"Spry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though 'tis pity she's a trollop): There's a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Myer," exclaimed a bright, chirpy voice right behind her, "whoever would have thought of seeing you spry enough to be out-of-doors! Won't mother be glad?" and there stood the eldest little Outcast, smiling broadly, and holding in her chubby hand a tin bucket, that Peggy had seen ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... mark, but she retorted, gallantly reckless: "That's what yer Aunt Malviny useter declar' fur gospel sure, when she war a gal. An' she hev got ten chil'ren, an' hev buried two husbands; an' ef all they say air true, she's tollin' in the third man now. She's a mighty spry, good-featured woman, an' a fust-rate manager, yer Aunt Malviny air, an' both her husbands lef' her suthin—cows, or wagons, or land. An' they war quiet men when they war alive, an' stays whar they air put now that they air dead; not like old Parson Hoodenpyle, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... keeps the penut stand but shes got a litel gurl and the gurl gives you most for 5 sents don't let the old wommen wate on you but just ask the prise and then sa sis give us 5 sents worth shes awful spry wen you git the penuts just come out of the big dore of the deepoe and keep strait down the rode til you come to our house you can tel it by the 4 cats if they arnt under the barn but you can ask somebody ware farther lives his name is Mister Gillander ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... getting younger every day," cried Dorothy, pleased that her relative was so spry at her ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... mate said; "I reckon you are about as spry for a green hand as any I have come across; I had my eye on you, and you'll do. You go on like that, and you will make a first-rate hand ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... that some one must go, the spry lad darted out of the door, and reappeared a few minutes ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Hermanito by assault with his Portuguese division, and the fate of the battle was again in the balance; the British divisions outnumbered, and outflanked, began to fall back, Generals Cole, Leith, and Spry, were all wounded, and the French cavalry threatened the flank of the line. Wellington, however, had still plenty of reserves in hand, and at this critical moment he launched them at the enemy. The sixth division was brought up from the second line, and hurled ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... boy, who had sat on the ground staring at the new-comers, 'go tell your mother to be spry.' The little fellow went accordingly, by the side door through which she had disappeared a few minutes previously; and the Irish servant, planting himself on the vacated spot with his toes to the fire ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... by any man!' 'This ain't no river,' says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived on the Kennebec.' 'Pity you hed n't stayed on it,' says he. 'I wish to the land I hed,' says I. An' then I come away, for my tongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic that I knew if I stopped any longer I should stir up strife. There's some folks that'll set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wa'n't good fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em, when it comes ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to leap away from the midshipman's prostrate body. Despite the bear's lumbering body and shambling gait he can be spry ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... water, and a bottle of gin. She said he had eaten no dinner, groaning and carrying on awful, wanting her to shoot him with his pistol and end it all. But he seemed to have pulled himself together by the time we were ready, for he let himself down from the attic quite spry, and made us all laugh by the remarks he passed. But one could see he just forced himself to do it, and his face looked powerful haggard and flabby in the lantern light, and he moved queer on his legs, like a push ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... soon set down and jaw away by the hour together with a dirty-faced, stupid little poodle lookin' child, as if it was a nice spry little dog he was a trainin' of for treein' partridges; or talk poetry with the galls, or corn-law with the patriots, or any thing. Nothin' comes ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... there were as many one-legged dancers. We don't speak by the card, of course, but one-legged dancers became a drug in the market. Already we hear of "A Dynamic Phenomenon" at the Pavilion. Little Mrs. ABBOTT is an active, spry little person, yet her "vis inertiae" is, at present, without ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... I'm tol'able spry. I got to the door and into the front room before Phrony did; and when she see me at the bureau she gave one awful yell and fell down in some kind of fit. I took the money. The old woman was kind of clawin' the ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... lively, animated, vivacious; alive, alive and kicking; frisky, spirited, stirring. nimble, nimble as a squirrel; agile; light-footed, nimble-footed; featly^, tripping. quick, prompt, yare^, instant, ready, alert, spry, sharp, smart; fast &c (swift) 274; quick as a lamplighter, expeditious; awake, broad awake; go-ahead, live wide-awake &c (intelligent) 498 [U.S.]. forward, eager, strenuous, zealous, enterprising, in earnest; resolute &c 604. industrious, assiduous, diligent, sedulous, notable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... you this morning? Fresh and spry? Glad to hear it. Our brave Sprigg ran a fine race yesterday—splendid! Everybody said so! You shall run another to-day, if you much desire it. You have just been playing at hide and seek, I see. A nice little game all to ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... finer spot just below us," he said—"a creek that is like no other that I have ever met with in the neighborhood. It is formed by the Alabama—is as deep in some places, and so narrow, at times, that a spry lad can easily leap ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... little Johnnys to the car-windows to be kissed. Puff——Puff! People shake hands from the platform to the cars, walking along by their side. Puff—puff—puff! Now, then, Ma'am! pass out that tumbler pretty spry, out of which you have been swallowing that eternal "drink o' wotter," to which the human female of a certain social grade is so odiously addicted. Puff, puff, puff, puff! Too late, old gentleman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... dangerous,—and there we go boating and swimming; then there's fishing and crabbing, and drives about the country in the big, rattly depot-wagon behind Pegasus,—that's our horse, but he's an awful old slow-poke,—and rides on our donkey, G. W. L. Spry. Oh, I tell you now, it's all just splendid! We always hate to go ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... family, for several generations owned the estate of Pool Park in the parish of Saint Judy, in the county of Cornwall. Captain Philip Sleeman, who married Mary Spry, a member of a distinguished family in the same county, was stationed at Stratton, in Cornwall, on August 8, 1788, when his ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... night I hauled the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook, sounded for bottom-fish, in thirty fathoms of water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge. With fair success I hauled till dark, landing on deck three cod and two haddocks, one hake, and, best of all, a small halibut, all plump and spry. This, I thought, would be the place to take in a good stock of provisions above what I already had; so I put out a sea-anchor that would hold her head to windward. The current being southwest, against the wind, I felt quite sure I would find the Spray still on the bank or near it in the morning. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... was fated to be a sight-seer that morning. When he entered Buckingham Palace Road, the strains of martial music banished the gaunt specter called into being by the red cotton banner. A policeman, more cheerful and spry than his comrades who marshaled the procession shuffling towards Westminster, strode to the center of the busy crossing, and cast an alert eye on the converging lines of traffic. Another section of the ever-ready ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Foundations of regular buildings were fairly traced." An illustration of these discoveries is given in Gough's "Camden," and a plan of them was published by Dr. Lucas and again by Dr. Sutherland (Pl. V.) copied in 1822 by Dr. Spry with discoveries to that date (Pl. VI.), and by Mr. Phelps, the latter re-published by the Rev. Preb. Scarth in his Aquae Solis, 1864. I have, in part, myself and also when assisted by Mr. T. Irvine (the architect, under Sir Gilbert Scott, of the restoration of the Bath Abbey), examined ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis
... When the oat-spry horse had hedged a little his first spurt of speed Jerry broke the lid of his cab and called down through the aperture in the voice of a ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... four pitched battles with the Danes, and who, while yet scarce twelve years old, had charged the Danish line at the head of his guards and shot down the stout Danish colonel, who could not resist the spry young warrior. His mother was a sweet-faced Danish princess, a loving and gentle lady, who scarce ever heard a kind word from her stern-faced husband, and whose whole life was bound up ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Hazen left a sergeant and fourteen men in the house, and set out for Lorette with the rest to ask a reinforcement. On the way he met the French, who tried to surround him; and he told his men to fall back to the house. They remonstrated, saying that they "felt spry," and wanted to show the regulars that provincials could fight as well as red-coats. Thereupon they charged the enemy, gave them a close volley of buckshot and bullets, and put them to flight; but scarcely had they reloaded their ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... sed, "I guess, my gal, "Ye've been a sort ov dreamin'; "I see ye haven't set the pans, "Nor turn'd the mornin's cream in; "Now ain't ye spry? Now, darn my hat "Ef the milk's run inter ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... about 13 when the "freedom papers" were read. She had had 13 children by her two husbands, both deceased, and lives with her youngest daughter in Beaumont. Their one-room, unpainted house is one of a dozen unprepossessing structures bordering an alleyway leading off Pine Street. Rosa, a spry little figure, crowned with short, snow-white pigtails extending in various directions, spends most of her time tending her small flowerbeds and vegetable garden. She is talkative and her ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... without learning something, but I ain't no more than a child by the side of the chief. And don't you think this affair is going to be a circus. I tell you it is going to be a hard job. There ain't a dozen white men as have been over that country, and we shall want to be pretty spry if we are to bring back our scalps. It is a powerful rough country. There are peaks there, lots of them, ten thousand feet high, and some of them two or three thousand above that. There are rivers, torrents, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... sixteen, assorted black and white, that foolish bronze turkey hen just come out from under the woodpile with thirteen little pesters, Sniffer has got five pups—three spots and two solids—and Mrs. Butter has twin calves, assorted sex this time. They are spry and hungry and you'd ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Ole Miss all time give us plenty good sompin' teat, and clo'es, and dey let us sleep in a good cabin, but us did have money now and den. A heap of times us had nickles and dimes. Dey had lots of comp'ny at Ole Marster's, and us allus act mighty spry waitin' on 'em, so dey would 'member us when dey lef'. Effen it wuz money dey gimme, I jes' couldn't wait to run to de sto' and spend it ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... baby Rabbits, if they would live to grow up. There were several kinds of queer, ugly-looking bugs forever darting out at the wriggling pollywogs. Hungry-looking fish lay in wait for them, and Longlegs the Blue Heron seemed to have a special liking for them. But the pollywogs were spry, and seemed to have learned to watch out. They seemed to Peter to spend all their time swimming and eating and growing. They grew so fast that it seemed to him that he could almost see them grow. And just imagine how surprised Peter was to discover one day that that very pollywog ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... though you be done to death, what then? If you battled the best you could; If you've played your part in the world of men, Why, the critic will call it good. Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, And whether he's slow or spry, It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, But only, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... are plenty of us about. You won't find the order more flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa Valley. But we could do with some lads like you. I can't understand a spry man of the union finding no work to do ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... I will when I've got through with ye," replied the desperado with brutal coolness. "I'll take some more o' that meat—an' don't you let it burn, neither. Where's the sugar for the coffee? I'll get a bigger club if ye don't look spry," and so the tramp was served with his meal. "Now ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... want to see! I saw Jap chasing around the golf course with Ruthie and invited him, but he said your pa wasn't very spry and mightn't be uptown to-morrow, so you just tell him for me that you and he are to come to my party here next Tuesday night—surprise party for the girls—going to break something to them they don't know anything about—what say? Tell your ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Jack panted. Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... and spry, and his wits were as nimble as his feet. He saw all that was going on about him, and he was wise enough to keep his tongue still, so that it never got him into trouble as gossipy tongues do some ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... gasped. "You mean you would sacrifice yourself—Great Scot! What do you think I'm expecting to do? Go to sleep for a month or so? Bless your heart, my dear Olga, if you are even thinking of getting married to Fernandez, you'll have to be pretty spry about it. Because I'm going to nip the business in ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... are not free from danger. Great sea-serpents or sharks sometimes make it hot for them, but they are watchful, spry, and being "Folks," with power to think and plan, can generally look out for themselves ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... vessel out of the dock Fresh and spry as a fighting-cock, Feathered with sails and spurred with steam, Heading ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... imploringly, as if to beg them to spare his life, for he was too weak to speak. He held up his hands, drenched with blood, while beneath his head was a pool of gore that had streamed from his mounds. "None of your infernal humbuggery-you could run fast enough. Just get up, and be spry about it, or I'll help you with the cowhide," said the officer, calling to one of the guardmen to bring it to him. He now made an effort, and had got upon his knees, when the guardman that seemed foremost in his brutality fetched him a kick with his heavy boots in the ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... hope o' gettin' them mended, with Penel behindhand on the rent, an' the firin' an' the land knows what else. I don't see why Penel ain't more forehanded. I tell her ef I wuz ez young an' ez spry ez she be, I guess I'd hev things different, but, la! that's Penel's way. She's terrible sot in her own way, Penel is. She's not willin' ter take my advice. Children now-a-days allers duz know ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... and she "calculates," she wears all sorts o' collars, Her yellow hair is not without suspicion of a dye; Her "Pappa" is a dull old man who turned pork into dollars. But everyone admits that she's indubitably spry. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... guess I am somebody now'days. The time you was in jail, I thought the family had a mighty slim chance o' countin'; but I tumbled into base-ball, an' I was pretty strong in my arms an' pretty spry on my feet, an' little by little I kind o' came to ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... Anthony-in-Roseland, with its beautiful restored Early English church. The Norman doorway and lighted steeple are noteworthy. Close by is Place Houses (Places are common in Cornwall), a mansion erected by Admiral Spry on the site of a priory founded by Athelstan, belonging later to the monks of Plympton. There is a lighthouse, as well as a prehistoric castle, on Zose Point, the light visible for fourteen miles, and a valuable guide to vessels ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Judd, ignoring the praise, "That little sucker is a spry one, isn't he? A shoe-string more an' I'd never have ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... made a little swoop down from the threshold and stood before us, one hand in mine and one outstretched for his; "I knew, as soon as I woke up this morning, I felt special. I thought it was my soul, sittin' up in my chest, an' wantin' me to spry round with it some, like it does. But I guess now it was this. Oh, this!" she said. "Oh, I sp'ose I'd rilly ought to hev an introduction before I jump up ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... squaw lived away there by the hills in a snug tepee with her gran'ma. They were jest two squaws by themselves, an old one, and a young one. And they hadn't no brave to help 'em, nor nothin'. The young squaw was jest like any of you. Jest a neat, spry little gal, pretty as ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... But, spry as I am for one of my settled habits and sedate character, I found myself passed by Mr. Gryce; and when I would have accelerated my steps, he darted forward quite like a boy and, without a word of explanation or any acknowledgment of the mutual understanding which ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... Daddy Frog leaps on a log In a spry and jaunty way: Calling his boys—oh, what a noise! He joins them in their play. Hippety hop! under they pop, And Daddy Frog says he, "Isn't it fine? How they will shine, This polished family! Singing Coa, coa, ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... grasses which rose like a miniature forest around his head, green katydids jumped, as spry as monkeys. And, as he lay on his back, he could see, way up in the middle of the sky, and right on a line with his eye, Ole Robber Hawk himself, or else one of his relatives or friends. He was brown, of course, but against the blue of ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... Maori, resided. Laming was an Irish-Protestant who had great influence with his tribe, which was numerous and warlike. He was admired by the natives for his strength and courage. He was six feet three inches in height, as nimble and spry as a cat, and as long-winded as a coyote. His father-in-law was a famous warrior named Lizard Skin. His religion was that of the Church of England, and he persuaded his tribe to profess it. He told them that the Protestant God was stronger than the Catholic God ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... snowy haired, but as fresh as a daisy and as spry as a cricket. His cheeks were as ruddy as Spitzenberg apples and his only wrinkles were the laughter wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. And such eyes! They were big and clear, and so bright that Bob could only look at them a moment and then turn away. It was like trying ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... little sister was in great trouble. But a minute before Spry, the kitten, had strayed away from the mother-cat, and Lucy and she ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... the former called the latter "Little Prig." Bun replied: "You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year And a sphere; And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back Neither can you ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... dumpling, and ever so fat, In running and climbing he's spry as a cat, And if the long ladder should happen to break, And he should fall down, what a crash it ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Lila progressed and read stories to Nan, the little rogue "wisht" she could read too. "Couldn't see no use in dat yaller gal gittin' so fur ahead." When she found she could only read by learning those little things that "bobbed so spry into a body's head and hopped out a heap quicker," then she reckoned she'd have to come to it. She tried once more. It was a long time before she could call the letters and spell out words, and it was many months before she could read at all without spelling. It was hard work for Nan and harder ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... lived an old widow and her only child. She was a tidy, pleasant-faced dame, was "Old Mother Growser;" and as to her boy, there wasn't a brighter lad of his age in all the village. His real name was James, but he had always been so spry and handy that when he was a little bit of a chap the neighbors called him "Nimble Jim." At work in the cottage garden, or at play on the village green, even at his books and slate, he was ever the same industrious, active "Nimble Jim," and always a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... stored that I've been layin' out to show you, soon's I could. Me an' Moses an' Eunice is all a-gettin' old. It's time somebody younger an' likelier to live longer should know. This walk to-day tells me 'at I ain't so spry as I used to be. No tellin', no tellin'. We're here now, an' there some other time, an' life's a shadder, a shadder," ruminated the widow, sitting down on the door-step, and not anxious, apparently, to ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... father and mother were killed when I was eight years old, and the people that murdered them tried to kill me too, but I was a spry little tike and give them the slip. It was a bad country, and I like to have died, only there was a band of Navajos out trading ponies, and one morning, after I'd been alone all night, they picked me up and took care of me. I was pretty near gone, what with being scared ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... moment his mouth happened to be open, and he persisted in declaring that some lead had gone down his throat, and was the cause of violent internal pain. When removed to his cottage at Stonehouse, he invariably told Dr. Spry, the medical man who attended him, and who constantly administered the proper remedies for the burns and injuries he had received, that if he would do anything effectual to his recovery, he must relieve his stomach of ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... had meant to climb up there, Being one so spry and so determinate, He would have set about it ere this eve! He has not troops to do so, sirs, I say: His utmost ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the Massachusetts patina. What if a number of these savages were grafted on Oxford? How would they alter the tone? We shall see. It will be an interesting struggle. Shall we hear of six- shooters in the High?—of hominy and flannel cake for breakfast?—will undergrads look 'spry?'—will they 'voice' public opinion? . . . I forbear: my American vocabulary is limited. Outre mer, outres moeurs, as Mr. Walkley might say in some guarded allusion to Paul Bourget. . . . I shall be sorry to see poker take the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... get quit of this confounded Babel yet—and you must want somebody badly. So I send Rupert down. He'll do everything you want, better in fact than I could, for he is young and spry, and as good a boy as lives. He will see to everything, and you can get off as soon as you like. I think he had better go along all the way; his mother wit is worth a dozen stupid couriers, even though he don't know quite so much about ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... me Sam is, though he does knock me round sometimes, when I ain't spry. The big feller shoves me back, you see; and I gets cold, and can't sing out loud; so I don't sell my papers, and has to work ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... wood stretched beyond the brook, tempting Miss Kitty Cat to explore it. At that hour of the morning there were many birds twittering among the trees. And spry chipmunks were frisking about in search of their breakfast. Miss Kitty Cat just naturally began to think ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... his friends in Pleasant Valley for he is a most unselfish fellow and enjoys nothing more than seeing other people as happy as he. He has one grave fault, however, that prevents him from being a very great help, and that is his inability to remain long in one place. He is so full of spry gaiety that he never can be quite content unless he is dancing with his relatives in the hollow near the swamp or darting about Farmer Green's lawn. His friends often give him advice as to how he may use the wonderful light which he always carries ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... old man. He was born in our house—I know, for it chanced that mention was made of it this very day I am describing. Pons was all of sixty years. He was mostly toothless, and, despite a pronounced limp that compelled him to go slippity-hop, he was very alert and spry in all his movements. Also, he was impudently familiar. This was because he had been in my house sixty years. He had been my father's servant before I could toddle, and after my father's death (Pons and I talked of it this day) he became ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... considered how she had been Erastus's wife and how he had set his eyes by her, and I made up my mind to go in the next mornin', unless she was better, and see what I could do; but the next mornin' I see her at the window, and pretty soon she came steppin' out as spry as you please, and a little while afterward Mrs. Babbit came in and told me that the Doctor had got a girl from out of town, a Sarah Jones, to come there, and she said she was pretty sure that the Doctor was goin' ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... It has done my husband no end of good. It's taken pounds and pounds of fat off him. It brings out the prespiration on him something wonderful. And it's taken years off his age. He's that spry and full of jokes and he's gettin' right spoony. He used to be a tumble cut-up, and then he settled down so there was no livin' with him. But now he keeps at me to buy some new clothes and he's thinkin' ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... and spry, And brimming with lots of fight; She married a little man five feet high, And he died from ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... it," Bob Cristy nodded. "Still beach- combs, drinks when he gets the price, and keeps all his senses, though he's not spry and has to use glasses when he reads. And his memory is perfect. Now if Abel Ah Yo catches ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... the big man complimented. "For a little sawed-off runt, you're real spry and active." He clucked to the mules and they settled steadily into the collars and moved on to the Three Bar. As they rolled up the lane the freighters could see the chuck wagon drawn up before the house, the remuda milling round the big pasture lot and a ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... I thought it must have been a spry cat to get even a paw on the Lady Bird, for frequently humming-birds could be seen perching, but never one of these. I watched the tail question sharply, and soon learned the cats had been after every Lady Bird that visited ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... fact is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's pootty much took up with the school. She's an industris young woman,—yis, she is industris,—but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry a worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she isn't fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,—that is, if so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec's of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... of ninety who were spry enough, even in my bit of experience," said Spargo. "I know one—now—my own grandfather. Well, the best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I'll tell you all about ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... terribly, at which the midshipmen, as he was not their captain, laughed the more heartily. The Admiral had heard, too, of the trick Jack and his messmates had played with Quirk, the monkey, on Lieutenant Spry, of the marines, and while he told the story as he had received it from Jack, with a few amplifications of his own, the tears ran down his eyes, till Captain Sourcrout, boiling ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... away to sea, and never was heard from. I've always thought he might come back, though everybody gave him up years ago. I can't help thinking what if he should come back, and find I wa'n't here! There; I'm glad to please John: he sets everything by me, and I s'pose he thinks he's going to make a spry young woman of me. Well, it's natural. Every thing looks fair to him, and he thinks he can have the world just as he wants it; but I know it's a world o' change,—a world o' change and loss. And you see, I shall have to go to a strange meetin' ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... old now, but I used to be pretty spry. I used to go 60 miles out on de Gulf o' Mexico, as 'terpreter on dem big ships dat come from France. Dat was 'fore I done forgot my French talk what I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... shoulder and he received a dozen slaps from his companions, all of whom were waiting for just such an opportunity. This is the object of the game—to catch a boy with his queue down his back. Some of the boys, more spry than others, would move away to a distance, and then as though all unconsciously, allow their queue to hang down the back in its natural position, depending upon their fleetness or their agility in getting out of the way or bringing the queue around in front. This game ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... home th' next day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogs fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my rifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th' door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups and knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first shot I takes, and there be th' skin. ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... tu'n an' twis' all roun' de flo', Fling out yo' feet behime, befo', Go lightly, gal, go lightly! Gre't Lan' o' Goshen! but you is spry! Kain't none er de urr gals spring so high, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... wa'nt de quares' thing 'bout de goopher. When Henry come ter de plantation, he wuz gittin' a little ole an stiff in de j'ints. But dat summer he got des ez spry en libely ez any young nigger on de plantation; fac' he got so biggity dat Mars Jackson, de oberseah, ha' ter th'eaten ter whip 'im, ef he didn' stop cuttin' up his didos en behave hisse'f. But de mos' cur'ouses' thing happen' in de fall, when de sap begin ter go down in de grapevimes. Fus', when ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... that classic chanty, as we went out with all our canvas spread to a lively northeast breeze—and I realised once more how good the sea was for all manner of men, whatever their colour, for we all livened up and shook off our land-laziness again, spry and laughing, and as keen as the jib stretching out like a gull's wing into the rush and spray ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... humbly, tall and short, thick and thin, thousands and thousands of 'em a-goin' every morning for their drink and walk, drink and walk. There are six or eight little girls at each of these springs who hand the water to the guests and they have to work spry to keep ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... in stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be,— Guess you'll toot till you are yaller 'Fore you git ahold ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... that great big, long-legged man (he's nearly as long-legged as you, Daddy) ever sitting in Mrs. Semple's lap and having his face washed. Particularly funny when you see her lap! She has two laps now, and three chins. But he says that once she was thin and wiry and spry and could run faster ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... Smoke encountered a man carrying a heavy sled-load of firewood. He was a little man, clean-looking and spry, who walked briskly despite the load. Smoke experienced ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Minister, 'I will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation. I come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actresses and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we'd have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... pretty spry, or he'll have some of this patch. We'll head him off, and ship what we've ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... if I don't feel kinder lost without one. I'll bet Hogan is heeled, and I know Wynn never goes without his artillery. We'll have to look sharp and be spry, Clancy, if ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... a fancy o' mine. You see, me gone, there's nothing to 'amper 'er—nothing to interfere with 'er settling down as a quiet, respectable toff. With a 'alf-brother, who's always got to be spry with some fake about 'is lineage and 'is ancestral estates, and who drops 'is 'h's,' complications are sooner or later bound to a-rise. Me out of ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... fishermen were standing by with their nets, and when they drew them in, the fish that had swallowed Tom was one of the haul. Being a very fine fish it was sent to the Court kitchen, where, when the fish was opened, out popped Tom on the dresser, as spry as spry, to the astonishment of the cook and the scullions! Never had such a mite of a man been seen, while his quips and pranks kept the whole buttery in roars of laughter. What is more, he soon became the favourite ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... same I'm thankful for your coming to my assistance," said Mr. Henderson. "My rheumatism kept me from being as spry in dodging their cannonade as I might have been some years ago. And one ball that broke against that tree had a stone inside it, I'm sorry to say. We would have called that ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... will go away without you," Patty threatened. "Now, you do always dawdle, Christine; but this time you've got to hustle,—so be spry,—Mrs. Hepworth." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... think, there's something just here that I want to ask about. Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven we would all be young, and bright, and spry." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... neat little log cabin and a little patch of garden bordered with sunflowers. His call was answered by an old woman, gray and bent, but remarkably spry, who appeared at ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... worry; no beach-comber like that can stand up long in front of me. He threatened on board that he was going to collect that fifty pounds. He hasn't been very spry about it." ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... to see you so spry," said Grannie. Her voice felt quite choking when she entered the big, luxurious house. "I'll be able to keep it up fine," she murmured to herself. "Lor', I'm a sight better; it was the air of that place that was a-killin' me. I'll keep it up ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... "Watch your steps spry, parson. I'm agoin' to see that you're shadowed wherever you go. You needn't think you can get shy on the ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... village we passed a smart-looking buggy drawn by a spry-footed horse in shiny harness. Then I noticed with a pang that our wagon was covered with dry mud and that our horses were rather bony and our harnesses a kind of lead color. So I was in an humble ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... want to go camping, do you?" said he. "Sit down and let us talk it over. I think the young lady is all right. She looks spry enough, and I expect she could eat pine-cones like a squirrel if she was hungry and had nothing else. As for you, madam, you don't appear as if anything in particular was the matter with you, and I should think you could stand a Number Three camp well enough, and ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... an' a sad comin' it was for her, as I could see in her face. 'What are you wearin' yo' Sunday best for, Mr. Doolittle?' asked Mr. Jonathan, spry as a cricket. 'It's a fine weddin' I've been to, Mr. Jonathan,' I answered, 'an' I've seen two lovin' hearts beatin' as one befo' Mr. Mullen at the altar.' Then Reuben Merryweather's gal called out right quickly, 'Whose weddin', old ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... tucked in against the cold like the child, who vied with each other in catching up the lumps of coke that were jolted from the load, and filling their aprons with them; such old women, so hale, so spry, so tough and tireless, with the withered apples red in their cheeks, I have not often seen. They may have been about sixty years, or sixty-five, the time of life when most women are grandmothers and are relegated ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... old Dobbins, dancing about Frank, as spry as a schoolboy and poking him playfully in the ribs. Frank ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... advantage to himself. I find him on the hills of cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we shall not want any), the squashes (small loss), and the melons (which never ripen). The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the night. For he flieth in the darkness, and wasteth at noonday. If you get up before the dew is off the plants,—it goes off very early,—you can sprinkle soot on the plant (soot ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Ruby 'appily married and retired from the stage. It's wuss than the circus, my lad. The temptations are greater and there ain't so much honor among the people you're thrown with. The stage is surrounded by a pack of wolves just as vicious as Bob Grand ever was, and a girl's got to be mighty spry to ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... another country, north and west, where such shows might have this effect—if it is not too late—Drove there in our hired victoria in the hot dusk, and dust, in a rout of carriages, gharries, rickshaws, dog-carts, and every sort of wheeled craft imaginable; nabobs and nobodies, spry young soldiers in uniform, minus hats, driving ladies in chiffons and laces, natives, civilians, eurasians, now one ahead then the other, till we met in a grand block at the great gates, and then strung out orderly-wise and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... own funeral, an' when I saw old man Ely it didn't take me no two minutes to keep my word the same as ever,—'n' father's black bow too. But laws, he was n't after no bow!—I very quickly found out as all as he was after was the funeral, f'r it seems as they was uncommonly spry with it. He told me right off as they had it pretty prompt too, for he says when it comes to buryin' a wife there 's no need for a man to go slow, 'n' so he had all Meadville up with the lark 'n' out after old Mrs. Ely. He seemed to feel all of a sudden as it was a little awkward me not ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... should be defeated, for Don Juan's messenger was very spry, planned to trick Curan Curing. So Bruja said, "Friend, let us rest here a while! I have a little wine with me. We will drink it, if it pleases you, and take a little rest while the sun is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... iron mace go horse and rider down. Ho, Robert Elsmere! count thy beads; lo, champion of the fray, With brandished colt, comes Felix Holt, all of the Modern day. And Silas Lapham's six-shooter is cocked: the Colonel's spry! There spurs the wary Egoist, defiance in his eye; There Zola's ragged regiment comes, with dynamite in hand, And Flaubert's crew of country doctors devastate the land. On Robert Elsmere Friar Tuck falls with his quarter-staff, ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... before you're home again and everything'll seem wonderful and bright and new to you, mother," he said. "And don't you worry about me, for I'm getting along fine. I can hobble around quite spry with this crutch. And Tom and Arthur are on deck, you know. We'll behave ourselves and not get into any mischief, and by the time you're home again we'll have done all the planting. Good-bye, good-bye! I'll write ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... his squeals And his frantic appeals, Triangular Tommy fast took to his heels. Now Tommy was agile and Tommy was spry; He whizzed through the air—he just seemed to fly; He rushed madly on, until, dreadful to say! He came where the railroad was just in his way— And alas! and alack! He tripped on the track And then with a terrible, sudden ker-thwack! Triangular ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... is Mr. Harry's tame squirrel out in one of the barns that teases me considerably. He knows that I can't chase him, now that my legs are so stiff with rheumatism, and he takes delight in showing me how spry he can be, darting around me and whisking his tail almost in my face, and trying to get me to run after him, so that he can laugh at me. I don't think that he is a very thoughtful squirrel, but I try ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... my nets by the foamin' sea, Them little bare feet trot there with me, And a shrill little voice I love'll say: "Dran'pa, spin me a yarn ter-day." And I know when my dory comes ter land, There's a spry little form somewheres on hand; And the very fust sound my ears'll meet Is the welcomin' run ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Why, you are as spry as a boy!" exclaimed the farmer who was to drive them to town, seeing that Hobert managed to climb into the wagon without assistance. "I don't believe there is any need of Dr. Killmany, after all!" And the neighbors, as one after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... you be done to the death, what then? If you battled the best you could, If you played your part in the world of men, Why The Critic will call it good. Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, And whether he's slow, or spry, It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, But only—how did ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... helped you into your gown, mistress, I shall soon have the dinner spread and all in order. I be used to such work, and I'm considered spry upon ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... up an alley, and down a side street a step. Nothing at all! Nice promenade for a spry, lovely young lady like you. Evening walk, smell spring in the air. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... on hand bright and early at the park next morning, and after a while a slovenly slip of a girl came up to me and asked my name. I told her. She gave me a note and then started off like a skyrocket, but I'm some spry myself and I caught her and held her till I'd read the note. It was from her and she said she couldn't give me the worst of the bargain. That she was going to try hard to see if she could make good and live without stealing, and when she was sure, she'd ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the Sea we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in that shape. Now, the question is—could it have been this here Mr. Curtis? It reely is a pity I was so—so spry on the door." ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... exclaimed: "Why won't this do? Here is some sea-moss which I was taking to an old woman who lives a little further down the road. She makes some stuff which she calls farina out of it, and grieves bitterly that she is no longer young and spry enough to gather it for herself along the shore. My basket is full of this moss, and if we could wet it in the brook down yonder, we might sponge off the things with it, and then dry them with big leaves, backed up by those ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... flannels away and trot out the old linen duster, Pack the bob-sled in the barn, and bring forth the baseball and racket, For the spry Spring is on deck, performing her roseate breakdown Unto the tune of the van that rattles and bangs ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... the spry old gentleman, who was more active than many a younger man, began making his way cautiously down the treacherous slope of the rampart, aided by his trusty malacca cane, poking his stick between the niches of the stonework to act as a stay, and so prevent his ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... pretty considerable smart horse," said the stranger, as he came beside me, and apparently reined in, to prevent his horse passing me; "there is not, I reckon, so spry a one ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... but he was pleasant to look at. His bald head was as shiny as if it had been varnished; there was always a merry twinkle in his eyes and he was as spry as a schoolboy. Dorothy says the reason the Wizard is not as powerful as Glinda is because Glinda didn't teach him all she knows, but what the Wizard knows he knows very well and so he performs some very remarkable magic. ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... evidently reassured; "your palm is moist and cool, and your pulse is regular. Well, you look spry, anyhow. I shouldn't wonder if you made up your mind ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... Jim, who also contemplated the prodigy, "that big, chunky, awkward-lookin' things are sometimes ez spry ez you. They say that the Hipperpotamus kin outrun the giraffe across the sands uv Afriky, an' I know from pussonal experience that the bigger an' clumsier a b'ar is the faster he kin make you scoot fur your life. But he's the real Dutch, ain't he, Paul, one uv them fellers ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fingers; 'speakin' of the transmigration of souls, I goes off wrong about Hoppin' Harry that time. I takes it, he used to be one of these yere Eastern toads on account of his gait. But I'm erroneous. Harry, who is little an' spry an' full of p'isen that a- way, used to be a t'rant'ler. Any gent who'll take the trouble to recall one of these hairy, hoppin' t'rant'ler spiders who jumps sideways at you, full of rage an' venom, is bound to be reminded ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... getting rid of him. He will jump through my hands held three feet high. The parrot does not talk much, because it is tongue-tied. She calls "papa," and screams when she wants to get out of her cage. The dog Spry is the cunningest of all. His body and color are like a black and tan; but his nose is shaggy, like a Scotch terrier, which makes him look very funny. He will sit up, and clap his paws together, and say patty-cake. ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... She had outlived three empresses and had reigned unquestioned in the social world for over fifty years, yet had not an enemy in Rome. Everybody loved Nemestronia. At the time of the litter craze she had already celebrated her eighty-first birthday, was plump, rosy, merry and spry, always ready for any amusement, and was living happily ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... said the slaver captain, "and the quarters are a bit close. We ran short of water too, and a tidy lot died, and made the others bad. You give 'em time, and that lot 'll turn out as cheap as anything you ever bought. You should have seen them when they first came aboard—lively and spry as could be. Have the other two. Hi! Below there!" he continued, as he went to the open hold, and boy-like I stepped forward, full of curiosity, to look ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... to introduce her," said Zhmuhin, "is the mother of my young cubs. Come, Lyubov Osipovna," he said, addressing her, "you must be spry, mother, and get something for our guest. Let us have ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it is, Mister Major—you may think yourself a devilish fine feller, but I guess as how an officer of the Michigan Militia is just as good and as spry as any blue coat in the United States rig'lars; so there's that (snapping his fingers) for ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... look spry after your journey. Glad to see you. We'll become good neighbours, I guess," was his familiar but not surly salutation. Mr Ashton took it in good part. "Thank you, my friend, we have come along very well," he answered. ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... Monday we got drough Our work betimes, an ax'd a vew Young vo'k vrom Stowe an' Coom, an' zome Vrom uncle's down at Grange, to come. An' they so spry, wi' merry smiles, Did beaet the path an' leaep the stiles, Wi' two or dree young chaps bezide, To meet an' keep up Easter tide: Vor we'd a-zaid avore, we'd git Zome friends to come, an' have a bit O' fun wi' me, an' Jeaene, an' Kit, Because ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... see how spry my little one is at her jumpin'! "Ketch me!" she shouts, in her fun,—"if you want me, foller and ketch me!" Every minute she turns and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... not what we expect to hear From Daughters of an English Peer. His grandmamma, His Mother's Mother, Who had some dignity or other, The Garter, or no matter what, I can't remember all the Lot! Said "Oh! that I were Brisk and Spry To give him that for which to cry!" (An ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc
... May I write again and tell you when I am fit for Aldershot? Dr. L—— highly approves of the air of it, but at present he thinks lying in bed the only safe course. Do thank dear Aunty next time you write to her for her goodness, and tell her that in my present state I should make her seem quite spry and active. A thousand thanks for the Pall Mall. I do not neglect one word of what you say; but I need hardly say that I can't ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... mister; but you'll tell your skipper to be spry and careful, for if yew don't do it right it'll be ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... a fool as to believe—Say! What's that? The ceiling! By the eternal, that scraping noise explains it! There's where the secret trap-door is—in the ceiling! Within arm's reach, at that! Watch me, old woman! I'll have your spry friend out of his nest in the shake ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the house," and win souls in a quiet manner. But she could attend faithfully to household affairs, and also do something as a private member to lead sinners to Jesus, even though miles away on the dark mountain; for she was an expert rider, very spry and strong, and only thirty years of age, and had a fleet, easy horse that could climb those slopes and fly across those table-lands and be back ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... who hadn't revolvers, or runs away. I cut a slit in my trousers behind, and sewed in a pocket, and practised lugging the revolver out in a jiffy, and getting a bead on an imaginary brigand. I was pretty spry at it, and knew I should be all right. And it was just that revolver which saved me, as ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various |
