"Plank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... took the place of his nephew, giving his own oar to one of the men, and made renewed exertions to gain the current, the enemy, meanwhile, pouring upon the crew an incessant volley of balls, thick as the falling hail of the storm, which soon riddled everything above the plank breastwork, and killed or wounded all the ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... straight a farmer brought a plank,— (Mysteriously inspired)— And laying it unto the ship, In silent awe retired. Then every sufferer stood amazed That pilot man before; A moment stood. Then wondering turned, And ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the crew of the brig Terrible lost all their provisions, except a quantity of candles. After these were gone, they took a plank out of the side of the vessel and sliced it, which was their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... slowly up and down the side of the door, seeming to press and feel for the position of the bolt through an inch of plank—then from the belt came a tiny saw, thin and pointed at the end, that fitted into the little handle drawn from another receptacle in the leather girdle ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... originates not a single material of thought, volition, or action. But, mechanic-like, it works by plumb and rule on all the materials found in the warehouse of memory; and manufactures, out of the same plank of pine, or bar of iron, or wedge of gold, or precious stone, some new utensil, ornament, or adornment never found in Nature. In its present form it is the offspring of the art and contrivance of man. Hence our invulnerable position against Atheism or Deism. No one could have ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The width of the hollow does not exceed six inches at the widest part; but the cavity is then filled with wet sand, which in the course of some weeks widens the excavation by its weight, and gives the boat perfect form. Finally gunwales of plank are fastened on; seats are put in—generally four;—and no boat is more durable ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... be dod blamed if I do," said Billy; "but I'll bet you two to one that you hain't hit the plank." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... hats, and one red cap being at once spied out among the female figures. Then two hats were waved and answered by cheers of welcome; and the figures were recognised, and unnecessarily numerous hands stretched out to assist the landing from the plank extended to ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in the water. August Stout had not learned much about swimming since he fell off the plank while fishing in Meadow Brook, so that out in the waves the other boys had great fun ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... of the Town for a couple of weeks back, have got into the Church at Namslau, into the Cloister; are preparing plank floors for batteries, cutting loop-holes; diligent as possible,—siege-guns now at last just coming. The Castle fires fiercely on them, makes furious sallies, steals six of our oxen,—makes insolent ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... started a plank in a gale of wind in the Atlantic and went to the bottom without warning. In an open boat for six days with only a little dry bread and no covering of any sort, the crew fought rough seas and heavy breezes. But they handled her with the sea genius of our race; made land safely at last, and never ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... The farewells are bad enough which come to us, without our going to seek them, and I would rather wait and meet you on the Continent, or in England again, than see you now, just to part from you. And you cannot guess how shaken I am, and how I cling to every plank of a little calm. Perhaps I am going on the 17th or 20th. Certainly I have made up my mind to do it, and shall do it as a bare matter of duty; and it is one of the most painful acts of duty which my whole life ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of wolf besides the sneakin' little gray varmint of the East here, what's been cleaned out of these parts fifty year ago. If Brace is right,—an' I reckon he be,—then it must sure be one of them big timber wolves we read about, what the Lord's took it into His head to plank down here in our safe old woods to make us set up an' take notice. You better watch out, Brace. If ye don't git the brute first lick, he'll ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... of the bridge he felt a plank suddenly give way with the pony. In an instant he clapped his heels to the side of the horse, and slapped ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... news for you, and am going to have less, for I a)n going into Norfolk. I have stayed till I have not one acquaintance left: the next billow washes me last off the plank. I have not cared to stir, for fear of news from Flanders; but I have convinced myself that there will be none. Our army is much superior to the Count de Saxe; besides, they have ten large towns to garrison, which will reduce their army to nothing; or they must leave ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... close-reefed sails, and although she bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship, stout of plank and sound of timber, with ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... up the search, and after his first hasty hunt, went over every foot of the plank walk of the bridge, and even ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... that ship home where he lived and, keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for it, but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth out of the sailors of that ship by compelling, them to take invigorating exercise and a bath. He called it "walking a plank." All the pupils liked it. At any rate, they never found any fault with it after trying it. When the owners were late coming for their ships, the Admiral always burned them, so that the insurance money should not be lost. At last this fine old tar was cut down ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... over a river, upon a high bridge, a cow discovered a broad loose plank in the flooring, sustained in place by a ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... To what plank of safety will not an unfortunate being cling? Will not the eyes of the condemned seek to seize any ray of hope, no ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... long and straight and sandy, but during the latter part of the ride there were plenty of hills, up many of which a plank roadway ran; so that loads which it would be impossible to take through the deep sand, might be ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... never left Madame Taverneau's house. So that when she tells me in a measured and mysterious tone that you have been absent for some time; looking at the closed door of your room, behind which I divine your presence, I am seized with an insane desire to kick down the narrow plank which separates me from you. Fits of gloomy passion possess me which illogical obstacles and unjust ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... they are hollow Cones that boil up from the infinite Deep, over which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind! Thus daily is the intermediate land crumbling in, daily the empire of the two Buchan-Bullers extending; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of Land between them; this too is washed away: and then—we have the true Hell of Waters, and Noah's ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessaries; to find out how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... he says. "You wouldn't think so if you'd been on your back seven months and four days in Middlesex Orspital. I was a coal heaver, and going along easy and natural over the plank from one barge to another, and there come the swell from some steamers and throwed up the plank and chucked me off, and I broke my knee against the barge. It's bad now. I'd ought to 'ad it hoff, an' ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... logs, an old stone chimney, with a cheerful fire of drift-wood and a clean hearth, two wrecks of beds, a table, and two chairs which some kind neighbor had loaned. The Government boats had left them rations. There was an air of thrift, even in their desolation, a plank walk was laid about the door, the floor was cleanly swept, and the twenty-five surviving hens, for an equal number were lost in the storm, clucked and craiked comfortably about the door, and there were two-and-a-half dozen fresh eggs to sell us at a higher rate than paid in town. ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary defection with a lady and in obedience to duty should not bring the ball to an end. Laughter and even giggles came from the ballroom. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Battery disappeared in a black cloud of night, just as he knew they would; but when he opened his eyes from the stretcher, they had returned again. It was a most remarkably vivid vision. They kept it up so well. Now the young Doctor and the hospital steward were pretending to carry him down a gang-plank and into an open space; and he saw quite close to him a long line of policemen, and behind them thousands of faces, some of them women's faces—women who pointed at him and then shook their heads and cried, ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... thought, if I could get a couple of those long planks across the lane as a sort of bridge. They were strong, thick planks not likely to sag in the middle if I could only get them across. Getting them across was the difficulty; for though I was strong for my age, I found the first plank very contrary. After blowing out my candles I fixed one end of the board under my heavy four-post bed, pointing the other end out through the window, slanting upwards. Straddling across it, I very gingerly edged it out, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... About a mile up from the chapel, towards the south, a mountain-stream, not the one already intimated—over which there was no bridge, crossed the road. But in lieu of a bridge, there was a long double plank laid over it, from bank to bank; and as the river was broad, and not sufficiently incarcerated within its channel, the neighbors were necessitated to throw these planks across the narrowest part they could find in the contiguity of the road. This ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... on, the Ship sailed fast, But I left not a sail, and I left not a mast; There is not a plank of the hull or the deck, And there is not a wretch to lament o'er his wreck; Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hair, 30 And he was a subject well worthy my care; A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea—[143] But I saved him to wreak ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... travelling-carriage had stopped at a village on the way from Lyons to Geneva, between which places there was then no railway; a village now nameless to me and which was not yet Nantua, in the Jura, where we were to spend the night. I was stretched at my ease on a couch formed by a plank laid from seat to seat and covered by a small mattress and other draperies; an indulgence founded on my visitation of fever, which, though not now checking our progress, assured me, in our little band, these invidious luxuries. It may have been that as my body was pampered ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... among the wreckage, directing each other with guttural disparaging cries, moving efficiently yet slowly, as if the direness of the damage had made them lose all heart. Ellen stopped to watch them, laying her neck over the top plank of the fence as a foal might do; there was nothing that did not interest her. But after that it had seemed a very ordinary green-and-grey piece of Scotland, and he thought tenderly of her love of it as one of those happy delusions that come to the very young, who see the world suffused with beauty ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... only to leave everything to me; you need not take the trouble to think at all; that is my concern. Only you must do without Esther for a week or two; but go to the Rue Taitbout, all the same.—Come, be off to bill and coo on your plank of salvation, and play your part well; slip the flaming note you wrote this morning into Clotilde's hand, and bring me back a warm response. She will recompense herself for many woes in writing. I ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... de la Democratic Socialiste," formed by Bakunin, with its headquarters at Geneva, almost as vigorously for its atheistic plank as for its denial of political methods. The first plank in the programme of ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... shaken to the core of his being. Physically, he was still stiff and sore from the plank bed. Mentally, he was a volcano. He had been marched up the Haymarket in the full sight of all London by a bounder of a policeman. He had been talked to like an erring child by a magistrate whom nothing could convince that he had ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... overhead and was able to use that staircase ... but, all the same, two months wasted to a certain extent because I have not yet succeeded. And Heaven knows how I have ransacked this shop of yours! There is not a piece of furniture that I have left unsearched, not a plank in the floor that I have not inspected. All to no purpose. Yes, there was one thing, an incidental discovery. In a secret recess in your writing-table, Pancaldi, I turned up a little account-book in which you have set down your remorse, your uneasiness, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... a dark man with a large black beard and whiskers looked over the bulwarks, and seeing Mr Ward, came along the plank which connected the ship with the quay towards us. He shook hands warmly with Mr Ward, who took him aside, while I stood patting Solon's head and admiring the appearance of the ship—the neat way in which she was rigged and painted, and the massive masts and yards to which ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... gone on outside. Grettir lay quite still and did not move. Glam saw a heap of something in the seat, came farther into the hall and seized the cloak tightly with his hand. Grettir pressed his foot against the plank and the cloak held firm. Glam tugged at it again still more violently, but it did not give way. A third time he pulled, this time with both hands and with such force that he pulled Grettir up out of the seat, and between them the cloak was torn in two. Glam looked at the bit which he held in ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... perspiration starting on his temples when he remembered Mlle. Lucienne's pride, and that honor has her only faith, the safety-plank to which she had desperately clung in the midst of the storms of her life. What if she should leave him, now that the name ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... William King, "some time when Goliath is doing his 2.40 on a plank road, don't you want to pull him up at that house on the Perryville pike where the Grays used to live, and make a call? An old fellow called Roberts has ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... said to be large and tall; it is very good timber, and is made use of in building of houses; so is the vermiatico, a tall straight-bodied tree, of which they make plank 2 foot broad; and they also make canoes with it. Comesserie and guitteba are chiefly used in building ships; these are as much esteemed here as oaks are in England, and they say either sort is harder and more durable than ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... "Marster have de plank house and all de things in it was home-made. De cook was a old cullud woman and I eat at de kitchen table and have de same what de white folks eats. Us has lots of meat, deer meat and possum and coon and sich, and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha! how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up—slowly up—toiling up the long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in watery hollows—our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft— canvas bellying; and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... writing words—words—words, the very words in which men try to tell things, and can't—and I know all about what you would do. But you shall not do it. Dear little copy maker, would a man standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any right to cry to someone on the shore—'Come out here on this plank with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead—'Don't get on this plank?' Me get off the plank—come with you to the shore—you are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the whip, the double chain for nothing, the cell for one word—even when sick in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs are happier! Nineteen years! and now the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Major decisions, such as voting, the signing of binding contracts of importance, the determination of a course of drastic medical treatment, are deemed to be matters that require mature judgment. The age for such decisions is arbitrarily set at age twenty-one. Acts such as driving a car, sawing a plank, or buying food and clothing are considered to be "skills" that do not require judgment and therefore the age of demarcation varies with the state and the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... the harbour of Tripoli; we stood in towards the town, and were near being sunk by the enemy's fire; one of their heaviest shot, which struck about three feet short of the water line, raked the copper off her bottom under water, and cut the plank half through. In the evening the wind blew strong from the N. N. E.; the squadron weighed, and kept under sail all night. The day following we anchored, Tripoli bearing S. S. W., six miles distant. At ten A.M. the French Consul hoisted a white flag at his flagstaff, under the national colours, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... ancient, swampy way Modernized by a feeble plank or two: But the morass of passion lures me not! I see a vision of two plunging feet, Discreetly shod, yet struggling in vain— Slime Creeps ankle-high, knee-high, thigh-high, Till all is swallowed save a brave silk hat Floating alone, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... noted that plank 5 in our progressive conservation platform is urging the planting of producing trees along the highways. By that we meant not only the native nut trees, all of which are beautiful and ornamental, but also fruit trees, according to the wishes of the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the honor to report, sir, that we discovered a spy aboard, and made him walk the plank," he started in to say, with all the airs of a second officer aboard a liner, giving in his account of duties performed. "He didn't want to make the jump but Jimmy helped him over the side, while I covered him and kept his hands up. We've looked ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of solitary rambles back in the pine woods, intersected by plank walks that made promenading possible. People liked to wander through there in the evenings, when the camp-lights in the hollows lent a mysterious charm, and on up to the big Knight Templar's Building, erected on the highest point of the sandy bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Every night ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... Jools, if you'll look him out for me, I'll never forget you—I'll never forget you, nohow, Jools. No, Jools, I never will believe he taken that money. Yes, I know all niggahs will steal"—he set foot upon the gang-plank—"but Colossus wouldn't steal from ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the women this seemed a plank of safety; each hopefully interrogated the countenance of her lord; even Elvira, an artist herself!—but indeed there must be something permanently mercantile in the female nature. The two men exchanged a glance; it was tragic; not otherwise might two philosophers salute, as at the end of a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time he had kept himself as much aloof as possible from the crew, anxiously and fearfully expectant of some sudden catastrophe, either that his brains would be blown out without affording him an opportunity to expostulate, or that he would be called upon to walk the plank. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... fascinated or on the point of fainting, a process more obvious in children than in adults, there is an inchoate movement which the paralysis of the will fails to check. When I was a lad, I was once running over a plank across the weir of a river, it never entering my head that I ran any risk of falling; suddenly this idea came into play like a force obliquely compounded with the straight course of thought which had up to that moment been guiding my footsteps. I felt as if an invisible arm had ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... sail, and heaving out anchor. As the Ariel began to move through the water and heeled to the filling of her canvas by the brisk trade-wind, the Commissioner and Captain Kellar shook last farewells and scrambled down the gang-plank to their waiting whaleboats. At the last moment Captain Kellar had caught Michael up, tucked him under an arm, and with him dropped into ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... for soup, for coffee. They set tables on the side-walks—wagon-loads of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store of eating and drink at an improvis'd table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenished from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent, white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time. Amid ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... won't do: it's no good joke, I promise you. Ma chere amie, mon coeur," cried mademoiselle to Lady Augusta—"viens— come, let us go—Don't touch that," pursued she, roughly, to black Tom, who was going to draw away the plank that led to the shore. "I will go home dis minute, and speak to Miladi S——. Viens! viens, ma chere amie!"—and she darted out of the boat, whilst Dashwood followed, in vain attempting to stop her. She prudently, however, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... all my strength I succeeded in getting across. I did not know how I could get back without swimming and I decided not to try that. I was very exhausted and rested and planned a long time. Finally I found a piece of plank and getting on that I went across all right. This experience was sufficient for me, and after that I never went into water too ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... over before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud left in the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were bits of plank scattered—which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to speak, of my canoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking advantage of two of the trees being together, I rigged up a kind of storm-shelter with these vestiges. And that day ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... rendering those parts nearly a thicket. Within one hundred yards of the bank of the river, and there alone, were seen the only timber trees we had met with in the country; if huge unshapen eucalypti, which would not afford a straight plank ten feet ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... the sun abundantly, and it was protected from the full sweep of any storm. It had but two rooms, the floor was of sanded earth, but it had windows on three sides, east, west, and south, and the door looked south. Its furniture was a plank bed, a few shelves, a bench, two chairs, some utensils, a fireplace of stone, a picture of the Virgin and Child, and of a cardinal of the Church of Rome with a red hat—for the chair-maker had been a Roman Catholic, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is 6 feet by 8 feet, to allow for bunks on each side. Frames of 6 by 6 timber spaced 2 feet 6 inches apart support the sides and roof. Roof planking should be 2 inches thick, and the sides should be covered with 1-1/2 inch plank or corrugated iron. Two shovels and two picks for emergencies should always be kept in each dugout. The construction of the chamber should be that of a very strong box, so that it will stand strain, if necessary, from within as ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... private concern, which will give us that superior service which is always afforded by private capital. Westville is upon the eve of a city election, and we most emphatically urge upon both parties that they make the chief plank of their platforms the immediate sale of our utterly discredited ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... The white that on their feet they wore Look'd back to noble blood of yore,— Once quit the lowly meadows, sated, And sought the hills, as it would seem: In search of luck, by luck they met Each other at a mountain stream. As bridge a narrow plank was set, On which, if truth must be confest, Two weasels scarce could go abreast. And then the torrent, foaming white, As down it tumbled from the height, Might well those Amazons affright. But maugre such a fearful ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... let it go. Then Gordon was in the little booth. It seemed to be in order. There were the books of registration, with a checker for Wayne, one for Nolan, and a third, supposedly neutral, behind the plank that served as a desk. The Nolan man ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... his head inside the door over the butler's shoulder. I wanted to get the fellow out, but my uncle said, 'Oh! let him in by all means.—Well, friend, what do you want to say to me about my coffin?' 'Only, sir, that I'll saw up the oak tree that your honor was speaking of into seven-foot plank.' 'That would be wasteful,' answered my uncle; 'I never was more than six feet and an inch in my vamps, the best day ever I saw.' 'But your honor will stretch after death,' said the carpenter. 'Not eleven inches, I am sure, you blockhead! But I'll stretch, no doubt—perhaps a couple of inches ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... mark the flag flying at the mast-head? He brought it on board on purpose, so that they might not mistake our country (the packets, I mean), and give us the go-by as that Spanish vessel did! But they do say that was a pirate; and that, instead of sitting on a plank, we should have been walking a plank by this time, had they rescued us. I'm rather glad they didn't, though, after all—things couldn't be much worse than they are, could they, now?—There, I came very near falling, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of the car—of the floor and ceiling and walls. But there was not a loose plank nor a crack—the car was new. And that suggested another idea—that he might suffocate before he starved. He was beginning to ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... coming wearily up the teetering gang-plank, feeling as if I couldn't keep up another minute, Dr. Kendall stepped upon its end, barring my passage, bent his bushy white brows upon me from his six feet of height, and ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... the children a seesaw from a long plank put over a wooden sawhorse. When Bunny sat on one end of the plank, and Sue on the other, they went first up and then down, "teeter-tauter, bread and water," as they sang when ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... ne'er a wind to bring us back to our true course. Tomorrow by the end of the day we shall come to a mountain of black stone, highs the Magnet Mountain;[FN257] for thither the currents carry us willy-nilly. As soon as we are under its lea, the ship's sides will open and every nail in plank will fly out and cleave fast to the mountain; for that Almighty Allah hath gifted the loadstone with a mysterious virtue and a love for iron, by reason whereof all which is iron travelleth towards it; and on this mountain is much iron, how ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... a midshipman in the navy, and made my first voyage under the gallant Decatur. I spent four years at sea with him, and during that time I had those terrible fights with the Algerines, of which I have before spoken. In the last battle, I was captured, and compelled to walk the plank." ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... continued naturally to lean upon the King of Spain, who was devoted to her. In order that this plank of safety should not escape her grasp, she permitted only those she liked to have access to him; she regulated all his proceedings; she kept him from all private audience; she seemed jealous of it, whilst she was only so as regarded her ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... sort of rifle practice called "driving the nail," by which this match was to be decided, was, and we believe still is, common among the hunters of the far west. It consisted in this: an ordinary large-headed nail was driven a short way into a plank or a tree, and the hunters, standing at a distance of fifty yards or so, fired at it until they succeeded in driving it home. On the present occasion the major resolved to test their shooting by making the distance ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... narrow, and some of the largest are 60 or 70 feet long. These consist of several pieces; the bottom is round and made of large logs hollow'd out to the thickness of about 3 Inches, and may consist of 3 or 4 pieces; the sides are of Plank of nearly the same thickness, and are built nearly perpendicular, rounding in a little towards the Gunwale. The pieces on which they are built are well fitted, and fastned or sewed together with strong platting something in the same manner as old China, Wooden ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... English; indeed, he understands several languages, and, if I flounder out of my depth in foreign waters, one stroke will bring me safe on to the British rock of intelligibility again; or, if I obstinately persist in floundering, and am searching for the word as for a plank, he will jump in and rescue me. Under these circumstances, I am perfectly safe in talking French to him "Mais je ne vous attendais ce matin"—I've got an idea that this is something uncommonly grammatical—"a cause de votre lettre que je viens de recevoir"—this, I'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... and fastened, and the crew of natives rushed off and met their friends, but George and Harry were not permitted to walk down the gang plank. The joy at seeing them again was so intense that the people took them on their shoulders, and the Professor had a hard time to get near enough to grasp them and bid ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... cynically. "To sit upon a hard plank and to have one's digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is unqualified rapture. If only there were cabins one ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... engine as I leaped into the car. My "Let her go!" wasn't needed to make him throw in his clutch, and give me a flying start straight ahead down the broad plank way of the Embarcadero. Looking back as we hit the belt-line tracks, I saw a small car with two men in it, shoot out from one of the wide doorways of the plant; but as we rounded the cliff-like side of Telegraph Hill, my view of them was cut off. Things had come for me thick and fast. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Three months later Elizabeth Weld went to France to dance. They worked hard at their jobs, these two. Perhaps Elizabeth's task was the more trying. She danced indefatigably, tirelessly, magnificently. Miles, and miles, and miles of dancing. She danced on rough plank floors with cracks an inch wide between the boards. She danced in hospitals, chateaux, canteens, huts; at Bordeaux, Verdun, Tours, Paris. Five girls, often, to five hundred boys. Every two weeks she danced out a pair of shoes. Her feet, when she went to bed at night, were ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... in running it out, he had jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty "to be eased out handsomely, as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end out of one of her bolts," the captain of the gun finding, after a stout pull, that the man was like to come "home in his hand without the leg," was forced "to break him short off," as he phrased it, to get him out of the way, and let the carriage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... built on the same plan. There is one guest-room, a bare carpetless apartment, with a rough wooden bench, a table, and two straight-backed wooden chairs, and the room is heated to suffocation by a huge stove, which occupies a corner of the room. The flimsy plank partition is unpapered, but generally plastered with the cheap, crudely coloured prints sold by pedlars. Some of these depicted events connected with our recent war in South Africa, and it is needless to add that the English troops ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns nothing more than a few miserable boat-ribs and two or three bundles of laths; but below in the port his teeming wood-yard supplies all the cooperage trade of Anjou. He knows to a plank how many casks are needed if the vintage is good. A hot season makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single morning puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six. In this country, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... laid and cemented, it should be covered and allowed to stand 24 hours to give the cement time to harden. The dirt should then be thrown in and settled by means of a tamper or by flooding with water. The planks should not be taken out until the trench is well filled. To pull the plank, a chain or shoe and lever will have to be used. Where the tunnels are, dirt will have to be rammed in with a long rammer, care being taken not to disturb the pipe. If the refill is not well rammed and tamped, the trench will settle and cause ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... men are at the opposite ends of a plank that is balanced, and if they are of equal weight, and if one of them wants to make a leap into the air, then his leap will be made down from his end of the plank and the man will never go up again but ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... forlorn and friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to the police station near by, and asked for shelter. It was the first time he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link with better days, and thought with a hard sob of home. In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the street, was empty, and under repair—that a long ladder was left by the workmen, leading from the pavement to the top of the house—and that, on returning to their work, on the morning of the 27th, the men found the plank which they had tied to the ladder, to prevent anyone from using it in their absence, removed, and lying on the ground. As to the possibility of ascending by this ladder, passing over the roofs of the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... was loose in the corner, and plank by plank the two savants raised it and leaned it against the wall. Below there was a square aperture and a stair of old stone steps which led away down into the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... because of the tender affection of her husband; the tobacconist's wife because she was loved by Herr Klingemann and the captain; her sister-in-law, because she was already old; Elly, because she was still young; she envied the servant, who was sitting on a plank over there with a soldier, and whom she heard laughing. She could not endure being at home any longer; She took up her straw hat and sunshade and hurried into the street. There she felt somewhat better. ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... comfortable room, with strings of red peppers hanging from the ceiling, and boards of sliced apples drying on upturned flour barrels near the door. The bright homespun carpet left a strip of bare plank by the stove, and on this stood two hampers of black walnuts ready for storing. A few coloured prints, culled from garden magazines, were tacked on the wall, and these, without exception, represented blossoms of ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... got the James hove down on the other side to the keel, and on this side we found four very dangerous places, where the main plank was eaten quite through by the worms. Into each of these we graved a piece of plank, and in one of them we drove a trunnel where none had been before. We also nailed a piece of lead on the end of the bolt, which had been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... naked breast and his unprotected arms must suffer cold at night, yet he seemed wonderfully happy. The Jews and Greeks gave him scornful glances, which he returned with quizzical, provoking smiles. At last he threw himself down on a plank from which the generous sun was rapidly drying the rain, and, coiling up as a dog might have done, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... "but to fancy I'm going to mount him, either in the saddle or on the croup, is to ask pears of the elm tree. A good joke indeed! I can hardly keep my seat upon Dapple, and on a pack-saddle softer than silk itself, and here they'd have me hold on upon haunches of plank without pad or cushion of any sort! Gad, I have no notion of bruising myself to get rid of anyone's beard; let each one shave himself as best he can; I'm not going to accompany my master on any such long journey; besides, I can't give any help to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... serving time. At serving time, make a meringue from the whites of six eggs beaten to a froth; add six tablespoonfuls of sifted powdered sugar and beat until fine and dry. Turn the ice cream from the mold, place it on a serving platter, and stand the platter on a steak board or an ordinary thick plank. Cover the mold with the meringue pressed through a star tube in a pastry bag, or spread it all over the ice cream as you would ice a cake. Decorate the top quickly, and dust it thickly with powdered sugar; stand it under the gas burners in a gas broiler or on the grate in a hot ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer
... from the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he heard its crowds of noises as if the house had ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... fellow let blood falls down in a swoon. Another (saith [1619]Cardan out of Aristotle), fell down dead (which is familiar to women at any ghastly sight), seeing but a man hanged. A Jew in France (saith [1620]Lodovicus Vives), came by chance over a dangerous passage or plank, that lay over a brook in the dark, without harm, the next day perceiving what danger he was in, fell down dead. Many will not believe such stories to be true, but laugh commonly, and deride when they hear of them; but let these men consider with themselves, as [1621]Peter ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... in his relation to Lee. Here we may leave him with the reminder that he was the Democratic candidate for President in '64, that he was still a mortal danger to the Union, even though he had rejected the actual wording of his party's peace plank. ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... the genie were busy constructing a temporary arch between two spans, and just as soon as a plank was laid a regiment from Cherbourg (almost all reservists) filed over one by one. The population gave them an ovation, and it was a curious sight to see these care-worn, haggard-faced people simply going mad with joy, while around them ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... the honour of keeping an anchor-watch in company with a grum old Swede, as we lay in the Hudson. The wind was light, and the ship had a good berth, so my associate chose a soft plank, told me to give him a call should anything happen, and lay down to sleep away his two hours in comfort. Not so with me. I strutted the deck with as much importance as if the weight of the State lay ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... great resort of Honolulu. There is the finest of bathing the year round; and what is more interesting, the native surf swimmers. With a piece of plank just large enough to support his weight in the water, the bather swims out to the reef in still water. Then he, or she—for young girls are most expert swimmers—makes for open water, where the combers are forming. Then, lying flat, bather and plank ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... for the most part, was built of wood, and some of the smaller and older houses of logs, with ugly square fronts that hid the roof. A high, plank sidewalk ran down the main street, so that foot passengers might avoid the mud, but the ruts and holes were now hidden by beaten snow. At one end stood a big smelter, which filled the place with acrid ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... Miss Abby, her sarcasm entirely unveiled. "Alvord Hendricks would walk the plank if you invited ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... be a most severe blow to the smugglers, as they were enabled to remove their cargoes into them in a few minutes, and hitherto no person besides themselves could form any idea of the manner in which their store-holes were built. They are generally 4 feet deep, of a square form and built of a 2-inch plank, with the scuttle in the top, into which a trough filled with shingle is fitted instead of a cover to prevent their being found out by pricking; and I understand they were built above two years ago. I have ordered them ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... babies are children of my heart), and I have seen it in anger, like a brutal giant. I wish that I had not seen its latter mood, for, when it caught up the little boat that had been torn from the moorings, and hurled her again and again against the rocks until there was not a plank of her left unbroken—while the wind shrieked its horrid glee—my growing love for it was turned to fear. No, I can never care for the ocean as I do for my mountains. I cannot forget that it was the waters which stole my dearest treasures ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... opposite side, instead of going quietly over and helping the damosels across. And then, if he does attempt the polite, how awkwardly the monster makes the attempt! We come to a narrow ditch with a plank across it—He goes only half way, and standing in the middle of the plank, stretches out his hand and pulls the unsuspecting maiden so forcibly, that before he has time to get out of the way, the impetus his own tug has produced, precipitates them both among the hemlock and nettles, which, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... plank was supported at either end by a roughly constructed saw-buck. It was very low, and for this reason two fairly square boulders of comfortable proportions were sufficiently high to serve ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... room, and the chronicler of the party describes them all as waking at seven o'clock, and telling each other their dreams. You have rough sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this holiday excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen sprawling over a plank to a boat at Gravesend; the whole company are represented in one design, in a fisherman's room, where they had all passed the night. One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself; another is being shaved by the fisherman; a third, with a handkerchief over his bald pate, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be done, I marched up the broad plank he pointed out, somewhat nervously as there was nothing to hold on to, and I should have fallen into the deep water of the dock had my foot slipped, the vessel being a little way out from the wall of the wharf; and, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... satisfactory, for the man answered "Good!" and after a brief delay a wicket in the gate was opened, the portcullis creaked upward, and a plank was thrust across the ditch. The horseman waited until the preparations were complete; then he slid to the ground, threw his rein to the servant, and boldly walked across. In an instant he left behind him ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the landing, whistled shrilly, snorted defiantly, buried her nose in the muddy bank in front of the store, and shoved out a plank. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... horse made after the following sketch will support the table top and seats. The seat may be a plank about twelve inches wide and one ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... which were forty in number or thereabouts, even to the death; and further said, if their fortune was so to lose their lives, he knew that the king his master had more men alive to serve, with many other words of French bravery. Upon this answer, I caused the gunners to bring up their artillery to plank, and then shot off immediately ten or twelve times. But yet for all this they would not yield. At length, when the cannon had made an indifferent breach, the Frenchmen made signs to parley, and would gladly have rendered; but I again, weighing ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... general planks, and seemed intended as part of a kind of framework to the stone. This board creaked under my weight; and when I looked more closely at it, I discovered a couple of sunk hinges let deep into the plank adjoining, and covered over with dust and rust. With my sailor's knife I cleared away at the edges, and after several trials, one of which broke my blade, I managed to raise it and swing it back ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... harvest was in progress in the Galilean fashion by means of the moraj, (in Hebrew the morag, Isa. xli. 15 and 2 Sam. xxiv. 22,) which is a stout board of wood, with iron teeth or flints on the under surface. The plank turns upward in front, and the man or boy stands upon it in exactly the attitude of a Grecian charioteer: one foot advanced; the head and chest well thrown back; the reins in his left hand, and with a long thonged whip, he drives the horses that are attached ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... determination did not prove the coldness of his charity, but merely the strength of his fears. He was himself an object more of compassion than of anger; and he acted like the man whose fear of death prompts him to push his companion from the plank which saved him from drowning, but which is unable to sustain both. Finding him invincible to my entreaties, I thought upon the expedient which he suggested of seeking the protection of her uncle. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... hawser, whose harsh thrilling must have filled their ears like an organ-note as it swung them to and fro,—clinging to life,—clinging to each other more than to life. The wreck scarcely heaved with the stoutest blow of the tremendous surge; here and there, only, a plank shivered off and was bowled on and thrown high upon the beach beside fragments of beams broken and bruised to a powder; it seemed to be as firmly planted there as the breaker itself. Great feathers of foam flew across it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... sits crouched over her knees on a stile close to a river. A MAN with a silver badge stands beside her, clutching the worn top plank. THE GIRL'S level brows are drawn together; her eyes see her memories. THE MAN's eyes see THE GIRL; he has a dark, twisted face. The bright sun shines; the quiet river flows; the Cuckoo is calling; the mayflower is in bloom along the hedge that ends ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that he stood on his head upon a wooden plank, as once he had seen a juggler do, which turned round one way while he turned round the other, till at length some one shouted at him, and he tumbled off the board and hurt himself. Then he awoke to hear a voice shouting surely enough—the voice of Matthew, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... temporary town of corrugated iron shanties, crude log-and-brush and rough-plank sheds, white canvas tents, ran the raw, heaped earth of the embankment. About it swarmed a thousand swarthy laborers, chattering in a tongue less easy to his ears than the harsh scoldings of the squirrels he had seen while on his way. Back behind them ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... ceremonies, full of grace and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... themselves as he looks, almost as little disturbed as he by the undiscovered. Without courage, conscience is a sorry guest; and if all goes well with the pirate captain, conscience will be made to walk the plank for being of no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... once more in London, he could not make up his mind whether he should contribute his greatly scorned fortune to the Committee of the Sunday School Union, or plank his last dollar on a rank outsider for a place in the Derby. From a feeling of delicacy, he adopted the latter course, and was indescribably shocked to pull off his fancy at Epsom. Thinking that the Committee of the same useful body would refuse to receive money obtained under ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... and board were at this time to be had on the beach, we agreed among us that our convenience would be the better served by taking up our temporary quarters near the scene of our labors. Now, the place where we were offered the necessary accommodation consisted of an ancient plank-built tenement, which stood behind a sand-ridge that a far younger Atlantic than ours had piled up, and then, retreating, abandoned. In winter this rude domicile was bare and tenantless; but in the summer months ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore, And the fenders grind and heave, And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, And the fall-rope whines through the sheave; It 's 'Gang-plank up and in,' dear lass, It 's 'Hawsers warp her through!' And it 's 'All clear aft' on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, We're backing down on the Long Trail—the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... measurements here given are the result of careful experiments and some failures. Fig. 1 is an elevation, Fig. 2 a ground-plan of the frame, and Fig. 3 a section of a runner. Get a spruce plank, A, 12 feet long, 6 inches wide, 2 inches thick. This is the backbone of the structure. Cut near one end of it a hole two inches square to receive the foot of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... once, when we had got away down about off Anegada, th' mutiny broke in full force. The men riz up, an' overpowered th' officers—th' captain was made a prisoner in his cabin, an' I was given my choice of joinin' th' mutineers or walkin' th' plank." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... not hold so many; that every one should take what he could get, and swim for it. There was no Time now for long Deliberation. One gets an Oar, another a Pole, another a Gutter, another a Bucket, another a Plank, and every one relying upon their Security, they ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... three times that loose plank has caught me," he muttered, "and the old motto says 'three times and out.' So I'll just yank that plank up and settle it down afresh. A few of those big spikes you brought along ought ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... running, and supplying the men with bows and arrows. In a few minutes, they let fly a shower of arrows amongst the thick of us. Luckily we had not a man wounded; but an arrow fell between the Captain and Third Lieutenant, and went through the boats thwart, and stuck in it. It was an oak-plank inch thick. We immediately discharged a volley of muskets at them, which put them to flight. There were, however, none of them killed. We now abandoned all hopes of refreshment here. This island lies ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... existence. As I have pointed out, when it is too dark to see the currents, the Congo captains never attempt to travel. So each night at sunset Captain Jensen ran into the bank, and as soon as the plank was out all the black passengers and the crew passed down it and spent the night on shore. In five minutes the women would have the fires lighted and the men would be cutting grass for bedding and running up little ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... seems, was in New York for a year before he came here; that's why steps were taken to extradite him. Then he evidently got suspicious and came South. Anyhow, the plank is all greased, and if we land him in that city he'll go back ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... into a combination of saloon and grand stand. Under the shade of an immense live-oak just west of the barn, the big waiter at the Miners' Home was running an opposition saloon to the one inside, with a plank on two kegs for a bar. The center of the barn was already filled with dark-skinned Senoritas and tall, gawky miners dancing to the music of a ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... enemy crossed the Rapidan at Ely's and Germania fords. Two corps of this army moved to oppose him—Ewell by the old turnpike, and Hill by the plank-road. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... was considerably more complicated, due partly to the greater amount of decorative ironwork and partly to the design of the wooden parts which, with their carefully worked mortises, required a craftsman's skill. The cheek of the Spanish carriage was a single great plank. English and American construction called for a built-up cheek of several planks, cleverly jogged or mortised together to prevent starting ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... steps of princes, was leading him to a catastrophe. The basket was large and growing heavy; but the indefatigable Pollyooly pushed deeper into the marsh. They had crossed several dykes safely; then they came to a plank over a small dyke, nearly dried up. Pollyooly took every possible care to get the expedition across safely. She carried the Lump across and then the basket of mushrooms. Then she turned to watch the passage of the prince. The plank was not ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... of the Lord hath sent me down to keep you company down here. I never would 'a done it, captain, hard as you was on me, if only I had knowed how dark and cold and shivery it would be down here. I cut the plank out; I'll not lie; no lies is any good down here, with the fingers of the deep things pointing to me, and the black devil's wings coming over me—but a score of years agone it were, and never no one dreamed of it—oh, pull away, pull! for God's sake, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... rabbits and fowls had been loaded into the truck, placed a gangplank for the cows to walk down, and opened the door of the car. But nothing happened; the cows obstinately refused to step down the plank. ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... A plank sprung in the ship. The water rushed in. They stopped it as well as they could, and used the pumps vigorously. All sail was set, and the flag of distress was hoisted. They were about a Danish mile off. Fishing-boats were to be seen, but ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... a rude plank bench against the wall farthest from the door. Indeed, fatigue and the numbness of her limbs rendered her ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... with two men in a boat to board us. Well, we yawed once or twice, and motioned to him to keep off for fear he should get hurt; but he came right on afore the wheel, and I hope I may be shot if the paddle didn't strike the bow of the boat with that force, it knocked up the starn like a plank tilt, when one of the boys playin' on it is heavier than t'other; and chucked him right atop of the wheel-house. You never seed a feller in such a dunderment in your life. He had picked up a little English from ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... edges. From his explorations of the hills and glens around his village home, he often returned too exhausted either to eat or sleep. From his ventures upon the ocean he was more than once brought home on a plank, apparently drowned. 'The wind and the sea were his playmates,' we are told; 'he was as much at home in the water as on the land; in fishing, sailing, climbing over the rocks, and wandering among the silent hills, he spent a free, careless, happy boyhood.' Every day had its ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Come along, nevey; I'll shew you where they all are. I could walk a plank on any deck with any man in the service, I could. Come ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... they cannot manage more on the return journey, when, to lighten the boat as much as possible, they even take off the top planks or bulwarks and leave them behind at Uleborg, putting new bulwarks a foot broad made of half-inch plank before the next ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... steamship "General Admiral," was built in part from the timber of the lake border. A great trade is growing up, based on the products of the forest. Whitewood (Diriodendron tulipifera), oak staves, black and white walnut plank, and other indigenous timber, are shipped, not only to the Atlantic cities, but to foreign ports. The lumber yards of Albany, New York, Philadelphia, as well as those of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland and Buffalo, receive large ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... quality of the light, Chris judged the time to be well along in the afternoon. He was debating with himself whether or not to change his shape and venture up to find something to eat, when on one of the lower treads of the plank ladder he caught sight of a plate ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... journey let us, therefore, bridge the distance with a few intermediate facts, from 1609, relating to the discovery of the river, its early settlement, its old reaches and other points essential to the fullest enjoyment of our trip, which in sailor-parlance might be styled "a gang-plank of history," reaching as it does from the old-time yacht to the modern steamer, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... present I shall carry on till he comes up within range: and then, to keep the Company's canvas from being shot to rags, I shall shorten sail; and to save ship and cargo and all our lives, I shall fight while a plank of her swims. Better to be killed in hot blood than walk the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... board that chanced to be lying on the ground just over the wall, he flew to where Polly was standing, placed his tiny plank over the puddle, and felt the greatest pride when he saw her walk across, her dainty shoes without a ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... consciousness that these deities were not brought to them from abroad, but developed gradually among themselves out of nameless powers of nature into humanized and personal deities. In the old days it was hardly more than a fetich worship. Here was worshipped as a plank at Samos; Athene, as a beam at Lindus; the Pallas of Attica, as a stake; Jupiter, in one place, as a ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... their men around the deck and on each side of this plank," he instructed the captain. "Then order a few longshoremen to go aboard and hand the bundles from one to another and slide them down the plank to the men on the pier who will take them over to the sorters. ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... hundred and fifty feet to an old platform that had been erected there. I climbed upon this, and found it a very precarious place to sit. Come to think about it, there is something very remarkable about the places a fisherman will pick out to sit down on. This place was a two-by-four plank full of nails, and I cheerfully availed myself of it and, casting my bait out as far as I could, I calmly sat down to wait for a bonefish. It has become a settled conviction in my mind that you have ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... being the youngest, had the pleasure of standing at the bow, and getting wet through. We went off well, though the seas were high. Some of them lifted us up, and, sliding from under us, seemed to let us drop through the air like a flat plank upon the body of the water. In a few minutes we were in the low, regular swell, and pulled for a light, which, as we neared it, we found had been run up ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "You're a sound plank of a boy," he said: "shake my hand, young 'un, shake it hearty; go on, don't you think I mind; shake it right so, you beauty ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton |
