"Strapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as she was strapping on an old pair of skates that once belonged to Philander Sniff. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... improving! How could it happen then? Simon made known his misery to his neighbours, craved counsel from his pastor. Each chucked in his farthing's worth of wisdom; but it availed him nothing. In the meanwhile, the strapping youth grew every day more and more a ghost-seer; and the Dwarf was said to beset the premises of the farmer nightly. Simon, at all events to show a reason in his complaints, building upon these facts, boldly cast upon his son the imputation of robbing him. Violent scenes ensued between ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... hospitality of his host, but could not reconcile it to his conscience to go away without making some recompense. There were honest Simon's two daughters, two strapping, red-haired girls. He opened his packs and displayed riches before them of which they had no conception; for in those days there were no country stores in those parts, with their artificial finery and trinketry; ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... flowers worked along the hem. She had no hat. But she had two great ropes of pale gold hair, almost as thick as my arm, and hanging almost as low as her knees. She looked colossal up on the wagon-seat, but when she got down on the ground she was not so immense. She is, however, a strapping big woman, and I don't think I ever saw such shoulders! She is Olympian, Titanic! She makes me think of the Venus de Milo; there's such a largeness and calmness and smoothness of surface about her. I suppose a Saint-Gaudens might say that her mouth ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... no more than approximated to. As for tailors in little country villages, their power of distorting and disfiguring is wonderful. When I used to be a country clergyman, I remember how, when I went to the funeral of some simple rustic, I was filled with surprise to see the tall, strapping, fine young country lads, arrayed in their black suits. What awkward figures they looked in those unwonted garments! How different from their easy, natural appearance in their every-day fustian! Here you would see a young fellow with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... and several lighted their pipes, one strapping fellow stood on the bank, his eyes fixed upon that immovable key log. During the whole winter Tony Stickles had been the butt as well as the curiosity of the men. His long, lank figure was the source of much ridicule, while his ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... in a frame building near the headquarters. Here, in the afternoon, the clan would gather for a round of "whisky poker" for the drinks. There was a strapping young Kentuckian whose ancestors had all been army men. "The profession of arms," said he, "is the noblest profession in the world. And that is the profession that we follow." It was a rather sad sight, though, a few weeks later, after ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... Six strapping sons! And I have naught but camels. (Pause.) Yet, I've seen A vision in this stable that puts to shame Each ecstasy of mortal flesh and blood That's been my eyes' delight. I never breathed A word of it to man or woman yet: I couldn't whisper it now to you, if you looked Like any ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... enduring, hale, sound, robust, hardy, durable, puissant; powerful, mighty, invincible, impregnable, irresistible, fortified; virile, athletic, muscular, brawny, vigorous, stout, strapping, lusty, sturdy, sinewy, stalwart, thewy, able-bodied; violent, forcible, impetuous, vehement; potent, cogent, influential, urgent, convincing, conclusive; ardent, eager, zealous, strenuous, stanch, unwavering, determined; spirituous, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... up its contributions of recruits for the fleet. No great pains were taken with a view to obtain certificates as to character and conduct. Those who formed the recruiting expedition were only too ready to seize any strapping young men whom they found loitering about the streets and lanes of the lower quarters in a seaport town. These strapping young men often turned out to be rising young men of the criminal classes, but their limbs and muscles made them ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and the horns blew up fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with matchlocks. Not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises but white as death, and looking back every minute at ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as the heat grew intense. When he opened the furnace door, Jim could see the glowing bed lift and stir with ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... his strapping wife, and used to like to see the people stare when he drove her into Cullerne Market in the high cart, and hear her crack jokes with the farmers what they passed on the way. Very proud he was of her, and prouder still when one Saturday he stood all comers ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... He was strapping up his suit-case when he made this rather startling announcement, and the effect seemed to send the blood to his head. Mrs. Burke did not seem to notice his confusion as she ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... had at once stepped within the log cabin, and, as they talked, were strapping on ammunition belts and looking ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... You can see these same faces at Donnybrook Fair. These large-mouthed, short-nosed, rosy-cheeked peasant-girls are called Dolores and Catalina, but they might be called Bridget and Kathleen. These strapping fellows, with long simian upper lips, with brown leggings and patched, mud-colored overcoats, who are leaping and swinging their cudgels in that Pyrrhic round are as good Tipperary boys as ever mobbed an ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... it but a few lines, just to tell me how that good, sagacious man your father is,—that kind, dainty body your mother,— that strapping chiel your brother Douglas-and my friend Rachel, who is as far before Rachel of old, as she was before ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... corner of the street a cross and sleepy cobbler was strapping a dirty urchin, who bellowed ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... A strapping young fellow in a red shirt came out of the stable door leading two other horses to the trough. Babcock looked about him in surprise at the extent of the establishment. He had supposed that his stevedore had a small outfit and needed all the work she could get. If, as McGaw had said, ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the quality of the men which America had sent. They drew near; then I saw them plainly. They were fine strapping chaps, broad of shoulder and proudly independent. They were not soldiers yet; they were civilians who had been rushed into khaki. Their equipment was of every kind and sort and spoke eloquently of the hurry in which they had been brought together. That meant much to us in London-much more ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... discordant elements in the Holland household could not prevent the children from growing up. It was a consummation which the harrassed Caroline devoutly wished. When Christopher Holland was seventeen he was a man grown—a big, strapping fellow. His childish beauty had coarsened, but he ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said, "and which is Doolin? Hello, alderman!" he cried, as his eyes rested on one tall, strapping, red-haired man who held his bayonet ready to charge, with a fierce determination in his face that might have made an opponent quail. "When did you leave New York? and who's running the city ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... on his favourite perch, the music-stool, swinging idly to and fro, with his customary serenity of demeanour. He moved to meet her with a quiet smile of welcome. A piece of strapping-plaster across his left temple was all that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... honor in the Confederate Army, had been out of Yale three or four years. They were natural soldiers, and it would be well-nigh impossible to overestimate the amount of good they did the regiment. They were strapping fellows, entirely fearless, modest, and quiet. Their only thought was how to perfect themselves in their own duties, and how to take care of the men under them, so as to bring them to the highest point of soldierly perfection. I grew ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... said Valentin, "marquises and counts used to have their appointed fools and jesters, to crack jokes for them. Nowadays we see a great strapping democrat keeping a count about him to play the fool. It's a good situation, but I certainly ...
— The American • Henry James
... the Pagoda and they sent a Bo after you," suggested FitzGerald; "I must say your new friend is a rum-looking customer; a powerful, strapping pongye. He'd make a grand ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... hide herself among the lilacs and the arbutus when the seminary invaded her; watching through the leaves the strapping Italian boys in their hindering womanish dress; scorning them for their state of supervision and dependence; pitying them ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife—and I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too—you'll never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... of Michael Cassidy, a strapping Irish bhoy. Who up and joined the Irish guards as Kitchener's pride and joy; When on the march you'll hear them shout, 'Who's going to win the war?' And this is what the khaki lads all answered ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... Bandage almost up to the arm-pit. It may take eight strips for an adult. After you have the strips on, place a piece at each end, part on the flesh and part on the plasters, to keep them from giving any. The patient should have his arms over his head when you are putting on the strips. This strapping will hold that side of the chest quieter. The breathing will be less full and consequently ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... himself, and stood by during the strapping and bandaging with an anxious face, really suffering as much as Derrick, perhaps a trifle more. He would not hear of his going home that night, but insisted that he should ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Frank, looking like a strapping peasant woman, with a bonnet that was stuck on the top of his head like ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... Samuel! She beheld him once more. And the sight of his condition, moral and physical, terrified her. His great strapping son and Amy helped him upstairs. "Will he ever come down those stairs again?" This thought lanced Constance's heart. The pain was come and gone in a moment, but it had surprised her tranquil commonsense, which was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the exact words he would use when he was ushered into her presence. He would pretend at first to be a wayfarer and ask for a night's lodging, or, perhaps, it might be best to inquire for young Phil, who must now be a great strapping lad. Then he began thinking out other surprises. Of course she would know him—know him before he opened his lips. How foolish, then, the pretence of deceiving her. What was really more important was the way in which he would enter the house; some care must therefore be exercised. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and was of course very precious, and not to be wasted upon articles designed merely for amusement. However, we knew it would not be lost upon the skates; as we could take it from them, whenever we should want to apply it to a more useful purpose. In a short time, we had three pairs; and, strapping them firmly to our feet with strips of deerskin, were soon gliding over the dam, and spinning around the beaver-houses—no doubt to the great wonderment of such of the animals as came out under the ice to look at us. Mary, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... have no capacity for. The fact is, that neither in the first nor last scenes are my legs long enough to do justice to this lady. The Douglas woman who barred the door with her arm to save King James's life must have been a strapping lass, as well a heroine in spirit. I am not tall enough for such feats of arms. Copied my play till time to go to the theater. My aunt Victoire came to my dressing-room just as I was going on, and persuaded dear Dall, who has never once seen me act, to go into the front of the house. She came ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... were five of the natives. Martin suspected they composed the mate's watch because they were all old, tractable hands. They were the Maori, Rimoa, a strapping, middle-aged man, Oomak, the Koriak, the man with the tattooed and scarified face whom Martin had seen at the wheel the first day at sea, the two Kanakas, and the Aleut. They talked to each other, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... now operating upon the Major's chin—he continued the theme while strapping the skilful razor. "They've took a house in Grosvenor Place, and are coming out strong, sir. Her Ladyship's going to give three parties, besides a dinner a week, sir. Her fortune won't stand it—can't ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Securely strapping Murphy to his saddle, and packing all their remaining store of provisions upon one horse, leaving the other to follow or remain behind as it pleased, he advanced directly into the hills, steering by aid of the stars, his left hand ever on Murphy's bridle rein, his low voice of ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... "Young Benito Windham has been near here for a fortnight. I am told, without much luck, He had to sell his horse and saddle, for the price of living is enormous; finally he paired off with a man named Burthen—strapping, bearded Kansan with a little daughter, about 17. They struck a claim, and Burthen's on the way to San Francisco for supplies. I'll tell you more when I have seen the lad and had a talk with him. The girl, I understand, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... has got some money, that is certain, but any one going there ought to be very sharp, and Adelaide is not that at all." And his wife replied: "I might go and see, all the same," and turning to her daughter, a strapping, silly looking girl with yellow hair and fat red cheeks like apples, she said: "Do you hear, you great silly? You are to go to Maitre Omont's and offer yourself as his servant, and you will do ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... mill work for women, despite his cognizance of the unhealthfulness of the mills, he knew a thing or two when he put his strapping innocent niece to work thirteen hours a day ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... javelins, others hunted by dogs, and others again were let loose upon certain men who were tied hand and foot, and whom we supposed to be criminals. The gladiators next made their appearance. The herald led forward a strapping young fellow, and announced that any one who was prepared to stand up against him might step into the arena and take his reward, which would be 400 pounds. Sisinnes rose from his seat, jumped down into the ring, expressed ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... strapping big lad at fourteen. He was as tall as his father, who was five feet ten, and was still growing rapidly. He was thin but hard-muscled, with good shoulders that were not as awkward as they looked. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... regained something of her usual frame of mind and a little of her ordinary manner of careless light-heartedness, but when home had been reached and the girls had rested and eaten and she heard Moonface telling anew for her the story of the flight in the wood, while her father, Hilltop, and her two strapping brothers listened with interest, but with no degree of excitement, she felt again the wild alarm and horror and uncertainty which had affected her when first she fled from what was to her so dreadful. She crept away ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... a strapping brown fellow of twenty-five, with big hands and big feet, white teeth, and flashing eyes full of energy. He and his father and two brothers not only worked their own big farm, but rented a quarter section from Nat Wheeler. They were master farmers. If there was a dry summer ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... grapes, an overflowing abundance of distress and agony. And those wretched remains of strength and youth, those bruised and battered men, looked with pity, yes, with pity, at our train. Am I really sick because those glances of warm compassion from bleeding cripples to sound, strapping young fellows burn in my soul with a fire never to be extinguished? An apprehension sent a chill through our whole train, the foreboding of a hell that one would rather run away from wrapped in bloody bandages than go to meet whole and strong. And when this ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... old Cam was almost dead, His glory almost mouldy, Replaced the laurels on his head? Sweet Echo answers—"Goldie." Who was our Seven of mighty brawn As valiant as a lion? Who could he be but strapping ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... of your nest, the Sergeant-Major's whistle blows, and you at once feed your horses. Then you pack your off-saddle, rolling the ground-sheet, blankets, and harness-sheet, with the muzzles, surcingle-pads, hay-nets, etc., and strapping the roll on the saddle. Then you harness as fast as you can (generally helped by a gunner), make up two fresh feeds and tie them up in nose-bags on the saddle, and put on your belt, haversack, water-bottle, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... a huge, strapping backwoodsman who stood beside her, and the others laughingly took up the shout. "Hooray for Davy. Bring him over, Cowan." The giant threw me on his shoulder as though I had been a fox, leaped down, and took ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as usual had broken down, and left me at four o'clock fifteen miles from Atchison, on the edge of a bleak prairie with only one house in sight. But I got a saddle-horse—there was no vehicle to be had—and strapping my lecture and blanket to my back I gave my valise to a little yellow boy—who looked like a dirty terra-cotta figure—with orders to follow me on another horse, and so tore off towards Atchison. I got there in time; the boy reached there two ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... ear of Gaffer Whitecraft, who had entered the room, a strapping specimen of his robust trade, prepared to play the civil, or the surly host, as his company should be acceptable or otherwise. At Julian's invitation, he doffed his dusty bonnet—brushed from his sleeve the looser particles of his professional dust—and sitting down on ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Jim and began strapping the other pair of wings about his body. Jim saw that the energy was supplied by two tiny, lights burning in the base, cold fire, stored energy whose strength he did not guess. For, when Cain took him by the hand, and motioned to him to slide the knob ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... the pair hurried, Varney close in their wake. In the silent alley, half-hidden in the shadows of the building, stood a large carriage with a pair of strapping bays tugging at their traces. They halted before it, and the stranger, who had considerately taken Ryan's arm, flung open ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... you, you dull dog," said the Alderman, turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, "what are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman's apron-strings! Why, she'll be an old woman before you're a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you'll cut then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children crying after ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... marched about seven miles to the north to a village opposite the pass Tapiri, and on a rivulet, Godedza. It was very hot. Kimsusa behaves like a king: his strapping wives came to carry loads, and shame his people. Many of the young men turned out and took the loads, but it was evident that they feared retaliation if they ventured up the pass. One wife carried beer, another meal; and as soon as we arrived, cooking commenced: porridge ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Nels' mind with the work of the day—that it meant Tiger, that all lesser affairs might come and go. The big fellow was up and eager to be off, before Skag finished strapping his blanket roll. There was rather a memorable moment of sentiency just there. Skag was on one knee as he glanced into Nels' face. His own powers were highly awake that minute, so that he actually sensed what was in the dog's mind—that they must go down to the pool ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... horse of their first Member of Parliament with gold, or do a variety of the odd things done in Australian gold-fields. They laughed heartily when the Canterbury Provincial Government sent over the Alps an escort of strapping mounted policemen, armed to the teeth, to carry away gold securely in a bullet-proof cart. They preferred to send their gold away in peaceful coasting steamers. When, in 1867, one or two Irish rows were dignified with the title of Fenian Riots, and a company of militia were sent down from ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... harder when the carriage drove up to the door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs, supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... come the strongest plantlets. That is the reason why it is better and safer to choose the large seed. It is the same case exactly as that of weak children. Look at Myron, great strapping fellow! Hasn't he a fine chance in the world? Do you remember that little sickly boy who was in school last spring? He was as old as Myron, yet see how handicapped he is. Try not to bring weak little plantlets into the plant world. Bring strong, sturdy, ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... make a fine, strapping grisette," he cried, proud of me as if I were a picture, he the painter. "Felix, you've no notion how handsome you look. Dame! you defrauded the world when you contrived to be born ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... into the surf so as to become accustomed to swimming with the aid of the buoy. One after another the lads operated the pulmotor upon a supposed victim until each had learned the proper method of adjusting and strapping fast the mouthpiece, and which screws to turn to start and stop the oxygen pump. An hour of this practice work was quite sufficient, and when it was finished Bruce and Jiminy and Bud and Romper, turn about, took the motor cycle for short dashes up the beach and indulged ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... what the great Egyptian ruler, King Ptush the Third was referring to in many of his State papers as a "Meticulous Mollycoddle." To begin with, Aunt Jerusha was a strong believer in the New Thought School of Infantile Development, and when I was barely six weeks old she began strapping me on a board like an Eskimo baby, and suspending me thus restrained to a peg in the wall, where, helpless, I was required to hang and stare while she implanted the germs of strength in my soul by reading aloud whole chapters ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... herself making better speed than the majority of her fellows, who were heavily laden and had to rest their packs every few hundred yards. Yet she found herself hard put to keep the pace of a bunch of Scandinavians ahead of her. They were huge strapping blond-haired giants, each striding along with a hundred pounds on his back, and all harnessed to a go-cart which carried fully six hundred more. Their faces were as laughing suns, and the joy of life was in them. The toil seemed child's play and slipped from them lightly. They joked ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... 'Now,' said he, strapping the bundle to his back, 'let me know the hound that refuses to follow his leader when the White Rose is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was impossible he tried to get them to sell or hire a pair, but they didn't like the idea of riding into camp minus those essentials any better than he did. While I waited they settled the difficulty by strapping a blanket round him, and by splitting it up the middle and using plenty of cord they rigged him out after a fashion; but I think if he could have seen himself and been given an option he would have preferred to wait ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... you, sir; she's a little deaf. A real good sort, sir, is old Jenny. She's always about here. She was brought out in the Temple; she lived eight years with a Q.C., sir. He's dead. A strapping fine wench she was ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading-post. He did not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered individuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an unusually large pack. Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along under his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Piper had been ready to foretell for Mackenzie the fate of Mackrimmon, he had taken means to defeat destiny by bringing over from Borvabost a large and heavy boat pulled by six rowers. These were not strapping young fellows, clad in the best blue cloth to be got in Stornoway, but elderly men, gray, wrinkled, weather-beaten and hard of face, who sat stolidly in the boat and listened with a sort of bovine gaze to the old hunchback's wicked stories and jokes. John was in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the east was glowing rosy-red, and the boys lost no time in slipping into their outer clothes and strapping on their pistol belts, which ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... One of them is a gentlemanly-looking man, who wears a gray shirt; another looks like a genial Irishman who has accidentally got black, very black; he is distinguished by wearing a singlet; another is a thin, elderly man, notably silent; and the remaining one is a strapping, big fellow, as black as a wolf's mouth, of gigantic muscular development, and wearing quantities of fetish charms hung about him. The two first mentioned are Christians; the other two pagans, and I will refer to them by their characteristic points, for their honourable ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... of a dozen, tagging at his heels and holding on to his hands and the skirts of his long coat. There's Dick there, six feet if he's an inch and gone twenty last month. Well, many and many a time have I seen the strapping fellow when he was a little chap sitting astride the old vagabond's neck, with his little feet crooked in under his armpits, laughing and screaming uproariously as his human horse underneath him pranced and ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the horses,—prancing, high-spirited animals,—their bridle-bits held by a strapping blacksmith, came into view. Barnes looked in the direction of the steps. The two men had disappeared. Instead of stopping directly in front of the steps, the smith led his charges quite a distance beyond and ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, 'I take these in case I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to visit. Don't be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... that Mr. Fergus was coming to live at the Manse after Christmas; she would have to see him at meals, and in the evening, and would have no excuse for retiring into her room. Now, if any visitor came to the Manse, Lilian Graham, or one of her sisters—for there were seven strapping lasses at the farm, and not one of them wed yet, as Mrs. Duncan would say—Fay would take refuge in the kitchen, or sit in the minister's room—anything to avoid the curious eyes and questioning that would have awaited her in ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... because he danced twice and thrice with her and several times more, she squeezed his arm when they asked him to sit in at poker. It was the obnoxious apron-string, the first of the many compulsions she would exert upon him if he gave in. Not that she was not a nice bit of a woman, healthy and strapping and good to look upon, also a very excellent dancer, but that she was a woman with all a woman's desire to rope him with her apron-strings and tie him hand and foot for the branding. Better poker. Besides, he liked poker as ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... he said to Nannette bruskly but not with unkindness when I had translated to him Nannette's weeping protests. "A great strapping girl like that can get down to the Harpeth Valley all right by herself. Nobody's going to eat her up, and from the size of the biceps I detect under that chiffon I think she could give a good account of herself ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... support them if you should fail them? As for you, Senor Juan, it does not matter much if you never again breathe the air of New Mexico. Your young little wife has not yet had an opportunity to know you fully, anyway, and your cousin, the strapping Don Isidro Chavez, will surely take the best care of her. They say he calls on her daily to inquire after her welfare. Senor Cuzco Gonzales, as you might be unlucky enough to leave your bones on this prairie, I would advise you to make me heir to your garden of chile peppers. To be sure, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... a week a strapping big young man, suitcase in hand, got off the train at the Yonkers depot, and was warmly greeted by his cousins, Paul and John Ross, who then introduced him to Bob Giddings. Bob had been so eager to see the new helper on the airplane that he could not wait for a later meeting ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... the tale. His remaining rags barely covered his emaciated, trembling frame. Shoes had gone long ago. His bleeding, frost-bitten feet were partly protected with coarse sacking tied with string. No one could have recognized in this human derelict the strapping specimen of proud manhood who six weeks before had said good-by to Laura and started out light-heartedly to conquer the world. Instead, the ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... wretched king is forced to offer his daughter (Thora) to anyone who will slay them. The hero (Ragnar) devises a dress of a peculiar kind (by help of his nurse, apparently), in this case, woolly mantle and hairy breeches all frozen and ice-covered to resist the venom, then strapping his spear to his hand, he encounters them boldly alone. The courtiers hide "like frightened little girls", and the king betakes him to a "narrow shelter", an euphemism evidently of Saxo's, for the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... taken the precaution to come alone, immediately wheeled round, and soon arrived with him at their huts. Andrew entered one of them, which was the largest in the rancho, where he was forthwith assisted by ten or twelve gitanos, all handsome strapping young fellows, whom the old woman had previously informed respecting the new comrade who was about to join them. She had not thought it necessary, to enjoin them to secrecy; for, as we have already said, they habitually observed it with unexampled sagacity and strictness. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... anything about who I was or where I came from; just said I wanted a complete physical examination, and let him go to it. He was thorough, and when he finished he patted me on the back and said, 'Parks, you've got nothing to worry about. You're as fine, strapping a specimen of a healthy human being as I've ever seen.' And that was that." Parks laughed bitterly. "I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict, and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic, it defied reason, it ...
— Circus • Alan Edward Nourse
... the better for Jock," said Heriot; "for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Hilliard play is a play, and I'm not going to try out a new playwright just to put money in your pockets. Why should I?" demanded the star virago, in a fury that made her snapping Irish blue eyes, tall, strapping, curved body, and pale tawny hair combine into a good semblance of the jungle queen ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... trace of it preserved in England. There seems to be little doubt that these words are due to a custom of beating a hawk which failed to do its duty with the thongs or jesses by which it was attached to the wrist of the falconer. Giving another jesse thus came to be equivalent to giving a person a strapping. ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... to this magnanimous resolve, a strapping young gentleman called a passing cab, leaped in, ordered the driver to follow the engine, and offered double fare if he should keep it in view up to ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... is,' he insisted, 'you're smart enough an' ye can have most anything in this world if ye take the right road. Ye've grown t' be a great big strapping ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... in ridin' graith [complacent, attire] Gaed hoddin' by their cotters; [jogging] There swankies young in braw braid-claith [strapping youngsters] Are springin' owre the gutters. [over] The lasses, skelpin' barefit, thrang, [padding, in crowds] In silks an' scarlets glitter, Wi' sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang, [slice] An' farls bak'd wi' butter, [cakes] Fu' crump that ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... A strapping girl, with a coarse prettiness, laughed a mocking strident laugh that expressed the feelings of the crowd even more than the louder curses around her. The workers slowly dispersed, in little groups, ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... a number of boys in the ship, but two of them were my special favourites. Jack Martin was a tall, strapping, broad-shouldered youth of eighteen, with a handsome, good-humoured, firm face. He had had a good education, was clever and hearty and lion-like in his actions, but mild and quiet in disposition. Jack was a general favourite, and had a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... one twinkling glance at his companion and then was instantly among the litter of the closet floor. He emerged strapping a belt about him, the holster tugging far down, so that the muzzle of the gun was almost at his knee. Bull appreciated the diminutive size of the man for the first time, seeing him in conjunction with the big ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... respectful silence, while they did all that rough soldiers could do to make her comfortable. An army overcoat was wrapped around her, stimulants and food given her, and one of the soldiers, shortening a stirrup, and strapping a folded blanket over his saddle, made a comfortable seat upon his horse; which he surrendered to her. The following day she had acquired sufficient strength to tell her ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Iowa) of tuberculosis. "I weighed just one hundred and nineteen pounds when I landed out here," he explained, and then as he stood erect and threw back his powerful shoulders his young companions laughed. It did not seem possible that the strapping young giant, who now weighed at least two hundred pounds, ever had been reduced to such a ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... which, owing to most of the passengers being busy below with their preparations for landing, was almost deserted. Billy was at his side. In the black motor-boat two men stood with their hands up. Alongside was a speedy-looking launch full of strapping big men with firm jaws and the unmistakable stamp of detectives the world over. Some of them were hauling on board the police launch Jack's dripping figure, which clung fast to the life-preserver. Others kept the men in the black ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... you, I would certainly consult a lawyer about the legality of that idiotic will. I remember distinctly hearing that Mr. Woods was very eccentric in his last days, and I haven't a doubt he was raving mad when, he left all his money to a great, strapping, long-legged young fellow, who is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Getting better, is he? Well, I suppose I'm glad to hear it, but he'd much better have stayed in Paris—where, I remember distinctly hearing, he led the most dissipated and ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... go home sometimes with a sore head, and I received my first wound from a piece of road metal hurled at me from quite a short distance by a great, strapping, fine Irishwoman. This occurred at Belfast some time after the affair at Limerick. As far as I remember there was to be a Catholic procession from somewhere near the Customs House through the principal streets to the Catholic cathedral. The city authorities and the police were ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... so love it! Oh, poor Cecil Tharp!" And with a queer little smile she pointed to a strapping red-faced youth dancing with her daughter. "He nearly trips Bee up every minute, and he hugs her so, as if he were afraid of falling on his head. Oh, dear, what a bump! It's lucky she's so nice and solid. I like to see the dear boy. Here come George and Helen Bellew. Poor George is not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... this suggestion, and Braddock went away to prepare for his departure. To get him off the premises was like launching a ship, as the entire household was at his swift heels, packing boxes, strapping rugs, cutting sandwiches, helping him on with his overcoat and assisting him into the trap, which had been hastily sent for to the Warrior Inn. All the time Braddock talked and scolded and gave directions and left instructions, until every one was ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Nancy appeared. Mrs. Gray assumed a brave aspect, but she quaked in her shoes as she showed the big strapping girl to her room. Five minutes later Nancy came into the kitchen to find Mrs. Gray bending over an obstinate coal fire in the range—with neither coal nor range was the little woman in ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... cavern of a place, this inn, with rough tables, rows and rows of wine flasks, and an open fire behind the bar, tended by an old woman, from which everything good to eat proceeded rapidly without dismay—roast chicken and fish in particular. A strapping girl with high cheek bones and a broad dark comely face washed plates and glasses assiduously, and two waiters, with eyes as near together as monkeys', served the customers with bewildering intelligence. It was the sort of inn that in England would throw up its ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... every inch a Central Office man, and had been long enough at Headquarters to lose the heavy bovine set of the man who pounds the pavement. A strapping big fellow, with graying hair and a pair of round bullet eyes that searched you with needle points, his very appearance was sufficient corroboration of all the thrilling stories the newspapers printed of ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... one of the younger men of the force, when a tall strapping young man, with a plain but open and singularly pleasing countenance entered, and going up to him shook him warmly by ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... days, if I don't lose my guess, he'll be like a lamb. Those desert stallions can be made into the finest kind of saddle-horses. I've seen one or two. I want you to stay up here with the sheep. You're getting well, you'll soon be a strapping big fellow. Then when we drive the sheep down in the fall you can begin life on the cattle ranges, driving wild steers. There's where you'll grow lean and hard, like an iron bar. You'll need that horse, ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... not recognize the slouching, dirty buck blocking his way as Me-Casto, the once haughty pride of the Blackfeet federation, or the obese, filthy squaw as Pine Coulee. The work of civilization had obviously been in vain. But this tall, strapping 'breed reaching out his unwashed hand! Burroughs gazed at a replica of himself as he had ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... her two sisters on the following day. This was a new, and a very great difficulty to the young farmer, for the fair nymphs were so similar in form and features, that he could scarcely perceive any difference between them. He observed, however, a trifling singularity in the strapping of her sandal, by which he recognized her the following day. Some, indeed, who relate this legend, say that this Lady of the Lake hinted in a private conversation with her swain that upon the day of trial she would place herself ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... was that Carlisle, gripping fast to poor Miller's machine, heard an odd noise behind her, and turned with a sickening dropping of the heart. Five yards away a girl gave a little moan and flopped forward upon her machine. She was a fine, strapping young creature, and it is certain that two minutes before nothing had been further from her mind than fainting. It did not stop there. Far up the room a "wrapper" rose in the dense air, took her head in both hands and fell backward into the arms of the operative ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... have any motive but public good must be referred to those who can decide whether a missionary chooses his pursuit solely to convert the heathen. I shall certainly be thought to have a little of the spirit of Col. Quagg, who delighted in strapping the Grace-walking Brethren. I must quote this myself: if I do not, some one else will, and then where am I? The Colonel's ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... stood in a kind of suspense, waiting the event of the orders which the tyrant had issued, one of Pavillon's followers whispered Peter, "Did not our master call that wench his daughter?—Why, it cannot be our Trudchen. This strapping lass is taller by two inches, and there is a black lock of hair peeps forth yonder from under her veil. By Saint Michael of the Marketplace, you might as well call a black bullock's ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... sleeves knotted behind him; and as he could only lie on his back, his sufferings must have been great; his arms were, moreover, confined with wrist-locks of hard leather, and his legs with leg-locks of similar kind; the strapping was so tight that he could not turn on either side; and any change of position was still more effectually prevented by a cylindrical stuffed bolster of ticken, of about ten inches thick, which ran round the sides, and top, and bottom of the bed, leaving a narrow ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little beast, Jose and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... to Neale O'Neil just as he had finished strapping on the cobbler's old skates that had been lent him. Carrie Poole was a big girl—nearly seventeen. She was too wise to attack Neale directly with the request she had ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... wrestling match which Fishing Bird proposed, and he called to a strapping young savage and challenged him to undertake to put Ree down. The brave smiled and stepped up willingly. Ree would have preferred that such a contest had not been suggested, but as the young Indian looked at him in a way which seemed to say, ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the servant remove the heap of pillows where I slept. Underneath was a loosened stone of the floor, and below it we kept the rifles, revolvers, and ammunition hidden. I carefully loaded all of them, and put all the remaining cartridges into our two old belts. I thought of strapping one of these about me, but reflected that this would have a hostile and treasonable appearance, so I contented myself with concealing one revolver in my coat, and then I carefully covered up all the rest, and had the servant pile the pillows over ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... press a button and a liveried servant comes running as though I were Mary, Queen of England, or Clara Kimball Young. And plenty of hot water for baths and lots of enormous towels and, as soon as one's butter is gone, another piece, and fresh butter at that. Pitchers of ice water and a strapping big man standing so solicitously and watching one's every mouthful. It makes me feel as though I were the Shah of Persia. At home I don't feel at all like ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... ses Miss Tucker. "Why, because o' Bill. He's such a 'orrid jealous disposition. After I gave 'im up I walked out with a young fellow named Smith; fine, big, strapping chap 'e was, too, and I never saw such a change in any man as there was in 'im after Bill 'ad done with 'im. I couldn't believe it was 'im. I told Bill he ought to ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... seemed ridiculous to call a strapping, curly-haired, bewhiskered, six-foot man "Tommy"!) "I know it, Tommy; but it ain't of no use puttin' of it off. I've always 'ad a settled conviction that anythink as is put off is as good as given up altogether. No, no, my son; ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... bright side. It'll be all right. You see if it won't. If there's any running in to be done, I shall do it. I shall be frightfully fit tomorrow after all this dashing about today. I haven't an ounce of superfluous flesh on me. I'm a fine, strapping specimen of sturdy young English manhood. And I'm going to play a very ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... to this building when the stable-door has been locked and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance." Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists, are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned baskets, while ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... tall, strapping fellow with a good-tempered face, whose ruddy health was set off by a handsome pair of black whiskers. As I watched him, he laid aside the pitchfork he had been using, and approached the wagon, but, chancing to look up, his eye ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... for a little girl," said Amarilly. "All you strapping boys ought to chip in out of your cash on hand what isn't in the bank and give her some so she could be in on it. Here is fifty cents ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... were stripping off their coats, rolling them and strapping them to the saddles and the wagon seats; the Numbers One, the sergeants in charge of each gun, bustling their gunners, and seeing everything about the guns made ready: the gunners examining the mechanism and gears of the gun, opening and closing the hinged ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... of Saint Joseph, ma'am—our coat of arms is two heads upon one pillow, and our motty, 'Who's afraid?—Hurroo!'" shouted the savage, and he twirled his stick and cut another caper. Then coming up to Andy, he addressed him as "young woman," and said there was a fine strapping fellow whose heart was breaking till he "rowled her ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... did it?' asked the Ranger, throwing the saddle from his own pony, strapping the cased rifle to his shoulder and carrying the hatchet in the crook of ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut |
