"Jig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on to, Julius Benjamin. The bridge is gone. So's everything else. It's only a matter of time when Goggles will be gone, too. This last will fix him with the company." Zephyr glanced slyly at Bennie with the last words. "The jig is up. The fiddle's broke its last string, and I'm ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... around the world, but Daniel Boone, that young rebel, didn't even hear of it until the following August. Whereupon the fearless hunter with the abandon of a happy lad danced a jig around the bonfire inside the stockade. It could have been an Elizabethan jig, ironically enough, for the Boones were English. Daniel tossed his coonskin cap into the air again and again and let out a war whoop that brought the terrified Rebecca hurrying to the cabin door, a whoop ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... at once. "Besides," he added, "if the Frostola man doesn't see us come out, he'll know the jig is up right now. So ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... his head forward as she pondered this. If she telephoned to her father-in-law's to ask about Billie, the jig would be up! He drew his hand across his face and fell back with relief as she ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... a jig when I was a wee thing in pinafores. He will never play for me unless I dance for him. You know he thinks I am still a child of eight or ten. If you think it's not—real nice, I won't ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... doctor had gone on deck to have a look at things, and almost the minute he got there had been knocked over by a falling spar. "For th' old ship's shook a-most to pieces," the man went on; "with th' foremast clean overboard, an' th' mizzen so wobbly that it's dancin' a jig every time she pitches, and everything at rags an' ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... market, to buy a fat pig; Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. To market, to market, to buy a fat hog; Home again, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... teeth. They are more or less active all winter, but October and November are their festal months. Invade some butternut or hickory-nut grove on a frosty October morning and hear the red squirrel beat the "juba" on a horizontal branch. It is a most lively jig, what the boys call a "regular break-down," interspersed with squeals and snickers and derisive laughter. The most noticeable peculiarity about the vocal part of it is the fact that it is a kind of duet. In other words, by some ventriloquial tricks, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if they was in a ring jumpin' over ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... observed one another, the eyes looking sideways. You see, the tray bore a jig-saw. When I had left on the previous Saturday for a week-end visit, we had done the top right-hand corner and half what looked as if it must be the left side. Most of this we had done on Friday evening; but ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... a good deal of perturbation on the part of both dancers and orchestra, the entertainment went off well enough to be applauded heartily. Certain numbers, notably the South Carolina breakdown, the Irish jig, and the minuet of Washington's time, "brought down the house," presumably because the music fitted best and ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... baited by great blood-thirsty bulldogs, or with fencing-matches fought by celebrated English and foreign fencing-masters, with rope-dancing, acrobatic tricks, and boxing. Even the serious performances ended with a more or less absurd jig, in which the clown sang endless songs about the events of the day, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... circumstances, though there is some knowledge in the tops, as well as in the cabin. My ideas is, gentlemen, that, by casting to starboard on this ebb tide, we shall all have our heads off-shore, and we shall fetch into the offing as easily as a country wench turns in a jig. What we shall do with the fleet, when we gets out, will be ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bully good song," murmured the boy, turning over to sleep. "But it ought to be sung to something with more of a rig-a-jig-jig to it." So saying, he was off to ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... Poussatin." "How!" said the queen, bursting out laughing, "a chaplain in your livery! he surely was not a priest?" "Pardon me, madam," said he, "and the first priest in the world for dancing the Biscayan jig." "Chevalier," said the king, "pray tell us the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to see, and as such they felt in it the most justifiable pride. When Mr. and Mrs. Emery, directly after their wedding in a small Central New York village, had gone West to Ohio they had spent their tiny capital in building a small story-and-a-half cottage, ornamented with the jig-saw work and fancy turning popular in 1872, and this had been the nucleus of their present rambling, picturesque, many-roomed home. Every step in the long series of changes which had led from its first state to its ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... was Ketch. In his own fashion, almost ignoring the presence of the bishop, he made known the tale. It was received with ridicule. The college boys especially cast mockery upon it, and began dancing a jig when the bishop's back was turned. "Let a couple of keys drop down, and, when picked up, you found them transmogrified into old rusty machines, made in the year one!" cried Bywater. "That's very like a ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... her eyes. One of the bedposts was addressing her, and the big four-poster itself was dancing a regular jig. ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... brought back to me, when I dispelled his fright by explaining the way in which I had tricked him. Relieved and reassured, he clapped his hands and executed an impromtu jig, exclaiming, 'Ha! ha! when I get back to New Orleans won't I come de Barnum ober ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... cashier for the whole room. Roger, armed with a shillelagh, ran around for every one until the time came for him to mount the stage and show what he knew about an Irish jig. Under the coaching of George Foster's sister, he and his sisters had learned it in such an incredibly short time that they were none too sure of their steps, but they managed to get through it without discredit to themselves ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... hurrying here and there, every move counting something done. While she stood there a wagon rattled out from the shadow of a haystack, with empty water-barrels dancing a mad jig behind the high seat, where the driver perched with feet braced and a whip in his hand. After him dashed four or five riders, silent and businesslike. In a moment they were mere fantastic shadows galloping up the ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... boy sickened at his comments and the loud laughter. Yet a few hours earlier these same half-drunken jesters had laid the man to rest with decent humanity. The boy was taking his first dose of Arizona. By no means was everybody looking at his jig. They had seen tenderfeet so often. There was a Mexican game of cards; there was the concertina; and over in the corner sat Specimen Jones, with his back to the company, singing to himself. Nothing had been said or ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... answer; "but there's a man coming down from Boston next week to put the architecture on." To this New England farmer, architecture was not in the planning and the proportion and the structure; to him it seemed to mean only some sort of jig-saw fretwork added as an afterthought. To most of those who amuse themselves by writing about the drama, "literary merit" is chiefly a matter of pretty speeches, of phrase-making, of simile ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... interested. For some occult reason people never seem to expect me to own evening clothes, or to know how to dance, or to be able to talk about anything civilized; in fact, most of them appear disappointed that I do not pull off a war-jig in ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... thrilling, the deeply touching episode—the moment after it—there was the old, indifferent, slightly bored James with the screwed eye and the disk. Not a hint, not a ripple, not the remains of a flush. It was the most bewildering, the most baffling jig-saw of a business she had ever heard of. You would have said that he was two quite separate people; you might have said—Mabel would have said at once—that James had had nothing to do ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... sound," she whispered to him, "and then she won't hear you. But, faith she's sleeping so well, it's my belief if you danced a jig she would not stir a limb. Go in, child, go in. It's beautiful to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Like an old duck, led the way, When a string of ducks trudge to a flood. Then came Kitty, side by side With Toody, who oft cried; 'Oh, Kitty dear, was ever such rare fun, fun, fun!' And Crocus close to Twig, Both scampered in a jig, For they knew the Elf his freedom-race had won, won, won! As for him, the roguish Elf, He took good care of himself; His mites of legs they twinkled as he fled, fled, fled. He was scarcely seen, indeed, He so glistened with his speed, And his hair streamed out like silver ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. "If my clerks were ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... of the wedding, and he told her that he had already been invited, and had promised to go; and then she was more happy, for Feemy dearly loved a dance, though it was only a jig at a country wedding; but a dance with her lover would be delightful; she had only danced with him twice. On the first of these occasions she had met him at a grand gala party, at Mrs. Cassidy's, the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... The Musica della citta was now playing a violent jig, undoubtedly composed by Bellini, who was considered almost as a child of San Felice, having been born ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... can't guess how relieved I am, Winnie. I imagined the most dreadful things. I don't know what I imagined. But now we shall have all the property and everything, just as much as ever there was, and only me and mother to spend it." Audrey danced an embryonic jig. "Won't I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall make her go with me to Paris. I've always wanted to know that Madame Piriac—she does write such funny English in ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... "The jig is up, Warren," said the criminologist. "As a chess-player in the little game, you are a wonder. But, I think I may ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to the feminine division of mankind has precisely an opposite meaning. The woman manager (he says) economizes, saves, oppresses her household with bargains and contrivances, and looks sourly upon any pence that are cast to the fiddler for even a single jig-step on life's arid march. Wherefore her men-folk call her blessed, and praise her; and then sneak out the backdoor to see the Gilhooly Sisters ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the two wagons were dancing a jig by this time. Teddy suddenly lost his grip on the driver's collar, sitting down heavily on the nearest can. At that moment they struck the rough crossing, whereat Teddy shot up into the air, landing in a heap by the side of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... were wont to salute him with the finger to the head, every time he went by. Upon inquiring, he found that they took him for a priest, with his dark garb, smooth-shaven face, and serious expression. Edison says: "I get a suit that fits me; then I compel the tailors to use that as a jig or pattern or blue-print to make others by. For many years a suit was used as a measurement; once or twice they took fresh measurements, but these didn't fit and they had to go back. I eat to keep my weight constant, hence I need never change measurements." In regard to this, Mr. Mallory furnishes ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... began again. The hag, who had been bent double, reared herself up with a "Ho!" after the fashion of a Scottish sword-dancer, and began to make a wretched shuffle with her feet. Then she moved with a hobble and a jig to the far end of the room; and she called out, beginning to come straight down to the door whereby I stood. I know not what presentiment forewarned me to beware as the creature drew near; but yet I felt the danger, and the throbbing of my heart. That I could hope ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... no very great haste, I am perfectly of your Ladyship's Opinion, and can't think there's so mighty a Jest in Matrimony as some People imagine; like a Country Fellow and a Wench, that will jig it into Church after a blind Fidler, and are never in a dancing Humour afterwards. People o' Quality are more apprehensive o' the matter, and have a world o' business to do, we must first be seen particular together, to give suspicion, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... thrown over his body, and his clothes and flesh gradually fade away till nothing but his skeleton remains, which immediately begins to dance a horrible rattling jig. The skeleton then fades away and the man ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the Pacific Slope," he added in a stage aside. "The minstrels are crazy to get her in 'Frisco. But money can't buy her—prefers the legitimate drama to this sort of thing." Here he took a few steps of a jig, to which the "Marysville Pet" beat time with her feet, and concluded with a laugh and a wink—the combined expression of an artist's admiration for her ability, and a man of the world's scepticism ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... is saying. And another thing: Whether you will be angry or not—I have broken the music. I have scattered it in small pieces. Show your pipe, Tetyu! Do you see, Noni, I didn't do it at once, no. I told him to play a jig, and he said that he couldn't do it. Then he lost his mind and ran away. They all lost their minds there, Captain. Eh, Tommy, show your beard. An old woman tore half of his beard out, Captain—now he ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... first met the squid, who is one of the best cod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They were waked out of their bunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" from Salters, and for an hour and a half every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig—a piece of lead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle of pins bent backward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid—for some unknown reason—likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... whispered Despeaux, recovering his confidence. "Every man has his price—but it's a mistake to think that the price must always be counted down in cash. Daunt didn't act as if he had captured our friend. He's dancing to a girl's tune now. Corson will whistle a jig when he gets ready and Morrison will dance to that ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... that night was that the Deemster's speech had not been a proper one. Breaking up with some damp efforts at the earlier enthusiasm, the people complained that they were like men who had come for a jig and were sent home in a wet blanket. There should have been a joke or two, a hearty word of congratulation, a little natural glorification of Ramsey, and a quiet slap at Douglas and Peel and Castletown, a ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... but the motion was effective, for it sent a torrent of notes into the air, which thrilled through the body and tingled along the nerves like successive electric shocks. The old Trapper fairly bounded into the air; and when he struck the floor his feet were flying. Nor was he alone; the jig had started a dozen on the instant; and the floor rattled and rang with the tap of toe ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... I'm having some romance With one Babette, of Northern France. If that girl gave me the command I'd dance a jig in No Man's Land. ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... claim to be a creature, But some experiment O' Nature, Whase silly shape displeased her eye, And thus unfinished was flung bye. For me, I'm made wi' better grace, Wi' active limbs and lively face; And cleverely can move wi' ease Frae place to place where'er I please; Can foot a minuet or jig, And snoov't like ony whirly-gig; Which gars my jo aft grip my hand, Till his heart pitty-pattys, and— But laigh my qualities I bring, To stand up clashing wi' a thing, A creeping thing the like o' thee, Not worthy o' a farewell to' ye!' The airy Ant syne turned awa, And left ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... showed me the steps of an Irish jig, which I quickly picked up and soon became quite an adept, much to the delight of the natives, who never tired of watching my gyrations. I kept them in a constant state of wonderment, so that even my very hair—now about three feet long—commanded ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... discoveries, while hundreds were prating in their pulpits of things believed in by a negligible fraction of the population, and thousands writing down today what nobody would want to read in two days' time; while men shut animals in cages, and made bears jig to please their children, and all were striving one against the other; while, in a word, like gnats above a stagnant pool on a summer's evening, man danced up and down without the faintest notion why—in this condition of affairs the quality of courage was alive. It ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bog-wood is thrown on; after a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-replenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... of it all," he went on, "was the way you worked together. If any one of you hadn't 'come through' at the same second, the jig would have been up. Who figured ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... Fuller's Jig-Saw Attachment by the aid of which the use of the Saw is greatly facilitated. (See advertisement on another ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown
... there isn't much the matter with him. Coxswain Dance couldn't jig to save his life. T'others are blue mouldy, and old Whitney talks about 'em as if he was using bricks and mortar. He says he shall ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... handing you backwards to the top of the stage, you will begin gaily a Pas-de-deux, or Duet dance. The first part will be lively, the second grave; the third a jig. You will have taken care to procure six or seven of the best airs for a dance, put together, that can be imagined. You will execute all the steps that you are mistress of; and let your character in the Pas-de-deux, be that of a country wench, a ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... he stood up just like those Big bears in circuses an' shows, An' danced a jig, an' rolled about An' said "Woof! Woof!" which meant "Look out!" An' turned a somersault as slick As any boy can do the trick. Those children had been told of Jim An' they ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... bearing piñon wands; there was a man who shook a rattle, another who whirled the groaning stick, and there were three principal dancers, wearing fancy masks and representing characters from the rites of the klèdji qaçà l or dance of the "Yà ybichy." These three danced a lively and graceful jig, in perfect time to the music, with many bows, waving of wands, simultaneous evolutions, and other pretty motions which might have graced the spectacular drama of a metropolitan theater. Three times they left the corral for a moment, and returning varied ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... on de soldier clo's. He's a "dead shore shot," gwineter kill dem crows. He takes "Pot," an' "Skillet" from de Fiddler's Ball. Dey're to dance a liddle jig while ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... think, mentions among the admirable qualities of the great Epaminondas that he had an extraordinary talent for music and dancing. Epaminondas accomplishing his jig must be accepted as a pleasing and instructive figure in ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... of ferocious zeal to the duty of educating this child, for it was her inability to pronounce the word "gig" according to his directions that brought the teacher to the gallows. Betsey insisted on pronouncing the word as "jig," and declared that she could not do otherwise. Whereupon Arnold took her out of the house into the severely cold evening air, and there whipped her naked body until he himself became cold. He then took her indoors ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... trap! cackle, cackle, cackle!" scolded the disturbed cockerel. "To market, to market! jiggetty jig!" clucked a broody white hen roosting next to him. Pigling Bland, much alarmed, determined to leave at daybreak. In the meantime, he ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... morning I observed that Uncle Peabody's bed had not been slept in. I hurried down and heard that our off-horse had died in the night of colic. Aunt Deel was crying. As he saw me Uncle Peabody began to dance a jig in the middle ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... grave for an observation so trite; he might have been speaking some deeply meditated thing, profound, heavy with meaning, charged with fate. Fatuous! It was extraordinary that there was not an action of his but aroused her animosity. This vibrant gravity of tone—an organ used for a jig, just as his gifts were used for his Laetitia moon-calfings—caused newly a disturbance within her against him. She would have liked to whistle or in some equal way to ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... let j'y be unconfined!'" yelled O'Dwyer, as he combined an Irish jig and a Red River reel. He had not noticed Me-Casto, but Latimer and Danvers exchanged glances. Just then Pine Coulee looked wistfully toward the opening door. Burroughs, ever watchful, caught a glimpse of Me-Casto as his lips gave an almost imperceptible ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... settlement, and between a race-horse and a danseuse, we would not give a sixpence for choice. Now, as far as horse-flesh went, my grandfather was innocent; a pirouette or pas seul, barring an Irish jig, he never witnessed in his life—but he had discovered as good a method for settling a private gentleman. He had an inveterate fancy for electioneering. The man who would reform state abuses, deserves well of his country; there is a great ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... mind the company, Aunt Sukey. Nan and I are only practicing a war jig we've got to dance for ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... see, the good woman executed a sort of jig, and having thus relieved her feelings departed to the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... sole exception of an old and pretty muddy poodle, very wretched looking, and a critic, no doubt, who barked out something about forgetting sound tradition, all the spectators proclaimed Zamore the Vestris of dogs and the god of dancing. Our artist had performed a minuet, a jig, and a deux temps waltz. A large number of two-footed spectators had joined the four-footed ones, and Zamore enjoyed the honour of being applauded by ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... the Green.' It's a melancholy, soothing sort of tune which would probably only make her sleep sounder. Whistle a good lively jig." ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... and went back to the Orpheum, where a score of workmen were busy remodelling the interior, and patching up the facade. He stood for a moment to watch the loading of a truck with broken-seats, jig-saw decorations, and the remains of a battered old projector; he looked up, presently to the huge sign over the entrance: "Closed During Alterations, Grand Opening Sunday Afternoon, August 20th. Souvenirs." There was no disputing the fact that all his ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... crash, amid shrieks of laughter from the girls. Being accustomed to ground and lofty tumbling, he quickly recovered himself, and hopped gaily about, with one leg through the stool as he improvised a classic jig. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... am sure is but just. Curl your tail up still tighter, and don't let it fall Lest a noise it should make—it's remarkably big— And, if you are good, by-and-by we may all Have a right merry tune and a right merry jig. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... piped—it was no shallow fluting that merely set the rustic feet a-jig, it was a strange and stirring strain that made the simplest one among them stand with his soul a-tiptoe, as he listened, as if a kingly train with banners went a-marching by. So royally he played his part, that even on that first day he surpassed his teacher. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... stars outside twisted and danced, like stars gone mad, as if they were dancing a riotous jig in space, some uproariously hopping up and down while others were applauding the show that was being provided ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... to-day to know the names of the dances with which the company regaled themselves a hundred years ago. They were "The Stony Point" (so named in honor of General Wayne), "Miss McDonald's Reel," "A Trip to Carlisle," "Freemason's Jig" and "The Faithful Shepherd." As Benoni Peckham, the fashionable hair-dresser of the day, advertises in the Newport Mercury a "large assortment of braids, commodes, cushions and curls for the occasion," we may guess that the belles of Newport ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a drunken man. And he announced, as though they were the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... Cimarosa and Paisiello.... Her familiar conversation was a series of brilliant, egotistic, shrewd, and genial sallies, and she could be either caressing or impudent. In the matter of self-approbation she had no Statute of Limitation, but boasted of having taught Taglioni to dance an Irish jig, and declared that she had created the Irish novel, though in the next breath she would say that she was a child when Miss Edgeworth was a grown woman.' Her blunders were proverbial, as when she asked in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... asked the Chinaman to give us some music on an instrument hanging above him, which looked something like our banjo, he proceeded to give us some celestial melodies. The tunes were not bad, being in quick time, not unlike an Irish jig, but the chords were most strange. He next played a tune on the Chinese fiddle, very thin and squeaky. The fiddle consists of a long, straight piece of wood, with a cross-piece fixed on to the end of it. Two strings stretch from the tip of the cross-piece to ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... Benjamin Wright, all Old Chester lent itself to William King's project with very good grace. Mr. Wright said, gruffly, that a man with one foot in the grave couldn't dance a jig, so he preferred to stay at home. But the rest of Old Chester said that although she was so quiet and kept herself to herself so much, Mrs. Richie was a ladylike person; a little shy, perhaps—or perhaps only properly hesitant to push her way into society; at any rate it was but kind ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... deck, did he?" mused Joe, as he took note of the Frenchman's false statement. "Well, he must have run up and run down again in jig fashion to be able to do that. I wonder what he wants to ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... mistake—it's the water cure I'm after. Sure it's the blissid wather that saves us. There was Pat Murphy that brak his leg when he fell with a hod of bricks aff the ladder in Say Strate, and they put a bit of wet rag round it, and the next wake he was dancing a jig to the chune of Paddy Rafferty, at the ball given by the Social Burial Society. And there was my sister Molly's old man, Phelim, that was took bad wid the fever—and he drank walth of whiskey, but it never did him a bit of good—but when he lift off the whiskey, and drank nothin' but ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... while Mercer and I were down by the gardens, where I found that somebody had been dancing a jig on my newly-raked beds, we heard a good deal of chattering and laughing over in the play-field, and Burr major's voice dominating all the others so queerly that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... it and found that the gold bottle that contained the precious powder had dropped upon the stand and scattered its life-giving grains over the machine. The phonograph was very much alive, and began dancing a jig with the legs of the table to which it was attached, and this dance so annoyed Dr. Pipt that he kicked the thing into a corner and pushed a bench against it, ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... me not in thy indignation," which she sung to a fashionable jig. Antony, king of Navarre, sung Revenge moy prens la querelle, or "Stand up, O Lord, to revenge my quarrel," to the air of a dance of Poitou. We may conceive the ardour with which this novelty was received, for Francis sent ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... so crestfallen, I could have risen there and then and danced for joy before her. Will you believe me, I felt so glad I could hardly restrain my feet till the hour was up, and whenever liberty was proclaimed, didn't they go well at the Irish jig! Oh dear!" and Winnie's face was all aglow as she waited her brother's commendatory remarks on ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... at the screen as though you were looking at life itself. And the films don't always have happy endings, because life isn't always kind. It often seems senseless and cruel and crushes men's spirits. I wish we could have these films in America instead of the jig-saw puzzles I've seen. ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... He was along the last trip. He'd know the approximate position. Might have got the right figgers out o' the log, him havin' the run of the cabin. A cable would do the rest. He'd git his whack out of it, with the order of the Golden Chrysanthemum or some jig-arig to boot, an' git even with the way he feels to'ard our outfit for'ard, that ain't bin none too sweet ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer: Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,[51] On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all Paradise before your eye. To rest, the cushion and soft ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... making merry; and I staggered under him by design. When he saw this, he signed to me to give him the gourd that he might drink, and I feared him and gave it him. So he took it and, draining it to the dregs, cast it on the ground, whereupon he grew frolicsome and began to clap hands and jig to and fro on my shoulders and he made water upon me so copiously that all my dress was drenched. But presently the fumes of the wine rising to his head, he became helplessly drunk and his side- muscles and limbs relaxed and he swayed to and fro on my back. When I saw that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... cheery gang Wha dearly like a jig or sang, An' never think o' right an' wrang By square an' rule, But, as the clegs o' feeling ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... into Liszt's charge for musical education. The young comtesse was, they say, of slender frame and angelic beauty, and deeply imbued with that religious ardour which, as in Liszt's case, often modulates as imperceptibly into love, as an organist can gradually turn a hymn into a jig, or an Italian aria into ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... is no prettier word for it. "That naughty, naughty, Miss Thing-a-me-jig was making me sign a blank cheque! My autograph! My sacred aunt! Autograph ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... Johnson's approbation!—it almost crazed me with agreeable surprise—it gave me such a flight of spirits that I danced a jig to Mr. Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation—to his no small amazement and diversion. I left him, however, to make his own comments upon my friskiness, without ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Women" (1624), says "By his mimic gestures to breed in the less capable mirth and laughter." On these occasions, it was usual to descant, in a humourous style, on various subjects proposed to him by the spectators; but they were more commonly entertained with what was termed a jig: this was a ludicrous composition in rhyme, sung by the Clown, accompanied by his pipe and tabor. In these jigs there were sometimes more actors than one, and the most unbounded license of tongue was allowed; the pith of the matter ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... he did dance, and awfully well, too, to his own singing. Mamma, who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown and a black hat trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and with her spade under her arm joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute, and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall, they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again and ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... having left home so jauntily with loaded weapon over his shoulder, it would be anything but a dignified return to dance back again without it. If he jig-stepped down the main street some neighbor was likely to see him and make remarks. A waltz through the gate, up the steps of the porch and into the hall, by which time it would probably be safe for him to cease ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... me, Hero; wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... preparing for his grandest predications by sorrily rasping on an execrable fiddle. So, if the devil had lifted him up to a high mountain, showing him all he would give him, he would have simply invited him to his lonely cell, to have a jig to the tune of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... dined, to take up the best room; There sit on benches not adorned with mats, And graciously did vail their high-crowned hats To every half-dressed player, as he still Through the hangings peeped to see how the house did fill. Good easy judging souls! with what delight They would expect a jig or target fight; A furious tale of Troy, which they ne'er thought Was weakly written ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Mr. de la Mare's singular charm is his utter simplicity, linked with a delicately tripping music that intrigues the memory unawares and plays high jinks with you forever after. Who can read "Off the Ground" and not strum the dainty jig over and over in his head whenever he takes a bath, whenever he shaves, whenever the moon is young? I challenge you to resist the jolly madness of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... &c. First come in was a nimble bee, Heigho, &c. With his fiddle upon his knee, Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a creeping snail, Heigho, &c. With his bagpipes under his tail, Terry heigho, &c. Next came in was a neighbour's pig, Heigho, &c. 'Pray, good people, will ye play us a jig?' Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a neighbour's hen, Heigho, &c. Took the fiddler by the wing, Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a neighbour's duck, Heigho, &c. Swallow'd the piper, head and pluck, Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a neighbour's cat, Heigho, &c. Took the young bride by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... shook his head. "Whew!" he whistled, sitting down gingerly in the armchair. "Well, that's a mercy. I ain't so young as I used to be and I couldn't stand many such shocks. Whew! Don't talk to ME! When that devilish jig tune started up underneath me I'll bet I hopped up three foot straight. I may be kind of slow sittin' down, but you'll bear me out that I can GET UP sudden when it's necessary. And I thought the dum thing never ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... like a jig-saw puzzle, a mystery even to the man who devised it. A straight-forward recognition of the Omsk Government would have been an honest hand for honest work, but where would Allied diplomacy have come in? Diplomacy is only necessary when there are ulterior objects than mere plain, unambiguous ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... present existence; it's gone on too long. I believe I'd rather see you orating on the streets, like Eliza Provost. And, by thunder, I never thought I should come to that! Champagne and those damnable syncopated tunes played by hysterical niggers make a poor jig." He spoke impetuously, unconscious of any reversal of ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... she felt herself twisted about with a low growl and a lifting of the red lip from the glittering teeth; she broke the hornpipe's thread, and commenced unravelling a lighter, livelier thing, an Irish jig. Up and down and round about her voice flew, the beast threw back his head so that the diabolical face fronted hers, and the torrent of his breath prepared her for his feast as the anaconda slimes his prey. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... ones like the waves thereof (Jer 50:41,42). Yea, when they begin, they will also make an end, and will leave thee so harbourless and comfortless, that now there will be found for thee no gladness at all, no, not so much as one piper to play thee one jig. The delicates that thy soul lusted after, thou shalt find them no more at all (Rev 18:12-22). 'Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Penelope Penfeather; and, lastly, they behoved a' to take a solemn bumper of the spring, which, as I'm tauld, made unco havoc amang them or they wan hame; and this they ca'd picknick, and a plague to them! And sae the jig was begun after her leddyship's pipe, and mony a mad measure has been danced sin' syne; for down cam masons and murgeon-makers, and preachers and player-folk, and Episcopalians and Methodists, and fools and fiddlers, and Papists ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... was quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, dance, ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... partners were soon provided. The gentlemen returned with my neighbour Flamborough's rosy daughters, flaunting with red top-knots, but an unlucky circumstance was not adverted to; though the Miss Flamboroughs were reckoned the very best dancers in the parish, and understood the jig and the round-about to perfection; yet they were totally unacquainted with country dances.' This at first discomposed us: however, after a little shoving and dragging, they at last went merrily on. Our music consisted of two fiddles, with a pipe ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... twice as 'tis, and meet my fist, an he dares. I be an old man, but I could hold my own in my day, and there be some of me left yet. Who says so twice to old Giles Corey? Martha a witch! Verily she could not stop praying long enough to dance a jig through with the devil. Martha! Out upon ye, ye lying devil's tool of a parson, that seasons murder with prayer! Out upon ye, ye magistrates! your hands be redder than your fine trappings! Martha a witch! Ye yourselves be witches, and serving ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... labourer and cigars for himself, several men came in and stood by the bar drinking together. As they drank they became more and more friendly, slapping each other on the back, singing songs and boasting. One of them got out upon the floor and danced a jig. The proprietor, a round-faced man with one dead eye, who had himself been drinking freely, put a bottle upon the bar and coming up to Sam, began complaining that he had no bartender and had to work ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... securities and there would be practically no chance to deceive the accountants. Moreover, a part of the securities had actually been moved when the worst slump came and they needed more. It was obvious that the jig was up. A few more days and John knew that the gyves would be upon his wrists. Prescott and he took an account of the stock they had lost and went into committee on ways and means. Neither had any desire to run away. Wall Street was the breath ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... other accomplishments he was master of — 'I know something of single-stick, and psalmody (proceeded Clinker); I can play upon the jew's-harp, sing Black-ey'd Susan, Arthur-o'Bradley, and divers other songs; I can dance a Welsh jig, and Nancy Dawson; wrestle a fall with any lad of my inches, when I'm in heart; and, under correction I can find a hare when your honour wants a bit of game.' 'Foregad! thou are a complete fellow (cried my uncle, still laughing) I have a good ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... left me in a hig, An shoo didn't care a fig, But nah aw'll donce a jig, For mi love's come back, An aw know though far away, 'At her heart ne'er went astray, An awst ivver bless the day, For mi love's ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... do over again you shouldn't," I answered; and then I seized her and held her tight in my arms. Nor did I release her until Whistling Jim, coming up and realizing the situation, celebrated it by whistling a jig. "If you'll say the word," I declared, "I'll ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... his mine with men, snatching the ore from the stopes as the bonanza leasers had done at Tonopah, and doubling the miner's pay with bonuses. Every truck driver received his bonus, and night and day the great motors went thundering across the desert. The ore came up from below and was dumped on a jig, where it was sorted and hastily sacked; and after that there was nothing to do but sent it under guard to the railroad. There was no milling, no smelting, no tedious process of reduction; but the raw picked ore was rushed to the East and the checks ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... down in the warmest nook, saying, "I'll be assistant cook until you are better. As Zeke says, I'm a wolf sure enough; but as soon's the beast's hunger is satisfied, I'll rub that leg of yours till you'll want to dance a jig;" and with the ladle wrung from Stokes's reluctant hand, he began stirring the seething ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... floor was pretty well cleared. One could see the negro now; he sat on a barrel at the end of the room. He grinned with his white teeth and, without stopping in his fiddling, scraped his bow harshly across the strings, and then instantly changed the tune to a lively jig. Blackbeard jumped up into the air and clapped his heels together, giving, as he did so, a sharp, short yell. Then he began instantly dancing grotesquely and violently. The woman danced opposite to him, this way and that, with her knuckles on her hips. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... "You want me to give you an explanation? But when I've got an appointment to talk the matter over with the head of the firm, what for would I waste my time talking it over with the junior partner?" And she began to type as if she was playing a jig. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Khlopov had entered the room, he began to play with me and Marusya. He gave us candy, and insisted on dancing a jig with us. ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... fearful danger, while the girls cried sore and kissed their brothers, and all their friends crowded round them and wrung their hands warmly; while Terence sought relief by going out into the garden, dancing a sort of jig, and giving vent to ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... because 'a wedding at home means five and six handed reels by the hour, and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty.' A second corroborates the remark and says: 'True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... her lips. This ceremony being performed amidst much tittering and flustering, accompanied by many knowing looks and some expressed wishes among the swains, who hoped that their turn might come next, Dame Tetlow arose, and the squire seizing her hand, they began to whisk round in a sort of jig, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was all the same, fiercely stabbing, jerking, as if some virulent little demon were holding ends of the facial nerves in a pair of pincers, and waiting till the sufferer was a little calm for a few moments before giving the nerve a savage jig. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... jig with incomparable agility and Roy did some tricks with cards and handkerchiefs that were declared superior to anything heretofore seen. But the little entertainment was to come to an abrupt conclusion. So engrossed had they been in its progress that they had not noticed that ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... disappeared somewhere for a moment, and presently emerged with an old violin, which he began to scrape vigorously. Even his tuning was irresistibly comical; and he had not been playing a lively jig for ten minutes, before two or three couples were on their feet performing the figure. Soon an admiring circle, four deep, collected about the dancers. The sorrows of the exiles were ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... funny!—Let us laugh at it. The dance-hall musician has brought home his 'cello! I heard him come bumping up the stairs with it—God damn his soul! And there he sits, sawing away at some loathsome jig tunes! And he has two friends in there—I listen to their wit between ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... who was conspicuously jolly and most cordially Irish, sing several of his great hits, and in particular "A Motto for Every Man," "Paddle Your Own Canoe," and "Lannigan's Ball" (set to a most admirable jig tune which has become a classic), one phrase from which was adopted into the Irish vernacular as a saying: "Just in time for Lannigan's ball." Clifton might indeed be called the Tom Moore of his day, with as large a public, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... play games and musical instruments and to handle tools, etc., we should not be discouraged if, after a whole day of hard exertion in work and play, there is still some energy left for drumming on the table or teasing sister or the cat, or for dancing a jig upstairs ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... exclaimed Mick Donovan, at once executing a caper which had some remote resemblance to an Irish jig, "it's deloighted Oi am at that same! Oi fale so glad, alannah, Oi could dance for joy, loike the piper that played ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... them, but stepped on one little fellow's tail, who had been leading the Irish jig. He hollered till I got off it, ‘Owch! but it's on my ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... says:—'He has the aspect of an idiot, without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from any one feature—with the most awkward garb, and unpowdered grey wig, on one side only of his head—he is for ever dancing the devil's jig, and sometimes he makes the most driveling effort to whistle some thought in his absent paroxysms.' Miss Burney thus describes him when she first saw him in 1778:—'Soon after we were seated this great man entered. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
