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Tarpaulin

noun
1.
Waterproofed canvas.  Synonym: tarp.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tarpaulin" Quotes from Famous Books



... represents the broken seals. His boots are the legacies of two black jacks, and till he pawned the silver that the jacks were tipped with it was a pretty mode of boot-hose-tops. For the rest of his habit he is a perfect seaman, a kind of tarpaulin, he being hanged about with his coarse composition, those ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... roof of a building. It was a strange sight—the moon seemingly singling out every sleeper for me. Another night we went together over to the Queen's Shades, near Billingsgate. On the top of a number of barrels, covered with tarpaulin, seventy-three fellows were sleeping. I had the whole lot ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... their immediate surroundings, and decided that they had at least made their meaning plain; there was no occasion for emphasizing their disapproval any further. They confiscated the rifles, and they told the fellows why they did so. They very kindly pulled a tarpaulin over the three to protect them in a measure from the chill night that was close upon them, and they wished them good night and pleasant ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... out Uncle Dick, who had begun to pull the tarpaulin over the cargo. "I can't judge the water in this wind. ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... piece of heavy tarpaulin was lashed over the broken skylight, securing the ends to ringbolts in the deck; but hardly had the covering been made fast ere we could see the chief engineer picking his way towards us, struggling through the water that still lay a foot deep in the waist ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... My guardian was walking slowly, his face sorrowful and dejected, and his eyes fastened on every ship he passed, as if looking for his boys. He saw me, casting a vacant glance over my person; but I was so much changed by dress, and particularly by the little tarpaulin, that he did not know me. Anxiety immediately drew his look towards the vessels, and I passed him unobserved. Mr. Hardinge was walking from, and I towards the John, and of course all my risk terminated as soon ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... entirely forgotten the long nine; and there, to our horror, were the five rogues busy about her, getting off her jacket, as they called the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only that, but it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round-shot and the powder for the gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would put it all into the possession of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... models, find a stack cover, a tarpaulin, a tent fly, an awning, or buy some wide cotton cloth, say 90-inch. All the shapes may be repeatedly made from the same piece of material, if the rings for changes are left attached. In Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, a portion of the canvas is not used and may be turned under to serve as sod-cloth, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Captain Age, With your great sea-chest full of treasure! Under the yellow and wrinkled tarpaulin Disclose the carved ivory And the sandalwood inlaid with pearl, Riches of wisdom and years. Unfold the India shawl, With the border of emerald and orange and crimson and blue, Weave of a lifetime. I shall be warm and splendid With the spoils ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... Balaclava, spending my days on shore, and my nights on board ship. Over our stores, stacked on the shore, a few sheets of rough tarpaulin were suspended; and beneath these—my sole protection against the Crimean rain and wind—I spent some portion of each day, receiving visitors and ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... to be seen driving in a large, full-bodied gipsy waggon, or covered-in break, with open sides and a tarpaulin roof, in which he has, carefully stowed away, tiers upon tiers of cages, that contain almost every description of English and foreign birds; not excluding, also, sundry small pet animals—monkeys, squirrels, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... floating nondescripts, were specimens of the ancient coracle of our own islands, constructed in exactly the same way; that is, of wicker-work, covered with some waterproof substance, whether skin or tarpaulin. But the ingenious Kanaka, not content with his coracles, had gone one better, and copied them in dugouts of solid timber. The resultant vessel was a sort of cross between a butcher's tray ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... flames were already shooting from the port-holes. The head fast was cast off, and the ketch fell astern. But the stern fast became jammed and the boom foul, while the ammunition of the party, covered only with a tarpaulin, was within easy reach ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... thinkin' o', lad; I dare say we can. Let me see; we've got that old tarpaulin and the lying jib-sail under us. The tarpaulin itself will be big enough. How about ropes? Ah! there's the sheets of the jib still stickin' to the sail; and then there's the handspike and our two oars. The oars 'll do without the handspike. Let's set 'em up then, and rig the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... that, after replacing his tarpaulin, the lips of Garth continued to move silently, then were compressed gravely for a time, while his eye, large, clear, and expressive, was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... the warp was, of course, out of the question, so we rigged a sail from the big hatchway tarpaulin. We lashed the hatch-battens together in the form of a parallelogram, fastened the sail to this, and stayed the structure by means of various devices. We slipped our cable and made for the bar. Wind, tide, and sea were all with us; had the tide been unfavorable, the attempt would ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... to be required, the boy took the small telescope from where it hung and made his way back again on deck, where he focussed the glass and began to scan the brig, scrutinising her rig and everything that he could command, from trucks to deck, making out the long gun covered by a great tarpaulin, and then bringing the glass to bear upon such of the crew as came ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... centenary procession in the provincial capital and had emerged into the open again last summer for a town-booming Rodeo twenty miles down the steel from Buckhorn. It looked like the dinosaur skeleton in the Museum of Natural History, with every vestige of its tarpaulin top gone. But Whinnie has already sewed together a canvas covering for its weather-beaten old roof-ribs, and has put clean wheat-straw in its box-bottom, so that it makes a kingly place for my two kiddies to play. I even spotted Dinkie, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... our boat and a large tarpaulin we had made a sort of tent. We were lucky enough to find a little dry wood, and soon the tent was filled with the fragrant odor of hot coffee. When we had eaten and drunk and our pipes were lit, Johansen, in spite of fatigue and a full ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... good-humored Bean-Feasters as ever drank thin beer in a ramshackle tavern. But there was one of them—this is twenty-five years ago, reader!—a girl as fragile as a peeled Willow-wand—and teased by the rude badinage of our companions we sheltered—as the friendly mists rose—under a great Tarpaulin at the barge's stern. Where is that girl now, I wonder? Is she alive? Will she ever blush with anger at being thus gently lifted up, from beneath the kind Somersetshire mists, into an hour's publicity? Who can tell? We are all ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... that they came on shore without leave; and that they should not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground." "Why," says the Spaniard, very calmly, "Seignior Inglese, they must not starve." The Englishman replied, like a rough tarpaulin, "They might starve; they should not plant nor build in that place." "But what must they do then, seignior?" said the Spaniard. Another of the brutes returned, "Do? they should be servants, and work for them." "But how can you expect that of them?" says the Spaniard; "they are ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... every moment to clutch the bulwark rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes of the bosun's pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the forecastle, like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch opened, and a burst of smoke—black, villainous smoke—ascend to the sky, solid as a ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... there was a little group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... who cannot pay for their passage must either work it out or hide themselves on board ship, he took the easier alternative, and got on to the first vessel which had a plank to the quay, and hid himself under some tarpaulin on ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... abundantly. Boots are made of it by the Indians, through which water cannot penetrate; and the inhabitants of Quito prepare a kind of cloth with it, which they apply to the same purposes as those for which oil-cloth or tarpaulin, it used here. This, no doubt, is similar to the cloth now prepared with this substance in America, the use of which yields so many ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various

... There was a tarpaulin near the rubbish-heap, and some sacking used for keeping the vegetables warm at night. "That'll do," he said, pointing. "Quick!—Good-bye!" In a moment he was beneath the spread black covering, the children were sitting on its edges, quietly eating more bread and jam, and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... very light grey cycling-suit had suddenly appeared at the side of the lame motor-car and addressed the owner. "Have you a tarpaulin?" ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... the lazarette of the ship on the voyage to Cape Town: it was caused by an overturned lamp and easily extinguished. The second was during our first winter in the Antarctic, when there was a fire in the motor shed, which was formed by full petrol cases built up round the motors, and roofed with a tarpaulin. This threatened to be more serious, but was also put out without much difficulty. The third and fourth cases were during the winter which had just passed, and were both inside ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... things in the way of boats, but this 'ere's a—well, what do you make of it?" He pulled the tarpaulin back, and disclosed a vessel whose hull was nearing completion. I did not ask if it was Pascoe's work. It was such an amusing and pathetic surprise, that, with the barge-builder's leering face turned to me waiting for my guess, there was no need ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... made some enquiries concerning the landing of her stores—this admiral had declared brusquely that they did not want a parcel of women in the place. When at last Mary Seacole's stores were put ashore, she started business in a rough little hut, made of tarpaulin, on which was displayed the name of the firm—Seacole and Day. The soldiers, however, considered that as Mary Seacole's skin was dark, a better name for the firm was Day and Martin, and as such ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... joiner rose and stepped to a rough litter covered by a tarpaulin. The latter, being turned back, displayed a travelling armoury of tools. As he lifted two axes out of their slots, Winchester came ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... There was scarcely a stir in the air, and the sun beat down on the sand-hills in no gentle manner. The perspiration ran down the men's faces as they carried, and the flies were beginning to come. After lunch Job set up two impromptu wigwams, stringing a tarpaulin over each, and under these shelters the men rested till 4 P.M. By camping time the outfit had been moved up over the portage about a mile, and I had learned something more ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... the product of time, which always works in true taste. The mystery of tile-laying is not known to every one; for to all appearance tiles seem to be put on over a thin bed of hay or hay-like stuff. Lately they have begun to use some sort of tarpaulin or a coarse material of that kind; but the old tiles, I fancy, were comfortably placed on a shake-down of hay. When one slips off, little bits of hay stick up; and to these the sparrows come, removing it bit by bit ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... every clime, you will find huge granaries and stores of lead, alum, drugs, tallow, chicory, flour, rice, biscuit, sulphur, and saltpetre, mingled with the warehouses of cheese-agents, ham-factors, provision merchants, tarpaulin-dealers, oil and colour merchants, etcetera. In fact, the entire region seems laid out with a view to the raising of a bonfire or a pyrotechnic display on the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... bilge water, tobacco and rum warned him that his expected visitor was approaching. And an instant after the door was opened, and a short, stout, dark man in a weather-proof jacket, duck trousers, cow-hide shoes, and tarpaulin ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... me out at arm's length and eyed me. He was a sailor, and rigged out in his best shore-going clothes—tarpaulin hat, blue coat and waistcoat, and a broad leathern belt to hold up his duck trousers, on which my sooty head had left its mark. He grinned at me good-naturedly. I saw that he had ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... pardon, sir, of course. Here, you Neb Dumlow, and you Barney Blane," cried the man to a couple of his fellows, who were busy tightening the tarpaulin over a boat which swung from ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... peaks were storm-hid, the afternoon was joyous. Berrie was a sweet companion. Under her supervision he practised at chopping wood and took a hand at cooking. At her suggestion he stripped the tarpaulin from her father's bed and stretched it over a rope before the tent, thus providing a commodious kitchen and dining-room. Under this roof they sat and talked of everything except what they should do if the father did not ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... reach the cool burrow, which served as our Battalion Headquarters. Here I found Colonel Canning, P.H. Creagh and Fawcus sitting on the yellow, dusty ground beneath a tarpaulin. It was thrilling once again to walk among our Manchester men, now very thin and sunburnt, in shirt-sleeves and shorts, making the best of life in narrow trenches, and watching day after day the serried Turkish lines and broad, brown ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... quickened his steps, hurried to the Station, opened the sitting-room door, found it empty, the men being in bed upstairs awaiting their turns, and then strode on to the captain's room, his sou'wester and tarpaulin drenched with spray and sand, his hip-boots leaving watery tracks along the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... to Mr. Cledd, Roger then instructed him to throw down a tarpaulin, which he did, and this we made fast about the twenty bags. Having taken several turns of a rope's end round the whole, Roger, carrying the other end, climbed hand-over-hand the rope by which we had lowered ourselves, and I followed ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... the foremast; but the machinery hid the man from me. Presently a strip of canvas fluttered in the breeze, and Long Jim stood up, with a sail-needle and a length of sail-twine in his teeth, and cut out a square of tarpaulin on ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... his day with the dawn when he threw off the frost-coated tarpaulin; the icy water brought him a glow of exhilaration; he drank in the spiced cold air, and there was the spring of the deer-hunter in his step as he went down the slope for his horse. He no longer feared that Silvermane would run away. The gray's bell could ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... finally, in the dog-kennel. Strap, as a favourite, lived in the house; but he kept a greyhound in the garden, in a kennel surrounded by a sort of run made of iron poles and galvanised wire. It was roofed in with wire also, for the convenience of stretching a tarpaulin in wet weather. Here it was that he bestowed the strange being rescued ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... to the handspikes, which were our oars. Nails we had only, by drawing them from different parts of the boat; and the rest of the chest was used to kindle a fire. It also happened that our main tarpaulin, which had been newly tarred, was put into the boat. Of it we made a main-sail; and of an old piece of canvas, that had been a sail to a yawl, we made a fore-sail. In this condition we turned towards the shore, and observing the surrounding ice lie north ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... I found the best curiosity of the museum. The first I saw of it was a longish mound of earth with a twist to it. Digging off the earth with my hands, I found underneath tarpaulin stretched on boards, so that this was plainly the roof of a cellar. It stood right on the top of the hill, and the entrance was on the far side, between two rocks, like the entrance to a cave. I went as far in as the bend, and, looking round the corner, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was a most gorgeous affair. We were determined to do everything in the best possible style, and everybody helped. We first rigged up a trestle table beside the train and stretched a tarpaulin above it to shelter us from the fierce heat. Three of our number were then despatched to secure all the green stuff they could for decorative purposes, and as the good people of De Aar were quite ready to give us some ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... 15-ton craft that had been in her track since she left the Otley river before noon, dipping and straining, with every inch of sail set; as mad a stern chase as ever was witnessed: and who could the man at the tiller, clad cap-A-pie in tarpaulin, be? She led him dancing away, to prove his resoluteness and laugh at him. She had the powerful wings, and a glory in them coming of this pursuit: her triumph was delicious, until the occasional sparkle of the tarpaulin was lost, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the boat, Harry hid himself under the tarpaulin, leaving a hole open near to the mouth of the bag. He had not remained more than a few minutes in this concealment when one of the birds flew down, and alighted on the edge of the boat. After a glance round to see that all was right, it jumped into the bag. A moment ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... doors, funnels, and scuttles, which I soon saw were blown off; I rushed forward and got them secured again, and in coming aft found the hatches had all been blown off; the two foremost main-gratings had gone down the hatchway. The after one I assisted to replace, also the tarpaulin, which was excessively hot, and left the carpenter to get it secured on. I next thought of the magazine, where I dreaded some accident. On my way aft, I met some people again bringing Mr. Banks up in their arms. On reaching the ward-room, I saw through the windows ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... mechanically out of the window. A four-wheeler stood before the gate under the weeping sky. The driver in his conical cape and tarpaulin hat, streamed with water. The drooping horse looked as though it had been fished out, half unconscious, from a pond. Mrs. Fyne found some relief in looking at that miserable sight, away from the room in which the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... he received the Baron's instructions; then he left the room; and five minutes later a large military wagon, covered with miller's tarpaulin stretched in the shape of a dome, was being rapidly driven away under the heavy rain at the gallop ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... had found a large open space, fenced round with iron railing, which, while keeping out man, offered everywhere a door of welcome to rats. Here, protected by nothing but tarpaulin, was collected a quantity of goods, both those which had been imported into Russia, and those with which she paid back from her own productions ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... sailor's pains. If the Pirates catch me, save me from their chains. Meantime mark the sailor mount the topmast high, Till his trim tarpaulin almost scrapes the sky, Luffing to the starboard, tacking o'er the bay, Thus Manhattan Captains sail ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw

... we had breakfasted this morning, we prepared to cross, to assist us in which undertaking we contrived to construct a sort of punt by taking the wheels and axletrees off one of the carts. We then placed the body of the cart on a large tarpaulin, the shafts passing through holes cut for them, the tarpaulin tightly nailed round them. The tarpaulin was then turned up all round, and nailed inside the cart; by this means it was made almost water-tight. We then fastened ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... which bound the mouth of the sack was now cut. The officer laid the bag on its side, seized it by the bottom, and jerked forth the contents. A large package was disclosed, carefully wrapped up in impervious tarpaulin, also well tied. He was on the point of pulling open the folds at one end, when a light coloured thread of something, hanging on the outside, arrested his eye. He put his hand upon it; it felt stringy, and adhered to his fingers. 'Hold ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... made of loose-woven stuff or so shrunk that they would not meet the boot, displaying feet where the elastic sides wriggled like living vermin, and ankles covered with vermicelli dipped in ink; then the most impossibly threadbare and discoloured coats, made, as it seemed, of old billiard cloths, of tarpaulin worn to the canvas, of cast-off awnings; overcoats of cast iron, the surface worn off the back-seam and sleeves—glaucous waistcoats, sprigged with flowers and furnished with buttons of dry brawn-parings; and all this was as nothing; what was prodigious, beyond the bounds of belief, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... which he knew not the meaning, the long, shrill gathering cry of the pack. This would rouse all the other beasts to a frenzy of wails and screeches and growls and roars; till Toomey would have to come and stop his performance by darkening the cage with a tarpaulin. At the sound of Toomey's voice, soothing yet overmastering, the great wolf would lie down quietly, and the ghostly summons of his far-ravaging fathers would haunt his spirit ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... my mettle. I even went ashore for a moment to borrow a tarpaulin to lay over her knees, knowing I should have to make a voyage all the way back to-morrow to restore it. Then, when I had her tucked in, and set the ballast trim, I hoisted the sail, and sat beside her, with the tiller in one hand and ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... "Perhaps—I am not sure," and went inside, where he made up a light pack of bacon, flour and tea, a pail or two, a coffee-pot and a frying-pan, which he rolled inside a robe of rabbit-skin and bound about in turn with a light tarpaulin. It did not weigh thirty pounds in all. Selecting a new pair of water-boots, he stuffed dry grass inside them, oiled up his six-shooter, then slipped out the back way, and in five minutes was hidden in the thickets. Half an hour later, having ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... snow-houses; wattle and daub; palisades; straw or reed walls; bark; mats; Malay hitch; tarpaulin; whitewash; roofs, floors, windows. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... taking up the narrative; "and then he said they had a terrible fight, for it twisted its tail round his leg and struck at him, getting hold of his tarpaulin coat with its teeth and holding on till he got the blade of the axe into the cut he had made and sawed away till he got through the backbone. Oh yes, we heard him tell the story lots of times about how strong it was, and how it ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... with the usual scarlet ribbon that like a snood confined her brown hair, when she returned to her tasks. The space between the galley and the bulwarks had been her favorite resort in summer when not actually engaged in household work. It was now lightly roofed over with boards and tarpaulin against the winter rain, but still afforded her a veranda-like space before the galley door, where she could read or sew, looking over the bow of the Pontiac to the tossing bay or the farther range of ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... passed along a narrow, disproportionately lofty passage, so ill-roofed that the rain came through on wet days. All the roofs of the hovels indeed were in very bad repair, and covered here and again with a double thickness of tarpaulin. A famous silk mercer once brought an action against the Orleans family for damages done in the course of a night to his stock of shawls and stuffs, and gained the day and a considerable sum. It was in this last-named passage, called "The Glass Gallery" to distinguish it from the Wooden ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... he unsaddled his horse, threw the pack off the other, and, hobbling both animals, he turned them loose. His roll of bedding, roped in canvas tarpaulin, he threw under a spruce-tree. Then he opened his oxhide-covered packs and laid out utensils and bags, little and big. All his movements were methodical, yet swift, accurate, habitual. He was not thinking about what he was doing. It took him some little ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... gray-streaked beard swept the breast of his blue jersey. He was seldom seen without a tarpaulin on his head, and this had made his crown as bare and polished as a shark's tooth. Under the bulk of his jersey he might have been either thin or deep-chested, for the observer could not easily judge. And nobody ever saw the storekeeper's sleeves rolled ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... stem down-stream, and her after-part—her habitable quarters—covered by a black tarpaulin. A solitary man was at work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket. As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a fire had been already kindled beneath some dwarf trees, and that a kettle was set over it to boil. Gallego beckoned me to follow him into a thicket some distance from the rancho, where, beneath the protection of a large tarpaulin, we found filibustero's pantry amply provided with butter, onions, spices, salt-fish, bacon, lard, rice, coffee, wines, and all the requisites of comfortable living. In the corners, strewn at random on the ground, I observed spy-glasses, compasses, sea-charts, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... there great patches of fields, submerged to the hedges, and houses standing out amidst the waste of waters like toy dwellings. There were whole plantations of uprooted trees. Close to the road, on their left, was a roofless house, and a family of children crying underneath a tarpaulin shelter. As they crept on, the wind came to them with a brackish flavour, salt with the sea. The chauffeur was gazing ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "Throw a tarpaulin over that binnacle," commanded Beardsley; and a moment later Marcy saw him coming up. He gave the glass into his hands and moved aside so that the captain could find a place to stand on the crosstrees. Either ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... the banks we were aware of certain shelters which were like overgrown rabbit hutches cunningly contrived of wattled faggots and straw sheaves plaited together. They had tarpaulin interlinings and dug-out earthen floors covered over thickly with straw. These cozy small shacks hid themselves behind a screen of haws among the scattered trees which flanked an ancient fortification, abandoned many years ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... between her and the Thames, she had nothing but one grass-plot of the width of her house, has paved that whole plot with black and white marble in diamonds, exactly like the floor of a church; and this curious metamorphosis of a garden into a pavement has cost her three hundred and forty pounds:-a tarpaulin she might have had for some shillings, which would have looked as well, and might easily have been removed. To be sure, this exploit, and Lord Dudley's obelisk below a hedge, with his canal at right angles with the Thames, and a sham bridge no broader than that of a violin, and parallel to the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the beans I leads him out of the tarpaulin- steam under a lamp post and pulls out a daily paper with the amusement column ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... sailor costume—white duck pants, blue shirt, open at the breast, large neckerchief, loose as an ox-bow, and tied with a jaunty sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black little tarpaulin hat roosting daintily far back on head, and flying two gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made him, in my boyish admiration, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... walked down the beach until they came to the spot where they saw the sailors. Here aunt Amy gave Minnie a tract to carry to a stout sailor, who had on a large tarpaulin hat. She ran up to the man, with one of ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester

... blocks or so below, he left Wilson on the sidewalk and vanished into a store whose windows were cluttered with ship's junk. Anchor-chains, tarpaulin, marlinspikes, ropes, and odd bits of iron were scattered in a confusion of fish nets. Stubbs emerged with a black leather bag so heavy that he was forced to ask Wilson to help him lift it ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... "Run a white tarpaulin across the cheese, Jock, to keep them frae melting in the heat," came another voice. "And canny on the top there wi' thae big feet o' yours; d'ye think a cheese was made for you to dance on wi' your mighty brogues?" Then the voice sank ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange, himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place—adjusting the saddle with careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their march, also, would place Croesus first; which position—the novelist, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... with a heap of sacks and an old tarpaulin. The curtain was looped up, and the brothers were left alone. They matured their plan in whispers. Outside, the merry-go-round blared out its comic tunes, screaming now and then to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... fowl I followed him tip-toe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... to the cutter, and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard, lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only in a dressing gown and a blood-stained nightshirt, groaning ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... interior part proceeds to go bad, and needless to say maggoty. If it is kept in the smoke, as it often is to keep it out of the way of dogs and driver ants, it acquires the toothsome taste and texture of a piece of old tarpaulin. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... crossed the tracks and reached the line of trucks it was indeed to find that an opportunity for further escape was right before them. For here were half a dozen trucks stacked high with hay, and each covered with a tarpaulin. To cast off one end of the tarpaulin, to burrow a hole in the hay, to tread their way into the stacks, and to hack a space sufficient to accommodate their bodies was no great difficulty, and though, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... The door is so low that I had to stoop to get in. It was quite dark when we got here last night, but Mrs. Sorenson acted as if she was glad to see us. I didn't think we could all get in. A row of bunks is built along one side of the cabin. A long tarpaulin covers the bed, and we all got upon this and sat while our hostess prepared our supper. If one of us had stirred we would have been in her way; so there we sat as thick as thieves. When supper was ready six ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,' said Mr. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, 'but he loses that there art of his to our little Em'ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, and in the long-run he makes it clear to me wot's ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... he, pulling a lock of his hair and putting his tarpaulin hat under the seat which had been offered him. "Why, old ship, I've seen some rum things in the course of my life, and I don't forget them, like some does," he remarked, smoothing down his hair with his long, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... vicious piece, two swivel guns were on each side, completely concealed by the thick bulwarks, and to be fired through ports, so ingeniously closed as to be imperceptible a few yards away. All these pieces of ordnance were kept covered by tarpaulin so that at a little distance the Namur of Rotterdam appeared like ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... horse-blankets on top of the big tarpaulin which lay in the rear of the sled-box ready for use in the covering of supplies, he settled himself in front and pulled the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... the quarterdeck, rolled up in an army blanket and a tarpaulin. Strokher turned in below in the cabin upon the fixed lounge by the dining-table, while Ally Bazan stretched himself in one of the ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... horses among the redwoods at the pool. From a cache behind a hollow rotting log my companion brought out a variety of things,—a fifty-pound sack of flour, tinned foods of all sorts, cooking utensils, blankets, a canvas tarpaulin, books and writing material, a great bundle of letters, a five-gallon can of kerosene, an oil stove, and, last and most important, a large coil of stout rope. So large was the supply of things that a number of trips would be necessary ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... a specially constructed "hall" in the desert. Sandbags were the mainstay of the platform and a large tarpaulin, G.S., formed the drop-scene. The walls were of rough canvas, upon which it was inadvisable to lean, lest the whole structure collapsed. Primitive, no doubt, but it suited the environment; and I have never seen in the most elaborate West-end theatre ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... did not like the smell of the tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one, J—— confessed to me) under a tarpaulin—I mean "tarp"—with stars above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... to be. She wanted to keep everything for her lover, and that raised the exasperation of the eighteen to its height, and so one night when she and the clown were asleep, among all these fasting men, the eighteen threw themselves upon them. They wrapped the despot's arms and legs up in tarpaulin, and in the presence of the woman, who was firmly bound, they flogged him till he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... never before seen a procession of villagers, and these villagers must have been collected out of the fields, for the procession was going in the direction of, and not away from, the village. The handcart was covered with a tarpaulin.... She knew what had happened; she knew infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the grounds, she reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds before the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new adventure, yapped ecstatically at her heels, and then bounded onwards to meet the Inspector ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... intent on fish. I could see her all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered to a tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to think of food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved down the stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up to her I flung the ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... a tarpaulin and cover that hole," said Dick. "I'll do it," he added. "I can't get any wetter than I am," and he ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... morning he spread a tarpaulin on the ice, loaded it with three-quarters of a ton, and started to pull. Where the pitch of the glacier accelerated, his load likewise accelerated, overran him, scooped him in on top, and ran ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... electric light, a short train was side-tracked, engineless, waiting until the time should come when the road again would be open, and the way over the Pass free. One glance told him what it was: the tarpaulin-covered, snow-shielded, bulky forms of his machinery,—machinery that he now felt he could personally aid to its destination. For there was work ahead. Midnight found him in a shack buried in snow and reached only by a circuitous tunnel, a shack where men—no ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... front. A fellow-feeling had made Derek and Nedda stand to watch an old man who walked, tortuous, extremely happy, bidding them all come. And when they moved on, it was very slowly, just keeping sight of the others across the lumbered dimness of Covent Garden, where tarpaulin-covered carts and barrows seemed to slumber under the blink of lamps and watchmen's lanterns. Across Long Acre they came into a street where there was not a soul save the two others, a long way ahead. Walking with his arm tightly laced with hers, touching ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of a horse when much startled are highly expressive. One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling machine, covered by a tarpaulin, and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high, that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... open and my recreant guests reappeared half-dragging, half-pushing before them a matchless Adonis in glazed tarpaulin trousers and a coarse ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... a sort of scow, for it was larger than a boat though oars lay along its thwarts, was moored. It was partly decked over, and she could see a small black opening into the forward end of it, though the opening itself was almost hidden by a heap of tarpaulin, or sailcloth, or something of the kind, that lay in the bottom of the craft. She nodded her head. They might all of them use that ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... started back to find Old Dibs I was worked up to quite a fever, and I'd keep looking over my shoulder expecting every minute to see one of them six ships in the pass. He had finished breakfast and had gone, and so I followed him over to the weather side, where, as usual, he was sitting under his tarpaulin in the graveyard, tootling for all he was worth. He looked up, a little surprised to see me, and I guess ships were running through his head also, for that was ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... enough there to float the boat with any body in it. The servants handed him out the great cans they used at school-teas, full of hot coffee, and baskets of bread, and he placed them in the boat, covering them with a tarpaulin. Then Helen appeared at the door, in her waterproof, with a great fur-cloak—to throw over him, she said, when she took the oars, for she meant to have her share of the fun: it was so seldom there was any going on a Sunday!—How she would have shocked ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... to friction were guarded with sheepskin and greased hide. The smaller boat was suspended within the larger, also on canvas, so as to swing clear of the outer boat's sides; and the whole was covered by a tarpaulin thrown over a ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... sent 'em to dismantle and bring down Chaucer's hut. I admit they rather exceeded instructions, for they brought a lot of things that Chaucer had omitted to mention. However, they said he was there when they took them, so I supposed it was all right. Besides the hut they had two bell-tents, a big tarpaulin, some corrugated iron and expanded metal, some home-made chairs and tables, a water-tank and a field kitchen, with its wheels broken off—a noble lot of loot it was. They worked like beavers bringing it down and getting it in place, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various

... seemed to have worn itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and it became feasible to go on deck: which was a great relief, notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without tumbling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing at first, too, to have to duck nimbly every ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... everywhere—high in the flocculent clouds, low between the closest grass-blades; scattering the seeded flowers in the hedgerows, rippling under the tarpaulin covers of the stacks so that they seemed to be drawing deep breaths, twisting the golden straws upon the cobbled yard until they seemed to be playing together—playing mad games of wrestling, each slim golden combatant writhing ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... passed a week there. He was relegated to a large marquee, the sides of which were always rolled up. In the centre stood two tables, one occupied by medicines and the other by the dishes and food of the establishment. Stretched on the ground was a large tarpaulin, whereon, with a blanket apiece, eighty or more hors de combat heroes had their abode. Everything was as good as could be had in Mudros; but in those days Mudros lacked almost everything that could be desired. The water-supply was bad; ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... stretcher drill: having lectures on First Aid and Nursing from a R.A.M.C. Sergeant-Major, and, when it was very hot, enjoying a splash in the tarpaulin-lined swimming bath the soldiers had kindly made for us. Rides usually took place in the evenings, and when bedtime came the weary troopers were only too ready to turn in! Our beds were on the floor and of the "biscuit" variety, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... a noise in the cellar as to attract the notice of the Algerines, who are insufferably suspicious about their wives and slaves. Therefore, we provided as much canvas as would cover the boat twice over, and as much pitch, tar and tallow, as would make it a kind of tarpaulin; as also earthen pots in which to melt our materials. The two carpenters and myself were appointed to this service in the cellar. We stopped up all chinks and crevices, that the fumes of these substances might not betray us. But we had not been long at work, when the smell ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... and the Genoese, while waiting for supper, rolled themselves up near the women, at the foot of the mast, in some tarpaulin which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... know we are off, and by which I shall continue to know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way that ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... had once poured out the water of the fountain was barren and mutilated; and the bath was partly covered in with loose boards, the exposed part accommodating a heap of coals in one corner, a heap of potatoes in another, a beer barrel, some old carpets, a tarpaulin, and a broken canoe. The marble pavement extended to the outer walls of the house, and was roofed in at the sides by the upper stories which were supported by fluted stone columns, much stained and chipped. The staircase, towards which Trefusis led his visitors, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... entered by a plank, with two elects, slanting down from the scuttle, which was a mere hole in the deck. There being no slide to draw over in case of emergency, the tarpaulin temporarily placed there was little protection from the spray heaved over the bows; so that in anything of a breeze the place was miserably wet. In a squall, the water fairly poured down in sheets like a cascade, swashing about, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... For this, every hunter provides a case, usually of buckskin, but failing that they made a good quiver of birch bark laced with spruce roots for the arrows, and for the bow itself a long cover of tarpaulin. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Captain Hollinger and secured his motion-picture camera, he found his chum waiting in the boat, where Dailey and Yorke, Borden and Birch were at the oars. Waving farewell to the ship, they moved away; Bob nudged Mart and pointed to a tarpaulin under ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... it; but being greatly hampered by her stern sails and the press of canvas she was carrying, by the time she had come round we had gained a good quarter mile upon her. The wind had freshened, and in some ten minutes our captain gave the order to haul the tarpaulin off Long Tom, the biggest of eight guns we carried, and give the Frenchman a pill. The gun was already loaded, and Bill Garland, the best shot aboard, of whose skill I had heard not a little from his messmates, laid it carefully and took ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... anything else; therefore we decided to build a shanty ourselves. Meantime, we were camped on our new estate in a manner more picturesque than comfortable. A rude construction of poles covered with an old tarpaulin sufficed us. It was summer weather, and this was quite good enough for a beginning. From step to step, that is the way to progress, so we said. First the tent or whare, temporarily for a few weeks; then the shanty, for a year or two; then, as things ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... inviting; and the ridiculous wagonette creeps up behind it, in apologetic and shamefaced comparison. The driver of the wagonette, however, a tough, grizzled old guide, is not shamefaced in the least, but grins broadly and contentedly as he sits there wrapped in his tarpaulin, wet and shiny under the steady rain. The landau soon hospitably receives the favored majority, and disappears into the mist up the street; and the remaining two of us turn to the wagonette,—and turning, involuntarily catch the infection of the old ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... the men from above. "All right!" Joe shouted back in answer. "Shra-a-a-auk!" roared the train, as with diminished speed it passed beneath them. At that moment Wright, leaning down, dropped the bag. It fell plump on a hollow place into a tarpaulin which covered some luggage on the roof of one of the first-class carriages, and was whisked far away in another second, not to be disturbed from its snug retreat till it ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... fell upon all alike, pattering upon the hood of the taxi-cab, trickling down the front windows; glistening upon the unctuous hair of those in the street who were hatless; dewing the bare arms of the auctioneers, and dripping, melancholy, from the tarpaulin coverings of the stalls. Heedless of the rain above and of the mud beneath, North, South, East, and West mingled their cries, their bids, their blandishments, their raillery, mingled their ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... wrong, which a very few barrels are enough to do with a man who has sapped the foundations. Treading softly for fear of a spark from his boots, and guarding the lantern well, Carne approached one of the casks in the lower tier, and lifted the tarpaulin. Then he slipped the wooden slide in the groove, and allowed some five or six pounds to run out upon the floor, from which the cask was raised by timber baulks. Leaving the slide partly open, he spread ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... was found all right, in its great tarpaulin cover, and Tom had the latter taken off that he might go over every bit of mechanism. He made a few slight changes, and then got ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... and manufactures thereof, alone or mixed with other substances (except silk), and oilcloths and tarpaulin. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... women, whose knowledge of such things had been generously increased. The ragged, sturdy seven still had a mother to love and counsel them. The Cuddy Cove men spoke reverently of the deed and the man who had done it. Tired? The doctor laughed. Not he! Why, he had been asleep under a tarpaulin all the way from Cuddy Cove! And Skipper Elisha Timbertight had handled the skiff in the high seas so cleverly, so tenderly, so watchfully—what a marvellous hand it was!—that the man under the tarpaulin had not been awakened until the nose of the boat touched the wharf piles. But the doctor was ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... that makes my pride mount above my resentment. By this engine, whose springs I am continually oiling, I play them all off. The busy old tarpaulin uncle I make but my ambassador to Queen Anabella Howe, to engage her (for example-sake to her princessly daughter) to join in their cause, and to assert an authority they are resolved, right or wrong, (or I could ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... mess were in this section, I was allowed to remain until the contents of my box brought from home were consumed. One night soon after my arrival, while making a visit to members of another mess, Abner Arnold, one of my hosts, pointing to a large, dark stain on the tarpaulin which served as the roof of their shanty, said, "Have you any idea what discolored that place?" As I had not, he said, "That's your blood; that is the caisson-cover on which you were hauled around at Sharpsburg—and neither rain nor snow can ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... rolled within a tarpaulin. There was her grub-box with stones upon the cover to keep out four-footed prowlers. Her spare moccasins were hanging from the branches ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... removed from the treacherously sighing Priscilla. But I came down quickly with a crash; no dexterous management of my mental resources could save me from the hemp-like smell of the ship, nor would leaning over the taffrail, nor lying curled under a tarpaulin. The sailors heaped pilot-coats upon us. It was a bad ship, they said, to be sick on board of, for no such thing as brandy was allowed in the old Priscilla. Still I am sure I tasted some before I fell into a state of semi-insensibility. As in a trance I heard Temple's moans, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Grant, and he made his way to the spot where their stores and provisions were piled. A moment later he returned with the canvas tarpaulin that had been used as a cover. "Here's our flag," he said, waving the heavy piece of canvas around ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay

... little craft fairly leaped through the tumbling waters. But Bill soon saw that if she was to handle in such a sea he would have to reduce speed or risk getting swamped. He therefore throttled down the engine and rigged a tarpaulin over the bow to keep out the wave crests, part of which ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... the periodical hurricanes of wind and rain. They kept us fairly dry, too, for we were careful to ditch them well. There was room for two men to sleep in the turret of a Rolls, and they could spread a tarpaulin over the top to keep the rain from coming in through the various openings. The balance of the men had a communal tent or slept in the tenders. The larger tents in the near-by camps blew down frequently, but with us it happened only occasionally. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... resources and methods of the drive. Soon he came upon a bateau pulled high on the river bank. There were boxes in the bateau, covered by a tarpaulin whose stripings of red signaled danger. He found a sack in the craft. He pried open one of the boxes and out of the sawdust in which they were packed he drew brown cylinders and tucked them carefully into the sack. The cylinders ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... swung open and the red comforter and tarpaulin hat of one of the brakemen shewed itself a moment. Presently after "Can't get on"—was repeated by several voices in the various tones of assertion, interrogation, and impatience. The women folks, having ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... daylight; the attacks against the northwest corner of the perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-odd Skilkan laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he could find, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running on sandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, had taken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job in organizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. Colonel ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... sailor's chest, the hard-earned wages of his daily toil; he, who in justice was the owner of as rich a domain as any in the land!" The attempts of this poor sailor to obtain his rights were then represented. "He learned the bitter truth, gentlemen, that a poor seaman, a foremast hand, with a tarpaulin hat and round-jacket, stood little chance of being heard, as the accuser of the rich and the powerful—the men who walked abroad in polished beavers, and aristocratic broad-cloths." Aristocracy having once been brought upon the scene, was made to figure largely in several sentences, and was ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... experience in Labrador had taught me. It may be of interest to mention the most important items of outfit and the food supply with which we were provided: Two canvas-covered canoes, one nineteen and one eighteen feet in length; one seven by nine "A" tent, made of waterproof "balloon" silk; one tarpaulin, seven by nine feet; folding tent stove and pipe; two tracking lines; three small axes; cooking outfit, con- sisting of two frying pans, one mixing pan and three aluminum kettles; an aluminum plate, cup ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... my future master talking with the captain of the vessel. Philip Bramble was a spare man, about five feet seven inches high, he had on his head a low-crowned tarpaulin hat, a short P-jacket (so called from the abbreviation of pilot's jacket) reached down to just above his knees. His features were regular, and, indeed, although weatherbeaten, they might be termed handsome. His nose ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break loose ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... birds and selling them to Court Milliners. Your idea of trying them in harness in a Hansom seems to have something in it. Turn it over, by all means. Meantime, get a Shilling Handbook on the Management of the Ostrich. We think you will have to cover in your garden with a tarpaulin as you suggest. You cannot expect the fifty birds to stay for ever in your back drawing-room; and the fact that you mention, of their having already kicked down and eaten one folding-door, is significant. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... you're to sleep, rain or shine or snow," he said. "Now I've spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the best bed. I'll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that's for your hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other blankets. Your feet must be a little higher than your head; you really sleep down hill, which breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All you need do is to change your position ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... which we assisted, produced something a trifle more nautical and seaworthy than the first craft. The ground with a few boards spread upon it was the deck. Tarpaulin sheets were arranged on sticks to represent sails, and we located the vessel so cleverly that two slender trees shot out of the middle of it and served ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of the ship, which was a regular flight of stairs, had hardly been rigged before a white barge, pulled by four men, came alongside. The oarsmen were dressed in blue uniform, and wore tarpaulin hats, upon which was painted the word "Grace," indicating the yacht to which they belonged. The bowman fastened his boat-hook to the steps, and the rest of the crew tossed their oars in man-of-war style. In the stern-sheets, whose seats were ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... had provided him with an outfit the inevitable tarpaulin had not been neglected. Hollis remembered that this was attached to the cantle of the saddle, and so, after he had proceeded a little way along the crest of the ridge, he halted the pony, dismounted, unstrapped the tarpaulin, and folded it about him. Then he remounted and continued on ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... came the dream of a strange, huge, top-heavy vehicle, that seemed like three yellow carriages stuck together, and a mountain of luggage at the top under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in a hood; and beneath the hood sat a blue-bloused man with a singular cap, like a concertina, and mustaches, who cracked a loud whip over five squealing, fussy, pugnacious white and gray horses, with bells on their necks and bushy fox-tails ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... ruthlessly sweeps on, somewhere else to repeat the capricious act. It is also reported to have been the strangest sight, this same Oberlus, of a sultry, cloudy morning, hidden under his shocking old black tarpaulin hat, hoeing potatoes among the lava. So warped and crooked was his strange nature, that the very handle of his hoe seemed gradually to have shrunk and twisted in his grasp, being a wretched bent stick, elbowed more like a savage's war-sickle than ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... in the afternoon and was buried at sunrise the next day, sewed up in a tarpaulin, with an eighteen pound shell at his feet. The morning broke brilliantly clear and bitter cold. The sea was rolling blue walls of water, and the boat was raked by a wind as sharp as ice. Excepting those who were sick, the boys turned out to a man. It was the first burial at sea they had ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... shed attached to the gymnasium,—a place usually used for housing carriages and automobiles during athletic contests. Here one end was cleaned out and the Dartaway was rolled in, and the engine was covered with a tarpaulin brought ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... their noses against the parlour window, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on inside. After staring vacantly about us for some minutes, we appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage, to a gentleman in a suit of tarpaulin, who was smoking his pipe on our right hand; but as the only answer we obtained was a playful inquiry whether our mother had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... scene, however, he found it very different from what he expected. True, there was a large camp-fire burning, such as the one he had left, and around it were gathered a number of women and children, cold, hungry and wet. A rough, lean-to tent, made of a sheet of tarpaulin, had been stretched in order to try to keep off the worst of the downpour, but ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... river-courses during the nights, which were usually brilliant and very cold, with copious dew: so powerful, indeed, was the radiation, that the upper blanket of my bed became coated with moisture, from the rapid abstraction of heat by the frozen tarpaulin of my tent. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... a hill at top speed when Jack suddenly gave a gasp. Right in front of them, vividly outlined in the searchlight's glare, was an obstacle. A big wagonload of hay, covered with a tarpaulin, and deserted by its driver who, despairing of mounting the hill in the storm, had unhitched his horses and driven off till ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner

... day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... sad work for women and children!" said the honest tar, drawing a large tarpaulin over the mother and child. Blinded and drenched by the pelting of the pitiless shower, Flora crouched down in the bottom of the boat, in patient endurance of what might befal. The wind blew piercingly cold; and the spray of the huge billows which burst continually ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... forward from under its wings. Cardon saw the orderly-driver of the ambulance jump down and start to run for the open lift-shaft. He got five steps away from his vehicle. Then the rockets came in, and one of them struck the tarpaulin-covered pile of boxes beside the ambulance. There was a flash of multicolored flame, in which the man and the vehicle he had left both vanished. Immediately, the screen ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire



Words linked to "Tarpaulin" :   canvass, canvas



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