"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand, just ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... limber, bounding feet That swept the winter's snows? What stateliest stag so fast and fleet? Their speed ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations of grief and fury were heard ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... a sufficiency yet, boys. Limber up them guns again. Same order as before. Put a few more petals on them flowers, and I'll trim their eyelashes ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was trying to limber up my German vocabulary he passed us along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober- Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in Brussels, and that under no circumstances should we be allowed to return within ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... Twenty Mile, and the customary activity prevailed inside that flat-roofed cube of mud. Sounds of singing, shooting, dancing, and Mexican tunes on the concertina came out of the windows hand in hand, to widen and die among the hills. A limber, pretty boy, who might be nineteen, was dancing energetically, while a grave old gentleman, with tobacco running down his beard, pointed a pistol at the boy's heels, and shot a hole in the earth now and then to show that the weapon ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... orders of Major-General Hunter, who was on the spot, the 13th retired first, some 800 yards. But before it could come into action again, the 53rd, left alone on the plain, drew in its turn the fire of all the Boer guns. A shell exploded beneath a limber, blowing the wheels to fragments, so that the gun could not be removed, and had to be temporarily abandoned. As soon as the 13th re-opened the 53rd was able to draw back. In re-crossing the donga a gun upset, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck, and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S—-'s free-and-easy manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... be wondering if I can produce another illustration equally good. I can, of course, for this book is rich in illustrations. I can see, as it were, the old fellow on the third seat, who has been sitting there as stiff and straight as a ramrod, limber up just a mite, and with my next point I hope to induce him to lean forward an inch, at ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... and night, Hie away; and aim thy flight Where consort none other fowl Than the bat and sullen owl; Where upon thy limber grass, Poppy and mandragoras, With like simples not a few, Hang forever drops of dew; Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee hither, gentle sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... that glass was warming.— You rascal! limber your lazy feet I We must be fiddling and performing For supper and bed, or starve in the street.— Not a very gay life to lead, you think? But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock, Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock? What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan,— "Out of a river-reed music ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did, by and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the queer "gun" on his saddle, pull it out of a case and—her eyes got big with wonder—take it to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In a moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water up to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing-pole—so queer a fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... it's all the same to me. I'll be glad to limber my arm up a little, too. It feels a tiny bit stiff, and a good work-out will ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... closing the book to think, the memory re-telling some old and pretty tale; and then perhaps some graceful girl comes out of the house with a world of hopes and innocent desires in her wide-open eyes; or a tall and limber boy saunters out bare-headed and flannelled, conscious of life and health, and steps down to the punt that lies swinging at its chain—one hears it rattle as it is untied and flung into the prow; and then the dripping pole is plunged and raised, and the punt goes gliding away, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... acquires considerable weight and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which the sufferer is tied, his back ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hollow of a shabby wig. 'What shall we do with him?' said I. 'Hustle him out!' cried he; 'hustle him out! he didn't get his liquor here: I've no room for such company!' I then endeavored to put my companion upon his feet, but his legs bent under him, and his whole body seemed as limber and lifeless as a wet rag. 'You can't do any thing with him in that way,' continued the landlord; 'if you want to get him home to-night, you must take him on your back and carry him there yourself. He'll be bright ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... inoffensive frog, 'A little child, a limber elf,' With health and spirits all agog, He does the long jump in a bog Or teaches men to swim and dive. If he should be cut up alive, Should I not be ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... said, moving nervously, "you must recognise, my dear de Lery, that men of our stiffness and weight can have no chance pitted against a young fellow from the fencing schools of Versailles. He has a wrist as limber as a fish no doubt. Try to end ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... figured that if he can start out with a hundred paid-up subscribers of a dollar each he can make a go of it. He says Elijah says set him up the press an' he don't ask no better fun than to live on bread an' water while he jumps from peak to peak of fame, but Mr. Kimball says Elijah's young an' limber an' he shall want the paid-up subscriptions himself afore he begins to transport a printin' press ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... to butt with his head and ram his knee into Abe's stomach as soon as they came together. Half drunk Jack is a man who would bite your ear off. It was no rassle; it was a fight. Abe moved like lightning. He acted awful limber an' well greased. In a second he had got hold of the feller's neck with his big right hand and hooked his left into the cloth on his hip. In that way he held him off and shook him as you've seen our dog shake a woodchuck. Abe's blood was hot. If the whole crowd had piled on him I guess he would ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... only long enough to limber up the muscles. Whaley handed to Jessie the revolver he ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... nor ox, nor ass, but the deer so little and limber; They ran in the forest to please themselves, why ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... court-martialed for his mix-up with the quartermaster sergeant, and got seven days field punishment No. 1. This meant that two hours each day for a week he would be tied to the wheel of a limber. During those two-hour periods Jim would be at Bill's feet, and no matter how much we coaxed him with choice morsels of food, he would not leave until Bill was untied. When Bill was loosed, Jim would have ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... species Number Two; but, so long as I remained, that was the sum total of their spoil. One could almost observe, by the gradual melancholy which settled upon their countenances as the time went on with no thrilling rap to make the top of the limber rod dance again, the hopeless fading out of these unsubstantial specimens from even the imagination. The east wind of course had been against everything ever since the trout season opened, and it was not surprising to learn that; though the weir had been well fished from All Fools' ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... entrained at 4.10 a.m. on the 26th. It is sad to think that this wait gave an opportunity once more for light-fingered people in the Transport Section to annex eight or nine P.L.M. goods sheets, which were carefully stowed away, one on each limber, and later proved of great value in several places where there ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... the Syrian spears, so limber and so straight, Tell of the slender dusky maids, so lithe and proud of gait. Languid of eyelids, with a down like silk upon her cheek, Within her wasting lover's heart she queens it still ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... which hoped later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a contingent of Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross the Free State border. It was an hour before dawn that the guns started, and the riflemen followed close behind the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon the black sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion says of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part the expression worn was one of determination ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you, for I've seen none the like of you the eleven long days I am walking the world, looking over a low ditch or a high ditch on my north or my south, into stony scattered fields, or scribes of bog, where you'd see young, limber girls, and fine prancing women making laughter ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... out of the dressing room and I followed; and while they began to toss balls to and fro, to limber up cold, dead arms, I sat on ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... as, for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my lad; your need is greater than mine.'" Or again, referring to my later career: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but Lieut. Henry's indelible pencil, when engaged on official correspondence, is mightier than both." Or at least, at the very beginning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... His carved oar limber Was fir-tree timber,— A mast-fir tall, From Gudbrand's dale. Taking another, With both together He rowed amain; Like arrowy cane Or steel blade brilliant Were the oars resilient. The sun climbs up The mountain slope, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... my children," said Lagroin. "First in, first served. Best men, best pickings. But every man must love his chief, and serve him with blood and bayonet; and march o' nights if need, and limber up the guns if need, and shoe a horse if need, and draw a cork if need, and cook a potato if need; and be a hussar, or a tirailleur, or a trencher, or a general, if need. But yes, that's it; no pride but the love of France and the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... steerers, and the snatchers of crumbs in all cannot find protection under the flag and its institutions? That was what the gamblers' trust of Comanche wanted to know. In order to insure it they had the city incorporated, and put in a good, limber-wristed ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... fray. Then Jamrkan and Sa'adan rode out with forty-thousand stalwart fighting-men, under each standard a thousand cavaliers, doughty champions, foremost in champaign. The two hosts drew out in battles and bared their blades and levelled their limber lances, for the drinking of the cup of death. The first to open the gate of strife was Sa'adan, as he were a mountain of syenite or a Marid of the Jinn. Then dashed out to him a champion of the Infidels, and the Ghul slew him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... CHOLERA.—There are a few diseases, such as septicaemia, limber neck and infectious enteritis, that are sometimes mistaken for fowl cholera. These diseases are caused by different microorganisms that may be found in the digestive tract and air-passages of healthy birds, insanitary conditions ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as silently ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... qualifications for smartness. The guns would be taken to pieces, unlimbered, and scattered on the ground, and the wheels of the gun-carriage wheeled away a considerable distance. On the order being given to "Limber up, and fire!" the crew which mounted its gun and fired the first shot earned the laurels. On one occasion the gun's crew of the 'Bellerophon' gained the honour, but unfortunately, through the neglect of one ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... and tightened his belt about him and set out afresh. The long sleep had restored his vigor and his eye gleamed with satisfaction. The muscles that had stiffened from long disuse—he would not have admitted that the stiffness came from age—were limber as of old, and he felt that, after all, it was good to be once more upon the trail. But even his confidence would have been rudely shaken could he have foreseen the peril wherein ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... lean, weighing a hundred and seventy pounds of well-strung frame. His eyes were gray and the lids sun-puckered; his deeply tanned skin showed the freckles on face and hands as faint inlays; his long limber legs were slightly bowed. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... to me at the time, but owing to our hurried movements and the vicissitudes of the battle, I have never had an opportunity to verify it. It was said that during the retreat of the artillery one piece of Stewart's battery did not limber up as soon as the others. A rebel officer rushed forward, placed his hand upon it, and presenting a pistol at the back of the driver, directed him not to drive off with the piece. The latter did so, however, received ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... unfledged, A monkey with his tail abridged; A thing that walks on spindle legs, With bones as brittle, sir, as eggs; His body, flexible and limber, And headed with a knob of timber; A being frantic and unquiet, And very fond of beef and riot; Rapacious, lustful, rough, and martial, To lies and lying scoundrels partial! By nature form'd with splendid parts To rise in science—shine ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... upon the snow-shoes With a long and limber stride; And I hailed the dusky stranger, As we traveled ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... place," continued the captain, jerking at his line, and then beginning to count on his fingers—"There is the 'man- rope;' then come the 'bucket-rope,' the 'tiller-rope,' the 'bolt- rope,' the 'foot-rope,' the 'top-rope,' and the 'limber-rope.' I have followed the seas, now, more than half a century, and never yet heard of a 'cable-rope,' from any one who ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes knows more. I can find a safer, if not a more honest employment, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... limber up a little and not be so stiff with him," urged Mrs. Fortescue, "let him ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... 'em; to bail the water from a leaky boat; to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees' nests, and to transport pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John usually carried a sling in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick, sharp at one end, from which he could sling apples a great distance. If he walked in the road, he walked in the middle of it, shuffling up the dust; or if he went elsewhere, he was likely to be running on the top ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of two sorts: one quite heavy, almost like a sledge-hammer or maul, and with a short handle; the other much lighter, and with a longer, more limber handle. This last was used by men in war as a mace or war club, while the heavier hammer was used by women as an axe to break up fallen trees for firewood; as a hammer to drive tent-pins into the ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... dark eyes were remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency—the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... responded, stretching her body lazily and redisposing her feet; "though my legs ain't as limber ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... song was great, And legs of trees were limber, And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, And ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... have been sprinkling it on this midshipman's uniform? You are the fellow who runs the temperance drinks place? A nice business for you to be in—drugging midshipmen and trying to ruin them! To prison you go, unless you limber up your tongue. Who put you up to this miserable business? Talk quickly—or off to ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... rear, marched a small, lively, wizened little fellow, dressed as nearly as possible like the white man, and carrying as the badge of his office a bulging cotton umbrella and the kiboko—the slender, limber, stinging rhinoceros-hide whip. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... they now got a long, limber Willow rod an inch thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... had many guns; the grey eighteen in action. There were indeed but seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in crossing the meadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern, powerful. The grey were inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper and deeper into caisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward glances toward ordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the blue was extremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible considering the question ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... indicated his purchase of the morning. This was a tall and strong negro, young, supple, and of a cheerful countenance. Rand was in high good-humour. "He's a runaway, Mocket says, but I'll cure him of that! He's strong as an ox and as limber as a snake." Taking the negro's hand in his, he bent the fingers back. "Look at that! easy as a willow! He'll strip tobacco! ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... was nearly ready to be picked. Some few things needed a little more December sun, but everything looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would not pop out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks were hardly as limber as they might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the chapel for the greater part of the time, and only went over the garden once a day to see if everything ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... settle back to sleep, but after two or three ineffectual efforts gave it up. He rose and did one or two setting-up exercises to limber his joints. The first of these flashed the signal to his brain that he was stiff and sore. This brought to mind the fight on the hurricane deck, and he smiled. His face was about as mobile as if it were in a plaster cast. It hurt every ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... who raced the flier to wait on the ground until the engine rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the headway the train already had, to start a hundred yards or so before the engine came abreast, in order to limber up ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your legs! Tommy! do you ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... light over the landscape; I get happy-crazy; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers; there's music a long ways off—why, I could sing this minute, but there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just drunk enough to be limber and—talk ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... he might discover some sign of their passage—a discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site—he continued farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon. Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a winding river he determined to turn about and start for camp. It would take straight ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... run up wi' you an' begin to git limber-jawed," league continued, "thes hang your thum' in that kinder keerless like, an' they'll sw'ar by you thereekly. Ef any of 'em asts the news, thes say they's a leak in Sugar Creek. Well, well, well!" he exclaimed, after a little pause; "hit's thes like I tell you. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... The perching birds grasp a twig firmly with their very limber toes and sharp claws, and put their head under their wing; but many others, like tame Geese and Ducks, sleep standing on the ground on one foot or sometimes ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... much docility as the slave had done, and by their united efforts the patient was soon dressed in warm dry clothes, wrapped in a hot, thick blanket, and tucked up comfortably in bed. But though her form was now limber, and her pulse perceptible, she had not yet spoken or opened her eyes. It was a half an hour later, while Hannah stood bathing her temples with camphor, and Mrs. Jones sat rubbing her hands, that Nora showed the first signs of returning consciousness, and these seemed attended with great mental ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... enough of a fight for things that I always remember how I got them. I even enjoy seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: 'Ware the sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber's.' I like sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame. I should have loved it when all the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy Indian canoes patrolled the shores. You wait until ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... is the dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work —what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... must come to the mind of every one who reads the "Farewell Address," one sees at once that the "Prince" is more limber, it may be more spontaneous, but the great difference between the two is in their fundamental conception. The "Address" is frankly a preachment and much of its impressiveness comes from that fact. The "Prince," on the other hand, has little concern ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the go pretty steadily, but what's a horse good for? Thursday afternoon we had our cross-country run and the ground was horribly stiff. I thought he had sprained his off foreleg for he limped a good deal on the home stretch, but he seemed to limber up all right the last few miles. I was sorry not to let him rest yesterday; would have put him in better trim I suppose for to-day's twenty mile pull,—but Cartwright and Peterson wanted to make ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... Meanwhile he chattered forth profanity in such volume that the ear ached under it as must have ached the heroic Slapjack under the chill of the melting snow. He was relieved quickly, however, and emerged triumphant, though blue and puckered, his wilderness of whiskers streaming like limber stalactites, his boots loosely "squishing," while oaths still poured from him in such ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in Heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin's hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o'er his visage serpents dropping gall. Yet he shall one ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... while the centre brigades of Hardee were pushing into the gap, and, without serious opposition, were gaining Sherman's left flank. Waterhouse began to limber up his guns for a retreat. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Puffington, fat, fair, and rather more than forty—Puffington, no longer the light limber lad who patronized us in Bond Street, but Puffington a plump, portly sort of personage, filling his smart clothes uncommonly full. Men no longer hailing him heartily from bay windows, or greeting him cheerily in short but familiar terms, but bowing ceremoniously as they passed ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... leap and rear with impatience when taken into the open before they were hooked to the vehicle. They were being very well fed, and though once a week they had the hardest of work, for the rest of the time they had never more than enough to limber them up, for on schooldays I used to take them out for a spin of three or four miles only, after four. At home, when I left, my wife and I would get them ready in the stable; then I took them out and lined them up in front of the buggy. My wife quickly took the lines: ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... limber, Bore him home on poles and branches, Bore the body of the beaver; But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, Still lived ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... muzzle pointed out through a slit in the colloid screen. "The six guns we've got aboard, in strategic positions, look like good medicine to me! Wouldn't it be the correct thing to call the gun-crews and limber up a little? These chaps aren't going to be all day in getting here, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... deckhands was a tall, limber American man named Jones. He came up to Randy after ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... I was not afraid of the babies, but was not sure that all the old wasps were out. It was a cold day, and wasps get stiff very quickly, so I watched carefully to see whether the warm air of the room would not limber up some stiff joints which were perhaps in hiding up-stairs in the house. Sure enough, in a few moments out crawled a worker, looking quite dazed and sheepish at the change in temperature. I did not wait for it to become thoroughly ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... dat boy? Whyn't he hunch hisse'f up on dat saddle right? Jim, Jim, whyn't you limber up, boy; hunch yo'se'f up on dat hoss lak you belonged to him and knowed you was dah. What I done showed you? De black raskil, goin' out dah tryin' to disgrace his own daddy. Hyeah he come ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... went, and Fionn grew long and straight and tough like a sapling; limber as a willow, and with the flirt and spring of a young bird. One of the ladies may have said, "He is shaping very well, my dear," and the other replied, as is the morose privilege of an aunt, "He will never be as good as his ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... rare compliment. I used to go to various book stores, asking permission to look over books at a special reading table, and never met a refusal. I fear in these days of aiding the war sufferers, and keeping our bodies limber and free from rheumatism by daily dancing, this plan would ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... was there with a mouthful of toast.) "Take the mess limber and fetch 'em back if the Heavy Group Artillery will let you—they're in there now, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... to me that the earth lurched as it swung, and every joint in my body went limber as a rag. I caught at El Mahdi's mane, then I felt Jud's arm go round me, and heard Ump talking at my ear. But they were a long distance away. I heard instead the bees droning, and Ward's merry laugh, as he carried me on his shoulder a babbling youngster in a little white kilt. It was ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... limber Yankee sprung into the wagon, and the steam man started ahead at a speed which was ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... in a big carry-all motor-van about the time Jack and his followers trooped on the field, and began to pass the ball around to limber up their muscles for the great test. They were given a royal reception, for there were many hundreds of Harmony rooters on hand to help the boys with cheers and the waving of flags and pennants. Besides, Chester was showing a fine ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... keep your jabbering tongues still," he said, "and let me have a chance to talk. It's so long since I've seen a boy from up on the Earth that I'd like to talk a spell myself—to limber up my old tongue. It's grown ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... from the Signaller brought no comment until the last letter was read, but then the Limber Gunner remembered ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... simple thing sometimes will look the most attractive. By driving two limber poles into the ground by the side of each of two gate posts, and bringing the two ends of the poles together, and fasten them securely, a respectable arch can be made. At the foot of each pole plant a Clematis Jackmanii, and train ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... are just as much alive as the softer parts of the body. It is the lime that makes them stiff. This can be eaten out by putting the bone in strong vinegar or other acid for a few days. A long bone will then become so limber that it can ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... at Centerport. They saw that I was limber and could do a turn or two, and they made me join. They promised me good wages and a fine time, but as soon as we got on the road they treated me worse than ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... the trooper, with affected anger, "I shall have my fellows as limber as supple-jacks on such fare; afraid of an Englishman as a Virginian negro ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of our batteries to pull out from behind the railway embankment passed me on the road, the horses walking grandly, the men tired but in high enough spirits. The enemy long-range guns were waking up now and playing a damnable tattoo on the main routes leading west. I saw one limber-waggon belonging to the Engineers blown sky-high, and three maimed horses had ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... glass was warming— You rascal! limber your lazy feet! We must be fiddling and performing For supper and bed, or starve in the street.— Not a very gay life to lead, you think. But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink;— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... as none of us wanted to be taken prisoners. We therefore went down some side streets and crossed the bridge on the road that leads to Vlamertinghe. There I found an ammunition column hurrying out of the town, and the man riding one of the horses on a limber invited me to mount the other, which was saddled. It is so long, however, since I left the circus ring that I cannot mount a galloping horse unless I put my foot into the stirrup. So after two or three ineffectual attempts at a running mount, I climbed up into the ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... rope, were stretched and fitted; and new topsail clew-lines, &c. rove; new fore-topmast backstays fitted; and other preparations made in good season, that the ropes might have time to stretch and become limber before we ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics with ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles of MR. E. DROOD to American minds and matters, was subsequently issued from the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... take your automobile out for a spin you don't ride it around for half an hour in the yard to see whether it will go. No, you first look after the machinery, to see if all is in working order, and then you start out, knowing it will go. I do a lot of gymnastics each day, to exercise the voice and limber up the anatomy. These act as a massage for the voice; they are in the nature of humming, mingled with grunts, calls, exclamations, shouts, and many kinds of sounds—indeed so many and various they cannot be enumerated. But they put the voice ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... free of the sling now, and, though it was still a bit stiff, it was beginning to limber up nicely. In another week it would be as good as new, with only a slight scar left to serve as a reminder of the episode that had led to so much. In time that too would disappear; and then— But he was not concerned with the future. That, ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... zenith blue melts away toward the horizon in dreamy violet, and the retreating sun leaves limber shafts of orange light, like Parthian arrows, among the green branches of the elms, what sounds can charm the ear like the soft chirrup of the cricket, the homely drone of the hive-seeking bee, and the cool rustle of the breeze through the tops of the spring-sodden water grasses? ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... pen. I stood the stylograph as long as I could, and then retired to the pencil. The thing I am trying now is that fountain-pen which is advertised to employ and accommodate itself to any kind of pen. So I selected an ordinary gold pen—a limber one—and sent it to New York and had it cut and fitted to this thing. It goes very well indeed—thus far; but doubtless the devil will be ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and besides, his adversary had a right to call a champion. "We all do it," the soldiers assured him. "Now your blood's up you're ready for a dozen of us;" which was less true of a constitution that was quicker in expending its heat. He stood out against a young fellow almost as limber as himself, much taller, and longer in the reach, by whom he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh and head. Seeing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, previously quite civil, cursed him for having got the better of their fallen comrade, and went off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down. Raising the body, Dick worked his way beneath it until his right shoulder was under the other's stomach. Slipping his right arm between the legs of his burden, Dick gripped the wrist of the sound arm, and slowly raised himself. This was the hardest part of the task, but the Wolf's strong, limber knees made sure work of it, and in a moment he stood nearly upright with the injured scout across his shoulders. Then Dick stepped out at a gentle, even pace, following the path Chippy had taken. He was in sight of the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... breeches that had been sained in and dried so often they was about half rotten. When we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was close to the river bank, and as my feet touched the ground I giv a tremenjius ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... of grosser shade, all barred With lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... more propitious for this necessary understanding with Maria, who was feeling amiable, apologetic, as limber as Joan, and almost as warm. She had also ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the best of; and both the civilian and the soldier agreed that their only chance was to fight. Williams opened fire with his Infantry, and Ricketts took command of the guns. At the first discharge the horses bolted with the limber, and never appeared again; almost at the same moment Williams fell, shot through the body. Ricketts continued the fight until his ammunition was completely expended, when he was reluctantly obliged to retire to a village in the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... scorn and mirth They buckle round the saddle-girth; With horsey wink and saucy toss A youngster throws his leg across, And so, his rider on his back, They lead him, limping, to the track, Far up behind the starting-point, To limber out each ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pen in hand to inform you that I am in a state of great bliss, and trust these lines will find you injoyin the same blessins. I'm reguvinated. I've found the immortal waters of yooth, so to speak, and am as limber and frisky as a two-year-old steer, and in the futur them boys which sez to me "go up, old Bawld hed," will do so at the peril of their hazard, individooally. I'm very happy. My house is full of joy, and I have to git up nights and ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... than the man Garnache had known as "Sanguinetti"—brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black, oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck, and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look. There was a thick ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... so limber to believe I could compell it from thee. Twas a trick, A meere conceipt of mirth; thou sha't ha mine. Dost thinke I stand upon a sword? Ile gi' thee A case of Pistolls when we come to London; And shoot me when ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... such pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. I scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a thousand obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the greensward of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and for the time was content. But there rushed upon me the ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... put me off with limber vows; but I, Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths Should still say, "Sir, no going!" Verily, You shall not go! A lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Spanish general was soon convinced that his guns had accomplished their mission, for when they had fired some thirty shells a galloper was seen approaching the artillery officer, and the next moment that individual gave the word to cease fire and limber up. At the word, the drivers put their mules into motion and advanced toward the guns; whereupon Jack, who had been patiently awaiting this movement, gave an order to his sharpshooters, who immediately opened fire upon the teams, with the result ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... itself like a painted wall against the sky—the squirrel was leaping nimbly and chattering gayly among the fiery tops of the oaks or the dun foliage of the hickory, that shot up its shelving trunk and spread its forked branches far over the smooth, moss-spotted boles of the beeches, and the limber boughs of the elms. Lithe and blithe he was, for his harvest ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... we descended into the valleys, an astonishing number of parasites and epiphytes was observed, especially on the pines and oaks. The round yellow clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain seasons extremely ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the table and threatened to kill the doctor. The country physician only laughed at the wild and, to Evan, appalling curses and threats of the temporary lunatic. It mattered not to that rustic doctor whether his patient carried a stiff neck or a limber one—he would do his work just the same. He happened to be a dentist, which was fortunate, for he needed dental knowledge to extract a great tooth from the patient. The further skill of a veterinary surgeon ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Mister Age begins a-stealin' Thoo yo' back an' knees, W'en yo' bones an' jints lose der limber feelin', An' am stiff'nin' by degrees; Now der's jes one way to feel young and spry, W'en you heah dem banjos soun' Git a great big swig o' de ole corn juice, An' w'en ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... buttocks, languorous of gait, With limber shape and breasts right delicate, She hides what passion in her bosom burns; Yet cannot I my heat dissimulate. Her maidens, like strung pearls, behind her fare, Now all dispersed now knit in ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... Apple seed, and apple thorn; Wine, brier, limber lock, Three geese in a flock, One flew east, one flew west, And one flew ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... coniferous woods, and Ba'tiste straightened. Soon he was talking and pointing,—now to describe the spruce and its short, stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter, longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the man at his side. A moment before, they had been only pines, only so many trees. ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been "stove" by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... upside down on de ground, and set me down on it; then he fall down dere on de grass by me and blubber out and warm my fingers in his hands. I just took pity on him and told him mighty plain dat he must limber up his tongue and ask sumpin', say what he mean, wantin' to visit them pigs so often. Us carry on foolishness 'bout de little boar shoat pig and de little sow pig, then I squeal in laughter over how he scrouge so close; de slop bucket tipple over ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration |
