"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who was a frat-brother to Carl and Ray, though he came from Melanchthon College. A young lawyer, ever so jolly, with a banjo. A bantling clergyman, who was spoken of with masculine approval because he smoked a pipe and said charmingly naughty things. Johnson of the Homes and Long Island Real Estate Company, and his brother, of the Martinhurst ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... if his soul were in a trance, and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of tone, that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of harmony. Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo, for he could play on any instrument, and as with deft fingers he would strike some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... Blake, a banjo from her father, skates from Delia, she had longed for just such a new pair, and innumerable other articles bearing no giver's name, but coming, every one, from the same generous source Nan knew well enough. She absolutely lost her head ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... the day after Christmas until the day after New-year, is the negroes' saturnalia! There are usually eight days of incessant dancing, feasting and frolicking from quarter to quarter, and from barn to barn. Then the banjo, the fiddle and the "bones" are heard from morning until night, and from ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... instruments in the House, Merevale had yielded. The stipulation that Charteris should play only before prep. was rigidly observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request, but the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... improperly, a loud twang will ring out on the night air like the snapping of a banjo string. Perhaps this noise can be heard only for fifty or seventy-five yards, but in Tommy's mind it makes ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... It lay in a little hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" of ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... those gilt-edge Britishers," said Jean Graham with authority. "There was old man Peters who took one of them in, and he'd sit in the store nights making little songs to his banjo, and talking just wonderful. Said he was a baronet or something, if he had his rights, and made love to Sally. Old fool Peters believed him, and lent him three hundred dollars to start a lawsuit over his English property with. Dessay Peters thought red-haired Sally would look well ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... there has been placed a shut-off, a line of piping, full size, is run through the basement, overhead to a convenient place, perhaps to a partition in the center of the cellar. The pipe is brought down and connected into the end of a header. This header or banjo is made of Ts placed 4 inches center to center. From each T a line of pipe is run to each isolated fixture or set of fixtures (see Fig. 70). A stop and waste cock is placed on each line at such a ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... she commented, "is like a banjo, more exciting than refined, but she isn't bad-hearted. She has the old Boston blood and traditions ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... singing so well that he became leading bass in the choir and occupied the position with honor. With all his daily work as an artisan he found time to master and play successfully the violin, mandolin, auto harp and harmonica combined, banjo and guitar. He passed out of life April 26th, 1912, leaving a wife, son and daughter to mourn the loss of a talented father. So my musical family comes and goes and I am called upon to lose them first in one ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... sit or stand around the room in a circle. The leader assigns to each some imaginary musical instrument—horn, fife, drum, trombone, violin, harp, flute, banjo, etc. Some well known, but lively air is given out and the band begins to play, each player imitating as nearly as possible the instrument he has been assigned. All goes well until the leader suddenly drops his instrument and begins playing on that ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... she mocked him, languidly; and then, like a banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... the window. Tom saw his rival taking something from one of the packs slung across the back of a mule. Soon the circus agent hurried back into the king's hut, and a moment later there was heard the strains of a banjo being picked by an unpracticed hand. It was succeeded by a rattling tune played in ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... up the river this evening," he said presently. "He said they'd come down after supper and bring the banjo," and as he spoke they heard the murmur of voices along the river bank. Two figures loomed up out of the darkness and entered the circle of ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... this passed through my mind in a flash, almost subconsciously, and before I had time to check my impressions, or even properly verify them, I made an involuntary movement, catching the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and in that instant the creature turned the corner of Sangree's tent and was ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to the California market, a few blocks distant, and bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. On the way back to Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; and thus burdened they regained the "town," Condy grieving audibly at having to carry "brown-paper bundles through ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... a tall, handsome black fellow, with white teeth and bright eyes, and he could play the fiddle and pick the banjo, and knock the bones and cut the pigeon-wing, and, besides all that, he was the best hoe-hand, and could pick more cotton than any other negro on the plantation. He had amused himself by courting and ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... students. He would snatch a moment from his work to smoke a cigarette with them; he would sometimes look in at their little parties. I have seen him at a birthday party where the cakes and ale, to say nothing of the cigarettes and the unpawned banjo, were the direct products of a pawned microscope. I have seen him, I say, at a party like this, drinking a health to the microscope as the giver of all the good things on the table—he, the great Thenard, with an income of fifteen to twenty thousand pounds a ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Alfred and me," she begged, with half-ashamed earnestness. "It's band night and we might ask the Johnsons in to supper. I've got a nice steak in the house, been hanging, and Mrs. Cross could come in and cook it while we are out. Mr. Johnson would sing to us afterwards, and there's your banjo. You do play it so well, Alfred. You used to like band nights—to look forward to them ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as intense as does their furor in a Methodist revival meeting. They have, too, dances and music peculiar to themselves—jigs and country dances which seem to have no method, yet which are perfectly adapted to and rhythmic with the inspiring abrupt thud of the banjo and the bones. As they dance, they shout and sing, slap their hands and knees, and lose themselves in the enthusiasm of the moment. The negroes look forward to Christmas not less as the season for present-giving than that of frolicking and jollity. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... and gratifying without vulgar ostentation," says I; "and I don't see how money could be better invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner's Self-Instructor for the Banjo, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... practice of some peculiar artistic dexterity, they bring into prominent and most ludicrous display. The languishing elegance of some, the painstaking laboriousness of others, above all, the feats of a certain enthusiastic banjo-player, who seemed to me to thump his instrument with every part of his body at once, at last so utterly overcame any attempt at decorous gravity on my part that I was obliged to secede; and, considering what the atmosphere was that we ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... head was too heavy to hold up any longer. Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding her uncomfortably ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... played with a bow may be traced to a remote period among various Oriental peoples. An example of their simplest form exists in the ravanastron, or banjo-fiddle, supposed to have been invented by King Ravana, who reigned in Ceylon some 5,000 years ago. It is formed of a small cylindrical sounding-body, with a stick running through it for a neck, a bridge, and a single ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... popularizing college songs, was not immediately followed, however, and there were several years when the glee club was dormant. With its effectual revival in 1884, the history of the University Glee Club has been continuous to the present time. It was supplemented in 1889-90 by the Banjo Club and in 1895 and 1896 by the Mandolin Club—and after that time the triple organization went by the name of the University Musical Clubs. The first extended trip was taken in 1890 when the organization visited several Michigan cities, and ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... This is also justifiable, as she has several magnificent cats, about whom she has published a number of interesting stories. Her Madame Ref is quite a noted cat, but Mrs. Wilcox's favorite and the handsomest of all is named Banjo, a gorgeous chinchilla and white Angora, with a silken coat that almost touches the floor and a ruff, or "lord mayor's chain," that is a finger wide. His father was Ajax, his mother was Madame Ref, and Mrs. Wilcox raised him. She has taught ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... she didn't like him nearly so well as the art student who plays a banjo in the orchestra because he needs the money. Peggy ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... connection with Robina. Dick is not artistic. Dick does not go with peacocks' feathers and guitars. I can see Dick with a single peacock's feather at St. Giles's Fair, when the bulldogs are not looking; but the decorative panel of peacock's feathers is too much for him. I can imagine him with a banjo—but a guitar decorated with pink ribbons! To begin with he is not dressed for it. Unless a family be prepared to make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers and to talk blank verse, I don't see how they can expect to be ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the Ratcliff Road into polite literature. That is quite true. He owes his fame partly also to the brilliance with which he talked adventure and talked "shop" to a generation that was exceptionally greedy for both. He, more than any other writer of his time, set to banjo-music the restlessness of the young man who would not stay at home—the romance of the man who lived and laboured at least a thousand miles away from the home of his fathers. He excited the imagination of youth with deft ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... my homage owns, Skilled on the banjo and the bones; For whom I would not fear to die, If death would pass my ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... to eat, and in the midst of the meal they heard another knock on the door. This time Ned Lowe was there, one of their chums who was a great singer and banjo player. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... an instrument' can still be seen on the modern mandoline, guitar, and banjo. In Shakespeare days, the viol, lute, and cittern all had frets on the fingerboard, but they were then simply bits of string tied round at the right places for the fingers, and made fast with glue. Their use is referred to in the next line, to 'tune' ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... his advice. The next four men she visited—who were Jo Plum, Jo Egg, Jo Banjo and Jo Cheese, named after the trees in their orchards—she made Colonels of her Army; but the fifth one, Jo Nails, said Colonels and Generals were getting to be altogether too common in the Army of Oogaboo and he preferred to be a Major. So Jo Nails, Jo Cake, Jo Ham and Jo Stockings ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... tight as banjo strings, had an awful instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the respectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply by ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... and Amiel's stout and amiable parents joined their offspring in the summerhouse. One of the affable, if uninteresting, neighbors came as well and, promptly introducing a banjo as a reason for his being, lured ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... window; beneath it was a wooden bench. He looked up at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench, smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... enough for a Christmas dinner. The ward-room ate penguin in the evening, and after the toast of 'absent friends' we began to sing, and twice round the table everybody had to contribute a song. Ponting's banjo songs were a great success, also Oates's 'The Vly on the tu-urmuts.' Meares sang "a little song about our Expedition, and many of the members that Southward would go," of his own composition. The general ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... beating of their feet on the floor can be heard at a considerable distance, with a dull, monotonous sound, varied only by the hum of voices or noise of laughter or the shrill notes of the musical instruments. These are the banjo and accordion, the former being the favorite, perhaps because it is more intimately associated with the social traditions of the negroes. Their best performers play very skilfully on both, and indulge in as much ecstatic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... wanderings, Bob Whites, Nightingales; and lazy ebon negroes, musical as birds, sang lilting Southern songs on the way to the tinkle of banjo and guitar. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... brought his banjo, and when the party had settled low about the fire it helped to keep alive the talk. Every few minutes the taffy and the coyotes were demanded in turn, and Glover was kept busy apologizing for the absence of the wolves and the slowness ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... of course. There isn't one nearer here than Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You couldn't do anything on a banjo?" he ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... I've ever seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo club's going to play." ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... and being also a younger son of a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to this sentimental inspection, and after meditating a while over the strings under ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... a highly-accomplished "bones," The next elicited banjo tones, The third was a quiet, retiring chap, Who danced an excellent ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... of the words: and (remember this) though the harp be superseded, the voice never forgets it. You may take up a Barrack Room Ballad of Kipling's, and it is there, though you affect to despise it for a banjo or concertina:— ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... lay down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed and pleased him, that, waking up, he adorned his tortoise-shell with flowers, and sang aloud to all his descendants in all time and tune, and out of all time and tune, if necessary, to join him in praising the invention of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... from Cuba And the birds are on the wing, And our hearts are patting juba To the banjo of the spring, Then it's no wonder whether The boys will get together, With a stein on the table and a cheer ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... affection for M. Clifford were blended. Then with great care the young fellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his and Elliott's wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally interrupted his toilet to play his banjo or make pleasing diversion for the bull-dogs by gambling about on all fours. "I've got two hours before me," he thought, and borrowed a pair of Elliott's silken foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played ball ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... friend," said Hervey; "Robin Hood, but I don't know his real name. He's a good friend of mine, and he can play the banjo only he hasn't got one with him, and I want ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... have to offer you is a screen,—six foot high,—bring out the screen, Theodore! There it is, gentlemen,—open it out, Theodore! Observe, Gentlemen it is carved rosewood, the panels hand painted, and representing shepherds, and shepherdesses, disporting themselves under a tree with banjo and guitar. Now what am I offered for this ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... been nothing more than an exceptional control over the abdominal muscles, with the ability to simulate at will the supposed fetal jerks. One old woman went so far as to show the fetus dancing to the music of a banjo with rhythmical movements. Such imposters flourished best in the regions given to "voodooism." We can readily believe how easy the deception might be when we recall the exact simulation of the fetal ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... there drifted into the room furnished sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a cold, musty effluvium as ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the stifling room, on a raised platform, sat two oily and fat negroes, making the place hideous with their ribald songs and the twanging of a guitar and banjo. When, a familiar air was sounded the entire gathering joined in chorus, and when such tunes as "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" came, the place was pandemonium. Yet through it all perfect order was kept by the fat proprietor, his muscular "bouncer" and ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... their seats at table so that they might sit nearer to her in the marquee. When the meal was over, and the washing up and water carrying finished, nearly everybody collected for an amateur concert. Miss Hoyle had a banjo, which she played atrociously out of tune, but on which she nevertheless strummed accompaniments while the rest roared out "Little Grey Home in the West," "The Long, Long Trail," and other popular songs. It was certainly not classical ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... lives among his opprissors as I am whin he falls into th' hands iv his liberators. Whin he's in th' south he can make up his mind to be lynched soon or late an' give his attintion to his other pleasures iv composin' rag-time music on a banjo, an' wurrukin' f'r th' man that used to own him an' now on'y owes him his wages. But 'tis th' divvle's own hardship f'r a coon to step out iv th' rooms iv th' S'ciety f'r th' Brotherhood iv Ma-an where he's ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... the possibilities of plaintive Negro melodies, which they of course capitalized. In New York late in 1842 four men—"Dan" Emmett, Frank Brower, "Billy" Whitlock, and "Dick" Pelham—practiced together with fiddle and banjo, "bones" and tambourine, and thus was born the first company, the "Virginia Minstrels," which made its formal debut in New York February 17, 1843. Its members produced in connection with their work all sorts of popular songs, one of Emmett's being "Dixie," which, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... thoughtfully. "It was so. I heard Sadler tune that to his banjo the night we got to Colon. Abe's got that kind of a memory, which is loose but gluey. It was so. Sadler meant old ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... he strummed softly the strings of a muffled banjo. And Raoul Bethune, with the flush of liquor upon his pale cheeks, joined in the laugh that followed, and replenished his glass from the black bottle he had contrived to smuggle from the hospital stores when he had been returned to his room in the dormitory. And "Monk" Bethune he ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... turned his back on the little schoolhouse and for a time wandered through the different fields of art, indulging a slender talent for painting until he thought he was destined for the brush and palette, and then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted to travel with a circus, and dangle ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... selection of portraits of females, almost always in sadness and generally in disguise or deshabille, glittered round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora with dishevelled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the absence of her Conrad—the Princesse Fleur de Marie (of Rudolstein and the Mysteres de Paris) was sadly ogling out of the bars of her convent cage, in which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away,—Dorothea of Don Quixote was washing ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... jes' takes up my banjo an' I plays a little chune, An' you see dem hai'ds come peepin' out to listen mighty soon. Den my wife say, "Sich a pappy fer to give you sich a fright! Jes' you go to bed, an' leave him, say yo' ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Haydn, the child, likewise sawed one stick upon another in imitation of playing the fiddle. And there's Little Babe of Lonesome Creek who delights in a gourd banjo. His grandsir, finding a straight, long-necked gourd among those clustered on the vine over kitchen-house door, fashioned it into a banjo for the least one. Cut it flat on one side, did the old man, scooped ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... had nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to a ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... enough, with cracked and broken ceiling, marred woodwork and stained wall paper; but etchings, foreign photographs, sketches put up with thumb tacks and bright hangings made it odd and attractive. On a low couch piled with cushions lay Helen's mandolin and a banjo. A plaster cast of some queer animal roosted on the mantel, craning its neck down ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... our storms come from the North and Mid-Atlantic. Captain Ray fills the same post here that Mr. Scott does in London, meteorological and weather prophet. Presently a nigger of fine appearance, with a companion, played the banjo and sung. It was really very pretty, and we stood at the porch listening, and numbers of white-robed figures appeared on the opposite side (the young women so arrayed walk about a good deal these hot nights), and a little crowd gathered round us. It is surprising how little music and amusement ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... training to her, and he was really thinking just then that he would like to give them a serio-comic song, for which he had been famous with his class. He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was one of those which is partly spoken and acted; he really did it very well; but the Willett and Witherby ladies did not seem to understand it quite; and the gentlemen looked as if they thought this very undignified business ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the inside of a hearse. There was a stand in one corner, and a large extension table in the middle of the room, with chairs placed about it. In the corner across from the stand was a spiritualist medium's cabinet; and hanging on the walls were a guitar, a banjo and a fiddle. A bell stood in the middle of the table, and there were writing materials, slates, and other things scattered about, which theatrical people call "properties," I am told. I tore the black draperies down, and searched for a place where my mother might be—in bed I expected to find ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... to the Lake in the hills, Here's to the hand that our glass ever fills, The Kodak and Banjo; But principally, mind you, To the fellow ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... A jolly crowd is boarding the 4:56 for a house-party in the suburbs. The gentleman at the right, having been educated abroad, has never learned to play the ukelele, the banjo, the jew's harp or the saxophone, and is, with the best intentions in the world, attempting to contribute his share to the gaiety of the coming evenings by bringing along his player-piano. Would you—be honest!—have recognized his action as a serious social blunder without ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... by without interruption. An occasional burst of laughter floated down the corridor. At some distance away, on the same deck of barracks in Bancroft Hall, a midshipman was industriously twanging away on a banjo. Darrin, however, absorbed in his novel, paid no heed to any of the signs of Saturday-night jollity. He was a third of the way through an exciting tale when there came a knock on the door—-a moment later ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... suspended in this hour of uncertainty, public feeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthouse the few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were at the windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of such stirring dimensions as Ascalon ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... what the moral was that it was meant to convey. But I think the idea is that if the schoolmaster had long before abandoned the study of medicine, for which he was not fitted, and gone in, let us say, for playing the banjo, he might have become end-man in a minstrel show. ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... would be possible to borrow a banjo? I used to play one out in America, and I know some very pretty Creole songs, and one or two ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... amused themselves after the manner of sailors everywhere, playing dominoes, cards and checkers, boxing and telling stories. They used to play at feats of strength, such as finger-pulling, with the Eskimos. One of the men had an accordion, another a banjo, and as I sat working in my cabin I used often to hear them singing "Annie Rooney," "McGinty," "The Spanish Cavalier," and sometimes "Home, Sweet Home." Nobody seemed to be bored. Percy, who had special charge of the phonograph, often treated the men to ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... de week will be as gay As am de Chris'mas time; We'll dance all night and all de day, And make de banjo chime— And make de banjo chime, I tink, And pass de time away, Wid 'nuf to eat and 'nuf to drink, And not a bit to pay! So shut your mouf as dose as deafh. And all you niggas hole your breaf, And make de ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... him is a woman—his wife, probably—with dusky hair, and sad dark eyes which hardly seem to see her green love-birds pecking knowingly at their pack of dirty cards. Along near the pier a negro minstrel with his banjo is singing one of the simple melodies of his race, its sad, sweet refrain almost drowned in the roars of laughter called forth by a chalky-faced clown, who appears to be not a compound of flesh, blood, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... and envied him his way of taking things, while Harry tried to smile, and Johnston, lifting down a banjo, commenced a plantation ditty, which he sang with so much spirit that presently he had most of the shovel gang for an appreciative audience. Then there were roars of laughter when he stood in the entrance of the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... and putting my great horse into a gallop I clung on to him till I pulled him up in Truckee, which was at the height of its evening revelries—fires blazing out of doors, bar-rooms and saloons crammed, lights glaring, gaming tables thronged, fiddle and banjo in frightful discord, and the air ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed. There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano-organist—I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed—they never would be missed! Then the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... hath charms—at least it should; Even a homely voice sounds good That sings a cheerful, gladsome song That shortens the way, however long. A screechy fife, a bass drum's beat Is wonderful music to marching feet; A scratchy fiddle or banjo's thump May tickle the toes till they want to jump. But one musician fills the air With discords that jar folks everywhere. A pity it is he ever was born— The discordant fellow ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... at the edge of the inlet, just above Gregory's hut. The people in the tent had turned out now,—they were three young men, who seemed to have been camping there. They had hung a lighted Japanese lantern over the door of the tent, and one of the campers was playing on a banjo. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... gamble, fight, get drunk, and break the Sabbath. This is often encouraged by slaveholders. When they wish to have a little sport of that kind, they go among the slaves and give them whiskey, to see them dance, "pat juber," sing and play on the banjo. Then get them to wrestling, fighting, jumping, running foot races, and butting each other like sheep. This is urged on by giving them whiskey; making bets on them; laying chips on one slave's head, and daring another to tip it off with his ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... awhile and listen at the curious sounds from within, resembling very much the noise made by a pack of curs after a rabbit they did not hope to catch; or, perhaps, more like a plantation jamboree when all the strings of the banjo were broken but one and it had ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy sing. There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the porch. I did not have a well-defined idea about the inside ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... out his banjo and played "Shady Grove," and "Blind Coon Dog," and "Sugar Hill," and "Gamblin' Man," while Chad's eyes glistened and his feet shuffled under his chair. And when Dolph put the rude thing down on the bed and went into the kitchen, Chad edged toward ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the Four, in addition to other accomplishments, possessed excellent voices, and Mr. Drew sang a bass which added much to the melody. One of the Four played a banjo. It is only justice to Mr. Drew to say that he seemed less like a detective than any man I have ever met. He told a good story and was quick at repartee, and after a while the music, by tacit consent, was abandoned for the sake of hearing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than anyone else in ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... string instruments figure most conspicuously, should be selected, as this lends itself best to the weird effect which should be sought. Three or four pieces will generally be sufficient and they may consist of a violin, guitar, banjo and snare drum or the drum may be omitted if not convenient. The committee appointed to gather the refreshments must have the assistance of all the other women of the club, for its work is very arduous ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... o' my fust wife. My fust wife wuz Sue, an' she wuz er good 'oman, I tell you. But she liked music too well. Dar come up yere one dem yaller barbers, an' he pick er thing at her dat looked sorter like er banjo, an' she cl'ared ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... advance it to me out of the estate I shall be compelled to go on the stage. But as I cannot keep my own name I have decided to assume yours, and shall have lithographs struck off at once. They will read, 'To-night, M.L. Gray, Banjo and Specialty Artist.'" It is needless to say that the much-needed funds were found. But whether they went to the payment of living expenses, to the importunity of some threatening creditor, or were divided between the joys of the bibliomaniac ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... grown mild, and often in the evening I envied Yorke (who had straightway, of course, made desperate love to Clotilde, who was old enough to be his mother), sitting in the bow of the boat and thrumming his banjo lightly as he sang her some creole love-song he had picked up in ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... love to tell Splinterin' Andra that the minister could sing nigger songs and play a banjo. He'd say—'Show me the sinfu' instrument of Belial an' Ah'll smash it into a thoosand splinters!'" She accompanied the speech with such an exaggerated imitation of the old man's vigorous gestures, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... weasel, seems very odd. Spiders, too, are uncomfortable pets; you can't caress them as you could a dormouse; the most you can do is to provide your spider with a clear glass bottle to live in, and teach him to come out in response to a musical sound, drawn from a banjo or fiddle, to take a fly from your fingers and go ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... tall and walked with a stride which was as long as it was stately. He went in for dressing himself beautifully, strummed on the banjo, and had a playful little habit of arranging his tie in any mirror which he saw. His pride in himself was so monstrously open that no one with a grain of humour could be angry with him. He talked about every game under the sun as ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... were warmed you would run no chance of being chilled. The 17th June, 1865, was a Saturday. The violin is not an easy instrument to learn, and requires a good ear; but we should recommend it in preference to the banjo or the concertina. The guitar is also ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... quarter, the young people fill the long, lazy day with patting and dancing, banjo-playing and watermelon-eating. The elders, for the most part, are absorbed in preparations for the big holiday dinner. By dawn, holes have been dug in the ground and heated for the barbecuing of ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... Land," resumed Alan, not noticing the interruption; "and he had taken the keys to the tower in his pocket, so Malcolm didn't really know just what to do. At last, after he had tried all sorts of things, he took his banjo and went under the tower window and sang a little song that Margaret had made up, when they were children together." Here Alan paused to smile meaningly at Polly, before he went on. "It was a very sweet song, and his voice was loud enough so ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... have already told you," replied the fat man. "I am a clown—a musical clown.... I interpret comic romances.... I dress up as a negro, I play the banjo!" This jovial individual began humming an air which was the rage ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' low, She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kul-la-lo-lo!" With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' her cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers and the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was arf afraid ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... an' geranyums befure him. In th' afthernoon they was a lawn tinnis party, an' at night the gin'ral attinded a banket at th' Gran' Palace Hotel. At midnight he was serenaded be th' Raymimber th' Maine Banjo an' Mandolin Club. Th' entire popylace attinded, with pork chops in their buttonholes to show their pathreetism. Th' nex' day, afther breakfastin' with Mayor Casey, he set out on his weary march over th' r-rough, ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... her tent Teresa Peterson sat presumably playing upon the banjo. The sounds she was making were not particularly pleasing. Yet the camp was fairly deserted. Only a few of the other girls were to be seen and they were busy and nowhere ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... treasure Floated midway on the wave. (See CASTAIGNE'S drawings—they're a pleasure— In the May Century pictured brave.) It was a miracle of rare device, Costing "a pile," but cheap at any price! A damsel with a five-stringed "Jo" In a vision once I saw; It was an Alabama maid, And on her banjo light she played, Singing of sweet Su-san-nah! Could I revive within me Amphion's lyric song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me As the music loud and long That sure did raise this dome in air, That mighty dome!—those halls of price! COLUMBIA'S magic set them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... content: Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson were writing for the Sydney 'Bulletin' in 1892 when Lawson suggested a 'duel' of poetry to increase the number of poems they could sell to the paper. It was apparently entered ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... just when I had learned to love him," Hood concluded mournfully. "Became fascinated with a patent-medicine faker we struck at a county fair in Indiana. He was so tickled over the way the long-haired doctor played the banjo and jollied the crowd that he attached himself to his caravan. That Irishman was one of the most agreeable men to be in jail with that I ever knew; even hardened murderers would cotton to him. That spire over there must be Addington. The ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... towards me, she began to talk about herself, Pashka, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red moustaches and played very well on the banjo. He came to see her and greatly pleased her, for he was a merry chap and wore nice clean clothes. He had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots with dress tops. For these reasons she had fallen in love with him, and he became her "creditor." And when he became her creditor he made it his business ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... can play them. They will sell readily if they are shown off. It is good you can play the banjo. We can play that and the accordion whenever we want to open up, and thus attract a crowd. Some use a bell, but music, even when it is poor, is better. Sometimes I used to sing a comic song or two for old Gulligan when ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... After that they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... needed one for two years," said the lieutenant, genially. "But fancy your knowing Sparks! He has the next station to mine; I'm at one end of the Shire River and he's at the other; he patrols from Fort Johnson up to the top of the lake. I suppose you've heard him play the banjo, haven't you? That's where we hit it off—we're both terribly keen about the banjo. I suppose if it wasn't for my banjo, I'd go quite off my head down here. I know Sparks would. You see, I have these chaps at Chinde to talk to, and up at Tete there's the Portuguese governor, but Sparks has only ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... his shameless jokes as usual, accompanied by the enthusiastic applause of Rowden. Clifford also played "The Widow Nolan's Goat" upon his banjo, accompanied by the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... than the holes in Jimmy's socks. Uncle Al shaking his head and saying sadly, "Some day, young fella, I ain't gonna sit here harmonizing. No siree! I'm gonna buy myself a brand new store suit, trade in this here jig jug for a big round banjo, and hie myself off to the Mardi Gras. Ain't too old thataway to git a little fun ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... the night when the performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in one bad piano, to which were occasionally added, by way of increasing the attractions, performances on the banjo and guitar. All the singers were called "ladies and gentlemen;" and the one long room in which the performances took place was simply furnished with a double row of benches, bearing troughs at their backs for the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... He packed up his Banjo and the Military Brushes and left Number Two marooned in the Rat Pit with the Oak Dresser and the Pictures of ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... no longer sing old ballads in the twilight to weary fathers and allure restless brothers to pass the evening at home in innocent participation in an impromptu concert, the boys bearing their part with voice and banjo or flute. We did not make perfect music when these domestic entertainments were in vogue, but we helped make happy homes ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... hands with Slim Morris, whether he'll let you or not. And here's Matt Rice. We usually call him 'Mister' Rice, for he's extremely talented. He knows how to play the banjo." ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock |
