"Strapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remove the heap of pillows where I slept. Underneath was a loosened stone of the floor, and below it we kept the rifles, revolvers, and ammunition hidden. I carefully loaded all of them, and put all the remaining cartridges into our two old belts. I thought of strapping one of these about me, but reflected that this would have a hostile and treasonable appearance, so I contented myself with concealing one revolver in my coat, and then I carefully covered up all the rest, and had the servant ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... designed merely for amusement. However, we knew it would not be lost upon the skates; as we could take it from them, whenever we should want to apply it to a more useful purpose. In a short time, we had three pairs; and, strapping them firmly to our feet with strips of deerskin, were soon gliding over the dam, and spinning around the beaver-houses—no doubt to the great wonderment of such of the animals as came out under the ice to look at us. Mary, with Cudjo and the ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... weighed just one hundred and nineteen pounds when I landed out here," he explained, and then as he stood erect and threw back his powerful shoulders his young companions laughed. It did not seem possible that the strapping young giant, who now weighed at least two hundred pounds, ever had been reduced to such a condition as ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... want room." One of the guards, a strapping youngster, stepped and flung open a pane of the stern window. Captain Seccombe spat out of it with nonchalant dexterity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inch a Central Office man, and had been long enough at Headquarters to lose the heavy bovine set of the man who pounds the pavement. A strapping big fellow, with graying hair and a pair of round bullet eyes that searched you with needle points, his very appearance was sufficient corroboration of all the thrilling stories the newspapers printed of his skill ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... A strapping young fellow in a red shirt came out of the stable door leading two other horses to the trough. Babcock looked about him in surprise at the extent of the establishment. He had supposed that his stevedore had a small outfit and needed all the work she could get. If, as McGaw had said, only boys ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to this building when the stable-door has been locked and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance." Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists, are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned baskets, while ragged, wild-looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... morsel. I began to fear it would never see the light in my day, or that it might fare with you as with that good lady who went thirteen years with child, and then brought forth a little old man, who died in the course of a month of extreme old age. But you have produced three strapping volumes, full of life and freshness and vigor, that will live forever." This sounds well for Ticknor; but it needs only a glance at Irving's recorded correspondence to see that he was inclined to overestimate the ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... his horses from the vehicle and after strapping a blanket on one of them for a saddle mounted it ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... they don't make a business of singing, not they, indeed! They work while they sing. But to see a strapping young man in evening dress or in some other queer make of clothes, step forward before a crowd and throw about his arms and throw up his eyes and sing like nothing that was ever heard in church or chapel is a stunningly ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... only the dejected groups of prisoners, and among them the one I had marked before, still fiercely striding, and still, at the wall, returning upon his track. I hurried out to the gate, and there, to my amazement, found Billy in the clutches of a strapping impudent wench and surrounded by a ring of turnkeys, who were splitting ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... broad shoulders, and assured bearing, or the idea of the examination with which he undertook to begin the session, he had a week of surprising quiet. The school filled day after day, and even the noted Dennison boys, from Jacob Dennison, the strapping six-foot senior, down to Dave, who was the youngest and smartest of the three, appeared duly every morning, and treated the young teacher with reasonable civility, if ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... right. The wind was dropping. It came and went fitfully, returning as if from great distances, and hurrying past weak and impotent, leaving sudden silences behind. Charles and his companion, a strapping young underkeeper, evidently anxious to distinguish himself, waited, listening intently in the intervals of silence. The ivy on the old house shivered and whispered over their heads, and against one of the shuttered windows near the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... row, dar, or I'll bust yo' head open," shouted a tall, strapping colored girl to a white man, and he got off her ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... "You've done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen years. It 'ud be a great comfort to you to see her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looks blooming and healthy, but not fit for any hardships: she doesn't look like a strapping girl come of working parents. You'd like to see her taken care of by those who can leave her well off, and make a lady of her; she's more fit for it than for a rough life, such as she might come to have in a ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... "strapping," fine looking lad, almost a man grown, and in experience already a man. He stopped before a little gate opening into a pasture and gave three shrill whistles. Over the top of a ridge two pointed ears appeared, poised for an instant, and then ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... his side an effeminate leather-dresser from Carlsruhe sits stroking his yellow goat's beard. Instead of strapping his knapsack to his back like a stalwart youth, after the manly fashion of his forefathers when on the tramp, he trundles behind him as he goes, a little iron chaise loaded with his ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... above Bailey's. In the same wooded hollow I took occasion to make some special notes on the quaint calls of the long-crested jays, a task that I had thus far deferred from time to time. There was an entire family of jays in the ravine, the elders feeding their strapping youngsters in the customary manner. These birds frequently give voice to a strident call that is hard to distinguish from the cries of their kinsmen, the mountain jays. When I pursued the couple that were attending to the gastronomical wants of their children, one of the adults ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the conversation; then arose, and retook the road to Saint Moritz. M. Moriaz scarcely had reached there, when he entered a carriage to drive to Cellarina, provided with a portfolio given him by Antoinette. He found M. Larinski busy strapping his trunks, and waiting for the mail-coach that made the journey between Samaden and Chur ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the strapping ones that come through. Anyway, old boy, I'm afraid you can't do anything to ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was too much excited by the thoughts of his voyage to sleep much, yet he was up with the earliest dawn of morning, moving about softly in his master's room, strapping down the trunks and laying out traveling clothes and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... now all made, places and pairs are arranged, and to the ear-splitting thunder of two or three tom-toms, two pair of strapping youngsters step into the ring; they carefully scan each other, advance, shake hands, or salaam, leisurely tie up their back hair, slap their muscles, rub a little earth over their shoulders and arms, so that their adversary may have ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... in his mind the exact words he would use when he was ushered into her presence. He would pretend at first to be a wayfarer and ask for a night's lodging, or, perhaps, it might be best to inquire for young Phil, who must now be a great strapping lad. Then he began thinking out other surprises. Of course she would know him—know him before he opened his lips. How foolish, then, the pretence of deceiving her. What was really more important was the way in which he would enter the house; some care must therefore be exercised. If he ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... one twinkling glance at his companion and then was instantly among the litter of the closet floor. He emerged strapping a belt about him, the holster tugging far down, so that the muzzle of the gun was almost at his knee. Bull appreciated the diminutive size of the man for the first time, seeing him in conjunction with the big gun on ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... strong, strapping young plainsman, lifted the pack to his shoulder, and, followed by the "Easy, young man; step lightly; glass, you know; this side up with care," of the doctor, deposited it upon ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as the heat grew intense. When he opened the furnace door, Jim ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... but stayed there a long time without strapping it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of a horn, with the signal ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... preserved in England. There seems to be little doubt that these words are due to a custom of beating a hawk which failed to do its duty with the thongs or jesses by which it was attached to the wrist of the falconer. Giving another jesse thus came to be equivalent to giving a person a strapping. ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... through the city, to the house of Colonel Y——, where we now are; but as we intend to continue our journey to its furthest limits without stopping, we are now, after a night's rest, preparing to resume our ride. They are saddling the horses, strapping on the sarapes behind the saddles, taking down and packing up our lits de voyage, and loading the mules, all which is a work of time. On our return we hope to remain here a few days, to see everything that is ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... on these very prairies, read between corn-husking and the spring ploughing Virgil's Georgics and Bucolics, for which Varro's treatises furnished the foundations. And I have also, on these same prairies, carried Horace's Odes, in the spring, to the field with me, strapping the book to the plough to read while the horses ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... mother's form. Physically, she was like her mother. Her grit, her ability to turn off work that was such an amazement to others, were her mother's. Just so had her mother been an amazement to her generation—her mother, the toy-like creature, the smallest and the youngest of the strapping pioneer brood, who nevertheless had mothered the brood. Always it had been her wisdom that was sought, even by the brothers and sisters a dozen years her senior. Daisy, it was, who had put her tiny foot down and commanded the removal from the fever flatlands of Colusa to the healthy mountains of ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... for these remarks; and as soon as we had reached the side of the schooner and got our captives on board I attended the doctor while he busied himself bandaging and strapping cuts, the blacks staring at him wondering, and then at Jimmy, who looked the reverse of friendly, gazing down at the prisoners scornfully, and telling Jack Penny in confidence that he did not think much of common ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... roping, I made a hand from the start. The outfit treated me courteously, there was no concealment of my past occupation, and I soon had the friendship of every man in the camp. It was some little time before I met the junior partner, Charlie Goodnight, a strapping young fellow of about thirty, who had served all through the war in the frontier battalion of Texas Rangers. The Comanche Indians had been a constant menace on the western frontier of the State, and during the rebellion had allied themselves ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... white and pulled down you look!" he had said with low-toned sympathy. "They must have been working you too hard. They forget that you are not a strapping woman ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them, for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's proposal, a strapping wench came up to Booth, and, taking hold of his arm, asked him to walk aside with her; saying, "What a pox, are you such a fresh cull that you do not know this fellow? why, he is a gambler, and committed for cheating at play. There is not such a pickpocket in the whole quad."[Footnote: ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... javelins, others hunted by dogs, and others again were let loose upon certain men who were tied hand and foot, and whom we supposed to be criminals. The gladiators next made their appearance. The herald led forward a strapping young fellow, and announced that any one who was prepared to stand up against him might step into the arena and take his reward, which would be 400 pounds. Sisinnes rose from his seat, jumped down into the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... too much cast down," said Sergeant Bothwell to his prisoner as they journeyed on towards the head-quarters; "you are a smart pretty lad, and well connected; the worst that will happen will be strapping up for it, and that is many an honest fellow's lot. I tell you fairly your life's within the compass of the law, unless you make submission, and get off by a round fine upon your uncle's estate; he ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... said she to Gilian, "before you will come on finer men. They are getting old and done, but once I knew them tall and strong and strapping, not their equals in all the armies. And what they have seen of wars, my dear! They were ever going or coming from them, and sometimes I would not know where they were out in the quarrelsome world but for a ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... suggestion, and Braddock went away to prepare for his departure. To get him off the premises was like launching a ship, as the entire household was at his swift heels, packing boxes, strapping rugs, cutting sandwiches, helping him on with his overcoat and assisting him into the trap, which had been hastily sent for to the Warrior Inn. All the time Braddock talked and scolded and gave directions and left instructions, until ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... over the roofs of the city, gilding them. At seven o'clock the household was astir, strapping, nailing, folding, and unfolding. Mr. Binswanger stooped with difficulty over ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... a number of boys in the ship, but two of them were my special favourites. Jack Martin was a tall, strapping, broad-shouldered youth of eighteen, with a handsome, good-humoured, firm face. He had had a good education, was clever and hearty and lion-like in his actions, but mild and quiet in disposition. Jack was a general favourite, and had ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... going to carry him," said the landlady's cousin, a strapping young woman, whose arms were equal to the task—"as far as the boat, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... with two jovial and witty Irishmen. They were common laborers. One was a hodcarrier, and a strapping fellow. When he arrived at the institution, he was at once placed in the violent ward, though his "violence" consisted of nothing more than an annoying sort of irresponsibility. He irritated the attendants by persistently doing certain trivial things after they had ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... of his own importance that he was not very interesting. At the Kontrol office we were all marched into a little room. It had a bed, and on a washstand was a basin filled with clean water. We were so dirty after unstrapping and strapping trunks that we asked if we might wash our hands. Two kindly soldiers ministered to us and got us clean towels, and listened sympathetically to the story of our examination. Then in came the adjutant, and no one could have been nicer or more courteous. ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... into his hand he said those were real good-sized fiddles; and when a violoncello appeared, Jack, supposing it was to be held between the hand and the shoulder, like a violin, declared 'He must be a strapping chap that fiddle belonged to!' But when the double-bass made its appearance, 'My eyes and limbs!' cried Jack, 'I would like to see the chap as ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... pretty young native girl, about fifteen years of age, took refuge in our settlement this afternoon, and placed herself under the care of a fine strapping young Krooman, servant to Capt. Smith, of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... and the horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with matchlocks—not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white as death, and looking back every minute at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... this man very well while he was still with Mr. Rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall, broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips, and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. Many knew him for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he had it in him to become so famous and renowned as ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading-post. He did not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered individuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an unusually large pack. Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along under his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the scales in front of the post, and Kit joined the group of admiring gold-rushers ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... deck, Tom was strapping himself into the pilot's chair and calling frantically into the intercom, ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... fellow who would be strapping away at those horses, instead of making himself at home ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... all this over in my mind, Mr. Hazard," answered the young master, who was amusing himself at the moment with strapping a small block, while he threw many a glance at the vessel that was just as close under his lee as comported with her sailing. "There is a reason for it, as you say; but, I can find no other than the fact that she has come so much out of her way, in order to fall in with ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... death and yet lived to tell the tale. His remaining rags barely covered his emaciated, trembling frame. Shoes had gone long ago. His bleeding, frost-bitten feet were partly protected with coarse sacking tied with string. No one could have recognized in this human derelict the strapping specimen of proud manhood who six weeks before had said good-by to Laura and started out light-heartedly to conquer the world. Instead, the world had ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... turned away from him; but his head was sunk on his breast, and he did not stir or lift it as his horse stamped at the strapping on of the valise Mr. Boyd had packed for him. Mr. Stewart sat erect and motionless, and his face as Anthony saw it was confident ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... case her only excuse was the old one, that she was "treated like a child." Certainly she deserved to be, for her behaviour was of the most wilful and wayward; but she was the mother of a strapping boy, and a woman who is thought old enough to play, in the premier Italian company, the part of Desdemona (with the accent, too, on the second syllable) could hardly justify her complaint that she was regarded as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... chance, fired. The spot I had aimed at was not the orang, but the report of the rifle had the desired effect of dislodging the brute from his hiding-place, and bringing him full into view. A fine, strapping fellow he seemed as he remained stationary for some seconds, looking down at us with a puzzled expression, as if he scarcely knew whether to greet us as enemies or as strange specimens of his own species. L. now cut short his reflections with a bullet, which ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... A tall, strapping young Bushman rose, without disguise, and followed the girl out. The rest began to talk loudly of stock, dogs, and horses, and other Bush things; but above their voices rang out that of the girl from the outside—being ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... very much interested Soquaatum, and especially as in his hunting he had met her younger brother, now a fine strapping hunter, and had become very fond of him, although he was much younger. So he resolved that as soon as he could he would visit her wigwam and seek ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... voice of the Norwegian mate was raised for'ard, and half a dozen strapping Rapa Islanders ceased their singing and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... officer's club in a frame building near the headquarters. Here, in the afternoon, the clan would gather for a round of "whisky poker" for the drinks. There was a strapping young Kentuckian whose ancestors had all been army men. "The profession of arms," said he, "is the noblest profession in the world. And that is the profession that we follow." It was a rather sad sight, though, a few weeks later, after his wife, a little ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... It may take eight strips for an adult. After you have the strips on, place a piece at each end, part on the flesh and part on the plasters, to keep them from giving any. The patient should have his arms over his head when you are putting on the strips. This strapping will hold that side of the chest quieter. The breathing will be less full and consequently less motion ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the ground. I found the nest only about a foot away from the perch of the young bird—a deep, neat little basket, compactly felted with down and plant fibers, set in the crotch of a slender bush of the thicket. It was certainly too small to accommodate any tenants besides the strapping young cowbird. In the spring of 1902 another hooded warbler's nest rewarded my search. Its holdings were four callow bantlings, all of which were carried off by some marauder before my ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the world he owed to the kindness of loving-hearted army women at Laramie, women who befriended him when well-nigh broken-hearted by his mother's death. Early he had pitched his tent on the very spot for a ranchman's homestead, early he had fallen in love with an army girl, who married the strapping frontiersman and was now the proud mistress of the new and promising stock farm nestling in the valley of the Laramie, a devoted wife and mother. The weekly stage to the railway was the event of their placid days except when some of the officers and ladies ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... him she was still in her adorable girlhood, untouched by time, a radiant princess in her radiant isle, waiting by the shore for his return. It shocked him to remember she was not far short of sixty—a fat old woman, perhaps, married to some strapping chief, and, more than likely, with grown children of her ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... between men who love each other. He kissed his mother a little hungrily, just as he had when he was a small boy back from his first homesick term at Eton, and fluttered the heart of that frail, austere lady, who had borne this big, strapping boy—a feat of which she was sedately but ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... Rogers to help him, he proceeded to examine his fresh patient, to find that two ribs were broken on the right side, the rest of the injuries consisting of severe bruises and grazings of the skin. In addition there were a couple of cuts on the back of the head, which called for strapping up. ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... upon the Major's chin—he continued the theme while strapping the skilful razor. "They've took a house in Grosvenor Place, and are coming out strong, sir. Her Ladyship's going to give three parties, besides a dinner a week, sir. Her fortune won't ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which showed it to be the residence of a Musk-rat of honour and eminence, a chief of high degree among his people. The chief of the Musk-rats bade the Nanticoke enter this cabin, but a moment after he said, "No, no, that cannot be done. It is not high enough for such a tall, strapping gawky as you are. So sit you here, while I go and fetch you food." So the Nanticoke seated himself on the sward, while the chief of the Musk-rats went to his house to fetch ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the doctor is disgusted at the stupidity of his son, and he persists in hating his daughter Agathe; it may be that he has been living a decent life for the last two years, intending to marry little Flore; suppose she were to give him a fine, active, strapping boy, full of life like Max?" said one of the wise heads of ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses. The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... captain's crew were thus engaged, Saunders, the second mate, observing from the ship the accident to the first mate's boat, sent off a party of men to the rescue, thus setting free the third boat, which was steered by a strapping fellow named Peter Grim, to follow up the chase. Peter Grim was the ship's carpenter, and he took after his name. He was, as the sailors expressed it, a "grim customer", being burnt by the sun to a deep rich brown colour, besides being covered nearly up to the eyes with a ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... A strapping young fellow jumped up like a shot and darted into the station to take the place of the exhausted worker. Wiping his forehead and breathing hard, the latter ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... lugger as widely as a lugger differs from a schooner, and her broad spread of canvas combined the features of square and of fore-and-aft tackle. But whatever her build or rig might be, she was going through the water at a strapping pace, heavily laden as she was, with her long yards creaking, and her broad frame croaking, and her deep bows driving up the fountains of the sea. Her enormous mainsail upon the mizzenmast—or mainmast, for she only carried two—was ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... coats. Big, strapping, husky fellows nudging one another and grinning at their fourteen-year-old schoolmaster. It was no use ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... along its banks lies our course to the great "Pi-wi-ack" (senselessly Englished as "Vernal") and the Nevada Falls. For three miles from our camp opposite the Yo-Semite Fall the canon is threaded by a trail practicable for horses. At its termination we dismounted, sent back our animals, and, strapping their loads upon our own shoulders, struck nearly eastward by a path only less rugged than the trackless crags around us. In some places we were compelled to squeeze sideways through a narrow crevice in the rocks, at imminent danger to our burden of blankets and camp-kettles; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... thing Jord can't see her at this minute," observed Burns to his wife as he met her in the hall outside the door. "The prettiest convalescent has less appeal for a doctor than a young woman of less good looks in strapping health—naturally, for he gets quite enough of illness and the signs thereof. But to a lusty chap like King Miss Anne's present frail appearance would undoubtedly enlist his chivalry. Those are some ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... wrath waxed stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Cur!" I said; "mad mongrel, truly off your precious hide, I'll score; Like your cheek to come here yapping, just as I was gently napping; You deserve a strapping,—yapping, snapping at my study door. I shall go for you, mad mongrel!" Here I opened wide the door. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... occasional visits from Boston, was very much in evidence at the Saturday evening ice parties. He was not an artist at the sport himself, but he was especially proficient in the art of strapping on a lady's skates, and murmuring,—as he adjusted the last buckle,—"The prettiest foot and ankle on the river!" It cannot be denied that this compliment gave secret pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was a pleasure accompanied ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a Sunday. The whole family had gone off to church, except Bert, who had been left at home in the charge of the cook. She was a strapping big Scotch lassie, and very fond of Bert. About an hour after the family left, Crazy Colin sauntered along and took his seat in the kitchen. Neither Kitty nor Bert was by any means pleased to see him, but they thought it better to keep their feelings to themselves. Bert, indeed, made some ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Herdman, "to give neither religion a preponderance, and to hold my people of both religions to a common standard of fidelity and efficiency." The greatest difficulty he has had to contend with is the ineradicable objection of some of the peasantry to continuous industry. He told us of a strapping lass of eighteen who came to the mills, but very soon gave up and went back to the parental shebeen in the mountains rather than get up early in the morning to earn ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... normal and largest calibre of circumference of the penis. The adaptation of the edges of the parts and the proper application of a smooth, equal pressure, by means of the lint strap, is of the next importance; and then comes the strapping of the whole surface for about an inch and a half back of the corona, which should and must include all the tissues of the preputial part of the frenum. A neglect or careless performance of any of the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... and buckled on a heavy belt; then descended the steep stairs. The bar-room was lighted and filled with men. Some of them were drinking and eating; others were strapping provisions into portable form. Against the corner of the bar a tall figure of a man leaned smoking—a man lithe, active, and muscular, with a keen dark face, and black eyebrows which met over his nose. Billy ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... little understood decisions of statesmen. The first skating on the pond was an event which far transcended in importance anything related between the green covers of the old history book, while to Albert Nichol the privilege of strapping skates on the feet of little Helen Kemble, and gliding away with her over the smooth ice, was a triumph unknown by any general. He was the son of a plain farmer, and she the daughter of the village banker. Thus, even ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... felt a rough brushing against my elbow. As I turned I saw a small white child, poorly clad, being thrust upon the end of the flower-laden platform. Then followed an old white man, collarless, wearing a dingy blue shirt and a coat somewhat tattered. After him came two strapping fellows, apparently his sons. All grouped themselves there and listened eagerly, freely spitting their tobacco juice on the platform ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... he encountered conditions so strange that he felt a doubt of their reality. He had, for some peculiar and amazing reason, no desire to escape. There was something in the oddness of the proceeding that made him wish to see it to an end. Besides, he was quite sure the strapping young fellow would shoot if he ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... a great dunderhead. And Dickie Blue was a dunderhead. No doubt about it. Yet the failing was largely the fault of his years. A strapping fellow, this young Dickie Blue, blue-eyed in the Newfoundland way, and merry and modest enough in the main, who had recently discovered a critical interest in the comparative charms of the maids of the harbor. There were so many maids in the world! Dang it, it was confusing! There was Peggy ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... a prisoner has to be secured and galloped off, there are but two ways: either putting him in the saddle and strapping his ankles together under the horse's belly—in which case, if he be mad with rage, and attempts to throw himself off, the saddle must turn with him; or else securing him Mazeppa-fashion—when four loops are passed, one round each leg of the horse, and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... my office with two or three Municipal Councillors," he says, "when we heard a great noise in the corridor. The door was thrown violently open, and there entered unto me a big strapping captain of the National Guard at the head of ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... she's a little deaf. A real good sort, sir, is old Jenny. She's always about here. She was brought out in the Temple; she lived eight years with a Q.C., sir. He's dead. A strapping fine wench she was then, I ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... him home tonight. He's been wounded, you know, and we've been applying for him home. He was home about six weeks ago—he's been in Scotland since then. Oh, he was wounded in the leg. Yes, he's all right, a great strapping fellow. But he's lame, he limps a bit. He expects he'll get his discharge—but I don't think he will. We married? We've been married six years—and he joined up the first day of the war. Oh, he thought he'd like the life. He'd ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... and the ship began to move at its top velocity of twenty-four light years per second. The hours dragged heavily, as they had when they were coming in, and Arcot remained alone on watch while the others went to their rooms for some sleep, strapping their weightless bodies securely in ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... was a baby—a round-faced, large-eyed, fat-legged baby, as unlike to the bronzed, whiskered, strapping seaman who went by the name of "Fighting Bill" as a jackdaw is to a marlinespike—when Bill was a baby, his father used to say he was just cut out for a sailor; and he was right, for the urchin was overflowing with vigour and muscular energy. ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... blessed society of Saint Joseph, ma'am—our coat of arms is two heads upon one pillow, and our motty, 'Who's afraid?—Hurroo!'" shouted the savage, and he twirled his stick and cut another caper. Then coming up to Andy, he addressed him as "young woman," and said there was a fine strapping fellow whose heart was breaking till he "rowled her ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Quickly strapping on his climbers, he began shinning up the pole, which he took much faster than Teddy had done, for the situation ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Leonard was a strapping brown fellow of twenty-five, with big hands and big feet, white teeth, and flashing eyes full of energy. He and his father and two brothers not only worked their own big farm, but rented a quarter section ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... with him several Balonda children who had been carried off by the Makololo. This, and his speeches to Manenko, the chieftainess of the district and niece of Shinte, the head chief of the Balonda, gained them a welcome. This Amazon was a strapping young woman of twenty, who led their party through the forest at a pace which tried the best walkers. She seems to have been the only native whose will ever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... young advocates of talent, and these two young gentlemen had both contracted marriages which necessitated speedy professional gains. Hamilton had won the daughter of General Schuyler. Burr was married to the widow of a British officer, whose fortune was a few hundred pounds and two fine strapping boys fourteen and sixteen ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... keeping him company, and so the two, the shabbily-dressed undersized boy, and the big strapping man came out into the murky London twilight and took their way over the ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... many, greeted Delancy Grandcourt's loquacious and rotund mother, politely listened to her scandalous budget of gossip, shook hands cordially with her big, handsome daughter, Catharine, a strapping girl, with the shyly honest eyes of her brother and the rather heavy but shapely body and limbs of an indolent Juno. A harsh voice pronounced his name; old Mr. Tappan extended a dry hand and bored him through with eyes like holes burnt in ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... gold hair, almost as thick as my arm, and hanging almost as low as her knees. She looked colossal up on the wagon-seat, but when she got down on the ground she was not so immense. She is, however, a strapping big woman, and I don't think I ever saw such shoulders! She is Olympian, Titanic! She makes me think of the Venus de Milo; there's such a largeness and calmness and smoothness of surface about her. I suppose a Saint-Gaudens might say that her mouth was too big ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... navigation the ships were very much alike. And the American seamen of 1812 were in fighting mood; they had been whetted by provocation to a keen edge for war. They understood the meaning of "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," if the landsmen did not. There were strapping sailors in every deep-water port to follow the fife and drum of the recruiting squad. The militia might quibble about "rights," but all the sailors asked was the weather gage of a British man-of-war. They had no patience ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... and finish, first," replied Helwyse; and forthwith a cushion was insinuated beneath his head, and his feet were elevated upon a rest. He heard the preparation of the warm lather, and anon the knowing strapping of a razor. He put up his hand and stroked his beard for the last time, wondering how he would ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife was a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world. There was not a happier household in Glen ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs, supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie, and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... devoted. In other points he was a brave and trustworthy officer, although he valued the practical above the theoretical branches of his profession, and was better pleased when superintending the mousing of a stay or the strapping of a block than when "flooring" the sun, as he termed it, to ascertain the latitude, or "breaking his noddle against the old woman's," in taking a lunar observation. Newton had been strongly recommended ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... as steel, as nimble as a cat, With every trick of twist and kick, a master of savate. And Gigolette was tall and fair, as stupid as a cow, With three combs in the greasy hair she banged upon her brow. You'd see her on the Place Pigalle on any afternoon, A primitive and strapping wench as brazen as the moon. And yet there is a tale that's told of Clichy after dark, And two gendarmes who swung their arms with Julot for a mark. And oh, but they'd have got him too; they banged and blazed away, When like a flash a woman leapt between ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... had met a gentleman and lady on the road that day; he wondered, as he toyed with his glass, if it could have been the Ferrises? Mounted? Yes, mounted. Then it was Ferris and his wife—or it might have been Captain Murrell and Miss Malroy the captain was a strapping, black-haired chap who rode a big bay horse. Miss Malroy did not live in that part of the country; she was a friend of Mrs. Ferris', belonged in Kentucky or Tennessee, or somewhere out yonder—at any rate she was bringing her visit to an end, for Ferris had instructed him ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... beheld him once more. And the sight of his condition, moral and physical, terrified her. His great strapping son and Amy helped him upstairs. "Will he ever come down those stairs again?" This thought lanced Constance's heart. The pain was come and gone in a moment, but it had surprised her tranquil commonsense, which was naturally opposed to, and gently ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... of the attack. Salicylate of sodium is a useful remedy in many cases, the patient taking ten grains three times daily, in tablets after eating, for a number of days. In rheumatism of the chest, securing immobility by strapping the chest, as recommended for broken rib (Vol. I, p. 84), gives more comfort than any other form of treatment. Many other measures may be employed by the physician, and are applicable in persistent cases, as electricity ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... materials, the flounces and fringes, the streamers and rosettes, the frills of lace old and new. And as the English Creoles with their skin like porcelain, and their small dainty figures, imitated their more rosy and well-grown sisters of the North, the handsome strapping coloured wenches copied their island betters in materials which if flimsy were no less bright; so it is no matter for wonder that the young bloods came from London to admire and loiter and flirt in an enchanted clime that seemed made for naught else, that the sons of ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... sharply interrogative. Time had chiseled it to an incisiveness not incongruous with a lingering air of youth. His hair, mustache, and imperial were but touched with gray. His figure was still lithe and spare. It was the custom to say of him that he looked but the brother of his two strapping sons. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... forced to offer his daughter (Thora) to anyone who will slay them. The hero (Ragnar) devises a dress of a peculiar kind (by help of his nurse, apparently), in this case, woolly mantle and hairy breeches all frozen and ice-covered to resist the venom, then strapping his spear to his hand, he encounters them boldly alone. The courtiers hide "like frightened little girls", and the king betakes him to a "narrow shelter", an euphemism evidently of Saxo's, for the scene is comic. The king comes forth when the hero is ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... you make a fine, strapping grisette," he cried, proud of me as if I were a picture, he the painter. "Felix, you've no notion how handsome you look. Dame! you defrauded the world when you contrived to be born ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... looking from afar at these and a hundred similar things, lo! there came by us a gaudy, strapping quean of arrogant mien, and after whom a hundred eyes were turned; some made obeisance, as if in worship of her, a few put something in her hand. I could not make out what she was, and so I enquired. "Oh," said my friend, "she is one whose entire dowry is on show, and yet ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... beside William. John married Sarah Black, of Amherst, and settled in Dorchester. Henry married Miss Seaman, of Wallace, and remained on the farm at Point de Bute. Mary married George Taylor, Memramcook. Jane married John Smith, of Fort Lawrence, and was the mother of nine strapping boys, all of whom proved good men for the country. Sally married Richard Black, of Amherst. They settled first at River Philip, but later came back to Amherst and lived on the farm his father first purchased in Cumberland. ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... at the Pagoda and they sent a Bo after you," suggested FitzGerald; "I must say your new friend is a rum-looking customer; a powerful, strapping pongye. He'd make a grand constable! What did ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... of Gaffer Whitecraft, who had entered the room, a strapping specimen of his robust trade, prepared to play the civil, or the surly host, as his company should be acceptable or otherwise. At Julian's invitation, he doffed his dusty bonnet—brushed from his sleeve the looser particles of his professional ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... made no answer until the strapping, fourteen-year-old boy, tall and powerful for his age, had deposited his bucket of water at her side. As he drew the back of a tanned muscular hand across his dripping forehead she ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... Nobility, and he was weak enough, though a fierce, dauntless iron-nerved soldier, to be discontented with the great fact that his father had been a hero of the Army of Italy, and scarce inferior in genius to Massena, because impatient of the minor one that, before strapping on a knapsack to have his first taste of war under Custine, the Marshal had been but a postilion at a posting inn in the heart of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee] |
