"Fireman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... periods of his youthful career nearly every boy has an ambition to be an Indian fighter, or a pirate, or a locomotive engineer, or a fireman and save people from burning buildings at the risk of his own life, or to be a hunter of ferocious wild animals. Grenfell had dreamed of a romantic and adventurous career. Now he realized that these ambitions must give place to a sedate profession that would earn him ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... I climb into engine an' say polite to engineer to turn on steam. He insult me. So I put my foot on him an' run engine myself. I am Wampus. I understan' engine—all kinds. Brakeman he swear; he swear so bad I put him off train. Conductor must have lump of coal in eye to keep quiet. Fireman he jus' smile an' whistle soft an' say nothing; so we friends. When I say 'shovel in coal,' he shovel. When we pass stations quick like, he whistle with engine loud. So now we here ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... a fight over this job," said the skipper. "I'm dead sure of it. Go down and load the two muskets, and give them to the safest men. When the lighters DO come, borrow the fireman's iron rods. I've lent the steward my bowie that I got at Charleston, and you can try and hold that old bulldog straight. We mustn't show the least ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... as near together as the ticks of a clock made almost no smoke, as they brought some tree limbs down and tore away a section of a trunk. Then the thunderstorm moved on to another part of the line. Only, unlike the thunderstorms of nature, this, which is man-made and controlled as a fireman controls the nozzle of his hose, may sweep back again and yet again over its path. All depends upon the decision of a German artillery officer, just as whether or not a flower-bed shall get another sprinkle depends upon the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... furnaces as the fireman jerked the doors open, Peggy could see the engineer and his mate gazing up at them with something of awe in their expressions. Aeroplanes were not as common in the far ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... code of the fireman has no exceptions or amendments. It is a simple thing—as simple as the rule of three. There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the hose-cart and the iron pillar ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the two deck hands; but Ben Bowman, the second fireman, and the cabin-waiter were available when there was any extra work to be done. Buck Lingley and Hop Tossford, the deck hands, were sent aloft by the mate to loose sails, while the others manned the halyard and the braces. In a very short time the topsail was drawing full, ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... Miss Laura Clay and Mr. and Miss Blackwell, editors of the Woman's Journal, while reporters were busy getting interviews. They returned to the train laden with flowers, which they distributed, sending buttonhole bouquets to the engineer, fireman and all the crew. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... in number) of the ship's company rated or serving as fireman, mariner, cook, cabin boy, or otherwise than as one of the officers or petty officers hereafter mentioned, who was executed, and excluding those referred to above, and also to each passenger who was executed, being at the time an American citizen, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... was to remain with the horses, holding them in readiness. At a spot where it was calculated the engine would be when the train stopped, Bud King was to lie hidden on one side, and Black Eagle himself on the other. The two would get the drop on the engineer and fireman, force them to descend and proceed to the rear. Then the express car would be looted, and the escape made. No one was to move until Black Eagle gave the signal by firing his revolver. The ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... detached from the party. His task was one which, if he failed in it, would make all that long ride go for nothing. He was to take the train far up, ride down as blind baggage to the Murchison Pass, and then climb over the tender into the cab, stick up the fireman and the engineer, and make them bring the engine to a halt at the mouth of the pass, with Gidding Creek and safety for all that train only five minutes away. There was a touch of the Satanic in this that pleased Andrew and made Allister show his ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... and prisons! And gallows and electric chairs! And I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows for whole black hideous centuries! What good have they done? If they'd given Joe back to the school and me, I'd have had him a fireman in a year! I know, because I studied him hard! He'd have grown fighting fires, he would ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... he had brought himself to make any concessions to the obsequiousness of the world. As he passed down Michigan Avenue he overtook a shabby laboring man, who begged of him. Sommers found out that he was a striker, a fireman on the Illinois Central, who had lost his job by being blacklisted after the strike. He had walked the streets ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... company may be likened to spraying water from a hose, and as the fireman can shift his stream of water from one point to the other with certainty, being able to direct and control it with promptness and accuracy, so should the company commander be able to switch the cone of fire of his ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... engine-driver, you see, and he can pull it back so as to save his steam, and not use too much; he "expands" it and makes a little keep the train going after it has once got into its pace. There are the steam and water "gauges," to tell the "driver" and fireman when the steam is at proper pressure, and when the water is high enough in the boiler. The steam gauge is like a clock, or an Aneroid barometer, right before the driver. Those other handles near it are the whistle-handles. One ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... day they were to sail a man applied to Captain Barforth for a position. He said he had been a fireman on an ocean liner, but had lost three fingers in some machinery and ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... ingine house with a buffalo robe over his head; but, whin th' gong sthruck, 'twas off with coat an' cap an' buffalo robe, an' out come me brave Clancy, bare-headed an' bare hand, dhrivin' with wan line an' spillin' th' hose cart on wan wheel at ivry jump iv th' horse. Did anny wan iver see a fireman with his coat on or a polisman with his off? Why, wanst, whin Clancy was standin' up f'r Grogan's eighth, his son come runnin' in to tell him they was a fire in Vogel's packin' house. He dhropped th' kid at Father Kelly's feet, an' whipped off his long ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... for a Pittsburgh meat house, was on the ill-fated day express, one car of which was washed away. He narrowly escaped drowning, and tells a horrible tale of his experience on that occasion. The engineer, the fireman and himself, when they saw the flood coming, got upon the top of the car, and when the coach was carried away they caught the driftwood, and fortunately it was carried near the shore and they escaped to the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... of getting dinner, and passed the entire day with uncombed hair, in a dressing-sacque, reading novels, and telling her fortune with cards. The grocer's daughter declared she had met her one evening, at a dancing-hall, seated with a fireman before a salad-bowl full of wine, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... I not fortunate? I determined to accept the man's offer at once, and so I told him. He received my answer with a nod and a smile. I went with him to the house, where we found the engine in charge of the fireman, and all ready for a start. Kroller got upon the platform, and I followed him. I had never seen a man betray such a peculiar aptness amid machinery as he did. He let on the steam in an instant, but yet with care and judgment, and he backed ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... boisterously toward the cab, while Lin McLean, neither boisterous nor joking, was going to the cab from my side, with his pistol drawn, to keep the peace. The engineer sat with a neutral hand on the lever, the fireman had run along the top of the coal in the tender and descended and crouched somewhere, and the sheriff, cool, and with a good-natured eye upon all parties, was just beginning to explain his errand, when some rider from the crowd ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... The guard walked along the platform, and decisively closed each door. He wore a dark blue uniform thoroughly decorated with silver braid in the guise of leaves. The way of him gave to this business the importance of a ceremony. Meanwhile the fireman had climbed down from the cab and raised his hand, ready to transfer a signal to the driver, who stood looking at his watch. In the interval there had something progressed in the large signal box that stands guard at Euston. This high house contains many levers, standing in thick, shining ranks. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's—I think his little sister—did Imps ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... scalps and barrels; the straightener, who straightens the barrel after it passes through the roller; the catcher, who stands behind the roller to catch the barrel when it has passed through; and the fireman. The rollers weigh two tons apiece, and the five sets turn out one thousand barrels per day, one per cent. of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... from?" demanded Judge Dowling, who had in his earlier life been a fireman and later a police officer. "From the statutes of 1876, your honour," was the reply. "Well, you needn't read any more," retorted the judge; "I'm judge in this Court, and my statutes are good enough law for ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... once more descended; at first they were surprised not to find the hand-cart and its millions! No doubt, it had been covered by the mass of fallen bricks and mortar! But fireman Le Goffic, who had advanced some yards along the railway line, caught sight of it. The cart was lying upside down; but, except for a few scratches, it ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... work which ordinarily comes within the domain of the fireman. In November, 1896, an officer who had previously saved a man from death by drowning added to his record by saving five persons from burning. He was at the time asleep, when he was aroused by a fire in a house a few doors away. Running over the roofs of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... gesticulating and declaring that they had not come to the skating to warm themselves, but the mayor, heeding no one, opened the door and beckoned to someone with his crooked finger. A workman and a fireman ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... study, and as for Fireman Jack, he just smiled all over his dirty countenance. There is only one way to a Colonial's heart, and you must be shod with velvet to get there. We then adjourned to the little shanty that served ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Hampton expedition, Catherine struggled awake from dreams of book-lined trains, with Miss Adams and Elsmere as engineer and fireman, to open her eyes gratefully upon the substantial reality of her own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed, the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors within the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... The fireman arranged his fires at a station, and did little or nothing except to smoke his pipe and enjoy the scenery until he reached the next station. An incident occurred to prove that we were not playing with the machine. They told me one morning that we should be given a load ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... April 19, at 4:30 A.M.; location, 1516 Orleans Street, Chicago; cause of fire, supposedly crossed wires on second floor where fire started; loss $60,000 according to C. M. Holmes, Jr., manager of the scientific department; persons injured, one fireman slightly injured by falling glass; institutions whose diplomas were destroyed, George Washington University, Grinnell College, University of North Dakota, Marquette University, Dakota Wesleyan College; lives endangered, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... who had come just on purpose to teach him how. And who do you suppose they were? The engineer and the fireman! When the engineer heard the new engine call out, he asked, "What do you want, ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... the appointment to Annapolis," continued Darrin, "you'll be asking me, next, if I expect to be promoted, after a while, to he helmsman, or fireman, on some cruiser." ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... Another Sullivan was fireman, fiercely shovelling imaginary coal; still another at the side of the box grasped the handle of the brake as one ready to die at his post if need be. The last Sullivan paced the length of the wagon-box, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... not; but presently one cries out that two are still in the back-rooms, now blazing fiercely. Up go the firemen again and plunge into the windows right into the flames. A long time elapses. We hold our breath; it seems as if the brave men must have perished. Then there is a cheer as a fireman appears with something in his arms. It is a girl unconscious; gently he lowers her down the ladder, and goes again to help his comrade. They reappear and come down in safety. Are all out now? No; for all at once, at the end of the building furthest ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the newcomer retorted tartly. "But, if it 'll do you any good, I 'm a fireman on the China steamers, and, as I said, I 'm goin' to see fair play. That 's my business. Your business is to give fair play. So pitch in, and don't ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... all the passengers to one-o'clock dinner and a Christmas tree afterward with games and punch. I shall invite the conductor and the brakeman; the porters shall come to serve dinner. I shall invite the engineer and the fireman and the express-man. I shall ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the shore cropping willows. It had been generously agreed that if opportunity offered at a moose the shot was to be mine, so in excited whispers the news is telegraphed to our end of the scow and my rifle is handed up. The fireman slows up on the engine, but still its throbbing sounds distressingly loud as we creep up on the feeding moose and scan the lay of the land, calculating his chances of escape. The banks are high,—perhaps one hundred and ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... were never far away from the human equation. During the afternoon we had a touch of it. It was discovered by the Prince that his train was being driven by a V.C., or, rather, one of the men on the engine, the fireman, was a V.C. This man, Staff-Sergeant Meryfield, had won the distinction at Cambrai, and had returned to his calling in the ordinary way. He came back from the engine cab through the train, a very modest fellow, ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... there was on'y wan; an' he was sittin' on th' roof iv Gavin's blacksmith shop, an' th' la-ads was thryin' to borrow a laddher fr'm th' injine-house f'r to get at him. 'Twas thruck eighteen; an' Hogan, that was captain, wudden't let thim have it. Not ye'er Hogan, Jawn, but th' meanest fireman in Bridgeport. He got kilt aftherwards. He wudden't let th' la-ads have a laddher, an' th' Dutchman stayed up there; an', whin there was nawthin' to do, we wint over an' thrun bricks at him. ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... up, Alex," directed the big fireman, and Harrigan followed one of the men up the narrow ladder and then aft. He was grateful for this light respite from the heat of the hole, but his joy faded when the man opened a door and he stood at last before the chief, Douglas Campbell, who looked ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... attempt to standardize working clothes. Moreover, the underlying idea is not made clear that such clothes bear no resemblance to the meaningless uniforms which are badge and symbol of service. They resemble rather the blouse or pinafore of the artist, the outfit of the submarine diver or the fireman. ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... thought o' Tim and ran back for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she saved him for me,—she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the 'scape; but Becky—Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she made a jump—and ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... confusion, deafening, bewildering, and strange. The captain made his way to the wheel, and the rest clustered forward, sheltering themselves in front of the galley, for nothing could be done then. The only men who could do anything for their safety were those at the wheel, and the engineer and fireman, who, sheltered in the warmth below, worked on to get up a head of steam ready against it was wanted; but that did not seem probable for some time to come, the vessel racing on under almost bare poles into a continuation of ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... doll's head at his side; the mules of the other bandits were upset, and they themselves roughly seized. The full-length statue of P. T. Barnum fell down of its own accord, as if disgusted with the whole affair. A red-shined fireman seized with either hand Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan by their coat-collars, tucked the Prince Imperial of France under one arm and the Veiled Murderess under the other, and coolly departed for the street. Two ragged boys quarreled ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... system appears an excellent one; and I never heard of any dissension among their ranks when their services were required. The sound of the ominous bell calls them to the spot, from the greatest distance; and, during the most stormy nights, whoever skulks in bed, the fireman is sure to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... to be up sittin' on the right side of an engine cab, fast freight, and drawin' my three hundred a month with time and a half overtime. That's what I set out to be when I started as wiper. Got to be fireman once, but on the second run we hit a weak rail and went into the ditch. Three busted ribs and my hospital expenses was all I pulled out of that with; and when I tried to get damages they put my name on the blacklist, ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... and the fireman leaned far out for the signal. The gong struck sharply the conductor shouted, "All aboard," and raised his hand; the tired ticket-seller shut his window, and the train moved out of the station, gathered ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... and Long come swaggering. Long is dressed in shore clothes, wears a black Windsor tie, cloth cap. Yank is in his dirty dungarees. A fireman's cap with black peak is cocked defiantly on the side of his head. He has not shaved for days and around his fierce, resentful eyes—as around those of Long to a lesser degree—the black smudge of coal dust still sticks like make-up. They ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... Here he was on the crest of motion, at the fore-front of speed, and the quivering engine with the long train behind it seemed like a living creature leaping along the track. It responded to the labour of the fireman and the touch of the engineer almost as if it could think and feel. Its pace quickened without a jar; its great eye pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft of blazing yellow; the rails sang before ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... "Don't mind my going on with my breakfast, do you? What's it all about? Who's the gentleman with the fireman's helmet on, ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me frind fr'm Mud Center that I was readin' about th' other day. There was a martyr f'r ye. Poor fellow! Me eyes filled with tears thinkin' about him. Whin a young man he marrid. He was a fireman in thim days, an' th' objict iv his etarnal affection was th' daughter iv th' most popylar saloon keeper in town. A gr-reat socyal gulf opened between thim. He had fine prospects iv ivinchooly bein' promoted to two-fifty a day, but she was ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... put down my name and the number of the crack engine of America—as well as the imprint of a greasy thumb—on the register of our roundhouse last Saturday night, the foreman borrowed a chew of my fireman's fine-cut, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... raised the Capes of Virginia, and a few hours later steamed into the dock at Fortress Monroe. Grant, the injured fireman from the Kennebunk, was taken ashore and sent to the ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... between half-past seven and eight,' said a fireman, 'and as I was off duty I came out on deck for a blow. The force of the explosion threw me along the deck for some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... occupying the position of engineer, assistant engineer, fireman, messenger, assistant messenger, watchman, or other subordinate position the educational test for appointment to which is below the grade of the educational test required for the position of clerk or copyist may at any time after absolute appointment, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... business grew hotter. Each man had to look to himself more and more sharply, lest he forget that economy of the individual was now the hope of the regiment. But for all that, when a Missourian craved tobacco—it is a craving not to be denied, in no matter what danger, as most any fireman knows—he would leave cover to beg his nearest neighbor for a chew, and obtaining it, would feel the heart put back ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... The fireman shook his head. "No, sir. I can't let any one through. And if I did 'twould be no good. The staircase is clean gone—a great big stone staircase, too! It's all in bits, just like a lot of rubble. The front of the house ain't touched, but the center ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the fireman, and reached out his arms for her just as she fell back fainting. Grasping her firmly, the brave man dragged her out of the window, and began his perilous descent. When about half way down, the ladder fell, but its burden was expected, and mattress and bed-clothing saved them from ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... Y.M.C.A. or push on at once into the forest of box-cars to hunt out the lighted caboose. Night freights do not stop at Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But just beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every nerve and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag his long load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on the road that leads ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... only once again that night, except to refuse the offer to ride inside the car. He preferred the footboard, he said, and explained that as a youth it had been his ambition to be a fireman. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... upper lashes only, leaving the lower ones free. The Lockwood Cosmetic Stove is a small affair that holds a piece of candle and a baby-size frying-pan, or skillet, and is one device for its purpose that has the approval of fire insurance companies and so will not be objected to by the theatre fireman. There are some heating devices that you are not permitted to use in any theatre, and persistence in their use after being once cautioned has caused ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... of a little Jersey heifer, ordered one of his firemen to go and call the watch to relieve them. Mr. Reardon, his monkey wrench firmly grasped in his right hand, knew that at exactly ten minutes to four Mr. Uhl would issue that order—so he was on the spot to receive the fireman as the latter came leisurely up the greasy steel stairway. As the fellow emerged on deck he paused to wipe his heated brow with a sweat rag and draw in a welcome breath of cool fresh air. He did not succeed in getting his lungs ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... tooting for all she is worth as he sees a "strayed or stolen" cycler, slowly bumping along ahead of his train. But he has no need to slow up, for occasional cross-beams stick out far enough to admit of standing out of reach, and when he comes up alongside, he and the fireman look out of the window of the cab and see me squatting on the end of one of these handy beams, and letting ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... remarked the fireman. 'The other day we found part of a brass chandelier, and wound all around it was a perfect mop of long, silky hair—with a piece of skin, big as your two hands, at the end of it. Some woman got tangled up that way in the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... or so in an engine. The author was given this privilege on a bleak, frosty day, early last winter. He was told by the officials that he took the ride at his own risk, and as a matter of personal favor, and that he must not interfere with the engineer or fireman in the execution of their duties. The guest was received kindly by both engineer and fireman, and was given a seat whence he could see along expanse of track over which the locomotive had to draw the train of cars. To ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... bound to become a railroad man, as his father had been before him. Step by step he worked his way upward, serving first in the Roundhouse, cleaning locomotives; then in the Switch Tower, clearing the tracks; then on the Engine, as a fireman; then as engineer of the Overland Express; and ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... tools. I made wasters and started again. The sweat poured off me, and I drank thirstily the warm water in the can that hung over my head in the ventilator. It was ten o'clock when I realized I had made but one screw. The fireman on duty came through, and remarking that he thought the wind had gone round, climbed the ladder to change the ventilators. I heard the groan of the cowl as he pulled at it and then my lamp flared gustily ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... men to become totally disabled or to meet death in the performance of their hazardous duty and yet to give them no sort of reward. If one of them serves thirty years of his life in such a position he should surely be entitled to retire on half pay, as a fireman or policeman does, and if he becomes totally incapacitated through accident or sickness, or loses his health in the discharge of his duty, he or his family should receive a pension just as any soldier should. I call your attention with especial earnestness to this matter because it appeals not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hopelessly plain of face; a drawling, rough-haired, eagle-nosed Yankee, who grinned shyly and whose Adam's apple worked slowly up and down when you spoke to him; an unimaginative lover of dogs and machinery; the descendant of Lexington and Gettysburg and a flinty Vermont farm; an ex-fireman, ex-sergeant of the army, and ex-teamster. He always wore a khaki shirt—the wrinkles of which caught the grease in black lines, like veins—with black trousers, blunt-toed shoes, and a pipe, the most ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of the various fire offices with which he had effected his policies got busy first. The generous fellows insisted upon taking off his shoulders the burden of maintaining the fireman whose permanent presence in a theater is required by law. Nothing would satisfy them but to install firemen of their own and pay their salaries. This, to a man in whom the instincts of the phoenix were so strongly ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... which a fire occurred at night. The fire bell rang, and the firemen crowded to the spot, prepared to draw forth the engine, when a decided opposition was made on the part of Lion, who showed a determination to fasten himself on the first fireman who dared to enter the house. In this way the faithful dog kept them all at bay until the arrival of his master, whom he instantly recognized and obeyed. As soon as the horses were harnessed, and the engine ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... found the disturbance had subsided, and presently fell into talk with a man on the opposite seat who asked for some tobacco. He told Dick he was a locomotive fireman, but had got into trouble, the nature of which he did not disclose. Dick never learned much more about his past than this, but their acquaintance ripened and Kemp proved ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... in the discharge of duty than the members of a small-town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only until the arrival of the early local freight, Second Seventy-Seven, for their bass horn player, the fireman. When the train pulled up toward the station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform awaited their melodic back-stop, and the fireman, in greeting, pulled the whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded and one whistle after another ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... was) that black devil you-all runnin' tru we lan'. Nigga duh (are) running through our land. (A) nigger (fireman) he stan' deh, duh po' coal stands there (and) he pours coal in eh stomach. into its stomach. Buckra duh sit up on eh seat, (A) white man (engineer) he sits up on his seat. duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry (and) he smokes his cigar, and every tahme eh twis' eh tail eh run fasteh. time he twists its (engine's) ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Were it not for the draft occasioned by the speed of the boat it would be very difficult to attend the fires. As the boat was booming along through the water close in-shore, for, in ascending the river, boats go as close as they can to avoid the current, a negro on the beach called out to the fireman that the wood was on fire. The reply was, "Go to h—-l, and mind your own business," from some half intoxicated hand. "Oh, massa," answered the negro, "if you don't take care, you will be in h—-l before I will." On, on, on went the boat at a tremendous ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the policeman said good naturedly, and he led him forward to the spot where the engines were playing upon the burning houses. "Is it true, mate," he asked a fireman, "that a woman and ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... father promptly discounted it, it was impossible to doubt, with the evidence of that flaming sky before our eyes, that something very terrible had happened. Whether old Dixon expected my father to act as an amateur fireman, or whether he hoped for services of a more spiritual kind, I do not know; but he resolutely refused to return to the scene of the disaster unless my father accompanied him. So by-and-by my brother and I found ourselves accompanying my father and the chapel-keeper on ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... One fireman thought this a very clever thing for a goat to do, so he put his arm around his neck and said, "All right, old fellow, you shall ride home with me, but take care for we are going to start and the road is rough and you may fall off." And in this way Billy ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... something desperate. Betty's basket, still well supplied, was hanging on her arm close beside him. With one grab he seized the contents, and first an apple went flying through the air, then a paper packet. Tonkin, the fireman, caught the apple deftly; the packet hit Dumble on the chest, and dropped to the floor. Dumble himself was too fat to stoop, so Tonkin pounced on it. The engine was at a little distance now, and aim was easier. Another apple, well directed, hit Tonkin fair and square on the top of ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and under many names. "Burning fluid" is a popular name with many unscrupulous dealers in the cheap and nasty. "Burning fluid" is usually another name for naphtha, or something worse. Gasoline, naphtha, benzine, kerosene, paraffine, and many other dangerous fluids which make the fireman's vocation necessary are all the product of petroleum. These oils are produced by the distillation or refining of crude petroleum, and inasmuch as the public, especially firemen, are daily brought into contact with them it is proper that they should know something of their properties. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... to witness that this girl who had presumed to change his lines, was an idiot incapable of articulate speech, brought her out of her daze. But even then she couldn't get anything quite right. There seemed to be no golden mean between the bellow of a fireman and a tone which Galbraith assured her wouldn't be audible three rows back. And when they came to one of the lines she'd been allowed to change, in her panic over the thing, she mixed the two versions impartially ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Stephenson, Knight of the Order of Leopold, F.B.S., the originator of our railway system. This eminent engineer is a rare example of a self-taught genius. Born of parents too poor to give him any schooling, at eighteen years of age, when full grown, and following the occupation of a fireman, he was not ashamed to commence his education at an evening school. His steady industry and unconquerable perseverance ultimately won for him a position second to none in his profession. Looking at the influence of his labours on the whole human ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of very little design. It can only be varied by the length of the skirts, which may be either as long as a fireman's, or as short as Duvernay's petticoats. This coat is, in fact, a cross between the dress and the driving, and may, perhaps, be described as a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... he laughed to the fireman, a young, inexperienced fellow, making his trial trip, and passed on to make his inspection of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... first assistants up on deck; third and fourth and head fireman are down there, and two electricians. The carpenter's ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a dark corner of the terminus, out of the rays of the glittering arc lamps, and watched engine Number Eighty-six. The engineer was oiling her, and the fireman, as he opened the furnace-door and shovelled in the coal, stood out like a red Rembrandt picture in the cab against the darkness beyond. As the engineer with his oil can went carefully around Number Eighty-six, John Saggart drew his sleeve across his eyes, and a gulp came up his ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... let us take one, and tell briefly what befell him. It will serve as a sample of the dangers which beset the fireman daily in the ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... other occupations in that it does not ordinarily offer the laborer much opportunity for advancement. The fireman on a railway train becomes the engineer; the brakeman becomes a conductor. There are opportunities in many establishments for the advancement of the industrious and clever. A man may enter their service with ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... freedom of the theater, who sit successively in the depths of the dark hall and show the same delirium. Even the sixty firemen on duty who, during these sixty rehearsals, have invariably laught and wept at the same passages. Yet it is well known that the fireman is the modern Laforet of our modern Molieres, as M. Prud'homme would say, and that when the fireman is satisfied—it is ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... discovered that no common occasions and no common experiences fell to the lot of the country community. In the course of the round year there is, in thousands of farming communities in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, no single meeting that brings all the people together. The small town has its fireman's parade, to the small city comes once a year the circus and to the great city comes an anniversary or an exposition. Every year there is some common experience which welds the population, increases acquaintance and intensifies social ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... in a few minutes. Here's where we oil up." Jim watched the operation with interest while the engineer and his fireman went methodically from part to part of the engine with ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... programme, as I had explained to Miss Cullen, but here had been a variation which I had never heard of being done, and of which I couldn't fathom the object. When the train had been stopped, the man on the tender had ordered the fireman to dump his fire, and now it was lying in the road-bed and threatening to burn through the ties; so my first order was to extinguish it, and my second was to start a new fire and get up steam as quickly as possible. From all ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course of things he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on a strike, givin' me the ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Wisconsin Central was then in the throes of its first great strike. And he had gone out as a green brakeman, but he had come back as a hero, with a Tribune reporter posing him against a furniture car for a two-column photo. For the strikers had stoned his train, half killed the "scab" fireman, stalled him in the yards and cut off two thirds of his cars and shot out the cab-windows for full measure. But in the cab with an Irish engine-driver named O'Hagan, Blake had backed down through the yards again, picked up his ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... an untimely end almost before its career began. The man inside the calliope, the fireman, was too industrious. He filled the stove with damp straw, poured kerosene oil over it and applied a match. The parade was in the midst of the public square, in Canton, Ohio. Thousands had congregated to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... about New York and London in his queer stilted way. He had been a fireman on board ship, a teacher of jiujitsu, a juggler, a quack dentist, Heaven knows what else. Driven by the conscientious inquisitiveness of his race, he had endured hardships, contempt and rough treatment with the smiling patience inculcated in the Japanese people by their education. "We must ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... serious contingency awaited us, for within a half-hour after starting, the native fireman came up on deck, his face blanched with fear, to say the boiler would not work, and that unless we could anchor at once we should be swept out to sea on the strong current. Soundings were immediately taken, and the water found very deep, so, dragging ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... all the time till I was as tired as though I had been really pushing it. At one place the train stopped in the middle of a bog—some one had pulled the communication cord—and the guard and the fireman ran along the carriages, using frightful language, only to pull out seven drunken men going home from a fair, in charge of one small boy who was sober. He was explaining that he couldn't wake them up at the last station, and that as soon as they came awake they pulled the cord. 'Go on out o' that ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Cohoes, And when they pull the throttle off she goes; And as she vanishes there comes to view Steam locomotive engine number forty-two. Observe her mighty wheels, her easy roll, With William J. Macarthy in control. They say her engineer some time ago Lived on a farm outside of Buffalo Whereas his fireman, Henry Edward Foy, Attended School in Springfield, Illinois. Thus does the race of man decay or rot— Some men can hold their jobs ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... to the rest. Even those women who pretend that they judge a man by his exterior only, see in that exterior an emanation from some special way of life. And that is why they fall in love with a soldier or a fireman, whose uniform makes them less particular about his face; they kiss and believe that beneath the crushing breastplate there beats a heart different from the rest, more gallant, more adventurous, more tender; and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... that each employe will pass several times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical passenger train engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in advancing from brakeman ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... who imagined he foresaw a threatened attack on his Chicago City Street Railway preserves, "I see our friend Mr. Cowperwood has managed to get his own way with the council. I am morally certain he uses money to get what he is after as freely as a fireman uses water. He's as slippery as an eel. I should be glad if we could establish that there is a community of interest between him and these politicians around City Hall, or between him and Mr. McKenty. I believe he has set out to dominate this city politically as well ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... even less a bother than Saxon had anticipated. For a fireman he was scrupulously clean, always washing up in the roundhouse before he came home. He used the key to the kitchen door, coming and going by the back steps. To Saxon he barely said how-do-you-do or good day; and, sleeping in the day time and working at ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... were so poor that all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for a neighbor, but he managed to get time to make engines of clay, with hemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but the engine was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the other hands were playing games or loafing in liquor shops during the holidays, George was taking ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... we hear a little tale from our "fireman," who remembers on one of his trips an engine getting loose in front of the up express, and how he and another man got on a fresh engine, and ran after it on the other line. Oh, what a chase they had after the runaway! ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... went the patents—steam reversed. Too late! for there came a "thud." Jim cursed As the fireman, there in the cab with him, Kinder stared in the face of Jim, And says, "What now?" Says Jim, "What now! I've just run over a ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the recruit graduates, those unqualified for advanced schooling, were divided. Some went directly to naval stations and local defense and district craft where they relieved whites as seaman, second class, and fireman, third class, and as trainees in specialties that required no advanced schooling; the rest, approximately eighty men per week, went to naval ammunition depots as ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... exclaim, "a ladder by which to scale the cliff! Why, you have told us that it was three hundred feet in sheer height? The longest ladder in the world would not reach a third of the way up such a precipice. Even a fireman's ladder, that is made to reach to the tops of the highest houses, would be of no use for such ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... his assistant with some compassion as well as admiration, and have often thought how extremely disagreeable it must be to travel on the engine as they do. Not so Michael Reynolds, the author of this book, who has risen from the rank of fireman to that of locomotive inspector on the London and Brighton railroad. He tells us that a model engineer "is possessed by a master passion—a passion for the monarch of speed." Such an engineer is distinguished, also, for his minute knowledge of the engine, and nothing makes him ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... there is any distinction between secular and sacred, that distinction was unknown at Bethlehem and Nazareth. At Bethlehem the Brethren accounted it an honour to chop wood for the Master's sake; and the fireman, said Spangenberg, felt his post as important "as if he were guarding the Ark of the Covenant." For the members of each trade or calling a special series of services was arranged; and thus every toiler was constantly reminded that he was working not ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... that she was allowed to proceed. The message added that the Normandy rescued three American citizens who were members of the crew of the Leo, and names them as Walter Emery, seaman, of Swan Quarter, N.C.; Harry Whitney, steward, of Camden, N.J., and Harry Clark, fireman, of 113 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... what would this barren vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle?—the burning of Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fireman is a brave fellow! He fears nothing, least of all fire! Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... up the paper, first like a soldier's hat, and then like a fireman's hat, and then he pulled on the two ends, and, presto change! he had a paper boat. Then he took his crutch, and stuck it up in the middle of the boat, and put a piece of paper on the crutch, and he had a sail. Then he put the boat in the water, and ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... weary, sleepy, run down by several successive nights disturbed by that instrument of torture, the night bell; but who ever thinks of this in the face of sudden sickness or accident? We think no more of the condition of a doctor attending a case than of the condition of a fireman at a fire. In other occupations night-work is specially recognized and provided for. The worker sleeps all day; has his breakfast in the evening; his lunch or dinner at midnight; his dinner or supper before going to bed in the morning; and he changes to day-work if he cannot stand night-work. But ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... men had been variously busied in attempts to relieve the ship from the pressure of the ice. Pen, Clifton, Bolton, Gripper, and Simpson had this in charge; the fireman and the two engineers came to the aid of their comrades, for, as soon as the engines did not require their attention, they became sailors, and as such could be employed in all that was going on ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... little engagement at Poli's. Won't you drop around and see me? I promise not to compel you to play the fireman. ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... railway train was the next we did surprise, And the crimes done by our bloody hands bring tears into my eyes. The engineerman and fireman killed, the conductor escaped alive, And now their bones ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... sleeves and an apron, with his photographic plate holders in his hand. And then like a vision of purpose came Mr. Gambell, the greengrocer, running out of Clayford's Alley and buttoning on his jacket as he ran. His great brass fireman's helmet was on his head, hiding it all but the sharp nose, the firm mouth, the intrepid chin. He ran straight to the fire station and tried the door, and turned about and met the eye of Boomer still at his upper window. "The key!" ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... assistant band leader; sergeant bugler; electrician sergeant, second class, Coast Artillery Corps; electrician sergeant, second class, Artillery Detachment, United States Military Academy; radio sergeant. 16. Color sergeant. 17. Sergeant; supply sergeant, company; mess sergeant; stable sergeant; fireman, ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... fifty will have greater confidence in a total abstainer than in a man of identical capacity who uses alcohol moderately; a mother will give better vitality and better care to her children without than with alcohol; a policeman or fireman or stenographer is more apt to win promotion without than with alcohol. Whatever the physical ailment, there is in every instance a better remedy for an acute trouble, and infinitely better remedies for deep-seated troubles, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... it; but the fireman quickly pulls aside the table-cloth, runs his finger down the stream, and her lap is a pool ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... winter, for the sake of buying tools and equipment to carry on his mechanical experiments. It is not surprising, therefore, that he left school at an early age to engage in actual work in railroad shops. He afterward secured a position as a locomotive fireman. Circumstances arose which made it necessary for him to give up railroading. He secured a position as fireman ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... went on a little farther and I met the brave firemen going home drenched and worn from the big fire. "You coward!" said I to myself, "what if you were a fireman! Something to growl ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... stripes on which to return to the United States. Patriotism ran riot as every bulletin showed the Columbia reeling over two or three knots more an hour than her rival. One enthusiastic millionaire offered a twenty-dollar gold piece to every fireman, and five dollars each to all the other members of the crew, if the Columbia beat her fleet rival by a five-hour margin. The money was ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was something like a fireman. He had lived so long in an atmosphere of constant alarms and danger, that he was always ready for almost any emergency. His room was equipped with the end in view that he ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... expedition of the Roosevelt, as on the former one, have I seen a fireman come up from the bowels of the ship, panting for a breath of air, take one look at the sheet of ice before us, ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... little town, in the midst of which is the church. It was however locked, as a band of children hastened to tell me: intimating also that if anyone on earth knew how to effect an entrance they were the little devils in question. So I was led to a side door, the residence of a fireman, and we pulled a bell, and in an instant out came the fireman to extinguish whatever was burning; but on learning my business he instantly became transformed into the gentlest of sacristans, returned for his key, and led me, followed by the ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas |
