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More "Somersault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyebrows in, and crush'd the bone; Before him in the dust his eyeballs fell; And, like a diver, from the well-wrought car Headlong he plung'd; and life forsook his limbs. O'er whom Patroclus thus with bitter jest: "Heav'n! what agility! how deftly thrown That somersault! if only in the sea Such feats he wrought, with him might few compete, Diving for oysters, if with such a plunge He left his boat, how rough soe'er the waves, As from his car he plunges to the ground: Troy can, it ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... which my versatile friend challenged himself. Having shaken hands with himself, he then grasped himself in the most approved catch-as-catch-can manner, struggled desperately to throw himself and finally triumphed by flinging himself in the air, turning a somersault and coming down on the carpet with a bump. Getting up and falling exhausted into a chair, he was greeted with loud cries ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... also seeing another man, evidently the mate of the first, approaching with a second bear, they all went back to the highway. The bugle blew again, and one of the bears, at a command from the man, turned a clumsy somersault. ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... encouraging remarks, however, Patty did not succeed this time. I suppose she forgot to keep her neck thrown back, or to draw in her breath properly; at any rate, up went her heels, and down went her head, and she seemed suddenly to turn a kind of somersault in the water. Instantly all the members of the class dived to her rescue, so bent on putting into performance the life-saving which they had practised, that they almost pulled her to pieces ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the limbs of the beeches the water broke, and a mink rose to the surface with a fine perch twisting in her jaws. Straight toward the boy she swam till within reach of his rod, when she recognized the human in him, turned a back-dive somersault, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... live! I ain' stole one on 'em sence las' mont'," protested Zeke, as he turned a somersault into the road, "en dat warn' stealin' 'case hit warn' wu'th it," he added, rising to his feet and staring wistfully after the wagon as it vanished in ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... recalls his air visits. "You must have seen my head, for I never took my eyes off the house...." Or, after an aerial somersault that filled all those down below with terror: "I am wretched to know that my veering the other day frightened maman so much, but I did it so as to see the house without having to lean over the side of ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her two companions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek— as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. Isadore Phelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersault in the air and landed headfirst ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... said, "I'm not going to allow you to make a somersault into heaven over my head. In any case, these little mites ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... grandfathers, in no way troubled him, but that either or both of them should be older than evolution itself seemed to him perplexing; nor could he at all simplify the problem by taking the sudden back-somersault into Quincy Bay in search of the fascinating creature he had called a horseshoe, whose huge dome of shell and sharp spur of tail had so alarmed him as a child. In Siluria, he understood, Sir Roderick Murchison called ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... his assistance, but getting no reply to his shouts, he began to fear lest his companion might be unable to render any help. Perhaps, indeed, he might be dead! The thought roused him to still greater exertions, and at last by a heroic effort he succeeded in turning a kind of somersault in his cold prison, which had the happy result of putting his head where his heels had been. To scramble out altogether was then an easy job, and in another instant he ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... few cables-lengths to port had taken a flying leap from the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... down the bank, which luckily for me had not been immediately under the fence, but it could not be done, so we took a somersault into the brook, most alarming for the people in the ford to see. However, as the water was deep where I landed, I was not hurt, but had fainted ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... vicious and untamed animal on the frontier. But, though it did its best to unseat the rider and trample him underfoot, there was no moment when the issue seemed in doubt save once. The horse flung itself backward in a somersault, risking its own neck in order to break its master's. But he was equal to the occasion; and when Steamboat staggered again to its feet Bannister was still in the saddle. It was a daring and magnificent piece of horsemanship, and, though he was supposed to be a desperado and a ruffian, his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... chargeless, and with an exclamation of baffled rage I hurled the useless weapon full at the advancing brute. Almost at the instant we struck, my horse went down with the impetus, while over us both, as if shot from a cannon, plunged our pursuer, his horse turning a complete somersault, the rider falling so close that I was upon him almost as soon as he struck ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... caught sight of her. And, fascinated by the novelty of the situation, she stood a moment watching his antics, which were similar to those of a monkey upon a pole. Again and again he climbed the post, indulged in various acrobatic performances upon the foot-board, and then turned a double somersault right into the centre of the great feather-bed. And all the while his villainous little iron-bound heels made woful work, leaving countless dents and scratches upon the fine old mahogany, and catching in the meshes ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... wind in his silky ears. Away went the geese, the cocks, the hens, and the whole family of Johnson. Lucy clung to her mamma, Jane saved Emily by the gathers of her gown, and Tony saved himself by a somersault. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... acrobat who has mastered every branch of his art, from the spidery contortions of the India-rubber man to the double somersault and the flying trapeze, is to the well-developed individual of ordinary muscular habits, so is the language of Rueckert in this work to the language of all other German authors. It is one perpetual gymnastic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... by a somersault, whirling, Whirling from cushion to floor; Waked from a wild rush of ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... what marvellous vigilance, activity, and efficiency he conducted, from that centre, the diplomatic affairs of the commonwealth. At the restoration of the monarchy, he made the quickest and the loftiest somersault in all political history. It was done between two days. He saw Charles the Second at the Hague, on his way to England to resume his crown: and the man who, up to that moment, had been one of the most zealous supporters of the commonwealth, came out next morning ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... much vim and vigor into his easy-going personality. After chopping the air with his hoofs for a second or two, he succeeded in righting himself, and was on his feet in less time than it takes to tell it. There he stood, as meek as Mary's lamb, trying to look as if he had never turned an undignified somersault in ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... may, thanks to them, soar very high, but—modern Icarus—may not also some adverse fortune, an unexpected loss of popularity, or, perhaps, some revolution fatal to your philosophy, bring you down with a somersault, and then you would not be sorry to find in your quiver the means of gaining your bread. Agreed that you have now an invincible repugnance to the practice of medicine, it is evident from your last two letters that you would have no less objection to any other profession by which ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... spurred on by Michael's teeth already sunk into the fleshy part of his shoulder. Michael missed his calf as he uprose, but tore the other leg of the trousers to shreds and received a kick that lifted him a yard above the deck in a half-somersault and landed him ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... ring, the Sweetener. 'May be,' said he, 'since it changes to sweetness whatever I eat and drink, it will sweeten my voice also, so that the Plough will obey.' So he put the ring between his lips and whistled; and at the sound his heart turned a somersault for joy, for he felt that out of his mouth the farmer's magic had ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... this as the Igorots could spare, killing its rather high flavour with cayenne peppers picked beside the trail, and continued our journey. In descending a steep hill my horse stumbled and while attempting to recover himself drove a sharp stone into his hoof and turned a complete somersault, throwing me over his head on to the rocks. When I got him up he was dead lame, and I walked the rest of the way to Ambuklao, where ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels put end to end Dinky-Dunk told me I was too old to be taking a chance like that. So I promptly and deliberately turned a somersault on the prairie-sod, just to show him I wasn't the old lady he was trying to make me out. Gershom, who'd just got back with the children and was unhitching Calamity Kate, retreated with his eyebrows up, toward the stable. And on the youthful face of Pauline Augusta ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... getting off this queer speech, he was swinging and tumbling along up the great limb that reached out toward the window at which Sukey sat. By the time he had finished it, he was standing on the window-sill, where he had alighted after a giddy somersault. He laughed heartily—so heartily that Sukey laughed, too, though she could not tell why. Then he took off ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again. And between each time he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail—undoubtedly though not evidently—between ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... its position. For hardly was he safe on the turf again when he heard a sharp cry. Throwing a look behind, he saw his pursuer totter, clutch at the slipping timber, and, still clutching at it, turn a somersault and disappear. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the Kulhantia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... steps, I rushed for him and kicked out with all my strength, when his face was level with my knees. The toe of my heavy shoe caught him solidly in the neck, and he went over backward almost in a complete somersault, landing with a crash upon the main deck just outside the window of Mr. Trunnell's room. He was stunned by the fall, and I hastened down to seize him before he could recover. Just as I gained the main deck, ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... sermon, almost going to sleep. And when he walked with the earl after church to the gate over which the noble peer had climbed in his agony, and inspected the hedge through which he had thrown himself, he was quite at home with his little jokes, bantering his august companion as to the mode of his somersault. But be it always remembered that there are two modes in which a young man may be free and easy with his elder and superior,—the mode pleasant and the mode offensive. Had it been in Johnny's nature to try the latter, the earl's back ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... even if I did, I don't see why you should have turned a somersault. I could dance the Highland Fling in a canoe and not upset. Oh dear! all my flowers are gone!" They put their hands on the upturned craft and ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... life;" also, "the Concord novelist was a handsome, bulky character, with a soft rolling gait; a wit said he seemed like a boned pirate." From these more or less contemptuous views of mankind at large Mr. Channing turns with a kind of somersault to an intense admiration for Thoreau. Could he but write of him in his own style—supposing him to have a style—he would have been in danger of producing a sensible book, and nous autres would have lost one delight; but it is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... about the time of the Twentieth Dynasty. A fragment in the Museum of Gizeh contains studies of ducks or geese in black ink; and at Turin may be seen a sketch of a half-nude female figure bending backwards, as about to turn a somersault. The lines are flowing, the movement is graceful, the modelling delicate. The draughtsman was not hampered then as now, by the rigidity of the instrument between his fingers. The reed brush attacked the surface ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... antagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the hold. Presently I saw a place in the rocks where I thought it possible, with such an incentive, to get down within reach of the water: by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind me and got hold of the line, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... an exciting tussle with your refractory pedal extremities, you again get them beneath the surface, your hands fly out with the splash and splutter of a half-dozen flutter wheels. If, on account of your brains being heavier than your heels, you chance to turn a somersault, and your head goes under, your heels will pop up like a pair of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Bobtail by so much, a finger's breadth; I knew that he would miss. The hare was no common rogue; he made as if straight for the field, and after him the pack of hounds. The rogue of a hare I Once he knew that the dogs were in a bunch, pst! he went to the right, with a somersault, and after him the stupid hounds; but again, zip! to the left, in just two jumps. The dogs after him, zip! to the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... which was instantly jerked back and again slowly and inquiringly brought forward. Then the mantis suddenly flew in Cartucho's face, whereupon Cartucho, with a smothered yelp of dismay, almost turned a back somersault; and the triumphant mantis flew back to the middle of the ox-hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied the laughing and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... the passage that led to the dining-room he looked at the clock, and his heart turned a somersault. It was five minutes past nine. Not only was he late for breakfast, but late for school, too. Never before had he ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of shifting stones. He made a gallant effort to recover himself, stumbling to his knees as Cecil left the saddle and landed in the ferns—but just as he struck out for firmer footing his forefoot sank into a wombat hole, and he turned a complete somersault, rolling over and over. He brought up against a big boulder, struggled to rise and ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... with a clatter of rocks dashed off down the ridge. The grass was very high, and I could see only his head and horns, but I dropped the front sight six inches and let drive at a guess. The guess happened to be a good one, for he turned a somersault seventy-two yards away. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... round and says, "If you want a head put on you, just keep on talking; so that folks can't hear the brothers turn a somersault. You'll be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... part, and well they might be; for strength and agility are manly attributes which lads appreciate, and these lively fellows flew about like India rubber balls, each trying to outdo the other, till the leader of the acrobats capped the climax by turning a double somersault over five elephants ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to look and see who it was that had called, a shot rang out and the beast, which had been running along, crouched low like a cat after a bird, seemed to crumple up. Then it turned a complete somersault, and a ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... Acrobats and Jugglers. Night by night they appear in spangled tights, and Father resins his hands in view of the audience, and lightly tosses the handkerchief to the wings; and then bends a stout knee, and cries "Hup!" and catches Mumdear on the spring and throws her in a double somersault. There are two girls of thirteen and fifteen, and a dot of nine; and they regard Dad and Mumdear just as professional pals, never as parents. This is Dad's idea; he dislikes being a father, but he ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... like to become a jester,—there was a suggestion of the ludicrous in the sudden passage from birds to Greek coins, to mills, to Walter Scott, to millionaire malefactors,—a suggestion of acrobatic tumbling and somersault; but he always got a hearing. In lecturing to the students of a military academy he had ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... once, to our astonishment, the foremost sprang out from the cliff, and whirling through the air, lit upon his head on the hard plain below! We could see that he came down upon his horns, and rebounding up again to the height of several feet, he turned a second somersault, and then dropped upon his legs, and stood still! Nothing daunted, the rest followed, one after the other, in quick succession, like so many street-tumblers; and, like them, after the feat had been performed, the animals stood for a moment, as if waiting for applause!' These were the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... sight to this eager gaze, and followed automatically the thundering course of the big bird, and then, taking thought to itself, leaped ahead of it and fired. Thorpe's first pheasant reeled in the air, described a somersault, and fell like ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... cranking. We rounded a bend where the wall rocks sloped back, leaving a narrow arid sagebrush strip along both sides of the stream. I had straightened up to get the kink out of my back and mop the sweat out of my eyes, when I saw something that made my stomach turn a double somersault. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... for Alfred ran out at him brimful of Moses, and with a savage kick in the back and blow on the neck, administered simultaneously, hurled him head foremost down the stairs. Alighting on the seventh step, he turned a somersault, and bounded like a ball on to the landing below, and there lay stupefied. He picked himself up by slow degrees, and glared round with speechless awe and amazement up at the human thunderbolt that had shot out on him ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... gathered up a chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... clearly that you told me the truth, and I see that I get the twenty thousand gulden for nothing. Never in my life did I earn so much money by the hardest work. My senses are going. Do let me turn a somersault!" ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... "Like a deer. Crowd one an' he gets to jumpin' high. 'D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my rope ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... southeaster. The slight intervals between these blows were dead calms. Also, in the six days, we were aground three times. Then, too, we tied up to the bank in the Sacramento River, and, grounding by an accident on the steep slope on a falling tide, nearly turned a side somersault down the bank. In a stark calm and heavy tide in the Carquinez Straits, where anchors skate on the channel- scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear. ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... both air and water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were, turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet's surface. Even ships pass uninjured through this remarkable somersault. These events all belong frankly ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... day. It is on creeds that strong men are nourished, and that which nourishes the leaders into eminence is necessary to keep the masses from sinking. A man who really thinks, will think his way into light. He may turn many a somersault, but he will come right side up at last. But people in general do not think, and if they refuse to be walled in by other people's thoughts, they inevitably flop and flounder into pitiable prostration. So important is it, that a poor creed is better than none at all. Truth, even adulterated ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: 'The squint-eye is too sharp for us!' he turned a somersault.... His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... that Hawk-Eye was a little pleased at their courage in following them. Anyway, he said: "Well, you can climb like squirrels. We shall not be gone many days. Come along." Firetop sprang up and whooped for joy. Firefly turned a somersault. Hawk-Eye and Limberleg laughed. They couldn't help it. You see, even in those early times parents were fond of their children, although they didn't know any better punishment for them than spankings. There are some parents ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... leaping except Dick Varley. When Henri ran a race even Joe Blunt laughed outright, for arms and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a somersault—yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement, when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called on to act, he ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... bomb under the tell-tales bed and hastily scrambled back to his own. He had just time to roll himself up in the blankets, when there was a flash and terrible explosion. The bed of the tell-tale turned a complete somersault, while the entire building trembled with the concussion and a shower of broken glass was scattered around. No serious damage was done; but Paul was horrified and frightened half to death at the result of his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... mutters, hardly hearing them in fact. She believes herself to have been moulded and solidified long since. Then, presto! Something sudden and violent happens. Old ideas are uprooted. New ones planted. Is there a struggle? Not for a moment. They turn an intellectual somersault and are immediately as completely at home with ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... children and the two dogs sat watching the little rings in the water around the floaters. Sometimes farther out they saw larger rings, and a fish feeling pretty happy, because of the cool September weather, would jump out of the water and turn a somersault through the air. ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... enclosed by Alfred's tent, and performed a dozen feats that Alfred had never even witnessed, thereby winning the applause of the crowd of boys, both Lin and Alfred remained silent. When he did a round off a flip-flap and a high back somersault, a row of head-sets across the ring, finishing by doing heels in the mud, Alfred turned green with envy. He felt his reputation slipping away from him and realized he was deposed as the boys' and girls' idol, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... moment a shot rang out. The dog turned a complete somersault, recovered its feet, tore the ground and then lay down, giving a number of hoarse, breathless howls, which ended in a dull moan and an indistinct ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... made a dive of about 600 feet. The horrified spectators thought that the gallant aviator had lost control of his machine and was dashing straight to Earth, but quickly he changed his direction and slowly planed upwards. Then almost as suddenly he turned a complete somersault. Righting the aeroplane, he rose in a succession of spiral flights to a height of between 3000 and 3500 feet, and then looped the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... leather tops. They look like ginger jars with paper covers. On these the boys sit while tracing the characters which we see on real Chinese tea boxes (for those made in New York are almost always upside down, as if they had turned a somersault). Every boy must learn from two hundred to ten thousand of these characters, and many years of hard study are required. Their books, ink-stones, brush-pens, water-pot, and pen-rests are all on the table. They use "India" ink, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moment there came a sudden deep bellow, a hoarse, bull-like roar from somewhere near by, and, looking round in some perplexity, through the wide doorway of the smithy opposite, I saw a man come tumbling, all arms and legs, who, having described a somersault, fell, rolled over once or twice, and sitting up in the middle of the road, stared about him in a dazed sort ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... now watched the nurse, now looked across to where, on its shelf, was poised the toy somersault man. If one of the uniformed men she dreaded ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... entered the patch of grass when, with a short angry roar, a leopard sprang forward, and passed me at full speed within 25 yards; and immediately turned a somersault like a rabbit, with a charge of 16 S.S.G. from the No. 12 fired ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... circus-man bound into the air from a spring-board and make a somersault over eight horses standing side by side. Mr. Chauncy saw an aboriginal do it over eleven; and was assured that he had sometimes done it over fourteen. But what is that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back in the same alienated tongue, "Yes; keep to the left," and she dived straight downward in the long plunge, till, just before she reached the net, she turned a quick somersault ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... horse and rider to the earth with fearful violence. His horn laid the poor horse's haunch open to the bone, making the most fearful rugged wound. In an instant, Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down, with a tremendous somersault, in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfitted, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time after him; but he got out of the way. At this moment, I managed to send one of my patent ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... struggling and kicking and striking out blindly, for the girl had not yet recovered from the shock. It was while she was down that another girlish figure shot straight into the lake. Instead of skimming the surface this second figure came down on her back with a mighty splash, turned a half-somersault, landing on her feet, where she stood treading water ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... plight of a boy pitching a ball, or some one yawning and stretching, or a clown turning a somersault, if you touch each of these just in the act and make him elastic. Their bodies always tend to snap back to these positions. Whenever the clown wants to rest, he has to get in the somersault position. The boy pitcher sleeps in the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... observed, pausing for a moment. "The Skip is thus. You throw out your left leg as high and as far as you can, and as you drop on the toe of your left foot you fling out the right leg in the same manner, and so on. This is the Jump," with which he turned a somersault and disappeared from view. When Amelia next saw him he was sitting cross-legged ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... time unfolded his arms. With some appearance of caution he balanced his unstable footing into absolute immobility. Then he turned a somersault. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... unawares, was thrown headlong on top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to turn a somersault. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... was proved correct a few moments later, when, just as the car was moving off, there was a sharp crack and a bullet struck the wall to the right of the door. It was a random shot, and I did not return it. Its effect on me was to send me into the hall with a leap that was almost a back-somersault. Somehow, though I was keyed up for violence and the shooting of pistols, I had not expected it at just that moment, and I was disagreeably surprised at the shock it had given me. I slammed the door and bolted it. I was intensely irritated ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... lower-topsail-yard. I was only a little girl, but it looked like certain death, for he was falling from the weather side of the yard straight down on deck. But he fell into the belly of the mainsail, breaking his fall, turned a somersault, and landed on his feet on deck and unhurt. And he landed right alongside of Mr. Harding, facing him. I don't know which was the more astonished, but I think Mr. Harding was, for he stood there petrified. He had expected the man to be killed. Not so the man. He took ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... leaving, were rafts. Men did get into the boats as these lay in their cradles, thinking that as the ship went under the boats would float, but the ship sank by the head, and when she went she turned a somersault forward, carrying down with her all the boats and those in them. I do not think Kitchener got into a boat. When I sprang to a raft he was still on the starboard side of the quarter deck, talking with the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... York, president, and Elizur Wright, Jr., William Lloyd Garrison, and A. L. Cox, secretaries. Among the vice-presidents was Dr. Lord of Dartmouth College, then professedly in favor of emancipation, but who afterwards turned a moral somersault, a self-inversion which left him ever after on his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the gun by making a somersault to the earth. There was no necessity for Hendrik to waste any ammunition upon him. He had fallen in the agonies of death; and, without even waiting for his last kick, Willem took hold of one of his hind legs and commenced ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... resourceful fellows. The General Staff also supplied them with new machines of war. One of the finest was the Japanese bomb-thrower, an instrument which threw a great, big bomb like a well-filled melon. This went tumbling over and over, like an acrobat doing a somersault, then burst in the most startling way. The explosion was terrific and destruction amazing. Parapets, trenches, men and Maxims were all destroyed if near the point of contact. "Some bomb!" ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keep the creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, as Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him, that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It was very evident that the ship's cat was having none ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... else in the world, every boy in that part of Switzerland longs to go with the herds to the high mountain pastures for the summer, and Fritz was so delighted that he turned a somersault at once to express his feelings. When he was right side up again, a puzzled look came over his face, and he said, "Who will take care of our ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... probably finish all standing in a crevasse. Snow rushed past, flew up one's nose and froze there. It did not behave itself thus when we slid down Craig Ronald and whizzed out upon the smooth breast of Loch Grannoch. I was reflecting on this unwarrantable behaviour of the snow, when there came a bump, a somersault, a slide, a scramble. "Dear me!" I say; "how did this happen?" Ears, eyes, mouth, nose were full of fine powdered snow—also, there were tons down one's back. Cold as charity, but no ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... hero-worship. And it was significant of Colin's make-up that he was equally ready to take it. Little of note occurred on the voyage save that the yacht almost ran over a sunfish in the water, which turned a sluggish somersault and disappeared. What was of more interest to Colin and indeed to Paul also was the opportunity to use a very powerful microscope belonging to the museum curator and to find out about the almost invisible ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... which was four sawed posts, with a frame nailed to the top of them. It was placed in the corner, and so, out of sight, Pani felt that her charge was always safe. In the morning Jeanne generally turned a somersault that took her over to the edge of the big bed, from whence she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... goat. 'Twas lucky for Master Blaisdell that this was so. Tubby went back with an awful grunt, heels in the air, and the goat turned a complete somersault. But the latter scrambled to his feet a whole lot quicker ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the skill with which the first assault was repelled. At the exact moment Mike launched his shoe, the toe of which caught Nick under the jaw and caused him to turn a backward somersault. He uttered several yelps, but the blow added if possible ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... dividing itself into three fractions, has decided, one for the ministerial compromise, another for the exclusion of the State, and the third for the exclusion of the corporations. So that today no more than before do the public or M. Arago, in spite of their somersault, know what they want. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... mule gave a tug at his halter, and Bob, looking over his shoulder to see what was the matter, caught a momentary glimpse of a tawny body as it rose in the air, and, turning a complete somersault, landed on the ground all in a heap. One of the dogs, in his eagerness to do something grand, had approached a little too close to the mule's heels—an impertinence which that sagacious quadruped promptly resented by ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... warrior uttered a whoop which plainly was meant as a signal to his friends. Instantly Deerfoot laid down his paddle, and, catching up the gun, pointed it at the redskin. The latter, in the extremity of his terror, turned a somersault backwards, and tumbled and scrambled into the woods, desperately striving to get beyond sight of the terrible youth who showed such recklessness in ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large paunches and spread their legs wide apart as though on horseback, while the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these movements, the Chinese all adopted their own peculiar attitude, that of sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward, the other swinging loose. There resulted ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... essential elements of their poetry will be courage, daring, and rebellion. Literature has hitherto glorified serene immobility, ecstasy, and sleep; they will extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff. They declare that the world's splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car, its frame adorned by great pipes, like snakes with ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... enough to set the icebergs melting, and the water rushing down their sides in fountains. Now and then, when the under part is worn away, they get top-heavy, and over they go, just like a porpoise making a somersault. It does not do to be near them on those occasions, for they'd send the stoutest ship to the bottom in a moment; and even at a distance I have known bits of ice come down on the deck big enough to crack a blackamoor's head, though we ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... Place d'Armes and drove up the narrow Rue de la Mer, Susan seemed to take a sudden header and almost threw a somersault! I had gone into an invisible hole in the ice, two feet deep, extending half across the street. For some reason it had melted (due probably to an underground bakery in the vicinity). I reversed anxiously and then hopped out to feel Susan's springs as one might a horse's knees. Thank goodness ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... Enrique was compelled to free the rope or have his horse dragged down. I saw the mishap, and, giving my horse the rowel, rode at the bull and threw my rope. The loop neatly encircled his front feet, and when the shock came between horse and bull, it fetched the toro a somersault in the air, but unhappily took off the pommel of my saddle. The bull was on his feet in a jiffy, and before I could recover my rope, Enrique, who had reset his saddle, passed me, followed by the entire squad. Uncle Lance had been a witness to both mishaps, and on overtaking ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... instant Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down with a tremendous somersault in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the Bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfited, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time at him, but he got out of the way. At this moment I managed to send one of my patent pacificating ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... to play the crank. It was evidently written in his stars. When will he turn his last somersault and stand on ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... Reybas of the Bobino lifts a mighty larynx in "Mahi Mahi." Great talent? Well, maybe not. But show me a group of vaudevillians and acrobats who, like this group at the Gaite, can amuse one night with risque ballad and somersault and the next with Moliere—and not be shot dead ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... "Now turn a somersault!" ordered Bert. This Snap did, too. This was one of his best tricks. Over and over he went around the school room, outside the rows of desks. This made the children ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... except Dick Varley. When Henri ran a race even Joe Blunt laughed outright, for arms and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a somersault; yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... night," said Howard, characteristically unable to let such a chance go by. Then he grew suddenly grave and sat down. "Martin, I'm getting frightfully fed up with messing about in town. I'm going to turn a mental and physical somersault and get ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... tried to leap into the brook. But when he uncrossed his legs, in his haste he tangled them up in his sewing. And all he could do was to turn a somersault backward among some bulrushes, hoping that Solomon Owl had not ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to fool me!" fumed the Whale. And they began to pull again. But this time the rope broke, the Whale turned a somersault, and ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... as the she-bear bounced out of the crack with Poker hanging to her heels. Poker's audacity had at last outstripped his sagacity, and the next moment he was performing a tremendous somersault. Before he reached the ice, Meetuck and Fred fired simultaneously, and when the smoke cleared away the old bear was stretched out in death. Hitherto the cub had acted exclusively on the defensive, and intrusted itself entirely to the protection of its dam; but now it seemed to change ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat: Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— Pray what is ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... not to say somersault, by the leading British newspaper, was in line with public expressions from all sections save the extreme pro-Southern. Adams was astonished, writing privately: "The first effect of the surrender ... has been extraordinary. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... impart an atmosphere of probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault, tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be regarded au grand (or, at worst, au petit) serieux. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... make all stops that way. Yet how often are drivers seen tearing up to the curb at twenty miles an hour or more to slam on the brakes at the last instant with a violence that nearly causes the car to turn a somersault, bringing it to a standstill in twenty feet, when there was no earthly reason why they should not have used four times that distance. Or if occasion arises for slowing down in a crowded street, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... associated with older persons, has insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified language. If she had been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... at the hour of our death!"—the vestryman devoutly made the sign of the cross and then wiped his nose with the back of his hand—"the shot pierced the side of bacon and went into his back, in from behind, out at the front. Then Solheid turned a somersault. It was a shame. Such a fine fellow, ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... business. As the priest broke free, he slid around in an attempt to fasten himself on Kirby's back. Quickly, tensely Kirby doubled, and knew that he had done enough. The cacique shot over his shoulders, described a somersault in midair, and landed with a sharp crack of head and shoulders ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... and fell forward, sprawling with arms and legs extended; another pitched to one side and rolled over twice before he lay still; the legs of the third collapsed and threw him headlong, bunched up in a grotesque pile of lifeless flesh; the fourth leaped high into the air and turned a somersault before he struck the sand, badly wounded, and out of the fight. Holden, steadying himself against the wall, leaned in a window on the other side of the shack and emptied his Colt in a dazed manner—doing his very best. Then ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the great beast's legs were jerked out from under him and with a roar of rage he turned a complete somersault and crashed to the ground, every bit of his wrath jarred out of him by the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Mademoiselle will pardon his ignorance." And here Puss rolled up his eyes and placed his hand upon his heart and bowed so low that he was actually standing on his head before he had finished. But he turned a graceful somersault and came right side up again in half a second, without ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... with the force of a battering-ram, Percy shot over the brink. As he fell he described a partial somersault, landing on hands and knees half-way down the slope. His momentum carried him heels over head, and he rolled and tumbled the rest of the way, bringing up in a heap at ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... short again in mid career, and crouched down; but Matyi did not leap over him as the flighty Armida had done, but, as the fox turned towards him with gnashing teeth, he snapped suddenly at him from the opposite side like lightning, and in that instant all that one could see was the fox turning a somersault in the air. Matyi, seizing him by the neck had, in fact, tossed him up, and scarcely had he reached the ground again when he was seized again by the skin of his back, well shaken, and then released. Let him run a little bit ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... lady-bugs wept many tears, because they could not go with the company; the crickets chirped rather gloomily, because none with short limbs could go on the journey; while Daddy Long-legs almost turned a somersault for joy when told he might carry a bundle in the train. All being in readiness, the procession was to start at six o'clock in the morning. The exact minute was to be announced by the time-keeper of the mansion, Flea san, whose house was on the back of Neko, a great black cat, who lived in the ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... after that, anyhow," said Wally. "Couldn't pull my beauty up, he was so excited by Mick's somersault." ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... gossip, and see the monkeys, and ask questions. The monkeys, Jack and Jim, were no small part of the attraction, being delightful little beasts, bright of eye and friendly of heart, always ready to turn a somersault, or to run up the mast, or to make a bow to the ladies (always with Franci in their hearts), as the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... the giant rhinceros with the body of his father stooped its head to drink from the lake, he put an arrow through it and it turned a somersault and fell over dead: while all the other rhinceroses turned tail and ran away. Then the boy climbed down from the tree and pulled the dead body of his father off the horn of the dead animal and laid it down at the foot of a tree and began to weep over it. As he wept a man suddenly ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... he struck the water, would be a very severe one. If he could keep his horse under him all the way, however, the animal and not he would be the chief sufferer. Fearing that the horse would hesitate at the cliff, blunder, and throw him a somersault, perhaps falling on him, he held the beast's head high and urged him forward at full speed, and so, as we have seen, the horse's back was almost level as he leaped from the top of the bank. Sam had no saddle or stirrups in which to become entangled, and as the horse ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... person turns round and says, "If you want a head put on you, just keep on talking; so that folks can't hear the brothers turn a somersault. You'll be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the hold. Presently I saw a place in the rocks where I thought it possible, with such an incentive, to get down within reach of the water: by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind me and got hold ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... laden with bags of Portland cement. The bags had burst, and everything was covered with what seemed gritty dust. The air was full of the stuff, it got into our eyes, half blinding us. The engine of the express had turned a complete somersault. It vomited forth smoke, and steam, and flames,—every moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern danced before his eyes and vanished; and with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... close the open part of the "V". By these movements the army, instead of facing south in echelon, with its left on the river and its right in the desert, was made to face west in line, with its left in the desert and its right reaching back to the river. It had turned nearly a complete somersault. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... must tell you, it was here my heart gave its first somersault. I had fallen, as I say, into a black vault of emptiness; yet, as I rose, bruised and dazed, to my feet, there was the cabin all alight from a great lanthorn that swung from the ceiling, and our friend of the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... up, now down—now describing gyrations, now imitating a pendulum—now trying to be so steady with his fluttering wings, that he looks like a star twinkling in the day-time—in short, playing all sorts of droll antics, indulging in every imaginable pirouette and somersault, in all the world (in his case above the world) like a school-boy beginning his holidays; certainly appearing to put himself to a great deal of unnecessary trouble and exertion. But he is unmistakably, with his winning ways, about something, ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... rocks dashed off down the ridge. The grass was very high, and I could see only his head and horns, but I dropped the front sight six inches and let drive at a guess. The guess happened to be a good one, for he turned a somersault seventy-two yards away. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the entrance of the convict cell and as the Chilian commander raised a hand for his men to fire, he suddenly doubled himself up like a jack-knife, turning a complete somersault in the ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... at once, to our astonishment, the foremost sprang out from the cliff, and whirling through the air, lit upon his head on the hard plain below! We could see that he came down upon his horns, and rebounding up again to the height of several feet, he turned a second somersault, and then dropped upon his legs, and stood still! Nothing daunted, the rest followed, one after the other, in quick succession, like so many street-tumblers; and, like them, after the feat had been performed, the animals stood for a ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— Pray, what ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... interval did that fall fill up: the five hundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not, breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. Would it never end, that somersault? Wheeling he came. ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... two of the men and the boy in it; the third man, who appeared to be the skipper, would not leave the vessel, so the boat pushed off, but had not moved ten fathoms away when a tremendous sea curled up under its stern, and turned the boat a complete somersault, shooting the three occupants out into the water. They could none of them swim apparently, and in a few seconds disappeared beneath the turbulent waves; at least I did not see them again, so that doubtless they found ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... 'May be,' said he, 'since it changes to sweetness whatever I eat and drink, it will sweeten my voice also, so that the Plough will obey.' So he put the ring between his lips and whistled; and at the sound his heart turned a somersault for joy, for he felt that out of his mouth the farmer's magic ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... very big goat. 'Twas lucky for Master Blaisdell that this was so. Tubby went back with an awful grunt, heels in the air, and the goat turned a complete somersault. But the latter scrambled to his feet a whole lot quicker ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... returned uninjured. Yet further, the comet snatches for the convenience of its travelers, both air and water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were, turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet's surface. Even ships pass uninjured through this remarkable somersault. These events all belong frankly to the realm ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... conformity with M. de Chassepot's account of the bearing of the city of Amiens. The mayor of a commune not far from Amiens, a marquis and a leading Imperialist, on getting the news of the political somersault executed at Paris, read out the bulletin to the people from the mairie, reminded them that the enemy were sure to come into Picardy, and then exclaimed, 'Well, my friends, since it seems we are in a ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... extinct, so we took to shooting trout in a quiet little meadow stream. Having buried an arrow in the far bank, with a short run and a leap Young cleared the brook and landed on the greensward beyond. The succulent turf slipped beneath his feet and, like an acrobat, the archer turned a back somersault into the cold mountain water. Bow, clattering arrows, camera, field glasses and man, all sank beneath the limpid surface. With a shout of laughter he clambered to the bank, his faithful bow still in his hand, his quiver empty of arrows, but full of water. After ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... little girls should not attempt to talk and swallow at the same time, and, I may add, still less laugh; for laughingis a kind of somersault, performed by the lungs, and is always accompanied by the ejectment of a great deal more breath than is necessary in speaking, so that the jerks it occasions derange still more the wise provisions made to protect life whenever we swallow anything, and therefore we are more apt to swallow the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... telegram was from Babberly. I must say that Babberly at this crisis displayed immense energy and something like political genius. Having been all his life a strong Conservative, and a supporter of force as a remedy for every kind of social unpleasantness, he turned a most effective somersault and appealed suddenly to the anti-militarist feelings of the Labour Party. He succeeded—I cannot even imagine how—in organizing a mass meeting in Trafalgar Square to protest against the murder of the working-men of Belfast in the streets of their own ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... and then achieves it. Even the deliberate manner in which he arranges the preliminaries increases our expectation—we like to be kept waiting. In the last act of the play, "Polly of the Circus," there is a circus scene in which a little dog turns a backward somersault on the back of a running pony. One night when he hesitated and had to be coaxed and worked with a long time before he would perform his feat he got a great deal more applause than when he did his trick at once. We not only like to wait but we appreciate what ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... to care much," he remarked. "I supposed you'd turn at least one somersault. The Colonel is more pleased ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... Augusta does not always approve of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels put end to end Dinky-Dunk told me I was too old to be taking a chance like that. So I promptly and deliberately turned a somersault on the prairie-sod, just to show him I wasn't the old lady he was trying to make me out. Gershom, who'd just got back with the children and was unhitching Calamity Kate, retreated with his eyebrows ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... "Ben was a good climber, you know. He climbed up high in the barn, and jumped down in the hay, and he turned a somersault." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... enough over it, at any time, but when they began to chew and tear the meat, and get horseradish hot from the griddle, they didn't do a thing. The audience thought the animals would kill everybody. The big lion got his meat down, but it didn't set well, and he turned a somersault, and snarled, and pulled the bars of the cage, while the grizzly bear rolled up in a ball and rolled over in his cage till the men had to hold on to the wheels to keep the shebang from going over. The hyenas, who are always mad, went on a tear that could be heard ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... to be boats leaving, were rafts. Men did get into the boats as these lay in their cradles, thinking that as the ship went under the boats would float, but the ship sank by the head, and when she went she turned a somersault forward, carrying down with her all the boats and those in them. I do not think Kitchener got into a boat. When I sprang to a raft he was still on the starboard side of the quarter deck, talking with the officers. From the little time that elapsed between my leaving the ship and her sinking ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... have to watch out and see what the people want, and give it to 'em. It is something like the purveying of the manufacturers and the dry-goods jobber for the changing trade in fashions; only the newspaper has the advantage that it can turn a somersault every day and not have any useless stock ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... forward first one and then the other armed fore leg, touching the intrusive nose, which was instantly jerked back and again slowly and inquiringly brought forward. Then the mantis suddenly flew in Cartucho's face, whereupon Cartucho, with a smothered yelp of dismay, almost turned a back somersault; and the triumphant mantis flew back to the middle of the ox-hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied the laughing ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... was "my Lady Beatrice of Norfolk." And about a year after that came letters from Nym, addressed to "my Lady Countess of March," in which he writ that the King had made divers earls, and our father amongst them. Dame Hilda told us the news in the nursery, and Jack turned a somersault, and stood on his hands, with his heels up ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... opportunity to run out and hide himself, when he unawares rushed, head foremost, into lady Feng's arms. Lady Feng speedily raised her hand and gave him such a slap on the face that she made the young fellow reel over and perform a somersault. "You boorish young bastard!" she shouted, "where are ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... click, the revolver was chargeless, and with an exclamation of baffled rage I hurled the useless weapon full at the advancing brute. Almost at the instant we struck, my horse went down with the impetus, while over us both, as if shot from a cannon, plunged our pursuer, his horse turning a complete somersault, the rider falling so close that I was upon him almost as soon as he struck ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... shrieked Mrs. Williams. She almost achieved a back somersault. Six young members of the tribe of Williams made a simultaneous plunge for a position behind the stove, and ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... this connection, that there never seems to be any male character in these pantomimes that is not committed to buffoonery. Apparently no reliance is placed on the unassisted humour of the dialogue. A funny remark must be clinched with a somersault, a repartee be driven home by a resounding smack on the face. You might have thought that on such an occasion there would be room for the figure of some gallant soldier of the masculine sex. Yet there wasn't a vestige of khaki in the whole show, and the only patriotic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... leaping suddenly to her feet. "Risked your life for me, did you?" She laughed jeeringly at that. "Why, you big lummox, I could have yanked you out as easy as turn a somersault if you started to drown. And now suppose you hammer the trail ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... soon as the lock was pressed it could fly. He pressed it, and away he flew in it up the chimney, high into the clouds, further and further away. But whenever the bottom gave a little creak he was in terror lest the trunk should go to pieces, for then he would have turned a dreadful somersault-just ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... turned towards each other with distended eyes. If Arthur had suddenly slid down the chimney and crawled out on the hearth before them, turned a somersault in at the window, or crawled from beneath the table, it would have caused no astonishment whatever; but that he should ring at the bell, walk quietly into the hall, and wait to hang up his hat like any other ordinary mortal,—this ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... comical performance of this clumsy baby was his way of alighting on a fence when he had been flying. He seized the board with his claws, which clung for dear life, while his body went on as it was going, with the result almost of a somersault. He tried to learn, however. He made great efforts to master the vagaries of fences, the irregularities of the ground, the peculiarities of branches. He persistently walked the rail fence, though he had to spread both wings to ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... inconceivable rapidity, and the blinding volumes of smoke obscured the country for miles. The jungle was full of deer and pig. One fine buck came bounding along past our line, but I stopped him with a single bullet through the neck. He fell over with a tremendous crash, and turning a complete somersault broke off both his horns with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the fog an event elsewhere deaf the somersault to resound they were shouting at the top of their voices I started reading again for the ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... round and saw the bombing machine diving straight for the earth with the German scout on his tail. Tam followed in a dizzy drop. Three thousand feet from earth the bombing machine turned a complete somersault and Tam's heart leaped ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again. And between each time he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs trail helplessly after, close in above, fling violently across him feet foremost, and dash out of view. In other words, having reached the bottom of the grand staircase he had turned a complete and homely somersault. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... away in mad pursuit. Slipping, sliding, bounding over the glistening surface, turning a somersault to land on his feet and race ahead, he very soon came up with the thing where it had lodged ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... ain' stole one on 'em sence las' mont'," protested Zeke, as he turned a somersault into the road, "en dat warn' stealin' 'case hit warn' wu'th it," he added, rising to his feet and staring wistfully after the wagon as it vanished in a ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Wiel, eddy. Wight, strong, stout. Wighter, more influential. Willcat wildcat. Willyart, disordered. Wimple, to meander. Win, won. Winn, to winnow. Winna, will not. Winnin, winding. Winnock, window. Winnock-bunker, v. bunker. Win't, did wind. Wintle, a somersault. Wintle, to stagger; to swing; to wriggle. Winze, a curse. Wiss, wish. Won, to dwell. Wonner, a wonder. Woo', wool. Woodie, woody, a rope (originally of withes); a gallows rope. Woodies, twigs, withes. Wooer-babs, love-knots. Wordy, worthy. Worset, worsted. Worth, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... between his outspread feet, and, lifting him on his back, carried him several paces, when Herbert, his gun, torch, and himself, mixed up in great confusion, rolled off backward, turning a partial somersault and landing solidly on his head, his gun going off in the confusion ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... buttonholes six days the week, faced a brick wall that peeled with an old scrofula of white paint. Coney Island faced a world of sky. So that when she pinched Getaway's nose in between the lips of her coin purse and he, turning a double somersault right in his checked suit, landed seated in a sprawl of mock daze, off she went into peals of laughter only too ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... second blow, and rushing into the yard, each turned a somersault, and grinned the content he felt. Then ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... that the only sound to be heard was the slow ticking of the great clock in the hall. When it gave a loud br-r-r and began to strike, I was so startled by the sudden noise that I nearly lost my balance and turned a somersault over the railing. ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... kindly give me the name—the real name—of the author of this book? I have reasons, valid reasons for requiring it.' And he glared down at Mark, who had a sudden and disagreeable sensation as if his heart had just turned a somersault. Could this terrible old person have detected him, and if so what would ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... reputation of being the most vicious and untamed animal on the frontier. But, though it did its best to unseat the rider and trample him underfoot, there was no moment when the issue seemed in doubt save once. The horse flung itself backward in a somersault, risking its own neck in order to break its master's. But he was equal to the occasion; and when Steamboat staggered again to its feet Bannister was still in the saddle. It was a daring and magnificent ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... his nod was as condescending as his new master's; because he felt that a boy who could ride bareback and turn a double somersault in the air ought not to "knuckle under" to a fellow who had not the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... himself with more than ordinary spruceness, and was descending the stair on his way to Bias's garden, when at the foot of them he was amazed to find Mrs Bowldler, seated and rocking herself to and fro with her apron cast over her head. Nay, in the dusk of the staircase he but just missed turning a somersault ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "I'm not going to allow you to make a somersault into heaven over my head. In any case, these little mites won't ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... caught, and it was from this fact that it got its name, which comes from dote, to be "silly" or "feeble-minded." When the name of the bird is used to describe a silly person, the word is really, as an interesting writer on the history of words says, turning "a complete somersault." The same is the case with dodo, which is also used, but not so often, to describe a stupid person. This bird also got its name from a word which meant "foolish." It comes from the Portuguese word ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... this marksman's shooting, he pulled the trigger; the rifle went off with an extra loud report, and behold! the rifle burst and the violent recoil gave the Lama a fearful blow in the face. The rifle, flying out of his hands, described a somersault in the air, and the Lama fell backward to the ground, where he remained spread out flat, bleeding all over, and screaming like a child. His nose was squashed, one eye had been put out, and his ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... did come another way. I came all sorts of ways. I really don't know what got into the machine, but she now turned to the left and made for the road, and then she ran along on her two left wheels for a moment, and then seemed about to turn a somersault, but changed her mind, and, still veering to the left, kept on up the road, passing my house at a furious speed, and making for the open country. With as much calmness as I could summon I steered her, but I think I steered her a little too ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... grass-plot, till her head grew dizzy, and Cousin Sophronia screamed from the window that they would all be dead of apoplexy in less than ten minutes. Now they were hanging by their heels from the lower branches of the horse-chestnut tree, daring each other to turn a somersault in the air and so descend. Now Merton was teasing Chiquito, and getting his finger bitten, and howling, while Basil jeered at him, and wanted to know whether a sixty-year-old bird was likely to stand "sauce" from a ten-year-old ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Darkness—as he might have been called from his appearance just now—were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfrae for a time. By an extraordinary effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had got far back again from the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrived to turn Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard's other arm been free it would have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he regained his feet, wrenching Henchard's arm considerably, and causing him sharp pain, as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly delivered the younger man an ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... in the world, every boy in that part of Switzerland longs to go with the herds to the high mountain pastures for the summer, and Fritz was so delighted that he turned a somersault at once to express his feelings. When he was right side up again, a puzzled look came over his face, and he said, "Who will take care of ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... scholar, but one who knew how to use scholarship properly; for he put it on the shelf, declaring the wisdom of men to be but folly, and determined to know nothing else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The result—he made the world turn somersault. His life was a perpetual gamble for God. Daily he faced death for Christ. Again and again he stood fearless before crowds thirsting for his blood. He stood before kings and governors and "turned not a hair". He didn't so much as flinch before Nero, that vice-president of hell. His sufferings ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... slow, whatever else you may say about me," chattered the Monkey, and, with that, he turned a somersault on his stick, but of course none of the people in the store saw him, for that was not ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... about death! And no one to give him a hand. Life lost was lost for good. Let nothing go that you could keep; for, if it went, you couldn't get it back. It left you bare, like those trees when they lost their leaves; barer and barer until you, too, withered and came down. And, by a queer somersault of thought, he seemed to see not Annette lying up there behind that window-pane on which the sun was shining, but Irene lying in their bedroom in Montpellier Square, as it might conceivably have been her fate to lie, sixteen years ago. Would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tightened my belt many a time, and was not much more than a bag of bones, when, by chance, I fell in with a company of tumblers and gleemen. I sang them the old hunting-song, and they said I did it tunably, and, whereas they saw I could already dance a hornpipe and turn a somersault passably well, the leader of the troop, old Nat Fire-eater, took me on, and methinks he did not repent—nor I neither—save when I sprained my foot and had time to lie by and think. We had plenty to fill our bellies and put on our backs; we had welcome wherever we went, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... kick from one of the clowns, turned a somersault and tumbled in a grotesque heap outside the ring. A dialogue between two clowns began, and the Gadfly seemed to wake out of ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... the little monkey learned many circus tricks. He did not learn all of them as easily as he had learned to ride the dog and pony, or jump through the hoops. In fact, it took him several days to learn the trick of turning a somersault. And it took him longer to learn to sit up at a table, and eat with a knife, fork and spoon, dressed up like a little boy, ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... would keep the creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, as Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him, that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It was very evident that the ship's cat was ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... bullet large enough to jolt a fixed star and recoil enough to put one's starboard shoulder in the hospital for a day or so. Theoretically, the sportsman uses this weapon in close quarters, and with a bullet placed according to expert advice sees the charging lion, rhino or elephant turn a back somersault on his way to kingdom come. It has a tremendous impact and will usually stop an animal even if the bullet does not kill it. The bullets of a smaller rifle may kill the animal, but not stop it at once. An elephant or lion, with a small bullet in its heart, may still charge for fifty or one hundred ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... on his head, a habit he had when he was pleased. He never did succeed in standing on his head, but he usually turned a very good somersault. He did now. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... the horses' heads, and to my surprise, without any one being near them they rushed to their places at either side of the shaft of the engine. There were manholes in the ceiling, through which brass rods were suspended vertically. Down these slid half-dressed men, who seemed to turn a somersault into their clothes during the descent on to the engine, the harness suspended above the horses dropped on to their backs, and in an instant they were in the street, the engine manned, its fire ablaze, and the horses alive to the stiff job ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... of his mighty arm and all the momentum of his rapidly moving body behind the blow. The crack of breaking bones was distinctly audible as the officer's head snapped back. The force of the blow lifted him high into the air, and after turning a complete somersault, he brought up with a crash against the opposite wall, dropping to the floor stone dead. As several of his men, braver than the others, lifted their peculiar rifles, Seaton drew and fired in one incredibly swift motion, the X-plosive ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Bargujar Rajput, thus indicating that members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the Kulhantia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: 'Oh! yes, pairfeckly ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... caricatures. After balancing himself upon one foot for an hour, with the other drawn up close to his scanty robe of feathers, and his head poised in a most contemplative attitude, one of these queer birds will suddenly turn a somersault, and, returning to his previous posture, continue his cogitations as though nothing had interrupted his reflections. With wings spread, they slowly winnow the air, rising or hopping from the ground a few feet at a time, then whirling in circles upon their ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... had the prostration been more profoundly executed. Arising nimbly the performer wheeled about, reared on his hind feet, clasped his paws on his head, and acknowledged the favor of the commonalty by resolving himself into a great fur ball, and rolling a somersault. The acclamation became tumultuous. One admirer ran off and returned with an armful of wreaths and garlands, and presently Joqard was wearing ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... those fellows had both endurance and skill, and he feared that he was no match for them. But suddenly—he could have yelled with delight—the foremost figure leaped into the air, turned a tremendous somersault, and, coming down on his head, broke through the crust of the snow and vanished, while his skees started on an independent journey down the hill-side. He had struck an exposed fence-rail, which, abruptly checking his speed, had sent ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... section is in action now. We have just taken our waggon to the firing line and brought back the team. The corporal's horse stepped in a hole just as we were reaching the guns and turned a complete somersault. He is all right, but his was our second mishap, as the near wheeler fell earlier in the day, and the driver was dragged some yards before we could stop. The ground is very dangerous, full of holes, some of them deep and half-covered with grass. Another driver is up, but the former is only a ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... to his shouts, he began to fear lest his companion might be unable to render any help. Perhaps, indeed, he might be dead! The thought roused him to still greater exertions, and at last by a heroic effort he succeeded in turning a kind of somersault in his cold prison, which had the happy result of putting his head where his heels had been. To scramble out altogether was then an easy job, and in another instant he was beside ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... over which the noble peer had climbed in his agony, and inspected the hedge through which he had thrown himself, he was quite at home with his little jokes, bantering his august companion as to the mode of his somersault. But be it always remembered that there are two modes in which a young man may be free and easy with his elder and superior,—the mode pleasant and the mode offensive. Had it been in Johnny's nature to try the latter, the earl's back would soon have been up, and the play would have ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down with a tremendous somersault in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the Bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfited, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time at him, but he got out of the way. At this moment I managed to send one of my patent pacificating ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... bomb. Away went the chosen victim, but ere she had gone twenty-five yards Lobo was upon her. Seizing her by the neck he suddenly held back with all his force and so threw her heavily to the ground. The shock must have been tremendous, for the heifer was thrown heels over head. Lobo also turned a somersault, but immediately recovered himself, and his followers falling on the poor cow, killed her in a few seconds. Lobo took no part in the killing—after having thrown the victim, he seemed to say, "Now, why could not some of you have done that at once ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... of the true forefeet, the man on his back had shot out of the saddle and far ahead. He landed twenty feet away and squarely on his head and shoulders. Like Bolt, Courtrey's body turned a complete somersault—and lay still, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... Mr. Carlisle. "I never saw such a disorderly set of scholars in my life before. How do you find an occasional somersault helps a ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... hardly be persuaded to let one of his men kiss the king's foot as a proxy for him. The man chosen strode sturdily forward, seized the foot of the king, who was on horseback, and lifted it to his lips so roughly that the poor king turned a somersault from his horse. The Norsemen laughed in derision while the king's followers stood by ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... and stick and removing them off the track. Comes back to the starting point and then goes down the track in half canter; returns again, his eyes flashing, his nostrils dilated, looking the impersonation of the champion courser of the world; makes two or three apparently false starts; turns a somersault by placing his head on the ground and flopping over on his back; gets up and whickers like a horse; goes half-hammered, hop, step, and jump—he says, to loosen up his joints—scratches up the ground with his hands and feet, flops his arms and crows like a rooster, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... would be excitedly attentive. Their Jeremiah seemed at times like to become a jester,—there was a suggestion of the ludicrous in the sudden passage from birds to Greek coins, to mills, to Walter Scott, to millionaire malefactors,—a suggestion of acrobatic tumbling and somersault; but he always got a hearing. In lecturing to the students of a military academy he had ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... rounded a bend where the wall rocks sloped back, leaving a narrow arid sagebrush strip along both sides of the stream. I had straightened up to get the kink out of my back and mop the sweat out of my eyes, when I saw something that made my stomach turn a double somersault. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... Jacques Pallent, the carpenter, had made, which was four sawed posts, with a frame nailed to the top of them. It was placed in the corner, and so, out of sight, Pani felt that her charge was always safe. In the morning Jeanne generally turned a somersault that took her over to the edge of the big bed, from whence ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... most times to exhibit his merits, anxious only for the chance of a good master and the momentary avoidance of the lictor's flail. At the praefect's bidding he cracked his knuckles or showed his teeth, strained the muscles of his arm to make them stand up like cords, turned a somersault, jumped, danced or stood on his head if ordered so ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... solemnly hop over the fence and get somewhere where it did not belong. The last trait was what converted it into a hunter. It was a natural jumper, although without any speed. On the hunt in question I got along very well until the pace winded my ex-buggy horse, and it turned a somersault over a fence. When I got on it after the fall I found I could not use my left arm. I supposed it was merely a strain. The buggy horse was a sedate animal which I rode with a snaffle. So we pounded along at the tail of the hunt, and I did not appreciate that my ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... happened that, at that moment, the other young scamp was in the act of rising, and had got upon his hands and knees. As Richmond was sent spinning backward he came in collision with him, and turned a complete somersault, the air seeming to be full of legs, long hair, ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... not be an adept in handling a wire he had learned a few things about falling from trees. As he came tumbling down he gracefully turned a somersault and landed, quite ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... from his feathers, cast a scornful eye upon the crowd about him and looked again for the pebble; there it was within easy shot; taking good aim with one eye closed he made another lunge, ploughed his head into the dust, making a complete somersault. By this time the two old turkeys were attracted by the unusual excitement; making their way through the throng of youngsters, they gazed for a moment upon the downfall of one of their progeny, and then giving vent to their indignation in loud cries pounced upon their tipsy offspring ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... bridge, every culvert, every quaint old skeleton tree or dead grey log. Here Jim's pony had bolted at sight of an Indian hawker, in days long gone, and had ended by putting his foot into a hole and turning a somersault, shooting Jim into a well-grown clump of nettles. Here Norah had dropped her whip when riding alone, and her fractious young mare had succeeded in pulling away when she dismounted, and had promptly departed post-haste for home; leaving her wrathful owner to follow as she might. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... when one of the sledge-runners broke through. This brought them to a sudden halt. Next moment the sledge went down, and Angut found himself struggling with the dogs in the sea. Fortunately Rooney, being near the back part of the sledge, was able to roll off in a sort of back-somersault before the vehicle was quite submerged. Even in the act he did not forget Kannoa. He made a blind grasp at her in passing, but found her not, for that remarkable woman, at the first alarm, and being well aware of what was coming, had sprawled off at the rear, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... the quiet lane. "Well! the Prefect and my father would have been vexed, and he had his little punishment. Some day we shall meet independently, and then we shall see, Monsieur Ratoneau, we shall see! But what a somersault the creature made! If the bushes had not broken his fall, he would have ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... went over the dunes; the night was continuously lighted up by flashes from the big guns, both French and German. We were pulled up with a jerk, which sent me flying over the left wheel, doing a somersault, and finally landing head first into a lovely soft sandbank. Spluttering and staggering to my feet, I looked round for the cause of my sudden exit from the car, and there in the glare of the headlight were two French officers. Both were laughing heartily ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... horses. For some reason of his own he bolted, and galloped to the top of one of the kanat cones, when getting frightened at the deep hole before him he jumped it. His fore-legs having given way on the steep incline on the other side, he fell on his head and turned a complete somersault, landing flat on his back, where, owing to the packs, he remained with his legs up in the air until we came to his aid and freed him ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... In the passage that led to the dining-room he looked at the clock, and his heart turned a somersault. It was five minutes past nine. Not only was he late for breakfast, but late for school, too. Never before had he brought off the ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... comprehended these maneuvers and joined battle. On the following Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large paunches and spread their legs wide apart as though on horseback, while the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these movements, the Chinese all adopted their own peculiar attitude, that of sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward, the other swinging loose. There resulted protests and petitions, the police rushed to arms ready ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... rider said, "Senor Americanito, I know your gun is loaded right and is ready to shoot straight. Look you, if you plant a bullet just below an Indian's navel, you will see him do a double somersault, which is more wonderful to behold than any circus performance you ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... clan deposit the cakes at a snake's hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and Bagh (tiger) clans draw images of these animals on the wall at the time of their weddings and offer the cakes to them. The Basors of the Kulatia or somersault clan do somersaults at the time of eating the cakes; those of the Karai Nor clan, who venerate a well, eat the cakes at a well and not at home. Basors of the Lurhia clan, who venerate a grinding-stone, worship this implement ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... watch spring, his body is cork—no, it is iron, or it would snap at that! He's a bird, a top, a rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a fleshball, all in an instant. When you think he's erect, he is down, and when you think he is down, he is up. He drops his glove on the ice and turns a somersault as he picks it up. Without stopping he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's astonished head and claps it back again "hindside before." Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under your feet, but more than temperate over head. ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... was Squeaknibble gambolling," continued the little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double back somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... men were dropping all the time—men I knew. I saw Dolbsie clawing at his throat as he reeled forward, falling. I saw Vickers double up, drop his rifle, and somersault, hanging on to ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... such a quiver of delight herself that Mary's happy cry of astonishment and Jack's excited exclamation did not do justice to the occasion. Only long-legged Norman's demonstration seemed adequate. Standing on his head he turned one somersault after another across the room, till he landed perilously near Mary, who gave him a sharp tweak of the ear as he came up in a sitting ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... pausing for a moment. "The Skip is thus. You throw out your left leg as high and as far as you can, and as you drop on the toe of your left foot you fling out the right leg in the same manner, and so on. This is the Jump," with which he turned a somersault and disappeared from view. When Amelia next saw him he was sitting cross-legged ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... occasion. He considered the garret; the potato-field on the fire-escape, through which the sunlight came in, making a cheerful streak on the floor; Mrs. Ben Wah and her turban; and his late carrier: then he climbed upon his stick, turned a somersault, and said, "Here we are," or words to that effect. Thereupon he held his head over to be scratched by Mrs. Ben Wah in token of a compact of friendship then and ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... fainted and collapsed among his frogs! As for the big nigger, almost equally terrified by this shriek from the abyss, he executed a precipitate movement which only the breaking of his neck prevented from being a double back-somersault, and lay dead in the weeds with his tongue out and his face the color of a cometic spectrum. We laid them in the same grave, poor fellows, and on many a still summer evening afterward I strayed to the lonely little church-yard to listen to the smothered requiem chanted ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... donkey, and led them out to the play-ground, where Napoleon treated them in turn to a very fine dance on his hind-legs, and Old Pudding-head, not to be behindhand in politeness, gave all the little boys a somersault over his nose. They had a first-rate frolic, and did not think once ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... the deck, hurling the terrified occupant in a heap in the corner—the captain being utterly ignorant of the cause of the whole catastrophe, for he was sitting with his back to the door and so had not seen the steward's somersault nor the approach of the animal like I did from the ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... attractive, offer nothing certain in the future. They may, no doubt, be your golden bridge, or you may, thanks to them, soar very high, but—modern Icarus—may not also some adverse fortune, an unexpected loss of popularity, or, perhaps, some revolution fatal to your philosophy, bring you down with a somersault, and then you would not be sorry to find in your quiver the means of gaining your bread. Agreed that you have now an invincible repugnance to the practice of medicine, it is evident from your last two letters that you would ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... rushed into the midst of the others. In an instant, the whole was one writhing and tumbling heap of contortion, reminding me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes of which travellers make report. As soon as one was worked out of the mass, he bounded off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a run, threw himself gyrating into the air, and descended with all his weight on the summit of the heaving and struggling chaos of fantastic figures. I left them still busy at this fierce and apparently aimless amusement. And ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... and Enrique was compelled to free the rope or have his horse dragged down. I saw the mishap, and, giving my horse the rowel, rode at the bull and threw my rope. The loop neatly encircled his front feet, and when the shock came between horse and bull, it fetched the toro a somersault in the air, but unhappily took off the pommel of my saddle. The bull was on his feet in a jiffy, and before I could recover my rope, Enrique, who had reset his saddle, passed me, followed by the entire squad. Uncle Lance had been a witness to both mishaps, and on overtaking us urged me to tie ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... for the first time unfolded his arms. With some appearance of caution he balanced his unstable footing into absolute immobility. Then he turned a somersault. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... pocket. "Would you now?" he added, apparently addressing himself to a large frog who sat upon a stone, looking so wise and grandfatherly that it really did seem quite proper to consult him. At all events, he gave his opinion in the most decided manner, for, with a loud croak, he turned an undignified somersault into the brook, splashing up the water at a great rate. "Well, perhaps it wouldn't be best on the whole. Industry is a good teacher, and money cannot buy happiness, as I know ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... a good half of what remained to him after the depredations of Mr. Raeburn had been shaken out of his pockets by the somersault, and once more lay glittering on the ground. He blessed his fortune that the maid had been so quick of eye; "there is nothing so bad but it might be worse," thought he; and the recovery of these few seemed to him almost as ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... came up the steps, I rushed for him and kicked out with all my strength, when his face was level with my knees. The toe of my heavy shoe caught him solidly in the neck, and he went over backward almost in a complete somersault, landing with a crash upon the main deck just outside the window of Mr. Trunnell's room. He was stunned by the fall, and I hastened down to seize him before he could recover. Just as I gained the main deck, however, he gave a snort and started ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... for a flash, he himself got a wrestler's grip that left him ready to do business. As the priest broke free, he slid around in an attempt to fasten himself on Kirby's back. Quickly, tensely Kirby doubled, and knew that he had done enough. The cacique shot over his shoulders, described a somersault in midair, and landed with a sharp crack of head and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the circus-man bound into the air from a spring-board and make a somersault over eight horses standing side by side. Mr. Chauncy saw an aboriginal do it over eleven; and was assured that he had sometimes done it over fourteen. But what is that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... juncture, fortunately for the under man, a champion appeared in the person of an Irishman, who with one blow knocked the largest of the assailants so violently backward that he turned a complete reverse somersault, and then lay still several minutes ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... nature to submit to such an outrage without expressing proper resentment. The animal threw up its hind legs, lowering its head at the same time, and Joshua Bickford, describing a sudden somersault, found himself sitting down on the ground a few feet in front of his horse, not seriously injured, but ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... William had managed the somersault, but it had somehow brought his feet into collision with Uncle George's neck. Uncle George ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... the report of the gun by making a somersault to the earth. There was no necessity for Hendrik to waste any ammunition upon him. He had fallen in the agonies of death; and, without even waiting for his last kick, Willem took hold of one of his hind legs and commenced dragging the carcass ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
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