"Backwoodsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had bought at seven that morning was quite right for immediate use; so there he was in his old lounge suit, baggy at knees and elbows and liberally bestrewn with lint. Her glance fell from his mussy collar to his backwoodsman's hands, to his feet, so cheaply and shabbily shod; the shoes looked the worse for the elaborate gloss the ferry bootblack had put upon them. She advanced because she could not retreat; but never had she ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... ever, I suppose, but be as brief as possible,' said the young man in a lordly manner. Had he not just conferred an enormous favor, an alliance which might be called the gift of a prince, on this dull old backwoodsman? ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... was a giant. Fully six feet four inches in height, with big bones, broad shoulders, and mighty muscles. At log rollings and chopping bees, in the field or at the mill, or in any of the games in which the backwoodsman tries his strength, no one had ever successfully contested his place as the strongest man in the hills. And still, throughout the country side, the old folks tell with pride tales of the marvelous feats of strength performed in the days ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... and found it rasping and crackling over rocks as an Androscoggin should. We passed the last hamlet, then the last house but one, and finally drew up at the last and northernmost house, near the lumbermen's dam below Lake Umbagog. The damster, a stalwart brown chieftain of the backwoodsman race, received us with hearty hospitality. Xanthus and Balius stumbled away on their homeward journey. And after them the crazy coach went moaning: it was not strong enough to creak ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of Anonymous Annotators.—Can any of the correspondents of "NOTES AND QUERIES" point out to a literary Backwoodsman, like myself, any royal road towards assigning to the proper authors the handwriting of anonymous annotations in fly-leaves and margins? I have many of these, which I should ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... avoided by his literary friends. The Bishop always gave the works which were offered to him a fair chance. He read till he could read no longer, cutting the pages as he went, and thus his progress could be traced like that of a backwoodsman who "blazes" his way through a primeval forest. The paper-knife generally ceased to do duty before the thirtieth page. The melancholy of the book- hunter is aroused by two questions, "Whence?" and "Whither?" The bibliophile asks about his books the question which the metaphysician ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... he searched steadily along the hazy horizon. As he was about, however, to withdraw his eye from the tube, something—a mere dim speck—arrested his attention. Quickly dropping the glass, and as rapidly rubbing the large lens and carefully adjusting the joints, he raised it again, as a backwoodsman does his rifle with an Indian for a mark. For full five minutes the pirate stood as motionless as the crag beneath him, intently glaring through the tube at the speck in the distance. At last he let the glass ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... was another faithful follower of Uncle Jeff: he was a hardy backwoodsman, whose gleaming axe had laid many monarchs of the forest low. Though only of moderate height, few men could equal him in strength. He could fell an ox with his fist, and hold down by the horns a young bull, however furious. He had had several encounters with bears; ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... city. Beranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,—the Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and tallow-candles,—the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,—the backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,—such men as these were no common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative. Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. The liver was the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... whose wide extent all the elements of society, civilized and uncivilized, were to be found—where the great city could be traced to the infant town—where villages dwindle into scattered farms—and these to the log-house of the solitary backwoodsman, and the temporary wig-wam of the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... bad humor, and calling the watchful, silent, crouching beast hard names. In his efforts to amuse himself by stirring that imperturbable and sinister quiet into action, he had come just within the range of the Gray Master's spring. Swift as that spring was, that of the alert backwoodsman was just swift enough to elude it—in part. Dave's own hide had escaped, but his heavy jacket of homespun had had the back ripped clean out ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... conveyance to the liveried outriders. Then came the compact, boxy, buggy, buttoned-up vehicle of our friend the pedler—a thing for which the unfertile character of our language, as yet, has failed to provide a fitting name—but which the backwoodsman of the west calls a go-cart; a title which the proprietor does not always esteem significant of its manifold virtues and accommodations. With a capacious stomach, it is wisely estimated for all possible purposes; ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Marwar Junction on that time? ’Twon’t be inconveniencing you because I know that there’s precious few pickings to be got out of these Central India States—even though you pretend to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.” ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... perseverance. He had but few tents, and, even if there had been an abundance, mere canvass would not have protected his men from the rigour of an American winter. Under these circumstances he imitated the backwoodsman's practice of hutting. Trees were felled, and log-huts wore erected, the interstices of which were filled up with earth, moss, and a rude kind of mortar, in order to render them warm and comfortable. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must know, happened to be an only child—a most uncommon circumstance in backwoods life—your backwoodsman, like your poor woodcutter, who makes such a figure in old-time story-books, rarely stopped short of a baker's dozen, as a replenisher of the earth. Such being the case, "Pap" and "Mam" must need, of course, do their very utmost to make their one chub as troublesome as six, in order to realize, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... said, Toinette," he hastened to explain. "You will forgive, I know, for I was sorely hurt to find that some one else had done the duty that was plainly mine. Surely no rude backwoodsman is ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... little community was now swelled to fifteen, including four women and six children. The colony throve, received accessions from the East, and, surviving all casualties, grew at last into a populous town. Mrs. Jameson was married again to a stalwart backwoodsman and became the mother of a large family. She was always known as the "Mother of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Parson Collins, shrewd backwoodsman, ready for fight or prayer. He suffers at the hands of desperadoes, but is dauntless, and always gets the better of his partner in a trade. His white mule Ma'y Jane, is the only creature that outwits him, and that only ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... down he sighted up the tree, took a chew of tobacco, and walked away. For several days he went through the same performance, until at last one day he brought out his trusty axe and made the chips fly. Soon the chestnut was lying prone on the ground pointing away from the house. What this old backwoodsman did was to wait until a strong wind had sprung up, blowing in the direction that he wanted the tree to fall, and his skilful chopping with the aid of the wind placed the tree exactly ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... himself who fired the first shot, over the very sherry. He had Raffles on his right hand, and the backwoodsman of letters on his left. Raffles was hemmed in by the law on his right, while I sat between Parrington and Ernest, who took the foot of the table, and seemed a sort of feudatory cadet of the noble house. But it was the motley lot of us that my lord addressed, as he sat ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... was to be the publisher, himself something of a poet; but early in 1842 he had not yet received the MS. Perhaps Emerson heard of Tennyson through Carlyle, who, says Sterling, "said more in your praise than in any one's except Cromwell, and an American backwoodsman who has killed thirty or forty people with a bowie-knife." Carlyle at this time was much attached to Lockhart, editor of the Quarterly Review, and it may have been Carlyle who converted Lockhart to admiration of his old victim. Carlyle had very ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... ever attempting the undertaking, and then blithely defying public opinion with a servant and a cow. The sense of their unfitness which had made the young men uneasy now gave way to secret wonder as the doctor pitched the tent like a backwoodsman, and his daughter showed a skilled acquaintance with campers' ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the Virginians drew them down the rivers into Carolina, in early colonial days; the search for soils took the Massachusetts men to Pennsylvania and to New York. As the eastern lands were taken up migration flowed across them to the west. Daniel Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined the occupations of hunter, trader, cattle-raiser, farmer, and surveyor—learning, probably from the traders, of the fertility of the lands of the upper Yadkin, where the traders were wont to ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... too, sometimes, my boy. Flesh-eating things are not particularly in favour for one's diet. Even the American backwoodsman who was forced to live on crows did not seem very favourably ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... the victim, but the word was equivocal and the boy beside himself. For Hugh had wrenched the staff from him and was holding the hand that gripped the stiletto, while the lad, with streaming tears, plunged, whined and gnashed at the backwoodsman. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the place which is called Aihen-loh, 'the glade of oaks;' and at night-fall he heard the plash of water, and knew not whether man or wild beast made it. And not daring to call out, he tapped a tree-trunk with his axe (some backwoodsman's sign of those days, we may presume), and he was answered. And a forester came to him, leading his lord's horse; a man from the Wetterau, who knew the woods far and wide, and told him all that he wanted to know. And they slept side by ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... only incident of consequence that occurred on my way to John Miller's, where I arrived on the following day, and was received by the veteran with the rough kindness of a backwoodsman. He was a gray-haired man, hardy and weather-beaten, with a blue wart, like a great beard, over one eye, whence he was nicknamed by the hunters 'Bluebeard Miller.' He had been in these parts from the earliest settlements, and had signalized himself in the hard conflicts with the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... parents removed to St. Louis County, Missouri, and lived for a time in a settlement called Cold Water, which is in St. Ferdinand township. About the year 1808 or 1809, her father took his family to the St. Charles district, and settled only a few miles from the home of the veteran backwoodsman, Daniel Boone. ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... the Potomac, and stretching away beyond the Blue Ridge far into the Alleghany Mountains, there lay at this time an immense tract of forest land, broken only here and there by a little clearing, in the midst of which stood the rude log-cabin of some hardy backwoodsman. This large body of land—the largest, indeed, ever owned by any one man in Virginia—was the property of a great English nobleman named Lord Fairfax, an old bachelor of eccentric habits and strange opinions, but of a highly cultivated understanding, and, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... the savage herdsman whom he employs,—to Generals and Dictators, as well as to the most ragged Pampa- Cossack in their pay. Our language is incapable of expressing the idea conveyed by this term; and the Western qualification "backwoodsman" is perhaps the nearest approach to a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... most ingenious work I ever saw, and very wonderful and astonishing to a backwoodsman like myself, for I supposed that money was run ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... a grave, where he placed the body, still wrapped in its deerskins. He noted on a finger of one hand a gold ring, a queer possession for a backwoodsman. This he took off and dropped into the pouch which hung round his neck. "I reckon it'd better go to Mis' Hanks. Jim's gal 'ud valley ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... not a large city, but it seemed a crowded metropolis to Alec's eyes, accustomed to the quiet life of the little inland village. But it was not as a gaping backwoodsman he viewed its sights. If he had never seen a trolley-car before, he had carefully studied the power that propels one. The whir and clang, the rush of automobiles, the pounding of machinery in the great factory all seemed familiar, ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... suggestive of the drawing-room than the battle-field, to dilate upon the platform on the horrors of campaigning, and to take you through the stirring scenes of "War on a White Sheet." It would be equally absurd for a lecturer on, say, "The Life and Habits of a Microbe," to be dressed in the garb of a backwoodsman; but I was once obliged to deliver a lecture on "Art" in ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... nothing else to keep me at home, it is highly probable that I shall be thrown on the shelf before long by Uncle Sam. When a man has served his apprenticeship, and is fully qualified to fill his office creditably, he may prepare to be turned out; and, very likely, some raw backwoodsman, who knows nothing of the world in general, or of diplomacy in particular, will be put in his place. That is often the way things are managed among us, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... madness had seized her; a sudden revulsion of feeling, amounting almost to repugnance, against the rugged man of the people who had hewn out his own fortune, and who looked, she thought, more like a backwoodsman than a gentleman. Yes; it was madness—such madness as is ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... French-Canadian explorer passing up or down the river or one of its branches in an Indian canoe; then the first faint changes, the building of one or two little French fur traders' hamlets, the passing of one or two British officers' boats, and the very rare appearance of the uncouth American backwoodsman. ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the old backwoodsman took the checkmate placidly and began to set the pieces for the second game in which the horses were the stake, hiding his useless rifle in a hollow tree,—his powder had been soaked and spoiled in the early morning plunge for life,—and drawing his hunting-knife ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... that we are not fit for society, because soirees are tedious, and because the soiree finds us tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told me, that when he heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them apart, and had one to himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... curious; divided between joy that Lucia was certainly free in this quarter, and a vehement desire to knock down, horsewhip, or otherwise ill-use the Honourable Edward Percy. Of course, this was a savage impulse, only worthy of a half-civilized backwoodsman, but happily he kept it down out of sight, and his companion ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... of the flint-locks were enormously long; many of them would have seemed extremely old-fashioned to an ordnance officer. But every gun was like an additional limb to those practised marksmen, who knew little of firing in platoons, but everything of the patient accuracy which gives the backwoodsman his unerring aim. The assailants carried the latest weapons approved of by the War Office, and manipulated them with the faultless unison and unswerving harmony that would have compelled the compliments of a commander-in-chief at a review. At the top of the hill were some sixteen ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... morning, their double-blade paddles flashing the sun and sending the drip in a shower on the glassy water. The smoke from the lawyer's pipe hung behind him in the quiet air, while the note of the reveille clangored from the little buglette of the Norseman. Jimmie and the big Scotch backwoodsman swayed their bodies in one boat, while the two sinister voyagers dipped their paddles in the ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... social obligations," continued Herr Carovius, "but after all you can't afford to be a backwoodsman. Music is supposed to ennoble a man even externally. By the way, there is a rumour afloat that it is a symphony with chorus. How did you happen upon the idea? The laurels of the Ninth will not let you sleep? I would have thought that you didn't ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... by the House of Representatives in the absence of a majority vote for any one candidate. At the close of his term "Old Hickory," the hero of the people, the most characteristically democratic of our Presidents, and the first backwoodsman who entered the White House, was borne into office on a wave of popular enthusiasm. We have now arrived at the time when American literature, in the higher and stricter sense of the term, really began to have an existence. S. G. Goodrich, who settled at Hartford as a bookseller and publisher in 1818, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... usual way. Your brother was in a line regiment when I knew him; but I think I heard afterwards that he had sold out, and had dropped away from his old set, had emigrated, I believe, or something of that kind exactly the thing I should do, if I found myself in difficulties; turn backwoodsman, and wed some savage woman, who should rear my dusky race, and whose kindred could put me in the way to make my fortune by cattle-dealing; having done which, I should, of course, discover that fifty years of Europe are worth more than a cycle of Cathay, and should turn ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... to be made the confidant of his vehement admiration for Emily Deerhurst. The gentle lady-like girl impressed the backwoodsman in a wondrous manner. It seemed to him, as if his wealth would have real value, if he could pour it all out ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... food, for he dared not use his gun nor build a fire for fear his foes might find out where he was. He reached the fort in safety, and was of great service in beating off the attacking party. This is only one of the many narrow escapes of this fearless backwoodsman. ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... their more easygoing neighbors were likely to consider them over-sensitive and critical. But the quality that made most impression upon others was their shrewdness in business transactions. They could drive a bargain and could discover loopholes in a contract in a fashion to take the average backwoodsman off his feet. "Yankee tricks" became, indeed, a household phrase wherever New Englander and Southerner met. Whether the Yankee talked or kept silent, whether he was generous or parsimonious, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... long time he felt none of his usual pugnacity. But by and by the craving for freedom began to stir in his breast, and the blood of his hill-roving ancestors thrilled toward the wild pastures. The glances which, from time to time, he cast upon the backwoodsman at the other end of the rope became wary, calculating, and hostile. This stalwart form, striding before him, was the one barrier between himself and freedom. Freedom was a thing of which he knew, indeed, nothing,—a thing which, to most of his kind, would have seemed terrifying ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... had been a hearty, two-fisted backwoodsman, a vigorous hunter, and a dead shot at a buck; but, having wooed a pretty Quakeress, had been moved by the power of her charms to join the society in his neighborhood; and though he was an honest, sober, and efficient member, and nothing particular could be alleged against him, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... invasion of the North too for the reason that the Ordinance of 1787 had been so interpreted as to fix the boundary of Kentucky on the north side of the Ohio River. It was, moreover, the native State of Abraham Lincoln and it was important to have that commonwealth support this untrained backwoodsman whom most statesmen considered incapable of administering ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... and wishing the backwoodsman were anywhere but in Owen's room. However, to her joy, the door was open, and Owen called her in, looking so handsome as he lay partly raised by pillows, that she could hardly believe in his condition, except for his weak, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hands showing no signs of toil, hurried by a misguided enthusiasm from fond friends and luxurious family firesides, contrasted strangely with the long black hair, lank looks of the Louisiana Tiger, or the rough, bloated, and bearded face of the Backwoodsman of Texas. A Brigadier, who looked like an honest, substantial planter, lay half over the rails, upon which he had doubtless stood encouraging his men, while lying half upon his body were two beardless boys, members of his staff, and not unlikely of his family. Perhaps all the ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... of "Scott's lot"; and this laudation appeared in the 'Roundabout Papers' long after the British novelist had paid to the American romancer the sincere flattery of borrowing from the last words of Natty Bumppo the suggestion, at least, of the last words of Colonel Newcome. Cooper's backwoodsman, hearing an inaudible roll-call had responded "Here!" a score of years before Thackeray's old soldier had become again a child to answer "Adsum!" Not less than a score of years later an old sailor in one of the stories of Sir Walter Besant made his final exit from this world ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are not altogether wrong, though. I believe it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... her hand to the new-comer with a pretty lack of ceremony. He looked more than ever like a backwoodsman, but it was quite evident that he was pleased with his surroundings. He shook hands with her almost reverently, and smiled in a quiet, well-satisfied way. But, having nothing to say, he did not vex ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... restorer of the Union, the sixteenth president of the United States, was born in Kentucky on the twelfth of February, 1809. His father was a typical backwoodsman, and young Lincoln grew up among frontier surroundings. The Lincoln family came originally from Pennsylvania. At a later period the Lincolns moved south to Virginia, and again they migrated to Kentucky. It was here that the grandfather of Abraham Lincoln ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... ready for the slaughter. Mr. McCann, who received him, could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... something racier and of a more puckery flavor. One hears such now and then, mostly from the West,—like "Mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog"; "I take my tea bar-foot," the answer of a backwoodsman, when asked if he would have cream and sugar. Some are unmistakably Eastern; as, "All deacons are good,—but there's odds in deacons"; "He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon"; "That's first-rate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... his parent to his feet, then lifted the man to his back and started off. A backwoodsman saw him coming, and ran to meet him. Soon Mortimer Arbuckle was in the house and lying tucked in on a ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... aristocrat. His personal popularity was sufficient. The Whigs who nominated him shrewdly refused to adopt a platform or declare their belief in anything. When some Democrat asserted that Harrison was a backwoodsman whose sole wants were a jug of hard cider and a log cabin, the Whigs treated the remark not as an insult but as proof positive that Harrison deserved the votes of Jackson men. The jug and the cabin they proudly transformed into symbols of the campaign, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... undertook the commission in the early spring, when the mountains were still white with snow and the streams had swollen into torrents. He was clad in a buckskin hunting shirt, with leggings and moccasins of the same material, the simple garb of a backwoodsman, in perfect keeping with the wildness of the scenes he had to encounter. In his broad leathern belt were stuck a long hunting-knife and an Indian tomahawk. As he rode his horse, he frequently carried in his left hand his ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... accentuation of traits which in the arrivals of society elsewhere and elsewhen have marked the ultimation of the bourgeois spirit. Say that the Puritan, the Pilgrim, the Cavalier, and the Merchant Adventurer have come and gone; say that the Revolutionist Patriot, the Pioneer and the Backwoodsman and the Noble Savage have come and gone; say that the Slaveholder and the Slave and the Abolitionist and the Civil Warrior have come and gone; say that the Miner, the Rancher, the Cowboy, and the sardonically humorous Frontiersman have come and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... up his body in his claws to carry him away to the neighbourhood of his lair. The bear having dug a hole, placed him in it, and covered him carefully with leaves, grass, and bushes. An Indian, or hardy backwoodsman, could alone have existed under such circumstances. The hunter waited anxiously till he heard loud snores proceeding from the cavern. Then, slipping up, like Jack the Giant-killer from the castle of the ogre, he scampered off as fast as his ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... the expert in the psychological wilderness. This is like one of those Redskin stories where the noble savages carry off a girl and the honest backwoodsman with his incomparable knowledge follows the track and reads the signs of her fate in a footprint here, a broken twig there, a trinket dropped by the way. I have always liked such stories. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and chains and, what surprised him beyond measure, was three women in one of the sleds who had come to make dinner and took possession of his shanty. They worked with a will. The logs were hauled and built into heaps and fire set, and every art the backwoodsman knows was used to make them burn. As ashes were scraped they were shovelled into the boxes on the sleds and started for Magarth's, returning with small loads of boards. With so many hands the small ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... Captain, "you'll be treated well enough while we wait for the money to be paid. Here, Jeremy!" As the young backwoodsman came up, Bonnet continued, "Two boys aboard is bad business, for you're sure to be scheming to get away. However, it can't be helped, just yet, and mind what I say,—there'll be a bullet ready for the first one that tries it. Now get below, the pair ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... basket and went into an adjoining room, leaving Kintchin to muse alone. He heard the low whistle of a backwoodsman's improvised tune, and looking up, saw a man leaning against the door-facing. To the old negro the new comer was not a stranger. Once that big foot had kicked him out of the road, and lying in his straw bed the poor wretch had burned with resentment, cowed, helpless; and ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... house in given up "Young Backwoodsman," Mary Mitford asks about "Young Pretender, the," ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... a theme I understand,' said the President. 'I know all about trees in right of being a backwoodsman. I'll show you the difference between spruce, pine and cedar, and this shred of green, which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress. He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... excursions had always a mixture of something rather pleasant in them. Roaming about in the woods with hatchet in hand, like a backwoodsman, followed by a troop of dogs; starting up of birds, snakes, hares and foxes, and examining the various kinds of trees, flowers, and birds' nests, was at least, a change from the monotonous drag and pull ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... House dogs and donkeys make the most harmless and chaste companions for young innocence in the world. Mark Twain's humor is of the kind that teamsters use in bantering with each other, and his laugh is the gruff "haw-haw" of the backwoodsman. He is still the rough, awkward, good-natured boy who swore at the deck hands on the river steamer and chewed uncured tobacco when he was three years old. Thoroughly likeable as a good fellow, but impossible as a man of letters. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... obtained some modification of the procedure; which, it is said, facilitated the passage of private bills. They became more numerous in later years, though other causes obviously co-operated. Meanwhile, it is characteristic that Sinclair and Young regarded wastes as a backwoodsman regarded a forest. The incidental injury to poor commoners was not unnoticed, and became one of the topics of Cobbett's eloquence. But to the ardent agriculturist the existence of a bit of waste land was a simple proof of barbarism. Sinclair's favourite toast, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Ned Cromarty. "And where will you find the lady that's to succumb to my fascinations? I'm within a month of forty, Mr. Rattar, I've the mind, habits, and appearance of a backwoodsman, and I've one working eye left. A female collector of antique curiosities, or something in the nature of a retired wardress might take on the job, but I can't think of ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... the quaint reminiscence of my old friend and the quainter way he had of telling it. The rude dialect of the backwoodsman might have seemed oddly out of place, there, but for the quiet, unassuming manner and the fine old face of Uncle Eb in which the dullest eye might see ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... family." I have no thought from the nature of the conversation as told to me by Enoch that my father made this remark with any intention of its being repeated to me. It was sudden and spontaneous, and just the way the old backwoodsman felt. But I never forgot it, and it helped me several times. For, to be perfectly frank about it, and tell the plain truth, I will set it down here that, so far as I was concerned, away down in the bottom of my heart I just secretly dreaded a battle. But we were ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You misses know more about that ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... foreign criticism, the provincialism which demands attention and a "place in the sun." Carlyle's scorn and Macaulay's contempt were indeed as irritating as they were unjust, for America had gone a long way since the rough backwoodsman, Andrew Jackson, came to the Presidency by ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... went back to the fire, and sat down. But he did not join in the merry talk that was going around. His thoughts were wholly given up to Jim and his story. He liked the short guide more than ever; and in the same proportion detested the big Maine backwoodsman whose daughter Jim had ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... described him as "a tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a queue down his back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment those of a rough backwoodsman." And Jefferson is represented as saying of Jackson to Webster at Monticello in 1824: "His passions are terrible. When I was president of the Senate he was Senator, and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... used to be, that at first he incurred somewhat the derision of his neighbors, better skilled in backwoodsman's lore than himself, by hacking all around a tree, in order to get it down. It is said that some imagined his land would soon be in the market, and sold cheap; that the city bred farmer, better taught in navigation and surveying, ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... of the far West, where no duel has yet been fought, there is no specific law upon the subject beyond that in the Decalogue, which says, "Thou shalt do no murder;" but duelling every where follows the steps of modern civilisation; and by the time the backwoodsman is transformed into the citizen, he has imbibed the false notions of honour which are prevalent in Europe and around him, and is ready, like his progenitors, to settle his differences with the pistol. In the majority of the States ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... a minute, the latter raised himself up, and allowed the blanket to slip from over his head, which now appeared bound round with a piece of calico, fringed with gouts of congealed blood. The backwoodsman cast a side glance at the Indian, but it was only a momentary one, and he allowed his gaze to revert ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... visit to the Cherokees at Echota. The battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought, but the shot which was "heard round the world" did not echo till months afterward in that secluded hamlet on the Watauga. But when it did reverberate amid those old woods, every backwoodsman sprang to his feet and asked to be enrolled to rush to the rescue of his countrymen on the seaboard. His patriotism was not stimulated by British oppression, for he was beyond the reach of the "king's minions." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... idea of the costumes of its various members. The most fashionable prairie dress is the fustian frock of the city-bred merchant, furnished with a multitude of pockets capable of accommodating a variety of extra tackling. Then there is the backwoodsman with his linsey or leather hunting-shirt—the farmer with his blue jean coat—the wagoner with his flannel sleeve vest—besides an assortment of other costumes which go to fill ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... The backwoodsman swept his broad hand toward the south, to indicate the strip of woods that he desired to cross. The plan seemed feasible enough. The town, although seemingly near, was over five miles distant. The road by which the guerrilleros had to reach it was much farther. Could ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... intention of settling there, and he will, he tells us, go first to Detroit, whence he will be able to send Harold forward to your farm. The boy himself is delighted at the thought, and promises to return an accomplished backwoodsman. John joins me in kind love to yourself and your husband, and believe me ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... the boat, whence his father with the rest had been bringing up her lading. Who could have recognised in the energetic, high-spirited backwoodsman Philip had become, the refined and somewhat sedate and stiff young student of a year ago. By-the-bye, the kitchen of which he spoke was a lean-to of birch-bark, under which a camp stove had been placed; near it was a shed prepared for the reception of the stores, among which ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... certainty it would give way. There was no turning back, however. Now he came to a part of the cliff where he had to trust entirely to the rope. With hands, and knees, and feet, he worked away. None but a seaman or a backwoodsman could have accomplished the undertaking so rapidly, if at all. He was almost at the top. Sam reached over to help him. We held our breath. Now seemed the critical moment. How was he to scramble up over the edge ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... strong, and given to the weak. The pugilist may be a poltroon, and the bookworm a hero. We have seen the most purely ideal philosopher in this country face the black muzzles of a dozen loaded revolvers with his usual serene composure. And on the other hand, we have known a black-bearded backwoodsman, whose mere voice and presence would quell any riot among the lumberers,—yet this man, nicknamed by his employees "the black devil," confessed himself to be in secret ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... on God and nature, the simple backwoodsman came to regard God as his only master and, like the Swiss patriot, would bow his knee to none other. Men were left free to adopt such religious views and tenets as they chose, and the generous laws protected every man alike ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... with himself, the young man pounded vigorously on the puncheon door. No one came to open to him. Loudly he called in the hearty manner of the backwoodsman: ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... younger. Their dress was composed of deer-skins, and they were armed with rifles, powder-horns, and hunting-knives. The two men were guided by very different principles, those of Hurry Harry being entirely selfish, while Deerslayer sought, backwoodsman though he was, to live up to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... me even to sketch the biography of Mr. Lincoln. He was born in Kentucky fifty-six years ago, when Kentucky was a pioneer State. He lived, as boy and man, the hard and needy life of a backwoodsman, a farmer, a river boatman, and, finally, by his own efforts at self-education, of an active, respected, influential citizen, in the half-organized and manifold interests of a new and energetic community. From his boyhood up he lived in direct and vigorous contact with men ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... the Vane Arms with all the air of one setting out on his travels in distant lands. He had a field glass slung over his shoulder, and a very large sheath knife buckled by a belt round his waist, and carried with the cool bravado of the bowie knife of a cowboy. But in spite of this backwoodsman's simplicity, or perhaps rather because of it, he eyed with rising relish the picturesque plan and sky line of the antiquated village, and especially the wooden square of the old inn sign that hung over his head; a shield, of which the charges seemed to him a mere medley ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... and to an utter stranger a bewildering labyrinth, from whose mazes he might labor in vain to extricate himself, unless, indeed, he possessed the almost instinctive tact of the Indian, or the thorough knowledge of the most experienced backwoodsman. ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... good a backwoodsman, albeit so young, to feel perplexed as to the points of the compass. He knew pretty well what hour it was, so that the sun showed him the general bearings of the country, and he knew that when night came he could correct his course by the pole star. Dick's ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... repeatedly leveled their guns at some bear or panther, which turned out to be neither more nor less than a bush or tree-stump. They pestered our guide with all sorts of simple questions, which he, with a true backwoodsman's indifference, left for the most part unanswered. After about an hour, we found ourselves on the borders of a long and tolerably wide swamp, formed by the overflowings of the river, and which stretched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... profession will naturally ask me, how could this rough backwoodsman, whose youth had been spent in the forest or on the farm and the flatboat, without culture or training, education or study, by the random reading, on the wing, of a few miscellaneous law books, become a learned and accomplished lawyer? Well, he never ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Critic contains some quip or satire at the expense of James Kirke Paulding, and his "Backwoodsman" is particularly levelled at. Paulding is dubbed "The Cabbage Bard," and the caustic reviewer proceeds to write: "We had a Dennie and a Clifton, yet the classical elegance of the one has not availed to preserve ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... before daybreak, jumping into our saddles, we pushed on. I must pass over the two following days. As yet we had met with no signs of civilisation, when we saw a wreath of smoke rising above the trees in the far distance. It might come from a backwoodsman's hut, or it might be simply that of a camp fire. It was not likely to rise from the camp of Indians, so Pierre thought, as they do not generally venture so far east. However, to run no risk of falling among foes, we sent forward ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... indebted for the exquisite cutting instrument of the surgeon, the chisel of the sculptor, the steel plate on which the engraver practises his art, the cutting tools employed in the various processes of skilled handicraft, down to the common saw or the axe used by the backwoodsman in ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... your thoughts. For choice and pith of language he belongs to a better age than ours, and might rub shoulders with Fuller and Browne,—though he does use that abominable word, reliable. His eye for a fine, telling phrase that will carry true is like that of a backwoodsman for a rifle; and he will dredge you up a choice word from the ooze of Cotton Mather himself. A diction at once so rich and so homely as his we know not where to match in these days of writing by the page; it is like homespun cloth-of-gold. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Long, the wag of the regiment, he had been drawn with genuine affection. He liked Abe's bunkie, the boy Sanders, who was from Maine, while Abe was a Westerner—the lineal descendant in frame, cast of mind, and character of the border backwoodsman of the Revolution. Reynolds was a bully, and Crittenden all but had trouble with him; for he bullied the boy Sanders when Abe was not around, and bullied the "rookies." Abe seemed to have little use for him, but as he had saved ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... watch our boats, I entered the tall pine forest, and after walking a mile came upon the clearing of the backwoodsman. His two daughters, young women, were working in the field; but the sight of a stranger was so unusual to them, that, heedless of my remonstrances and gentle assurances of goodwill, they took to their heels and ran so fast that it was impossible to overtake them until they arrived at the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... "Some of your admonitions came too late to me, for I am interested in politics again. I have just returned from Alton where I went to hear Douglas debate against a Mr. Lincoln, a lawyer of Springfield, who has been nominated for Senator by the Republicans. He is as much of a backwoodsman as anybody could be, as much so as Harrison and a good deal more so than Taylor. But he is not to be despised either in himself or on account of his backers. The Republican party in Illinois profits by the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... resident, residentiary^; dweller, indweller^; addressee; occupier, occupant; householder, lodger, inmate, tenant, incumbent, sojourner, locum tenens, commorant^; settler, squatter, backwoodsman, colonist; islander; denizen, citizen; burgher, oppidan^, cockney, cit, townsman, burgess; villager; cottager, cottier^, cotter; compatriot; backsettler^, boarder; hotel keeper, innkeeper; habitant; paying guest; planter. native, indigene, aborigines, autochthones^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... should shortly visit us. He had heard rumors of another massacre some miles up the river, and wished to satisfy himself in regard to it before calling here. Leslie, although young, is an experienced hunter and backwoodsman, and I have not much fear for his personal safety. He assured me that, should he find the Indians above ravaging the country as fearfully as reported, he would immediately return ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... a sort of backwoodsman's life, and if there are treasure-vaults in this place I think we shall be able to get at them, however thick and heavy the stones may be on ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... was a backwoodsman of a type that has long since vanished from our midst. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, tall, thin, and as straight as an arrow. He wore his hair and his beard long, and his heavy eyebrows sheltered a pair of small ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer |
