"Plank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... protest at so great a sacrilege, bowed to the ground, their fingers on their ruffled shirt-fronts, and the younger ones lifted their furry hats and kept them in the air until she had crossed the gang-plank and Todd and Mammy Henny, and Ben who had come to help, lost their several breaths getting the impatient dogs and baggage aboard—and so she sailed away with Uncle George as chaperon, the whole party ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rambled on through the wood, till we reached the windmill itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the chiaro-oscuro of its circular basement. As we did so I heard a rush and the creak of a plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot—no more—disappearing through ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... fight on with no thought of surrender, for we knew that capture would mean death by walking the plank. Four of the English on our side were killed, besides seven or eight of those of other nationalities, whilst many were wounded. The decks were slippery with blood, and a gathering mist made it impossible to ascertain the extent of our ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... of his fall threw both stone and wheelbarrow into the river. The man behind me, seeing what was happening, flung himself face down over his wheelbarrow, and in the dark, grabbed me as I was going over the plank into the river. He caught me by one of my arms and held me until help came and I was pulled out. I was hanging from his hands about fifty to seventy-five feet ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... coming, but was too weak and numb to move; and when the sailor lifted up the unconscious Russell from his knees, Eric was too much exhausted even to speak. The man returned for him, and lifting him on his back, crossed the plank once more in safety. Then he carried Russell first and Eric afterwards to the carriage, where Dr Underhay had taken care to have everything likely to revive and sustain them. They were driven rapidly to the school, and the Doctor raised to God tearful ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... and watched her walk away down the deck, balancing herself as if she had been accustomed to a heaving plank all her life. Then I turned to watch the fast receding shore, and to my own thoughts, which were none of the saddest, I can assure you. For it must be confessed here—and why should I deny it?—that I was in love from the soles of my deck shoes to the cap upon my head. But as ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... and future revolving round him, he fell asleep and dreamed he saw Rosabella alone on a plank, sinking in a tempestuous sea. Free as he thought himself from superstition, the dream made an uncomfortable impression on him, though he admitted that it was the natural ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... railway bridge across the Somme to St. Valery, whence Duke William started with a horseshoe mouth and very glum upon his doubtful adventure to invade these shores—but there was no bridge in his time. The shortest bridge is made of a plank, in the village of Loudwater in the county of Bucks, not far from those Chiltern Hundreds which men take in Parliament for the good of their health as a man might take the waters. The most entertaining bridge is ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... seems to have treated them kindly; at any rate, they loyally did his will. Baby agreed to get provisions into the fort by stealth; and on a dark night, about a week after the siege commenced, Gladwyn had a lantern displayed on a plank fixed at the water's edge. Baby had six canoes in readiness; in each were stowed two quarters of beef, three hogs, and six bags of meal. All night long these canoes plied across the half-mile stretch of water and ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... still empty, I determined to fill them with the oil to be obtained from these animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them. We killed a large number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals. Of a sudden the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... done by two shafts, called respectively the downcast and the upcast shaft. A shaft is in reality a very deep well, and may be circular, rectangular or oval in form. In order to keep out water which may be struck in passing through the various strata, it is protected by plank or wood tubbing, or the shaft is bricked over, or sometimes even cast-iron segments are sunk. In many shafts which, owing to their great depth, pass through strata of every degree of looseness or viscosity, all three methods are utilised in turn. In Westphalia, where coal ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... to a copy of a French translation of Valerius Maximus[544], written in Flanders in 1479 for King Edward IV. The writer—probably intended for the author or the translator of the book—is seated at a desk, consisting of a plank set at an angle and capable of being turned aside by means of a central bracket, like that used by the Carmelite (fig. 136). Observe the two weights hanging over the edge of the desk and the ends of the two horns, intended to hold ink, projecting ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... quite a little income of meal by shrewdly loaning it to his knifeless comrades. The shapes that we made for pieces and pawns were necessarily very rude, but they were sufficiently distinct for identification. We blackened one set with pitch pine soot, found a piece of plank that would answer for a board and purchased it from its possessor for part of a ration of meal, and so were fitted out with what served until our release to distract our attention from much ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... comforters being bestowed on a third, who was as wretchedly lodged as the others. There was as yet no applicant for the pillow, which was a useless article of furniture to her, as she slept on the bare ground, or a plank, resting her head upon straw, notwithstanding the inclemency of Canadian winters. Yet she felt amply rewarded for her privations, by being permitted to perform charitable offices for others. She was the common mother of the young colonists, being an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... board tablon, plank tacharse, to blame or censure oneself tacho, paila, pan (sugar manuf.) tacones, heels tacos, cues (billiard) tacto, feel, touch, tact tal, such tal cual, as it is talvez, perhaps taller, workshop tambien, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... so proud he grew red in the face, and ran shouting up and down the plank, shaking and turning the bottle upside down now and then, so as to make the cabined fairy use her wings, and buzz like a fly against ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessaries; to find out how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother officers were as good ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... hemp, in tying things together, some planks [in the craft] being tied together with it. For that purpose projecting parts are left at intervals on the inside [of the planks] in which holes are made; and through these the ligament passes, without any harm being done to the plank. Upon so light a foundation they build upper works, as high as they wish, of bamboo upon the cates. The cates are buoys which run on both sides from bow to stern, and they act as outriggers for the ship, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... ships were brought side by side. They were then lashed tightly together with bag string and binder twine, and a gang plank laid between them. In a moment the pirates swarmed upon our deck, rolling their eyes, gnashing their teeth ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... manage a lion from this fortress. Unless the fellow found the stage, he could hardly board us, and a plank or two thrown from that, would make a draw-bridge of it at once. Look yonder! there is something moving on the bank, or my ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... passage in a sailing-ship crowded with emigrants. It was a stormy trip. Everybody was sick. Several died, and there were burials at sea, when the plank was tilted and the body slid into ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... on the planks strung along the sides of the trough, each row of happy toilers alternately swung in and out, toward and from the trough, its long heavy pestles rising and falling with the regular "click, click, thush; click, click, thush!" as they fell rebounding on the plank, and were then raised and thrust ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... was collecting the pieces of plank and putting them together, an old Roman, who had made some of his first campaigns under Pompey, came up and said to Philip, "Who are you that are preparing the funeral of Pompey the Great?" Philip answered, "I am his freedman." "But you shall not," ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... wales and stringers bolted-to; she was therefore so far advanced that the next thing in order was to lay her planking. This planking, it may be mentioned, was of oak throughout, arranged to be laid on in two thicknesses, each plank of the outer skin overlaying a joint between two planks in the skin beneath it; and every plank had already been roughly cut to shape and carefully marked. All, therefore, that was now required was to complete the trimming of each plank and fix it in position. The inner layer of planking was much ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, the cell for one word; even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs are happier! Nineteen years! I am forty-six. Now ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... those. Without stopping to think, she seized the shoes in one hand and the tray in the other and rushed after the soldier. A little gully had to be crossed on the way to the dugout and the only bridge was a twelve-inch plank. The soldier crossed in safety and turned to look after the girl. Just as she reached the middle of the plank a shell burst not far away. The lassie was so startled that she nearly lost her balance, ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... his piece, as the other returned and took his seat again on a projecting plank in a pile of timber. "Don't try to leave; that's all. I wouldn't miss this chance even if I had to shoot an old acquaintance to make it go. I don't want to hurt anybody specially, but this thousand dollars I'm going to get will fix me for fair. I'm going to drop the road, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a plank, with two elects, slanting down from the scuttle, which was a mere hole in the deck. There being no slide to draw over in case of emergency, the tarpaulin temporarily placed there was little protection from the spray heaved over ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... dismissed. Half an hour later there is not a soul to be seen. They have all gone to ground. My groom and countryman went in search of wherewithal to build a shelter for the horses. He saw a respectable plank sticking out of a heap of debris, laid hold on it and pulled. Then—to quote him verbatim—"there came a great roarin' from in undernath of it, Sor, an' a black divil of an infantryman shoved his head up through the bricks an' drew down sivin curses ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... the Euxine Sea with a prosperous gale, and just in view of Bosporus, discoursing pleasantly with the ship's company, as one overjoyed for his past danger and present security, when on a sudden he found himself deserted of all, and floating upon a broken plank of the ship at the mercy of the sea. Whilst he was thus laboring under these passions and phantasms, his friends came and awaked him with the news of Pompey's approach; who was now indeed so near at hand, that the fight must be for the camp itself, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... amazement, bearing up the boat with their shoulder and one hand, while swimming and guiding us ashore with the other! There on the land we were hauled up, and four weary days were spent fetching and carrying from the Mission Station every plank, tool, and nail, necessary for her repair. Every boat for these seas ought to be built of cedar wood and copper-fastened, which is by far the most economical in the end. And all houses should be built of wood which is as full as possible of gum ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... of the wreck, too, had disappeared, nothing being subsequently cast ashore but one single plank, on which the hieroglyphic letters, "PF Bordeaux," were carved rudely with a chisel; so, the mystery of the brig's name and destination remained unsolved to the brothers, as it probably will continue a mystery, until that day when the ocean gives up its ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Billie) "Cousin Helen has entirely recovered from her fright,—anger she calls it. She is not afraid of either of the Lupos, although the dent in the plank where the knife was still standing when we finally did get home will always make me feel trembly. Dr. Hume is making us a visit. Cousin Helen will not hear of his leaving us. She says she will certainly ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... hotspurs who had missed the boat at Canal Street. All the way up from there their labored gallop, by turns hid, seen, and hid again, had amused many of her passengers, and now, as the pair shouldered their angry way across the ship's crowded deck and down the steep gang-plank, a general laugh from the boat's upper rails galled them none the less for being congratulatory. So handsome and dangerous-looking that the laugh died, they halted midway of the narrow incline, impeding the stream of immigrants at their heels, and sent up a fierce stare in response to the propitiatory ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... been worse," he answered, smiling in spite of our situation. "You know the gentlemen might have cut our throats, or made us walk the plank, or stripped us of our clothes, or lashed us to different parts of the vessel apart from each other, or they might have amused themselves by beating us, or we might have been sent to work at the oars. Then, perhaps, our Malay is persuading the chief that he will make more of us by ransoming us, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... in the floor. You will know it by a remarkable knot in the wood, and by its being the next board, except one, to the wainscot, which fronts the door. At the distance of about a yard from that end, nearer the window, you will perceive a line across it, as if the plank had been joined;—the way to open it is this:—Press your foot upon the line; the end of the board will then sink, and you may slide it with ease beneath the other. Below, you will see a hollow place.' St. Aubert paused for breath, and Emily sat fixed in deep attention. 'Do you understand ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a short plank we enter Kimball's Music Hall, a very beautiful room settled between two crevices and lined with box work. Viewing the ceiling from the fissure on the right it is seen to be smooth and fringed with pop-corn. ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... switched on his engine as I leaped into the car. My "Let her go!" wasn't needed to make him throw in his clutch, and give me a flying start straight ahead down the broad plank way of the Embarcadero. Looking back as we hit the belt-line tracks, I saw a small car with two men in it, shoot out from one of the wide doorways of the plant; but as we rounded the cliff-like side of Telegraph Hill, my view of them ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... His massive frame heaved with the intensity of his feelings as he spoke and he impressed me as being absolutely sincere in all that he said. But he little knew nor apprehended the sad and lamentable fate then pending over him. Only a few evenings later, as he was crossing the gang-plank between two steamboats at the Landing, in some manner he fell from the plank, and was sucked under the boats by the current, and drowned. Some days later a negro found his body, lodged against some drift ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... to avoid a rupture in the Republican organization. The country received with interest, to say the least, the announcement from Chicago, where the national convention was assembled, that a platform plank dealing with the subject of world peace, had been drawn leaving out the Lodge reservations, and yet remaining agreeable to all interests, meaning thereby, the Lodge reservationists, the mild reservationists and the group of Republican ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... touches it, whether it be the cart that ploughs the wave for sea-weed, or the boat or plank that rides upon it, but is brought at once from the demesne of coarse utilities into that of picture. All trades, all callings, become picturesque by the water's side, or on the water. The soil, the slovenliness is washed out of every calling by its ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... your secret will be your plank of safety," said Petit-Claud; his first loyal intention of avoiding a lawsuit by a compromise was frustrated. "I do not wish to know it; but mind this that I tell you. Work in the bowels of the earth if you ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... throng of persons ran to the quay for refuge. The city of Lisbon was in profound darkness. The quay and all the people on it disappeared. If it and they went down—not a single corpse, not a shred of clothing, not a plank of the quay, nor so much as a splinter of it ever floated to ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... slumber, soon tumbled from his chair. This so confused him that he forgot his pretended errand, and shambled out of the house. He was not so drunk that he could not tell a good bit of horseflesh, and he straightway took a fancy to Prince, the pet pony of the family. An unwritten plank in the platform of the pro-slavery men was that the Free Soil party had no rights they were bound to respect, and Sharpe remarked to Will, with ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... now like the sailor who, while drifting through a tempestuous ocean, clings for safety to a single plank, his powers of grasping it becoming every moment more feeble, and the deep darkness of the night only checkered by the flashes of lightning, hissing as they show the white tops of the billows, in which he is soon to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... a conversation in which Vanessa's native Jewish wit was beginning to tell against the more homely gifts of the rest of the party, Leonetta would suddenly fall back, stand in an attitude of rapt attention over a brook, a well, a wild flower, a plank bridge, a pool, or anything; and, at a signal from her, the three men of the party would quickly rally to her halting place, and enter heartily into whatever spirit the object ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the shed at the back. There Barnickel was sleepily starting a fire, and the door leading into his little den farther back discovered the soldier blankets of his bunk tumbled over as though he had just arisen. The door to the yard was still bolted. Davies slipped the bolt and stepped out on the plank walk leading from the kitchen to the gate in the rear fence. These had been tramped by many feet in that direction, and by only one pair in the other. Coming around from the side of the house were the tracks ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... finest of its kind in England. Some of the tables and forms are of much later date, but an interest attaches even to this furniture from the fact of its having been made from oak grown close to the Hall; and as one of the tables has a slab composed of an oak plank nearly thirty inches wide, we can imagine what fine old trees once grew and flourished close to the now busy Fleet Street, and the bustling Strand. There are frames, too, in Middle Temple made from the oaken timbers which once formed the piles in the ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... the rainfall in certain regions. The natives of the more remote districts—as in the States of Vera Cruz, Guerrero, &c., are abominably wasteful in timber-cutting, sacrificing whole trees for the obtaining of a single plank at times. There is a nomadic race of Indian agriculturists in Guerrero who destroy large areas of forest every year, burning the trees to plant corn upon spaces which they never use for two years in succession. These nomadic timber-destroyers are known ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... roof of three courses of 12-inch timbers, separated by 2-inch plank, was then floated over the piles and sunk. It had three timber shafts 7 x 17 feet in plan, and when it was in place and covered with earth it formed the top of a caisson with the sheet piling on the sides and ends, the latter being driven after the roof was in place. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... them. Once or twice waves actually broke over the vessel, crashing and roaring down the deck, and washing hither and thither until gradually absorbed between the planks or drained away through the scupper-holes. On each of these occasions the poor rotten vessel would lurch and shiver in every plank, as if with ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon which to put the sash covering may also be bought complete, but here there is a chance to save money by constructing your own frames—the materials required, being 2x4 in. lumber for posts, and inch-boards; or better, if you can easily procure them, plank ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... returned. Instead of the guard, which had gone on board without orders, supposing its duty was done, he saw approaching a hostile line of battle. He rode back, his horse slid down the river-bank on its haunches, and trotted on board a transport over a plank thrust out for him. General Polk had come over with General Cheatham, bringing two more regiments and a battalion. The entire force formed in line, approached the river-bank, and opened fire. The gunboats, as well as the infantry on the transports, returned the fire. Each side was ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... entirely," said he. "You are like my partner, Richardson, who would write to ask the Czar what he would take for the Winter Palace, if I'd let him, when if steamships were a dollar a dozen he couldn't put up enough to buy a gang-plank. I can't move next to a church, because all you womenites belong to different ones; but I can take a room for you in the steeple and have an elevator put in that will make close connection with the services, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... beef, ship-plank, and other necessaries, can be sent down the stream of Ohio to West Florida, and from thence to the islands, much cheaper, and in better order, than from New York or Philadelphia. Fifth, Hemp, tobacco, iron, and such bulky articles, can also be sent down the stream of ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... own carriage brought up with a jerk, and Eddring, dragging madame by the arm, hurried across the stage plank almost as it was on the point ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... breasts stirred the same emotions of love of country. Just then neither felt like speaking. They hastened on in silence. Up the gang-plank they strode. At a word from the officer on deck, two young sailors, serving as messengers, darted down the plank, saluting, then relieving the young officers of ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... necessary for the stranger to cross a pool on a plank which Beal-bo provides for the occasion, and on this he charges a toll. He used to let the water in to deepen the pools before the tourists came through, in order to bring his ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... thousand. Kitty would be dragged into the light and harassed and his own attitude toward her misunderstood. All these things, if he acted upon his oath. Nevertheless, he determined to risk suspension of operations until he returned from Washington. There was one sound plank to cling to. He had first-hand information that anarchistic elements would remain in their noisome cellars until May first. If he were not ordered abroad until after that, no harm would follow ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... and ten Persian girls and fourscore Kurd and fourscore and ten Georgian women and Tigris and Euphrates and a fowling net and a flint and steel and Many- Columned Irem[FN154] and a thousand rogues and pimps and horse- courses and stables and mosques and baths and a builder and a carpenter and a plank and a nail and a black slave, with a pair of recorders, and a captain and a caravan-leader and towns and cities and a hundred thousand dinars and Cufa and Ambar[FN155] and twenty chests full of stuffs and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... exchange of signals (and the practice is virtually universal throughout the whole of aboriginal Australia), we saw three catamarans, or floats, each carrying a man, shooting across towards our island. These catamarans merely consisted of a broad plank with a stick placed transversely at the prow, on which the black placed his feet. He squatted down on the plank and then paddled forward. I viewed their approach with mixed sensations of alarm and hope. I was in the power of these people, I thought. They could tear me limb ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him through the midnight storm—as a despairing soul would to the only good act of a wicked life that he could plead for ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... wretches in their degradation that only the most cruel and cunningly devised torture could satiate their bloodthirsty cravings—human hyenas, who found rest only in the pains and shrieks of other mortals. By far the most favorite pastime was to make the victim "walk the plank" or hang him to the yardarm—a suggestion of the retribution suffered by the pirates when captured. No word picture can present the awful orgies indulged in by these social outcasts, who continued their carnage, assault, and abuse until the last ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... is another, and I don't hanker after forsaking my pine-knot fire, and feather bed, to cleave unto jail bars, and handcuffs. I see you are tired of Dyce's jokes, and you mean bizzness; and I don't intend to consume no more of your valuable solicitous time. Dyce, fetch me that plank ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and flattening the head is still strictly adhered to among the Chinooks. The people bearing the name of Flat Heads are very numerous, but very few among them actually practice the custom. Among the Chinooks it is almost universal. The process is thus effected: The child is placed on a thick plank, to which it is lashed with thongs to a position from which it can not escape, and the back of the head supported by a sort of pillow made of moss or rabbit-skins, with an inclined piece resting on the forehead of the child. This is every day drawn down a little tighter by means ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... This same plan may be used to sink the whole body of the well wall, first supporting the lower course of masonry on a curb, so called (see Fig. 27). This curb is usually made of several thicknesses of two-inch plank well nailed together, the plank breaking joints in the three or four layers used. It is a good plan to have this shoe or curb extend outwardly beyond the walls of the well so that some clearance may be had, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... of the logs when large were filled with split pieces of wood; when small they were plugged with moss. A door was made of hewn planks, and hinged very simply on two pins; one made by letting the plank project as a point, the other by nailing on a pin after the door was placed; both pins fitting, of course, into ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rapidly becoming numb with approaching sleep, but he roused himself to face certain details of the country life which till now had escaped him. His earnest concentration on the main plank of his platform, the spiriting away of William Bannister, had caused him to overlook the fact that no preparations had been made to welcome him on his arrival at his destination. He had treated the shack as if it had been a summer hotel, where he could walk in and engage ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... they came in from every vile contact, they went out in the morning to scatter from door to door, where they begged their breakfast, the seeds of festering disease. Turning the plank was "making the bed." Typhus is a filth-disease, of all the most dreaded. If ever it got a foothold in those dens, there was good cause for fear. I drew up at once a remonstrance, had it signed by representatives of the united charitable societies—some of them shrugged their shoulders, but they ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... clever man—above all, one as clever as Jimmy Grayson—could avoid giving a decided opinion upon this subject. It is party creed for a candidate to stand upon his platform, and, as the platform contained no tariff plank, he was not obliged to take any stand upon the tariff. Such a course would seem good politics, too, but Harley knew that Mr. Grayson favored a reduction of the tariff and a liberal measure of reciprocity ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... I figger he ain't comin' over," he remarked, as the object drew nearer. "I wonder what's stuck in his crop! Mebbe Mis' Eldridge won't let him out. She's something of a Tartar—Arabella is. Jan has to walk the plank, ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... glass which rested above it on two thick balks of dark oak, cut to exceeding smoothness, which lay across it, one at either end. On the far side from where I stood each of these was joined to another oak plank, also cut smooth, which sloped gently to the rocky floor. Should it be necessary to open the tomb, the glass could be made to slide along the supports and ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... for to bury the dead. Everythin' that we had in the way of nice clothes we had put on for to do honor to our captain, and most of us was able to sport white shirts and broadcloth. We laid the old man onto a plank and kivered him with the union jack, and all hands gathered round him, while Mr. Graham read the sarvice. Everythin' went lovely, and just at the proper time we tilted the plank, and he slipped off without a hitch of any kind. Arter the mate finished the readin', he said, 'Men, there's a good ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... putting his head inside the door over the butler's shoulder. I wanted to get the fellow out, but my uncle said, 'Oh! let him in by all means.—Well, friend, what do you want to say to me about my coffin?' 'Only, sir, that I'll saw up the oak tree that your honor was speaking of into seven-foot plank.' 'That would be wasteful,' answered my uncle; 'I never was more than six feet and an inch in my vamps, the best day ever I saw.' 'But your honor will stretch after death,' said the carpenter. 'Not eleven inches, I am sure, you blockhead! But I'll stretch, no doubt—perhaps ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... funk holes, yelling "Posten!" every few seconds. I figured that it was their "Stand to," or the relieving of a guard, for a little earlier there had been the regular tramp of feet—maybe two squads, from the sound—along a plank ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... I had hoped, it was not laid immediately on the ground; a space of two feet deep had been left. Into this hole night by night we cast the rubble we scooped out from the wall, carefully replacing the plank when we had done. We moved always with bare feet, carrying the stuff in our pillow cases. When I consider how many slight accidents might have marred our work and utterly undone us, I can not but think ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... Win, "that the space between the castle and the town was once a meadow. For that matter, they also say that the whole channel between here and France was once so narrow that the Bishop of Coutances used to cross to Jersey on a plank." ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... was no dream: they did see the white men! Yes, it was the white men who had put those cords round their hands and feet. There they lay, like logs of wood thrown on a plank, a man at each end of the plank, and these men ...
— The Book of One Syllable • Esther Bakewell
... Assyrian empire was joined to that of Babylon, Nisroch was the god worshipped in Nineveh, and it was in the temple of this idol that the great Sennacherib was murdered. This idol was in the shape of a bird—a dove or an eagle—made, if we can believe the Jewish rabbis, from a plank of Noah's ark. The people repented at the preaching of Jonah, but it was not long before they relapsed into their former idolatry ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... merciless vigor of despotism to accomplish such an enterprise. Workmen were marched by thousands from Kesan, from Astrachan, from the Ukraine, to assist in building the city. No difficulties, no obstacles were allowed to impede the work. The tzar had a low hut, built of plank, just sufficient to shelter him from the weather, where he superintended the operations. This hut is still preserved as one of the curiosities of St. Petersburg. In less than a year thirty thousand houses were reared, and these were all crowded by the many ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... without saying anything more, and we stepped on board the boat, after I had guided her over the precarious footing of a loose plank which, however, she ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... he, lifting his dingy straw hat with gaudy, stained band. He came down the broad plank to the shore. "Why, what's the matter?" This in a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... musings and stepped out to see the fun. The naphtha-lamps flared in Hester's face, and for a minute red wheels danced before her eyes, the din of a gong battered on her ears, and vision and hearing were indistinguishably blurred. A plank, like a diving-board, had been run out on trestles in front of the caravan, and along this the assistant darted forwards and backwards on a level with the shoulders of the good-humoured crowd, his arms full of clocks, saucepans, china ornaments, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... left wing, near his door, was a small ladder leading to the second story roof, and a dozen feet from the edge of the roof stood an old oak tree, on the further side of a tall hedge. Kenneth managed to carry a plank to the roof, where, after several attempts, he succeeded in dropping one end into a crotch of the oak, thus connecting the edge of the roof with the tree by means of the narrow plank. After this, at first sight of the girls in his end of the garden, he fled to the roof, ran across the improvised ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... the side-walks—wagon-loads of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store of eating and drink at an improvis'd table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenished from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent, white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... lads to a foreigner, but it is to be hoped that the Nicois authorities will have no reason to regret their confidence. The boys do no work on Sundays, and once a year have a ten days' tramp in the country; the buildings are spacious and airy, but I was sorry to see a plank-bed used as ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... would have noticed it, John. If there was anything of that sort it must be outside. However, we will take a good look round the yard to-morrow. The warehouse is strongly built, and I don't believe that any plank could be taken off and put back again, time after time, without making a noise that would be heard in the house. What ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... even persons might be concealed, at need. The strangers displayed great familiarity with the nature and ordinary positions of these private recesses. Not a chest, a closet, or even a drawer of size, escaped their vigilance; nor was there a plank that sounded hollow, but the master of the valley was called on to explain the cause. In one or two instances, boards were wrested violently from their fastenings, and the cavities beneath were explored, with a wariness that increased as ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... By the civil law, to destroy persons shipwrecked, or prevent their saving the ship, is capital. And to steal even a plank from a vessel in distress, or wrecked, makes the party liable to answer for the whole ship and cargo. (Ff. 47. 9. 3.) The laws also of the Wisigoths, and the most early Neapolitan constitutions, punished with the utmost severity all those who neglected to assist any ship in distress, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... below, but to and fro I saw the dead men glide, With never a plank their bones to tow, As the slippery seas they ride. While the bale-star burned where the mists swayed low They clasped each hand to hand, And swore an oath by the winds that blow— They swore by ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the Lord, she should have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and—well, there! I've said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carpenter, and boatswain were to be mercifully treated. No torture was prepared for them, but they were to be promptly put to death. As to the lieutenants, they were to be given the choice between navigating the ship to the nearest British port, or walking the plank. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... forest boldly; he showed no fear of Houssas, but walked through their lines, waving his long stick as a bandmaster will flourish his staff. And when the sentry on the plank that led to the boat had recovered from the shock of seeing the unexpected apparition, the man was seized and ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... issue invitations to the families for a soiree, when the excitement would fill society for days. The ladies would dress in their silks and laces and the men spruce up in their frock coats and flowered waistcoats and cross the gang plank into the kerosene-lighted steamboats and dance until morning. Those were red letter days for Jefferson. As a matter of etiquette, when the steamboat was loaded and about to start back, everybody would be at the levee to wave good-bye. The ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... out radiantly for the hills, with Senor Pedro leading and a municipal policeman with us to take home the pig. We soon arrived at the pig's stamping grounds. We had not long to wait. There was a snapping of the underbrush, and "Mr. Babui" appeared upon the scene. His great plank side and sagging belly was as fair a mark as any sportsman could have wished. His greedy little eyes were fixed upon the ground where he was rooting for his ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... creaking sound, and saw a little postern open in the wall, near the tree. A girl appeared, ran nimbly across a plank that spanned the moat, and into the ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... entangled in the snares of drunkenness are willing to take the pledge as an encouragement to those who have fallen. Perhaps you will bear with me if I offer you another illustration. There is a great chasm, a raging torrent at the bottom, and a single strong plank across it. Now persons with steady heads can walk over the chasm without difficulty, along the naked plank; but there are others who shudder at the very thought, and dare not venture—their heads swim, their knees tremble, as they approach the edge. What is to be done? Why, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... make a ship not possible to be sunk, though shot at an hundred times between wood and water by cannon, and should she lose a whole plank, yet, in half an hour's time, should be made to sail ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fillet mignon of beef, about four ounces of each, nicely. Saute these in a frying pan with clarified butter on a hot fire. Dress on a small round plank, about four and a half inches in diameter, decorated with a border of mashed potatoes. Over the fillet mignon pour stuffed pimentoes, covered with a sauce made of fresh mushrooms, sauteed sec over which has been poured ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... we went off in the same way as the other boat. I, being the youngest, had the pleasure of standing at the bow, and getting wet through. We went off well, though the seas were high. Some of them lifted us up, and sliding from under us, seemed to let us drop through the air like a flat plank upon the body of the water. In a few minutes we were in the low, regular swell, and pulled for a light, which, as we came up, we found had been run up to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana |
