"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... corn, Apple seed and apple thorn; Wire, brier, limber-lock, Five geese in a flock, Sit and sing by a spring, O-u-t, and ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... stockingless some; only under-petticoated all; their gowns, made to cover straddling hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels; but hastily wrapt round them, as soon as I came up stairs. And half of them (unpadded, shoulder-bent, pallid-lips, limber-jointed wretches) appearing, from a blooming nineteen or twenty perhaps over-night, haggard well-worn ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... 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 ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... be arranged—" The don was studying the situation and the man together. "Almost have I grasped the thread that will unravel the whole. No, no! I do not mean your going, Senor. That would but limber the tongue of scandal; and besides, I do not mean that I withdraw my friendship from you. A man must be narrow, indeed, if he cannot carry more than one friendship in ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... this kindness, and was grateful, and, after her manner, responsive; still the process of what Elsie termed "limbering out Miss Young" went on but slowly. The English stock, firm-set and sturdily rooted, does not "limber" readily, and a bent toward prejudice is never easily shaken. Compelled to admit that Clover was worth liking, compelled to own her good nature and friendliness, Imogen yet could not be cordially at ease with her. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... along the tender blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle Seems ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... FOWL 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.
... rest, but for the first time we were doing it in reality. The battery dropped into action on innumerable occasions during the course of the day, and had only time to fire a few rounds before the enemy had decamped out of range. Then we would limber up with all speed, the teams waiting the orthodox two hundred yards in rear and to the flank, and gallop forward and take up a new position right out in the open, and help the enemy on his way with a few reminders that we were up and ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... it, the thing just naturally is not possible. I don't care if Young Lochinvar was as limber as a yard of fresh tripe—and he certainly did shake a lithesome calf in the measures of the dance if Sir Walter, in an earlier stanza, is to be credited with veracity. Even so, I deny that he could have done that croupe trick. There isn't a croupier at Monte Carlo who could have done ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise world is little else, in nature, But ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... now about time to try deep water. Swimming through the thick growth of rushes and lilies was somewhat dangerous, especially for a beginner, because one's arms and legs might be entangled among the long, limber stems; nevertheless I ventured and struck out boldly enough for the boat, where the water was twenty or thirty feet deep. When I reached the end of the little skiff I raised my right hand to take hold of it to ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Fleec't the Flocks and bleating rose, As Plants: ambiguous between Sea and Land The River Horse and scalie Crocodile. At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or Worme; those wav'd thir limber fans For wings, and smallest Lineaments exact In all the Liveries dect of Summers pride With spots of Gold and Purple, azure and green: These as a line thir long dimension drew, 480 Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all Minims of Nature; some of Serpent kinde Wondrous in length and corpulence ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for merchandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell A little right the battery an' between the sections fell; An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... from these down-swings, bend just as far back as you can without losing your balance, so that you put all the muscles along the front of your body on the stretch; and then swing down again between your ankles. This will help to tone up all your muscles, and limber all your joints, and set your blood to circulating well, and give you a good start ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... much of a centaur. The horse started as he was throwing the wrong leg over his saddle, and the tutor clamped his rod under one arm, clutching for the reins with both hands and kicking for his stirrups with both feet. The tip of the limber pole beat the horse's flank gently as she struck a trot, and smartly as she struck into a lope, and so with arms, feet, saddle-pockets, and fishing-rod flapping towards different points of the compass, the tutor passed out of sight over Poplar Hill ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... its full flower for the bran-dances—which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs, leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered it an inch deep with ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... prepared a dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned by the earthwork, where they wheeled the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Or was it hair which hung in strips, as if the creatures had been partially plucked in a careless fashion? The necks were long and moved about in a serpentine motion, as though their spines were as limber as reptiles'. On the end of those long and twisting necks were heads which also appeared more suitable to another species—broad, rather flat, with a singular toadlike look—but furnished with horns set halfway down the ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... out of every three shells failed to explode. The 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... years since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only ten years ago, at the battle of Liao-yang, as I watched a cloud of shrapnel smoke ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... time. Even as I write our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him to a rascal. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... With the wild thyme strewn; From the rivers whose crisped sheen Is kissed by the trembling moon; While the dwarf looks out from his mountain cave, And the erl king from his lair, And the water-nymph from her moaning wave, We skirr the limber air. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... warning. I have done time—I mean I have served several terms of imprisonment, but luckily not for a long period. I suffered most by my incarceration in not having a piano. Not even a dumb keyboard was allowed, and I practised the Jackson finger exercises in the air and thus kept my fingers limber. On Saturdays the warden allowed me, as a special favour, to practise on the cabinet organ—an odious instrument—so as to enable me to play on Sundays in chapel. Of course no practice was needed for the wretched music we poor devils howled ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... 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 from ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... afforded. The news that a principal chief, Abdoolah Khan, had been severely wounded in the plain gave pause to the offensive vigour of the Afghans, and the assailants fell back, abandoning the gun, but carrying off the limber and gun-team. Our people reoccupied the position, the gun recommenced its fire, and if the cavalry and infantry could have been persuaded to take the offensive the battle might have been retrieved. But they remained passive. ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... that incomparably strategical military organization in public, and caused it to 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 press ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... "has puzzled half the doctors on the Pacific Slope. It's as good as new, and as limber as a ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... make one lovely feel for a little girl. The way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping . . . it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so different and yet ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... 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 Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... guest. This alone will give us a sense of perfect rest which we have never before experienced. Similar exercises are given for other portions of the body—legs and feet—a revolving of the head to limber the neck; a revolution of the shoulders and the body to gain that flexibility which ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... had two guns in position on one of the two cones, and with these guns they did good execution, knocking over a limber of one of French's batteries at the second shot, and practically before his guns ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... much like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... it had to be made 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 neighbourhood, but not until he had killed, as he ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... think not," said Lloyd. "Campbell would not risk any scrimmaging or tackling this evening, with McGill men even now in town thirsting for their blood. He's got them out for a run to limber up their wind ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... fecund, fruitful, prolific. Fit, suitable, appropriate, proper. Flame, blaze, flare, glare, glow. Flat, level, even, plane, smooth, horizontal. Flatter, blandish, beguile, compliment, praise. Flexible, pliable, pliant, supple, limber, lithe, lissom. Flit, flutter, flicker, hover. Flock, herd, bevy, covey, drove, pack, brood, litter, school. Flow, pour, stream, gush, spout. Follow, pursue, chase. Follower, adherent, disciple, partisan, henchman. Fond, loving, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the gunners away from them. One gunner named Talbot loaded and fired his piece two or three times by himself, while the balls were actually striking it. He was afterward made a Lieutenant. The team of one of the pieces, smarting with wounds, ran away with the limber, and carried it into the midst of the enemy. This check did not last more than three or four minutes. Company C charged across the bridge and up the principal street, on horseback, losing three or four ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... precision of her every move. She glanced up, a slice of bacon held above the pan, and their eyes met. During a long moment of silence the man's heart beat wildly. The girl's eyes dropped suddenly: "Crisp, or limber?" she asked, and to the cowboy's ears, the voice sounded even richer and deeper ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... used to fling Limber-jointed in the dance, When we heard the fiddle ring Up the curtain of Romance, And in crowded public halls Played with hearts like jugglers'-balls.— Feats of mountebanks, depend!— Tom Van Arden, my ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... tilling Long hours in gripping gusts, Was mastered by their chilling, And now his ploughshare rusts. So savage winter catches The breath of limber things, And what I love he snatches, And what I love ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... Jessamine mixed together, then take a Spunge and dip it therin, and rub the Gloves all over thin, lay them in a dry clean place eight and forty hours; then rub them with your hands till they become limber. ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... delicious deep: he opens the folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any thing of a hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight; and feeling further, meets with, and wonder at, a soft fleshy excrescence, which, limber and relaxed after the late enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and examination of his fiery fingers, more and more stiff and considerable, till the titillating ardours of that so sensible part made me sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... prepare the ammunition. He first cut the fuse for one second's time. After preparing several shells and receiving no word from his general he made ready several charges of canister, knowing the enemy to be close at hand. Still nobody came for the ammunition. He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, turning them back to a front position. While doing this, he distinctly heard ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... 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
... untenable, and consequently fell back at speed, for some distance. Standing at the head of the first piece, with all my faculties engrossed by the scene before me, I did not hear the order which should have sent me scampering to my seat on the limber-chest, and so suddenly found myself alone, with my comrades mounted and away in full career. A glance about me disclosed the fact that no other living thing was standing up within a radius of five hundred yards. I was a conspicuous mark for the eager ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... the major commanding the attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber gunners answered 'Hout!' while the colonel ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... young Keeldar blew, Still stood the limber fern, And a wee man, of swarthy hue, Upstarted by ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... that October storm did not give way. It sank a trifle at noon and covered itself at night with a glare of ice. It was impossible to go anywhere except on snow-shoes. Sheila quickly learned the trick and plodded with bent knees, limber ankles, and wide-apart feet through the winter miracle of the woods. It was another revelation of pure beauty, but her heart was too sore to hold the splendor as it had held the gentler beauty of summer and autumn. Besides, little by little she was aware ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... are doing no good here, and now that my knee is getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on active service again. I wondered whether maybe you might like to do a little soldiering ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... flock, And one withal the kids. But I will stake, Seeing you are so mad, what you yourself Will own more priceless far- two beechen cups By the divine art of Alcimedon Wrought and embossed, whereon a limber vine, Wreathed round them by the graver's facile tool, Twines over clustering ivy-berries pale. Two figures, one Conon, in the midst he set, And one- how call you him, who with his wand Marked out for all men ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... success if he could have brought himself to follow John Kollander's advice. But Amos could not abide the presence much less the counsel of the professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel Sands—as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove improbable contentions—odd jobs in his church, odd jobs in his party ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... them and bullets too soon began to strike upon the lawn. A battery that sought to drive back the advancing column was exposed to such a heavy fire that it was compelled to limber up and retreat. The officers urged Lee to withdraw and at length, mounting Traveler, he rode back slowly and deliberately to his inner line. Harry often wondered what his feelings were on that day, but whatever ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mingled with a spoonfull of Coriander-seed bruised, halfe a quarter of a pound of butter rubbed in the flower and sugar, then wet it with the yolks of two Eggs, and halfe a spoonfull of white Rose-water, a spoonfull or little more of Cream as will wet it; knead the Past till it be soft and limber to rowle well, then rowle it extreame thin, and cut them round by little plates; lay them up on buttered papers, and when they goe into the Oven, prick them, and wash the Top with the yolk of an Egg beaten, and made thin with Rose-water or faire water; they will give ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... Tigers showed up 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 spirit that could ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself, and I watched it as a mouse watches a cat. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... brunettes; 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... The limber, maturing, rounding form of Hulda stepped on the footstool of his mind, touched his knee, and exhaled the aroma of her youth like a subtile musk, till he leaned back languidly, as if he smoked a pipe and on its bowl her bust was painted, and all her modesties ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... "I find it does not tend toward efficiency." It was a remark that irritated and, to the minds of the men at the country clubs, seemed to place him. They liked to play polo because they liked to play polo, not because it kept their muscles limber and their ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his foeman and the twain forwards pressed for a long time, and the Raven of cut-and-thrust croaked over the field of fight and they exchanged strokes with the Hindi scymitar and they thrust and foined with the Khatti spear and more than one blade and limber lance was shivered and splintered, all the tribesmen looking on the while at both. And they ceased not to attack and retire and to draw near and draw off and to heave and fence until their forearms ailed and their endeavour failed. Already ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... a vainer man, he might have been aware that he, in his way, was as well worth looking at as she in hers. He was big and limber, in the full ripeness of his youth, sunburned and level-eyed. His life in ships had marked him as plainly as a branding-iron. There was present in him that air which men have, secret yet visible, who know familiarly the unchanging horizons, the strange dawns, the tempest-pregnant ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... vigilance of all dogs by night every traveller among Southern plantations has ample demonstration. I was now so near that I could dimly see the figures of men moving to and fro upon the end of the causeway, and could hear the dull knock, when one struck his foot against a piece of limber. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the last 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, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... major's horses should have been, in company with the doctor's, but the place was empty; and on continuing our quest, Barton's and Haynes's were all missing, while the men's troopers were gone, and a glance at the sheds showed that not a gun or limber was left. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... 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 that ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... several days, Frank," he advised, "on Wednesday perhaps, when we start to go over the entire thing again and try new signals, it will be time. There are a few weak spots in the team that need help, and I'm going to devote two afternoons to them exclusively. Wander around, and limber up with walks or a bicycle ride. But please don't employ your spare time rounding up any more ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... 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, The winds, advancing From land, to dancing ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... were 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 ground, to kill disabled animals, or to break up heavy bones for the marrow they contained. ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well as any of you city fellers ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I reckon thar is so much smoke over your ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... were trying out in one corner of the grounds in full view of the entire mass of spectators. Many curious eyes watched them limber up their arms for the work before them. Besides Hendrix and Donohue several reserve pitchers on either side were in line, sending and receiving in routine; but of course never once delivering their deceptive curves or drops, lest the opposing players get a line on their best tricks, ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... thy limber bit of a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany, shows like a housewife's distaff when the flax is ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... out one yell, for the pain about his chest—then made no further sound. The rawhide rope was like a fiddle-string. It seemed absurd that an anchor so small, so limber, in the sand, could hold so hard against the horse. Van urged a greater strain. He knew that the rope would hold. He did not know how much the man could bear before something awful might occur. There was nothing else ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Horn, taking advantage of the calm to exercise the boat's crew with the fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was passing out the Lee-Enfields from their place on top the cabin skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to stalk stiff-legged. But the wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes, was ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... more. I had no strength to move, but I could think acutely, and feel, as I longed for the strength of Uncle Jack, and to hold in my hand a good stout but limber cane. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... and they shook their long shanks, And wild was their reeling and limber; And each bone as it crosses, it clinks and it clanks Like the clapping of timber on timber. The warder he laugh'd, though his laugh was not loud; And the Fiend whisper'd to him—"Go, steal me the shroud Of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... distance away, but installed about halfway between it and the flitter were two of the alien warriors. Perhaps they had changed watches during the night. If they had not, they could go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that if he stepped over some invisible boundary he would be ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... hard, they are not dead. They contain blood, have feeling, and 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 be tied ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... 'round it, put 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 and I lost my seat. Dat ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... of a suspiciously feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... is deemed essential to keep up a fire upon the enemy during a temporary retreat, or in order to avoid an overwhelming body of cavalry directed against guns unsupported by infantry, in that case the limber remains as close as possible to the field-piece, as shown in ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... himself, while his wife sold tickets and his boy acted as usher,—a family combination which to Luck seemed likely to be a success. This man, when Luck made known his needs, said he was perfectly willing to "limber up" his machine and himself on The Phantom Herd, if Luck would let his wife and boy see the picture, and would pay the slight operating expenses. So ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... and red-faced member, large and loose and somewhat limber (And though his creed was shaky, he the name of Bishop bore), Said that if he lived forever, he should forget, ah! never, The Radicals so clever, in Boston by the shore; But a bad gold in his 'ead bust stop his saying bore, And we ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... rule to attack the enemy with renewed vigour, as soon as he begins to limber up his artillery in the combat, then on this particular fact depends a course of action which is aimed at the general situation of the enemy as inferred from the above fact, namely, that he is about to give ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... a moment, however, with his eyes still fixed upon the departing wolf that was just about to disappear over the crest of a ridge. The fox was still in his jaws, but no longer struggling. Reynard looked limber and dead, as his legs swung loosely on both sides of the wolf's head Lucien at that moment saw the latter suddenly stop in his career, and then drop down upon the surface of the snow as if dead! He fell with his victim in his jaws, and lay half doubled ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... oak by the bank, where I have taken refuge from a sudden rain. I came down here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily and simple exercise I am fond of—to pull on that young hickory sapling out there—to sway and yield to its tough-limber upright stem—haply to get into my old sinews some of its elastic fibre and clear sap. I stand on the turf and take these health-pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly an hour, inhaling great draughts of fresh air. Wandering by the creek, I have ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber I distinguish the scent of your hair: so now the limber ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... is finished with the most scrupulous care by Mr. Rogers himself. This cast is used as a pattern for making whatever number of molds may be needed to supply the demand for any particular group or statue. The molds are made of glue softened with water, so as to be about as limber as India-rubber. This is poured over the pattern while in a warm and liquid condition; it is, therefore, necessary to surround the pattern with a stiff case to hold the glue in place. This case is made of plaster, and is built up ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... i' the foremost rank, A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, [stately, compact, limber] An' set weel down a shapely shank, As e'er tread yird; [earth] An' could hae flown out-owre a stank, [pool] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the new Convert more than half inspir'd, Strait to his Closet and his Books retir'd. There for all needful Arts in this extreme, For knotty Sophistry t'a limber Theme, Long brooding ere the Mass to Shape was brought, And after many a tugging heaving Thought, Together a well-orderd Speech he draws, With ponderous Sounds for his much-labour'd Cause. Then the astonisht Sanedrim he storm'd, And with such doughty strength the Tug perform'd: ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... enfolds the 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 ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... kinds, including arms for sporting purposes, and their distinctive component parts; (2) projectiles, charges and cartridges of all kinds, and their distinctive component parts; (3) powder and explosives specially prepared for use in war; (4) gun-mountings, limber boxes, limbers, military wagons, field forges and their distinctive component parts; (5) clothing and equipment of a distinctively military character; (6) all kinds of harness of a distinctively military character; (7) saddle, draught and pack animals suitable for use in war; (8) articles of camp ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... to the idee, and told her so. I like 'em both. Ury is a tall, limber-jinted sort of a chap, sandy complected, and a little round shouldered, but hard-workin' and industrious, and seems to ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... hurryin', pell-mell, right thro' life. I don't believe in goin' too fast To see what kind o' road you 've passed. It ain't no mortal kind o' good, 'N' I would n't hurry ef I could. I like to jest go joggin' 'long, To limber up my soul with song; To stop awhile 'n' chat the men, 'N' drink some cider now an' then. Do' want no boss a-standin' by To see me work; I allus try To do my dooty right straight up, An' earn what ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... eyes wide in horror, then his chest collapsed and his neck felt limber. "Oh, my God," he whispered, as though in appeal to the Infinite Father of Mercy and Justice, "what a thing to say about me! ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... gentleman who has vivid remembrances of his interviews with her in Boston, many years ago, who described her in these terms:—"No one ever came so near. Her mood applied itself to the mood of her companion, point to point, in the most limber, sinuous, vital way, and drew out the most extraordinary narratives; yet she had a light sort of laugh, when all was said, as if she thought she could live over that revelation. And this sufficient ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the girlish crowd, With lovely smiles and limber graces, Went singly, took their prizes, bowed, Returning ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... 'em,' answers Bill. 'Mine always has gorillas ridin' 'em.' Well, I looked around and I would have been scared myself if I hadn't recognized our own bunch of snakes, each one of 'em with the tail of the snake in front of him in his mouth. Old 'Limber Larry'—we called him that on account of his habit of going to sleep curled up in a true lover's knot—was in the lead, and behind him came about half a mile ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... the 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. Now each was different, each had its place in the mind of the man who studied ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... or entire control of the muscles of the neck the common name of the affection is limber-neck. In medical science limber-neck is regarded as a symptom rather than a disease, and may be due to a number of causes, such as derangement of the digestive organs, intestinal worms and ptomaine poisoning. The affected fowls should ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight 660 As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the nutting expedition was organized, and with Jeff in advance, carrying a short ladder and a long limber pole, the party started for the hills. At first Johnny, oppressed with his dignity as Aunt Annie's "beau," stalked soberly at her side, and Susie also claimed Gregory according to agreement, and insisted on ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... "tossed." Tossing is not the sort of pastime any fellow would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed, though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms a sort of cradle, into ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... 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 Belgian lines. In this way began our ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... players 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
... head so high his limber ear bobbed in the murky air. He brayed mournfully. Anse glanced at ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... the afternoon was still unspent when the haystacking terminated, and Bill declared a holiday. He rigged a line on a limber willow wand, and with a fragment of venison for bait sought the pools of the stream which flowed out the south opening. He prophesied that in certain black eddies plump trout would be lurking, and he ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... slender and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... distant city where none had known of her or of the awful fight she was planning to make. We had taken a large house and there were many things the mother could do with her stiff hands which gradually, because of the long hours she spent on them, were beginning to limber a bit. I gave her rooms for herself and the child and there she lived, keeping away from all so that none might see her shrunken, changed body. She lived only for the child, hoarding carefully the little money that she could save lest there be not enough to send her to college ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... attached, when the men fled to holding-vantage just ere the whale arrived. She struck the Mary Turner squarely amidships on the port beam, so that, from the poop, one saw, as well as heard, her long side bend and spring back like a limber fabric. The starboard rail buried under the sea as the schooner heeled to the blow, and, as she righted with a violent lurch, the water swashed across the deck to the knees of the sailors about the boat and spouted ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... from the Signaller brought no comment until the last letter was read, but then the Limber Gunner remembered ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... at the same time. In the first 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 could hand, reef, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... looked me over with a discouraging and cynical suspicion. I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me a going over, they found that my heart was out of place and that my left hand might never limber up again. They voted for a discharge in jig time. I had all I could do to ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... slowly into the chair. "But sometimes when I first move I sort 'er kink at the knees. Gets me in the morning, but I limber up ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... tincup lay on the floor beside a powder can that had been used for a bucket, while just inside the south door stood a comical homemade shakedown. The frame was built of straight young aspen poles, while the springs were just a carefully woven layer of balsam boughs spread over a bottom of limber young saplings. It had once been a wonder of comfort and ease, but its value had passed with the ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... that did it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lithe and 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, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... She had found Jimmy entirely too limber a foil to use with any degree of skill, and she knew from past experience that Sandy and Carter were much better matched. If Sid Gray had been there also, she would have been quite happy. In Annette's estimation it was all a mistake about love being ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... than his in the world; but I'll have to limber out ever so much before I'm good for much in that line," said the boy, stretching his stout arms and legs with a curious mixture ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... run up to headquarters, and find out about the weather;' and clim' up the main-mast as limber as a squirrel, and when he came back, thar' was Tommy's hat stickin' way up top o' the mast; so Tommy, he promised to pay him—them two was always foolin' together, but good-natered enough." The captain introduced this little incident, in the midst of his narration, with ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Bell, when she went down the avenue, where the wind blows mostly all the time, she looked like she'd lived there in the city all her life. She always had a good color in her cheeks from living out-of-doors and riding so much, and she was right limber and sort of thin. Her hat was sort of little and put some on one side. Her shoes was part white and part black, the way they wore 'em then, and her stockings was the color of her dress; and her dress was right in line, like the things you saw along ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... 