"Hoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... driver has a thick hoop of woven walrus hide, which he throws over the nose of one of the runners to serve as a drag. Even then, the descent may be rapid and exciting, and not a little dangerous for dogs and men. The driver throws ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... "Ned never misses anything. The poor brute has swallowed its own tail, formed itself into a ring, and bowled out like a hoop." ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... meet hundreds of them. You could bay'net a few of them, for they are soft, plump sort of chaps; but these 'ere things is as hard as lobsters or crabs, and would turn the point of a regulation bay'net as if it was made of a bit of iron hoop. I sha'n't never forget that, Mr Sergeant Tipsy," he continued, addressing the jungle behind him as he looked in the direction of the cantonments. "The underneath's the tenderest part, is it? Just you come and try ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... thus. And then, as a hoop by gentle knocks on this side and on that is made to travel in specific directions, the little touches of circumstance in the life of this young girl shaped the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... applied with the leather side next the limb it encircles the part as a ferrule; while it remains rigid when the wooden side is turned towards the skin. Perforated sheet lead or tin, stiff wire netting, and hoop iron also ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... apartments, and you only gain admission to them after an embassy to procure her permission. Madama la Baronessa receives you courteously, and you pass through her rooms, which are a little in disorder, the Baronessa being on the point of removal. Madama la Baronessa's hoop-skirts prevail upon the floors; and at the side of the couch which her form lately pressed in slumber, you observe a French novel and a wasted candle in the society of a half-bottle of the wine of the country. A bedroomy smell pervades ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... very likely Negro girls. Enquire two doors from the Brick Meetinghouse in Middle-street. At which place is to be sold women's stays, children's good callamanco stiffened-boddy'd coats, and childrens' stays of all sorts, and women's hoop-coats; all at ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... alone, who were prattling in French together very fluently as they walked along before their father and mother. Jennie said she wondered how such little children could learn to speak French so well. Another child, somewhat older than these, was trundling a hoop, and at length unfortunately she fell down and hurt herself. So, leaving her hoop upon the ground, she came toward the maid who had care of her, crying, and sobbing, and uttering broken exclamations, all in French, which seemed to ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... Yokohama, the clerks were to be seen in their shirt sleeves, guiltless of vests or collars, coquetting over calicoes and gaudy-colored merinos with mulatto girls decked in cheap jewelry, and with negresses wearing enormous hoop-earrings. At the approach of evening the bar-rooms and saloons, with a liberal display of looking-glasses, bottles of colored liquors, gin, and glitter, were dazzling to behold. The marble tables were crowded with domino and card players, each sipping at ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the huge hoop skirt which had recently become fashionable. Addison, in a humorous paper in the 'Tatler' (No. 116), describes one as about ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... used to miss the way to school in Ould Ireland, though I thravelled it so often and knowed it so well! Surely an' it worn't under this rock I putt it, it must have bin under a relation. Faix, an' it was. Here ye are, me hearty, come along—hoop!" ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Rolf's neck was wound around the Saxon's jaws; one of the Wrestler's iron arms reached about him and gathered him up against the broad chest; one of the Wrestler's great hands closed around his wrists like fetters of iron; and a muscular leg bent itself backward over his legs like a hoop of steel. As well fight against steel ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... of some of the narwhal sinew he contrived, in two days, to construct quite a good-sized net. And now the difficulty was to stretch it; but by this time our inventive faculties had been pretty well sharpened, and we were not long in finding that we could make a perfect hoop by lashing together three seal ribs which we picked up on the beach; and, having fastened this hoop securely to the narwhal horn, we sallied forth to the north side of the island, where the ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... drawn slowly up, and suddenly let down on the head of the pile at a high velocity. This was destructive, not impulsive action. Sometimes the pile was shivered into splinters, without driving it into the soil; in many cases the head of the pile was shattered into matches, and this in spite of a hoop of iron about it to keep the layers of wood together. Yet the whole was soon beat into a sort of brush. Indeed, a great portion of the men's time was consumed in "reheading" the piles. On the contrary, I employed great mass and moderate ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... hesitation, as if confidence were now established. At one time we had five canoes alongside, with a brisk and noisy traffic going on. The people parted very readily with their weapons and ornaments, also coconuts in abundance, and a few yams and bananas, for strips of calico and pieces of iron hoop. Axes, however, were more prized than any other article, and the exhibition of one was certain to produce great eagerness to procure it, amidst much shouting and cries of kelumai! The purpose to which they applied the iron hoop we found was to substitute it for the pieces of a hard greenstone ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... the wheel (or hoop, a variant rendering) was a symbol of life, and that the Assyrian feather-robed figure which it enclosed was a god, not of war only, but also of fertility. His trident-headed arrow resembles, as has been suggested, a lightning symbol. Ezekiel's references are suggestive in this ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... shouting there was when the boys saw him riding through the streets with his great bags of nuts! They offered him bat and ball, hoop and kite; but Gaspar said he did not care for such childish things; he wanted something to be of use on his travels round the world. "You had better go to Lawyer Clang's," called out a newsboy; "he has a horse such ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... consequently ought to be placed in the centre, and shut up in the securest place. Therefore two rows of ribs pretty close to one another, that come out of the backbone, as the branches of a tree do from its trunk, form a kind of hoop, to hide and shelter those noble and tender parts. But because the ribs could not entirely shut up that centre of the human body, without hindering the dilatation of the stomach and of the entrails, they ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the old blackguard was mesmerised. And if you were to see the bulk of her tail then, all her electricity gone into it! She caught him with a blow of it under the jowl, and he fell in a swoon. She stood over him, her back like the bend of a hoop, the tail beating about her, and a smile on the side of her face. And that was the end ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... to Cranford; but in spite of a little bad spelling, Miss Matty's account gave me the best idea of the commotion occasioned by his lordship's visit, after it had occurred; for, except the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs Jamieson, and a little lad his lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop against the aristocratic legs, I could not hear of any one with whom his lordship had ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Garrigan. "Is it true what I've heard about both of them-that each hopes to place the diamond hoop of proprietorship ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Shoulthwaite that morning he encountered Joe Garth at the turning of the lonnin. The blacksmith was swinging along the road, with a hoop over his shoulder. He lifted his cap as the Reverend Nicholas came abreast of him. That worthy was usually too much absorbed to return such salutations, but he stopped ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... machines met with, and the prices, to wit, $150 each. Muldrow bought another for $500—which was a whirling wheel. You recollect it; it never run any. Yours, I know it was said then, would cut off brush large enough for a hoop-hole. Court is now in session, but as soon as I can ascertain the witnesses (at the exhibition) I will write you further. But my recollection is distinct, from the relations existing between us, my interest in machinery ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... he meant a hoop snaik but he was xcited, and if the polise dident do there duty he wood put it in the hands of the county solissiter and see is respectible citisens cood be et and lose their lifes without nobody doing ennything to stop it. and he ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... opened. The body of the chief is inclosed in a large basket- like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the wrappings are finely-wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in texture, and skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of thinly-cut wood, and adjoining the center portions are pieces of body armor composed of reeds bound together. The body is covered with the fine skin of the sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in the interments of the Aleuts, and round the whole package are stretched ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... the wharf. They lay on their backs by scores and hundreds, and waved numberless legs in the air—I mean the crabs, not the crabbers. We used to go crabbing ourselves when we felt like it, with a net made of a bit of mosquito-bar stretched over an iron hoop, and with a piece of meat tied securely in the middle of it. When we hauled up those home-made hoop-nets—most everything seems to have been home-made in those days—we used to find one, two, perhaps three huge crabs ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... Paul, on Broadway, was appointed for the wedding, and it was a whim of the groom that his bride should meet him there. At the appointed hour a company of the curious had assembled in the edifice; a rattle of wheels was heard, and a bevy of bridesmaids and friends in hoop, patch, velvet, silk, powder, swords, and buckles walked down the aisle; but just as the bride had come within the door, out of the sunlight that streamed so brilliantly on the mounded turf and tombstones in the churchyard, the bell in the steeple ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... sagaciously. "The line I think I can provide; the hook is more difficult, but I do not despair even of that. As to the rod, it can be cut from any slender sapling on the shore. A net, ma chere, I could make with very little trouble, if I had but a piece of cloth to sew over a hoop." ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... their eyes glittering between bluish lines of kohl, their lips poppy-red with the tint of mesouak, their heads bound in sequined nets of silvered gauze, and crowned with tiaras of gold coins. The windows were so small that the women were hidden below their shoulders, but their huge hoop-earrings flashed, and their many necklaces sent out sparks as they nodded, smiling, at the passers; and one who seemed young and beautiful as a wicked fairy, against a purple light, threw a spray of orange blossoms at ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the wind sail which was let down through the skylight into the little well cabin of the schooner. It so happened that there was a bucket full of Spanish brown paint standing on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of the canvass funnel, and into it plopped the august pate of Paul Gelid, esquire. Bang had, in the meantime, caught him by the heels, and with the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, who, from his steadiness, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... he said, a brilliant meteor passing through the air, which was followed by a ring or hoop of fire, and within this hoop stood a man and woman of small size, handsomely dressed. With one arm they embraced each other, and with the other they took hold of the hoop, and their feet rested on the concave surface of the ring. When the hoop reached the earth these ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Health on their cheeks and rapture in their eyes; That full expanse of voice, to childhood dear, Soul of their sports, is duly cherish'd here: And, hark! that laugh is his, that jovial cry; He hears the ball and trundling hoop brush by, And runs the giddy course with all his might, A very child in every thing but sight; With circumscrib'd but not abated pow'rs,— Play! the great object of his infant hours;— In many a game he takes a noisy part, And shows the ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... large hoop studded with a bristling row of upright swords (21) was introduced; and into the centre of this ring of knives and out of it again the girl threw somersaults backwards, forwards, several times, till the spectators were in terror of some accident; ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... twelve hours, chiefly in the form of a hoop. No, Berns, I can't recommend them." He drew from its jewelled sheath and put into Bernard's hands a Persian dagger nine inches long, the naked blade damascened in wavy ripplings and slightly curved from point to hilt. "That would ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of out-works ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... ring, but from behind the litten vapour of which the ring was made. Lesser fires than his were put out by it. It varied very much in shape as it spread or drew out, as a smoker's blue rings are varied by puffs of wind. Now it was a perfect round, now so long as to be less a hoop than a fine oblong. Sometimes it was pear-shaped, sometimes amorphous; bulbous here, hollow there. And there seemed movement; I thought now and again that it was spiral as well as circular, that it might, under some stress ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... over-worked man to do a little more than for a lazy one to get up steam. A light stroke will keep a hoop in motion, but it takes a smart blow to start it. The busy man succeeds: While others are yawning and stretching, getting their eyes open, he will see the opportunity and improve it. Complain not that you have no leisure. Rather ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... backward. When first I had looked upon the place I had sensed its immensity; now I began to realize how vast it must really be—for already the gateway through which we had come glimmered far away on high, shrunk to a hoop of incandescent brass and ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... way? Rats, you don't want to go tagging after them Willy-boys. Damn dirty snobs. And the girls are worse. I tell you, Milt, these hoop-te-doodle society Janes may look all right to hicks like us, but on the side they raise more hell than any milliner's trimmer from Chi that ever vamped ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... and Mamma took her to the Park, as it was a pleasant day; and there Annie jumped about with other little girls, or ran with her great hoop. She could roll ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... then, ma chere?" Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop, And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop. "Well, I want—I want something to fill out the skirt To the proper dimensions, without being girt In a stiff crinoline, or caged in a hoop That shows through one's skirt like the bars of a coop; Something light, that a lady may waltz in, or polk, With a freedom that none but you masculine folk Ever know. For, however poor woman aspires, She's always bound down to the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the professor awoke with a start and a snort, excused himself abruptly, and stumped off to bed. Mrs. Honoria, sitting under the drop-light and stitching patiently at her bit of stretched linen, laid the tiny embroidery-hoop aside, signalled to her husband, and vanished in her turn. A few minutes after she had gone, the senator crossed from his corner of the fireplace to stand before the two sitting on the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... as near a scene of enchantment as tallow-candles could make it. The twelve bottle foot-lights flared and flickered as if they were conscious of the wonderful display of talent they were there to illumine, while the barrel-hoop chandeliers cast even a more brilliant light than one would have supposed. The flower decorations on the wall, forming the word that meant quite as much as if it had been spelled correctly, stood forth in ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... bawd, without brains or beauty enough to attract a passing glance, thus has the opportunity to elicit volleys of applause from crowds of men; and, without stopping to question the value of it, she makes herself doubly drunken with it. If to kick up her skirts is to attract attention—hoop la! If indecency is then the distinguishing feature of the evening, she is the woman for your money. So she jumps rather than dances. She has a whole set of lascivious motions, fashioned quickly, which outdo the worst imaginings ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... frontier people use a sieve or as called here, a "search." This is made from a deer skin prepared to resemble parchment, stretched on a hoop and perforated full of ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... innovation, and also in the reform of the stage method of declamation, which had previously been of a very pompous kind. Following his counsels, Mdlle. Clairon, the famous tragic actress, had ventured to play Roxana, in the Court Theatre at Versailles, "dressed in the habit of a Sultana, without hoop, her arms half naked, and in the truth of Oriental costume." With this attire she adopted a simpler kind of elocution. Her success was most complete. Marmontel was profuse in his congratulations. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... and stood gazing, not daring to step forward. What a white face, with eyes closed, with fair hair still damp on the forehead, with one white hand lying on the sheet above her heart! What a frail madonna of the sugar-plums! On the whole of that bed the only colour seemed the gold hoop round ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... journey in search of rest, aware of setting forth. But the child is pursued and overtaken by sleep, caught, surprised, and overcome. He goes no more to sleep, than he takes a "constitutional" with his hoop and hoopstick. The child amuses himself up to the last of his waking moments. Happily, in the search for amusement, he is apt to learn some habit or to cherish some toy, either of which may betray him and deliver him up to sleep, the enemy. What wonder, then, if a child who knows that ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... truthful, sweet girl," he said, "and"—he smiled—"you don't wear hoop skirts! I may be whipped for this, but I'll trust you and your brother, too. He shall be pardoned." Elsie rose to introduce Mrs. Cameron, when a Congressman from Massachusetts suddenly stepped before ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... true, but is an inch thick and weighs about 10 cwt. Its diameter is about as much above 18 inches as the tin one was under, and therefore it is become necessary to add a brass hoop to the piston, which is ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... will be so cock-a-hoop if he is set to study for a scholarship, that there will be no bearing ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... household had come back from the hay-field, and a woman's clear voice could be heard outside calling to the maids to make haste: "Quick, get your hoop and pails, it'll soon be sunset, and this year the fold's[5] rather far off. We must just milk the cows in the evening. Where's your wooden-platter, girl? Go and get it at once. Now be as quick as you can, I must just go and have look ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... as a bright as a silver dollar. In the book we can smell the sawdust, hear the flapping of the big white canvas and the roaring of the lions, and listen to the merry "hoop la!" ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... pounds in silver on ankles and toes, and bracelets enough to sheath arms from wrist to elbow. Every feminine Jeypore nose bears some metal ornamentation—gold studs through the nostrils, and generally a hoop of gold depending a full inch below the point of the chin. Their ears are deformed by the wealth of metal hanging from lobe or strung on the upper rim of that organ. It can be said of Jeypore's fair sex that they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... cheered and frantically applauded. The band played faster; Bingo's pace increased; the end of her turn was coming. The "tumblers" arranged themselves around the ring with paper hoops; Bingo was fairly racing. She went through the first hoop with a crash of tearing paper ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... womankind hoop-petticoats are not; but the men have doublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted together with batter (mit Teig zusammengekleistert), which create protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the art of Decoration; and as usual the stronger ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... day a boy who could not have been more than ten years old, but who seemed to be eight, and who wore an iron collar with four projections, and a hoop or bail up over his head. This had been put on him for the crime of running away; and was kept on to prevent a repetition of that crime. The master, who thus secured his property, was an Elder in the Second Presbyterian church, and led ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... very cock-a-hoop just before this disappointment came,' thought Cecil, 'and that last week I was careless and all. I wonder whether that is why ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... that done in the theatre beautifully. You remember when we went to see 'Julius Caesar,' who wanted to be King of Rome; but I didn't know as they ever did such high-mightiness off on horseback, or through a hoop," says I. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... the folly of our rulers, in believing that battles are to be fought and victories won, by fellows who handle a musket as they would a flail; lads who wink when they pull a trigger, and form a line like a hoop pole. The dependence we place on these men spills the best blood of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and were taking him to the governor as a hostage for the good faith of his father. He then proceeded to inform Mr. Ward, that letters had been received from the governor of the settlements of Good Hoop and Piquag, in Connecticut, giving timely warning of a most diabolical plot of the Indians to cut off their white neighbors, root and branch. He pointed out to the notice of the minister a member of his party as one of the messengers who ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... curious fascination, and as I grew sleepier and sleepier that part of my consciousness which was not counting steps, recognized him as a cripple who had come out to Mesopotamia in this special role 'to do his bit.' His humped back, protruding under his mackintosh as he labored forward, bent into a hoop, must have suggested the idea which was accepted as fact until I pulled myself together at the next halt and heard the mechanical and unimaginative half of me repeat 'Four thousand, seven hundred, and twenty-one.' The man raised himself into erectness with a groan, and a crippled greengrocer ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of a flat bar of the ordinary size from the forge hammer, and bent around the ankle, the ends meeting, and forming a hoop of about the diameter of the leg. There was one or more strings attached to the iron and extending up around his neck, evidently so to suspend it as to prevent its galling by its weight when at work, yet it had galled ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... had gone long before. But Captain Oudouse had on the Petite Jeanne something I had never before seen on a South Sea schooner—a sea-anchor. It was a conical canvas bag, the mouth of which was kept open by a huge hoop of iron. The sea-anchor was bridled something like a kite, so that it bit into the water as a kite bites into the air, but with a difference. The sea-anchor remained just under the surface of the ocean in a perpendicular position. A long line, in turn, connected it with the schooner. As ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... yesterday—seemed to go like ice, for he loved to be thought infallible in all such things as well as in great business affairs, and his nephew was there to give an edge to the matter. He said, curtly, that I would probably come on better in the world if I were more exact and less cock-a-hoop with myself. That stung me, for not only was the young lady looking on with a sort of superior pity, as I thought, but her brother was murmuring to her under his breath with a provoking smile. I saw no reason why ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... performance was to fall into the pond on the Common. She was driving hoop down the hill, and went so fast she couldn't stop herself; so splashed into the water, hoop and all. How dreadful it was to feel the cold waves go over her head, shutting out the sun and air! The ground was gone, and she could ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... for the captain, another for his officers, a cooper's shop, hospital, bake-house, guard-house, and a shed for the sentinel to walk under. For their services the men received old nails, bits of iron hoop, and other metal scraps, with which they were highly delighted. The Americans were then living on the terms of the most perfect friendship with the natives. Many of the jackies had been taken into the families of the islanders, and all had formed most tender attachment for the beautiful island women; ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... accompanied by one of the brothers Robert, and when Robert left the car at Nesle the balloon, lightened of a part of its burden, rose rapidly with M. Charles to a height of two miles in the air. Most of the fittings of the modern hydrogen balloon, the hoop and netting, for instance, from which the car is suspended, and the valve at the top of the balloon for the release of the gas, were devised by Charles. The unfortunate Pilatre de Rozier met his death on the 15th of June ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... were rude huts made so as to be easily taken down and removed. The tents were made by means of poles set in a circle in the ground, and brought nearly together at the top, so as to form a frame similar to that of an Indian wigwam. A hoop was placed near the top of these poles, so as to preserve a round opening there for the smoke to go out. The frame was then covered with sheets of a sort of thick gray felt, so placed as to leave the opening within the hoop free. The felt, too, was arranged ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... who drank unwittingly at the ocean from a horn and could not empty it, but nevertheless caused the ebb of the sea, so our toper, if he cannot contain the cask, will bring it down to the third hoop if time and credit will but serve. It would require a ganger's staff to measure his capacity—in fact, the limit of the labourer's liquor-power, especially in summer, has never yet been reached. A man will lie on his back in the harvest field, under a hedge ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... hope that some day a more manly public opinion will make all such persons as ridiculous as a male seamstress is now. I do not envy the feelings of men who can invent, manufacture or sell baby-jumpers, dress elevators, hoop-skirts, or those cosmetics I see "indorsed by pure and high-toned females." But when you and your friend seek the positions of "night-patrols or inspectors of police," you run into ultraism, the parent of all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... combination of the buckles, A and B, when they are constructed and united as described, with the ends of hoop iron, when bent into the form of hooks, as and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... taking two poles of the thickness of one's arm, and twelve feet long, they fastened their two ends half a foot asunder, laying on the dog's saddle the thong that fastened the two poles; and to the poles they also fastened, behind the dog, a ring or hoop, lengthwise, on ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... t'ird day we were hard at it a good way from de vessil, an' I tought I saw some swiles under a hummock, an' I ran up swingin' my club; but dey didn't stir, an' den I saw dat dey wasn't swiles. Dey was Huskies, two of 'em, dead an' frozen stiff. Dere lines an' lances lay beside 'em, an' knives of hoop-iron, wid bone hannles, were in dere boots; but dere was no sign of anythin' to ate, an' dey ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... to clear the doubt, They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. The Governor came, with his Light-horse Troop And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; Halberds glittered and colors flew, French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; So he rode with all his band, Till the President met him, cap in hand. —The Governor "hefted" the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to do?" laughed Drew. "Weep bitter tears? I'll do it if you want me to. In fact, I'll do anything you want me to do—jump through a hoop, roll over, ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... fashionably dressed, who were standing beneath the awning of a toy-shop near the bridge. Doubtless they had been caught in the shower, and had taken refuge there. The child would fain have carried away the whole shop, and had pestered her mother to buy her a hoop. Both were now leaving, however, and the child was running along full of glee, driving the hoop before her. At this Jeanne's melancholy returned with intensified force; her doll became hideous. She longed to have a hoop and to be down yonder and run along, while ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... one of the same kind previously launched from the Champ de Mars, was constructed by the brothers Robert, one of whom took part in the ascent. It was 27 ft. in diameter, and the car was suspended from a hoop surrounding the middle of the balloon, and fastened to a net, which covered the upper hemisphere. The balloon ascended very gently from the Tuileries at a quarter to two o'clock, and after remaining for some time at an elevation of about 2000 ft., it descended in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... stronger joy in right and shame for wrong. In the other, we have a "good goose" who does the right for the picture card that is set before him,—a "trained dog" sort of child, who will not leap through the hoop unless he sees the whip or the lump of sugar. So much for the training of the sense of right and wrong! Now for the provision which the kindergarten makes for the growth of certain practical virtues, much needed ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... veiled Arabian woman, or a Veddah, one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island. Sir Charles Dilke speaks of "silent crowds of tall and graceful girls, wearing, as we at first supposed, white petticoats and bodices; their hair carried off the face with a decorated hoop, and caught at the back by a high tortoise-shell comb. As they drew near, moustaches began to show, and I saw that they were men; whilst walking with them were women naked to the waist, combless, and far more rough and 'manly' than their husbands. ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator, and great general Of trotting 'paritors: O my little heart! And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What! I love! I sue, I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right! Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all; And, among three, to love the worst ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... dust thou art? He paid the servant his hire, and the wages were higher than last year. With whoop and hurra they tore the hoop from the barrel. The mower will cut more grass to-morrow. The foreign consul took counsel with the enemy, and called a council of war. English consols are high. Kings are sometimes guilty of flagrant wrongs. Many a fragrant flower blooms ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... brought him and Adam Gaudylock together; I have put a little money in this land purchase of his upon the Washita, and I have given him some advice. That is all there is of rebellion, treason, and sedition,—all the cock-a-hoop story! Ludwell Cary may keep his own breath to cool his own porridge. And you, Jacqueline, you who married me, you have not a soul to be frighted with big words! You and I shall walk side ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... HARD IMPRISONMENT comprehends compulsory, daily labour, to wear chains on the legs, to sleep upon bare boards, and to eat the worst imaginable food. The durissimo, or hardest, signifies being chained in a more horrible manner, one part of the iron being fixed in the wall, united to a hoop round the body of the prisoner, so as to prevent his moving further than the board which serves for his couch. We, as state prisoners, were condemned to the carcere duro. The food, however, is the same, though in the words of the law it is prescribed to be bread ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... They took it up and brought it to the prince, and when he let it fall on the ground, the princess again stood there. When afterward the wizard came and saw her there, his eyes flashed with spite, and bang! again an iron hoop cracked upon him and flew off. He growled and led the ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... map!- but I hope no slopes to be run down, no f'etes for a new Grand Duke. I should dread your meeting armies, if I had much faith in the counter-revolution said to be on the anvil. The French ladies in my vicinage (a, word of the late Lord Chatham's coin) are all hen-a-hoop on the expectation of a grand alliance formed for that purpose, and I believe think they shall be at Paris before you are in England; but I trust one is more certain than the other. That folly and confusion increase ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... orange-velvet gipsy costume and a diamond hoop in her hair, was lying in an arm-chair, her head thrown back. The squire dropped into ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... of view, the beauty of the Velasquez child portraits is greatly injured by the grotesque fashions of the times. A long stiff corset and an immense oval hoop entirely precluded any possibility of grace in the attitude of the little princesses, while a ridiculously artificial style of dressing the hair completed the absurdity of a costume which was ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... expeditions far up the channels of the little streams that fall into the Dordogne. Then he was after crayfish. The ordinary method of catching these crustaceae, namely, with a piece of netting covering a small wire hoop, and baited with meat, had little charm for him. There was another much more in keeping with his passion for movement. He would walk up the beds of the streams quite heedless of the water, holding in one ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... saw the pot turn itself over, and throw down all the water. Again, we saw a tray with wool leap up and down, and throw the wool out, and so many times, and saw nobody meddle with it. Again, a tub his hoop fly off of itself and the tub turn over, and nobody near it. Again, the woollen wheel turned upside down, and stood up on its end, and a spade set on it; Steph. Greenleafe saw it, and myself and my wife. Again, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... The owner said 'twas worth its weight in gold! One washing-eve, the Dame, to rise at four, Sought early rest, and, capped and gowned, did droop Fast as a church, to judge from nasal snore, That broke the silence with a hoarse hor-hoop: When all at once with fitful start she woke; For that same tinkling Dutchman on the stair Had told the hour of four with clattering stroke, And waked the sleeper ere she was aware. "Odd drat the clock!" she sighed; ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... girl," said one of the gay children, stopping her hoop and touching her brother upon the back with her stick; "she's got a little baby in her arms just as big as sissy—hasn't she Willie? And only see what an old ragged blanket it has on! Haven't you got any nice clothes for the baby?" ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... is this hill where the road widens, with the group of cattle by the wayside, and George Hearn, the little post-boy, trundling his hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in his work, because he cheats himself into thinking it play! And how beautiful, again, is this patch of common at the hilltop with the clear pool, where Martha Pither's children,—elves of three, and four, and five ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... feared that Rufe's influence might not be beneficial to the children. It pains us to observe that Josephine has learned to ride a padded horse and to leap with surprising certainty through a hoop and over a banner. Erasmus does not disguise his intention of joining a circus when he reaches the age of maturity, and I happened to overhear Rufe remark the other day that our daughter Fanny, with just a leetle more practice, ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... of the performance is over, the scalps are tanned by the women, as they would tan a buffalo-skin, the inside painted red, and the whole stretched on a circular hoop, about the size of a barrel hoop, to which is attached a straight handle, about four feet long, so that it can be carried in the air above the heads of the people. It is also decorated with all the trinkets found on the person ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... not over fair: but still, they are a sight better than they ever had before. An old hoop is better than a ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... my nose. Do you? I jump through a hoop (an atrocious trick, my dear, after one's first youth—and a full meal!)—I bark three cheers for the Queen, and I shut ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... was obliged to add two hundred more people to the gang. It was well known that negroes were imported into Demarara and Trinidad up to a later period than into any of the colonies; and he should at a proper time, be able to prove that the decrease on his father's plantation, Vreeden Hoop, was among the old Africans, and that there was an increase going on in the Creole population, which would be a sufficient answer to the charges preferred. The quantity of sugar produced was small compared to that produced ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... cannot altogether say whether the same is pursued universally, A large tub of water was placed on deck, and each one who was to be performed on, sat in turn on the edge; then the barber stepped forward and lathered his face all over with tar and grease, and with a piece of iron hoop as a razor scraped it off again; after which he pushed him backwards into the tub, leaving him to crawl out anyhow and sneak off to clean himself. All passed off very well, however, as there was plenty of rum provided to drink from those ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... they serve, but they seem to vie with one another to divine my wishes. I mention this to thee because, when, the day before I left the Christians, I told Paul that society would fall apart because of his religion, as a cask without hoops, he answered, 'Love is a stronger hoop than fear.' And now I see that in certain cases his opinion may be right. I have verified it also with references to clients, who, learning of my return, hurried to salute me. Thou knowest that I have never been penurious with them; ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the vapor closed densely round me, shutting out even the rocks of the trail and as I cautiously descended, I almost bumped astonished steers whose heads burst from the mist as if through a covered hoop. The high granite crags on the opposite side of the ravine took on the shapes of ruined castles seated on sloping shores by foaming seas, their smooth lawns reaching ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... hours, and I can tell them how I love them till I am black in the face, and they seem to like it; but whenever I come to the laying of the hand on the shapely shoulder part, it's all off. I am told that I am no gentleman, and to roll my hoop out of that house forever. What's a fellow going to do? You can never tell whether a girl is really sore or whether she is stalling. A girl might be for a fellow strong, and yet she wouldn't admit it for a thousand dollars. There ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... a corporal in his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... called the Crisis, a very capital name for a craft in a country where crisises of one sort or another occur regularly as often as once in six months. She was a tight little ship of about four hundred tons, had hoop-pole bulwarks, as I afterwards learned, with nettings for hammocks and old junk, principally the latter; and showed ten nine-pounders, carriage-guns, in her batteries. I saw she was loaded, and was soon given to understand that her shipping-articles ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... call. He was instantly taken at his word; and that his exertions might not be without an aim, a capot or great coat was promised as the reward of his success. A conjuring-house having been erected in the usual form, that is, by sticking four willows in the ground and tying their tops to a hoop at the height of six or eight feet, he was fettered completely by winding several fathoms of rope round his body and extremities, and placed in its narrow apartment, not exceeding two feet in diameter. A moose-skin being then thrown over the frame, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... be sent to the war at all," said Patsy, "at least not for a while. So don't get cock-a-hoop. You will have a lot to learn, and you can persuade your grandfather, if you really want to see me, to open up his house in London, and then you can come and see me as often as ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... do any more," said Freddie. "There's a barrel hoop over there. Maybe he'll jump through it ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... lofty "systems;" and their long, lank necks rose like towers above their projecting busts; which, with their straight, sticky, tight-laced waists, terminating in the artificial rotundity of a half-dress bell-hoop, gave them the proportions of an hour-glass. They wore grey camlet riding habits, with large black Birmingham buttons (to mark the slight mourning for their deceased brother-in-law): while petticoats, fastened as pins did or did not their office, shewed more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... uses a drum resembling a tambourine. A hoop made of ash wood is covered with a piece of rawhide, tightly stretched while wet. Upon the upper surface is painted a mythic figure, usually that of his tutelaly daimon. An example of this kind is from Red Lake, Minnesota, presented ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... Puritans. I have never forgotten my childish vision of this wonderful creature, a vision that connected itself with a neighbor's daughter who dressed in bright red mousseline-delaine and wore an immense hoop, played the fiddle and scandalized the community by her manners, music and muslin. But the young men were all in love with her and she held a nightly court in a little brown house in that part of the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... store-room. This, however, was no time to indulge conjecture, nor was any effort remitted in despair of success. That no time might be lost, the water was immediately started in the hold, and pumped up; six of our guns, being all we had upon the deck, our iron and stone ballast, casks, hoop staves, oil jars, decayed stores, and many other things that lay in the way of heavier materials, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition, every one exerting himself with an alacrity almost approaching ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... morning he saw the scalp of his friend Montgomery, bound upon a hoop and drying in the sun, before a house. That was a reminder. The next thing, he was led out, to run ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... join in any of his tricks against the girls. When they arrived next morning, they went off at once to see Caroline's pet hen and chickens; and though Herbert went with them, he stood aside with his hoop dangling on his arm, and with a look of contempt on his face at his cousin Charlie's delight at the sight of the chickens. Living in a town as Charles and Lizzie did, everything belonging to the country was new and delightful; and it was not till all the poultry-sheds, ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... soon after this comes a state of furious intoxication, and a general scuffle is a common termination to a drinking-bout. Fortunately, the Indians are not a bloodthirsty people; and, though every man carries a knife or machete, or—if he can get nothing better—a bit of hoop-iron tempered, sharpened, and fixed into a handle, yet nothing more serious than cuffs and scratches generally ensues. Even if severe wounds are given, the Indian has many chances in his favor, for his organization is somewhat different from that of ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... from the empirical field; yet these suggestions soon shed their externality and their place is taken by some genuine development of the original notion. In constructing, for instance, the essence of a circle, I may have started from a hoop. I may have observed that as the hoop meanders down the path the roundness of it disappears to the eye, being gradually flattened into a straight line, such as the hoop presents when it is rolling ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... was small and poorly decent, and her hoop and mine filled it. She curtseyed low, as did I, and though she aimed at composure, I could see her lips work. The line between her brows was eight years deeper, her face pale, the bloom faded, and her mouth droopt. Had she been any other, I had pitied ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... others put a hoop around a tree, and then get inside of the hoop, with the back against the hoop, so that the feet can get a purchase against the tree, and in that way the trees are ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Two marked by little yellow flames to show how they died. (My Senecas have had no prisoners for burning since August third.) One a rebel clergyman, his band tied to the scalp-hoop, and a little red foot under a red cross painted on the skin. (He killed two of my men before we got him.) One, a poor scalp, the hair gray and thin; the hoop painted brown. (An old man whom we found in bed in a ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... wall by the side of the pulpit, is an iron stand for the hour-glass, consisting of two circular hoops or rings of iron, connected by four wrought iron bars, worked in the middle; and across the lower ring or hoop is an iron bar or stay. In High Laver Church, Essex, the iron stand for the glass still remains, and is in fashion not unlike a cresset, having only one hoop or ring encircling the top, and supported on four iron bars, which cross in curves at the bottom. ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... forward and removed the back board of the cart, and ordered his assistants to carry Grandier to where the pile was prepared. As he was unable to stand, he was attached to the stake by an iron hoop passed round his body. At that moment a flock of pigeons seemed to fall from the sky, and, fearless of the crowd, which was so great that the archers could not succeed even by blows of their weapons in clearing a way for the magistrates, began to fly around Grandier, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... servant at the Swan and Hoop stables—a man of so remarkably fine a common-sense, and native respectability, that I perfectly remember the warm terms in which his demeanor used to be canvassed by my parents after he had been to visit his boys. John was the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had from Columbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands; snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern." But we had no hoop-skirts,—skeletons, we used to call them. No ingenuity had made them. No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Greyhound, the Deer, the Flora, the J.C. Cobb, the Varuna, and the Fore-and-Aft all took in cargoes of them for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer and the Flora were seized ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... but you felt a man back of them—a good man, a real man. You liked him, and it didn't matter that his terminology was at times a little eccentric. Grandfather's theology fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts would fit over there on the avenue to-day—but he always made me feel religious. It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked. With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as—as I doubt to-day. But it was another thing I wanted to show you—something ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... you are right; the London ladies were always too handsome for me; then they are so defended, such a circumvallation of hoop, with a breastwork of whale-bone that would turn a pistol-bullet, much less Cupid's arrows,—then turret on turret on top, with stores of concealed weapons, under pretence of black pins,—and above all, a standard of feathers that would do honour to a knight of the Bath. ...
— St. Patrick's Day • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... did you know that if there is one thing on earth which I love it is a ring? And such a ring! You wicked boy, I do believe you have spent a fortune on it." Yet in reality she hardly guesses the full amount of the generous sum that has been so willingly expended on that glittering hoop. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... something like it. A wave as of triumph? No; yet more like that. An insolent salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too—he resumes his breakfast, and calls to the chafing and imprisoned bird, who coming down into a pendant gilded hoop within the cage, like a great wedding-ring, swings ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the touchstone of an orderly reason; the conception of "correctness" dominated all mortal affairs. For instance, one's natural hair with its vagaries of rat's tails, duck's tails, errant curls, and baldness, gave place to an orderly wig, or was at least decently powdered. The hoop remedied the deficiencies of the feminine form, and the gardener clipped his yews into respectability. All poetry was written to one measure in those days, and a Royal Academy with a lady member was inaugurated that art might become at least decent. Dictionaries ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... yeast, and the rest of the cream, mix all your liquors together about blood-warm, make a hole in the middle of your flour, and put in the liquids, cover it half an hour and let it stand to rise, then put in your currans and mix all together; butter your hoop, tie a paper three fold, and put it at the bottom in your hoop; just when they are ready to set in the oven, put the cake into your hoop at three times; when you have laid a little paste at the bottom, lay in part of your sweet-meats and almonds, then put ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... story, nodded his head to a doorman and I followed along the iron corridor and stood in front of a row of cells. The Turnkey looked over a hoop of keys, turned one in a door, threw it wide and said, waving ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... mixture of shoemaker's wax, train oil and soot, most ungently laid on with a coarse painter's brush. Neptune then performed the office of barber himself, taking a long piece of iron which had once served as the hoop of a tun, he scraped their chins in ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... the rope in his hand, and while Kintuck looked on curiously, he began a series of movements which one of Delmar's Mexicans had taught him. With the noose spread wide he kept it whirling in the air as if it were a hoop. He threw it into the air and sprang through it, he lowered it to the ground, and leaping into it, flung it far above his head. In his hand this inert thing developed snakelike action. It took on loops and scallops and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... indicating a kind of life too remote from our own to be readily sympathized with. Who cares for glass beads and copper brooches, and knives, spear-heads, and swords, all so rusty that they look as much like pieces of old iron hoop as anything else? The bed of the Thames has been a rich treasury of antiquities, from the time of the Roman Conquest downwards; it seems to preserve bronze in considerable ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more slowly, as he approached the dwelling he had once thought of as home, he became aware of a little girl in a checkered dress approaching him at a gait varied by the indifferent behavior of a barrel-hoop which she was disciplining with a stick held in her right hand. When the hoop behaved well, she came ahead rapidly; when it affected to be intoxicated, which was most often its whim, she zigzagged with it, and gained little ground. But all the while, and without reference to what went on ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... settled down to a basket of large potatoes by the barn door, which he softly cut in twain, scooping each half out in the centre, and cutting off the bottoms with mysterious earnestness. As each potatoe was finished, uncle Nat fastened it to the edge of a new hogshead-hoop that lay on the floor beside him, till the whole circle ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... party. All the neighbors had a piece of the meat but we thought the friends who had killed the steer should have a party and have roast beef for us all, so we sent word we were all coming. Mrs. Noble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards around. In these shirrings she run rattan—a good heavy piece so it would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery was ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... sharp tools, and he does not turn his teapot out of a solid block of metal. His tool is a hard piece of wood, something like a child's hoop-stick, and fixed to the spinning-round part of the lathe, the "chuck," as a workman would call it, is a solid block of smooth wood shaped ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... good child, and do as Sister tells you. No, I can't have any fretting. Paula will show you how to drive your hoop. Keep her moving fast, Paula, don't let her fret and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Colonel Laporte, "I am old and gouty, my legs are as stiff as two sticks, and yet if a pretty woman were to tell me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I should take a jump at it, like a clown through a hoop. I shall die like that; it is in the blood. I am an old beau, one of the old regime, and the sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to the tips of my ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... insult; the telephone was preferred, because it allowed one to speak slowly if he chose. Snap-shot cameras were found only in the garrets. The fifteen minutes' sittings now in vogue threw upon the plate the color of the eyes, hair, and the flesh tones of the sitter. Ladies wore hoop skirts. ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... that his heart was graduated early for any demand. The most unmusical people know that Mozart stands unrivalled among infant prodigies, that he was a pocket-Paderewski, at a period when most children cannot even trundle a hoop, and that he was deep in composition before the usual child is out of kilts. Everybody has seen the pictures of the littler Mozart and his little sister perched like robins on a piano stool and giving a concert before crowned heads, with the assistance of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the Emu airily, "for some of us have had most unpleasant symptoms after picking up morsels at camping grounds. Several have died. We were quite surprised, for hitherto there has been no better cure for Emu indigestion than wire nails, hoop iron, and preserved milk cans. The worst symptoms have yielded to scraps of barbed wire in my own case. But these Emus died in ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... they had a war dance. Pa hurt the bald spot on his head by hitting it against the gas chandelier, and then he said dammit. Then they throwed pillows at each other. Pa's friend didn't have any night shirt, and Pa gave his friend one of your'n, and the friend took that old hoop-skirt in the closet, the one Pa always steps on when he goes in the close, after a towel and hurts his bare foot, you know, and put it on under the night shirt, and they walked around arm in arm. O, it made me tired to see a man Pa's age act so ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... her hoop, and squeezed through, followed by Ethel and Leonard. There was a considerable space, square, leaded and protected by the battlemented parapet, with a deep moulding round, and a gutter resulting in the pipe smoked by Ethel's likeness, the gurgoyle. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the great cellar. The back of the place was full of the debris of ancient barrels, some intact, some with gaping sides, many held together with no more than a single hoop. But packed together in one corner and occupying a place about one third of the whole area of the floor was something very different. Tarpaulined, fastened together by ropes, and guarded from damp by planks laid below them, were some ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... contrasted strangely with the warm reception he met from everybody there. And the house was full of women; and they seemed, somehow, all cock-a-hoop, and filled with admiration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... 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 ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... diminish the respect once entertained for good Manners, and the mass of our countrymen seem to look upon politeness as an antiquated remnant of a past age, which the present has outgrown as entirely as wigs and hoop-petticoats. It is, however, a curious feature in the change, that at no previous time have the titles of gentleman and lady been so universally and pertinaciously assumed as at the present. The rudest even are resentful at ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... loaf for my supper that night, with as much salt meat as they would let me have, and a good pitcher of red wine, until I had to bore a new hole at the end of my belt, and then it fitted me as tight as a hoop to a barrel. After that I lay down in the straw where the rest of the company were sprawling, and in less than a minute I was in ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle |
