"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many tents belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out. I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them. The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes. The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons. I am satisfied the enemy's infantry and artillery passed Lick Creek this morning, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... through there with two pair o' pants on," answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels. I used to think, when I was a boy, that 't was the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an' follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There warn't nobody but ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... came from the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin, With old shaking arches, all moss overgrown, Where the flitter-bat hideth, The limber snake glideth, And chill water drips from ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... back against the tree and played lazily. Bosephus lay stretched full length on the leaves, following idly with any words that happened to fit the strain. A blue jay just over their heads bobbed up and down on a limber branch, waiting for them to go. The Bear took up the song as ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... such-like work in my life, and I spent day after day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees. I had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to make ropes; none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough, and with all my litter of scientific education I could not devise any way of making them so. I spent more than a fortnight grubbing among the black ruins of the enclosure and on the beach where the boats had been burnt, looking for nails and other stray pieces of metal ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... shoulder was under the other's stomach. Slipping his right arm between the legs of his burden, Dick gripped the wrist of the sound arm, and slowly raised himself. This was the hardest part of the task, but the Wolf's strong, limber knees made sure work of it, and in a moment he stood nearly upright with the injured scout across his shoulders. Then Dick stepped out at a gentle, even pace, following the path Chippy had taken. He was in sight of the farmhouse when the Raven and his followers came streaming through ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... up in a big carry-all motor-van about the time Jack and his followers trooped on the field, and began to pass the ball around to limber up their muscles for the great test. They were given a royal reception, for there were many hundreds of Harmony rooters on hand to help the boys with cheers and the waving of flags and pennants. Besides, Chester was showing a fine spirit that could applaud a clever play, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... observed, especially on the pines and oaks. The round yellow clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain seasons extremely ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... ammunition. He first cut the fuse for one second's time. After preparing several shells and receiving no word from his general he made ready several charges of canister, knowing the enemy to be close at hand. Still nobody came for the ammunition. He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, turning them back to a front ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... as the planet Saturn has rings, that did 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 keyboard, 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 ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... shall begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites, or sub-parasites.—And yet, I mean not ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... movement, kid, like a baby hippopotamus trying to side-step a jab from a humming-bird. And you hold yourself like a truck driver having his picture taken in a Third Avenue photograph gallery. And you haven't got any method or style. And your knees are about as limber as a couple of Yale pass-keys. And you strike the eye as weighing, let us say, 450 pounds while you work. But, say, would you mind giving ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... limber, bounding feet That swept the winter's snows? What stateliest stag so fast and fleet? ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... sun, two different things 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 different and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was rather a severe and dangerous sport. A lump of soft clay was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw apples from sticks, with considerable force. When there were fifty or a hundred players on each side, the battle became warm; but anything to arouse the bravery of Indian boys seemed to ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... by the Confederates on the bluffs, while a second force, composed of the 4th Wisconsin, 9th Connecticut, the other two sections of Nims's battery, and the four guns of Everett's, marched directly forward up the cliff road. An abandoned caisson or limber was all ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... better now; that glass was warming.— You rascal! limber your lazy feet I We must be fiddling and performing For supper and bed, or starve in the street.— Not a very gay life to lead, you think? But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... 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, poised in proud ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... other as to their qualifications for smartness. The guns would be taken to pieces, unlimbered, and scattered on the ground, and the wheels of the gun-carriage wheeled away a considerable distance. On the order being given to "Limber up, and fire!" the crew which mounted its gun and fired the first shot earned the laurels. On one occasion the gun's crew of the 'Bellerophon' gained the honour, but unfortunately, through the neglect of one to serve the vent, the poor fellow lost his right arm, which was blown into atoms. ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... form, but having broader leaves, which are thick like leather, and bearing small knobs like those of the cypress. From these trees hang down many branches into the water, each about the thickness of a walking-stick, smooth, limber, and pithy within, which are overflowed by every tide, and hang as thick as they can stick of oysters, being the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... stole forth 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 the word, And on we rushed, slaying full many a man Who ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... failed to explode. The Spanish general was soon convinced that his guns had accomplished their mission, for when they had fired some thirty shells a galloper was seen approaching the artillery officer, and the next moment that individual gave the word to cease fire and limber up. At the word, the drivers put their mules into motion and advanced toward the guns; whereupon Jack, who had been patiently awaiting this movement, gave an order to his sharpshooters, who immediately opened fire upon the teams, with ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... score keeper, and the lanky left-handed hitter strolled up to the plate, while Riordan, who was on deck, took up a couple of bats, swinging them about nervously to limber his arms. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... 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 been ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning, gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us even a moment to wipe the sweat out of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... discover some sign of their passage—a discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site—he continued farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon. Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a winding river he determined to ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bring me books and clothing, and I like enough of a fight for things that I always remember how I got them. I even enjoy seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: 'Ware the sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber's.' I like sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame. I should have loved it when all the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy Indian canoes patrolled the shores. You wait until ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... 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
... it isn't nothin' much," came the reassuring reply. "Give a feller a little chance to limber up; won't you? I'll feel all right in a short time. But it was sure a rough deal for me, and some surprise too, let me tell you, fellers. I never had the least bit of idea they'd jump out on me like they did; and would you believe ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Vlamertinghe road, as none of us wanted to be taken prisoners. We therefore went down some side streets and crossed the bridge on the road that leads to Vlamertinghe. There I found an ammunition column hurrying out of the town, and the man riding one of the horses on a limber invited me to mount the other, which was saddled. It is so long, however, since I left the circus ring that I cannot mount a galloping horse unless I put my foot into the stirrup. So after two or three ineffectual attempts ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... 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 to keepe you as a Prisoner, Not like a Guest: so you shall pay ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... horsemen who raced the flier to wait on the ground until the engine rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the headway the train already had, to start a hundred yards or so before the engine came abreast, in order to limber up to the horses' ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... three Chinamen keep your jabbering tongues still," he said, "and let me have a chance to talk. It's so long since I've seen a boy from up on the Earth that I'd like to talk a spell myself—to limber up my old tongue. It's grown pretty ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... 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
... — N. vehicle, conveyance, carriage, caravan, van; common carrier; wagon, waggon^, wain, dray, cart, lorry. truck, tram; cariole, carriole^; limber, tumbrel, pontoon; barrow; wheel barrow, hand barrow; perambulator; Bath chair, wheel chair, sedan chair; chaise; palankeen^, palanquin; litter, brancard^, crate, hurdle, stretcher, ambulance; black Maria; conestoga wagon, conestoga ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was trying to limber up my German vocabulary he passed us along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober- Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in Brussels, and that under no circumstances should we be allowed to return within the ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... be arranged—" The don was studying the situation and the man together. "Almost have I grasped the thread that will unravel the whole. No, no! I do not mean your going, Senor. That would but limber the tongue of scandal; and besides, I do not mean that I withdraw my friendship from you. A man must be narrow, indeed, if he cannot carry more than one ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... doing no good here, and now that my knee is getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on active service again. I wondered whether maybe you might like to do a little ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the crossed cannons, they never will run, The limber and rolling caisson, The clank of the collar and rumble of gun As we follow ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... had been overturned into the limber containing its ammunition, and set fire to. This kept burning, hissing, and firing shots like a gigantic and malevolent cracker for a long time. But the Blue Jackets recovered the gun. When the victorious troops crowned the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... 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
... little child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself; A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds and never seeks; Makes such a vision to the sight, As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... 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 summer and ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... rheumatic sides; With look of mingled scorn and mirth They buckle round the saddle-girth; With horsey wink and saucy toss A youngster throws his leg across, And so, his rider on his back, They lead him, limping, to the track, Far up behind the starting-point, To limber ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... shotgun cocked and loaded and ready, waiting to kill the bird that now typified for him guilt and danger and an abiding great fear. Gnats plagued him and about him frogs croaked. Almost overhead a log-cock clung lengthwise to a snag, watching him. Snake doctors, limber, long insects with bronze bodies and filmy wings, went back and forth like small living shuttles. Other buzzards passed and repassed, but the squire waited, forgetting the cramps in his elderly limbs and the discomfort of the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... down here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily and simple exercise I am fond of—to pull on that young hickory sapling out there—to sway and yield to its tough-limber upright stem—haply to get into my old sinews some of its elastic fibre and clear sap. I stand on the turf and take these health-pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly an hour, inhaling great draughts of fresh air. Wandering by the creek, I have ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... than his in the world; but I'll have to limber out ever so much before I'm good for much in that line," said the boy, stretching his stout arms and legs with a curious mixture of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... 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, already ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... hurried off 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 ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... this hair of mine sheds a red light over the landscape; I get happy-crazy; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers; there's music a long ways off—why, I could sing this minute, but there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just drunk enough to be limber ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... made him hesitate to leave three stirring boys under her entire control. Possibly he forgot that he had had his parents, and a doting aunt or two, to pad the angularities of Mrs. Handsomebody's rule, and to say whether or not her limber cane should seek his plumpest and ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... 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
... from the Signaller brought no comment until the last letter was read, but then the Limber Gunner ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... I understand," quoth the limber youth from the South,—"in England a man isn't allowed to play with no fire-arms. He's got to be taught all that when he enlists. I didn't want much teaching how to shoot straight 'fore I served Uncle Sam. And that's ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 along ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which he had gathered and cherished until it was reputed the best in the army, go up in matchwood and iron splinters. One subaltern, finding himself on the ground, discovered to his horror that he had a hole in his chest, but struggled gamely on, now walking, now stealing a ride on a limber—just catching the last train of all—and finally arriving in England with no other articles of kit or clothing but a suit of pink pyjamas ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... The Causes of Poultry Diseases Chicken Cholera Roup Chicken-pox, Gapes, Limber-neck ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand just ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... do no more. I had no strength to move, but I could think acutely, and feel, as I longed for the strength of Uncle Jack, and to hold in my hand a good stout but limber cane. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... Fire!" Eight guns thundered almost as one and continued to fire each about four shots to the minute for possibly six or eight minutes, when a Federal battery replied. Then came Robertson's command, "Limber to the rear! To the right, march! Gallop!" And away we went down the river under the cover of the sheltering woods. A piece of shell took off the arm of one of Lumsden's men, near the shoulder, as we moved away. His name was Ray, a ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only ten years ago, at the battle ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... partially successful opposition infuriated the man. He was not accustomed to defence. His fury knew no restraint. He rained the blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself. Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise; unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her head just below the ear. It stretched her senseless ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... '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. ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... behind the railway embankment passed me on the road, the horses walking grandly, the men tired but in high enough spirits. The enemy long-range guns were waking up now and playing a damnable tattoo on the main routes leading west. I saw one limber-waggon belonging to the Engineers blown sky-high, and three maimed horses had to ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... 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 ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and Mr. 'Possum touched him and said his complexion seemed pretty solid, somewhat like a shell, and Mr. Crow told him how he had to move rather carefully in it, at first, though very likely it would limber up in time. Then he told them how he was going to do the kitchen that way, and perhaps other things, and they all got excited and talked about it, and Mr. 'Possum said that probably he would have them give him a coat next ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Marrying the eager echoes that weave in A music clear and strange. But pausing soon, each lays his hammer down And deeply breathing bares His chest, stalwart and brown, To the sunny airs. Laughing one to another, limber hand On limber hip, flushed in a group they stand, And now untired renew their ringing toil. The sun stands high, and ever a fresh throng Comes murmuring; but that ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... and Jessamine mixed together, then take a Spunge and dip it therin, and rub the Gloves all over thin, lay them in a dry clean place eight and forty hours; then rub them with your hands till they become limber. ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... lips, and proceeded to stump up and down the lobby, "to limber up," as she said, although her three companions offered to do anything that might ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... as befitted one who had long been denied. I scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a thousand obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the greensward of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and for the time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... 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 settled ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... very well, and I feel first rate," said Sheila. "I'm sore in spots, but I'll limber up when I get moving. Where is Mrs. Wade? I suppose Casey has gone ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... man in strange clothes at window.) What brings me is to put my curse upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone and vanished out of this, without bringing me my request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would limber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged with the ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a contingent of Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross the Free State border. It was an hour before dawn that the guns started, and the riflemen followed close behind the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon the black sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion says of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part the expression worn was one of determination and bulldog pertinacity. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... its full flower for the bran-dances—which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs, leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered it an inch deep with clean wheat bran, put ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... on coat and goes over and sits down near table.] Nothing like the bag to limber one up. I feel like a fighting cock. Harry, let's go out on a toot, you ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... You put me 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 ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... 'Mine always has gorillas ridin' 'em.' Well, I looked around and I would have been scared myself if I hadn't recognized our own bunch of snakes, each one of 'em with the tail of the snake in front of him in his mouth. Old 'Limber Larry'—we called him that on account of his habit of going to sleep curled up in a true lover's knot—was in the lead, and behind him came about half a mile ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... limbered waggons, drawn by 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 the nature of this cavalcade: ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... centre brigades of Hardee were pushing into the gap, and, without serious opposition, were gaining Sherman's left flank. Waterhouse began to limber up his guns for a retreat. Taylor feared a ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 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. I climbed by a stone-faced U. S. road to my new home on the slope ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... you, Miss Edie, you'se an angel for sayin' dat. Don't be afeard, I'se good for sumpen yet, if I be old. I once work for fear in de South; den I work for money, and now I'se gwine to work for lub, and it 'pears I can feel my ole jints limber up at de tought. It 'pears like dat lub is de only ting dat can make one young agin. Neber you fear, Miss Edie, we'll pull trough, and I'se see you a grand lady yet. A true lady you'se allers be, even if ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... spears, so limber and so straight, Tell of the slender dusky maids, so lithe and proud of gait. Languid of eyelids, with a down like silk upon her cheek, Within her wasting lover's heart she queens it ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... rifles and bayonets, 120 rounds of ammunition, wearing our tin hats, and the march to church began. After marching about five kilos, we turned off the road into an open field. At one end of this field the Chaplain was standing in a limber. We formed a semi-circle around him. Over head there was a black speck circling round and round in the sky. This was a German Fokker. The Chaplain had a book in his left hand-left eye on the book-right eye on the aeroplane. We Tommies were lucky, we had no books, so had both ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... hat neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk 'em; to bail the water from a leaky boat; to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees' nests, and to transport pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John usually carried a sling in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick, sharp at one end, from which he could sling apples a great distance. If he walked in the road, he walked in the middle of it, shuffling up the dust; or if he went elsewhere, he was likely to be running on the top of the fence or ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ole Mister Age begins a-stealin' Thoo yo' back an' knees, W'en yo' bones an' jints lose der limber feelin', An' am stiff'nin' by degrees; Now der's jes one way to feel young and spry, W'en you heah dem banjos soun' Git a great big swig o' de ole corn juice, An' ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... two-by-six plank four or five feet long with a single grab-nail in the end,—the springboard of the Pacific coast logger, whose daily business lies among the biggest timber on God's footstool. Each then clambered up on his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of the tree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there was the undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree would fall. That done, they swung the ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Laman. The dalesmen found the little schoolmaster the merriest comrade that ever sat with them over a glass. He had a crack for each of them, a song, a joke, a lively touch that cut and meant no harm. They called him "the little limber Frenchman," in allusion to a peculiarity of gait which in the minds of the heavy-limbed mountaineers was somehow associated with the idea of a ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Vain are all your craft and cunning, Vain your manifold disguises! 155 Well I know you, Pau-Puk-Keewis!" With their clubs they beat and bruised him, Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis, Pounded him as maize is pounded, Till his skull was crushed to pieces. 160 Six tall hunters, lithe and limber, Bore him home on poles and branches, Bore the body of the beaver; But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, 165 Still lived on as Pau-Puk-Keewis. And it fluttered, strove, and struggled, Waving ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... affected anger, "I shall have my fellows as limber as supple-jacks on such fare; afraid of an Englishman as a Virginian negro ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... be any such word as this, we should naturally expect it to follow the signification of lithe; soft, limber: which will not suit ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... cutery corn, Apple seed and apple thorn; Wire, brier, limber-lock, Five geese in a flock, Sit and sing by a spring, O-u-t, ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... the snow-shoes With a long and limber stride; And I hailed the dusky stranger, As ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... the way from Blair to report to me, coming down just as McPherson was going up the road, and the same skirmish-line that killed McPherson killed the horses of that battery and captured a portion of the men, and McPherson really almost fell upon the limber of one of the guns. This was Murray's United States Battery of four pieces. I do not know as I have seen this mentioned in any of the reports, unless it is in mine; but these are the facts of the matter. That is the way a battery of my Corps was reported lost ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... dat boy? Whyn't he hunch hisse'f up on dat saddle right? Jim, Jim, whyn't you limber up, boy; hunch yo'se'f up on dat hoss lak you belonged to him and knowed you was dah. What I done showed you? De black raskil, goin' out dah tryin' to disgrace his own daddy. Hyeah he come back. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... 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 ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... first 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
... limber Was fir-tree timber,— A mast-fir tall, From Gudbrand's dale. Taking another, With both together He rowed amain; Like arrowy cane Or steel blade brilliant Were the oars resilient. The sun climbs up The mountain slope, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... 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 ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of M'sieu' Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... about halfway between it and the flitter were two of the alien warriors. Perhaps they had changed watches during the night. If they had not, they could go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that if he stepped over some invisible boundary he would be ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... get out of the sleigh than it had been to get in it, for joints that at first had been limber and strong were now stiff and cramped from cold and disuse, and the girls made a sorry show, limping and halting from the sleigh to the house. When Nan first gained the ground she could hardly stand, but ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... free of the sling now, and, though it was still a bit stiff, it was beginning to limber up nicely. In another week it would be as good as new, with only a slight scar left to serve as a reminder of the episode that had led to so much. In time that too would disappear; and then— But he was not ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to 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 take ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... appointed places, and the brown leather harness was polished like a lady's tan shoes. After the field batteries came the horse artillery and after the horse artillery the pom-poms—each drawn by a pair of sturdy draught horses driven with web reins by a soldier sitting on the limber—and after the pom-poms an interminable line of machine- guns, until one wondered where Krupp's found the time and the steel to make them all. Then, heralded by a blare of trumpets and a crash of kettledrums, came the cavalry; ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell |
