"Drummer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and of transition followed. Musset was not disposed to play the part of the small drummer-boy inciting the romantic battalion to the double-quick. He began to be aware of his own independence. He was romantic, but he had wit and a certain intellectual good-sense; he honoured Racine together with Hugo; he could not merge his individuality in a school. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the editor—whether you believe it or not—is just as "human" as you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely and straight from the shoulder—also briefly, because he is a busy man—state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... noise. Willis mentions the case of a person who could only hear when a drum was beaten near her; and we are told of a woman who could not hear a word except when the sound of a drum was near, in which case she could hear perfectly well. When she married, her husband hired a drummer for his servant. In instances of this kind the noise probably excites the action of the torpid muscles, which then put the apparatus in ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... gone up to the first floor of the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and the drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. Madame Bovary took Rodolphe's arm; he saw her home; they separated at her door; then he walked about alone in the meadow while he waited for the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... morning, which was cold and drizzly, a "pragmatical" drummer went out from the nearer trench, beating his drum for a parley, lest his person should be dismissed without ceremony ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Hans Michel Martens talking French, and could understand every word he spoke, though there was no understanding in anything he said. We must know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. Parbleu! how much do I not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house, who looked like a devil, and yet had the good heart of an angel, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... said. Mr. Drummer, or something—I never did get the name of the folks—found three of them trying to break into his safe, and they knocked him down and half-killed him, and the servants chased them, and then everyone took a hand! It was fine ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... a dance, in which many performers assisted, all of whom were provided with little bells, which were fastened to their legs and arms; and here, too, the drum regulated their motions. It was beaten with a crooked stick, which the drummer held in his right hand, occasionally using his left to deaden the sound, and thus vary the music. The drama is likewise applied on these occasions to keep order among the spectators, by imitating the sound of certain Mandingo sentences. For example, when the wrestling-match is about to begin, the ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... the men—of various sorts, indicating that they are from many commands—are in shreds and spotted with stains of mould and earth; their heads are bound in cloths so that their faces are covered. The single drummer at the side of the column carries slung from his shoulder the shell of a drum. No flag flies from the staff at the column's head, but the staff is ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to account for the commotion among the horses, and slipping the knife into his pocket, entered the saloon from which he emerged unobserved while the boisterous crowd was refilling its glasses at the solicitation of a white goods drummer who had been among the first to accept ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... whence he laughed at the enemies of his king. Dunbar, however, who was on shore engaged in the business of the surrender, was held as a prisoner. The Whigs were not much nearer taking the Bass. On September 3 they sent a sergeant and a drummer to offer a free pardon to the Cavaliers. They were allowed to land on the rock, but Middleton merely laughed at the promise of a free pardon, and he kept the sergeant and drummer, whom he afterwards released. A Danish ship, sailing between the Bass and shore, had a gun fired across ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... impartial, and distributed her kind looks to everybody. She had not the slightest prejudice against color, and did not care in the least whether her particular friends were black or white. Her especial favorites, I think, were the little drummer-boys, who were not my favorites by any means, for they were a roguish set of little scamps, and gave more trouble than all the grown men in the regiment. I think Annie liked them because they were small, and made a noise, and had red ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Lichtenstein, Major-General of the Austrian army. A heavy rain fell without cessation, and the prisoners were amazed to see the Emperor, who had not taken off his boots for a week, wet through, covered with mud, and more tired than the humblest drummer. When some one spoke of it, he said to Prince Lichtenstein: "Your Emperor wanted to remind me that I was a soldier. I hope he will acknowledge that the throne and the Imperial purple have not made me forget ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the alarm had been given, and the Germans, seeing that their attempt to possess themselves of the person of General Leman had failed, retired. The guard, which comprised some fifty men, fired repeatedly on the retreating party. Some fifty Germans, including a standard-bearer and a drummer, were killed. Others ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... geocentric hypothesis, which is not true." In fact, he did his best to get larger "mercy." And he shall have it; and at a length which shall content him, unless his mecometer be an insatiable apparatus. But I fear that in other respects I shall no more satisfy him than the Irish drummer satisfied the poor culprit when, after several times changing the direction of the stroke at earnest entreaty, he was at last provoked to call out, "Bad cess to ye, ye spalpeen! strike where one will, there's no ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... thoroughly unless we learn it together. So we shall both serve our apprenticeship, and we do not mean to be treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices who are not there for fun; why should not we actually be apprenticed? Peter the Great was a ship's carpenter and drummer to his own troops; was not that prince at least your equal in birth and merit? You understand this is addressed not to Emile but to you—to you, whoever ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... singers, his chef-d'oeuvre "Oh! silver [query Sylvia] is a charming thing," and "The Helmingham Wolunteers." That famous corps was raised by Lord Dysart to repel "Bony's" threatened invasion; its drummer was John Noble, afterwards the wheelwright in Monk Soham. Once after drill Lord Dysart said to him: "You played that very well, John Noble;" and "I know't, my lord, I know't," was John's answer—an answer that has passed into a Suffolk proverb, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... recommend them," he said. "There was a drummer stopped here last week who said they smelled just like real Havanas. I bought two ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... There was another drummer, who worked hard to earn his salary, whatever it might be; and then came the body-guard, armed with axes, assegais, and kiris, one and all looking, as Dinny said, as if they were the finest fellows ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... about three miles, the water often up to their chins; and they then camped on a hillock for the night. Clark kept the troops cheered up by every possible means, and records that he was much assisted by "a little antic drummer," a young boy who did good service by making the men laugh with his pranks and jokes. [Footnote: Law, in his "Vincennes" (p. 32), makes the deeds of the drummer the basis for a traditional story that is somewhat too highly colored. Thus he makes Clark's men at one time ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... one known as Little Pete, a German drummer of Reidesel's Hessian corps, captured with Burgoyne's army. Brought to Stockbridge and quartered there as a prisoner he had continued to live in the town since the war. Abner had somewhere procured an old drum for Pete, and with this hung about his neck, the sticks in his ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... starry shield, supported by two crossed cannon cut out of tin and surmounted by the national bird in the same material, which hung proudly over the transom outside; in spite of the drummer-boy from the fort, who broke the silence into slivers at intervals throughout the day; in brief, in spite of his own martial bearing and smart uniform, the sergeant found trade very slack. At Rivermouth the war with Mexico was not a ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... lit a cigar, like men, by Jove! Clifton loved to talk business, to pull out notebooks, quick, and jot things down with a knowing air. Trampy, a mere boy, easy-going, genial, without a red cent for the time being, didn't care a hang about business and was soon telling Clifton the story of his life: drummer, reporter, racer; his descent,—"Two whiskies, boy!"—what was he saying? Oh, yes, his descent of a staircase on the bike, yes, siree, with a red-hot stove under his arm—a stove painted to look red-hot—pursued by a policeman, leaping over obstacles on the bike; great success at Duluth and ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... he reached the springy life net he straightened out and came down feet first, bouncing up, and down like a rubber ball. The instant he landed the bass drum gave forth a thundering "boom," and as Joe rose, and came down again, the drummer punctuated each descent with a bang, until the crowd that had applauded madly at the jump was laughing at the queer effect of Joe's bouncing to ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... other end. The British fleet attacked it and was beaten off. There was now no hope for Cornwallis. No help could reach him by sea. The soldiers of the allies outnumbered him two to one. On October 17, 1781, four years to a day since the surrender of Burgoyne, a drummer boy appeared on the rampart of Yorktown and beat a parley. Two days later the British soldiers marched out to the good old British tune of "The world turned upside down," and laid down ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper, revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest drummer. They were soon going to have a ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... was to get him. As far as I could judge, the crowd imagined us to be great officers; at any rate our coming drew away the listeners from the waggon. They came flocking to our heels as though we were the Duke himself. A drummer beat up a quickstep; the crowd surged forward. We marched across the fields to Lyme, five hundred strong. One of the men, plucking a sprig of hawthorn from the hedge, asked me to wear it in my hat as the Duke's badge, which I did. He called me "Captain." "Captain," ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... I tried to get on the track of his folks when Stormont turned me down. Talked to packing-house drummers at a department store in Winnipeg where I was employed, and found a man who sold Strange canned goods when he ran a grocery business. The drummer had known him pretty well and told me Miss Strange was in Toronto. By and by, when trade was slack in Winnipeg, the firm sent some of the clerks to their Toronto store and I bothered the department boss until ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... "platform," went to church and giggled like a schoolgirl, and rocked madly on the veranda in a rickety rocking-chair, demurely tolerant of the adoration of two boys working their way through, college, a smartly dressed and very confident drummer doing his two weeks, and several assorted and ardent young men who, at odd moments, had persuaded her to straw rides and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... Sunday clothes," panted Mrs. Bolum, when she reached the floor again. Stepping back, she eyed him critically. "You look handsomer than a drummer," she cried admiringly. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... Chief Edem, "then you must take two armed men with you. You must get the chief of the next village to send his drummer with you. When the people hear the drum, they will know that a protected person is traveling who must not ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann
... drummer boys, or ship's boys, or little ship's officers, were kept in the Palace and trained as singers and dancers for Tippoo's amusement. Very many of the white prisoners were handed over to Tippoo by Admiral Sufferin. Though how a Christian could have brought himself ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... veiled for the moment as she read, half aloud: "L. Middleton—with Frank Brothers. Dealers in first-class canned goods," the New York address being in the corner. The feeling of disappointment only lasted for a moment, for was not a travelling man, as the drummer is always called in country towns, a person of experience and knowledge of the world, as well as being not infrequently shrouded in mystery? As she pondered on the card, wondering if she dared put it in her pocket, he said in a matter-of-fact way, again ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... to their traditions and their mode of life and generally pestiferous in their influence and results. So came advertising in all its branches, direct and indirect, from the newspaper and the bill-board to the drummer, the diplomatic ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... life we have led since then! You can't imagine it, my dear. He has been a tavern-keeper, a drummer,—everything! Why, last summer we sold rugs and Turkish things in Atlantic City! But he is always afraid of meeting someone who knows him, and—and he drinks too much. So we have not got on in the world, Ned and I; and now, after three years, I'm the leading lady ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... formed with one child in the middle, who is called the "drummer-man." Whatever this child does the others mimic, moving round as they do so, and ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... purpose of finding his prospects, I had some of his friends interviewed, and managed to learn that the friend on whom Maroney principally relied to furnish bail, was one whom he had met in the South when he was a drummer, but who had now become a ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... the other yellow. He had a calico shirt that was spotted, speckled and striped in gay colors, and on each of his hands was a round piece of brass. These pieces of brass were called "cymbals," and the Calico Clown could bang them together as the drummer bangs ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... The drummer, Long Jorgen, beat furiously with the thicker ends of his drumsticks; men with hoarse voices, and boys with shrill notes like those of sea-gulls, rushed through ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... front of her squares, the cordial grasp of hand-in-hand with which they form to resist all masculine charges, no one would imagine the ruthless severity with which woman was breaking some poor drummer-boy inside. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... were precious. Being on foot myself, no man could complain, and we generally went at the double-quick, with occasional rests. The road lay along Deer Creek, passing several plantations; and occasionally, at the bends, it crossed the swamp, where the water came above my hips. The smaller drummer-boys had to carry their drums on their heads, and most of the men slang their cartridge-boxes around their necks. The soldiers generally were glad to have their general and field officers afoot, but we gave them a fair specimen of marching, accomplishing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat." In strictness this woman could hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch "Drummer of Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of revenge, ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Paul Revere, and other patriots, during the Revolution. It was called the Green Dragon Tavern after the Revolution, and at one time the Freemasons' Arms. Daniel Simpson, the veteran drummer, was at one time its landlord. The Scots' Charitable Society frequently held its meetings there. The Green Dragon building, extending through from Union to (new) Washington street, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... in the town was something pandemoniacal. Only three drums were found, but tin kettles and pans were not wanting, and these, superintended by Hugh Barr, the town drummer, did great execution. Three key-bugles, an old French horn, and a tin trumpet of a mail-coach guard, were sounded at intervals in every quarter of the town, while the men were marshalled, and made to march hither ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... the hunter, Fire to warm and food to nourish, Golden trout from Gitchee Gumee, Caught by Kk-kh-g—the Raven. With a snare he caught the rabbit— Caught Wabse, the furry footed, [7] Caught Peny, the forest drummer; [7] Sometimes with his bow and arrows, Shot the red deer in the forest. Shot the squirrel in the pine top, Shot Ne-k, the wild goose, flying. Proud as Waub-Ojeeg, the warrior, To the lodge he bore his trophies So when ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... another one. Sure, just what you called it a minute ago. The old line of stuff. They pulled that. They tried to scare me. Me! But I wouldn't scare, not for a cent. I was already scared half crazy—scared of matrimony with a drummer ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... birds. I've taken ten shells to an old drummer in hard wood or short pines." He smiled to himself, adding: "A drove of six in the open got off scot free a little while ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... in the vast assemblage was expectant. Certainly some rare exhibition was to be seen in the circle which the crowd had left open in their midst. There were merry laughing and jesting and questioning amongst each other, as to what all this could mean, and what proclamation that could be which the drummer had just ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Kindly greeting found the hunter, Fire to warm and food to nourish, Golden trout from Gitchee Gumee, Caught by Kak-kah-ge—the Raven. With a snare he caught the rabbit— Caught Wabose, the furry footed, [7] Caught Penay, the forest drummer; [7] Sometimes with his bow and arrows, Shot the red deer in the forest. Shot the squirrel in the pine top, Shot Ne-ka, the wild goose, flying. Proud as Waub-Ojeeg, the warrior, To the lodge he bore his trophies So when homeward turned the Panther ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... convulsion,' as Carlyle has christened him. His canvas is unfinished. Who knows what cry of the Convention made the painter fling his palette down and leave the masterpiece he might have spoiled? For in its way the picture is a masterpiece. There lies Jean Barrad, drummer, aged fourteen, slain in La Vendee, a true patriot, who, while his life-blood flowed away, pressed the tricolor cockade to his heart, and murmured 'Liberty!' David has treated his subject classically. The little drummer-boy, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... day-time the wagons and tents presented a dreary appearance, sunk in snow, the dogs shivering between the wheels, and but little other sign of life visible. When dusk came the lights were lit, and the drummer and fifer from the booth of tumblers were sent into the town to entice an audience. They marched quickly through, the nipping, windy streets, and then returned with two or three score of men, women, and children, plunging through the snow or mud at their heavy heels. It was Orpheus fallen ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... with all my desire and with every intention to encourage native talent, I was compelled to turn away, "more in sorrow than in anger," (SHAKSPEARE again—Hamlet's Ghost, I think,) when the pipe-and-drummer man came to me for a contribution. Not a penny in my pocket. "I will reimburse thee nobly," said I, "on my return from the Mine-land." He quoted some line or other, which I did not catch, and gave the name of the writer, one "WALKER," as his authority. WALKER is associated in my mind with an English ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... the porter. "No, sah! Ah ain't nottin' like dat—no, sah! Ah reckon Ah done save dat little man's life. Yo' know, dat little drummer wot's trabelin' wid de big man. Dey was castin' lots t' see which one should be kilt fo' to ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... this man is in trade and that in a profession, that another is a stockbroker, and a fourth a country squire. But America is full of surprises, due to the uniformity of clothing and a certain carelessness which elevates comfort to a ritual. The man you think of as a millionaire may be a drummer, the drummer a millionaire. Again, in England people are known to a certain extent by the hotels they stay at, the restaurants they eat at, and the class in which they travel. Such superficial ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... a necktie drummer who was stopping at the Rye House for a day or so, "I thought Cowpens was a battle fought between the United States and the English ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... struggle. There were two Rhode Island regiments, commanded by Colonel Christopher Greene. They at once made preparations for defence, and while they were thus engaged a Hessian officer rode up to the fort with a flag and a drummer, and insolently proclaimed, 'The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms; and they are warned that if they stand the battle, no ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... displaying his skill as a drummer. He always had a group of admirers of both sexes around him. And Bluff showed his wisdom by saying never a word. Silence with him was golden, because, as he himself was wont to say, he "never opened his mouth, but what he put his ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... the river. The country became still more lonely as we walked across Salisbury Plain, and on a dark wet night it might quite come up to the description given of it by Barham in the Ingoldsby Legends in "The Dead Drummer, a Legend of Salisbury Plain," the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... scarcely time to prepare for the reception of my illustrious guests, when the concourse of people hastening to the shore announced their approach. A man soon appeared as avant courier, in the short, red uniform-jacket of an English drummer, an uncommonly showy, many-coloured girdle, and the rest of his body, according to custom, quite naked. His legs were adorned by a tattooed representation of pantaloons; and when he turned his back and stooped very little, he showed ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... has been made of cruelties at Aberdeen. Montrose sent in a drummer, asking the Provost to remove the old men, women, and children. The drummer was shot, as, at Perth, Montrose's friend, Kilpont, had been murdered. The enemy were pursued through the town. Spalding names 115 townsmen slain ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had been composed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... bells fastened to their legs and arms, and here also the drum assisted their movements. The drum likewise keeps order among the spectators, by imitating the sound of certain Mandingo sentences; for example, when the sport is about to begin, the drummer strikes, which is understood to signify, Ali boe si, "sit all down," upon which the lookers-on immediately squat themselves on the ground, and when the combatants are to begin, he strikes, Amuta, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... they begun shootin' at th' bystanders. I'll tell ye what th' pa-apers said about it. Th' two antagonists was in perfect form an' well sustained th' reputation iv th' state f'r acc'rate workmanship. Colonel Derringer's first shot caught a boot an' shoe drummer fr'm Chicago square in th' back amid consid'rable applause. Major Lyddite tied th' scoor be nailin' a scrubwoman on th' top iv a ladder. Th' man at th' traps sprung a bell boy whom th' Colonel on'y winged, thus goin' back wan, but his second barrel brought down a book-canvasser fr'm ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... you suppose I heard to-day?" she answered. "I met Josiah Ellis down to 'Liphalet's store and he told me he see Mr. Phillips yesterday. Josiah drove one of the livery hoss-'n'-teams over to Denboro—had a Boston notion drummer to cart over there, he did—and who should come drivin' along but Mr. Phillips. Josiah said he was dressed just as elegant as ever was, and the hoss-'n'-team he was drivin' was styled-up to match. Josiah hailed him and Mr. Phillips ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... bugler, if she have one, or drummer, will be sent with the men. He is to be able to sound the "Assembly," "Retreat," "Close," "Extend," "Commence Firing," and "Cease Firing," which sounds the men are to be accustomed to on ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... snare-drum; base-drum; kettle-drum; tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, rataplan, drummer, drumhead, drumstick. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... you and your pianos. Compare it to the tympani? Never, never! It is false, insincere, and smirks and simpers if even a silly school girl sits before it. It takes on the color of any composer's ideas, and submits like a slave to the whims of any virtuoso. I am disgusted. Here am I, an old kettle-drummer—as you say in your barbarous English—poor, unknown, forced to earn a beggarly living by strumming dance tunes in a variety hall on a hated piano, and often accompanying singers, acrobats, and all the riffraff of a vaudeville, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... extreme misery, and they were grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years, fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... that were being hurried to the front, especially so, when he saw boat loads of his old friends, the gallant "buck-tail" boys coming down the river to enlist. He spent all his spare time hanging around the headquarters of the forming regiments. One day he asked a recruiting officer if he needed a drummer boy. "You are pretty small, sonny," said the soldier, "can you drum?" "No," said Paul, "but I can learn mighty quick." Pleased with the answer, the soldier took him to his headquarters and said: "Here ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... de drum de little man beats down by Rock Crick. Some say he is a little man whut wears a cap and goes down the crick beating a drum befo' a war. He wuz a Revolushun drummer, and cum back to beat the drum befo' de war. But some say you can hear de drum 'most any spring now. Go down to the Crick and keep quiet and you hear Brrr, Brrr, Bum hum, louder and louder and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the men got together in defence of their homes and kindred was generally spoken highly of in the records of the times, but I am sorry to add that in one case a drummer belonging to the Royston Volunteers was tried by Court Martial and sentenced to receive 50 lashes for absenting himself without leave, but the rev. captain, though a stern disciplinarian, had a tender heart and fatherly interest ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... of those shiftily loyal and loyally shifty who make their upward way by devious, if not too reprehensible methods. He was a little man, stocky, brown-haired, brown-eyed, vigorous, witty, with the ordinary politician's estimate of public morality—namely, that there is no such thing. A drummer-boy at fourteen in the War of the Rebellion, a private at sixteen and eighteen, he had subsequently been breveted for conspicuous military service. At this later time he was head of the Grand Army of the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... soldier has thrown himself down to rest, after a deer-hunt, or perhaps a long run through the woods with Indians on his trail. Two stand up to wrestle, and are on the point of coming to blows. A fifer plays a shrill accompaniment to a drummer's song,—a strain of light love and bloody war, with a chorus thundered forth by twenty voices. Meantime, a veteran in the corner is prosing about Dettingen and Fontenoy, and relates camp- traditions of Marlborough's battles, till his pipe, having been roguishly charged with gunpowder, makes a terrible ...
— Old Ticonderoga, A Picture of The Past - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her way into the society of Chicago, the proud aristocracy of the abbatoir. And thus, no less, the former whiskey drummer insinuates himself into the Elks, and the rising retailer wins the imprimatur of wholesalers, and the rich peasant becomes a planter and the father of doctors of philosophy, and the servant girl ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... passed, they were yielded to with the utmost respect, and they were whispering in the crowd: "There are my soldiers! there are our defenders!" I envy them, I thought, it's a beautiful thing to be a grenadier! And I approached the division, and having taken the place beside the drummer, I marched in the grenadiers' step, singling out the commander, to whom I immediately wished ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz
... mineralogist; Lieutenant Fosbrook, deputy-commissary-general; G. P. Harris, deputy-surveyor; John Clarke and William Patterson, superintendents of convicts; Lieutenants W. Sladen, J. M. Johnson, and Edward Lord; 39 marines, 3 sergeants, 1 drummer, 1 fifer; and 367 ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... reading through foreign spectacles. Whilst writing the final chapters, Hugo's wife died; and, as he had refused the Amnesty, he could only escort her remains to the Belgian frontier, August, 1868. All this while, in his Paris daily newspaper, Le Rappei (adorned with cuts of a Revolutionary drummer beating "to arms!"), he and his sons and son-in-law's family were reiterating blows at the throne. When it came down in 1870, and the Republic was ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... loud that it could be heard in the centre of Paris. Around the Fort of Noisy the projectiles sank into the frozen ground to a depth of two and a half metres, and raised blocks of earth weighing 30lbs. Shells fell as far as Romainville. In the Rue de Pantin a drummer had his head carried off; his comrades buried him on the spot. In the court of Fort Noisy three men, hearing the hissing of a shell, threw themselves on the ground. It was a bad inspiration; the shell fell on the one in the middle, and killed all three. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... bass drum square, And passed completely through it. The Drummer madly tore his hair And said, ...
— The Slant Book • Peter Newell
... rampart was half battered down; and then, after saluting his enemy with a volley from all his cannon, he sent it with a graceful compliment to Monro. It was Bougainville who carried it, preceded by a drummer and a flag. He was met at the foot of the glacis, blindfolded, and led through the fort and along the edge of the lake to the entrenched camp, where Monro was at the time. "He returned many thanks," writes the emissary in his Diary, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... and drummer; a gong with a melodious sound; a clarionet played by an old and accomplished musician, rivalling in its strains that beautiful instrument the bagpipe; a man bearing a wooden painted slab on a pole, on ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... as the sound of battle has died away following the departure of Washington and his army, put on the tableau of "The Spirit of '76." The fifer, the drummer, and the little boy should be good musicians playing patriotic music of the Revolution. Their wounded and ragged comrades are seen in ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... smoking-room filled. The drummer with the large ears let his companion introduce "Mr. Marsh" to him, and was presently so pleased with the easy, open, and thoroughly informed way in which this wealthy young man discussed cigars and horses that ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... about nine, and to church, and there heard a dull sermon of Mr. Mills, but a great many fine people at church; and so home. Wife and girl and I alone at dinner—a good Christmas dinner, and all the afternoon at home, my wife reading to me "The History of the Drummer of Mr. Mompesson," which is a strange story of spies, and worth reading indeed. In the evening comes Mr. Pelling, and he sat and supped with us; and very good company, he reciting to us many copies of good verses of Dr. Wilde, who writ "Iter Boreale," and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Stedman being arrested, he cut the reins of his bridle—clapped spurs to his horse, and rode over the dead and dying, into the adjacent woods, without receiving injury from the enemy's firing. Thus he escaped; and besides him two others—one a drummer, who fell among the trees, was caught by his drum strap, and escaped unhurt; the other, one who fell down the precipice and broke his thigh, but crawled to the landing or garrison down the river." The following September, the Indians gave Stedman ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... the peaceful old homestead. When I was married and came driving home one October twilight with my wife, the martial music began as soon as we hove in sight of the house. Early in the Civil War, Hiram seriously talked of enlisting as a drummer, but Father and Mother dissuaded him. I can see what a wretched homesick boy he would have been before one week had passed. For many years he was haunted with a desire to go West, and made himself really believe that the next ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... covered with the golden hoar of three hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the slightly off key grand finale of its eighty-first matinee, curtain slithering down to the rub-a-dud-dub of a score of pink satin drummer boys with slim ankles and curls; a Military Sextette of the most blooded of Broadway ponies; a back ground of purple eye-lidded privates enlisted from the ranks of Forty-Second Street; a three hundred and fifty dollar a week ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... had been off to the ship, and found them less fierce and distrustful than those of the islands. Some of them thought the muskets were water-vessels, and others were afraid of a knife: it was too sharp. They are excellent mimics; and one of them imitated the English drummer so cleverly on an old tin-can, as to excite roars of laughter among all who witnessed the performance. Some of their dances are extraordinary, more resembling a fencing-match than movements of the light fantastic toe; and the following description of a dance after nightfall is curious:—'On ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... boy, a favourite of women, and therefore full of engagements to Balls and dinners. And he was a modest boy, though his uncle encouraged him to deliver his opinions freely and argue with men. The little drummer attached to wheeling columns thinks not more of himself because his short legs perform the same strides as the grenadiers'; he is happy to be able to keep the step; and so was Nevil; and if ever he contradicted a senior, it was in the interests of the country. Veneration of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the Drummer was brought on the stage. The name of the author was not announced; the piece was coldly received; and some critics have expressed a doubt whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, both external and internal, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... still inclined to refer to Mr. Benjamin Ram and his fiddle; but Uncle Remus was not, by any means, willing that such an ancient vagabond as Mr. Ram should figure as a hero, and he said that, while it was possible that Brother Rabbit was no great hand with the fiddle, he was a drummer, and a capital singer to boot. Furthermore, Uncle Remus declared that Brother Rabbit could perform upon the quills,[16] an accomplishment to which none of the other animals could lay claim. There was a time, too, the ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... these populations have had, first and last; just orders given them (wise and just, which to a respectable degree were Heaven's orders as well): and certainly Heavy Peg, for instance,—Heavy Peg, bringing Quitzow's strong House about his ears,—was a respectable drummer's cat to enforce the same. This has been going on these three hundred years. But Friedrich Wilhelm completes the process; finishes it off to the last pitch of perfection. Friedrich Wilhelm carries it through every fibre and cranny of Prussian ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... was too busy talking to the Milwaukee drummer in Room 72 to formulate a logical reason. Shirley and Holloway improved the time by taking the elevator to the top floor where Helene greeted them at the door of her pretty apartment. She welcomed them happily, declaring it ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... hurrying, stumbling through the street Came the hurrying stumbling feet. O I have heard the drums beat For war! I have heard the townsfolk come, I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum As the drummer stopped and cried, "Hear! Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare!" Closing he prayed us to ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... of over thirty miles, only to be done by a merciful man between sunrise and sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Jardine started at five o'clock, breakfasted and lunched on the road, and brought their faithful steed, Drummer Boy, up to the Wimperfield portico at seven in the evening, with not a hair turned. Ida was waiting for them in ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... and the troops and baggage were far behind. We therefore gathered wood and made a blazing fire to show our position; at the same time a bugler and drummer who had accompanied us, made as much noise as possible from the summit of a ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... moment of consolation, because I met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find no pretext for ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... white and radiant with inward purity,—could polish away roughness, and toil on alone, pursuing ideal perfection, and attaining a rare excellence,—surely, here was promise of great things for the future; but it seemed otherwise to God. A poor little drummer-boy, not knowing what he did, sped a bullet straightway to as brave a heart as ever beat, and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... bastard did arrive; The trophies of the families appear, Some show the sword, the bow, and some the spear Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear. These in the herald's register remain, Their noble mean extraction to explain, Yet who the hero was no man can tell, Whether a drummer or colonel; The silent record blushes to reveal Their ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... of our season alone. You may be sure April has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you should see this tiny minstrel inflate its throat, which becomes like a large bubble, and suggests a drummer- boy with his drum slung very high. In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the note is very feeble at first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the creature's throat, and only one voice ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... when a 'band of music' burst into the good man's room, consisting of a drum, marrow-bones and cleavers, and bells, 'not the bells but a portable collection on a frame.' We gather from Leech's picture that other instrumentalists were also present. Sad to relate, the drummer was not quite sober, an unfortunate state of things, certainly, but not always confined to the drumming fraternity, since in the account of the Party at Minerva House (S.B.T.) we read that amongst the numerous arrivals were ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... parade! How the bugles played and played! And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes, and neighed, As the rattle and the rhyme of the tenor-drummer's time Filled all the hungry hearts ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... strike, yet the men stood firm in the steel cyclone sweeping across their shattered deck. Then Madden turned his lens on a group a little to one side of the main formation, and his eye caught the gleam of silver horns, the rise and fall of a drummer's arm, the fierce beating of a director with a baton. It was the ship's musicians. The band was playing, the men were chanting the battle hymn of the empire; out of the heart of the foundering cruiser, out of the souls of the passing ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... a strong light placed behind a white curtain, the figures of the young patriots appear. Music of fife and drum in orchestra, clear, high, blood-stirring. First a small drummer- boy passes, with a cocked hat, and poised drum-sticks. Then a boy of the same age carrying a musket that is much too large for him. Then two taller patriot lads, very soldier-like. Then a country boy with a hoe over his ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... imagination as rather puerile. He was as ready as others to use the arts of the theatre for the liturgy of patriots. One of the most touching of all the minor dramatic incidents of the Revolution was the death of Barra. This was a child of thirteen who enrolled himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress the rebel Whites in La Vendee. One day he advanced too close to the enemy's post, intrepidly beating the charge. He was surrounded, but the peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry Long live the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... unpardonable imprudence. Although the sentinel stationed at the Valqueyras mansion had seen nothing, the town ought to have been kept closed. Then Rougon decided that the public crier, accompanied by a drummer, should go through the streets, proclaim a state of siege, and announce to the inhabitants that whoever might go out would not be allowed to return. The gates were officially closed in broad daylight. This measure, adopted in order to reassure the inhabitants, raised ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... uncombed hair stands on end like hedgehogs' bristles: his frame is lithy, like that of an antelope, but he has prodigious breadth of chest; he wears a military undress, that of the regiment, even of a drummer, for it is wild Davy, whom a month before I had seen enlisted on Leith Links to serve King George with drum and drumstick as long as his services might be required, and who, ere a week had elapsed, had smitten with his fist Drum-Major Elzigood, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... certainly Old Worldish. We speak with Father Laity who, all unconscious of the commotion around him, marches up and down the trail and reads his breviary. He tells us he is a Breton and that in an age that is past he served as a drummer-boy in the Prussian war. The Father came to this shut-in land ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... upon our ears there was not a man, down to the drummer boys, who did not understand what it meant. It was Napoleon's last great effort to crush us. There were but two more hours of light, and if we could hold our own for those all would be well. Starved and weary and spent, we prayed that we might have strength to load and stab ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Richard scornfully. "What 'd a drummer be doin' here this time o' year? That's the feller that's ousted Chet Timson, an' I'll bet ye the drinks on't. Name's Linx or Lenx, or somethin' like that. Dave ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... to produce a work of art is to take a drummer's story and tell it in dusty English, we might try our luck with the modern smoking-car yarn about the traveling-man who came to the country hotel late at night, and see how far we can get with ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... horses start aside in affright, and outcries of pain and terror assail the ear. After a confused moment, I saw that the shot had struck in the line of infantry a few feet on our right. One man, the drummer of the party, was running about in the fluttered crowd with his hand hanging by a shred, crying, "Cut it off! cut it off! D—your souls, why don't some of you cut it off?" Another lay struggling on the ground, with the fleshy part of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Kean, I always prefer the acting of Wallack; there is more variety in the tones of his voice, for Kean tunes his pipes exactly as my long-drummer sets his drum;—to one pitch: but as to action, Wallack—more like my drummer—beats him hollow; he points his toes, stands a-kimbo, takes off his hat, and puts it on again, quite as naturally as if he belonged to the really legitimate drama, and was worked by strings cleverly pulled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... the light, grew bad and sly when the shadows came; and though they made no confidences in words, I read their lives, leaving them to wonder at the change of manner this midnight magic wrought in their nurse. A few talked busily; one drummer boy sang sweetly, though no persuasions could win a note from him by day; and several depended on being told what they had talked of in the morning. Even my constitutionals in the chilly halls, possessed a certain ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... walk sometimes," insisted Fritz, and at that moment they met a drummer, and again the boys doffed their hats and ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... to come on, and I found him and the chief man apparently on the most friendly terms. The chief, a remarkably stout black, wore a scanty petticoat, with a fillet of crocodile's teeth round his head, a similar ornament on his neck, and bracelets on his arms. He was attended by a drummer, who, as I approached, beat with might and main to do me honour. His followers were armed with shields made of reeds, very cleverly woven, sufficiently long to protect the whole body and legs, and about three feet broad. At their backs hung quivers of iron-headed arrows, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had great qualifications, and would have made a good scout, kept Mrs. Fortescue informed of all the news at the fort, from Major Harlow, the second in command, down to the smallest drummer boy in the regiment. Mrs. Fortescue being nothing if not feminine, she and Mrs. McGillicuddy were "sisters ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... on horseback, twelve hours a day on an average, for the past week. Gordon started yesterday for Magdeburg, and Macgregor has been two days absent, but I don't know where. Everyone is busy, from the king himself—who is always busy about something—to the youngest drummer. Nobody outside a small circle knows what it is all about. Apparently we are in a state of profound peace, without a cloud in the sky, and yet the military preparations ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... storm of oaths, as to his taking it, as to his doing this and that; and was even flourishing his sword by way of accompaniment; when, lo, whistling slightly through the summer air, a rifle-ball from some sentry on the French side (writers say, it was a French drummer, grown impatient, and snatching a sentry's piece) took the brain of him, or the belly of him; and he rushed down at once, a totally collapsed monster, and mere heap of dead ruin, never to trouble mankind more." [Guerre de Boheme, iii. 165.] For which my readers and I are rather thankful. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of all, however, was a globular banner of cloth on which was painted a startling picture of the saint's conversion. All of these were carried high in the air and kept rotating. Behind the standard bearers came a drummer and the player on the shrill pipe or pito—chirimiya. The procession stopped at Senor Quiero's tienda, and the old man opened both his heart and his bottles; spirits flowed freely to all who could ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... which would give them keenest pleasure, because friends fear to recall painful memories. In this connection, and by way of conclusion, I shall give a poem written by one of our pupils, who lost his eyes when a drummer boy in the Civil War. This man learned to read raised type after being blind ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... are wanted in the house," said he. "Hard by there is a broad cross-street leading to the market. Let me have the drummer, a few of the militia, and half of the country people. We will run to the market-place and invest the opening of the cross-street, shouting loudly. Those in front of the house will be diverted thither: meanwhile, you can ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... badly, Terence; still as I don't see anything else for you, I must try and take you somehow, even if you have to go as a drummer. I will talk it over with the colonel, though I doubt whether he has ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... sash draped round it; and below these again, neatly spread in a glass case, is a quaint little child's coat of yellow, with red collar, cuffs and lapels, two tiny red wings at the shoulders and two tiny red tails behind; which garment an inscription, now much faded, declares to be a drummer's coat of the ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... most of the rest of us, I expect. Why, yes, give it room—why not?" the drummer counselled his friend, and turned on ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... S'help me, 'e COULDN'T fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... in an automobile, and he can make five times more visits than with a horse. So, too, with the contractor and the builder. The drummer carries his samples in a gasoline runabout, and, in addition to seeing twice the number of customers, he can get their goodwill by taking them for a spin. Fire-engines, hose-wagons, and police patrols ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... president of the improvised tribunal. This was the signal for her execution. A little peruke-maker, Charlat, a drummer of the volunteers, struck off her cap with a blow of his pike, but in doing so he wounded her in the forehead; the sight of the flowing blood produced its usual effect upon the mob; they precipitated themselves upon her, "her breasts were ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... the happy youths and maidens fair Proclaimed the drummer's words, so bright and rare. The news were carried far and near Light as a bird most fleet With wings to carry thoughts so sweet. The sun, with beaming rays, had scarcely shone Ere everywhere the joyous news had flown; At ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... The drummer, who had the upper berth, had retreated at the first sign of trouble to the safety of the smoking-room, and was apparently trying more completely to hide himself in clouds of obscuring cigar smoke. The passengers were all cowed ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... hostile Lipans made a swoop around and skirting the garrison, killing a herder—a discharged drummer-boy—in sight of the flag-staff. Of course great excitement followed. Captain J. G. Walker, of the Mounted Rifles, immediately started with his company in pursuit of the Indians, and I was directed to accompany the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... rather loud boast, if possible; and the result was, that he hit on the following stratagem for routing the "skedaddlers." There was no lack of drums in the neighborhood, for in those days the boys, who were not old enough to volunteer, had fond dreams of going to the War as drummer-boys. Adney went about privately next morning with Sam Murch and induced three or four young fellows to take drums and go with him into the woods that afternoon. Under Sam's lead the little party arrived in the vicinity of the "fort," shortly before nightfall. Adney then stationed ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer! We hold thee very dear, as well we may: It is the kernel of the year to-day— All hail to thee! Thou art a welcome corner! If every insect were a fairy drummer, And I a fifer that could deftly play, We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay That she would cast all thought of labour from her Ah! what is this upon my window-pane? Some sulky drooping cloud comes pouting up, Stamping its glittering feet along the plain! Well, I will let that idle fancy ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... replied, "I was but fifteen years old at that time. I didn't do much good or harm, for I was but a snare drummer the first two years of my soldiering, and the last year I was detailed as mounted orderly at brigade headquarters. But just see the people! Give them some messages! We shall be out of 'Yankee ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... the official bugler; Bluff Shipley, the drummer of the troop; "Nuthin" Cypher; William Carberry; Wallace, his twin brother; and Tom Betts. Paul, as has been said, was patrol leader, and served also as assistant scout-master when Mr. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... side." A gentleman living at the corner of Fifth and Shawnee Streets in Leavenworth, Kansas, had advertised for a contractor to build him a cellar, and the advertisement said that none "but experienced contractors need apply." The drummer, Bill Daugherty, decided he would call upon the gentleman who wanted "an experienced contractor." When he arrived at the place specified in the advertisement he found it to be a large general merchandise store. Daugherty introduced ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... of the glorious event began to parade the avenue at an early hour in the shape of a patriotic drummer, having an instrument, to judge by its sound, coeval with the first fight for that freedom it was beaten to celebrate. If anything could have kept me awake, this cracked drum would; and, in truth, I had my fears, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... deal of time perfecting myself. Long before this I remember dimly some rehearsal when I was put in the orchestra and taken care of by "the gentleman who played the drum," and how badly I wanted to play it too! I afterwards took lessons from Mr. Woodhouse, the drummer at the Princess's. Kate gave an imitation of Mrs. Kean as Constance so beautifully that she used to bring tears to my eyes, and make ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... will love her. And if he loves me, he'll forgive my acting against his wishes, and see it was the only thing to be done. Come! step out! what a time we've been!" and away he went, compelling Ripton to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take beside ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Forest he found Drummer the Woodpecker making a great racket on the hollow limb of an old chestnut. Sammy sat down near by and listened. "My, that's fine! I wish I could do that. You must be practising," said Sammy at the end ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... to the wars of the Lord. At the siege of Louisburg, ten years before the onslaught upon the Acadian settlers, one minister marched with the Colonial troops, axe in hand, to hew down the images in the French churches; while another officiated in the double capacity of drummer and chaplain,—a "drum ecclesiastic," as Hudibras ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... man in the regiment who would easily pass for white,—a little sickly drummer, aged fifty at least, with brown eyes and reddish hair, who is said to be the son of one of our commodores. I have seen perhaps a dozen persons as fair, or fairer, among fugitive slaves, but they were usually young children. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... attractions, from the enormous power which it confers of heaping benefits on the suffering race of mankind. Others may rejoice in the advantages which a knowledge of it bestows—the power which can reduce a Hannibal to the level of a drummer boy, or an all-pervading Shakspeare to the intellectual estate of a vestryman, though it cannot at present reverse those processes. The consideration of the destructive as compared with the constructive forces of chemistry was present, as I recollect, to your powerful intellect on ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... and it seemed to him that a "printer's devil" came to him in his chamber to ask for "more copy" of the important narrative. The imp disturbed him, and he awoke to find a man in his room; but it was only a half-tipsy "drummer" from the city, who had got into the wrong chamber when he ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... who had come in at Shock's earnest invitation, and because he was anxious to hear about the new country from one who was coming to be recognised as an authority, "he sees one thing sure enough. I say, what a drummer he'd make! Talk like that is worth 100 a minute to any firm. I'll put my Governor on to him. When that chap opened his sample case he wouldn't talk weather and politics, and then sidle up to business. Not much! ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... fallen in love over his depth with that beefy Mrs. Claymore and takes me motoring to pour his love (of her) into my aural labyrinths. I don't object to playing second fiddle, but when it comes to holding the triangle for the drummer, I pass blind. Never mind, while he isn't watching some day he'll get stung, for I'm really fond of him. You say that you are so much stronger willed than I am—did you ever look at yourself in the mirror? Carlton has eyes that I adore—they ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... severe one; if a severe one, he grumbled because he was not able to fight the next day. He had been nearly cut to pieces in many actions, but he was not content. Like the man under punishment, the drummer might strike high or strike low, there was no pleasing S—: nothing but the coup de grace, if he be now alive, will satisfy him. But notwithstanding this mania for being carved, he was an excellent and judicious officer. I have been told he is since dead; if so, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was sent by a well-meaning relative to a Yorkshire boarding-school—a sort of Dotheboys Hall. From such a rough school he passed into the rougher one of life, becoming the lad of all work in the London warehouse of the same kinsman, later a clerk, and at twenty-one a traveling salesman, or "drummer," a position for which his untiring energy and engaging sociability were high qualifications. A great reader, he was also a superior converser and a "mixer" as the present-day phrase goes, adapting himself to his company ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... correspondent at any time, and who in this instance having nothing to give back, and plodding his way through the well-meant monotony of college news, allowed poor Lord Dudley not much more chance of brilliancy, than a smart drummer might have of producing a reveille on an unbraced drum. We must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... "A fat drummer" is such a common phrase that we would think our ears deceived us did anyone speak of a thin one. Approach five people and say "A traveling salesman," each will tell you that the picture this conjures in his imagination is of a fat, round, roly-poly, ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Haggart, born 24th June 1801, was an instinctive criminal, who, at Leith Races, in 1813, enlisted, whilst drunk, as a drummer in the West Norfolks. Eventually he obtained his discharge and continued on his career of crime and prison-breaking, among other things murdering a policeman and a gaoler, until, on 18th July 1821, he was ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the family of the Mazet is its close blood-relationship with the gallant Andre Etienne: that drummer of the Fifty-first Demi-brigade of the Army of Italy who is commemorated on the frieze of the Pantheon, and who is known and honoured as the "Tambour d'Arcole" all over France. It was delightful to listen to old Jan's telling of the brave story: ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... Eleazer House, Hezekiah Haydon, Sergeants; Samuel Bordman, Aaron Porter, Elisha Boardman, Corporals; Robert Newcomb, Drummer; John Atwood, Orias Atwood, William Craddock, Ira Clark, Roderick Clark, Lemuel Fuller, Abner Fuller, Roger Tyler, Carmi Higley, Erastus Humphy, Jonathan Halladay, John Willson, John White, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... bellow of laughter burst from the battery; even Captain McDunn's grin neutralised the scowling visage he turned to conceal it. And the fury of the Pennsylvanians knew no bounds; for, from general to drummer boy, the troops of that great State were horribly sensitive to any comment on the Hon. ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... piazza just before Mrs. Yearsley's library. A little band of children, who had been mustered by Lady Diana Sweepstakes' SPIRITED EXERTIONS, closed the procession. They were now all in readiness. The drummer only waited for her ladyship's signal; and the archers' corps only waited for her ladyship's word of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... a drummer, looking up from his duty of attending to a wounded comrade. "He knowed how to put his men in the right place, and his men knowed when they was in the right place. But it's goin' to be uphill through the steepest part of hell the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... warning of a storm; the diverse intonations of the words were degrees of a thermometer by which the brigade could judge of the patience of its commander; the old soldier's frankness of nature had made this knowledge so easy that the veriest little drummer-boy knew his Hulot by heart, simply by observing the variations of the grimace with which the commander screwed up his cheek and snapped his eyes and vented his oath. On this occasion the tone of smothered rage with which he uttered the words made his two friends silent and circumspect. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac |