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 need neither ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... seen me naked; but you can guess The misstitched, gnarled, and crooked thing I am. Now, do you understand? I may have words. But you, man, do you never burn with pride That you've begotten those six limber bodies, Firm flesh, and supple sinew, and lithe limb— Six nimble lads, each like young Absalom, With red blood running lively in his veins, Bone of your bone, your very flesh and blood? It's you don't understand. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... 'Give me brunettes, so limber, lissom, lithe of sway, * Brunettes tall, slender straight like Samhar's nut-brown lance;[FN380] Languid of eyelids and with silky down on either cheek, * Who fixed in lover's heart work ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... language befriends the grand American expression ... it is brawny enough and limber and full enough ... on the tough stock of a race who through all change of circumstance was never without the idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of daintier ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Ben Butler and Big Bethel! One day soon after that engagement, returning through Richmond in new uniforms—of a sort—with scoured faces, undusty locks, full ranks, fresh horses, new harness and shining pieces, and with every gun-carriage, limber, and caisson freshly painted, they told their wrath to Franklin street girls while drinking their dippers ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the limber youth from the South,—"in England a man isn't allowed to play with no fire-arms. He's got to be taught all that when he enlists. I didn't want much teaching how to shoot straight 'fore I served Uncle Sam. And ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... improve my handwriting, which, as a carpenter, had been rather stiff. I took lessons of him, and as he was a practical business man, I escaped the vicious habit of flourishing in my writing. He insisted that I should write a plain, simple, round hand, which I did. As my fingers became limber, I made excellent progress, and I was ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... not only during the march to Jerusalem but for several weeks after it had passed through it to the hills on the east and north-east. The rations and stores for this Division were carried by the main railway through Shellal to Karm, were thence transported by limber to a point on the Turks' line to Beersheba, which had been repaired but was without engines, were next hauled in trucks by mules on the railway track, and finally placed in lorries at Beersheba for carriage up the Hebron road. At this time the capacity of the Latron-Jerusalem road was taxed ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... were. What a prodigious force he expended upon it! How he gurgled and grinned and twisted his head to observe the effect upon the men, all sedulously gazing into the fire! how he bounced, and anon how he sank with sudden genuflections! how limber his feet seemed, and what free agents! Surely he never intended to put them down at that extravagant angle. More than once one foot was placed on top of the other—an attitude that impeded locomotion and resulted in his sitting down in an involuntary manner and with some emphasis. ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... repeated my master. "You are proven as strong as you are powerfully built, and as limber as both. It now remains to exhibit the inoffensive gentleness of your nature. As to this last proof, I am, in advance, certain of your success," saying which he again bound my hands ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... he said. "And my old hoss can wrastle a bag of oats, too. He's got a ride in front of him and he'd appreciate a chance to rest and limber up." ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... came the drive to the next pasture, and here the patience of the cowboys was taxed to the utmost, for as the stronger members of the herd forged ahead, the wearied, worried, littlest members fell behind. Their joints were limber, and their legs unsteady; one and all were orphaned, too, for in that babel of sound no untrained ears could catch a mother's low. A mile of this and the whole rear guard was composed of plaintive, wet-eyed little calves who made slower and slower progress. Some of them were stubborn and ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... there with two pair o' pants on," answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels. I used to think, when I was a boy, that 'twas the only thing I could ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an' follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There warn't nobody but me ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to leave for England on the 14th day of September, 1914. I was detailed on a gun limber of my subsection of the First Battery, the artillery being the arm of the service to which I was assigned. Starting about 4:30 in the afternoon, in torrents of rain, we headed for the city of Quebec. Along the way the people had thoughtfully ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... schoolmaster of Wythburn, and his name Monsey Laman. The dalesmen found the little schoolmaster the merriest comrade that ever sat with them over a glass. He had a crack for each of them, a song, a joke, a lively touch that cut and meant no harm. They called him "the little limber Frenchman," in allusion to a peculiarity of gait which in the minds of the heavy-limbed mountaineers was somehow associated with the idea of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Virginia; this is very jolly; hello, Cuyp! How are you, Colonel Vetchen—oh! how do you do, Mr. Classon!" as the latter came trotting down the path, twirling a limber walking-stick. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... coarse pen of little flexibility and smooth point for drawing heavy lines of even width. In using water-color in place of ink such a pen will be found more satisfactory than the Gillot 303, as the thinness of the fluid causes the line to spread whenever pressure is applied to a limber and finely pointed pen, with the result that the line is not only broadened, but when dry shows darker than was intended, as more color is deposited than in a narrow line. When a [200] narrow line of even width and sharpness is desired it is best to ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... to-morrow, and that wagons' be sent to bring in the many tents belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out. I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them. The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes. The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons. I am satisfied the enemy's infantry and artillery passed Lick Creek ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... enough for a while," cautioned Mr. Wicker, "that Amos get used to being limber and alive. That is change enough from a carved wooden figure. It would only confuse and trouble him to think you do not really belong where you are. So let him be happy. And I shall seal your lips with regard to the secret of the Jewel Tree, for that must ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... get limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your legs! ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... mounted the Huft Kothul, giving three cheers when they reached the summit. Here Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham, with a party of sappers, pressed the enemy so hard, that they left in their precipitation a twenty-four pound howitzer and limber, carrying off the draft-bullocks. Having heard that another gun had been seen, and concluding that it could not have gone very far, I detached a squadron of dragoons, under Captain Tritton, and two horse-artillery guns, under Major Delafosse, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and I feel first rate," said Sheila. "I'm sore in spots, but I'll limber up when I get moving. Where is Mrs. Wade? I suppose Casey has gone ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... at 2 o'clock that morning, and for two solid hours were loading up the trucks with our transport, G.S. waggons and limbers. It was real sport and we thoroughly enjoyed it. A long row of flat trucks was lined up, and as each limber drew up the horses were unharnessed and we ran the limber right along the whole line of trucks until all were filled. The work completed, we detailed for our trucks. Every trenchman knows ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... been 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
... inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a metallic obstruction. Sure enough, Tom could feel the troublesome hasp, but alas, the wire was now too limber ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Dawn is the better sailer," reluctantly admitted the captain. "If the Cohasset were ten years younger, I wouldn't admit it, but the old girl isn't quite as limber as she used to be. But the log line isn't everything in an ocean race. I know Bob Carew is a good seaman, but I'll show him a trick or two this passage, for all that I'm a ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... became limber Pinocchio began to walk by himself and to run about the room, until, having gone out of the house door, he jumped into the ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... Miraflores tunnel through a mole-hill, past her 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 returned. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... Crawford that moved in a while ago is to begin school next week, and two miles and back every day will be just about enough for you to walk to keep your legs limber." ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're right side ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... batthery goin' by at a trot singin' 'Home, swate home' at the top av his shout, and takin' no heed o his bridle-hand - I had seen that man dhrop under the gun in the middle of a word, and come out by the limber like - like a frog on a pave-stone. No. I wud not hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all in Pindi. Love-o'-Women saw fwhat was in my mind, an' 'Go on, Terence,' h sez, 'I know fwhat's waitin' for you.' 'I will not,' I sez. "Twill kape a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... top of the door (A), and a corresponding one through the door-jamb between two logs. Set the door in place. A strip of rawhide leather, a limber willow branch, or a strip of hickory put through the auger hole of the door and wedged into the hole in the jamb, makes a truly wild-wood hinge. A peg in the front jamb prevents the door going too far out, and a string and peg ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... 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 was ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was from general neshness of constitution. She was such a limber maid that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said. She was took bad in the morning, and, being quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening. She belongs by law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a root, till you would think they ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... Foreshortened forms 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 roused the ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... three of the gunners got down and stood there, quite at a loss. They ought to load; yet the word of command, "Prepare for action!" had not been given. And how could they load when the seats and the limber-boxes were still locked, and when the gun was ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... see the finish of Plain John's romance, my sinister Syl, if you don't limber up your spine. Genius, love, and unbending virtue never ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock |
