"Yarn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a curious thing that you should come across that youngster Jimmy, just through having a yarn with a sailor on ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... the same every time he plays that. I know what I'm in for. Tomorrow, when I want to get up—nothing doing!" If he was not going to play they talked, and one of the friends—usually the painter who was in favour there that year—would "spin," as M. Verdurin put it, "a damned funny yarn that made 'em all split with laughter," and especially Mme. Verdurin, for whom—so strong was her habit of taking literally the figurative accounts of her emotions—Dr. Cottard, who was then just starting in general practice, would "really ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... in a mood to relate his strange yarn, from its outset in the ill-fated merchant trader, Plymouth Adventure. Eagerly he begged information concerning her people after their shipwreck, but Captain Bonnet had been cruising far offshore to intercept a convoy ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... fine and coarse sewing thread and yarn to make socks and stockings with. Her stockings and socks for the babies and papa would always be yarn. She could do pretty work. She had a large family. She had seventeen children and she kept them all ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... articles brought from France; though, for that matter, they did not look very different from Barton furniture generally, except, perhaps, in being plainer. Just now the chairs, lounges, and card-table were covered with blue yarn, blue woollen cloth, unbleached cotton, and other things requisite for the soldiers. They, the soldiers, had worn out the miserable socks provided by government in two days' marching, and sent up the cry, to the mothers and sisters in New England, "Give us such stockings as you are used ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... not consider that a man four times as big required twice as much rum to keep his sluggish frame in the same degree of good spirits. He held out against his crew for two days, during which time they never one of them so much as lifted a spun-yarn. The weather was, be sure, very mild and pleasant. I confess, however, that I was very uneasy, under the idea that we might all perish, from the obstinacy of the crew, on one side, and the firmness of the little man on the other. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... head was enveloped in the scarf which his hostess had lent him when he set forth upon his walk. It—the scarf—was tied under his chin and the fringed ends flapped in the wind. His round face, surrounded by the yarn folds, looked like that of the small boy in the pictures ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and revealing two encrusted ancles, with feet stuck into old shoes, turned under at the heels for convenience sake. A remark from the cribber touches his pride, and borrowing a few pins he commences pinning together the shattered threads of his nether garment. A rope-yarn secured about his waist gives a sailor-like air to his outfit. But, notwithstanding Tom affects the trim of the craft, the skilled eye can easily detect the deception; for the craftsman, even under a press of head sail, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... now remained to be done was to secure my provisions and wine, which I did by stowing the whole in a double thickness of tarpaulin, the edges of which I gathered together and tightly lashed with spun-yarn, finally securing the bundle to the raft by a short end of rope, so that it might not be washed away when the felucca should take her final plunge; and I had then done everything that it was possible for me ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... swift weaver's knot John Best mended the flying yarn. Then he turned from a novice at the Gill Spinner and listened, not very patiently, to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... way, fore-scuttle and after hatchway, stove our compasses to pieces in the binnacles, cut away tiller-ropes, halliards, braces, and most of our running rigging, cut our sails to pieces badly; took a tub of tarred rope-yarn and what combustibles they could find about deck, put them in the caboose house and set them on fire; then left us, taking with them our boat and colors. When they got alongside of the schooner they scuttled our boat, took in their own, and made ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... through it round the band place; a green cloth jump-coat, threadbare, even to the threads being worn white, and breeches of the same, with long knees down to the garter; with an old sweaty leathern doublet, a pair of white flannel stockings next to his legs, and upon them a pair of old green yarn stockings, all worn and darned at the knees, with their feet cut off: his shoes were old, all slashed for the ease of his feet, with little rolls of paper between his toes to keep them from galling; and an old coarse shirt, patched both ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... Van, yet he looked uneasy. "It would be a great comfort to every one, to take Joe down. He does yarn so." ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... and the boy she bore was named MARTIN LUTHER. Strange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she had gone with her husband to make her small merchandisings; perhaps to sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the small winter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household; in the whole world, that day, there was not a more entirely unimportant-looking pair of people than this Miner and his Wife. And yet what were all Emperors, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... light into electricity by spectrum is an interesting possibility. The idea of using foreign proteins on the human system to repel enemies, is also interesting. Do you get it? We didn't either until we read the story. Read the yarn and ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... The public money, of which the King was generally so sparing, was lavishly spent in ploughing bogs, in planting mulberry trees amidst the sand, in bringing sheep from Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in bestowing prizes for fine yarn, in building manufactories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manufactories of hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither the experience of other rulers, nor his own, could ever teach him that something more than an edict and a grant of public money was required to create a Lyons, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... vigorous and briskly moving yarn—the best thing of the kind we have encountered for ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... consented to spin them a yarn. The old gentleman settled himself in his chair, my mother smoothed her apron, folded her hands, and looked meekly into my face. Tom Lokins filled his pipe, stretched out his foot to poke the fire with the toe of his shoe, and began to smoke like a steam-engine; then I cleared my throat ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... If I'd been doing it, I should on'y have thought of tying it on with a bit o' spun-yarn; but this here tin holds it ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the blow. Alas! it was a very solid dog that I struck against, being nothing more nor less than the side of one of my boxes, and I barked my knuckles rather badly. The laughter of the Dayaks was loud and prolonged when Dubi translated the yarn to them next day, and they remembered it long afterwards. Until I heard the roar of laughter that went up, the story had not struck me as ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... decided on direct action. Scotty opened the door of the room he shared with Rick and looked about him unhappily, not really seeing anything. He knew Rick's captors would not have an easy time making his pal talk. And even when Rick did open up, he would spin some kind of yarn that would throw them off the trail. Scotty thought that Rick would not be in any great danger until he disclosed the cat's whereabouts. But he didn't like the idea of what Rick would have ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... chair," said Danny. "You've gone back a heap these last few months, frettin' over your bad boys, Danny an' Gene. You'll need support under you while I'm throwin' my yarn. Story of my life, Bill." He placed a chair for Madeline. "Miss Hammond, beggin' your pardon again, I want you to listen, also. You've the face an' eyes of a woman who loves to hear of other people's happiness. Besides, somehow, it's easy for me ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... "Illustrations of the Author of 'Waverley," clears up a point doubtful in Scott's memory, by saying that Geimells really was a Blue-Gown. He rode a horse of his own, and at races was a bookmaker. He once dropped at Rutherford, in Teviotdale, a clue of yarn containing twenty guineas. Like Edie Ochiltree, he had served at Fontenoy. He died at Roxburgh Newton in 1793, at the age of one hundred and five, according to his own reckoning. "His wealth was the means of enriching a nephew in Ayrshire, who is now (1825) a considerable landholder there, and ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... some state or other is rich in timber for shipbuilding, where is it to find a market (12) for the product except by persuading the ruler of the sea? Or, suppose the wealth of some state or other to consist of iron, or may be of bronze, (13) or of linen yarn, where will it find a market except by permission of the supreme maritime power? Yet these are the very things, you see, which I need for my ships. Timber I must have from one, and from another iron, from ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete as an encyclopaedia. This "old man of the sea" spun his tempestuous yarn with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been air-tight—it was as close as possible—yet we heard the shrieking of the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... "The yarn I told you about myself was true enough," continued Stingaree. "Only the names were altered, as they say; it happened to the other fellow, not to me. I made it happen. He is hardly likely to have lived to tell ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... 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
... a grimace so much like his own, that it brought on a contest in which the yarn winding was laid aside for a time, while they stood before a mirror, each trying to outdo the other in ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... old lady twisted her ball of yarn viciously, causing it to roll upon the floor, and when she had stiffly followed it and picked it from the corner her face was very red, either from the exertion of stooping or from the insult ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... are considered to be proficient. In the census of 1901 nearly a quarter of the whole caste were shown as malguzars or village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun yarn which they get woven for them by Gandas; probably in consequence of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the Ganda to pollute them, as other castes do. They will not grow turmeric, onions, garlic, san-hemp or tomatoes, nor will they ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Although by no means a large erection, it formed one of the most striking objects in the city, and a more beautiful piece of Gothic architecture it would be difficult to imagine. It was formerly called the Yarn Market, and was said to have been erected about the year 1378 by Sir Lawrence de St. Martin as a penance for some breach of ecclesiastical law. It consisted of six arches forming an open hexagon, supported by six columns on heavy foundations, with a central pillar square ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... to wood, glass, etc., by an application of coloring-matter which enters the substance a little below the surface, in distinction from painting, in which coloring-matter is spread upon the surface; dyeing is generally said of wool, yarn, cloth, or similar materials which are dipped into the coloring liquid. Figuratively, a standard or a garment may be dyed with blood in honorable warfare; an assassin's weapon is stained with the blood of his victim. To tinge is to color slightly, and may also be used of ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... an exchange with the yarn belt from his waist, for a fillet made of kangaroo hair. The muskets were kept at hand in the boat, to be prepared against any treachery; but, every thing seeming to go on well, the natives appearing rather shy than otherwise, Mr. Flinders joined his companion, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... or Cologne, Rome, Jerusalem, or Timbuctoo. Mrs. Pilgrim was left at home to play "patience," and to keep the house and bairns. She was generally a long-suffering creature, but sometimes she did get into mischief. She could not always spin yarn, so she occasionally varied her task by weaving nets—traps for the unwary who ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... artists, and East-enders. That was Mr. Kipling's trick. He assumed the realistic manner as Jacob assumed the hairy hands of Esau. He compelled us to believe him by describing with elaborate detail the setting of his story. And, having once got us in the mood of belief, he proceeded to spin a yarn that as often as not was as unlike life as A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. His characters are inventions, not portraits. Even the dialects they speak—dialects which used to be enthusiastically spoken of as masterly ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... concerned lest he cause trouble between Callum and Hibbs. He protested that he did not want to, when, in reality, he was dying to tell. At last he came out with, "Why, he's circulated the yarn that your sister had something to do with this man Cowperwood, who was tried here recently, and that that's why he's ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... wider and wider, until apparently it got too wide for the bed, and the boy leaped out of his couch upon the floor. The first thing he did was to pat the ball gently but firmly, very much as a kitten manifests its interest in a ball of yarn. Then his attentions to his new plaything grew more pronounced and vigorous, and within fifteen minutes it had been chased out of the nursery into the parental bedchamber. Still Jarley slept. Mrs. Jarley was merely half asleep. She tried to tell Jack to be quiet; but ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... you think he's making up the whole yarn?" Jerry asked. "Well, even if he is, it's a mighty good one, and it might have happened to him, ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... another, racking 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... molasses and other commodities. The principal exports are wood-pulp, timber, nails, paper, butter and margarine, matches, condensed milk, fish, leather and hides, ice, sealskins, &c. Of the imports, Great Britain supplies the greater part of the cotton and woollen yarn, the machinery (including ships), and the raw metals; the United States about one-half of the oils and fats, and a large proportion of the food-stuffs, and skins, feathers, &c. Of the exports, almost the whole of the timber goes to Great Britain, together with the larger portion of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... Hard, with a reminiscent chuckle, "of a yarn. I was in New Mexico on a hunting trip with Joe McArthur—you remember the Boston McArthurs who had a ranch near one of the Apache reservations? Well, we rode up to the agency store to ask old Slade, the ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... 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 hid the round, oak center-table. The eldest brother's ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... looked up at it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it 'would play music before long.' He had extracted some colours from the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called 'The Lady of ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... curd soaps (boiled very dry), as free as possible from uncombined caustic alkali. The raw wool, after this cleansing operation, is oiled with olive oil or oleine, prior to spinning; after spinning and weaving, the fabric, in the form of yarn or cloth, has to be scoured to free it from oil. The soap in most general use for scouring woollen fabrics is neutral oleine-soda soap. Some manufacturers prefer a cheap curd soap, such as is generally termed "second curd," and in cases where lower grades of wools are ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... 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 ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... failed. He said a gentleman had hired him as a clerk, and that was all he knew. He had left him at the Stock Exchange; if they would let him go, he would try and find him and bring him around to the bank. J. Bull is gullible, but not so much so as to swallow that yarn. ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... a habit of knitting the day's events in with her yarn. What she had done and said and heard were all thought over again to the rhythmic click of her needles. And the results at the end of the evening were usually a finished comforter and a comfortable feeling. This ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... have no cotton-wool growing, because the country is cold, yet they wear mantles thereof, as your honor may see by the show thereof; and true it is, that there was found in their houses certain yarn made of cotton-wool."—Coronado's Relation, Hakluyt's Coll. of Voyages, London ed., 1600, iii, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular army at all. However, with the song-singing and yarn-spinning around the camp-fire, everything presently became serene again; and by-and-by we raked the corn down level in one end of the crib, and all went to bed on it, tying a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if any ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I ain't done with him yet," growled Archie, and rising from his seat, he took down his gun and began polishing the barrel with an old yarn stocking of Sarah's. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... deny nor confirm the legend. "I dunno what people you! I bin tell-straight my yarn go one time like wind to Medina. What more you want? I dunno what kind people you!" One mystery at a time ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... were by barter. All payments, tribute, rent, fulfilment of contract, fine, damages, wages, or however else arising, were made in kind—horses, cows, store cattle, sheep, pigs, corn, meal, malt, bacon, salt beef, geese, butter, honey, wool, flax, yarn, cloth, dye-plants, leather, manufactured articles of use or ornament, gold, and silver—whatever one party could spare and the other find ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... and the sweet children. If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house without feeling that I had ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... Ben blustered. "If Jean didn't tell you this cock-and-bull yarn, how would you know ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... a hurry this time." He exchanged a rapid glance with the latter. "You must know, maman, that Pyotr Stepanovitch is the universal peacemaker; that's his part in life, his weakness, his hobby, and I particularly recommend him to you from that point of view. I can guess what a yarn he's been spinning. He's a great hand at spinning them; he has a perfect record-office in his head. He's such a realist, you know, that he can't tell a lie, and prefers truthfulness to effect... except, of course, in special ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to think? What will the police think? What will the jury think when they hear your flimsy yarn—an' the straightforward evidence of my daughter? They'll think that the coat she wore to the show, an' that she still has, is the coat she wore from the store, an' that you've got the other. An' when Kranz tells ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... say one word. Friend Barbara took up her knitting, and I saw that she was rounding the heel of a stocking; and I trust I am truthful, if volatile, when I remember me that I wished I were her knitting-needle. She was very quiet: her ball of yarn slipped away, lacking proper gravitation. "My!" said she, and went and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... say that to me, Sleight," said Renshaw quietly, "because you have in that drawer an equal evidence of my folly and my confidence; but if you are wise you will not presume too far on either. Let us see how we stand. Through the yarn of a drunken captain and a mutinous sailor you became aware of an unclaimed shipment of treasure, concealed in an unknown ship that entered this harbor. You are enabled, through me, to corroborate some facts and identify the ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... linen, yarn, or anything, for these frocks are of absolute necessity—nothing can be done without them. His Royal Highness desires you to acquaint Glenmoriston and Glenco, if they come your way of this intended march, so that they may go by Taybridge (if you please, with you), ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... bit," Charlie objected. "Wait till I come down. Let's have a yarn. You don't want to go ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... date, with a dash of Quixote. I nearly died at that place where the knight breaks his lance on the first automobile he ever saw and then rides at the head of the circus parade. It's certainly a ticklesome yarn." ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... ain't all dough yet. It all comes of them no 'count, fashionable sto' gallowses—' 'spenders' I believe they calls 'em. Never mind, honey! I'll send for Johnny, tell him how it happened, 'pologize to him, and knit him a real nice pair of yarn gallowses, jest like your pa's; and they never ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... belt in which they carry their hammer and knife is manufactured from the fur of the opossum spun into a small yarn like worsted; it is tightly bound at least three or four hundred times round the stomach; very few however possessed this ornament; and it is not improbable that the natives who had their hair clubbed, those that wore belts, and the one who was ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... "Mr. Lincoln wore flax and tow linen pantaloons—I thought about five inches too short in the legs—and frequently he had but one suspender, no vest or coat. He had a calico shirt such as he had in the Black Hawk War; coarse brogues, tan-colour; blue yarn socks, a straw hat, old style, and without a band." It is recorded that he preferred dealing with men and boys, and disliked to wait on the ladies. Possibly, if his attire has been rightly described, the ladies, even the Clary's Grove ladies, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... feast from the windward side. She had even advanced straight toward it for a few steps when the sweaty leather sang loud and strong again, and smoke and iron mingled like two strands of a parti-colored yarn. Centring all her attention on this, she advanced within two leaps of the Calf. There on the ground was a scrap of leather, telling also of a human touch, close at hand the Calf, and now the iron and smoke on the full vast smell of Calf were like ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... is the end of the story. As soon as the boilers cooled off they worked all right on those supply pumps. May I be hanged if they had not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and cloth, and, if you will believe me, a wire of some woman's crinoline. And that French folly of a sham Empress cut short that day the victory of the Confederate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we shall ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists long enough? I'm not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into the lee scuppers—sailor though I be. Besides, I won't jump overboard without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... that the little old man told us; but, absurd though it was, he had an air of impressive sincerity; and although every one of us would have laughed the yarn out of meeting had it been told of Captain Whidden, affairs had changed in the last days aboard ship. Certainly we did not trust Captain Falk. I thought of the cook's dark words, "A little roun' hole in the ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... had just promised. Passing into the waist of the ship, he provided himself with a suitable hatchet, and then, without speaking a syllable to any of the mute but attentive seamen, he sprang into the fore-rigging, every strand and rope-yarn of which was tightened by the strain nearly to snapping. The understanding eyes of his observers comprehended his intention; and with precisely the same pride of station as had urged him to the dangerous undertaking four or five of the oldest mariners jumped ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... you write this yarn for me? Of course 'The Blade' is only a country daily, and our space rates are not high. But see here, Prescott, I'll pay you a dollar a column for anything you write for us that possesses local interest enough to warrant our printing it. ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... adventures of the sturdy craft "Nomad" and the stranger experiences of the Rangers themselves with Morello's schooner and a mysterious derelict form the basic of this well-spun yarn of the sea. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... all led into the sitting room, and Bertha flushed a little. She seemed to see all its shabbiness at a glance—the worn spot of carpet by her father's desk, and another in front of the sofa, the old-fashioned furniture, and grandmother sitting there in her corner, knitting a blue yarn stocking. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... yourself. You are on fire with the ardour of the chase. Is not that it? Accept the advice of an older man, Prince, and sleep on this affair. I have little fancy for nocturnal escapades two nights together. As for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince and I will have a yarn over such fluids as can ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... a short talk with Captain Simms when she docked. Not much of a yarn. She didn't have a good ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... pleasing coincidence, Conte Crayon himself appeared with the desired explanation. "You see," he said, "that beast of a Siccatif de Courtray hunted me up yesterday and told me the yarn about you and the slop-shop man. He wanted me to write it up and publish it, 'as a joke,' he said; but it was clear enough that he was in ugly earnest about it. And so, you see, I had to rush it into print in the way I chose to tell it—which won't do you a bit of harm, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of you to put it like that," said Archie, gratefully. "I mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know how rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the party of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... arrived in the evening at my dear home, kissed my wife and all the women I could meet with that were worth the trouble, sat myself down in a snug elbow-chair near a comfortable English fire, told a long, tough yarn about mountains of sugar and rivers of rum, bottle-nosed porpoises, sharks, grampuses, and flying-fish, until I fell sound asleep, but, however, not so sound to prevent my hearing my best end of the ship ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... larch, maple, wych elm, and sallow, and the rough butts, when sawn off before the sharping, supplied the firing for the boiling. Green ash is splendid for burning: "The ash when green is fuel for a Queen." Later, when I adopted a Kentish system of hop-growing on coco-nut yarn supported by steel wire on heavy larch poles, our visits to the woods were less frequent, and much wear and tear of horses and waggons was saved. Some of our journeys, in the earlier days, took us to the estate of the Duc d'Aumale, on the Worcester side of Evesham, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... spin a hard-luck yarn," Frank went on, "but I have not had the best of everything, dear. I started wrong with uncle. He never liked my father nor any of my father's family. His treatment of his wife was infamous. My poor governor ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... yarn about man-of-war life, and told us how the men serve out the officers when they ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... a yarn!" said the young Cantab. "You can drop out if you like, Fawcett, but I'll see this thing through, if I have to do it alone. I don't hedge a penny. I like the cut of him a great deal better than ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 most ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of which were secured by a long string wrapped over the ring like a slipnoose. When the ring was placed over the mouth of the invalid the string was pulled and the ring dropped and rolled out of the lodge, the long tail of white cotton yarn, with eagle plume attached to the end, extending far behind. Hostjoboard repeated this ceremony with a second ring, and so did Hostjobokon and Hostjoboard alternately, until the twelve rings were disposed of. Three of the rings were afterward taken to the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... to the middle of the sea, and then to step on the shell with his left foot, when he would immediately find himself in the under-world, while every one there was asleep. He also advised him to make himself a bag of spun yarn in which to put the water-birds with gold and silver plumage, and then he could return unmolested. Everything fell out as the old man predicted, but Slyboots had hardly reached the sea-shore with his booty when he heard his former ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... from almost any fabric—satin, velvet, georgette, maline, ribbon, soft leather, oilcloth, yarn, and chenille. A scrapbag for odds and ends should always be kept for small pieces of materials. Any piece two inches square may be used for flowers or fruits. Such a bag of pieces will prove a veritable gold mine to use in making flowers and fruit trimmings. Each year ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... is now among our sick, his cutting tools are but few, and these mostly broken and bound about with rope-yarn as fast as may be. Thus our pinnace, on which lyeth so much of our hope of escape, is but in ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... had been of the tenderest; and if in the rough battle of life she became a little rough and masculine, the poor crippled mother felt none of it. Kirsty managed everything with a strong, capable hand, from felling trees to spinning yarn and making butter. She received plenty of help, of course; Big Malcolm and Long Lauchie were her nearest neighbours, and their families vied with each other in seeing who could do the most for her. Weaver Jimmie, too, would have been willing ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... that "Tidy," as we will call him, was the first speaker who had something to say. He had a reason for talking, for some evil genius had followed him for two days. The yarn is best told in his own words, so far as ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... told it to me," admitted Merritt, "I'd have made up my mind right away he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with a silly yarn. And yet there was Grandfather Crawford just as sober as you ever saw anyone, and vouching for every word ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the tale a thousand ways, But never could git through the maze That hangs around that queer day's doin's; But I'll tell the yarn ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... to him about that lace you found in the dead man's hand—or at any rate not until you find out more about it. The glove he can have since it is pretty obvious that it belonged to Sir Horace. We'll spin Crewe a yarn that we are depending on it as ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... is necessary to produce a work of art is to take a drummer's story and tell it in dusty English, we might try our luck with the modern smoking-car yarn about the traveling-man who came to the country hotel late at night, and see how far we can get with it in the manner of James Branch Cabell imitating ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... 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 ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... exclaimed Jarwin, turning round, and looking full at his audience, while a bright smile lit up his sunburnt countenance, as if a sudden idea had occurred to him, "I'll do my best to palaver. Here goes, then, for a yarn." ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... sent me a copy of your paper containing an article of which you do me the honor to make me the subject. What can have put such an extravagant yarn into the head of so amiable and good-natured a fellow? I never said the thing which you attribute to me in any interview, caucus or anywhere else. I never inherited any wealth or had any. My father was a lawyer in very large practice for his ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... virile passion. He lacked indeed the temperamental balance of Lamb. His insight into human nature was intellectual rather than sympathetic. Though as a philosopher he understood that the web of life is of a mingled yarn, he has given us none of those rare glimpses of laughter ending in tears or of tears subsiding in a tender smile which are the sources of Lamb's depth and his charm. The same thing is true of his humor. He relished heartily its appearance ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and she was sensitively alert to the slightest imputation of untruthfulness. She offered no specious explanations for her withdrawal from the debate, and when Mary Brooks innocently inquired "what little yarn" she told the registrar, that she could get away so often, Eleanor fixed her with an unpleasantly penetrative stare and answered with all her old-time hauteur that she did not ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... in the middle, well available for lance ends, one hundred and thirty of which are worth one thaler in Schoa; also pieces of copper, tin, and zinc; calf-skins; black, printed, and unprinted cotton cloth; pieces of cloth; coarse red cotton yarn (for knitting); and strings of beads. The universal and intergroup money is the Maria Theresa thaler weighing 571.5 to 576 English grains.[287] Cameron mentions the exchange of intergroup money for intragroup money at a fair at Kawile, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... person who has been hoodwinked. We know Dr. Cook very well and also his reputation, and we know that he was never good for a hard day's work; in fact he was not up to the average, and he is no hand at all in making the most of his resources. He probably has spun this yarn to Mr. Whitney and the boatswain to make himself ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... mighty queer about this whole proposition. That yarn of yours last night, Jerry, didn't sit very easy on my pillow, and it doesn't rest very easy on my breakfast, either. What's the idea? What you trying to hide, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... sermons that he preached during the festival had much the same value. You are aware that these friars never fail to go begging for their Easter eggs, and receive not only eggs, but many other things, such as linen, yarn, chitterlings, hams, chines, and similar trifles. So when Easter Tuesday came, and the friar was making those exhortations to charity of which such folks as he are ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Out of the little doctor's chaos of pink flannel Harmony had brought order. The result, masculine and complete even to its tassels and cord of pink yarn, was ready to be presented. It was with mingled emotions that Anna Gates wrapped it up and gave it to Harmony ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
