"Oakum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the artistic accuracy of the Maxwell Point cuisine, would leave a cat but sorry pickings, especially when the bottle passes freely, and jovial friends cheer you on. Of course, I do not allude to such people as enjoy that "soaked oakum," called "bouilli." To offer a well-cooked canvas-back duck to them, would, indeed, be casting pearls before—something. Neither would it suit the fastidious taste of those who, not being able to discern the difference between juice and blood, cook all ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in that quarter of the town; but at the end of one the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of ponderous wheels, and discoloured ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was a difficulty. Our diver did indeed stuff it with oakum in a way that at once diminished the influx of water; but this was merely a makeshift. It now became a question whether it were possible to effect the necessary repairs while at sea. Our young engineer removed the difficulty. He undertook to rivet an iron-plate ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... a staid, wall-eyed veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut, broad skirts, long waist, and stand-up collar, over which dangled either a queue, or marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it—it would have puzzled old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal-scuttle tops of which served as scuppers ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... wives. It was my morning watch, when the frigate was hailed and desired to heave to, which was done. The cooper, a black man, personated the sea-god. His head was graced with a large wig and beard made of tarred oakum. His shoulders and waist were adorned by thrumbed mats; on his feet were a pair of Greenland snow-shoes. In his right hand he held the grains (an instrument something resembling a trident, and used for striking fish). He was seated on a match tub placed on a grating, with his wife, a young topman, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... seventeenth century a Spanish ship, richly laden, was beset off Marblehead by English pirates, who killed every person on board, at the time of the capture, except a beautiful English lady, a passenger on the ship, who was brought ashore at night and brutally murdered at a ledge of rocks near Oakum Bay. As the fishermen who lived near were absent in their boats, the women and children, who were startled from their sleep by her piercing shrieks, dared not attempt a rescue. Taking her a little way from shore in their boat, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... of London." Bridewell was the Prison to which harlots were sent, and were made to beat hemp and pick oakum and were whipped if they did not perform their tasks. See the Plate in Hogarth's "Harlot's Progress." The Prison has, happily, been cleared away. The hall, court room, etc., remain at 14, New Bridge Street. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the middle of the second watch, or two in the morning. He was "to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it [oakum or the like] that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered by a boiling up." Thomas Moone "at the hearing hereof" was utterly dismayed, for to him the project seemed flat burglary as ever was committed. Why, he asked, should ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... to twenty-four seeds, which are so beautifully packed in the shell that when once removed it is found impossible to replace them. A bland oil is pressed from the seeds, which is used by artists, and at Para the fibrous bark of the tree is used for calking ships, as a substitute for oakum. ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... give up all hope. The child, with curly hair and a brown face, like the angels in a fifteenth-century picture, seemed to be in breeches, for his trousers ended at the knee in a ragged fringe of brambles and dead leaves. This necessary garment was fastened upon him by cords of tarred oakum in guise of braces. A shirt of the same burlap which made the old man's trousers, thickened, however, by many darns, open in front showed a sun-burnt little breast. In short, the attire of the being called Mouche was even more ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... employed in spinning wool and flax, in sewing, knitting, or winding silk, or making their clothes or shoes, and are taught to write, read, and cast accounts. The grown vagrants brought here for a time only are employed in washing, beating hemp, and picking oakum, and have no more to keep them than they earn, unless they are sick; and the boys are put out apprentices to seafaring men or artificers, at a certain age, and in the meantime have their diet, clothes, physic, and other necessaries provided for them ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... indomitable energy, and was a jolly soul. We leaped into life again. A hulk came alongside, took our cargo, and then we went into dry dock to get our copper stripped. No wonder she leaked. The poor thing, strained beyond endurance by the gale, had, as if in disgust, spat out all the oakum of her lower seams. She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a bottle. We went back to the ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... not'ithstanding what them lubbers as they call filosaphurs say. I'm a white, an' niver thought o' it. This'll do for the furness we want. Nothin' more needed than to pour the sparmacety into it, chuck a bit o' oakum on the top, an' set all ablaze. Let's do it, and cook ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... with all sorts of Indian goods, as spices, drugs, indigo, and calico cloth. These ships are from forty to sixty tons burden, having their planks sewed together with twine made of the bark of the date-palm; and, instead of oakum, their seams are filled with slips of the same bark, of which also their tackle is made. In these vessels they have no kind of iron-work whatever, except their anchors. In six days sail down the Gulf of Persia, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... water from the flume to the wheel, should be constructed of liberal size, and substantially, of two-inch chestnut planking, with joints caulked with oakum, and the whole well bound together to resist the pressure of the water. Means should be provided near the bottom for an opening through which to remove any obstructions that may by accident pass by the rack. Many wheels have plates provided ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... Why, to be sure! What can Mr. Grey mean? There was Mrs. Oakum's gray and silver brocade, and Mrs. Cotton's point-de-Venice mantle, and Miss Prime and Miss Messe and Miss Middlings, who always dress exquisitely, and Mrs. Shinnurs Sharcke with that superb India shawl that must have cost two thousand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Plantagenet—"in so liquorish a fashion, you might well think they even had Jamaiky, in 'em. No, potaties is the essence of lobscous; and a very good thing is a potatie, Sir Jarvy, when a ship's company has been on salted oakum for ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a sea anchor," declared Ben, "but in the first place, Frank, get below and empty your canvas clothes bags, stuff 'em with oakum and pour all the lubricating oil you can spare in on top of the oakum and then make a lot of holes in the side with ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a sigh of relief. "Whew! I could feel the knot under my ear, but—glory to God, it slipped! Just the same, I'm going to buy some oakum and make a false beard in ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... for these vessels. You would also have to send from Nueva Espana two skilled ship-builders, two forges, and two dozen negroes from those that your majesty maintains at the harbor at Vera Cruz who might be taken without causing any shortage. Pitch, oakum, and grease, which are not to be had here, could be made without any further cost. The ships could be manned by slaves bought from these natives, or taken from those places which do not consent to obey ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... but is very slow in his descent—the consequence was that I had plenty of time for my arrangements. I ran below, and lighting a torch of oakum, which I had prepared in readiness, placed it to his hinder quarters as he descended. The effect was exactly what I had anticipated; his thick fur, covered in every part with oil, was immediately in a blaze, and burnt with ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... planks, and scantling for framing to build his home. It is soon ready. A scow, or flatboat, about twenty feet long by ten or twelve wide, is roughly constructed. It is made of two-inch planks spiked together. These scows are calked with oakum and rags, and the seams are made water-tight with pitch or tar. A small, low house is built upon the boat, and covers about two- thirds of it, leaving a cockpit at each end, in which the crews work the sweeps, or oars, which govern ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... made blunders as well as another man. Go, mix me a glass of just what I love when I've not had a drop all day. Gentlemen, will any of you honour me, by sharing in a cut? This beef is not indigestible, and here is a real Marylander, in the way of a ham. No want of oakum to fill ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... between the two, for the man was a towsy-headed fellow with a great mop of yellow hair and a straggling beard, while the dog was of the long-haired, unkempt breed looking like an animated bundle of oakum. ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... helped up a score or more of knights who were rolling and clashing in the scuppers unable to rise for the weight of their armor. The bowmen formed up as before. The seamen ran to the gaping seams with oakum and with tar. In ten minutes order had been restored and the Philippa, though shaken and weakened, was ready for battle once more. The King was glaring round ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... making another case, No. 1, of a triangular form with a bulkhead running across, to which I nailed my side timbers, so as to give them an outward curve. These streaks I put on clinker-wise—that is, overlapping, and thoroughly caulked them with oakum soaked in grease. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... "Oakum to me, {156} ye sailors bold, Wot plows upon the sea; To you I mean for to unfold My mournful historie. So pay attention to my song, And quick-el-ly shall appear, How innocently, all along, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... hanging from the davits. James pointed out a spot just below the waterline, and the man, standing a yard or two away, fired at it, the ball making a hole through both sides of the boat. Another shot was fired two or three inches higher, and the four holes were then plugged up with oakum. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... connective tissue between the external and internal oblique muscles, and not more than one inch by two in size. This I opened, and squeezed out about half a ounce of pus. Introduced a tent and applied oakum over both tents, for the purpose of absorbing the pus, and applied a compress over the main sinus or pouch, and a bandage over the whole ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox
... were enough; and, for my part, I would sooner see a poor rogue soundly firked at the post, and then comforted with a bellyful of bread and cheese and beer by the constable, and so passed on to his belongings, than that he should be clapped up in a workhouse, to pick oakum and suck his paws like a bear, while Master Overseer gets tun-stomached over shoulder of veal and burnt brandy at vestry-dinners. For it is well-known, to the shame of Authority, that these things all come out of the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the nut, for drinking cups, charcoal, tooth-powder, spoons, medicine, hookahs, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. The coir, or fibre which envelopes the shell within the outer husk, for mattresses, cushions, ropes, cables, cordage, canvass, fishing-nets, fuel, brushes, oakum, and floor mats. The trunk, for rafters, laths, railing, boats, troughs, furniture, firewood; and when very young, the first shoots, or cabbage, as a vegetable for the table. The entire list, with a ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... was not surprised at the storms of protest. "Some progressive journals hope to see me picking oakum for the benefit of the state." The comic newspapers pictured Bismarck as a ballet dancer, pirouetting over eggs marked Right, Law, Order, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... down through the ice, and got up some of the cables of the vessel, and the boats, which, making fast to the island, we towed it with all our might, determined to bring home island and all, or perish in the attempt. On the summit of the island we placed what oakum and dregs of every kind of matter we could get from the vessel, which, in the space of a very few hours, on account of the liquefying of the ice, and the warmth of the sun, were transformed into a very fine manure; and as I had some seeds of exotic vegetables in my pocket, we shortly ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... me six months without the option in another minute, but I had the good luck to remember how much money I had paid my witnesses. The thought of paying that for nothing—worse than nothing, for six months in jail!—in an English jail!—pick oakum!—eat skilly!—that thought brought me to my senses. 'By Gassharamminy,' I said, 'I may be mad, but I'm sober! If it's a crime to desire to be English, then punish me, but let me first commit the offense!' So he laughed, and didn't question my witnesses very carefully—one was ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... hawser, lasso, lariat, cabestro, tether, tow; pl. shrouds, ratlines. Associated Words: marline, marline spike, marling, strand, oakum, winch, windlass, lif, contline. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... whereas, the unpoetical truth is, that the separation consists of many hundreds of planks, and a solid bulwark of timbers more than a foot thick, besides an inner "skin," the whole being held together by innumerable iron and oaken bolts and trenails, and tightened with oakum and pitch. We had almost fallen into this error—or poetical laxity of expression—by saying that, on the night of which we write, little did Miss Tippet know that she was separated from, not death exactly, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... very dissimilar women are well delineated and contrasted. Cynthia and Elizabeth, each in her own way, are so human and sympathetic that the reader can hardly fail to endorse the quotation on the title-page, 'I do not blame such women, but for love they pick much oakum.' The men are drawn with no less strength and sincerity; while Lady Juliet—the brilliant, heartless, little mondaine who precipitates the tragedy of three lives—is a thumb-nail sketch of a fascinating, if ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... beating the boards like heavy drum-taps. Chains clanked, a ship's dog barked incessantly from a companionway, ropes creaked in complaining pulleys, blocks rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and strangled, while all the air was redolent of oakum, of pitch, of paint, of spices, of ripe fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, of tar, of bilge, and the brisk, nimble odor of ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... trust you again, sir. But, there, what's to be done? How am I to get back to the Den? Would a plug of oakum keep ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... that the sailors have not earned their twelve dollars a month (out of which they clothe themselves), and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum— ad infinitum. This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in sheltered places, and talk, and keep ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... tholed the cold of that same punishment- cell; and during the next was in his old cell, but in chains, picking oakum. All this time, if he was aware of high winds by night, he was in an agony, till the next day the great bell rang ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... engrossed in actively superintending the operations of Sorel, the hunter, who was cooking some corn-bread over the coals for breakfast. R. was a well-formed and rather good-looking man, some thirty years old; considerably younger than the captain. He wore a beard and mustache of the oakum complexion, and his attire was altogether more elegant than one ordinarily sees on the prairie. He wore his cap on one side of his head; his checked shirt, open in front, was in very neat order, considering the circumstances, and his blue pantaloons, of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... rifles protruded; though the guns that seemed so formidable were really only logs of wood. Two high smoke-stacks, built of empty pork-barrels, rose from the centre of this strange craft; and at the bottom of each stack was an iron pot, in which was a heap of tar and oakum that sent forth volumes of black smoke when lighted. One dark night the fires in this sham monster were lighted, and she was towed down to the Confederate batteries, and set drifting down the river. She ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... vivid light in front of me, very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me down the same passage only twelve days before. As I ran, I saw the great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from wall to wall. Its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved. It was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height. ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this was no independent, self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." The captain asserted he had nothing ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... my African adventure; but I had none of that now; the only remedy I had was, that when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow; and with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear steady light like a candle. In the middle of all my labours it happened, that in rummaging my things, I found a little bag; which, as I hinted before, had been filled with corn, for the feeding of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... "Nae oakum picked I," said Sandy with an air of grim determination. "It was clean against ma conscience to gi' aid or comfort to the King's enemies ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... they thrill, The brave two hundred scars You got in the River-Wars? That were leeched with clamorous skill, (Surgery savage and hard), Splinted with bolt and beam, Probed in scarfing and seam, Rudely linted and tarred With oakum and boiling pitch, And sutured with splice and hitch At the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... oakum picking can be dismissed in the one case, so can much of the theological machinery for the discipline and punishment of sinners against spiritual laws be dispensed with, in the case of those who are, ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... mass I found portions of tobacco-pipe, pieces of china and glass, brass buttons, copper coins, nails, and what most likely caused the death of the bird, a large quantity apparently of the head of a woollen mop, with portions of oakum, which from its size and quantity had proved too much for the bird to digest. It would appear, however, that many substances remain for years in the folds of the stomach, without injury; as on opening an Ostrich that died at Exeter 'Change after being some years ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... lady's money had fallen in during the voyage of the Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke of that engagement cleared away, secure of his ship. I suppose he was about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close reasoner; when he pleased, of a really ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... kverko. Oakum stupo. Oar remilo. Oasis oazo. Oath (legal) jxuro. Oath (curse) blasfemo. Oatmeal grio. Obduracy obstineco. Obdurate obstina. Obedience obeo. Obedient obea. Obeisance riverenco. Obelisk obelisko. Obese grasega. Obesity vastkorpeco. Obey obei. Obituary nekrologio. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... comes to the worst, I'll cover the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, and ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... horror; the last piece of coal burnt away as quickly as the rest, and the temperature of the room lowered sensibly. But Johnson went to fetch some lumps of the new fuel which the marine animals had furnished him with, and he stuffed it into the stove; he added some oakum, impregnated with frozen oil, and soon obtained enough heat. The smell of the grease was abominable, but how could they get rid of it? They were obliged to get used to it. Johnson agreed that his expedient left much to wish for, and would have no success ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... death. At length he became a pleasant companion among us. I gave him a new suit of frieze after the English fashion, because I saw he could not endure the cold, of which he was very joyful; he trimmed up his darts, and all his fishing tools, and would make oakum, and set his hand to a rope's end upon occasion. He lived with the dry caplin that I took when I was searching in the pinnace, and did eat ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt |
