"Spry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Aldershot? Dr. L—— highly approves of the air of it, but at present he thinks lying in bed the only safe course. Do thank dear Aunty next time you write to her for her goodness, and tell her that in my present state I should make her seem quite spry and active. A thousand thanks for the Pall Mall. I do not neglect one word of what you say; but I need hardly say that I can't ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... he asked in pained surprise. "Does you mean I couldn'? Why, ain' you 'shamed of yohse'f talkin' dat a-way to ole Zack! I could a-tol' you, spry's yoh please, but it warn't good fer li'l ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... thinking that sort of thing," said the other, taking his seat in a chair close by. "There's no manner of use forecastin' the weather a month ahead. Now we're in warm latitoods, your glass will rise steady, and you'll be as right and spry as any one of us, before we ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... time. Mrs. McGee was a handsome, stately lady, about thirty years of age, brunette in complexion, faultless in figure and imperious in manner. I think that they were of Scotch descent. There were four children, Emma, Willie, Johnnie and Jimmie. All looked at me, and thought I was "a spry little fellow." I was very shy and did not say much, as everything was strange to me. I was put to sleep that night on a pallet on the floor in the dining room, using an old quilt as a covering. The next morning was Christmas, and it seemed to be a custom to have egg-nog before breakfast. ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... zoo o' Monday we got drough Our work betimes, an ax'd a vew Young vo'k vrom Stowe an' Coom, an' zome Vrom uncle's down at Grange, to come. An' they so spry, wi' merry smiles, Did beaet the path an' leaep the stiles, Wi' two or dree young chaps bezide, To meet an' keep up Easter tide: Vor we'd a-zaid avore, we'd git Zome friends to come, an' have a bit O' fun wi' me, an' Jeaene, an' ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... Thad; for that was an expression often used among the boys, Davy being such a spry chap, and ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... came up to it. Of these one was the lieutenant of marines. He formed an exception to the general character won by that noble corp—for a braver and more gallant set of men are nowhere to be found. Lieutenant Spry was not a favourite either with his superiors or with those below him. The midshipmen especially disliked him, and he seemed to have ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... his Prime Minister came in. He was a little old gray-haired gentleman, as spry as a cricket, quite nervous, and very chatty. We indicated our wants to him, and he retired after enunciating many words. The safari came in, made camp. We had tea and a bath. The darkness fell; and still no Chief, no milk, no firewood, no promises fulfilled. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... you comes so late you can't have no vittles,—'cause I'm 'bleeged fer ter git things ready fer de doctors 'mazin' spry arter you nusses and folks is done. De gen'lemen don't kere fer ter wait, no more does I; so you jes' please ter come at de time, and dere won't ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... the custom of the country, of the bush at all events. We have no time for courting, scarcely any opportunity for it. We propose first—marry first if we can—and do the courting afterwards. We have to be spry about these things if we ever intend to get wedded at all. It is the result of competition. A great many men are hungering and yearning for wives, and there are very few girls for them to choose among. So matches are made without very extensive preliminaries. The ladies appear to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... slow and clumsy," Simon Screecher told him bluntly. "If I'm going to hunt with anybody after this I'm going to choose someone that's as spry as I am. There's no sense in my working for you. Here I've toiled all night long and I'm still hungry, for I've given you a third ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... do. It has done my husband no end of good. It's taken pounds and pounds of fat off him. It brings out the prespiration on him something wonderful. And it's taken years off his age. He's that spry and full of jokes and he's gettin' right spoony. He used to be a tumble cut-up, and then he settled down so there was no livin' with him. But now he keeps at me to buy some new clothes and he's ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the rest of their lives about the fine time they had in Washington society. Amurricans heighst themselves whenever they git a chance. I don't care to do that. My sister—she's a heap younger 'n I am and awful spry—and I come down from the north of New Hampshire every winter and keep a boardin'-house in Washington so that we can see the world. We don't go home with ten dollars over railroad fare in our pockets, but we don't mind, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... hear From Daughters of an English Peer. His grandmamma, His Mother's Mother, Who had some dignity or other, The Garter, or no matter what, I can't remember all the Lot! Said "Oh! that I were Brisk and Spry To give him that for which to cry!" (An ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc
... It's wuss than the circus, my lad. The temptations are greater and there ain't so much honor among the people you're thrown with. The stage is surrounded by a pack of wolves just as vicious as Bob Grand ever was, and a girl's got to be mighty spry to ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... my own father and mother were killed when I was eight years old, and the people that murdered them tried to kill me too, but I was a spry little tike and give them the slip. It was a bad country, and I like to have died, only there was a band of Navajos out trading ponies, and one morning, after I'd been alone all night, they picked me up and took care of me. I was pretty near gone, what with being scared and everything, but ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... occurred what you'll deem quite absurd— His needle a space in the wall thrust the third, By the Rhine, wondrous Rhine; And then all so spry, he leapt through the eye Of that thin cambric needle—nay, think you I'd lie ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... saw Tommy just in time. He turned tail and ran for his life; and he was so spry, though he was quite a fat, elderly gentleman, that he reached his hole and whisked down out of sight just as Tommy was about to ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to be ninety, John, and as spry an old gentleman as a body'd wish to see. I don't uphold no man for committing murder, but I do consider the sheriff should have waited on Baldy to get mo' reasonable, like he'd done in time if they'd just let him alone—but ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... and the plot was made. They advised me to act very stupid in language and thought, but in business I must be spry; and that I must persuade men to buy me, and promise them ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... pies in the oven in a twinkling; and that little woman in the corner, with two tears rolling down her cheeks, may bring her white dress and my work-box and thimble, and put two irons on the stove, and my word for it you shall both be ready by three o'clock, spry and span, pies ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... been during the short time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers took me to visit the poet at his residence at The Mount. A short, brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one, came into the room with a spry step. He wore a suit of black, with old-fashioned dress ruffles, and a high cravat that looked as if it choked him. His complexion was fresh, and snowy hair crowned a noble forehead. He had never married, but resided with a relative. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... you worry; no beach-comber like that can stand up long in front of me. He threatened on board that he was going to collect that fifty pounds. He hasn't been very spry about it." ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... romance, and, to my surprise, went to sleep over the tempi. He has the technique of the conductor, but the elbow-grease was missing. He too is old, but better one aged Richter than a caveful of spry Siegfried Wagners! ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... any such have been recorded. At the commencement of this century lions were to be found in the North-West and in Central India, including the tract of country now termed the Central Provinces. In 1847 or 1848 a lioness was killed by a native shikari in the Dumoh district. Dr. Spry, in his 'Modern India,' states that, when at Saugor in the Central Provinces in 1837, the skin of a full-grown male lion was brought to him, which had been shot by natives in the neighbourhood. He also mentions another lioness ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... evidently reassured; "your palm is moist and cool, and your pulse is regular. Well, you look spry, anyhow. I shouldn't wonder if you made up your mind ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... daylight, Smoke encountered a man carrying a heavy sled-load of firewood. He was a little man, clean-looking and spry, who walked briskly despite the load. Smoke ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... he was at it again, 'It blows a frett of wind,' and 'It blows very hard,' and the like; but still I said nothing. At last we ship'd a dash of water over the boat's head, and the spry of it wetted me a little, and I started up again as if I had been asleep; 'Waterman,' says I, 'what are you doing? what, did you ship a sea?' 'Ay,' says the waterman, 'and a great one too; why it ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... before you're home again and everything'll seem wonderful and bright and new to you, mother," he said. "And don't you worry about me, for I'm getting along fine. I can hobble around quite spry with this crutch. And Tom and Arthur are on deck, you know. We'll behave ourselves and not get into any mischief, and by the time you're home again we'll have done all the planting. Good-bye, good-bye! I'll write to ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... is a finer spot just below us," he said—"a creek that is like no other that I have ever met with in the neighborhood. It is formed by the Alabama—is as deep in some places, and so narrow, at times, that a spry lad can ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... sixteenth year of her age, Natively quick and spry As all young people be, When God commands them down to dust, How quick ...
— Quaint Epitaphs • Various
... Dobbins, dancing about Frank, as spry as a schoolboy and poking him playfully in the ribs. Frank had ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... feeling that this is going to lead to trouble," she said once more. Rusty Wren said, "Nonsense!" He was overjoyed at the prospect of having a spry young helper. And he hurried out to tell Mr. Chippy's son that he might start to ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to be real spry until it got out of reach, and then it got to going slow as the slikery covering wore off, and by the time it had worked into his trousers leg, it was going very slow, though it remained cold to ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... we do remember things that ain't of no account; but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we went to work spry to get to rights before the ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... in four pitched battles with the Danes, and who, while yet scarce twelve years old, had charged the Danish line at the head of his guards and shot down the stout Danish colonel, who could not resist the spry young warrior. His mother was a sweet-faced Danish princess, a loving and gentle lady, who scarce ever heard a kind word from her stern-faced husband, and whose whole life was bound up in her precious ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and Lee-yander plumb demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... early the Lady Yva appeared alone; no, not alone, for with her came our lost Tommy looking extremely spry and well at ease. The faithless little wretch just greeted us in a casual fashion and then went and sat by Yva. In fact when the awkward Bastin managed to stumble over the end of her dress Tommy growled at him and showed his teeth. Moreover the dog was changed. He ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... the latter 'Little Prig; Bun replied, 'You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... while games of the formal tournaments progressed, and prizes were won by the young and the spry. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... isn't deep or dangerous,—and there we go boating and swimming; then there's fishing and crabbing, and drives about the country in the big, rattly depot-wagon behind Pegasus,—that's our horse, but he's an awful old slow-poke,—and rides on our donkey, G. W. L. Spry. Oh, I tell you now, it's all just splendid! We always hate to go back to ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... are aged and gray, Maggie, As spray by the white breakers flung, But the liniment keeps us as spry, Maggie, As when ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... I started being ashamed of myself I shouldnt have time for anything else all my life. I say: I feel very fit and spry. Lets all go down and meet the Grand Cham. [He goes to the hatstand ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... and TOMLINSON, too— (The first was the captain, the others the crew)— As lively and spry as a Malabar ape, Quite pleased and surprised at their ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... and looked as though he might drop, his face a flaming red, his hands trembling and missing, when a "Well, go on," sounded and a third victim was called. This time it was a well-known actor who responded, a star, rather spry and well set up, but still nervous, for he realized quite well what was before him. He had been here for weeks and was in pretty fair trim, but still he was plainly on edge. He ran and began receiving and tossing as swiftly as he could, but as with the others so it was his turn now to be given ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... fur-off cousins to Miss Stanhope. They live in that next house to hern, and are amazin' thick with her, runnin' in and out all times o' day. Nice, spry, likely girls they be too, not bad-lookin' neither, but hardly fit to hold a candle to Miss Dinsmore, as fur as beauty's concerned. Well, what do you say ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we shall not want any), the squashes (small loss), and the melons (which never ripen). The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the night. For he flieth in the darkness, and wasteth at noonday. If you get up before the dew is off the plants,—it goes off very early,—you ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... which the men in blue had been refreshing themselves. On a packing-case in the middle of the room sat Short, his billycock hat set far back on his long, greasy hair, smoking a clay pipe with imperturbable calm; whilst little M'Dermott, spry as ever, watched the proceedings, pulling faces at the policemen behind their backs, and "kidding" them with extraordinary tales as to the fearful explosive qualities of certain ginger-beer bottles which were ranged on a shelf. At the editorial table, which was generally covered with ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... are not free from danger. Great sea-serpents or sharks sometimes make it hot for them, but they are watchful, spry, and being "Folks," with power to think and plan, can generally look out for ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... cottage by a brook under a hill, lived an old widow and her only child. She was a tidy, pleasant-faced dame, was "Old Mother Growser;" and as to her boy, there wasn't a brighter lad of his age in all the village. His real name was James, but he had always been so spry and handy that when he was a little bit of a chap the neighbors called him "Nimble Jim." At work in the cottage garden, or at play on the village green, even at his books and slate, he was ever the same industrious, active "Nimble ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... little man, not much more than five feet in height. His shoulders were bent with the infirmities of age—they judged him to be over seventy—but his movements were spry, and they had already seen by the way he handled his boat that he was not lacking in dexterity. There was a suspicious redness about his nose that was explained by Lester's hint about his fondness for a certain black bottle. But his eyes were friendly and free from guile, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... Rabbits, if they would live to grow up. There were several kinds of queer, ugly-looking bugs forever darting out at the wriggling pollywogs. Hungry-looking fish lay in wait for them, and Longlegs the Blue Heron seemed to have a special liking for them. But the pollywogs were spry, and seemed to have learned to watch out. They seemed to Peter to spend all their time swimming and eating and growing. They grew so fast that it seemed to him that he could almost see them grow. And just imagine how surprised Peter was to discover one day that that very pollywog which he ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... Myer," exclaimed a bright, chirpy voice right behind her, "whoever would have thought of seeing you spry enough to be out-of-doors! Won't mother be glad?" and there stood the eldest little Outcast, smiling broadly, and holding in her chubby hand a tin bucket, that Peggy had seen ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... "'Twouldn't be such an awful job to lift the door from its hinges, and if a body was right spry he could climb in at the window after he'd prised it open and the things could be handed out. Besides we've got all the morning's milk and there'll be the night's milk and to-morrow's milk, so I don't see that we shan't get along first-rate. There is more ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... said he was over a hundred, but Blejjo himself only admitted to eighty. He'd been retired a long time back, and his only duties now were little odd jobs that were easy enough, even for an old man. Not that there was anything feeble about old Blejjo; he still looked and acted spry enough. ...
— The Destroyers • Gordon Randall Garrett
... slice of that pie. What a jolly night they will have! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs's room, so that the boys may have time to put the light out, to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry may be put in requisition the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... thrust one's nose in. Adj. active, brisk, brisk as a lark, brisk as a bee; lively, animated, vivacious; alive, alive and kicking; frisky, spirited, stirring. nimble, nimble as a squirrel; agile; light-footed, nimble-footed; featly^, tripping. quick, prompt, yare^, instant, ready, alert, spry, sharp, smart; fast &c (swift) 274; quick as a lamplighter, expeditious; awake, broad awake; go-ahead, live wide-awake &c (intelligent) 498 [U.S.]. forward, eager, strenuous, zealous, enterprising, in earnest; resolute &c 604. industrious, assiduous, diligent, sedulous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogs fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my rifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th' door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups and knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first shot I takes, and there be th' skin. 'Tis ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... by the foamin' sea, Them little bare feet trot there with me, And a shrill little voice I love'll say: "Dran'pa, spin me a yarn ter-day." And I know when my dory comes ter land, There's a spry little form somewheres on hand; And the very fust sound my ears'll meet Is the welcomin' run ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of this confounded Babel yet—and you must want somebody badly. So I send Rupert down. He'll do everything you want, better in fact than I could, for he is young and spry, and as good a boy as lives. He will see to everything, and you can get off as soon as you like. I think he had better go along all the way; his mother wit is worth a dozen stupid couriers, even though he don't know quite so much ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... black-bearded river-drivers with their pike-poles and their levers loose the key-logs of the bunch, and the tumbling citizens of the woods and streams toss away down the current to the wider waters below. He was only a lad of fourteen, and the girl was only eight, but she—Junia—was as spry and graceful a being as ever woke the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... breathlessly and ran to the kitchen door. A woman of more than middle age but, as said herself, "still mighty spry," approached ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... go away without you," Patty threatened. "Now, you do always dawdle, Christine; but this time you've got to hustle,—so be spry,—Mrs. Hepworth." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... lively, animated. Jamieson. O.N. spr['ae]kr, quick, strong, sprightly, Norse spraek, spry, nimble, Dan. spraek, M.E. sprac. This is one of a few undoubted Scand. words found in South ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom
... Agnes is!" Fred said; "she is a bright girl, and if they don't take better care of her than they did of me, I fear that she will escape them. She is as spry as a squirrel." ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... to the rim of the arena, glares aggressively at the empty space ahead of him, shakes his mighty head, and every line of his lithe frame says "Ready!" He is not like our British bulls, heavy and ponderous, but spry and agile as a terrier, twisting on his own axis like a small rater in stays. He was not goaded or tortured before the entry, to make him savage, as the historians of bull-fights would have us believe—there is no necessity. It is almost the finest part of the spectacle, this first ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... th' hotel an' find Hopalong," said the foreman sternly. "Stay with him all th' time, for there is a plot on foot to wing him on th' sly. If yu ain't mighty spry he'll ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Mr. Spry, an auctioneer, who had long lived in great respectability at Dock, with his son and god-son, had gone on board to visit a friend, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... fact his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... as soon set down and jaw away by the hour together with a dirty-faced, stupid little poodle lookin' child, as if it was a nice spry little dog he was a trainin' of for treein' partridges; or talk poetry with the galls, or corn-law with the patriots, or any thing. Nothin' comes ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... more than a child by the side of the chief. And don't you think this affair is going to be a circus. I tell you it is going to be a hard job. There ain't a dozen white men as have been over that country, and we shall want to be pretty spry if we are to bring back our scalps. It is a powerful rough country. There are peaks there, lots of them, ten thousand feet high, and some of them two or three thousand above that. There are rivers, torrents, and defiles. I don't say there will be much chance of running short ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... inactive: We pay, and you pooh-pooh! 'Tis always the same. We do not mind giving our time and our money, Or facing March blasts, or the floods of July; But till nettles bear grapes, Sir, or wasps yield us honey, You won't get snubbed men to pay up and look spry. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... I live here days and sleep here nights. But if you want to take a look at the property before it gets a wetting you'll have to be pretty spry." ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... done to the death, what then? If you battled the best you could, If you played your part in the world of men, Why, the Critic will call it good. Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, And whether he's slow or spry, It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, But only how did ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's pootty much took up with the school. She's an industris young woman,—yis, she is industris,—but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry a worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she isn't fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,—that is, if so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... our hostess. That big black hat is hers. She's underneath it." Lucy saw a spry, black-haired youngish woman, very vivacious but what she herself called "good." James would have said, "Smart." Not at all like her brother, she thought, and said so. "She's not such a scoundrel," Urquhart admitted, "but she takes a line ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the small, spry leader, adjourned to Mike and fell to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had received, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hits the mark, Tubby," he was informed. "The inn-keeper said one man told him that, while the bridge was wrecked, a few of the steel beams still hung in place, so that any one who was fairly spry might manage to make his way over from one side to the other. A number had done it, including the ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... to you one of these days, Miss, and that's what I was wantin' to speak to ye about. I understand, of course, that when you get there you'll be wantin' younger blood to serve ye. My feet ain't so spry as they once was, and my old hands blunder sometimes, in spite of what my head bids 'em do. So I wanted to tell ye—that of course I shouldn't ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Possum's grandfather a thousand times removed was very much as Unc' Billy is now, only he was a little more spry and knew better than to stuff himself so full that he couldn't run. He was always very sly, and he played a great many tricks on his neighbors, and sometimes he got them into trouble. But when he did, he always managed to keep out of their way until ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... were short and the chimneys tall, And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap, So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small, And shoved them up ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... heard all the gossip about it from the egg pedlar, and listened to him with laughter glimmering far down in her eyes. The egg pedlar went away and vowed he'd never seen the Old Lady so spry as she was this spring; she seemed real interested ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... brawny neck, she clasped her fingers white and small, And then whispered, "Quick! the letters! thrust them underneath my shawl! Carry back again this package, and be sure that you are spry!" And she sweetly smiled upon him from the corner of ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... mile bigger and heavier, and you're spry, too. You ought to handle him with all the ease ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... Granny," she cried, in response to the old woman's questioning look, "if you ain't just as spry as me. I've heard tell that bear's grease was a great medicine for rheumatism. It's plain to be seen, Granny, that you've used up ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... one. And when the clown would tell him what the answer was, he'd be so vexed at himself that he'd try to take it out on the poor clown, and cut at him with his long whip. But Mr. Clown was just as spry in his shoes as he was under the hat, and he'd hop up on the ring-side out of the way, and squall out: "A-a-aah! Never touched me!" We had that for a byword. Oh, you'd die laughing at the comical remarks he'd make. And he'd be so quick ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... a pretty considerable smart horse," said the stranger, as he came beside me, and apparently reined in, to prevent his horse passing me; "there is not, I reckon, so spry ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... round as a dumpling, and ever so fat, In running and climbing he's spry as a cat, And if the long ladder should happen to break, And he should fall down, what a crash ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... same I'm thankful for your coming to my assistance," said Mr. Henderson. "My rheumatism kept me from being as spry in dodging their cannonade as I might have been some years ago. And one ball that broke against that tree had a stone inside it, I'm sorry to say. We would have called that unsportsmanlike ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... a mighty spry man," assented the skipper coolly, "but spry men, I take it, make mistakes from being too ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... 'Reckon 'tis all over a'ready. I've a-heard afore now," he went on, turning his back to the wind the better to wink at the company, "that 'tis lucky for some folks Gauger Hocken hain't extra spry 'pon his pins. But 'tis a gift that cuts both ways. Be any gone round by Cove Head ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... overcoat and take it to him at the guardhouse," snapped the staff sergeant to the clerk. "Be spry now, and no stopping on the way back," he added—well aware how much in need his assistant stood of creature comfort of some surreptitious and forbidden kind. The man was back in a moment, the coat rolled on ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... greatly appealed to by the gay dance music. She fancied that her idol was the player. But then she heard a man's voice, and her picking stopped short insomuch that her grandmother's strident tones mingled with the liquid tenor of Mr. Temple, calling to Miranda to "be spry there or the sun'll catch you 'fore you get a quart." All at once the music ceased, and then in a minute or two Miranda heard the Spafford kitchen door thrown violently open and ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... found; the water was drained off. Foundations of regular buildings were fairly traced." An illustration of these discoveries is given in Gough's "Camden," and a plan of them was published by Dr. Lucas and again by Dr. Sutherland (Pl. V.) copied in 1822 by Dr. Spry with discoveries to that date (Pl. VI.), and by Mr. Phelps, the latter re-published by the Rev. Preb. Scarth in his Aquae Solis, 1864. I have, in part, myself and also when assisted by Mr. T. Irvine (the architect, under Sir Gilbert Scott, of the restoration of the Bath Abbey), examined ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis
... Spry. Bragg was once used for bold or brave, without any uncomplimentary suggestion. The New English Dictionary quotes (c. 1310) from ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... a pakeha Maori, resided. Laming was an Irish-Protestant who had great influence with his tribe, which was numerous and warlike. He was admired by the natives for his strength and courage. He was six feet three inches in height, as nimble and spry as a cat, and as long-winded as a coyote. His father-in-law was a famous warrior named Lizard Skin. His religion was that of the Church of England, and he persuaded his tribe to profess it. He told them that the Protestant ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... way you tried it, Fred; you'll have to excuse me," laughed Bristles. "But I think I can feel the rough rocks here, and seems as if a fellow as spry as Colon might manage to shuffle down. Anyhow, I'm going to try it. I've got a few matches of my own in my pocket, that we could ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... as before. Now then, prisoners, up with you and trot along spry. (The soldiers fall ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... Sam, scratching his head, "I hope mas'r'll 'scuse us tryin' dat ar road. Don't think I feel spry enough for dat ar, noway!" and Sam gave ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... would attack with great energy, gnawing the strings, and rustling the nuts out of the paper in wonderfully quick time. Sometimes she would tie a nut to the end of a bit of twine and swing it backward and forward over his head; and after a succession of spry jumps, he would pounce upon it, and hang swinging on the twine, till he had ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was fated to be a sight-seer that morning. When he entered Buckingham Palace Road, the strains of martial music banished the gaunt specter called into being by the red cotton banner. A policeman, more cheerful and spry than his comrades who marshaled the procession shuffling towards Westminster, strode to the center of the busy crossing, and cast an alert eye on the converging lines of traffic. Another section of the ever-ready London crowd lined up on the curb. Nursemaids, bound for the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Timothy appeared in their pond one day and explained that he intended to be in the neighborhood at least a week. In the first place, the Beavers, as a whole, were a busy, cheerful family, who did not like disagreeable folk for company. And in the second place, they were spry workers; and they had little use for anybody as slow as Timothy Turtle, who never did any ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... emphasis, "an' I'll be boun' he ain't much mixed up wi' 'em. He's another cut. Oh, they ain't a-foolin' me this season of the year," he continued, as Teague Poteet shook his head doubtfully; "he ain't mustered out'n my mind yit, not by a dad-blamed sight. I'm jest a-tellin' of you; he looks spry, an' he ain't no sneak—I'll swar ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it besides ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland |
