"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fact of his college training to her, and he was really thinking just then that he would like to give them a serio-comic song, for which he had been famous with his class. He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was one of those which is partly spoken and acted; he really did it very well; but the Willett and Witherby ladies did not seem to understand it quite; and the gentlemen looked as if they thought this very undignified business for ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... building near by came the twanging of a string, like a banjo string being tuned in fantastic quarter tones. A few sharp notes were struck, at random it seemed, followed by a few bars of a quavering song and then a burst of clownish laughter. Young bloods of Nagasaki had called in geisha to amuse them at ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... had been finished night was at hand, though only for the storm no doubt the sun might still have been seen shining in the low west. Jimmy got out his banjo, and the musical plunkety-plunk of its strings, now and then accompanying one of his jolly songs, did much to ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... did not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... Von Baumser, at the other end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo. In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker vessels among the dancers and tested the stamina of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... down the fiddle and the bow, We'll dance and sing, And make the forest ring, With the fiddle and the old banjo." ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... perhaps, after all, variety business would suit best. Pontius Pilate in a kilt and philibeg would bring down the house with a Highland fling or gillie callum. And Atkinson in a long-stride table chair and banjo act would ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... been laid down, and an awning placed over them to make a place where bags of cotton were tied up to be taken to the gin. Gathered around this platform were a number of negro men, women and children. One of the men had an old banjo, and though the instrument seemed battered and broken, he managed to get some ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... against the railing behind him is a woman—his wife, probably—with dusky hair, and sad dark eyes which hardly seem to see her green love-birds pecking knowingly at their pack of dirty cards. Along near the pier a negro minstrel with his banjo is singing one of the simple melodies of his race, its sad, sweet refrain almost drowned in the roars of laughter called forth by a chalky-faced clown, who appears to be not a compound of flesh, blood, and nerves like ordinary mortals, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... quite cosily in front of a blazing fire he had made up under the coppers containing the men's tea, which would be served out bye and bye at 'four bells', enjoying himself as comfortably as you please, and actually playing the banjo—just as if he had nothing else to do, and there was no such person as Captain Snaggs ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' low, She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kul-la-lo-lo!" With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' her cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers and the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... making things for the little house—a chair from a barrel and a wonderful box of shelves to stand in the corner. And she knew how to say merry things, and later outside his door Ben would pick his banjo and sing low and sweetly in the musical voice of his race. Altogether such another honeymoon there ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Music is for the most savage natures. The boor that couldn't appreciate the Taj Mahal, or the sculpture of Michael Angelo, might be swept off his feet by the music of a master, though he couldn't understand its story. Besides, I've carried a banjo and a cornet to the ends of the earth with me. I saved my life with the cornet once. A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching I blew a blast from it—one of those jarring discords of Wagner in the "Gotterdammerung"—and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... man: "Very well. I must have money for my living expenses. If you cannot advance it to me out of the estate I shall be compelled to go on the stage. But as I cannot keep my own name I have decided to assume yours, and shall have lithographs struck off at once. They will read, 'Tonight, M. L. Gray, Banjo and Specialty Artist.'" ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... moment you change everything, down to the order of the words—the natural order of the words: and (remember this) though the harp be superseded, the voice never forgets it. You may take up a Barrack Room Ballad of Kipling's, and it is there, though you affect to despise it for a banjo or concertina:— ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and tambourines of different forms; their guitar is almost as agreeable as that of Europe; and of their flutes of several kinds, one is played with the nostril instead of the lips. Another instrument, resembling the banjo of the American negroes, is made from a large long-necked gourd, cut in halves while green, cleaned, dried in the sun, covered with parchment, and strung with from four to six strings. Its notes ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... progress of the mixed entertainment that followed, in which dancing and singing, banjo playing, and a liberal display of the anatomy of the female "artists" formed the principal features, they sipped their beer and applauded loudly the efforts of those who ministered to ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... not artistic. Dick does not go with peacocks' feathers and guitars. I can see Dick with a single peacock's feather at St. Giles's Fair, when the bulldogs are not looking; but the decorative panel of peacock's feathers is too much for him. I can imagine him with a banjo—but a guitar decorated with pink ribbons! To begin with he is not dressed for it. Unless a family be prepared to make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers and to talk blank verse, I don't see how they can expect to be happy living in these fifteenth-century ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than anyone else in ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... and was in demand for his musical worth as well, singing so well that he became leading bass in the choir and occupied the position with honor. With all his daily work as an artisan he found time to master and play successfully the violin, mandolin, auto harp and harmonica combined, banjo and guitar. He passed out of life April 26th, 1912, leaving a wife, son and daughter to mourn the loss of a talented father. So my musical family comes and goes and I am called upon to lose them first in one way and then in another. This was a sad surprise and a shock to me. I wrote to him to come ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... and a choice selection of portraits of females, almost always in sadness and generally in disguise or deshabille, glittered round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora with dishevelled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the absence of her Conrad—the Princesse Fleur de Marie (of Rudolstein and the Mysteres de Paris) was sadly ogling out of the bars of her convent cage, in which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away,—Dorothea of Don Quixote was washing her eternal feet:—in fine, it was such an elegant ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the window. Tom saw his rival taking something from one of the packs slung across the back of a mule. Soon the circus agent hurried back into the king's hut, and a moment later there was heard the strains of a banjo being picked by an unpracticed hand. It was succeeded by a rattling tune ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... fruit. Sold, I'd been; even as once the poor blackamoors were sold into American bondage. I recalled one of their pathetic folk-songs in which the wretches were wont to make light of their lamentable estate; a thing I had often heard sung by a black with a banjo on the pier at Brighton; not a genuine black, only dyed for the moment he was, but I had never lost the plaintive ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... holocaust of dead twigs, but the Red Flower of the Jungle, the symbol and spirit of wild life, this spontaneous minstrelsy has a charm peculiarly its own. A charm of the simplest, certainly; for at camp-fires the banjo reigns supreme; and the aptest songs are those that 'rip your very heartstrings out' and offer fine facilities for ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to the California market, a few blocks distant, and bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. On the way back to Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; and thus burdened they regained the "town," Condy grieving audibly at having to carry "brown-paper ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... of penguin for them, but curiously enough they did not think it good enough for a Christmas dinner. The ward-room ate penguin in the evening, and after the toast of 'absent friends' we began to sing, and twice round the table everybody had to contribute a song. Ponting's banjo songs were a great success, also Oates's 'The Vly on the tu-urmuts.' Meares sang "a little song about our Expedition, and many of the members that Southward would go," of his own composition. The general result was that the watches were all ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... we can have music as we sail, and Grif will bring his violin, and Ralph can imitate a banjo so that you'd be sure he had one. I do hope it will be fine, it is so splendid to go round like other folks and enjoy myself," cried Jill, with a little bounce of satisfaction at the prospect of a row ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... never trust those gilt-edge Britishers," said Jean Graham with authority. "There was old man Peters who took one of them in, and he'd sit in the store nights making little songs to his banjo, and talking just wonderful. Said he was a baronet or something, if he had his rights, and made love to Sally. Old fool Peters believed him, and lent him three hundred dollars to start a lawsuit over his English property with. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... slipped by without interruption. An occasional burst of laughter floated down the corridor. At some distance away, on the same deck of barracks in Bancroft Hall, a midshipman was industriously twanging away on a banjo. Darrin, however, absorbed in his novel, paid no heed to any of the signs of Saturday-night jollity. He was a third of the way through an exciting tale when there came a knock on the door—-a moment later a head was ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... on dis sunny day.' Now think! here's a human who has no other cares Except to please the white man, serve him when he's starving, And who has as much fun when he sees you carving The sirloin as you do, does this black man. Just think for a minute, how the negroes excel, Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan? There's music in their soul as original As any breed of people in the whole wide earth; They're elemental hope, heartiness, mirth. There are only two things real American: One is ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... field-gun you could have swept it clean from end to end, and, what's more, you wouldn't have hurt a soul. The place was dead empty—not so much as a cur to sit on the sidewalk—and the only hint of life was the laughing and banjo-playing indoors. You could hear that plain enough. Every second house in the place was a saloon, and every saloon seemed to have a billiard-table and a banjo player. I never heard anything like it. I should say, if you divided the population into four ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... master, assemble in a cabin and sing songs and spirituals. Our favorite spirituals were—Bringin' in de sheaves, De Stars am shinin' for us all, Hear de Angels callin', and The Debil has no place here. The singing was usually to the accompaniment of a Jew's harp and fiddle, or banjo. In summer the slaves went without shoes and wore three-quarter checkered baggy pants, some wearing only a long shirt to cover their body. We wore ox-hide shoes, much too large. In winter time the shoes were stuffed with paper to keep out the cold. We called ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the soldiers; she had a nickname for each of us, and if any one was missing she had to hear all about it. Many a pleasant evening we spent in her little home. A bunch of us would go together, and we would take along our mandolin, banjo, and mouth organ, and have a little concert; Madame would sit there and smile, not understanding a word we said, but enjoying seeing us having a good time—another thing, it was always warm there, and that was something that our billets ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... brought his banjo, and when the party had settled low about the fire it helped to keep alive the talk. Every few minutes the taffy and the coyotes were demanded in turn, and Glover was kept busy apologizing for the absence of the wolves and the slowness ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... into a gallop I clung on to him till I pulled him up in Truckee, which was at the height of its evening revelries—fires blazing out of doors, bar-rooms and saloons crammed, lights glaring, gaming tables thronged, fiddle and banjo in frightful discord, and the air ringing ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the wealthiest in the South, at a time when all planters were wealthy. They numbered their slaves by thousands. Standing on the broad piazza of one of these Southern homes, one could see the rows of rough huts that made up the negro quarters, and hear faintly the sound of the banjo and rude negro melodies, mingling with the music of piano or harp within the parlor of the mansion-house. Refined by education and travel, the planters of the region about Port Royal made up a courtly society, until war burst upon them, and reduced their estates to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... It sure is a swell rig!" Weary paid generous tribute. "Only I will say old Banjo reminds me of an Irish cook rigged out in silk and diamonds. That outfit on Glory, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Surry,"—when he used the prefix "old" to any one's name, he was always excellently well disposed toward them,—"the Richmond people are prompt this time. Here is your assignment—send for Sweeney and his banjo! He shall play 'Jine the Cavalry!' in honor of ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... greenhouses. After that they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her friends from ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... and put it back in its place ready for use. After this he threw himself upon the settee, took hold of his right leg with his left hand, by the ankle, dragged it up, and held it across his body rigidly as if it were a banjo, and began to strum imaginary strings with his right hand, while in a whisper he sang a song about a yaller gal somewhere in the south, with close-shut eyes and a long wide mouth, and so on, through seven verses, with a chorus to each, all of which seemed to afford him the greatest gratification, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... whose sole luggage is a small bandbox and a large banjo, is without, and requests the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... the Christmas week, from the day after Christmas until the day after New-year, is the negroes' saturnalia! There are usually eight days of incessant dancing, feasting and frolicking from quarter to quarter, and from barn to barn. Then the banjo, the fiddle and the "bones" are heard from morning until night, and ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... whin he falls into th' hands iv his liberators. Whin he's in th' south he can make up his mind to be lynched soon or late an' give his attintion to his other pleasures iv composin' rag-time music on a banjo, an' wurrukin' f'r th' man that used to own him an' now on'y owes him his wages. But 'tis th' divvle's own hardship f'r a coon to step out iv th' rooms iv th' S'ciety f'r th' Brotherhood iv Ma-an where he's been r-readin' a pome on th' 'Future of th' Moke' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... composer and banish the music-critic. Then let there be elected a supervisory board of trusty guardians, men absolutely above the reproach of having played the concertina or plunked staccato tunes on a banjo. Entrust to their care all beautiful music and poetry and prohibit the profane, vulgar, the curious, gaping herd from even so much as a glance at these treasures. For the few, the previous elect, the quintessential in ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... of preparation all ranks were temporarily levelled, and social barriers taken down with the mutual consent of those separated by them; the night-clerk so far unbent as to personally request the colored hall-boy Number Eight to play a banjo solo at the concert, which was to fill in the pauses between the dances, and the chambermaids timidly consulted with the lady telegraph operator and the lady in charge of the telephone, as to whether or not they intended to ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... of wholesome nourishment had been consumed, someone said, 'Let's sing!' and a tuneful hour followed. Nat fiddled, Demi piped, Dan strummed the old banjo, and Emil warbled a doleful ballad about the wreck of the Bounding Betsey; then everybody joined in the old songs till there was very decidedly 'music in the air'; and passers-by said, as they listened smiling: 'Old Plum ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... he ixpicts to see a black face peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... friend," said Hervey; "Robin Hood, but I don't know his real name. He's a good friend of mine, and he can play the banjo only he hasn't got one with him, and I want to get ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... contentment, untainted by remorse over the havoc his traps might wreak on any passing through the gorge below. Rather, doubtless, the memory of those sinister sentinels gave him a sense of safety, on which his serenity was founded. In his lap was a banjo which he thrummed vigorously, with rhythmic precision, if no greater musical art, and head and body and feet, all gave emphasis to the movement. At intervals, his raucous voice rumbled a snatch of song. It was evident that the moonshiner was mellow from ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... amazing coffee-coloured pictures varnished an inch deep, and some stuffed creatures in cases; dotted among the audience, in Sung and out of Snug, the 'Professionals;' among them, the celebrated comic favourite Mr. Banjo Bones, looking very hideous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; beside him, sipping rum-and-water, Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural colours—a ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... for us he sat down before an instrument somewhat like the American piano, called Yong Chum. The music was of a plaintive character, and was lacking in the melody of a Broadwood or a Steinway. Then he played on another instrument which resembled a bandore or banjo and was named Sem Yim. Afterwards he took up a Chinese flute and played a tune, which was out of the ordinary and was withal of a cheerful nature. He then showed us something that was striking and peculiar—a Chinese fiddle with two strings. The bow strings ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... your sleeve, "But it is my leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you did not play either the fiddle or the banjo; you were never an aesthete; you never contributed to ——'s Journal; your name is not Jabez Balfour; you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy departments; I understand you to have lived within your income—why, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she didn't like him nearly so well as the art student who plays a banjo in the orchestra because he needs the money. Peggy ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Mr. Flint's departure. He is not a flying Dutchman. I don't think he wanted to come at all; but he was afraid we might think something had happened if he failed to appear. Ben, the fire needs another log. Mr. Brady, did you bring your banjo, as ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... man. I have never doubted, that, if I should ever give my fancies words, they would rank with the great creations of genius. At the dulcet name of Mellasys a fairy scene grew before my eyes. I seemed to see an army of merry negroes cultivating the sugar-cane to the inspiring music of a banjo band. Ever and anon a company of the careless creatures would pause and dance for pure gayety of heart. Then they would recline under the shade of the wild bandanna-tree,—I know this vegetable only through the artless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... manned by brawny fellows who at other times never saw the world that lay "down below." Hastily reared shacks rose on the floating timber islands and bonfires glowed redly. The crews sang wild songs and strummed ancient tunes on banjo and "dulcimore." They fortified themselves against the bite of the chill night air from the jugs which they never forgot. Sometimes they flared into passion and fought to the death, but oftener they caroused good-naturedly as they watched the world flatten and the rivers broaden ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... wonderful thing about this sound-recording is, that not only are the fundamental tones of musical notes impressed, but also the harmonics, which enable us to decide at once whether the record is one of a cornet, violin, or banjo performance. Furthermore, if several instruments are playing simultaneously near the recorder's horn, the stylus catches all the different shades of tone of every note of a chord. There are, so to speak, minor hills and valleys cut in the slopes ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... white beam through the little square window of old Uncle Tim's cabin, it formed a long panel of light upon its smoke-stained wall, bringing into clear view an old banjo hanging upon a rusty nail. Nothing else in the small room was clearly visible. Although it was Christmas eve, there was no fire upon the broad hearth, and from the open door came the odor of honeysuckles and of violets. Winter is often in Louisiana only a name ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... had been full of pleasure. The yacht had a good supply of provisions on board, and everybody was in the best of spirits. Aleck Pop had brought along his banjo, and on the first evening out had given them half a dozen plantation songs, for he was a good singer as well as player. On the day following the breeze had died away and they had all gone fishing, with fair success. This was the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... barometer of the banjo type in the parlour of the White House, which, whatever might have been its character for veracity in former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the reverse of what ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... came out. It lay in a little hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" of ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... carried it on and on to a golden fruition. In the Luxembourg gallery hangs his picture, "The Raising of Lazarus." At the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, I saw his "Annunciation," both a long way from his "Banjo Lesson," and thinking of him I began to wonder whether, in spite of all the industrial tumult, it were not in the field of art, music and literature that the Negro was to make his highest contribution to American civilization. But this is merely ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... Have it tepid, or as warm as you feel comfortable. If the bath-sheet were warmed you would run no chance of being chilled. The 17th June, 1865, was a Saturday. The violin is not an easy instrument to learn, and requires a good ear; but we should recommend it in preference to the banjo or the concertina. The guitar is ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... the Convalescent Home," piped Mr. Farge; while his friend and devout admirer, Albert Edward Worthington, tore at the banjo strings and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You couldn't do anything on a banjo?" he added doubtfully; "Kearney's ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... with paint, and we called our business 'The Graphic Company.' We had five or six young fellows, all musicians, as well as handy painters, and we used to capture the towns with our music. One fellow could whistle like a nightingale, another sang like an angel, and another played the banjo. I scuffled with ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... fish, fat and wonderfully shaped, which glided about in the tanks and ponds, and then led us into a kind of arbour, where, beneath a kind of wooden eave, an instrument was hanging from a peg. It was not a banjo, for it was too long; and it was not a guitar, for it was too thin, and had not enough strings; but it was something of the kind, and evidently kept there for the use ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... now, for the Griffin, after much further pressing, had made up his mind what he was going to sing. He decided to make a start in a key which was indescribable, and with a voice that resembled the twanging of a banjo that had not ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... spiritual life, but as she grew in the knowledge of God she realized that every gift may be consecrated to God's service. She worked at the piano again; now she wrestled with the concertina, then tackled the banjo. Later they all became useful aids to her in her work ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... blackness, the howling wind, driving rain-squalls, and dashing waves only heightened the interior cosiness, the light, warmth, and general comfort of their floating home. In it they played games, sang songs to the accompaniment of Solon's banjo, told stories, taught the dogs tricks; or, under Billy Brackett's direction, pegged away at engineering problems, such as are constantly arising in the course of railway construction. Even Winn tried his hand at these; for under ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... an astonishing young lady who played the banjo. He has been more fortunate than myself, for I have never had such good luck. They have no accomplishments at all. Housekeeping they have not very much of. You see, houses are small, and households also are small; there is very little furniture; and as the cooking is all the same, there is ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... Mrs. Fuller with Tad and Clifford; young Mr. Carlin from the bank; Mr. and Mrs. Proctor, and their young-lady daughter wearing a marvellous "waterfall"; Angus McMullen, alone, his father detained professionally; Mrs. Cathcart and Georgie; young Bradford carrying his banjo, his wonderful raiment and his air of vast leisure; Welton, the lumberman, red-faced, jolly, popular and ungrammatical. The women guarded baskets. All greeted the Ordes with various degrees of hilarity. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Rattleton got down his banjo and began to put it in tune. A merry party gathered there. One of the strings snapped, and as he was putting on another Harry fell ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... dressing-room under the floor, and Glory sat at a table with a yellow-haired lady and a dark-eyed man. A negro without the burnt cork was twanging a banjo and cracking the ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... exclaimed. "Pas de tout! I must know more people, and not people like priests and these copra dealers. I have read in novels of men who are like gods, who are bold and strong, but who make their women happy. Do you know an officer of the Zelee, with hair like a ripe banana? He is tall and plays the banjo. I saw him one time long ago when the warship was here. He was on the governor's veranda. Oh, that was long ago, but such a young man would be ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the young people fill the long, lazy day with patting and dancing, banjo-playing and watermelon-eating. The elders, for the most part, are absorbed in preparations for the big holiday dinner. By dawn, holes have been dug in the ground and heated for the barbecuing of various meats, and those who hold the honorable posts of cooks are busily engaged in ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... an umbrella-lamp bestowed by a boarder whom Mrs. Oliver had nursed through typhoid fever; a banjo; plenty of books and magazines; and an open fireplace, with a great pitcher of yellow wild-flowers standing ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of music, grows as intense as does their furor in a Methodist revival meeting. They have, too, dances and music peculiar to themselves—jigs and country dances which seem to have no method, yet which are perfectly adapted to and rhythmic with the inspiring abrupt thud of the banjo and the bones. As they dance, they shout and sing, slap their hands and knees, and lose themselves in the enthusiasm of the moment. The negroes look forward to Christmas not less as the season for present-giving than that of frolicking and jollity. Early in the morning they hasten upstairs, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... he said, laughing, "that I met him out one day all dressed in his brave claes—them as might do for a nigger that plays the banjo. 'Off for a spogue?' I says. 'What's a spogue?' he says, looking thunder. 'Nay,' I says, 'you're no'but a dalesman—ax folks up Hendon way,' I says. I was peddling then, but Master Hugh 'counters me another day, and he says, 'Gubblum,' he says, 'I's wanting ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... for him, Sidney had intermittent instruction from professors of both sexes at home. But he learnt practically nothing except the banjo. Horace had to buy him a banjo: it cost the best part of a ten-pound note; still, Horace could do no less. Sidney's stature grew rapidly; his general health certainly improved, yet not completely; he always had a fragile, interesting ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... sing and "swap yarns" for an hour. There were only three musical instruments in the length and breadth of the Bad Lands, the Langs' piano, a violin which "Fiddling Joe" played at the dances over Bill Williams's saloon, and Howard Eaton's banjo. The banjo traveled in state in the mess-wagon of the "Custer Trail," and hour on hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton would play to the dreamy delight of the weary men. The leading spirit of those ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... and a conch shell. Instead there was a long table before a window—a table littered with all sorts of things: a box of revolver cartridges, a rifle laid down in the middle of scattered newspapers, a bottle of oil, more music, a banjo, a fruit jar that did duty as a vase for wild flowers, a half-finished, braided quirt and four silver dollars lying where they had been carelessly flung down. To Mary Hope, reared in a household where dollars were precious things, that last item was the most amazing of all. The Lorrigans must ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... o'sandwich-greased paper'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or "Bass," Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the grass, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are! Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart Banjo-twang makes 'em jar. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... kept thinking wily, and the next P.M. when Nettie and I was downtown I got my hunch. You know that music store on Fourth Street across from the Boston Cash Emporium. It's kept by C. Wilbur Todd, and out in front in a glass case he had a mechanical banjo that was playing 'The Rosary' with variations when we come by. We stopped a minute to watch the machinery picking the strings and in a flash I says to myself, 'I got it! Eureka, California!' I says, 'it's ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... The first lot I have to offer you is a screen,—six foot high,—bring out the screen, Theodore! There it is, gentlemen,—open it out, Theodore! Observe, Gentlemen it is carved rosewood, the panels hand painted, and representing shepherds, and shepherdesses, disporting themselves under a tree with banjo and guitar. Now what am I offered ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... jokes as usual, accompanied by the enthusiastic applause of Rowden. Clifford also played "The Widow Nolan's Goat" upon his banjo, accompanied by the intricate ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... natural musician. He could play "any old instrument," and extract very good music from banjo, guitar, violin, or even an accordion; he also had a fine voice that often aroused the enthusiastic acclaim of his comrades while sitting around ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... of the voice the singer paused, gayly flicked the strings of the banjo, then put her hand flat upon them to stop the vibration and smiled round on her admirers. The group were applauding heartily. A chorus said, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... the tree above him. Some new danger, he thought, but he dared not take his eyes from the yellow green orbs before him. There was a sharp twang as of a broken banjo-string, and at the same instant an arrow appeared in the yellow hide of the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... beads. One lot of very fluffy summer frocks with flowers on them. One rose-garden. One banjo and a self-teacher. (And a sound-proof room.) One set Arabian Nights. One set of Stevenson, all but his novels. Ever so many Maxfield Parrish pictures full of Prussian-blue skies. A house to put them in, with fireplaces. A lady's size motor-car that likes me. A plain cat with a ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... comedians, whose home was in the United States and who were going to Australia for the purpose of filling an engagement at Sidney, and to whose ability as musicians and skill in handling the guitar and banjo we were indebted for a great deal of pleasure before reaching our destination; Colonel J. M. House and a Mr. Turner, both from Chicago, where they did business at the stock yards, and who were hale and hearty fellows, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... been casually mentioned, the Negro Folk Rhyme was used for the dance. There are Negro Folk Rhyme Dance Songs and Negro Folk Dance Rhymes. An example of the former is found in "The Banjo Picking," and of the latter, "Juba," both found in this collection. The reader may wonder how a Rhyme simply repeated was used in the dance. The procedure was as follows: Usually one or two individuals ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... the waiter brought off their baggage in the boat. Among the effects of Griffin Leeds I noticed a violin-case. Tom Sands, the cabin-waiter, whom I had obtained at Jacksonville, played the banjo in the most artistic manner. Neither of the waiters were any common sort of colored men; and I soon found that race distinctions were vastly more insisted on by these men than by any white man on board, unless it was ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... the most interesting time for Ken. There was always something lively going on. He wondered when the boys studied. When some of the outside students dropped in there were banjo and guitar playing, college songs, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... relieve the gray Calvinistic tone of that sedate institution. It was he who had transformed the old "college chorus"—it had been a "chorus" almost from the foundation—into a glee club, and he had organized the first guitar and banjo club. The pleasant glow he left behind him still hung over the campus when Fred entered four years later. Charles's meteoric social career had dimmed the fact (save to a few sober professors) that he had got through by the skin of his teeth. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed. There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano-organist—I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed—they never would be missed! Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... drawings—they're a pleasure— In the May Century pictured brave.) It was a miracle of rare device, Costing "a pile," but cheap at any price! A damsel with a five-stringed "Jo" In a vision once I saw; It was an Alabama maid, And on her banjo light she played, Singing of sweet Su-san-nah! Could I revive within me Amphion's lyric song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me As the music loud and long That sure did raise this dome in air, That mighty dome!—those halls of price! COLUMBIA'S magic set them there, And all who see cry, "Rare! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... of the bridge, made complete circles by the reflexion of the water, sustained, as if by some unifying and justifying reason, the erratic flat flashes and streaks and glares of traffic that fretted to and fro overhead. A voice sang intermittently and a banjo tinkled, but remotely enough to ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... blue gray shadows with columns touched into ivory whiteness by the lights of door and window. A low line of hills loomed beyond, painted of silver gray against the backdrop of starry sky and the pallor of moon mists. From the porch came the desultory tinkle of a banjo and the voices of young people singing and in a pause between songs more than once the boy heard a laugh—a laugh which he recognized. He could even make out a scrap of light color which must be her dress. Such were the rewards of his night watch, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... a tall, handsome black fellow, with white teeth and bright eyes, and he could play the fiddle and pick the banjo, and knock the bones and cut the pigeon-wing, and, besides all that, he was the best hoe-hand, and could pick more cotton than any other negro on the plantation. He had amused himself by courting and flirting with all of the negro ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... thoughtfully. "It was so. I heard Sadler tune that to his banjo the night we got to Colon. Abe's got that kind of a memory, which is loose but gluey. It was so. Sadler meant old ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... hurriedly took his watch from his pocket and Mr. Simms turned to look at the old banjo clock in his office, and both men quickly said in one voice: "Oh, no, Jake! You have plenty of time to get off and make ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... room on the second floor was dubbed the "music room," Vicky said, because there was a banjo in it. Sometimes the guests brought more banjos and a concert of glees and college songs would ensue. But more often, as to-night, it was a little haven of rest and peace from the ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... notice. On with the dance! Faster and faster the black men played. I was dimly aware now that they were standing on their chairs, bellowing, and fancied the end must be near. Then we were washed into a quiet backwater, in a corner, and from here I determined never to issue till the Last Banjo should indeed sound. Here I sidled vaguely about for a long time, hoping that I looked like a man preparing for some vast culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a double-Jazz-spin or an ordinary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... constructed of crumbling red brick, with a rusty, barred iron door secured by a heavy padlock. As they approached this structure, which was sufficiently forbidding in appearance to depress the most lighthearted, the strumming of a banjo became audible, accompanying a mellow Negro voice which was singing, to a very ragged ragtime air, words of which the burden ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... cropped and curling all over her head; who answered indifferently to the name of William or Bill; whose speech was heavy with the flowers of the vernacular; who could act in amateur theatricals, play on the banjo, rule eight servants and two horses, their accounts and their diseases, and look men slowly and deliberately between the eyes—even after they had proposed to her ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... sixteenth birthday, young Riley turned his back on the little schoolhouse and for a time wandered through the different fields of art, indulging a slender talent for painting until he thought he was destined for the brush and palette, and then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted to travel with a circus, and dangle my legs before admiring thousands over ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... fatigue in the joyous scenes which followed. The fiddle and the banjo, animated as it would seem like living things, literally knew no rest, night or day; while Terpichore covered her face in absolute despair in the presence of that famous double-shuffle with which ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... be described as lively. We belong, however, to an eminently practical generation, and some business was really transacted. The night for the Malgamite ball was fixed, and a list of stewards drawn up; and then the Hon. Rupert played the banjo. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... High-pitched, garbled words, brass bands, flags, speeches.... Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord but we don't want the Bacon, All we Want is a Piece of the Rhine(d).... A brass monkey playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" on a red banjo.... Allons, les enfants ... le jour de gloire est arrive! You tell 'em, kid! Store fronts, cabarets, hotel lobbies, sign-boards, office buildings all become shining citadels of righteousness beleaguered by the powers of darkness. Newspaper headlines exploding like firecrackers ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... their meal was finished, and tin cups and plates had been put aside, the officer took from its nail an old banjo, and began strumming. Presently he was singing, and his rich, clear voice, admirably suited to the time, place and surroundings, filled the little cabin and floated across to the green where the Indians camped. Song followed song, and the guide continually puffed ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the twenty-five or thirty men in the place. All appeared to be strangers to him. He began to assort their faces, as one searches for something in a heap, trying to fix on one that looked mean enough to belong to a Hargus. A mechanical banjo suddenly added its metallic noise to the din, fit music, it seemed, for such obscene company. Some started to dance lumberingly, with high-lifted legs and ludicrous ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... entertainment was awful enough, if deadly mediocrity is awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel show, sang "My Alabama Coon," accompanying himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could have heard the same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However, the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing enjoyable and applauded loudly. Then a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... who prided himself on being able to play any tune on the banjo after he had heard it once, perched himself on the side of a hill one Sunday morning and began to pick the strings ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... about with a comb and a piece of tissue-paper at my lips like any kid. I once made a banjo out of a cigar-box and bale wire, and while I was in the Kougarok I walked ten miles to hear a nigger play a harmonica. I did all sorts of things to coax music into this country, but it is silent and unresponsive, absolutely ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... suffer!" she mocked him, languidly; and then, like a banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... glib tongue and a ready, rude wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement. He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not singing. Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in company with John, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... upwards, the high nasal note of the predominant Americans, the shrill laughter of girls quick to appreciate the wit of such of their male companions as thought it worth while to be amusing. A young man was playing the banjo. In the distance a barrel-organ was grinding out a pot pourri of popular airs. Anna raised her eyes. Above the housetops it was different. She drew a long breath. After all, why need one look down. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... He packed up his Banjo and the Military Brushes and left Number Two marooned in the Rat Pit with the Oak Dresser and the Pictures of Anna ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... days warn't dese here huggin' kind of dances lak dey has now. Dere warn't no Big Apple nor no Little Apple neither. Us had a house wid a raised flatform (platform) at one end whar de music-makers sot. Dey had a string band wid a fiddle, a trumpet, and a banjo, but dere warn't no guitars lak dey has in dis day. One man called de sets and us danced de cardrille (quadrille) de virginia reel, and de 16-hand cortillion. When us made syrup on de farm dere would always be a candy pullin'. Dat homemade syrup made real good candy. Den us would have ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... from Miss Blake, a banjo from her father, skates from Delia, she had longed for just such a new pair, and innumerable other articles bearing no giver's name, but coming, every one, from the same generous source Nan knew well enough. She absolutely lost her head in the delight ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... earlier stages of the work, gasoline lamps and Kitson lights were used. The former, of the familiar banjo type, and a modification of this, with a section of wrought-iron pipe for the reservoir, were very unsatisfactory, and were out of repair and leaking a large proportion of the time. The Kitson lights were given only a short trial, but were found unsatisfactory, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... up my banjo an' I plays a little chune, An' you see dem hai'ds come peepin' out to listen mighty soon. Den my wife say, "Sich a pappy fer to give you sich a fright! Jes' you go to bed, an' leave him, say yo' prayers, an' say ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... flower-girls sthrewin' r-roses an' geranyums befure him. In th' afthernoon they was a lawn tinnis party, an' at night the gin'ral attinded a banket at th' Gran' Palace Hotel. At midnight he was serenaded be th' Raymimber th' Maine Banjo an' Mandolin Club. Th' entire popylace attinded, with pork chops in their buttonholes to show their pathreetism. Th' nex' day, afther breakfastin' with Mayor Casey, he set out on his weary march over th' r-rough, flower-strewn paths f'r San Joon. He has been in gr-reat purl fr'm ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... the Banner Boy Scouts were just as merry as before. A banjo had been brought along, and to the plunkety-plunk of its tuneful music they sang every popular song known ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... or strewn upon the grass in various attitudes, these dusky children of misfortune watched the performance of an exceedingly black old uncle, who, sitting upon a bench before his cabin, was picking the strings of a banjo almost as old as himself. His bald head, surrounded by a fringe of gray wool, shone brightly in the firelight, he was rocking his body rhythmically backwards and forwards, and keeping time with one foot ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... with Rob, as they followed along, Betty did not notice where they were going, until the strumming of a banjo and loud singing drew her attention to the fact that they were ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... seventeen, and yet as simple and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung |
