"Puncheon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lawyer by profession, a merchant by vocation; after his removal to Hannibal he became a Justice of the Peace, an office he filled with all the dignity of a local autocrat. His forum was a "dingy" office, furnished with "a dry-goods box, three or four rude stools, and a puncheon bench." The solemnity of his manner in administering the law won for him, among his neighbours, the title ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... good things by way of luncheon, Our heroines were starting on their way, With ham and tongue, and wine an infant puncheon, With spirits buoyant, and a jolly day; The sun upon them shot his summer ray, Above, the pendent lark was on the wing, The fair ones, each and all, had lots to say, And absolutely laughed like anything; The very air with their blithe ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... houses are miserably poor, generally they are a shelter from neither the wind, the rain, nor the snow, and the earth is the floor. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are only exceptions; you may sometimes see puncheon floor, but never, or almost never a plank floor. The slaves are generally without beds or bedsteads; some few have cribs that they fasten up for themselves in the corner of the hut. Their bed-clothes are a nest of rags thrown upon a crib, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... go there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tiresome, any where or any way you can fix it; but it's wus at an English country house than any where else, cause you are among strangers, formal, cold, gallus polite, and as thick in the head-piece as a puncheon. You hante nothin' to do yourself and they never have nothin' to do; they don't know nothin' about America, and don't want to. Your talk don't interest them, and they can't talk to interest nobody but themselves; all you've got ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... contained only two men; the rest were drinking, at Prince's town, the proceeds of a puncheon of palm-oil. The plantations still showed fruits and flowers probably left by the Portuguese—wild oranges, mangoes, limes, pine-apples, and the 'four o'clock,' a kind of 'marvel of Peru,' supposed ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... good Moravian Brother called "Severe." There perhaps the feasting celebrated the nuptials of John Sevier, who was barely past his seventeenth birthday when he took to himself a wife. Or perhaps the dancing, in moccasined feet on the puncheon flooring, was a ceremonial to usher into Back Country life the new municipality John had just organized, for John at nineteen had taken his earliest step towards his larger career, which we shall follow later on, as the architect ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... the hoops of butter-casks: And it seemed as if a voice 135 (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, 'O rats, rejoice! The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!' 140 And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, All ready staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!' —I found the Weser rolling o'er ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... answer. He saw that what the men said was correct. Presently, however, his eye fell upon an empty rum puncheon, and at once his thoughts flashed back to the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... building constructed was of logs, with puncheon floor, and set apart to the double purpose of school-house and church for the use of all denominations. Its site was near the spot where the speaker's stand was now erected for the barbecue which I ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Christianity than an honest, right attempt to make another share my morsel with me. Convictions bottled, like other things bottled up, are apt to evaporate and to spoil. They say that sometimes wine-growers, when they go down into their cellars, find in a puncheon no wine, but a huge fungus. That is what befalls the Christianity of people that never let air in, and never speak their faith out. 'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard'; and if we do not speak, the vision fades and the sound ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... forward, the lash of the whip trailing across the puncheon floor. Triumph rode in his voice and straddled in his gait. He stood with his back to the fireplace absorbing heat, hands behind him and feet set wide. His eyes gloated over the victims he had trapped. Presently he would ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... found a thing," he said to Carver Doone, himself, "which may help to pass the hour, ere the lump of gold comes by. The smugglers are a noble race; but a miner's eyes are a match for them. There lies a puncheon of rare spirit, with the Dutchman's brand upon it, hidden behind the broken hearth. Set a man to watch outside; and let us see what ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, 'Oh rats, rejoice! The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!' And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, Already staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!'— I found the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... book to enter such goods as shall be brought aboard to be laden for the company, packed or unpacked, taking the marks and numbers of every pack, fardell, truss, or packet, coronoya, chest, vat, butt, pipe, puncheon, whole barrel, half barrel, firkin, or other cask, maunde, or basket, or any other thing which may or shall be packed by any other manner of way or device. And first, all such packs or trusses, etc., as shall be brought ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... Caleb, crestfallen, but not beaten off, "that wasna the way ye guided your gudeman; bt ilka land has its ain lauch. I maun be ganging. I just wanted to round in the gudeman's lug, that I heard them say up-bye yonder that Peter Puncheon, that was cooper to the Queen's stores at the Timmer Burse at Leith, is dead; sae I though that maybe a word frae my lord to the Lord Keeper might hae served Gilbert; ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Bramble, I thought we never should have got away from the river, for the old captain, who was as big round as a puncheon, and not unlike one, declared that he would not sail until the powder came up from Woolwich; for the "Queen Charlotte" (that was the name of the smack) carried six eighteen-pound carronades. We waited nearly a week for ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... have gathered about the door, making the very air resound with their shouts of derision. Hans Von Vickeinsteighner, his fat good-natured face shining like a pumpkin on a puncheon, and his red cap dangling above the motley faces of the crowd, moves glibly about, and says they are having a right jolly good time ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... infrequent cases where there were women with them, we sometimes saw candles, either dips or of the wax of myrtle-berries, but more often the pine-knot was used. Occasionally they had log-houses, with even here and there a second story above the puncheon-floor, reached by a ladder; but in the main their habitations were half-faced camps, secured in front at night by fires. They were rough, coarse, hardened, drunken men as a rule, generally disagreeable and taciturn; insolent, lazy, and miserable from my point of view, but I judge both industrious ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... branch uv the Legithlachah. And, fellow thitithens, ef I thould thay thumpthin conthernin' my own carreckter, I hope you will excuthe me. I sprung frum one of the humbletht cabins in all thith lovely land uv thweet liberty; and many a mornin' I have jumped out uv my little trundle bed onto the puncheon floor, and pulled the splinterth and the bark off uv the wall of our 'umble cabin, for to make a fire for my weakley parenth. Fellow thitithenth, I never had no chanthe. All that I am to-day I owe to my own egtherthionth!! and that aint all. When the cloud of war thwept like a bethom of destructhion ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... reviving tender reminiscences that evening. "I shall never, no never, forget it. She was up here one night with you when you were about three, and you and Walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a kitten. I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which I was reserving for making soap. And you and Walter began quarrelling over the kitten. Walter was at one side of the puncheon standing on a chair, holding the kitten, and you were standing on a chair at ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... white, or what passed for such, with an occasional dash of copper color. There was no lack of bombazet gowns and large white pocket-handkerchiefs, perfumed with oil of cinnamon; and as they took their places in long rows on the puncheon floor, they were a ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... quantity of fresh spring water for constant use, especially in large towns and cities, it is important to know that river water or such as becomes turbid, may be rendered fit for use by the following easy experiment. Dissolve half an ounce of alum in a pint of warm water, and stir it about in a puncheon of water taken from the river; the impurities will soon settle to the bottom, and in a day or two it will become as clear as the finest spring water. To purify any kind of water that has become foul by being stagnant, place a piece of wicker ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... pitched the camp to which Jasper Very returned. Let me describe this old-fashioned camp ground. A large, rough shed was erected, capable of protecting five thousand persons from wind and rain. It was covered with clapboards and furnished with puncheon seats. At one end a large stand was built, from which sermons were preached. A few feet in front of this stand a plain altar rail was set, extending the full length of the preachers' stand. This altar was called the "mourners' bench." ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... Davy?" she cried, as she slipped off my legging and bent over the wound. Her eye lighting on a gourdful of water on the puncheon table, she tore a strip from her dress and washed and bound me deftly. The bullet was in the flesh, and gave me no ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... however humble—consisting originally of a log-house, to which more recently white frame wings had been attached, projecting a few feet in front of the primitive building, and connected thereto by a shed-roofed gallery, which embraced the whole front of the log-cottage, along which ran puncheon-steps the entire length of the grand original tree-trunk, as of the porch itself. It was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon floor beneath—cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only furniture-"pap," barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with a pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around and above, a married daughter with a child at her ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... fiddlin'—the best fiddler they ever was here. And Jim heard him and got to jigglin' and finally he looked in the room and he says, 'Clar the cheers out, I'm goin' to take off my shoes and come down on her.' So they did, and while he was dancin' his foot went through one of the holes in the puncheon floor and skinned one of his shins. Up to then they had always called this piece 'Shoats in the Corn,' but after that they called it 'Skinnin' your Shins.' Go ahead, Vangy." Then he played "Skinnin' your Shins," and after that "Rocky Road to Jordan," "Way ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... of Virginia in the latter half of the eighteenth century. They consumed an enormous quantity of liquors in proportion to their numbers, and drank indiscriminately, at all hours of the day and night. West India rum was the favorite drink of the people, because the cheapest, and was bought by the puncheon. Most every cellar, especially in the Cavalier settlements, had its barrel of cider, Bordeaux and sherry and Madeira wines, French brandies, delicate Holland gins, cordials, syrups, and every sort of ale and beer. Drunkenness was so common as to excite ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... to watch me intently as I moved cautiously forward. A dozen steps brought me within view of the front of the cabin. The door had been smashed in and hung dangling from one hinge. Another step, now with a pistol gripped in my hand, enabled me to obtain a glimpse within. Across the puncheon threshold, his feet even protruding without, lay a man's body; beyond him, half concealed by the shadows of the interior, appeared the outlines of another, with face upturned to the roof, plainly distinguishable ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... about the idea, and soon the house was in a ferment with preparations; bottles of cider were brought out, a stone puncheon of beer produced for the men, cakes and pasties began to form beneath Vassie's willing hands. Ishmael felt a pang as he watched her. How could it affect her but adversely, this change he was to make? He felt that Blanche ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... had scarce proceeded from his mouth, when the head of the barrel or puncheon on which he stood, being frail and infirm, gave way, so that down he went with a crash, and in a twinkling disappeared from the eyes of the astonished beholders. The fox-hunters, perceiving his disaster, exclaimed, in the phrase and accent of the chase, "Stole away! stole away!" and ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the low rail-fence into the yard and laid his master's body upon a puncheon bench which stood under a forest-tree directly in front of the cabin. Having composed the limbs of the dead, he stole with noiseless tread across the porch to the cabin door, at which he softly knocked with his knuckles, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... whose work was conjecturally the saving of the green cane tops for forage and fertilizer; nine were tending the cane mill, seven were in the boiling house, producing a hogshead and a half of sugar daily, and two were at the two stills making a puncheon of rum every four days; six watchmen and fence menders, twelve artisans, eight stockminders, two hunters, four domestics, and two sick nurses were at their appointed tasks; and eighteen invalids and pregnant women, four disabled with sores, forty infants and one runaway were doing no work. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... fathom and a half. Where having fastened her I made a raft to carry the men's chests and bedding ashore; and before 8 at night most of them were ashore. In the morning I ordered the sails to be unbent, to make tents; and then myself and officers went ashore. I had sent ashore a puncheon and a 36 gallon cask of water with one bag of rice for our common use: but great part of it was stolen away before I came ashore, and many of my books and ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... woman's nonsense. Bother them, why can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and take pot-luck, and we'll make ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... it happened that, when the house-owner had been shot down, his wife made good the defence of the cabin with rifle or with axe, hewing valiantly at the savages who tried to break through the door, or dig under the puncheon floor, or, perhaps, burst down through the roof or wide chimney. Many hundreds of these tales could be gathered together; one or two are worth giving, not as being unique, but rather as samples of innumerable others of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, Oh rats, rejoice! The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon! And just as a bulky sugar puncheon, All ready staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, Come, bore me! —I found the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various |
