"Astride" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... replied Frank accommodatingly, and got astride a moving timber and set at work. Only a few of the large boys were about the spot. Frank noticed that Gill Mace, the nephew of the village ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... party went down the street to a corner across from the International Hotel. A saloon was there with a barrel lying in front, used, perhaps for a sort of sign. Artemus climbed astride the barrel, and somebody brought a beer-glass and put it in his hand. Virginia City looks out over the Eastward Desert. Morning was just breaking upon the distant range-the scene as beautiful as when the sunrise beams across the plain of Memnon. The city was not yet awake. The only ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the night that indefatigable sea dog sat astride the bowsprit with the crude sound magnifier over his ear, while I, alert and watchful, gripped the wheel as though I were driving a speed boat. In the beginning he had sent a few signals, and we jockied this way and that, but after perhaps an hour we settled down to another straight ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... whence cometh that cheery shout? 'Tis the Yule-log troop,—a merry rout! The gray old ash that so bravely stood, The pride of the Past, in Thorney wood,[5] They have levelled for honour of welcome Yule; And kirtled Jack is placed astride: On the log to the grunsel[6] he ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... confidence with which she swung herself into the saddle and the instant mastery she exercised over her restless mount. No timidity there, no need of assistance; no absurd, hampering skirts and artificial posture, either, but a seat astride as befits anyone who chooses to honor the king ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... printed matter upon the subject as her eye could not escape had taught her that much, but she refused to be dismayed. Moreover, she was aware that it would probably be necessary for her to ride astride, as all women seemed to ride nowadays: yet ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the ship three times, singing some kind of song, and disappeared. The wind becoming favourable, the crew got the anchor up, on which, when catheaded, they found part of the chimney and the fire-tongs astride ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... forward; "he's an old un, dead lame." "Don't leave go, Rube," I said. "He'll do for our turn." He was a miserable old beast, but I felt that he would do as well as the best horse in the world for us. Rube saw my meaning, and in a minute we were both astride on his back. He tottered, and I thought he'd have gone down on his head. Kicking weren't of no good; so I out with my knife and gave him a prod, and off we went. It weren't far, some two hundred yards or so, but it was the way I wanted him, right across the line we were going. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... works had partly sawed through a long beam of wood, and wedged it open, and was gone away, leaving the wedge fixed. Shortly afterwards a large herd of monkeys came frolicking that way, and one of their number, directed doubtless by the Angel of death, got astride the beam, and grasped the wedge, with his tail and lower parts dangling down between the pieces of the wood. Not content with this, in the mischief natural to monkeys, he began to tug at the wedge; till at last it yielded to ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... morning, whilst waiting for breakfast, sitting out on the grass in front of the house, we heard a stampede coming along the road from the direction of the Fort, and presently there hove in sight Lapworth astride a hired nag, coming ahead at a gallop, one hand grasping the mane and the other the crupper, while stirrups and reins were flying in the wind. In his rear were Bob Stavelly, third mate, and the boatswain, astride another animal, Bob ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... remember that picture of the Conquerors, Caesar and Alexander, Attila and Napoleon, Charlemagne and Cambyses, astride their horses or in chariots in the centre of the picture, dark, gloomy, menacing? On each side of them, lining a vast plain that fades in the distance, lie the dead—stiff, cold, grey, reproachful;—yet ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... me, out of the mists of childhood, of Theobald sitting astride the little shaggy pony. I had quite forgotten it, but now I remembered even the pony's name, which was Orson. And there was a distracted person in a velvet coat, who must have been the artist; and he implored Theobald to keep still, for he would touch up Orson and set him prancing. It was ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... mountain trail, dividing the jungle as a river might, crept a slow procession. A lumbering carabao swayed lazily forward, and on each side walked four stalwart Moros, ever heedful of the dignified figure astride the beast. Dato Kali Pandapatan rode in silence. Occasionally he gazed down into the deep valleys or off in the direction of Ganassi Peak, but the sorrowful, patient expression never left ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... troop of horses, with two bare-legged, wild-looking youngsters astride each a barebacked steed, and holding the others with leading-reins. These horses, as well as those drawing the wagons, were ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... yet seen the boys. The plan brought Dicky, 'shanghai' in hand, under the tree where Hardy sat. The boy was apparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it was not till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man's salutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered some commonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and a tame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies in Wilson's paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... day. As soon as one's eyes got a little accustomed to the gloom the outline of the stalls became first visible. Then a human figure seated on the top of an old refrigerator, with a pistol in one hand, pointed at a corner opposite, came into view. Then another man, seated astride the division between the stalls, could be seen. And last, but not least, I saw the dark mass on the floor in the far corner, where the dead horse lay mangled and the monster of a lion sprawled across his carcass, with great paws ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... for a time and then gave himself another hoist and was able to get astride the bowsprit. He judged that they must be outside the headland of Saturday Cove, because the breeze was stronger and the sea gurgled and showed white threads of foam against the blunt bows. His struggles had consumed ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Master Vickars," one of them, Roger Browne by name, said, "that I had best go up first. I served for some years at sea, and am used to climbing about in dizzy places. It is no easy matter to get from this window sill astride the roof above us, and moreover I am more like to heave the grapnel so that it will hook firmly on to the ridge ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... proceeding, at the post and down by the lake, the judge sat astride his mule. Addressing the prisoner once more from his elevated ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... him. Despair must have leant him extra strength when making that last awful leap, for, though the distance was fully twenty feet, he actually reached and succeeded in grasping the end of the blade. To swing himself up astride upon it was the work of a moment; and then he paused to rest and recover from this last shock to his nervous system. Not for long, however; he knew that his companions must be nearly exhausted, and that their lives now probably depended solely on ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to it, but, by some accident, failed to continue the quest to the refuge of the wounded man. He bled profusely, but the haemorrhage was finally arrested by some rude bandaging, and at night he was helped astride a donkey, and conveyed across the frontier into France. He told me he had suffered excruciating torments at every jolt of the jog-trotting animal on that mountain journey. Had the bullet struck him an inch ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... delight, as the mahout took hold of the rifle and examined it curiously, uttering another order to his great charge, Peter Pegg felt the great coiling trunk wrap round his waist, swing him up in the air, and drop him astride of the huge beast's neck. "Oh, but, I say, this 'ere won't do," cried Peter; "I am wrong ways on:" and scrambling up from sitting facing the howdah, he gradually reseated himself correctly, nestling his legs beneath the great half-raised ears. "My word! ain't it nice and warm?" cried ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... come down." He dressed, went out, and rejoining his friend who was smoking astride an iron chair, inquired: "What are you doing ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... against her warm breast, and turned adoring eyes toward the Cardinal. If he sang from the dogwood, she faced that way. If he rocked on the wild grape-vine, she turned in her nest. If he went to the corn field for grubs, she stood astride her eggs and peered down, watching his every movement with unconcealed anxiety. The Cardinal forgot to be vain of his beauty; she delighted in it every hour of the day. Shy and timid beyond belief she had been during her courtship; but she made reparation by being an incomparably ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... removed a steam is prepared. Two logs are laid horizontally, some stones put in between them, then some fire, on top leaves of eucalyptus, and water is then sprinkled over them. The patient stands astride these logs, an opossum rug all over her, until she is well steamed. After this she is able to walk about as if nothing unusual had happened. Every night for about a month she has to lie on a steam bed made of damped eucalyptus leaves. She is not allowed to return to the general camp ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... nests, BEING PLACED ON RAFTS of buoyant material, float about in the bayous, and are propelled and guided at the will of the sitting bird by the use of her long legs and feet as oars. The position of the bird upon the nest is also ludicrously depicted. It is described as sitting astride the nest, with the toes touching the ground; and to add still more comicality to the picture, it is asserted that the limbs are often thrust out horizontally behind the bird. The results of close observations ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... at a little distance, watching her pull off her gloves with a queer comic twitch of his elastic mouth. "Well, I guess it's only when you want to be," he said, grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords, and sitting down astride of it, his light grey trousers stretching too tightly over his plump thighs. Undine was perfectly aware that he was a vulgar over-dressed man, with a red crease of fat above his collar and an impudent swaggering eye; yet ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... of the first horse and tossed it to Uncle John, who leaped quickly to the saddle, and waited a moment for Hal. The lad was astride a second horse a moment later and whirling the animals quickly, they urged them forward in the ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... consideration, and being, as he was, exceedingly active and energetic by nature, if one passed over the various forms of gainful industry, uttered a loud whoop and threw himself on the overseer. There was a brief struggle and Hicks went down with the Earl of Lambeth astride of him; then from his boot leg that knightly soul flashed a horn-handled tickler of ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... another tear did he shed. My lord saith, "Now thou art a good lad, therefore thou shalt have my sword to play with." And he unbinds it from his side, scabbard and all, and holds it while the urchin gets astride o't and pretends to ride. When my lord is tired o' stooping, he lifts the child again to his shoulder, and so do they conduct him back to his mother, the gardener's wife. From thence they return to the castle, and are met by my lord and lady and all ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... made his way to the yam sacks lashed abaft the mizzenmast and got his bottle. Just before he drank, with a shred of caution, he cast a glance behind him. Near him stood a harmless Mary, middle-aged, fat, squat, asymmetrical, unlovely, a sucking child of two years astride her hip and taking nourishment. Surely no harm was to be apprehended there. Furthermore, she was patently a weaponless Mary, for she wore no stitch of clothing that otherwise might have concealed a weapon. Over against the rail, ten ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... officers who rode in front of them were none other than Reuben Lockarby and Sir Gervas Jerome. At the sight of me they flung up their hands, and Reuben shot on to his horse's neck, where he sat for a moment astride of the mane, until the brute tossed him back ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... feats of reckless and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled; and when he has his own horse gear he sits his animal with the ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless the first time he gets astride one of the small eastern saddles. One summer, while purchasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch foremen had to get on an ordinary saddle to ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch, and ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... friends to dine the same evening with the terrible colonel, and of course he did not forget to send a special messenger to Clementine. Fougas, after speaking to the people, returned to his hosts, swinging himself along with a swaggering air, set himself astride a chair, took hold of the ends of his mustache, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... little weight, was placed astride on the back of the Horse Vivian. Richard walked beside. The dragon nodded good-bye, and disappeared into its home, a low tunnel-like barn, evidently built specially for it, with a door at each end, and a conveniently placed chimney ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... my life, depended upon my getting astride of that small rocky point where the young gulls sat. In my extremity I took hold of one of the chicks, intending to throw it down the cliffs; but the mother bird flew towards me with such piteous cries that ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... murderers. He dared not seek asylum among the Indians, for while bands of white men were safe enough in the Territory, single white men were at the mercy of the moment's caprice—and certainly, if found astride that Indian pony which the agent had ordered restored to its owner, his life would not ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... troopers threw their carbine slings over their shoulders and flew to their horses. "Never mind your saddles—no time for that!" yelled Blake, as he slipped the bit between the teeth of his startled charger, then threw himself astride the naked back. "Up with you and come on!" Then with a dozen ready fellows at his heels away he darted into the gloom, guided only by the yells and flashes far out over the sandy plain. In less than two minutes every trooper in the little command had gone spurring in pursuit, and Lieutenant ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... boots they wear large slippers, in which they shuffle along with a gait very little less awkward than the toddle of a cramp-footed lady in China. If they are ungraceful on foot, matters are not much better when they ride. Sitting astride a donkey (for they do not use side-saddles), a Turkish lady is about as comical an object as you could wish to behold, though I have no doubt she is quite unconscious of looking anything but dignified, as she presses on to her shopping in the Bazaar, screaming ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... it was the 23rd ere he forced the passes of the hills, and now only on the 26th he made his final dispositions for the attack of Dresden. Of the local situation of that city I have said enough to give my readers some notion of the arena on which this great battle was fought. Standing astride upon the Elbe, the capital of Saxony occupies the centre of an enormous plain, the hills that surround which approach, in no instance, within three English miles of the glacis, and in addition to its ancient fortifications, it ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... strong horses, gray and bay, with thick manes and tails, came clattering up to the door of the forge, a man astride on one of them. Hetty knew the horses, which belonged to Wavertree Hall, and were accustomed to draw the long carts which brought the felled trees out of the woods to the yard at the back of the Hall. Hetty once had thought that the trees were going to be planted ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... astride some of oldest and most significant land routes in Europe; Moravian Gate is a traditional military corridor between the North European Plain and the Danube in ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... The King sent for him in a rage. Tom, to escape his fury, crept into a large, empty snail-shell, and there lay for some time, when, peeping out of the shell, he saw a fine butterfly on the ground. He ventured forth and got astride the butterfly, which took wing, and mounted into the air with little Tom on his back. Away he flew straight ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... marine punishment unknown, except by name, in the British navy; but formerly inflicted by the French for grave offences, thus: the criminal was placed astride a short thick batten, fastened to the end of a rope which passed through a block hanging at the yard-arm. Thus fixed, he was hoisted suddenly up to the yard, and the rope being then slackened at once, he was plunged ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Bagarag on the horse and enveloped him, and seized him, and plucked him from the Horse, and whirled him round, and flung him off. The youth went circling in the air, high in it, and descended, circling, at a distance in the deep meadow-waters. When he crept up the banks he saw the Genie astride the Horse Garraveen, with a black flame round his head; and the Genie urged him to speed and put him to the gallop, and was soon lost to sight, as he had been a thunderbeam passing over a still lake at midnight. And Shibli Bagarag was smitten with the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... other important glands of internal secretion, the thyroid, the gland in the neck astride the windpipe, and the thymus, in the chest above the heart, make ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... innumerable anecdotes a la Stendhal. There is a vast dome, filled with a florid concave fresco of tumbling foreshortened angels, and all over the ceilings and cornices a wonderful outlay of dusky gildings and mouldings. There are various Bernini saints and seraphs in stucco-sculpture, astride of the tablets and door- tops, backing against their rusty machinery of coppery nimbi and egg-shaped cloudlets. Marble, damask and tapers in gorgeous profusion. The high altar a great screen of twinkling chandeliers. The choir perched in a little loft high up in the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Jew, at the same time asking the king's pardon for what he called his giddiness. "This great poet is always astride of Parnassus and Rue Quincampoix," said the Marquis of Argenson. Frederick had written him on the 24th of February, 1751, a severe letter, the prelude and precursor of the storms which were to break off before long the intimacy between the king and the philosopher. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Melbury contrived to get him astride Darling, mounting himself behind, and holding Fitzpiers round his waist with one arm. Darling being broad, straight-backed, and high in the withers, was well able to carry double, at any rate as far as Hintock, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... him a living link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... drudging, assemble at the family huts; the men leave their ranch work; old and young, all are mounted on ponies and start in great glee to the nut-lands, forming curiously picturesque cavalcades; flaming scarfs and calico skirts stream loosely over the knotty ponies, two squaws usually astride of each, with baby midgets bandaged in baskets slung on their backs or balanced on the saddle-bow; while nut-baskets and water-jars project from each side, and the long beating-poles make angles in every direction. Arriving at ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... can I get here to see you? Astride a broomstick? I have no horses of my own, and Nicholas won't take me with him when he goes out. He says I must stay at home to amuse Sarah. Send your horses for me and I ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... children, already heated with wine, singing, laughing, and accosting everybody. Many a worthy woman supported her half-drunk husband with her powerful arm. Many a substantial signora from Rocca di Papa sat astride her mule, showing without the least bashfulness her ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... warriors arose, light-hearted and hopeful. They rode into the place which is called Roncevaux, the Vale of Thorns, and there they put themselves in battle array, and waited the onset of their foes. Roland sat astride of his good war steed, and proudly faced the Moorish host. In his hand he held the bared blade Durandal, pointing toward heaven. Never was seen a more comely knight. Courteously he spoke to the warriors about him. Then, putting spurs ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... before the gate, The ruffians twain astride; And gay with scarlet girth and rein They started, side by side. O, blithe the babies' spirits were, That they could ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... lays two white eggs about the size of those of a goose. It is said that she sits astride the nest in an ungainly fashion, and that the young, as soon as they are hatched, take to the water like ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... Palla flung herself astride her saddle; Ilse galloped beside her, freeing her pistols; everywhere in the starlight the riders of the Wild Division came galloping, loosening their long lances as they checked their ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Hurricane saw sitting astride a pile of boxes at the corner store, a very ragged lad some thirteen ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... descried, we pressed on through or past the Towers, Pyrgos, and Castrum Novum to Centumcellae. That was all of forty-one miles from the shrine of Ops Consiva and full fifty from Rome, but, partly because we had to spare ourselves, as we had not been astride of a horse since we crawled through the drain at Villa Andivia, we so humored our horses that we arrived in a condition which the ostler took as a matter of course, and it was then not quite noon, which we both considered a feat ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... braw new branks in mickle pride, And eke a braw new brechan, My Pegasus I'm got astride, And up Parnassus pechin; Whiles owre a bush wi' donwward crush, The doited beastie stammers; Then up he gets, and off he sets, For ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... one was killed, but two men were badly bruised, and Wiener has been very seriously injured. He was standing astride the spare torpedo, and his right leg was extremely badly crushed, ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... detached bits of narrative, stories within stories—witness that dealing with the high comedy figures of Leonora and Bellamine—and the novelist does not bother his head if only he can get his main characters in motion,—on the road, in a tavern or kitchen brawl, astride a horse for a cross-country dash after the hounds. Charles Dickens, whose models were of the eighteenth century, made similar use of the episode in his early work, as readers of "Pickwick" may see ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... especial genius of the artist, and a work that is not aglow with its creator's personality—personality, mind you, not coarse realism—can never rank as a masterpiece. But, come, this won't do. Why did you want to get me astride my hobby?" ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... that argument then, for I had so little time to go ashore and purchase what necessaries could be remembered while narrowly watching the clock. I was astride the bulwarks again when the Windhover was free of her moorings. There was a lack of deliberation and dignity in this departure which gave it the appearance of improvisation, of not being the real thing. I could not believe it mattered whether I went or not. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... Hope, still astride of his chair, "that you did not find the original manuscript ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... sea a mile from land. Until quite recently debarkation at Pasuruan was an extremely uncomfortable and undignified proceeding, the passengers on the infrequent vessels which touch there being carried ashore astride of a rail borne on the shoulders of two natives. A coat of tar and feathers was all that was needed to make the passenger feel that he was a victim of the Ku Klux Klan. But a narrow channel has now been dredged through the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... doubt, did as they pleased with papa, for the oldest member of the family, sitting astride a broomstick, continued to command a charge of cavalry (a reminiscence of the Cirque-Olympique), the second blew a tin trumpet, while the third did its best to keep up with the main body of the army. Their mother was at work on a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... veranda, laughing and teasing, the older women gathered with Mrs. Lindsay in the parlour, and the men collected about Allister in the greater freedom of the kitchen, where coats could be laid aside and pipes taken out, and they sat astride their chairs in the smoke and listened to him tell about the prairies and the wheat crop of Alberta and the ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... head, with a rueful countenance. "I bought him from one of the French vignerons below Westover," he said. "The fellow was astride the poor creature, beating him with a club because he could not go. I laid Monsieur Crapaud in the dust, after which we compounded, he for my purse, I for the animal; since when the poor beast and I have tramped it together, for I could not in conscience ride ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Longstreet's corps was in close support. I was momentarily expecting to hear from the supporting divisions of the Ninth Corps, and thought it the part of wisdom to hold fast to our strong position astride of the mountain top commanding the Sharpsburg road till our force should be increased. The two Kanawha brigades had certainly won a glorious victory, and had made so assured a success of the day's work that it would be folly to imperil it. [Footnote: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... All day Joe sat astride his harness maker's horse, and when he was not at work, stared out through a dirty window into an alleyway and tried to understand Jim's idea of what a harness maker's attitude should be toward his customers, now that new times had come. He felt very old. Although ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... shop as he went by, he would have perceived Van Diemen Smith astride a piece of timber, smoking a pipe. Van Diemen saw Tinman. His eyes cocked and watered. It is a disgraceful fact to record of him without periphrasis. In truth, the bearded fellow was almost a woman at heart, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... flared up. At that instant, he looked down and recognized in the features of the Indian, the one who had taken such especial delight in tormenting him through the day. The negro paused while he was yet astride of him. ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... a night! The devil astride the jib boom, his tail lashing in the wind. "Pokker!" says Tobias, "fa'n ta mig. Hold tight ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the river with skids and levers cut in the bush. He was breathless, and the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in front of him. The device was a very old one, but there is a difficulty attached to the putting it in execution, for it is needful to lean out a little while using the propelling pole, and a log is addicted to ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Mr. Riley states in The Book of Days, as related by John Andrey in the seventeenth century: 'In Scotland, especially among the Highlanders, the women make a courtesy to the new moon, and our English women in this country have a touch of this, some of them sitting astride on a gate or stile the first evening the new moon appears, and saying, "A fine moon! God bless her!" The like I observed ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... o'clock we were off. Charlotte and Jane, mounted astride a brace of native ponies, led the way, and, in ragged array, the rest of the procession followed. A quarter of a mile from the landing-place, clustered at the foot of a steep little hill—a spur from the higher ranges—lies ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... a tall black stranger, astride a horse as pale as the little Murnan moons that lighted him. "Rankeshi ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... Temescal, not far from the one-time city of Oakland, that I came upon the first live human beings. Oh, my grandsons, how can I describe to you my emotion, when, astride my horse and dropping down the hillside to the lake, I saw the smoke of a campfire rising through the trees. Almost did my heart stop beating. I felt that I was going crazy. Then I heard the cry of a babe—a human babe. And dogs barked, ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... Astride across Europe and Asia, the Ottoman Empire represented, for all the nations of the old continent, the cosmopolitan centre where each had erected, by dint of patience and ingenuity, a fortress of interests, influences, and special rights. Each fortress watched jealously to ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... garments, had an even jauntier attitude than the King, for he sat astride the chair, with his chin resting on the back of it, smoking a cigarette in ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... within a foot of the window-sill. He had often ventured upon this roof, and he sprung out upon it again without a moment's hesitation or reflection, and running along, with the lightness of a cat, gained the roof of the back building, which he ascended to the very apex, and then placed himself astride thereof. Here he sat for some minutes looking around him and enjoying the prospect. On the end of the back building was fastened a strong pole, running up into the air some ten feet. On the top of this pole was a bird-box, in which a pair of pigeons had their ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... if they will, but ye shan't go," cried the doctor, sitting astride of his fallen foe and glancing at Fred and I in triumph, while the perspiration streamed down ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... nurses, playmates, and teachers by turns. Jeremiah wheeled him in the wheelbarrow, and suffered him to kick his shins, and might often be seen sedately at work hoeing or raking, with the child sitting astride on his shoulders, and drumming with sturdy heels against his breast. One member of the family alone resisted the sovereign charm of childhood; one alone held aloof in cold disdain, refusing to touch the little hand or answer the piping ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... after tea, when Rollo was a pretty big boy, he came and began to climb up into his father's lap. When he had climbed up, he took his place astride of his father's knee, as if he were riding a horse. His little brother Nathan came up and stood near, wanting to get up too, only there was not room. His cousin James was there, that evening, on a visit. He sat upon a cricket before the fire, and ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... leading a goat with gilded horns, while the two others bore the knife and the hatchet. To these succeeded the altar adorned with vines, the incense-bearers, and the high-priest of Bacchus, who led the way for the appearance of the youthful god himself. The deity was seated astride on a cask, his head encircled with a garland of generous grapes, bearing a cup in one hand, and a vine entwined and fruit-crowned sceptre in the other. Four Nubians carried him on their shoulders, while others shaded his form ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... connected with the stage by inclined planes, whenever a military piece with battles in it was performed. In this circus Laurent Franconi made us practise "la haute ecole," and his assistants. Bassin and Lagoutte, taught us to vault on horseback, astride and sitting, and standing upright—after every fashion, in fact. And to our great amusement, too, these lessons, falling as they did on Sunday afternoons, generally coincided with the rehearsals on the stage, in which we joyfully ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... and feet, contrasting strangely with the brawny Negroes round. There comes a bright-eyed young lady, probably his daughter-in-law, hung all over with bangles, in a white muslin petticoat, crimson cotton-velvet jacket, and green gauze veil, with her naked brown baby astride on her hip: a clever, smiling, delicate little woman, who is quite aware of the brightness of her own eyes. And who are these three boys in dark blue coatees and trousers, one of whom carries, hanging at one end of a long ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... with which a crowd collects in a Persian town has to be seen to be fully comprehended. For the space of half an hour, I sit in solitary state on the carpet, and endure the wondering gaze and the parrot-like chattering of a thin, long row of villagers, sitting astride the high mud wall that encloses three sides of the compound, and during the time find some amusement in watching the scrambling and quarrelling for position. These irrepressible sight-seers commenced climbing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and one standing out boldly in the yellow light of the moon, the two friends turned face to face on the deck of the timber-ship, and looked at each other in silence. The next moment Allan's inveterate recklessness seized on the grotesque side of the situation by main force. He seated himself astride on the bulwark, and burst out boisterously into his loudest and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... corrected (as it is not in the Tudor architecture) by the curve of the upper corners, which makes this line look - above the expressive aperture - like a pencilled eyebrow. The low door of this front is crowned by a high, deep niche, in which, under a splendid canopy, stiffly astride of a stiffly draped charger, sits in profile an image of the good King Louis. Good as he had been, - the father of his people, as he was called (I believe he remitted various taxes), - he was not good enough to pass muster at the Revolution; and the effigy ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... and escort, wondering how he could find his way home, for the forest was very vast. He too heard the music, and told one of his men to find out whence it came. The man came under the tree, and looking up to the top there he saw Jack my Hedgehog astride on ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... laggard line The colonel's horse we spied, Bay Billy with his trappings on, His nostrils swelling wide, As though still on his gallant back The master sat astride. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... there is very little positive beauty among them. Most of the old country-women are veritable hags, and their appearance is not improved by the broad-brimmed stove-pipe hats which they wear. Seated astride on their donkeys, between panniers of produce, they come in daily from the plains and mountains, and you encounter them on all the roads leading out of Palma. Few of the people speak any other language than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... him," said Wamedee; "we cannot wait here for him to die." The others agreed. Wamedee was not considered especially brave; but he took out his knife and held it between his teeth. He then approached the buffalo from behind and suddenly jumped astride his back. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the twenty-eight the following are regarded as propitious—namely, the Horned, Room, Tail, Sieve, Bushel, House, Wall, Mound, Stomach, End, Bristling, Well, Drawn-bow, and Revolving Constellations; the Neck, Bottom, Heart, Cow, Female, Empty, Danger, Astride, Cock, Mixed, Demon, Willow, Star, Wing, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... they brought the coal-black stallion, Chafing on the bit. Astride Sprang the young king; shouted, "Way there!" Caught the girl up ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... mighty satisfaction to be lost, for the sake of the pleasure it affords one's friends to see one back again," observed Terence; "and, old fellows, I knew you would come back, somehow or other; I always said so; astride of a dolphin if in no other way, though Harry here and some of our friends ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... man as he scrambled up the shrouds, and quickly made his way, not merely into mizzen-top, but on the topgallant-yard, where he sat astride and scanned the horizon to his right and left, to windward and leeward of the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... stone-wall of the bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle, jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the peel at the engine. Some older people touched their hats sympathetically, and one went and opened a gate for us into a field, through which many feet seemed to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... garments, and seizing the child by the feet, pulls it downward to the left; then, passing the right hand under the front of the dress, she again seizes the feet and extracts it by a kind of podalic delivery. Another common way of carrying children is astride the neck. The subject is one that the Chucki ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron on his own account; for him Andrea painted the Holy Family now in the Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated on the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning his head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's arms to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of S. Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished the siege of Florence ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... mother and father were determined that their children should be educated. School lasted two months in the year—July and August. The schoolhouse was three miles from our house, but we walked every day, my oldest sister carrying me astride her neck when I gave out. Sometimes we had an ear of roasted green corn in our basket for dinner, or a roasted sweet potato, but more often simply persimmons, or fruit and nuts picked from our landlord's orchard ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the general outline of the rider was that of a short slight man, with rather long hair which flowed from beneath the brim of his Stetson hat. The most curious distinguishable feature was his slightness. The horse was big and the man, was so small that, as he sat astride of his charger, he looked to be little more than a boy of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... messire, there is some hanging on since you laugh thus!" And when coming from Roche-Corbon to Tours he passed on horseback along the Fauborg St. Symphorien, the little girls would say, "Ah! this is the justice day, there is the good man Bruyn," and without being afraid they would look at him astride on a big white hack, that he had brought back with him from the Levant. On the bridge the little boys would stop playing with the ball, and would call out, "Good day, Mr. Seneschal" and he would reply, jokingly, "Enjoy yourselves, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of these vehicles to carry themselves and their luggage, and the lads laughed heartily as they found themselves seated astride on one of them, rattling along the quays and over the bridge to the English hotel, among hundreds of similar vehicles and long-coated, bearded people, who looked as if they did not think there was anything strange in the ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... cart-sheds on the left, and on the right hand the entrance to the cellars. Facing us is an unpretending-looking edifice, where the firm has its counting-houses, with a little corner tower surmounted by a characteristic weathercock consisting of a figure of Bacchus seated astride a cask beneath a vine-branch, and holding up a bottle in one hand and a goblet in the other. The old Remish Commanderie of the Knights Templars existed until the epoch of the Great Revolution, and ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... Astride the milking stool Mark looked dreamily at the familiar prospect, the black carpet of shade under the live oak, the bright bits of sky between its boughs, beyond the brilliant vividness of the landscape. This was crossed by the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... saw in the dim twilight the streets filled with plaids and bonnets. The conquerors visited all the outposts as quietly as if they were troops relieving guard. A citizen strolling along by the wall early next morning found a Highland soldier astride on one of the cannons, 'Surely you are not the same soldiers who were here yesterday?' 'Och no!' was the answer with a grave twinkle, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... roaring and loving and robbing with the beasts— why not? Morgraunt had swallowed them up; who could guess to what wild uses she turned her thralls? That was a place, pardieu! Prosper, very certain that at twenty-three it is a great thing to be hale and astride a horse, felt also that to grow old without having given Morgraunt a chance of killing you young would be an insipid performance. "As soon be a priest!" he would cry, "or, by the Rood, one of those flat-polled monks kept there by the Countess Isabel." Morgraunt ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... born in California," Lute remarked, as she swung astride of Ban. "It's an outrage both to horse and woman ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... having just been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,—a vast hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, though he did not remember the driver. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... becomes naturally adapted for such rough service, as monkeys become hardened from constantly sitting upon rough substances. The children commence almost as soon as they are born, as they must accompany their mothers in their annual migrations; and no sooner can the young Arab sit astride and hold on, than he is placed behind his father's saddle, to which he clings, while he bumps upon the bare back of the jolting camel. Nature quickly arranges a horny protection to the nerves, by the thickening of the skin; thus, an Arab's opinion ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... under water and is apparently drowned, is to turn him right over upon his chest on the ground, or other level surface, turning the face to one side so that the nose and mouth will be clear of the ground. Then, kneeling astride of the legs, as shown in the picture, place both hands on the small of the back and throw your weight forward, so as to press out the air in the lungs. Count three, then swing backward, lifting the hands, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... of the wall, which is to have a plinth at its base, and a stone coping at top. On a pedestal four feet high, two feet wide, and six feet long, exactly midway betwixt the abutments, let an ass be placed, a boy astride him, a bag drawn before the boy, who holds up a long stick in line with the ass, &c., that is, facing the observer. The right distance for the observer's place is 450 feet. If the cameras be placed two inches and a half apart, on one ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... lettered with the names of the expectorators on the outside, resembling annuals—we almost fear with prints. In such hands, the ass loses his natural attributes, and takes the character of his owner; and as the anecdote-monger is seen astride on his cuddy, you wonder what may be the meaning of the apparition, for we defy you to distinguish the one donk from the other, the rider from the ridden, except by the more inexpressive countenance of the one, and the ears of the other in uncomputed longitude dangling ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... ter me, Malviny. Don't pappy's gal want er ride on pappy's foot? See 'ere, now! Whoopee!" and placing the plump little body astride his foot, the leg of which crossed the other, and clasping the baby hands in his, he tossed her up and down till she crowed and laughed in a perfect abandon of baby glee. A smiling audience looked on in joyous sympathy with the baby's pleasure, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... six years old sat astride on the end of one of the benches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, with a switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, calling out, "Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in front of him, I receive the stream in my beard, I rub my nose with the lather, I dry my face. We are ready, we go downstairs. The field is deserted; we scale the wall; Francis takes his measure and jumps. I am sitting astride the coping of the wall, I cast a rapid glance around me; below, a ditch and some grass, on the right one of the gates of the town; in the distance, a forest that sways and shows its rents of golden red against a band of pale blue. I stand up; I hear a noise in the court; I jump; we skirt ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... poultry, fed as never since they were born, stand wondering at the farmer's generosity. The markets are full of massacred barnyards. The great table will be spread and crowded with two, or three, or four generations. Plant the fork astride the breast bone, and with skillful twitch, that we could never learn, give to all the hungry lookers-on a specimen of holiday anatomy. Mary is disposed to soar, give her the wing. The boy is fond of music, give him the drum stick. The minister ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... steeds they sat astride Mythologically nude! Though their tresses thick and long Fell like cloaks ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... the stranger; and he made a desperate effort to throw his adversary from his chest, but only for Waller to wrench out his hands plant them upon the other's breast, and thrust him down helpless and exhausted, while he raised himself up, got well astride, and sat up, laughing in the stranger's face, as he raised one hand and dragged the strap of the creel over his head ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... that end stooped, that he might get off with ease; but instead of doing so (which I laugh at every time I think of it), the old man who appeared to me quite decrepit, threw his legs nimbly about my neck. He sat astride upon my shoulders, and held my throat so tight that I thought he would have strangled me, the apprehension of which made ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Mr. Brimsdown, astride his favourite hobby, rode it irresistibly. He discoursed of clocks and their makers, and Barrant listened in silence. The subject was not without its fascination for him, because it suggested a strange train of thought about the hood clock which was the text, as it were, of the lawyer's discourse. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... keeping my distance, smote him (very blithely) how and where I would until he (his arm useless), misliking my bludgeon-play and reading no mercy in my look, very wisely betook him to his heels. Hereupon I turned to find the little peddler sitting astride his man's neck and his ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... throwing the coat over the bottom of the boat, and tried to clamber on it myself. After a dozen efforts I scrambled up and I sat astride it. Then I caught sight of Shakro in the water on the opposite side of the boat, holding with both hands to the same rope of which I had just let go. The boat was apparently encircled by a rope, threaded through iron rings, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... hillock is a windmill, a crucifix, or a Virgin Mary dressed in flowers and a sarcenet robe; one sees not many people or carriages on the road; now and then, indeed, you meet a strolling friar, a countryman, or a woman riding astride on a little ass, with short petticoats and a great ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... offered him a pipe of his father's that had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as soon as ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... hear it well enough—" said the man at the net, setting himself astride the gunwale to listen, with the net hanging ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... astride your politics, and never mount your prophecy; politics is the better horse," said Nello. "But if you talk of portents, what portent can be greater than a pious notary? Balaam's ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... tracheotomic wound. A broad quadruple, in-folded pad of gauze is cut to its centre so that it can be slipped astride of the tube of the cannula back of the shield. No strings, ravellings or strips of gauze are permissible because of the risk of their ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... feels he is not in his right place and will make no concessions. He was just beginning to find out that he possessed no literary talent whatever; he meant to stay in the profession, however, by living on the brains of others, and getting astride the shoulders of those more able than himself, making his profit there instead of struggling any longer at his own ill-paid work. At the present moment he had drunk to the dregs the humiliation of applications and appeals which constantly ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the foot of the stairs and were about to ascend, feet were heard rushing along the corridor above, and then Barney Mulloy came plunging down the stairs, with Hans Dunnerwust riding astride his neck, both in their nightclothes, with a few ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... as he was returning from the post-office, Westerfelt met Peter Slogan riding to a field he had rented down the road, and which he was getting ready for cotton-planting. Slogan was astride of his bony horse, which was already clad in shuck collar and clanking harness, and carried on ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... fourth caught full in the throat one of the Kiowas on the log. The painted warrior shot headfirst into the water and dropped as though he had been a stone. Before Arthur could fire again, the passengers astride the dead tree dived into the stream. Slowly the log swung around and was sucked into the current. Here and there a feathered head bobbed up. The boy fired at them from a sense of duty, but he did not flatter himself that he ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... made no effort to dissuade her. She, herself, passed from bough to bough as nimbly as a boy, in spite of her skirts, and in a very short time was almost out of sight among the upper spreading branches. She sat astride one of these, swinging to and fro and luxuriating in her sense of freedom and adventure. Peering down occasionally she saw Ruth standing beneath her and sent repeated showers of nuts spinning through the boughs to keep the child busy. But presently Ruth disappeared. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... done, and Winnington was sitting by her—astride a chair, his arms lying along the top of it, his eyes looking down upon her, as she made random stitches in what ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the Standing Stone, and there was a little boy astride it. His hair stood up through holes in his bonnet, and he was ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... of glimmering coquina and dew-wet palm rode presently the slim, brisk figure of a girl astride a fretful horse. A royal palm dripped cool gray rain upon her as she galloped past to the shell-road looming out of the velvet stillness ahead ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... did so. He sat astride on the goat, struck his heels into its side, and went rattling down ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... out right now," the Very Young Man said in an excited whisper. "We'd be too small." He led the girl hastily into the bow and with a running leap clambered up and sat astride the gunwale. Then, reaching down he pulled ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... "The Indian Ambassador was also accompanied by a variety of warlike instruments of music of strange kinds, and particularly by certain Naccheras of such immense size that each pair had an elephant to carry them, whilst an Indian astride upon the elephant between the two Naccheras played upon them with both hands, dealing strong blows on this one and on that; what a din was made by these vast drums, and what a spectacle it was, I leave ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... had come over our governess. No longer was her manner frigid; her face, so grey and hard, had softened till it seemed to radiate benevolence. She beamed at Bill and Bunny playing at leap-frog before her chair; she beamed at "Baby," galloping astride of her umbrella; she beamed at Mops, trying to force a date into the mouth of a struggling fox-terrier; she even beamed at me when I caught ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... as boys learn to ride on horseback when quite young. It is quite a usual thing to see women riding astride fashion, collecting sheep and cattle, or driving their horse carts and spiders (carriages), unattended by males, over distances of over twenty and thirty miles—women spanning in ox-teams to their travelling wagons, ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... the air and proved it good by dropping in blazing excelsior saturated with turpentine, a stout oak stick was attached to the end of the rope, my son sprang astride and was lowered to the bottom, just one hundred feet. He reported back 'All right.' On the return of the rope I took my position on the stick and was soon dangling in mid air. The sensation was strange and exhilarating. Looking up I ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... find their children and their grandchildren waiting for them. I told how I had seen them, in our New England coast towns, covered, as a ship is covered with barnacles, by grandchildren who rode on their shoulders and sat astride of their necks as they walked down the village streets. And now at last the sneer left my old man's loose lips. He had grandchildren somewhere. He twisted uneasily in his seat, coughed, and finally took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... surprised and glad at the same time, while Solomin pressed his hand. Then he seated himself astride on a chair, lighted a cigar, and leaning both his ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... boy whose leg had been crushed and who was uttering frightful shrieks. The child screamed so terribly that Brinnaria impulsively leaned half-way out of her litter, carried away by her sympathies. Close beside her she saw the white horse and astride of it, vague in the mist, but unmistakable in his lop-sided, bony leanness, outlined against the glare of the torches ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... these words in a pleasant tenor voice, and was just drawing in breath to continue the rattling cavalier ballad when the young officer swung his right leg in board, and, sitting astride the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... answered the lady, enjoying her little daughter's delight. "I have heard of a little farm boy, who was too small to mount the plough horses, he was required to ride, who taught one of them to put down its head to the ground, while he jumped astride on its neck, and then, by gently elevating the head, let him slip backward into his seat ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... resumed his dictation to the hypnotised clerk, while the officer sat astride a chair and executed an impatient pas seul with his heels upon the parquet floor. Once or twice he spat demonstratively, but the maire took no notice. In a few minutes the soldier returned with a written order, which ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the yard with me. Though dressed only in a light shirt and trousers, I was nearly exhausted. Had I retained my jacket, I believe that I should have been unable to keep myself afloat. Just then a shout reached my ears, and I saw Bill seated astride a piece of timber, not far from me. With my remaining strength I made towards it, and he, seizing me by the shirt, hauled me up, and made me fast with some rope ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... climbed to the right place, worked so vigorously that he succeeded in detaching the anchor, and the latter, violently jerked, at that moment, by the start of the balloon, caught the rascal between the limbs, and carried him off astride of it ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... his gun again in its holster, Texas threw himself astride his Pinto pony and loped down toward the sloping banks of ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... for Cardozo was quite tipsy, and had not attended to the loading of the boat. The cargo had been placed too far forward, and to make matters worse, my heavy friend obstinately insisted on sitting astride on the top of the pile, instead of taking his place near the stern, singing from his perch a most indecent love-song, and disregarding the inconvenience of having to bend down almost every minute to pass under the boughs of hanging sipos as we sped rapidly along. The canoe leaked but not, at ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... as in the valley beneath, was another great depot of provision piles. Near where Phillips had thrown himself down there was one man whose bearing was in marked contrast to that of the others. He sat astride a bulging canvas bag in a leather harness, and in spite of the fact that the mark of a tump-line showed beneath his cap he betrayed no signs of fatigue. He was not at all exhausted, and from the interest he displayed it seemed that he had chosen this spot as a vantage-point from which to study ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... after his heart; and by the time he had eaten a hare and half a flank of venison, followed by several bowls of fiery wine, he was in the humor for sport. He ordered a hole cut in the upper side of the barrel, as it lay; then, getting astride of it, like a grisly Bacchus, he dipped out the liquor with a ladle, and plied his thirsty serfs until they became ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... his opponent of the moment by a sweeping blow, and then with a spring placed himself astride of his friend. Hal Carter joined him. The rest of their followers remaining on the wall either jumped over or were cut down. Fortunately Albert had fallen close to the parapet, and his two defenders could not be attacked from behind. For some ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... said Morgan, swinging himself astride a chair and folding his arms upon the back, while Rutherford perched upon a large writing table, and Houston leaned against his long desk, with his arms folded, "Know them, I should think I ought to. I worked in the Silver City office as bookkeeper for a year before coming ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... June); dry season (June to October); persistent high temperatures and humidity; particularly enervating climate astride the Equator ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... usual, astride the porch rail, the red light of his cigar glowing against the dark background of the mountains where the bonfires were dying to mere sparks. He looked around as Tom appeared, and grinned in a friendly way ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... I climbed. I will not say there was no groaning and puffing, but any how I at last found myself astride of a branch and looking over the wall into the Earl ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... close, as she had been directed, praying that the horseman had been warned; but shortly she heard again the rustle of stiff branches, and out into the opening rode a Mexican. He was astride a wiry gray pony, and in the strong twilight Alaire could see his every feature—the swarthy cheeks, the roving eyes beneath the black felt hat. A carbine lay across his saddle-horn, a riata was coiled ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... of Oz came around the bend in the road, riding astride a wooden Sawhorse which was so small that its rider's ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... bid these ladies a farewell. He made that ceremony very brief, for he was anxious to be off to the charmer of his heart; and came downstairs to mount his newly-gotten steed, which Gumbo, himself astride on the parson's black mare, held ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to valley, hill and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds |
