"Yarn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made this voyage, mistrusted whether these tales might not have arisen from the exaggerated representations of seamen, or that they were the result of that well-known qualification of this class of men, familiarly styled the "spinning a yarn." ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... something, you know, to cover his mysterious movements. 'Tonio's story may be cock and bull for all we know. It is just such a yarn as I have heard told many a time and oft in the Columbia basin. Most Indians are born liars, and 'Tonio has everything to gain and nothing to lose in telling a believable whopper now. 'Tonio says his people are persecuted saints, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... what us wanted to. Dresses was made wid full skirts gathered on to tight fittin' waisties. Winter clothes was good and warm; dresses made of yarn cloth made up jus' lak dem summertime clothes, and petticoats and draw's made out of osnaburg. Chillun what was big enough done de spinnin' and Aunt Betsey and Aunt Tinny, dey wove most evvy night 'til dey rung de bell at 10:00 o'clock for us to go to bed. Us made ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... and spring, booties are worn on top of the stockings. These booties should be crocheted or knitted out of the heavy Germantown yarn, and there should be enough of them so that the child may have a ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... politeness alone has kept me from naming the full extent of my wait. If you please, sir," he turned to Dick, "she was in the clutches of a beggar who obtained twenty-five dollars by a most extraordinary yarn." ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... hated to have to explain the points of his anecdotes, as, indeed, what story-teller does not? A cold and critical man like the professor froze the spring of narration at its source. Besides, Renmark had an objectionable habit of tracing the recital to its origin; it annoyed Yates to tell a modern yarn, and then discover that Aristophanes, or some other prehistoric poacher on the good things men were to say, had forestalled him by a thousand years or so. When a man is quick to see the point of your stories, and laughs heartily at them, you are apt to form a high ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... having made man in his own image, and then setting Himself up in his only Son—a sacrifice to Himself—for the sins of the folks He had just made and set agoing, and told to subdue and master the planet He had made for them to live on; but this yarn caught the fancy of infantile and puerile minds, and also of the designing priests and theologians who have never, to this day, tired of "baring the backs" of humanity to this "devil's rod," increasing, and multiplying the tortures ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... large-sized boats are moored near by, alongside each other. On the upper deck of one the boatman is fast asleep, rolled up in a sheet from head to foot. On another, the boatman—also basking in the sun—leisurely twists some yarn into rope. On the lower deck in a third, an oldish-looking, bare-bodied fellow is leaning over an oar, ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... antics. But when the Prince of Darkness goes on a vacation or holds a mirror up to human nature at its most Luciferian chuckles are certain to arise and follow one another in hilarious profusion. Here is a yarn contrived by a craftsman with ironic lightning bolts at his fingertips, as mordantly compelling as it is jovial and Jovian. If you liked SATAN ON HOLIDAY, and were hoping for a sequel you can now rejoice in full measure, for Ralph Bennitt has ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... gave her inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question of Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave the young people. Down went the stocking with the needles in it; out of her lap tumbled the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its yarn trailing after it, like some village matron who goes about circulating from hearth to hearth, leaving all along her track the story of the new engagement or of the arrival of the last ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... whereupon they withdrew to the western parts of Ecpoulpot, and sat down to knitting till they heard the officers were gone. As soon as they were departed, they went onwards of their journey, having got a good parcel of cotton-yarn to knit caps with, and having kept their wares, as they pretended, to exchange for dried flesh, which was sold only in those lower parts. Their way lay necessarily through the governor's yard at Kalluvilla, who dwells there on purpose to examine all that go and come. ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... course, I am now careful in all I write and advise my friends to be, but I sometimes get letters from Unknowns, people that sympathize with me or have fallen in love with me. All women in high station have lovers among the lowly. I recall the Cardinal Dubois' yarn about Salvatico, envoy of the Prince of Modena, my kinsman of yore. The Italian was sent to Paris to conduct home his master's lovely intended, Mademoiselle de Valois, daughter of the Regent. It happened that the emissary was introduced to Mademoiselle's room an hour before ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... of the board show that in this industry the actual manufacturing cost, aside from the question of the price of materials, is much higher in this country than it is abroad; that in the making of yarn and cloth the domestic woolen or worsted manufacturer has in general no advantage in the form of superior machinery or more efficient labor to offset the higher wages paid in this country The findings show that the cost of turning wool into yarn in this country is about double that in the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... table she had discovered, carefully folded up, the greater portion of a stocking, knitting needles still sticking in it, the ball of gray yarn attached. But she could not endure to sit there; she must have more space to watch for what she knew was coming. Her hair she twisted up as best she might, set the pink sunbonnet on her head, smoothed out the worn ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... dressed it, and then the women made linen cloth of various degrees of fineness, quality, and beauty. Thus, by the labor of both men and women, we were clothed. If an extra fine Sunday dress was desired, part of the yarn was colored and from this they managed to get up a very nice ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... which resembled that of a dolphin and was spotted like a mackerel's. The names of the men who saw her were Thomas Hiller and Robert Bayner." It was probably a curious seal that gave occasion to this version of the old yarn. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... grocery, and Jack picked up the big revolver and fired the six shots into the air. The pony had come alongside the wagon, and Snoozer had his head over the dash-board. Half a dozen people came running out, including Grandpa Oldberry, wearing red yarn mittens and carrying a lantern. He held up the light and ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... be at the top," said the city editor, and then he went on: "Here is something else you might look into, Larry. It might make a fine thing for the Sunday supplement. You can go up there, get the yarn, and you needn't come back to-day. Write it up the first ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... Southern Russia), and of the satrapies and royal roads of Persia. As a rule, his information is as accurate as could be expected at such an early date, and he rarely tells marvellous stories, or if he does, he points out himself their untrustworthiness. Almost the only traveller's yarn which Herodotus reports without due scepticism is that of the ants of India that were bigger than foxes and burrowed out gold ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... pantaloons—I thought about five inches too short in the legs—and frequently he had but one suspender, no vest or coat. He had a calico shirt such as he had in the Black Hawk War; coarse brogues, tan-colour; blue yarn socks, a straw hat, old style, and without a band." It is recorded that he preferred dealing with men and boys, and disliked to wait on the ladies. Possibly, if his attire has been rightly described, the ladies, even the Clary's Grove ladies, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... a little boyish giggle at sight of the butler's face. "Well, seein' as I'm gettin' along in life, you must be a good way parst the meridian, if yer don't mind my sayin' so.... Funny thing, on the way down I run across a chap wot's visitin' pals in this 'ere village, and 'e pulls me the strangest yarn as ever a body 'eard. Summink to do wiv flames it were—Frozen Flames or icicles or frost of some kind. But 'e was so full up of mystery that there weren't no gettin' nuffin out er' im. Any one 'ere tell me the story? 'E fair got me curiosity fired, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... from his hair and clothes, and, poking up the fire, leisurely sat down and took Gus on his knee before he replied,—"Serve out the grog, Tom, while I spin my yarn." ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... few days after the storm described in the last chapter, Rollo was sitting upon one of the settees that stood around the skylight on the promenade deck, secured to their places by lashings of spun yarn, as has already been described, and was there listening to a conversation which was going on between two gentlemen that were seated on the next settee. The morning was very pleasant. The sun was shining, ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... he, when Mr Rawlings had completed his yarn, "if he belonged to that deserted ship which you subsequently came across; and that in the mutiny, or whatever else occurred on board, he got wounded ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... accuracy, and the wreck and destruction that have sometimes resulted from its varying a few seemingly trifling moments from the true time; then, in due course, my comrade, the Reverend, got off on a yarn, with a fair wind and everything drawing. It was a true story, too—about Captain Rounceville's shipwreck —true in every detail. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the yarn that's going round about his having had a lot of m-money stolen in a country house? By Jove! He'll be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the goody sort! By the poker! they sell their sermons dearer than we sell the rarest and realest thing on earth—pleasure.—And they can spin a yarn! There, I know them. I have seen plenty in my mother's house. They think everything is allowable for the Church and for—Really, my dear love, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—for you are not so open-handed! You have not given me two hundred ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... laboriously, two sticks at a time; she missed the other plate at her tiny round table, the other chair beside her fire; she missed that dark, thin, sensitive face, with its rare and sweet smile; she wanted her story-teller, her yarn-winder, her protector, back again. Good gracious! to think of an old lady of forty-seven entertaining such sentiments ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... spoke, they had come into another house; and at the sight of a spinning wheel on a stove-bed, they thought it still more strange and wonderful, but the servant boys again told them that it was used for spinning the yarn to weave cloth with, and Pao-yue speedily jumping on to the stove-bed, set to work turning the wheel for the sake of fun, when a village lass of about seventeen or eighteen years of age came forward, and asked them not to meddle with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... ball of yarn, with which kittens have been making cobwebs, has always seemed to me a much easier task than to unknot the tangled skein of confused influences, that trip up our feet at every step in life's path. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the nations, making the earth to quake, and heave, and roar, and rattle with the tread of gigantic enterprises? Who are they? For the most part they descended from industrious mothers, who, in the old homestead, used to spin their own yarn, and weave their own carpets, and plait their own door-mats, and flag their own chairs, and do their own work. ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... bed linen, cotton cloth, and yarn), rice, leather goods, sports goods, chemicals, manufactures, carpets ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... says that making plywood reminds him of the way Mrs. Bunyan made pies during the hard times of pioneer days. She would take pancakes, spread molasses between and sew around the edges with yarn. ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... tale you're free to believe, sir, or not, as you please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he was ready to kiss the Book upon it, before judge and jury. He said, too, that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn; and he defied any one to explain about the lock, in particular, by any other tale. But you shall judge ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... steal in on wet days and sit on the floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured ravellings. Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... heard him mutter; "but I could have sworn that them paddles was standin' up ag'in this here tree, half-an-hour ago; what the h—l's become of 'em? Surety none of the chaps is slipped off to have a yarn with old Steve; he won't thank 'em for disturbing of him at this time o' night, and rousing him out from between the guns, where I'll lay anything the old dormouse is snugly coiled away, instead of looking a'ter the brig, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... knots everything cracked aloft, and we tied our caps to our heads; but mostly she strolled on at the rate of three miles an hour. What could you expect? She was tired—that old ship. Her youth was where mine is—where yours is—you fellows who listen to this yarn; and what friend would throw your years and your weariness in your face? We didn't grumble at her. To us aft, at least, it seemed as though we had been born in her, reared in her, had lived in her for ages, had never known any other ship. I would just as soon have abused the old village church ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... till the last man had entered, and then said, "Before we settle down to a bowl and a yarn, captain, I should like to show you this ship. It'll save me a deal of description and explanation if you will be pleased to take ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... native Province of Quebec years before, and had got caught in Rat Portage when the Canadian Pacific Railway was a-building; a man who, in addition to his unparalleled knowledge of wood-craft and bush-lore, could also sing the old voyageur songs and tell a capital hunting yarn into the bargain. He was deeply susceptible, moreover, to that singular spell which the wilderness lays upon certain lonely natures, and he loved the wild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost to an ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... were forward to help; some threw out flossy bits of cotton,—for which, we grieve to say, Charlie had cut a hole in the crib quilt,—and some threw out bits of thread and yarn, and Allie ravelled out a considerable piece from one of her garters, which she threw out as a contribution; and they exulted in seeing the skill with which the little builders wove everything in. "Little birds, little birds," they would say, "you shall be kept warm, for we ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... out. We were not prepared to catch water, having nothing to put it in. Our next object was to get fire, and after gathering some of the driest fuel to be found, and having a small piece of cotton wick-yarn, with flint and steel, we kindled a fire, which was never afterwards suffered to be extinguished. The night was very dark, but we found a piece of old rope, which when well lighted served for a candle. On examining the ground ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... takes her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the rich students read their reviews. He says sweet things to her. He weeps, she weeps. They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He loves her. He calls her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation. She was barefooted; he gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might make stockings. And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with enormous nails. He teaches her verses that are easy to understand. He is afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame where she lives in perfect ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... was a halt about noon, of an hour or so, to rest the men and give them a chance to cool off and get the sand and gravel out of their shoes. This time was spent by some in absolute repose; but the lively boys told many a yarn, cracked many a joke, and sung many a song between "Halt" and "Column forward!" Some took the opportunity, if water was near, to bathe their feet, hands, and face, and nothing could ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... game," said the professor. "I used to play myself long ago, when we had a yarn ball and pitched underhand. I'll have to come out to the field some day. President Halstead, why, he likes baseball, he's a—a—what do ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... death. When they were all about crazy, they claim I came walking up to the camp-fire dragging a dead snake by the tail, and carrying a horn toad in my shirt, and claiming they were mine because I 'ketched 'em.' I'm not branding that yarn with any moral—but figure it out ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... you want of Mercy, my dear. I put some runs of yarn in your trunk, dear nephew, you may give them with my love to sister Abigal, and tell her the wool is from white Kitty. She will remember the sheep. Give my love to brother ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... them being beautifully painted, and as it were gilded with various colours, which grow the livelier the oftener they are washed. There is also other cotton cloth that is woven of divers colours and is of great value. They also make at St Thome a great quantity of red yarn, dyed with a root called saia, which never fades in its colour, but grows the redder the oftener it is washed. Most of this red yarn is sent to Pegu, where it is woven into cloth according to their own fashion, and at less cost than can ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... came blustering into the room, his face covered with a yarn comforter. He slowly unwound the rag and brought to view the side of his face, swollen to ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... sail nor shore was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water's edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... shall have, while telling the story of my life, to relate more serious events, I will, after recounting one more yarn, not weary my readers with the little uninteresting details of my youthful adventures, but pass over the next three years or so, at which time, after having returned to England, I was appointed to another ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... began the novel in no very strenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the popular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry which had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. So he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had no definite plan and did not himself know where he would bring up. The literary merits of 'The Ghostseer', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose fiction, will come up for consideration in connection with the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... sick within ten miles round, the family are too happy to get Mrs. Vawse for a nurse. She is an admirable one. Then she goes out tailoring at the farmers' houses; she brings home wool and returns it spun into yarn; she brings home yarn and knits it up into stockings and socks; all sorts of odd jobs. I have seen her picking hops; she isn't above doing anything, and yet she never forgets her own dignity. I think wherever she goes and whatever she is about ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... or Cologne, Rome, Jerusalem, or Timbuctoo. Mrs. Pilgrim was left at home to play "patience," and to keep the house and bairns. She was generally a long-suffering creature, but sometimes she did get into mischief. She could not always spin yarn, so she occasionally varied her task by weaving nets—traps for the unwary who was not ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a parrot, a great green and rose bird that at once talked, though we could not understand his words. Two older men had balls, as large as melons, of some wound stuff that we presently found to be cotton loosely twisted into yarn. The Admiral's eyes glowed. "Now if any bring spices or pepper—" But they did not, nor ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... brigadier. "They would not have pitched that yarn if De Wet had been really going to Britstown. You can mark my word, he ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... many a learned professor," said Uncle Tim, "could say the same after spinning a long yarn ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... he was an agent for brushes, and he opened his box and showed me the greatest assortment of big and little brushes: bristle brushes, broom brushes, yarn brushes, wire brushes, brushes for man and brushes for beast, brushes of every conceivable size and shape that ever I saw in all my life. He had out one of his especial pets—he called it his "leader"—and feeling it familiarly in his hand he instinctively ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... laughing at the chorus; and the grand question for contention in dialogue, as to the exact age when a man should die, to the identical minute, that he may preserve the respect of his fellows, followed by a systematic attempt to make an accurate measurement in parallel lines, with a tough rope-yarn by one party, and a string of yawns by the other, of the veteran's power of enduring life, and our capacity for enduring HIM, with tremendous pulling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... man had to pick three hundred pounds of cotton, and the women had to pick two hundred pounds. I used to hear my mother talk about weaving the yarn and making the cloth and making clothes out of the cloth that had been woven. They used to make everything they wore—clothes ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... bullock-dray from Simmons' coming up the flat. It was the only thing on wheels within forty mile, and Simmons had brought it his own self to see if we couldn't manage to get the poor fellow down to the nighest town. I won't make my yarn no longer than I can help, ma'am, so I'll only mention that we made a lot o' the strongest mutton broth you ever tasted; we slung a hammock of red blankets in the dray, and we got the poor fellow down by evening to a gentleman's ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... to the taxicab man! I've heard that yarn before! You come with me. And you too," he added to Mr. Bunn. "I want you for ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... also heavily laden with marine curiosities. There were sou'westers, and tarpaulins, and skull-caps; frieze jackets, and overalls, and hickory shirts; tarpaulin coats, and heavy sea-boots, and duck blouses with old bunches of oakum sticking out of the pockets; there were coils of rope-yarn well tarred, and jack-knives in leather cases, still black with whale-gurry: and a few telescopes and log-glasses. "Take 'em all," said the captain. "They smell a little fishy, but no matter. It's all the better for a voyage to Iceland. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... "I winna marry thee, For a' the gear that ye can gi'e; Nor will I gang a step ajee, For a' the gowd in Gowrie. My father will gi'e me twa kye; My mother 's gaun some yarn to dye; I 'll get a gown just like the sky, Gif I 'll no gang ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... proudly assume a turquoise negligee. Blue flannel, with cascades of white lace—could anything be more attractive? It has only one rival—the garment of lavender eiderdown flannel, the button-holes stitched with black yarn, which the elderly widow too often puts on when the tide of her grief ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... and let the marines blubber about love and lullaby, it'll never do for the sailors. As we are overhauling old friends, do you remember Charley Capstan, the coxswain's mate of the Leander V "Shiver my timbers, but I do; and a bit of tough yarn he was, too: hard as old junk without, and soft as captain's coop meat within. Wasn't I one of the crew that convoyed him up this very street when returning from a cruise off the Straits, we heard that Charley's ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... what a fool I had been, to think of giving money to those canting psalm-singers. I was mad with myself for my folly, and I tore the note into four pieces before I thought that the bills were in it. But Mrs. Sykes mended them as you see. Go on with your yarn, my buffer." ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... thunder, then, here is the yarn. You see in the first place, you didn't marry Jude and Joyce as tight as an older and more experienced hand would have done. I ain't blaming you, but I've used the thought to help me to be more Christian in my views about ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... sit right down here, Jerry, and let us have the whole yarn from Alpha to Omega. What you haven't been through since you left us yesterday morning isn't worth mentioning, to judge from the hints you let fall. A deer, four wild dogs, lost in the big timber, storm bound, rescuing our most bitter enemy; and now helping to land an escaped lunatic—say, ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... lulling as in a smalling circle she neared the tempting feast from the windward side. She had even advanced straight toward it for a few steps when the sweaty leather sang loud and strong again, and smoke and iron mingled like two strands of a parti-colored yarn. Centring all her attention on this, she advanced within two leaps of the Calf. There on the ground was a scrap of leather, telling also of a human touch, close at hand the Calf, and now the iron and smoke on the ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... matter of days when I shall get the big check that is coming to me," I assured them. I went on to spin a long yarn, to which she listened with jeers ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... enter into details respecting the progress of the trades of Belfast. The most important is the spinning of fine linen yarn, which is for the most part concentrated in that town, over 25,000,000 of pounds weight being exported annually. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the linen manufacture had made but little progress. In 1680 all Ireland ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... did take fire from the candle on her imaginary funeral-pile. Knitting was no more of a sedative, though for many years it had stilled Aunt Martha's nerves. It was singular how the cat contrived always to get hold of Violet's ball of yarn and keep it, in spite of Violet's activity and the jolly chase she had for it all round the room, over chairs and under tables. Even her father, during these long evenings, often looked up over his round spectacles, through which he was perusing a volume of the "Encyclopedia," to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... encrusted ancles, with feet stuck into old shoes, turned under at the heels for convenience sake. A remark from the cribber touches his pride, and borrowing a few pins he commences pinning together the shattered threads of his nether garment. A rope-yarn secured about his waist gives a sailor-like air to his outfit. But, notwithstanding Tom affects the trim of the craft, the skilled eye can easily detect the deception; for the craftsman, even under a press of head ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... of predacity. You may tie your abortive little paper to the tail of the "Ape," but that animal is too weak in the hinder legs to pull it out of a financial hole. Go plug yourself. Shuck your long-tailed hand-me-down Albert Edward, trade your paper for a double-shovel plow, gird up your yarn galluses and make a reasonable effort to earn an honest living. Had you expended half the nervo-muscular energy in the cotton patch that you have wasted in working your jaw-bone you would have money to burn. Mene mene tekel upharsim—which means that you ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... my boy," said the captain. "We don't know who's watching us. I didn't have much trouble in running the Yankee blockade at Vera Cruz. I brought a cargo from New York, just as if it had been sent from Liverpool, but I've had to prove that I'm not an American ever since I came ashore. Spin us your yarn as we walk along." ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... Boxall's, the Star and Garter, one of the pleasantest and best-conducted houses in all Brighton. It is close to the sea, and just by Mahomed, the sham-poor's shop. I likes Jonathan, for he is a sportsman, and we spin a yarn together about 'unting, and how he used to ride over the moon when he whipped in to St. John, in Berkshire. But it's all talk with Jonathan now, for he's more like a stranded grampus now than a fox-hunter. In course I brought down a pair of kickseys and ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... through his cheek. One of his fights was in the 'Amethyst' frigate when, under Sir Michael Seymour, she captured the 'Niemen' in 1809. Often in the calm tropical nights, when the helm could take care of itself almost, he would spin me a yarn about hot actions, cutting-outs, press-gangings, and perils which he had gone through, or - what was all one ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Many were the stories told of trapper life, and as we filled our pipes for a smoke before retiring, the subject of conversation was upon food. All had some anecdote to relate and after each had spun his yarn, Harding, who up to the present had been silent, drawled out, "Wal, I 'spect as how yer have had some tol'rable bad jints in yer time, but I think I kin jest lay over anything in this yer party in the way o' supper. Howsumever, I will give yer a chance ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... that sings the verses, he's called the chantyman. He sings while the crew heaves on the ropes an' they all come in on the chorus. If he's a real good chantyman he makes up new verses every time, a kind of a yarn he spins while ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... else had gone, the Seymours, together with Penelope and Nan, drew round the fire for a final few minutes' yarn. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... tell you a little about myself;—or rather, I am inclined to spin a yarn, and tell you a great deal. I have got such a lover! But I did describe him before. Of course it's Mr Cheesacre. If I were to say he hasn't declared himself, I should hardly give you a fair idea of my success. And yet he has not declared himself,—and, which is worse, is very anxious to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... about it to visit my sick folk, and mostly in a day's riding I see nobody but a stray shepherd, a flash pedlar twanning his way across country with his gewgaws, and now and then a weaver scouring the outlying cottages for yarn." ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... greatly concerned lest he cause trouble between Callum and Hibbs. He protested that he did not want to, when, in reality, he was dying to tell. At last he came out with, "Why, he's circulated the yarn that your sister had something to do with this man Cowperwood, who was tried here recently, and that that's why he's just gone ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... hills with fine earth and manure. The hops must be kept free from weeds and the ground mellow by hoeing often through the season, and hills of earth gradually raised around the vines during the summer. The vines must be assisted in running on the poles with woolen yarn, suffering them to run with the sun. By the last of August, or the first of September, the hops will be ripe, and fit to gather. This may be easily known by their colour changing, and having a fragrant smell; their seed grows brown and hard. As soon as ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... circular band, made of twisted grass, the size of the head, into which were stuck ten or twelve upright twigs, brought together into a point two feet high, which was woven like an open basket, with yarn made of opossum fur; the whole no doubt being considered highly ornamental by the wearers, but of not the least service as an article of protection for the head, either from the sun or in war. Having watered the horses, we entered the sand-plain, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... she could possibly have got through the journey without their help. Willy, the eldest boy, was always begging leave to go ashore and ride the towing horses; Sammy, the second could only be kept quiet by means of crooked pins and fish-lines of blue yarn; while Paul, the youngest, was possessed with a curiosity as to the under side of the boat, which resulted in his dropping his new hat overboard five times in three days, Mr. Peters and the cabin-boy rowing back in a small ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... mingled yarn of human life, tragedy is never far asunder from farce; and it is amusing to retrace in immediate succession to this incident of epic dignity, which has its only parallel by the way in the case of Vasco de Gama, (according to the narrative of Camoens,) when ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... covered with yellow harvests, beautiful and rich in possessions. The mud-wooden Caesters and Chesters had become steepled, tile-roofed, compact towns. Sheffield had taken to the manufacture of Sheffield whittles. Worstead could from wool spin yarn, and knit or weave the same into stockings or breeches for men. England had property valuable to the auctioneer; but the accumulate manufacturing, commercial, economic skill which lay impalpably warehoused in English hands and heads, what ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... features of pioneer character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor, at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... described the crew's quarters. The crew consisted of two hands, both strong and sturdy, and both belonging to the same coloured man. Though our trusty tar, Henry, had doubtless never heard "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell'" and had never eaten a shipmate in his life, yet he had a whole crew within himself as truly as the "elderly naval man" who had eaten one. There was therefore no occasion for extensive quarters. Fortunately, an available space at the stern was ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... so well aware that you are crazy, perhaps you can inform me what caused you to become so. "Oh yes," replied he, "I can soon tell you that: first my father died, then my mother, and soon after my only sister hung herself to the limb of a tree with a skein of worsted yarn; and last, and worst of all, my wife, Dorcas Jane, drowned herself in Otter Creek." Wondering if there was any truth in this horrible story, or if it was only the creation of his own diseased mind, I said, merely to see what he would say next, "What caused your wife to drown herself; was she crazy ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... her ball of yarn gave out, She knit so fast and steady; And he must give his aid, no ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... it was not what you may call an everyday sort of affair, and as perhaps the yarn might give you a hint as might be useful to you if you ever gets into the same kind of fix, I don't mind if I tell you. Just at present I have not finished my work, but if you and the other two young gents like ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... measures not less than 9 nor more than 9-1/4 inches in circumference. A slightly smaller ball is used in junior play; that is, for boys under sixteen. The best construction of baseballs is that in which there is a rubber center wound with woolen yarn, the outside covering being of white horsehide. Good balls cost from fifty cents to $1.50 each, but baseballs may be had ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... Lute. "What did you tell such a whopper as that for? You're always sailin' into me if I stretch a yarn the least mite. Why, last April Fool Day you give me Hail Columby for jokin' you about a mouse under the kitchen table. Called me all kinds of names, you did—after you got ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... yarn to John Milton," said Wingate ironically; "it's about in the style o' them stories he ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... to Katy in his fashion, slouching in of an evening, and boasting of his exploits until Smith Westcott would come and chirrup and joke, and walk Katy right away from him to take a walk or a boat-ride. Then he would finish the yarn which Westcott had broken in the middle, to Mrs. Plausaby or Miss Marlay, and get up and remark that he thought maybe he mout as well ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... bit," Charlie objected. "Wait till I come down. Let's have a yarn. You don't want ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Queen of Hartenburg was an intimate friend of yours—the sort of chum who'd have been likely to drop in any day for a yarn ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... to tell me of it?"—"None, whatever; and perhaps, by the time I have done, the doctor may have found his way back again, or Jack may bring us some news of him. So here goes for a short, but a true yarn." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... exported in 1879; and it may be said generally that Roumania receives in return almost every article of consumption in the way of manufactured productions, and notably from this country cottons and cotton yarn, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... think ought to be made if one is in Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato. This ancient town one should see for several things: for its age and for its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at the narrow ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... the woollen manufacturers of Westmoreland and Yorkshire, two bills were brought in, and passed through both houses, by which the ports of Lancaster and Great Yarmouth were opened for the importation of wool and woollen yarn from Ireland; but why this privilege was not extended to all the frequented ports of the kingdom it is not easy to conceive, without supposing a little national jealousy on one hand, and a great deal of grievous restraint on the other. Over and above these new laws, some unsuccessful endeavours were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... clothing for a while, I can do with birch-bark for my correspondence," she replied laughing. "Why not catch some of those wild sheep that seem so plentiful on the hills to westward? If we could domesticate them, that would mean wool and yarn and cloth—and milk, too, wouldn't it? And if milk, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... is," said Mr. Pertell, "if she hadn't been, our company never could have afforded to buy her just to make a shipwreck of her. But she is perfectly safe for what traveling we shall do. Brisco has assured me of that, and has seen to it. What sort of a yarn was Jepson giving you?" and Mr. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... sudden change from cotton to linen is an instructive one. Cotton appears to have forced itself to the front because cotton spinning could be carried on by machinery whilst the linen weavers were still dependent on the spinning wheel for their yarn. It was Andrew Mulholland, the owner of the York Street cotton mill, who first took note of the fact that while the supply of hand-made linen yarn was quite insufficient to justify the manufacture of linen on a large scale in Belfast, quantities of flax were shipped ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... kind is at a stand, insomuch as that our most eminent merchants, who used to pay bills of 1,000l. at sight, are hardly able to raise 100l. in so many days. Spindles of yarn (our daily bread) are fallen from 2s. 6d. to 15d., and everything also in proportion. Our best beef (as good as I ever ate in England) is sold under 3/4d. a pound, and all this not from any extraordinary plenty ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... exclaimed, "here we are monopolizing the conversation, when we might be listening to some really interesting story from Mr. Melton. I vote we petition the boss of this outfit to spin us a yarn." ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... love tale. Standing desks in particular, such as bookkeepers affect, are not always chinked with these softer plots. And rarely there is a desk so smothered in learning—reeking so of scholarship—as not to admit a lighter nook for the tucking of a sea yarn. Even so, it was whispered to me lately that Professor B——, whose word shakes the continent, holds in a lower drawer no fewer than three unpublished historical novels, each set up with a full quota of smugglers and red bandits. One of ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... PROCOPIUS says:—[Greek: "Ahute de estin he metaxa, ex hes eiothasi ten estheta ergazesthai, hen palai men Hellenes mediken, tanun de seriken onomazousi."]—PROCOP. Persic. I. Metaxa, or anciently mataxa, "thread," "yarn," seems to be Latine rather than Greek. The metaxarius was a "yarn-broker;" and the word having got possession of the market, was extended to the woven stuff. The modern Greeks call ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... and the autumn evenings were darkening. It was later than the usual bed time, but Patience had a piece of spinning which she was anxious to finish for the weaver who took all her yarn, and Stead was reading Dr. Eales's gift of the Morte d'Arthur, which had great fascination for him, though he never knew whether to regard it as truth or fable. He wanted to drive out the memory of what ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lad go on with his yarn," he said. "Believe me it's quite possible that the woman's face should show no signs of death. I have known frost and ice preserve a ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... drawing, engraving, casting, painting, statuary, and sculpture; for the improvement of manufactures and machines, in the various articles of hats, crapes, druggets, mills, marbled-paper, ship-blocks, spinning-wheels, toys, yarn, knitting, and weaving. They likewise allotted sums for the advantage of the British colonies in America, and bestowed premiums on those settlers who should excel in curing cochineal, planting logwood-trees, cultivating olive-trees, producing myrtle-wax, making potash, preserving raisins, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Bob found the Neshamony, covered with mats, and tabooed, precisely as he had left her to a rope-yarn. Not a human hand had touched anything belonging to the boat, or a human foot approached it, during the whole time of his absence. Ooroony, or Betto, was rewarded for his fidelity by the present of a musket and some ammunition, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... man spins us a yarn the conditions of its being interesting are tolerably simple. The first condition obviously is, that the plot must be a good one, and good in the sense that a representation in dumb-show must be sufficiently exciting, without the necessity of any explanation of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... apparently it got too wide for the bed, and the boy leaped out of his couch upon the floor. The first thing he did was to pat the ball gently but firmly, very much as a kitten manifests its interest in a ball of yarn. Then his attentions to his new plaything grew more pronounced and vigorous, and within fifteen minutes it had been chased out of the nursery into the parental bedchamber. Still Jarley slept. Mrs. Jarley was merely half asleep. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... a short talk with Captain Simms when she docked. Not much of a yarn. She didn't have a ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... more upon this head, But must, before I go to bed. Your idle precepts mocking, Get out my needle and my yarn And, caring not a single darn. Just ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... running ahead of my yarn. We shared the hatch-cover between us. We took turn and turn about, one lying flat on the cover and resting, while the other, submerged to the neck, merely held on with his hands. For two days and nights, spell and ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... would have stepped on it," laughed Bell. "But I confess I am very grateful for this special attack of tidying. Now, Mrs. Meadows, I shall be all ready for that new yarn as soon ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... the girl Ury is engaged to, come here and do the chores, and work for herself; they are goin' to be married before long: and I'll give her some rolls, and let her spin some yarn for herself. She'll be ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... pendulum. Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it 'would play music before long.' He had extracted some colours from the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called 'The ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... John Rankin linen printer William Maxwel do. James Duncan do. Alexander Dalgliesh do. John Dalgliesh do. James Adam cutler John Strong do. John Brown bleacher John Niven yarn washer John Miller John Craig David Shephard weaver James Lang do. William Swap do. John Young do. Thomas Robertson do. William Dunlop do. Robert Stevenson do. John Gibson do. John ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... not going to get much satisfaction from you, partner," he bluntly told the other. "Our folks expect to see some evidence to prove the big yarn we're bound to tell—about our dropping those tear bombs and scattering the fighting hijackers and rum-runners and all that stuff which means that by hook or by crook we've just got to get clear with this sloop and all the contraband that's aboard—hand it over to some of Uncle Sam's agents along ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... talk about 'em whenever he got a chance. Of course, discipline being what it is on board ship, he couldn't talk as free with me as I s'pose he did with his mates. But once in a while he'd reel off a yarn, an' then he'd hint kind of mysterious like that he knew where some of the old Pirates' doubloons were buried an' that some day, if luck was with him, he'd be ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... said, snipping briskly with the scissors; "that string of woolen yarn that yez left there, a-burnin' away outside, might burst the whole gun, an' ivery sowl in the blockhouse would be kilt intirely,—moind ye that, now!—an they would n't be the Frenchies, nayther!" He gave her a keen warning glance ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... autobiographical account of repeated sleep walking I find in the "Buch der Kindheit," the first volume of Ludwig Ganghofer's "Lebenslauf eines Optimisten." When the boy had to go away to school his mother gave him four balls of yarn to take with him, so that he might mend his own clothing and underwear. She had hidden a gulden deep within each ball, a proof of mother love, which he later discovered. In the course of time while at the school the impulses of puberty began to stir in him and pressed upon him so strongly at ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... church dedicated to the Seven Sleepers were pointed out to us. The church or chapel was cut out of the solid rock as to the walls, with a groined roof of stone. We have all heard of the "Seven Sleepers" from our boyhood, perhaps the toughest yarn incident to that period. The Turks and Persians have their legends about them as well as the Christians. The Mohammedans preserve one set of names and the Christians another, so an inquirer may take his choice. The Moslems certainly make the most of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... I'm sorry you've got to be homing, Though I grant it's unwise to continue your roaming, But the evening's to spare ere you drop me astern, So come up to my room and indulge in a yarn. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... blue yarn was thrown out of the window by a girl who held fast to the end. She wound it over on her hand from left to right, saying the Creed backwards. When she had nearly finished, she expected the yarn would be held. She must ask "Who holds?" and the wind would sigh her sweetheart's name ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... I have made of my yarn, While Susan's arranging and changing the plates, And running all round old Robin Hood's barn, Like puzzles at school that we made on our slates; But talking of puzzles, no one that we made, While playing the fool we played as a trade, When childhood and folly joined hands at ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... repeated from time to time; if the thread stretches and reaches its due length again, the danger is removed. The wise woman must never ask money for her trouble, but take what is given." In another part of Germany, "a woman is stript naked and measured with a piece of red yarn spun on a Sunday." Sembrzycki tells us that in the Elbing district, and elsewhere in that portion of Prussia, the country people are firmly possessed by the idea that a decrease in the measure of the body is the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... English Camp, from whence working parties daily moved up the Line by rail to the vicinity of Merrythought Station. The Ten Hundred were put through the mill as never before. "Out fer a rest," a Stafford summed up, "be 'anged fer a yarn ... called the last place Brake ... breaking ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... board, I found the cook very busily binding, with a piece of yarn, an immense round of beef, which had been purchased for the crew by R——, in order that they might have a regular jollification to-morrow, it being his birthday. Along the rigging were white trowsers, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the end of the story. As soon as the boilers cooled off they worked all right on those supply pumps. May I be hanged if they had not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and cloth, and, if you will believe me, a wire of some woman's crinoline. And that French folly of a sham Empress cut short that day the victory of the Confederate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we shall have such a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... twenty-five or thirty were in position, hundreds of old ones lay on the bank to the left. Three small crosses of wood were placed near the wands; much white paper, clipped and cut into decorated designs, was lying about, as also wads of cotton, colored wools, long strings of yarn, and bits of half-beaten bark fibre. Near the front edge of the cave was a hole with large stones; here, with a little scratching, we found feathers and bits of bone of turkeys and hens, that had been sacrificed, as well as splints of pine tied together with bark string. Wooden ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... bluntness of speech, and his wealth. Short, thick-set, vigorous, with little sharp eyes set in a big red face, pitted with smallpox, he had been known as a petticoat-hunter: and he had not altogether lost his taste for it. He loved a spicy yarn and good eating. It was a sight to see him at meals, with his son Antoine sitting opposite him, with a few old friends of their kidney: the district judge, the notary, the Archdeacon of the Cathedral:—(old Jeannin loved stuffing the priest: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... peculiar gait, with his married sister occasionally sending him checks; as busy as a kitten with a ball of yarn in making everyone tolerate though loathing him. When he visited Steve's office in the first flush of Steve's success, to ask the thousandth favour from him, and spied Trudy Burrows in all her lemon-kid booted, pink-chiffon waisted, red-haired loveliness—as ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... salt water."—"And the girl," said a third voice, which Mr. Kelly knew to be the steward's—"and the girl did not jingle her bag for nothing the other day, when she walked by me: something there, or my head 's a ball of spun-yarn." ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... your diligence in cutting off legs and arms can be an excuse for cutting yours truly in this heartless manner. Not having a letter of yours to answer, I don't know how I shall scrape up material enough for a yarn. There was a big football-match on Saturday, and Jim and I were in it. You should have seen me turning somersaults, and butting my head into the fellows' stomachs. Jim and I got shoulder to shoulder once in the game. You know old Howe? Well, he was running with the ball ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... fast as we can," said the boy, somewhat frightened. He seized his oars excitedly. "Or shall I tell them a big yarn about ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... tongue. I do like that, you saying what a tongue I've got. Spikes and spun yarn! It's about nothing to yours. There, I won't keep you longer in suspense, as my old aunt used to say. After the crew had whistled the air quite full, it all condensed and turned into a breeze—on the third evening, I think it was, and I mast-headed myself again, and there was ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... interesting and valuable. James Phillips, Jr., is a prominent woolen manufacturer and operates the three following concerns: a large woolen manufactory in West Fitchburg, producing suitings, etc.; the Star Worsted Company, and the Fitchburg Worsted Company, producing yarn and worsted. Mr. Phillips has met with marked success, and his goods take high rank in the best markets. There is a woolen mill in Rockville, a village in the westerly part of Fitchburg, operated ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... fever—and the Companies on parade fifteen file strong at the outside. There's rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care for, hut then I'm so blistered with prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang myself. What's the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not serious, I hope? You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck, and the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the cause of a lot of trouble," he said, dispassionately. "In the Morayshire, I remember, we had once a passenger—an old gentleman—who was telling us a yarn about them old-time Greeks fighting for ten years about some woman. The Turks kidnapped her, or something. Anyway, they fought in Turkey; which I may well believe. Them Greeks and Turks were always fighting. My father was master's mate on board one of the three-deckers at the battle of Navarino—and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... bit," counselled Jeremy. "We daren't tell father or Tom, for they'd think it just a wild-goose chase, and we'd have to promise not to leave the cabin. You know it is an improbable sort of yarn. Besides, we'd better go careful. Do you know who I think is at the head of that crew, over in ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... the package over, we saw that some one had twisted a piece of dirty grey paper (evidently wrapping-paper from the grocer's shop) about the rope yarn which kept the roll secure. Mrs Cottier noticed it first. "Oh," she cried, "there's a letter, too. I wonder ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: "Isn't he? Well, give him my love when you come together again for another nice long yarn." ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... pins and needles, yarn and thread, that have taken the place of the wilder thorn and fibre; all kinds of small hardware; looking-glasses in lacquered frames; beads of sorts, cowries and reels of cotton; pots of odorous pomatum and shea-butter nuts; feathers of the plantain-bird ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... hear something worth hearing. Now, Miss Lucy, you tell me—oh, Lord, Eve, I say, isn't the thundering old dingy room bright now?—you spin me your own yarn, if you will be so good. Here you are, safe and sound, the Lord be praised! But I left you under the lee of that thundering island: wasn't very polite, was it? but you will excuse, won't you? Duty, you know—a seaman must leave his pleasure for his duty. Tell me, now, how did you come on? Was the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... and berries in the prime!) Coxswain I o' the Commodore's crew,— Under me the fellows that manned his fine gig, Spinning him ashore, a king in full fig. Chirrupy even when crosses rubbed me, Bridegroom Dick lieutenants dubbed me. Pleasant at a yarn, Bob o' Linkum in a song, Diligent in duty and nattily arrayed, Favored I was, wife, and fleeted right along; And though but a tot for such a tall grade, A high quartermaster at last ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... pretty good clothes most all de year 'round. In summer, shirts, and pants wuz made out of coarse cotton cloth. Sometimes de pants wuz dyed gray. Winter time us had better clothes made out of yarn and us allus had good Sunday clothes. 'Course I wuz jes' a plow boy den and now I done forgot lots 'bout how things looked. Our shoes wuz jes' common brogans, no diff'unt on Sunday, 'ceppin' de Nigger boys ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... straight to Soapy with it, and his dear friend would persuade him it was just a yarn cooked up to get him to throw down the only genuwine straight-up pal ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... old fellow proceeded with a rambling "yarn," giving more guesses than actual information and continued on in ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... from behind. She is knitting, keeping the ball of yarn under her arm. She is dressed in an Icelandic costume]. Take care! Don't drop the ball! [Drops a stitch, takes it up again—smiles.] Who knows—maybe ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... those we liked best of the twenty-four. All kinds of funny stories were told, especially about experiences in Buenos Aires, and every day there was something new. Here is a little yarn: ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... as possible," said April, who had an objection to telling lies, even little white ones. But Diana did not share her scruples, and plainly averred her intention of "spinning a yarn" to any one who ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... "Ah, you know the yarn. You been huntin' his mine since Lord knows when. This lady is lookin' for it and she wants some dope on how to ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... go right to the store and buy a ball to play with. We'd have to make a ball out of yarn and put a sock around it for a cover. Six of us would stay on one side of a house and six on the other side. Then we'd throw the ball over the roof and say 'Catch!' If you'd catch it you'd run around to the; other side and hit somebody, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Squire Murray, when he met them coming through the barn-yarn gate, "which of you caught ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various |
