"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had just received served only to limber my vocal cords. I told the doctor all about the preliminary verbal skirmish and the needlessness of the fight. The superintendent had graduated at Yale over fifty years prior to my own graduation, and because of this common interest and ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... room in the morning, is almost sufficient to sicken a healthy individual; how much more injurious must be its effects upon the lodgers themselves. Examine in the morning a child, who has passed the night thus confined. You will find him limber as a rag, exhausted by perspiration, wholly destitute of animation, without appetite, and on the very verge of cholera. I should recommend an entirely different plan of management. Instead of a feather bed, the child should be placed ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... rotten. When we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was close to the river bank, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin, With old shaking arches, all moss overgrown, Where the flitter-bat hideth, The limber snake glideth, And chill water drips from the ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... snatchers of crumbs in all cannot find protection under the flag and its institutions? That was what the gamblers' trust of Comanche wanted to know. In order to insure it they had the city incorporated, and put in a good, limber-wristed bartender ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... halfe a quarter of a pound of butter rubbed in the flower and sugar, then wet it with the yolks of two Eggs, and halfe a spoonfull of white Rose-water, a spoonfull or little more of Cream as will wet it; knead the Past till it be soft and limber to rowle well, then rowle it extreame thin, and cut them round by little plates; lay them up on buttered papers, and when they goe into the Oven, prick them, and wash the Top with the yolk of an Egg beaten, and made thin with Rose-water ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... attitude), stretched himself upon the opposite place, reclining upon his elbow in a most painful and awkward situation, with his head raised above the end of the couch, that the economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle, without sustaining any misfortune but that of his stocking being torn by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the rest of his limbs. But the baron, who was neither so wieldy nor ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... feel on the second morning as if you could never reach your journey's end, start off easily, and you will limber up ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... the pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning, gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us even a moment to wipe the sweat ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... as the "Rebel Yell," the little squad dashed forward and plunged into the far heavier lines of the enemy. There was a detached Federal gun there doing its work. It was a superb twelve-pounder, and Duncan's men quickly captured it with its limber-chest. Instantly dismounting, and without waiting for orders from him, they turned it upon the enemy with vigorous effect. But they were so fearfully over-matched in numbers that their work endured for scarcely more than a minute. They ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... you again." The circus man took hold of Pony and felt his joints. "You're put together pretty tight; but I reckon we could make you do if you'd let us take you apart with a screw-driver and limber up the pieces with rattlesnake oil. Wouldn't like it, heigh? Well, let me see!" The circus man thought a moment, and then he said: "How would double-somersaults ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... sore need o' your limber French tongue," said Bill. "Sure, b'y, you'll go along with ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... the inoffensive frog, 'A little child, a limber elf,' With health and spirits all agog, He does the long jump in a bog Or teaches men to swim and dive. If he should be cut up alive, Should I not ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... that he might discover some sign of their passage—a discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site—he continued farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon. Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a winding river he determined to turn about ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... eight Krupp guns each, were the invading force from the north, which hoped later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a contingent of Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross the Free State border. It was an hour before dawn that the guns started, and the riflemen followed close behind the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon the black sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion says of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part the expression ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... general had placed himself on an eminence, to see his army file to the opposite side of the river. A consultation was held upon the practicability of passing the guns. Captain Miller volunteered to conduct the first gun. The limber was taken off, and drag ropes were fastened to the washers, to prevent the gun from descending too rapidly. The trail, carried foremost, was held up by two gunners, but, notwithstanding every precaution, the bridge swung from side to side, and the carriage acquired so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... I tell you it felt good. By the time we arrived in Oakland I was as limber and strong as ever,—though Charley and Neil Partington were afraid I was going to have pneumonia, and Mrs. Partington, for my first six months of school, kept an anxious eye upon me to discover the ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... git himself through there with two pair o' pants on," answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels. I used to think, when I was a boy, that 'twas the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an' follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There warn't nobody but ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... night of the meeting in the church excitement ran continuously higher. Business was at length suspended; the fishermen forgot their nets; and the limber tongues of the town gossips steadily increased their clatter. Don Mario's store and patio assumed the functions of a departmental office. Daily he might be seen laboriously drafting letters of incredible length and wearisome prolixity to acting-Bishop Wenceslas; ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand, just ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... herself. The partially successful opposition infuriated the man. He was not accustomed to defence. His fury knew no restraint. He rained the blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself. Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise; unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her head just below the ear. It stretched ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... guns in position on one of the two cones, and with these guns they did good execution, knocking over a limber of one of French's batteries at the second shot, and practically before his guns ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... agreable to the idee, and told her so. I like 'em both. Ury is a tall, limber-jinted sort of a chap, sandy complected, and a little round shouldered, but hard-workin' and industrious, and seems to take ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... my master. "You are proven as strong as you are powerfully built, and as limber as both. It now remains to exhibit the inoffensive gentleness of your nature. As to this last proof, I am, in advance, certain of your success," saying which he again bound ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for merchandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering and sat up. Others, again, poised in proud and graceful ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... perhaps, when we start to go over the entire thing again and try new signals, it will be time. There are a few weak spots in the team that need help, and I'm going to devote two afternoons to them exclusively. Wander around, and limber up with walks or a bicycle ride. But please don't employ your spare time rounding up any ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... "It'll limber us up and at the same time help the horses," he said. "Knowing what kind of rifles we carry and how we can shoot, the Sioux won't be in any hurry to ride into the forest directly after us. We've a big advantage now in being able to see without being seen. As we needn't hurry, suppose we stop ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... accustomed comfort and glow of strength he began to run. When he came to Creep Head and there paused to survey Anxious Bight in a flash of the moon, he was tingling and warm and limber and eager. Yet he was dismayed by the prospect. No man could cross from Creep Head to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Harbor in the dark. Doctor Rolfe considered the light. Communicating masses of ragged cloud were ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... village that has wit enough to find out what 's going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple juice to limber ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the grand American expression ... it is brawny enough and limber and full enough ... on the tough stock of a race who through all change of circumstance was never without the idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant tongues. It is the powerful language ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... trooper, with affected anger, "I shall have my fellows as limber as supple-jacks on such fare; afraid of an Englishman as a Virginian negro is of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... bites of a doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... went up to that bedside in the worst panic I ever felt in all my life. My heart was hammering at my ribs like a trip-hammer. First I took up the white hand that was hanging helplessly down by the side of the bed; and I was glad to find that it was limber, though cold as ice. Life might not be extinct. I ran down and dispatched several servants in different directions for physicians, being determined to insure the attendance of one, even at the risk of bringing a dozen, and having all ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... three cheers when they reached the summit. Here Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham, with a party of sappers, pressed the enemy so hard, that they left in their precipitation a twenty-four pound howitzer and limber, carrying off the draft-bullocks. Having heard that another gun had been seen, and concluding that it could not have gone very far, I detached a squadron of dragoons, under Captain Tritton, and two horse-artillery guns, under Major Delafosse, in pursuit; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... pan. Let it heat slowly. Break the eggs in a bowl, add a tablespoonful of water to each egg and give twelve good, vigorous beats. To each six eggs allow a saltspoonful of pepper, and, if you like, a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley. Take the eggs, a limber knife and the salt to the stove. Draw the pan over the hottest part of the fire, turn in the eggs, and dust over a half teaspoonful of salt. Shake the pan so that the omelet moves and folds itself over each time you draw ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well as any of you city fellers ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I reckon thar is so much smoke over your town that ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... The limber, maturing, rounding form of Hulda stepped on the footstool of his mind, touched his knee, and exhaled the aroma of her youth like a subtile musk, till he leaned back languidly, as if he smoked a pipe and on its ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... years rolled away like a scroll and once again was I back in the Kentucky foothills, a lean and lathy sprout of a kid, a limber six-foot length of perpendicular appetite; and it was twelve o'clock for some people, but it was dinner time ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... horseback—the Transport Officer—has rumbled past, the Company, which has been standing respectfully in the ditch, enjoying a refreshing shower-bath of mud and hoping that none of the steel girders are projecting from the limber more than a yard or two, sets out once more upon its way—only to take hasty cover again as sounds of fresh and more animated traffic are heard approaching from the opposite direction. There is no mistaking the nature of this cavalcade: ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... impatience when taken into the open before they were hooked to the vehicle. They were being very well fed, and though once a week they had the hardest of work, for the rest of the time they had never more than enough to limber them up, for on schooldays I used to take them out for a spin of three or four miles only, after four. At home, when I left, my wife and I would get them ready in the stable; then I took them out and lined them up in front of the buggy. My ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... wagons' be sent to bring in the many tents belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out. I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them. The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes. The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons. I am satisfied the enemy's infantry and artillery passed Lick Creek ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... and slender and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sneak out of my window when I was a boy, so I need not disturb the aunts, and now I rather like it, for it's the shortest road, and it keeps me limber when I have no rigging to climb. Good-bye till breakfast." And away he went down the water-spout, over the roof, and vanished ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Van Horn, taking advantage of the calm to exercise the boat's crew with the fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was passing out the Lee-Enfields from their place on top the cabin skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to stalk stiff-legged. But the wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes, was not unobservant. He watched and snarled threateningly. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... perching birds grasp a twig firmly with their very limber toes and sharp claws, and put their head under their wing; but many others, like tame Geese and Ducks, sleep standing on the ground on one foot or ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... oar limber Was fir-tree timber,— A mast-fir tall, From Gudbrand's dale. Taking another, With both together He rowed amain; Like arrowy cane Or steel blade brilliant Were the oars resilient. The sun climbs up The mountain slope, The ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... have got it, he had it in his grasp, when, at the jump, just over the line of the goal, a clever fling, if ever was, caught him a crack on that part of the human frame where sound is best achieved. Then were these young lumps transformed to limber, lither, merry fellows. They rejoiced Skepsey's heart; they did everything better, ran and dodged and threw in a style to win the nod from the future official inspector of Games and Amusements of the common people; a deputy of the Government, proposed by Skepsey to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the gunners got down and stood there, quite at a loss. They ought to load; yet the word of command, "Prepare for action!" had not been given. And how could they load when the seats and the limber-boxes were still locked, and when the gun ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... shade, all barred With lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This roused the guard, but "Forward!" was the word, And on we ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Erebus and Night, Hie away; and aim thy flight Where consort none other fowl Than the bat and sullen owl; Where upon the limber grass Poppy and mandragoras With like simples not a few Hang for ever drops of dew. Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee thither, gentle Sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... such word as this, we should naturally expect it to follow the signification of lithe; soft, limber: which will not suit ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... stir—no sound issued from the tree. We removed the grass from the upper hole. A thick volume of smoke rolled out. The bear must be dead. No creature could live in such an atmosphere. I introduced my ramrod through the opening. I could feel the soft hairy body of the animal, but it was limber and motionless. It was dead. Feeling convinced of this, at length, we removed the rocks below, and dragged it forth. Yes, the bear was dead,—or, at all events, very like it; but, to make the thing sure, Cudjo gave ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... would just limber up a little and not be so stiff with him," urged Mrs. Fortescue, "let him see ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... J. was inherently optimistic; his head was forever hidden in a roseate aura of hopefulness and expectation. Under easy living he had grayed and fattened; his eyes were small and colorless, his cheeks full and veined with tiny sprays Of purple, his hands soft and limber. What had once been a measure of good looks was hidden now behind a flabby, indefinite mediocrity which an unusual carefulness in dress could not disguise. He was big-hearted in little things; in big things he was small. He told an excellent story, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... possessed me, thus to trifle with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to "get hold of me;" but, wisely for him, and happily for me, his wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles, which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation, I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh, in case he should undertake to execute his threats. I am glad there was no necessity for this; for resistance to him could not have ended so happily for me, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... into the valleys, an astonishing number of parasites and epiphytes was observed, especially on the pines and oaks. The round yellow clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... enfolds the world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in Heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin's hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o'er his visage serpents dropping gall. Yet he shall one day ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... had prepared a dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned by the earthwork, where they ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the canoe, and he dipped the implement the other named into the water, just as Hurry's limber tongue ceased. Wah-ta-Wah saw the departure of her warrior on this occasion with the submissive silence of an Indian girl, but with most of the misgivings and apprehensions of her sex. Throughout the whole of the past night, and down to the moment, when they used the glass together ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... ole Mister Age begins a-stealin' Thoo yo' back an' knees, W'en yo' bones an' jints lose der limber feelin', An' am stiff'nin' by degrees; Now der's jes one way to feel young and spry, W'en you heah dem banjos soun' Git a great big swig o' de ole corn juice, An' w'en you ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... came up to the post in order to view the ground, over which, they stated, they were going to attack, in two days' time. At dusk our troops withdrew through the night-outpost line; "C" Sub-section, with the one limber that accompanied it, returned to camp, independently. On this day the Squadron watering-party was bombed by hostile aircraft, but no casualties occurred. October 30th was spent in "resting," and in the afternoon ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... was rather a severe and dangerous sport. A lump of soft clay was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw apples from sticks, with considerable force. When there were fifty or a hundred players on each side, the battle became warm; but anything to arouse the bravery of Indian boys seemed to them ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... and limber, Bore him home on poles and branches, Bore the body of the beaver; But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, Still lived on ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... Tigers showed up in a big carry-all motor-van about the time Jack and his followers trooped on the field, and began to pass the ball around to limber up their muscles for the great test. They were given a royal reception, for there were many hundreds of Harmony rooters on hand to help the boys with cheers and the waving of flags and pennants. Besides, Chester was showing a fine ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... element dates from the piratical invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. It includes anger, awe, baffle, bang, bark, bawl, blunder, boulder, box, club, crash, dairy, dazzle, fellow, gable, gain, ill, jam, kidnap, kill, kidney, kneel, limber, litter, log, lull, lump, mast, mistake, nag, nasty, niggard, horse, plough, rug, rump, sale, scald, shriek, skin, skull, sledge, sleigh, tackle, tangle, tipple, trust, viking, window, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... me off with limber Vowes: but I, Though you would seek t' vnsphere the Stars with Oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going: Verely You shall not goe; a Ladyes Verely 'is As potent as a Lords. Will you goe yet? Force me to keepe you as a Prisoner, Not like a Guest: so you shall pay your Fees When you depart, and saue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... That's it," responded Roy. "I've got it now. Inte, minte, cute corn, apple seeds and briar thorn, briar thorn and limber lock, three geese in a flock, one flew east and one flew west, one flew into a cuckoo's nest, O-U-T out, with a ragged dish clout, out!" ending ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... were bursting about them and bullets too soon began to strike upon the lawn. A battery that sought to drive back the advancing column was exposed to such a heavy fire that it was compelled to limber up and retreat. The officers urged Lee to withdraw and at length, mounting Traveler, he rode back slowly and deliberately to his inner line. Harry often wondered what his feelings were on that day, but whatever they were his face expressed nothing. When ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... she saw the cannon at the pass limber up, wheel, and go bumping up the hill to rejoin its bespattered fellows on ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... once. Much confusion was observed among the artillery-men, and in a short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations of grief and fury were heard from ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... cocked and loaded and ready, waiting to kill the bird that now typified for him guilt and danger and an abiding great fear. Gnats plagued him and about him frogs croaked. Almost overhead a log-cock clung lengthwise to a snag, watching him. Snake doctors, limber, long insects with bronze bodies and filmy wings, went back and forth like small living shuttles. Other buzzards passed and repassed, but the squire waited, forgetting the cramps in his elderly limbs and the discomfort of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... caused it to illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles of MR. E. DROOD to American minds ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... set lips, and proceeded to stump up and down the lobby, "to limber up," as she said, although her three companions offered to do ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... that would have made him hesitate to leave three stirring boys under her entire control. Possibly he forgot that he had had his parents, and a doting aunt or two, to pad the angularities of Mrs. Handsomebody's rule, and to say whether or not her limber cane should seek his plumpest ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... mole-hill, past her concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as silently returned. I climbed by a stone-faced U. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... rings, that did it. She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... chuffing away, waiting to get the traffic cop's sign when to cut in on the avenue. I just took a dodge and hung on to the extra tire under the top where nobody saw me, and when they stopped, I got the house number they went in. Little pink was lying all white and limber yet, and nurse looked worried as she carried her up. She said something fierce to the boys, the big one rang and they went inside. I saw a footman take the girl. I heard nurse begin that 'eat too much' story, then I cut back to the park. The lady said, 'Get it?' I said, ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your legs! Tommy! do you ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... can," he said. "And my old hoss can wrastle a bag of oats, too. He's got a ride in front of him and he'd appreciate a chance to rest and limber up." ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... the Gardner guns had been overturned into the limber containing its ammunition, and set fire to. This kept burning, hissing, and firing shots like a gigantic and malevolent cracker for a long time. But the Blue Jackets recovered the gun. When the victorious troops crowned the last ridge, the valley of Tamai lay below them, and there was ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... or ten days ago, when I leaves Vee and my peaceful little home after a week-end swing, I expects to be shot up to Amesbury, Mass., to inspect a gun-limber factory. Am I? Not at all. By 3 P.M. I'm in Bridgeport, Conn., wanderin' about sort of aimless, and tryin' to size up a proposition that I'm about as well qualified to handle as a plumber's helper called in to ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Pete; it's all the same to me. I'll be glad to limber my arm up a little, too. It feels a tiny bit stiff, and a good work-out will be ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work —what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish or wrinkle, and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... to its full flower for the bran-dances—which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs, leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered it an inch deep with clean wheat bran, put ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... rigidity nor dressed into primness by a technical and bookish legislation; it had gone on for centuries gathering in and assimilating stores from Nature and from Religion; it was rich with the life of a nation of brave, free, honest, full-souled, and frank-hearted men; it was at once copious, limber, and sinewy, capable alike of expressing the largest and the subtlest thought, the deepest and strongest passion, the most tender and delicate feeling; wit could sport itself for ever, humour could trim its raciest ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... twain forwards pressed for a long time, and the Raven of cut-and-thrust croaked over the field of fight and they exchanged strokes with the Hindi scymitar and they thrust and foined with the Khatti spear and more than one blade and limber lance was shivered and splintered, all the tribesmen looking on the while at both. And they ceased not to attack and retire and to draw near and draw off and to heave and fence until their forearms ailed and their endeavour failed. Already there appeared in the Emir Salamah somewhat of weakness ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... cried King, capering about in his long Court robes, and looking like a very merry Monarch, indeed. "First the May-pole dance, that'll limber us ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... eyes wide in horror, then his chest collapsed and his neck felt limber. "Oh, my God," he whispered, as though in appeal to the Infinite Father of Mercy and Justice, "what a thing to say ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... out beyond the rushes. After a few turns in the pool, it occurred to me that it was now about time to try deep water. Swimming through the thick growth of rushes and lilies was somewhat dangerous, especially for a beginner, because one's arms and legs might be entangled among the long, limber stems; nevertheless I ventured and struck out boldly enough for the boat, where the water was twenty or thirty feet deep. When I reached the end of the little skiff I raised my right hand to take hold of it to surprise Lawson, whose back was toward me and who was not aware ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... excellent and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S—-'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We endeavoured to procure lodgings at ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... himself, while his wife sold tickets and his boy acted as usher,—a family combination which to Luck seemed likely to be a success. This man, when Luck made known his needs, said he was perfectly willing to "limber up" his machine and himself on The Phantom Herd, if Luck would let his wife and boy see the picture, and would pay the slight operating expenses. So that ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... little schoolmaster the merriest comrade that ever sat with them over a glass. He had a crack for each of them, a song, a joke, a lively touch that cut and meant no harm. They called him "the little limber Frenchman," in allusion to a peculiarity of gait which in the minds of the heavy-limbed mountaineers was somehow associated with the idea of a ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... The good captain carried his loyalty to the edge of his simplicity, and left it there for Olimpia to handle. "By the cheeks of the Virgin, my dear, I know what I know. My young master has an eye which, whether it say 'Come' or 'Go,' needs not say it twice. He is as fine and limber as a leopard on the King of England's shield, of a nature so frank and loving that I suppose there is hardly a lady in Ferrara could not testify to it—unless she were bound to the service of his Magnificence the Duke. Why! Yourself might make a shift to be my little friend, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... You've never seen me naked; but you can guess The misstitched, gnarled, and crooked thing I am. Now, do you understand? I may have words. But you, man, do you never burn with pride That you've begotten those six limber bodies, Firm flesh, and supple sinew, and lithe limb— Six nimble lads, each like young Absalom, With red blood running lively in his veins, Bone of your bone, your very flesh and blood? It's you don't understand. God, what I'ld give This moment ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... a skeered woman or a burnt baby, when they go a-jumping from one tree to another? And do they always keep a-swinging their long, limber tails?" ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... ball as though your hand was frozen; keep your hand limber and see that you get the belly of the ball in it, not one end; then it won't tilt itself out. When you get the ball from center rise quickly, put your back against guard, and throw your weight there. And it's ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... even width. In using water-color in place of ink such a pen will be found more satisfactory than the Gillot 303, as the thinness of the fluid causes the line to spread whenever pressure is applied to a limber and finely pointed pen, with the result that the line is not only broadened, but when dry shows darker than was intended, as more color is deposited than in a narrow line. When a [200] narrow line of even width and sharpness is desired it is best ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... she says; and blame-don! ef the girl didn't keel right over in my arms—as limber as a rag! Clean fainted away! Honest! Jest the excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so suddent-like—'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes thought, better'n even she did her own mother. Didn't go half so hard with her when ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Fionn grew long and straight and tough like a sapling; limber as a willow, and with the flirt and spring of a young bird. One of the ladies may have said, "He is shaping very well, my dear," and the other replied, as is the morose privilege of an aunt, "He will never be as good as his father," but their hearts must have ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... your high nobility, they drove a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and vinegar; they are leading him apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got drunk yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hold the light," Roger called. He and Frank had the man from Boston down on the limber board and were holding him fast. The fight, though fierce while it lasted, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... spots here and there, and patches of creamy—fur? Or was it hair which hung in strips, as if the creatures had been partially plucked in a careless fashion? The necks were long and moved about in a serpentine motion, as though their spines were as limber as reptiles'. On the end of those long and twisting necks were heads which also appeared more suitable to another species—broad, rather flat, with a singular toadlike look—but furnished with horns set halfway down the nose, horns which began in a single root and then branched into ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... to be nice to Birdie on account of Mr. Smelts' stiff leg. Not that it ever did him any good when it was limber, but I always feel mean when I see it sticking out straight when ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... an' at most three, or may be four hour agone. See thar!" he continued, raising one of the limbs, and letting it drop again; "limber as a eel! Ef he'd a been dead last night, the leg'd ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... scenery can be more beautiful than that of the small valleys of California. Ascending the range of elevated mountains which border the Cache creek, we had a most extensive view of the broad plain of the Sacramento, stretching with islands and bells of limber far away to the south as the eye could penetrate. The gorges and summits of these mountains are timbered with largo pines, firs, and cedars, with a smaller growth of magnolias, manzanitas, hawthorns, etc., etc. Travelling several miles over a level plateau, we descended ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... called the score keeper, and the lanky left-handed hitter strolled up to the plate, while Riordan, who was on deck, took up a couple of bats, swinging them about nervously to limber his arms. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... has written a little pamphlet about his master, and I have that. It contains a wood-cut of the master and himself seated on a rug in the garden. The portrait of the master is very good indeed. The posture is exactly that which Brahma himself affects, and it requires long arms and limber legs, and can be accumulated only by gods and the india-rubber man. There is a life-size marble relief of Shri 108, S.B.S. in the garden. It represents ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Officer?" (He was there with a mouthful of toast.) "Take the mess limber and fetch 'em back if the Heavy Group Artillery will let you—they're ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... the middle of the Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood there as clean and spruce and careless as ever a sailor can be wished to be. Limber yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as a pike, he seemed cut out by nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had made him a smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia, being then at war with all the world, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Mile, and the customary activity prevailed inside that flat-roofed cube of mud. Sounds of singing, shooting, dancing, and Mexican tunes on the concertina came out of the windows hand in hand, to widen and die among the hills. A limber, pretty boy, who might be nineteen, was dancing energetically, while a grave old gentleman, with tobacco running down his beard, pointed a pistol at the boy's heels, and shot a hole in the earth now and then to show that the weapon was really ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... I met upon the threshold of the "billet" (half a limber load of bricks and an angle iron) was quite sure the Salvage Company couldn't take a dog, as they had an infant wild boar and two fox cubs numbering on their strength; but he thought that he could plant my prodigy with a friend of his, a bombardier ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... to side-step a jab from a humming-bird. And you hold yourself like a truck driver having his picture taken in a Third Avenue photograph gallery. And you haven't got any method or style. And your knees are about as limber as a couple of Yale pass-keys. And you strike the eye as weighing, let us say, 450 pounds while you work. But, say, would you mind ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... put me off with limber vows; but I, Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths Should still say, "Sir, no going!" Verily, You shall not go! A lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... and political and industrial souls and bodies. The only difference between people who are put into insane asylums and those of us who are still allowed from day to day a little longer to stay out, is that we can manage, if we try, some of us, to be more limber about calling ourselves fools in time. For all practical purposes in this world, it may be said that the people who are wise and deep about keeping themselves reminded that they may be ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... under the big sycamore, reading perhaps, or talking quietly, or closing the book to think, the memory re-telling some old and pretty tale; and then perhaps some graceful girl comes out of the house with a world of hopes and innocent desires in her wide-open eyes; or a tall and limber boy saunters out bare-headed and flannelled, conscious of life and health, and steps down to the punt that lies swinging at its chain—one hears it rattle as it is untied and flung into the prow; and then the dripping pole is plunged and raised, and the punt goes ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... something about me, as, for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my lad; your need is greater than mine.'" Or again, referring to my later career: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but Lieut. Henry's indelible pencil, when engaged on official correspondence, is mightier than both." Or at least, at the very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight 660 As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs express his love's excess With ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the road, and he had led them across a ploughed field. Johnny was accustomed to add, as he told the story to the young rabbits that lived down in the pasture, that he had to spurt around the field a few times after the race was over just to limber up his legs—he was so cramped from sitting around waiting for the dogs. So it came about that Johnny, in his poor, foolish little heart, thought dogs ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... if it's cold, Jenny Wren will always scold. From morn till night the whole day long Her limber tongue is going strong. ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock, Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock? What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan,— "Out of a ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... the top of the door (A), and a corresponding one through the door-jamb between two logs. Set the door in place. A strip of rawhide leather, a limber willow branch, or a strip of hickory put through the auger hole of the door and wedged into the hole in the jamb, makes a truly wild-wood hinge. A peg in the front jamb prevents the door going too far out, and a string and peg inside answer for ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle Seems ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... trees and bushes in every direction. Presently I stumbled over these dogs, my own puppies—and there they lay as dead as door nails. I whistled, and they didn't move; I then stooped down to see how the bear had killed 'em, and I found these bullet holes in 'em!" said Sneak, turning their limber bodies over with his foot, until their wounds were uppermost. "I'll be shot if I don't have pay, or revenge!" he continued, with tears ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... over with a discouraging and cynical suspicion. I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me a going over, they found that my heart was out of place and that my left hand might never limber up again. They voted for a discharge in jig time. I had all I could do to ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes |
