"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sufficient to sicken a healthy individual; how much more injurious must be its effects upon the lodgers themselves. Examine in the morning a child, who has passed the night thus confined. You will find him limber as a rag, exhausted by perspiration, wholly destitute of animation, without appetite, and on the very verge of cholera. I should recommend an entirely different plan of management. Instead of a feather bed, the child should be placed on a hard mattress, or on blankets folded and laid ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... limber-jointed, whipped-looking man with a red nose and a long stringy mustache, and always wore his vest open clear down to the lower button which was fastened, and thus his whole waistcoat was thrown open so as to show a tobacco-stained shirt bosom. The Missourian whom ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... the vigilance of all dogs by night every traveller among Southern plantations has ample demonstration. I was now so near that I could dimly see the figures of men moving to and fro upon the end of the causeway, and could hear the dull knock, when one struck his foot against a piece of limber. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... tilling Long hours in gripping gusts, Was mastered by their chilling, And now his ploughshare rusts. So savage winter catches The breath of limber things, And what I love he snatches, And what I ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... that added up to make one lovely feel for a little girl. The way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping . . . it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... started out to limber up the "III." I asked him to let me out on the main line, took a five-mile spin, and sidetracked for a freight train. While the man was unlocking the switch, I looked into the eyes and wondered what their owner was, or could be, or had been, to "Scar Faced" Hopkins, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... feel on the second morning as if you could never reach your journey's end, start off easily, and you will limber up after a while. ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... compagnon de voyage, Miss Harz, and the most determined widower on record her escort; a perfect John Rogers of a man, with nine little motherless children, her brother Raguet ('Rag,' as we called him at school, on account of his prim stiffness, so that 'limber as a rag' seemed a most preposterous saying in his vicinity). He is handsome, however, and intelligent, a perfect gentleman, but on the mourners' bench just now, like some others you know of"—heaving a deep sigh. "His wife, poor thing, died last autumn—a pretty girl in her day was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... off with limber vows; but I, Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths Should still say, "Sir, no going!" Verily, You shall not go! A lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... been rather stiff. I took lessons of him, and as he was a practical business man, I escaped the vicious habit of flourishing in my writing. He insisted that I should write a plain, simple, round hand, which I did. As my fingers became limber, I made excellent progress, and I was really proud of ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... than the man Garnache had known as "Sanguinetti"—brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black, oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck, and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look. There was a thick stubble of beard of several days' growth about his chin and ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... tree. We removed the grass from the upper hole. A thick volume of smoke rolled out. The bear must be dead. No creature could live in such an atmosphere. I introduced my ramrod through the opening. I could feel the soft hairy body of the animal, but it was limber and motionless. It was dead. Feeling convinced of this, at length, we removed the rocks below, and dragged it forth. Yes, the bear was dead,—or, at all events, very like it; but, to make the thing sure, Cudjo gave him a knock on the head with his axe. His long, shaggy hair was literally filled ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... fruitful, prolific. Fit, suitable, appropriate, proper. Flame, blaze, flare, glare, glow. Flat, level, even, plane, smooth, horizontal. Flatter, blandish, beguile, compliment, praise. Flexible, pliable, pliant, supple, limber, lithe, lissom. Flit, flutter, flicker, hover. Flock, herd, bevy, covey, drove, pack, brood, litter, school. Flow, pour, stream, gush, spout. Follow, pursue, chase. Follower, adherent, disciple, partisan, henchman. Fond, loving, doting, devoted, amorous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... said Lloyd. "Campbell would not risk any scrimmaging or tackling this evening, with McGill men even now in town thirsting for their blood. He's got them out for a run to limber up their wind and things ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... the Quaker from the abundant goodness of his heart, "doesn't thee mind that damson p'serve thee never let's me have unless I take the ag'y and shake for it? Some of that would limber a little girl's tongue, doesn't ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... through a mole-hill, past her concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as silently returned. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... that should know most about us. He has been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a pretty ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... 'quartering-house,' lodging-house. 9.3: 'gaw,' gall. It is an ancient superstition that the dove or pigeon has no gall, the fact being that the gall-bladder is absent. See Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica, iii. 3. 10.3: 'genty,' neat, limber. —Jamieson. 14.1: ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... had his machine, and he meant to operate it himself, while his wife sold tickets and his boy acted as usher,—a family combination which to Luck seemed likely to be a success. This man, when Luck made known his needs, said he was perfectly willing to "limber up" his machine and himself on The Phantom Herd, if Luck would let his wife and boy see the picture, and would pay the slight operating expenses. So that was ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... in your despite hath wax'd amain, And now with gleaming ring enfolds the world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in Heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin's hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o'er his visage serpents dropping gall. Yet he shall one day rise, and burst his ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... unendurable. Sergeant Leroy L. Key, of Company M, our battalion, resolved to make an effort to crush the Raiders. He was a printer, from Bloomington, Illinois, tall, dark, intelligent and strong-willed, and one of the bravest men I ever knew. He was ably seconded by "Limber Jim," of the Sixty-Seventh Illinois, whose lithe, sinewy form, and striking features reminded one of a young Sioux brave. He had all of Key's desperate courage, but not his brains or his talent for leadership. Though fearfully reduced in numbers, our battalion had still about one hundred ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... body of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for merchandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering and sat up. Others, again, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... afternoon we rested, but at night there was a dance, for which my maiden aunt played the piano. The dear good soul, whose old brown fingers were none too limber, had skill that scarcely mounted to the speed of a polka, but she was steady at a waltz. There was one tune—bink a bunk bunk, bink a bunk bunk—that went around and around with an agreeable monotony even when the player nodded. There was a legend in ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... and Big Bethel! One day soon after that engagement, returning through Richmond in new uniforms—of a sort—with scoured faces, undusty locks, full ranks, fresh horses, new harness and shining pieces, and with every gun-carriage, limber, and caisson freshly painted, they told their wrath to Franklin street girls while drinking their dippers ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth, light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile, considerable knowledge of what he should not know, and no experience of what he ought to do. Few boys had more narrowly escaped being expelled—the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Proclamation, and their wild enthusiasm can scarcely be restrained. They want to go out to meet Jameson and bring him in with triumphal outcry. It is hard to be only a 'she-thing' and stay in the house with a couple of limber-kneed men, when ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... gaiter-boots, and a cane that he flourished right and left with such determined strokes, that the children kept carefully out of his way. Several persons looked back to wonder and laugh at this strange figure, the drollery of which was greatly enhanced by his limber style of walking, and a certain expression of the whole outer man, which said, "Who says I am not as good as anybody on this avenue; Mr. Fillmore, or any ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well as any of you city fellers ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... send? Men there were in plenty, dry-rotting at the post for lack of something to limber their joints; but officers to lead? There was the rub! Thirty troopers, twenty Apache Mohave guides, a pack train and one or, at most, two officers made up the usual complement of such expeditions. Men, mounts, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the zenith blue melts away toward the horizon in dreamy violet, and the retreating sun leaves limber shafts of orange light, like Parthian arrows, among the green branches of the elms, what sounds can charm the ear like the soft chirrup of the cricket, the homely drone of the hive-seeking bee, and the cool rustle of the breeze through the tops of the spring-sodden ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Amos could not abide the presence much less the counsel of the professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel Sands—as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove improbable ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... out of my window when I was a boy, so I need not disturb the aunts, and now I rather like it, for it's the shortest road, and it keeps me limber when I have no rigging to climb. Good-bye till breakfast." And away he went down the water-spout, over the roof, and vanished among the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the middle of the pan. Let it heat slowly. Break the eggs in a bowl, add a tablespoonful of water to each egg and give twelve good, vigorous beats. To each six eggs allow a saltspoonful of pepper, and, if you like, a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley. Take the eggs, a limber knife and the salt to the stove. Draw the pan over the hottest part of the fire, turn in the eggs, and dust over a half teaspoonful of salt. Shake the pan so that the omelet moves and folds itself over each time you draw the pan towards you. Lift the edge of ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... fields out of view of the German trenches, but well within shell-range, the harvesting was being done by French soldiers. One of them was driving the reaping—machine and looked like a gunner on his limber, with his kepi thrust to the back of his head. The trousers of his comrades were as red as the poppies that grew on the edge of the wheat, and three of these poilus had ceased their work to drink out of a leather wine-bottle which had been replenished ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and dried so often they was about half rotten. When we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was close to the river bank, and as my feet touched the ground I giv a tremenjius ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Verely? You put me off with limber Vowes: but I, Though you would seek t' vnsphere the Stars with Oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going: Verely You shall not goe; a Ladyes Verely 'is As potent as a Lords. Will you goe yet? Force me ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... bringing up the rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the kiboko—the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... singer turned to Miss Pritchard. "My dear Miss Pritchard, why do you let this charming child waste her time learning to do vaudeville stunts that any limber-jointed, pretty-faced chit could do, with a glorious voice ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... can," he said. "And my old hoss can wrastle a bag of oats, too. He's got a ride in front of him and he'd appreciate a chance to rest and limber up." ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... their thighbones, and they shook their long shanks, And wild was their reeling and limber; And each bone as it crosses, it clinks and it clanks Like the clapping of timber on timber. The warder he laugh'd, though his laugh was not loud; And the Fiend whisper'd to him—"Go, steal me the shroud Of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... from the Signaller brought no comment until the last letter was read, but then the Limber Gunner ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... dates from the piratical invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. It includes anger, awe, baffle, bang, bark, bawl, blunder, boulder, box, club, crash, dairy, dazzle, fellow, gable, gain, ill, jam, kidnap, kill, kidney, kneel, limber, litter, log, lull, lump, mast, mistake, nag, nasty, niggard, horse, plough, rug, rump, sale, scald, shriek, skin, skull, sledge, sleigh, tackle, tangle, tipple, trust, viking, window, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... cried Lennox sternly as he felt about in the darkness, joined now by his comrade, and found that their charge had been checked by a big gun, its limber, and the span—six or eight and twenty oxen—several of the poor beasts having received thrusts from the ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Foreshortened forms of grosser shade, all barred With lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This roused the guard, but "Forward!" was ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Centerport. They saw that I was limber and could do a turn or two, and they made me join. They promised me good wages and a fine time, but as soon as we got on the road they treated me ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... contradicted. "You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. Caribou meat is very good, and soon will come ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... much like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... glossy green, With the wild thyme strewn; From the rivers whose crisped sheen Is kissed by the trembling moon; While the dwarf looks out from his mountain cave, And the erl king from his lair, And the water-nymph from her moaning wave, We skirr the limber air. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his aim had twitched its valedictory twitch he was upon it. In his hand, ready for use, was his razor; not his shaving razor, but the razor he carried for social purposes. He bent down, and with the blade made swift slashes right and left at a limber ankle joint, then rose again and was briskly upon his homeward way, leaving behind him the maimed carcass, a rumpled little heap, lying in the dust. A dozen times before he reached his boarding house he fingered the furry talisman where it rested in the bottom ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... an' at most three, or may be four hour agone. See thar!" he continued, raising one of the limbs, and letting it drop again; "limber as a eel! Ef he'd a been dead last night, the leg'd ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the door she saw the cannon at the pass limber up, wheel, and go bumping up the hill to rejoin its bespattered ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... Instead, as he stepped forward, nose up, chin up, eyes very bold, he swung a most amazing weapon. It was as scarlet as his own coat, as long as he was tall, and polished to a high degree. But it was not unbending, like a sword: It was limber to whippiness, so that as he twirled it about his blonde head it snapped and whistled. And Gwendolyn remembered having seen others exactly like it hanging on the bill-board at the Face-Shop. For ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... or if it's cold, Jenny Wren will always scold. From morn till night the whole day long Her limber tongue ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... The country physician only laughed at the wild and, to Evan, appalling curses and threats of the temporary lunatic. It mattered not to that rustic doctor whether his patient carried a stiff neck or a limber one—he would do his work just the same. He happened to be a dentist, which was fortunate, for he needed dental knowledge to extract a great tooth from the patient. The further skill of a veterinary surgeon would scarcely have ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... talking and pointing,—now to describe the spruce and its short, stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter, longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the man at his side. A moment before, they had been only pines, only so many ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... outstays its time. Even as I write our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... four mules and headed by a profane person on horseback—the Transport Officer—has rumbled past, the Company, which has been standing respectfully in the ditch, enjoying a refreshing shower-bath of mud and hoping that none of the steel girders are projecting from the limber more than a yard or two, sets out once more upon its way—only to take hasty cover again as sounds of fresh and more animated traffic are heard approaching from the opposite direction. There is no mistaking ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... Erebus and Night, Hie away; and aim thy flight Where consort none other fowl Than the bat and sullen owl; Where upon the limber grass Poppy and mandragoras With like simples not a few Hang for ever drops of dew. Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee thither, gentle Sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice I charge thee by my wand; Thrice with moly from ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S—-'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he had no spare room in his house to accommodate our ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... rolled away like a scroll and once again was I back in the Kentucky foothills, a lean and lathy sprout of a kid, a limber six-foot length of perpendicular appetite; and it was twelve o'clock for some people, but it was ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... thatch. The sobriquet of "Sandy" referred to his grit. He was broad-shouldered, tall and lean, weighing a hundred and seventy pounds of well-strung frame. His eyes were gray and the lids sun-puckered; his deeply tanned skin showed the freckles on face and hands as faint inlays; his long limber ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... to me at the time, but owing to our hurried movements and the vicissitudes of the battle, I have never had an opportunity to verify it. It was said that during the retreat of the artillery one piece of Stewart's battery did not limber up as soon as the others. A rebel officer rushed forward, placed his hand upon it, and presenting a pistol at the back of the driver, directed him not to drive off with the piece. The latter did so, however, received the ball in his ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... harem's sanctuary! Struck was I and smitten prostrate by wide-opened eyes, whose shafts, From a bow all stringless loosened, pierced the hapless heart of me. By the soft and flexile motions of her shape she captived me, Swaying as the limber branches sway upon the cassia-tree. Union with her I covet, that therewith I may apply Solace to the pains of passion, love and care and misery. For the love of her, afflicted, as I am, I have become; All that's fallen on me betided ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... 4.10 a.m. on the 26th. It is sad to think that this wait gave an opportunity once more for light-fingered people in the Transport Section to annex eight or nine P.L.M. goods sheets, which were carefully stowed away, one on each limber, and later proved of great value in several places where there was ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... high his limber ear bobbed in the murky air. He brayed mournfully. Anse glanced at the mule's ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... loses partial or entire control of the muscles of the neck the common name of the affection is limber-neck. In medical science limber-neck is regarded as a symptom rather than a disease, and may be due to a number of causes, such as derangement of the digestive organs, intestinal worms and ptomaine poisoning. The affected fowls should ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... straight, like a gentleman—not cribbled up like a snow-fish, chucked out on the ice of the river St Lawrence, with your knees up to your nose, or your toes stuck into your arm-pits, as does take place in some of your foreign complaints; but straight, quite straight, and limber, like a gentleman. Still Jack is a little mischievous, that's sartain. In the Euridiscy we had as fine a ship's company as was ever piped aloft—'Steady, starboard, my man, you're half-a-pint off your course;'—we ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... me that the earth lurched as it swung, and every joint in my body went limber as a rag. I caught at El Mahdi's mane, then I felt Jud's arm go round me, and heard Ump talking at my ear. But they were a long distance away. I heard instead the bees droning, and Ward's merry laugh, as he carried me on his shoulder a babbling youngster in a little white kilt. It ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... so that his head was clear of the water, and rested upon a little bank of sand; along which, his soft and limber trunk lay extended to its full length. Curving like a pair of gigantic scimitars from its base, were the yellow enamelled tusks; those ivory arms that for years,—ay centuries, perhaps,—had served him to root up the trees ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... out in one corner of the grounds in full view of the entire mass of spectators. Many curious eyes watched them limber up their arms for the work before them. Besides Hendrix and Donohue several reserve pitchers on either side were in line, sending and receiving in routine; but of course never once delivering their deceptive curves or drops, lest the opposing players get ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... his way through the mud and mire of the kennels by the dancing light of the torches his four tipsy lackeys bore. In the course of these merry doings, a-foot and on horseback, Messire Philippe de Coetquis had formed a shrewd notion that Madame Violante had a limber waist and a full, firm bosom of her own, and there and then had been ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... to where his long, limber, trout rod was resting on three hooks, all ready with winch, taper line, and cast, under the eaves of the mill-shed nearest ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... eyester-stew an' drunk coffee in the middle o' the night; then the four-o'clock patrol wakes me up ag'in. 'Here, be a sport,' they says, an' sticks a piece o' hot mince-pie under my nose. Then I was so oneasy I couldn't sleep. Daybreak I got up, an' went fer a walk ter limber up my belt, an' I sorter wandered over ter the bay side, an' not a mile out I see tew men with one o' them big fishin'-scooters a-haulin' in their net. An' I walked a ways out on the ice, a-signalin' with my bandana han'kercher; an' arter a time they seen me. 'T was ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... lying, cold and limber-stiff and dead, With a pan of burning charcoal underneath our ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... were bursting about them and bullets too soon began to strike upon the lawn. A battery that sought to drive back the advancing column was exposed to such a heavy fire that it was compelled to limber up and retreat. The officers urged Lee to withdraw and at length, mounting Traveler, he rode back slowly and deliberately to his inner line. Harry often wondered what his feelings were on that day, but whatever they were his face expressed nothing. When he stopped in his ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the light," Roger called. He and Frank had the man from Boston down on the limber board and were holding him fast. The fight, though fierce while it lasted, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the doorway of the bunk-house. The joshing ceased. Cheyenne, who could never keep his hands still, toyed with the dice. Presently one of the boys suggested that Cheyenne show them some fancy work with a six-gun—"just to keep your wrist limber," he concluded. ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... ten days ago, when I leaves Vee and my peaceful little home after a week-end swing, I expects to be shot up to Amesbury, Mass., to inspect a gun-limber factory. Am I? Not at all. By 3 P.M. I'm in Bridgeport, Conn., wanderin' about sort of aimless, and tryin' to size up a proposition that I'm about as well qualified to handle as a plumber's helper called in ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... and night, Hie away; and aim thy flight Where consort none other fowl Than the bat and sullen owl; Where upon thy limber grass, Poppy and mandragoras, With like simples not a few, Hang forever drops of dew; Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee hither, gentle sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice I charge ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock, Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock? What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan,— "Out of a river-reed ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... in the vernal vale, In adumbration of azure awe, And I listlessly list in my swallow-tail To the limpet licking his limber jaw. And it's O for the sound of the daffodil, For the dry distillings of prawn and prout, When hope hops high and a heather hill Is a dear delight and a darksome doubt. The snagwap sits in the bosky brae And sings to ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... being born in Mars' month," said Elise, as Mary balanced herself a moment on the bar, and then made a quick turn around it to limber herself. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... M'Gurk, jubilantly, "it's Ody Rafferty himself. To your sowls! Now you've a great good chance, ma'am, to be gettin' it back. He's the boy 'ill leg it over all before him"—for in those days Ody was lithe and limber—"and it's hard-set the thievin' Turk 'ill be to get the better of him at a racin' match—Hi—Och." She had begun to hail him with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a strangled croak, like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. "Och, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... matter with this?" demanded Fred. "It may not be very beautiful, but it'll do the work all right. It's limber too, so that if a high wind comes up it will ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... the tender blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle Seems in ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... you doing—making fun of me? You will do me the pleasure of reading mine; they will limber up your ideas, and as for yours—there! that's ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... returned the driver in scornful deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. "He only took Hill's place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that University you're runnin' here. I say—you fellers oughter get him to tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. It'd limber you fellers up ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... time for some hours Adair's heart began again to beat with hope, as the two steamers, with the lead going and a bright look-out kept ahead, stood towards the shore. The artillery were seen to limber-up and gallop off, while the infantry scampered away, as fast as they could go, to a safe distance; judging correctly that as they had made no material impression upon a single ship, they were unlikely to impede the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... streight, bearing only Leaves: which are of great use and benefit to this People; one single Leaf being so broad and large, that it will cover some fifteen or twenty men, and keep them dry when it rains. The leaf being dryed is very strong, and limber and most wonderfully made for mens Convenience to carry along with them; for tho this leaf be thus broad when it is open, yet it will fold close like a Ladies Fan, and then it is no bigger than a mans arm. It is wonderful light, they cut them into pieces, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... thy limber bit of a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany, shows like a housewife's distaff when the flax ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... be the last night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes knows more. I can ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... vainer man, he might have been aware that he, in his way, was as well worth looking at as she in hers. He was big and limber, in the full ripeness of his youth, sunburned and level-eyed. His life in ships had marked him as plainly as a branding-iron. There was present in him that air which men have, secret yet visible, who know ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... grown in our little county of Surrey, my own grandfather had standing at Wotton, and about that estate, timber that now were worth L100,000. Since of what was left my father (who was a great preserver of wood) there has been L30,000. worth of limber fallen by the axe, and the fury of the hurricane in 1703, by which upwards of 1,000 trees were blown down. Now, no more Wotton! stript and naked, and ashamed almost to own its name." The Wotton woods ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... he expended upon it! How he gurgled and grinned and twisted his head to observe the effect upon the men, all sedulously gazing into the fire! how he bounced, and anon how he sank with sudden genuflections! how limber his feet seemed, and what free agents! Surely he never intended to put them down at that extravagant angle. More than once one foot was placed on top of the other—an attitude that impeded locomotion and resulted in his sitting down in ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... much more surprising than you imagine. We instinctively aim the forefinger at the object to a hair's-breadth of exactness. I only make my point follow my forefinger. The important thing, then, is to grasp the hilt very firmly, and yet leave the wrist limber. I shoot in the same way with a revolver, and pull the trigger with my middle finger. I scarcely ever miss. You might amuse yourself by trying these things while you are waiting for Gouache. They will make the time ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... had prepared a dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned by the earthwork, where they ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency—the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but infinitely gentle ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... and plumping into the ground. None were so successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself, and I watched it as a mouse ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... vehicle, conveyance, carriage, caravan, van; common carrier; wagon, waggon[obs3], wain, dray, cart, lorry. truck, tram; cariole, carriole[obs3]; limber, tumbrel, pontoon; barrow; wheel barrow, hand barrow; perambulator; Bath chair, wheel chair, sedan chair; chaise; palankeen[obs3], palanquin; litter, brancard[obs3], crate, hurdle, stretcher, ambulance; black Maria; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the idee, and told her so. I like 'em both. Ury is a tall, limber-jinted sort of a chap, sandy complected, and a little round shouldered, but hard-workin' and industrious, and seems to ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the alleyway. "And you have been sprinkling it on this midshipman's uniform? You are the fellow who runs the temperance drinks place? A nice business for you to be in—drugging midshipmen and trying to ruin them! To prison you go, unless you limber up your tongue. Who put you up to this miserable business? Talk quickly—or off to a cell ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... troops mounted the Huft Kothul, giving three cheers when they reached the summit. Here Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham, with a party of sappers, pressed the enemy so hard, that they left in their precipitation a twenty-four pound howitzer and limber, carrying off the draft-bullocks. Having heard that another gun had been seen, and concluding that it could not have gone very far, I detached a squadron of dragoons, under Captain Tritton, and two horse-artillery guns, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the civilian and the soldier agreed that their only chance was to fight. Williams opened fire with his Infantry, and Ricketts took command of the guns. At the first discharge the horses bolted with the limber, and never appeared again; almost at the same moment Williams fell, shot through the body. Ricketts continued the fight until his ammunition was completely expended, when he was reluctantly obliged to retire to a village in the neighbourhood, but not until he ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... lines and dimensions that, in my judgment, will be found nearly perfect for the average canoeist of 150 to 160 pounds. She will be much stronger than either of any other canoes, because few men would like a canoe so frail and limber that she can be sprung inward by hand pressure on the gunwales, as easily as a hat-box. And many men are clumsy or careless with a boat, while others are lubberly by nature. Her dimensions are: Length, 10 1/2 feet; beam, 26 inches; rise at center, 9 inches: at ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... had told of the noise like a steamer's whistle a long way off. His local knowledge was being authenticated at every step. Such a sound was almost uncouth in such a locality; and there, overhanging a jutting angle of red rock, was the predicted bush with keen prickles thickset on limber branches. Half amused, I climbed to the spot, and, clinging precariously to the principal stem, cut off a branch which, falling into the ravine, slipped several yards down the smooth floor. It was not worth recovering, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... was tuned, and on this, under the music master's direction, she ran scales for the better part of an hour—to limber her fingers, Herr ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... the Peace, That now is foremost in your prayers, Shall crown your harvest with increase, And bless with smiles the home of tears; Your wounds be healed; your noble sons, Unhurt, unmutilated—free— Shall limber up their conquering guns, In triumph ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... had better take him home now," said Pearlie. She knew what Danny was, and was afraid that greater disgrace might await her. But when she tried to get him back into the blanket he lost every joint in his body and slipped to the floor. This is what she had feared—Danny had gone limber. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... reason was now apparent. His hands were still behind his back; aye, when they trussed him up, they drew up his hands until they were on a level with his head, and secured him in that position. His feet were also ironed, and the chain lashed to a limber. So he stood, or rather hung—for he could not stand properly with his arms wrenched back in that position—and the whole weight of his body dragged upon his wrists and shoulder blades. So he had stood during ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... alone, advance and kill off the men and horses before they get into battery. When the pieces have got into battery, lie down, if on exposed ground, till they limber up again, and then recommence ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt |
