"Plumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the driver in his slow way, "hit was like this. That there saloon were plumb full of sailor-men all exceptin' you an' me. I was a heap admirin' of the way you handled that big hombre what opened the meetin' and also his two pardners, who aimed to back his play. Hit was sure pretty work. The rest of the crowd sort o' ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... stated. "Not one little wrangle, even. Of course I was expectin' it. I've watched 'em come around too many times not to know how they can cuss a man cold one minute, and then make him plumb ashamed of mankind in general, with beggin' and pleadin'. I just beat him to it the morning he woke up; I told him what he could have, and what he couldn't, and he took it calmly enough. He just set ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... manners nowadays," the sheriff commented. "Course, these here black ones never was much different from pigs. But take grizzlies. When I come West with my old people, a little shaver just able to set a pony, they was plumb sassy. I never did see such biggotty-actin' critters. Britch-loaders hadn't been in so durn long, and men didn't go huntin' grizzlies with the little old pea rifle just for fun. They was range bosses, and they ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the speaker's smiling face and twinkling eyes and laughed. "Well, yo're the foreman if you owns that badge," grinned Hopalong, cheerfully. "We don't need no guns, nohow, in this town, we don't. Plumb forgot we was toting them. But mebby you can tell us where lawyer Jeremiah T. Jones grazes ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the mischief to get them doctors to let me come," chortled Tyke, evidently delighted by the warmth of the greeting. "They told me I was jest plumb crazy to think of it. But after Allen, here, left me last night I got so lonesome an' restless there was no holding me. Seemed like I'd go wild if I'd had to stay in that sick-bay while you fellers were sniffing the sea air. So I jest reared up on my hind legs, as you might say, ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... upon me at breakfast. She was quiet and answered my questions in monosyllables. Presently she laid something at the side of my plate. It was my pipe. I looked at her, but the leads of my eyes could not plumb the depths ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... winked hard to keep the tears from starting again—"'cause he ain't got much appetite. But when he's eatin' good his legs is jest great. Why, there ain't no other dog in Golconda that's got as strong legs as Baldy when he's—when he's eatin' good," he repeated hastily. "An' Golconda's plumb full o' fine dogs." ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... me. 'Nemo repente fuit turpissimus' one used to think; yet that boy has dropped from the society of such a noble fellow as Power, with his exquisite mind and manners, plumb into the abyss of intimacy with Harpour. There must be ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... slip of humanity had a spell for those who heard him speak. There was no subject, moral, intellectual, or philosophic too remote or too profound for him to measure it at a moment's notice, with the ever-ready, fallacious plumb-line of his brilliant vanity. He would talk for hours: be eloquent, convincing, almost noble; and afterwards accompany his audience ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... if they had left me where they left you last night, and you a plumb stranger, I'd rared and pitched a little myself," continued the man. ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... their bellies and their kegs, hoping to last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin' so far, the most of them didn't know sic 'em. They were plumb innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such; and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for guides ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... probably great, but, on the best building the Ecole des Beaux Arts can build, the charge for repairs is not to be wholly ignored, and at least the Cathedral of Chartres, in spite of terribly hard usage, is as solid to-day as when it was built, and as plumb, without crack or crevice. Even the towering fragment at Beauvais, poorly built from the first, which has broken down oftener than most Gothic structures, and seems ready to crumble again whenever the wind blows over its ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... have done it, but I was plumb mad. I pulled a San Augustine paper out of my hip-pocket, and showed him an item. It was a half a column about the marriage of Myra Allison and ...
— Options • O. Henry
... as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plumb-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... later, on the failure of a conspiracy of revenge by the queen and the Orleans party, to grant full pardon for a deed "committed for the welfare of the kingdom." The cutting of the Rue Etienne Marcel has exposed the strong machicolated tower still bearing the arms of Burgundy (two planes and a plumb line), which Jean sans Peur built to fortify the Hotel de Bourgogne, as a defence and refuge against the Orleans faction and the people of Paris. The Orleans family had for arms a knotted stick, with the device "Je l'ennuis": the Burgundian ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... contrast, or a more extraordinary confrontation. On one side precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, a retreat assured, reserves prepared, an obstinate coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy profiting by the ground, tactics balancing battalions, carnage measured by a plumb-line, war regulated watch in hand, nothing left voluntarily to accident, old classic courage and absolute correctness. On the other side we have intuition, divination, military strangeness, superhuman instinct, a flashing glance; something that gazes like the eagle ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... his hand in weary protest, as he smiled apologetically at the court. "Darned if I didn't plumb forget one thing," he said. "We got to swear in these witnesses before they can chatter. Is there anybody got a Bible around 'em? Nope? Montana, I wished you'd lope over to that house and see what they got in the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been Peter Birt 'stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!" ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... perceived that the water was dripping from it. Imagining that it must have been wet from the quantity of water shipped over all, the carpenter disengaged the rope-yarn from the rule, drew another from the junk lying on the deck, which the seamen were working up, and then carefully proceeded to plumb the well. He hauled it up, and, looking at it for some moments aghast, exclaimed, 'Seven feet water ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... bills, which was useful seeing I had my young cousin's—you know, young Will Henderson, of Barnriff; he's a trapper now—education on my hands. Just as things were good and dollars were coming plenty the enterprise bust. I was out—plumb out. I hunched up for another kick. I had a dandy patent that was to do big things. I got together a syndicate to run it. I'd got a big car built to demonstrate my patent, and it represented all I had in the world. It was to be on the race-track. Say, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... he did not want to stand up to his knees in grass. The captain of the Burtington team was the local publican, a hearty man who told us in the same breath that he was very glad to see us, and that he had played cricket for thirty years, boy and man. His name was Plumb, and I liked him very much; he played in both braces and a belt, because he told us belts were ticklish things and braces sometimes burst. I answered that it was always well to be on the safe side, and we had quite a confidential talk, until Lambert and Dennison came up and interrupted us. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... way, then it's because our tongues were too busy otherwise," Hal answered. "Noll, I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart, for you're plumb wild to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... consider what bearing the permanent existence of such a solid layer of savagery beneath the surface of society, and unaffected by the superficial changes of religion and culture, has upon the future of humanity. The dispassionate observer, whose studies have led him to plumb its depths, can hardly regard it otherwise than as a standing menace to civilisation. We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below. From time to time ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... sees its resistless might in the passive wrecks that follow the uproar. And this from a piece of marble, cold, immovable, lifeless! Surely there is that in man, which the senses cannot reach, nor the plumb of ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... "Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when Keller touched him ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... back an issue or two, we note a letter from Edwin Magnuson, a deluded denizen of Duluth, who says he's plumb disgusted because Astounding Stories receives far more bouquets than brickbats, when according to him the mag deserves to be panned plenty. Get in step, Edwin, you're ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... once hard at work with charcoal and board and plumb-line, a house-maid posing for her with a broom. He congratulated himself that his little sermon on the advantages of occupation as a cure for discontent had borne fruit so ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... they have first to learn the facts as matters of knowledge, and then to study the art and science of teaching these facts to others. Instead of coming with their brick and mortar ready prepared, that they may be instructed in the use of the trowel and the plumb-line, they have to make their brick and mix their mortar after they enter the institution. This is undoubtedly a drawback and a misfortune. But it cannot be helped at present. All we can do is to define clearly the true idea of the Teachers' School, and then to work towards it as fast and ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... were taking, he already asked himself to whom he and his could have recourse, of whom he could ask shelter and subsistence for his old age; and having looked and searched thoroughly all around, he found himself actually destitute and RUINED. For, "to let a man's self fall plumb down, and from so great a height, it ought to be in the arms of a solid, vigorous, and fortunate friendship. They are very rare, if there be any." Speaking in such a manner, we perceive that La Boetie had been some time dead. Then he felt that he must after all rely on himself in his distress, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... him. He was about as interesting as a pound of baking powder. What with fishing for his Bradstreet rating, and inventing lies to keep him from going out and seeing the town, and watching the horizon for predatory Alfalfa Delts and Chi Yis, we were plumb worn out. We were so skittish that, when the bell rang about eight o'clock, we let it ring four times more before we answered it; and when the ringer claimed to be an Eta Bita Pie from Muggledorfer who had come over ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... imps; I'd a heap rather play with a rattlesnake than him." He paused, to assure him self that Sikes was safely out of hearing. "I thought maybe I better tell yer while I had a chance. That fellar is plumb ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... do fo yo', Mahstah Majah. Ah steddied huh all out twell she's plumb systemous. Miss Cahline sh' ain't wantin' huh breakfus' twell yo's done, an' she'll tek huh dinneh uhliah. Ah manage, Mahstah Majah. Ah mek all mah reddiments, yes, seh—yo's go'n' a' be jes' lahk ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... sergeants, drivers, the six-horse teams leaning on the firm traces, the big wheels clucking, the long Napoleons shining like gold, and the cannoneers—oh, God bless the lads!—planted on limbers and caissons, with arms tight folded and backs as plumb as the meridian. Now three of the pieces, half the battery, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... now able to state my position definitely." Lanyard got up and grinned provokingly down at the group. "You can—all four of you—go plumb to hell!" ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... had mailed my other letter I was afraid that you would think me plumb bold about the little Bo-Peep, and was a heap sorrier than you can think. If you only knew the hardships these poor men endure. They go two together and sometimes it is months before they see another soul, and rarely ever a woman. I wouldn't act ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... built work, especially in tracery. A thing may be theoretically and intentionally at a certain angle, but actually at quite a different one. If level is important, take it yourself with spirit-level and plumb-line. ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... barrel rested on his own shoulder. Still, as his arms were extended to the utmost, the county Leitrim-man fancied he was performing much better than common. Jamie had correct notions of the perpendicular, from having used the plumb-bob so much, though even he made the trifling mistake of presenting arms with the lock outwards. As for the Yankees, they were all tolerably exact, in everything but time, and the line; bringing their pieces down, one after another, much as they were ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... all right," nodded Lieutenant Danvers, thoughtfully. "The risky part is in trying to run over that derelict's sunken hull in order to locate it and make your soundings. Now, you run a big chance of running plumb on to some other stump of a mast. The 'Hastings' may easily get an injury, from the stump of another mast, that may tear a real hole in our plates and send us all ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... if you assume a vertical line drawn from A, the positions of B, C, D, and E can be observed in relation to it by noting the height and length of horizontal lines drawn from them to this vertical line. This vertical can be drawn by holding a plumb line at arm's length (closing one eye, of course) and bringing it to a position where it will cover the point A on your subject. The position of the other points on either side of this vertical line can then be observed. Or a knitting-needle can be held vertically before you at arm's length, giving ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... feet and the crash, but it was the spirit of my team that thrilled me. Next to that the work of my new find absorbed me. I gloated over his easy, deceiving swing. I rose out of my seat when he threw that straight fast ball, swift as a bullet, true as a plumb line. And when those hard-hitting, sure bunting Bisons chopped in vain at the wonderful drop, I choked back a wild yell. For Rube meant the world ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... might slip around and gather up their guns," said Pringle. "Pick out one for yourself. I left yours where I threw it when I picked it out of your belt. I meant to knock you out, Chris—there wasn't any other way; but I didn't mean to plumb kill you. You hit your head on a rock when you fell. It wouldn't have done any good to have got the drop on you. You had made up your mind not to surrender. You would have shot anyhow; and, of course, I couldn't shoot. I'd just have got myself ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness It is the need of it,—it is this sad, self-defeating dependence. Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you. But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression, Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose. All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something. Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... that is dropt in those furrows of fear, Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear. Down it drops plumb, Where no spring times come; And here there needeth no harrowing gear: Wheat nor poppy nor any leaf Will cover this naked ground ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... durin' the day, an' she used to take 'er fancy-work an' set in the shady holler at the gum spring, whar yore pa went to water his hoss. Of course, she never keerd a cent fer him, but I reckon to pass the time away she got to makin' eyes at him. Anyway, it driv' 'im plumb crazy. I never knowed about it till the summer was mighty nigh over, an' I wouldn't 'a' diskivered it then if I hadn't 'a' noticed that he had made powerful little headway ploughin' in the field whar he claimed to be at work. She wasn't ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... "Well enough—true by plumb an' rule, of course; but there's no spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later, even after a pretty girl's christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a ship under ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... Ay plumb forget about te tarn jung yack-ass Harlan. He coom in har dis noon time drunk like hal, wit t'ree bottle of hootch. He tal me he iss lonesome. He iss drunk now, Chief. He can't ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Daly, then with a sudden change of humor, "and now I'll do a little talking. I've listened to you just as long as I'm going to. I have Radway's contract in that safe and I live up to it. I'll thank you to go plumb to hell!" ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a plumb wicket. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... an' some say as when he wants t' git som wha' in a hurry he jest grabs aholt o' the feet o' tha' there thunder bird and she flies off with him and draps him anywha' he asks her to—Nope, I hain't seen none of these things myself but others say they has, an' believe me, I'm plumb cautious when travelin' these parts alone. Howsomever, he hain't yet skeered me 'nough to make my ha'r come out by the roots," said Pete with a yawn. "There, kick that back log over so's the fire can lick at t'other ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... sentiment offer nothing corresponding to the old conception of patron saints. If they did there would be a Patron Saint of Plumbers, and this would alone be a revolution, for it would force the individual craftsman to believe that there was once a perfect being who did actually plumb. ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep an' have good dreams. And down in the middle of Morgantown is the buryin'-ground. I've ridden past it a thousand times an' watched a corner plot, where the grass grows quicker than it does anywheres else in the cemetery. Pierre, I'd die plumb easy if I knew I was goin' to sleep the rest ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... was very carefully overhauling. And while this was doing, four of the hands came along with a twenty-five-foot ladder, heavily weighted at the bottom with pigs of iron ballast, which Cunningham had caused to be constructed; and this they launched over the side, allowing it to hang plumb up and down, well secured, just abaft the main rigging. This was for Cunningham to descend by; and upon looking over the side I saw that it reached to within about four feet of the surface of the oyster bed. The getting of Cunningham into his suit, and the arranging of all the preliminaries, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... fact that the eye and hand need such guides shows how untrustworthy the senses are. A similar argument occurs in Luc. 86. Perpendiculum is a plumb line, norma a mason's square, the word being probably a corruption of the Greek [Greek: gnomon] (Curt. Grundz p. 169, ed. ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... let me," said Tito, on the defensive. "I tolt him it was all right, but he just stood up there cursin' me. And then he got to throwin' things, almost had me here"—he put his hand against his ear—"like he was plumb crazy. But I guess he wasn't, for he wouldn't give me ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... every word of that yarn, even if a plumb stranger told it to me," declared Hazelton. "It has all the earmarks of truth. It's a complete story of just what Bert Dodge would do in one form or another, in any ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... find suitable anchorage, the captain hastened to avail himself of the resources for feeding his crew, which the country furnished in fowls, fish, and vegetables, whilst he himself, generally with the plumb-line in his hand, traversed the environs of the bay. He met only a few natives, with whom he had little intercourse. But one family becoming somewhat familiarized, established itself a hundred yards from the landing-place. Cook gave a concert ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... ever knowed worth trubblin' about was a woman. Used ter knit while she watched the woollies. Knit me a sweater—plumb useless waste of time an' yarn. If I'd taken it I'd have had to take her along with it. Wimmen is sure persistent. Seems like I must look like a dogie to most of 'em. They're allus wantin' to marry me an' mother me. I sure hope this one don't turn out to be a she-herder. 'P' might ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... so's folks can see. An'—an', mind yer, toot that old horn good an' loud, so as everybody'll know we're a-comin'." As the automobile moved away he beamed with proud satisfaction. "Some swells we are—heh? Skinny an' Chuck an' the gang'll be plumb crazy when they see us. Some class, I'll tell ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... pleasant to me to have the right to pay a woman's bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn't expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb the ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... come to Bale, you should take rooms on the river, or stand on the bridge at evening, and have a sunset of gold and crimson streaming down upon the wide and strong Rhine, where it rushes between the houses built plumb up to it, or you will not care much for the city. And yet it is pleasant on the high ground, where are some stately buildings, and where new gardens are laid out, and where the American consul on the Fourth of July flies our flag over the balcony of a little cottage smothered in vines and gay ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that start for home and mother and supper right now; or are we going to stay here till she gets plumb dark?" asked Fritz, impatiently, moving his feet out of the way every time anyone approached too closely, as though possessed by a fear lest he be tempted to ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... is the first colored graduate of West Point. He went to the institution from Georgia, and graduated last June, fifty-fifth in a class of seventy-six. There is a preponderance of white blood in his veins, and in general appearance, except for color, he is a perfect image of Senator Plumb of Kansas. He reports that since he has struck the South he has been treated like a gentleman, which is something different from his experience in the North. He made the acquaintance of Senator Maxey at West Point— the Senator himself being a graduate ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... not here now;' continued the corporal, 'and are we not'—(dropping his hat plumb upon the ground—and pausing, before he pronounced the word)—'gone! in a moment?' The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.—Nothing could have expressed the sentiment ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the cowboy, energetically. "But jest why he should reckon such a thing wuth shucks I can't tell ye. But he sent me out to bring you back to the ranch house like two-forty. I seen that he was plumb locoed, and some excited by the news, whatever it ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... getting hurt and staying home for weeks. I think he welcomed sickness just so he could hide at home safe." There were tears of another sort in Miss Schmitt's eyes now. Kessler thought he detected a brightness in his wife's eyes. "No," Miss Schmitt said, "Bob was afraid of life. Just plumb scared." She refused to let the tears flow. "Oh, but I'm being a terrible hostess! I have so few visitors now. How about some ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... frame of mind, delegates found it easy to nominate Horatio Seymour for governor and Sanford E. Church for lieutenant-governor. The next day the Abolitionists, tired of their union with Hunkers and Barnburners, nominated William L. Chaplin and Joseph Plumb. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of England, and told me, with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plumb-porridge. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... with satisfaction when he looked up at the rear facade of Miller's Folly. Near the edge of the roof, was a chimney. A plumb line dropped from the center of the chimney would drop about three feet to the right of the only window ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... to this office and informed me he was, plumb weary of the life of a bon vivant and was anxious to get to sea again. So I made him master of a new steamer we acquired recently, and he's gone out to Vladivostok with munitions for ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the time that she made him think she was running away from me. It did look that way, when she stopped as soon as she met him; I can't swear right now whether Tejon was running away, or whether he was just simply running!" He laughed ruefully. "She's an awful little tease—just plumb full of the old Nick, even if she does look as innocent and as meek as their pictures of the Virgin Mary. She had us both guessing, let me tell you! He was pretty blamed insulting, though, and I'd have ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Curly," he said kindly. Then he laid his rifle on the table and pointed at it. "The magazine's loaded plumb up. Guess no man has a right to give up his life without a kick. That'll help you if they come along—which they won't. Maybe Buck'll be along directly. Don't shoot him down. Anyway he's got Caesar with him—so you'll know. I'm going down to ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to be carried aloft, in your teeth, if you please, and dragged far out on the giddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through all sorts of intricacies—turning abrupt corners at the abruptest of angles—is to be dropped, clear of all obstructions, in a straight plumb-line right down to the deck. In the course of this business, there is a multitude of sheeve-holes and blocks, through which you must pass it; often the rope is a very tight fit, so as to make it like threading a fine cambric needle with ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... mattock and death's head, but with spirit-level and measuring-cord. They were levelling a stretch of newly-turned and smoothed ground, and they pointed with pride to the portion of the work already accomplished, serried rows of spick-and-span headstones, all "plumb," as they explained, and freshly scraped—not a sign of caressing moss or a tendril of vine to be seen. A neat job, if there ever was one. We should have seen the yard before they had taken it in hand! There wasn't a stone that was straight, and the ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... get out uh town," he urged, when he had found him. "It's a kinda small burg, and at the rate the Pilgrim is swelling up over what he done, there won't be room for nobody but him in another hour. He's making me plumb nervous and afraid to be around ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... killed Nathan B. Robinson at the Reidhead place and shot Emer Plumb at Walnut Springs, during a period of general Indian unrest. Soon thereafter, President Smith advised the settlers that they had better look for other locations, as the ground ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... still hitched to the fence, an' t'other was gone. We stood around a minute or two examinin' the hoss an' then pa says let's go up the road aways an' see if we c'n see anything. An' by gosh, we hadn't gone more'n fifty feet afore we come plumb on a man layin' in the middle of the road. Pa shook him an' he didn't let out a sound. He was warm but deader'n a tombstone. I wuz fer leavin' him there till we c'd git the coroner, but pa says no. We'd carry him down to our porch, an' lay him there, so's he'd be out ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... me this, general, ter take ter you, an' she would hev it, though I told her she'd no business ter be botherin' yer with sich plumb foolishness." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the greater the slave; and so it was that, falling plumb down from that skyey exaltation, human again with the weakness that follows divine moments, Antony returned from the morning ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... hardwood is fixed vertically in the ground; it is carefully adjusted with the aid of plumb lines, and the possibility of its sinking deeper into the earth is prevented by passing its lower end through a hole in a board laid horizontally on the ground, its surface flush with the surface of the ground which is carefully smoothed. The pole is provided with a shoulder which ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... longing For tender comradeship? It is because I cannot all at once, Through the half-lights and phantom-haunted mists That separate and enshroud us life from life, Discern the nearness or the strangeness of thy paths Nor plumb thy depths. I am like one that comes alone at night To a strange stream, and by an unknown ford Stands, and for a moment yearns and shrinks, Being ignorant of the water, though so quiet it is, So softly murmurous, So ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... ye, Toby," said Bud, as he wrenched a huge mouthful from one of the "hanks" to test the quality. "But I'll tell ye what's a fact. When I come home tonight, after a meetin' of that there Committee of Safety I was tellin' you about, I found that I had plumb disremembered to fetch along the bacon, meal, an' taters that my wife done told me to bring, an' so I thought I would jest run over an' see if I couldn't borry some of you to last ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... with a gun, and nobody knows what'll happen when it goes off. If he can't find Reddy Fox, just as likely as not he'll point it at somebody else just fo' fun. Ah hope he doan meet up with mah ol' woman or any of mah li'l' pickaninnies. Ah'm plumb afraid of a boy with a gun, Ah am. 'Pears like he doan have any sense. Ah reckon Ah better be moving along right smart and tell mah family to stay right close in the ol' hollow tree," muttered Unc' Billy Possum, slipping out from his ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's young dream was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would give her back her ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... by the garrison, and scouts were sent up the Hockhocking, in order to ascertain the strength of the foe, and the probable point of attack. In the month of October, and on one of the balmiest days of our Indian summer, two men could have been seen emerging out of the thick plumb and hazel bushes skirting the prairie, and stealthily climbing the eastern declivity of that most remarkable promontory, now known as Mount Pleasant, whose western summit gives a commanding view to the eye of what is doing on the prairie. This eminence ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... Flint Kreeger an' the rest. I tell yuh, I'm dead sick of being spied on, an' plotted against, an' never knowin' when yuh may get a knife in the back, or stop a bullet. I hate to leave Bud, but he's so plumb set on—" ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... oil!" Chow said. "You looked so pale an' pasty, you had me plumb scared, Tom! I couldn't wake you nohow!" Worriedly the cook added, "What you need is a good beefsteak and some sunshine. You been ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... your Christmas box, Sweet plumb cakes and money, Delicate Holland smocks, Kisses ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... a half Oily Jones was on the floor an' Husky on top askin' somebody kindly to pass him a butcher knife. What's he do but plumb hack off all of Oily Jones' long hair. 'Now howl, damn you, howl,' ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... them white and the other of a rusty red. The air was full of flying metal, and the road, as we were told afterwards by an observer, was all churned up by it. The metal base of one of the shells was found plumb in the middle of the road just where our motor had been. There is no use telling me Austrian gunners can't shoot. ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lose us in it. While we are seeing them, you can bet they are seeing us! There hasn't been a yard for a mile back, where the hoof tracks weren't bloody. They'll lose a horse if they keep on to-day: then, they'll be without a packer; but if they are plumb up against it, why don't they face round and fight? They are three to our two? They could hide behind any of these sand rolls and pot us crossing the sinks; but if they are not at the end of their tether, why don't they hustle and get out of sight? If they aren't played out, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Fort McMurray, Jiarobia said to me: "Dat man is the biggest awful liar on de river. You should hear him talk. 'One day,' he said, 'dere was a big stone floating up de muddy river and on it was tree men, and one was blind and one was plumb naked and one had no arms nor legs, and de blind man he looks down on bottom of river an see a gold watch, an de cripple he reach out and get it, and de naked man he put it in his pocket.' Now any man talk dat way he one most awful liar, it is not possible, any ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... best, of course," he said shortly, "but if you don't work today, Gilbert, you're plumb out of it. I can't keep your place open for you forever, you know. What do you say? Want ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... but simply judicious and careful piling.[107] In performing it, great attention has been paid to having the vertical surfaces as nearly as possible vertical; but this end could be reached without the use of the plumb-line, and with the aid of mere ordinary eyesight, for the rooms are so small, and the partitions so thin, that anything not "true" could, and can yet be, "shoved" into position by a mere steady, slow push; carefully watched on the opposite side. The same applies to the angles, although ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... the tempest, and standing on end upon the hero's cranium, with its mighty mane of blue wool bristling out in the spray and breeze. Position Fourth: at six in the afternoon, with the Corsican coast in view; the unfortunate chechia hangs over the ship's side, and lamentably stares down as though to plumb the depths of ocean. Finally and lastly, the Fifth Position: at the back of a narrow state-room, in a box-bed so small it seemed one drawer in a nest of them, something shapeless rolled on the pillow with moans of desolation. This was the fez—the fez so defiant at the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... what in the sacred name of Time are you meanin' to do with that dummy? For the good land's sake! Have you gone plumb crazy, or ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... to be as hard and tough as leather, to be able to go for days without food or drink, to know the country well, to sleep when he does sleep with his ears open, to be up to every red skin trick, to be able to shoot straight enough to hit a man plumb centre at three hundred yards at least, and to hit a dollar at twenty yards sartin with his six-shooter. If you feel as you have got all them qualifications you can start off as soon as you like, and the chances aren't more'n twenty to ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... from the direction B,—theoretically a straight, horizontal line, though it curves over the knoll. You noticed how, coming down the slope ahead of you, I held my end of the chain up from the ground, to make it horizontal, and then with my plumb-line found the corresponding point in the ground, to start fresh from. That was to get the measurement of a horizontal line; for if you measure all the ups and downs of hills and hollows, you'll find your surveying will come out ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... Here I is done drapped plumb off'n my subject; but a old man's mind will jes' run waa'ry at times. Me and Joe, Alex's son, went to see de officer 'bout gitting Joe's pa buried. He 'lowed dat Alex's body was riddled wid bullets; so we took him ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... do anything. We'll have a pack of hounds, too, and we can drive pig in the woods, and if we want big game there are the Mangwe flats at our feet. I tell you I'll make such a country-house as nobody ever dreamed of. A man will come plumb out of stark savagery into lawns and rose-gardens." Lawson flung himself into his chair again and smiled dreamily at ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... you can't talk to him. He's a convicted man. Here? How do you know he's here? No—I wouldn't let you talk to him if he was. Who are you, anyway? What's that—you threaten him—you threaten me? You'll get us both, will you? Well, I want to tell you, you can go plumb—the deuce! The fellow's cut ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... spacious and well-situated—on the side of the promenade nearest to the bath. Diphilus had placed the columns out of the perpendicular, and not opposite each other. These, of course, he shall take down; he will learn some day to use the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I hope Diphilus's work will be completed in a few months: for Caesius, who was with me at the time, keeps a ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... navigators, it is impossible to sound great depths. Scientific men have, therefore, taxed their brains to invent instruments for sounding the deep sea—for touching the bottom in what sailors call "blue water." Some have tried it with a silk thread as a plumb-line, some with spun-yarn threads, and various other materials and contrivances. It has even been tried by exploding petards and ringing bells in the deep sea, when it was supposed that an echo or reverberation might be heard, and, from the known rate at which sound travels ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... It was always your great fault—trying to plumb shallows and to take high dives into water half ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Charlie on the third day, as he thawed out a gourd full of water that had frozen overnight, "that we could load up the wagons with green stuff when we go through here. That last village we came through was plumb ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... beside a salt-lick. Jim got into their camp while I was lying shivering in the cane, and blessed if he didn't snake back four of our hosses and our three best Deckards. Tha's craft for ye. By sunrise we was riding south on the Warriors' Path but the hosses was plumb tired, and afore midday them pizonous Shawnees had cotched up with us. I can tell ye, neighbours, the hair riz on my head, for I expected nothing better than a bloody sculp and six feet of earth.... But them redskins didn't hurt us. And why, says ye? 'Cos they was scared of Jim. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... I was plumb scared myself. I heard Liza—that's our young-un, Liza Grace, that got married to the Taylor boy. I heard her crying on the stoop, and she came flying out with her pinny all black and hollered to Marthy that the pea soup was burning. Marthy let out another screech and ran for ...
— Year of the Big Thaw • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... like a marble hill. And he sat among the pillars of the hall, upon his throne of beaten gold, and around him stood the speaking statues which Daidalos had made by his skill. For Daidalos was the most cunning of all Athenians, and he first invented the plumb-line, and the auger, and glue, and many a tool with which wood is wrought. And he first set up masts in ships, and yards, and his son made sails for them: but Perdix his nephew excelled him; for he first invented ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... in the right direction for rain," the Oregonian would say. "Keep right on to Yamhill and you'll soon be damp enough. It rains there more than twelve months in the year; at least, no saying but it will. I've just come from there, plumb drownded out, and I told my wife to jump into the wagon and we should start out and see if we couldn't find a dry day somewhere. Last fall the hay was out and the wood was out, and the cabin leaked, and I made up my mind to ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... I should have sent her away the very first night. I'm getting to depend on her. I'm plumb foolish about her now—can't let her out of my sight; and yet I'm off my feed worryin' over her. Gregg is getting dangerous—you can't fool me when it comes to men. Curse 'em, they're all alike—beasts, every ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... plain so far as the anterior (front) attachments of parts to the thyroid cartilage are concerned. It will be understood that the inner anterior surface is meant, and that by "middle line" is intended the middle line of the body, the imaginary vertical diameter passing like a plumb-line from the middle plane of the head, let us suppose, downward just in ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... slicing, and charging the pots. The upper pot is open at the top, but the lower one has a cover, with hinged doors; and from the top of the cover a funnel is carried to a set of condensers. At a convenient distance from the two pots is placed a steam or hydraulic crane, so arranged that it can plumb each pot, and also the large moulds which are placed at either side of the lower pot. The mode ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... weight abandoned to itself and falling from a certain height, should follow the vertical if the Earth were motionless. Experiment, frequently repeated, shows a slight deviation to the East, of the plumb-line that marks the vertical. We more especially observed this at the Pantheon ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... alarming theory, particularly if it be true, as it is said to be, that since 1880 the towers have perceptibly come out of plumb. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... your mouth like sugar. An' I'll be darned if the changeablest one ain't the kind to hold a feller longest. But it's h—l. I was married onct. Not any more for mine! A pal I had used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad. D—n if it ain't so. When there's a woman around there's ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... dowered with the grandeur and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled carving and modeling of man's temples and palaces, and often, to a considerable extent, with their symmetry. Some, closely observed, look like ruins; but even these stand plumb and true, and show architectural forms loaded with lines strictly regular and decorative, and all are arrayed in colors that storms and time seem only to brighten. They are not placed in regular rows in line with the river, but "a' through ither," as the Scotch say, in lavish, exuberant crowds, as ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... bloom on them, and were very tempting to the eye. George loved plumbs above all other fruit, and he walked very slowly from the parlour with his eyes fixed on the basket. The longer he looked, the more he wished to taste them. One plumb, he thought, would not be missed; and as he put his hand in to take that one, two others lay close under his fingers. It was as easy to take three as one, and the three plumbs were taken and put into his pocket. When he reached ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... moral tome, an' no prevarication. It was plumb drippin' with moral from start to finish. You see Eve she set the ball a-rollin' when she swiped them apples. That was where she done dead wrong, and that was the 'Sin' as mentioned in the name of the book, an' old W. P. ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... some time he continued: "The door jamb is built in vertically; that is sure. A string, or piece of thread will make a plumb-bob; here it is: now let us see; according to the plumb line the boat is at an angle of 33 degrees, as nearly as our imperfect device indicates. There, now this line A shows the top of the boat and ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... "Plumb nervousness," said Buck. "Same as if I was pulling up to the start with fifty thousand on the nag. I want to ask your advice, A. A. Just a little private matter. Oh, nothing serious. Nothing like that, you know. I just thought ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... sky an' sunshine, an' the temper o' the breeze. Here's the weather I would fashion could I run things as I please— Beauty dancin' all around me, music ringin' everywhere, Like a weddin' celebration. Why, I've plumb fergot my care An' the tasks I should be doin' fer the rainy days to be, While I'm huggin' the delusion that God made this day ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest |
