"Bareback" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our profession, ma'am. The thinner the better for tight-ropes and tumblin'; likewise bareback-ridin' and spry jugglin'. Muscle's the thing, and there ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... they seemed to be more enraged than ever. The longer they thought about this "tief," the wrathier they grew. Simon's hunting shirt had been stripped from him, so that he was naked from the waist up. Now they brought in the wildest of the horses—an unbroken young colt. They mounted Simon upon him bareback, his hands tied behind him and his feet tied together under the colt's belly. They turned the frenzied colt loose; away he fled, prancing and rearing through the brush, bearing ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... another half-hour the graders began to arrive. They came riding in bareback, sometimes two on one horse, flourishing their guns—a hundred or more red-faced Irishmen spoiling for a fight. Their advent eased Neale's dread. Still, a strange feeling weighed upon him and he could not understand it or shake it. He had no optimism for the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... bareback with a rope halter. Bud was bareheaded and in his sock feet. His eyes were terribly blue and bright, and his face was flushed as a drunken man's. He glanced over to the bank where the women and children were ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... I don't, not me, ma'am. It ain't all that way, with nothing but waiting and wanting, and then disappointment. Even Maggie had her good times somewhere in the past. You can't expect to be always dressed in spangles and riding bareback, that's what I used to say to her. You've got to take your share of bad times, same as the rest of us. And look at me now. I've done sick nursing for more'n fifty years—as far back as I like to look—but it ain't all been sick nursing. There's ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... Bareback, he thought, would be like the days when he had taken what he could from the rush of the streets, joy, exhilaration, life, and he was not afraid. He wanted to stand ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... anywhere except to church, Sunday school and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze performance, clowns and chariot races bewildered the country boy. Next morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "Dear Aunt, if you'll go to one circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live." But he did go to prayer meeting and became ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... great deal more heart!" she said to herself. "Rita only laughs at people when she is in one of her bad moods. Dear Rita! I wonder where she is to-day. And Peggy is driving the mowing machine, she writes; mowing hundreds of acres, and riding bareback, and having a ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... my dear Madame, to ride a stunted, half-starved pony, as you say 'bareback,' and another thing to ride a conditioned British Hunter (he pronounced it huntaw) without a saddle. I must say that the latter is an impossibility." The oracle came to an end and the material Major began on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... fellow in him. He's the raw material of a great artist and a good citizen. All he wants is somebody to take him in hand and keep him from makin' an ass of himself and kickin' over the traces generally, and ridin' two or three horses bareback at once." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... more he surveyed the mystic circle of figures. He had never been so close to men and women in tights before. Somehow they were not so alluring as when viewed from the blue seats of the circus tent. The fluffy, abbreviated tarletan skirts of two women bareback riders who stood not more than two yards away seemed tawdry and flimsy at close range; the pink fleshings of the world's greatest somersault artist looked rumpled and fuzzy; the zouave costume of the lady rope-walker lost its satiny sheen through propinquity; the clown was ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the heavy reins in her small gloved hands. Her horse was scrubby, but she rode well, as do all Marquesans, her supple body following his least movement and her slim, silk-stockinged legs clinging as though she were riding bareback. When the swollen river threatened to wet her varnished slippers, she perched herself on the saddle, feet and all, and ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... would be proud of her, of course. She practised assiduously to perfect her piano playing. That was something that would show out in Bullhide and on the ranch. Uncle Bill would crow over her playing just as he did over her bareback riding. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... in our profession, ma'am. The thinner the better for tight-ropes and tumblin'; likewise bareback ridin' and spry jugglin'. Muscle's the thing, and ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... much before 1500 B.C. For a long time after the horse was tamed, the more manageable ox continued to be used as the beast of burden. The horse was kept for chariots of war, as among the Egyptians, or ridden bareback in races, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... "The Signor Conte ride bareback on a donkey! They would laugh at you. But my brother-in-law can sell you a beast this very day, and for a ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... her own home from sheer dauntlessness of spirit. Many were the tales told in the Oa of her wild outlandish doings; how she would dress up in her brother's clothes and drive madly all over the country; how she could ride an unbroken colt bareback, and shoot like a man, things which everyone in the Oa knew no right-minded young woman could ever learn. And hadn't Store Thompson's wife been, as she declared, clean scandalised by seeing the hussy cross the Oro at the spring floods, standing erect in ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... brother, who ever became an author, certainly an author of fiction, and so I cannot speak on the subject with authority. But in the case of Richard, if he was not born an author, certainly no other career was ever considered. So far as I know he never even wanted to go to sea or to be a bareback rider in a circus. A boy, if he loves his father, usually wants to follow in his professional footsteps, and in the case of Richard, he had the double inspiration of following both in the footsteps of his father and in those of his mother. For years before ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... these girls reminds me that I, too, was once young—and where are the friends of my youth? I have found one of 'em, certainly. I saw him ride in the circus the other day on a bareback horse, and even now his name stares at me from yonder board-fence, in green, and blue, and red, and yellow letters. Dashington, the youth with whom I used to read the able orations of Cicero, and who, as a declaimer on exhibition days, used to wipe the rest of us boys pretty handsomely ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... hurrying up on foot. They had seen a bull moose not far away. Instantly all was confusion. The horses were not saddled. One of the guides gave me his and flung me on it. The Little Boy made his first essay at bareback riding. In a wild scamper we were off, leaping logs and dodging trees. The Little Boy fell off with a terrific thud, and sat up, looking extremely surprised. And when we had got there, as clandestinely as a steam calliope in a circus ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... they all were, whatever they are called—those things that make a perfect, finished, spal-en-did, be-yeu-ti-ful circus. There were hoops with tissue paper pasted over them, to be jumped through by the most wonderful bareback riders on earth, and old Tom, grandmother's own horse, was perfectly safe as a trained Arabian steed, when 'Bijah was there to see how the thing was managed. Everything was safe and sure and delightful when ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... ministers from New England, 5,000 presidents of colleges, and 5,000 solid business men, and their families, and take them to Santo Domingo; and then you will see the effect of climate. The second generation, you will see barefooted boys riding bareback on a mule, with their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... they must have had some reason behind. They knew well that to cut our straps would not prevent us from reaching Paris, since we could ride bareback, or, for that matter, could run it ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to persuade him, without avail. Then Ladd started off, riding bareback. Mercedes fell in behind, with Gale walking beside her. The two pack animals came next, and ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... a "grown up young lady" she seemed to consider herself. Yet she broke out now and then in wild, tomboyish activities, racing with Russ and Frane, Junior, climbing fences and trees, and riding horses bareback in the home lot. It seemed as though Phil, as they called her, "held in" just as long as she could, trying to put on the airs of grown-ups, and then just had to ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... case of retraction of the testicle reported in a young soldier of twenty-one who, when first seen, complained of a swelling in the right groin. He stated that while riding bareback his horse suddenly plunged and threw him on the withers. He at once felt a sickening pain in the groin and became so ill that he had to dismount. On inspection an oval tumor was seen in the groin, tender to the touch and showing ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... younger kinsmen were stirring about unwontedly, going and coming through the hall of the mansion, along its verandas and up and down its outer flight of stairs. Gates were opening and shutting, errands were being carried by negro boys on bareback horses, Charlie Mandarin of St. Bernard parish and an Armand Fusilier from Faubourg Ste. Marie had on some account come—as they told the ladies—"to take breakfast;" and the ladies, not yet informed, amusedly wondering ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... first buoyant moment, and what Red Jim Perris read of the stallion surpassed his fondest dreams. A yell of wonder rose from Hervey and his charging troop. They had seen Red Jim come battered and exhausted from his struggle with the stallion the day before, and now he sat upon the bareback of ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... Miss Fairfield," Ethel said; "you see, everybody is an animal or a clown or a bareback rider, or something that belongs to a circus. Bob Riggs is ringmaster, and they all obey him. He's awfully funny, and whatever he has to do with, is ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... climbed through the window and down the kitchen roof, and let myself down to the ground. Some more men came past, and I hid on the porch and slipped over to the horse barns and found a hackamore, and went down to the corral and hunted around till I found this little pinto—she's the best to ride bareback." ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... heard the whoops of the Indians, followed by shots in the vicinity of the mule herd, which had been taken down to water. One of the herders came dashing into camp with an arrow sticking into him. My horse was close at hand, and, mounting him bareback, I at once dashed off after the mule herd, which had been stampeded. I supposed that certainly I would be the first man on the ground, but I was mistaken, however, for the Pawnee Indians, unlike regular soldiers, had not waited to receive orders from their ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... assented the trail boss; "with me it's an old story. Hadn't no more sabe than to lend his gun to some prowling tenderfoot. More than likely he urged its loan on this short-horn. Yes, I know Colonel Forrest; I've known him to bet his saddle and ride bareback as the result. It shows his cow-sense. Rather shallow-brained to be allowed ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... is in town, the natural inclination of every healthy boy is to be a clown or bareback rider, but it does not follow, that if his inclinations are gratified, it is the best course he can pursue. Some of the most magnificent talents, on the other hand, lie dormant until they are carefully called out and trained ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... bareback. The small boy slid off his pony's back; the other rode up to him and raised his quirt, but the little one seized him by the leg, and in a jiffy they were in the road fighting like cats. I asked Mrs. O'Shaughnessy to drive on, but she said, "If you are in a hurry you can try walkin'; ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... take themselves seriously, whenever such plays are available. It should be the business, therefore, of the critics (the people who are really concerned to improve the public taste in plays) to lead the public in the right direction; away, that is, from the Bareback Theatre, and towards those theatres whose managers have other than financial standards. But it is unfortunately the fact that they don't do this. Without meaning it, they lead the public the wrong way. They mislead them simply because they have two standards of criticism—which the public ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... 1756, must have looked brilliant enough as they rode away through the dark woods. First came the colonel, mounted of course on the finest of animals, for he loved and understood horses from the time when he rode bareback in the pasture to those later days when he acted as judge at a horse-race and saw his own pet colt "Magnolia" beaten. In this expedition he wore, of course, his uniform of buff and blue, with a white ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... "almost a hoiden," the neighbors said. She rode the ponies bareback; she played boys' games, and at twelve looked as though the problem of health could never complicate her glad, young life. But cough and hemorrhage, twin specters, stalked in at sixteen and the poor child fairly melted away and was gone in ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... I knew the Madigan boys could go fishing whenever they pleased, that the Madigan girls picked the blackberries before any one else could get out to them, that every member of the family could pack up and go picnicking for days at a time, and that any stray horse was likely to be ridden bareback, within an inch of its life, by the younger members ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... street in front of the house horses' hoofs were heard clattering briskly, and Olenin, riding bareback on a handsome dark-grey horse which was still wet and shining, rode up to the gate. Maryanka's handsome head, tied round with a red kerchief, appeared from the shed and again disappeared. Olenin was wearing a red silk shirt, a white ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... pummel, and holding on to the mane. Fodder was frightened by the cries, and ran like a race-horse, kicking up his heels, and indeed rendered Ralph's position somewhat perilous. But that gentleman was experienced, from earliest infancy, in riding bareback, and held on. He ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... formidable hunters now appeared in their turn upon the arena. A dozen of the wild horses, which they had seen before, were now seen galloping wildly over the plain, while some Indians, mounted bareback on their horses (having taken their saddles off for greater speed), with their knees almost up to their chins, were pursuing the terrified animals. At first there were but three Indians visible; but one by one about twenty appeared, some armed with lances, and others brandishing ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... other way," said Marco. "I wonder if there are any saddles. Twelve miles would be too far to ride bareback." ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... happens; and you do well, Gabriell', not to trust our girl off alone again. Not right to once. Where's she hankerin' to travel now? She'd ought to be learnt to sew patchwork, instead of riding all over the country, hitherty-yender, a bareback on a broncho or a burro. If she ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... to say, actually started out yit," the old man grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers, hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain clodhoppers ain't in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to throw twenty-dollar ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... one saddle, so Dilsey was riding "bareback," and had to sit astride of the donkey to keep from falling off, which so amused the children that merry peals of laughter rang out from time to time; indeed, Dumps laughed so much, that, if Mr. Smith had not held her tightly, she certainly would have fallen off. But it was not ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... a young and attractive girl bareback rider on a cantering white horse inscribing wondrous circles upon a stage exquisitely in harmony with herself and her white or black horse as the case might be; a rich cloth of gold backdrop carefully suffused with rose. There could be ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... great bareback feat She kindly but firmly declines to repeat, Though Gounod and Goldsmith implore ...
— An Alphabet of Celebrities • Oliver Herford
... he said admiringly, "look there; there's that Mr Gerrard a-gallopin' 'is 'orse down to the creek for a swim bareback. ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Leigh. You happened on what I managed you should, else that long circus performance with Mademoiselle Rosella Gimpkello, famous bareback rider, had not been put on the ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... "Can you ride bareback?" he was inquiring in his shrill treble. "Bob can; but he said I mustn't try because it ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... dull razor. Three or four months had scarce elapsed before several elderly ladies were observed hastening toward the house of a poor woman in the village, while others were running to and fro in great apparent distress. One or two boys were mounted, bareback, on horses, and sent off at speed in various directions. Several indirect questions were put concerning the place where the physician was last seen; but all would not do; and at length Elnathan ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the table with two sofa-cushions to prop him up in his armchair (and acted like a little barbarian) and Peter nearly broke his neck to make himself as pleasant as possible, chattering like a magpie and reminding me of a circus-band trying to make the crowd forget the bareback rider who's just been carried out on a stretcher. But Constraint was there, all the while, first in the form of Dinky-Dunk's unoccupied chair, which remained that way until dinner was two-thirds through, and then ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... "I want to ride bareback in the Row in tights and spangles at 1 p. m. on Sundays," shrieked a soberly clad suburban lady, who sported a wedding-ring. "I want to move the world with my pen or the point of my toe; I want to write, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... saddle. I'm going to ride him bareback, with a rope over his nose. Let me have your spurs, will you? Did you hear them say I won the duel with luck? I'll show these greasers what a gringo can do!" He spoke in Spanish, to show his contempt of their opinion ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... grooming, feeding, and watering, the "trivial round" which makes up so much of the life of a driver. As a very humble representative of that class, my horses were two "spares," that is, not allotted to any team. Much to my disgust, I was not even provided with a saddle, and had to do my work bareback, which filled me with indignation at the time, but only makes me smile now. My roan was always a sort of a pariah among the sub-division horses, an incorrigible kicker and outcast, having to be picketed on a peg outside the lines for his misdeeds. Many a ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers |
