tail gas-burner; we stare into his face with telescopes as at a ballet-dancer with opera-glasses; we pick his rays to pieces with prisms as if they were so many skeins of colored yarn; we tell him we do not want his company and shut him out like a troublesome vagrant. The gods of the old heathen are the servants of to-day. Neptune, Vulcan, Aolus, and the bearer of the thunderbolt himself have stepped down from their pedestals and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... on a brown woollen frock and a gingham high apron. Her skirt was straight and long. Her laced shoes only came to her ankles. Her stockings were black, and she remembered how she had watched these little girls coming down the street, their stockings were snowy white. Of course she wore white yarn ones on Sundays. A great piece of their pantalets was visible, ruffled, too. Yes, she did look queer! And the starch was mostly out of her sun-bonnet. It wasn't her best ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the Wamsutta mills have become a corporation with a capital of three million dollars. The Potomska mills have accumulated a capital of fifteen hundred thousand, the Grinnell mill has eight hundred thousand, the Acushnet mill six hundred thousand, the Yarn mills three hundred thousand. In addition to these cotton mills other industries have sprung up, so that the total capital represented by the various corporations is over nine millions of dollars. Banking also proved profitable. Of the five national ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... suddenly drawing in his tentacles, upsetting his shell, and dropping to the bottom of the Lagoon, thus effectually cutting short any conversation. But this was only his way of protecting himself; after a time he grew bolder, and being a true sailor spun many a wonderful yarn ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... inmate of their house—and he assumed the office of my mentor. I stayed in Cairo, merely because he did, for some weeks, and went with him on the same boat to Jaffa. He, for some unknown reason—I suspect insanity—did not want me in Jerusalem just then; and, when we landed, spun me a strange yarn of how the people I had thought to visit were exceedingly eccentric and uncertain in their moods; and how it would be best for me to stop in Jaffa until he sent me word that I was sure of welcome. His story was entirely false, I found out later, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... you didn't see him at all, as I understand the yarn. He was here alone with you, was ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... Deams' to wait, and when the round-up formed a solid line, they planned to stand outside, and see the sport. If they had been the foxes, maybe they wouldn't have thought it was so funny; but of course, people just couldn't have even their pigs and lambs taken. We had to have wool to spin yarn for our stockings, weave our blankets and coverlids, and our Sunday winter dresses of white flannel with narrow black crossbars were from the backs of our own sheep, and we had to have ham to fry with eggs, and boil for Sunday night suppers, and bacon to cook ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... all intercourse with the comb, hung matted upon his shoulders; a kind of mantle, or rather blanket, pinned with a wooden skewer round his neck, fell mid-leg down, concealing all his nether garments as far as a pair of hose, darned with yarn of all conceivable colors, and a pair of shoes, patched and repaired till nothing of the original structure remained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles. If the dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his grand-daughter was gay, and even ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... of the few that are left. But it is their own fault. There's nobody but themselves to blame. It's easy enough to keep from having the plague," Miss Penelope added confidently. "Anybody can keep from having it, if they will only take the trouble to blow real hard three times on a blue yarn ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... that the yarn that's going round about his having had a lot of m-money stolen in a country house? By ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to lie so outrageously in this yarn. My hero has killed more Indians on one war-trail than I have killed in all my life. But I understand this is what is expected in border tales. If you think the revolver and bowie-knife are used too freely, you may cut out a fatal shot ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... In the mingled yarn of human life, tragedy is never far asunder from farce; and it is amusing to retrace in immediate succession to this incident of epic dignity, which has its only parallel by the way in the case of Vasco de Gama, (according to the narrative of Camoens,) when met and confronted by a sea phantom, whilst ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... women lie like the very devil. You just go and talk with her a bit about her first fall. She'll spin you such a yarn!" ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... out a Boston paper and read them some of the news. Miss Eunice went on with her fringe. Elizabeth was knitting a sock for Chilian out of fine linen yarn, spun by herself, and she put pretty open-work stitches all up the instep. For imported articles were still dear, and there was a pride in the women to do all for themselves that they could. Cynthia leaned her head on Rachel's lap ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... later on, as Mr. Nugent, after a faint objection or two, took his candle—"I suppose this yarn about my being married will ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... it was all due to that sneer of Elisha P. Bayne's. For while this was about as batty a business proposition as I ever had put up to me, this scheme of Millie's for hockin' her hubby, I'd got more or less int'rested in her yarn. And it struck me that a girl who'd done what she had wa'n't any quitter. Elisha puts on such a hard, cold sneer too; and comin' from this wise, foxy old near-plute who'd been playin' lead pipe cinches all his life, I expect, and never lettin' go of a nickel until he had ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... a crew overwhelmed with fever, almost persuades the captain to share the mate's illusion that 8 deg. 20'—The Shadow Line (DENT)—is possessed by the dead scoundrel. I found the book less interesting as a yarn than as an example of the astonishingly conscious and perfect artistry of this really great master of the ways of men and words. Mr. CONRAD never made me believe that the new captain would go so near sharing his mate's superstitious panic (which is perhaps because I know little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... night's rest relieved us of our fatigue. The following morning, with a fair breeze and a six hours' sail, we reached our floating-home, and have ever since entertained the mess-table with the "yarn" of our adventures; until now the subject is beginning to be worn thread-bare. But, as the interior of the island of St. Antonio is one of the few regions of the earth as yet uncelebrated by voyagers and ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... yarn after yarn of the road and range, and rolled innumerable cigarettes with one hand, much to ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... level plain from the city, on the road which led up again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade effects ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... knitting, one is making squares for the Belgian baby blankets, and the other a muffler for the Navy League. When I asked for volunteer knitters, one old colored man said, "Madam, my hands are not steady enough to knit, but I can hold the yarn for ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... went eight knots everything cracked aloft, and we tied our caps to our heads; but mostly she strolled on at the rate of three miles an hour. What could you expect? She was tired—that old ship. Her youth was where mine is—where yours is—you fellows who listen to this yarn; and what friend would throw your years and your weariness in your face? We didn't grumble at her. To us aft, at least, it seemed as though we had been born in her, reared in her, had lived in her for ages, had never known any other ship. I would just as soon have ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... right, so far as it goes," he admitted. "Fairly straight, for a Bayport yarn. It doesn't go far enough, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... I so stung up about that book? Tell you fellows? Well, I don't mind knocking off a bit and giving you the yarn. That Bible belonged to Fenwick Major. Never heard of Fenwick Major! What blessed ignorant chickens you must be! Where ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... weary pund, the weary pund, [pound] The weary pund o' tow; [yarn] I think my wife will end her life Before she spin ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... captain. "We don't know who's watching us. I didn't have much trouble in running the Yankee blockade at Vera Cruz. I brought a cargo from New York, just as if it had been sent from Liverpool, but I've had to prove that I'm not an American ever since I came ashore. Spin us your yarn as we walk along." ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... say so, we admit it," I told him. "Go ahead with your story. What do you want us to do? Light a camp-fire so you can unravel your yarn?" ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... package over, we saw that some one had twisted a piece of dirty grey paper (evidently wrapping-paper from the grocer's shop) about the rope yarn which kept the roll secure. Mrs Cottier noticed it first. "Oh," she cried, "there's a letter, too. I wonder if it's ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... proceeeded to cut slits in the flippers and lash them together with rope-yarn, the animal being thus placed hors de combat. The march was again taken up, and soon another track was found, but the eggs had been laid and the game was gone. An attempt to find this nest showed the cunning displayed by these clumsy creatures. Naturally, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... to Bastable's view of Andrews's luck—all at least except Barmer, who was a little nettled at having his story eclipsed. "I can believe the yarn about the shell," he said, "but the butter story is a bit thick, and all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... two books of yours—or rather Bob read them to me," Doris said presently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing such a preposterous yarn as 'The Worm'." ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a vulgar fraud. Schiller evidently began the novel in no very strenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the popular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry which had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. So he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had no definite plan and did not himself know where he would bring up. The literary merits of 'The Ghostseer', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose fiction, will come up for ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... say you did," she observed. "Well, if you'd like to hear the whole yarn, how I come to suspect him and all, I can ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... them, and laid on the board many dainties, giving freely of such things as she had by her. And the mother of Telemachus sat over against him by the pillar of the hall, leaning against a chair, and spinning the slender threads from the yarn. And they stretched forth their hands upon the good cheer set before them. Now when they had put from them the desire of meat and drink, the wise ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... sings the verses, he's called the chantyman. He sings while the crew heaves on the ropes an' they all come in on the chorus. If he's a real good chantyman he makes up new verses every time, a kind of a yarn he spins while ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... of my pet, and would curl its long wool over a stick, Finally, it was killed by an angry cow. I have a pair of little stockings, knitted of yarn spun from the lamb's wool, the heels of which have been raveled out and given ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... I took two travelling-tumblers out of my portmanteau, and, filling one of them, set it before the staff-captain. He sipped his tea and said, as if speaking to himself, "Yes, many a one!" This exclamation gave me great hopes. Your old Caucasian officer loves, I know, to talk and yarn a bit; he so rarely succeeds in getting a chance to do so. It may be his fate to be quartered five years or so with his company in some out-of-the-way place, and during the whole of that time he will not hear "good morning" ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... spinning into thread, for cotton thread there was none, excepting, possibly, a little of very poor quality in small skeins. The small wheel that we see in the far corner of the garret—just like Marguerite's—was used for spinning the fine thread. A larger wheel was used to spin the tow into yarn for the coarse clothing for boys and negroes or for "filling" in the coarser linens. All the boys, and very often the men—perhaps even our M.C. himself—wore in summer trousers made of linen cloth, for which the yarn was spun at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union street, Boston, shall ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... I hate to give out the yarn to them. It was another story in my day! I'd have caught it finely from my master for work like that. The business was carried on in different style then. A man had to know his trade—that's the last thing that's thought of ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... then cover the hills with fine earth and manure. The hops must be kept free from weeds and the ground mellow by hoeing often through the season, and hills of earth gradually raised around the vines during the summer. The vines must be assisted in running on the poles with woolen yarn, suffering them to run with the sun. By the last of August, or the first of September, the hops will be ripe, and fit to gather. This may be easily known by their colour changing, and having a fragrant smell; their seed grows ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... managed the Mount Vernon household, but she looked after the spinning of yarn, the weaving of cloth and the making of clothing for the family and for the great horde of slaves. At times, particularly during the Revolution and the non-importation days that preceded it, she had as many as sixteen spinning-wheels in operation at once. The work was done in a special spinning ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the dust and dirt blown away, then that carding machines would lay all the fibers parallel, that drawing machines would group them into slender ribbons, and a roving machine twist them into a soft cord, and then that a mule or a throstle would spin the roving into yarn, and the yarn would go to the weaving-rooms, where a thousand wonderful machines would turn them into miles and miles of calico; the machines doing all the hard work, while women and girls adjusted and ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... we can get into the hay-loft through a window, and find a place where we can see and hear all that goes on. A veillee is worth the trouble, believe me. Come, it isn't the first time I've hidden in the hay to hear the tale of a soldier or some peasant yarn. But we must hide; if these poor people see a stranger they are constrained at once, and are no longer their ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... A yarn in the London Times, June 22, 1844: that some workmen, quarrying rock, close to the Tweed, about a quarter of a mile below Rutherford Mills, discovered a gold thread embedded in the stone at a depth of 8 feet: that a piece of the gold thread had been sent to the ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... "Of course, he didn't know me, and I hadn't a very good chance to introduce myself. He was jabbering with a lot of other Spaniards on a corner, with his caramba and his como esta usted, so that I didn't feel like going up to him with a yarn about a baby's shoe. Which way he went I don't know, for I had to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... from the great chimney-place genially played over the huddled confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under the blaze ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... to Dave's party that he "seen what you coves was up to," and that's why he called the inspector back. But he told them that after they had told their yarn—which was a mistake. ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... the satrapies and royal roads of Persia. As a rule, his information is as accurate as could be expected at such an early date, and he rarely tells marvellous stories, or if he does, he points out himself their untrustworthiness. Almost the only traveller's yarn which Herodotus reports without due scepticism is that of the ants of India that were bigger than foxes and burrowed out gold ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... Mrs. Wright's charities too. Livingstone remembered the note the preacher had written him afterwards—it had rather jarred on him, it was so grateful. He hated "gush," he said to himself; he did not want to be bothered with details of yarn-gloves, flannel petticoats, and toys. He took out his pencil and wrote Mrs. Wright's name on the stub. That also should be charged to Mrs. Wright. He carried in his mind the total amount of the contributions, and ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... luxury in her outlay. Oliver's eye meanwhile wandered over her figure and costume—a costume he had never seen before on any living woman, certainly not any woman around Kennedy Square. The cloth skirt came to her ankles, which were covered with yarn stockings, and her feet were encased in shoes that gave him the shivers, the soles being as thick as his own and the leather as tough. (Sue Clayton would have died with laughter had she seen those shoes.) Her blouse was of gray flannel, belted to the waist by a cotton ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Our sanitary engineers have set us to drinking out of sharp-edged paper cups and we blot our faces instead of wiping them. Twine is spun of paper and furniture made of the twine, a rival of rattan. Cloth and matting woven of paper yarn are being used for burlap and grass in the making of ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... the meaning of this, I suppose," said Uncle Roger with the calm of despair. "I've gave up trying to fathom you young ones. Peter, where's the key? What yarn have ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... doubtless an old "yarn," repeated from generation to generation. We find in a Chinese work quoted by Amyot: "The palace of the king (of Japan) is remarkable for its singular construction. It is a vast edifice, of extraordinary height; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a river up to the top, and the river of God's help flows through the valley and seeks the lowest levels. Faith and self-despair are the upper and the under sides of the same thing, like some cunningly-woven cloth, the one side bearing a different pattern from the other, and yet made of the same yarn, and the same threads passing from the upper to the under sides. So faith and self-distrust are but two names for one ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... consecutive sobriety, and which said speculation he never failed to wind up by the total loss of the capital for Nancy, and the capital loss of a broken head for himself. Ned had eternally some bargain on his hands: at one time you might see him a yarn-merchant, planted in the next market-town upon the upper step of Mr. Birney's hall-door, where the yarn-market was held, surrounded by a crowd of eager country-women, anxious to give Ned the preference, first, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... 1789-1800.—As soon as the new government with its wide powers was established, manufacturing started into life. Old mills were set to work. While the Revolution had been going on in America, great improvements in the spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth had been made in England. Parliament made laws to prevent the export from England of machinery or patterns of machinery. But it could not prevent Englishmen from coming to America. Among the recent immigrants to the United States was Samuel Slater. He brought no patterns ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... comparison. About the time of the Reformation the day preceding Yule was a day of general preparation. Houses were cleaned out and borrowed articles were returned to their owners. Work of all kind was stopped, and a general appearance of completion of work was established; yarn was reeled off, no lint was allowed to remain on the rock of the wheel, and all work implements were laid aside. In the evening cakes were baked, one for each person, and duly marked, and great care was taken that ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... the board show that in this industry the actual manufacturing cost, aside from the question of the price of materials, is much higher in this country than it is abroad; that in the making of yarn and cloth the domestic woolen or worsted manufacturer has in general no advantage in the form of superior machinery or more efficient labor to offset the higher wages paid in this country The findings show that the cost of turning ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... a yarn once, your honour," said Sam Mason, "about a white shark. I mean," he added, nodding at Mr. Mole respectfully, "a squally cockylorium—a blessed rum name for a shark— as devoured all his family for dinner, supped off a Sunday school ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... any one sing, or tell a yarn, or whistle a tune, or dance a jig?" said "Bill" in a muffled tone. "If some one does not start some kind of excitement I will go to sleep in my tracks, and Doctor 'Gangway' says I mustn't sleep out of doors." His speech ended in a fit of coughing ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... all right," he added. "Evidence was against you, but they struck an unexpected snag. You'll have to keep it up, though"; and deciding "there was nothing in the yarn," the Dandy slept in the Quarters, and I in the House, leaving the doors ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... receiving them from the hand of nature employs them to proper purposes; thus the earth, or the sea, or something else ought to supply them with provisions, and this it is the business of the master of the family to manage properly; for it is not the weaver's business to make yarn, but to use it, and to distinguish what is good and useful from what is bad and of no service; and indeed some one may inquire why getting money should be a part of economy when the art of healing is not, ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... I am too old a sailor to be taken in by a yarn like that. I believe this letter to be a forgery, and I will not give the air-ship up on ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... tempestuous weather, food was distributed to them. Every family spun from its own flock the wool with which it was clothed; a weaver was here and there found among them; and the rest of their wants was supplied by the produce of the yarn, which they carded and spun in their own houses, and carried to market, either under their arms, or more frequently on pack-horses, a small train taking their way weekly down the valley or over the mountains to the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... thousand dollars, and Kelly has a bag of sovereigns, or my eyes never saw salt water."—"And the girl," said a third voice, which Mr. Kelly knew to be the steward's—"and the girl did not jingle her bag for nothing the other day, when she walked by me: something there, or my head 's a ball of spun-yarn." ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... come in, Nancy? Why, you dear woman, if you had stayed away five minutes longer I should have gone for you myself. What! Another skein of yarn?" ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... story-teller does not? A cold and critical man like the professor froze the spring of narration at its source. Besides, Renmark had an objectionable habit of tracing the recital to its origin; it annoyed Yates to tell a modern yarn, and then discover that Aristophanes, or some other prehistoric poacher on the good things men were to say, had forestalled him by a thousand years or so. When a man is quick to see the point of your stories, and laughs heartily at them, you are apt to form a high opinion ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... and he heard his son chuckle again. He had certainly caught a tartar—possibly two. With a twisted smile he recalled the old yarn of the hunter who caught the bear by the tail. Willing to let go, ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... sing me the befitting corner of perdition for the man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet. Sisters of Patience who by reason of ties or duty have endured it in silk, yarn, cotton, lisle thread or woollen—does not the new ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... will clearly convey to the reader the way in which the smack was fitted up with concealments. The letters A and A indicate two portions of the deck planking, each portion being about a couple of feet long. These were movable, and fitted into their places with a piece of spun-yarn laid into the seams, and over this was laid some putty blackened on the top. At first sight they appeared to be part of the solid planking of the deck, but on obtaining a chisel they were easily removed. There ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... into the tapestry of our little boudoir. Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,—and beside it, a reel and a basket of skeins of yarn,—and open, with its face down on the beam of the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Agency, sir. I found out before my wedding that one of their men had been hanging about here, so I chummed up to him. I spun him a yarn how I'd been with Hawke's once, and they gave me the bag, and I wasn't satisfied, and he'd got a lot of grievances against Hawke's, too, he had. We got very friendly. Pity I had to leave the thing for my wedding. But I came back after ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... young woman to dream that she works with yarn, foretells that she will be proudly recognized by a worthy man ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... the girl's heart was like to break, and over and over and over again like to break, so she cracked the last nut—the hazel nut—and out of it came the most wonderful wee, wee, wee-est woman reeling away at yarn as fast ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... and the Brahman began the whole story over again, not missing a single detail, and spinning as long a yarn as possible. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... amusing stories told in the family of cousin Betty's adventures, one of which I will relate here. She was at one time making one of her long visits at Mr. Wharton's, when, getting out of yarn, and not being willing to remain long idle, she began to worry about some way to get over to the village. The horses were all out at work upon the farm, except Old Prancer, a superannuated old horse, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... pay! But ye don't think o' bringin' him HERE in this house? 'Cept you're thinkin' o' tellin' him that yarn o' yours about the hoss trade to beguile the winter evenings. I told ye ye'd hev to pay yet to get folks to listen ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... with a sufferer, passing a friendly word of encouragement, or spinning some droll old yarn to cheer up another, ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... Turkey manufactured much of her cotton, and she exported cotton-yarn. Such was the case so recently as 1798, as will be seen by the following very interesting account of one of the seats ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... seen mittens knit with a hook something like that. Not open work and fancy, but all tight and out of good stout yarn. They're very lasting." ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... is that old fool who told us a long yarn about your being lords in disguise? I am ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... putting blue and red yarn In my white net as I knit; And I work in my embroidery White wool where it doth ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... machinery can scarcely be realized. It is reckoned that fifty men with modern machinery could do all the cotton-spinning of the whole of Lancashire a century ago. Mr. Leone Levi has calculated that to make by hand all the yarn spun in England in one year by the use of the self-acting mule, would take 100,000,000 men. The instruments which work this wonderful change are called "labour-saving" machinery. From this title it may be deemed that their first object, or at any rate their chief effect, would be to lighten labour. ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... many days for gathering and shearing sheep and lambs: for ferrying cattle from island to island, and other distant places, and several days for going on distant errands: so many pounds of wool to be spun into yarn. And over and above all this, they must lend their aid upon any unforeseen occurrence whenever they are called on. The constant service of two months at once is performed at the proper season in making kelp. On the whole, this ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Fig. 23, especially useful for belaying, or making fast the end of a rope round its own standing part. The end may be lashed down or seized to the standing part with a piece of spun yarn; this adds to ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... old Wiggins, I hopes I may go as well at the end. I don't think I ever told you about him, and if you'll let him fill 'em up ag'in—for it's one of the vartues of hot rum that the more you drinks the thirstier you gits—I'll reel you the yarn right off. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... came tearing along and put its chilly, icy, clammy clamps on the nose of Henry Hagglyhoagly, fastening the clamps like a nipping, gripping clothes pin on his nose. He put his wool yarn mittens up on his nose and rubbed till the wind took off the chilly, icy, clammy clamps. His nose was warm again; he said, "Thank you, mittens, for keeping my ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill together," says Shakespeare. It behooves us therefore to find the good and to make the best of the ill. Two men were falling from an aeroplane. "I'll bet you five dollars," said one, "that I hit ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... comb used in connection with the loom. It is provided with teeth about one inch long; these teeth are placed between the perpendicular threads and with the hand brought down firmly on the cross-threads or yarn until it is perfectly compact. The blankets woven in this manner are water-tight. This comb ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... untwisted; but as the yarns were found to be too thick for our purpose, it became necessary to pick them into oakham; and when this was done, the most difficult part of the work remained; for this oakham could not be spun into yarn, till, by combing, it was brought into hemp, its original state. This was not seamen's work, and if it had, we should have been at a loss how to perform it for want of combs; one difficulty therefore arose upon another, and it was necessary to make combs, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... suggested Dick, who had calmly smoked his cigar throughout the colonel's animated recital, "that that kidnaping yarn sounds a little improbable? Is n't ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... coming down and raging in his blue yarn socks to the janitor, 'should I be turned out of me comfortable apartments to lay in the dirty grass like a rabbit? 'Tis like Jerome to stir up trouble wid small matters like ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... being copied; and over the tomb was spread a pall of silk, striped in red, green, and white, but much faded. Against a pillar, which supports the roof, were hung rows of coloured rags and threads of yarn, with snail-shells and sea-shells strung among them by way of further ornament. A wooden bowl, at one end of the tomb, was probably intended to receive alms for the support of the devotee who claims the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... petroleum products, chemicals, transport equipment, iron and steel, machinery, textile yarn ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... lowly, Eyes with weeping nearly blind; Pessyeh-Tsvaitel, slowly, slowly, With the yarn creeps on behind. ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld |
