"Woodsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him; had tried his best with his fists to save his mother in the Amesbury massacre, six years before; and in a little settlement on the Saco River, when he was twelve, he had done a man's work at the blockhouse loophole, loading nearly as fast and firing as true as any woodsman in the company. Danger and strife had given the lad an alert self-confidence ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... branch snapped under Kerry's foot with the report of a toy pistol. He swore perfunctorily, and gazed greedily at the cave-opening just ahead. He was a bungling woodsman at best; and now, stalking that greatest of all big game, man, the blood drummed in his ears and his heart seemed to slip a cog or two with every beat. He stood tense, yet trembling, for the space in which a man might count ten; surely if there were any one inside the cave—if the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... on the Monongahela, about fifteen miles from the fort, and now marched in close formation along its winding bank, as though on dress parade. But his admiration of the display only intensified his sense of danger—the sixth sense of every woodsman. He begged his general to scatter his forces somewhat, or at least send scouts ahead. But Braddock rebuked him angrily for presuming to teach English ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Adam?" exclaimed Uncle Cradd, as he turned around and greeted the woodsman with a smile of ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of sleep when he was suddenly roused to complete wakefulness by a little sound from behind his tent. A woodsman soon learns to know all the normal sounds of night, and this was something different, an infinitely stealthy sound, as of a body dragging itself an inch at a time, with long waits between. It seemed to be slowly making its way around his tent ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... in the interior, and even if the colonies won independence, it was likely that the Alleghanies would mark the boundary of the new State. Under these circumstances, George Rogers Clark, trapper and expert woodsman and Indian fighter, set himself, with the confident idealism of the frontiersman, to achieve an object which must have seemed to most men no more than a forlorn hope. It was in 1777 that he crossed the mountains ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... As a woodsman, Alexander acknowledged few peers but this was to her, unfamiliar country. She was moreover pitting her skill against one who was her equal if not her superior, and who knew every trail and by-way hereabouts. He was a youth with a vacuous, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... the ax, and Wild Water, with the clever hand and eye of the woodsman, split the egg cleanly in half. The appearance of the egg's interior was anything but satisfactory. Smoke felt a premonitory chill. Shorty was more valiant. He held one of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, made up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of packhorses. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... following outfit might be considered the Indian's grossest groceries, the articles are not really necessaries at all for him; for, to go to the extreme, a good woodsman can hunt without even gun, axe, knife, or matches, and can live happily, absolutely independent ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... placed the bugle to his lips, and blown a strike with two winds, a short consultation was held between him and James, who loved to display his knowledge as a woodsman; and while this was going forward, Nicholas and Sherborne having come up, the squire dismounted, and committing Robin to his brother-in-law, approached ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room; and I, not being so good a woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly, and went into the bed, as they called it, when, to my surprise, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without sheet or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of vermin. I was glad ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... Americans contribute to the motley contingent. They come from every direction and from various distances, some of them traveling a hundred miles or more to secure a few days' or weeks' work. Almost every farmer or woodsman living anywhere in the region of the marshes turns out with his entire family; and the families of all the laboring men and mechanics of the surrounding towns and cities join in the general hegira to the bogs, and help to harvest the fruit. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... across the black bowl of Astra's night sky. A light so vivid, so alien, that it brought him to his feet with a chill prickle of apprehension along his spine. In all his years as a scout and woodsman, in all the stories of his fellows and his elders at Homeport—he had never seen, never heard ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... on the warm ridge, thinking of many things that the woodsman's appearance had stirred up in her. She knew nothing of her early life, and had never felt any curiosity about it: only a sullen reluctance to explore the corner of her memory where certain blurred images lingered. But ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... It may be called the 5 American house, the Western house, the Ohio house. Hardly any other house was built for a hundred years by the men who were clearing the land for the stately mansions of our day. As long as the primeval forests stood, the log cabin remained the woodsman's home; and not fifty years ago 10 I saw log cabins newly built in one of the richest and most prosperous regions of Ohio. They were, to be sure, log cabins of a finer pattern than the first settler ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... never needed a dog; and that he could imitate to perfection the call of every game bird that inhabited the mountain glens. Sweet-tempered he was not; but so reliable, skilful, and vigilant, and moreover so thorough a woodsman, that the boys could well afford to put up ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... more dangerous than three French forest rangers dressed in buckskins, but with manners a trifle too smooth for such rough garb, as one doffs his cap to Governor Sargeant and introduces himself as Jan Pere, a woodsman out hunting. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... good story about fishing through the ice which formed part of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... "Some woodsman, you are!" snorted Phil in purposely exaggerated disgust. "When you skulked through the brush the limbs could be heard popping for a mile. How many times did ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... resources and how to make the forces of nature serve us; engineers who have built our railroads and bridges and tunneled our mountains. A most important part has been taken by those who win their living directly from nature's resources—the woodsman, the miner, the farmer; and the service of the farmer has been especially great in giving stability ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... be taken by tactics of moderate cunning, larger and more wary animals must be hunted by artful measures. Deer, still abundant in our land, and properly safeguarded by game laws, test the woodsman's skill to the utmost. To learn the art of finding deer, or successful approach and ultimate capture, one must study life in the open. Let him read the work of Van Dyke on still-hunting [1] [Footnote 1: The Still-hunter, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the Ranger got a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... always interests us in the uneducated. The class to which he belongs is one peculiar to America. Rough in manners, and often only half-civilized, the lumberer, as an individual, resembles little the woodsman of other lands. He is generally a Canadian Frenchman, or a breed between the Irish and the native of the Lower Province. However, some Yankees may be found among these denizens of the woods and wilds of Canada. The fearful conflagration to ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... match with the painstaking care of the woodsman, cherished its young flame as though there were never another in all the world, and drew in the first mouthful of smoke. This he retained meditatively for a time, and blew out through his pursed lips slowly and caressingly. Then his face seemed to soften as he leaned back, and a soft ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... hunter, "but if we catch him we'll find something. We've got to take our bird first, and then we'll see. He went north and west with a message, and that being the case he's bound to take one back. I don't think Garay is a first-class woodsman and we may be able to ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the tender young trees, ready for spacing, and the billets of wood piled up and half covered with thistle and burdock leaves; and a little farther away, half hidden by tall weeds, teeming with insects, rises the peaked top of the woodsman's hut. Here one walks beside deep, grassy trenches, which appear to continue without end, along the forest level; farther, the wild mint and the centaurea perfume the shady nooks, the oaks and lime-trees arch their spreading branches, and the honeysuckle twines itself ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... all men, saving Sylla,[441] the man-slayer, Who passes for in life and death most lucky, Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,[442] Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere; For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... no praise of us, who wrought so well, Who has the Master's praise; who at his post Stood to the last. Yet, now, from coast to coast, Let memory of him peal like some great bell, Of him as woodsman, workman, let it tell! Of him as lawyer, statesman, without boast! And for what qualities we love him most, And recollections that no time can quell. He needs no praise of us, yet let us praise, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... Roosevelt, leaving the ladies and children to return to the cottage, started to climb Mount Marcy. Such an undertaking was exactly to his liking, and he went up the rough and uneven trail with the vigor of a trained woodsman, the guide leading the way and the other ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... said poor Phoebe, "and do not stand gazing on him thus;" for the woodsman, resting on his fatal weapon, stood looking down on the corpse with the appearance of a man half stunned at ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... one feature of this camp that greatly puzzled our young woodsman, and that was its silence. Surely the night was too young for all the inmates of those lodges to have retired, and yet there was no sound of voices. Not even the wail of a child was to be heard nor ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... island of Britain," said the woodsman, with great composure, "will be of your honour's opinion; but as I belong to the other half, even the choicest liquor in Gascony cannot render that health ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to the ground on hands and knees, feel his way through the underbrush when the smoke was densest, or take advantage of its momentary lifting, and without uncertainty, mistake, or hesitation glide from tree to tree in one undeviating course, was possible only to an experienced woodsman. To keep his reason and insight so clear as to be able in the midst of this bewildering confusion to shape that course so as to intersect the wild and unknown tract of an inexperienced, frightened wanderer belonged to Low, and to Low alone. He was making his way against ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... reached the rear of the tent he saw a crouching figure there. A hole had been cut in the cloth, and the fellow was gazing into the tent. He was dressed in woodsman's attire, leather jacket and leggins and fur cap. The gold rings in his ears quivered and glistened as the light ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... to speak. He had believed that he was something of a woodsman, and he certainly believed that he would not go north supposing that he was going south! Could there be another Swiss toymaker, and another cottage and another squawking cuckoo, exactly like the others? Were they all alike, ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... anger, but simple and complete introversion, it added a dignity and suggested a remoteness that were yet less reassuring. His son, who stood in awe of him—not because of paternal severity, but because no boy could refrain from a worshipping respect for so miraculous a shot, a woodsman so subtly equipped with all elusive sylvan instincts and knowledge—forbore to break upon his meditations by the delivery of Grinnel's message. Nevertheless the consciousness of withholding it weighed heavily upon him. He only pretermitted it for a time, until a more ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... with a horse and small cart, and would take with him what clothes he had ready. He did not speak to Marie that night, but he said something to his father about the timber and the mill. Gaspar Muntz, the head woodsman, knew, he said, all about the business. Gaspar could carry on the work till it would suit Michel Voss himself to see how things were going on. Michel Voss was sore and angry, but he said nothing. He sent to his son a couple of hundred francs by his wife, but said no word ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... entering the Pine Ridge Reservation, a man might travel the whole length of the Indian territory without the slightest chance of discovery, even by the Indians themselves; that is, provided he be a good woodsman. And this is what Seth accomplished. He did it without any seeming care or unusual caution. But then he was consummate in the necessary craft which is to be found only amongst the sons of the soil, and, even then, rarely outside the few who ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... liable to become bewildered and perhaps lost, and this might detain the entire party in searching for them. The better plan upon a march is for three or four to go out together, accompanied by a good woodsman, who will be able with certainty to lead ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tady Kelly. A better woodsman than the first named of these three, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... most charm to this human side was the fact that Page was fundamentally such a scholarly man. This was the aspect which especially delighted his English friends. He preached democracy and Americanism with an emphasis that almost suggested the back-woodsman—the many ideas on these subjects that appear in his letters Page never hesitated to set forth with all due resonance at London dinner tables—yet he phrased his creed in language that was little ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... him Salonge, the Mayas Che Vinic, and the Cakchiquels ru vinakil chee; both these latter meaning "the woods man." What gives this phantom especial interest in this connection is, that Father Coto identifies the woodsman with the Zaki[c]oxol, the white fire maker, encountered by the Cakchiquels in Xahila's narrative (Sec. 21).[42-2] I have narrated the curious folk-lore about the woodsman in another publication, and need not repeat it here.[42-3] His second name, the White Fire Maker, ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... to bribe people with any love of the country in them to endure the passages of political philosophy in the sure hope of a prettier page to come. Everybody, too, can enjoy the love music, the hammer and anvil music, the clumping of the giants, the tune of the young woodsman's horn, the trilling of the bird, the dragon music and nightmare music and thunder and lightning music, the profusion of simple melody, the sensuous charm of the orchestration: in short, the vast extent of common ground between The Ring and the ordinary music we ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... figure should prove to be that of an Indian. It was not an Indian; it was my Lord Carnal. He came on slowly, glancing from side to side, and pausing now and then as if to listen. He was so little of a woodsman that he never ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... himself squarely in front of the old man, elbowing aside a woodsman to whom the colonel was addressing himself. The young engineer's gaze ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... Burlington we found our guides waiting for us. They were sitting on the green at the cross-roads, with their paddles and axes and bundles beside them. I knew at a glance that they were ready and all right: Sam Dam, an old experienced, seasoned guide, and Harry, a good-looking young woodsman who had worked in lumber camps and on "the drive," but had never been "guiding" before. He was none the worse for that, for he belonged to the type of Maine man who has the faculty of learning things ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... and broad-shouldered, was in truth not unlike a wild-cat in his unkempt shagginess, albeit free from all craft and guile. His whole mien, in his yellow leather jerkin slashed with green, his high boots, and ill-shaven face covered with short, grey bristles, was that of a woodsman who has grown strange to man in the forest wilds; howbeit we knew from many dealings that he was honest and pitiful, and would endure hard things to be serviceable and faithful to those ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... remained barking not many rods south of me on the edge of the swamp, and I knew the rabbit had run to hole. For half an hour or more I heard the hunters at work there, digging their game out; then they came along and discovered me at my work. They proved to be an old trapper and woodsman and his son. I told them what I was in quest of. "A mountain weasel," said the old man. "Seven or eight years ago I used to set deadfalls for rabbits just over there, and the game was always partly eaten up. ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... natural and proper to follow the camp as it grows until it develops into a somewhat pretentious log house, but this book must not be considered as competing in any manner with professional architects. The buildings here suggested require a woodsman more than an architect; the work demands more the skill of the axeman than that of the carpenter and joiner. The log houses are supposed to be buildings which any real outdoor man should be able to erect by ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... "A true woodsman never quits his piece while he has any powder in his horn or a bullet in his pouch. I have not drawn a trigger this day, Eau-douce, and shouldn't relish the idea of parting with those reptiles without causing ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the snowing night she strode along, a weird figure against the eerie whiteness that illumined the winter world. She felt a strange wild thrill in the infinite out-of-doors. The woodsman's blood of her father ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... could see; and I hadn't it in my heart to intercept his retreat. But Ben, to whom a "black cat" was particularly obnoxious, from its nefarious habit of robbing traps, had no such scruples, and, bringing up his rifle with the careless quickness of an old woodsman, fired before I could interpose a word. The fisher dropped, and after writhing and snapping ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Carolina, and entered into the struggle against the British with the utmost enthusiasm. He was a brave man, a hard fighter, and one of the most active of those who took up arms against the King. He was an expert woodsman, and was at home in the saddle. He was assigned to duty as a scout, and was better equipped for that service, perhaps, than any man in the American army. The ease with which he secured information of the enemy's movements and plans, and the energy that marked his movements, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... the Norwegian saeter, or summer herd ground. Riding along the trail through the pines appeared a young man. He was evidently not at home in the forest, as he peered anxiously through every opening. His dress and bearing indicated that he was not a woodsman nor a herder of cattle. Pausing on a knoll, he surveyed the scene around him, and took off his hat that the evening breeze might cool his face. Suddenly, there came echoing through the forest, from hill to hill, the deep notes of the lur. The traveler listened, and then ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... is usually given the palm. Here is a warbler, let it be recorded, that is fittingly named, for it is a denizen of pine woods only; most common in the long stretches of pine forests at the south and in New York and New England, and correspondingly uncommon wherever the woodsman's axe has laid the pine trees low throughout its range. Its "simple, sweet, and drowsy song," writes Mr. Parkhurst, is always associated "with the smell of pines on a sultry day." It recalls that of the junco and the social sparrow ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Scaliger's notes converted a classic into a new and precious edition of one example. Casaubon's, on the other hand, were mere scratches and mnemonic lines and blurs, with which he marked his passage through a book, as roughly as the American woodsman "blazes" his way through a forest. "None could read the comment save himself," and the text was disfigured. We may be sure that Montaigne's marginalia are of a very different value. As he walked up and down in his orchard, or in his library, beneath the rafters engraved with epicurean maxims, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... of the tools with which society does its work, and is the means relied upon for the production of livelihood. Like the axe of the woodsman or the lathe of the mechanic, the social tools and machinery must be kept in effective working order if society is to receive a return for its outlay of labor and materials. Three items enter into the maintenance of this efficiency: (a) current repairs, (b) ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... Christmas vacation, he went down to the Maine Woods and camped out, and there he met Bill Sewall, a famous guide, who remained Theodore's friend through life, and Wilmot Dow, Sewall's nephew, another woodsman; and this trip, subsequently followed by others, did much good to his physique. He still had occasional attacks of asthma—he "guffled" as Bill Sewall called it—and they were sometimes acute, but his tendency to them slowly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... seas of North America aroused the greatest interest, even awe, among the earlier explorers, and there was not one among the five who did not look with eager eyes upon the ocean of waters. They were better informed, too, than the average woodsman concerning the size and shape ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Worcester, Massachusetts; it leads up from the low meadows into the wildest region of all that vicinity, Tatesset Hill. Leaving behind you the open pastures where the cattle lie beneath the chestnut-trees or drink from the shallow brook, you pass among the birches and maples, where the woodsman's shanty stands in the clearing, and the raspberry-fields are merry with children's voices. The familiar birds and butterflies linger below with them, and in the upper and more sacred depths the wood-thrush chants his litany and the brown mountain butterflies hover among the ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... sake, if she is not found, to form a line, and sweep through the west woods. If I am not back by daylight, push out and do all you can. Mother, don't be anxious for me. If it storms and grows cold, you know I am a born woodsman. I know now ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... as the sun peeped over the tree-tops far away down river. The party soon after divided, I keeping with a section which was led by Bento, the Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a short walk we struck the banks of a beautiful little lake, having grassy margins and clear dark water, on the surface of which floated thick beds of water-lilies. We then crossed a muddy creek or watercourse ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... loyal, industrious, and upright people. The busy click of machinery, the merry ring of the anvil, the lowing of peaceful herds, and the song of the harvest-home, are sweeter music than pans of departed glory, or songs of triumph in war. The vine-clad cottage of the hillside, the cabin of the woodsman, and the rural home of the farmer are the true citadels of any country. There is a dignity in honest toil which belongs not to the display of wealth or the luxury of fashion. The man who drives the plough, or swings his ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... hitherto he had noted no slot of men, nor any sign of them, since he had plunged into the deep of the beech-wood. He took the path as one who needs must, and went his ways as it led. In sooth it was well-nigh blind, but he was a deft woodsman, and by means of it skirted many a close thicket that had otherwise stayed him. So on he went, and though the boughs were close enough overhead, and the sun came through but in flecks, he judged that it was growing ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... 'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... right and left, on the ground—the Red Fox must have thrown his cartridge shell somewhere, and for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he could see the tracks no farther, for he was too little of a woodsman to follow so old a trail, but as he stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering what he could do, he heard the crack of a dead stick down the stream, and noiselessly he moved farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in the silence—the long ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... up again immediately and took the dishes down to the spring to wash them. He had just dipped the plates into the pool under the spring when the old woodsman ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... off," he replied. "Well, we're shy a good woodsman and a cook, and I'll miss 'em both. But it might be worse. Here's where you go to bat, Stella. Get on your apron and lend me a hand in the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to eat, no ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was conscious of assistance from his ears he knew he was approaching a great gathering of men. He was picking his way as carefully as he knew how, but he was no woodsman; now and then a twig snapped and his heart ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... "Here is no woodsman's shaft, master!" quoth Roger, turning the missile over in his hand ere he gave it to Beltane, "no forester doth wing his ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... kin. Look at me, sir! Like myself, you wear deer-skin from throat to ankle, and your nose is ever sniffing to windward. But this is a strange wind to you. You see, you smell, but your eyes ask, 'What is it?' You are a woodsman, but a stranger among your own kin. You have never seen a living Varick; you have never even ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... of Large Trees Felling a Tree A Fire in the Country A Fire in the City Alone in the Woods The Woodsman In the Woods Camping Out for the Night By-products of the Forest A Tree Struck by Lightning A Famous Student of Nature Planting Trees The Duties of a Forest Ranger The Lumber Camp A Fire at Night Learning to Observe The ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near Davis's, crossing the way, which we were told was called 'Nancy's Brook.' We heard various renderings of the origin of the name, but all ended in one source—man's perjury and woman's trust. A poor girl, some said, had come with a woodsman, a collier, or tree-feller, and lived with him in the mountains, toiling for him, and 'singing to him,' no doubt, 'when she his evening food did dress,' till he grew tired, and one day went forth and did not come back; and day after day she waited, but her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... arrested by recently-made marks in the snow. He was woodsman enough to understand that some one was travelling that way, evidently under considerable difficulty. Several times he stopped to examine where the wayfarer had floundered about in the snow in desperate efforts to regain the trail. He wondered who it could be, so he hurried ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... names. I am the wild huntsman in some countries; the black miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the black woodsman. I am he to whom the red men consecrated this spot, and in honor of whom they now and then roasted a white man, by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... dropped at the window again, and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba'tiste Caron and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain—Ba'tiste was a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, and faster. Ba'tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel night and day—he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba'tiste might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to stop the hanging of Haman—the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... A woodsman told me one summer of the use of old birch bark for starting a fire in the wet woods, and I have since enjoyed collecting the bark from fallen trees in the forest. It strips easily, in large pieces, from decayed stems, and ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... tables caught the dominating influence of the man as they watched him sitting easily in his chair listening to the stories of the Emperor of the First Empire—as Brompton was called, he having played the part—the young woodsman joining in with experiences of his own as refreshing in tone and as clear in statement as a ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... that's howsomever. I don't mind sayin' that yore a better shot an' all around hunter an' mountain man than Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Bison McClean and Jim Baker all rolled in one. Yore the slickest woodsman on the divide. I'm powerful proud of you as a neighbor and would be still prouder ef I might call you ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... plants which the creole physician calls Bromeliacoe; and a plant like the Guy Lussacia of Brazil, with violet-red petals. There is an indescribable multitude of ferns,—a very museum of ferns! The doctor, who is a great woodsman, says that he never makes a trip to the hills without finding some new kind of fern; and he had already a collection ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... Panawamske by the French. It stood apparently above Bangor, at or near Passadumkeag. Here the party found a stockade enclosure fourteen feet high, seventy yards long, and fifty yards wide, containing twenty-three houses, which Westbrook, a better woodsman than grammarian, reports to have been "built regular." Outside the stockade stood the chapel, "well and handsomely furnished within and without, and on the south side of that the Fryer's dwelling-house."[263] This "Fryer" was Father Lauverjat, who had led ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the woodsman, in the clearing stood, Hemmed by the solemn forest stretching round; Stalwart, ungainly, honest-eyed and rude, The genius of that solitude profound. He clove the way that future millions trod, He passed, unmoved by worldly ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... ridiculous as it was truly uncouth; which was not a little increased by the absence on one side of the brim, and by a loose fragment of it hanging down on the other. To give something martial to an appearance in other respects so outlandish and ludicrous, he had his rifle, and other usual equipments of a woodsman, including the knife and tomahawk, the first of which he carried in his hand, swinging it about at every moment, with a vigour and apparent carelessness well fitted to discompose a nervous person, had any such happened among his auditors. As if there was not ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Harry, for your great-grandfather, Henry Ware, the mighty woodsman and Injun fighter that later on became governor of the state. I guess you look as he did when he was near your age. I've heard her tell tales about him by the mile. Aunt Suse, you know, is more'n a hundred, ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... after engaging his youngest son,—the "Bub" of the family,—a young man about twenty and a thorough woodsman, as our guide, we took to the woods in good earnest, our destination being the Stillwater of the Boreas,—a long, deep, dark reach in one of the remotest branches of the Hudson, about six miles distant. Here we paused a couple of days, putting up in a dilapidated ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Mr. Evans and the boys. "These are the Sandwiches," he said, including them all in a comprehensive wave of his hand, whereat Colonel Berry roared with laughter. "Boys, meet Colonel C. C. Berry, the best woodsman in fourteen states, and the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... a grove of trees. Their waving tops told of their size and to his trained woodsman's eye the quivering oval leaves were the leaves of the walnut. It was assurance that the soil was rich. And through the length of the valley, twisted irregularly, lay a wide ribbon of saffron cane, from which at times the silver surface of a stream ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... boy the need of continual vigilance and silence. No one could say when danger might suddenly present itself. Frequently he recalled the escape he had had through the shot which James Boone in the preceding year had fired at the panther crouching above his head. This always impressed the young woodsman afresh with the need of continual care. Nevertheless he enjoyed the conversation of the men with whom he was walking, ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... liberal provision. He had a small oven, a sufficiently convenient fire-place, and a storehouse, at hand; all placed near the spring, and beneath the shade of a magnificent elm. In the storehouse he kept his barrel of flour, his barrel of salt, a stock of smoked or dried meat, and that which the woodsman, if accustomed in early life to the settlements, prizes most highly, a half-barrel of pickled pork. The bark canoe had sufficed to transport all these stores, merely ballasting handsomely that ticklish craft; and its owner relied on the honey to perform ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... him, and these boys from Carson had long been yearning to accept the hearty invitation given to spend a week or two with the veteran woodsman. A year or so back Jim had dropped down to see his brother Alfred, who was a retired lawyer living in their home town. And it was at this time they first found themselves ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... close watch on the stars and although making no claims to being a first-class woodsman, Perk could tell the time of night by the heavenly bodies setting one after another, which would account for his late confident assertion that morning could not ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... hopped into a bush close at hand without discovering her presence. The faint noise ahead grew more pronounced, the whip of a bush as it was released by the hand that had pushed it away was heard and understood. Harriet Burrell was woodsman enough to recognize all such sounds instantly ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... a corner of the kitchen. Yes, there was the thing subconsciousness had prompted him to seek. A long-shafted, heavy woodsman's ax, a formidable weapon at close quarters. Because it is the instinct of homo Americanus to die with a weapon in his hands, rather than let himself be butchered helplessly, Kay snatched it up. He ran back to his plane. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... a vote in the affirmative. I spent a part of one summer in the pine woods far away from the haunts of men. When I had to leave this sylvan retreat it required eleven hours by stage to reach the railway-station. There for some weeks I lived in a log cabin, accompanied by a cook and a professional woodsman. I was not there to camp, to fish, or to loaf, and yet I did all these. There were some duties and work connected with the enterprise and these gave zest to the fishing and the loafing. Giant trees, space, and sky were my most intimate associates, and they told me only of ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... portals to rather unexpected but, nor the less welcome, visitors. On the 13th March, 1789, His Excellency Lord Dorchester had the satisfaction of entertaining a stalwart woodsman and expert hunter, Major Fitzgerald of the 54th Regiment, then stationed at St. John, New Brunswick, the son of a dear old friend, Lady Emilia Mary, daughter of the Duke of Richmond. This chivalrous Irishman was no less than the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... deserted part of the Winkie Country, subsisting largely on berries, sleeping under trees, and looking in vain for a road to lead them back to the Emerald City. On the second day, they had encountered an ancient woodsman, too old and deaf to give them any information. He did, however, invite them into his hut and give them a good dinner and a dozen sandwiches ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... dangerous fire. He was silent and shy with strangers, but the life of any party of comrades. It is not certainly known how or where he died. Some say that he went South, and ended his stormy life quietly at Natchez; others that he went West, and remained a woodsman to the last, hunting wild beasts and ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... human, an' I tell you when you hear a man brag that he never was lost, I know he never was far from his mother's apron string. Every one is bound to get lost, but the real woodsman gets out all right; ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... settled and things looked favorable for a charming catch we were happy and had always been lucky. But I had often been told by old Woodsman and Plainsmen and Pioneers that no man ever run long without getting into a mixup. One morning I swung into the saddle I never felt better I was full grown nearly seventeen and weighed 203. pounds. Without an ounce of superflous ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... flabby still, but though they shriek aloud to him to desist, he rains lusty blows with his axe, like one who has come upon the open for the first time in his life, and likes it. He is as yet far from being an expert woodsman—mark the blood on his hands at places where he has hit them instead of the tree; but note also that he does not waste time in bandaging them—he rubs them in the earth and goes on. His face is still ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... what Canada was at the beginning of the seventeenth century! Instead of these fertile provinces, covered to-day by luxuriant harvests, man's gaze met everywhere only impenetrable forests in which the woodsman's axe had not yet permitted the plough to cleave and fertilize the soil; instead of our rich and populous cities, of our innumerable villages daintily perched on the brinks of streams, or rising here and there in the midst of verdant plains, the eye perceived only ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... circle in the bracken and the charred bark and singed leaves of the tree to testify to the truth of his tale. Neither swineherd nor shepherd nor forester had dared to pass the tree from that hour. The woodsman's story was not all exaggeration. He had actually stumbled upon the two villains, Basil and John, trying the kindling properties of the bracken, and he had promptly fallen in a swoon from sheer terror. By the common folk his account was believed ad literam, and not all the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... than one longing glance behind, and began the search for Paul, who had been the first to fall by the way. The four were a unit in believing that this would be the most difficult task of all. Paul, although he had learned much, was not a natural woodsman in the sense that the others were. Henry had reckoned all the time upon certain laws of the forest which Sol, Tom, and Jim would obey. He was with them like the skilled boxer meeting the skilled opponent, but Paul might at any time strike a blow contrary to science, and therefore ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... very few this year," said Francois. "It was the spring frosts that killed the blossoms." He brought to the berry-seeking his woodsman's knowledge. "In the hollows and among the alders the snow was lying longer and kept them ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... "but they may reach Sheffield if they have good luck, and that is as fit a place for them. I am not so bad a woodsman as to show the dog where the deer lies, if I have no mind he should ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... into the hut, but in half an hour or so came to the door again. He was not a woodsman used to distinguishing sounds at a long distance, and the sound that presently reached him was close by. In another moment a man, leading a horse, came out of the gloomy ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... toward the man, until he arose almost to the standing position, not more than a foot distant. Then slowly spreading out his arms, so as to inclose the form of the stalwart woodsman, he brought them together like a vise, giving utterance at the same ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... see," explained the young woodsman. "When a gopher goes down his hole, he simply draws in his flippers and slides, but when he wants to get out he has to claw his way up. You'll see the first hole has the sand pressed smooth at the entrance, while the sand in the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... woodsman will look for straight-grained, long-fibred woods, with the absence of disturbing resinous and coloring matter, knots, etc., and will quickly distinguish the more porous red or black oaks from the less porous white species, Quercus ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... old Tom," the reckless woodsman called out from within the building—"here's your tenement, safe and sound; ay, and as empty as a nut that has passed half an hour in the paws of a squirrel! The Delaware brags of being able to see silence; let him come here, and he may feel it, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... while the three youths rode a little farther back with Colonel Winchester, the regiment of Colonel Bedford bringing up the rear. Just behind Dick was Sergeant Whitley, mounted upon a powerful bay horse. The sergeant had shown himself such a woodsman and scout, and he was so valuable in these capacities that Colonel Winchester had practically made him an aide, and always kept him ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... weeds alone may flourish under its shadow. "Robbers find safety within the hollow of its trunk; its branches hide vampires and all manner of evil things which prey upon the innocent; "The wild boar of the forest sharpen their tusks against the bark, for it is harder than flint, and the axe of the woodsman turns back upon the striker. "Then cries the sycamore, 'Hail and rain have no power against me, nor can the fiercest sun penetrate beyond my outside fringe; "'The man who impiously raises his hand against me falls by his own ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... daybreak, when all my fears were dispelled with the darkness; and as I saw the morning sun sparkling down through the branches of the trees, I smiled to think how I had suffered myself to be dismayed by sounds and shadows; but I was a young woodsman, and a ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... of mind, with which such a being watched the distant form of a husband, engaged in a duty like that we have described. Notwithstanding the influence of long habit, the forest was rarely approached, after night-fall, by the boldest woodsman, without some secret consciousness that he encountered a positive danger. It was the hour when its roaming and hungry tenants were known to be most in motion; and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried twig beneath ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... was the number of parcels and their awkwardness of shape and bulk that at the final moment, after I had painfully strained my arms in an effort to raise the largest pack to my back, and after I had been repeatedly tripped by the handle of my woodsman's axe, which I wore in my belt, I suffered Mrs. Dorcas to summon a hired hack or conveyance. Seated on the rear seat of this vehicle, carrying some of my equipage in my lap and having the rest piled about me, I was ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... otherwise—a sort of prolonged pic-nic, varied by kangaroo hunts, fishing parties, and shooting excursions. Bread stuffs, he would have to admit, were scarce in that cornless land: but hard exercise and fresh air sharpen the appetite and strengthen the digestion; and a keen woodsman will not heed bannocks when he can get beef, varied by such an exotic viand as kangaroo venison, and by such delicate and fantastical volatiles as harlequin pigeons and rose-breasted cockatoos. Nay, so easy is it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... confess that I'm as much surprised almost as I am pleased," replied Malachi. "It is really a great feat for a lad to accomplish all by himself, and I am proud of him for having done it; but from the first I saw what a capital woodsman he would make, and he ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... my mind the story of the king, who, after the chase, took some bread and water at the hut of a woodsman; which, as it is no doubt well known, I shall not repeat unto you. But the bottom of the basket begins to appear. What! done already? Good despatch! And now, scholar, we will immediately to our sport, for we ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... breathed. The shadow had disappeared behind a tree. He fixed his keen eyes on that tree and presently a dark object glided from it and darted stealthily forward to another tree. One, two, three dark forms followed the first one. They were Indian warriors, and they moved so quickly that only the eyes of a woodsman like Wetzel could have discerned ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... of 1684, therefore, the weatherbeaten woodsman of the New World stood before the throne of the Grand Monarch; and although the Court had greater terrors for him than the Canadian forests, yet he was able to set forth the rights of his case with ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... hostile Indians. The settlers were filled with terror of these stealthy foes. At home and abroad they kept their guns ready for instant use both night and day. Many a hard battle was fought between the Indian and the pioneer. Many an unguarded woodsman was shot down without warning while busy about his necessary work. Among these was Abraham Lincoln. The story of his death is related by Mr. I.N. Arnold. "Thomas Lincoln was with his father in the field when the savages suddenly ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... being disposed of, and ready to go to sleep, Max fixed their fire after the manner of a woodsman, so that it would burn for hours, yet never threaten to get away into the woods, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... into the hall, extended both hands and then embracing us, bade God bless us, and pronounced, with somewhat of a foreign accent, the name in which we and the world rejoice—Christopher North!' We were not slow in returning the hug fraternal—for who was it but the 'American Woodsman?'—even Audubon himself—fresh from the Floridas—and breathing of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the bears you'll get down here you can put in your trunk," laughed the old woodsman. "Well, I must be gettin' back. This is late for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... public benefactor. It brought to the markets of the East the produce of the South and West. It opened up new and inaccessible territory and made oases of waste places. It brought to the city coal, lumber, food and other prime necessaries of life, taking back to the farmer and the woodsman in exchange, clothes and other manufactured goods. Thus, little by little, the railroad wormed itself into the affections of the people and gradually became an indispensable part of the life it had itself created. Tear up the railroad and life ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... was positive that he had learned a host of valuable things calculated to make him take higher rank as a woodsman, and a true scout. And no doubt in the annals of the Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts that little hike to Munsey's mill would always be read and re-read with the keenest interest, and take rank with the ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... attentively, but though the woods were full of slight noises, she heard nothing that she could decide positively was the gypsy. Still, burdened as he was with Dolly, it seemed to Bessie that he must make some noise, no matter how skilled a woodsman he might be, and how much training he had had in silent traveling in his activities as a poacher and hunter of game in woods where keepers were ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... good qualities of the white man nor the Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtlety of the other, and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gayly decorated buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his lips! Everyt'ing! Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... and the time you must take. A map and compass are wise precautions. Some paths are scarcely marked at all, and when you have to slide down the side of a volcanic hill into a ravine and try to guess where you are supposed to go next, a woodsman's instinct is needed. The excursions are surer because more frequented, but none the less charming, after you have rounded the cape and crossed the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... To the booming of cannon, and at a word from De la Verendrye, the gates opened. Falling in line with measured tread, the soldiers marched out from Mount Royal. Behind, in the ambling gait of the moccasined woodsman, came the voyageurs and coureurs and interpreters, pack-straps across their foreheads, packets on the bent backs, the long birch canoes hoisted to the shoulders of four men, two abreast at each end, heads ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... could have more instantly obliterated all trace of himself, could have more quickly, noiselessly, mysteriously disappeared amongst the greenery, than did this mountaineer. His movements, made with the instinctive cunning of the woodsman and with muscles trained not only by wild life there in the mountains to speed, endurance and exactitude, but by many an hour of stealthy stalking of the "revenuers" sent to search out his moonshine still, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... form of Little John, whose name was given him in jest, for he was the stoutest of the band. There also were valiant Much, the miller's son, gallant Scathelock, George a Green, the pindar of Wakefield, the fat and jolly Friar Tuck, and many another woodsman of renown, a band of lusty archers such as all England could not ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... lots of ways," she confessed wearily, "but none of 'em seemed to work. First I thought of hidin' it up near Pine Ridge, but I was afraid some woodsman might happen on it; then I started to take it down to the river in our wagon; but Elias Barnes would get in an' light his pipe, and I was so afraid ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... unless where nature and education, native endowment and circumstances, have concurred. This wonderful man received his commission for his achievements and his peculiar walk from the sign manual of nature. He was formed to be a woodsman, and the adventurous precursor in the first settlement of Kentucky. His home was in the woods, where others were bewildered and lost. It is a mysterious spectacle to see a man possessed of such an astonishing power of being perfectly familiar with his route and his resources in the depths of ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... rose to replenish the dwindling fire, he saw him, followed by Aurore, enter the northern end of the timber limit. Were they leaving, Crossman wondered. Had the silent woodsman asserted his power over the woman? Crossman took down the field-glasses from the nail on the wall. They were the sole reminder, here in the North Country, of his years of war service. He followed the two figures until the thickening timber ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various |
