"Spunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Michigan man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an' toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't no ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a wilderness, and the trip a long one, beset by many difficulties, especially from the Indians. I felt, and so did my mother, that we were parting forever. I knew she would not recall her promise; there was too much spunk in her for that, and this caused me to linger a day or two longer than I ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... tumbled off the water cart— It was a peacherino of a drunk; I put the cocktail market on the punk And tore up all the sidewalks from the start. The package that I carried was a tart That beat Vesuvius out for sizz and spunk, And when they put me in my little bunk You couldn't tell my jag ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... which maybe I shouldn't have done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston get married. She is the property of her grandmother, who is a very important part of Twickenham Town. Having no parents or sisters or brothers, and only enough money of her own for her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on for years loving an awfully nice chap named Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing, and the thing ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... entirely unwarrantable. There is no use in suffering, unless you cannot help it; and a good, stout, resolute protest would often be a great deal more wise, and Christian, and beneficial on all sides, than so much patient endurance. A little spirit and "spunk" would go a great way towards setting the world right. It is not necessary to be a termagant. The firmest will and the stoutest heart may be combined with the gentlest delicacy. Tameness is not the stuff that the finest women ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the spunk o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. Hae ye no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune in five ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... on yon Innes! I canna haud myself in. 'Puir Erchie!' I'd 'puir Erchie' him, if I had my way! And Hermiston with the deil's ain temper! God, let him take Hermiston's scones out of his mouth first. There's no a hair on ayther o' the Weirs that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what he has in his hale dwaibly body! Settin' up his snash to me! Let him gang to the black toon where he's mebbe wantit - birling in a curricle - wi' pimatum on his heid - making a mess o' himsel' wi' nesty hizzies - a fair disgrace!" It ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spunk since you came North, then," said Hepworth; "for I agree with your father, Southern girls do not have much energy of character. At least, Miss Farley hasn't. She's about nineteen or twenty, but she's as childish as a girl ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... for a spunk o' Allan's glee, Or Fergusson's the bauld an' slee, Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, If I can hit it! That would be lear eneugh for me, If ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... sez, "I guess I know what I am about. She is one of the relations on my side, and I guess I have got a few rights left, and a little spunk." ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... is possible!" retorted the one-armed flagman. "One minute more and you'd've been ground to powder like as not if it hadn't been for that there girl. Some spunk, ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... between his teeth. 'Only, if I ain't some mistaken, that's Tobe Loveland's rig. Wonder if he's got his spunk with him? The Queen's feelin' her oats to-day, and I cal'late I can show him ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and having no end of trouble and bother with cranky people. Miranda Pryor promised to help with a dialogue and when she had her part all learnt her father put his foot down and refused to allow her to help at all. I am not blaming Miranda exactly, but I do think she might have a little more spunk sometimes. If she put her foot down once in a while she might bring her father to terms, for she is all the housekeeper he has and what would he do if she 'struck'? If I were in Miranda's shoes I'd find some way of managing Whiskers-on-the-moon. I would horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing else ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... get mad," he approved. "I like you for that, too. You've got spunk an' fight. I like to see it. It's what a man needs in his wife—and not these fat cows of women. They're the dead ones. Now you're a live one, all wool, a yard long and ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... could, 'til we were fixed and quiet again. But at that, their chance isn't so grand. This isn't worrying Lily any. She saw all of it happen, she knows what's going on. What I want, dearest lady, is for you to get on the job, and spunk up to them, just like you did about Junior going away. I didn't think you'd get through with that, and I know Peter didn't; but you did, fine! Now if you and Peter would have a little private understanding and engineer this visit that I scent in the air, so that when you see they are going ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... don't want 'em to come talking religion to me. We used to hab on our place a real Guinea man, an' once he made ole Marse mad, an' he had him whipped. Old Marse war trying to break him in, but dat fellow war spunk to de backbone, an' when he 'gin talkin' to him 'bout savin' his soul an' gittin' to hebbin, he tole him ef he went to hebbin an' foun' he war dare, he wouldn't go in. He wouldn't stay wid any such ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... him stay down, confound him,' says the parson; for, ye see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... descriptions of scenery, and was not the only member of the club whose essays got into print. More memorable perhaps was an itinerant match-seller known to Thrums and the surrounding towns as the literary spunk-seller. He was a wizened, shivering old man, often bare-footed, wearing at the best a thin ragged coat that had been black but was green-brown with age, and he made his spunks as well as sold them. He brought ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... the mainest matters with the widely-known world," said Pringle wearily, "is that people won't play their hunches. They haven't spunk enough to believe what they know. Let me spell it out for you in words of two cylinders, Breslin: You saw that I knew Creagan and Applegate, while they positively refused to know me at any price; you heard the sheriff deny that I was at the Gadsden House before I'd claimed anything of ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... spunk, all the energy, had been sapped out of me long before, and even her promise couldn't revive it. My search for a berth wasn't much more than a sham. At the back of my head I knew very well what I'd come to. The only work I was ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... them's deid and dusty in foreign lands. It it hadnae been for the want o' a half inch or thereby in the height o' my heels "—here he stood upon his toes—"I wad hae been in the airmy mysel'. It's the only employ for a man o' spunk, and there's spunk in Mungo Boyd, mind I'm ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the last round, gentlemen," he reminded. "Are you all in? Don't leave with regrets. You," he said, direct to me. "Are you in such short circumstances that you have no spunk? Why did you come here, sir, if not to win? Why, the stakes you play would not buy ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... a widower once an' a grass widower twice. Mebbe he's gittin' lonesome again. You'll have to git up your spunk and do some courtin'. Why don't you pop the question? It hadn't orter be so awful hard after you be'n goin' to see M'lissy ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... buried decently, and had all the insignia of a veteran warrior buried with him; consisting of a war club, tomahawk and scalping knife, a powder-flask, flint, a piece of spunk, a small cake and a cup; and in ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... through the pits and snares in the way. These indeed shined so brightly in Adam that he needed no light without him, no voice about him; but sin hath extinguished it much; and there remains nothing but some little spunk or sparkle, under the ashes of much corruption, that is but insufficient in itself, and is often more blinded and darkened by lusts. So that if it were never so much refined—as it was in many heathens—yet it is but the blind leading the blind, and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... another person near our home, Mr. Emory Sewell. She carried de rooster in where dere wus a sick Yankee. De Yankee took him in his hands an' de rooster crowed. He give mother thirty-five cents for him. De Yankee said if he could crow an' his eyes out he wanted him. He said, he called dat spunk. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... the color sergeant arsks 'im did 'e carry out 'is resolootion. 'Yes,' s'ys 'e, 'but blimy, I 'ad to plunk seven Germans before I could get a pair o' clods to fit me.' 'E was usin' 'is pal's strength too besides 'is own. Any Tommy'll tell yer a lad wot's dyin' on the field can leave 'is fightin' spunk to ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... muckle use—button yir jackets, and when the three o' us gae down the passage for ony sake follow close in behind. Just ae thing more," said Speug, who was in his glory that day. "I'll need a laddie to keep me gaein' with balls, and I want a laddie that has some spunk, for he'll hae a rough time." Below thirty of the junior school were waiting and looking at Speug like dogs for a biscuit. He threw his eye over the group, any one of which would have given his best knife and all his marbles, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... desirable. If you can dig into the soil large amounts of weeds or other vegetable waste material, you would be proceeding along the same line, but stable manure is better on account of its greater fertilizing content. You ought to be thankful that the soil has spunk enough to grow weeds. The Immanent Creator is still doing the best he can to help you out; take a hand ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... such a time. I'd drop off, get nearly to sleep, only to be jerked broad awake again by the thudding. Listening carefully I decided that the bothersome window was in Worth's room, and finally I got up sense and spunk enough to roll out of bed, stick my feet into slippers, and sneak over with the intention ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... early light of the August morning; a clutch of Jerrold's slim brown hand at the bared throat. But he rallied gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior full in the face. Sloat marked the effort with which he cleared away the huskiness that seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk with which the young officer ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... persons in high places, and touched upon international relations. A hard, merciless contempt settled rigidly on the Chief Inspector's face as he walked on. His mind ran over all the anarchists of his flock. Not one of them had half the spunk of this or that burglar he ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... man double his profits and the small man be ill set to get his ham and egg on Sabbath mornin'? That's the meaning o' Labour unrest, as they call it, and it's a good thing, says I, for if Labour didna get its leg over the traces now and then, the spunk o' the land would be dead in it, and Hindenburg could squeeze it like ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... by the hand.) Jump out of every window I have in my house; hunt my deer into high fevers, my fine fellow! Ay, that's right. This is spunk, and plain speaking. Give me a man who is always flinging his dissent to my doctrines ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said Mr. Congreve, nodding decidedly, and really looking pleased. "She's the one that said she hated me last night; good! I'll wager my hat she saw my letter; I like her spunk; she's a thorough Congreve. Your oldest, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Lord's ain hand out o' the Heevens struck the Horror whaur it stood; the auld, deid, desecrated corp o' the witch-wife, sae lang keepit frae the grave and hirsled round by deils, lowed up like a brunstane spunk and fell in ashes to the grund; the thunder followed, peal on dirling peal, the rairing rain upon the back o' that; and Mr. Soulis lowped through the garden hedge, and ran, wi' skelloch upon skelloch, for ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... "Got spunk, ain't you? Now you git down and come along with me, Pete. No use you riding back to the mesa to-night. Your dad ain't there. You can't ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Sam, "we've got to do it, Uncle Israel, for we six have sworn to help you through the winter. So spunk up." ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... said Congreve to himself. "I didn't think the little fool would have spunk enough to do it, but he has. I may pay him that fifty dollars, and then again I may not. I don't think I shall care to come back again to this dull hole to-night. I shall have to leave my trunk, but it isn't worth the sum I owe the landlord, and he is welcome to it. With the price ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... "Three years ago when Dreer came out on the field he was greener than you, and hadn't half the spunk. I made him what he is, and I made all of 'em—I made that team, and I can ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... then; it'll be some English rider. Coming without a servant at this time o' night! Has the hostler ta'en the horse? Ye may light a spunk o' fire ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "You've got to spunk up an' go, if you don't feel like it," said her mother. "You'll feel better for it afterwards. There ain't no use in givin' up so. I'm goin' to get you a new crimson woollen dress, an' I'm goin' to have you go out more'n ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... He was a slender, sad-colored man, possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, but hadn't no more spunk'n a wet rag. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... you folks in that house last night," he said, "I thought to myself, 'Judas priest!' thinks I. 'Them women has got more spunk than I've got.' Gettin' into a house like that all alone in the dark—Whew! Judas ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to regard as natural may be only an acquired bad habit, which is, in fact, quite unnatural. Voice should certainly be what we call human. Better it should have some human faults than be smoothed out into negative perfection, without the true ring, the spunk of individuality. There is, nevertheless, a best naturalness, or second nature, and a worst. The object of training is to find ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... ther same question, an' he says as how he was too plumb scared ter do sich a thing. But jest as he was goin' ter holler he finds that he's loose, an' all his spunk comes back again. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... in earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... or ram it down our throats. They who haven't even the spunk to rid us o' the d———d pirates, not the spunk to catch and hang one.... Jock, me lahd, we's abolush them before they sail touch our neegurs.... Let them clear oor seas, let them hang one pirate, and ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... said Strout. "But that Sawyer was like that malary that the boys got off to war. It gets into your blood and you can't get it out. Why, he snubbed 'Zeke Pettingill jest the same as he did me when they had that sleigh ride, and he didn't have spunk enough to hit back. If 'Zeke had jined in with me we'd had him out o' town lively. And then the way he butted in at my concert and turned a high-class musical entertainment inter a nigger minstrel show by whistling a tune vas enough to make ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... him by his shoulders, but being unable to hold him, began to cry for help. The huntsmen rubbed him with snow and poured wine in his mouth; finally the head huntsman, Mrokota of Mocarzew ordered them to put him on a mantle and to stop the blood with soft spunk ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... anyone with the least grain of spunk in him do the same if he'd been called a coward fer nuthin'? This young chap is no coward, let me tell ye that. He did more'n his bit over in France when you was hidin' away in the hills. Oh, I know all about it, an' whar ye was an' what ye ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin—and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. "Now," says the mate, "the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad," says he: "that fellow 'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad," says the third mate; "he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up the spunk to—to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer. Didn't ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... his stool and marched toward this non-combatant. "Whaur's the fire o' yer spunk, ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... rather a difficult matter to light a fire, but among the underbrush, in a wild, undisturbed spot, there will always be found some fragments of dried branches, and tufts of grass which the rain has not reached, and by the assistance of the spunk, or light-wood, with which travellers always go well provided, a comforting fire was ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... temporarily sojourning here. The measles and the scarlet fever were the only things that ever took kindly to her in her little life. They tackled her both at once, and poor Annie, after a six or eight weeks' tussle with them, has just about enough spunk left to cry when anybody looks ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... they are. In my opinion we are going to sail for Belfast, to convey the Arbuckles home. You won't see any Rhine, except a pork rind, on this cruise. If the fellows have any spunk at all, they ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... girl. "Get up your spunk. Cuss, if you like. Rip loose, good and hard. It will ease ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... caird prevail'd—th' unblushing fair In his embraces sunk, Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, [so sorely] An' partly she was drunk. Sir Violino, with an air That show'd a man o' spunk, [spirit] Wish'd unison between the pair, An' made the bottle clunk ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... modest luncheon from across the aisle, insisted that dinner was to be not only with but "on" him, but I only consented on the "with" plan, and paid my own little check and tip. He said I was a darned independent little piece but he liked my spunk! He asked me where I was bound and I said—sighing a little for good measure, Emma—that I was going to Chicago to earn my living. Now in I or The Narrow Path he would at once have given me his ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... rouses loyal spunk To think of that old tree! Its stately stem, its spacious trunk By Nature robbed of pith and punk To guard ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the seizure of fever came, and the sweat gathered on her lips, and her eyes went wild, she gritted her teeth and just clung to him. She had spunk—admirable, if perhaps destructive. "Love yuh," Frank ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... tonite i went over to Beanys. Mister Watson Beanys father was leening his head on his hand and i stumped Beany to pull his elbo out. and we nearly dide laffing to think about it and by and by Beany got up his spunk and pulled his elbo out and his head came rite down on the table and he jumped up and grabed Beany and hit him some good bats and sent him to bed and told me to go home and never come over there ennymore. so ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... Sam ought to have spunk to face 'em. It's got to come and you might as well know where your ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... business? None of our business that he follows us aboard this ship when we're going over to get official war films? Well, Blake Stewart, I did think you had some spunk, but——" ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... page!— Having floored, by good luck, the first swell of the age, Having conquered the prime one, that milled us all round, You kickt him, old BEN, as he gaspt on the ground! Ay—just at the time to show spunk, if you'd got any— Kickt him and jawed him and lagged[6] him to Botany! Oh, shade of the Cheesemonger![7] you, who, alas! Doubled up by the dozen those Moun-seers in brass, On that great day of milling, when blood lay in lakes, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Won't eat. Aint got no spunk left. All the dogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don't know how to tell him. Mebbe he ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... cure warts with spunk-water. You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... about buckshot ain't nothin' more'n vain hyperbole, Rucker not possessin' the spunk of bull-snakes. The Turner person, however, lets him get away with it, an' submits tamely to be buffaloed, which of itse'f shows he ain't got the heart of a horned toad. The eepisode does Rucker a heap of good, though, an' he puffs up immoderate. Given any party ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... he died. The trustees would not accept my resignation (indeed, they refused to consider it at all), and the congregation, when it had thought things over, apparently decided that there might be worse things in the pulpit than "the gal." It was even known to brag of what it called my "spunk," and perhaps it was this quality, rather than any other, which I most needed in that particular parish at that time. As for me, when the fight was over I dropped it from my mind, and it had not entered my thoughts for years, until I ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... Ford has got spunk enough not to care," Mrs. Kate interposed hastily. "Phenie's pretty, of course—but it takes more than that to attract a man like Ford. You can't expect him to like her when she won't look at him, hardly; ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... said Jim tenderly, pressing the distressed lad still closer to his heart. "Don't ye do it; it don't do no good. It jest takes the spunk all out o' ye. Ma's have to die like other folks, or go to the poor-house. You wouldn't like to have yer ma in the poor-house. She's all right. God Almighty's bound to take care o' her. Now, ye jest stop that sort o' thing. She's better off ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... was so took down in my life boys, I wouldn't a bin s'prised at anything, arter thet. I mustered up spunk enuff ter speak to the feller, and he told me 'twas a tame bar, thet belonged ter him, thet hed got loose thet day, and ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... face er the yeth good enough fer Sis, but that air feller's got the looks an' the spunk. I'll set in this very day an' hour, an' I'll bake Sis a cake that'll make the'r eyes water." And so it went. Everybody on Hog Mountain had some ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... trouble," was his summing up, "but let one of 'em 'ave an extry stroke of luck, and all the rest'll jaw against 'im like so many magpies." As a parting shot he declared on leaving the kitchen, "The trouble with you girls is that you ain't got no class spunk, and that's why, in sperrit, you'll never be nothink ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... riding up beside him, said, 'That's a mettle beast of yours, freend; will you sell him?' So saying, he touched the horse's neck with his riding-wand, and it fell into its auld heigh-ho of a stumbling trot. 'But his spunk's soon out of him, I think,' continued the stranger, 'and that is like mony a man's courage, that thinks he wad do great things till he come ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... "I must spunk up a little," he said, "for I want to use this net," but in spite of his resolve, he was soon watching, as before, for the coming ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... break in to it. It's a great thing when he's learned to pick grapes a whole long day and come home at the end of it with that tired happy feeling, instead of being in a state of physical collapse. That fireplace—those big stones—I was soft, then, a little, anemic, alcoholic degenerate, with the spunk of a rabbit and about one per cent as much stamina, and some of those big stones nearly broke my back and my heart. But I persevered, and used my body in the way Nature intended it should be used—not ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the spunk of a chipmunk you and me'll take a peek at that there packet. I bet you it's thousand-dollar bills — more'n ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... old Billy commenced to cry softly to himself. It was a good thing he did for he soon cried the cinder out and when his eye stopped hurting, he got some of his spunk back again and began to plan some way of getting out of ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... if he says he wants to try it out!" snapped the aroused Giraffe, who at any rate was not lacking in spunk. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... his best sea tones. "You're the last woman to coax and beg for him, if half what they tell me is true. He has abused you wuss'n he has any one else. If you and the rest ain't got any spunk, I have. You'll be one brother out if he ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... up to her, and laying his hand on her shoulder, "I ken weel ye hae the spunk to work till ye drap. But there's na occasion the noo. Sit ye doon an' tak yer breath ameenute—here i' the shaidow o' this stook. Whan Glenwarlock's at the tither en', we'll set tu thegither an' be up wi' him afore he's had time to put a fresh edge on's scythe. Come, Aggie! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... m'm, I'm not the kind of man that's satisfied to go on working all his life for only just enough to keep body and soul together. That's all right maybe for pikers—poor devils that have no spunk—but not for 'yours truly.' I'm a pusher, a climber, I am, and, what's more, I'm a man with ideas. No one can keep me down in the world. One of these days I'll be driving my own automobile and Fanny will be riding in it with ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... me why yes," he chuckled. "You have a lot of spunk. That you certainly have, and you ought to make a good business man, but I won't loan you money, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... of the Mormon claim, and one of them, James Ferguson, openly told the judge that, if he decided against him, they "would take him from the bench d—d quick." Judge Stiles adjourned his court, and applied to Governor Young for assistance; but got only the reply that "the boys had got their spunk up, and he would not interfere," and that, if Judge Stiles could not enforce the United States laws, the sooner he adjourned court the better.* All the records and papers of the United States court were kept in Judge Stiles's office. In his absence, Ferguson ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... get easy, and lazy, and sleepy; somethin' in the air kind of hushes you up; it makes you sweat to think, and you're too hazy to, if it didn't; and you don't care for nothing much but food and drink. I hadn't no spunk left; so I married her after their fashion, and I liked her well enough; and she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... gosh-derned cowards heard what I said and got up spunk enough to tackle matrimony," interrupted the venerable town marshal. "June seems to be a good month fer weddin's everywhere else in the world except right here in Tinkletown. The last one we had was in ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... tin foil may be pressed into a cavity with a rubber point or hard piece of spunk, allowing it to come well out to the margin; filling the ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... fire?" said Ravenswood. "Not a gleed of fire, then, except the bit kindling peat, and maybe a spunk in ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour. But matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than ever at the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something before long to wake up the spunk of Lawson. Chance favoured his design. The Quaker had a high-blooded filly, which he had been very careful in raising, and which was just four years old. Lawson took great pride in this animal, and had refused a large ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... they look like trouble," his host advised. "They've plenty of spunk, but I can tell you they make tracks for their holes if they hear one of those ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Andy Buckton is mentioned oftener than the weather. People say he always loved her and, now that he is rich and rolling high, that he is winning out. Many sporting people that I know glory in his 'spunk,' as they call it. They are counting on a divorce as a ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Anything that has spunk to grow is welcome in this essentially San Franciscan garden. And no one is allowed to bully the others. Big burly geraniums and proud dahlias must keep in their places and give the dainty lobelia, cinnamon pinks, oxalis and ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... Prescott's[33] room. I went and listen'd at the door, As I had often done before; I found the Juniors in a high rant, They call'd the President a tyrant; And said as how I was a fool, A long ear'd ass, a sottish mule, Without the smallest grain of spunk; So I concluded they were drunk. At length I knock'd, and Prescott came: I told him 't was a burning shame, That he should give his classmates wine; And he should pay a heavy fine. Meanwhile the rest grew ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... first time in years this old place is to know the touch of a woman's hand—and that's what it hasn't known for almost twenty years, except for those few short months six years ago when a dark-eyed girl and a little gray kitten (that was Spunk, your predecessor, you know) blew in and blew out again before we scarcely knew they were here. That girl was Miss Billy, and she was a dear then, just as she is now, only now she's coming here to stay. ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... him stay down, confound him,' says the Parson, for you see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the Doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... he drawled, "you had a pretty good nerve to get us out on a night like this to tell us that! You might at least have waited 'til mornin'. Still, I reckon if I'd been nigh on to a quarter of a century gettin' my spunk together to ask a woman to marry me an' had finally done it, I'd a-wanted somebody to ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... this road. He'll go straight on. Clever, eh? Say, I wouldn't have guessed you had all this spunk in you!" he took the time to say, casting her ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... of the physical substance of the man. The feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical sensation; and the whole body—every nerve, muscle, and drop of blood—is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express it; for "spunk," besides being petite in itself, is courage in effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually cowardly may be kicked or bullied into the exhibition of spunk; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't man enough—hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just give up ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Manette, shaking her head, "we'll see about that! He does not know anything at all, and has not what is necessary for ordering about. In spite of his fighting-cock airs, he hasn't two farthings' worth of spunk—it would be easy enough to lead him by the nose. Do you see, Claudet, if we were to manage properly, instead of throwing the handle after the blade, we should be able before two weeks are, over to have rain or sunshine here, just as we pleased. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... would most quickly soothe her agitation, "but I think I'd take my chances with the worms rather than with the dry rot of a backwoods farm. You may not get your meals so regular out in the world, but you certainly do live. Yes—that backwoods life, for anybody with a spark of spunk, is simply being dead and knowing it." He tore the Courier into six pieces, flung them over the side. "None of the others saw the paper," said he. "So—Miss Lorna Sackville is perfectly safe." He patted her on the shoulder. "And she owes me a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... you, Phil! I like your spunk," said Paul, heartily. "I wouldn't go back to the old villain if I were you. Where are ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... now," whispered Chunk, "who'd tink dat ar gyurl got so much gumption! See yere, Miss Lou, dat de way ef you got de spunk ter do it. Ole Perkins tink you Mad Whately comin' ter play de debil trick en let you tek Marse Scoville way quietly, en de gyard won' 'fere wid you nudder, kase dey un'er yo' cousin. You kin go en lead Marse Scoville right off, en if Perkins follow ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... me," the shepherd told afterward, "and I saw him bending down and measuring the distance wi' his een as cool as if he was calculating a drill o' tatties. Syne I saw his lips moving in prayer. It wasna spunk he needed to pray for, though. Next minute there was me, my very arms prigging wi' him to think better o't, and him standing ready to loup, has knees bent, and not a tremble in them. The mist lifted, and I—-Lads, I couldna gie a look to the earl. Mr. Dishart jumped; ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... said, with a show of spunk, "give me one single task, that I may not feel as if I had no part in the homemaking. Something as ornamental and frivolous as you choose, but that shall occupy me at least ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... it!" he used to say, "I don't git up enough spunk to cut a heifer out o' the herd until somebody else has roped her and slapped his brand onto her. Talk about too many irons in the fire, why, I've only got one, and it's het up red all the time waitin' fer the right chanct to use it; but some ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... did not take the spunk put of him would have laid him in an inverted position across her lap, with his face downward, and with a rousing spank made him more susceptible to ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... woman's spunk. And whatever you may do, you can't succeed in bullying the English. They have too much of the bull-dog breed in their bones. They're always at their best, Peter declares, when they're fighting. "But from an Englishwoman trying to be kittenish," he ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... his part?" retorted Mr. Badger sharply. "I'm not going to uphold him in attacking Andrew, but I'm rather surprised at his mustering spunk enough to do it. As for his doing us ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger |
