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More "Tighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alone now. Still Bork waited, staring upwards. Then Dave saw something in the sky. A speck appeared and came hurtling down. In seconds, it was the body of one of the men who had risen. Dave felt his stomach tighten and braced himself. There was no slowing as the body fell. It landed in the center of the clearing, without losing speed, but with less noise than ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... his hands, I was seized by the mutes, and the bowstring encircled my neck. All was ready, they awaited but the last signal to tighten the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the road. The girth of the saddle was loosened. With a superhuman effort old Jim remained in his seat, but he knew he must tighten the cinch. Dismounting, he permitted the horse to face away from the gale. The pup came gladly to the shelter of the miner's boots and clambered stiffly up on his leg, for a word of companionship ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... his line, the fish come round him without suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape. Is the fisherman a benefactor? Is the fish ungrateful? Do we find a man forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor? On the contrary, he delights to speak of him, he cannot think of him without emotion; if ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... my companion, "now listen! For Heru reads the destiny; the whiter the globe stays the better for us—" and then I felt her hand tighten on mine with a startled grasp as the words died ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... a baby's sorrow, happily, is shorter than its remembrance; and Rosy-Lilly soon learned to repeat her phrase: "Poor Daddy had to go 'way-'way-off," without the quivering lip and wistful look which made the big woodsmen's hearts tighten so painfully beneath their homespun shirts. Conroy's Camp was a spacious, oblong cabin of "chinked" logs, with a big stove in the middle. The bunks were arranged in a double tier along one wall, and a plank table (rude, but massive) along the other. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... who have had from me all the care and affection of a father, promise me to be ever united in heart and in wish, as indeed you are in my love. I have lived longer than your fathers, I the eldest of all, and thus no doubt God has wished to tighten the bonds of your affection, to accustom you to live in one family and to pay honour to one head. I have loved you all alike, as a father should, without exception or preference. I have disposed of my throne according to the law of nature ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... possibly arrive. I looked at the keg; it was an awkward thing to carry empty. There was nothing else to carry water in, as Gibson had taken all the smaller water-bags, and the large ones would require several gallons of water to soak the canvas before they began to tighten enough to hold water. The keg when empty, with its rings and straps, weighed fifteen pounds, and now it had twenty pounds of water in it. I could not carry it without a blanket for a pad for my shoulder, so that with my revolver and cartridge-pouch, knife, and one ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... have you been doing?" Tom wanted to know. "Did you have an accident?" For Koku had no knowledge of machinery, and could not even be trusted to tighten up a simple nut by himself. But if some one stood near him, and directed him how to apply his enormous strength, Koku could ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... hung in his room near his store of tobacco. He filled it himself, lighted it with a glowing coal, and appeared to be the happiest of quadrumana. It may readily be understood that this similarity of tastes of Jup and Pencroft served to tighten the bonds of friendship which already existed between the honest ape and the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... you stand, Awaken once more to the rush and roar, And on the rock-point tighten your hand, As you turn and see a valley deep, 310 That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all, Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas Feeling their way to you more and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... solution. Then pour the solution into the battery jar, until it is within 3 in. of the top. Thread the wire holding the zinc through the porcelain insulator of the carbon cylinder and also through the wire connector. Pull the zinc up as far as it will go and tighten the lower thumb screw so that it holds the wire secure. Place the carbon in the jar. If the solution touches the zinc, some of it should be poured out. To determine whether or not the zinc is touched by the solution, take ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... reached a certain place where a group of cottonwoods shaded the gully, he stopped and dismounted to fuss with his cinches. Mary V could not be sure whether he was merely killing time, or whether he really needed to tighten the saddle; but when another rider appeared suddenly from the eastward, she did know that the first rider showed no ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... crudity, where everything that is not white is a solecism and defies the judgment of the eyesight; a scene of blinding definition; a parade of daylight, almost scenically vulgar, more than scenically trying, and yet hearty and healthy, making the nerves to tighten and the mouth to smile: such is the winter daytime in the Alps. With the approach of evening all is changed. A mountain will suddenly intercept the sun; a shadow fall upon the valley; in ten minutes the thermometer will drop as many degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tighten on her gown. Then, as suddenly as it grew, her ungovernable fit of anger seems to die checked, killed by her own will. She sinks into the chair behind her, and looks deliberately at Margaret with an air that, if not altogether smiling, is certainly ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... brave healthy man, you may know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does mean—a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as you smash them. ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... persistently in the estimate of its possessor that he begins to contemplate exchanging it for something more up to date or interesting. But let a rival collector march forth with igniting enthusiasm and proclaim a desire for the scorned objects, and that very moment does the possessor tighten his grip on them and add a decimal or two to their value. So was it with the trustees of Saint Margaret's. For the first time in their lives they desired the incurable ward and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... minute I did not stir. I was watching—and the wings again began to tighten about the babies, the wild light in the eyes died down, the long, sharp beak turned ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the floor was a shambles. I saw one snakelike arm whip around the stout form of Atuna, then tighten. A shriek of agony rang through the hall. Another tentacle curled about the couch of a second aristo, pinning the occupant to it. Then couch and all were swung a hundred feet in the air to be crashed down with terrific force on the stone floor. Two arms seized the third ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... water did not become deeper, but all at once the sand gave way. Father said it was quick sand which somewhat frightened her, but he didn't seem scared so she tried not to be. They went down and down into the sand which seemed to tighten around them, when all at once, when Mary was up to her shoulders, the spring gave a gurgle and tossed them out into shallow water. Mary was frightened, but the rest laughed at her, especially Jack, ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... of the Irish Question so that we can proceed with the disestablishment of the Church, the Local Option Bill, and the thousand-and-one other fads for which English Home Rulers have sold themselves'—the men who say this, and who also say 'If they kick over the traces we can instantly tighten the reins and reduce them to order,' surely these folks cannot be aware that the Gladstone-Morley Government is unable to give Strachan, of Tuam, the land which he has bought and paid for in the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... something to and fro about the room, and that he then buttoned his overcoat more tightly about him and his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor's. And it was no delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark, become spread as it were with a shadowy blackness. I saw his lips tighten and his expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then with a rush that, of course, this man had told us but a part of the experiences he had been through in the house, and that there was much more he had never been able to bring himself to reveal at all. I felt sure of ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the gearing question, it was decided to employ belts instead of the friction-pulleys." Accordingly, Edison installed on the locomotive a system of belting, including an idler-pulley which was used by means of a lever to tighten the main driving-belt, and thus power was applied to the driven axle. This involved some slipping and consequent burning of belts; also, if the belt were prematurely tightened, the burning-out of the armature. This latter event happened a number of times, "and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... an "Eve" at heart has followed in her time the example of the mother of all of 'em. As they begin to fatten, so they begin to tighten, and the inevitable and consequential "bulge" is imprisoned as it "bulgeth" until no corsetiere can do more for them than hint that men like their divinities a trifle plump in places. But to ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... found reason to tighten and cease their eager quivering for a kiss. For Teresita twitched her shoulders pettishly and her reins dexterously, and so removed herself some distance from ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... this moment in a mere glimpse of this old tower to make Arthur Dynecourt grow pale and to start so strangely? His eyes grow brighter, his lips tighten and grow hard. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... unless you tighten a halter round their necks to loosen their tongues," said she. "They are ungrateful. What do they not owe to Camusot! Camusot brought the House of Orleans to the throne by enforcing the ordinances ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... was paid to Lynde's fresh outbreak. Some one picked up his hat and set it on the back of his head, giving him quite a rakish air. His dignity suffered until the wind took the hat again. The party proceeded in silence, halting once to tighten a girth, and another time to wait for a straggler. If the men spoke to one another it was in subdued tones or whispers. Two of the horsemen trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... adjacent spaces are in opposite mechanical conditions. On one side of the dark band we have strain, on the other side pressure, the band marking the neutral axis between both. I now tighten the vice, and you see colour; tighten still more, and the colours appear as rich as those presented by crystals. Releasing the vice, the colours suddenly vanish; tightening suddenly, they reappear. From the colours ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... inexpedient? You just collar the money, and the woman's in your hands. And then should she ever turn snappish you'd be able to tighten the reins! ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... then she sang—sang the "Angel's Serenade." As the soft soprano lifted and fell in the modulations of that song there was in its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a questing, seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand on his shoulder tighten and then relax; and, as the song ended, he saw that his companion's eyes were ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... her hand slowly tighten on mine. Then all at once as we heard the first low grumble of the freight train coming, my mother's hold grew tighter and tighter. "Open your eyes." I opened them quickly, for her voice was sharp and stern. She held me until the ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... our network of holy indifference, then go on with our work. When we discover that our lute is out of tune, we must neither break the strings nor throw the instrument aside; but listen attentively to find out what is the cause of the discord, and then gently tighten or slacken the strings, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... is at present utterly unable to travel, though he declares he shall be as soon as I am prepared to start. He received the injury from which he is suffering on the morning of the day we reached this place. He had got off to tighten the girths of his saddle, but had again mounted, and was following some way behind, when a monstrous animal rushed out from behind a thicket, and sprang on his horse. His side and leg were much lacerated as he threw himself from his saddle, and ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... leave his face, and his hands tighten. It was not until then that she guessed at the depth of his wound, and knew that it was unhealed. For him had been reserved this supreme irony, that he should come here to plead for her husband and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the tickets with every appearance of honesty and good faith. But I had reason to remark, by what happened to myself, that the tickets had been registered beforehand. The young Queen, who felt her garter slipping off, came to me in order to tighten it. She handed me her ticket to hold for a moment, and when she had fastened her garter, I gave her back my ticket instead of her own. When the Cardinal from his dais read out the numbers in succession, my number won ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the voters will be as docile as before; and all the more because the composition of the electoral college only half interests them. This college, unlike the municipal council, does not touch or hold any of them on their sensitive side; it is not obliged to tighten or loosen their purse-strings; it does not vote the "additional centimes"; it does not meddle with their business; it there only for show, to simulate the absent people, to present candidates, and thus perform the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... see his little fair-haired girl, white-ruffled and blue-ribboned, standing beside him a-tiptoe in her little white shoes, her arms reached up to tighten instantly around his neck as ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... see who it is, Geoffrey. That last one is——' Suddenly Jean bent forward as he was trying to extricate her from the crowd, and she looked in his face. Something that she found there made her tighten ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul, when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown tense. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off. If I had ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... from Blue Grass Avenue; his eyes were turned in the direction of the lake, so that he did not see the women on the steps of the temple until Miss Hitchcock turned and held out her hand. Then he started, perceptibly enough to make Alves's lips tighten once more. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... other drags, fastened on longer chains, into the sub; to send tugs and police boats snorting backward; to tighten the chains and draw the sub to the surface, to whirl it about until the hatchway was once more at the upper side, this was ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... oppression. So long as workmen are ignorant, governments will oppress them; wealth will oppress them; religious machinery will oppress them. Education can make man's wrists too large to be holden of fetters. In the autumn the forest trees tighten the bark, but when April sap runs through the trees the trunk swells, the bark is strained and despite all protests it splits and cracks. The splitting of the bark saves the life of the tree. The soft, balmy ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... when he stooped and knelt in the snow to tighten a thong slipping from one webbed foot. Below them stretched a plain of shimmering frost-points, bounded by inscrutable walls of black timber. Somewhere within the warmer heart of a swamp a fox yapped hungrily; somewhere within her own heart his whimsical discourse had awakened ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... fight in the open field, and another to keep parrying the petty blows dealt by a persecuting antagonist. Day by day, hour by hour, as the time went on, Rendel had to make a conscious effort to keep to the line he had traced out for himself; he had to tighten his resolution, to readjust his burden. The yoke of even a beloved companionship may be willingly borne, but it is a yoke and a restraint for all that. But Rendel would not have forgotten it. He accepted the lot he had chosen, unspeakably grateful to Rachel for ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires, I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself, I tighten her all night to my ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... worst part of the whole affair," replied Tom, and even in the dusk I could see the lines of his face tighten. "You know Uncle Lewis was a hard drinker, but he never seemed to show it much. We had been out on the lake in the motor-boat fishing all the afternoon and—well, I must admit both my uncles had had frequent recourse to 'pocket pistols,' and I remember they referred to it each time as 'bait.' Then ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... might to a woman of whom he was fond when he saw her exposing herself to danger. He would escort her; he would see that no harm befell her. The impulse was spontaneous in an illusion free of the gardener's part. But he saw her lips tighten and a frown gather. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... which was assailing me will now be understood. I could so force Michael's hand that he must kill the King. I was in a position to bid him defiance and tighten my grasp on the crown—not for its own sake, but because the King of Ruritania was to wed the Princess Flavia. What of Sapt and Fritz? Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled passion ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... tears falling, felt the slender fingers within his own tighten convulsively; felt her lips against his hand—an instant only; then she turned and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... It wouldn't be any good, you know." He went on speaking very carefully and quietly, and while he spoke she felt his left arm tighten round her, binding her own arms down to her sides as might a thong, while his right hand slid up to the base of her throat. She writhed, twisting her body desperately in his grip. "Keep still. I've kissed you. And now I'm going to kill you. You'll ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... addresses, and sent their rough ambassadors one to the other. Georgia made Sevier a brigadier-general in her militia, for the district she claimed in the bend of the Tennessee; and her branch of the Society of the Cincinnati elected him to membership. In return Sevier, hoping to tighten the loosening bonds of his authority by a successful Indian war, entered into arrangements with Georgia for a combined campaign against the Creeks. For various reasons the proposed campaign fell through, but the mere planning ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... May, the month of seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades the warm air. This renouveau, this second spring, was like a gift from heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... firm in her resolve, though knowing commotion of soul, she leaned to him and kissed his forehead and turned her cheek to him. Franklin had kept her hand, and in the pause, where she did not see his face, she felt his tighten on it; but he did not kiss her. Smiling a little nervously, she raised her head and looked at him. He was gazing at her with a ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to that, except to suddenly tighten his arms about her. He was not yet at the point where he could make a joke of her illness. She had been too near the Valley of the Shadow ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... this dreaded and deadly Reservation of the valley. The Indians surrendered on condition that they should be taken to good homes and taught the ways of the white man. Once in the white man's power, the chains began to tighten, tighten at every step. Once there, they were divided into lots, families torn apart, and put to work under guard; men stood over them with loaded muskets. The land was full of malaria. These men of the mountains began to sicken, to die; ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... that not one of the boys addressed showed the least intention of carrying out the wishes of the speaker. In fact, to tell the truth, each one of the scouts seemed to tighten his grip. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... dais door) Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed them Over the carven ends of the beams outside: They bear on them, they tighten them with levers, And soon they'll tear the high roof ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... His Grace sent two beautiful suits to our inn. One was of Barcelona make, the other an old suit which we judged had come from Damascus. I tried the latter with my sword, and spoiled a good blade. Although the Damascus armor was too heavy by a stone, we chose it, and employed an armorer to tighten a few nuts, and to adjust new straps to the shoulder ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Sergnevich,' said I. 'What's the good of it? You just throw away the past, as though it had never happened, as though it were only a dream, and start life afresh. Don't listen to the devil,' I said, 'he won't do you any good, and he will only tighten the noose. You want money now, but in a little while you will want something else, and then more and more. If,' said I, 'you want to be happy you must want nothing. Exactly.... If,' I said, 'fate has been hard on you and me, it is no good ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... hear the armed life almost within reach of him, could hear the slings tighten across the bandsman's chest as he heaved the big drum ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... for Coupling-joints.—These are for tightening the coupling-joints, when that cannot be sufficiently done by hand. When the hose are all put together a man is sent along the whole line with a pair of wrenches to tighten such of the coupling-joints as require it. The wrenches are generally made with a hole to fit the knob on the coupling-joint, and, when used, are placed, one on the nob of the male and another on the nob of the female-screw, so as to ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... Charles II. governed gently, it was his way; we may add, that he did not govern the worse on that account. A sailor sometimes makes on a rope intended to baffle the wind, a slack knot which he leaves to the wind to tighten. Such is the stupidity of the storm and of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... while I tighten my belt,' he observed. 'You can tell it by his eyes,' he added, as Monkey urged him forward to the door. 'I know a good dreamer ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... face, then at one of the doves that had perched on her shoulder, and thought of treacherous swart Sepoys, of Bengal tigers, of all the tangled work that lay before him in Hindoostan jungles, a shadow fell over the young man's brow, and a dull pain seemed to tighten the valves of his heart. Just then his appointed lot in the Master's vineyard did not smile as alluringly as the sunny slopes of Eschol; but he put ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... time in preparations; these had been made already. It remained only to tighten my saddle-girths, look to the caps of my revolvers, and place both pistols and knife in the belt behind my back— where the weapons would be concealed by the pendent robe of jaguar-skins. In a few ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... half-way up the jars. Place the filled jars on the rack so as not to touch one another, and pack the spaces between them with cotton, to prevent the jars striking when the water boils. Sterilize for 22 minutes after the water begins to boil. Remove the jars from the boiler. Tighten the covers. Invert to cool, and test the joints. Wrap the jars in paper to prevent bleaching and store in a cool, dry, dark place. This method of cooking is also called ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... cigarette, saw Norah sit up suddenly and tighten her hand on the bridle. Simultaneously Bobs was off like a shot—tearing over the paddock a little wide of the fugitive. The race was a short one. Passing the bullock, the bay pony and his rider swung in sharply and the lash of Norah's whip shot ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... prevented, that WAS prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She thought of a life that might have been—she dared not say HAD been—and wondered. It was six years ago; if it had lived, it would have been as old as Carry. The arms which were folded loosely around the sleeping child began to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out and drew the body of the sleeping child down, down, into her breast, down again and again as if she would hide it in the grave dug there years before. And the gust that shook her ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... well called 'The Wonderful.' I could see the heads of the tribesmen lifting like wolves taking a new scent, and mothers tighten their clutch on their children. Also I saw Opata. Him I watched, for he smelt of mischief. His water-basket was beside him, and as the people turned from baiting Taku-Wakin to believing him, I saw Opata push the bottle secretly with his spear-butt. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... Human nature could not endure it. In his extremity, the beach comber attempted the same ruse that had been so successful for Brice. He slumped, in pseudo-helplessness. The only result was to enable Gavin to tighten his hold, unopposed by the tensing of the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... his call and clamor, His unnecessary tumult, Till he wearied of the shouting; 60 And he said to the Kenozha, To the pike, the Maskenozha, "Take the bait of this rude fellow, Break the line of Hiawatha!" In his fingers Hiawatha 65 Felt the loose line jerk and tighten; As he drew it in, it tugged so, That the birch canoe stood endwise, Like a birch log in the water, With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 70 Perched and frisking on the summit. Full of scorn was Hiawatha When he saw the fish rise upward, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, Coming nearer, nearer ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... had to tune it, of course. But when he wanted to tighten the E string, the screw refused to work. It had dried up; and when the conductor tried to use force, the string snapped with a sharp sound, and rolled itself up like a ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... bade me deliver a message to you alone and then hasten back." With this the girl almost whispered in the ear of the old soldier a few words that caused his teeth to clench and his heartstrings to tighten. She had hardly concluded, when an approaching step from the direction of the fort caused her to spring aside and fly with the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... the two men jerked their heads up to listen; Tressa felt their arms tighten about her. Through the darkness they strained down the track to the east, their ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... conservative, had been adopted by Aileen with enthusiasm. She thrilled a little at the rustle of this black dress, and thrust her chin and nose forward to make it set right. Then after having Kathleen tighten her corsets a little more, she gathered the train over her arm by its train-band and looked again. Something was wanting. Oh, yes, her neck! What to wear—red coral? It did not look right. A string of pearls? That would not do either. There was a necklace made of ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... that 'mankind obtain a greater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the rules and conditions required by the rest, than when each makes the good of the rest his only object.' To narrow or to repudiate such a province is to tighten the power of the majority over the minority, and to augment the authority of whatever sacerdotal or legislative body may represent the majority. Whether the lawmakers be laymen in parliament, or priests of humanity exercising the spiritual power, it ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... sperm was not so ready to flow, as it was in after days, at a second poke, for I was very young; but nature did all for me; my prick went to the proper channel, there stopped by something it battered furiously. "Oh, you hurt, oh!" she cried aloud. The next instant something seemed to tighten round its knob, another furious thrust,—another,—a sharp cry of pain (resistance was gone), and my prick was buried up her, I felt that it was done, and that before I had spent outside of her. I looked at her, she was quiet, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... to twist the cotton into a loop; bend the needle in the loop; hold the cotton attached to the reel between the third and little fingers of the right hand, and over the point of the forefinger; bring the thread round the needle by the slightest possible motion; bend the needle towards you, and tighten the loop on the left-hand finger, in letting it slip off to form the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... like a nigger—like a nigger is supposed to work, but doesn't. No one—whatever we paid him—would do half as much. I don't want to make your head more swollen than it is, young woman, but you have talent; I am not sure it is not genius." Peter felt the little hands tighten ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... him made no answer. He had snatched up the first thing he could find, a fragment of a broken tent-peg, to tighten the pressure upon ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... his shoulders. "Satyrs dancing, with a vengeance!" said he; but the gleam of Aruna's sari smote him silent. A band seemed to tighten round his heart.... ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... ridge-pole over it, and then, holding the other end of the ridge-pole in one hand, he put the second pole in position with his other hand, and pushed the end of the ridge-pole into its proper place. The tent was now pitched; and all that remained to be done was to tighten the four corner pegs, and to drive ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella felt the man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. Then Aldous released her, and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as regards the respective armies. We wandered a little more, and at 11.7 P.M., not having had a road under us for twenty minutes, we scaled the heights of something or other—which are about six hundred feet high. Here we 'alted to tighten the lashings of the superstructure, and we smelt leather and horses three counties deep all round. We was, as you might say, in ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... one of the extremities, it may be useful; and it imparts confidence to the nurse, and, it may be, to the patient, if a Petit's tourniquet is loosely applied above the wound, which the nurse is instructed to tighten up in the event of bleeding ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... gone, the cider bottles empty, they tighten the straps of their kit bags and rise ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... his arms tighten suddenly about her. The blue eyes looking into hers grew misty and very tender. Then, all at once, Rachel knew who he was. He was her father. She did not say anything, but she laid her curly head down on ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... on our river banks, bearing numerous green flowers in leafless whorls, and being identical with the famous Herba Britannica of Pliny. This name does not denote British origin, but is derived from three Teuton words, brit, to tighten: tan, a tooth; and ica, loose; thus expressing its power of bracing up loose teeth and spongy gums. Swedish ladies employ the powdered root as a dentifrice; and gargles prepared therefrom are excellent for sore throat and relaxed uvula. ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... timbers across them, pass a chain under the bow and stern of the sunken hull, and make fast to the timbers. Then I would let the water into the canal-boats, and sink them down to the rails. When I got them down as deep as I could, I would tighten the chains, till they bore taut on the timbers. ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... knights rode slowly back to the head of the lists, where the Discarded was seen to dismount and tighten ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... a dozen strokes Henry had scored high to Gilbert's nothing, and the boy dropped the ball at his feet to tighten the network he had made on his hand by winding a bowstring in and out between his fingers and across the palm, as men did before rackets were thought of. Suddenly he turned half round and faced Gilbert, planting ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... a revelation to Madame Raquin. She saw, at once, all the advantages she would derive, personally, from the union of Therese and Laurent. The marriage would tighten the bonds already connecting her and her niece with the friend of her son, with that good-natured fellow who came to ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... was fairly sick with anxiety and did not hear half of what he was saying. She was nervously careful about choosing her steps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father. She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she was waiting for Swan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact from her. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad, would at least have tried to reassure her. But it is ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... in a tone so pleasant I had to tighten my grip upon my resolution. "On my conscience, anybody who didn't know us ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... been puddled by the tread of cattle, or by wheels, acquires a peculiar consistency, and a singular capacity to hold water. Certain clays are wet and beaten up into this consistency, to form the bottoms of ponds, and to tighten dams and reservoirs. A soil thus puddled, requires careful treatment to again render it permeable to water, and fit for cultivation. This puddling process is constantly going on, under the feet of cattle, under the plow and the cart-wheels, wherever land ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... her mistress's hand. Marguerite's quick eye had seen that her uncle was still uninjured; and at all hazards the secret of their hiding-place must not be revealed. She held Bastienne firmly till she felt the old servant's lips tighten under her hand, in sign of submission to the inevitable; and then, with a whispered warning, and without releasing her grip on the woman's arm, she turned her whole attention once more to the scene before them. Marie, in the meantime, had never taken her ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... You take a dangerous tone toward me who holds your fate in the grip of his hand!" he exclaimed, stretching out his arm, and working his fingers. "Yes, and who would not hesitate, under provocation, to tighten that grip to your destruction. But there! We should serve, not ruin, each other. Now listen to me, Friday. If you will behave yourself, I will hold my tongue. Otherwise——But I need say ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... could turn whiter, I think she did. I felt Joan's hand-clasp tighten upon mine, till I could almost ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... companions about "dizzy dolls" and "the little angel in the other seat." This same voice, gruffened in its beard, had told her that ten thousand of the Horde had gone up ahead of them. Then it whispered something that made her hands suddenly tighten and a hot flush sweep through her. She lifted her veil and rose slowly from her seat, as if to rearrange her dress. Casually she looked straight into the faces of the bearded man and his companion in the seat behind. They stared. After that she heard nothing more of the Straying Angels, ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... draw the bolts upwardly and thus tighten the blocks against the shaft. The free end of the lever has stops (H) above and below, so as to limit its movement. Weights (I) are suspended from the end ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... quietude and steadiness, often form a habit of hurry which makes them both unfriendly toward children and very bad for children. These young creatures ought to go along through their days rather dreamily and altogether serenely. Every turn of the screw to tighten their nerves makes more certain some form of early nervous breakdown. They ought to have work to do, of course,—enough of it to occupy both mind and body—but it should be quiet, systematic, regular work, much of it performed automatically. Only occasionally should they be required to do things ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... the average child, particularly for the child who is under average as regards ambition to excel. But what of their effect upon the already over-conscientious and self-exacting child? Simply to tighten fetters which should ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... heart-felt agony—tears of the tenderest sympathy, the most devoted love, as, leaning that fair face upon the cold brow of the unhappy youth, Clary unconsciously kissed away those waters of the heart, and pressed that wan cheek against her gentle bosom. She felt his arm tighten round her, as she stood in the embrace of the beloved, scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of breaking the sad spell that had linked them together. At length Anthony unclosed his eyes, and looked long and earnestly up in ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Keith's hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment she ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... skipped down the path to where her motor boat was fastened. She would look over the engine. The wire connections had slipped, and she would tighten them, and ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... practice of putting armlets on young folk, and retaining them in after life, so as to tighten round ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... 'neath dust and mold, Which to the high vault's topmast bound, A smoke-stained paper doth enfold; With boxes round thee piled, and glass, And many a useless instrument, With old ancestral lumber blent— This is thy world! a world! alas! And dost thou ask why heaves thy heart, With tighten'd pressure in thy breast? Why the dull ache will not depart, By which thy life-pulse is oppress'd? Instead of nature's living sphere, Created for mankind of old, Brute skeletons surround thee here, And dead men's bones in smoke and mold. Up! Forth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Coppice And we're down by the Mill, We're out upon the Common, And the hounds are running still. You must tighten on the leather, For we blunder through the bracken; Though you're over hocks in heather Still the pace must never slacken As we race through Thursley ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to tighten his grip until the other winced. Then Private Hinkey delivered his answer. Suddenly wrenching himself free, by the exercise of his full strength, he let his fist fly ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... rang in the ears of his mind the sound of a laugh which he had not heard for seventeen months. Something seemed to tighten about his heart. Yes, he could be quite happy without the millionaire, without the sunny skies, without even the pretty, comfortable home at whose door he stood, if somewhere, anywhere, he could hope to hear that laugh again, to hold again in his arms the strange ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... must be done, and diligently. Now, my men, tighten your girths; we will just ride to the dell: if it conceals not whom we seek, it shall conceal us till night, and then the country shall be lighted up with the flames of Arnwood, while we surround the house and ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... across her back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old Spanish blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either look at it nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the "cinch" or girth, a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her slender barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she swelled, until I was actually ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He smiled at us, and complacently ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... slipping by which she could not catch. It was so new to her to feel like that—for no girl was less given to moods and repinings. And all the time a sort of contempt for this soft and almost sentimental feeling made her tighten her lips and frown. She felt distrustful and sarcastic towards a mood so utterly subversive of that fetich 'Hardness,' to the unconscious worship of which she had been brought up. To stand no sentiment or nonsense either in herself or others was the first ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. Our sorrows and all the other distracting externals do seek to drag us away from Him. Is all that happens in counteraction to that pull of the world, that we tighten our grasp upon Him, and will not let Him go; as some poor wretch might the horns of the altar that did not respond to his grasp? Nay what we lay hold of is no dead thing, but a living hand, and it grasps us more tightly than we can ever grasp it. So because He holds us, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... you're doing well!" he called gayly after them, when suddenly a dark circle seemed to wheel about his head, drop over his shoulders, then grip him around the arms. Instantly he felt the rope tighten. Someone had thrown a noose—lassoed him as they lasso cattle on the prairies. In another second he was thrown flat on his back, the gold sack was jerked from his fingers by the concussion, and a dark, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... which the world pours out on poverty was death to Athanase; the enervating heat of solitude, without a breath or current of air, relaxed the bow which ever strove to tighten itself; his soul grew weary in this painful effort without results. Athanase was a man who might have taken his place among the glories of France; but, eagle as he was, cooped in a cage without his proper nourishment, he was about to die of hunger after ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... His fine open face wore traces of annoyance. It was plain that there had been here some business not very pleasing to this honourable man. When I told him we had come for the cattle, the muscles of his jaw seemed to tighten. He stopped and looked me ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... the chair, as she had a cold), before being shut down in the sedan, like jack-in-a-box, implored the chairmen, whatever might befall, not to run away and leave her fastened up there, to be murdered; and even after they had promised, I saw her tighten her features into the stern determination of a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and ominous shake of the head through the glass. However, we got there safely, only rather out of breath, for it was who could ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... summarily in frontier fashion. At best her lover and her friend were but fugitives from justice. Against them were arrayed not only the ruffian followers of their enemy, but also the lawfully constituted authorities of the county. Even if they should escape to-day the net would tighten on them, and ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... inside the ravine, took the rails as true and sweet as you ever saw a ship take the water, hardly touched them, you know, skimmed—well, as I have seen a swallow skim on the sea; the prettiest, well, the tenderest touch, Mr. Ingham, that ever I did see! And I could just hear the connecting rods tighten the least bit in the world behind me, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... grand triumph of the piece. First, a rope was seen to flap on the floor, to tighten with a twitch as Emil's voice was heard to say, "Heave, ahoy!" and Silas's gruff one to reply, "Stiddy, now, stiddy!" A shout of laughter followed, for four large gray rats appeared, rather shaky as to their legs, and queer as to their tails, but quite fine about the head, where black beads ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... true now wherever woman is appreciated. The felt want is the recognition of the fact. A wife chosen by one's parents, not by himself, is devoid of all of those special characteristics which distinguish her where processes of love begin, go on, deepen and tighten, until the bond is woven and the ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the victor in this battle was a man who knew how to secure the advantages to be derived from a victory. It is said that at the close of this battle when he saw success perching on his banners, he repeated to those around him the old Japanese proverb: "After victory tighten the strings of your helmet."(196) The division of Hidetada joined him after the battle, and he promptly followed up his victory by seizing the castles on his way and taking possession of Kyoto and Osaka. The feudal ...
— Japan • David Murray
... somber wondering. It was only now and then, and as though he couldn't help it, that the blue, smouldering Northern eyes were turned to Sylvie on her throne. Then they would brighten painfully, and his lips would tighten so that the dimple, meant for laughter, cut itself like a touch of pain into his cheek. The firelight heightened his picturesqueness—the dull blue of his shirt, open at the round, smooth throat, the dark gold-brown of his corduroy trousers, ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... that held mine tighten its grip in a despairing squeeze. Annabel suddenly raised the branch high above her head with both arms, and displayed Doctor Chantry's hand and mine clasped tenderly in her lap. She laughed until even Miss Chantry was infected, and the doctor ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... its surf, as of a grey and agonising face, we caught one glimpse as we hurled high and clear over the roar: and, a minute later, to our infinite dismay, were actually skimming the surface of a black hillside. "Hold on!" screamed Byfield, and I had barely time to tighten my grip when crash! the car struck the turf and pitched us together in a heap on the floor. Bump! the next blow shook us like peas in a bladder. I drew my legs up and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the door and locked it. Then she returned and, flinging Sylvia down, tried again to tighten the handkerchief, her face white and fierce and her eyes ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... found neighbors in great hills and trees And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees, And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these. But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor! [191] That stand by the inward-opening door Trade's hand doth tighten ever more, And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside hills of liberty, Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky For Art to make into melody! Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days! Change thy ways, Change thy ways; Let the sweaty laborers file [201] A little while, A ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... dainty gown, her wonderful black eyes gleaming with fun, as a sample of Lake City dishonesty appealed to the sense of humor of her audience and they all laughed, though Lydia felt her throat tighten strangely as she did so,—Margery, made exquisite on the money of blind squaws and papooses that froze ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... felt your throat tighten when you wished to speak to her?" cried La Briere; "is there never a strange feeling in the roots of your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you,—even if she ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... up and swung out of saddle. "Half a minute," he said, "my saddle's slipping! I want to tighten my cinch." ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... are still plenty of improvements that we can make. I will ask Congress for Presidential authority to tighten up the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of Spain, the leading chains of the rudder got loose, during a gale in the middle of the night, and the steering apparatus had to be disconnected in order to tighten them. The ship veered round into the trough of the sea, and rolled so heavily that a table, twenty or thirty feet long, in the saloon, broke from its fastenings, and began to dance around the cabin with such a racket that some of the passengers feared ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... congratulate myself in thus rounding out my record of service in a manner most gratifying to my family and friends. Not only this, but I feel sure, when the orders of yesterday are read on parade to the regiments and garrisons of the United States, many a young hero will tighten his belt, and resolve anew to be brave and true to the starry flag, which we of our day have carried safely through one epoch of danger, but which may yet be subjected to other trials, which may demand similar sacrifices, equal fidelity and courage, and a larger measure of intelligence. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... other bundle too; I must have both," said Katherine, and, taking the first, she made a slip knot and a loop which would tighten ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... To tighten the lashings of a pack, thrust a stick through them, twist it forcibly round and round, till the lashings are screwed tight enough, and then ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... and through. Ross had not learned his knots from the Mississippi sailors for nothing, and as the boat came to the end of its tether and jerked on the line, the boy had the satisfaction of seeing the knot tighten. With the strain off, it was easy to take another half-hitch around the line, and the knot was secure beyond peradventure. He climbed aboard, raised a cheery cry to Anton, and commenced to pull the boat hand over hand along the line of sheets. It was only a moment before ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... mud to prevent yourself being hurled through space. Somebody from somewhere makes a sign, and in a moment you are erect and speeding in the direction of the enemy lines. There is but one thought in the mind as you allow your hand to tighten round your rifle—to gain your objective. Heaven help the Hun who attempts to frustrate you. 'Hurrah!' The wire has been smashed to smithereens, and in less time than it takes to describe you are 'over the top'—close up to ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... contents of the womb are expelled the ligaments hang loosely from its sides, very much as sails hang when a breeze dies down. Immediately after delivery, therefore, the ligaments give the womb little or no support; eventually they shorten and tighten, readily accommodating themselves to the existing conditions. Until the accommodation is perfected, it is especially desirable to permit no pressure which might push the womb backward. It is for this reason that many obstetricians object to the time- honored custom ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... 'That is Aklis! and it is ablaze, knowing a visitant near. Tighten now the hairs of Garraveen about thy wrist; touch thy lips with the waters of Paravid; hold before thee the Lily, and make ready to enter the mountain. Lo, my betrothed, thou art in possession of the three means that melt opposition, and the fault ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from the doorway it met that of Dona Orosia, and in hers there was a passing flash of triumph. Soon after, she rose, and together we withdrew. I felt her hand upon my arm tighten convulsively; but I walked on with the same sense of unreality that had ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... and plate of gold and silver, before the eyes of the poor soldiers who were destitute of everything, filling the kitchens with the steam of savory viands while they, poor devils, had nothing for it but to tighten the belt of their trousers. Ah! that wretched Emperor, that miserable man, deposed from his throne and stripped of his command, a stranger in his own empire; whom they were conveying up and down the country along with the other baggage, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... his head and sniffed. Waring patted him, afraid that he would nicker. He had dismounted to tighten the cinches when he thought he heard voices in argument. He mounted again. The men must have ridden hard to have made such good time. Again he heard voices. The men were near the mouth of the arroyo. Waring tossed his hat to the ground and ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the humiliation of his poisoned and disfigured face. He was disgusting to himself; when he touched the welts on his forehead and under his hair, he felt unclean and abject. At night, when his fever ran high, and the pain began to tighten in his head and neck, it wrought him to a distressing pitch of excitement. He fought with it as one bulldog fights with another. His mind prowled about among dark legends of torture,—everything he had ever read about the Inquisition, the rack and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Do you see the sunbonnet just above your head? If you will get it and go around to the beach, I'll meet you, and point out the way up here." "Indeed I will!" was the quick and courteous response; and she saw the fingers tighten, then the head give a little spring upwards, when the hand clutched the ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... not need to look into Keith's face to catch the longing and heart-hunger and dawning hope in the word left suspended on his lips. She felt her own throat tighten; but in a moment she managed to speak with ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... the chink'd fields of ice, the waste of snow. And he must fare across the dismal ice Northward, until he meets a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. But then he must dismount, and on the ice Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin's horse, And make him leap the grate, and come within. And he will see stretch round him Hela's realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And hear the roaring of the streams of Hell. And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes, And ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... these, for the average child, particularly for the child who is under average as regards ambition to excel. But what of their effect upon the already over-conscientious and self-exacting child? Simply to tighten fetters ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... mind is at ease," said I, "for I am anxious for a very conclusive sitting. You tell 'Mitchell' that Miller is decidedly worth converting. I want 'Wilbur' to do his best, for I intend to tighten ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... getting ready for flight from the feeling of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,—immediately the jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over you a feeling not ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... mingling with those drops of heart-felt agony—tears of the tenderest sympathy, the most devoted love, as, leaning that fair face upon the cold brow of the unhappy youth, Clary unconsciously kissed away those waters of the heart, and pressed that wan cheek against her gentle bosom. She felt his arm tighten round her, as she stood in the embrace of the beloved, scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of breaking the sad spell that had linked them together. At length Anthony unclosed his eyes, and looked long and earnestly up in his young ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... good-night kiss. But a baby's sorrow, happily, is shorter than its remembrance; and Rosy-Lilly soon learned to repeat her phrase: "Poor Daddy had to go 'way-'way-off," without the quivering lip and wistful look which made the big woodsmen's hearts tighten so painfully beneath their homespun shirts. Conroy's Camp was a spacious, oblong cabin of "chinked" logs, with a big stove in the middle. The bunks were arranged in a double tier along one wall, and a plank table (rude, but massive) along the other. Built on at one end, beside ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in putting the boat to rights, re-stowing carefully everything of value, and heaving overboard several useless and heavy articles. The carpenters' first care was to tighten the hoops round the water-casks, and it was hoped that, if water could be procured, the leaky cask would now hold it. The empty cases were now broken-up for firewood, to assist the doctor in his ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... laughed Gerald, as De Forest raised her deftly to the saddle and arranged bridle and girths to her liking, turning to tighten his own before mounting, and kicking away a small dog that had run up to ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... at the proper distance from one end of the line, passed the line around Bobby's body under the arms, ran the end of the line through the loop, and secured it. With this arrangement the line could not tighten and pinch, and still was tight ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... wonderful secret to himself over night. He made excuses to the girls, and dodged thru the chicken-yard as before, and made his way to the American House. As he walked, Peter's mind was working busily. He had really got his grip on the ladder of prosperity now; he must not fail to tighten it. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... engaged to her?" he asked, in rather a queer voice; and I realized how much I was at his mercy, as, fascinated, I watched his brown hand tighten on the wheel. If he liked, he could stop "Mascotte" in mid sea, and let me lie at the mercy of the enemy. I could do nothing. Hendrik would obey him, not me. Even Tibe would not seize him by the throat to please me. Tibe likes and respects Alb even ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Before he could tighten his grip came a tremendous shock, and he was flung off the other as if by a giant's hand. As he rolled across the floor, followed a crash as though the very heavens were falling. The whole ship seemed to lift beneath him, at the same time stopping short as though she had ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the overhanging ledge. What was the use of taking such a chance as this? It looked like one in a million. In another minute they would pile up. They were almost abreast of the thread-like channel when he saw the fingers on the wheel tighten. The steering gear whirred and the Petrel leaped forward to answer the master-hand ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... into David's mind the conviction that the woman riding towards them was Hylda. Hylda, the first to welcome him back, Hylda— Lady Eglington! Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow thin. It was all joy and torture at once. He had fought this fight out with himself—had he not done so? Had he not closed his heart to all but duty and Egypt? Yet there she was riding out of the old life, out of Hamley, and England, and all that had happened in Cairo, to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Frank made a discovery that caused him to tighten his grip on that reliable repeating rifle. There were two of the pursuers! And he anticipated that the leader must come in sight ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... difficult bit of ground fit for them; and this too proved capable of yielding pause for a few hours only. For Schwerin, with his Silesian Column, was coming up from the northeast, threatening Konigseck on flank and rear: Konigseck could only tighten his straps a little at this Liebenau, and again get under way; and making vain attempts to hinder the junction of Schwerin and Bevern, to defend the Jung-Bunzlau Magazine, or do any good in those parts, except to detain the Schwerin-Bevern people certain ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... leader, "I want you to keep closer watch on your sector men. Last night I spot-checked Bond, in Fourteen, and I found an irregularity. I'll expect you to endorse the report back, and I'll expect you to tighten down. Keep an especially close ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... to my surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle thrown deftly across her back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old Spanish blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either look at it nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the "cinch" or girth a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her slender barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she swelled, until I was actually ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He smiled at us, and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thirsty, Frank Davis? I think a cup of water will do you good," she called out to the cowboy, who had dismounted to tighten his forward cinch in expectation of having to ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... rather dreadful feeling of something slipping by which she could not catch. It was so new to her to feel like that—for no girl was less given to moods and repinings. And all the time a sort of contempt for this soft and almost sentimental feeling made her tighten her lips and frown. She felt distrustful and sarcastic towards a mood so utterly subversive of that fetich 'Hardness,' to the unconscious worship of which she had been brought up. To stand no sentiment or nonsense either in herself or others was the first article of faith; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a race to see who shall win this pot of fish. If I win, I shall not need to share it with you. If you win, you shall have half of it." Springing to his feet, Iktomi began at once to tighten the ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... them except in a combat or a fight. Let's cross the ford and rush at them!" "We shall not fail you," all reply; and each one adds: "So help me God, who fails you now is no friend of yours." Then they fasten on their swords, tighten their saddles and girths, and mount their steeds with shields in hand. When they had hung the shields about their necks, and taken their lances with the gaily coloured ensigns, they all proceed to the ford at once. Those on the farther side lower ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... up. She could feel her body swell and tighten under the bands and drawstrings of her clothes, as she struggled and choked, straining against the immense clamp of his arms. When his wet red lips pushed out between his beards to kiss her she kicked. Her toes drummed against something stiff and ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... messages. And since accuracy is the keynote of radio and to get it your outfit must be in A1 condition, every care must be taken to have strong, clear, and effective sending and receiving power. That means you must constantly clean your apparatus and tighten it up; test out your detector by the buzzer intended for the purpose and make sure that it is in sensitive condition; and assure yourself that every part of your set is OK. Moreover, an operator who is on duty listening in is expected to wear the double head receiver all the time, so no sound, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Henry had scored high to Gilbert's nothing, and the boy dropped the ball at his feet to tighten the network he had made on his hand by winding a bowstring in and out between his fingers and across the palm, as men did before rackets were thought of. Suddenly he turned half round and faced Gilbert, planting himself with his sturdy ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... entered the hall, the familiar sights of every day struck her eyes with the smart of a physical blow. The excitement of the shock had passed from her; there was no longer need to tighten the nervous strain, and henceforth she must face her grief where the struggle is always hardest—in the place where each trivial object is attended by pleasant memories. While there was something for her hands to do—or the danger of delay in the long watch upon ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... read of a husband and wife both working, struggling from paycheck to paycheck to raise a family, meet a mortgage, pay their taxes and bills. And yet some in Congress say taxes must be raised. Well, I'm sorry; they're asking the wrong people to tighten their belts. It's time we reduce the Federal budget and left the family budget alone. We do not face large deficits because American families are undertaxed; we face those deficits because the Federal ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... with a sardonic laugh, and sought to tighten upon his shoulders its bony grasp; but Kirkwood resolutely shrugged it off and went in search of man's most faithful dumb friend, to wit, his pipe; the which, when found and filled, he lighted with a spill ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... doth enfold; With boxes round thee piled, and glass, And many a useless instrument, With old ancestral lumber blent— This is thy world! a world! alas! And dost thou ask why heaves thy heart, With tighten'd pressure in thy breast? Why the dull ache will not depart, By which thy life-pulse is oppress'd? Instead of nature's living sphere, Created for mankind of old, Brute skeletons surround thee here, And dead men's bones in smoke and mold. Up! Forth into the distant land! Is not this book ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... her hand and they walked to the gate of the patio. He stood there, feeling Gistla's hand tighten about his own. And as he said, "Hello, everybody," he felt his breath shorten as though he ...
— George Loves Gistla • James McKimmey
... he said, with a Sardonic smile, while I felt his grasp tighten on my shoulder, "the villains have been baulked of their prey, have they? We shall see, we shall see. Now, you whelp, look yonder." As he spoke, the pirate uttered a shrill whistle. In a second or two it was answered, and the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... arm, a box under the other, and a basket at his back. The doors were open, so they quickly rushed through the house towards the stables. The grooms had fled, fortunately not carrying off the steeds, which were munching away at their hay. To slip on the bridles and tighten up the girths ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... gearing question, it was decided to employ belts instead of the friction-pulleys." Accordingly, Edison installed on the locomotive a system of belting, including an idler-pulley which was used by means of a lever to tighten the main driving-belt, and thus power was applied to the driven axle. This involved some slipping and consequent burning of belts; also, if the belt were prematurely tightened, the burning-out of the armature. This latter event happened a number of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... her resolve, though knowing commotion of soul, she leaned to him and kissed his forehead and turned her cheek to him. Franklin had kept her hand, and in the pause, where she did not see his face, she felt his tighten on it; but he did not kiss her. Smiling a little nervously, she raised her head and looked at him. He was gazing at her ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... my darling sister, when Pierre Philibert shall say he loves you and asks you to be his wife, if you love him, if you pity me, do not say him nay!" She was trembling with agitation, and without power to reply. But Le Gardeur felt her hand tighten upon his. He comprehended the involuntary sign, drew her to him, kissed her, and left the topic without pressing it further; leaving it in the most formidable shape to take deep root in the silent ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... are—and how blind! You bandage your eyes, and you tighten the knot. Oh, my God, if I could but open ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... your needle in again still on the same edge, and bring it out, immediately below, on the lower one. You then, before drawing the thread quite through, put your needle into the loop from behind, and tighten it upwards. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... causes which constituted his success in oratorio and cantata. It is a little significant to notice that, alike by the progress of his own genius and by the force of conditions, he was forced out of the operatic field at the very time when he strove to tighten ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... sent two beautiful suits to our inn. One was of Barcelona make, the other an old suit which we judged had come from Damascus. I tried the latter with my sword, and spoiled a good blade. Although the Damascus armor was too heavy by a stone, we chose it, and employed an armorer to tighten a few nuts, and to adjust new straps to the ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Radnor to a small wedding breakfast at an hotel (we enclose a list). During the breakfast a sudden faintness (for which we had been watching for ten pages) overcame him. He sank back in his chair, gasping. Lord and Lady Radnor rushed to him and sought in vain to tighten his necktie. He expired under their care, having just time to indicate in his pocket a will leaving them ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... to feel the check-string tighten afresh upon his leg. It came fluttering down again, first drawn back by the weight of the log, and afterwards by the strong arm of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... home fas', but the snow fall thick, an' soon Tamegun an' one other man come home, fin' wigwam burnt, an' dead people all alound. They tighten belts, take bow, knife, an' ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... well get set," said Joe. "We've got time but we might as well. Space suits on. I'll tighten up the chain. Steering rockets'll do that. Then we'll take a last look. All firing racks ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... increasing, with a coldly scientific precision. Human nature could not endure it. In his extremity, the beach comber attempted the same ruse that had been so successful for Brice. He slumped, in pseudo-helplessness. The only result was to enable Gavin to tighten his hold, unopposed by the tensing of the enemy's wall ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Thothmes' third successor, Amenhetep III, who ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but the ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... us yield to these, but in spite of them all let our hearts tighten round Him, for it is only in His sweet, eternal, perfect love that they can be at rest. And let our thoughts keep close to Him in spite of all distractions, for it is only in the measure in which His light fills our minds ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rear, and Nos. 2 and 4 to the front pole, and raise the tent to a convenient height from the ground, when Nos. 2 and 3 enter and seize their respective poles, and all together raise the tent until the upright poles are vertical. While Nos. 2 and 3 support the poles, Nos. 1 and 4 tighten the corner guys, beginning on the windward side. The tent being thus temporarily secured, all set the guy pins and fasten the guy ropes, Nos. 1 and 2 to the right, Nos. 3 and 4 left, and ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... solemn, peaceful twilight we followed the lonely windings of the valley along which I had passed in the morning. When we came opposite the little solitary house, which I had already learnt to know as "Browndown," I felt her hand unconsciously tighten on my arm. "Aha!" I said to myself. "Has Browndown ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... her now and then in her soft, low voice about the flowers and the animals, and the happy life which the little people were leading. At these moments a look would often come into her mother's gentle eyes which caused Iris' heart to beat fast, and made her tighten her clasp on the slender arm. Then, when the arbor was quite finished, Mr. Delaney put little seats into it, a rustic chair for each child, which he or she could take in or out at pleasure. The chairs were carved in commemoration of each child's name. Iris had the deep ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... same leg hurt last week; I said I hadn't got hold of a spirited horse since I had been on the island, and one of the proprietors loaned me a big vicious colt; he was altogether too spirited; I went to tighten the cinch before mounting him, when he let out with his left leg (?) and kicked me across a ten-acre lot. A native rubbed and doctored me so well that I was able to stand on my feet in half an hour. It was then half after four and I had an appointment to go seven miles and get a girl and take her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her from worrying, and she was fairly sick with anxiety and did not hear half of what he was saying. She was nervously careful about choosing her steps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father. She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she was waiting for Swan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact from her. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad, ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... feel Nina's fingers tighten on my arm the way they did whenever she became very frightened or worried or disturbed. It was not something her mind thought, she said. It was just a feeling she had which she couldn't ...
— Out of the Earth • George Edrich
... slip the big sheets of heavy plate glass into the metal holding strips at the corners of the tank and tighten up the rubber water-proof fittings. Then the sand was spread over the bottom, the steps, by which Joe reached a little platform on the edge of the water-filled tank, were put in place, and the act was ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... scarred violin, with roughly shaped pegs and lacking a string. He motioned Harry Baggs to follow him and proceeded to the brow of the field, where he settled down against a fence, picking disconsolately at the burring strings and attempting to tighten an ancient bow. Baggs dropped beside him. Below them night flooded the winding road and deepened under the hedges; a window showed palely ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and St. Pierre had disappeared. At this moment Marie-Anne was telling of him, of the adventure in the hot patch of sand. He fancied the suppressed excitement in her voice as she unburdened herself. He saw St. Pierre's face darken, his muscles tighten—and crouching in silence, he seemed to see the misshapen hulk of Andre, the Broken Man, listening to what was passing between the other two. And he heard again the mad monotone of Andre's voice, crying plaintively, "HAS ANY ONE SEEN ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... his overcoat more tightly about him and his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor's. And it was no delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark, become spread as it were with a shadowy blackness. I saw his lips tighten and his expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then with a rush that, of course, this man had told us but a part of the experiences he had been through in the house, and that there was much more he had ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the armed life almost within reach of him, could hear the slings tighten across the bandsman's chest as he heaved the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... which was around my shoulders shrink away instinctively, then tighten again. He turned my face against his shoulder, and, gathering me in his arms, lifted me from ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... a moment, then swiftly raised her head, and though her fingers seemed to tighten on the bridle there was a curious steadiness in her eyes. "There is," she said, "no use in denying what ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... jars and then fill the jar to overflowing with boiling water. Adjust the rubber and lid and partially tighten. Process in hot water bath for one hour, then remove and seal securely. Store ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... by a peculiar knot round Saxe's waist, arranging it so that it should not slip and tighten, whatever stress was given. Then, bidding the lad walk away till told to stop, he deliberately counted over a ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... every direction, sure that she will find a way at some point. Animals in cages behave in a similar way, looking for a means of escape. In the vineyard I see the grape-vines reaching out blindly in all directions for some hold for their tendrils. The young arms seize upon one another and tighten their hold as if they had at last found what they were in search of. Stop long enough beside one of the vines, and it will cling to you and ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... they were! to roll over in one's silk nightgown, to feel it tighten round one's limbs and to think how easily success had come. Madame Savelli had taught her eight operas in ten months, and she had sung Margaret in Brussels—a very thin performance, no doubt, but she had always been a success. Ulick would not have thought much of her first Margaret. Almost ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... sense to know that the first necessity was to stop the bleeding; so, quieting the little sister by a word or two, she inserted the stick in the bandage above the ankle, and turned it more than once, so as to tighten the ligament materially. Looking at the pallid features, another ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... you buy them back? or the decency, honesty, cleanliness, youth, I pawned, for filth and more filth? I am saturated with it. I reek with it. It embraces me with octopus arms. Every kopeck, every rouble, has gone to tighten that embrace. It is not to be loosened. I am hell-bound for eternity. And you speak to ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She thought of a life that might have been—she dared not say HAD been—and wondered. It was six years ago; if it had lived, it would have been as old as Carry. The arms which were folded loosely around the sleeping child began to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out and drew the body of the sleeping child down, down, into her breast, down again and again as if she would hide it in the grave dug there years before. And the gust that shook her passed, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the colonel had said we would probably "go in." There never was a more beautiful sight, and every man in the cavalry regiment looked at it till his eyes ached. Then came an order to dismount and every man was ordered to tighten up his saddle girth as tight as the horse would bear it, and be sure his stirrup straps were too short rather than too long. To a cavalry man these orders ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... worn this season, Sir—bad form. How are the politicians' park hacks to be kept sleek if the troop-horse don't tighten his girth a bit? Be patriotic, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... of the piece. First, a rope was seen to flap on the floor, to tighten with a twitch as Emil's voice was heard to say, "Heave, ahoy!" and Silas's gruff one to reply, "Stiddy, now, stiddy!" A shout of laughter followed, for four large gray rats appeared, rather shaky as to their legs, and queer as to their tails, but quite fine about the head, where black ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... fall of Veii and the conquest of the Pomptine territory, Rome evidently felt herself powerful enough to tighten the reins of her hegemony and to reduce the whole of the Latin cities to a position so dependent that they became in fact completely subject. At this period (406) the Carthaginians, in a commercial treaty concluded with Rome, bound themselves to inflict ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... agonising face, we caught one glimpse as we hurled high and clear over the roar: and, a minute later, to our infinite dismay, were actually skimming the surface of a black hillside. "Hold on!" screamed Byfield, and I had barely time to tighten my grip when crash! the car struck the turf and pitched us together in a heap on the floor. Bump! the next blow shook us like peas in a bladder. I drew my legs up and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had suddenly blown up and the wind was working havoc with unfastened blinds and shutters. There was no use thinking of holding a candle or a lamp. Besides, the lightning flashed so brightly that I was able to grope my way through the long line of empty rooms, tighten the fastenings, and shut the windows. I had reached the second story without mishap and without hearing the slightest footstep within doors. All my little servants were so exhausted that even the thunder had not roused them. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... important of these were: (1) The moving of the forward main cross-piece of the frame to the extreme front edge; (2) the encasing in the cloth of all cross-pieces and ribs of the surfaces; (3) a rearrangement of the wires used in trussing the two surfaces together, which rendered it possible to tighten all the wires by ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... assailing me will now be understood. I could so force Michael's hand that he must kill the King. I was in a position to bid him defiance and tighten my grasp on the crown—not for its own sake, but because the King of Ruritania was to wed the Princess Flavia. What of Sapt and Fritz? Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... he lifted the reins to his left hand. But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset. This in his crippled condition took some time. He had no fear of pursuit, but, looking up, he saw that the eastern stars were already paling, and that the distant peaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out blackly against a ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... plunge into brilliant but faulty execution of one of her "pieces," her little face would flood over and tighten up into the glyptic immobility of a cameo and her toes curl ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... ground which they had crossed at a point some miles further to the northward in their night march. Here the storm raged in all its fury, and as they looked out upon the plain, before quitting the shelter of the wood, they paused to tighten their belts and readjust their snow-shoe lines. The gale was so violent that the whole plain seemed tossed about like billows of the sea, as the drift rose and fell, curled, eddied, and dashed along, so that it was impossible to see more than ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... monkeys, however, need scarcely be told. They are so very similar to man in most ways that there are few things they cannot do. Aelian tells of an ape which learned to drive horses skilfully. He knew just when and how to use the whip, how much slack to allow in the reins, and when to tighten them! They greatly resent any intrusion on their hunting-grounds, and make use of sticks and clubs to protect them. The chief is always armed with a club, and is thoroughly skilled in the use of it. It sometimes happens that an elephant will come to the same tree to seek food that apes ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... his elder son rode was perfectly trained to rope steers. As it caught the sharp hiss of the lariat the animal had slackened its stride, and the instant it felt the rope tighten had stiffened its legs and braced, almost squatting back on ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... knowing the character of the works, had refrained from the sacrifice of life that such an attempt must entail, though they well knew that many of the forts were manned by unseasoned soldiers. With only a combat here and there, to tighten their lines or repulse a sortie, they wisely preferred to wait till starvation should do the work with little loss and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... death," said one; and then Thorkel dealt him the blow. Another said: "It is a great satisfaction to die by the hand of a brave warrior, although I would like better if I were allowed a chance of first striking a blow at him." And a third: "I shall at least die in good company; but first, let me tighten my belt." One of them said: "I like very well to die, but strike me quickly; I have my cloak clasp in my hand, and I will thrust it into the earth if I wot of anything after my head is off." So the head was smitten from him, and down fell the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... he drove along in his powerful car. "I've got quite a lot to do if I make an early start for Philadelphia, in my airship, to-morrow. I want to tighten the propeller on the shaft a trifle, and give the engine a good try-out. Then, too, I think I'd better make the landing springs a little stiffer. The last time I made a descent the frame was pretty well jarred up. Yes, if I make that air trip to-morrow I'll have to do some tall ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... should be delayed until his courage oozed out of him, and to nerve himself for the encounter he summoned to mind all the evidence, which gathered in a cloud of witnesses, to prove her treachery. Once it occurred to him that after a few minutes of waiting he might tighten the screw upon his nerves and so pluck up the audacity, if not the resolution, to ascend the stair boldly and denounce her in the presence of his grandfather. But the memory of Fletcher's face wagged before him, and, quaking with terror, he huddled with open palms above the stove. Then, pacing ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... preserve. But Hudge, the Socialist, in his turn, is highly vague and mysterious about whether he would preserve the family life if there were any; or whether he will try to restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very confusing. The Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to tighten the domestic bonds that do not exist; the Socialist as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do not bind anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is the original ideal question, "Do you want to ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... of the hand, he thought. Bones and ugly tight-stretched hide spotted with brown. Bulging knuckles with yellow cigaret stains. My hand. He tried to tighten it, tried to squeeze Martha's thin one in return. He watched it open and contract a little, but it was like operating a remote-control mechanism. Goodbye, hand, you're leaving me the way my legs did, he told it. I'll see you again in hell. How hammy ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... could possibly arrive. I looked at the keg; it was an awkward thing to carry empty. There was nothing else to carry water in, as Gibson had taken all the smaller water-bags, and the large ones would require several gallons of water to soak the canvas before they began to tighten enough to hold water. The keg when empty, with its rings and straps, weighed fifteen pounds, and now it had twenty pounds of water in it. I could not carry it without a blanket for a pad for my shoulder, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... his conscience. He tries to be flippant, as he has seen the officers of the great corporation flippant about such matters, but in spite of himself his heartstrings tighten. Harvey Trueman is acting a lie, and his heart knows it, though his brain has not yet found ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... of mankind, children are held to be a blessing to the good. Where the bonds of love do not tighten as the children grow, it is like those cases where the chords and muscles do not fasten together after a hurt—there has been malpractice. Let us not live like quacks. There are some general rules in life which will lead us toward a greater ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... skin on my forehead seemed to tighten and my cheeks to tingle with warmth. Towards evening my temples began to beat regularly. At these symptoms I was rather thrilled than otherwise, for I felt there was a distinct prospect of my turning the tables on everybody ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... something to his companions about "dizzy dolls" and "the little angel in the other seat." This same voice, gruffened in its beard, had told her that ten thousand of the Horde had gone up ahead of them. Then it whispered something that made her hands suddenly tighten and a hot flush sweep through her. She lifted her veil and rose slowly from her seat, as if to rearrange her dress. Casually she looked straight into the faces of the bearded man and his companion in the seat behind. They stared. After that she heard nothing more of the Straying ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... headed them, as they marched down the high street of Dijon to the parade ground; and—as the spectators cheered, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and the whole corps joined in cheers, to the stirring notes of the Marseillaise—the young Barclays felt their cheeks flush, their hands tighten upon their rifles, and their hearts beat with a fierce longing to be face to face ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... makes them both unfriendly toward children and very bad for children. These young creatures ought to go along through their days rather dreamily and altogether serenely. Every turn of the screw to tighten their nerves makes more certain some form of early nervous breakdown. They ought to have work to do, of course,—enough of it to occupy both mind and body—but it should be quiet, systematic, regular work, much of it performed automatically. ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... immediately ordered to tighten their saddles and otherwise to prepare for action. I changed my horse for old Buckskin Joe. He had been led for me up to this time, and was comparatively fresh. Acting on my suggestion, General Carr made a circuit to the north. I knew that if the Indians had scouts out they would ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... with sliced tomatoes, and screw on the top of the cans without the rubbers. Pack into a wash boiler as directed for canning corn, and boil for two hours, then put on the rubbers and seal. When cold, tighten ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... prison sentence the stakes against which each one played, the role of Larry the Bat, clever as was the make-up and disguise, was fraught now more than ever before with danger and peril. It seemed as though slowly the net was beginning at last to tighten around him. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... In that case drive them at a sharp angle as deep as they will go, and then lay a large flat stone across the slant of them. Thus anchored, you will ride out a gale. Finally, wedge your long sapling crotch under the line—outside the tent, of course—to tighten it. Your shelter is up. If you are a woodsman, ten or fifteen minutes has sufficed to ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... of Keith's hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... the ground and the wall which they supported. The shadows hung heavy under the building, but where all else was black the recesses between the buttresses were blackest. Westray felt his companion's hand tighten on his arm. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... nothing for you unless you tighten a halter round their necks to loosen their tongues," said she. "They are ungrateful. What do they not owe to Camusot! Camusot brought the House of Orleans to the throne by enforcing the ordinances ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... compliment patly enough, but somehow the girl had an impression that he was thinking of something else. She was right, for as he helped gather the drive his mind was busy with a problem. Presently he dismounted to tighten a cinch, and made a signal to a young fellow known as Slim Leroy. The latter was a new and tender recruit to Jed's band of miscreants. He drew up beside his leader and examined one of the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... figger you had," Seth replied, rising and proceeding to tighten up the cinches of his saddle preparatory to departing. "The lawyer feller gave me that. Y' see it's an old pictur'. 'Tain't as fancy as they do 'em now. Mebbe I'll find him ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... busy examining the cattle, the horses and their harness, and the loading of the wagons; helping German to tighten a rope here, and rearrange packages where they had broken loose, and seeing generally to the many little matters that have so much to do with the success of an overland ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... To Tighten a Loose Sewing-Machine Belt, put a few drops of castor-oil on it; run the machine a few minutes and the ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... along, the beam cracked under his great weight. The heat became almost insupportable. His boots seemed to shrivel up and tighten ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... patient with you? When pain's iron bars Their rivets tighten, stern To bend and break their victims; as they turn, Hopeless, there stand the purple jars Of night to spill oblivion. Do ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... him by each hand and pulled strongly. He understood. They were acting in a wholly friendly manner for the time being, and would give him exercise. He tried to guess from it the nature of the first ordeal that awaited him, but he could not. He pulled back and felt his muscles harden and tighten. So strong was he that both warriors were dragged to his side of ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe. Surely, if you credited one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten the yoke. You surely would refuse to do for the master, on your own soil, the mean and cruel work which trained bloodhounds and the lowest class of whites do for him ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... pillow of the maiden, her lover's letter brings visions of happiness too great for the human heart to hold. Even in her dreams, her fingers tighten upon his letter—the visible assurance of ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... faint-heartedness, and his inability to bear the pangs of hunger, even within limits. For they could put him on the rack, but they dared not push the torment so far as to endanger his life. With that knowledge, surely with that in his mind, he could outstay their patience. He must tighten his belt, he must eke out his fuel, he must bear equably the pangs of appetite; after all, in comparison with the perils and privations through which he had passed on the cruel plains of Eastern Europe, and among a barbarous people, this was a ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... instance of this is recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... her up, and started rapidly for his boat. Stepping on a smooth stone he nearly fell, and her arm did tighten decidedly. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... of government be safely or rightly agitated as a national question. Its agitation as such has done more to alienate and embitter the two sections of our Union—more to rouse the spirit of slavery aggression and extension, and to tighten the bonds and increase the burdens of the slave, than it has done to effect emancipation. Slavery is an evil permitted by Providence for ends that time will reveal. From this form of social evil, he is still educing good, far more good to the slaves, as a class, ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... taste proves more wise When we consider that the steadfast hold On the extreme end of the chain of faith Gives all the advantage, makes the difference With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule: We are their lords, or they are free of us, Just as we tighten or relax our hold. So, other matters equal, we'll revert To the first problem—which, if solved my way And thrown into the balance, turns the scale— How we may lead a comfortable life, How suit our ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... arms close about her, hers tighten around his neck; black hair touched the silken brown curls, their lips met, ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... compounded of hate and desire, profound aboriginal urgencies. He thought, indeed, very little as he lay in his berth or sulked on deck; his mind lay waste under a pitiless invasion of exasperating images that ever and again would so wring him that his muscles would tighten and his hands clench or he would find himself restraining a snarl, the threat of the beast, in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
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